For some games yes but the say the mist/odd world series was more of a step between three media's puzzle/ board games, DND style games/adventure/books, and puzzles in general. And lack of game mechanics didn't help Though Puzzles where the more universal media in the early days... It was a logical step to bring in new gamers, I can't deny 90s though are really where video games and phycology meet
As a huge puzzle and rpg fan I loved the 90´s...Day of the tentacle, monkey island, grim fandango, sanitarium among others, all great games....Don't even going to mention the rpg part...to many great games was released during that time=) Man, I miss my high school days in the late 90's...
@@CNGtech I found it harder when I went back to it than when I was younger...maybe cause I was used to them games from back then ....yeah you had to go back to the start an try again a bunch of times but that's what games were like back then trial and error...but yeah I cant remember it being too difficult and I'm surprised it's so talked about as a really hard game.
Thank you for the nostalgic boost of Battletoads. I swear 10 to 20% of the things I see on this channel I forgot about and I’m very grateful for you attempting to revive those memories. Gameranx best video game channel on RU-vid no doubt.
I loved Tomb Raider games as a kid, I would get stuck a lot, but I also learned that there always is a way and I discovered new secrets every time I played it again
depends on what you think when you think about evil. Some people think being greedy is evil. Everyone thinks differently. But especially in todays times, its not a good thing to be greedy in general.
Great list. 👍 Really liked the quick Flashback reference. One of my favorite games. I always thought Comix Zone was crazy hard. Don't think I ever beat it, but could go back right now as well
I watched through this whole thing waiting for A Boy and His Blob, and then I realized it was released in 1989. That is the first game that comes up in my mind when I think of hard games in my childhood.
I think it was a case of a game being hard because it was inherently terrible. Also all the turtles did the exact same thing with various length of weapons. If you’re down to just Raphael, well you might as well give up.
I really loved Driver. It allowed me to entertain my fantasy of driving fast in my city and finding shortcuts. I felt the driver’s test in the beginning was very useful for learning the moves that would help you succeed in the game. Goodness forbid, but if I ever wind up in a chase in real life, I intend to try that 180 move. I am not terrible at games, so keep that in mind when I say I tried tirelessly to get thru the last level to save the president and couldn’t do it. Cops cars were actually falling from the sky !
What I hated about Driver was the tutorial, you barely got instructions on how to do the tricks and it was hard as hell. The regular missions were very fun, and even if they were hard it wasn't doing some random movements in a basement. Driver 2 had some missions that frustrated my teenage self. But I finished it, with the help of a friend that passed away some months later.
Thankyou for reminding me about that driver tutorial. That was sooooo hard I only got past it twice and both times I forgot to save game! Also abes odysey had an amazing story line and the cut scenes were graphically way ahead of its time. Top game.
I played Driver on the PC. The pirated version we had allowed you to skip the tutorial entirely. I got quite far in the game, but was never able to do the tutorial.
So when you bought Myst it came with a blank journal for you to use to keep track of everything. It was actually super cool because as you worked through the game and took notes, it'd end up looking very, very similar to the journal in the game (notes, little drawings, etc).
@@andreasoberg2021 Riven made me question the choices i made in video games. Because it just dumped you in this open world with no context or direction. But i will say the graphics absolutely amazing and beautiful
@@ClintonJRTR I am confused that author added Myst into the list while there is Riven. Riven is so ridiculously hard even compared to other games in the puzzle genre. It should be in the top 3 in this list to be honest.
Yeap i remember when i beat the final boss.... and then i realised that it was not the end ... i was supposed to play the game one more time yo beat the REAL boss .... yeap i throw the snes out of the window....
I actually loved lots of these games, and even beat a few. Myst, Super Ghouls n Ghosts and driver. And that tutorial from driver was stupid insane. And I have never met a person who has even lied about being able to beat the turbo tunnel.
The first Metroid was definitely one of these. I remember just walking to the right for about 1 hour and then giving up, because I didn’t know what even happened
I must have been pretty good at driving games back then because I don't remember the tutorial being very hard. The very last mission and a couple before were what I remember being insane. But memories are fuzzy. I'd like to try it again being so much older, I bet I would totally suck at it. (I'm OP)
That first level of Driver can hardly be called a tutorial since it doesn't teach you how to do anything. It's more like an exam that expects you to have mastery of a game you've never played, before you can actually play it.
