Your pick for “most difficult old game”?

[Graves Ruinwalker]

Don't know about most difficult objectively, but Comix Zone and Chakan come to mind for me, even if CZ isn't old in regards to the Mega Drive's lifetime itself.

Chakan is brutal . Even with Savestates its a bitch to get through . Even reaching the true ending is way too much .

But still one of the cooler franchises that needs a comeback . The Dreamcast prototype/cancled game looks cool. Undercooked as a concept but it has still potential.

 

[UnDubious]

Hagane is dope. I swear it's not that hard, though. I'm not a super skilled gamer, I'm just persistent, but I beat it in a few days when I got into it and it didn't strike me as being nearly as hard as many others. Sure I died multiple times, but you're supposed to. The main advice I would give is to get comfortable with switching weapons - you have access to your 4 or 5 weapons at all times in this game, so memorize where the most useful ones are in the menu so you know how many button presses you need to go from one to the another in a flash. That makes things easier to manage.

 

[DOOP169]

Little Nemo for nes, maybe not the hardest game but it can be a pain in the ass.

 

[ColonelKurtz]

Are we including SHUMPS or not?

Probably every SHUMP I've ever played has an insane difficulty curve I can't handle. I still remember the first time I tried playing DoDonPachi on a PS1.

 

[bjork]

Target Earth on the Genesis. You can activate an invincibility code and still die to the second to last boss.

 

[rugal]

nes games battle toads

 

[LightningLegs]

My crown jewel of hard games back in the day was probably Wizards and Warriors 3. Not that brutal in the moment-to-moment gameplay, but navigating the labyrinthian town, finding all the macguffins and beating the final boss in one sitting was really a battle of attrition and patience. First time I fought the final boss I beat him; his projectiles are ridiculously fast and he had good aim, but I figured out you get iframes when you change classes so I'd swap right before I was about to be hit.

100% F-Zero X and F-Zero GX was also pretty brutal. I know people have figured out tricks to trivialize everything by now, but for a normal human being some of the rubberbanding AI in Master Mode for X and the harder scenarios in GX's story mode were just insane. Boy did I fist-pump when I finally beat those two games.

 

[DanCalibur]

I remember getting my ass kicked playing Silver Surfer on NES, and my famiclone had a slow motion mode

 

[thecrow2313]

Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts. Many late nights with this game. For those who know the struggle is real.

 

[Fray Guillermo]

All other NES games are child's play compared to the shear challenge of HOLY DIVER.

Dio reference boxart looks like ttrpg manual, i like it

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Fantasy World Dizzy.

On original hardware with no save states it was expected for you to reach the ending with only 3 hits. If you lost all of your lives that was it, no contiues, no saves, back to the start.

Frankly you could say the same for the first 2 games in the franchise too, since they didn't even have a health bar, they just used lives.

 

[χKai]

Most of the time, games are just hard because I don't feel like playing through 'em.

That said, some of the hard ones I never beat were the GI Joes for NES, Castlevania 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Friday the 13th, and Star Tropics.

I also thought Dragon Power was pretty hard, but I managed to beat that one. To be honest, it wasn't worth the effort.

 

[UnDubious]

That NES game Amagon is really hard too.

 

[thecrow2313]

Most of the time, games are just hard because I don't feel like playing through 'em.

That said, some of the hard ones I never beat were the GI Joes for NES, Castlevania 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Friday the 13th, and Star Tropics.

I also thought Dragon Power was pretty hard, but I managed to beat that one. To be honest, it wasn't worth the effort.

Friday the 13th dude yeah. For StarTropics I had to use an emulator for save states & memorize puzzle patterns or traps.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

I find Friday the 13th more cryptic than difficult. Navigating the map can be a pain.