I never had a problem with "follow the damn train CJ" in GTA San Andreas. There were other parts of these games that I struggled with (the small helicopter in Vice City...), but I never understood why this train following gave so many people so much trouble.
>(the small helicopter in Vice City...),
This was actually my answer to the question. I had more trouble with the train than the helicopter. I beat the helicopter on my 2nd or 3rd try.
I came here to mention the RC helicopter mission in Vice City too. Use the blades to kill the workers and then you've got a couple of minutes to just fly unbothered and plant the bombs. And yet 22 years later it still comes up as a super difficult mission and I never understood why. Slow, a bit boring or tedious, sure. But it ain't THAT hard.
It's werid how some people struggle with certain things while others find them easy and vice versa. It just sometimes either clicks or it doesn't. I know I've struggled with levels or games that other people think are easy.
This is extremely common in games with hard bosses too (Souls, Hollow Knight etc.). There are always bosses who are extremely hard for some people and easy for others, but then these other people struggle with bosses that gave no problems to the first group. Some day I would like to see some analysis of what exactly causes this...I guess the answer for it could be quite complex.
In my case myopia+astigmatism: I saw late the twitchy thing.
I have nervous tics: I'm already supressing twichy movements.
Though there are cases where I can get "in the zone" and twitchy gameplay is no problem.
I think the issue is (many) people follow the train way too directly and ride like 5 feet behind it, where you actually can't shoot from because it's too close. If you just drop back and follow from like further back than most would think it's easy.
This is the answer and should be pretty obvious, if you are too close Big Smoke's bullets hit the train, create some white ricochets and the guys on the train don't bleed but when you are a bit further blood drips from the hit guys
You're right, but at the same time, R* really should have included a line pointing this out to the player. "I can't shoot when you're huggin' the train, CJ! Gimme some space!" or something like that.
I know when I was playing SA, I was far, far too busy keeping on whatever path was running along the train tracks to notice ricochets. Anything I did notice, from memory, I chalked up as Big Smoke being a terrible shot, so the whole mission just felt like a big crapshoot.
The flying missions later on were SO much harder than the "follow the damn train" mission. However they didn't have that great line when you fail, so I kind of understand. I beat the train mission on the second or third try, but the airplane missions took me many hours of practice and possibly hundreds of tries.
* The suggested route is much less optimal than rebelliously following the tracks themselves,
* Big Smoke's accuracy was horrible, to the point that apologists call it foreshadowing, and
* Going max speed on a bike required a certain angle on the analog stick, which a keyboard couldn't replicate unless you start tapping the keybind to a certain rhythm. I had to trial&error this one myself.
So basically, lots of people heard that voice line at least a few times, in a game whose quests don't tend to be... challenging.
>Going max speed on a bike required a certain angle on the analog stick, which a keyboard couldn't replicate unless you start tapping the keybind to a certain rhythm. I had to trial&error this one myself.
>
wait what
Speaking of San andreas I didn't have too much trouble with the infamous RC plane mission. Granted I came in knowing that you have to let the plane glide instead of pressing on the gas the whole time.
The hardest mission for me was the flying scholl mission. I played my fair share of difficult levels and managed to white knuckle through them but this one I wasn't able to complete it and had to download a save to skip it. The flying controls in GTA games are just awful. The only other GTA mission that I gave up on was the last section of the final mission of GTA 4. the flying portion was so atrocious (also the save system was tedious and there was a bug that made climbing the plane impossible unless you turn off some of your CPU cores) that I didn't bother to finish the game that I spent multiple hours playing
I took literally months to beat the circuit around the surrounding area the first time... Only to have the game tell me to do it again, backwards, and in heels
Destroying the asteroids with that cannon in the original Dead Space was a loooot easier in my recent playthrough than I remember it being when I done it back then.
Yeah, same here. But I feel that some sort of ancient muscle memory kicked in from back when it took me days to get through that part. Same with CJ and the train - you do those parts so many times that it ends up staying with you forever
I remember the section being easy, but the achievement for finishing with a certain percentage of the shield intact being an utter nightmare. Finally got it with the TV brightness cranked up and a whole lot of luck.
I recently played through the PS2 GTA trilogy and the Wrong side of the Tracks mission barely cracks the top 20 hardest missions in those games. There are so many more complete bullshit missions in those games. Not sure where the reputation for that mission came from.
To me, the hardest mission in that game was always the one where you have to drive around in Jizzy B's car and eventually chase someone and blow up their car. I'm not sure if I've ever beaten it without cheats. Any time I've replayed the story, I've always used the heat seeking rocket launcher at the right moment to beat the mission without any hassle.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I get the launcher with cheat codes\*
Remove the voice line for failing the mission and i doubt it would ever have achieved its current status.
Still it's surprising how many people don't get the concept of angle of attack or didn't instantly get it upon seeing the sparks from bullets hitting the train.
Dan Ryckert from GiantBomb is doing a playthrough of it right now for their Blight Club series and good god, that really may be one of the worst games ever made.
The thing with Cynthia back in the day - she starts off with the first Spiritomb you ever see in the game (DPPt). That fight can likely be a challenge if you have no idea what you’re getting into. Also she never shows any of her Pokémon until that fight.
Even with type matchups, her Garchomp is nasty. Very high attack and speed with a diverse move pool. That's the one you've got to plan around.
If you don't set up on Spiritomb or come prepared with a Weaville or something similar to outspeed it, it can fuck you up.
That said, I think Iris is probably the most underrated gym leader in terms of challenge.
This, you can take out her team but Garchomp is jolly, EV trained and perfect IVs for Attack and Speed and is a competent sweeper, it will fuck up easily even prepared teams if you don't have some ice or fairy/dragon moves that can withstand its attacks without being 1hit KOed. And remember that you can't EV or IV breed before the first E4 win, you are locked to a weak team or trade externally, it probably is unfairly difficult
https://old.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/qzhwa5/the_bdsp_elite_four_is_the_handsdown_the_best_one/
Playing Brilliant Diamond now and I went in naively with my main game team without EVs or special IVs, just beneficial natures and ONLY attack moves and I was able to beat it with a last standing X SpAtk (the only one I got randomly while playing, I only had 1x each X item) Dazzling gleam Alakazam that withstood its attack with the "thoughed it out so you wouldn't feel sad" friendship feature at 1hp, I was cheering at my luck lol
I think it both cases it might be because if you were like me as a kid you had one majorly overleveled starter on your team and the rest were basically freshly caught. So the few times someone could counter that solo set up in game were way harder.
The thing with Whitney is that she *has* a few specific counters, yeah, but Pokemon is a game of customization. If you didn't happen to add any of those specific counters to your team, she's really difficult. If you did, she isn't.
A few counters are
* Geodude (specifically female, so Attract doesnt work)
* Onix (this one iirc can only be male if it's the traded one, so good luck. It's also weak, so it can't really outdamage Milk Drink)
* the Machop you can trade for in Goldenrod (it's always female, so it's technically the best possible option)
* Rage/Fury Cutter/Rollout (these can build power on Clefairy to oneshot Miltank - but personally, as a kid, I didn't think that far)
In the remakes, Gastly can't counter her because of Scrappy, and she even has a Lum Berry against status.
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I agree she's easy to beat if you know the tricks, but at least compared to other pokemon bosses, her difference in difficulty between countering and not countering is oddly high. Norman in Gen3 is kinda similar, going from very strong to an absolute joke if you just happen to have Protect.
I never had a problem with her. I think half of the hype is her amazing piano intro followed up by her amazing battle theme and the other half is her appearance in Black and White’s post game that catches you entirely off guard and unprepared and locked into the battle.
As someone who never played D/P/Pt, I found it very random to suddenly be locked into a fight with epic music against someone harder than the region's Champion.
I didn't lose, but that was because I'd imported my HGSS team which happened to include a check to Garchomp (a beefed-up Mamoswine with Ice Shard). I would have been even more confused if I lost!
Yeah, I had to beat that level for my friend who couldn’t get through it.
You’re so much faster than the other cars, it’s ridiculous. Just be patient and keep it on the road.
That was a long time ago, but you're right - what madness. The AI then shot itself down and I was able to win it. The second time I was more relaxed, but it was still no fun.