@MasterStryfe They keep making videos - not Bootsy tho - but check out their channels - Cinemassacre and Cinemassace Plays. Also Mike Matei's channel. :)
I'm surprised "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" didn't make the list. Insane "enemies" which were just people in the town doing all sorts of stuff to make you mad (often with rapid hits) until you turn into Mr. Hyde. Then when you transform, you pop up in a shadow world version of the real world; you defeat enemies to transform back into Dr. Jeykl, but if Hyde progresses farther than Jekyl the game ends.
I can't recall if it was that level or one after that but I agree. I found the monkey one reasonably easy. A few levels later however has apparently been suppressed with all but the frustration and approximate location of the level. I definitely never completed the game though
Stampede was pretty tough, but the waterfall log climb was even harder. And it took me like a whole year to figure out that to beat scar you have to throw him off pride rock.
@@danb.709 I think the game isn't as hard as people say, I knew you had to judo scar's ass off pride rock and I still never beat it. Got to scar every time. Couldn't do it
"If you Imagine Star Wars but a tornado... the game's just all-around chaos" Falcon's descriptions of Super Empire Strikes Back is _right on the money,_ lol
Beavis & Butthead, X-Men (both Sega Mega-Drive) The Simpsons, Total Carnage (both SNES). My 2 best mates & I spent literally hundreds of hours on those 4 games back in the mid 1990s (we were all about 20-ish). While playing, we'd listen to such albums (CDs) as "Vs" by Pearl Jam, "In Utero" by Nirvana, "Superunknown" by Soundgarden, & "Muse-Sick & Our Mess-Age" by Public Enemy. We did eventually manage to beat all of those games, btw. Good times... :)
Best games of the 90s where the n64 games Goldeneye 007, Starfox 64, Waverace, Super Smash Brothers, Extreme G, Mario Cart 64, Battle tanks global assault, Turok Dinosaur hunter, wcw vs nwo no mercy, mario 64 and body harvest. Also supernintendo donkey Kong country and Diddy Kong country and Sega genesis sonic 3 with sonic and knuckles attached this is technically two games but when you plugged them in together they where an awesome game a one of the best games ever.
@@danw6877 whoa that's a long list lol. i never played at least half of those games. loved Goldeneye 007 for its mutiplayer, enjoyed starfox 64 but never got the proper ending, loved all mario kart and smash bros. games. my favorite game from the past though was Donkey Kong Country
As a 90’s kid i used to hate burger king, but always insisted we ate there because they had a snes and genesis for open play in the play area. Combine that with the pokemon collectible toys, pokeball keychains, and limited edition cards and shiny metallic tokens, and i can safely say that burger king got several hundred dollars that year that they wouldnt have gotten if they didnt make it fun.
Battle Toads was brutal! I played this game for weeks until I finally beat it. It's one of the most difficult games I've ever completed but I still remember loving it.
I'm actually surprised to learn that so many people had problems with TLK because I found it quite easy. Ecco the Dolphin however... yeah I eventually beat it, but figuring out exactly what to do was such a pain. And the sequel, Tides of Time... that one had me SO frustrated.
I think it depends on how old you were - I remember this game so well. That puzzle with the monkeys was impossible for 8 year old me on my friend's sega genesis, but when I went back to it as a teenager, playing via an emulator, I found it trivial.
Fun fact, I played Battle Toads/Double Dragon with my cousin and my cousin was hanging off the edge while fighting a boss and I said "you stay down there while I beat him off" and that will forever be in the 'book'
I forgot when Driver came out but I remember renting it from Blockbuster possibly, and Linkin Park came out around then, so when I hear Linking Park I think of riding around town in Driver with no purpose other than thinking it was cool to drive in 3D ...cooler than Mario Kart for SNES....i was poor hahahha
My brother and I playing Battletoads obsessively whilst listening to Nevermind by Nirvana on Cassette is a memory that will never go away. Yes. We beat it
Mad props for that, I think it's hard af but maybe also the damn stage with the scooters was designed like hell.I mean, I remember past through it a couple of times and the subsequent levels are not that hard
The Lion King was traumatising. It made me think I was a bad gamer for YEARS of my life. I kept thinking over and over how they couldn't possibly make a game aimed at such young kids that hard so it must be me.
