Hardest Game You've Played?

[Nightstar699]

Sorry if theres already a topic like this, i just want to know everyone's opinion.

Mine is Magical Taruruto Kun for the Famicom! Simply put, it is the most cruel game ive ever played.

[nintendodork]

Super Mario Frustrat- Oh, real games?  Recca, I guess.  Some games are really difficult, but I can't really think of the single hardest game I've ever played.

[nensondubois]

Zombies Ate my neighbors. So hard especially those latter 25 or later levels. Those giant Ants are insane! Nevermind the giant baby running around the mall like it''s his playpen.

[L___E___T]

Single hardest game I ever played was Shinobi on PS2, but I love that game.

Hardest Famicom game I played would be something like Mr Gimmick's hack of Gimmick!  I know it's not official, but it reminded me of Shinobi on PS2 - hard but fair if you know what I mean.   I think stupidly hard games that are also 'unfair' are better described as broken games.

If you fail miserably at a game it should be because you're not learning, not because the game gives no other option through poor design.

[Nightstar699]

Yeah, these are all pretty tough. Ill have to try shinobi on ps2! Im surprised noones said the obvious, like battletoads or something.

[L___E___T]

Battletoads is hard sure but you can learn the pattern.  Imagine that amount of timing skill needed PLUS a little luck thrown in and you are close to Shinobi on super hard.  BUT the gameplay is amazing and frenetic.  Check out some speedruns on YouTube it's intense.  Very old school style of play too.  I'd really love to see a 2D retro version I've been meaning to mock one up for ages.

[nensondubois]

Super Pitfall is just impossible with all of the glitches.

[TanookiSuitSam]

Monster Party is freaking ridiculous with the difficulty, but it's really tough for all the wrong reasons.

[L___E___T]

Lode Runner II on some kind of old computer (I don't remember if it's a Apple II or another computer)

I thought of saying Lode Runner actually, I played it with a girl who never plays games and she was really good at it (or I was really bad) - so my excuse was that it was a really hard game

[linkzpikachu]

yie are kung fu for the famicom. cant get past the swinging chane

[Nightstar699]

LOL i love yie ar kung fu. I beat the game! It looped to 00.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

For some reason I find some of these "hardest games" ever not so hard, like:

-Battletoads
-Double Dragon 3
-(Mike Tyson's) Punch Out!!
-TMNT

Since there are different levels of "hard" , I find it better to categorize them:

Frustrating:
These games usually aren't really hard, the obstacles are just so annoying you can't concentrate well enough to get through said obstacles, usu. because you have to keep repeating the same parts of levels you beat 100 times in a row but can't beat the next part on your first, second, third, or even tenth try.

-Ghosts 'n Goblins (man, you have to beat that freakin' thing twice, freakin' Crapcom! Plus, it wasn't even developed by them.  Outsourcing can be a bad thing)

-Perfect Dark (there, I said it!)

-Star Fox (Why am I the only one who had trouble with this?  Beating this game was a serious miracle because I was down to my last life after losing countless others on Andross & suddenly I "lucked out" at the very last shred of hope)

-Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight (I can't believe I actually had to use Game Genie to beat this game!)

-Super Mario Bros. 2: This is not Super Mario Bros. 2 USA

Challenging:
These are what all "hard games" are aspiring to be, with a lower-than-usual level of head-inducing trauma, these gems stand out far from the crowd... very, very far

-Bionic Commando
-GoldenEye
-Gradius II
-Super C

Meticulous Memorizing of Repetitive Pattern Guesses (MMORPG):
These are the games you will not beat the first time around, either because you simply won't know what obstacle is going to happen next in time to sufficiently avoid it, or because you're too dumb to use the 'pause' button as a lifeline (hey, it's all fair game):

-Battletoads
-Donkey Kong Country (to a lesser extent)
-Ninja Gaiden
-Back to the Future (DeLorean part - I think, unless the cracks in the street are placed at random)

Last (& least), due to laziness &/or the creations of subsidiary companies such as (dare I say it?)
LJN! we have an accidental category that attests the wholeheartedly good idea of final testing & not setting release dates.  We have:

Glitches!
These games are not hard, they're nearly impossible, if not impossible, to  humanly beat usu. because some mofo decided to "tweak" the physics without running one last final playthrough... or only running one last final playthrough.  We have:

-Action 52 ( I haven't even played through half these games yet because some of them won't even let me "jump" right, or start up)
-Gotcha (Is it just me, or did I miss something? You're a one-man army against two teams - everyone shoots at you, regardless of their color)
-X-Men (this game cannot be beat, for the code printed on the front of the label that you are supposed to enter after beating every stage is wrong - unless you knew that.)

Interesting links:

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2161/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30834121/ns/technology_and_science-games/

[Nightstar699]

Good list jedi. About games that somepeople think are hard, but arent, i feel that way about silver surfer. Its been called the hardest game ever, but ive beaten it a few times. Took some effort, but its not too difficult.

[FamicomFreak]

Awesome stuff Jedi I do agree with your post right there.

Some can get frustrating but once you get passed it, you get the best feeling in the world only to die at the beginning of the next harder level lol...

[Medisinyl]

One of the more recent games I put a strong effort into, but couldn't beat, was Holy Diver.  There are certainly other games I've had trouble with (Kid Icarus), but not that I've tried to make a point of beating, so I'm uncertain how hard they really are.  I can get to the boss of stage 4 (in Holy Diver) without a single hit (once everything was memorized), but just can't beat that boss.  One day I'll likely try again, as it's a great game, but that Eye Tower thing is ridiculous (largely due to the flickering shots that have a chance of knocking you to your death in one hit [and of course I'm basing this on playing the actual cart--a rom I could save right before the the boss room would certainly make it easier]).

Otherwise, I was able to beat Battletoads with little difficulty as a kid.  If I were to play it today, I'd probably put it in the Kid Icarus file of being too frustrating to bother with, but as a kid, I didn't have the option of playing many other games, so it was easy to enjoy focusing on the one and doing it over and over until everything was memorized.  I was able to beat every game I had as a kid (expect for the Gauntlet games).  Oh, and I've never beaten Ghosts 'n' Goblins, and I did try at one point.  

So, Holy Diver and Ghosts 'n' Goblins for sure.