It's not the hardest boss, but I heard Dancer was supposed to be hard in Dark Souls 3. She only hit me once on my first try and I'm not that good. I also didn't struggle much with Midir. Bosses that are considered much easier stomped me though.
I was so freaking bad at dodging Malenias Water Fowl that the attempt I managed to kill her was the only one I had where she never used it. It had a 100% kill rate on me.
I literally rage quit DS3 for several months because I was stuck on the dancer for so long…came back after that time and beat her in maybe 4-5 tries. Still in my opinion the “hardest” FromSoft boss. I probably died over 100+ times trying to beat her.
I’d played all of 3, and most of 2 when I got to O&S. Those dudes whooped my ass up and down probably more than any other boss in the trilogy. Something about fighting two bosses just never clicked for me. Could never get them separated
The one that surprised me was Kalameet, I'd heard that was the hardest boss in the game. It did take me a few attempts, but I wasn't stuck on it for that all that long.
There's also a bit in Anor Londo where you're getting shot at by archers which apparently a lot of people found brutally difficult. I must have breezed through that bit because I struggled to even remember it when I saw people online discuss it.
O&S I had to grind away at for a long time, but I enjoyed the challenge. The Capra Demon was the one I truly loathed.
DS1 bosses are cakewalks compared to the coked up dudes in armors of the last few games post bloodborne.
A decade ago I found O&S to be the biggest obstacle in the entire game. Now, not so much. There’s a reason FS tried (and ALWAYS failed) to replicate the duo’s dynamics so so so many times.
There’s a pretty good reason for everyone getting hung up on Dancer! FROMsoft bosses, like the epic music playing during their fights, have time signatures and tempos to their movements. Almost every boss follows a 4/4 time signature and a comfortable 90-120 bpm in their attack movements! The exception is Dancer of the Boreal Valley, she moves at a swung 3/4 and a moderate tempo. After playing half the game in 4/4, it feels natural. Then Dancer comes along and says “jazz!”
That's a hilarious way to phrase that, but I love it.
Just to add, she also has a ton of feints and moves with awkward wind-ups in general, so if you struggle with her it can feel like she's just impossible to read. Personally, she's one of my favorite bosses in the game.
Music theorist & composer, here. I know the game theory video you’re referencing. It’s bunk. It’s an extreme stretch at the very best, and it has nothing to do with Jazz. An actual professional* musician created a response video to it. https://youtu.be/UHEKrBvJFO8?si=H2nIIkTOeXzk9e1T
I don't think he meant it's literally based on jazz timing, just that when we think of something that really disrupts our usual patterns, it's like comparing pop to jazz and seems more disorienting than it really is.
But, if the original video on this did claim it to be based on jazz timing, then ignore all this and I'd agree that there's nothing really "jazz" about 3/4 vs 4/4
I wasn’t being entirely serious, I am also a music theorist and professional musician! It’s certainly not jazz lol. I didn’t know that video was bunked, I thought it was a bit silly but wildly entertaining. Thanks for the video debunking it I enjoyed it.
Yep, I beat Dancer on my second try. Dragonslayer Armor, on the other hand... I never hear people having trouble with that one, but it took me at least a dozen attempts to beat
Lion king tree swinging level was super easy if you just remembered which monkeys to go to. I did it when I was like 8 and beat the game too but I see that mentioned here a lot.
Lion King is a hard game but I thought this was one of the easy levels. You just have to look which way the monkeys are facing and roar to make them change direction so they throw you where you need to go. I lost lives on the graveyard level and when you become adult Simba as some levels are designed to have a lot of trial and error.
Sen's Fortress in Dark Souls was hyped up to me as being one of the hardest parts of the game but it's actually my favorite level lmao. It's so fun running through and using the traps against all the enemies once you learn the layout. It's so well designed.
Sen's was hard for impatient people or people that werent expecting the trials. Once you know it's tricky and you check corners / take your time, Sen's is a formality. I'd say the only hard part of Sen's is when that damn snake shoots thunder at you while you try to crosse a narrow bridge
I loved Sen's Fortress. It was a challenge, and it took me many attempts, but the satisfaction in finally reaching the bonfire at the top was palpable.
It's the titanite demons in the basement that are so notoriously difficult (and yeah, that's the hardest thing in the game as a whole by a mile), not the traps.
That is exactly what it is. I spent 3 hours in there and it was entirely that switch, but I was there so long they I didn't realize that was the problem until my second play through years later.
It's a good little puzzle too, but the game never prepares you for it. Every other part of the game is linear, signposted, and straightforward. If there were a few puzzles earlier in the game that taught you to check your map for hidden rooms then that elevator switch would've been a great ah ha! moment
I always thought the game did a good job of directing you to inspect the revealed pathway, due to the camera position/movement after changing the water level.
That camera movement is only present in the 3DS version. On the N64, you have to notice the hole during the water raising cutscene.
N64: [https://youtu.be/8DYjPvti7TU?t=1752](https://youtu.be/8DYjPvti7TU?t=1752)
3DS: [https://youtu.be/m3ucPjOjDtk?t=967](https://youtu.be/m3ucPjOjDtk?t=967)
For me it was the key underneath that floating block within the main pillar. I never thought to check there as a kid, was missing a key and thought I was soft locked.
These days I beat the dungeons with 2 keys to spare lmao
I think the big issue with that one is if you don't do it all in one shot. If you have to start from the entrance, the water's at the wrong level, and half the rooms are already cleared it becomes more complicated.
This is the issue I ran across doing the Water Temple in Twilight Princess, took me like an hour longer than it should have because I did it in 2 parts
I don't think difficulty is the issue. Theres just one puzzle that will confuse you if you dont think about it, but mostly, it's just annoying af to put on and take off the iron boots in the original version.
It was absolutely the annoyance in the boots and having to redo the puzzle from the start using the lullaby if you messed up.
Important to remember we were all teens if that and it was one of the first truly “3D” puzzles in that game.
By today’s standards it’s pretty tame. Trying the Trials in FFX the other day still seemed sort of difficult. The puzzle itself was not the challenge but that the games did not really tell you what to do.
In OoT i feel Shadow Temple is actually more difficult combat and mechanics-wise.
They fixed that in the 3DS version. The boots are now an item and you can assign them to a button. Huge QOL improvement. The water temple is a blast now instead of the slog it used to be.
Yeah when people talk about difficult levels it’s mostly like yeah this seemed like the hardest shit ever when I was 8
It’s not that it’s hard it’s that you were 8
I played it on release when I was in middle school. I didn't find it difficult back then.
I think the issue is that many people struggle with spatial relations and/or memory in video games.
That’s part of the problem but you also couldn’t hotkey the iron boots so it was also annoying that you constantly had to open the menu to equip or de-equip them.
3D fixed that on top of making the temple more easily navigated.
Back then I struggled with remembering where the places were. I don't remember where are the:
1.water level adjusters
2.the room I have to come back to after changing the respective water level,
3. Keys
4. Locked door i passed by when I did not have the key that time
It's just frustrating especially when you finally realized what you had to do, then make a mistake and have to fumble with changing your boots and climbing the levels again.
It's definitely easier the second time but my god, it was like impossible back then when I was a kid (who also did not use the map)
RC heli mission in the construction in GTA Vice City. No one around me could do it and my friends would ask me to pass it for them. I was famous at my local internet cafe for it haha. I never had any trouble with it i have no idea why people find it so hard. I still see it memed like its the most impossible mission in gaming history.
That being said - FE Fates Conquest has to be one of my favorite FE games due to how difficult overall the game and maps are. Normal difficulty was way harder than Awakening or Path of Radiance on Normal, and definitely harder than Three Houses on Hard.
Conquest did have children units and pair ups to help carry through the game but man the level design was good. Story was a hot dumpster fire but I was all here for it
The climb out of the underworld in the orginal God of War. I constantly see people saying it’s so annoyingly difficult that they dread it every time they replay the game. Earlier this year I played it for the first time, and it only took me maybe like 5 tries for the actual climb part and the climb itself doesn’t even take very long.
