| 1 | Some video games may reward their players for choosing harder difficulties. However, merely getting {{Cosmetic Award}}s may often seem unfair, so gamers may receive some actually gameplay-affecting bonuses to keep up with the challenge. It's often [[ExperienceBooster bonus experience]] or better equipment, especially when the player may select difficulties for particular missions. These rewards sometimes cause EarlyGameHell: the starting conditions for the harder difficulties are undeniably harder, but as the game goes on, the bonuses kick in noticeably. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | [[NonIndicativeDifficulty If overdone, the harder difficulties may become easier than the easy ones]], similar to the issues with UnstableEquilibrium. Contrast EasyModeMockery, though Hard Mode Perks can be seen as a subtle form of it as the benefits are locked out on easier difficulties. Some players take offense to Hard Mode Perks, considering them unfair to players who cannot play on the harder difficulty settings. May also be a form of SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity; sure, the game gives you a bunch of extra resources, not because it's being easy on you, but because ''you're gonna need them''. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | Another reason these bonuses sometimes appear, especially in [=RPGs=], is to offset the way a higher difficulty would otherwise slow the pace of the game - giving more experience and [[MoneyMultiplier gold]] per fight, for instance, because a higher difficulty makes them take longer and might otherwise force the player into lengthy LevelGrinding. Some idle games even provide additional features to help players progress if such a mode greatly lowers production, as otherwise the game would be filled with timewalls and not very fun as a result. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Sub-trope to HarderThanHard. Compare BraggingRightsReward, when you don't need the reward because you already beat the hardest part of the game, and GoldenEnding, which is sometimes reserved for hard mode. In the case of loot-based variants of the trope, they are often dropped by {{Hard Mode Mook}}s. |
| 8 | ---- |
| 9 | |
| 10 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 11 | |
| 12 | !!Examples: |
| 13 | |
| 14 | [[folder:Action-Adventure]] |
| 15 | * ''VideoGame/BraveFencerMusashi'' has this in the form of choosing two items. You can pick the L-Glove, which gives far more critical hits, or the L-Quilt which lets you sleep to fully recover HP, BP, and Stamina anywhere and anytime you want. Even though the L-Glove is a good item the game is ''much'' harder overall if you pick it as being able to recover anywhere with the L-Quilt makes some of the later dungeons much easier to contend with... until you reach the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon where you're not allowed to sleep at all and the L-Quilt becomes a UselessItem for the remainder of the game. All those extra critical hits make a normally hard final dungeon much easier than it has any right to be. |
| 16 | * Most ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games have a version of this. |
| 17 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair Castlevania: Harmony of Despair]]'', the players rely mostly on equipment found during the levels in order to power up the characters. Upon defeating Dracula for the first time, it's possible to play in the Hard version of the levels, in which enemies inflict much more damage, are faster and have drastically increased HP, as well as placing more enemies on the maps and making the hazards considerably harder to avoid. However, treasure chests will provide much better equipment. |
| 18 | ** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'', ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow'' and ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin Portrait]]'' there are certain items that are only seen in hard mode - if you're playing on normal their map locations will be bare. |
| 19 | ** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines'' adds on a brief extra scene to the endings after Castle Dracula is destroyed, and also unlocks new areas and even a few extra boss battles (including a whip-wielding Frankenstein's Monster) not seen on Easy or Normal modes. Since Expert mode is a bit more challenging but lacks anything in the way of FakeDifficulty, it's essentially an extended NewGamePlus edition, as it's not available by default and you have to unlock it, either by beating the game on Normal or by using the KonamiCode at the title screen. |
| 20 | ** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', starting a fresh game in Hard Mode gives you the Glyph Sleeve accessory (which allows you to store three glylph combinations to switch on the fly instead of using the Pause menu) right away instead of somewhere mid-game, as well as several glyph-dropping enemies who normally won't appear until later in the game. In addition, beating the Hard difficulty with a level 1 {{cap}} gets you the best helmet in the game that halves heart consumption and raises the normal level cap to 255 (your level carries over through even the lower cap Hard runs and any experience you earned during them carries over). |
| 21 | ** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaTheAdventureRebirth'' on Classic mode gives you the classical stiff jump physics, but it also removes the knife and stopwatch, two of the least effective subweapons in the game, so you always get one of the "big three" subweapons (Axe, Cross, and Holy Water). |
| 22 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 23 | ** [[EnemyWithout Dark Link]] in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' has the same amount of health as you do. So, during [[SelfImposedChallenge Three-Heart Runs]] the normally [[ThatOneBoss infamously most difficult miniboss in the game]] becomes among [[GlassCannon one of the easiest]]. |
| 24 | ** Hero Mode in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' doubles the amount of damage enemies do to you, halves the amount you do to them and makes it so that hearts no longer randomly appear, but the [[SwordBeam Skyward Strike]] starts off at full strength, meaning it charges up quickly and does about as much damage as a swing from the fully-powered sword and once you get the actual fully-powered sword, it charges up literally instantly. You also carry over your collected materials and insects, making upgrading your items easier. |
| 25 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'''s Master Mode (as part of the first DLC pack) makes weapons with bonus modifiers (such as increased attack strength, durability, throwing range, etc.) more likely to appear early on than they might in Normal Mode. As well as this, many bridges and tall cliff areas are now guarded by floating platforms manned by enemy archers in Master Mode, many of which also carrying treasure chests that have a high chance of containing a weapon with a modifier. The archers themselves also frequently drop all types of arrows (except Ancient Arrows) if you can beat them, making them a nice source of the more powerful arrow types. On top of that, all enemies also drop nearly double the amount of arrows and monster parts compared to Normal Mode (and not just the Master Mode exclusive mooks). Of course, you're likely to need them given that each enemy is moved up a [[LawOfChromaticSuperiority colour level]] (which dictates how much HP and base attack power they have) from their forms in Normal Mode.[[note]]The former highes-level (silver) are ranked up to a new level, golden[[/note]] Additionally, going through the Master Trials permanently doubles the [[OnlyTheChosenMayWield Master Sword]]'s attack power, which usually only happens in dungeons or near Guardians. |
| 26 | * Choosing [[IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels Revengeance]] difficulty in ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' results in your [[CounterAttack Parry Counter]] doing around 10 times as much damage as normal. If a player mastered this mechanic by this point, they will find many battles (some bosses included) easier than on Very Hard difficulty, which shares Revengeance's advanced enemy layout. This merely helps even the odds as most enemy attacks do absurd amounts of damage on this difficulty. |
| 27 | * ''VideoGame/WayOfTheSamurai'' does this in terms of [[RandomlyDrops sword drops]], starting from 3. Not only better swords drop in higher difficulties, the LastLousyPoint is often unavailable at difficulties other than Instant-Kill Mode (which is strangely absent in 4). Most of the bonus swords are usually ContinuityCameo swords that debuted in previous games. |
| 28 | * The Insane difficulty of ''VideoGame/ShadowComplex'' makes enemies significantly stronger than the ones below it, disables objective markers, and removes all visible collectibles on the map even if players already have reached Level 20, but the game rewards much more XP. |
| 29 | [[/folder]] |
| 30 | |
| 31 | [[folder:Action Games]] |
| 32 | * In ''VideoGame/AgentsOfMayhem'', the harder difficulties come attached with a money and experience multiplier whereas playing on the easier difficulties [[EasyModeMockery give you a money and experience penalty]]. |
| 33 | * ''VideoGame/CopyKitty''[='s=] Hard mode is effectively an entire second campaign (chronologically set after the first,) with remixed levels, new bosses, new solo weapons [[spoiler: and a TrueFinalBoss in the form of Isotope, Boki's first battle against a Cyber.]] More conventionally, Hard Mode compensates its drastically stronger and numerous enemy selection with a higher supply of health drops. |
| 34 | * ''VideoGame/GainGround'', one of the slightly more obscure UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis games, handles its difficulty levels in an interesting way: if you play on Easy, you start up with 3 basic characters but most levels have another character that you can rescue and use afterwards. Hard on the other hand starts you off with every character in the game, but none of the levels have any additional characters for you to rescue: the reason this makes the game more difficult is because when a character gets hit, they're left behind where they died to be rescued but if the character rescuing them gets killed as well, the previous character is [[{{Permadeath}} killed for good]]. Naturally, this is in addition to the more numerous and aggressive enemies present on higher difficulty levels as well. |
| 35 | ** Another thing that makes managing a large roster difficult is that you can finish levels in 2 different ways: either you walk each individual character to the exit, or you kill all enemies in the level. Since you have 20 characters from the very start and there's often a strict time limit, doing the former isn't an option for most of the time. |
| 36 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'': |
| 37 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' contains a hard mode unlocked after beating the game once. All enemies have gigantic health bars while they do extra damage making certain sections far harder, you lose your shield at the slightest provocation of damage, and defending Roll in any chapter she is in is an absolute nightmare. Push forward, however, and you unlock Easy Mode. All enemies have absolutely pitiful health bars while doing embarrassingly low damage, the game becomes exceedingly easy in every section, and you are given a special buster part called BUSTER MAX, which maxes out your attack power, firing speed, energy, and range. Outside of the Shining Laser, it is the best upgrade you could possibly get, and absolutely mauls everything in seconds. The best part: it's totally free, starting in your inventory from the beginning. |
| 38 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends 2'' starts you off with an SS-class digger license on Very Hard mode, allowing you to enter any ruin in the game without having to take those digger tests beforehand. Notably, as the digger tests are the single hardest parts of the game and are even considerably harder than the FinalBoss and the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, simply not having to do the blasted things is more than a fair trade off for slightly harder enemies. |
| 39 | *** On higher difficulties all enemies drop more of the game's currency, which is used for buying and upgrading sub-weapons. As a result, the higher difficulties actually become easier as you can max out your sub-weapons earlier and easier. |
