The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 19

Magician

Magician, our 12th hardest NES game ever, introduces us to two new sources of difficulty: Frustration and Boredom.  Frustration I have spoken of before in tangential ways, but never as a prominent feature or cause of difficulty.  Boredom is an odd factor, but Magician shows us exactly how a game can be hard simply by being very, very tedious and dry.

Get a good look, it's all downhill from here...

If you have never heard of Magician, don't be surprised.  This little known title from the TAXAN library most likely faded into obscurity for one simple reason: it looks incredible and plays like a warm pile of vomit.  As most modern games (looking at you XBOX360 and PS3) can attest to, great graphics can only carry a game so far.  At some point you have to pony up the game play or you've got an overly expensive animated movie. Magician had anticipated the modern graphics-whore game by about 25 years.  Take a look at a couple of screen shots:

The game looks incredible!  As a kid I would have thought game play graphics like these only possible on a computer, but here they are for the NES!  Not only that, but look at what those graphics are depicting: an awesome looking fantasy world with great environments and lots of variety!  A game that looks this good has to be absolutely dynamite to play, right?

Oh, sir no.  The drab, monotonous dungeon walls of Wizardy are a fair trade off for the incredible experience that it provides.  Sadly, the beautiful graphics of Magician cannot make up for the dreadful experience that it forces upon you.  Remember, as per the terms of the project, I had to play this game for 5 hours.  What makes Magician so dreadful, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.

Truth be told, Magician doesn't have to be a bad game.  The premise is promising. You are a young apprentice magician who must journey across the land, learning new spells, and preparing to defeat the most powerful, and evil, wizard in the land.  Your journey will take you through all kinds of environments from swampy bogs and enchanted forests, to the stone walls of the wizard's keep.  You'll meet all kinds of characters and do battle with a host of monsters, wizards, and unearthly creatures.  You can learn a bevy of different spells and you can even tinker around with the spellbook to create your own conjurations (within the confines of what is possible in the game, of course).  Every single part of that sounds absolutely like exactly the kind of game I would waste endless hours playing.

Philip Livingston, not famous enough to be this cocky.

But Magician ruins all of that with annoying and needlessly complicated game play aspects and a vicious learning curve.  You see, you'll get to do all of that adventuring, but you'll also have to keep a very close eye on your health, which is constantly in danger of depleting due to attacks from enemies and you know just walking around.  To keep your health up, you'll need to eat, and thus carry, plenty of food and potions, and you'll need a full flask of water.  Not that big of a deal, except you get limited funds in the game, and no real renewable source of future income that isn't tied directly to the story.  So if you run out of food and money to buy it with, GAME OVER.  The end result is that you run the risk of getting stuck on a tough level, running out of food and water with no way to resupply, then your health runs out and you are dead.  A stupid way to lose the game that has nothing to do with the core of the game whatsoever.  If the game was just survival (ala the amazing DS game Lost in Blue), then these perils would be understandable, but a game is no fun if your chief concern is maintaining regular meals.

To make matters worse, your character is made of paper and dies at the slightest threat of danger.  You get a bit heartier as the game progresses, but you die so many times in the early levels that frustration sets in very, very early.  Not only can you die from enemy attacks, but you can die in more traditional platforming ways as well: missed jumps, being sucked into the swamp, etc.  Magician is in no way shape or form a traditional platformer so these aspects of the game are very out of place and make areas of the game far more difficult than they should be.

Why?  Why must you look so cool and suck so very much?

Finally, Magician is a game of limited resources and no way to backtrack and pick up anything you might have missed.  Didn't get that crystal ball in level 1 that you need to defeat the evil tree in level 4?  Too bad, start over.  Running out of money and cannot buy that anti-venom potion to cure the fourth poisoning you took from those same swamp plants?  Too bad, start over.  Basically, the game asks you to build the perfect run in order to reach the end.  You are given a limited number of saves (roughly two saves per level, it's an odd system, the manual explains it in full), so you can work on building that run, but honestly it isn't worth the time or effort.  Every single aspect and part of the game is literally trial and error.  Each enemy has a weakness and the right spell will take them out like nothing, but you'll have to stand and be killed by it several times with the wrong spell to figure out which spell works.  There are plenty of villagers and NPC's to speak to, but they offer little real help in the game apart from a few story clues.  You have to learn everything else by trying and dying.  This makes for a very long, very repetitive, and very boring game.  It also generates a whole heaping pile of unnecessary frustration that ultimately results in thrown controllers (I have anger management issues).

At its heart, Magician is actually a very simple game with gorgeous graphics, but it completely lacks anything that might resemble joy.  You really must invest upwards of thirty or forty hours minimum to learn all of the ins and outs of each puzzle through raw trial and error.  Sadly, the game just isn't fun or engaging enough to justify that kind of time investment.  In my five miserable hours, I made it roughly over half way to the end, but was so bored and frustrated with the game it was hard to have any interest in beating my head against this particular wall any longer.  Honestly, if you knew exactly what to do and did it, Magician is probably very enjoyable, easily and shortly beaten.  Unfortunately, it destroys any chance of that by generating all of its difficulty just in learning how to play the game.  There does not exist a plainer case of learning curve difficulty, except here, the learning curve never ends.  Damn shame too, the game looks amazing...

Just sad, really.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 18

Snake Rattle and Roll

There aren't many games for the NES that make me as nervous while playing them as Snake Rattle and Roll.  This colorful, poppy arcade-style game is light and full of whimsy at first, but features some of the most tense moments I've ever had in gaming.

Built around the simple premise of controlling a snake who must gobble up little pellet creatures called Nibbley Pibbleys in order to gain enough weight to exit the area, you are flung into a wide variety of levels packed with traps, death-defying jumps, and deadly toilet seats and giant, stomping feet! Yeah, the game is wacky.  It is also a lot of fun.  Straightforward arcade style games like this are meant to be instantly engaging and then tough as nails.  Snake Rattle and Roll fits this formula perfectly.  The first few levels are fun and light hearted with some challenging spots, but mostly just enjoyable romps through brightly colored cubic landscapes.  Soon, however, you will start to see the difficulty creep in.  With only 11 levels, the difficulty sets in by level 4 and only gets harder.

