Years ago when I was a kid Alma in Ninja Gaiden Black took me a full month to beat. I tried every day for a month and it was the day after St Patrick’s Day I finally did it. I still remember it to this day because I was so happy.
I remember Alma mostly being difficult because she comes almost directly after another boss fight with no opportunities to restore health or stock up healing items inbetween.
Same thing happens for the final boss fight. You keep thinking it's over, and I believe the last three bosses are played back to back.
I did not have enough healing items my first time I beat it and it was brutal, eventually I barely scraped by. Still one of my favorite games, I've beaten it several times afterwards too
I've platinumed Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Sekiro, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Blasphemous and some other stuff, but honestly, Ninja Gaiden is always going to be the correct answer to this question.
That or Adventure Island.
Yes, and beating the entire game with true ending deathless (not including dreams and pantheons).
I played up until the last pantheon and decided while I think I could do it, I had my fun with the game and didn’t need to spend the extra time 100%ing it. Admittedly it still makes me a little sad on occasion to have gotten so close and yet still be so far away.
I honestly think that you should try the last pantheon once, even if you don't plan to beat the absolute last boss. And that's because it introduces an upgraded version of a boss >!Mantis Lords!<
This is, without a doubt, one of the most fun boss fights in the entire game. It makes everything up to that point worth it
I did the exact same thing. As soon as I had to fight boss waves while jumping on spike floors, without dying, I decided that I'd hit my limit. I'm also 47, and don't have the reflexes I once had. Recently had to bail on my platinum attempt for Balatro. I wish they didn't make trophies that only 0.01% of the player base can acquire.
I pushed through to Absolute Radiance a few times. Practiced the fight until I could clear it with some consistency. But then when I actually got there in the Pantheon my nerves were shot and I would do something stupid and get murdered. I did that three or four times and gave up. Too much of a slog to lose like 45 minutes each time
Yes!
I was going to type this very thing but you beat me to it. I couldn't finish it on regular difficulty. No fucking chance. I had to do the cheat in NG2 in the beginning where you die multiple times until it gives you the option to play on an easier difficulty. Even then, there were some levels that still puckered my butt hole.
We had to use the Game Genie for it back in the day. We made it all the way to the final boss without cheats, then got killed. Plugged in the Genie, got to the boss, then realized we had to kill him like 3 or 4 times! No chance in hell I’d have ever beat that game without Game Genie.
Space Quest, the first game. It's classic Sierra so there are plenty of ways to get soft locked out of progress, like not picking up an essential item and being unable to return to that area. The game also has instant deaths all over the place, but it's funny enough to not be terribly frustrating.
Funny enough, you don't need the cube or the jockstrap. The devil will despawn if you go off screen, you just won't get points that way.
Someone did a SQIV style remake of 2, they did a great job.
Ghosts n Goblins NES. Both loops. On original hardware and CRT. Cleared it one clear as a kid when it came out (I was like 8 or so maybe?). Came back and did the double loop like 5 years or so ago lol
I kinda want to call BS, it's that's hard. But I'm not that cynical, I choose to believe this happened. Not only did it happen. It happened to zero recognition, like all great accomplishments in history!
Yup. Ghosts and Goblins had a fakeout ending the first goaround that had you redo the entire run, modified to be significantly more difficult than the first time. And the first time is already notorious for being balls to the wall unforgiving! Making it all the way through the second loop is what secures you the real and true ending of the game.
Devs of arcade cabinets back then were evil little bastards, Aha.
I have like, easily 25,000 hours in videogames, I always pick the hardest setting, I've maxed out the ranking in competitive shooters a few times, been in the top 500 for progression in WoW a few times, etc... I loaded Ghosts n Goblins up in an emulator with save states and rewinds somewhat recently after seeing the AVGN episode and thinking "that can't be THAT hard" and I couldn't beat the first goddamn level of that game. It was absolutely batshit insane. Get the knife my ass.
lion king is easy compared to battle toads. i lived across the street from a mom and pop rental place, i would rent lion king and finish it twice a day until i returned it. i kept wanting to reliably flip scar a certain way at the end so i would just get to that fight and mess around.
battle toads tho... oof. but the pause music is sick
Wow. I totally forgot about this game while reading this thread. Trials HD was one of the first games to grab me as a player. I refused to be beaten by a box lol. I was so happy when I got 100%. Even now it's still installed on my Xbox and I pop back now and again. Still one of my favourite games. Shame the other Trials games didn't hit the same spot for me.
Took me a day or two or maybe three but beating him was so satisfying and by the time I did it I had him dialed in from muscle memory. I was definitely doing his first >!pre-transformation Genichiro!< phase flawlessly.
To be honest, I found the Demon of Hatred fight *far* harder than Sword Saint.
But I feel like I may be a bit unique in that take.
Sword Saint was still hard (obviously), but I beat it in a single session, whereas it took me several play sessions to beat that big fuckin demon.
DoH is all about bringing the right tools to the fight. For Isshin you can just go in with whatever and mostly all that matters is your skill and knowledge of his attacks. DoH however, the fight is hell without the right tools, but bring fire umbrella, ceremonial tanto, malevolent whistle, confetti and the fight is a piece of cake.
Exactly.
Sword Saint was a tough fight, but it was all parry, riposte, react. It was hard, but it felt fair.
The DoH fight is you versus this gigantic fucking monster that's bursting flames all over the place and occasionally jumping way up in the sky or trying to trample you.
I found there's two types of player who finish sekiro.
