Since we've had topics about the games and about the characters themselves here, I figured it was time to go into another aspect: the game environment itself. We've all had those in-game locations that you've just loved, been in awe of, what-have-you, but I'm sure we've all had to endure a level so irritating, so hard, or just so badly designed it's made you want to strangle the person responsible for making it. So, without further ado, here is the topic where you can post those levels, stages, areas, zones, worlds, whatever you want to call them that just pissed you off. You are allowed to include an entire game's zone (such as the entire of Tallon IV for Metroid Prime, if the whole place just made you rage,) as well as specific levels and zones (e.g. World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros, if you hated that level in particular)
5. The Great Maze, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I think by this time in the Subspace Emissary, I was really starting to get bored of it, and having the Great Maze thrown in my face at this point likely only worsened my perception of the zone. Either way, navigating it (as you'd expect from a maze) is hell on earth, and the only reason it's ranked only at five here is simply because I (somehow) got through it in reasonably quick time. By all rights, I should just throw the entire of the Subspace Emissary world into this, but the Great Maze stands out a bit more than the rest of the zones...and for all the wrong reasons. I don't have a lot to say about it, so it sits at No.5 for that reason.
4. Route 217, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate Sinnoh. One of the main reasons I hate it is because of Mt. Coronet sitting in the middle of the region forcing you to Fly EVERYWHERE...and another good reason for me hating it would have to be Route 217. For anyone who doesn't know which route it is, it's the route leading up to Snowpoint City. Yes, THAT route, the one where you have to walk at a snail's pace through the snow in a blinding blizzard. It's not really a challenging route to get past, especially if you have an Ice-type Pokemon in your team, but seriously, getting through this route is the most tedious, boring and depressing things I've ever had to endure in any Pokemon game, and all because you walk so slow your birthday will have come around - twice - by the time you actually reach Snowpoint City. Why, Game Freak, why?
3. X-Hunter Stage 2 - Serges, Mega Man X2. This level is just one big nightmare - instant-death spikes everywhere, death-traps everywhere to push you into said spikes, and a boss that you fight atop moving platforms floating over - you guessed it - more spikes. Seriously, at least 50% of the walls, floors and ceilings in this level are just spikes, and if you go anywhere near these spikes you die. The boss is a gigantic pain in the ass as well, and this stage alone was responsible for a lot of animosity on my part towards Mega Man X2, to the point when after eventually completing the game, I outwardly claimed I hated it (and at that time, I did hate it.) After a second playthrough, me and Mega Man X2 "made up" and I actually quite like it now, but for this stage to make me hate the entire game at all at one point is testament to just how horrible it actually is. Definitely one of the hardest and most frustrating levels in any game.
2. Maridia, Super Metroid. Urgh, Norfair may look like hell, what with the fire and lava, but Maridia IS hell incarnate. This underwater zone, with its ridiculous grappling beam obstacles and quicksand traps combined with the fact that the whole zone is like a labyrinth easily makes it the most detestable zone in any Metroid game by far. The only good thing about this zone is the great relief you get when you finally get to leave, knowing you never have to go back there again...I guess the music is pretty cool as well, but overall, it's hard to really go into detail with this one since pretty much everything in Maridia is a pain in the ass, and the zone gets very tedious and very annoying, very quickly. At least the extreme challenge of the Serges stage gave you some kind of motivation to continue, but Maridia doesn't even have that, although admittedly Maridia's easier to get through than Serges is. Still, Maridia is a fraggin' nightmare of a zone, and I personally hope whoever designed it was fired and then hit by a truck on their way out the door.
1. Episode 4 Level 5, Wolfenstein 3D. Worst...level...EVER. This steals No.1 with ease, purely because many players of Wolfenstein have actually spent upwards of 10-15 years trying to figure out how to do this level, to no avail - that's how bad it is. When my turn came to play this level, thankfully I had YouTube on hand as my last resort, but even then it took me about a year of fruitless searching before I finally gave in and used my YouTube trump card. Now, why is it so hard? Well, it starts off easily enough, nazi forces trying to kill you, the ever-standard maze-like areas of Wolfenstein 3D, you get through only to hit a locked door that you need a gold key to open...and this is where the level flicks the shit-switch. The gold key is almost impossible to find without prior knowledge, as it is tucked behind a random section of the wall right in the middle of the maze inside the level, and what makes it worse is that most of the secret walls (i.e. walls that are in fact doors) are usually sections of completely flat walls, or have some kind of indication that they are secret walls (a nazi symbol, a picture of Hitler etc. where the wall is,) but not this level - the secret wall is actually on a corner that sticks out instead of being on a flat wall, making it different to pretty much every single secret wall in the game, and sometimes, if you're not standing in the right place, it won't activate anyway, which means you're likely to skip over it entirely in your futile search...never mind the fact that it looks the same as every other wall in the room. Thankfully, once you get the gold key the rest of the level is a piece of cake, but the fact that the key is not only behind a secret wall, but also behind a secret wall that is in possibly the most unexpected place that has taken people YEARS to actually find (and even then, they found it via the internet as opposed to by their own abilities) easily makes this the worst and possibly one of the most badly designed levels to appear in any game, ever. The fact that the secret wall barely even works properly when you try to open it is just the icing on the shit cake. At least I know the name of the person who made this level - Tom Hall, gaming hell awaits you.
