The hardest games of all time

[darthsteve333]

Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (multi-format). It's considered an achievement to get out of the first room.

I got as far as the Vogon ship but had tremendous difficulty getting a Babel Fish if I remember correctly.

Also glad someone else mentioned Bayonetta as well, Not really the sort of game I excel in, but as it had gotten some good reviews, I thought I'd give it a go. Was enjoying it up to the point where I just could not progress, whatever I tried - I forget where exactly I was in the game but if I remember, the boss character I was getting stuck on felt a bit cheap, (a bit like SFIV when you reach Seth for the first time).

Spent a couple of evenings trying to get further, but ended up giving up; when you have as many other games to play as I do, the appeal of a game that seems to try its' best to 'cheese' you out of further progression quickly begins to wane.

[LAIS]

Super Meat Boy - difficulty is kinda the point, and makes it utterly compelling.

Hotline Miami - as above.

Super Mario Bros 2 (lost levels) - this is just ridiculous. So hard I absolutely hate it.

Battletoads - I can't decide if this is hard or just badly designed. There's a huge element of luck in this game which kills it a little.

Ikaruga - This game kicked my ass. A real struggle to play through.

[outdated_gamer]

Super Mario Bros 2 (lost levels) - this is just ridiculous. So hard I absolutely hate it.

Statements like this confirm that Nintendo's decision to just re-skin Doki Doki Panic and advertise it as "Super Mario Bros. 2" in the West was the correct decision, retrospectively looking.

[Sel Feena]

Nobody's mentioned Cauldron yet? It just blows my mind how anyone could be expected to complete the bloody thing, although it was always one of the games on the CPC 464 I kept coming back to.

Muchi Muchi Pork is just insane, build up rank and watch the bullets fly everywhere. It's a really fun game, but Jesus.

More recently I remember banging my head against a wall trying to get through Catherine, the timer in some places feels super tight. And bosses that can mess up your controls in an isometric game should be banned by international law.

[LAIS]

Super Mario Bros 2 (lost levels) - this is just ridiculous. So hard I absolutely hate it.

Statements like this confirm that Nintendo's decision to just re-skin Doki Doki Panic and advertise it as "Super Mario Bros. 2" in the West was the correct decision, retrospectively looking.

Possibly. It feels like a fan-made hack to me, headache inducingly hard.

[Trixta]

smb and hotline Miami are not hard games

[Negative Creep]

Super Mario Bros 2 (lost levels) - this is just ridiculous. So hard I absolutely hate it.

Statements like this confirm that Nintendo's decision to just re-skin Doki Doki Panic and advertise it as "Super Mario Bros. 2" in the West was the correct decision, retrospectively looking.

Possibly. It feels like a fan-made hack to me, headache inducingly hard.

I managed to get to about the half way point on Super Mario All Stars but that was it. I assume the famicom version didn't even have a save feature?

[LAIS]

smb and hotline Miami are not hard games

That's the whole hook. Yes you can try as many times as you like, and there's no 'lives' system, but there are certainly teeth-gnashingly tough moments. Ultimately it's subjective though, as are many of the answers in this thread.

I'm going to throw in Trials HD and Flappy Bird. Two very mainstream games that have become popular based on their difficulty. To me they demonstrate the addictive, compulsive qualities of difficult games.

[BellyFullOfHell]

Espgaluda II. It's ridiculously tough even by CAVE ' s usual starndards.

[slacey1070]

Imhotep on the c64... I found this game impossible...

[SpockIOM]

Super Mario Bros 2 (lost levels) - this is just ridiculous. So hard I absolutely hate it.

Statements like this confirm that Nintendo's decision to just re-skin Doki Doki Panic and advertise it as "Super Mario Bros. 2" in the West was the correct decision, retrospectively looking.

I managed to get to about the half way point on Super Mario All Stars but that was it. I assume the famicom version didn't even have a save feature?

I wouldn't think it did. I managed to get through the All Stars version, including hard mode, but the save feature is really what let me do that. It was generous to let you save to the stage you'd got to rather than just the world too. But I did end up swearing a lot when I accidentally saved after using one of the warp zones that takes you backwards in the game. Why I didn't just wait for the timer to run out instead of using the pipe I'll never know! Without a save function I bet those rooms are just miserable!

[killbot]

A couple of Amiga suggestions:

Dalek Attack - an absolutely rock hard platform shooter with you playing as the Doctor and shooting Daleks with your sonic screwdriver. Even the lowliest enemies (Robomen, Ogrons) take five or six hits to kill and the Daleks themselves - despite being the main enemies in the game - are invulnerable to the standard weapon, you have to use weapon upgrades that are a. sparse and b. last for only a few shots. The platforming is fiddly too and falling too far is instadeath, while the bosses are ridiculous bullet-spraying monstrosities like something out of Cave's worst nightmare.

Zool - hard because it marries the speed of Sonic to the busy level design of Mario, resulting in a horribly frustrating experience as you zip around running into enemies every few seconds. The jump controls are fiddly and it's a doddle to miss a platform and land among spikes you couldn't see coming. The bosses (like Dalek Attack) are horrible, they zip around the screen following no particular pattern and spraying bullets everywhere. I once spent an entire summer holiday playing this game for about 8 hours every day and never got beyond level 5 (out of 7). Most reviewers never got off the second level, which is why the screenshots that appeared in mags never seem to include anything beyond that.

Oh, and I'd also give a shout out to Hercules on the Electron. It was the prequel to Yolanda on the ST and Amiga (which has already been mentioned) and plays identically, with unavoidable traps and platforms that seem to turn into spikes at random scattered throughout the 12 screens. The game came with no instructions and each time you die you restart on any one of the 12 levels randomly, meaning you can't practice one over and over until it's perfected. A truly horrible game.

[Spector]

Technician Ted on the Spectrum (1984) was pointlessly hard. It was a Jet Set Willy clone but made far more difficult. In those days, some software houses considered difficulty a virtue to the extent they would boast how their new release couldn't be completed because it was so tough, and Technician Ted was one of the worst examples of that attitude.

[yakmag]

China Miner on the C64.

Could get past the 1st screen, then that's all...

I throw down the gauntlet to anyone to get past level 2!

[Scratch_Porkings]

Oh, and I'd also give a shout out to Hercules on the Electron. It was the prequel to Yolanda on the ST and Amiga (which has already been mentioned) and plays identically, with unavoidable traps and platforms that seem to turn into spikes at random scattered throughout the 12 screens. The game came with no instructions and each time you die you restart on any one of the 12 levels randomly, meaning you can't practice one over and over until it's perfected. A truly horrible game.

That sounds like a truly enjoyable game, I really must give it a go sometime...