History ThatOneLevel / PlatformGame

** Stage 4 of ''Neo Contra''. Despite being [[SequelDifficultyDrop easier than its predecessor]] ''Shattered Soldier'', it's probably the hardest stage of the game due to the mini-boss being very annoying with its hard to dodge and shoot mines, the turrets being hard to lock onto, and the obstacles being very difficult to shoot through. If you're trying to 100% this stage, good luck.

** Also from the Classic game, the race with Yoyo. It's actually quite easy if you know your way around Benten-Cho very well, but those who are playing the game for the first time obviously don't. This lead to Classic Yoyo becoming one of the biggest [[TheScrappy/VideoGames Scrappies]] of any Sega game. (his Future incarnation, on the other hand, is actually well-liked)

* ''VideoGame/{{Trine}}'' is a relatively slow platformer that allowed the player to ponder his actions and time his moves just right - for all the levels but the last. [[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134198/postmortem_frozenbytes_trine.php?page=6 Gamasutra's post-mortem]] explains that due to time shortages the dev team couldn't come up with a proper boss level that would fit the game well, so they came up with a frenzied climb up a tower with rising lava to outrun. Internally the level was well-liked, and the devteam thought it made "a nice change of pace". The players thought otherwise, with the change of pace being generally felt as unwanted and frustrating, and drowned Frozenbyte in complaints.

** [[CircusOfFear Meat Circus]]. In addition to cruel jumping puzzles, a vicious EscortMission, damaged-based insta-kills that eat your Dream Fluffs faster then you can extricate yourself, there's also a [[ThatOneBoss boss that requires some crazy good timing]], and the entire premise of the level (a circus made out of ''raw meat'') is [[NightmareFuel deeply frightening and disturbing]].
** Milla's level. It's actually a pretty fun level, with a dance party theme and lots of bouncing around on a ball and rolling down a gigantic slide. It definitely doesn't belong on this list... until you decide to go for HundredPercentCompletion. Trying to collect all the figments, some of which move around or blend in to the background, all while bouncing around on a ball and rolling down a gigantic slide is absolutely maddening.

* The Cave of Bad Dreams from ''VideoGame/Rayman2TheGreatEscape'' is an especially vicious ScrappyLevel. Right from the get-go, it's full of almost-invincible {{Wall Master}}s that sap your precious health, and lots of jumping puzzles with ''very tiny'' sinking platforms--and heck, very tiny not-sinking platforms as well. There's a long and tedious sequence where you have to carry two orbs (basically keys) across several platforms filled with enemies to their bases in order to advance, and dropping the orbs and/or accidentally throwing them into the void is all too easy. After that, you have to go down a long slide race against the boss, which has lots of {{Bottomless Pit}}s, sharp crystals that slow you down AND hurt you, and the [[NightmareFuel indescribably freaky]] teeth of the boss. When you're done racing him, you STILL have to fight him as a boss, and he's one of the GuideDangIt-iest {{Puzzle Boss}}es this side of the [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Spider Ball Guardian]]. To top it all off? Once you're done with that, if you accidentally select the wrong option in the end-of-level cutscene--and it's the one that's automatically highlighted--you get a NonStandardGameOver and have to do ''the whole frickin' thing over again!'' [[spoiler:At least, it seems that way, but waiting for about half a minute at the "Game Over" cutscene just takes you right back to select the other choice.]]

%%** Deepnest is a bit of a confusing maze and is one of the biggest sources of NightmareFuel in the game for various reasons (covered on the game's Nightmare Fuel page). It is possible to fall into Deepnest early into the game and have a difficult time getting out, and the Beast's Den, the section containing the Dreamer, which is necessary to beat the game, can be confusing to navigate given that the interior of the Beast's Den is not shown on your map, only the entrance, which is where your location will always be displayed with the Wayward Compass when you're inside it.

** White Palace. Even without going to the Path of Pain, the entire section you have to do to get the true ending is well beyond the difficulty of anything else in this game, including [[ThatOneBoss Watcher Knights]], the two hardest Dream Warriors, and the final boss. It's full of circular saws that require extremely precise jumping, dashing, and wall jumping to get through, and if you can get by those, moving spikes you have to bounce off of (by attacking downwards) at ''exactly the right time'' while still having to avoid getting hit by them. The silver lining is that when you die here, you don't lose your Geo and get a broken Soul meter, nor subsequently have to kill a Shade in the room where you died to get it back. However, this does not come anywhere near balancing it out, and only the most skilled players can have a chance at beating this level.
%%** Deepnest is a bit of a confusing maze and is one of the biggest sources of NightmareFuel in the game.

* Ristar: from world 5-1 on, there will be lots of areas where Ristar will be sliding on his butt, this sounds funny, but you can just '''barely''' control him in the parts where he slides.
** The absolute KING of [[SlippySlideyIceWorld the slide surfaces]], and the [[SpikesOfDoom hazards that Ristar will bump into if you miss]] is The First Part of Planet Automaton. And to top it all off, 6-1 is filled with ''[[DemonicSpiders enemies that are hard to hit without Ristar himself getting hit.]]''

* White Palace in ''VideoGame/HollowKnight''. Even without going to the Path of Pain, the entire section you have to do to get the true ending is well beyond the difficulty of anything else in this game, including [[ThatOneBoss Watcher Knights]], the two hardest Dream Warriors, and the final boss. It's full of circular saws that require extremely precise jumping, dashing, and wall jumping to get through, and if you can get by those, moving spikes you have to bounce off of (by attacking downwards) at ''exactly the right time'' while still having to avoid getting hit by them. The silver lining is that when you die here, you don't lose your Geo and get a broken Soul meter, nor subsequently have to kill a Shade in the room where you died to get it back. However, this does not come anywhere near balancing it out, and only the most skilled players can have a chance at beating this level.
** While not nearly as hard, Deepnest is a bit of a confusing maze and is one of the biggest sources of NightmareFuel in the game.

** Uncanny Crusher is one of the hardest levels '''''in the entire game'''''. You have to cross pits FULL of spikes to get the frogs. But the right route is harder than the left: '''''IT'S SPIKE MAYHEM IN THERE!'''''. Yes, many gamers will get frustrated with this level, I guarantee.

* To varying degrees, ''every'' level after the first two in the NES game ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}'' are examples of this trope. There are two in particular that stand out, though:
** Level 3, Turbo Tunnel. It's ''easy'' compared to some of the later levels, but the jump in difficulty is so sudden that many have simply given up on it and not even seen the later levels.
** Level 6, Karnath’s Lair, has a warp. Missed it (as LetsPlay/SuperGeenius did)? Prepare to rue the sight of snakes. You’re climbing those fuckers for four rooms, with instant death waiting on the top and bottom of all of them. And there’s also spikes ‘’in the way’’ of your jumps! At least you can skip the last bit of the fourth room if you hit a spike just right.
** Level 7, Volkmire's Inferno, has a fast-paced obstacle course section where everything can kill you in one hit. Unlike Turbo Tunnel, it's not all memorization, since there are also fireball and missile barrages with totally random spacing. And if you missed the warp in Karnath’s Lair, you’re ‘’forced’’ to do it!
** Level 9, Terra Tubes. For those that tried completing this game on a real NES without savestates and such, this is the true landmark of vileness. It's not the hardest level, but by far the most annoying because of its length, FakeDifficulty, ''real'' difficulty and the inability to warp past it. The underwater swimming sections are not only chock full of the same instant-kill SpikesOfDoom found abundantly in the drier parts of the level, but {{Psycho Electric Eel}}s and [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned Sharks]] trying to knock you into the spikes, and Rubber Ducks which are surprisingly even deadlier. There is a series of four races against Advancing Wheels of Doom, and two later ones which are partly underwater, which not only require avoiding spikes but prior knowledge of which instant-kill wheels will ram the barrier at the end of the race and which will head instead for the small niche beside it. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deVqMCohnQ0&t=2m15s Here's a video of someone doing it right]].
** Level 11, "Clinger Winger". While not as well known as the aforementioned (mainly because almost nobody makes it this far), those who get there are confronted with a level so nasty the programmers must have actively hated the player to put them through it. Like Turbo Tunnel, it takes lightning fast reflexes to make it through, except is even harder, has ''[[CheckPointStarvation no checkpoints whatsoever]]'', ''and'' forces you to fight a boss at the end, and if you lose, you have to do it all over again. Just to top it all off, a bug prevents the second player from finishing the level, making it impossible to beat the game as two players. (The bug was fixed in the PAL version, though.)
** Clinger Winger is far more bearable with the right controller (the Wii Classic Controller is recommended) than Level 10: Rat Race. The concept itself isn't that bad, but it says something that it got the biggest nerf in Battlemaniacs. Having to race Scuzz, the rat that runs and falls faster than you? That's fine. The game generally makes you do that sort of thing. You have to use a laggy attack on the bomb before Scuzz ''[[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard touches]]'' it? Fair enough. But the third race is ''an unholy abomination of difficulty''. You ''can not afford to let Scuzz get far ahead of you''. If you do, you will never see him again. The only way to do this is to keep him from moving down by using timed headbutts. Good luck consistently doing that, the damn headbutt attack has a ridiculously strict hitbox in general and Scuzz is just plain freaking fast. Even worse, a badly-timed headbutt can knock Scuzz ahead of you! The level fully deserves its nerf in Battlemaniacs.

*** The entrance. Right from when you enter the world, you have to: go through a short platforming sequence above GrimyWater to reach the button that opens the train station, leave the level and use a train station in a different level, and take Chuffy there... if you'd already been allowed to use it; if not, you have to switch to Mumbo, raise Chuffy back on its tracks, take control of the duo again, defeat the boss, and then take Chuffy into the place. ''That's just to get started in this world.''

** Grunty Industries is an enormous labyrinthine level with lots of things that have to be unlocked in roundabout ways, starting with the level entrance. Inside, it's an EternalEngine, with all the MalevolentArchitecture that implies. There are {{Mook Maker}}s in many rooms which spit out hard-to-destroy [[DemonicSpiders Tintops]], barrels that release DeadlyGas when destroyed, a few tricky {{Timed Mission}}s, and ThatOneBoss.

* The original Prince of Persia should be called "That one game" you only have one hour to beat the game, meaning you have to memorize every trap and where you're going (Every level is a maze) but not just that, you have to fight guards and skeletons while doing so slowing you down. Not to mention the bosses. And when you die and restore, it doesn't restore the time you spent. This game was brutal.

** '''The [[MotherFBomb mother fucking]] Technodrome.''' True to its word, it lives up to its reputation as the SupervillainLair and TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon and ''then some''. If DemonicSpiders had a nest, this would be it, as you are ''constantly'' surrounded by them at all times, narrowing yourself through a twisted claustrophobia of [[MalevolentArchitecture sadistically-designed]], thickly-inhabited corridors. The entire stage is a constant marathon run with almost no health and even less weapon powerups to speak of—weapon powerups which YOU WILL NEED, especially near the end where you must pass a very long, very narrow hallway saturated with FrickinLaserBeams generated by an army of elite soldiers on jetpacks. Hope you stocked up on [[KiManipulation scrolls]] on your way there, because if not, consider yourself done for. ''[[ContinuingIsPainful And you better make sure to not get killed the entire way through.]]''

* ''VideoGame/GeometryDash'':
** Electrodynamix is a particularly reviled level for introducing speed portals, and especially for having tight ship parts. It's well beyond the other main Insane levels.
** Among the three Demon levels, Deadlocked is widely considered the toughest. It features tough gameplay in most of the modes, but a particularly infamous part is the wave spam right after the first cube and the boss fight, which is far beyond any wave spamming done up to that point.
** Fan levels:
*** Any level on [[https://pointercrate.com/demonlist/ This list]] qualifies: All of them make even the hardest main levels look like cake in comparison. Levels that have held the highest spot on this list, though, deserve it above all others:
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRH2WCvbX20 Bloodbath]]. The level was infamous for being the first real use of straight flying. It required mastery of the Ship gamemode far higher than players had at that point. This led it to be the hardest level in the game by a massive margin when it was released. Even today, it still remains a formidable challenge and a test of Ship skills.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svyOjwLCErg&feature=emb_title Sakupen Hell]] trades ship flying for fast speed and tight waves. Those sections at 16% and 82% in particular featured tight timings for its day. Though the rest of the level was somewhat tamer, the wave parts were hard enough for this level to dethrone Bloodbath.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8csWDx6C2YI Erebus]] takes a different direction in its difficulty: it is '''infamous''' along players due to extremely inconsistent and challenging gameplay and purposely unfixed bugs. It also had some other tight gameplay thrown in as well, with an extremely tight ship section at 85%.
*** Bloodbath's remake, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SzKetF2btw Bloodlust]], throws an interesting wrench into things. By now players had gotten used to straight fly, so instead of basing its difficulty based on that, it instead buffed the rest of the level to vary up the gameplay. In particular, Evasium's part in the original level now requires insanely tight wave timings. Furthermore, the level was extended by over a minute. While these parts weren't as hard as the rest of the level, it was still well able to kill you even after all the parts of the original level.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCQK_y8JutU&t Zodiac]] doesn't seem as hard just by looking at it, but it disguises a myriad of difficult sections: Shocksidian's part has extremely tough and technical ship duals, TMN's part has an incredible number of tight timings, Pennutoh had a very tight wave section, and Enlex had a difficult ship another difficult wave right at the end! Furthermore, the level was over 3 minutes long, and each of the aforementioned parts are at least over a minute in, meaning that you'll have to grind a lot against the relatively easy parts only to get walled by the later ones.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YYQBbrsV5Y&t Tartarus]] was a level so hard that, when it was first created, people thought it was impossible. There was good reason for them to think that: it had tough blue orb spam parts, ship parts that made those in Bloodbath look like they were in an Easy Demon, wave timings that made those in Sakupen Hell look like an easy demon, an extremely tight swingcopter part, and extremely precise movement demanded from the player all around.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aas8_QKLnuc The Golden]] is a level with pinpoint timings with every single game mode. Often, levels would require only one or two types of gameplay that dominated the level, allowing a skilled player in those modes to bypass most of the level with relative ease. That isn't going to work here; you need to be perfect in every single gameplay mode to stand a chance here, on top of being a god of hitting extremely tight timings, oftentimes close together, with no breaks at all. On top of that, the level itself is dark and can sometimes obstruct the gameplay, making it even harder to make the timings.

** Every level past Electroman Adventure can qualify as one, but especially:
*** Electrodynamix, which introduces the speed portals, and does so in a narrow spike-riddled passage with full speed on. There's also lots of inconsistent cube jumps.

* The Cave of Bad Dreams from ''VideoGame/{{Rayman 2}}'' is an especially vicious ScrappyLevel. Right from the get-go, it's full of almost-invincible {{Wall Master}}s that sap your precious health, and lots of jumping puzzles with ''very tiny'' sinking platforms--and heck, very tiny not-sinking platforms as well. There's a long and tedious sequence where you have to carry two orbs (basically keys) across several platforms filled with enemies to their bases in order to advance, and dropping the orbs and/or accidentally throwing them into the void is all too easy. After that, you have to go down a long slide race against the boss, which has lots of {{Bottomless Pit}}s, sharp crystals that slow you down AND hurt you, and the [[NightmareFuel indescribably freaky]] teeth of the boss. When you're done racing him, you STILL have to fight him as a boss, and he's one of the GuideDangIt-iest {{Puzzle Boss}}es this side of the [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Spider Ball Guardian]]. To top it all off? Once you're done with that, if you accidentally select the wrong option in the end-of-level cutscene--and it's the one that's automatically highlighted--you get a NonStandardGameOver and have to do ''the whole frickin' thing over again!'' [[spoiler:At least, it seems that way, but waiting for about half a minute at the "Game Over" cutscene just takes you right back to select the other choice.]]

