For a non-video game example, This Troper had immense difficulty with his second college semester of Spanish (the equivalent of semesters 3 & 4 of high school Spanish). Having only had a semester of Spanish the summer before, in only a span of six weeks, he struggled to shine amongst his more linguistically-refined peers as he drained himself just to keep up with the lightning-fast pace of the class. He was only able to do even a satisfactory job if he had Google Translate by his side, even if he made stupid mistakes like confusing Puerto Rico with Costa Rica; tests were a lost hope altogether. Even lampshaded by his teacher when she looked at my first in-class assignment (having to write ''an entire paragraph in Spanish'' on an assigned topic) and said, "You're going to have a lot of trouble in this class." Indeed, this class remains the ''only'' failing grade in ''all'' his classes, starting with middle school.

"i thank you God for most this amazing day" and "When David Heard" by Eric Whitacre. If the fact that one has a part where the women alternate A/G chords and the other is in 18 parts...well...yeah.

This troper's college classes. It's really quite amazing how big of a difference there is between what's on the exams and what's on every other piece of study material that a college student would have access to.

This troper's experience from high school pre-cal to college calculus was this. She's BrilliantButLazy, so all her life she's been able to just sit in class, draw in a sketchbook, never take one note, and ''still'' make As and Bs. This was also true of her high school pre-cal class. When she went to college, she took a placement test that allowed her to skip college algebra, geometry, and pre-cal and jump straight into college calculus. The first week of calculus was a review of high school pre-cal...and then suddenly the teacher stopped making any sense, almost as if he'd started speaking a foreign language. This troper dropped the class and changed her major from marine biology to art; she never understood why you'd need calculus to work at Sea World training dolphins and feeding fish anyway, so she decided to make video games instead.

This troper spent 12 years, from kindergarten to his senior year of high school, trying to beat the third level of "Battletoads in Battlemaniacs" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. During his senior year of high school, he FINALLY managed to get past that level, only to find the next level was arguably even harder: level four is made almost entirely of Instant Death Spikes! Unbelievably, after several weeks or maybe a month of intense practice, he ended up beating the entire game (which incidentally consisted of only 6 levels and two bonus levels). His triumph was recorded on videotape by a friend for posterity.

This Troper beat that stage (and many of the others later) the hard way (reflexes and memorization, plus a Game Genie with the Infinite Lives cheat), but when playing ''{{Contra}}: Hard Corps'' had to tape down the fire button and leave the game on for a couple of days until he had huge stock of lives before beating it. He started playing with about eighty-something lives, and had less than ''thirty'' left when he finally won.

Dude, you call an infinite lives cheat on Game Genie the hard way? The game only has one cheat itself, for about two or three extra lives and continues, and I (the troper whose 12 year oddysee was outlined above) beat it using just that (I think later I beat it without that cheat as well, just for an added challenge, and trust me, that game NEVER gets much easier no matter how many times you beat it). Other than that, just memorization and reflexes, as you said. Still, I applaud your ingenuity on Contra. I've not played that one, and from the tale of that may lives being decimated, I'm now afraid to.

The reason why ''Contra: Hard Corps'' is so difficult is because, just like in the other Contra games, your character can only take one hit before dying. This seems like it goes without saying, but in the Japanese version, your character can take ''three'' hits before kicking the bucket. I'm assuming that this was changed in the U.S. version because of tradition; unfortunately, it also severely ramped up the challenge to where you ''need'' to be nigh short of a gaming god in order to tackle that game.

Note that in the [[DifficultyByRegion Famicom game you also had 3 hits.

