What is the hardest (intended to be beatable) game you've ever played?

[quote name='capitalist_mao']To me, the hardest game around is Metal Gear.[/QUOTE]

One of the greatest moments I've ever witnessed was my friend playing through Metal Gear, missing some of the most important plot triggers he had to activate, reaching the end of the game and walking through the same door by accident twice and then...well, no spoilers, but let's just say the game glitched, he bypassed the final boss battle and the aftermath entirely, and just had to walk the right way to the ending.

Hilarious, considering he should have been forced to play for another 6 hours, much to his chagrin. It was pretty nasty that a simple little mistake could pretty much cost you the game. Damn that Coward Duck.
 
In recent times I would say Jak 3 and Viewtiful Joe. Jak 3 is extremely annoying because I get to a mission that is so incredibly annoying and the camera is horrible while trying to defend someone, and if you fail you have to restart the whole damn thing.

The bosses in Viewtiful Joe are outrageously difficult. I literally had to fight one of the bosses about 30 times so I could memorize every thing he did so I could beat him. I just gave up when I got to the next boss.
 
Maybe I'm a lightweight, but I felt hardcore when I finally beat the first Devil May Cry.

Given that, I'm in no hurry to play the (rumored to be sadistically difficult) third game of the series.

Also, do self-imposed difficulties apply? Probably not, lest the thread turn into braggarts talking about their speed runs and beating whole games without any weapons... which is just what I'm going to quickly do now, so skip this if I'm just being a tool. I can still drop my friends' jaws with the fact that I beat Hitman: Contracts without firing a single bullet. Lots of blackjack and chloroform, but never once fired a gun. Woulda done it with Hitman: Silent Assassin, too, were it not for the game's REQUIRING a few rounds fired at various points in order to beat the game.

Other recent games that made me feel hardcore to finally beat:

--Jak II (cheap, cheap, cheap; brutally unforgiving, and the worst checkpoint spacing I've ever seen)
--Siren (impossible without a walkthrough, but SO rewarding)
--Viewtiful Joe (Flame Leo will haunt my nightmares evermore)
 
Super ghouls and ghosts always gave me trouble when I was younger, so i will agree with that. I thought all of the original megamans werent too hard, i mean i got through all of them, some parts were pretty challenging though. I remember beating Metroid Prime on Hard mode was difficult, I consider it a pretty big accomplishment for me. As for phantasy star 2, I know I beat it so it couldnt have been that bad, but i do rememeber getting angry alot.

For a game that is actually unbeatable, you cant full complete Silicon Valley ( i think thats the name) for N64 because you cannot get one the items due to some glitch, and it was such a cool game too.
 
[quote name='WittyNickname']Also, do self-imposed difficulties apply? Probably not, lest the thread turn into braggarts talking about their speed runs and beating whole games without any weapons... which is just what I'm going to quickly do now, so skip this if I'm just being a tool. I can still drop my friends' jaws with the fact that I beat Hitman: Contracts without firing a single bullet. Lots of blackjack and chloroform, but never once fired a gun. Woulda done it with Hitman: Silent Assassin, too, were it not for the game's REQUIRING a few rounds fired at various points in order to beat the game.[/QUOTE]

I, uh, beat MGS2 without killing anyone...am I hardcore?
 
[quote name='Scorch']The Incredibles.

Laugh all you want, but that stupid machine is damn year impossible to beat.[/QUOTE]

This is unforunately very true. I was playing it with a kid I was babysitting and I figured it was easy. Oh no. This boss takes 30 minutes to beat, and it's hard as hell to boot. You even have to fight him later on in the game!
 
I just remembered Super R-Type (SNES). That game is so freaking hard without codes.

Also Road Runner in Death Valley Rally (also SNES) is very hard just due to the controls being so horrible. I finally beat it one time when I was just playing lights out. I immediately traded it back in and I've never wanted to play it again.
 
[quote name='Kapwanil']One of the greatest moments I've ever witnessed was my friend playing through Metal Gear, missing some of the most important plot triggers he had to activate, reaching the end of the game and walking through the same door by accident twice and then...well, no spoilers, but let's just say the game glitched, he bypassed the final boss battle and the aftermath entirely, and just had to walk the right way to the ending.[/QUOTE]

You're talking about the NES Metal Gear, right? I may have to try to recreate that; It sounds awesome.
 
