Speedrunner Ranks the HARDEST NES Games
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2023
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NES Gauntlet spreadsheet:
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Outro music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjOIG...
#Kosmic #Retro #TierList - เกม
Check out the NES Gauntlet shirt (Or Mainline Medley shirt!) it is very cool :)
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I love that shirt
You forgot to link the spreadsheet in the description. I want to see if you added Cobra Triangle for upcoming, it's made by Rare that's all you need to know.
@@covereye5731added it now, thank you! I'm sorry to report that cobra triangle is not on there haha. I generally like controlling characters, not stuff like boats
Imo the best game on NES was The Guardian Legend. Have you tried that?
Also, Blues Brothers was kinda hard. Couldn't get too far when I played it as a child. Had weird controls....
the hardest part about little samson is finding a copy
Fr 😶
get a PAL copy ? I remember when the NTSC version was first hitting $1k & you could still get the PAL for like $70 bucks.. not now though
Piracy! 😃 (just kidding)
And that's not including the price. As SNESDrunk says, "Play it any way you can."
Piracy! (Serious) 😊
Blaster Master is my all-time favorite NES game. Way ahead of its time. Very good soundtrack too.
That game is so gooooddd
Sunsoft games had such great music
Also, have you played the remake, Blaster Master Zero (and its sequels)? Also really good!
Contra was very easy for me. I used to beat that game with only the small bullets. If I got a better weapon on accident I'd kill myself on purpose just to get back to small bullets.
@@LUCKSOMNIXDIABLOTHEONEABOVEALL You say that NOW, but I’m guessing you weren’t that good the first time you played, right?
I love that you put adventure island up there. I've been saying for years that game needs to get more attention for its difficulty. Game is brutal.
And it has 3 sequels on the NES, not even including the 2 sequels on the SNES.
Yeah Adventure Island is absolutely insane. It’s weird not seeing it in top 10 hardest games lists because it’s an absolute nutcrusher. 2 and 3 aren’t exactly walks in the park either. Hell, Super Adventure Island is hard as balls too
@@officialFredDurstfanclub Even with the continue code, the game is ruthless. One hit kills, difficult obstacles, short timer, limited power ups which are well hidden, long levels. The enemy placement in some of the later stages is absurd. Dying and losing flame weapon brings rocks both moving and stationary back into play. And to top it off, while I would describe the controls as "good", they are still problematic at times.
@@juicybear1986 don’t forget that the screen locks and you can’t go back so if you don’t enough room to make a jump, you’re taking a death. Mario 1 did that too, sure, but it was expecting you to do pixel perfect jumps while getting bombarded by enemies
I always found Super Mario Brothers’ final boss super hard, by which I mean the last hammer brother in 8-4. Literally the whole game I have no problem with until that one guy!
Tell me ur joking too easy
If you're fortunate enough, you can just hold B after coming out of the underwater room, run off the exit pipe, and then do a full jump immediately upon touching the ground, and it'll line up perfectly to have you land on the Hammer Bro.
It doesn't work all the time, but it saved me when I was down to my last life in Vs. Super Mario Bros. at my local arcade!
@@JoeDan54 Thanks for the tip!
You can go close to him, and wait until he jumps, and at that moment, run right.
Just Use Infinite 1up In World 3-1 Or Holding A Button When You Game Over Noob!
The second I saw this list, I knew Holy Diver was taking number 1. I remember seeing a TAS for it like 10 years ago, and a handful of people were asking if the game was legitimately even beatable.
Hard to even imagine how insane it must be.
I beat Holy Diver but I haven't beat US Ninja Gaiden 3, that game is so brutal with no continues and the enemy spam and damage. I got like super far in but then lost all my lives in this crazy room where enemies come in from all 4 sides of the screen at once lol. Maybe I could do it if I tried again now but it's so hard. 1 and 2 are such a breeze compared to NG3 it's almost funny.
@@miyakogfl NG3 was a gauntlet for me to beat for sure. Super stressful game
In Zelda 2 finding Bagu was probably the hardest thing back in the day. Sure the slime says that master is in the forest or whatever. But I remember searching the forests and I kept getting the monster screens and just kept missing Bagu somehow. This was before the internet so that took forever.
Then finally getting into Death Mountain and the damn alligators would eat through my lives in no time. I'd get so close to the hammer and then have to start all over.
It wasn't until I was a bit older that I realized Death Mountain was much easier if you level your attack to 5 before attempting. Also, to make the game MUCH easier; only collect the items from palaces. Leave the bosses until you need the last 6 levels; then go back and beat them to get the last, most expensive levels for free.
