Nintendo Hard/Uncategorised

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 * Breakdown: Controls take a very long time to master although not in a Fake Difficulty way. Enemies are very strong and every hit disorients the player, forcing him to adjust the view while under attack. Its penultimate battle is a five round deathmatch with no save points. Actions are slow but in a great, detailed manner, not Fake Difficulty. Save points are sometimes very distant. Suffice to say the game has a very meaningful title.
 * There's a new generation of Nintendo Hard games, which take play mechanics from NES classics and cranks up the difficulty way past eleven, to a number that can't be displayed on a standard pocket calculator. Homebrew game designer Dessgeega has referred to these games as "masocore," or games for hardcore masochistic players. She also created her own game in the genre, Mighty Jill Off, which is a tribute to Mighty Bomb Jack. The difference is that there are no bombs... instead, the player is forced to master the high jumps and gliding that defined the Bomb Jack series in order to climb to the top of a very high, very dangerous tower.
 * The first tower is relatively tame, but the second one... Well, just to tip you off, the criteria to play it is to finish the first level under twelve minutes. If you still want to play it, you'd better be prepared for some nasty tricks, such as Fortunately, the game plays fair and these obstacles aren't that hard to figure out.
 * The game Stuntman, especially in the later levels. You have to drive a car through a long sequence with numerous stunts with very little margin of error. The strict time limit and stunt requirements make it so that if you make a mistake at any point, you pretty much have to restart the level. Several levels take dozens of retries to get through. The sequel, thankfully, was much more forgiving, allowing you to get through most levels without much trouble, though it's still challenging to get a high score on them.
 * Odama. Picture a real time strategy game where you had to keep an eye on the battle field while maintaining a game of pin ball, with a time limit.
 * Robo Warrior on the original NES. Similar to Bomberman, you had to drop bombs to create a path through a labyrinth of breakable rocks, unbreakable rocks and enemies. Your life meter was constantly draining, the enemies ranged from very annoying to downright dangerous, and then there were several sections where you had to bomb a certain breakable (or even "unbreakable") block multiple times to continue on with the game. DO NOT try to play this without a guide.
 * Legacy of the Wizard. The game is one massive dungeon, there is no map, you will get stuck if you try to play without knowing where everything is, and the only Save Point is at the house where you start.
 * Maverick, which I would say is Jumper's spiritual pre-/sequel, involves constantly shifting physics and one mode of motion: the recoil of your guns. Once you  the magical pig, gravity is reversed, except in the two or three levels where there wasn't any, and you have to proceed to Level 0. In reverse. Which is really, really hard, even compared to the already hellish regular levels. Oh, and it ends with an error screen telling you your software broke, and "maybe you'll get the present next time."
 * You would think that as long as you have the necessary skills in whatever it is the game is trying to teach you, Edutainment Games would avoid this, right? You've obviously never played Operation Neptune.
 * Not only is Siren full of terrors, but if you slip up just once the game WILL kill you.
 * If you want One Hundred Percent Completion, you need a guide to complete all of the alternate level goals and get an extra ending in the process. Even then, if you're not thorough enough the first and second times around, you will miss most of the special document items, the last of which unlocks a bonus cutscene . There are also a couple of boss battles that are exhausting, but that's another trope.
 * The Tomb Raider series fluctuates in difficulty, but Tomb Raider 3 is definitely the hardest, and was clearly intended for players who had beaten the first two games. The very first action in the game involves sliding down a hill while jumping to avoid spikes; seemingly an intentional portent of the overall difficulty. In the second level you start fighting the so-called "Shivas," giant six-armed statues that can crisscross their blades to block your bullets. The wolf ambush that opens the second level of the first game, panic-inducing for newbies, is almost comically easy in comparison. There are also unkillable piranhas (turning simple ponds into deathtraps), poison from snakes and blowdarts (you better kill those natives FAST), guys who get off one last shot after you've killed them, and environmental hazards that are extremely hard to get through without heavy damage, and unavoidable in one case outside of glitches (Late in the game, you have to swim through freezing water so deep you have to use health packs as you swim just to stay alive.) Then there are the save crystals, which you collect and use anywhere you want. This should be better than the first game, in which you saved at fixed points, but there's no indication of where the crystals should be used, turning the whole system into just another stress-inducer (PC players get a break in this regard and can save anywhere, making their version far easier). Another "this should be great but it isn't" feature is that you can choose in which order to play certain levels. But if you play the level where you lose all the guns and ammo you've collected last, then the final area is much tougher to get through.
