Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

{{examples}}

These examples should be the names of the levels '''only''', since that's what the trope is about. The details of gameplay differences between levels are irrelevant unless they are related to the name. Examples are listed in order from easiest to hardest.

 

** Sergeant

** Sergeant Major

** "Don't hurt me."

** "Bring 'em on!"

** "I am Death incarnate!"

*** With accompanying mugshots of the hero B.J. Blazkowicz. On "Daddy" difficulty, [[Easy Mode Mockery|he wears a baby bonnet and sucks a pacifier]]. On "Death Incarnate", he looks borderline satanic.

** "[[Easy Mode Mockery|I'm Too Young To die]]"

** "Hey, Not Too Rough"

** "I Own Doom!"

** "Watch Me Die!"

** Kitten

** House Cat

** Alley Cat

* ''[[Heretic]]'' had [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]] titles that are references to the ''Wolfenstein 3-D'' and ''Doom'' level names:

** Thou Art A Smite-Meister

** [[Harder Than Hard|The black plague possess thee]]

** Squire/Altar Boy/Apprentice

** Knight/Acolyte/Enchanter

** Warrior/Priest/Sorcerer

** Berserker/Cardinal/Warlock

** For the Paladin, it went Apprentice (easiest), Squire, Adept, Lord (hardest).

** With the Necromancer, you had Sorcerer (easiest), Dark Servant, Warlock, Lich King (hardest).

** The Crusader's levels went Gallant (easiest), Holy Avenger, Divine Hero, Legend (hardest).

** The expansion, titled ''Portal of Praevus'', added a fifth type, the Demoness, whose levels were Larva (easiest), Spawn, Fiend, She Bitch (hardest).

** Piece of Cake

** Damn I'm Good

** Wussy

** Get Some

** ''Hell'' or Hell (Only you die in one hit)

** Legendary Dark Knight

** Kids (easy)

** Adults (hard)

** V-rated (very hard)

** Ultra-V-rated (nigh impossible).

** The PS2 version added a "Fresh" ([[Easier Than Easy|very easy]]) mode.

*** I heard it was "Sweet". Might "Fresh" be the PAL equivalent? (In PAL releases, the names are less idiosyncratic, such as "Easy" and "Normal".)

** Civ I:

*** Chieftain

*** Warlord

*** Prince

*** Emperor

** Civ II

*** Added "Deity" level as the hardest

*** Has two different level systems (one for barbarian activity, and one for AI intelligence and game speed). The former ranges up to "Raging Hordes", and the latter runs from "Chieftain" to "Deity".

*** Chieftain

*** Warlord

*** Deity

**** Sid (in the ''Play The World'' expansion pack, available only in Conquests mode.) The "Sid" level difficulty was marked as more or less "For you nutjobs who seem to be beating Deity difficulty, we've made a mode that aims to make all but the best players cry like a little girl." The AI blatantly cheats, all the difficulty settings are turned [[Up to Eleven|up to 9011]], and so on.

*** Chieftain

*** Warlord

*** Prince

*** Monarch

** Pony

** Trollestia

** Investor

** Financier

** Mogul

** Tycoon

** Apprentice

** Journeyman

** Rogue

** Swashbuckler

** Earth

** Galaxy

** Universe

** Fourth Dimension

** Mortal

** Hero

** Chaos

*** The hardest difficulty levels in each ''God of War'' game refer to Kratos' allegiance in each respective game.

** Mama's Boy

** Weekend Warrior

** Simple

** Second

*** The ''[[Tales of Destiny]]'' remake added Evil and Chaos, the hardest difficulties.

** Normal

** Nightmare

* The original PlayStation version of ''[[Resident Evil 1]]'' allows the players to choose between two main characters, a female (Jill) and a male (Chris). In the Japanese version, the difficulty between the two character are actually labeled on the character select screen as "Easy" and "Hard" respectively.

** When the player starts a new game in the GameCube version of ''[[Resident Evil 1|Resident Evil]]'', the difficulty settings are not so clearly defined at first. Instead, the player will be asked whether they prefer to "hike" or "climb" a mountain.

* ''[[Scorched Earth]]'' has AI skill and tactics levels, although there was no clear hierarchy of easiest to hardest beyond that Morons played like, well, morons, and the Cyborg had better aiming skills and virtually always hit whatever he aimed at.

