

Top 5 Most Frustrating Levels/Zones in Gaming

Discussion in 'General Video Game Discussion' started by KoL, Jul 20, 2010.

  1. KoL

    KoL Expert FPS Player
    Staff Member Moderator

    Since we've had topics about the games and about the characters themselves here, I figured it was time to go into another aspect: the game environment itself. We've all had those in-game locations that you've just loved, been in awe of, what-have-you, but I'm sure we've all had to endure a level so irritating, so hard, or just so badly designed it's made you want to strangle the person responsible for making it. So, without further ado, here is the topic where you can post those levels, stages, areas, zones, worlds, whatever you want to call them that just pissed you off. You are allowed to include an entire game's zone (such as the entire of Tallon IV for Metroid Prime, if the whole place just made you rage,) as well as specific levels and zones (e.g. World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros, if you hated that level in particular)

    5. The Great Maze, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I think by this time in the Subspace Emissary, I was really starting to get bored of it, and having the Great Maze thrown in my face at this point likely only worsened my perception of the zone. Either way, navigating it (as you'd expect from a maze) is hell on earth, and the only reason it's ranked only at five here is simply because I (somehow) got through it in reasonably quick time. By all rights, I should just throw the entire of the Subspace Emissary world into this, but the Great Maze stands out a bit more than the rest of the zones...and for all the wrong reasons. I don't have a lot to say about it, so it sits at No.5 for that reason.

    4. Route 217, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate Sinnoh. One of the main reasons I hate it is because of Mt. Coronet sitting in the middle of the region forcing you to Fly EVERYWHERE...and another good reason for me hating it would have to be Route 217. For anyone who doesn't know which route it is, it's the route leading up to Snowpoint City. Yes, THAT route, the one where you have to walk at a snail's pace through the snow in a blinding blizzard. It's not really a challenging route to get past, especially if you have an Ice-type Pokemon in your team, but seriously, getting through this route is the most tedious, boring and depressing things I've ever had to endure in any Pokemon game, and all because you walk so slow your birthday will have come around - twice - by the time you actually reach Snowpoint City. Why, Game Freak, why?

    3. X-Hunter Stage 2 - Serges, Mega Man X2. This level is just one big nightmare - instant-death spikes everywhere, death-traps everywhere to push you into said spikes, and a boss that you fight atop moving platforms floating over - you guessed it - more spikes. Seriously, at least 50% of the walls, floors and ceilings in this level are just spikes, and if you go anywhere near these spikes you die. The boss is a gigantic pain in the ass as well, and this stage alone was responsible for a lot of animosity on my part towards Mega Man X2, to the point when after eventually completing the game, I outwardly claimed I hated it (and at that time, I did hate it.) After a second playthrough, me and Mega Man X2 "made up" and I actually quite like it now, but for this stage to make me hate the entire game at all at one point is testament to just how horrible it actually is. Definitely one of the hardest and most frustrating levels in any game.

    2. Maridia, Super Metroid. Urgh, Norfair may look like hell, what with the fire and lava, but Maridia IS hell incarnate. This underwater zone, with its ridiculous grappling beam obstacles and quicksand traps combined with the fact that the whole zone is like a labyrinth easily makes it the most detestable zone in any Metroid game by far. The only good thing about this zone is the great relief you get when you finally get to leave, knowing you never have to go back there again...I guess the music is pretty cool as well, but overall, it's hard to really go into detail with this one since pretty much everything in Maridia is a pain in the ass, and the zone gets very tedious and very annoying, very quickly. At least the extreme challenge of the Serges stage gave you some kind of motivation to continue, but Maridia doesn't even have that, although admittedly Maridia's easier to get through than Serges is. Still, Maridia is a fraggin' nightmare of a zone, and I personally hope whoever designed it was fired and then hit by a truck on their way out the door.

