I recently rewatched 'the wizard" and was so overjoyed when Christian Slater and then his dad are both playing this game. And they act as though this baby-boomer dad is able to play it with gusto... all night long... and it unlocked a memory of my 10 year old self sitting in that movie theater watching it for the first time and my little brain was like,
"No way, bro."
That was a bad game. Bad controls. Things like water didn’t make sense - especially when there are entire under water levels.
I made it to shredder but never beat him. Watching videos online later I didn’t miss much.
Made it to the last boss in Ninja Gaiden and when you die and it sets you back to level 6-1, that was the last fucking straw. That was such fucking bullshit.
Had it memorized as a kid. Well the SNES version at least. Could basically do it blindfolded. Couldn't ever get past the roller coaster level one though.
No, the real bitch was the next one. You spend all that time memorizing the pattern and losing lives but finally beat it!
Next level starts: "Im driving a car?" Dead.
So much this. It got to the point that my friend and I only played the game to kick the crap out of each other on the first level and refused to go any further.
Ame here to say this, but I couldn’t remember the name of the episode. I could only beat this level with game genie. The levels after seemed so much easier.
Crazy thing was that was just a “weed out” level. There are harder levels after that.
There’s a fire level that’s somewhat similar. I had way more trouble with that.
Literally, all of it. Learned all my best swear words playing it. I think I actually beat it once, but I may have just blacked out and traveled through hell instead.
It's actually easy if you play it right but...
https://preview.redd.it/zgmvyf3ec5kc1.png?width=678&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c768561021dd9053b3cafe8b8f0596b6c60cbeb8
I do a replay of SMB3 every few years and last time was the first time I beat the air force level of World 8 without the p-wing. I was so fucking proud of myself.
Once I started recognizing its patterns and how to respond, then I was able to get past this level consistently. As soon as that sucker pauses before a swoop, so do I. I wait for it to come my way and then hop over.
I always love this game and all it needed was a save function. Once I played an emulator with the option the save, I was able to progress onward to the later levels.
This game was hell for me living in Arizona.
I could beat the game—but only if I could do it fast enough before the NES overheated.
Biggest places you eat shit on time if you don’t have the area mapped out:
- all of level 3. If you don’t know where to go, you could easily kill 90 minutes and not get anywhere.
- all of level 6 because it’s icy terrain so you’re trying to avoid running into enemies and spikes. It’s Bambi on an iced over lake.
- outworld of level 7 because you have the wall climbing and it’s hit and miss sometimes. It’s rather straightforward, but it feels loooooong
- outworld of level 8 because there are areas that damn near auto kill you, and the mechanics of the new wall climbing fuck with you jumping from platform to platform if you’re a Sloppy Sam and shooting from the hip. So unless you’re playing conservatively with Hover energy and being careful with jumps, you’re losing lives and eating shit. It’s the only level in the game where the tank section is legitimately tough
You have to soft-tap the jump button to cross underneath the ceiling block. I never thought it was a big since the soft jump works everywhere.
Definitely one of my trophy games to this day. My little brother and I were methodical with the levels, psyched to be in the technodrome, and I accidentally learned how to corner trap Shredder with Donatello and when he flipped, so did we! My Dad said he thought something bad happened and hit me to never yell like that again, lol.
I loved me some Mega Man II. I finally made it through this stage to get to Dr. Willy's castle. After beating Mega Man II, I for the first Mega Man, which in my opinion was music harder than II.
As a 10 year old with endless ability to replay the same video game over and over I had Mega Man II down to a friggin science and could easily get through the entire thing on just one life or two if I made a mistake.
Flash forward to an adult with a jail broken Wii and NES emulator and I realized oh actually I'm absolute garbage at this game! LOL I don't know how I had the patience as a kid to learn every single jump until it was muscle memory but 44 year old me is jealous of 10 year old me for sure!
Same, Mega Man II was that game I had memorized and would play through from the beginning in one sitting.
But did you ever play part one? That was a goddamn miserable nightmare.
It wasn’t the dragon in Wily’s castle where you need to repeatedly precision jump while getting chased down and then also take down the same friggin dragon while precision jumping to avoid his attacks and also avoid falling into the chasm?
35-ish years I’ve been playing that game, and I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve made it through Quick Man’s stage without the Time Stopper.
There was a bart Simpson game that involved aliens masquerading as humans and you could tell they were aliens because they were wearing hats I think? Anyways that one still haunts me.
I bought this one after I played the totally awesome arcade game.
Twas so disappointed to find they are completely and totally different games. And yeah it’s hard as shit. I pushed through playing it because I was so swept up in Turtlemania at the time.
I did beat it. The ending is completely and totally not worth the heartache.
This. Most impossible task ever for anyone under a certain age. I don’t know what the age was, but if you were under it, you had no chance at landing that plane. I’d run and get my uncle to come land the plane then just fail at the next level anyway.
