Anyone who played any beloved third-party NES game:
Oh, that's cute! 😏
Edit: Just so we're clear, I'm poking fun here, I like Demon/Dark Souls just fine.
but waay too many games get compared to them as though they're the first game with ball-retracting difficulty, lmao.
Just like Battletoads. An amazing concept for a game...until they throw "that level" at you and basically end your run right there. It's not the same kind of levels you just got through, it's a "one-off" type of thing, and it's far more difficult than it honestly should have been.
The thing is, that was the case for every Battletoads level. I only ever beat it once in my early 20s because I never played it as a kid so I'm kind of foggy on the exact details but from what I remember, you've got:
Standard brawler Rappelling into a pit Riding moving platforms The lava sled level that everybody bails on Race a rat to the bottom of a series of pits to disarm a bomb A water race level (I think?) similar to the lava sled A weird one-wheel disc thing where you race to the end that requires perfect timing on corners And a rotating tower that you climb to the top to fight the queen.
Also played through it with a friend and we made it as far as it's possible to make it with 2 players -- there's a bug that makes one of the later levels impossible for 2 players. I think it was on the disc race level.