The Hotline Miami series has a load of annoyingly difficult levels; after a certain point, pretty much any level can be one. The following are some notable examples.
Hotline Miami:
- "Crackdown" is normal enough until the final section, where you start to hear police sirens. After enough time, a SWAT team will burst through the door, killing anyone inside, including you. And they're immune to all damage and can only be knocked down. This is bad enough, but if you're going for the alternate ending, it's even worse because the puzzle piece for this level is directly next to the door they enter through. You have to speedrun this section to have any hope of getting it and getting out (or just use the Brandon mask... which is an 11th-Hour Superpower that isn't unlocked until the latter part of the game).
- "Trauma". Not only is it a sudden unarmed Stealth-Based Mission in the middle of a game as frantic as Hotline Miami, but it features massive amounts of Interface Screw too.
- "Assault" features a high density of enemies, most of which are either gunmen or Thugs, and the structure of its space gives very little opportunity to stealth through.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number:
General:
- Most of Evan Wright's levels can be this because given his character, he'll instantly unload any gun he picks up, and he won't pick up any sharp weapons like knives; he'll only grab blunt weapons. Because of this, Evan is practically useless at long ranges, making any open-ended level with him a nightmare. Although he can use any weapon upon activating his rage mode, getting the best score possible is only feasible if you stick with his normal mode.
- All of Beard's levels can count too, because you can't pick other guns once your starting one runs out of ammo, instead having to look for ammo boxes to refill it, which, depending on the gun you chose, can give you less than half of the ammo you started with. The standout, however, is "Casualties", with absolutely huge areas full of places to be shot from.
- Hard Mode turns a lot of levels into this - and makes all of the ones mentioned below worse.
Specific levels:
- "Death Wish", an absolutely brutal 4-floor marathon of death involving all 5 of the Fans.
- Surprisingly, Corey's segment in this level, despite normally being fairly easy, turns incredibly difficult in Hard Mode, since most rooms now get a lot of windows.
- "Dead Ahead" is the longest level in the game, spanning a total of five floors, brutal and filled to the fucking brim with gunmen and later on, Thugs. And since you're playing as Pardo (whose unarmed executions are on the slower side when compared to other characters, making racking up combos difficult), be prepared to spend a lot of time on this one.
- "Demolition" isn't particularly frustrating overall, but its first floor consists of an open area with a group of melee mooks, a gunman, a Thug, and no cover whatsoever. You have to quickly kill the melee mooks, take down the gunman, and then rush to get his gun to use on the Thug; in Hard Mode, you also have to deal with two Dodgers who appear in the same place as the Thug. There's very little room for error. It can be a major pain in the arse for anyone used to playing more sedately and cautiously.
- "Release" is one of the longest levels in the game, beginning with a boss that's followed with four areas full of enemies. Each area is huge and full of windows where enemies with guns can shoot you miles away. This is also the first level on normal difficulty that introduces the Dodgers, who are immune to gunfire and thrown attacks. Not only can they only be killed by melee weapons, but the variants that appear here (cannibalistic prisoners known as "Psychos") run as fast as Dogs, and can pop out of nowhere.note
- "Seizure" is full of Interface Screw, and with several enemies that are hidden by the objects in the environment. It deserves special mention for you having to fight black mobsters in black clothes with black Dogs patrolling on a black background while the screen flashes red, green and blue. To say it's unpleasant on the eyes would be a massive Understatement.
- "Take Over" has gigantic rooms with very little cover, filled with enemies armed to the teeth, Dogs, Thugs and worst of all, the aforementioned Dodgers, who get worse here because there are very few melee weapons. And let's not forget that this level is filled with windows, which will get you killed by offscreen enemies a lot. Hope you're not going for an S or A+ grade, because you will smash the shit out of your keyboard/controller after many deaths.
