- [Falcon] Sometimes the best
part about a good video game is how much challenge that it provides. Hi, folks. It's Falcon. And today on Gameranx,
10 brutally hard levels in recent games. Starting off with number 10, it's Intercept the Redguns
from Armored Core 6. An extremely tough game at first, but at a certain point you
start to get complacent with it. You got a decent build that's been clearing out
most of the missions. No problem up till this point. And it seems like everything's
going pretty smoothly into the end game. That's when you get to
Intercept the Red Guns. This mission that comes in
fairly late in the game. It's not really a boss fight per se, but it's not a full level either. It's basically a big arena
where you get ganged up on by an entire squad of enemies
and it is utterly brutal. (in-game characters fighting) You're in a small space
densely packed with enemies. There's multiple reinforcements and it's just an overall bad time. These guys can wear you down quick. They can make you easy pickings for when the actual boss shows up. So, you're pretty much required
to play pretty cautiously. In Armored Core, playing carefully means
rocketing around the arena as fast as possible at all times too. (in-game characters fighting) Your goal is basically to avoid dealing with multiple enemies at any one time and to avoid getting targeted by an endless barrage of
missiles coming your way. There's not really anything to this one. It's just a brutal slug fest that ends up giving a
lot of people trouble. Depending on who you ask, this random mission is tougher
than any of the actual bosses in the game which is saying something 'cause a lot of these bosses are not easy. And number nine, Bramis Castle
from Lords of the Fallen, the final location where
the game throws out any pretense of playing nice. Up till this point, Lords of the Fallen has been one of the more forgiving
souls likes out there. But once you cross this bridge into this lava infested hell hole, all bets are off. Every dirty trick in a
souls like is employed here, damaging surfaces everywhere, confusing layout, narrow ledges, enemies waiting to ambush you
around just about every door. And oh yeah, most of them
take about three or four hits more than they usually do, making every battle of slug. The density of enemies
is outta control, too. Everywhere you turn, you're getting swarm by
the most annoying enemies in the game. (in-game characters fighting) The whole place is just
a relentless assault on the player's patience and checkpoints are few
and far between too. So if you die, expect a long
trek back to your corpse. The only reason this place
isn't higher on the list is because it doesn't actually
throw a lot of new stuff at you per se, and the actual boss fight
isn't really that tough. It's one of those rare cases where the level itself is a lot tougher than the boss fight at the end. Bramis Castle is designed
to make you suffer so much, the actual boss feels like a nice and easy victory lap actually. And number eight is Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Libertiy's Somewhat Damaged. Depending on your choice at
the end of Phantom Liberty, this game can take a sharp
turn into survival horror. That alone is what makes this mission so much harder than
everything else in the game. They take away your equipment and force you to play an
entirely different genre for a while. Keeping spoilers to a minimum, this mission has you exploring and debate an underground research base while you're being hunted by
an unstoppable robot watchdog that can kill you instantly
if it catches you, and this thing will catch you. It is in some brainless set piece section. (in-game character fighting) It'll actually move
through the area on its own and actively hunt you as
you're exploring the place. One wrong move and you're dead. And even if you don't die a lot, the segment is still really tense. Nobody expected something
like this to happen, leading some people to
believe this mission might just be smoke and
mirrors but it isn't. This thing will kill you. And if it does, you gotta start the
whole segment over again. It's not as brutal as
something like Alien Isolation, but it's surprisingly close and that's about the last thing I expected to see in this game, a game that's otherwise pretty easy. And number seven is the cabin fight in the Resident Evil 4 remake. This was a fight that was
fairly tough in the original, but they made it way harder in the remake. It's the part where Leon and Lewis meet up in the little two-story cabin that gets attacked by a hoard of enemies. In general, enemies in the
remake are more aggressive to make up for Leon's
improved range of motion. But here you're trapped
in a confined space with limited ammo and enemies
coming from all sides. They even throw in a few
curve balls for players who are used to the original game's fight. Now enemies crawl in from the chimney as well as from windows
on the second floor. And to further complicate things, outta nowhere this game includes the boarding up windows mechanic from the Resident Evil 2 remake. There are some boards around here you can use to strengthen some windows. And if you don't immediately
grab those and use them, you're pretty much guaranteed
