Self-Imposed Challenge: Difference between revisions

Pastime reserved for the hardcore. You see, most gamers don't have unlimited funds, and are disappointed if their most recent $50 investment doesn't require and reward a month's worth of attention. However, thanks to the gradual demise of [[Nintendo Hard]] over the years, it's becoming increasingly difficult to milk that kind of commitment out of most new games, which can be completed in a weekend without much effort (well, by the hardcore).

 

 

 

Gamers will occasionally record these runs and post them on various archive sites. As noted above, the rise of Casual Gamers make these even more of a dedicated pastime than ever before.

 

* [[Hundred Percent Completion]]

* [[Minimalist Run]]

* [[No Damage Run]] (Also covers the easier variants No Deaths and No Continues)

Some of these can overlap.

 

 

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

** [http://www.archive.org/details/MajorasMask_6DC It's been done, too.] ''With the entire 2nd Night and Final Day to spare''.

** Think that's good? Try it ''[http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9BE435004584413C gathering SEVENTEEN non-transformation masks]''.

** Also in this game, beating the boss Twinmold using only the sword (no Giant's Mask).

** Another popular challenge for ''most'' of the ''Zelda'' games is the three-heart challenge (impossible in some of the games in the series, as you are forced to collect some heart fragments), which is exactly what it sounds like: beat the game ''without'' collecting any of the [[Heart Container|Heart Containers]] that increase Link's [[Life Meter]]. This is easy at first, but quickly gets more difficult as you tackle later dungeons and the game expects you to be able to take more damage than you can...

** Also, completing a Zelda game without ever dying is a challenge, because some games such as ''[[The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past]]'' have a counter for number of deaths. This feat is acknowledged in ''[[The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'', which includes a special addition to the ending sequence if you complete it without dying. This is extremely difficult in the original NES game, though, because you can only save at the Game Over screen, meaning you'd have to play through the entire game in one sitting<ref>Or know about a secret code involving the second controller.</ref>.

* The Oracle games feature the [[Poison Mushroom|Cursed Ring]], which halves your sword damage and doubles the damage you take, it seems to have been made for this trope.

* With the dawn of ''[[Castlevania]]'' games with inventory systems and equipment, the idea of "Naked" runs stand out as an obscene challenge that requires no weaponry, armor, magic, or equipment that boosts ''anything'' by luck. It gets quite difficult at times.

** Lets not forget the 1-kill playthrough of Symphony of the Night, requiring you to kill ONE enemy throughout the entire game. You're still beating it at 200.6%; you're just limited to killing a puny Blademaster. This is quite difficult, as the mandatory boss fights count as kills. Once you become extremely adept at glitching through walls, its not terribly difficult, but it will give you a run for your money if you arent mentally prepared.

** The game also features an extremely weak (well, ''initially'' weak...) wooden sword weapon. Naturally, people decided to see how far they could get using only that weapon. For example, check out [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlqy6wQpzHU this video] of a player beating one of the hardest bosses in the game using only that wooden sword and Ryu's kick attack.

 

 

== [[Collectible Card Game]] ==

** Elder Dragon Highlander, a.k.a. Commander, takes the Highlander format and adds additional restrictions: You must include a Legendary creature in your deck, which determines what colors of cards you may play otherwise, and the rest of your deck must be exactly 99 cards.

** Peasant Magic a.k.a. Pauper requires that your deck either contain only commons, or up to 8 uncommons. Rares are right out.

* The ''[[Super Smash Bros (Video Game)|Super Smash Bros]].'' games distribute points based on your performance in battles; high points for playing well, and you can actually lose points for relying too much on a single move. Unless, of course, you ''only'' use a single move, or any number of other self imposed challenges. One of the trickiest was called "Switzerland" and asked you to finish the round without ever attacking or taking damage.

* ''[[No More Heroes]]'' has the interesting challenge of completing the game using the most basic weapon, the Blood Berry. This can range from being [[Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels|mildly easy on Sweet to insanely hard on Bitter.]] On Bitter, towards the end of the game, bosses can have around 400% more health than normal, and even mooks become walking brick walls.

