The [[RunningGag face-meltingly popular]] [[Franchise/FinalFantasy flag-ship franchise]] of Creator/SquareEnix doesn't have a reputation of being difficult, but with [[ThatOneLevel levels like these]], you'd be surprised.
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[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy I]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyI
* The Marsh Cave. Bring tons of antidotes (and potions too, but that's a given for any dungeon in Final Fantasy -- this is just the dungeon that first suggests it). There's plenty of GoddamnedBats, but also Goddamned Spiders and Goddamned Undead. And those Goddamned {{Cthulhumanoid}} Wizards. If someone dies, you have to go all the way back to town to revive them. And the way back is looooooooong. And you'll most likely get poisoned along the way.
** While the poison is very annoying, the Undead frequently paralyze your team. And being paralyzed means that character is now useless, and it stays that way for a long time. Add to this that most of your characters are going to die from a few hits, and that you'll be exhausted from the damned Squid-Wizard fight on your way out.
** Oh, and [[BlobMonster the slimes and oozes]]. Which, due to their defense, were pretty much impossible to kill without using magic spells, which you have precious few uses of. Ask five people, and they'll come up with ten reasons why the Marsh Cave belongs on this list.
** This level also showcases how mazelike some of the levels in this game can be. The last room is a room full of smaller rooms, ONE of which contains the item you're after.
* The Ice Cave has birds whose touch [[TakenForGranite turns you into stone]][[note]]Reversible with Gold Needles, but they're very expensive[[/note]]: check, Sorcerers whose touch can kill, [[DemonicSpiders Dark Wizards]] who always get a free turn, attack in groups and have a 50% chance of attacking with the most powerful multi-target fire spell, and no plot significance.
** And many people will go into the Ice Cave far earlier than the normal plot would otherwise suggest, as it can be used in a common [[SequenceBreaking Sequence Break]] to get the airship, and thus get the class promotion before the volcano. The ''only'' way to get through this part without being driven mad is to finish the Citadel of Trials first (which gets you a handful of infinite-use magic items), and even with that advantage, it's still the ninth level of Hell.
** These two levels are also the most difficult areas in a SoloCharacterRun. Petrification is an instant game-over, and being stunned is a way to sit there and watch as your character gets slowly [[CherryTapping nibbled to death]].
* The top floor of the Sky Palace fits the bill. While the aforementioned OneHitKO using Sorcerors/Mindflayers appear all over the Sky Palace, they're particularly common around here, usually in swarms of seven. On top of that, the area also is home to [=WarMECH=], the most famous BossInMookClothing in the series. About the only saving grace is that Tiamat, the boss waiting at the end of this gauntlet of evil, is not only vulnerable to a couple One-Hit KO spells, one such spell can be cast freely by using an item that's available well before you fight the boss.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy II]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyII
* The dungeon of Deist, which you have to go through twice to advance the story further. (Though you don't have to go far the first time, but one could go all the way to the end the first time if they overlook the path to the Pendant)
* Mysidian Tower. It has four stages to it (each with a boss), in which you have to swim through lava on the first and walk on icicles on the second (though it doesn't do much damage). The worst of it though, even if you're overleveled, beat the previous four dungeons with no problem at all and can beat all four bosses easily, are Imps and Basilisks. The former can confuse you, which could potentially make your party kill each other, and the latter can turn you to stone, which can be a major problem if you haven't stocked up on Gold Needles or leveled up Esuna (though the Basilisks often miss with this). So hope you don't get them often, and if you do, that the Imps are in low quantity and not hiding two or three rows behind other enemies.
* The very last dungeon in the Souls of Rebirth scenario. Nearly every single enemy is a DemonicSpider and you can come face to face with enemies with sickeningly high rates of slamming you with bad status effects, such as the dreaded Malboros. You most likely also will have three characters who are very squishy and a fourth character who will be doing all the fighting, without severe LevelGrinding.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy III]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII
* Both the original NES version and the DS re-release has the back-to-back final dungeons Crystal Tower and Dark World. The Crystal Tower has space filling paths (of the switchback and false path variety), the most demonic of DemonicSpiders in the whole game, and an obnoxious boss at the end. When you're done with that, there's a long unskippable {{Cutscene}}, then you go to the Dark World, which has all of this PLUS a literally unbeatable boss at the very beginning, FOUR obnoxious bosses, and then the stupidly hard {{final boss}} after all of that. All of this which would be par for the course in any TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, except as soon as you enter the Crystal Tower, ''[[CheckPointStarvation there are no save points]]''. Not a one.
** Oh, and if you think you can just leave to rearm and come back, no. No, you cannot. The developers even had to apologize for making the dungeons so frustrating in the first place.
** As a belated apology, the Pixel Remaster version has both a manual quick-save and an auto-save feature, to make the endgame more merciful.
* The Cave of Darkness/Cave of Shadows is bad enough with seven floors of winding paths (being much longer than any dungeon in the game thus far), hidden passages and switchbacks swarming with difficult enemies. The kicker is that all the enemies ''split in two'' if you hit them with any physical weapon other than a dark sword/katana. That means you have to use Dark Knights (whose weapons and armor aren't that good until ''after'' this dungeon) or magic users (in a game where Ethers and Elixirs are in woefully short supply) to slog through the dungeon, or none of your battles will ever end; even then, the aforementioned multiplying enemies are time-consuming to kill and give lousy XP and money. And when you reach the end, defeat the boss, and get the item you came here for? You're not warped out like in many dungeons, you have to go all the way back to the beginning unless you know a spell to teleport out. Even ''getting'' to this dungeon, while not really hard, is tedious as you have to repeatedly fly over narrow mountains many times to reach the entrance. Despite all this, the Sylx Tower/Dark World sequence is ''still'' harder.
