History ThatOneLevel / HackAndSlash

* 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, and while they aren't too bad most times, they 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 who pilot the Musha and Musha Mk. II Gundams, extremely powerful mobile suits, who 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.

*** Clearly a case of YourMileageMayVary... for this troper, the Lady Cai Wenji missions were annoying but not insanely difficult, but escorting those goddamn villagers was a nightmare (even with Red Hare).

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

* The first ''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.

** 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 [[BeyondTheImpossible Not. Knowing. When. To. Friggin'. Quit.]]

** Convicts that ''constantly bloody respawn.'' You'd think cutting someone to death with a katana would prevent that sort of thing. Instead, you have to destroy the vehicle too, then they stop respawning.

** The Two Qiaos also qualifies. The situation: You're either Sun Ce or Zhou Yu, and you have to find both the other and the titular Qiaos, all of whom are scattered across the battlefield. You're up against lots and lots (and lots and ''lots'' and LOTS) of enemy soldiers who pop up in massive ambushes all over the place and have no troops or bodyguards of your own. And if ''anyone'' goes down, YOU FAIL THE LEVEL. (This stage, incidentally, is the only way to unlock the Qiaos.)

* God of War 2. Protect the Translator, full stop. 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]].

* The second desert level in {{Bleach}}: Soul Carnival 2 (the one after you fight Grimmjow and Nnoitra). It doesn't start out that hard, but the second "room" is a gigantic pain in the ass. You've got strong winds pushing you forward, you can't dash, and there are gigantic Hollows blocking your path with a nearly-unavoidable attack that deals 5-digit damage. And you're stuck as Kenpachi the first time around, so you'll run out of SP quickly, and unless you're ''extremely'' overleveled, you need specials to take out the giant hollows. And forget about breaking the orb that restricts dashing or trying to get the treasures up on high pillars.
** All of the Challenge Stages, but special mention goes to Area 14 of the Soul Society challenge and the first half of Area 2 of the Real World challenge. The former is like the aforementioned desert stage; heavy winds, and you can't dash. This time, however, you cannot get the ability to dash back. And [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard your enemies ignore the winds]]. To crank things UpToEleven, the enemies are giant, so only special attacks do normal damage unless you're about 20 levels higher, and the really big ones can reduce THAT to single-digit damage as well, AND there's a wall of bombs inside treasure chests that is unspeakably hard to avoid, and each bomb deals about 3000 damage. Which means that, unless you waited a really long time to come here, breaking open more than 3 chests at a time results in death. The latter is a REALLY dark warehouse, and the only light comes from windows (of which there are not enough) or lightning flashes (which are infrequent). And then you want to talk about the area itself? You're locked into it the first time you enter the area, meaning you have to grope around in the dark until you find the two orbs that you need to break to escape. Also, you deal double damage to enemies, but the reverse is also true, and also applies to ''the scenery''. Meaning that those damned electric boxes can deal about a fifth of your HP in damage. And that doesn't factor in the horrendous amounts of damage you get from other enemies in the area. You can't get rid of this effect until you get to the second half of the area...which requires jumping through lines of said electric boxes outside the warehouse. ARRRRRRRRRRGH!

* The second desert level in {{Bleach}}: Soul Carnival 2. It doesn't start out that hard, but the second "room" is a gigantic pain in the ass. You've got strong winds pushing you forward, you can't dash, and there are gigantic Hollows blocking your path with a nearly-unavoidable OneHitKill attack. And you're stuck as Kenpachi the first time around, so you'll run out of SP quickly, and unless you're ''extremely'' overleveled, you need specials to take out the giant hollows. And forget about breaking the orb that restricts dashing or trying to get the treasures up on high pillars.

* The second desert level in {{Bleach}}: Soul Carnival 2. It doesn't start out that hard, but the second "room" is a gigantic pain in the ass. You've got strong winds pushing you forward, you can't dash, there are gigantic Hollows that can kill you in one shot if you're close enough to them (which is pretty much unavoidable). And you're stuck as Kenpachi the first time around, so you'll run out of SP quickly, and unless you're ''extremely'' overleveled, you need specials to take out the giant hollows. And forget about breaking the orb that restricts dashing or trying to get the treasures up on high pillars.

