If you ever strike up a conversation with a fellow gamer, chances are you’ll only get a few lines in before you start talking about something that was intensely frustrating, annoying, or just straight up made you walk away from a title.
Such things are commonplace, but have you ever been genuinely proud of yourself for besting a particularly arduous boss, sequence or level? It’s one thing for developers to chuck all manner of bullets, spells and screen-encompassing hellspawn our way for the sake of ‘difficulty’, but some titles get their mechanics absolutely spot on, and it’s up to us to master them and overcome.
There’s a fine line between frustrating and genuinely hard, and it all resigns in the design of certain levels. Take Max Payne 1′s ‘blood trail’ level where you were stuck fumbling around in the dark; it was just needlessly annoying and cumbersome due to a lack of telegraphing where you were supposed to go.
On the other hand when a game’s mechanics fall totally into a place and you’re at one with the game, gripping the controller tightly as the world around you fades away, that whole death screen-staring notion of “Well what was I supposed to do?!” turns into pure “Bring it on”.
10. Mile High Club (Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
Although it may have had one (or three) too many sequels to its initially-quite-good name, 2007′s genre-defining Modern Warfare knew people were always going to get stuck into its incredibly proficient mechanics.
So much so that developers Infinity Ward actually saved the best for last. Many COD fans point to the game’s tenacious multiplayer as the proving ground for their skills, but if you got all the way through the single player campaign and watched all the credits, this bonus level was unlocked.
Testing the lightning-fast reactions we’d built up through the likes of the campaign and the multiplayer, if you played this level on Veteran difficulty you were tasked with reaching the end within just one minute. It’s a time limit so tight that you sprint from person to person, ensuring every bullet must hit home – the stinger coming at the very end where one of the terrorists has taken a hostage, meaning your final shot has to be almost pixel-perfect precise to make sure you don’t throw everything away.
9. Challenge Of The Gods (God Of War)
The God of War games are built on rigid control systems that even after so many instalments, have barely changed. Last iteration God of War: Ascension only tweaked established animations, rather than introducing anything particularly groundbreaking.
Back in the first game when original creator Davd Jaffe was behind the project, he knew how to crank up the intensity of what was on offer by playing with the world around you more than the combat itself; thus the ‘Challenge[s] of the Gods’ were born.
Taking place as a set of menu-selected bonus arenas that get steadily harder across their ten levels, any who played nearly always had a different ‘hardest one’. For the sake of this list though it’s numbers eight and ten that we’re going to look at, as the former unleashed multiple petrifying Gorgons on you, which if they turned you to stone meant any other enemy could shatter you within seconds. Exactly what you want when you’re on your 100th try.
Level ten though is where many just had to give up and scream “Eff this game!”, as the playing area itself is drastically reduced and you’re forced to fight a large number of enemies in a very small space, with both Kratos’ roll and his defence-break animations meaning he’d easily fall off. It was absolute torture, but with a character who controlled as symbiotically as everyone’s favourite Spartan, nine times out of ten it was always our fault if we put a step wrong and plummeted into the depths below.
8. Capra Demon/Ornstein And Smough (Dark Souls)
Technically all of the ‘Souls games require an enormous amount of skill to get through without ripping out your own hair and writing expletives on the walls, but there are a couple of boss battles that come to mind when discussing all three iterations in the series at once – purely down to the fact that the Demon’s Souls sequel was the one that moved everything into mainstream recognition.
First off the Capra Demon; a horrifically-designed therapy-inducing beast who the game forces you to fight inside a very small area – complete with a pack of zombie-dogs that insist on gnawing your ankles off as the Demon himself swings in arcs so big he’ll catch you from almost any angle.
The solution was to become one with the dodge button, as well as cleansing yourself of all the anxiety you felt when walking into the room, as only through studying his animations and remaining calm would you ever survive.
7. Dragonforce Through The Fire And Flames (Guitar Hero 3)
There was a common mindset that settled in back when Guitar Hero and Rock Band were the ‘in thing’. It stemmed from whenever you’d be enjoying a song, only for a guitar solo or otherwise complicated set of notes to suddenly fill the screen and make you flail around helplessly, trying to keep going as the whole production plinked and plonked itself to death.
Thousands of us really put the time and effort into the Guitar Hero series though, to which the final track by guitar-abusers Dragonforce was our own crowning achievement. Playing it on expert level looks like you’re being assaulted by a Jackson Pollack painting, but it can be done – albeit with the overall feeling that you’ve been through a workout on the other side.
As much as the series has totally died off it did get plenty of people into the real instrument, and in a bizarre twist any who have made the transition from plastic to rosewood will attest – some songs are actually easier on real guitar than in the game. We’re not saying this makes the game harder than learning the instrument, but hey, just remember how proud you were when you finally managed to get comfortable with that orange button.
6. Final Vergil Fight (Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening)
Along with God of War, the DMC series is that quintessential action title that just gets the feeling of ‘one man versus the world’ completely spot on. Utilising a combination of dodges, high-jumps, a snarky character and some of the sickest weapons known to gaming-man (an electrified sword, anyone?) if you could keep up with the series’ frenetic pace, it was all hugely enjoyable.
Part two would somewhat lose all of these fun-sounding elements in one of the most disappointing titles ever, which is why Capcom doubled down on everything that mattered with part three. Bringing back a younger, spunkier Dante it also gave us the brilliant sibling rivalry between him and brother Vergil, the explosive confrontations between which remain that game’s high points.
