Jazz Jackrabbit and My Brother Rabbit look pretty hare to me
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- Silver Surfer (NES)
- Battletoads (NES)
- Ghosts N Goblins (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninja Gaiden are the rest of my top 5... Originally I listed TMNT over Ninja Gaiden, but I actually think it's the other way around.
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The original one is. All of the ones I mentioned are NES games.
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From what I just read it seems the new one has some really hard parts as well(the turbo tunnel, level 3 is there from the original) and it states that it's as hard as the original. Apparently you can change the difficulty in the new one, so I'm sure there will be some who beat the game using easier settings.
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Alex Kid has some difficult parts, not nearly as bad as any of those though. I tried the demo recently for the updated version on Steam for a few minutes and some of the frustration came back. lol
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The difficulty of NES games are often greatly exaggerated, probably because a lot of people played them when they were young and not very good at games :P There's some tough ones for sure, but many of the ones that people bring up as being "the hardest" are just the good ones that they remember from their childhood.
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HARD = can't save every 5 seconds => lose progress when you die. :P
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I wish I had a save point every 5 seconds in that damn turbo tunnel in Battletoads lol
Silver Surfer was an absolute nightmare though. Even with a save point every 5 seconds you may not still make it to the next one. Example: Save point. Die 2 seconds later.... rinse repeat lol
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This may be little unknown game but Super Spy Hunter by Sunsoft is quite hard. Most of my peers actually gave up playing it after a few tries.
It is very fun game and boss fights are extremely challenging and fast paced.
I have never had this much fun with any other NES game. Final boss fight of the game is still very challenging (even with gamegenie). Try playing it if you can obtain a copy of the game.
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I've played that one, but not enough to beat it. It's pretty cool, and a good example of why Sunsoft was one of the greatest developers on the NES. The warping effect on the roads was pretty impressive, and the game really sounded like a Sunsoft game. That's a good thing, Sunsoft games past their earliest NES titles tended to have some of the best music and sound design on the system.
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Eh, I agree and disagree. For me, I was very young and definitely not as good at games as I am now. One of the biggest factors though is there was no net and no guides so you just had yourself and your friends to get tips off of. Flash forward to today and yeah, they are easier as there's been like 30+ years to get better. lol Seeing people post videos and streaming the game makes things a lot easier also.
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The difficulty comes from not being able to save and having a very limited amount lives/continues. Combined with a ton of Trial-and-Error gameplay. It doesn't have anything (or very little) to do with being young and not being very good at games.
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I don't know about that, I've been able to breeze through quite a few "difficult" NES games in more recent years, games I had never played before. Games like Super C/Probotector: Return of Evil Forces (which I even 1CC cleared on my first attempt), the later Mega Man games (only played up to 4 back in the days), and games that I struggled with as a kid, like Journey to SIlius, Blaster Master and Mr. Gimmick really were not that hard when I played them again as an adult. There are of course still hard games, like Battletoads, and the there's games that are tough because of poor design, like Dragon's Lair (and arguably the NES port of Ghosts 'n Goblins). But overall playing many of of the supposed "hard" NES games really made me think that the difficulty was severely overstated. Heck, none even the notorious Ninja Gaiden/Shadow Warriors was "that" hard (incidentally, if you want a weird piece of censorship history, check out what happened to Ninja Gaiden in Europe). .
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Well being young and inexperienced probably does have to something to do with it. But what I experience as difficulty in games mostly correlates with very limited saving or lives, trial and error gameplay, bulletsponge enemies versus glass protagonist (you), a high number of mental tasks or very precise actions with little room for error, quick actions, ... and Nintendo games, in general, tick a lot of those boxes so it makes sense to me why people find these difficult. I'm sure not all Nintendo games are that bad though and perhaps are influenced by nostalgia. I haven't played any of those old Nintendo games for a very long time, so I can't really say. I do wonder what you consider a hard or even the hardest game then if you don't feel like NES games are that hard.
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I mostly consider how much I struggle with overcoming challenges in games to be what determines their difficulty. A game might be punishing when you make mistakes, but not making mistakes can be pretty easy. Here we have games like Contra, getting hit once kills you, but it is pretty easy to avoid taking hits. I've been getting quite a few of the compilations that contain old NES games that have been hitting steam in recent years, like the Contra collection, the Mega Man collection, the Disney afternoon collection and so on, and I've been breezing through most of them.
