History NintendoHard / AdventureGames

* ''VideoGame/DoubleSwitch''. Think of the game as ''VideoGame/NightTrap'', but with the difficulty cranked UpToEleven. For starters, this game has no timer, so you will have a hard time knowing just when an enemy shows up so you can trap him. You have to be careful not to let too many enemies escape, or it's GameOver. Some of them are top priority, because they will attempt to cut off your connection to the security system, and if they do that, it's GameOver. Some of them will try to kill the tenants of the apartment building, so you will have to trap them, or it's GameOver. As the game goes on, you will have to quickly switch between screens, and timing becomes vital. There is one point in the game where you will be given a trap, and you actually have to be at that screen to be told about it - while simultaneously saving a tenant's live in another screen. You need that trap, or it will be GameOver later on. There are points where have to keep traps disarmed and then ''quickly'' arm them again. Failure to do so results in GameOver. Yes, timing becomes increasingly important as the game goes on, and you will have to activate traps at some rather ''precise'' moments. Welcome to NintendoHard!

* The [[TrollingCreator dadaist anti-game]] ''Takeshi no Chosenjou'' (translated as ''VideoGame/TakeshisChallenge'') features all of the stuff that makes adventure games hard to play and cranks it UpToEleven. There are nearly infinite paths you can take in the game but only 2 of them will get you to be able to see the ending. [[GuideDangIt The requirements by themselves are also very obscure]] (one moment you have an option menu, you can only continue if you select the first option and wait 15-30 minutes before you press A to continue (not sooner nor later) or the second option after which you have to wait for an hour or more before you can press A to continue playing). The game has been considered impossible to play without a guide or walkthrough. There were hints given in the 2 adverts for the game as well so that you know how to beat it but even those hints were rather obscure as well.

** Actually made even harder by Nintendo Power. The room where you collect the staff has a rickety bridge where you fall into a bottomless pit when you try to cross. The solution in their walkthrough was so wrong that many who played it on the Game Boy Color for the first time were completely stumped by it. They recommend dropping all your items, which the game won't let you do in that room. (This is the solution in the PC versions of the game, but the inventory system was changed in the NES and GBC versions so as to render this method useless. Instead you have to drink a potion - unlabeled, naturally - that makes you lighter, allowing you to cross.)

[[caption-width-right:320:One misstep and you'll plummet to your death. ''And'' there's a TimeLimit.]]

* ''VideoGame/DejaVu''. Improper usage of any item in ICOM's adventure games is a game over.

* ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is the text-based puzzle equivalent of PlatformHell. The mere mention of the phrase "Babel fish" can be enough to make grown men cry[[note]]If you fix the Babel fish dispenser as each test fails then you will just barely run out of attempts, so the only way to succeed is by psychic foreknowledge. On top of that, the methods needed to fix it are mostly nonsensical. One of them requires an inconspicuous pile of mail that was on your doorstep at the beginning on the game. If you forgot to grab it, you could spend hours trying to figure out why you can't solve the puzzle.[[/note]].

* ''VideoGame/DejaVu'' Improper usage of any item in ICOM's adventure games is a game over.

* And ''VideoGame/DejaVu'' is no better, simply put. Improper usage of any item in ICOM's adventure games is a game over.