[[folder:Crash Bandicoot]]
* [[Videogame/CrashBandicoot1996 Crash Bandicoot (original)]]:
** The first real indication of the game's [[NintendoHard difficulty]] is level 8, Native Fortress, which concludes the first island. It is much longer than any level before it, has omnipresent BottomlessPits, sections where you ascend vertically and have to spin timed platforms to set them, and should you fall down, you need to start over that part, and is full of enemies. The gem is really nasty one, because, besides the obligatory NoDeathRun, you have to acquire the red gem first to get access to some boxes, and [[GuideDangIt others are hidden behind the background]] where you can jump on certain points.
** Sunset Vista, level 14. You need to do the whole thing in one life, and you don't know how many boxes you missed until you've already finished the level. This makes a lot of levels just nightmarish to get a gem on, but Sunset Vista is a huge hard level with a couple hard-to-see crates that really takes the cake.
** There was going to be another level that was even ''harder''. Luckily, this level was cut from the game and was [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone later unearthed by hackers]]. Then again, prototype Sunset Vista was, somehow, even more insanely difficult, so it balances out.
** This game also has a streak of difficult levels in the third island: "The High Road" (level 19), "Jaws of Darkness" (level 22), "The Lab" (level 24), and "Fumbling in the Dark" (level 27, or secret level 2). They have [[GoddamnedBats annoying enemies]], [[FakeDifficulty hard jumps]], [[BlackoutBasement dark areas]], [[PrideBeforeAFall and bottomless pits everywhere.]] If you can even ''beat'' these levels, let alone get the gems from these areas, you should be proud of yourself for accomplishing one of the hardest goals in a game ever.
** Slippery Climb, level 20. It has little fixed ground and thus you'll be mostly walking and jumping between platforms floating in every possible direction and [[GoombaSpringboard moving oversized birds]]. Even stationary ground is mostly covered by [[SurpriseSlideStaircase Surprise Slide Staircases]] with SpikesOfDoom or {{Bottomless Pit}}s at their end. The worst is the second part, which has platforms floating in erratic pattern with varying speed, timing jump on which can be difficult. And this fairly long level has only [[CheckpointStarvation one checkpoint]] (two if you collected all bonus round tokens).
** Like Sunset Vista, Slippery Climb also had a removed level version, this one being a "sequel" to the level named Stormy Ascent. On one hand, it does have three checkpoints. On the other, everything that made Slippery Climb a horrible level to get through is squared in this one, complete with long bits that you ''have'' to complete in one go because pausing for a single second means plummeting. These include stretches where the only things saving you from hitting spikes are birds that can go below them and die when bounced on, platforms that move insanely fast, and extremely erratic platform movement on the last third. This one was removed precisely because of its horrible difficulty, though it's still possible to access through Gameshark; those who have played it report it might just be the hardest level in ''the series as a whole''. This level was eventually released as a level proper in ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy'', as DLC. And it's definitely deserving of that reputation. Reports claim that Vicarious Visions had one of their best players lose no less than '''sixty''' lives trying to clear it, and ''even the very person who DESIGNED Stormy Ascent in the first place had trouble with it''.
** Toxic Waste, level 18. You must avoid barrels being thrown at you as you run down the path, and there are very few areas to hide. Later on, there are ''bouncing'' barrels coming down at you, and it takes hundreds of tries and deaths in order to learn and memorize their movement patterns, and how you can get underneath the barrels without being flattened.
** ''Cortex Power''. One of the most unholy examples of FakeDifficulty ever conceived. CameraScrew, backtracking, and being forced to do it in ONE life if you want even a chance for the gem makes for one of the most difficult levels in games and a high rate of broken [=TVs=].
** The ''N. Sane Trilogy'' thanks in due part to the change in jumping physics, has made two levels that weren't considered that hard in the original Crash 1 into ThatOneLevel: ''Road to Nowhere'' and ''The High Road''. Simply put, it is now ''much'' easier to fall in between the gaps in the bridge, forcing the players' jumps to be ''absolutely'' precise. This [[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-04-fans-may-know-why-jumping-is-harder-in-the-crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy article]] explains why.
** The above trilogy collection also, at least, fixes a few things with the stages by making it so that you can retry a special stage as many times as you'd like with deaths within them not counting, and the most important part: boxes broken before the checkpoint still count even after you die... for the most part. Clear Gems are now less of an issue, and levels like ''Native Fortress'', ''Sunset Vista'', and the "Elite Four" now no longer have a no-death limit, though they're still quite difficult. The Colored Gems, however, even though they track your boxes even after you die... you still aren't allowed to die. The levels containing them only give you the gem if you break all the boxes without a single death, deliberately just like in the original game. As such, ''Lost City'', ''Generator Room'', ''Lights Out'', and the levels ''Toxic Waste'', ''Slippery Climb'', and ''The Lab'' retain their original difficulty and become this in comparison to most of the other levels. Also, since the Crash 1 levels in the remake now work like in Crash 2 and 3, that means you also have to get all the boxes in the Tawna Bonus Rounds. This makes certain Bonus Rounds much more difficult because you can't just ignore everything and go straight for the exit. This especially applies to the Bonus Round in The Lost City.
* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'':
** Level 18, [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Cold Hard Crash]], is a nightmare if you're trying to get the [[HundredPercentCompletion "destroy all crates" Gem]]. You have to play through the first half of the level without dying to reach the DeathCourse, a difficult, [[CheckPointStarvation checkpoint-free]] path covered in crusher traps and nitro mines, almost entirely on slippery ice. When you reach the end of the death course, you need to activate a switch and do the course BACKWARDS to get the new crate the switch spawns at the beginning of the level, at which point you take the platform back to the main level and complete it. [[GuideDangIt Oh, and there's a single, hard-to-find crate hidden just offscreen.]] Missed it? DO THE WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.
** ''Crash Bandicoot 2'' also has its two jetpack levels, Rock It (level 22) and Pack Attack (level 24), found in the final world. They have terrible controls and are especially annoying when getting the clear gems.
** Diggin' It, Level 17, is this if you're going for HundredPercentCompletion. Like Cold Hard Crash, it has a split path Death Route containing some boxes, which means {{Backtracking}}. But here it is ''not'' a sidescroller, so you'll have to run [[CameraScrew towards the camera]] at least on one occasion. To top if off, you'll have to do this through the segments with bees (see below). And yes, bees always start chasing Crash even if he comes ''from the opposite direction'', meaning the sound will be your only clue to spin them off. Oh, and [[MookMaker beehives]] cannot be destroyed.
** Level 20, Bee-Having. It's a mountain-ish level with various nasty enemies like plants that spit explosive seeds and lumberjack androids that can flatten you with their hammers, but none of that matters, because in this level, you'll be too busy worrying about your biggest threat: [[BeeAfraid the bees]]. Throughout the level are beehives that will spawn bees when you walk past them. Level 17 (Diggin' It) had the same theme, same enemies, and it also had bees, but there, the bees came out one at a time. Here, the hives spawn FIVE bees at once, and unless you time a spin ''perfectly'', you won't be able to kill them all and will get hit by the one or two bees that you missed. You can outrun them or get away entirely by digging underground, but if you don't have any ground to dig under (which, coincidentally, usually happens when you have electric fences and seed-spitting plants to deal with as well)...hope you have pretty good timing. You will learn to ''dread'' [[HellIsThatNoise that ominous "buzzzZZZZ..." sound]] that means a new swarm of bees just appeared. The secret area is no picnic either.
** Really, Warp Room 4 in general is practically one big That One Level, especially if you're going for all the gems. It has Cold Hard Crash, Bee-Having, Diggin' It, ''and'' Ruination, which is one of the toughest levels in the game already for [[DepthPerplexion a few reasons]] and has a difficult secret area to boot. The only level in there that ''isn't'' nasty is level 16, and even it has an easy-to-miss secret area.
** Piston It Away, Level 21, is just sadistic. The ordinary level is irritating enough as is. Except the developers chose to go "Screw you!" and make you run almost to the end of the level, break ''one box'', and run back to the second checkpoint, if you want either gem. The problem with this is that you can't actually die. You need to go through the level, backtrack (mercifully, it is a side-scrolling stage), and then survive the Death Route if you want either of the two gems. Furthermore, [[ViolationOfCommonSense you have to remember to keep a particular enemy alive when you go through for the first time]], so you can use it to bounce back up a steep wall on the trip back to the Death Route; of course, most players won't think to do this and will just kill the enemy right away since it's a normal, unremarkable enemy, only to find that there's no way to backtrack past that steep wall without it, forcing them to start the whole level over. The pain of this level can be alleviated somewhat by entering the Death Route right away and immediately dying - doing so will teleport you back to the main level but also guarantees the Death Route platform will stay there forever, so you only need to complete the first section of the level without dying. It also helps to save the Bonus Level for the return trip, as it acts as a checkpoint when completed and is very close to the Death Route.
* ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'':
** ANY of the motorcycle levels. We have level 8 (Hog Ride), level 14 (Road Crash), level 22 (Orange Asphalt), and level 28 (Area 51?). All of them make you ride a motorcycle and race against several other vehicles (cars in the first three, [=UFOs=] in the fourth), all of them require you to come in first place just to get the crystal (except for level 28, which gives you a gem instead), all of them have [[CheckpointStarvation exactly zero checkpoints]], and all of them prevent you from going backward if you happened to miss a crate. Also, with each successive race, the levels become longer, the obstacles become more difficult and more numerous, and the margin of error becomes smaller. You have to drive practically PERFECTLY to get first place in level 28. They're still hard in [[VideoGame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy N. Sane Trilogy]] but for a new reason, and that is the time trials. Hog Ride in particular is notorious if you are going for the Platinum relic, as you have to hold the wheelie for the entirety of the level. The controls are also more sloppy and based on real physics, making the turns harder to execute. Some players got so raged that they even wait for the opponents to end before even trying for the relics. The fourth game has a few racing levels as well, but they tend to be ''much'' easier.
** "Mad Bombers". Unforgiving even for being in the last warp hub. You're flying Crash on a biplane and your objective is to destroy five planes. Unlike in the previous flying level with Coco, however, shooting blindly at vehicles itself is not enough. To destroy the plane, you have to snipe two tiiiiny engines on each before the plane falls to its doom. Consider the awkward targeting and you have a pretty frustrating level at your hand. Not even starting with the fact that the enemy planes do much more damage here and can shred your plane to scrap in seconds.
** The ''N. Sane Trilogy'' turns the secret level Hot Coco into this, due to physics changes that make Coco's jetski handle much more realistically. To even access the level, [[GuideDangIt you need to crash into an odd road sign on Road Crash, a completely unrelated motorcycle level]] (though this is actually ''easier'' than it was on the [=PS1=] as the remake clues you in by having a bird splat into the sign). Hot Coco itself is, uniquely for the series, a non-linear free-roaming area; all you need to do is drive to a Nitro switch on the other side of the level to destroy the Nitro crates blocking the exit back where you started, except you get nothing just for doing this - you can only get the Gem by destroying every crate in the level, most of which are right next to awkwardly-placed gauntlets of Nitro crates and mines, so even if you destroy the Nitros first you'll still have a tough time, as the altered physics mean it's very easy to slip and slide into said mines. It gets even harder in Time Trial mode, as you must figure out the fastest route to and from the Nitro switch, and since there are no Aku Aku crates [[DevelopersForesight (to prevent you from just driving through the Nitro crates blocking the exit)]], you have to do everything in one clean shot.
** Someone at Vicarious Visions apparently thought the platforming stages in the original ''Warped'' were too easy, and so created Future Tense, an entirely new level made specially for the ''N. Sane Trilogy'' as DLC; and, while (thankfully) optional, it's the only level in ''Warped'' that approaches the first game's NintendoHard difficulty. For starters, the level is [[MarathonLevel extremely long]], taking roughly seven-to-eight minutes to complete, and is chock-full of spike traps, awkward conveyor belts, ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs spike traps ON awkward conveyor belts]]'', a lengthy section towards the end where you have to dodge missiles coming at you from the foreground while jumping across timed platforms, and box placement designed to trick you into committing suicide. Plus, if you want either Gem, you have to get through the entire first half of the level [[NoDeathRun without dying]], [[GuideDangIt shoot out an Iron ! Crate hidden off-screen BEHIND an elevator]] so it spawns a bounce crate you need, climb up through a perilous laser/conveyor belt obstacle course - again, without dying - and reach the Death Route; [[UpToEleven which is, of course, even harder]], and contains several boxes which you ''need'' for one of the Gems, as a throwback to the Death Routes from ''Crash 2''. Of note are a pair of boxes contained in the Death Route which are floating in a gap between two conveyor belts going in opposite directions, with timed lasers above them and missiles being fired at you from the other side - even shooting them out with the Fruit Bazooka is a pain since you need to stand still to do it, and they're placed ''just'' low enough that you practically have to be right on the edge to even hit them; and you could easily smash them only to fall into the abyss which must be bounced across on TNT Crates, or get blown up while ''Matrix''-dodging missiles ''in mid-air'', [[CheckPointStarvation sending you right back to the Death Route's one and only checkpoint at the start]]. Even the Bonus Level can be pretty tough, as you have to figure out the right order in which to do things - and you can't waste any time doing so, as it involves safely smashing switching ?/TNT Crates - or you'll wind up locked out of several crates and need to start over. [[SerialEscalation And then you have to RUSH through all this in the Time Trials...]]
* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootTheWrathOfCortex'':
** [[UnderTheSea Coral Canyon]], level 19. Underwater levels in ''Crash Bandicoot'' games tend to be on the annoying side already (thank goodness they all play entirely in 2D), but this one is probably the worst of the bunch, though it's not as evil as some of the other examples here. It is full of dangers that can seemingly come out of nowhere if you haven't memorized the level layout (the submarine can be killed by [[GlassCannon contact with a fish]], for crying out loud), and it is ''long''. The sheer length makes this one one of the most annoying levels in the game to do on Time Trial mode. At least [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic the background music is pretty nice-sounding]].
** The Blue Gem pathway, filled as it is with ''single-block-wide'' platforms above instant-kill water arranged in such a way that you often have to jump ''diagonally'' from one to the next), among other things. The Red Gem pathway is almost just as bad, being filled with ''tons'' of Nitro crates instead.
** Any level where you play as Coco, as she handles significantly worse than Crash (indeed, [[HardModeFiller Level 26 is Crash's Level 11]], except edited so Coco can complete it).
** Smokey and the Bandicoot is, somehow, more difficult than Area 51 in ''Warped''. The relic challenge is easier, but that is the only mercy given here. The jeep you are given handles like a shopping cart that is filled with rocks, which makes even getting the crystal a challenge, and the recommended strategy for getting the gem is to go as slow as possible. And the handling ensures that you'll ''still'' miss some boxes. And this is Level 13!
** Crashteroids or level 18. It's basically [[VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped Mad Bombers]] [[RecycledInSpace in space]], as in you have to destroy specific parts of your targets (here it's necessary to shoot three shield generators of each of three space stations, then to shoot the stations themselves) and enemies have [[MoreDakka rapid-fire attacks]] that can destroy you fast. What makes is even worse is, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin of course]], omnipresent asteroids, which deal massive damage or outright [[OneHitKO destroy your ship]].
* "High Seas Hijinx" in ''Videogame/CrashTwinsanity''. Firstly, it takes approximately thirty minutes to complete. It opens with large and annoying fields of nitro crates on slippy-slidey ice (and when a life crate is opened, even if this was because you hit a nitro crate and were instantly reduced to shrapnel, the life is lost until your next replay). After this, it moves on to crossing a series of semi-rotating platforms while rhinos that do CollisionDamage swing around, seemingly just because that way they can be a nuisance; there are two life crates that can be accessed, but doing so will probably cost you at least three lives due to accessing the detonator crate to get a stack of nitros out of the way. After this, things settle down to merely annoying until you come to a water room with a huge axle just under the surface; you have to walk along the rotating bulges without falling into the water, and this will almost certainly lead to a nice time falling into the drink and dying instantly. After you've managed that you have to take on N. Gin himself by making him destroy his own crow's nest; the battle consists mainly of running in circles, and then being knocked over the edge by an explosion when you run afoul of the one gap in the spiked wall around the circumference of the battlefield and are unable to escape his rains of missiles. When Gin eventually plummets, you have to run away from a SuperPersistentPredator walrus chef along a massive field where no life crates you pick up will be worth what it does to your time, and by which point your thumb will hurt enough to interfere with your ability to control Crash. And when you've finally managed that? There's ''another'' boss fight that just comes out of nowhere on an iceberg that gets fractured before you've really gotten started. And if you run out of lives, you have to do it all over again from the slidey ice with nitros area.
* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot4ItsAboutTime'':
** While the game as a whole has picked up a reputation for [[NintendoHard insane difficulty]], on par with if not surpassing the original title, there are a select few levels that seem especially reviled. One of these is ''Run It Bayou'' from the fifth dimension, roughly at the halfway point; a nasty DifficultySpike, ''especially'' if you're going for OneHundredPercentCompletion, chiefly due to sadistic box placement, including a throwback to ''Crash 2'' where you must [[ViolationOfCommonSense defy common sense]] and ignore the surfboard to instead bounce across boxes floating in the water to reach the yellow gem. Then there's the lengthy section in the middle where you must ride a boat while smashing boxes (including a bounce crate that doesn't go anywhere and seemingly exists just to trick you), and the final surfboard section where it's extremely difficult if not impossible to go back and get boxes you missed due to the current. And of course, you could easily get through all of this only to find out you missed the boxes at the very beginning that were ''[[GuideDangIt hidden off-screen behind steps]]'', or the level's hidden gem which can only be accessed by hitting a ! crate hidden behind a non-descript barrel to create some metal boxes behind a non-descript tree [[OverlyLongGag off to the side of a non-descript bridge]]. On top of all this, it's the first level where the Flashback Tape - [[NoDeathRun which requires you to get through the whole stage without dying to pick it up]] - is very far into the level; a taster of what is to come, as this becomes increasingly common in later levels.
*** The level's Dingodile timeline version, ''No Dillo Dallying'', isn't any easier; for starters, after finishing Dingodile's section, it expects you to complete basically the entire second half of the regular level, starting from the boat ride, an already hard section made even ''harder'' by trickier box placement (and if you thought the bounce crate from before now actually lead somewhere, you thought wrong). Thankfully, there's no Flashback Tapes on the timeline levels.
** ''Bears Repeating'' in the sixth dimension. After two [[BreatherLevel Breather Levels]] spent introducing you to [[TimeMaster Kupuna-Wa]]'s time-manipulation mechanics and a deceptively easy (by this game's standards) opening section, you then find yourself riding Polar once more, except now he's even faster and slippier, making hitting boxes about three times as hard as it was back in ''Crash 2''; and once again, the Flashback Tape is wayyyyy into the level, in the midst of Polar's section, forcing you to re-do the entire first four-fifths of the level if you die once. This level also features a secret Yellow Gem path, containing an homage to ''The High Road'' from ''Crash 1'' - yes, they brought back the infuriating broken bridge of doom, with everything that implies.
** ''Out For Launch'' can be pretty tricky just to get through normally when playing for the first time, chiefly because it's the level that introduces [[GravityMaster Ika-Ika the Gravity Mask]], and just halfway into the level you're thrown into the deep end with precise and unforgiving gravity-manipulation sections, littered with tricky box placement and [[DemonicSpiders plasma-toting Gasmoxians]] with the accuracy of a [[VideoGame/Halo2 Jackal Sniper]] and a devious habit of baiting you into charging at them before shooting - ''and'' they sometimes hang about on the walls and ceilings, to boot. Needless to say, if you don't have a good grasp of how to use Ika-Ika when going into this level, you ''will'' by the time you finish.
*** It also has a Cortex timeline version, ''Shipping Error'', which may be the first seriously difficult non-Crash/Coco level in the game, particularly since you have to deal with the same tricky enemies as Cortex, with his more limited platforming abilities, plus ascending up narrow shafts while bouncing on enemies-turned-goo-platforms to turn ''other'' enemies, timed ''just'' right so you don't instead careen right into them. All of this pales in comparison to the room where you must hop across ''extremely'' fast-moving platforms using Cortex's dash, which requires you to dash into ''thin air'' and hope that the brief hang-time after using the dash will be enough to let you land on the next platform.
** ''Crash Landed'' is [[MarathonLevel one of the longest levels in the game]], and plays almost like a highlights reel of the most difficult parts of the game up to that point - the level is slick with ice physics sections, there's ''two'' parts where you must ride a schnurgle in auto-scrolling obstacle courses like Polar, there's a few sections where you must bounce across the backs of floating alien tortoises to hit crates, and the two schnurgle-riding segments are broken up by another Ika-Ika gravity-manipulation assault course - and of course the Flashback Tape is, once again, very far into the level. It also has one of the highest box counts of any level in the game, in a game where levels with 200+ boxes are the rule rather than the exception - if you can't access the Blue Gem path, you'll be lucky if you can even get the Wumpa gems. On top of all this, it also has one of the hardest Bonus Rounds in the game, where you must somehow hop over a bouncing metal crate while sliding all over pink goo, while simultaneously avoiding the Nitro just on the other side - the Ika-Ika segments of the round are almost a piece of cake in comparison, which is saying a lot.
** ''Toxic Tunnels'' and ''Cortex Castle'', [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the final two levels of the game]]. Toxic Tunnels is almost incomprehensibly long and jam-packed with boxes, most of which are hidden away inside the secret path which requires all four Coloured Gems to access - if you can't access it, the chances of getting even the first Wumpa gem is next to nil. It also pushes your grasp of Crash/Coco's basic platforming skills to the limits, with numerous slippery wall-riding sections and swinging platforms which will incinerate you if you're not fast enough to get off, dotted with [[DemonicSpiders possibly the worst enemy in the game]] - electric bugs that take up entire platforms with their attacks, and at a few points will purposely change their timing just to herd you into shocking range. Cortex Castle, meanwhile, is [[FinalExamFinale an exam of how well you can handle the Quantum Masks]] - you must use all four masks throughout the level, culminating in a finale where you must switch between each of them in rapid succession to get past a death gauntlet of lasers, moving platforms, and huge chasms which must be bounced across on TNT or Nitro crates - towards the end, the masks are practically ''side-by-side''. Even the ''music'' for this part [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aIMfD3jnbA sounds designed to put you on edge]] - and it turns on ''right at the part where the Flashback Tape shows up''! Yes, every level in the final dimension practically puts the Flashback Tape right at the end, so you can't make any mistakes - if you do, have fun restarting from the beginning and listening to Cortex blabber on about Willy the Wombat for the tenth time.
*** And if you thought you only needed to endure the final death gauntlet once, the final Cortex timeline level, ''Seeing Double'', makes you do it again ''[[UpToEleven with even trickier box placement]]''; and since you also need to complete the N.Verted versions of each level if you're going for OneHundredPercentCompletion, this means you have to ace that death gauntlet ''four times'' in total!
[[/folder]]

