History ThatOneLevel / ShootEmUps

** Stage five of ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'' is a ''Difficulty Gut Stab'' in a game full of [[DifficultySpike Difficulty Spikes]]. Not only is most of the screen often filled with bullets in patterns designed to box you in, but Clownpiece comes in and ''speeds up the fairies'', making them fire faster. The middle part is the most infamous due to dodging slow firing laser lances to wall you off while spamming small hard to dodge star bullets. You will have to do it again and again in Point Device mode. Oh and you must fight [[Touhou/ThatOneBoss Clownpiece]] as well.

* Stage 3 (Areas 12 through 15) of ''VideoGame/{{Eschatos}}''. The whole stage is [[BossInLevelClothing a long fight against a space station]], there's a tricky segment involving spinning crystals and [[CameraScrew depth perception in an otherwise 2D-gameplay game]], and unlike the surrounding stages which are fairly generous with [[OneUp 1-ups]], there are ''[[DroughtLevelOfDoom none of them]]'' in this stage.

** Don't let your guard down after that particular stage, because after that comes Stage 6, the longest stage in the entire game at over ''thirty minutes'', featuring no less than four major bosses, two of which can cause an instant NonStandardGameOver regardless of health (one kills you if you stay in the air for too long, the other [[spoiler:has your partner captured and dumped into the lava if you can't keep up]]), one of which has three phases and [[spoiler:turns into a fighting game for the final phase]], and outside of the bosses, there are countless ways to get hurt, even with the [[LethalLavaLand lava throughout most of the stage]] [[ConvectionSchmonvection being non-lethal on contact]].

** There are two levels in the game that have you pilot the Landmaster tank, and where Macbeth is generally considered a BestLevelEver, the other is Titania, a ShiftingSandLand with annoying obstacles, annoying enemies, an annoying boss and nothing particularly interesting about it. There are ''two'' factors that make it even worse: firstly, going to Titania means you're locked into going to Bolse and Venom 1, and secondly Titania is a rescue mission to save Slippy, who in the story only ended up stranded there due to his own idiocy in jumping into the Sector X boss fight.

* ''ThunderForce III'', Stage 4 (Haides). Moving terrain, rotating rock poles that can corner and kill you if you aren't careful, a high-speed section with suddenly-popping-out rock poles, and a section full of rocks that jump up and can catch you off guard. There's also Stage 2 (Gorgon), which has laser ships that can kill you easily if you don't opt to stop moving vertically when they appear, rocks that burst into pieces and can swarm you, and lava pillars that can make life miserable; while most of them eventually stop, one in particular will start up and ''never stop''; guaranteed life or shield loss if you get stranded behind it.

*** The original Stage 7 High Speed Zone from SNES ''Gradius III''. It doesn't help the music intentionally throws you off before suddenly speeding up along with the auto scrolling....often into the wall. The Diagonal Climb section in the first part will leave you in tears if you don't have at least three speed ups and even then.

* Pretty much all of the desert levels in [[EpicBattleFantasy Bullet Heaven]]. Level 12 has you facing a seemingly neverending barrage of falling rocks, which constantly split into smaller rocks when you shoot them, and alongside them are the [[DemonicSpiders Slingers]] who shoot a very nasty large orb that also splits into smaller orbs, seemingly when you're least expecting it to do so. Level 13 is probably the worst, in that not only do the Slingers return, but the Monoliths are introduced. Monoliths were [[BossInMookClothing incredibly overpowered enemies]] in EpicBattleFantasy 3, and they really don't disappoint here either, especially when they come in a group of '''four''', or when a pair of them charges straight at you. The fact that the creator seems outright out to get you here does not help.[[note]] For one thing, the tip at the beginning tells you to save your bombs for the midboss, despite how he's vastly easier than the stage itself, and for another, there are two sections in which it is possible to lose a life through absolutely no fault of your own; granted you can avoid both of these on your second run through, but you'd have to know they were there beforehand.[[/note]] Level 14 gives little breathing room, as it is filled with enemies that shoot at you when they die, in patterns that make simply not shooting at them not an option.

