Sandbox / Fake Difficulty Wick Check

This page will cover a wick check for Fake Difficulty.

Defining what Fake Difficulty means is, maybe fittingly, a lot harder than it needs to be due to the many interpretations on what counts as Fake Difficulty. Difficulty is a highly subjective topic. What might be seen as unfair to one player might be seen as fair play to another. What might seem like a fair challenge to one player might seem like an insurmountable difficulty spike to another. It depends on the skill level of the player and how much knowledge they have on a game.

Commentary on examples will be bolded.

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Correct — Difficulty from technical aspects (8/80)

1. VideoGame.Bionic Commando: Not being able to jump and no air control introduces a certain amount of this, but the original arcade game was teeth-gnashingly difficult due to sluggish response to the controls and not allowing you to use your bionic arm in the air.
2. VideoGame.Ninjabread Man: The overall difficulty comes from the game's poor controls, bad camera and borderline useless weapons.
3. VideoGame.Ace Online: The game is notoriously laggy. For some although most don't experience lag of any kind while others get network or system lag from having below required specs. This issue is mainly confined to the North American version at present. Apparently their server is missing some important hardware. It doesn't help that many of the players are connecting from Turkey. Though, this example looks confusing to read.
4. VideoGame.Portal The Flash Version: The character has a tendency to keep running, even though your finger isn't on the button anymore. It doesn't help that this usually happens at the worst possible times, too.
5. VideoGame.Daikatana: The game was claimed to be an "expert FPS", more difficult than what shooter players were familiar with up to that point, but the simple fact is that a lot of the difficulty comes from unfair sources: the game is riddled with bugs and minor errors, the AI sidekicks are a chore even at the best of times, there are several points where you need to make use of speedrunning techniques to avoid damage from unfairly-placed enemies (and that's ignoring other points where you're simply forced to drop from high places and take damage to proceed), and even those who can get past any of that have to deal with the game front-loading terrible guns with obnoxious mechanics that waste time and ammo (the automatic shotgun with a sticky trigger, the melee upgrade that takes several seconds to switch between while it's active) or damage you at least as much as your target (the ion blaster with shots that always seem to home in on you after two bounces, two different explosive weapons with huge blast radii and terrible hit detection to make them detonate in your face). This game had an infamously Troubled Production, so a lot of the unfair difficulties and technical issues can come from the lack of playtesting and polishing before release.
6. VideoGame.Ghosts N Goblins: The main reason the games are difficult is because Arthur controls like crap and basically everything outsteps him without even trying. Bad controls combined with Arthur dying in two hits? Doesn't sound like a fun experience.
7. VideoGame.Sonic The Hedgehog 2006: The game would be quite easy if not for the overly sensitive controls, buggy camera, game-breaking glitches, and wonky physics. The first level becomes nearly impossible for many first-time players simply because it's so easy to do everything "right" but still fail because of the game actively working against you. This game also had an infamously Troubled Production, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear the game is unfairly difficult due to things not working quite right.
8. VideoGame.Avarice: The bosses are sometimes a lot harder than they should be because they usually unleash a Bullet Hell, which makes the game lag heavily on most computers. The subpar engine of the RPG Maker VX does not help. Especially jarring with the Final Boss fight. Both of them have one extremely powerful move (the rocket launcher for Lexi and the shotgun iceshards for Vandeli), that also covers a large area and can be hard to avoid. Sometimes it even hits the player without actually connecting (when hitting the pillar in the middle), often resulting in a frustrating death. I'm pretty sure that most Bullet Hell games don't make most computers lag heavily whenever a boss unleashes a torrent of bullets.