I remember being stuck with the Driver tutorial...but I also remember just letting the game go idle and it literally showed how to do the tutorial...it made all the difference
Back in the 90s I used to be able to beat a lot of games after countless hours memorising the layouts of levels and enemies a lot of the time through muscle memory most people now don't have that level of patience and would rather be able to have 90 checkpoints through even the smallest of levels often stumbling through on the hardest difficulty to get to that next checkpoint and call it an accomplishment. Even games that did save you often had to travel backwards to save that progress and could potentially die on your way to that save point. Going back to older games it can be a jarring difference in how easy even some of the hardest games these days can be because if you die you just simply restart where you died of close to it yes games are larger but permadeath should be a thing more often on the hardest difficulties because only those who have actually put the time in will actually beat them.
I agree that current games are a walk in the park compared to the old ones, but let's be clear about this, most old difficult game were unjustly and unnecessarily difficult. It makes me think that the developers made games difficult so that they are not finished quickly.
Lion King on SNES was the first and last time i legitimately Rage Quit. I've gotten frustrated and turned games off, but that was the only time I literally stomped a game out of existence.
The irony of the Silver Surfer dying so easily in that game is that Silver Surfer is one of the more powerful and invulnerable characters in the Marvel universe.
@@biteum Truth 💓. I've been playing video games since childhood. Lion King was my ABSOLUTE favorite,In fact I plan on adding the remastered one to my Switch library here soon.
I can't believe that, as a child, I was able to finish the tutorial in Driver. The checklist was so cryptic that I got stuck on slalom. I asked my mom what it meant and she was like "that's when skiers go between the flags, right?". And then I was able to figure out that you needed to go between the supports. Screw you Driver! I never beat it because we rented it, but at least I got through the tutorial
R-TYPE was a lot like Silver Surfer. I don't remember HOW my brother and I beat it, but I know it was one of the greatest accomplishments of our childhood.
"I don't know a game that frustrated me more that I kept going back to" if you do a 2000s era video on games that were hard, that line also works for stuntman.
Lion King had the opposite affect on me that Disney intended. My friend and I rented it and after we FINALLY got past the cant wait to be king level, we decided that doing literally anything else would have been more fun. So we turned the game off and shot at cans with BB guns out back.
hhaahah we did too. bb gun cans was the best 90s past time! and early 2000s, im not really sure ppl do that much anymore after fortnite. my moms students have battlepasses and theyre children so thats whats big now.
I'm surprised Contra III for SNES isn't on this list. I remember having to use a game genie to beat it, and while going through it and seeing how crazy later levels were I kept thinking "how the hell did they expect kids to beat this without cheating?".
Agreed that game is insane but never played it. Contra hard cops was also pretty hard which my brother and i accidently completed with the secret ending. Lol.. I was 8 or something
There are still some NES/Super Nintendo games I haven’t beaten yet….one of the things that made the games so hard to beat back then was NO SAVE….you had to literally sit there and play non stop if you wanted to beat the game.
@@Stanna44 Yes, there are. There is a level select (B, A, R, R, Y on option screen, and gain infinite health option), and a level skip (B, A, A, B, A, A).
Man. I was hoping to see Exhumed in this list. That game was hard as nails but oh so much fun. Still one of my GOATs. The PlayStation version was even harder than Saturn
I remember being SO excited to get Tomb Raider 3 for PC back in the day...I clearly wasn't ready as a kid. Besides my ancient family computer barely being able to run it at a playable level, the controls were super janky and it was HARD! I had no strategy guides or tips whatsoever. Never made it past the first level, but still played it all the time because I loved the graphics and you could shoot stuff.
I once beat Battle Toads as a young man, and I still wear it like a badge of honor and bring it up at any opportunity. Sad but true. I also loved Driver. It wasn’t so bad other than the cursed training level at the start.
Im so glad someone covered this. My friend was really good at the Lion KIng game, I thought I was just insane for thinking it was the hardest game I played at that point.
The waterfall was the part that I could not get passed as a kid. Everyone else seemed to be stuck at the monkey part which I don't remember being that hard.
It was always that second level. I could play the whole game on one life if I made it past the giraffe heads, the hippo tails, and then the rolling lava rock in “Be Prepared” I think it was.
Tomb Raider 3 was significally harder on the Playstation because you needed to collect Diamonds to save. On the PC you could save every time and the Diamonds gave you full health back. Thats why its actually only real hard on the Playstation.
