Top 10 Hardest NES Games

[KeithTalent]

Man, that Silver Surfer game looked hilarious. I could not even understand what was happening in the Jekyll and Hyde one. :hmm:

KT

Edit: watched some of the speed run and the game makes no sense. You just keep walking forward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srI6YDrZniI

 

[Ichinisan]

I don't need to watch it. I can beat Ninja Gaiden (NES).

OK...I can only do it because I'm really cheap on the final boss.

 

[master_shake_]

i'm shocked that double dragon 3 didn't make the list...

one life barely any health and crappy attacks...no to mention the ninja level that kicks your ass.

 

[TheVrolok]

There were a lot of "hard" games back in the NES era simply because they were so terribly programmed. As a kid you are much more forgiving of just plain bad games. You think they're just hard, but really they just suck.

/fact. I have a huge love for my NES days. In fact, I even built an NES PC out of tribute to serve as a HTPC/emulator platform. But the above is basically true .. a lot of the games were "hard" simply because they were awfully designed.

 

[SP33Demon]

Beat all those. They had tough spots, but they weren't impossible. Bayou Billy was the only game I couldn't ever beat without cheating. The other games I had a dousy of a time beating, but finally manged, was Millan's Secret Castle, Immortal, and NARC. Those were horrible to try to beat. Managed somehow though.

For reference, here is someone else's list that has Bayou Billy as the worst in comparison to most of the games mentioned here. Even battle toads.

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/08/26/the-15-toughest-nes-games-of-all-time/

I have literally beat every NES game I came across. I have still like 200+ NES games sitting in a box. All beat without cheats at one point except Bayou Billy. Couldn't beat that one with game genie cheats. It's that fucking stupid.

Bayou Billy sucked ass. I think I also used cheats to beat it or just said fuck it. Ninja Gaiden took me months to beat, sucked ass. Castlevanias, never had a problem with any of them, they were so much fun. NARC was semi-tough but beat it. Kid Icarus sucked, but beat it, same with Master Blaster (both were actually a LOT of fun, I don't know why). G&G tough as balls but beat it in a few weeks.

 

[KeithTalent]

Bayou Billy sucked ass. I think I also used cheats to beat it or just said fuck it. Ninja Gaiden took me months to beat, sucked ass. Castlevanias, never had a problem with any of them, they were so much fun. NARC was semi-tough but beat it. Kid Icarus sucked, but beat it, same with Master Blaster (both were actually a LOT of fun, I don't know why). G&G tough as balls but beat it in a few weeks.

Kid Icarus was awesome.

KT

 

[stormkroe]

Rygar and Guardian Legend are some of the best games ever.
I remember Rambo being pretty difficult, and I rented RoboCop once and could never beat one of the Bosses that basically fired a constant line of bullets that were too close together to stand up (you could duck under them) and fire back. Apparently RoboCop in the game didn't have squat/fire multitasking yet...
Thanks to my Ouya, I can now frustratingly re-live all these old games, with the added complication of horrible gamepad response!

 

[CurseTheSky]

I don't necessarily agree with the notion that games are too easy these days. Sure, many are watered down and boring, but if you really look at the challenge of many older games, it isn't as complex as we all seem to remember it.

Most of the challenge stemmed from only being able to take a few hits, having a limited number of lives, and having to start over from the beginning (of the level, or worse, of the game). Take something like Ghosts and Gobins, and add in the ability to save and load from any given point in any level. Suddenly the game becomes a hundred times easier, just requiring you to time your jumps and shots. At that point, enough repetition will get you to the point where muscle memory does most of the work.

 

[Ricochet]

Taking off the rose colored nostalgia glass off, most games back then were sh!t. I agree with a lot of you: they were hard due to no creative process whatsoever. Bad and lazy programming. Not saying there weren't a few gems because there were. Most were atrocious however.

 

[zerocool84]

I remember playing Fester's Quest and I always remember dying all the time. It was one of those games you only play the beginning level.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Aww I thought this was about the top 10 NES games that made you hard. Samus from Metroid, the Battletoad's Dark Queen, and Princess Toadstool come on down!!!

bubble bath babes

nsfw http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/...---contains--hilariously-bad-8-bit--nudity---

 

[angminas]

You can cheap your way through Top Gun. It's been a long time, but if memory serves,

Spoiler

you climb to max altitude and keep pointing up so other planes can't shoot you. Select the strongest missiles so you can kill the boss quickly

.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I was the first kid in my neighborhood to beat Ninja Gaiden and Tysons in one weekend. They didn't believe me so I did them both in a few hours in front of them. I was the man.

OMG tho..

My top worst are:

Castlevania - could never get past the grim reaper boss
TMNT - The big base boss?
The Guardian Legend - somewhere I never finished it
Blaster Master - never finished
Ghosts n Goblins - fvck that game

On a side note - I could never beat Super Battletoads, and I played the hell out of that game

Super Ghouls n Ghosts I finally finished - only to be told I had to go back to the beginning because I'd missed the chalice randomly hidden in one of the levels. I think I threw that game away after that.

 

[Svnla]

Ninja Gaiden for NES was a hard one. I finally did have to pay up to buy the NES super duper controller to slow down the game in order to beat the final boss.

 

[MrRamon]

What was ninja turtle arcade code for two player??