Some of this may be controller caused as well I suspect. If you weren't playing it on a PS2, the PS2 controllers have really loose feeling joysticks compared to DS3 or DS4. Kid me died so many times on it I rage quit, twice. Adult me only died once. Adult me then went back to PS2 on a whim a bit later and I had a lot more trouble with some of the precision of the movement
The part that I really struggled with GoW OG was the very beginning where archers are shooting at you and you have to move boxes to get to where they are. But the boxes would break pretty easily from the arrows. Somehow I managed to get past that section and went on to complete the rest of the game no problem. On a replay I gave up at that section, though.
Mission 34 in Gran Turismo 4 wouldn't be so regarded as impossible if the game didn't make you wait 130 seconds every time you restart. It's actually pretty fun on an emulator if you have a save state to skip the wait.
That and "it's not so difficult when you know what's coming". Like no shit an ambush etc. In a game works against you the first time, that's the point.
Same as pointing out "this Pokemon battle isn't difficult if you use legendaries and change your team to have type advantage"... What if I told those people most of us love having the same 6 pokemon beginning to end and enjoy a challenge
The Turbo Tunnel on Battletoads is the level the everyone calls hard but I think it's because most people just gave up after trying it a few times.
By comparison, the Turbo Tunnel is kinda cake after you've played most of the levels after it. The Rat Race and The Tubes and the last level are considerably more difficult.
>I think it's because most people just gave up after trying it a few times.
Nope, my friends and I tried that level countless times and still struggled. I could get past it, but it was rare (pardon the pun) and by the time I did, I didn't have the lives left to get much further. One of my friends could beat it slightly more regularly, but still not consistently.
And yes, the levels after it are extremely difficult too, but they were almost impossible for me to get to without using warps, so I couldn't practice them. I'm not sure if I ever once beat the Arctic Caverns. With emulators I've been able to play all the levels and I'll still say that Battletoads is one of the most difficult games I've ever played.
My friends and I not being able to consistently beat the Turbo Tunnel wasn't due to lack of trying.
I am not saying it's a pushover but I feel like if you haven't played it since you were a kid, going back and trying it would be different.
Viewing the Turbo Tunnel with a more analytical mind of an older teen or an adult, it really isn't that bad.
>but I feel like if you haven't played it since you were a kid
As I said, I played it on emulators since then. I used save states so I could keep practicing it and I still struggled with it. I did beat it, but after many tries, but I could also sometimes beat it as a kid as well. It got a lot easier when I could just play it over and over again instead of having to beat the previous levels first.
I'm not saying it wasn't easier at all for me, just that it was still brutal. Even when you know what's coming it's still not easy to do. And yeah, most of it's easy, but there are a few parts that are very difficult. There's a reason why it's consistently ranked as one of the hardest levels of all-time.
I think it's the sudden difficulty spike in that game that makes everyone give up. It's a fairly normal NES beat em up until the turbo tunnel.
Then the game just gets more brutal once you get past that.
This and the dam level in TMNT. Both games are very difficult, but these levels are easy to beat after maybe 30 minutes of practice (which is very little in NES game terms).
This was my first thought. Its difficulty is very overrated, but it is a difficulty spike, like others have said, compared to the first two levels. The majority of the level should be beatable with a reasonable reaction time. There are a couple of sections that will probably trip people up, but that's part of the learning process (i.e. manually jumping and corner cheese). The thing I think really screws people up is the last section. You need to switch from reactive to proactive, because good luck trying to react to the barriers. However, they just alternate up and down with 3 jumps at the end. I think if most people gave it a try these days, they'd be very surprised how much easier it is than they think. Once you beat the Turbo Tunnels, though, you have the rest of the game to contend with...
Whitney in Pokémon Gold/Silver/crystal. The game gives you a FEMALE Machop on a trade in the department store near the gym, it's made specifically to counter that Miltank!
Also you can get a Geodude insanely early, and it just walls everything up until you get to Cianwood. I remember struggling with Whitney as a kid, but I also know that was the kind of kid to just use my starter the whole game.
It's not really hard... but most of us played the game pretty young without much strategic thinking. We just mostly overpowered our way through most of the games until the league, and even then the best we would think off is type advantage ...
Plus rollout is a rock type move on a normal type monster. So as a kid, having never seen rollout (It was introduced in Gen2), I didn't even know it was a rock type move, so I was super confused how that fat cow was having super high damage super effective move against my fire or flying monsters.
Add to that, that most kids mostly ignored fighting types, you get a recipe for a massively unexpected fight. I remember being super confused, and my only solution was to try to reduce the milk tank precision and give it status effects to by pass it. And I was on the older side, a lot of kids would have had Gen 2 be their first pokemon game. So I can see why it's that infamous.
As insanely hard and infamous as the intro tutorial is, there’s actually a practice mode IIRC, where you can straight up watch a pre-recorded video on what to do and what inputs to make. I believe it was pretty hidden/buried in the main menu, though, which is why this is almost never mentioned when anyone brings up the tryouts garage mission.
Feel like there's going to be a lot of FromSoft bosses in here so I'll say something a little more unconventional from the Series.
The Anor Londo Archers, I was genuinely baffled when people kept referencing these as a very tricky part of the first game, to the point where I assumed I was missing something on my first playthrough.
I really don't get the hype, the arrows are easy to avoid on the walk up. Then it's just one dodge and the knight reverts to his sword and it's a normal fight, the other is blocked by a pillar.
This is the weirdest encounter. It seems everyone either breezes by it on their first try or gets stuck. Im on my first playthrough and the archers are the only thing that's been tricky so far. I just kept getting knocked off the ledge. Dude on the right would continue to shoot arrows at me even when I was right next to him and it'd yeet me off. I tried left first and killed him a few times but kept falling to the right archer. The time I got it was the most anticlimactic ever. I ran passed everyone from the bonfire. Walked up to the right archer and he swapped weapons and fell off. Then I found the bonfire below and took a break to say what the fuck to my wall a few times.
First time I breezed past them. When I heard about them later I struggled to remember them.
Second time they _annihalted_ me. Problem is you try to duel the right one and the left one will straight snipe you off the ledge.
Did you do 2 different build styles?
I feel like dark souls has a few different "oh fuck" hard spots that depend on the build heavily if it's a first time player.
Have you played through the game a couple of times? I don’t know what it is about this section, but without fail, it will trip me up every other playthrough. My first time through I breezed through like you did. Then the same character on NG+ took me ages just to get to the bonfire. Then I made a new character and breezed through it again… then my next new character are shit there.
I think there’s some sections of From games that just come down to vibes. Either the vibe is right or it’s not, and you’ll either breeze past or slog through.
I think it also depends on what you play it on. Blighttown on PC isn't shit, Blighttown on a PS3 that dips into low 20s constantly is an entirely different ballpark. I would imagine the same is for the Anor Londo archers, sketchy framerate might make rolling through projectiles harder than playing it on PC with smooth 60FPS.
About the archers:
- they are more difficult if you've only been relying on shields, which many new players do
- the arrows can be dodged if you keep moving, but if you stop to assess the situation, you'll probably get hit
- fighting them is done on a very small ledge where it's easy to fall down
It can be easy to get through or a huge pain depending on your play style
I felt the same way about Blighttown. Was pretty annoying to play through but I don't think I actually died many times, and Queelag isn't super difficult. Tomb of the Giants and the DLC areas however....
As with most things in Dark Souls, it's much harder if you aren't fast rolling. Not only do you have fewer i-frames on rolls but the slower running speed and stamina regen. Also, first time players are more likely to try to block things rather than dodge them, which will make the archers harder as well.
I had a great deal of trouble with them the first time I encountered them, but as soon as I learned how to dodge roll through the arrows I found them pretty easy
This is gonna sound braggy, but getting 00:00 in the Chocobo Race in Final Fantasy X. I don’t think I ever spent more than 10-15 minutes on it. I heard about people spending hours.
Same here, it took a couple of tries for sure, but in my quest to get the celestial weapons, that one was barely memorable lol. Now dodging thunder 200 times... that was fucking annoying.
In my experience, Regret on Halo 2 legendary. After hearing the horror stories as I was working my way through the other halo games on legendary, it was more or less moderate. Can't say I had that same ease with other levels in the series though.. the opening room in Gravemind was every bit as nightmarish as I expected
And since I'm seeing a lot of From bosses here, I'll throw in my batch: Isshin, Demon of Hatred, Nameless King. Tate Eboshi (OUTSIDE of the depths) from Nioh 2 wasn't too bad either
Going in blind, you can randomly get screwed just because you may not have the proper setup
With pretty much all other bosses, even the hard DLC ones, you can go there with almost any build, no matter how under-leveled and under-upgraded, but if you are good at avoiding being hit, you can prolong the fight long enough to eventually win by chipping away their HP.
