History ThatOneLevel / MegaMan

* Quick Man's stage is the page picture for a good reason. The signature gimmick of this level is two long vertical drops full of OneHitKill FrickinLaserBeams known as Force Beams. While the first one isn't particularly bad and can even get you a bunch of power-ups if you go the right way, the second one is much longer and requires high amounts of precision, where even one mistake can cost you your life. Even afterward, you still have to deal with two Sniper Armors that you can accidentally spawn more of if you're not careful. You can use Flash Man's Time Stopper to freeze the Beams, but it only has one use, and once it's gone, you won't have any to use against [[ThatOneBoss Quick Man]] himself.

* Heat Man's stage can be very rough if you try to tackle it early on, because after the checkpoint, there's an EXTREMELY long PlatformHell of Yoku blocks, most of which is over a BottomlessPit. Sometimes, the next one appears directly over your head, forcing either a pixel-perfect jump or a fall to your death. If you don't have the Item-2 acquired by defeating Air Man so you can fly under the entire thing, things can get ugly.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManRevolution'' (the original version), while not that hard of a game, had an absolutely brutal Wily 2 - which basically amounted to a [[ScrappyMechanic pixel perfect spike drop]], [[InterfaceScrew a section almost entirely in darkness]], and GravityScrew at the end of the stage just to top it off. The kicker, is, yes, this stage also contains the game's [[ThatOneBoss really nasty Devil fight.]]
* [[spoiler:Remir 2 is even worse. It consists mostly of conveyor belts, very hard jumps, and DemonicSpiders in the form of the Blade Runners, Spyders, and Cactisu. The worst part are those mecha-fists; they're hard to dodge and come at you fast, meaning you'll likely have to Wild Sprint past them. Oh, and you have to deal with [[ThatOneBoss Punch Boy]] after this whole ordeal.]]

* In general, any of the side-scrolling hoverbike levels qualify, thanks to the annoyingly precise jumps needed to get through. Let us not get started on the 3D ones in ''X7'' and ''X8''.

* Sigma Stage 1 can also be a pain, with it being a very, ''very'' long stage starting with having to jump over moving platforms with enemies that can potentially knock you off into a bottomless pit. Then you have to fight a few bosses throughout such as Vile (which thankfully you don't have to beat again once you beat him once), an annoying area where you have to climb vertically with several enemies hugging the wall that can easily knock you down, and then you have to fight Boomer Kuwanger again. Each by themselves isn't that bad, but enduring through the rest of the level makes this a pain. Then you have to face the [[ThatOneBoss Bospider]] at the end. It's even worse in the PSP remake as an underwater section with an Anglerge was added and instead of Vile you fight Launch Octopus again.

* Quick Man's stage is the page topper for a good reason. The signature gimmick of this level is two long vertical drops full of OneHitKill FrickinLaserBeams known as Force Beams. While the first one isn't particularly bad and can even get you a bunch of power-ups if you go the right way, the second one is much longer and requires high amounts of precision, where even one mistake can cost you your life. Even afterward, you still have to deal with two Sniper Armors that you can accidentally spawn more of if you're not careful. You can use Flash Man's Time Stopper to freeze the Beams, but it only has one use, and once it's gone, you won't have any to use against [[ThatOneBoss Quick Man]] himself.
* Heat Man's stage possibly tops this if you try to tackle it early on, because after the checkpoint, there's an EXTREMELY long PlatformHell of Yoku blocks, most of which is over a BottomlessPit. Sometimes, the next one appears directly over your head, forcing either a pixel-perfect jump or a fall to your death. If you don't have the Item-2 acquired by defeating Air Man, things can get ugly.

* While the two snowboarding sections of Frost Man can be tricky, they're nothing compared to the one that primarily makes up Wily Tower Stage 1. It's ''much'' faster, it has a much denser enemy population, and has lots of very tight jumps and slides to escape certain death. The last jump in particular is especially nasty, as it's so wide that you'll need to move forward a good distance in midair to avoid just barely missing it. It's a common strategy to use Astro Crush to let yourself hang in the air and avoid doing risky jumps, but it only has 4 uses (6 with the Energy Saver), and if you use it at the wrong time, you'll get squished at the left side of the screen by a wall. After the snowboarding, you still need to go through a precarious series of Thunder Claw swinging over a BottomlessPit to get to the (not hard, but still annoying) GoddamnedBoss at the end. And if you die, [[CheckPointStarvation back to the very beginning]]!