There are of course hard NES games, I don't mean to give the impression that there's no NES games that are well designed and still difficult out there. I might have beaten Ninja Gaiden but that game is still decently tough. Battletoads is another one and so is Wizards & Warriors II (though part of the difficulty with that one is just cheap design).
But games I would consider difficult: Gothic II (at least with Night of the Raven), Shadow of the Horned Rat, Schizm: Mysterious Journey, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds (PC), Wizardry 4 (though there's a lot of unfair design going on here), Hidden & Dangerous, Equinox, Desert Strike, the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2, The Void, Etherlords the Wii version of Punch-out (had far more trouble with the later parts of this than the original NES version)
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Karateka
Adventure Island
two of the few nes games I could not beaten
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The Night of the Rabbit is clearly the harest!
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Wizardry IV.
it's an RPG where most players don't even make it out of the initial cell
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I'm one of those. Got the Wizardry archive CD and gave that game a try, and yeah, it's well above my skill level.
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I did my best, but, even with a guide, it's almost impossible.
save scumming actually makes the game harder as all the monsters respawn, every so often you just randomly die (by running into a particular ghost), and, well, you're more fragile than humpty dumpty
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Wizardry 4 is considered one of the hardest RPGs ever made.
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RUN HARE RUN
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1212870/RUN_HARE_RUN/
Judging by the Cover Art this Hare IS hard!!!
PS- With all the hare puns do you think the penny will drop soon? xD
Shout out to Melusca & Ceebers
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Really? That was really easy to beat and you can do it in like 10 minutes.
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lol it was a joke as you cant beat that game. it just started over with the same number of lives. there is no end only beginnings.
actually if i remember right there was a way to never run out of lives.
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The ending has ET going up in his spaceship. The reason I thought you were serious is I saw a lot of people back in the day play it and not beat it. Back then there was no net to look things up or guides so some people didn't really know what to do. Adventure, Haunted House and the Sword Quest series were more games like that.
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you bring me to the game thats actually the hardest and thats any game without a wiki and youtube for the mass majority to read/watch before, during, and after playing the game.
a lot of atari games didnt actually end just went right back to the start but that was the only one i could think of off the top of my head.
real answer. point and click games... its like a prerequisite to have puzzles with arbitrary nonsensical solutions that make no sense.
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you mean you didn't realize the gnome was named Ifnkovhgroghprm
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Yeah there were a lot of games that didn't actually have a finish. Defender was one of my favorites and you just flipped the score when you reached a certain point. Man I remember how excited I was when I did that. I was a little kid back then and no one was around to see it and when I told friends and their parents they didn't believe me. lol
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I have legitimately played and beaten ET. It's not that hard once you understand how it works.
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like i said in other conv but didnt really clarify. when you "beat" the game it does not reset just restarts, it just continues from the beginning. it does not reset the players lives. if you finished with 2 lives then when it starts again you will have 2 lives. a lot of old games were that way, a never ending gameplay loop. i was referencing teaching example from some game creating coarse about the importance of clearing your variables upon game reset. if the game doesnt end then you can not beat it. i was just cracking a joke about the evolution of game creation, and et was the only one i could think of by name at the time, still is.
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cuphead? not the hardest but can be considered as hard
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Cuphead is definitely hard. It's a nice game to play if you're up for a challenge. I really need to go back and try and beat it.
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Gauntlet (NES)
TMNT and Battletoads are tough but ive managed to beat them once. Gauntlet is just insane.
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TMNT I beat but Battletoads I didn't. The Turbo Tunnel in Battletoads made everyone want to throw their NES out the window lol. Hats off to you for beating Battletoads.
I'm surprised you think Gauntlet on the NES was hard.. it's fairly easy. Are you sure you aren't mixing it up with the Genesis version as that was WAY harder.
Gauntlet on the NES final boss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-3pcbitOFk
Gauntlet on the Sega Genesis final boss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUzYwQT-KfU&t
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Yeah NES Gauntlet is what I'm talking about, I haven't played the genesis one. Is getting all the clues to the vault not necessary to finish the game? I always went for them and never survived long in the late game fiery lava world. I memorized the route to get them all except for one that I never reached and always took it.