Correct — Outcome beyond player control (11/80)

1. VideoGame.Super Smash Bros Brawl: Tripping, which randomly happened when a character changed directions while running or inputting a Smash attack using the control stick. There's nothing quite like randomly falling over right when you try to deal a KO attack. Tripping from character movement was one of the most hated game mechanic in the Smash Bros. competitive scene due to potentially influencing the outcome of a match due to a factor that is beyond players' control.
2. VideoGame.Fear And Hunger: Openly and unashamedly; it's a huge part of the intended experience. The game will cheerfully stomp you to death at even the slightest excuse, often for reasons that are absolutely in no way your fault (most frequently bad RNG, given the number of factors controlled by the Coin of Judgement). The first sentence is unnecessary, though.
3. VideoGame.Grabbed By The Ghoulies: Your health is scrambled at the start of each room, sometimes giving you a ridiculously low level of health to start off a particularly hard boss fight that could be done easily with just a bit more health to start. Heck, some rooms give you ONE hit point to start with, then send an endless barrage of enemies your way.
4. VideoGame.Mappy: Not that the game doesn't try to give the player a fair challenge, but depending on what the cats' AI feels like doing, it is very easy to get cornered into an inescapable loss by the cats.
5. VideoGame.God Hand: Most glaringly, the special techniques won as prizes in the casino; IF you are lucky enough to win a prize ticket, there is a chance you will get a 'joke' box with nothing. You're not allowed to leave the casino with tickets in hand to save, either. Additionally, the random factor involved from enemy drops and demon appearances is noted to polarize those who love and those who hate the game.
6. VideoGame.Dissidia Final Fantasy 2015: In the Hard Mode of the boss gauntlet, the boss will always target you unless you're incapacitated, and your two AI allies have their max Bravery capped at 2000. The targeting focus means you're going to be under additional pressure to avoid getting KO'd while building up Bravery, but the cap to your allies also causes fights to drag out longer since they can't deal as much HP damage as you can and the boss takes longer to kill. This should fall under Gang Up on the Human, though.
7. VideoGame.Payday 2: There are a number of random variations on factors and events in every heist. Sometimes a room will be located in a really bad spot, or a vault door you need to defend has no cover near it whatsoever. Sometimes, the loot vehicle will just keep missing its mark over and over again, or the escape vehicle will arbitrarily decide to set its landing zone across the map from your perfectly viable and already secured area. Then again, this game does expect players to adapt to any situation, so this may be considered incorrect.
8. VideoGame.Castlevania 1986: In stage 16, you must cross a bridge and get past four of the giant bats you fought as the boss of stage 1, with them all having the same same amount of health as before, which means the best course of action is to just ignore and run past them. However their movement, when they spit a fireball, and when they charge at you is all random. With how large they are and fast they lunge, they can randomly act in a way that makes avoiding not getting hit impossible, including possibly being hit into one of the bottomless pits across the bridge for an instant death, overall turning this section into essentially a Luck Based Mission where you run under or jump over the bats and pray the RNG makes them play nice. There is a Stop Watch halfway through the bridge to at least freeze the last two if needed, but this will drain your precious hearts that you don't have much of, and you will really want enough for two more uses to use shortly later in the level in the section with the harpies and flea men.
9. VideoGame.Onimusha: Bosses in Dawn of Dreams don't usually end up in the "Fake" category of difficulty. Rather it is some of the late game enemies you will face that will test your patience, especially if you want to conquer the Dark Realm. For example there are flying enemies that can dodge attacks and send a guard breaking, high-damaging laser beam. The main cast (save Ohatsu) has no effective way of dealing with flying enemies, much less ones that dodge. Hope you practiced your counter and deflecting skills because the only time they come down is to attack you. And when you hit them with a combo, no they don't fall to the ground, they go back up. A game having lots of enemies in the late game that are more of a test of a player's patience rather than skill means that this example could be considered correct.
10. VideoGame.Persona 2: In Innocent Sin, the "theater" mode of bonus dungeons/scenarios does not allow you to save. This really falls under Checkpoint Starvation, though.
11. VideoGame.Fall Guys: In theory, team-based games involving more than two teams should be a frantic scramble with everyone having an equal opportunity to move on to the next round. In practice, however, since only the dead last team gets eliminated in these rounds, it frequently results in the other teams dogpiling on one team in particular so that they all can move on to the next round. Ultimately, this makes such rounds a case of Luck-Based Mission in hoping that the other teams don't decide to dogpile on your team. Then again, it is very difficult to judge the difficulty of a primary multi-player game, as it is highly influenced by the actions of other players.

