Hardest video game you've ever played?

I recently discovered the beauty of emulators and have been playing some classic NES games, and i've realized how ridiculously easy games have become. 

For me, Ninja Gaiden 1. Oh my god, its not even the fact that the final demon boss is insanely difficult, but you go back like 4 stages when you die!! And you have to do this every time until you finally beat it.   I finally beat it today, and now its on to Ninja Gaiden 2, which is a bit easier, but by no means easy.

So what about you guys, what is the hardest game that you have ever played?
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
TheBeast43105 said:
I recently discovered the beauty of emulators and have been playing some classic NES games, and i've realized how ridiculously easy games have become.

For me, Ninja Gaiden 1. Oh my god, its not even the fact that the final demon boss is insanely difficult, but you go back like 4 stages when you die!! And you have to do this every time until you finally beat it. I finally beat it today, and now its on to Ninja Gaiden 2, which is a bit easier, but by no means easy.

So what about you guys, what is the hardest game that you have ever played?
I'm a master of Ninja Gaiden :guts: It's all about timing. That game pays off even more than current games when you learn the timing of everything in the levels. Makes you look like a total badass.

Anyway, in recent memory for me I'd say either Ikaruga, or Viewtiful Joe... I still can't beat either without cheating. As far as all-time hardest games... Probably mario 2: the lost levels. Or something literally impossible to beat like Ultima III.
 
There are some current gen games that are pretty tough. I can honestly say that Xbox's Ninja Gaiden Black has actually gotten me to take my rage out on an inanimate object.

Though I gotta say, current gen has nothing on some old school games. I'd like to see someone beat the original Contra without using the 20 lives cheat.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Mother fucking Jet-Moto for the playstation... perhaps it wasnt the hardest but it was fuckign annoying when you are in the fucking lead and some assfuck computer controlled whore rams you off of the fuckign mountain and by the time you get back onto the road... you are in last fucking place.... god I fucking hate that game and I wish the creators of that game to jump in a god damn fire and die.
 
The original Ghosts and Goblins was also an uber pain in the ass. On a good day I could get to level 3. Every other bad day I couldn't even get passed level 1.

I beat that game through cheating.
 
Walter said:
It's all about timing. That game pays off even more than current games when you learn the timing of everything in the levels. Makes you look like a total badass.

Couldn't have said it better myself. One of my favourite games of all time. I thought it was pretty tough the first time I played it but once you get the timing, like you said...destruction. Multiple times I've sat a played through the whole thing in one sitting just because it's that sweet to kick ass in that game.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
As far as old games go... I'd say Shadow of the Beast, especially the Megadrive version where you had no second chance and often would die in 3 seconds. You had to know everything by heart to progress in this game, and to have superhuman reflexes. Needless to say I never beat it.

Then there's Bayou Billy for the NES. I never got past level 3, and getting there was already an achievement. Walter cited The Lost Levels (Japanese SMB2) and he's right because that game's just stupidly difficult too. Even in Japan I don't think a lot of people beat the original one.

Lastly I'd like to mention a mainstream game which while wasn't unbeatable was still quite fucking hard in the later levels: Castlevania.
 
Metal Gear for the Nes. Viewpoint and Pulstar are up there as well. (90s shooters on the Neo Geo)

I agree with Walter that Ikuruga is very diffuclt but I feel like a bitch saying that when I've seen a good friend of mine go through it on one credit like it was nothing. He's like a shooter Rain Man or something though. Don't even get me started on some of the videos online of Japanese players.

Example. A Japanese guy playing through the third stage....playing BOTH players at the same time.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5967284614450127088&q=ikaruga
 

Raziel

"Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens."
I'd have to say the original Contra and Castlevania.

But one of the hardest PC games I've ever played would have to be Blood, which is near impossible to beat without using some sort of cheat; my favorite cheat though was the drunk cheat which was funnier than hell to use.
 
You people are all forgetting one of the most infuriating, frustrating, controller-smashingly toughest games of all time. BATTLE TOADS! It doesnt start out that bad but then you get to the dreaded speeder bike jumping section! Man oh man, I was young when I played it and nearly destroyed my TV, and I'm 20 now and I still cant do it. That's a tough freaking game.
 
^ I second that. That game was indeed tough.

Did anyone here beat Dr. Mario (for gameboy) by any chance? I still can't get past the 4-5th level. :puck:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
HawaiianStallion said:
BATTLE TOADS! It doesnt start out that bad but then you get to the dreaded speeder bike jumping section!

Well, I agree it was hard but I actually could get passed the speeder bike part. I don't think I ever finished it though, one of the later bosses always managed to get me.

yota821 said:
Did anyone here beat Dr. Mario (for gameboy) by any chance? I still can't get past the 4-5th level.

Was it beatable? I haven't played it in years so I can't remember, but I think it's like the A-mode in Tetris, you just keep going endlessly. I do remember however that I could get far beyond level 5.
 
