Just not fair..

[Ed]

Now that I've dusted off my NES and Genesis, I've come to notice I've become quite soft in the old-school gaming department. There are a couple of portions of games that more or less make me want to buy a Game Genie and totally cop-out.. examples:

The truck level from T2: The Arcade Game. Are you serious? Can this even be completed at all without 2 players or blowing the truck up yourself?

Blue Iron Knuckles from The Adventures of Link and generally everything past the Ocean Palace.

The entire game of Abadox if you happen to die past level 4 and lose all your power-ups.

What other games and/or parts do you think are unnecessarily difficult?

[Texas Libra]

Ed said:

Blue Iron Knuckles from The Adventures of Link and generally everything past the Ocean Palace.

I wouldn't call those "unnecessarily difficult", just requiring a lot of practice. Personally I don't bother with the "lizard knights" in the southwestern Hyrule segment because by then my experience points are high enough by then that even killing them for their experience points won't make much of a difference, so I just wait until I beat the Three-Eyed Rock Palace. BTW, I personally call "Ocean Palace" you refer to as the "Palace On The Sea" instead, just going by what it's referred to in the official NES Game Atlas that was published back in 1991 or so, heh.

[Maes]

Ed said:

The truck level from T2: The Arcade Game. Are you serious? Can this even be completed at all without 2 players or blowing the truck up yourself?

I do recall there was a guy that could complete the actual arcade version solo, waaaay back, but it was due to a combination of patience, lots of credits to spare/waste, and actual skill. Two players made it somehow easier, as there's just too much shit being flinged at you all the time, and the slightest mistake can cost you.

If you want a hard game, try the Raiden series or Truxton. They both have hard gameplay, tons of bullets and are unforgiving (1 hit and you are dead). Truxton is particularly hard because all weapons are essentially underpowered for what the game is throwing at you, even if maxed out. Speaking of which, there are only three possible power levels: 1x, 3x and 5x power, for which you need to collect FIVE "P" blocks to actually advance to the next. Having 3 or 4 "P" blocks will give you no benefit at all (only speed powerups have an immediate effects, and can turn counterproductive).

Already from the first medium cruisers you encounter at the beginning you know you're in for a tough game. The scale of enemies and your ship also leaved you with little space for maneuvering, especially with a few speed powerups, and when you lose a life you lose all of your powerups except for non-maxed out P blocks. Losing a life after collecting the 5th can be FUCKING SHITTY.

Raiden is almost as unforgiving, but at least the weapons scale continuously, and are actually quite effective even on large enemies. In Truxton, the more powerful weapons in general only create greater clutter and make it hard to dodge bullets, without being all that powerful.

[Cutman]

Years later I still can't do the truck level on T2 arcade game on the megadrive.

Dragon's Lair on the NES is noted often for being a very tough bugger to beat. I could barely get to the third level.

[Texas Libra]

Solstice and Ironsword (yeah, the one with the homo-tastic Fabio cover) come to mind now that I think of it...

[TheeXile]

I remember some Indiana Jones (edit: this one?) game being pretty difficult. As a kid, I could never get past the first stage no matter how many tries I put into it.

[dew]

the very last scene of Gabriel Knight 2 was a completely unnecessary torment. i've retried at least 20 times, then gave up and read the walkthrough. oh wait, i was doing it right! and it still took me another 20 retries to click at the exact right moment. total mood-killer.

i've fled from Abuse cca mid-game. there was this deep pit and one had to jump his way up over attack turrets. my constant failure frustrated me too much. then again, the whole game is a bitch, so it was probably just the matter of time before something would break my neck.

X-Wing: Alliance, the last mission - the death star run. after an excellent game in the best x-w/tf tradition, there's this descent-like fan service bullshit. no thank you. to this day, i like to pretend the game is one mission shorter.

[Mr. Freeze]

Call of Duty has Veteran mode, which is infamous for being absolutely brutal. I've beaten CoD 2 and 4 on Veteran, and CoD 4 took me over two months to beat.

I also nominate Gunstar Heroes for difficulty. Holy christ.

[SteelPH]

Gradius 3 arcade version. Pure evil doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of this monstrosity.

[Patrick]

I know this is a cliche thing to say, but FUCKING CONTRA III MAN.

[kristus]

Old games were often really hard. New games aren't even a little bit.

[TheDarkArchon]

Mr. Freeze said:

I also nominate Gunstar Heroes for difficulty. Holy christ.

Only if a) You dial the difficulty up to Expert and b) don't use Seeker-Lightning with Free Shot

[Sharessa]

The level on Double Dragon 2 with the vanishing platforms. My friends and I played that game so many times that we could get to it pretty much every time, but we never actually got past that room. Years later, I watched a speedrun and found out that it's actually like 9/10th of the way through the game. There are like 1-2 levels after it. ARGH!

