Nintendo Hard/Uncategorised: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* ''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 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.

* ''[[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.

* You would think that as long as you have the necessary skills in whatever it is the game is trying to teach you, [[Edutainment Game|Edutainment Games]] would avoid this, right? You've obviously never played ''[[Super Solvers|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 {{spoiler|that appears to be a prequel to the whole game that explains Hanuda Village's curse}}. There are also a couple of boss battles that are exhausting, but that's [[That One Boss|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 [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|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 [[No-Gear Level|lose all the guns and ammo you've collected]] last, then the final area is much tougher to get through.

* ''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.

* 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.

* [http://foddy.net/Athletics.html QWOP]. Who would had thought the simple act of running for even a measly five meters can be so hard?

* 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.

* A [[Fairly Oddparents]] game called [http://www.nick.com/games/the-fairly-oddparents-unfairly-oddparents.html# Unfairly OddParents] has "unfair" right in the title, and it lives up to the name. {{spoiler|It's an [[April Fools' Day]] game.}}

* [[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+...

** 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.

** [[That One Level|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.

** 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.

** 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...

* 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 [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|never gets tired]].

** 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 [[Badass Grandpa|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!]] ?

* The laserdisc game ''[[Badlands]]'' plays like if ''Dragon's Lair'' had one button, extremely strict timing for the button presses, and no continues.