20 WORST Levels & Missions In N64 Games

20 Worst Levels & Missions in N64 Games

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we are remembeing very specific trauma of the 90’s, and a couple from the 2000’s, man this console kept kicking us for a while! These are the 20 Worst Levels/Missions in N64 Games. Let’s go!

It’s War

“Conker’s Bad Fur Day” (2001)

“Conker’s Bad Fur Day” spends most of its runtime being ridiculous, then “It’s War” suddenly decides you’re starring in a filthy World War II movie. It’s the longest and hardest chapter in the game, throwing Conker through beach assaults, Tediz-filled corridors, submarine attacks, tank combat and a frantic escape sequence. The shooting itself can be awkward, especially when enemies start appearing from multiple directions, and some sections punish mistakes with a lot of repeated ground. What makes it exhausting is how little breathing room there is once the fighting properly begins. By the end, you’ve survived explosions, giant weapons and an entire military campaign. Conker started the game hungover. Somehow, this is still probably the worse morning.

First World Frogger Minigame

“Glover” (1998)

This was the moment "Glover" lost any chance of getting 100% completed by me. The challenge is basically a "Frogger"-style minigame where you control an actual frog, which sounds harmless until you realise the movement feels completely unreliable. Jumps come out at strange angles, the frog can suddenly bounce or glitch around, and landing safely on a log sometimes feels more like luck than skill. Even when you think you’ve lined everything up properly, the physics can send you sliding straight into the water. That’s what makes it so frustrating: it doesn’t feel intentionally difficult. Fighting controls is so rough, and kinda mean.

Big Hand

“F-Zero X” (1998)

"F-Zero X" spends most of its runtime moving at completely unreasonable speeds, then Big Hand arrives and decides the track itself is optional. The road becomes painfully narrow, the corners get vicious, and nearly every mistake ends with your machine disappearing into the void. At this speed, correcting a bad line is hard enough without another racer smashing into you at exactly the wrong moment. Heavy vehicles can make things even more awkward, since one bad drift can become unrecoverable almost instantly. Master difficulty has tougher overall challenges, but Big Hand is where the game feels openly hostile.

Alien Comet 2016

“Body Harvest” (1998)

By the time “Body Harvest” reaches Alien Comet 2016, the game has completely stopped pretending to be reasonable. This final level dumps you into a bizarre alien landscape packed with powerful enemies and some of the nastiest opposition in the entire game. Even basic travel becomes a fight for survival, with huge groups constantly testing your weapons, vehicles and health. Special weapons become especially important against tougher creatures, because normal gunfire barely bothers some of them. There are save points, thankfully, but reaching each one can feel like completing a level by itself. It’s less one giant bad mission, and a bunch of tiny bad missions back to back.

Raid on Sullust

“Star Wars: Rogue Squadron” (1998)

"Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" really saves some cruelty for Raid on Sullust. You’re flying a Y-wing through a volcano, surrounded by tight walls, missile turrets, thermal transmitters and one massive capacitor that needs destroying. The problem is that the mission barely gives you room to think. Missiles are constantly hunting you, alarms are going off, and finding the right target while trying not to smash into rock becomes its own challenge. Once you learn the layout, the whole thing starts to make more sense, but getting to that point can be miserable. It’s the sort of mission where Rebel command clearly looked at an active volcano and decided, yes, that seems like a perfectly reasonable battlefield.

Great Bay Temple

“The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” (2000)

"Majora's Mask" turns Great Bay Temple into one giant aquatic headache. Progress depends on redirecting water, opening pipes, and figuring out which current leads where, all while that three-day timer quietly reminds you the moon is still on its way down. Zora Link is fantastic when there’s room to move, but tight corridors can make swimming feel far less graceful than intended. Choose the wrong route and you can suddenly find yourself dumped several rooms away, wondering what just happened. The dungeon is genuinely smart once its layout clicks, but reaching that point can be exhausting. We thought they’d take it easy on us after the water temple .. I guess they did a liiiittle.

