Ten More Difficult Tasks in the Rareware Games that I Have Played

A long time ago, I compiled a list of the top ten hardest tasks in the Rareware games that I have played. From surviving the Test of Fear in Star Fox Adventures, to defeating Mizar in Jet Force Gemini, to beating Canary Mary in Banjo-Tooie, these were challenges that were virtually guaranteed to take multiple attempts to master. Now, I shall compile a list of ten more challenges that I feel are quite difficult, albeit not quite so much as those from my last list. You may consider this an honorable mentions list, and you might also find a tough challenge that took you forever to beat, or that you have never beaten. The list is as follows...

Star Fox Adventures: Beating Musclefoot in the Test of Strength: As if they had not punished players enough with button mashing in Banjo-Tooie, Rare added this test in which Fox McCloud must force Musclefoot, the strongest member of the Lightfoot tribe into a pit before he can do the same to him. Doing this required the player to rapidly press the A button in hopes that he or she would hit it fast enough to defeat Musclefoot. However, Musclefoot tends to push back just before he falls in, forcing the player to try harder. Fox would lose after sixty seconds had elapsed or if Musclefoot pushed him into the pit. Skilled players could beat Musclefoot within ten seconds, but everyone else would gain sore arms as a result of multiple attempts.

Conker's Pocket Tales: The Mako Island Mini Games: In his quest to retrieve his stolen birthday presents, Conker the squirrel needed to win several mini games, several of them against Honker the evil skunk. What made a lot of these mini games so hard were the controls that they were given. Three of them required the player to rapidly press left and right on the control pad, occasionally pressing the jump button to leap over things. The result would be sore fingers, especially if they needed many tries to beat each game. The mini game controls in Rare games are usually solid, but this strange control scheme made for some needless frustration.

Jet Force Gemini: Floyd's Goldwood Mission: While many of Floyd's missions are difficult, particularly if you are attempting to win the platinum medals, I consider the Goldwood mission to be the hardest of the bunch. Some of the items that you must collect are so close to the wall that it can be all too easy to miss them. Also, the cells that need to be destroyed are simple to skip if you go too fast, and there is no rapid fire button, either. If you wish to win the platinum medal here, best of luck to you, as it will take many, many, many tries to grab all the items and destroy every target within 55 seconds.

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge: The Eight-Second Jiggy: I feel that only one hand is needed to count the number of Jiggies in this game that are difficult to collect, and this is one of them. In Freezing Furnace, there is a button that, when hit, will reveal a Jiggy on an ice floe in the distance. The catch is that it will vanish after a mere eight seconds, and there is quite a bit of distance between the switch and the Jiggy. You will really have to master being fast enough to grab the Jiggy just before it disappears, or else you will have to try again and again. Rare should have known better than to give us such a small amount of time in this case.

Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color): Elevator Antics: When porting a 16-bit game to an 8-bit system, some features are bound to be lost in translation. Case in point, the relative ease of the second half of the Elevator Antics level. While in the SNES version the platform patterns were easy to predict, here they are all over the place. Some platforms fail to appear or are in strange patterns due to a smaller amount of memory, and some patterns can lead you to your doom. This is especially bad towards the end, when the elevators moving up take forever to show up, and you may lose a life because you failed to jump on one in time. Adding to this frustration is that you must beat the level three times in as many difficulty modes in order to add to your percentage. Thus, a fun level quickly becomes a terrible nightmare.

Donkey Kong 64: Beaver Bother: I ranked the Mine Cart Madness mini game as being the toughest one in this game, but Beaver Bother is a close second. Here, you play a Klaptrap who must send beavers to a pit in the middle of the arena. What makes this frustratingly hard is that the beavers often stop so close to the pit and fail to fall in. If the Klaptrap falls in, or if time expires, you will need to try again. Also, you must beat the mini game three times if you want to claim all 201 golden bananas, so be ready for loads of anger as you attempt to herd all those naughty beavers.

Donkey Kong Country 3 (Game Boy Advance): The Final Banana Bird Caves: Rescuing the Banana Birds that are mostly imprisoned in crystal caves throughout the game is vital to getting the maximum score of 103%. However, there are three caves, accessible only when you unlock the helicopter by grabbing every last DK coin, in which the Simon-like patterns are incredibly long...up to fourteen notes long! Memorizing them is very hard...you will likely have to resort to writing down the correct patterns in order to save these last birds. Since these patterns are often complex, they make these challenges even trickier. Having to write the solution down is not my idea of solving a task like this.

Donkey Kong 64: Fungi Forest Rabbit Race: In Fungi Forest, Lanky Kong will need to win two running races against a rather swift rabbit. The first race is not that difficult, as the rabbit runs at a relatively slow pace. However, in the second race, all bets are off, as the rabbit runs extremely fast. Even with the Orangstand Sprint move that makes Lanky run fast on his hands, the chances of passing the rabbit are too few and far between. He might get caught trying to pass an enemy, allowing you to take the lead, but this instance is quite rare. Lastly, your supply of crystal coconuts gradually run out as you run, and you will likely have to replenish it after every failed attempt (and there will surely be a lot of those). This is perhaps the most unfair of the Golden Banana challenges, and is incredibly frustrating, to boot.

Banjo-Pilot: The Jinjo Grand Prix: When you unlock this special challenge, you will race against seven Jinjos on six randomly selected tracks. The problem is, the Jinjos are very fast, and passing them is very difficult. If you are going for the platinum trophy, won by placing first in all six races, prepare for multiple retries. About the best way to win these races is by unlocking Bottles, whose speed practically destroys the competition. Otherwise, this grand prix challenge is simply too difficult.

Donkey Kong Land: Sky High Caper: In this level, you control a series of platforms that change direction when it hits a wall or you jump on it. What makes the stage really tough is that, throughout much of the stage, it can be very easy to fall off the platform and lose a life, especially if you run into flying pigs. There are three checkpoints, but the section following the third checkpoint is long and tricky. Trial and error is often necessary, and even then, you may still end up dying a lot. Needless to say, it will take a lot of practice in order to complete this level.

As with my last list, the challenges mentioned here can be quite difficult, and sometimes, downright frustrating. Some of them can be overcome easily with enough practice, while others can take forever to beat, even if you have completed them before. Often, they either bring a nice challenge to games that are easy as a whole, or they emphasize why a particular game is so hard to begin with. Only by beating these tasks can people get the most out of these games. I have beaten all of these challenges, and I will always enjoy doing so again and again. The folks at Rareware are quite good at coming up with hard tasks, and I would love to see what they might have up their sleeves next.