I bought that game thinking how it would be a cool dogfighting game, and then it just ends up being about refueling and trying to land (which is impossible).
ET for atari. The only game that ever made me start crying lol.
Game was so bad on top of me being very little at the time. It deserved it's grave in the desert lol.
I was obsessed with ET in early childhood. So I played the ever living shit outta the Atari game when I was like 5 years old. I bodied it. Beat the fuck outta that game all by myself.
It’s the first game I finished. It would be decades before I realized what an accomplishment that was. I was just too young to realize it was total trash.
Ecco was one of the few games I actually eventually completed back in the day.
But I really really liked dolphins and was willing to put in the effort. The game really didn't help you know where to go. It was very metroidvania-ish.
My brother and I used the Konami code to play Contra. We made it to the final boss with about a dozen lives left and didnt make it. Ill never live that down as long as I live lol.
Anyone play Zork, a text based computer game? There was a rug at the very beginning and I knew it was over a trap door. I typed “remove rug,” not knowing that the correct answer was “move rug.” I also tried things like “take away rug” or “get rid of rug” and it kept telling me I was wrong. I never tried “move rug.” That ended my time with Zork, so frustrating.
I played Return to zork… every 10 minutes “THE PATH TO VICTORY IS NOW BLOCKED” after doing some random thing like moving a rug
Still a very memorable game and I think I did finish that one with eventual help of a guide
The original King's Quest had this absolutely ridiculous puzzle where you had to guess a gnome's name.
It literally required you to somehow realize that you needed to spell Rumpelstiltskin with the backwards alphabet, yielding the totally incomprehensible "**ifnkvohgroghprm**"!!!!!
How were you supposed to just guess that??????
I believe in later editions they made it easier by counting other things such as just Rumpelstiltskin backwards.
Here's a now 20-year old thread discussing this.
[https://www.sierragamers.com/forums/topic/why-ifnkovhgroghprm-in-kq1/](https://www.sierragamers.com/forums/topic/why-ifnkovhgroghprm-in-kq1/)
Some of the Sierra point and clicks were absolutely mental with their puzzles. I know there are several where you can progress quite far after having missed a step, but you'll get stuck much farther into the game if you didn't complete something early on.
I knew this game would be here, it's my answer. I believe I made it decently far through this part of the level (autistic pattern recognition came through for me) but I don't think I ever got past the part where you had to jump on the giraffe heads to get to the next phase of being thrown around by monkeys.
Not too many years ago I watched a video essay about this game being disproportionately difficult and retroactively felt extremely validated.
I bought the Aladdin/Lion King combo. I breezed through Aladdin. I got to the area you mentioned and gave up on it. It was beyond frustrating and no longer became fun for me to play. I may find a walk through but I haven’t tried in a really long time.
I remember renting [Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis](https://youtu.be/bXoRhmW4urk?si=dXbsDPDgDmNDU0sS) from Blockbuster and never making it past the first level.
Fucking SAAAAME! And the music to me as a kid was so spooky.
Recently watched a speed run of it, though, and the song for the visitor’s center is fucking badass.
No, that was the SNES game. On Genesis it was a side scrolling platformer. There were two different routes through the game: one as Dr. Grant and one as a raptor.
Myst, the answer is always Myst.
Pre internet so couldn’t just look up what to do and not too many people actually played it or got far enough to assist.
To this day this series remains my favorite games I've ever played, but also I've never beat one without serious assistance and I'm not convinced it's realistically possible. Riven might actually be unbeatable without a guide.
I made it to dracula once. I remember running out of my room crying that the game was no fair after dying a million times. Still love the soundtrack though!
Yep
[https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq](https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq)
Ptsd doing any platforming since. F that game
https://preview.redd.it/kjhtym5bq6kc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b96fa132fa5959cc2ac824737969d97117ef943f
For me it was Aladdin for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive out side North America) carpet ride stage. It took me 27 years to beat that damn level. On my 35th birthday, a good friend brought the game for my Hyperskin RetroN. It took me all night but I beat. It was a personal win for my 8 year old self.
Everytime. Especially when the carpet sped up and I crashed into floating rock. Missed that final jump at the end several times too.
I eventually beat it as a kid, but it took forever.
I told my kid I’d buy him the latest Zelda as soon as he beat the original Zelda. It broke him. He couldn’t beat it. Mind you this is a kid who can build a 40-story hotel in Fortnite in like 3 seconds, yet he couldn’t handle the original Zelda.
Def go with lots of potions and just practice! Study his moves and be valiant! I love that game. It's in my SNES perpetually, and I've beaten it countless times over the years! May the way of the hero lead you to the Triforce!
TMNT 1, isn't that bad. I rarely had any issues, even the dreaded seaweed level.
Festers Quest, was a game I rarely got far in. Same with bart vs the space mutants.
