The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 2

Defenders of Dynatron City

To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea how this game made the list to begin with. I think it was a case of "we need another game for the list" combined with "I don't know too much about this game, but the few times I've played it, it was pretty tough."
In all fairness, Defenders of Dynatron City isn't a bad game at all, it's just not a very difficult game to beat. DoDC is basically an adventure platforming game where you control a ragtag group of rather ridiculous robot super-heroes who must defend their city from an invasion of evil robots.  To stop the invasion, you must scour the city taking out all of the evil robots and picking up superchargers to boost your power.  The final showdown with Dr. Mayhem, the mastermind behind the evil robots, takes place in the sewer, where you will have to take down evil dopplegangers of your heroes in order to reach the mad scientist!  Topple Dr. Mayhem and the city will be safe!

The game consists of three levels, the first one being a pretty large city with buildings to explore and lots of enemies to defeat.  The second level is more straightforward and the enemies get tougher.  The real challenge of this game, however is taking down the evil robot doubles.  Their attacks are very strong and they can drain your heroes fast.  The key to defeating them is choosing the right hero to use, ala Mega Man.  Find the right antithesis to the robot dupe you are up against and they are easier to defeat.  Same thing for Dr.Mayhem, who reminds me a lot of Dr. Wily.

The characters who shoot are the best for taking out the robots in the city.

A time limit and no continues makes the game a little bit tougher, but really only impacts the first level in the city where you have the freedom to roam, get lost, and waste time.  Once you learn the layout of the town, you can locate the items you need, find additional heroes to join the cause, and rid the city of robots in pretty good time.  Staying alive in the mall level can be tough as the dinosaur robots are ferocious, but once you learn their attacks you can literally run circles around them.  The showdown with Atom Ed wants a similar strategy.
Defenders of Dynatron City is a harder game for the NES, but certainly not a hard game by any stretch.  I probably spent  two or three hours learning my way around, figuring out favorite heroes (Buzzsaw Girl and Ms. Megawatt, or any shooting character), and learning which heroes take out which dopplegangers.  The game itself only takes about an hour and a half to beat, probably less if you are really pushing a speed run.  To my mind it makes this list only by accident and could easily be replaced by something that is more challenging like Star Wars, that game is tough (but beatable)!