History ThatOneLevel / RPG

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' has Moleville Mountain. Not that it's difficult, in fact it's actually impossible to lose as there's no penalty for crashing or derailing other than losing some time. The issue is, is it goes on for''ever'' with basically nothing to do: the first part is basically [[TheMaze a maze]] with absolutely no feedback whether you're doing well or not and darned-near constant annoying tire-screeching sounds, and the second part is a side-scroller where you basically just watch Mario move right until the game decides it's time to let you get back to the adventure. Worse, is unlike other minigames like Midas River or Booster Hill that are mandatory to do one-time, is Moleville Mountain ''gives no rewards whatsoever'' the first time you do it, nor are the rewards for doing it subsequent times any good (just a meager handful of coins with a high-risk of getting nothing). Now's your chance for a bathroom break, because Mario's gonna be busy for a while...

* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTensei'' we have the Cathedral which is a dungeon that has about 16 floors total. 8 above ground and 8 under ground where you fight Archangel Michael and Asura respectively. Enjoy the slog for the Neutral ending.

*** '''Operation: Paladin'', part of the ''Ark Mod'' submodule. You might think that having access to the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters entirety of Shepard's squadmates across the past two games]] might make the HoldTheLine mission on Palaven's moon to protect a critical outpost much easier. ''Not so.'' Nearly everything in the mission, including what squadmates you bring (ME2 squadmates are recommended to help lighten the load), the enemy fighters you "tag" with a special weapon, the mechs you have onboard and the squadmates you've acquired up to this point all play a factor in the mission's success, and you can (and ''will'') be swarmed by units of high-level enemies that will quickly drop you if you don't know what you're doing. Even seasoned players will find themselves frustrated with the onslaught of enemies, akin to Priority: Earth's final horde mode siege or a Gold-level multiplayer match. Some online sources (including the mod creators themselves) tell players to wait until just before the endgame before attempting this mission.

* Floor 7 of the Void Quest in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is nothing but intersections that randomly throw you into different directions, so it's all too easy to have an overpowered Shadow ambush you. On top of that, the mandatory midboss is on this level, and skipping it will make you miss out on a key item needed to access the end boss. (Thankfully it's easy to backtrack to.)
** If you rush into the intersections where the camera angle changes, you're going to get lost VERY quickly. But if you go in slowly and carefully, taking a moment to get your bearings after the camera shifts, it's a lot easier. It helps that shadows rarely move close enough to the intersections to rush you.

*** Walking along the Seabed can be a pain due to the slow movement speed and awkward swimming controls. Special mention must go to the sections where you have to swim over a bunch of spikes. Thankfully averted in the remake, where you can swim really high. Still kinda awkward when swimming above objects that you'd technically be able to swim over normally, but can't.
*** Teehee Valley saddles you with a EscortMission where you need to protect Princess Peach from being kidnapped by the local {{mooks}}, which is unnecessarily annoying thanks to Peach's ArtificialStupidity. You then have a BossBattle against Trunkle, [[ThatOneBoss which can be fairly difficult if you don't know what you're doing]].

*** Driftwood Shore is another example. Though the layouts aren't anything too difficult, the enemies are [[GoddamnedBats incredibly annoying]], as they either have ways [[EnemySummoner to bring even more enemies into the battle]] (Fly Guys) or have insanely high defenses that forces you to fight it in a very gimmicky way (Durapurls). The Dream World version isn't any better, as it features Lakitus (another EnemySummoner who can bring [[GoddamnedBats Spinies]] into battle) and Piranha Plants, which can summon Nippers in the background to attack you, effectively giving them ''two'' attacks per turn. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It also features some of the worst NPCs in the entire game]], with both the Mole Hunt Shelltop and the Seadrings being [[TheScrappy widely disliked]] for their annoying gimmicks that only serve as {{Padding}}. Arguably, the only saving grace this whole beach has its beautiful music and the [[BestBossEver extremely fun boss battle]] against the [[EnsembleDarkhorse Elite Trio]].