5. The Great Maze, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I think by this time in the Subspace Emissary, I was really starting to get bored of it, and having the Great Maze thrown in my face at this point likely only worsened my perception of the zone. Either way, navigating it (as you'd expect from a maze) is hell on earth, and the only reason it's ranked only at five here is simply because I (somehow) got through it in reasonably quick time. By all rights, I should just throw the entire of the Subspace Emissary world into this, but the Great Maze stands out a bit more than the rest of the zones...and for all the wrong reasons. I don't have a lot to say about it, so it sits at No.5 for that reason.
4. Route 217, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate Sinnoh. One of the main reasons I hate it is because of Mt. Coronet sitting in the middle of the region forcing you to Fly EVERYWHERE...and another good reason for me hating it would have to be Route 217. For anyone who doesn't know which route it is, it's the route leading up to Snowpoint City. Yes, THAT route, the one where you have to walk at a snail's pace through the snow in a blinding blizzard. It's not really a challenging route to get past, especially if you have an Ice-type Pokemon in your team, but seriously, getting through this route is the most tedious, boring and depressing things I've ever had to endure in any Pokemon game, and all because you walk so slow your birthday will have come around - twice - by the time you actually reach Snowpoint City. Why, Game Freak, why?
3. X-Hunter Stage 2 - Serges, Mega Man X2. This level is just one big nightmare - instant-death spikes everywhere, death-traps everywhere to push you into said spikes, and a boss that you fight atop moving platforms floating over - you guessed it - more spikes. Seriously, at least 50% of the walls, floors and ceilings in this level are just spikes, and if you go anywhere near these spikes you die. The boss is a gigantic pain in the ass as well, and this stage alone was responsible for a lot of animosity on my part towards Mega Man X2, to the point when after eventually completing the game, I outwardly claimed I hated it (and at that time, I did hate it.) After a second playthrough, me and Mega Man X2 "made up" and I actually quite like it now, but for this stage to make me hate the entire game at all at one point is testament to just how horrible it actually is. Definitely one of the hardest and most frustrating levels in any game.
2. Maridia, Super Metroid. Urgh, Norfair may look like hell, what with the fire and lava, but Maridia IS hell incarnate. This underwater zone, with its ridiculous grappling beam obstacles and quicksand traps combined with the fact that the whole zone is like a labyrinth easily makes it the most detestable zone in any Metroid game by far. The only good thing about this zone is the great relief you get when you finally get to leave, knowing you never have to go back there again...I guess the music is pretty cool as well, but overall, it's hard to really go into detail with this one since pretty much everything in Maridia is a pain in the ass, and the zone gets very tedious and very annoying, very quickly. At least the extreme challenge of the Serges stage gave you some kind of motivation to continue, but Maridia doesn't even have that, although admittedly Maridia's easier to get through than Serges is. Still, Maridia is a fraggin' nightmare of a zone, and I personally hope whoever designed it was fired and then hit by a truck on their way out the door.
1. Episode 4 Level 5, Wolfenstein 3D. Worst...level...EVER. This steals No.1 with ease, purely because many players of Wolfenstein have actually spent upwards of 10-15 years trying to figure out how to do this level, to no avail - that's how bad it is. When my turn came to play this level, thankfully I had YouTube on hand as my last resort, but even then it took me about a year of fruitless searching before I finally gave in and used my YouTube trump card. Now, why is it so hard? Well, it starts off easily enough, nazi forces trying to kill you, the ever-standard maze-like areas of Wolfenstein 3D, you get through only to hit a locked door that you need a gold key to open...and this is where the level flicks the shit-switch. The gold key is almost impossible to find without prior knowledge, as it is tucked behind a random section of the wall right in the middle of the maze inside the level, and what makes it worse is that most of the secret walls (i.e. walls that are in fact doors) are usually sections of completely flat walls, or have some kind of indication that they are secret walls (a nazi symbol, a picture of Hitler etc. where the wall is,) but not this level - the secret wall is actually on a corner that sticks out instead of being on a flat wall, making it different to pretty much every single secret wall in the game, and sometimes, if you're not standing in the right place, it won't activate anyway, which means you're likely to skip over it entirely in your futile search...never mind the fact that it looks the same as every other wall in the room. Thankfully, once you get the gold key the rest of the level is a piece of cake, but the fact that the key is not only behind a secret wall, but also behind a secret wall that is in possibly the most unexpected place that has taken people YEARS to actually find (and even then, they found it via the internet as opposed to by their own abilities) easily makes this the worst and possibly one of the most badly designed levels to appear in any game, ever. The fact that the secret wall barely even works properly when you try to open it is just the icing on the shit cake. At least I know the name of the person who made this level - Tom Hall, gaming hell awaits you.