History ThatOneLevel / SimulationGame

* [[{{VideoGame/IL2Sturmovik}} IL-2 Sturmovik]]: Birds of Prey's Hornet's Nest mission. Prior to this, the game ramps up nicely in difficulty. Hornet's nest tosses you into a night battle seeking out transport planes and preventing them from landing at the airstrip while avoiding wings of enemy fighters and the A-A guns on the group.

** In ''TraumaTeam'', Tomoe's final mission is [[spoiler:searching through a collapsed mall for people trapped in the rubble.]] The way the stage is set up, it's _very_ hard to keep track of what you're looking for, and every time you find one, you get sent back to the start - at which point the level changes shape. It's essentially a 3D maze from hell.

** Deftera. While most missions are ultimately tests of skill primarily, Deftera is nearly 90% luck. If two pairs of Deftera hit like colors at the beginning of the second stage, you might as well ragequit. Either the tumors will kill the patient outright, or you'll finish with the tumors just in time to fight MORE tumors when like colors meet AGAIN- never having the opportunity to attack Deftera itself.

*** ''Zero'' had "Valley of Kings" which made you brave a gauntlet of Anti-Aircraft Artillery, Surface-to-Air Missiles and Pillboxes just to get ''to'' the tunnel. Flying above 2000 feet would lead to a missile warning: if you didn't get below that in time, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard you'd have a missile launched at you from out of nowhere and automatically hit you]]. Did I mention the bridges in the way? Finally, if you're not using the FAE Bomb or the MPBM [[hottip:*:While taking them seems to be a no-brainer, remember that due to plot reasons you're stuck with the same plane and weapon for the last three missions. This means that, if you do take those bombs, you're stuck with just the regular missiles for the mission before Valley of Kings, which contains what might be the most difficult dogfight in the entire game.]] you'll need to make multiple tunnel runs since you have to destroy all of the joint locks for each V2 controller before the controller itself can be hit. ''''Consolation'''': at least if you enter the tunnel through the south, the named ace in the tunnel who appears after you destroy the first two controllers is flying away from you and thus makes possibly the game's easiest non-bomber kill.

** Then, in the sequel, ''Secret Missions of WWII'', there are lot of infuriating levels (especially where you have to use a tailgunner), but "Flashlight to a Gunfight" is the most annoying. You have no weapons at all, so you have to use a weapon that blinds enemies and leads to them crashlanding into an iceberg. But the big problem is, you have to practically almost crash into an iceberg for them to even ''think'' about crashing. It basically turns into a LuckBasedMission, and you've got to kill at least 10 enemies with this "weapon". Obligitory mention goes to "Target: Red Square", since it's a defense level that includes an army of enemies, followed by a boss that can easily destroy the Red Square very quickly, and "Rendezvous", where you have to kill 10 enemies while you're under watch, who shoot you if you do anything, followed by an EscortMission with ''tons'' of turrets to take down. [[hottip:+: Take down the turrets ''before'' you start the escort, it'll make it ''much'' easier for you. At least during the escort, anyways.]]

** All of these levels ''blush'' when compared to Joint Assault's ''Grand Flight''. It's a canyon mission where you're flying an airliner, which means you are unarmed and have no means of fighting back against the metric ton of anti-air. If you somehow make it through the canyon, there's also an ambush on the way out. Remember, airliner = no weapons. Good luck.

** That excludes the ''HarvestMoonAWonderfulLife'' mines, which are just little sites which are extremely easy.

*** ''Zero'' had "Valley of Kings" which made you brave a gauntlet of Anti-Aircraft Artillery, Surface-to-Air Missiles and Pillboxes just to get ''to'' the tunnel. Flying above 2000 feet would lead to a missile warning: if you didn't get below that in time, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard you'd have a missile launched at you from out of nowhere and automatically hit you]]. Did I mention the bridges in the way? Finally, if you're not using the FAE Bomb or the MPBM you'll need to make multiple tunnel runs since you have to destroy all of the joint locks for each V2 controller before the controller itself can be hit. (''''Consolation'''': at least if you enter the tunnel through the south, the named ace in the tunnel who appears after you destroy the first two controllers is flying away from you and thus makes possibly the game's easiest kill; it's certainly the easier named ace in an ''Ace Combat'' game to shoot down.)
*** ''5'' introduced the twisty-turvy tunnel later used in ''Zero'' but with multiple altitude changes along the way (not just at the entrance and exit of the tunnel), had enemy fighters in the tunnel in front of you headed in your direction, and whereas you can just slow down in all other tunnel missions and use autopilot to stabilize your flight path, here you have an enemy fighter hot on your tail the whole time!