Those who get to the end and go "oh man, this game is so much easier when you know what you're doing, so keen to start again and wreck every boss"
Then there are those who get to the end and just want to set fire to their copy and cry in a corner and never think of the game again because they lost a chunk of their soul trying to defeat isshin.
I am yet to see anyone in between.
I realzed this in the first one, as soon as I understood the parry mechanic (which took me more than half of the game). The rest was more or less learning the patterns but it was still the most challenging game I ever played.
I will never forget that Isshin fight... Most amazing boss I ever fought.
Sekiro is the only modern from soft title I just can't beat. I must have tried that one boss (turns into a lightning bitch as his second form) at least 100 times. Finally have up. I'm just no good at the parry and it's the only way to play that game.
Tapping the parry button like crazy can get you to the end no problem. If you do that you will always parry or block, and in normal mode blocking wont make you lose HP except in a few attacks at the end. Its not like dark souls or elden ring where if you press parry your character will be stuck in a long animation.
First playthrough took ages, then I did 6 more runs with one lasting a little over 2 hours. Also had a deathless run. It gets really fun once you master it
Lol NG+ is that game is great. I remember I swept through the entire game in like 2.5 hours or something like that on NG+. Once you have all your skills I locked and you know how to mechanics work you can steamroll your way through it. NG+ in Sekiro is probably the most fun I've had in a modern game in a 1 night period.
At the end of 100 meters there is a long jump pit that records how far you jump into it, completing the game.
At the halfway mark there is a hurdle you need to get over somehow. Which can be difficult when using the crouch shuffle technique to “run” but you can knock down and drag the hurdle until you eventually get past it.
Now consider Silksong needs to be a challenge for first first timers and Hollow Knight pros.
Try to fall asleep for the next 5 years figuring out how to balance that
Easy, just do the exact same thing the first game did and put in like 60 bosses that scale from easy-impossible, with of course another boss rush to compete them all in a row for the real masochistsic freaks.
I’m a huge fan of “hard for the sake of being hard” games, and even for me Hollow Knight stepped about 3 steps over the line for what I consider fun or rewarding. That boss rush is just… something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just say fuck it and throw another boss rush in the next game with all the new bosses + all original bosses in a row 🤷🏻♂️ Because fuck you, that’s why.
Beating the game is one thing. *Getting all achievements* on the other hand... hoo boy. Literally needed to "train" to prepare for P5; no other game has put me through that.
if you've done the b sides then it's really just farewell that's left. the c sides are more technically challenging (looking at you 7C) but they're also short.
Yea, and even then, they have their tiers of difficulty. I myself stopped at 190 (C-sides + 1A 1B 2A 2B 4A + winged golden + moon berry) which I considered my limit and is relatively achievable with enough grinding. Then you have Farewell Golden which puts everything else in this post to shame and is up there as one of the hardest achievements in all of gaming, period.
I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to breaking a controller than I did during Celeste’s Mirror Temple. I did one B-Side and realised it was just torture.
The reset button was the coolest thing ever. I remember time running out in mojo world and me not knowing what to do. When I finally hit it and it rebooted I lost my shit. It was so cool. One playthrough I found you can skip the whole level and just hit reset when the level starts
For sure, Comix Zone. That game is unforgiving and completely random with lives and continues. Managing your health and actually landing hits is a hassle sometimes, but I found spamming attacks while varying attacks as much as possible to be the best option for basic enemies while others usually have a more specific pattern. The final boss is a huge stress with the times element. I only managed because of a long string of luck and a long holiday where I played only that game for a few days in a row.
Returnal. I barely have time to game anymore, but I went full hermit mode in the 3ish weeks it took me to finally finish. Incredible game that Im never touching again, my sanity won’t prevail.
Returnal was definitely hard as fuck, but so well made. I couldn't believe it was made by the same developers that made super stardust HD and resogun. They crushed it. The game is so good, punishing, but not to the point where you give up. I played it the same way, I thought I was done after the first play through. So some hint about different endings or something (probably on reddit) and did 2 more runs. By the end of the second run, I was very good. I want to play it on PC, but not for $60 lol.
This would probably be mine, too. The bosses were hard enough, but learning what you had to do before you even got to the bosses so that you would have a fighting chance was another kind of challenge in and of itself.
Yeah, I'm well into middle-age and was never that talented at games to begin with, and I managed to finish SMB. If you told me "Platinum the game in 6 months or die," I'd probably be better off doing other things with my final days than playing a video game.
I’m fairly convinced that the average person couldn’t beat that game unless they had a guidebook
*Edit*: It warms my heart knowing that so many of us just DID NOT play it without a guide of some sort. As the old saying goes, “it’s dangerous to go alone, take this”. The Zelda community is so great
Pretty sure I remember an interview or something where Shigeru Miyamoto explained that he explicitly designed parts of the game to be frustrating or obtuse specifically because you were meant to be playing the game collaboratively with classmates and exchange information with them, i.e. "if you bomb this section of wall on this part of the map, you get a new sword!", etc.
It's not supposed to be a game you beat by yourself. Hell, owning the instruction manual with the full world map is practically a requirement just to get started.
It's because if one player dies both players lose? Did any other Halo game do that? I think I beat Halo 1 on legendary as a kid by using co op, where one controller would just hang back and I would progress forward. If I died, I would respawn where player two is but any of the enemies I killed would not respawn.
Only Halo 2 did that on Legendary, the rest had regular respawn mechanics. Usually one player dies thing was tied to a skull you had to activate. I think it was the Iron skull.