The main thing that makes SR&R so difficulty is the controls.  They aren't bad or cheap like in Conan, but they are very, very loose.  When you press the control pad to move in a given direction you really move, and when you jump, you have an exceptional jumping range, so you really jump!  Further complicate that by putting these loose controls in an isometric format (Q*bert controls for those of you not savvy) and you are all over the place, literally.  You will need those first few softball levels just to get the hang of moving around.  If you cannot get the hang of the controls, expect your time with SR&R to max out by level 5.  If you do master the controls, you will open yourself to a lot of options and you'll have much more fun with the game, at least until level 9.

As I said before, with only 11 total levels, the difficulty in Snake Rattle and Roll has to ramp pretty steeply and rather quickly.  Midway through the game, just when you have gotten used to the way everything works,  the level design begins to vary wildly.  The underwater levels will require all kinds of new skills completely different from the ones you have been cultivating and you'll have to think in additional dimensions in order to succeed.  In the later levels the game becomes less about gobbling Nibbley Pibbleys and more about navigating some of the most treacherous arcade platforming you will ever find.  Seemingly impossible jumps will become commonplace and the ferocious stomping foot will plague you incessantly.  Then, in the final levels, the programmers decided that you have gotten too good at SR&R so they introduce a new playfield surface: ice.  If you thought the controls were loose before...


As you work your way through Snake Rattle and Roll, you'll get more comfortable with the controls and the game's expectations, but I cannot say that you can ever truly rest or expect to breeze through the levels , particularly not those in the latter half of the game.  You get plenty of opportunities to gain extra lives and extra continues, but you will need them all.  I've wasted two full continues on A SINGLE JUMP in level 9 before.  TWO FULL CONTINUES ON A SINGLE JUMP.  Madness I tell you.  Luckily the game is short, each level really only wanting about 5 minutes max to clear, but hours to learn and master.  Once you get better (I dare not say "good") at a level, you will be able to take full advantage of its power-ups and potential, but there are always spots that will subtract lives like there is no tomorrow.

Robert Morris never missed a meal.  That is why he didn't sign the Declaration of Independence until August 4th.  It had nothing to do with his political stance.

The final levels of this game are true evil.  I have made it to level 11 a couple of times, but the jumps that they ask are like Luke lifting the X-Wing out of Dagobah. With lots of practice, Snake Rattle and Roll can be overcome, but the extremely loose controls and demanding level design will weed out those not up to the task.  I hope to some day beat Snake Rattle and Roll, it is a very fun and engaging game, but those final levels wrack my nerves and sometimes incite me to violence!

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 17

The Adventures of Dino Riki

I will only say this once to you (which is a total lie, you are going to hear this over and over, but for effect, stay with me), I will only say this once to you:  If you lose your power-ups in Dino Riki after level 4-1, you are dead in the water.  Just go ahead and start over, do not waste your time.

Remember Adventure Island and level 8-2 (of course you do, even I am sick of me talking about it at this point), well imagine a game where every level was like 8-2 and the last four levels were like 8-2, but the difficulty has been increased exponentially.  You don't have to imagine, because that game exists and it is called the Adventures of Dino Riki.  Please do not be fooled by its bright colors or comically drawn caveman hero, this game is a vicious pack of evil.

Like many tough scrolling shooters on this list so far, Silver Surfer, Ikari Warriors II, Abadox, learning the level design and enemy placement is very important to success, but AoDR decides that those things are simply not enough.  Instead, AoDR throws in a few extras you don't really need to make the game even harder.  For instance, the game is a scrolling shooter, meaning that the playfield scrolls automatically, so as you play, Dino Riki marches happily and heedlessly along toward the end of the level.  I say heedlessly because Dino Riki will lemming himself right off a cliff, into a river, or into the path of a fire-breathing triceratops (they don't teach you about that one in elementary school!).  He will not stop, so when you are faced with one of these serious problems, you are going to have to do some fancy maneuvering to stay alive. That's not uncommon, we have that in Silver Surfer.  But wait!  There's more.  Since you are already on a forced scroll, why don't we throw in some really tricky, platforming-esque, jumps for you to execute?  With the birds-eye perspective and constant scrolling, these jumps will be some of the most dreadful things you'll encounter in the game.  Be prepared to lose many, many lives figuring out how to make these jumps, even once you feel you have the hang of it.
The jumps alone make AoDR harder than half of the games on this list already, and we haven't even talked about the monsters.  All scrolling shooters have things for you to shoot at, and most usually they shoot back.  The Adventures of Dino Riki decides to up the ante a bit by doubling and sometimes tripling the amount of hostiles on your radar, throwing as many as twenty enemies (and probably more) at you at once of several different varieties.  And the intensity never lets up.  By level 1-3, you are already starting to see swarms of bad guys and you'll be pushing your reflexes to the max to keep up.

Your only saving grace in the entire game are the power-ups.  Your weapon has four stages (I don't count the fifth, your mega form because it is useless and is guaranteed to get you killed, avoid), first little rocks, then axes, then boomerangs and finally fireballs.  The fireball is the only weapon that can be rapid fired (the rest require you to rapidly press the button), and is the only weapon that can be fired in greater quantity than there are foes on the screen. The boomerangs are good, but the fireballs spread out and give you the most complete coverage.  Armed with the fireballs you stand a pretty good chance of fending off most of the enemies that are sent your way.  But fireballs do not help you make those vicious jumps that are coming.  To bypass those horrible perils, you are going to need to find the pterodactyl wings (the manual calls it a bird, but pterodactyl fits their them better and I think it is cooler).  This power-up enables you to fly over all of the ground obstacles, and thus avoid those nasty jumps.  If you pick up two pterodactyl wings before you take off, you will be able to land once and then take off again.  And this is important, because although you are up in the wild blue yonder, you are going to miss a few other important power-ups on the ground (you can only pick up the power-ups by walking over them, not flying).  You are going to want to collect every single heart that you uncover because they add hit points to your pool and give you more chances to keep the game going.