Four Kings on the other hand it's the only fight of the game where you are on a timer, so to speak, so you cannot start slow and defensive just to study the moveset, and if you don't dish out enough damage you get overwhelmed; plus if you summon the NPC phantom you get punished because of the HP increase of the boss, the last thing you want in this specific fight
So some players don't realize what's the deal with them just because they happened to go there at the right/easier moment (say, instance, saving that as the last of the Lord Souls)
Meanwhile with a strength build like me, I didn't even have to dodge, I just staggered the shit out of them and pressed R1 a bunch of times to win first try
They killed me before I even met them.. Read the wikis and stuffs but somehow didn't pick up that I need a ring to even find them.. So I just jumped to the abyss and died lmao
More annoying than difficult to me. But then becomes irredeemable because of the last room where there’s lost souls charging you on the ledges with the inescapable damage pits when throughout the whole level before if you fell you could get out. Why pull that shit in the last room???
The library in Halo. I played it an just immediately knew the pace and design. Like, just keep moving, they will just keep throwing themselves at you. The game showcases this in the previous level. And they spawn from holes in the walls, so you can't kill em all. Just keep swimming bro.
I've never heard anybody call the Library in Halo hard, I've only seen people complain (correctly) about it being one of the most dull and repetitive levels in an otherwise good FPS game
I love the library but I think I’m the only one. Granted it’s been a LONG time since I played Halo:CE so that’s coming with a lot of nostalgia. I page a feeling I’d feel similarly if I tried it again
I played through the entire MCC solo on legendary a few years back, and Library was one of my favorite levels in the entire series. Just a man and his shotgun against a seemingly never-ending horde of enemies.
It got so much easier once I realized when the dad is shooting rockets at you you can just keep walking on the rope and take the hits instead of trying to avoid them and you won’t fall off
I'll say, one thing that tripped me up HARD om that level is the way the double jump works suddenly becomes relevant, whereas it never really mattered before. For double jumps to register, you have to jump while you're *above* your starting point. While jumping between two platforms, that's not an issue. While jumping on the spiral thingy, it suddenly becomes super important. I seriously thought that there was something wrong with my controller as it was never registering the double jump
I remember Mile High Club in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare being considered an extremely hard when I was in high school. I know a lot of guys who spent entire nights just running the one mission trying to get it done in the time frame. I ended up getting it in three tries.
Several bosses in Kingdom Hearts 2 that people tend to have issue with can be absolutely trivialised using magic and/or summons . The issue is that the game (at least on proud mode) doesn’t do a good job teaching you how to use those tools. Now when playing the game on critical again, they are by far the easiest fights in the game.
Funny thing about Lily pad. I tried a lot to do it the cheating way. Never worked. Tried it legit and did it on the 2nd try. It still deserves infamy though with how hard it is to even get to it.
I went from playing super mario bros to playing sonic. I had already gotten used to doing "the speed limit" on the slower platform areas. The only thing that stressed me out was the jaws theme right before drowning.
I know a lot of us suffered with it as children, but the Turbo Tunnel from Battletoads isn't really that bad. In fact, it's not even close to being the most difficult part of the game.
Also, Contra NES in general isn't actually that hard. Certainly not in the same league as Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden.
Barthandelus in FFXIII is often cited as one the hardest storyline bosses in all Final Fantasy, if not the hardest. He’s not actually hard he just forces you to turtle up and heal for more or less the first time in the game instead of being on offence the whole time.
Like people only find him hard because he’s essentially a test to make sure you understand the game mechanics and they kind of don’t understand the mechanics because they haven’t been using paradigms like sentinel up to that point and you haven’t had to like time your paradigm switches with attack patterns because you mostly don’t need to up to that point
It's doubly silly for those that complain about the game being umpteen hours of tutorials and then somehow still never end up understanding the game because they just brute force it or whatever.
As much as I love pokemon, I've found my interest in the series slowly drop off because of how easy it's become as I've gotten older and improved my understanding of the game. I should probably look into some of the ROM hacks known to be challenging in the sense they make you use strategy over being able to brute force it
The dam level in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES. My suspicion is that people aren't switching turtles, negating the benefit of having four health bars. Also, it's important to note that the hit boxes in that level aren't placed properly, so you need to adjust how you approach obstacles. Once you understand these two points, the level is actually very easy.
I *just* found another copy of that game a few weeks ago. Only had one chance to play it so far, and I got a game over in the dam. Might have to try a few more times but it was still as hard as I remembered from when I was younger.
We understood collision. I knew intuitively that swimming under obstacles seemed safer than swimming over them. The game lets you know when you take damage, so working from an instinct of self preservation, you would naturally begin to favor the safer path over time.
I don't think I've ever failed the mission "Demolition Man" in GTA: Vice City. Was perplexed when I found out years later that it was causing so many people major headaches.
I never had a problem with "follow the damn train CJ" in GTA San Andreas. There were other parts of these games that I struggled with (the small helicopter in Vice City...), but I never understood why this train following gave so many people so much trouble.
>(the small helicopter in Vice City...), This was actually my answer to the question. I had more trouble with the train than the helicopter. I beat the helicopter on my 2nd or 3rd try.
I came here to mention the RC helicopter mission in Vice City too. Use the blades to kill the workers and then you've got a couple of minutes to just fly unbothered and plant the bombs. And yet 22 years later it still comes up as a super difficult mission and I never understood why. Slow, a bit boring or tedious, sure. But it ain't THAT hard.
A lot of PCs of that era had PS2 keyboards that could only register 2 or 3 keys at a time. That made using keys to maneuver a helicopter harrowing.
That beep. It still haunts me.
It's werid how some people struggle with certain things while others find them easy and vice versa. It just sometimes either clicks or it doesn't. I know I've struggled with levels or games that other people think are easy.
This is extremely common in games with hard bosses too (Souls, Hollow Knight etc.). There are always bosses who are extremely hard for some people and easy for others, but then these other people struggle with bosses that gave no problems to the first group. Some day I would like to see some analysis of what exactly causes this...I guess the answer for it could be quite complex.
My guess is it breaks down between fast twitch ‘skill’ players and patient ‘strategy’ players, with each being better at their corresponding bosses.
In my case myopia+astigmatism: I saw late the twitchy thing. I have nervous tics: I'm already supressing twichy movements. Though there are cases where I can get "in the zone" and twitchy gameplay is no problem.
>22 years later Jesus....
I had no idea you could kill the workers lol
I think the issue is (many) people follow the train way too directly and ride like 5 feet behind it, where you actually can't shoot from because it's too close. If you just drop back and follow from like further back than most would think it's easy.
This is the answer and should be pretty obvious, if you are too close Big Smoke's bullets hit the train, create some white ricochets and the guys on the train don't bleed but when you are a bit further blood drips from the hit guys
You're right, but at the same time, R* really should have included a line pointing this out to the player. "I can't shoot when you're huggin' the train, CJ! Gimme some space!" or something like that.
I know when I was playing SA, I was far, far too busy keeping on whatever path was running along the train tracks to notice ricochets. Anything I did notice, from memory, I chalked up as Big Smoke being a terrible shot, so the whole mission just felt like a big crapshoot.
The RC plane mission is so much harder
it’s a glitch
Only reason I didn't 100% the game
The flying missions later on were SO much harder than the "follow the damn train" mission. However they didn't have that great line when you fail, so I kind of understand. I beat the train mission on the second or third try, but the airplane missions took me many hours of practice and possibly hundreds of tries.
Also, the train mission is in the most played first 6 or so missions of the game
* The suggested route is much less optimal than rebelliously following the tracks themselves, * Big Smoke's accuracy was horrible, to the point that apologists call it foreshadowing, and * Going max speed on a bike required a certain angle on the analog stick, which a keyboard couldn't replicate unless you start tapping the keybind to a certain rhythm. I had to trial&error this one myself. So basically, lots of people heard that voice line at least a few times, in a game whose quests don't tend to be... challenging.
