Everyone loves to talk about great video game levels, but bad video game levels are just as memorable. The worst, though, is a truly terrible level in an otherwise flawless game.
Whenever someone talks about bad levels in great games, the first idea in most people’s minds will be the Water Temple in Ocarina Of Time. I believe there are much better examples out there, though, such as these 10.
(The original) Blighttown from Dark Souls
I love the concept of Blighttown. The vertical labyrinth of death is the perfect evolution of the “sewer stage” that everybody loves to hate and an excellent Souls level. It features great verticality and design choices that will first put those who dare to understand its machinations through hell but will later reward them. Blighttown is torture at first, but it becomes a normal level — by Dark Souls standards — once you unveil its mysteries.
But it wasn’t always like this. When Dark Souls first came out for the PS3 and the X360, Blighttown was nearly unplayable due to its terrible framerate. I’d accept a worse framerate in pretty much any other area of this game, but not in an area where careful maneuvering is required to avoid falling to my death a million times over.
All Souls fans love difficulty, but there’s a fair challenge, and then there’s the pre-patch version of Blighttown.
Stealth missions in Marvel’s Spider-Man
Playing as Mary Jane in the original Marvel’s Spider-Man feels like having to do parent-mandated homework before you get to play your game. The idea of sneaking around and gathering evidence can work in many games, but not in this one.
It’s puzzling to me that they featured this specific kind of journalistic mission in a Spider-Man game. I’d be down to playing as a non-Spidey character, but why not give us appropriate missions? Have us posing and taking the best pictures of either Spider-Man! That’s easy, thematically appropriate, and even an organic way to introduce us to the game’s awesome photo mode.
I would’ve been completely okay with this awkward implementation of stealth in any of the many less good Spider-Man games out there, but not in this one. It’s not terrible, but it’s never good enough to allow players to forget that they’re being kept away from the rest of this stellar game.
Escorting Ashley in Resident Evil 4
Honestly, out of all the escort missions in gaming history, the Ashley ones in Resident Evil 4 aren’t even all that bad (and they’ve resulted in some funny memes). Still, they remain a weird black sheep among all the other design choices that inspired so many games to this day.
While I believe the Resident Evil 4 remake is inferior to the original, I like how it at least gave us some meaningful playing segments featuring Ashley. It’s great to be able to see her as something more than extra weight on our back.
Now, someone just needs to make official that glitch where Ashley inherits Leon’s suplexing abilities, and we have ourselves the perfect main character for Resident Evil 9.
First Person water level in the original Devil May Cry
I think the original Devil May Cry is either the best or the second-best game in the series. Still, being the first game in a revolutionary franchise means you have to try out a lot of new stuff, and some might just not pan out.
The first game features a few first-person water segments where we just swim around in claustrophobia-triggering areas and shoot stuff. It feels jarring because it has nothing to do with the rest of the game and isn’t even particularly fun.
I’d very easily argue that the only thing Devil May Cry 2 did better than the first game was having the good sense not to feature any similar level.
Allies for Bruma in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
For the most part, Oblivion features a short but sweet campaign. That, however, doesn’t apply to a mission called “Allies for Bruma”. It tasks players with going door to door in a bunch of key places just to talk with lords to get their help for a big battle. I don’t want to repeat the old “Can’t they just send the eagles” that everyone uses to criticize The Lord Of The Rings but come on, at least send some mail ravens to warn the people. It feels like padding, and it does little more than bloat the campaign’s length a bit.
It also doesn’t help that the supposed epic army we get together at the end to protect Bruma isn’t much larger than two or three JRPG parties.
Underwater segments in Metal Gear Solid 2
I’ve previously talked about how Metal Gear Solid 2 excels on a technical level — even in completely irrelevant things — but it’s the exact opposite of that when it comes to Raiden’s underwater segments. If Raiden didn’t catch enough crap simply from being Raiden, Kojima also had to put him through the worst gameplay segment in the history of the series.
As its sole defense, you could claim that the underwater effects look great, but even that works to its detriment. Those beautiful bubbles and waves make the labyrinthic mess we must go through even more confusing.
And just as players think, “Well, at least it’s not an escort mission,” it turns into one, as we then need to swim with Emma on our back as we swim through a sea of debris and mines.
The intentionally cursed second level in The Lion King
Disney’s Lion King for the Genesis is great except for its second level. Did the devs forget to beta-test that one? Nope, the reason is much more sinister. Disney told the devs to make it unfairly hard so players wouldn’t beat it too quickly. Why? The game came out at a time when video game rentals were a big thing, and Disney wanted players to buy the game, not to beat it in one go for like $3.
That’s terrible enough as is, but this level goes above and beyond in terms of villainy by having one of the jolliest tunes from the movie looping continually in the background.
No Russian from the original Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
The other entries on this list are here because they’re good examples of unfun levels in otherwise excellent games. However, the “No Russian” mission in the original Modern Warfare 2 is here because I find it vile. I’m okay with violence in video games, but I think what happens here is different.
This mission asks players who tagged along on this journey in an attempt to do the right thing to either partake or watch the killing of who knows how many innocents.
Maybe I’d be fine with it in a kinder reality where mass shootings weren’t a thing, but this mission always struck me as a cheap attempt to shock that just wasn’t worth it.
