This guide was developed over the course of one month, wherein I logged my progress toward the "Golden" achievement, level by level. Over 12,000 words and 240 hours later, I managed to earn all gold in the three main Solo tabs. Thank you to everyone who stuck with me through the journey. I couldn't have done this without you.



Like many fans of N++, I grew up playing N during the flash game era. It's a game that stands the test of time, for sure. After beating every level in v2.0 last year, I decided to torture myself a little more by buying the sequel. "A little more," meaning days of cumulative time spent earning the most difficult Steam achievement I've gunned for. I suppose I made a good investment.

In this guide, I'm going to highlight every all-gold challenge from the three main tabs that took me over 100 attempts and discuss what made them difficult for me. I'll describe my strategies here and there, but I ain't here to provide a detailed walkthrough on the "Golden" achievement. I'm writing this for fun, to bask in the pain we all feel when playing this game. This also isn't an exhaustive list of every tough challenge in N++, so don't get angry if I neglect to mention a level you struggled with. Chances are I had plenty of trouble with it, just not enough to earn a spot on the list.

And lastly: this guide spoils certain aspects of the game in passing, so click away if you'd rather discover things for yourself. If you're still here after all of that, just brew yourself a cuppa and enjoy the show.

This tab marks the beginning and end of my journey toward Golden. These levels mean a lot to me, and I didn't mind the effort that a lot of them took. The Ultimate tab may have had more difficult levels in total, but I feel that the peaks of this tab are a lot sharper, so let's go over the ones that gave me the most trouble.

I hate that I need to start the guide with this level due to my own stupid rules. Let's get this out of the way: it did not take me 153 attempts to earn all gold here. Most of those attempts were spent on the challenge, G++T++. I did this partially out of spite, because I dislike this level and never want to play it again, but mostly because I wanted to unlock A-19's secret level. In retrospect, it would've been way smarter if I did the challenge in "fragments of a shattered direction" instead.

Even if I didn't do the challenge, "ono-sendai" would've been my second-most attempted level in A-row. The level design is obnoxious since the gaps between the slopes negate your momentum unless you jump in annoyingly specific ways. This is especially noticeable in the gold pit, where quick movement is essential to avoiding the rockets and escaping over the walls of mines. This stage seriously chafes me, so let's move on before I get too upset.



Alright, now we can talk about a properly difficult level. You might expect the A-row to be pretty simple and, aside from a few minor snags, you'd be right — until you reach the final level of the row, "away in a mangler." This stage serves as the first test of whether you're up to the task of collecting all the gold.

The biggest problem with this level is its length. The solution is as simple as it seems: wall-jump into the gold. Again, and again, and again. Of course, that's easier said than done. Every jump into the arena below could either get you killed by the zap drones or fall damage. You have to touch the walls on the side of the pit every time. You could fall into the slopes and risk dying via impact, or you could hug the walls and risk getting zapped. There's no easy way around this.

Things become more stressful once you release the deathballs. By now, you've ideally collected most of the gold, but you still have to hit the door switch and the final piece of gold. It's very easy to crumble under the pressure here, especially if the deathballs collide near you.

A lot of my struggles with this one probably came from inexperience, since I earned all gold in the A-row much earlier than the others. Still, I consider it a strong wake-up call for beginners.

This one's pretty irritating. To get the gold in the alcoves, you have to hit the switches to drop the barriers, except this also unleashes rocket and gauss turrets on your tight ninja ass. The rest of the gold isn't difficult to obtain, it just takes a while — but that raises a big dilemma. Do you collect the hard gold first and grab the rest while being hunted down by the turrets, or take half a minute to collect the easy gold every attempt?

I ended up doing the latter, though I took a few dozen attempts to practice reaching the alcoves. That's probably why this level ended up on the list. It's a relatively simple level compared to some of the others, but still rather exhausting.



Another row-ending level. Scramble through all the gold while being chased by deathballs and avoiding lasers through one-way platforms. It's about as miserable as it sounds.

Like many tough levels, this one's all in the route. Mess up one step and your run is pretty much dead. With how precise it can be to grab all the gold in each cluster, that's a rough penalty to deal with. Furthermore, losing the run is sometimes completely out of your control. That's because of the deathballs. It's impossible to predict when and how they'll collide, making their positions effectively random. Sometimes there will be a deathball right where you want to jump and there's next to nothing you can do to prevent that.

The attempts thankfully go by pretty quick, so this one's not terribly difficult. Once you know your route, it's just a matter of executing it properly and hoping luck doesn't screw you over.

There are quite a few tough levels in the N++ C-row, with "polyrhythmic pit" probably being the easiest one that made it on the list. The only reason this took over 100 attempts is that I'm an idiot. Half of the attempts came from my first playthrough of the game. I remember doing the avoidance challenge to reach the gold room, but then I guess I didn't collect all the gold?? Good job, past me. By the time I came back for G++, I completely forgot how to beat this level, forcing me to relearn the route from scratch. Each visit took around 60 attempts, hence my final tally.

I don't have anything further to write about this level, other than I completed the only secret challenge (G++T--) by accident. That was kinda funny.



This one screwed me over for a while. The problem lies with all the gold on the right — as you might expect, it's a trap. Rushing in from the gap on the right flips a trap switch that locks a single piece of gold behind that floating column with the floorchaser. No, you have to jump on the bounceblock without mines beneath it and slip into the gold room that way. Clever buggers.

From there, you have two options: collect the gold with a floorchaser and deathball on your tail, or enter the gold room twice, locking away the floorchaser on your revisit so you only have to deal with the deathball. That's what I did, though I had trouble escaping the room a second time. I couldn't take the spring twice in a row, so I either had to wall-jump on the bounceblock without touching the mines or launch myself through the gap on the right. Both methods got me killed plenty of times, and I probably should've just learned to deal with the deathball and floorchaser concurrently, but whatever.

Beyond that, collecting the gold in the middle of the stage can be stressful with the deathball circling beneath you, and the last jump into the door is borderline sadistic. There are definitely worse death traps at the ends of other levels, but this one still stung whenever I lost to it.



I remember "earthdate 2264" being the first level I got stuck on during my casual playthrough. Unsurprisingly, getting all the gold didn't make it any easier.

