History NintendoHard / RolePlayingGames

* ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' is somewhat easier than the original on a first playthrough. Then NewGamePlus outdoes the first game ''[[OhCrap big time]]''. In addition, the ''Lost Crowns Trilogy'' DLC puts the vanilla game and the first ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' to shame. The ''Scholar of the First Sin'' UpdatedRerelease takes this trope UpToEleven -- for example, now there's a freaking Guardian Dragon (a late game boss fight/DegradedBoss) in one of the very first areas.

** The game is also notoriously cryptic. Townsfolk are rarely helpful, most of the time offering flavour text instead of help, and to add insult to injury [[ScrappyMechanic some of the NPCs can even sneeze on your face and give you a cold]], which acts like posion and causes Ninten to lose health overtime (it doesn't help that it can only be cured with a trip to the doctor at a hospital, which isn't cheap, or by using Mouthwash, which you don't get until the latter half of the game), and finding the 8 Melodies often requires checking every item that might vaguely stand out (including A Doll in Ninten’s house, a single random cactus in the desert, a canary and a sign just to name a few) toward which the game only gives vague clues (to be fair, there is one NPC in Magicant that tells you the locations of the 8 Melodies... after you've reached the peak of [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Mt. Itoi]] near the end of the game). Enemies can do a truckload of damage from the first dungeon (hell, just from the moment you exit your house and try to the reach ''the first town in the game'') and [[UpToEleven things spiral out of control]] by the time the party reaches Yucca Desert, and the difficultly only gets worse from there.

* The 1975 ''VideoGame/{{dnd}}'' is brutal. You only have about a 50% chance of beating an enemy of your level, physically attacking still lets enemies hits you, and if you die, you lose everything and a new dungeon is randomly generated. Spells make the game easier, but the best ones also damage you, you need spells to heal, you have only have a small number of spells, and worse of all, you can't regain spell usages without backtracking all the way to the entrance to dungeon in the first level. You can beat the final boss on level 17 and still have to fight through the whole dungeon again, backwards, with all the enemies ten times stronger, and if you die, you have to start at level 1 on level 1 no better than when you started.

* Many old first-person RPG dungeon crawlers are ridiculously difficult by today's standards, what with having to make your own maps, teleporters that drop you into identical-looking areas, pitch-black segments of the dungeon, really strong monsters, secret doors indistinguishable from walls, and just about every other cheap trick in the book.

* The ''VideoGame/MysteriousDungeon'' series in all its iterations -- ''VideoGame/ShirenTheWanderer'', ''Torneko: The Last Hope'', ''VideoGame/ChocobosDungeon'', and quite a few others -- exemplify this entire trope to the max. The entire game is based on the premise of {{Roguelike}} dungeon exploration, with many of the same specifications, in particular that the hero has but one life. The catch: you also can't save levels, gear, items, power-ups, ''nothing''. If you should happen to die (and you will), you are forced to restart at a checkpoint with nothing but your fists and a moderately powerful healing item and Level 1 experience, usually with a dozen hit points. A single mistake can lead to rapid death, the dungeons are randomized and often "themed" (e.g. nothing but Scrolls, traps everywhere, constant damage due to heat), you must stay fed or the hero will die and quickly, monsters spawn infinitely, traps are hidden in the worst places, and the worst of it? When you finish a dungeon, you ''revert to Level 1 again'', and in some installments give up all your equipment, essentially starting from scratch. Some give you a leg up, like allowing you to take a few items in or store things so they don't get lost when you die, but not much else.
** The worst of the lot is the second Mystery Dungeon game, the first ''Shiren The Wanderer'' on the Super Famicom. It had '''one''' checkpoint: a hut at the '''very beginning of the game'''. If you died at any point, you went all the way back there, and needed to slog through all the dungeons again to get back where you were, minus any XP or items. It's brain-breakingly difficult and often quite unfair.
** If you poke around Ustream you can often find Japanese players playing ''Jokenji Asuka Kenzan'', a sequel to ''Shiren'', only much more difficult. It's not uncommon to see it modified to insane levels, like "no weapons" or "1 HP per level".