* The Temple of Time, especially in the DS version. [[DemonicSpiders Chimera Mages]], [[TotalPartyKill 'nuff]] [[ThatOneAttack said]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy IV and The After Years]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV
* The Sealed Cave, a long level that can be hard to navigate, contains several powerful enemies including literal GoddamnBats and [[DemonicSpiders Chimera]] [[BossInMookClothing Brains]]/Manticore, and is home to ThatOneBoss, Demon Wall. Furthermore ''every'' door in the area is a Trap Door, an enemy that spams the OneHitKO attack "Disrupt" and turns into the aforementioned Chimera Brain/Manticore when it gets below 1000 health. To add insult to injury, many Trap Doors guard empty rooms, so you likely just wasted your time. There's also an EventFlag when you leave the dungeon, so you can't use spells to warp or teleport out, you have to take the long way. In some versions, you ''can'' Reflect Ninth Dimension, but your timing needs to be spot-on thanks to how it's cast, and [[GuideDangIt you have to know it can be Reflected]] in the first place.
** Square-Enix ''must'' know that the Sealed Cave is ThatOneLevel and Demon Wall is ThatOneBoss, because in ''The After Years'' and the new ''Interlude'' chapter in the PSP port, we get to experience them again! The trip through in ''After Years'' is even harder than before because you ''don't'' have Reflect this time to stop Ninth Dimension. Fortunately, you can use Stop to incapacitate the doors outright, but this means your spellcaster is going to run out of MP like she's sprung a leak.
** The Trap Doors are so dangerous, the only way to make a solo Cecil challenge manageable in the original is to use a glitch to skip the cave. Otherwise, you need to level up into the 70s to be able to kill the doors before they kill you.
** Fortunately, this dungeon is optional in the SNES/PSX versions due to the Sealed Cave Skip, and in DS version you can cheese up Trap Doors by giving Cecil Draw Attacks Augment and Aegis shield, which makes him immune to Ninth Dimension. Enemies and Boss will be still frustrating though.
* The Sylph Cave and Summoned Monsters Cave/Eidolon's Passage are candidates for this too; they're the only dungeons with [[DroughtLevelOfDoom damage floors]] (forcing you to recast Float on the party every new level, or whenever a character is knocked out), and they're full of secret passages and confusing turns (got turned around? Time to recast Float again!). The enemies are no picnic either--the Eidolon's Passage has devilish enemies that can reduce the party's HP to single digits in a single move, Fiends/Mini Satanas that cast Confuse on you as a counterattack, and the one-eye enemies that are fond of Instant Death; Sylph's Cave has the infamous [[DemonicSpiders Malboros]]. Even worse, one has a number of teleport pads in it that bring you deeper in; however, there's one pad near the end that will toss you right back to the World Map with no warning, forcing you to do the whole thing over again and hope you remember where the exit one was. And finally, you've got to go through them at least three times altogether (if you're strong enough to defeat both bosses in the Summoned Monster Cave in the same trip. If not, your only option is to grind and come back later).
* The Cave of Magnes/Magnetic Cave/Lodestone Cavern is another difficult level (one with a far more persistent frustration factor), especially since being forced to remove Cecil's metal equipment renders him almost useless, and he is unable to act if the player does not do so. And your mage for that segment has his MP capped at 90. Even with your party losing its best physical attackers, the monsters are still a step above those of the previous dungeon, but without their elemental weaknesses. Yang is the only character in your party at this time who can do any real damage, being a monk.
** This is even worse in the DS version because Cecil loses the ability to use a bow and arrows. At least in other versions of the game, you could give him a bow and some Holy Arrows.
** The DS version ''does'' have a set of elemental "shards" in the nearest town that Cecil can use without suffering the penalty of using metal. It's only a small upside, though; the shards are extremely weak weapons, and even against enemies weak to that element the damage is most likely going to be less than what his normal equipment would do.
* The Lair of the Father in the DS remake. Every random encounter is strong enough to take out your entire party if you aren't careful. There are three Behemoth mini-bosses, which mostly just serve to drain your MP and items before you reach Bahamut. Also, there's [[CheckPointStarvation no save points]]- if you die, you just wasted at least an hour. Thankfully, the behemoths don't respawn, so you can teleport out to heal after you've fought one.

!![[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears IV: The After Years]]
* Porom's Challenge Dungeon. You're on a strict [[TimedMission time limit]]. You have to satisfy the arbitrary desires of random [=NPCs=], which include wasting Porom's MP on cure spells, [[GiveMeYourInventoryItem giving away expensive armor]], fighting powerful monsters, and so forth. You're only given two characters that can surpass level 20, one of which is Porom herself, who is a WhiteMage and can't really fight. Your party makeup and time limit would imply that you should run from battles, but then you won't have the money to buy much of that armor you have to give the greedy [=NPCs=], both because you can't get money if you run away and also because you randomly lose some money in equal amount to 25% of the amount you would've gotten for winning the battle. And even if you satisfy the request of every single NPC on the map and make it to the final treasure in time, [[LuckBasedMission you're still not guaranteed to get anything worthwhile for it]].