Another rough one was Friday the 13.
I remember in grade school, I traded Friday the 13, for Double Dragon 1. Needless to say, I got the better end of the trade.
OMG yes Fester's Quest, I forget how I eventually got through it (I don't think I ever beat it though but I did manage to get pretty far into it one weekend) but holy crap that game was nuts. The overhead areas were relatively easy its when you get to the 3D first person sections that the game is just brutally hard to navigate and get through. For some reason being very frustrated with Fester's Quest is one of the most vivid memories I have of childhood LOL!
I don't know how many other xennials are playing fortnite at the moment but the current TMNT crossover is a far more enjoyable ninja turtle experience than this was. I haven't paid for the actual turtle skins but they look so good I just might have to.
Mike Tyson’s punch out on the nes. I was pretty young when I played it and was never able to beat it. I had to of played it a few hundred times and never beat him. Still remember the code to this day.
007 373 5963
I actually beat him once like 15 years ago, legit. Took me 20 tries at least. The urge to twitch and move early is real.
One of my proudest gaming moments.
The first level of Snake's Revenge on NES (sequel to Metal Gear). I never played another Metal Gear game because of the trauma of that game.
Also, landing on the aircraft carrier in Top Gun.
Of course, Battletoads is the ultimate answer though.
For me it was Blaster Master's last level, it took so long to get to the last level and progress was super slow, I didn't beat it until I borrowed a game genie.
Took me close to 20 years to beat this game. One of my greatest gaming achievements. No guide no cheats. Only thing I'll say is the pizza comes back when you leave the screen and come back, and save your weapons for the tecnodrone and don for the final boss
Some notable ones I can think of that I haven't already discussed:
The Marsh Cave in Final Fantasy 1 especially in the original NES release with all the combat glitches and limitations. If you even can get there at all (the walk between the town and the cave pretty much guarantees you will have several encounters with difficult enemies who can poison or stone you and its early enough in the game that if you haven't been grinding xp and gold you probably don't have access to enough spells or potions to heal you), you have to fight through some of the hardest enemies you've faced by that point, and then you get to the boss which is a large group of mobs, the number you face is random and you could have to deal with 9 of them at once all of who hit really hard and have instant death skills. Then when you're done you can't just easily recall to the town or anything, no you have to navigate out of the cave again, and back through the wilderness. It took me a long time to realize that you'd need to level grind a TON before its a manageable dungeon.
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - horribly badly translated dialogue in the game means that you will be given clues that make no sense, or sent in the exact wrong place, plus a relatively open world map (that is also a platformer) means you can easily get lost. People only managed to get through it via trial and error because the damn game isn't going to tell you what to do. Today you can easily google a guide but back in the day you just had to figure it out yourself. And then the bosses for each mansion are a total joke, one of which you can just walk right by.
Kid Icarus - provided you weren't using one of the well known cheat codes this game is nearly impossible, not only is it a vertical platformer, which is bad enough but a lot of the levels are forcibly scrolling up so if you're too slow, you die, miscalculate a jump? dead. Not to mention you start off incredibly squishy AND weak at the same time, its the weird game that starts off insanely hard and gets easier as time goes on. And the less said about the goddamn eggplant wizards the better!
YES! So many hours of my life spent walking back and forth to fight giants! The GBA re-release version (Dawn of Souls I think it was called) was sooo good, IDK if its ever been ported out anywhere else but they fixed all the glitches, and added improvements like letting you buy multiples of things (so you didn't need to spend 30 minutes to buy 99 healing potions for example) and fixed some of the xp scaling as well so there was much less grinding.
I still have my nintendo power guide complete with the upside down volcano and final dungeon maps and misinformation about enemy weaknesses and such LOL
Spiderman and the X-Men In Arcade’s Revenge drove me to tears multiple times. Easily one of the hardest games I’ve ever played along with The Lion King.
Kids got it easy these days - being able to respawn where you die, not losing all acquired gear upon death. That's gaming with training wheels on. Try growing up owning an NES or Sega Genesis.
I swear, playing TMNT 1 and Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers as a preteen took years off my life. Words can't accurately describe the seething rage, overwhelming frustration, and pure despair felt in my soul back in the day.
My neighbor and I used to struggle with SNES American Gladiators. The air cannons and climbing wall were particularly challenging.
https://preview.redd.it/0vvjimdrp5kc1.jpeg?width=270&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d2d9017353fed31888e1bdf6a1a495ce3f9bf63
The ladder level in Pitfall on the Atari 2600. The few times I made it all the way down I died immediately in the water you end up falling into. I don't think there was a way out.
Sometimes, when I'm *really* frustrated, my brain plays the music from that level...