** While the game as a whole has picked up a reputation for [[NintendoHard insane difficulty]], on par with if not surpassing the original title, there are a select few levels that seem especially reviled. One of these is ''Run It Bayou'' from the fifth dimension, roughly at the halfway point; a nasty DifficultySpike, ''especially'' if you're going for OneHundredPercentCompletion, chiefly due to sadistic box placement, including a throwback to ''Crash 2'' where you must [[ViolationOfCommonSense defy common sense]] and ignore the surfboard to instead bounce across boxes floating in the water to reach a hidden gem. Then there's the lengthy section in the middle where you must ride a boat while smashing boxes (including a bounce crate that doesn't go anywhere and seemingly exists just to trick you), and the final surfboard section where it's extremely difficult if not impossible to go back and get boxes you missed due to the current. And of course, you could easily get through all of this only to find out you missed the boxes at the very beginning that were ''[[GuideDangIt hidden off-screen behind steps]]''. On top of all this, it's the first level where the Flashback Tape - [[NoDeathRun which requires you to get through the whole stage without dying to pick it up]] - is very far into the level; a taster of what is to come, as this becomes increasingly common in later levels.

** Stage 6 of Dark Castle in ''2'' has one segment that scrolls from right to left in which the player has to pick one of two or three potential paths. Choosing the wrong one leads to an inescapable death, and the only way to know which path to choose is to remember the path from Stage 3, [[LevelInReverse which scrolled left to right]].

* The Rainbow Drop levels from Iceberg onwards in ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand2''. The [[AutoscrollingLevel scrolling]] doesn't make them any better.

** "Great Cave Offensive" is That One ''Game''. The Garden is the hardest of the four levels, because some treasures are nigh-impossible to get; for example, you're supposed to know that you can drop through a platform that looks solid and into a pool of water, and you have a dreaded Wheelie Rider segment (the fact that the reward is just about worthless doesn't help AT ALL).
** The True Arena is a boss rush. The first six bosses are ''only'' harder versions of the ones you fought earlier. Then come the "Final Four," which are extremely powerful forms or [[{{Expy}} Expies]] of King Dedede, Wham Bam Rock, Meta Knight, and Marx. Health does not regenerate between any of the battles, outside of a few healing items that replace a fifth of Kirby's health each. The only practical way of winning the True Arena is to receive zero damage from the first six bosses, and practically none from the next two.

* The dreaded factory stage in ''VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards''. The stage is long and has all kinds of things that threaten to flatten, squish, and crunch you and therefore cost you a life. The section where you piggyback ride on King Dedede's back has robots that try to flatten you with their hammers, in which you have to wait for them to slam their hammers down and bring them back up before proceeding. And if that's not enough, there's also conveyor belts as well as Bobos and Sawyers to keep you occupied. A few rooms after is the room where the presses come slowly crashing down and press down on the floor (luckily, there are safe areas to keep you safe from these presses). On the last two presses, you have to run really fast since there's not much safe spots on these last two presses. Finally, there's the area where robots push energy walls towards you and try to smash you between them and the walls, and near the top of the room, you have to quickly fly up to the top of the column before the robot that chases you from the right side to the column smashes you between it and its energy wall. Yikes, now that's really tough.
* ''VideoGame/KirbyCanvasCurse'': A good chunk of the game can fall under this, but nothing infuriates players more than Spectacle Space. It is almost impossible to get through it unscathed. It must be seen to be believed.

* ''VideoGame/KidChameleon'' has the infamous Bloody Swamp. An entirely circumventable level, if you do have the misfortune of going to it, you will die. A lot. It is about 3/4ths of the way through the game and can easily take you down from a huge number of lives and continues to game over. It is an AdvancingWallOfDoom level from hell, with bouncing blocks that catapult you to death, moving platforms which crush you or prevent you from moving on fast enough to survive, and various other nonsense that makes it a miserable, miserable experience. Ironically, one of the ways to get there is via a shortcut which wise players will never, ever use just to avoid this place.

** Level 9, Terra Tubes. For those that tried completing this game on a real NES without savestates and such, this is the true landmark of vileness. It's not the hardest level, but by far the most annoying because of its length, FakeDifficulty, ''real'' difficulty and the inability to warp past it. The underwater swimming sections are not only chock full of the same instant-kill SpikesOfDoom found abundantly in the drier parts of the level, but {{Psycho Electric Eel}}s and [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned Sharks]] trying to knock you into the spikes, and Rubber Ducks which are surprisingly even deadlier. There is a series of four races against Advancing Wheels Of Doom, and two later ones which are partly underwater, which not only require avoiding spikes but prior knowledge of which instant-kill wheels will ram the barrier at the end of the race and which will head instead for the small niche beside it. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deVqMCohnQ0&t=2m15s Here's a video of someone doing it right]].

