Metropolis Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 2)
While not quite as hard as Labyrinth, Metropolis Zone was still kind of a bitch and a half. It was the gatekeeper that separated the wheat from the chaff in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. If you could clear its three acts, you were rewarded with the game’s end game series of stages.
Between pistons crushing you, falling into molten metal, and enemies launching projectiles at you from off screen, everything in Metropolis Zone is designed to kill you. Any long time player should remember getting into Mexican standoffs with those starfish and mantis like enemies. You’d be just a few rings away from a life, or just trying to survive, and BAM you walk right into one of those jerks and whoops there goes 94 rings onto the ground.
As frustrating as it was though, it would still be nice to relive the challenge a second time in the modern age.