History Main / ItsHardSoItSucks

* ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'', for all its reputation as the face of {{Rhythm Game}}s in the West, has a surprisingly [[NintendoHard steep learning curve]], as evidenced by the countless players who pop in a credit, make [[NoobBridge common newcomer mistakes]] like returning their feet to the center after every step, have to take time to associate each of the four lanes with each of the four cardinal-direction arrows under their feet, and then swear off the game (and maybe even rhythm games as a whole) after failing a song or two, often due to embarrassment. In fact, by modern rhythm game standards, it's not quite friendly to new rhythm game players for these reasons, especially compared to games that are operated with the player's hands or which have a stronger association between on-screen objects and the player's inputs. It's not uncommon for players to swear off rhythm games altogether because their first experience was a failed attempt at playing ''DDR''.

* ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', specifically the PS3 and Xbox 360+ version, is one of the tougher games in the series. There's a lot of very unforgiving platforming over BottomlessPits, spiked hazards will punish you for boosting too recklessly and the game loves throwing reaction-based obstacles at you, which either require lightning-fast reflexes or strict memorization of the level design. There is a debate amongst Sonic fans and gaming critics over whether or not the game's difficulty is well-designed.

* ''VideoGame/Shinobi2002'' isn't just a hard game, it is a NintendoHard game. Regular enemies are fairly easy enough, but there are [[CheckpointStarvation no checkpoints in levels]] unless you reach a boss, limites continues so you can reset the stage if the boss kills you too many times anyway, the dreaded {{Bottomless Pit|s}} that instantly kills you all over the place and precarious platforming ''and enemies'' over them, and some downright merciless boss fights to boot. And if that wasn't enough, from the second stage onwards your cursed sword will feed on your health bar if you don't kill fast enough, turning the rest of the game into a TimedMission. Reviewers thought the gameplay was cool and had potential, but were quick to critically pan the utterly brutal challenge the game throws out. ''VideoGame/NightshadeKunoichi'' directly alleviated a number of these issues for a much more fair game while still having challenge -- and then bombed because of InvisibleAdvertising.

* The entire ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' series has gotten this from a lot of people over it's [[NintendoHard unforgiving]] [[EverythingTryingToKillYou difficulty]] and aversion of many FPS tropes (leading to it being described as a "survival shooter"), but even within those that like it, the second title (Clear Sky) is regarded as several steps more difficult than Shadow of Chernobyl, mainly because entire squads of enemy troops will throw grenades that can literally change direction in midair to land at your feet. The enemies also got [[MadeOfIron a lot tougher]] to the point that a bog-standard military trooper could shrug off entire magazines of SMG fire to the chest, and the game has an odd hit randomization system rule to gunshots and explosions. That is, you have to actually hit your target, then the game essentially rolls a dice to check if you hit your target. This can lead to an odd moment when a grenade can land in your lap and not even give you a nosebleed, and then another can go off ten yards away and kill you instantly. Certain {{Game Mod}}s fix this unfair behavior, but at the same time, their sticking to realism makes gunfights '''ridiculously''' challenging. Oh, so now guns are actually accurate, and kill in very few hits like they should? Yeah, they kill Scar just as easily as the other stalkers, if not even more easily.

** Of course tactical shooter players will suck in TF2, because TF2 is more a [[Quake]]-like game. At least soldier and demoman can use Quake-like tricks, while scout is fast like Quake players. Though this is all toned down since every class has advantages and disadvantages for balanced gameplay, for example different health, speed etc.

* Common advice to newcomers of ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is to do away with the mentality that losing is a bad thing, and instead see it as something to laugh off. ([[CatchPhrase "Losing is fun!"]]) That said, many are still reluctant to give it a shot.

* The difficulty of ''VideoGame/TombRaiderIII'' was the most common complaints among fans and reviewers because the game had a huge amount of death traps that could kill you if you weren't careful. Even if you were trying to be careful, some areas forced you to rush blindly to avoid a trap you triggered, which was accompanied by an EventObcuringCamera that was trying to make the sequence of escaping the trap look cool. Most of the game was also extremely dark, which made the death traps even more difficult to spot and it did not help that flares barely lasted.

* The difficulty of ''VideoGame/TombRaiderIII'' was the most common complaints among fans and reviewers because the game had a huge amount of death traps that could kill you if you weren't careful. Even if you were trying to be careful, some areas forced you to rush blindly to avoid a trap you triggered, which was accompanied by some CameraScrew that was trying to make the sequence of escaping the trap look cool. Most of the game was also extremely dark, which made the death traps even more difficult to spot and it did not help that flares barely lasted.

* ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', specifically the [[strike:HD]] PS3 and Xbox 360+ version, is one of the tougher games in the series. There's a lot of very unforgiving platforming over BottomlessPits, spiked hazards will punish you for boosting too recklessly and the game loves throwing reaction-based obstacles at you, which either require lightning-fast reflexes or strict memorization of the level design. There is a debate amongst Sonic fans and gaming critics over whether or not the game's difficulty is well-designed.

* ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', specifically the PS3 and Xbox 360+ version, is one of the tougher games in the series. There's a lot of very unforgiving platforming over BottomlessPits, spiked hazards will punish you for boosting too recklessly and the game loves throwing reaction-based obstacles at you, which either require lightning-fast reflexes or strict memorization of the level design. There is a debate amongst Sonic fans and gaming critics over whether or not the game's difficulty is well-designed.

* ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', specifically the <strike>HD</strike> PS3/Xbox 360+ version, is one of the tougher games in the series. There's a lot of very unforgiving platforming over BottomlessPits, spiked hazards will punish you for boosting too recklessly and the game loves throwing reaction-based obstacles at you, which either require lightning-fast reflexes or strict memorization of the level design. There is a debate amongst Sonic fans and gaming critics over whether or not the game's difficulty is well-designed.

* ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', specifically the HD version, is one of the tougher games in the series. There's a lot of very unforgiving platforming over BottomlessPits, spiked hazards will punish you for boosting too recklessly and the game loves throwing reaction-based obstacles at you, which either require lightning-fast reflexes or strict memorization of the level design. There is a debate amongst Sonic fans and gaming critics over whether or not the game's difficulty is well-designed.

* Although it has a devout following of fans, the original ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}}'' could have become a classic alongside ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' and ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' had it not become so mind-numbingly and abruptly difficult once you hit Band Land. The UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance port even went out of its way to advertise that it was much easier.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'', while highly praised by critics and fans alike, drew some negative attention from people that cited that the game was simply too hard to enjoy thanks to the very high damage both regular enemies and bosses could inflict. One critic gained infamy when he trashed the game for getting stuck and blaming the game for having bad level design, despite how the game outright tells players to shoot every block to find a way forward. The game would eventually get an easy mode where damage recieved is lessened.

** Expert 100-Mario Challenge and Gnat Attack in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'' are generally perceived as this. The former is hated for the FakeDifficulty of many of its levels, and the latter is hated for being [[TimedMission very]] [[ContinuingIsPainful unforgiving]]. The game's post-release updates added Hard Gnat Attack (which is ''especially'' hated for its difficulty, which mainly results from its [[ZergRush droves]] of Bomb Flies in every level) and Super Expert 100-Mario Challenge (reviled for having particularly devious levels).

** However, [[ItsEasySoItSucks the inverse of this trope]] is far more common; both of the ''Investigations'' games are commonly lambasted for being way too forgiving, and ''Dual Destinies'' is also criticized due to the fact that the main lawyer(s) will often exchange dialogue that completely gives away what you're supposed to do.

* ''VideoGame/Shinobi2002'' isn't just a hard game, it is a NintendoHard game. Regular enemies are fairly easy enough, but there are [[CheckpointStarvation no checkpoints in levels]] unless you reach a boss, limites continues so you can reset the stage if the boss kills you too many times anyway, the dreaded BottomlessPit that instantly kills you all over the place and precarious platforming ''and enemies'' over them, and some downright merciless boss fights to boot. And if that wasn't enough, from the second stage onwards your cursed sword will feed on your health bar if you don't kill fast enough, turning the rest of the game into a TimedMission. Reviewers thought the gameplay was cool and had potential, but were quick to critically pan the utterly brutal challenge the game throws out. ''VideoGame/NightshadeKunoichi'' directly alleviated a number of these issues for a much more fair game while still having challenge -- and then bombed because of InvisibleAdvertising.

* ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'', for all its reputation as the face of {{Rhythm Game}}s in the West, has a surprisingly [[NintendoHard steep learning curve]], as evidenced by the countless players who pop in a credit, make [[NoobBridge common newcomer mistakes]] like returning their feet to the center after every step, have to take time to associate each of the four lanes with each of the four cardinal-direction arrows under their feet, and then swear off the game (and maybe even rhythm games as a whole) after failing a song or two, often due to embarrassment. In fact, by modern rhythm game standards, it's not quite friendly to new rhythm game players for these reasons, especially compared to games that are operated with the player's hands or which have a stronger association between on-screen objects and the player's inputs.

* ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'', for all its reputation as the face of {{Rhythm Game}}s in the West, has a surprisingly [[NintendoHard steep learning curve]], as evidenced by the countless players who pop in a credit, make [[NoobBridge common newcomer mistakes]] like returning their feet to the center after every step, have to take time to associate each of the four lanes with each of the four cardinal-direction arrows under their feet, and then swear off the game (and maybe even rhythm games as a whole) after failing a song or two, often due to embarrassment. In fact, by modern rhythm game standards, it's not quite friendly to new rhythm game players for these reasons, especially compared to games that are operated with the player's hands or which have a stronger association between on-screen objects and the player's inputs. It's not uncommon for people to swear off rhythm games altogether because their first experience was an embarrassing attempt to play ''DDR''.

* ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'', for all its reputation as the face of {{Rhythm Game}}s in the West, has a surprisingly [[NintendoHard steep learning curve]], as evidenced by the countless players who pop in a credit, make [[NoobBridge common newcomer mistakes]] like returning their feet to the center after every step, have to take time to associate each of the four lanes with each of the four cardinal-direction arrows under their feet, and then swear off the game (and maybe even rhythm games as a whole) after failing a song or two, often due to embarrassment. In fact, by modern rhythm game standards, it's not quite friendly to new rhythm game players for these reasons, especially compared to games that are operated with the player's hands or which have a stronger association between on-screen objects and the player's inputs.

* The ''VideoGame/DoDonPachi'' series is already hard enough, but ''[=DoDonPachi=] dai ou jou'' in particular gets a fair bit of criticism for pumping up the difficulty but without doing much to make the game more fun or accessible for people who may not be highly-skilled at BulletHell games. The game's Hyper mechanic certainly doesn't help, as the player is forced to use a Hyper if they have one in stock, and using Hypers raises the game's [[DynamicDifficulty rank]], something that can only be mitigated by bombing or dying. The ''[=DoDonPachi=] dai ou jou Black Label'' revision fixes up some of the rank-related criticisms, but the [=PS2=] port of ''DOJ'' is based on the original "White Label" instead and it took years for ''Black Label'' to be released legally (and even then the sole port of it ended up being regarded as a PortingDisaster) and to be emulated in MAME (alongside the original "White Label" build).

** This was also the case with ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'', though to a less severe degree.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' got a low review from Gamespot for being too hard and being too similar to the previous games. Although the same review flacks the game for [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking lacking]] [[MinorInjuryOverreaction Mii]] [[UnpleasableFanbase support]], most do agree that Radiant Dawn is much harder than it needs to be; even the first chapter, typically a "get into the flow of things" segment of Fire Emblem games, is hard to surpass. It doesn't help that all the difficulty settings for the American release are one-notch higher than in Japan, making Normal to Hard, etc.

* ''VideoGame/{{Deathsmiles}}''[='=]'s 360 port was released not only in Japan, but also in North America and eventually PAL territories. When it was initially released in North America, [[DifficultyByRegion a lot of the slowdown present in the Japanese version was removed, making the game more difficult]]. Most players didn't seem to notice or mind, but a subset of players was particularly upset about this change, some even calling the game an outright PortingDisaster. The amusing part is, most of these complaining players are players who are experienced with the game. The game has since been patched to match the Japanese version in slowdown behavior.

Even to those who seek games that are monstrously hard though, [[EveryoneHasStandards there is a point where things can get too challenging and a game asks too much of the player]]. This is where this trope comes in, when a games difficulty is so high it actively makes it less fun to play for most gamers.

Even to those who seek games that are monstrously hard though, [[EveryoneHasStandards there is a point where things can get too challenging and a game asks too much of the player.]] This is where this trope comes in, when a games difficulty is so high it actively makes it less fun to play for most gamers.

-->-- '''WebVideo/ThirdRateGamer''', on ''VideoGame/RocketKnightAdventures''

** The Conquest path of VideoGame/FireEmblemFates received a noticeably lower score than Birthright or Revelation from, yet again, Gamespot because it's too hard and doesn't let you grind.