* ''VideoGame/TotalWarAttila'' presents the Western Roman Empire, possibly the hardest campaign ever put in a ''Total War'' game, with a rating of ''Legendary''. The Huns, the Germans and all other manner of barbarians are beating down the gates. [[BadassDecay The mighty Legions who took on the world are no more than a distant memory now]], weakened and scattered so thinly so any city that comes under attack can likely expect no help. Your technologies will fade and you will be facing internal revolt and economic failure everywhere you look. If you can HoldTheLine and iron out the rot that afflicts Rome, you can pull it back from the brink. Every two-bit king and warlord thinks he can rule the world, but if you can accomplish this feat, you will ''feel like you can''.

* ''Pokemon Inclement Emerald'', a ''Videogame/PokemonEmerald'' ROM hack made by Creator/Drayano60 gives all gym leaders six pokemon with good enough coverage that no one pokemon has a chance of sweeping the team. And all trainers and wild pokemon scale with your level, making it impossible to simple overlevel and overpower them. Finally, starting from the 5th gym onwards, all gym leaders and major characters use Mega Evolution. In fact, ''every'' trainer in Victory Road uses Mega Evolution. On higher difficulties, every single trainer in the game has EV trained pokemon and on challenge mode, you can't use items during battle.

** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' tries its hardest to recapture this, with huge dungeons you have to map yourself, enemy encounters that are either extremely strong or love status effects, expensive equipment and items, and of course the infamous [=F.O.E.s=]. The SkillScoresAndPerks system means you can freely customize your characters' skill builds, but it's all too easy to end up with poorly-built-up characters that make fighting more dangerous threats a nightmare, forcing the player to have their characters [[SkillPointReset Rest]], and Resting comes with a level penalty (''-10 in the first game,'' -5 levels in the 2nd and 3rd games, -2 levels in the 3DS games). And you only get 1 Skill Point per level, meaning that every allocation decision counts. But hey, what else would you expect from [[Creator/{{Atlus}} the same company]] behind ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei''?

* ''VideoGame/SweetHome'', being the [[TropeMaker granddaddy of]] SurvivalHorror, is among the more grueling [=JRPGs=] of the late [=1980s=]. To do well, players must take notes, remember where things are, manage their inventory, and carefully ration healing tonics (of which there are only twenty-one in the game, ''total!''). Adding to the challenge is FinalDeath: the tonics are the only way to recover HP, and if one of your characters die, they ''stay dead''. Since each character has a unique item that is instrumental to solving puzzles and progressing through the game, the loss of a party member will make proceeding all the more difficult.

** The worst of the lot is the original ''Shiren The Wanderer'' on the Super Famicom. It had '''one''' checkpoint: a hut at the '''very beginning of the game'''. If you died at any point, you went all the way back there, and needed to slog through all the dungeons again to get back where you were, minus any XP or items. It's brain-breakingly difficult and often quite unfair.

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* ''VideoGame/LoserReborn'': Even on the easiest difficulty, the enemies will take advantage of buffs and elemental attacks in the same way as the player, allowing them to KO party members easily. Worse yet, the game's inn functionality can only be used once per playthrough and there's only one revival consumable, meaning you can only get away with two KOs. Items and gold are scarce and random encounters disappear after defeating the boss of their floor, making it hard to afford equipment upgrades.

* The second half of ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' fits this trope to a T. Early on, it's not much harder than a typical ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' game is by that point, but once you get to the Ultibed quest, the game ramps it up into high gear. Especially the giant battles. The first two aren't horribly difficult, but starting with Earthwake, they WILL mop the floor with you if you don't have pixel-perfect timing. Plus some of the mini-games have a ScrappyMechanic similar to [[VideoGames/DonkeyKong64 Beaver Bother]].

** The original ''VideoGame/MegamiTensei'' deserves special mention for having its only HP-restoring items, Jewels, unavailable at item shops and only found by defeating a specific type of enemy (although luckily Jewels restore all of a character's HPs). Also there are demons who have a special attack that permanently reduces one of your protagonist's experience levels.

* ''VideoGame/The7thSaga'' is definitely up there. Monsters do grotesque amounts of damage to your paltry HP and give little experience or gold (and have unlimited MP of course), both spells and attacks fail very often. Oh, and there's a group of other adventurers roaming around trying to complete the same quest as you are, and are always a couple levels higher than you are. If you run into the wrong one at one of the forced fights with one of these guys, the game can be very nearly unwinnable.
** On top of this, [[DifficultyByRegion the game was altered to give less EXP and fewer level-up bonuses in the American version.]] The various other, computer-controlled adventurers do not have this disadvantage; they level up at the Japanese rate, quickly outgunning you. Since their levels scale to yours, this means you're increasingly damned as the game goes on.