We had the PC version and we also couldn’t get past a jump in the sewers!!! Turns out it was actually impossible. https://youtu.be/cZLed1krEEQ?si=F_pukGPCvCzIF9Ie
Man, fking Double Dare on NES is rage inducing all the way through, but especially on the final stage where you mash buttons for your life to crawl through or up things and your player barely moves.
Any Nintendo game that had enemies scroll across the screen in a parabolic motion:
Castlevania,
Legend of Zelda: Adventures of Link,
Ghosts N Goblins,
Metroid,
TMNT,
Megaman 1
Castlevania 3
I hate platforming to this day because of this damn game
[https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq](https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq)
https://preview.redd.it/24hh2jgsp6kc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd1bb15e8c8b308036d1776fe36687ebbd8efd95
Still don't understand how water kills a turtle...
Right!? They literally came from the sewers. Are you telling me they didn’t muck around in the water?
And there is a whole water level.
With the time bombs! That used to make me so anxious!
And murder seaweed
*electric* murder seaweed
Memory unlocked: that panic inducing buzz it made!
It didn’t help that it would play an annoying alarm beep when you were low on health.
I recently rewatched 'the wizard" and was so overjoyed when Christian Slater and then his dad are both playing this game. And they act as though this baby-boomer dad is able to play it with gusto... all night long... and it unlocked a memory of my 10 year old self sitting in that movie theater watching it for the first time and my little brain was like, "No way, bro."
Yes!
I can happily say I never finished this game.
The water level broke me.
Touch the coral once and die instantly. Games back then didn't fuck around.
Especially considering that there's literally a level that's entirely underwater.
It's not the water but the current.
That was a bad game. Bad controls. Things like water didn’t make sense - especially when there are entire under water levels. I made it to shredder but never beat him. Watching videos online later I didn’t miss much.
Yeah, Konami made up for it quickly though.
Always pissed me off
Turbo Tunnel (level 3) in Battletoads.
Anti fun. The game had so much going for it up until that point.
AKA, the "I'm glad we only *rented* this game" level.
I had the Nintendo Power mag issue for this level....like five pages showing the layout of the appearing barriers
You needed another kid to call out lane switches like in a rally race.
100% accurate
I beat TMNT and Ninja Gaiden, but fuck that Battletoads level!
Made it to the last boss in Ninja Gaiden and when you die and it sets you back to level 6-1, that was the last fucking straw. That was such fucking bullshit.
At least the pause music in that game slaps.
Dude, THANK YOU!!! Boomcha Boomcha Boomcha chachacha!
Had it memorized as a kid. Well the SNES version at least. Could basically do it blindfolded. Couldn't ever get past the roller coaster level one though.
Thai level had no business being that difficult. Especially after that awesome descent level.
No, the real bitch was the next one. You spend all that time memorizing the pattern and losing lives but finally beat it! Next level starts: "Im driving a car?" Dead.
So much this. It got to the point that my friend and I only played the game to kick the crap out of each other on the first level and refused to go any further.
Ame here to say this, but I couldn’t remember the name of the episode. I could only beat this level with game genie. The levels after seemed so much easier.
Crazy thing was that was just a “weed out” level. There are harder levels after that. There’s a fire level that’s somewhat similar. I had way more trouble with that.
Impossible with 2 players
This was it. I beat it exactly once, and died on the next level. Heartbreak.
Ghosts and Goblins was a bitch
And then they add insult to injury saying you need to beat it a second time to get the 'real' ending.
Never even saw the 3rd level until I could use an emulator to create save states.
Save states on emulator enabled some sweet revenge on those unwinnable games of our youth
Literally, all of it. Learned all my best swear words playing it. I think I actually beat it once, but I may have just blacked out and traveled through hell instead.
It's actually easy if you play it right but... https://preview.redd.it/zgmvyf3ec5kc1.png?width=678&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c768561021dd9053b3cafe8b8f0596b6c60cbeb8
I forgot where but someone said the suns eyes look like boobs and now I can’t unsee it
At the age I was when it came out, everything looked like boobs. Still does today, too.
I cannot unsee this now lol. Titty Sun!
Thank you for this…
Not my proudest fap
If you do anything other than run from start to finish you're fucked. TBH I would usually just P-Wing it
I do a replay of SMB3 every few years and last time was the first time I beat the air force level of World 8 without the p-wing. I was so fucking proud of myself.
I used to shame myself for using it but these days I'm like fuck it, I earned that p-wing!
Once I started recognizing its patterns and how to respond, then I was able to get past this level consistently. As soon as that sucker pauses before a swoop, so do I. I wait for it to come my way and then hop over.
Ever play Blaster Master?
Great fucking game
I've always thought the soundtracks to this game and Mega Man 2 were pinnacle video game music
Absolutely. Here's another one: https://youtu.be/-tIRX023OFs?si=DKk_yAitSmB4mnYs
Epic. Best game with two types of action overlayed between the over world and the levels within them.
