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What were the hardest arcade coin-op games?


ericwierson

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I agree with that Super Zaxxon is too fast. Some games are too fast or difficult for their own good. They get you so wound up you can't really enjoy the game for the game. Or not even get good enough to want to improve your score. I really never fought against for bothered with playing them too much. Their loss.

 

However. The difficult arcade games often translated into easier & simpler home editions. Being a retard and all that, I appreciated the reduced difficulty...

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Donkey Kong is hard. However, after watching the barrel behavior -- I swear that game cheats.

 

The probability of a barrel going down a ladder is affected by Mario's position and direction of motion. It does increase if Mario is on the ladder. This is true even if he is on a ladder at a lower platform that happens to be at the same horizontal position. You also have the ability to increase the probability of a barrel going down a ladder by moving towards the barrel when you are on the opposite side of the ladder from it. The chance of doing this increases at higher levels.

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Yeah, you can sort of predict the rolling barrels--just wait when you're near a ladder and barrel's about to roll overhead; if you climb without waiting it'll usually roll down on you, even down broken ladders. I get a bit mystified at the ones that bounce at weird angles or just suddenly drop straight down.

Edited by retrorussell
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  • 3 weeks later...

I totally can't get Battlezone.. I get shot at and have no chance to get the enemy in range in time, quite often. And I just can't seem to avoid being a sitting duck. How the hell do I get out of the enemies' range? I know the basics of moving the joysticks (fast left, fast right, left, right, backwards, forwards) but I can't seem to get away from the enemy to where I can see them in time, every time, before they shoot at me.

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I totally can't get Battlezone.. I get shot at and have no chance to get the enemy in range in time, quite often. And I just can't seem to avoid being a sitting duck. How the hell do I get out of the enemies' range? I know the basics of moving the joysticks (fast left, fast right, left, right, backwards, forwards) but I can't seem to get away from the enemy to where I can see them in time, every time, before they shoot at me.

Russel, this one takes a bit of time, but it can be mastered. If it were the tanks only it could EASILY be marathoned, the only wild card is the guided missile. I wish I had made a vid. before I sold it on how to easily destroy tanks and super tanks and even the guided missiles. Watch this vid. on how easy the game really is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymrYkbEbnEQ

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I totally can't get Battlezone.. I get shot at and have no chance to get the enemy in range in time, quite often. And I just can't seem to avoid being a sitting duck. How the hell do I get out of the enemies' range? I know the basics of moving the joysticks (fast left, fast right, left, right, backwards, forwards) but I can't seem to get away from the enemy to where I can see them in time, every time, before they shoot at me.

Move backwards and shoot at them.

 

Then when they shoot at you, keep moving backwards and pull either to the left of right. Their shot will zip right past you.

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I'll give it another chance with those tips, thanks.. but not for a while. Some games just grip me with their difficulty and I can't get over panicking/getting pissed. My next game I'm doing a video of is Defender. (laughs with disdain)

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  • 1 year later...

I suck at Asteroids but my dad's good at it :P

Rolling Thunder was hard as heck BITD, I always died on the first level and "HUHAHEHEHEHEHEH" (that is my interpretation of the villain's laugh) And then just today at Go Play I discovered the sequel. We made it past the first level, though. :)

When I played Mega Man: The Power Battle at the dentist's office, I couldn't get past Yellow Devil. Today I realized you had to shoot his eye. :D

Zaxxon is real hard. Today at Go Play I took part in a mode I made up called "Hyper Zaxxon", where I tried to go as fast as I could on one life. I failed. :_(

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I remember two games that ate quarters and shortened my day at the arcade...

 

1) Missile Command

 

2) Turbo Outrun

 

 

Turbo Outrun-- the angle changed from Outrun... Less top-down (more road level)... Dirty filthy obstacles you HAD to memorize.

 

 

Looking back on it now, it was probably not that hard, but I never made it to L.A.

Edited by Opry99er
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  • 4 weeks later...

Some of the hardest arcade machines that I have played are.

 

Zaxxon: There is no question about this game being difficult. The isometric view and lining up your plane in the right area from walls, force fields, enemy planes, etc. This game put a serious dent in my quarters.

 

Rolling Thunder: Hard as nails and a lot of cheap hits and deaths will make this a pure nightmare. Also you have to beat the timer to speed up the process.

 

Spy Hunter: For me it was tough because you had to have good reflexes and judgement. And you can't go too fast or too slow.

 

Millipede: This game is practically Centipede on steroids. The spiders are total dicks. Not to mention the dragonflies and mosquitos become an ass and have to move around and shoot frantically. To be good it is all in the skill of the trak ball and rapid firing.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Hi guys, new user here.

Just a couple of questions and I hope they're on topic.

 

Did anyone else ever know the trick to play "forever" on the final revision of Gauntlet, and Gauntlet 2 (the one that made the game harder/slowly took out food every 16,384 points?). (it did require 4 credits to exploit the bug, however). Was this trick known by anyone except Eric Crabill, before the emulator days? The older G1 versions just gave you unlimited food drops. One arcade had an 'intermediate release 7' that was playable all day and night on one credit just by farming food.

