That One Level/Video Games/Turn-Based Strategy: Difference between revisions

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You've got all the time in the world, and you've got the right units...but you've also got to deal with [[That One Level|these levels]] before you can proceed.

* Disgaea: Hour of Darkness has several levels loaded with Geo Symbols, crystals that can cause various effects on the battlefield, but are mostly used to multiply the enemies' stats or remove part of your HP every turn. More often than not you're forced to sacrifice one or more characters in order to fight the enemies on equal footing. Examples:

** Absolute Zero: Attack is halved and Defense is raised by 50%, making it hard to deal direct damage. The area is covered by the Ally Damage 20% effect, so every turn all your characters will lose 20% of their max HP. The enemies here specializes in poisoning, thus making it unnecessary to do direct damage to you. The Geo Symbols starts quite far from your characters.

* While we're on the topic of Disgaea, [[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]] - [[Updated Rerelease|Dark Hero Days]] has one particularly infuriating stage near the end of Axel Mode, once again due to Geo Symbol effects... Namely, a field that grows bigger and bigger with each round, meaning it will eventually cover the entire battle field. The effects it has on anyone standing on it? Invincibility. No lifting. '''[[Game Over]].''' The very instant someone steps on the field, '''YOU IMMEDIATELY LOSE'''. Oh, and did we mention that the enemies are programmed to move towards it? Hope you like [[Level Grinding]], 'cause the only way you're getting through this one is by making your ''entire'' team strong enough to kill all the enemies on the stage in one or two rounds. If you can't do that, you're basically doomed.

 

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Radiant Dawn'' has a level near the end of the game {{spoiler|where you have to fight dozens of dragons to make your way to the very powerful king of Goldoa. Their brute force and numbers makes up for their terrible strategy and poor luck, and they feature both physical and magic attacks. Unless you use the battle save (unavailable in Hard and less than fully honorable at any difficulty), one mistake can cost hours of work.}}

** The key to this is to use Kurthanaga, the dragon prince. Despite his low starting stats and speed, none of the other dragons aside from the boss will attack him in return. Meaning not only can you protect most of your units, but with the right planning he can gain at least 20 or so levels. The main bonus of this is how useful he will be against the later final bosses.

*** Also, regarding the prince and his Elixirs; he '''will not use them''' unless his health is below 50%. When he has ''20'' HP to start with. In other words, if a Fighter attacks him and only does, say 6 damage, it would be WORSE than if it nearly killed him, because he won't heal the damage back!

* ''The Sword of Seals'' has one late in the game. Chapter 21: The Sword Of Seals. Let's see, we've got reinforcements arriving in groups of four, and as many as five of these groups arrive on certain turns early on. Most of these are Dragon Riders/Dragonlords, one of the toughest classes out there. It's also a really big level. Then once you get close to the boss, you've got another really powerful enemy character showing up, one that all indications thus far have shown might be recruitable. He isn't. He won't attack you, mercifully, but he and his units will get in your way if you decide not to engage them in battle. Luckily, reports that you have to leave him alive to get to the Gaiden Level aren't true. Then there's a boss whose HP breaks the usual cap and who also has insane strength and defense. Here's hoping your mages have either been loaded with Angelic Robes (which you can actually buy in the secret store in this game) or have developed high dodge rates. Oh, and don't bother staying near the start and waiting for the waves of reinforcements to come to you, or else you'll have trouble beating the level in 30 turns, which is required to get the Gaiden level--and remember, you need to get every Gaiden level to unlock the [[Perfect Run Final Boss]].

* Any time there's a desert level in a ''Fire Emblem'' game, you know trouble is headed your way, because your movement on the desert is mega-slow. Paladins normally move 8 spaces, but on deserts it's 2 spaces. Magicians (Non-mounted of course--hope you trained some. And no, this doesn't include the [[Spoony Bard]].) aren't affected by this, and neither are fliers, which the enemy army typically has a whole lot of. ''The Sword of Seals'' makes it worse by forcing you to use Sophia--a level ONE Shaman who dies in one shot from just about everything--in this desert level, which just so happens to include [[Fog of War]]. And you need to keep her alive AND pass the level in 25 turns or you won't get the [[Bonus Level]], which is needed for getting to the proper end of the game. Now, desert levels typically hide items in the sand. You find them by putting a Thief or high-luck-stat unit on the space where the item is (just barely evades [[Guide Dang It]] by putting the items near bones on the map). Going back to ''The Sword of Seals'', you have to protect Sophia in [[Fog of War]], worry about the time limit AND worry about finding all the items... AND one final item that only Sophia can find! Did I mention the Bishop with a Sleep spell who can freeze Sophia and make her helpless to just about anything? And odds are she won't resist it either--her resistance is low, considering she's level ONE.

