Ys: The Oath in Felghana was hard for me, even on 'normal'. Yay for Japanese action platform games.

Contra and Super C....ridiculously hard...my hands were twisted into a claw after finally beating those shits'. ahh wasted youth. :cussing:

The normal US edition of Devil May Cry 3. I refused to play the game on easy mode after it was unlocked for me and I grew tired of playing the game since every mission later on took like 10 tries each. I was tempted to play the easier SE but the game just left a bad taste in my mouth. One much worse than Devil May Cry 2.

I'm going to have to agree with a couple posters before me. Ninja Gaiden for xbox was so hard for me that I threw my control at the wall several times. I think that game pissed me off more than any other game out there. However with its stunning visuals and the game play was still pretty good I kept on playing it.

Saga Frontier (PSX):No matter how high my level was, the fricking last boss (played with a blonde girl) always kept kicking my arse. Not to mention how many many many times i got lost not knowing what the hell to do next.

Battletaods for Nes is also so damn difficult. I'm not complaining, i believe thougher games are much more interesting....

Also Challenge 30 in Perfect Dark took me like a month to beat it. Some stages were pretty damn difficult to do them fast, just to unlock things...

Just finished the game on professional. It is really not that hard. Just remember that you are invincible when you are kicking or doing other melee moves.

Earthbound - When Poo is training and you have to sit there and ignore the guy who tells you to go back to the palace...it took me so long to figure that out.

Halo 2 - First level on legendary. The rest were not too bad if you were careful.

More to come as I think of them.

Funny story: At Otakon this year, there was a booth that specialized in Japanese imports and they had Oath of Felghana running. I got to play and I asked the owner if there was a save at the final boss. Long story short: With about 50 people watching, Galbalan completely thrashed me in about 30 seconds. I was supposed to hit him with some kind of spell (he was too far off to hit with the sword), but he destroyed me before I could get anything off. I just remember some people going, "Dude, you're supposed to hit him!" That was humiliating...I passed the controller to some guy who proceeded to do about as well as I did.

Hardest would probably be Ikaruga, Gradius (all), Contra 3 or Xbox Metal Slug 3 (without the ability to continue where you left off). All of those are hair-pullingly good times. Battletoads for NES gets an honorable mention for the speed bikes and so does Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 for NES (mostly for that one corridor in the final level with the jetpack men).

There is an secret last boss for the hardest difficulty. I saw screenshots of it, it's insane.

Probably Shinobi for PS2. There's a health bar that decreases over time, enemies that hurt A LOT, tons of pit falls that lead to instant death, huge and confusing levels, and very long sequences without saves. Worst of all, if you die, you restart from the beginning of the level.

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/2...erosms3gc2.jpg

MY HERO
My ARSE. This game is horrific, three lives, no continues, one hit kills, enemies NEVER STOP FLODDING THE SCREEN. Stand still and they'll just pile on in like there's a 50% off sign stuck to your back. I'd be lucky to ever make it to the first boss, who threw bottles like a madman. GOTTA TOSS THESE BOTTLES. Like, even if you're jumping and an enemy runs under your foot as you're leaping into the air, DEATH.

Super Star Wars for SNES. Once you get the lightsaber you can kick ass as long as you're careful, but with the worst platforming I've ever seen, missing ledges by half a pixel and falling to your doom and practically flying across the screen if you move even the slightest in a jump, it's easily the hardest game I've ever played. I got to the Mos Eisley Cantina and I got cocky, because I had the lightsaber and was owning, and the boss completely destroyed me. I lost my lightsaber and my gun was essentially useless, being sent back to the first power level, and the boss had unavoidable moves. I haven't played it since.

contra 3 isnt that hard, i saw someone beat it on hard mode without dying once. don't remember where i saw it but if you search youtube for contra 3 speedruns some guy managed to beat the game without killing anything but bosses without dying, pretty badass.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...achi_title.png

DoDonPachi, only ever finished it on a single credit about twice in a good half-dozen years playing it at my local arcade.

Wow, you owe me a million dollars.

But anyway, I'd have to agree that F-Zero GX is pretty damn hard. I could never beat the Save Jody mission on very hard (my little bro did it) and I only beat the Grand Prix (story mode, very hard) because I somehow managed to knock off Black Shadow and Blood Falcon. I bought F-Zero X for the 64 recently, and that game seems even harder than GX.

I'm with those who say Ninja Gaiden. It's a gorgeous game, I know, and I'm a huge fan of Dead or Alive, but I just couldn't even get past the first boss. Took a couple of tries, and that was one try too many. I don't know if I just suck or something, but I was terrible at that game. I'm pretty glad I only borrowed it rather than bought it like I'd originally planned.

I also agree with DMC3, but I plan on giving that game another try some time in the future. I loved the first DMC, even went through Dante Must Die mode, and while I bought and hated DMC2, I'd heard enough good things about DMC3 to once again borrow it from someone. Anyway, I kept dying. But I'm really interested in playing as Vergil, so I might pick up the SE version in the future.

Currently, I'd add Trauma Center for the NDS to the list. I was pretty hyped up in getting this game after so many people recommended it to me, but it gets ridiculously hard at the end. It's not terrible or anything, just not my thing. But I'll keep my copy anyhow.