** Moron (Shoots at random; randomly changes its aim following a miss.)

** Normal

** Hard

** Master Ninja

** ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] II'' has Acolyte, Warrior, Mentor, Master Ninja.

* ''[[Ghost Recon]]: Advanced Warfighter 2'':

* ''[[Blood]]'':

** Still Kicking

** Homicide

** Suicide

** I'm Over 40 and Have Arthritis in My Trigger Fingers

** I Don't Eat Quiche

** Breezin'

** Cruisin'

** Sweatin'

** Hard Rock!

** Light-hearted Cheer

** Bold Cheer

** Bydo

** R-Typer

** Tourist

** Easy

** Serious

** Mental.

** Sweet

** Mild

** Bitter

** Veteran

** Elite.

** Brave

** Jedi.

** Inbred

** Crap

*** Swashbuckler (Survival)

*** Captain ([[Final Death|Hardcore]])

* ''[[The Curse of Monkey Island]]'' has Normal and Mega Monkey. The latter is the real full game, while the former has some of the puzzles removed and is described as being for game-reviewing journalists.

** In ''[[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge]]'' you could choose between "Monkey Island 2" ("I want it all! All the puzzles! All the work!") and "Monkey 2 Lite" ("I've never played an adventure game before. I'm scared."). This is also described as being the "optional easy mode for children and magazine reviewers" on the back cover of the game.

** Morphine

* LucasArts' western-themed ''[[Outlaws (1997 video game)]]'': [[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly|Good, Bad, Ugly]]

* ''[[Unreal Tournament]]'' had subtitled bot skill levels:

** Novice (They won't hurt you... much)

** Inhuman ([[Fist of the North Star|You are already dead]])

** Godlike (I am the Alpha and the Omega).

** Lame

** Wicked

** "Big Boss Hard"

** "The Boss Extreme".

** "Super Unleaded"

** "High Octane".

** "I've cleared the previous game multiple times, so bring on the action!"

** "I didn't clear the previous game myself, but I watched everything!"

** "I didn't clear the previous game, but bring on the action!"

* ''Space Megaforce'' has Normal, Hard, Hyper, Tricky, and Wild. Tricky and Wild, which cause enemies to fire back when destroyed, are selected by pressing left (as if selecting an easier difficulty).

* [[Bemani]] games tend to do this a lot:

** ''[[Beatmania]] IIDX'': Light 7, 7 Keys, Another (up to IIDX 11); Normal, Hyper, Another (IIDX 12 onwards)

*** In Troopers CS, they introduced Kuro (Black) Another, which make the original another charts look like Light 7s by comparison.

*** Normal

*** Hyper

*** Hard: "Uetsu Yumihari", Upper Bowstring Moon (waxing half-moon)

*** Lunatic: "Matsuyoi", Waiting Evening (waxing gibbous, specifically the day just before a full moon)

** ''Subterranen Animism'' also has its own naming scheme:

*** Easy: Fairy Class

** Very Hard

** [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Impossible.]] [[Check Point Starvation|Removes all save points]], forcing you to somehow complete the game without dying (remember, this is the game that makes all other [[Platform Hell]] games look like [[You Have to Burn The Rope]]). Despite the name, [[We Do the Impossible|a few people actually beat it on this difficulty.]] The game's creator was extremely surprised.

** Mild

** Medium

** Normal

** Major Damage

* Bungie's post-''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' pre-''[[Halo]]'' RTSes ''[[Myth]] : The Fallen Lords'' and ''Myth II : Soulblighter'':

** Timid

** Normal

** Heroic

*** Additionally, the game had flavour text describing the difficulty levels.

'''Timid:''' "You will grow tired blunting your weapons on a poorly-led horde of mindless corpse-men; and once you have reduced them to so much sausage filler, the sweet taste of success will turn to ashes in your mouth" }}

* [[Halo]] had similarly named difficulty levels.

**** And every enemy is a [[King Mook]], so there's [[Gravity Master|gravity hammers,]] [[Laser Blade|energy swords,]] and [[BFG|Fuel Rod Guns]] everywhere.

**** Plus you can't see what weapon you're wielding, so you'd better know what each weapon sounds like when it's being exchanged/switched out.

*** Easy - as killing bunnies with axes

*** Normal - everyday carnage

* ''Carmageddon 2'' went a bit further:

** As easy as stamping on kittens

** As hard as fisting a Velociraptor

* ''Carmageddon TDR 2000'' made them less violent:

** Boy Racer

** Speed Demon

** Normal Dog

** Hard Human

** God of the Game

* ''[[Alien Soldier]]'' has only two difficulty levels: "[[Blatant Lies|Supereasy]]" and "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Superhard]]".