 * Glider PRO and its predecessors at least approach Nintendo Hard difficulty: colliding with the floor or furniture will kill you, never mind moving enemies, and you need to ride vents in order to gain height. The few enemies that can be killed respawn quickly, but extra gliders and other powerups never respawn. Though there are houses with very Benevolent Architecture and sparse enemies, there are also houses like "Castle of the Air," which has a room titled "It Gets Worse!" The stars in "Nemo's Market" are located in rooms that transport you out in a dozen seconds or less, and you will not be forgiven for missing a single one.
 * Grimm's Hatchery - an online game made by Big Fish Games - is one of the most annoying games to complete ever seen. Getting the Golden Goose is easy enough, as you get a pretty big hint. But it gets worse from there on in. The purse that you find in an urn in the Working Sector is hard to find in the first place, but then you can steal the money out of it. Whoops! Doing that results in not being able to get the Noble Sector or any more hatcheries! Combining pets almost ALWAYS results in a rotten egg, unless you combine the dragonflies to get some pets that are worth loads. And hatching them is a pain, because you need roughly THIRTY to get THREE of that pet! And get this - not only is it practically impossible after you buy the third hatchery because it takes ages to get, but if you get the key to the Noble Sector, the game becomes impossible because you can't get enough Ruby Gryphon/Green Dragon eggs to get the pet while getting the Noble Sector hatchery! And I thought that getting 300,000 gold before 80 days were up was bad...
 * The Adventure Island series would also qualify. One hit deaths, cheap AI, limited attacks, and a limited timer that had to be constantly refilled by eating fruit before you starved to death are just some of the things that make this series difficult.
 * Chakan The Forever Man for the Sega Genesis. Named for both the titular character's immortality and the amount of time it takes to beat it on hard mode. The Bonus Boss is Death himself. Although he's not nearly as cool as one would imagine.
 * Air Fortress actually starts off pretty easy. At Level 4, the game stops playing around. On Level 6, it officially crosses over into this trope.
 * Many online flash games unintentionally fall under this trope, as they are often created primarily by one person, thus preventing much play testing. As a result, they often start with an insultingly easy tutorial and quickly spiral into insanity, with little in the way of a curve in between.
 * QWOP. Who would had thought the simple act of running for even a measly five meters can be so hard?
 * The Guardian Legend was at the very least Trial and Error Gameplay at its finest, in those pre-GameFAQs days. The Zelda-like bits weren't so bad once you memorized them, but some of the space-shooter parts were terrifying even when you knew exactly what was coming.
 * Wonderland Adventures is overall rather tame, focusing more on complex puzzles than on quick reflexes, even if it does contain an occasional hairpuller like "Button Me Down". Then you run into the level "Wakka Wakka 2". For those who don't know, it's a Pacman-like maze where you are chased by an enemy that always, always moves faster than you. Your only hope is to use the teleporters in maze that simulate the "from one side of the screen to the other". The catch? There are only 8 teleporter pairs, and each pair can only be used once. So if you haven't got the gems before that, tough luck. Unless you have played it, you have no idea how hard it is.
 * Terminator Salvation the Arcade Game is a very tough Light Gun game compared to Ghost Squad or Razing Storm. Let's see...swarm waves of enemies which can take an entire magazine of your gun to kill a single Terminator. Swarms of Demonic Spider units which will utterly overwhelm you. And there is no way to know how close you are to finishing off an enemy unlike its cousins which will put your skills as a resistance soldier to the test.
 * Dark Reign, a fairly obscure Real Time Strategy game, started out seeming like a run of the mill Command & Conquer knockoff. It doesn't end that way.
 * Having played several of these games for a feature on another web site, I can tell you without a trace of hyperbole that Nintendo Hard pales in comparison to Spectrum Hard. The ZX Spectrum was a budget-priced computer that was extremely popular in Great Britain, with hundreds upon hundreds of games available for it. Nearly every one of them was murderously difficult, with many offering the player no means of defense and a few limiting him/her to a single life. Treasure Island Dizzy did both. Add a color-deficient graphics processor that often hides characters inside background details and you've got games that are challenging in every way you can imagine, along with a few you hadn't even considered. Heaven help anyone in the 1980s who tried to beat the Spectrum conversion of Ghosts N Goblins without cheats.