    1. Episode 4 Level 5, Wolfenstein 3D. Worst...level...EVER. This steals No.1 with ease, purely because many players of Wolfenstein have actually spent upwards of 10-15 years trying to figure out how to do this level, to no avail - that's how bad it is. When my turn came to play this level, thankfully I had YouTube on hand as my last resort, but even then it took me about a year of fruitless searching before I finally gave in and used my YouTube trump card. Now, why is it so hard? Well, it starts off easily enough, nazi forces trying to kill you, the ever-standard maze-like areas of Wolfenstein 3D, you get through only to hit a locked door that you need a gold key to open...and this is where the level flicks the shit-switch. The gold key is almost impossible to find without prior knowledge, as it is tucked behind a random section of the wall right in the middle of the maze inside the level, and what makes it worse is that most of the secret walls (i.e. walls that are in fact doors) are usually sections of completely flat walls, or have some kind of indication that they are secret walls (a nazi symbol, a picture of Hitler etc. where the wall is,) but not this level - the secret wall is actually on a corner that sticks out instead of being on a flat wall, making it different to pretty much every single secret wall in the game, and sometimes, if you're not standing in the right place, it won't activate anyway, which means you're likely to skip over it entirely in your futile search...never mind the fact that it looks the same as every other wall in the room. Thankfully, once you get the gold key the rest of the level is a piece of cake, but the fact that the key is not only behind a secret wall, but also behind a secret wall that is in possibly the most unexpected place that has taken people YEARS to actually find (and even then, they found it via the internet as opposed to by their own abilities) easily makes this the worst and possibly one of the most badly designed levels to appear in any game, ever. The fact that the secret wall barely even works properly when you try to open it is just the icing on the shit cake. At least I know the name of the person who made this level - Tom Hall, gaming hell awaits you.
  2. StellarWind Elsydeon

    StellarWind Elsydeon Armblades Ascendant
    Staff Member Administrator

    I'm inclined to disagree about Maridia. Yeah. The grappling segment was slightly irritating but it has NOTHING on Norfail in terms of pure hellishness.

    And it has some of the most goddamn gorgeous music in the game. Seriously. >>;
  3. KoL

    KoL Expert FPS Player
    Staff Member Moderator

    Hmm, Norfair's oddly never given me much trouble - Lower Norfair was pretty nasty, but the toughest thing in it to deal with was still Ridley at the end for me. The Ridley fight was pretty epic for me though.
  4. StellarWind Elsydeon

    StellarWind Elsydeon Armblades Ascendant
    Staff Member Administrator

    Upper Norfail is slightly less irritating than Lower Norfail, that is true. Ridley is a pain in the ass but he never gave me as much trouble as his goddamn honor guard. Those Bastards take forever to kill. >>;
  5. I can't really think of a top 5, but here's some really annoying shit I played through:

    - Getting all the lost beads in Okami: Most of these beads are just laying around, but there are five or so that are in monster caves where you have to fight just waves and waves of the hardest monsters in the game, often in multiples where miniboss battles had you fighting one. I could only do one of these a day since my hands would be crabbed into the shape of the PS2 controller afterward.

    - The Cow/Bear levels in Katamari 1 and 2: The point of these levels is to roll up a bear/cow. You want to get a very big bear/cow, especially if you're going for 100% completion. The problem? The level ends when you roll up any bear/cow. Or bear/cow statue. Or cow-print object. Or a sign with a cow/bear on it. Or a guy dressed up as a cow/bear. And some of these objects are tiny, or running toward you, so it gets next to impossible to avoid them as you roll up your Katamari larger and larger. These levels are a paiiiiiiiiin.

    - Old Quest/World Design in WoW: Much of WoW was designed with Everquest players in mind, and many of the quests were therefore long, difficult and highly annoying. Many of them would be like "Okay kill ten guys. (Run to the place, run back to the questgiver) Okay now go get the armor that was laying around while you were doing that. (Run run) Okay kill that named monster who you killed like eight times trying to get the armor (Run run) Okay kill that other named monster that you killed several times accidentally thinking it was the one I wanted last time (Run run) Okay, here is your shield with terrible stat allocation." Ughhhhhh. Luckily, more recent quest design has been a lot more streamlined and less grindy since all the developers realized that the EQ way was complete shit. Now and then you'll run into an area where the quests just aren't set up well at all, though, and we'll all go "Why hasn't this guy been fired yet?"

    Running back from the graveyard was extremely punishing when you died in a high-level dungeon in WoW as well, and you often had to navigate around hills and cliffs and whatnot as a ghost for several minutes just to get back to your body so you could die again. Nowadays the graveyards are usually right outside the dungeon.

    And I remember going through Mt. Moon the first time I played pokemon red and thinking it was the hardest thing ever. x)
  6. Hm.

    5.) Sacred Icon, Halo 2: This level made me swear off Halo for like... two weeks. Basically, it's all fun and pretty until the Flood show up. Now, in the second game, you can't kill any Flood form with melee attacks- unlike in the third, where they realized just how ridiculous it got if you ran out of ammo. And guess who ran out of ammo? That's right, me. So, here I am, playing as Thel 'Vadam, who was probably still Thel 'Vadamee, standing on top of some random box, Combat forms swishing their scary mutatey arms up at me, and I'm completely out of ammo and grenades. Terrible. Simply terrible. And then right after that, you get thrown into Quarantine Zone, which wasn't too fun either.