to get overwhelmed. (gunshots firing) - Here you go. Pay attention. You know what to do. - [Falcon] I think I died here more times than anywhere else in the remake. It's pretty handily the
hardest part of the game especially in hardcore where it's kinda... It's kinda just absurd. I hope you've been practicing your Perion 'cause otherwise you're pretty screwed. And number six is Baldur's
Gate 3's House of Hope. There's multiple enemies
and encounters in Act 3 in this game that would
qualify for a list like this. But in my own personal experience, the House of Hope is the
hardest section in the game. This demonic location
is the home of Raphael, the demon who's been
hounding over your character since Act 1. You finally get to turn the tables on him, but it's not gonna be easier or anything. This place is mostly exploration
based until at the end when you rescue Hope who's
both an actual character and the literal embodiment of hope, and that's when it becomes
a full-blown slug fest. Just getting to the exit
is a test of endurance with many difficult fights, but it concludes in what is
probably the toughest fight in the game against the
demon Raphael himself. We've talked about this
guy before on the channel, but the gist of it is
that he's ridiculous. (in-game character fighting) - Come back. - I have to hurry. - [Falcon] You start the battle
in the middle of the arena surrounded by enemies. This guy has an absurd amount of health and a convoluted gimmick
that involves siphoning power from four pillars around the room. If you go into this fight unprepared, it's a kick in the teeth. There is no going back. You can't just leave the House of Hope. So if you run into
trouble and you can't win, it's potentially multiple
hours of lost progress. Everybody warns you they're trying to go into
this place of suicide. But in most games, it's just exaggeration. They mean it here though. This is exactly correct. And number five is WAR from Pizza Tower. Depending on what you wanna
get out of Pizza Tower, the game's either fairly
easy or extremely tough. If you're the type who
has to get the best rank, then this game is absolutely merciless. But if you want to just
breeze through the story without worrying about
collectibles and scores, it's way easier at least until you get to the final
standard mission of the game WAR. See, how Pizza Tower works is a lot like those classic Wario games. Your main guy, Peppino,
can rarely actually die from anything. So for most of the game, there's really no threat of losing at all. That's not the case though with WAR. This mission gives you a shotgun power up which is of course absurd
in a game like this. You'd feel overpowered if not for the extremely oppressive timer at the bottom of the screen
that's constantly ticking down. (game sounds and music playing) It starts off with only
30 seconds on the clock and allows you to send the time by finding your TVs to smash. So you gotta move quick. And when I say quick, I
don't mean a little quick. I mean really quick. It might seem like you're
blazing through the level, but it's not fast enough. The only way to get through this level is to go full speed runner mode really just to pedal to the metal crazy. While this is going on, the level is throwing
nonstop chaos at you. It's really, really hard to keep up. And this level is long too. It's not just a little extra... Like it's not over in a minute. It's the real deal. And number four, the
Lies of P's Arche Abbey. Another soul's like where the final area is the toughest part of the game. That's actually pretty unusual. While Lies of P doesn't fill
its final area with quite as much annoying lava
as Lords of the Fallen, it does manage to make up
for it with pure challenge. The place is long. It's got multiple bosses, all of which are the toughest
and most annoying in the game. And it's guarded by multiple
mini boss enemies and snipers. This is another one of those areas that just throws everything at you with the toughest enemies, difficult to navigate layouts, long distances between checkpoints. On top of that, this place has its own
gauntlet of boss encounters that are extremely hard
from Puppet Melania, from Elden Ring on the bridge, the most annoying fight
in the game, Simon Manus. (in-game characters fighting) He's not the hardest boss in the game. That honor goes to the actual final boss. But damn, if this guy
isn't a pain to fight. Summoning help isn't even
gonna balance things out. Your assist is almost always
dead before the second form which just loves to
trigger this gigantic area of effect attacks that
make it very difficult to even find an opening to do damage. Arche Abbey is a massive, full of bosses, and easily the hardest part of the game. And number three, the Siege
from Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. The Pathfinder Game is notorious for their out of nowhere
difficulty spikes. And while Rogue Trader feels like a smoother experience overall, there are still some classic Alcat FUs in here to suffer through. The end of Act 1 is one of them and the end of Act 3 is pretty insane. But in both cases, it's
just the boss that's tough. But with the Siege, the
entire area is pure suffering. The final dungeon of Act 4 is this factory that's been taken over
by the forces of chaos. In terms of density of fights, this place has every other