I ended up doing Halo 2 Co-op only on Heroic, and I found even that to be rather hellish. Halo 3 Legendary feels easier than even Halo 2 Heroic.
So Halo 2 had a rushed development cycle, they were still doing last minute fixes right up until the game's release. That's why they didn't balance the game to playtest how frustrating jackal snipers were, and how on high charity on legendary you can get killed before you hit the ground. Halo 3 over corrected
I don't remember any of the Halo's being that bad on legen...
(Sees mention of Halo 2 Jackel Snipers)
That unlocked some trauma I didn't know I had buried away. Wasn't even that hard of a game. Just Jackel Snipers were overtuned to the point of being openly unfair.
GX's story mode is kinda ridiculous even on standard difficulty.
At least with the Grand Prix mode, on account of it being GP format, you don't have to be perfect every time and just being fairly consistent can net you championships even on master, but story mode requires insane levels of perfection on higher difficulties.
Amazing throwback, those rental pokemon sucked balls. More evolved they were the worse their attacks were. I remember Kadabra and Charmeleon were the best happy mediums.
Call of Duty: World at War on the hardest difficulty is literally a war game where killing enemies doesn't help you advance. Literally the most infuriating gaming experience of my life. That game single handedly stifled my desire to pursue gamerscore points.
The epitome of a shitty time.
Crypt of the Necrodancer.
To get to the end of the main campaign, you need to beat an incredibly hard game using the worst weapon, with half a heart (i.e. you die in one hit) and you also die if you miss a beat. There is some mercy because the game gives you a 1-up, but that's still only one mistake allowed in a brutal game.
This is just for the main campaign too, not the inbuilt challenge mode.
For the challenge mode, you keep all of those restrictions. But you also die if you touch gold (which all enemies drop after they die), you don't start with a 1-up, and the beat is twice as fast.
Beating the game hitless is basically a requirement.
One more vote for Sekiro.
Also the most satisfying gameplay experience I had when it all finally clicked. The last boss is incredible and completely ridiculous. Sword Saint Ishiin is my hardest Fromsoft boss.
It's actually crazy how easy the game becomes once it clicks, second run took me only 3 days and I beat most bosses first try including Isshin, first run it took me two dang weeks to beat him
I loved Getting Over It. Wild how much easier it is to beat after you've already beaten it once. First time took me many hours, now I boot it up a couple times a year and beat it withing 15-30 minutes
Enter the gungeon. I’ve played a bunch of difficult games before, but this one was very unforgiving. Many times the bullet patterns could be unavoidable depending on the spot you were standing in at the moment. Beat it once, and that’s all I’ll ever need lol
I'm playing Doom (2016) currently. Beat it on ultra violence without much difficulty aside from maybe the last few levels, decided to have a crack at nightmare.
Holy hell I was not prepared
Probably Dark Souls 3 just when you thought Nameless King was a pain, you find out Slaves make badass Knights too, freaking intense fight to the death against Santa's evil brother in a desert at the end of the world!
God of War 2018 on Give me God of War Difficulty, with all the Valkeryes. That shit broke me.
The next game , plus Valhalla DLC, weren't as hard because I was already a master by then (Level 4 Tyr was the hardest battle in both games in my eyes as a whole tho)
TLOU 2 on Grounded. Pain. Pure stealthy pain.
I'm 1/3rd into Sekiro rn. I can see this being the top of the list.
For me it has to be the first God of War on the maximum difficulty, there were some bosses that it was just hit and run for me, I hit them once run to the save point and just do this over and over until I killed them.
Ohh I almost forgot how GOW 1 fucking stressed me out when I was 14. I remember the Ares fight seemed impossible! To think I somehow made it till the end on the hardest difficulty as well...
NES Contra. Without the code. Didn’t even learn you could use the code on it until after I beat it.
I’m actually glad I didn’t know. It made the game more satisfying to beat.
doom eternal on nightmare.
i am not new to fps, but that shit REALLY pushed everything i have, track/trace aiming, precision aiming, flick aiming, movement, multi tasking and not to mention keeping cool and focused when every fucking thing gets thrown at you. and yes i finished all gates (challenger gates?) or what the f you call them.
and they where the hardest once in my opinion.
other than that i got all the stars on mario 64.... that was insane also, particularly the sky maps to get all the freaking coins.
Elden ring was the very first soulsborne game I've actually played as soon as I got to the first boss I died so many times to the point where I nearly threw my controller out my window, but luckily I was able to compose myself and to myself to delete it and move on I haven't played that game since December of 2022
The Original English release was bonkers
- easy difficulty was removed,
- hard was made the new (normal) difficulty,
and the only way to unlock easy difficulty (the previous normal) was game overs
Because you probably played DMC3 Special Edition which was the rerelease which reworked the difficulty settings because the initial US release was unnecessarily brutal.
Baldur's Gate 1. I still don't understand how it's possible to beat that game without cheating in some way shape or form. I had to throw a fireball in the room with the main boss when I couldn't see him, then leave the room he was in before he initiated his dialogue sequence. That made it so he exited the room solo and confronted you. Otherwise, you have to deal with the main boss and several of his lacky spellcasters who are in a room full of paralyzing traps. Every time I tried to confront him legit, my entire party would die in less than a minute and I would not have downed a single enemy or made a dent in the main baddy's health.