** Actually, Sophia's resistance is a respectable 8 at Lv.1, UNPROMOTED, and she ends up with the second-highest Resistance in the game. So she actually resists Sleep better than most promoted units...it's everything with a weapon, especially the Dragon Riders, that prove more dangerous to her. And, unfortunately, the Sleep staff has the unpleasant side-effect of hitting your best offensive characters more often than not.

** Chapter 13 somehow manages to be even ''worse'' than Chapter 13-Ephraim in regular FE8. There's '''three''' different bosses, one of them actually appears behind you and will start chasing you, and the map is very large. And you get two new characters, one of which is a [[Spoony Bard|Dancer]] and the other one, while capable of fighting, is very hard to keep alive with all the enemies around. While one of the bosses [[Heel Face Turn|can be swayed to your side]], said boss is ''very'' aggressive, carries a Bolting tome, and '''moves.''' It's not unlikely to see her kill Lyn, the ''very person who recruits her.'' She's also the Lord. [[We Cannot Go on Without You|And you know what that means...]]

 

* The "Kanbei's Error?" mission of the original ''Advance Wars''. The normal Campaign version of it is quite easy, with the biggest challenge being ''if'' you're trying to unlock an optional series of missions that requires you to finish this mission and the two previous in a certain number of turns (and even that's not too hard). The Advance Campaign version, though, cranks the difficulty way, ''way'' up, making it borderline impossible to win without a day-by-day guide or ''lots'' of trial and error.

** Unless you have a grasp on the [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors]], any naval-based Drake mission can be really frustrating. And even some of the land ones; in "Captain Drake", Andy has to capture X amount of cities before Drake does. Except Drake has more units than you to start with. Oh, and he already has infantry on the center island. And you have to make infantry from factories. And you have only one lander and no way to make more. And Drake has a submarine. And...

** Guess what? {{spoiler|Even this exhaustive strategy guide [[Unwinnable By Mistake|DOES NOT WORK]]. Eagle will move his Battle Copter in a way that makes the entire strategy futile. Alright, not for everyone, but many, if not most, have a randomized AI rotuine that is set when you first enter the Advance Campaign, 22 levels earlier, that determines whether Eagle sports a miniscule achilles tendon, or if he is quite simply unbeatable.}}

 

* Due to the length of the ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' series, a number of potential scrappy levels have shown up in the games, like the [[Macross Plus]] stage in ''Alpha 3''. You begin the stage with only two units, both of which have fairly low HP and damage. Your enemies include a rather large number of units, particularly the infamous Ghosts, a new type of plane which has downright insane dodge rates, possibly the highest in the game, bar a few bosses. Normally, this wouldn't be much of a problem, as your characters can usually cast buffs on themselves in order to increase their own hit and dodge rates. However, for the beginning of the stage, you not only have no access to your buffs, but your morale is down, meaning an overall decrease in stats. Despite having two of the fastest pilots in the game out, you rarely get above a 30% chance to hit. Even when backup finally arrives, you still have no way of increasing your chances to hit for a good while, so even getting through the stage at that point is an exercise in luck, frustration, and lots of soft-resets.

** [[That One Level]] is ''OG Gaiden'' Stage 15. Not only it pits you against a horde of (thankfully not reinforcements coming) enemies which has crazy dodges, united morale point... it later features one winning condition that requires a certain character to do it. Then, [[Player Punch]] occurs, then [[That One Boss]] appear... Good God, this level not only frustrates me on the game, but also frustrates me on the story and mentality to the point that I really wish this level could just go away...

 

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' has a number of them.

** The Dorter Slums area, the ''fourth'' storyline battle in the game. At this point, you've got some level 3 characters (if you're lucky), and very few abilities, not to mention two computer-controlled guest characters who strain believability with their inepititude. The foe is three archers (one of which is ''mercifully'' unarmed), two black mages, and a comparatively-high-HP knight. In other words, they have range, ''you don't''. If you're trying not to lose any of your generic troops, the battle is a lesson in patience and luck.

