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{{trope}}
[[File:img.png|link=Touhou Nekokayou (Webcomic)|right|[[Four Is Death|Stage 4]]: Putting the "Hell" in [[Bullet Hell]]]
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A game that is light and easy through the first 10 or so levels becomes insanely difficult for the last level. Perhaps it's bad game design, maybe it's a sadistic developer, who knows? But, it's the final level that makes you want to throw your controller through the television. Although it technically doesn't have to be the last level, it could just be an extremely difficult level compared to the rest of game. It could even be the [[Battletoads (Video Game)|third]] [[Halo|level]].
 
[[Nintendo Hard]] games tend to do this a lot. You can get through five worlds unharmed...but then you lose all 99 extra lives to [[That One Boss]] in 6-4. This is often made worse by the fact that it is usually more of a challenge to master a difficult section of a game if there is no intermediate difficulty with which the player can "work their way up" to being able to manage that particular section. In games where the spike occurs earlier than the very end of the game, it may result in the oddity that the section at the beginning of the spike gives the most trouble to players, while the final boss (even though it may be objectively more difficult) is taken out in a relatively short time, because by then the players have adjusted to the new difficulty.
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== [[Action Adventure]] ==
* In ''[[Cave Story (Video Game)|Cave Story]]'', Depending on what you've gathered, it's either the hidden Last Cave or boss battles, either way there will be no recharging stations onward. In Last Cave, all your weapons are dropped to level 1 as you enter a [[Nintendo Hard]] maze of enemies and traps. You'll never get this harder version of Last Cave without having Booster v2.0, and you won't make it through the level without using it proficiently. Then there's a [[Sequential Boss]] consisting of 3 boss fights, second which [[Turns Red]] and third which is a triple boss. That's all followed by escape. Fail escape and you have to do three bosses all over again.
** Another Difficulty Spike happens if a better ending is tried to be achieved. The {{spoiler|Sacred Grounds}} has no checkpoints, has two bosses fights and is much harder than the previous levels.
* ''[[Castlevania]]'''s Stage 7 (the third area) is where the difficulty starts to skyrocket. Enemies start dealing more damage, more [[Goddamned Bats]] start assaulting you, and more deadly jumps over [[Bottomless Pits]] await.
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** ''[[Castlevania Chronicles|Akumajou Dracula X68000]]'' is even worse. Stage 7 starts off with an infinite fleet of eagles carrying Fleamen, and you can only take 4 hits before you die (which you don't experience in the NES original until you hit Stage 13). And ''then'', there's those hard-to-avoid bubble enemies and the statues that shoot arrows at you...
** ''[[Castlevania II Belmonts Revenge|Belmont's Revenge]]'' is also noteworthy for the sudden spike in difficulty for the final two bosses.
** Special mention must go to ''[[Super Castlevania IV]]'''s final level. A [[Rise to Thethe Challenge]] level with a floating spike-ball rapidly making it's way up, forcing you to be constantly on the move, while jumping from small platform to small platform where a single mistake could mean death. Add falling blocks, an unexpected section with floating rocks where you must have perfect timing else you get impaled by instant-death spikes and many annoyingly placed enemies that send you plummeting to your death if they hit you, and you get many broken controllers. It really doesn't help that, if you die, you must do it all over again.
*** The best part; the game still uses old-school ''[[Castlevania]]'' physics, which means that you have to do all of the above, ''without'' ''[[Jump Physics|controllable jumping]].''
*** Right after that, you must face not two, not three, but FOUR bosses in a row, with little health boosts along the way. And one of those bosses is Death itself, in all his inglorious difficulty. however, if you game over by running out of lives here, you start right back at the same boss, and each of them have their own passwords.
* ''[[Castlevania (Nintendo 64)]]'' is an example of this; the game progresses pretty normally, until you have to get the "Magical Nitro" part of the game. In order to progress, you need to carry a bomb from the top of the castle to the bottom without getting hit once or even JUMPING. Yes, you heard that right, you are not allowed to JUMP.
** If you don't think that's a spike, the next level is: No Save Points with several jumps made trickier by the constant need to fight the camera
** [[Metroidvania]] titles in the series tend to have a spike immediately after you dodge the bad ending, with enemies becoming more powerful, numerous and difficult to hit. It usually goes back to normal after you gain a couple of levels and stumble upon [[Game Breaker|really good equipment]] found in late game areas.
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* Even on the harder difficulty levels, ''[[Uncharted]] 2'' is challenging, but not frustratingly so. That is, until you get to Shambhala, where even one of the natives is capable of utterly slaughtering you in the blink of an eye.
** Uncharted 3 took several spikes of difficulty once you reach the ship graveyard. You now have to deal heavily armored mooks as well as snipers, brutes, and loads of mooks spamming grenades every five seconds all at the same time.
* ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' is fairly well-balanced on normal difficulty, but it spikes late into the game on hard. Much of the increased difficulty on hard mode comes from increased enemy health, which in the case of [[Mook|Mooks]] is ignorable if you abuse your [[Game Breaker|unblockable one-hit-kill attack]], and in the case of [[Giant Mook|Giant Mooks]] isn't too unpleasant. Unfortunately for you, said [[Giant Mook|Giant Mooks]] not only are immune to one-hit-kills, they're the only enemies that can attack you during the [[Overly-Long Fighting Animation]] if you one-hit-kill regular mooks, so fights that have both regular and giant mooks become the only legitimately difficult fights on hard mode.
** [[Batman: Arkham City|Arkham City's]] difficulty spikes rather noticeably upon revisiting the Steel Mill, and stays that way for the rest of the main story.
* [[Assassin's Creed (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed]]: The fights go from "could be beaten by a badly-trained monkey" to "enemies with unblockable attack chains that take a sizable chunk out of your health" right around the time you lose the ability to avoid them.
 
== [[Action Game]] ==
* ''[[Cannon Fodder (Video Gameseries)|Cannon Fodder]]'' is easy going for the first few "run around, shoot people and lob a few grenades at huts" levels. Then you get the horror of Mission 7, where you need to take control of a central turret and blow up six armoured buildings - which are spitting ''lots'' of enemies out at you, including plenty capable of grenading the turret with you inside.
* ''[[Devil May Cry]]'' is pretty simple for the first two stages...and then Phantom shows up at the end of the third stage and mauls you. If you can get past him, there's the Shadow waiting for you in the next level.
** ''[[Devil May Cry]] 3'' is infamously [[Nintendo Hard]], but it doesn't get ''truly'' painful until the fifth level's bosses, Agni and Rudra. ''Many'' a run of the game, especially the US version with the oddly localized difficulty, has ended there.
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== [[Beat'Em Up]] ==
* The most infamous among the NES generation is probably ''[[Battletoads (Video Game)|Battletoads]]''. The first level was pretty reasonable. The second level was harder, but no more than you would expect. The third level was OMG! [[Nintendo Hard|And it only gets harder.]]