Correct — Denial of critical information (5/80)

1. VideoGame.Sonic The Hedgehog 28 Bit: The Emerald in Sky High Zone requires you to bounce off clouds that look exactly the same as normal clouds. Rings placed above them clue you in to their function, but not to the fact that you're expected to travel a great horizontal distance using them too. Much of the first boss's extreme difficulty in the Game Gear version comes from the system's small resolution, as the cannonballs you have to dodge bounce so high that they go offscreen very frequently. Antlion is significantly easier on the Master System. Good luck trying to figure out which clouds you can bounce off of, especially since the game has a severe care of Screen Crunch.
2. VideoGame.Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams: Although not often, there are traps and certain segments full of enemies that will kill an unwarned player at least once. The game doesn't do the best job of differentiating background and foreground stage elements, resulting in several "false" platforms that are actually parts of the background.
3. VideoGame.Ronin 2015: Admitted. "The arc lies." Just because the white line showing your jump arc appears to be free of bullet trajectories or land on a ledge doesn't mean it actually is. Sometimes you can land right next to a mook on a ledge and gut him while a bullet whizzes just past your head. Sometimes you'll catch a bullet between your eyes. Sometimes you'll miss and hit power lines. Sometimes your headshotted body will hit the power lines. Breathe deep and try again. Or don't. This should fall under The Computer Is a Lying Bastard, though.
4. VideoGame.Bomberman 64: Orion is responsible for a Kaizo Trap, and White Glacier 1 on Hard Mode has an aggressively strict time limit, compounded by winds that are capable of blowing you off a ledge. If that happens, you can pretty much kiss that Gold Card for the target time goodbye. You can also get roasted with no warning in Red Mountain 1 thanks to there being no tell when a fireball is going to shoot up through a bridge or the fact that the shadows of the fireballs which fall from above don't cast shadows on bridges.
5. VideoGame.No One Can Stop Mr Domino: A significant portion of the game's difficulty is that the stages are designed to screw you over at every turn. To name just one example, one of the triggers in "Fun Park Massive" has its landing point after an unavoidable Speed-Up panel, meaning you have to time your button press perfectly to resume the chain or else restart the entire stage.

Correct — Punishes decisions made long ago (1/80)

1. VideoGame.Banjo Kazooie: In the Autumn section of Click Clock Wood, you're supposed to use the Wonderwing to get a few musical notes from a Snarebear trap. Thing is, unless you use Cheato's "Goldfeathers" cheat, you're stuck with a meager 10 the whole game, and gold feathers are far more scarce in all of the game's levels than red feathers, meaning that if you're careless with using them, it can become extremely tedious or near impossible to get those notes—approaching the snares as is isn't an option since they can whittle down Banjo's health very fast and knock him away. Factor in that you have to collect all 100 notes for each world in one go in the games original release, and it makes completing an already arduous level an even more exasperating challenge, though the HD port at least makes it so you don't have to collect every single note all over again. The validity of this example could be considered contentious, however, since the game doesn't really punish you that harshly for being careless with your Wonderwing usage. The only real punishment the game delivers in this instance is maybe forcing you to replay the entire level and recollect all the notes all over again.

Correct — Require counter-intuitive behaviors or skills (0/80)

Seriously? None?

Correct — Multiple Categories (5/80)

