That One Level/Video Games/Platform Game

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Watch your step! These "one levels" can send even the most hardened platforming game veterans screaming for help (or the developer's heads).

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Nintendo

  • This one goes to the Wario Land 4 veterans: DOODLE WOODS.
    • * Twitch...twitch* AAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH! Nooooo where's the last piece! Sod the CD, I want to move on! * sobs* And him...that, that, that HORRIBLE pig-ghost-bastard-thing...
    • It was annoying, but the Big Board is even more annoying on harder difficulties. Whether you can complete it with 10,000 coins for the bonus music completely depends on what numbers you get at each of the dice blocks, as does getting the jewel pieces to open the upcoming boss door, as does even exiting the level (especially if you've got like 10,000 coins and all pieces, and get randomly lightning struck to death by the random number generator thing before you can reach the keyser.
    • In Wario Land: Shake It, there's Gurgle Gulch, hated for the tricky mini games for treasure and absolutely nightmarish no damage run mission (it involves you swinging between two columns of spikes without getting hit...), Launchpad Labyrinth (get to the end of a dangerous flying obstacle course in the unibucket (rocket) contraption that has to be moved by aiming the boosters, made more annoying by the 'don't get hit' mission, and possibly a few others.
    • Wario World has Shivering Mountains, especially because of the two statue pieces on the slopes. Both of them must be obtained while sliding at high speed, and missing them means trekking to the end of the level and taking the Bye Bye Balloons back to the start.
  • The bits in Super Princess Peach where before a boss level, you have to get past a short obstacle course using the stylus.
  • Kirby Super Star (...and by extension, Super Star Ultra) has several.
    • Let's start with Orange Ocean in "Revenge of Meta Knight". It has a segment in which the screen auto-scrolls. That's not so bad, but let's take into account that you start underwater, rendering most powers useless AND slowing you down, the fact that there are cannons shooting at you while you wait for the screen to scroll up, and once you're out of the water, the screen moves even faster. Finally, you have to get through the door at the right time; failure to do so results in death by screen.
    • Then there's Aquarius in "Milky Way Wishes". There's a maze of water currents in the last area; if you follow the wrong stream, you have to start over. There is no way of knowing where you're supposed to go; it's all Trial and Error Gameplay. What's worse, you actually HAVE to take the wrong current to get one of the Copy Essences.
      • Also in that mode, there's Cavius. It's basically a combination mini-boss rush and maze rolled into one. The fact that the real boss just so happens to be the final boss of "Great Cave Offensive" doesn't help much either.
      • Possibly the most hated level of Milky Way Wishes is Hotbeat, the lava planet. It takes place in a cave, some stretches of which have the majority of the floor, ceiling, and walls made of lava. It's a nightmare to navigate through. It's even more annoying in Meta Knightmare Ultra, where Meta Knight's enhanced jumping ability becomes a curse, as he frequently hits the lava above him.
    • "Great Cave Offensive" is That One Game. The Garden is the hardest of the four levels, because some treasures are nigh-impossible to get; for example, you're supposed to know that you can drop through a platform that looks solid and into a pool of water, and you have a dreaded Wheelie Rider segment (the fact that the reward is just about worthless doesn't help AT ALL).
    • The True Arena is a boss rush. The first six bosses are only harder versions of the ones you fought earlier. Then come the "Final Four," which are extremely powerful forms or Expies of King Dedede, Wham Bam Rock, Metaknight, and Marx. Health does not regenerate between any of the battles, outside of a few healing items that replace a fifth of Kirby's health each. The only practical way of winning the True Arena is to receive zero damage from the first six bosses, and practically none from the next two.
  • And then there's the dreaded factory stage in Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards. The stage is long and has all kinds of things that threaten to flatten, squish, and crunch you and therefore cost you a life. The section where you piggyback ride on King Dedede's back has robots that try to flatten you with their hammers, in which you have to wait for them to slam their hammers down and bring them back up before proceeding. And if that's not enough, there's also conveyor belts as well as Bobos and Sawyers to keep you occupied. A few rooms after is the room where the presses come slowly crashing down and press down on the floor (luckily, there are safe areas to keep you safe from these presses). On the last two presses, you have to run really fast since there's not much safe spots on these last two presses. Finally, there's the area where robots push energy walls towards you and try to smash you between them and the walls, and near the top of the room, you have to quickly fly up to the top of the column before the robot that chases you from the right side to the column smashes you between it and its energy wall. Yikes, now that's really tough.
  • In Kirby's Dream Land 3, there's the fifth level of Cloudy Park. You have to take Rick to the end of the level to get the Heart Star. In order to do this, you have to jump across tiny platforms, jump on the heads of those ghost Waddle Dee things, and then a PAINFUL part where you have to wall-jump up a tall shaft with Gordos placed along it in such a manner that makes it hard to get up there without running in to them and having them knocking you back down. Did I mention that there's barely any space for you to go from wall to wall between each Gordo? It's made no better than the fact that in this game, if you die, you not only lose your copy ability, but also your animal friend.
  • Kirbys Epic Yarn, Boom Boatyard, an auto scrolling level on boats with bombs raining down on you, sinking ships. If and when you get hit, your lost beads will either end up in the water, or on one of the sinking boats.
    • The Mysterious UFO level is a tricky one with its zero-G puzzles.
    • Many gamers cringe at the mention of levels Deep-Dive Deep, Cozy Cabin, and Tempest Towers. Deep-Dive Deeps Bead Run minigame is especially irksome, since you only have 20 seconds to collect the necessary beads, and not a whole lot of beads in one place to collect quickly, unlike the other water level's Bead Run, which has the same time limit, but the necessary beads are all clumped together in a single, small area.
    • The Battleship Halberd by itself is actually a very fun level. The bead-collecting minigame that takes place there, on the other hand, is absolute torture. You're almost required to kill every single enemy to collect their beads in time, on an auto scrolling stage, with a shot that doesn't even kill the Bronto Burts in one hit, while they're firing so much at you that the stage is borderline Bullet Hell - and every time you get hit, you'll have to pick up everything you've dropped or else you're almost certain to fail, and all this with a ridiculously short timer.
    • Another really obnoxious one is the minigame at Cloud Palace, where you have to kill 70 enemies in 70 seconds, and getting hit by anything takes 5 seconds off your time. There's just barely over 70 enemies, they don't respawn, and if one of the Krackos decides to run into the wall, it doesn't count as your kill. Oh, and it's an auto scrolling stage too. Joy.
  • Kirby's Return to Dream Land has a few. Any level in Egg Engines is a pain in the ass, especially if you're trying to get all the Energy Spheres, but the third Energy Sphere of Stage 2 takes the cake. You must have swallowed the miniboss from the room prior to the room with the sphere and shoot bomb blocks with the lightning bolt attack. Sounds easy, right? Well, how about shooting bomb blocks while moving on a really fast platform, that you CANNOT reset back to the start of the area if you fail to get the bomb blocks. Have fun continually restarting the ENTIRE LEVEL (which is where the levels in the game start getting really long) just to get that single Energy Sphere.
    • Nutty Noon, Stage 5 can be this if you take the secret route. Water Garlboros isn't too bad. But then you reach King Doo. His room has spikes on the ceiling, and the room is so small that if you lose your ability (which is likely), it'll be destroyed in the spikes above, and you have barely any room to move around and dodge his attacks. Then, immediately afterward, you fight Dubior. No break, no additional copy abilities other than Beam, nothing. And its room's terrain is very uneven, and it'll probably be the first time you ever fight it if you took the secret route first (and this is its first ever appearance anyways). And after that you fight Kibble Blade and Gigant Edge at the same time. It's even more nightmarish on Extra Mode, as all the bosses are much harder. And immediately after this level? Grand Doomer.
    • Dangerous Dinner Stage 3. Most of the level is spent dodging giant flaming fireballs with little room to act. But the most infamous part of the level is the key. To get it, you have to kill a very fast Carry Dee before it runs into lava, then go into the next room, dodge a huge amount of chasing enemies, more fireballs, and giant lava eels. But the worst part? The key is on a timer, which means it's all too possible to barely survive the gauntlet... and lose the key inches before the door. Thankfully the key-carrying is optional, but required for 100% Completion.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns has many difficult levels, none more infamous than Crowded Cavern. It's a rocket barrel level filled to the brim with literal Goddamned Bats. Most of the time is spent dodging bats and various rocks, and one hit and you're dead. The end is the worst, as you have to dodge a giant bat's sound wave weapons that have the horrible habit of appearing just as you go up. And if you don't move out of the way at the end? You have to the giant bat's area again!
    • World 4, the Cave, could very well be one as a whole. All of its levels have minecarts and rocket barrels, are full of Trial and Error Gameplay, and it's home to the aformentioned Crowded Cavern. Oh yeah, and a difficult boss (The Mole Train) is at the end.
    • Level 5-K, Blast and Bounce. There is no solid ground for the entire level, and it's either spent waiting for the perfect opportunity to go through or jumping on enemies with the weird method of bouncing off them.
    • Level 6-K, Perilous Passage. It's a Rise to the Challenge level with many chances to die, and about halfway through you're chased by invincible electric bees. To make things worse, there's no checkpoint, as with all Key Temples.
    • Where's level 1-K? aside from being the first bonus level, meaning the largest difficulty spike in the game if you like to beat all the levels before moving on, you get no Diddy, you have to know EXCATLY when to press A (or not press A) or you lose one of your valuable hearts or just outright die.
    • Then there's Gear Getaway (7-4). It's another rocket barrel level that forces you to maneuver around an array of machinery with exact precision. Checkpoints are also inconveniently placed before the most difficult flying segments, assuring that you will drop a ludicrous amount of lives before finally getting to the end.

Sega

  • The Good Future levels in Ecco the Dolphin: Tides of Time, mostly for the water tubes (a forced scroll level and a "dodge the garage-sized jellyfish" level, if you fall from either you have to do them all over again) followed by the "fly on air pockets and flying psychic dolphins from floating island to floating island" level...
    • Likewise, Defender of the Future has a level named Hanging Waters that was meant to be a homage to those water tube levels in Tides ... and it manages to be every bit as frustrating, if not more.
    • Let us not forget the original game's Welcome to the Machine. Five-minute long forced scroll level with a twisting path you have to memorize lest you be squished against the walls, enemies popping up from flipping nowhere to eat you... and if you lose to the final boss, you have to do it all over again.
  • Circus Park. Circus flipping Park. This set of stages from Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg can be a right royal pain in the arse, having super thin slides containing numerous jets of fire, spikes, holes in the middle of the path, and jumps - often in quick sucession, as well as having an abundance of rails where you must let go of the egg, Egg Rings that swing and require perfect timing in order to not have Billy or his chums fall to their doom, and normal Egg Rings which are often used to cross long gaps which need ridiculous timing to get right. Oh, and they're often used with the swinging Egg Rings, thus giving you a strange perspective, making the normally-fairly simple act of jumping into an Egg Ring a nightmare.
  • Aladdin has "The Escape," a level where Aladdin must try to make his way through lava, large boulders rolling toward him, platforms that sink into the lava, and bursts of that lava that are potentially fatal by causing Aladdin to fall in. At the end of the level, as you're falling the Flying Carpet catches you to whisk you away, but not fast enough to still get hit by a boulder and having to restart the level. You have to fall left to avoid the boulder, and even then the timing is such that it makes it difficult to do consistently.
    • Immediately after this level, you try to outrun (outfly?) an advancing wave of lava while dodging floating rock platforms sooner and sooner. A mystical genie hand gives you tips on whether to go up or down, but it sometimes throws a question mark up, which, for all the good it does, might as well be The Finger. On the plus side, there's an extra life right at the beginning on the level that reappears upon dying, and the game lets you go to the next level after three tries.
  • Super Monkey Ball gave us so many of them, we don't know where to begin.
    • Labyrinth, mainly because getting to the goal was a Guide Dang It affair.
    • Master levels 3 and 9 in Super Monkey Ball (the first). Got the Infinite Continues unlocked? No? You need them here. Master 3 is arguably three difficult levels in one. Here are two takes on completing it.
    • While Super Monkey Ball tended to keep things basic, if not maddening, Super Monkey Ball 2 has many more gimmick levels that feel far less tight and fun. For example:
      • Launchers has you being pushed by an obstacle, onto a tower that's curved at the bottom, so you can be launched in the air, and then flail your controller stick in vain hoping that the ball will land at the top of the tower.
      • Arthropod, dear God. The word alone strikes fear in the hearts of men. Words can't describe...
      • Helix is a "follow-the-path-downhill" kind of stage -- except the entire path is CYLINDRICAL!
        • For those of you just tuning in, that's the outside of the cylinder. The "inside" isn't there.
      • Warp. You have bent floors, the higher (and less slanted) parts of which have bumpers on them to make it harder. There is a green goal by the normal one, but that requires going down a path LOADED with bumpers. You need to be lined up just about perfectly for it.
      • Strata. Yes, let's have the player cross REALLY SMALL HILLY PLATFORMS, shall we?
      • Amida Lot, my god. The bumpers on this continually move up and down seven narrow tracks, and cross over wherever they can. You'll be pausing the game to get a feel for one bumper's path, and once you get that down, you'll get thrown off by the next bumper over. Where's the goal? On the center track, moving up and down with no correlation to the bumpers. You'll have to get really lucky on timing to pass this, because the tracks are so narrow that you have to be dead center to be able to fit properly on the track. In other words, you have to cross from another track and just hope that another bumper doesn't come.
      • Entangled Path. Waiting 20 sec just for the path to untangle is tedious and then you get barely enough time to gun it, hopefully getting to the goal before the path vanishes. Oddly, the green goal is easier to get on this stage.
    • Banana Blitz presents 10-5, which consists of mostly bumpy surface that makes the result of jumps quite unpredictable, a huge obstacle in a game that requires expert precision. To add insult to injury, all versions aside from the PAL version have a Game Breaking Bug that makes you fall through the solid platform just before the goal.
    • Advanced Extra 5 from the first game, AKA Polar Large. It's Advanced 30 (you know, the one with all the thin spinning platforms), except harder. While that one could be quickly run through with the right timing, they decided to get rid of that luxury by adding a segment so big that it might as well be its own level. The very last platform goes all the way around, but to fuck with the player a little, it's constantly flipping, so if you don't cross in exactly the right spot, you will fall to your death.
    • Deluxe brings us Catwalk, which consists of three really long, unforgivingly narrow paths. You can bypass those by taking a fourth path that is narrower than all of those combined.
      • That game also boosted the difficulty of some levels involving curve bridges. Most notable amongst those is Exam-C, which was moderately challenging in the original.
  • The Revenge of Shinobi's level 7. A pixel perfect jump where missing results in death? Check. Enemies jumping out of the water to hit you in the back with a throwing star? Check. Angrish bound to occur? Check. And that is just the first of the three parts. The next part, luckily, is a bit fairer (as in, no pixel perfect jump), but the enemies are clearly placed just to say "Fuck you." The boss, luckily, is easy (compared to the next one). Level 8 part 1 has enemies clearly placed just to say "Fuck you" as well. The boss of the next level, however, (which is also the last) is also close to becoming That One Boss, as his hair keeps changing attack speed once it leaves his head, so even memorising the attack pattern of said boss doesn't insure victory. Ninjisu will be in short supply in those levels...
  • Rokakku-Dai Heights in Jet Set Radio Future is particularly annoying. It has one platform puzzle repeated ad nauseam with extra jumps or more precision. But wait! You are also getting progressively higher in the area so you are skating on rooftops. But even better, there is water below you that means if you fall, you take damage and find yourself several precise platform jumps below where you were. And the narrator laughs at you when you get wet. Terrific.
  • Kid Chameleon has the infamous Bloody Swamp. An entirely circumventable level, if you do have the misfortune of going to it, you will die. A lot. It is about 3/4ths of the way through the game and can easily take you down from a huge number of lives and continues to game over. It is an Advancing Wall of Doom level from hell, with bouncing blocks that catapult you to death, moving platforms which crush you or prevent you from moving on fast enough to survive, and various other nonsense that makes it a miserable, miserable experience. Ironically, one of the ways to get there is via a shortcut which wise players will never, ever use just to avoid this place.

