The Hardest Games You'll Ever Play (And Never Beat)

[garjian]

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You are either lying, or playing the game profoundly wrong. Not even the strongest bosses should ever one shot you, and I don't remember anything besides bosses and minibosses taking more than a few hits to kill.

OT: yea, no. I love Dark Souls but it doesn't belong on this list. DKS isn't really even a hard game, its a game that demands a lot and tells you very little. Once you overcome the vertical learning curve its only moderately challenging outside of a few bullshit areas (fuuuuuuck Anor Londo, fuck TOTG and fuck Lost Izalith).

Not entirely sure what you want from me. The skeleton archers one-shot kill me from across the castle. The skeletons hiding behind corners one-shot kill me when I see them. The giant knight with the sword one-shot kills me. The fire-breathing dragon one-shot kills me. The zombies - to be fair - don't one-shot kill, they just don't die. Ever. Oh! And don't even get me started on those regenerating skeletons.
So can't help you, mate. We apparently played two different games. But the game you played sounds fun! Can't wait to find out what it was. Maybe Dark Souls 2? I hear its easier, though I couldn't care less...

"One Shot"?

It sounds like you're right at the start of the game, and nothing can possibly one shot you save for the Black Knight who is meant to be optional, nor are there any "corner skeletons".

Dark Souls is really quite easy for the most part. It has a learning curve, unlike most games, but even then, if you can't be bothered to learn you can easily summon your way through the whole thing.
You go watch a speedrun (or any non-blind run to be honest), see how they breeze through it, and tell me it looks hard.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

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what class did you choose? i really cant remember getting one shotted apart from falling and it really shouldnt take you that many hits to kill a guy, you can easily sidestep or block most damage with a good sheild, just go for backstabs

The Bandit? Went for a kinda Mongolian look to him too. And blocking is difficult. I can do it, but its like being a turtle. Hiding in your shell doesn't make the enemies go away or stop attacking. And with archers shooting from different directions, good luck blocking them all.

 

[major_chaos]

Not entirely sure what you want from me. The skeleton archers one-shot kill me from across the castle.

... what? Are you talking about the skeletons in the area under the graveyard? Not only can those not one shot you at any point, that's not an area you need to go to till late in the game.

The skeletons hiding behind corners one-shot kill me when I see them.

... Its a third person game. If you are getting jumped around corners its not the game's fault

The giant knight with the sword one-shot kills me.

No he doesn't. Maybe at base VIT with no armor he kills you in two hits, but in that case why are you naked and why didn't you level up? did you put all your points in RES?

The fire-breathing dragon one-shot kills me.

Fair enough, that one actually can 1-shot you easy. Good thing you can just run past him.

The zombies - to be fair - don't one-shot kill, they just don't die. Ever.

Ok, that's 100% sure now, you are either lying or you never replaced the broken short sword from the tutorial. The basic zombies go down in around 3 hits from basic unupgraded weapons, and instantly to anything that's been upgraded. Only way they would take more hits than that is if you are using the broken SS, or a dagger, and if you have a dagger you can stunlock them to death super fast because of the swing speed. Did you somehow miss the blacksmith that upgrades equipment?

Oh! And don't even get me started on those regenerating skeletons.

Divine weapons keep them down permanently, as does killing a nearby necromancer or knocking them off cliffs.

We apparently played two different games.

Yea I played Dark Souls, I'm starting to think you played Watch DSP's LP of Dark Souls.
EDIT: reinsalled the game to check my numbers. There is no way you were getting oneshotted by skeletons or the first 2 Black Knights. Basic zombies are 1-2 hits to kill with starting weapon as bandit, armored basic zombies 2-4, Balder knights 3-5 and the first that don't die to 1 backstab. Seeing around corners is as easy as I remembered and ambushes are normaly telegraphed to hell.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

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You are either lying, or playing the game profoundly wrong. Not even the strongest bosses should ever one shot you, and I don't remember anything besides bosses and minibosses taking more than a few hits to kill.

OT: yea, no. I love Dark Souls but it doesn't belong on this list. DKS isn't really even a hard game, its a game that demands a lot and tells you very little. Once you overcome the vertical learning curve its only moderately challenging outside of a few bullshit areas (fuuuuuuck Anor Londo, fuck TOTG and fuck Lost Izalith).

