What's the Hardest Game You've Every Played?

[cbwing0]

There are a lot of difficult games out there. Some are nigh-impossible to beat due to glitches, bad camera angles, poor balance etc. However, others are meant for the elite. They are intentionally made more difficult that the standard fare to make completion of the game difficult. So, what is the hardest game you have ever played (and preferrably beaten ).

I have played many hard games, but I think that the most difficult would have to be Capcom vs. SNK 2. Not the whole game, of course. Just the "All Survival" Mode. In this, you have to face all the characters in the game (40-50) one after another in 1-round matches. The AI gets better as you progress through the ranks, and your life does not replenish fully after each match. Speaking as someone who is quite good at Street Fighter, this is the hardest thing I have ever seen in an SF game. I have yet to beat it, but perhaps I will one day.

Second place goes to Gradius 3 or Contra 3 for the SNES. I actually beat these, even though they werevery difficult (as most scrolling shooters tend to be).

Now it's your turn: what is the hardest game you've every played and why?

Edit: There's a typo in the title...how do I fix that?

[Saint Kevin]

Never beaten Super Ghouls and Ghosts, but that defintely wasn't the hardest game out there. Maybe the original Contra (haven't beaten that either) without the Konami code; C'mon 3 lives is ridiculous! Oh yeah, the first two turoks for N64...frustratingly hard, both to find everything and to beat (need to beat those games still). Probably one of the hardest games I have beaten is N64's Goldeneye on all skill levels. I got all the cheats that were wothwhile too, including the invincibility (beat the facility in 2:15...so hard) cheat. I might think of some others, but for the most part they are all old school games that get this award. The only new one I can think of is Halo on legendary (not co-op, single player). There's my short list, for now.

[uc pseudonym]

Games that are difficult in stupid ways quickly drain my patience, and I stop caring. I've never beaten Battletoads... on the level in which you have to race the rats to the bomb, I have yet to beat the third rat. I slowed the game rate to 1/6 speed and played through absolutely perfectly, and I still didn't win... so I have to put that on a list of difficult games. The rest of it was very difficult too.

[Elric_kun]

Hmmm, Halo on legendary single player mode was very hard, and the same level on battletoads UC mentioned. I can't think of more hehe.

[Htom Sirveaux]

I'll just tell ya one thing:
My normal ps2 controller (I have a regular one and a turbo one) is on the fritz and I blame Twisted Metal: Black. It's a great game, but it can be ridiculously hard. After getting blown up for about the 50th time (I think it was in the Prison Passage stage) I threw my controller on the floor in utter frustration. Now the vibration function is messed up and the buttons occasionally either "stick" or don't respond. Rrrgh.

[Saint]

SimEarth back on the SNES... was too much of a pain.... how disappointed i was with that game. /// games that you have to have quick fingers?? i don't really know... makes me mad, but i guess atleast at some point you will get lucky.

[Michael]

Batman & Robin, the PS port. Impossible.

[Saint Kevin]

That remins me...I NEVER beat Batman and Robin (or was it Batman Forever, one of those...) on the SNES...SOOO hard. Oh yeah, and maximum carnage...never beat that either. Could get almost all the way through (after like almost 2 hours or more, and then I'd lose). Total bummer, cool game though...bring back spiderman beat 'em ups, but please PLEASE no more batman games. Ugh.

[Link Antilles]

Hardest game... evar, eh? Umm.....Halo was extremely hard on legendary, but I beat it! Pure luck, though. lol European extreme mode is crazy on Metal Gear Solid 2. Splinter Cell on hard mode in the CIA level is where I'm still at. I've played so many games , I'm not sure.....

[TheMelodyMaker]

I started a thread about this a while ago:

http://www.christiananime.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1395

[uc pseudonym]

Huh. Rarely am I the one to be working with a topic already breached... in this case, however, I think discussion can continue in this thread. It has been a while.

There's a demo version of a 1st person shooter I don't remember that really is impossible. By this I mean that in the demo there is absolutely no way to beat it. They add a wall that messes everything up, and then the game is completey impossible. It's supposed to make you buy it, you see...

[Omega Amen]

Recently, I find playing the Missions in Guilty Gear X2 to be quite difficult. The handicaps are really hard to overcome. Also, playing against the bosses Zero and Igniz in King of Fighters 2001 at the highest difficulty level starts to border on the ridiculous.

Those are the only two situations that I can recall right now where I felt frustrated and actually I started to think I just cannot do this. There are probably more frustrating video game situations for me in different games and genres, if I really sat down and think about it.

[Danyasaur]

I have four words for you "Mega-Man-Network-Transmision"!

[Icarus]

I'm sorry to say that I never beat the first boss on Devil May Cry on normal difficulty. On Automatic Easy, I sailed through the game twice. Normal, I always died in that same spot. I must have tried 30 or more time.

[Straylight]

Anyone here played a fairly old 3D game for the PC called V2000? From what I remember, the aim of the game was to destroy an alien outbreak before it starts killing civilians. The problem was this:

Your ship contains one thruster which is rotated on a pivot at the center. The controls involve rotating this thruster and firing the weapons. Very hard to play without crashing into stuff and firing at the sky. Whilst you are floundering around, the aliens are killing civilians, and of course the level is failed if a certain number of civilians die. This can happen in a matter of seconds. Dispite the difficulties involved, the game was feverishly addictive.