Capcom

  • Mega Man had Guts Man's Level, the real problem is the start of the level, with precise jumps when the platforms carrying you are about to drop.
    • Ice Man's level: Disappearing/Reappearing Blocks and moving platforms that double as enemies that shoot at you, incredibly easy if you have the Magnet Beam though; which can only be gotten in Elec Man's stage and you must have Guts Man's weapon to access it.
  • Mega Man 2 has Quick Man's level, of which two-thirds of it is a vertical maze of instant-kill lasers; Flash Man's power (which pauses time, stopping the lasers) can help alleviate it some, but it can't get you through the whole thing and also means unless you refill it you can't use it against Quick Man (who is weak to Flash Man's power). Heat Man's level possibly tops this if you try to tackle it early on, because it has an EXTREMELY long sequence of those annoying appearing/disappearing blocks, most of which is over a pit. Fortunately, if you do it after beating Air Man, who gives you the Item 2 Jet Sled, you can bypass that entire part (of course, Air Man will not die...)
    • Air Man's level is a pain, too. For the first part of the level, you have to jump on "Air Tikis". When you are standing on one of them, the constantly spawning enemies combined with the drills coming out of the sides of its head means that you can't get off. What's worse, later in the level, you have to jump from one Air Tiki to another. Keep in mind that they only appear when you get nice and close to them. Which means in the end that there always will be a drill in your way. Then there's those Lightning Lords that you have to kill and then ride on their cloud platforms, and all those Pipis. And, if you survive, guess who you have to fight? Wood Man's Leaf Shield helps out a lot here, as it not only is Super Effective against the boss, but can be used to farm powerups and 1Ups from the respawning enemies. But every time somehow, every time...
  • Gate's levels in Mega Man X 6; instant-kill spikes everywhere, plus a sequence of rising instant-kill lava and slippery ice slopes, and an area for X that is all but impossible to traverse if you entered the previous level with the wrong armor for its level (you can't go back to switch armors once you enter Gate's domain, and the "wrong armor" is ironically the best weapon to beat the previous level's boss with). Utterly horrific. Also from X6 Blaze Heatnix's level. While not hard on the scale Gate's lab is, Heatnix's domain contained not only lethal rising lava, but about half a dozen ultra-annoying minibosses as well. Seeing as how X6 has hideous game balance in general, this is probably not surprising.
    • And then there's Blizzard Wolfang's stage (if it wasn't the avalanches in the first part, it was the falling ice blocks in the second), Rainy Turtloid (acid rain and long stretches of moving platforms over pits), Metal Shark Player (Stupid, stupid compactor areas), Ground Scaravich (annoying totem poles and mazes), Shield Sheldon (laser puzzles ahoy)...in fact, the only stages that can't be considered a Scrappy level in this game are Infinity Mijinion's and Commander Yammark's. And to some, Infinity Mijinion's stage is a Scrappy level too, mostly because the entire first half of the stage is a Sub Boss fight.
    • And, depending on the order you do things, thanks to the ever so aptly named Nightmare System, you have to do Yanmark's or Turtloid's level in the dark! OK, there's a spotlight on your position, but it doesn't help that much.
    • Worst level ever: Metal Shark Player. The entire stage is the crushing ceiling stage. The first section is fine because Ride Armor is immune to crushing. The second gets annoying. The third?... Spikes and ice. It's like giving a teenager alcohol and a car.
    • The Central Museum (Ground Scaravich) begs to differ. To elaborate, the entire stage is as chaotic and unexpected as the words can be. For starters, the rooms that the totem holograms transport you to are VERY random, meaning you'll never know which area you'll stumble upon and that you'll have to revisit the whole place to get every single item/Reploid. These rooms consist of rapidly materializing boulders, meaning you can't stand still for too long. To make things worse, some of these rooms can only be reached by activating two of the eight possible Nightmare Effects (the rain or the metal blocks). That, and the terrain is just as (or even more) randomized. But the real problem and what makes this stage Xtremely painful is the fact that the ONLY enemies you're going to encounter (save for the totem poles) are the very troublesome Nightmares, and they come in PACKS. The damage from touching these buggers and the projectiles they fire are deceptively dangerous, and they rack up unforgivingly. And you better be fast in rescuing those Reploids too, since the risk of them getting infected is just absurd. Hands down THE most luck-driven and dangerous stage in the entire game.
    • One part that deserves a mention here is in Infinity Mijinion's stage in the nightmare portal section. There are almost NO FLOORS in this section. Instead you get hand rails that you need to remember to hold Up on the D-pad to cling to. Meanwhile there are TONS of nightmares in this section. They just love sucking the life out of unsuspecting reploids, including ONE THAT IS LITERALLY RIGHT ON TOP OF THE POOR REPLOID IMMEDIATELY AS YOU SEE IT. If you're not fast enough, as in killing the thing immediately as it comes on screen, you will lose this reploid and have to quit without saving if you were after 100% Completion. Oh, and even when you do rescue this reploid, it's entirely possible that you will fall to your death anyway. Oh well, for a noble cause...
    • Hell, let's just call X6 a Scrappy Level Pack Sequel and leave it at that.
  • Ouroboros from Mega Man ZX Advent is easier than Gate's domain in X6, but it's loaded to the rim with spikes, annoying enemies of all kinds, regenerating blocks, regenerating spiked blocks, the Boss Rush... yeah, all of that in one level. The fact that the whole thing's made from the world's supply of Model Ws turns it from the Scrappy Level to the Nightmare Fuel Level.
    • Hell, any of the side-scrolling hoverbike levels in the X series qualify, thanks to the annoyingly precise jumps needed to get through. Let us not get started on the 3D ones in X7 and X8.
    • Speaking of Quick Man, his counterpart in Mega Man Battle Network 2 ALSO has a horribly annoying stage, because you can't jack out of the detonators once you jack in, meaning you can't restore your health.
    • And speaking of Battle Network, any area that requires compression in 3, due to the pain of needing to requip and rearrange the Navi Cust setup so often.
    • Although it's only a small part of the level, the infamous lifts at the start of Guts Man's level in the first Mega Man have stopped many players from ever managing to get defeat all the Robot Masters.
    • Ice Man's level from the same game. Two disappearing block sections that you can pass with the tedious to find Magnet Beam with pathetic ammo, followed by a bunch of helicopter platforms that shoot bullets and, due to a glitch, if you get hit by a bullet, you fall through the platform! If you survive, then you need to get past a Big Eye which can chop off 1/3rd of your health and make you redo the entire section! Ice Man himself isn't hard, but he does a lot of damage to Mega Man and good luck if you happen to slip up on your last life and go through the entire stage again!
    • The best thing about Quick Man's stage, of course, is that, for some reason, Capcom feels the need to keep revisiting it in later games. Mega Man X5, in particular, managed to make it even worse: it's bad enough that X-series characters slide slowly down walls, making it harder to fall past the lasers quickly enough, but Capcom then added in more lasers! And at the end of the stage? You fight That One Boss.
    • Squid Adler/Volt Kraken's stage is even worse. The stage starts on a hoverbike, with lots of bottomless pits to fall in, and getting scrolled off the screen kills you. To make matters worse, there are eight glowing things to get if you want the head parts of the Falcon Armor. Even if you survive that, there's still plenty of annoying switch puzzles to go through. Oh, and did we mention that if you want 100% Completion, you're going to have to revisit it?
    • The level expects you to be ready to jump before the "READY" message leaves the screen.
    • Guess what? 9 has not only magma flows reminiscent of the Quick beams, but THE LASERS THEMSELVES make a return, complete with the sound effect! Of course, these are less 'laser' than 'magma jet' in both incarnations. Thank god for the Concrete Shot, eh?
      • Let's not forget Wily Stage 3, from Mega Man 9. Here is a level that has a few areas where you're constantly floating upwards, sound okay right? WRONG, the floating areas are chock full of spikes, and you can only move Mega Man by shooting the buster, which increases his inertia the more you shoot in one direction, which is a lot harder than it sound as you have to move at the correct speeds or you will get spiked and die. And if that wasn't enough, there's several spots where an enemy will drop down and DRAG you right into the very spike you thought you narrowly avoided. Oh, and the boss of this stage is not one, but two incarnations of the classic Yellow Devil boss. RAGE.
  • It's not just the bosses, the Mega Man Zero and ZX games started going absolutely insane on hard mode, starting with Zero 3. No weapon upgrades, no heart tanks, two subtanks at most (and you'd be lucky to get that), no cyber elves, Final Destination. End result is fighting boss rushes and three stage final bosses (sometimes in the same stage, with no continue point) with the tiny life bar you have at the very start of the game. If you're trying to get S-rank, you might as well just kill yourself.
    • Zero 2 has a whole bunch of 'em.
      • First is the Arms Factory, filled to the brim with lava and exploding Telebombs and not much room to maneuver. And to top it off the boss is an absolute nightmare who can only be hit at certain points even with the right element; if you attack, he'll dodge and counteratttack, and his counterattacks are damn hard to avoid. Worse still, one of the Cyber Elves hidden here is pure Guide Dang It material. You essentially have to play Space Invaders in one section, kill every enemy while being blocked by moving platforms that hurt you if you touch them, and after that have to hit the fast-moving UFO in the three seconds from when it emerges to when it leaves.
      • Next is the Bombardment Aircraft, You start off leaping between moving shuttlecraft which shoot at you while you're using them as platforms, on top of X-Droids shooting at you on top of them, requiring perfect timing so as to not to be knocked into the massive Bottomless Pit. Once past that section, you have to fight a miniboss who fires fast-moving, area-damage missiles at you until you hit it. When you hit it, it drops a row of bombs which can only be avoided by standing exactly where it was previously hovering. Then you navigate through a series timed stage hazards that will eat right through your tiny lifebar and require expert timing to pass unharmed. Then you have to do a Hold the Line section protecting Ciel for 90 seconds, which counts for basically your entire mission score. If she gets hit, goodbye A or S rank. Naturally, this is a Bullet Hell sequence plus the Frogger X-Droids who you have to hit while blocking every bullet. Finally, you have to face a boss battle which becomes nigh-impossible on Hard Mode if you have an A or S rank. His A/S rank attack is literally undodgeable. Not hard to dodge, impossible to dodge. He has to be deflected, in-flight, to avoid taking damage, and the series of moves necessary to do this is not something the designers could reasonably expect people to figure out on their own, much less actually accomplish given that it takes precision timing to pull off.
      • There's also the Shuttle Factory, which is also long, contains lots of lava and other stage hazards, and a tough boss fight against Fefnir at the end.
      • Even the last level goes beyond what you'd expect for a final mission. Not only do you have to revisit the boss from the Arms Factory (who you can't partially nerf like the first time), they introduce an entirely new boss fight during the boss rush, which is absolutely inexcusable. What's worse, said new boss fight consists of the beetle boss from this game (mentioned above) and the beetle boss from the last game fighting you together in an arena that does not scroll, with attacks that cover nearly the entire screen and take split-second timing to dodge, and a Kaizo Trap ability for added measure.
  • Network Transmission has the bank stage and the final area and Battle Chip Challenge has the entire game. Incidentally, the Bank stage happens to be, unsurprisingly, Quickman's level. Right down to the insta-kill lasers.
  • 5 has Wave Man's level, with the jetski portion. You're in a jetski, so you don't have the slide and you're a bigger target then usual. You only have the Mega Buster to use, and you have to go through two sections filled with jetski-riding Sniper Joes and evil robo-dolphins, bookending a giant octopus miniboss. The problem? You can't pause at all during this section, meaning that you can't use any E-tanks, meaning that you have to make it through two enemyspam sections and a miniboss on one tank of health and awkward controls.
    • Then there's the falling-block gap of death in Gyro Man's stage complete with its anvil-drop enemies that totally screw a good straight shot on the falling blocks.
  • 6 had Plant Man's level, with a long section involving jumping over water filled pits via springs. Problem is, the springs don't always spring you as high as you need to go, dumping you into the pits on a regular basis. Oh, and then there are the lovable robot pirahnas jumping out of the water to further ruin your jumps.
  • Mega Man 8, the rocketboard sections. Enough to prevent some gamers from even finishing the game successfully.