There's a lot to unpack here, so let's dissect the process. There are three lines of gold to collect at the beginning; however, I only have enough time to collect the first two because of the laser turret. From here, I have to rush down to the switches at the bottom-left and make it back up in time to meet the cycle for the laser. Having a route here helped, though I still died to the micro drones rather frequently. Then I have to hit the exit switch, the third row of gold, and then the additional switch, in that order. This raises the gate in front of the right-most piece of gold but also puts trap doors around the exit switch, so it's important to follow this pattern.

Then comes the hard part. Dealing with the rocket turret in the right-most room is a massive pain in the ass. I found the two pieces of gold beside the turret to be particularly obnoxious. And, of course, slipping between the micro drones with a rocket on your tail takes precise timing and skill. Thank god the deathball never comes into play; I'm sure that's a can of worms I'll deal with if I ever try to earn all the secrets (I won't).



I see this one often cited as a notorious stage in the all-gold grind, though I found "earthdate" to be tougher. Regardless, it took me plenty of attempts, so let's talk about it.

The first thing "nonplusplussed" demands from the player is some thorough planning. Triggering the wrong toggle mines can make some of the gold inaccessible; not to mention, your eyeballs will melt if you try to focus on all the micro drones, so having a reliable route will save you a lot of pain. Of course, all the routing in the world can't save you if you're bad at avoiding rockets.

A lot of people seem to struggle with the "rockets through one-way platforms" gimmick — it also seems to be a huge sticking point for "championship lode runner" — but I guess I've been desensitized to this stuff. After the horrors of Nv2, challenges like this feel like preschool. There are levels from that game I still see in my nightmares:



What I'm saying is that it takes practice. It helps to know that you can perform tiny hops in this particular level without moving onto the platforms above you. Once you've got the rocket under control, you only have to avoid the micro drones... which is still pretty difficult. Hey, that's why having a route helps.

I put off this level for a really long time. The N++ D-row was one of the first rows I tackled in the all gold grind, yet it took me the entirety of Legacy and most of the other two tabs to finish it. I avoided this level knowing it would be hell. I watched countless video guides, took advice from the community Discord — did everything short of actually playing the level since I wanted to save that experience for stream. I should've known that all the mental prep in the world wouldn't save me from the excruciating reality of "go fish."

This level was six straight hours of dread — a malignant belief of personal failure that lingered right up until I beat the level. The stage combined all of my worst fears related to this game: abstract level design, lengthy objectives, and... well, boostpads. Drones are the common meme thrown at me when discussing "things I'm bad against," and I'm definitely not great at reading their cycles, but boostpads are the one object I truly can't work with. I screw up half the damn time I use these things, and this level forced me to become an expert with them. This wasn't just a trial by fire; it was a trial by raging volcanic inferno.

Due to the length of the level, a lot of people have surprisingly low attempt counters on this level, but I needed all the attempts I could get to become acquainted with the boostpads. The first few jumps toward the middle of the stage require exemplary air control; if you trigger the wrong toggle mine without collecting the right amount of gold in that same jump, the run instantly dies. After taking 200 attempts to get used to the middle jumps, I needed several hundred more to forge routes for each of the sides. Runs would take up to six or seven minutes due to all the air stalling and pause buffering I'd do to align trajectories in my mind that would weave between the mines, land on a safe slope, and hopefully snag a few pieces of gold on the way down. Triggering the wrong mines would make some pieces of gold nigh inaccessible, a burden that only made the end of the run that much more stressful.

I admit that I'm a pretty emotional person when I play games, but I've never had a level make me feel helpless in this way. In a self-preserving effort to reduce my stress, my mind felt like it was withering away from my nerves, I had to take a break at one point because my brain refused to focus on anything, no matter how hard I tried. I definitely pushed myself too far, but that manic desire for closure kept me hooked like an animal on the scent of blood. This level terrifies me even more after I beat it. I've done some screwed-up things in games, but this challenge stands above the rest as the one thing I would never subject myself to again.



Compared to the level, the rest of the N++ D-row doesn't put up a whole lot of resistance when it comes to G++. I almost got through the rest of the row without needing to add anything to the list, but I guess I'm too much of a dumbass to do anything impressive.

Sure, the jumps in this level are sorta precise, but my impatience caused this to take way more attempts than it should've. I couldn't backtrack into the gold like a normal person; I kept jumping toward the lasers like an absolute pillock, causing most of my attempts to end within three seconds. I played cautiously at the end of the level anyway, so it's not even like I have a good time on the leaderboard to show for my effort. I'm just an idiot.

Alright, this one barely counts. I poured a ton of attempts into this level back when I cared about Hardcore mode. It's the last level in the 08 column and I wanted to make sure I wouldn't choke on it. I never got around to finishing all the Hardcore Stories, so this'll be the only level on the list with this sort of excuse. I've got nothing else to say here, other than I suck at avoiding drones. That's why I needed to practice this stage in the first place.



A deceptively tricky level. Nabbing all the gold from beneath the watchful eye of the gauss turret is difficult enough, requiring some precise angles to weave between the mines without lingering in the crosshairs for too long. However, the game throws an additionally cruel curveball at the player by hiding two pieces of gold beneath the floorchasers by the door. I'd be angrier if it wasn't so damn clever.

Collecting these pieces of gold takes some sharp wall-jumping skills to avoid both the floorchasers and the rockets, which — oh yeah, there's also a rocket turret firing at you within cramped quarters. Realistically, the rest of the run is free once you've taken care of the floorchasers and the gauss turret, but hell if the section in the bottom-left didn't feel stressful after all of that.



This may have taken the same amount of attempts as "infiltration system," but this level's notably easier. As usual, I'm just a bit of an idiot.

Here's how the level is supposed to work: the switches on the right side of the screen, starting from the bottom, the top, and then the second from the top, unlock the big cage of gold by the door. The switch next to all that gold allows the laser beneath it to move up and down, allowing the player to collect the last line of gold beneath it.