* Rydia's Challenge Dungeon. The dungeon is a maze, though not a very complex one. What makes it challenging is that it is ''filled'' with Trap Doors and Demon Walls -- yes, the same ones from the Sealed Cave, exactly as strong as before. You ''need'' to level grind Rydia to learn [[DiscOneNuke Bio]], because otherwise only Luca can do any decent damage. On top of only having two party members (even if you repaired Calca and Brina you don't get them) and no White Mage, the normal enemies of the dungeon can be quite strong, and the final room has you climbing a series of ropes, pick the wrong one and you're thrown into a series of battles with no healing in-between. The dungeon's mercy is that the boss is easy to beat if you know the strategy, but the dungeon more than makes up for it. There's a save point to reset and heal after every floor in contrast to most other Challenge Dungeons that either have none or just a single one before the dungeon boss, thank the heavens because if you didn't get them it would be nearly impossible.
* While the Underground Waterway was not so bad in the original game, it sees far more than its share of usage in this as the game requires the player to traverse it ''three and a half'' times over the course of all of the chapters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy V]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyV
* Castle Exdeath not only contains some DemonicSpiders, but also one room where you have to walk through lava, which does 50 damage for every step you take. To make matters worse, sometimes in the lava a random battle with ''dragon'' enemies will be initiated, while you're low on HP.
* The Fork Tower is a handy example of how the precise opposite of a MarathonLevel can still make a player hate their life. It's very small, thus has no save points within, for one. The gimmick of this tower is that it has two forks, and your party must [[LetsSplitUpGang split into two groups of two to traverse it]]. One half is physical and for physical fighters, the other half is for mages, and it's the mage half that provides all the agony. One of the random encounters on the mage side is the Flaremancer. It counters non-magical attacks with two hits of 9999 damage, a surefire instakill...and it considers the Geomancer's Gaia moves non-magical. It's the only thing in the game that does, too, and being that many players will give mages the Gaia ability to save on MP...you can see where this is heading. Then there's the Chrono Controller, who is much less tricky than the Flaremancer, and will simply cast Meteor and first-turn annihilate your two-person party if he so desires. But not even running from every random encounter will save you. If you make it to the top with the mage party, then make it to the top with the physical party, then beat the physical party's boss...there's a segment where you snag the magic at the top of each tower simultaneously. And they are ''serious'' about the simultaneous part. [[BladderOfSteel Have to go to the bathroom? TOO BAD.]] You get to do the whole thing over again. And after that, once you get back up the tower, there is a boss. A boss whose attacks are made easier to survive with Reflect/Carbuncle up on all party members at all times. Because once Reflect wears off, he can one-shot any member of your two-person party as he pleases. He hit the healer? Or the person with Carbuncle? Or both? Sucks to be you.
* The Pyramid of Moore. You only have three party members, it's incredibly long, full of traps and forced encounters, is required before getting the airship back, and concludes with [[ThatOneBoss the Melusine fight]] to get Lenna back.
* The Phoenix Tower is no joke either. For starters, the airship can't land anywhere near it; you must find the black chocobo and ride it halfway through the map, land on the only forest near a huge desert, and walk from that desert to the tower (and the enemies in the desert are strong enough to return in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon). As a dungeon, it's straightforward; on most floors, two walls hide the stairs to the next floor and you must guess the "safe" wall. If you pick wrong, you have to fight an enemy before you can go up. Every 5 floors, the stairs are visible, but there are urns where you find money or [[FairyBattle fight a Magic Pot]]. However, all regular enemies love using status effects, including [[OneHitKill Death, Petrification and Zombie]], and you can't run from them. And the enemies guarding the stairs are either [[BossInMookClothing strong enough to be a miniboss]] or [[DegradedBoss actual bosses you fought earlier in the game]]. And to top it off, [[MarathonLevel the tower is 30 floors long]] [[CheckpointStarvation with no save points in sight]]. While the regular enemies are vulnerable to status effects themselves (Toad is particularly effective), the sheer length of the tower combined with the main escape options locked out means they'll wear you down sooner or later. And if you can't use the Teleport spell for any reason (be it a ChallengeRun without a Time Mage or simply not having the spell), you have to walk ''all the way back''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy VI]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI
* To the unprepared, the Fanatics'/Cultists' Tower in can get annoying ''fast'': long, [[CheckPointStarvation no save points]], ''very'' frequent RandomEncounters, and ''only'' magic attacks allowed (by both sides) except if you berserk yourself. And at the end, [[ThatOneBoss the boss's]] [[ThatOneAttack dying attack, Ultima]], is almost guaranteed to wipe out your party unless you knew about the attack beforehand and had learned and cast Life 3/Reraise or were willing to spend a '''long''' time draining his MP (or used the summon that makes your party jump...). If not, have fun traversing up the staircases all over again! (Possessing [[GuideDangIt a hidden item]] that eliminates random encounters makes this area drastically faster.)
** On the plus side, with some relatively easy preparation (read: equip relics that give your party members Reflect by default, and let the enemies' own stupidity do them in), it's also an excellent place to help your characters learn spells. Doesn't make it any less annoying overall, though.
* Daryl's Tomb. With one exception, each monster in the area has the ability to set the then-nearly-unseen Zombie status on your characters. Said status is pretty much a combo of Dead and Confused and your game is over if all your characters get hit with it. Factor in the fact that one enemy can Zombify as many as three of your four active characters, and you've got a pretty quick death if you didn't come prepared.
