# Hardest games you've played



## Nexus Cabler (Oct 14, 2021)

Alright, so looking back, I remember owning a Gameboy Advance (The 2001 version of your Nintendo Switch)  and remembered getting a game called Iridion 3D

It's graphics were incredible, and the concept was awesome, but my goodness, it was a heck of a hard game to beat. I never did make it to the end. 

It makes me want to know, what were some of the games you really struggled with?


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## Judge Spear (Oct 14, 2021)

Iridion was a great showcase of the GBA. Shi'nen was very good at getting the most of Nintendo's hardware in a small package while being some of the most visually impressive on the then current hardware. All of their games are really simple but very impressive from Iridion to NanoStray to Fast RMX.

On the topic of STG's I think the hardest game I've tried to play was Battle Garegga because of it's scoring. I'm no stranger to bullet hell shooting (actual bullet hell, not the trendy faux STG shit like Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon people wrongly tag "bullet hell"). I've gotten several clears of the more legendary titles in the genre, but Raizing/Yagawa games such as Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider are mindbending. It's not so much the actual patterns though that's difficult too, but rank control to ensure the game doesn't kill you. It requires probably the deepest dive into game mechanic understanding I've ever seen.

In order to keep rank under control to keep the game from being physically impossible, you need to balance a tight rope of kill yourself to reduce rank and scoring efficiently to get those lives back and it goes way WAAAAY beyond just blowing everything up.

A world record for the game by Kamui was achieved last year and she provides excellent commentary that will make your head spin reading the game's nuance.

Devil Engine was another ruthless title that actually somewhat shocked me with it's pacing.
And Rolling Gunner recently bent me over as well.


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## Yakamaru (Oct 14, 2021)

Hello Kitty Online on Easy. >:


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## Judge Spear (Oct 14, 2021)

Yakamaru said:


> Hello Kitty Online on Easy. >:


you talkin about this?


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## Mambi (Oct 14, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> Alright, so looking back, I remember owning a Gameboy Advance (The 2001 version of your Nintendo Switch)  and remembered getting a game called Iridion 3D
> 
> It's graphics were incredible, and the concept was awesome, but my goodness, it was a heck of a hard game to beat. I never did make it to the end.
> 
> It makes me want to know, what were some of the games you really struggled with?



*C-Cuphead*...that, that darn game..._<starts twitching randomly as flashbacks overwhelm his soul, and he shudders as he recalls hours and hours and hours is frustration>_


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 14, 2021)

I only played a bit of Doom 2: Plutonia and holy fuck it makes the base game look trivial


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## Outré (Oct 14, 2021)




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## Judge Spear (Oct 14, 2021)

I still can't get through this without dying at least once.


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## TyraWadman (Oct 14, 2021)

Judge Spear said:


> I still can't get through this without dying at least once.


I love these kinda of games.
Other than that super old NES one I played, the other would be castle shikigami 2.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 14, 2021)

TyraWadman said:


> I love these kinda of games.
> Other than that super old NES one I played, the other would be castle shikigami 2.


It's my favorite genre. It's weird to me that achievements within the genre are not as lauded as some others I see which are often times self or community imposed. Like it's not something the game itself directly encourages.
Trying to get a world record in a game like Battle Garegga or Great Mahou Daisakusen is...masochism.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 15, 2021)

That's a pretty though question. Cuphead was pretty hard, though Sekiro was probably a bit harder, and Dark Souls actually isn't too bad once you get the hang of it. It's probably got to be Sekiro. That last boss was pretty damn grueling.


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## SkyboundTerror (Oct 16, 2021)

Probably the original Ghosts 'n Goblins. The ending wasn't even worth the effort. How anyone can sit down, play the game, and think it's fun is beyond me.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 16, 2021)

SkyboundTerror said:


> Probably the original Ghosts 'n Goblins. The ending wasn't even worth the effort. How anyone can sit down, play the game, and think it's fun is beyond me.


Oh that game's not hard. That game's BAD.


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## Winterr88 (Oct 16, 2021)

THIS
Its a really fun free game, when I played I found it extremely difficult


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## JollyCooperation (Oct 17, 2021)

One of the very few RPGs I actually dropped because the difficulty was just bonkers was Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. The game has an interesting mechanic where you can sacrifice your units permanently for a bonus in the current fight and an ability that your MC can use in the rest of the game. And it feels like they are really trying to push you towards sacrificing your guys, because each mission seems tailor made to be BARELY possible without doing so. Of course, haphazardly killing off your own team will eventually lead to you softlocking yourself because there are not enough people left to have any chance at winning the next fight. 

