History ThatOneLevel / DonkeyKong

[[caption-width-right:350:Instant-death brambles. Invincible enemies. ''Gusting wind.'' Have fun.]]

* Lightning Look-Out. 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 [[DepthPerplexion 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!

* Fungi Forest is perhaps the most annoying level in the game, even if not necessarily the hardest. It all comes down to the day/night gimmick that restricts the player from entering certain areas unless it's the appropriate period, which can only be changed near the level's entrance. This only serves to add another layer of backtracking to a game that already suffers quite a lot from it, no thanks to the Tag Barrel being a ScrappyMechanic of its own.

* If there's any level from the "Gloomy Gulch" world that deserves to be on this list, it's DEFINITELY "Haunted Hall". The level has you riding for you life away from ghosts that kill you if you touch them and bombards you with awful placing of plus and minus barrels. Oh, by the way, if you touch even ONE of the Minus Barrels while the ghosts are chasing you, then you are going to DIE and go back to square one. It's the first level of the game this troper actually died in, and that's really saying something considering how mind-boggingly difficult the levels "Slime Climb" and "Rambi Rumble" were, that's really saying a lot.

** Really, ''any'' level that has the song "Hot Pursuit" in it (just like the above Stampede Sprint) is bound to get under your skin thanks to all of the having one theme in common: speed-based levels that either require good reflexes or are a race against the clock. Riverside Race is—as its name suggests—a race against the clock while an ''invincible swarm of bees'' are hounding you throughout the vast majority of the level unless you're underwater making backtracking a huge pain in the ass (and to get a prize from a Brother Bear you have to beat ''his'' time on the course), and Demolition Drain-Pipe and Tearaway Tobbogin (and Surf's Up in the GBA remake) are both annoying due to the wonky controls of the sled the Kongs ride in and loads of hazards that can easily make you lose one of them.

* Honorable mention goes to the final bonus mission in the Krematoa level Stampede Sprint. To even ''get'' there, you have to [[EscortMission keep Parry the parallel bird safe through the level]], and it's the only one in the game [[CheckPointStarvation that doesn't have a midway point]]. He flies high above you, waiting to run into Buzzes, 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 Buzz hovers above. Some of the bananas appear ''above the Buzz'', which means you're going to need a running start to collect them safely. Hit the Buzz ([[NintendoHard and you will]]), and you have to retry the level to try again. At least this bonus got substantially toned down in the GBA remake by moving the Buzz down to where you no longer need to make a running jump to collect bananas above it. Though the remake also added a couple ''more'' annoying bonus rooms, including one where you have to collect ''20'' bananas around a rope with a very fast enemy on it.

* Tearaway Toboggan. A fun toboggan dash through the snow, and [[HiddenInPlainSight Buzzes indiscernible from background]].

* Snow Barrel Blast combines 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. If your going for 100% though....yeah good luck.
* Oil Drum Alley has the part where you need to time jumps on a shitload of tires and flaming oil drums. It doesn't help that the flames change their pattern of ignition halfway through the level. And if you're going for HundredPercentCompletion, there's an excellent chance you're going to miss one of the bonus rooms in the level, as the sadistic designers hid one ''inside another bonus room'', which happens nowhere else in this game or any other.
* Platform Perils is just long and brutal, complete with impregnable Krushas (the grey ones are even immune to Donkey Kong) and collapsing platforms. [[spoiler: Thankfully, it is the very last regular level in the game before the boss of the world followed by King K. Rool.]]

* Stop and Go Station. Rock Krocs 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. And this is in the ''second'' world of the game. Fortunately, there's an easy way to skip almost the entire level: [[spoiler: Turn around and head back "out" the same way you came in.]]

* Rocket Rush, ''the'' final non-boss level and the toughest level to get into (all 85 Bonus Coins in the SNES version, 98 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 screwing up '''two or three times at most''' means you won't make it out the other side, and you likely will screw up in the ascent since it pretty much requires you to [[TrialAndErrorGameplay know the course ahead of time]]. The GBA version makes this second half more lenient, but it makes up for it by making the first half a good deal worse; unlike before, the Buzzes actually damage you if you ram the bottom of the rocket barrel into them, and the checkpoint barrel is removed. The Japanese version makes it obvious how bullshit this level is: The title of the level is instead ''Ponkotsu Rocket de Go'' (Go by Piece-of-Junk Rocket).

