What was the worst Level You played in a game

[Silvanus]

Anyone else remember trying to get a score of 100% on the bonus level of world 6 in Yoshi's Island? The one in which you have to drop down and avoid dozens of insta-killing thorns just by fluttering?

Other than that, it would have to be the Water Temple. An obvious choice, but true.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I have beaten Battletoads, Double Dragon 3 and a host of other games for the NES, but the one place that sticks out in my mind as being hellaciously difficult for what you are given...

Spoiler: Spoiler added for dramatic effect

Spoiler: Another spoiler because spoilers

Spoiler: There's this thing called curiosity

Spoiler: I know you have plenty of it at this point

Spoiler: Seriously, this place is E.T. levels of frustrating

Even if you upgraded your team fully with the best weapons and armor available, got max of every item possible and upgraded your magic as high as it would go, the enemies in the Pure Land STILL tear you apart, inflicting massive damage AND status ailments. It's debatable whether the enemies here are stronger than the final level of the game. All the while, this song plays...

 

[ninja666]

Tomb of the Giants in Dark Souls. Whoever designed this should have a special place in hell ready for him (or her, you never know). It's so dark, you have to sacrifice your shield for a lantern if you want to see anything. Then the location's filled with 8-feet, machete and bow wielding skeletons, and other ones even bigger that crawl on all fours and can practically one-shot you (or two-shot if you have a shield up at the very moment of them jumping onto you). What's more, there are six instances of the boss from prior location (the Catacombs) in the later part of the Tomb, accompanied by infinitely spawning swarms of tiny skeletons.

 

[James Rednok]

I forget the name of the stage (it's that one bay with the poisoned water and the Jetson towers made of shells), but there's this one segment of Super Mario Sunshine, where you have to go underwater and use FLUDD to maneuver around this massive Colosseum to collect red coins that are part of a giant fish comprised entirely of coins. The thing is, if you approach the fish from the front, the coins will split up and reassemble themselves on the other end of the stage. Actually the only time I've thrown a controller after attempting this level for the umpteenth time and drowning with one coin left to go... =/

 

[Liquidprid3]

Dark Souls: BlightTown, Valley of Drakes, and Tomb of the Giants. I love the game, but those parts are annoying.
The Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time. I hate it more than the Water Temple, it's way too confusing, the puzzles are boring and tedious, and you can easily fall off a cliff, and have to spend five minutes getting back to a place. Not to mention some really cryptic stuff, and you've got a dungeon that really grinds my gears.
Also, the final dungeon in the original Legend of Zelda. Oh my god, is it huge, easy to get lost takes forever to get back to places, and overall not that fun.
The crane mission in GTAV was fucking stupid. I'm playing GTA, and this is the shit you want me to do. Other missions were enjoyable, though.
The boss of the Hell world in Super Meat Boy. It's not even based on skill. He doesn't telegraph his attacks, and they're in a set order. It's all based on memorization. Not fun.
Dead Island- the whole game. Made me appreciate Borderlands a loooottttt more.
Sonic 3- Carnival Zone. In act 2, there's this area where you have to get past these moving things, but I could never figure it out as a kid. I can't remember what you had to do, but I did figure it out.

Alright I'm gonna end it there so I don't go on for an eternity.

 

[Madame_Lawliet]

Blighttown in DkS. The upper portion has platforms that move as you run on them that can kill you. also there whole upper portion is all walkways which you can be knocked off/rolled off/ dodged off. The Blowdart Snipers which can get you inflicted with toxic in 1 to 2 shots one particular area is a shooting gallery with 4 of them.. The Ogres and Abomination enemies which are much tougher than any regular enemy you would have encountered thus far. the flame dogs suck too.

Lower Blighttown is not quite as bad, but there are thing about it that suck as well. The Swamp that poisons you and in order to move at normal speed in this swamp you need a particular ring. Those goddamn mosquitoes omg those mosquitoes they spawn is several waves, they are worth nothing soulwise, they attack quickly which inflicts poison also, and they dodge a lot which makes hitting them with any heavy weapon difficult.

I think the devs including an easy way to bypass that entire upper section by using the master key right from under Firelink was their way of admitting their mistake so to speak, I only go up there if I want Power Within for a tank build, and that is very rarely.
Funnily enough the level that first came to my mind is also from Dark Souls, and is accessible from Blighttown, namely The Great Hollow. That whole tree is just a big clusterfuck of terrible platforming, getting cursed by those damn frogs, and above all that it's easily the most boring part of that entire game. The only reasons to go there are for the stamina ring and because it's the only way to get to Ash Lake, I know both of those things are entirely optional but I still hate doing that tree.
Ironic considering that two of my least favorite levels ever are both from one of my favorite games ever.