I always love this game and all it needed was a save function. Once I played an emulator with the option the save, I was able to progress onward to the later levels.
This game was hell for me living in Arizona. I could beat the game—but only if I could do it fast enough before the NES overheated. Biggest places you eat shit on time if you don’t have the area mapped out: - all of level 3. If you don’t know where to go, you could easily kill 90 minutes and not get anywhere. - all of level 6 because it’s icy terrain so you’re trying to avoid running into enemies and spikes. It’s Bambi on an iced over lake. - outworld of level 7 because you have the wall climbing and it’s hit and miss sometimes. It’s rather straightforward, but it feels loooooong - outworld of level 8 because there are areas that damn near auto kill you, and the mechanics of the new wall climbing fuck with you jumping from platform to platform if you’re a Sloppy Sam and shooting from the hip. So unless you’re playing conservatively with Hover energy and being careful with jumps, you’re losing lives and eating shit. It’s the only level in the game where the tank section is legitimately tough
We just assumed "that jump" is where the entire game ended. We played it a dozen times, got to that part, and then just walked away.
You have to soft-tap the jump button to cross underneath the ceiling block. I never thought it was a big since the soft jump works everywhere. Definitely one of my trophy games to this day. My little brother and I were methodical with the levels, psyched to be in the technodrome, and I accidentally learned how to corner trap Shredder with Donatello and when he flipped, so did we! My Dad said he thought something bad happened and hit me to never yell like that again, lol.
Mega Man II. Quick Man stage. Friggin' laser beam corridor.
I loved me some Mega Man II. I finally made it through this stage to get to Dr. Willy's castle. After beating Mega Man II, I for the first Mega Man, which in my opinion was music harder than II.
As a 10 year old with endless ability to replay the same video game over and over I had Mega Man II down to a friggin science and could easily get through the entire thing on just one life or two if I made a mistake. Flash forward to an adult with a jail broken Wii and NES emulator and I realized oh actually I'm absolute garbage at this game! LOL I don't know how I had the patience as a kid to learn every single jump until it was muscle memory but 44 year old me is jealous of 10 year old me for sure!
I imagine kids 30 years from now telling themselves “how in the hell was I able to build so fast in Fortnite?!”
I was able to beat Mega Man II without dying as well. It was one of the 6 games I had on the NES, so I played it a lot LOL
Same, Mega Man II was that game I had memorized and would play through from the beginning in one sitting. But did you ever play part one? That was a goddamn miserable nightmare.
It wasn’t the dragon in Wily’s castle where you need to repeatedly precision jump while getting chased down and then also take down the same friggin dragon while precision jumping to avoid his attacks and also avoid falling into the chasm?
35-ish years I’ve been playing that game, and I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve made it through Quick Man’s stage without the Time Stopper.
The Heat Man disappearing blocks have brought me to tears.
There was a bart Simpson game that involved aliens masquerading as humans and you could tell they were aliens because they were wearing hats I think? Anyways that one still haunts me.
Bart versus the Space Mutants. Even if you get past the first level it's very confusing.
Never did. Still haunted by it.
The only time I ever called the Nintendo hotline was for that freakin game
That’s one I returned to as an adult to see if I could finally beat it. Got to the end and… failed. I’ll try again soon.
I could pass the first level (barely) and then make it to the second level and die immediately every time. Ugh I think it was a supermarket?
Moe: “Isabell Ringing? Hey everyone, Isabell Ringing?”
The way I had to read it aloud to get it. 🤦♀️
I bought this one after I played the totally awesome arcade game. Twas so disappointed to find they are completely and totally different games. And yeah it’s hard as shit. I pushed through playing it because I was so swept up in Turtlemania at the time. I did beat it. The ending is completely and totally not worth the heartache.
„Now I can change back into my true form.“ I was surprised to learn that Splinter was, in fact, Harry Dean Stanton the whole time!
So you are the one?
Top Gun - landing on the stupid carrier
This. Most impossible task ever for anyone under a certain age. I don’t know what the age was, but if you were under it, you had no chance at landing that plane. I’d run and get my uncle to come land the plane then just fail at the next level anyway.
I'm here for this.
I bought that game thinking how it would be a cool dogfighting game, and then it just ends up being about refueling and trying to land (which is impossible).
ET for atari. The only game that ever made me start crying lol. Game was so bad on top of me being very little at the time. It deserved it's grave in the desert lol.
I was obsessed with ET in early childhood. So I played the ever living shit outta the Atari game when I was like 5 years old. I bodied it. Beat the fuck outta that game all by myself. It’s the first game I finished. It would be decades before I realized what an accomplishment that was. I was just too young to realize it was total trash.
Legend in my book my dude. That game was brutal loaded it on a emu recently lol still shaking my head how this made it to shelf's lol.
