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Dark Souls. Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Contra. Flappy Bird. These are but a few games that inspire broken controllers, fear, and loathing in gamers everywhere. Let's discuss our favorite games that are known the world over for being monstrously hard. A couple of things before I kick this off: A game doesn't actually have to be that difficult to fit into this discussion, it only must be perceived as very hard. Maybe you think that Battletoads isn't that tough and the gaming public are just a bunch of whiners? Go ahead and post about it, and tell us why it's easy for you. Don't just post the title of a game and nothing else. Seriously, poo poo is going to get boring real quick the 3rd or 4th time someone posts the words Double Dragon without anything else. Tell us about the game. Has the game earned its reputation? What's the toughest section/enemy/etc? What are your strategies for beating it, or where did you get stuck? --------------- My favorite game that is thought of as very difficult is Contra for the NES. When I was a kid, even the 30 lives code wouldn't get me close to offing the vile Red Falcon, but now I can occasionally beat it without losing a single life. All it took was some practice; during one semester of high school, I'd pop in Contra for 30 or 40 minutes as soon as I got home and see what I could do. After just a few weeks, I didn't need the code or any continues. It's really just a matter of memorizing enemy placements, as most enemies are fixed. Nab the spread gun early on and you're good to go. I'll play it off and on for a couple of weeks once every 2 or 3 years, and it's like riding a bike. It's also one of the purest run-and-gun games out there; each level is near perfect in length (except maybe Level 4, which is a bit long for what it is), and I think the soundtrack is extremely underappreciated. In fact, were it not for the works of one Koji Kondo, I'd call it the best soundtrack on the NES. The real make-or-break part of the game is Level 5, the snow field. I can usually breeze through the first four levels, but five poses a significant challenge and marks a step up in difficulty. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the robot enemies that randomly appear take on a new level of aggression in Level 5 and start shooting their guns at you more often. There's a little platforming section early on in the level that can put you in situations where an enemy has fired after you've already jumped, and there's pretty much no way to avoid losing a life. I've probably died more on that level than any other. Your Sledgehammer has a new favorite as of 05:00 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 04:54
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What I've found fascinating as I've gone back and played old NES games is just how hard some of its most popular and critically acclaimed games are. Super Mario Bros. 3, for instance, was never really touted as a super hard game, but I honestly never beat it until I became an adult, and only then with the help of a little exploit in a room absolutely full of coins in World 7 where you can get 7 or 8 lives before you die via timeout. The platforming in World 7 and 8 of that game is incredibly difficult, especially World 8. There are portions of that where I'd routinely burn through 20 or 30 lives on just one level. It really is brutal.
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Jul 26, 2014 04:12
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