[[folder:Miscellaneous 1]]
* The planet Telos in ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfRadGravity'' is one big DeathCourse, riddled with SpikesOfDoom, some of which require the [[CastFromHP health-draining]] Energy Disc to cross, [[AdvancingWallOfDoom Advancing Spiked Walls Of Doom]], [[ConveyorBeltODoom Conveyor Belts of Doom]], SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom, [[RainOfArrows dart-shooters raining down on you]], and to top it off, a [[TheMaze teleporter maze]] in the middle of it all.
* Black Castle in the freeware game ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory''. The whole area is full of spikes and nasty jumps, the worst of which are the arrow blocks that launch you into the spikes if your timing in jumping into them is a little off. It doesn't help that the save points are spread thin and that on any difficulty higher than the second the game starts ''taking away'' your save points.
* ''VideoGame/{{Jumper}} 2'' may be a NintendoHard DeathCourse all the way through, but some levels are far more annoying than others:
** 3-3 will most likely be the first level you will exceed 100 deaths on. The level begins with a sequence where you must wall-jump up a corridor while a field of electricity rises to zap you. You won't make it unless you can double-jump to gain extra height, otherwise you'll have to slow down to get to the right position to make it out, at which point you'll be zapped. However, because you have to jump from a one-block-wide tunnel to get to it, there's no telling if you've used your double jump until it's too late. Then you have to complete the level.
** 5-5 is a nightmare because of one specific jump early in the level. It's difficult to describe, but there is a cluster of fireballs that's arranged in such a way that you can't run at full speed off the previous platform or you'll barely run into it. You have to fall off, release the run key for a few milliseconds until you pass it, then keep going and double-jump until you reach the next platform. Either you'll stop too long and won't make the jump, hit the fireballs, or somehow keep going through the rest of the level, which is not any easier. It's saying something when the AdvancingBossOfDoom is the ''least'' of your concerns.
** [[NostalgiaLevel World 8]] features levels from ''Jumper'' that were already incredibly difficult, now updated with actual physics! Most of them qualify, but 8-3 features incredibly precise jumps and 8-4 has no solid ground until the very end.
** 9-2 has one nasty jump at the beginning. You have to fall under an obstacle, jump up and wall jump over the next spike-covered block, ''fall over and wall jump from it'', and land on the one-time spring block (and don't forget to move left, or you'll hit the spikes) so you can continue. You ''will'' miss that first jump so many times.
** 10-2 is excruciating. Not only is the level rather long and requires a ton of waiting and backtracking, it's [[FakeLongevity laggy as hell.]] The fire effects are all over the place, which slow the game down to less than half its normal speed.
** 10-4 features two robots that fire at you. They have ''really'' good aim, and lead their shots very well. On top of that, it's incredibly laggy.
* ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'':
** [[CircusOfFear Meat Circus]]. In addition to cruel jumping puzzles, a vicious EscortMission, damaged-based insta-kills that eat your Dream Fluffs faster then you can extricate yourself, there's also a [[ThatOneBoss boss that requires some crazy good timing]], and the entire premise of the level (a circus made out of ''raw meat'') is [[NightmareFuel deeply frightening and disturbing]].
** Milla's level. It's actually a pretty fun level, with a dance party theme and lots of bouncing around on a ball and rolling down a gigantic slide. It definitely doesn't belong on this list... until you decide to go for OneHundredPercentCompletion. Trying to collect all the figments, some of which move around or blend in to the background, all while bouncing around on a ball and rolling down a gigantic slide is absolutely maddening.
* ''VideoGame/ToyStory'':
** The RC car levels count (as does much of the rest of the game for some). You must use crappy controls to steer through a narrow maze, having to restart if you hit the side. To make it even better, you quickly run out of batteries, which you must pick up by steering into them with aforementioned crappy controls. In the Genesis version, the hitbox of the stars is smaller, making them harder to collect, and unlike in the SNES version, the batteries in the first of the two such levels (the second has them just lying on the street) go flying all over the place no matter how lightly you hit Buzz. ''Double'' bonus points for the PC version, where the bad controls are somehow made ''even worse'', and any single tap of any direction will make the RC go flying all over the place.
** There's also level 15, Roller Bob. It's a rather MinecartMadness-esque level, similar to "Run Rex, Run!" earlier, but much harder. There is ''so much'' stuff coming at you in this level, it's nearly impossible to dodge it all sometimes, and you're bound to lose some lives here (not hits, ''lives''). [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] when Scud blocks off half the screen and requires you to react IMMEDIATELY to any hazards ahead.
* While most of the entirety of ''VideoGame/KidChameleon'' can be classified as this, Final Marathon and Hills of the Warrior take the cake; the latter, along with its ilk, involve being chased through an unrelenting maze by an [[AdvancingWallOfDoom instant-death spike-lined wall]], while the former is essentially ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'' lite. There's also Bloody Swamp, where you have to hit the right cannon blocks at ''exactly'' the right time to advance through a series of such walls, else you get stuck, unable to advance, and run over by the Wall of Doom. Other popular candidates for the title of Scrappy Level are Under Skull Mountain III (the first of several excessively long levels), Forced Entry (another Wall of Doom level), or either Devil's Marsh (a teleport frenzy and an bunch of platforms trying to crush you, respectively).
* Though ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'' is, quite frankly, one giant (intentional) PlatformHell, there are still places that players hate more than others. The words "spike corridor" will cause many people to froth at the mouth.
* One particular spot in ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheFangame'' definitely qualifies if you're playing on [[HarderThanHard Very Hard]]. It's when you fight Death. Not only is this a MarathonBoss IWBTG style, its also essentially a [[TimeLimitBoss Timed Fight]] after he TurnsRed and starts breaking what platforms you have left to stand on. [[ButWaitTheresMore And that's not all]]. After you fight him, you're immediately put into a room with [[CheckpointStarvation no checkpoint]] and you have what looks like those spike traps from Link to the Past bouncing up and down in narrow corridors. It's this room that qualifies as ThatOneLevel since, if you fail it, (which, in the true style of IWBTG, YOU WILL) you have to do that whole boss fight all over again. And even getting the first part of that room correct involves dodging seven of these spike traps in a row before getting even a slight breather. And then you get to do it again for three more traps.
* ''[[VideoGame/MeatBoy Super Meat Boy]]'':
** You can unlock The Kid from ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy''. Unsurprisingly, the first bonus stage you need to beat to get him is absurdly punishing, even by Meat Boy's standard of ludicrous difficulty. However, the saving grace is that his levels don't belong to PlatformHell genre.
** All of Cotton Alley, in particular 7-3 (Panic Attack), which requires precise jumps in about 4 seconds. There's also 7-20 (Four Letter Word), a dozen or so floors of increasingly precise jumps that has a painful par time, the Dark World version is actually slightly easier.
** As for the Dark World, 2-8X (Grape Soda) is a nauseating and imperceptible palette of purple on slightly darker purple. It also has a confusing needle-fall that needs to be bypassed very precisely on top of the PURPLE.
* The Cave of Bad Dreams from ''VideoGame/{{Rayman 2}}'' is an especially vicious ScrappyLevel. Right from the get-go, it's full of almost-invincible {{Wall Master}}s that sap your precious health, and lots of jumping puzzles with ''very tiny'' sinking platforms--and heck, very tiny not-sinking platforms as well. There's a long and tedious sequence where you have to carry two orbs (basically keys) across several platforms filled with enemies to their bases in order to advance, and dropping the orbs and/or accidentally throwing them into the void is all too easy. After that, you have to go down a long slide race against the boss, which has lots of {{Bottomless Pit}}s, sharp crystals that slow you down AND hurt you, and the [[NightmareFuel indescribably freaky]] teeth of the boss. When you're done racing him, you STILL have to fight him as a boss, and he's one of the GuideDangIt-iest {{Puzzle Boss}}es this side of the [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Spider Ball Guardian]]. To top it all off? Once you're done with that, if you accidentally select the wrong option in the end-of-level cutscene--and it's the one that's automatically highlighted--you get a NonStandardGameOver and have to do ''the whole frickin' thing over again!'' [[spoiler:At least, it seems that way, but waiting for about half a minute at the "Game Over" cutscene just takes you right back to select the other choice.]]
** Obligatory mention of the Sanctuary of Stone and Fire. It had THE longest level segment in the entire game, and had several annoying bouncing-berry-over-lava sequences (one which you had to go through ''twice''), AND a crystal ball puzzle! Thank goodness there wasn't an annoying boss at the end...
*** However, in the [=PS1=] version, the level is EVEN LONGER and has a hellish walking shell ride that if you mess up even once you have to redo from the very beginning, and the level DOES have a [[ThatOneBoss very annoying and hard boss]] in the [=PS1=] version...
** In the first game, Eat At Joe's. For the first segment, it's a complete BlackoutBasement, with the only light being a tiny glow around your fist. You can throw it to see what's ahead, but it makes scanning the level for cages annoying as ever, not to mention a large cloud hop at the end. It's also the longest level in the game. And if you didn't find all of the cages on your first time through, have fun going back in to find the rest! It can be somewhat remedied if you try using a map, at least.
** Also, Bongo Hills. A six-part MarathonLevel with platforming that requires [[NintendoHard split second reflexes and flawless memorization of the segments]], and it's only the ''fifth level in the game''! Newcomers are guaranteed to use up all their lives (and continues) here.
** The third part of Space Mama's Crater is probably responsible for broken controllers worldwide. You need near-perfect timing in order to traverse the labyrinth of sharp obstacles because one wrong move sends you falling to your doom. The worst part is, one of the cages appears behind you, forcing you to backtrack.
** ''VideoGame/RaymanOrigins''... heck, it's probably easier to list the late-game levels that ''don't'' fall into this trope. The Tricky Treasure levels deserve a special mention though. You're chasing a treasure chest (essentially making the level an auto-scroller) through a ''brutal'' death course filled with wall-to-wall SpikesOfDoom, collapsing floors and bottomless pits. And there are '''ten''' such levels!!! [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Ice Fishing Folly]] is by far the worst though, featuring a series of 10 jumps ''in a row, each requiring split-second reflexes, where being even a milisecond too fast or too slow will see you falling to your doom...'' '''on ice!''' And that's just the ''first 10 seconds of the level!'' And [[CheckpointStarvation there are no checkpoints!]] The end portion is the most brutal part... there's one jump, if your timing isn't ''spot-on'', you'll never make the rest!
** "Pirate's Treasure," from the Sea of Serendipity, is among the worst of them. Not like the Tricky Treasures have been ''easy'' up to that point, but it's ''still'' a DifficultySpike from what they had been. It's the first treasure to involve swimming, meaning you have to switch quickly between air movement and water movement. Due to having multiple segments, it's longer than the other treasures up to that point. And it's ''full'' of platforms that like you [[TrialAndErrorGameplay fake you out,]] either by forcing you not to jump, having you jump to places you normally wouldn't, or even forcing you to use your hover powers when you would not normally want to.
** Nearly as bad as Ice-Fishing Folly is Risky Ruin. Not only is it a MarathonLevel by Tricky Treasure standards, it's also got some pixel-perfect jumps where you'll get skewered if you jump a pixel too high, rope-sliding, and an underwater portion that's incredibly ''brutal.'' Right off the beginning is [[FourIsDeath four]] jumps that ''will'' kill you until you learn to stop rushing, and it only gets worse...
** Outside of the Tricky Treasures, there's [[EternalEngine "Mecha No Mistake."]] They aren't kidding--this level is full of electricity, vanishing platforms, and sawblades. Lots and lots and lots and ''lots'' of sawblades. It's also got one of the hardest [[SpeedRun Time Trials]] in the game. To get an idea of how difficult it is, Mecha No Mistake is the final non-boss level in the game, and the world it's in is by far the most difficult (the game has infinite lives, and ''you will need them''), and Time Trials require you to blaze through most of the level without dying once. There's segments with moving sawblades and running up walls, dashing along a course of platforms that only appear for a short time, and a giant room filled with lava and giant hollow gears that are very, ''very'' time-consuming. At least the time limit is merciful; most players wouldn't get the trophy because of the gear room if the limit was any shorter...
** FICKLE FRUIT. Ice physics, mini Rayman controls, killer fruit that can be very annoying to avoid and some frustrating platforming. The medals range from annoying to downright insane.
** ''VideoGame/RaymanLegends'' greatly toned down the difficulty of the aformentioned levels for its "Back to Origins" sections, and the game is [[SequelDifficultyDrop somewhat easier]]. ''Somewhat.''
** After you make progress in one world, you unlock Invasion levels in others, which are time-trials with enemies/features from other worlds. After beating the game, you unlock Dark Rayman Invasions, which are really nasty. Having to blaze through the course in 40 seconds to get all the Teensies is hard enough, but having to do so with an evil entity that mirrors your actions that kills you on hit is a nightmare. It's telling that the first Dark Rayman Invasion is a ''four-skull'' difficulty level, compared to the one-skull difficulty level on Enchanted Forest (what it's connected to).
** At the end of the game you'll unlock an extra-difficult bonus world, Livid Dead Party. It's difficult, [[FakeDifficulty but not in a good way]]. Save the first level (''Grannies World Tour''), all its levels are just 8-bit rehashes of the music levels you've already done, except with visual distortions that make things harder for no reason. Try making the tricky jumps of ''Orchestral Chaos'' when there is horrible static every time you jump! Try navigating ''Castle Rock'' and ''Gloo Gloo'' with a nauseating fish-eye effect! Try to complete ''Mariachi Madness'' and ''Dragon Slayer'' when it's so pixellated you can't even tell the hazards from the background! And when you beat all of them, you unlock the 8-bit version of ''Grannies World Tour'', which is just an 8-bit rehash with all the irritating visual distortions combined.
** "What the Duck?", the first level of the third world, isn't too bad on its own...but when you play through it as Murfy, it becomes incredibly annoying due to the ''obscene'' levels of ArtificialStupidity exhibited by the character you're trying to escort. She will bash her head repeatedly into walls rather than take the obvious paths you make, get caught up on waist-high blocks while there's a clear path above her, walk right into hazards ''repeatedly'' with no input from the player telling her to go anywhere near that way, and refuse to go backward or stop for ANY reason. One of the worst points is a checkpoint directly before a segment in which you have to drop a weight with spikes before she moves into the wall under it - since she will happily hug the wall instead of waiting for you to finish, inevitably causing her to get crushed by the weight - in ''less than a second'' after the checkpoint respawn. Another is the second bonus area, in which you have to create paths through spikes and lava while she's swinging around the screen in patterns that don't make the slightest bit of sense, with no consideration whatsoever for where the hazards are. Murfy's levels are generally ScrappyMechanic incarnate, but the AI in the other ones displays at least a ''semblance'' of self-preservation.
* The Ice Land stage in ''[[VideoGame/MontyMole Impossamole]]'', although ironically it's not a SlippySlideyIceWorld until the second part. As usual it has EverythingTryingToKillYou, which this time includes snowmen, snowballs, and ''penguins''. Many of the obstacles are often impossible to avoid taking damage from, eg the [[InvincibleMinorMinion Invincible Evil Snowman]] that randomly throws volleys of snowballs, narrow hallways(precluding the use of the Bubble Gun) packed with enemies and [[MookMaker enemy-generating doorways]] which often spawn enemies on top of Monty, falling icicles situated next to SpikesOfDoom, which can bounce Monty back and forth until death(no MercyInvincibility to these), the usual offscreen enemies that you sometimes can't avoid falling on(especially the Shaft of Doom in the second area, which also has spikes at the bottom), near-unavoidable rolling snowballs, [[DownTheDrain pirhana and mine filled water pits]] that you sometimes have to swim through, eg the Green Waterfall from Hell, which has falling icicles, a [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned Bird]] guarding your escape from the water, and an unavoidable spike pit immediately afterwards, and the lack of health items and powerups doesn't help either.
* ''VideoGame/TheLionKing'' game adaptation, released in '94 in conjunction with the film, had a good share of nasty levels:
** Most playing sessions ended for many young players in only its ''second level'' ("Can't Wait to be King"), partly thanks to a deviously complicated puzzle involving monkeys throwing the player between trees and realigning their throwing paths to progress. And those who figured it out were rewarded with an ostrich riding sequence (with jumps that required absolutely perfect timing) and another, even more complicated ape puzzle. And the reason for this? Rental market. [[WordofGod Louis Castle]] himself has stated that the reason for the second level being so hard was by order of Disney who wanted to make the game near impossible for people to beat during a rental period, thereby increasing sales of the game.
** The sixth level ("Hakuna Matata") is as bad as this: besides the hard boss fight (a gorilla), there is a platforming puzzle involving logs in a waterfall--in other words, you have to climb small platforms which are in a steady fall. "Annoying" is too soft to describe it.
** The eighth level ("Be Prepared") is also a doozy. There's lava geysers, lava dripping from the ceiling, literal Goddamned Bats that attack when you pass beneath them (and can knock you into lava), along with leopards and hyenas scattered about. And then there's the ride on a rock slab along a river of lava (which is where the aforementioned bats become ''really'' nasty)...
** The penultimate level ("Simba's Return") and its infinite looping thorn maze isn't any better, either. The solution is quite obtuse as well. Strangely, after the string of hard levels, the final boss isn't all ''that'' hard.
* The Castle in ''VideoGame/MickeyMousecapade''. Chock full of [[RespawningEnemies regenerating]] GoddamnedBats and DemonicSpiders, many screens that must be accessed by jumping up, and if you fall back down, the enemies respawn, in addition to a [[DegradedBoss downgraded]] version of ThatOneBoss and a BossInMookClothing. Hopefully you can find an invincibility fairy behind one of the windows, or you're probably going to be in serious trouble. And if you go past the DegradedBoss without the key to the BossRoom, it's [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost permanently]], as backtracking will probably get you killed by the respawned miniboss.
** Also The Woods, considering how tricky it is to find your way around it without going in complete circles. This level essentially gives TheLostWoods from Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda a run for its money.
* ''[[http://www.miniclip.com/games/dirk-valentine/en/ Dirk Valentine And The Fortress Of Steam]]'' is an awesome game, but don't even ''mention'' the Inner Engine Room. Near the end of the level, there's a part where you have to jump onto a platform that has two of the Baron's guards on it. This wouldn't be so bad if weren't for the fact that you have to make the jump from a tiny [[FloatingPlatforms Floating Platform]] that moves back-and-forth above a {{Bottomless Pit|s}} ''while being shot at''. It's almost impossible to aim and actually kill the GoddamnedBats before landing on the platform, you've only got three hit points, and dying sends you right back to the beginning. [[BigNo NOOOOOO!]]
** HA! The Inner Engine Room is nothing, NOTHING, compared to the Control Tower. You have to exploit the game's primary mechanic (a gun that shoots chains that can be strung between platforms, creating walkways) to ascend giant shafts by jumping and shooting chains under you to land on. Not only is this incredibly tricky and tedious, but the second time you have to do it (and every time after) has cannons on the sides of the shaft that constantly shoot missiles that not only damage you, but ''destroy your chains''. Also, each chain disappears as soon as you shoot the next one, so if this happens you fall all the way back down. '''''INTO A BOTTOMLESS PIT'''''.