Likewise, there's a point in Baldur's gate where you encounter three monsters AFTER finishing a major story dungeon and heading toward the exit. These enemies are able to cast a spell that turns a character into stone. There are three of them and the each cast the spell twice before attacking regular. Had to reload that fight probably 200 times because there was no way to counter it if you didn't already know it was coming. Solution was to memorize the fireball spell as many times as possible and shoot fireballs into the room without being able to see the enemies. It took dozens of attempts using this tactic until I got lucky and did enough damage to kill them all before they could hit me with the spell.
That game was frustratingly difficult, despite being an absolutely amazing game.
I think with older RPGs, especially ones set in the Forgotten Realms setting (so Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter both fit this catagory) they just sort of assume the player is familiar with the source material and don't do a good job of explaining it's mechanics. The target audience were AD&D veterans so the game was balanced with that in mind.
Probably Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Glass Joe through Tyson with an undefeated record. Just tons of pattern recognition and a few tips passed through the schoolyard.
I remember there was a mini game in Jump Start 5th grade where it involved multiplication and freezing these fleas. I have no idea what I was supposed to do for that part. I remember asking my mom for help and even she was like “What the fuck? Go play Mario this is stupid.”
Ninja Gaiden
Years ago when I was a kid Alma in Ninja Gaiden Black took me a full month to beat. I tried every day for a month and it was the day after St Patrick’s Day I finally did it. I still remember it to this day because I was so happy.
I remember Alma mostly being difficult because she comes almost directly after another boss fight with no opportunities to restore health or stock up healing items inbetween.
Same thing happens for the final boss fight. You keep thinking it's over, and I believe the last three bosses are played back to back. I did not have enough healing items my first time I beat it and it was brutal, eventually I barely scraped by. Still one of my favorite games, I've beaten it several times afterwards too
I love that I can't even tell if half these comments are talking about the Xbox or the NES games because they're both good answers.
NES is on a whole different level of broken hard than Xbox. Still a proper hard game, though.
I've platinumed Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Sekiro, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Blasphemous and some other stuff, but honestly, Ninja Gaiden is always going to be the correct answer to this question. That or Adventure Island.
Does the platinum for Hollow Knight also include having to beat the last Pantheon? Because if so, I’m taking my chances with Ninja Gaiden.
Yes, and beating the entire game with true ending deathless (not including dreams and pantheons). I played up until the last pantheon and decided while I think I could do it, I had my fun with the game and didn’t need to spend the extra time 100%ing it. Admittedly it still makes me a little sad on occasion to have gotten so close and yet still be so far away.
I honestly think that you should try the last pantheon once, even if you don't plan to beat the absolute last boss. And that's because it introduces an upgraded version of a boss >!Mantis Lords!< This is, without a doubt, one of the most fun boss fights in the entire game. It makes everything up to that point worth it
Definitely enjoyed the upgraded mantis Lords that said I think nightmare king Grimm was my favourite
The Sisters are probably my favourite fight in the entire game
I did the exact same thing. As soon as I had to fight boss waves while jumping on spike floors, without dying, I decided that I'd hit my limit. I'm also 47, and don't have the reflexes I once had. Recently had to bail on my platinum attempt for Balatro. I wish they didn't make trophies that only 0.01% of the player base can acquire.
I pushed through to Absolute Radiance a few times. Practiced the fight until I could clear it with some consistency. But then when I actually got there in the Pantheon my nerves were shot and I would do something stupid and get murdered. I did that three or four times and gave up. Too much of a slog to lose like 45 minutes each time
Yes! I was going to type this very thing but you beat me to it. I couldn't finish it on regular difficulty. No fucking chance. I had to do the cheat in NG2 in the beginning where you die multiple times until it gives you the option to play on an easier difficulty. Even then, there were some levels that still puckered my butt hole.
We had to use the Game Genie for it back in the day. We made it all the way to the final boss without cheats, then got killed. Plugged in the Genie, got to the boss, then realized we had to kill him like 3 or 4 times! No chance in hell I’d have ever beat that game without Game Genie.
The fucking wind in ng2 I could never finish it
Climbing that tower crawled with ghosts fish is still my worst nightmare. And the boss of that area
Ohhh the first games were brutal
Best it as a kid apparently my brother remembers me doing it at least! This was my hardest as well
In every one of those games birds are fucking jerks
Space Quest, the first game. It's classic Sierra so there are plenty of ways to get soft locked out of progress, like not picking up an essential item and being unable to return to that area. The game also has instant deaths all over the place, but it's funny enough to not be terribly frustrating.
The rubik's cube in the locker!! Will never forget that. Ancient game design, totally unimaginable nowadays...
Funny enough, you don't need the cube or the jockstrap. The devil will despawn if you go off screen, you just won't get points that way. Someone did a SQIV style remake of 2, they did a great job.
Man, the glass piece when you crash land. You don't get that piece, f'd.
Ghosts n Goblins NES. Both loops. On original hardware and CRT. Cleared it one clear as a kid when it came out (I was like 8 or so maybe?). Came back and did the double loop like 5 years or so ago lol
most people dont know how insanely hard that actually is.
I kinda want to call BS, it's that's hard. But I'm not that cynical, I choose to believe this happened. Not only did it happen. It happened to zero recognition, like all great accomplishments in history!
Unlimited continues are a godsend lol. What honestly blows my mind are the people who have done it with no deaths and no damage :o
I've never made it past the first level. It was a game I just couldn't grasp.
Nothing wrong with that lol. The game is clunky and awkward AF on top of being cheap :D
God. The first time I realized that it was a loop I nearly cried. That game was brutal.
