Top 5 Hardest Games You've Ever Played

Since I wont be here tomorrow/tuesday (going to the hospital to see my doc) I thought I'd post this earlier than usual. Like the title says, list the top 5 hardest games you've ever played. Not sure how this could work, you could either list them by system or all in one list. It can be because a game was hard or because of some hard parts.

Let's see here... my top 5...

1. Ghosts 'n' Goblins
2. Demon's Souls
3. Any of the old Wizardry games
4. PC-Hack/Nethack (no relation to the console-based .hack games)
5. Kid Icarus

Games I had fun playing
1. Elite Beat Agents- So to unlock the two hardest difficulties, you have to beat the ones before it. I still haven't unlocked the hardest difficulty and I've been playing this game off and on for six and a half years. Part of the reason I got an XL was so I could maybe unlock that hardest difficulty. Damn you Jumping Jack Flash!
2. Castlevania 3- I'm sure there's harder games on the NES, but this is the pinnacle of 3rd gen difficulty I've played. Damn those stairs.
3. Ninja Gaiden- I spent enough hours playing this game that with any other action series I would have beat it. Here I made it to the fourth level.
4. Halo 2 Legendary- I remember back when I had so few games I'd put in the time to beat this game on Legendary. Nowadays I wouldn't touch Legendary without someone to co-op with and I think 2 has the toughest Legendary.

Really the only ones worth mentioning IMO. May think of another later

Didn't have fun playing
1. Zelda 2- God damn this game.
2. Kid Icarus- Controls were too loose for pits that narrow. And those enemies who would summon all those floating guys.
3. Fallout New Vegas' Hardcore Mode- Way too much to keep track of for a game where for the most part challenge gets in the way of my fun. Worrying about sleeping/hunger/hydration and more realistic damage isn't what I play Fallout for.
4. Demon's Souls- If these games were tough but fair, I'd be fine. But getting killed by a dragon who came out of nowhere and losing all your souls. Yeah, that will get me to stop having fun because of the difficulty.
5. Pretty much any other NES game that isn't Mario, Mega Man, or Castlevania.

1. Super Ghouls & Ghosts. Had no idea about the series' legacy before I played it. Didn't leave me angry but flabbergasted.
2. Contra: Shattered Soldier. I was never good at this franchise, honestly, but I stopped with the franchise on this one.
3. Battletoads. I made it past that first obstacle course once and didn't last long enough to bask in my triumph.
4. Double Dragon (NES). That dumbass cave. Not so much hard but fucking unfair.
5. God of War, God Mode (Final Fight with Ares, specifically the 2nd phase with Kratos clones). I've never got past this point. Was so angry I took my frustration out on my brother, which also didn't turn out well.

I like Avid's top three a lot. I'd add Friday the 13th on NES. Maybe I just had no idea what I was doing as a kid. Maybe it was broken... I don't know.

I like the shout outs to the Ghouls series. I got really good at those because the first was one of the only games I had for an entire summer. My list is going to be all modern since stuff like King's Quest and Myst would make it too complicated/boring.

1. FTL - I'm not ashamed to say I still haven't beat it. The journey is fun regardless.

2. Monster Hunter FU - The combat is punishing in that it takes an understanding of vulnerability not only for the monster but your weapon animations.

3. Demon's Souls - Same as above but add it to each mob, not just bosses. And players can invade and jack you.

4. Super Meat Boy - Good throwback to NES difficulty.

5. Assassin's Creed - Ok, hear me out before you guys cry foul. This game wanted me to walk around slowly and sit down or whatever. No matter how many tries that's just not going to happen. Ever. I want to run and jump and do cool shit. So basically I made it to the pickpocket mission and quit. Maybe I was doing it wrong but I just stopped caring.

I feel like your problems with Assassin's Creed was bad design, not necessarily difficulty.

I know I've played some difficult games but the only one I can remember right now was Shinobi for the PS2. It controlled well, but fuck me it was hard.

Krubixcube wrote:I feel like your problems with Assassin's Creed was bad design, not necessarily difficulty.

I thought about that when I chose it. But design and controls contribute to difficulty. MHFU and Demon's Souls suffer the same problems as AC. They just happen to be good games.

I guess I make a distinction between difficulty and frustration. When I hear "difficult" think of a deliberately designed difficulty.

I'm not sure I follow you. Shinobi ps2 is just like SMB in that it's all about memorizing patterns and how many lives/attempts you get for success. That would pretty much render all games mentioned here frustrating and not difficult.

And yes, I just used semantics and generalizing to slap you with my mentals

True, but pattern recognition can be a good part of game design. Take any boss fight in a classic game. Those three stage boss fights, you dodge that, jump jump, hit. That kind of thing. You could call that learning the level so by the end you've mastered it. In other words, pattern recognition is absolutely designed.

Assassin's Creed was just frustrating because it didn't seem to follow its own rules. It wanted you to be sneaky but also gave you these free roaming elements that didn't mesh. That's frustrating. When every single enemy dies, but there's one enemy that randomly explodes that's not difficult, that's frustrating because it doesn't follow a rule that the player can learn.

By that definition, Shinobi would be difficult (given I haven't played it in a long time) but it's not random. Take a platformer like Rayman, the treasure levels. Those were all about memorizing the level until you got it, but it's well designed because that's the intention. If Rayman's levels moved at the same pace, but had a jump that was spaced wrong so that you couldn't do it, or the level design changed randomly, that would be frustrating because you can't learn it.

You make it difficult to have a debate, t-wolf, since I'm usually just agreeing and playing devil's advocate. I'll give it a shot:

AC has the same mechanics throughout even though the ai isn't static like in Rayman. What I mean is that the environment and triggered events are acting independently of each other, but that doesn't mean a soft reset or load can't make it more favorable to the gamer. Therefore I consider it design and part of the process you mention.

Think about it like this: In SMB you can reset the ai by entering a scene of scripted events at any given time. Same as AC. The dynamics of cause and effect are the same. Or consider Elder Scrolls where placing an item upsets a predetermined script to the point of making otherwise difficult tasks simple.

Ugghh. I'm doing this from my phone instead of a proper keyboard so my thoughts get unorganised. Literally all thumbs. You damn kids and your technology.

Says you. I'm typing from a keyboard, gramps. I see where you're coming from though. I still say it's badly designed. Stuff reacts in the same way, true, but well designed challenge is difficult, poorly designed challenge is frustrating. I think long story short, that's what it boils down to in my pretentious brain.

Kayshire Cat wrote:
I actually cant really think of any more. I dont find too many games actually too hard unless you want to count broken pieces of shit CoD BLOPs Declassified. That game was hard because it controlled like shit.

That reminds me when I was a kid and thought Superman 64 was the hardest game ever. I didn't know it was broken and pretty much the worst game ever. So sad...