Interesting strategy about leaving the bosses, I never thought of that. And I agree with what your saying; in the context of playing this back when it was new, there was a lot of cryptic stuff that was very tough to figure out on your own. One of my favorite games Ive ever played.
Bagu. That rat bastard.
The only really hard part about Kid Icarus is that halfway through the second level, the game stops you giving you health until halfway through the fourth level. After that it becomes relative easy.
I find the first stage to be really hard. I have beaten the game when it came out on the wii's virtual console and thinking that after you beat the first couple of stages the game becomes normal. I guess what is frustrating is that the first stage is too long and there are no checkpoints.
Great video! Adventure Island is INSANELY hard at the end. The jumps on 8-3 are damn near impossible... It took me hundreds of tries to get through it and I had to leave my NES powered on for an entire month to finally beat it. Gets my vote at the hardest NES game of all time.
Did your Nes still work after a month going non-stop?
@@grandalbert8422 Yes! I have my NES from when I was a kid that still works great and can be kept on for over 30 days straight...Meanwhile, my PS1, original XBOX and Wii stopped working after 5-6 years. Part of why I love collecting for NES, with minimal care the games will still work 50 years from now.
@@joeangeles1215 That is awesome to hear and I had several Xboxes who broke after a relatively short time as well.
Double Dragon 3 and Adventures of Bayou Billy were two I remember renting and being unable to beat, and I had beaten Battletoads, all the Castlevania games, Ninja Gaiden 2+3, Batman, and a handful of other hard games. Bayou Billy especially felt like you were a punching bag that occasionally would get lucky.
I've beaten about 10 of these games so far and I would pretty much agree with the rankings. I strangely picked up adventure island to play as something 'easy' after spending 3 weeks on battletoads and then quickly realized it was not going to be an easy one :D
Hahaha, amazing
It’s nice to see others agree. I cant remember a single moment of Zelda 2 that I struggled with like that Tyson fight though, but I haven’t played that many of these games.
@@DidierPilon not great palace? Tyson is a monster if you don't know the code to get back and fight him
@@kosmicspeedruns that is true. The code would allow a lot of fast practice :) I had both those games as a kid and beat Zelda but never Tyson. Ended up going back to punch out as an adult to finally beat him hahaha
If you think Zelda 2 is hard you should try “The Battle Of Olympus” it’s heavily inspired by Zelda 2 and quite a good game and definitely harder than Zelda 2.
the fact that ghosts n goblins is only in the hard game tier shows how difficult these are
It's very complicated to rank things by difficulty. I, for example, didn't find blaster master as hard as he put it, and zelda 2 should not even be in there!
@@RocketoPunchee Same, even battletoads felt less unfair to me compared to GnG, tho i played this one on arcade and still after so many hours i still can't beat it (in the arcade ver, no idea about nes)
it is really fun seeing him not cover up the truth that Holy Diver is the Holy Grail of difficulty😂 and it's currently the one and only Japanese exclusive game on the list
@BrickmanZero NES Battletoads is similar enough to be in the same series, but is otherwise a different beast from Arcade Battletoads.
Funny thing about Blaster Master, the Japanese version of the game, Metafight, actually does have infinite continues, along with some level layout differences, less lag overall, and a completely different story.
It's funny how Blaster Master was a flop in Japan, but got quite popular in the US. Also, Sunsoft is considered a pretty bad developer over there, because their early games released there weren't very good. In fact, Ikki helped coin the term kusoge (crappy/shitty game), and it was their best-selling game over there I believe, so Sunsoft certainly has a place in Japanese video gaming history. >_>
And the 3rd game in the remake, Blaster Master Zero 3, addresses those differences between Metafight and Blaster Master in a really cool way.
@@Gigawood Believe me, I know. I've played all 3 Blaster Master Zero games. They're really good!
It's similar with Ninja Gaiden 3. The original Japanese version, as well as the SNES rerelease, have unlimited continues like the previous games. Only the US NES version has limited continues, probably as an anti-rental measure.
Holy Diver is insane. And yeah, the only way you can progress is if you find some "tricks" to beat enemies without getting rekt. I felt so relieved when I learned that you could change the pattern of one enemy by pressing Start, lol.
You can what now? Start?
@@NesrocksGamingVideos You can change the pattern of the enemy in Stage 4 IIRC by pressing Start. And I think it works with other enemies too.
