most pixel art is done with extremes such as these, so yes, it's a common difficultly.
I find a very good way to operate (inspired by that speaker scene from "This Is Spinal Tap") is to make everything slightly darker, not using any white, but substituting a pale gray (10% for characters, 20% for background) for white instead, and adjusting everything else accordingly. In rooms meant to be dimly lit (caves, subways, sewers, buildings without power, space) you are able to darken even further (around 30% for character, 60% backgrounds looks nice), for an even fuller effect of this method. The slight boost in the character color realms gives then just a little more pop. When you do this, if the slightly darkened things are the only things on screen, you do not notice that you are begin short-changed in the brightness department.
When you go to do special effects then, you have a lot more leeway, because your range for lights extends to what the player's eye will think that 90% brightness is 100%, so when you add in things that are *actually* 100% brightness, it will consider it to be 111.11% brightness. You can have better flashes and shines that are still brighter than anything else on screen without fancy blending, and actually, this is a good trick even for games using fancy blending, because it still "goes to eleven."
another good way to do things is to mix in dark elements, like black smoke or flying rock for explosions, a dark fireplace around a bright fire, a black lantern case around a bright lantern, so that even a dim effect will look bright because it will be surrounded by even darker things.