Most of my early game memories were on the Amiga computer. A lot of my favorite games on that were just arcade ports without a normal "continue" feature, so you had to just play a LOT and get ridiculously good if you wanted to get anywhere. Back then I would take year-long breaks in the middle of a game and then try some more, so I would beat a game like five years after I originally started playing it. So it took me forever to actually BEAT games like Pacmania and The New Zealand Story. But you would just feel so badass after beating something like that. Then there was that 3 Stooges game... there were three levels of "beating" the game; raising enough money to get the true ending was pretty friggin hard. Some weird game called CarVup was one of the hardest; a weird british arcadey thing with no continue feature whatsoever... I never did beat that one.

There was something on the Amiga called Shadow of the Beast. The style of the game was gorgeous, but I when I finally rented it one day it was hard as hell, I couldn't get past the first boss. Since it was a rental I never did get past it. However my brother recently tried going through the game on an Amiga emulator, and he said that the thing is probably the most unreasonably, sadistically, unfairly difficult game he's ever seen. He beat it using excessive state saves, so it is theoretically possible to win. But he legitimately thinks it's statistically impossible for a human to beat it "fairly." There was a well-known invincibility code for it back in the day, so I assume that's the only way people actually got through it. Anyway it's nice to know in retrospect that the game really WAS that hard, and I didn't just suck at it.

I thought CastleVania chronicles was a really hard one. I've never played the first CV so I'm not sure how it compares. But I hated how you were completely helpless while climbing the stairs in that game. You couldn't attack or jump until you were on level ground, I hated that. I did eventually beat it, but damn. I probably should have just done the easier "arrange mode" or whatever they called it.
 
R-Type Final for the PS2 hands me my ass every time I play it. Same thing with Contra: Shattered Soldier. I get through the first level of each game, and then it seems like the difficulty ratchets up tenfold. I still play them and I've become a master at the first level for both games but I've learned to just put the controller away after that. Other than that, I'm still trying to get all golds in Burnout 3 and I'm stuck about halfway through Breakdown (XBox).

It's a great time to be a cheap ass gamer.
 
Hard Old School games...

nes TMNT: soo rottenly cheap and hard I hate games that have respawning enemies to begin with and throw in cheapness like going downa manhole and immediately being in the middle of several enemies. Soo many cheap hits...

nes Ninja Gaiden: I cant remember having trouble with part 2, but the original made me crazy. Respawning enemies that reappeared if you let ONE DAMN PIXEL of the screen scroll out of your view. You take a step back to get a running start for a jump and oh look, that bastard respawned right where I need to land... wonderful.

nes Legacy of the Wizard: I love this game, but when I had it back in the day I was never able to find even ONE damn crown. Years later when I played it again, I printed out a full color map, I was able to get 2 crowns before I gave up. Has anyone ever beat this game? Its oh soo much fun to miss a jump and fall down and have to backtrack 20 screens to try the jump again. Could that glove item that lets you move the blocks be any more sketchy to control?

nes JAWS: The game is easy as pie for me... until I get to Jaws, I can make him rise up out of the water at the end at will, but I have never once been able to spear him with the front of the ship... and Ive tries hundreds of times...

honorable mentions to the Megaman games, and Castlevania.

come to think of it, alot of the game length and replay value of those older games was due to them being so effing cheap and hard.



Newer games that kick my ass include...

Ninja Gaiden. I find this game to be way harder than it should be. The first time i played I couldnt even get past the first boss. Ive never beaten it and Ive stopped trying.

God of War on the hardest difficulty level. I cant get past the first hydra head that attacks you inside the boat, let alone get to the end of the first level.

Metal Slug 3: Its not cheap, its a good kind of hard. I can get far into the last level, but I havent beat it yet, but I keep going back and I know that one day I will. I dont use the 2cnd player controller trick either.

Ive never played Alien Hominid, but I hear from everyone that its hard as hell.
 