However, you can still collect the gold while the laser is on top of it. It's just a really close shave. Since I play terribly under pressure, I opted to make this difficult jump at the start of the level instead of collecting the gold at the end — a feat that still isn't easy, since the laser moves quickly and by now you'll have a rocket chasing after you. Similar to "a mild stroboscopic effect," I lost half of my attempts within the first five seconds, though I'd say I made things easier on my psyche in the long run.



The breakdown of my attempts on this level looks something like this: a third of my attempts died on the first two jumps, another third died during the top-left section, and the last third died to miscellaneous bullcrap like fall damage or running into a mine.

Like another level we're about to talk about, the length of the stage really draws out the difficulty here, especially since the hardest part of the level is at the end. I can't even tell you how I finally got out of the top-left section alive. I could barely think of manipulating the rockets in such a dense minefield.

But this isn't the level y'all want to hear about. No, you want to hear about THE LEVEL. Alright, let's talk about it.



It always feels like the levels I know will be difficult end up crumpling a lot faster than I expect. I can't pretend I'm not a little proud of my attempt counter here, even though I did this level in the most cowardly way imaginable.

Normally, after making your way down the stage and hitting all the switches, you'd have to make a mad dash into all the gold at the bottom and get through the perilous finale with a line of zap drones hot on your trail. It's barely doable if you're going as fast as possible. That is, assuming you try to make the fastest cycle.

After hitting the third switch, you can stand there and wait for the zap drones to hit the gate and come back. It takes around half a minute. Once they're going back to the chamber they started in, you can jump down and wrap up the level without having to worry about the drones at all. Yeah, everything else about the level is still difficult, but this makes the most stressful part significantly easier. Thank god I nabbed the gold on top of the door on my first try, too.

This is an awkward one to start with because I got all gold here way before most other levels in this guide. At the time, I wanted an all-gold badge in at least one episode from every row. I failed to recognize that there were several easier episodes to choose from in the N++ X-row.

So, yeah, I don't remember a whole lot about this level. The cramped design led to many quick deaths, though I can't tell you whether the stage was actually difficult or if I just sucked at the time. Maybe it was foreshadowing how much trouble mini drones would give me throughout the rest of this row. Either way, let's move on.



This one's a rather underrated menace in the all gold grind. Four pieces of gold, and they're all annoying in some way or another. The slope jump onto the thwumps and the piece of gold behind the mines caused a handful of deaths each. However, the final piece of gold steals the show. You have to either collect the gold while the door is closed and ride the thwump back out of the room, or propel yourself up with enough momentum to go over the door while it's open. The latter method jacked up my "success" counter, as you can see. I attempted a fair share of strategies, and that experimentation resulted in this level earning a spot on the list. I simply couldn't get anything to work.



For a level like "ai ant colony," you probably don't need to look at the gold to understand why it's difficult. I had over 100 attempts on this beast before I even thought of going for Golden. In a way, my current attempt counter makes me proud that I've gotten better at the game, but that pride certainly didn't make things any easier.

Thankfully, one thing you can always lean on with this level is the cycle. It's a tight cycle for sure, where a second of hesitation can be the difference between life or death. In a game as precise as N++, however, one second is pretty generous. Using certain mini drones as cues helps to etch quick paths through the level, something that becomes especially important when going for the gold at the top of the stage. Not having to think about your landing — simply knowing you will land safely — helps you to focus on your air control, to nab those pesky gold pieces all the way in the top corners. That sort of knowledge doesn't help with the ending, though. Even with close to 250 hours of experience, I still flail my way up the column and pray I don't get zapped.



There were plenty of levels that people warned me about when I began the N++ X-row. For levels like "operator overload" and "the cave near infinity point," I didn't struggle too much. For "eye of the ninja," however, maybe I should've listened to the warnings a little more closely.

"Cruel" would be the right way to describe this level. The concept of backtracking through a stage has been done before, but rarely in such a sadistic manner. Every toggle mine, every door switch and exit switch serves to make the return trip as obnoxious as possible. The mere design of the stage tilts me, the corridors being just narrow enough to make maneuverability a pain.

Let's go over the highlights, shall we? The rocket turret at the top of the stage fires at you on the way back, requiring you to avoid the toggle mines in the area beneath it to ensure your escape. The mini drone column is significantly harder on your way back due to your limited ability to swerve while descending, meaning you have to avoid the toggle mine at the bottom on your way up. Except, oops — that jump is extremely precise even while you're moving up. And don't even get me started on the jump between the mines on the slope. You either lack the momentum to get yourself over the open door or lack the control to properly land yourself on the slope. I came to expect failure from this level, accepting that every run would be a waste of time until the miraculous attempt when it wasn't.



Hey, I needed to fill the drone level quota somehow. Except this isn't actually a drone level. It's a rocket avoidance level with drones that act as a timer. I'm kinda embarrassed that this made it onto the list, though I'm not sure I can blame myself. Those gold jumps are tricky, and wall-jumping in the wrong ways can make some of the gold inaccessible without some extremely tough corner jumps off of the shove-thwumps. The ending is also very chokeable; hitting the wrong corner on your way down can send you careening into the mines. None of this makes for too big of an issue if you go in with a plan, but I suppose I had a difficult enough hurdle ahead of me to make this level much of a priority.



I enjoyed routing this one. I'm usually pretty safe with the strats I develop, though for this level I went in with abandon and tried to cleave the quickest way through the stage. Sure, it resulted in a lot of failed attempts early on, though I quickly began getting numerous attempts close to the end. This also made the deathball positions quite consistent on my return trip, allowing me to take things a little bit more carefully. They weren't exactly the most consistent when it came to escaping the gold pit and getting to the exit, though at that point I had enough good attempts that it was only a matter of time before luck swung my way. All in all, this was a fun penultimate challenge for the tab.



Here we are, the big bad final level of the N++ X-row. I underestimated this level a bit when I started all gold since it didn't take long for me to beat casually. I changed my tune pretty quick. The gold turns this stage into a three-minute gauntlet of rocket avoidance, where one mistake or unexpected outcome can send you back to the start. The ideal route contains several tight mine-jumps and complicated manipulation strategies to get the rocket out of the way just long enough for you to nab the gold.

