Early Game Hell: Difference between revisions
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* Lack of experience with the game mechanics.
This particular valley of difficulty usually occurs between the opening chapter of the game (where there are so few options that it is hard to make a wrong choice) and the point where a player becomes able to understand and accumulate the resources at their disposal, significantly increasing their available options. In worse cases, it turns the early stage into a [[Luck-Based Mission]]. It is essentially a symptom of [[Unstable Equilibrium]].
Remember, [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]. Use of '''Early Game Hell''' can make progression infinitely more rewarding. Early Game Hell can also be the only time the game ever presents a challenge.
[[Super-Trope]] of [[Early Bird Boss]], and often overlaps with [[Schizophrenic Difficulty]]. If there are difficulty options and the "Easy" mode is harder for whatever reason, that's [[Non Indicative Difficulty]].
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* In ''[[STALKER]]: Shadow of Chernobyl'' you are stuck with a leather jacket that barely qualifies as armor and a pistol (''maybe'' an SMG, if you get lucky) for the early game. The first fight in ''Shadow of Chernobyl'' is one of the hardest, because you're up against several bandits with armor and sawed-off shotguns that can blast through you like tissue paper, while you're stuck with a terribly inaccurate pistol that fires spit wads. After finding some halfway decent ranged weapons and armor, the game gets much easier.
* Like STALKER, ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'' forces realistic weapon ranges while sticking the player with pistols and the rare SMG. Unlike STALKER, the environments and combat system make closing the distance impossible, and sticks the player at the mercy of [[Randomly Drops]], allowing the computer to have long arms while you don't.
* ''[[Gothic]]'' is purposefully built on this to give a feel to character progression, making The Nameless Hero [[Took a Level
* ''[[Morrowind]]'' has an extremely lop-sided progression. At first you are too inaccurate to even try to [[Stat Grind]] (as it's based on successes only) for the most part. Once you get a decent pile of gold (not hard, even without exploits) and a trainer though, you quickly become a god slayer.
* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' starts the player off with few skill points, ammo, and medkits, all to hammer in that the player has many more options than just shooting their way through.
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* Most ''[[Devil May Cry]]'' games count for this trope. At the beginning of the game, Dante (or Nero) start out with their basic sword, guns, weakest maneuvers, very little health and MP (sometimes NO MP at all), and the enemies can still kill quite easily. Even though you face harder enemies later in the game, the ability to repeat stages and grind through means that it's possible to level up faster than the difficulty curve can keep up with.
* In ''[[Chicken Invaders]]'', your firepower grow much faster than the hitpoints of the monsters. Thus, the second level is normally easier than the first.
* In ''[[Dungeons
* [[Mass Effect 2]] hits this in a [[New Game+]] [[Harder Than Hard|Insanity]] run, since the enemies are scaled to your level, but your weapons are stripped of all upgrades. The hardest levels are either Freedom's Progress, where you're restricted to the crappy default weapon loadout, or Horizon, where you come up against the full might of the Collectors, including a goddamn Praetorian. And if you're starting from scratch, [[Nintendo Hard|hoo boy...]]
** ''3'''s multiplayer suffers from this as well. When you're first starting, all you have are the [[Boring but Practical]] human characters and the default weapon loadout. However, as you go, you'll be buying better and better weapon packs, and soon you'll be playing with all the exotic alien classes.
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** ''Origins'', being the difficult game it is, really tries to mix this up. You've got a short section with no party members other than Sagi, a nasty [[Early Bird Boss]], and several scenes [[Get On With It Already|where nothing particularly interesting happens]]. Just to add to that, new players are going to have a hell of a time with the battle system and the rather steep difficulty curve, while veteran players learn there's no EX Combo options until a couple hours in. The game gets infinitely better once you meet [[Reasonable Authority Figure|Quaestor Verus]], though.
* [[Persona 4]] hits you with this as well. While there exist certain Personas and abilities that make the early bosses cake ([[Guide Dang It|Good luck with that]]), the low power and small party options will turn against you very quickly. After about the second dungeon, it gets easier, aside from the occasional [[That One Boss]].
* [[Startopia]] can be this, depending on the level or sandbox options. Regardless of specifics: you'll not have a lot of [[Energy Economy|energy]], and what little you have goes to [[Honest John's Dealership|Arona Daal]] to buy raw materials and basic facilities. Low energy means power shortages, and guests that were only [[Blatant Lies|minorly upset]] that your station isn't a four-star locale will become [[Berserk Button|really irritated]] when things shut down. It's inevitable, though, that you'll be able to become nearly completely self-sufficient by making your own goods. It'll get to the point where you'll need to buy another Energy-storing building because you've overloaded the first. Sooner or later, you'll need a third. You'll need a fourth one before you realize it, and the fifth one is practically instant. Before you know it, you'll experience an economic version of [[The Singularity]].
* The early game in [[
* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', the first three chapters are told from the viewpoint of three different characters. While it's undoubtedly an excellent storytelling choice, getting yanked away from the characters you've leveled up and gotten familiar with is a bit jarring. This comes to a head in Chapter 3, where you have to play as [[Joke Character|Salsa]] for the entire chapter, including fighting ''[[That One Boss|a freaking tank]]'' at the end.
* [[Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue|Hello Kitty Roller Rescue]]'s [[New Game+]] has this when you play as {{spoiler|Badtz-Maru}}. He has lower health than Kitty
* ''[[Resident Evil]]'':
** As soon as the game gives control to the player, [[Resident Evil 2]] throws zombies at you in nearly every direction from the very start. If playing on normal, you won't have enough ammunition to fight them all, forcing you to run. The controls have a definite learning curve to them; expect to die a lot in the early stages (if not the very first screen) if you're not well accustomed to "tank-like" movement.