Jump! Jump! Slide! Slide! * shudder*

    • Adding to the irritant nature of the whole thing is the boss at the end of the second Rocketboard Section, who is very easily That One Boss because he can only be hurt using the friggin' Mega Ball. It's basically a soccer ball that you can only "aim" by estimating where the ricochet goes. And being you don't get the Mega Ball from a Robot Master, and it's only just handed to you, it seems more like this boss was only added to justify the ball's existence. What's the real kicker? If you die fighting this boss you do the Rocketboard section again.
  • 9 gives us Jewel Man's stage, which combines a difficult jump to the miniboss (1:24), the miniboss itself (which is suprisingly difficult), and a near-impossible jump shortly after said miniboss (2:38).
    • And almost instantly after that one, you get the one at 2:50, which is even harder.
  • 10 gives us Commando Man's stage, which is in a desert that has enemies posing as land mines that make huge explosions when you get near them, and about halfway through, a sandstorm that sporadically covers the entire screen and pushes you in its direction while blinding your view of the spikes on the limited platforms and the gaps that drop you into the bottomless pit below.
    • Blade Man's level is also pretty bad due to an annoying midboss, and a mine cart section above another bottomless pit with Goddamn Bats trying to knock you in every couple of seconds.
  • Burn Rooster's stage from X8. It starts out going down an auto-scrolling series of platforms. After that there's a large spike-filled room. Next, another auto-scrolling section, and then the boss. Finally, in the ultimate cheap shot, even after beating the boss, you have to escape in yet ANOTHER auto scrolling section, this time going up.
    • Another X8 example: Gravity Antonion. It's easy until you get to the minigame (@ 1:42 in the video). There are six blocks on the ceiling. Suddenly, they sprout spikes and fall on you. You then hide on the walls, while they sprout spikes from their top and fly up at you. Repeat ad nauseam. The Crowning Music of Awesome doesn't help. Sigma Palace is also a controller breaker, but it's the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, so it's justified.
    • Dark Mantis's stage, Pitch Black. Not only is it Exactly What It Says on the Tin, the only way to be able to collect anything of any value involves turning on the power, which cannot be done unless you beat Gigavolt first, and also requires you to transform into a Guardroid and salute at a sleeping guard. Meaning if you didn't bring Axl, too bad. If you kill the sleeper, you lose the ability to enter the generator room, even if you die and come back, as he does not respawn. Outside of that, there's also spotlights, which seal off exits if you're caught in them and summon more enemies. Fantastic.
    • Avalanche Yeti's stage. It's a driving/shmup stage with constantly-spawning enemies, electric arcs, and the ability to die by being next to a hole. You don't need to fall in, just being by the hole kills you. Not to mention the miniboss with an absurd amount of health that you have to fight twice...
    • Actually, most of X8's stages could qualify for this trope. It's just a really hard game.
  • Mega Man 7 has Turbo Man's stage. It contains the aforementioned instant-death lasers from Quick-Man's level (they're actually magma pillars this time around,) and a section with instant-death spikes combined with tires that move on the ceiling. These tires have a habit of pushing you mid-jump into said spikes.
  • Mega Man III for the Game Boy overall was a cruel and evil game. While the first four stages aren't too much trouble, the second set has likely broken many a Game Boy. Two in particular are pure evil. Dive Man's stage is filled with spikes, at one point making you jump between raised pillars of spikes. It also forces you to jump on a platform that's on top of rising and falling water, and of course, the platform is surrounded by spikes on both sides. Dust Man's stage, however, is truly terrible. It has pits with Upndowns coming out of them, and not one, not two, but at least 10 pixel perfect jumps are required to make it through the stage. There is also the dust crusher section, which required Mega Man to slide through gaps with perfect timing or he dies. When you finally get to Dust Man, you find that he's a pathetic Anticlimactic Boss which really makes the stage feel even worse by comparision. Dust Man's stage really is the closest Mega Man has gotten to Platform Hell.
  • Mega Man X7 has a lot of these. First up is Kombinat, which isn't so bad during the 2D section, except for the lava that kills you if you touch it; no Mercy Invincibility here! But then you get to the 3D section, which has that lava practically everywhere. And there are those stupid sonar tower thingies that can knock you out of midair if you get hit by the soundwaves on the middle of the platforms that aren't that big to begin with, as well as gigantic robots with a nearly unavoidable attack, and they almost always show up two to a platform. There's also a Reploid that disappears if you die before you get to him, regardless of whether he got hit by enemy robots, and a Heart Tank on a really low beam. Then you beat all this and fight Flame Hyenard...

Rareware

  • Snow Barrel Blast from Donkey Kong Country combined poor visibility with barrel-shooting sequences requiring perfect timing, and a single miss resulting in instant death. Like Carnival Night zone act 2, this level had its own entry on the Automated Help Line -- and a shortcut which allowed most of the difficult sections to be easily skipped.
    • Oil Drum Alley and Platform Peril also deserve mention. The former has the part where you need to time jumps on a shitload of oil drums and tires, and the latter is just long and brutal, complete with impregnable Krushas and collapsing platforms.
    • There's a reason that Blackout Basement earned its title as a trope namer. Mainly because the lights constantly flicker on and off, and if they're off you can't see anything except your playable characters. Not the enemies, not the platforms above the bottomless pit, absolutely nothing. There's a reason why most people automatically remember this level when this game is brought up.
    • Three words. TANKED UP TROUBLE!!! This level requires you to grab almost impossible to reach fuel tanks before the platform you're riding on collapses. Missing even one barrel can result in death, if those freakin bees don't kill you first!
    • Stop. And. Go. Station. Rockkrocs cannot be killed, move insanely fast in a constant back-and-forth motion, and you can only get past them by changing the lights from green (GO) to red (STOP). These switches never last long even at the beginning of the level, but by the end of it, they switch back on literally the same second you turn them off. And the end of the level is a gauntlet of at least half a dozen rockkrocs and switch barrels, maybe closer to 8-9. You are almost guaranteed to lose one of your Kongs before you finally dive into the exit. Thank all that is holy that rockkrocs only appear in this level.
  • The bonus level "Animal Antics" from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is almost certainly the most difficult level in the game (except for maybe Toxic Tower), thanks to a specific part. You must transform into each of the various animal companions in the game. At one point, you turn into Squawks the Parrot, and must navigate a thorn-lined maze. There is no platform to sit and stop for a breather; you constantly have to keep flapping your wings to maintain altitude in a narrow space, as well as avoid deadly bees. Unfortunately, you also have to deal with gusting wind that will blow the parrot into the thorns, forcing you to constantly hold the opposite direction on the control pad. To say it's frustrating is an understatement, considering the rest of the level is a cakewalk. Oh, and the wind constantly shifts the direction it's going, forcing you to constantly adjust the direction you're flying to compensate.
    • The GBA remake made Animal Antics slightly less scrappy by moving the Continue barrel further in the level (past Squitter's area, which was probably the easiest of that level) so you don't have to redo quite as much if you lose a life later.
    • To elaborate on Toxic Tower, it's a level where poison keeps on rising at all times and you have to escape, taking the forms of the different animal buddies. The first part has you playing as Rattle the Snake, doing jumps that kill you if you miss them by an inch. The second part has you flying away as Squawks the Parrot, shooting bees that block your way and navigating through a dungeon labyrinth. The bonus area requires using Squitter to shoot web platforms up a long curving bramble-lined passageway to get the Kremkoin, and you don't have a lot of time to do it in. If the webs are not a skill you have thoroughly mastered by now, you're going to be in for some major headaches trying to get that magical 102% completion.
    • Two words: Screech's Sprint. Just take that infamous Animal Antics Squwaks part and replace the gusts of wind with a RACE THROUGH A MAZE OF THORNS AND BEES!
    • Another one from DKC2 is Klobber's Karnage. The second part of the map is entirely composed of parts where you are put in a rotating barrel and required to shoot yourself through bee-barriers, requiring the exact freaking timing. Missing just slightly will lose you a hit, which you only have two to spend in one part.
    • Web Woods also qualifies. In addition to having to rely on Squitter's webs to traverse most of the level (a potentially frustrating feat in itself; see Toxic Tower above), the fact that the level's DK Coin is only available from the end-of-level roulette is capable of causing untold exasperation in itself: it's only shown for a brief moment, and your timing being even slightly off in hitting the target results in completely missing it and having to start the entire level over if you want to attempt to go back and get it.
    • Bramble Scramble. Between the mass number of invincible Zingers and other crap rushing at you while you flop around riding Squawks, it's just pure insanity.
      • The invincible Red Zingers are gone in DKL 2, but the level still manages to throw you off with how long it is and it's still a maze. With the lesser screen visibility, it makes it almost as hard as it was in the SNES/GBA version.
    • Glimmer's Galleon in DKC2. Seemingly long stage, entirely underwater with no Engarde (which means no way to attack enemies) save for the very end, and very dark save for your animal buddy Glimmer providing a cone of light.
      • More fun in the Game Boy port, Donkey Kong Land 2, where it's completely pitch-black and you have to swim in the dark, looking for barrels that light the way.
    • Slime Climb from the same game. You must avoid falling into the rising water, and not because of the water being damaging. Rather, it's because of Snapjaw homing onto your Kong's movements. If you fall into the water and he catches you, kiss one of your Kongs goodbye because he will lunge and attack. (and no, he can't be killed. Good luck!)
      • In addition in Donkey Kong Land 2, because they couldn't implement Snapjaw, the water instantly damages you. And the level is harder than Toxic Tower in either game.
    • Also in DKL 2, it makes a level late in the game more frustrating - Clapper's Cavern. In a ridiculous example of damaging water, the water you just swam in Arctic Abyss, now hurts you for no apparent reason. Like in the Super NES version, you have to use Clapper to freeze the water to traverse over the icy waters, and master the slide to avoid getting hit by Zingers.
    • Bramble Blast. Just. Bramble. Blast. Let's put a very confusing maze of thorns (that hurt the Kongs if they touch them), shooting barrels that seemingly lead to an endless loop, goddamned Zingers and an awesome soundtrack in the same level. The DK coin is also in an obscure place.
  • Lightning Look-Out from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble. If you find constantly running from deadly and extremely annoying lightning bolts that not only track where you are but anticipate where you will be to be fun, then you will have a masochistic blast with this level. It's even worse the first time you play it because the lightning strike warnings look like nothing more than background effects. And just to mock you, it blocks your way to the next save point! The Lost World from the same game falls under this category too, as its five or six levels, each one with a sadistic gimmick, are pretty bloody hard.
    • Ripsaw Rage, the tree-styled level where a giant saw rises up to kill you and you have to out run it. So they put in sections where you have to move laterally while the saw moves up. More frustrating than hard.
    • Koindozer Klamber and Tyrant Twin Tussle. The former contains pink versions of Koin, an enemy which you get one of the Plot Coupons from. The only problem? You have to land pretty much exactly on them- if you land any other direction on them other than the top, they'll bump you to off a ledge to your doom. And if you lose Dixie, you'd better be good with Kiddy! The latter contains extremely muscular enemies who come in pairs, Kluff n' Klout. They'll jump in a certain pattern, then sometimes run. If you don't know how to get Squitter, who is the only one that can kill them, good luck! And you lose him halfway. Oh, then there's the bonus game behind the flagpole! Here, you must collect 15 randomly-appearing green bananas while a set of the twins jump super-fast. At least you spawn right before the flagpole once leaving, and have 50 seconds during the challenge.
    • Honorable mention goes to the final bonus mission in the Lost World level, Stampede Sprint. To even get there, you have to keep a little bird safe through the level. He flies high above you, waiting to run into bees, and you can't stop! Once you get to the end, he turns into the bonus barrel. And there is where the trouble starts. It's a "collect 15 green bananas" mission. You have the bird in the bonus level, and a red bee hovers above. Some of the bananas appear above the bee, which means you're going to need a running start to collect them safely. Hit the bee (and you will), and you have to retry the level to try again.
    • Rocket Rush, the final non-boss level and the toughest level to get into (all 85 Bonus Coins in the SNS version, more in the GBA version). It's a descent down and rapid ascent to the top of a canyon in a rocket, the only time you use the rocket in the game, and the controls could be politely described as "wretched". The ascent is brutal to where a single slip-up means you won't make it out the other side, and you likely will screw up in the ascent since it requires you to know the course ahead of time.
    • Fish Food Frenzy is a major pain of a level. In that level, a Nibbla follows your every move. He'll protect you by eating the fish in your way, but if he eats too many Lurchins in a row ("too many" usually meaning "two"), he'll turn on your Kongs instead. And the level is crawling with Lurchins. He'll also take a bite out of your Kongs if he goes too long without eating a regular fish, which is difficult because they're less common than the Lurchins, and getting him close enough to one without touching the fish yourself can be quite a pain; Lurchins, on the other hand, he'll eat even if he's not particularly close to.
    • Swoopy Salvo. You spend the entire level going up and down and in and out of tree trunks while being constantly besieged by dive-bombing hummingbird enemies called Swoopies. Part of the time you're Squawks trying to fly through the lines of Swoopies, and part of the time you're the Kongs, having to either dodge them while you climb ropes or dodging them laterally while you go through openings on the sides of the trees. And to make it extra painful, there are certain sections you have to enter while going directly through a line of Swoopy traffic in the opposite direction, and in other places, you have to bounce off the dive-bombing enemies to reach higher ledges.
  • Conkers Bad Fur Day had U-Bend Blues, an extremely frustrating romp of a diving sequence just under halfway through the game, which was made somewhat easier in the game's remake...where Mugged definitely takes the cake for scrappydom.
  • Rusty Bucket Bay from Banjo-Kazooie, which has at least two parts where instant death is highly likely: the part with all the gears, cogs, and propellers, which is a somewhat tricky moving obstacle course above a Bottomless Pit, and the oil-water, which drowns you on the surface and does so twice as fast below it; hope you find a ladder. Also, in the original Nintendo 64 version, all the notes were record-based, and they reset to the initial spots they were collected from every time you die or leave a level. This gives you hell when trying to collect them all in Rusty Bucket Bay, as one screw-up can lead you to your death in the engine room, and once you're done collecting all the notes there, if they're not the last notes you need, you could only pray to God that you won't pull the croak chain and have to do it all over again. Thank heavens that you don't need to recollect the notes again in the Xbox Live Arcade version.
    • Then there's that absolutely impossible jiggy behind the ship's rotors, whose switch is difficult enough to get to to push without having to run pell-mell for the toxic water, knowing that you're probably going to fall off the rotating platform paths, suffer the humiliation of the rotors starting up again just in time for you to arrive and the blades killing you instantly, or being trapped inside when they do, and drowning just as you remember there was one musical note you'd forgotten to get on the level.
    • Grunty Industries in Banjo-Tooie is an enormous labyrinthine level with lots of things that have to be unlocked in roundabout ways, starting with the level entrance. Inside, it's an Eternal Engine, with all the Malevolent Architecture that implies. There are Mook Makers in many rooms which spit out hard-to-destroy Tintops, barrels that release Deadly Gas when destroyed, a few tricky Timed Missions, and That One Boss.
      • There's also the fact that several of the Jiggies therein are downright sadistic to get. Of paticular note are the Crusher Jiggie (which involves getting through two crushers, the first of which drops you to 1 health and the second of which kills you unless you use the single health restore move in the game with impeccably perfect timing) and the Bunny's Overalls Jiggie (which involves, among other things, battling the resident Tintop Demonic Spiders, which were hard enough with the Grenade Eggs, as the Washer and its crappy range underwear shots).
    • Canary Mary, a race oriented around Button Mashing that you have to do four times. The first two times are alright, maybe the second is a little tricky. But when you hit the third time in Cloudcuckooland, it only gets harder. She gains the worst Rubber Band AI, has a finish line that is for some reason before yours, and can take many, many tries if you don't abuse a certain trick. And this is only the third time out of four that you race her!
  • To varying degrees, every level after the first two in the NES game Battletoads are examples of this trope. There are two in particular that stand out, though:
    • Level 3, Turbo Tunnel. It's easy compared to some of the later levels, but the jump in difficulty is so sudden that many have simply given up on it and not even seen the later levels.
    • Level 11, "Clinger Winger". While not as well known as the aforementioned (mainly because almost nobody makes it this far), those who get there are confronted with a level so nasty the programmers must have actively hated the player to put them through it. Like Turbo Tunnel, it takes lightning fast reflexes to make it through, except is even harder, has no checkpoints whatsoever, and forces you to fight a boss at the end, and if you lose, you have to do it all over again. Just to top it all off, a bug prevents the second player from finishing the level, making it impossible to beat the game as two players. (The bug was fixed in the PAL version, though.)
    • Clinger Winger is far more bearable with the right controller (the Wii Classic Controller is recommended) than Level 10: Rat Race. The concept itself isn't that bad, but it says something that it got the biggest nerf in Battlemaniacs. Having to race Scuzz, the rat that runs and falls faster than you? That's fine. The game generally makes you do that sort of thing. You have to use a laggy attack on the bomb before Scuzz touches it? Fair enough. But the third race is an unholy abomination of difficulty. You can not afford to let Scuzz get far ahead of you. If you do, you will never see him again. The only way to do this is to keep him from moving down by using timed headbutts. Good luck consistently doing that, the damn headbutt attack has a ridiculously strict hitbox in general and Scuzz is just plain freaking fast. Even worse, a badly-timed headbutt can knock Scuzz ahead of you! The level fully deserves its nerf in Battlemaniacs.
    • Level 9, Terra Tubes. For those that tried completing this game on a real NES without savestates and such, this is the true landmark of vileness. It's not the hardest level, but by far the most annoying because of its length, Fake Difficulty, real difficulty and the inability to warp past it. The underwater swimming sections are not only chock full of the same instant-kill Spikes of Doom found abundantly in the drier parts of the level, but Psycho Electric Eels and Goddamned Sharks trying to knock you into the spikes, and Rubber Ducks which are surprisingly even deadlier. There is a series of four races against Advancing Wheels Of Doom, and two later ones which are partly underwater, which not only require avoiding spikes but prior knowledge of which instant-kill wheels will ram the barrier at the end of the race and which will head instead for the small niche beside it. Here's a video of someone doing it right.