** Maybe [[Schizophrenic Difficulty|not all of the later levels are harder]], but a good chunk of them sure are.
*** There's one where you must outrun a [[Mook]] to stop him from setting off a bomb that kills you instantly, and the fucking rat not only glides effortlessly through every obstacle, he also moves and falls faster than you do.
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* While you can beat ''[[Driver]]'' by avoiding being noticed by the cops by driving legally while in their zone, but in the last level the cops are actively trying to demolish you from the beginning to the end. It sounds easier than it is, even while using an invincible cheat it's easy to get a game over by having the car knocked upside down.
* The last level of ''[[Micro Machines]]''. The sports cars on the desktop stages are difficult anyway, but the final iteration "Win This Race To Be Champion" is particularly fiendish, particularly when you realise they're the only vehicle you have to do four races with.
* ''[[Wipeout (Video Game)|Wipeout]] 2097/XL'' had easy, medium, hard and very hard tracks. The difference was the default ''speed class''. But during a championship all tracks are raced at the fastest available speed class. Let's just say the tracks that are ''actually'' hard are the second, third and fourth tracks out of eight; the easiest track in the whole game is track number six. Once you get through the first half of the championship you pretty much have the win in the pocket unless you hit the respawn trigger at Vostok Island's [[Reentry Scare|bugged]] drop section.
* ''[[Forza Motorsport]] 3'' was criticized for its unbalanced difficulty settings, with the gap between Medium and Hard being too large. ''FM 4'' balanced this out by lowering the Hard difficulty somewhat and adding [[Harder Than Hard|Expert]] mode for the truly hardcore.
 
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* ''[[Tekken]]'''s AI bounces all over the place, from imbecile, hardly moving AI to ones that keep interrupting your combo with punches and love to juggle...The exact time of difficulty spike in the fifth game is the [[Sub Boss]]. You have three easy fights and then the game hands you your head.
* The Subspace Emissary of ''[[Super Smash Bros|Super Smash Bros Brawl]]'' gets noticeably worse around the levels where you play as Marth, due to many of nastier enemy types beginning to appear at that point. Most of the bosses tend to give players a lot more trouble then the levels before them, as well.
** Classic Mode on ''Brawl'' also has a [[Difficulty Spike]] in the free-for-all right before Master Hand, the result of the AI deciding to [[Gang Up Onon the Human]].
** The original ''[[Super Smash Bros]]'' had the AI ramped up a little on Fox, then the Kirby team.
** In ''Melee'', it seems to happen around the fourth opponent.
* M. Bison is the boss for every character in ''[[Street Fighter]] Alpha 3'' except himself, naturally. While the fights get progressively more difficult as the player gets nearer to him, Bison himself is pure torture, with super-fast cheap moves and a super strong super move that eats up half of your total health if you don't block in time (and "only" 1/4th if you do). Oh well, at least I got a full pocket of quarters so I guess I can try agai...wait, a [[Nonstandard Game Over]]? No Continue? I HAVE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN?!?!?! [[Big No|AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!]]
** To Capcom's credit, the "bad ending" (actually M.Bison's normal ending with your character in place of Ryu) is arcade-only, since they quickly realized what a monumentally stupid idea it was and took it out of the console ports. You'll still see it if you don't continue, however.
* ''Fate/Unlimited Codes'' (''[[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight]]'''s [[Fighting Game]] spinoff), has a fairly normal difficulty progression during arcade mode...until you come to the final stage. On any difficulty above Easy, the CPU suddenly becomes nightmarishly competent (and gods help you if your character's last boss is [[That One Boss|Gilgamesh]]...). As one person on Gamefaqs put it, arcade mode is "less of a difficulty ramp than a difficulty teleporter".
* Though this trope may apply to a large number of fighting games, few have given this editor more frustration than the final boss of ''[[Dead or Alive]] 4'', who could essentially counter at will any move you might care to toss in her direction while dishing out highly damaging, unreasonably fast, ''unblockable'' attacks from across the screen. This fight was invariably won by way of pure dumb luck. Unless you're a creepy shut-in who does nothing all day but play ''[[Dead or Alive]]'', of course.
** Anyone unlucky enough to face Jann Lee in the regular story mode is in for an [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|unbelievably nasty surprise]].
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* ''[[Dissidia]]: Final Fantasy'''s story modes do this somewhat. The first, the Destiny Odyssey set, has you fight low level opponents. The next, Shade Impulse, the enemies you fight are all at much higher levels, so you'll have to do some level grinding before going into it. Chaos, the final boss, is extremely cheap, and many new players give up on the game because of how tough he is. Next up, Distant Glory, has enemies take a jump in difficulty. The last, Inward Chaos, all of the opponents are maxed out.
** [[Up to Eleven|Beyond maxed out]]: the enemies you face in Inward Chaos start at level 91 and end up at level 110! To make matters worse, they're all set to the highest AI competency level, which means they'll block, dodge, and counter all of your attacks. And every single one of them has very high stats and some of the best equipment in the game (only the [[Infinity+1 Sword|exclusive level 100 weapons]] are better), so unless you have comparable equipment, you won't hit hard enough, and you'll get devastated by a single combo.
* In ''[[Blaz Blue]]: Calamity Trigger'', you will probably...[[Incredibly Lame Pun|blaze]] your way through the first nine stages of [[Game Breaker|N]][[Tier -Induced Scrappy|u]][[Storm of Blades|'s]] Arcade Mode with ease. Then you reach the tenth stage, where you meet [[SNK Boss|Unlimited Rachel]]. Have fun!
** And [[SNK Boss|Unlimited Rachel]] will haunt you again when you try score attack mode as the ninth match. And there's another spike with Unlimited Nu and Unlimited Ragna!
** And then there's ''Continuum Shift,'' where the boss of arcade mode is Hazama, who is several notches above the AI you've been fighting to get to him, partly because of some [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|blatant reading of your controller inputs.]] Oh, and he's Unlimited, which means he siphons off your health and refills his own ''by being near you.''
* [[Sonic the Fighters (Video Game)|Sonic Championship's]] difficulty will rocket all the way to space once you face [[That One Boss|Metal Sonic]].
* ''[[Guilty Gear|Guilty Gear XX]]'' Story Mode goes from "you can practically win these matches by accident" to "RAPE VIA VIDEO GAME PROGRAMMING" in record time. And in order to get all the endings, you have to 1) conclude matches via bizarre and/or very difficult stunts and 2) win [[Nintendo Hard|nigh-impossible]] matches that you can't replay, [[Guide Dang It|all of which the game doesn't tell you about]]. It's a good thing the game gives you the [[Hundred-Percent Completion]] characters if you play it for long enough (which is a ''very'' long time, as in "there's a possibility of actually completing ''Guilty Gear XX'' story mode" long time).
