Excellent as always you've really become my favourite retro reviewer.there was a game on genesis where you was an angel and was a side scrolling shooter it was so so so hard .think it began with "p" but not hundred percent sure. Try that one
Stormlord for Genesis is the all-time hardest game I've ever played on Sega in my opinion. Beautiful game that kinda like a Heavy Metal meets ghost& goblins
I was horrendously bad at Hellfire, but it was an all time favorite of mine. I still remember getting it from a Toy Liquidators discount bin when I was a kid, getting home and asking my dad if we could play the game through the home stereo system's four massive surround sound speakers. Wow, what an impressive display of sounds in that game. That weekend me and my siblings played Hellfire and Truxton so loud that we rattled tea cups off my mom's display cabinet in the family room. To this day my mom doesn't know how many we had to glue together.
I passed The Lion King, Earthworm Jim, Splatterhouse 2 etc. on my Megadrive when I was 12 or 13 and my Friends told me, those are pretty hard Games - but, now with 38 - I still have Troubles with not so hard Games like Contra 3 and Megaman X on SNES... I like your Content, SLX - you really catch me every Time!
@@censored1080 nowadays I play Earthworm Jim and Lion King and try to beat them again on my SNES classic (very recommended system!) - it's even more difficult because both have a cropped display from the lower resolution. But, now I COULD use savestates ;-)
I thought I remember reading that the Genesis version of Shadow of the Beast was also not optimized for NTSC. So it runs faster than intended. That doesn't help the difficulty.
I would also add Kid Chameleon, Gaiares, Phelios, Out of this World, E-Swat, Dick Tracy, Sub-Terrania, Alisia Dragoon, Ecco Tides of Time, Desert Strike, X-Men 2: Clone Wars and Rocket Knight Adventures.
Shadow of the Beast tips: 1) You are playing with a wrong region, thus the game is oddly sped up. Switch to Europe or Japan. 2) Use Japanese rom / cartridge from the get go. It has better graphics and much better controls. 3) In the Japanese version your can increase life to 18 HP to make things easier (or reduce it to 6 for hardcore, - which is, nonetheless, VERY feasible, once you memorize the game) 4) Add Amiga color rom hack to the Japanese rom - and you're in oldschool heaven.
I know the Mega CD version of the sequel is by far superior to the MD port but what about the first game? Is the MD port considered a good port of the Amiga game?
@@pferreira1983 Yes, it is more than a good port - if you use the Japanese version AND the Amiga color hack. It will play, look and feel almost identical to Amiga, if you do the two things above. However, the MD version (just like every other port) simplifies graphics: a lot of decorative detail that beautifully graces the levels in the Amiga version has been simply cut out. This is particularly striking if you are used to Amiga version and remember it by heart. Also, the sound/music in the Megadrive cartridge is stripped to the bare bones. (Japanese version sounds a little better than EU/US). Having that said, - other ports destroy the graphics, style and atmosphere of the game to a completely unacceptable degree. Some ports do have a CD-soundtrack, which often is not bad - but still loses to the Amiga, even despite orchestration. Everything else, however - is botched in any other port. From graphics to gameplay. The Megadrive version (Japan+color hack) is as close as you can get to the proper game experience. And thus, it is not a good port: it the BEST port, by an intergalactic mile.
@@pferreira1983 Alas, i can't say anything about Master System, cause i was never into 8-bit gaming. I just couldn't understand the attraction, especially with such an insane quality chasm between the favorite arcades and the questionable 8bit reiterations. (or anything else those early consoles could conjure up, for that matter)
Fatal Labyrinth is pretty easy when you understand the enemies and equipment. I haven’t played it for a while but I seem to remember the important things are to never get surrounded, and to always explore the entire floor to kill everything, which keeps your level high and makes the later enemies much easier.
sergio trajano I've got insomnia myself bud & running doesn't help I'm afraid I've got a physical job & after a hard day even with overtime if the insomnia strikes you aren't sleeping. It's something you need to experience for yourself I've heard many a time to do this & do that to get to sleep & it just doesn't work. Although you know people are only trying to help you end up getting angry at there advice,insomnia is fucking horrible if it was just a case of going for a run or something then you'd do it you'd do anything to get to sleep in the end it really is awful.