There is also no way to grind for levels or money, you just go from fight to fight, and eventually I gave up because having to pray for good RNG on every single enemy attack just wasn't fun. Could be possible that I just played the game completely wrong, I'd have to ask someone who actually finished the game to confirm.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 17, 2021)

JollyCooperation said:


> One of the very few RPGs I actually dropped because the difficulty was just bonkers was Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. The game has an interesting mechanic where you can sacrifice your units permanently for a bonus in the current fight and an ability that your MC can use in the rest of the game. And it feels like they are really trying to push you towards sacrificing your guys, because each mission seems tailor made to be BARELY possible without doing so. Of course, haphazardly killing off your own team will eventually lead to you softlocking yourself because there are not enough people left to have any chance at winning the next fight.
> 
> There is also no way to grind for levels or money, you just go from fight to fight, and eventually I gave up because having to pray for good RNG on every single enemy attack just wasn't fun. Could be possible that I just played the game completely wrong, I'd have to ask someone who actually finished the game to confirm.


My friend was just talking to me about this a few days ago. That game's brutality sounds hilarious.


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## FurlessFurry (Oct 17, 2021)

I grew up with a hand-me-down NES, and as you all probably know most of the games were notoriously hard. Some even gained „bad game” reputation because of the unreasonable difficulty level. BUT – I’m not here to drag on about Battletoads or other action games requiring pixel perfect reflexes  

Instead I want to present you The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy. Basically it’s a giant fetch quest and collectathon done as 2d platformer where you avoid hazards and cannot fight back.
As far as I remember you had to:
- gather 100 stars (randomly scattered around the world)
- do all the fetch quests
- survive one-hit-kill minigames
- memorize mazes
- avoid any enemies and hidden traps when traversing the world
All that with 3 lives, no continues, no save feature xD Technically it’s doable but nowadays I wouldn't recommend touching it without emulation and save states!


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## лОРИк (Oct 17, 2021)

Adventure Island 1


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## FurlessFurry (Oct 17, 2021)

Лорик said:


> Adventure Island 1


Oh, I also remeber that one!!! I always thought it was an endless loop type of game and only recently learned that it actually ends with 32 levels xD Never got so far


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## лОРИк (Oct 17, 2021)

FurlessFurry said:


> Oh, I also remeber that one!!! I always thought it was an endless loop type of game and only recently learned that it actually ends with 32 levels xD Never got so far


I found a secret egg, but did not know what it gives. Fucking developers.


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## Firuthi Dragovic (Oct 17, 2021)

JollyCooperation said:


> One of the very few RPGs I actually dropped because the difficulty was just bonkers was Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. The game has an interesting mechanic where you can sacrifice your units permanently for a bonus in the current fight and an ability that your MC can use in the rest of the game. And it feels like they are really trying to push you towards sacrificing your guys, because each mission seems tailor made to be BARELY possible without doing so. Of course, haphazardly killing off your own team will eventually lead to you softlocking yourself because there are not enough people left to have any chance at winning the next fight.
> 
> There is also no way to grind for levels or money, you just go from fight to fight, and eventually I gave up because having to pray for good RNG on every single enemy attack just wasn't fun. Could be possible that I just played the game completely wrong, I'd have to ask someone who actually finished the game to confirm.


I didn't QUITE finish the first playthrough (you have to get all three endings to access the bonus content) and don't know why, but I do remember that that game can't be approached nearly the same way as a lot of tactical RPGs.

In many tactical RPGs you can do one-on-one, or two-on-one.  Not with that one.  You basically HAVE to have everyone focus on the same target at once, have everyone in range before you start attacking, AND you have to overkill the target pretty heavily.

Enemy caster units DO make this very difficult as anyone in range is threatened.





As for actual answer to OP, it's hard to say.  Problem with me is I play a lot of games with very steep learning curves that stop being difficult after like the first one or two missions, but are absolutely insane until then.

The PS2 release of Alien Hominid is probably the one game that gave me the most trouble, as I do NOT do well with games where everything is one-hit kills.


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## Xitheon (Oct 17, 2021)

Half-life 2 episode 2.

Fucking Hunters. I call them "Cunters." The battle at white forest base is a nightmare.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 18, 2021)

I tried fighting this in training mode and didn't make it past the first pattern before she *cleaned* all 5 of my lives in 50 seconds. 
Even the TAS has to punch hyper to avoid death.