Even armed with fireballs, pterodactyl wings, and all of the hearts you are still not guaranteed success.  Eventually an enemy will get through your barrage; there are some that fly right under your firing pattern.  And while flying keeps you from having to navigate ground obstacles, since you are shooting down at your enemies, you cannot shoot through those ground obstacles, so you will have to still act like you are walking on the ground in order to be able to have a clear shot at the bad guys.  And if you are hit, you will lose your wings and your weapon will be reduced a level.  The trick is simple: don't get hit.

Once you have all of this down pat, the first three levels of the game will be much easier for you to complete.  Heck, you might get good enough to be able to fireball fly through all of them.  And then you will hit level 4.  Level 4 is made up of four of the hardest, most intense scrolling shooting levels I have ever played (and we have at least two more scrolling shooters on the list coming up!).  Actually, levels 4-1 and 4-2 aren't so terrible.  They are hard, but they are not impossible.  Levels 4-3 and 4-4, however, well, you can forget it.  You had better be damned near perfect if you stand any chance of getting to the final boss at the end of 4-4.  If you lose your power-ups anywhere, at any time after level 4-2, just turn the game off and go take a nap or do something else.  It is nearly impossible to work your way back to full power once you have lost your power-ups and to add insult to injury, you also lose hearts each time you die, so you will have less and less hit points to work with.  What you end up with is a slow grind to death as you struggle for air. Just start over.

Just look at that ancient bastard!

With no continues (without cheating) and such painfully designed levels, The Adventures of Dino Riki makes for one extremely difficult game.  I was able to get to the final boss fight three times, but each time I had so few hit points left that I was unable to take him down.  The game is short, takes about an hour to get to the final boss, but the challenge is high and if you lose your power-ups you are toast.  I have a feeling one good, lucky, perfect run and Dino Riki falls to you, but it is going to take true mastery of the game to make that run possible.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 16

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Our midpoint game, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, is kind of a signal post and appropriately so.  You see from this point on there really is no turning back.  The next 15 games are truly some of the most evil and maliciously designed games anyone has ever played, NES or otherwise.  Up to this point, the games have been tough, but now they get mean.  For the record, I am going to go ahead and tell you now that I have beaten none of the games from here on out.  Every game going forward is so freaking hard that while it might be possible to beat it, the task was greater than your humble correspondent.  Thank you for coming along on this journey with me so far, and I hope you'll stick around as we roll on to #1.

As for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, what an amazingly deep and difficult game this is.  I've had this game since I was a kid, and it was only recently that I learned there is much more to it than what I had presumed was just an arcade-style adventure game.  As a kid I thought every level was like the first, only increasingly more complex and difficult.  It wouldn't be until just a few years ago that I would discover that the game had an ending and that the last couple of levels were very different and unique.  Being a fan of Indiana Jones anyway (not necessarily Temple of Doom, although it looks like cinema gold when compared to Crystal Skull...), and a fan of the game, I then decided that I must see these final levels and beat the game.
Ah, were it only that easy.  Forget about the final levels, the initial levels of IJToD are ball busters all their own.  Your goal is simple, navigate the mountainside and the mine tunnels, free the captured children and retrieve pieces of the map that will show you were the three stones are located in the final levels.  Accomplishing this goal is very difficult.  Your first major obstacle will be the controls.  They take some getting used to.  Indy maneuvers loosely and it is very easy to leap to your death into a pool of lava if you are not careful.  Once you get accustomed to moving Indy around, you'll have to learn how to navigate the levels, which are broken into two areas: mine and mountainside.  Early on the levels are straightforward, but later you will find there are certain areas that can only be accessed by getting off the mine car at the right time or taking the right door.  Get the level layout under control and then get ready to contend with the enemies, and IJToD has plenty of annoying enemies.  From the thugees who relentlessly pursue you to the endlessly infuriating bats, spiders, and snakes that always beset you when you need it the least, IJToD seems to have the most obnoxious enemy catalog of any game out there.  All of the baddies respawn infinitely and they all move around like they are on crack.  Nothing inspires more rage than making your way through a difficult area only to be felled by a runaway boulder or a bat that just swoops in out of nowhere.  This game has plenty of that and more. 

But suppose, like me, you are diligent enough to keep playing and playing until you have gotten a pretty good handle on the first eight levels and you even manage to cross the lava river in level 9 (a feat unto itself), all of that hard earned gaming will be for naught when you hit level 10.  You see, level 10 is where the stones are hidden, and if you collected enough map pieces you will be able to see the location of each before you start the level.  However, if you die while collecting the stones, any stones you collect will be taken away from you and scattered far and wide for you to find again.  This wouldn't be nearly so annoying except that by the time you get to level 10, most of your resources will have been depleted, you'll be very short on extra lives, and when the stones are scattered they are usually relocated in very far, difficult to reach places.  Furthermore, there is only one door that allows you to leave the level and finding it can be harder than finding the stones.  Basically, if you die, you have to do the level all over again completely.  And let me tell you, level 10 is evil.  It is the brother of 8-2 from Adventure Island and 5-1C from Ninja Gaiden III.  It is the kind of level that means the difference between success and failure.  When you hit level 10, you will either beat it and go on to win the game, or it will eat you alive and laugh at your ineffectiveness.  I hate level 10.

I have beaten level 10, but I was so excited from doing so that I botched the whole thing right at the end of level 11, and thus I have never seen the final level.  The difficulty in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is consistently hard throughout the game, but it is the final levels, 9-12, that really put top gamers to the test.  You get plenty of extra lives in the earlier levels to give you some padding, but you will not beat this game without a lot of luck in level 10.  I feel that the game is beatable, especially since I got so close myself, but it is not for the feint of heart and it will not be beaten easily by most.  There are only 14 NES games that are harder to beat than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Who said Stephen Hopkins doesn't know squat about good movies?

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 15

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

There was much debate over which Ninja Gaiden game should make this list.  Many people argued hard for the original to be a part of this project.  It was pretty evenly divided between the original and this game, NGIII.  The deciding factor ended up being continues.  The original NG features endless continues, NGIII features limited continues.  Both games are built around challenging level designs that shoot bad guys at you like they were fired in wholesale lots out of a t-shirt gun at a monster truck show. But the first Ninja Gaiden gives you as many opportunities as you want to climb that stupid mountain and fight that spider-throwing boss (who used to trip me up for years and years). Ninja Gaiden III, however, takes away that privilege and asks you to make that tricky trek across the desert again and again only to be defeated by those same absolutely ridiculous waves of enemies in the later levels.