Barbara Mawson you are 100% correct. With me it is a anxiety thing. I can be dog completely exhausted after working out and still not be able to sleep. My brain just won’t shut off. It really sucks.
sergio trajano thank you I'll keep looking but like Allen said in the comment above it's a mental thing you can be absolutely 100% shattered you're whole body feels like it's going to shut down but your mind is going a million miles an hour well that's how it is with me & others I've spoke to that suffer with it,it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy I'm just glad I only get it sporadically & when under stress I don't think I could cope if it was constant like some people I can't (& don't want to) imagine how horrendous that must be. Thanks for the empathy though mate I appreciate it.
i remember beating some of those games as a kid, thinking now: oh they were not that hard... but back then we had nothing better to do. my friends and i had a couple of games each, and we sat through them fuckers, we clocked in the hours.
The first Sonic the Hedgehog was pretty challenging, but I wouldn't put it in with the likes of the other games you talked about. Maybe "deceptively difficult", if it looks really easy, would describe it better than "really difficult". Great video though! I didn't know about a lot of these games!
@@SegaLordX I find Sonic 2 a lot harder in that regard. Tails always drops the rings I collect! You do have more chances in Sonic 2, but if you're not willing to backtrack and just play the levels normally, I still think Sonic 1 is easier. Once you get the hang of the controls in the S1 bonus games, they're not so bad imo.
@@BabusGameRoom I got used to Sonic 2 special stages more easily than Sonic 1s. I guess I got better at timing my jumps or movements to mitigate the times Tails got hit. Some of earlier ones I had enough rings as sonic alone to pass.
Sword of Sodan. Uh... No internet back in the day to steer you away from crap games. I was in Toys R Us with $50 burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought that one based on the screenshots on the back of the box. Colorful graphics... huge sprites... oh, what a fool I was.
I'm amazed I didn't have that experience much more often back in the day considering how often I got games based on the screen shots and other such things, but I've been there. I can understand how Sword of Sodan can look appealing when it's not in motion.
@@ravagingwolverine The worst part was that I was 16 at the time and working a part-time minimum wage job. It took me a month to save up for one game cart, and I blew my money on that stinker. Gah! It wasn't all bad. I played pretty far into it since I had nothing better to do. There was some fun to be had. I wish I could remember what became of the cart. I bet I traded it in for something else at a later time.
Sword of Sodan had just one good thing going for it, which I took full advantage of. It came in a cardboard box rather than a plastic case, which, if you cut open the shrink wrap very carefully with a razor blade and then taped it shut again with very clear tape, you could trick the clerk at K-B Toys into refunding your purchase as an unopened copy, which is exactly what I did after I played it. What an absolute piece of garbage. My experience almost wasting $60 on it fostered within me a deep hatred for Electronic Arts that is still with me to this day.
Trust me when I say that the SNES version of "The Lion King" is even more difficult due to the screen resolution and game-breaking bugs (No, not the kind that Timon and Puumba love to eat) that keep the game from being easily beaten, especially since I always had a difficult time trying to get past the second stage, though I have no trouble playing through the game in the Sega Genesis version.
There’s a great video by @implantgames on how The Lion King is actually a shit game - it’s so unfair has a ridiculous learning curve. I still think the game is beautiful but it really plays like garbage IMO
@@jaymzx2587 And yet it got so much praise... My guess is this is because it was probably the only movie-license game since Batman on the NES to be more than a smoking pile of bovine feces... On that note, NES Batman is absolutely epic. Hard as balls, but epic. That wonderful Sunsoft music too :P
@@jaymzx2587 - it's about time somebody said it. The Lion King is a horrible game, and it seems like most people never noticed. Probably because they never got past the second stage.
Apparently the reason the Lion King game was so bad was due to the fact that the original movie wasn't even done yet when the game started production. Like that boss at the end of the Hakuna Matata stage was originally supposed to be from a scene in the movie that got cut in the final edit. Also allegedly Disney wanted them to make certain parts intentionally more difficult, as that was the classic industry way to pad out a game back then. I wish I remember where I read about this, it might have even been a comment by someone who worked on the game on a video about the game, I can't find it now.
@@knightshousegames From what I understand it was a case of making the game harder on purpose for rental, in case anybody rented the game and completed it.
Starlight Zone in the original Sonic is an odd "breather" stage that comes after a series of tedious and difficult stages (especially the previous zone, Labyrinth Zone, ugh) and is much easier than them. Not to mention the excellent calm soundtrack. Best stage in the game. Also, no Kid Chameleon or Robocop vs Terminator?