* Zozo is one of the first large challenges in the game. Despite being a town, it has random encounters, though the music and dreary appearance may be a warning. However, the enemies found there are incredibly dangerous for that point of the game, and you still don't have basic Esper-taught magic. Outside the [=HadesGigas=] will randomly cast Magnitude 8 when it dies, doing around 200 damage to the entire party, while inside buildings the [=SlamDancer=] casts Fira, Blizzara or Thundara--against the entire party that's 200 damage, on a single target it's an instant kill. If you didn't bring Celes (read: the only party member with [[WhiteMagic Cure]] by this point) with your party, you're pretty much screwed because you'll need constant healing and all you'll have for such is items. Later, Mt. Zozo has enemies with very high physical evasion, though the evade bug negates it on the SNES and [=PS1=] versions.
* The Phoenix Cave also has deadly enemies, but also features a very confusing double-party puzzle involving spiked floors, a two layered dungeon, and a pool of water that needs to be drained to open more paths.
** The ''true'' [[ThatOneLevel scrappy]] of the Phoenix Cave, at least in its original SNES incarnation, was that this dungeon was where the critters with 1000 Needles/Blowfish (known as [[DemonicSpiders Face/Phase]]) showed up and [[GameBreakingBug corrupted your save]]. Worse, you can’t escape from them.
* If you don't have an Amulet or a Ribbon, the first part of the World of Ruin, before getting Sabin or Edgar (depending on if you're going for the Celes, Edgar, Setzer or minimum-steps chcallenge), is essentially a LuckBasedMission. And more often than not, you're out of luck as they hit you with a zombie attack that almost always hits, ending your game.
** Especially the collapsing house. Not only is there an unforgiving time limit, but it's full of chests with ''very'' good loot (including the Blood Sword and a Holy Rod). However, the place is infested with both DemonicSpiders and {{Chest Monster}}s, meaning you get to run through the house again and again, trying to memorize which chests to grab and which to skip, and hoping you don't get overwhelmed by Scorpions. Equipping Celes with Sprint Shoes and Hermes Sandals/[=RunningShoes=] will give you a little breathing room, but it opens you up to the Zokka/Hermit Crab's dying attack, [[TakenForGranite Rock]]. You can skip it and come back later with a full party, if you don't mind taking a ''long'' trek up the Serpent Trench with only Celes in your party.
* The FloatingContinent, which is arguably harder than the final dungeon. [[DemonicSpiders The enemies]] are more than a match for even overleveled characters. Ninjas will spam powerful elemental attacks that hit your entire party. Brainpans use 1000 Needles (Blow Fish in the SNES version) when alone and can inflict Stop. Behemoths have powerful counterattacks like Takedown (if it is attacked at all) and ''Meteor/Meteo'' (if you summon an Esper that deals damage). Apocryphas/Apokryphos have level-based, Status- and Instant Death-inflicting counters when they're alone. Dragons have Revenge Blast, which can do absolutely ''insane'' damage if you damaged it enough, and can possibly counterattack with Snort, which blows a party member out of battle. Misfits will shred you apart with Lifeshaver (although having Gaia Gear equipped makes it actually beneficial). Also, there's a ''brutal'' ChestMonster (Gigantos) halfway through, and it ends with a vicious fight with [[DiscOneFinalBoss Atma Weapon]], and a timed CollapsingLair sequence with ''another'' boss (Nelapa/Nerapa) at the end. This is the first big test for your character planning; if you haven't used the Espers intelligently, you'll get stuck.
** The big problem with the FloatingContinent is the arbitrary character limit; when you start the approach, the game only lets you take three characters and puts you through a series of fights, ending with two boss fights in quick succession (although having a Tent means you can heal up as soon as you land). You pick up Shadow right after landing, but if you didn't know this was coming and grind him on Crescent Island when you got the chance, he'll be underpowered, lacking any magic, and probably poorly equipped as well. If you give him an Esper with good growth rates right off, you can get some spells on him pretty quickly, but he'll still be weaker than anyone else in the party. Shadow gets replaced by Celes for the last segment, who is less underpowered, but still fairly weak. [[spoiler:[[GuideDangIt And don't forget to wait for Shadow]], [[PermanentlyMissableContent cause if you don't....]]]]
* After the Ultros fight, the characters get split apart and go on their own for three different scenarios. Locke's scenario is absolutely brutal; first, you've got to save Celes. Then you get to escort her through the dungeon. The problem is that she's totally without equipment - unless you had the foresight to complete Sabin's scenario first and buy her some gear, you'll be spending the first part of the dungeon running away because she'll go down in 3-4 hits. After you get her some armor, it's not much better - sure, she knows magic, but absolutely nothing down there is weak to Ice. Then you get to go to the Figaro Cave and face [[ThatOneBoss the Tunnel Armor]]. The saving grace of this scenario is that it's short.
* Cyan's sidequest in the World of Ruin features an irritating puzzle, enemies that will almost certainly cast the Imp status on you, and ends with a long and annoying boss fight against [[ThatOneBoss Wrexsoul]] where you're required to kill off party members.
* The vagaries of touch-screen controls can make the beloved opera scene incredibly frustrating on the iOS version. It's manageable up to the point where Ralse drops the flowers, but from then on if you make any kind of mis-step or hesitate for even half a second, you fail the level and have to start again from entering the opera house. You may find yourself starting to hate that song.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy VII]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII
* Though ''VII'' as a whole is [[SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer fond of its little minigames]], Junon is the point where they reach critical mass. In rapid succession, you have to do a minigame where you perform CPR, a minigame where you have to stand in a specific spot and whistle to call a dolphin, and a minigame where you have to act along with a bunch of Shinra soldiers in a parade. This is on top of the game introducing Fort Condor, effectively a TowerDefense minigame that, while optional, also cycles through battles at points in the story (including multiple times during this section), making those battles PermanentlyMissableContent. Several of these minigames are not well-explained, others drain your funds, and the parade is a LuckBasedMission if you want the best rewards. Thought it's intended as a break, you'll likely be ''praying'' by the end of it for the game's regular combat to return.
