History ThatOneLevel / FinalFantasy

* Taejin's Tower was an attempt at a puzzle dungeon that 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 dull, the surroundings are uninteresting, and there aren't even any interesting cutscenes. The only real redeeming factor in this level is the fight with Dahaka at the top, but it's not enough to make the slog worthwhile.

** The Temple is less challenging on Easy, partly because you don't suffer the HP drain. 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 only be beaten by Staggering. Have fun learning it under live fire!

* 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 get to your desired destination. 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 knock you back. 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.]] The game's producers took notice of this and promised that they would fix the level through future updates, and fixed it they did: in addition to adding an alternative scenario where you can play as Gladio that filled in a few of the game's plot holes, they also greatly buffed Noctis' Ring of Lucii, making enemies more vulnerable to the Death attack as well as the area-clearing Alterna spell.

* 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''. Needles to say, a number of players never bothered to return for the optional content in the area, because it just isn't worth it due to how frustrating it is to understand the system.
* 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 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]].

* 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 BonusBoss is [[ThatOneBoss That One]] {{Flunky Boss}}. The boss' flunkies are ''also bosses'', meaning ones that you just fought on your way.

** Fortunately, this dungeon is optional in the SNES/PSX versions due to the Sealed Cave Skip.

* 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.

!!VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV
* As time went on, Square streamlined their approach to designing dungeons, resulting in more linearity and simpler gimmicks that were generally received better. As a result, prior to a series of reworks in the ‘’Shadowbringers’’ era, ‘‘A Realm Reborn’’ had a handful of these:
** Thousand-Maws of Toto-Rak was never a ‘’hard’’ dungeon, per se, but was instead long and winding, full of redundant paths, and with progression gated behind finding “photocells” spread throughout the dungeon. Inattentive players would find themselves having to backtrack or take dead ends to get enough cells to progress. Pair this with an annoying gimmick where the last third of the dungeon coats the floor in movement-impairing goo, and it’s not hard to see why this was one of the most prominent old dungeons to be reworked.
** Aurum Vale is another infamous dungeon known for its first chamber being unusually packed with aggressive mobs; parties that don’t watch their footing will result in pulling such a large number of enemies that even the best party would be overwhelmed. Even after reworks trimmed back the size of the hordes and streamlined the boss mechanics somewhat, Aurum Vale is still an unexpected difficulty spike for inexperienced players, and can even catch vets off guard on occasion.
* Of the Void Alliance Raid series, while the Void Ark is not seen as terribly difficult, Weeping City of Mhach and Dun Scaith have a reputation for causing wipes, mostly due to [[ThatOneBoss Ozma and Deathgaze]], respectively.
* [[FinalFantasyTactics Orbonne Monastery]] has a reputation of being the hardest of the Ivalice Alliance Raids for good reason; even by the standards of Alliance Raids, it’s a MarathonLevel, with Mustadio and Agrias being fairly tough by WarmUpBoss standards, Orlandeau being a ‘’grueling’’ and difficult ClimaxBoss, and Ultima, the High Seraph being a tough final boss that incorporates the mechanics of bosses from the prior alliance raids alongside her own, including TWO major desperation phases. It’s fitting as the raid story’s climax, but it bears a reputation as being quite the DifficultySpike compared to other Alliance Raids, especially in its heyday.

* The Ice Cave. Disproportionally happy music: check. 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: check. [[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: check. No plot significance whatsoever: check. Having to get that dumb crystal out of there anyway: check.

* 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 knock you back. 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.]] The game's producers took notice of this and promised that they would fix the level through future updates but all they did so far was add in a spin off featuring Gladio that took place at the same time as the level itself and filled in a few of the game's plot holes.

* 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), and if you reach this point without stronger cards, your entire save file is screwed as you cannot progress, forcing you to go back to your last save file before arriving at Treno if you want to beat the game. This part has ended many players' playthroughs prematurely.

* The Ice Cave. Disproportionally happy music: check. Birds whose touch [[TakenForGranite turns you into stone]][[note]]Reversible with Gold Needles, but they're very expensive[[/note]]: check. Mindflayers whose touch can kill: check. [[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: check. No plot significance whatsoever: check. Having to get that dumb crystal out of there anyway: check.

* 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 "Ninth Dimension" and turns into the aforementioned Chimera Brain/Manticore when it dies. 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.

* 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/Imps 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 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 require 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.

* 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 Hill Gigas will randomly cast Magnitude 8 when it dies, doing around 200 damage to the entire party, while inside buildings the Veil Dancer 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 a Sniper Eye to guarantee all attacks hit makes them more manageable.

* 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 Ultima/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.