** [[spoiler:Baku's World Levels 2 and 3, the second level requires jumping or if you have a character with the boat body, you can cross the spike pits as they are submerged, but in the third level it is hell unless you have the Jet Body or extremely quick reflexes since the platforms fade in and out, and the entire floor save the starting segment is made of spikes]]
* As ''VideoGame/ToejamAndEarl'' generates its levels randomly, one might think it would be immune to this trope. One would be wrong. The game features quicksand terrain, and as one advances through the levels, the odds of it showing up increases. A complete game usually involves at least two levels ''almost completely covered'' in quicksand. Quicksand prevents your character from walking at their normal speed, and can bring them to a virtual halt, while [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard not hindering enemies at all]], and is usually populated by whirlwinds, invincible hazards that pick up your character and deposit them in random locations, often over a hole that will drop you back down a level.
** Usually at least one quicksand level will be loaded with Bogey Men. While far from the most dangerous enemy in the game, they are a terror in quicksand thanks to their high numbers, faster speed than you (in sand), and oh yeah, they're ''invisible''.
** The sequel ''VideoGame/ToeJamAndEarlPanicOnFunkatron'' had Level 15: The Final Battle, which had basically every enemy waiting to fight you, and swarms of them at that, especially flying ones, which where ''much'' harder to hit. The greatest thing about this level: [[spoiler:now there are earthlings in the underfunk which you have to battle and capture, [[TheComputerisACheatingBastard and unlike you, they aren't hurt by the fire that occasionally rises from the ground.]] Many players have fallen to this level, and the ones that beat it learn that there are two more levels before the game is finished and you can see the ending]].
* ''VideoGame/JetSetWilly''. Just type "The Banyan Tree" into Google and watch the carnage.
** In its predecessor ''VideoGame/ManicMiner'', "The Warehouse".
* Spend some time with ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet'''s Bunker. You'll never again see electricity as a positive force in your life. The second to last area is a constantly spinning wheel that you start in the center of and have to work your way out of, to the bottom. The beginning of it is fairly easy due to the fact that everything is made of cloth, so you can grab onto it and wait for the next platform to be right below you so you can drop to it and grab it, and repeat, but the last part requires you to stay right at the bottom, jumping on top of the platforms that had electricity underneath you while adjusting for the change in your jumps the physics of it all provides. If you were off by a bit when you tried to drop down to the final area, you hit the sides and were electrocuted. Even then, the final area had you running up a conveyor belt and jumping over electrocuted lights, if you were off by a bit on your jump, you died. [[NoDeathRun Acing]] this level is no easy feat, but gives you a sweet helmet.
** This stage is one of few examples where being ThatOnePlayer is actually a feat that any of your companions will be more than eager to praise you for. Especially difficult because your companions will waste ''all'' of the retries, leaving you to complete it in one run. Particularly frustrating when you've beaten the circle, only to miss the jump into the hole slightly, meaning you either have to do it all again, or are going to be crushed.
** There's also the end of Boom Town. You have to fly around a corridor while holding impact explosives, multiple times, and then you get another corridor with stalactites trying to crush you. You push the control stick just a bit too much, and the the explosives knock into a wall and kill you. Especially frustrating in co-op.
** The Mines is ''especially'' nasty if you're going for the [[NoDeathRun Ace]] ranking. ''Ridiculously'' long, [[MinecartMadness mine cart sections]], a couple of spiked enemies, rickety conveyor-elevators, and a giant flaming boulder with flaming floor spots to jump over to end the level and potentially ruin your efforts at the Ace rank. Although the biggest problem with the level was, even if you were skilled enough to get through without dying, the mine carts would occasionally topple over while you were riding in them, forcing you to start over for no real reason.
*** And there are prize bubbles right overhead that are so tempting. But if you jump, you're certainly going to die.
** Serpent Shrine has giant fire snakes running through tunnels, which require quick running to survive, a boss who can kill instantly, and [[ThatOnePuzzle That One Multiplayer Puzzle]]. In whole, The Canyons is ThatOneLevel.
** Don't even get ''started'' on The Dancer's Court. The main gimmick of this level is moving platforms over fire with blocks of fire for you to run into, spinning cogs with wobbly platforms, a race where it's easy to rush and get yourself burnt to a crisp, and '''the goddamned fire snake'''. Again, acing the level is ''an absolute nightmare''.
** Also annoying was The Island when running over the paper bridges, as they would arbitrarily decide when they wanted to stay in place or separate and leave you sliding down into the gas.
** Although the sequel had nothing near the level of The Bunker, it still had some infuriating levels:
*** Fireflies When You're Having Fun. Hoo boy. Not only is it ludicrously long (it's 2 parts, and the first part is pretty tough), but the first section has some difficult jumps [[BlackoutBasement in the dark]] as well as insta-death fireflies. Even the powerup that is supposed to make it easier actually makes it ''harder'', since the firefly platforms are very difficult to aim, let alone when it's the only way to make it up a vertical path. The second half is fortunately easier, but requires some precise jumps at the end.
*** Set Controls To The Heart of the Negativitron is an infuriating level to ace, and hard to pass as well. The first section is very simple and [[BreatherLevel not threatening at all]], but a lot to pass through on each of many repeated attempts. The second section is infuriating. It's about twice as long as the previous level, and about 1/3 through that section, the gravity decreases. Sounds alright, but there are several jumps across electrified obstacles that require almost perfect timing to not touch (namely a spinning wheel about halfway through where it's nearly impossible to not hit the electrified ceiling), and a vehicle section that is also long and difficult.
*** Full Metal Rabbit. The beginning section has mooks throwing impact explosives at you. You have to catch and throw them back without exploding yourself. If more than one player is attempting this level, it's very easy to accidentally detonate the explosive, grab another player instead of the explosive, and let's not get started on the people who throw OTHER sackboys into the mooks on purpose. [[DifficultySpike Then]], after destroying the last impact explosive generator, it's time for PlatformHell! You are now required to jump between platforms that have [[{{Mooks}} Meanies]] ''shooting fire at you from below''. If you time your jump wrong [[VideogameCrueltyPotential or if someone throws you]], you're dead. If you fall down, you burn to death. If you accidentally get wedged onto the platform with the Meanie, just pop yourself - you'll be squashed anyway when someone else steps on the platform.
*** And then there's the second part of Full Metal Rabbit. You get to ride the eponymous rabbit, stomping and smashing anything that gets in your way. Sounds cool, right? It is. Except for the laser-shooting enemies who will [[OneHitKill kill you if you touch the beam]], some annoying platforming (the rabbit has a tendency to jump higher than needed), enemies that ''track you'' while trying to shoot you with the laser, AND if you're going for all the prize bubbles, a lot of them are easy to miss. Multiply all of the above by ten if you're playing in a group.
** The Great Escape in [=LBP3=], especially considering the little amount of experience one has with the three heroes. It's quite a difficulty spike, and a surprising one at that.
* Orbitus 2 in ''VideoGame/JazzJackrabbit'' is a major example of this, largely because of a single section of it that due to a GameBreakingBug turns what was supposed to be a fun [[Awesome/VideoGameLevels Crowning Level of Awesome]] into PlatformHell of the sort that would do ''VideoGame/KaizoMarioWorld'' proud. It's NintendoHard '''even if you use slowdown'''. You must squeeze the title character into a tiny passage at the very bottom of a chasm. Then you must jump out of the end of the passage, all the while pushing against a force field that is propelling you forward, and trying to actually jump despite the fact that you're in a tiny passage with a low ceiling and only the last pixel of space that you can occupy without falling actually allows you to jump. And the destination of your jump has a force field just like the one that was in the aforementioned tiny passage. From which you must jump onto the wall directly above you and wall jump forward into another tiny passage. And directly above the passages are one-way paths that will force you upward and away from the passages, forcing you to repeat the whole process, AND the ground beneath said passages are trampolines that bounce you into the one-way paths. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rbNMnC_zXY This run of the level]] should give you an idea just how bad this is, considering that it forced the [[LetsPlay Let's Player]] to ''cheat'' in order to beat it. And he even points out about three quarters of the way into the video that "Not even VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy was that hard." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUXd2vXVGg This video]], although successfully completed without cheating, accurately captures the frustration factor.
** Though nowhere near as bad as Orbitus 2, there's Scraparap. In a game that was otherwise pleasing to look at, a level consisting primarily of literal trash was rather off-putting...to say nothing of how many GoddamnedBats there were. From the extremely fast turtles, to the hovering missile launchers that chase after you, to the tanks that shoot in a completely random direction, to the rockets on the ground that damage you if you jump onto their engine, all capped off by the magnets ''pulling you toward all of the above''. And the boost pads that you were required to use, but moving even slightly when you were on one was a very easy way to fall.
* Titania is the most hated level in ''VideoGame/OdinSphere''. Slimes that can only be killed by magic and the uber annoying Wise Man battles make for the least fun section of the game.
* ''Ghostbusters'' for NES. While the pre-Zuul part was basically just the same boring thing over and over again, if you didn't do it well enough there is no way in hell you'll even clear a single floor once Zuul shows up. Have fun starting from the beginning again!
* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'':
** The AdvancingWallOfDoom levels definitely qualify as this, particularly the second, where you have to outrun a huge mass of what looks like ''blood'', with Evil Hands flying from it, having to dodge the Evil Hands shooting up from the pits, AND having to navigate a maze near the end of the level which requires both speed and pixel-perfect positioning to get through the gaps in the maze (because if you're even ''slightly'' to the left or right, it won't let you through, which is made particularly aggravating by all of the above factors) in order to get the final five gems of the level in question.
** World 8 in the new version. {{Zaratustra}} was nice enough to remove the random eversions...but enough of a JerkAss to make a newer, and much longer stage with even more difficult platforming and {{Endless Corridor}}s that loop until you find the next eversion point. Oh, and you need to loop through one section once in World 8-6 just so you can clear out enough blocks just so you can get through it in 8-5. And if you die after the halfway point through the section? The blocks, which are no longer accessible thanks to a still killer wall, regenerate, causing you to waste even more time!

* In the NES version of ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'', Act VI (the final stage) is next to impossible. You have [[EverythingTryingToKillYou berserk eagles]], unlimited respawning enemies (and you can't scroll them off), platform level hell, etc. If you manage to survive three sections of hell, you are treated to the classic final boss trio, one of which requires you to dodge randomly moving objects, one to hit an enemy that scrolls on the ceiling, and one that again spews out random going objects that hurt. Granted you are given health refills, but if you die in any of those bosses, you start all over.
** Interestingly, due to the game design, it is quite possible to survive this stage without getting hit due to non-randomized enemy patterns, spawns, and placement. A lot of the first ''Ninja Gaiden'' is learning how to kill things on the run and never, ever, ever stopping your forward movement. Ever. Just keep running. Kill birds on the fly.
** Even more fun is the fact that after beating the first boss, the game goes into the usual post-boss routine...including DRAINING YOUR WEAPON POWER FOR BONUS POINTS. That leaves you to fight eternally-airborne boss number two with nothing but your sword.
** In the third NES game, the fifth level has a vertical section in wich you must hop into fast-moving platforms that move in all sorts of directions. Wouldn't be hard if there weren't a obscene amount of GoddamnedBats that como from left, right and above you in positions that you can't possibly reach with your sword (and they can and will shoot small fireballs at you). There's a specific powerup found in the previous section that is required to kill the enemies, and failing to reach the vertical section without it or with not enough MagicPoints (that may have been spent in the previous sections that aren't particularly easy) is a guaranteed life loss.
*** The last level of the same game has one: at a certain part of the level, you're running through platforms that disappear when you run over, and there will be two kamikaze robots that will come out of nowhere and try to knock you out. If you stop, the platform disappear and you die. If you ignore the bots, they will knock you to the pit. It requires a perfect timing and coordination to hit the robots whle jumping since they come at a very high speed.
*** To say nothing that you are actually required to die at least once since the time limit is lower than the time a expert player would need to beat the last level.
* ''VideoGame/{{Plok}}'' has the absolutely ridiculous Gohome Cavern. Start of the level, you must kill a [[DemonicSpiders Demonic Spider]] who drops a temporary invincibility power-up, use it to jump onto spikes...then immediately afterward, you ''lose your legs''. Seriously. Meaning you have to hop through the remainder of the level, which features slopes covered with spikes, on top of a lot more of those same DemonicSpiders. The trick here is to go under the spikes...but bear in mind, you're '''hopping'''...and did we mention there are [[FourIsDeath FOUR]] of these slopes? Oh, and in the middle of these slopes lies two areas where you must kill a group of five GoddamnedBats...each. And after said slopes, it gets worse. You must make four consecutive jumps (yes, JUMPS, while you're still hopping) with near pixel-perfect timing, all the while avoiding the three {{Invincible Minor Minion}}s and the projectiles they launch. All this just to get your legs back...and it's not even over. Say hello to the upper level, consisting entirely of the same DemonicSpiders you encountered earlier paired with GoddamnedBats that you ''must'' kill to proceed. Also, this level [[CheckPointStarvation lacks checkpoints]]...so if you die here, enjoy getting your legs back again!
** The Fleapit in its entirety. Enjoy a heaping helping of FakeDifficulty, with a side of FakeDifficulty. And when you're finished with that, would you like more FakeDifficulty?
*** To go into more detail: throughout the game you would find magic gift boxes that, if you choose to pick them up, change Plok's regular attack to a special, more powerful one. In the Fleapit, though, the magic gift boxes are ''not'' optional, make you ''weaker'', ''stick around'' until you've finished that level, and use control schemes you've ''never seen before'' outside of a few brief bonus levels that're extremely easy to miss entirely.

* The ''VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon'' series:
** In the [[VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon1998 first game]], there's Tree Tops. It's a relatively short level. As if. It's very easy to fall off (being a FloatingContinent-type level), has some mildly annoying enemies (the large ones have a somewhat wide-range kick, and the smaller ones throw banana bunch-like projectiles without any sound cues), and to get [[HundredPercentCompletion everything]], you're gonna need to pull off some GuideDangIt-y Super Charge maneuvers.
** Haunted Towers, where a supercharge through several metal doors leads to a room filled with more metal doors (you must run back up several times to ''re''-Supercharge down into another door to open them all). One leads to a pool area with a ramp, implying there is some mythical way to Supercharge down the path, take a right, and somehow charge around the extremely narrow ramp and then jump to reach a hidden wall where a trapped Dragon and treasures are hidden. Said mythical way involves supercharging into the pool area, up the ramp, landing on the next section, charging up ''that'' ramp, then leaping onto a hidden platform with a whirlwind. GuideDangIt! [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Og3n1C0qLM See it here.]]
** The [[VideoGame/Spyro2RiptosRage second game]] doesn't have any true That One Levels, but the FetchQuest in Mystic Marsh for the pencil truly [[GuideDangIt stumped some people]].
*** It also had Fracture Hills and the Alchemist. An EscortMission where the beginning and the end are just a few metres apart. But the goat decides to take the LONG way around, through a maze of enemies... Even if you beat it, you may have to ''do it again'' for the next orb.
*** There are actually quite a few infamously difficult challenges in this game, including the gear collecting challenge in Breeze Harbor, the Agent Zero minigame, and the Turtle Soup challenge in Sunny Beach. Many people also struggle for a long time with the [[ItMakesSenseinContext monsters in party hats who blow noisemakers at you]] and knock you into the lava, trying to flame them and getting hit each time, not realizing that you need to swallow the rocks at the top of the spouts to hit them with those.
** The sidequests that involved yetis in [[VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon the third game]] were pretty tough. In one, you have to beat a yeti at boxing. Simple enough? Well, you're very slow, your attacks don't hit hard, and he's a little faster than you. It's possible to win if you just trap him in a corner and hit him with jabs. Once that's done, you have to fight him ''again'', except it's 3 rounds instead of one. He's ''waaaaay'' faster, and... well, it gets annoying fast.
*** Fortunately, you can cheat your way to victory by activating 2-player mode. Just plug in a second controller, and a 2nd player can now controls the enemy yeti... or you can just make him stand there. Naturally, you're never told about this 2-player mode in-game, but then again, it's justified for that very exploit.
** Then there's the racing in the [[spoiler:Super Bonus Round]] against the yetis. They're fast, and if you mess up even once there's no chance of winning, and... well, it's just one of those things you need to keep trying to win.
*** You can exploit a glitch in the game for the race: if you go past Hunter onto the track, you can stand in a blue star. If you return to Hunter, you'll have turbo boost proportional to the amount of time you spent under the star. You can do the entire race on turbo this way. And it's still hard.
** In Spyro 3, there are not one, but '''two''' levels in the winter world containing challenges where you must go down a slide of hell with almost no friction (damn centrifugal force) and no check points. If you want to get all the [[HundredPercentCompletion eggs]], these challenges are mandatory.
** Can anyone say Nancy the Ice Skater? Or how about the Agent 9 shooter mini-levels in Fireworks Factory, Haunted Tomb, and Dino Mines? Or for that matter, how about Dino Mines as a whole? Those gun-toting dinosaurs were ridiculously fast on the draw.
** The biggest early-game DifficultySpike in ''Year of the Dragon'', however, is arguably the EscortMission in Spooky Swamp, which may bring back bad memories of the Alchemist's mission from the previous game. Instead of pushing invincible {{Mooks}} out the way, you must instead clear a path for some extremely short-sighted fireflies carrying bombs, by destroying rocks and stomping mushrooms in their path. You play as Sheila, so you move slower than usual and you can't quickly charge the rocks, and stomping the mushrooms eats up precious seconds as you must build up a super-jump and then stomp from a great height - but you can't be ''too'' quick, because destroyed rocks will respawn and stomped mushrooms will rise back up after a short interval. The timing involved is so strict that it borders on TrialAndErrorGameplay after the fireflies blow themselves away so many times - and you have to do this ''twice'' to get two different eggs.
** The ''[[VideoGame/SpyroReignitedTrilogy Reignited Trilogy]]'' remake of the first three games made some of the aforementioned challenges easier, particularly Bentley's boxing challenge and anything involving Agent 9 (as he now controls much more smoothly, and when in third-person the camera is always facing where you're shooting). The Spooky Swamp escort mission is still pretty challenging but at least the rocks don't respawn this time, so you only have the mushrooms to worry about. However, an example of a challenge that actually got ''harder'' was the battle with the fire dragons in the Fireworks Factory. You still get an infinite flight/superflame powerup to deal with them, except now your superflame is much smaller, requiring pinpoint accuracy, and [[PainfullySlowProjectile moves at the speed of molasses]]; the only reliable way to do damage is to fly alongside them when they're going in circles, and even then, good luck finishing them off, since their heads are such atom-sized targets they'll probably [[HealThyself regenerate]] faster than you can hit them. On top of this, the fire dragons' own attack is now much faster, so playing chicken with them in the tunnels is practically suicide - and if you get hit while flying over a lava pit, which comprise most of the arena, pray that you're high enough that you don't repeatedly fall into the lava and die just when you've got them on the ropes. Just like the original game, if you die after having already destroyed one, it comes back.
* The second snowspeeder level in ''Super StarWars: The Empire Strikes Back'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3fqoy27cb0]]
** The Echo Base levels with Han Solo also count. First of all, you have to play as Han Solo who lacks force powers, a lightsaber, a special spin... Yeah, anything but a good ol' blaster and some incredibly rare and useless grenades. But that's far from the main issue - These levels are two of the longest in the game and simply CRAMMED with nastiness; Fire traps that activate when you pass over them, turrets in the ceiling that are hard to hit, randomly spawning troops that shoot you, troops with shields that block you, spiders that block AND shoot at you and scatter shrapnel that damage you when defeated. The worst are the flying enemies that appear out of nowhere and take away 30% of your life with each hit. The level itself is a maze with several dead ends, and even if you take the correct way its longer than most other! All this is already enough to make these levels the most annoying in the entire game, but there's more! At the end of the first level you encounter a mini-boss that is tough, fast and kills you in three hits at full health. Still, the absolutely worst part are the bosses... Both of them are insanely hard and can easily kill you at full health with lots of powerups after you've learned their patterns... None of which you'll have after the horror that is known as Han Solo's Echo Base levels.
*** But it can't all be bad, right? There are a lot of item boxes scattered throughout the level... Just that breaking them open is easier said than done, actually getting an item is extremely rare and debris scatter from them when they're destroyed which hurt you. That's right, your only hope of beating this level is more likely to kill you than anything else!
** The final level in ''Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi''. First, instead of the platforming that game is mostly about, it becomes a first person flight simulator as you ride the Millennium Falcon through the Death Star. In the final level, you have to escape before the fire from the explosion catches up with you, so you have to be constantly accelerating. The problem is that since you are going so fast, you have little time to react as the course changes angles and throws obstacles at you. Crashing into a wall reduces your speed and damages your shields (or the ship's health if the shields are completely gone) and every time you slow down, the fire catches up and damages you as long as you stay in it. The deeper in the fire you are, the faster your shields and health deplete. The memorization and fast reflexes required is bound to make many players shout "THE FORCE IS NOT WITH ME!"