 

* ''[[Half-Life]]'' Two challenges you to complete a level using only the gravity gun. Episode 1 ups the ante and challenges you to fire ''one'' bullet throughout the entire game: to shoot a lock off after you get the pistol.

* The Vidmaster's Challenge in ''[[Marathon (Video Game)|Marathon]]'', complete with charter that appears when attempting to use the Skip Level cheat. Rules include using grenades whenever possible, punching every switch (instead of pressing the action button on them), not to use the default Caps Lock key as the run key (i.e. not using what today would be an Always Run option), and to never ever leave a single one of the allied humans ("Bobs") alive.

 

== [[Four X]] ==

** One-City Challenge: Complete the game while maintaining only one city (base, planet, etc.) Mostly used in games where there is an alternative to global conquest or where cities can be easily razed.

** No Tech Trading: Your faction must research all of its own technologies.

** The Iron Man challenge has recently gained a lot of popularity for [[WoW]]. The basics are that you may only use the worst gear in the game (no magic items at all), you can not spend talent points to improve your character, you may never trade with another player to get any stuff, and a lot of other more or less ridiculous requirements. And the big one: if you die, you're out.

* The webgame ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has one of the best-integrated self-imposed challenge systems, featuring (once you beat the game) the option to restart with any of the following restrictions: Cannot consume food (which normally lets you use more adventures per day), cannot consume booze (ditto), Oxygenarian (combination of both), Hardcore (cannot receive outside help from virtually any source), and Bad Moon (which dumps you back at the start with none of your items or familiars from previous games, ''in addition'' to being in Hardcore ''and'' occasionally subjecting you to adventures which give you advantages that are counterbalanced by disadvantages). If you successfully complete a game under these restrictions, you'll obtain special items at the beginning of your next game, such as extremely potent food items or powerful equipment.

*** Of course, since clovers don't drop in Bad Moon and you can't access your items from previous runs, you can always follow one Bad Moon run with another one (unless you retrieve your items and use a clover for some reason after freeing the King but before Ascending).

** The 'Bees Hate You' run, where enemies with the letter 'b' in their name are tougher, equipment with 'b's in their names hurt the PC at the beginning of every fight, you cannot use any consumable items with a 'b' in their name, except for quest-specific ones, that now deal damage when used, and tough bee enemies will randomly appear.

** ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'', in a similar vein, has similar self-imposed customization options for the absurdly hardcore. Would you like to play this dance backwards with no visible steps at several times the normal step speed?

*** If you're playing backwards, then the "increased step speed" doesn't make much of a difference -- it only changes the rate of speed the arrows scroll at. It doesn't change the song's actual tempo. BUT! What about playing with the arrows at an inconsistent scroll speed (Boost/wave), with the pattern randomized (Shuffle), and the arrows appearing -just before they're supposed to be hit- (Sudden)?

*** Or try clearing a song with a score of 0. This basically makes it Good attack. You ''can't'' get anything higher, and are only allowed a very limited number of lower ratings.

** ''Pop'n Music'' has even more opporunities for self-imposed challenges. Newer installments have "Challenge mode," which is essentially the game's normal mode, but after picking a song, you can choose up to two objectives to complete within the song for extra "Challenge Points." These challenges range from the tame (such as scoring ''x'' points or getting less than ''y'' misses) to the not-so-tame (having the scroll speed of the notes multiply or notes do spiraly animations at regular intervals) to the insane (having song characters go into "Dance Ojama" mode and block your view of the notes or completing the song with a perfect score). If you get enough Challenge Points, you'll get an extra stage. Should you desire even more challenge, there's the Cho-Challenge Mode, which is the same as Challenge Mode but with the "Cool" note judgment (in addition to Great, Good, and Bad), which makes scoring <s>Nintendo</s> [[Beatmania]] [[Nintendo Hard|Hard]].

