Recently, I decided that I would like to try to start playing through and beating classic games, primarily ones that I enjoyed playing a lot during my childhood but which I just never quite managed to beat. Hudson Soft’s Adventure Island for NES was one such game that came to mind, and I thought it would be the best one to start at, since they also developed Panic Bomber and Vertical Force for the Virtual Boy, which makes them awesome. I thought to myself, perhaps I never beat the game because I was young and naïve then, but surely now with my adult and more highly sophisticated skills, I would be able to conquer it no problem. After picking the game up again and playing it for the first 20 or so hours, I had no choice but to conclude that this game is a freak fest, certainly one of the hardest NES games ever made.
I really wanted to play it through old-school style, meaning never using any save states which weren’t available to us whippersnappers back in the day. Since the game doesn’t offer any continues, unless you find a hidden cheat, from what I’ve read, this meant that I would have to start over from the very beginning of the whole game every time I lost all my lives while trying to learn each new section of the game. After probably more than 50 solid hours of trying to master the game this way, with who knows how many deaths, I managed to come up with a strategy that let me make it into the final area, Area 8. But then, I said phooey with it, as Area 8 is the most absurd of all absurdities, with Area 7 coming rather close to being such, so I decided to use save states to learn and practice stinking Area 8 because playing the whole way through the game, which itself probably takes about an hour and a half, just to make it to the same spot in Area 8 where I died previously and then die repeatedly at it again before even having a chance to learn and develop some sort of strategy for that spot of ridiculousness and then make it to the next spot that would also completely own me, was just taking up way to much time and effort. Even with the use of save states, it probably took me another solid 10 hours to learn and master every obstacle of Area 8, so without the use of save states and, therefore, with having to play the game the whole way through to make it to Area 8 before I could then practice each new part of it, it probably would have taken me another 50 to 60 hours to master that final area, so the save states might have saved me another 40 to 50 hours of insanity.
I cannot imagine how any gamer could have been expected to beat this game back in the day, without devoting his or her whole life to it. You basically have to memorize every single facet of the entire game, but even once you do that, you then must execute whatever you need to do almost perfectly, as the game allows for almost no deviation from perfection. This means that once you have everything completely memorized, you then must run through the game almost like a freakin’ Jedi, killing and dodging everything necessary with what looks like split-second reactions but which only results from knowing what is coming ahead of time, and this sometimes even means throwing an attack at a stinking enemy that isn’t even on the screen yet before you make a very difficult jump onto a platform where the enemy will be waiting to kill you if you didn’t already best him in anticipation! It’s insane! And accumulating lives almost seems pointless, at least for me, because if you die at a difficult spot and then can’t get your fireballs back, you will just likely see all of your hard-earned lives disappear one by one at the same spot that killed you in the first place, with very little that you can do about it. And I can’t even imagine beating this game without the fireballs! My winning strategy must include that I run through the game as a flaming freak of destruction, and if I die, hopefully it is at a point where I can safely get my fireballs back before then resuming the madness, but if I die at a bad spot that doesn’t allow me to become a flaming freak again soon, I might as well kiss all of my up to 9 lives accumulated goodbye, as they will do me almost no good at all and will all be gone in no time flat. Memorizing absolutely everything along with near perfect execution seems to be the only way to beat this ridonculous freak fest of game.
But this morning, at 2:45 in the AM, with eyes heavy and with all hope nearly gone, I finally managed to prevail, beating the game the whole way through, without the use of save states during this one particularly glorious run. I have never felt such a feeling of accomplishment from beating a game as I did with this one. Finally, the lovely Tina is mine! And after everything I freakin’ had to do to save her, I better never hear any dumb complaints from her about me leaving the toilet seat up.
Next, I will probably try Ninja Gaiden and then maybe Silver Surfer, because yeah, I’m that much of a masochist.
So, what’s the hardest or most difficult game you’ve ever played?
Congratulations. While I like a good challenge I don’t like if a game is frustrating. So no continues and stuff like that usually kills the fun for me.