 
== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==
* ''[[Doom]] II'' officially gets serious with you on the "Dead Simple" level right after the first intermission. Prior to this point, you've been fighting mostly humanoid enemies and low-level [[Mook|mooks]], with the occasional mid-grade monster. "Dead Simple" immediately throws you into a melee with newly introduced high-powered enemies and [[Giant Mook|Giant Mooks]] in very close quarters.
* [[Bio ShockBioshock]] 2 Siren Alley is known to fans as a Difficultly Spike, where all of the gun using enemies now use shotguns, and the easier melee weapons no longer appear for the rest of the game.
* In ''[[Unreal Tournament (Video Game)|Unreal Tournament]]'', the last fight against Xan is far harder than anything seen in previous battles.
** Malcolm is a pretty similar deal in ''[[Unreal Tournament 2004 (Video Game)|Unreal Tournament 2004]]'', given that the final stage takes place in a revamped version of Xan's original stage (Hyperspace). The new map is hideously large, and Malcolm has uncanny aim and survivability regardless of the difficulty level. Over half your time is spent searching the huge level for your nemesis, and the rest is getting shot by him in short order. Oddly enough, the end boss (Malcolm again) in ''2003'' was an absolute walkover, given that the arena for that battle was small and had ample flanking opportunities. I guess he learned.
*** If you read the game scripts in the editor, you will discover that Xan and Malcolm are guilty of [[Rubber Band AI]], unlike any other opponent in the game.
** The Assault matches are ''significantly'' harder than the rest of the single-player ladder (save for a couple of the Capture The Flag matches), sometimes even ''exceeding'' the difficulty of the [[Final Boss|Xan fight]]. And if you do manage to win, expect to terminally come in last place as your teammate's laser-guided map savvy lands them the fastest routes, all the vehicles, all the objectives and 98% of the kills.<br /><br />That said, the other modes get pretty insane pretty quick as well, one notorious example being the Bombing Run snow level, which, in addition to suddenly steroid-injected AI, involves particularly cruel level design that will take you and your team 2-3 times the time limit to reach the enemy goalpost and score—that is, if the "AI of Death" team doesn't get to yours first.
** Akasha in ''[[Unreal Tournament III (Video Game)3|Unreal Tournament III]]'' as well. Her rubberband code may actually exponentially break the normal limits of bot skill factors, leaving you with a bot rated [[Up to Eleven|15 out of 10]] on "easy". Oh, and she favors the shock rifle, which caters equally to impossible AI aiming and impossible AI prediction skills.
* Xaero in ''[[Quake III Arena (Video Game)|Quake III Arena]]'' was head and shoulders above any other bot in the game. Not only he has [[Improbable Aiming Skills]], the arena you fight him in has a railgun right next to a respawn point. So if you did manage to kill him, he would return the favor immediately from across the map. And then kill you again and again until you managed to respawn in a spot that wasn't exposed.
* The first ''[[Descent]]'' had a massive, permanent difficulty spike after the first seven "shareware" levels. Levels 6 and 7 depict homing-missile hulks and Class 1 Drillers as deadly [[Demonic Spiders]] that appear only now and then and are much stronger than normal enemies. Levels 11 and 12, four maps later, are ''almost entirely populated by them'' and they're not one iota easier to kill than they were at first.
** The difficulty spikes further around levels 18 and 19, with the even deadlier [[Demonic Spiders]] that are Class 2 Missile Platforms and Heavy Drillers greatly increasing in number.
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** Also, "the library" in the first game. Hundreds of hard to kill, fast moving zombies, some of which explode when shot, and a limited supply of ammo.
** That's more or less because the player can also not tell where they are going.
** ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' has a large difficulty spike starting with the second mission. If you're playing Legendary, prepare to be wasted.
* ''[[Wolfenstein (Video2009 Gamevideo game)|Wolfenstein 3-D]]'' goes absolutely ''insane'' in the sixth episode, throwing one [[Classic Video Game Screw Yous|dick move]] after another and forcing you to navigate horrific mazes. Its [[Mission Pack Sequel|Mission Pack Prequel]] ''Spear of Destiny'' does likewise at level 16. Whether level 16 or level 18 is the [[That One Level|hardest map]] in the entire ''Wolfenstein'' series is debatable; level 16 has more difficult regular fights, but level 18 has [[That One Boss]], the Death Knight. Then the difficulty drops precipitously for the [[Bonus Level of Hell]] and the [[Anticlimax Boss|underwhelming]] final boss.
* ''[[Modern Warfare|Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2]]'', the Favela missions. Impossible to tell where you're going, enemies that have numerous hiding places while you get little more than the occasional doorway, low ammo. Oh, and dogs. Yeah.
* ''[[Medal of Honor]]: Allied Assault'' has a (mostly) permanent difficulty spike starting with Mission 3-3, The Nebelwerfer Hunt on the normal difficulty, then again at The Command Post (psychic guards setting off alarms that summon [[Respawning Enemies]]). On Hard, the spike starts with Cover Blown. Let's not talk about Sniper's Last Stand.
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* ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' has a fairly linearly increasing difficulty curve most of the time. That is, until you reach Phazon Mines. The next segment requires you to do half of the area, beating 2 minibosses, one of which is INVISIBLE, navigating morph ball puzzles, introducing you to new space pirate types and spamming them, and getting the Power Bombs. After that, it feels like a relief it's over as it's not as bad after that. Dark Aether in Prime 2 early on throws you a nasty spike as well as you learn to deal with its atmosphere. After you get the Dark Suit, it's much less nerve-wracking.
* ''[[Red Faction]]'' gets a ''lot'' harder around the one-third mark and just keeps getting worse from there. Why? Because the enemies (and you) get better weapons, but you never get more HP, and even refills become harder to find.
* ''[[Dead Space (Videovideo Gamegame)|Dead Space]]'', Chapter 4: Obliteration Imminent is fairly standard for what you've dealt with for the last three chapters until you're told you need to step outside the ship in the middle of what is essentially a meteor storm. The only hint you are given for this sequence is "take cover." Now, once you realize that there is a perceptible warning and you know what "cover" looks like, the sequence is less of a difficulty spike and seems more like [[Fake Difficulty]] for the uninformed. However, no amount of information will help you fend off the giant rocks in the next room. Once you've memorized what Isaac looks like getting killed in that room and move on, though, it's back to business as usual.
* Most of the ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' series have this around the 1/3 or halfway point. Especially Stone Cannon, dear god, in ''Raven Shield''.
* The first/shareware episode in ''[[Quake]]'' is a walk in the park compared to the rest of the game. After completing the [[Breather Level|preparation "slipgate" level]] (featured at the beginning of each episode), be prepared for your brain (and likely your mouth) to drop a series of [[Atomic F-Bomb|Atomic F-Bombs]] once you're inside the castle.
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** Less dramatic is Act IV of the game, when you invade Hell, featuring a jump in monster difficulty - suddenly homing, [[Mana]] draining missiles, etc. Then of course there's [[Final Boss|Diablo]] [[That One Boss|himself]].