[quote name='Strell']Deadly Towers on the NES. At some point I know I was progressing through it (burning the bells), but I never finished it. Absolutely ridiculous game.[/QUOTE]

I'll second that. I occasionally get the urge to abuse myself and pop it in and play it. After an hour or so , the pain from yesteryear hits me like a sledgehammer upside the head and I come to my senses.
 
Ikaruga routinely owns me. I mean dang its tough. Seeing people beat it perfectly, or even that dude who plays both player 1 and 2 frustrate the crap outta me. But I continue to play...
 
Any FPS, I'm just not good with them. I got about half way through Half Life but just wasn't fast/reactive enough for some of the shots....I like the idea of NAVY SEALS but I can't get past the first mission unless I melee through but then half the time I get killed..

When I was younger, Phantasy Star IV: Sandworm, first time you encounter it: COULD NEVER BEAT IT THEN...
 
[quote name='Puffa469']nes Legacy of the Wizard: I love this game, but when I had it back in the day I was never able to find even ONE damn crown. Years later when I played it again, I printed out a full color map, I was able to get 2 crowns before I gave up. Has anyone ever beat this game? Its oh soo much fun to miss a jump and fall down and have to backtrack 20 screens to try the jump again. Could that glove item that lets you move the blocks be any more sketchy to control? [/QUOTE]
A long time ago, I had a friend whose aunt owned a lot of NES games. One of which being Legacy of the Wizard (another that I remember well is a game where you are either in some sort of shooter type area or walking around on land. But, that's another thread). Now, I played it a little and was totally dumbfounded with just how massive that game is. However, I think my friend's aunt managed to get the sword and face the dragon without using any of the cheat codes.
 
Anyone play the game Trojan for the NES? I always felt like that game was brutally hard when I was a kid. Now that I look back I'm not sure if it was hard or just realy crappy.
 
Maybe it was just because I was little (5 or 6) but Who Framed Roger Rabbitt on the NES was impossible for me. I'd like to get ahold of it now and see if it was just because I was young. Now, I can't even remember what it was about!

(Oh, same thing for Back to the Future #? on the NES. I played one of them and didn't know what the hell was going on. Again, it's a game I need to find and try now...)
 
#1) Ninja Gaiden 2 - NES - I've been playing this emulated on my NDS, and damn, talk about difficult. I just beat NG1 a while back (using savestates at the beginning of each level), but man. NG2 is just terrible. fuck the birds, and fuck the dudes hanging out on tiny platforms that dump you into the holes of death, and fuck the bosses.

#2) Ultima: Quest of the Avatar - NES. Always wandering around trying to figure out where to go?? Argh. Too much freedom. Co-mentioning this with Might and Magic IV.

#3) Battle Toads & Double Dragon - NES/SNES? I remember getting stuck on some level with spikes and electrical shocks all over...


Some runners up, way beneath the hardest NES games (8bit games kick my ass)

Devil May Cry 3 - I loved DMC1 (it was very difficult). But man, DMC3 is even harder.

Maximo: Ghosts to Glory. Great game. Fairly difficult for sure.
 
One of the hardest to me was Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels. The first couple of levels weren't too bad, but boot up a non story level or get a couple into the campaign and you get owned quick. Genestealers everywhere man, and they tear through Terminator armor like it was nothing.
 
I vaguely remember trying to play Riddle of the Sphinx for the Atari 2600 and having no clue what to do or how to do anything. I never got ANYWHERE in that game.
 
Anybody ever play Who Framed Roger Rabbit? for the NES? I thought that game was hard. Only because i got to a certain point where you had to blow something up to get through a tunnel to toonville (or something like that) and I still to this day have not figured out how to do it.
 
[quote name='Backlash']I vaguely remember trying to play Riddle of the Sphinx for the Atari 2600 and having no clue what to do or how to do anything. I never got ANYWHERE in that game.[/QUOTE]

All I ever did in that game was move downward to scroll the screen up, and throw rocks at shit. Was there more to the game than that?
 