* The ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' series is a dungeon crawler where drawing your own maps is a major feature. So, of course, being an Atlus game, there's bound to be several levels so sadistically designed that a good map only slightly eases the pain.
** While it may be unfair to list an entire stratum, especially a BrutalBonusLevel, for this trope, the Claret Hollows from the first game and its remake stands out as being one of the most sadistic strata in the whole series, even among the postgames of the other games. Here's why:
*** [=B26F=] is rife with one-way passageways that lock you into a dead end that leads into a warp that returns you to the beginning. Its parallel in ''The Millennium Girl'' merely reduces the number of duds.
*** [=B27F=] mostly consists of a wide open area, littered with invisible pitfalls that drop you into a large open dead-end of the next floor. Said next floor is littered with damage tiles and fast FOEs that can swoop in on your position and ambush you. There's no convenient way to intuit the invisible pitfalls, so it's mostly trial and error; all in all it totals to close to '''300''' pitfalls to navigate around! The remake makes the pitfalls visible, staggers their distribution for an easier mapping time, and applies a BlackoutBasement element to make it harder to see the pitfalls.
*** [=B29F=] is the most tedious teleporter maze, perhaps in the entire series. With more warps and destinations than your icon cap can handle, you will easily find yourself lost and driven [[TitleDrop Half-Mad From Self-Doubt]]. Again, its parallel in the remake only slightly simplifies the maze.
*** To top it all off, in the original, the only shortcut in the stratum is [[CheckpointStarvation right at the very end]], linking the beginning of the stratum to the doors to the ultimate BonusBoss, so if you're making any return trips you must traverse the floors in their entirety. This shortcut is also locked behind a door that mandates defeating another BonusBoss, so if you missed that memo before getting there, it's a ''long'' trip. Mercifully, the remake adds shortcuts in each floor to shorten your return trips, and removes the boss-based locked doors.
** [=B3F=] of Ginnungagap in ''The Fafnir Knight''. When you enter for the first time, you're forced to undergo a trial to the very end. You are unable to use Ariadne Threads to escape the floor (they'll instead take you to the beginning of the floor), and the the F.O.E. of the floor is utterly relentless, chasing you down and preventing you from escaping if it engages you in a battle. Thankfully, saves are disabled, so you can't become permanently stuck in it, but the alternative of losing your progress still stings a lot.
** [=B24F=] of The Drowned City combines [[BlackoutBasement regions that disable auto-mapping]] with tiles that spin the player around and disorient them.
** 25F of ''Beyond the Myth'' is the epitome of the rather annoying anti-gravity mechanic of the 5th Stratum. For context, there are switches throughout the stratum that cause your party to levitate, and while they are in this state, moving will cause you to keep moving in that direction until you hit something, such as a wall, door, or an FOE; functionally, it's like applying FrictionlessIce to the entire dungeon, except it also lets you cross the pits in the floor. 25F in particular requires you to trigger a switch and go through multiple FOE-infested rooms, and the rooms are big and difficult to map when your movement options are so limited. Eventually you hit a second gravity switch, the second one in the entire floor (whereas previous floors have switches at more frequent intervals), to land back on the floor and have to backtrack through all of those rooms full of FOEs just to make your way to the FinalBoss.
** 29F of ''Beyond the Myth'' is not just any teleporter maze -- it's a teleporter maze that sends the player all the way back through the unexplored parts of the lower floors and back up again, traversing rooms with FOEs that frustrate a player trying to thoroughly fill out their map. [[CheckpointStarvation Shortcuts that speed up return trips are scarce]], and from time to time there will be certain teleporters positioned to send the player back to already-explored regions of the map if they enter it from the wrong angle, wasting a lot of time returning to where they left off.
** ''Nexus'' does away with the usual multi-strata mega-dungeon of the previous games, and instead has an overworld and splits its content among several dungeons. After completing story-mandated dungeons, optional one-floor mini-dungeons unlock. These optional levels are also where the game gets devious with level design.
*** The Giant's Ruin can get very irritating because of the deliberately inflated encounter rate. Not helping matters is that this is done to set up FOE gimmicks, as they are statues that will not move or engage in battle until the player already is in battle, but can still block chokepoints at the wrong times. Also, damage tiles there are guaranteed to initiate a battle. To make matters worse, the random monsters have markedly more HP than any non-FOE enemy you've fought up until that point, which gives those statues more time to catch up to you.
*** The Blossom Bridge throws some extremely confusing floating platform puzzles at you that can take hours of frustration to figure out, assuming you don't just give up trying to [[MoonLogicPuzzle figure out the logic behind each puzzle]]. It also has Big Moths, who can generate a swift GameOver by using Confusion Dust to spread Panic to your party so that they can quickly kill themselves while being unable to evade the enemies' attacks.
*** The Illusory Woods makes for a rather rude awakening in the transition to the postgame. Before you even start, the game warns you to make sure you have Ariadne Threads on hand. That's because the [=FOEs=] here can chase you everywhere and can even ''pass through walls''. Once one of them has been alerted to your presence there's no escaping it except by returning to town. To make matters worse, the place is infested with DemonicSpiders that give the FOE more time to close in on you.