I recently managed to finally beat Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. I was playing the All Star version (emulated on a Wii which was emulated on a WiiU) which lets you save after each level though. I played through every single level including the A-D worlds without using any shortcuts. I actually played through the entire thing only using a mushroom once (I can do the jump in C-4 without it but will get hit immediately by one of Bowsers fireballs 70% of the time). It’s not that hard of game (at least the All Stars version) but it does provide a good challenge.
Another harder game I did beat this year is Super Meat Boy. Very fun and addictive game.
I don’t know if this counts as beating it or not, but I’d say the original japanese Super Mario 2. I have a copy for my NES, so no cheats or anything, unless I want to bust out the game genie.
However, so far I’ve had to use that jump on the turtle trick to get more lives, I haven’t been able to with the stock 3 lives yet.
Also, I only got to world C, instead of D. I’m not sure if beating the game is technically beating bowser in Castle 8, or to get through all Worlds A-D (Which it takes away all your lives and you only get one chance for those worlds). Last time I actually got to the secret worlds was the first time, I was sweating so much trying not to die. Alas, something jumped out in world C somewhere and got me.
Other than that, I don’t have a good track history for beating really hard games. Actually I did beat Super Alfred Chicken on the Super Nintendo. Took a few years, those last levels get ridiculously hard I seem to remember.
The hardest games I’ve ever beaten are Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden. The hardest I ever played would either be Super Mario Bros 2 or any of the Ghosts n Goblins games.
I would have to say the hardest game I ever played was “cat mario” the flash game. In it they want you to die crazy things happen in that game to get you to die things you would never expect.
I also recently devoted myself to beating all of the worlds, including the hidden ones, in the original Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, before I decided to take on the Adventure Island challenge. I definitely did it the old-school way, too, where you had to beat the game 8 times before even being able to access the hidden letter worlds. That game was admittedly tough, especially the hidden letter worlds, but nowhere near as tough for me as Adventure Island.
I do agree that when a game is so frustratingly hard that it makes you not want to finish it at all, that’s not a well-designed game. Nevertheless, Adventure Island and Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japanese Version) were so fun that I definitely didn’t mind dying so many times and trying again and again until I beat everything.
I watched my friend beat absolutely every level in Super Meat Boy, which looked absolutely ridiculous as well, but at least with that game, you get to start over at the beginning of each stage when you die, as is typical with most games made nowadays, rather than at the beginning of the whole game. I’m sure if one had to start over at the beginning of the whole game each time one died, many people would never want to put forth the effort to try to beat that game, and it surely wouldn’t have sold as many copies as it has.
I also want to try to beat Castlevania sometime, as that is definitely a well-designed game. It seems that beating that game will require memorizing which special attacks are best to have in advance before entering a certain section of a stage and then using those best special attacks at the right occasions. It seems that beating Ninja Gaiden will likewise require having the right special attacks and using them at the right times as well. I’ll also try to figure those out the old-school way, so on my own with many trial and error deaths, instead of watching YouTube videos of those who have mastered the games to learn the stages.
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
I definitely did it the old-school way, too, where you had to beat the game 8 times before even being able to access the hidden letter worlds.
Wait what? Aww damn, I’m totally thinking of World 9. I never did get to the Letter worlds >_< There's no battery backup in this game right? So you gotta beat it 8 times in one sitting? Damn, I got some work ahead of me. At least I can use warp pipes it looks like, since it looks like doing world 9 isn't necessary to get a star.
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
I watched my friend beat absolutely every level in Super Meat Boy, which looked absolutely ridiculous as well, but at least with that game, you get to start over at the beginning of each stage when you die, as is typical with most games made nowadays, rather than at the beginning of the whole game. I’m sure if one had to start over at the beginning of the whole game each time one died, many people would never want to put forth the effort to try to beat that game, and it surely wouldn’t have sold as many copies as it has.
While I think Super Meat Boy would still have worked if it functioned like an old Mario Bros. game it’s addictive nature is very well improved by the fact that you immediately start over on the same level. That’s because the controls are almost perfect, so if you mess up you feel like it’s your fault and you immediately want to try again.
