Hardest platform levels

Joneser

Always hated the bike level in Battletoads on the SNES

landsleaving

Oh jesus battletoads. Don't get me started. Nearly threw my gameboy out the window.

Shapey Fiend

Oh **** Battletoads.. that's a good one. I rented it a couple of times and it damn near killed me. I got stuck pretty early on on the airbike bit where you have to keep dodging ****. That sort of thing just isn't my forte. The minecart part on Mega Drive Taz used to muder me as well.

I owned Revenge of Shinobi for 6 years and I only completed it properly the night before I sold my machine to someone else. When I look at youtube videos now I think "for **** sake, it's actually way easier than It seemed" but you don't have the benefit of GameFAQs back in the early 90's. Memorising the route to the last boss is easy enough, but killing him before the girl gets killed is a bitch. I got the to the last room of the labyrinthe, picked up the POW and managed to get through all the flying ninjas to the last boss without getting hit once, so I had one chance at killing the boss quickly enough to save Naomi(?). And I did. But it turnes out there's a hidden POW in the empty room right before the boss, and you can hit the hole in the wall on the boss level with shruiken to stop the cage from falling, so it's easy save the girl regardless. But then, I didn't know that at the time so I had to make things hard for myself.

pwd

manic miner got quite hard

look:
http://www.darnkitty.com/manic/

Shapey Fiend

If we're going back that far then I'm reminded of a platformer I had on the Atari 2600 that was utterly impossible. I got off the first screen a couple of times but that was it. The mechanic was you couldn't actually jump but you shoot this diagonal grappling hook up to the platform above you, and there were dinosaurs walking about on each platform. You get up to the top of the screen ala Rainbow Islands and then onto the next level. Wish I could remember what it was called. I'm pretty sure it was an average port, of an average coin-op game.

eddhorse

Joneser wrote: »

Always hated the bike level in Battletoads on the SNES

Jebus, my eyes, the googles do nothing !!!
At the start i was thinking that it didnt look too bad.....
The concentration levels on them colours means you surely need glasses now !
I dont think they are allowed make games like that anymore for health and safety reasons....

landsleaving

What was the game where you were a native american on the Snes, Blackhawk I think. You could hide in the shadows by holding up. That used to drive me mental. Thinking back I don't know if it was all that hard, but the setting was so bleak and despressing I'd be in a rush to get it over with :rolleyes:

Retr0gamer

Blackthorne is what you are looking for.

corcaigh07

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Super Mario Bros the lost levels had some stupidly tough levels in it as well. There was a castle that resembled the trick castle in Mario Bros 1 where you couldn't advance without taking the correct route. It wasn't actually a trick castle but a stupidly long stage designed to fool players.

However what took the biscuit was the one Arino got stuck on in the episode of Game Centre CX where the level just repeats but the only way to get out of the level is to find a hidden vine that requires a stupidly tough jump to be performed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgeJjoFVMTk

great video!

Retr0gamer

Game Centre CX is probably the best show ever made about videogames. It's a pity nobody will pick up the rights to a subtitled DVD collection. It's really entertaining and Arino is a great host and an underdog everyman that you just have to root for. It's a pity there's so few episodes translated and they are so hard to find.

Mr. K

What a great show! That video is excellent. I played through most of The Lost Levels on the Super Mario Bros DX cartridge when I was twelve, nearly went mad on one of the later levels.

eddhorse

Watched all that video, very good !

cherryghost

i love how all the hardest platform levels (bar 1) is all pure retro stuff. Just goes to show

a) the depletion of the platform genre in gaming
b) how easy games are these days :rolleyes:

Mr. K

cherryghost wrote: »

i love how all the hardest platform levels (bar 1) is all pure retro stuff. Just goes to show

a) the depletion of the platform genre in gaming
b) how easy games are these days :rolleyes:

At least we still get tough ones like SMB Wii!

Retr0gamer

Mr. K wrote: »

At least we still get tough ones like SMB Wii!

Eh, it was a total pushover. Only world 9 had a few tough levels. I have 99 lives before I reached world 4 and never once saw the game over screen. The last old school tough games I played were DMC 3 and Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2. Even Demon's Souls is manageable.

Grimebox

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Ninja Gaiden

I actually gave up on that game. It was so hard that i couldnt get any further

jaykhunter

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Eh, it was a total pushover. Only world 9 had a few tough levels. I have 99 lives before I reached world 4 and never once saw the game over screen.

Not everyone is a bloody platforming Jedi. There are normal people in the universe too! I hate it when people brag how easy a game is when replying to someone saying the opposite. It's so mean-spirited.

Grimebox, have you seen the new AVGN? He tries to beat Ninja Gaiden. Worth a watch

Retr0gamer

jaykhunter wrote: »

Not everyone is a bloody platforming Jedi. There are normal people in the universe too! I hate it when people brag how easy a game is when replying to someone saying the opposite. It's so mean-spirited.

I'm not being mean spirited and I'm no platforming jedi. Compared to most NES platformers it's a total pushover. These days people are too used to easy games that when something that you actually have a chance of dying in comes along that it's proclaimed the hardest game ever. Look at the reviews when Megaman 2 came out on Virtual Console. It was pointed out that the game was very difficult, same thing with Megaman 9 and 10 when Megaman 2 and the entire series was criticised back in the day for being too easy.