* ''[[VideoGame/TazManiaSega Taz-Mania]]'', based on [[WesternAnimation/TazMania the eponymous cartoon series starring Taz]], the tasmanian devil was an all around, needlessly annoying game. The Mine level however, revealed the games designers to be a pack inhuman beasts that wanted nothing more than to feed on your misery and frustration. Rest assured, no matter how good a platform whiz you think you are, you CANNOT beat this level on your first try; mind you, once you got the patterns down it was doable, but still... It had all the typical trappings of an out of control vehicle stage. Oh, and you're in in a speeding minecar on a track to hell that not even the most demented mine architect would design, as it would invariably result in the death of any mine worker foolhardy enough to use it! It gets better. Not only do you have little control over this iron death wagon, but you have to jump over the standard bottomless pits WHILE adjusting the height of the minecar in order to avoid being brutally decapitated as the stage progressed. Throw in the fact that... well just [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHUzQmK_3K4 watch this video]]. Also starring CAMOFLAUGED Goddamned Bats, Spikes of Doom That Don't Quite Look Like Spikes of Doom, Out of Place Enemies (the bushrats) and {{Jerkass}} Elevators.
* In ''VideoGame/BugsBunnyRabbitRampage'', level 6, set in Tasmania. Avoiding Taz and tricking him into crashing through the trees that block your path is easy enough, but the first half of the level consists mostly of riding on birds that go fly in many different directions at various speeds. You have to jump from one bird to the next, and if you miss a jump or even just get unlucky with the timing for when the next bird will spawn, you go straight down the bottomless pit. The boss fight with Taz at the end isn't a lot better, requiring rather tricky timing to hit him without taking damage yourself. The worst part by far, however, is that there is [[CheckPointStarvation not one single checkpoint in the level]]. Jump not quite far enough away from the petrified tree after getting Taz to hit it and lose your last bit of health? ''Enjoy starting from the beginning and doing the entire stupid bird-riding section over again.''
* ''VideoGame/BubbleBobble'''s level 57 is a classic example. The level is totally empty, except for a platform at the very top that houses four ''VideoGame/SpaceInvaders''-inspired enemies. The easiest way to kill them and complete the level is to create a wall of bubbles in the very center of the stage and use it to bounce up. This wouldn't be too bad, if it weren't for the air currents in the level that shove all your bubbles in the corner unless you stand in ''just'' the right spot - which happens to be right in the line of enemy fire. See [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwqPESLvRTk this video]] for the average player's reaction.
** By the same token, level 96. The game takes two sets of 3 and sticks them in a tough-to-reach cavity in the top, and the only way to get at them is by bubble-jumping up through the walls and up into the ceiling, then carefully maneuvering yourself down on them with just enough room between you to allow your bubbles to clip the wall-guard they have, while keeping your dino away from sword-inflicted death. Nine times out of ten, though, you'll impale yourself on them (possibly without killing them) and run out of lives.
** Thankfully, in the mandatory enemy-swap second quest, neither level is nearly as brutal with the sword-dropping freaks being replaced with something much more benign. Of course, in several other locales, the player is not as lucky.
** The Big Bad at the end is not only a giant bitchtastic Bullet Hell fight, [[spoiler:but you get a Bad End unless you were playing in 2-player mode. Which means if you don't have a buddy you're done for]].
* ''VideoGame/MendelPalace'': The Extra levels had the excruciating Floor 91, with the enemies being the Extra-only purple Moko-Mokos, which run at double speed. All the panels are locked in place (and therefore unshuffleable) except the six where the enemies spawn, so the only way to smash one is to lure it onto the space, then IMMEDIATELY step off, turn around, and shuffle before it can move off! Also, the four panels in the corners act as enemy spawn points when shuffled...
* ''VideoGame/CrystalCaves 2'' contains a level which is essentially a giant, empty room full of {{Invisible Block}}s which have to be hit from below to appear. You have to make them all appear so that you can get up to the exit. But doing so will require you to climb up all the blocks you've revealed so far, jump as far as possible so that you will (hopefully) hit the next block on your way, and then watch helplessly as your hero tumbles down back to the ground and has to climb up the blocks all over again. This level will take you a ''long'' time to complete.
* Epic Games' ''The Adventures of Robbo the Robot'' has level E2, which is crammed full of guns whose beams you ''have'' to dodge through in order to complete it. Doing so is largely a matter of luck.
* ''VideoGame/LocoRoco 2 '' has Buibui fort 3 where you finally get a chance to see how a game over screen looks like. Many, many times.
* Gambit's Stage in ''VideoGame/SpiderManAndTheXMenInArcadesRevenge''. Gambit's only attack is his trademark card throw, he throws them in an arc (making them difficult to aim), and there is a limited number of cards. You are also chased by a giant spiked ball for most of the level. Easily the hardest level in a game that is Nintendo Hard in general.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Miscellaneous 2]]

* ''VideoGame/ABoyAndHisBlob'' (Wii) has Challenge Level 2-5. It's a GustyGlade where the only skill you have is the Pear Parachute; you must navigate several narrow passages lined with instadeath floating mines, all the while the wind shoves you to and fro. And since it's a challenge level, [[CheckPointStarvation there's no checkpoints]]--fall into a pit, or get shoved into a mine by the wind, and it's back to the beginning for you!
** On the theme of "Pear Parachute + Challenge Level = ARRRG," the 3rd world also has a vicious one. You must use the Parachute to drift down a cave, where every single surface is lined with either spikes or mines (so there's absolutely no stopping) and you have to make instant turns in order to get to an entrance all the way on the other side of the shaft. You have to anticipate changes ''quickly,'' because the Parachute moves slowly, and if you're not far enough over to drift through the hole? It's the spikes for you!
* The Citadel of Shadows in ''VideoGame/{{Vexx}}'' is one whole world of hair-pulling frustration. There is almost no solid ground anywhere to be found in the level; it's almost all moving, shifting platforms, incredibly tiny platforms, or platforms crowded with enemies. One misstep will send you tumbling into the abyss below. Makes getting to certain challenges a hassel; makes the two collection challenges (6 Soul Jars or 100 Heart Shards) ''infuriating'' because your total will reset if you die.
** Don't forget the engine rings! Not only do you have to be precise while jumping, you have to avoid a bunch of freaking quickly rotating rings while doing so! Each time you hit one, it knocks off one half of your health.
* Even as one of the last main stages in the game, Flying Machine (Propeller Knight's stage) in ''{{VideoGame/Shovel Knight}}'' is sheer lunacy compared to every other stage, and coming from [[NintendoHard this game,]] that's saying something. It is the longest Order of No Quarter stage in the game bar none - the amount of checkpoints this level has fills up ''the entire span of the screen'' when you die - and the vast majority of it is spent maneuvering through SpikesOfDoom and BottomlessPits while being hampered by gusts of wind a la [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest Animal Antics]], [[DemonicSpiders barrages of enemies who can blow or knock you back into said pits]], and cannonball jumping puzzles that require utmost mastery of the air strike bounce, topped off with a [[ThatOneBoss tough-as-nails boss fight at the end to boot.]] It's hard enough going through the level as Shovel Knight, but playing through it as Plague Knight is unbridled insanity, as you will has ''even more'' trouble dealing with most of the enemies and have to resort to his awkward explosive jump mechanics to traverse the stage rather than bouncing off enemies and obstacles.
* The Energy Zone in ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' gives many people fits simply because of the shooting energy traps over BottomlessPits and a whole series of them on platforms, making a highly difficult game even harder if you didn't use the 30 lives cheat.
** Stage 4 of ''Neo Contra''. Despite being [[SequelDifficultyDrop easier than its predecessor]] ''Shattered Soldier'', it's probably the hardest stage of the game due to the mini-boss being very annoying with its hard to dodge and shoot mines, the turrets being hard to lock onto, and the obstacles being very difficult to shoot through. If you're trying to 100% this stage, good luck.
* There are a lot of annoying levels in ''VideoGame/DrMuto'', but the Furnaces take the cake. Gone are the fun flying sections of the first two Flotos parts. Instead, you're forced to endure a seemingly endless course of infuriating jumping segments. The "highlights" include using High-Jump Boots to navigate columns of spinning platforms, the infamous rafter section, and killing a bunch of durable enemies while on a time limit. By far the worst part is the rafters, where you have to navigate a long gauntlet of completely unfair obstacles, while as the hard-to-control Mouse (or Rat), and with [[CheckPointStarvation barely any checkpoints when you need them]]. Just getting to the place is annoying enough, since you have to traverse a giant broken wire with electric balls bouncing down it, and a mess of steam jets, every time you go in and out of the place. The worst part is, ''it locks you in the area until you complete it'', and there are no save points there to escape (and restarting will send you right outside the rafter entrance). And you don't get to fly again until halfway through Jupiter City, the next section.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tomba}}'':
** The cursed version of Phoenix Mountain.. Especially, the second section of the mountain where you need to jump across a bottomless pit on three ''extremely'' narrow platforms spaced really far apart without messing up and falling into the bottomless pit. It is also not made any easier by the fact that the wind makes it impossible to time your jumps carefully, hidden catapults, and flowers that eat you and take you back to the beginning. It gets even worse when you're inside the mountain and have to carefully jump onto a series of small platforms to avoid the pits of fire on the bottom, using the rather janky Grapple and dodging flying fire-breathing pigs every step of the way.
** Mushroom Forest isn't too bad to just slip past since you can just jump into the background and run past everything, but god help you when you try to transverse the foreground area trying to get chests and clear items. Leaps of faith, check. Mushrooms everywhere that inflict a status ailment that disables your attack and makes you randomly run off cliffs, check. Finite healing items until you find a specific item later in the game, check. Said status ailment also makes the enemies turn hyper-aggressive and run and jump all over the place, check. Enemies that will damage you and likely hurl you off a cliff if you land on top of them at the wrong time, check. Expect to die, and die, and ''die'' when you finally decide to explore this area.
* The consensus for the most unpopular level in ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' is "Fickle Companion", the last level of World 4. The world's mechanics make it a pain in the neck to solve. Doubly so (at least!) if you're trying for HundredPercentCompletion.
* Lazrael's GameMaker game "Poyo" has level 45. It's basically a tower, but nearly every block crumbles below your feet, there are slow-moving spikes hindering your progress (do note that you're a OneHitpointWonder) and if you're close to the top, there are three crumbling blocks and two one-block wide passages. You have three tries to get to the exit. Just watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmMFQ4PFgok this video]] and you'll know.
** Not quite a ThatOneLevel normally, but when you're doing a speedrun, level 42 '''will''' get you a severe headache.
* In ''VideoGame/TitusTheFox'', level 9 "Home of the Pharaohs" - by the end of it - has a typical passage with platforms over a writhing mass of cobras. The trick is that there are instant-kill {{spikes|OfDoom}} on the ''ceiling'', too. So, you have to hold the jump button just enough to make the jumps, but not too long, either; meaning, you have to hold and release the jump button with 1/10sec-grade precision or poor Titus will either get a free trepanation, or suffer rectal reptilian invasion. Now rinse and repeat for five or six such jumps in a row.
* The Genesis version of ''VideoGame/TheLostVikings'' has a level "RVTS" which has a lot of tricky jumps combined with moving platforms, conveyor belts and so on. One mistake and like always, back to the beginning of the level.
* The first ''StarWars'' game on the Gameboy. Two options - Check EVERY cave in a mapless desert, following every side of EVERY rock, or you WILL miss it. Miss what? The weapon that you need to finish one specific, very short level with one enemy in it that is immune to everything else. Miss it, and you will slowly drown, after playing three quarters of the game not knowing there was even a problem.
* There's a short driving portion of ''[[VideoGame/MontyMole Monty on the Run]]'' (already an insanely difficult game) that requires perfectly timed jumps or else you'd die. And there's no way of knowing when to jump unless you've been through it before.
* ''VideoGame/EdEddNEddyTheMisEdventures'' (at least the non-GBA version) has scam three. The scam would not have been so bad if it was not for this: after you get past the first, yes the '''first''' obstacle, you get a cut scene where it turns out that some stupid birds put Jimmy's dolls up in some trees, so you have to get them out using the tower of Eddy and put them in the sandbox. Now when you drop something, it comes back where it was before you got it. Not here. Instead, you have to start the whole task all over. That doesn't seem so bad, but the programmers put in these squirrels that come out of the trees and attack you. But if they attack you, you ''drop the freaking doll that you were trying to get in the sandbox and you have to start the thing all over''.
* ''Ball Revamped 4'' has "Fuse and Run" in the unnamed 6th world. You have to set off a detonator to blow up a wall that lets you get at the goal, but the fuse of the explosives is ridiculously long, and the only maneuvering room you have is pretty cramped. Now throw in some laser cannons shooting at you every few seconds while you wait and you get this remarkably unfun level. And the fuse resets when you die.
** ''Ball Revamped 5'' takes this a step further, with "Longer Fuse and Run!", one of the last levels in the game. Not only is the fuse, well, longer, the lasers have been replaced with a moving rectangle inside your cramped space that kills you on contact. Stop moving? You die. Accidentally bump into a wall? You die. And the fuse takes almost ''2 minutes'' to run out.
*** Level 40 in [=BR5=] is really nothing more than a simple maze, but the fact that you're forced to take the Mud power in the beginning makes it almost impossible. Mud slows the ball down to about nothing and makes it insanely difficult to turn. And since this is the last level of the world, it's a giant stage. However, there is a very tiny space that you can squeeze through to stop yourself from getting one component of Mud...which leaves you with the ball-growing Flower power. Good luck not touching the walls. Fortunately, you can save yourself the trouble of this level; when you get to your third giant level, just ignore the portal that says "Allium".
* The second desert level in ''Manga/{{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 can deal 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 on your first visit.
** All of the Challenge Stages, but special mention goes to Area 14 of the Soul Society challenge and the first half of Area 3 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.
** [[DownTheDrain Stage 9, the Underground Waterways]]. Easy to get lost in, has a few hard-to-reach treasures, and is the first level to have [[DemonicSpiders enemies that transform into exploding treasure chests]]. Also, the water is practically impossible to get out of without dashing. If you fall into it in an area that restricts dashing...well, ''shit''. Oh, and you get to fight [[ThatOneBoss Renji]] after all this.
* One of the challenges at Mountain Gorge in ''VideoGame/INinja'' pits you against the first boss, Kyza, which was an UnexpectedGameplayChange in the form of a first-person giant-mecha boxing match... except ''[[OneHitPointWonder you can't get hit even once.]]'' To make matters worse, Kyza progressively gets better at dodging and weaving your hooks as the fight goes on and he has a ton of health. If you aren't a Punch-Out!! expert by the time this challenge rolls in, you likely won't make it past a third of his health bar.
* Hard Coaster in ''VideoGame/BombermanHero''. Really the only thing that makes it live up to its name is the almost mind-numbing tedium of it; the entire level is in midair, but above a pair of quicksand pits that empty into a {{Bottomless Pit|s}}. If you fall into the sand, you have to jump through it to a teleporter that, more often than not, puts you in a position where you have to do a lot of legwork to get back to where you were. And there's Gate Crystals, so you have to scour the last part of the level if you want to get out. If you're trying to get a 5-point score on it...well, hopefully you have a lot of time to waste.

