What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby VideoGameCritic » January 22nd, 2020, 6:39 pm

In Ghouls and Ghosts (Genesis) I could never get past the stone heads with the tongues you needed to jump between. Must have tried 100 times.

Alucard1191
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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby Alucard1191 » January 22nd, 2020, 8:54 pm

Alright, 3 quick ones:

Battletoads; this game is brutal. I love the style and all that... but damn.
Castlevania; I can't get past Frankenstein and the hunchback. This hasn't changed since I was young. From 10 to 35, that's as far as I've gotten. I don't own an NES, so my play on this one isn't that often... but still. That damn hunchback...
Comix Zone; I can consistently make it to Fu Man Chu, but I haven't figured out how to beat him yet. I have this one on my genesis mini and Sonics UGC on my 360, so it gets the most play of these 3 by far. And I am much better at the game now than I was as a pre-teen with a genesis.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby BlasteroidAli » January 25th, 2020, 12:10 am

Stalvern wrote:Caring about a game from this generation.

Play Outer Worlds.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby BlasteroidAli » January 25th, 2020, 12:11 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:In Ghouls and Ghosts (Genesis) I could never get past the stone heads with the tongues you needed to jump between. Must have tried 100 times.

Capcom did themselves no favours with the brutal difficult of these games.

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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby djc » January 25th, 2020, 12:32 am

Super Mario Bros world 8 (seriously). Growing up, my brother and I would take turns where I would play levels 1-7 and he would play 8 and beat the game. This has led to a scenario where I can practically do a perfect run from 1-1 to 7-4 (with or without warps) but once I get to 8-1, it all goes out the window :) I did however beat Super Mario 2 and 3 (and World, etc...)

As for good accomplishments, I was good at a lot of the Digital Pictures FMV games on the Sega CD (e.g. perfect score in Night Trap, beat Sewer Shark, beat Double Switch, beat Ground Zero Texas, etc...).

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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » January 25th, 2020, 1:25 am

BlasteroidAli wrote:
VideoGameCritic wrote:In Ghouls and Ghosts (Genesis) I could never get past the stone heads with the tongues you needed to jump between. Must have tried 100 times.

Capcom did themselves no favours with the brutal difficult of these games.


This is one of my favorite games of all time. Now I'm really glad I asked this question, because I've always been slightly embarrassed about how long it takes me to even get past the first half of the game, much less running through all the stages again.

Not that the critic can't kick my ass in a variety of other games. It's just more evidence that difficulty isn't something you can measure objectively. Ghouls N' Ghosts may be my comfort food, but Zelda II completely destroyed my will to live.

Before the first dungeon. (I spent hours trying to grind on an enemy that takes away experience points.)

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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby goldenband » January 25th, 2020, 11:40 am

djc wrote:As for good accomplishments, I was good at a lot of the Digital Pictures FMV games on the Sega CD (e.g. perfect score in Night Trap, beat Sewer Shark, beat Double Switch, beat Ground Zero Texas, etc...).

My wife and I got a perfect score/the best ending in Night Trap too (32X version). Pretty satisfying. That last scene has brutally narrow timing!

I haven't completed any of the other Digital Pictures games, but I've gotten through about a dozen FMV games in the Sega CD library, and they're usually challenging. The hardest were probably Night Trap, Fahrenheit (on Hard), and Star Wars: Rebel Assault (also on Hard). I think my wife and I figured out how to get a perfect run on Wirehead too, that was fun.

Someday, if I want to beat the whole 32X library (which I'm slowly chipping away at), I'll have to deal with Slam City and Supreme Warrior. Not looking forward to those...

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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby Alucard1191 » January 25th, 2020, 4:18 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:In Ghouls and Ghosts (Genesis) I could never get past the stone heads with the tongues you needed to jump between. Must have tried 100 times.


This is where I am on that game currently. I think I'll get past it hopefully the next time I'm playing it.

Honestly, I now have all 3 Ghouls n Ghosts games between my Switch and Genesis Mini, and I view the genesis version as the most playable and enjoyable by far. Yes it is still hard as hell, but in one sitting I got farther in that than I've ever gotten in any of the other entries. (Super Ghouls n Ghosts has gotten the most time from me of the three.)

I really like the enormous amount of weapons in that one, the fact that the powering up armors (and replacement armor) seem to drop more than the other games, and you can shoot up. I absolutely love that you can shoot up on that one.

Ghouls n Ghosts and Road Rash II are the main games that have been getting play on the Mini.

Oh, and since the thread is about difficulty, honorable mention to Road Rash. Extremely hard, but extremely fun gameplay.

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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby djc » January 26th, 2020, 1:20 am

goldenband wrote:
djc wrote:As for good accomplishments, I was good at a lot of the Digital Pictures FMV games on the Sega CD (e.g. perfect score in Night Trap, beat Sewer Shark, beat Double Switch, beat Ground Zero Texas, etc...).

My wife and I got a perfect score/the best ending in Night Trap too (32X version). Pretty satisfying. That last scene has brutally narrow timing!

I haven't completed any of the other Digital Pictures games, but I've gotten through about a dozen FMV games in the Sega CD library, and they're usually challenging. The hardest were probably Night Trap, Fahrenheit (on Hard), and Star Wars: Rebel Assault (also on Hard). I think my wife and I figured out how to get a perfect run on Wirehead too, that was fun.

Someday, if I want to beat the whole 32X library (which I'm slowly chipping away at), I'll have to deal with Slam City and Supreme Warrior. Not looking forward to those...


Agreed the last scene in Night Trap in busy to say the least and the worst part is you have to play through it a few times to see each of the different endings (e.g. trap Dana Plato, let her live, let her get turned and then kill you) :). The ending of Double Switch was also crazy with the timing but I personally find it easier than Night Trap and the acting is so much worse which makes it all the better.

In Fahrenheit I got to the last level (I think the university) but I couldn't get past it. I absolutely suck at Supreme Warrior but I'm pretty sure that game is completely unplayable.

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Re: What was the challenge you just couldn't beat, no matter how hard you tried?

Postby goldenband » January 26th, 2020, 1:45 pm

I typically play those kinds of FMV games with my wife -- she takes notes and makes maps, while I work the controls. In the case of Fahrenheit, I think we had to do some pretty meticulous route planning, but if I recall correctly we also got lucky with the RNG, since there's a random element to where things are.

I was just starting to make sense of Supreme Warrior, at least on Easy, when I set it aside years ago, but I think the core game is unplayable on higher difficulties -- at least in a conventional sense of "playable". A lot of FMV games are only beatable on higher difficulties if you make incredibly detailed notes on Easy (where the game basically tells you what to do), and then apply them to higher difficulties (and many of those games only give an ending on Normal or Hard). Somebody on Sega-16 once described beating Scottie Pippen that way, i.e. with the aid of pages upon pages of notes.

That was more or less how it went down for me with Rebel Assault, actually. You basically can't see the enemy gun emplacements on Hard, since they're not flagged by your HUD and the video quality is so poor that they're not visible, so you just have to memorize where all of them are. It turns a decent game into an unplayable disaster.

Still, at least it's not one of those games where a character yells at you because, when you had to randomly select one of three options with no info to guide you, you picked the wrong one. :roll: They really liked doing that kind of thing with FMV games...


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