| 40 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' determines what level the bosses will be at based on your difficulty, with Easy always locking them at level 1. However it also determines what upgrade parts you get based on the bosses level, meaning on Easy mode it is ''impossible'' to get any upgrade parts. In other words you miss out on a vast portion of your arsenal ''and'' your max health and ammo are considerably capped unless you play on harder difficulties. Notably this [[NonIndicativeDifficulty actually makes Easy the hardest difficulty to beat the game on]]. |
| 41 | * In the adventure mode of the [[VideoGameRemake 1999 version]] of VideoGame/{{Qbert}}, you get double points on normal (compared to easy) and triple points on hard. This does have an in-game use: getting better high scores on early levels increases your rank faster, which lets you access optional areas (those normally-impassable "2" and "3" blocks). It should be noted that the only difference between the difficulties is how many lives you start with. |
| 42 | * ''VideoGame/Progressbar95'': Playing on Hardcore mode gives a 1.5x point multiplier. |
| 43 | [[/folder]] |
| 44 | |
| 45 | [[folder:Action [=RPGs=]]] |
| 46 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Bastion}}'', invoking the gods creates all sorts of negative effects that power up the monsters you fight. However, you also gain bonus experience and money per kill. |
| 47 | * Unlike the other games in the series, enemies in ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' stop respawning after being killed enough times. However, joining the Company of Champions covenant will enable infinite respawns in addition to making the enemies themselves stronger and blocking you from summoning other players for help (though hostile players can still invade you). The perk, of course, is that the infinitely respawning enemies makes it a lot easier to {{level grind|ing}}, and farm them for [[RandomlyDrops rare drops]]. Once you've beefed yourself up enough, you can simply leave the covenant and reset the diffulty to normal. In addition, defeating invading players or certain EliteMooks while in this covenant will get you Awestones, which let you rank up in the convenant. Turn in 50 of them, and you get the Vanquisher's Seal, a ring that makes your bare fists hit extremely hard. |
| 48 | * All ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' games give much better RandomDrops on higher difficulties. As your enemies are a lot harder on those difficulties, you will need them. |
| 49 | ** ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' originally had harder difficulty levels as a glorified NewGamePlus, since you had to start over from the beginning to play them. However, when ''Reaper of Souls'' came out, difficulty levels were changed so that enemies now scaled to your level; higher difficulties just made the scale go up exponentially more. In any case, higher difficulties give better loot drops and more experience points. |
| 50 | *** There are also some pieces of equipment that will only drop in the "Torment" modes, which scale from Torment I to Torment XIII. In addition, the legendary items that drop have a higher chance to be "Ancient Legendary," which provide even more bonuses and have higher stats. Finally, patch 2.5.0 introduced the chance for a legendary item to be a "Primal Ancient" item that has perfect stats (i.e. the highest possible rating for all of its bonuses), but a player has to beat a Greater Rift equivalent to the hardest difficulty before Primal Ancient equipment will even start having a chance to drop. |
| 51 | * Hard Mode in ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'' (which was added to the game with the ''Dark Arisen'' DLC) doubles enemy damage and increases your PlayerCharacter's stamina consumption, but compensates for it by doubling Experience Point & Discipline Point gains. Playing through the entire game in Hard Mode is also the only way to acquire the very powerful "Set of Duke's Clothing" armor piece. |
| 52 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'': |
| 53 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' allows you to change the difficulty, which ramps up enemy HP and damage resistance to ludicrous levels, in exchange for more XP from killing them. [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas The next game]] did away with this system, partly to prevent players from exploiting it, [[note]] Turn up the difficulty just before you kill an enemy, then turn it back down. [[/note]] and partly so that players could effectively play Hardcore mode (in which the PlayerCharacter will die without food, water, and sleep) on the easier difficulty levels without a penalty to experience. |
| 54 | ** Higher difficulty in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' causes more enemies to be [[BossInMookClothing Legendary]], which will be harder to deal with but also give you items with unique, often extremely powerful effects. Survival difficulty specifically (which can only be turned on and then back off once per game) also doubles XP from enemies while increasing damage with consecutive kills between sleeping. |
| 55 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'': |
| 56 | ** Many of the games have a secret ending video that can be unlocked by completing specific tasks, with the number of tasks decreasing if the difficulty is higher. Beginner Mode [[EasyModeMockery doesn't let you access the video at all]], Standard Mode forces you to get OneHundredPercentCompletion, and Proud Mode and [[HarderThanHard Critical Mode]] just require beating the {{Optional Boss}}es (in some cases), some optional areas, and other miscellaneous things depending on the game (e.g. in the [[UpdatedRerelease Final Mix]] versions of ''II'' you have to beat all of the Mushroom XII challenges[[note]]Although these are listed as being "minigames".[[/note]]). |
| 57 | ** If playing on Critical Mode in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII: Final Mix'', you are granted an initial AP of 50, subsequent AP increases are now 3 instead of 2, and several of the later abilities are granted on Day 3 of the prologue: Reaction Boost, Finishing Plus, Draw, 2 Lucky Lucky abilities, MP Hastera and [[SelfImposedChallenge EXP Zero]] (referred to as "No Experience" in the English versions). |
| 58 | ** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'', the bonus for playing on Critical Mode is starting off with five Command Deck slots instead of the standard three. You also get the optional EXP Zero ability, which negates any EXP earned from defeating enemies and makes [[LowLevelRun low-level runs]] of the game easier to pull off. |
| 59 | ** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', starting the game on Critical Role has Sora begin with abilities he doesn't learn until later: specifically, Aerial Recovery, Counter Slash, Counter Impact, Counter Kick, Final Blow, Risk Dodge, Rising Spiral, Groundbreaker, two copies of both Air Slide and Superslide, and Combo Master; in fact, reaching the points where he normally learns those abilities doesn't give him those abilities. He also gets three abilities exclusive to this mode: Critical Counter (a JustFrameBonus where guarding an attack just before it lands powers up counterattacks), Critical Recharge (which makes the Situation Gauge fill up faster during MP Recharge), and Critical Converter (which guarantees Formchanges whenever the Situation Gauge is filled while disabling Attractions). |
| 60 | * The first ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance'' game, upon hitting hard mode, expands the skill slots to 15 among a few other things. |
| 61 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': |
| 62 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' offers higher exp (or more exp opportunities) on higher difficulties. In addition, a handful of Achievements require a character level too high to reach in one playthrough. |
| 63 | ** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', completing a certain character's recruitment mission on Hardcore or Insanity yields the Geth Pulse Rifle, an extremely accurate Assault Rifle[[note]] Though you can just change the difficulty for that level and then change it back, and you'll still have the gun[[/note]]. |
| 64 | * ''VideoGame/NiNoKuniIIRevenantKingdom'' originally did not have any hard modes, but added Hard and [[HarderThanHard Expert]] modes in its version 1.03 patch. The higher difficultly levels provide better treasures from both monster drops and certain chests as a reward, as well as rare accessories with two skill slots. |
| 65 | * ''VideoGame/{{Sacred}}'' gives an experience bonus based on difficulty. |
| 66 | * ''VideoGame/SoaringMachinariae'': While Expert makes enemies hit harder, it also provides the Free Buster item, which prevents the normal attack chain from comboing into an Energy Burst while making it so that the Energy Burst can be activated manually through the item usage button. This is actually advantageous in some ways, since it prevents the player from accidentally wasting EN with button mashing. It also makes it easier to kill enemies that are resistant to normal attacks. |
| 67 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'' is unique is that it actively encourages ''upgrading'' the difficulty as you play the game: hunting optional bosses tends to give often substantial passive perks or even entire gameplay features, such as higher difficulty options; by the endgame, most optional bosses drop perks that are ''only'' active in those higher difficulties, and since the player can switch difficulties at any moment they're encouraged to upgrade difficulty mid-playthrough. |
| 68 | * Playing ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' and [[VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou its sequel]] on harder difficulties will yield different enemy drops, which most of the time are better than the ones for Easy or Normal. If you don't manage to get the pin drop for the difficulty you selected, you have a chance to get it for the lower difficulty setting(s). |
| 69 | ** Additionally, you have the ability to change your level after you've leveled up at least once. Playing as a lower level limits your health, but gives you a better chance at getting pins after the fight. |
| 70 | ** Another variant involves chaining encounters, where you fight multiple encounters sequentially without the chance to take a break between them. Each subsequent encounter beyond the first gives stat bonuses to the enemies, but it also improves the drop rate for enemy drops. Further, once the game is beaten, the ability to chain encounters increases from four to sixteen, dramatically increasing the drop rate. This does stack with level adjustment, too.[[labelnote:Explanation]]The drop rate for any pin is multiplied by your base drop rate plus the difference between your current level and your base level, then multiplied by the number of encounters you chain. For example, if a pin has a .5% drop rate and you lower your level from 99 to 50, you will have a 25% chance of getting the pin, and that chance will rise to 100% if you chain four or more encounters.[[/labelnote]] |
| 71 | * ''Videogame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'': The [[NoItemUseForYou Catastrophe modifier]], despite being more difficult overall, does have some advantages over the standard item system. The auto-consume gimmick can be useful if the boss summons item dropping enemies, which wouldn't work on the standard item system unless Adol equipped the same kind of consumable that was dropped. Additionally, there are more Capla Waters available, which can be sold for thousands of gold. Finally, Croix will sell [[RareCandy stat boosting seeds]] on Catastrophe, allowing the player to stat grind in the endgame. |
| 72 | [[/folder]] |
| 73 | |
| 74 | [[folder:Beat 'em Up]] |
| 75 | * In ''VideoGame/DoubleDragonNeon's'' Dragon (Hard) and [[HarderThanHard Double Dragon]] mode, enemies get a higher HP and do way more damage, even if you have a maxed out mix-tape. Especially on Double Dragon difficulty. But in return you get more money and mithril from fallen enemies and bosses respectively. Which means you'll have an easier time maxing out your special abilities. |
| 76 | * Grimm difficulty in ''VideoGame/ShrekTheThird'' heavily increases the damage enemies deal to the point where some of the {{Elite Mook}}s can take you out in a couple hits, but doubles all coins collected. |
