The HARDEST games for the NES

[Turd Furgason]

Is it just me, or were MOST NES (and SNES) games really hard? I haven't ever been able to finish any platform game of that era (even frickin' Super Mario) I pretty much stuck to Atari stuff and PC gaming during that era, as it seems all those Nintendo console platform games required superb reflexes, impeccable timing, and infinite patience. Thankfully, games from the 32/64-bit era and forward seemed to finally accept that not all gamers are in possession of superhuman skills.

 

 

 

Well, with no saves you had to play the same freakin levels over and over....until you had it memorized......I beat the first resident evil on playstation without having a memory card...i can remember that game room for room to this day

[2600Lives]

I'd say the difficulty levels started being pared back in the SNES days, with a few notable exceptions (Super Ghouls' N Ghosts, which I have actually beaten all the way through twice to get the real ending). I've beaten tons and tons of SNES games, and somewhat fewer NES ones.

 

Oh, lemme add another NES game to the list. Street Fighter 2010. Absolutely impossible to finish in the final stages.

[NE146]

Takeshi's Challenge.

 

--Zero

What a hateful game, this is. What sort of redeemable quality can japanese folks possibly see in this thing? It basically spits on the player, and rolls him through the mud. Perhaps a submissive person would enjoy this, or someone who enjoys ridiculous challenges. There's no reason to suffer through this crap, nothing but boredom, frustration, and the futile pride of conquering it.

 

If anything, it's an anti-game.

 

Well yeah that's exactly what it is. Didn't you read the article?

Takeshi's Challenge was the product of Takeshi Kitano (or "Beat Takeshi" as he refers to himself), a famous Japanese comedian who had his own TV show at the time. Released in 1986, it's one of the first licensed games to suck, but it did so on Takeshi's orders. The title screen contains the translated message, "This game is made by a man who hates videogames."

 

It's a total intentional joke game. And apparently is as famous in Japan as any of our cliche "worst games of all time" are here.

[STICH666]

I'd have to say any of the Megaman games are up there. Cybernoid and Mach Rider are personally up there. i don't know if anybody has problems with them but they are just insane for me.

[vdub_bobby]

Is it just me, or were MOST NES (and SNES) games really hard? I haven't ever been able to finish any platform game of that era (even frickin' Super Mario) I pretty much stuck to Atari stuff and PC gaming during that era, as it seems all those Nintendo console platform games required superb reflexes, impeccable timing, and infinite patience. Thankfully, games from the 32/64-bit era and forward seemed to finally accept that not all gamers are in possession of superhuman skills.

The first SMB is tough. I can beat it pretty easily nowadays, mostly through lots of practice, but it is much tougher than SMB2 or SMB3. And of course, you have to remember that there were fewer cheat codes, walkthroughs, FAQs in those days and they weren't as widely distributed.

 

And really, SMB isn't any harder than, say, Pitfall! or Kaboom! or H.E.R.O. or River Raid or Yar's Revenge or Demon Attack or whatever. SMB is just much, much longer. You play a single game of H.E.R.O. for 20 minutes and you feel pretty good about yourself. Play SMB for 20 minutes and you only got to level 3.3 or something, less than half the way through.

Edited January 13, 2009 by vdub_bobby

[+DamonicFury]

Well, with no saves you had to play the same freakin levels over and over....until you had it memorized......I beat the first resident evil on playstation without having a memory card...i can remember that game room for room to this day

 

The "no saves" is certainly a part of the difficulty... it's certainly less likely that I would be able to beat modern games like the more recent Mario titles and the Crash Bandicoot games without the saves.

 

The first SMB is tough. I can beat it pretty easily nowadays, mostly through lots of practice, but it is much tougher than SMB2 or SMB3. And of course, you have to remember that there were fewer cheat codes, walkthroughs, FAQs in those days and they weren't as widely distributed.