The biggest problem with Shadow of the Beast on Sega consoles (SMS and MD) is that the playability wasn't as tight as it should have been, until i tried the PC Engine CD and the Amiga 500 versions i wasn't aware of the huge difference. But yeah, it was a brutal game in every platform.
It's got some hit detection issues that really make you mad. The game is unforgiving in its design, so any added challenge due to its shortcomings was completely unwelcome.
People actually think the first Sonic the Hedgehog is tough? That's surprising to me, cause i think its the easiest one in the franchise. I also think its the easiest collect all the chaos emeralds.
Yeah, agreed. Collecting the chaos emeralds was always easy for me in 1 and 2, even as rentals. I had a harder time collecting them all in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
Had to add another comment with regards to Fatal Labyrinth. Another excellent pick for an extremely hard game that was a console precursor to Diablo and other modern day Rogue-like games. I'm still working on trying to beat that game but a trick I learned is when you have unidentified armor, scrolls, potions, and accessories I will take a chance tossing them at enemies so afterwards it will reveal what the item does as opposed to you testing on yourself and risking death or dangerous curses that make the game harder than it already is. Again, fantastic episode as always! :)
One of the best games on the Mega Drive and one of my favourites: Toejam & Earl. So difficult to complete considering you needed the whole day to play it, as there were no save games, and ideally a friend helping out as player 2 as playing by yourself was even harder!
I gotta shout out Red Zone for one of the hardest Mega Drive games. I am just, absolutely bewildered as to how anyone can play it. Found it at a pawnshop as a kid drawn in by it's screenshots and got utterly decimated instantly in the first level. It's like a much more brutal version of the Desert/Jungle/Urban Strike games. Your helicopter is a large target, you can't see very far ahead at any time (tho you do have a radar), movement and turning is sluggish and there's no strafing, your health gets shredded through in seconds with the first enemy you encounter and if you manage to somehow survive that you're not gonna last much longer because this game went the realistic route of having your chopper's individual components get damaged in battle, resulting in you losing weapons that get too damaged to use and even screwing with your controls, such as having your helicopter always drifting off to the left or right, basically guaranteeing that you're not surviving any longer since you're having to fight the drift slowing you down in an already sluggish vehicle. Even harsher, despite how quickly you die, you only get one life and dying even once sends you straight to it's chilling game over sequence informing you that the earth has entered a nuclear winter and all life is doomed to die out. I managed to beat the first mission once somehow. What followed was a genre shift as you take control of a character on foot, which I don't remember much of but recall being also extremely rough. It's got great music and amazing special effects reminiscent of Adventures of Batman & Robin, and I've heard some praise saying that Red Zone is a good game, but I always found it completely unplayable and can't get anywhere with it. Other games I remember being hard: Sonic Spinball (actually just beat it for the first time recently) Mickey Mania Alien Soldier The New Zealand Story Revenge of Shinobi
@@Rayofficial13565 eh that's a bit of a bold statement, it's a great game but Rogue's complexity is still something not commonly reproduced outside of roguelike's like tome nethack and powder
The game, that gave me a run for the money was Wolverine Adamantium Rage. A friend of mine played it with another friend and they somehow finshied it. He told me aout this game and spoke highly. So I bought it and gave it a go. I can't tell, if I ever saw the 2nd level. Even with the friend, who told me about the game, it was nearly impossible to get to the end of that first level. Let alone the end of the game. Another game, that I've never beaten is Dynamite Headdy. It's a fun and cute game, but it has also its moments to wreck a good run.
I hated it on the mac too. THen years went by and I saw the name... DARK CASTLE. Whoa! What a badass name! Then I heard the music and level select screen. "I think I found my favorite new game!" then I played the game.
Sega Lord x you are a true sega fan like I am. I packed bags at a grocery store at the age of 14 to buy my first sega genesis. My mom bought me and my brother a sega master system in 1986 for Christmas, boy was I a happy kid. My favorite all time master system game is wonder boy 3 the dragons trap. They now have a remake but I prefer the original. Keep you videos coming. I a fan and think your pretty funny👍
Dark Castle isn't too bad on the original Macintosh. However, it had aged and was horribly converted to subsequent platforms. Also, why is Sonic 1 in there? I could understand an argument for S3+K, but not that game. Fatal Labyrinth was also a hair tearingly frustrating game. Due to inability to plan ahead due to randomised levels, and quick deaths due to bad RNG.