Driver... that brings back memories, same with Battletoads, me and my brother played it non stop. Have good memories of Silver from 1999 I think on Windows
It might just be me, but in my opinion, games in those days were sooooo much tougher. Even as an adult I still struggle like crazy, just to beat the first few levels of your average platformer.
Video games have at least some if their roots in arcade machines. Those made more money, the more often you fail… I guess that difficulty stuck, for a long time, even when it wasn‘t about money per game, anymore.
My mom and uncle beat these games while I watched as a kid, at 5 I was taught to play beating mortal Kombat at 6 and lion king's game at 8. Now I struggle midway before rage quitting wondering how I so effortlessly beat them at that age so many times.
I am surprised to see Lion King being talked about as a difficult game. I was a small kid when I learned how to destroy it every single time. I never thought it was difficult. On DOS though, never played it on a console.
Dark souls isnt hard, its just most players are used to shooter games like cod and uncharted where u regenerate health when demon souls first came many rage quit on first boss then dark souls came and many asked for refund becuz its very hard For me it just practice and know where enemies are not very different than the games which have the enemies respawn on that exact place
So many games are harder than Dark Souls on their highest difficulty level. If you're the kind of gamer that likes to play new games on the highest difficulty available? Dark Souls seems far less daunting.
@@XanderCrease It's more than just the gameplay difficulty that makes dark souls hard. It's the puzzles of finding where to go next and so on. I think that is very underlooked when people talk about dark souls. I've never met someone whose played dark souls and didn't need to look at a walkthrough at least once
@@XanderCrease while that's true most other games are harder by very cheap methods like making you die in two hits or giving enemies insane durability take for example DMC when you play on Dante must die all every single enemy has the ability to regen health and use a DT this is incredibly unbalanced but makes the game extremely challenging for good players, whereas Darksouls is hard without any of these gimmicks
The bitter taste of defeat. They teach you how to take a loss, thats for sure. The games Adventure and paper boy almost destroyed my psyche as a child. 😆
dude. Thank you for taking me back to the 90s, and literally making me realize so many things I never understood because... well.. there was no internet. Sweet
That lion king level for "I just can't wait to be king" eventually made me soooo sick of hearing that song over and over and over again after dying 100000000000000 times
There is a difference between being hard because it’s designed that way vs hard because the game controls were crappy, unresponsive, or just over bad game design. I’ve played most of these and they were hard because they were poorly made. Super ghouls and ghost I think was the only one I enjoyed enough to beat.
I’m actually playing Super Ghouls N Ghosts with my son on the mini Super NES. We can’t stop playing it, but man it’s challenging! We keep getting a little further and finding the secret chests that keeps us coming back for more!
I mean having a good or bad class can also influence the game's difficulties. Like Faith Magic was OP in the 1st Game, Medium in the 2nd, and BAD in the last game (For interesting Lore Reasons).
Dark Souls is only as hard as the hype says if you don't have patience. It's not easy by any means but the difficulty depends more on your ability to watch and learn, rather than rushing in and treating it like an action game. Watch some blind playthroughs, the people who take their time the most, while they seem to frustrate the already in the know audience the most make progress pretty fast, those who give in to the audience and dive into everything are the once who hit road-blocks.
@@VideoGameVillians Also there isn't really any randomness in the souls games. In those old sidescrolling games things could fly at you from any direction and it would change constantly/each time you play. At least with souls you know there's set locations for each enemy spawn, the only bit of randomness would be which attack they might use.
I remember playing Driver! Whilst it had the most difficult, insanely confusing tutorial, in fairness once you got over the urge to burn the console and finished it, it did make you an expert driver and the levels suddenly became more bearable (though still super hard).
I really enjoy Driver, it was an amazing game. And not that difficult indeed, but for the damn tutorial (which was bypassed by saving right after it!) and the last mission, which was insanely hard after relatively cozy previous missions.
The driver game brings back all the memories, i remember after coming back from school, i used to go at my uncle's home and he got this p4 , i play this game without even changing my uniform and play some cool 90s songs in the background in windows media player.. and driving skidding drifting and bouncing on those los Angeles roads . . what a golden time it was
Driver tutorial is a piece of cake compared to the final level. Managed to complete the entire game without cheating but not sure how. The final level is insanely difficult and just downright unfair. Only completed it because of sheer perseverance and luck.