Snake rattle and roll was kinda hard for me. I was only able to beat it using game genie cheat codes.
I still remember watching Joel's Hardcore Friday VOD that was dedicated to Battletoads, he ended up having to split the segment across several different days (and 6 really lengthy attempts)
The finale to that roughly 9-hour marathon was so goddamn worth it though
I thought to myself "Wait but Metriod is harder than that" then I remembered that I'm only remembering Gamechamp's low% run
The difficulty depends on how many secret upgrades you discover, although even with less equipment doesn't match any of the games he placed on "Hard Game" and above.
@@turborunner7859 I can believe it, NES games can be soooo hard lol
another pogkosmic video
I really enjoy the way you detailed things, and the way you address "what is difficulty?" and explained some nuances where the list may change based on perspective
Zelda 2 difficulty curve be like
"Oh this is fun and easy"
*Death Mountain:* "I fucking hate my life"
*Back to easy*
*The Great Palace:* 😶
Sometimes, "really hard" means "randomly unfair", like the bits you mention about Silver Surfer.
I like how "Holy Diver" is its own difficulty.
Thank you for mentioning the adventure of link manual. It literally tells you all the cryptic stuff or heavily hints at it.
Absolutely. The key one being that the Hammer can also chop down trees (Wouldn't an axe make more sense? haha). But yep, they wouldn't have that feature for NO REASON...
Mission Impossible is never in any hardest NES game list but totally deserves a spot.
You’re absolutely correct and this is what I came here to say. BRUTAL game!
At first I thought "Tier list? Meh!" but then I remembered that Kosmic always has some interesting ideas about game design, so I ended up watching it, which I don't regret.
Joker (in Batman) is easy if you just use the fist. You don't take contact damage from him as long as he's flashing from being hit, so you can just jump punch yourself into his space and keep tapping. If you get lucky, you don't even have to dodge any lightning.
fist also does the most damage, as I later learned. It feels like cheese (because you stand inside his gun) and i dont like it, but yeah its easy
I just use batarangs when he’s close and he freezes and is beaten in seconds.
I'm surprised Zelda 2 is so high. I didn't think it was that tough TBH.
The great Palace is a massive difficulty spike imo. Like people complain about Death Mountain, but I find its not that bad if you tackle it after beating the 2nd palace, since you're guaranteed to be a little higher leveled after completing the palace. But with the Great Palace chances are you're max level by the time you go there, there's not much that can make it easier. You just have to get good at up stabbing those damn birds.
final boss is crazy tough w/o turbo
@@rook1196 I guess it depends on whether you know the "crouch stab in the corner" strategy. If I hadn't known that ahead of time, I agree that it would have been much more difficult.
I got a gauntlet shirt as soon as they were available. I’ve had more compliments on that shirt than any other I’ve ever worn. I should probably get another…
It is a REALLY good shirt.
how could it not be?
I think a lot of the reputation that Silver Surfer has comes from the fact that AVGN made a video about it. Quite a few "common opinions" about NES games seem to stem from stuff the AVGN said.
Bingo!
Naw, we played that when it was new. That game just hates its players.
@@pairofrooks As a kid, all games are more difficult. I remember playing a Snow Bros inspired flash game many times as a kid and the farthest I could ever get was the boss of the second last world. Playing it again last year, I reached the final boss on the first try, and beat the game on the second. That may be why you thought it was so difficult.
In Castlevania 2, I can see getting stuck using Dracula's Heart on the ferryman because the clue to do that is inside the mansion you get to using Dracula's Heart on the ferryman. Outside of that, everything has enough clues to figure out, you're just not going to finish the game quick enough for the best ending on a first playthrough. The NPC banter reminded me of good ole B2 Keep on the Borderlands in the Basic D&D box, specifically the tavern rumor table which included some information that was false, some fantastical or mundane fluff, and a few dungeon clues.
MegaMan 2 gets a lot of extra favorite-points for the music alone. The ost is kind of a masterpiece. I will die on this hill.
I think it's the best NES ost.
Would put Duck Tales in 2nd place.
Castlevania 3 is my pick for best NES soundtrack
But you can't go wrong with Mega Man 2 as well! So many NES OST's can be considered "best". Metroid, Zelda, Silver Surfer, Journey to Silius, etc
That's a pretty good list. Here' s a few that I think deserve to be there: Gradius, Breakthru, Bionic Commando, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Maniac Mansion, and especially Time Lord. Good F%$#& luck with that last one. Also, you're way undervaluing how hard Ghosts and Goblins is.