    4.) Cortana, Halo 3: Can you tell that I hate Flood levels? I sure can. Mind you, I love the scene where Chief actually finds Cortana, it's incredibly sweet, even if you hate that pairing to all hell (like meeee~). And the music is amazing as well. But seriously. I was running through these disgusting Flood infesty corridors, and then suddenly BAM! I go around a corner to find one of the Pure forms, in Tank mode, swinging its giant arms at me- if you don't have a sword or hammer, it's pretty much firing wildly at the thing until you remember where its weak spot is. Ugh.

    3.) Mother of Sins, Trauma Center UTK 2: It's the final operation of the game, and it kept me from finishing the darn thing for literally months. I got so annoyed with it that I couldn't play the damn game at all for a while XD And then the first time I went back, I messed up at the VERY end, because it tries to be all lololdramaticlolol, and all it ended up doing was throwing my timing off and killing the patient. >__>;; Still an awesome game, though.

    2.) Un-named Naoya battle, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor: ...I still haven't finished this battle, to this day. Basically, it's one of those "Complete this battle in only [insert ridiculously low amount of moves here] moves, and then probably fight me too" kind of things. Then again, there have been some pretty silly tricks in this game's battles already. A lot of situations where you're almost done, and then some random character warps into the scene babbling about justice, summons a bagillion more demons, and then summons some NPCs you have to protect. I hate protection missions.

    1.) The Maw, from "Warning: Hitchhikers May be Escaping Convicts" to the end of the level, Halo: Combat Evolved: The only thing I hate more than protection missions is timed ones. Most of the level is great, but then you get to the very end, where you have to evacuate before the Pillar of Autumn explodes, taking Installation 04 with it. Six minutes. That's what you get. You flip the Warthog once, and you are -screwed.- It's just so darn frustrating.
  7. Yoshimitsu

    Former Moderator

    Zelda - Wind Waker
    Getting the Triforce shards.

    It is the only one that needs to be mentioned. In a world where getting from point A to point B is tedious enough, giving this bullshit quest was enough to make me want to kill myself.

    (yes this counts as zones)
  8. NonAnalogue

    Friend Code:
    Oh god yes. Wasn't one of the starting locations right behind a carton of milk or something? I remember rolling forwards like normal and hitting it immediately. Several times. Cursing followed.
  10. I can't rate these because they all pissed me off a lot.
    diablo 2-Act 1, quest 3- this was so dam annoying, first you go all the way to dark wood just to get a scroll then its straight back to the rouge encampment to get the scroll read. After that you go to Stony Field and wander around forever trying to find so cairn stones that open a portal when press in the right order then you go through the portal just to save a stupid old man.
    Uncharted 2- Yeti fight Fighting a yeti with an antique pistol that fires 5 bullets then you reload. The yeti has an insane amount of health and it does about 1/4 of your health each hit it lands.
    Prototype- Super hunter fight Trying to kill a thing that you can't get close to unless you want to die is a pain in the ass. Basically the only safe way I found to do it was to run around picking up things to throw at it then launching my claws special move at it and using my special when I could. most attacks did minimal damage and it was about a half a hour fight. This wasn't an epic half a hour fight, it was a grueling half a hour fight, one of the worst fights I've had.
    I can only think of these at the moment but I'm sure these are sufficiently painful.
  11. I completely agree with this statement, this quest was annoying enough to make me stop playing the game because it was just so tedious.

    I really don't have a top five, since I can't really remember anything that I found totally annoying, but there are a few:

    Water Temple - Legend of Zelda: OoT Master Quest - I never had much trouble with the original water temple, it was annoying but not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Until master quest. Then everything changed and I completely hated the Water Temple. Everything was in a different spot and you had to retrace your steps every five seconds to make sure that you didn't pass up anything. Then there was one key left before I could go fight shadow link and I couldn't find it.

    Bottom of the Well - Legend of Zelda: OoT Master Quest - The only thing I hated more than the Water Temple, in Master Quest, a dungeon that should only last five minutes: you run in, grab the eye of truth, run out; now turned into a great big "where the -EFF- is the Eye of Truth!?" fest. I couldn't stand it.

    That's all I can think of at the moment.
  12. Yoshimitsu

    Former Moderator

    I had a similar issue... but not in the Master Quest version. I took about two hours to navigate that dungeon, figure out where everything was then finally get the Lens of Truth.

  13. Linkachu

    Linkachu Hero of Pizza
    Staff Member Administrator

    Friend Code:
    Didn't play that far into Wind Waker, but something of a similar nature annoyed the hell out of me...

