I've been playing the Expert levels on Super Monkey Ball (), and it got me thinking: what is the most difficult video game of all time?

After a while, I came up with my nominee. A graphical/text adventure from the early eighties called Montezuma's Mask (something like that). Anyway, it was pretty a pretty good game for the most part...good puzzles and graphics (for the time...heh heh). Then suddenly, the very end of the game made no sense. You were in this maze inside a temple or something, and no matter what you did you couldn't get out.

Turns out you had to do a totally random series of moves to get out of the maze. Something like N N Put on mask E W Take off mask E W. Some crazy combo like that. The reason was so that you would have to buy the strategy guide. The puzzle was completely unsolveable through intuition, and the odds against you doing just the right combo through blind luck were astronomical.

Any other nominees?

I agree with you on Super monkey ball thats a tough game. Never played Montezuma's revenge but from what you wrote it sounds like I wouldn't be able to beat it either.

I nominate Equinox on the SNES. That was a type of maze game where you jump over spikes in a 3/4 view, it was tough!! You could never quite tell exactly how far the spikes were because of the view. It was the sequel to Solstice on the NES. I never beat either of them as I gave up in frustration. Thats all I can think of right now, I'm sure i'll remember more later.

Pacman is pretty tough

Ninja Gaiden (NES)

Kid Icarus - I don't think I ever got even half-way through that game.

I second that. When we finally finished that game it felt like winning the Superbowl. I've never replayed the same levels so many times in my entire life.

kid cubicle. it might have been more length the actual difficulty that frustrated me.

I think it is Super Ghosts and goblins for SNES. Hard game when I was a kid.

I'll 3rd that one. A pain in the arse to complete.

I also think the original Shinobi was tough as hell also.

[Off Topic]Sega, release another Shinobi game[/Off Topic]

I'll 4th it...the last two stages of that game were insane.

Tecmo should have mailed a gold medal out to anyone who finished it.

Ninja Gaiden was impossible. Also some NES game called Defender of the Crown

Zak Mackrackin (sp?) and the alien Mindbenders, it's one of the only games that I have never finished.

BTW if anybody has this or knows where I can get it please let me know!!

Road Runner's Death Valley Rally! SNES

The original Mega Man. I don't remember Ninja Gaiden being that tough for me, guess it's been a while. I know I have beaten all 3 Ninja Gaidens.

Defender was and still is downright impossible. Years later I came back to that game via Nesticle and I still can't beat it.

What about Rare's Battletoad games? Some of those levels where a bitch!

I remember the Ninja Gaiden at the arcade being tough, and playing it recently with an emulator reaffirmed that memory.

Kid icarus tough? I breezed through that one as a youngen.

Id have to nominate friday the 13th for nes. Well, the version i had anyway. I couldnt come close to beating that damn game.

Ninja Gaiden...hands down.

Thank God, I thought I was the only one!

I use have a hard time with Pong on expert mode on the Atari 2600

If I've heard right, Ninja Gaiden for the arcade is different than the sidescrolling one for the NES (unless it was released as a Playchoice-10 card). My brother had both NG and NG2 for NES; I remember them being very, very hard. I'm not a great game player, but when I finally beat the original game it was a pretty bug accomplishment.

I remember Contra being pretty difficult without the Konami code. I think Contra III was pretty hard, too. I was personally never good at shooters, so I never really tried Gradius and R-Type and all the others.

And I'll remember Maniac Mansion for the NES forever not because of its great sequel, but because when I was five I had no idea that to get into the house you had to lift up the doormat and get the key. It wasn't until Day of The Tentacle that I even tried that game again (you can play it on one of the characters' computers)

Last NES memories (I know the topic asked for one game) - some people thought the original Ninja Turtles game was really hard; I was a turtles fan, so I kept at it and eventually got through it (stupid water level). The Battletoads games (both NES and SNES) were very hard, if only for those stupid jetbike levels... my friend and I gave up on those when we were in elementary school.

I haven't played many games recently besides the Dance Dance Revolution series; I'm not incredible, but I can pass most of the songs (with the pad, of course ). Barring many hours of practice, I think some of the songs rank right up there with the hardest button-mashers - and not just for those people that are out of shape, either. I have no idea how you're supposed to pass some of those songs on your first try - or second try - or third try....

Ninja Gaiden was hard, but I remember part 3 being the hardest since you didn't have an unlimited amount of continues like the frst 2.

GTA2. Once you completed a mission or two the cops would just gun for you. Forget pissing off one of the gangs.

There was this game for the Atari 2600 that i had and can no longer remember the name of. It came with a comic book that explained you were looking for some sort of magical sword and you had to go through these 12 rooms for each zodiac sign and each one with a weird "challenge." The only one i can specifically remember is leo and it had this weird pattern of cascading things falling at different speeds in rows down the screen and you had to run through them all without getting hit. The game sucked so bad, neither me nor any of my friends could ever beat a single room. Plus the comic book ended with a "to be continued..." like there was going to be a sequel *shudder*

You're probably thinking of SwordQuest : Earthworld. It was extremely hard and the directions on what to do were very unclear. I had totally pushed this bastard of a game out of my mind until you mentioned it. I think the most infurating thing for me as a child was that nothing seemed to make sense, and there was no clear idea on what to accomplish.

These games actually were continued. There was Fireworld and (yes, really)Waterworld. There was supposed to be four, but I can't find mention of the fourth, which I assume to be Airworld.