Hardest Game You've Played?

[NintendoNerds]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkgsA01gJvQ

That's just WRONG! Part 1 made me sick enough. 

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Let me just add one more game to the list: Mission: Impossible <- forgot about that one; was reminiscing about it just now. Good times. Good times. Wouldn't have the patience to do that again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiWoqvYi6rk

[smeghead]

Final Mission 
and Green Beret on C64

[nerdynebraskan]

I think I'd have quite a few candidates, but it may be tough to narrow them down. I think the toughest I have beaten might be Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Ninja Crusaders, and Wario's Woods (all for the NES).

Though most of Punch-Out isn't that hard, it took me years of practice to beat Iron Mike (and that's with the convenient password I still have memorized that allows you to go straight to him).

Ninja Crusaders is ridiculous because you have to fight your way through a game with crazier enemies than Ninja Gaiden, and do it without getting hit because you have no life bar and no checkpoints. It would be impossible without infinite continues. It took me at least five hours across a week of obsessive playing to complete what is only about a 10-minute long game.

Those last 10 or 15 stages on either game A or B of Wario's Woods are super-hard, too. The garbage is stacked pretty much to the ceiling, and you have to be lightning-fast, error-free, and get a little luck on which random pieces you get to start the stage. If you don't have all three, you're toast within 30 seconds. And you can only get continuing checkpoints at every five stages! I obsessed over this one; I had to practice about two hours a day for about a month to completely beat this thing.

Other nasty NES games I haven't been able to beat yet:

- Ninja Gaiden trilogy - obvious, I know

- Ghostbusters - broken! Those stairs seem impossible without a Game Genie. This was one my first five games, so I suffered through way too many hours of this one growing up.

- Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The game is pretty manageable up until the final boss fight against Judge Doom. So frustrating!

- Ghosts n Goblins - I don't see why this one is considered a classic. I consider this one pretty broken as well.

- Ultimate Stuntman - I've been trying to knock this one for the Nintendo Age challenge, but the time limit is so strict and the platforming levels suffer from too many "gotcha!" pitfalls. This game seems to require memorization to beat.

[StJackie]

.. Id say Macross for the famicom.. or transformers is a bit rough too.

[nerdynebraskan]

I'll second that on Transformers for the Famicom. It's incredibly frustrating that you die in one hit, while confronted with a majority of enemies that require multiple shots.

[crade]

Ghosts 'n Goblins is just evil.

Despite the fact that the NES versions was made by Micronics (See thread):

NESDev

the arcade version was still made by Crapcom:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkgsA01gJvQ

& Micronics went off of Capcom's "Beat the game twice" scheme.

I don't know why everyone craps on ghosts and goblins as being too hard..  This game has rock solid controls.  Yes you don't change direction in mid air, thats part of the game.
You do have to beat it twice to get the "true" ending, but the second playthrough is a breeze once you do it once.. and G&G is a great game.  the NES version is a *great* port, it's one of the best arcade ports on the NES really.  very faithful in all aspects really Micronics did a very solid job.  Ghosts N Goblins is one of those hard games that is done right imho.  If you die it's because you screwed up.  It's also super fun..  Even when I died on level 3 every game I loved that game.

[Nightstar699]

Wow, I was an idiot when I made this topic. Well anyway, I second smeghead's choice of Final Mission. I've never played a more difficult game, and I doubt I ever will.

[shonenx]

Milions Secret Castle ---  with out having any guides or nintendo power its mind numbing

[Alls Wills]

The hardest non-broken game I've ever played is most likely the arcade version of Gun.Smoke; Level 6 in particular is just a nightmare to beat.

[senseiman]

I would vote for Week of Garfield on the Famicom.

It is crazy difficult and I can`t get anywhere on it, but I love it.  It is actually hilarious to watch Garfield die at the slightest touch and then the game immediately switches to `Game Over`.

[FamiFox]

Double Dragon 3 on the Famicom kickin it Solo is not
Easy but still worth playing. Out of this World SNES. by far most frustrating games at times especially when you can't make it past level 2. 

[fredJ]

I think the toughest I have beaten might be Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Ninja Crusaders, and Wario's Woods (all for the NES).

