One of my favorite traditions, popularized by platformers, is having one incredibly brutal segment of a game tucked away somewhere for only the most dedicated of players to find.
This isn’t exclusive to one genre anymore, though. You’ll see everything from shooters to RPGs offering one final huge test for the player to conquer, especially as an optional piece of endgame content.
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I’ll be considering any game that contains one level that’s lived in infamy. Perhaps a boss battle that has become a notorious roadblock, or an optional stage at the end that drives most people to distraction trying to beat it.
I’ll be ranking these iconic, tough segments both by how much notoriety they’ve gained and how well they execute a solid challenge without making it too frustrating or upsetting.
10
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
Stormy Ascent
If you were on social media when the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy dropped, you’ll have seen plenty of people reliving the games and noting how difficult Crash is, way harder than they remember.
Hearing this feedback, the team decided to add back a cut level from Crash 1 that was removed for a reason. Stormy Ascent is one of the hardest levels in a platformer, and it’s also incredibly frustrating.
This level has you timing your jumps absurdly carefully, with stairs that will turn to slope and send you hurdling back down the level if you don’t have great timing. While you can get into the rhythm, it’s ludicrously difficult.
It isn’t as notorious as most other things on this list, and while it’s certainly a huge challenge, I find it leans on the unfair and frustrating side of things. Still, it’s incredibly satisfying to complete, even if I want to throw my controller through the window.
9
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland
The True Arena
If you’re unfamiliar with the Kirby series, you might be surprised to see it here. If you’ve ever tried the True Arena in any Kirby game it’s present in, however, you know exactly why it earns a spot here.
Every game this intense gauntlet is featured in is pretty hard, but I think Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is a standout. It features EX versions of every boss in the game, alongside a couple of new fights that are intense.
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Galacta Knight returns from Kirby Super Star Ultra, and is just as soul-crushingly difficult as before. In fact, it’s made even more intense by a reduced amount of healing, and especially hard to cheese.
Games like Super Star Ultra and especially Robobot had abilities with incredibly generous invincibility frames, but there’s none of that here, making rigid memorization and proper use of whichever ability you have a must.
8
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion
Inner Agent 3
Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion DLC was already difficult enough, and I get flashbacks every time I hear the phrase “Girl Power.” However, they felt the need to end it all off on one of the hardest fights in a Nintendo game.
After you complete just about everything there is to do, you get to have a rematch with the protagonist of the first Splatoon single-player campaign. They feel even stronger than you got in that game.
They constantly spam specials, their ink can kill you in just a few shots, and I recall it taking several days before I saw anyone overcome this fight, much less know exactly how to beat it.
I’d put it higher, but it’s certainly a very unfair fight. There are a lot of random elements to deal with and moments of AI manipulation you should do to gain a fighting chance, and getting one-shot is never a great feeling.
7
Mario Kart Wii
Rainbow Road
Rainbow Road is one of those inescapable gaming cornerstones that has always been infamously difficult. While later Mario Kart games toned down the difficulty, Mario Kart Wii was where it peaked.
It’s well known for incredibly tight turns and thin roads that are easy to get bumped off of. It’s especially hard to stay on considering that Bikes are notoriously the meta pick for this game, and they’ll shoot off the map at the lightest tap.
Trying to trick off the half-pipes frequently sends you right off into a hole in the road. Plus, it has one of the hardest ultra-shortcuts in Mario Kart history to hammer in the fact that this track is terrifyingly cruel.
This gets even more hectic in Mario Kart 8’s remake of Wii Rainbow Road, allowing you to race it at 200cc, making for potentially one of the most chaotic and tough tracks in any racing game. The character-packed Mario Kart World isn’t quite this vicious.
6
Sonic Unleashed
Eggman Land
While Sonic the Hedgehog as a series tends to get pretty difficult by the end of the game, absolutely nothing has challenged the status of Eggman Land in Sonic Unleashed as the hardest level in the franchise.
It’s a half-hour-long gauntlet of combined Werehog and Daytime gameplay, frequent platforming over bottomless pits, and tightrope segments over lava that almost have me rage quitting. It’s an incredibly punishing level in a game with lives.
