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For the older gamers: Name your Top 3 hardest NES, SNES and Game Boy games you managed to beat as a kid

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
You beat the first TMNT on the NES? Hats off to you

I struggled with that one, and could make it alllll the way into the Technodrome but never to the very end. There's one ridiculous corridor in the Technodrome which would kill my remaining turtles.

If you are talking about the Jetpack laser guys, you're supposed to use the scrolls or whatever they're called. Even on an emulator using save states it's hard to get by them without it.

Yeah years later I read about it and learned that the scrolls are the only way... but I never did item-maxing on my runs in the game, probably because I had to be fast or I'd run out of play time even on a Saturday. So I once I discovered the fastest route on each map, I would generally follow that and skip any extras or items. Too bad, because It seems like they designed that hallway with the laser guys to basically be impossible without having ready items in advance.
Allow me to blow your mind.

In that infamous corridor, proceed very slowly and when one of the jetpack guys shows up, immediately duck and stand still.
The thing with how those guys move is that they'll come at you shooting from the edge of the screen, then they'll fly backwards... and disappear. Forever.
This is guaranteed to work as the corridor gets tighter and tighter. You may have to kill the first guy, and that's it - maybe not even that one, I don't remember very well. Then there's one mandatory jetpack guy just before Shredder, that one is a miniboss and has to be killed. But with this trick, the corridor of death is a cinch. Just don't allow one of those enemies to spawn fully by letting him get completely onscreen, otherwise he'll stay there until he's dead and if you have more than one to deal with... good luck.

Wow, some of you in here beat some ridiculously hard games. Kudos to you, guys!
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
From the 8-bit era, I remember being pretty proud when I beat Miracle Warriors, Kenseiden, and Time Soldiers, though it's hard to say how "hard" they were through a modern lens.

On Genesis, I remember Bio-Hazard Battle and Gunstar Heroes being big ones for me.
 

Goon_Bong

Member
38427-the-battle-of-olympus-nes-front-cover.jpg
 

Lunarorbit

Member
Damn. Seeing lots of tmnt, ninja Gaiden, battle toads.

Someone put contra 3 and I used to beat that alot. Varied enemies and environments. Not super hard.

Ghost and ghouls... Again damn
 
Mega man X was pretty unforgiven... It took e me quite a while to finish it for the first time.

TMNT was also pretty hard, it has that stage where you have to throw the bad guys at the screen and the game never really tells you how to do that...
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
In no order a few off the top of my head

Contra III
Super Aleste hard mode
Street of Rage 2 in hard mode
Aladdin (SNES)
Street fighter 2 hardest setting
Gunstar hero

Megaman
 
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NES: Ninja Gaiden, Blaster Master, Battletoads
SNES: Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Simpsons Bart's Nightmare
GB: Any simpsons or TMNT game.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
I’m just going by my ancient memory here

NES:
1.Ghosts n Goblins
2. Ninja Gaiden
3. Castlevania

Gameboy:
Didn’t play anything particularly hard

Genesis:
Ghouls n Ghosts
E-Swat …maybe?
Castlevania Bloodlines
 
NES: Ghosts & Goblins. Both endings.

Back when this game was still new (winter 1986), a buddy and I did this in one sitting. Was fun passing the controller on every continue.

We didn't know about the "real" ending until the gut wrenching restart for the mandatory second run. We got pissed and continued through on principle!

Man that game was hard, but so much fun.
 

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Allow me to blow your mind.

In that infamous corridor, proceed very slowly and when one of the jetpack guys shows up, immediately duck and stand still.
The thing with how those guys move is that they'll come at you shooting from the edge of the screen, then they'll fly backwards... and disappear. Forever.
This is guaranteed to work as the corridor gets tighter and tighter. You may have to kill the first guy, and that's it - maybe not even that one, I don't remember very well. Then there's one mandatory jetpack guy just before Shredder, that one is a miniboss and has to be killed. But with this trick, the corridor of death is a cinch. Just don't allow one of those enemies to spawn fully by letting him get completely onscreen, otherwise he'll stay there until he's dead and if you have more than one to deal with... good luck.
This information could have changed my childhood.

Imagine if I'd seen Splinter turn back into a real man at the end

giphy.gif
 
Most games were hard. Not difficult hard but you have to keep dying so you can memorize patterns because otherwise you will realize this game is really short hard. I still enjoyed myself and ended up beating just about everything I played because I didn't have thousands of games in my backlog. I considered myself lucky to be able to get a game every few weeks, so I played through them no matter what, whereas now I'll give up on a game in a few minutes if there is something particularly off-putting.
 
I don‘t consider myself old just because I had a great childhood!

Nes: Zelda
SNES: Super ghouls n ghosts
Gameboy: rescue of princess blobette
 

F31 Leopard

Member
NES:
Ninja Gaiden 3 hardest of the trilogy due to limited continues. You had to be on point.
Batman: The Videogame
TMNT

SNES
Super Metroid
Mega Man X
Super Punch Out
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
NES
Bayou Billy
God gamer right there. I never came close to beating BB.

As for some of you chatting Contra 3. It wasnt hard after you get used to it even at the hardest difficulty. The game is only 6 levels.

But in the last level you could always cheese the game racking up extra lives (I dont think it had a max?). Just stand on one of the small raised platforms in the middle, equip homing missile. put an elastic around the fire button and rack up extra men. The demon enemies cant touch you and your homing missiles make short work of them. Those enemies are worth a lot of pts.
 

dudemcgrude

Neo Member
NES:
Zelda 2
Mega man 2
Punch out

Gameboy:
Final fantasy adventure
Metroid 2
Links awakening

not exactly difficult games I guess but it took me forever since they were confusing. I actually had to write a letter to Nintendo power to find a bottle in Links awakening lol. It was under the bridge!