The lack of continues on NG3 can be dealt with a little with a trick I don't see much. On the level right before the ship (6-2) you can recollect the one-up over and over to max out your lives to 9 (IIRC), takes a couple turns due to time limit but nice to have those extra lives in stage 7. I agree it's the hardest NG, I was so proud to beat that one before my buddies in school. If you want an extra challenge on Battletoads, beat it with 2 players. :) I'm horrible at punch out so I'd have that higher.
No! You can't beat Battletoads on 2 player because of a glitch on Clinger Winger that prevents the 2nd player from moving while the ball kills them off over and over.
By far one of the most accurate lists I've seen on the matter, IMO. Adventure Island has one of the hardest jumps in the entierety of gaming in 8-3, and I'm sick of so many people pretending otherwise. Like...that game deserves its spot for that short series of jumps there alone. 💀
A lot of these games, I think, are brutally difficult until you kinda figure out the trick behind them. Ninja Gaiden gets SO much easier once you learn how to make use of the special items. Tyson is hugely about just learning that uppercut. If you can beat Tyson the rest of the game takes like no effort except maybe Mr Sandman.
The actual hardest NES game might be Recca on hard mode or "zanki attack" mode, although maybe not for Kosmic since he mentioned not messing with shooters (but this one is def valid to mess with cuz its really good and really hard).
Other honorable mentions are Dragon's lair, Challenge of the dragon (unlicensed i think lol and a beatemup), Transformers: Convoy no Nazo, and Druaga no Tou aka tower of druaga, all which could def be higher than the midway point of the list. Plenty more I'm sure, there were some whack ones, especially j only.
I remember watching you doing the Alucard route in C3 and warning you about stage 7, which took me like 3-4 hours my first time (after I'd already beaten the Sypha route many times), and you did it in like less than an hour lol.
Also agree on Ninja Gaiden. It feels bad because the movement, combat, and general mechanics (music too obv) are amazing for an NES game but the difficulty is super cheap and shallow. As a result the game overall doesn't feel very satisfying like Castlevania where it's a good mix of strategy and execution, it just feels like trying to bullshit your way through the terrible enemy respawning system and death pits that accompany them.
Should have definitely had double dragon 3 on this list and maybe Adventures of Bayou Billy. Such a great console the original NES was. I’m so glad to have grown up with it not only to have played amazing games on it but playing current indie games in the old pixel art style doesn’t bother me at all while a lot of newer gamers see that old pixel style and immediately pass.
I never did beat dd3 so I would call it insanely difficult
DD3 is extremely doable. It starts hard but gets progressively easier.
Wow, I actually feel similarly about the first 2 MegaMan games! MegaMan 2 seems to pull way more cheap tricks than 1, but I think it was just so much more popular that most people overlook them through familiarity.
I do feel like Mega Man 1 spikes a bit harder when it actually gets hard than 2 does, and has some less intuitive design at some points. But yeah, overall it's still probably the easier game.
I feel like Mega Man 1 gets a bad rap, I'd argue that it's the fairest of the NES Mega Man games. Sure, the bosses have a steep learning curve and there's no password system or E-tanks, but you don't need either of them once you know what you're doing.
Mega Man 1 has issues with trolly mechanics:
-no invincibility frames with spikes,
-screen-wrapping death plane on Guts Man's stage,
-wonky animation on elevators in Guts Man's stage.
Mega Man 2 has issues with trolly design:
- Quick Man's "weakness" can't kill Quick Man,
- one of the Wily Fortress bosses can only be killed using all 7 Crash Bombs (technically 6 with good placement or 5 with glitches)
- the final boss can only be hit with one special weapon, with no chance to refill weapon energy between attempts meaning you have to DELIBERATELY die to continue if you fail an attempt.
Anyways it won't reach the levels of bullshit MegaMan 3 does.
How? Other than the crash bomb room, what cheap tricks? Mega Man is notorious for having issues where when you drop you drop too fast, and has battles that you almost have to use the pause trick for. Yellow Demon is super hard, the clone battle is super hard, even Elec Man can kill you in 3 hits. He's hard even with the cuts blade. And the area with the shooting platform things in Willy's stage is super cheap. Like, you can literally get a pattern that forces you to die. Do people not remember this game? I actually love it, but it's also super cheap. Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 1 are both harder than 2.
Blaster Master is one of my all-time favorites. I'm happy to know that I have beaten a game ranked "very hard" by a legendary gamer even if I don't stand a chance against most of the rest.