* The entire Northern Continent can be infuriating depending on if you have a guide or not. We start with the long, maze-like and rather boring Lost Capital (Where a certain [[ItWasHisSled plot point]] takes place), moving on to a fun, but difficult-to-control snowboard segment that deposits our heroes into the Great Glacier, a gigantic area with annoying enemies (Those freakin' Hungrys), an unintuitive method for getting a summon, and a challenging segment where the screen rotates periodically, messing you up. If you manage to get through that, you'll have the pleasure of dealing with Gaea's Peak, an annoyingly huge mountain trek broken into the maze-like caverns (where you could have the misfortune of facing a Malboro), and the climbing segments where you have to take breaks to keep Cloud's body temperature up. All of this is capped with a [[ThatOneBoss horrendous boss fight]] against a two-headed dragon [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere that comes out of nowhere]] just to wreak your stuff, and the area where you fight it is subject to a rare glitch that makes it so that you can't run away from any random battles following a battle that disables running away until you change screens or load a save, making it possible to be left drained of resources due to the boss battle and then get into a random battle with a near-dead party with no way out of it before you reach the save point. Luckily, after that is the Whirlwind Maze, where, while not a cake-walk what with the timing puzzles and a tough boss surrounded by long cutscenes, is still interesting with cool music and relatively few fights. It's also where a huge amount of the plot gets revealed and things get bad.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy VIII]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII
* The battle between Balamb and Galbadia Gardens is '''not fun'''. At the start you have to divide your party, and then do it several more times forcing you to keep swapping your [=GFs=] around, your homebase is now filled with random encounters, then without warning you have to battle a flying enemy soldier in a rock-paper-scissors mini-game where your lifebar gets decreased by every wrong move you make even before the damned mini-game even starts, the mini-game itself is frustrating as the fight is completely random and based on luck and a single wrong move can doom you and force you to start again. Then when you've finally done that you get to enter the enemy base, a maze filled with random encounters, some of which can be very dangerous depending on how high you've leveled, you have to locate hidden students to get the key cards to open the locked doors in order to get to the boss... or bosses actually since there's at least three boss fights inside, four if you want to get the Cerberus GF which is lost if you don't.
* Lunatic Pandora is a '''nightmare'''. See, the monsters are tough, right? No big deal, it's late in the game, you'll be getting plenty of experience for each battle. But wait... what's wrong? Seems as though the monsters are only giving you 1 exp per battle. That's right - if you don't come prepared, you're screwed, and you can't level grind your way up to where you need to be.
** The problem in Lunatic Pandora has nothing to do with not being able to level-- leveling for the sake of leveling provides very little benefit in ''[=FFVIII=]''. If you're underpowered it's because you've been neglecting your junctions. The problem with Lunatic Pandora is that those level 1 enemies don't have any decent magic available to draw, so if you don't have good magic to junction going in you have no way to acquire it once you're inside.[[note]]This generally happens to players who think they can ignore the junction system entirely and rely on spamming [=GF=] summons to win battles. This makes fights extremely tedious, but it doesn't fail outright until the boss of Lunatic Pandora, who absolutely can '''not''' be beaten this way. Better luck next playthrough![[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy IX]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX
* The Desert Palace. Unnecessarily complicated light puzzles, filled to the brim with deadly random encounters, and finished with a potential ThatOneBoss, who can be almost unkillable if you missed a few of the "bloodstones", [[GuideDangIt completely optional item pickups that the game doesn't tell you about]].[[note]]And if your party is wearing the equipment obtained from the bloodstones, it will still become stronger.[[/note]] The hardest monsters in the Oeilvert run are found in the short segment leading to the airship dock. Which, incidentally, is the Desert Palace.
* Oeilvert isn't any better. The entire dungeon is covered in an anti magic field, so woe to you if you happened to take any magic users with you to this dungeon. You're stuck using Potions and Hi-Potions during your trek in the dungeon, which won't heal for much and they heal for even less if used outside of battles. One enemy will create a clone of a random party member and if that clone mimics one of your active party members, [[OneHitKill it kills them instantly and it cannot be blocked.]] The boss of the dungeon is very fond of using Propeller Wind, which can cause Confusion to the party and the last thing you want is your heavy physical attackers to start randomly attacking each other. Hope you have the "Clear Headed" ability active on all four of your party members to negate said attack...
* And who thought Fossil Roo was a good idea? It separates two great portions of the game, causing the player to deal with puzzles where flipping switches will cause giant ants to take you to different places. Don't forget that if you miss an item and try to leave to reset the puzzle, it doesn't work. Random encounters occur every three steps, and the enemies all have annoying status effects; there are so many that you probably won't be able to block them all.
* There is one part of the game that no amount of level grinding, equipment, or items can prepare you for: The card games. Normally they are just a side minigame to do if you feel like it, but when Zidane is first at Treno, he enters the tournament and you have to win three rounds to progress the game, where all your cards will likely be overpowered by your opponent's unless you were able to get stronger cards earlier (such as doing the Vivi racing minigame enough at Alexandria). If you know how the card game works and have gotten stronger cards (either before this event or by playing cards with other NPC's in Treno), it's not really hard, but for first-time players who have not bothered to play cards beforehand, it could be tough.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy X and [=X-2=]]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyX
* The Thunder Plains. Even if we overlook how frustrating the lightning bolts are, there's also the large population of [[GlassCannon annoying thundery lizards]], known as [[DemonicSpiders Kusariqqus]], that can [[TotalPartyKill wipe an injured or unprepared party in one shot]], sometimes before you actually get to attack. Oh, and they're heavily armored, so only Auron and Kimahri are able to seriously hurt them.
