Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

nucleicmaxid posted:

This is my favorite game, unironically. I had trouble with Mojo King Bee on Master, but blew away the Sambone and didn't understand why it was so hard. Guess I'm some sort of bizarro Gitaroo though.

Mojo King Bee is definitely one of the harder Master levels. I have no idea how you got past Sanbone though, those fuckers are unholy :3: personified.

Oxxidation posted:

I just want to say I think it's delightful that the ball-busting, game-ruining boss of this thing is a skeletal Blue Man Group with Playstation controllers for hips.

I know right? This game legitimately got me a girlfriend back in high school solely because of its charm.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Weezy Baby
May 20, 2007
Does anyone remember Ghoul School on NES? I remember I thought it was hard as hell and I never got far at all in the game, but don't remember enough to actually talk about the game. And I could never beat the pirate level of that Disneyland game on NES either.

Choco1980
Feb 22, 2013

I fell in love with a Video Nasty

Weezy Baby posted:

Does anyone remember Ghoul School on NES? I remember I thought it was hard as hell and I never got far at all in the game, but don't remember enough to actually talk about the game. And I could never beat the pirate level of that Disneyland game on NES either.

I recently did an LP of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom for the Disney Games Megathread. That pirate level was hard, and the only way I can get through it is by using my star power for invincibles half the way to the candle (which trivializes the level) Also, you need to book it the whole way if you want to not run out of time. All that said, it's still easier than the space mountain level. Who thought a high speed QTE would be a good idea in a NES game that was aimed at young kids?!

GOTTA STAY FAI
Mar 24, 2005

~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~
College Slice
I eventually had to put Gitaroo Man back on the shelf and admit that my fingers just aren't fast enough for the Master levels. Goddamn Sanbone Trio :argh: Even if I'll never finish Master mode, it remains one of my favorite games.

Also, I'm glad you linked the Tainted Lovers video, mind the walrus, because that fight is worth seeing even if you've never heard of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JjLBy4Hp-8

Also, it's a game where you get a space guitar and your dog turns into an amplifier for it. So loving awesome :swoon:

Weezy Baby
May 20, 2007

Choco1980 posted:

I recently did an LP of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom for the Disney Games Megathread. That pirate level was hard, and the only way I can get through it is by using my star power for invincibles half the way to the candle (which trivializes the level) Also, you need to book it the whole way if you want to not run out of time. All that said, it's still easier than the space mountain level. Who thought a high speed QTE would be a good idea in a NES game that was aimed at young kids?!

gently caress, somehow I forgot all about the space mountain level. Guess there were two levels on that game I didn't beat. If I remember correctly though aside from the ghost house all the rest of the levels were insanely easy.

Choco1980
Feb 22, 2013

I fell in love with a Video Nasty
Yeah, the autopia and thunder mountain railroad were fairly simple and the trivia even a toddler could beat through sheer brute force. When I did the LP I ended up finding an interview with the lady who was in charge of Capcom USA's Disney games about it. Turns out the Japanese designers had never even seen pictures of the park, and she forced capcom to ship them out for a tour. Also, they were going to add other levels that just had no bearing on reality, like a splash mountain level that sounds suspiciously like the turbo tunnel, complete with pink walls.

coolskull
Nov 11, 2007

Zesty Mordant posted:

I was reminded in another thread of Timesplitters 2, a fantastic game that had some very hard story levels as well. The Easy and Normal difficulties were fair enough, but Hard sent it into a new dimension. Level one is a stealth mission, and the number of enemies/cameras increases drastically to the point that not moving at the EXACT right time and killing all the bad guys in EXACTLY the right order at the right time results in a fail. Not to mention the helicopter you have to fight with a stationary gun at the end when a single bullet can kill you. I managed to make it to level four. I did get to level seven by playing co-op by myself and essentially getting two lives-- 7 is a wild west scenario that begins with a guy shooting you within the first second and depleting most of your life, so it was pretty much necessary. after that it's basically High Noon but you're outnumbered 50 to one. I never managed to not get shot at the start. Still couldn't beat it.