Similarly, This Troper spent about five or six years trying to get through the second level of the GameBoy version of ''Battletoads''. While the first level was pretty easy, a level in the style of the original game (which I didn't even know existed at the time) of which even after a few years not playing it I can probably still do without taking any damage, or at least very little. In comparison, the second level was very different, in the style of a side-scrolling 2D shooter like ''{{Gradius}}'' or ''{{R-Type}}'', where you were in a small spaceship with a laser that you could charge. The laser was useful against the first enemies, small bats that I always thought were Spearows or Zubats from ''{{Pokemon}}'', and with the right timing a charged laser could be used to kill the recurring miniboss, a shell with wings that opened up to reveal a laser emitter which doubled as a weak point. Simple so far, until you got to the spike maze, in which you have to navigate your ship through small holes in a wall of spikes which beeped and flashed before launching towards you, killing you in one hit. It was slow and quite easy to begin with, but after about thirty seconds it became really fast and unbearable, eventually causing you to crash into the spikes and lose every pixel of health you had left. I spent hundreds of lives and continues trying to get that pattern down, and eventually I made it through to the third level, another level similar to the original game. (I kept challenging myself to do it all in one life, meaning I'd be able to carry the axe from the first level into the third à la LylatWars, but sadly when I accomplished this once, I entered the third level to find Zitz fighting with his fists. Shame, because it would've made the Darkling so much easier.)

This Troper made a flash game called Drillz which he designed to fit the trope (mostly by putting in strange controls). Sure enough, the biggest complaints he got from his friends was that it was too hard. He then advised them to suck it up.

The space bar isn't working for this troper in your game.

I've had a hard time in the {{Escape Velocity}}: Nova mission were I have to intercept a fleet of Pirate vessel's, one in particular I have to disable, board, and steal data from the specific ship, Causes of fail?: 1: the target ship is destroyed, 2: My heavily modified Pirate Carrier Unrelenting gets raped by the fleet,it was kinda tough to beat the mission

This troper, a HUGE fan of {{Devil May Cry}}, immediately vowed to never play the special edition of the third game when I learned the default difficulty was easier than in the regular edition. I LIKED the controller-breaking challenge of playing that game for the first time.

This troper remembers numerous reviewers of the Special Edition made the same complaint, and fails to understand why NO ONE seems to notice that the default difficulty level from the previous version (listed in the Special Edition as Normal Mode) is also available right from the start. Is the mere existence of an optional easier difficulty level that much of an insult to all those challenge-seekers?

I have spent years off and on trying to DOCK in Elite without access to a joystick. Joystick was hard, MOUSE AND KEYBOARD DO NOT WORK!

This troper has beaten Need For Speed Underground (mentioned in the main page) and several other racing games, and considered himself pretty good at that genre... That is, until Gran Turismo 2's simulation mode bent him over his PS 1. For one, the AI cars travel in tight packs, so they're either slightly ahead of you, or slightly behind you, so if you make a mistake, all of them will fly right past you, leaving you desperately trying to catch up from last place. Less than two seconds can make the difference between first and last. And please, don't even get him started on the license tests, lest he resort to {{Cluster F Bomb}}s. The strange thing is that no one else he's talked to found the game all that hard.

I admit, the game becomes less infuriating the more you upgrade your car. It still fits this trope in places, though.

This troper once missed gold on a license test by .001 of a second. He immediately summoned a friend to document the event for posterity.

Sounds a bit like a case of {{The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard}} to me.

This troper could never beat the final stage of ''Mario Party''[='=]s Minigame Island. Slot Car Derby 2 FOR THE LOSE.

Another ''MarioParty'' example: this troper is currently raging at the Beach Volley Folly mode in the fourth game. You have to win six matches in a row to unlock the Free Mode and several new characters for it. If you lose, you have to start again from the first one. The problem now is the last one- the match against Bowser and Bowser Jr. For one thing, the opposing team has an advantage since Bowser's so big that he can cover about half the court. Then there's the computer partner... Most of the time they don't do anything to try to win, only occasionally ''not'' sending the ball right toward one of the opponents. Even worse, sometimes they try to "help" by blocking the ball, without warning, and if they don't get it right it just results in the ball veering off its originally marked course and giving the other team a point. Even pausing a lot to make it easier to gauge where the ball's going to end up doesn't seem to help, and this troper doesn't know anyone else who plays the game to take over from the computer...