Did you know that on every second boss in BLASTER MASTER (2nd, 4th, etc) if you toss a grenade at the boss then pause as it hits, it will continue to hit them?
Just leave it on pause for a couple of minutes and when you unpause, the boss is toast.
I miss the gauntlet a lot. Great times watching you play some of these games! The Battletoads and Zelda 2 completions in a single day were legendary.
zelda ii was 2 or 3 streams. Maybe 2?
well, my blind first playthrough took 4.5 hours and my blind first playthrough of mega man 1 took 1.5. That's just my experience. How can you have credibility for something that's completely subjective? I thought mega man 1 was not very hard and first tried most things. Mega man 2 has some pretty poorly designed spots in wily stages, and refights are much harder (longer + wily fight is included). If you play on easy mode then sure. Either way, people are allowed to have different opinions lol. I fully acknowledged it's an unpopular opinion, what more do you want.
@@kosmicspeedruns hmmm I wonder why my brain remembered it as only one. Still an awesome first playthrough tho 😎
Ah, warms my heart to see Holy Diver still get its own tier after all these years...thank you Team Spooky crew for suggesting i add it in my marathon way back!
The Legend himself,Josh the Funkdoc!
Thank you for introduce me on this MASTERPIECE of a game!
Thanks for reminding me I need to beat Adventure Island without continues
I watched your playthrough of Holy Diver on Twitch, GG for beating it. I've beaten Hagane: The Final Conflict on SNES but I can't beat Holy Diver. You actually got lucky with the final boss because the game has a reputation of "soft locking" if you spam the Thunder magic on the final boss' first form. Retro Bit actually bought Holy Diver from Irem and they did an official U.S. release of the game. I actually have a collector's edition of the U.S. release that I bought through Castlemania. So the game is no longer Famicom only. Retro Bit did the same thing with Metal Storm and I have a collector's edition of that too.
Just bought a shirt! I love watching the Gauntlet. Even if you don’t do one this year, I’ll always enjoy watching this one 😁
On July 15th I'll do somewhat of a marathon stream- not quite an nes gauntlet but there will be many games and several of them hard nes games. Outside of that, I'll occasionally stream playthroughs of more nes games i haven't played yet
Given that “Blaster Master” predates “Castlevania”’s move into the “Metroid” realm, shouldn’t they realistically be called “Blastroids?” Or “Mastroids?”
Glad to hear that my brother and I weren’t stooges for a.) owning it when it came out yet never completing it.
It's interesting how many of these games (namely Ninja Gaiden 3, the Castlevania games, Zelda 2, and Battletoads) were either deliberately or accidentally made harder during their localization, or in the case of Battletoads, nerfed in subsequent revisions and the Genesis port.
The final boss in Batman is easy to beat if you just run up to him and punch him pointblank. His projectile will miss (it has a deadzone in front of him). Just keep mashing and chase after him if he runs away.
My recommendation for hard games to try: Quattro Adventure(a collection of 4 platformers games), Sky Shark(a short shmup that I find pretty hard because the speed of the enemy bullets and the size of your own hurtbox) and Summer Carnival '92: Recca(also a shmup, has a second difficulty that is much different if you beat the original difficulty).
Glad I'm not the only one who knew that & calls him out on that.
Bucky O'Hare ROCKS. Love that game
I'd recommend checking out Solomon's Key if you want another fun hard NES game
Bucky O'Hare is such an underrated game. The music is amazing too, I'd expect nothing less from NES-era Konami
Maybe worth a mention, Gradius II is known to be quite hard as well, I've played it many times now and the first level is still beating my ass to this day lol
But besides that, it's a great game which sadly didn't had an international release at the time (because of some memory mapper the Famicom used)
And playing on PAL NES will have a funny effect gameplay wise, it's not an emulator glitch
Glad you made this vid explaining the gauntlet as i never browsed through the several hours vid. Very sad i never played Battletoads or Blaster Master among others, extra appreciation for including Holy Diver. Metroid was super difficult for me to complete, but i know Kosmic has true gaming abilities. Still owe you a t-shirt order, thanks for all the informative commentary.
Battletoads and Blaster Master are the overall best two of the best games on this list. Both almost feel like they could have been SNES games.
You beat Holy Diver?! Damn that's impressive. I'm currently working on that one myself. The 3rd level is kicking my ass. I beat it once and I can't get back to level 4.... I didn't want to save state or use cheats, I felt like that would sour the victory... Also, my skills are increasing....