Ninja Crusaders is ridiculous because you have to fight your way through a game with crazier enemies than Ninja Gaiden, and do it without getting hit because you have no life bar and no checkpoints. It would be impossible without infinite continues. It took me at least five hours across a week of obsessive playing to complete what is only about a 10-minute long game.

Funny, you seem to be a much better gamer than me, but I really enjoyed beating Ninja Crusaders recently.
See blog here: http://japanspel.blogspot.com/2014/01/ninja-crusaders-on-famicom.html with videos and pictures.

Probably took me around 6 hours as well and for a mediocre gamer that's pretty good. I enjoyed every one of those hours. 6 hours is a short game.
I seem to have a different taste in games than most people have.
I still don't enjoy Duck Tales and Punch Out.

Ninja Crusaders is an awesome challenge without being overly difficult.
The hilariousness when you can't make it more than 10 seconds into a level... on the first 20 tries... Aaah, those were the games.

I think when one loves a game, one is more likely to keep on playing. I can't make myself complete Duck Tales, SMB or Puyo Puyo, but the crazyness of Ninja Crusaders is so fun. Crazy Japanese fun.

The Castlevania Adventure was really hard but I enjoyed it and kept on playing until I beat it. It took around 40 hours and I kept the game boy on during the night... (so thankful I have a GBC power adapter) If I hadn't been a game boy fan I wouldn't have bothered. I still haven't played any Castlevania game on NES.

Mega Man: Dr Wily's Revenge was super hard because I hadn't played mega man before and thought I had to take the bosses one by one with my blaster. Didn't know how to use their weapons against each other. That game took me around 40 hours, with the first boss Cutman alone taking at least 7-8 hours (maybe more). And I thought "wow, they say mega man is hard, but I didn't know it would be THIS hard just to beat the first boss". Of course, after that I have realized that it is the most difficult game in the series (maybe second to mega man 1 on NES). Mega Man II on the GB was like a vacation after Dr Wily's revenge. Seriously, after having finished Dr Wily late at night I thought I should try out Mega Man II and I finished it that same night....
Mega Man 2 & 3 on NES/Famicom is also comparatively easy, because at least you keep on making progress.

[Protoman]

The hardest games I've ever beaten are: Castlevania, Journey to Silius, Kid Dracula(Famicom), MegaMan 9 and Batman.

The hardest games I've played is another story because I likely haven't played them that much, just a bit and then threw my hands up and went "NOPE! This is impossible!" Such examples include:

Ninja Gaiden - I think this game is great and fun but also too frustratingly hard to get far in, as it seems to me the enemy respawning kills the strategy the game aims for and it goes into just randomness which is impossible to plan for.
Battletoads -This game is just unfair...
Conta Shattered Soldier - Did they put any thought into this? There's just enemies everywhere and the bosses have way too much health and you die yourself in one hit.
Ghosts n Goblins NES - The stiffness of the controls kills this game for me, I don't mind the arcade or Megadrive versions as much but the NES version just seems poorly programmed in my opinion.
Blaster Master - 3 lives and no continues, that's unreasonable.
Super Mario Bros 2(J) - I say, that beating this game with Luigi, is impossible. The difficulty of the game coupled with his inabiltiy to stop after running...

[P]

FredJ said it. If you love a game you can't stop playing it even if you die all the time. Eventually you have learned all the traps by heart. Due to this I can easily get to the last level in Ninja Gaiden (beating the last level is another matter though).

Battletoads is ridiculously hard but try the Japanese version Protoman. I can confirm that it's possible to make it to the Ice Cave in TWO PLAYER MODE.

Super Mario Bros 2(J) is harder with Mario IMHO. Luigi is harder in the beginning because of his poor brakes but once you learn to control him the game becomes much easier with him. In later levels there are some gaps that pushes Mario's jumping ability to the limit but with Luigi's powerful jumps it becomes a cakewalk and you often just jump over several traps at once with ease. It feels like you are cheating sometimes. I would say beating the game with Mario is super hard and I haven't done it yet.

Ghost n Goblins is probably the hardest game I can think of. Try the Japanese version, no continues!! Arcade version also didn't have any continues.

Wizardry is also real hard. Having your entire party killed off by the first encounter in that series is common.