1. VideoGame.Action 52: In any of the single-screen Platform Games, the enemies spawn in random locations, meaning there's nothing stopping them from spawning right next to the player character and leaving the player no time to prepare for them. Good luck reacting to enemies when they spawn in random locations, especially since most of the games of Action 52 are poorly made.
2. VideoGame.Hotline Miami 2 Wrong Number: A common complaint in reviews is that the more wide-open levels combined with the same unpredictable AI from the first game lead to quite a few cheap deaths, such as offscreen bullets and dogs that come out of nowhere at full speed before the player can even react. Also, the console version of the game has an awful auto-aim system that sometimes, instead of targeting the enemy right in front of you, targets an enemy all the way on the other side of the level. And you depend on this aiming system since aiming with the analog sticks isn't good either.
3. VideoGame.Bubsy: Some Call Me Johnny also delved into other problems: Level design not built around Bubsy's abilities, platforming sections that are hard due to Bubsy's obscene speed not matching the platforming, frailty combined with the above problems leading to the multiple deaths, sprite sizes being too huge causing said accidents to happen, and inconsistent ideals about how to play the game. It's hard to be slow and methodical with a character as fast as Sonic. Likewise, he couldn't (and he tried) play it safe with level design created with the intent of murdering the bobcat. The level design conflicting with Bubsy's abilities makes me believe that the developers had no idea what kind of platformer they want Bubsy to be.
4. VideoGame.Red Dead Revolver: Absolutely full of it. It's not hard to find players of this game who agree that levels like The Traitor and Siege are entirely dependent on luck rather than skill. The game throws an absurd amount of enemies at you and somehow expects you to deal with them with little problem. And then you have the final duel with the Governor, which comes out of nowhere and the player is expected to have absurd reflexes to defend themselves right away. Also, make one mistake and you replay the level again. The levels feeling like they're more reliant on luck than skill, a duel against a boss that comes out of nowhere that requires absurd reflexes in order to defeat, and players being forced to replay the entire level if they make a mistake means that this example could be considered a valid example of Fake Difficulty. I'm not sure how much time a level of this game typically takes, however.
5. VideoGame.Alone In The Dark: All over the place in the 2008 game, thanks to how badly designed a lot of the mechanics are. One-shot deaths, switching between multiple control schemes, not being able to figure out how injured you are, bugs, and more than one Unexpected Gameplay Change will kill Carnby a lot more than any of the game's enemies.

Incorrect (7/80)

1. WebVideo.Yogscast Minecraft Series: When a map calls for the player to switch to peaceful mid-adventure, Simon and Lewis tend to not do it because switching difficulty on multiplayer is a pain to do, thus they'll wind up fighting monsters in inopportune places, getting ambushed by creepers while riding minecarts, and in some situations, having damage done the the map that makes it Unintentionally Unwinnable. The maps that call for the player to switch to peaceful were not designed with mobs spawning in the map in mind. The unintentional unfair difficulties comes from the players declining to follow the map's instructions out of convenience, not something that's built into the maps themselves.
2. LetsPlay.Radical Bromance: Shantae's emulation induced input lag. Later, Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. Walker notices this, but Alex apparently doesn't. Or he does, but claims to compensate for it. Later confirmed in Contra: Hard Corps, when the shot toggle keeps switching. Difficulty from input lag would be a valid example of Fake Difficulty, except that this example describes input lag from an emulator.
3. VideoGame.Pokemon Snakewood: You are still penalized for losing the first fight against Wattson, even though it's a Hopeless Boss Fight. You can't even shut off his Pokemons' power source until after this battle. If you find yourself in a Hopeless Boss Fight, the game expects you to lose as part of the story. This game also tasks you with finding a way to circumvent the unfairness, which means that this example shouldn't really count.
4. VideoGame.Devil Survivor: The first battle with Naoya has you up against demons that would be reasonably easy to beat at that point in the game. However, Naoya makes you beat all six demons in three turns... and they don't move...and they're really spread out. Granted, it's not required to beat all six; failing to do so will just result in a very unentertained Naoya leaving and telling you the info he was going to tell you via e-mail later on, and the battle is mediated by the fact that it only counts the protagonist's turns; the other characters can move as much as they want and it won't count towards the three. If you're not meant to win a fight and the story progresses regardless of the outcome, then this entry shouldn't really count as an example of Fake Difficulty.
5. VideoGame.Roller Coaster Tycoon: The sequel prevents you from charging for both park and ride entry, which can result in many guests not paying a cent when they leave, or never leaving the park after paying the entrance fee, leaving many potential profits unfulfilled. The example that kicked off this wick check. This example fails to take into account the fact that guests are willing to pay a lot more to go on rides if they don't pay for the park entrance, so the extra profits from being able to charge a higher price for rides can make up for guests who leave the park without going on any rides. RCT2 also introduced the Cash Machine, which allows guests to withdraw more money to spend on a park, which can more than make up for any guests who leave too early.
6. VideoGame.Crash Bandicoot 1996: Of the Leap of Faith variety when dealing with Gems. "Road to Nowhere" and "The High Road" both involve making jumps onto invisible platforms that only appear when you touch them to get some out of the way boxes. Due to how Crash's shadow doesn't vanish when jumping over a bottomless pit (as you would expect), there's no way to tell where the platforms are. More invisible platforms appear elsewhere (of the iron box and falling varieties) that at least have the decency to be marked by some Wumpa Fruit, and there's at least one instance where a box is stashed away behind the background, where by all means it seems you should die by trying to go there. While this could be considered as falling under the category of "Denial of crucial information", gems in Crash Bandicoot are typically optional collectables. They aren't required to finish the story, but they are required for 100% completion. Not knowing where the platforms are for optional collectables could be considered unfair, though. This example doesn't explore instances of Fake Difficulty that are found throughout the game.
7. Video Game.Tetris: If you're migrating from a newer version to an older version, the latter becomes a retroactive example. Usually, you have no lock delay, let alone infinite spin, and stiffer controls. An older version of a game being retroactively difficult unfairly shouldn't be counted as an example of Fake Difficulty, as older versions of a game often lack gameplay improvements that newer versions have.

