The hardest NES game when you were a kid?

[bubba966]

lobster boss was f'in redic. he wasn't susceptible to the pause trick, either.

Exactly. That was as far as I ever got. Tried, and tried, and tried. Could never beat him. Was so frustrating after a few long, hard tries I'd give up and say fuck it.

And I do recall NG not being a cake walk. But recall beating it w/out it being too difficult. I only ever played it with a NES Advantage so that must've made it a bit more reasonable than playing on a regular pad.

 

[Kazuki Dash]

Another game that was a bit of a pain for me was Amagon.



I wound up dying a heck of a lot after the first stage or two, but that happy-go-lucky music made it hard to get too mad at this game.

 

[ggallegos1]

Zelda II's death mountain was pretty rough.

I felt the majority of game son the NES were tougher than other systems. I'm no good gamer by any means, but I do enjoy SMB, Zelda, Final Fantasy, and others a lot. Tons of great games for cheap and very playable, much more so than a lot of current gen games today

 

[ki_atsushi]

Zelda II sticks out in my mind as being an extreme bitch, but I actually did manage to beat it after a marathon session through palace 7. If I remember right it took over half a day and I couldn't even count the continues. Don't think I'll ever bother playing it again.

Double Dragon was tough, but doable. I remember it being all-important to keep Renzou alive, and save the nunchaku for hard fights as well. Cyclone kick is always your friend too.

EDIT: I meant Double Dragon III, lol.

 

[andsuchisdeath]

Double Dragon III isn't that hard.

Spacing. Jump kicks. Sunset flip throw. Hurricane kick baiting. Character management = 1cc

 

[mr_e]

A boy and his blob. Damn near impossible to beat without some sort of guidance.

 

[Moon Jump]

Mike Tyson (Rest of Punch-Out was easy, just not Iron Mike)
Ninja Gaiden 1 (I beat 2 and 3)
Zelda II
Double Dragon III, couldn't get past the 3rd level even with trying to keep everybody in my party alive

With TMNT I found out how to play it but some stages are unfair at times. Pretty much anything side scrolling you've got to use Donny and Leo. I usually use Leo to go through the stages since his weapon has a nice sweep that covers a good area. Then Donny gets used for the boss battles since he hits the hardest. When your using the Turtle Van or any of the underwater levels use Ralph or Mikey since their weapons on foot are worthless.

 

[Darklighterx]

Battletoads for me. I remember my friends and I would always get stuck on the 2nd stage with the bikes and would always lose there. I think we got past it once and we were completely shocked (we died soon after). I still can't beat the game. I think it's quite impossible without cheats/tools.

/thread
Battletoads on the NES was balls hard. Never finished it.

Blaster Master. Never could beat the damn game. Still haven't.

Piece of cake this one. Was my fave so much I could 1CC.

Ninja Gaiden

I never finished it once.

Hardcore platforming at its best, honestly.

Bragging again...not easy but very manageable with the right sub weapons.

 

[Darklighterx]

Battletoads for me. I remember my friends and I would always get stuck on the 2nd stage with the bikes and would always lose there. I think we got past it once and we were completely shocked (we died soon after). I still can't beat the game. I think it's quite impossible without cheats/tools.

Blaster Master. Never could beat the damn game. Still haven't.

Ninja Gaiden

I never finished it once.

Hardcore platforming at its best, honestly.

100%, My parents bought me that thing I remember playing it for about 2 hours and getting so frustrated that I refused to play it after that. My Dad tired it and it was the first time I ever heard him swear. He took it back to the store and demanded a refund for it. The store refused because it was a opened game and he followed up yelling at the manager for ripping off kids and there parents by selling broken garbage... after about half an hour he got his refund (I think just to get him out of the store) and I was not allowed to get any game after that until we rented it first.

Battletoads is doable with 2 players. My brother and I were able to make it through that game as kids. You just need to be as stubborn as the game.
TMNT 1 was also very similar. It took me years, but most of that was because I didn't know how to activate the grappling hook. Once I managed to get that done, it was about 50 more sittings to beat it.

Damn. Props dude. Never met anyone who finished this.

I do recall beating Battletoads after considerable effort. Never touched it again after that.

Ninja Gaiden was tough, but not too bad IMO.


Hardest game for me to beat back then was the Sunsoft Batman game. Was a f'in bitch to get to the end. And the Joker was beyond brutal.

Same here Stuck on the Joker right now.

Deadly Towers.

To this day, I have no fucking clue what I am supposed to do. A small bat will kill you in 2 seconds. It is a terrible game, and I don't think it is meant to be played.

Fuck this game! Hated this piece of shit.

 

[Xian Xi]

Golgo 13 was the hardest I remember. Blaster Master was hard up until you learned the pause trick.

