Let's compile some of the hardest (retro) games ever made, and try to figure out what the most nigh impossible single player game ever is, starting with a classic: Wizardry 4
I heard someone say Lode Runner is extremely hard without a guide. True?
(In)famous list of difficulty for shoot 'em upshttps://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=56114Same but for classic shootershttps://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=59651Higher number = harder gameAs of this year, I don't know of any major feat in these games that has yet to be accomplished outside of self-imposed challenges. The big thing this year was someone finally defeating inbachi in dodonpachi saidaioujou during a full game run which had never been done before. It was later performed in an arcade by the same guyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCRI69pQpY0I want to try getting good at gradius 3 sometime personally
Probably Zelda ocarina of time
>>11065156Shmups can easily be beaten through a bit of rote memorization though.
>>11065140menus and praying for good rng arent difficulty.
>>11065145>men
Trying to 100% Kuru Kuru Kururin rn. That is what comes to mind from what I played at least.
>>11065370All because you know a layout doesn't mean you can actually execute it anon
>>11065402Moving away from bright pink globs and mashing the fire button doesn't require a high level of execution, anon.
>>11065414lol okay non-player
>>11065415>Immediately resorting to an ad hominem attackConcession accepted.
>>11065425>Boiled argument down to an extremely reductive "just dodge" non-argumentIt was over for you before it even began.
>>11065140This shit gets insane on higher difficulties. You really have to know what you’re doing.
Hardest game of all time: Dodonpachi Daioujou Death Label. AFAIK only 2 people managed to clear it
>>11065432Is that the hardest civ game? Might be fun
>>11065429Pointing out flaws in a genre is not a non-argument.
>>11065448How is it a flaw? Its just simply gameplay. You could say the exact same thing about platformers.
I got until Hawkwind and gave up. Returned to it after reading on a forum the answer was A FUCKING DINK And the way you are supposed to know this infuriates me to this day.
Can anyone confirm if the puzzles in this game are ridiculous?>spanish edition
>>11065449Platformers actually have depth and innovation when it comes to movement. Shmups, at best, have a slow ship, a fast ship, and GASP a moderately speedy ship!?!?There's a reason why shmups are considered a dead genre. Move on.
>>11065462For me there was only one puzzle that I absolutely couldn't figure out, the racetrack ticket one, which is kind of famous for being obtuse. The rest of the game is pretty challenging, but not impossible to figure out on your own.
>>11065414i fucking hate basically all shmups except for the best one, obviously, which is B A T T L E M A N I A 2 but youre just being a fucking pissantthe entire draw of shmups over other genres is how heavy they are on execution
Gonna try to name some that don't get brought up often.Irritating Stick (PS1, N64)The Dark Heart of Uukrul (DOS)7th Saga (SNES)Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (PS2)Descent (PC)Contra: Shattered Soldier (PS2)
>>11065607>it's just weird how western cover art is 50% classically trained artist and 50% "my 4 year old son drew this so I put it on the game"And there's a case of eastern cover art being both at the same time.
>>11065425He says this shit because if you actually bother to do more than credit feed on a shmup and learn it, you would know instantly that your claim is outright untrue. Especially if you try to go for score, less so if you try to 1cc. Maybe it is just "memorization" with either really old shmups or kusoge, but if you bother spending any time on any game you would know even at the start its significantly more involved than just muh memorization of bullets and enemies. So why bother responding if you're just baiting?
>>11065637wrong thread? or are you talking about B A T T L E M A N I A 2?cuz i dont think that one came out in the west
>>11065631Uukrul is a hidden masterpiece. It's a very unorthodox mapping game.
>>11065142They did remake Wiz4 in Japan though, on the PS1 release Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn. Otherwise that anon is right that it's a really gay, obtuse and masochistic game even by Wizardry standards that almost sunk the series.
>>11065370post your clears
>>11065383>t. riggered
>>11065515>get btfo in an argument you were stupid to have in the first place>proceed to post the dumbest shit you can think of hoping people will think you were baiting the whole time and not just retardedmany such cases
>>11065140>Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin (Game Gear)Having only a single life, no way to get health up besides giving up time on your very strict 24min times to finish the whole thing, and a bad view thanks to the lower resolution on Game Gear... make this quite a tough one, it doesn't help that enemies and hazards can be cheap, and that you get no post-hit invincibility at all... you can die so fast here, and then it's back to the beggining too.
