Games that are harder than Dark Souls

[Darth Rosenberg]

I avoided Dark Souls until late last year, largely because of its reputation - which is undeserved. It's just a different kind of challenge than most people are used to.

I'm not even sure it's hard but fair - I think it's just fair. It's only truly 'hard' if you play it like an impatient dunce.

I don't count bullet-sponge design in FPS's and 3rdP shooters as evidence of difficulty, that's usually just evidence of lazy design. So I dunno. I suppose Seth on 8star diff on SFIV was difficult, and arguably far more demanding in terms of player skill than anything in DS. XCOM:EW can be very challenging and stressful (in an enjoyable sort of way), especially if the player isn't used to either the tactical combat or the need to balance resources early on.

BlazBlue:CS could be a right git... Especially Terumi.

Halo:CS, Legendary solo Library was an enjoyable masochistic experience, ditto CoD4's Mile High Club achievement.

 

[TrevHead]

Generally many retro games and genres are harder than Dark Souls, that said just like Dark Souls is to modern AAA games those "hardcore" games are just a different type of difficult and need new skills to play the game. They just don't go out of their way to teach noobs who have no option but to figure it out themselves using observation, rote and trial and error.

And because these genres aren't easy to learn and are niche they cater towards the most dedicated and skilled players leading to the whole genre getting stigmatised as something only uber players can play which is horse shit.

Take bullethell it took me 3-4 weeks of playing Blue Wish Resurrection to build up the hand eye co-ordination and knowledge-base to play them, however it took me months to learn how to play FPS with a pad after years of playing PC shooters. And while many shmups / bullet hells are hard, there are plenty of titles especially on PC aimed at noobs, plus games have multiple difficulty modes for players of all skill levels who past the initial difficulty curve and no longer suck.

BTW Speaking of Shin Megami Tensi, I've just passed the 1st boss in Strange Journey, it's my introduction to the series (apart from P3PSP), loving it so far and it's much harder than Entrian Odyssey 1, I've just lost a hour of play to my first instant death spell game over (god dammit lol)

 

[Salus]

I've never played a harder game than StarCraft II, except maybe StarCraft I.

Most multiplayer games are hard, but that was BRUTAL. Absolutely BRUTAL. It activates your fight-or-flight response, because that game always demands way more than you can give. It is by far the most anxiety-laden, frustration-riddled game I've ever played. "Ladder anxiety" is a now a common term because of that game. Some people break their computers, other have to go on walks after matches. Some just can't play without a friend on their team. Ranked 1v1 is this cold, dark, scary place.

The reasons why it is so brutal:

#1. The game demands more than you can give. (In attention, reaction time, APM, critical thinking, etc.)
#2. Only one person wins. (There are no draws or prizes for second place, only one person comes out alive.)
#3. It's always your fault when you lose. (As much as people complain about balance, there was always something they could have done to win.)
#4. It requires a ridiculously high time investment to even learn how to play the game at a medium-high level.
#5. No matter how good you are at the game, you always suck at it.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Although I guess one could argue that it isn't since you can adjust the difficulty, I'd argue that 'X-Com: Enemy Unknown" (and "Enemy Within") are harder, because in those games you can actually be put into a position where you literally cannot win.

Say whatever you want about the difficulty of Dark Souls, no matter how bad things get, you can theoretically go back early in the game and grind enough souls to turn yourself into a superhero. In X-Com, if you make too many bad decisions, you're basically screwed and have to start over again.

 

[syaoran728]

Tales of Graces R started as what I was used to in the franchise, but ramped up the difficulty part way through and I had every boss kicking my ass for a while.

As a rather non-hardcore JRPG player, biggest mistake of my life was pushing the difficulty in that game higher than "medium", that difficulty spike you hit when you run into a bossfight is absolutely ludicrous, I could be steamrolling everything beforehand but running into a boss is the equivalent of charging an oncoming tank with a toothpick, actually never finished the game due to a super frustrating boss, ugh.

I was playing the game with my roommate and each boss fight he would guess on the number of retries before I kicked him off so I could run three healers.

 

[Trude]

I suppose that Dark Souls' legacy of difficulty comes from its player conditioning. Since it lacks an option to make the game easier, the majority of players who struggled through it, all respond to the question of: "Was it hard?" with an affirmative rather than "No, because I played on easy."

 

[Easton Dark]

I've never played a harder game than StarCraft II, except maybe StarCraft I.

Man, Starcraft 2 is so much harder just because 1 forced you not to clump up your units due to the 12 selection limit.

I should start on multiplayer soon. Turns out: brutal AI, not so brutal.