This troper's male friend apparently once had an orgasm while playing Pikmin 2.

...I see the connection. But you know, I'm tempted to start adding near non-sequitors to these pages just to see if anyone reads 'em. Also, your friend had better have a darn good reason for ''that''.

I'm sure there's an interesting story that goes with that. The question is whether or not I want to know.

This troper has lost count of the number of times he has played "The President's Run," the last level of Driver, without success. (It must be somewhere in the hundreds.) Between the rain-slickened streets, your suddenly-slower-than-everything-else car, and insane enemies, the level is just brutal. One magazine pointed out that it is pretty much impossible to do this without some luck on your side; skill alone just won't cut it. But the premise is so off-the-wall crazy (the mob decides to kidnap the president; suddenly you have the president in your car and both mobsters ''and cops'' are trying to smash your car into oblivion) and the game is so fun that one can forgive it.

This troper has continued his PlayStation kick with Driver 2, a game whose missions in all four levels swing wildly from ItsEasySoItSucks to beyond NintendoHard. The games's cops, and some of the mission goals, are famous for their insanity.

This troper cannot play ''any'' SNES game she has. Super Mario World,Mega Man X,Super Mario All-Stars or, The Lion King (oh, and some beat em ups). She has spent countless hours of her young childhood playing, and watching her uncle play, those games. Yet,she can't get one-tenth into the games. Thus,she doesn't touch her SNES. Though,she can't play Kingdom Hearts 1 or Pikmin 1,either..

I don't think that's a problems with the ''games''...

Unwilling example: PC version of ''Crimson Skies'' without a functioning joystick. Some of the levels were OK, but the "do you want to skip this mission?" screen began appearing as soon as stunt flying got involved.

This Troper will happily boast to beating a few Nintendo Hard games- Blaster Master, Metroid, and a couple of the SNES Star Wars games- but has also used cheats on other games because it was preferable to trying to eat the controller.

This troper has started to refer to ''Sonic and the Secret Rings'' (particularly its Perfect Challenge- beat the stage without taking a hit- and No Pearls- ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, beat the stage while dodging every pearl, which also means never killing an enemy since they give you pearls- missions) as "I Wanna Be The Sonic". They have the same unforgiving difficulty as IWannaBeTheGuy, and ''none'' of the amusing explodey deaths. "This just isn't my day!" "This just isn't my day!" "This just isn't my day!" "This just isn't my day!" "This just isn't my day!" "This just isn't my-" *jabs power button with great force*

Getting the Emeralds in ''Sonic 2''. Between the freaking bombs and the very finicky hitbox for grabbing rings, it hard enough just getting enough rings. Even if you have catlike reflexes, if you aren't playing Sonic alone, Tails is TheLoad in Special Stages (despite being useful in the main game). He's always getting hit during the delay between Sonic's jump and his, not to mention taking time to get back behind Sonic. SaveScumming is about your only hope.

This troper, after a long hiatus from his Gamecube, decided to pick up ''MarioParty 7'' and start the Solo Party, to see how far he'd get. First level went fine. Second, OK. At the third game board, he abruptly remembered exactly '''why''' his copy of ''MarioParty 2'' was mothballed. TheComputerIsACheatingBastard!

This troper would like to personally find the person who came up with ''DJMAX Portable Black Square''[='=]s Club Tour missions and punch him in the face.

''StreetFighter II Turbo HD Remix'' is a straight bastard with a stock XBox360 controller.

FUCKING THIS. I can't get the "defeat Akuma" achievement. You need to beat every character on a single continue. Even on the easiest level, with best 3 out of 5 (so you have more of a chance to pull a comeback), the closest I've come was with Chun-Li, I got to Vega (only character left is Sagat, then Akuma), I won the first 2, he came back the next 2, I lost the 5th game, with both of us down to no health, I jumped in the air, kicked, only for him to do his bullshit aerial throw and kill me. Then I threw the controller across the room.