It's levels like 5-1C that I am thinking of.  There are so many enemies, with so many varied attack styles coming at your from so many directions it is almost stifling just to watch someone play that level.  And if you survive that onslaught, you are then asked to navigate some truly treacherous platforming areas, dangling from moving platforms and making devious jumps, all the while being assailed with missiles.  And if you survive that..well, you get the idea. Level 5-1C is a beast and there are plenty more where it came from.

We've seen these kinds of levels before a couple of days ago with Adventure Island and Level 8-2 (shudder), but the thing that separates a game like NGIII from Adventure Island is the continues factor.  With AI, you can wear 8-2 down eventually and as long as your NES doesn't get jostled, you have the rest of your life to work on that.  NGIII asks you not only to tackle tough levels on par with 8-2, but it asks you to do it again if you fail to beat the game on that run through.  That adds an additional layer of difficulty and requires your game to be that much better if you are ever to one day be victorious.

On the up side, Ninja Gaiden III is a lot of fun to play.  Somehow, in my mind, that lessens the difficulty for me just a little bit because it reduces the frustration factor (the games that increase the frustration factor are coming soon...) and make running back through the levels a little less tedious.  That is not to say that I was never annoyed with NGIII.  I was plenty annoyed, particularly with 5-1C, which proved to be better than me.  But it does mean that it is very likely that I will return to the game for another run at seeing the ending. 

Ninja Gaiden is a remarkable series on the NES.  All three games blend challenge and fun in a formula that stands the test of time, even to this day.   I have beaten the first and second NG games, but III still eludes me, and that is why it rings in here at #16 on the Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 14

Gyruss

Most arcade shooters require great hand-eye coordination and incredible reflexes.  They also bank on the fact that after prolonged periods of play, fatigue sets in and that coordination breaks down and you actually get worse at the game rather than better.  For this reason, most arcade shooters are infinite, meaning that if you could possibly play forever, you would. (barring programming limitations, kills screens, etc.)  Gyruss, however is one of the few arcade shooters that has a definite goal, meaning that if you are just sharp enough, and just talented enough, you could possibly reach the end.  And that is where it gets you.

For all intents and purposes, Gyruss is a fairly typical arcade space shooter featuring you as the pilot of a space ship which must shoot all kinds of other space ships and interstellar debris.  It's the mission that makes Gyruss special.  Your goal is to pilot your way to the center of the Sol Solar System, through a veritable armada of enemy space craft, all manner of space creatures, and various other cosmic brik-a-brak. (is that how you spell brik-a-brak?)  Therefore, your cosmic quest is broken into distinct segments, each of which is comprised of three standard levels and then a big showdown with a boss.

The main learning curve in Gyruss is the controls.  You rotate your ship around a central axis and the enemies come flying in or out of the area along a conical framework.  If you are to have any success, you must master this unique control scheme early on or you will collapse as soon as the action gets intense.  And while Gyruss's difficulty ramps at a near perfect rate, the intensity sets in pretty quickly somewhere around the third section. (on the way to Uranus, pronounced "Yur'-ah-nus," Beavis)  A large part of the difficulty is a function of the enemy set.  Some of the toughest foes are the space amoeba-like monsters that appear in the second section and require multiple hits to destroy. Shooting them only pushes them back away from you temporarily and they just keep coming.  Other tough enemies replicate at absurd rates and make suicide runs at your ship.  The boss fights are also extremely challenging.  There is one boss in particular who patrols the very circumference your ship navigates and tends to smack into you no matter how hard you try to stay opposite it.


The end result is a tough space shooter with a finite mission, but limited continues.  On the plus side, the levels are patterned and can be memorized and there are a generous supply of opportunities to acquire extra ships.  The only thing the game asks is that you master it along the way to take full advantage of these features.  The action in Gyruss is fast paced and success usually comes down to a matter of being quick and accurate.  The difficulty ramps smartly, but doesn't top out until the end so you must always be on your toes.  Ultimately, Gyruss is certainly beatable, but getting there is not going to be easy.

Why is Ben Franklin so angry and bitter these days?

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 13

Hudson's Adventure Island

Level 8-2.  That is really all I have to say and anyone who knows this game knows what I mean.  Level 8-2 is the entire reason this game makes this list.  Oh sure the rest of the game is challenging enough, but level 8-2 has probably driven at least one gamer to break a controller in half (and that might have been me...).  The level was created by the Great Satan himself and there is a special place in hell where the damned go and play this game for eternity.  Level 8-2.

And it's really not fair.  Adventure Island lures you in with its whimsical themes, colorful graphics and simple game play.  You'll start out thinking, "oh my, what a charming little game, and how fun!"  And then, somewhere in level 6 the difficulty switch gets thrown and things start to boil.  What was a fun little platforming game slowly becomes a vicious son of a bitch. And then you get to 8-2.

The only way anyone has ever even reached level 8-2 is by virtue of the Hudson Bee, hidden inside an invisible egg right before the end of Level 1-1.  This magical little fellow grants you the only saving grace to be found in Adventure Island: infinite continues.  If you fail to find the bee, you won't the second time around.  Fortunately, the instruction manual hints at the existence of this bee, so it is a valid aspect of the game that does not disqualify it from this project, and I think the good people of Hudson decided to tell you about it because they knew eventually you would get to Level 8-2 and need that bee.

I'm not kidding, you don't get this bee, you may as well play something else.

Like I said, the rest of the game is challenging enough.  Master Higgins has very little resilience and apart from his skateboard cannot really take much punishment.  Furthermore, he must keep eating fruit, the fat little bastard, to stay alive, so you cannot dilly-dally around on the levels, you must keep pushing forward.  Thankfully, the games many power-ups give you plenty of opportunity to succeed.  The level design is a bit repetitive with the areas repeating and only the addition of more enemies or different obstacles to make your trek increasingly difficult.  The boss fights are actually some of the easier parts and you'll be praying that you win each encounter for the sole purpose of not having to replay the previous level.

