I remember Uninvited. I beat that one before Deja Vu, but it’s essentially the same game.
Super Mario Bros 3, developed by Nintendo, released 1990, completion time: 1 hour, 59 minutes
First of all, I’d like to point out that SMB3 is the easiest of the Mario games. Infact, NOT warping made it even easier, because I amassed a collection of clouds and pwings, which basically let me skip any stage, so it was like Tank World didn’t even happen. The hardest part of this game for me was always the Tank World, and warping there immediately is going to leave you with very few supplies. Anyway, SMB3 is also by far the longest of the Mario games. I clocked in at JUST under 2 hours! It’s also the best, and that includes the latter generation games. There’ just something about SMB3…it isn’t considered the best NES game of all time for no reason! I remember when it first came out, and it INSTANTLY became the best selling video game of all time - it was like Harry Potter of the early 90s. The variety that the worlds have is a nice touch too - having an ENTIRE world dedicated to desert stages, water stages, giant stages, air stages (always my favorite world - the big green shoe!), ice stages and pipe stages was an interesting twist, as opposed to SMB1 and SMW that give you something different every stage, but 7 times over. And the LITTLE bit of non-linearity - actually letting you decide between stages and being able to skip them over also makes the game fun. I HAVE beaten this game without warping before, but only when playing with someone else, and one big difference is that the cloud (which lets you skip a stage but not mark it completed) actually helps - because in two player mode, the second player still gets blocked by the bypassed stage and still has to complete it. Anyway, this game tired me out. I’m going to sleep.
Astyanax, developed by Jaleco, released 1989, competion time: 30 minutes
This is a hack and slash and slash and slash and slash and slash and slash sidescroller. Most enemies, even normal stage enemies, take forever to die, and take upwards of 10-15 hits. The impressive thing is the size of the characters, since your character (some Spartan knight guy) is about 5 times as tall as Mario, and his hit detection box is even twice as big, since you can get damaged by enemies nowhere near you. Often when you THINK you’re fighting a boss, it turns out it was only the miniboss and the screen-sized boss is right behind it. The only way I was able to survive this lousy game (did I mention how bad the music was?) was with the turbo button so that my character could hack and hack and hack away with his axe.
this challenge isn’t dead…it’s just been sidetracked. I’m now working a 45+ hour week, and the commute is actually too short for me to play most games in transit. That coupled with other things going on in my life hasn’t left me much time for gaming. I did devote 2+ hours of my morning to this weird game though:
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, developed by Virgin Games, released 1991, completion time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Robin Hood was one of those games that I read about in Nintendo Power, but was never actually able to find to buy or rent. It was one of the first games that I was excited to see released to ROM back when NES emulation was first starting up…I played it for a little while, and realized it wasn’t nearly as good as was advertised. So now I come back to it, in an attempt to actually finish it.
Robin Hood is a pretty unique game, in that the scenery and method of play is constantly changing. First you’re playing overhead (Zelda style), and then it’ll go to a side view dual mode, and then you’ll be riding horses in a chase (run and jump), and then you’ll be in a multi-player real time strategy mode. This game also has a number of traditional RPG elements, such as experience points and levels, and finding and equiping new weapons and armor. The weird thing is this was all put together in a game that has no save mode, and also no password (there IS a password mode, but you have to enter a code to reach it, and the passwords are incredibly simple with words like DUNGEON and CASTLE, so either Virgin only included it for testing, or as a secret code for level skipping). Making a game like this makes it very demotivational to build experience, since your only goal is beating the game in one sitting. Fortunately, there are unlimited continues and they don’t really penalize you for dying (at a couple places in the game, it was easier to just die so I could come back with full HP). As for the storyline, it follows the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie pretty closely. My major gripe with the game (aside from the fact that this game is WAY too long for an average player to beat start to finish in one sitting) is that there are too many annoying maze stages in the game, where I spend time running around just trying to find something/somebody, or just trying to find the way out!
this is starting to turn into NES-a-month challenge (stupid 50 hour work, which is why I haven’t been posting OR reading SMDB very much period), but as long as I still intend to finish every single NES game, the challenge continues…
The Adventures of Dino Riki, developed by Hudson, released September 1989, completion time: 20 minutes
A vertical autoscrolling overhead run and gun set in the stone age, which has absolutely no story (nor an ending…not even a THE END or a misspelled congratulations!) but probably doesn’t need one anyway - you’re a caveman named Riki (or Dino Riki?) and you’re out to kick some dinosaur ass. You can shoot fireballs, and can get weapon and speed upgrades by shooting special rocks which make items appear, and this is one of those annoying games where if you take a hit, you LOSE your best upgrade too, but you have a strangly high level of health so the only way you’re EVER going to die is if you’re ever forced to jump. And yes, you WILL die. Many NES games have poor hit detection, but this game has poor cliff detection. If the game even THINKs you’re near the edge of the cliff, you will fall in. Now, combine the autoscrolling with the poor jumping controls, and the froggerish lilypad jumping (where they move AND disappear) and you have some of the craziest hard level sections I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how ANYBODY could beat this game without save stating, just so they wouldn’t constantly be brought back after completing a jump perfectly only to have Riki fall to his death anyway. Aside from the crazy challenge, there really isn’t much else here to make it worthwhile.
