[General Discussion] Games You Can Never Beat But Keep Trying Anyway

Some of us occasional gamers are masochists. We get a game, play it endlessly and just can't seem to beat it. It may be a boss, it may be a level, it may be because we suck at gaming. List some games that you have just never finished, despite trying as hard as you can. Keep in mind, this is about unnecessary difficulty - not bugs or game errors.

1.) Double Dragon III - This game is tough as a swallowing a box of nails. I beat the first game and had a co-op win with the sequel, but I don't think I've ever met someone who's beaten Double Dragon III. Everyone I know agrees that its way harder than it needs to be and at my best I could get to Egypt, but never to the final boss.

2.) Contra III The Alien Wars (GBA) - I love love love Contra III. Everything about it is twice as manly as John Wayne, three times as badass as Lee Marvin and rocks harder than Iron Maiden's Number Of The Beast. I beat Contra III for SNES *once*, years ago - in middle school and a couple years back watched my friend beat it on its hardest difficulty, which was like watching someone destroying Satan.

But even my friend agrees that the GBA port is too fucking hard to beat. No bombs, the new levels are painfully made and you can't switch weapons. Contra III was hard enough but the handheld port is beyond human capacity.

3.) Final Fantasy IV - An entire generation of RPG players enjoy this game but I think most of them will agree that theres large sections of this game that go from mild to retardedly difficult. Is there any other game that takes a 90 degree turn quicker than the set-up to the Dancing Calbrena boss fight?

4.) Fury3 - The infamous MS buy-out knock-off of an amazing game (Terminal Velocity) was about as good as it was easy. Instead of giving the enemy pilots discernible intelligence even for the time, MS decided that more was better and the result was a bigger digital pile-on than the Matrix Reloaded's Burley Brawl.

5.) Sky Kid - I'm the only person in the world to play this NES game before it was available on the Wii, I think. Its a fun little WWI pilot game, where you have to bomb targets like battleships and bases - but some of the levels go on endlessly. That is - you have to dodge flack canon fire, and other fighters - then pick up a bomb, fly it over your target, drop it and then fly through the last half of the level. That doesn't sound too bad until you remember that theres long sections where you have to avoid giant, towering walls of earth what you can't fly around.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Lately for me it's been Mega Man ZX Advent on the DS. Now before you say 'noob', it's on Expert Mode. I'm at the end of the game where you have to go through a tricky two-part final stage, split up by the "fight the 8 bosses over again" part typical to most Mega Man games, and then the final boss with its two forms. In Expert Mode...everybody is faster and more obnoxious with their tactics, you don't get any max life/energy upgrades, and only ONE Sub Tank (which is a pain to obtain, too). Not to mention that everything hurts more as well, so depending on what hits you, it only takes 3 or 4 hits to die. Even with the maximum 9 lives to start I still haven't pulled it off yet. Some of the bosses are always a real pain in the rear while some prove to be so on some tries where they were not previously. I put the game down for a while out of frustration and have only recently tried giving it a go again.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by LeHah

1.) Double Dragon III - This game is tough as a swallowing a box of nails. I beat the first game and had a co-op win with the sequel, but I don't think I've ever met someone who's beaten Double Dragon III. Everyone I know agrees that its way harder than it needs to be and at my best I could get to Egypt, but never to the final boss.

BAM. My story, right there. I had this game from age 9 to age 12 on the NES, and played it constantly with my best friend. The furthest we ever got was Italy, and we were so excited about it we got our ass kicked like some pieces of shit. And the Goddamn spin kick only comes out like half the time. Swallowing a box of nails indeed, it's bullshit.

Anyway, here's a few I've been dealing with lately...

1) UNiSON JP (PS2) - This is a music game for the hardcore. The basic premise is simple--you are a girl in a 3-girl dancing/singing group, and you must learn a simple choreography and "perform" it on stage using the two analog sticks. The problem? No indicators whatsoever. Yes, you have to remember the choreography, and it gets real hard, real fast. My rote memory isn't that great, so this is like trying to win a fight against Randy Couture for me. I have yet to beat the easy mode (which is the first girl), and there are two other girls that represent medium and hard. Why do I keep playing? The music is a collection of awesome Jpop disco remixes. Pretty funny story too.