Coming up for a route here chiseled away at my patience. Every time I practiced a different part of the labyrinth, I'd find a new area I wanted to put at the start of the run. Nearly every cache of gold felt like a run-killer. Crashing into the mines, missing the one-way platforms, or simply getting blown up by the rocket always felt like a possibility. I had to consider those threats with every maneuver, every split second of gameplay. There were rarely any moments of reprieve.

Yet, despite how difficult it was, despite how exhausted and bitter it made me, I felt unbelievably satisfied when I finally took it down. This may not be the last level on the list, but it was the last level I beat to earn the "Golden" achievement. This was the culmination of over a month of effort, and I don't think I could've asked for a better way to wrap things up.

This tab comes after Ultimate in the Solo menu, but it was released before the Ultimate Edition so I'm talking about it now. It's well-known that this tab doesn't have many challenging levels compared to the others, with a few brutal exceptions. A-row and B-row had no levels that took over 100 attempts, thankfully, so let's skip straight to C-row.

I came this close to having a trifecta of rows with nothing to talk about but, as mentioned before, I'm too stupid to pull off anything impressive.

The gimmick of "ninja's first rush job" is to hurry to the top of the stage before the zap drones close off your escape. In the context of an all-gold run, that's would be kind of difficult, except I don't think the drones actually make it impossible to squeeze past them. I just couldn't time it for the life of me, so I spent way more attempts than necessary perfecting the movement at the beginning so I could slip past them while they were moving up. Half of my runs died after the first jump and, like with "a mild stroboscopic effect," I couldn't get a good time on the leaderboard to show for my suffering. For the sake of my pride, let's pretend I threw for content on this level.

D-row is where the Legacy tab starts to wake up. Sure, the levels here pale in comparison to some of the horrors in the X-row, though "pincer movement" still puts up a formidable challenge by testing a set of skills that aren't often used in N++.

Thwumps are far from the most common or deadly object in the game, resulting in a sense of unfamiliarity that the level takes advantage of. To nab the gold in this level, you either have to land on the thwumps while they're moving or jump from on top of them. Timing a jump onto a small moving object isn't easy, and jumping from that moving object, adjusting to the momentum that often propelled me into the mines, is even trickier.

Thankfully, there are a few ways to expedite the process. I found a consistent setup that allowed me to fall into most of the gold on the left and land safely. You can also collect the gold at the top of each side without touching the thwumps, though all of this is easier said than done. The thwumps can be aggravating to avoid, especially considering your platforms are bounceblocks, and I choked at the end several times. Overall, with how breezy the prior Legacy levels were, "pincer movement" is a stern reminder of how ruthless this game can be.



My lack of skill against drones definitely accounts for a fraction of the effort it took to complete this, though I'd like to think I'm not just terrible and that this level is rather tough. Finding a good route through all the gold in this stage was exhausting; whenever I felt like I found a safe path, I'd end up dying five seconds later anyway. I kept getting squashed between the drones and floorchasers, especially in the middle ring of the stage. No matter which path I took first, I'd almost always get screwed on the way back.

I don't have anything else to add, since the difficulty speaks for itself and there's no fancy tech to make it any less troublesome. You just have to stay persistent until you've paved yourself a route that works.



Another example of how bad I am against drones. This level felt longer than the attempts show due to how damn careful I had to be. It's easy enough to wall-jump up the columns in the middle, but then you have to tackle the sides, which have twice as many drones swimming through the spaces you need to squeeze through. Twelve pieces of gold have never felt so daunting to collect.

Your route is pretty important, as I've reiterated with plenty of other levels, though I found that my route fell apart whenever I finished cleaning one side of the stage. I wish I could offer a coherent strategy for how I pulled this off, but I kinda just dove in and screamed internally whenever I got near the end of a run. Felt satisfying when I finally did it, though.

...Oh, and you're probably wondering why my "success" counter is so high. Well, I'm impatient. My route jumped over the exit door after falling down from the top, so I'd occasionally win by accident. Those shenanigans netted me an accidental time on the leaderboard, so I'll take it.

I got all of the gold in the Legacy E-row in one sitting and, god, my performance really shows how tired I must've been. I've played several dozen levels like this before, yet this one seemed determined to stump me. I couldn't seem to get a route going past the exit switch — the evil ninjas and drones wouldn't let me escape the alcove on the right side. With a little more thought, I'm sure I could've come up with a sensible route and cut that attempt counter in half, but that obviously didn't happen. I'm embarrassed, let's just move on.



Okay, I can at least understand how I got stuck here. My piss-poor skill against drones doesn't clash well with a gold pattern that requires you to jump into drone clusters several times. The gold also gave me tunnel vision on my route, causing me to miss incredibly easy jumps a lot of the time. A third of my attempts died simply due to me not paying attention to my character.

The level speaks for itself, but what I want to focus on is my final time, which managed to nab tenth place on the leaderboard. I have no idea how that happened. I guess it would explain why this level took a while, but playing hasty seemed like the only reasonable way to win. Lingering around kept getting me trapped and killed. I mean, playing like this got me the highest ranked time I have in the game, so I'll take it.



I'm so angry that this made it onto the list. This should've taken, like, 20 attempts, yet a mix of awful routing, lack of attentiveness, and a tour de force of choke artistry kept me in this bloody stage for what felt like hours (even though it obviously wasn't). I literally lost around five runs at the end by crashing into the drones. Not the chaser drones; one of the ordinary zap drones. One of three predictable drones moving slowly in a fixed pattern through a wide-open space. I died to them so many times. Why am I like this?

The level "b-cakes" serves to remind us that the biggest weakness of the rockets is just as much of a strength in the right scenario. Their slow turning speed, normally used to manipulate each rocket around the player, makes for a big problem in these steadily shrinking boxes, as the limited area of movement and mines on the wall only lay you up for the next missile to fire directly at you. This creates a delicate balancing act between keeping the rocket from crashing when you don't want it to and making sure it crashes when you need it to. A single mistake in either direction causes the run to fall apart.

My flowery language might make it seem like I love the level, but I find it gets rather annoying toward the end. Squeezing into that last box requires the perfect amount of speed to get past the door, but enough restraint not to jump straight into the rocket. I wouldn't call it a precise jump. I'd call it rigid.



This just in: I still hate drones. I also don't appreciate being stuffed in a cramped box the size of my prison cell. Combine the two, and you've got a pretty frustrating level.