* Blaze Heatnix's level, in which you [[BossRush fight the same midboss several times]]. Sounds easy, right? Not so much when said midboss is pretty tough, needing to be shot in four select areas a certain number of times each before dying. The conditions they are fought in become increasingly-harder and one segment features rising lava where not killing it before reaching the top means certain death as it will become almost impossible to hit its remaining weak points without hurting yourself and eventually dying. While having the weakness for the midboss trivializes it, said midboss and Nightmares are the only enemies in the stage, meaning no health or weapon energy drops are possible.
* Recycle Lab. The entire stage is the crushing ceiling stage. The first section is fine because Ride Armor is immune to crushing. The second gets annoying. The third? Spikes and a conveyor belt, and ''ice'' if you've triggered the Nightmare effect from Blizzard Wolfang's stage. It's like giving a teenager alcohol and a car at the same time. There's also the secret section which adds [[AutoScrollingLevel auto-scrolling]] to the above-mentioned hazards. The entire stage can also become aggravating if you've triggered the Nightmare effect from Ground Scaravich's stage, which causes blocks to appear that can only be destroyed or pushed by his weapon.
* Gate's Laboratory Stages 1 & 2: OneHitKill spikes everywhere, a sequence of rising instant-kill lava and slippery ice slopes, totem pole fights on moving platforms that rise into spikes, and an area for X that is all but impossible to traverse if you entered the stage with the Shadow Armor for it (you can only go back to switch armors once you enter Gate's domain after you either GameOver or defeat the stage's boss, and the Shadow Armor is ironically a surprisingly viable way to beat the previous level's boss, the Nightmare Mother with).[[note]]For context, X's Shadow Armor is immune to the instant-kill spikes, but it lacks an air dash ability. The area in question is a bottomless pit that is placed in such a way that even if you wall jump you ''need'' an air dash to make it across all the way. The only way to make it across with the Shadow Armor is to equip X with a combination of the Speedster, Jumper and/or Hyper Dash parts to give X's wall jump the extra boost to make it across (and this all assumes you even managed to rescue the Reploids holding those parts and didn't miss them on their specific level (or worse, let a Nightmare Virus infect and permanently remove them from the game)[[/note]].
* The second half of Gate's Laboratory 2 varies on the section before the boss fight depending on whether you chose X or Zero. If you go with X, you have to push through acid rain. Gradual damage, but not as bad as Zero's, who has to go through a ''compressor'' that will squash you flat if you don't get to a safe zone. And several of those "safe" zones are bottomless pits, so you need to be careful to not to fall into them while you wait for the thing to go up and proceed.

[[folder: Mega Man Zero/ZX]]

!!''Videogame/MegaManZero''

* Popla Cockapetri's level when faced on Normal Mode upward features moving blocks that can instantly crush Zero to death, no chance of recovery. You have to be ''extremely'' good at getting through because the blocks are set up in a way that forces you to keep advancing ''and'' coupled with the added threat of spikes as a nasty surprise for the overly hasty player who doesn't look where they leap.

** The Floating Ruins area (Aeolus's stage) is also obnoxious, albeit easier than Ouroboros. Lots of [[GoddamnedBats annoying enemies]] in an area with [[BottomlessPit bottomless pits]] everywhere, [[FromBadToWorse and even]] ''[[GustyGlade wind]]'' later on, both of which [[LedgeBats make the already annoying enemies even more annoying]]. (One such enemy can even [[InterfaceScrew mess with your jumping]] temporarily, and it's not only very accurate with its attacks but [[InvincibleMinorMinion impossible to kill]] to boot.)

** Area L, while its satellite dishes that reverse left and right and disable your dash or prevent you from attacking, plus its constantly falling bombs are annoying, the main problems it presents are its location and being the center of an extremely tedious chain of side-missions. It's slap in the middle of a different area (Area H), one of the only two actual stages in the game to not have its own trans-server that you can warp to by the way, so in order to get there in the first place you'll have to pick the front or back of that area and go through there, possibly having to knock over a mid-boss or the area boss depending on your route and whether or not the latter is currently respawned (the former always will be). As for that chain of side-missions, they revolve around going into the area to recover an item, then bringing the item back to the NPC who asked you to get it. Problem is the first of these is in L-1, so you'll either need to go through half of Area H again or backtrack through nearly the entirety of Area L to get it, and there are '''five''' more round trips waiting for you if you want to get the main prize of this back-and-forth, that being a Sub-Tank. '''The''' Sub-Tank if you're in Hard Mode since the other three don't exist. How strange that it shares the aspect of having an awkward Sub-Tank with Area K.

[[folder:Mega Man Legends]]

[[folder:Mega Man Battle Network]]

[[folder:Mega Man Star Force]]

[[folder:Mega Man (Classic series)]]

* Jewel Man's stage, which combines a difficult [[SpikesOfDoom spike]] jump to the miniboss, the miniboss itself (which is suprisingly difficult), and a near-impossible spike jump shortly after said miniboss, and almost instantly after ''that'' one, you get to ''another'' one of those spike jumps, which is even ''harder''.
* Guess what? ''9'' has not only magma flows reminiscent of the Quick beams, but THE LASERS THEMSELVES make a return, complete with the sound effect! Of course, these are less 'laser' than 'magma jet' in both incarnations. Thank god for the Concrete Shot, eh?
* Wily Stage 3. Here is a level that has a few areas where you're constantly floating upwards; sound okay, right? WRONG, the floating areas are chock full of spikes, and you can only move Mega Man by shooting the buster, which increases his inertia the more you shoot in one direction, which is a lot harder than it sounds, as you have to move at the correct speeds or you will get spiked and die. And if that wasn't enough, there's several spots where an enemy will drop down and DRAG you right into the very spike you thought you narrowly avoided. Oh, and the boss of this stage is not one, but ''two'' incarnations of the classic [[ThatOneBoss Yellow Devil]] boss. RAGE.

* Commando Man's stage, which is in a desert that has enemies posing as land mines that make ''huge'' explosions when you get near them, and about halfway through, a sandstorm that sporadically covers the entire screen and pushes you in its direction while [[BlackoutBasement blinding your view]] of the spikes on the limited platforms and the gaps that drop you into the bottomless pit below.
* Blade Man's level is also pretty bad due to an annoying midboss, and a mine cart section above ''another'' bottomless pit with GoddamnBats trying to knock you in every couple of seconds.