 

[kingthrall]

if you want a hard game and something that will give you hours of endless micro gameplay this is it, not for the ignorant or weak , Vids a bit old and has had graphics overhauls to make it much more modern, but its amusing considering the physics are 1998, and this tournament literally just started for the 2014 world cup.

Enjoy

 

[michael87cn]

Tamagatchi's man. You feed em. They poop. And then you go to school and when you get home they dead. Damnit Tamagatchi.

 

[pilouuuu]

Who's finished Another World/Out of this World?

You're better men/ladies than I.

Wow, I remember I finished it ONCE. The part where you had to run again from water Indiana Jones style was quite tricky as were the shooting encounters. Such an amazing and atmospheric game. Do you think it's harder than Dark Souls?

And as for the hardest game... Dwarf Fortress! It has a bunch of characters as graphics, no tutorial and it's incredibly complex.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Who's finished Another World/Out of this World?

You're better men/ladies than I.

Wow, I remember I finished it ONCE. The part where you had to run again from water Indiana Jones style was quite tricky as were the shooting encounters. Such an amazing and atmospheric game. Do you think it's harder than Dark Souls?

It's a completely different game, with surprising similarities of trial and error. Difficult to compare, I'd say they about even out.

 

[joest01]

I find the definition of a hard game to be tricky.
Difficulty alone is meaningless. I think the more important aspect is how technical a game is. i.e. Meatboy, N+, Megaman or Rayman Origins could ramp up the difficulty because the controls were spot on and responsive. Games like Bayonetta, DmC or MGR:R give you all the tools to dominate the game so perfectly that they can ramp up the difficulty to insane levels and you can still pull it off if you press the right buttons at the right time. Ninja Gaiden (Sigma) is of course the world heavyweight champion in that category. Demon's/Dark Souls fall in here too, not to the same extent but especially with the latest release the controls are very finely tuned. It is however also about setting you traps and tricking you into making bad decisions. So if you take it slow or already know the level it loses a lot of its edge. It also seems to encourage cheese for some reason. I don't think I know another game where you can stay out of aggro range and snipe enemies to death.

To me the quality of the Souls games is in the controls, the combat, the stamina control. The varied move sets of the weapons. They could get rid of ranged weapons and magic for all I care. There is no other game that really gives you the same mano a mano combat experience. And when you run into a skilled pvp opponent it can be incredibly technical if you set some rules down. If you allow the rock paper scissor stuff then it's just another RPG. But with the latest fix the balance is much improved and I have high hopes for this one.

 

[Guffe]

Many of the old Mario games, like going well back into the beginning!

Then two others I can think of are Tetris and Chess, the second one a little depending on the opponent, but damn it's easy to find someone to kick your ass in it!

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I was recently given a Nintendo Playchoice 10 as a wedding gift. This is basically an NES in an Arcade format. I can easily say that just about everything loaded in that cabinet makes Dark Souls look like a vacation to the coziest, softest and cuddliest place on earth where your every whim is catered to. Super Mario Brothers is harder. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is harder. Festers Quest is harder by such an order of magnitude that it's silly.

Nintendo hard isn't a joke but, comparatively, Dark Souls is.

 

[sageoftruth]

The ones that I remember best right now are Actraiser 2, and the Super Star Wars Trilogy. However, in both I'd say the most challenging thing about them was working with the shoddy controls. Actraiser 2 was too clunky and Star Wars had that spin jump that was so hard to land properly.

Then again, if broken games count, there's also Bubsy. Like Sonic, he had a momentum system that made him traverse the stage really fast if he ran for a long period of time, or a short period downhill. However, the levels had so many obstacles that going faster than a crawl often meant instant death, especially because Bubsy could only take one hit, and couldn't enter a pseudo-invincible ball mode like Sonic.
You'd just hit a downward slope and get a sudden burst of speed, and then an enemy would pop out from the side of the screen and a tenth of a second later, you were dead.

 

[go-10]

Shinobi for thew PS2 and Contra games (WITHOUT THE KONAMI CODE)

 

[Muspelheim]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Play on Master. It is insane then. Especially Clear Sky.

Install the MISERY mod and play on Dark Road difficulty.
Though that is sadistic now

It made me beg for rusty pistol. It gave me no bullets. Then, I heard the Snorks.

Such is Life in the Zone...

 

[XMark]

Just about any japanese "bullet hell" game is way harder than Dark Souls, requiring a near-superhuman level of hand-eye coordination to survive.

 

[Dango]

The Xbox Ninja Gaiden (not black) was pretty damn difficult. I figured it'd be hard but fair but it turned out to just be unrelentingly difficult.

 

[RavingSturm]

Ultimaagan
Japanese version of metroid - did not have a password or save system if I recall correctly
Wizardry games
TMNT 1 nes
Battletoads