 * A Fairly Oddparents game called Unfairly OddParents has "unfair" right in the title, and it lives up to the name.
 * Fear Effect. There are a lot of ways to die in both games, and they will happen often.
 * In Mabinogi, There is storyline events that may consider be Nintendo hard:
 * Post G9 mission difficulty is weighted by your total level. Hope you weren't level 1000+...
 * Peaca Dungeon is worth a mention, but the Arc Lich from Metus turns difficulty up to eleven.
 * YMMV, When you're experience lag, and in a dungeon, or Shadow mission.
 * Giant Field bosses. Even though it's pointless to kill them, but they drop awesome drops and several unobtainium items.
 * Battle Fantasia does this with some of its trophies. One in particular requires you to survive Deathbringer's Apocalypse Flame super move (a very fast 22 hit combo) and then win... at full health. What this means in practice is that you must parry all 22 hits of Apocalypse Flame (which requires split second timing), not get hit AT ALL by anything else (because Deathbringer has at least two unblockable moves), and win the round. To compare, Daigo's infamous comeback at EVO involved parrying Chun Li's super... a mere 15 hits, and didn't require a perfect victory. Appropriately, the trophy is named "You want me to WHAT?!".
 * The Tower of Druaga is almost impossible to beat without knowing in advance what treasures you need to collect and how to collect them, which the game doesn't explain. Even with a Strategy Guide, every level is a Timed Mission with random player, enemy, item and exit placements. And there are no Save Points, a fact that players who see the dreaded message "YOU ZAP TO ..." will bitterly regret. (There is a Continue Mode, though.)
 * Super Cosplay War Ultra has it's fair share of SNKBosses, but where the Nintendo Hard aspect truely shines is in Battle Royale mode, which pits you and an AI-controlled partner against a series of mook enemies with a boss battle at the end of each stage. Even if it weren't for the fact that your AI partner is guilty of doing some pretty dumb things (like wasting supers when the enemy's got you in the middle of an attack and renders both of you untouchable) and getting caught in between two enemies can cause you to swap directions randomly, Battle Royale mode would still be tough as hell, thanks to tougher-than-they-really-should-be mooks (every one has a super move, and the recurring Pac-Helo enemy can electrify himself, hurting the player if he/she doesn't attack him from a distance) and gigantic bosses with lots and lots of HP and attacks that hurl the player across the screen for massive damage (and some of them even render the boss immune to hitstun.) Most notable are stage 3, which gets rid of your AI partner entirely and pits you against 5 enemies all by yourself (and the game doesn't wait for you; if you take too long to defeat an enemy, more will spawn until you're completely overwhelmed.) and stage 5, which pits you against two mooks, two Elite Mooks at once (both of which are practically Mid Boss material) and the boss from stage 3 (who will spawn anyway if you take too long) and then finally one of the biggest SNKBosses in the game. All in one sitting. And that's not even getting into Another Battle Royale...
 * Katamari Damacy has always had frustrating gimmick levels, but Katamari Forever takes it Up to Eleven with some of the King's Cosmos levels:
 * The Cowbear level from We Love Katamari makes its return, but is even more obscenely difficult with the black-and-white filter making it impossible to tell what, exactly, counts as a cow or a bear.
 * Levels such as Make Mars, where you have to roll up specific types of items while avoiding others, are also made needlessly frustrating because of the black and white filter.
 * The superior computing power of the Play Station 3 makes it that so small items disappear much slower as you get bigger, which means the Only 50 items level is ridiculously harder than the last time it appeared.
 * Katamari Drive mode takes the cake, though: Your katamari rolls about ten times faster, which is a huge drawback on the gimmick levels, but on every level, you're expected to do BETTER than normal!
 * On top of all that, the camera is much worse this time around, and it's really easy to get it stuck behind something, which adds just another facet of BS difficulty.
 * The First Shogun Total war's battles. Lets start listing them.