| 77 | * In the ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' series, playing on a harder difficulty level meant enemies not only had more health, but they would also come in bigger waves. However, more enemies also means more points to your score and if you were really good, you could rack up a huge score and net several extra lives as you played. In ''3'', this also means more chances to net 40,000 points for stars that improve your running attack. |
| 78 | [[/folder]] |
| 79 | |
| 80 | [[folder:Fighting Games]] |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/IdolShowdown'' lets you take one of four starting items. Of the four items, (two of which are assist items, one does nothing), the Gladiator Chains buffs your opponents considerably, but gives you boosted money earnings to making shopping for stuff easier. |
| 82 | * ''VideoGame/StreetFighterTheMovie'': [[TrueFinalBoss Akuma]] is only fightable on the hardest difficulty. |
| 83 | * ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'': |
| 84 | ** Playing on higher difficulties gives you bigger bonus points for completing the game on said harder difficulties. |
| 85 | ** In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee'', you can only fight Crazy Hand in Classic and Giga Bowser in Adventure if you're playing on Normal difficulty or higher. |
| 86 | ** In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', more stickers and trophies appear in harder difficulties, especially stickers in the Adventure Mode. Duon's missiles will do more damage to himself the harder the difficulty is, should you successfully [[MisguidedMissile direct them back at him]]. |
| 87 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU'': Both versions introduce a scaling difficulty system similar to ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' for Classic Mode. Spending coins to raise the difficulty gives you a chance at bigger rewards like rare trophies and customization items, and you can only face the TrueFinalBoss on higher difficulties. |
| 88 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'': Crazy Hand will team up with Master Hand on difficulty 7.0 and higher in some of the Classic Mode routes. |
| 89 | [[/folder]] |
| 90 | |
| 91 | [[folder:First-Person Shooter]] |
| 92 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series, the NewGamePlus scales the game to your level but also increases the drop rates for higher rarities. There's also HarderThanHard difficulties in the form of "Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode" in 2 and the Pre-Sequel or "Mayhem Mode" in 3, which makes the game even harder on top of various modifiers but increases the drop rates even further as well as having certain Legendaries that can only drop on said difficulties. |
| 93 | * ''VideoGame/CrueltySquad'' doubles your cash reward for finishing a stage if you enable Punishment mode, in exchange for doubling damage taken. |
| 94 | * ''VideoGame/DeepRockGalactic'' has credits and experience points increase in the payout if you play on harder difficulty levels. Along with harder difficulties, you can also get even more credits and experience by playing missions that have warnings actives, which are mission modifiers that make the mission harder, such as no shields or exploding enemies spawning more frequently. |
| 95 | * ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'': |
| 96 | ** In the early games, Nightmare mode gives the player twice as much ammo for item pickups - a bonus that otherwise only applies to [[EasyModeMockery "I'm Too Young To Die", the easiest difficulty]]. [[EnforcedTrope This is pretty much a necessity]], as enemies in Nightmare are not only at their highest concentration, including many lesser enemies replaced with tougher variations, but they also move twice as fast and {{respawn|ingEnemies}} a short time after you kill them. |
| 97 | ** When playing Hangar on Ultra-Violence or Nightmare, the presence of Shotgunners early on means Doomguy can get a shotgun more easily and with a lot more ammo than on easier difficulties (on lower difficulties, all you get is one shotgun, ''if'' you know how to get to the secret it's hidden in). In the [=PS1=] version, there's even [[EarlyBirdCameo a Chaingunner]] who similarly can be killed for an early chaingun. |
| 98 | * ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'': |
| 99 | ** There's an interesting variant of this. At the beginning, Johnson's speech about the ring and the aliens changes slightly, but it is always a humorous concept or idea. Also, only finishing the game on [[HarderThanHard Legendary]] gives a different, and much funnier and heartwarming ending. |
| 100 | ** On Legendary difficulty, whereas the Chief's MJOLNIR shields normally recharge at a slow pace on other difficulties, here it recharges at a '''much''' quicker pace to keep up with the dangerous enemy AI. |
| 101 | * Normally, ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' puts a limit on the amount of ammunition you can carry at once. Playing on the hardest difficulty level removes this restriction. |
| 102 | * ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' and its [[VideoGame/PAYDAY2 sequel]] have several difficulty levels that adjust how powerful the cops are and how often the special units appear. Higher difficulty levels usually give out more money and experience, so if you are skilled enough to play on harder levels, you could level up faster than you would on an easier difficulty. |
| 103 | * ''VideoGame/RainbowSix: Vegas 2'' allows the player to gain more experience by increasing the difficulty. This ends up making the Easy setting almost not worth playing, as every kill is only worth a single experience point on that mode, compared to 5 per every kill you make and 3 for every one your teammates make on Normal. ACES points gained for kills in specific fashions also increase as you up the difficulty, with Easy only granting a single point for any given bonus that increases on Normal and Realistic difficulty, though in a variation it's actually multiplayer that grants the highest amount of ACES points. |
| 104 | * For the First and Second "Encounters" of ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'', playing on Serious or Mental difficulty would double ammo gained from pickups just like in ''Doom'', as well as doubling the maximum amount of ammo that can be carried. Of course, considering the large amounts of damage the enemies in the game can take and dish out on those difficulties, it's still fairly balanced. Another bonus is the score multiplier, and in the HD additions difficulties can be further customized by removing health and/or armor drops from the game as well as giving enemies varying degrees of bonus health. |
| 105 | ** Giving yourself infinite ammo will reduce the score multiplier, for obvious reasons. |
| 106 | ** While the first sequel plays entirely differently, Serious Sam 3 is essentially the same game as the first one, albeit with some new enemies and reloads. However, the one other change is that the ammo bonus for Serious and Mental difficulties has been removed. Don't fret, though: the enemies still have all the advantages they had before, and you can even give yourself multiplayer bonus enemies without actually playing cooperatively with anyone. |
| 107 | [[/folder]] |
| 108 | |
| 109 | [[folder:Hack and Slash]] |
| 110 | * In the ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series, the "Heaven Or Hell" and "Hell And Hell" difficulty modes make your playable character [[OneHitPointWonder die in one hit]]. Fortunately, the game is kind enough to give you several [[AutoRevive Gold Orbs]] from the get-go to compensate. |
| 111 | ** The first ''VideoGame/{{Devil May Cry|1}}'' game had a small perk for Dante Must Die mode. Lesser demons have less health than on Normal difficulty, but they can devil trigger (getting way more health and in turn, harder to stun) when a timer reaches zero (sometimes the timer is never displayed). The player has to be careful, because enemies can kill Dante in 2-4 hits if you are not careful, even without devil trigger. |
| 112 | * Creator/KoeiTecmo: |
| 113 | ** This applies to most of the ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' series. Depending on the exact game, playing on harder difficulties will get you better weapon-drops, better stat-increase drops, or just faster experience-gain. In most cases, the best weapons can only be acquired while playing on Hard Mode or [[HarderThanHard higher]]. ''5'', for example, gives you the best closing narrative for your officer the game has to offer for completing their story on Chaos: |
| 114 | --->''"These tales, passed on for generations, have endured the tests of time and live on today. The legendary warriors are praised and respected as if they were gods themselves."'' |
| 115 | ** This also applies to ''VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors'', and for that matter, ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi''. The DuelingGames series ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'' works in the same way. |
| 116 | [[/folder]] |
| 117 | |
| 118 | [[folder:Idle Games]] |
| 119 | * ''VideoGame/DistanceIncremental'': Extreme mode lets you access the Furnace feature. |
| 120 | * After the first reset point in ''VideoGame/EvolveIdle'' players can select from various challenge genes when evolving to sentience. These challenge genes range from Steelen, which makes one unable to smelt steel, to Genetic Dead End, where the race is forced to play as the Valdi, described in game as a genetic disaster that inherits nothing but the worst traits from other races. However reaching a certain point like building a biodome on the moon or wiping yourself out with [[ApocalypseHow Mutually Assured Destruction]] will provide bonuses to all subsequent races such as a bonus to steel production or being more easily modified by gene therapy. |
| 121 | * ''VideoGame/{{Synergism}}'': Completing Challenges 11-14 the first time unlock Corruptions, which when invoked nerf the scaling of various gameplay elements like multiplier/accelerator effect or rune EXP gain, with the nerfs starting with a small detriment at level 1 and getting increasingly stronger as you raise it, but in exchange they provide stacking multipliers to Ascension Score, which translates to more Ascension resources per reset. |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/TheTreeOfLife'': You can only access the Science layer as well as some exclusive upgrades and milestones while playing extreme mode. Several existing resources also provide new boosts and there are other minor alterations. |
| 123 | [[/folder]] |
| 124 | |
| 125 | [[folder:[=MMORPGs=]]] |
| 126 | * ''Franchise/GuildWars'': |
| 127 | ** Hard Mode in ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' is unlocked at level 20 after finishing a campaign; completing the campaign again in Hard Mode will yield extra money. The quality and amount of loot will also increase in this mode, and killing every enemy in explorable zones will yield a Vanquish bonus of money. |
| 128 | ** [[PlatformHell Tribulation Mode]] in the [[GameWithinAGame Super Adventure Box]] of ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' grants additional rewards. Most notably each zone completed awards a token that is needed to craft weapon skins which can otherwise only be obtained via a rare boss drop. |
| 129 | *** Playing on Tribulation Mode also has the bonus of letting the player switch to a fantastic rock cover of the {{Retraux}} 8-bit music. |
| 130 | * ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Ascension#Rewards quite a few]] of these: |
| 131 | ** Beating the final boss on Hardcore mode gives you more karma you can use to carry skills and special astral equipment and consumables into [[NewGamePlus your next ascension]]. It also drops a piece of [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Unblemished_Uniform Stainless Steel]] equipment related to your class, which is decent for [[ExtendedGameplay aftercore]]. |
| 132 | ** Taking a dietary restriction also adds karma, and the final boss will drop a consumable item related to the restriction: players who go without booze will get a high-quality food item, players who go without food get a very nice drink, and players who go without ''both'' will get cans of really good air. And if you're also on Hardcore, you'll get three of them instead of just one. |
