1. Ice Man’s block-jumping sequence – Mega Man
As previously listed in “Five Moments in Videogames that ruined my Childhood,” the introduction of the block-jumping sequence in the first Mega Man game produced hours of frustration and countless broken N.E.S. controllers. The newly released Mega Man 9 makes frequent use of block jumping sequences that are just as annoying as they were 20 years ago.

2. Kaiser Sigma – Mega Man X3
Of all the ending bosses in the Mega Man series, Kaiser Sigma takes the cake as the most difficult to beat. Unlike many of the other difficult ending bosses, Kaiser Sigma couldn’t be easily defeated by a gimmick-trick. Instead, the player had to whittle away at Sigma’s health one bar at a time by jumping over several barrages to get a single shot off at an airshaft on his back.

Then to make matters worse, the game designer tossed in a Metroid-style ending.

3. Gravity Antonion’s spike cube room – Mega Man X8
After 17 years of Mega Man games, you would think the level designers would run out of new masochistic level design concepts. Unfortunately, the development teams still have a few creative ideas up their sleeves.

The spike cube room features several cubes that shift from the top to the bottom of the room while projecting spikes out of alternating sides. With a little trial and error—and a lack of a social life—the sequence can be memorized. However, the sheer intimidation of the room is enough to make a statement.

4. Final Doctor Wily – Mega Man IV
The final Doctor Wily in Mega Man IV can only be reasonably beaten by charging Pharaoh Man’s weapon over your head and jumping around the pitch-black room in hopes of making contact with the weapon. If you mess up enough and run out of Energy Tanks, you’ll have to start the 8-stage Wily sequence from the beginning.

5. Quick Man’s stage – Mega Man II
Quick Man’s stage introduced the instant-killing beam sequence. Very few Mega Man games included more than a few second long sequences with the beams, but Quick Man’s stage capitalized on the beams. In an attempt to make the stage feel “quick,” but instead killed a player for being just a split second off time. Even players that memorize the stage have a hard time completing it without dying at least once.

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