** The [[That One Boss|battle with the Ancients]] is far harder than the the battle with Baal, the final boss.
* The first five realms in ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)]]: Dark Legacy'' are swarming with [[Goddamn Bats]] (it's kind of the point of Gauntlet), but world 6, the Desert Realm, suddenly throws in [[Demonic Spiders]] in the form of the Desert Generals, whose psychotic fervor has the potential to arouse in the player the same real-life fight-or-flight panic mechanism as many a [[Left 4 Dead]] player has felt facing down a Tank - among stronger and more durable [[Goddamn Bats]], and more chances to be attacked from all sides. A player who breezed through the last five realms may find themselves losing thousands of HP in this realm - fast.
 
== [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] ==
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== [[Platform Game]] ==
* ''[[Psychonauts (Video Game)|Psychonauts]]'' turns absolutely sadistic when you get to the timed Escort Mission in the last level.
** Which was a walk in the park compared to the [[Rise to Thethe Challenge]] platforming section soon after that.
*** It could be argued that the [[Rise to Thethe Challenge]] area is easier, given that it's entirely possible to "die" repeatedly without losing any health or lives. Failure during the escort could be costly, failure in the second stage is just checkpoint attrition.
** {{spoiler|The final boss of the game, despite the extreme difficulty of Meat Circus, is incredibly easier and probably easier than every boss in the game.}}
* The first seven areas of ''[[Little Nemo the Dream Master (Video Game)|Little Nemo the Dream Master]]'' give no hint as to how difficult the final area is.
* The [[Sonic the Hedgehog (Franchise)|Sonic the Hedgehog]] series does this quite a bit.
** In all three ''[[Sonic Advance Trilogy (Video Game)|Sonic Advance Trilogy]]'' games, the first six special stages range from really easy to kind of tricky the first time, but the last is [[Nintendo Hard]].
** ''[[Sonic Unleashed (Video Game)|Sonic Unleashed]]'' has a smoothly escalating difficulty curve reaching its peak at Adabat. Then the curve becomes a straight line, crashing into the ceiling and staying there. It says something when the level designers deliberately place a respawning extra life next to EVERY checkpoint in the last level, including some that are impossible to avoid collecting.
*** You must've been playing the PS360 version. The WiiS2 version is a bit more lax, but Eggmanland is quite difficult anyway (almost unforgiving if you're trying to get the S rank).
** ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Video Game)|Sonic 2]]'' is generally nice and easy, but Chemical Plant Zone act 2 is quite a harsh snap for where it is in the game, and the game then throws ''another'' spike in Metropolis Zone, a spike which lasts right until the end of the game.
*** Also Mystic Cave, considering its inescapable spike pits and crushing vines which ''force'' you to take your time and be careful in order to beat the level.
** ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (Video Game)|Sonic 4]]'' will make you frustrated once you get to E.G.G. Station Zone.
** ''[[Sonic Rush Series (Video Game)|Sonic Rush Series]]'' is even more brutal on that note, because once you get to [[That One Level|Night Carnival]] in order to notice everything that allows you to get past that stage without falling into those [[Bottomless Pits]], you have to play the game very differently than you're used to: in other words, [[Take Your Time]] and you'll survive. Probably. It's even more jarring when you play as Blaze as Night Carnival is the FIRST LEVEL, then it gets easy again until the 5th stage.
** ''[[Sonic Generations (Video Game)|Sonic Generations]]'' gets more difficult starting with Crisis City. The Modern era overall is more difficult than the previous two and the levels are longer, and Crisis City is the introduction to that. Modern's Crisis City in particular is one of the hardest levels in the game, Classic's Rooftop Run has a lot of devious obstacles, and Planet Wisp overall is a [[Marathon Level]]. The bosses also pick up the pace to match.
* ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak II]]'' features not one, but many spikes over the course of the game. The first arrives at about the time you need to blow up an ammo supply and you are being chased by an indestructible doom tank. The camera is fixed as the view from the tank for a while, and the first part of the area is a bit hard to navigate. The most notable, however, comes during the escape from the Water Slums. You can't touch the water that is surrounding the tiny walkways you must navigate, the guards will infinitely respawn if you move incorrectly or dawdle in the wrong place, and you can take a total of 3 hits and live. Fortunately, the Krimson Guards are all graduates of the [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]]. Unfortunately, there are so many of them that it really doesn't matter how bad of shots they are. And the game doesn't get any easier from there.
* For many players, ''[[Earthworm Jim (Videovideo Gamegame)|Earthworm Jim]]'' went straight [[Down the Drain]] the minute players entered the Tube Race level. Imagine a big glass ball that breaks if it happens to bump into a wall ten times, which you have to steer through a long, narrow obstacle course while being harassed by a dwindling oxygen meter. Fortunately, the [[Anticlimax Boss|immediately following boss fight]] makes up for it in terms of difficulty.
** The sequel followed this up with ''The Flyin' King'', an isometric SHMUP level where you have to escort a bomb on a balloon to the end of the level. And then the difficulty spikes again in ''Inflated Head / Circus of the Scars'', which is pretty much Tube Race all over again.
* In level 3 of the original ''[[Prince of Persia]]'', you must first jump onto a precariously situated platform with a pressure plate that opens a gate three screens to the left. Then, you have to quickly rush over to the gate before it closes, making ''five'' jumps along the way, the last one being a particularly hard running jump. Miss one jump, and you fall to certain death. After this puzzle, the second half of the level isn't so hard, even with an invincible skeleton enemy -- unless you die and have to start the whole level over.
** At least one of the official versions adds a convenient checkpoint RIGHT after you get to that screen. In a game that normally doesn't ''have'' checkpoints, no less.
** ''Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones'' has a series of three levels back-to-back that are harder than anything that comes before or after it: a cerebral gear-turning puzzle, a trial-and-error chariot race and an unforgiving two-on-one boss fight, with exactly one save point between them.
* ''[[Klonoa (Video Game)|Klonoa]]: Door to Phantomile'' is a pretty easy game throughout. The first level can easily be defeated without taking any damage, and the difficulty gently slopes, occasionally teaching you a new trick or introducing you to a new concept or enemy. Still, all the way up to level 5 keeps an easy-to-modest difficulty. Then level 6 comes along and bitchslaps you through a wall with hair-tearing timed puzzles and the precision platforming sequences from hell.
** And let's not begin talking about the bonus level that appears after that...
* Treasure loves to put [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|space shooter]] levels in their platforming titles. Depending on one's proficiency at the genre, they'll experience anything from a mild to extreme difficulty spike upon entering stage 6 of either Gunstar Heroes or Dynamite Headdy.
** Treasure also like putting platforming sections in their shoot 'em ups. The severity of these spikes is similarly dependent on how accustomed the player is to the shifted genre.