* ''VideoGame/HenryHatsworthInThePuzzlingAdventure'' has [[MarathonLevel World 5-4]], the penultimate level, which even by [[PlatformHell World 5]] standards is ridiculous. You alternate between slogging through Weasleby's mansion and hopping into puzzle gates to various little snippets of the other four continents you've visited. You have to fight an InescapableAmbush nearly every time you go through a gate, with the ambushes themselves ranging from challenging to downright sadistic (in particular is the final area of the Puzzle Realm gate, which pits you in a drawn out battle against DemonicSpiders on a conveyor belt). Hope you've been getting the upgrades, you'll need all the help you can get.
* Granted, ''[[VideoGame/{{Oddworld}} Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee]]'' is a ''[[NintendoHard difficult game]]''. But then there's the section shaped like the letter P on its back, in Zulag 3 of [=RuptureFarms=], which can be an absolute ''sod'' if you don't know what you're doing, especially if you're trying to rescue every Mudokon. Its features include: having to awkwardly jump down whilst avoiding falling carcasses, timing grenade throws in order to blow up anti-chant devices and not yourself, having to somehow blow up/get past a Slig that descends on a lift that blocks your exit because you pulled a switch that you ''must'' pull, and finally, blowing up a Slig and a series of mines with the Shrykull's power before you're either a) shot, or b) blown up. You died? Well then, it's back to the start with you!
* The ''VideoGame/{{Frogger}}'' video game for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and PC had several:
** Airshow Antics. Why? This level is not like the other cloud levels; the clouds are made of ice that you can actually slip on. And there are planes... ''everywhere''. But here's the worst part: there are helicopter blades ''right under the clouds''. And if you hit just one bit of it, you're screwed ''big time''. And there are birds to make the level more... challenging.
** Uncanny Crusher is one of the hardest levels '''''in the entire game'''''. You have to cross pits FULL of spikes to get the frogs. But the right route is harder than the left: '''''IT'S SPIKE MAYHEM IN THERE!'''''. Yes, many gamers will get frustrated with this level, I guarantee.
** Reservoir Frogs counts, too. First of all... ''the spikes return''. And what's next? You have to hop on barrels and raccoons to the other side. And to be more warned, there is slime from Slime Sliding, and you have to constantly super hop up the slime. Be careful.
** But out of all the levels in the game, the absolute hardest level in the entire game is a level named in three words: '''''BIG BOULDER ALLEY'''''. Yes, this level is an absolute nightmare. You have to time your jumps ''perfectly'' over the beetles just to start. What could be worse? There are also raining boulders, and even tumbleweeds. Oh, but here's the nightmare cracker: to get the Green frog, you have to hop over ''sinking crocodiles''. Yes, even the most perfect gamers have had a hard time on this level...
** Lava Crush could qualify, due to the Green Frog placed in such an extremely hard location... and Frogger Goes Skiing as well, due to the awkward controls while skiing '''on ice!'''
** Another in-spite-to-add to level: Boom Boom Barrel, particularly the part where you have to cross the river on fast-moving exploding barrels. It's so hard (and bad), you'll have nightmares for about a week. It also has a much harder version in Bang Bang Barrel.
** A less challenging level, yet could be a qualification, is Mower Mania, thanks to the maze like area, and the mowers. And it's only the 3rd level of the 2nd world.
** ''Swampy's Revenge'' has two contenders: Grindstone and Research Facility. Both of them are quite long, but are difficult in their own ways. The former, Grindstone, is filled to the brim with very fast deadly-obstacle-dodging sections. Heck, the level ''starts'' with having to dodge huge rolling wheels, which you can only dodge by standing on certain elevated spots. Then you have to go through fast stampedes of boars and a combination of moving platforms ''and'' cannonballs. There are also a lot of spikes that you have to dodge, and there's a [[LastLousyPoint deviously hidden coin]] at the end. The latter is a long level filled with all sorts of hazards, including security drones, unstable platforms, moving platforms over acid, and... monkeys. These monkeys will move toward you in such a way that getting trapped is all too common.
** The [[MinecartMadness first level of the Mountain world]] in ''Frogger Beyond''. It starts with a tricky platforming sequence of moving minecart platforms that have deceptive hitboxes. But after that, you have to deal with the minecart section. You have almost no room for error when it comes to jumps over the rocks and gaps in the tracks, and it's a long sequence.
** There's also the final level of the Underwater world. It's very long, and filled with all kinds of difficult obstacles. There's electrified floors, sand conveyor belts, and these snakes that constantly chase you through a tricky platforming sequence.
* ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' for the NES: '''The [[MotherFBomb mother fucking]] Technodrome.''' True to its word, it lives up to its reputation as the SupervillainLair and TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon and ''then some''. If DemonicSpiders had a nest, this would be it, as you are ''constantly'' surrounded by them at all times, narrowing yourself through a twisted claustrophobia of [[MalevolentArchitecture sadistically-designed]], thickly-inhabited corridors. The entire stage is a constant marathon run with almost no health and even less weapon powerups to speak of—weapon powerups which YOU WILL NEED, especially near the end where you must pass a very long, very narrow hallway saturated with FrickinLaserBeams generated by an army of elite soldiers on jetpacks. Hope you stocked up on [[KiManipulation scrolls]] on your way there, because if not, consider yourself done for. ''[[ContinuingIsPainful And you better make sure to not get killed the entire way through.]]''
** The one that ''far'' more players ran into - The Dam. The seaweed and time limit frustrated even players accustomed to the NintendoHard difficulty. The Dam's reputation is such that it inspired an indie game homage, ''VideoGame/ThatDamLevel''.
* ''VideoGame/CaptainComic I'' has The Cave and The Shed. Both areas have no shortage of pits to fall down and the way the enemies behave, especially the [[DemonicSpiders killer bees]], makes getting killed by them frustratingly easy. Many a player has lost the last of their lives in one of these two areas, a fate made all the worse by the complete lack of a save-game feature, something which is generally quite rare for a PC game, even one from 1988. Fortunately, if you can survive these two areas, you'll probably make it to the end of the game.
* The second South Wing level in ''VideoGame/EpicMickeyPowerOfIllusion''. Part of it takes place underwater, which slows down your movements. The [[{{DemonicSpiders}} fireball-puking yellow ghosts]] are nearly everywhere, and the literal GoddamnedBats are underwater thanks to their bubbles, which makes it a problem in one part of the level where you have to go down pass-through platforms while being dragged by currents toward spikes, which the bats are nearby and constantly patrolling.
* ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}'' may be a cheery, kid-friendly game, but it still has parts that will make you want to smash your computer. There are plenty of individual difficult sections, but there are also entire islands that are That One Level.
** Astro-Knights Island. This island is so hard that the developers released an official, in-game walkthrough for it because it had the lowest rate of completion. There [[SlippySlideyIceWorld are]] [[JungleJapes three]] [[LethalLavaLand planets]] in space that you need to explore, and they're all full of pixel-perfect jumps, be it across slippery icebergs while robot fish jump up and try to knock you off into the insta-fail water, across swinging platforms with enemies hanging down from above, across raising and lowering platforms that require you to jump at precisely the right millisecond, or over an enemy that changes direction and shape unpredictably, and all three have ThatOneBoss. Just to get to one of the planets, you have to lure away the giant [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Robot Space Sharks]] guarding it and into a black hole, while not being eaten or sucked in. After getting past all of that, you have to navigate an AsteroidThicket, solve a difficult flip-the-tiles puzzle, and then fight [[ThatOneBoss Mordred, who at first uses a completely new control scheme involving dropping bombs at precise times. The second phase is just as hard, requiring you to dodge lasers while hopping on chandeliers]].
** Skullduggery Island is mainly tricky because of the UnexpectedGameplayChange, which means [[MarathonLevel it takes ages to complete]]. Even if you're doing it on the most optimal route, it'll take you hours of grinding, and you'll need to have mastered controlling your boat to take down Captain Crawfish. There are also a few SolveTheSoupCans puzzles.
** Steamworks Island is difficult [[MarathonLevel and long]]. There are almost no hints for what you have to do, since there's only one NPC to talk to. The hardest puzzles would have to be the steam pipe puzzle in the apartment, in which you have to move random pipes fast enough to form a path to the other side while avoiding impassable roadblocks; the battery puzzle, in which you have to turn valves to make a path through numbers with random add/subtract modifiers to come out with a certain result; the marble maze puzzle, which is very wonky and contains dead ends; and the combination lock on the painting, where you must click at precise times to form a four-digit combination code, with no way to restart.
* The GBA WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet game has the Jungle. It is long, complex and very confusing, has the biggest GoddamnedBats in the game, in the form of [[ManEatingPlant carnivorous plants]] that shoot out small and hard to avoid attacks, are static and take three punches to kill, in over-abundance. The gimmick introduced, walking on lava, which coincidentally kills you on contact, can also be very annoying to use.
* The final level in ''VideoGame/NinjaSpirit''. The first half isn't too bad, but the second half is a long freefall in which you must dodge hundreds of ninjas leaping upwards. It requires heavy memorization and good reflexes, and you have very little frame of reference. While there is a safe spot near the left wall, even that can be tricky to get to. The worst part: you can't even kill the ninjas.
* ''Bucky O'Hare'' has [[spoiler:Cell]] - Act 5. It's a tight room filled with difficult jumps off Mega Man style disappearing blocks and blocks that move when you stand on them in a room ''filled with instant kill spikes''. When you get to the end of the level, you get a choice of two paths, and if you pick the wrong one, [[TrialandErrorGameplay you have to do the room all over again.]]
* ''Ratatouille''. The video game was just a kid-friendly game that's based off the movie, but the final level, The Deserted Kitchen, can give grief. First off, it's a rehash of a level (Little Chef - Big Kitchen, which was only two levels apart from it's rehash). But as the '''The Deserted Kitchen'' reads, it's empty, with the exception of Skinner, Linguini, and Colette. Unfortunately, a numerous amount of crabs seem to take up the area, with one area that's particularly very frustrating - one of the main missions is getting the book. You have to get into a small mouse hole, which is ''already'' being blocked by a weed. You have to have the spoon to defeat it - too bad the aforementioned crabs like to steal anything you hold. Once you defeat the weed, you have to roll on a ball with godawful controls while squishing ants. After that nightmare roll - go out of a different mouse hole, another one blocked by an enemy. There's no spoon here, so you'll have to scamper your way back to the kitchen area to grab the spoon and then defeat the enemy. In the book area, you have to use a can, then you swing on poles, latch onto fences, and bounce on trampolines. You'll finally finish that mission, but now you have to reach Emile using a can. Unfortunately, guess it: the crabs will steal the cans. Oh, and did I forget to mention that the crabs move faster than you carrying an item? You have to defeat TWO crabs with spoons (yes, their are TWO crabs), then use it on the box holding the necessary platforms to reach the pot and sink area. In conclusion - this level shouldn't have been tough in the first place.
** The 10 Dream Worlds can sometimes be nightmares, too, but none are as hard as the two kitchen worlds (Dirty Dish Fright and Kitchen Chaos). To explain - both have slippery and wet dishes, as well as pots. The former one also had more than one part where you had to use a can as a raft and paddle you're way across a sink. The latter is much harder than the former, as the pot handles SPIN, the insides of the pots now have bars of soap sliding in a circle in it, and there are ROLLING PINS that are as fast as hell. It's not surprising that the info for Dirty Dish Fright on the Dream World menu says "Is this a dream or a nightmare?", as those two levels ''are'' nightmares, compared to the other ones, which are mainly based on actual FOOD. It doesn't help that the music of those two levels are nightmarish in following the nightmarish background...
* Level 30 in the flash platformer ''Give Up''. The game is intentional PlatformHell, yes, but even by those standards Level 30 just goes straight past [[UpToEleven eleven]] and up to twenty. How bad is this level? The game designer's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPlOoQtDQ58 official walkthrough video]] spends 8 minutes out of a 20 minute video on this one level. For some perspective: that's slightly under 25 seconds per level up until this one, which takes ''nineteen times'' that. Of 306 deaths total, 237 of them came on this one level. And at the end of the video...the creator {{rage quit}}s. Yes, you read that right, the creator's official walkthrough video has him ragequitting at this level. It's not a straight DifficultySpike either, as the later levels are '''nothing''' compared to this.
* In ''VideoGame/TheQuestOfKi'', Floor 89 (one of the ExtendedGameplay levels) takes the difficulty level up to PlatformHell level. With no items to help (or hinder) Ki, it's a pure torture test of the awkward JumpPhysics, including challenges like descending a low-ceilinged staircase whose steps are mostly covered in SpikesOfDoom. Arino took 5 hours over 2 seasons of ''Series/RetroGameMaster'' just to clear it.
* ''102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue'' has Big Ben, a long ordeal through a variety of physics-based platforms. Clearing the level normally is a pain since there are ''many'' secret areas and hidden passageways that hide things. There's the segment which has several giant pistons moving up and down, requiring you to ride them and jump off ''just'' at the right time to get the most air time... but it's also home to many of the aforementioned hidden areas, and it's easy to mistime a jump, meaning that it's likely that you'll be having to climb all the way up ''again.'' Plus, many of the enemies are flying, which makes them more annoying to kill.
** Barnyard is an annoying slog that consists of running all the way around the small map in order to perform chores. Only thing is, it can be tricky to find some of them. The Royal Museum may also be this, since it's one of the larger levels and it's nothing but a FetchQuest.
* ''VideoGame/GianaSistersTwistedDreams'' has 1-6, Amethyst Mines. It is absolutely ''full'' of SpikesOfDoom, and there are many sections where you have to ride moving platforms through spikes, use Cute Giana's twirl to glide downward through spikes (switching at just the right time to get through the form-specific obstacles), swim in water that rises and falls through spikes...and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment did we mention the spikes?]] And [[WakeUpCallBoss don't expect the boss to give you a break either.]] [[MarathonLevel This one will take quite a while to get through...]][[DifficultySpike and it's only the sixth level of 27.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendaryAxe'' has Room 5L, a seemingly endless corridor where you keep waiting for your axe to fully charge before you dare to inch a few steps forward and get ambushed by any kind of DemonicSpiders (usually just one, but unfortunately not always).

