Hard games.

[Jorichi]

The games these days just don't work for me. I'm an oldskool gamer and am used to very difficult games.
Ofcourse I love the Zelda's and Mario's but they just aren't challenging enough.
I heard Castlevania: Lord of Shadows was a challenging game... No, it wasn't (not even on the most difficult setting).
The game itself isn't hard, at all. It's just the fighting that gets you down (I personally think the fighting engine just doesn't cut it).
Then I heard about Dark Souls. Now that is the game I am looking for! There are fair ways to fight each boss battle (almost all of them
can beat you to death with one blow) but you'll most likely die AT LEAST three times before you figure it out. And not to forget the
intimidation of the bosses will affect your fighting too! The maps are designed to screw you over and the basic enemies REALLY want you
dead. A few good hits of them will kill you, so tactics are a key element as well. Rushing into an unknown area might get you killed instantly.
I died over 300 times and I'm not even halfway through! The game developers just flip you off over and over again. xD
The old Resident Evils are still a joy for me to play as well.

Sorry, I got caught up in the moment. What I was wanting to ask you all is to tell me what games are considered hard and difficult (not in a incredibly frustrating way).
Or what games do you think are hard? I'd really appreciate it if you guys could point me to some awesome games to play.

[tesselode]

SMB, SMB2 (Japan especially), SMB3, SMBW, and SM64 are all quite difficult. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was reasonably difficult. If you want a hard game, try Super Meat Boy. It's one of the only games in a while that felt satisfying to beat.

[trosh]

I think it's an interesting question to try and understand what makes a game hard (your body makes me hard), I realised that when I saw egoraptor's awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aip2aIt0ROM
So yeah some games (often older) have limited means and just make levels hard with level placement - which requires you to think about what you're doing but can get stupidly frustrating. Sometimes it's the fight engine which forces you to be on the edge for hours to complete a fight - that as well can be rewarding, after a whole evening / night of fighting - but can also get stupid (how many games have you stopped playing because of that one stupidly impossible boss ?). Sometimes it's just puzzling, long or relies on luck. The best "hard" games require a bit of everything in my opinion. But yeah finishing mega man 2 in one go without cheating was rewarding, spending time working on getting better and not dying to defeat some fucking impossible bosses in chrono trigger was worth the time, just like finally beating that bitch in infinity blade was the best thing ever. But I usually prefer slightly easy games, a challenge is for special games in my opinion. Pokemen has a bit of both, and that's good, but though the rare times you get anywhere in Gradius 1/2 are rewarding, playing that game without state saves is mental suicide. These are just some examples that I thought of right now, I'd never thought that out before. Please vehemently aggress me if you disagree with the examples.
And no, except for the limited amount of lives SMB is not hard. when you use warps. with state saves. press b to play as steve.

[jasonw749]

the game 'splosion man' on xbox is pretty difficult. im not sure if its on pc or not though

[Raicuparta]

Never considered Chrono Trigger a hard game, at least if you don't want some of the more special endings. The main thing I hate about old RPGs (specially JRPGs) is the grinding and the random encounters. Chrono Trigger had no random encounters and very little grinding, at least for me. That's why it's the only old (8-16 bit) JRPG I've finished, along with Pokémon, but this one is more because it was part of my childhood. I don't think Pokémon has any challenge at all, you can just grind and go through everything easily, that's no challenge.
And Gradius oh my god I used to play that as a kid and never got any far, not even sure if that fucker has a second stage. I wonder if I'd be any good at it if I tried it today.
Super Meat Boy is one of my favorite games (still play it, one day i'll 100% it) because even for people who aren't used to ultra-hard games it is accessible, by allowing you to repeat the levels over and over. But I don't think that's the kind of challenge Jorichi is looking for. Super Meat Boy is just doing the same thing over and over, there isn't really much strategy going on there.
I was never a really good gamer in general so I don't think I played a lot of extremely hard games. Cave Story might be a good example, at least the final boss is tough and to get the best ending you basically have to be Japanese.

[trosh]

It's kind of hard to think of all the games I know in terms of hard/easy. I think the definition of hard/easy is sometimes very unclear, and I usually think of games by whether they blew my socks off, for some reason I always dreamed of having them or they just sucked bawlz.
just posting some suggestions of "hard" games I liked (not just stupidly unusable like bionic commando or such), and maybe trying to explicit why :

