History NintendoHard / NonVideoGameExamples

[[folder:Pinball]]
* Certain {{pinball}} tables qualify for this trope. They tend to be older ones (prior to ball saves becoming standard, which could almost fall under LuckBasedMission). Creator/{{Gottlieb}} had some especially nasty examples, with ''Pinball/BlackHole'' being a standout.
* ''Pinball/TheSimpsonsPinballParty'' is rather hard. Reaching Super Duper Mega Extreme WizardMode is considered a feat in itself, as you must finish ''six'' other modes to get to it.
* ''Pinball/BabyPacMan'' is not just NintendoHard, it's the hardest ''VideoGame/{{Pac-Man}}'' game ever. The player start off with no offensive capabilities, and has to be good at the pinball table to earn one power pellet. Worse, the ghosts incredibly aggressive, the red one moves faster than the player, and ''all'' of them can reverse direction at any time.
* This was a common complaint about ''Pinball/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'', as it followed the same progression system as ''Pinball Party'' (five modes, then the WizardMode) - which doesn't seem that bad, but every mode is rather hard on its own to clear.
[[/folder]]

* Certain {{pinball}} tables qualify for this trope. They tend to be older ones (prior to ball saves becoming standard, which could almost fall under LuckBasedMission). Creator/{{Gottlieb}} had some especially nasty examples, with ''Black Hole'' being a standout.

** The board game version ''ArkhamHorror'' is extremely difficult. The randomly drawnly opponent EldritchAbomination BigBad changes a number of rules, monsters, and often has instant-kill conditions should the game end in a final battle. Strategy and teamwork is mandatory, random events and blind luck will usually ruin your plans, and it's all a RaceAgainstTheClock. Expansions for the game generally exist to make the game ever ''harder'', such as adding TheDragon or TheCorruption to the mix. In general, you don't expect to ''win'' a given game, completely appropriate to the [[CosmicHorrorStory setting]].
*** This intense difficulty can be avoided by using custom characters. Even if they themselves are not unbalanced, putting them together, each designed for a certain task (i.e. one is made to close and explore gates, another is combat, another is movement, etc), makes the game from something incredibly difficult to relatively easy - even beating the end abominations becomes a fairly simple task.

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' parodied this trope. There's the easter egg game "Super Kingio Bros," in which you cannot possibly avoid the first enemy, who you find within the first second of the game.

** There is now a 3-dimensional version of that puzzle, encased in a clear plastic sphere. This one offers a "save point", but also many new challenges.

* Certain {{pinball}} tables qualify for this trope. They tend to be older ones (prior to ball saves becoming standard, which could almost fall under LuckBasedMission). Gottlieb had some especially nasty examples with Blackhole being a standout.

* Certain Pinball tables qualify for this trope. They tend to be older ones (prior to ball saves becoming standard, which could almost fall under LuckBasedMission). Gottlieb had some especially nasty examples with Blackhole being a standout.

* The CthulhuMythos board game ''ArkhamHorror'' is extremely difficult. The randomly drawnly opponent EldritchAbomination BigBad changes a number of rules, monsters, and often has instant-kill conditions should the game end in a final battle. Strategy and teamwork is mandatory, random events and blind luck will usually ruin your plans, and it's all a RaceAgainstTheClock. Expansions for the game generally exist to make the game ever ''harder'', such as adding TheDragon or TheCorruption to the mix. In general, you don't expect to ''win'' a given game, completely appropriate to the [[CosmicHorrorStory setting]].
** This intense difficulty can be avoided by using custom characters. Even if they themselves are not unbalanced, putting them together, each designed for a certain task (i.e. one is made to close and explore gates, another is combat, another is movement, etc), makes the game from something incredibly difficult to relatively easy - even beating the end abominations becomes a fairly simple task.

* The Winner's Big Money Game from [[Series/SaleOfTheCentury Sale of the Century]]. Here, [[TimedMission you have to solve a series of six-clue puzzles within the time limit]]. It was originally five in 25 seconds, later changed to 4 in 20 seconds--either way, you have to get each subject within five seconds on average. There is virtually no margin for error in this bonus round. If you miss twice, it's game over, and even though you're still allowed to pass, you have to be pretty lucky in order to get the rest of them. What makes it worse is that each clue takes slightly more than one second to appear on the screen, and there's also the dreaded "You must stop the clock before it hits double zero." Because the clock counts in single seconds as opposed to tenths-of-a-second as seen on its sister show Series/{{Scrabble}}, contestants can be, and often are, screwed at the very last second, because even if they buzz in just microseconds before the bell rings, it still counts as a loss because the clock reads 00. Worse, if a champion was playing for the car, and they lost, they had to retire as an "[[BlatantLies undefeated champion]]". BTW, as of 6/14/13, of the 53 Winner's Big Money Games that have aired on [[Creator/{{GSN}} GSN]], only 15 have been won.

