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Let's face it seasons 1&3 were TOO difficult and S4,6,7 and 8 were TOO easy. There were many harsh deaths in S1 and 3, whilst S4,S7 and S8 (although i like them alot) saw a majority of teams get to level 3 (albeit with two teams getting a shortcut in S8).
only S2 and S5 had the right balance when it came to difficulty in my books.
Forget how good the graphics were
forget how good the characters/storylines were
forget how good the puzzles were etc...
Which was the best season in terms of DIFFICULTY.

Yes, S2 was probably the right balance.

However, S1 was actually very easy. The reason only one team did particularly well was simply because nobody had ever seen the series before and they didn't really know what they were doing.

yes, although it did have a good balance if you think about it- 2 out the 13 teams triumphed. thats a ratio of 1 in every 6.5 teams. Even though S4 was very easy the ratio of winning teams was still 1 in 8.
From that perspective S2 looks very easy.
I think S5 is best in terms of difficulty. Out of 9 teams only one triumphed. This is the highest ratio of all the winning seasons. What i'm trying to say is that I like a hard season but i dont like an impossible season. One winner per year out of about 8-10 teams is a nice amount.
S2= 1 in 6.5
S4= 1 in 8
S6= 1 in 7
S7= 1 in 3.5 ( very, very easy)
S8= 1 in 7
Also there was a good splattering of deaths in both L1 and L2. This was good.

Statistics aren't everything. And I don't think s5 was difficult at all. For instance, if you watch the third level on the winning quest you'll find only TWO obstacles the whole way through - the fight with Aesandre and the final causeway. Pushover.

Series 1, 2 and 3 were truly difficult...

There a quite a few areas of difficulty in Km, to name a few:
obstacles, puzzles, riddles, role play and navigation

I think the difficulty of riddles was a fair amount harder in earlier series. However, for me, role play and puzzles became quite tricky in later series. So this perhaps evens this out a little. Overall I think series 3 was the most difficult as this had a fair doseage of everything! Not one poor dungeoneer survived in '89.

Well one did, but that was only because the season expired while he was still questing.

Hmm, I think series 1 was a bit tricky - especially at the beginning. Some of the riddles were quite taxing, imo. Series 3 had some toughies as well - they were the undoing of the potential winning teams. Were it not for those, they would have won, I think.

Series 3 did have a lot of variation and a large variety of tasks. I think, therefore, that this series is the most difficult.

Series 3 is a toughy one I've seen... You need 100% to get to level 3, failure to do so and well... you can guess why if you come across a broken bridge soon after meeting Merlin...

I forgot about that team , saved by Treguard in the nick of time. Who knows how that quest would have ended, guess we'll never know....

I don't think they would've won. They were an okay team, but I don't think they had the mark of champions, although it's sad that they never got the chance to prove me wrong. Same with the last team of S2, not a bad side but not winners. The team I really feel sorry for in those terms is Giles' team from S4.

They earned a FLIGHT spell before the shift occured, my guess is that they would have had the same situation as Team 13 of Series 2 had...

S1 was actually very easy. The reason only one team did particularly well was simply because nobody had ever seen the series before and they didn't really know what they were doing.
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This is a very interesting point. I dont actually agree that it was very EASY- but Hstorm was right-teams did make a lot of basic mistakes, obviously because S1 teams had never seen a prior season of KM and didn't fully know what to expect. They didn't know the ins & outs of the greater game. Season 1 was a season of precedents and lessons were learned by latter teams.

Team 2 : made perhaps the MOST basic mistake of all. Ironically, having answered all 3 riddles correctly in the L1 clueroom they somehow contrived to pick only 1 item. This led to their death. This was never repeated by a later team.
Teams 4& 5 : basically these two teams died because they took they left-hand path when they weren't supposed to. The principle of taking the right-hand portal (unless advised otherwise) was learned by most teams later on.
Team 6: the 1st team ever to get to level 3 died because they choose the path of aggresionby taking a dagger from the clueroom. This was a powerful precedent. Latter teams rarely took offensive weapons (unless advised otherwise). Having said that it was the end of the season and they may not have been able to win anyway.

HStorm wrote:The team I really feel sorry for in those terms is Giles' team from S4.

Agreed, and I strongly suspect Giles and team would've won given sufficient time for their quest. The only stumbling block would've possibly been Dooreen, where you apparently needed 3 out of 3 answers to proceed. They'd done all the tricky challenge bits and had their spell for defeating Mogdred.

Incidentally, can anyone can tell me WHERE it was mentioned in the show that you needed 1 answer to pass on level 1, 2 in level 2, and all 3 in level 3? I've watched all the episodes several times without spotting it, although it's mentioned in the series guide on the main site.

Probalby a variation on Series 3 where although you needed one riddle to pass they asked 3 riddles in level 1, 2 in level 2 and 1 in level 3.

Therefore - you needed a 33% record in Level 1, 50% in level 2 and 100% in level 3 (and that was only basic competancy)