** Insult is added to injury if you want to get the ultimate weapons, because you have to come back and dodge the lightning bolts here, which is already insanely difficult, but now you have to do it two hundred times without missing a single strike. The only warning you have that it is about to hit is a flash across the screen a split portion of a split second before the strike hits. Not even timing helps, because that's random, too. You can try to take refuge under the lightning rods so that you can catch your breath, but the game usually rewards your pragmatism by [[DeathByPragmatism striking the moment you come out of the protective range]], which isn't clearly marked. There is a list somewhere of situations that you would actually prefer to go through while impersonating Alex from Literature/AClockworkOrange during his programming: eyelids forced apart with someone periodically applying eye drops. This is one of them.
* The Macalania Woods, which come right after the Thunder Plains. It's an encounter-rich area with a twisty-turny layout which makes it easy to accidentally double back on yourself. The monsters are not individually hard if you've been doing a bit of LevelGrinding, but they just keep on coming. If you know where you're going it's a good opportunity for more grinding. If not, you may find yourself thinking of the page quote for CheckPointStarvation: "DAMMIT I JUST WANT TO FIND A SAVE POINT SO I CAN GET TO BED."
* Another ultimate weapon requires you to win a chocobo race with a time of 0:00. This can be done since balloons on the track can be picked up which shave three seconds off your time. The catch? For some reason, tiny birds like to come out of nowhere and home in on you, and the impact will ADD three seconds to your time. They stun you as well, adding more to your time, and sometimes birds will strike you while you are already stunned. A wise man would simply throw his controller into the wall first and save a step. Oh, and the kicker: if your time is ''exactly'' 0:00...you don't get the prize. You have to go into negative time.
* There's also Home, which can be extremely challenging if you haven't been leveling up that much. In addition to the fact that there are Chimeras everywhere, they are often accompanied by Guado guards, and you can't escape certain fights. Good luck getting through this place without saving at least once. The constant alarms that sound like someone constantly yelling "I'm annoying, huh?" doesn't help matters any. Yes, Random Speaker Guy, you most definitely are.

!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2
* The Thunder Plains New Cave that's unlocked after completing the quest in Act 5. A veritable maze with non-sequential doors that rely on adding up certain numbers that are given to you throughout. Have a pen and paper with you, because you will be referring back to it, as the combinations of later doors often involve the codes from previous doors.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy XI]]
->See [[ThatOneLevel/{{MMORPG}} here]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy XII]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII
* The Pharos, an [[MarathonLevel exceedingly long]] slog through DemonicSpiders and strange puzzles, one of which will cause you to be transported to a room with monsters that will kill you or wipe out half your party if you do not guess right (the full solution, as well as the map, are in this room). King Raithwall, the last person to ascend the Pharos, left a message IN HIS OWN BLOOD by the entrance that pretty much said "Don't fuck around with the Pharos". Initially, it seems rater innocuous, but later on gives way to sheer [[GuideDangIt obfuscation]] and ruthless enemy ambushes. A puzzle halfway up requires you to get rid of either your magic, physical attacks, items, or minimap for the full second ascent, leaving you to wander aimlessly through blind corridors and dead ends as powerful enemies cut you to ribbons. The Third Ascent is essentially a twenty-minute boss fight, and discussing it would take several pages of text. All you need to know is that there are [[CheckPointStarvation no save points]], except at the beginning and end of each ascent.
* There's also a BonusLevelOfHell, Subterra, in the basement, that ups the ante by [[NumericalHard doubling the enemies' stats]] and placing you in near-total darkness. The minimap is ineffective, one enemy likes to become invulnerable while nuking you (a PuzzleBoss in itself) and the {{Superboss}} is a {{Flunky Boss}}. The boss' flunkies are ''also bosses'', meaning ones that you just fought on your way.
* The Great Crystal is infamous for being one of the most confusing places made in the entire series on account of how much FakeDifficulty is used. The minimap is disabled, the main map is completely useless because it only displays the entire crystal, not any rooms or layouts, and most of the enemies are DemonicSpiders, especially the cougar-type Oses, which use an attack that removes 75% of your current health and inflicts every single one of the game's myriad [[StatusEffects status debuffs]]. It's essentially a modern-day MagicalMysteryDoors level, too, which is a huge pain when you accidentally start running in loops and don't notice because the area names are a code. In ''SANSKRIT''. Needless to say, a number of players never bothered to return for the optional content in the area (at least not with online fan maps), because it just isn't worth it due to how frustrating it is to understand.
** Those who dare venture past the Scorpio Gate into bonus-level territory face bombs that explode in packs, spell-spamming ghosts that sometimes spawn infinitely, zombies that enjoy inflicting multiple annoying status conditions and MP-stealing reapers. Often in groups of four or more. This gets to the point where finding a mini-boss enemy is actually a ''relief'', because there's usually nothing else in that room. To progress toward one of the two optional bosses, you must make timed races through the area--through heavy enemy fire--to a force field. There is only one save point in the area, and accessing it pretty much requires a guide. Or a map. [[TakeAThirdOption Or both]].