I beat everything as a kid because I would always memorize and keep trying until I did. Now as a old man I get frustrated and say how the heck did I do this at 10yrs old. And literally memorize every secret and level layout...😂 Dedication I reckon
When I saw a video about Genesis hard games, the first to come in mind is, aways, Shadow of the Beast. It's a good game (not excellent), with an amazing art and unfair challenge. Know none that beat it without cheat... and I know very skilled folks. Sword of Sodan is a crap game... it's unfair to list it. Remember how I hyped it by magazines screenshots. Sonic is an easy game... it just have a design catch, that is the pace slows at every stage. If the player tries to go all the game like Green Hill Zone the game will be hard... if played as any other 2d plataformer it will be very easy. And the bonus stages only require patience and some previous knowledge... what was easy by 4th gen standards.
Another hard 2D shooter for the Genesis is Raiden Trad. The game has checkpoints it sends you back to when you die, and with all your powerups gone (unless you play on Easy, then you only get a couple of them back). Keep in mind that it takes about a full stage without dying to get to max power. Given the arcade version's brutal and punishing difficulty, the Genesis version didn't cut you much slack in that regard. There's also a special stage at the end of the game exclusive to this version that is one of the hardest stages I've ever played. You need to come in fully powered-up with a maxed-out bomb stock, and beat the whole stage without dying. Once you die, the enemies are way too powerful to recover. Even with savestates I can't beat it.
The core game, I'd agree. But Sonic 1 could still be hard when taking the chaos emeralds into account. And remember, these episodes are about the journey. They aren't be all, end all lists that automatically discount other games. Nothing stopping Sonic 3 from being in the next video. :)
I always assume that if I can beat a game, it’s not that hard. Sonic 1, even with all of the chaos emeralds, never seemed that hard to me. The rest of the games in this video are brutal, though.
So you could blast through it, collect all 6 chaos emeralds, and see the real ending with no trouble? Impressive. Some of the chaos special stages alone were brutally hard.
@@SegaLordX I can easily grab 4 chaos emeralds by the end of marble zone. The last 2 chaos emeralds are the hardest ones. Oddly I always found the chaos emeralds easier to get in sonic 1 then in sonic 2 an that darn halfpipe.
I could usually get 3 or 4 pretty easily as well, but the later regular stages made getting to the special stages tough. If I missed an opportunity for a chaos emerald late, it usually meant the bad ending for me.
Dark Castle baffles me that it's considered a "game" since it's unplayable. I don't get it when people say The Lion King is too hard, for me it was just right and it took me about two rentals to beat it before I owned it later on. The rest of the video I would say is spot on, especially Sonic The Hedgehog.
Lion King and Sonic are definitely some of those games where repetition breeds success though. I remember me and my mate could finish them quite easily after a while back when we were kids. And it's not like we had much choice but to play the same games over and over again back then. :)
I think that is what mainly separates the people that look at these kinds of lists. Were you a kid stuck with these games for months on end and played it to death, getting so good you could beat it in your sleep? Or were you the kid who that got their ass whooped a few times, had other games to play, and just moved on?
I am amazed you havent talked about Sub-Terrania. That game kicks my ass. Constantly running out of fuel, enemies that take way too many hits, trying to keep your ship afloat as youre spraying bullets at enemies way faster than you. and the mission objectives are confusing
One of the hardest games I've ever played on the Genesis was Wings of Wor. It's a super trippy side-scrolling shooter with this weird fantasy/mythological theming, and i have never been able to legitimately get past level 3. Worth taking a look at for a future episode!
@@SegaLordX For sure!! If you're interested in difficult (but not BS difficulty) Sega CD games, I recommend taking a look at Dungeon Explorer, as well! I loved this video and I'm looking forward to your next one!
@@QuestionBlockGaming One of the games that look so good on Sega CD is Popful Mail, but this one was a platforming game. Not a hard game as I havent played but it looks real good and I suddenly remembered it since you mentioned the Sega CD. Oh and the game is really expensive too. I hate that alot of these top tier Sega CD and Saturn games are so damn pricey in these retro stores.