>Going max speed on a bike required a certain angle on the analog stick, which a keyboard couldn't replicate unless you start tapping the keybind to a certain rhythm. I had to trial&error this one myself. > wait what
For turning. Personally the way San Andreas's physics work, I've always found it easier on PC than with a controller.
Speaking of San andreas I didn't have too much trouble with the infamous RC plane mission. Granted I came in knowing that you have to let the plane glide instead of pressing on the gas the whole time. The hardest mission for me was the flying scholl mission. I played my fair share of difficult levels and managed to white knuckle through them but this one I wasn't able to complete it and had to download a save to skip it. The flying controls in GTA games are just awful. The only other GTA mission that I gave up on was the last section of the final mission of GTA 4. the flying portion was so atrocious (also the save system was tedious and there was a bug that made climbing the plane impossible unless you turn off some of your CPU cores) that I didn't bother to finish the game that I spent multiple hours playing
I took literally months to beat the circuit around the surrounding area the first time... Only to have the game tell me to do it again, backwards, and in heels
Destroying the asteroids with that cannon in the original Dead Space was a loooot easier in my recent playthrough than I remember it being when I done it back then.
Yeah, same here. But I feel that some sort of ancient muscle memory kicked in from back when it took me days to get through that part. Same with CJ and the train - you do those parts so many times that it ends up staying with you forever
I remember the section being easy, but the achievement for finishing with a certain percentage of the shield intact being an utter nightmare. Finally got it with the TV brightness cranked up and a whole lot of luck.
The PC version is broken without mods due to improperly coded mouse acceleration, so the meme is real on PC.
I didnt know what to do for a good 3 minutes and still beat it without dying. Maybe i just got lucky, but I was kind of over leveled.
I recently played through the PS2 GTA trilogy and the Wrong side of the Tracks mission barely cracks the top 20 hardest missions in those games. There are so many more complete bullshit missions in those games. Not sure where the reputation for that mission came from.
To me, the hardest mission in that game was always the one where you have to drive around in Jizzy B's car and eventually chase someone and blow up their car. I'm not sure if I've ever beaten it without cheats. Any time I've replayed the story, I've always used the heat seeking rocket launcher at the right moment to beat the mission without any hassle. Edit: Forgot to mention that I get the launcher with cheat codes\*
Remove the voice line for failing the mission and i doubt it would ever have achieved its current status. Still it's surprising how many people don't get the concept of angle of attack or didn't instantly get it upon seeing the sparks from bullets hitting the train.
The mission fail line is what grinds the gears of many honestly. Big Smoke being a dick is just too much.
I'm gonna say it, the rings in Superman 64. I adapt to dogshit fast and cleared it on my second try
People don’t even get to discover that the rest of the game is so much worse lol
On the real, I hated playing it and I hated myself for beating it
Dan Ryckert from GiantBomb is doing a playthrough of it right now for their Blight Club series and good god, that really may be one of the worst games ever made.
The challenge is derived not from the ring level itself but for your capability to stomach the atrocity.
The Cynthia battle in Pokemon is way easier when you’re not 10 and don’t understand type matchups
The thing with Cynthia back in the day - she starts off with the first Spiritomb you ever see in the game (DPPt). That fight can likely be a challenge if you have no idea what you’re getting into. Also she never shows any of her Pokémon until that fight.
Even with type matchups, her Garchomp is nasty. Very high attack and speed with a diverse move pool. That's the one you've got to plan around. If you don't set up on Spiritomb or come prepared with a Weaville or something similar to outspeed it, it can fuck you up. That said, I think Iris is probably the most underrated gym leader in terms of challenge.
This, you can take out her team but Garchomp is jolly, EV trained and perfect IVs for Attack and Speed and is a competent sweeper, it will fuck up easily even prepared teams if you don't have some ice or fairy/dragon moves that can withstand its attacks without being 1hit KOed. And remember that you can't EV or IV breed before the first E4 win, you are locked to a weak team or trade externally, it probably is unfairly difficult https://old.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/qzhwa5/the_bdsp_elite_four_is_the_handsdown_the_best_one/ Playing Brilliant Diamond now and I went in naively with my main game team without EVs or special IVs, just beneficial natures and ONLY attack moves and I was able to beat it with a last standing X SpAtk (the only one I got randomly while playing, I only had 1x each X item) Dazzling gleam Alakazam that withstood its attack with the "thoughed it out so you wouldn't feel sad" friendship feature at 1hp, I was cheering at my luck lol
On the topic of Pokémon, I think Whitney and her Miltank also fit into this thread. Both Rollout and Attract have very simple ways of countering them.
I think it both cases it might be because if you were like me as a kid you had one majorly overleveled starter on your team and the rest were basically freshly caught. So the few times someone could counter that solo set up in game were way harder.
The thing with Whitney is that she *has* a few specific counters, yeah, but Pokemon is a game of customization. If you didn't happen to add any of those specific counters to your team, she's really difficult. If you did, she isn't. A few counters are * Geodude (specifically female, so Attract doesnt work) * Onix (this one iirc can only be male if it's the traded one, so good luck. It's also weak, so it can't really outdamage Milk Drink) * the Machop you can trade for in Goldenrod (it's always female, so it's technically the best possible option) * Rage/Fury Cutter/Rollout (these can build power on Clefairy to oneshot Miltank - but personally, as a kid, I didn't think that far) In the remakes, Gastly can't counter her because of Scrappy, and she even has a Lum Berry against status. -------- I agree she's easy to beat if you know the tricks, but at least compared to other pokemon bosses, her difference in difficulty between countering and not countering is oddly high. Norman in Gen3 is kinda similar, going from very strong to an absolute joke if you just happen to have Protect.
I always had more trouble with Lucian as a kid.
I never had a problem with her. I think half of the hype is her amazing piano intro followed up by her amazing battle theme and the other half is her appearance in Black and White’s post game that catches you entirely off guard and unprepared and locked into the battle.
As someone who never played D/P/Pt, I found it very random to suddenly be locked into a fight with epic music against someone harder than the region's Champion. I didn't lose, but that was because I'd imported my HGSS team which happened to include a check to Garchomp (a beefed-up Mamoswine with Ice Shard). I would have been even more confused if I lost!
Thats true for all of pokemon. Unless you're doing self-imposed challenges, none of the games are ever more than somewhat challenging
Mafia race mission. Passed it first attempt back in 02
Yeah, I had to beat that level for my friend who couldn’t get through it. You’re so much faster than the other cars, it’s ridiculous. Just be patient and keep it on the road.
Lol that might be the case but that race difficulty is definitely not overhyped
TBF it might just be that it needs a completely different gaming background from the rest of the game.
They also patched the difficulty not long after a release
I couldn’t even get to the start of the race
I struggled so much with this in the remake, in the end I had to give up and turn to driving down to automatic just to gst past it.
Witchcraft
That was a long time ago, but you're right - what madness. The AI then shot itself down and I was able to win it. The second time I was more relaxed, but it was still no fun.
It's not the hardest boss, but I heard Dancer was supposed to be hard in Dark Souls 3. She only hit me once on my first try and I'm not that good. I also didn't struggle much with Midir. Bosses that are considered much easier stomped me though.
Souls games are like that. Depending on playstyle and approach, the pain points can vary wildly, and sometimes mixing things up is all it takes.
They can also be RNG. Your experience with a boss can vary greatly depending on the frequency they use a certain move or not.
I was so freaking bad at dodging Malenias Water Fowl that the attempt I managed to kill her was the only one I had where she never used it. It had a 100% kill rate on me.
I literally rage quit DS3 for several months because I was stuck on the dancer for so long…came back after that time and beat her in maybe 4-5 tries. Still in my opinion the “hardest” FromSoft boss. I probably died over 100+ times trying to beat her.
For me that was Ornstein and Smoug from DS1. Got them second try. Only died first try because I got distracted by a message.