 

You guys made good points about games with continues not being good candidates for 'hardest games ever'

Is the legendary Eric Crabill still around? I last talked to him about 10 years ago. He told me he had to sell his original Gauntlet machine. :(

 

BTW about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons: someone mentioned these two games being too hard:

Back during the early 90's, I could beat TMNT quite easily on one quarter by exploiting an overflow bug (little did I know that Gauntlet 2 had a similar bug except with points). Turtles in Time (TMNT 2) however had an artificial 5 minute and 10 second level time, which prevented you from doing this bug easily without a death bomb dropping on you. The Death bomb was dodgeable UNTIL you got to the ship level, as the ground was too high up to react in time to it :(

 

I got to the final boss on the Simpsons on one credit before (solo play), but couldn't defeat him. I think I gave up trying again because some of the bosses were too hard and Street Fighter was starting to get played to death. I also go to the final boss in Crackdown, once or twice, on one credit, and couldn't beat it. Gave up also. Both were just very hard games :(

Edited by Falkentyne
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Okay - here's my list of HARDEST arcade games and a bunch of these haven't been mentioned yet --

#1. Haunted Castle - it's a Castlevania game and regarded as the hardest & least popular game in the series.

#2. Mars Matrix - it's a shooter, I can't seem to get very far in level one.

#3. Gradius 3 - Galloping Ghost has the arcade version, no one has passed level three yet. There's ten levels. Oh also, it's the Japan version, the World version is less difficult...somewhat.

#4. Assault Plus - my high for this one is 107K for the super mode which takes you thru all 11 levels in the game (easy mode you only get five levels) (Namco tank game)

#5. Congo Bongo - tried repeatedly to complete levels two and three but can't dodge those darn rhinos!

#6. Gyruss - can't take out an incoming wave for the bonus cause you'll get shot first.

#7. Subroc 3D - try to get 100K on this one before getting blasted (Sega)

#8. Battletoads - lotta cheap hits and you're coin'ing up repeatedly early.

#9. Stargate - way too many buttons to keep track of.

#10. Joust 2 - much harder than Joust 1. Or else I just wasn't that great at Joust.

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There were a lot of them that were really difficult. Some difficult to master, some downright impossible. But my vote for #1 would have to go to Sinistar.

 

That game is so cool and you really want to play it. The sounds, graphics, gameplay, and potential to see what's next all draw you in and steal your quarters. But without fail I always get whipped by that game. Always. Always have and always will. There is no beating Sinistar. Ever.

 

Ever.

 

Sinistar will forever hunger. And always be able to find a willing meal.

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  • 2 months later...

Yeah there's a big difference between a hard game that's MASTERABLE (e.g. Defender & Robotron) vs. a hard game that's IMPOSSIBLE (e.g. Sinistar).

 

You'll find expertly skilled Defender and Robotron players but you'll never find someone who's mastered Sinistar, and if they say they did, they're a liar. :lol:

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There are quite a few difficult arcade games that I have played.

 

Rolling Thunder

Gravitar

Robotron 2084

Defender

NARC

Sinistar

Haunted Castle

 

Rolling Thunder always seems to get cheap deaths and hits and have found the game too frustrating for my liking.

 

NARC you have tons of enemies firing at you from all directions.

 

Haunted Castle totally agree! A difficult Castlevania clone/spinoff. Only have one life and the last level going across the bridge is a nightmare.

 

Robotron 2084 is a great game but the difficulty increases during each wave.

 

Defender is fun but I don't have the reflexes to be great at it or master it.

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Yeah there's a big difference between a hard game that's MASTERABLE (e.g. Defender & Robotron) vs. a hard game that's IMPOSSIBLE (e.g. Sinistar).

 

You'll find expertly skilled Defender and Robotron players but you'll never find someone who's mastered Sinistar, and if they say they did, they're a liar. :lol:

 

I think you would have to define "masterburation" "masterable" as being able to marathon Sinistar which nobody has been able to do. Last I remember Richie Knucklez had the top score on Sinistar and he was able to get through all the boards twice and died his third time through.

 

As much as I've played Sinistar I was never able to complete the third board. My high score is around 150K. The average player will find achieving 100K too difficult.

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Any maze game that did not employ the same type of "turn the corner" mechanics as Pac-Man did, which involved pushing and holding towards the turn before you made the turn-- which made rounding corners a snap-- would kick my ass back in the day. You would have to turn almost IMMEDIATELY at the turn or very close to it, which threw me off completely. TURTLES was like this if I remember correctly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Rolling thunder was actually quite easy. It didn't take me that long to figure out how to beat it on one quarter, after I saw another player abuse a bug exploit.

If you moved a certain distance off the screen from where the ammo was, you could backtrack and use the door again to get ammo repeatedly. You were only limited by the remaining level time.

Games which were set to a low level time were impossible, however. Standard difficulty was fine.

 

There were also a few levels where you could abuse a bug to make yourself invulnerable by "climbing" to a different layer on the same horizontal plane. Someone else discussed this awhile back. They said it had something to do with how elevations/platforms were coded in that game.

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