Top 10 Hardest Video Games of All Time

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Top 10 Hardest Video Games of All Time

Written by Zeromage 90 Comments
Last Updated:: June 8, 2008

5. Contra

Contra contained the most conspicuous cheat code in gaming history and for good reason. We won’t go into the code because we know its already inculcated into every gamer’s brain beyond any doubt. Why is this code so well known though? Could it be that Contra was so hard that it became a staple for anyone who even attempted to start their journey in the game? This is precisely the reason why any code becomes imprinted on the human genome. It’s to bad too, because Contra is actually one of the finer moments in early gaming history when one knew they could waste 30 lives on a level. Take away this ability though, and you were doomed to the first level, maybe the second if your practiced it for over two months. Once you were in the second level though, you were pretty much lost to the electric shocks and countless enemies throwing bombs at you. The game after the second level just starts getting good too. The third level as the waterfall level in the game has one of the most perfectly abject bosses in gaming history. The gamer though who thought he was hard enough not to use the code would never be able to experience this boss, instead, throwing his controller to the wall in the event of being hit by the guns coming out of the ground in the first level. Contra today is known as a great game because it has become accepted that to play it in any casual fashion requires the code. The gamer does not feel remorse at having to play Contra with a cheat because he knows everyone else has to and that there is no one on earth who can possibly come close to beating the game without the code. One wonders if the creators of Contra ever knew how hard it would be to conquer the game without the code.

4. Double Dragon 3

The Double Dragon series was one of the most recognized street fighting games for any platform system. The success of Double Dragon 1 in the coin op platform gave way to a just as enjoyable Double Dragon 2 that even bettered parts of an already great game. Double Dragon 3 though was so difficult that we don’t think it should be included with the past 2 great games in the series. The difficulty jump from Double Dragon 2 to 3 is unbearable. To get anywhere even close to the middle of the game requires skill and a 2^nd player. Playing this game with one player with average skill would send you outside for hash relaxation. The biggest problem with the game involved the player only having 1 life to complete the entire game with less stamina than the characters from the previous two in the series. This had to have been a mistake by the creators of the game until one realized that they may have just been content being assholes by giving the player no chance at getting past the first level with their measly little life. If one wants to seriously play this game, it would be expedient to have an emulator where you can save every second, after you hit an enemy just once, because if you get hit once by an enemy you can consider that your close to having to start the whole game over again. Get by the second level and you were most certainly doomed at the 2^nd level where the karate fighters could knock down half your energy in two kicks making you start back at the beginning of the game probably losing in the first level from being to discouraged to try hard. One may have an interest in trying to beat this game with all the emulators available, but why waste the time on a game where the creators were just trying to piss off the gamer into video game practice mania.

3. Ghosts n Goblins

Ghosts n Goblins for the NES was one of the most annoyingly difficult games for the affable system. You were a warrior put to the most demonic of scenarios fighting off ghosts, zombies, bats, and numerous scary movie enemies. At least you had a sword an armor though to fight throughout these nefarious lands, right? Yes, you had armor and a sword, but only the most shitty armor and sword to ever be put on in video game history. The sword had no reach and perennially did minimal damage. The armor would come flying off the player by basically walking into a bush. You would be better off going into this adventure with nothing on and without a sword because at least you knew that you had nothing to rely on except yourself. Beyond the poor weapon and armor that is giving to you at the beginning of the game is the difficulty in the actual enemies themselves. It’s not as if the enemies though are what was most difficult about Ghosts n Goblins, it was the sheer amount of enemies that could attack you at any time. You had to watch from all angles for enemies who in real life look like they really shouldn’t be able to hurt you. The flying birds that come swooping down look like my cockatiels without any fluorescent colors. Don’t rely on your armor though to stop pet store birds because you will be in for a rude wakening when you armor comes flying off from being in the same area as the bird. If one actually spent the time and made it past all the enemies in the first level, you were sure to be doomed in the 2^nd level. For the really ambitious player with nothing to do, there was the slightest possibility of getting to the end of this game with lifetime commitment and resolve. As we all know though, we would have to start back over because of some missing item that was supposed to be picked up along the way. We at Old-Wizard could never get this far though because of how annoyingly difficult the game was from the start. Ghosts n Goblins is a good concept, but designed way too hard to be any fun.

