97.Top Gun: I've never played this either, but watching AVGN get frustrated over it was very funny.
93.Super Metroid: Uhmm....no. Maridia is a bit confusing in places and you can sort of get lost in it, but it is NOT "hard." (Certainly there are few dangerous enemies in the place.) Cripes, Tourian in the original Metroid is harder than that, but I guess Nick has a point about them not wanting to pick just final levels over and over again.
90.Final Fantasy Tactics: I do remember the level they picked, and I suppose it can be a fairly difficult one, but I thought the biggest portion of FFT players considered Inside Riovanes Castle (Ramza vs. Wiegraf solo, then your gang versus Velius and a bunch of Ultima Demons) to be the nastiest level in the game, and let's not forget the friggin' Deep Dungeon or whatever it was called!!!
84.Sonic The Hedgehog 3: I do remember these levels and I remember that Sonic 3 levels were very long and very deep compared to the first two games, but I certainly don't remember them as being anything terribly difficult. Of course I was playing on emulators, so...wasn't Oil Ocean or Doomsday Zone from other Genesis Sonic games harder?
83.Gunstar Heroes - I only played through this game once, and I don't remember that level. If you haven't played GH, it's a super-cartoony, more Japanese-y, super-fast paced Contra style freakout that got really great reviews in certain video game magazines back in 1993. A cult audience, albeit a very loud one, has been proclaiming that game to be a Genesis masterpiece for three decades running now.
79.GoldenEye 007: Not really, no. The Train can be a difficult level, especially when you have to laser open the hatch at the end, and getting the Silver PP7 cheat is very hard too...but unless there's a rule that they can't pick bonus levels, the Aztec Temple absolutely DESTROYS this.
63.Super Mario 64: Uhm no. Cool, Cool Mountain presents its challenges but the clock level was always, ALWAYS the hardest and I'm pretty sure these people know it.
53.Super Mario Kart: Rainbow Road? Yeah, it could be sort of a bitch, but I have fond memories of it...because of that ridiculous MUSIC. They didn't mention that. Of course, I also haven't played a Mario Kart game in roughly 25 years, so.
51.The Lion King: YES!!!!! This is almost the only thing I even remember about this game, which I rented maybe once back as a kid, but God was it ever horrible!!! Like a bad NES level or something--you have to keep grabbing these animals' swinging tales and you can't miss by a millisecond! Did AVGN blast this to pieces? He should have. Just for the hell of it I watched the playthrough on YT and the viewer comments were a howl!! Plus, the SNES rendition of that song is horrid.
47.Star Fox 64: Uhm, no. A moderately challenging level but not a hard one. The only real "challenges" in this game are beating the Star Wolf team on Venom, maybe, and getting the medal on Sector Z. I think this is the worst pick on this list.
43.Zelda: Ocarina Of Time: I figured they'd pick the Water Temple, but the Water Temple is more annoying than hard due to messing with the water levels. I suppose it is probably harder than anything in A Link To The Past barring possibly Ganon's Tower. Certainly the final dungeon of the original Zelda is harder, or anything in the Second Quest maybe?
42.Super Mario Bros. 3: Mmmmmm...it's *possible* this is the hardest level in the game, but it's probably hardest the first time you play it. You just have to remember to get all the way to the far end of the screen on one of the levels and that's how you get out of it. I figured they would pick World 6-5, where you have to fly to the top with an ice brick in 200 seconds, or maybe the super-fast Airships level in world 8 that most people use a P-Wing to skip through?
37.Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link: Yep, the Great Palace it is. I've got a save state on NESticle right now that could take me right to it; let's see how far I could get before getting lost. Getting TO the palace was hard enough; getting THROUGH it must have been sheer HELL for gamers back in 1988, but I already had this conversation with Joe. Uh, go look at a map--if you know your way through it, it lasts 10 minutes, but if you don't, you could get lost in there for three hours!!
36.Final Fantasy VI: Mmmmm....maybe...the things I remember being hardest are the Floating Continent that closes the first half of the game (the Atma Weapon fight is legitimately terrifying the first time through), maybe Kefka's Tower, or something else. FF6 has a few challenges but not lots and all you do in that magic tower is reflect spells off yourself to kill the enemies. Annoying more than hard.
26.Super Mario World: "Tubular" is very terrifying the first time, but once you've got it down, you'll never forget it. Go ahead and include it, but I find the ending of "Awesome" harder, if you're not flying over it. Or maybe the end of Valley Fortress? An entire game as hard as the Special World would've been cool; for all of my fond memories of SMW, let's face it, it's not terribly hard.
23.Aladdin: I remember this, but didn't have trouble with it. What I also remember is that the Genesis game, made by different people, was way harder!
19.Donkey Kong: Never had fun with the 1981 original...gimme the 1994 DK Game Boy game. Or that movie, A Fistful Of Quarters.
9.Contra: Well, yeah, but everything in the original Contra after like the second level is pretty rough no?
1.Battletoads: I did play this a couple times and didn't beat it; it was just really annoying and I enjoyed watching videos of "Volkmire's Inferno" far more. I guess Rare just felt like giving a true nasty challenge. This is an infamous enough level that they were probably right to include it at #1, I think a Cracked list also said it was the worst ever.
Where's...?
Super Ghouls N Ghosts: Level 7, "Hallway Of Ghouls," which you have to beat on a second play through using a certain crappy weapon to ensure you get to the final level of the game?
Castlevania: Whatever level has the Grim Reaper.
Super Castlevania IV: B-2 with the rolling wheel is pretty nasty though I was always more scared of level 8. Also those white harpy birds in level 5 still scare the ASS out of me.
Ninja Gaiden: Nothing from ANY NG game?!? Really?
Kid Icarus: I dunno, pick a level--they all have floating blocks you can't miss.
Mega Man 1: Tabs and I just went over it.
Responses