Hardest/Most Annoying Stage (or Level)

The Core Video Games Forum
21

Alright, XWing. I will edit this post with a video of it as soon as I can.

EDIT: Daaaamn :confused: okay, so this isn’t perfect, because I died within one or two shots of killing him, but my hands are shaking from fatigue. I haven’t played MMX on keyboard in years. :frowning: I’ll make a better one later, but this should be proof enough for now. Here’s the entire final boss sequence with nothing:

http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/SG/megamanx2.zm4

Overall, the X2 final boss sequence is probably the easiest to do with nothing. Zero is braindead easy to beat, and you can run circles around wolvie Sigma. The Wireframe Sigma isn’t even that difficult; the only problem is that near the end, he does that teleport move, and if he teleports right on top of you, he holds you in place and you have no choice but to be hit. It’s easy enough to dodge, but if you mess up, there’s a high probability that it will one-shot you.

X3 is probably tied; Sigma’s final form is very easy in X3 (although it’s intimidating that it can kill you in two hits at first), but the Captain America Sigma (his first form) is a little hard.

X5 is easily the hardest - Sigma uses this absolutely ridiculous desperation attack that can kill you in two hits, and if you’re not standing in a good spot when it starts, you’ll very likely get hit twice very quickly.

X4 is the next hardest; the first two forms are actually a breeze, but the last form has so many attacks that are very hard to dodge, and it has so many variations of each attack. So, you have to know how to deal with all of said variations, and be able to react to any one that he does. I suppose that’s to be expected - I would say that X4 Sigma is the hardest one if you play the game normally.

X1 is a total bitch, because there’s so much time during the fight where you’re not even attacking, just dodging. When you have to be on the defense for so long, you’re bound to take a lot of hits, so you have to be real slippery.

X8 is not incredibly hard. The final boss’s second form is what does it. It’s very hard to avoid being hit by that form’s attacks. The final form is actually not too hard - the problem is, when you get to it with low life (and you probably will) you’re bound to screw up something during the final form, and it will only take one hit to finish you.

So, if I had to rank them in order of difficulty, I’d say

(X6 & X7, because they’re impossible)
X5
X4
X1
X8
X2
X3

X6 and X7 are literally impossible to beat with nothing; X6 has a lot of levels that are impossible to complete without an air dash, and X7 forces you to get life ups (I was looking forward to trying X7, too, just because of how absurd it is).

You’re thinking of X5, and unfortunately, I never beat that one with ‘nothing’. I’m sure I could, but it sucks to lose to that boss because you have to do the entire level again, and it’s too boring. I’ve gotten Sigma within one FUCKING shot of dying though, many times. :confused:

But yeah, X1-4 (X only), X8, and almost X5, with ‘nothing’. I put ‘nothing’ in quotations because there are a few spots where you have to use ‘something’:

  • X1 forces you to get the dash and gun enhancement, and as I recall, only fully-charged shots from the X Buster can damage Sigma in his final form, so technically, you have to use the gun enhancement.

  • In X4, Sigma’s first form can’t be damaged by the X Buster; you have to use the fire gun.

  • In X8 with Zero, he eventually gets an upgrade from a boss that makes his saber eat projectiles; one of the bosses also becomes weak to his saber attack, too).

22

Oh Jesus…Trauma Center gave me nightmares in trying to beat the damn game. The last level in particular (spider-type thing)…very nasty since there’s so much crap going on and you can’t afford very many mistakes. Took me a long time before I ever beat that last stage. I didn’t even try and get into the X Missions after hearing about the nightmare that’s X1.

I had that on my Game Gear back in the day. To be honest, those things were in some of the most absurd places imaginable. It took me years to beat the 1st boss and even then, I thought I beat the game only to find I got the bad ending. Stupid emeralds…

And MMX1 took me a long time to beat since Sigma is a bitch. I remember I had a friend who would ask me nearly every day if I had beat the game yet. Took me long enough to finally do it. Btw, you can also hurt the last form of Sigma with the Rolling Shield. Helped me out a bit.

23

I’m having some trouble with the movie file. In zsnes 1.51, it won’t play at all, and in 1.20 and 1.36, it just plays a half second of Zero’s theme. Maybe it’s the wrong movie?

Edit: Got it. I guess I was using the PAL version. Will comment momentarily.

Edit 2: Actually, still not working. I load the movie and X is facing Zero, who immediately attacks – and I’m in control. I’m not sure how to fix this.

24

Oh man, trauma center was fucking tough.

25

When I saw this thread I actually thought of that level. I was busy the day I played that level so I only planned on playing a few minutes, but I got stuck at some point in the level and was like “Need to reach save point NOW!!!”

