• Top 5 Hardest Video Game Castles

  

  Written by Zeromage 31 Comments
  Last Updated:: June 22, 2008

  Castle levels have been some of the most exciting moments to come from the video game medium. Going from outside levels to incandescently designed castles was always a nice change in scenery. The enemies changed, the music changed, and most importantly, the mood changed. In this article we are not simply delving into the quality of castle levels though. We are delving into the hardest castle levels in the video game medium. There were plenty to choose from. At first, we wanted to make this a top ten hardest castles of all time list, but upon second thought we decided to change it to a top five. There was a logic to this. The five castles on this list we felt to be much more difficult than the other difficult castles making the rest of the top 10 list. The lack of consistency between these five and the other five made us cut out the other five we had in mind. These castles on this list we spent hours trying to master and conquer. Some of the staff here at Old-Wizard haven’t even beaten one of these levels. Only one of our staff members and beaten them all, and we already knew beforehand that he wasn’t human. Here then are Old-Wizard’s top five hardest castle levels of all time.

  5. Dr. Wiley’s castle (Mega Man 2)

  Mega Man 2 was the most classic of the original Mega Man games. The most memorable bosses came from this game which we highlighted in our top 10 Mega Man Bosses of all Time list. Get past the nuanced bosses though and one was in for a hell of a ride with Dr. Wiley’s castle. The first level in the castle was extremely difficult. The gamer had to be perfect in his use of the floating platforms. If he wasn’t precise enough, he would fall off the screen to the bottom of the level with no more weapon energy left. Get beyond this difficult obstacle and the gamer would have to face a baleful dragon who could knock Mega Man off blocks before even getting to fight him. This was just the first level. The second level was just as difficult as the first. Spikes were littered across the whole level that were difficult to evade. Get past the inordinate spikes, and one had to fight a strange boss of flying blocks coming at you from every angle. After a couple more stages of increasingly difficult levels, Mega Man came to the infamous scene of having to fight all the previous bosses again. Beating the bosses over again in Mega Man 2 proved to be harder than the other games in the series because the bosses were more difficult in Mega Man 2. As the last boss in the game, Dr. Wiley turned into an alien. If you didn’t know what weapon to use against him (bubble weapon), you would be destroyed every time. Even with the bubble weapon, Wiley would prove to be evasive enough to make it an extremely tough battle. The gamer should congratulate himself when conquering Wiley’s castle in Mega Man 2. They can leave their NES knowing they have beaten one of the more difficult castles of all time.

  4. Mini Fortress World 8 (Super Mario 3)

  If we are to consider confusing mazes as one of the most conspicuous aspects of difficult castles, then the mini fortress in World 8 of Mario 3 has to be on this list. There are countless doors in this level all leading to areas that may move you along in the level, or bring you back to earlier parts of the level. Getting inside these doors isn’t easy either. You have to evade Thomps who come at you from all sides. You also have to avoid spinning balls and indestructible bones enemies while trying to find out which door takes where you need to go. Lava and podoboos envelop this level beyond the seemingly endless doors making it hard to move anywhere without dying. Just when you think the endless misleading doors are at an end after passing through the lava portion of the level, your met with even more doors, sometimes two a screen shot to addle you into irritation. As always, the final bosses of these mini fortresses aren’t the most difficult bosses in the video game world. When the player gets to the final screen, they can take a deep breath knowing they have an easy boss to defeat. Getting there would prove to be the most difficult task in Mario 3 though. This mini fortress level is even harder than the last level of Mario 3. It was hard for us to think of a more purposely confusing level than this castle level of Mario 3. For that reason, it deserves its rightful place amongst the hardest castles of all time.