* Honorable mention goes to the final bonus mission in the Krematoa level Stampede Sprint. To even ''get'' there, you have to [[EscortMission keep Parry the parallel bird safe through the level]], and it's the only one in the game [[CheckPointStarvation that doesn't have a midway point]]. 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 ([[NintendoHard and you will]]), and you have to retry the level to try again. At least this bonus got substantially toned down in the GBA remake by moving the bee down to where you no longer need to make a running jump to collect bananas above it. Though the remake also added a couple ''more'' annoying bonus rooms, including one where you have to collect ''20'' bananas around a rope with a very fast enemy on it.
* Rocket Rush, ''the'' final non-boss level and the toughest level to get into (all 85 Bonus Coins in the SNES version, 98 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 screwing up '''two or three times at most''' means you won't make it out the other side, and you likely will screw up in the ascent since it pretty much requires you to [[TrialAndErrorGameplay know the course ahead of time]]. The GBA version makes this second half more lenient, but it makes up for it by making the first half a good deal worse; unlike before, the bees actually damage you if you ram the bottom of the rocket barrel into them, and the checkpoint barrel is removed. The Japanese version makes it obvious how bullshit this level is: The title of the level is instead ''Ponkotsu Rocket de Go'' (Go by Piece-of-Junk Rocket).

* Tearaway Toboggan. A fun toboggan dash through the snow, and [[HiddenInPlainSight bees indiscernible from background]].

* Tanked Up Trouble. This level requires you to grab pretty hard-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!

* The bonus level Animal Antics is almost certainly the most difficult level in the game (even more than 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 frustrating 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 Rattly the Snake, doing jumps that kill you if you miss them. 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.
* Screech's Sprint. Just take that infamous Animal Antics Squawks part and replace the gusts of wind with a RACE THROUGH A MAZE OF THORNS AND BEES! At least you can glitch the level by taking damage to skip the race, if you mess that up though...
* Another one is Klobber 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. Even worse, this level is glitched if you play it on ZSNES -- the barrels you control on your own are supposed to stop when you let go, but on ZSNES, a glitch makes them rotate indefinitely no matter what. Thankfully other emulators like higan and [=Snes9x=] don't have this problem.

* Kong-Fused Cliffs is even worse. This time it's a burning rope with bees and other crap coming down from above that are [[TrialAndErrorGameplay nigh-impossible to anticipate]]. Good thing there are quite a few DK barrels along the way as well.

* Snow Barrel Blast combines 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.

* Creepy Castle is a nightmare for OneHundredPercentCompletion, as even just the outside segment is by far the biggest level in the game, with an absurd number of caves, catacombs, and rooms to check out, making it extremely easy to get lost or miss something. It also houses not one, but ''two'' racing minigames (a rematch between Tiny and a car character first seen in Frantic Factory's own racing game, and a difficult minecart ride for Donkey Kong that differs from the others in that it's divided in two phases; and once again there's a requirement of DK coins to claim true victory). On top of all that, this level has the hardest version of the Beaver Bother minigame, and you need to complete it ''twice''.

** While not nearly as bad as Donkey Kong's rotating death maze, Diddy's cabin room is particularly frustrating, being a [[TimedMission timed]] MultiMookMelee atop several platforms that are too high to jump up to directly, forcing you to fly up there with the rocket barrel. The catch? You get all of '''fifty seconds''', each platform is occupied by at least one enemy (with the middle having ''four'' on it) and more than half of the enemies in the room cannot be killed unless you lob orange grenades at them from another platform, including the aforementioned four barrel mooks on the center platform. Thus, you have to hope that one of your grenades manages to kill two of them at once if you hope to succeed. Fell off the platform by accident? You may as well just make a beeline for the door, as [[HellIsThatNoise Kracshot Kroc will have his sights set on you]] under a 10-second timer should you run out of time and fail.

* On the surface, Crystal Caves seems merely annoying at worst. Its dense dark-brown and cyan color palette makes it rather irksome to navigate, and unless you manage to find a secret area and kill a certain mook, from the second you enter the main cavern, you'll be bombarded with falling stalactites ''constantly''. What really qualifies it, however, are a few of its challenge rooms, which are easily some of the hardest in the game:

** While the igloo and cabin Golden Bananas involving all the Kongs can all be difficult, it's Donkey Kong's Golden Banana in the igloo that's truly heinous. The Golden Banana sits in the middle of the room, and is guarded by a spiral-shaped maze of ice. The shard-covered walls of this maze deal ''absurd'' amounts of damage if DK touches it; namely ''one whole melon, a third of your maximum health'', per hit! This maze is difficult enough to navigate, especially considering how much damage the maze's walls do, but then ''it moves.'' It rotates clockwise, pauses, then rotates counterclockwise, and then repeats. It's possible to make the maze not move, which is the only easy way to get this Golden Banana without extreme frustration.
** To elaborate on the cabin area, while not nearly as bad as Donkey Kong's rotating death maze, Diddy's cabin room is particularly frustrating, being a [[TimedMission timed]] MultiMookMelee atop several platforms that are too high to jump up to directly, forcing you to fly up there with the rocket barrel. The catch? You get all of '''fifty seconds''', each platform is occupied by at least one enemy (with the middle having ''four'' on it) and more than half of the enemies in the room cannot be killed unless you lob orange grenades at them from another platform, including the aforementioned four barrel mooks on the center platform. Essentially, you have to hope that one of your grenades manages to kill two of them at once if you hope to succeed. Fell off the platform by accident? You may as well just make a beeline for the door, as [[HellIsThatNoise Kracshot Kroc will have his sights set on you]] under a 10-second timer should you run out of time and fail.
* Creepy Castle is a nightmare for OneHundredPercentCompletion, as even just the outside segment is by far the biggest level in the game, with an absurd number of caves, catacombs, and rooms to check out, making it extremely easy to get lost or miss something. On top of all that, this level has the hardest version of the Beaver Bother minigame, and you need to complete it ''twice''.

* Kaizo Donkey Kong Country as a whole is a hard game, but the absolute peak of its difficulty has to be stage 5-5, which can rival any VideoGame/KaizoMarioWorld level in hair pulling insanity despite its short length. When you start the level, theres an unavoidable enemy that will kill you off the bat unless you have Diddy with you as an extra hit point. But thats just the beginning--through the rest of the level, you have two Kremlings on minecarts riding directly above and below you. Due to the way the minecart tracks are arranged combined with the games hit detection, you need to have both very careful jumping reflexes and ''frame perfect'' timing to dodge them--there is absolutely no room for error. Oh, and the level has a KaizoTrap at the end to rub salt in the wound--if you miss the barrel that takes you to the real exit, youll just go offscreen and lose a life, forcing you to start the whole level again. Check out this playthrough of it to get an idea of how hard it is.

** 2-K, Bopopolis, consists purely of [[GoombaStomp bouncing off enemies]] to progress. Mistakes in timing are not an option.

* Low-G Labyrinth. The level's main gimmick is, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin obviously]], [[GravityScrew low gravity]]. Dodging the onslaught of Zingers is very tough considering you move slower than usual, and the moving ones aren't slowed down one bit. Then you have to navigate the place with the purple parrot, and that gets... tricky.

* Crystal Caves is overall a fairly easy level, whose only noticeable hazard in its mainland section is that you will frequently be assaulted by a rain of rocks falling from the ceiling (even then, that only lasts until you find the enemy responsible and beat them). Despite that, the level manages to have two of the hardest Golden Bananas in the game.

* [[EternalEngine Frantic Factory]]. Not only is it a very long and difficult level in its own right, it also has ThatOneBoss, unevenly difficult minigames (this is the first appearance of the dreaded Beaver Bother bonus game), and is also home to the original Donkey Kong arcade game: The trouble is, this version of the classic arcade game practically embodies NintendoHard; you only have one life to complete all four levels (though you get one extra life if your score hits 10,000), barrels come from everywhere, and you can't skip the cutscenes. Oh, and that's not the worst part. When you beat it, you get a Golden Banana, but then in comes Squawks who challenges you to play the game again for a unique prize. And the worst part isn't that when you go for that prize, you have to beat it on Level 2 difficulty; the worst part is that the prize in question, the Nintendo Coin, is ''crucial to opening the way to the final boss'', meaning that you ''have'' to beat the game twice.

** The Beetle race in the ice castle (which is the second Beetle race in the game) is a flat-out nasty thing. You have to do the entire thing with Lanky doing his Orangusprint, which doesn't help on the hairpin turns and narrow walkways that the Beetle himself has no trouble running. The fact that you'll get nothing if you don't collect a minimum number of coins again, even if you win, makes it even worse.
** While the igloo and cabin Golden Bananas involving all the Kongs can all be difficult, it's Donkey Kong's Golden Banana in the igloo that's truly heinous. The Golden Banana sits in the middle of the room, and is guarded by a spiral-shaped maze of ice. The shard-covered walls of this maze deal ''absurd'' amounts of damage if DK touches it -- namely ''one whole melon, a third of your maximum health'', per hit! This maze is difficult enough to navigate, especially considering how much damage the maze's walls do, but then ''it moves.'' It rotates clockwise, pauses, then rotates counterclockwise, and then repeats. It's possible to make the maze not move, which is the only easy way to get this Golden Banana without extreme frustration.

* To an extent, Creepy Castle, simply for having [[UpToEleven two more instances of the Beaver Bother minigame even harder than the one in Frantic Factory.]]

* Platform Perils is just long and brutal, complete with impregnable Krushas and collapsing platforms.