26

Fuck that surfing level in Battletoads. I still hate that level with a passion.

Kid Chameleon also had a few fucked up levels. Wall of Death FTW.

I hated the one level where the wall of death goes really fast. I burned three continues trying to beat that level.

Kid Chameleon owns. Would have been the shit if they put a save feature in the cartridge.

27

Oh yeah, my bad…it’s the NTSC version, and it’s 1.36. If that doesn’t work, tell me what version of ZSNES you’re using, and I’ll just try again tomorrow with that version.

EDIT: Hmm, it looks like not only did I upload the wrong one, but even the right one abruptly ended in the middle, so I’ll just have to try again. I’ll be sure to actually check next time :confused:

EDIT x2: Okay, here it is finally. I’m using version 1.36 if that matters. So, if it doesn’t work in your version, try 1.36:

http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/SG/megamanx2.zm4

Notes:

  • I stop after the Zero fight for a second because my fingers fucking HURT.

  • I waste a lot of time during Wolvie Sigma. That fight is just too fun to show off on, but I pay for it pretty badly, also.

  • If you watch the fight with Wireframe Sigma, you’ll see pretty easily why it’s the easiest final boss sequence: You can be so outrageously imprecise. If the enemies didn’t drop life-regainer things, that fight would be fucking outrageously hard. But, as you can see, I play the probability game a lot during the fight, and while I play smart when it comes down to the wire, I’m otherwise just greedily fishing for good shots. This is the only last boss in the series where you can get away with doing something so stupid.

28

Surprisingly…the first area in Fallout 2. The rest of the game is awesome, but that place? Ugh. I’m serious, it’s one of the most asinine tutorial levels in the history of gaming. (Is it really a tutorial? I mean, it’s not like it bothers to teach you how to play the fucking game.) Why? Well…

  1. The enemies. The ants aren’t that bad, but the fucking scorpions hate me.

  2. The weapons. The first Fallout actually started you with a decent arsenal at the beginning. This game…gives you a spear and a loincloth.

  3. Random numbers hate me. I’m not kidding, I can have a 99% chance of hitting that scorpion, and it will ALWAYS MISS until I’m halfway dead, poisoned up the ass, and have attracted another two or three ants to my position.

  4. You get three healing powders and two antidotes throughout the dungeon. And the powders lower your perception, making it even HARDER to hit those fucking scorpions.

  5. The boss. My fucking god, the boss. It’s an unarmed fight with another warrior. Fair enough. Except, when else will you use bare fists in the game? The answer: NEVER. It’s the fucking future. Everyone has a fucking GUN! And it’s not like there’s a shortage of spears, clubs, knives, and swords lying around, either! There’s no point! And if you DON’T decide to waste one of your focuses on the Unarmed skill, the fight is a fucking nightmare. You’ll be hitting for about two or three HP, usually with a 40% chance of actually connecting, and unless you poured every point in agility, you’ll probably get no more than two punches a round. Meanwhile, he can smack you three times, often for four or five HP a blow, almost always hits, and has a comparitive truckload of HP for that early in the game.

I only managed to finish the place once…by save scumming my way through every fight, not using any of the healing powders, praying to lady luck for help on the combat, and somehow managing to inch my way to victory. Once again, I would like to reiterate: WHY DO I HAVE TO SAVE SCUM MY WAY THROUGH THE FUCKING TUTORIAL! GAH!

29

There were alternate ways around that fight. If you had enough intelligence you could talk him out of the fight. If you had lockpicking you could unlock the door and just leave him there. I think there’s another way too.

Anyway…

Prettymuch any starting level for Might and Magic games.

Lunar: Dragon Song is one huge crappy level.

The last level of Advance Wars can be fairly annoying as Sturm drops meteors on your army over and over.

30

Humorously enough. I too beat X2 without upgrades but unfortunately I did it on my SuperNES so I don’t have the video to prove it (worse still all four of my SuperNES controllers are busted in some way these days so I can’t redo that performance).

X5 btw, hands out Life and Attack upgrades one stage after each boss (or am I thinking of the refugees that hand them out).

Also I would rate X3’s final boss fight above 2’s since you also have to escape the lava without taking too much damage from wireframe Sigma which can be difficult without at least one leg upgrade.

X1’s hard because the X-Buster upgrade is shit. The attack isn’t one super powerful burst so much as its like a shotgun blast firing off a mess of weak projectiles instead, and bosses back in those days only took damage from the first hit they received making shotgun like attacks mostly useless. Charging weapons was also far more costly then they were worth.

