I think Castlevania is the harder game. I’ve beaten them both (Castlevania only once).
Of all the 10 or so guys I played Nintendo with in college, I was the only one who managed to beat Castlevania (we played it for about a week solid), but three or four of us could beat Contra without the code.
However, I grew up playing Contra, and hadn’t played much Castlevania until then. So I had way more practice at it. Maybe it was the same for others.
I agree that Battletoads is absurdly difficult.
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Contra: Never succeeded in getting through straight and clean, but it’s definitely possible. It’s mostly a matter of steady nerves, acuuracy, and knowing what’s coming up. I’d put it a cut above say, Rush 'n Attack or Gyruss, but it’s not in the same universe as the real monsters.
Castlevania: I loved this game…back when I was just flailing my way through (literally, given the hero’s weapon) and didn’t care about, y’know, actually trying to finish the thing. Since a lot of the discussion is about the bosses, I’ll rate them:
Giant Bat - A pushover, just keep tossing axes at him until he dies.
Medusa - Maybe a challenge if you face her with no weapon and low on health for some weird reason. Otherwise, a complete wimp. Boomerang or cross in conjunction with your whip destroys her. Fire bomb destroys her and spits on her remains.
Twin Mummies - Play this right, and they’re the BIGGEST pushovers of all. Literally an effortless no-hit win.
Frankenstein - A pretty big jump from the first three. The real threat is Igor, who chucks fireballs at you from all angles and can only be briefly stunned. Fire bombs will help a lot; a boomerang, if you have one, is even better.
Death - Two words: TRIPLE BOOMERANG. Jump and chuck them; with luck, not only will you carve a big chunk of health out of the fiend, you’ll smash all the flying scythes as well. You won’t beat him every time, or even most of the time, but keep at it and eventually he will go down.
Dracula - Blergh. Faced him…and kept facing him, and facing him, and facing him, never getting even close to beating him. Takes 16 hits, and because he warps all over the place, you can only get one at a time. He shoots fireballs in threes, so it’s hard to avoid taking hits…and even harder due to his habit of teleporting right on top of you. If you do manage to get 16 hits before dying (and it only takes 4 hits at this stage), congrats…you’re one third of the way there. You have the privilege of facing Drac’s true form, which takes 32 hits.
In all, the first 3 stages are easy, then the difficulty goes up somewhat in 4, then it goes up again in 5, and then Dracula blasts it off into deep space.
Battletoads - It’s telling that so, so many players cite the speederbike section in stage 3 as evidence of its incredible difficulty…because these players have not even made it one quarter of the way through the game! Yep, 12 stages. And everything after the bikes is AT LEAST as murderous. I’ll post a link later; for now, rest assured that you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
I got as far as stage 4, BTW.
Ghosts 'n Goblins - Well, Capcom was still a very young company, and they’d never done this kind of sidescroller before. I’m pretty sure they weren’t actually trying to make one of the most brutal video games ever. I mean, look at Ghouls 'n Ghosts; that one’s far more refined and less brutal (although still quite challenging). Nonetheless, this was a total pain, and it got absolutely crazy near the end. Actually, it wouldn’t be so horrible if you didn’t get thrown back to a checkpoint every time you lost a life, effectively making every single section make-or-break.
Adventures of Bayou Billy - Much like Castlevania in that the later stages really ramped it up and the last boss was a monster. Actually, it’s a lot like Mega Man; once you learn the right tactics and know what to use when and against whom, it becomes a lot more managable. Besides completing the training stages (which helps a lot), the important things are memorizing the rock appearances in stage 4 and making it through stage 7 without dying, so you have a bulletproof vest when you really need it.
Haven’t played Double Dragon 3 or Top Gun at length…maybe I should be grateful.
Oh, and one game that absolutely needs to be part of the discussion: Air Fortress. Damn. I mean, Battletoads was insane, but at least it didn’t waste entire days of my life doing so.
(I’d add Defender of the Crown too, but that’s more FUBAR design than anything.)
As promised. Part 1 here, then just follow the links.
You really have to see the whole thing to appreciate just how utterly ludicrous this game is, top down, through and through. I honestly wonder what the hell they were thinking. There’s a reason these kinds of games aren’t made anymore, y’know.