Line #17 NintendoHard/Uncategorised


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8	* Many online flash games unintentionally fall under this trope, as they are often created primarily by one person, thus preventing much play testing. As a result, they often start with an insultingly easy tutorial and quickly spiral into insanity, with little in the way of a curve in between.
9	* ''VideoGame/SixtySeconds'' is ''not'' easy. On top of only having a minute to gather as many resources as possible (Ted's odd controls don't help any in this regard), surviving is mostly down to the RandomNumberGod. You never know when an earthquake may strike and wipe out your resources, or if you'll lose a family member on an excursion to the surface, or if that knocking at your shelter door is a merchant, the military, or a [[BreadEggsMilkSquick band of angry raiders]].
10	* ''VideoGame/AirFortress'' actually starts off pretty easy. At Level 4, the game stops playing around. On Level 6, it officially crosses over into this trope.
11	** The shmup section of each level can get fairly brutal, but is a lot easier once you've had some practice and know what's about to come at you. Where the game ''really'' screws you is in the infiltration sections. The fortresses themselves can get utterly mazelike, including transport tubes that don't take you to the same place if you try to return the way you came. You can only fire tiny projectiles forward, meaning hitting ''anything'' that isn't directly in front of you is a nightmare, and you move fairly slowly while most projectiles move at at least twice the speed, and a lot of them even home in on your position. There's no MercyInvincibility, so it's very, ''very'' easy to get pinned down and locked into a CycleOfHurting (especially when the [[DemonicSpiders evil spacemen and jumping robots]] get involved.) And even when you get to the end and destroy the core, [[EscapeSequence you still have to make it to the exit in less than two minutes]], and after the first stage or two it's somewhere deep within the labyrinthine levels, pretty much requiring you to plot out your escape route in advance. The only real mercy is that most enemies don't respawn after they die...except when they suddenly do.
12	* The laserdisc game ''VideoGame/{{Badlands}}'' plays like if ''VideoGame/DragonsLair'' had one button, extremely strict timing for the button presses, and no continues.
13	* ''VideoGame/{{BattleZone\|1998}}: The Red Odyssey'' (a RTS/FPS/Vehicle Combat game) is an entire expansion pack of NintendoHard missions. The very first mission has you walking over a kilometer on foot (this is a game where you spend 99% of your time inside a hover tank), while being hunted down by other foot soldiers - dark red who easily blend into the dark gray ground of the planet. Once you reach your destination (a Russian army base), you have to [[SnipingTheCockpit snipe a hover tank's cockpit to kill the pilot]] (no easy task, mind you), steal the tank, scan a couple buildings, then rush through the base while being shot at by ''everything'', then escape through a labyrinth of narrow canyons, ''then'' defend a small base for upwards of 20 minutes against a nearly constant onslaught of Russian hover tanks.
14	* ''VideoGame/BloodlineChampions'': So you start the game, thinking to yourself "I'm a MOBA veteran, let me see what everyone's talking about this one's combat for." Approximately 15 seconds after the start of your first battle you are now thinking "[[FlatWhat What?]]". After giving a woefully inadequate tutorial which only convinces you that you know nothing, the game throws you in with 15 abilities (counting your two items you can take in) to manage cooldowns and such on simultaneously (most of them requiring aiming, even the self-defense ones) and says [[SchmuckBait "go"]]. This game does not have a "steep learning curve", it has a learning '''cliff''' with everyone at the bottom [[{{Mooks}} dying like flies]] to everyone at the top who walk around racking up kills on the poor souls looking [[MookHorrorShow like an]] ImplacableMan.
15	* The latter stages of the ''[[VideoGame/BloonsTowerDefense Bloons TD]]'' games can veer straight into this trope, 5 being arguably the worst game with this, throwing a bunch of [[BossInMookClothing ZOMGs]] (the most powerful enemies in the game) at you ALL AT ONCE in the post-game.
16	** It gets worse. When you get all the Completion Medals for all Beginner tracks (Yes, including [[HarderThanHard Impop]][[IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels pable]]) ''and'' beat '''every other track in the game''' you get... drumroll Mastery Mode. This is THE hardest mode in the game. Remember that 1 [=ZOMG=] the game threw at you on Round 85? Well, there are now '''10''' of the things '''one round earlier,''' and they're faster and stronger to boot! And did we mention that a ''normal'' [=ZOMG=] has a whopping 4,000 HP and an RBE level of 16,656? [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Have fun!]]
17	** For a '''real''' [[SelfImposedChallenge challenge]], combine Mastery ''and'' Impoppable. You can turn them both on at the same time. [[SarcasmMode Piece of cake.]]