Golgo 13 was a hard one. Blaster Master is still one of my faves and that pause trick totally changed the game. I think I died more from those worms/slugs that would hit my tank.

 

[Neorebel]

I had a strange fascination with Deadly Towers

 

[Azra113]

I was really young when we had the NES, we would always rent games but we had this one game where an evil clown steals your sister and you gotta go inside a circus tent to save her. That shit was impossible.

 

[starslight]

Journey to Silius - so much unavoidable shit.

Terminator 2 - though I haven't played it since I was a kid, I remember never getting past the transport truck stage. Always died almost instantly.

Castlevania was hard but doable, beat it a few times when I was young but it took a lot of practice.

 

[cannonball]

TMNT

 

[Darklighterx]

Exactly. That was as far as I ever got. Tried, and tried, and tried. Could never beat him. Was so frustrating after a few long, hard tries I'd give up and say fuck it.

And I do recall NG not being a cake walk. But recall beating it w/out it being too difficult. I only ever played it with a NES Advantage so that must've made it a bit more reasonable than playing on a regular pad.

The trick to the boss was having a full gun. It made the boss a breeze.

 

[Domino-chan]

Little Nemo: The Dream Master

Fun as hell but good GOD the difficulty is amped up in the final stages. I think I made it to the second part of Nightmare Land and gave up. I still have yet to beat it.

 

[bubba966]

The trick to the boss was having a full gun. It made the boss a breeze.

Oh, I'd get there with a full gun. Still couldn't kill the fucker. After a few annoying tries I'd be pissed and give up. Try it again at a later date with the same results. Love playing the game up until I get to that point. And I tried it again about a month ago. Same damn results.

Not sure why everyone says Zelda II was hard. Not recalling it being an issue.

Wonder how hard it would be for me to beat Batman again? Was a pain back in the day. I should find another copy..

 

[Boredom]

I know I'm very far from being the only person to say this, but I could never beat Contra without the Konami Code. It didn't help that it took me forever to figure out you could jump down through platforms.

 

[fenikso]

A lot of GnG hate in this thread. I (and my father) have beaten this game many times. Hard, sure, but by no means impossible.

I was glad to see Deadly Towers mentioned. 20+ years later and I still don't know what the fuck you were supposed to be doing.
Ninja Gaiden series - I was never any good at any of them.
Milon's Secret Castle
Battletoads - A little tweaking and this series would probably still be around.Too many pissed off kids from back in the day.
Castlevania - Love this series, but the oldschool ones really kick my ass. I finally beat the first one when I picked up the GBA re-release and was able to use the save feature. I've just started in tonight on number III. I'm doing it legit, though, using an NES and the passwords they hand out.
Star Tropics - Love this game so much, but I can never get very far.

 

[Geddon_jt]

I remember it took me a couple years to finish Zelda 1. I didn't have maps and stuff, and I was 7 years old. My play tally read 999 when loading the game by the time I finished.

 

[SNKorSWM]

I know I'm very far from being the only person to say this, but I could never beat Contra without the Konami Code. It didn't help that it took me forever to figure out you could jump down through platforms.

No time limit and no auto scrolling means you can just grab the machine gun and tape down the button to shoot respawning enemies all night. You'll get a few dozen extra lives through points this way. The konami code just speed things up by skipping this part.

 

[norton9478]

I just got done playing through all 9 worlds of the Wii version of "SMB Lost Levels".

Holy shit was Nintendo of America right not to release this game in the states.

The SNES version is very, very frustrating (Like Ninja Gaiden type shit). And that is with 5 lives, and continue from any sub level (say 4-3). Original version only had 3 lives and you had to continue from the beginning of the level (say 4-1).

I probably lost 200 lives on World 8-4.

 

[Comrade Porn King Mikhail]

Hardest as a kid: SMB Lost Levels
Most frustrating: Ninja Gaiden 1 & 2
Hardest game as an adult that was a walkover when I was a kid: Robocop 2

 

[Boredom]

I just got done playing through all 9 worlds of the Wii version of "SMB Lost Levels".

Holy shit was Nintendo of America right not to release this game in the states.

The irony is that far more often, NES and SNES action games were made harder for their US releases. Ninja Gaiden 3 and Castlevania III are prime examples of this.

 

[norton9478]

The irony is that far more often, NES and SNES action games were made harder for their US releases. Ninja Gaiden 3 and Castlevania III are prime examples of this.

Not section-Z.

I'm still pissed about that one. Long ass Family Disc System game where they took away the save feature for the US version.

Even worse is that one time I took a cart apart to clean it and saw that they built it on a Zelda Type PCB (even had a spot for the battery). Cheap ass motherfuckers didn't include a save feature to save a few cents.