Diamond Sands

“Blast Corps” (1997)

“Blast Corps” gets especially cruel at Diamond Sands because it hands you the Backlash and expects immediate competence. Unlike most vehicles, this dump truck destroys buildings by swinging its rear end sideways, so every target becomes a weird drifting puzzle. The stage then adds raised railway lines, awkward positioning, and the small issue of a nuclear carrier steadily moving toward disaster. There is very little room for sloppy driving, and learning the Backlash can feel like trying to parallel park during an evacuation. Once you understand how to control it, Diamond Sands becomes genuinely satisfying. Before that, though, you’ll spend a lot of time smashing into the wrong angles while wondering why humanity trusted this operation to one chubby 8 year old .. I was the chubby 8 year old.

Canary Mary

“Banjo-Tooie” (2000)

“Banjo-Tooie” somehow turns one button into a full-body endurance test. Canary Mary’s Cloud Cuckooland rematch is basically a race where victory depends on hammering A fast enough to keep up with a bird on a mechanical mouse, which sounds stupid until your thumb starts going numb. Her earlier race in Glitter Gulch Mine is manageable, but this one feels wildly more aggressive, especially if you’re trying to beat her again for the Cheato Page. There are better strategies than simply mashing at full speed from the start, but most players were never going to figure that out naturally. As a kid, it was borderline impossible. What? I didn’t have problem solving skills.

Maian SOS

“Perfect Dark” (2000)

“Perfect Dark” usually gives you enough gadgets and guns to handle almost anything. Maian SOS takes all of that away and drops you into Area 51 as Elvis, who begins with terrible health and practically nothing to defend himself. The opening becomes a desperate scramble to steal a weapon before a guard turns your giant alien head into target practice. On higher difficulties, enemies can shred you in seconds, so one bad move early can ruin the whole attempt. That’s what makes the mission so memorable: it forces you to forget the comfortable rhythm of playing as Joanna Dark. Instead, you’re sneaking, panicking, improvising, and surviving. Is that the Bear Grills line? Something like that.

Ord Mantell Junkyard

“Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire” (1996)

“Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire” turns one train ride into a complete nightmare. First you have to actually board the thing, then survive while it races along the track at ridiculous speed. Obstacles come at you constantly, forcing perfectly timed jumps and ducks, and eventually enemies join in just to make sure your senses are completely overloaded. By the time you reach the end, you’d think the game might finally give you a break. Instead, IG-88 shows up. His boss fight is already notorious on its own, with awkward movement and plenty of ways to get destroyed quickly, but putting that battle immediately after such a demanding train section makes the whole sequence feel like two separate punishments glued together.

Asteroid/Final Showdown

“Jet Force Gemini” (1999)

Reaching the final stage of “Jet Force Gemini” is already a massive commitment. Before you can even get there, you need all 12 ship parts and every one of the 282 Tribals, so the game makes sure you’ve earned the privilege of suffering. Then Mizar shows up. The level itself is tough, but the final boss is what really pushes this section into nightmare territory. Mizar is often remembered as one of the hardest bosses on the Nintendo 64, demanding strong aim, movement, and plenty of patience after an already exhausting journey. I wouldn’t rank this as the absolute hardest level because so much of the pain comes from one fight, but that fight is more than enough to earn its spot.

Water Temple

“The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” (1998)

Few dungeons have scared players off quite like the Water Temple in “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.” I dread it, and even after 30 years of finally perfecting it, I can’t shake the vibe that it’s gonna be annoying, that’s how infamous it is. The whole place revolves around changing the water level, remembering which doors open at each height, and somehow keeping track of every Small Key along the way. Miss one and the dungeon can suddenly feel impossible, even though the solution is usually sitting three rooms behind you. The original N64 version adds extra pain by making you pause constantly to equip and remove the Iron Boots. Sink, menu, boots off, float, menu again. It gets old fast.

Bridge of Immortality

“Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-zero” (1997)

Four giant robot bosses in a single level would already be excessive, but this stage somehow makes the whole thing even nastier. Each fight chews through lives and healing items, leaving you badly weakened right before the final level, which then expects you to survive another three bosses. Lovely. Two of the robots are also hidden inside pits that look exactly like the kind of holes you’ve been trained to avoid, so simply finding them can feel like falling for a trap. Worse still, this isn’t the only time the game pulls that trick. By the end, the real challenge isn’t just beating the bosses; it’s arriving at the next stage with enough health, lives, and patience left to continue.