* In ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfLomax'', the section right before the fight with Evil Ed. You are very likely to lose the most of your lives there as you try to get past these clouds of smoke that are supposed to propel you high into the air, but it's nearly impossible to determine the pattern in which they do that instead of making you fly too low and fall to your death.
** Also, TheWildWest levels in general can feel like this. The cowboy enemies shoot walking bullets, which are the only enemy immune to your spin attack and actually harm you if you try to destroy them like this. Also, there are spikes coming out of the ground in certain patterns, spiky balls that swing on chains in a fake 3D perspective, and lots of ObstructiveForeground smoke.
* ''VideoGame/DisneysMagicalQuest'' ''3'', already a SequelDifficultySpike, has a couple:
** Shell Ocean, stage 5. The second part of the level (where you are in the cave) isn't bad, but the first part sticks you with an OxygenMeter in an [[UnderTheSea underwater level]], and the meter is ''not'' generous. You have to follow a specific path fairly quickly and dodge everything (with Mickey or Donald's lousy swimming controls) to reach the end without running out of air. There is a good reason why the first game gave you a suit that gives you infinite breathing time and the second didn't have any completely underwater levels (though the second section of Frozen Plains comes close).
** King Pete's Castle, stage 7. Yes, it's the final level, but it's definitely on the difficult side as far as final levels in the series go. Let us count the problems: 1) It is a MarathonLevel by Magical Quest standards; 2) It contains ''three'' sub-bosses, one new and two returning ([[FakeDifficulty and to add insult to injury]], one of the latter is MUCH harder if you run out of energy for a certain powerup); 3) It has an annoying [[RiseToTheChallenge Rise to the Challenge]] section with fire covering the bottom of the screen; 4) It has [[LedgeBats enemies]] that are all too happy to knock you into the flames or, in a later section, off small moving platforms and onto spikes (and some of them ''[[RespawningEnemies respawn]]''); 5) One section has [[MookMaker Mook Makers]] that are annoyingly unpredictable about when they will spawn them, 6) In an odd variation of [[DifficultyByRegion Difficulty by Region]], this level is even harder in the GBA version (which was [[NoExportForYou the only one officially released outside of Japan]]) because of the smaller screen size. Strangely, the final boss himself isn't all that bad compared to his level.
* ''Bruce Lee'' on UsefulNotes/AmstradCPC and C64[[note]]Not sure whether to call it a platformer or a beat'em up[[/note]] had the infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHzW7T-bwBc#t=12m0s room]] with floor-level projectiles that have to be jumped with perfect timing, or you instantly lose a life and have to cross the whole room all over again.
* ''VideoGame/DarkCastle'' has Fireball 2, where you jump across a series of platforms that move back and forth. Jumping too far down is fatal, and the jumping mechanics are difficult and unforgiving even by CinematicPlatformGame standards. Oh, and there's also StalactiteSpite.
* ''VideoGame/{{Trine}}'' is a relatively slow platformer that allowed the player to ponder his actions and time his moves just right - for all the levels but the last. [[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134198/postmortem_frozenbytes_trine.php?page=6 Gamasutra's post-mortem]] explains that due to time shortages the dev team couldn't come up with a proper boss level that would fit the game well, so they came up with a frenzied climb up a tower with rising lava to outrun. Internally the level was well-liked, and the devteam thought it made "a nice change of pace". The players thought otherwise, with the change of pace being generally felt as unwanted and frustrating, and drowned Frozenbyte in complaints.
* ''VideoGame/HolyDiver'' has the second-to-last area before the FinalBoss, where you have to navigate a long series of narrow platforms framing BottomlessPits and the occasional LavaPit. Along the way, you have to get rid of five giant masks (appropriately named [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Genocide]]) that constantly spit projectiles that threaten to knock you back into the pits, while also being harassed by an InvincibleMinorMinion that slowly circles around.
* ''VideoGame/ValdisStoryAbyssalCity'':
** The Guardian Temple. Full of [[DemonicSpiders fire demons]] that deal ridiculous damage and then burn you on top of that for a constant health drain, spike traps that ''outdamage the fire demons'', and fire demons [[LedgeBats knocking you toward]] [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs the spike traps]], which then typically proceed to stunlock you into falling down to the room beneath you in an area with no floor, forcing you to redo large sections of the temple. It also has ThatOnePuzzle involving making nearly pixel-perfect precision jumps repeatedly, regularly cited as the hardest puzzle room in the entire game - and then a similar puzzle at the very end, part of which is mandatory just to leave and save. To cap it off, the only save point in the temple is past a PointOfNoReturn - after using it, the only way back is through the boss of the temple, [[ThatOneBoss Jahzracht]] [[IronicNickname the Purifier]]. All of this is after the Guardian Temple was nerfed ''twice'' in updates, including one of the game's three elixirs revealingly having ''no effect other than to make the Guardian Temple easier''. Before the nerfs, the PointOfNoReturn happened ''as soon as you entered the temple''. Oh, and story-wise, the only reason you're there is a FetchQuest for [[TheScrappy Sezzi]].
** The Tainted Laboratory. Poison is so ridiculously prevalent here that an antivenom elixir is an absolute must; otherwise, you're dead before you even enter. Even once you're past that, you have to contend with poisonous generators spawning infinite poison skull demons until they're destroyed, a layout that makes it impossible to return to the entrance in any sensible way (should you fall prematurely, you'll have to go halfway around the nearby Abandoned Gardens just to get back to the top), the single worst treasure chest in the game bar none forcing you to make a totally blind LeapOfFaith and then a very tricky jump against two spike traps - failing either of these two steps results in you falling prematurely, in which case see above. Worst of all, though, are the assassins. Demon Assassins infest the place, [[ParanoiaFuel spawning lightning-fast seemingly out of nowhere]]. In the Tainted Laboratory, ''you are never safe''. While it's technically optional to come here, the alternative is fighting a BonusBoss, and the boss of the Tainted Laboratory drops a necessary ingredient in crafting each character's InfinityPlusOneSword. So if you want that beautiful golden weapon, or if you just don't want to have to fight the Feral Raven...godspeed, soldier.
* In the [=PS2=] and [=GameCube=] game ''VideoGame/ScoobyDooNightOf100Frights'', the level "Wreck on the Deck Pt. 2" requires the player to jump from mast to mast over the water (which also kills you in one hit.) Adding to the frustration, the CameraScrew makes it so you can barely tell where you're landing.
* VideoGame/GeometryDash:
** Every level past Electroman Adventure can qualify as one, but especially:
*** Electrodynamix, which introduces the speed portals, and does so in a narrow spike-riddled passage with full speed on. There's also lots of inconsistent cube jumps.
** Fan levels:
*** Any level on [[https://pointercrate.com/demonlist/ This list]] qualifies: All of them make even the hardest main levels look like cake in comparison. Levels that have held the highest spot on this list, though, deserve it above all others:
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRH2WCvbX20 Bloodbath]]. The level was infamous for being the first real use of straight flying. It required mastery of the Ship gamemode far higher than players had at that point. This led it to be the hardest level in the game by a massive margin when it was released. Even today, it still remains a formidable challenge and a test of Ship skills.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svyOjwLCErg&feature=emb_title Sakupen Hell]] trades ship flying for fast speed and tight waves. Those sections at 16% and 82% in particular featured tight timings for its day. Though the rest of the level was somewhat tamer, the wave parts were hard enough for this level to dethrone Bloodbath.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8csWDx6C2YI Erebus]] takes a different direction in its difficulty: it is '''infamous''' along players due to extremely inconsistent and challenging gameplay and purposely unfixed bugs. It also had some other tight gameplay thrown in as well, with an extremely tight ship section at 85%.
*** Bloodbath's remake, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SzKetF2btw Bloodlust]], throws an interesting wrench into things. By now players had gotten used to straight fly, so instead of basing its difficulty based on that, it instead buffed the rest of the level to vary up the gameplay. In particular, Evasium's part in the original level now requires insanely tight wave timings. Furthermore, the level was extended by over a minute. While these parts weren't as hard as the rest of the level, it was still well able to kill you even after all the parts of the original level.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCQK_y8JutU&t Zodiac]] doesn't seem as hard just by looking at it, but it disguises a myriad of difficult sections: Shocksidian's part has extremely tough and technical ship duals, TMN's part has an incredible number of tight timings, Pennutoh had a very tight wave section, and Enlex had a difficult ship another difficult wave right at the end! Furthermore, the level was over 3 minutes long, and each of the aforementioned parts are at least over a minute in, meaning that you'll have to grind a lot against the relatively easy parts only to get walled by the later ones.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YYQBbrsV5Y&t Tartarus]] was a level so hard that, when it was first created, people thought it was impossible. There was good reason for them to think that: it had tough blue orb spam parts, ship parts that made those in Bloodbath look like they were in an Easy Demon, wave timings that made those in Sakupen Hell look like an easy demon, an extremely tight swingcopter part, and extremely precise movement demanded from the player all around.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aas8_QKLnuc The Golden]] is a level with pinpoint timings with every single game mode. Often, levels would require only one or two types of gameplay that dominated the level, allowing a skilled player in those modes to bypass most of the level with relative ease. That isn't going to work here; you need to be perfect in every single gameplay mode to stand a chance here, on top of being a god of hitting extremely tight timings, oftentimes close together, with no breaks at all. On top of that, the level itself is dark and can sometimes obstruct the gameplay, making it even harder to make the timings.
* White Palace in ''VideoGame/HollowKnight''. Even without going to the Path of Pain, the entire section you have to do to get the true ending is well beyond the difficulty of anything else in this game, including [[ThatOneBoss Watcher Knights]], the two hardest Dream Warriors, and the final boss. It's full of circular saws that require extremely precise jumping, dashing, and wall jumping to get through, and if you can get by those, moving spikes you have to bounce off of (by attacking downwards) at ''exactly the right time'' while still having to avoid getting hit by them. The silver lining is that when you die here, you don't lose your Geo and get a broken Soul meter, nor subsequently have to kill a Shade in the room where you died to get it back. However, this does not come anywhere near balancing it out, and only the most skilled players can have a chance at beating this level.
* Ship Shape, the second act of Arctic Cruise introduced in the Seal the Deal DLC of ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'', will make you ''hate'' this game. Just Google it and see how many results you get of complaints. You're made to run all about the labyrinthine mess of a ship, following arrows that more often than not lead you around in circles, on one massive FetchQuest with a [[TimedMission strict timer]] and to easily the worst musical track in the game. Even after being {{Nerf}}ed in a patch this stage is one you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and the following (and much better critically received) Nyakuza Metro DLC could easily be seen as [[AuthorsSavingThrow one big apology for this]].

** Piston It Away, Level 21, is just sadistic. The ordinary level is irritating enough as is. Except the developers chose to go "Screw you!" and make you run almost to the end of the level, break ''one box'', and run back to the second checkpoint, if you want either gem. The problem with this is that you can't actually die. You need to go through the level, backtrack (mercifully, it is a side-scrolling stage), and then survive the Death Route if you want either of the two gems. Furthermore, [[ViolationOfCommonSense you have to remember to keep a particular enemy alive when you go through for the first time]], so you can use it to bounce back up a steep wall on the trip back to the Death Route; of course, most players won't think to do this and will just kill the enemy right away since it's a normal, unremarkable enemy, only to find that there's no way to backtrack past that steep wall without it, forcing them to start the whole level over. In the ''N. Sane Trilogy'' remake, the pain of this level can be alleviated somewhat by entering the Death Route right away and immediately dying - doing so will teleport you back to the main level but also guarantees the Death Route platform will stay there forever, so you only need to complete the first section of the level without dying. It also helps to save the Bonus Level for the return trip, as it acts as a checkpoint when completed and is very close to the Death Route.

** In ''Kirby Star Allies'', if you play the Guest Star mode as the Animal Friends, the final level is replaced with a version of this exact segment from Dark Castle.

** The True Arena is a boss rush. The first six bosses are ''only'' harder versions of the ones you fought earlier. Then come the "Final Four," which are extremely powerful forms or [[{{Expy}} Expies]] of King Dedede, Wham Bam Rock, Metaknight, and Marx. Health does not regenerate between any of the battles, outside of a few healing items that replace a fifth of Kirby's health each. The only practical way of winning the True Arena is to receive zero damage from the first six bosses, and practically none from the next two.

** [[BossRush Nutty Noon, Stage 5]] can be this if you take the secret route. Water Garlboros isn't too bad. But then you reach King Doo. His room has spikes on the ceiling, and the room is so small that if you lose your ability (which is likely), it'll be destroyed in the spikes above, and you have barely any room to move around and dodge his attacks. Then, ''immediately'' afterward, you fight [[ThatOneBoss Dubior]]. No break, no additional copy abilities other than Beam, ''nothing''. And its room's terrain is very uneven, and it'll probably be the first time you ever fight it if you took the secret route first (and this is its first ever appearance anyways). And after that you fight Kibble Blade and Gigant Edge [[DualBoss at the same time]]. It's even more nightmarish on [[spoiler:Extra Mode]], as all the bosses are much harder. And immediately after this level? [[ThatOneBoss Grand Doomer]].

* As far as {{Brutal Bonus Level}}s go, [[spoiler:the Secret Path]] from ''VideoGame/KirbysBlowoutBlast'' pushes the boundaries UpToEleven. [[spoiler:It's split up into five sections, [[CheckpointStarvation which you have to do all over again if you die]], all the previously fought bosses are back for revenge, and there's a shortage of health powerups. This is your reward for earning a gold medal on all levels, people. The final battle with Dedede can be a pain as well, but if you know what you're doing, it's debatably easier by comparison.]]
* The Ore Express Gold League Battle "Tangle with Three Whips" in ''VideoGame/KirbyBattleRoyale'' has you take on the usual team of three Kirbys. But those aren't just your normal random ability with swords, no, the three Kirbys all have Whip. Taking them on with any ability besides Whip is sure to seal your doom. For starters, they can and ''will'' constantly grab you with their whips, causing you to drop your ore pile and will render you unable to react as you will be attached to the whip. This can result in situations where one of the Kirbys have the lead because of said whip, and you will have to constantly dodge the whips while carrying your ores if you want to reach first place.

** Piston It Away, Level 21, is just sadistic. The ordinary level is irritating enough as is. Except the developers chose to go "Screw you!" and make you run almost to the end of the level, break ''one box'', and run back to the second checkpoint, if you want either gem. The problem with this is that you can't actually die. You need to go through the level, backtrack (mercifully, it is a side-scrolling stage), and then survive the Death Route if you want either of the two gems. Furthermore, [[ViolationOfCommonSense you have to remember to keep a particular enemy alive when you go through for the first time]], so you can use it to bounce back up a steep wall on the trip back to the Death Route; of course, most players won't think to do this and will just kill the enemy right away since it's a normal, unremarkable enemy, only to find that there's no way to backtrack past that steep wall without it, forcing them to start the whole level over.
*** At least in the ''N. Sane Trilogy'' remake, the pain of this level can be alleviated somewhat by entering the Death Route right away and immediately dying - doing so will teleport you back to the main level but also guarantees the Death Route platform will stay there forever, so you only need to complete the first section of the level without dying. It also helps to save the Bonus Level for the return trip, as it acts as a checkpoint when completed and is very close to the Death Route.

** Piston It Away, Level 21, is just sadistic. The ordinary level is irritating enough as is. Except the developers chose to go "Screw you!" and make you run almost to the end of the level, break ''one box'', and run back to the second checkpoint, if you want either gem. The problem with this is that you can't actually die. You need to go through the level, backtrack (mercifully, it is a side-scrolling stage), and then survive the Death Route if you want either of the two gems.