2. Paperboy

If one were interested in looking for the reasons why Paperboy was so fucking hard, one need only look at our review of it in the Top 20 Worst Video Games of All Time. After they look at that review, they can look at this recapitulation of it to understand further how grotesquely difficult Paperboy actually was. Anyone who tells you that they love this game has no idea why they love the game. Maybe they liked getting knocked down after the 3^rd house on the left by movers moving glass that they cannot get up on the curb for the life of them. Maybe they liked spending days and days of game play just to get to the end of the first day with the shitty bonus level that somehow turned from a street into a skateboard park with poorly designed skateboard ramps in the vein of the poor designs of Skate or Die. We at Old-Wizard have no idea why anyone would like a game this difficult. If getting by Monday was difficult, just trying getting by Tuesday and Wednesday. These were each about 10 times more difficult than Monday exponentially. Paperboy was a tiringly difficult game. Any game that you had trouble getting by the first level on had no business being recognized as a great game. Some gamers will try to convince you they got to Wednesday and even Friday, but we are sure that if we put them to the test in front of our eyes, they would fail. Something about the cover of this game screams “simplicity”, but that has nothing to do with the fact that its extremely difficult to get half way down the street in the first level with the neighborhood elements being thrown at you. If any one disputes these claims, they can send us their own personal video of playing paperboy and getting to Friday.

1. Battletoads

Battletoads for the NES would never end. There were many levels that would get exceedingly difficult not in proportion to the level before it. Playing the first level of Battletoads was amazing fun. Punching the enemies was fun. Punching the 2^nd player was fun. Beating the level was fun. Get beyond this first level though, and one was in for one of the most difficult games of all time. The cliff hanging level had as many enemies coming towards the Battletoads as Arthur in Ghosts N Goblins. The surfboard level proved to be one of the more difficult levels in video game history. Avoiding enemies in this level was on par with the paperboy trying to avoid break-dancers in the street. The twirl-around level was yet another level which was extraordinarily difficult due to ferocious enemies and its long length. Getting to the end of the game was only reserved for the best old-school video game players. If you were not one of these players, you were left to the first level pissing off the your partner by hitting him from behind while he was trying to fight enemies ahead of him. Although Battletoads was a great game, it could have benefited from a more moderate difficulty level. Thank God for the computer based emulator though. It has given us less skilled retro video gamers a chance to experience all the levels for the first time.

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90 Comments

#1 fingerbang says:
March 12th, 2010 at 3:14 am

contra – very fun but overrated on difficulty
battletoads – absolutely impossible

i have never beaten the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

also HOME ALONE is impossible. you have to survive for 20 minutes in the house without marv and harry catching you.

other fun and difficult games that no one seems to mention:
-terminator 2 (u gota knock t1000 into the lava)
-batman (u gota shoot the joker like 7825 times)

#2 Scrodo Baggage says:
March 12th, 2010 at 8:18 pm

I actually beat HOME ALONE one fuckin time. And yeah Battletoads is the hardest game ever.

#3 Andre says:
March 12th, 2010 at 6:18 pm

I have gotten to the final level of Battletoads, the spinning tower, I think it’s called The Revolution. I never beat it though

#4 Joe says:
March 12th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

I beat Bayou Billy after playing it for 6 months straight. You have to do all of the practice games, then play the real game immediately after. When you get to a hard boss and your energy depletes, it will automatically replenish because you did the training games first. I haven’t played this in years but I think your bulletproof vest will replenish also.

#5 Jason says:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:13 am

im always surprised to see that “Sky Shark” didn’t make any of these lists. also, i have beaten paperboy before.

#6 Luf says:
March 12th, 2010 at 6:10 pm

I played that version of Battletoads when I was a kid, and I gave up at the surfboard level. It was fucking frustrating. The only fun part of the whole game is the first level. I played the game again after a few years with snes9x, and it had the quick save/quick load function. I got to the final level and finally beat it. The higher level I got to, the more impossible the game became. I had to quick save every 5 or 7 seconds and reloaded like millions of times. I think there’s no way in hell a player can win if he plays normally.

#7 Freeloader says:
March 12th, 2010 at 3:59 am

Double Dragon 3 was, and still is, utter bullshit. The fact I made it to the last level make me feel good.

Only game I disagree with, is Contra. Even without THE CODE, I can beat it. Should of put “Silver Surfer” for NES in its place. That, was probably the hardest game ever. Getting past like 5-6 enemies, is a feat. I don’t know if anyone, anywhere, has beaten that game without an emulator.