Based on the default difficulty levels, here are my current picks:

PS2 - Devil May Cry 3
Yes, just like everyone else can attest to, this game on first playthrough is crazy hard; the enemies combo you like mad and what's worse is that you gotta restart missions from the very beginning..

DS - Trauma Center
It's not so bad now, but back last year this one gave me a heck of a shock once you reach the Sin missions. It did make me much more proficient in wielding the stylus though as nothing else comes close to the difficulty shown here, including Ouendan's hard/insane mode imo.

GBA - Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Never played the originals, but this was the most frustrating experience I've ever had in a game I think. The lack of air control, the relentlessly stalking enemies, the damage system - it was all too much. The bosses were cake compared to the main levels, and I felt compelled to finish this truly old-school drama.

NES - Metroid
First time through w/o any help? Damn impossible. And the game sucks too; good ideas properly realised in the later 2d and 3d successes. Actually most NES games were bloody hard or an exercise in patience/repetition: hardest Castlevanias, Zeldas, Rockmans etc. etc.

The hardest games Ive ever played probably are from the C64, ranging from
insanely hard to impossible. To mention a few:
Impossible mission(damn right)
Cauldron 1 & 2(close to impossible)
Trolls and tribulations(extremely hard untill Level 7, impossible after level 7)

From NES:
Rad gravity(extremely hard)
TMNT was pretty hard but I finished it.
As for Metroid, w/o help I didnt think this game was very hard. Untill you'd
acquired some energy tanks, you were fine.

Probably Shinobi for PS2. There's a health bar that decreases over time, enemies that hurt A LOT, tons of pit falls that lead to instant death, huge and confusing levels, and very long sequences without saves. Worst of all, if you die, you restart from the beginning of the level.

That first boss was an absolute bitch until I found out there's a block/dodge button in the game after about twenty attempts. Then the rest of the game was like "oh, you can pretty much block everything and here's the ending sequence!"

Reading instruction manuals for the win. ;_;

I found it quite difficult, but I suck as a gamer, so that's not saying much ;) Usually I quickly lose patience with games so hard that you have to start each level countless times to finish it, and I guess I've only finished half the games I own. (Part of the other half I've finished with cheats (when available) just to see the whole thing.) If a game gives me too much trouble, I just stop playing it because I play to have fun and not to get overly frustrated. But somehow I've managed to beat Super Star Wars seven times, so it can't be too hard, it just can't.

My example for a ridiculously difficult game would be Tomb Raider III. Granted, no TR outing's ever been a piece of cake - until Legend of course -, but this one tops 'em all off. The save system alone, at least on the PSX, grants this game the title "nigh unplayable". Why didn't they release the TR games with a walkthrough instead of selling it separately? Without one you're screwed anyway. And then came Angel of Darkness which was even more difficult and much less fun, both for the wrong reasons, namely horrible controls and bugs and glitches up the wazoo. But we're not talking about games with an artificially increased difficulty because of crappy design, are we?

Zorro

I would probably say some of the hardest games of all time I have ever played have got to be:

SNES
1.) X-Men and Spiderman: Arcade's Revenge (What a hard game!!!!!!!! It gets pretty frustrating when you can pass the first level no problem, then the game takes such a dramatic turn it takes a hell of a lot of effort to pass only one of the two levels when it comes to the character select screen.)

Dreamcast
1.) Ikaruga (As someone has said before, its not passing the game that is hard, its playing the game well. Despite that, its still one of the most beautiful and most difficult space shooters of all time.)

I would say Ghouls & Ghosts for the Sega Genesis, and also Conquest of the Crystal Palace for NES. Both are of the "limited continues, no saves" form. I didn't think CotCP for NES was so extremely hard back in the day, but playing it again (I have an actual copy for my NES, one of only 5 games I have for the NES) I see now how insanely futile my attempts at beating it truly are. I even tried to beat it using emulators and save-states once, and couldn't really get past the 2nd level even using that method. The amount of enemies on-screen at one time, and the size of the bosses, is amazing. The boss-size was a definite marketing point of this game.

The hardest RPG I've ever played is Grandia Xtreme. Since beating it I have not had an RPG challenge me.

As for others, Little Nemo and To the Earth come to mind (and X-Men is somewhere up there), but there are, of course, about a hundred oldtime games that are really hard (because they're so old and I was so young).

Well, since my first post was deleted by some fag mod...*I wonder who*

I totally forgot about X-Men on the Genesis. I got so far....so freaking far...but to know that it's possible to lose say...one guy each level or two...and to find out when you fight someone, he's immune to your assists and most of your attacks....you want to kill yourself.

TMNT for the NES was always hard. I don't really remember finishing the city. I think the two games remind me of each other! :p

Phantasy Star Online is damn near impossible in Ultimate mode...I don't see myself beating that until about 300 hours of gameplay into it.

...hard to remember most games though...

Shinobi - That Tengen game for the NES. Even today, I was only able to beat it using an emulator and saving every 5 seconds. Really, there's a scene where enemies come non stop from an helicopter who is a real pain in the ass.

TMNT - Also for the NES, we all know what playing that game was like.