* Bounce Man's stage is riddled with bouncy balls that you, unsurprisingly, [[ScrappyMechanic have to bounce off of to get anywhere]]. It's not that there's regenerating enemies ''everywhere'', that's to be expected in a game like this, or that the jumps themselves are difficult (they're really not). It's that the balls have [[HitboxDissonance much larger hitboxes]] than their deceptively small round appearances would imply. Often you'll try to jump under or over one and unexpectedly hit it, only to be sent careening into an enemy or off a cliff, and other times you'll reel from an enemy's hit and not be expecting to suddenly be sent bouncing any which way by the ball you barely got close enough to sneeze onto. It stops being fun ''very'' fast.

* Spark Mandrill's stage was quite a pain. Having to dodge moving sparks on the ground while giant tank enemies shoot missiles at you, an irritating miniboss, and BlackoutBasement sections with extremely cheap enemy placement. Not to mention the fact that at the start of the stage, there's a lower route that takes you quite a long way past quite a few hazards and turns out to be a ''complete dead end''.
** This was ''slightly'' mitigated by beating Storm Eagle first: his air carrier would crash into Mandrill's stage, eliminating the sparked floors and taking away a lot of the mid-boss's bite. The blackouts would be a little more prevalent, however.

* Doppler Stage 1 is probably the hardest in the game's sequence of final levels. There are several difficult jumps, walls that close in to crush you, and insta-death spikes that can suddenly descend from the ceiling and kill you mid-jump. And then the stage ends with you having to face one of the game's two hardest bosses, either the Godkarmachine O Inary or the Press Disposer, depending on whether you were able to destroy both Bit and Byte using their weaknesses.

* Jet Stingray's stage is a pain due to the level being a hoverbike level. Moreover, it's a fast AutoscrollingLevel which makes it a level that is nothing but trial and error. The game also expects you to do precise jumps at pinpoint accuracy. BottomlessPits are everywhere in the first half of the stage. Getting scrolled off the screen at any time is also instant death. Both the subtank and the Life Tank are in areas that you will miss the first time around.

* Zero Space, stage 1. The best thing about Quick Man's stage, of course, is that, for some reason, Capcom feels the need to ''keep revisiting it'' in later games. Here, in particular, they managed to make it even ''worse'': it's bad enough that ''X''-series characters slide slowly down walls, making it harder to fall past the lasers quickly enough, but Capcom then added in ''more'' lasers! And at the end of the stage? You fight ThatOneBoss. And the [[CompilationRerelease X Legacy Collection]] has [[ThatOneAchievement a medal for getting through this without the Dark Hold]].
* Squid Adler/Volt Kraken's stage is even worse. Much like Jet Stingray from the previous game, the stage starts on a [[AutoScrollingLevel hoverbike]], with lots of bottomless pits to fall in, and getting scrolled off the screen kills you. To make matters worse, there are eight glowing things to get if you want the head parts of the Falcon Armor. Even if you survive that, there's still plenty of annoying switch puzzles to go through. Oh, and did we mention that if you want HundredPercentCompletion, you're going to have to revisit it, in a game that punishes revisiting levels?
** The level expects you to be ready to jump before the "READY" message leaves the screen.
* Duff [=McWhalen=]/Tidal Whale's doesn't go all in on the difficulty, but what it does go all in on is being incredibly annoying and tedious for X in particular if you want all the items for him. While Zero can, provided he's already laid out Adler/Kraken, snatch the Heart Tank on the first pass through and just ignore the Armor Capsule since it doesn't do him any good, X has to pass the Heart Tank and Armor Capsule on the first pass through because his version of Adler/Kraken's weapon won't destroy the weak ceiling that Zero's version can, and the Armor Capsule cannot be obtained without Goo Shaver. The very weapon that Duff/Tidal distributes. Then after backtracking for the armor capsule he'll have to backtrack '''again''' since he needs either the Falcon Armor or Gaea Armor to get up a spike chute to reach the Heart Tank. Also, the stage is a rather pokey AutoscrollingLevel, so that just drags out the time it'll take to get all this done even more. Greaaat.

* Gate's Laboratory stages 1 & 2: instant-kill spikes everywhere, plus a sequence of rising instant-kill lava and slippery ice slopes, and an area for X that is all but impossible to traverse if you entered the stage with the wrong armor for it (you can only go back to switch armors once you enter Gate's domain after you either GameOver or defeat the stage's boss, and the "wrong armor" is ironically the best weapon to beat the previous level's boss with)[[note]]X's Shadow Armor is immune to the instant-kill spikes, but it lacks an air dash ability. The area in question is a bottomless pit that is placed in such a way that even if you wall jump you ''need'' an air dash to make it across all the way. The only way to make it across with the Shadow Armor is to equip X with a combination of the Speedster, Jumper and/or Hyper Dash parts to give X's wall jump the extra boost to make it across (and this all assumes you even managed to rescue the Reploids holding those parts and didn't miss them on their specific level (or worse, let a Nightmare Virus infect and permanently remove them from the game)[[/note]].
** The second half of Gate's Laboratory 2 varies on the section before the boss fight depending on whether you chose X or Zero. If you go with X, you have to push through acid rain. Gradual damage, but not as bad as Zero's, who has to go through a ''compressor'' that will squash you flat if you don't get to a safe zone. And several of those "safe" zones are bottomless pits, so you need to be careful to not to fall into them while you wait for the thing to go up and proceed.

