Top 10 Hardest Games I Ever Played - My Retro Life 

Big thanks to Craig Skistimas with Sidescrollers Podcast for his "Honorable Mention" in this video. Definitely subscribe to his awesome new channel / podcast www.youtube.com/@SideScrollersPodcast - Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments. Thanks guys.

Now that I’m an old man, I truly enjoy using the rewind function in the Switch online retro games catalog to finish games that would’ve been impossible back when I was younger.

Battletoads NES was the 1st time I ever broke a controller all bc of that turbo tunnel part. I threw it so hard it put a hole through my wall lol. I hid it with a ninja turtles poster for years until my mom finally seen it when we moving out. She was pretty mad haha.

The thing is, even though those were the “good old days”, part of that joy was the immense amount of suffering we endured.

Some of these are so challenging that they make me want to say "Watch it buddy".

Bayou Billy sticks out in my mind. As a little boy, I couldn't figure out how to get past the first stage for the life of me.

The 80’s made us bad ass gamers

I know it's not on this list, but in college my roommate beat Battletoads on nes. I didn't realize until years later that Battletoads was an all-time difficult game. I didn't fully appreciate his victory at the time, but I now realize what a legend he was to beat it.

While I was attending college, my roommate and I challenged ourselves to play through the entire Genesis catalogue. We beat a lot of games, including some from your top 10. But none ever came close to inflicting upon us the amount of pain and frustration that Undead Line did, a Japan-only release that I suspect was forged in the deepest pit of hell. I would describe it as Elemental Master for masochists. The mere thought of it fills me with dread but I still consider it to be an awesome game. By the way, congratulations on your channel Tyler. I came across it recently and I thoroughly enjoy your content. It makes me reminisce about my own childhood.

17:45 I love Silver Surfer! I remember spending a whole day just grinding away at the game to beat it. For anyone struggling with this game, remember to make use of the bombs in hairy situations with the select button. And keep your shot upgraded, it will tear through boss health bars.

Having played most of these games growing up, I think it's why I like difficult games so much now as an adult. And when a modern game is too easy, or holds my hand too much (Like modern Pokemon games, or Kirby), I get bored really easily with them now. Meanwhile I'll get stuck on the same boss in a Dark Souls game for two days and absolutely love my time with it.

Always a good day when Tyler drops a new video.

They must make a remake of comix zone

Watching speed-runners (especially Arcus) destroy all three Ninja Gaiden games is amazing.

That Stuttering Craig guy talking about Jump King was WEIRD.... 😂 Thanks for having me on Tyler!

You may not realize it but you are really blessed to have a Dad who is a video gamer and genuinely enjoys collecting and playing games with his kids. Many non-gamer parents just buys whatever games the kids want and watch them play w/o getting involved.

It’s so cool to finally hear someone bring up Comix Zone. I was born in 93 and was given hammydown video games from family friends, comix zone is one I played so frequently. I remember all the tricks I learned with the different items and routes to take in the levels but never would get past stage 3 😅 I heard they copywrited the use to have comic panel styled levels in video games so we’ll never get another one like it 🤷🏻‍♂️

Double Dragon 3 is so special to me.. me my brother & cousin spent years playing it on NES. First played it when I was 4 in 1994.. all the way up until 1999 we could never beat the final stage/boss. Great game

"It's like you touch the top of the building, you die; you touch the ceiling, you die; you touch the floor, you die; too far to the right, you die; too far to the left, you die; you die, you die, you die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, DIE!!!"

Early RARE titles were brutally punishing. Have you played Battletoads? Snake Rattle n Roll? I beat 5 out of these 10

I was born in '91 so my introduction into gaming started with the n64, then more gamecube/ps2. Im getting more into collecting now for them plus snes, genesis, etc. (I know, worst time to start collecting 😂) Just wanted to say I love your videos man and love the fact thay your family decided to videotape and capture so much if it! So freaking cool!!