Jak

  • The original Jak and Daxter had Mountain Pass, the vehicle level from hell. It had one-hit-kill exploding barrels, dodgy environmental collision detection and obstacles that were impossible to avoid without slowing down or playing the level again twice, all on a bike-type vehicle that already has a wide turning axis. Oh, and to cap it all off, IT'S A RACE!!
    • Spider Cave probably also bears mentioning. It's friggin' HUGE, and extremely confusing to navigate. There's massive pits of Dark Eco everywhere, so your jumping skills need to be dead on and you have to be very, very careful. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if its Power Cells weren't some of the most gruelling, tedious and difficult to get in the game, and it's filled with tough enemies. And it doesn't help that a lot of it is a borderline Blackout Basement either.
  • Most of Jak II could count, considering how hard that game was, but a major offender is the Hellcat mission. And the Escape from the Water Slums.
    • You can take a long of the sting out of it if you just punch all the way to the exit; this will get you there without losing more than one or two hitpoints. Try it.
    • DAMN YOU INVISIBLE METALHEADS! Also, the march to Metal Kor which is topped off by the boss himself.
    • The mission where you have to destroy the walking bombs that are headed for Torn's hideout. Each one takes a TON of firepower to destroy and peppers you with bullets if you get so much as an inch too close. (Crashing a motorcycle into one first helps.) Additionally, you have to navigate your way through the city in the most timely manner possible in order to meet the strict time limit. And, of course, this is an illegal mission: hello Crimzon Guard!
    • The Drill Platform mission is notoriously Nintendo Hard on Hero Mode. Now that everything is twice as hard to kill and none of your Hero Mode stat bonuses are any use, the mission is a true destroyer of hope.
    • The carry the eco transport mission near the beginning of the game was a pain for as well. Among the few known methods to complete it are flying over the water while being chased, with an extremely weak scooter as your mandatory transport!
    • The boost ring race against Errol is particularly rage inducing. The course is long and difficult, pedestrians get in your way and slow you down when hit with alarming regularity, and your opponent will do everything in his power to push you off course, since missing a single ring causes you to fail the mission. (Though Errol has no such restriction. In fact there is one ring in particular that he almost never actually bothers to hit.) Oh and did I mention that Rubber Band AI is in full effect?
      • And as an added "screw you" to the player, winning the race opens up some new side missions for precursor orbs one of which is, you guessed it, doing the whole race over again!
  • Jak III has a level like this. It was a mandatory mission, too. Missiles follow the vehicle you're on all the way to the docks area. You have to go around the docks, shooting buoys to make them light up so the missiles will go for them instead of you. The missiles are fewer than five feet behind you at all times, only one (out of around seven) will attack the buoys at a time, you have to fly low enough that the missiles will lock on to the buoys, but rapid changes in altitude will usually cause the missiles to catch up, you can't just stay as low as possible because of the low bridges in the area, the missiles don't always lock on to the buoys, you can't turn too sharply or for too long, you can't go straight for too long, and even if you're doing it perfectly, they'll catch up anyway.
    • Hello level "stick daxter on a rocket at a gajjillion miles an hour and make him try and get through booster orb thingies that have handily been placed all around the harbour, whilst avoiding pedestrians and gaurds and constantly accelrating". I died so many times on that and the result of you crashing is a surprisingly chirpy Daxter making a sarcastic comment about your skill. Luckily it has semi-decent checkpoints but still...
    • This in no way forgives the mission, but you are rewarded by seeing the Naughty Ottsel's mascot get his head blown off when you get rid of the last missile. It's a much better reward than the one you get from the Slam Dozer mission with Damas, which may be the biggest Tear Jerker in the game, followed by another vehicle-based mission that may lead one to throw his or her controller at a wall.
    • Jak III also has an extremely unfair race near the beginning of the game. You have to race a group of monks on a Leaper (bascially a glorified tauntaun). The problem is that hitting a pedestrian will slow a Leaper down (thus forcing you to constantly restart to get an optimal randomly-generated crowd), and the monks can damage you with THEIR Leapers (which of course you can't do), causing you to come to a full stop. Fun!
      • Yeah, the monks are worse than bloody Gorons in racing. The level that was sheer hell was the part where enormous Metalheads are approaching the beachfront of Spargus, and you're the only one in their way. There's WAY too many targets you have to hit on them for just one of the deathbots-from-hell to blow up, your turret catches fire, and if any of the Metalheads make it, you immediately die. Oh, and it's an absolutely impossible mission to avoid if you want to get on with the game.
  • From Daxter, the Lumber Mill. It's huge and confusing, full of enemies, and has irritating obstacles. Especially the part where you have to fly above a lake, where the fish jump out and kill you if you barely fly over it, while you're dealing with spinning platforms and temporary platforms, and with not enough eco pickups. And your main objective forces you to wait for eternity on a switch while the bug zapper charges up, while the giant bug drops "bombs" at you. It's one of those stages that takes forever.