** BMS player ''Lunatic Rave 2'' has a secret option called "Extra Mode". You know all those notes in the background channels? expect to play a lot more of them. To put this in perspective, Scripted Connection (Long Mix) normally has 4459 notes in it. If you're playing an accurate BMS of it in Lunatic Rave 2, '''''[[Up to Eleven|Extra Mode increases the number of notes to 6118!]]''''' (This has the side effect of making some songs nigh-impossible)

** HyperSpeed's designation as a player-specific OPTION in Guitar Hero 5 (alongside FOCUS MODE) should remedy the HyperSpeed flame wars. to put it plainly, the player gets to pick what hyperspeed they want for themselves and ONLY for themselves, everyone else is not affected by one player's HS choice.

* ''[[Beatmania]] IIDX'' has the Hard modifier, which starts your gauge at 100% and removes the requirement of ending with 80% or higher to clear the song, but it makes your gauge drop '''much''' faster with each missed note, and it fails you if your gauge hits zero at any point.

* Recent ''[[DJMAX]] Technika'' tournaments have employed the "Nobody Knows Next" ruleset, in which each round, instead of just trying to get a high score, you're also required to fill another condition, such as playing with only one hand, playing with only your pinkies, or playing with the machine muted while you listen to completely different music via headphones hooked up to a portable player. There's also the "Miss Attack" challenge in which you try to get as many Misses as possible ''without failing'', and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyv51IglOFY "roulette" mode] in which multiple players line up and take turns on the machine on a per-swipe basis.

* [[Space Channel 5]] and it's sequel leaves room for these. Failure mode where you rescue nobody and get the minimum view rating, Mirror mode is when you play through the game with the mirror code activated... and Purge mode, in which you shoot the hostages and rescue the robots.

** Steelman: Survive in the wilderness, and the wilderness only until level 50.

** Eternium Man: Never enter a village or city, may not read books in the wilderness. Now; stand in one place in the Small Mountain Cave. This is difficult because the SMC is the most dangerous location in the game: monsters spawn faster and have double your experience (typically a character can fight something up to about 5 to 10 levels higher than he is, depending on what it is--even small white mice get dangerous in the SMC). Survive to level 50, then you can leave. There is only one recorded winner, which got extremely lucky and was able to abuse game mechanics to become [[A God Am I]] thanks to lucky spawn.

** Mercuryman: This one is fun. Use melee weapons as ranged, and ranged weapons as melee. Rocks (an abundant missile) make a great melee item.

** Goldman: Never spend any money. Be as greedy as possible: any time you see a store you must sell all of your items. You are not allowed to drop or sacrifice any money. Gold is heavy (I hope you find a girdle of greed and bless it).

** Archmage: [http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Archmage Raise a character capable of casting Wish at will].

** Brimstone Man: Go straight to the Tower of Eternal Flames ([[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|guess what it's like]]), and don't exit until you have the [[Artifact of Doom|Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire]] in your possession. Extremely difficult, as most level 1 characters will be burned to ashes within several turns (along with their equipment), and the Tower contains many high-level monsters and a nasty boss. There has been one save-scummed completion, just to prove it's theoretically possible.

** There is a huge list on the [http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Challenges df wiki].

*** There's another, under the title "[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:Stupid_dwarf_trick Stupid Dwarf Trick]". Several of them have listed Usefulness ratings of "none", "[[Pointless Doomsday Device|none, by definition, but highly amusing]]", "negative", "limited", "questionable", "[[Rule of Cool|marginal, but very cool]]", and, for the underwater statue room, "absolutely, positively none".

** [[Super Smash Bros|Initial Equipment, No Accessories, No Escaping, No Physical Attacks, No Limit Breaks, Command Materia Only]]