Can I suggest Shinobi?
Also, there was this game that we got my friend for his birthday in 1986 or 87. It was a puzzle game. You were this wizard with a wand that could make a block appear or disappear in front of you. You could run back and forth or jump up, but you could only jump up one block. I have no idea what it was called, but I remember it as being totally awesome.
Oh, and what about Mario Brothers? Not Super Mario Brothers, just the regular Mario Brothers. I think it was a port of the arcade game. Turtles, crabs and bouncy flying bug things came out of green tubes at the top of the screen and then you had to knock them over and then kick them. There was a Bump square in the middle of the bottom level that you could use to flip or unflip all of the bad guys at once. Illicit use of the bump square lead to much crying and fighting, if I remember correctly…
wasn’t Shinobi a Genesis game? The game you’re describing sounds like either Legacy of the Wizard or Solomon’s Key. And can you even beat Mario Bros? Isn’t it just one of those “rack up the highest score possible until you die” games?
alright, I got one more in this weekend
Athena, developed by SNK, released 1987, completion time: 1 hour
I don’t remember WHERE the heck I heard this, but back when I was first getting into NES games, I heard that of every game released, Athena was the hardest game. It actually wasn’t THAT bad, but it did get frustrating, particularly with the enemy archers who never stop shooting at you when you’re trying to jump across a gap. You’re the Goddess Athena, who is out to kick some mythological ass. You start by kicking, but can pick up enemy weapons…once YOU become the archer, it gets really easy. Also, similar to the Ghost & Goblin games, a major obstacle is an enemy dropping a worse weapon right in front of the path you need to cross. What makes the game somewhat harder is that despite being a side scrolling action game, there are often multiple paths (and additional screens if you fall down a pit) and only one path will advance you. So there was a bit of backtracking to finish the stages. Now, this game is nothing like Bayou Billy hard, but the platforming action did present more of a challenge than most games that came out in 1987. It actually somewhat reminded me of Battle of Olympus, and not just for the ancient Greece setting.
I just checked on Wikipedia. It came out on Sega Master system and then on NES in 89.
I don’t know if you could beat Mario Brothers. I know there were different levels (ice level!) but we usually ended up self destructing before we got too far. It’s dangerous to let 9 year olds play cooperative games.
I just checked. The game I was thinking of was Solomon’s key. Now all I need is a NES emulator and a rom.
Have you played Vindicators? It’s a tank game that I think is impossible. I could never get past the third level… 
I would just like to know if somebody, somewhere managed to actually complete the high jump on the original Track & Field using the normal controller. I tried for years and never could get over that damn bar. I could beat every other game but the high jump.
I remember Super Dodge Ball very fondly along with Rad Racer, Excitebike and Spy Hunter. Good times.
But my challenge is this: Faxanadu. Faxanadu can suck it long and suck it hard. I couldn’t beat that game when I was cheating for Christ’s sake. It’s really not a one-sitting type of game; it’s very in-depth, as I recall. Save early and often and take lots of notes. Good luck and I will revere you for all time should you beat it.
As far as Pain in the butt NES games I guess I’d have to recommend Super Glove ball or Rad Gravity(Password game) both of which frustrated me endlessly as a child.
I’ve beaten it 
! I love that game. Really, the trick is to go slow and save up enough money to buy all the shield and spell upgrades.
That game got even more dangerous when it was bundled as part of Super Mario Bros III. When you met your “partner” on the map you could bounce the cards you got at the end of each level from them.
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, developed by Seta, released 1989, competion time: 21 minutes
I used to own this game. It was a crazy little platformer, in which you control Tom Sawyer through his various adventures (since when did Mark Twain write about him going into a haunted house?) Playing it brought back memories, but it also seemed way easier than I remember it being. It has a great soundtrack, but also has the most inappropiate boss theme ever (to this day, I STILL think I’m about to play a bonus game, not fight a boss, when the music starts up).
Batman: Return of the Joker, developed by Sunsoft, released 1991, completion time: 27 minutes
This is a sequel to the original Batman game made by Sunsoft. The stages are pretty similar, with their dark settings and crazy conveyor belts (although there is a snow stage, and a stage aboard a train, not to mention a couple flying stages with a Bat-jet-pack). Batman now has unlimited ammo and multiple types of guns, but has lost the ability to bounce off walls (although he really doesn’t need to with the stage layouts this time around). The boss fights in this game are LONG (especially the last battle, which never seems to end) but Batman gets extra energy for the battles. It’s a strange system. Overall, I think I prefer the first game to this one.
http://aphasian.info/letsfail/
A bunch of guys trying out NES games they have never played before. It really shows how unforgiving games used to be if you didn’t know how to play them.
I actually had a lot of fun playing Willow on emulator several years ago, but got stuck somewhere very close to the end of the game. I can’t remember now if I couldn’t find an item, or if I couldn’t find where the last section of the game was, but after consulting walkthroughs and faqs at the time I became convinced that there was some sort of flaw with the game. Does anyone know anything about this, or has anyone beat it? I highly recommend it, actually. I remember having a lot of fun with it.