I was really into Tomesplitters 2 and tried to get the best medals on all of the not-story-mode challenge stuff. There was one level, capture the flag with monks vs. golems or some poo poo, that I could never do better than bronze on. It drove me crazy.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



KGB

"Adventure games are infamous for their instant deaths and dead-ends, but none are so merciless as KGB. Like Laura Palmer, the murder mystery is merely a MacGuffin; the real goal of the game is to survive the Red Bureaucracy. Don't mess up and get reassigned to a desk job, don't get killed, don't get beaten up, don't get sent to a gulag, don't get beaten up and sent to a gulag, don’t get beaten up and killed, etc. Your investigation is being closely monitored, and at various points you're quizzed on what you've discovered. Answer incorrectly... well, you can probably guess what happens there, too. Make no mistake, you'll lose and lose and lose, eventually falling into the habit of lying to everybody, all the time—except on occasion where lying will get you killed or sent to a gulag."

Mr. Kurtz
Feb 22, 2007

Here comes the hurdy gurdy man.
Has anyone ever beaten Zombies Ate My Neighbors? I remember I could always get to this haunted mansion place with this huge spider that would destroy me every time.

That game loving kicked rear end.

Cuntellectual
Aug 6, 2010
Castlevania Order of Ecclesia isn't as hard as some games here but it is both fairly hard and one of my favorite games.

Does Deus Ex on Realistic or Unrealistic difficulty count? :v:

canyoneer posted:

Ikaruga is great. It's a vertical scrolling spaceship shooter with a neat mechanic. Each enemy shoots either blue or red bullets, and you can switch the polarity of your ship's shields to absorb one or the other. Also, your bullets do double damage to enemies of the opposite polarity. It's really fun.

Here's some who is way better at it than me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LES0bAg0dBk


Ikaruga is awesome and wins the prize for most surprisingly poignant story in games. :v:

Radiant Silvergun was good too, but I think it might have been even harder.

Cuntellectual has a new favorite as of 19:18 on Jul 30, 2014

AngryRobotsInc
Aug 2, 2011

Mr. Kurtz posted:

Has anyone ever beaten Zombies Ate My Neighbors? I remember I could always get to this haunted mansion place with this huge spider that would destroy me every time.

That game loving kicked rear end.

The SNES versions of this game was my bane as a child. I never even came close to beating it. I only remember the beginning parts of the game with clarity (also the Giant Baby, which kicked my rear end on the regular), as those are the parts I saw the most often.

Leper Residue
Sep 28, 2003

To where no dog has gone before.

Mr. Kurtz posted:

Has anyone ever beaten Zombies Ate My Neighbors? I remember I could always get to this haunted mansion place with this huge spider that would destroy me every time.

That game loving kicked rear end.

I've used cheat codes, gone through normally, everything short of a game genie (which I probably used as well) and I've never been able to beat that game. Those giant babies gently caress my poo poo up.

I love that game, and it has like the awesomest soundtrack. But holy hell gently caress that game in its stupid rear end.

ArtIsResistance
May 19, 2007

QUEEN OF FRANCE, SAVIOR OF LOWTAX
Solitaire is loving bullshit you'd have to be a genius to get past level 5

Gynovore
Jun 17, 2009

Forget your RoboCoX or your StickyCoX or your EvilCoX, MY CoX has Blinking Bewbs!

WHY IS THIS GAME DEAD?!

Anatharon posted:

Does Deus Ex on Realistic or Unrealistic difficulty count?

In some ways, Realistic difficulty is easier than Hard. You can die from a single headshot, but the enemies can too, which smooths the path for a stealth-based killer.

Irving
Jun 21, 2003

Dirk Squarejaw posted:

Few games have ever pissed me off as much as The Black Cauldron by LucasArts. Jumping across the rocks in the stream is one of the biggest tests of patience ever put into a game.

That wasn't LucasArts, it was Sierra. You should have been able to tell by the fact that it was absolutely abusive.