18	* There's a new generation of Nintendo Hard games, which take play mechanics from NES classics and crank up the difficulty way past eleven, to a number that can't be displayed on a standard pocket calculator. Homebrew game designer Dessgeega has referred to these games as "masocore," or games for hardcore masochistic players. She also created her own game in the genre, ''VideoGame/MightyJillOff'', which is a tribute to ''Mighty Bomb Jack''. The difference is that there are no bombs... instead, the player is forced to master the high jumps and gliding that defined the ''VideoGame/BombJack'' series in order to climb to the top of a very high, very dangerous tower.
19	** The first tower is relatively tame, but [[BonusLevelOfHell the second one]]... Well, just to tip you off, the criteria to play it is to finish the first level under twelve minutes. If you still want to play it, you'd better be prepared for some nasty tricks, such as [[spoiler:jumping through a section with seemingly glitched graphics, jumping through what looks like solid floor, or having to kill yourself to get through a dead end... ''twice''.]] Fortunately, the game plays fair and these obstacles aren't that hard to figure out.
20	* ''VideoGame/{{Breakdown}}'': Controls take a very long time to master, although not in a FakeDifficulty way. The most recurring enemies (the T'lon) are very strong, invunerable to your guns, and almost every one of their hits disorients the player, forcing him to adjust the view while under attack. Its penultimate battle is a five round deathmatch with no save points. Actions are slow but in a great, detailed manner, not FakeDifficulty. Save points are sometimes very distant. Suffice to say, the game has a very meaningful title.
21	** And halfway through the game, [[spoiler:you lose your HUD, meaning the only way to tell how much damage you've taken and how much power you've got left for special attacks is either by pausing or taking note of the effects on the screen and/or your arms mid-game.]]
22	* ''VideoGame/CarriesOrderUp'', fitting with its homage to '90s arcade games, starts out simple but greatly ramps up the difficulty as customers get faster, larger ones that are harder to avoid appear more frequently, and your trusty spin is turned against you as puddles fill the floor space.
23	* ''VideoGame/CrashBash''. While most of basic tournaments are doable within few resets, the fact that to progress beyond second warp room you ''need'' to get Gems and Crystals doesn't help. For record, gems expect you to finish everyone off under strict time limit (sometimes like 25 seconds) or score more points than everyone else to win, sometimes both. Crystals impose special conditions on match, mostly some restriction that applies to you only like being constantly bombed by nitro boxes or air dropped mines. And to unlock every arena in multiplayer, you'll also need to get relics. Which expect you to win against optimized team, as in TheComputerIsACheatingBastard way. Twice. ''In a row.'' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Yeah.]]
24	* While the game itself isn't an example, ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' has the "Death Road of Despair" mini-game during the first two chapters that is very difficult to beat, but it is possible, leading to an EverybodyLives (if completed in the first chapter) NonStandardGameOver ending and giving you a new theme for the Monopad and 100 Monocoins.
25	* ''Dark Mist'' by Pixel Cattle Games, is a fantasy card game that has a gameplay mechanic that makes the game especially difficult. Your character will be fighting several rows of 4 enemies. Your character is OneHitPointWonder so the only way for them to survive is that when they use a card from their deck, the spent card temporarily goes into the "blocking" pile where it will be used to block an enemy's attack and then returns to the deck at the beginning of the next round. Here's where things gets ugly for the player. When an enemy attacks, they take an amount of random cards from your blocking pile equal to their damage rating and these cards are held permanently by that enemy unless you either kill them or use a card that has an ability to take back your cards (most of these types of cards can only take back a single random card). So your deck keeps shrinking while you take damage from your various enemies unless you can kill your foe or steal something back, even weak enemies are dangerous let alone the elite enemies that have high health and attack plus dangerous special abilities. It's telling that in most games, unlocking a new character requires finishing the game. Here you just need to win the first battle, that's how difficult the game is. And to top it off the game has no guide or tutorial beyond one page with a basic diagram.
26	* ''VideoGame/DarkReign'', a fairly obscure RealTimeStrategy game, started out seeming like a run of the mill ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' knockoff. It doesn't end that way.
27	* ''VideoGame/DeadAheadZombieWarfare'' is this when compared to the first. ''Dead Ahead'' is a simple side-scroller that only concerns you with having to tread as far as possible without crashing, while racking up combo chains. ''Zombie Warfare'', however, is a much slower and more methodical game that requires you to rely on trial-and-error for deck building, and plan your moves several steps ahead, with correct timing playing a huge role.
