History ThatOneLevel / HackAndSlash

[[AC:VideoGame/DynastyWarriors]]

** Oh, and as for 4, two words: Nanman Campaign. First off, you're up against a massive, highly motivated force. With elephants, which your forces have trouble with. Likewise, armor troops. Plus after a few seconds, your side ''constantly'' loses morale due to the harsh climate. And every time you beat Meng Huo outside of his headquarters, he returns more powerful than before. Plus the enemy gates continually regenerate, meaning that they have effectively unlimited forces. It's so bad, ''any'' strategy other than "go right to enemy HQ and take out the commander quickly" is practically suicide. An archtypical case of a company legitimately wanting to create a challenging level and [[SerialEscalation Not. Knowing. When. To. Friggin'. Quit.]]
*** It gets worse: There's two different versions of this level - Wu's version actually nerfs Meng Huo (he won't respawn all those times), Shu's version is where you actually get to unlock Meng Huo and Zhu Rong. How do you unlock them? Zhu Rong is simply unlocked by defeating her in a duel (as Shu, after dueling Meng Huo). Meng Huo, on the other hand, requires you to defeat him all 7 times, one of which MUST be done by duel. The ONLY way you're pulling this off is to break the 1000-KO barrier to max out your force's morale while taking out enemy officers so that your commander (and the bodyguards you hopefully didn't forget to have wait at YOUR HQ) aren't taken out.

* "Dynasty Warriors 6," Chang Ban, Wei Scenario. Trying to get to Liu Bei is hard enough IF you kill the peasants, but you have to avoid them if you want to complete one of the targets. You also have to kill Zhang Fei, who gets a power charge that makes him comparable to Lu Bu. And if you DO kill the peasants, and you kill more than one, KOEI's poster boy Zhao Yun comes chasing after you. If you don't kill them, he comes after you anyway. And this is all while having to deal with the time limit which extends to the moment Liu Bei gets to the boats, which is pretty damn quickly. Hell, if you kill all the chieftains as well, Liu Bei will stop and go after Cao Cao...and rip him apart in SECONDS.

* ''Dynasty Warriors 5'' has Battle of Mt. Ding Jun on the Shu side. Not that the battle is hard by itself, but about ten minutes in, a painfully obvious but impossible to prevent sabotage occurs and Wei starts bearing down on both the commander Ma Su and the main camp, which are suddenly a long, roundabout way away from each other. Ma Su is a generic officer easily overwhelmed by the 3+ named officers bearing down on him; if he dies, you lose. The main camp is protected only by a handful of officers who are outmatched by the attack force; if both checkpoints inside the base are taken, you lose. The game has the courtesy to tell you what's going on, but unless you pick one issue, deal with it quickly and completely then hustle to the other, you'll lose before reinforcements arrive. This is one of the few maps where even advanced players can lose by mission failure if they drop the ball at all.

** The peasant ones are the tough ones? Just get a horse (buy one and equip at start or press Select ingame) and you'll find them easy. Now the ones with ''Lady Cai Wenji'' are tough, moreso since she refuses to attack in self-defense (unlike the similar escort missions where you are escorting either a musou officer OR a custom character, who DO attack enemies).

* Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 had a final stage that was a complete massacre for most players. You start with only one other character on your side, who will probably not last more than five minutes. You have to capture multiple fields within a very limited amount of time, since the enemy missile bases (the areas that launch nukes at your side, which will completely turn one of your ally zones into an enemy zone when they touch down) will make short work on your HQ. (Which will take away your ability to respawn, even if you recapture it.) Meanwhile, you have to defend your zones from the constant attack from enemy Ace Pilots, who have outrageously high stats and ungodly health. The chance of you surviving a single hit is very small, but that doesn't matter, since the A.I. will usually propel you into a 4 to 12 hit combo. The enemy team has four of these Aces on its side, who work together quite nicely to corner you. Taking down one of these Aces takes a couple of minutes when they are together, and by the time you've started working down another one, the first Ace has already respawned. To complicate things even more, the enemy starts off with a 'Mobile Suit Factory', a field that slowly recovers that team's 'battle gauge', the meter that depletes upon an Ace's respawn. The A.I. is so powerful that whatever part of that gauge was lost from shooting down that single enemy is already recovered by the time you managed to defeat another, so you'll be harassed by these officers the ENTIRE MISSION. If you managed to overcome the complete unfairness, you're rewarded with a battle at their HQ against three heavily powered opponents. Two enemy Ace Pilots come out in the Musha and Musha Mk. II Gundams, extremely powerful mobile suits, and are led by the Knight Gundam, easily the most overpowered Gundam in the entire game. You must defeat all three of them to complete the mission. Is now a bad time to remind you that you cannot absolutely take a single hit? Knight Gundam seems to know this and will spam his SP attack every other minute.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopes'' has a nasty Paralogue on the Azure Gleam route if you met certain conditions. You're given Shez, Catherine, Shamir, and [[spoiler: Jeralt]], with green-team Alois and Gustave, and the goal is to prevent several waves of Those Who Slither In The Dark from escaping, and you lose if even one enemy reaches its designated area. The level starts with some locked gates in strongholds separating your team into two, with Catherine and Shamir on the south, and enemy Wyvern Lords with a Flight Route shortcut to their escape point. The last wave has more escaping enemies than you have characters, heading to four distinct places, meaning this is perhaps the only level in either Fire Emblem Warriors game where not pairing your units together is practically mandatory.