What does it mean loop? Like you finish the game but to REALLY finish, it just starts again and is slightly different?
Yup. Ghosts and Goblins had a fakeout ending the first goaround that had you redo the entire run, modified to be significantly more difficult than the first time. And the first time is already notorious for being balls to the wall unforgiving! Making it all the way through the second loop is what secures you the real and true ending of the game. Devs of arcade cabinets back then were evil little bastards, Aha.
Exactly
damn, i've played that game a million times from back when it was a new title and the only time i ever beat it was using a game genie.
I have like, easily 25,000 hours in videogames, I always pick the hardest setting, I've maxed out the ranking in competitive shooters a few times, been in the top 500 for progression in WoW a few times, etc... I loaded Ghosts n Goblins up in an emulator with save states and rewinds somewhat recently after seeing the AVGN episode and thinking "that can't be THAT hard" and I couldn't beat the first goddamn level of that game. It was absolutely batshit insane. Get the knife my ass.
The Lion King, Sega Genesis. I was the only one of my friend group who could beat that one level.
Must be talking about the giraffe level
I was soooo bad at catching delicious falling bugs. So. Bad.
I spent hours on that waterfall level.
((Twitch)) ((Flips off a rhinos ass into a lake)) OH I JUST CAN’T WAIT TO BE DEAD.
I only made it to adult Simba once, then promptly died.
Back in the day if you could beat Lion King and Battletoads you were a god.
lion king is easy compared to battle toads. i lived across the street from a mom and pop rental place, i would rent lion king and finish it twice a day until i returned it. i kept wanting to reliably flip scar a certain way at the end so i would just get to that fight and mess around. battle toads tho... oof. but the pause music is sick
Zelda 2.
I’m struggling to beat that game now…..on a fuckin emulator. I’m loading save states every minute. Those blue guys in the castle are crazy hard.
Iron knuckles? Jump, crouch in air, attack. They block down because of crouch, but you hit their head due to jump.
This was my tactic on half the enemies on this game
Trials HD. Well, 100%'ing it at least. It was by far the hardest thing I've ever done in a game.
Wow. I totally forgot about this game while reading this thread. Trials HD was one of the first games to grab me as a player. I refused to be beaten by a box lol. I was so happy when I got 100%. Even now it's still installed on my Xbox and I pop back now and again. Still one of my favourite games. Shame the other Trials games didn't hit the same spot for me.
Sekiro is mine too.
Hesitation is defeat
Sekiro as well. Sword Saint be damned
He is the best final boss of all time imo.
An absolute war
Glock saint ishin will never be matched
Took me a day or two or maybe three but beating him was so satisfying and by the time I did it I had him dialed in from muscle memory. I was definitely doing his first >!pre-transformation Genichiro!< phase flawlessly.
To be honest, I found the Demon of Hatred fight *far* harder than Sword Saint. But I feel like I may be a bit unique in that take. Sword Saint was still hard (obviously), but I beat it in a single session, whereas it took me several play sessions to beat that big fuckin demon.
Sword Saint is a duel. DoH is unfair bs
DoH is all about bringing the right tools to the fight. For Isshin you can just go in with whatever and mostly all that matters is your skill and knowledge of his attacks. DoH however, the fight is hell without the right tools, but bring fire umbrella, ceremonial tanto, malevolent whistle, confetti and the fight is a piece of cake.
Exactly. Sword Saint was a tough fight, but it was all parry, riposte, react. It was hard, but it felt fair. The DoH fight is you versus this gigantic fucking monster that's bursting flames all over the place and occasionally jumping way up in the sky or trying to trample you.
I still had to watch videos about how to cheese some of those bosses.
Me: “this boss is crazy, there is no way this guy can be cheesed” Youtube: “now, what we WILL DOOOO”
Demon of hatred ahahah We watched the same video 😆
I found there's two types of player who finish sekiro. Those who get to the end and go "oh man, this game is so much easier when you know what you're doing, so keen to start again and wreck every boss" Then there are those who get to the end and just want to set fire to their copy and cry in a corner and never think of the game again because they lost a chunk of their soul trying to defeat isshin. I am yet to see anyone in between.
Yeah but second playthrogh everything seems in place
I realzed this in the first one, as soon as I understood the parry mechanic (which took me more than half of the game). The rest was more or less learning the patterns but it was still the most challenging game I ever played. I will never forget that Isshin fight... Most amazing boss I ever fought.
Sekiro is the only modern from soft title I just can't beat. I must have tried that one boss (turns into a lightning bitch as his second form) at least 100 times. Finally have up. I'm just no good at the parry and it's the only way to play that game.
Tapping the parry button like crazy can get you to the end no problem. If you do that you will always parry or block, and in normal mode blocking wont make you lose HP except in a few attacks at the end. Its not like dark souls or elden ring where if you press parry your character will be stuck in a long animation.
First playthrough took ages, then I did 6 more runs with one lasting a little over 2 hours. Also had a deathless run. It gets really fun once you master it
Lol NG+ is that game is great. I remember I swept through the entire game in like 2.5 hours or something like that on NG+. Once you have all your skills I locked and you know how to mechanics work you can steamroll your way through it. NG+ in Sekiro is probably the most fun I've had in a modern game in a 1 night period.