Other Examples

  • The planet Telos in Adventures of Rad Gravity is one big Death Course, riddled with Spikes of Doom, some of which require the health-draining Energy Disc to cross, Advancing Spiked Walls Of Doom, Conveyor Belts of Doom, Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom, dart-shooters raining down on you, and to top it off, a teleporter maze in the middle of it all.
  • Black Castle in the freeware game An Untitled Story. The whole area is full of spikes and nasty jumps, the worst of which are the arrow blocks that launch you into the spikes if your timing in jumping into them is a little off. It doesn't help that the save points are spread thin and that on any difficulty higher than the second the game starts taking away your save points.
  • In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, near the end you lose your magic dagger. What follows is a fairly long stretch where you have to navigate a section where the camera is badly placed at inopportune times, that you need good timing for jumps that would otherwise kill you, and that you get harassed by some Goddamned Bats, though they tend to be less Goddamnedier than most bats.
    • The prison escape level, at least on the PC version. There are two sections in a row which require you to open a pair of timed pillars and jump from one to the other to get up. The first section's pillars withdraw as you try to get up them, and the levers that activate them are on opposite sides on a wall. What makes this problematic is the buttons that control movement. Which direction they make you go in changes according to camera angle. The effect of this is that you can run into a pit in the middle of the room when trying to get to the other lever, and also miss the moving pillars entirely and run up the wall.
  • In The Warrior Within, there were parts when the Dahaka is chasing you. These aren't that problematic in themselves, but there was one where the camera locked on it. The problem? You can't see where you're going, you're trying to run through an obstacle laden course, you can't jump over the obstacles, and when the Dahaka hits you, he also drains your sand tanks. If you could see where you were going, that section wouldn't be half as difficult as it was.
    • The word "Scrappy Level" came to mind at the series of Dahaka chases after the battle with The Empress. The Battle is rather tough, so you probably used some sand tanks to beat it. Then you have to run from the Dahaka. And then you have to do it again. And one more time for good measure. The last chase is rather long and brutal, and you're probably out of sand tanks before you reach the final chase in this sequence. There's no enemies or sand refills until after you reach the next save point, which is after you successfully finish the three chases, which means that every time you fall or get caught, you restart the sequence. The only saving grace is that you have a chance to save after the boss fight.
  • Two Thrones/Rival Swords and the damn chariot racing bits.
  • Psychonauts. Meat Circus. In addition to cruel jumping puzzles, a vicious Escort Mission, damaged-based insta-kills that eat your Dream Fluffs faster then you can extricate yourself, there's also a boss that requires some crazy good timing, and the entire premise of the level (a circus made out of raw meat) is deeply frightening and disturbing.
    • One thing that may have made things harder for a few people is that the double jump controls can actually glitch during the climb level, which sends the difficulty from very hard to keyboard throwing.
      • This is actually MUCH harder with the keyboard, as many keyboards have a limit on how many keys they will register you pressing at once. It turns out that if you remap the jumping controls to your mouse, it makes the section MUCH easier, as you don't have to worry about the limit. That said, it is still nightmarish; the final section is by far the hardest part of the game, and is leagues harder than everything else in the game. Its odd, because the rest of the game is actually pretty easy, so its all the worse in comparison.
  • The RC car level in the 16-bit Toy Story game counts (as does much of the rest of the game for some). You must use crappy controls to steer through a narrow maze, having to restart if you hit the side. To make it even better, you quickly run out of batteries, which you must pick up by steering into them with aforementioned crappy controls. Yay!
  • While most of the entirety of Kid Chameleon can be classified as this, Final Marathon and Hills of the Warrior take the cake; the latter, along with its ilk, involve being chased through an unrelenting maze by an instant-death spike-lined wall, while the former is essentially I Wanna Be the Guy lite.
    • Hills of the Warrior (a relatively open level) is nothing compared to Bloody Swamp, where you have to hit the right cannon blocks at exactly the right time to advance through a series of such walls, else you get stuck, unable to advance, and run over by the Wall of Doom. Other popular candidates for the title of Scrappy Level are Under Skull Mountain III (the first of several excessively long levels), Forced Entry (another Wall of Doom level), or either Devil's Marsh (a teleport frenzy and an bunch of platforms trying to crush you, respectively).
  • Though I Wanna Be the Guy is, quite frankly, one giant (intentional) Platform Hell, there are still places that players hate more than others. The words "spike corridor" will cause many people to froth at the mouth.
  • One particular spot in I Wanna Be the Fangame definitely qualifies if you're playing on Very Hard. It's when you fight Death. Not only is this a Marathon Boss IWBTG style, its also essentially a Timed Fight after he Turns Red and starts breaking what platforms you have left to stand on. And that's not all. After you fight him, you're immediately put into a room with no checkpoint and you have what looks like those spike traps from Link to the Past bouncing up and down in narrow corridors. It's this room that qualifies as That One Level since, if you fail it, (which, in the true style of IWBTG, YOU WILL) you have to do that whole boss fight all over again. And even getting the first part of that room correct involves dodging seven of these spike traps in a row before getting even a slight breather. And then you get to do it again for three more traps.
    • You can unlock The Kid from I Wanna Be the Guy in Super Meat Boy. Unsurprisingly, the first bonus stage you need to beat to get him is absurdly punishing, even by Meat Boy's standard of ludicrous difficulty. However, the saving grace is that his levels don't belong to Platform Hell genre.
  • The Cave of Bad Dreams from Rayman 2 is an especially vicious Scrappy Level. Right from the get-go, it's full of almost-invincible Wall Masters that sap your precious health, and lots of jumping puzzles with very tiny sinking platforms--and heck, very tiny not-sinking platforms as well. There's a long and tedious sequence where you have to carry two orbs (basically keys) across several platforms filled with enemies to their bases in order to advance, and dropping the orbs and/or accidentally throwing them into the void is all too easy. After that, you have to go down a long slide race against the boss, which has lots of Bottomless Pits, sharp crystals that slow you down AND hurt you, and the indescribably freaky teeth of the boss. When you're done racing him, you STILL have to fight him as a boss, and he's one of the Guide Dang It-iest Puzzle Bosses this side of the Spider Ball Guardian. To top it all off? Once you're done with that, if you accidentally select the wrong option in the end-of-level cutscene--and it's the one that's automatically highlighted--you get a Nonstandard Game Over and have to do the whole frickin' thing over again! At least, it seems that way, but waiting for about half a minute at the "Game Over" cutscene just takes you right back to select the other choice.
    • Obligatory mention of the Sanctuary of Stone and Fire. It had THE longest level segment in the entire game, and had several annoying bouncing-berry-over-lava sequences (one which you had to go through twice), AND a crystal ball puzzle! Thank goodness there wasn't an annoying boss at the end...
      • However, in the PS 1 version, the level is EVEN LONGER and has a hellish walking shell ride that if you mess up even once you have to redo from the very beginning, and the level DOES have a very annoying and hard boss in the PS 1 version...
    • In the first game, Eat At Joe's. It's also the longest level in the game. And if you didn't find all of the cages on your first time through, have fun going back in to find the rest!
    • Also, Bongo Hills. A six-part Marathon Level with platforming that requires split second reflexes and flawless memorization of the segments, and it's only the fifth level in the game! Newcomers are guaranteed to use up all their lives (and continues) here.
    • The third part of Space Mama's Crater is probably responsible for broken controllers worldwide. You need near-perfect timing in order to traverse the labyrinth of sharp obstacles because one wrong move sends you falling to your doom. The worst part is, one of the cages appears behind you, forcing you to backtrack.
    • Rayman Origins... heck, it's probably easier to list the late-game levels that DON'T fall into this trope. The Tricky Treasure levels deserve a special mention though. You're casing a treasure chest (essentially making the level an auto-scroller) through a brutal death course filled with wall-to-wall Spikes of Doom, collapsing floors and bottomless pits. And there are TEN such levels!!! Ice Fishing Folly is by FAR the worst though, featuring a series of 10 jumps in a row, each requiring split-second reflexes, where being even a milisecond too fast or too slow will see you falling to your doom... ON ICE!!! And that's just the first 10 seconds of the level!!! And THERE ARE NO CHECKPOINTS!!! The end portion is the most brutal part... there's one jump, if your timing isn't SPOT-ON, you'll never make the rest!
    • Nearly as bad as Ice-Fishing Folly is Risky Ruin. Not only is it a Marathon Level by Tricky Treasure standards, it's also got some pixel-perfect jumps where you'll get skewered if you jump a pixel too high, rope-sliding, and an underwater portion that's incredibly brutal. Right off the beginning is four jumps that will kill you until you learn to stop rushing, and it only gets worse...
      • Oh, and what is your "reward" for finishing all 10 of them? The Land of the Livid Dead, a good contender for the title of the hardest level in the HISTORY OF PLATFORMERS. Though YMMV, it can be pretty entertaining on account of being so freaking hard it borders on Crossing the Line Twice.
  • The Ice Land stage in Impossamole although ironically it's not a Slippy-Slidey Ice World until the second part. As usual it has Everything Trying to Kill You, which this time includes snowmen, snowballs, and penguins. Many of the obstacles are often impossible to avoid taking damage from, eg the Invincible Evil Snowman that randomly throws volleys of snowballs, narrow hallways(precluding the use of the Bubble Gun) packed with enemies and enemy-generating doorways which often spawn enemies on top of Monty, falling icicles situated next to Spikes of Doom, which can bounce Monty back and forth until death(no Mercy Invincibility to these), the usual offscreen enemies that you sometimes can't avoid falling on(especially the Shaft of Doom in the second area, which also has spikes at the bottom), near-unavoidable rolling snowballs, pirhana and mine filled water pits that you sometimes have to swim through, eg the Green Waterfall from Hell, which has falling icicles, a Goddamned Bird guarding your escape from the water, and an unavoidable spike pit immediately afterwards, and the lack of health items and powerups doesn't help either.
  • The Lion King game adaptation, released in '94 in conjunction with the film, ended for many young players in only its second level ("Can't Wait to be King"), partly thanks to a deviously complicated puzzle involving monkeys throwing the player between trees and realigning their throwing paths to progress. And those who figured it out were rewarded with an ostritch riding sequence (with jumps that required absolutely perfect timing) and another, even more complicated ape puzzle.
    • The sixth level ("Hakuna Matata") is as bad as this: besides the hard boss fight (a gorilla), there is a platforming puzzle involving logs in a waterfall--in other words, you have to climb small platforms which are in a steady fall. "Annoying" is too soft to describe it.
    • And then there's "Be Prepared". There's lava geysers, lava dripping from the ceiling, literal Goddamned Bats that attack when you pass beneath them (and can knock you into lava), along with leopards and hyenas scattered about. And then there's the ride on a rock slab along a river of lava (which is where the aforementioned bats become really nasty)...
    • "Simba's Return" and its infinite looping thorn maze isn't any better, either. Strangely, the final boss isn't all that hard.
  • The Castle in Mickey Mousecapade. Chock full of regenerating Goddamned Bats and Demonic Spiders, many screens that must be accessed by jumping up, and if you fall back down, the enemies respawn, in addition to a downgraded version of That One Boss and a Boss in Mook Clothing. And if you go past the Degraded Boss without the key to the Boss Room, it's Lost Forever, as backtracking will get you killed by the respawned miniboss.
  • Dirk Valentine And The Fortress Of Steam is an awesome game, but don't even mention the Inner Engine Room. Near the end of the level, there's a part where you have to jump onto a platform that has two of the Baron's guards on it. This wouldn't be so bad if weren't for the fact that you have to make the jump from a tiny Floating Platform that moves back-and-forth above a Bottomless Pit while being shot at. It's almost impossible to aim and actually kill the Goddamned Bats before landing on the platform, you've only got three hit points, and dying sends you right back to the beginning. NOOOOOO!
  • The third ally rescue stage in Cocoron is absolutely covered in cacti that will kill you in a few hits, your only stepping stones being flowers that open and close with no pattern at all. This stage is nigh impossible if you didn't create a character with a Jet or Wing body as your first or second character, Guide Dang It.
    • Baku's World Levels 2 and 3, the second level requires jumping or if you have a character with the boat body, you can cross the spike pits as they are submerged, but in the third level it is hell unless you have the Jet Body or extremely quick reflexes since the platforms fade in and out, and the entire floor save the starting segment is made of spikes
  • Earthworm Jim took the page's orignal name almost literally on "For Pete's Sake". It's almost too bad the series had to make him so likable.
    • The submarine section from the "Down the Tubes" level also qualifies for this trope.
      • "Snot a Problem" could also qualify. You face off against a gelatinous ball of snot as you bungee jump between two cliffs, trying to knock each other into the sharp sides. Doesn't sound too hard? Wait until he uses his freakishly-annoying spin move which makes him invincible for a couple seconds, and in the later 2 rounds, the one-eyed teeth monster at the bottom, which just so happens to One-Hit Kill you if you're anywhere near him. Expect to use up half of your lives pretty quick.
    • Earthworm Jim 2 has The Flyin' King. Have fun trying to guide an explosive and really, REALLY bouncy balloon to the end of a long level while being constantly bombarded by homing pigs that cling to your vehicle and are difficult to shake off that are launched from catapults, which are indestructible, meaning you can't stop them. You have to constantly backtrack because the balloon bounces backwards if you poke it the wrong way, near the end of the level there are slime waves that push the balloon backwards and if you accidentally shoot at the balloon (not that hard, because some of the erratically moving, but killable enemies move behind it), it explodes. If this happens or if you happen to die from the pigs, you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN.
    • Earthworm Jim 2 also features the minigames where you need to save Peter Puppy (the puppy from the first game's "For Pete's Sake!", mentioned above)'s puppies by bouncing them on a giant marshmellow before they hit the floor and splat like an egg. Let too many puppies splat and Peter goes ballistic, turning into his giant purple monster form and mauling Jim, taking off quite a bit of health.
    • Earthworm Jim 3D features the final level "The Good, The Bad and The Elderly" which contains a mini-game that requires you to ride an ice-cube across a predefined path, sounds easy? Not only will it speed away faster than you can possibly move (causing you to fall off and restart the whole thing) it also randomly flings you off with retard speed at every turn it makes, both averted only by jumping (which negates any momentum you had) at the perfect time and praying you will still land on the cube. This goes on for at least a minute before you are awarded an "Udder" which you need to access the boss room that requires EVERY Udder in the game and also a handful of Marbles.
