History Main / SurpriseDifficulty

[[{{Rayman}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rayman1_8148.jpg]]
[[caption-width:300:[[{{Rayman}} Believe it or not, this is going to get rough.]]]]

Rayman http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rayman1_8148.jpg

* ''TheAddamsFamily'' games for the SNES were just... insane. In the second, ''Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt'', completing a single area would take upwards of half an hour (if you knew where to go and how to progress through the levels), you were required to fight a difficult boss at the end of it (by which stage you'd be severely low on lives and energy), and then you got to do the whole thing * again* for the other eighteen million items you needed to collect. Oh, and did we mention that you can't save or in any way record your progress? Yeah. This from the TV show that gave us Lurch.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rayman1_8148.jpg
[[caption-width:300:Believe it or not, this is going to get rough.]]

* ''TinyToonAdventures'' for the SNES would chew you up and spit you out.

* The cute looks of ''Gimmick!'' (AKA ''Mr. Gimmick'') for the NES will disguise its tricky enemy and level design. It is actually even worse due to your main weapon being pathetic, and the character having a VERY annoying inertia.

** Diamond and Pearl seem to have an accidental case of difficulty. Due to the fact that Sinnoh's region dex sucked, the Gym Leaders and Elite Four don't have enough of their chosen type to actually fill a team, and the resulting loosely connected replacements (PlayboyBunny on the fire team? Sure it's "[[IncrediblyLamePun hot]]" but...) make them impossible to sweep with a single move like the past 3 generations.
*** I always thought that it was the game developers trying to mix it up a bit by giving the gym leaders teams of pokemon that wouldn't fall to simple move spamming.

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** While not as difficult as the original ''Metroid'', those who went from the first ''MetroidPrime'' to ''MetroidPrime 2'' were shocked by an utterly unforgiving game with large worlds, few save points and some notoriously difficult boss fights such as [[ThatOneBoss The Boost Guardian, The Spiderball Guardian]] and others.

* ''{{Pokemon}} Yellow'' is ''significantly'' harder then the Red and Blue versions. All the gym leaders and rival battles have new, more powerful teams, and if you start out with Pikachu, the game takes a jump into the wilderness of NintendoHard when you find out that the first gym leader you have to face is Brock.
** Speaking of Pokemon, older players should remember ''Pokemon Stadium'', which was focused on battling hordes of AI trainers under some pretty fiendish conditions(such as using only baby Pokemon, randomly selected Pokemon, level limits, etc.). Round 1 in both games tended to be difficult as the player progressed and would require legitimate skill to beat, but most of it wasn't too bad. Round 2 bordered on NintendoHard, suffering from [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard frustrating AI]] and the general feeling that it was pretty much made for the StopHavingFunGuy sector of the fanbase.

** Likewise, ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]'', with the added bonus of being {{Video Game Remake}}s and therefore most fans ''thinking'' they have a pretty good idea of the difficulty level to expect. ''They'd be wrong''. The Gym Leaders actually have actual tactics (While not as bad as actual Sporepunch, Hypnosispunch still hurts), now have abilities that they put to good effect (You can no longer avoid Miltank's Stomp by using a ghost type as its ability lets it ignore ghost's immunity to normal type moves), have a team with perfect [=IVs=]. Kanto had its non-gym trainer's levels raised because the whole thing was otherwise a curb stomp.) and the final boss now has even higher levels.

** Likewise, ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]'', with the added bonus of being {{Video Game Remake}}s and therefore most fans ''thinking'' they have a pretty good idea of the difficulty level to expect. ''They'd be wrong''. The Gym Leaders actually have actual tactics (While not as bad as actual Sporepunch, Hypnosispunch still hurts), now have abilities that they put to good effect (You can no longer avoid Miltank's Stomp by using a ghost type as its ability lets it ignore ghost's immunity to normal type moves), have a team with perfect IVs. Kanto had its non-gym trainer's levels raised because the whole thing was otherwise a curb stomp.) and the final boss now has even higher levels.