* The first few VideoGame/DragonQuest games certainly qualify although all the games in that series are harder than average. Unless you're using an Emulator, you are going to get destroyed. It doesn't matter how good you are at the game, enemies curb-stomp you. Oh, and II? Hey, let's make a dungeon that's impossible to get through unless you use {{trial and error gameplay}}, or a guide! Did I mention that your spellcasters can't survive being glanced at by anything, and you're rarely told anything? Puzzles are of the Simon's Quest type, like "use X item at Y tile on the world map to reveal a cave" or "search a random tile for a vital item".

** The game is also notoriously cryptic. Townsfolk are rarely helpful, often offering flavour text instead of help, and finding the 8 Melodies often requires checking every item that might vaguely stand out (including A Doll in Ninten’s house, a single random cactus in the desert, a canary and a sign just to name a few) toward which the game only gives vague clues. Enemies can do a truckload of damage from the first dungeon and [[UpToEleven things spiral out of control]] by the time the party reaches Yucca Desert, and the difficultly only gets worse from there.

* ''Videgame/DarkestDungeon'' opens up with a paragraph explaining that the game is designed to be harsh and that you must be prepared to deal with losses and sacrifices. Enemies hit hard and can inflect both health and stress damage, driving you heroes to madness. Failing to properly provide for your heroes' health and sanity and equipping them for a dungeon run will result in injury or stress buildup. Bosses are merciless and can be deadly even if you know their mechanics and properly prepare for it. But as you learn the game's mechanics, how to prioritize enemies, and how to manage health and stress, you'll be able to take on even the toughest enemies and emerge victorious. You can even [[spoiler: avoid the final boss's one-hit kill attacks if you can deal enough damage in a single attack to finish it.]]

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarI'' is a very difficult game, even by the standards of early [=JRPGs=]. The early game requires a fair bit of LevelGrinding, some bosses require specific items to circumvent their OneHitKill attacks (and they are found in very out-of-the-way areas), and the FauxFirstPerson3D dungeons can be very easy to get lost in. The game's manual suggests players draw up their own maps for dungeons, advice which you will want to take if you wish to make any progress. Later re-releases of the game added options to alleviate the difficulty: the [=PS2=] enhanced remake has an item that can temporarily draw up maps, and the Nintendo Switch port of the original game has an automap feature.

* ''VideoGame/{{Underrail}}'' (no relation to ''Undertale'' below - though they are both set underground) is a brutal Serbian tactical [=RPG=] in the vein of VideoGame/{{Fallout}} that takes great pleasure in watching you die over and over and over. SaveScumming is ''actively encouraged'' - the game autosaves before you enter a new area and keeps an extra autosave and quicksave on the buffer as well. It is strongly recommended that you consult the [[Underrail Character Builds Forum https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?board=12.0]] to carefully refine a character concept before you start... or you can just nick somebody else's; riflemen, shotgunners, crossbow rangers, melee fighters, unarmed brawlers, psionics, there's something for everyone. If your build is anything less than top-notch then you will be seeing the game over screen with frustrating regularity.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII'' is unusually difficult for an EasternRPG. Many of the RandomEncounters are strong enough to threaten a TotalPartyKill. For example, in the first dungeon, most enemies are fairly weak, but once in a while, you'll encounter an enemy named "Blaster" whose attacks hit your entire party for substantial damage. If you haven't done some serious LevelGrinding, you'll probably lose the battle. Additionally, despite abandoning the FauxFirstPerson3D perspective used in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarI'', you ''will'' get lost in the game's dungeons, because the mazes are just that complicated. [[http://www.phantasy-star.net/psii/maps/mapsgreendam.html You can see for yourself how confusing they get!]]. Fortunately, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection added the ability to save anywhere.

** Amazingly, the original Japanese release was even harder, with more complex dungeons and bullshit tricks (like a random character sending you back to the start of a dungeon if you don’t answer his questions correctly). These were altered for the unreleased US version (which was later released on the Wii Ü virtual console).