28	* ''VideoGame/DontStarve'' is an extremely difficult game. There are many mechanics in place specifically to disrupt your setup when it is comfortable (Gobbler, Brushfires, Bearger, etc). While you can configure the game to turn off some of these elements, surviving with all of them enabled is a challenge indeed. It's later cranked up with the game's expansions, which actually make the game more difficult by adding complications and mechanics that work against you each time.
29	* ''Ecco CD'' for the Sega CD is so difficult that ''you can die when you have the invincibility god mode on''. Even the cheat codes are hard to use and difficult to implement (there's one that lets you teleport to X Y coordinates, which will usually end up with Ecco crushed in a wall... which will probably kill you). Which is a shame, since the music and [=FMVs=] are quite gorgeous.
30	** The ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'' series in general (except for ''[[OddballInTheSeries Ecco Jr.]]'', of course) is brutally hard. Oh, sure, it stars a cute little dolphin, but he is going to die. A lot. The first game is hard to beat even if you enter the invincibility code and the level select code to begin on the final boss.
31	** Hilariously, Ed Annunziata has actually admitted he was paranoid about kids beating it in a weekend, so made it hard.
32	%%* A ''[[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents Fairly OddParents]]'' game called [[http://www.nick.com/games/the-fairly-oddparents-unfairly-oddparents.html# Unfairly OddParents]] has "unfair" right in the title, and it lives up to the name.
33	* ''VideoGame/FlappyBird''. CNET has [[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57618175-94/flappy-bird-is-the-embodiment-of-our-descent-into-madness/ wisely described it]] as ''the embodiment of our descent into madness''. Among the first 20 five-star reviews on the App Store include these fantastic headers: "The death of me"; "The apocalypse"; "Save yourselves"; "Life destroying"; "my life is spiraling out of control"; and "Hello Darkness My Old Friend."
34	* ''VideoGame/GeometryDash'': The first few levels are easy, but the "demons" often take hundreds and thousands of attempts due to awkward timings, fakes and fast speed. The real kicker, though, is the fan-made levels. Feeling yourself a Geometry Dash pro? Try [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4MDq8Us5gM this]] [[note]][[https://pointercrate.com/demonlist/55 It's ranked ''55th'' on the official "hardest levels" list at time of this example's most recent edit (2/2/2024)]][[/note]].
35	* ''VideoGame/GettingOverItWithBennettFoddy'' does this via SomeDexterityRequired and complete CheckpointStarvation; it is possible to fall all the way back to the start of the game, and the controls are deliberately awkward, as you have to climb the side of a mountain of trash using nothing but a hammer whose swings are controlled by your mouse - you can't even jump or move outside of that.
36	* ''VideoGame/GliderPRO'' and its predecessors at least approach Nintendo Hard difficulty: colliding with the floor or furniture will kill you, never mind moving enemies, and you need to [[VentPhysics ride vents]] in order to gain height. The few enemies that can be killed respawn quickly, but [[OneUp extra gliders]] and other powerups never respawn. Though there are houses with very BenevolentArchitecture and sparse enemies, there are also houses like "Castle of the Air," which has a room titled "It Gets Worse!" The [[StarShapedCoupon stars]] in "Nemo's Market" are located in rooms that transport you out [[TimedMission in a dozen seconds or less]], and you will [[{{Unwinnable}} not be forgiven]] for missing a single one.
37	* Games of ''VideoGame/{{HQ}}'' will usually start with a few hundred thousand players. However, by question 12, this number is whittled down to only a few hundred people. Great for those people, since their piece of the jackpot is higher, but not-so-great for your chances of actually winning. The questions can range from hilariously easy to hair-pullingly difficult, and one wrong answer means elimination.
38	* Larger levels in ''VideoGame/JetSetRadio'' can be quite frustrating: you have to tag each of dozens of spots with graffiti, while collecting cans (you can only hold 20-25, they're limited, some spots use up ''nine'' of them, and often you'll go a while without seeing any) and running away from police, who will come at you in helicopters and on jetpacks or snipe you from afar even while you're tagging. Oh, and there's a time limit.
39	* ''VideoGame/KatamariDamacy'' has always had frustrating gimmick levels, but ''Katamari Forever'' takes it up to eleven with some of the King's Cosmos levels:
40	** [[ThatOneLevel The Cowbear level]] from ''We Love Katamari'' makes its return, but is even more obscenely difficult with the black-and-white filter making it impossible to tell what, exactly, counts as a cow or a bear.