Man those home video shots early in the video look exactly like my own childhood. Life sucks lol but the late 80s-late 90s were MAGICAL

I got a few hard games myself like the Ninja Gaiden games on the Xbox and Playstation. Ninja Gaiden 2 was one of the toughest games in the trilogy.

contra hard corps feels like slightly faster paced than other titles b4 it in the series. That along with the limited continues really spikes the difficulty

We've all had those moments brother... Raging is a part of life... 😂 Difficult games sometimes ruin the experience but, does have replay value lol😂😂😂

I absolutely hated playing Spiderman-Arcades revenge, such an infuriating game. Bart Vs the space mutants and Bart's nightmare used to piss me off quite a bit too 😂

This video was awesome and on point. I am surprised that my #1 did not make your list. “Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight” this game was extremely difficult even as an adult I revisited and I cannot beat it.

Yup. I've had my times during the NES days. For me, this would've been my Top 10 list. I still play these games today, and I'm passing the torch to my daughter as we Bond together just like my Dad and I. Tyler, I'm new to being a Subscriber and it makes me sad how I didn't catch your channel much earlier. The memories you had with your dad absolutely mimic with what i went through when growing up bk in the 80's. Even though your a few years younger than I am, it's amazing how i can see a lot of you in me. Thanks for everything and I already know the joy that you'll be bringing in future vids. 10. Ninja Gaiden 9. TMNT 8. Wizards & Warriors 7. Ninja Gaiden 3 6. Ghost & Goblins 5. Super Castlevania 4. Double Dragon 3 3. BattleToads 2. Silver Surfer 1. Mike Tysons Punch Out Yes, I've beaten these games now that I'm in my 40's. Thank You Rewind!

A couple of these games made me think I was just incredibly bad at video games because as a kid I didn’t know everyone else was struggling as well. Fortunately now I know I’m not incredibly bad at video games just not very good.

Love your videos. I always think of what your dad would think of games today. I knew he loved innovation and technology from your videos. Really wish he would of seeing the gaming landscape has become. He was a great man thanks for sharing everything with us. You have the coolest family.

I love your anecdotal videos. I think it's remarkable you captured and kept so many memories on home video

The trick to beating Batman and Robin on the Genesis; is to get the green weapon projectile and max it out as soon as possible (avoiding all other weapons); as it is the most powerful. Then you got to get in the zone. Me and my brother were able to beat this game regularly, with this strategy.

Oh man I love your insights about these games... I just feel so livid knowing that others are stealing your video in youtube without your consent..... either way we got your back Tyler

Wow! Seeing stuttering Craig come down the ramp out of no where, hit your opponent over the head with a chair and then sneak out, giving you the 1,2,3....it felt like watching the Rock come back on royal rumble when no one expects it, lol. I apologize but I remember watching hours of screw attack videos with him , and to see him in the video of one of my new top 3 game content creators is incredible. Nice crossover and call back Tyler, show was great as usual. Keep up the good work.

One of the defining moments of my young gaming years was finally beating lion king. I think I actually cried!

Good luck, dude! You are pretty awesome at this!

I’ve been playing ninja gaiden black for the original Xbox and I can’t speak to the older title you mentioned in the video but I can attest to NG black’s difficulty. This game is going to give me a stroke it is SO HARD. It’s like that bully in school you do your best to avoid but somehow someway you keep running into him and he keeps kicking your ass. I’m thoroughly convinced that I’m going to need some form of therapy before I reach this games end. Of course that’s only if I make it to the end and given how this game has been treating me like a battered housewife, it looks like I’d have a better chance at winning the lottery, finding Bigfoot and being 21:51 struck by lightning all in the same day. This game was made to hurt your feelings while it crushes your dreams. Children shouldn’t play this game and not because of the violence, but because kids would relentlessly cry so hard they’d piss themselves. Great game but the difficulty of this game brings the animal out of you. Such an evil game, sometimes I contemplate burning it😂

Love these videos so thanks for uploading I left home real young (13) and have a bad memory so all that times starting to get hazy and I never really had a family or possessions from childhood so I adore watching people with normal lives document all this 😁 here's two that stressed me out as a kid Another world THAT SNAKE and super punch out the Jackie Chan dude I still haven't beat to this day why's he kicking me this is boxing not K1

Love this channel. A lot of my fondest memories are from my early gaming days, albeit a different era (i started playing games in 2000) but man this is such a great nostalgia trip

Aladdin on the SNES is the most frustrating game I’ve tried to revisit as an adult. You almost have to have the cave memorized to fly out on the magic carpet without dying.