It takes time to learn the rhythm and pacing of each level, and those infinite continues come in handy.  Of course, those infinite continues also mean that you'll be playing Level 8-2 for the rest of your life.  However, once you beat it, the game will fall to your mighty powers because few levels in a video game are more frustratingly evil than 8-2.  At the end of the day, though, those endless continues will pay off and your patience will reward you with that one glorious run that puts you through 8-2 and on to 8-3 and 8-4 which aren't exactly cake.  Look at it this way, I left Adventure Island on for 8 consecutive days trying to beat 8-2, and I nearly did it!

Trust me Adventure Island would be a top 5 contender no questions asked were it not for the infinite continues granted by that happy little bee.  Its humble home down here at 18 is probably deceptive, particularly for someone who is not a platform gamer, but rest assured, there are many, many NES games easier than level 8-2 on Hudson's Adventure Island.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 12

Conan

Who's that now?  Conan?  There is a Conan game for the NES?  Yeah, that's what I said.  The only vague memory that I have of this game existing was that I think I spotted a copy once at a flea market years ago and said to myself "oh boy, a Conan game from Mindscape, I bet that's a winner."  And I passed on picking it up.  Who knew that not only was it fairly rare, but it was also one of the NES's hardest games?

I soon found out why it has earned both distinctions.  Conan is a very hard game with a single absolutely tragic flaw that honestly keeps it from being one of the lost gems for the system.  You see Conan is hard for all of the tradition reasons: level design, enemy placement, tricky puzzles, etc., but it finds its way this far up the list mainly because of its absolutely flawed control scheme. That is probably why it wasn't more poplar and well known, and that is where we will start...

For all intents and purposes, Conan is a fairly straightforward platforming adventure game with puzzle elements.  You rove from level to level seeking special weapons to do battle with mythical monsters and foes.  Simple right?  Should only require a very basic control scheme right?  WRONG.  For whatever reason, the geniuses at Mindscape decided that Conan would be oh so much better if you had to press DOWN to jump (you can also jump straight up by pressing UP, but DOWN is the only way to jump forward).  They also decided that in order to pick up a new item you must crouch, and crouching is accomplished by a combination of pressing DOWN and B.  There is no way that might cause a problem.  There is no way that when you want to pick up that energy crystal you might accidentally jump into the pit of lava instead.  There is no way.  Except, you know, that is exactly what happens.  I would wager that 95% of all deaths in this game result from this bizarre and broken control scheme.  I would go so far as to say that 75% of this game's difficulty comes from this absurd control scheme.  And unlike a good old fashioned learning curve, this is not something you can ever get used to.  I don't care how much you play Conan, it is NEVER intuitive to press down to jump and it is never easy to execute the crouch to pick up a weapon.  Oh sure, you can get the hang of it, you can adapt, but you cannot master.  I defy you.  It is just too stupid.  I'll go ahead and tell you now, Conan is #19 on this list because it has very crappy controls and they make the game WAY more difficult than it needs to be.

Apart from the ridiculous controls, Conan is pretty much a trial and error game.  Each level must be solved by finding the right item to advance to the next part of the level.  Case in point, in level 1 you must kill a skeleton and take his sword, use the sword to cut free the cadaver hanging from the ceiling which will summon the devil, kill the goblin to obtain the fireball, use the fireball to kill the devil, obtain the trident from the devil, use the trident to kill the Manticore, then exit the level.  The game is brutally linear and logical in this way.  You must do A before you can do B, and so on.  All of the levels are like this, and most of the levels are extremely short.  You spend the majority of your time just figuring out what to do with what.  Guaranteed if you pick something up in a level it directly ties to what you need to do next to progress.  Level 3 is very much like that.  You get a shield at the end of level 2, you need the shield to block the Gorgon's gaze, slay the Gorgon and you get its head with which you can kill the hydra at the end of the level.


Linear progression and annoying controls aside, the game is actually very interesting and visually impressive.  The short levels mean you spend your time solving puzzles not whacking enemies and once solved you can complete almost every level in just a couple of minutes.  The big kicker is at the end of the final level. To win the game you must place items in the correct sequence or you are instantly killed, GAME OVER.  Obviously this is frustrating and annoying, and will require several trips to finally trial and error your way to victory, but it can be done.

I honestly think Conan is a pretty good game, and can be lots of fun.  Yet, as I said before, Conan shows up here mainly because of its asinine controls, and also because of its devious puzzles and level design.  Be prepared to die a lot, both legitimately and because you jumped when you wanted to pick up a torch...sigh...

Lewis Morris, nobody's fool.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 11

Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road

If you put this game in your NES and play it for 10 minutes, chances are good you will swear it is broken and immediately toss it in the discard pile. No one could blame you.  The game looks broken.  With all of the flicker (a necessary evil on the Atari 2600, a bother on the NES), the jumpy screens, the odd and often juxtaposed sprite displays, it certainly looks like a prototype slipped out the door.  And when you give it a few minutes of game play, your suspicions might be even more confirmed.  You are given one life and limited hit points with no visible way to replenish them, the enemies swarm from all over and they hit you really hard, and chances are good you have died before you have left the first area.  All of these things say "broken game" to pretty much everyone.  I know it did for me.

There is no denying it, this game is a mess. It feels sloppily put together at best and frustratingly difficult to impossible at worst. I certainly would never have spent more than about 10 minutes playing this game had it not shown up on this list.  But I did.  I had to.  I was bidden to play this game for five hours and what I discovered was pretty shocking.  If you take the time and learn how to play this game (here we go again, trust me the learning curve is a BIG part of the middle of this list), you can beat it in about 20 minutes!

Seriously.  Twenty minutes is all it takes to beat this game.  The initial learning curve is steep.  Because of the game's many...let's call them idiosyncrasies...you have to learn to play this game very slowly.  Literally.  Since the enemies are finite and do not respawn you can literally crawl through Ikari Warriors II one or two enemies at a time.  Better yet, if you arm yourself with the boomerang and power it up, you can crawl through the game and wipe out most every enemy before they can even think about hurting you.  The enemies appear in the same place every time and you can aim your boomerang for their spot as you approach and take them out as they appear.  To help you, there are shops along the way where you can buy medicine to replenish your health if you do take a hit. There are other things you can buy as well like the important KILL ALL thunderbolt that wipes out all enemies on the screen.  You'll need that in a few places where there is just too much going on to handle easily with your boomerang.  The levels are all rather short and there are only 5 of them.  Even taking your time you can be at the end of the first level in about 3 minutes.  Thanks to all of these things 99% of Ikari Warriors II is not all that difficult.