41	** Levels such as Make Mars, where you have to roll up specific types of items while avoiding others, are also made needlessly frustrating because of the black and white filter.
42	** The superior computing power of the [=PS3=] makes it that so small items disappear much slower as you get bigger, which means the Only 50 items level is ridiculously harder than the last time it appeared.
43	** Katamari Drive mode takes the cake, though: your katamari rolls about ten times faster, which is a huge drawback on the gimmick levels, but on every level, you're expected to do BETTER than normal!
44	** On top of all that, the camera is much worse this time around, and it's really easy to get it stuck behind something, which adds just another facet of BS difficulty.
45	* ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' for the Nintendo 3DS easily qualifies for this trope. While the difficulty level is adjustable, when it's hard, it's Nintendo Hard.
46	* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfTheWizard''. The game is one massive dungeon, there is no map, you ''will'' get stuck if you try to play without knowing where everything is, and the only SavePoint is at the house where you start, which is also the only place you can switch between player characters (which you will need to do at several points).
47	* There are a lot of ways to die in ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen''. The visual novel tasks you with managing Elodie's mood and schooling in the hopes of training her to be the next queen, but the game loves to throw curveballs to ensure she never lives to see coronation: knowledge of naval combat won't do you any good if your knowledge of first aid is so lacking that you bungle treating a wound from an arrow and bleed out!
48	* In ''VideoGame/{{Mabinogi}}'', there are storyline events that may consider be Nintendo Hard:
49	** Post-G9 mission difficulty is weighted by your total level. Hope you weren't level 1000+...
50	** Peaca Dungeon is worth a mention, but the Arc Lich from Metus turns difficulty up to eleven.
51	** Giant Field bosses. Even though it's pointless to kill them, but they give awesome drops and several {{unobtainium}} items.
52	* ''VideoGame/MarioParty2'': The special mode Minigame Coaster, when played on Hard difficulty. It forces you to perform and win every minigame in a predetermined order [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin on Hard mode]]. You have a ''very'' limited amount of lives, much like the earlier platformer games, lose one every time you failed a minigame, and you only earn [=1UPs=] from invoking LawOfOneHundred with the coins you win from cleared minigames. If you lose all your lives in any world, you must start all over from ''your last savepoint'' (which is at the start of each world), and the last couple of worlds both have 6 stages in them. The final few stages have mostly button-mashing minigames, and [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the computer is usually very good at these types of games]]. The absolute final stage only has one repeat of a Mini-game played higher up in the coaster, but the "Toad" in front of it asks you a trick question about whether or not you want to start the entire coaster over. The actual Mini-game is a second round of "Shell-Shocked", but it counts as a one-vs-three match because you're up against three Koopa Kid tanks who will [[GangUpOnTheHuman try to gang up on you]].
53	* ''VideoGame/NintendoLand'': The Extra Stages in The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest and Metroid Blast (available after beating all standard stages) and several games as a whole, particularly Donkey Kong's Crash Course and Balloon Trip Breeze which demand very precise control.
54	* ''VideoGame/{{Odama}}''. Picture a real-time strategy game where you had to keep an eye on the battlefield while maintaining a game of pinball, with a time limit.
55	* You would think that as long as you have the necessary skills in whatever it is the game is trying to teach you, {{Edutainment Game}}s would avoid this, right? You've obviously never played ''[[VideoGame/SuperSolvers Operation Neptune]]''.
56	* The Polish Atari game ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3JvbwUE1Uw Piekielko]]''. The title translates to "Little Inferno" and boy, does it fit. The entire game is one long string of SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom, each of which you have to dodge pixel-perfectly or you die. Touching a wall will kill you, and the corridors are barely wider than you. You start with 255 lives, and it's nowhere near enough.
57	* The ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series is known for it's cute plant-animal hybrids, but it's also known for being pretty tough. The main gameplay is RealTimeStrategy-like with you creating the most adorable army in the world to help you collect items scattered throughout the levels. Doesn't sound too bad until you find out the Pikmin are more vulnerable than YOU and can die in one hit from...anything. Then there's the time limit in the games with each day being 16 mins long in real-time, making searching for ship parts, treasures, or fruit stressful. Speaking of searching for items to collect...
58	** The first game has a strict 30-day time limit while you search for 30 ship parts.
59	** The second has no deadline but you still have to deal with the 16 mins real-time clock while searching for treasures.
60	** The third balances the first two in bringing the time limit back, but it's given to how much fruit you've collected to create juice; the key component to keeping you from getting a game over.
