The Top 25 Hardest Games of All Time

14 April 2009

Posted by:Josh

The dreaded Battletoads race sequence! *shudder*

What are the Top 25 Hardest Games Of All Time?

Gaming difficulty is an interesting beast as it has really evolved over the years. Many gamers still hold to the fact that games of yesteryear were much harder than games on today’s consoles. But is that really true?

Obviously it all depends on who you ask. GameDaily has come up with their own list of the hardest games and series of all time. Though they mostly concentrate on franchises instead of one entry in a series. So I took a few liberties to add “series” like when they went with the original Battletoads (um, excuse me, but they’re ALL hard!).

Personally, I would’ve added a few games like the original Metroid, Mortal Kombat 3, Siren and Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES (Thanks logikil!) and Kid Icarus . . . I also think I’d exclude the arcade classics and maybe shooters, cause heck, a lot of shooters are hard. Then again, so are a lot of fighters. But I digress.

So what is your own personal list of the hardest games of all time?

Here is the list of the Top 25 Hardest Games of All Time:

25. Ice Climber (NES)
24. Viewtiful Joe (GameCube, PS2)
23. MDK 2
22. Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (NES)
21. Metal Slug series
20. Tetris
19. Gauntlet 1
18. Portal
17. Bionic Commando series
16. Guitar Hero series (On Expert)
15. Shinobi (PS2)
14. F-Zero GX (GameCube)
13. Mushihimesama Futari
12. Doom (On Nightmare Difficulty)
11. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
10. Contra series
09. Defender
08. Devil May Cry 3 (PS2)
07. God of War series (PS2)
06. R-Type series
05. Ikaruga (GameCube, Xbox Live Arcade)
04. Mega Man 9 (Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare, PlayStation Network)
03. Battletoads series
02. Gouls N’ Ghosts series
01. Ninja Gaiden series

Categories: DS News, News, PC News, PS2 News, PS3 News, PSP News, Wii News, Xbox 360 News

Shawn Ricci

Have we all forgotten about…shudder…Deadly Towers for the NES? The fact that it’s not on the list clearly proves it is false!
KUNGFURU

Mega Man 9? Word? I don’t even think MM9 is one of the top 25 hardest games out of my own games.
Alan

Portal? WTF?

Shadow of the Beast made most of these games look easy, although I’ll acknowledge that G’nG, NG, and Battletoads were very tough.
Edgar

There are some pretty easy games on this list.
http://n.gg.r I disagree

24. Viewtiful Joe (GameCube, PS2)

20. Tetris

18. Portal

11. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

07. God of War series (PS2)

What?
Cokeman

Yeah some of those choices seemed pretty weak. I’m not a good judge of what makes a hard game but I do know that while I can beat Call of Duty and Portal without too much problem, Games like Kid Icarus kicks my ass on the second level. Maybe the author was just trying to include newer games on the list. Games these days have save points.. save point = easy(for the most part).
Larry

Shadow of the Beast (the sega genesis version, which was faster than the computer versions): 1 life, no continues. in order to complete the game you can make NO mistakes. none. I agree with Alan. Shadow of the Beast makes most of the games on that list easy..
Jiminip

Jet Set Willy was far harder than COD 4 or Portal.

Obviously the author is about 25 otherwise they’d know that.
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William Bennett

Seriously, how is Call of Duty 4 hard, it even goes as far to say its one of the easiest shooters ive played of late. Killzone 2 is pretty hard, and how about the Gran Turismo series, some of those races are insanely hard. If you play crysis like a traditional shooter (ie, run and gun) its quite hard, i’d maybe have it their. The hardest game to complete is GRAW 2: Advanced Warfighter, but not because its hard, just because its so damn boring!