10 Toughest Video Game Levels That Made You A Better Player
Teaching you a lesson... by slapping you in the face.
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00:00The following developers created titles for a very specific demographic.
00:04The people who'll put up with trial and error mentalities,
00:07awkward checkpoint placement and brutal changes in difficulty,
00:10all in service of moulding them into better players on the other side.
00:14The results are some of the best games you'll ever play,
00:17provided you can overcome the challenge.
00:19I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are the 10 toughest video game levels
00:23that made you a better player.
00:24Number 10, Bloodborne's opening slog.
00:27For all those who didn't know what to expect from those behind Dark Souls,
00:31Bloodborne opens with a ridiculously arduous stretch of nothing but overwhelming odds,
00:36non-stop enemies and a boss battle for good measure.
00:39You've got to do the whole thing on one checkpoint,
00:42unless you actively seek out an additional save point off the beaten path,
00:46another essential tactic for the game.
00:47Finally coming up for air if you make it through.
00:50Surviving this opening does one thing and one thing only,
00:53making you realise with utmost sobriety
00:56whether you're dedicated to Bloodborne for the long haul.
00:59If you'd thought to just check out what everyone's talking about,
01:01oh give it a go.
01:02From software pull to Gandalf slamming a great big roadblock in the way,
01:06screaming you shall not pass,
01:09unless you put the time into perfecting the basics.
01:12On the other side of this though, you'll be dodging like a pro,
01:14having developed the preternatural ability to read enemy attack animations
01:19before they've started in full.
01:20You'll be steeled against the game's most comical level of trial and error
01:24and ready to dig into the minutiae of combat from here on in.
01:28Number nine, God of War's Fafnir battle.
01:30After a couple of hours of cleaving half the undead Norse populace in three,
01:35you just knew at some point God of War's combat was gonna kick off
01:39in regards to difficulty spikes and enemy placement.
01:42Cut to freeing the dragon Fafnir from his smoky shackles
01:45and things go from zero to ten thousand.
01:48What was once an accessible system of dodges, combos and finishes
01:52turns into memorising every pattern and attack animation
01:55from an annoying as sin set of enemies.
01:58With Fafnir himself hanging over the battlefield,
02:00you'll have to dodge a wall of flame covering the arena,
02:04a revenant witch placing down proximity spells
02:06and launching tendrils through the ground
02:08and two lumbering enemies with wide swing arcs
02:11that'll catch you with unblockable attacks.
02:14It is agony.
02:15Similar to honing your skills in Bloodborne,
02:17because this comes after the opening few sequences,
02:20it's your first look into the elaborate combat chess approach
02:24to God of War's more intense duels.
02:26Optional challenge realms Muspelheim and Nilfheim
02:29need you to have mastered the art of juggling multiple enemy types
02:32and dodging into increasingly tight spaces to create safe zones,
02:36all of which you'll only get down if you can survive freeing Fafnir.
02:40Number eight, Crypt of the Necrodancer's first level.
02:43An entirely unique dungeon crawler
02:45based around rhythmic button presses to move your character and attack
02:49unless you choose a much easier difficulty setting,
02:52just playing Crypt of the Necrodancer
02:54means learning to tap directions and face buttons
02:56in time with a pulsing soundtrack.
02:58Right from the get-go, you'll be forced into scenarios
03:01that require pre-thought and planning
03:03as each enemy moves in specific patterns as well.
03:06Want to offer Disco Dancing Dragon?
03:08You'll have to move into the right place at the right time
03:11lest you open yourself up to every enemy descending
03:14into your next open space.
03:16It's hella complex to understand
03:18and even comprehend at first,
03:20going against everything you've learned
03:21in literally every other game ever.
03:23That said, Crypt of the Necrodancer
03:25is easily one of the most fun, charming,
03:27and constantly rewarding roguelikes of them all.
03:30You'll die copious times
03:31against pretty much every new enemy encountered
03:34as they all have different patterns to memorize and counter,
03:37but the result is a gaming experience that,
03:39because it requires so much concentration,
03:42is addictive and engaging as hell.
03:44Number seven, Fury's The Line Battle.
03:46A top-down bullet hell shooter
03:48twinned with hack and slash combat,
03:50Fury is a stylish boss runner
03:51that doesn't exactly ease you in slow,
03:54but the opening jewel is nothing
03:55compared to the third boss, The Line.