* ''Osman''/''[[Cannon Dancer]]'', a combat platformer similar to ''[[Strider (Video Game)Hiryu|Strider]]'', starts out fairly difficult, but during the final areas it turns abusively so, by removing the ability to spam continues to reach the end. During most of the game, you respawn where you die, even when you lose your last life. In the last areas you restart from checkpoints after dying. Better think twice about wasting those [[Smart Bomb|Fatal Attacks]].
* ''[[Trine (Video Game)|Trine]]'''s last level combines platforming with a boss that constantly hinders your progress and tops it off with [[Rise to Thethe Challenge]].
* As soon as [[Henry Hatsworth in Thethe Puzzling Adventure|Henry Hatsworth]] reaches Atlantia (World 3), the game's [[Surprise Difficulty]] kicks in.
* The majority of levels in ''[[Super Mario Galaxy (Video Game)|Super Mario Galaxy]]'' are ridiculously easy. Then they start getting a bit harder, but not too much...and then the difficulty of the last few stars spikes to somewhere around infinity.
* In ''[[Iji (Video Game)|Iji]]'', the difficulty spikes massively once the Komato appear. Komato [[Mooks|Troopers]] are roughly as tough as Tasen [[Elite Mooks|Commanders]], and Komato [[Elite Mooks|Berserkers]] are roughly as powerful as Tasen [[Giant Mook|Elites]], except they [[Kung Fu-Proof Mook|can reflect projectiles back at you.]] Komato Beasts, Assassins, Annihilators and [[Goddamned Bats|Skysmashers]] go off the charts. Still, you'll eventually get used to it. And then when you start playing through on [[Harder Than Hard|Ultimortal]], you'll probably find it not too hard...until you meet [[That One Boss|Asha]].
* ''[[Chuckie Egg]]'' is an interesting case: it hits its [[Difficulty Spike]] ''exactly'' midway through the game. Levels 21 and up are much harder than anything up to that point. Near the end, [[Nintendo Hard|you may wonder whether it could get much harder]], but the final Level 40 still manages to be a second drastic leap in difficulty.
* The first ''[[Harry Potter]]'' game was a fairly standard 3D platformer, with a few spell-casting or flying minigames and puzzles mixed in. Then at the end there is a boss fight, in a third-person shooter style that hadn't been seen all game, where the boss can kill you in one or two shots and you have no real offensive spells. He's a pushover when you figure out the trick to it, though.
* Areas 5 and 6 in ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Videovideo Gamegame)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''. Both are full of [[Demonic Spiders]] that take tons of punishment to kill, and the former's boss is in a [[Luck-Based Mission|random location]]. And the [[Final Boss]] can kill you in one hit, not to mention the hallway full of [[Demonic Spiders|Laser Troopers]] leading to him.
* ''[[Jed]]'''s tends to border on [[Schizophrenic Difficulty]], with whether or not the player is attempting to collect all five of the stage's babies being a key determinate. Assuming you're only attempting to get through the level, the slope is simpler.
* In ''[[Jumper (Videovideo Gamegame)|Jumper]]'', the first sector is patheticaly easy, and then there are sectors 2 and 3, that [[Pun|jump]] suddenly up. Sector 3 in ''Jumper Two'' is such a case too.
* Up to the second world of ''[[Donkey Kong Country (Videovideo Gamegame)|Donkey Kong Country]]'', everything's a breeze. Then you get [[Minecart Madness|Mine Cart]] [[That One Level|Carnage]]. Don't expect it to get any easier from there.
* The first two chapters of ''[[Gish]]'' are relatively easy. The third chapter is a test to anyone who hasn't mastered the controls of the game as lava pools and more difficult jumps start to appear.
* [[Kid Chameleon]] has a few examples: the first boss is quite difficult compared to the game up to that point, and the game after the third boss in general becomes significantly harder, with many levels containing routes through them that will kill you, levels which don't have conventional exits (or do but they're extremely difficult to get to), level loops that can make you play through the same levels over and over again until you go the right way, and many more of the hardest enemies. However, the worst of the lot is Bloody Swamp, a level so difficult most people who have beaten the game did so by taking an alternate path that allows you to avoid the level, and it is only midway through the third section of the game - though you also have to play through it if you take the route that skips you from halfway through the second world to halfway through the third. The levels after Bloody Swamp are far easier.
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* ''[[Lemmings|Oh No More Lemmings]]'' has five difficulty grades for its puzzles: Tame, Crazy, Wild, Wicked and Havoc. The Tame levels are all pretty much walks in the park: 20 of each skill, four minutes, save 25 of 50 Lemmings and most times it's easy to save all 50. The other four grades, however, are total nightmares with little to distinguish each grade in terms of difficulty.
* ''[[Puyo Puyo|Puyo Pop Fever]]'' takes a huge spike in difficulty on stage 3 of the [[Harder Than Hard|HaraHara]] course and ANOTHER spike on stage 7 of that course.
** The original ''[[Puyo Puyo]]'' has a ridiculous difficulty spike starting with Level 4. [[It Got Worse|And it only gets worse from here]]. [[Artificial Brilliance|Not only is the AI much smarter]], but the pieces drop about as fast as the high levels of ''[[Tetris (Video Game)|Tetris]]''.
** Luckily, the [[Dolled-Up Installment]] ''Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine'' was toned down somewhat, having more of a difficulty curve. Although it does have at least one spike.
* ''[[Marble Blast Gold]]'' has a noticeable difficulty gap between beginner and intermediate, and between intermediate and advanced. Even worse the beginner and intermediate stages only have 24 levels each, but advanced has 52.
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* The seventh Chinese mission, '''Operation: Nuclear Winter''', in ''[[Command and Conquer Generals|Generals]]'' also deserves its place here: the GLA throws everything but the kitchen sink at you very early on, while you are short of supplies and has barely built your base. [[Fake Difficulty|Add to that the fact that]] [[Guide Dang It|they have a SCUD launcher platform that will fire and annihilate your forces/base if you have 5000 money or more]], and you get players having one hell of a surprise. After that, the game returns to its normal curve.
* ''[[Starcraft]]'' had a few levels that tested people's patience. Protoss mission 7 had the player fighting against an army of Protoss that was further up the tech tree. This lead to some frustration, as the presence of Arbiters and Carriers made it difficult for anyone to reasonably counter the enemy. Most players won by massing troops or Photon Cannons instead of using any real strategy. In Brood War, Terran mission 8 got rather ridiculous when the Zerg sent in a much harder to kill Ultralisk every few minutes to harass your troops. The worst offender had to be Zerg mission 8 and 10 (in Brood War), with the former having a deadly Zerg/Terran air force, and the latter had two powerful Terran and a Protoss attacking players at once.
* ''[[Starcraft II (Video Game)|Starcraft II]]'''s last mission is significantly more difficult than, well, any of the previous ones. Except maybe ''Supernova.''
