10 Unexpected Video Game Difficulty Spikes That Brutalised Players

While many of you might immediately see the words Difficulty Spike and Pokémon in the same sentence and assume I'd be retelling the story of how Whitney and her Miltank absolutely rolled over my entire team, again and again, there was actually a Gym Leader before this badass lass who turned our hopes and dreams into rubble.

And shockingly it was Brock, the doyen of Pewter City.

I say shocking for two reasons, the first being that anyone who played Pokémon Red or Blue likely crushed his rock-based squad seeing as two-thirds of the starter Pokemon had type advantage over them, making it a short and rather lackluster experience.

The second is because when Pokémon Yellow rolled around and forced you to take Pikachu as your main squeeze, shocking these ground-based pokemon did absolutely nothing to them! Suddenly the first speedbump to progress that players experienced had turned into a roadblock upon which they smashed into at full speed. If you'd assumed you'd be able to cheat by using the sprinklers as Ash did in the animated series, you were dead wrong.

And your Pokémon? Well, they were just dead.