RagnarokAngel
Oct 5, 2006

Black Magic Extraordinaire
Yeah in general Lucasarts games didn't have death and were pretty mellow. Sierra murdered the poo poo out of you.

Inzombiac
Mar 19, 2007

PARTY ALL NIGHT

EAT BRAINS ALL DAY


As a child, I thought The Dig was impossible despite having mastered all the other Lucas Arts adventure titles.
The alien skeleton just didn't make sense to me.

I replayed it recently and there is a loving diagram one screen over. It's not even hidden.

cowboythreespeech
Dec 28, 2008

Inzombiac posted:

As a child, I thought The Dig was impossible despite having mastered all the other Lucas Arts adventure titles.
The alien skeleton just didn't make sense to me.

I replayed it recently and there is a loving diagram one screen over. It's not even hidden.

I could never get the turtle. I should get that game again

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
The only thing I remember about Black Cauldron is trying to cross a canyon using a rope? Could never loving do it, always fell off the rope, and I have no idea why.

peter gabriel
Nov 8, 2011

Hello Commandos
Riven is the only game I have ever bought a guide for (pre internet, wow I am old) - what the hell was that game all about? I didn't even know what was happening as I followed the guide.

Ms Adequate
Oct 30, 2011

Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling



Vandal Hearts is an SRPG which I personally adore, but there was a level I could never ever do as a kid. Basically, you're ambushed in a city and have to make your way to the escape zone, but you're surrounded from the start by a bunch of the toughest fuckers you've fought so far. You can block routes off to slow some groups down, but you can't stop them all, and I could never beat this level.

Years later I played again and it wasn't much trouble, of course.

VH also has a character named Dolan. :v:

doug fuckey
Jun 7, 2007

hella greenbacks

peter gabriel posted:

Riven is the only game I have ever bought a guide for (pre internet, wow I am old) - what the hell was that game all about? I didn't even know what was happening as I followed the guide.

I played this game a lot as a kid (though I never even beat Myst). Whole different kind of difficulty. There was something about a weird language you had to learn, and the underwater tram was a nightmare. I recall getting into weird situations sometimes and wasn't sure how, since I was basically doing the same thing every time and pulling random levers, so once in a while a giant fish would appear or something. What a bizarre game. If I played it now I'd do so with a notebook. The guide was great though, because it gave you progressive hints before divulging the answer. I read through it some a long time ago too rather than playing the game and some of the stuff you were supposed to figure out was really incredible.

Away all Goats
Jul 5, 2005

Goose's rebellion

Contra (NES) is probably one of my favorite games ever and I credit it (with a few other games) with turning me into a life long gamer.

My neighbor and I would play (and beat) that game like once a day, we were both obsessed with it. We didn't even know about the Konami code or find out how difficult everyone found it, until years later when we got internet connections.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

peter gabriel posted:

Riven is the only game I have ever bought a guide for (pre internet, wow I am old) - what the hell was that game all about? I didn't even know what was happening as I followed the guide.

Atrus sends the player to Riven to deal with his father, Ghen, as well as rescue his wife Catherine. An overwhelming majority of the bonkers stuff you encounter is a result of Ghen installing himself as the god king of the native population of Riven and in the process using his own culture (that of the D'ni race) as the basis of their religion. So not only is there a lot of deification of Ghen himself, but also lots of idolization of the trees and beetles, as those are the source of the paper and ink that go into The Art of making linking books. (There's also some minor worship of the Whark, a shark/rhino type thing, as that's Ghen's preferred method of executing natives that displease him.)

You eventually need to meet up with the Rivenese resistance in order to retrieve the Trap Book (basically a linking book that takes you to a dead end with no way out), which was stolen from you at the beginning of the game. With that, you trap Ghen and gain access to his home, where you can find the combination necessary to unlock Catherine's prison. (The two main puzzles in the game are all about figuring out how to get to the resistance and Ghen's home in the first place. They're huge game-spanning puzzles.)

