[General Discussion] The Wonderful World of Annoying Levels, Stages & Dungeons

Originally Posted by Sin Ansem

Symphony of the Night's inverted castle is flipping annoying, especially in regards to jumping. Doesn't make it bad, though, I dig the twisted/sorrowful atmosphere.

But by the time you get there you've got Gravity Boots and you can turn into a bat so the jumps aren't exactly difficult.

I would say the most frustrating level of all time is Jet Set Willy's Banyan Tree:



In a game so tough it needed patching to actually be finishable, this is the hardest screen by far. You need to get the timing spot on and the positioning pixel perfect to get through, it's just not fun.

Also stupidly hard is the City Streets level of Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike (I think it was Summit Strike, might have just been GR2). You have to recon two crashed helicopters and then survive a huge fight at the end. Stick it on the hardest difficulty though and the bad guys start randomly spawning, often right behind you. The only times I ever completed that were with an 8 man team on online co-op and even then I don't remember ever seeing more than a couple of people still alive at the end. Fucking satisfying when you were one of them though...

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

Do you know anyone who actually managed to complete even the patched version? I know about the patch and that it was theoretically possible with a fixed version, but still... that person would have to be superhuman.

I've seen it done on Youtube but that may well have been done using a key-logger. I've also seen a Youtube of a guy getting through the Banyan Tree whilst drunk. It takes him a good 15 attempts though.

Another one I thought of, seeing you talk about Persona is the ridiculously tough Oni you have to fight in SMT:Nocturne. There's three of the fuckers in one dungeon, a sort of underground cave system leading off a railway track. The red one in particular does stupid amounts of damage, buffs constantly and like so many of the bosses in that game, helps himself to extra turns a lot. The only way to beat him is to have a demon that absorbs physical attacks to soak up his press turns, another with a de-buff spell to keep him honest, a third with buffing spells for you and of course someone who can actually do some damage to the fucker.

As with any fight in Nocturne it's emminently do-able once you're set up right but this particular one takes a fucking age to prepare for and can still go wrong thanks to the game being over if your main character gets killed. I think I beat Lucifer in fewer attempts than I took to beat that guy.

The Matador's quite a cunt too, in fact that game is chock full of hard bastards, certainly compared to most other jrpgs where you have to go out of your way to get killed.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Soluzar

I see I've got quite something to look forward to, then. Prior to trying Persona 3, I hadn't really bothered with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, despite knowing it to be considered quality. I've picked up Nocturne since, but I haven't actually plauyed it yet.

It's an awesome game. A bit slow going at first but stick with it. The story is a bit ropey but the challenge of the battles more than makes up for it and if you so wish, it can be a grinder's dream.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.