I’ve burnt so many lives on this stage before, usually to failing QTEs that consist of tons of buttons you need to press in a short period of time. Furthermore, doing so makes you start the whole thing from the beginning.
Even worse, if you want to 100% the game, you need to do the Hot Dog missions on this stage, which make you do the entire level in one run without dying. Under a time limit, no less.
5
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Grandmaster Galaxy’s Perfect Run
Mario games nowadays have a tradition of having one final optional level to beat after everything else, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is an early example of that trend. In my opinion, it had the best execution of it.
This is an absolute behemoth of a level that takes far longer to beat than anything else in the game. It tests your skill with platforming, cloud flowers, and navigating around numerous stage hazards in your way.
That alone wouldn’t be too terribly difficult, but when you unlock the Prankster Comet for this level, you get to play The Perfect Run. There are no more checkpoints, and you’re stuck at 1 HP the entire time.
This turns mild frustration into a game of rigid memorization, perfect execution, and routing to make sure you’re in danger for as little time as possible. That’s an incredible thing to come from a Mario game, and one of our hero’s best 3D adventures at that.
4
Undertale
Sans
Potentially the most notoriously difficult fight in an RPG. Getting to the Judgement Hall in a No Mercy run of Undertale leads to a fight with Sans, the lazy joke character who’s more than capable of making you want to give up.
While it’s not a traditional “Level” per se, I felt this section of the game is so iconic and such an incredibly designed challenge that I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it here. It’s one of the most iconic difficulty spikes in gaming history.
The fight is incredibly challenging, requiring precise movement, often necessitating the memorization of attacks, and demanding a great deal of determination to push on through. Everything ultimately falls on you, making it feel upsetting.
This also serves as a prime example of seamless synchronization between gameplay and story. Sans is here to break your spirit, to make you give in and reset, so making you feel like you are awful at the game is the perfect way to get that done.
3
Cave Story
Bloodstained Sanctuary
While Galaxy 2 was likely the reason why many Triple-A games hopped on this trend, Cave Story was potentially the most influential indie game ever made. That includes the monstrous gauntlet that is the Bloodstained Sanctuary.
You can only get here after an incredibly specific sequence of events and interactions you need to do for the true ending, and once you’ve done all that, you have a ton of game left to overcome.
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This has you jetpacking through hellish environments full of spikes, archers, and other creatures that are all after your head, backed by some of the best music in a game full of bangers.
It comes to a head with the fight against Ballos. It’s a hard fight positioned at the end of an intense level, truly testing your platforming and combat skills in a mix of pain and immense satisfaction when you finally make it through.
2
Hollow Knight
Path of Pain
While one could argue Hollow Knight has harder segments (especially if that argument is formulated around Pantheon 5), it’s hard to deny that the Path of Pain will go down in infamy as an intense sequence that strikes fear into the hearts of many.
In a game primarily focused on combat and exploration, a huge platforming gauntlet that throws you all the way back to the start of each huge screen whenever you mess up once is a wild inclusion.
That said, Hollow Knight’s movement abilities and invaluable charm combos make this rather manageable, especially if you go for Hiveblood, yet none of them make it easy. I knew about Hiveblood when starting, and it still took me a few dozen attempts.
It makes me yearn for more tests of platforming in Hollow Knight’s engine, and if we’re (un)lucky, Silksong might just include an equally iconic, terrifyingly punishing platforming gauntlet.
1
Celeste
Farewell
On the whole, Celeste is already known as an intensely difficult game, which makes Farewell being a standout difficulty spike an even larger achievement. Especially because it feels great despite being a bit painful.
The entire thing tests every piece of tech you learn throughout the B-Sides while also introducing wavedashing, a previously unintended mechanic that has been embraced as a feature for the entire chapter.
It doesn’t hurt that the entire thing is one of the prettiest levels I’ve ever seen in a platformer, even while I’m wavedashing into a jellyfish and hitting spikes because I conserved too much momentum. This mountain-climbing extravaganza takes no prisoners.
The final screen, in particular, is a terrifyingly long sequence of springs and jellyfish dashes that lasts for 10 minutes straight without giving you a single break. Clearing it is the most satisfying thing I’ve done in any game I’ve ever played.
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