2) Marble Blast Ultra (360) - Egh, just thinking about this bothers me and I have to go get a drink. It starts out stupidly easy, but the final few levels... I don't know, I just can't do it. I still want to try every now and then cause I just like rolling.

3) Panzer Dragoon Orta (SMEXBOX) - Every month or so, I start a new game of this, and each time I get really far and then I just get frustrated with it. It's not that hard, I just suck ass at it. I'll beat it someday though, I swear!

4) Etrian Oddysey (DS) - I'll never beat this.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by surasshu

3) Panzer Dragoon Orta (PS2)

I believe you are mistaken, sir.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Oh, man. I have to say Ikaruga. Sure, you eventually get unlimited continues after playing for a long time, but there's no satisfaction in beating it that way. Most of the time, the background music is obscured with the sound of your ships exploding into a million pieces, especially in the hellish level 4.

And yet, like some sort of digital Lament Configuration, the game calls to you, insisting in one more playthrough, demanding its patterns learned, demanding you see all there is to see. It's hard to put down, because regardless of how much you suck, you still have fun playing it. Truly the work of the devil.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Battle Toads, any of them. I haven't played them in forever but no matter how many times I tried I could never get past the speedbike stages.

Several of my friends that played Star Ocean 2 and accidently turned off the boss's limiter and refuse to start over would say that.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Josiah

Lately for me it's been Mega Man ZX Advent on the DS.

Just when I thought I couldn't contribute to this post, you made me realize how much I suck at any Mega Man game. I'll be okay playing the level through ... until I reach the boss and then I die. And again. And again. And this never ends.

I cannot for the life of me beat the CPU in Madden when it's set up to All-Madden. I somewhat suck in All-Pro, but in All-Madden it's impossible. I have tried to learn the ins and outs of the game as much as I could, but it seems like I reached a point where I can no long get any better in that game. Which sucks, since I spend a ton of time playing it. >_>

Oh, I almost forgot Sim City 4. I always end up with negative revenue, no matter how much I try to make a profitable city. (I don't think you can 'beat' this game, but I can't get past the stage of having a small town without running into debt.)

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

I believe you are mistaken, sir.

Er, whoops. All those consoles are the same anyway.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by DarkMageOzzie

Battle Toads, any of them. I haven't played them in forever but no matter how many times I tried I could never get past the speedbike stages.

Augh. A lot of bad memories come to mind when you mention that game - mostly from Double Dragon Vs Battletoads (or whatecer it was called) for the SNES

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Xenosaga Episode I.

For some reason I absolutely cannot get past the final dungeon. I play through the game fine up until that point, and when I get in there the monsters wipe the floor with me. It's terrible. I can never get past the fifth screen of the damn place.
It's a shame too, because I absolutely love the story. It's a little cliche, sure, but because it has that hint of Xenogears going for it I can't help but be drawn to it.

So every few months I'll pick up the game, try to start over from the beginning, and get up to the final dungeon only to end up in the same predicament. I should just skip to Episode II but I want to see the first game through to the end.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Solomon's Key for the NES pissed me off so much as a kid I should retry it...

How ya doing, buddy?

First of all, I want to give props to Lehah to such a great topic. I'm kind of strapped for time at the moment, but I'll give you the one game in my gaming experience that I can never beat no matter how many times I try it.

That game is Spiderman & X-Men in Arcades Revenge for the Genesis/SNES.

I have never played a more ridicolous game in my entire life. I have not played this game in quite a while but its always been one of those games I always wanted to beat.

The first level is easy enough as spiderman but when it gives you option of playing the other characters level, thats when the games difficulty ramps up to the point that its even more insane.

There are two levels for each caharcter in this game. To this very day this is how far I've gotten in the game.

Spiderman (I can beat the first level, but for some reason I can't beat the rhino at the end of the second level. I remember shooting webs at him for about 45 minutes and it hadn't killed him. I don't know if thats how you kill him, but I haven't played the game in a while.)

Wolverine (I can beat the first level with wolverine with just luck against apocalypse, but for some reason I can't beat his second level where your running from the juggernaut. It seems like I can never move fast enough)

Cyclops (I haven't beat any of the two levels with this character. It is so easy to get killed with him and electrified train tracks everywhere. I haven't even made it to the first boss of the first level with this character.)