Лорик said:


> Adventure Island 1


Miss these games. Played the shit out of Adventure Island 2.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 18, 2021)

Gradius 3 arcade version
Iter Vehemens Ad Necem
Wizardry 4


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## DemonHazardDeer (Oct 18, 2021)

Easy, God Hand. Dark Souls is great and difficult but man God Hand is just insane in every aspect, especially in difficulty.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 19, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> Gradius 3 arcade version


This game took me 8 months to clear on one credit. Ruthless, evil game.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 19, 2021)

Judge Spear said:


> This game took me 8 months to clear on one credit. Ruthless, evil game.


The slowdown on the SNES version made it a bit easier in spots, without that slowdown Gradius 3 is a "gird your loins, motherfucker" experience


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## Willow the wisp (Oct 19, 2021)

the name is literally
the worlds hardest game
its almost impossible to beat


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## Judge Spear (Oct 19, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> The slowdown on the SNES version made it a bit easier in spots, without that slowdown Gradius 3 is a "gird your loins, motherfucker" experience


Sadly it was an awful port because of it. The game was only barely challenging if you bumped it up to the secret arcade mode. There was more slowdown than Mushihimesama Futari's God Mode. 
But the the SA-1 "hack" improves it to a more balanced, natural difficulty and plays how an STG should.


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## TheCrocWhoSoldTheWorld (Nov 13, 2021)

Space Station 13, the game itself isn't hard but learning all the hotkeys, roles, systems and what not is a pain. Thankfully once you master the systems the game is a lot of fun, there's so much you can do that it kinda ruined other games for me hahahaha.
Too bad the servers i used to visit are beyond dead now


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## BadRoy (Nov 17, 2021)

I think the hardest games I've beaten were either Super Ghouls and Ghosts or Sekiro. 

SGnG is so nerve-wracking because enemies constantly spawn in and you're locked into your jumps so you have to complete the game more or less perfectly. But I did it, baby ~

Sekiro is so goddamn hard. You can't fudge it like Dank Shoals by getting better armor or levelling up you just have to get better at the game and it is fucking tough. Super rewarding and fun, but tough. It took me an entire weekend to beat The Sword Saint (More like 'The Gun Saint,' amirite?)


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## Ennui Elemental (Nov 17, 2021)

BadRoy said:


> I think the hardest games I've beaten were either Super Ghouls and Ghosts or Sekiro.
> 
> SGnG is so nerve-wracking because enemies constantly spawn in and you're locked into your jumps so you have to complete the game more or less perfectly. But I did it, baby ~
> 
> Sekiro is so goddamn hard. You can't fudge it like Dank Shoals by getting better armor or levelling up you just have to get better at the game and it is fucking tough. Super rewarding and fun, but tough. It took me an entire weekend to beat The Sword Saint (More like 'The Gun Saint,' amirite?)


I view the way jumping works in SGnG and Ghosts n' Goblins to be so clunky it's an outright design flaw given the rest of the game but /shrug

I remember completing the first run in Ghosts n' Goblins as a kid, seeing the game tell me basically "NOW DO IT AGAIN" and just going "nah I'mma play Mega Man now thx"


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## BadRoy (Nov 17, 2021)

Aw I love the jumping in that game. It's strict, but they also give you a double jump so you can potentially get away (or accidentally jump down a pit if you're a dingus)


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## Ennui Elemental (Nov 17, 2021)

BadRoy said:


> Aw I love the jumping in that game. It's strict, but they also give you a double jump so you can potentially get away (or accidentally jump down a pit if you're a dingus)


Honestly I think Mario games and other platformers really spoiled me on the amount of shit you could really get away with, so GnG was "ok, no more mulligans, do it RIGHT" mode.


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## Judge Spear (Nov 17, 2021)

Strict jumping isn't a flaw. But the original NES Ghosts n Goblins is awful. It runs like a bad MSX game with how horrid its scrolling works. Super is MUCH better with the same general experience.
And arcade games looping is a standard ordeal. If anything, GG is probably more lenient than most in achieving a 2-ALL because the stipulation for accessing loop 2 isn't that strict. The games are just hard.


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## Ennui Elemental (Nov 17, 2021)

Judge Spear said:


> Strict jumping isn't a flaw. But the original NES Ghosts n Goblins is awful. It runs like a bad MSX game with how horrid its scrolling works. Super is MUCH better with the same general experience.
> And arcade games looping is a standard ordeal. If anything, GG is probably more lenient than most in achieving a 2-ALL because the stipulation for accessing loop 2 isn't that strict. The games are just hard.


Come to think of it, yeah, because jumping in Castlevania NES games was also demanding but I didn't really experience the same level of frustration once I figured out how to handle certain things (the Medusa head sections being infamous for a reason, I suppose).  Ninja Gaiden games could also be balls hard in spots (fuck that fucking bird) but again, not as frustrating and clunky.


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