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Games you never expected to be so difficult

We're currently living in the Dark Souls age, where difficulty in games is in vogue, that's fine for the people who enjoy them. At least with a Souls-like, you know you're about to enter hell.

But what about games that aren't marketed for the difficulty, are there any games you've played that were surprisingly difficult with no word of warning?

For me it'd be F-Zero GX. I was okay at F-Zero X, but GX is just the devil's racer.

Which games have you found surprisingly difficult?
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, I only ever rented it as a kid but in 10th grade, my friend more or less let me have his disc of it, and holy hell I did not remember it being so difficult, a part of it does have to do w/ the spotty controls and collision detection, but the levels themselves do become pretty complex in the later missions, it's almost deceiving b/c this game seems like a good one for kids, but even my 15 year old self had trouble w/ it

also Super Mario RPG, why'd I have so much trouble w/ this game? the main part that sticks out to me is the ship that leads to the boss fight w/ the knock off power rangers, I just remember having a tough time in that segment and I kept losing in the boss fight; I'd like to play this game again and see if it was really as hard as I remember or if I just sucked at it
 
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Fast Racing RMX - difficult to the point of being impossible for many people to unlock more than 25% of the game's content. Totally unexpected.

Faster Than Light - I know it's a roguelike so it's difficulty is RNG but overall even with the best, semi-OP ship weapon, the game is still much harder than I ever thought it would be.

ARMS - I think the learning curve here is much harder than most people expect. Especially if you prefer the motion controls. Yes you can get reasonably good at the game. I was able to beat single player on medium difficulty (level 4) with motion controls with a lot of practice. So that's a pretty good achievement. But if you are expecting the average fighting game that is easy to play but hard to master, you'll be totally surprised at how different this is.
For the record, I can't even beat level 2 with button controls. I just can't do it. I'm much better with the motion controls.
 
Fast Racing RMX - difficult to the point of being impossible for many people to unlock more than 25% of the game's content. Totally unexpected.

Faster Than Light - I know it's a roguelike so it's difficulty is RNG but overall even with the best, semi-OP ship weapon, the game is still much harder than I ever thought it would be.

ARMS - I think the learning curve here is much harder than most people expect. Especially if you prefer the motion controls. Yes you can get reasonably good at the game. I was able to beat single player on medium difficulty (level 4) with motion controls with a lot of practice. So that's a pretty good achievement. But if you are expecting the average fighting game that is easy to play but hard to master, you'll be totally surprised at how different this is.
For the record, I can't even beat level 2 with button controls. I just can't do it. I'm much better with the motion controls.

FAST RMX is bloody hard. But as an F-Zero clone I was expecting some challenge with my purchase.

ARMS - Yes, this was way harder than I ever expected it to be. Bloody hell. I beat it on level seven and oh my god. Never again.
 

Sheikah_Witch

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It’s a section of a game but I still wanna mention it because damn. Twilight princess is a breeze of a game NORMALLY but Cave of ordeals isn’t difficult. It’s flat out sadistic.
 

Jirohnagi

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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, I only ever rented it as a kid but in 10th grade, my friend more or less let me have his disc of it, and holy hell I did not remember it being so difficult, a part of it does have to do w/ the spotty controls and collision detection, but the levels themselves do become pretty complex in the later missions, it's almost deceiving b/c this game seems like a good one for kids, but even my 15 year old self had trouble w/ it

Oh God Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg the furthest i ever got as a kid was to the Circus stage and quit cuz holy **** was it so tough for me, the 2nd world had that godawful flag and for literally years assumed you had to hit the flagpoles turns out you can hit the flag and be fine.

I re-played the game 3-4 years ago and my thinking was "nah it wasn't as bad as i was thinking" IT WAS WORSE i dunno if my reflexes got slower or what but holy hell some stages were tough especially doing EVERY Level, the ice, desert and the final world were all super hard for me.

Hollow Knight

I went into Hollow Knight assuming it'd be a metroidvania what i didn't expect was the likes of watcher knights, lost kin, grimm, radiance and all the others. Love Hollow Knight but holy hell is it evil
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
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Oh God Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg the furthest i ever got as a kid was to the Circus stage and quit cuz holy **** was it so tough for me, the 2nd world had that godawful flag and for literally years assumed you had to hit the flagpoles turns out you can hit the flag and be fine.

I re-played the game 3-4 years ago and my thinking was "nah it wasn't as bad as i was thinking" IT WAS WORSE i dunno if my reflexes got slower or what but holy hell some stages were tough especially doing EVERY Level, the ice, desert and the final world were all super hard for me.
that whole flag bit was dumb, it also took me a bit to realize you were supposed to aim at the flag itself...then of course there's the matter of actually hitting the flag
I remember one of the sand missions basically involved traversing an underground labyrinth, and you best not die or you're going back to the start of it
 

Jirohnagi

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that whole flag bit was dumb, it also took me a bit to realize you were supposed to aim at the flag itself...then of course there's the matter of actually hitting the flag
I remember one of the sand missions basically involved traversing an underground labyrinth, and you best not die or you're going back to the start of it

Oh god i remember that, i believe it was the first mission that or third, and it was HELL!
 

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
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I bought EarthNight recently and I was expecting sort of a classic Sonic experience, but it was more of a rogue-like brutal platformer with no set progression through its world. It's incredibly hard for me to stay alive so I can barely get anything done. I haven't really touched it very much since I first bought it.
 
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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, I only ever rented it as a kid but in 10th grade, my friend more or less let me have his disc of it, and holy hell I did not remember it being so difficult, a part of it does have to do w/ the spotty controls and collision detection, but the levels themselves do become pretty complex in the later missions,

I remember having to roll on some rails in the circus level and kept glitching out and falling through them, then started thinking that I wasn't supposed to do that but then had nowhere else to go and just got so frustrated.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
May 5, 2012
Location
American Wasteland
I remember having to roll on some rails in the circus level and kept glitching out and falling through them, then started thinking that I wasn't supposed to do that but then had nowhere else to go and just got so frustrated.
that part is the worst b/c it's entirely the game's fault and not the players, I think what I did was either jump on the rails w/ the egg or jump and throw the egg down on the rail and hurry to the otherside, b/c if you try to do it normally, its going to glitch out
 

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