61	* ''VideoGame/QuantumProtocol'': All dungeons after the first have enemies with effects that can easily disrupt your strategies along with very tanky and tricky bosses. Even the PurposelyOverpowered Checkmate deck will struggle with these enemies if the player cannot figure out the best strategy.
62	* ''VideoGame/{{QWOP}}''. Getting to 100 meters is nearly impossible due to the unconventional controls and the wacky physics. Even the [=TAS=] world record runs in a strange way.
63	* ''VideoGame/RoboWarrior'' on the original NES. Similar to ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'', you had to drop bombs to create a path through a labyrinth of breakable rocks, unbreakable rocks and enemies. Your life meter was ''constantly draining'', the enemies ranged from [[GoddamnedBats very annoying]] to [[DemonicSpiders downright dangerous]], and then there were several sections where you had to bomb a certain breakable (or even "unbreakable") block multiple times to continue on with the game. DO NOT try to play this [[GuideDangIt without a guide]].
64	* Also, some of the stages in Creator/{{Zachtronics}}' programming puzzler [=SHENZHEN I/O=] (yes, it's [[CapsLock capitalised like that]]) can be pretty hellish sometimes, take for example [[spoiler:the last level]] where you have to track a radar signal using only basic ASM operators and chips that can hold '''14''' lines of code.
65	* ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogSpinball Sonic Spinball]]'', oddly. The levels are very long (you have to collect several emeralds that are spread out across different areas of the same stage and to do so you have to open secret passageways and successfully pinball Sonic into those areas once they're open) and a lot of the time the objectives and what you need to do are not very clearly spelled out. The challenge in this game originates more from its complexity than the raw difficulty, although the game is still pretty hard anyway (since, being pinball, it doesn't take much to throw Sonic into the drink with some bad flippering). No saves or passwords means you're in for a pretty extensive session to get to the end as well.
66	* ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' has Salmon Run. If you're feeling masochistic, you came to the right place.
67	** The mode starts with a two-stage tutorial, the second being a one-on-one duel with ''seven'' different Boss Salmonid. It's meant to teach you how to face them, but if you flunk out of this one, you don't stand a ''chance'' in the real mode, as beating the bosses and grabbing their Golden Eggs is the key to victory.
68	** The salmonid {{mooks}} might as well have [[VideoGame/StarCraft "kekeke"]] as their war cry, because they [[ZergRush come in swarms]] and only know how to rush you. If you think that's bad, they can [[SuperDrowningSkills push you into the water this way]] at higher tides, so have fun with that. If you don't have a rapid-fire weapon or Roller to pave over these guys and the guys who do aren't supporting you, you had best learn to run.
69	** And then there are the Boss Salmonid. Scrappers are plated from the front but otherwise behave like the mooks. Maws stalks a single Inkling before trying to [[SwallowedWhole eat them]]. Flyfish [[MacrossMissileMassacre launch missile barrages]] to harass from afar. Stingers fire terrain-piercing lasers with nasty accuracy. Steelheads lob large bombs with a larger blast radius. Drizzlers can coat the terrain in ink with missile-deployed rain clouds. Grillers douse the terrain below them in ink as they pursue you. Steel Eels can do this to block off large portions of the area at a time. All of them are nasty, and at higher difficulty levels, [[ThisIsGonnaSuck you will contend with several of these at once]]. And you have to worry about Snatchers grabbing any Golden Eggs you leave around, meaning you can't dawdle, either.
70	** The terrain is not your friend, either. The tides can change between waves, giving you more room to roam and get lost in or cutting you down to the highest patches of land (remember, [[SuperDrowningSkills Inklings cannot swim]]). Rolling fog obscures your vision significantly. And nighttime does a bit of it in addition to summoning Glowflies, which make the Salmonid swarm wherever they are and, as a direct consequence, make a beeline for the Inkling they are pestering. May [[HelloInsertNameHere <$deity>]] have mercy on you if you're using a Charger when they're doing this; your voice-chat friends will have to put up with you screaming for them to help.
71	** Did we mention that there are certain articles of clothing you can '''only''' get by taking on this job? Have fun losing your mind!
72	** ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' has another season of Salmon Run, and not only do ''all of the above'' still apply, but you have to deal with more varieties of Boss Salmonid whose sole purpose in life is to piss you off. Fish Sticks rain ink upon an area and choke off the terrain, Flipper-Floppers attempt to bind your movements before flopping down and splatting you, Slammin' Lids drop Chum far from shore and try to fall on you if you get close, and Big Shots harass your egg recovery efforts by dropping explosive cannonballs close to the basket. But none of those can prepare you for '''Cohozuna''', a gigantic Salmonid that makes it way on to shore and tries to belly-flop your entire operation into submission, and it's tanky enough that even regular special weapons just don't do the kind of damage you need to chase it off. And you ''will'' face off against Cohozuna, because it will stalk your operations with its refined sense of smell and make its way onshore to protect its brethren from you.