I'd love to know if anyone has mastered this game -- I found it near impossible.

edit: Interesting - In my quest for a good screenshot I just stumbled across an abandonware site where you can download it:

http://www.the-underdogs.org/downloadfile.php?file=games/v/v2000/files/v2000.zip&id=4073

edit 2: Installation is tricky though -- I'd only recommend attempting this if you feel technically competant. You have to unpack about 20 zip files into a directory and then extract an .ace file containing the core executable.

[Taslin_Jewel]

I have never beaten Fire Emblem, though not from lack of trying.
In FE, when a character runs out of HP, they are permanately dead. You never see them again. (Technically, on the tutorial this isn't true...but you don't see them again until the end of that, when you get a second chance.) Anyway, I keep losing people, then I am so weak that later chapters are impossible to beat. I have never beaten Chapter 19, and there are like 51 chapters or something.

[MasterDias]

I was on one of the earlier chapters in the 20s in Fire Emblem. The one that has an arena.

I was attempting to level up my characters in the arena as their levels are a tad low but...it's no easy task.

I managed to level up my Shaman to level 20 and then upgrade him to a Druid. I managed to get a level 7 Pegusus Knight up to level 15 and then...
I accidently let Eliwood get killed while trying to level him up in the arena...

I haven't played the game since. I will try again...eventually.
I do think it's one of the best GBA games of 2003.

[Bobtheduck]

Final Fantasy 5 isn't that hard of a game except for Exdeath in his final form... With like level 99, full stock, all spells, and a loaded "mimic" class (giving you pretty much all abilities) I still couldn't beat it...

Besides that, I'd say "European Extreme Metal Gear Solid 2"

Though it's not quite the same thing, Oni mode with songs like "Afronova" on DDR or highest difficulty on wipeout on Pump it Up I believe are quite hard...

Though I'm sure I'm just missing something, I never did figure out "Back to the Future 2&3" Apparently you had to beat 2 to play 3, but 2 was so hard I never got it... Those bizarre little minigames where you had to deal with paradoxes and clones and stuff were just too much, not to mention trying to map out the proper locations for all the missing items Biff took.

[Lunis]

I think I'm a pretty whimpy gameplayer, and I haven't played tons of games. The hardest game I've beaten would probably be...oh I don't know, Kingdom Hearts, I guess. But that was actually pretty easy... But you gotta give it credit for some of the boss and extra boss enemies. Sephiroth is impossible! Also, that one boss in the desert of Aladdin after you seal the keyhole and Riku posessed by Ansem are pretty hard.
The hardest game that I have but haven't beaten would probably be Final Fantasy 3. I've struggled through many hard parts and am now stuck at Wrexoul. How do you beat that guy anyway?!

[Azier the Swordsman]

Final Fantasy 5 isn't that hard of a game except for Exdeath in his final form... With like level 99, full stock, all spells, and a loaded "mimic" class (giving you pretty much all abilities) I still couldn't beat it...

Hmmm... Exdeath's Final Form never gave me any trouble. I did have some difficulty on FF6; One of the three Mega-Bosses you encounter before reaching Kefka, can't remember his name... might have been Poltergeist??? or something along those lines... and the monsters right before the final battle with Kefka. (Keep in mind I was on level 99)

[Fsiphskilm]

!!!

[ShiroiHikari]

Some of the hardest games I've ever played are NES games. I have yet to beat -any- of the Mario games. I got so close a long time ago on the first one, but...meh.

Um...what's another one. Well, DDR is frustratingly hard when you first start playing...

I remember I always had a hard time with Descent too.

...I can't think of any more o_O

[uc pseudonym]

On the last level of Descent, I finally died, fighting the stupid Reactor Core boss. This was the first time I had died, so I thought I'd have to fight through the entire level again. Only afterward did I realize that all the enemies stayed dead, and I could have just ran to the boss and tried again. I've never had the heart to play the entire level again.

[Technomancer]

I think the hardest thing I ever tried was playing a version of Frogger written for the 8086 on a Pentium.

[cbwing0]

SHENMUE!!!

That's the hardest game imaginable! Because it's so hard to stay interested in its slow-paced plot. I mean I've seen ants get out of motor oil faster than Shenmue's plot advances.

It's just so slow it's like torture. You try asking people in a village about some dumb black car for 3 hours...In the end you get no-where and you don't really get to fight anyone until hours later into the game.

...poor ants...

Shenmue has to be my least favorite game of all time. The game was touted for its realism, yet the most exciting thing to do is go to the arcade and play some real classic games (either that or collect figures from the vending machines). What made it worse was that I wanted Skies of Arcadia, but my dad got me Shenmue instead. That's like asking for Soul Calibur 2 and getting American Idol: In the Spotlight (ok, maybe not that bad, but still pretty bad).

Anyway, if you had true freedom in the game (i.e., freedom to punch out all of the annoying morons rather than just during the predetermined fight scenes) it would have been much better.

Sorry to rant, but I have this game has scarred me deeply.

[Lunis]

How is Soul Calibur 2? Is it worth getting?

[cbwing0]

It is definitely worth getting if you liked the first one, or if you like fighting games in general.

[Solid Ronin]

Dead to Rights

[DrNic]

The bike level on Battle Toads. That literally is IMPOSSIBLE. Oh, and the boss of all the old Doom shoot-em up games is mega-hard. Its only a face in a wall but I have only ever managed to beat it once without cheating!

[uc pseudonym]

The bike level isn't literally impossible (as I have done it), just ridiculously difficult. That game is pretty much that way.