Top 5 Hardest NES Games - MSNBC

[bangtango]

I totally forgot about Bayou Billy. Impossible game for the majority of gamers. I've seen a video of a person who completed it in one life, but it was probably a tool assisted run.

I hate Bayou Billy, but the music to the first stage, the only music you'll ever hear unless you play through stage select mode, is that one awesome song that plays in the regular stages.

This is one of those NES games that sent me scurrying for the Game Genie, which is the only reason I ever beat it. So I'm a lowdown, rotten, dirty "cheater."

I agree with you 100% about the music. I can hum that tune today as I type this and I haven't played Bayou Billy in probably ten years. That theme is sweet.

even for a casual gamer perspective battletoads is a very beatable game. Punchout can be hard but its pure memorization you will beat it after playing it enough times and then after that you will beat it every time you play it, Its just not really a skill based game.

Is Battletoads really a hard game or is it a game with one or two hard levels? I breeze through Level 1 and 2 only to be forever stuck on the speed bike stages and have never gotten by them. Are the other "action" levels afterwards really that difficult?

[Garry Silljo]

Bayou Billy isn't that hard after you figure out to stick and move rather use traditionally beatem up tactics. The driving stages were bad too but if you just drive slowly and don't try and rush they can be managed as well.

BattleToads had a lot of tough stages. For me, winning that one was in large part memorization.

[kupomogli]

After the bike part, the hardest part in the game, it gets alot easier, but it's still pretty difficult. The ice stage is pretty hard.

[jperryss]

BattleToads had a lot of tough stages. For me, winning that one was in large part memorization.

Agreed on the memorization part. Once you hit level 3 (turbo tunnel) there are really no 'easy' stages in the game.

For some reason the underwater duct level stands out as the one that I always had the hardest time with. I knew that level like the back of my hand and still struggled with it every time.

The ice level is tricky. Parts 3 and 4 of the snake pit level are brutal, but there's a warp in part 2 that skips them and the fire level also IIRC.

The level where you climb the corridor was tough because of the poison-gas and how easily you would fall off the bottom of the screen and die. Same goes for the final stage where you climb the outside of the tower (there's some neat graphic effects in that stage too).

The 3rd part of the 'race to the bomb' level and the clinger winger level are tough, gotta have real quick reflexes on those two. Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (SNES) had an even harder clinger winger stage that required ducking and jumping in addition to just zipping around the track.

Like I said, nothing really 'easy' about the game once you hit stage 3.

[bangtango]

I don't get why people put Gauntlet on their hardest lists. Sure, getting through it will eat up a lot of your time, but nothing in it actually requires a lot of brainpower or lightning quick reflexes, it's pretty much all memorization. It was one of the few that I had as a kid and I didn't have much trouble beating it with the elf or the wizard, although I never completed a warrior run because he was just too damn slow.

Let's examine the case for Gauntlet.

1. Multiple exits in a lot of levels, including "fake" exits or exits that take you back to earlier levels.

2. Monster generators that you have to stop and destroy unless you want the room continually flooded with regenerating monsters that'd also fit in perfectly with the regenerating monsters seen in the NES Mega Man, Contra and Ninja Gaiden games.

3. An energy meter that continually depletes just by walking, meaning that even in rooms with limited enemies you always have to concerned with food.

I don't think the gameplay of Gauntlet itself is overly difficult. But some of these conditions described above make the game harder than the average game.

Find me more than a handful of NES games that share all three traits and I'll humbly stand down and drop Gauntlet from my list.

[pseudonym]

I didn't find Gauntlet that hard, you just need to know how to deal with the generators, and make sure you find the exit in the treasure rooms. I've never finished this game with 2-players though. One person usually dies towards the end.

[The 1 2 P]

This is one of those NES games that sent me scurrying for the Game Genie, which is the only reason I ever beat it. So I'm a lowdown, rotten, dirty "cheater."

I had to use a Game Genie to beat Ninja Gaiden 2 as well. But that wasn't cheating, that was making it a fair fight

[Tron 2.0]

Bayou Billy isn't that hard after you figure out to stick and move rather use traditionally beatem up tactics. The driving stages were bad too but if you just drive slowly and don't try and rush they can be managed as well.

BattleToads had a lot of tough stages. For me, winning that one was in large part memorization.

Agreed,that's how ya play bayou billy get those patterns down if you want to beat it.I all most did in it's day but i ran out of continues for the final boss.