To be fair, I found the movement for this level to be fascinating. Perp jumps are fun even in the most awkward of scenarios. To be unfair, I only liked it because of psenough's video which carefully walked through his route and saved me the hassle of pioneering my own. Hey, path of least resistance. It clearly didn't stop the level from being frustrating, but it probably halved what my attempt counter would've been otherwise.

Also, I absolutely got destroyed by the gauss turret after getting the gold in the box. Several times.



From what I recall, the Legacy X-row has several long and narrow minefield levels, because you know you're playing a difficult game when you tell yourself "all I have to do is make this pixel-perfect jump six times in a row and I'll win."

I'm not sure what to say about this level that it doesn't say for itself. Hit the jumps at the exact angle and speed to squeeze between the floorchasers and the mines. Jumping over top of the floorchasers is much harder than simply landing in front of them so, naturally, every jump after the first two requires you to do that. Ensue hundreds of explosions and electrical shocks.



Oh hey, another minefield with narrow jumps. This one’s easier than “crunch timing” due to the lack of floorchasers, though it demands far more consistency due to the length of the level.

Oddly enough, the jumps didn’t feel like they got harder as the level went on. I died way more to the second row than, say, the fourth row. I even made it to the bottom on a handful of fluke runs, but it wasn’t until I had truly built up my consistency that I was able to gather the nerve to make the final leap.



I didn’t see this level in the common suspects for “hard Legacy levels” — I guess I need an eye exam because there are a ton of videos for it — so I got clapped pretty hard here. “Mazer” is a brutal level, with a long and winding route that made every attempt feel like a sinkhole. Ultimate Edition had a similarly tough level in “sigma structure symphony,” and the grind here felt just as torturous.

Mentality probably had a lot to do with how long this took me. Every time I snagged a mine, curved the missile in an unpredictable way, or clipped past the one-way platforms (it happened annoyingly often), I felt a piece of my soul leave my body, especially with how many runs got close to the end and fell short. Of course, that made it all the more satisfying when my winning attempt accidentally clipped outside the maze near the end, yet I still pried victory from the jaws of defeat. Of course, this level's merely a taste of things to come in the scope of rocket-based challenges, but that taste was pretty damn sour regardless.



Another opportunity to laugh at how bad I am against drones. I’m running out of things to say, aside from “I crashed into the drones a lot and it sucked.” I eventually developed a route that nabbed all the gold on the bottom and the three pieces beneath the exit switch (probably the hardest pieces of the lot) but then I’d keep choking on the rest. Naturally, the design of the stage also makes escaping from hairy situations a pain, usually getting you caught on a bounceblock or splatting you against the ground.

Erm, and the level has a funny name, I guess. I don’t even know who Chuck Close was, only that he died recently. Rest in peace, dude.



The final evolution of the “narrow mine-jumper level.” Sure, this took fewer attempts than “crunch timing,” but these attempts took a lot longer. Now, you’ve gotta deal with tight jumps, moving platforms, and a deathball hot on your trail. It’s a really fun level, no sarcasm.

Unfortunately, I got held up for a while on a bad idea. The gold inside the wall at the end of the third row screwed with my head. I guess I thought I couldn’t jump into it like all the others because I’d slide up the wall (even though that’s not how N works), so I was trying to gently wall-kick into the gold from the switch. It never worked.

In contrast, there’s a cool wall jump you can pull off in the last row that collects the last line of gold, skims over the top of the deathball, and lands on top of the thwump just before it pulls back out of reach. Stuff like that reminds me of why I love the “floaty” controls in this game, despite the negative connotation that description entails.

And there it is. The flagship of difficult levels in the Legacy tab. This was my first experience with a proper “boss” stage in the G++ grind and it was monstrous. Levels like “mazer” and “around the world in 80 ways” took similar amounts of time to complete, but “robot heaven” demonstrated an overwhelming density in its difficulty. The concept of “breathing room” hardly exists in this stage.

I’d say I needed the first 500 attempts or so to become familiar with my comfort zone. Playing this level can feel like ramming your head against a brick wall, so you’ll need a while to learn what angles will break the wall without breaking you. For me, I couldn’t get the “drone stacking” method to work, so I moved on before I could invest a sunk cost into the strategy. Going for the bottom-left corner early seemed to work, but I would still rarely get runs past the halfway point, so I decided to pivot. Then I found a method to reach the top-left and bottom-left corners in one rush. It wasn’t entirely consistent, but it was consistent enough to give me enough good attempts that one eventually stuck.

That mix between adaptability and consistency turns challenges like these from improbable to probable. This level got me excited for the remaining hurdles in the all-gold grind, and it might have just gotten me interested in pursuing 100% as well.

...Let me not make any promises, though.



I find it hilarious that I got warned from half a dozen sources about "pinnacle," but not a single person warned me about this monstrosity of a level. Maybe we should share notes sometime because I can’t see any perspective through which this is the easier level of the two.

This is a massively underrated killer in the all-gold grind and my pick for the second hardest level in the Legacy tab. That being said, it’s also so damn sick. Ricocheting off of bounceblocks to the unrelenting cacophony of gauss turret fire makes you feel like the second coming of Jesus Wick Bourne when everything goes well. Of course, it rarely ever does go well.

Here’s my advice: go for the left side first. It’s way harder. There’s one annoying piece of gold on the right side (between the second and third bounceblocks from the right) but you can repeat a low-sinking jump toward that piece and escape relatively safely for another attempt. Keyword being “relatively.” You’re never safe as long as you’re beneath the stage.



I know a lot of you gamers find this stage to be difficult, though it only took me 42 attempts to earn G++ in. Why’s it here, then? Well, because I love this stage. This single screen ranks up with the likes of Celeste Chapter 9 as one of my favourite levels in any platformer. I’m only half-decent at it because I played the hell out of it in Nv2. Beating it there was one of the first challenges I overcame in a game like this.

Out of respect for the level, I decided to play it until I had a Top 20 time on the leaderboard. This was my first time actively highscoring in N++ and, wow, I’m in pain. I don’t understand how some of you do this throughout the whole game. The attempt counter you see was what it took to barely scrape 20th (sorry, “19th”) on the leaderboard, and it’s a time that I’m sure will be beaten soon. Hell, it’ll probably be beaten by one of you reading this. I’m still glad I did it, though.