And then you reach the final boss.  When I first got to this battle, I was inclined to believe that it was impossible.  First, you are stripped of all of your weapons and given a useless sword and grenades. The sword is useless because it cannot hurt the boss. Second, the boss moves around the screen effortlessly and shoots at you with homing missiles. Survival means spending an overwhelming majority of your time just trying to avoid being hit.  Finally, when you do have an open shot you must hit the boss with a grenade, and it must be a bullseye to count.  Your only advantage is that the homing missiles can only hurt you if they hit you directly as well, not if they explode near you.  So the final boss fight is an odd dance of trying to stay close enough to hit the boss, but not so close that he traps you in a corner or wails on you with missiles.  It is very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard.  I would not make you read that many very's if it were not really that hard.  It is.
I nearly beat Ikari Warriors II about fifty times.  Since it only takes roughly15 minutes to get to the end of the game and only an hour or so to get past the learning curve, you'll get plenty of tries, but making good on it might take an act of god.  I originally thought this game was impossible to beat thanks to that absolutely evil final boss fight, but the more I played it the more I doubted it.  This game can be beat, even if only on a lucky shot, but it can be beaten if you work out the right pattern for that final fight.  Ikari Warriors II would be higher on this list if there was more to it than just a vicious boss fight, but I feel it is right at home here at #20.

We've not seen the last of this franchise...

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 10

KLAX!

I love it when something automatically and forever dates itself!  Be it the Beastie Boys gettin' on down for the year 2000, Ton Loc in the 80's bein' down with the ladies, or Klax in the 90's, there is nothing better than something that says "define me by era I sprung from!"

Klax is the first of four puzzle games that make it into the countdown.  An innovative and interesting puzzler, Klax combines the game play of a drop puzzler with the frenetic atmosphere of a juggling act.  Klax demands quick reflexes, problem solving skills, and the ability to think many moves down the road.  Unlike many puzzle games which remain open ended and allow you to play until you have lost your mind (thank you years of Tetris), Klax has a definite end.  All you must do is survive 100 waves and you can crown yourself a Klax Master! (and if you go that far, you can go ahead and rule out dating for a while...)  Clearing those 100 waves is another story.

One of Klax's greatest strengths is that it provides you with different objectives for each wave.  Some waves ask you to simply complete a certain number of klaxes (lines of 3 like colored tiles), others want you to reach a particular score, clear a number of a certain kind of klax like diagonal, and others just want you to handle a specific number of tiles.  Some of these objectives are fairly easy.  Score is a particularly simple objective once you have a good klax strategy; diagonals are your best bet for big points, combos too.  Others can be maddening.  Getting a large number of horizontals can have you beating your head into a wall pretty quickly.  However, the variety of the challenges give you plenty of opportunity to develop good strategies and force you to think about the game in a lot of different ways.

Early on, Klax will seem like a pretty easy game to play and be successful at.  The initial objectives are pretty easy to obtain and the game speed is manageable.  And then you get somewhere around wave 40 and you forget that you once thought this game was just a simple, fun puzzler.  The objectives get to be absurd (make 75 diagonals...), the tiles start marching down the ramp in greater numbers and at a rapid pace, and the sounds of those tiles start thump-thump-thumping in your brain raising your blood pressure and making you think that everyone is out to get you.

Bet she distracted you just now!

Ok, so that last bit might be a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea.  In the later levels, Klax gets pretty intense.  Challenges that before seemed doable become very un-doable and you will be playing the same wave many, many times until you get it right.  But therein lies one of the game's biggest give-aways: endless continues.  So many games would be much more difficult were it not for the infinite continues.  Klax is undeniably one of those.  Can't complete a wave, no big deal, you can try again, and again.  And I did, many waves in the 70's got played sometimes for hours.  As a matter of fact, I firmly believe the only reason I did not beat this game was because something (probably the lovely wife) distracted me and I forgot to hit continue somewhere around wave 75!  I would have made another run at it, but I had just spent like 3 hours playing and my time was almost up.  I'll definitely go back someday and crown myself a Klax Master (I don't have to worry, I'm married and she's a nerd too, suckers!)
The other challenge buster in Klax is the warp feature.  In about 15 minutes you can be playing well into waves 60+ thanks to the fact that every so many waves you are offered the opportunity to skip ahead (as much as 15 levels!) to a level higher up.  While this is not recommended for beginners, it is certainly an easy way to bypass half of the game and get right to the tough stuff at the end.

In theory, you can probably beat Klax in a couple of hours with some serious skills and the occasional lucky break.  The challenge in the later levels is very high and require some serious puzzle solving abilities in order for the objectives to be reached.  There is definitely a wall somewhere around wave 80 that will separate the men from the boys (and women from the girls, and adult hermaphrodites from the child hermaphrodites, we're not sexist around here).  However, thanks to the endless continues and easy warp feature Klax finds its home down here at #21 on the list.  The remaining three puzzle games will not be as kind.

George Clymer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Klax Master.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 9

Double Dragon III

Here we have another game I dismissed in my teenage years as real pile.  I had loved the two previous DD games, but when I got a hold of DDIII, I was nonplussed.    Unlike the previous beat-em-ups, this game gave you one life and your hit points evaporated like heat from a delicious waffle.  I died so many times trying to get out of the first room, I figured the game was obviously broken and it quickly went into the "do not rent again" box.

It was no surprise that it showed back up here in the mix of hardest NES games ever.  If there was one thing my limited encounter with this game could attest to, it was its difficulty.  I was not looking forward to spending five good hours playing this game, getting killed by those same three guys in that same first room.  However, as with yesterday's TMNT entry and so many other games (Uncanny X-men for example), there is a learning curve and once you overcome it, the game really opens up for you.