  • As Toejam and Earl generates its levels randomly, one might think it would be immune to this trope. One would be wrong. The game features quicksand terrain, and as one advances through the levels, the odds of it showing up increases. A complete game usually involves at least two levels almost completely covered in quicksand. Quicksand prevents your character from walking at their normal speed, and can bring them to a virtual halt, while not hindering enemies at all, and is usually populated by whirlwinds, invincible hazards that pick up your character and deposit them in random locations, often over a hole that will drop you back down a level.
    • Usually at least one quicksand level will be loaded with Bogey Men. While far from the most dangerous enemy in the game, they are a terror in quicksand thanks to their high numbers, faster speed than you (in sand), and oh yeah, they're invisible.
  • Jet Set Willy. Just type "The Banyan Tree" into Google and watch the carnage.
  • Spend some time with LittleBigPlanet's Bunker. You'll never again see electricity as a positive force in your life. The second to last area is a constantly spinning wheel that you start in the center of and have to work your way out of, to the bottom. The beginning of it is fairly easy due to the fact that everything is made of cloth, so you can grab onto it and wait for the next platform to be right below you so you can drop to it and grab it, and repeat, but the last part requires you to stay right at the bottom, jumping on top of the platforms that had electricity underneath you while adjusting for the change in your jumps the physics of it all provides. If you were off by a bit when you tried to drop down to the final area, you hit the sides and were electrocuted. Even then, the final area had you running up a conveyor belt and jumping over electrocuted lights, if you were off by a bit on your jump, you died. Acing this level is no easy feat, but gives you a sweet helmet.
    • This stage is one of few examples where being That One Player is actually a feat that any of your companions will be more than eager to praise you for. Especially difficult because your companions will waste all of the retries, leaving you to complete it in one run. Particularly frustrating when you've beaten the circle, only to miss the jump into the hole slightly, meaning you either have to do it all again, or are going to be crushed.
    • There's also the end of Boom Town. You have to fly around a corridor while holding impact explosives, multiple times, and then you get another corridor with stalactites trying to crush you. You push the control stick just a bit too much, and the the explosives knock into a wall and kill you. Especially frustrating in co-op.
    • The Mines is especially nasty if you're going for the Ace ranking. Ridiculously long, mine cart sections, a couple of spiked enemies, rickety conveyor-elevators, and a giant flaming boulder with flaming floor spots to jump over to end the level and potentially ruin your efforts at the Ace rank. Although the biggest problem with the level was, even if you were skilled enough to get through without dying, the mine carts would occasionally topple over while you were riding in them, forcing you to start over for no real reason.
      • And there are prize bubbles right overhead that are so tempting. But if you jump, you're certainly going to die.
    • Serpent Shrine has giant fire snakes running through tunnels, which require quick running to survive, a boss who can kill instantly, and That One Multiplayer Puzzle. In whole, The Canyons is That One Level.
    • Don't even get started on The Dancer's Court. The main gimmick of this level is moving platforms over fire with blocks of fire for you to run into, spinning cogs with wobbly platforms, a race where it's easy to rush and get yourself burnt to a crisp, and the goddamned fire snake. Again, acing the level is an absolute nightmare.
    • Also annoying was The Island when running over the paper bridges, as they would arbitrarily decide when they wanted to stay in place or separate and leave you sliding down into the gas.
    • Although the sequel had nothing near the level of The Bunker, it still had some infuriating levels:
      • Fireflies When You're Having Fun. Hoo boy. Not only is it ludicriously long (it's 2 parts, and the first part is pretty tough), but the first section has some difficult jumps in the dark as well as insta-death fireflies. Even the powerup that is supposed to make it easier actually makes it harder, since the firefly platforms are very difficult to aim, let alone when it's the only way to make it up a vertical path. The second half is fortunately easier, but requires some precise jumps at the end.
      • Set Controls To The Heart of the Negativitron is an infuriating level to ace, and hard to pass as well. The first section is very simple and not threatening at all, but a lot to pass through on each of many repeated attempts. The second section is infuriating. It's about twice as long as the previous level, and about 1/3 through that section, the gravity decreases. Sounds alright, but there are several jumps across electrified obstacles that require almost perfect timing to not touch (namely a spinning wheel about halfway through where it's nearly impossible to not hit the electrified ceiling), and a vehicle section that is also long and difficult.
      • Full Metal Rabbit. The beginning section has mooks throwing impact explosives at you. You have to catch and throw them back without exploding yourself. If more than one player is attempting this level, it's very easy to accidentally detonate the explosive, grab another player instead of the explosive, and let's not get started on the people who throw OTHER sackboys into the mooks on purpose. Then, after destroying the last impact explosive generator, it's time for Platform Hell! You are now required to jump between platforms that have Meanies shooting fire at you from below. If you time your jump wrong or if someone throws you, you're dead. If you fall down, you burn to death. If you accidentally get wedged onto the platform with the Meanie, just pop yourself - you'll be squashed anyway when someone else steps on the platform.
        • And then there's the second part of Full Metal Rabbit. You get to ride the eponymous rabbit, stomping and smashing anything that gets in your way. Sounds cool, right? It is. Except for the laser-shooting enemies who will kill you if you touch the beam, some annoying platforming (the rabbit has a tendency to jump higher than needed), enemies that track you while trying to shoot you with the laser, AND if you're going for all the prize bubbles, a lot of them are easy to miss. Multiply all of the above by ten if you're playing in a group.
  • The first Ratchet and Clank game features Planet Oltanis, where several tricky jumps must be made without the aid of Clank. What makes it really hard is Oltanis is near the end of the game, so you've had a long time to become adjusted to using Clank to assist with jumps. Luckily, the two most difficult parts of the level are optional, netting you unnecessary (but useful!) items. This level also featured several areas covered in ice.
    • On Planet Kalebo III, you have to complete a race to get the hologram whasname. You have five opponents who are faster than you in every possible way. At fixed intervals throughout the race, there are speedboosters and missiles. It's generally difficult to get the missiles without sacrificing hitting a speedbooster, and if you don't hit nearly every speedbooster in the race, your chances of winning are reduced from the base level of "Incredibly unlikely" to "Nigh impossible". Of course, if you don't get the missile, then you'll never make it past second place. And the missiles aren't even totally accurate, they are easily defeated by the numerous obstacles that your opponents never seem to have to deal with, even when the guy in first isn't so far ahead that you'll never catch him in a million years. There's a shortcut near the end of the course that is utterly essential for getting even second place, but it's only activated by going through three arches in a right-left-right pattern, all so closely spaced that it's difficult to hit all three of them without crashing into something.
    • There's also the sewers in Blackwater City, where you try to escape a rising tide of water. You will not beat it, however. The trick is getting as far as you can so you can swim the rest of the way before Ratchet drowns. Fortunately, you only have to do it once, and Ratchet later gets the O2 mask, meaning you never have to deal with that particular problem ever again for the rest of the series.
    • R&C 2 gives us Planet Greblin, which forces you to hunt for crystals in a vast snowy wasteland, just brimming with Demonic Spiders called YETIs.
      • That game also has Damosel, which is covered in Protopets. Dozens of them. Right out of the gate, there's a spawner, and you have to get to it to stop them reproducing. Keep in mind that even with the spawner gone, they still reproduce on their own. If you happen to have a weapon like the Sheepinator, which requires no ammo, it's effectively a free upgrade if you can stay alive long enough. Or would be, if they didn't have the irritating tactic of sneaking up on Ratchet from the direction the camera is not looking, and some robots which are themselves each a Boss in Mooks Clothing didn't show up. And this is just the first few dozen feet of the level. It gets worse. Shortly after that section, you face an area with four Protopet spawners, which you have to destroy to proceed, unless you're clever. You face a mix of these robots all through the level, and there's a grand total of one checkpoint.
    • The third game doesn't feature any really bad levels, although the laser-redirecting gimmick on Obani Gemini is a bit boring and repetitive compared to the rest of the game.
    • Deadlocked has the Tower of Power in the Avenger Tournament, where one misstep in a long jumping puzzle will send you back to the bottom.
  • Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back has the level Cold Hard Crash, a nightmare if you're trying to get the "destroy all crates" gem. You have to play through the first half of the level without dying to reach the Death Course, a difficult, checkpoint-free path covered in crusher traps and nitro mines, almost entirely on slippery ice. When you reach the end of the death course, you need to activate a switch and do the course BACKWARDS to get the new crate the switch spawns at the beginning of the level, at which point you take the platform back to the main level and complete it. Oh, and there's a single, hard-to-find crate hidden just offscreen. Missed it? DO THE WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.
    • Crash Bandicoot 2 also had its two jetpack levels, Pack Attack and Rock It, found in the final world. They had terrible controls, uninteresting level design, and were especially annoying when getting the clear gems. These two were partially redeemed by having one of the best music tracks in the series.
    • The original has Sunset Vista. It's linear unlike the above example, but in the first game, you need to do the whole thing in one life, and you don't know how many boxes you missed until you've already finished the level. This makes a lot of levels just nightmarish to get a gem on, but Sunset Vista is a huge hard level with a couple hard-to-see crates that really takes the cake.
      • There was going to be another level that was even harder. Luckily, this uber scrappy level was cut from the game and was later unearthed by hackers.
    • The first game also had levels known as the Elite Four. (no, not that Elite Four) I'm talking about the four hardest levels in the game, "The High Road", "Jaws Of Darkness", "The Lab", and "Fumbling In The Dark". It didn't help that these levels had annoying enemies, hard jumps, dark areas, and bottomless pits everywhere. If you could even beat these levels, let alone get the gems from these areas, you should be proud of yourself for accomplishing one of the hardest goals in a game.
      • Oh, and it gets worse, according to the prototype version, Sunset Vista was origanally meant to be EVEN HARDER. See for yourself, and you will be GLAD Sunset Vista was like it was in the released game. Oh, and in case you weren't already convinced the dev team were sadists, it was going to be followed by the aforementioned Jaws of Darkness. Yes, Jo D was going to be on the 2ND Island. They probably realised they had to change the game when all their beta testers went insane.
    • "High Seas Hijinx" in Twinsanity easily constitutes grounds for letter-bombing games developers. Firstly, it takes approximately thirty years to complete. It opens with large and annoying fields of nitro crates on slippy slidey ice (and when a life crate is opened, even if this was because you hit a nitro crate and were instantly reduced to shrapnel, the life is lost until your next replay). After this, it moves on to crossing a series of semi-rotating platforms while rhinos that do Collision Damage swing around, seemingly just because that way they can be a nuisance; there are two life crates that can be accessed, but doing so will probably cost you at least three lives due to accessing the detonator crate to get a stack of nitros out of the way. After this, things settle down to merely annoying until you come to a water room with a huge axle just under the surface; you have to walk along the rotating bulges without falling into the water, and this will almost certainly lead to a nice time falling into the drink and dying instantly. After you've managed that you have to take on N. Gin himself by making him destroy his own crow's nest; the battle consists mainly of running in circles, and then being knocked over the edge by an explosion when you run afoul of the one gap in the spiked wall around the circumference of the battlefield and are unable to escape his rains of missiles. When Gin eventually plummets, you have to run away from a Super-Persistent Predator walrus chef along a massive field where no life crates you pick up will be worth what it does to your time, and by which point your thumb will hurt enough to interfere with your ability to control Crash. And when you've finally managed that? There's another boss fight that just comes out of nowhere on an iceberg that gets fractured before you've really gotten started. And if you run out of lives, you have to do it all over again from the slidey ice with nitros area.
  • Orbitus 2 in Jazz Jackrabbit is a major example of this, largely because of a single section of it that due to a Game Breaking Bug turns what was supposed to be a fun Crowning Level of Awesome into Platform Hell of the sort that would do Kaizo Mario World proud. It's Nintendo Hard even if you use slowdown. You must squeeze the title character into a tiny passage at the very bottom of a chasm. Then you must jump out of the end of the passage, all the while pushing against a force field that is propelling you forward, and trying to actually jump despite the fact that you're in a tiny passage with a low ceiling and only the last pixel of space that you can occupy without falling actually allows you to jump. And the destination of your jump has a force field just like the one that was in the aforementioned tiny passage. From which you must jump onto the wall directly above you and wall jump forward into ANOTHER TINY PASSAGE. And directly above the passages are one-way paths that will force you upward and away from the passages, forcing you to repeat the whole process, AND the ground beneath said passages are trampolines that bounce you into the one-way paths. This run of the level should give you an idea just how bad this is, considering that it forced the Let's Player to cheat in order to beat it. And he even points out about three quarters of the way into the video that "Not even I Wanna Be the Guy was that hard."
    • Oh, definitely. Someone able to speedrun IWBTG could not beat this level. It's a very good thing that it is possible to skip over this level and miss only a single boss fight, especially as this level comes relatively early (about a third of the way through the game). This video, although successfully completed without cheating, accurately captures the frustration factor. Also would like to add this bit: although there are no enemies in the level that aren't flat-out laughable, there is a time limit. While in most levels the timer is more than generous, here? HA. Good freaking luck not dying from a timeout after one too many missed jumps.
    • Though nowhere near as bad as Orbitus 2, there's Scraparap. In a game that was otherwise pleasing to look at, a level consisting primarily of literal trash was rather off-putting...to say nothing of how many Goddamned Bats there were. From the extremely fast turtles, to the hovering missile launchers that chase after you, to the tanks that shoot in a completely random direction, to the rockets on the ground that damage you if you jump onto their engine, all capped off by the magnets pulling you toward all of the above. And the boost pads that you were required to use, but moving even slightly when you were on one was a very easy way to fall.
    • The Orbitus design bug was actually fixed... in an earlier version. I'm not kidding--somehow, a couple levels had unfinished versions used on the "definitive" CD release. The other results of this aren't as annoying, though (Tubelectric 2 actually becomes slightly shorter, for example.)