I never did actually beat Willow…it’ll be covered in phase 2.
Metal Gear, developed by Konami, released 1988, completion time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
This wasn’t so much a part of the “beating a game I never played before challenge” as me just wanting to play an old favorite, but I figured I’d do a write up anyway. Back when SMB3 and TMNT were the two biggest games in the world, me and my friends were playing Metal Gear. For those of you who HAVEN’t played it (I’m sure everybody’s at least heard of it, since the series is still going, and will be getting a movie soon), this was the NES port of the original computer game, where you play as Solid Snake, a military soldier sent into an enemy camp in South Africa with nothing but a radio and a pack of smokes, on a mission to rescue other troops. What makes this game, and the rest of the series, so unique is that it isn’t a run-and-gun, it’s a stealth game. Rather than take on enemies with your gun blazing (once you finally steal a gun), you get a lot more accomplished by hiding behind the walls, running past enemies, and collecting more items. This game does have its flaws (having to switch between 8 different cards to get the doors open, the extreme difficulty level until you’re used to the game, the infamously bad translation, and the fact that you can’t actually DO certain things until one of the POW’s TELLS you how to do it, forcing you to go on sidequests for information that the player already knows), but it really is one of the better NES games, and brings back memories.
Gradius, developed by Konami, released 1986, completion time: 25 minutes
okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a big fan of the Gradius series, owning and playing Life Force (the second NES game), Gradius 3 for the SNES, and even the PS2 game…but I’ve never completed the original. It’s interesting looking at what was the same in the first (suprisingly, a lot), and also what hadn’t yet been developed. Like the rest of the series, you’re flying in the Vic Viper spacejet, on a mission to wipe out another planet. You start out with a basic ship, which flies left to right (and can go up and down, but not turn around) in autoscrolling stages, but can pick up weapon upgrades, except the game lets you choose which ones to activate - speed up, missile, laser, options (little balls that mimic your movements and can fire their own laser) and shields. There are 7 stages, each of which has the same boss at the end, except for the last boss, which begins the tradition of having insanely easy final bosses, and one of the stages incorporates the same twist that the second quest of Symphony of the Night had…which was interesting for me because SOTN is my favorite video game ever and I thought the twist was something brand new. Also of note is that Gradius was the first game to use the Konami code: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A which in this case would give you the full set of weapon upgrades. Of course, using cheat codes goes against the rules of this challenge.
Kung Fu Heroes, developed by Culture Brain, released 1986, completion time: 36 minutes
This was a boring, stupid game. You’re this Chinese bald guy, who can punch and do jump kicks, and each of the 32 stages (there’s actually a map to tell you how close to the end you are) is a single overhead screen, where you must punch so many enemies before the door will open and you can move on. The problem is that some of the enemies can not be killed directly, and you must either knock a block into them, or get fireballs to shoot at them, and the blocks that give up items oftentimes don’t want to give up anything useful, so you have to avoid the stronger enemies and wait until they reappear. I suppose this might be more fun in the two player mode, but this game is just pathetic.
Adventures of Lolo, developed by HAL, released 1989, completion time: 2 hours, 18 minutes
I know somebody suggested this game a while back, and I was putting it off because it’s both a long game (and uses passwords), and one that offers new challenges every 3 minutes. Well, I was ready for it this afternoon. The Lolo games are a combination of action and puzzles. Lolo is a blue ball who runs around an overhead room, and must collect hearts which will open a treasure chest (and wake up some of the enemies that sleep until that point), and then collect the gem in the chest to get to the next room. Each room is set up in such a way that you must use strategy - pushing blocks (and sometimes enemies) out of the way or in the way of other enemies, following directional arrows, using a hammer or ladder in the right place, etc - in order to complete each stage. It’s a fun game, but also can be frustrating at times, especially when you FORGET that there’s a clear path between you and one of the medusa heads. The problem with this game is that especially in the later levels, there’s only ONE way to beat each stage, and there are upwards of 10 steps which must be done in the correct order otherwise the stage will be unbeatable (and if you get stuck, Select is the suicide button), so sometimes I wasn’t so sure if I should pick up a heart or leave it there until later. There’s also some pretty crafty strategy needed to beat some stages, like placing a block HALFWAY between two medusas, which actually blocks both of them. And once you remember that enemies can not walk on the grass, it makes some stages much easier, because there are some stages where strategy gets thrown out the window and it requires running reflexes to finish the stage. This game got two sequels, which are really more of the same.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch, developed by Sunsoft, released 1990, completion time: 40 minutes.
Fucking conveyor belts! Anybody who has played this game knows what I’m talking about. Anyway, this is a sequel to an Atari 2600 game…and also based on the movie. You control Gizmo, the furby, who plays through overhead action stages with really easy enemies and really tough jumps. You get various projectile weapons that look so cute in his hands, and can stop by the Shops of Mysteries to buy frogurts to restore your health. I never understood how the health meter works since sometimes you won’t lose health when you take damage. This was a fun game with good music, and actually reminded me a lot of the overhead sections of Blaster Master. Just be ready to get very fustrated with some of those jumps!