#8 Mindok says:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:29 am

Lawnmower Man for snes # 1

#9 Michael says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:00 pm

Interesting article, although the entry on Contra is ridiculous. The author pretty much asserts that it is impossible to beat the game without the Konami code. Even more incredibly, he says that it takes two months of practice to get to the second level alive. While I do not want to be rude, I have to wonder if the article’s author has some kind of debilitating neurological condition because, quite frankly, all it takes to get through the first level of Contra unscathed is some basic memorization of enemy placement within the level. And it isn’t a long level. There are two basic enemy types in Contra: 1) Fixed-point enemies, and 2) Randomly-generated enemies. Fixed-point enemies all shoot, and most randomly-generated enemies just run toward you. All you have to do to kill most of the game’s random enemies is… run forward and mash the fire button. Or turn around and fire at the ones coming from behind. Once you memorize the placement of fixed-point enemies, you can avoid running into them. Their attack patterns are pretty predictable. You also have to jump over holes in the ground…

This is all pretty basic. If you want to keep on the top portion of the level early on there is some tricky timing with the exploding bridges, but those don’t kill you. Whatever difficulty there is to the stage’s end boss is wiped out if you find one of the level’s two (I believe) spread gun weapon enhancements. But even with a pea shooter all it takes is some patience to kill him. You want to adopt this strategy:
1) Jump up to the top platform and shoot the guys on top of the structure.
2) Keeping to the left-most side of the screen, shoot out the two guns near the middle of the structure
3) At this point, nothing can hurt you, so you’re free to destroy the remaining part.

THIS is what you spent two months training to conquer? With such a lack of ability (or mental competence, or both), I’d frankly be surprised if you could complete ANY game, or, hell, do any thing that required the slightest amount of memorization.

You also complained about the second level where enemies lob grenades at you. For one thing, they aren’t “countless.” Generally, per group of soldiers attacking you, only one throws grenades. The rest just shoot at you, and you can dodge their bullets by crouching.
PROTIP: When enemies throw grenades at the position where you’re crouching… move.
As to the electric shocks… you do realize you’re not supposed to run into those electrified wires, right? All you have to do to avoid electric shocks is to not press up on your joypad.

Contra isn’t an easy game, by any means. Once you get to the Waterfall stage, death can come quick and often. Nevertheless, it is very possible to beat the game without resorting to cheat codes. I’ve actually beaten the game on one life (that is, without dying at all). It wasn’t easy, but I did it. And hell, even then, I used power-ups. I’ve seen people beat the game on one life without ever using power-ups.
My purpose in saying this isn’t to gloat. Beating a video game is… well, beating a video game. Not a great accomplishment. If you have difficulties with the game, I can understand that. Some people just aren’t good at Contra. Myself, I can’t play music-rhythm games to save my life. I struggled to complete the last mission of Elite Beat Agents on the easiest mode. But it is insulting both to your intelligence and to mine to say that the game is too difficult to beat without cheating, and that you’re justified in cheating because ‘everyone else does it.’ No, everyone else does not do it.

#10 Locklin says:
March 12th, 2010 at 7:51 am

I beat Double Dragon 3 as a kid with every character, including the plump one. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to kill something, though, before I managed it. Also beat TMNT 1 after months and months of practice. Those are my only “claims to fame, though – I never got past Level 3 in Battletoads and certainly never beat any of the others on this list. And these days, I’m a gamins wuss – no time to put into beating really challenging games.

#11 Rob says:
March 12th, 2010 at 1:45 pm

yea – somebody said it but they are correct: Silver Surfer for NES is the hardest game ever. Definetly should have been on the list.

#12 Delta says:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:54 pm

They say games have become easier, but that’s largely due to better design avoiding a lot of the frustrations of cheap deaths they used to have with the Old-School games.

Though getting used to better design has made it harder to play older games, and throw backs to older games, now. I used to be REALLY GOOD at STREET FIGHTER II, then when the Xbox LIVE Arcade game port for one of the iterations came-out, I wasn’t so good. Not even against the CPU.

#13 Dalton says:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:58 pm

You know why you all cannot beat these games? Because you’re all noobs! Haha, just kidding. Contra is pretty difficult. Battletoads is just utterly annoying..

#14 anonymous says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:49 pm

A couple of things on your article.

Firstly, contra is definitely beatable without the code, as are all the later ones. My roommate and I could beat Contra, Super C, and Contra 3 with one life on the hardest challenge level. It took a ton of work, but definitely doable.

Second – on ghosts and goblins I believe you are mistaking the different games. You had a spear to start off with that went across the entire screen, no sword which wasn’t introduced until ghouls n’ ghosts, and it was actually pretty decent. Another thing, while you do have to beat the game twice in a row to actually beat it, it was also ghouls n’ ghosts that you had to pick up the power bracelet on your second run through to get access to the true final boss.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

#15 Fedricco Rabaya says:
March 12th, 2010 at 6:07 am

Well I finished Contra because my friend did something to the computer so that you can save the game wherever you want to. Have you heard of that before?