Arrow flash, gynoug, musha aleste, undead line, gaiares and assault suit leynos were a few shooters that used to kick my ass until I had to git gud. Ahh good old days. 👌
Out of this list I've only played The Lion King and Sonic and completed both legit without cheats. I think The Lion King was the second game I've owned on the console after Aladdin, and it was a blast. As a kid I remember having some trouble but got to the point where I mastered it and completed it every time after then. Same with Sonic. It felt good to finally get all the chaos emeralds and experience the true ending eventually. Sometimes when people say these games are hard I wonder what they're talking about but I guess I forgot of what I went through as a kid don't realize others haven't yet mastered them.
Sonic 1 is my favourite of the Genesis bunch, I'm surprised to hear it being that hard. It was my first game I ever played and owned, so I guess I should count in experience with that. Though I think of Comix Zone, Alien Soldier, and a bunch of other stuff before I'd think of Sonic 1, in that regard.
I always love finding lists like these to add most of the games to my collection. More often than not though the difficulty is usually different from one person to another. If the game is designed well, the difficulty fades really quick. If the difficulty is from shrewd design, ridiculous enemy placement and just plain punishment for the sake of extending the game (lion king) it's not really what I would call a worthwhile challenge. If there's ways to learn from what took you out before and make progress every time, that's good design. Hagane is one that speaks out to that. It was on top of a lot of lists and I sought out a copy. It was difficult at first but it wouldn't crack a top 10 for me at all.
If you need suggestions for difficult shooters, what about Subterrania? Trial and error levels, limited fuel, gravity that gets progressively stronger each level, and very few lives/continues. Looking forward to the Sega CD video! I'll be very surprised if a few FMV games aren't present - Night Trap, Road Avenger and so on were really punishing.
Fatal Labyrinth. I had that one and I did like it. If you play it enough, you realize the level layouts (maps) are limited, but repeating every so often. One could probably label the maps by how they're shaped. It seems like it had 100 floors, and you could learn which maps and/or levels had the trap-doors and where they were, and which ones had the warps that'd let you skip some number of floors. Of course, you miss out on building the XP... It seems like Level 20 was a big open room. Level 99 was always the same too. And it seems like it took 3 or 4 hours to playthrough in one sitting, and I don't recall if it had passwords to let you continue. I'm pretty sure it didn't.
I remember being super excited to be upgrading to 16-bit on a family vacation not long after both Genesis and the TG16 came out. I'll never understand why, but I bought the Turbo and Legendary Axe. That night in our hotel room I was devastated because it didn't feel like a big jump up to me. I've never had so much deflated hype. The next day I got my dad to talk the Toys R Us into letting me return it, swapped for a Genesis and Ghouls N Ghosts. I played it in our RV for the entire 10 hour trip home, which passed in a blink of an eye. To the day it's one of my favorite games of all time! And yeah, it's tough :) I'm not saying TG16 is bad by the way, but I just wasn't impressed at the time.
I loved my Turbografx when I got it. It was so impressive over the NES, graphically. I agree though, most of its games at the time weren't as impressive as the Genesis.
@@SegaLordX yeah, and I was a huge Altered Beast and Ghosts N Goblins fan, so I really can't fathom why I didn't pick the Sega first. Must have been advertising or something. But I will say I never regretted getting the Genesis after.
I had Dragon Crystal on the Game Gear, which is the 8-bit sibling of Fatal Labyrinth. I really liked it at first, despite the weird game design which was quite foreign to me. I would play again and again to see how far I'd get. And I got pretty far until some bad items and bad status effects along with overpowered enemies took me from full power to dead in a few seconds. I've never experienced gamer rage quite like that. I thought it was bad luck. I revisited that one in an emulator a couple of years ago and learned that the game ramps up the difficulty very sharply. I don't know if I could get my character strong enough for the late stages, and I tried fighting everything. I can imagine Fatal Labyrinth being similar.
I could easily do The Lion King on the SNES when I was 10 but try it now and no hope I'd reckon. I had loads of time back then and no other new games to play so I got good at it. As for Ghouls N Ghosts, got through it once around the same age, by the skin of my teeth, and I threw the controller down in frustation and dismay when I found out I had to play it through again at the end, I just about got through it once! It had to go back to the rental shop later that day so one completed playthrough was the farthest I ever got. Tough games but you definitely felt a sense of accomplishment after you beat them. Maybe if I had have owned GNG's I could've gotten through the 2 playthroughs, who knows though.