* ''[[Parasite Eve]] 2'' has a few and each one gives bigger bonus multipliers at higher difficulties:

** Replay Mode (Easy)

** Bounty Mode (Medium)

** Katana

** No-Dachi

** Recruit

** Veteran

** Master

** Great Master

* ''Overboard'', for the Playstation 1, had levels that sounded like "Oohh!", "Ooohhh!", and "OOOHHH!".

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' and ''[[City of Villains]]'' used to take this a step further. You can change your difficulty at special NPCs who, for a fee, will spread word about you, affecting your Reputation (heroes) / Notoriety (villains). This affects the missions you will receive.

** Insomnia

** Nightmare

* Most ''[[Star Trek]]'' games:

** Ensign

** Captain

** Occasionally Admiral

* ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|Golden Eye 1997]] 007'' (007 mode is a customizable difficulty level where you can make it easy or hard as you want by adjusting enemy health, their reaction time, and accuracy):

** Agent

*** Furthermore, bots in multiplayer mode have various difficulty levels, ranging from Meatsims that almost always miss to Darksims that almost always hit, spawn near weapon spawn points, and [[Offscreen Teleportation|can teleport when the player isn't looking]]. Oddly, Meatsims are the second most dangerous sims when explosive weapons are available, thanks to their tendency to only just barely miss.

** ''[[Perfect Dark]] Zero'' also has [[Harder Than Hard|Dark Agent]], which disables the [[Regenerating Health]].

** New Recruit

** Field Operative

** Agent

*** This also carries this over to the achievements. Depending on which difficulty you play, you get "[[Easy Mode Mockery|Octopussy]]", "Tomorrow Never Dies", "You Only Live Twice", or "The Name Is Bond, James Bond." No points for guessing which achievement goes with which difficulty.

* The ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight]]'' series of ''[[Star Wars]]'' games uses various Jedi ranks in different methods in different games, ranging from Padawan up to Master.

*** Sith Lord

*** Sith Master.

** Trainee ([[Easier Than Easy]])

** Rookie

** Ace

** Insane ([[Harder Than Hard]])

** Cadet

** Lieutenant

** Corporal

** Lieutenant

** Major

* The fourth ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' game had settings such as "Couch Potato" to "Exterminator". ("Exterminator" came with the warning "[[Harder Than Hard|You don't need this kind of pain]]".)

** Low

** Guarded

** Normal

** Epic

** "Horseman (Beginner), Knight (Challenging)", "Fighter (Easy), Commander (Normal), Lord (Challenging)", "Spearman (Easy), Swordsman (Normal), Royal Guard (Challenging)" or "Peasant (Easy), Outlaw (Normal), Fugitive (Difficult)" - Human; also "Civilian (Beginner), Recruit (Easy), Soldier (Normal)"

** "Fighter (Beginner), Hero (Normal), Champion (Challenging)", "Fighter (Beginner), Lord (Normal), High Lord (Challenging)" "Soldier (Easy), Lord (Normal), High Lord (Hard)" - Elv[[Our Elves Are Better|ish]].

** "Grunt (Challenging), Warrior (Difficult), Warlord (Nightmare)" - Orc[[Our Orcs Are Different|ish]].

* The difficulty levels of the Duel Colosseum in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' take their names from the airships in the series:

** [[Final Fantasy IV|Falcon]] (30-60)

** [[Final Fantasy III|Invincible]] (60-90)

** Another 2

* The original ''San Francisco Rush'' had '''audio''' Idiosyncratic Difficulties based on which car you picked. Each car handling class was accompanied by a car alarm which got gradually more intense the more a class traded handling for speed, topping off with Extreme's "''It's dangerous!''" followed by screaming. The N64 port added a few special cars that had difficulty levels of "Oooooh!" and "Yeah!"

** Easy Money

** Standard Wages

** Strong Style <br />The different Styles, save for [[Game Breaker|Strong Style]], do not equate to difficulty in version 1.5, but in ''Black Label'', the upper two styles do due to varying gimmicks (forced Ura midbosses in Power, 2nd-loop-class patterns in Strong).

* ''[[Crimzon Clover]]'':

** Original

** Unlimited

*** I Am Already The Guy

 

* In [[Stick Man Stick Man]] comic strip, [http://stickman.qntm.org/comics.php?n=198 strip 198] has a swordfight training robot that has difficulty settings including the following (we don't learn about the names of the easier levels)

** Expert

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]

[[Category:Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels]]