Lair of the Blind Ones

“Turok 2: Seeds of Evil” (1998)

“Turok 2: Seeds of Evil” turns Lair of the Blind Ones into one gigantic navigation test disguised as an action level. You need to shut down three thermal vents, protect an Energy Totem, collect keys, and search for important items across a massive cave system that already feels impossible to map mentally. Then the game adds an underwater maze just to make sure nobody is having too much fun. On the N64, dark environments and limited visibility make every tunnel look suspiciously familiar, so missing one objective can mean a painful amount of backtracking. The enemies are dangerous, sure, but the real boss is remembering where the hell you are.

Castle Center

“Castlevania 64” (1999)

Castle Center in “Castlevania 64” takes a simple explosive puzzle and turns it into a full-blown anxiety simulator. To break certain walls, you need Magical Nitro and Mandragora, but carrying the Nitro comes with one nasty rule: jump, fall too far, or take damage and it detonates instantly. Suddenly every staircase, enemy, and awkward ledge becomes terrifying. You also have to move between different floors to set everything up correctly, so one mistake can erase several minutes of careful progress. It’s a clever idea on paper, but actually doing it feels like transporting unstable dynamite through a haunted obstacle course, well actually I guess that’s exactly what it is.

Control Room (00 Agent)

“GoldenEye 007” (1997)

“GoldenEye 007” saves one of its biggest headaches for Control, where Natalya decides to hack a computer in what might be the least secure room imaginable. Once she starts typing, guards flood in from multiple doors and staircases, forcing Bond to constantly bounce between entrances before somebody gets a clean shot at her. On 00 Agent, this becomes especially nasty because enemies hit harder and Bond has far less room for mistakes. The frustrating part is that the mission can be going perfectly until one guard slips through and ruins everything in seconds. Control isn’t difficult because of one impossible objective. It’s difficult because you’re babysitting fragile AI while an entire building tries to kill it.

Wing Mario over the Rainbow

“Super Mario 64” (1996)

“Super Mario 64” makes flying look magical right up until Wing Mario Over the Rainbow asks for precision, something that the platforming set on the ground could only JUST manage. The stage scatters eight Red Coins across tiny platforms floating over absolutely nothing, so a slightly bad turn can end the entire attempt. Wing Cap movement works fine when you’re making big sweeping dives, but trying to line Mario up for a careful landing is where things get ugly. Lose too much height, overshoot a platform, or clip the wrong angle and you’re finished. The real punishment comes afterward, because falling doesn’t just restart the challenge, it requires a full climb from the bottom.

Rusty Bucket Bay

“Banjo-Kazooie” (1998)

“Banjo-Kazooie” has a few worlds that can wear you down, it’s mostly worlds that can wear you down, but Rusty Bucket Bay is where the difficulty really spikes. The Engine Room alone is enough to earn it a place here, with moving machinery, tiny platforms, and some brutally unforgiving jumps that can send you straight back into danger. Then there’s the polluted water, which drains your health while you scramble for safety, plus plenty of awkward platforming around the ship itself. Click Clock Wood may be longer and more exhausting overall, but Rusty Bucket Bay is much more likely to stop a first-time player dead. It feels like Rare took the usual colourful adventure formula and briefly replaced it with an industrial workplace safety violation.

Greenwood Village (Silver Coin Challenge)

“Diddy Kong Racing” (1997)

I nearly gave this spot to Wizpig, because that first time against him is absolutely vicious and probably the moment most “Diddy Kong Racing” players remember suffering through. Still, I think the Silver Coin Challenges are harder overall. Winning the race is only half the job; you also have to collect every Silver Coin scattered around the track without dropping too far behind. Grabbing them all in one lap usually isn’t realistic, so you need to plan which coins to take each time while somehow staying close enough to attack first place at the end. The Greenwood Village challenge takes the whole concept and turns it up to 11. It’s as rough as it gets.

First Ride

“Superman 64” (1999)

“Superman 64” wastes absolutely no time showing you what kind of experience you’re in for. The opening ring race should be simple: fly Superman through a series of hoops. But, the controls make even basic movement feel like steering a fridge through wet cement. Turning is awkward, judging distance is miserable, and missing a ring usually means fighting the camera and controls all over again. Technically, there are harder sections later in the game, but plenty of players never bothered finding out after being stopped right at the beginning. Wanna know my kryptonite? This goddamn level.