  3. The Tower of Garba (Rygar)

  Playing Rygar for the first time is a rude awakening with its large difficulty level throughout. You had to stay alive in order to retain your strength and stamina points. If not, you would decrease in power making it impossible to beat later levels. One of these later levels that you need to be full powered for is the Tower of Garba. Only the most skilled gamers can beat this castle. The rest of us are left to the nine saved states given to us with modern emulators. The Tower of Garba is one of the last levels the player must beat before coming to the last level of the game which is also a castle, but no where near as difficult as the Garba castle level. The Tower of Garba isn’t large, but its filled with boss enemies throughout the whole level. You have to fight three Erugaesque bosses that you originally faced in the forest level. These were no walk in the park as any avid Rygar fan knows. Trying to jump in-between the three fireballs coming out of his mouth was more than difficult. Climbing up the tower past the Eruga’s, you had to face a brontosaurus boss who seemed to take an infinite amount of hits to beat (and who would oddly roll around the room on a skateboard. Looked cooler than anyone from Skate or Die though). If your were not equipped with the highest stats, you would certainly be done at this point. The endurance of this beast was daunting. After you beat this boss, you still weren’t at the end of the level where you would find the Flute of Pegasus (in order to go on to the last level of the game). The 5^th and final boss you had to beat at Garba was a two headed dragon who threw out random fireballs. He was also endowed with as much endurance as the brontosaurus boss. It was easy for the Rygar fan to give up at this point knowing that it was going to take days of practice to be able get back up to the top of the castle and beat the final boss. Rygar’s difficulty level is nowhere more epitomized clearly than the Tower of Garba. Many Rygar journeys would end here.

  2. Great Palace (Zelda II)

  Zelda II for the NES was a great game. The castles and landscapes shined with the most incandescent of landscapes. Link became more mature and grew into his age with grace and sophistication. Along with Link’s growth though was the difficulty of the game, specifically the last section of the game that required Link to traverse the most ineluctable of volcano areas into one of the hardest castles in video game history. The earlier parts of Zelda II were no walks in the park either. The boss of the island castle proved to be as difficult as Gannon in Zelda 1. But it was with the volcano area and the final castle that Zelda II became synonymous as one of the most difficult video games of all time. The final castle of Zelda II had an exorbitant amount of enemies who could take down Link’s energy quickly. Beyond the extraordinarily difficult enemies in the castle was a maze like one had never seen before. Everywhere you turned, you could be led in the wrong direction facing wrench throwing monsters who have nothing to do but walk around dead end parts of a castle. Get beyond the difficult maze and Link was left to the whims of a flying phoenix who was as difficult to hit as Glass Joe trying to hit Little Mac. Past the flying phoenix was Link’s shadow which was more difficult than the flying phoenix. It was rare for any gamer of Zelda II to get this far because of everything that went before it. Zelda games in general tend to be great in their moderate difficulty making the gamer work for the conquering of the game, but not so much that they would become discouraged. The Zelda II gamer though would be discouraged when traversing the final path of the game. Only the most devout of gamers would go through the many weeks of practice to finally come to the end of the game. These gamers would be championed for their dedication in facing one of the most difficult parts in video game history.

  1. Level 8-4 (Super Mario Brothers Lost Levels)

  When thinking of the most difficult castle level of all time, we knew right away what it had to be. The level 8 castle section of Mario Lost Levels was the clear winner. There was no castle level before or after where we spent hours trying to get by the first screen of the level. Right away when you start off the level, you have to make two extraordinarily difficult jumps; One just to jump down to the spot where you have to make a second difficult jump, and the second where you would have to perfectly time the jump to not get hit by the swirling fire balls. Past this, one would have to traverse another difficult water level with bloopers and more swirling fire balls. The jump after this was excruciatingly difficult. The player had to perfectly time a jump around blocks down to a pipe with a flower plant coming out of it. One of the reasons why we think this Castle level is the hardest of all castles is because of the sheer amount of difficult jumps that have to be made throughout. The level and jumps keep getting harder though. To exit to the next level, you have to do more perfectly timed jumps on flying turtles heads or face immanent death in the lava. It’s not as if you could miss the jumps and go back and try again. If you missed these jumps once, you were dead from either lava or amorphous pitfalls. Finally if you got to Bowser, you would not have to face him just once, but twice. Each time he had an infinite amount of hammers being thrown at you. Forget trying to just run by him though, because he had a swirling fireball device right near him to make it impossible to jump over him. You better be equipped with fireballs or you would be starting the level all over again and dying at the first screen for a good two hours. It’s painful to play this castle level. We wouldn’t wish it upon anybody. Anyone brave enough to try and beat this level certainly gets our Old-Wizard approval. Anyone who can send us some videos of them beating this level get a main story mention on our site, and maybe even one of our T-Shirts!