If you are talking about the toughest platform levels compared to the 8-bit era it doesn't come close.

jaykhunter

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm not being mean spirited and I'm no platforming jedi. Compared to most NES platformers it's a total pushover

Most gamers are "Pushovers" then. From your PoV it isn't hard but for "normal" people NSMBWii is hard!! I know previous NES games were much harder but to us regular folk they're impossible. Arguing to someone that a hard game is actually easy (i.e. they just suck at games) is pretty mean. "Hard/hardest" is relative to a player's ability.

Retr0gamer

Games being hard never stopped 'normal' people and children beating them in the 8-bit era. People only think NSMB Wii is tough because they are used to games with recharging shields and lenient checkpoints (nothing wrong with these either). A game where a 'normal' person like myself (I actually nothing special at games, ask the fighting game forum guys how bad I am) can amass 99 lives before they are halfway through the game without trying (I was rushing through it to get a review out) and keep it that way pretty much constantly can hardly be considered tough.

jaykhunter

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Games being hard never stopped 'normal' people and children beating them in the 8-bit era. People only think NSMB Wii is tough because they are used to games with recharging shields and lenient checkpoints (nothing wrong with these either). A game where a 'normal' person like myself (I actually nothing special at games, ask the fighting game forum guys how bad I am) can amass 99 lives before they are halfway through the game without trying (I was rushing through it to get a review out) and keep it that way pretty much constantly can hardly be considered tough.

Fine, you're a "normal" gamer; the rest of us suck really hard at platformers.:p

jaykhunter wrote: »

"Hard/hardest" is relative to a player's ability

corcaigh07

i avoided NSMB wii because the NSMB on the ds was far too easy. Try playing a hard level on Super Mario World or as retro said, any of the predessors. then you'll get a better idea of a tough platformer. hell even sonic 1 or 2 back in the day on MD was pretty tough in the later levels.

molloyjazz

Thunderblade on the Megadrive was hard.. real easy in the arcade though i completed it when i was 9 in a few hours... but on the MD i could only get to the 3-4th level that had spitfires coming at ya.

Mr E

molloyjazz wrote: »

Thunderblade on the Megadrive was hard.. real easy in the arcade though i completed it when i was 9 in a few hours... but on the MD i could only get to the 3-4th level that had spitfires coming at ya.

Thunderblade wasn't a platform game. This thread is about platform games only....

NunianVonFuch

N+. Anything after episode 45 in the single-player is pretty much the hardest platform levels I've ever played. I still haven't unlocked the expert levels. Also Trials HD's Inferno level if that counts as a platformer.

Bionic Commando Remix's last level. Mainly for the length and lack of continues, which kind of artificially increases the difficulty as after 10+ minutes or so you finally get to a bit you haven't done b4 with 1 life left. Always thought that was kinda cheap in the old-school games.

Littlebigplanet - I'm sure there's a whole category of user levels that are designed to be impossible, never thought to search for them tho!

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Richter playthrough. Sure it's "just like" the original Castlevanias on the Snes, only they were designed for small healthbars. This game was designed for the leveled up Alucard with multiple health bars and moves so enemies are much harder in general. Unless you spam Richter's special which is cheating in my book.

I'm sure there's more recent ones, just I can't think of them right now. NSMBWii isn't particularly easy or hard, I'd put it right in the middle. If it was easy you could just run through it without stopping so it has some challenge. :P

Retr0gamer

corcaigh07 wrote: »

i avoided NSMB wii because the NSMB on the ds was far too easy. Try playing a hard level on Super Mario World or as retro said, any of the predessors. then you'll get a better idea of a tough platformer. hell even sonic 1 or 2 back in the day on MD was pretty tough in the later levels.

You're missing out on NSMB Wii. It's far better than the the DS game which was a massive disappointment and feels much longer with every level feeling distinct.

Never found the Sonic games anything less than piss easy. I beat most of them on my first or second go except Sonic 1 because labyrinth stage was a whore.

cherryghost

aaaah!! N and N+ cant believe i forgot them. Those games wound me up big time

astrofool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd like to add Heatmans stage with the disappearing blocks in Megaman 2. I've never beaten it without rush coil.

I remember doing all the MM2 levels without any abilities just because, this was in the days when we only had 3-4 games for the NES and all the time in the world of course.

Lost levels was pretty hard too, I seem to remember getting to a World 9 after finishing the first 8?

Playing through SMB Wii slowly at the moment, and dying far too often (mostly when I try and get all the coins on the first run through the level ).

corcaigh07

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You're missing out on NSMB Wii. It's far better than the the DS game which was a massive disappointment and feels much longer with every level feeling distinct.

Never found the Sonic games anything less than piss easy. I beat most of them on my first or second go except Sonic 1 because labyrinth stage was a whore.

after sonic 2, yeah, easy but sonic 1 has got ladyrinth and sonic 2 has got tricky later levels and a final boss without rings.

Retr0gamer

Never found Sonic 2 all that tough. Metropolis zone was the only hard part and that was due to boredom. That level was long, boring and had 3 acts.