Hey SegaLord X, I notice you threw Whip Rush in, butall your footage shows your speed at the same level the entire time. Part of doing well in Whip Rush is managing your speed and learning what speed to be at during specific parts. I think the C button manages it, I havent played in a while, but give it another go if you ever have time and experiment with your speed!
I'm bad with the speed set to slow or fast. I can get through the tight bits a little better slower, but then on the other side I'm wrecked by enemies anyway.
@@SegaLordX Hahaha, its all about learning to adjust it as you go and also learning the level layout. You're definitely on the right track by slowing down on the tighter parts. Too much speed is what causes you to throw your ship into a wall or ceiling or whatever. I don't see a lot of people talking about this game ever, and this is one of my favorite games ever! I've had it since I was like 5 and absolutely love it. Thanks for covering it!
Great stuff man but something is bugging me, I have to ask : Did you use some smoothing filter while recording ? I had already noticed it during your Mega Sg review. I don't know man, some of this footage looks blurry, these are not sharp pixels.
Did you know it has a sequel with an even better soundtrack?! I just found out about it a couple years ago. I listen to the soundtrack all the time. Check out the level 1 music. ua-cam.com/video/vEF6oyZI-bA/v-deo.html
Shadow of the Beast is hard, but it's much harder in the US because it's another one of those games (like Back to the Future III) where they took a 50hz PAL game and didn't bother to reprogram it, so it runs about 20% faster than it's supposed to.
I thought every game on the Genesis was difficult. Sega prided themselves on giving their games and edge, putting them just out of a normal person's reach. You had to focus and be cool to beat them.
I hadn't played a Sega mega drive game since the mid 90s until the mini Mega drive was released and it's really noticeable just how unforgivingly hard many of the games are. Lots of one hit deaths!!
Sonic the hedgehog is not that hard to play through (albeit incredibly frustrating at times). The really hard bit is collecting all the chaos emeralds. I'd say exactly the same thing about Sonic 2.
Games in general were very difficult back then especially arcade games because they were meant to steal people’s money and be nearly impossible to beat.
Beavis and Butt-Head for the Genesis! I NEVER got to find all the Ticket Pieces for the GWAR Concert! That level where WWE's "Ultimate Warrior" theme music is playing and you are CONSTANTLY running into Health Packs (THAT KILL YOU!) and being chased by a GIANT FAT NAKED MAN IN A DIAPER while driving what looked like a golf cart through a Hospital was as far as I ever got! R.I.P. Dave Brockie and Cory Smoot!
The Lion King always got me at Stage 2 when you're on the Emu running, it was exteremely difficult to time your jumps perfectly to get the bird to jump either over the tree branch or go under it, it had to be pixel perfect and that was the most frustrating part of the entire game. Strangely as the game goes on it gets easier and once you've grown into an adult Lion the game becomes more laid back. I don't agree on Sonic 1 being in this list, I can see how the enemy placements can be a little frustrating at times but I don't think it's overly difficult to get through, but then again, I have played this game to death! Every Sonic 1 hack that comes out where only the Green Hill Zone has been altered leaving the rest of the game the way it's always been in the original and going through that each time for each hack out there really helps in memorization and quick timing. Dark Castle and Sword Of Sodan are just horrible! Not even worth firing up for a quick try. Thank you for another video Sir SegaLordX.
Well, like I said in the video, Sonic 1 was difficult when it came to getting all the chaos emeralds in a single run. The stages and bosses themselves posed little issue, otherwise.
@@SegaLordX My lord, you don't have to justify your thoughts and opinions on these games to little ol' me, as much as I love agreeing with you, I also enjoy disagreeing with you at times, that's what makes things interesting. I agreed all the way with you in the video until it got to Sonic 1. I was actually taken by surprise when I saw Sonic come up but we are all different and I guess I really don't consider Sonic 1 to be a hard game. I feel it's not in the same league as some of the other games you put in this list but thank you for letting me express my opinion all the same.
Shadow of the Beast = Hardest Genesis game I owned! And one of only 2 games I ever traded away - because it was so hard! The other game I traded was Crackdown and that was because it was such a bad arcade conversation. Anyway, another great video, SLX
1:26 Abe’s Oddysee does this. It wants you to play a certain way. If you get good you can blast through it. Those two Oddworld ps one games and Stranger’s Wrath are all time favorites of mine.