 

And really, SMB isn't any harder than, say, Pitfall! or Kaboom! or H.E.R.O. or River Raid or Yar's Revenge or Demon Attack or whatever. SMB is just much, much longer. You play a single game of H.E.R.O. for 20 minutes and you feel pretty good about yourself. Play SMB for 20 minutes and you only got to level 3.3 or something, less than half the way through.

 

Both the lack of walkthroughs in the 80's/early 90's and the size of the games are certainly factors also.

 

Even given those factors, I still feel like platform games like SMB, Mega Man, and (oh my god) Star Wars/Super Star Wars are far harder than the usual 2600 games. I feel GREAT after playing the Atari games mentioned above. I can beat Pitfall and Pitfall II, and play for a long, long time in River Raid, for example. Getting "in the zone" in Kaboom is one of the best experiences in videogaming. And to give a more recent example, I can beat all but the very hardest Guitar Hero songs on Expert. But I feel like an uncoordinated moron after playing an NES/SNES platformer. I have nothing but respect for all of you who can enjoy and beat those games... it seems like a feat that will be forever beyond my grasp. :-)

[vdub_bobby]

Even given those factors, I still feel like platform games like SMB, Mega Man, and (oh my god) Star Wars/Super Star Wars are far harder than the usual 2600 games. I feel GREAT after playing the Atari games mentioned above. I can beat Pitfall and Pitfall II, and play for a long, long time in River Raid, for example. Getting "in the zone" in Kaboom is one of the best experiences in videogaming. And to give a more recent example, I can beat all but the very hardest Guitar Hero songs on Expert. But I feel like an uncoordinated moron after playing an NES/SNES platformer. I have nothing but respect for all of you who can enjoy and beat those games... it seems like a feat that will be forever beyond my grasp. :-)

Reading that makes me think that its more a matter of experience - SMB was much more my childhood than Pitfall!, and so I just played it a lot more; and so I'm much better at NES-era games than...well, than probably any other era's games.

 

I wonder if it has to do with a age 15-25 dead zone? I played a ton of video games through about age 15 or so and, though I never stopped playing, I definitely stopped playing so much - starting around age 16 it was more cars, girls, music, sports, school. In college I played more videogames but had no money for anything new so I mostly played/replayed the games of my childhood (i.e., SMB). Since college I've had (a little) more money to throw around and I've gradually got more and more back into videogames. But there was a definite dead zone for me, from 1992-2002, where I didn't follow games (much) or buy almost any games.

 

Anybody else have similar experiences?

Edited January 14, 2009 by vdub_bobby

[Gregory DG]

one game I found almost impossible to finish is INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. I could never make it to the rope bridge.

I've beaten it. There's a few shortcuts you can do to get to the last lava level in a few moments.

 

contra without using the code ....is ultra hard - plus it's a great game

Beat it with only 1 man. Never lost a life. Even at the very end!

[Ze_ro]

Takeshi's Challenge.

What a hateful game, this is. What sort of redeemable quality can japanese folks possibly see in this thing? It basically spits on the player, and rolls him through the mud. Perhaps a submissive person would enjoy this, or someone who enjoys ridiculous challenges. There's no reason to suffer through this crap, nothing but boredom, frustration, and the futile pride of conquering it.

 

If anything, it's an anti-game.

I bought this off eBay a while back, just out of curiosity. I haven't gotten around to giving it a solid play yet though. I also own Bokosuka Wars, if that's any indication of my mentality.

 

--Zero

[johnny_boy]

I guess I was looking at Takeshi from the point of view of the player, who is suffering through a painful gaming experience, but if you're onto the joke and in the spirit of the game, I guess it can be seen as quirky and eccentric. Same for Bokosuka Wars, except I'm wondering if the creator's intentions here were serious or not.

 

Now, another hard as hell game: Kid Icarus.

 

Made with the Metroid engine, by the Metroid team, but with a different state of mind. I'm not a fan of it, but I do like the gentler Game Boy sequel.