| 133 | ** Combining the above two, taking the no-food no-booze path ''and'' playing on Hardcore will also replace the Stainless Steel drop with [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Transparent_Trappings Plexiglass]], which is even better. |
| 134 | ** Playing the Bad Moon special path will give you a piece of [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Blasphemous_Bedizenment Brimstone]] gear, all of which provide a major boost to one stat at the cost of a large-but-not-quite-as-major penalty to another stat, as well as a second bonus related to the class which earns it. Each piece equipped also provides a hidden bonus, which increases exponentially as you add the rest of the set. |
| 135 | ** Playing the current special challenge path will give you extra karma every time you complete it, as long as you started it while it was its season - and the karma bonus gets doubled if you play on Hardcore. Otherwise, you get the regular karma bonus only the first time you complete the path, regardless of difficulty. |
| 136 | * In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', heroic versions of dungeons are harder but give much better loot, as well as currency with which to buy raid-quality gear. |
| 137 | ** Later raids also have a heroic mode. The currency awards is the same, but the loot is of higher quality than in the regular mode. Ulduar is different in that its Hard Mode causes the boss to drop extra items of higher quality, in addition to the guaranteed drops. |
| 138 | ** Recent expansions also added "heroic only" phase to some raid boss's battle (Ragnaros, Garrosh Hellscream)or even exclusive bosses that only appear if you played hard (Sinestra, Ra-den). |
| 139 | ** Many pets and mounts that drop in dungeons and raids either have increased drop rates on higher difficulties or ''only'' drop on those difficulties. Notably, mounts that drop off the end boss of raid tiers have a 100% drop rate on the highest difficulty while the tier is current content. |
| 140 | ** ''Legion'' introduced the Mythic+ difficulty system for dungeons. Each plus level increases the health and damage of enemies while also introducing up to three new mechanics. The reward for completing such a dungeon is significantly stronger armor and a bonus reward each week based on the highest level of difficulty. |
| 141 | ** ''Battle For Azeroth'' added the War Mode feature for leveling. In War Mode, you're flagged for [=PvP=] 24/7, making you vulnerable to getting attacked by enemy players, and you can only turn it on and off in your faction's capital city. However, you get a passive 10% XP buff in War Mode, making this a fast, if risky, way to level alts. |
| 142 | [[/folder]] |
| 143 | |
| 144 | [[folder:Platform Games]] |
| 145 | * In ''VideoGame/DisneysMagicalQuest'' for the SNES, harder modes make you start with less [[HitPoints Hearts]], but you can find more {{Heart Container}}s than in easy mode. You still have to deal with more enemies and tougher bosses, and the bonus containers are hidden. |
| 146 | * In ''VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked'', the difficulty determines the number of stars the player will receive after completing a mission (to a maximum of 5 on Exterminator), which are used to get HundredPercentCompletion and allows you to unlock Ratchet's alternate skins far faster. Thankfully, anyone who's beaten one of the other games in the series on [[NewGamePlus Challenge Mode]] will be able to breeze through the higher difficulties. |
| 147 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': |
| 148 | ** In ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', the Hard Mode versions of Knuckles and Rouge's stages puts the objectives in harder to reach areas but also puts them in fixed locations instead of randomizing them. This might not ''sound'' like a great benefit at first, until you realize getting a perfect score rating on Hard is by far easier than any other challenge since you can zip from spot-to-spot and just grab them rather than play ''[[Literature/WheresWally Where's Waldo?]]'' with the shards. |
| 149 | ** In ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'', playing on Hard difficulty is required to fight [[spoiler:the true final boss]], as well as [[spoiler:unlock the GoldenEnding]]. Thankfully the game lets you change the difficulty whenever you want, and playing on Hard from the beginning is not required. |
| 150 | * The "hard mode" of the original ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' replaces all Goombas with Buzzy Beetles (whose intended form of extra difficulty is that they're immune to Mario's fireballs), which allows the player to get as many lives as they want by having their shells being kicked repeatedly against certain structures, much like a Koopa shell. It also makes clearing a whole row of enemies much easier - stomping a Beetle and kicking it to take out all the others is effortless compared to stomping all Goombas individually. |
| 151 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ristar}}'' grants more continues when playing on Hard Mode compared to Normal Mode. The secret 'Super Hard' difficulty which turns you into a OneHitPointWonder, sets you lives to 1, and removes all 1UPs, takes it further and gives you ''unlimited'' continues. |
| 152 | [[/folder]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[folder:Puzzle Games]] |
| 155 | * ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'': |
| 156 | ** ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoFever2'' lets you use the points earned in matches for an in-game shop that can unlock extra background info or items to be used in Story matches. Higher difficulties will naturally increase the points multiplier, but there are also items you can equip that can nerf your abilities such as reducing the power behind your chain spells or disabling the ComebackMechanic entirely. Winning a match with those disablers active will also multiply your point count by a certain percentage. |
| 157 | ** ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoPuzzlePop'': Among the assist items, there's a couple of items that increase the difficulty, such as having a higher garbage multiplier, or giving you a fifth color. If you win with these items in effect, it gets you extra points for challenging yourself. |
| 158 | * In ''VideoGame/SushiStrikerTheWayOfSushido'', equipping the Training Black Belt halves Musashi's HP. Indirectly, it also occupies Musashi's hold-item slot, preventing the use of any power-ups that could take that place. In return, however, any stages cleared holding the Training Black Belt will multiply the score earned in that stage by 1.5, making it much easier to gain S-Ranks and [[RankInflation Rainbow S-Ranks]]. In addition, the Training Black Belt is tied to a lot of milestones in the game's AchievementSystem, which are necessary to increasing Musashi's Striker Rank to make it easier to [[DefeatMeansFriendship recruit Sushi Sprites]]. Most of the late-game Sushi Sprites also have a minimum Striker Rank to be recruited at all. |
| 159 | [[/folder]] |
| 160 | |
| 161 | [[folder:Racing Games]] |
| 162 | * ''VideoGame/DaytonaUSA'' gives you a higher top speed if you choose manual transmission rather than automatic. |
| 163 | * The ''VideoGame/ForzaMotorsport'' series has bonuses for players that disable driver assists (traction control, anti-lock brakes, racing/braking lines, et cetera). The more assists that are turned off, the more money you get a bonus at the end of races; disabling all the assists and setting the AI on the hardest setting will give you 165% more credits at the end of the race, on top of the regular winnings. Using the [[DrivingStick Manual + Clutch]] transmission grants the user a small boost of torque when upshifting to reward advanced players. |
| 164 | [[/folder]] |
| 165 | |
| 166 | [[folder:Real-Time Strategy]] |
| 167 | * In the ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'' campaigns, {{Random Drop}}s come in three categories of increasing quality. The gear in the higher categories drops more often in higher difficulties, and not at all in the lower difficulties. |
| 168 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': |
| 169 | ** The Doomsday Origin opens with the player's planet on the verge of exploding, forcing a HomeworldEvacuation within just a few decades, over the course of which the planet will become increasingly hostile. Additionally, Doomsday races do not receive the standard guaranteed compatible planets near their homeworld. In exchange, the homeworld will receive gradually increasing buffs to mineral, alloy, and energy production which can significantly jumpstart ship and starbase construction. The player also gains a special Edict that doubles the development speed of all colonies and halves the cost of resettling the population. |
| 170 | ** The Determined Exterminator and Devouring Swarm ethics are permanently genocidal, preventing them from engaging in any form of diplomacy in favor of all-out war. In exchange they receive massive buffs to their military capabilities. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Rhythm Games]] |
| 174 | * Newer releases of ''VideoGame/BeatmaniaIIDX'' have Hazard mode, an offshoot of Free Mode (a mode that guarantees 2 stages regardless of whether you fail the first one). In Hazard, [[OneHitPointWonder breaking your combo will result in stage failure]]. However, you are guaranteed four stages instead of two. |
| 175 | ** Hard and EX-Hard gauges instant-fail you if you hit 0%, but eliminate the need to have 80% or more at the end of the song. Clearing a chart with these gauge types will also award more DJ Points than a normal-gauge clear, though less than a Full Combo. |
| 176 | * Playing on Hard in ''VideoGame/BitTrip FLUX'' (on SAGA or COMPLETE) increases the amount of Beats required to go up ''and'' down - perfect for players who can get to META, but can't stay there for long on Normal. |
| 177 | * ''VideoGame/CrossBeats'' and ''crossbeats REV.'' award a Rank Point bonus for clearing a track with one of the harder gauge types: 10% for the ''REV.''-exclusive Survival gauge and 20% for the Ultimate gauge. |
| 178 | * ''VideoGame/{{DJMAX}} Portable 2'' and ''Fever'' normally require you to play a few hundred songs to unlock 8-Button Mode. If you change the options difficulty to Hard, you'll be able to use 8-Button regardless of playcount. |
| 179 | ** ''DJMAX Portable 3'' is similar. To unlock 6.2 Tracks mode in Easy and Normal, you need to reach level 50 through a LOT of LevelGrinding. And THEN, you have to unlock it through a 3-item "pick a ? box and uncover the mystery prize" MiniGame that only appears whenever you level up. If you set the difficulty to Hard, however, 6.2 Tracks is available from the get go...if you can stand the stricter timing windows and the batshit insane LifeMeter (we're talking death after only 2 or 3 misses). |
| 180 | * ''VideoGame/GrooveCoaster'' allows you to equip the BREAK item, which results in a NonStandardGameOver if you miss more than 10 notes. However, clearing a chart with this item equipped will award bonus G Coins. |
| 181 | * In ''VideoGame/JustShapesAndBeats'', playing on Hardcore difficulty doubles the amount of Beat Points you get. |
| 182 | * In ''VideoGame/PopnMusic'' versions prior to ''pop'n music fantasia'', Cho-Challenge mode forces the COOL judgement on, doesn't let you play 5-button charts, and removes the [[MercyMode guarantee of getting to your second stage even if you fail your first]]. However, unlike in regular Challenge mode, Ojamas in Cho-Challenge mode won't trigger the [[InterfaceScrew horrendously distracting]] "DANGER" background. Also, while Challenge mode restricts you to one Ojama if you set it to always-on (rather than at intervals, as per the default), Cho-Challenge allows you to set two Ojamas ''and'' have them always-on, which not only allows you to set even greater {{Self Imposed Challenge}}s but allows you to get more Challenge Points. |
| 183 | * In ''VideoGame/RhythmHeaven Megamix'', the Gatekeeper Trio's challenges cost less to attempt on harder difficulties, but require a higher score and give you less lives per attempt, so unless you can win them on your first try, you'll probably end up spending more on multiple hard mode attempts than one easy mode attempt. |
| 184 | * In ''VideoGame/{{KALPA}}'', two partners have this as their Skill: |