 
== [[Rhythm Game]] ==
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**** "Symphony of Destruction" is ''nothing''. "Cowboys From Hell" is where things get ridiculous.
*** Then it takes a sledgehammer to your [[Groin Attack|balls]] with "Through The Fire And The Flames".
* The first ''[[Rock Band]]'' game gave us [[Iron Maiden (Music)|Run to the Hills]] on hard drums, which was so beyond anything else in that difficulty tier that most veteran players advised newbies to start the game again on a higher difficulty setting when they reached it, rather than spend hours futilely flailing away at a song that was tougher than many of the Expert tier's end-game songs. Of course, then you unlocked the same song on ''Expert'' and realized that the game had been going comparatively easy on you up to that point. <ref>A note on "Run To The Hills": it uses a very fast "disco" beat in which two hands alternate on the hi-hat and one of them moves to hit the snare. On Expert, this means keeping a steady alternating rhythm. On Hard, every other 16th hi-hat hit is removed, resulting in an xxx-xxs-xxx-xxs pattern (where x is hi-hat, s is snare, - is a rest). While it is technically much easier, some people found this to be just as hard or even harder to keep rhythm with than Expert. Rock Band 2 changed this system with songs like Everlong to convert very fast disco beats into regular beats, removing the 16ths entirely. This means that on Everlong and some other songs, you now hit a hi-hat at the same time as the snare. These hi-hat hits don't exist in the real songs, but make much more sense as a real drummer would do the same thing if they wanted to slow down the drum-work.</ref>
** ''[[Rock Band|Rock Band 2]]'' followed this up with [[Foo Fighters (Music)|Everlong]], which, while slower than ''Run to the Hills'', has a much less intuitive bass pattern. Of course, once you get past Everlong, there are five more songs that take the difficulty to ridiculous levels: Battery, Shoulder to the Plow, Painkiller, and Panic Attack are difficult (and decently long), but Visions takes the cake. Visions has the fastest blast beats in the game, the bass is very fast, and the pattern is very technically complex. Many players can five star every other song and still can't pass Visions.
** ''Rock Band 2'''s Sound Guy challenge, if there's an Expert drummer in your band. It ends with Everlong, ranked the 5th hardest song on the disc, and it's not under-rated; it's filled with high-speed 'tika-tika-tika-tika' hi-hat hits that will fail out most players unless they've been breezing through everything else up to that point. The silver lining is that if you can beat it once, you probably won't fail it afterwards, and you can switch down to Hard with little if any penalty.
** Both ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' and ''[[Rock Band]]'' feature a general [[Difficulty Spike]] when moving from Medium to Hard on guitar or drums. Guitar charts start including the orange fret, meaning that you have to start moving your hands around instead of having your four fingers sit on green, red, yellow, and blue all the time. On drums, the bass pedal finds itself on the off-beats more often, forcing some extra limb independence out of players, and that's not taking into account the presence of drumrolls and fills with much more notes than one would see in a Medium chart.
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* ''[[DJMAX]] Technika'''s Weekly 27 course, available only from July 12 through 19, 2010. Stage 1 is Enemy Storm [PP]; one of the easiest stage 2 songs in Popular Mode. Stage 2 is Cherokee [PP]; a few steps up but still doable for some. ''Then'' there is Stage 3, A.I. [TP], which is many steps harder than Cherokee thanks to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWDBIfrTTZE#t=1m40s a rather annoying repeat note segment at the end].
** Hatsune Mikue's Project Diva has a fairly reasonable difficulty progression with every song being completable with enough practice. Then you get to The Dissapearence of Hatsune Miku and your head explodes.
* [[Rhythm Heaven (Video Game)|Rhythm Heaven]] progresses at a simple rate for the first five stages. Then the game smacks [[That One Level|Rhythm Rally]] in your face, one of the least lenient mini-games in the game. Then the game smooths out again, and finally hits its head with Big Rock Finish, which doesn't allow practice for 6 of the 8 playable songs, immediately followed by Frog Hop, the longest song in the game. Then the game crashes the ceiling through your body with Lockstep, a game that is downright impossible for first-timers; Space Soccer, which nets you a fail if you mess up twice; and [[Marathon Level|Remix 6]] which is the first Remix to fake you out by switching minigames mid-tap. Then comes [[Oh Crap|Round 2]], which elongates, quickens, and/or [[Interface Screw|adds effects that make focus difficult]], and [[Fake Longevity|getting all perfects]].
 
== [[Roguelike]] ==
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* ''[[Earthbound]]'' has the Peaceful Rest Valley. Up until that point, the only challenging part was the Giant Step dungeon, and even that's not too bad if you're well-equipped. Peaceful Rest Valley teems with [[Demonic Spiders]], especially the dreaded [[Action Bomb|Territorial Oaks]]. It doesn't help that it takes forever to get out.
** The mine is another major difficulty spike. It's a long maze level swarming with poisonous enemies, requiring you to find and defeat five giant moles. The first time playing, you ''will'' get lost and spend a long time aimlessly wandering. And it doesn't get any better afterwards; almost immediately you get forced through the [[That One Level|Fourside Department Store]] and [[Dark World|Moonside]], both of which are even more difficult.
* ''[[Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' has this applied to [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]].
** The final boss is especially notable. Although several of the {{spoiler|Koopalings}} were timed boss battles, and Fawful had some hard-to-avoid attacks, they weren't ''too'' hard to deal with. Even {{spoiler|Bowletta}} isn't that hard...and then you reach {{spoiler|Cackletta's spirit}}. Mario and Luigi are reduced to 1 HP each, and most of the time the boss will attack first, using up to ''four attacks''. The attacks are brand new, and if you die, you have to beat Bowletta again before getting another chance to analyze (and hopefully dodge) the attacks. It's common for an unsuspecting player to die before getting a single hit in, and the boss only adds new attacks from there.
*** However, you WERE allowed to heal yourself if you had some nuts lying around.
*** You have to survive her opening attacks first (or be faster than her, which requires a lot of leveling and/or lucky level-ups).
*** Can be also averted with the Jeans that give you the First Attack ability, so you can just heal with a Max Nut or Ultra Nut.
** ''[[Mario and Luigi Partners In Time (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time]]'' also had a difficulty spike with the final dungeon, and especially with the final boss(es). In both games, even the normal enemies in the final dungeon are a huge step up from what has come before them.
** ''[[Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' also has this at Joke's End, which is a [[Marathon Level]], ice level and [[That One Level]] in one, coming right after a fairly easy set of side quests and relaxed happy areas of the game. And right before the even harder final dungeon.
*** The name seems oddly fitting now.
* In the [[PSPlay Station 3]] game ''[[Folklore (Video Game)|Folklore]]'', the difficulty level in the final level, the Netherworld Core, is far greater than all previous areas.
* ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]'' has a large difficulty spike whenever you enter one of the 4 elemental lighthouses.