* ''SpaceMegaforce'' has twelve levels. Level eight, which seems to take takes place in some kind of ship's graveyard, is the hardest one. In that level, shooting the walls will cause pieces to break off and become dangerous projectiles. Most of your weapons have bullet patterns that will cause you to hit the walls constantly, and most enemies are objects, such as gun turrets, mounted on the walls in places that are hard to hit. It's hard.

* ''{{DeathSmiles}}''[='=]s extra stage, the Gorge. In normal stages, if you pick Level 3 difficulty five times, you trigger Death Mode and suicide bullets will start to appear. So if you master scooping up and/or evading suicide bullets, the Gorge should be a high-scoring stage, right? ''Wrong.'' The Gorge is what the North American version's manual calls "Death level 2", in which there are far more suicide bullets than normal. It says something about this stage's difficulty when even otherwise-hardened high-scoring players choke on this stage; in fact, playing this stage for score is strongly discouraged unless you can complete it, as you will score ''lower'' than if you just go straight to the final stage and finish it.
* ''SpyHunter'' (for the [=PS2/GC/Xbox=]) has ''quite'' a few.

** And if you come from Sector X to avoid the extra StopHelpingMe of Kat, getting through the warp is nearly impossible without losing a wing, and your upgraded lasers with it.

** There are two levels in the game that have you pilot the Landmaster tank, and where Macbeth is generally considered a BestLevelEver, the other is Titania, a ShiftingSandLand with annoying obstacles, annoying enemies, an annoying boss and nothing particularly interesting about it. There are ''two'' factors that make it even worse: firstly, going to Titania means you're locked into going to Bolse and Venom 1, and secondly Titania is a rescue mission to save Slippy, who in the story only ended up stranded there due to his own idiocy in jumping into the Sector X boss fight. As salt in the wound, if you come here, the game locks you out of Area 6, and by extension, the "backdoor" Venom route which is easier (see the "easy" Venom route described above) and yields the good ending.

** If a stage is a mechanical fortress, it's going to be a DeathCourse, especially in ''Gradius III'' (arcade/PS2 version). Swarms of Zubs, aka GoddamnedBats teleport in to assault the Vic Viper, then there's MalevolentArchitecture in the form of flying ceiling tiles, followed by ships that leave behind indestructible wrecks when killed, miniature DegradedBoss versions of the invincible spider mecha from ''Gradius II'', a LaserHallway, SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom, as well as a MiniBoss that must be fought while dodging those, and an invincible giant blue spider mecha boss where you must navigate through the legs. At the entrance to Bacterion's lair, you must blast through Regenerating Walls that have organic SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom in between. After you defeat the AntiClimaxBoss, you have to escape through a narrow turbo tunnel, better have an extra speed-up or two.

* One stage of ''VideoGame/PointBlank 2'' has you shooting parachutes to drop bombs into your respective mascot's basket. As any seasoned ''Point Blank'' player knows, shooting a bomb in any stage costs 1 life, ''per bomb shot''. And because there are so many bombs on the screen at once parachuting down, it's perfectly possible to lose all of your lives for a GameOver afterwards even if you clear the stage. Ultimately, the strategy for this stage if you're not feeling confident boils down to going in with at least 2 lives left and just ''not doing anything''; losing 1 life because of a failed quota is better than losing 3 (or 5, or [[EpicFail enough to make two lines of MISS tallies]]) due to bombs.

*** The original Stage 7 High Speed Zone from SNES ''Gradius III''.

* Although the ''VideoGame/{{Galaga}}'' series of games is practically well known for [[NintendoHard being very aggresive when it comes to level design]], ''Galaga Arrangement'' takes the cake by putting the most infuriating stages in an ''entire area'', the Space Flower Zone. Nearly endless swarms of bugs coming from every corner, and since every one shoots the minute they spawn, there's an [[BulletHell equally large amount of bullets,]] which means you will be waving goodbye to your triple shot in a matter of seconds.