73	** Salmon Run has nothing on the ''Octo Expansion'' DLC. It's chock full of PlatformHell, NoDamageRun, and massive numbers of enemies. And the vast majority of the time you don't get much of a choice of which weapon to use. The only good news is that if you fail a level more than a few times, Pearl and Marina will offer to hack the system for you so you can skip it.
74	* The game ''VideoGame/{{Stuntman}}'', especially in the later levels. You have to drive a car through a long sequence with numerous stunts with very little margin of error. The strict time limit and stunt requirements make it so that if you make a mistake at any point, you pretty much have to restart the level. Several levels take dozens of retries to get through. The sequel, thankfully, was much more forgiving, allowing you to get through most levels without much trouble, though it's still challenging to get a high score on them.
75	* ''VideoGame/SuperCosplayWarUltra'' has its fair share of {{SNK Boss}}es, but where the Nintendo Hard aspect truely shines is in Battle Royale mode, which pits you and an AI-controlled partner against a series of mook enemies with a boss battle at the end of each stage. Even if it weren't for the fact that your AI partner is [[ArtificialStupidity guilty of doing some pretty dumb things]] (like wasting supers when the enemy's got you in the middle of an attack and renders both of you untouchable) and getting caught in between two enemies can cause you to swap directions randomly, Battle Royale mode would ''still'' be tough as hell, thanks to tougher-than-they-really-should-be mooks (every one has a super move, and the recurring Pac-Helo enemy can electrify himself, hurting the player if he/she doesn't attack him from a distance) and gigantic bosses with lots and lots of HP and attacks that hurl the player across the screen for massive damage (and some of them even render the boss immune to hitstun.) Most notable are stage 3, which gets rid of your AI partner entirely and pits you against 5 enemies all by yourself (and the game doesn't wait for you; if you take too long to defeat an enemy, more will spawn until you're completely overwhelmed.) and stage 5, which pits you against two mooks, two EliteMooks at once (both of which are practically MidBoss material) and the boss from stage 3 (who will spawn anyway if you take too long) and then finally one of the biggest {{SNK Boss}}es in the game. All in one sitting. And that's not even getting into [[HarderThanHard Another Battle Royale...]]
76	* The first ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' can be this at times, as its AI was designed for arcades, where losing and thus putting in more money to continue was profitable. If your opponent isn't blocking constantly, then they will hit you with a huge combo, and in this game, even the standard moves can wipe out a quarter of your life bar in one go. The difficulty on the Playstation version is very much superficial, in fact, due to an error, Medium mode is easier than Easy mode. In Tekken 2, things started to get a bit more sensible, you can turn on Guard Damage (which will mean you hit the opponent if they're guarding too often), the moves do less damage, and characters will not constantly spam combos...unless, for some reason, it's Law, who is still extremely hard to beat. From Tekken 3 onwards, the games are a lot easier, and a lot more playable as a result.
77	* ''VideoGame/TerminatorSalvation'' the Arcade Game is a very tough LightGunGame compared to ''VideoGame/GhostSquad2004'' or ''VideoGame/RazingStorm''. Let's see... swarm waves of enemies which can take an entire magazine of your gun to kill a single Terminator. Swarms of DemonicSpider units which will utterly overwhelm you. And there is no way to know how close you are to finishing off an enemy, unlike its cousins, which will put your skills as a resistance soldier to the test.
78	* ''The Terminator 2'' on the Game Boy. Unless you have the manual or a walkthrough or the patience to jump randomly, you're not going to know that the little flashing blocks are in fact help cubes that give hints. How bad is the game in terms of difficulty? Here's a rundown:
79	** You start the first level in an apocalyptic future. You have to shoot the beacons at the top of each tower in the order of tallest to smallest. Get the order wrong and its game over! Anyway, once you get order right, you must fight an annoying boss. Once that's done, it's the next level.
80	** It's Level 2 and your health hasn't reset. You only have one life and no continues and so far there are no health picks. Down below is another box that starts a timer [[GuideDangit and you have no idea where to go.]] If you die here, it's back to Level One. There's a hallway in this level where, if you want to pass, you have no choice but to get hit by some land mines due to a too-low ceiling.