* The stages of Commander Yammark and Rainy Turtloid can be this if you triggered the effect of Infinity Mijinion. Due to the lower screen visibility, it becomes much easier to fall into the green water and die in the latter's level, or not being able to see enemies right away in both levels.

* The Central Museum (Ground Scaravich) begs to differ. To elaborate, the entire stage is as chaotic and unexpected as the words can be. For starters, the rooms that the totem holograms transport you to are VERY random, meaning you'll never know which area you'll stumble upon and that you'll have to revisit the whole place to get every single item/Reploid. These rooms consist of rapidly materializing boulders, meaning you can't stand still for too long. To make things worse, some of these rooms can only be reached by activating two of the eight possible Nightmare Effects (the rain or the metal blocks). That, and the terrain is just as (or even more) randomized. But the real problem and what makes this stage [[{{Pun}} Xtremely]] painful is the fact that you will have to deal with many Nightmare Viruses, and they come in PACKS. The damage from touching these buggers and the projectiles they fire are deceptively dangerous, and they rack up unforgivingly. And you better be fast in rescuing those Reploids too, since the risk of them getting infected is just absurd. Hands down THE most luck-driven and dangerous stage in the entire game.
* The Weapon Center. The stage consists of four segments one after another [[CheckPointStarvation with no checkpoints until you either reach Mijinion or enter the sub-stage]] (the latter of which is in plain view upon beating the final segment, and first-timers might jump into it without realizing that they're supposed to continue on right to reach the stage's main objective). The first and third segments consist of running from [[HumongousMecha Illumina's]] BeamSpam while avoiding all of the oncoming enemies and bottomless pits, so things can get quite hectic. You cannot disarm or stun Illumina during these segments, and she [[TurnsRed becomes even stronger during the third]]. The second and fourth segments in which you fight Illumina are comparatively easier, but if you die during any point, it's back to the start of the stage for you.
** Infinity Mijinion's sub-stage also qualifies. There are almost [[BottomlessPit NO FLOORS]] in this section. Instead, you get hand rails that you need to remember to hold Up on the D-pad to cling to. Meanwhile, there are [[GoddamnBats TONS of Nightmares]] in this section. They just love sucking the life out of unsuspecting Reploids, including ONE THAT IS LITERALLY RIGHT ON TOP OF THE POOR REPLOID IMMEDIATELY AS YOU SEE IT. If you're not fast enough, as in killing the thing immediately as it comes on screen, you will [[PermanentlyMissableContent lose this Reploid]] and have to quit without saving if you were after HundredPercentCompletion. Oh, and even when you do rescue this Reploid, it's entirely possible that you will fall to your death anyway. Oh well, for a noble cause...
* The North Pole area will drive you ''mental'' because it is filled to the brim with FakeDifficulty and involves lots of waiting and [[RandomNumberGod randomly generated elements]], all the while having spikes everywhere, slippery platforms, icy slopes, and walls that can't be jumped off of. Right off the bat you're forced to contend with swiftly moving avalanches that can only be avoided by keeping still in specific areas, and if the Nightmare Mirror enemies are around (the clones of X or Zero that dash into you) ''they will be unavoidable when hiding in these areas''. Getting past that you'll have to start sliding down slippery slopes dealing with strong enemies, if you didn't have to fight the Nightmare Mirrors you'll now have to face the Nightmare Meteors instead which rain down all over the place, and walls of spikes. Then you'll have to wait for gigantic ice cubes to slowly come down, which can crush you, easily trap you, and force you to wait until they decide to fill the room in a way that you can use them to climb out. Finally, to add insult to injury, Blizzard Wolfang is no pushover.

[[folder:Fan Games)]]

* ''VideoGame/MakeAGoodMegaManLevelContest 2'' has a notorious Wily 4. It's a "weapon trial" stage that involves getting through segments where the player is locked into one weapon, but some of the segments are very, very difficult. The Sakugarne section in particular requires some very precise jumps to not hit your head or fall to your death. The Super Arrow section is the worst of it, though, as there are parts where you are blind to the upcoming section and need to make a split-second jump off the arrow in order to not slam into an electrified wall. Not to mention there's 5 Noble Nickels to get, one of which requires you to take on all 3 branches of a path split. The boss you fight at the end doesn't exactly help matters, either.
** Believe it or not, this level used to be ''even harder''. The damaging electric terrain in the Sakugarne and Super Arrow parts used to be ''spikes'', and there were even more spikes in other areas of the level. This was changed in version 1.3, but the level remains very difficult. [[note]]As of version 1.4, the old level has been restored and can be accessed through an optional teleporter.[[/note]]

* Guts Man, the real problem is the start of the level, with precise jumps when the platforms carrying you are about to drop.
* Ice Man: Yoku Blocks and moving platforms that double as enemies that shoot at you; incredibly easy if you have the Magnet Beam, though... which can only be gotten in Elec Man's stage and you must have Guts Man's weapon to access it.
* Dr. Wily Stage 1, with the opening sequence of dodging the game's BossInMookClothing enemy Big Eye, with no helpful stage geography to use against them; the return of the enemy-slash-platforms from Ice Man's stage, now in a room full of spikes that they will arbitrarily fly you up into if you don't fall onto the spikes on the floor; a ''required'' Magnet Beam section that can send players all the way back to Elec Man's stage if they didn't know the item was necessary; and capped off with [[ThatOneBoss the Yellow Devil]] in his first and most difficult incarnation.