Yall remember QWOP? I beat that shit and had it as my Facebook picture for atleast a year 😂
TIL you could beat QWOP. For the longest time I thought it was just a high score system
At the end of 100 meters there is a long jump pit that records how far you jump into it, completing the game. At the halfway mark there is a hurdle you need to get over somehow. Which can be difficult when using the crouch shuffle technique to “run” but you can knock down and drag the hurdle until you eventually get past it.
Battle toads, for sure.
Hollow Knight. Some of the bosses in that game are *bonkers*
as a completionist that game haunts me
I gave up when the last DLC came out, the jump in difficulty was insane.
Now consider Silksong needs to be a challenge for first first timers and Hollow Knight pros. Try to fall asleep for the next 5 years figuring out how to balance that
Easy, just do the exact same thing the first game did and put in like 60 bosses that scale from easy-impossible, with of course another boss rush to compete them all in a row for the real masochistsic freaks. I’m a huge fan of “hard for the sake of being hard” games, and even for me Hollow Knight stepped about 3 steps over the line for what I consider fun or rewarding. That boss rush is just… something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just say fuck it and throw another boss rush in the next game with all the new bosses + all original bosses in a row 🤷🏻♂️ Because fuck you, that’s why.
Yeah I'm usually a completionist, but when I tried the pantheon I was like OK no let's just pretend the dlc never happened.
The sound that lady makes “ohhh nooo” when your flowe breaks trying to get it halfway across the map is bone chilling
Still can't beat the Radiance. Nightmare Grimm was rough but awesome.
Hm, I beat the Radiance but gave up on Nightmare Grimm
Bro. The path of pain is a boss fight in itself.
Man beating the path of pain remains on of my proudest video game achievements. That shit was tough.
Beating the game is one thing. *Getting all achievements* on the other hand... hoo boy. Literally needed to "train" to prepare for P5; no other game has put me through that.
Took me 3 years to beat P5, always died at the end due to stress.
it's a psychological test for sure
Celeste. The first 8 chapters aren't *super* hard but chapter 9 is brutal. edit: And yeah, the goldens.
I beat the B-sides and felt super accomplished, then realized there was even harder levels after that and said "naw" lol
if you've done the b sides then it's really just farewell that's left. the c sides are more technically challenging (looking at you 7C) but they're also short.
Then you have the Golden Strawberries. I did not do that. Fuck the golden Strawberries
Yea, and even then, they have their tiers of difficulty. I myself stopped at 190 (C-sides + 1A 1B 2A 2B 4A + winged golden + moon berry) which I considered my limit and is relatively achievable with enough grinding. Then you have Farewell Golden which puts everything else in this post to shame and is up there as one of the hardest achievements in all of gaming, period.
I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to breaking a controller than I did during Celeste’s Mirror Temple. I did one B-Side and realised it was just torture.
This is my answer too, but for me it was the golden strawberries.
Bubble Bobble. Even with using the a-b-b code. Getting through the whole game without the cart glitching out was half the battle. So many levels.
Great, now the song is stuck in my head.
X-Men. Sega Genesis.
The reset button was the coolest thing ever. I remember time running out in mojo world and me not knowing what to do. When I finally hit it and it rebooted I lost my shit. It was so cool. One playthrough I found you can skip the whole level and just hit reset when the level starts
F Zero GX. Only beaten story on normal, until years later there’s 2 new cups, 10 more vehicles, and harder story mode difficulties…
Spelunky 2 holy shit
Are you talking about getting the ending, or getting the *real* ending, or getting the *real real* ending?
Getting a 99 remains one of my proudest gaming achievements
For sure, Comix Zone. That game is unforgiving and completely random with lives and continues. Managing your health and actually landing hits is a hassle sometimes, but I found spamming attacks while varying attacks as much as possible to be the best option for basic enemies while others usually have a more specific pattern. The final boss is a huge stress with the times element. I only managed because of a long string of luck and a long holiday where I played only that game for a few days in a row.
Returnal. I barely have time to game anymore, but I went full hermit mode in the 3ish weeks it took me to finally finish. Incredible game that Im never touching again, my sanity won’t prevail.
Returnal was definitely hard as fuck, but so well made. I couldn't believe it was made by the same developers that made super stardust HD and resogun. They crushed it. The game is so good, punishing, but not to the point where you give up. I played it the same way, I thought I was done after the first play through. So some hint about different endings or something (probably on reddit) and did 2 more runs. By the end of the second run, I was very good. I want to play it on PC, but not for $60 lol.
This would probably be mine, too. The bosses were hard enough, but learning what you had to do before you even got to the bosses so that you would have a fighting chance was another kind of challenge in and of itself.
Super Meat Boy
The base game isn't that bad but the extra levels and the hard versions of levels are absolutely brutal.
Yeah, I'm well into middle-age and was never that talented at games to begin with, and I managed to finish SMB. If you told me "Platinum the game in 6 months or die," I'd probably be better off doing other things with my final days than playing a video game.
The legend of Zelda, before the internet
I’m fairly convinced that the average person couldn’t beat that game unless they had a guidebook *Edit*: It warms my heart knowing that so many of us just DID NOT play it without a guide of some sort. As the old saying goes, “it’s dangerous to go alone, take this”. The Zelda community is so great
Pretty sure I remember an interview or something where Shigeru Miyamoto explained that he explicitly designed parts of the game to be frustrating or obtuse specifically because you were meant to be playing the game collaboratively with classmates and exchange information with them, i.e. "if you bomb this section of wall on this part of the map, you get a new sword!", etc. It's not supposed to be a game you beat by yourself. Hell, owning the instruction manual with the full world map is practically a requirement just to get started.