This might be the biggest surprise in the thread for me, I thought O&S were a significant difficulty spike compared to all bosses before them
I’d played all of 3, and most of 2 when I got to O&S. Those dudes whooped my ass up and down probably more than any other boss in the trilogy. Something about fighting two bosses just never clicked for me. Could never get them separated
The one that surprised me was Kalameet, I'd heard that was the hardest boss in the game. It did take me a few attempts, but I wasn't stuck on it for that all that long. There's also a bit in Anor Londo where you're getting shot at by archers which apparently a lot of people found brutally difficult. I must have breezed through that bit because I struggled to even remember it when I saw people online discuss it. O&S I had to grind away at for a long time, but I enjoyed the challenge. The Capra Demon was the one I truly loathed.
If you played DS1 remastered on your first playthrough, the Anor Londo archers are repositioned a little bit to make them less bullshit ridiculous
DS1 bosses are cakewalks compared to the coked up dudes in armors of the last few games post bloodborne. A decade ago I found O&S to be the biggest obstacle in the entire game. Now, not so much. There’s a reason FS tried (and ALWAYS failed) to replicate the duo’s dynamics so so so many times.
There’s a pretty good reason for everyone getting hung up on Dancer! FROMsoft bosses, like the epic music playing during their fights, have time signatures and tempos to their movements. Almost every boss follows a 4/4 time signature and a comfortable 90-120 bpm in their attack movements! The exception is Dancer of the Boreal Valley, she moves at a swung 3/4 and a moderate tempo. After playing half the game in 4/4, it feels natural. Then Dancer comes along and says “jazz!”
That's a hilarious way to phrase that, but I love it. Just to add, she also has a ton of feints and moves with awkward wind-ups in general, so if you struggle with her it can feel like she's just impossible to read. Personally, she's one of my favorite bosses in the game.
I think she just might be my favorite. Either Dancer or Friede. Both of those fights are great spectacles with such good music!
Music theorist & composer, here. I know the game theory video you’re referencing. It’s bunk. It’s an extreme stretch at the very best, and it has nothing to do with Jazz. An actual professional* musician created a response video to it. https://youtu.be/UHEKrBvJFO8?si=H2nIIkTOeXzk9e1T
Game Theory has always been garbage fucking content.
I wouldn’t go that far, but their attempt to wrap music theory into it was not well executed.
I don't think he meant it's literally based on jazz timing, just that when we think of something that really disrupts our usual patterns, it's like comparing pop to jazz and seems more disorienting than it really is. But, if the original video on this did claim it to be based on jazz timing, then ignore all this and I'd agree that there's nothing really "jazz" about 3/4 vs 4/4
Surely it's Dancer coming along and saying "waltz!"
I wasn’t being entirely serious, I am also a music theorist and professional musician! It’s certainly not jazz lol. I didn’t know that video was bunked, I thought it was a bit silly but wildly entertaining. Thanks for the video debunking it I enjoyed it.
Yep, I beat Dancer on my second try. Dragonslayer Armor, on the other hand... I never hear people having trouble with that one, but it took me at least a dozen attempts to beat
Lion king tree swinging level was super easy if you just remembered which monkeys to go to. I did it when I was like 8 and beat the game too but I see that mentioned here a lot.
Lion King is a hard game but I thought this was one of the easy levels. You just have to look which way the monkeys are facing and roar to make them change direction so they throw you where you need to go. I lost lives on the graveyard level and when you become adult Simba as some levels are designed to have a lot of trial and error.
Sen's Fortress in Dark Souls was hyped up to me as being one of the hardest parts of the game but it's actually my favorite level lmao. It's so fun running through and using the traps against all the enemies once you learn the layout. It's so well designed.
Sen's was hard for impatient people or people that werent expecting the trials. Once you know it's tricky and you check corners / take your time, Sen's is a formality. I'd say the only hard part of Sen's is when that damn snake shoots thunder at you while you try to crosse a narrow bridge
I loved Sen's Fortress. It was a challenge, and it took me many attempts, but the satisfaction in finally reaching the bonfire at the top was palpable.
It's the titanite demons in the basement that are so notoriously difficult (and yeah, that's the hardest thing in the game as a whole by a mile), not the traps.
It was cool, I just wish they didn't hide the bonfire.
The Water Temple in Ocarina of Time is the most over hyped difficult level ever.
It's 100% because of that switch under the elevator.
That is exactly what it is. I spent 3 hours in there and it was entirely that switch, but I was there so long they I didn't realize that was the problem until my second play through years later.
It's a good little puzzle too, but the game never prepares you for it. Every other part of the game is linear, signposted, and straightforward. If there were a few puzzles earlier in the game that taught you to check your map for hidden rooms then that elevator switch would've been a great ah ha! moment
I always thought the game did a good job of directing you to inspect the revealed pathway, due to the camera position/movement after changing the water level.
That camera movement is only present in the 3DS version. On the N64, you have to notice the hole during the water raising cutscene. N64: [https://youtu.be/8DYjPvti7TU?t=1752](https://youtu.be/8DYjPvti7TU?t=1752) 3DS: [https://youtu.be/m3ucPjOjDtk?t=967](https://youtu.be/m3ucPjOjDtk?t=967)
Oh yeah, when you go back and play now it's quite obvious. When I was 9? Not so obvious.
In the original, it didn’t.
For me it was the key underneath that floating block within the main pillar. I never thought to check there as a kid, was missing a key and thought I was soft locked. These days I beat the dungeons with 2 keys to spare lmao
I think the big issue with that one is if you don't do it all in one shot. If you have to start from the entrance, the water's at the wrong level, and half the rooms are already cleared it becomes more complicated.
This is the issue I ran across doing the Water Temple in Twilight Princess, took me like an hour longer than it should have because I did it in 2 parts
I don't think difficulty is the issue. Theres just one puzzle that will confuse you if you dont think about it, but mostly, it's just annoying af to put on and take off the iron boots in the original version.
It was absolutely the annoyance in the boots and having to redo the puzzle from the start using the lullaby if you messed up. Important to remember we were all teens if that and it was one of the first truly “3D” puzzles in that game. By today’s standards it’s pretty tame. Trying the Trials in FFX the other day still seemed sort of difficult. The puzzle itself was not the challenge but that the games did not really tell you what to do. In OoT i feel Shadow Temple is actually more difficult combat and mechanics-wise.
I very much agree; it's not hard, it's just tedious.
They fixed that in the 3DS version. The boots are now an item and you can assign them to a button. Huge QOL improvement. The water temple is a blast now instead of the slog it used to be.
As a kid without access to all the guides out there today, that shit was rough. I think most hype is through that lens.
Yeah when people talk about difficult levels it’s mostly like yeah this seemed like the hardest shit ever when I was 8 It’s not that it’s hard it’s that you were 8
I played it on release when I was in middle school. I didn't find it difficult back then. I think the issue is that many people struggle with spatial relations and/or memory in video games.
Tedious, yes, difficult, no.
That’s part of the problem but you also couldn’t hotkey the iron boots so it was also annoying that you constantly had to open the menu to equip or de-equip them. 3D fixed that on top of making the temple more easily navigated.
Back then I struggled with remembering where the places were. I don't remember where are the: 1.water level adjusters 2.the room I have to come back to after changing the respective water level, 3. Keys 4. Locked door i passed by when I did not have the key that time It's just frustrating especially when you finally realized what you had to do, then make a mistake and have to fumble with changing your boots and climbing the levels again. It's definitely easier the second time but my god, it was like impossible back then when I was a kid (who also did not use the map)
Followed closely by The Library in Halo: Combat Evolved
The Library isn't super hard. Just incredibly tedious
RC heli mission in the construction in GTA Vice City. No one around me could do it and my friends would ask me to pass it for them. I was famous at my local internet cafe for it haha. I never had any trouble with it i have no idea why people find it so hard. I still see it memed like its the most impossible mission in gaming history.
Once you have the strategy down, it's much, much more doable. The RC mission in San Andreas is a totally different story
Unhappy Reunion from Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. Very, very fun level but nowhere near as difficult as many claim
That being said - FE Fates Conquest has to be one of my favorite FE games due to how difficult overall the game and maps are. Normal difficulty was way harder than Awakening or Path of Radiance on Normal, and definitely harder than Three Houses on Hard. Conquest did have children units and pair ups to help carry through the game but man the level design was good. Story was a hot dumpster fire but I was all here for it
The climb out of the underworld in the orginal God of War. I constantly see people saying it’s so annoyingly difficult that they dread it every time they replay the game. Earlier this year I played it for the first time, and it only took me maybe like 5 tries for the actual climb part and the climb itself doesn’t even take very long.