Not entirely sure what you want from me. The skeleton archers one-shot kill me from across the castle. The skeletons hiding behind corners one-shot kill me when I see them. The giant knight with the sword one-shot kills me. The fire-breathing dragon one-shot kills me. The zombies - to be fair - don't one-shot kill, they just don't die. Ever. Oh! And don't even get me started on those regenerating skeletons.
So can't help you, mate. We apparently played two different games. But the game you played sounds fun! Can't wait to find out what it was. Maybe Dark Souls 2? I hear its easier, though I couldn't care less...

"One Shot"?

It sounds like you're right at the start of the game, and nothing can possibly one shot you save for the Black Knight who is meant to be optional, nor are there any "corner skeletons".

Dark Souls is really quite easy for the most part. It has a learning curve, unlike most games, but even then, if you can't be bothered to learn you can easily summon your way through the whole thing.
You go watch a speedrun (or any non-blind run to be honest), see how they breeze through it, and tell me it looks hard.

I wouldn't waste your time. This person talks about the smugness of people who play the game and then smugly dismisses anybody who wants to try and discuss it.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

FTL: Advanced on hard.

Now there's something you just can't beat.

._.

 

[garjian]

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what class did you choose? i really cant remember getting one shotted apart from falling and it really shouldnt take you that many hits to kill a guy, you can easily sidestep or block most damage with a good sheild, just go for backstabs

The Bandit? Went for a kinda Mongolian look to him too. And blocking is difficult. I can do it, but its like being a turtle. Hiding in your shell doesn't make the enemies go away or stop attacking. And with archers shooting from different directions, good luck blocking them all.

Not only do I not use a shield in any Souls games, I actually can't. Even now.
Trying to use one puts me in a defensive mindset with which I tend to do worse, and even on the character I force to use shields, I generally forget to use it entirely and he basically becomes a one-handed swordsman.
I much prefer rolling, as it's just... flat-out better.

My 'first' character (discounting the actual first character I ruined using the Dragon Breath infinite souls glitch, who was a Deprived) was a Bandit, and I never even picked up the Spider Shield. Used the Battle Axe until I found and could use the Zweihander, which I used in one hand alongside a Caestus throughout the entirety of the characters life (I used it in one hand primarily because I hate the way the character looked when holding it in two hands, but I'm pretty sure I preferred the moveset anyway).
When I was excited for DS2 and I went back to DS1 for a little while, he switched to the Black Knight Greatsword I think... I upgraded it, but I'm not sure if I kept it on. Either way, it was for a day or so.

Point is, while I know that's not a usual situation and that most people seem pretty comfortable with shields, you do not need a shield to make progress at all.

Trust me, you'll get better when you stop blaming the game and exaggerating the difficulty.
Do go and watch somebody play it... anyone with experience with the game can plough through it with little trouble.

 

[caballitomalo]

I remember beating all the ninja gaiden games I came across back when I was a kid... but that could be either me having that "aburdly high ability at video games that kids some how have" (which I don't have anymore) or me remembering wring.

Any way, if theres a game I know belongs on that list is FTL.

I couldn't beat that sucker with cheats on. Boy did I try... but alass it was the experience I guess. But trust me, FTL has got to be one of the hardest games made in years.

 

[ExtraDebit]

For me personally was Battletoads and contra on the snes and super meat boy. These games are hard but fair and test the very limits of your hand eye coordination and memory (in the case of battletoads).

 

[Julius Terrell]

I've never been able to get to the credits scene of Tetris :,(
That game is hard as hell!

Tetris 2 for the SNES would like to have a word with you. Normal mode is more impossible.

Another series that should be mentioned in beatmania IIDX. The most hardcore music on the planet!


Inhuman dexterity is all that's required

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

No text adventures? Good luck completing Spellbreaker or Curses without a walkthrough, although the ubiquity of walkthroughs on the net in our age probably banishes these type of games to the dustbin, which is a shame. I was expecting a Rogue-like game or two to make the list, or a dungeon-crawler RPG like one of the Gold Box games. I've never actually completed an Ultima game despite playing most of them for many hours (well, except VIII - does that count?). There's something about not knowing what to do or where to go in those games which adds to the difficulty, and it's not just a matter of killing everything on the map.

 

[andago]

"One Shot"?

