Really Hard Videogames

[Cheb]

Don't ever play Battle for Wesnoth on the hard setting. The AI is a monster. You'll spend every turn checking and re-checking that the enemy units can't get to your wounded and your healers. And if you gather a force formidable enough, enemy's faster units will circle it like vultures, always staying one hex out of reach, daring you to attack, waiting for your slightest mistake... That one campaign where I had to fight the horsemen clans on an open, featureless plain still gives me nightmares. It's an incredible pain to level your unit (say, a mage) to a decent level, and then having it killed by an enemy knight in one charging attack... Don't go there.

[Gaming Ikari]

I can understand (Kid Icarus) because I have a rom of it and it kicks my ass, but what's wrong with Metroid? Yeah, Super Metroid is the best of the bunch, but the original is still a good play.

Compared to Super Metroid, the original just doesn't hold up. As I've mentioned, game design has come a long way. It was a great game on a terrible console... and it's limitations become more and more apparent every day.

I like Metroid, but... It's painful to play, these days.

Don't ever play Battle for Wesnoth on the hard setting.

That's why I love it! It's the anti-Final Fantasy Tactics! Instead of having game-breaking abiltiies against a pathetic AI, you have pathetic abilities against a game-breaking AI. Victory tastes that much sweeter when you know you've earned it.

[CRBWildcat]

Compared to Super Metroid, the original just doesn't hold up. As I've mentioned, game design has come a long way. It was a great game on a terrible console... and it's limitations become more and more apparent every day.

I like Metroid, but... It's painful to play, these days.

Truthfully, though, Super Metroid, Fusion, and Zero Mission make things easy for gamers. ... A little too easy, if you ask me. You have the map to help you get around and track down some of the powerups, a better means of outrunning enemies, a visor in S. M. that identifies blocks that you can blast through, screen-clearing Power Bombs...

The original Metroid (and by extension, the sequel on the Game Boy) has none of that. It provides a challenge that, even 20+ years later, makes those who play it yell at their consoles in frustration (I can't say the same for everyone, but I know it's happened to me ). And really, difficult games are what this is all about, is it not?

On a side note, the original NES could be a terrible console, but I tend to think that's only if it's judged by today's standards. But that's neither here nor there.

[Spokavriel]

The NES was a great console. And it's simpler design than more modern system drove allot of game design innovations.

Just the fact of the inherent limitations lead game developers to see how many ways they could craft a game that exceeded them with still having a strong story and game play that in most games is rather intuitive.

Even though they gave you instruction manuals you rarely ever needed them.

[CRBWildcat]

Back on the topic of difficult video games, I have one that made itself known to me recently: Mario Kart DS.

Two words: Rainbow Road. Anyone who has ever played one of the Mario Kart games should know exactly what I'm talking about: the final course in the game, engineered specifically to drive gamers mad. High-speed road, twists and turns, and 80% of the course (I think that's a safe estimation) has no railings. At least one or two falls are all but assured.

[Spokavriel]

You make the right move on an overlap you can make allot of shortcuts along the Rainbow Roads. Well depending on the difficulty level.

[Crescent Pulsar]

Wut? Rainbow road was always my favorite course on any game. I never found it difficult or annoying. For the 64, I liked to jump off at the start and land on another part of the track. ^^

[CRBWildcat]

It's been at least a decade since I've played M.K. 64, so I don't remember that game's Rainbow Road all that well (Banshee Boardwalk's the only track I remember with any clarity). The problem facing me with this version is that I'm playing on the hardest difficulty level (I've played through on the first two difficulties, and the stage was a major pain even then). My reflexes simply aren't up to the task, and as far as I can tell there aren't any shortcuts this go 'round.

[Crescent Pulsar]

Maybe it's because it's the DS game. At least, personally, I'd think my skills would be worse on a handheld than on a console.

[Spokavriel]

I haven't really played that track on my emulator. It's just not as fun when trying to drive in that game using a keyboard where you hit more than 2 buttons at once it starts making the error noise.

But is your course similar to this diagram image?

[CRBWildcat]

Maybe it's because it's the DS game. At least, personally, I'd think my skills would be worse on a handheld than on a console.

Yeah, maybe. Haven't been able to manage it no matter which character I use, so I figure that's as good an explanation as any.

I haven't really played that track on my emulator. It's just not as fun when trying to drive in that game using a keyboard where you hit more than 2 buttons at once it starts making the error noise.

But is your course similar to this diagram image?

...That one actually looks easier.

...But anyway, here's what I found. It's an overhead view, with the players driving right (as opposed to left) from the starting line as indicated by the black stripe on the track.

[Spokavriel]

Yeah that one is definitely harder. They added loops and a Jump. I just like the N64 one because it's almost relaxing after other really hard tracks.

[CRBWildcat]

I think I remembered reading somewhere that the N64 track had railings all the way around.

[Spokavriel]

Not after you beat the game when the tracks are running backwards.

[CRBWildcat]

Backwards? Oh, for...