[quote name='capitalist_mao']A long time ago, I had a friend whose aunt owned a lot of NES games. One of which being Legacy of the Wizard (another that I remember well is a game where you are either in some sort of shooter type area or walking around on land. But, that's another thread). Now, I played it a little and was totally dumbfounded with just how massive that game is. However, I think my friend's aunt managed to get the sword and face the dragon without using any of the cheat codes.[/QUOTE]

Amazing! I still do plan to beat it one day. Its actually still a very playable game, its just soo damn long! lol
 
[quote name='scp89']Original NES game: very first Ultima (purple box) OMG!![/QUOTE]

Ultima Exodus! I could never beat that damn game. I got to the end, or at least I think its the end, where you sail to some volcano island surrounded by fog or darkness or whatever and I just always got my ass hanced to me there!
 
Breath of Fire 4 rpg ps1. There's this one part where you have to activate this train. A Graph shows up and you have to click the button at a certain point when the line crosses. That mere part was driving me crazy and it took me 4+ hours to get pass that stupid part. Then I vowed never to play that stupid RPG again.
 
[quote name='Puffa469']Ultima Exodus! I could never beat that damn game. I got to the end, or at least I think its the end, where you sail to some volcano island surrounded by fog or darkness or whatever and I just always got my ass hanced to me there![/QUOTE]

I think I was just too young to get anywhere in that game. I feel like if I went back to it I could beat it, but the chances are slim for me doing that. I always died in that castle where the invisible floors attack you.

(PS: That's actually the 3rd Ultima game, not the original. It was just the first one for the NES).
 
goddamn parasite eve final boss. You go through all that crap of beating him (takes like 15 minutes) and then they make you run away from him through a maze, one wrong turn or you're too slow and your dead. I also don't like game guides. Thus I never beat it. I tried like 5 times but after wasting 2 hours on that final boss I called it quits. Still have yet to beat it and play the sequel.
 
This past summer, whenever we didn't have anything to do, my buddy and I played Battletoads till like 4 in the morning. After about 2 months we finally beat it and took a video of the ending, just to prove that we beat it without a game genie. Thats easily the hardest game I have ever beaten.

Otherwise, I'd go with Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun.

Also I'm curious --- someone mentioned Doom 2 -- was it actually possible to beat the game without the IDCLIP code? I could never figure out how to get into that last little room with the head on a stick without it.
 
[quote name='GreenMonkey']#3) Battle Toads & Double Dragon - NES/SNES? I remember getting stuck on some level with spikes and electrical shocks all over...[/QUOTE]

SNES. However, I didn't find that game to be particular difficult in comparison to the NES game (and to a lesser extent, the Gameboy version). Of course, people on SDA will say otherwise :p
 
[quote name='tdr32341']This past summer, whenever we didn't have anything to do, my buddy and I played Battletoads till like 4 in the morning. After about 2 months we finally beat it and took a video of the ending, just to prove that we beat it without a game genie. Thats easily the hardest game I have ever beaten.

Otherwise, I'd go with Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun.

Also I'm curious --- someone mentioned Doom 2 -- was it actually possible to beat the game without the IDCLIP code? I could never figure out how to get into that last little room with the head on a stick without it.[/QUOTE]

You don't have to. You have to ride that elevator and shoot the rockets into the hole in the wall.
 
i'm sure its probably just the fact that i suck, but vagrant story for ps1 started totally kicking my ass about half-way through. i loved the combat system and the story line, but i got to a point where no matter HOW i built my weapon, i could never cause more than 1 damage against certain enemies. it sucked, so i never finished it.

also, i do recall the terminator 2 arcade game sucking my quarters like crazy and still not being able to get anyhwere in it... but i suppose that was a long time ago, and i'm not the gamer that i am now.
 
NES Blaster Master. I got to the point where I needed to get to a higher platform but could never find the powerup for the vehicle.

Gaiares for the Genesis was also a very difficult shooter. If I recall, it was one of the first game to have 8 Meg Memory besides Strider. There was so much happening on the screen at once that you can't help but die. The only way I was able to beat this was using some cheat codes.
 
Wow. A couple of you guys mentioned Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a game I'd completely forgotten and should have included.

On an embarrassingly expensive string of consecutive rental periods (during which our allowance was essentially reserved for each week of renewing the rental so we could keep progressing), a friend and I persevered all the way to the end of the game, where you fight Judge Doom atop the big truck full of stuff that melts toons (can't remember what it's called).