03:58Sitting in a central spot and showering the screen
04:00with constantly moving projectiles
04:02like they were coconut shavings,
04:03you need to navigate this mess and attempt to stay alive.
04:06Things only get worse when The Line enters the fray,
04:09zigzagging around his own energy bolts
04:11to stab you in the middle of the fray.
04:13Perfect timing and maintaining your composure
04:15when it feels like the whole screen is baying for blood
04:18is a must, anything less and you're back to the start.
04:21This is Fury's big pivot, though,
04:23the moment where all the lessons learned
04:25from the previous encounters
04:26get jacked up to 11 and beyond.
04:28Though you should already have mastered
04:30the game's ability to leap between one-on-one fighting
04:32to top-down bullet hell,
04:34the latter forces you to comprehend
04:35an entire screen of movement or be overcome by it.
04:39Every future fight falls back on this notion
04:41of playing against the screen,
04:43and especially for the bonus ending boss,
04:45it's integral to not getting wiped out in seconds.
04:48Number six, Ninja Gaiden's entire first level.
04:51Not content with throwing a number
04:53of lightning-fast enemies at you
04:55as a way to encourage precise dodges and timing,
04:58Ninja Gaiden's first level ends with
05:00what other games would have saved for a final boss.
05:03Named Murai and brandishing some vicious nunchucks,
05:06his cat-like animation set sees him adopt a waiting stance,
05:09only to lash out and devour half of your health bar.
05:12Lose, and you're back to the beginning, no checkpoints.
05:15Ninja Gaiden's unabashedly anti-player mentality
05:18likely wouldn't survive today.
05:20Just look at how widely beloved Volga the Viking isn't.
05:23But Ninja Gaiden was all about liking it or lumping it.
05:26Either you got good enough to manage crowds of enemies
05:28so you could carry that first health allowance
05:30to the final duel,
05:32or you didn't even see Murai again.
05:33Credit to Team Ninja,
05:35it was a good few hours until the difficulty spikes
05:37came a-callin' again,
05:38until the damn airport level.
05:40Number five, Any Contra Game.
05:42Coming straight out of the arcades and onto home consoles
05:45without any change in mentalities,
05:48Contra's genuinely stupid difficulty
05:50was designed to get as much money
05:52out of each player as possible.
05:53In the hands of home console owners, though,
05:55it meant you'd barely get through the first level
05:58or set of levels
05:59without memorizing entire layouts of enemy attacks
06:02and projectile placement.
06:03Even the smallest bullets could lay you out flat,
06:06despite them sneaking across the bottom of the screen
06:09in amongst the smooshed-up collections of pixels
06:11that make up the level itself.
06:13As for why it was worth enduring, though,
06:15well, unlike the rest of the entries here,
06:17this wasn't about expanding on a set of abilities
06:20or polishing them to a mirror sheen.
06:21Either you learned to memorize enough of Contra
06:24to proceed without tearing your hair out,
06:26or you didn't play.
06:27Simple as that.
06:28Number four, Tomb Raider II, The Great Wall.
06:31Coming after the industry-shaking popularity
06:33of the original game
06:35and how Lara's buxom-fueled image
06:37meant Tomb Raider as a brand
06:38started to be thought of as boobs first, game second,
06:42Tomb Raider II set out to right that wrong immediately.
06:45Opening with a devastatingly proficient level
06:47called The Great Wall,
06:49you'd be dodging tigers, spike walls,
06:51and other traps within moments.
06:53Even gearing up and out of the cave you find yourself in
06:56was an exercise in scanning the surrounding rockery
06:58to pick out handholds and ledges to grab.
07:00In short, this cemented everything the fans loved
07:03about Tomb Raider outside of Lara herself.
07:06But damn if it doesn't play like a slap in the face.
07:08Fracturing the player base right down the middle,
07:10getting through The Great Wall
07:12brings a brilliant sense of relief.
07:14There's a palpable sense of peril
07:15to these older Tomb Raider games
07:17thanks to their awkward controls and vertical chambers
07:20comprising intricate climbable pathways.
07:22And focusing on that entirely
07:24made for a sequel aimed at all the right people.
07:27Korn knew it was imperative to remind the world
07:29that Tomb Raider was a pioneer of playable 3D spaces
07:33before it was a headline grabber
07:34for gaming's most prominent sex symbol.