* Quick Man's level, two-thirds of which is a vertical maze of instant-kill lasers, as pictured above; Flash Man's power (which pauses time, stopping the lasers) can help alleviate it some, but it can't get you through the whole thing and also means that unless you refill it (and against nothing but [[BossInMookClothing Sniper Armours]]), you can't use it against Quick Man (who is weak to Flash Man's power).
* Heat Man's level possibly tops this if you try to tackle it early on, because it has an EXTREMELY long sequence of those annoying yoku blocks, most of which is over a pit. Fortunately, if you do it after beating Air Man, who gives you the Item 2 Jet Sled, you can bypass that entire part. And in the original version of the level, they put a wall halfway through to stop you from using the jet.
* Wood Man's level isn't too bad... until you get attacked by Hot Dogs whose fire attacks are almost impossible to dodge and can cause a ton of damage. The Atomic Chickens near the end of the level are simple on Normal mode but require an extremely unintuitive action, walking straight at them so they jump over you.
* Air Man's level is a pain, too. For the first part of the level, you have to jump on "Air Tikis". When you are standing on one of them, the constantly spawning enemies combined with the drills coming out of the sides of its head means that ''you can't get off''. What's worse, later in the level, you have to jump from one Air Tiki to another. Keep in mind that they only appear when you get nice and close to them. Which means in the end that ''there always will be a drill in your way''. Then there's those [[ShockAndAwe Lightning Lords]] that you have to kill and then ride on their cloud platforms, and all those [[GoddamnedBats Pipis]]. And, if you survive, [[ThatOneBoss guess who you have to fight?]] Wood Man's Leaf Shield helps out a lot here, as it not only is [[ElementalRockPaperScissors super effective]] against the boss, but can be used to farm powerups and 1Ups from the respawning enemies.

* In Needle Man's Doc Robot stage, right after killing Doc Air Man, you come across a long Rush Jet section with enemies coming from all sides trying to knock you off. If you get knocked into the pit or if you miss an energy refill, you have to start back at the beginning of the section, and if your energy is too low, you may have to Game Over to refill it.
* Hell, the Doc Robot stages as a whole. You basically have to replay the stages, but with more obstacles, more enemies, very hard bosses, and only one checkpoint. More than a few players straight-up input a password to skip them after beating the Robot Masters.

* Drill Man's stage can be a nightmare about midway through: there are switches in the background that you have to touch in order to reveal the next ledge to jump on. This wouldn't be so bad, if there weren't a ton of flying enemies and falling rocks whose sole purpose are to knock you into one of the many pits scattered about the area. Having the Skull Barrier can alleviate much of the pain, since it can destroy the hazards in this area without personal risk, but without it, have fun getting knocked into pits over and over and over...
* Ring Man's stage has that one room early on where you have to dodge the cannon fire as you try to take the cannons out. It's not so bad if you have Rain Flush (and most players will at that point), but if you don't, good luck trying to get past it. And after that, you have to get past ''four'' minibosses (of two different kinds), all of which are at least somewhat annoying. Good luck going for a NoDamageRun on this stage, especially if you're also doing a MinimalistRun in addition.

* Wave Man's jetski portion. You're in a jetski, so you don't have the slide and you're a bigger target than usual. You only have the Mega Buster to use, and you have to go through two sections filled with jetski-riding Sniper Joes and hopping robo-dolphins, bookending a giant octopus miniboss. The biggest problem? ''You can't pause at all'' during this section, meaning that you can't use any E-tanks, meaning that you have to make it through two enemy-spam sections and a miniboss on one tank of health and awkward controls. Furthermore, as soon as you set foot on dry land again, you've reached the boss door, and there's no room for the lone cannon protecting it to respawn for energy farming should you wish to save any E-tanks for the boss.
* Then there's the falling-block gap of death in Gyro Man's stage, complete with its anvil-drop enemies that totally screw a good straight shot on the falling blocks.
* Crystal Man's stage is no slouch either, since it's laden with crystals that fall from tubes in the ceiling, and they're ''always'' placed in large series over pits. It wouldn't be so bad on its own, but the crystals fall at completely random intervals, making much of the level a LuckBasedMission.

* Plant Man, a long section involving jumping over water-filled pits via springs. Problem is, the springs don't always spring you as high as you need to go, dumping you into the pits on a regular basis. Oh, and then there are the [[GoddamnBats lovable robot pirahnas]] jumping out of the water to further ruin your jumps.
** What's the reward for beating Plant Man (aside from his weapon)? The Jet Adapter, the one power-up that can make this entire section a breeze. Pretty smart decision, developers...

!!''VideoGame/MegaMan7''
* Turbo Man's stage contains the aforementioned instant-death lasers from Quick-Man's level (they're actually magma pillars this time around), and a section with instant-death spikes combined with tires that move on the ceiling. These tires have a habit of pushing you mid-jump into said spikes.

