I'm sure I've told this story more than a few times here, but...
Solar Jetman on NES is a physics simulator disguised as an action game. Fly around while fighting against gravity, and collect fuel. Brutal hard and a lack of lives makes for a damn hard game. The final level takes about an hour if you know what you are doing, where to go, and know how to tow warp holes around. Getting there is a struggle all of it's own, but that last hour-long level is incredibly brutal.
Your reward for beating that level is the legendary Golden Warship you've been collecting parts of all game long. The Legendary Golden Warship is supposed to be the ultimate jetpod, far better than whatever you had. The Legendary Golden Warship does NOT have shields like your other jetpods, and will NOT bounce off of walls like your other jetpods. Instead, touching a wall in the Legendary Golden Warship causes it to blow up and you die. And since there is only ONE Legendary Golden Warship, that's instant game-over.
Now, to turn your shields on or off in your other jetpods involves pressing up or down on the d-pad, since turning is entirely controlled by the left and right, and you use your thrusters to move around. Starting the last part with the Legendary Golden Warship, you will see your shields are down. So, if you instinctively try to raise your shields, you'll end up flying into a wall and dying. Because unlike every other jetpod, the Legendary Golden Warship controls like a SHMUP game.
Oh, and the in-game passwords do not save your money and current items, only current jetpod and level. So if you wanna just start on the final level, you'll be mostly crippled without all the power-ups you would have at that point. So if you do die in the Golden Warship, you'll probably have to start all over again from the very beginning.
Worst part was beating it years later on emulator and seeing just how shitty the ending was. All that suffering for bullshit.