** There are two levels in the game that have you pilot the Landmaster tank, and where Macbeth is generally considered a BestLevelEver, the other is Titania, a ShiftingSandLand with annoying obstacles, annoying enemies, an annoying boss and nothing particularly interesting about it. There are ''two'' factors that make it even worse: firstly, going to Titania means you're locked into going to Bolse and Venom 1, and secondly Titania is a rescue mission to save Slippy, who in the story only ended up stranded there due to his own idiocy in jumping into the Sector X boss fight.

** On that note, practically every non-tutorial level as well. Every so often, you find one that isnt built around constantly spamming your DesperationAttack, but even then it's still difficult because they removed omnidirectional aiming.

* The final stage of ''[[VideoGame/AeroFighters Aero Fighters 2]]'', a MarathonLevel which pits you against ''two'' bosses and a horde of tough, bullet-spewing enemies, and unlike every other stage in the game, using a continue kicks you right back to the beginning of the stage.

* The final stage of ''Aero Fighters 2'', a MarathonLevel which pits you against ''two'' bosses and a horde of tough, bullet-spewing enemies, and unlike every other stage in the game, using a continue kicks you right back to the beginning of the stage.

* Stage 6 in ''{{R-Type}} Delta'', especially the part where you fight Capsulon. The mini-boss essentially splits the screen in half and the space left to dodge enemies and bullets would make a BulletHell game proud.
** Capsulon nothing. Try the end of the fourth stage in ''R-Type III'', which features a maze that molten metal flows through periodically. Which way it goes depends on what openings are in fact open at the time, and some of them open or close partway through a metal stream, totally changing its path! The metal is ridiculously fast, meaning that if you aren't ''exactly'' where you need to be beforehand, [[TrialAndErrorGameplay you're screwed.]] Then you fight a midboss, and then you have to ''go through the goddamned maze again, BACKWARDS!'' In a game in which, without the Force device ([[ContinuingIsPainful which you WILL lose when you die]]), your ship cannot fire backwards. [[NintendoHard ARRRRRGH!]]

** Locked Keys has the ruined highway section. You're assaulted by a number of strong enemies, but that's not the evil part. If you fall into the water, welcome to ''Hell.'' Hell, in this instance, is filled to the brim with electric mines that deal horrible damage and disable most of your systems. You're guaranteed to be down to the last of your health by the end, and it's a good thing the Weapons Van isn't long after this nightmare. At the end, however, there's a jump to a stealth powerup that is easy to miss; miss it and it's back to the beginning you go.

** Don't forget the Lava Stage, where you are bombarded with lava bombs which burst into indestructible shrapnel when shot, as well as GoddamnedBats and a narrow tunnel near the end where the fireballs can spawn right on top of you; getting past this part is a LuckBasedMission.

*** Let's not forget the original Stage 7 High Speed Zone from SNES Gradius III.

** Scene 7-5, ''Void "Inflation Square"'' from Shoot the Bullet. Sakuya constantly [[TimeStandsStill freezes time]], causing red kunai to appear around the player, which forces you to shoot at them immediately or die. After that, you have to contend with the blue daggers filling the screen and flying in every direction, which get [[TurnsRed denser and faster]] as you take more pictures. The hitboxes on them are ''horrible'', the paths (or indeed, [[LuckBasedMission whether there is a path at all]]) that you need to take are random, and if at any point you need to speed up to get through them? You have just stopped charging your camera to do so, which means you can't shoot at the red kunai in time - in other words, you are already dead.
*** And let's not forget how Sakuya herself moves when she freezes time - which can result in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7rzpyeR_M0 this]]. Cue RageQuit.

* If you're going for medals in ''VideoGame/StarFox 64'', Sector Z will give you hell. You need 100 points for the medal, and assuming things go right, 66 of these points will come from destroying the missiles headed for Great Fox. The problem? Your wingmen (and Kat, if you're coming from Zoness) will [[StopHelpingMe "help"]] you destroy the missiles. What's wrong with this? You don't get points for missiles that your wingmen land finishing shots on, which tends to turn the stage into a somewhat LuckBasedMission. Oh, and you can't shoot your wingmen out of the way without forfeiting the medal no matter how many points you get.