* The rocketboard sections. Enough to prevent some gamers from even finishing the game successfully.
--->Jump! Jump! Slide! Slide! *shudder*
** Adding to the irritating nature of the whole thing is the boss at the end of the second Rocketboard Section, who is very easily ThatOneBoss because he can only be hurt using the friggin' Mega Ball[[note]]While you ''can'' use Astro Crush and Ice Wave as well, you only get four shots with the former and the latter does only one sliver of health per hit[[/note]]. It's basically a soccer ball that you can only "aim" by estimating where the ricochet goes. And considering that you don't get the Mega Ball from a Robot Master, and it's only just handed to you, it seems more like this boss was only added to justify the ball's existence. What's the real [[IncrediblyLamePun kicker]]? If you die fighting this boss, you do the Rocketboard section ''again.''
* ''Rockman 8 FC'', an 8-bit FanRemake of ''MegaMan8'', made changes to some of the levels beyond the graphics. One of these is Sword Man's stage, which has been transformed into a veritable living hell. The real agony comes from one section, which made the sadistic decision of combining a river of insta-kill lava, single-square-wide platforms, a pseudo-AdvancingBossOfDoom that erases these already tiny platforms, and GoddamnBats swooping at you to knock you in. The hammer enemy is also ''quick'', giving you practically zero time to stop and readjust your jump or clear said enemies out of the way. The rest of the level is somewhat difficult, but it becomes a cakewalk compared to the nightmare that is this section.

%%* The [[BrutalBonusLevel Special Stage]] is made to be this. Along with some tricky rooms, there are ''four'' minibosses from elsewhere in the game, ''plus'' the [[MarathonBoss Shark Submarine]] from the fortress stages. After all that, the stage boss himself (Fake Man) is almost a disappointment, being extremely pattern-based.

* Special Stage 3 is probably the worst of the Special Stages. It starts with a section of Furaibons coming from bottomless pits that are almost hard to jump over, followed by an extremely difficult conveyor belt section. Afterwards, you have to shoot through some missiles that block the way, but you have to be careful due to some of them causing you to fall into a bottomless pit.

[[folder:Mega Man X]]

[[folder:Mega Man (Fan Games)]]
!!Fan games

** Occupied Wily Castle 3 has a section full of Yoku Blocks and Yoku Spikes that you have to traverse ''[[GravityScrew while upside down]]''!
** Occupied Wily Castle 4 is a brutal MarathonLevel. There are some tricky spike drops that require careful use of the Comet Dash, and then you come to the refights. Except they aren't just fights with each boss, you need to go through short sections of level based on each Robot Master's stage. This includes Yoku Man, even if you didn't visit his BrutalBonusLevel (it also excludes Whirlpool Man). Once you've beaten all nine, you'd think the level would be over, but nope, there's more! And at the very end is a three-part SequentialBoss.

** [[spoiler:Remir 2 is even worse. It consists mostly of conveyor belts, very hard jumps, and DemonicSpiders in the form of the Blade Runners, Spyders, and Cactisu. The worst part are those mecha-fists; they're hard to dodge and come at you fast, meaning you'll likely have to Wild Sprint past them. Oh, and you have to deal with [[ThatOneBoss Punch Boy]] after this whole ordeal.]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaManRocks'' has Repo Man's stage and its timed spike traps.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManRockNRoll'':
** Reactor Man's stage, full stop. Force beams? Check. Force beams that move? Double-check. Force beams above a pit and below the ceiling? Triple-check. You also have to deal with said force beams hitting disco balls, regular Tellies, spark flames that electrifies Tellies to [[InvincibleMinorMinion become fast and invincible]], and dispensers that spawn [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs electrified Tellies]]. All this ''without'' getting into the battle with [[ThatOneBoss Reactor Man]] himself.
** Tide Man's stage is a stage that takes place entirely underwater, and it doesn't mess around. Filled to the brim with DemonicSpiders in the forms of tiny manta ray robots and jellyfish robots, a miniboss that can screw you over with its enemy spawning capabilities (and contact with it and the enemies it spawns does massive damage), and to top it off, a lights-out section where the only light sources are explosions, the aforementioned jellyfish, and enemies you have to hit to allow a small amount of light.

* Gate's Laboratory stages 1 & 2: instant-kill spikes everywhere, plus a sequence of rising instant-kill lava and slippery ice slopes, and an area for X that is all but impossible to traverse if you entered the stage with the wrong armor for it (you can only go back to switch armors once you enter Gate's domain after you either GameOver or defeat the stage's boss, and the "wrong armor" is ironically the best weapon to beat the previous level's boss with)[[To be specific...]]X's Shadow Armor is immune to the instant-kill spikes, but it lacks an air dash ability. The area in question is a bottomless pit that is placed in such a way that even if you wall jump you ''need'' an air dash to make it across all the way. The only way to make it across with the Shadow Armor is to equip X with a combination of the Speedster, Jumper and/or Hyper Dash parts to give X's wall jump the extra boost to make it across (and this all assumes you even managed to rescue the Reploids holding those parts and didn't miss them on their specific level (or worse, let a Nightmare Virus infect and permanently remove them from the game)[[/To be specific...]].

* Gate's Laboratory stages 1 & 2: instant-kill spikes everywhere, plus a sequence of rising instant-kill lava and slippery ice slopes, and an area for X that is all but impossible to traverse if you entered the stage with the wrong armor for it (you can only go back to switch armors once you enter Gate's domain after you either GameOver or defeat the stage's boss, and the "wrong armor" is ironically the best weapon to beat the previous level's boss with).

** ** Tide Man's stage is a stage that takes place entirely underwater, and it doesn't mess around. Filled to the brim with DemonicSpiders in the forms of tiny manta ray robots and jellyfish robots, a miniboss that can screw you over with its enemy spawning capabilities (and contact with it and the enemies it spawns does massive damage), and to top it off, a lights-out section where the only light sources are explosions, the aforementioned jellyfish, and enemies you have to hit to allow a small amount of light.