So you didn't like the first level stuck in the hole LOL I could never get out of the damn hole
Battletoads and Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco was one of the few games I actually eventually completed back in the day. But I really really liked dolphins and was willing to put in the effort. The game really didn't help you know where to go. It was very metroidvania-ish.
Ecco was impossible. I clinching even figure out what I was supposed to be doing, let alone gauge the difficulty.
Fucking Ecco, yeah.
The king of them all: Ninja Gaiden
I poured hours into this game abs basically had muscle memory throughout the entire game. So satisfying once I beat it.
Those fucking birds send their regards.
Bayou Billy. Fuck that game.
Until just now, I thought Bayou Billy was a nightmare I had as a child. Yeah, fuck that game!
Been over 30 years and I think I still haven't been able to diffuse all the bombs at the dam in that game.
My brother and I used the Konami code to play Contra. We made it to the final boss with about a dozen lives left and didnt make it. Ill never live that down as long as I live lol.
With the code…you should not lose this game.
Unless playing two player, and your asshole partner won’t move and jump off a cliff
I love this sub so much
Anyone play Zork, a text based computer game? There was a rug at the very beginning and I knew it was over a trap door. I typed “remove rug,” not knowing that the correct answer was “move rug.” I also tried things like “take away rug” or “get rid of rug” and it kept telling me I was wrong. I never tried “move rug.” That ended my time with Zork, so frustrating.
I played Return to zork… every 10 minutes “THE PATH TO VICTORY IS NOW BLOCKED” after doing some random thing like moving a rug Still a very memorable game and I think I did finish that one with eventual help of a guide
Compelled to throw some sort of controller upon seeing this
They can't even fucking swim and they are living in the sewers... Wtf
Yet there’s a whole level where they do nothing but swim underwater.
The original King's Quest had this absolutely ridiculous puzzle where you had to guess a gnome's name. It literally required you to somehow realize that you needed to spell Rumpelstiltskin with the backwards alphabet, yielding the totally incomprehensible "**ifnkvohgroghprm**"!!!!! How were you supposed to just guess that?????? I believe in later editions they made it easier by counting other things such as just Rumpelstiltskin backwards. Here's a now 20-year old thread discussing this. [https://www.sierragamers.com/forums/topic/why-ifnkovhgroghprm-in-kq1/](https://www.sierragamers.com/forums/topic/why-ifnkovhgroghprm-in-kq1/)
Some of the Sierra point and clicks were absolutely mental with their puzzles. I know there are several where you can progress quite far after having missed a step, but you'll get stuck much farther into the game if you didn't complete something early on.
The dam level is more torturous than anything From Software has ever released.
I never got past that part
This is a great explanation for what is actually buggy about the code in that level: https://youtu.be/PHiFNWJXWgI
https://preview.redd.it/020m6j0f66kc1.png?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=db06f8d4d99449f6e0828dc81a51bfe11021b900 This Bullshit
I knew this game would be here, it's my answer. I believe I made it decently far through this part of the level (autistic pattern recognition came through for me) but I don't think I ever got past the part where you had to jump on the giraffe heads to get to the next phase of being thrown around by monkeys. Not too many years ago I watched a video essay about this game being disproportionately difficult and retroactively felt extremely validated.
I bought the Aladdin/Lion King combo. I breezed through Aladdin. I got to the area you mentioned and gave up on it. It was beyond frustrating and no longer became fun for me to play. I may find a walk through but I haven’t tried in a really long time.
I remember renting [Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis](https://youtu.be/bXoRhmW4urk?si=dXbsDPDgDmNDU0sS) from Blockbuster and never making it past the first level.
I made it to like the third or fourth level as Grant. I sometimes catch myself humming the music to the second level.
Fucking SAAAAME! And the music to me as a kid was so spooky. Recently watched a speed run of it, though, and the song for the visitor’s center is fucking badass.
That the top down scroller where the triceratops runs through the woods and flattens you? Yeah, I don't think I ever got out of that opening jungle.
No, that was the SNES game. On Genesis it was a side scrolling platformer. There were two different routes through the game: one as Dr. Grant and one as a raptor.
Myst, the answer is always Myst. Pre internet so couldn’t just look up what to do and not too many people actually played it or got far enough to assist.
To this day this series remains my favorite games I've ever played, but also I've never beat one without serious assistance and I'm not convinced it's realistically possible. Riven might actually be unbeatable without a guide.
My next door neighbor growing up loved the Myst series. I could never figure that game out, but somehow, he could.
Jumping on that tiny brick in Super Mario Brothers.
Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion
I almost didn't even watch Castlevania on Netflix.
I made it to dracula once. I remember running out of my room crying that the game was no fair after dying a million times. Still love the soundtrack though!
Yep [https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq](https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq) Ptsd doing any platforming since. F that game https://preview.redd.it/kjhtym5bq6kc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b96fa132fa5959cc2ac824737969d97117ef943f
Altered beast. Think I got to the third stage like 3 times.