| 185 | ** Libera's skill, ''The Fair Judge'', applies a [[MoneyMultiplier bonus to your Energy gain when completing a song]] if you use play modifiers that can trigger a mid-song game over: 10% for Risk (changes the Link Gauge to a LifeMeter), 15% for All Combo ([[OneHitPointWonder one Miss will end the song]]), and 20% for All Perfect (one non-Perfect will end the song). |
| 186 | ** Sylvia's skill, ''Alluring Mist'', applies a 15% bonus[[note]][[BalanceBuff previously 10%]][[/note]] to your Energy gain when completing a song if you use Lunatic judgement (which makes the timing windows smaller). |
| 187 | * In ''VideoGame/{{CHUNITHM}}'', several skills enhance your Gauge gain by a significant amount, but in exchange will [[NonstandardGameOver trigger Sudden Death and end the song on the spot]] (normally you can always play to the end of the song, no matter how poorly you're doing) if too many of a particular judgement or below are obtained. |
| 188 | [[/folder]] |
| 189 | |
| 190 | [[folder:Roguelike]] |
| 191 | * Defiant difficulty in ''VideoGame/TwentyXX'' gives you more SOUL chips, with the number increasing as you put on more skull modifiers (which do things like increase the number of enemies, make you more vulnerable to environmental hazards, or stop items or pickups from spawning). As a fortunate side note, SOUL chips can be used to prevent certain items from spawning, allowing you to try and pick a SetBonus that will be compatible with your character and playstyle and thereby make you less likely to die horribly during your Defiant run, meaning that this can become somewhat self-sustaining as long as you're good enough to actually win the game on Defiant. |
| 192 | * ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': |
| 193 | ** One of the key differences between regular and hard mode is, in hard mode you are far less likely to get health drops after clearing a room and there will be 2-3 more rooms per floor. Since the item drop rate ''isn't'' affected, and you're getting more of them, this inadvertently means your odds of getting a key, bomb, battery, pill, trinket, or chest are increased. While on regular mode it's common to actually have to miss item rooms, not buy things, and skip over tinted rocks and secret rooms, on hard mode it's actually quite rare to not have bombs, keys, and money to spare. In fact, this so negates other aspects of hard mode that, as stated on the NonIndicativeDifficulty entry, a case could be made that hard mode is actually ''easier''[[note]]Rooms are harder but you'll have more powerups and resources to fight them with, shops can be downgraded and there are less tinted rocks but on regular mode you often lack the money and bombs to make use of them anyways, and Champion enemies only drop pickups 33% of the time but appear four times as often (a net ''increase'' of items)[[/note]]. |
| 194 | ** Apollyon's gimmick is he starts with low stats but with Void, an item that can absorb pedestal items: passive items grant him two random stat increases, and active items add their effect to Void. Because power management is such a huge part of his playstyle, hard mode is ''much'' easier for him since it adds 2-3 rooms, that is 2-3 bonus charges, to Void per floor. In fact, on hard mode if you {{Save Scum|ming}} by reseting the first floor until you spawn right beside an Item Room (or a Curse Room that happens to have an item) you are ''guaranteed'' to be able to absorb it and the boss item, something you can't do on regular mode. |
| 195 | ** The Lost has a very simple mechanic: he starts with flight and spectral tears, but [[OneHitKO has no health and dies in one hit]]. This means he can take a DealWithTheDevil free of charge, and if he survives three floors he gets Perfection which ''maxes out his luck''. In other words, the trade-off for being such a GlassCannon is practically being guaranteed to get powerups most characters will only get to use once in a blue moon. [[spoiler:This becomes ''much'' more feasible once you unlock The Mantle via Greed Mode, which lets you take one free hit per room]]. |
| 196 | ** Similar to The Lost, The Keeper has a mechanic where he has "coin hearts", starting with two and can have as many as three, each worth one hit. Best case scenario he can only ever take three hits, and while he replenishes health from coins rather than hearts, he ''still'' struggles to stay alive long as he has an utterly ''terrible'' slow and weak spread shot attack. However, he can buy a DealWithTheDevil rather than having to sacrifice health, 15 coins for a 1 heart item and 30 coins for a 2 heart item, and as of Repentance coin hearts ''don't'' count as red heart damage for calculating Devil and Angel Room chances. Since he can start with Wooden Nickel, a 50% chance of a free extra penny ''per room'', he can boom up with Devil Room items even better than The Lost since having a wallet full of cash is easy as this guy. |
| 197 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'', after defeating the final boss for the first time you can toggle the "Pacts of Punishment", which are various modifiers that make the run more difficult but allows you to collect more resources needed to unlock further content. In particular, every five levels of "heat" allow the player to open Erebus gates in the first three zones, where room rewards are doubled... if the player can beat all of the enemies [[NoDamageRun without being damaged]]. |
| 198 | * In ''VideoGame/OneWayHeroics'', better items are only available on the harder difficulties. |
| 199 | [[/folder]] |
| 200 | |
| 201 | [[folder:Role-Playing Games]] |
| 202 | * ''VideoGame/BugFables'': |
| 203 | ** The very first medal the party gains acts as a Hard Mode switch that can be toggled at any time. Enemies are stronger when it's enabled, having more HP and some unique attacks, but they also give more experience points and drop items more frequently. Additionally, beating bosses[[note]]Most minibosses and bosses, with some exceptions for bosses in sidequests[[/note]] while it's active, it rewards the team with medals when they return to town. While achievements for beating bosses on Hard Mode can be done later on as part of H.B.'s simulated BossRush, these do not grant medals unique to beating a given boss, but these medals can be bought from the travelling caravan on normal mode after defeating the boss the first time. |
| 204 | ** There's also two additional medals that have similar effects. Harder Hits makes enemies all have one additional attack, and they drop more money in return, while EXP Booster drops the party's attack by one in exchange for increasing EXP earned in battles. |
| 205 | * The School Mascot's talent in ''VideoGame/CitizensOfEarth'' is this. When used, it brings up a slider that you can use to increase all enemies' stats, but also providing a multiplier to experience and money received. Increasing the difficulty to certain levels also gives extra boosts such as increased talent EXP (which is separate from normal EXP) and a 100% item drop rate. [[EasyModeMockery You can also reduce the difficulty, which reduces experience and money and can stop you from getting item drops, talent EXP, or auto-winning battles by hitting enemies from behind]]. |
| 206 | * By playing Hard Mode in ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' battles will award more money and items compared to Normal Mode. |
| 207 | * In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' [[ThatOneLevel Golems of Amgaraak]] DownloadableContent, defeating [[ThatOneBoss the Harvester]] on Hard or [[HarderThanHard Nightmare]] difficulty awards you with a mace called the Reaper’s Cudgel. The cudgel itself is nothing to write home about, but it sells for a whopping 300 sovereigns. Its true value however, is due to the fact that all new characters you create from now on, will automatically have the Reaper’s Cudgel added to their inventory at the beginning of the game. As soon as this new character of yours can reach a merchant, they can sell the cudgel and be rolling in wealth. They will be able to easily buy [[InfinityPlusOneSword the best weapons]] [[InfinityPlusOneArmor and armor]] earlier than they normally should and breeze through the rest of the game. |
| 208 | * ''VideoGame/{{Drakensang}}'': |
| 209 | ** The Zant demon encountered in the sequel can be weakened by employing up to five magical seals the player finds. This fight is nearly impossible to win for the average player without using any seals. However these seals can also be turned in for additional rewards, if they are not used in the fight. |
| 210 | ** Similarly, the expansion's Disc One Final Boss [[spoiler: Kazak]], which can be made easier by employing up to three of six elemental crystals. The reward for using less/no crystals is not very significant, though. |
| 211 | * ''VideoGame/EternalTwilight'' has Hell mode, which is the highest difficulty, but gives bonus AP from both AP items and battles. |
| 212 | * ''VideoGame/EvenForEternia'': Higher difficulties increase the amount of EXP gained from fights, though the EXP difference isn't significant even between the lowest and highest difficulties. |
| 213 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 214 | ** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'', Normal Mode triples the enemy drop rate upon achieving a five-star battle ranking (and it stacks separately from the boost of equipped items). This is absent in Easy Mode. |
| 215 | ** Replaying ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' on Hard in a NewGamePlus gives all enemies a large overall stat boost and greatly reduces the amount of EP you get from killing them, but there's some garbs that are only available on Hard and enemies drop better items and higher-leveled [[PowersAsPrograms commands]]. |
| 216 | * ''VideoGame/GetInTheCarLoser'': The Devil Clock can be purchased after defeating the first boss. This item enables a new difficulty option that grants enemies random perks, but also causes them to drop devil points, which can be used to buy stickers, which can then be used to upgrade equipment more efficiently. However, a recent update adjusted Story Mode to be easier to compensate for the lack of Devil Clock drops. |
| 217 | * ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'': In general, higher difficulty raids and battles will award more EXP, RP, Rupies, and items. However, there are still notable parts where this trope takes effect: |
| 218 | ** Arcarum Extreme has a chance of spawning special bosses that drop crafting materials used in forging an Arcarum summon to 4★. And unlike Normal and Hard, the Extreme Difficulty also rewards players with thousands of EXP and RP per battle. |
| 219 | ** Impossible Difficulty Raids and other special raids can provide the players with blue chests. During events and Rotating Showdowns, even the Maniac and Nightmare difficulty raids can also drop Damascus Grains and Gold Bricks, two of the rarest items in the game. |
| 220 | * ''VideoGame/LieOfCaelum'': The True path is more difficult than the Astral path in terms of enemy AI and weather conditions, but it also increases the drop rate to compensate. |
| 221 | * ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'': The Challenge Medal boosts enemy HP, Defense, and Speed by 50% and their Power by 150%, but compensates for it by also giving you 50% more coins for defeating enemies. |
| 222 | * ''VideoGame/PaperMarioDarkStarEdition'': The Greed Stone and Badge Stone both increase the rom hack's challenge by giving a drawback for the entire game[[note]]the Greed Stone makes it so that maximum health cannot be increased past 5, and the Badge Stone prevents level ups[[/note]]. However, each of them counts as one of the five Stones needed to open the door to the final BrutalBonusLevel, cutting down the number of otherwise required lategame sidequests to finish by one each. |
| 223 | * Choosing the Hard setting of ''VideoGame/RakenzarnFrontierStory'' lets you view a bonus secret ending on top of the one for playing on Normal. Choosing the difficulty above that will grant around 20% more XP and money from fights, so you can get your levels and gear in better condition earlier. |
| 224 | * ''VideoGame/SacredEarthPromise'': Nightmare mode, the highest difficulty, will multiply EXP gain by 1.5, allowing characters to level up and learn skills faster. However, enemies give less EXP to higher-leveled party members, making this perk less impressive than it sounds. |
| 225 | * ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'': |