* The fifth level in ''GodHand'', which starts NintendoHard, proves to be inexpressably frustrating very quickly. One sequence sees you forced to play a cannon-shooting game in an attempt to sink pirate ships; the more you sink, the less enemies you fight in the InescapableAmbush following, but due to the lousy controls of that game, good luck sinking any. Oh, and at the end of the level, you fight Demon Elvis, who's so hard that the entire next level is easier. Fun...
** There's a worse one, though: Level 7, Stage 2, "The Flying Pyramid". It's a small, self-contained arena. First wave: axe-wielding female GiantMook, cannon-wearing fat guy, {{Mook}}. Second wave: another axe-wielder, a GiantMook with a sledgehammer, and a knife-carrying skinny guy. Third wave: a mohawked GiantMook, a regular mook, ''two'' axe wielders, and a knife-carrier. Last wave: [[BossInMookClothing a Sensei]]. And there is no checkpoint--if you die at any point, ''you start over''.
*** Don't forget Death Shudder, which is the point at which most God Hand players give up. God Hand is a game that is all about managing the number of enemies that are fighting you at any given time. So you get through the first part of Death Shudder, which has a couple Kung Fu Mooks (though if you don't approach them in EXACTLY THE RIGHT WAY, you get jumped by a whole boatload of Giant Mooks. You stride on, thinking you've gotten through the worst of it. Not in the slightest. Once you get into the next area, the doors lock behind you, and you're met with: 3 Elite Mooks, 3 Elite Axe Women, an Elite Giant Mook, and Tiger Joe, a boss mook from earlier. Not to mention the fact that they all rush you as soon as you enter the room, and when you kill the Tiger Joe, it spawns a Trident Demon, yet another boss from earlier in the game capable of completely ruining you. Worst part? That Trident Demon is ''scripted'', unlike most of the other demons in the game.

** It was ''2'' that had some generals gaining powerups. The battles were still winnable, but this ''really'' dragged some of them out, particularly whenever Liu Bei or Cao Cao was the commander. He could literally be the last man standing, with hostile forces ''swarming'' around him, and it'd still take 6 minutes to finish him off. No surprise Koei dropped this like a bad habit. As for XL, well, ''everyone'' (okay, maybe not so much Sun Ce) has a mountain to climb. That's the point.

** It was ''2'' that had some generals gaining powerups. The battles were still winnable, but this ''really'' dragged some of them out, particularly anything where Liu Bei or Cao Cao was the commander. He could literally be the last man standing, with hostile forces ''swarming'' around him, and it'd still take 6 minutes to finish him off. No surprise Koei dropped this like a bad habit. As for XL, well, ''everyone'' (okay, maybe not so much Sun Ce) has a mountain to climb. That's the point.

* ''{{Bayonetta}}''. You've played through Normal mode, had a blast, [[spoiler:[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu punched God]] [[MegatonPunch into the sun]]]], and you've unlocked Hard Mode. Shouldn't be too bad, right? Unfortunately, in Hard Mode, ''Level 1'' is that one level. Halfway through the level, you're on the wings of a plane, in [[BulletTime Witch Time]], and because it's the tutorial level, this is the part where you learn about [[LimitBreak torture attacks]]. You must execute 3 to pass this point. They don't redo the tutorial itelf, but you still gotta do the torture attacks... against [[DemonicSpiders Gracious and Glorious]]. To do a torture attack, you spend 8 units of magic. You get one unit for every few hits you land on an enemy, and lose '''''4''''' if you get hit. On normal, this wasn't so bad, because the enemies were pathetic. On hard, it's hell, because Gracious and/or Glorious just love to interrupt your combos, and are as aggressive as sharks in a feeding frenzy.

*** Don't forget Death Shudder, which is the point at which most God Hand players give up. God Hand is a game that is all about managing the number of enemies that are fighting you at any given time. So you get through the first part of Death Shudder, which has a couple Kung Fu Mooks (though if you don't approach them in EXACTLY THE RIGHT WAY, you get jumped by a whole boatload of Giant Mooks. You stride on, thinking you've gotten through the worst of it. Not in the slightest. Once you get into the next area, the doors lock behind you, and you're met with: 3 Elite Mooks, 3 Elite Axe Women, an Elite Giant Mook, and Tiger Joe, a boss mook from earlier. Not to mention the fact that they all rush you as soon as you enter the room, and when you kill the Tiger Joe, it spawns a Trident Demon, yet another boss from earlier in the game capable of completely ruining you.
*** Trident Demon isn't exactly a boss - after their introduction, any mook is capable of [[OneWingedAngel revealing his demon form]] (it can be either a normal, blade, spike or trident demon). Traditionally, they spawn from Giant Mooks and are extremely rare but will pop around if you trying to make a no-deaths speedrun.
*** Actually, it seems that the Trident Demon appearing in that area is scripted, as ThisTroper had the same experience in Death Shudder. It's either that, or the large amount of EliteMooks you face means that statistically, you're bound to get a Trident Demon, especially on [[HarderThanHard Level Die.]]
** Rather, it * would* be Nintendo hard... if you DIDN'T use the Shaolin Blast roulette which pretty much kills ALL those enemies in one shot. Having a strategy helps.

*** ...which is reliant on having three Roulette Orbs. The game only gives you two when you die and continue, and the odds of getting one in one of the jars? ''Really'' against you. And if you're lucky enough to get three in the previous level, you probably had to use one or two against Dr. Ion Rebuilt. So good luck ''getting'' to use Shaolin Blast.