Zero-Context Example/Not Enough Context (9/80)

1. WebVideo.Games Repainted: Everyone who's had to play a repainted game will tell you that it makes the game much harder to navigate.
2. Series.The Amazing Race: The toy chariot racing in Rome. It was easy when teams were alone, but got harder when more and more teams shows up.
3. VideoGame.The Outfoxies: On later stages, the opponent's attacks do more damage than yours. This really falls under The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard.
4. VideoGame.Broken In The Balance: Although the game is considered "Balanced", most of the characters have relentless skills and tactics that can remind most gamers of Quarter Munchers back in older arcade games.
5. VideoGame.Five Nights At Fuckboys: Getting the lost tokens in the girl's bathroom's sewers, thanks to Toy Freddy still having grid-based movement. This could fall under Technical Aspects, but there's not enough context in this example.
6. Recap.Total Drama The Big Sleep: Discussed when Chris announces the Awake-a-thon as the second part of the episode's challenge.
7. VideoGame.Milons Secret Castle: Infinitely Respawning Enemies, no Mercy Invincibility, and completely unintuitive roadblocks.
8. VideoGame.Need For Speed Unbound: Unbound's difficulty can be quite broken, whether on Relaxed difficulty, there is Rubber-Band A. I., or whether on Intense difficulty, there is Artificial Stupidity, and vice versa. The example doesn't explain enough on why each difficulty setting is difficult, and it reads as very confusing.
9. VideoGame.Naissancee: The turbine sections present the player with spinning fans, which, while they should only cut you if you walk into them, have a chance of randomly flinging you into the air, killing you.
10. VideoGame.Drake Of The 99 Dragions: The game is very hard, but most of it is due to poor design decisions and the game being barely functional than anything intentional.
11. VideoGame.Grand Theft Auto IV: While the handling in cars can be managed, helicopters and surprisingly motorcycles take much longer to get used to and missions that require their use are harder because of that. By how much? Does the helicopter or motorcycle take longer to respond to controls than the car? This example does not say.

