Athos from ActRaiser...it slightly rings a bell. Is that the one with the waterfall and the snake boss? Or is Athos the one with the swamp and the giant vine boss at the end? Neither gave me as much problems as Gratis on Hard Mode of ActRaiser 2 though.

And yes, the Tower of Babil from ActRaiser 2 can be quite difficult. On easy mode it is the last level, but on Normal and Hard mode you go on to Deathheim afterwards. While I did find the Tower of Babil hard (especially on Hard mode) I still think that Gratis (the prison level) was the toughest part in that game, especially with that green goblin wizard at the end. Death Field was also difficult, because on Hard mode the fire takes away about half your total life.

I can't really call the Tinto mines frustrating, but I will vouch for it being the longest dungeon in Suikoden II. The fact that you must fight a golem at the end with tons and tons of HP and no recovery afterwards is pretty demoralizing, but Neclord is so easy that it doesn't really matter.

I have to say that the most frustrated I've ever been with a game was Level 7 in Super Ghouls N Ghosts, the "Hallway of Ghouls" stage.

Let me explain this particular stage:

You have five minutes to finish the stage and beat the boss. The first time around it is challenging. After you beat the stage, the Princess sends you all the way to the beginning of the game to recover her ring so that you may defeat her kidnapper, the evil King Sardius.

Well the Ring is the crappiest weapon in the game. It has incredibly short range, and cannot fire in any direction besides straight forward. This is a game where you can only sustain two hits before dying. After the first hit, the ring weapon becomes completely useless because the range gets even smaller to a point where you have to be right in front of the enemy to deal damage to it.

But let me get to the level.

You start off in a vertical shaft with 2 versions of the level 1 boss on the sides of the shaft. After dealing with the two bosses, you face a Red Aramar Ace, the toughest regular enemy in the game. This guy flies just out of your attack range, and always evades your attacks by either flying up or down. The only way to hit him is when he swoops to hit you. He takes two hits. The only way to beat him without taking a hit is to time it so that he swoops at you the second you come down from the apex of your jump. Do this two times and he's dead. Remember if you take a hit here you might as well die, because after you take a hit the ring weapon is useless.

Next we come to a small room where you must refight two versions of the level 1 boss again. Beat them both without getting hit. Then we move onto a giant room with an infinite number of ghosts and a few mimicks. Hard, but nothing compared to what's next.

Finally we get to the hardest part of Super Ghouls and Ghosts, and the hardest part I've ever passed in a video game.

There is a long corridor with a slight ramp leading to a door. Out of the door comes the boss: the big red king ghoul named Satan. This guy is trouble if you have the crappy ring. You can only hit him by double jumping and smaking him in his big fat face. The downside is that like Castlevania, once you've made your jump you CANNOT control it anymore. He can breathe fire out of his tummy mouth, and he WILL do this while you are in the middle of the jump and you WILL land on it. Remember, one hit and you lose your armor along with the ring's limited range, so get hit and might as well suicide, cause you ain't beating him without armor.

In addition to breathing a long stream of fire across the ground he can walk forward and "touch" you and fire a laser straight forward, the purpose of which is to catch you at the height of your jump. Remember the time limit? Well the clock is ticking. And did I mention that if you die on him you are sent back to THE VERY BEGINNING of the level? After many hits and an eternity of a pounding heart and trembling thumbs you finally see him burst out into flames. YES! YES! Right?

WRONG! That was only Satan's illusion. Right after you beat him, the REAL Satan materializes. He looks similar to the Satan Illusion, only he is green and has fancier shoulderpads. Now this guy is a ing nightmare!

He has the stream of fire just like the Illusion, only his fire stream goes out much farther and much higher. That means if you jump towards him or straight up to hit him and he breathes out the fire during the jump, you're getting hit and you've got to restart the level. So what about jumping away from him and shooting at him? Two problems with this:

1) The ring doesn't have that kind of range. You would miss or barely hit him at all. With only 5 minutes to complete the entire level you simply don't have the time to do this.

2) He might walk forward and breathe fire. If he does, you're screwed regardless of what you do. Oh well, tough luck.

In addition to the fire he has the same laser the Illusion has, only his covers the entire screen. The only way to avoid it is to duck. So what if you're in the middle of a jump when you hear he's about to fire it? Yep. That's right. The beginning.

After Satan goes up in flames you've basically beaten one of the hardest, if not the hardest level in all of gamedom. The final battle that comes after that is cake compared to that.

Honorable mentions go to:

- Level 6 of Ghosts N Goblins (refight bosses over, littered with Red Aramar Aces, 2 versions of the level 5 boss guard the final door)
- Level 6-2 Ninja Gaiden (terrible jumps over pits with well placed birds. Die at either the Masked Devil, Jaquio or the Demon and you start at 6-1)
- Revisited Dungeons in Chocobo's Dungeon 2 (Try going through the final dungeon and beating the final boss and all of his forms(a level 80's job) starting the dungeon with a level 1 Mog)