Tomb of the Giants in Dark Souls. Whoever designed this should have a special place in hell ready for him (or her, you never know). It's so dark, you have to sacrifice your shield for a lantern if you want to see anything. Then the location's filled with 8-feet, machete and bow wielding skeletons, and other ones even bigger that crawl on all fours and can practically one-shot you (or two-shot if you have a shield up at the very moment of them jumping onto you). What's more, there are six instances of the boss from prior location (the Catacombs) in the later part of the Tomb, accompanied by infinitely spawning swarms of tiny skeletons.

If you put fourteen points into Inteligence you can use a spell called "Cast Light" (which you can buy from Dusk for about 2000 souls) that essentially provides you a hands-free lantern, and if you don't want to spend the points you can just wear a Sunlight Maggot from Lost Izaleth, which has the same effect; either of these methods will make Tomb of the Giants SIGNIFICANTLY easier.
Also the baby Skeletons only spawn when you walk through the water of that Chamber before Nito (the one with the Pinwheels), stay out of the water and you don't have to deal with the skeletons.
I hope that helps a little.

 

[ninja666]

Am I the only one who actually liked Blighttown and found it easy? True, I got annoyed at the swamp part at first, but when I found out about the rusted iron ring, I breezed through it. Plus, it's one of the most atmospheric locations in the game imho.

 

[Glaice]

Anything with precise platforming and large drops or overglorified escort missions (RE4 w/ President's daughter in tow)

 

[Twinrehz]

Duke Nukem's Titty City in Duke Nukem Forever
Murdelin's Slaughter Dome in Borderlands 2
Water Temple from Ocarina of Time
Lt. Surge's Gym on Pokemon Red and Blue
The Hot Spring level in Asura' Wrath
Just to name a few

Really, Murderlin's Temple? I played through it with 4 friends, and sure, it was difficult, but hardly worthy of the title "Worst level".

For my part, I reached one part in Gears of War where I for the second time had to sneak around some huge monster that rammed me at full speed if I made any noise. I couldn't hit it with the space laser, and died a number of times before I gave up the game. I weren't really that interested in the game anyway.

I'm actually having a hard time remembering a worst level, I haven't played that many games. The lava-level in Super Mario 64 certainly pissed me off, but that was coupled with a terrible camera control. Aside from that, I've had a dislike for any plant-level in zelda-games, it seems like all of them need at least one plant-temple or something (kokiri forest in Wind Waker comes to mind), filled with nasty looking monsters doing nasty stuff. I actually liked both the forest temple and the water temple in Ocarina of Time, although Dark Link in the Water Temple was a right pain until I was told you should just use the jump attack on him. I've played a bit of dark souls, but I don't think I'm allowed to comment on it since I'm currently stuck on Capoeira demon (haven't tried more than 20 times or something). Perhaps Odyssey in Bit.Trip.Runner? That's one obnoxiously long level, filled with hazards. Possibly also level 3-10 in the same game, I think I spent more time there than on Odyssey.

Another one, I smashed up an N64 controller for losing against Gold Racer in 1080 Snowboarding. Good times, I suppose.... smashed my best controller for that. Oh, and that one challenge in SSBM where you must survive 30 seconds against some purple bastards who do a ton of damage.

 

[Sefa Lagaaia]

Easy... The Airship Tanker mission in Jak 2 on Hero Mode...

What's interesting about this mission is that the hardest part of this mission is at the very beginning even before you get a change to shoot down parts of the Airship Tanker itself... I mean, it's bad enough you have to take down several waves of hover guards, but when you're doing this on Hero Mode where, instead of going down by one or two shots, they have to go down by up to four or five shots if you're aiming correctly... while each of their shots can take down a good chunk of your health from all sides, including the cheap shots from your blind spots...

It sucks that, every time this mission comes up, I end up wasting a good Dark Jak moment just to take out the first wave, which if I don't do that anyway, could take down your overall health in half if you're not "careful"...

Oh my god yes, I could not for the life of me do that mission on hero mode, it was hard enough on normal but on hero mode... That was just hell, spent ages trying to fly past it in dark giant and ended up just glitching through past that mission to the Mars Tomb mission...

That's now though, as a kid? Spider Caves in Jak and Daxter: precursor legacy It kinda just unerved me and I ended up dying a lot... especially going for all 2000 orbs in that area with all the spiders eggs..

 

[broadbandmink]

Pretty much agree that The Library from Halo: Combat Evolved stands as a textbook example of how one do NOT design a shooter level.