Storm (I can beat the first level with storm, but I can't come close to beating the second level with her, she has oxygen as energy and the moment you get hit with anything your oxygen decreases dramtically. It is such an annoyance trying to not get hit by anything while trying to prevent yourself from drowning.)

My personal favourite:

Gambit (You start off in the level with a giant spiked ball coming after you. If you hit it you eventually get killed. Your weapons are cards that can actually run out. You have to run to the end of the level, avoiding the steel ball, avoiding enemies, running for dear life, to make it to the boss. I have only ever made it to the boss of his first level once, and the only time I did it, I didn't have any cards left to use against him. I don't even know what to expect out of gambits second level .)

To me the difficulty of this game is utter bullshit, and I have never met anyone who has beat this game. I'm sure somebody on this forum has probably beaten this game. Easily my most frustrating game that I still want to beat someday.

In terms of double dragon III, I have played that game quite a bit and actually got quite far into it. The furthest I've ever gotten in the game is I faced against cleopatra, I found the trick to beating the three mummies. If you use your drop kick instead of your spinning kick the mummies can't dodge it and you can kill them without getting hit. That is still another game I haven't beaten yet.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Angel of Light, I totally agree with you about that game. I never could beat it, and I eventually just lost hope of ever doing so.

And in that same vein, I never could beat Maximum Carnage for the SNES. I freaking loved this game, but for the life of me I could never beat it. I would always die and stop playing for months, then come back and manage to get just a little bit further. I know I got pretty far into the game, but I honestly don't know how close to beating the game I ever was. It sucks too, because I really liked the story and stuff but never got to see how it ended. I wonder if I could beat it if I tried again today...

I was speaking idiomatically.

I beat Contra III when I was in high school on Hard. You wanna feel a sense of accomplishment? That's the way to do it. I was fucking GOOD at video games back in the day.

However, years of alcohol, drug and other substance abuse have positively diminished my reflexes and focus severely. Now it's decidedly harder for me to play games with a higher-than-average level of difficulty. One such game that I will probably never see the ending to and yet will continue to whittle my soul away into it is Ikaruga.

Ikaruga is hard. It is cock-hard. It's harder than Old Testament god. It is Jessykins' nipples walking blindfolded through a fish market hard. I think you get the idea. Beating it on Easy was difficult enough for me as it was but I decided to take it on in Medium difficulty and was swiftly smote the way you think of the Sword of Acala piercing through the sky. Needless to say, the 4th level boss has always been especially difficult for me and I don't think I'm ever going to beat this game to where I'm satisfied with my level of accomplishment.

In short: I will die an unhappy man.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Gechmir

Solomon's Key for the NES pissed me off so much as a kid I should retry it...

I had Solomon's Key for the Game Boy. Not sure how much it differed. I was a wee lad back then, but there were just some level I could NOT fucking figure out. FUN game, though. I could probably get through it all nowadays, but those bonus levels were tricky.

Add Contra 4 onto the heap. Anybody here who's played this yet will agree with me. Hours of playing, and I've only been able to get to level 7 of 9. By level 7, they throw EVERY fucking enemy in the book at you, and it's just madness. And I refuse to use the Konami code until I've beaten it fair and square.

Gradius (or any of it's incarnations) is another game I have never beaten. Play and play as I might, but I never could finish it.

Additional Spam:
I played Ikaruga on my Dreamcast, and I don't remember having such a problem on Normal. But I honestly don't remember if I got unlimited continues or not. Still, though, I only had a tough time when I set it to hard mode.

My dad, though, who couldn't comprehend anything with more than two buttons, certainly got plastered in that game.

FELIPE NO

Ikaruga, Mushihimesama, and a whole load of other hard shmups I will never beat. At least, not without heavy abuse of continues. But I love them, and even dodging one insane curtain of bullets is highly satisfying.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a game I've been coming continually closer to beating, but still fall just short. You have to save ten neighbors each level, and every time you lose one, the remaining levels will have one fewer victim to save too. And with fifty or sixty some odd levels, one lost neighbor is a pain. Especially in later levels, when enemies will spawn near the neighbors, or quickly target them. The only way to save some neighbors is to manipulate groups of enemies into following you around, which then destroys your life bar. I'll beat it someday, but it is painfully difficult and long.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Maximum Carnage and Spiderman & X-Men in Arcades Revenge were incredibly fucking stupid tough. I totally forgot about Maximum Carnage (mostly because it was a rental) but I don't think there was a comic book game made that made me swear as much as that one...