Arguably the hardest NES... And maybe one of the hardest games period! Not a long game, but I don't think the average person could beat this game.
Ikari Warriors with no cheat codes makes the traditional list of hard NES games (GnG, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads, etc) look like Kirby's Adventure in comparison. Q-Bert, Arkanoid, and Athena are also brutal, harder than the traditional hard games
Ghosts and Goblins. My dear Lord. I truly don’t understand how this is beatable without saves, like I had to do 5,000 times in my NES classic. But I’ve seen it done. You just have to be a freak.
Great list man. Ninja Gaiden 2 is the only one that I wouldn't rank so difficult since once the end bosses are figured out it's pretty routine. Life Force is another great game that offers a great challenge without the code
Really fun video! Little surprised that Legacy Of The Wizard (or Dragon Slayer IV) didn't get a mention, but its difficulty is based on using glitches and hidden doors that are never explained to the player. So I suppose it wouldn't crack the list anyway.
The only Bucky O Hare game I played was an old PC game (new at the time). For its time, it had excellent graphics and smooth physics that were very traditional but also felt very good. It's just a basic sidescroller, but definitely a good one.
how could it not be?
Snake Rattle n Roll and Solar Jetman are extremely difficult
Oh, and we can't forget Double Dragon III
Megaman 1 has the Yellow devil which I cannot beat for the life of me.
So strange, i thought it was the easiest mega man boss. It's the most static and straightforward; nothing random about it. But I know most people feel the same way as you
The Select button is your friend.
Yellow devil was easy even without the select button and mega buster only.
I was about to say that Holy Diver should be disqualified from the hardest NES games list on the technicality that it was Famicom exclusively, but then I checked and it got an official NES release about four years ago. The more you know.
Would you be willing to make this an ongoing series? You ranked these games but would you be willing to rank the rest of the games that you play and then compare them to these after you get so many finished? It would be cool to see some of the lesser known difficult titles be ranked with the well-known ones. This was such an awesome video. I myself have beaten quite a few of these and mostly agree with this list.
I always thought Rygar was super hard and the most impossible NES game ever.
Turns out as an European I grew up with the PAL version which stopped me from gaining more exp halfway through the game. Having played the US version, I have to agree, it's pretty easy (but fun).
Woah, that's crazy. Didn't know about that issue on the PAL version. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been playing Battletoads since I was a kid and always thought the hype behind it was a little overblown but there are definitely certain sections of that game that are hard as hell if you don’t warp past them (Karnath’s Lair, Rat Race, Clinger Winger, etc.).
It’s just one of those games that takes hundreds of attempts to really get down. I still love it though.
Plus those were some seriously great graphics for an 8-but title.
As a small caveat, I wouldn't say you've ever actually beaten Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! if you used the Tyson code, because the Tyson code is never provided to you in the game. You have to make it to Super Macho Man, get the Super Macho Man code, and then start all subsequent attempts from Super Macho Man and THEN beat Mike Tyson before the game is legitimately beaten. In my opinion.
Technically not an NES game, but I'm curious where you'd rank SMB2J on there
Sorry for the earlier reply, sometimes TH-cam puts my replies on the wrong person.
Smb2j is very average for an NES game. Hard for a mario game (but even smb1 is). But pretty simple and like a 4/10 or maybe even less, compared to all these. Honestly, smb2u is harder lol, it's just deceptive in the way that it's hard
@@kosmicspeedrunsIt's weird to me that you say SMB2U is harder. I always thought it was an easy game, certainly way easier than SMB1. And I'm a casual who would give up on most of the games on this list.
Blaster Master having been designed with turbo in mind makes sense because Hudson Soft was pretty heavily involved in the design of the PC engine and that had turbo by default
Wow, you are an NES master!
I am surprised nobody ever mentions Abadox or 8 Eyes for the list of Hardest games. I played those both growing up and never came close to beating either. Nobody I know has came close!
*clicks on video* "I wonder if Battletoads will be featured"
*immediately sees Battletoads as the featured game, lol*
Great list! I actually played them all except Big Nose and Holy Diver. I agree that Adventure Island and Battletoads should be at the top. Ghost'n'Goblins was a pain for me so that one would be higher on my list.
I'm just happy to see anyone mention Bucky. xD
I largely agree with this list though and how you ranked stuff.
