History ThatOneLevel / ShootEmUps

* The Shinjuku Station Square in ''VideoGame/Police911''. Not only will there be more [[DemonicSpiders machine gun wielding enemies]] present, but also [[TooDumbToLive innocent bystanders who will run in circles instead of running for their lives]].

* ''VideoGame/TouhouProject'':
** Stage 5 in ''[[Franchise/TouhouProject Subterranean Animism]]''. It is filled with spirits who explode in tiny bullets when killed, making navigating though the fairy bullet patterns a nightmare if they are not managed correctly. Not to mention it's [[ThatOneBoss Rin's stage]].
** ''Mountain of Faith's'' Stage 4. Filled with ambushing tengu who put up extended bullet mazes while also sniping you.

** Even the most ardent PC-98 fans aren't willing to defend the fourth stage of ''Mystic Square'', for one simple reason. [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20051028024222/touhou/images/b/b4/Th05stage4title.jpg This is what the background looks like.]] Most of the bullets in this stage are light blue so they don't really pop out against the background.
** Similarly, Hell Stage 18 in ''Highly Responsive to Prayers'': it's a stage where all the tiles on left side and the right side is filled with bumpers... while also divided by a wall that only opens up on bottom (and of course on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic]] you will also have to avoid the revenge bullets). Just getting the ball out of the bumpers can take forever, and of course it can just get stuck again. While obviously you can just bomb your way through this nightmare, this is the one stage in the game that is noticeably way harder on a No Bomb playthrough.
** 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. Then there's how Sakuya herself moves when she freezes time - which can result in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7rzpyeR_M0 this]]. Cue RageQuit.
** Scene 7-2 ''Devil Sign "All the World in Nightmares"'' has this nasty tendency of becoming harder the more photos you take. Every other spellcard in the game becomes harder only after each ''successful'' shot, but this one will become harder if you so much shoot defensively, which is exactly what you're expected to be doing up until the 30 second mark because Remilia is fully impervious to photographing until then. Since the fan of bullets becomes wider and faster as you take photos, shooting before Remilia becomes vulnerable guarantees you're gonna have to go unfocused just to survive on the latter stages of the card, which would be otherwise not advised since there's also a dense barrage of slow-moving red shots radiating from Remilia herself.
** Scene 8-3, ''Secret Sign "Hierarch's Arcanum"'', also from Shoot the Bullet. Walls of purple amulets come from both sides of the screen. Their lengths are random. You are going to get walled - if not at the beginning, then when Ran starts firing slow, aimed bullets that can cut off your escape route. No wonder Touhou Wiki states that this is "one of the hardest scenes in the game."
** Scene 8-7, ''Superman "Soaring En no Ozuno"'' is another fun little gift from Ran. Streaming attacks usually are pretty easy, but let's combine an incredibly fast and constant charging attack by Ran with the necessity to be at full power by the time you've reached the side of the screen. Then, mix in an enormous amount of butterfly bullets moving in a random formation that will almost certainly spell out doom for you, especially since they can go out of the screen and then return when you least expect them to. Need to move up at all to dodge a bullet during the last 2 photos, which you almost certainly will? Don't worry; Ran will be right there to bulldoze you into the failure screen. Of course, when you've finally charged the camera completely, she will drop below the bottom of the screen faster than you can shoot, leading to an uncanny amount of failures on the last photo.
** Scene 10-6, ''Judgment "Guilty or Not Guilty"''. Dodging through an endless barrage of enormous bubble bullets that make reading ahead extremely difficult is hard enough without Eiki Shiki shooting a huge laser at you the entire time. The real problem is the HitboxDissonance - that laser's hitbox is actually ''bigger than its sprite'', and by no small margin, which for a Touhou game is practically unheard of. For some idea of how bad this is, see [[http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad256/Malkyrian/th0952012-05-0915-51-26-35.png here]]; that white dot just under the laser is the already dead player's hitbox. To cap it all, the bubble bullets get [[TurnsRed denser with each picture you take]], making what could be a safe route for the second picture a guaranteed deathtrap for the third.
** Scene 9-6, ''New Impossible Request "Seamless Ceiling of Kinkaku-ji"'' is typically considered the single worst scene in Shoot the Bullet, which is saying something. Perhaps the best showcase of Kaguya's tendency to wall your character, and there are seven pictures, which get [[TurnsRed progressively tougher]].
*** Kinkaku-ji returns to haunt us in Double Spoiler, and here it starts at max level. Beating it requires godly reflexes or a prayer to the RandomNumberGod. Of all the cards from Shoot The Bullet ZUN could have brought back, why the hell did he choose that one?
*** And it's brought to you by ThatOneBoss from ''Subterranean Animism'', no less!
*** Well, she can read your mind, so it only makes sense she'd try to bring your darkest nightmare back to life. Thankfully, many of the bullets are smaller than they were in the original, and you only have to take 3 photos of it. But that's the only concession this card will give you.
** Double Spoiler's Scene 3-4, "Small Thread - Kandata's Rope" is the first scene that is unilaterally loathed by players. It's relatively simple in comparison to anything in stage 12, but it is an absolute [[DifficultySpike brick wall in terms of difficulty]].