* The hardest boss in the first ''[[Diablo]]'' is the Butcher, encountered at level 2 and quite capable of surviving all your mana potions and staff charges and killing you in two hits. ▼
** The original ''[[Resident Evil 3: Nemesis]]'' starts with Jill dramatically somersaulting out of her apartment, making a perfect landing on the street below and ready to kick zombie ass. The remake, however, decided to make it harder for her. The game starts with Nemesis making his first assault on poor Jill, breaking into her apartment (and in the tradition of hulking monstrous abominations, [[There Was a Door| not using the door]]) leading to a five minute sequence requiring the player to guide the terrified heroine in fleeing the building, using quick-time events to survive, until finally ending up on street level, unarmed, half her life bar depleted, and surrounded by hungry zombies, plus a new control scheme the player has to learn to use ''quickly'' due to the sudden change to 3rd-person perspective gameplay. The only edge she has is that Brad shows up to help [[The Load| but, well... you know.]]
▲* The hardest boss in the first ''[[Diablo]]'' is the Butcher, encountered at level 2 and quite capable of surviving all your mana potions and staff charges and killing you in two hits.
* ''[[Minecraft]]''. Entire guides have been written on how to survive the first full day, and what you should set about doing immediately. For the uninitiated, this is because the game starts you with nothing. No weapons, no tools, no food, and no real idea or explanation of how to get them. Just you, dumped into a random landscape, with ten minutes before nightfall, when the monsters appear. In that time you need to prepare some form of defense, even if it's just a basic shelter. The game gets much easier once you have a shelter, some cobble weapons (at least), and have learnt a few ways to craft all the stuff you'll need to survive against the enemies.
* ''[[Skyward Sword]]'' has Hero Mode, which doubles damage done to you and eliminates recovery hearts. Once you get the Heart Medal (several hours of play in) and start amassing more [[Heart Container
* Many players never got past the first chapter of ''[[Dark Cloud]]'' because the very beginning of the game can be '''sheer torture''': before you have access to a shop, you get a VERY limited cache of supplies from the mayor of Norune; your weak weapon needs to be repaired frequently (and God help you if you run out of Repair Powder at a critical time), you may or may not luck into a Healing Spring in the random dungeon layouts, and heaven help you if you manage to get poisoned. Even after you finally get access to the game's first shop, it doesn't get MUCH easier, because the enemies in the first dungeon don't drop much money and the item prices are ridiculous. Add to that the absurd difficulty of the final boss of the first dungeon, and a lot of players gave up on this otherwise excellent game before they could really open it up.
* ''[[X (video game)|X3 Reunion]]'' and previous ''X-Universe'' games are infamous for dropping the player into the universe in a crappy ship with next to no money, no upgrades, bad weapons, and no tutorial. Trading is painfully slow and combat usually results in a Pirate fighter curb-stomping your little ship. [[Sequel Difficulty Drop|Later games alleviate the issue]] by having different game starts give the player a better ship or more money.
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* The first levels of the first [[Kid Icarus]] game are probably the hardest (which makes sense; you actually ''are'' in Hell, after all). Pit starts out with a tiny health bar and a [[With This Herring|weak bow]] with poor range. The first levels also scroll upward, and due to [[Ratchet Scrolling]] you die if you fall past the bottom of the screen. Once you've completed those levels though, most likely gaining some health and weapon upgrades along the way, it gets much easier.
* Most ''[[Pokémon]]'' games start out slower than molasses. This is because you have few [[Mons]] available to you to build a proper party, and because the game [[Broken Bridge|prevents you from leaving the early area]] until you beat the first Gym Leader. This means that you have precious few trainers to draw experience from, forcing you to [[Level Grind]] off of wilds, and no way of [[Money Grinding]] at all. Once you beat the first Gym Leader the game generally gets a lot more free and easy, with the exception of an occasional [[That One Boss]].
* On higher difficulties of ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'', the first area (Slime Mountain) becomes this. Luka is alone, with his starting job and race and a limited inventory, meaning that there simply isn't any room to use strategy. The level 1 Slime Girls will almost certainly defeat you, unless you get very lucky with evasion and critical hits. It becomes much easier when you start recruiting party members. This was toned-down somewhat with the release of the second chapter, which specifically makes Slime Mountain easier.
* ''[[Wizardry]] VII'' first area. There are [[Beef Gate|ambushes with fairly tough monsters]], using poison at that, right away - one before the chest with map kit, and another before city (where you can't go anyway without a password found elsewhere). If you already have played it and remember to go straight for the healing fountain and avoid these [[Fixed Encounters]] until some good [[Level Grinding]], it becomes easier, though a little bad luck with random encounters (debuffers, ''then'' heavy hitters) still can be fatal.
* ''[[MegaMan Battle Network]] Transmission'' has an extremely steep difficulty curve before becoming trivial. First boss FireMan is tricky to dodge and can take lots of punishment from your low damage chips but will kill you in only a few hits (even though you are given an item that halves his power) hits and second boss GutsMan is only slightly easier. After this you will be showered in HP upgrades and chips that give powerful attacks that can literally kill bosses in seconds. Platforming is similarly rendered trivial after this if you know which enemies to kill for a chip that [[Double Jump|lets you jump in the air]] (this only works a max of 9 times a stage, but that's more than enough for most). Difficulty falls off even further by the midway point when you've upgraded the freely usable but weak Mega Buster to the point chips aren't even needed for non-boss fights anymore.
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[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]
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