What i remember being hard about Lion King is Scar. I've beaten whole game several times all the way to Scar but could not figure out how to defeat him, so I never could finish that game.
@@TheElisaDay thanks 4 d info. I really hated it as a kid when I spent so many hours playing the game and not being able to beat the last enemy and finish d game - it just wasn't fair. Similar case was with Aladdin.
The way I was able to beat Shadow of the beast was from starting point go right and go into the castle to get the gun then return back to starting area to get the key etc and then go back to castle to beat it,was super super hard game
Totally agree with Shadow of the Beast although you may want to go play the second game on the Amiga,try playing an even harder game using a joystick I broke several Zipstick (my favourite joystick) playing that. Up to jump is one of the most annoying things in gaming I really don't know how we coped so long like that,whoever thought of adding a second button to controller is a saint.
Shadow of the Beast was a botched conversion that ran 16.7% too fast. The original Amiga game was my brutal introduction to gaming way back in 1989 so it has a special place in my heart
Isn't Fatal Labrynth a roguelike? I thought that was a given lol. Good one tho, it's fun and has some unique twists. Only played it for the first time recently. (Oh you mention it's a roguelike right at the end lol)
*Spoilers* Fatal Labyrinth's stupidly easy once you exploit the bow equip bug - don't equip any armour, and once you find two bows, equip both one after the other, to reduce your armour class to... 99, as long as you don't equip any further bows or armour. There's also a supposed weapon glitch where if you pick something up, drop it and then pick it up again, you get its power along with the accuracy of fists (but you have to repeat it every level). The problems with Fatal Labyrinth stem from the pits back to previous levels (after level 11, I believe), the ability to get cornered, getting slept/confused/teleported/made ill a lot, the random value awarded by eating food which can lead to overeating or even death, the random canes/potions/scrolls/rings, swords and money items which are more likely to become ghosts, and the lack of musical variety - the same theme for nine or ten levels. Of course, without using either exploit above, it becomes a very tedious, frustrating and tactical crawl (enemies don't move until you move or change direction), rather than a particularly difficult one. Still, I've never played a game since where the money has a singular purpose - to provide a better grave and more mourners upon death. :)
Here are Parts 1 and 2.
Part 2:
ua-cam.com/video/ZPBhP-lQ3MQ/v-deo.html
Part 1:
ua-cam.com/video/nLiBBCcKnfk/v-deo.html
Excellent as always you've really become my favourite retro reviewer.there was a game on genesis where you was an angel and was a side scrolling shooter it was so so so hard .think it began with "p" but not hundred percent sure. Try that one
This is without a doubt one of my favourite channels, extremely well written and very interesting content, brilliant stuff.
Sonic 1 is perfect to me.especially considering there's no saves. This game is criminally underrated by people who just wanna brain dead spin dash 😔😢
You planning on a part 4 SLX?
Stormlord for Genesis is the all-time hardest game I've ever played on Sega in my opinion. Beautiful game that kinda like a Heavy Metal meets ghost& goblins
I was horrendously bad at Hellfire, but it was an all time favorite of mine. I still remember getting it from a Toy Liquidators discount bin when I was a kid, getting home and asking my dad if we could play the game through the home stereo system's four massive surround sound speakers. Wow, what an impressive display of sounds in that game. That weekend me and my siblings played Hellfire and Truxton so loud that we rattled tea cups off my mom's display cabinet in the family room. To this day my mom doesn't know how many we had to glue together.
I passed The Lion King, Earthworm Jim, Splatterhouse 2 etc. on my Megadrive when I was 12 or 13 and my Friends told me, those are pretty hard Games - but, now with 38 - I still have Troubles with not so hard Games like Contra 3 and Megaman X on SNES... I like your Content, SLX - you really catch me every Time!
Earthworm Jim becomes a lot easier when you realize most of the tougher enemies can be killed in one hit with the whip.
This includes the final boss.
@@censored1080 nowadays I play Earthworm Jim and Lion King and try to beat them again on my SNES classic (very recommended system!) - it's even more difficult because both have a cropped display from the lower resolution. But, now I COULD use savestates ;-)
I thought I remember reading that the Genesis version of Shadow of the Beast was also not optimized for NTSC. So it runs faster than intended. That doesn't help the difficulty.
Yes, it was originally an Amiga title, and developed in the UK. So made for 50Hz PAL.