I know it's beatable; of all people, my mother beat it! :isidro: I guess she played it so much in her spare time (whenever she took me to the dentist/doctor's office/soccer game/etc.) that she got pretty darn good. That's the only game my ever touched, too. :serpico:


Anyways, other hard games I can think of:

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem
Final Fight

I'll think of others later. :schierke:
 

handsome rakshas

Thanks Grail!
HawaiianStallion said:
You people are all forgetting one of the most infuriating, frustrating, controller-smashingly toughest games of all time. BATTLE TOADS!

Aazealh said:
Lastly I'd like to mention a mainstream game which while wasn't unbeatable was still quite fucking hard in the later levels: Castlevania.

Uriel said:
Metal Gear Solid 2 on European Extreme. Challenging? Yeah, I'd say so.

dwarfkicker said:
The original Ghosts and Goblins was also an uber pain in the ass.

I second all of these. I got past the sppeder bike part ONCE in that game and ended up dying in the snow level. Super Ghouls and Ghosts was also a real pain in the ass. Also, I just started playing an emulated Castlevania Rondo of Blood and am having a hard time. Those old school games are real killers. They sure don't make em like they used to! :guts:
 
Anyone out there try Solomon's Key on regular NES. If you want a fascinating fireball shooting most awesome puzzle game ever that has 50 levels, you get 3 lives, if you die past level 42 you go back to 42. I have never been able to get past 46 without cheating. I left my NES paused for a week one time trying to figure out level 46, only to die after 3 minutes, no continues, back to level 1. That sucked. The game is so addicting I started playing again instantly. Check it out. :serpico:
 

Majin_Tenshi

The can opener went bye-bye...
Bacongod said:
Blaster Master (hudson soft i think) on the old NES.  Might be the only game I owned that I never beat.
Yes, that is a long ass game for no saves or passwords. 
There was also a Genesis and PSX instalments.  I've beat the PSX but the between world segments in the genesis version killed me every time with their crappy controls. 

I wasn't all that good at games back in the NES era, but I remember I had a friend that the only game he couldn't beat was Fester's Quest.
 
Majin Tenshi said:
Yes, that is a long ass game for no saves or passwords. 
There was also a Genesis and PSX instalments.  I've beat the PSX but the between world segments in the genesis version killed me every time with their crappy controls. 

Yeah thats a big part of why old games are so hard is that a lot of them had no password or save features so you just had to play them all the way through or leave the system on overnight, which i've done. Thats where the save-anywhere feature of emulators comes in :guts:
 

berserker88

The Raging Demon
Everybody says Ninga Gaiden was hard, I never really thought it as HARD but it was challenging on some parts and I played the game on hard difficulty before anybody says I beat it on easy, but as for actual hard games go, I would say CONTRA which is he hardest fucking game ever made
 
You guys talking about Contra have got to be kidding me. Years ago a friend and I used to rent that game ... By about the third rental we were beating the game with about one or two lives lost between us. It's pretty easy once you've got all the jumps and enemies memorized.

Ninja Gaiden was a real pain, but only really at the end. Other than that, no troubles. Battletoads was a total b*tch though. After about 100 tries I managed to get the timing down on the Bike level. Managed to get past the surf level, and the pipe level, and the level where there's some thing chasing you up the walls. Died going up some elevator shaft, or something. Did manage to beat the game, though -- Was playing it with friends and we were using Game Genie -- I input one of the codes incorrectly and the incorrect code warped us to the last level (no lie). Beat down the black queen and never played that damn game again.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Hitokiri said:
Everybody says Ninga Gaiden was hard, I never really thought it as HARD but it was challenging on some parts and I played the game on hard difficulty before anybody says I beat it on easy
Uhh, I think the Ninja Gaiden we're referring to may have been a little before your time. The NES version didn't have different difficulty modes.
 
in regard to ninja gaiden (old nes):
by way of emulators i managed to beat the first 2 games, however the 3rd was impossible for me even when using the "save anywhere" feature... frustrating does not begin to describe it.

contra: after many attempts i had to ask myself "why even bother?" -too big a commitment of patience for me (that goes for EVERY installment ever made. fuck that shit! :miura:)

here's my biggest gripe, and i'm sure i'm on my own on this one:
EVERY single game EVER made by konami. i don't even want to talk about it :judo:.

tenchu fatal shadows: i absolutely loved wrath of heaven, so i can't even begin to understand why they would destroy the series this way.

i guess for me, its not outright difficulty that bothers me, but the fact that some games seem more like work than fun at times. a challenge is tolerable (even invigorating when it's actually fun), a waste of my time and energy is just not for me.

one last thing: i remember quite a few games for the classic sega master system being WAY too hard for me. even harder than a lot of NES games... maybe i'm on my own here, too.
 
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