Say you got used to the combat, say you thought even after finishing Very Hard mode you’d totally mastered the game. Well, ‘Dante Must Die’ mode in part three aimed to take that idea and slice it in two, giving Vergil access to the same ‘Devil Trigger’ special moves you did.
What followed was the perfect realisation of a Dragonball Z-esque showdown, with both you and the AI trading blows at a speed any who were watching would never keep up with – meaning that when the action eventually slowed for that final cutscene, only then were you allowed to say you’ve truly beaten Dante’s finest hour.
5. Turbo Tunnel (Battletoads)
Teenage Mutant Ninja who? Battletoads for the NES remains one of the oldest examples of a game built by Satan himself, due to a huge combination of gameplay factors of the time, and small psychological ticks that play with your expectations of what’s going to happen.
Placing your character on a fast-moving jetski-looking motorbike…thing, over the years this is one of those levels that started out being referred to primarily in expletives, only for many other videos online to emerge of people beating the whole thing in one try – sometimes even flawlessly.
Thus we have to admit the level is actually extremely fair – if you’re able to memorise what’s coming at you and when, it’s a case of applying this knowledge and riding the whole thing out, although that in itself is something very few players could do. One of the most subtle things the game does – although it’s up for debate whether this was intentional or not – is throw up a series of obstacles that flash just before they come at you, messing with your reactions as you end up dodging something that hasn’t actually appeared yet.
In a sequence whose every second hinges on expert timing, even the smallest thing could totally ruin a playthrough, but due to the overall simplistic nature of just memorising some sections, this was one of the most replayed sections in any old school side-scroller.
4. Hexactly – 42-4 (N+)
Apologies for the above image not being the level in question, it seems Hexactly was so horrifying nobody managed to nab a picture of it before going insane. Anyway, being one of those titles that takes an extremely simple premise and builds upon it, N+ (former flash-only title N) walks the needlessly frustrating/genuinely challenging tightrope with unmatched precision.
With a minimalist graphic style, you play as a small stick figure ninja who must traverse a series of puzzle rooms, collecting gold bits to extend your time. What initially starts out as a “Yeah, I got this” quickly turns into multiple broken controllers and sweaty palms as the sinking realisation that the only reason that electrified sentry managed to kill you was because you jumped a split-second too late.
The physics engine is built out of momentum, meaning if you can kick off a series of platforms you’ll be able to dart up and away from the likes of homing missiles, one-hit-kill turrets and mines, however it’s in managing entire screens of these at once where the fun really begins. Have your say in the comments which level gave you the most grief, but here we’re choosing one of the final one - Hexactly – due to its combination of mines everywhere you need to land, homing missiles that chase you throughout and sentries that rush after you if you land on the ground.
It’s gaming at its most old-school, and all the more rewarding for it. If you’re someone who finds joy in mastering the physics and animation of a perfectly-tuned 2D platformer, look no further than N+.
3. Knight Johannes Final Battle (Rogue Legacy)
Thanks to a PS4 re-release, Rogue Legacy has seen a surge in popularity and a renewed vigour in playing through its unique approach to RPG game design.
Playing as subsequent heirs to an entire bloodline of knights that attempt to best a demonic castle, each game over screen also kills that character for good, meaning your next choice will inherit some of the traits from who went before. Needless to say you’ll die a whole hell of a lot, but it’s all in the service of learning the enemies’ animations and boss patterns, as well as seeing which attacks and classes you like to stick with.
Speaking of bosses though, after journeying through the different areas and slaying four separate demons (which is a mammoth undertaking in itself) you’ll then face Knight Johannes, who is an amalgamation of all your most devastating attacks, except he unleashes them far more frequently than you ever could.
It’s a case of the game’s difficulty increasing tenfold down to the fact everything is on a 2D plane. Rogue Legacy loves to throw entire screens-worth of projectiles at you, meaning there’s only one very specific jump you can do to avoid them and you’ll end up going through a few more generations’ worth of characters before taking him down.
2. Murai (Ninja Gaiden)
Now let it be known that the entire Ninja Gaiden series is something of a large wang, so if you’ve played any of the older 2D iterations, or the 3D sequels from the past few years, substitute your own personal plight-conjuror instead.
Regardless of which one you pick though (sans the awful 2012 release) the core tenet of what makes the series so appealing alongside its razor’s edge gameplay, is the sense of having to learn the game to progress. 2004′s first 3D release expects nothing less from you than absolute devotion; a mantra exemplified by first boss Murai, as he single-handedly turned away thousands of us by being completely unrelenting.
A gamer’s resolve is something that separates the Dark Soulers from the Candy Crushers, and its also one of the most passionate aspects of what makes the medium such an engaging and devout one. When facing Murai you were either going to turn tail and retreat, or force yourself to get better by learning his animations and studying when to attack.
The punishing previous checkpoint set far before his encounter only made things worse, but for that sweet sense of satisfaction you only get when those hours of training finally pay off…there’s nothing like it.
1. Flying Machine (Shovel Knight)
A hidden gem if there ever was one, the Kickstarter-powered Shovel Knight was a labour of love from Yacht Club Games as they set out to create a throwback title that would connote all the gorgeous nostalgic tinges we all have when glaring at anything on consoles like the NES.
Although the whole ‘indie scene’ is something that’s overflowing a tad with the amount of titles Sony keep flooding their Playstation Plus offerings with, SK is the one that shines far and above the rest – and it’s not just because of its brilliantly retro art style of cute, quirky aesthetic.
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