I beat Mike Tyson in Punch Out back in the mid 90's. That was my greatest hard game moment. In fact in the local neighborhood friends would invite me over all the way until 2001 to beat it in front of other people because no one believed it could be done. A friend I lost touch with due to life told me on social media once that he still tells people he knows a guy who beat Punch Out. Not just Punch Out but other games back then we all beat were tough or made cheap to last which is why modern games don't give that rush for me anymore to want to conquer. The biggest challenge in modern gaming for me is actually wanting to even finish a game. I don't want to spend 200 hours playing a game. Modern gaming needs to basic to the points arcade style games again. Sony needs a new Twisted Metal, NIntendo needs to drop F-Zero and Punch Out

Hopefully you'll be at 100k subs by end of summer. Your channel is the best retro game channel on RU-vid Tyler

Its cool and refreshing to see a veteran admit hes a noob ,great content bro.

My #1 hardest game to beat was Ghosts 'n Goblins on the NES, especially since you have to beat it twice in a row and can't turn off your system! Once I beat that, all other games seamed more fun! I beat Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts and it was more enjoyable because the colors and gameplay were fantastic, but still extremely hard. Good times!

Me and my brother played Double Dragon III all the time back in the day. We eventually could beat it, but we had to do everything perfect. One player it’s impossible.

Great list that I agree with 100%. Ninja Gaiden series especially. Even today I can’t get past the places I would get destroyed on as a kid. Contra Hard Corp is so incredible to look at, but mind-numbingly frustrating.

I love Comix Zone and wish they'd do a sequel or even a remake. I don't understand why they decided that punching objects (e.g., barrels) would cause damage and then force you to do it in certain situations.

I've beaten every single Ninja Gaiden game there is out there I even competed in the master ninja tournament back on the OG Xbox top five people would go to meet the dev team and get a trip to Japan i came in 6th💔 I was so damn close. These games have definitely shaped me into the gamer that I am today as I only like to play my video games on the hardest modes if available. Before there was Dark souls there was the Ninja Gaiden series and contra. Great video by the way I just found your channel and I've watched two videos so far I watched your most recent one where you nearly died cuz you got X-Men children of the atom. I wanted to leave a comment on that video but I couldn't because the comment section was turned off I really hope people aren't being nasty towards you because you seem like a genuine good person. All I wanted to say was you had an incredible childhood as did I but the difference is you had parents that actually were into what you were doing my mother was a gamer and she still is but my father never was. The recorded footage is unbelievable it absolutely is like a time capsule. I absolutely love that video because I'm the type of person that lives in the past daily. I'm so sorry for your loss I can't imagine what that might have been like but your father is an absolute Legend. You have 100% earned my sub and I will be checking out the rest of your videos😊

This biggest disappointment of this whole video is your friend Stuttering Craig didn't stutter!

Publishers in the West were terrified of the rental market. Especially on Genesis, they'd make all kinds of things like Lion King crazy hard just so kids couldn't get through it in a weekend. The NES surely had a bit of this too, but I think it was also a byproduct of simply not having the ROM space (the CPU could only address 256k unless the cart had a special mapper chip), so they had to make the content on the cart tough to get through since games were only 25 minutes long.

Time Lord: that boss just takes a long time, maybe ten minutes or whatever. He changes color slowly to show that he’s losing his health. No real secret, it just takes a long time

Really cool how you have video clips from when you were a kid and mixed it in this video man.

Thanks for the video & thanks for the memories Tyler!

14:10 this made me laugh genuinely hard earned a new sub! 😂

Hardest part of Ninja Gaiden III was all the flying enemies. The US release was made more difficult by increasing damage taken and adding more enemies as well as a continue limit. Once you memorized the level and enemy locations it wasn't too bad. The bosses in that one were stupid easy even the final bosses.