Up, right tight, down down down, left left left left, b,a, select, start?

 

[angminas]

How about easiest games?

John Elway's Quarterback- go for the long bomb, 80 yard touchdown after 80 yard touchdown.

Major League Baseball- terrible AI. You could run all kinds of scams on it. My personal record is 128-0. Recently learned that the world record is 142-0, so I'm thinking about firing it up again.

Monopoly- just offer to buy the CPU's property every time it gets hold of some. Eventually you'll have all the land.

What else?

 

[shortylickens]

Battletoads was pretty brutal, but atleast it was comical.

Surprised Blaster Master didn't make the list, even with the cheating (pausing the game while damaging boss on... even numbered levels continuously did damage) I couldn't beat the game, it was so damn long.

aside from being a fairly long game it also had no save or password feature. And leaving you NES on overnight wasnt a smart thing to do.

 

[shortylickens]

Ninja Gaiden for NES was a hard one. I finally did have to pay up to buy the NES super duper controller to slow down the game in order to beat the final boss.

the worst thing was when a game used the select button to pause, that slow feature was useless cus it only worked on Start.

 

[HumblePie]

Battletoads was pretty brutal, but atleast it was comical.

Surprised Blaster Master didn't make the list, even with the cheating (pausing the game while damaging boss on... even numbered levels continuously did damage) I couldn't beat the game, it was so damn long.

I beat blaster master. Didn't cheat, but you couldn't turn off the game at night. I would leave it paused and on, until I could get back to it. I beat it a few times and eventually was able to beat the game in a single play through on a Saturday at one point. But you really had to have memorized everything about the game to do that.

I beat battletoads, ninja gaiden, castlevania, ghosts & goblins, and all the "predictable" jumping challenge games. No joke that the challenges were hard. They required precise timing and knowing what was coming. However, they were the same thing every time. If you had it memorized and had the muscle memory you could do it every time. That is how I was beating those games as a kid.

Some of the others mentioned here I beat as well. Guardian Legend I beat (actually didn't think it was that hard. I remember it only taking a few weeks to beat). I beat Festers Quest as a rental on a weekend. TMNT I beat several times. Top Gun, I'll admit I never played it. I also never played Silver Surfer. I beat all the megaman games though many times over. I also did beat the all the Contra series games WITHOUT the extra lives cheat codes. I actually managed to beat the first Contra without losing a single life. That's how much I played the shit out of that game too.

It's the ridiculous ones that were way too random in how they killed you that made you go WTF? Bayou Billy was one such game. Immortal was another one. I barely beat that one though. Ugh.

I'll admit though, I was that one kid in the neighborhood that all the other kids came to when they got stuck on a spot. I usually had beat it or could beat it. hell, I beat ninja gaiden on the first weekend I got it. It was my 10th birthday present in 1988. Beat it that weekend with a sleep over from all my friends. It really wasn't that hard except for being a jumping platformer.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yea I think while playing Castlevania 3 and a few other games (Zelda 2?) I left my NES on for weeks at a time and never had issues....

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

I'd like to nominate the original Final Fantasy for "Most difficult game for non-game reasons". Every time you put that into an old NES and got the flashing grey screen - which happened a lot on those front loader NESes - it was a crap shoot whether or not your save data would survive the experience.

 

[mizzou]

I love the nostalgia of ghost & goblins, I just hate playing past the first two levels.

 

[Sonikku]

I'd like to nominate the original Final Fantasy for "Most difficult game for non-game reasons". Every time you put that into an old NES and got the flashing grey screen - which happened a lot on those front loader NESes - it was a crap shoot whether or not your save data would survive the experience.

The original final fantasy sucked. There were spells that sucked and basically did nothing. (like a spell that protected you against some ultra weak attack by a certain random encounter mob that you would likely never run into and could be cleaved in one hit anyway.) The 80's games seemed notorious for packing in those kinds of abilities and tricks that were so hilariously impractical and useless.

Then of course you had characters swinging at air (it's ineffective), KO'd characters you couldn't revive until you got all the way back to town and paid a huge sum to raise them and who can forget my personal favorite; Going down...down...down this ultra deep dungeon with more curves than a $500 prostitute, getting lost and seeing your hp and mp gradually wither away from endless random battles.

Encounter the even tougher boss at the bottom, then make your way ALL the way back up to the top before you can save. Save points? Fuck you. Back door exit back to the map after beating the boss? fuck you. Directions? fuck you. Made it all the way to the bottom only to find your party too exhausted to down the boss? Fuck you. Restart, go alllll the way back to town, buy more consumables, (grind more fun random encounters for the gil if need be) head back to the damn cave then trek all the way back down to give it another try.

Fuck you Lich. I mean seriously,
FUCK YOUUUUU!!

I have issues with that game.

 

[exdeath]

I remember Dragon Warrior was "hard", or at least it felt like it took months to grind.

Now I can hit 65535 exp and gold cap in one sitting.

 

[slag]

Beat top gun, beat zelda2, beat blaster master, beat TMNT, beat double dragon, beat kid icarus, beat castlevania beat most of all of those
Got to the final boss in Ghost and Goblins, beat him with the cross, and then got warped back and instead of having to do it all again, I said fuck it and turned the console off.