To me, a good game gets challenging on a very dynamic level. When you are on the ‘last level’ or ‘final boss’, it challenges all the skills you had to develop up to that point. A lot of games aren’t like this.
There are games (NES games, in particular, it seems) that are what I consider ‘stupid hard’. Its like the developers didn’t use any creativity in trying to make the game feasably challenging.
One of the reasons I enjoyed having a Game Genie is that by blowing through some games, I got a better feel for how the games themselves were designed. This also showed me some of the more irritating ways developers tried to ramp up the ‘replay value’ or challenge of the games:
1.) Giving the game an obscene amount of levels, on games with no password/save features.
2.) Having opponents get obscenely perfect/good as you start to beat them (sports games were notorious for this.)
3.) Having ‘start over’ points very far from boss fights, making the learning curve for learning their patterns/strategies very difficult since it takes so long just to get back to fighting them a second time.
That, and maybe its just me, but it seemed like the harder the game was, the shittier the ending was. I never beat Guardian Legend for NES until I got it on emulator and basically ‘save state’ vs the final boss with full HP (Had I done this on my NES every time I died I’d have to start over with minimal health). Anyway the ending sucked! Now, not all endings for NES were bad, some game developers actually tried to hash out some sort of epilogue to their games. Or the games were easy enough that a brief ending was okay (Contra).
The original Echo the Dolphin for Sega. I remember being so frustrated by that game that I hurled the cartridge across the room on more than one occasion. Never did finish it.
I like Battletoads but agree that it is tremendously difficult.
Weird Dreams requires that you do certain things in order, with no clue as to what that order is, is full of things that come out of nowhere and only gives you five lives.
I’ve recently run into that phenomenon in Drake’s Fortune for the PS3. You’ve got limited ammo and enemies that outnumber you and are just about as tough as you are… and when you finally defeat them, more spawn since the engine apparently can’t handle having more than five or so NPCs visible at any given time. Oh, and the bad guys never run out of ammo, even though they’re constantly firing and keeping you pinned behind cover. Eventually you run out of ammo, and have to close to melee range… while they’re shooting at you. Honestly, it just got tedious. “Okay… just killed off the last bad guy… where’s the next round of bad guys going to appear?”
In contrast, the bits where you’re climbing around and exploring the world are a lot of fun… just not enough fun to make up for the gunfights. I gave up.
(Oh, and their explosion effects are laughably bad.)
Sonic 2. For those of you who don’t know how the Sonic games work, as you proceed through a level you collect golden rings. The rings are critical because if you take any damage and you have no rings, you die. If you have any rings when you take damage, you drop them all but there’s a short period in which you can try to collect them again.
But in the final level, there are no rings. None. So you have to go and take on two bosses consecutively without getting hit once. IIRC, the first boss took 8 hits to defeat and the second boss took 16. I never managed it. I borrowed a friends Game Genie once and entered a code that would have me start the level with 1 ring, and that was enough for me to beat it.
I really like Drake’s Fortune, and din’t find it too hard. (Not to put you down or anything) I think the key is to find a good cover spot for each big ambush where you can heal. Yeah, the ammo thing is tougher than a lot of games, you have to go for the head.
Yep. I got past the speeder bikes section like twice, and that was with hours of practice and coaching from my older brother. You pretty much have to memorize the pattern and move before the pillars are even visible. shudder
They don’t just call it stupid hard…they call it Nintendo Hard for a reason. Link mildly NSFW, but only cursing you could easily find somewhere on this board anyway. I’m still in “trying not to offend anybody at all mode” since I’m new.
Anyway, any of the Ninja Gaidens for the NES, and I’ve heard the more recent 3-D version is just as difficult. I’d also like to throw in the original Castlevania. I downloaded it off the Virtual Console and it took me forever to beat the fourth level. And now I’m stuck on the fifth level. :o
A lot of people mentioned some goodies. Gotta agree on,
Battletoads for the speeder bike level.
Ninja Gaiden for extremely limited health ups, and a very tough boss fight at the end.
Ghosts and Goblins, because as retardedly difficult the game is, when you get to the end it turns out you have to go through the whole damn thing again to beat it! :mad:
The original Legend of Zelda, if only for the second quest. The first quest had its moments (levels 6 and 8, anyone?), but it was reasonable. The second quest was clearly put in by demented sadists who clearly hated everyone.
I’ve never, ever beaten the second quest. Not 20 years ago, not in any of the 4 or 5 times I’ve tried on an emulator in the past several years. Where, oh where, is the 6th underground level…??
On the middle left screen of the graveyard. IIRC, you need to use the whistle to get in. Take a look at the second quest maps over here. But be warned: the last three dungeons make the first six look relatively easy. In fact, just finding your way around level nine is an accomplishment.
ETA: I distinctly remember getting through this as a kid. How the hell did I ever play these games without an emulator?
