Hardest game EVAH!!!!!!

Canis Lupus

Ghosts and Goblins for me on the C64..... The Last Ninja series as well although again just cos young me couldn't figure it out.

I dunno if there are any modern games I'd class as super hard. I guess Dark Souls 3 as I find it just unrelenting.

Dave0301

Downwell (hard mode), certainly not the hardest ever, but one that made me have to concentrate a lot more than most games of recent years.

Super Punch Out

Retr0gamer

I don't really find Metal Slug 3 fun at all really as well. It's just too hard.

Retr0gamer

Going to say La-Mulana 1 and 2.

Both are pretty tough games when you just take into account the base platforming and combat. However it's the puzzle elements that really make these games tough. They feel more like point and click adventure games at times with the puzzles. Clues can be scattered across the entire map (which is huge) and you need a notebook to jot stuff down to figure areas out. Admittedly La Mulana 1 veers into bull**** territory with the puzzles at times. La Mulana 2 is a lot better designed but I still needed a walkthrough at some points.

For some old school hard core PC gaming, X-Wing and the Tie Fighter games are extremely tough. X-Wing missions aren't that well explained to the player and can last forever with a single mistake leading to a retry. Tie Fighter on the other hand is just insane, especially the expansions.

Azza

Both Far Cry and Sin Episodes Emergence were very tough.

Far Cry A.I could see you from a mile off and were rather accurate a patch introduced a bug they never officially fixed that allowed the A.I to see you through walls. The last few levels were bonkers. Hugh numbers of very tough enemies.

Sin Episodes: Emergence was I think the first game with a dynamic difficulty that scaled depending on much health and ammo you had and how quickly you reached various hidden checkpoints. The problem was the check point system was bugged. So for example if you crossed a check point in say the average time it took to cross the check point it was fine but if you happened to back track over the checkpoint it would flag it as completed again but it would measure the time since you first crossed over it and then went back over it, which could be just a second or so between them. The result is the game would jack up the difficulty to its maximum difficulty.

I beat the game before the issue was patched out, but I remember doing it by strafing out of cover killing one enemy going back into cover and quick saving pretty much between every kill

I'd also suggest Command & Conquers Remastered hard difficulty in Tiberian Dawn was also close to broken. It was never in the original game and the developers just shoe horned it in from Red Alert. Thankfully they patched it to make it more balanced.

Also fairly recently, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was a fairly challenging FPS but in particular the court room battle took me probably two dozen or more attempts to clear.

Zero-Cool

I remember thinking Black Dhalia, the FMV game with Dennis Hopper, was quite tough, some head scratching puzzles but that was back in 98/99. What a treat of a game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5UJ5lcnzt0

pixelburp

What about games we gave up on? Stuff I mentioned I still persisted cos the core game or world tickled my fancy. I have a huge weakness for Metroidvanias (except for Metroid itself, weirdly) but The Messenger got chucked in the bin after a few hours. The platforming was the wrong side of challenging; the precision and timing required not even remotely forgiving.

johnny_ultimate

Didn’t find The Messenger too bad at all tbh, and I don’t mean that in the ‘git good’ sense :pac: If there’s a problem with that game it’s that the Metroidvania structure is a bit frustrating because it effectively has to allow for two very different halves of the game, so some of the backtracking is annoying. But otherwise would’ve said it’s a pretty fair game.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom was IMO a far more demanding Metroidvania. Great game and eminently beatable in the end, but definitely a few extended plat forming / combat gauntlets that were on the quietly swearing side of challenging.

Dave_The_Sheep

Azza wrote: »

Far Cry A.I could see you from a mile off and were rather accurate a patch introduced a bug they never officially fixed that allowed the A.I to see you through walls. The last few levels were bonkers. Hugh numbers of very tough enemies.

Reminds me of the original Operation Flashpoint early on. You'd be taking 'cover' behind some trees and bushes, crawling so the enemy couldn't see you, trying to sneak by some tanks, and some random npc with an AK would nail you from miles away despite there being no way they could see you. Turns out that the AI (before a few patches) didn't see foliage so you were just crawling around in the open for them.