*** Driftwood Shore is another example. Though the layouts aren't anything too difficult, the enemies are [[GoddamnedBats incredibly annoying]], as they either have ways [[EnemySummoner to bring even more enemies into the battle]] (Fly Guys) or have insanely high defenses that forces you to fight it in a very gimmicky way (Durapurls). The Dream World version isn't any better, as it features Lakitus (another EnemySummoner who can bring [[GoddamnedBats Spinies into battle) and Piranha Plants, which can summon Nippers in the background to attack you, effectively giving them ''two'' attacks per turn. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It also features some of the worst NPCs in the entire game]], with both the Mole Hunt Shelltop and the Seadrings being [[TheScrappy widely disliked]] for their annoying gimmicks that only serve as {{Padding}}. Arguably, the only saving grace this whole beach has its beautiful music and the [[BestBossEver extremely fun boss battle]] against the [[EnsembleDarkhorse Elite Trio]].

* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga''. Joke's End kind of defines this, as it's long, confusing, and an ice level with creepy and annoying music and teamwork puzzles. The worst part is the fact that you spend most of the area being split up. In the [[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi]] series, only having one brother severely weakens you, preventing you from using Special Attacks or reviving if you get knocked out. Since the enemies in Joke's End are very tough, you're probably gonna spend half the level running from every fight you see just to stay alive. Unless you grind endlessly once you get the bros back together, you'll enter Bowser's Castle severely underleveled.
** Teehee Valley can also be considered this. Having to control Peach who wanders about aimlessly just WAITING to be kidnapped by the Gritty Goombas is certainly no day at the beach. Especially during that damn spin jump puzzle. Your switching of high jump to spin jump has to be QUICK and PRECISE, lest you fail. Then, if that isn't bad enough, you have to time your spin jumps along with ''Peach'', meaning that if she strays from the screen, she'll get kidnapped and you'll have to do it all over again. And you will. Again, and again, and again.
*** Not to mention when you return to Teehee Valley aboard the S.S. Chuckola there's that bleeping red and blue barrel mini game. A timed sliding puzzle where you have to get 6 barrels lined up ten times in less than 200 seconds? No thank you.
** Heck, you won't even be at the first major boss in this game when you do the first of many hair-pullers of the game: The Border Jump. To get into the Beanbean kingdom, you have to jump over a rope that varies in speed. Seems simple, but for some it's really not. Oh, you're using an emulator where the keys are reversed? Good luck with that...
* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' has Dreamy Somnom Woods. Why is this place annoying? Well for one thing, it's a gigantic maze based around a tree, with a puzzle right at the start that can easily confuse anyone who doesn't think to look around a bit more before progressing. It's also got quite a lot of easy but somewhat annoying enemies, and comes capped off with ThatOneBoss at the end of the dungeon... and ThatOneBoss at the beginning (to enter you have to fight Pi'illodium, to exit you have to fight the Zeekeeper, at least the first time around). It has really nice music though.

** [[VideoGame/PaperMario64 The original Paper Mario]] is pretty tough in general. Some of the areas most annoying to get through are Shy Guy's Toybox, mostly due to the amount of different types of Shy Guys. The Pyro Guys, who can set you on fire and have rather high attack for this stage, and the Spy Guys, who can knock off some of your abilities. Lavalava Island is also pretty annoying to get through. All the different plants, most of which can poison you and the search for those Yoshi Kids. Also, the Crystal Palace is a bit irritating to get through. The saving grace for the last is the funny moments with the absolutely inept Duplighosts.

** Nar Shaddaa, near the end of its questline. Attractions included: no PlayerCharacter, fighting your way through trained killers as new, non-Jedi character (Mira), facing bounty hunters with non-Jedi characters most players wouldn't otherwise pick (Mira, Atton, T3- M4) and storming Exchange's boss heavily defended yacht with only two squadmates, who WILL get stomped, even if you pick stronger ones (like Kreia).

** The Pirate's Grotto in ''The Thousand Year Door. It is very long, the enemies can be a pain and there is the boat section involving dodging waves that might be the most frustrating part of the game.

*** Oh, and just for fun, both the Armature fight and the boss fight against the Krogan Battlemaster? Both preceded by unskippable cutscenes before the fight but after the autosave (since you can't save in combat, that means you start from before the cutscene). The run-up to the Battlemaster fight must be going for some kind of record, as it is preceded (between autosave and fight) by an unskippable dialogue, an elevator loading screen, and then another unskippable dialogue before going straight into the fight.