| 226 | ** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has a free DLC "Merciless" difficulty, which, in addition to increasing enemy damage and health, causes critical hits and supereffective attacks to deal triple standard damage. The trick is, this applies to both enemies and players, meaning skilled players can deal far more damage than on lower levels. What makes this particularly exploitable is that difficulty levels can be changed at any time, allowing this trick to be used only in cases that benefit the player. It's to the extent that, for one [[DamageSpongeBoss particularly]] [[TimedMission challenging]] [[ThatOneBoss boss]], certain guides recommend *increasing* the difficulty in order to beat him. |
| 227 | *** The UpdatedReRelease ''Royal,'' in addition to including Merciless by default, also slightly increases the amount of experience and cash each fight awards compared to Normal (in the original game, it imposed severe cuts to both instead). Combined with the damage bonus outlined above and the newly-buffed Technical damage mechanic, this can make Merciless ironically easier than the standard Hard mode, and arguably even Normal mode. |
| 228 | ** ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'': The second game includes a Hard Mode accessible by either importing save data from the first game or beating the second game to get into NewGamePlus. One special extra is added: [[spoiler:a brutal optional fight with Satan, one of the main antagonists of ''Shin Megami Tensei II'']]. |
| 229 | * ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsX'' had the Expert Mode setting that makes enemies harder to defeat especially at the start of the game where your party consists of either the GlassCannon type or the FragileSpeedster type and anyone who dies is an instant game over until the players get the [[Anime/GundamReconguistaInG Megafauna battleship]] and even the, the game doesn't get any easier until [[Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann Simon and the Gurren Lagann]] join in the game. However, what makes Expert Mode special is that the SR points that players need to fulfill are obtained automatically as long as the player clears the stage without having to restart it. This allows players to easily get the Platinum Emblem (an item that gives you an extra turn after movement) compared to doing the SR point objective when the game is done on Standard Mode (and extra 10,000 cash). |
| 230 | * The ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'' ups the Grade earned in harder difficulties, which in turn can be traded in for nice items and NewGamePlus perks. Some games also increase the amount of experience points earned for playing on harder difficulties and may have the enemies drop rare items more often, depending on the game. |
| 231 | ** ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' increases the amount of Grade, gald and EXP earned for playing on harder difficulties, which is useful for getting the higher levels of NewGamePlus Grade items - the highest costs 3000 Grade, which isn't possible on a normal playthrough at lower difficulties without serious amounts of grinding. |
| 232 | ** ''VideoGame/TalesOfGracesF'' takes this up to eleven by upping the drop rate of certain items on higher difficulties. This results in many people trying to play the higher difficult even if they're not prepared for it. |
| 233 | * In ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'', getting every character at level 1 on Hard might not seem like this (and probably wasn't intended to be), but it lets you level up new characters more carefully, such as by equipping them with accessories which boost their HP and skill points at each level up. In practice, it ends up giving your characters a significant boost in power at a lower level. |
| 234 | ** A straighter version would be that the dungeons exclusive to hard mode contain top tier equipment that just isn't available in normal or easy difficulties. The net result between this and the above point is that Hard Mode is significantly ''easier'' if you know what you're doing, while Easy Mode can be much more difficult--and it doesn't let you get the GoldenEnding. Also, you get more periods (time slots that are used up when you enter a town or a dungeon, recruit characters, etc) on higher difficulties, which just ''further'' ramps up how much tougher Easy Mode can be. |
| 235 | [[/folder]] |
| 236 | |
| 237 | [[folder:Sandbox Games]] |
| 238 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has difficulties that range from peaceful (no mobs spawn) to hardcore (enemies deal high damage and death is permanent). Some game mechanics meant to make the game harder on higher difficulties inadvertently aid the player more than they do on lower ones, and some mechanics are ''deliberately'' skewed in favor of players on harder difficulties. |
| 239 | ** Peaceful means you miss out on mob-exclusive loot altogether. While ''most'' of this is available via other means, Blaze Rods are ''only'' dropped by Blazes. This means the entire End Dimension, the closest thing to a goal this game has, is completely unavailable in peaceful. This means you can't win the game, and you can't obtain an [[NotQuiteFlight Elytra]] or [[HammerSpace Shulker Boxes]]. Also, since you can't face [[{{Superboss}} The Wither]], you can't obtain a Nether Star to craft a Beacon, the most useful mining tool in the game. |
| 240 | ** Even items that ''are'' still obtainable on peaceful become either prohibitively rare or unrenewable without being able to obtain them from monsters. Gunpowder can now only be obtained as a rare ''purchase'' from the Wandering Merchant which locks players out of reliably using TNT, bones can only be obtained 1.1% of the time from fishing which makes obtaining bone meal and taming wolves a rare ocurrence, ender pearls are only obtainable by trading or Piglin bartering preventing a player from playing with such a fun movement technique, sea lanterns can now only be obtained in small quantities with Silk Touch, and slime balls can only be bought or very rarely obtained from a sneezing panda (themselves a rare mob) which basically locks the player out of using sticky pistons, ''the'' most useful redstone block in the game. Players on higher difficulties can just stock up on these in high quantities very easily via combat or by building mob grinders. |
| 241 | ** Villagers killed by zombies are guaranteed to turn into another zombie when they would be killed on easy. It is then possible to cure the zombie, thus turning it back into a villager, and getting cheaper trades. This is completely impossible on peaceful for obvious reasons. Even cheap trades aside, villagers level up as you trade and get new and better trades as they do: replacing a villager killed on easy means back to level 1, while curing a zombified villager means you get the original levelled-up villager back. |
| 242 | ** The Totem Of Undying is only obtainable from killing Evokers, and Evokers only spawn on at least Normal difficulty. Thus, this game's equivalent to [[VideoGameLives extra lives]] aren't available to people playing on easy. |
| 243 | ** The higher the difficulty, the higher the odds hostile mobs will spawn being able to pick up dropped items. Not so much fun if one kills you and [[ContinuingIsPainful uses your own gear against you when you try to collect it]], but mobs holding items won't despawn so the player could give something to a zombie villager they wish to cure or create a mob zoo if they don't have a [[CommonplaceRare name tag]] handy. |
| 244 | ** Similarly, the higher the difficulty the higher the chance those mobs will spawn equipped with weapons and armour. Since there's an 8% chance a mob will drop its worn equipment, you have a better chance of getting free gear and the otherwise unobtainable chainmail armour the higher the difficulty goes. Some of which is ''enchanted''. |
| 245 | ** Also related, is every individual "block" of a Nether portal has a chance per game tick of spawning a zombified piglin, and this scales based on difficulty: it's 0.05% chance on easy, 0.1% chance on normal, and 0.15% chance on hard and above. This means a Nether Portal Gold Farm, which abuses this mechanic to funnel these mobs into a kill box to farm large and renewable quantities of gold, ''works three times faster'' on hard. |
| 246 | ** [[DemonicSpider Skeleton]] [[ShmuckBait trap]] horses have the highest possible spawn rate on the hardest difficulty. If you manage to kill the skeleton riders but not the horses you get already tamed mounts without having to look for horses, and the only mounts in the game that can ''run underwater''. The only drawback is that the skeletal horses can't breed and they have low health and speed. |
| 247 | ** Skyblock is a mod where you are given a tiny island floating in the void and forced to make a go of it. While it's much harder to survive as resources are much rarer, [[EarlyGameHell especially in the early game]], it also means you have full control over where and if mobs can spawn. Making a single spawning platform will give you a ''deluge'' of enemies to kill, making mob grinders incredibly easy to make and amazingly effective, giving you tons of free drops and experience. So many mobs can spawn in a well-made mob grinder you can kill them via ''entity cramming'', where so many mobs are in one space they crush themselves to death. |
| 248 | * ''VideoGame/SpaceRangers'' has several sliders adjusting difficulty of various parts of the game, thus making the difficulty go from 50% to 200% - it's actually a quotient to multiply points by for the record table. Aside from that, more enemies means more experience and money once you get moderately good weapons, and the EnemyMine becomes much easier to utilize. Also, you may pick either additional units or bonus armor for planetary fights, or deny both and get bonus experience and money. |
| 249 | * ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' |
| 250 | ** The best items in the game won't be available until the Wall of Flesh is killed, turning on Hard Mode for the entire world. Although despite the name, this is more akin to part of the natural progression than an actual difficulty setting. |
| 251 | ** In Expert Mode, enemy health and attack is ''[[NintendoHard doubled]]'', bosses drop Treasure Bags, which, along with containing ''much'' more standard loot than you would get from Normal, also always have a unique item ONLY available from these Treasure Bags. Some of these are incredible, with one even going as far as to permanently give you an extra accessory slot. In addition, many frustrating and rare drops in the game will have their chance to drop doubled. |
| 252 | ** [[HarderThanHard Master Mode]] also features a number of new exclusive items. While most of them are purely cosmetic, a few of them can be very useful. Of particular note is the Flying Dutchman, a mount that can drop in the Pirate Invasion. Its high max flight speed was extremely helpful, [[CheeseStrategy making most later bosses a joke]] as you could simply outrun their attacks. It would later be {{Nerf}}ed to prevent this, but still remains a useful addition, along with a few other items. |
| 253 | ** The "for the worthy" seed generates an extra-difficulty world with very few perks... except one. Red's Potion is an item that usually inflicts every single negative status effect at once to your character for 1 hour, but in "for the worthy" worlds, it gives a random selection of 3 buffs for 30 minutes. |
| 254 | [[/folder]] |
| 255 | |
| 256 | [[folder:Shoot 'em Up]] |
| 257 | * ''VideoGame/BlueRevolver'' has four [[Every10000Points point-based extra lives]] on each of the first two difficulty levels, but on [[HarderThanHard Parallel]] mode the game will give out an extra life every 15 million points, and will continue to give extra lives even after your fourth one (at 60 million points) as long as you can earn the points for them. |
| 258 | * ''VideoGame/BulletHeaven2'' has Handicaps, which make the game harder in various ways, but provide a bonus multiplier to your score when turned on. |
| 259 | * In addition to being required for the GoldenEnding, ''VideoGame/Contra4'' changes the stage 1 music on Hard Mode to a remix of the original ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' theme. It's generally agreed that Hard Mode has better music, but YMMV. |
| 260 | * ''VideoGame/CrimzonClover'' on Unlimited mode provides a few perks: |
| 261 | ** You can cancel bullets by using a full lock-on or a full lock-on minus one and killing at least one enemy with it. The canceled bullets will add to your multipliers. In commercial versions of the game, you can still cancel bullets with a partial lock-on, although the radius is larger the more lock-ons you have. |