This troper once spent an entire HOUR trying to figure out how to [=McTwist=] over the helicopter in Tony Hawk's Underground. After he was done, he threw his controller on the floor and gave up. I still haven't figured it out...

That might have been the best for you then, 'cause the game only got harder from there. Wanna know what the final challenge is? You have to chase your rival and match his every single move while he makes an impressive line through the first level of the game. He's incredibly fast, has perfect stats, does super-amazing jumps that require pixel-perfect precision to make, and IIRC, you're also on a time limit. Oh, and he also throws Molotov Cocktails behind him, meaning you have to dodge fire while you're doing all this.

Well, I considered the McTwist the helicopter goal kinda easy (try and Boneless to get some extra air, and if that doesn't work, turn on Moon Gravity), as was the final goal (mind you, i've played the game MANY times over, therefore I know the goals down pat). And the final goal, you only need to play it once to beat the game (on all subsequent playthroughs, your character punches Eric in the face upon his mentioning of the goal. Fitting, considering that Eric became a JerkAss later in the game.

This troper considered the last level in Tony Hawk's Underground to be very easy. He doesn't remember how many times he had to redo it, but if it wasn't finished on his first try, he's pretty sure it was on his second or third.

This troper ''cannot'' play ''Ultimate MortalKombat 3''. She cannot hit anyone in "Very Easy" mode, with the opponents handicap at zero. There's also ''The LionKing'' for the SNES, but that's another story, since that game ''is'' a well known Nintendo Hard.

In a non-game example. This troper wound up repeating Integral Calculus to the point of nervous breakdown because one slight instance of Dysgraphia can waste 10-15 minutes ... of a 1 hour timed test.

This Troper has yet to beat the Sacred Grounds in CaveStory.

Made even more frustrating because he used up his Life Pot after the PointOfNoReturn, when he ''couldn't get another''.

This troper couldn't finish the RTS Homeworld without cheats. I got to the Asteroid level, after battle after battle of skirmish type battles you can build forces, you get stopped in the middle of nowhere, with a giant asteroid being flung at the mothership, I realised I didn't have enough ships to kill it before it would kill my mothership and lose the game. Apparently I missed the memo about needing to steal more enemy ships than you build yourself.

This troper happens to ''suck'' at platformers and always manages to lose too many lives way too early in the game. While I love the old Sonic and Mario games, I can never come close to beating any of them.

One game that has haunted this troper for so many years was Virtual Bart for the {{SEGA Genesis}}. You go through six virtual experiences, half of them being regular platformers, and all of them are hard as hell. Said troper has eventually resorted to Game Genie codes and save states in order to put the game out of his misery once and for all.

Persona3 is the only game I have ever played where my hero (and thus the party) regularly gets one-shotted by regular enemies while grinding.

''SpaceInvaders Extreme''. Two words: Extreme difficulty.

This troper has, to this date...

...never beaten the original TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles NES game without cheating. Most of it, even the dam stage and the instant death spikes near the end of the Airbase area, weren't that difficult. But after getting inside the Technodrome, his guys keep dying on him before he could reach the Shredder.

This troper had the same damned experience with that game. And I remember why I couldn't reach the Shredder as well -- those goddamned laser soldiers! Their lasers did more damage than anything else in the game and could be fired diagonally, and the only way to kill them quickly was by spamming your scroll weapon, which you need for the Shredder himself.

...was, as a child of four, convinced that Glass Joe... '''Glass...Joe...''' of ''Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!'' fell into this category. He started up the game once, saw him and thought: "What am I doing?" before taking out the cartridge and never touching it again. Thankfully, he knows better now.

...grew up during the NES era and got to play a lot of games, from the well-known Super Mario to this weird spelunking game which name escapes him. Of all of them, only the three SMB games and some assorted sports titles were within his reach gameplay-wise, and others were only beaten a decade later after having had some time to grow up.

RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F* cking Water Temple!

RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F* cking first game!!!

Phytops. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For This Troper, any of the old Disney games that were produced by Virgin Interactive... often resulted in a RageQuit... at 6...

This troper feels your pain. He never even beat the fifth level of that damned ''LionKing'' game until a good seven years after first getting the game.

This troper hasn't given up on learning parallel programming yet, but there is a good chance he won't really cut it in this decade or the next. I would say it is Nintendo Hard, though there are even those who do it on a regular basis who consider it pretty tough as well as those who think it's not that hard (and will AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence eventually, incidentally).

This troper has yet to finish ''Zelda II: The Adventure of Link''. He's been playing the game on and off from a timespan of 2003 (When he bought his NES, along with his copy of the game) to present day; only getting as far as beating the first Palace out of sheer luck. He's yet to actually reach the 2nd palace; always dieing not far from it.

That's the same story as this troper, except with the Collector's Edition version on the Gamecube. I have gotten to the 2nd palace a few times, but by that point I only have 1 life and very little health.

This troper has beaten the FIRST TEMPLE of Zelda II all of ONCE. Ugh.

This troper has had almost a 10 year losing streak on the second level arcade game needed to get the Nintendo Coin in Donkey Kong 64.

Same here. I finally beat it last summer and began working on getting all 200 Golden Bananas (not counting the bonus one you get for getting all the other ones), only to get stuck just 4 away from the goalIn case you're wondering which 4: the 2 Beaver Bothers in Creepy Castle, The Beetle Race in Crystal Cave, and the 2nd Rabbit Race in Fungi Forest.

This troper has, after four years and countless re-starts (i.e. from the beginning), finally beaten FireEmblem (the one with Lyn and Hector). Even after screwing his "Tactics" score by LevelGrinding a bunch of characters to level 20 in the arena at the Port of Badon, the game was still a challenge.

This Troper once made an extremely hard flash game for a friend to play.

It ended with the first jump unfinished and the game deleted.

Thought playing ''Tetris'' with traditional controls was hard enough? Then you should try ''Typomino'' and ''Keyblox'', which are ''Tetris'' clones where you "type" the pieces into place. This troper, with a good clone and ideal settings, can clear 40 lines in under a minute, but on ''Keyblox'', it takes him three minutes, or two and a half on a good run.

''Gradius III'', arcade version. This troper is of the belief that it's easier to one-credit ''{{Mushihime-sama}} Futari Black Label''[='=]s God mode than that.

The lion king plain and simple This Troper has played hakuna matata for years trying to learn what to do I got the game when I was 4 I'm 13 now AND JUST BEAT THE DAMN GAME thats 9 years on hakuna matata

This Troper CANNOT for the life of him beat ''Undefined Fantastic Object'' or ''Subterranean Animism''. He can get through the first two stages without a hitch, beat Stage 3 losing one or two lives, start messing up on Stage 4, and lose most of my lives or die on Stage 5, before being finished off by Stage 6. On Easy.

I find UFO and SA pretty easy, with the bullet hitboxes being obvious. "[TouhouProject Embodiment of Scarlet Devil]]", though... So much ragequitting... I'll beat you, Remilia. One day...

This troper has played his share of BulletHell shooters. He's one-credited ''{{Mushihime-sama}} Futari Black Label'' on Original (as unbelievable as it sounds:to people who [[PublicMediumIgnorance only know of the game through its Ultra and God Mode final bosses]]), reached stage 3 of God Mode, one-credited two ''Touhou'' games on Normal, crossed 4 1/2 stages of ''{{DoDonPachi}}''[='=]s six, and can complete the Stage 7 series on ''[=rRootage=]''. None of these shooters compare up to ''Image Fight''. Irem-style TrialAndErrorGameplay, annoying manual fire, and a hardly-useful pod launch attack make for a very hard experience. He can't get past the ''first stage'' as of this writing. This is how balls hard ''Image Fight'' is.

