Outside of self-imposed challenges and without abusing exploits (ex. Castlevania with no subweapons or using the pause exploit in Mega Man), what's the hardest game you've ever played? For me, it was my first Titan mode run of God of War 2. I put it down for months at one point, then bit the bullet and cranked out the rest of that run in I think 3 days. The fight with Zeus was the longest boss encounter I've ever went through in a game. I spent a good 45 minutes on my successful attempt by circle camping and farming the meager health and magic orbs parrying his lightning bolts gives, which all come with a rush attack right after that takes away about a third of your health if you dodge incorrectly. It was ass and I kind of wanna do it again

The hardest games I've finished are Mario 2JP (warpless + worlds A-B) on FDS and Mega Man and Bass.
Played and got filter'd I don't know, probably the original arcade version of Druaga or Baraduke

>>11893276 (OP)
I had a really hard time with the Hanafuda Travel Journal in Hollow Ataraxia. Sure I sucked at Hanafuda at first but even after gitting gud, managing to get all the way through past all those bullshit Noble Phantasms (at least one of which is a chance for an instant loss no matter what) was a complete nightmare. Once you win that and can turn them off in the rules menu the rest of it becomes way easier, but just getting to that point took days of retrying and it stopped being fun after a couple hours

>>11893276 (OP)
Dante Must Die in DMC1 was pretty difficult but only due to 2 encounters that are just awful (sewers nightmare skull and those black cat things) outside of those it's not that bad until Mundus which is one of the single worst boss fights I've ever played but now it's ass blastingly difficult to boot.
Halo 2 is pretty difficult on legendary, but I managed ok it just took a lot of patience.
There's probably more but those came to mind right away.

>>11893276 (OP)
I like the GOW games in general but I take issue with their highest difficulty levels because they're a lazy sort of difficulty where they just cranked the damage up to 11 and don't even try to balance things out so you end up with these insane difficulty bottlenecks like the Theseus fight, whose mechanics are not remotely designed around the icicles he summons while he's sitting on a roof completely invulnerable being one-hit kills. Theseus himself never killed me. I died because the game and I couldn't agree if I was trying to roll up or sideways and so my attempts to dodge an icicle meant I just rolled right into it instead. That kind of janky shit is forgiveable if it just results in damage but if it not only insta-kills you but forces you to restart the entire fight from the beginning so you can slog through the complete non-challenge that is the bosses' first phase just to get wned by icicle RNG again? Yeah, fuck off with that.

I don't believe they playtested the hardest difficulty modes at all, just cranked the damage sliders up as high as they could go and figured if it made some sections complete bullshit that was the players' problem. I beat 1 and 2 on max difficulty and based on those experiences I will not even attempt 3. I'm up for a good challenge but not badly designed ones that require as much luck as skill.

That being said, difficulty is somewhat era-relative. The actual hardest game I ever played is probably a tie between a dozen different arcade games from my youth. I only ever got to stage 3 of Shinobi arcade without savescumming, and if anyone can beat Trojan (Tatakai no Banka) straight up without cheats you're a better man than I. Old school arcade games were ruthless on a whole other level.

>>11893276 (OP)
Probably Castlevania Rondo of Blood. I haven't used those super moves but just because I don't care. Finding the secrets has been a fun challenge too. I still need to finish the (presumably) final level. Maybe I should check first if I've found everything in the game..

God Hand Kick Me Sign run on Hard. My first clear took me over 400 deaths, but I made it.

>>11893396
I think it took me six months playing on and off to finally beat DMD Mundus.

>>11893276 (OP)
For me, it was Kirby's Dreamland on the Original Dot Matrix Game Boy (The gray model of course!) Without the vast array of powers from later in the series, it was brutally difficult having to suck and blow through every enemy I encountered, but thankfully I had a lot of expertise in those fields so I was particularly suited to the challenge ahead. Every time I died to a boss I had to spend an hour psyching myself back up to give it another go! Eventually after 22 years I finally persevered! It was shit but I would like to subject myself to it again someday!