    Twilight Princess - Wolf Link Fetch Quests. All of them. - I hated these. Truly hated them. The first time we were asked to do them wasn't so bad, but it was still tedious and boring. By the second fetch quest however... I was about ready to kill something. Those segments ultimately killed Twilight Princess for me and I've never gone back to it since. Why did they have to ruin what could've been a really awesome parallel world with blasted collect-them-all quests?! Pretty much destroyed all enjoyment I had for the wolf form, too.

    ... but now I'm struggling to think up four more answers. There aren't many games that truly frustrate me because usually the issue isn't that they're poorly designed, it's that I'm missing something obvious in order to advance. That or I'm just not playing well enough and need to up my game. If I think of more, I'll add 'em later.

    Sad part is, I honestly loved that segment of it. :X
  14. Huh, my Top 5 posts seem to have inspired others. (yay) May as well share my opinion.

    5.- Overworld of Shadow of the Colossus- Shadow of the Colossus
    Now I love beautiful scenery as much as the next guy but...SotC's overworld had absotuly NOTHING from point A to point B. Technically, there's nothing challengng about it. It's just scenery and animals, but it takes about 10 whole mintues to find the next colossi. You'd fall asleep by the time you got there.

    4.- Firefly Worlds- Crash Bandicoot 2
    These levels were basically designed to make you rush toward the end before your little "buddy" of hope leaves you in the dark to then be screwed over by nearby monsters. What makes it so fustrating is that the damn bugs have a low-attention span and leaves you in the dust, thus making you walk blindly into traps. Good luck trying to get all the boxes if you can't even see two inches in front of you.

    3.- Ice Path- Pokemon Gold/Silver
    I'll agree with Gerudo Ganon on Route 217, but the Ice Path takes the sh*tcake for me. If you thought slow walking was bad, how about going in circles of one of the most fustrating puzzles in Pokemon history. What's worse it that they stuck HM07 in that puzzle so you couldn't simply skip it. Unless ou meorized the puzzle, it shoud take at least half an hour to figure out the way to walk into the damn item.

    2.- Water Temple- Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    I shouldn't have to explain this one...IT'S THE F*KING WATER TEMPLE!! Only reason the original is here is becuase I haven't played MQ, but I've heard it's worse...that's pretty messed up...

    1.- The Precursor Temple- Jak II
    Jak II had difficulty spikes througout the game, but the one level where I litterally threw my PS2 controller at a wall, broke it into peices and had to fix the dent it left was the stupid Precursor Temple. Not only did have stupidly tedious puzzles, you had to fight alarming number of monsters that pop out of nowhere, (ex: A lizard monster that randomly grabs you while in the water to eat you)and survive platforming that one slip-up makes you start all over again. After I barely finished it, I wanted to strangle the smart-ass at Naughty Dog who designed that level.
  15. The most frustrating zone for me was the Luigi's Purple Coins level in Super Mario Galaxy 1! I got the game in May 2009 and have been working on it till now, but I still haven't completed it! I mean, you almost get all 100 coins, when suddenly you get sucked into weird green water... meh.

    Another is the Great Maze. You have to travel all around the freakin' map looking for a weird green person shaped like Kirby, Snake, Pit, it is so annoying! Well, to be honest, it is only the first time you attempt it that bothers me. All the other times it is a piece of cake. I enjoy the Great Maze! I love a challenge!
  16. StellarWind Elsydeon

    StellarWind Elsydeon Armblades Ascendant
    Staff Member Administrator

    Let's see.

    5 - Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium - The Edge of Darkness


    The final dungeon of Phantasy Star IV, is, basically, an alternate dimension that serves as a prison for the final boss. The background is a fractal pattern that circulates through colors repeatedly. The floor panels are completely transparent, and you can only actually see them when currents of light run along them. There are multiple branching paths, some of which loop, and naturally, being the final dungeon, it's full of monsters that are more than a little... bitchy.

    4 - Wild ARMs: 2nd Ignition - Millenium Puzzle, the Emulator Zone, the Trapezohedron and the Spiral Tower

    I couldn't choose which of these pissed me off more, so here's all four of them!

    The Millenium Puzzle in both its appearances is a nightmare. In its first appearance it serves as Lilka Eleniak's starting dungeon and is full of creatures that, because of the game's Force system, are a massive annoyance to deal with. Summarizing the matter simply, using magic requires a certain amount of FP (Force Points) to be charged. You gain FP from attacking monsters or successfully evading their attacks. Lilka is a primary mage, and thus has virtually no physical attack or defense stats. I think you can see where I'm going with this. And as if the first appearance wasn't bad enough, you need to re-enter the Millenium Puzzle later, and it has evolved and become even MORE of a pain in the ass. Urgh.

