J Lo: Pokemon (Gen 1) - Your rival will pick whichever pokemon has a type advantage over yours. The first two gym leaders are rock and water type respectively. God help you if you picked charmander. This isn't an issue with squirtle or bulbasaur. By the time you reach a gym that has their weakness, you can pick up a 'mon that can fight for them.

J Lo: Hello!

Edit: thanks for the replies! ♥

Can you think of some games where the AI/comp straight up cheats?

Street Fighter 2 - Some characters have charge moves, which require you to crouch for two seconds. The AI does not require inputs, and can do these moves on cue without charging - making them able to do these moves faster than a human player can. I remember I used to see comp Guile throw a flash kick super quickly, and wonder how it was able to do it so fast. I thought there was some trick to it I was missing. But back then I didn't know about the cheating AI. There are also things like reduced stun recovery and hits not registering where they normally should.

Mortal Kombat 2 - The AI will read your inputs and counter the exact thing you are trying to do. Trying to clear the game without use cheese strategies is prohibitively difficult.

Diablo 2 - Duriel is not affected by freeze effects. Not an issue for me, but feels a little too strong for an act 2 boss.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - there is a fey type enemy who has several immunities (including control effects and magic missile), is impossible to hit with weapons (except with nat 20s), and has super high saving throws. I can't remember her name, but she summoned water elementals.

Mass Effect 2 - Harbinger will regularly posses normal Collector goons, making them much stronger. If a Collector trooper is about to die, Harbinger will possess the soldier - restoring him to full health, giving him armour protection, and a biotic barrier to boot. Not only do you need to start from scratch, you also now have to grind through three layers of HP.

Arkham Asylum - There is a section of the game with a bomb/timer. If you take a shortcut, Joker will break the fourth wall and reduce the total amount of time you have.

Pokemon (Gen 1) - Your rival will pick whichever pokemon has a type advantage over yours. The first two gym leaders are rock and water type respectively. God help you if you picked charmander. This isn't an issue with squirtle or bulbasaur. By the time you reach a gym that has their weakness, you can pick up a 'mon that can fight for them.

Blizzard RTS games - The comp can control multiple units at a time, as opposed to the player doing them one by one. Trying to micro on later levels at max speed is pretty rough. The comp always knows exactly where you are. They also have full vision of the map with no fog of war. Meaning artillery weapons like siege tanks and catapults will always have max range. A human player would need a spotter unit to get the same amount of range - putting them at a disadvantage.

Darvond: Similarly, in the Stadium I and & II games, the game uses loaded dice, not only to encourage you to build a team to compete, but moreover to prevent someone from pushing though it over a weekend.

TheBigCore: https://snk.fandom.com/wiki/SNK_Boss_Syndrome

J Lo: I read somewhere that Japanese devs usually made western releases more difficult - for the explicit purpose of not being able to rent the game and clear it in a few days. Japanese game devs really hated rental services (or so I'm told), and there was a lawsuit in Japan over video stores being able to rent out games.

J Lo: Very interesting article. I don't play SNK games and didn't know about this.

J Lo: I read somewhere that Japanese devs usually made western releases more difficult - for the explicit purpose of not being able to rent the game and clear it in a few days. Japanese game devs really hated rental services (or so I'm told), and there was a lawsuit in Japan over video stores being able to rent out games.

J Lo: I remember that one. I rented it for the Genesis. Fortunately I happened to have a gaming mag filled with cheat codes :)


Ah the coin gobbler...does it count as pay-to-win?

J Lo: I read somewhere that Japanese devs usually made western releases more difficult - for the explicit purpose of not being able to rent the game and clear it in a few days. Japanese game devs really hated rental services (or so I'm told), and there was a lawsuit in Japan over video stores being able to rent out games.

W1ldc44t: It wasn't even just Japanese devs that did this, but a lot of games for the Japanese market. Battletoads, which was made by Rare in the UK, is significantly easier in the Japanese version than the US/EU one.

J Lo: Arkham Asylum - There is a section of the game with a bomb/timer. If you take a shortcut, Joker will break the fourth wall and reduce the total amount of time you have.