** [[spoiler:Remir 2 is even worse. It consists mostly of conveyor belts, very hard jumps, and DemonicSpiders in the form of the Blade Runners, Spyders, and Cactisu. The worst part are those mecha-fists; they're hard to dodge and come at you fast, meaning you'll likely have to Wild Sprint past them. Oh, and you have to deal with [[ThatOneBoss Punch Boy]] after this whole ordeal.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManRevolution'' (the original version), while not that hard of a game, had an absolutely brutal Wily Stage 2 - which basically amounted to a [[ScrappyMechanic pixel perfect spike drop]], [[InterfaceScrew a section almost entirely in darkness]], and GravityScrew at the end of the stage just to top it off. The kicker, is, yes, this stage also contains the game's [[ThatOneBoss really nasty Devil fight.]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaManRockNRoll'': Reactor Man's stage, full stop. Force beams? Check. Force beams that move? Double-check. Force beams above a pit and below the ceiling? Triple-check. You also have to deal with said force beams hitting disco balls, regular Tellies, spark flames that electrifies Tellies to [[InvincibleMinorMinion become fast and invincible]], and dispensers that spawn [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs electrified Tellies]]. All this ''without'' getting into the battle with [[ThatOneBoss Reactor Man]] himself.

* [[LethalLavaLand Area K]] from the original ''ZX'' could qualify. K-1 with its boiling geysers isn't so bad, but then we go underground to find K-2 and a [[GoddamnedBoss Goddamned Miniboss]], then back to not-so-bad with K-3, then the horribly annoying [[AdvancingWallOfDoom lava chase]] segments in K-4 with [[GoddamnedBats really]] [[DemonicSpiders annoying]] enemies (good luck avoiding damage!) before you finally reach the boss, who is actually somewhat of a breather after the crap his level put you through. (Unless you're going for [[ThatOneSidequest a Level 4 victory against him]], in which case...hope you have some blood pressure medication handy.) And if you decide to take an alternate path to make the lava wall move slower, you must also go through K-5, with its shaft full of [[RiseToTheChallenge rising lava]] that requires memorization and precise jumping (and probably vertical air-dashes)...and then go through a different area of K-1 and fight the miniboss all over again. And then comes [[ThatOneSidequest the collection of the Sub-Tank]]...which makes going through the level normally seem ''easy'' in comparison.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManRevolution'', while not that hard of a game, had an absolutely brutal Wily Stage 2 - which basically amounted to a [[ScrappyMechanic pixel perfect spike drop]], [[InterfaceScrew a section almost entirely in darkness]], and GravityScrew at the end of the stage just to top it off. The kicker, is, yes, this stage also contains the game's [[ThatOneBoss really nasty Devil fight.]]

* Blaze Heatnix's level. While not hard on the scale Gate's lab is, Heatnix's domain contained not only lethal rising lava, but about half a dozen ultra-annoying minibosses as well. Seeing as how ''X6'' has hideous game balance in general, this is probably not surprising.

* Infinity Mijinion's sub-stage also qualifies. There are almost [[BottomlessPit NO FLOORS]] in this section. Instead, you get hand rails that you need to remember to hold Up on the D-pad to cling to. Meanwhile, there are [[GoddamnBats TONS of Nightmares]] in this section. They just love sucking the life out of unsuspecting Reploids, including ONE THAT IS LITERALLY RIGHT ON TOP OF THE POOR REPLOID IMMEDIATELY AS YOU SEE IT. If you're not fast enough, as in killing the thing immediately as it comes on screen, you will [[PermanentlyMissableContent lose this Reploid]] and have to quit without saving if you were after HundredPercentCompletion. Oh, and even when you do rescue this Reploid, it's entirely possible that you will fall to your death anyway. Oh well, for a noble cause...

* Actually, ''most'' of X8's stages could qualify for this trope. It's just a [[NintendoHard really hard]] game.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManRevolution'', while not that hard of a game, had an absolutely brutal Wily Stage 2 - which basically amounted to a [[ScrappyMechanic pixel perfect spike drop]], [[InterfaceScrew a section almost entirely in darkness]], and [[GravityScrew gravity screw]] at the end of the stage just to top it off. The kicker, is, yes, this stage also contains the game [[ThatOneBoss really nasty Devil fight.]]

* Armored Armadillo's stage if you're playing as Vile in ''Maverick Hunter X''. It takes away the mine carts that made this stage enjoyable as X, leaving you to traverse the whole level on foot (you don't even get the Ride Armor for long). This replaces the leap of faith at the end of the level with a bunch of horizontally-moving platforms and enemies swarming you from off-screen. And the Heart Tank requires you to either take a leap of faith towards a not-synchronized platform or [[GoodBadBugs exploit a bug with Vile's midair movement]] that allows him to hover towards it.

* Flame Hyenard's stage isn't so bad during the [=2D=] section, except for the lava that ''bypasses MercyInvincibility''. But then you get to the [=3D=] section, which has that lava practically ''everywhere'', with many more hazards thrown in. There are [[GoddamnedBats invincible sonar towers]] that can knock you out of midair if you get hit by the soundwaves on the middle of small platforms that make them hard to avoid, as well as gigantic robots with a nearly unavoidable attack which almost always show up two to a platform. There's also a Reploid that [[GameBreakingBug disappears]] if you die before you get to him, regardless of whether he got hit by enemy robots, and a Heart Tank on a ''really'' low beam. Then you beat all this and [[ThatOneBoss actually get to fighting Hyenard...]]