Zero-Cool

Speaking of Far Cry like, Boiling Point was really ****ing hard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6shyiFUWQ

Retr0gamer

I remember the later levels of Solider of Fortune 2 were horrendous. Enemies were throwing grenades that seemed to be laser guided to your feet. Pretty awful poor game in retrospect.

Always wanted to give Boiling Point a go. Always been fascinated by it. The Bug fix list was always hilarious and was intrigued by how it was a true sandbox game game unlike the ubisoft crap we get now and was supposedly excellent despite the (horrendous) bugs. The Eurogamer review was great where they gave it one of their worst review scores and one of their best review scores.

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I remember the later levels of Solider of Fortune 2 were horrendous. Enemies were throwing grenades that seemed to be laser guided to your feet. Pretty awful poor game in retrospect.

Always wanted to give Boiling Point a go. Always been fascinated by it. The Bug fix list was always hilarious and was intrigued by how it was a true sandbox game game unlike the ubisoft crap we get now and was supposedly excellent despite the (horrendous) bugs. The Eurogamer review was great where they gave it one of their worst review scores and one of their best review scores.

Boiling Point was fascinating. Felt (at the time anyway) like I was in a real world situation, a foreign hostile country where death was around every corner and everything had a weight to it. I remember loving it but not getting very far.

Penn

The driving test in Driver on PS1 has a reputation for being difficult, as one or two maneuvers require a lot of precision. But there was one level, possibly even the last one, that I never got past. Always ended up pinned against a wall with about 20 cars around me and not able to move. It was relentless. I don't think I ever finished it.

johnny_ultimate

Speaking of Reflections, Stuntman was absolutely one of the games that destroyed me psychologically. The sheer precision required to pull off what were often fairly lengthy obstacle courses just grew more and more preposterous as the game progressed.

Think I managed to finish the final level once with a low rating. Just couldn’t repeat the feat. But will always remember the train jump level, which not only demands you get past the first stretch under a tight time limit, but then basically has you racing a speeding (well, slow enough :pac:) train for the remainder of the level too.

Mr.Saturn

I feel the revived DKC series deserves a nod here. The original DKC were never known to be super easy but Returns and Tropical Freeze can really catch you off-guard if you go in expecting a difficulty curve on par with anything Nintendo's published post-SNES. Fantastic pair of games.

_Godot_

I always have trouble with Super Hexagon.

No mention of SM3?

I replayed it on the NES Classic a few years back

Some of the later levels are borderline ridiculous

Retr0gamer

Just beat the toughest stage in bangai-o missile fury. I feel like crying. Still a few more levels to finish off but nothing as bad as that ball buster.

Penn

Okay Cuphead is one of the most infuriating pieces of **** games I've ever played. Regardless of how much it harkens back to the days of MegaContraVaniaMan X, there's no excuse for some of the absolute bullsh*t design in this game. The randomisation of elements it throws at you can actively trap you and in some cases it pretty much forces you into using particular weapons and then punishes you for it.

I've never come so close to throwing a controller in rage as I have with this game. Some parts are extremely difficult and you'll die a lot, but you learn the best ways to dodge the attacks or move in the environment. That's fine. Some parts though are just utter horsesh*t and a game is not good just because it's hard.

Retr0gamer

Penn wrote: »

Okay Cuphead is one of the most infuriating pieces of **** games I've ever played. Regardless of how much it harkens back to the days of MegaContraVaniaMan X, there's no excuse for some of the absolute bullsh*t design in this game. The randomisation of elements it throws at you can actively trap you and in some cases it pretty much forces you into using particular weapons and then punishes you for it.

I've never come so close to throwing a controller in rage as I have with this game. Some parts are extremely difficult and you'll die a lot, but you learn the best ways to dodge the attacks or move in the environment. That's fine. Some parts though are just utter horsesh*t and a game is not good just because it's hard.

Nothing really random about the game and it's always fair any random element can be countered and it's down to you if you die. Just don't think it's for you. I love these games. It's you versus the game developer. I actually think it's a fantastically designed game but I can see how it could annoy people.

If you aren't enjoying it might be best to duck out before the game gets really tough!

J. Marston

I'm on the Bee on Isle 3. That may break me into trying a simple attempt.

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nothing really random about the game and it's always fair any random element can be countered and it's down to you if you die. Just don't think it's for you. I love these games. It's you versus the game developer. I actually think it's a fantastically designed game but I can see how it could annoy people.