It sounds like you're right at the start of the game, and nothing can possibly one shot you save for the Black Knight who is meant to be optional, nor are there any "corner skeletons".

Dark Souls is really quite easy for the most part. It has a learning curve, unlike most games, but even then, if you can't be bothered to learn you can easily summon your way through the whole thing.
You go watch a speedrun (or any non-blind run to be honest), see how they breeze through it, and tell me it looks hard.

OT: yea, no. I love Dark Souls but it doesn't belong on this list. DKS isn't really even a hard game, its a game that demands a lot and tells you very little. Once you overcome the vertical learning curve its only moderately challenging outside of a few bullshit areas (fuuuuuuck Anor Londo, fuck TOTG and fuck Lost Izalith).

I just went through Tomb Of The Giants in Dark Souls, and that area is waaay more irritating and cheap in comparison to Anor Londo.

For the archers, you can just run up to them, strafe to lure one away from the range of the other archer, and just treat it like a normal black/silver knight encounter.

Dog Skeletons are BS though.

Aside from those few tidbits(and Blighttown to be sure), the game isn't that difficult. It's just demanding, in the same way that say, Shogun 2 is demanding. If you just Ctrl+A and Right Click in that game, you can have your s**t ruined rather quickly, but use proper tactics and the fight becomes balanced, similarly to how paying attention(in the non-cheap areas) results in safe exploration.

Is it the new meta to claim that the Souls games aren't hard now? I mean, I saw your guys' posts and bolded the parts that in my opinion give great examples of why Dark Souls IS a hard game. Difficulty and challenge doesn't necessarily have to come in the form of skill or coordination (which in my opinion Dark Souls still has), but also in knowledge building and understanding. I mean to me this is like saying a game isn't difficult, except for the parts where it is difficult ...

Using speedruns as a method of demonstrating the ease of a game isn't a great argument either, considering I Want to Be the Boshy can be completed in around half an hour I think it was.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

"One Shot"?

It sounds like you're right at the start of the game, and nothing can possibly one shot you save for the Black Knight who is meant to be optional, nor are there any "corner skeletons".

Dark Souls is really quite easy for the most part. It has a learning curve, unlike most games, but even then, if you can't be bothered to learn you can easily summon your way through the whole thing.
You go watch a speedrun (or any non-blind run to be honest), see how they breeze through it, and tell me it looks hard.

OT: yea, no. I love Dark Souls but it doesn't belong on this list. DKS isn't really even a hard game, its a game that demands a lot and tells you very little. Once you overcome the vertical learning curve its only moderately challenging outside of a few bullshit areas (fuuuuuuck Anor Londo, fuck TOTG and fuck Lost Izalith).

I just went through Tomb Of The Giants in Dark Souls, and that area is waaay more irritating and cheap in comparison to Anor Londo.

For the archers, you can just run up to them, strafe to lure one away from the range of the other archer, and just treat it like a normal black/silver knight encounter.

Dog Skeletons are BS though.

Aside from those few tidbits(and Blighttown to be sure), the game isn't that difficult. It's just demanding, in the same way that say, Shogun 2 is demanding. If you just Ctrl+A and Right Click in that game, you can have your s**t ruined rather quickly, but use proper tactics and the fight becomes balanced, similarly to how paying attention(in the non-cheap areas) results in safe exploration.

Is it the new meta to claim that the Souls games aren't hard now? I mean, I saw your guys' posts and bolded the parts that in my opinion give great examples of why Dark Souls IS a hard game. Difficulty and challenge doesn't necessarily have to come in the form of skill or coordination (which in my opinion Dark Souls still has), but also in knowledge building and understanding. I mean to me this is like saying a game isn't difficult, except for the parts where it is difficult ...

Using speedruns as a method of demonstrating the ease of a game isn't a great argument either, considering I Want to Be the Boshy can be completed in around half an hour I think it was.

They have difficult bits, but once you get into the rhythm of the game, it has a reasonable difficulty curve, albeit spiking at certain sections. Overall though, the game isn't some paragon of difficulty that most non-players claim it to be.

Just as a sidenote, at time of writing, this is still during my first playthrough.

 

[garjian]

Using speedruns as a method of demonstrating the ease of a game isn't a great argument either, considering I Want to Be the Boshy can be completed in around half an hour I think it was.