* The Necrohol of Nabudis. Optional, sure, but being swarmed by invisible [[GoddamnedBats Baknamies]] sucks. So much, in fact, that even Level 99 characters often die to ambushes. This is where the non-Zodiac-version game's InfinityPlusOneSword, the Zodiac Spear, is housed, and just running through the area to where the treasure chest is makes for more of a challenge than [[RandomlyDrops getting the other ultimate weapons]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII
* The first area of the Vile Peaks when Lightning ditches the party, leaving you with Sazh, Vanille, and later Hope, none of whom have the Commando role yet. Several of the enemies you'll encounter in this area have high defense and HP, so the easiest way to defeat them is to stagger them, which is very difficult without a Commando. You could ostensibly avoid these enemies, but then you'd miss out on necessary CP. Granted, two members of your party have access to the Medic role, so you won't likely die. And all this is maybe an hour or so after unlocking the paradigm system, so new players are probably still learning the ins and outs and won't know the tricks that make this area a breeze.
** The game's tutorials do explain that SAB skills will stabilize an enemy's stagger gauge... but you won't put that into practice for a while after you hear it. New players tend to struggle with this section because they'll have come to associate COM and RAV units with staggering.
* Chapter 9 can be a big pain in the butt. Its very very long, the enemies are a noticeable step up in difficulty from the previous chapters, and there are a lot of them, and you have to play through a large section of the chapter with an extremely annoying alarm blaring in the background constantly.
* The Fifth Ark, the location for the entirety of Chapter 10. Not only is it visually unappealing (it's a giant sewer/subway system), it's crawling with all sorts of DemonicSpiders and GoddamnBats. On top of that, you basically do nothing but walk through tunnels, with the occasional enemy/treasure/switch popping up here and there. Lastly, there's barely any cutscenes; the most that happens is [[spoiler:the battle with Cid Raines and Fang getting Bahamut]], which are the only redeeming moments throughout the whole chapter. On the bright side, it's followed by Chapter 11, which is generally considered a giant step up.
* While we're on the subject of Chapter 11, let's not forget that portion can be a nightmare to newcomers. When you first enter the Archylte Steppe, even the weakest enemies can pose a threat, and stuff like a King Behemoth or Megistotheran can utterly annihilate you. Squenix was at least nice enough to PlayerNudge you towards a chain of sidequests that'll help you get strong enough to take pretty much anything, but it still takes a bit of time before you can handle most of the wildlife.
* Taejin's Tower was an attempt at a puzzle dungeon that for some fell very, very flat. It's a large tower whose levels can rotate to send elevators to new floors; however, the gameplay aspect just amounts to 'push the button to advance the level'. Making things worse, there's six mandatory 'hunts' in the tower, most of which involve fighting what are essentially regular encounters, which fail to provide any sort of interesting fights. The music is rather dull, the surroundings are uninteresting, and there aren't even any real cutscenes. The only real redeeming factor in this level is the fight with Dahaka at the top.

!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2
* '''Academia 400 AF'''. As soon as you arrive, the [[AIIsACrapshoot Proto fal'Cie Adam]] freaks out and starts a [[ZombieApocalypse Cie'th Apocalypse]]. Since Academia is full of tight corridors, overhead walkways, and hidden passages, often you can get sucked into a fight with enemies you can't see, evade, or get a Preemptive Strike on. They start out with Ghouls, which go down like chumps and drop [[RareCandy Potent Orbs]] like they're going out of style, but soon they get replaced with the infinitely more irritating Taxim[[note]]spams Wound, tough enough to take several hits[[/note]] and Nelapsi[[note]]Dodges physical attacks, comes in groups of up to five[[/note]]. Have fun navigating a dark, mazelike city, in the rain, where your map is virtually useless and taking your time only causes more Cie'th to spawn. Even worse, a later FetchQuest sends you back to find a Graviton Core (a small, almost invisible object) hidden in the city.
** [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Academia 500 AF]] is an UnexpectedGameplayChange into a platformer. A platformer with dozens of rotating platforms and jumping controls that leave something to be desired. Even worse, the enemies in this dungeon are a major step up in difficulty from the ones in previous areas. If you didn't go and do some sidequesting and LevelGrinding, then you'll struggle with even the weakest of enemies, and if you persevere, the FinalBoss will stomp you.
* Augusta Towers AF 200. It's a tower and you are locked onto floors, where you need to perform a series of puzzles of turning certain box-rooms into the correct position so you can proceed to your goal, allowing you access to the next floor. Aside from the music being practically non-existent in this area, the walkable paths are very narrow, with lots of twists and turns and it spawns medium and big sized enemies which often block your way. And due to the paths being so narrow, it's also difficult to try to avoid getting into a battle.
* Augusta Towers AF 300. Compared to the AF 200 version, it's shorter as you only have a few levels to traverse. The location is absolutely [[BleakLevel drab]] to look at, with an edgey-red tint over things that does little to appease. Fortunately, the enemies are not too difficult to defeat and you do have a tiny bit more leeway when it comes to trying to avoid them. But the player needs to rotate rooms around to traverse, find the right code to unlock the elevator and the only reason this place is mandatory to traverse is because of a key-item that you need in AF 200. But the player does need to return here, for the sake of [[OneHundredPercentCompletion filling out the map]].

!!VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII
* Temple Of The Goddess: until you beat the boss, your maximum HP will slowly go down, there's a lot of jumping puzzles and a chance to fall down several levels and lose a lot of progress (although since you can save anywhere, this isn't exactly a huge issue) and the later enemies include Ectopuddings, which are difficult to get a first attack on due to their ridiculously fast stretchy punches (unless you're quick on the draw yourself), need to be frozen with ice-elemental attacks before you can start killing them and do a ton of damage with their Fira spells if your guard timing is off. The boss himself is also difficult to beat if you're not prepared and has an attack that will more than likely kill you instantly if you can't guard it properly.