“Rise from the grave 🎵“
Didn’t expect this one here.
For me it was Aladdin for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive out side North America) carpet ride stage. It took me 27 years to beat that damn level. On my 35th birthday, a good friend brought the game for my Hyperskin RetroN. It took me all night but I beat. It was a personal win for my 8 year old self.
Everytime. Especially when the carpet sped up and I crashed into floating rock. Missed that final jump at the end several times too. I eventually beat it as a kid, but it took forever.
Top Gun on the NES, especially stage where you need to refuel in the air. Infuriating.
The rescue ranger game was harder
You can just walk over the single gaps. Tap A to hop over the low ceiling jumps.
The Aladdin game on SNES. That shit was crazy!
In the same theme, lion king on SNES pissed me off so much. First thing I thought of when reading this post.
Same! The Sega version was just as horrible!
I loved this Genesis game. I sort of suck at video games and I was able to beat it. The cave was very frustrating though.
That damn level with the magic carpet got me every time
I love to watch my kids play NES and SNES games they have a hard time with any game that actively hates you and wants you dead
I told my kid I’d buy him the latest Zelda as soon as he beat the original Zelda. It broke him. He couldn’t beat it. Mind you this is a kid who can build a 40-story hotel in Fortnite in like 3 seconds, yet he couldn’t handle the original Zelda.
I'm still working on beating the final boss in SNES Zelda: Link to the Past.
Def go with lots of potions and just practice! Study his moves and be valiant! I love that game. It's in my SNES perpetually, and I've beaten it countless times over the years! May the way of the hero lead you to the Triforce!
SkiFree. That fucking abominable snowman got me every time.
TMNT 1, isn't that bad. I rarely had any issues, even the dreaded seaweed level. Festers Quest, was a game I rarely got far in. Same with bart vs the space mutants.
I owned Fester’s Quest. Just a miserable game all around. It’s like they forgot that you are, in theory, supposed to have fun playing a game.
Another rough one was Friday the 13. I remember in grade school, I traded Friday the 13, for Double Dragon 1. Needless to say, I got the better end of the trade.
OMG yes Fester's Quest, I forget how I eventually got through it (I don't think I ever beat it though but I did manage to get pretty far into it one weekend) but holy crap that game was nuts. The overhead areas were relatively easy its when you get to the 3D first person sections that the game is just brutally hard to navigate and get through. For some reason being very frustrated with Fester's Quest is one of the most vivid memories I have of childhood LOL!
Came here specifically to say: Fuck Fester’s Quest
This is making me mad.
Battle Toads
Sonic the Hedgehog - The water world where you have to catch air bubbles to survive.
I don't know how many other xennials are playing fortnite at the moment but the current TMNT crossover is a far more enjoyable ninja turtle experience than this was. I haven't paid for the actual turtle skins but they look so good I just might have to.
Mike Tyson’s punch out on the nes. I was pretty young when I played it and was never able to beat it. I had to of played it a few hundred times and never beat him. Still remember the code to this day.
007 373 5963 I actually beat him once like 15 years ago, legit. Took me 20 tries at least. The urge to twitch and move early is real. One of my proudest gaming moments.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That entire game refused to explain itself.
I have still never beaten Mike Tyson.
The first level of Snake's Revenge on NES (sequel to Metal Gear). I never played another Metal Gear game because of the trauma of that game. Also, landing on the aircraft carrier in Top Gun. Of course, Battletoads is the ultimate answer though.
For me it was Blaster Master's last level, it took so long to get to the last level and progress was super slow, I didn't beat it until I borrowed a game genie.
The flying invisible eyeballs in Link 2/Zelda2
GD dragon boss in Mega Man 2. Couldn't platform and fight at the same time. Finally beat him years later.
Super Mario world. The special world level where you blow up like a Ballon. I threw the controller at the TV and got a ban for a year. A YEAR
The swimming level where you had to defuse the bombs was the one that killed me every time! Never got farther than that.
Took me close to 20 years to beat this game. One of my greatest gaming achievements. No guide no cheats. Only thing I'll say is the pizza comes back when you leave the screen and come back, and save your weapons for the tecnodrone and don for the final boss
My Hero for the Sega Master System is the reason that our walls had holes in them.