31 Comments

1. #1 Alex says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

   This list brings back a lot of memories. Thanks.
2. #2 Mike says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:48 pm

   Great list! Wish it was longer.
3. #3 The Mountain says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

   Tower of Garba. I vaguely remember that.
4. #4 Sarah says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

   This is now officially my favorite website.
5. #5 Aaron says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

   This is a great list, but I think you should have made it a top 10, and not put 2 castles from the same gaming franchise (i.e. two Mario Brothers games). Still a great list. Keep ‘em coming!
6. #6 Darth Hobbit says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

   I agree with the comments above. This should have been a top 10.
7. #7 Salo says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 6:06 pm

   No Castlevania??? Still a great read. Nice job!
8. #8 Frustrated Mario Fan says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 6:12 pm

   The last castle in Lost Levels definitely deserves its place at the top of this list. To this day I have never beaten it. Most of the time I can’t get past the first jump. You guys were right on with that one. As for the other castles, I think I would have made this a top 8 list and just put all the castles from Lost Levels on it.
9. #9 the REAL zeromage says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 6:22 pm

   This is stupid. I hate this website more and more with each passing day. I could have easily made this a top 20. You guys are obviously lazy!
10. #10 Jambi says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    wow, incredible list
11. #11 Linklock says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

    Ahhh..Zelda 2 final castle…brings back memories
12. #12 Goat Boy says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    I beat all of those but the one in Rygar.
13. #13 chasimus says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Every time I got to the world 8 mini fortress I used a cloud skipper to jump it. The only level in the entire game I skipped every time.
14. #14 Ben says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    No Castlevania?! WTF?
15. #15 Z Dawg says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    The Lost Levels is not a game, its torture. Couldn’t agree with #1 more.
16. #16 Alan says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    No Castlevania Symphony of the Night = Fail.
17. #17 This List Sucks says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:33 pm

    The only one I agree with is Rygar. The rest of these castles were easy.
18. #18 the REAL zeromage says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:16 am

    This List Sucks=big gigantic liar. Nothing about lost levels was easy. But this list does suck.
19. #19 This List Sucks says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:35 am

    Lost Levels just takes a little patience. Every level is beatable.
20. #20 Danny says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:35 am

    Considering I never even made it to 3 of these castles, I’d say I agree with this list.
21. #21 Einstein's Wrinkles says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Great list. Dr. Wiley’s castle should be #1 though.
22. #22 Towerguard says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:55 pm

    Real Zeromage: Get a life. If you don’t like these lists, don’t read them. There is a such thing as freedom of speech on the internet.
23. #23 Doug says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:10 am

    This is a good list. Maybe there’s hope for this site yet.
24. #24 Kevbot says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    Great list. Havent seen one of these. Rygar was such a great game. Too bad I could never get to that castle.
25. #25 Eddie says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    You forgot to mention the GutsDozer in MM2. That stage was littered with spikes too. The classic, fall-down-a-pit-and-try-to-avoid-all-the-spikes-on-the-walls bit.
26. #26 Amanda says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    I have a question i have been searching for a game for years i think it was made in the 80’s it a castle game it takes place in a castle a little guy runs around collecting things some rings a poisnes and some are good you have to watch you for snakes it’s kinda like a maxe any idea?
27. #27 shay says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Thinking about castle 8 in the Lost Levels makes my balls jump back into my body…

    Good list but painful memories.
28. #28 MaximoDestructo says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:58 am

    What a dumb idea for a list.
29. #29 Captain Raccoon says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

    Great idea for a list. Love it!