Potholes/Fake Difficulty mentioned without going into detail (27/80)

1. WheelOfFortune.Tropes A To D: Dynamic Difficulty: Many fans have noticed that the difficulty of puzzles sometimes gets jacked up after weeks with several wins. This often manifests itself in shorter maingame puzzles with few consonants, and especially in Fake Difficulty in the Bonus Round. Each $1,000,000 win has also had an impact on gameplay. Most notably, the second Bankrupt wedge was put on the Wheel in all rounds in Season 27 after the first one happened the year before. How is the Bonus Round in Wheel of Fortune unfair? You could say that it's because the contestant must correctly guess the phrase based off of limited information, but then again that's part of the challenge.
2. YMMV.Rayman Legends: Best Level Ever: The musical levels are generally considered a great idea, despite not being especially hard for most of them (opinions are a tad more mixed on the 8-bit versions of said levels…) Spoiled Rotten, a very fun and uniquely designed level with a surprisingly nice example of Scenery Gorn that also gives relief from the otherwise very Murfy-heavy World 3. The musical levels in Rayman Legends are rhythm minigames where the goal is to make the correct inputs at the correct time. The 8-bit versions are meant to be assessments to see if you can pull off all of the inputs at the correct times even when the game is trying to trip you up.
3. YMMV.Ed Edd N Eddy: The Problem with Licensed Games: Aside from Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures (which is regarded as being pretty good by fans), some of the other licensed games the show got were not received well. Ed, Edd n Eddy: Jawbreakers! for the GBA was viewed to have lots of Fake Difficulty by most reviewers while Ed, Edd n Eddy: Scam of The Century received a 4.0/10 on IGN.
4. SeasonalRot.Live Action TV: Others point to Season 26, which had an increase in contrived puzzles (particularly in the form of too-specific Prize Puzzles and Fake Difficulty in the Bonus Round), less energy in the studio, a general decline in contestant quality, sloppier production, and the addition of a $1,000,000 cash prize in the Bonus Round.
5. VideoGame.Tomb Raider III: Checkpoint Starvation: Thanks to which the game is considerably harder to beat on the PS1, as the only way to save during a level is via the save crystals. Harder in what way? The game's trope page doesn't have Fake Difficulty listed as one of its tropes.
6. ThatOneBoss.Rhythm Game: Screw getting TO the fills in Everlong (on drums), the hard part is staying alive long enough for your bandmates to use overdrive to recover during the Run To The Hills-like hi-hat run that takes up about... 50% of the song. And it's on Red, which makes it count more towards your performance guage dropping like a rock
7. YMMV.Kan Colle: The Fall 2014 event, which consists of again three main maps plus an "extra operations" map. Much like the Arpeggio event, this came in the wake of the Fake Difficulty-filled Summer 2014 event, and is much easier by comparison, again allowing for chip damage and no Boss HP regeneration. This game does have Fake Difficulty listed in its trope page, but it's a Wall of Text. I don't feel like trying to find out if the examples listed on this game's trope page is a valid use of Fake Difficulty.
8. YMMV.Killing Floor: Scrappy Mechanic: Higher difficulties on public servers. There is no way to prevent lvl 0s and 1s from joining them; they will inevitably join in the buy period of a late round, fail to reach the trader, cause the round to spawn 20% more zeds because of the increased party size, and die in 30 seconds. You can vote to kick them, but the round usually begins before this is achieved and the damage is done already. Higher difficulties in general for the cheap method of simply increasing the hitpoints of all enemies, turning them into bullet sponges.
9. Literature.NES Godzilla Creepypasta: Nintendo Hard: The original game was hard enough, but Red's alterations? Bullet Hell, Goddamn Bats up to eleven, cheating bosses, random glitches designed to kill the PC, zero warning one-hit kills, no instructions for entirely new game mechanics, and then finally the game actually made the room warm and made Zach dehydrated. Zach still beat it in one sitting, with only one game-over that was itself actually just Red cheating.
10. VideoGame.Complex Doom: Artificial Stupidity: All enemies retain issues proper of how Doom's monster AI works, and at times this must be exploited to kill the stronger ones. Um...what?
11. VideoGame.Steel Saviour: Nintendo Hard: Even on Easy Mode, this game can give the player really cheap deaths, partly due to your overly large collision box. Made worse by the fact that you have zero continues for this game, so once your lives are gone, Game Over! Calling this game hard is an understatement.
12. LevelGrinding.Role Playing Games: The Answer in Persona 3: FES is pretty much a forced level grinding session to get yourself back into the 70s, due to bosses that have high chances of evading their weaknesses and very hard hitting attacks, and the lack of a persona compendium that makes covering and exploiting weaknesses much harder.
13. YMMV.Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Contested Sequel: Mechanically, its fans like the uncompromising challenge of the gameplay and shake-ups to the series formula at work. Its critics consider it to be overloaded with Fake Difficulty, opaque or badly-designed mechanics, bizarre balance decisions, and uselessly-weak characters.
14. YMMV.Aero Fighters: The Fortress is extremely resilient, and protected by a ton of Anti-Air emplacements, making a head-on attack suicidal. It also has enemy aircraft around, like always. Even if/when you take everything out but the boss, remember the Fortress itself is target-less once its adjacent SAM sites are gone. In other words, you have to manually aim your weapons at it, and at a specific area to boot. This makes your missiles (the best and usually your main way to kill enemies) virtually useless.
