Hardest game you ever played

[kypherion]

What is the absolute hardest game you have ever played? What I mean is not unintentionally hard like awkward camera angles, but actual difficulty.

For me, I would have to say either Ghosts n' Goblins (Super Ghouls n' Ghosts was hard too), or Trauma Center: Second Opinion. With the latter the game is difficult, but what really takes the cake are bonus operations after the main plot. The operations themselves are already plenty difficult (harder than anything else in the game to that point) but getting the highest rank possible is an absolute undertaking and requires insane levels of skill.

Overall though the game is no walk in the park.

[kamikazekeeg]

Cuphead is way up there for me.  There's certainly some older NES games that are dumb hard due things like low lives or they were previously quarter munching Arcade games, there's too many of those to pick, but as a fair, hard, time, Cuphead was a real hand aching experience.

[kashell]

Dark Souls
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden Sigma

But, I think their difficulty added to their enjoyment.

[seether]

The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants on NES because it sucked so badly that any desire to overcome the difficulty was quickly extinguished.

[dharmajones93]

The first Mega Man. I had the Anniversary Edition for GameCube (which didn't help), but it only had the Japanese version (which I think is harder? maybe... the later ones in America had a "normal" mode and a "hard" mode which was essentially the only option in the Japanese version).

Anyway, I still can't beat that freakin' dropping platform part in Gutsman's stage, even with rewind and save states in the Legacy Collection. I don't have nearly as much trouble with Castlevania on NES. I'm probably just bad...

[burningdoom]

Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)

I've never been beyond the 1st boss. Fuck that guy.

[Agozer]

Cuphead
Dark Souls (any)
Ninja Gaiden Sigma
Trauma Center (any; me and my friend actually play them co-op in order to get anywhere)

I've never bee any good at any of the older Mega Man games either. Same for Ghosts N' Goblins. Cuphead is infernal.

[wartoy]

Double Dragon 1,2,3 nes
Batman nes
Ninja Gaiden 1,2 nes
Metal Gear nes
Blaster Master nes
Super Metroid snes
Helfire sega genesis
Last Remnant xbox 360

[kypherion]

Nice choices. I see trauma center and Ninja Gaiden is up there. I've beaten the first Ninja Gaiden on the NES, and it was hard but enjoyable.

[ferraroso]

Well, I think that excluding games that are hard simply because they are bad (I'm looking at you, Master System's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), I would say that Ikaruga on the Dreamcast is probably the hardest game I own. Even though it is one of my favorite genres, I absolutely suck at shooters, especially in the ones that can be considered as bullet-hells or have some kind of gimmick (and Ikaruga fits in both categories).

[oldgamerz]

I partially lost interest in video games due to difficulty, they all now give me a headache I want to play Halo: Combat Evolved but I don't like how the enemies steal the vehicles   before you in later level and their is no way to complete the game,

I am stuck on that game with a way point needing to fly some kind or aircraft but the enemies keep jumping into the aircraft making the game impossible to progress to the last 2 levels.

Is there anyway to repair the broken aircraft of vehicles, because once the enemies steal them in order to kill the enemy you need to shoot them down

[98dgreen]

Ninja Gaiden

[mizzach86]

In terms of difficulty of the games I've played in earnest, I would give that award to the Gradius series.

The arcade version of Gradius III, in particular, I can't beat fairly. If you die you lose all your upgrades to your ship and it's extremely difficult to get re-equipped so you can even stand a chance (but you usually die again before that happens and go back to square one).

Gradius V (the latest entry) was much more forgiving since you can re-spawn right where you were and you can pick up your options again without collecting power-ups. Still a hard game though.

[telly]

Medal of Honor Frontline on Hard mode. That difficulty setting will make you tear your hair out. It was grueling to beat

[aliensstudios]

Mega Man & Bass on GBA. Most recently though, Super Hydorah is hard as hell too.