    The Emulator Zone features an extremely annoying and tedious teleporter puzzle.

    The Trapezohedron is just FULL OF BRANCHING PATHS, some of which aren't immediately visible and only appear when you step on the platform they branch out from. Everything looks the same, and unless you know exactly where you're going... yeaaaaaaaah. The fact the end of level boss spams status ailments like there's no tomorrow doesn't help either.

    Spiral Tower is the penultimate dungeon of the game. For one, you can't land quite near it, meaning there's a stretch of land full of powerful random encounters you have to deal with before you actually enter the tower. The tower itself is built in a recurring puzzle-room-stairs-puzzle-room-stairs-puzzle-room-stairs-rinse-and-fucking-repeat pattern and features irritatingly tough random encounters and kind of a SURPRISE BOSS. Somewhere midway through the tower you find the Flare Gun, the main character's final tool, which is require for unlocking one of the side dungeons. The short final dungeon that follows Spiral Tower features the best armor in the game. And if you're shooting for completion, you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK UP SPIRAL TOWER after claiming said armor, in order to finish up all the sidequests, before heading back DOWN to deal with the final boss beyond the Point of No Return.

    Pain in my arse.

    3 - Wild ARMs: The 4th Detonator - Wunderweltraum

    In fact, the only Wild ARMs dungeon more annoying than Spiral Tower is probably the distortion world of Wunderweltraum - a one-time dungeon that combines EXCEPTIONALLY annoying platformer segments with a monster named a Vacuumon. These little bastards, should they use one of their attacks, reset the dungeon, sending you back to its god damned beginning - and if you hate the platformer segments of WA4 as much as I do, then it's a fucking nightmare. X_x

    And the boss of this dungeon doesn't make things easier.

    2 - Final Fantasy 6 - Phoenix Cave

    Party split to three plus unavoidable lava and spikes plus general headache. Argh.

    And lastly...

    1 - Chrono Trigger - Death Peak


    Ahem. Now that I've gotten that out of the way.

    Death Peak takes the cake for two reasons - first of which being the initial climb up it (which for some reason NEVER works for me) and the second of which being the slippery ice bridge that you have to time the crossing of EXACTLY right and avoid those damn things slipsliding on it. Death Peak is the only reason why I only played Chrono Trigger ONCE. Though catching the god damned Rat was pretty close too.

    The Great Crystal in FF12 is also a runner-up.
    #16 StellarWind Elsydeon, Aug 30, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 19, 2013
  17. My top 5 most frustrating levels/zones in gaming would have to be:

    5.) Anything that has to do with Super Mario 64 / Sunshine / Galaxy / SNES / etc.;
    I doubt that any of you will disagree that most, if not all, of the levels in the Super Mario series have a ridiculous amount of difficulty to them, especially towards the end. (I still haven't figured out where the secret path to the castle is in the Bowser level of Super Mario for SNES.)

    4.) Rule of Rose (entire game).
    I love Rule of Rose with a passion, don't get me wrong, but if you forget to find items that you will need later (i.e. health items), which are very scarce in the first place, you will be thoroughly screwed when it comes to the later parts of the game (namely the "Rag Princess Sews" chapter). However, the beautiful music, graphics, and story didn't deter me when I had to reset the game for I'd no health items left.
    If you play this game, at the end of the "Sir Peter" chapter, USE BROWN TO COLLECT EVERY ITEM YOU CAN BEFORE MOVING ON. You can trade in all of those socks, ribbons, marbles, etc., for health items in the next chapter of your choosing!
    You should use brown to search every chapter thoroughly, regardless, especially if you want to unlock all of the extras in this game; I just found that the "Sir Peter" chapter has the largest abundance of items in it.

    3.) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories "other world" chase stages.
    These stages aren't so much frustrating as they are heart-pounding. You never know where or when the monster-children are going to pop up and you cannot fight them, regardless. You simply have to run, run, and run- maybe even hide- and hope that they've lost you or have disappeared for a short while. It's very easy to get lost and go in circles in these stages of the game, especially since many of the exits back to the "real world" are hidden very well. This is especially so in the later stages of the "other world" as they begin to give you tasks that you have to complete such as taking pictures or solving puzzles while being chased. However, for these reasons, I have decided to put it here. I know that, after my fear subsided, I became quite frustrated.
    #17 Galaxite, Aug 31, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 19, 2013

Share This Page