Honestly, I can’t see the point in being set all the way back to the start of the game (other then extending the game length). I like figuring out a strategy to beat a level. As soon as I managed to do that, I never want to play it again. But maybe that’s just me.
At one point, I made a game (does it even qualify?). It was a shooting game were you are a square and you have to get the other squares off the screen. It was really hard. You couldn’t pass the first level because of how fast the enemies were. I Scrapped the game for multiple reasons. Mainly because you could only make one level. Another reason was because the game maker I was using did not allow power ups.
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
I definitely did it the old-school way, too, where you had to beat the game 8 times before even being able to access the hidden letter worlds.
Wait what? Aww damn, I’m totally thinking of World 9. I never did get to the Letter worlds >_< There's no battery backup in this game right? So you gotta beat it 8 times in one sitting? Damn, I got some work ahead of me. At least I can use warp pipes it looks like, since it looks like doing world 9 isn't necessary to get a star.
Yeah, if you’re doing it on a Famicom, I’m pretty sure that you’ll have to leave the system on the whole time, in order for it to keep your stars. I did it on an emulator, so I could save the state and resume later, as if I had never turned the system off.
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Yeah, if you’re doing it on a Famicom, I’m pretty sure that you’ll have to leave the system on the whole time, in order for it to keep your stars. I did it on an emulator, so I could save the state and resume later, as if I had never turned the system off.
Wow, yeah that’s gonna be tough. Mine is on the NES, Uncle Tusk had the Famicom version on a NES cart, I had to get it =P I guess it means when I attempt that my NES will be on for a while! I can’t imagine doing it all in one day.
Well, I managed to beat Castlevania for the first time. While it did offer a good challenge, I have to say that I’m surprised to see it on some sites’ top 10 lists of hardest games for the NES. When one can completely memorize a game and still not be able to beat it reliably, such as with Adventure Island, that definitely qualifies it as an extremely hard game. With Castlevania, though, once one memorizes all of the attacks and patterns of the enemies as well as the best special weapon to have in hand for a particular area, it can be reliably beaten again and again with not too much difficulty (without requiring near-flawless execution). After a solid night of learning the game, I managed to beat the game the first time through without losing a continue, and then I beat it the second time through (on the harder difficulty level) by continuing only once. Perhaps with a little more time, I can fully master that game. It definitely seems that they made the stopwatch and the holy water almost way too powerful, because using those items at the right times makes certain parts of the game, which would otherwise be extremely ridiculous, a breeze. Without those items, though, the game would, indeed, be ridiculous. Great game overall! I don’t think I ever owned it for the NES during my childhood, but I do remember playing the arcade version at certain stores. Perhaps the arcade version is harder, and maybe the special items aren’t as powerful in it.
I’m going to have to say Gimmick! is the hardest game I have actually beaten 100%. It took me weeks of practice just to get past level 4, to say nothing of the others. Well, except for that last level, which is cake aside from the true final boss.
RetroDan wrote:
I’m going to have to say Gimmick! is the hardest game I have actually beaten 100%. It took me weeks of practice just to get past level 4, to say nothing of the others. Well, except for that last level, which is cake aside from the true final boss.
Thanks for the recommendation! I had never really heard of this one before. It took me about 3 hours and who knows how many continues to “beat” the game poorly the first time, but the odd ending made me realize that there must be more to the game than what I had found the first time. Thanks to teh internetz, I now learn that in addition to what I just did, I must also find a hidden area in all 6 stages, get all 6 magic items in said hidden areas, beat some secret stage with its extra boss, and all that without using a single continue, in order to truly beat the game in full, getting the best ending?! Dang! This is really going to be an amazingly hard challenge!
I did it! I saved the girl from her nefarious toys! Thankfully, the game did let me continue after I made it to the final secret area. I was afraid that I’d have to start all over again when the last, true boss defeated me. It took me one continue and all of that continue’s lives to beat him. I love how they made use of the star as both a weapon and a necessary means to reach faraway areas; it’s certainly more than just a clever gimmick! What a unique and great game! I must say that it is one of the funnest platformers I have ever played. Too bad they didn’t release it for Virtual Console. After all, they released Sunsoft’s Ufouria; why the heck not Mr. Gimmick?