 * Campaigns of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi are notoriously hard. Tokugawa's campaign's Mikata Ga Hara makes you fight a losing battle. Toyotomi's campaign's First mission itself is hard.
 * Archer tutorial. You have 30 Archers, as a unit to fight a 34-35 Spear Samurais. You start in a hill, but the weather is stormy, which makes Archer-ing even more worst.
 * Uesugi's 1530 Scenario. The Nearby Hojo will invade. Oh, To add more insult, the Rebels, for some odd reason will swarm you also. If you somehow beat that, then hope Your ONLY heir didn't die. Hope you're not playing Expert or Hard...
 * Takeda's 1530 Scenario. The Rebels WILL invade Aki province, one way or another. The Computer seems to lose this province, though.
 * Japan vs. Mongols scenario. In the Scenario, you are promised with Many strong troops. To make it worse, the Mongols won't land on that Specific spot. They land on the North Coasts. Meaning Anything that's North have a coastline. To make it worse, You can't train the Warrior Monks. The only way to win? Cheat for Money and bribe the Mongol forces, or wait till you can train Nodachis, Which needs Multiple victories to obtain.
 * The Segoki Jidai Rebel scenario, Assessable via cheat, has you controling the Game Breaker No-Dachis. You can also build Warrior Monks, but guess what, When the years goes by, both the No-Dachi and Warrior monks will fall. Even to the Ashigarus. This problem seems to be averted towards the Medieval versio rebels, though.
 * Everything in the 1580 Scenario. You have: The Shimazu, can be invaded by the Mori. The Mori, who can be invaded by Shimazu AND Oda. The Oda, who can be invaded by Rebellions and the nearby Takeda/Uesugi. The Tokugawa, who is surrounded by Takeda forces. The Hojo, who can be targeted by the aggresive Rebels and Uesugi. The Uesugi, who can be wiped by the Takeda. And finally, the Takeda, which almost can be the winner, can be targeted by the Tokugawa... in which if they build a Citadel and the Geisha.
 * The First Medieval Total war suffers from Nintendo Hard also. Examples include:
 * Campaigns. Again, these makes you fight with units that you either have no experience, and most of the time, you're pitted with Enemies that never gets tired.
 * Total Victory. If you're about to win, hope that your Generals won't Mutiny. If they do, You have to attack strong troops you trained. What's worse, Medieval has a Year limit, and if the game is going to end, and your generals mutiny, It becomes an Unwinnable game.
 * Sieges. Unlike Shogun, These sieges are deadlier. You will lose many troops, if you're attacking that is.
 * Units. So many to pick from. If you don't have the internet (During the game is first released), picking out stronger units becomes a Guide Dang It. Unlike Shogun, again, there's too many units to try.
 * The Pope. Sure, he's the Holy Father, but if conquered, he comes back, Strong. And if You're his enemy, Prepare to be excommunicated and Crusades on your lands. It's averted if you're not a Catholic religion, or you are the Pope.
 * A not so severe case exists with Peasentry forces - Players who played Shogun before will think that Peasentry (Ashigaru in Shogun) will be good on certain fights right? Nope. You can try make it fight Horses. They Die. Fight Ranged units. They die. Make them have MAX Rank and Weaponry? Make it 16 units? (1600 Men) They still lose, regardless (unless the opponent is also a peasentry force, but weaker). A Non button example of Damn You, Muscle Memory! ?
 * Battlezone 1998: The Red Odyssey (A RTS/FPS/Vehicle Combat game) is an entire expansion pack of Nintendo Hard missions. The very first mission has you walking over a kilometer on foot (this is a game where you spend 99% of your time inside a hover tank), while being hunted down by other foot soldiers - dark red who easily blend into the dark gray ground of the planet. Once you reach your destination (a Russian army base), you have to snipe a hover tank's cockpit to kill the pilot (No easy task, mind you), steal the tank, scan a couple buildings, then rush through the base while being shot at by everything, then escape through a labyrinth of narrow canyons, then defend a small base for upwards of 20 minutes against a nearly constant onslaught of Russian hover tanks.
 * Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS easily qualifies for this trope. While the difficulty level is adjustable, when it's hard, it's Nintendo Hard.
 * The laserdisc game Badlands plays like if Dragon's Lair had one button, extremely strict timing for the button presses, and no continues.