15. VideoGame.Dance Dance Revolution: Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Healing Vision ～Angelic mix～ Expert, PARANOiA Survivor MAX Challenge, CHAOS Expert, Fascination MAXX Challenge, and Healing D-Vision Challenge. Enjoy the gimmick stops and extreme crossing.
16. MonsterHunter.Tropes H To M: Hopeless Boss Fight: Demos are generally major offenders. The Elder Dragon featured in demos usually has massively inflated health in online multiplayer (even moreso than in the full game), the time limit is far stricter than your average hunt, and you're more often than not kitted out with really crappy gear. The demo versions of Gore Magala, Nergigante, and Valstrax are known for being nearly impossible to kill in online.
17. ThatOneLevel.Action Adventure: While not as interminable as the Clockwork Tower in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the Balcony from the previous chapter of that game merits mention. What's more fun than fighting waves of Demonic Spiders and Goddamned Bats with only sparse checkpoints? How about doing so in a series of enclosed spaces with camera angles designed to screw the player by making it difficult for them to even see what's going on?
18. YMMV.Carn Evil: Special Effects Failure: The first few inmates you fight in the "Breakfast Bowl" segment of the "Freak Show" level have a unique death animation where they fall off the conveyor belts, but due to the camera angle they end up falling through them instead. In the same level, Rodz sometimes has Tort's voice. In the "Haunted House" level, the zombie arms coming out of the hallway aren't properly synched up with the prerendered background, with one of them being so misaligned it's blocked by the wall entirely. The annoying thing is that it can still hit you.
19. VideoGame.Spy Chameleon RGB Agent: Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Cameras do not spot you immediately, you have two seconds to get out of range, or change to the color of a coloured surface to evade suspicion. The whole point of the game is getting to the object, not getting out the way you came in. The mission ends when you obtain that missions' item. There are only four colors used to get past spotters like cameras and robots: Red, Green, Yellow and Blue, which are precisely the ones you can disguise as. Doing otherwise wouldn't be fun, and could be considered Fake Difficulty. You are able to freely move around in sight cones while disguised as the specific color of the environment.
20. YMMV.Rayman Origins: That One Level: Mecha No Mistake is too damn hard. Unlike the rest of the game, which is rather fairly designed, every way you can die in this level just SCREAMS Fake Difficulty, especially in the sections with the crushers and the light-up platforms. And the Time Trial is near impossible. Some people consider it even harder than the Land of the Livid Dead itself!In terms of getting lum completion, Don't Shoot the DJ has a very strict lum count that basically requires you to memorize every spawn point, because lums and lums and enemies will come fast and at odd angles.
21. VideoGame.Mario Kart Arcade GP: The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: While also present in the main games, the Rubber-Band A. I. is utterly merciless in these games, particularly GP and GP 2, where any time when they're not in your view, will reach impossible speeds (in games that lack Mushrooms) to stay right behind you. The Fake Difficulty is likely due to the games being Arcade-only, thus making it harder to win to make players retry.
22. YMMV.Starshot Space Circus Fever: So Okay, It's Average: The game has an interesting setting and genuinely fun levels, but the broken camera and Fake Difficulty elements can quickly get on one's nerves. Even the general controls and character collision can be unreliable for precise platforming at various times.
23. YMMV.Monster Hunter World: The revamped Alatreon is either a fair but challenging boss fight, with the race to nullify its Escaton Judgement via elemental damage being a rewarding mechanic; or it's Fake Difficulty incarnate, with the aforementioned gimmick on top of Alatreon's relentless attacks making it nothing more than a crock of shit; or it's a fight that averts the usual Scrappy Mechanic components of previous high-end fights (most notably tremors and wind pressure) while providing many clean hitboxes... and then ruins all earned goodwill with an unfair DPS check that was not asked for nor needed.
24. YMMV.The Phantom Menace: The Problem with Licensed Games: In contrast to the very well-received Star Wars Episode I: Racer (which came out the same day), this game screams of being a rushed cash-in, with its glitchy physics, stiff controls, sloppy level design, and downright brutal and unfair Fake Difficulty. Many of the design problems were caused by the developers not having enough of the source material to work off of - they had to hastily rework levels and characters right before release because the final movie was considerably different than the barebones script they had received.
25. YMMV.Need For Speed Unbound: Demonic Spiders: Harlow of all the racers of The Lake, especially her appearance in Week 2. Majority or players would have a hard time beating her in a race due to the fact that her C8 Corvette is too OP, as well as the Fake Difficulty. Harlow's driving skills make her look like she's playing a video game set in easy mode. Lyric during Week 3 is also difficult to beat for many of the same reasons that Harlow is.
26. YMMV.Guitar Hero: Difficulty Spike: Tier 7 in III is a rather nasty spike in and of itself: Before I Forget and Stricken in particular are notorious for being overcharted to the point of Fake Difficulty (As is 3's and 7's, though it's not nearly as difficult as everything else in the tier) and Knights of Cydonia, while not nearly as egregious in this regard, is full of long strings of tremolo picking that are sure to tire any player out, and to top it all off, you have to deal with Cult of Personality's minute-long sweeping solo as an encore.
27. VideoGame.Viewtiful Joe: Laser Hallway: An incredible source of Fake Difficulty in the first game, since they move in 3D while you're limited to 2D, with terrible depth perception; also, they're hard to see while in Slow-mo, since the screen darkens.