Double Dragon III has a wicked learning curve.  Wicked.  Remember, I had played the other two, I was not a DD novice, but this game cannot be played like the previous two.  In those games you could take punch after punch and come back for more.  Billy was made of sterner stuff back then.  And you really could come back for more because you had extra lives.  Not so in DDIII!  When your last hit point is gone it is GAME OVER. This automatically ramps the challenge up by a significant margin and you haven't even started the game yet!  To make matters worse, Billy's moves are a little different, and although you still have them all at the outset, you'll feel like you are learning them all over again, so your first few fights will be a bit sluggish and awkward.  Standing and punching or kicking isn't going to cut it.  These are the very reasons I gave this game up for dead oh so long ago.  I couldn't get past these learning curves.

However, when you are shackled to a game for 5 hours you had better get with it or it is going to be a long gaming session.  Fortunately, while the learning curve in DDIII is steep, it is not insurmountable.  And once it has been breached the game really shows its stuff.  After you get the hang of how to keep Billy alive (and how to exploit your two best moves, the classic cyclone spin kick from DDII and the new jump-and-grab-'em-by-the-head-and-toss-them), the game has several features that help keep you going right to the end.  The most significant one is the ability to add new fighters to your team.  When you beat the martial arts masters in the game, they will join your cause.  And you want them, badly.  Chin and Ranzou have some of the most powerful and useful moves in the game and can make later levels much easier.  The biggest plus, though, is that they act as extra lives.  If you die while playing as one of the masters, you'll be allowed to continue on as another character.  Thus, you can effectively accumulate three extra lives through the course of the game.  The other big help is that the game is relatively short, only five levels deep.  While each level is complex and full of gut-punching bad guys to battle, you can learn to master each one with some time and practice and before you know it you are in Egypt ready for the final showdown.

These two moves are essential to your eventual success.

I made it to the final battle three times in the five hours I played this game.  I have no doubt that with a little more time, I could take DDIII down.  That said, Double Dragon III features a big learning curve and makes significant breaks with the traditions of the series that will require a certain amount of re-education on the classically trained gamer's skills.  The level design is strong and the challenge is great.  Double Dragon III earns it #22 ranking on this list.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 8

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

For the longest time I thought this game was crap and much preferred TMNT: The Arcade for the NES instead.  Looking back I think part of the reason was the difficulty.  The turtles were sort of hard to control, their attacks seemed kind of bizarre, they took hits like Glass Joe, and the enemies respawned like there was no tomorrow.   TMNT: The Arcade was much easier.  I guess I just figured Ultra had laid an egg and it took an additional game until they had a lock on how to handle the Turtles.

I think I was a bit hasty in my estimation.  TMNT actually presents a very solid game with a bit of a learning curve and a heavy dose of challenge.  As a kid, I never made it past level 2, but that was because I never invested the time to get past that learning curve.  Once you understand how to use the different Turtles (and that you can switch between them, a fact I only learned after two hours into this project...) you start to make much more significant progress in the game.

That's not to say TMNT isn't hard.  I would wager to say that the Technodrome and the caves leading to it are bone crushingly hard.  The 'Drome itself is a one way ticket to madness and frustration, until you find the scroll weapon.  The final run toward the heart of the 'Drome is next to impossible without that scroll. However, once you have it in hand, you can mow down your enemies and head for glory.  The other levels leading up to the final two are challenging, but no more really than you might find in any other NES game.  They take some time to learn and you'll probably die a lot until you figure out how to clear them, but ultimately they are not impossible.

Having played this game for all of a half an hour as a kid and 5 hours for this project, I got to the final battle twice and could get to the 'Drome reliably every time.  I could probably finish it off with a couple more hours of play time and look forward to doing so some day.  What I am most surprised about is how much I ended up liking this game that had always been an outcast in the collection.  TMNT feels like one of those early NES games where we just make some kind of game and see how it goes.  The game's difficulty is a mix of the learning curve with the controls and game play and the cruel final level designs, but at the end of the day I think it is very beatable and a good game.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Sam Adams, he's more than just a guy who makes average beer, you know!

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 7

Ghosts and Goblins

Yeah, I know.  This one is probably a huge shocker for most people.  Ghosts and Goblins is considered by many to be one of the toughest games on the NES, and I'll not deny that the game has some completely unforgiving areas that were programmed by the devil himself.  However, there is one major factor that greatly diminishes the overall difficulty of this game:  Unlimited Continues.  Thanks to unlimited continues, you can fight those Tattooed Thugs, Red Devils, and the White Dragon over and over and over, until you get it right.  All of the enemies in this game have very specific behavior patterns, and unlimited continues means that you'll have endless opportunity to study those patterns, exploit their weaknesses and eventually break on through to the other side.

I'm not saying Ghosts n' Goblins is easy.  Out of hundreds of NES games, it's right at home in the top 25 and for good reasons.  The enemies are brutal, particularly the red devils who require precise timing in order to defeat.  You only get what amounts to a single hit point, and suits of armor (which grant you an extra hit point) are few and far between.  The level designs are demanding with their precision jumps over chasms and onto moving platforms and the incessant barrage of enemies.  Enemy placement is one of the games most devious aspects.  There is always a tattooed thug on the ladder just above or below you, a blue bird always flying right into the path of your jump, or a red devil perched on a cornice that will attack as soon as your foot touches the ledge. Oh, and every now and then, you'll be turned into a frog.  The game insists that you have quick reflexes, a sharp eye, and nerves of steel.

You'll need all of those to beat Ghosts n' Goblins, but you'll be armed with those unlimited continues I mentioned.  Also working in your favor is the fact that most of the levels are extremely short.  Compared to other platforming games, the levels in Ghosts n' Goblins pass by pretty quickly once you get to know them.  GnG experts can probably clear a level with no deaths in about 2-3 minutes.  All told, this means that once you are a master, the game takes about a half an hour to beat each quest.  And once you get really rolling and have the levels memorized and all of your strategies plotted out, you can roll through this game with relative ease and have a lot of fun doing it.

Oh sure, there are still plenty of spots where I get stuck and very frustrated.  Sometimes it is as early as level two in the second half of the city in the building that is lousy with tattooed thugs, blue birds, and goblins.  Occasionally it is level three in the blue part of the cave.  But most usually it is trying to climb the tower in level 6, with all of the red devils and that white dragon, that usually gets me.  Particularly since you need that damn shield!  So make no mistake, Ghosts n' Goblins is an extremely tough NES game that puts even the most skilled players to the test, but the fact that you have unlimited chances to take it down keeps it a bit lower on this list.  Take away those continues and this game makes the top 10 easy.