** Even the most ardent PC-98 fans aren't willing to defend the fourth stage of Mystic Square, for one simple reason. [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20051028024222/touhou/images/b/b4/Th05stage4title.jpg This is what the background looks like.]] All of the bullets in this stage are light blue.

** Stage 5 in ''[[Franchise/TouhouProject Subterranean Animism]]'' has left many a player tearing their hair out. [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned exploding spirits!]]
** And on that note: ''Mountain of Faith'', Stage 4, Lunatic mode. Expect to convulse on the floor, screaming about waterfalls.

*** 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 requires percise moving to keep from smashing into the wall or ceiling ''and'' possibly dodge fire from turrents. What's worst is this level has the first appearance of Beacon ''and'' the next stage is both a Cube attack and BossRush.

* Stage 5 in ''[[Franchise/TouhouProject Subterranean Animism]]'' has left many a player tearing their hair out. [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned exploding spirits!]]

** ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'''s Stage 4 is also a supreme pain in the ass. Not only is it one of the longest stages of the game, but there are many enemies of the stage, particularly in the second half, that like to throw some pretty damned dense danmaku your way, particularly the lines of orbs, which explode in a ton of bullets aimed at you when they die. And if you manage to get past all of that, you still have to face the Prismriver Sisters, [[ThatOneBoss Those Three Bosses]].

** Mission 9 introduces two more demonic spiders, [[KillSat Romanov Attack Satellites]] and [[AdvancingBossofDoom Shovak Bulldozers]]. The former will fry you instantly with it's [[DeathRay death ray]] if it goes above you while firing it, while the latter will crush you if they so much were to brush against you. The two appear but in separate combinations, where the satellite will be paired with the enemy tanks, and the bulldozer will be paired with the heavy carpet bomber and the ICBMs. These two combinations can screw up the player if they don't focus on them enough. The boss at the end ([[HoppingMachine X-Bot]]) will [[GoddamnedBoss constantly follow you, forcing you to move left and right to avoid it's one-hit kill crushing attack]].
** Mission 12 is where you face the bulldozers paired with tanks/ICBMs, and then again with the [[GoddamnedBats cruise missiles]].

** Mission 9 introduces two more demonic spiders, [[KillSat Romanov Attack Satellites]] and [[AdvancingBossofDoom Shovak Bulldozers]]. The former will fry you instantly with it's [[DeathRay death ray]] if it goes above you while firing it, while the latter will crush you if they so much were to brush against you. The two appear but in separate combinations, where the satellite will be paired with the tanks, and the bulldozer will be paired with the heavy carpet bomber and the ICBMS. These two combinations can screw up the player if they don't focus on them enough. The boss at the end ([[HoppingMachine X-Bot]]) will [[GoddamnedBoss constantly follow you, forcing you to move left and right to avoid it's one-hit kill crushing attack]].
** Mission 12 is where you face the bulldozers paired with tanks/ICBMS, and then again with the [[GoddamnedBats cruise missiles]].
** Mission 15 has the Atomic Bomber/Satellite combination, forcing you to juggle between destroying the atomic bombs and the atomic bomber itself and avoiding the satellite's laser.

** The last level (Mission 19) is where you are thrown everything at you. It is very long and several waves are filled to the brim with [[DemonicSpiders demonic spiders]] (the satellite enemies are one of them) and [[GoddamnedBats goddamned bats]] combinations that are out to screw you badly. The final boss, (Secret Weapon) is also [[ThatOneBoss extremely tough even for final boss standards]].