Utterly impossible. You can stockpile items throughout the entire game, including tons of the boxing-glove-fists-on-springs weapons that deal the highest damage (again, memory permitting...?), and it would make a small piece of your soul shrivel up and die when you march into the Judge Doom battle, deploy your first boxing glove, and actually have to squint to perceive the amount of health that your attack managed to remove from Judge Doom's ENDLESS, ENORMOUS HEALTH BAR.

We fought him once for over an hour (not multiple tries over the course of an hour; I mean ONE ATTEMPT that took about seventy minutes) wherein we spent absolutely every item in our inventory on him and managed to deplete him to about sixty percent of his starting health.

Then we took the game back to the rental place and proceeded to play other games that were actually fun.
 
[quote name='jaxsedrin']i'm sure its probably just the fact that i suck, but vagrant story for ps1 started totally kicking my ass about half-way through. i loved the combat system and the story line, but i got to a point where no matter HOW i built my weapon, i could never cause more than 1 damage against certain enemies. it sucked, so i never finished it.

also, i do recall the terminator 2 arcade game sucking my quarters like crazy and still not being able to get anyhwere in it... but i suppose that was a long time ago, and i'm not the gamer that i am now.[/QUOTE]

DUDE ! I KNOW RIGHT? is that game BROKEN? i spent like ten minutes shooting the boss with grenades and guns and I mean ALL OVER the boss... every last pixel. he smokes and whatnot but NEVER DIES!!! does anyone know wtf??
 
[quote name='fishentail']NES Blaster Master. I got to the point where I needed to get to a higher platform but could never find the powerup for the vehicle.

Gaiares for the Genesis was also a very difficult shooter. If I recall, it was one of the first game to have 8 Meg Memory besides Strider. There was so much happening on the screen at once that you can't help but die. The only way I was able to beat this was using some cheat codes.[/QUOTE]


I'd love to play blaster master again. That game wouldn't be too bad if it weren't for lack of saves/passwords.
 
Battletoads, all of the TMNT games for the NES, and Ninja Gaiden remake for the xbox. I heard that battletoads is unbeatable, However I just could neve get to far into TMNT or BT I would always get stuck somewhere. I recently played battletoads at a friends. When I was little I thought I got super far, but when I was playing it I found out that I only got about 45 mins into it.

Also that Sub-zero game for the ps1, Never could get to far into it. I kept dying however I liked that game a lot.
 
[quote name='Purkeynator']Hardest game to me would be Ninja Gaiden 2.[/QUOTE]
[quote name='coltyhuxx']Aw man.. flashback of Ninja Gaiden 2. That game took me well past throwing the controller and seeing blue and red into some dimension of anger that has yet to be explored or even understood.[/quote]

I don't need to post it since you did. Exactly what you said...that last level before Jaquio and that thing he turns into kicks your ass, then you still have to take both of them out. I had never been so frustrated at a game before, I think I went upstairs and fucking screamed out the window or something. I also felt bad since "Robert T.S." sacrificed himself for me and I let him down. Or whatever.

When I finally got through it it was a big deal. Good thing it was a fantastic game with a good ending or I REALLY would have been pissed.


Honoroable mentions go to several others mentioned in this thread: Ninja Gaiden was almost as hard as the sequel, Who Framed Roger Rabbit pissed me off to NO END because I spent like 35 minutes not knowing how to beat Judge Doom at the end even though I was surviving just fine, then wound up dying...or sitting down in this case...and never finished the game. WittyNickname summed it up pretty well above. Looking back on it, I assume you have to somehow hit him with The Dip (that stuff shooting out of the hose) to beat him, but I had no idea to do that..or even TO DO that back then.

The final hallway of TMNT (right before Shredder...the one with the blue-tinted jetpack gunners) took months/years for me to get through as well, although I did finish it eventually.
 
I don't think anyone's mentioned Golgo 13 for the NES yet - that was a total bitch of a game. I don't think I ever even got past the first underground maze without cheats.
 
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Swordquest: Earthworld for the 2600

total pains in the ass.

but then again, i was a kid when i played them. i should play them again and try to beat them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top