10 Mind Bogglingly Poor Levels in Good Games

Shadow Temple – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

“oooooooh controversial,” I hear you say. Maybe, as the Water Temple seems to pop up in most lists around the theme of bad levels, but it just isn’t as bad as everyone makes out. Ocarina of Time is the game I have played most out of any, and the challenge of the water temple makes it one of the few that still yields any enjoyment for me. That and it has Shadow Link as a sub-boss, a defining enemy of Zelda mythology. Now the Shadow Temple, that is where the game lets itself go. Most of the puzzles revolve around annoying invisible stuff that you need the lens of truth for and those stupid and inaccurate hover boots. Hell, even the boss sucks, lacking any kind of memorable features or attacks. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s placed so close to the end of the game, I would’ve given up going trough the Shadow Temple long before it’s conclusion.

Rock Tunnel – Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow

Were it not for the absurd, though oddly lovable, encounter rate in the original Pokemon titles, the Rock Tunnel wouldn’t have been much of an issue at all. That said, it’s the HM situation that really messed things up. You needed the move Flash to see in the rock tunnel, a move that has literally no purpose in any other section of the game. The killing blow then is that you can’t erase moves taught by HM in the original, meaning you are forced to teach one of your precious pokemon a useless technique.

Iraq – Splinter Cell: Conviction

Conviction revamped the stealth elements of the Splinter Cell franchise, creating a fast paced and more adrenaline pumping style of stealth action gameplay. For all the good these elements did to the core formula of the franchise, Ubisoft thought it would be prudent to remove them for a flashback chapter in Iraq, making for a tedious and uninteresting FPS hybrid level. Were it not for an interesting narrative perspective shift applied during the level, I would’ve hung in the towel on this chapter, as it’s a real dog on the more challenging difficulties.

Devil Went Down To Georgia on Hard – Guitar Hero 3

The Guitar Hero series has never been easy on the harder difficulty levels, but there was something else going on with the Devil Went Down To Georgia boss battle in Guitar Hero 3. There was a difficulty spike on the hard setting like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I actually restarted my game, playing on expert up to this point, and managed to clear it in one or two tries thanks to an AI glitch. On hard though, it still trumps me to this day. No game should be easier on expert than on hard and, for that reason, the Devil Went Down To Georgia is one of the most annoying tracks to play in music game history.