...until I got Arcade's Revenge for the Gameboy. That game is something you do when you hate yourself, like sticking a loaded gun in your mouth with the trigger tied to a door handle. The only one I beat was Cyclops and only because he's the easiest character to use since his optic blast was a ranged weapon and you could take out the Sentinel by crouch, jump, shoot until you beat him. Fuck the rest of that game; I remember thinking how Storm's level was like the underwater level in the first NES Ninja Turtles game except harder than a fag's prick at a daycare.

Also - has anyone ever played Spider-Man 3: Invasion Of The Spider-Slayers for the Gameboy? If anyone here can tell me how to exit the fucking abandoned building that Electro is in before the place explodes, you'd be answering a lifelong question of mine.

I also forgot to mention Ironsword: Wizards And Warriors 2. You know, the game with Fabio on the cover? I think I got to the first boss once. ONCE. You had to go up a mountain and then into a world of clouds. Except they werent clouds because you couldnt walk on them, you fucking slid all over the place like a janitor mopping up after a scat movie.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Two games instantly spring to mind:

Blaster Master (NES) - I can't for the life of me beat this game. No matter how much I try, I can't get past stage 7 (or was it 8?). Nevertheless, I've been playing this game on and off for over a decade and have yet to beat it.

3D Worldrunner (NES) - Oh how I hate making those jumps along giant gaps in stage 6/7. I'll probably end up dying before getting to the final stage in this game. =/

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I can't believe I forgot Ikaruga. Anyone you see in Youtube videos playing through that game (like the one of the guy playing through it on two-player by himself) could pass for a brain surgeon with the amount of precision that game takes.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I was playing Wii earlier tonight and I forgot I had purchased this game for the VC: Ninja Gaiden.

Go on. I dare anyone to tell me they've seen the ending to this game.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Encephalon

Go on. I dare anyone to tell me they've seen the ending to this game.

I've seen the ending to the game.

But that was over 15 years ago. I probably won't be able to do it again if I were to play the game right at this moment.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Encephalon

I was playing Wii earlier tonight and I forgot I had purchased this game for the VC: Ninja Gaiden.

Go on. I dare anyone to tell me they've seen the ending to this game.

YouTube Video

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Angel Of Light

First of all, I want to give props to Lehah to such a great topic. I'm kind of strapped for time at the moment, but I'll give you the one game in my gaming experience that I can never beat no matter how many times I try it.

That game is Spiderman & X-Men in Arcades Revenge for the Genesis/SNES.

I have never played a more ridicolous game in my entire life. I have not played this game in quite a while but its always been one of those games I always wanted to beat.

The first level is easy enough as spiderman but when it gives you option of playing the other characters level, thats when the games difficulty ramps up to the point that its even more insane.

There are two levels for each caharcter in this game. To this very day this is how far I've gotten in the game.

Spiderman (I can beat the first level, but for some reason I can't beat the rhino at the end of the second level. I remember shooting webs at him for about 45 minutes and it hadn't killed him. I don't know if thats how you kill him, but I haven't played the game in a while.)

Wolverine (I can beat the first level with wolverine with just luck against apocalypse, but for some reason I can't beat his second level where your running from the juggernaut. It seems like I can never move fast enough)

To beat Rhino, you have to swing into him from one of the ledges near the ground. If you do it right, you'll pass through him and it'll damage him.

As for Juggernaut, as you run through the level, you need to cut down every single anvil and 1 ton weight for him to run into, all the while tearing away at him with your claws. It takes a while, but if you hit him enough, you should kill him by about 3/4 of the way through.

Unfortunately, I can't help much with the other levels, as I haven't beaten the game either. It's too damn hard!

How ya doing, buddy?

Ninja Gaiden's sixth stage was a bugger, but at least it didn't force you to re-eat bosses. For me, there's only one game that will forever kick my ass and my patience, but I'll continue to play for all eternity.

Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I hate you so much right now.

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