| 262 | ** Scores can go ''much'' higher than on Original. |
| 263 | ** In Arrange-Unlimited in ''Crimzon Clover World [=EXplosion=]'', your bullets can destroy enemy bullets. |
| 264 | * In ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label]]'', playing on Power Style (though not [[HarderThanHard Strong Style]]) will force you onto the hidden stage paths, instead of requiring you to "earn" them. This is normally a bad thing as some of the midbosses you end up encountering are ThatOneBoss, but for those playing for score, it's also a chance to rack up easy points due to the longer stage lengths without worrying about meeting the conditions for the hidden paths. |
| 265 | ** If you play Bomb or Strong Style, and turn off Auto-Bomb, you'll be able to use [[SuperMode Hyper Counter]] even if your Hyper gauge is not full, by using a bomb stock instead. This is very advantageous for two reasons: Going into Hyper does not kill your combo like bombing does, and while in Hyper Counter mode, your shots will cancel enemy bullets (although those bullets will fire suicide bullets in Strong Style), so you get about 10-15 seconds of protection vs. the 2-5 that a bomb gives you. |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/ElementalGearbolt'' has this via DifficultyByRegion. When Creator/WorkingDesigns released it in English, they changed the easy mode into a training mode that ends after three levels. |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/ExtrapowerStarResistance'': Choosing to pursue a Paladin playthrough - killing as few enemies as possible across the entire game - turns stages deadly as every stage becomes an oversaturation of obstacles and bullets, whereas normal gameplay would see the majority of enemies destroyed in a single hit and cleared out early. In exchange, achieving Paladin rank grants a +4 health refill and a life extension, helping survival on subsequent stages. |
| 268 | * ''VideoGame/GhostSquad2004'' allows you to set the difficulty level of each mission from 1 to 4 on the arcade cardless version, 16 on the arcade version with cardslots and ''GHOST Squad Evolution'', and 20 on the Wii port. Higher difficulty levels open up more branching paths; some are simply there to challenge the player, but some paths provide higher scores than ones only available on the lower difficulties. |
| 269 | * ''VideoGame/Hellfire1989'': The US-exclusive [[HarderThanHard "Yea Right" difficulty]] gives you 99 continues instead of the usual 10 for Easy and Hard. |
| 270 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'': |
| 271 | ** Playing with your [[VideoGameLives Way of Life]] set to Drastic (5 lives) allows you to get to max lives faster. At max lives on any setting, getting an [[Every10000Points Extend]] will give you bonus [[ScoringPoints Spirits]]. |
| 272 | ** Cranking up the [[DynamicDifficulty Stella]] generally raises the Spirit values of enemies and laser grazing. So if you're very competent at survival, and want a large Spirit count, you'll want to keep the Stella at [[{{Cap}} A]] as long as possible. |
| 273 | * ''VideoGame/{{Mushihimesama}} Futari Black Label'''s [[HarderThanHard God mode]] allows the multiplier counter to go up to 30,000, as opposed to Maniac's 9,999. As a result it's much easier to score high (once you tame the BulletHell), to the point where you can get the [[Every10000Points extends]] earlier than you would in Maniac if you know what you're doing. In fact, if you play with both player slots active, it's possible to ''[[{{Cap}} max out]] the score counter.'' |
| 274 | * In ''VideoGame/{{SATAZIUS}}'', playing on Hard or [[HarderThanHard Insane]] gives you an extra boss on the stage 5 BossBonanza and an extra FinalBoss form on top of what you encounter on Normal difficulty. |
| 275 | * Expert mode in ''VideoGame/StarFox64'' makes your wings extremely fragile and the enemies stronger and more numerous. However, the score targets for medals do not change, so if you're adept at staying alive, it's much easier to get medals as well as to score more points than you would on "normal" difficulty. |
| 276 | * Almost all of the ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' games have some method of scaling your score to the difficulty chosen. A few of them grant extra lives based on score. This means that playing on harder difficulties gets you lives earlier in these games, and the point barriers can be high enough that you can miss them if you're playing poorly. |
| 277 | ** Additionally, ''VideoGame/TouhouShinreibyouTenDesires'' gives more spirits on the higher difficulties. Spirits are used to fill the [[SuperMode trance]] gauge, and trance is not only a powerful attack and defense, but can be used to double the effect of bomb and life fragments. |
| 278 | ** Inverted Mode in ''VideoGame/VampireSurvivors'' triples enemy health and coin gain, but the merchant sells an additional arcana, as well as extra skips, banishes, and rerolls. This can enable some extremely powerful builds right from the get-go, instead of having to survive until the 11-minute mark for an additional arcana. |
| 279 | ** The way ''VideoGame/YouseiDaisensouTouhouSangetsusei'' works is that you have the ability to freeze bullets, and get lives, bombs, power, and score based on the area frozen. The increased amount of bullets on the higher difficulties is a natural help. The higher difficulties also have death-bullets, which can be used to greatly extend a freeze by a clever player. |
| 280 | ** Simplifying things a bit, to get more bombs in ''VideoGame/TouhouKanjudenLegacyOfLunaticKingdom'' you need to graze bullets. The thing here is that the number of bullets needed is the same for all difficulties, meaning that you effectively have more bombs on higher difficulties. |
| 281 | ** In ''VideoGame/TouhouKishinjouDoubleDealingCharacter'', playing as Marisa-B turns the higher difficulty levels into this. Since her bomb scoops up bullets to turn them into PowerUp items that can then be picked up through auto-pickup for point bonuses, [[SmartBomb bomb]] fragments, and [[OneUp life]] fragments, a [[DifficultButAwesome good Marisa-B player]] can take advantage of bullet-dense sections to keep themselves at full power and maximum lives. |
| 282 | * ''VideoGame/{{Tyrian}}'' rewards you in different ways, such as letting you see more levels or levels with altered layout, giving better items early on, but the best way is... [[spoiler:After you beat Tyrian on ENGAGE mode. Rewards you with the code for Nort-Ship Z, the best Super Tyrian ship in the game.]]. |
| 283 | [[/folder]] |
| 284 | |
| 285 | [[folder:Simulation Games]] |
| 286 | * ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]'''s ''Xtended Terran Conflict'' GameMod has multiple difficulties which affect the spawn rate for HardCodedHostility mooks and the upgrades their ships have. Cranking up the difficultly all the way up to [[HarderThanHard XTREME]] - an irreversible decision - causes mooks to spawn in overdrive with ships far superior to yours or neutral [=NPCs=]. As the mooks rampage uncontrolled through sectors, you can follow at a distance and salvage the wrecks they leave behind; in fact, this is encouraged, because XTREME removes corvettes and capital ships from sale at shipyards along with removing jump drives, making this one of the few ways to get them without pissing off the locals. |
| 287 | * In ''{{VideoGame/XCOM}}'', there are more aliens per UFO and more [=UFOs=] on the higher difficulties. During the early game, when you actually have to worry about money, most of your money will come from selling alien equipment. While you'll have higher overheads from your higher death rate, this extra cash will still speed up your progress considerably (assuming you survive). |
| 288 | [[/folder]] |
| 289 | |
| 290 | [[folder:Survival Horror]] |
| 291 | * Used as a game mechanic in ''VideoGame/DyingLight''; during the in-game night, extremely fast-moving, hard-hitting BossInMookClothing zombies called Volatiles begin to swarm all over the city. A player who dares to run around at night finds their Agility and Power experience points doubled, and spending time at night outside of the safe zone results in a number of Survivor experience points based on how long. Additionally, there's a much more valuable air drop that occurs at night which is worth a lot more Survivor exp when handed in. |
| 292 | * If you want anything resembling a happy ending in the ''VideoGame/FatalFrame'' series, you need to play on hard difficulties. Sadly, at least for the first two games, the {{Downer Ending}}s are the canon ones. |
| 293 | * Thanks to the way the [[HostileAnimatronics animatronic's]] AI works[[note]]They have a percent chance of movement based on their difficulty, ie 1/20 = 5%, 5/20 = 25%, and 20/20 = 100%, etc, and every so many seconds they attempt to move with their odds of success based on that percent. This also happens when it's time to move away from the doorway, so on lower difficulties they have higher chances of sticking around[[/note]] in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'', they are ''guaranteed'' to leave from the doorways of your office after 5 seconds have passed on [[HarderThanHard 4/20 difficulty]]. On lower difficulties they have a chance of not moving once they get there, meaning you need to babysit them, lose power, and confirm they're gone before opening the door, while on 4/20 difficulty you ''know'' they are gone after 5 seconds and can open the door without even checking or turning on the light. |
| 294 | * In ''[[VideoGame/OneNightAtFlumptys One Night At Flumptys 3]]'', the ''one'' amenity you are given during the aptly-named [[HarderThanHard Hard-Boiled Mode]] is it is half as long as regular mode. Rather than surviving two consecutive nights, Normal Night and Flumpty Night which are both 6 in-game hours each, on Hard-Boiled Mode it simply shifts from Normal Night to Flumpty Night at the 3AM mark. |
| 295 | * ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve2'' has various challenges based on difficulty level. Bounty Mode forces you to fight stronger enemies a lot earlier than you usually do but beating them gets you better items and guns sooner than normally would. Nightmare mode does the same thing but with the additional stipulation that you can't use some of the items until later in the game. Scavenger mode subverts this by being a straight difficulty increase but for all modes sans Replay (Easy), your overall BP and EXP when you beat the game gets multiplied by a difficulty bonus and you get to use the leftover points for NewGamePlus. |
| 296 | * ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'': |
| 297 | ** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' treats Chris's game as hard mode as he has less item capacity and doesn't have access to the bazooka. However, in lieu of bazooka ammo he gets extra ammo for all other weapons: 23 handgun clips instead of Jill's 17, 18 shotgun shell boxes to Jill's 12, and 6 cylinders of magnum rounds to Jill's 4. As the shotgun is more versatile and the magnum more powerful than the bazooka, this can be ''preferable'' to having the bazooka and can even outright negate Chris's item capacity disadvantage since he has one less weapon and ammo type to fill his items. Even [[VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake the remake]] kept this advantage, but as they took considerable other steps to balance Chris, his mode can only barely be considered "harder" than Jill's in that game. |
| 298 | ** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' has an extra optional challenge on Hard mode. [[RecurringBoss Nemesis]] will relentlessly track down Jill until you avoid him long enough or pump enough bullets into him to knock him down for a while. Shooting down Nemesis on Easy won't change anything, but doing it on Hard will make Nemesis drop unique items like gun parts or reusable first-aid spray cases. If you managed to stop Nemesis on every single encounter, the final item he drops in the clock tower is either an assault rifle on the first run in the save file or, in subsequent playthroughs, an ammo case that gives any one weapon [[BottomlessMagazines infinite ammo]]. |
