The symbol levels are definitely significantly more challenging than the rest of the base game. But they’re more challenging in an annoying way, not a difficultly one.
The only two that really made me raise my blood pressure were the lava stage in square and the beat stage in X, and both of those were issues of the game’s timing more than anything else (for example, I’d land on a spot that I just hit with the rubber duck spray and the screen showed cooled lava ground, but the game timing registered me hitting the lava first).
The Grand Master challenge was a pain in the ass but mostly because I felt it was the only one long enough to warrant a checkpoint at the middle. The regular symbol levels are short enough that starting over, while annoying, isn’t too bad. But the final challenge is much longer and failing right at the end of that one is soul crushing.
Regardless, Jaffe needs to either git gud or just admit he won’t rescue every bot. If my 47 year old ass can do it, he can too.