If you thought ''Image Fight'' was ''that hard'', just wait until you play ''{{R-Type}} II'', or even ''{{R-Type}} I'', for that matter.

This troper never managed to beat Battletoads & Double Dragon, thanks to that awful spaceship stage. I did rent this game at least once per month during a whole year, but never, EVER got past that stage. The problem isn't the enemy positioning, it's the controls that make it awfully hard: instead of just moving the ship with the D-Pad and shooting with one button, you change the direction with left and right and move with A. For example, if you're moving right, and need to turn up, instead of pressing up you need to hold left until it turns up.

Exactly the same problem mate,I even tried to play it with my friend as 2nd Player and we failed that spaceship stage so much because of damn controls

This troper never touched DigimonWorld3 after entering a boss fight in wich his normal attacks froze all my digimon while dealing high damage and preventing me from using items. Basically I just kept pressing X to skip the "Agumon is frozen!" and "Mamemon attacks!" windows.

For me, of all things, {{Kirby}}'s Pinball Land. For many years, I wasn't allowed to get a game console, so I was stuck with my old GameBoy. I got that game Christmas 1996, the day I got my GameBoy. Six years later, I was finally allowed to get a Gamecube, for Christmas 2002. I couldn't sleep the night before, so I picked up my GameBoy and put in Kirby's Pinball Land. At 4:30 AM, two and a half hours before my parents were willing to wake up so I could open my Gamecube, I finally beat it. A very real victory, yes, but looking back, it nearly seems symbolic of my graduation from simple handheld games into the more complex world of console gaming.

Super-difficult Megawads for Doom II anyone? (For more fun, play those level packs with randomizer mods and... enjoy.)

This Troper has been playing Super Mario Brothers Deluxe for Gameboy Color since she got it for Christmas in third grade. I'm now a sophomore in college and still stuck on world 4-3. I've gone through warp tunnels to get near the end and finish the game, but I've never played it all the way through because of that one damn level.

you do know about the warp zone trick in world 1-2 ( warp to worlds 2, 3, & 4.)and i believe 4-2 ( world 5, 6, 7, 8), right? They're on the NES and All-Stars version, so I guess its on deluxe?

{{Fighting Game}}s. And I don't mean crappy CPU opponents. I mean ''human'' opponents.

This troper was playing ResonanceOfFate a little while back, and enjoying it. Then he entered a red hex on the map and his level 40 party got stuck in a fight with three level 70 enemies. Then he realized that his last save was at the start of the chapter, and there was literally no way of getting out of the fight without beating the enemies. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAGEQUIT!

Bit Trip Runner BIT TRIP RUNNER '''BIT TRIP RUNNER ARRRRGGGGGHHH!!!'''.

Skate 2 was hard enough for this troper, who gave up on the pro challenges a long time ago, but now that Skate 3 is out, he's finished literally everything in the game, except for the Trick List Trials on the Own The Lot challenges. There is always one thing that cannot possibly be done in the short time limit without a miraculous glitch, such as doing a 720 in a normal bowl area.

I screwed up majorly in Pokemon Diamond. Pokemon Diamond is generally not Nintendo Hard, but there is ONE way to make it such: let Dialga get away. Then it becomes the hardest Pokemon game to date.

How? This troper has never used a legendary Pokemon as part of his team and still easily wins over every other trainer.

The final battles with Team Galactic and the E4 can be quite tough, but indeed you shouldn't need to rely on a legendary just to beat them. In fact Dialga itself can be pretty useless against the E4 unless you've trained it well.

It took this troper ''twelve years'' to beat ''{{Castlevania}} III''.

The damn ReBoot PlayStation game. Over ten years later, I still haven't managed to get past the first section of Baudway without cheat codes - which have only gotten me to the third part of Baudway.