| 299 | ** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' unlocks professional mode and several difficult minigames after beating the main campaign on normal. Every single game unlocks a different weapon or upgrade, but by far the most lethal weapon is the PRL-412 energy weapon, which in every version but the original [=GameCube=] version (it was introduced later on in the Playstation 2 port), fires several homing lasers that instantly kill anything they touch without fail, allowing you to plow through the game while destroying everything in your way. [[BraggingRightsReward It is unlocked by completing Professional Mode. It's also totally free, and can be bought on any save after beating said save at least once.]] |
| 300 | [[/folder]] |
| 301 | |
| 302 | [[folder:Tactical [=RPGs=]]] |
| 303 | * ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' games allow you to pass bills (or as of D2, simply adjust with a "Cheat Shop") to increase or decrease enemy level, causing them to grant more XP, money, and mana. The games fully expect you to do this, with certain stages designed specifically as LevelGrinding spots where you can beat enemies with beneficial GeoEffects, ratchet up the difficulty, and then do it again. A lot of post-game content is downright inaccessible without doing this. |
| 304 | ** ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2'' changed this to a cheat shop where you can adjust a slider bar of stars to determine your enemy level. While you can never drop the level below the standard, you can always raise it as high as you want to train, then drop it back down to allow your trained warrior to deliver whatever smackdown on whatever boss is holding it back. Additionally, finishing some of the bonus chapters in the game nets extra units and special cheat shop options. None of them make the game particularly easier, but are a reward for getting that far. |
| 305 | ** ''VideoGame/Disgaea2CursedMemories'' introduced the Land of Carnage, where the enemies are given a massive level and stat increase (2000% of the map's base level, plus 200 levels added, then double stats), but they also give much more experience, making grinding stages much more rewarding. Also, the Land of Carnage is where the game's best equipment can be obtained. The above-mentioned Dimension 2 added in its own perk: defeating enemies while the Carnage option is enabled in the above-mentioned cheat shop will allow you to ''absorb their stats'', which are permanent and stack with your equipment and natural stats. And then, it added ''Rasetsu Mode'', increasing the stat limits even further and allowing items to be empowered in the Item World even further. |
| 306 | ** ''VideoGame/Disgaea5AllianceOfVengeance'' has its own set of equipment to obtain in the Carnage Dimension, which are exponentially more powerful than their standard versions. The Carnage Dimension version of the weakest weapon in the game is stronger than the regular world's InfinityPlusOneSword. |
| 307 | * ''VideoGame/FireEmblem:'' |
| 308 | ** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'', the game was meant to have a check that would ensure that recruitable enemy units do not receive the extra levels and stat gains typical of Hard Mode enemies. However, [[GoodBadBugs an oversight]] means that any character that is spawned in over the course of the map is exempt from the check. This includes Rutger, Gonzales, Klein, Thea, Cath, Melady, Garret, Perceval (but only in Chapter 15), and Zeiss. As ''Binding Blade'' is notable for giving enemies a ''lot'' of extra levels on its Hard Mode, especially in the lategame, this causes a number of units that are already good in Normal Mode to become almost monstrous, sometimes to the point of being effectively ten levels higher than they should be. |
| 309 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' in particular has a few: |
| 310 | *** Playing Lyn's story passes on whatever stat boosts and equipment that recruits gained in her story to the main story no matter what, but if you play hers on Hard, you can have one of your cavaliers take Wallace's Knight Crest, a promotion item (or even just keep the Knight Crest to boost your Funds ranking). Since Lyn's Story on Normal is a ForcedTutorial, you use his Knight Crest to forcibly promote him, which won't happen on Hard since the tutorial is turned off. |
| 311 | *** Hector Mode starts off harder, with fewer companions and stricter missions, but it also has ''more'' levels overall for a more complete story, and has a few unique companions that Eliwood never meets. |
| 312 | *** In both Eliwood and Hector Hard Mode, one of the bosses near the middle of the game holds the Silver Card, which halves the purchase price of all items. This makes Funds much more easily manageable in the second half of the game in Hard Mode than in Normal Mode. |
| 313 | *** In Hector Hard Mode, enemies have bonuses to their stats, including those who can be recruited. |
| 314 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' includes the ability to capture generic units and recruit them, depending on the difficulty your capturable enemies can have skills normally impossible for them to get. An example is on Lunatic, as all enemies have capped weapon ranks in their current class. |
| 315 | * In ''VideoGame/StarWolves'', harder difficulties grant experience bonus, and the experience is extremely important in the game. |
| 316 | * In the ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' games, achieving bonus objectives on each mission [[DynamicDifficulty scales up the difficulty]]. If you keep this up long enough, however, the game often rewards you with very powerful bonus equipment in the later stages. |
| 317 | [[/folder]] |
| 318 | |
| 319 | [[folder:Third-Person Shooter]] |
| 320 | * ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore 4''[='s=] Hard Mode is quite different from the previous games. Instead of having, like, a smaller FCS box, each mission amps up the difficulty by adding or removing something. The very first mission for example, deprives you of your Primal Armor, making your AC quite brittle against more than three Normals you have to face. The only thing that's consistent is that the end mission of every chapter adds an enemy Next to the fray alongside whatever it is you're up against at the end, or in the case of Marche Au Supplie, all four Next with your own allies already killed from the get-go. In return, though, completing each mission in its Hard version rewards you additional tuning points for your schematics and even newer parts. |
| 321 | * ''[[VideoGame/JakIIRenegade Jak II]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander Jak 3]]'' have "Hero Mode", in which the enemies are more powerful, but you start with all of the guns. This makes Hero Mode easier at first, except in turret sections and others where you can't use your guns. You can however unlock unlimited ammo, Dark Jak and invulnerability with less orbs than usual and before the game ends. And considering you need orbs to unlock Hero Mode it's not too much trouble to just go out and nab a few. Orb placements are completely reset as well, allowing you to stack orbs from your previous playthrough to unlock new things from the secrets menu without having to kill yourself trying to beat some of the more difficult minigames. |
| 322 | * In ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', you can wager hearts at the beginning of each chapter to increase or decrease its "intensity level". At higher levels, the enemies shoot more often and some take more damage. On the other hand, it opens up sections of levels that are closed off on lower difficulties, and you receive more powerful weapons if you're able to clear the chapter. It also inverts this: making the intensity ''lower'' than normal costs you hearts outright instead of returning them to you for succeeding, reduces the number of enemies present, and reduces the heart drops of what enemies there are, effectively costing you hearts both ways. |
| 323 | * ''VideoGame/MadnessProjectNexus2'': Playing on [[HarderThanHard Madness difficulty]] reduces enemy health, making them easier to kill. Combined with the increase in enemy damage and aggression Madness difficulty gives them, things approach RocketTagGameplay. |
| 324 | * Each station in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2: Octo Expansion'' offers a choice of one or more different weapons that the player can equip before starting, with some optimized to be more challenging for that particular station than others. Attempting a station with a difficult weapon will cost the player more CQ Points, but will also net them a bigger reward for completing the station. While it's possible to earn a sizeable net gain of points from these difficult challenges, the system is very high-risk and high-reward -- if you fail repeatedly trying to clear a station with a difficult weapon, you're likely to end up with less points than if you had just used an easier one. |
| 325 | [[/folder]] |
| 326 | |
| 327 | [[folder:Tower Defense]] |
| 328 | * ''VideoGame/{{Mindustry}}'' has the maps divided into roughly three tiers of difficulty, with titanium ores starting to be available from the second difficulty tier, and thorium only for the third one. While titanium can also be obtained by smelting scrap in NewGamePlus, playing the hardest difficulty is the only way to obtain thorium, the resource required to construct the last and most powerful tier of buildings. |
| 329 | [[/folder]] |
| 330 | |
| 331 | [[folder:Turn-Based Strategy]] |
| 332 | * ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'': On the hardest difficulty of ''Heir to the Throne'' campaign, defeating the orc leader in "Blackwater Port" scenario earns you a free loyal Knight that you can't get on easier difficulties. |
| 333 | [[/folder]] |
| 334 | |
| 335 | [[folder:Turn-Based Tactics]] |
| 336 | * ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'': You are given a ranking based on three criteria, power, speed, and technique, where power is based in the most units you manage to eliminate in a single turn, speed is how many days you take to finish, and technique is how many units you lose overall. Each awards up to 100 points, for a max score of 300, and then how high that number is awards a rank that goes as high as S. On normal campaign all three scores matter, but on the harder Advance campaign ''only speed matters'': if you get a 100 for speed, the other two stats are bumped to 100 for free and you get a guaranteed S rank. While winning maps on Advance is, of course harder, it is ironically ''far easier'' to get S ranks on these maps than on the regular campaign because you can use more streamlined tactics like [[SuicideAttack suicide attacks]] or beelines for an [[InstantWinCondition HQ capture]] without having to worry about what units you destroy or lose in the process. |
| 337 | ** ''VideoGame/AdvanceWarsBlackHoleRising'': You can tackle either the Blue Moon or Yellow Comet campaigns in either order you like, and whichever country you liberate first will come to the aid of the other country in their final factory mission. Beating Yellow Comet first is ''much'' harder than beating Blue Moon first as it forces you to complete Yellow Comet's final mission alone, but if you pull this off your reward is you get ''Kanbei'' with a large pre-deployed army (read: his strength of 130% attack and defense without having to worry about their high deployment cost) to come and help in Blue Moon's final mission, which [[BreatherLevel completely trivializes it]]. |
| 338 | ** ''VideoGame/AdvanceWarsDualStrike'': Done two-fold: |
| 339 | *** Hard mode campaign lets you use ''all'' your unlocked [=COs=], unlike the normal campaign that restricts you to the story-relevant characters. In other words you can do {{Mirror Match}}es or even unleash [[BigBad Von Bolt]] or [[PurposelyOverpowered Hachi]]. This often makes hard mode missions [[NonIndicativeDifficulty easier than their normal mode counterparts]], though the overall difficulty is still higher. |
| 340 | *** Using a single CO instead of dual [=COs=] awards you double the experience points, allowing you to level up your characters much faster than normal. |
| 341 | * ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'': |
| 342 | ** ''VideoGame/GhostReconShadowWars'': Completing a mission on a higher difficulty will give you more stars to level up your units as opposed to the easier difficulty. |
| 343 | ** ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier'' likewise gives players a greater bonus to their Ghost score at the end of a mission on harder difficulties. |
| 344 | [[/folder]] |
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