* And ''VideoGame/DejaVu'' is no better, simply put. Improper usage of any item in ICOM's adventure games is a game over.
** In fact, it adds its own little twist. Some of the items you get are needed to prove your innocence. Others are the planted evidence against you. You'll need to figure out which is which, and discard the latter in the sewer. Miss one of the plants, and you'll get a [[NonstandardGameOver nice shiny set of silver bracelets]]. Granted, the game is slightly less difficult to figure out compared to ''Shadowgate'' and ''Uninvited'', since it mostly plays by real-world logic, but careful observation of your items and surroundings is still mandatory.
* ''VideoGame/DoubleSwitch''. Think of the game as ''VideoGame/NightTrap'', but with the difficulty cranked UpToEleven. For starters, this game has no timer, so you will have a hard time knowing just when an enemy shows up so you can trap him. You have to be careful not to let too many enemies escape, or it's GameOver. Some of them are top priority, because they will attempt to cut off your connection to the security system, and if they do that, it's GameOver. Some of them will try to kill the tenants of the apartment building, so you will have to trap them, or it's GameOver. As the game goes on, you will have to quickly switch between screens, and timing becomes vital. There is one point in the game where you will be given a trap, and you actually have to be at that screen to be told about it - while simultaneously saving a tenant's live in another screen. You need that trap, or it will be GameOver later on. There are points where have to keep traps disarmed and then ''quickly'' arm them again. Failure to do so results in GameOver. Yes, timing becomes increasingly important as the game goes on, and you will have to activate traps at some rather ''precise'' moments. Welcome to NintendoHard!
* The final puzzle in Episode 3 of ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople''.
* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIII'' is perhaps not as unfair as ''V'' overall, but the first half of the game puts you on a strict 20-minute cycling time limit, with the possibility of death if you're caught holding any particular items or not in the right place when the time is up (with a long and itself dangerous mountain path between the region you need to explore and the "safe zone" to boot!). Of course, leaving not much room for uninhibited exploring or experimenting in a game like this imposes a huge challenge if you're coming in blind. Plus there's a notorious CopyProtection puzzle where you have to input spells directly from the manual. One typo will mean your doom. Fan remakes and the AGD expanded version make these aspects of the game easier.
* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestV''. The game is rife with dead ends, [[PixelHunt pixel hunts]], rooms you cannot return to, and pixel hunts in a room you cannot return to avoid a dead end later. If you didn't notice an item earlier, you'll get stuck and have no way of knowing what you're missing and where from. Very few puzzles in the game make [[GuideDangIt any logical sense]], and then there's [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper Cedric the owl]]...

* Dear God, ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' on SNES. It was the game's lack of a save feature that made it the grueling challenge it was. With a limited amount of extra lives to obtain, making mistakes were not only usually fatal, but would also bring you that much closer to losing all of your progress. The game was fairly big too, hiding raptor eggs all over the map, and featuring several multi-layered buildings. And if you found a locked door, it usually meant trekking across the treacherous island to another building to find the key card for that door.
* You didn't think a VisualNovel would end up here do you? However, the DatingSim ''Summer Session'' manages to do just that. It takes place in a high school/college setting and you have to get 1 of 5 girls and pass the final exam. This is easier said than done. The game requires you to balance your schedule to raise your stats and pass your exams. However, you need to shy away from this routine to meet the girls, you also need to work to earn money and such. However there is a stress bar that can make you fail your actions if high enough, and you need almost max intelligence to pass the final exam, and you only gain 2-4 intelligence per day if you choose to study, making it very hard to build up relationships with a girl and get an ending. Also, you can actually fail the final exam and get the bad ending even if you're smart enough if the stress meter was too high. Furthermore, building the right relationships with the girls can be a major GuideDangIt.
* The [[TrollingCreator dadaist anti-game]] ''Takeshi no Chosenjou'' (translated as ''VideoGame/TakeshisChallenge'') features all of the stuff that makes adventure games hard to play and cranks it UpToEleven. There are nearly infinite paths you can take in the game but only 2 of them will get you to be able to see the ending. [[GuideDangIt The requirements by themselves are also very obscure]] (one moment you have an option menu, you can only continue if you select the first option and wait 15-30 minutes before you press A to continue (not sooner nor later) or the second option after which you have to wait for an hour or more before you can press A to continue playing). The game has been considered impossible to play without a guide or walkthrough. There were hints given in the 2 adverts for the game as well so that you know how to beat it but even those hints were rather obscure as well.

* ''VideoGame/ThePerilsOfAkumos'' is not only the hardest game hosted on Website/AdventureGamesLive, it is extremely difficult by any standards, with the emergency access doors puzzle and the sandstone cavern maze being just two elements that give players nightmares years after playing the game. Its sequel, ''Starlight Sacrifice'', is described by its creator as being the largest text adventure '''ever''' created, and is likely even harder, but has been stuck in DevelopmentHell for over a decade and is currently only available as a demo which, despite only representing a small cross-section of the full game, is bigger than most of the other games on Adventure Games Live.
* InteractiveFiction games designed by Andy Phillips are renowned for being difficult, but his debut game ''Videogame/TimeAllThingsComeToAnEnd'' is so hard it's doubtful anyone could complete it without using a walkthrough. The game is extremely linear and continually locks the player in small areas. Important objects are often hidden in the environment, requiring the player to search areas thoroughly (i.e. you have to literally type in "search" or "look under", as "look" or "read" is not good enough). Many areas can't be revisited once left, so if an item is missed the player has no choice but to reload an earlier save (provided they ''did'' save the game). Essentially the text adventure equivalent of a Creator/{{Sierra}} game.

