I've started to hate the term "Hardest".
Give me two months in Unity, and I can make a game that's "harder" than every game on any one of these lists. It would also be unplayable trash, that would prompt hundreds of "How the fuck are you supposed to XXX" responses due to obscurity. Part of what makes those listed games enjoyable is having a decent difficulty curve, compelling progression of skill demonstration, and a good feeling of reward. They're getting difficulty right.
Battletoads would like a word
Some of those old games from the NES or even into the SNES era were just outright impossible. IIRC there was a Dennis The Menace game didn't have the final boss ready for the publishing deadline so they just put an impossible jump just before it so players couldn't get that far.
Elden Ring isn't even the most difficult soulsborne game, by a longshot
Imagine souls games giving you only three lives before sending you back to the very beginning of the game.
I forget which platform it was, but one version of that TMNT game was literally impossible because someone fucked up the distance of a jump in one of the sewer levels, making it an impossible jump to make.
I had it on PC as a kid and it was hard enough just reading the codes out of the booklet using that piece of red cellophane to get the fucker to start up lol
Forgot battletoads exists I guess
The hardest game is probably just a random game that no one knows about
I would like to submit this game as the hardest one
Silver Surfer for the NES is way harder than TMNT. It's possible, though I've never done it, to beat TMNT. AFAIK , Silver Surfer is actually possible to beat, but basically no one has done it.
The young'uns nowadays don't know what a difficult game is. Not to mention the "impossible" ones.
I completed TMNT as a kid... on Commodore 64. That version is admittedly a little bit easier than the NES version (some mechanics were missing, and an entire level is gone, as I recall). Still, I have no idea why people complain about the second level (river), it's actually pretty fun. Compared to what's to come later in the game.
To me, the definitive "hard" game is Metroid Prime 2: Echoes on GameCube. Dark Souls just makes me say "eeeeeehhhh this is probably doable, I'll play this after I'm done with MP2E."
(When I first played MP2E, I only got through the second to last boss. Then my MadCatz memory card died. Played through the game again, with the fury of million suns. 99% complete. Because I missed one optional scan. ...One of these days I replay this bastard.)
Battletoads
literally impossible to beat (in 2-player mode)
not the herpetology-themed NES game in the meme
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Ghosts n' Goblins
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Milon's Secret Castle
I'm sure I could think of more if I tried, but my PTSD has repressed the memories...
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My friends were encouraging me to play Dark Souls. I told them I'm not interested since it's hard and I no longer have time to persevere, now that I am an adult with little to no time. One of my friends commented that I'm just scared to play Dark Souls. To which I responded I've played harder games. Said friend never had video game consoles when we were kids, and missed out on the suffering of playing 90s and 00s games.
I hate hard games nowadays, but when I was a kid I had a high tolerance for them because that's pretty much all there was. I have a fondness for the Ghosts 'n Goblins series because it was part of my childhood, but I wouldn't give it the time of day if they came out now.
I never could defuse all the bombs at the dam.
It's s one of my biggest regrets from childhood. Right up there with the rest of my early traumas that have guided my life in major and subtle ways.
Amateurs indeed. How the hell are you supposed to finish the game when you lost nearly all you lives in the underwater dam level???
I did eventually manage to beat TMNT however the NES game I never managed to beat was Ghosts 'n Goblins.
To be fair I never got to play Battletoads back then so idk how it compares.
The real answer is probably DoDonPachi SDOJ. Inbachi, the true final boss, went undefeated for over ten years.
Weirdly, that is the only one of the three I have beaten. Zero chance I could do it now of course.
That don't look like Takeshi's Challenge
Did anyone ever play Pursuit Force on the PSP?
That game was brutally difficult.
I grew up with nes and had no idea till I got older that this turtles level was so notorious. I first started playing when I was like 6 so I managed to get good even in the water level. Also managed to beat the Battletoads speeder level a bunch of times.
Cuphead is easy. Ever tried Hotline Miami?
Solomon's Key was the OG escape room puzzle game. The creators must have had so much designing all those rooms while laughing at the future me dying and restarting over and over.
aka "Where's the Terrordrome THIS time?!"
I remember the angry video game nerd playing this…and the end of the video got me. It’s frustrating just to watch.
Edit: Should clarify I’m not talking about his crazy rant at the actual end just the conclusion of that jump scene.
I found Bartman Meets Radioactive Man in Game Gear to be terribly difficult, mostly because of the controls. I think I got to the 3rd or 4th world once, but it was a struggle.
Devil Daggers?
That final hallway in TMNT is crazy.
Huh you seem tohave used a tmnt cover instead of greg tech new horizons
Kid Icarus enters the room...
Thanks for the PTSD flashback. It was delightful.
That turtles game wasnt even that fun there were better turtles games to play on the nes and snes
Battletoads on the other hand was quite fun but then that jump on the speeder level always made it near impossible. So you were always discouraged that you would get stuck on that level. Or like one time I made the jump but then had to go and my parents turned it off...like battletoads was not that difficult if you made that jump but man was it hard to.
I didn't mind TMNT.
What still gives me PTSD is Shadow Of The Beast 2. I was utterly clueless on how to beat that game as a child, and as an adult I can literally watch someone beat it, know what to do, and still fuck it up.
Oh good, it wasn't just me then.
God Hand enters the chat
What about that Action52 Tigerman game that was made to be impossible
This goes to Geometry Dash without a doubt in my mind if you include user-created levels, and I do as long as they're officially rated with stars, especially if they're e.g. in a Gauntlet (which a number of Easy and Medium Demons are).
If you allow in star-rated levels outside of Gauntlets, then I think it's safe to say that Tidal Wave on its own crushes the difficulty of basically any video game ever made that's ever been completed by a human. GD is an interesting case where you can make it as easy or as difficult as you want because there's no true "ending" to the game (getting to the Demon Gauntlet is part of an actual storyline, but when you beat it, it goes nowhere, so that's weird).