* {{Subverted|Trope}}, ironically, in the ''FanFic/PaperMarioX'' series, as every boss character is taken down without hardly a sweat.

* The ''Literature/LoneWolf'' {{Gamebook}} series got progressively more difficult around book eight or so, but never really reached this level of madness... except for ''The Prisoners Of Time.'' In addition to the usual death traps and RandomNumberGod bullshit, there were three extremely difficult fights right at the end. In the first, if you brought the InfinityPlusOneSword from an earlier book, the boss' stats were nearly impossible to overcome. The second featured similar issues, regardless of equipment. And the third was on ''the next entry,'' giving you no chance to heal, '''and''' you started by taking unavoidable damage.

* ''[[http://realescapegame.com/ Real Escape Game]]'' is a series of {{Room Escape Game}}s, except in the real world--you are physically locked inside the room with a team of other players and have to escape within a [[TimedMission time limit]]. Most if not all versions of the game have clear rates of less than ''five percent.'' Even with a full stock of teammates, you'll need to think swiftly if you so much as want a chance at victory.

[[AC:Fan Works]]

[[AC:Game Shows]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:Other]]

** In a different vein, the unrelated UK quiz show ''Wipeout'' (also ported to the U.S. with Peter Tomarken as host), which had a fairly standard setup of picking the correct answers from the false ones, all displayed on a big screen. But picking an incorrect answer zeroed your entire winnings so far, each round continued until either all the correct answers or all the 'wipeouts' were found, and the prizes weren't much anyway. Players would usually pass after a correct answer rather than risk another one, and you'd frequently see two players going home with nothing and the third with a hundred quid or so.

** Not subverted in ''Paper Luigi X'' though: either Luigi messes something up or the boss literally is hard and poses a legitimate challenge.

** ''TakeshisCastle'' is Nintendo Hard in TV game show form. It ran for three years, each episode had 100-142 (possibly even more) starting contestants; only nine people ever won (this isn't including a the two occasions in which Takeshi took his castle back from Tani (Although they were 90 minute specials, however they still didn't count), an episode where a contestant stabbed the paper ring on Takeshi's cart with his gun, effectly disqualifing him, and an episode where his cart got stuck on long grass, in which it was declared a draw).

** ''TakeshisCastle'' is Nintendo Hard in TV game show form. It ran for three years, each episode had 100-142 starting contestants; only nine people ever won (this isn't including a College Girls episode where everybody won, and the two occasions in which Takeshi took his castle back from The General).

* The ''LoneWolf'' {{Gamebook}} series got progressively more difficult around book eight or so, but never really reached this level of madness...except for ''The Prisoners Of Time.'' In addition to the usual death traps and RandomNumberGod bullshit, there were three extremely difficult fights right at the end. In the first, if you brought the InfinityPlusOneSword from an earlier book, the boss' stats were nearly impossible to overcome. The second featured similar issues, regardless of equipment. And the third was on ''the next entry,'' giving you no chance to heal, '''and''' you started by taking unavoidable damage.

*** The most devastating obstacle of them all, by far, is the Cliffhanger. It's basically a hand-strength obstacle placed in the middle of the 3rd round, where upper-body strength is the means to victory. The first three versions were rather simple, with anyone with enough hand strength able to get through it handily. Then came the 4th version, which included a rise so that most competitors would have to JUMP across the gaps between bars 2 and 3 to proceed, which was bad enough considering most contestants are EXHAUSTED by that point. [[ItGotWorse Then]], after the Urushihara beat the course, came the [[http://sasukepedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ultimatecliffhanger.png Ultimate Cliffhanger]]...

* MillionDollarMoneyDrop. The premise is that you start with a million, and you put how much nyou want to bet on the 4 answers given for a question, but you have to leave one answer with no money on it. If there is any money on an incorrect answer, you lose that money. Round 3 reduces the answers to three, but you must still leave one with no money. But in the final round, you have two answers, and you must still leave one answer with no money (turning it into an AllOrNothing question).