* As any seasoned ''VideoGame/PointBlank'' player knows, shooting a bomb in any stage costs 1 life, ''per bomb shot''. But, one stage of ''Point Blank 2'' has you shooting parachutes to drop bombs into your respective mascot's basket. And yes, shooting bombs in this stage still takes away lives. 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.

* Pretty much all of the desert levels in ''VideoGame/BulletHeaven''. 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 ''VideoGame/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.

* Pretty much all of the desert levels in ''[[VideoGame/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 ''VideoGame/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.

* Stage 5 of ''VideoGame/LuckyAndWild'' is arguably the hardest stage in the entire game. The suspect, Bear, [[DamageSpongeBoss take a helluva lot of punishment to go down]], not to mention it's also [[MarathonLevel the longest stage in the game]], and there are a ton of obstacles to go through, including rocks, trains, and [[ExplosiveBarrel Explosive Barrels]], not to mention the stage throws [[GiantMook monster trucks]] at you, and [[DemonicSpider they are quite possibly the toughest enemies in the game]]. By the end of the stage, you'll probably have barely enough time left before Bear will escape.

*** Even ''Gradius Gaiden'', which is one of the easiest games in the series, has a very difficult mechanical fortress final stage. It opens up with a high speed section (which is [[UnwinnableByMistake near-impossible to recover in]] if you foolishly put Speed Up on anything beyond the 2nd slot), which also happens to incorporate enemies that come from behind. Vic Viper, Jade Knight, and Falchion Beta all have weapons that can fire backwards to take care of these assholes, but Lord British, having no such weapons, is almost certainly going to bend over. The next part makes you deal with moving floors and ceilings, which at point point completely close up and [[UnwinnableByDesign will cost you a life]] unless you are in front of it or have a Limit shield. ''Then'' you face Gunner Wall, who can be somewhat of a ThatOneBoss due to the various guns and {{Mook Maker}} forcing you to keep moving around, followed by [[ThatOneBoss Heavy]] [[GiantMook Ducker]], a section where pieces of the floor and ceiling [[MalevolentArchitecture fly out]] and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou try to kill you]], and a giant penultimate boss that is invulnerable to your weapons and must be [[HoldTheLine timed out]] while enemy walkers on the floor and ceiling make sure you cannot. Only after this almost-BossRush can you finally [[ZeroEffortBoss relax]].

*** For that matter,''any level'' after the first loop, but special mention goes to the Bio and Moai levels. Bio levels will leave you screaming because of the regenerating walls that love to speed up while your trying to get though them while being shot at. Moai level is....well Moai, not to mention at the end has both That One Boss and Miniboss combo.

->'''General Pepper:''' "What are you doing? It's too dangerous there!"\\
'''Fox:''' "I can't leave Slippy hanging!"

* Stage 5 in ''[[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Subterranean Animism]]'' has left many a player tearing their hair out. [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned exploding spirits!]]

** 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 [[ThatOneBoss/{{Touhou}} Clownpiece]] as well.

* The Shinjuku Station Square in ''VideoGame/Police911''. Not only will there be more [[DemonicSpider machine gun wielding enemies]] present, but also [[TooDumbToLive innocent bystanders who will run in circles instead of running for their lives]].

** 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. General Pepper had a point when he said Titania was too dangerous.

->'''General Pepper:''' "What are you doing? It's too dangerous there!"
->'''Fox:''' "I can't leave Slippy hanging!"

* In a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRHJMf_jY8A#t=39m12 Google Tech Talk video]], Jeff Minter had a discussion about his games created at Llamasoft. He discussed ''[[VideoGame/{{Tempest}} SpaceGiraffe]]'', where he designated level 64 "Flumm Ox" as that one level. "If you get to level 64, I guarantee the first time you get there you would just go 'What the smeg is going on there' and you'll die." The developer then plays through the level, showing an InterfaceScrew with unusual colors, CameraScrew, [[MostAnnoyingSound numerous danger alerts]], and general chaos.

*** The fortress in ''Gradius V'', Stage 7 incorporates the obligatory High-Speed Zone into its first half, which includes a diagonal climb through dozens of closely-placed gates, followed by Beacon, ThatOneBoss. The first half of Stage 6, with the green slime spigots and tilting environment, is also an infamous Scrappy Level. Doesn't get much easier in the second half, where the screen ''scrolls backwards'', then you fight a BossRush of [[ThatOneBoss Those Several Bosses]] (Rolling Core, "Ball-in-a-cage" Core, Big Core MKIII 2.0, Covered Core II)