The Sega Genesis offered up a larger ratio of arcade-style games when compared to the Super Nintendo, which meant that either a player would beat the whole thing in one sitting, or they would have to start over from the very beginning. This resulted in some of the most grueling challenges of the 16-bit era.
Some games were brutal from the jump, but even the more forgiving titles usually turned up the heat in their later stages, making deep runs doable but total completion a far more difficult task. And for every tricky Sega Genesis title, there was always one level that stood above the rest as the most haunting of them all…
8 Scrap Brain Zone – Sonic The Hedgehog
In spite of their status as 16-bit Sega masterpieces, the Genesis Sonic titles always offered up a serious challenge to any player committed enough to play their way deep into the game. With the original Sonic the Hedgehog, however, things got hairy from the very beginning.
Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are only the second and third levels in the 2D Sonic classic, and they can be absolutely treacherous. It’s easy to imagine, then, that the final level is truly something to behold. It has everything: trap doors, spike traps, disappearing platforms, sadistically-placed enemies, and high-pressure underwater sections. It’s peak Sonic difficulty.
7 Tube Race – Earthworm Jim
Earthworm Jim offers a lot of variance in the style of its levels, making the game both interesting and infuriating. What’s even more infuriating about Tube Race is that it’s not only timed but dying is hilariously easy if the player doesn’t know how to navigate their submarine. And how can anyone take time to learn the controls when the clock is ticking?
There is a trick to this level that can make it far more doable: a secret oxygen supply that has probably never been found in any other way than by total accident or by being told about it by someone who found it by total accident. Even with the extra air, though, this one is still a grueling challenge.
6 Snow In July? – The Adventures Of Batman And Robin
The Sega Genesis version of The Adventures of Batman and Robin is something of an underrated gem with the only caveat that it’s really, really hard. The game looks beautiful, and it does a great job of translating the amazing Batman: The Animated Series into a 16-bit adventure, but it is not for the faint of heart.
The fourth level ultimately pits Batman against Mr. Freeze, but first, it requires players to battle their way through a merciless gauntlet of enemies that never stops coming. It’s so relentless that it can feel like the player is trapped at an infinite spawn point. It's equal parts brutally tough and teeth-grindingly monotonous.
5 The Stampede – The Lion King
As if children of the 90s weren’t already traumatized enough by the infamous stampede in The Lion King movie, the fun-but-frustrating Sega Genesis adaptation offers an opportunity to take the reins in this utterly heart-wrenching moment in animation history and they made it super tough.
The format of this level is creative, and it ups the intensity of the scene as players switch from side-scrolling to controlling Simba while he runs toward the screen and away from the oncoming stampede. The problem is that both the perspective and the controls can make nailing the timing feel like an impossible task. Oh, and just wait for the rocks to start rapidly appearing directly in front of Simba…
4 Headquarter Blitz – Target Earth
It wasn’t exactly perfect, but Target Earth was still an incredibly fun mech-suit run-and-gun game that has faded into obscurity over the years (a modern remake would be a weird but awesome idea). One of the reasons for that is most likely just how uncompromisingly difficult it can be.
Headquarter Blitz is the sixth stage, putting it just before the game’s final run, and although the proceeding levels are certainly a challenge, they’re not quite on the level of this one. It is loaded with enemies and it is annoyingly long. Choosing the right weapon can make a big difference, but it’s far from a panacea.
3 Dice Palace – Gunstar Heroes
Gunstar Heroes is a stone-cold 16-bit classic that offers players some of the most heart-racing, adrenaline-loaded, side-scrolling run-and-gun action of all time. But while the difficulty level is mostly well-balanced in this game, there is one level that most fans find particularly cruel: Dice Palace.
In this stage, players are tasked with completing a board game where more often than not the square they land on will send them into battle against one of a large variety of challenging mini-bosses. It’s incredibly creative, and it clearly inspired Cuphead’s Dice King level, but the randomness of the dice roll can make it exceedingly tricky to master.
2 Red Falcon Redux – Contra: Hard Corps
Many fans place Contra: Hard Corps among the most challenging titles in the entire Contra series, and that’s saying a lot. That being said, it’s also generally agreed upon that the difficulty may be exceedingly high, but it’s also fair. Red Falcon Redux, however, does a great job of challenging that theory.
Players will find the familiar Contra elements in this 16-bit Konami classic: a fast-paced, enemy-loaded, reflex-testing sprint through an exploding hellscape with a gigantic, terrifying boss waiting at the end. The big difference is that all of those things are turned up several notches. Pick the right soldier and use the right guns and it’s possible to clear. Supposedly…
1 The Castle Proserpina – Castlevania: Bloodlines
Of all the dastardly tricks the Castlevania series has thrown at its fans over the years, the final level of Castlevania: Bloodlines has got to be the dastardliest. It’s not the flying Medusa heads or the gauntlet of boss rematches or the final battle against Death itself that makes this one so tough, either. It’s the way that the screen actually splits into three horizontal bars and then starts shifting each one around once the player enters the castle.
The difficulty of this one is hard to grasp without actually playing it, but it is a dizzying and particularly cruel twist on an already tough game. Then, once the following section unsplits the screen, it flips the whole thing upside down in yet another sadistic twist. What did the children of the 90s ever do to you, Konami?