Topic: Toughest Game You've Beat

@OldManHermit
Mega Man 10 takes the cake for me, on Hard mode. Heck, I'd say it's even more difficult on Standard Vs Mega Man 1. Mega Man & Bass is another tough cookie, especially on GBA since it cuts down or zooms in on everything, to accommodate the GBA's tiny screen, which can make boss battles even more frustrating and difficult to take out.

Awesome game though, and definitely an overall improvement over MM8. The fact that it ditches mega man's in-game higher pitched jumping yelps and "power shot!" etc is a god send.
Mega Man in 8 sounds like Ash from the original 1997 Pokemon Cartoon after a Helium balloon chugging session.

Off the top of my head, probably Donkey Kong Country 2. I am sure that there are harder ones, but this one just springs to mind because I have no idea how I did it as an 8 year old, when there is no way I would have done it without save states on NSO playing now!

But giving it more thought....any Nes game I beat really haha!

DDR SuperNOVA 2 PS2 USA

There was one mission on Area L by playing Flowers Hana Ranman by TERRA on Expert difficulty and must get at least 250 Marvelous from 348 combo.
That was ridiculous hard to get 250 Marvelous even with my 20 years experience of playing DDR.

I definitely tend to stick to more casual singleplayer games. I do like a good challenge, but it's typically not the sort of game that I gravitate to. There are a few exceptions, though:

Celeste was a very challenging, but extremely rewarding game. It's probably the hardest game I've played thus far.

I also 112% completed Hollow Knight. Some of those Pantheon bosses are insane.

I also plan on playing Elden Ring pretty soon, which will be my first foray into the FromSoft world of games.

Is Yoshi's Island (SNES) considered hard to 100%? Because I got 100 points on every level - including the Extra levels.

Cuphead 100% (before the DLC) is probably one of my better gaming achievements. Taking a few years off and trying to jump back into the DLC has been extremely challenging, my skill in that game has decreased dramatically (I think I have only been able to beat 1 of the new levels on the easiest difficulty). DKC 1 & 2 100% was pretty tough as well. Lastly, beating the final level in Mario Wonder was incredibly frustrating and one of the most difficult single levels that I can recall - but making it to the finish line felt great.

@NeonPizza Oh yeah, I forgot about Megaman and Bass. It is tough, I've played it but never finished it.

Been awhile, but I recall MM9&10 being slightly easier than the earlier games by virtue of the fact you can stock up on e-tanks at the shop between stages. Have not dabbled in hard mode though, so I will have to take your word for it!

I know it probably isn’t the hardest in the world, but for me, it would be Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

The port I played was the Xbox One version via Rare Replay, but I played it on my Series S. I actually liked it (evidenced by my profile picture) but the controls were actually rather unrefined, even on the Xbox. It had a camera that I’d say was worse than the one in Banjo-Kazooie!

I got stuck in the game about 3-4 times from how challenging it got, combined with the controls. Most notably, there was this sewer that led to a prehistoric level in the game. There were blades that could kill you in a single hit, and I did get through that part on my first try, but there was a second set of smaller blades I accidentally jumped on, so my next attempts were full of trial-and-error.

In that same prehistoric level, they put in this pretty terrible racing mini game that ensues after the main character gets mugged by a group of cavemen; out of all the moments in that game, that part was the one I struggled with the most, since you need to go at a fast pace to catch up and hit them to retrieve the money back, but you also can’t hit any obstacles or crash into any walls, and doing so results in your progress in the race being restarted back to zero. Not to mention you cannot complete the game unless you complete the mini game in its entirety!

The hardest level in the game by far was the Saving Private Ryan themed chapter. That one was super HARD, from start to finish. Right at the end of the level, you have to escape under a time limit and exiting through the same way you entered the building and avoiding getting killed by the enemy militia. They place these lasers around the place, and it’s so hard to not get hit by any of them.