(or any non-blind run to be honest)

A little experience with that game is all you need to understand the poise damage of your weapon, how safe each swing is, how much damage it'll do and how much range it has... also, you get to know the enemies just as well.

Nobody gets stuck in Undead Burg on their second playthrough.

 

[Odbarc]

The Hardest Games You'll Ever Play (And Never Beat)

Despite the painful memories, we've painstakingly compiled a list of some of the most challenging games we've ever played, from the early 90s to present.

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Despite my interest, I don't think I'll ever care enough to play and beat Ogre Battle on the SNES. I like so much about it but I had the micromanagement of the armies. It would be nice if I knew what I was going up against before I go up against it and being asked to use lower level characters to gain Karma to unlock Promotions really stifles me.
Love the art, love the idea of the game, love the unique battle system, love the Tarot Cards and pretty much everything else about it.
Except I always feel like I'm doing something wrong and that I'm falling behind and barely making it through the game.

I don't even know that it's hard-hard or that I'm missing one or two details or strategies or ideas that keeps me from going on step further.

 

[andago]

They have difficult bits, but once you get into the rhythm of the game, it has a reasonable difficulty curve, albeit spiking at certain sections. Overall though, the game isn't some paragon of difficulty that most non-players claim it to be.

Just as a sidenote, at time of writing, this is still during my first playthrough.

Using speedruns as a method of demonstrating the ease of a game isn't a great argument either, considering I Want to Be the Boshy can be completed in around half an hour I think it was.

(or any non-blind run to be honest)

A little experience with that game is all you need to understand the poise damage of your weapon, how safe each swing is, how much damage it'll do and how much range it has... also, you get to know the enemies just as well.

Nobody gets stuck in Undead Burg on their second playthrough.

You're saying that noone gets stuck on undead burg on their second playthrough. I agree. Like I said, for me the difficulty in the game comes from establishing knowledge and understanding; of the core mechanics and statistics, of the areas and where you need to go, of the enemies and bosses and their respective movesets, of items and weapons and where to find them.

All of this is well established towards the end and on subsequent playthroughs, which makes the game substantially more manageable. It's easy to say that bosses or enemies are pushovers when you have a certain weapon or upgraded equipment to a certain level, but a lot of people won't necessarily know that or make the connection on their first playthrough since all of this knowledge has be gained by the player instead of being gifted, and it makes the game hard in my opinion.

This doesn't even touch on the skill involved in playing the game. The Souls' games are pretty unique compared to other games in terms of combat, and getting to grip with how it works and how to fight effectively is a difficulty in itself.

I didn't mention where you suggested to watch "any non blind run" because I have actually watched a few on twitch, and I'd say the large majority of the people playing were having a hard time of it. Good on you guys if you find it trivial, but I'm fairly confident that to a lot of people these are hard games, and not just to the "casual CoD gamers" that someone else on this thread patronisingly suggested. I'm not saying it's the hardest game in the world (although to some people it may well be) but to dismiss it as easy for the majority of people, I think, is not true.

Why people feel they need to point out it's ease for them tends to stem, in my experience, from a reaction to it being marketed as difficult game, which I find as annoying as those that say it is only famous for its difficulty, instead of being a great game in its own right.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

They have difficult bits, but once you get into the rhythm of the game, it has a reasonable difficulty curve, albeit spiking at certain sections. Overall though, the game isn't some paragon of difficulty that most non-players claim it to be.

Just as a sidenote, at time of writing, this is still during my first playthrough.

Using speedruns as a method of demonstrating the ease of a game isn't a great argument either, considering I Want to Be the Boshy can be completed in around half an hour I think it was.

(or any non-blind run to be honest)

A little experience with that game is all you need to understand the poise damage of your weapon, how safe each swing is, how much damage it'll do and how much range it has... also, you get to know the enemies just as well.

Nobody gets stuck in Undead Burg on their second playthrough.

You're saying that noone gets stuck on undead burg on their second playthrough. I agree. Like I said, for me the difficulty in the game comes from establishing knowledge and understanding; of the core mechanics and statistics, of the areas and where you need to go, of the enemies and bosses and their respective movesets, of items and weapons and where to find them.

All of this is well established towards the end and on subsequent playthroughs, which makes the game substantially more manageable. It's easy to say that bosses or enemies are pushovers when you have a certain weapon or upgraded equipment to a certain level, but a lot of people won't necessarily know that or make the connection on their first playthrough since all of this knowledge has be gained by the player instead of being gifted, and it makes the game hard in my opinion.

