I use "most children" as a disclaimer because I'm sure there were some of us that were beating Ghouls 'N Ghosts when we were six. But watching my cousins fumble around with games, I think it's weird that so many games lead children in with a cute and cuddly character they love and then provide a challenge that could only stump them and turn them away. I'm sure some kids toughen up and practice until they can beat it and then grow up to post on Digital Press forums, but I bet more just put the game down and go on to something else.

I posted this here because it seems to show up more often in classic games, but the game that made me think of this was Scooby Doo: Night of 1001 Frights, which I decided at random to pull from my PS2 collection and play last night. With infinite lives and generous checkpoints it's not exactly Ninja Gaiden Black, mind you, but I still managed to get a little frustrated with some of the jumps and really lost because of the game's vague clues about where to go next. That's not exactly what I expected to be provided for the audience that would want a game about a cartoon dog who likes to eat.

A good classic example might be the first Ninja Turtles game for NES. I just find it hard to believe the skill levels of eight-year-old Ninja Turtles fans were really taken into account when designing that dam level.

A lot of of times this comes down to poor programing. Bart Vs. The Space Mutants is ridiculous in its difficulty for all the wrong reasons. And there was a Rocky and Bullwinkle game for SNES that's so frustrating and clunky it's stupefying, I remember getting stuck on the first level because the collision on the platforms was so dodgy I would always walk to the wrong place and fall through them.

So what games can you think of feature both children's characters and surprisingly high difficulty?