During my casual playthrough of the game, I struggled the most with the Ultimate levels. They tilted me to the point where I kinda hated this tab once I achieved base completion. Now that I've fought through the Golden gauntlet, I can say that the levels here are punishing but still quite fun and fair. With all that said, here's a showcase of the toughest Ultimate nuts to crack.

Jeez, what a way to start things off. I mean, I knew the Ultimate levels were tough casually, but that didn’t prepare me for this demon of a stage tucked in the middle of A-row, of all places. Back when I'd recently started all gold grind, this was the hardest stage I'd attempted.

The difficulty here is all in the gold placement. The lines of gold in the last two chambers are annoying enough, requiring tight jumps at very specific points in the micro drones’ flight cycles. Then we get to the last set of gold locked in the first chamber. The switch for this gold is hidden behind the exit door.

Backtracking through the level isn’t terrible as long as you collected the rest of the gold, with one nasty exception. Getting back to the second chamber from the third takes even more precision than the gold in the other chambers, and requires a drone pattern that, being so deep into the run, you might not have track of. I didn’t know about the N++ video library when I played this level, though I’m not sure it would’ve even helped me to keep track of the cycles up to this point.



That one damn piece, indeed. Of the many threats in N++, I’d say evil ninjas are one of the few I’m half-decent at avoiding. But they had to go pair them with my archnemesis, the zap drone.

My routing for this stage revolved around going as fast as I could so I could match the ninjas’ pace on the second lap without hassle. This is a surprisingly sustainable tactic up to a certain point, that point being the leftward descent on the second lap. The drone congestion here is bad enough that your run needs to bend to compensate for it. With how you’ll be jumping to collect the gold up top for your first run, it’s possible to slow down here and let the clones jump above you. This makes the rest of the level a matter of tight but doable execution.



I’ve been able to ignore the elephant in the room up until now, but I figure it needs mentioning here. My (or anybody else’s) attempt counters aren’t an accurate representation of each level’s difficulty. I’m using the “over 100” metric because it’s convenient and this guide isn’t too serious, but it opens the gate for several short and stupid levels to be included in the discussion.

Case in point: “a fate worse than a fate worse than death,” a level that broke the attempt counter of “away in a mangler,” “earthdate 2264,” and “too much is almost enough,” while taking a quarter of the time of those levels, each. A mix of short-term level design and idiocy on my behalf caused this. I kept trying to pull off the quick strat where you fall to the left and hit the switch right before the micro drone can hit you. Most of my attempts died in less than a second. Eventually, I learned a safer strat and pulled it off within, like, twenty attempts.

Ten signs you might be a sigma male!!1! Have you ever had your balls collide violently against each other and split in random directions? Then you might be the world’s rarest male, the shrigma male. Women will find your wall jumps irresistible — alright, I’m done with that bit.

This level frustrates me to no end but, at the same time, I have a ton of respect for it. Most levels in N++ can be conquered with enough careful routing and execution; this is one of few that also tests your reaction time. As mentioned earlier in this guide, it’s impossible to predict when and how the deathballs will bounce against each other. There are patterns that they fall into, however, and earning all gold in this level requires you to learn those patterns, read when openings will occur, and avoid situations that will guarantee your death.

It’s a pretty difficult skill to cultivate, and the length of the level and hazardous design of the terrain does it no favours. In the fields of the mental war, it’s a struggle to change your thought process from “too much has to go right” to “just enough has to go right.” Eventually, you’ll be able to read every outcome and bend luck into your will long enough to beat the level.



In the realm of difficult levels, “gravity’s ghost” is like that oddly quiet kid at summer camp who lets loose on the last day and turns out to be a complete sociopath. You don’t expect anything out of him until you’re the last two people playing musical chairs and he’s staring you down with a manic look in his eyes.

What I’m saying is that the level is harder than it looks. “You’ve just gotta collect the gold and wall-jump away before the lasers hit you, right?” Yeah, but there’s more to it than that. “So what, are the jumps really tight?” Yes, but there’s more to it than that. What if I told you it’s impossible to collect one of the gold lines and escape before the lasers reach you? What do you do now? How about you chimney yourself into the sky and use the two-mine wide pillar for cover, veering aside moments before you touch the mines? Welcome to the pain that is “gravity’s ghost.” Better watch out, because the music is about to stop.

The Ultimate C-row only has one major threat in the all-gold grind, and damn if it ain’t a big one. Although even more infamous for its sadistic challenges, “fleeting opportunities” still puts up a ton of resistance when it comes to good old G++.

The concept is remarkably simple: gauss turrets, narrow corridors, and zap drones. Although I love to complain about zap drones, I can’t deny that the gauss turrets steal the show here. This level is all about jumping or falling right before the turret fires, except the targeting system is so damn fickle that moving half a second early or late will lock you into a shot that is guaranteed to kill you. With enemies like rockets or deathballs, it always feels like there’s room for error beyond the margins, quirks that occasionally pardon sloppy play. There’s no such room for negotiation here. You screw up, you die.

As the title of the level entails, reaching the end is a balancing act between rushing through brief openings in the drone cycles and knowing when to take your time. If you don’t take the right opportunities, you’ll get caught in an inescapable scenario. It’s N’s classic level design at its finest, but it’s also infuriating and I hate it.

Boy, did I pick the wrong level to derust on. For context, after completing the Legacy tab, I went on a trip with no access to N++ for a week and a half. Once I got back home, I was so eager to get back into the swing of things that I tackled the Ultimate D-row, tired out of my mind and rusty as all hell. That turned out to be a mistake once I reached this level and, out of sheer stubbornness, forced myself to earn G++ in one sitting.

The micro drone chambers were bad enough to route, putting up a similar amount of resistance to "floating points" with how I spent the first hundred attempts or so devising a quick and painless way through all the gold. But the rockets took things too far. The toggle chamber seems simple enough, but it was unexpectedly difficult to pave a route that didn't make the rockets fly circles around the circumference of the room to my tasty behind. And don't get me started on how obnoxious it was to find a consistent way back down.

