Topic: Hardest games you ever played

[Pfil]

From my personal experience, I can recall (not in order):

* The Lecarde Chronicles
* Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties
* Dragon's Lair
* Battletoads
* Circle of the Moon
* Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero
* Grandia III

I didn't finish all of them, but for the ones I did not, I played almost until the end; but I was thinking last night and I told my brother that The Lecarde Chronicles must be the hardest game in years (not that it is a bad thing).

[DoctaMario]

Hmm...probably Gradius 4 or Haunted Castle. Which isn't to say I didn't get anywhere in them, but I've never beaten either of them, even with kicking the difficulty down to easy and bumping up lives on Gradius.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy gets an honorable mention but it's not so much hard as it is the computer is a fucking cheater! 

[Ratty]

Hmm...probably Gradius 4 or Haunted Castle. Which isn't to say I didn't get anywhere in them, but I've never beaten either of them, even with kicking the difficulty down to easy and bumping up lives on Gradius.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy gets an honorable mention but it's not so much hard as it is the computer is a fucking cheater! 

Yeah what little semblance of balance or fairness the Mortal Kombat games originally had got thrown out the window with Trilogy. (On the other hand the 1-button fatality cheat was amusing then.) I'll definitely second Haunted Castle. The hardest games I've ever beat have all been in the Castlevania series, plus some in the Serious Sam and, to a much less difficult degree, Doom series.

[darkmanx_429]

Contra Shattered Solider.  Hard as hell still even to this day!

[Abnormal Freak]

Gonna go with Battletoads. May or may not be the hardest, but it definitely stands out in my mind as such.

I eventually did beat the game, not without Game Genie. Funny thing is, even with cheat codes, that game was still incredibly difficult. It had such codes as "NEAR invincibility" or something like that.

[Bloodreign]

Some of Capcom's earlier arcade efforts were mind numbingly hard, even though you could use ifinite credits to credit feed to the finish.

Capcom's hardest:
Ghosts N Goblins
Ghouls N Ghosts - fairer than Ghosts, but still a tad rough
The Speed Rumbler
Trojan
Tiger Road

Companies like Irem thrived off tough games, Toaplan also thrived off their difficult shmups. Taito had a few tough games, and their shmups usuaully had a bit of toughness to them.

Konami didn't play fair in a lot of their games across multiple systems. In other words, there was a lot of hard games back then, too many to name.

[Pfil]

Super Ghouls and Ghosts might be the hardest one I beat.
Together with Prinny 1.

With save states, I beat Haunted Castle (stage 4 without cheats), Battletoads (I got to the final boss using warps but not cheats, but never defeated Dark Queen "legally").
I keep separate lists from the games I beat without cheats and with cheats, and usually, save states are from when I really like the game but there was no way of beating a particular part (sometimes I don't have enough skills).

I beat individually each of 4 Dragon's Lair stages and the final boss, but never did it in one continue from scratch.

And I still could't get through the arena stage in Circle of the Moon.

But I did beat Rebirth in hard classic mode, and I'm close to finish The Lecarde Chronicles, so maybe those are the hardest games I finished, together with Castlevania 3.

[Neobelmont]

Hmm... This is a good question I've been alot of hard games some beaten some not beaten but the I have would be this

Ghost and Goblins nes
Ninja Gaiden
Dark Soul's
Legend of the mystical ninja one the 3ds trust me this is one of the games where you need that restore point.
Dragon Crystal for the game gear/3ds. If you have beaten this game on the original hardware congratulations this game is so cheap so can get spawned in a square with no exit and it's impossible to beat the last enemies.
You would be surprised but tokimeki memorial on the snes is shockingly difficult "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" I can't say it any better once one of those bombs go off it's over.

shin megami tensei iv. It's more than just grinding now you can still be op and get your butt handed to you if your not careful.

These are off the top of my head but some more will come back later.

[Munchy]

Ren and Stimpy: Veediots.

That fucking teeth level goes on forever.

[Lelygax]

Ninja Gaiden 3 NES
Super Bros. 8 (a "Don Dokopon 2" or something like that hack for NES, I beat it when I had 5 yr)
Blasto PSX
Blue Brothers SNES (this one is just unfair, even more with 2 players, its almost at battletoads level I think)
Dragon's Lair SNES
Adventure Island NES (all of them, but 1 seems to be the most difficult, never beaten it)
The King of Fighters 94's Rugal and XI's Magaki (Beat Rugal with savestates and Magaki using these bonuses that you receive after using a continue, Rugal is unfair and Magaki too, look at this:
King of Fighters XI [PS2] | Kasumi Todoh vs Magaki

)

Also someone else thinks Magaki could fit well as a CV boss?

[X]

R-Type 3: Brutal as f**k. (had to use save states to beat it)

Battletoads: That f**king turbo tunnel. Never should have been in the game. (Unbeatable for me to this day and I don't bother trying either. The hit boxes for walls, landings, jumps and launch ramps are buggy at best)

Super Ghouls & Ghosts: You need the goddess bracelet in order to finish off the final boss, and you need to go back to the beginning of the game in order to acquire it, then try not to lose it buy picking up other weapons. (Had to use game genie just to dumb down the difficulty or at least give me a semi-reasonable chance)

Wolverine Adamantium Rage for the SNES: Also a killer and mainly because you only have one life throughout the entire game. You have hit points and they do recharge, however in the middle of a fight it's almost impossible. (It took some time, years mainly, but I was able to beat it without the aforementioned above)

Sim City for SNES: To this day I have never gotten a max population of 500,000 people. Even when following a diagram of the most plausible course of action to grantee that goal. (I did hear the music for the Megalopolis segment and it sucks compared to the up-beat metropolis tune, so I guess I'm not missing out on much aside from the Mario statue)

[Pfil]

It seems Battletoads and Super Ghouls and Ghosts are receiving a lot of votes (if some poll existed  ).

For me, it's 1-1 vs. them.
Finished SG&G but never beat Dark Queen in Battletoads.

[Kale]

I thought Contra was harder than Battletoads... I also thought NG games were harder than Battle Toads...

To this day, I don't understand the idea of it being that hard. I did play it with 2 players instead of single though.

[Pfil]

What I don't understand about NG is why the game makes you go back to stage 6-1 when you lose a life in the final boss.
What I did when that happened, is simply close the emulator and never go back to the game.

[Bloodreign]

I wouldn't even ca;ll SGnG the hardest of the series, the original game has yet to be topped in difficulty, not even the PSP sequel/revision of sequel which some consider the toughest of the bunch.

Twinbee is one of those shmup series from Konami that doesn't get a whole lot of talk these days, but those games were very very tough. Fast enemy fire while juggling bells for powers lead to lots and lots of credit feeding for some people. Sure the last 2 arcade titles had unlimited continus, but as I've said before, if you limit continues to 1-5, you'll be surprised how brutally tough those games really are.

*brought to you by a fan of Twinbee, me.*