[[AC:VideoGame/GodOfWar]]

** Hades is a rare ThatOneLevel that's ''actually'' [[BonusLevelOfHell Hell]].[[note]]The extras disc for ''God of War II'' reveal that the Hades level was the only one that wasn't play tested, hence the difficulty.[[/note]]
** Some people find every obstacle course and puzzle sequence in that game to be a ScrappyLevel/sequence. They worked fine and all, but they were damn hard/annoying. Especially outrunning those spike walls, and dragging that cage up the mountain.

** The "final" final boss fight in the original ''God Of War'' is a nightmare. You are stripped of your weapons and magic and given a thoroughly useless one which appends unnecessary flourishes to everything, whilst fighting a boss who hits fast and hits hard.

** The Crypt of Decay is a combination of UnexpectedGameplayChange, TheMaze, and BrutalBonusLevel. Navigating is a pain, you have to trip levers to open doors ''then get to those doors before they close.'' Other than the occansional [[GodDamnBats spider enemy]] and the [[DemonicSpiders Minotaur/Archer combo]], nothing is trying to kill you and you just wander...And wander... And wander....
* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'':
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'':
*** Mission 19. There's this bit where these DemonicSpiders known as Abysses appear and you have to kill them off before the huge hourglass in the background runs down. If you don't, the Abysses reappear but your damage taken and items used stay as they were right before the hourglass had reset. Then it caps off with [[spoiler:the horrible blob Arkham]], who is most certainly ThatOneBoss. The BossRush levels in ''3'' and ''4'' also fit to some extent.
*** You would expect the 'Trial of the Warrior' to translate to a fun amount of fighting against enemies. However, it becomes less fun when they activate their [[SuperMode Devil Triggers]] (which they normally cannot do outside of the highest difficulty level). Not only that, but among the enemies spawned during the trial are [[DemonicSpiders Lusts]] and [[TeleportSpam Sloths]], two very mobile enemy types that have a penchant for surprise gap-closing attacks.
*** Mission 8. Dark, cramped areas, occasionally dodgy camera, and the floor can hurt you in places. Manageable on the easier levels, but when the game ramps it up, it just gets absurd. Playing it through on Heaven or Hell and you'll need every bit of luck you can muster to get through without wanting to kill someone.
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'''s Mission 10 is almost unanimously the WORST mission in the entire game. There are more than enough {{death trap}}s and EliteMooks to wipe out your life bars, and the boss at the end ([[spoiler:Dante himself]]) is unanimously also [[ThatOneBoss the most difficult boss in the entire game]].

* Act 3 of ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo II]]''. You have to slog through a jungle with switchbacks and dead ends populated by a) little pygmy demons who either swarm and stab you or shoot you from afar with blowguns, which are led by shaman with the ability to revive the pygmys; b) enormous mosquitoes that drain your stamina and poison you; c) giant bramble-men that can take most of your best and hit hard. This is on top of an act-long fetch quest which forces you to fully explore the jungle [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer and the sewers]] of a nearby city looking for the unusually well-preserved remains (eye, brain, heart) of a Zakarum high priest.

* ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'', the spin-off based on ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' universe, has the first chapter of Cia's tale in the Master Quest DLC pack, which really lives up to the "Master Quest" name. You will be constantly switching back and forth between offense and defense in this mission. In the first part you have to capture four keeps controlled by Volga's army, all while protecting your main base from Goron invasions which include Bombchus, and protecting your ally Wizzro from a series of [[DemonicSpiders Lizalfos and Dinalfos Chieftains]]. The last part of the mission has you scrambling to save your main base from [[spoiler:Wizzro after he betrays you]] as well as Volga and two King Dodongos. That's four bosses at once!
** The Twilight Palace is ''ridiculously'' hard, featuring a seemingly infinitely respawning army of near-invulnerable minibosses, including ones that halt your movements. To win you have to defeat Zant and Argorok at the same time while protecting your Allied Base will is quick to fall.
** For the best rewards, the "fight against two armies" quest that unlocks Darunia's level 2 weapon qualifies. In order to win, you have to defeat two armies' commanders (general-class versions of the Icy Big Poe and Gibdo), with the army that you're not beating becoming stronger the more you fight the other. Foes will regularly make forays into your territory, frequently requiring you to run back and play defense. Also, there will be three Manhandla stalks that will spawn and start an artillery rain on your base, and allowing it to continue for any amount of time will result in a severely weakened base camp (this can cross over into LuckBasedMission - if all three spawn near your start point, it's manageable. If none do, get running). Even all of that is comparatively manageable. However, due to how spread out everything (including enemy encampments and raids) are, the A-rank requirements of 1200 downed foes in 15 minutes require a combination of serious leveling as well as a highly coordinated plan that must be modified for random factors. (Did the stalks spawn near you? Did either general decide to advance on your base? Can you afford to hold off on rescuing Impa to finish taking this base, or do you run back and risk Raid Captains spawning from it?)
** ''Legends'' brings chapter two of Ganondorf's chapter. For the most part it plays out the same as the original version, until you get to the final phase, where Lana doubles herself and tries to flee. In the original, both doubles had half health and a fair way to run. This time, Lana splits into ''three'' full-health copies, which start sprinting in different directions. Each still has Lana's "commander" flag, giving her plenty of health and a strong AI. You ''will not'' be able to hunt them down alone. Fortunately, Zant and Girahim are there to help, and will run to intercept two of the Lanas... but if you left them to their own devices, they'll be horribly out of position, their pathfinding when ordered to chase a target is moronic, and even if they catch her Lana will ignore them and keep running unless the player assumes control. Manually ordering them to the escape points is the way to go... but unless you're deep into Adventure Mode, Zant and Girahim will still be locked, meaning they have default weapons, no badges, and pitiful health and damage, meaning it's difficult to stall them, let alone defeat them. he only reliable way to do this is to start moving Gannondorf to intercept the fleeing doubles before they actually appear, and tie up two while sending both other characters to intercept the last one. Oh, and just to add insult to injury, since checkpoint triggers are processed in the dialogue queue, it's possible for the final checkpoint to save while the level is already UnwinnableByMistake. Have fun!

* The Twilight Palace is ''ridiculously'' hard, featuring a seemingly infinitely respawning army of near-invulnerable minibosses, including ones that halt your movements. To win you have to defeat Zant and Argorok at the same time while protecting your Allied Base will is quick to fall.

* Hades from the first ''VideoGame/GodOfWarI'' is a rare ThatOneLevel that's ''actually'' [[BonusLevelOfHell Hell]].
** Hades felt like {{Filler}} and raised some serious FridgeLogic issues regarding Kratos' suicide.
** The extras disc for ''God of War II'' reveal that the Hades level was the only one that wasn't play tested, hence the difficulty.
* Some people find every obstacle course and puzzle sequence in that game to be a ScrappyLevel/sequence. They worked fine and all, but they were damn hard/annoying. Especially outrunning those spike walls, and dragging that cage up the mountain.
** The worst was where you had to move a box along a floor in a certain time limit, or else spikes would come out of the floor and instantly kill you. Even some players declare this level even harder than the above Hades sections.
** The above was lampshaded in the Collection edition with the achievement: "Kickboxer"
* The first ''VideoGame/GodOfWarI'' also had one major Scrappy combat section: a confrontation with three Cyclopses early in the Athens Town Square map. On easier difficulties it's merely annoying, but on Hard and Very Hard, it becomes ridiculously frustrating and unfair, unlike the rest of the game which is hard but fair.
* The "final" final boss fight in the original God Of War is a nightmare. You are stripped of your weapons and magic and given a thoroughly useless one which appends unnecessary flourishes to everything, whilst fighting a boss who hits fast and hits hard.
* In VideoGame/GodOfWarII, there's the part where you have to protect the Translator. It basically involves [[EscortMission carrying around]] the ultimate SquishyWizard on your back and trying to protect him from the game's most frustrating DemonicSpiders, the Satyrs and the Minotaur Priests, enemies you would be lucky enough to survive against yourself! It's only moderately difficult on some of the more human difficulty levels, but on Titan, it can be seemingly impossible. If you haven't upgraded ''just right'' up until this point (usually by [[LevelGrinding exploiting infinite respawn and / or magic areas for experience orbs]]), you could be stuck in an {{Unwinnable}} situation. To add insult to injury, ''you can totally see the final boss lair from the balcony!!!'' At least when / if you ever get past this part, you immediately get to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential smash the fragile little bastard's face into a book]] to [[CatharsisFactor vent your frustrations]].

