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Non-Indicative Difficulty: Difference between revisions
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* In ''[[Digimon Card Battle]]'', the opponents in the first towns of the game use weaker cards than ones battled later on, but they are more difficult to effectively counter thanks to them choosing the cards and attacks they use completely randomly. The late-game opponents have tougher decks, but it's easier for the player to guess what cards or attacks they will choose because they use actual (often rather obvious) strategies.
* In ''[[
** Tails' and Eggman's 5th missions usually increased the number of enemies present in their respective levels. This made it easier to get more and higher bonuses for clearing large numbers of enemies at once, therefore making it easier to get an A rank.
** Knuckles' and most of Rouge's stages are randomised on the first mission but not on the fifth, meaning it's much easier to practice for an A rank and avoids the fact that the first mission is a hideous example of [[Luck-Based Mission]].
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'', hard mode is supposed to be harder because everyone starts at level 1 and the enemies in general are tougher. In practice, the lowered starting level just means more opportunities to level them up while wearing equipment that gives bonuses to their HP or CP, latter of which being used to learn various skills that also grant various stat bonuses: the actual process of leveling everyone up isn't much of an issue either, thanks to the ability to gain event experience and give it to whoever you want via the menu. Furthermore, playing the game on Hard is necessary if you wish to [[Loads and Loads of Characters|get everyone]], and the various Hard-only dungeons provide a good amount of the game's [[Game Breaker]] equipment. They're also the only locations where you can get the items necessary to get the best equipment and the [[Hidden Character|Hidden Characters]] in the [[Bonus Dungeon]].
** Likewise, you miss out on nearly all of the best loot in an Easy game - the result is that it's much more difficult than Normal.
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** Likewise, a handful of songs are actually easier on Expert than Hard because the chart better resembles the music track. The chorus of the DLC track "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" is actually ''harder'' on Hard than Expert because you only play half the notes.
* ''[[Advance Wars]] Dual Strike's'' Hard Campaign is often easier than the normal campaign, as you can pick every CO from the beginning, rather than having to earn most of them during gameplay (and even then, not all of them are available.) The mission where you unlock Javier in Normal, for example, is primarily there to show you how hard he'll kick your ass if he has enough Com Towers captured, and the mission devolves into swatting his Infantry away from the towers above all else; on Hard, feel free to play as Javier yourself and return the favor.
* Some games, such as ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' or ''[[Fallout]] 3'' will scale [[Experience Points]] based on the difficulty level. Lowering the difficulty might make the game easier, but it will slow the advancement that ''would'' have made you more capable of handling a tougher challenge.
* In ''[[Star Fox (
** Also, getting a medal requires a certain number of points for each level. This number does not increase in the unlockable Expert mode, but the number of enemies does, often making it easier to get medals on Expert.
* In ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'', setting the difficulty too low will mean the enemies have terrible guns. Which, since the player is capable of using a given weapon more intelligently than the AI is, means you can't scavenge good stuff and start engaging on more favorable terms for a while, which can make the game significantly harder. Or at least require you to spend a lot more money on weapons and ammo.
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* ''[[Mushihime-sama]] Futari Black Label'', an [[Updated Rerelease]] of ''Mushihime-sama Futari'' (or a downloadable [[Expansion Pack]] in the 360 port) offers God difficulty, which replaces previous versions' [[Harder Than Hard|Ultra]] difficulty. Despite the name of the difficulty, it's actually ''easier'' than Ultra mode; there is more slowdown, and enemies don't let off as many suicide bullets as they did in Ultra.
* In ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]] 2 - The Absolute PLUS'', it's easier to get the Grand Master rank in T.A. Death mode than on Master mode, due to the criteria: in Master mode, you need to fulfill a series of time and Tetris requirements to unlock the invisible roll, which you need to survive to get GM. In Death, all you need to do is pass a time checkpoint at level 500, then reach level 999 regardless of time.
* In ''[[
* In some older arcade games (such as the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Vector Game]], ''[[Columns]]'', and ''[[Tempest]]''), you can select your starting level, with higher levels yielding a starting bonus. As a result, until you are sufficiently skilled enough at the game, playing on a harder difficulty level will leave you with a higher score than on a lower one.
** Similarly, in some older arcade games (''Ms. [[Pac-Man]]'', for instance) the cabinet can be set to a difficulty by the owner. While it isn't universal some players find the fastest speed to be much easier than the slower ones.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* ''[[Beatmania]]'' had this problem when putting the song SNOW on the US version. The US version had much more easier charts that your standard [[Nintendo Hard]] bemani game, but SNOW's hyper chart ended up being ''harder'' in the US.
* The harder difficulty level in ''Two Worlds'' begins as an unbelievable challenge--any individual is much tougher than you, and foes typically come in groups and surround you. If you manage to pick off a humanoid foe, however, you can take their powered-up equipment and use it against your other foes, so once you've done enough looting there's little added difficulty.
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** Not all of them. Ray, Douglas, and Hugh don't get the stat bonuses. Percival, too, if you recruit him in Chapter 13 instead of 15.
** The difficulty ends up played straight, though, when you get to Chapter 21. No matter how much you've prepared, that chapter on Hard Mode is arguably '''the''' toughest single chapter in any of the three GBA games.