* Flame Hyenard's stage isn't so bad during the [=2D=] section, except for the lava that kills you if you touch it; no MercyInvincibility here! But then you get to the [=3D=] section, which has that lava practically ''everywhere''. And there are those stupid sonar tower thingies that can knock you out of midair if you get hit by the soundwaves on the middle of the platforms that aren't that big to begin with, as well as gigantic robots with a nearly unavoidable attack, and they almost always show up two to a platform. There's also a Reploid that [[GameBreakingBug disappears]] if you die before you get to him, regardless of whether he got hit by enemy robots, and a Heart Tank on a ''really'' low beam. Then you beat all this and [[ThatOneBoss actually get to fighting Hyenard...]]
* Snipe Anteator's stage is arguably worse than Hyenard's. For one, the ''entire stage'' is 3D. Then there's those '''goddamned samurai''' that shoot out {{Sword Beam}}s that have very unclear range, cannot be damaged except from behind, and you ''need'' Axl to take them down if you want to rescue all the Reploids and/or get X's Helmet Armor, as they're able to go through walls you otherwise can't pass! But the gravity switch gimmick is simply ''dreadful'', because each time you get flipped, [[InterfaceScrew so too do your movement controls.]] There's also a bit of CameraScrew going on; the camera is more zoomed in while you are upside down. And if you'd expect Snipe Anteator to be easy after all the bullshit his stage puts you through, well... [[ThatOneBoss you'd be wrong.]]

* [=MMBN6=] has the '''Aquarium Comp''' where you have to solve fish riddles via [[EscortMission escorts]]. Not only do you have to figure out the correct key NPC for the very vague riddle, you have to escort him as well! And when you pick him up, sharks appear and you had to avoid them via a PacMan-ish minigame and some of the sharks more very quickly. If one of them catches your escort, he gets eaten and you'll have to run all the way back to him and start over, all with lovely RandomEncounter with some [[GoddamnedBats annoying viruses.]] And to top it all off, you have repeat this minigame (with a shorter length this time) at the end of the game as part of the BossRush!

* Recycle Lab. The entire stage is the crushing ceiling stage. The first section is fine because Ride Armor is immune to crushing. The second gets annoying. The third? Spikes and a conveyor belt, and ''ice'' if you've triggered the Nightmare effect from Blizzard Wolfang's stage. It's like giving a teenager alcohol and a car at the same time. The entire stage can also become aggravating if you've triggered the Nightmare effect from Ground Scaravich's stage, which causes blocks to appear that can only be destroyed or pushed by his weapon.

* Gate's Laboratory stage 1 & 2: instant-kill spikes everywhere, plus a sequence of rising instant-kill lava and slippery ice slopes, and an area for X that is all but impossible to traverse if you entered the previous level with the wrong armor for its level (you can't go back to switch armors once you enter Gate's domain, and the "wrong armor" is ironically the best weapon to beat the previous level's boss with).

* Recycle Lab. The entire stage is the crushing ceiling stage. The first section is fine because Ride Armor is immune to crushing. The second gets annoying. The third? Spikes and a conveyor belt, and ''ice'' if you've triggered the Nightmare effect from Blizzard Wolfang's stage. It's like giving a teenager alcohol and a car at the same time.

!!''Videogame/MegaManX1''

* Sigma Stage 1 can also be a pain, with it being a very, ''very'' long stage starting with having to jump over moving platforms with enemies that can potentially knock you off into a bottomless pit. Then you have to fight a few bosses throughout such as Vile (which thankfully you don't have to beat again once you beat him once), an annoying area where you have to climb vertically with several enemies hugging the wall that can easily knock you down, and then you have to fight Boomer Kuwanger again. Each by themselves isn't that bad, but enduring through the rest of the level makes this a pain. Then you have to face the [[ThatOneBoss Bospider]]...
* Armored Armadillo's stage if you're playing as Vile in ''VideoGame/MegaManMaverickHunterX''. It takes away the mine carts that made this stage enjoyable as X, leaving you to traverse the whole level on foot (you don't even get the Ride Armor for long). This replaces the leap of faith at the end of the level with a bunch of horizontally-moving platforms and enemies swarming you from off-screen. And the Heart Tank requires you to either take a leap of faith towards a not-synchronized platform or [[GoodBadBugs exploit a bug with Vile's midair movement]] that allows him to hover towards it.

* Zero Space, stage 1. The best thing about Quick Man's stage, of course, is that, for some reason, Capcom feels the need to ''keep revisiting it'' in later games. Here, in particular, they managed to make it even ''worse'': it's bad enough that ''X''-series characters slide slowly down walls, making it harder to fall past the lasers quickly enough, but Capcom then added in ''more'' lasers! And at the end of the stage? You fight ThatOneBoss.

* Squid Adler/Volt Kraken's stage is even worse. The stage starts on a [[AutoScrollingLevel hoverbike]], with lots of bottomless pits to fall in, and getting scrolled off the screen kills you. To make matters worse, there are eight glowing things to get if you want the head parts of the Falcon Armor. Even if you survive that, there's still plenty of annoying switch puzzles to go through. Oh, and did we mention that if you want HundredPercentCompletion, you're going to have to revisit it, in a game that punishes revisiting levels?

* The stages of Commander Yammark and Rainy Turtloid can be this if you triggered the effect of Infinity Mijinion.