 

 

* Chapter 2-1 of ''[[Vandal Hearts]]'' is an early gimmick battle, and boy is it a doozy. There are a number of immobile, evil statues placed strategically around the map. These statues have possessed the villagers, turning them into insane, bloodthirsty killers. Your objective is to destroy all of the statues while keeping at least one villager alive. Sounds simple enough. The problem? Your party automatically counter-attack every single time without fail, and each of the villagers will go down in one hit, even from your weakest party member. It's a hair-pulling extravaganza.

** The above battle is difficult, but with a strategy based around luring the zombie villagers and using the conveniently placed blocks on the map it is actually rather easy to finish the level without killing any of the villagers (you lose money if you do) and getting all the chests/secret treasures. A better example is 2-6 where you have to kill all the enemies on the map in 3 turns. Not only do you have to travel the length of the entire map to do so, but if any of the enemies manage to leave the screen before these three turns are up, you also lose. Oh, and the enemies are all Monk class so they have no specific weakness to any weapon or magic & can inflict poison just by attacking you. Have fun.

** Similarly, there are two types of level in ''[[UFO: After Blank|UFO Aftermath]]'' that will give you a bad case of twitching: anything involving the [[Bee-Bee Gun|Deathbellows]] (aka the [[Total Party Kill|Squad-Killing Abomination From Hell]]), and most things involving bases, especially in the later stages when the aliens are breaking out the big guns. Having your entire squad wiped out by the balloon fish behind that door you carelessly opened? Hurts. Having them wiped out by an alien rocket launcher with a blast radius larger than some European countries? Hurts even more.

* The final mission in Roland's Campaign in ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic|Heroes of Might and Magic II]]'' (and I assume Archibald's too, I never even managed to make it to that one.) pulls absolutely no punches. First off, the choice between three possible bonuses at the start of the mission ends up being a choice between three artifacts that ''hinder'' you instead. Next, the developers put an enemy hero right next to your castle, but just out of sight. If this is your first time playing this mission, it WILL catch you offguard and essentially force a restart. But the most difficult part is exactly how much of a challenge you face in this mission. Your opponents have no less than '''TWELVE''' towns, (technically thirteen, but one of them does absolutely nothing until the final battle.) backed up by a metric crapton of resources and mines. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iln_6I2PGzU A playthrough on Youtube] took roughly EIGHT HOURS to beat this mission, without accounting for failed attempts. And as if that isn't enough, those [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] elements in this game mean you and the AI are roughly evenly matched when you have the SAME number of towns. It is impossible to describe the pain, time and amount of attempts it will take to finally put this monster of a mission down. Though since this is the last mission in the campaign, all this is at least mildly forgiven.

* In ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]] V'', the third chapter of the Inferno campaign requires you to defeat an enemy who starts with three Sylvan castles (a faction type that's unbelievably imbalanced), and all you're given is one Inferno settlement that can't access its best units (the only redeeming quality of their entire army). You are required to make a run and grasp the first enemy castle ASAP, but even after you succeed at that, the enemies' attacks will start raining on you, having multiple dragons and ents, units that you can't even match before you can upgrade the castle you conquered into its full power (because the only one that didn't have a dragon portal to start with was the outermost one). In addition, the enemy has a ridiculously powerful hero who will keep respawning in their biggest castle every time you defeat him, something that by the normal mechanics of the game wouldn't even be possible (if your hero is beaten, you lose the game).

** And if you think that's bad, try the second mission of the Dungeon Campaign with one (handicapped) town against ''six'' and a lot of enemy heroes on higher levels than yours. Better find that Tear of Asha fast. Oh, and the next mission starts with zero to eight, but you start with two decent heroes and enough troops to easily capture two quickly.

* Front Mission 5 has a stage roughly in the middle of the game, where the objective is to defend four units at the center of the map, and the enemies keep coming in quite an amount of waves. To top it all off, it also has a two-phase boss fight thrown in at the same time, and the enemies that come as reinforcements have jetpacks, so they can instantly get to the structure you're at. Yes, you do need to destroy them. All of them. Fortunately, you are given a support unit and four base cannons for extra defense, though the cannons are rather fragile and have very limited ammo. And you only get a game over if all four units at the center are destroyed.