Unknown (5/80)

1. YMMV.Franko The Crazy Revenge: Porting Disaster: It also seemingly disables gaining extra lives with each 35th kill making it even harder, as well as makes the jump kick worse animated. Note The jump kick in the Amiga game has a slight arc and has a landing animation, on the MS-DOS version the kick just goes on a straight line.
2. VideoGame.Panzer Bandit: You only have a limited amount of continues in Story Mode (3 by default, up to a max of 5) and there's no way to gain any more during gameplay.
3. VideoGame.Abmneshi The Prophecy: Invoked. One of Mr. D's attacks is very easy, except the bullets are pitch black and the most dangerous ones are hidden behind them so they tend to sneak up on you; these a lighter shade of black on easier difficulties, but other than that nothing's changed. This example looks confusing.
4. VideoGame.Deus Ex Human Revolution: The Missing Link DLC is only as difficult as it is because it arbitrarily removes all the augmentations that you've unlocked by that point, forcing you to level-up and unlock them all over again. It's especially noticeable in the "Director's Cut" edition, where - just as arbitrarily - you get enough Praxis Kits at the end to bring you back up to the level you were before the Missing Link mission. This sounds unfair, but I couldn't find a category to fit this example under.
5. VideoGame.Wild Arms: Wild ARMs 2, 3, and Alter Code F don't allow you to buy healing items in shops. This is justified in that healing items are fruits or berries, and you're living in a wasteland. There are sidequests that allows you to grow your own fruits and berries, but they do not usually come in until about halfway through the game. I don't know enough about this franchise to know if health management is a big issue in the early game.

Results

• Correct examples - 30/80
• Incorrect examples - 7/80
• Zero-Context examples - 9/80
• Pothole - 27/80
• Unknown - 5/80

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