This troper had quite a difficult time with ''{{Dragon Quest VIII}}''. He actually died a few times before fighting On the flip side, [[spoiler:Dhoulmagus was quite a breeze for him. This was partly in due to the fact that he level grinded enough to the point where Jessica had access to all of her most powerful spells, and made extensive use of the alchemy pot to make all of the best weapons and armor in the game. {{Digital Devil Saga}}, on the other hand...

This troper can beat any EliteBeatAgents song with a score of A, but he still can't get past the first half of Jumpin' Jack Flash in Hard Rock mode.

It took this troper 6 years (after release) to FINALLY gain the confidence (and patience) to beat that one REQUIRED task: beating the Donkey Kong arcade twice in Donkey Kong 64. For that N64 coin. Seriously, Nintendo, why one life?! And why that extra level?

If Halo: Reach (specifically "The Package") isn't Nintendo Fucking Hard, nothing is. I have a tendency to scream in fury and Ragequit repeatedly. But I always come back. ''Always.''

This Troper managed to get two stars overall on ''MarioKart Wii'' in four months. Doesn't sound like NintendoHard does it? Guess how long it took me to get the coveted three stars? I't been a year since I hit two stars and I ''still'' haven't gotten it yet.

It took me four years to beat just one ''fucking'' mission in Jak II. Four. Years.

What, just one mission? Jak II is NintendoHard incarnate for the Playstation. This editor is not sure if this is the mission you're talking about, but he always got screwed over by the on-rails turret mission where you must shoot down flying Krimzon Guards and a couple of ships at the mining site. It's possible enough on the normal runthrough, but Hero Mode is when the shit ''really'' hits the fan. Since you get the best cheats so early on, including Invincibility, you're normally just taking Hero Mode for granted by the 10th mission or so. Then you hit that level, and you realize that Invincibility doesn't apply to vehicles, including turrets. Cue not being able to ever get past that mission on Hero Mode until two years later when you have already played through normal again and had some practice. The hard part is taking down the 40+ Guards at the beginning of the mission, really; taking down the airships is relatively easy.

This trope, along with the fact that the whole atmosphere is DarkerAndEdgier, is why this troper dislikes Jak II. Jak III is a bit better (she hasn't played Jak X, Daxter, or TLF), but the original is still her favorite.

D&D match, one incapacitated party member, three wounded, twelve turns to defeat a dragon before a plot device overloads and kills us all off. Also, the dragon has twice as much power as all of us put together, was immune to fire (what our mage specialized in), and could heal itself AND attack, TWICE. EVERY. TURN.. We won on the last turn by sheer luck, all of any items that could heal in any way, and our now permanantly dead friend.

This troper recieved the first MegaManX for SNES on his fourth or fifth birthday, or something like that, he was very young. It took him until he was around 14 to beat it.

This troper got Arc Rise Fantasia for Christmas and every fricking boss in this game is ridiculously difficult.

I bought LostMagic a few months after its release. I found myself unable to beat the second fire mission. I ended up grinding to the level cap before beating the ''second'' boss, because that was the only way I could clear the missions that would let me reach her. And even at the level cap, I had trouble with the third boss. And don't get me started on that evil light mage (not Isaac's dad, the other one). And after all that, which took me around four-five months, I came to the mission that unlocks triple runes. And this is where I have been stuck up to the time of writing. Either I die before I can get anything accomplished, or time runs out. The whole mission seems to be designed in such a way that no matter what strategy you use, you're screwed somehow. I could write multiple paragraphs about everything that makes it a pain in the ass.