Haven't played Holy Diver, but I have played the rest of the top 10 and I honestly remember Ninja Gaiden giving me the most headaches. There are just so many spots in that game that require memorizing enemy patterns and then precisely executing jumps and attacks. If you plan for them with the right special weapons that can be easier but then that takes a lot of trial and error too. I honestly thought Ninja Gaiden 2 was a cakewalk compared to 1, and Ninja Gaiden 3 was mostly just difficult at the end.
Omg, for me Ninja Gaiden 2 is uncomparable hard to original Ninja Gaiden. The boss on 2 level, level 3.1! And I can not get any further now
@@user-ey5xw2nx9s Funny how differently people experience some games. I remember spending a very memorable summer playing (and eventually beating) Ninja Gaiden Trilogy on SNES after having failed to beat any of them when I used to rent them on NES (yeah, I'm old-school!). I remember consistently struggling with NG 1, and by the time I got through it 2 just seemed so much easier because the mechanics weren't just broken half the time and its platforming didn't require nearly as much precision. I breezed through 2 compared to 1, and only got stuck at the last level on 3.
Funnily enough, despite being the easiest to me, 2 remains my favorite in the series. I think all the changes they made mechanics-wise were for the better and I also think it was the series' peak in terms of designs and atmosphere. I'd probably rank 3 ahead of 1, but 1 was just so memorable because of how much time I spent on it.
I’m surprised we don’t see the less known titles in these lists like Deadly Towers or 8 Eyes which can be really hard on your first few play throughs but once you get to know what your doing aren’t insanely difficult but still have execution difficulty
I think the question about lesser-known games like those is whether they're worth playing or not. Deadly Towers has this odd mix of randomness-based difficulty and illogical secrets that for me just make it not fun. If it was my only game, say, back in 1987, I might feel differently, but the journey just isn't worth it.
I haven't played 8 Eyes, so can't really comment on that one.
One that perhaps should be here is Zanac, which gets harder and harder the longer you go without dying. Tetris is that way, too: it's easy at levels 1-10, but insane on Level 20.
Oh yeah 8 Eyes was pretty stiff but mostly because of some boss fights.
Deadly Towers is just dysfunctional.
I'd like to see where you would rank "Adventures of Dino Riki" and "Fester's Quest" on this list.
Have you done Castlevania 3's second quest, and if so, would you rate it even higher, or did your rating already factor it?
I didn't see Karnov anywhere on your list. Now THAT's a hard game!
As soon I saw that thumbnail, I recognized Holy Diver and thought of that goddamn pillar boss. And I'm not even a speedrunner, just a guy who's played through the game a few times normally.
Lots of fun games in that list. One of the best times I had in gaming was when I decided to beat Zelda 2 without getting hit. I allowed save states in the overworld, but otherwise had to get through each side-view area without getting hit. It was surprisingly not very hard... finished it in a single evening despite having not played it for over a decade.
impressive!
@@SuperNintendies Speedrunners do the whole game pretty much flawlessly. All I had to do was one section at a time.
So glad to see battle toads getting the respect it deserves, one of my favourite games for sure
Zelda 2: Hard
Mike Tyson's Punch Out: Too easy to even rank
WHAT???? :D
Different people have different skills I guess. Thanks a bunch for the video!
3 hard nes games you missed:
3-D Worldrunner
Gauntlet
Back To The Future 2 & 3
I’m actually amazed you didn’t put a single LJN game in your top hardest games list.
This isn't ranking every game, I explained criteria at the start
Battletoads is one thing… Battletoads on 2 player is another… it took my friend and I years of on and off playing together AFTER we could both run through the game individually on our own pretty easily.
We finally recorded a successful 2 player run a few months ago on an NTSC NES, no shenanigans.
I haven’t heard of Holy Diver, I’ll look at that.. I’ve heard about Adventure Island, definitely scares me
7:30 no worries Kosmic, I'm with you on Mega Man, looking at my own history on both Twitch and TH-cam, it's clear that I have been running more Mega Man 1 than the other games in the franchise, it's an accessible and short game to beat, and there's no need to use any pause tricks either, as I have proven many times before (although it makes speed runs faster). Overall I would say 1 and 3 are the ones I gravitate the most toward on the NES.
Here's an oldie but a goodie in the world of unfair and/or really hard video games: Back in the day there was a game for the Commodore 64 called "Shamus". It was a pretty basic non-scrolling multi-room blast everything in your way type of game. What made it unfair was that sometimes you'd go to the next room (remember: non-scrolling!) and there'd be a bullet or the actual enemy literally right on the very spot where you appear. Like, ZERO chance of living through that. Anyway, the game was polished and fun but that aspect of it really made me mad!