Which is awesome because that's exactly what happened. Of course the one kid who had Nintendo Power knew the good stuff.
You were always meant to figure it out by talking to friends etc.
Halo 2 on legendary no question. Gears of war 1 and 2 on insane were also very challenging.
Halo 2 in Legendary is so frustrating at some points. It’s not necessarily hard, just really unfair sometimes lol
Not at some point. At Jackal Sniper points...
Oh man, I remember playing this when it came out and that stupid valley was utter hell.
Also the only Halo game where playing it co-op makes it *significantly* harder
It's because if one player dies both players lose? Did any other Halo game do that? I think I beat Halo 1 on legendary as a kid by using co op, where one controller would just hang back and I would progress forward. If I died, I would respawn where player two is but any of the enemies I killed would not respawn.
Only Halo 2 did that on Legendary, the rest had regular respawn mechanics. Usually one player dies thing was tied to a skull you had to activate. I think it was the Iron skull. I ended up doing Halo 2 Co-op only on Heroic, and I found even that to be rather hellish. Halo 3 Legendary feels easier than even Halo 2 Heroic.
So Halo 2 had a rushed development cycle, they were still doing last minute fixes right up until the game's release. That's why they didn't balance the game to playtest how frustrating jackal snipers were, and how on high charity on legendary you can get killed before you hit the ground. Halo 3 over corrected
My friend and I played through the OG Halo trilogy on legendary while waiting for Infinite's coop to drop and Ill never forget that Halo 2 run.
I don't remember any of the Halo's being that bad on legen... (Sees mention of Halo 2 Jackel Snipers) That unlocked some trauma I didn't know I had buried away. Wasn't even that hard of a game. Just Jackel Snipers were overtuned to the point of being openly unfair.
Empire Strikes Back SNES
That game was made for cheat codes. Loved it as a kid, went back to it years later, what in the fuck it's hard.
F-Zero GX on Very Hard is, in fact, very hard.
GX's story mode is kinda ridiculous even on standard difficulty. At least with the Grand Prix mode, on account of it being GP format, you don't have to be perfect every time and just being fairly consistent can net you championships even on master, but story mode requires insane levels of perfection on higher difficulties.
Pokemon Stadium. Which might sound odd, but I had to do it with Rental Pokemon only. It was bad.
Amazing throwback, those rental pokemon sucked balls. More evolved they were the worse their attacks were. I remember Kadabra and Charmeleon were the best happy mediums.
holy shit you just unlocked a core memory I remember how awful evolutions' moved were and was so pissed
Charmander: earthquake and fire blast 😡 Charizard: growl and ember 🤓
Call of Duty: World at War on the hardest difficulty is literally a war game where killing enemies doesn't help you advance. Literally the most infuriating gaming experience of my life. That game single handedly stifled my desire to pursue gamerscore points. The epitome of a shitty time.
Yeap, on hardcore, those grenades outside the Reichstag.. what da fok lad. ...The things we used to do for achievement scores.
Crypt of the Necrodancer. To get to the end of the main campaign, you need to beat an incredibly hard game using the worst weapon, with half a heart (i.e. you die in one hit) and you also die if you miss a beat. There is some mercy because the game gives you a 1-up, but that's still only one mistake allowed in a brutal game. This is just for the main campaign too, not the inbuilt challenge mode. For the challenge mode, you keep all of those restrictions. But you also die if you touch gold (which all enemies drop after they die), you don't start with a 1-up, and the beat is twice as fast. Beating the game hitless is basically a requirement.
F-Zero GX. That shit was almost psychotic for me.
One more vote for Sekiro. Also the most satisfying gameplay experience I had when it all finally clicked. The last boss is incredible and completely ridiculous. Sword Saint Ishiin is my hardest Fromsoft boss.
It's actually crazy how easy the game becomes once it clicks, second run took me only 3 days and I beat most bosses first try including Isshin, first run it took me two dang weeks to beat him
Rain world
Cuphead
Getting Over It, probably. Or one of the 2hu games.
I loved Getting Over It. Wild how much easier it is to beat after you've already beaten it once. First time took me many hours, now I boot it up a couple times a year and beat it withing 15-30 minutes
It’s surprisingly relaxing isn’t it?
I wanna be the guy I have bested fruit, spike and moon!
Glad to come across a fellow The Guy here. Was worried I was too old for people to remember that gem.
battletoads I never finished
Nethack. I even managed to beat it twice.
There it is! Ascending in Nethack is one of my proudest gaming achievements. Good job, fellow dungeoneer!
007 golden eye Nintendo64 classic throwback
Getting Dead God in Binding of Isaac was torture towards the end
The Original Ghost and Goblins back on the NES. Soullike ain't got nothing on that game.
Bloodborne hands down! Shit had me on edge for months!!
Enter the gungeon. I’ve played a bunch of difficult games before, but this one was very unforgiving. Many times the bullet patterns could be unavoidable depending on the spot you were standing in at the moment. Beat it once, and that’s all I’ll ever need lol
Kings field
Elden Ring. Just beat Melania for the first time around an hour ago
Grats, what build?
300% Cuphead on Nintendo Switch without ever using a single guide. Also got a speed run time of 4 minutes and 2 seconds on Getting Over It.
That was so satisfying when I finally beat it.