part of the Rogue Trader beat. Literally every turn
of this hellish factory has some new pain in the ass thing, a fight or something you gotta deal with. It's not just that
there's a lot of enemies, but there's multiple encounters with totally unique boss-like forces that have their own gimmicks. There's traps everywhere, too. And unless you got someone
who's practically maxed out on warp knowledge, good luck disarming any of them. Oh yeah, and no going back to the ship or resting while you're here. I hope you have enough trauma
kits in order to heal traumas 'cause your party's gonna
be hopelessly underpowered for the final encounter if you don't. (in-game characters fighting) - I'll do it. - [Falcon] The final
battle also just the worst. You start off completely
surrounded by Chaos Space Marines who can easily kill multiple party members in a single turn if they feel like it. And that's only phase one. Somehow if you luck out
and survive all that BS, you're gonna fight an even greater demon who's got their own brain of
completely unfair nonsense. It's not even the end of the game. There's an Act 5. But it's... I mean, the rest of the
game's actually pretty easy in comparison to this. And number two is Prince
of Persia: The Lost Crown, the Impossible Climb. This metroidvania continuation of the Prince of Persia franchise is, for the most part, a fun experience, but some of the optional content hidden around the corners
of the map has got no mercy. Before getting in the meat of this one, I wanna give a special shout out to this absolutely ridiculous trap above the secret room
off the main elevator. This thing just keeps going and going. I could have been stuck on it for hours if I didn't luck out
a few times near that. In any other game, that part would be the clear front runner for the most difficult section. But come on, there's a part just literally called the Impossible Climb and it takes the top spot. It isn't exactly impossible
but it's crazy difficult. The gimmick here, you gotta climb this
spike covered contraption and collect three glowing objects, then return them to the guy at the bottom. Do I even need to say that
this is easier said than done? (in-game characters playing) Yes, it's easier said than done. There's no safe platforms here. Just a bunch of moving walls
jump off of and spikes. There's a lot of spikes. It's basically this game's version of the Path of Pain from Hollow Night. And while I don't think
it's quite as hard as that, it's still a solid challenge and one of the toughest sections in a surprisingly tough game. And finally at number one is
Super Mario Brothers Wonder, the final test badge marathon. Most recent Mario games have some kind of final marathon level that unlocks after completing everything. And Wonder's got that, the final test, Wonder Gauntlet. It's hard but this level
is the final, final test. It's an even harder version
of the original level and you better believe it is ruthless. The basic idea here is you
complete a set of challenges that require use of a
specific badge to complete. Each section of the level is
dedicated to one power up. And unless you play nearly perfectly, you're gonna die. It's all difficult. But special mention has
to go to the section that makes Mario invisible. The rest of the level's hard, but this is practically Kaizo level trolling on Nintendo's part. (game sounds and music playing) You can't see what you're doing. It's nearly impossible to
keep track of your character and keep track of everything
going on in the level. So the only real way to finish it without having a sixth sense is to cheat. Play through this Mission 2 player, you get a little symbol over your head that makes it a lot easier to
keep track of where you are. Without that little trick, this mission would've legit
been nearly impossible. The whole mission is rough. And oh yeah, unlike every other badge
challenge type mission, if you die in this one, you still lose lives. And getting a game over
is a real possibility. These final bonus levels
of the Mario games are always tough, but the gimmicks in this one
make it especially brutal. I got a bonus for you too with Age Through Blood: The Floating City. It's a highly rated but
underplayed indie gem. It can only be described as a motorvania. You move through the open
levels on a motorcycle. It kind of plays like a
cross between metroid trials and Hotline Miami. Just one hit is instant death. And even though you go through the game and unlock new weapons and abilities, your one hit kill status, it never changes. That alone makes the final
area like really difficult. This is where the game throws
everything it's got at you. And like there's so many deaths. There's so many segments I
just died over and over again. But damn, if it didn't feel
good to finally break through and manage to survive the
almost puzzle-like layouts of the enemies. There are some gimmicks here
that make it even trickier like air vents that throw you around and heating zones that kill you instantly if you try to fire a gun at them. It's just an all around difficult segment of an already extremely challenging game. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you think. If you like this video, click like. If you're not subscribing,
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right here on Gameranx.