**** Actually... It isn't impossible to shoot them down while they have the cloak. If you're UNBELIVABLY good/lucky, you can shoot down ALL FOUR FENRIRS WHILE THE CLOAK IS UP.** I have to bring up Four Horsemen again for two reasons: you ''have to play it at least once'' to unlock the Flanker line of jets, and it also contains one of the hangars you have to destroy to unlock the [[GameBreaker ADF-01 FALKEN]]. [[strike:Have fun.]]

* ''VideoGame/AceCombat'' primarily has these in levels where the mission/parameters have nothing to do with the Difficulty setting; the "game stopper" was ''[=AC5=]'''s "Four Horsemen," mission 12b. It's only one of the two paths, but [[GuideDangIt you're given no clue that your answer to a wingman's question in mission 10 will have any consequence]]. Things aren't so bad on the other path, or even in the other mission on this path, while this mission requires you to perform four consecutive timed destructions of radar sites, which means that you have to take into account your weapon's travel time ''and'' your own travel time -- go past the radar site and you fail, while if you get in position too early you'll have to break/slow down, which can cause a stall or wasted time (especially if you have to turn around to reposition yourself for another attack run), and you have less time between each radar site. Did I mention that your wingmen may mess up ''their'' approaches against their own targets which you don't see and cause everyone to have to abort their attack run and try again?

* Even ''CookingMama'' has an example: In the Hot Dog and Taco recipes of ''Cooking Mama: Cook Off'', you must catch the ingredients in the bun/taco shell, which would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that you can only hold it on the sides of the screen. And the meat falls down in the middle, so you must time it so that it falls on the bun/taco shell ''in the middle of moving from one side to the other''. Hard enough to ''pass'', ''hell'' to get a Gold Medal on.
* ''AceCombat'' primarily has these in levels where the mission/parameters have nothing to do with the Difficulty setting; the "game stopper" was ''[=AC5=]'''s "Four Horsemen," mission 12b. It's only one of the two paths, but [[GuideDangIt you're given no clue that your answer to a wingman's question in mission 10 will have any consequence]]. Things aren't so bad on the other path, or even in the other mission on this path, while this mission requires you to perform four consecutive timed destructions of radar sites, which means that you have to take into account your weapon's travel time ''and'' your own travel time -- go past the radar site and you fail, while if you get in position too early you'll have to break/slow down, which can cause a stall or wasted time (especially if you have to turn around to reposition yourself for another attack run), and you have less time between each radar site. Did I mention that your wingmen may mess up ''their'' approaches against their own targets which you don't see and cause everyone to have to abort their attack run and try again?

* Collecting all the paintings in ''AnimalCrossing''. Yeah, you heard me. Other rare sets can take literally a year or more to complete, but at least you can't forge a bug or fossil. Damn you, Crazy Redd!
* ''[[TraumaCenter Trauma Center: Under The Knife]]'', as an Atlus game, is ''hard''- so much so that a previous version of this page listed ''every mission'' as ThatOneLevel. However, most fall into the "tough but fair" catagory, with two exceptions:

* Any mine in any ''HarvestMoon'' game ever.

* The first RollerCoasterTycoon and its expansions each had one of these:

* Looking for fireflies in ''TheSims Castaways'' is this to many players. Fireflies are found at random and only appear at night.
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**** Actually... It isn't impossible to shoot them down while they have the cloak. If you're UNBELIVABLY good/lucky, you can shoot down [[BeyondTheImpossible ALL FOUR FENRIRS WHILE THE CLOAK IS UP.]]
** I have to bring up Four Horsemen again for two reasons: you ''have to play it at least once'' to unlock the Flanker line of jets, and it also contains one of the hangars you have to destroy to unlock the [[GameBreaker ADF-01 FALKEN]]. [[strike:Have fun.]]

**** Actually... It isn't impossible to shoot them down while they have the cloak. If you're UNBELIVABLY good/lucky, you can shoot down [[BeyondTheImpossible: ALL FOUR FENRIRS WHILE THE CLOAK IS UP.]]

**** These actually go back to [=AC3=] and maybe [=AC2=] (but I can't recall). The [=AC3=] mission definitely has altitude changes and closing doors which serves to make it a "twisty" tunnel.

*** The 'don't fly above (insert low altitude here)' missions are annoying, but on some games in the series the missiles don't spawn so close to you. This enables you to outrun them (or at least keep them from hitting you till they detonate) while flying the overpowered Mig-25/31. Unfortunately this creates an {{Unwinnable}} situation, since they respawn one after another. So after descending back to an altitude that will let you complete the mission, the speed that's required to outrun the one that inevitably spawns above you prevents you from maneuvering through the narrow confines of the level. That the dragster-like Migs were built for intercepting versus dogfighting doesn't help.

** To be fair, the mine in A(nother) Wonderful Life wasn't bad.