->''"Silly gamers expecting games for kids to be easy... have you forgotten who the target demographic of the original NintendoHard games were?"''
-->-- '''Troper {{Tropers/Servbot}}'''

-->''"Silly gamers expecting games for kids to be easy... have you forgotten who the target demographic of the original NintendoHard games were?"''
-->- '''Troper {{Tropers/Servbot}}'''

'''Examples:'''

** Unless you are on [[CaptainObvious Hard Mode.]] [[CaptainObvious Or even worse, Lunatic.]]

* ''{{Ever|sion}}''--oh God dammit, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids I'm not even]] [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel gonna go there]].
** Now imagine playing the game without knowing the eversion mechanic. [[{{GoddamnBats}} THOSE GODDAMN HANDS]]
*** You'll get stuck on the second level. Not that anyone tells you about eversion points...

** Kirby Super Star Ultra... ''The True Arena''. It's the very last thing to do before OneHundredPercentCompletion. It's also the [[CaptainObvious hardest.]] Your strongest attack deals 80 HP damage. The 13 bosses herein have 5,000+ HP combined. You have 83% worth of healing items. Add in the tricky movesets and that accursed [[ThatOneBoss Marx Soul]], and the shit hits the fan.

* ''IWannaBeTheGuy''. Without doing any research on the game, it seems like yet another quirky freeware platformer game that took about an hour to put together. That cute little smiling boy for a protagonist makes the game seem easier. And then, within the first few ''seconds'' of the game, * splat* GAME OVER. PRESS 'R' TO TRY AGAIN.
** On the other hand, considering how utterly infamous it is for taking PlatformHell BeyondTheImpossible, there's probably not a lot of people who'd stumble on it and expect it to be anywhere near a normal difficulty.

** That being said, the final boss fight [[AnticlimaxBoss is just a joke]]
*** A [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome damn]] ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome good]]'' joke.

** The final boss. Oh god the final boss. The rest of the game was fun and of challenging-but-not-killer difficulty (if you're good at platforming and puzzle games alike).... but yet the last boss I -still- cannot beat.

** One of the few Bible games he doesn't think outright sucks?? In an in-character interview he called it the worst game he ever played!
** Er... {{Konami}} made Bible games?
** No, it was Wisdom Tree that made all those bible games
** All those other ones. This one was Konami-tastic.
** Wisdom Tree made an unlicensed NES game called Noah's Ark in North America, but Konami made a licensed Noah's Ark which was only released in the European market. It's a surprisingly fun platformer.

** Actually, a lot of the Gym Leaders got EASIER, considering their teams were crapped down to match the only one or two pokemon they used in the Anime, in comparison to the versatile teams they had before. It's the -rest- of the game that's harder starting with just GlassCannon Pikachu.
** "Aim for the Horn!!". Oh, wait...
*** Brock and Lt. Surge are the sole reason that Nidoking is useful whatsoever. Of course, Game Freak is infamous for creating Pokemon that are [[NotCompletelyUseless only useful in one or two circumstances]].
**** In the first generation, that is. Nidoking's unique typing and movepool make him somewhat useful in later games.
** Let's not forget some of the Orre Colloseum challenges in Gale Of Darkness.

* Arguably the new Pinnacle Station DLC for Mass Effect on Insanity. Sure, playing on the hardest difficulty may seem like a moot point, but take into account that the enemies are pretty much extremely easy to defend yourself against on any difficulty, it's just killing them that takes longer. So imagine trying to kill 50 enemies in about 1 minute, each kill taking about 3 seconds while only earning you about 2 seconds. Yeah, it gets frustrating on the 50th turn.

* ''{{Patapon}}''

*** Am I the only person here who thinks that the above looks FUCKING AMAZING?

*** You can turn those off.

* ''{{Homeworld}} 2''. The first two or three missions consisting of "build a ship! YIPPIE HOORAY!" Then "build a building, build some ships, kill an enemy scout." Then the third or fourth mission is "Destroy an enemy fleet twice your size on one side of the map, while ANOTHER enemy fleet just as large warps in on top of the ONLY MINERAL FIELD on the map, killing your miner and thus preventing you from building another fleet, while your main fleet is wholly occupied with the first fleet."

* Pretty much any Quiz and Stunt Game Show. Most think it can be a walk in the park to easily beat something you can trounce through easily with your skill and knowledge. Trust me, It isn't. Especially if they give out big money. Especially in front of millions of viewers. And especially if those millions of viewers could put you in an EpicFail montage if you fail horribly.

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