I can chalk up a decent amount of my attempts to rust and fatigue, but this was undeniably a beast of a level to take down. Someday I'm going to regret not doing G++T++ when I had the chance.



Thankfully, the Ultimate D-row contained nothing nearly as monstrous as "null propagation," but it still put up a fight here and now. To be honest, "tragedy plus plus time" wasn't nearly as bad as a few other levels that barely didn't break 100 attempts. Maybe I'll use that as a motivator to write up a few honorable mentions for each row sometime, but I'll stick to the rules I made for now.

This ended up being a stage where going fast took precedent over being safe. As such, most of my attempts died to the first four jumps. Hey, it got me a time on the leaderboard, unlike a few other stages I tackled in a similar way. The challenges for this level frankly look a lot more interesting than G++, so I'll leave the discussion at that. The level's about as hard as it looks, nothing more or less.



This one of those levels where most of my attempts came from my casual playthrough of the game, back when I didn't care about gold. I believe I had 78 attempts going into this challenge, which makes me proud of how much better I've gotten since then. Unfortunately, this means I don't have much to say here. Despite the name of the level, I didn't die to the ending a single time. Most of my attempts died to that pesky laser guarding the gold. Due to the rocket on my tail, I kinda just had to leap out of the pit and hope I wouldn't get zapped.

I don't have a lot to say about this level, because I don't remember much about it. All of these attempts were from my casual playthrough, where I happened to get all the gold because it was convenient. I looked back at my replay for it and, sure, it looks like a somewhat tricky evil ninja level, but I don't see why it took me 100 attempts. Exactly 100, not to mention. There are quite a few levels from the late Ultimate tab that took over 100 attempts to beat casually, so I suppose it's nice to establish that now.



I remember having trouble with this level on my casual playthrough, and the layout of the gold here naturally amplifies the initial difficulty. Despite generally being worse against rockets than gauss turrets, I found the first half of the stage to be the tougher half. Your jumping pattern on the way back puts you right in the line of fire, requiring you to occasionally stall to negate that risk. Not to mention, my initial route for the first half kind of sucked. Eventually, I reconfigured my route to get me to the bottom of the stage more consistently, and from there it was only a matter of time until I got it. Thank god I won't have to do G-- for this anytime soon.



By this point in the grind, I had begun checking the N++ video library to identify any hard levels before I played them. However, the challenge for "rocket observator" (G++T++) made videos for vanilla G++ irrelevant. When I saw merely one video in that category, I expected an easy win from this level. That obviously didn't happen.

Sure, I could've reduced my attempt counter here if I didn't let myself get blindsided, but I think this level would've given me a rough time no matter what. Micro drones plus rockets — not my ideal habitat. Thankfully, routing for this stage went a lot more smoothly than the likes of "null propagation." Hell, I didn't even need to pull off any frame-tight jumps here. Still, those micro drones do an aggravatingly good job at shutting down your rocket manips. I found myself getting stuck in those ditches an awful lot, waiting for an opening that might not get me killed. Also, I'm
too embarrassed to admit the number of times I got flung into hazards by those launchpads.



You might expect this to be an "exit from hell" situation since it's another boss stage, but it's actually a "weird gear" situation. Yeah, I got all gold in this level during my casual playthrough. Way to go, me. I didn't understand why at first, but rewatching my replay made things obvious. Stalling in the bounceblock chamber is the most consistent way to wait out all of the evil ninjas. Sure, I could've just timed a jump back down the column before another one spawned, but I played the game like a complete coward during my casual playthrough. Hell, I still play like a coward now.

Regardless, this was a brutal stage when I first played it. I imagine I could complete it today in a fraction of the attempts it took back then, though that ending would probably get me more times than I'd care to admit. I know it sure did during my casual playthrough. But, who knows, I might not have gotten G++ early if I didn't choke so often.

Starting off hot, eh? Well, not really — most of my attempts on this level came from my casual playthrough (I guess I was in a bad mood) so it's not as formidable as the numbers show. The evil ninjas at the start make for a monstrous challenge in tandem with G++, but getting all the gold normally is still quite a hassle.

There are three difficult jumps, and they're all directly above the mine layer near the ground. Wall-jumping into the lower gold and switches takes a lot of precision, yet you're forced to manipulate two rockets on top of that, making these maneuvers frustratingly inconsistent. Some of these jumps can be attempted over and over again, but time can become a real issue if you're not careful. It might be worth it to play the whole episode to scrape up some extra time before attempting this stage.



There are a lot of tough evil ninja levels in the Ultimate X-row and, for better or for worse, it gets the hardest one out of the way early. "Hardest" in the context of all gold, anyhow. "Invaded" is a brutally complex level yet, for what it's worth, I really enjoyed routing it.

I didn't remember my casual route going into this level, though I'm not sure it would've helped much. Despite how it may seem, the gold throws a heavy wrench into the route here. The gold near the top especially screws things up. To get it, you've either got to perform a stalling jump on the middle bounceblock or a powerful leap from one of the other bounceblocks. Either tactic tacks additional airtime onto your route, which becomes a problem when you have to escape through the top. Each run becomes a balancing act between leaving yourself narrow openings and moving with enough speed to collect everything and beat your shadows to the punch. With how mobile the boostpads and chimneys make you, this makes for an exhilarating challenge that feels rewarding even when you fail. Nice work, Metanet.



Behold: the hardest stage in the game. In a casual sense, anyhow. I had over 250 attempts on "thriller" before attempting all gold on it and, despite my hopes, my 200+ hours of experience hardly made it any easier. In fact, I think it made it more frustrating. This level made me want to stick a fork in an electrical socket.

"Wheaty, why didn't you just copy your route from last time?" Well, my casual route, despite getting through the level relatively quick and painlessly, skipped the gold in the column at the start. Getting that gold on the way back is far from an effortless task — a lesson I learned the hard way when a rocket followed me into the column. Thus, I had to forge a new route that accounted for the extra time I spent at the start. It, uh, wasn't fun.