81	** There is a third level which requires the player to rewire a T-800's circuitry in 3 progressively more difficult stages, in a jarring transition from Side-Scrolling Shoot 'Em Up to Puzzle Game. The idea is to move the cursor around the screen and change the junctions in a 'map' of circuits, so that when the timer hits 0 the released charges of energy travel from one side of the screen to the other, thus completing the circuit. The first is fairly obvious, though the timer is unforgiving. The second requires a keen eye and much practice, with an even shorter timer. The third randomly releases charges from any 4 of 6 possible junctions into an Escher-esque landscape of broken paths, which must be negotiated in just 20 seconds. And the charges have only 5 seconds to make their journey, which means you lose (the game ends and you have to start over from the very beginning) even if you manage to complete all the paths, but one of them takes a split-second too long to arrive.
82	* The action/chess hybrid ''VideoGame/{{Through the Looking Glass}}'' was repeatedly made more difficult at the urging of a co-worker who had gotten hooked and mastered it. The published version has been described as "insanely hard" and "impossible to play"... by its own creator.
83	* The ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis'' series. You'd think that the game giving you the option to TakeCover from enemy fire instead of having to accept damage would make the game easier, right? ''Wrong.'' Enemy shots fire fast enough that unless you've memorized the parts where they'll fire lethal hits, or have really good reflexes, you are all but guaranteed to get hit. And that's just the enemies' basic gunshots, prepare to also deal with knife users who can strike at melee range without warning or fire off hard-to-see throwing knives, large barrages of attacks from armed vehicles, bosses that make themselves hard to hit, amongst the other usual challenges of arcade games.
84	* ''VideoGame/TotalWar''
85	** The first ''VideoGame/ShogunTotalWar'''s battles. Let's start listing them.
86	*** Campaigns of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi are notoriously hard. Tokugawa's campaign's Mikata Ga Hara makes you fight a losing battle. Toyotomi's campaign's first mission itself is hard.
87	*** Archer tutorial. You have 30 archers, as a unit to fight a 34-35 spear samurais. You start in a hill, but the weather is stormy, which makes archer-ing even worse.
88	*** Uesugi's 1530 scenario. The nearby Hojo will invade. Oh, to add more insult, the rebels, for some odd reason, will swarm you also. If you somehow beat that, then hope your ONLY heir didn't die. Hope you're not playing Expert or Hard...
89	*** Takeda's 1530 scenario. The rebels WILL invade Aki province, one way or another. The Computer seems to lose this province, though.
90	*** Japan vs. Mongols scenario. In the scenario, you are [[BlatantLies promised]] [[SarcasmMode many strong troops]]. To make it worse, the Mongols won't land on that specific spot. They land on the North coasts. Meaning anything that's North have a coastline. To make it worse, you can't train the [[DiscOneNuke warrior monks]]. The only way to win? Cheat for money and [[BribingYourWayToVictory bribe]] the Mongol forces, or wait till you can train no-dachis, which needs multiple victories to obtain.
91	*** The Segoki Jidai Rebel scenario, assessable via cheat, has you controling the GameBreaker no-dachis. You can also build warrior monks, but guess what, when the years goes by, both the no-dachi and warrior monks will fall. Even to the [[LethalJokeCharacter ashigarus]]. This problem seems to be averted towards the Medieval version rebels, though.
92	*** Everything in the 1580 scenario. You have: The Shimazu, who can be invaded by the Mori. The Mori, who can be invaded by Shimazu AND Oda. The Oda, who can be invaded by rebellions and the nearby Takeda/Uesugi. The Tokugawa, who is surrounded by Takeda forces. The Hojo, who can be targeted by the aggresive rebels and Uesugi. The Uesugi, who can be wiped by the Takeda. And finally, the Takeda, which almost can be the winner, can be targeted by the Tokugawa... in which if they build a citadel and the [[GameBreaker geisha]].
93	** The first ''VideoGame/MedievalTotalWar'' suffers from NintendoHard also. Examples include:
94	*** Campaigns. Again, these makes you fight with units that you either have no experience, and most of the time, you're pitted with enemies that [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard never get tired]].
95	*** Total Victory. If you're about to win, hope that your generals won't mutiny. If they do, you have to attack strong troops you trained. What's worse, Medieval has a year limit, and if the game is going to end, and your generals mutiny, it becomes an [[UnwinnableBydesign Unwinnable game]].
96	*** Sieges. Unlike Shogun, these sieges are deadlier. You will lose many troops, if you're attacking that is.
97	*** Units. So many to pick from. If you don't have the internet (during the game is first released), picking out stronger units becomes a GuideDangIt. Unlike Shogun, again, there's too many units to try.