[Mr. Freeze]

TheDarkArchon said:

Seeker-Lightning with Free Shot

I rolled Free Shot, but I usually chose Double Fire or Chaser Force.

[Mattfrie1]

Pretty much any fighting game has that one character that is a bitch to beat. Kintaro in Mortal Kombat 2, Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat 3, M. Bison from Street Fighter 2, As well as any character in Tekken or Soul Calibur with the difficulty pumped up.

[Ed]

Patrick said:

I know this is a cliche thing to say, but FUCKING CONTRA III MAN.

Contra games are a rarity for me where I'm actually pretty good at them. I'm working on getting through Super C without getting any upgrades / guns and not dying once. I can get through the game solo without any deaths with the machine gun. Contra III is completely unforgiving on very hard mode. The ending almost makes it worth it.

[Visplane Overflow]

I don't remember Call of Duty being infamously 'brutal' on Veteran difficulty - in fact, even I can beat CoD4 on Veteran without retrying very much. Kristus said that old games were generally harder, and I'd really be inclined to agree, since I can't even beat Contra 3 on normal mode!

[Mechadon]

Danarchy said:

The level on Double Dragon 2 with the vanishing platforms. My friends and I played that game so many times that we could get to it pretty much every time, but we never actually got past that room. Years later, I watched a speedrun and found out that it's actually like 9/10th of the way through the game. There are like 1-2 levels after it. ARGH!

Oh man, this one for me as well. Me and my friend would play this game all of the time. We would get to that stage, sometimes with all of our extra men intact, and yet we still couldn't get past it. To this day I have yet to beat that level.

[Mr. Freeze]

Visplane Overflow said:

I don't remember Call of Duty being infamously 'brutal' on Veteran difficulty - in fact, even I can beat CoD4 on Veteran without retrying very much. Kristus said that old games were generally harder, and I'd really be inclined to agree, since I can't even beat Contra 3 on normal mode!

I dare you to beat Safehouse on Veteran without being killed by the goddamn helicopter.

I FUCKING DARE YOU

[Visplane Overflow]

Mr. Freeze said:

I FUCKING DARE YOU

Getting killed by the helicopter machine gunner is bound to happen at least a few times, but the game really isn't as difficult as you make it out to be. It's even possible to kill the chopper that flies overhead during 'All Ghillied Up' in Veteran mode, too.

[Scet]

Ghosts 'N Goblins

I've gotten as far as the last level, the tower leading to Satan, but have never had the patience to finish it(it took an entire day).

[Technician]

Scet said:

Ghosts 'N Goblins

I've gotten as far as the last level, the tower leading to Satan, but have never had the patience to finish it(it took an entire day).

You have to go through it a second time on hard to truly finish it anyway.

[Use]

It's not just you, I think it's age or something, reflexes aren't as good, I dunno. My old Genesis/Commodore 64 collection kicks my ass up and down, back in the day I was a star on those games...

[gravitar]

Lots of Quake 2 user levels. "Well the blaster has unlimited ammo, so why would the player need anything else ? For fun ? Nah let's give 'em teh hartkoar challange!!1"

[Nomad]

My favorite game for Genesis was the Toy Story game.

[Vile]

Unnecessarily difficult... I would think Ninja Gaiden 1 for the NES when I hear that. Sure you can make it to the end and beat it with enough practice because the final level itself is a good challenge, but forcing you to start back at the beginning of the whole level if you die once against the bosses is pretty annoying.

[Snarboo]

Patrick said:

I know this is a cliche thing to say, but FUCKING CONTRA III MAN.

Contra 3 is a cakewalk compared to Contra Hard Corps, although the Contra series is one of those few where the difficulty has stayed about the same. Contra 4 for the DS was pretty difficult and Shattered Soldier was harder than Hard Corps.

[Super Jamie]

Ghosts n Goblins (aka Ghouls n Ghosts) on any system.

Contra 3.

In fact, most console platformers are horribly impossible. How come PC platformers like Duke Nukem, Bioforge, Halloween Harry, or Commander Keen are completable and fun but console games constantly kill you on the first screen?

[Bank]

Out of This World (or Another World) is mind breakingly hard at times, and I've been playing back through Vectorman 2 on my Genesis and the sheer amount of blind jumps makes that game controller throwingly frustrating and difficult.

Even Sonic is hard without the luxury of saves.

[40oz]

Snarboo said:

and Shattered Soldier was harder than Hard Corps.

Really? I didn't have much trouble with it. The last level was really tough though.