Edited January 14, 2009 by johnny_boy

[erotic_suicide]

I will say that to me the most difficult game on the NES was always Bayou Billy followed closely by Ghosts and Goblins. I actually got pretty good at Contra, not good enough to beat it on one life but good enough to beat it without the 30 man code. But Bayou Billy and Ghosts and Goblins, those I could almost never make it past the first couple of levels and never came close to beating (except I did beat Ghosts and Goblins by using a warp cheat to go directly to the last boss twice, but that doesn't really count of course). I hate Bayou Billy maybe more than any other game on any system because I was so excited to get it when I was a kid (due to the commercials which I thought were awesome) and then it was sooo unfair, cheap, and terrible in my opinion. Castlevania 1 is pretty dang hard to me, too, but at least it's fun.

 

Ninja Gaiden III is also tremendously hard (even moreso than I and II) because there is supposedly an error in the code in the English version that makes you take more damage from everything than you did in the Japanese version. I don't know if that is true or not but it's what I've heard. The game is super-hard regardless of why it happened, though.

[shadow460]

My vote goes to Castlequest.

 

Castlevania is kinda hard, but only in spots. Parts of Stage 4 are hard, Death is tough, and parts of Stage 6 are hard. Dracula is a wuss, though.

[+thegoldenband]

I've been playing through Silver Surfer recently, and I have to say that its reputation seems undeserved. It's fairly unforgiving, but I've seen far, far worse, and for the most part the challenge seems fair -- a player can anticipate what's coming next without having to memorize intricate patterns. I've generally been able to play through each stage on the first or second try.

 

Back to the Future, on the other hand, is a contemptible wreck of a game -- the kind that ends up with you swearing at the screen and wanting to punch the designer out, because it's so full of cheap shots and so poorly playtested. The worst part is the final stage, which is borderline criminal. To get the car up to 88 MPH, you have to navigate at high speed through a field of tricky obstacles. Blow it, and game over. It basically depends on pattern memorization, but you only get one chance to learn the pattern! Plus the game doesn't give you any indication of how close you are to the checkpoint/lightning rod, so you can't adjust your approach based on how much leeway you have. It's really inexcusable.

 

Ironsword is also pretty dire -- the final battle is just way too hard, completely out of proportion with what it ought to be. Combine that with taking away all your continues, and you've got another game developer who probably needed to hire a bodyguard.

 

Other damned hard games...Cybernoid, Captain Comic, and the original Adventure Island all come to mind. Add Double Dragon, but mainly for the moving blocks at the beginning of Stage 4, for which I've never found a 100% reliable pattern. Destination Earthstar was pretty brutal, too -- I never did beat that one, those side-scrolling levels get out of control fast. And for puzzle games, the Lolo series gets incredibly sadistic at times, and I remember the last few levels of Kickle Cubicle as being rough.

 

But except for Destination Earthstar, I've beaten all of those, and a bunch of other allegedly impossible games. One game I've never gotten anywhere with, though, is Dash Galaxy. I play that one for a few minutes and always just throw my hands up in despair.

Edited January 15, 2009 by thegoldenband

[+Charlie Cat]

Hi guys,

 

To me, Back to the Future 1 is the easiest game I've ever played. I love the repetitive music going on & on & on.

 

I wouldn't mind having that on my ring tone.

 

Anthony....

[GreenDayRlz]

Nobody here is REALLY into NES....Or 80's pop culture.

 

 

GHOSTBUSTERS.

 

 

It's hard to beat that game with the Game Genie. And when you DO beat it, You wana beat it again because you don't know if the end screen said it right, Which it doesn't.

 

 

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p253/Pa...hostbusters.jpg

[Ryanw]

Nobody here is REALLY into NES....Or 80's pop culture.

 

 

GHOSTBUSTERS.

 

 

It's hard to beat that game with the Game Genie. And when you DO beat it, You wana beat it again because you don't know if the end screen said it right, Which it doesn't.

 

 

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p253/Pa...hostbusters.jpg

 

Haha wow are you serious? That was the end screen? Wow must of been a great game..