My brother somehow managed to beat silver surfer. I just watched him in awe I couldn't beat any of the stages

And it's funny Tyler the moment you mentioned the Lion King game I immediately thought not just of that stage but of the ostrich part in particular it's like I was anxious all over again thanks for the content love what you do

Dope video I love that you was playing games with you pops

GHOSTS N GOBLINS, NES....... I had the misfortune of being stuck with only one game in the early 90s for 2-3 years (ok ok, i had also "duck hunt" lol) and parents hated gaming, they refused to buy anything else.... tried all other versions out of curiousity after my horrifying endevour but nothing comes close, the arcade & SNES version was actually a fun stroll..... took me months just to get past first level, then took me 1 year to get to the boss..... and took me 2 years to finish it once with utmost luck, played up to 12 hours a day (had no other game, we were broke and i loved gaming so much), i broke 3 controllers..... 1 controller out of rage (decapitated it) and 2 for just mashing/playing so much.....

I had Ninja Gaiden III when I was kid and this game was no joke. Insanely difficult, but I did beat it. It was awesome!

I have no idea how I had the patience to beat the 3 NES Ninja Gaiden games in the early 90s; there is no way I can play them now without throwing my controller through the window. Many cans of Copenhagen were consumed while playing those games...

These videos are always so fascinating to me. Even as a kid I could beat Double Dragon 3 but I will probably never, ever beat Ninja Gaiden 3. The 5 continues are a deal breaker. I beat Gaiden 1 and 2 through repetition because of the unlimited continues and taking that away was too much.

Interesting list! I havent popped my copy of Time Lord in for a long time... may have to revisit and see how far I can get now.

Shout out to Time Lord. That is definitely one of the hardest and most cryptic games I ever played as a kid too. We got a NES late in its lifespan, after the SNES had been out for a little while. Time Lord was one of the only games I owned, along with Mega Man II and PinBot. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to beat that stupid wild west stage with the orb that would float up away from you as you moved toward it. For whatever reason that section of that stage just stumped me as a kid, so I never did beat Time Lord.

Great channel!!! You really make me laugh with your videos. 😊

WOW! I cant believe your #1 pick. Spot on IMO! I was actually going to leave a comment about it but I'm quite impressed you had it at #1. That game gave me tears as a kid but I did clear 2 stages. I think the lizard level and the pumpkin one. Surprised Ninja Gaiden one isnt on here. I was pretty happy to beat that a few years back finally.

That’s crazy to see My Hero in this video. Always thought it wasn’t any popular at all. This game was one of the first games ever remember playing, and man it was difficult. I recently played it again, thinking “maybe I can’t beat it this time”….. nope. Still hard AF

Not really a hard game as such but I absolutely loved Faxanadu on the NES. Phantom Fighter on the NES was ridiculously hard too!

Back to the future for the nes is very hard. One time I beat it when I was young.

Awesome episode bruthah nostalgia overload loved it!!!!!!!!!!

I've got my collection of mini consoles, including the Turbo Grafx 16, which I had yet to open by the way. I'm having so much fun on all my consoles! Love your channel! Newer subscriber.

Great video and great to see Stuttering Craig again! I remember him well from the ScrewAttack days!!

im digging the humor haha. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! good stuff bro

That thumbnail of the angry little boy holding the game controller is priceless.🔥🐵🤣😂

Great video, hun!! ❤❤❤

I'm more surprised the original NES Battletoads and Bayou Billy was not on this list. Hope you get a chance to try those games out. They are extremely difficult but not in a computer cheating type of manner.

Man...the Lion King monkey puzzle. My original video game frustration. I remember letting my neighbors borrow it after spending WEEKS trying to beat that puzzle. When I went over to their house to play, THEY HAD MADE IT PAST THE PUZZLE!!!! They were D students too and no one in the family ended up graduating. I felt like an idiot then and still do now.