Just about any Sierra adventure game without outside hints is pretty much impossible in my experience. Lots of optional points too on top of it to 100% them.

For action games, beating the true final boss of the game Sai-Daioujou would be the hardest.

>>11893741
Next time, try Extra Mode!

>>11893767
No cap? Guess I'll have to put off my first clear of Megaman 5, I heard it was the hardest in the series so I was really looking forward to spending a few years really learning how to jump and/or shoot as good as my fellow gamers. Thanks for the heads up!

>>11893396
>Halo 2 is pretty difficult on legendary

Only in coop.

Still haven't found a winning strategy

>>11893586
Did you find Maria and the other 2 prisoners?

>>11893586
Rondo of Blood? Really? What about other Castlevania games like 3 (even the Japanese version) or even 1

>>11893276 (OP)
Played enough to know better? Probably NES Ghosts 'n Goblins
Played at all? Alien Soldier (yeah, I know)
Beaten? Not retro, but DA:I. The challenge was putting up with 50+ hours of the game's bullshit.
I suck at video games.

>>11893530
>I don't believe they playtested the hardest difficulty modes at all
They never playtested anything above "normal".

>>11894214
I got Maria and 3 other girls. I think I got the last one first, then went back to check the earlier stages to get Maria and the others.
>>11894270
I didn't play much of 3, and the first one was fairly easy to brute force from what I remember. RoB requires more focus and precision.

No video games are really hard, they just require more time to finish.

adventures of batman and robin - genesis
it's like someone took a good game and made it have too many enemies

Not /vr/ but kind of /vr/

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection on Legend mode without any magic. Honestly one of the best gaming experiences of my life but holy fuck does it demand perfection. You need to learn every trick in the book to get through half the game and then Level 4 has such a devious gimmick that forces you to unlearn all of it and play with extreme care and precision instead. Really, really great game. Still not brave enough to do the shadow levels on Legend yet, I think they might need magic.

Emergency Call Ambulance without a doubt.
>You're driving a fucking brick through the courses instead of a sleek, well handling race car
>Your timer and the patients health are one in the same so any crashes deplete time
>Third course requires you to master an insane 90 degree turn right after dodging between two gas pumps in a burning gas station
>Fourth level requires essentially a perfect run
>You lose you have to beat courses 1-3 all over again
>Course 3 is so hard that you'll still regularly game over on it while mastering course 4
By far the most difficult game I have beaten.

Either StarCraft multiplayer or TimeSplitters 2 story mode on hard mode. Both are insanely hard.

>>11893276 (OP)
Megami Tensei 2 required a move where you had to walk around a pillar to advance the game and it wasn't hinted at. If I didnt look it up I would have never beaten it.

>>11893276 (OP)
Hardest I’ve ever beat?
God of War 3 (Platinum Trophy)
Hardest I’ve ever played?
SNES Maximum Carnage

>>11893276 (OP)
This can only be some kind of arcade game or shmup unless you count no retries/continues as a self-imposed challenge.

For non-arcade games basically every PC game can be saved through meaning even absurd bullshit like 'Shadow of the Horned Rat' you can just retry every stage 10 times on and power through.

Most interesting console style difficult game I've played is 'Vietcong' on 'Vietnam' difficulty. A PC game with rationed saves (also I think it has a console port). The sparse saves break the game down into arcade style gauntlets between new starting points. Everything kills you insanely hard. All guns super lethal. Kind of like an entire game of Halo 2 sniper jackals. But you must also become a sniper jackal to win.

During one infamous section in which you're riding in a boat downriver with an M60 you have to prefire certain enemy positions to survive. Kill enemies before you can see them.

For retro gaming probably DMC1 on DMD, but honestly I just cheesed the thing with roll cancel grenades. I also cheesed Bayonetta's hardest difficulty.
If you count remakes then I got all the gems/relics in the crash trilogy.
For non-retro stuff it was probably the hardest difficulties of Uncharted 4, Killzone 2, or God of War: Chains of Olympus, getting all the co-op trophies in Dante's Inferno, or getting 90 medals in the Mirror's Edge time trials.