This doesn't even touch on the skill involved in playing the game. The Souls' games are pretty unique compared to other games in terms of combat, and getting to grip with how it works and how to fight effectively is a difficulty in itself.

I didn't mention where you suggested to watch "any non blind run" because I have actually watched a few on twitch, and I'd say the large majority of the people playing were having a hard time of it. Good on you guys if you find it trivial, but I'm fairly confident that to a lot of people these are hard games, and not just to the "casual CoD gamers" that someone else on this thread patronisingly suggested. I'm not saying it's the hardest game in the world (although to some people it may well be) but to dismiss it as easy for the majority of people, I think, is not true.

Why people feel they need to point out it's ease for them tends to stem, in my experience, from a reaction to it being marketed as difficult game, which I find as annoying as those that say it is only famous for its difficulty, instead of being a great game in its own right.

You act as if the necessary resources are unobtainable unless you somehow get lucky and the game just gives that knowledge to you.

As of right now, there are literally hundreds of guides, thousands of videos absolutely littered with helpful information across the entire internet: if you are stuck or if a boss is really difficult, there are more than enough resources available to help you with your trouble. Not mentioning the three wikis this game has(yes, three separate wikis).

Dark Souls is a game that encourages experimentation, hell, one of the devs for Demon Souls(which is way harder than Dark) responded to a query on a forum by telling the player to "get the boss stuck on the geometry; it makes the fight easier". There is no such thing as 'cheesing it' in this game, which is why it isn't that difficult. It's only difficult in any way because it sometimes spikes in difficulty,(like the aforementioned Tomb Of The Giants), but even then you aren't completely lost. The game is difficult insofar to your limit for tenacity.

 

[andago]

You act as if the necessary resources are unobtainable unless you somehow get lucky and the game just gives that knowledge to you.

As of right now, there are literally hundreds of guides, thousands of videos absolutely littered with helpful information across the entire internet: if you are stuck or if a boss is really difficult, there are more than enough resources available to help you with your trouble. Not mentioning the three wikis this game has(yes, three separate wikis).

Dark Souls is a game that encourages experimentation, hell, one of the devs for Demon Souls(which is way harder than Dark) responded to a query on a forum by telling the player to "get the boss stuck on the geometry; it makes the fight easier". There is no such thing as 'cheesing it' in this game, which is why it isn't that difficult. It's only difficult in any way because it sometimes spikes in difficulty,(like the aforementioned Tomb Of The Giants), but even then you aren't completely lost. The game is difficult insofar to your limit for tenacity.

Again I'm not sure I find that satisfactory. That would be like sayin a puzzle game is easy because you looked up all the solutions on gamefaqs. The gist of my argument is that difficulty comes first from establishing understanding of the game, so obviously looking up everything on a wiki will make it easy, because you're using the experience and understanding that other people worked for to play the game. Would the equivalent then not be that the "I Wanna Be ..." games are easy if every time you got stuck you get someone to play and upload the save file for you? This is, I would say, why most people hasten to specify "blind runs" when playing live or uploading videos, because of the importance the gaining of understanding is to the experience of the game.

I never said all this is unnobtainble in-game and apologise if it was implied in my post, I'm just saying it's not as granted as most people seem to assume when they say the game is easy.

 

[garjian]

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Well, that doesn't make the game hard in my opinion.
Dark Souls gives you a means to learn how to fight enemies without risk, and even so, there's very little penalty for dying anyway.
And even on top of that, it's not like anything requires a very particular weapon, or absolute precision, or anything like that. There are many ways to approach any given situation, both in offense and defense, and my experience is that you can go through that game using pretty much anything just fine.

Whether or not you define that as easy, hard or anything in between, a game as forgiving doesn't belong on this list.

 

[Gorrath]

While the lack of Battle Toads is still a bit surprising, what I want to know is where is Silver Surfer? The game was just freaking unreasonable!

 

[t.tocs]

Dark Souls is definitely beatable if you put your mind to it. Once you "get it" you're set. You have to conquer your fear of the unknown though. If you are scared of dying or get frustrated easily, this game isn't for you. But it's certainly not unbeatable. As others have said, Silver Surfer and Battletoads would be more suitable for this list than Dark Souls.