• Another World was completely awesome, and when you see it as a whole somewhat short, but getting through it requires patience and dexterity. A lot. effing hard but reeeallly satisfying. kind of.
• prince of persia before I get mindraped, the OLD OLD one, not ubisoft - the puzzle thing where you had to tear your eyes out to reach basic stuff like a sword and learn how to use it, or just not commit suicide every step you took. I sometimes compare it to another world, because of how the graphics are really complex and fluid for what was available at the time. great games.
• h2g2 won't try to explain in detail, but this game is by definition a pain in the mind. still I find this game totally rad rad rad, even when using a walkthrough.
• stepmania / dwi / ddr / guitar fuckwad cause you can only get better, and this exactly corresponds to "the more you play the better you get and the harder the stuff you can play". So though you have to play a lot to get better, you can be sure to get better. and get more satisfied :P.
• roguelikes I guess some of them are fun and they all require god powers to know how to fully use.
• simcity I guess that's mixed. It can be easy but it can be really difficult to build a good town. It's kind of like real life difficulty, except sometimes it's just one of these games where you start failing at everything without knowing why. which leads me toooo
• caesar / pharaoh I used to play these with my dad when I was like 10. most addicting things ever if you get into them. It's like tetris, you'll start to think ONLY about its gameplay after a while. It gets really hard, but getting better and better, navigating between success and total destruction of your city every now and then and gowing through building a whole pyramid are some of the most memorable gaming experiences I've had. If you ever want to commit suicide, get into pharaoh or caesar instead. Totally worth your lack of life.
• super mario world is one of the easiest games ever, but as its the only game alongside castlevania : harmony of dissonance (which I dislike for some reason, but is often considered good and hard) I currently have for my gameboy, I totally farmed it and started trying to achieve stuff like finishing it without dying, or finishing in less than an hour, or getting more than something score. It gets interesting to play that way.
• Metroid fusion is not really hard compared with some other games, but I played it quite young and remember going through the correct experience of struggling through the game trying to find my way back and forth, getting better and better to achieve stuff. That I find a great experience in perspective and so I associate it a bit with difficulty in my mind.

then there's a bunch of games I stopped playing (and felt bad about that after ...) because they just got too hard and the challenge was not worth the trouble. I stopped playing Heatseeker which is usually easy, after a mission which inevitably ended in nuking the world. You can see games which are purposefully hard often have a "send a text to XXXXX to get free cheats". I never wanted to do that to get past that stupidly long and hard level, so I just abandoned all hope of returning to the game.

[Jorichi]

Trosh, you got a point with 'what is considered hard'. I guess it's a term that you can see from several points of view.
Here are they 'hard/challenging/difficult in a fun way' - games I played the crap out of.
- Portal 1/2 Challenging in the puzzling way (obviously). Sadly the game was so short, loved the story behind it though. It was challenging but I could only label the last few challenges 'hard', thus making me wish it was longer.
- DJ Max Portable series I love these series. It's basically Stepmania with it's own songs for the PSP. It's right in my league. Several Button Modes and insane challenges and missions. It takes practice at the beginning (which might be frustrating) but it pays off later. The game is also good to just relax for a moment and tap away on relaxed songs. Non-the-less, I play 8 Button Mode on x4 speed without failure, that's pretty rewarding on lvl10 songs. I still play every single one of them on a regular basis (still haven't 100% complete them all).
- Dark Souls I guess this is the perfect hard/challenging balance in a game for me. Eventhough I die over and over, this game doesn't piss me off. You learn from your mistakes and progress in the game inch by inch. It is a RPG but it doesn't really makes you grind on monsters to progress if you get stuck. Not to forget the boss monsters that make you crap your pants, affecting your gameplay. It's hard to explain, but this game wants you DEAD, and still you want to keep playing it.
- Ikaruga Probably the best 'bullethell' game out there. I like these kind of games, but this one is just epic. Google it or watch some video's on youtube, it rocks. Do any of you guys know any good, new 'bullethell' games? I'm considering DoDonPachi Resurrection, but I don't know if it's good or not... Ofcourse I've played the Gradius series as well. They are fun to play but they get boring pretty easily.
- The Halo Series I pretty much grew up with these games. Ever since I played one on Legendary I never switched back. The AI is just unlike any other. I don't really like these basic shooters, but this one had it's own feel to it you can't find in any other game.
- Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, 0 and Code: Veronica X I just love these game. I just do. Horror games are just my thing. Especially these. I haven't really played them all, but I'm going to very soon.
- Castle Crashers Not really hard, challenging would be the right word. Just fun to play with friends, hack 'n slash fun.
- Bayonetta Interesting game if you ask me. A unique style. But very challenging with an interesting fighting engine.
- Many, many of my NES-games I hope I can assume you guys understand why.

I bet I could name more if I take the time to think about it...
I always wanted to play Chrono Trigger, but I want it complete and as neat as possible, for my collection. Haven't really found an affordable one. I'm gonna try Super Meat Boy, it looks cool.

[trosh]

oh yeah, super meat boy is fun. And it becomes more and more just farm the shit out of levels until you get them right / achieve stuff / find hidden shit.
Awesome graphics, awesome gameplay.

[Hen Barrison]

The Worlds hardest Game(s) Is defIantly a very dIffucult set of games.

Although, they are a very frustratIng dIffucult.

[LightningFire]

Trollface: The Game
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534318

[renhoek]

I'd have to say the minigames in mario party

no but seriously...
I'd have to say oddworld - abe's oddysee
and - abe's exodus
mainly because it's a game from my childhood that I hold so dearly, I even favour it over mario!
I could never beat them when I was little so I always cheated and found all the secrets on my own, now I can beat them both 100%
but I still keep having trouble beating those games.

... And mario kart wii Tho I see it as "cheep" difficulty.

[rokit]

I'd have to say oddworld - abe's oddysee

I secind

[tesselode]

Don't get me started on Mario Kart Wii. The game is significantly worse because of the rubberband AI.