Now how in the hell did you beat it so fast? I’ve had Gimmick for like a year now and I still haven’t been able to beat it the proper way yet! I just somehow need to get better =P
speedyink wrote:
Now how in the hell did you beat it so fast? I’ve had Gimmick for like a year now and I still haven’t been able to beat it the proper way yet! I just somehow need to get better =P
Probably the way I eventually beat it – by mainlining Monster Energy Drinks, Coca-Cola, and a ten-hour marathon run of the game until my entire being was channeling the spirit of Yumetaro.
And then I crashed for nineteen hours and had caffeine withdrawal so strongly that the migraine that resulted blinded me for twenty four hours. Still worth it.
speedyink wrote:
Now how in the hell did you beat it so fast? I’ve had Gimmick for like a year now and I still haven’t been able to beat it the proper way yet! I just somehow need to get better =P
I did spend a lot of my Labor Day off from work playing it. It was probably a total of 7 to 8 hours of playing the game (3 to 4 hours to beat it the first time with the poor ending and then another 3 to 4 hours to get the good ending) before I found all of the secret areas, got all of the secret items, and then made it into the final area to beat the true, final boss. The first part of that boss actually reminded me a lot of the Dracula fight in Castlevania!
Interesting story about Adventure Island- I absolutely would have given up within an hour! I don’t have the fortitude to persevere with games like that. A lot of NES games seemed way too hard, like they were overcompensating for the general simplicity to make the experience take longer.
I’d have to look through my collection to see what I’ve done, but I know I’ve beaten all the Mega Man X games up to X7 the honest way. Some of the later ones were pretty brutal IMO. With the X4-X6 range, the change in style was really distracting for me. The games themselves were hard enough, but something about the voices, Japanese weapon names, etc. made those games feel more like chores to complete.
This is kind of sad, but a lot of Mortal Kombat games seem overly challenging too. UMK3 is the only Saturn game I don’t have packed away and I’ve been playing it to test my homemade wireless controller. I should be excited to have it finished, but the game just gets so cheap and unfair after the first opponent in 1P mode…most times I get pissed off and say “screw it”. Admittedly I rarely play for extended periods, but I know enough moves that ‘Very Easy’ mode shouldn’t be kicking my ass almost immediately.
Does anyone else have that trouble? I swear the opponent can sweep/throw me when they’re CLEARLY a foot or more out of range. Plus when we’re both standing at the ready, I can repeatedly tap the left/right button and see the opponent match every step the moment I move. It seems like their AI algorithm is stuck in quarter-eating arcade mode.
The first video game I ever owned was Kirby’s Dreamland on the GameBoy, which I must have beaten 12 times on the first day 🙂
I managed to beat Double Dragon 3 for NES for the first time. Yes, it’s a very hard game, but not as impossible as a lot of internet reviews make it out to be. The strategy to use is much like what you have to do for Double Dragon for the Atari 2600, which a lot of people also say is an incredibly hard game. It is: Get out of the enemy’s plane and let the enemy come into your plane as you are attacking. Do that for pretty much the entire game, and you can beat it!
I finally managed to beat Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures on the Hard as Balls setting! The last boss was such a cheap piece of crap. Even after learning all of his patterns, beating him was still ridiculous. Once he started diarrhea dumping on my head, it was somewhat manageable, but it was hard to keep track of where he would crap next, since his balls were always in the way. His balls were the hardest of all! I kept focusing on his balls as much as possible, watching their every move, but he would keep hitting me in the face with his balls nonetheless. And then, when I would finally get him down to almost no energy, one of his balls would drop really low, and he’d keep swinging it and smashing me with it, and his balls were so hard that I couldn’t just shoot through them to hit him in the face when using the Nerd. After over 150 failed attempts, I finally managed to beat the cheap piece of crap! I don’t even think I’m going to try the Impossible difficulty level, let alone YOLO.