And after all of that, you signal Atrus by catastrophically re-opening a hole in the dimension itself (Catherine thankfully evacuates everyone to the resistance world beforehand :v:). Then you fall into the Star Fissure (the aforementioned hole in reality). It's not explicitly stated in the game itself (IIRC, Atrus just openly ponders where you'll end up), but because of reasons explained in other games and some of the books, the Star Fissure just gently leads you back to the New Mexico desert.

I uh, I think I got all that right. Just going off of memory. :eng101: / :spergin:

John Murdoch has a new favorite as of 10:01 on Jul 31, 2014

Nastyman
Jul 11, 2007

There they sit
at the foot of the mountain
Taking hits
of the sacred smoke
Fire rips at their lungs
Holy mountain take us away
This isn't actually in the spirit of the thread, but it's filed under frustratingly difficult console platformers in my head and pissed me off to no end during my childhood so here goes. Ladies and gentlegoons: Adventures of Yogi Bear



This may look like your average cutesy platformer for kids, the kind of mass-produced drivel that gets pumped out wholesale whenever a soulless franchise discovers video games. And it was. The formula is simple enough, run along platforms, kill bad guys, collect lunchboxes, don't die or run out of time. You know the drill.

The frustration came in the form of the minecart level, where you'd get in a minecart and ride along a set of rails, occasionally jumping to dodge steel bars. Hit the bar, and you get knocked off the cart and die instantly at the pottom of a pit. Again, pretty easy stuff except halfway through the level it started throwing higher bars at you that seemed downright impossible to jump over. For months my brother and I would play the game, get to the minecart level and then die to that first tall bar. We got so good at riding that minecart that we could play it in our sleep, but we never cleared That loving Bar. We could probably have walked across the level on the thousands of bloodied bear corpses below. It was taunting us. That loving Bar became our nemesis. It was our reason to get up in the morning, to finally get past That loving Bar. We didn't even care about the rest of the game anymore, in fact we hated it. Our hatred for That loving Bar was the only thing that brought us back, we refused to be bested by an inanimate rod.

In the end we never beat the minecart level. We eventually decided to accept defeat, or risk insanity. Years went by, the game was forgotten and we went on with our lives. One day at least a decade later if not more, for absolutely no reason, I was reminded of Adventures of Yogi Bear and That loving Bar. Something dawned on me that made me want to cry.

You're supposed to duck under the tall bar. :negative:

Nastyman has a new favorite as of 12:05 on Jul 31, 2014

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Away all Goats posted:

Contra (NES) is probably one of my favorite games ever and I credit it (with a few other games) with turning me into a life long gamer.

My neighbor and I would play (and beat) that game like once a day, we were both obsessed with it. We didn't even know about the Konami code or find out how difficult everyone found it, until years later when we got internet connections.

Nice humblebrag :smug:

Seriously though you never got a hint that the game was way harder than even say, the bullshit difficulty at your local arcade?

ETMPlus
Jul 28, 2008

You're going to be the Eleventh Commandment: 'Thou shalt not get away with it.'
I nominate Wargame: European Escalation. I've been playing the single player campaigns, and the opening one (basically West Germany vs East Germany, with a little British, American, and Russian flavor thrown in) has perhaps the most awful last mission imaginable. You're told to hold a bridge until a peace treaty is signed, and a 20 minute timer starts counting down. I manage to hold off a zerg of tanks and helicopters thanks to some tank destroyers and AA I put at the middle of my MLR, but got overrun with about five seconds left on the timer. I picked it up again after my hatred of the programmers, publisher, and everyone else associated with the game cooled off, and managed to hold for 20 minutes (albeit with one TD, a couple of infantry units, and a single command unit left, which I pulled back to my "last ditch"). The timer made it to 0:00...and a ticker came up at the top of the screen saying that the treaty was delayed over a disagreement on a single prisoner transfer. I managed to send a few more Reds to meet Lenin in the non-religious afterlife, but nothing could hold back the waves of enemies coming my way. My TD was a smoking ruin, my command vehicle was on the run, and my poor infantrymen's mothers were going to be getting letters soon. As the command vehicle was sent to Valhalla to feast with Odin and Thor for all eternity, I saw a brief message on the ticker: "Treaty is about to be signed." Then, a big banner across the screen:

MISSION FAILURE

gently caress that game I'll probably still play it tonight

Rough Lobster
May 27, 2009

Don't be such a squid, bro
Dark Souls and Dark Souls II (again).