However, I never thought the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time was that bad. Sure, I agree to the extent that I thought it was probably the most tedious of all the dungeons in that particular game. But I personally thought the fight against Dark Link was one of the more memorable fights in the main quest. But to each his own, I guess.

It's a bit of a cheat, but any fight in Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal that involved mages. Which was most of the fights, really. That was the game that taught me to hate instant-death effects. Mages were always loaded down with tons of those, along with Time Stop to make sure they could cast them all at once. There was exactly one spell in the whole game that could protect you from death effects and it lasted maybe ten seconds. Add in that it was an instant game over if your main character died and it was a recipe for screaming in incoherent rage. Your whole party could get chunked in the first few moments of a fight, not due to some tactical error on your part, but because invisible dice rolled poorly for you when some namelss mook mage cast Wail of the Banshee.

Man, I had forgotten about those mage fights. On the other hand, both Bioware and Black Isle seemed to just love to put players up against these kinda odds back in the heyday of the Infinity-engine.

I'd also like to make some personal additions. First off, every damn level that incorporated bats/birds in the original Ninja Gaiden trilogy for the NES.

I might receive a lot of flak for this one. But every level that took place in Xen in the original Half-Life plus both it's expansions Opposing Force and Blue Shift was just one long study in boredom IMHO. I got the impression that all of a sudden Valve got more interested in developing a first person platforming game more than anything else. Then there was that end game boss...

 

[SmallHatLogan]

Anyone here played Earthworm Jim 2? That flying king level is so fucking terrible. It plays like Zaxxon (an isometric scrolling shooter from the 80s for those of you who don't know), the level is really fucking long, you have to push a floating balloon with explosives attached all the way to the end of the level without it blowing up and without dying yourself. The controls aren't great and pushing a balloon while riding on a rocket it about as difficult as it would be in real life. Why they included such a steaming pile of crap in this game boggles my mind.

You might say I hate it because I'm bad at it. Well yeah, that's at least part of the reason. But I play Earthworm Jim to play a 2D platformer, not a fucking Zaxxon clone with the annoyance factor cranked up to 11.

 

[SuperSaiyanMajinBuu]

Duke Nukem's Titty City in Duke Nukem Forever
Murdelin's Slaughter Dome in Borderlands 2
Water Temple from Ocarina of Time
Lt. Surge's Gym on Pokemon Red and Blue
The Hot Spring level in Asura' Wrath
Just to name a few

Really, Murderlin's Temple? I played through it with 4 friends, and sure, it was difficult, but hardly worthy of the title "Worst level".

For my part, I reached one part in Gears of War where I for the second time had to sneak around some huge monster that rammed me at full speed if I made any noise. I couldn't hit it with the space laser, and died a number of times before I gave up the game. I weren't really that interested in the game anyway.

I'm actually having a hard time remembering a worst level, I haven't played that many games. The lava-level in Super Mario 64 certainly pissed me off, but that was coupled with a terrible camera control. Aside from that, I've had a dislike for any plant-level in zelda-games, it seems like all of them need at least one plant-temple or something (kokiri forest in Wind Waker comes to mind), filled with nasty looking monsters doing nasty stuff. I actually liked both the forest temple and the water temple in Ocarina of Time, although Dark Link in the Water Temple was a right pain until I was told you should just use the jump attack on him. I've played a bit of dark souls, but I don't think I'm allowed to comment on it since I'm currently stuck on Capoeira demon (haven't tried more than 20 times or something). Perhaps Odyssey in Bit.Trip.Runner? That's one obnoxiously long level, filled with hazards. Possibly also level 3-10 in the same game, I think I spent more time there than on Odyssey.

Another one, I smashed up an N64 controller for losing against Gold Racer in 1080 Snowboarding. Good times, I suppose.... smashed my best controller for that. Oh, and that one challenge in SSBM where you must survive 30 seconds against some purple bastards who do a ton of damage.

I finally beat Murderlin's Temple and I gotta say you are correct. The only reason I put it on their was for the instant death traps and because i went through the whole game and all of the dlc including headhunter packs by myself. The only reason i play by myself is because I always think I'm going to get trolled to heck by some "inconsiderste" individual. After a while though, the level was actually fun and provided new challenges once I figured out the layout.

OT: I'm not sure if this could count, but the Kakuza boss fight in UNS2. At first it a normal fight but then Bam! He's a giant tentacle hollow thing with homing fire attacks, massive tentacle attacks that sweep at random, wind shot that splits into 3 waves and a fire & wind hyper beam. The worst part is he's a mid game boss and he is harder than the final boss Pein.

Also, the Atlantica level in KH2. ... The singing... the..singing (shudders). A blemish on a near perfect game.