07:36The Great Wall accomplished all of this in one level.
07:39Number three, The Witness's Swamp.
07:41Understanding how The Witness works, what it means,
07:44and what creator Jonathan Blow was going for
07:47involves deprogramming the very way you think about language.
07:50It involves in much the same way
07:52Braid forced you to rethink the progression of time,
07:55approaching various puzzle solutions
07:57from a number of abstract unique points of view.
08:00The entire game is teaching you to read the environment
08:03and factor simple shapes into grand designs.
08:05Itself a comment on the function and enlightenment
08:08at the heart of various religious teachings
08:10or wider commentaries on life itself.
08:12It's heavy stuff, but your first taste
08:14of how cognitively messy things can get
08:17comes during The Swamp level,
08:18where one particular Tetronimo puzzle
08:21will likely break the majority of players.
08:23Again, the previous areas,
08:25and granted you can go anywhere,
08:27but The Bright Swamp is a notable draw,
08:29fell back on pretty easy ideas that are simple to process.
08:32Mirror puzzles, ones involving separating colors,
08:35yet it's The Swamp where you'll be genuinely stumped
08:38for some considerable time,
08:40until you learn to let go
08:41and re-approach from a completely new methodology.
08:44Number two, Swords of Ditto's agonizing progression.
08:48Going back to a top-down Zelda
08:50is something even Nintendo seldom do,
08:52yet developers One Bit Beyond elected to design something
08:55that's just as much linked to the past
08:57and Majora's Mask as it is Steven Universe.
09:00The latter only applies
09:01to the gorgeous Cartoon Network graphics,
09:03but where Swords of Ditto gut-punches
09:05these otherwise child-friendly assumptions into the sea
09:08is with a difficulty curve as sharp as steel.
09:12See, Ditto operates on a cycle of five-day turnarounds,
09:15culminating in a boss battle
09:16against a leveled-up lady named Mormo,
09:19who, unless you did as much combat as possible
09:22to XP up yourself, will flatten you.
09:24The twist in the tale is you're supposed to die
09:27over and over and over,
09:29and if you're me, over and over and over,
09:31until you finally unlock,
09:32across multiple character lifetimes,
09:34the ability to hand down equipment across generations,
09:38or the knowledge of what lies beneath the dojo.
09:40Each time you die, you'll have to replay
09:42a slow prologue crawl back to your predecessor's dropped gear,
09:46a slog that batters players with the realization
09:48that almost nothing they accomplished
09:50meant anything in the short-term run.
09:52Even if you defeat Mormo,
09:54100 years pass and everything starts over again.
09:57It's deflating, but pushes you to explore the world
09:59and find the key to breaking the cycle.
10:02Only then can you eventually truly win.
10:04Number one, Driver's License Test.
10:07The creative decision that stopped Driver
10:09being 3D GTA two years before GTA 3 even dropped,
10:13this opening license test genuinely put off
10:16a good 70% of all who tried it.
10:18Literally starting the game threw you
10:20into this timed gauntlet of performing specific moves.
10:23Annoyingly, the game's recognition of your actions
10:26wasn't the best, and the area you were in
10:28was filled with pillars to bounce off
10:30or otherwise interrupt the last thing on the list
10:33before the timer ran out.
10:34I can't help think that if Driver
10:36didn't open so catastrophically,
10:38it would have fired out the gates
10:39with enough momentum to rival GTA.
10:42That 70% I mentioned who gave up,
10:44they didn't know what they were missing.
10:45For the rest of us, they discovered a game
10:47of 70s cop thriller drifts,
10:49blisteringly fun destructible cars,
10:51and a physics model that only benefited
10:53a sizable city to tear around in.
10:55Those who fell in love with Driver
10:57would enjoy two stellar games,
10:59until the monstrously naff Driver,
11:01where the E is a three,
11:02tanked the franchise forever.
11:04That is the end of our list,
11:05but do let me know down in that comment section
11:07if you can think of any other
11:09super tough video game levels
11:11that made you a better player.
11:12As always, thank you so much for hanging out with me.
11:15I've been Jess from WhatCulture.
11:16If you like, you can come say hi to me
11:18on my Twitter account where I'm at JessMcDonald,
11:20but make sure you stay tuned to us here
11:22for plenty more great video game lists.
11:25Thanks.