If you aren't enjoying it might be best to duck out before the game gets really tough!

You are entirely too forgiving of games you like while regularly lambasting games you haven't or barely played.

Randomised attacks which box you in combined with randomised cloud placement giving you nowhere to escape to (even with smoke dash) is not you vs the developer. Its the developer saying "F*ck you".

Retr0gamer

Penn wrote: »

You are entirely too forgiving of games you like while regularly lambasting games you haven't or barely played.

Randomised attacks which box you in combined with randomised cloud placement giving you nowhere to escape to (even with smoke dash) is not you vs the developer. Its the developer saying "F*ck you".

Well to counter that I think it's you blaming developers on your own faults. It's not just me that says it's a fantastically designed game. People that love these games like on hg101 love it as well and think it's up there with the best games from the likes of treasure and Konami.

If the game was cheap you wouldn't be able to avoid damage but in cuphead you can always avoid damage. If you get boxed in that's on you. The rules and design are consistent and always fair what kills you is your execution.

This isn't a git gud slight on you but take it from someone that loves these games and actually designed one of these for a project himself, the bosses are impeccably designed.

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well to counter that I think it's you blaming developers on your own faults. It's not just me that says it's a fantastically designed game. People that love these games like on hg101 love it as well and think it's up there with the best games from the likes of treasure and Konami.

If the game was cheap you wouldn't be able to avoid damage but in cuphead you can always avoid damage. If you get boxed in that's on you. The rules and design are consistent and always fair what kills you is your execution.

This isn't a git gud slight on you but take it from someone that loves these games and actually designed one of these for a project himself, the bosses are impeccably designed.

Trust me, there were far more deaths that were completely my fault. I 100% accept that. But there are some deaths that aren't due to the randomisation of events or attack combinations, and those are just infuriating in an already difficult game. And again, you can't always completely avoid damage even with the smoke dash due to environmental situations (which like with the dragon fight, is also, randomised).

_CreeD_

Jet Set Willy

This "its your own fault for dying" winds me up. Constantly said in reference to dark souls. I often think of it ironically just as I get stomped by a boss for the first time. That was clearly my own fault for not knowing the patterns required on my first attempt.

BagheeraBlue

cuphead the ultimate neck beards game

Retr0gamer

Penn wrote: »

Trust me, there were far more deaths that were completely my fault. I 100% accept that. But there are some deaths that aren't due to the randomisation of events or attack combinations, and those are just infuriating in an already difficult game. And again, you can't always completely avoid damage even with the smoke dash due to environmental situations (which like with the dragon fight, is also, randomised).

No actually, there really isn't. If you end up in a situation where you are going to take damage it's you that lead to you ended up in that situation. You really can't blame the developers on this one, they're just incredibly well designed bosses. Dark Souls games, maybe you can use that, there's jank inherent in most 3D games with stuff like the camera and getting caught on geometry but in a 2D game this well designed you can rail against the developers but they put a lot of hard work into making sure the bosses are fair.

You can level a lot of complaints at these types of games. They are about memorisation and execution and that might not be to everyone's liking. You will get caught out on new attack patterns before you learn them. Cuphead though as some one that has loads of experience with these types of games is as tightly designed as the best of them.

And I actually never used the smoke dash, kind of found it redundant and left the slot open for much better abilities.

I think in a lot of cases there's a saying, a bad workman blames his tools. Similarly a frustrated gamer blames the developer.

Deleted User wrote: »

This "its your own fault for dying" winds me up. Constantly said in reference to dark souls. I often think of it ironically just as I get stomped by a boss for the first time. That was clearly my own fault for not knowing the patterns required on my first attempt.

That's called taking it the wrong way there. What it usually refers to is that the bosses are well designed and can be beaten without taking a hit unfairly. Plenty of no hit runs of all the souls games.

It's not it reference to 'hurr hurr, you suck, git gud'. It means don't blame the design of the game, it's hard but doesn't mean it's badly designed. But some people take it as that as a way to defend their bruised egos and then take it out on the developers and other people that enjoy the games.

Retr0gamer

_CreeD_ wrote: »

Jet Set Willy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd8G3ah92F8

Great video there on why the game is impossible.