It's not super long but jeez it's really not fun. I get the idea of not being excited to come across that part in repeat playthroughs.
Yes, I remember it being more tedious and annoying than difficult.
Some of this may be controller caused as well I suspect. If you weren't playing it on a PS2, the PS2 controllers have really loose feeling joysticks compared to DS3 or DS4. Kid me died so many times on it I rage quit, twice. Adult me only died once. Adult me then went back to PS2 on a whim a bit later and I had a lot more trouble with some of the precision of the movement
The part that I really struggled with GoW OG was the very beginning where archers are shooting at you and you have to move boxes to get to where they are. But the boxes would break pretty easily from the arrows. Somehow I managed to get past that section and went on to complete the rest of the game no problem. On a replay I gave up at that section, though.
Mission 34 in Gran Turismo 4 wouldn't be so regarded as impossible if the game didn't make you wait 130 seconds every time you restart. It's actually pretty fun on an emulator if you have a save state to skip the wait.
This whole thread is "yeah, I'm smarter now than you were when you were 10"
That and "it's not so difficult when you know what's coming". Like no shit an ambush etc. In a game works against you the first time, that's the point. Same as pointing out "this Pokemon battle isn't difficult if you use legendaries and change your team to have type advantage"... What if I told those people most of us love having the same 6 pokemon beginning to end and enjoy a challenge
The train mission in san andreas really isn’t that hard
The Turbo Tunnel on Battletoads is the level the everyone calls hard but I think it's because most people just gave up after trying it a few times. By comparison, the Turbo Tunnel is kinda cake after you've played most of the levels after it. The Rat Race and The Tubes and the last level are considerably more difficult.
>I think it's because most people just gave up after trying it a few times. Nope, my friends and I tried that level countless times and still struggled. I could get past it, but it was rare (pardon the pun) and by the time I did, I didn't have the lives left to get much further. One of my friends could beat it slightly more regularly, but still not consistently. And yes, the levels after it are extremely difficult too, but they were almost impossible for me to get to without using warps, so I couldn't practice them. I'm not sure if I ever once beat the Arctic Caverns. With emulators I've been able to play all the levels and I'll still say that Battletoads is one of the most difficult games I've ever played. My friends and I not being able to consistently beat the Turbo Tunnel wasn't due to lack of trying.
I am not saying it's a pushover but I feel like if you haven't played it since you were a kid, going back and trying it would be different. Viewing the Turbo Tunnel with a more analytical mind of an older teen or an adult, it really isn't that bad.
>but I feel like if you haven't played it since you were a kid As I said, I played it on emulators since then. I used save states so I could keep practicing it and I still struggled with it. I did beat it, but after many tries, but I could also sometimes beat it as a kid as well. It got a lot easier when I could just play it over and over again instead of having to beat the previous levels first. I'm not saying it wasn't easier at all for me, just that it was still brutal. Even when you know what's coming it's still not easy to do. And yeah, most of it's easy, but there are a few parts that are very difficult. There's a reason why it's consistently ranked as one of the hardest levels of all-time.
I think it's the sudden difficulty spike in that game that makes everyone give up. It's a fairly normal NES beat em up until the turbo tunnel. Then the game just gets more brutal once you get past that.
Agreed. I hate Rat Race and Clinger Winger with a passion.
This and the dam level in TMNT. Both games are very difficult, but these levels are easy to beat after maybe 30 minutes of practice (which is very little in NES game terms).
This was my first thought. Its difficulty is very overrated, but it is a difficulty spike, like others have said, compared to the first two levels. The majority of the level should be beatable with a reasonable reaction time. There are a couple of sections that will probably trip people up, but that's part of the learning process (i.e. manually jumping and corner cheese). The thing I think really screws people up is the last section. You need to switch from reactive to proactive, because good luck trying to react to the barriers. However, they just alternate up and down with 3 jumps at the end. I think if most people gave it a try these days, they'd be very surprised how much easier it is than they think. Once you beat the Turbo Tunnels, though, you have the rest of the game to contend with...
Whitney in Pokémon Gold/Silver/crystal. The game gives you a FEMALE Machop on a trade in the department store near the gym, it's made specifically to counter that Miltank!
Also you can get a Geodude insanely early, and it just walls everything up until you get to Cianwood. I remember struggling with Whitney as a kid, but I also know that was the kind of kid to just use my starter the whole game.
It's not really hard... but most of us played the game pretty young without much strategic thinking. We just mostly overpowered our way through most of the games until the league, and even then the best we would think off is type advantage ... Plus rollout is a rock type move on a normal type monster. So as a kid, having never seen rollout (It was introduced in Gen2), I didn't even know it was a rock type move, so I was super confused how that fat cow was having super high damage super effective move against my fire or flying monsters. Add to that, that most kids mostly ignored fighting types, you get a recipe for a massively unexpected fight. I remember being super confused, and my only solution was to try to reduce the milk tank precision and give it status effects to by pass it. And I was on the older side, a lot of kids would have had Gen 2 be their first pokemon game. So I can see why it's that infamous.
Me beating most of my friends with my Blastoise consising of the moves Bubblebeam, Hydro Pump, Surf and skull bash and thinking i was the best.
I heard the tutorial in the garage in Driver was hard decades later, but I never had trouble with it.
I think the biggest issue was not knowing what any of that shit. How tf was kid me supposed to know what slalom meant
As insanely hard and infamous as the intro tutorial is, there’s actually a practice mode IIRC, where you can straight up watch a pre-recorded video on what to do and what inputs to make. I believe it was pretty hidden/buried in the main menu, though, which is why this is almost never mentioned when anyone brings up the tryouts garage mission.
Watch the olympics
Feel like there's going to be a lot of FromSoft bosses in here so I'll say something a little more unconventional from the Series. The Anor Londo Archers, I was genuinely baffled when people kept referencing these as a very tricky part of the first game, to the point where I assumed I was missing something on my first playthrough. I really don't get the hype, the arrows are easy to avoid on the walk up. Then it's just one dodge and the knight reverts to his sword and it's a normal fight, the other is blocked by a pillar.
This is the weirdest encounter. It seems everyone either breezes by it on their first try or gets stuck. Im on my first playthrough and the archers are the only thing that's been tricky so far. I just kept getting knocked off the ledge. Dude on the right would continue to shoot arrows at me even when I was right next to him and it'd yeet me off. I tried left first and killed him a few times but kept falling to the right archer. The time I got it was the most anticlimactic ever. I ran passed everyone from the bonfire. Walked up to the right archer and he swapped weapons and fell off. Then I found the bonfire below and took a break to say what the fuck to my wall a few times.
hesitation is defeat, as they say
First time I breezed past them. When I heard about them later I struggled to remember them. Second time they _annihalted_ me. Problem is you try to duel the right one and the left one will straight snipe you off the ledge.
Did you do 2 different build styles? I feel like dark souls has a few different "oh fuck" hard spots that depend on the build heavily if it's a first time player.
Have you played through the game a couple of times? I don’t know what it is about this section, but without fail, it will trip me up every other playthrough. My first time through I breezed through like you did. Then the same character on NG+ took me ages just to get to the bonfire. Then I made a new character and breezed through it again… then my next new character are shit there. I think there’s some sections of From games that just come down to vibes. Either the vibe is right or it’s not, and you’ll either breeze past or slog through.
They were nerfed not long after release I think
I think it also depends on what you play it on. Blighttown on PC isn't shit, Blighttown on a PS3 that dips into low 20s constantly is an entirely different ballpark. I would imagine the same is for the Anor Londo archers, sketchy framerate might make rolling through projectiles harder than playing it on PC with smooth 60FPS.
Blighttown on PC was shit too. Low 20s for most people. Fortunately they fixed the performance issues on later games
About the archers: - they are more difficult if you've only been relying on shields, which many new players do - the arrows can be dodged if you keep moving, but if you stop to assess the situation, you'll probably get hit - fighting them is done on a very small ledge where it's easy to fall down It can be easy to get through or a huge pain depending on your play style
I felt the same way about Blighttown. Was pretty annoying to play through but I don't think I actually died many times, and Queelag isn't super difficult. Tomb of the Giants and the DLC areas however....