** Final bosses don't tend to count for this trope unless particularly absurd -- like the [[Golden Sun Dark Dawn (Video Game)|DS sequel]]! At the very end of a 20-30 hour game that got a lot of flak for being trivially easy from the start all the way through the penultimate triple boss (you may well never have the slightest pressure to touch your inventory in combat throughout the game), the Chaos Chimera is quite suddenly very, very powerful and grueling on the scale of the previous games' [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]].
*** And Chaos Chimera itself is a baby step compared to {{spoiler|[[Brutal Bonus Level|Crossbone Isle]]}}. Did you level everybody to 60+ in {{spoiler|Apollo Sanctum}} [[Peninsula of Power Leveling|where it was easy]]? No? Oops! Every random encounter in said [[Bonus Dungeon]] is a [[Boss in Mook Clothing]], and the [[Bonus Boss]] itself is {{spoiler|[[Up to Eleven|an upgraded Dullahan]]. Yes, ''that'' [[That One Boss|Dull]][[Memetic Badass|ahan]]}}.
* At the end of the first half of ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', the Floating Continent has a sudden jump in the difficulty of random monsters compared to previous locations.
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** Also simply starting a new game with the expansions installed. Whenever you go to sleep, you have a chance of an assassin being near your bed when you wake. This assassin, meant for players who had already beaten the original game, will quickly kill you at low levels.
* ''[[Pokémon]]'' games will normally have a huge level difference between the team of the final gym leader and the team of the first member of the Elite Four...and the ''champion'' of the Elite Four is in a whole different weight class.
** ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl (Video Game)|Pokémon Diamond and Pearl]]/Platinum'' and ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue (Video Game)|Pokémon Red and Blue]]/Yellow/Green'' throw an extra curveball by having the champion have a Pokémon ''with no weaknesses''. <ref>Spiritomb and Alakazam, respectively. Remember that the first generation had no Dark type, Ghost was bugged, and Bug was nearly useless, making pure Psychics like Alakazam effectively weakness-free.</ref>
*** But you have to admit that [[Crippling Overspecialization|specializing in one type]], which is sometimes [[Poor Predictable Rock|expressed by the terrain inside the room]], wants that Scizor taken against Glacia in her snowy room with 3 kinds of Pokemon, which are either the Ice type (Glalie) or Ice/Water (Sealeo and Walrein).
** After the Elite 4, it only gets worse. There are usually various [[Bonus Boss|bonus battles]] scattered across the region, including rematches with upgraded Gym Leaders and the Elite 4, who now all have a new team of Pokémon from all across the world (instead of being limited to the region the game is set in), usually in their seventies. [[The Rival]] also gains a few extra levels. And then there's the [[Harder Than Hard|Battle Frontier]]...
** What may be one of the most extreme examples is in generation 5, where the final battle of the main storyline pits you against Pokemon leveled in the low-mid 50's. Then the postgame pits you in trainer battles against Pokemon leveled in the low-mid ''60s''.
*** To compensate for this, some of these Level 60+ Pokémon aren't fully evolved for whatever reason. However, this makes the ones that ''are'' using final forms difficulty spikes in comparison to the ones that aren't.
** ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver (Video Game)|HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'' are particularly egregious. The highest-leveled Pokemon in the Elite Four is level 50. The Kanto gym leaders have Pokemon in the 40s and 50s. However, [[True Final Boss|Red]]'s entire team has levels in the ''80s''.
*** Except inbetween battling the Elite Four and Kanto Gym leaders the first time and Red is the rematches with the E4 and the Gym leaders. The Gym leaders get up in the 60s range and the Champion Lance gets into the 70s.
*** Depending on how you look at, the original games are less or more crazy. Blue's best Pokémon are Arcanine, Gyarados and Exeggutor, at Lv. 58. What's Red ''weakest mon''? Lv. '''73''' Espeon, FIFTEEN levels higher. Five less than in remakes (Lv. 80 Lapras versus Lv. 60 Pidgeot) but when you think about... Gym Leaders and E4 don't get upgrade. The strongest trainer you can easily rematch is Lance, with [[Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|Lv. 50 Dragonite]]. That's lower than Blue's weakest Pokémon! With wild Pokémon, it goes up to Lv. 52 Parasect in Mount Silver. However, it is only Crystal. In Gold/Silver, it's Lv. 51 Golduck. And then find where they appear! In other words, prepare for LOT of grinding.
**** In GSC, while the Elite 4 doesn't upgrade, there's also a ''slightly'' lesser spike between Blue and Red's levels. Fortunately, in the remakes, the Elite 4 ''does'' upgrade to help you level grind better. Of course, you'll need every bit of grinding you can get in preparation for Red.
* ''[[Mega Man Battle Network (Video Game)|Mega Man Battle Network]]''. An interesting case, as the series as a whole spikes difficulty distinctly at each installment. The ''entire first game'' is basically an extended tutorial sequence for the rest of the series. Sure, there are a couple places you can get trashed ([[That One Boss|Magicman says hi]]), but the game actually expects you to not be particularly adept at the quirky combat system just yet -- you don't notice at first because you're still adjusting to the mechanics, but there's a ''ton'' of leeway. MMBN2 stops pulling punches when you get to [[Wake Up Call Boss|Quickman]] and is never forgiving enough to do so again. By 3, there ''is'' no [[Warmup Boss]] -- the first one is downright vicious. 4-6 are just plain [[Nintendo Hard|ornery]].
** Then you go back and play the series in sequence again and realize the following. Tactics, reaction time, maneuvering, and mistakes that would let you S-rank an opponent in the first game would give you about an 8 at best in BN2, 4-5 in BN3, and would in all likelihood get you outright killed in the last three.
** Each game also has a massive difficulty spike upon entering the [[Wretched Hive|Undernet]]. Say goodbye to the slow, cutesy Mets, and get used to your deadliest virus no longer being a [[Killer Rabbit|Bunny]]. Say ''hello'' to meteor-raining mages, Spikies that move faster than any Bunny you've seen so far, arena shenanigans, and absolutely brutal enemy combinations that will happily murder you and eat your source code. Granted, it's not too hard to adjust to, but the sheer spike in difficulty more than makes up for it.
* ''[[Mega Man 1 (Video Game)|Mega Man 1]]'' also had a notable but optional one. The boss often fought first, Cut Man, is usually followed by [[That One Boss|Elec Man]] in the weakness chain.
** Occurs a few other times in future games. ''[[Mega Man 2 (Video Game)|Mega Man 2]]'s'' Flash Man is pathetically easy if you know his weakness. Who is his weapon used for? Quick Man.
* Enemies get much stronger after completing Hollow Bastion in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]''. The game itself even tells you that they have.
** In the final level of [[Chain of Memories|Chain of Memories,]] be prepared for all of the previously easy enemies such as Darkball and Shadows to be upgraded to ridiculous levels, with them using 0 cards strategically, 8's out the ass, and generally being royal dicks. You literally have to have a deck of nothing but 9's in order to win.