A third of my runs died to the rocket turret. Squeezing into the bottom corridor without getting blown up takes an annoyingly precise wall jump, and lingering too long causes another rocket to chase you, which will likely force you to miss your cycle. The rest of my runs died to the bottom section. The square platforms here barely protect you from the lasers, requiring you to be dead center to protect you from both sides. Oh, but you aren't allowed any time to orient yourself on these blocks; the gauss turret prevents you from doing that. Hop to the tune of the sniper, and don't dare move unless the way ahead is clear. Any iota of impulsiveness is instantly punished. This utter garbage is harder than any single section of "fleeting opportunities," and I'll stand by that claim to my grave.



After clearing "invaded," I was feeling pretty confident about any remaining evil ninja levels. I think I even remember calling this stage "baby invaded" before starting it. In retrospect, I should've turned the confidence down five or six notches.

In an ironic twist of events, this level took more attempts to earn all the gold in than "invaded." The numbers may not show that, but "invaded" took me many more attempts during my casual playthrough. I still consider it the harder stage because of that, but the difference is a lot thinner than I thought. The difference in difficulty, anyhow; "you can never quarantine the past" has a unique rhythm to its design. The gauss turrets set this rhythm in place: you have to play quickly but methodically, or else you'll be screwed on the way back.

Most of my attempts were spent making granular adjustments to my route, to manipulate the turrets just enough or to leave myself a sliver of an opening between the evil ninjas. It was a far less exciting level than "invaded," but gratifying in its own way. It felt great to eventually execute the plan I developed throughout every attempt, every death helping me to learn more along the way. Well, most deaths. The occasional inconsistency of the gauss turrets was pretty irritating.



Wouldn't be me if I didn't struggle with a drone level somewhere in the row. I can't fathom the minds who can enter a stage like this and immediately process how they need to avoid the cycle. I just did the same movements until they worked. Most of my attempts died on the first three jumps, and my eventual success felt like a fluke. Can we move on? I'm tired of writing the same paragraph for each one of these stupid levels.

This is the only time I'm making a section for one episode, because it needs it. Ultimate X-19 is a monstrosity. Four out of five levels in this episode took over 100 attempts, and I'm gonna break down each one that did.



This one's easier than the other evil ninja levels I talked about from this row, but still a formidable opener to X-19. Like "invaded," part of the difficulty stems from execution relating to the gold. The gold near the ceiling requires a corner hop from the wall at the start, or a slope jump from the bottom. I went for the latter method, and over half of my attempts died to this trick. You can't just run into the slope; you have to jump into it, and isn't a very big target to jump into.

It's easy to die in a few other places, like the laser chamber on the right or the piece of gold at the beginning, though the execution becomes easier as the level progresses. I leaped off the top ledge after collecting the last piece of gold and weaved between, like, three clones into the exit, first try. That's the only acceptable way to win the level, and you can't convince me otherwise.



Alright, alright. Maybe I was exaggerating when I implied that four out of five stages in X-19 were difficult. It's still a tough episode, but this level is a meme. Why's it on the list? Well, most of the attempts happened during my casual playthrough. I tried to pull off a precise trick where you jump toward the corner when the drones reach the slope, allowing them to move past you. This is what we in the industry call "a waste of time." I can't, for the life of me, recall why I attempted this trick so many times. Outrunning the drones isn't hard at all, making this stage nothing more than a tepid mine jumper.



No more fun and games. "Clone high" was a fun concept with one or two tricky sections, and "wave of terror" hardly belongs on the list, but this stage dials up the pain. Here's the premise: platform on top of a circle while lasers fire at you for half a minute. You can't grab the sides, yet you've gotta linger there since there's a line of sight directly above the top of the circle. Does that sound fun? Obviously not; that's why I didn't do it.

There's a second method that I much preferred, though it tacked on a lot of failed attempts. For the piece of gold above the circle, most people would simply grab it and fall back down during the brief opening in the mini drone cycle. However, with enough momentum, you can launch yourself to the alcove above the circle, wall-jumping above the level until it's safe to come down. Getting up there is tough since the circle doesn't give you a lot of space to build momentum, but I preferred dying on that jump repeatedly over learning the usual route. The ending's also a lot more chokeable than it looks — a reality that YaxMin will probably never let me forget. This section is certainly not "100% free," as I thought before attempting it.



Pain.

I could just leave the description there, but maybe I should explain a bit. You see, the rest of X-19 made me exhausted going into this level. The lack of resources due to glitched replays meant I didn't have much of a route going in. All the G++ clips on the video library went into this level with extra time, and I didn't feel like breaking out a calculator just to have a potentially safe route through the end. So I made my own route. And it was painful.

I decided to get the gold in the bottom left first. This opens up one of the rocket turrets at the top, but two rockets didn't make much of a difference from one with my route. Also, I didn't feel like choking on the laser. Then we get to the top section, which embodies the meaning of "harder than it looks." The path looks straightforward, but the scarcity of bounceblocks combined with the positioning of the gold will force you to rest in the alcoves between the mines. Lines of mini drones pass through nearly every conceivable rest spot, forcing you to memorize their cycles if you want to develop a consistent route. The best way to escape the alcoves is by wall-jumping off the blocks beneath the mines, and it's extremely easy to screw these jumps up. Hitting the exit switch releases a third rocket turret, making the way back a hassle even if you've collected all the gold by now.

Getting all of this down consistently took me over three hours. After all of that, you still have to get through the ending. I don't understand how anybody could pull this section off with the gauss turret out of its cage; it's hard enough on its own. The pattern here feels so chaotic that, most of the time, I improvised out of desperation that I'd just make it. It got me surprisingly far a lot of the time, though a mini drone near the end or a laser in front of the door would always stop me. I used the timer to ensure I entered the middle at the same point in the cycle, and even then it was exceedingly stressful to develop a route through here, knowing I had so much on the line every run. This final challenge lives up to the sadistic reputation of the Ultimate tab.

Here's an obligatory list of the ten hardest levels I've earned all gold in, from hardest to easiest. Organized by personal opinion, not by number of attempts.

Hey, thanks for sticking around! I may or may not release a sequel guide on the topic of secrets, so feel free to tune back in if that sounds interesting to you. Hopefully, through the power of whining about my troubles, I can earn enough gold to retire happily and buy some games that aren't as stressful as this one. :)