In Battletoads the key to getting farther was juggling the birds on level 2 against the side walls. You get a lot of points and eventually an extra life after a certain number of hits. Farm every bird you can and you will have plenty of extra lives to master the turbo tunnel ahead. 🤞
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I don't remember if all the clues were needed or not.. I know the boss was pretty easy. In that video is one way you could do it or just hang back behind that piece of wall that is sticking out that you walk past on the bottom left.
As for Battletoads, I didn't know about that trick. Back then there was no net or guides so you just basically did it yourself or with the advise of friends.. and they weren't much help. lol Well all failed at it pretty bad.. that tunnel sucked!
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I've beaten the Turbo Tunnel a few times. If you go through the warp on that level the game will take you to the next high speed autoscroller, which is not quite as hard, but it's still a high speed autoscroller in Battletloads. Frankly the game is just poorly balanced, the Turbo Tunnel is a huge difficulty spike that really should not have been there.
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T2 The Arcade Game, for the truck stage. Longplayer in the YouTube video just barely made it, and half the comments on the video are people talking about how they hated it or never got past it haha.
Another game I never got far in was Back to the Future III. The first level in the game is insanely difficult and I could never beat it. AVGN for reference.
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Yes, but it's so damn good and so exhilarating when you get through it! I have a similar (although not to the same degree) feeling about some of the more intense levels of Dig Dug II.
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Getting Over It. I gave up on that game after a few hours and a dozen attempt to finish the game.
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Battletoads was infuriating. The level with the hoverboards...argh!
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Harest games
Damn, I (and, going by the comments, several others) seriously thought this was a pun thread about games with hares and/or rabbits. :(
Anyway, any game listed as Nintendo hard counts imo. Those games were seriously, seriously brutal. Opinions vary as to the worst, but I think Battletoads is probably the most widely thought of as the one.
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Many people are saying NES titles are, but I would say they were the harest ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), but not today if one uses emulator with quick save/load possibilities
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if you're looking for just hard regardless of quality check AVGN video series but if you want hard and fair I think Zachtronics puzzle games are simply the hardest I have played.
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AVGN does have a tendency of exaggerating for comedic effect. Many of the games he's "reviewed" are not nearly as hard as he makes them look, and that's something the person behind the nerd has even openly stated, he's not being serious when he's riffing on many of the games.
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Battletoads (Genesis/Mega Drive) for sure was the hardest game I've ever played (2 players was even harder). It was an accomplish to at least finish Battletoads and Double Dragon with 2 players. The "harest", probably was Jazz Jackrabbit.
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Ok, I just NOW noticed why the 'hare' jokes. Topic title has been fixed. Sorry about that.
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I think that it is a complex question. A lot of early C64, NES or 8 bit in general were infuriatingly hard and unfair.
Take any shmup like Uridium, or games like Green Beret. Often you needed a trainer if you wanted to see the late game.
In modern times there is a lot of hard games that gives a fair challenge like Celeste or Hollow Knight. You CAN beat those if you master the mechanics.
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I think back in the day if you wanted to make money on arcade machines, the high difficulty of games was a necessity to get the players to keep pumping in quarters or step aside for someone else to play. Many of those games would end up getting a home console version and the difficulty was carried over even though you won't be sticking coins into your NES every time you die.
Also I think if they were too easy, you might burn through that $20-$50 USD game in 30 mins to an hour which would be unsatisfying. If you took the same game and cranked up the difficulty enough that it took weeks of trial and error memorizing levels, mastering precise jumps, etc. it may feel more worthwhile to play.
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Don't forget that game design was in its infancy. We learnt a lot regarding to how to make a good game, with a fair challenge.
Still. There were a lot of games with cheap deaths due to bad design. But others were surprisingly good, hard to master but never cheap. But some people maybe, wouldn't consider those games hard. Just because they're beatable.
Hard should have categories
Fair hard
Unfair or cheap hard
Impossibly hard (due to bugs, bad programming, bad port, etc)
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So here I am, talking to my RL friend and we got to wondering what people think are the hardest games ever made.
For your answers, here are a couple of small GA's for you all.
Edit- Real Life will NOT be counted in these answers so please, don't be that person.
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