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* The ''[[Suikoden]]'' series of games follow a general pattern: The majority of the game is smooth and easy to handle, with random encounters increasing in difficulty but never becoming unmanageable, and relatively few bosses that are usually fairly simple, with maybe one or two of [[That One Boss|those kinds of bosses.]] Then the [[Final Boss]] or series of bosses comes up, and they are a hitpoint-munching game-over ''machine.'' They tend to be about five or six times harder than the entire rest of the game.
** ''[[Suikoden III]]'' plays with this pattern--there are several boss battles that are ''brutally'' difficult...but the catch is that [[Heads I Win, Tails You Lose|the game proceeds on regardless of whether you win or lose]] and the required bosses are fairly manageable. The [[Final Boss]] of Suiko3, though, holds to the aforementioned trend of being death-in-a-bucket.
* In ''[[Dragon Slayer (Video Game)|Dragon Slayer]]'', the fifth through eighth monsters have 5,000 HP, 7,500 HP, 10,000 HP and 20,000 HP. Then the ninth monster has 300,000 HP.
* ''[[Dragon Quest VIII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VIII]]'''s [[Bonus Dungeon]] has a boss at the end of it, and you must go through it each time to defeat a new one. The Darksteel Dragon is much more difficult. He has far less HP than his predecessors, but his defense is so high that, barring critical-or-miss attacks, you won't hit him that often. Also, he gets triple attacks.
* Playing ''[[Dragon Age]]'', you'll wonder where its [[Nintendo Hard]] reputation comes from. . .until you get to the courtyard of Castle Redcliffe.
* All of ''[[Dark Souls (Video Game)|Dark Souls]]'' is hard, but Blighttown, with its maze-like layout, powerful, toxin-inducing foes, difficult to see toxin-inducing snipers, is where things really start getting tough. Another difficulty spike is [[That One Level|Sen's Fortress]], which comes immediately after Blighttown. The area is a convention center for booby traps and considerably strong mooks than previously encountered.
 
== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ==
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* The first three and a half stages of ''[[Don Pachi|DoDonPachi]]'' are designed to break you in. The rest of the game is designed to break you.
** And then there's the second loop. And ''then'' there's Hibachi, who makes ''the entire rest of the game look like cheesecake''.
* Many fans of the ''[[Touhou (Video Game)|Touhou]]'' series would actually feel weird with a game that ''didn't'' include at least one difficulty spike. It's very traditional that the game gets into its real difficulty level only around level 4 or so, being really easy before. Some particular games do it one level before, some it one after, but the fact that there ''will'' be a difficulty spike is unavoidable.
** Also, the gap between Hard and Lunatic tends to be much bigger than between Easy and Normal and between Normal and Hard.
** The most pronounced spike is in normal mode of ''Ten Desires''...it's the [[Final Boss]]. Within the same game, the overdrive version of a spellcard is often vastly worse than any of the other versions, including lunatic.
*** Except for Yuyuko's overdrive. You don't even have to move from where you start in it -- that's less movement than for [[Touhou (Video Game)/Memes|"Icicle Fall -Easy-"]] itself!
* The first stage of Toaplan's ''Flying Shark''/''Sky Shark'' is only moderately hard, but the "moderately" part goes away after that. Doesn't help that it has [[Fake Difficulty]] by way of [[Continuing Is Painful|Gradius syndrome]].
* ''[[Blazing Star]]'' turns nasty when you're up to the boss of stage 3, which attempts to overwhelm you by boxing you into a very small space with its attacks, then sprays bullets maniacally in its last form. Stage 4 has enemies that appear so quickly the game has to warn you where they're coming from, and a boss that throws destructible bullets which end up blocking your shots, while frequently trying to ram you. Stage 5 has wall-mounted turrets that fire bullets in every direction at once, and a boss that does the same for one of its attacks but in a denser spread. Stage 6? Let's just say, I hope you know how big your ship's hitbox is.
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* ''[[Punch Out]]'' certainly counts with the final fight against [[Final Boss|Mike Tyson (Mr. Dream in the post-scandal version)]], which takes [[Nintendo Hard]] to ridiculous extremes. The difference in difficulty between him and all the fights before him is so extreme that it's rather like comparing the size of an average swimming pool and the Atlantic Ocean.
** The Major Circuit as a whole (save the opening [[Hard Mode Filler|Piston Honda rematch]] is a [[Just for Pun|sucker-punch in the face]] after the relatively manageable fights that came before. In addition to having to face [[That One Boss|Bald Bull]] ''again'', you get the nice little [[Accidental Pun|one-two punch]] of Mr. Sandman and Super Macho Man. These two fighters, along with Soda Popinksi from earlier in the Circuit, make the rest of the game look much like how Tyson makes ''them'' look.
* ''[[Punch Out|Punch Out Wii]]'' has Bear Hugger, who's ''much'' trickier than his predecessors (every fighter before him had a method to knock them down with one hit; the only way to do so with Bear-Hugger is with a three-star punch). He also marks where Title Defense gets painful. He is Canadian [[Writer Onon Board|like the developers]], and even hails from the same hometown.
 
== [[Stealth Based Game]] ==
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== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==
* Playing ''[[Max Payne (Video Gameseries)|Max Payne]]'' on the level "New York Minute" is like shooting yourself in the head. You get a minute per section, and you can only get about 4 seconds per kill.
* While ''[[Oni]]'' isn't exactly an easy game, the difficulty of level 11 comes out of nowhere with three tough bosses in a row, broken up by fights against some of the toughest [[Mooks]] in the game, along with very meager supplies; most of which is gotten off the bodies of your enemies, then the game goes back to the normal overall difficulty curve for the rest of the game.
** The absurdly difficult final section of level 3 tops that easily. Good lord, the death count nearly reached the triple digits. At least the next level went easy on the player after that onslaught. An honorable mention goes to level 12. Dodging five sets of trip lasers (which are armed with near-fatal Mercury Bow rifles) at the start makes for some frustrating gameplay. It's not quite as sadistic, but agonizing, nonetheless.
 
== [[Turn -Based Strategy]] ==
* ''Chessmater 3000'' added a feature to make it easier for less experienced players - a slider that controlled the percentage of moves it considers. Because of how AI systems work, this led to a difficulty spike where some players can always defeat it at 99% difficulty but always lose at 100%. ''Chessmaster 4000'' corrected this by using move strength rather than hiding random moves from the AI.
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' somewhat bizarrely has its difficulty spike midway through the game. The Riovannes castle is absolute murder, first with an Annoying [[Duel Boss]] (Weigraf) then [[That One Boss]] (Velius) then finishing with the [[Escort Mission]] From Hell (lemming-Rafa). Nothing that comes after that point is anywhere near as brutal as Riovannes.
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Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/906844"