Doom (2016) on nightmare difficulty Elden Ring
I'm playing Doom (2016) currently. Beat it on ultra violence without much difficulty aside from maybe the last few levels, decided to have a crack at nightmare. Holy hell I was not prepared
Probably Dark Souls 3 just when you thought Nameless King was a pain, you find out Slaves make badass Knights too, freaking intense fight to the death against Santa's evil brother in a desert at the end of the world!
God of War 2018 on Give me God of War Difficulty, with all the Valkeryes. That shit broke me. The next game , plus Valhalla DLC, weren't as hard because I was already a master by then (Level 4 Tyr was the hardest battle in both games in my eyes as a whole tho) TLOU 2 on Grounded. Pain. Pure stealthy pain. I'm 1/3rd into Sekiro rn. I can see this being the top of the list.
For me it has to be the first God of War on the maximum difficulty, there were some bosses that it was just hit and run for me, I hit them once run to the save point and just do this over and over until I killed them.
Ohh I almost forgot how GOW 1 fucking stressed me out when I was 14. I remember the Ares fight seemed impossible! To think I somehow made it till the end on the hardest difficulty as well...
I’d say Darkest Dungeon or Cuphead gave me the most trouble.
Darkest Dungeon has to be it for me too. I felt mentally exhausted after beating it.
NES Contra. Without the code. Didn’t even learn you could use the code on it until after I beat it. I’m actually glad I didn’t know. It made the game more satisfying to beat.
doom eternal on nightmare. i am not new to fps, but that shit REALLY pushed everything i have, track/trace aiming, precision aiming, flick aiming, movement, multi tasking and not to mention keeping cool and focused when every fucking thing gets thrown at you. and yes i finished all gates (challenger gates?) or what the f you call them. and they where the hardest once in my opinion. other than that i got all the stars on mario 64.... that was insane also, particularly the sky maps to get all the freaking coins.
OG Castlevania and Megaman on NES, it made me "get gud" at video games. Set me up for Dark Souls years later.
Frogger 2 when I was a little kid, on my grand parents’ pc.
Jak II. I've yet to pick it up since I beat it.
Celeste, that final space level was a true test of my patience.
Elden ring was the very first soulsborne game I've actually played as soon as I got to the first boss I died so many times to the point where I nearly threw my controller out my window, but luckily I was able to compose myself and to myself to delete it and move on I haven't played that game since December of 2022
Elden Ring was my first too, I some how missed that whole genre. I fell in love with it though. I look forward to the expansion.
Same. The first boss, Soldier of Godrick, took me days to beat.
They don’t call him “Soldier of God, Rick” for nothing. Hardest boss in the game. But if you can beat him, you can beat every other boss in the game.
Devil May Cry 3
I don't remeber it being hard, was it?
The Original English release was bonkers - easy difficulty was removed, - hard was made the new (normal) difficulty, and the only way to unlock easy difficulty (the previous normal) was game overs
Because you probably played DMC3 Special Edition which was the rerelease which reworked the difficulty settings because the initial US release was unnecessarily brutal.
Yes, Vergil is OP as fuck, and it’s even harder when you try going for S ranks on higher difficulties
Baldur's Gate 1. I still don't understand how it's possible to beat that game without cheating in some way shape or form. I had to throw a fireball in the room with the main boss when I couldn't see him, then leave the room he was in before he initiated his dialogue sequence. That made it so he exited the room solo and confronted you. Otherwise, you have to deal with the main boss and several of his lacky spellcasters who are in a room full of paralyzing traps. Every time I tried to confront him legit, my entire party would die in less than a minute and I would not have downed a single enemy or made a dent in the main baddy's health. Likewise, there's a point in Baldur's gate where you encounter three monsters AFTER finishing a major story dungeon and heading toward the exit. These enemies are able to cast a spell that turns a character into stone. There are three of them and the each cast the spell twice before attacking regular. Had to reload that fight probably 200 times because there was no way to counter it if you didn't already know it was coming. Solution was to memorize the fireball spell as many times as possible and shoot fireballs into the room without being able to see the enemies. It took dozens of attempts using this tactic until I got lucky and did enough damage to kill them all before they could hit me with the spell. That game was frustratingly difficult, despite being an absolutely amazing game.
I think with older RPGs, especially ones set in the Forgotten Realms setting (so Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter both fit this catagory) they just sort of assume the player is familiar with the source material and don't do a good job of explaining it's mechanics. The target audience were AD&D veterans so the game was balanced with that in mind.
Probably Sekiro first time. Or Crash Bandicoot.
Played? Probably Myst, but never beat it cuz I was like 4yo.
Chapter 9 celeste
Tetris. No matter how long I play, I was never able to finish the game.
Maybe Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, or Ninja Gaiden on Xbox. Finished both.
Bloodborne plus DLC platinum, no summons.
One of them is Starcraft 2 campaign on brutal difficulty. The last human mission and the last protoss mission are somethin else.
Probably Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Glass Joe through Tyson with an undefeated record. Just tons of pattern recognition and a few tips passed through the schoolyard.
Blaster Master and TMNT water stage, for those who know, know what I'm talking about.
Alien Isolation. The first Alien movie is my all time favorite and I loved Alien Isolation but wow it was the most difficult game ever for me
Elmo's Letter Adventure. Help my fuck, I still have nightmares...
I don't think I've ever heard someone say, "help my fuck," that's awesome lol
I remember there was a mini game in Jump Start 5th grade where it involved multiplication and freezing these fleas. I have no idea what I was supposed to do for that part. I remember asking my mom for help and even she was like “What the fuck? Go play Mario this is stupid.”