Twitch
Apr 15, 2003

by Fluffdaddy

Away all Goats posted:

Contra (NES) is probably one of my favorite games ever and I credit it (with a few other games) with turning me into a life long gamer.

My neighbor and I would play (and beat) that game like once a day, we were both obsessed with it. We didn't even know about the Konami code or find out how difficult everyone found it, until years later when we got internet connections.

Contra definitely belongs in this thread, as it's a pretty hard game, but I think the people who think it's anywhere near one of the hardest games on the NES are people who clearly haven't played many NES games. Contra demands practice and attention, while harshly punishing failure, but it doesn't demand as much perfection as a game like Battletoads or Ghosts n Goblins. Also it's a pretty well designed game, so it doesn't have the bullshit difficulty of almost any bad licensed platformer.

I've never beaten Contra without the 30 lives code, but I could get pretty drat far in it.

Walton Simons
May 16, 2010

ELECTRONIC OLD MEN RUNNING THE WORLD
I love FTL but the final boss is the biggest double-hard boss in gaming I've ever known.

Walton Simons has a new favorite as of 17:52 on Jul 31, 2014

GOTTA STAY FAI
Mar 24, 2005

~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~
College Slice

Walton Simons posted:

I love FTL but the final boss is the biggest double-hard boss in gaming I've ever known.

That drone storm is loving murder, even if you think you're prepared for it. I've still never finished a round of that game, and I've had it since it came out :smith:

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Walton Simons posted:

I love FTL but the final boss is the biggest double-hard boss in gaming I've ever known.

Ugh FTL is some Bulllllllshit with that end boss. I got so mad at that game.


I would say Empire Earth because there is no way to stop the AI from cheating every time.

onemanlan
Oct 4, 2006
Along with Dark Souls 1 & 2 that have been previously mentioned in here I'll put up Ogre Battle 64 as one of my favorites/most difficult games I've played. Also one of my favorites by chance. You operated squads of characters that you could form on a 3x3 grid. When they encountered enemies they would cast spells/attack based off their class and their orientation. The battles lasted a few rounds of attacks then were broken up. You had no control beyond instructing your characters to encounter another group. You could have your characters die. Possibly resurrect them, if you didn't do it in time or were incapable they would turn into zombies - which you could also control, but sucked IIRC. The story was pretty good, but it was tied into the mechanics of the map you were playing on. If you let some guy get away or didn't capture a certain building it would change the story a decent bit. It was fun as a kid who dug that type of investment of time and energy. I was never able to beat it before I traded it for other games. Recently when I tried to play it I nearly tore my hair out due to the pacing and details along with some of the more frustrating mechanics involving fighting enemies.

I know this might be another one one to suggest was Diablo 3 launch. Inferno was so hard. Enemies hit for a ton of damage, had a ton of HP, and had effects that didn't indicate to the player that they were about ot happen(ie explosion on death). Furthermore monsters regenerated health if you didn't manage to kill them in a certain amount of time. They may have had rage timers too. Most people were poorly geared due to issues with itemization at the time(which the game is still fighting with) on top of having terribly unbalanced skills for the application. Most people couldn't manage to get past Act 1 in inferno for a chunk of time until they were able to adjust some of these issues. It made the game terribly frustrating because you could slam your character against an enemy over and over spending tons on gold on repairs only to get nowhere in it all. The game is better now, but early on it was pretty frustratingly bad.

oldpainless
Oct 30, 2009

This 📆 post brought to you by RAID💥: SHADOW LEGENDS👥.
RAID💥: SHADOW LEGENDS 👥 - It's for your phone📲TM™ #ad📢

I remember The Legend of Kyrandia on the PC triple pack driving me to tears of frustration as a ten-year-old. I think there was a maze or some poo poo and it just had "video game logic" of solving puzzles.