4:06 the flashbacks, it took forever to beat that stage. FOREVER 😂

hey that's the dude from Screwattack! Nice to see him alive and gaming

Love your videos so much! 🥰 The hardest games i played : - Mario 64 (never grew up with it but played through 100 stars on the 3D all Stars Collection) -Dream Alone (platformer) -Cuphead (played little bit but not beat it myself 😂)

After quickly glossing over your list, I've to agree 100% about Double Dragon 3, once rented but then forever shelved as one of those impossible games with no continues, let alone lives. I could barely even pass the first stage, so yeah, it definitely gives me anxiety just thinking about it. (The second in the franchise is the best!)

Great video. A few retro games that I completed that make my list are, Metal Storm on Expert, Jim Power (SNES), Super Smash TV (Snes) and Gun.Smoke (arcade). Ninja Gaiden 3 was one of the harder ones I completed on the NES as well. You take more damage, theres less checkpoints and limited continues, compared to the other 2 games. Though Metal Storm on Expert would be the hardest NES game Ive completed. Gun.Smoke arcade was brutal to the point where some of the bosses felt like a complete brick wall with no visible progress for hours. Some of the more extreme challenges I completed were from the PS2 era and up to more modern. Ive tried all these games but some of them Ive never really worked on. I remember owning Time Lord for NES, unfortunately. Back during the NES days I was rarely able to beat a game, but that was part of the mystique of gaming. Not being able to see most of the games. For better or worse it developed a love for the challenge and a reward for getting better. I started to experience that a little more in the 16 bit era. The average game has gotten easier with each newer generation but theres no lack of challenge if you look for it. Either from extreme modes, personal challenges, or the rare modern game thats difficult on default settings. Indie games are better with offering a challenge atleast. Way more options these days. Emulation has really opened up all the old games for me, allowing me to practice and master a game, segment by segment with save states before putting them together. Its a much different approach then how we had to do it back then.

I got that same Nintendo t-shirt nice...Game On! 🕹️📺🎮

Can confirm, these are nightmares haha. Seemed like bosses in batman and robin bosses eat bullets like its nothing unless u have the green max'd out one. great list of headache platformers.

This man reminds me of my best friend, growing up. Love these videos. Keep it up, buddy!!! Omg the Lion king. Never made it pass that level. 😢 I still hate that game.

Thanks for another great video Tyler in my mid-thirties still a little too young for the NES days gone by but I've played a few of the hard ones ornon NES classic I used to have on an NES classic

I also just played TMNT again on the NES, talking about difficult games 😅, I am worse than I was 30 years ago lol!

The lion king lol. I actually got grounded for yelling explicatives at this game 😂 Super hard and was only able to beat it once

That all your base part has me rolling. 😂

It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who had problems with the second level of the Lion King.

For me the hardest game was “The Adventures of Batman & Robin” on the Sega Genesis. Till this day, I’ve never beaten that Game.

I did manage to beat The Adventures Of Batman & Robin for Sega Genesis once. The key is to collect only one colored-icon. If you stay on one weapon/color, the weapon becomes big and powerful, making the game a lot easier. It's essential really. So the trickiest part becomes trying to stick to that color. If you get the wrong color, I think it starts over to the weak version of the weapon.

Coming zone was a gift for my 11th birthday. Took me 2 years to beat it. The password system was the only way back then.

It is a badge of honor I carry close to my heart that I mastered level 2 of The Lion King on Sega. I couldn't beat the game, but I mastered that level.

I was molded by Nintendo hard games, I think it helped me be a perseverant person in my adult life and never give up.

Another great episode thank you

I've played a lot of very hard games for the Atari, NES, Sega, SNES, PS1, N64 and all the way through to current systems but Festers Quest is one of the hardest and ugliest games I have EVER played. Thank God they made Zombies ate my neighbors so I could play a top down shooter that was actually satisfying.

I heard that The Lion King game was hard 'on purpose' to boost rental costs, or something to that regard. But to have the second level that hard? It's just flat-out sadistic, man.

Kid Chameleon on Sega kicked my ass when I was a kid. No saves and over 100 levels. Kids today don’t even know the struggle.

Ninja Turtles on NES legit made me cry because it was so freaking hard. 😢