Snes - Don’t remember what I found difficult but I remember beating:

Super Metroid
Zelda 3
100% Mario world
 

Georome

Member
NES
Ninja Gaiden
Castlevania

I feel like we need to drill down here.

In my opinion:

Ninja Gaiden 1: hard as shit, but doable, beat it several times
Ninja Gaiden 2: ludicrously hard, seems barely possible, did it once
Ninja Gaiden 3: so insane I stopped trying

Castlevania 1: hard as shit, but doable, beat it several times
Castlevania 2: with a guide, not very hard at all
Castlevania 3: insanely hard, but not as hard as Ninja Gaiden 2-3
 
I don't think I beat a single game on the SNES or Genesis. Honestly, I didn't start finishing games until I got a ps1 memory card, months after I got a ps1 lol. Around 5th grade.

Actually, I think I beat Spear of Destiny on DOS. That was probably my first full playthrough. I came close on Kirby's Dreamworld for GameBoy too.
 

Sleepwalker

Gold Member
I remember Aladdin on the SNES being a pain in the ass, as a kid I also couldn't beat sunset riders in coop with my brother despite trying many times, I also found contra difficult.

I haven't revisited the SNES past my childhood so no clue of those games hold up or not.
 

Pelao

Member
NES:
- Contra (Coop with my brother).
- Hokuto no Ken. As far as I know, the first game was never ported from the Famicom to the NES, so it must have been a bootleg cartridge.
- Bart vs. the World.

SNES/Genesis:
- The Donkey Kong Country games.
- Contra III (Coop with my brother).
- The main Sonic games + 3D Blast and Spinball.

Game Boy (I played this emulated. Never owned the console):
- The Pokémon RPG games (Red, Blue and Yellow), which was a great feat for me because I didn't know any English as a kid.
- The Pokémon Trading Card Game in Japanese. Another feat, because I didn't know any Japanese either.
 

GraveX1

Neo Member
NES
Ninja Gaiden
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Ghosts n Goblins
Castlevania
Legend of Zelda
Metroid
 

Teletraan1

Banned
I used to rent NES and SNES games on a 3 day rental and completed most of them in that time. This was pre internet where you didn't know shit about anything and just blasted through stuff. While not a NES-SNES classic the hardest game I ever beat was getting S rank (no deaths, everything destroyed) on Contra Shattered Soldier in 2 player with my roommate.
 

mrmustard

Banned
I'm surprised people really beat Battletoads. I even had trouble with savegames and rewind a few years ago. Took me so many tries.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
NES: Ghosts & Goblins. Both endings.

Back when this game was still new (winter 1986), a buddy and I did this in one sitting. Was fun passing the controller on every continue.

We didn't know about the "real" ending until the gut wrenching restart for the mandatory second run. We got pissed and continued through on principle!
Arrested Development No GIF


Unless your “one sitting” lasted for a week straight with no pause to eat, shit or sleep, it’s easier to believe that I really wasted the chance to get a million dollars from a genuine Nigerian prince a few years ago.

I mean. I’d really want to be able to believe you. But… no. It’s fucking GnG. Even if you used to be Young_and_Quick, this one is too much.

I’m being facetious. But I’m also dead serious
 

Mitsurux

Member
The one that comes to mind is Mike Tyson's Punch out - NES
Beating it was a big deal back in the day.
Then over the course of the next few weeks having to "Prove it" to a bunch of people by beating it again when they were present.
 
I'm surprised people really beat Battletoads. I even had trouble with savegames and rewind a few years ago. Took me so many tries.

I had a lot of difficulty with Clinger Winger on emulator. Ended up having to cheat the orb's speed to get past. I think that might have been an emulation issue making that hard level nearly impossible.
 

mrmustard

Banned
I had a lot of difficulty with Clinger Winger on emulator. Ended up having to cheat the orb's speed to get past. I think that might have been an emulation issue making that hard level nearly impossible.
That Level was a nightmare. I played it via Rare Replay so i guess it's like the original. Still though.
 

Three

Member
I completed all the games I had back then because my game library was small. Were Maximum Carnage on the SNES and Mercenary Force on the GameBoy considered hard? Because that shit was tough to beat for me.
 

graywolf323

Gold Member
not sure about top 3 but my sister & I did manage to beat both Aladdin & The Lion King on Genesis
 
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93xfan

Banned
NES
Double Dragon 2
Can’t think of other hard ones at the moment

SNES:
Yoshi’s island
Donkey Kong Country 2 (40 DK coins and all bonus stages found)
 

GZ!

Member
Nes:

TMNT
Double Dragon 1 and 3. 2 wasnt that hard imo.
Castlevania 1 and 3. Again 2 wasnt that hard.
Batman
Megaman

SNES:

Actraiser.
 
I'm curios what games you beat, because there were lots of frustrating games i couldn't beat even if my life would have depended on it.

They don't have to be in any 'official' lists, just tell us what you think.

NES:
Punch Out
Mega Man
Metal Gear

Game Boy:
Bart's Escape from Camp Deadly
Bart vs. The Juggernauts
Batman: The Video Game

SNES:
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Bart’s Nightmare
Virtual Bart

My Top 10 of the most frustrating games:
Kid Icarus (NES)
Battletoads (NES)
The Adventures of Bayou Billy (NES)
Gradius (NES)
Life Force (NES)
Trojan (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
Skate or Die (Game Boy)
The Amazing Spider-Man (Game Boy)
Super Ghouls'n Ghosts (SNES)
I'm not sure if all of these are considered hard. But I beat these (among others) with no cheats on OG hardware. I didn't have Game Boy.

NES:
Batman
Mega Man 2 (hard mode)
Zelda 2 AoL

SNES:
Mega Man X
The Lion King
DKC 2
 
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