[Zing]

Three words:

Milon's Secret Castle

[kupomogli]

I had to use a Game Genie to beat Ninja Gaiden 2 as well. But that wasn't cheating, that was making it a fair fight

I had enough lives at the end of the game to finish off one form of the last boss, die against the next, finish the next, die against the next, repeat. I can beat NG2 without continuing.

[The 1 2 P]

I can beat NG2 without continuing.

Do me a favor then. Make a video of your next run and upload it to youtube so I can watch.

[jperryss]

Do me a favor then. Make a video of your next run and upload it to youtube so I can watch.

Considering all the TAS videos out there, that still wouldn't prove anything.

And NG2 was the only one I could consistently finish. Not on a single credit though.

[The 1 2 P]

Considering all the TAS videos out there, that still wouldn't prove anything.

True but I like watching run thrus of difficult games, but only legit ones.

[DDCecil]

I can easily beat Ninja Gaiden II in ~13-15 minutes every single time I play it.

Now Ninja Gaiden III, I only beat that sucker once.

On Ninja Gaiden I, the only way I can beat the game is this: I get to the final boss, die, do 6-1 through 6-4 all over again, and repeat until I beat the game.

[kupomogli]

Do me a favor then. Make a video of your next run and upload it to youtube so I can watch.

Alright. I'm playing FF for the NES right now, but once I finish that I'll play through NG2.

[Zing]

Ninja Gaiden was one of my favorite games back when it was new. I was able to consistently finish it without dying. I wouldn't possibly remember all of the patterns and tricks now, though.

Ninja Gaiden II, I remember finishing, but I didn't play it enough to master it like the first.

[bangtango]

I had to use a Game Genie to beat Ninja Gaiden 2 as well. But that wasn't cheating, that was making it a fair fight

Really?

I beat Ninja Gaiden 2 the first day I brought it home. It was a piece of cake compared to the first one. Tecmo made the power-ups far more effective and also reduced the amount of damage you take from a lot of the enemies.

Yet I can't beat Bayou Billy "legitimately." Nor have I been able to beat Gauntlet, Paperboy, Battletoads, Castlevania III, Mega Man, Rad Racer, Deadly Towers or Mega Man 3 without "cheating." I tried like hell to finish some of them, too.

As many years as I've been playing the NES, there are still a good slug of games that have always had my number.

In my case, though, the Ninja Gaiden games aren't on the list! For some reason, I've always been able to dominate in those.....

[Baloo]

Really?

I beat Ninja Gaiden 2 the first day I brought it home. It was a piece of cake compared to the first one. Tecmo made the power-ups far more effective and also reduced the amount of damage you take from a lot of the enemies.

Yet I can't beat Bayou Billy "legitimately." Nor have I been able to beat Gauntlet, Paperboy, Battletoads, Castlevania III, Mega Man, Rad Racer, Deadly Towers or Mega Man 3 without "cheating." I tried like hell to finish some of them, too.

As many years as I've been playing the NES, there are still a good slug of games that have always had my number.

In my case, though, the Ninja Gaiden games aren't on the list! For some reason, I've always been able to dominate in those.....

Rad Racer is actually a beatable game? I always thought it was like Pole Position or something and just went on forever, arcade style.

[bangtango]

Rad Racer is actually a beatable game?

It sure is. Not because I've ever beat it. A long time ago, I watched a good friend of mine beat it one night.

On a different occasion, this same friend and I once stayed up nearly all night wondering when I was finally going to make it to the end of Tiger Heli. I'd been playing Tiger Heli for over an hour and told him he could have the NES back to play RBI Baseball just as soon as I beat it. I reasoned with him that I had to be near the end of the game by now, since I'd been playing it for awhile. He made the observation that I was "going through the same levels over and over again." I kept playing for another 45 minutes before I eventually turned off the game and we both went to bed. So he never did get to play RBI Baseball that night. Gotta admit he did have a point about those levels, though!

True story, too.

[kupomogli]

Yeah. Tiger Heli is probably the hardest game to beat. I never thought of games like that. I played Tiger Heli through about two hours straight one time, though I knew it was unbeatable after I came up with the same conclusion previously.

Now that I think about it. Galaga could be considered the most well known hardest game. Not only is Galaga a very hard game regardless, but it may possibly have an ending just no one is good enough to get to it?