  • Titania is the most hated level in Odin Sphere. Slimes that can only be killed by magic and the uber annoying Wise Man battles make for the least fun section of the game.
  • Pretty much Ghostbusters for NES. While the pre-Zuul part was basically just the same boring thing over and over again, if you didn't do it well enough there is no way in hell you'll even clear a single floor once Zuul shows up. Have fun starting from the beginning again!
  • The Advancing Wall of Doom levels of Eversion definitely qualify as this, particularly the second, where you have to outrun a huge mass of what looks like blood, with Evil Hands flying from it, having to dodge the Evil Hands shooting up from the pits, AND having to navigate a maze near the end of the level which requires both speed and pixel-perfect positioning to get through the gaps in the maze (because if you're even slightly to the left or right, it won't let you through, which is made particularly aggravating by all of the above factors) in order to get the final five gems of the level in question.
    • How about World 8 in the new version? Zaratustra was nice enough to remove the random eversions...but enough of a Jerkass to make a newer, and much longer stage with even more difficult platforming and Endless Corridors that loop until you find the next eversion point. Oh, and you need to loop through one section once in World 8-6 just so you can clear out enough blocks just so you can get through it in 8-5. And if you die after the halfway point through the section? The blocks, which are no longer accessible thanks to a still killer wall, regenerate, causing you to waste even more time!
  • Dynamite Headdy has the last part of Fun Forgiven as a scrappy section of an otherwise tolerable level. Headdy has to travel from one end of a large spike pit to another with a bunch of hangmen. He can shoot his head like a grappling hook, except a) with poorer range than any grappling hook and b) instead of swinging, his body just gets lightly launched in the direction of his head. Oh, and the hangmen (the points you can grapple on) are constantly flipping in and out of reach. Not hard when you learn it, but given that it's near the end of the game, it's hard to get any practice.
  • In the NES version of Ninja Gaiden, Act VI (the final stage) is next to impossible. You have berserk eagles, unlimited respawning enemies (and you can't scroll them off), platform level hell, etc. If you manage to survive three sections of hell, you are treated to the classic final boss trio, one of which requires you to dodge randomly moving objects, one to hit an enemy that scrolls on the ceiling, and one that again spews out random going objects that hurt. Granted you are given health refills, but if you die in any of those bosses, you start all over.
    • Interestingly, due to the game design, it is quite possible to survive this stage without getting hit due to non-randomized enemy patterns, spawns, and placement. A lot of the first Ninja Gaiden is learning how to kill things on the run and never, ever, ever stopping your forward movement. Ever. Just keep running. Kill birds on the fly.
    • Even more fun is the fact that after beating the first boss, the game goes into the usual post-boss routine...including DRAINING YOUR WEAPON POWER FOR BONUS POINTS. That leaves you to fight eternally-airborne boss number two with nothing but your sword.
    • In the third NES game, the fifth level has a vertical section in wich you must hop into fast-moving platforms that move in all sorts of directions. Wouldn't be hard if there weren't a obscene amount of Goddamned Bats that como from left, right and above you in positions that you can't possibly reach with your sword (oh, and they can and will shoot small firballs at you). There's a specific powerup found in the previous section that is pretty much required to kill the enemies, and failing to reach the vertical section without it or with not enough Magic Points (that may have been spent in the previous sections that aren't particularly easy) is a guaranteed life loss.
      • The last level of the same game has one: at a certain part of the level, you're running throught platforms that disappear when you run over, and there will be two kamikaze robots that will come out of nowhere and try to knock you out. If you stop, the platform disappear and you die. If you ignore the bots, they will knock you to the pit. It requires a perfect timing and coordination to hit the robots whle jumping since they come at a very high speed.
      • To say nothing that you are actually required to die at least once since the time limit is lower than the time a expert player would need to beat the last level.
  • Plok has the absolutely ridiculous Gohome Cavern. Start of the level, you must kill a Demonic Spider who drops a temporary invincibility power-up, use it to jump onto spikes...then immediately afterward, you lose your legs. Seriously. Meaning you have to hop through the remainder of the level, which features slopes covered with spikes, on top of a lot more of those same Demonic Spiders. The trick here is to go under the spikes...but bear in mind, you're hopping...and did we mention there are FOUR of these slopes? Oh, and in the middle of these slopes lies two areas where you must kill a group of five Goddamned Bats...each. And after said slopes, it gets worse. You must make four consecutive jumps (yes, JUMPS, while you're still hopping) with near pixel-perfect timing, all the while avoiding the three InvincibleMinorMinions and the projectiles they launch. All this just to get your legs back...and it's not even over. Say hello to the upper level, consisting entirely of the same Demonic Spiders you encountered earlier paired with Goddamned Bats that you must kill to proceed. Also, this level lacks checkpoints...so if you die here, enjoy getting your legs back again!
    • The Fleapit in its entirety. Enjoy a heaping helping of Fake Difficulty, with a side of Fake Difficulty. And when you're finished with that, would you like more Fake Difficulty?
      • To go into more detail: throughout the game you would find magic gift boxes that, if you choose to pick them up, change Plok's regular attack to a special, more powerful one. In the Fleapit, though, the magic gift boxes are not optional, make you weaker, stick around until you've finished that level, and use control schemes you've never seen before.
  • While not as extreme as some of the examples here, Vision 6-2 in Klonoa: Door to Phantomile qualifies. First of all, it's much longer than your average level; with all of the puzzles, it can take as long as 20-30 minutes in a game of 5-7 minute levels. The level itself is about half Platform Hell (an example: there is a segment when you're on tiny, tiny platforms. With enemies hopping on all of them.) and half ridiculously annoying puzzles (typically of the 'all of these switches need to be active at once' variety. While the puzzles aren't too hard, they require extremely quick reflexes to complete. It then finishes with one of the most difficult bosses in the game...and since levels and bosses aren't separate, if you die on him, it's back to the start for you!
    • The Maze of Memories from Klonoa 2 would like to say hi. While it is fairly linear, there's a point near the middle which is so easy to get lost at. Not only that but the gimmick of the level is flipping the room upside down when needed - and there's no shortage of puzzles that make use of this.
    • The penultimate to last level before the Final Boss is a real bitch. It's very long and drawn out, making you whine and complain every time you think you're done but see another checkpoint. There's numerous bottomless pits, disappearing platforms and a few segments of insta-death water. In short, this level throws everything it can at you for the ultimate masochistic puzzle-platformer experience. They don't call it the Kingdom of Sorrow for nothing!
  • In the first Spyro the Dragon game, there's Tree Tops. It's a relatively short level. As if. It's very easy to fall off (being a Floating Continent-type level), has some mildly annoying enemies (the large ones have a somewhat wide-range kick, and the smaller ones throw banana bunch-like projectiles without any sound cues), and to get everything, you're gonna need to pull off some Guide Dang It-y Super Charge maneuvers.
    • Haunted Towers, where a supercharge through several metal doors leads to a room filled with more metal doors (you must run back up several times to re-Supercharge down into another door to open them all). One leads to a pool area with a ramp, implying there is some mythical way to Supercharge down the path, take a right, and somehow charge around the extremely narrow ramp and then jump to reach a hidden wall where a trapped Dragon and treasures are hidden. Said mythical way involves supercharging into the pool area, up the ramp, landing on the next section, charging up that ramp, then leaping onto a hidden platform with a whirlwind. Guide Dang It! See it here.
    • The second game doesn't have any true That One Levels, but the Fetch Quest in Mystic Marsh for the pencil truely stumped some people.
      • It also had Broken Hills and the Alchemist. An Escort Mission where the beginning and the end are just a few metres apart. But the goat decides to take the LONG way around, through a maze of enemies... Even if you beat it, you may have to do it again for the next orb.
    • The sidequests that involved yetis in the third game were pretty tough. In one, you have to beat a yeti at boxing. Simple enough? Well, you're very slow, your attacks don't hit hard, and he's a little faster than you. It's possible to win if you just trap him in a corner and hit him with jabs. Once that's done, you have to fight him again, except it's 3 rounds instead of one. He's waaaaay faster, and... well, it gets annoying fast.
      • Fortunately, you can cheat your way to victory by activating 2-player mode. Just plug in a second controller, and a 2nd player can now controls the enemy yeti... or you can just make him stand there. Naturally, you're never told about this 2-player mode in-game, but then again, it's justified for that very exploit.
    • Then there's the racing in the Super Bonus Round against the yetis. They're fast, and... well, it's just one of those things you need to keep trying to win.
      • You can exploit a glitch in the game for the race: if you go past Hunter onto the track, you can stand in a blue star. If you return to Hunter, you'll have turbo boost proportional to the amount of time you spent under the star. You can do the entire race on turbo this way. And it's still hard.
    • In Spyro 3, there are not one, but two levels in the winter world containing challenges where you must go down a slide of hell with almost friction (damn centrifugal force) and no check points. If you want to get all the eggs, these challenges are mandatory.
  • The second snowspeeder level in Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: [1]
    • The Echo Base levels with Han Solo also count. First of all, you have to play as Han Solo who lacks force powers, a lightsaber, a special spin... Yeah, anything but a good ol' blaster and some incredibly rare and useless grenades. But that's far from the main issue - These levels are two of the longest in the game and simply CRAMMED with nastiness; Fire traps that activate when you pass over them, turrets in the ceiling that are hard to hit, randomly spawning troops that shoot you, troops with shields that block you, spiders that block AND shoot at you and scatter shrapnel that damage you when defeated. The worst are the flying enemies that appear out of nowhere and take away 30% of your life with each hit. The level itself is a maze with several dead ends, and even if you take the correct way its longer than most other! All this is already enough to make these levels the most annoying in the entire game, but there's more! At the end of the first level you encounter a mini-boss that is tough, fast and kills you in three hits at full health. Still, the absolutely worst part are the bosses... Both of them are insanely hard and can easily kill you at full health with lots of powerups after you've learned their patterns... None of which you'll have after the horror that is known as Han Solo's Echo Base levels.
      • But it can't all be bad, right? There are a lot of item boxes scattered throughout the level... Just that breaking them open is easier said than done, actually getting an item is extremely rare and debris scatter from them when they're destroyed which hurt you. That's right, your only hope of beating this level is more likely to kill you than anything else!
    • The final level in Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. First, instead of the platforming that game is mostly about, it becomes a first person flight simulator as you ride the Millennium Falcon through the Death Star. In the final level, you have to escape before the fire from the explosion catches up with you, so you have to be constantly accelerating. The problem is that since you are going so fast, you have little time to react as the course changes angles and throws obstacles at you. Crashing into a wall reduces your speed and damages your shields (or the ship's health if the shields are completely gone) and every time you slow down, the fire catches up and damages you as long as you stay in it. The deeper in the fire you are, the faster your shields and health deplete. The memorization and fast reflexes required is bound to make many players shout "THE FORCE IS NOT WITH ME!"
  • Apogee's Monster Bash has the two swamp levels in episode 3. These are without a doubt the hardest levels in the entire game. Expect to be using that extra-lives cheat a lot.
  • Taz-Mania, based on the eponymous cartoon series starring Taz, the tasmanian devil was an all around, needlessly annoying game. The Mine level however, revealed the games designers to be a pack inhuman beasts that wanted nothing more than to feed on your misery and frustration. Rest assured, no matter how good a platform whiz you think you are, you CANNOT beat this level on your first try; mind you, once you got the patterns down it was doable, but still... It had all the typical trappings of an out of control vehicle stage. Oh, and you're in in a speeding minecar on a track to hell that not even the most demented mine architect would design, as it would invariably result in the death of any mine worker foolhardy enough to use it! It gets better. Not only do you have little control over this iron death wagon, but you have to jump over the standard bottomless pits WHILE adjusting the height of the minecar in order to avoid being brutally decapitated as the stage progressed. Throw in the fact that... well just watch this video. Also starring CAMOFLAUGED Goddamned Bats, Spikes of Doom that Don't Quite look Like Spikes of Doom, Out of Place Enemies (the bushrats) and Jerkass Elevators.
  • Bubble Bobble's level 57 is a classic example. The level is totally empty, except for a platform at the very top that houses four Space Invaders-inspired enemies. The easiest way to kill them and complete the level is to create a wall of bubbles in the very center of the stage and use it to bounce up. This wouldn't be too bad, if it weren't for the air currents in the level that shove all your bubbles in the corner unless you stand in just the right spot - which happens to be right in the line of enemy fire. See this video for the average player's reaction.
    • By the same token, level 96. The game takes two sets of 3 and sticks them in a tough-to-reach cavity in the top, and the only way to get at them is by bubble-jumping up through the walls and up into the ceiling, then carefully maneuvering yourself down on them with just enough room between you to allow your bubbles to clip the wall-guard they have, while keeping your dino away from sword-inflicted death. Nine times out of ten, though, you'll impale yourself on them (possibly without killing them) and run out of lives.
    • Thankfully, in the mandatory enemy-swap second quest, neither level is nearly as brutal with the sword-dropping freaks being replaced with something much more benign. Of course, in several other locales, the player is not as lucky.
    • Let's ALSO not forget that the Big Bad at the end is not only a giant bitchtastic Bullet Hell fight, but you get a Bad End unless you were playing in 2-player mode. Which means if you don't have a buddy you're pretty much fucked.
      • That can be circumvented by having one extra life. When you trap the boss in the bubble. Pause the game, hit start on the 2nd controller, and pop the bubble. He also only uses his Spread Shot if you are anywhere at the region in front of him which cannot get you if you are somewhat below him.
  • Crystal Caves 2 contains a level which is essentially a giant, empty room full of Invisible Blocks which have to be hit from below to appear. You have to make them all appear so that you can get up to the exit. But doing so will require you to climb up all the blocks you've revealed so far, jump as far as possible so that you will (hopefully) hit the next block on your way, and then watch helplessly as your hero tumbles down back to the ground and has to climb up the blocks all over again. This level will take you a long time to complete.
  • Epic Games' The Adventures of Robbo the Robot has level E2, which is crammed full of guns whose beams you have to dodge through in order to complete it. Doing so is largely a matter of luck.