''Persona3'' (Please note I only play the ''FES'' version, I hear the original is much easier) and ''Persona4'' are some of my favorite games but getting cheap-shotted over and over is a real pain in the ass. I remember in Persona 3 there is an early game boss with way more health than other enemies at that point, that resists all four elements, can cast party-wide elemental spells to take advantage of your weaknesses (and due to the way that Persona 3 works hitting a character with a weakness not only renders them unable to do anything on the next turn but also GIVES THE ENEMY ANOTHER TURN) cause party-wide "Panic" which renders characters unable to use their Persona (so say goodbye to all your most reliable methods of damage-dealing and healing!) and of course, it can ''heal itself''. Oh, wait, did I say there was only one of this boss? Silly me, there's '''''three of them at the same time.''''' And you will be fighting them when you are around level '''''5'''''. Oh, and getting hit with an instant-death spell is fun too, because in those games it doesn't matter how well the rest of the party is doing, if the main character dies it's game over. And in ''Persona4'' the less said about Shadow Yukiko the better...

It took this troper ''eight years'' of playing to finally see (one of) the true ending(s) of GigaWing. First played in the summer of 2000; first one-credit-clear achieved on July 30, 2008.

I subvert and enforce this trope on a regular basis. Most of my NintendoHard games stem from that very era, leading me to avoid PlatformHell type games like the plague even if they're generally quite fun. Mario games are a lot harder than anyone gives them credit for.

This troper finally got the gem (and the key from the Cortex bonus round) in {{Crash Bandicoot}}'s {{That One Level}}, Sunset Vista, after having the game for 15 years. And he is not even done yet. Money well spent.

I've tried numerous times to beat ShinMegamiTenseiNocturne. I think the furthest I've gotten is the halfway point in the game, wherever that might be. And people wonder why I call Nocturne an alumnus from the School of NintendoHard Knocks.

I have beaten Dragon Quest/Warrior I. I have never found Erdrick's sword, even following Nintendo Power walkthru maps.

This troper will never win as the Japanese in the Battle of Nomonhan (better known as the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, fought in 1939) in the The Operational Art of War 3. The Soviets easily outclass the Japanese and can just fortify themselves around the important river crossings.

For This one: The last three songs + Through the Fire and Flames on Guitar Hero 3 on Hard mode (I can do Cliffs of Dover) or was it Expert...? It's been a while.

Sigma Stage 2 in Mega Man X6. The entire game was quite a shock compared to X5, but Sigma Stage 2...Ho. ly. Shit. Not only are there SpikesOfDoom '''everywhere''', but you have to fight about five or six of those damn totem poles that constantly shoot at you. And some of them you have to fight in situations like this, with SpikesOfDoom on either side waiting for you if you make one mistake, which you can often dash into because the air dash was oh-so-thoughtfully remapped to the '''X BUTTON!''' The stage practically ''begs'' for you to use Shadow X so that the spikes won't kill you (and so you can skip all but two of the totem poles. Heh heh.). Oh, but wait; if you do that, the ''second part'' of the stage (that's right) requires an armor that can air dash to get through, effectively making the level {{Unwinnable}}. It ''is'' possible to make it through with Shadow X without the air dash, but you need the Hyper Dash and Jumper parts equipped, and there's no hint on how to do that, or even that you can do that. And to top it all off, you get not one, but '''two''' bosses to fight; High Max and Gate, both of which are the puzzle bosses from hell, and the latter of which takes place in this...death trap. That has to be the hardest level in the entire MegaMan series. And now after I got through all that, I get to play X7 next. Joy.

This troper literally spent about FOUR FUCKING YEARS trying to beat Robot Warlords before finally admitting defeat. I recently tried to play it again and couldn't get past the second level, the same level I took three years to beat (and, even then, probably through pure luck, I can't remember how I beat it). Bear in mind I beat Oni without using a walkthrough and it took maybe two years to finally beat that...for ONE ending!

''EtrianOdyssey III''. You think ''ShinMegamiTensei'' is bad? Atlus's other signature RPG series will give SMT a run for its money. Because the EO series provides a wider variety of customization, there's also more opportunities to screw up. It doesn't help that, in [=EO3=] at least, the economy is quite stingy. It starts with you getting '''no money dropped from enemies'''--instead, you sell back the drops to the store to gain money. A little bit of it. And that's before discussing the inn, which likes to inflate its rates every few days...