 

[Twinrehz]

I finally beat Murderlin's Temple and I gotta say you are correct. The only reason I put it on their was for the instant death traps and because i went through the whole game and all of the dlc including headhunter packs by myself. The only reason i play by myself is because I always think I'm going to get trolled to heck by some "inconsiderste" individual. After a while though, the level was actually fun and provided new challenges once I figured out the layout.

Ah, yeah, I forgot the instant death traps. They are a total pain, and took us by surprise a couple of times, and some swearing over how annoying instant death is. And instant death is truly annoying, not just in B2, but in pretty much all games.

Come to think of it, there is a mechanic in B2 that says you cannot be one-shotted (death traps and out-of-bounds aside). For example, you cannot be one-shotted by any boss, for example terramorphous. He must hit you twice, which he can well do, since he has some pretty fast attacks. I'm not sure if it counts if the mobs are X levels higher than you, I haven't tried that.

Captcha: Make my day :/

 

[Auron225]

Hmmmm....I'm trying to think of a truly bad or awful level that I just hated. I feel like saying The Water Temple from Orcarina of Time but I feel like that would be a cop out though. However I find it incredible that we are still talking about that level after so long. Shows what impact it has actually made when you think about it.

The Water Temple truly was a pain in the ass, but to be honest I think a fair bit of it now is exaggerated. It was difficult yeah but most of us were a lot younger when we did it. One of the most annoying things about it, to me anyway, was having to go into the menu to switch between normal boots and iron boots so consistently, which isn't so much a fault on the level as it is a fault on the mechanics. They should have made the iron boots an item instead of clothing.

Also, my worst level ever... hmm... Crash Bandicoot 1's Road to Nowhere. The game was already hard but this level takes it to a new extreme. Linear level with tiny draw distance? check. Enemies? check. Planks that snap if you breathe on them? check. Ice ramps placed so you have to jump from one sliding you back to one sliding you forwards so you have to compensate in split seconds? check... Oh and early PS1 D-pad platforming, of course.

...Really? Maybe I just played that game too often when I was young but I didn't find Road to Nowhere that hard. It was almost a breath of fresh air compared to some of the surrounding levels. There was another one on the 3rd island that pissed me off to no end - I forget the name but it was outside a castle in a thunderstorm and you had to scale the wall of it from right to left and back a few times. EDIT: Slippery Climb! That was it! Worst Crash Bandicoot level ever in my opinion.

OT: I remember a harbor level from Jak II that took an uneartly amount of tries before I got it. There were guards everywhere and you had to run on foot dodging every shot being fired at you and being oh so delicate to not fall in the water or you'd die instantly. The only way to survive was to be a frigging ninja. I remember another one also from Jak II that Daxter was involved in and it was kinda like whack-a-mole?

Spoiler: This bastard of a game

It took a ridiculous number of tries as well. I hated it with passion. Great game otherwise but I loathed those levels.

 

[Sniperexpert]

Worst level/mission for me would have to be that infuriatingly tricky Doppelganger mission in Far Cry 3 annoyingly inconsistent rock distraction mechanism and inconsistent AI response.Still haven't completed that mission.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

Simply put, for me, It has to be the Cortana Level from Halo 3. Given how close-quarters the level was, and the fact that the Flood could constantly heal, Even on easy, the level was still frustrating and badly designed. So, what was the worst level you ever played? Doesn't matter if it was broken or made to challenging.

Holy crap I totally forgot about that level. It was so mindbogglingly awful.. At least The Library was actually fun to play co-op on Legendary, but Cortana was just... ugh...

I didn't find it bad so much as just terrifying... When I played it on legendary, I kind of just sprinted through some sections.

It was one of the 3 levels I actually managed to complete on legendary, dunno why but I found the flood to be incredibly easy in comparsion to the covenant.

Ot: It is between walking in a straight line in the desert or hallucinating in the marketplace on Uncharted 3. Highest rated game on PS3? Screw that, it loses 2 stars for those 2 levels.

 

[klaynexas3]

Highway 17 in Half Life 2. The level just drags on and on and its only real purpose for the story is showing how desperate people are to escape combine control, though I feel like if they had fixed up Ravenholm a little more, that would have done it just as well, if not better. Also, driving in Half Life is not fun.

 

[hermes]

I don't know if it counts as a "level", but the whole introductory section in Kingdom Hearts 2 was extremely boring.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Pretty much that hivemind level on Halo 3. It jsut flesh, flesh everywhere so it's every hard to navigate the area.
Also that China Town level in MAdworld was also too but the three colours set is mainly to blame. Thanks to the limited color palletes, it was every hard to get a sence of depth like it took me ages to realise I get to this place by jumping around abit but it was hard to see that you can jump there in the first place!