** [[Unwinnable|No Physical Attacks, No Magic, No Escaping]].

* The diehard ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' community is the king of them all. Not satisfied with the already insanely difficult bonus content, such as the [[Monster Arena]] or the Dark Aeons and Penance, there's a massive array of guides on [[Game FAQs]] devoted to beating the game with various limiters mixed and matched, from No Sphere Grid (which entails no stat bonuses or new abilities whatsoever), to single character challenges, to the current king of them all, The No Sphere Grid No Summon No Overdrive No Escape No No-Encounters No Blitzball No Customize Challenge, which mainly involves stealing and throwing items with Rikku and [[Save Scumming|praying]] for certain equipment drops.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has quite a few of these. The "Natural Magic" challenge, where you forgo the use of all Espers (or any equipment that offers spells); thus, the only magic that is available are characters who learn Magic through the natural process of leveling (hence the name). This also nixes any form of Esper-based stat boosting, so it is quite difficult. The "CES" challenge is another popular one; you must beat the game using only Celes, Edgar, and Setzer when the game doesn't force other characters onto you. These are the only three characters you ''must'' have when assaulting Kefka's tower. Combining CES and Natural Magic is only for the highly skilled.

** And if Natural Magic games aren't hard enough, you can attempt the No Equipment Natural Magic Game(NENMG). No Espers, armor, weapons, or relics can be used at any point during the game, so your characters' ability to deal damage comes ONLY from their natural abilities(Blitz, Rage, etc.). Simply grinding to level 99 is forbidden, and every optional quest must also be beaten, except for the Magi Master.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' arguably has the nastiest of these in the form of the "no junction" challenge, sometimes known as "No GF" challenge. No character can ever equip a GF at any time for any reason throughout the entire game. This cuts off access to every skill you get other than attacks and limit breaks, meaning you only get two characters capable of healing your party in any way, get no way to resurrect fallen characters, and no access to the stat boosting junction system which is required to get stats that are in any way passable. Despite all this, apparently somebody did this without resorting to the game's [[Game Breaker]]. It apparently took him 200 tries to beat the final boss.

* ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story (Video Game)|Star Ocean the Second Story]]'' has an option to turn the final boss into a God-like being with insane amounts of HP and spells capable of killing your entire party in a single hit. The game also provides a dungeon specifically designed to help train your party to a high enough level so that this battle won't be ''completely'' impossible. But, even at level 255-highest possible level one can achieve-this battle is ridiculously hard.

** Defeating Unlimited Indalecio is less a matter of level grinding to 255, and more a matter of skill and knowing [[Game Breaker|Game Breaking]] strategies you can use to bring him to his knees. One effective but somewhat unorthodox strategy requires '''not''' using Rena, the best healer in the game, because she can't use Bloody Armor (which grants invincibility at the cost of constantly draining your HP). Instead, use Opera or Noel and have them use full-party heals as necessary. The fight is still pretty tough though because Indalecio flies all over the battlefield while spamming spells and you have to watch everyone's HP so nobody gets eaten by their armor.

** Additionally, you can refuse recruitment of all other characters, leaving you with only the two forced upon you (Claude and Rena). Combined with the above, controllers will be snapped.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion]]'' has the "Chuck Norris" challenge. You play as a fighter with no weapons or armour throughout the whole game. ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' series is ''made'' for this sort of thing.

** And the "[[Perma Death|No-Whiteout]]" challenge. If all of your pokemon in the party faint, start a new save file. Getting that pokedex completion can really suck.

** A more minor challenge is challenging Gym Leaders with exactly the same number of Pokemon the Gym Leaders use.

*** There are also optional rules some players add to make it even harder like not using items... or ''only'' using items. <ref> i.e. ''no healing at pokemon centers''</ref>

** Another challenge would be facing uber-high level [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]] ''using only level one Pokémon.''

*** Try beating KHIIFM+ Sephiroth in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li87nZcMgL4&feature=PlayList&p=EF4AFFD3D42F20DC&index=0 37 seconds].

** ''358 Days/2'' features an item called the Extreme Ring, which puts your HP down to one, and seems to have been made for this trope.

* The flexible nature of ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins'' lends itself well to various types of challenges. Given [[Sequel Difficulty Spike|how hard]] ''Origins'' is normally, these tend to be murderously [[Nintendo Hard]].

** Single character run (those [[Auto Revive|Cross Pendants]] are a ''godsend''), no specials run, specials-only run, basic attack only run...