#16 jason says:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:07 pm

what about Fester’s Quest?

#17 George says:
March 12th, 2010 at 1:12 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qor5Rn7glaU
battletoads all the way through

#18 :.FireStorm.: says:
March 12th, 2010 at 2:57 am

BattleToads was a fun game. I love the joke about people calling gamestop asking for it.

And every game you have on here is pretty much the hardest ones. Though Ghost Busters was like satans asshole.

I know AVGN already said enough about ghost busters. so I wont say anything, but that was my break feast of nails in the morning.

#19 damian says:
March 12th, 2010 at 8:14 am

ECHO THE DOLPHIN…

#20 ultranoob says:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:41 am

Have any of you ever played Milon’s secret castle? It deserves to go in the top 10, that game is seriously unbeatable. i’ve never got past level 3.
You should try it.

I predict you lots of fun.

#21 Terry says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:10 pm

Not a single game from the original megaman series on here? Strange. Megaman 3 is one of the hardest games i’ve ever played.

#22 cb says:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:25 pm

I agree with the person who said contra is overrated on difficulty. I’ve seen so many people say this, and I am not a great game player. I’ll never win a game tournament, for sure, or even qualify. But I got to the point where I never needed the 30 man code and never lost a life, no matter what. Of course, I was 13 at the time. Ask me to do that today and I’ll never make it.

#23 Sunnfi says:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:21 pm

I have to disagree with Contra and Double Dragon III, because both are pretty easy games if you play them for a week or two.

#24 Josh D says:
March 12th, 2010 at 11:26 pm

Has anyone even thought about Friday the 13th for nes? Easily top 5 for difficulty and overall fruitlessness.

#25 Jeff b says:
March 12th, 2010 at 11:20 pm

How bout Rambo and platoon those games were annoying.

#26 Jacob says:
March 12th, 2010 at 9:35 am

Dragon’s lair. I can’t even beat it on an NES Emulator. Another is the NES Garfield (Difficult and the worst NES game of all time).

#27 Patrick says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:09 pm

Contra shouldn’t be on the list.

Fester’s quest was just outright impossible. Anyone bother to playtest that?

Runner-ups–Rambo was really hard, but I did beat it eventually. Platoon also is really hard, but beatable.

Now what about the original Castlevania? How in the @#$@ do you beat that game? On the NES, I couldn’t get past the grim reaper on the second to the last level. I know you can get through that guy, but he’s really hard. I’m glad I gave up. Because several years later, and with an emulator with “save state” feature — I tried beating dracula. It took me forever to beat him, even loading states… It’s riduculous.

Another game worth mentioning… Top Gun. Yes, you say…only five levels. But you get to the last two levels, you are usually on your last jet. By this point, You’ve crashlanded one on the aircraft carrier in level 2. Maybe lost another jet on refueling or the landing on level 3.

And the missiles are coming every which way. Throw your controller at the screen, because you’ve just got hit, and it’s game over.

#28 Yan says:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:07 am

I remember buying Battletoads instead of Mega Man 3 when I was a kid and almost regretting it.

But after hours of game play, I managed to beat the game many times. Just the satisfaction of beating up the Dark Queen at the top of her tower in the last level is enough reward when you realise how tough that game is!!

But I’ll agree that Tradewest could have made that game a lot less difficult.

#29 Brandon says:
March 12th, 2010 at 7:59 am

3. Commodore 64 Karateka
2. Atari E.T.
1. Commodore 64 Dragon’s Lair

#30 The Mountain says:
March 12th, 2010 at 3:46 pm

What? No Kid Icarus? Epic Fail

#31 poop eater lisa 69 says:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:20 am

duck tales is pretty hard and it made me hot

#32 Ben says:
March 12th, 2010 at 1:26 am

I stumbled upon a “tournament” of the top 64 NES games here (www.whereisbenrivera.com) No Kid Icarus, though, is a complete shame.

I always found Castlevania and Top Gun to be nightmares. Ditto with the original Ninja Turtles.

#33 bfmv rule says:
March 12th, 2010 at 11:25 pm

battletoads is easy lol
home alone: completed like 50 times (it was my only game for a while)
contra 4 pretty difficult but not as hard as you make it seem

#34 pipsqeak says:
March 12th, 2010 at 5:37 pm

U should add Silent Hill Origins

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