Before the final boss in the final chapter, they did a parody of The Matrix, which I did have trouble with at first (not to mention the enemies can headshot you out of nowhere) but my solution was to repeatedly use the B button to jump in slow-motion and shoot endlessly at them. The final boss though? I struggled HARD with it, but it was from a combination of me forgetting to jump and block or doing it at the wrong time (like an idiot) and the bad controls. They did a pretty cool homage to Mario 64 during the boss fight with the gameplay, but the controls just made it feel terrible and like I was going to cause the control stick to drift on my Xbox controller.

I enjoyed the game, but I unfortunately don’t plan on doing a second full play through anytime soon from the bad controls and difficulty; it’s what actually kills off my interest in playing it in its entirety again, but, I will say, it felt rewarding finishing that annoying boss fight super early in the morning after I spent 4 hours from 11 PM to 3 AM trying to finish up the remainder of the game.

The same company behind the game also made Battletoads years prior, which probably explains things… I would have put it here instead, but I haven’t completed it and probably won’t for the foreseeable future. I got near the end of that game but even using the rewind feature on Rare Replay didn’t even help. If I recall, it was a level where you were in this pipe and you had to run away from these blades that were chasing you, but I kept getting caught by them, so I pretty much gave up there.

It's definitely considered somewhat hard. Honestly even Yoshi's Crafted World is a bit hard to 100% even though beating that game any-% is super easy; Yoshi games really make you work to find all the collectibles.

Kinda reminds me of Kirby. While it's still easy, 100%-ing a Kirby game is what separates the boys from the men. Just watch Nathaniel Bandy's video on 100%-ing every Kirby game and it pained him because of it being both too hard and boringly easy.

I gotta go with Megaman & Bass too. It’s among my favorites, but I had a hell of a tough time.

I would say the base game of cuphead ( bought it 4 years ago, dropped it halfway finally beat it last year.) But since everyone here has probably beaten it already, I would say Klonoa door to phantomile on ps1. It's like yoshis island for playstation except with questionable design choices and slippery controls (not to mention a worse flutter jump). Add to that a lack of permanent checkpoints, cheap deaths that can make you lose all your lives - and start a 10 min long level over again, I'm still surprised I beat it last night...

After Googling "difficult" SNES games, I would have to go with the Super Star Wars games.

Beat all three of those.

Donkey Kong Country 2 is the one coming to mind. So hard, yet so fun.
It's probably the game i found most challenging that i actually beat several times through the years.
Beat the first Wiz Pig-race in Diddy Kong Racing last year, after 25 years or so. That game was so challenging to child me. Not as challenging for adult me, and i could finally experience the extra tracks.

@Hompen It's funny you've mentioned Donkey Kong Country 2 because I've beaten it for the first time last year, despite having played the game during my childhood! A lot of the later levels are incredibly tough, I remember being stuck in that level with the rising green water. I've not finished Diddy Kong Racing though, it's been years since I last played it. I do remember finishing the first Wizpig race and getting to Future Fun Land, but I think that's it.

@NeonPizza @OldManHermit @Yousef- Mega Man & Bass is the only classic series Mega Man game that I've not finished. (I've beaten MM1-11.) I did get pretty far in it though, but my goodness, that game is just brutal! The furthest I got was the second King level. That level... wasn't a fun time, to put it lightly.

Contra III comes to mind and even then I only 'beat' it on easy. I could only get to stage 4 on normal and kept dying over and over by that stupid battleship with the missiles.

The entirety of Jak II at times felt ridiculous with little to no checkpoints in between long sections and some brutal missions I would get stuck on for hours.

Mega man Zero the first game in particular. Its been awhile since I finished all the Zero games, but out of the 4 the 1st game is by far the hardest.

Shinobi Legions. Most people usually talk about the games on the genesis, but this game is no joke. The first few stages are nothing, but the mine cart level and especially the level with the insta-kill missiles in the last stage that require extremely tight and precise platforming. Good god.