 

For hardest that I've played I'd have to agree with the person who said Golgo 13. It took me like a year to figure out how to do the helicopter mission, and after that it's just impossible.

[GreenDayRlz]

Rofl.

 

Yes, There is a mistake on all 4 lines.

 

Talk about a heck of a translaion XD

 

I should pick Glogo 13 up, I see it everywhere, just dont wana get it XD

[Lee9977]

"wall street kid" lol, very HARD to play,

[7800Lover]

Ghost and Goblins - that was just annoying having to start all over.

 

How about Super Pitfall? That game was as frustrating as trying to pick up water with your bare hands.

 

And funny the Ninja Gaiden games should be mentioned. I hated the first one (or was it the second?) that had those birds that could kill you. Considering the game was made in Japan, I have to wonder what is it with the Japanese and killer birds? Do birds routinely kill people in Japan?

Edited January 24, 2009 by 7800Lover

[darthkur]

Karnov - Enemies seem to make an awful amount of "cheep shots".

Section Z - You have to have a photographic memory for this one.

SMB 2 (The original) - Obvious reasons.

Mega Man (all of them) - Takes far more perseverance than I seem to possess.

Castlevania II Simon's Quest - Doubt I ever would've finished it without the walk-through.

[midnight magicman]

Nobody here is REALLY into NES....Or 80's pop culture.

 

HAHA!

 

Let me guess... you where born 79 or later & you only count 86 & beyond..... Funny as hell. There actually WAS a thriving gaming community prior to '85 & it consisted of us kids going to the local arcades & pumping quarters into Tempest & Tapper! Are you REALLY into 80's pop culture?!?

 

Peace

[Osbo]

contra without using the code ....is ultra hard - plus it's a great game

 

I finished contra without cheating back in the day. The one I could never finish was The Hunt for the Red October, that's a really difficult game!

[BassGuitari]

Offhand, the hardest games for me are:

 

-Castlevania (dungeon level onward)

-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (cave levels, Technodrome battle = damn tough; inside Technodrome= forgetaboutit)

-Ninja Gaiden/II

-MegaMan III

-Super Mario Bros. 2 - Japan

[Stan]

This is a tough one, but there's only one game I agree with mentioned thus far, and that's Battletoads. The others, like Castlequest and Section Z, are quite easy, but that's if you have the maps, which I do (mail aways). Contra is sometimes called difficult, but it's really not, I've beaten it without the 30-live code plenty of times. Castlevania? Hard, definitely, but it's quite beatable, I actually did it without cheats for a class I taught about demons one day (recorded it, at any rate and showed them some clips). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is quite difficult as well, but before you get into the technodrome, all you have to do is enter this one building and keep collecting scrolls until each turtle has 99. Once you have that, you're unstoppable and Shredder is cake. Otherwise, yes, difficult. So, that being said, and not commenting on others, Battletoads is it. Even with the complete guide that Nintendo Power put out it requires spot-on timing and near complete memorization of everything. Good players learn to go for maximum points to get enough one-ups to make it, otherwise you can forget it. I've been playing it without cheats for awhile now and over the past few months mastered getting as far as the end of the Gargantua ducts without using continues. It's one of those games where you have to be quite patient, because you go only so far each time, lose everything and then do it all over. I remember being a child and everyone having the same opinion of it, awesome until level three, and then you have to be a beast to get anywhere. It is possible, however, but it still remains the ONLY NES game I have yet to beat without cheating (and I even include using the warps in this case). Heck, even with those warps you don't stand much of a chance because you need to build up a reserve of lives to get through it.

[CARTRIDGE STEALER]

one game I found almost impossible to finish is INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. I could never make it to the rope bridge.

I've beaten it. There's a few shortcuts you can do to get to the last lava level in a few moments.

 

contra without using the code ....is ultra hard - plus it's a great game

Beat it with only 1 man. Never lost a life. Even at the very end!

 

 

ive tried it but even with the cheats, I could complete the last level that takes to the bridge. I was always one kid shy of getting to the bridge.