* The PAL Hidden Mansion mode of ''[[
* In the ''[[
* Driving games that offer automatic and manual transmission are often more cumbersome to play in automatic, as the auto-shift tends to shift at the wrong speeds and techniques that involve shifter manipulation (such as ''[[Daytona USA]]'''s shifter sliding) become impossible.
** Similarly the faster cars that appear later in racing games are often easier to drive, despite needing quicker reflexes, because they have more downforce and bigger tyres and don't slide around as much as the slower cars. In ''Race Driver [[GRID]]'' and the ''[[Need for Speed]]'' games the classic American muscle cars are far more 'tail-happy' than the supercars. This is partly [[Truth in Television]]; [[Formula One]] cars are often described by the pros and being relatively easy to drive compared to touring cars, because they are so advanced. It's the ''level of competition'' that makes F1 difficult.
* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World]]'', and other [[Tales
** The consequences are even more glaring in the [[New Game+]] - since you spend Grade in order to buy upgrades (like x5 XP gain, keep all learnt artes, etc.) for your new playthrough, and harder difficulties earn you more Grade (plus better chances to earn Grade-boosting achievements like breaking a 50 hit combo in a fight or ending a fight with a large combo), starting from Hard difficulty at the start of your first playthrough would enable the player to achieve in two playthroughs (getting the best hidden weapons, beating the Bonus Dungeon on Mania difficulty, etc.) what you would need three playthroughs to achieve if you start on Normal difficulty.
* ''[[Lord of the Rings The Third Age]]'' has an issue similar to ''[[Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World]]''. If you play on Hard you'll have maybe three genuinely difficult fights, but the rest are trivialized by the fact that enemies' longer HP bars means you use twice as many skills to kill them, and thus get twice as many SP to earn abilities sooner.
* In ''[[
* The PC version of ''[[Devil May Cry]] 4'' had the Legendary Dark Knight difficulty which took overall difficulty down a notch and made all enemies die a lot faster but greatly increased enemy numbers. Apart from being generally easier, your area effecting attacks would hit most of the clustered demons, resulting in them dying fast and you getting a crapload of [[Rank Inflation|style points]] for every attack.
* [[World of Warcraft]]: 25-man raids are intended to be harder and more rewarding than their 10man counterpart. This is mostly true but there are some encounters that are actually easier on the 25man setting simply because more people are present to handle things and losing a single person tends to make less of an impact on the overall performance.
* In ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver
* The PC version of ''[[Novastorm]]'' changes three things between difficulties:
** Boss weak points: some bosses take more damage in different spots and become more resistant in certain other places.
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* Some find Superhuman mode in ''[[Resistance]] 2'' easier than Hard because the Bullseye weapon is entirely replaced by the very powerful Bullseye MKII.
* In ''[[Ace Combat]] Zero'', the Mercenary path is supposed to be the hardest of the three; the ace squadrons you encounter along that path have better planes in larger numbers than the other paths' aces. However, it's usually the Soldier path that ends up with harder aces, especially on higher difficulties - for example, Schnee squadron can attack you from a much longer range than anyone else in the game, and Grun squadron can avoid your standard missiles by dropping flares.
* In ''[[Black (
* [[
** The 2nd version also changed the song's time signature from [[Common Time|4/4]] to 6/8, going from a straight beat to a swung beat. Perhaps the developers though this added more difficulty to the 2nd version.
* ''[[X-COM]]'' has several difficulty settings. They mostly affect alien activity, as well as their numbers on any given craft, and stats. The last of these definitely makes the game more hellish the higher the difficulty setting is, but two others are a mixed blessing. More missions and aliens means more artifacts to use against them or sell, and more experience for your soldiers. Well, the ones [[Red Shirt|that survive]], [[Nintendo Hard|anyway]].
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* This happens to some attacks and spellcards in ''[[Touhou]]'', particularly since easier difficulties tend to slow down the bullets, which sometimes just makes the patterns denser, leaves more bullets on the screen, and requires more micrododging. A good example is "Mountain of Faith", Kanako's last spellcard, on Easy and Normal: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKRMW-RWUlc see this video for a comparison].
* [[Donkey Kong Country]] 2's hard mode removes all DK barrels, but on the other hand, levels always start with both Kongs, which is beneficial in Tool Assisted [[Speed Run|Speed Runs]] since they don't have to waste time getting the DK barrels which might be out of the way or wait for the animation of the imprisoned Kong getting freed to finish.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Aerobiz]]'': ''Supersonic'' plays with this one. The first four difficulty levels determine the scenario goals, with each step up requiring dominance in one more region. However, the scenario goals are the same for all four players, thus while you have to dominate [X] regions against your competitors, so do they against you. Combined with Artificial Stupidity, this makes the middle difficulties easier to win because an astute player can easily block the others from getting enough regions to win. It's the easiest level where players have to watch out for airlines expanding into regions he may not be able to reach as they go for the win.
* While ''[[Civilization]] V'' does get harder the further up you go in difficulty, it also changes the strategy of the game significantly, and a very fast science win is easier on the higher difficulties. On the highest difficulty, Deity, the challenge is to get as much gold from your neighbours as possible, and use the gold to enter research agreements, which the AI will accept since it's swimming in gold. This strategy is less useful on, say, Prince, as the AI won't have as much gold for you to game out of them.
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