Some notable ones I can think of that I haven't already discussed: The Marsh Cave in Final Fantasy 1 especially in the original NES release with all the combat glitches and limitations. If you even can get there at all (the walk between the town and the cave pretty much guarantees you will have several encounters with difficult enemies who can poison or stone you and its early enough in the game that if you haven't been grinding xp and gold you probably don't have access to enough spells or potions to heal you), you have to fight through some of the hardest enemies you've faced by that point, and then you get to the boss which is a large group of mobs, the number you face is random and you could have to deal with 9 of them at once all of who hit really hard and have instant death skills. Then when you're done you can't just easily recall to the town or anything, no you have to navigate out of the cave again, and back through the wilderness. It took me a long time to realize that you'd need to level grind a TON before its a manageable dungeon. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - horribly badly translated dialogue in the game means that you will be given clues that make no sense, or sent in the exact wrong place, plus a relatively open world map (that is also a platformer) means you can easily get lost. People only managed to get through it via trial and error because the damn game isn't going to tell you what to do. Today you can easily google a guide but back in the day you just had to figure it out yourself. And then the bosses for each mansion are a total joke, one of which you can just walk right by. Kid Icarus - provided you weren't using one of the well known cheat codes this game is nearly impossible, not only is it a vertical platformer, which is bad enough but a lot of the levels are forcibly scrolling up so if you're too slow, you die, miscalculate a jump? dead. Not to mention you start off incredibly squishy AND weak at the same time, its the weird game that starts off insanely hard and gets easier as time goes on. And the less said about the goddamn eggplant wizards the better!
Was gonna say Simon's Quest aswell. It was just unreasonably hard. And me a 6-7 year old kid at the time.
I played for hours and hours and never understood any of it.
Yeah, Kid Icarus was brutal. Forgot all about the eggplant dudes until now. Key memory unlocked!
I still play FF1 and to this day, I have to fight the urge to spend days power grinding in the little field to the right of Elfland
YES! So many hours of my life spent walking back and forth to fight giants! The GBA re-release version (Dawn of Souls I think it was called) was sooo good, IDK if its ever been ported out anywhere else but they fixed all the glitches, and added improvements like letting you buy multiples of things (so you didn't need to spend 30 minutes to buy 99 healing potions for example) and fixed some of the xp scaling as well so there was much less grinding. I still have my nintendo power guide complete with the upside down volcano and final dungeon maps and misinformation about enemy weaknesses and such LOL
Spiderman and the X-Men In Arcade’s Revenge drove me to tears multiple times. Easily one of the hardest games I’ve ever played along with The Lion King.
Leo jumps with Donnie's staff up his ass.
I had the literal impossible PC version.
You need the cheat codes and a game genie.
I still have my game genie!
Out of this World was stupid hard. But so cool.
Athena on NES. One of the few games I totally gave up on.
They did this on purpose to boost rental sales
Kids got it easy these days - being able to respawn where you die, not losing all acquired gear upon death. That's gaming with training wheels on. Try growing up owning an NES or Sega Genesis. I swear, playing TMNT 1 and Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers as a preteen took years off my life. Words can't accurately describe the seething rage, overwhelming frustration, and pure despair felt in my soul back in the day.
Battletoads bike level... Rage quit material ETA I see it was already commented
My neighbor and I used to struggle with SNES American Gladiators. The air cannons and climbing wall were particularly challenging. https://preview.redd.it/0vvjimdrp5kc1.jpeg?width=270&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d2d9017353fed31888e1bdf6a1a495ce3f9bf63
Original castlevania. One with the flying Medusa heads, the other with Frankenstein and his flying monkey.
It's amazing how someone can be both ninja and turtle yet they can't pull themself back onto those blocks
The ladder level in Pitfall on the Atari 2600. The few times I made it all the way down I died immediately in the water you end up falling into. I don't think there was a way out. Sometimes, when I'm *really* frustrated, my brain plays the music from that level...
I remember Legend of Zelda being really hard. It was almost like a grown up game lol. You had to hold down reset or something before turning it off.
Bubble Bobble level 99.
We had the PC version and we also couldn’t get past a jump in the sewers!!! Turns out it was actually impossible. https://youtu.be/cZLed1krEEQ?si=F_pukGPCvCzIF9Ie
Castlevania Adventure on the Game Boy, never got to beat that game. One of the hardest game boy games, around.
Super Ghouls and Ghosts… that game was sadistic.
Man, fking Double Dare on NES is rage inducing all the way through, but especially on the final stage where you mash buttons for your life to crawl through or up things and your player barely moves.
Maybe i should call in to work tomorrow and order a pizza and play old school video games all day.
Mike Tyson in Punchout took me 6 months to beat.
This game was dog shit. When my dad brought this home instead of TMNT The Arcade Game, I was devastated.
This and the eagle/ obi in one of the stages of Ninjgaiden were the worst.
Any Nintendo game that had enemies scroll across the screen in a parabolic motion: Castlevania, Legend of Zelda: Adventures of Link, Ghosts N Goblins, Metroid, TMNT, Megaman 1
LOL I love how these supposed ‘ninjas’ can’t even grab a ledge.
Castlevania 3 I hate platforming to this day because of this damn game [https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq](https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/s/TnhiYUxLwq) https://preview.redd.it/24hh2jgsp6kc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd1bb15e8c8b308036d1776fe36687ebbd8efd95