98	*** The Pope. Sure, he's the Holy Father, but if conquered he comes back. Strong. And if you're his enemy, prepare to be excommunicated and for Crusades on your lands. It's averted if you're not a Catholic religion, or you are the Pope.
99	*** A not so severe case exists with peasantry forces - Players who played Shogun before will think that peasantry (ashigaru in Shogun) will be good on certain fights, right? Nope. You can try to make it fight horses. They die. Fight ranged units. They die. Make them have MAX Rank and Weaponry? Make it 16 units? (1600 men) They still lose, regardless (unless the opponent is also a peasentry force, but weaker). A non-button example of DamnYouMuscleMemory?
100	** ''VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2'' is considered to be the most difficult ''Total War'' game to date thanks in part due to improved AI and gameplay. And then there's Legendary Mode, which not only makes AI opponents incredibly aggressive and generally managing your clan a challenge but also ''makes it impossible to save your progress'' outside of the autosave feature.
101	** ''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''.
102	*** There's a reason why "survival strategy" is highly emphasized when playing as the Western Roman Empire. It's the first faction in the series to get the difficulty rating of ''legendary''.
103	*** And in addition to the aforementioned Legendary Mode, the game added a few new features such as immigrants fleeing on coming hordes, the land becoming gradually less inhabitable and the Titular Attila whose armies destroy just about every other faction.
104	*** Like in the previous game, Rome 2, each set of objectives would resolve when you achieve the linked primary objective, unlocking the next set. In Rome 2, the objectives are things like "Hold 13 territories." For West Rome in Attila, the first FOUR primary objectives are simply "Survive until XXX."
105	*** Playing as the Eastern Roman Empire is relatively easier compared to its Western counterpart, given its better stability, technology and economy. If by relatively, it means defending against both the Sassanid Empire to the east and keeping the various barbarian factions from reaching Constantinople.
106	* ''VideoGame/TheTowerOfDruaga'' is almost impossible to beat without knowing in advance what treasures you need to collect and how to collect them, which [[GuideDangIt the game doesn't explain]]. Even with a StrategyGuide, every level is a TimedMission with random player, enemy, item, and exit placements. And there are no {{Save Point}}s, a fact that players who see the dreaded message "YOU ZAP TO..." will bitterly regret. (There is a Continue Mode, though.)
107	* ''VideoGame/WonderlandAdventures'' is overall rather tame, focusing more on complex puzzles than on quick reflexes, even if it does contain an occasional hairpuller like "Button Me Down". Then you run into the level "Wakka Wakka 2". For those who don't know, it's a Pacman-like maze where you are chased by an enemy that always, always moves faster than you. Your only hope is to use the teleporters in the maze that simulate the "from one side of the screen to the other". The catch? There are only 8 teleporter pairs, and each pair can only be used ''once.'' So if you haven't got the gems before that, tough luck. Unless you have played it, ''you have no idea how hard it is.''
108	* ''VideoGame/YuGiOhForbiddenMemories'' is even harder than ''Reshef'', mainly due to the one-card-per-turn rule, the BossRush at the end of the game that won't let you save, and the forced grinding needed for the endgame.
109	* ''VideoGame/YuGiOhReshefOfDestruction'' is one of the hardest ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' games in existence. Opponents have much stronger monsters than yours, in the late game they exploit Field Cards to give them 30% power boosts, they will use cards to wipe out your field, and run them in threes. On your end, it takes a lot of Level Grinding to increase your duelist level so you can use better cards, the money you win is pitiful so you'll rarely be able to afford to buy any new cards thus relying on spoils of duels, and your opening deck sucks. And then in the late game, opponents have more than 8,000 Life Points, and you're subjected to Boss Rushes — in this game your Life Points don't reset after a duel, you need to visit a PC to recharge them, and thus in said Boss Rushes you need to complete them using 8,000 Life Points for all opponents. The Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy? You need to do this, because if you try to take a late-game opponent on in a proper duel without doing it, you will get crushed.
110	* ''VideoGame/ZombiesAteMyNeighbors'' can make masters of ''Contra cry.'' To put it like this, you have to run through mazes and fight B-movie monsters. You also have to find ''and'' rescue your TooDumbToLive neighbors. The Mooks are tough, and surprise, ''[[ImplacableMan the bosses are worse.]]'' Oh, did we mention that you have to conserve ammunition?
111	----
112	-> '''[[VideoGame/Splatoon2 C.Q. Cumber]]:''' Test failed. \
113	''(SPLAT)''

Context NintendoHard / Uncategorised