* Since the discovery of a glitch making it possible to skip most of Mercury Lighthouse (where Mia is recruited), "no Mia" runs of the first game have become mildly popular among ''[[Golden Sun]]'' enthusiasts, along with the usual "minimum Djinn" or "[[With This Herring|starting equipment only]]" runs for the rest of the series.

 

* ''[[Touhou]]'', one life, no continues, no bombs, quit and restart if you pick up a boost/points, [[Pacifist Run]] against the [[Bonus Boss]] by outlasting the clock, randomly picked (covered eyes and random clicking, hardest difficulty, and try not to destroy your computer within the first 5 seconds).

* ''[[R-Type]]'' skill runs generally involve non-use of the Force Device or Wave Cannon, not killing anything but bosses that would kill you and things that directly obstruct your progress, or some combination of the above. Oddly, the games appear to have anticipated this, since in ''III, Delta'' and ''Final'' the game will give you a Force Device for the final stage of the last boss if you don't have one. Delta and Final also keep track of various handicaps you might impose on yourself, like beating the game without Force or Wave Cannon.

* Certain [[Shoot Em Ups]] where it's possible (e.g. the ''[[Touhou Project]]'' games) have challenges such as No Horizontal/No Vertical, which, depending on the stage or the game, can be deadly hard, if not outright impossible, even on Easy. Others include no Focusing, which requires innate knowledge of the player's hitbox, 1lc, which is not dying at all, 0b1lc, which is the same thing... but no bombing either.

** For a particularly masochistic challenge, try hacking ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'''s [http://touhouwiki.net/wiki/Embodiment_of_Scarlet_Devil:_Gameplay#Rank rank] to the highest point, as seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iknyy3R2eA8 here] (or [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRNkJTUInAU worse]) -- Flandre's formerly simplistic non-spell patterns turn into nigh-unavoidable death traps, and her final card is nightmarishly fast.

* [[Giga Wing]] is infamous for its [[Pinball Scoring|ridiculously inflated scores]]. Some players play just the opposite of the way it was meant to be played; by aiming for the lowest score possible, or even not scoring at all for as long as possible. The latter is essentially a [[Pacifist Run]] on steroids; you get awarded points for having bombs at the end of a stage.

** Zero-score runs are much easier to do in its sequel. Your score multiplier starts at 0, which means you won't score a single point if you never collect a medal. Same with [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Mars Matrix (Video Game)|Mars Matrix]]''.

* Even the ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games are not exempt. Examples: no-upgrade challenges, no pilot improvement (in those games that have it) and for the particularly sadistic, using only a small group of units when not forced to field others, usually from a certain series, such as only using Gundams, only using the ATX team, or only using Tekkamen.

** Using only [[Tekkaman Blade (Anime)|Tekkamen]] doesn't seem too hard, given that they're all ridiculous [[Game Breaker|Game Breakers]].

* In the original ''[[Shining Force]]'', it is possible, by making use of a glitch, to [[Sequence Breaking|skip the first set of characters who are supposed to join your party.]] Do that, and also skip every single other non-mandatory character, and you'll end up just shy of a full party of 12 at the end of the game. It's a fun little challenge -- not excruciatingly difficult, but hard enough to be interesting. There's an FAQ for this challenge on GameFAQs, though it mistakenly lists Diane as mandatory.

* A rare multiplayer self-imposed challenge: In ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'', playing the Knalgan faction and recruiting no dwarves (only footpad, thief, and poacher) is referred to as [[A Song of Ice and Fire|"HODOR"]] for no clear reason. The [http://ladder.subversiva.org/ ladder server] has a member named HODOR who exclusively uses these tactics, who is nonetheless one of the highest ranked players.

** To be more specific, HODOR the player (named after ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' character) originated the HODOR tactic, thus the name.

** The [http://xcomutil.scotttjones.com/ X-COM Util page] lists many, such as "[[Technical Pacifist|don't unavoidably kill]], only stun" and "only fight at night".

** The Antarctica Challenge: Build only one base in Antarctica, the only continent guaranteed ''not'' to be in the path of any major UFO incursions.

 

== Film ==

 

== [[Literature]] ==