** The Temple is less challenging on Easy, partly because you don't suffer the HP drain (or rather, you heal it just as fast). On the other hand, players on Easy may get less practice at Staggering enemies, because it is ''necessary'' less often. This will come back to bite you on the final stage of the final boss, which can generally only be beaten by Staggering. Have fun learning it under fire!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy XIV]]
->See [[ThatOneLevel/{{MMORPG}} here]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy XV]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV
* The level featuring the city of Altissia is extremely confusing since Noctis can't swim in water even though trailers showed him swimming there. Making things worse, some parts of Altissia such as the colosseum can only be accessed by a gondola boat, and even then you have to go through a loading screen if you don't want to spend the whole time on the gondola trip. To add insult to injury, the action and combat featured in Altissia forces you to go through an entire linear grid while only having control of Noctis, and even then he has to face a boss fight against Leviathan, which is difficult because the boss is very difficult to hit until a cut scene happens where Noctis gains the ability to fly with all the royal arms. The boss fight on Leviathan is the only part where Noctis can go in the water but if he does, he takes damage and can't get out until he performs a warp strike.
* Zagnautus Keep is a very, [[MarathonLevel very long]] level made worse because the early parts see Noctis going it alone with no weapons or magic, except for the Ring of Lucii. [[AwesomeButImpractical The ring's spells are devastating, but leave Noctis completely open while casting.]] What follows is a stealth section where you must hunt down keycard after keycard while trying to avoid psychotic magitek troopers prowling the labyrinth of narrow hallways. Every time you seem to make a bit of progress something happens to impede you. Later on you find yourself hounded by Foras, a powerful daemon that will constantly knock Noctis into critical health as you try to flee. Even worse, [[GuideDangIt there are several important pieces of lore that are very easy to miss altogether,]] the segment ends with a fight against ThatOneBoss Ravus (although you have your friends back for that), followed by an escape sequence through hordes of powerful enemies. Oh, and [[SmugSnake Ardyn]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking never stops taunting you the whole time.]] Fortunately, the game later buffed the Ring of the Lucii, along with provided an optional alternative scenario where you play as Gladio.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Final Fantasy Tactics]]
!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics
* The Dorter Slums, the fourth level in the game. Between Archers on the rooftops peppering you with arrows and Black Mages pelting you with rain-boosted Bolt spells, you can end up with a good chunk of your party incapacitated or dead before they even get near. And if your party members try to get near them, the Knight guarding them can easily dispatch them. This battle is basically the game's way of telling you it won't be pulling any punches, and that you'd better shape up if you want to survive.
** This battle is especially tough on new players. IF you have a decent understanding of the game mechanics, you'll know enough to go back to Igros Castle and buy equipment for some knights, archers, and mages of your own so you aren't going into the battle outgunned. A new player though is likely to attempt the battle without anyone but the starting squires and chemists, which greatly increases the difficulty of the battle.
* The Golgorand Execution Site. You have five people, no guests. That's the ArbitraryHeadcountLimit. The enemy doesn't abide by this rule...and throws ''eight'' units on you. Included among them is Gafgarion, who is dangerous by himself. The level's layout also favors the computer, with two powerful mages relatively safe atop the gate and the player's party divided into two groups. The difficulty does make sense InUniverse, given it was a trap sprung by Gafgarion.
* Riovanes Castle as a whole. The first battle is against Marach and some mooks, then a DuelBoss between Ramza and Weigraf (who loves to spam Holy Sword attacks), which is followed by Belias and several Archaic Demons, leading to the climax EscortMission where you have to protect Rapha and may end up getting a NonStandardGameOver before even getting a turn.
* Bervenia, when players meet Meliadoul. She has a strong team of Summoners and Archers, begin at much higher elevation, and are fairly high level. But the kicker is Meliadoul herself. Her unique moveset is based around powerful ranged attacks that are guaranteed to break players' equipment (and as a bonus, probably kill them in the process). She also has an automatic Reraise, but mercifully the fight ends when she is defeated the first time.
[[/folder]]
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!!Others
* Falls Basin from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyMysticQuest'', consisting of very obnoxious {{Block Puzzle}}s that give virtually no hint about how to even get ''started'' on them. [[spoiler:You're supposed to push them to a spot where you can use them as ''platforms'', rather than "push this out of the way" as [[TheComputerIsALyingBastard the only hint the game gives you]] says.]] It also has [[GoddamnedBats Lamias]]. This is also the only area in the game which you can't return to. Which sucks for you if you didn't get the Heal spell and left (though it's kind of hard to miss, being right below the boss.)
* Conall Curach in the first ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles''. It's a MarathonLevel set in an incredibly bleak swamp, in a game otherwise renowned for its SceneryPorn. The second part of the area has you navigating a maze section, where landmarks are incredibly hard to come by and the dreary atmosphere makes almost everything look exactly the same; you can be wandering around the place for half an hour only to discover you were backtracking without even realizing it. The place's best treasure is hidden behind a GuideDangIt of mammoth proportions, the solution to which is in an ''entirely different level''. And when you finally get through TheMaze, you get to a section utterly infested with DemonicSpiders, including one area where you have to fight '''four''' [[BossInMookClothing "mooks"]] all at once, a fight harder than the actual boss of the place. And considering the actual boss of the place is ThatOneBoss who constantly summons DemonicSpiders and can become intangible and is immune to all your physical attacks and whose attacks are very hard to avoid, that is saying something.
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