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 6

Silver Surfer

What are you talking about? Silver Surfer?  Are you kidding me?  This game should be at least in the top 10, top 5 maybe!  I mean this game is hard, like stupid mean, evil hard.  You sir, have lost your mind.

I wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way, because any of you who are familiar with this game are probably going to have that reaction to Silver Surfer's lowly ranking down here in the bottom 20's.  Silver Surfer is held by many to be one of the toughest scrolling shooter games for the NES. (but oh boy it is not, wait until we get to that beast, it's # 2 on this list) And I will agree with you, it is a hard game to beat, but like most shooters the game has one ultimate truth: if you can obtain all of the power-ups, the game opens up and becomes much easier.  This is the case for games like Gradius (which I think belongs on this list far more than SS) and Abadox.
This is most definitely the case in Silver Surfer.  Sure, there is no denying that the level design and enemy placement is down right devious.  Some of the levels are crushing.  But with the right strategy, you can easily obtain all of the power-ups in the early parts of the game and never look back.

Let me break it down for you:  In Silver Surfer, the ceiling for powering-up is maximum fire power (collect 5 F's) and both orbs, plus a bucket full of bombs. Once you have all of those, you can shoot in any direction, and take out almost all enemies with one shot. If things get tough, you can lay down a bomb. With the exception of a few tricky areas, which you can learn and memorize with trial and error, you should be able to button mash your way to freedom.
Of course, getting there is half the battle.  Since you get to select the order you play the levels in, you can use that to your advantage.  Reptyl and Possessor are the two easiest levels.  I usually start with Reptyl since you can pick up all of the power-ups by the end of the second level, and the level design is forgiving enough that you can make a couple of mistakes and recover from it.  The hardest levels are Mephisto and Firelord, both have absolutely killer level design and will take a lot of dying to learn properly, so I save those for last.  And, of course, Magik's realm is the very last and the toughest, but you should be fully powered when you get there, so that takes some of the pressure off, you just need to take your time and not get cocky.

Seriously though, once you get all of the power-ups, apart from a few tricky spots that require a bit of maneuvering and knowledge of the level, the game really opens up and the difficulty is minimized.  The initial impression of this game is correct, it is brutally hard, but once you get over the learning curve and can obtain and keep power-ups consistently, the game's overall difficulty drops.  You have a limited number of continues, so you cannot just plug away, it will take some learning through playing the levels over and over, but once you get the hang of it, the game can be beaten within an hour.  I agree that Silver Surfer is one of the hardest games for the NES, but it belongs down here at 25, not up higher with the truly evil games that are coming...

What's with the blank label and varsity lettering?

The Top 30 Hardest NES Games Ever. Day 5

Kid Kool

Honestly, this game probably doesn't belong on the list any more than Defenders of Dynatron City, but I lobbied hard for this one in the voting process because there are elements of it, and particular levels, that make this game extraordinarily difficult.  I am thinking most specifically about some of the absolutely vicious feats of jumping the game asks you to perform, be it skipping across a lake like a stone or rebounding off trampolines across a bottomless chasm.  The are parts of this game that ask you to be so ridiculously precise that it is not unfathomable that only the most skilled, dedicated, or stupid have ever seen the end of this game. (does that double negative really work there, I mean "it is fathomable that only..." just seemed more awkward...)

For the record, I have beaten Kid Kool all of twice.  Once a few years ago, and once last year for this project.  The most recent accomplishment was done in four and half hours of nearly non-stop playing.  I say nearly because anyone who has played this game knows that you have to take occasional rage breaks (a common feature in this list) to prevent from destroying more financially significant aspects of your environment.  I would probably play Kid Kool a lot more except for one glaring problem, the game gets frustrating early and often.

For those who don't already know, Kid Kool is Vic Tokai's answer to Mario.  The main character is a hapless kid: a leather jacketed teen according to the label art or a dopey looking overall-wearing mort in the game, who must collect the seven magical herbs to save the King who has become ill.  To collect these herbs, Kid Kool must brave seven whimsically aggravating levels and deflate (not kidding) the seven bosses that await him.  Your only weapon is a small fuzzy creature (think tribble with eyes and legs) that pops out of the grass and mounts on your shoulder.  You can lob this little monster at the other monsters and he will knock them off the screen and rebound back to your shoulder.  If you lose the monster by taking a hit, then you will be forced to pound your foes into the dirt with your feet.  Using the monster is easier and safer.  There are power-ups and perils just like any other platformer of this type.  At the end of each level is a most unusual boss battle wherein you do little actually battling with your adversary.  Instead, to defeat them, you must mash down on what looks to be an air pump until the foe has been vanquished.  (Don't look at me like that, it's inexplicable, but true!) This makes the boss fights an almost welcome respite from the otherwise devious platforming it takes to get to them. 
And I am not even kidding.  Once you hit level three, all bets are off.  The game throws absolutely unfair combinations of enemies, jumps, and obstacles at you in rapid succession.  The control mechanics are not your friend either.  In order to make long jumps you must get a running start, yet there are many places where there simply isn't a lot of room to build up speed.  The game screen is technically two screens high, but if you jump up or fall down a screen, then game stops, scrolls the screen, then resumes the action.  This causes a lot of problems establishing a fluidity of motion in the executing the precise maneuvers they want you to perform.
The end result is mounting frustration and a desperate need of your endless continues.  You need the continues because you may be doing several levels or parts of levels many, many times to get past them, and once past them you'll not turn your NES off until the game has been beaten because you never, ever want to have to do that again.  The frustration will come when you finally breach a certain area that you have been trying to get right for the past half hour, only to die immediately in the next tough section and have to do both again.

All of the above being said, the game can be beaten and the unlimited continues mean you have plenty of time to get it right.  Part of the game play is a countdown timer that represents how much time the King has before he succumbs to his malady, but that timer is an idle threat.  You have more than enough game time to take the game out, no matter how many times you have to make a run at a certain level.  Kid Kool makes this list because of its insidious level design and high level of frustration.  Many people will get fed up before they beat this game, making it hard enough to be in the Top 30 (29 really).