** Battle Arena. You have 1 minute to defeat a random monster with difficulty scaling up. The catch? The arena is a 3x3 square. To win a single battle, you need to win 3 fights on 3 squares so they form a line, tic-tac-toe style. There's a minimum of 250 battles to complete the quest. You're allowed only one combatant and the rest of your party is automatically locked-up. Battle Arena is completely optional, but if you skip it you'll be missing out some very good quest rewards.

** [[UnderTheSea Atlantica]] level. In fact, it's easily the most reviled level in the game, though Monstro (which comes ''directly before it'') is heavily competing for the title. What makes it so frustrating is the UnexpectedGameplayChange from jumping to swimming, and the controls for going up and down are very unintuitive. This also means a lot of Sora's attacks and abilities don't carry over, including several of his powerful finishing moves, and you have to change up his abilities every time you go to Atlantica. It's also home to ThatOneBoss, Ursula, who has a gimmick that's not only frustrating to figure out, but damn near impossible to do on Proud Mode.

*** Monstro was basically the Kingdom Hearts version of the infamous Water Temple. Those six chambers look exactly the same, and if you got lost just once, unless you had a ''really'' good sense of direction, you had to start all over again. At least Atlantica tried to help you stay slightly oriented by putting trident marks on the walls to point you to the palace. Monstro? No such luck. Also, in Monstro, if you come out onto a ledge, chances are, Heartless are going to spawn and they will kick you off and you have no way of getting back up onto that ledge once you're done with them. At least in the Water Temple, enemies stayed where they spawned unless you got too close to them.

** And then there's the Dark Forest, an [[TheMaze endless maze]] of trees with dead-ends and lots of enemies. You ''will'' get very lost very fast. The game is merciful by giving you a subtle hint -- the trees in the foreground sometimes have demons in them, and if you follow the paths with the demons you'll find the exit. Of course, the game never tells you this. And to add to the insanity, when you get to the bridge and beat the boss, you find out it isn't over - the forest is split into two sections, you've still got Part 2 to go, and Part 2 also has a boss.

** The Karlloon Shrine isn’t particularly difficult on its face, but it’s frustrating for a different reason: it’s one of only two dungeons you can’t later return to. Trying for [[OneHundredPercentCompletion 100% Completion]] and missed a chest? Too bad!

** Not only is Gratze Dungeon full of some of the toughest enemies in the game, but you’re trapped there until you escape, which is rare for this game. Also, much like the Karlloon Shrine, you can’t return, so hopefully you got everything the first time…

* ''VideoGame/Lufia2RiseOfTheSinistrals'' has a few good candidates:

* ''VideoGame/Lufia2RiseOfTheSinistrals''has a few good candidates:

* ''VideoGame/CrossCode'' gives us Grand Grys'kajo. It's where Lea obtains both the Shock and Wave elements, but getting there is an exercise in patience. The whole temple is a MarathonLevel, since it's actually three separate dungeons. You can get Wave and Shock in any order, but both sections have long puzzles where [[DifficultySpike the timing of certain elements starts to become a factor]], the enemy rooms are harder, and multiple new puzzle mechanics are introduced. Grand Grys'kajo itself is the the final third, but it can't be accessed until another quest is completed where Lea and company deal with [[AIIsACrapshoot an out-of-control anti-virus program]] and a mob of Shad blocking the entrance. This quest requires you to move far away from the temple, all the way across the previous area, before you're allowed to head back. Once the main temple finally opens, it combines all of the elements from the two smaller temples and turns them UpToEleven, including throwing in a RecurringBoss. All of this ends up making Grand Grys'kajo a chore to clear.

* ''Videogame/EarthBound'':

* The 13-floor BonusDungeon Pork City in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''. On every floor, you're confined to using one brand of pin and unbranded pins, which will especially suck if there's a brand whose pins you don't give a crap about. Worse yet, the Noise in this level consist almost entirely of [[GoddamnedBats Goddamned Frogs]]; namely, red Brassbanfrogs that absorb long range attacks, and yellow Tradishfrogs that dish out plenty of damage. And of course, on the roof after clearing the 13th floor, you face ThatOneBoss Panthera Cantus, who can kill you in 2-3 hits even if you are at level 100.

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': The cave to the Necrogond. Not nearly as frustrating as the Road to Rhone in the previous game, but tough nonetheless.
** The Dharma Temple/All Trades Abbey in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' fits this trope to a T, as well. Dharma Temple being the place you typically obtain new classes and skills in Dragon Quest, instead you're [[spoiler:thrown into an extremely difficult dungeon that you cannot exit while having your skills sealed away.]] Good luck if you didn't think to buy any Medicinal Herbs beforehand!