Did you consider Bionic Commando in there? I feel it is solidly in 'Honorable Mention' territory. IIRC level 11 was brutal.
the good thing about cv3 is that you can adjust the difficulty by picking the longest route, around 15 stages and ignoring any companion characters.
TMNT1 last stage runway without kiai weapon and if the ai happens to touch the turtle, which can be random, makes the game impossible because all characters energy will be depleted before Shredder. my friend had finished many hard nes games yet marveled when I told him I had finished it
Exactly! I farmed the Wave Scroll sub-weapons until all 4 turtles had 99 each, and that still wasn't enough to beat the game! Fucking technodrome is cheap as fuck! th-cam.com/video/o3Y5KvPcsro/w-d-xo.htmlsi=hDWCAwTY4ebiMON_
Adventures of Bayou Billy should be on this list. Made it to the end, but never beat the final boss (limited coninues). I beat every Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, and Contra NES games(I honestly didn't think Castlevania 3 is that hard if you have the right characters).
I remember beating Battletoads back in the day as a kid. I can't imagine beating it now decades later.
Didn't expect Adventure Island to be ranked above Battletoads.
I spent SO MANY HOURS on Blaster Master. Never could beat it, but got so close so many times it still makes me sad over 30 years later.
I had this game called Frankenstein on nes as a kid... Omg that game's later stages drove me insane.
That is a pretty sweet shirt. Totally bought one, can't wait to check it out in person
Whats the difference between buying something and totally buying it?
@@leob4403 I bought it with an extra firm thumb tap
Thank you for mentioning Adventure Island. I never hear it discussed much as far as difficulty because at the beginning the first levels are easy. However the difficulty slowly but steadily increases. Until you find out the nasty surprise the game has in store: The later levels, many of them have no weapon pickup. So if you are going through and you die *once* you could be effing screwed unless you have some absolutely insane reflexes. The levels are tough enough with a weapon but without one? Hooooo boy...
And with Blaster Master you hit the nail on the head as far as inconsistency. For example I regard the boss of Area 3 as one of the hardest in the game. A lot of young players rides into Blaster Master ended at that thing. But at least Area 3 had legendary music if that was as far as one could get. :P
Another really hard one but brilliant is Gun Nac... reccomend to anyone, regardless of the difficulty it's just brilliant...the pace, the music, and maybe the broadest arsenal of weaponry on the NES
Gun Nac does have 4 difficulty levels though. If beating it on Easy counts, I think most people would beat it their first day if they played a few hours. I was only able to beat it on Easy though, stages 7 & 8 on Normal were too much for me, I remember getting passed 7 once, then playing for hours on Stage 8 & it wasn't happening. I can imagine the skill it requires for Advanced, but I can't fathom the skill required for Expert, haha.
@@richardgallimore5976 I think you only get the true ending if you beat it on Expert
did Kosmic ever upload the NES gauntlet highlights? i remember expecting that to come out at around the time he was doing it, also around when he did the Mainline Mario Marathon
Great list, and I'd agree with most (although I haven't played them all). Would love to have seen a rating on Fester's Quest, although it's probably not very speed runnable haha. Abbadox and Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn might have been some interesting choices.
I picked only games that looked fun... Hahah. I did pick up festers quest recently, so I'll give it a try. It seems like all the Jason segments of Blaster Master, but... Slow? Lol
TMNT isn't too bad until the technodrome, which I think is virtually impossible to do without taking damage
the final corridor where its impossible to not hit spikes, you just have to have enough health in all 4 turtles to make it through. Shredder wont even get close to you w/ scrolls
My favorite hard NES game is Super Pitfall... You're just not going to beat it without a guide or weeks of hunting down every needed item (I won't spoil more than that). But it's also just kinda unfair because Harry doesn't control well and will just glitch into floors or walls because of some coding oversights... which is cool for speedrunning but not so cool for casual play.
Yeah that game is hard in a totally different way than the rest of the games on the list. It very well might be the hardest NES game in general, simply because without a guide you have absolute no idea where to go, what to do or if you're even making progress.
I’m surprised neither of the Startropics were mentioned
Battletoads one of the hardest game I've ever beat.
I'd like to see Double Dragon 3 and Cobra Triangle in this tier list, they were really painful too
Interesting list! I actually do similar things and have played a lot of these blind and or raced them blind vs a buddy as part of my series. Holy diver was insanely difficult but unsure if i would rank above battletoads! You should give dragons lair a try ^^