Here's a contender. As a kid I bought a used copy from a pawn shop and it had teeth marks on it. After playing it, I found out why.
>>11065854yea puzzle games where the """puzzle""" is literally >just fucking find it retard>with no indication of anything being hiddensuck ass. idk about "hard" tho. like if all else fails you can still brute force it and mash buttons on every block until something happens. or subscribe to nintendo power.but theres a lot of other games out there where even that wouldnt be enough
>>11065140Sonic 2 on Game Gear.No, I'm not kidding.Fuck its 1st boss.Oh, and Scrambled Egg Zone can suck a dick.
the original "Prepare to Die"
>>11065751If anything, Wizardry 4 revived the series. By then, it had been 4 years since Wizardry 3 had released, and 1-3 all used the same engine, graphics, everything really. Fans already complained about 5 not really being much of a graphical upgrade from 1-3, imagine if it had been released as 4. Instead they brought out an extreme challenge, the fans dug into it for a year, then were happy to get a standard difficulty Wizardry game with 5. 4 also shut up the complainers who were saying Wizardry was the easy series compared to Ultima.
You know you're in for some fun when what feels like half of the longplays (not even speedruns) on Youtube are tool-assisted.
>>11067174This. Wizardry 4 reviewed pretty well in core magazines at release. But by 1987 the general audience wanted something like The Bard's Tale in terms of scope.
>>11067174>saying Wizardry was the easy series compared to UltimaI find it hard to believe anyone was ever saying that
What is /vr/'s opinion of the hardest NES game?Been playing Ghouls 'n Ghosts and within about 6 hours I've nearly conquered it. The mid stage checkpoints of stages 2 and 3 are brutal but the rest of the game isn't bad at all. I wonder if battletoads is much harder
>>11067601GnG is rough, but the infinite continues makes it doable. That second stage is a real road block though. Battletoads is much harder.
>>11067601GnG is not a difficult game. Adventure Island, 1943, Star Force, Ikari Warriors. Look for those.
>>11065646>>11065819>Resorts to calling my arguments bait now>Still no counter-argument madeShmuptranny status: mindbroken.
>>11065145championship lode runner is considered one of the hardest famicom games ever made
>>11065768>post your clearshorrible argumentmany pce and genesis shooters can be 1cced with minimal to some practice
Here is my no-miss clears from hardest to easiest. Note I do practice with save-states. Of course the real runs are done single segment, with no save-states/rewind, no cheats, no slow-mo. But I do use autofire as is standard for shmups/arcade games.Should give perspective, esp in conjunction with other difficulty listsNote: Rating is for survival for the criteria stated, plus score in games that I did light scoring. Default dips. 1 loop unless stated otherwise. Mostly JP versions1. Rayforce nomiss (5m+)2. Sonic Wings 2all nomiss3. Tiger-Heli 2all nomiss4. Mushi 1.0 OG nomiss5. 1944 nomiss6. R-Type 2 JP 2all nomiss 7. Gun.Smoke nomiss8. Daisenpu 2all nomiss 9. Metal Slug 2 nomiss10. (non-retro game)11. Sunset Riders 2all nomiss12. (non-retro game)13. Makaimura 2all nomiss14. Batsugun OG nomiss15. Sengoku Ace 2all nomiss (1.5m+)16. Metal Slug 6 nomiss17. Metal Slug X nomiss18. (non-retro game)19. R-Type 2all nomiss20. Metal Slug 3 nomiss21. Metal Slug 4 nomiss22. Metal Slug 5 nomiss23. (non-retro game)24. OutZone nomiss nobomb25. In The Hunt nomiss26. R-Type Leo nomiss27. Metal Slug 1 nomiss28. Rastan Saga nomiss29. PCE Sapphire nomiss (1.1m+)30. Hishouzame 2all nomiss31. Shock Troopers nomiss32. Splatterhouse nomiss33. GI Joe nomiss (2850+)34. Contra Hard Corps nomiss35. Geo Storm nomiss36. 1941 nomiss (10m+)37. Darius 2 nomiss38. Fixeight JP nomiss39. Silver Surfer nomiss40. Carrier Airwing nomiss no subweapons41. Cadash US Fighter nomiss42. Elevator Action Returns Hardest nomiss43. Space Bomber nomiss44. Nexzr nomiss45. Aliens AC nomiss46. Darius Gaiden nomiss47. Blazing Star nomiss48. Gradius nomiss49. Super Contra AC nomiss50. Moo Mesa 2all nomiss51. Contra NES nomiss52. Super C NES nomiss53. Juuouki nomiss54. Spinmaster nomiss55. Mercs nomiss56. Operation C nomiss57. Alien Syndrome JP nomiss58. Kiki Kaikai nomiss59. Abadox nomiss60. Contra AC nomiss61. Soldier Blade nomiss62. Golden Axe nomiss