  • Loco Roco 2 has Buibui fort 3 where you finally get a chance to see how a game over screen looks like. Many, many times.
  • Gambit's Stage in Spider Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge. Gambit's only attack is his trademark card throw, he throws them in an arc (making them difficult to aim), and there is a limited number of cards. You are also chased by a giant spiked ball for most of the level. Easily the hardest level in a game that is Nintendo Hard in general.
  • Pac-Man World had Spin Dizzy. It wasn't enough that the level had a truckload of steam coming from every conceivable angle, but half of the platforms (as the name implies) are constantly spinning, which means good luck trying to butt-bounce without plummeting into the abyss several hundred times. The checkpoints are either spaced far apart or too close to each other. Throw in some giant mechanical hammers, glowing orange bars of doom and annoying clowns in biplanes and you've got yourself a hair-pullingly frustrating mess.
    • Its sequel had several- Blade Mountain, Volcanic Panic, and Ghost Bayou. Blade Mountain takes place on ice skates, and can be difficult on its own, but going for 100% Completion is a nightmare, since the one-way level design means that missing something requires a do-over. Volcanic Panic is long and has difficult platforming areas over lava, as well as lots of backtracking to advance through the level, and a rising magma portion over a narrow, winding path to cap the level. Ghost Bayou is ungodly long, dark and thus difficult to see the winding path, and has several sections where you must kill a number of enemies in a limited amount of time.
      • Try getting 100% on Ghost Bayou. I dare you. It's practically impossible to get all the items, because every area in the level is not only scrambled, but looks almost exactly the same, so you won't really be able to tell where you did and didn't go, particularly after the first part of it.
    • Well those levels are even more ungodly difficult on Time Trial mode, as you have to get almost all of those time boxes AND get through the whole level without dying once, good luck! There's also Magma Opus, which is nearly as hard as Volcanic Panic(especially if you're going for 100% as there's a sliding section where it's VERY easy to miss a fruit), and Haunted Boardwalk which takes place on rollerskates and has several sections that require very precise jumps to get through (getting 100% is naturally harder as well).
  • A Boy and His Blob (Wii) has Challenge Level 2-5. It's a Gusty Glade where the only skill you have is the Pear Parachute; you must navigate several narrow passages lined with instadeath floating mines, all the while the wind shoves you to and fro. And since it's a challenge level, there's no checkpoints--fall into a pit, or get shoved into a mine by the wind, and it's back to the beginning for you!
    • On the theme of "Pear Parachute + Challenge Level = ARRRG," the 3rd world also has a vicious one. You must use the Parachute to drift down a cave, where every single surface is lined with either spikes or mines (so there's absolutely no stopping) and you have to make instant turns in order to get to an entrance all the way on the other side of the shaft. You have to anticipate changes quickly, because the Parachute moves slowly, and if you're not far enough over to drift through the hole? It's the spikes for you!
  • The Citadel of Shadows in Vexx is one whole world of hair-pulling frustration. There is almost no solid ground anywhere to be found in the level; it's almost all moving, shifting platforms, incredibly tiny platforms, or platforms crowded with enemies. One misstep will send you tumbling into the abyss below. Makes getting to certain challenges a hassel; makes the two collection challenges (6 Soul Jars or 100 Heart Shards) infuriating because your total will reset if you die.
    • Don't forget the laser beams! Not only do you have to be precise while jumping, you have to avoid a bunch of freaking laser beams while doing so!
  • The Energy Zone in Contra gives many people fits simply because of the shooting energy traps over Bottomless Pit and a whole series of them on platforms, making a highly difficult game even harder if you didn't use the 30 lives cheat.
  • There are a lot of annoying levels in Dr. Muto, but the Furnaces take the cake. Gone are the fun flying sections of the first two parts. Instead, you're forced to endure a seemingly endless course of infuriating jumping segments. By far the worst part is the rafters, where you have to navigate a long gauntlet of conpletely unfair obstacles, while as the hard-to-control Mouse (or Rat), and with barely any checkpoints when you need them. The worst part is, it locks you in the area until you complete it, and there are no save points there.
  • If anything, the cursed version of Phoenix Mountain in Tomba. Especially, the second section of the mountain where you need to jump across a bottomless pit on three extremely narrow platforms spaced really far apart without messing up and falling into the bottomless pit. It is also not made any easier by the fact that the wind makes it impossible to time your jumps carefully.
    • It gets even worse when you're inside the mountain and have to carefully jump onto a series of small platforms to avoid the pits of fire on the bottom.
  • The consensus for the most unpopular level in Braid is "Fickle Companion", the last level of World 4. The world's mechanics make it a pain in the neck to solve. Doubly so (at least!) if you're trying for 100% Completion.
  • Lazrael's Game Maker game "Poyo" has level 45. It's basically a tower, but nearly every block crumbles below your feet, there are slow-moving spikes hindering your progress (do note that you're a One-Hit-Point Wonder) and if you're close to the top, there are three crumbling blocks and two one-block wide passages. You have three tries to get to the exit. Just watch this video and you'll know.
    • Not quite a That One Level normally, but when you're doing a speedrun, level 42 will get you a severe headache.
  • In Titus the Fox, level 9 "Home of the Pharaohs" - by the end of it - has a typical passage with platforms over a writhing mass of cobras. The trick is that there are instant-kill spikes on the ceiling, too. So, you have to hold the jump button just enough to make the jumps, but not too long, either; meaning, you have to hold and release the jump button with 1/10sec-grade precision or poor Titus will either get a free trepanation, or suffer rectal reptilian invasion. Now rinse and repeat for five or six such jumps in a row.
  • The Genesis version of Lost Vikings has a level "RVTS" which has a lot of tricky jumps combined with moving platforms, conveyor belts and so on. One mistake and like always, back to the beginning of the level.
  • The first Star Wars game on the Gameboy. Two options - Check EVERY cave in a mapless desert, following every side of EVERY rock, or you WILL miss it. Miss what? The weapon that you need to finish one specific, very short level with one enemy in it that is immune to everything else. Miss it, and you will slowly drown, after playing three quarters of the game not knowing there was even a problem.
  • There's a short driving portion of the game Monty on the Run (already an insanely difficult game) that requires perfectly timed jumps or else you'd die. And there's no way of knowing when to jump unless you've been through it before.
  • Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy the mis-EDventures (at least the non-GBA version) has scam level three. the scam would not have been so bad if it was not for this. after you get past the first, yes the first obstacle, you get a cut scene where it turns out that some stupid birds put Jimmy's dolls up in some trees, so you have to get them out using the tower of Eddy and put them in the sandbox. now when you drop something, it comes back where it was before you got it. not here. instead, you have to start the whole task all over that does not seem so bad, but the programmers put in these squirrels (yes, animals are your enemies) that come out of the trees and attack you. but if they attack you, you drop the freaking doll that you were trying to get in the sandbox and you have to start the thing all over.
  • Ball Revamped 4 has "Fuse and Run" in the unnamed 6th world. You have to set off a detonator to blow up a wall that lets you get at the goal, but the fuse of the explosives is ridiculously long, and the only maneuvering room you have is pretty cramped. Now throw in some laser cannons shooting at you every few seconds while you wait and you get this remarkably unfun level. And the fuse resets when you die.
    • Ball Revamped 5 takes this a step further, with "Longer Fuse and Run!", one of the last levels in the game. Not only is the fuse, well, longer, the lasers have been replaced with a moving rectangle inside your cramped space that kills you on contact. Stop moving? You die. Accidentally bump into a wall? You die. And the fuse takes almost 2 minutes to run out.
      • Level 40 in BR5 is really nothing more than a simple maze, but the fact that you're forced to take the Mud power in the beginning makes it almost impossible. Mud slows the ball down to about nothing and makes it insanely difficult to turn. And since this is the last level of the world, it's a giant stage. However, there is a very tiny space that you can squeeze through to stop yourself from getting one component of Mud...which leaves you with the ball-growing Flower power. Good luck not touching the walls. Fortunately, you can save yourself the trouble of this level; when you get to your third giant level, just ignore the portal that says "Allium".
  • The second desert level in Bleach: Soul Carnival 2 (the one after you fight Grimmjow and Nnoitra). It doesn't start out that hard, but the second "room" is a gigantic pain in the ass. You've got strong winds pushing you forward, you can't dash, and there are gigantic Hollows blocking your path with a nearly-unavoidable attack that can deal 5-digit damage. And you're stuck as Kenpachi the first time around, so you'll run out of SP quickly, and unless you're extremely overleveled, you need specials to take out the giant hollows. And forget about breaking the orb that restricts dashing or trying to get the treasures up on high pillars on your first visit.
    • All of the Challenge Stages, but special mention goes to Area 14 of the Soul Society challenge and the first half of Area 3 of the Real World challenge. The former is like the aforementioned desert stage; heavy winds, and you can't dash. This time, however, you cannot get the ability to dash back. And your enemies ignore the winds. To crank things Up to Eleven, the enemies are giant, so only special attacks do normal damage unless you're about 20 levels higher, and the really big ones can reduce THAT to single-digit damage as well, AND there's a wall of bombs inside treasure chests that is unspeakably hard to avoid, and each bomb deals about 3000 damage. Which means that, unless you waited a really long time to come here, breaking open more than 3 chests at a time results in death. The latter is a REALLY dark warehouse, and the only light comes from windows (of which there are not enough) or lightning flashes (which are infrequent). And then you want to talk about the area itself? You're locked into it the first time you enter the area, meaning you have to grope around in the dark until you find the two orbs that you need to break to escape. Also, you deal double damage to enemies, but the reverse is also true, and also applies to the scenery. Meaning that those damned electric boxes can deal about a fifth of your HP in damage. And that doesn't factor in the horrendous amounts of damage you get from other enemies in the area. You can't get rid of this effect until you get to the second half of the area...which requires jumping through lines of said electric boxes outside the warehouse. ARRRRRRRRRRGH!
    • Stage 9, the Underground Waterways. Easy to get lost in, has a few hard-to-reach treasures, and is the first level to have enemies that transform into exploding treasure chests. Also, the water is practically impossible to get out of without dashing. If you fall into it in an area that restricts dashing...well, shit. Oh, and you get to fight Renji after all this.
  • Hard Coaster in Bomberman Hero. Really the only thing that makes it live up to its name is the almost mind-numbing tedium of it; the entire level is in midair, but above a pair of quicksand pits that empty into a crevice. If you fall into the sand, you have to jump through it to a teleporter that, more often than not, puts you in a position where you have to do a lot of legwork to get back to where you were. And there's Gate Crystals, so you have to scour the last part of the level if you want to get out.
  • The Castlevania games are notoriously hard, and have a number of these moments.
    • In the original game, just before you face off against Death in Stage 5, you come across a hallway containing two Axe Armors, both of whom take nine hits and throw axes at two different altitudes, while you can only get hit four times, provided you didn't get hit throughout the rest of the level. Axe Armors are easy enough to deal with, but then the infamous Medusa Heads ambush you from behind while you're doing so, and since Simon Belmont isn't the most agile guy in the universe, you're pretty much screwed.
    • In Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, the developers somehow decided that the first game was too easy, so Dracula's clock tower becomes even more insanely frustrating, with what seems to be a get-together of all the most annoying enemies in the game, coupled with a bunch of bottomless pits and disintegrating floors. Oh, and just because the developers are insane, once you get to Dracula and die, you don't respawn outside his chamber like in the other games. Nope, back to the beginning of the level for you!
    • In the PSP remake of Rondo of Blood, the previously unremarkable Stage 5' has been turned into hell. It's easily the most ridiculously frustrating part of the game, and even if you manage to get to the end, you then have to fight against the Hydra. By this point, you'll probably be down to your last life, and the fight is so confusing that you'll probably waste it pretty quickly. At first, it's fairly straightforward; the boss' head shoots things or tries to eat you, depending on your position, so you dodge everything and whip him in the face. But then things get weird when its head seemingly deactivates and the game gives you no indication of what to do next. You're actually supposed to climb up the thing's back to find its other heads, which have their own attack patterns, and switch back and forth throughout the level. Without a walkthrough, this battle is almost impossible to beat just because the stage preceding it is so ridiculously hard that you almost never get to try twice in a row.
  • The GBA version of The Polar Express has a level involving skiing along the top of the train at a reasonably high speed. Unfortunately, the section of track that they are running on features a large number of overhead obstructions, forcing the player to jump and duck at split-second notice. Even with practice, this level is painful.
  • Freudia's stage in Rosenkreuzstilette, it has the classic insta-kill beams. It gets worse when you play as Grolla. She gets attached to the wall much like X, so it's harder to avoid the beams just getting close to the opposite wall.
  • Veni Vidi Vici from 'VVVVVV. You have to reverse fall through six screens lined with instant-kill spikes, hit a tiny gravity reverser at the end, and fall though the same screens in reverse, just to reach a collectible placed behind a tiny bump on the floor.
  • Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure has World 5-4, the penultimate level, which even by World 5 standards is ridiculous. You alternate between slogging through Weasleby's mansion and hopping into puzzle gates to various little snippets of the other four continents you've visited. You have to fight an Inescapable Ambush nearly every time you go through a gate, with the ambushes themselves ranging from challenging to downright sadistic (in particular is the final area of the Puzzle Realm gate, which pits you in a drawn out battle against Demonic Spiders on a conveyor belt). Hope you've been getting the upgrades, you'll need all the help you can get.
  • Almost all of "Ninja Gaiden" is a That One Level game- however, level 6-2 is particularly hard, with enemies that continue to respawn on precarious ledges.
  • Granted, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is a difficult game. But then there's the section shaped like the letter P on its back, in Zulag 3 of RuptureFarms, which can be an absolute sod if you don't know what you're doing, especially if you're trying to rescue every Mudokon. Its features include: having to awkwardly jump down whilst avoiding falling carcasses, timing grenade throws in order to blow up anti-chant devices and not yourself, having to somehow blow up/get past a Slig that descends on a lift that blocks your exit because you pulled a switch that you must pull, and finally, blowing up a Slig and a series of mines with the Shrykull's power before you're either a) shot, or b) blown up. You died? Well then, it's back to the start with you!
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