I really miss old-school PC adventure games, or rather having the time/excitement that young me used to have about them :(

Captain Lavender
Oct 21, 2010

verb the adjective noun

Walton Simons posted:

I love FTL but the final boss is the biggest double-hard boss in gaming I've ever known.

Man, that mother ship would still be super hard with just 2 phases. At least that'd be more reasonable on Normal or something.

Wanamingo
Feb 22, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Walton Simons posted:

I love FTL but the final boss is the biggest double-hard boss in gaming I've ever known.

Teleport bombs. You need millions and millions of teleport bombs and then it's super easy.

Nastyman
Jul 11, 2007

There they sit
at the foot of the mountain
Taking hits
of the sacred smoke
Fire rips at their lungs
Holy mountain take us away

Wanamingo posted:

Teleport bombs. You need millions and millions of teleport bombs and then it's super easy.

Get a decent boarding crew, and make sure to take out the missiles first in each phase. After that, it's cake.

Leper Residue
Sep 28, 2003

To where no dog has gone before.

onemanlan posted:

I know this might be another one one to suggest was Diablo 3 launch. Inferno was so hard. Enemies hit for a ton of damage, had a ton of HP, and had effects that didn't indicate to the player that they were about ot happen(ie explosion on death). Furthermore monsters regenerated health if you didn't manage to kill them in a certain amount of time. They may have had rage timers too. Most people were poorly geared due to issues with itemization at the time(which the game is still fighting with) on top of having terribly unbalanced skills for the application. Most people couldn't manage to get past Act 1 in inferno for a chunk of time until they were able to adjust some of these issues. It made the game terribly frustrating because you could slam your character against an enemy over and over spending tons on gold on repairs only to get nowhere in it all. The game is better now, but early on it was pretty frustratingly bad.

I haven't played this since around launch, but I was never able to get past the sewers on Inferno. A pack of blue or yellow mosquitoes would just destroy me, usually from off screen or as soon as I saw them. I'll have to give it a go again if it's better now but gently caress the game was unforgiving back then.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

ETMPlus posted:

I nominate Wargame: European Escalation. I've been playing the single player campaigns, and the opening one (basically West Germany vs East Germany, with a little British, American, and Russian flavor thrown in) has perhaps the most awful last mission imaginable. You're told to hold a bridge until a peace treaty is signed, and a 20 minute timer starts counting down. I manage to hold off a zerg of tanks and helicopters thanks to some tank destroyers and AA I put at the middle of my MLR, but got overrun with about five seconds left on the timer. I picked it up again after my hatred of the programmers, publisher, and everyone else associated with the game cooled off, and managed to hold for 20 minutes (albeit with one TD, a couple of infantry units, and a single command unit left, which I pulled back to my "last ditch"). The timer made it to 0:00...and a ticker came up at the top of the screen saying that the treaty was delayed over a disagreement on a single prisoner transfer. I managed to send a few more Reds to meet Lenin in the non-religious afterlife, but nothing could hold back the waves of enemies coming my way. My TD was a smoking ruin, my command vehicle was on the run, and my poor infantrymen's mothers were going to be getting letters soon. As the command vehicle was sent to Valhalla to feast with Odin and Thor for all eternity, I saw a brief message on the ticker: "Treaty is about to be signed." Then, a big banner across the screen:

MISSION FAILURE

gently caress that game I'll probably still play it tonight

The Wargame series is really hard but a shitload of fun. It never feels like I lost because I didn't click fast enough or know the best keyboard shortcuts, but because I made a bad desicion somewhere. The persistant units make it so that I might be in a pinch because I hosed up three battles ago, so it puts a LOT of weight on the whole risk/reward thing. Top-notch RTSes.

I hosed a guy up using what was basically LINEBACKER II airstrikes from 'nam once, which was a lot of fun.

  • Locked thread