** And of course, who could forget the gauntlet of enemies preceding Clotho's Chamber in the end game? Little-to-no health/magic recovery from beginning to end, and you have to face several rounds of almost every enemy you've ever seen in the game, from [[DemonicSpiders Satyrs]] to [[LightningBruiser Cyclopes]]. Hope you mastered using The Golden Fleece, or you're not walking out of this with minimal damage.

[[AC:VideoGame/GodOfWarSeries]]
* Hades from the first ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' is a rare ThatOneLevel that's ''actually'' [[BonusLevelOfHell Hell]].

* The first ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' also had one major Scrappy combat section: a confrontation with three Cyclopses early in the Athens Town Square map. On easier difficulties it's merely annoying, but on Hard and Very Hard, it becomes ridiculously frustrating and unfair, unlike the rest of the game which is hard but fair.

* Mission 19 in ''Franchise/DevilMayCry 3''. There's this bit where these DemonicSpiders known as Abysses appear and you have to kill them off before the huge hourglass in the background runs down. If you don't, the Abysses reappear but your damage taken and items used stay as they were right before the hourglass had reset. Then it caps off with [[spoiler:the horrible blob Arkham]], who is most certainly ThatOneBoss. The BossRush levels in ''3'' and ''4'' also fit to some extent.
** Earlier in the game we have the 'Trial of the Warrior', which should translate to a fun amount of fighting against enemies. However, it becomes less fun when they activate their [[SuperMode Devil Triggers]] (which they normally cannot do outside of the highest difficulty level). Not only that, but among the enemies spawned during the trial are [[DemonicSpiders Lusts]] and [[TeleportSpam Sloths]], two very mobile enemy types that have a penchant for surprise gap-closing attacks.
** Mission 8 was a bit of a bum note as well. Dark, cramped areas, occasionally dodgy camera, and the floor can hurt you in places. Manageable on the easier levels, but when the game ramps it up, it just gets absurd. Playing it through on Heaven or Hell and you'll need every bit of luck you can muster to get through without wanting to kill someone.
** ''Franchise/DevilMayCry 4'''s Mission 10 is almost unanimously the WORST mission in the entire game. There are more than enough {{death trap}}s and EliteMooks to wipe out your life bars, and the boss at the end ([[spoiler:Dante himself]]) is unanimously also [[ThatOneBoss the most difficult boss in the entire game]].

** The Maggot Lair from Act II is hated by many players with good reason. The passageways are very narrow, making setting traps or using minions problematic at best, they are very winding, making it quite easy to get lost without the automap, and the most common enemies aside from the maggots themselves are the beetles, which have Lightning Enchanted as a primary feature (meaning that they shoot out lightning every time they get hit) -- and given the very tight quarters, you have no choice but to eat lightning damage, especially if you're a melee character. There are ''four levels'' to this thing, and worst of all, going through this hell is required to get the Staff of Kings, one of the three items necessary to reassemble the Horadric Staff.

* Act 3 of ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo II]]''. You have to slog through a jungle with switchbacks and dead ends populated by a) little pygmy demons who either swarm and stab you or shoot you from afar with blowguns, which are led by shaman with the ability to revive the pygmys; b) enormous mosquitoes that drain your stamina and poison you; c) giant bramble-men that can take most of your best and hit hard. This is on top of an act-long fetch quest which forces you to fully explore the jungle [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer and the sewers]] of a nearby city looking for the unusually well-preserved remains (eye, brain, heart) of an old wizard.
** The Maggot Lair from Act II is hated by many players with good reason. The passageways are very narrow, making setting traps or using minions problematic at best, they are very winding, making it quite easy to get lost without the automap, and the most common enemies aside from the maggots themselves are the beetles, which have Lightning Enchanted as a primary feature (meaning that they shoot out lightning every time they get hit) -- and given the very tight quarters, you have no choice but to eat lightning damage. There are ''four levels'' to this thing, and worst of all, going through this hell is required to get the Staff of Kings, one of the three items necessary to reassemble the Horadric Staff.

* Act 3 of ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo II]]''. You have to slog through a jungle with switchbacks and dead ends populated by a) native pygmy men who either swarm and stab you or shoot you from afar with blowguns, which are led by shaman with the ability to revive the pygmys; b) enormous mosquitoes that drain your stamina and poison you; c) literal DemonicSpiders that are larger than you. This is on top of an act-long fetch quest which forces you to fully explore the jungle [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer and the sewers]] of a nearby city looking for the unusually well-preserved remains (eye, brain, heart) of an old wizard.