>>11068076Alright retard-kun. Unlike the other anons I'll show the stupidity of your point.Pattern recognition and memorization is a core part of most video games. If things were so easy as to "memorize obstacle, then play and dodge obstacle" no video game would be actually difficult in any way.Reflexes and coordination play a big role. Having your reflexes follow up and using your hands accurately while keeping the memorized patterns in mind is the difficult part of hard shmups. Easy shmups are the only ones that can be circumvented by pure memorization and little else.Let's take an example you brought up. Platformers operate on a very similar level. Assuming a level is hard (i.e. you die in it), you'll start memorizing it. If you memorized it and still can't beat it, you need your reflexes to follow up on what you memorized or maybe you'll need to learn to execute a specific button combination correctly. It doesn't matter how many buttons you need to press or what powerups the game has. At their very core, most difficult games (that are action-oriented and not puzzle-oriented) are difficult because pure memory is not enough. If memory was enough you could watch a let's play of a hard game on repeat for an entire day and then beat any game very easily afterwards.
>>11065414Post Mushihimesama 1CC
>>11065524It's not that it's "obtuse", it's more that a major clue can be easily missed because if you talk to Nick at the High Roller's Lounge (he is literally the first person you can talk to in there) he'll go into Max's office and you wont be able to enter, and Max holds the most important clues for the puzzle.
>>11067671>GnG is not a difficult game.Go beat it without using the dagger/axe then
>>11068130>Note I do practice with save-states. Of course the real runs are done single segment, with no save-states/rewind, no cheats, no slow-mo. But I do use autofire as is standard for shmups/arcade games.I always feel cheap for doing save-state practice in shoot em ups. I know every top player in the world does it but I think back to arcades 25+ years ago where people used to score big just on credits. Though pushing the bar further is what matters in the end I guess. All sports have some controversy where people discover a new tactic that completely rewrites the game like 3 pointers in basketball or aerodynamic balls in bowling. I learned to 1cc ikaruga without save states and I wasted a lot of time
>>11065140I love Ghosts' n Goblins. The entire franchise is a masterpiece. The level design, how the enemies interact. The freedom provided by the limited jump.
>>11068492NES version and the SNES (without the slowdown fix patch) feels ass when compared to the arcade. Also, the dagger is just an AVGN meme. The dagger and the lance are extremely well balanced, one is faster but less damage, one is slow but more damage.
>>11067150This game is the single reason I never bothered to buy any of the other 10 Sonic games on Game Gear.
>>11068702Shame they nerfed the lance in the sequel. The weapon balance of the sequel is just really poor in general
>>11067351It started with Ultima 2, and Ultima 3 only reinforced the idea. 2 had the bullshit space travel sections that made it very easy to kill yourself, and 3 would become practically unbeatable if you leveled up too much since the enemies you faced were tied to your level. Despite the challenges of Wizardry 1-3, you were only facing a party wipe if you bit off more than you can chew, and you could easily grind your team into an end-game party in a day or two.The sentiment shifted in the late 80's and early 90's with the 4th and 5th releases for the series, then Wizardry became the old-school challenge series and Ultima was the relatively tame more modern RPG.
Pugslys Scavenger Hunt
>>11067216And Robert Woodhead left to to work on importing those funny Japanese cartoons.
>>11065631Dragon Quarter is unorthodox but not that hard. Except if you really want to finish with the highest D-Ratio.For PS2 RPGs, I'll raise you an Unlimited SaGa (filtered me)
>>11065631RPGs are not hard, stop this
>>11068090Every genre has easy games. If you’re gonna call an entire genre easy, you should be able to prove that you were able to beat at least one of the games that the playerbase considers difficult.