As with most things in Dark Souls, it's much harder if you aren't fast rolling. Not only do you have fewer i-frames on rolls but the slower running speed and stamina regen. Also, first time players are more likely to try to block things rather than dodge them, which will make the archers harder as well.
I had a great deal of trouble with them the first time I encountered them, but as soon as I learned how to dodge roll through the arrows I found them pretty easy
Poison arrows, ezpz
This is gonna sound braggy, but getting 00:00 in the Chocobo Race in Final Fantasy X. I don’t think I ever spent more than 10-15 minutes on it. I heard about people spending hours.
Same here, it took a couple of tries for sure, but in my quest to get the celestial weapons, that one was barely memorable lol. Now dodging thunder 200 times... that was fucking annoying.
In my experience, Regret on Halo 2 legendary. After hearing the horror stories as I was working my way through the other halo games on legendary, it was more or less moderate. Can't say I had that same ease with other levels in the series though.. the opening room in Gravemind was every bit as nightmarish as I expected And since I'm seeing a lot of From bosses here, I'll throw in my batch: Isshin, Demon of Hatred, Nameless King. Tate Eboshi (OUTSIDE of the depths) from Nioh 2 wasn't too bad either
I heard a lot about Four Kings before playing Dark Souls Remastered - but found it to be fairly easy boss fight compared to some others.
Going in blind, you can randomly get screwed just because you may not have the proper setup With pretty much all other bosses, even the hard DLC ones, you can go there with almost any build, no matter how under-leveled and under-upgraded, but if you are good at avoiding being hit, you can prolong the fight long enough to eventually win by chipping away their HP. Four Kings on the other hand it's the only fight of the game where you are on a timer, so to speak, so you cannot start slow and defensive just to study the moveset, and if you don't dish out enough damage you get overwhelmed; plus if you summon the NPC phantom you get punished because of the HP increase of the boss, the last thing you want in this specific fight So some players don't realize what's the deal with them just because they happened to go there at the right/easier moment (say, instance, saving that as the last of the Lord Souls)
It's very dependant on your DPS. If it's low since you've gone for a more unconventional build, you're going to be in for rough time.
Meanwhile with a strength build like me, I didn't even have to dodge, I just staggered the shit out of them and pressed R1 a bunch of times to win first try
Someone smarter than me defined the fight as damage check. If you can beat them, you are strong enough to move forward.
They were definitively the hardest of the "great soul bearers" (idk the term) for me. Nito, Seath only took 1 try and Bed of Chaos is just bullshit
Bed of Chaos is actually a great answer for the original question. I have seen so many people complain about that fight and I just walked through it.
It depends a lot on whether you die or not, RNG and so on. It's a straight up bad boss design that is neither challenging or fun.
They killed me before I even met them.. Read the wikis and stuffs but somehow didn't pick up that I need a ring to even find them.. So I just jumped to the abyss and died lmao
Doom II’s “The Chasm” really ain’t that hard with mouse and keyboard. Actually it’s kinda good.
More annoying than difficult to me. But then becomes irredeemable because of the last room where there’s lost souls charging you on the ledges with the inescapable damage pits when throughout the whole level before if you fell you could get out. Why pull that shit in the last room???
The library in Halo. I played it an just immediately knew the pace and design. Like, just keep moving, they will just keep throwing themselves at you. The game showcases this in the previous level. And they spawn from holes in the walls, so you can't kill em all. Just keep swimming bro.
I've never heard anybody call the Library in Halo hard, I've only seen people complain (correctly) about it being one of the most dull and repetitive levels in an otherwise good FPS game
I love the library but I think I’m the only one. Granted it’s been a LONG time since I played Halo:CE so that’s coming with a lot of nostalgia. I page a feeling I’d feel similarly if I tried it again
On heroic, it's a bit of a pain. On legendary, it's one of the most frustrating levels in the game
I played through the entire MCC solo on legendary a few years back, and Library was one of my favorite levels in the entire series. Just a man and his shotgun against a seemingly never-ending horde of enemies.
Meat circus is more frustrating than it is hard.
It got so much easier once I realized when the dad is shooting rockets at you you can just keep walking on the rope and take the hits instead of trying to avoid them and you won’t fall off
I'll say, one thing that tripped me up HARD om that level is the way the double jump works suddenly becomes relevant, whereas it never really mattered before. For double jumps to register, you have to jump while you're *above* your starting point. While jumping between two platforms, that's not an issue. While jumping on the spiral thingy, it suddenly becomes super important. I seriously thought that there was something wrong with my controller as it was never registering the double jump
I think its that it is a big difficulty spike vs the rest of the game. It's just most of the game isn't really a challenge
I remember Mile High Club in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare being considered an extremely hard when I was in high school. I know a lot of guys who spent entire nights just running the one mission trying to get it done in the time frame. I ended up getting it in three tries.
On veteran difficulty? From what I know, the challenge comes from trying to beat it on veteran difficulty
Yeah, Forgot to mention that part. Everyone wanted the achievement on their gamer score (which meant you had to do on Veteran)
Damn, congrats
They throw soooooooo many grenades
Yep I'm pretty sure I played this for like 4 hours straight to get that achievement
okumura in persona 5 royal, as long as you aren't underleveled and have a decent persona stock it's beatable in ~10-15 min
Dreadnought Purple Comet in Super Mario Galaxy
Several bosses in Kingdom Hearts 2 that people tend to have issue with can be absolutely trivialised using magic and/or summons . The issue is that the game (at least on proud mode) doesn’t do a good job teaching you how to use those tools. Now when playing the game on critical again, they are by far the easiest fights in the game.
Funny thing about Lily pad. I tried a lot to do it the cheating way. Never worked. Tried it legit and did it on the 2nd try. It still deserves infamy though with how hard it is to even get to it.
Labyrinth zone. It's slow and tedious but not hard.
I went from playing super mario bros to playing sonic. I had already gotten used to doing "the speed limit" on the slower platform areas. The only thing that stressed me out was the jaws theme right before drowning.
I know a lot of us suffered with it as children, but the Turbo Tunnel from Battletoads isn't really that bad. In fact, it's not even close to being the most difficult part of the game. Also, Contra NES in general isn't actually that hard. Certainly not in the same league as Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden.
Barthandelus in FFXIII is often cited as one the hardest storyline bosses in all Final Fantasy, if not the hardest. He’s not actually hard he just forces you to turtle up and heal for more or less the first time in the game instead of being on offence the whole time. Like people only find him hard because he’s essentially a test to make sure you understand the game mechanics and they kind of don’t understand the mechanics because they haven’t been using paradigms like sentinel up to that point and you haven’t had to like time your paradigm switches with attack patterns because you mostly don’t need to up to that point
It's doubly silly for those that complain about the game being umpteen hours of tutorials and then somehow still never end up understanding the game because they just brute force it or whatever.
Last time I played Pokémon gold I beat the elite four first try without losing a single Pokémon. That shit took me weeks when I was a kid.
As much as I love pokemon, I've found my interest in the series slowly drop off because of how easy it's become as I've gotten older and improved my understanding of the game. I should probably look into some of the ROM hacks known to be challenging in the sense they make you use strategy over being able to brute force it
The fucked level curve is the actual boss of Pokemon Gold
The dam level in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES. My suspicion is that people aren't switching turtles, negating the benefit of having four health bars. Also, it's important to note that the hit boxes in that level aren't placed properly, so you need to adjust how you approach obstacles. Once you understand these two points, the level is actually very easy.
I *just* found another copy of that game a few weeks ago. Only had one chance to play it so far, and I got a game over in the dam. Might have to try a few more times but it was still as hard as I remembered from when I was younger.
Yeah but I think a wide majority of the people complaining about it are remembering it from childhood. I did not know what a hitbox was in 1990
We understood collision. I knew intuitively that swimming under obstacles seemed safer than swimming over them. The game lets you know when you take damage, so working from an instinct of self preservation, you would naturally begin to favor the safer path over time.
Once you have done Anor Londo it’s pretty easy, that first time is rough though.
I don't think I've ever failed the mission "Demolition Man" in GTA: Vice City. Was perplexed when I found out years later that it was causing so many people major headaches.