X8’s final boss also forces you to beat him under a time limit once he uses his desperation attack (pretty much exactly like Legend of Mana’s final boss except that the whole boss fight is timed in that one).

And speaking of LoM has anyone else tried to beat Tropico on No Future Mode?

31

It’s true that you’re forced to get upgrades in X5; however, you can choose between either life or weapon upgrades. So, if you choose all weapon ups, you can still do a ‘nothing’ run, because you won’t be using special weapons anyways.

Also I would rate X3’s final boss fight above 2’s since you also have to escape the lava without taking too much damage from wireframe Sigma which can be difficult without at least one leg upgrade.

The reason I’d say that X3’s final boss is easy is because there’s pretty much no random factor. At least in X2, you’re never sure what Wolvie Sigma is going to do, and you can only do so much to control where Wireframe Sigma shoots his enemies. You have pretty much no control over the end of the fight at all.

In X3, Captain America Sigma will always to the same things based on your proximity (I’m pretty sure this is true in the part after the fight, too), so you can always bait the attacks that are easiest for you to dodge.

X1’s hard because the X-Buster upgrade is shit. The attack isn’t one super powerful burst so much as its like a shotgun blast firing off a mess of weak projectiles instead, and bosses back in those days only took damage from the first hit they received making shotgun like attacks mostly useless. Charging weapons was also far more costly then they were worth.

That’s pretty much what I said, but yeah. :stuck_out_tongue:

X8’s final boss also forces you to beat him under a time limit once he uses his desperation attack (pretty much exactly like Legend of Mana’s final boss except that the whole boss fight is timed in that one).

This isn’t difficult, though. Like, it’s a walk in the park if you’re doing it with Zero or Axl, for one, but even using X, as long as you’re not doing stupid stuff, it’s completely manageable. I still maintain that what makes the fight hard is that it’s way too difficult to avoid taking damage during the second phase of battle, and the final form requires crazy precision.

32

I’m surprised here no one is talking about Wild Arms XF, though I guess not to many people have a PSP. The game is unforgiving. Its interesting, but its brutal.

33

Yeah, no PSP. :confused:

34

Hacked PSPs make the world go round.

35

Not bad, I have to say. In zsnes 1.36, the movie actually messes up halfway through the final Sigma battle. One of the spawns doesn’t die, which seems like it must’ve died when you were playing, because you keep running into it. Then you jump into Sigma and die. In different versions of zsnes, you get a little further or die a little earlier, but it’s all the same basic random spawn problem.

Anyway, I do get the idea from what’s there. It’s impressive how you wall-jump over Sigma as he flies straight at you (which is where I need the air dash).

36

XF was basically a puzzle game disguised as an SRPG, and while it was interesting I was put off by the sheer number of jobs (many of which were pretty useless) and the awful story.

There were so many annoying battles that I can’t really pin it down, but that one where you have to get all the enemies down to some percentage of their HP and then get to a gate sticks in my craw. I think I had to try it five or six times.

37

Heh, thanks. There’s little small tricks to that. Two big things I do a lot to accomplish that:

  1. If you are just lower on the wall, his trajectory changes. That sounds obvious, but if he doesn’t go as high towards the ceiling, it’s that much easier to jump over him.

  2. When doing the dash jump off a wall, most peoples’ tendency is to then hold the D-Pad away from the wall (i.e, if you’re jumping off of the right side wall, you might hold left). What really helps is to hold toward the wall for just a split second. There’s no acceleration in this game, so you’ll go just as fast when you finally start holding away from the wall. This is important, because sometimes, when you need to dash jump over something, you need to gain enough altitude before you can actually get over them. So, if you don’t wait, you’ll basically be jumping right into him.

38

Its interesting that you feel that way now Cid, you were pretty positive about the game way back when (I just started, I’m currently breaking villagers out of prison). I agree its not really an SRPG in the standard sense of the word. I also see how easily it can get really frustrating.

39

Getting past the geckos when I was trying for no kills was not ideal.

This wasn’t too bad, for me, a forward plunge attack with a dragonscale 2H sword, and/or drop attack from a moonsault make it pretty easy. I had an embarrassingly hard time fighting Bud and Lisa on no future mode because I simply did not know what I was getting into, though.

Going for Big Boss in MGS1 was a real son of a bitch sometimes. Fuck you, Revolver Ocelot. Fuck you so much.

40

Yeah, I was excited about it for the first chapter or two. But when I hit chapter 3 and I started opening up more and more classes and the story started spiralling downward more and more, it began getting really annoying. I actually never finished it, which is extremely rare for me (the only other games that come to mind in that category are FF3DS and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, and I’d already finished the NES version of FF3, albeit with savestates).