** One room has a pit with an obvious ladder affixed to one side. I hope you're not dumb enough to think that means you can climb down and that they won't just reveal afterwards that the ladder only goes down about an inch past what you can see from the top and then suddenly stops, leading you to fall to your death. ''Obviously'' the answer is to [[spoiler:only come back much, much later, when you have a spell that can make ropes levitate.]]
** Did we mention your character will sometimes gleefully commit suicide if you so much as click on the wrong part of a room map or use certain items in your inventory in the wrong way?

** Did we mention your character will sometimes gleefully commit suicide if you so much as look at certain items in your inventory the wrong way?

* ''StarWarsBountyHunter'' becomes this starting from chapter 3 (Oovo IV) onwards, pitting Jango Fett against hordes of well-armed opponents, snipers, DemonicSpiders and especially bottomless chasms difficult to navigate without a master control of the jetpack. Furthermore the checkpoints are very far from each other, you have limited lives (which can't be restored) and more than once you'll have to check any enemy you meet to make sure that he hasn't a bounty on his head.

* Dear god Main/JurassicPark on SNES. It was the game's lack of a save feature that made it the grueling challenge it was. With a limited amount of extra lives to obtain, making mistakes were not only usually fatal, but would also bring you that much closer to losing all of your progress. The game was fairly big too, hiding raptor eggs all over the map, and featuring several multi-layered buildings. And if you found a locked door, it usually meant trekking across the treacherous island to another building to find the key card for that door.

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestV''. The game is rife with dead ends, [[PixelHunt pixel hunts]], rooms you cannot return to, and pixel hunts in a room you cannot return to avoid a dead end later. If you didn't notice an item earlier, you'll get stuck and have no way of knowing what you're missing and where from. Very few puzzles in the game make [[GuideDangIt any logical sense]], and then there's [[StopHelpingMe Cedric the owl]]...

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestV''. The game is rife with dead ends, [[PixelHunt pixel hunts]], rooms you cannot return to, and pixel hunts in a room you cannot return to to avoid a dead end later. If you didn't notice an item earlier, you'll get stuck and have no way of knowing what you're missing and where from. Very few puzzles in the game make [[GuideDangIt any logical sense]], and then there's [[StopHelpingMe Cedric the owl]]...

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIII'' is perhaps not as unfair as ''V'' overall, but the first half of the game puts you on a strict 20-minute cycling time limit, with the possibility of death if you're caught holding any particular items or not in the right place when the time is up (with a long and itself dangerous mountain path between the region you need to explore and the "safe zone" to boot!). Of course, leaving not much room for uninhibited exploring or experimenting in a game like this imposes a huge challenge if you're coming in blind. Plus there's a notorious CopyProtection puzzle where you have to input spells directly from the manual. One typo will mean your doom. Of course, fan remakes and the AGD expanded version make these aspects of the game easier.

** Actually made even harder by Nintendo Power. The room where you collect the staff has a rickety bridge where you fall into a bottomless pit when you try to cross. The solution in their walkthrough was so wrong that many who played it on the Game Boy Color for the first time were completely stumped by it. They recommend dropping all your items, which the game won't let you do in that room.

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIII'' is perhaps not as unfair as ''V'' overall, but the first half of the game puts you on a strict 20-minute cycling time limit, with the possibility of death if you're caught holding any particular items when the time is up. Of course, leaving not much room for uninhibited exploring or experimenting in a game like this imposes a huge challenge if you're coming in blind. Plus there's a notorious CopyProtection puzzle where you have to input spells directly from the manual. One typo will mean your doom. Of course, fan remakes and the AGD expanded version make these aspects of the game easier.

* Dear god Main/JurassicPark on SNES. It was the game's lack of a save feature that made it the grueling challenge it was. With a limited amount of extra lives to obtain, making mistakes were not only usually fatal, but would also bring you that much closer to losing all of your progress. The game was fairly big too, hiding raptor eggs all over the map, and featuring several multi-layered buildings. And if you found a locked door, it usually meant trekking across the treacherous island to another building to find the key card for that door