I would also add Kid Chameleon, Gaiares, Phelios, Out of this World, E-Swat, Dick Tracy, Sub-Terrania, Alisia Dragoon, Ecco Tides of Time, Desert Strike, X-Men 2: Clone Wars and Rocket Knight Adventures.
Shadow of the Beast tips:
1) You are playing with a wrong region, thus the game is oddly sped up.
Switch to Europe or Japan.
2) Use Japanese rom / cartridge from the get go.
It has better graphics and much better controls.
3) In the Japanese version your can increase life to 18 HP to make things easier
(or reduce it to 6 for hardcore, - which is, nonetheless, VERY feasible, once you
memorize the game)
4) Add Amiga color rom hack to the Japanese rom - and you're in oldschool heaven.
I know the Mega CD version of the sequel is by far superior to the MD port but what about the first game? Is the MD port considered a good port of the Amiga game?
@@pferreira1983
Yes, it is more than a good port - if you use the Japanese version AND the Amiga
color hack. It will play, look and feel almost identical to Amiga, if you do the two
things above. However, the MD version (just like every other port) simplifies graphics:
a lot of decorative detail that beautifully graces the levels in the Amiga version has
been simply cut out. This is particularly striking if you are used to Amiga
version and remember it by heart. Also, the sound/music in the Megadrive
cartridge is stripped to the bare bones.
(Japanese version sounds a little better than EU/US).
Having that said, - other ports destroy the graphics, style and atmosphere of the
game to a completely unacceptable degree. Some ports do have a CD-soundtrack,
which often is not bad - but still loses to the Amiga, even despite orchestration.
Everything else, however - is botched in any other port. From graphics to gameplay.
The Megadrive version (Japan+color hack) is as close as you can get to the proper
game experience. And thus, it is not a good port: it the BEST port, by an intergalactic mile.
@@HexenStar Cool. I heard the Master System version overcomplicated the gameplay somewhat.
@@pferreira1983 Alas, i can't say anything about Master System, cause i was never into 8-bit gaming.
I just couldn't understand the attraction, especially with such an insane quality chasm
between the favorite arcades and the questionable 8bit reiterations. (or anything else those
early consoles could conjure up, for that matter)
@@HexenStar Apparently while the game takes a nosedive in graphics (obviously) they introduced an inventory system that doesn't work properly.
Fatal Labyrinth is pretty easy when you understand the enemies and equipment. I haven’t played it for a while but I seem to remember the important things are to never get surrounded, and to always explore the entire floor to kill everything, which keeps your level high and makes the later enemies much easier.
Wise words.
Excellent advice, and by fully exploring you will often fall back a floor so that you can grind a bit more experience!
The only thing good about insomnia is catching the new Sega Lord X vid!!
Glad I could help. :)
Go running man, long distance run, this will help you sleep i Hope. Best wishes..
sergio trajano I've got insomnia myself bud & running doesn't help I'm afraid I've got a physical job & after a hard day even with overtime if the insomnia strikes you aren't sleeping. It's something you need to experience for yourself I've heard many a time to do this & do that to get to sleep & it just doesn't work. Although you know people are only trying to help you end up getting angry at there advice,insomnia is fucking horrible if it was just a case of going for a run or something then you'd do it you'd do anything to get to sleep in the end it really is awful.
Barbara Mawson you are 100% correct. With me it is a anxiety thing. I can be dog completely exhausted after working out and still not be able to sleep. My brain just won’t shut off. It really sucks.
sergio trajano thank you I'll keep looking but like Allen said in the comment above it's a mental thing you can be absolutely 100% shattered you're whole body feels like it's going to shut down but your mind is going a million miles an hour well that's how it is with me & others I've spoke to that suffer with it,it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy I'm just glad I only get it sporadically & when under stress I don't think I could cope if it was constant like some people I can't (& don't want to) imagine how horrendous that must be. Thanks for the empathy though mate I appreciate it.
i remember beating some of those games as a kid, thinking now: oh they were not that hard... but back then we had nothing better to do. my friends and i had a couple of games each, and we sat through them fuckers, we clocked in the hours.
The Lion King is Brutally visually cute, the man's not wrong.
On SNES it's much harder because of the cropped Screen...
The first Sonic the Hedgehog was pretty challenging, but I wouldn't put it in with the likes of the other games you talked about. Maybe "deceptively difficult", if it looks really easy, would describe it better than "really difficult".
Great video though! I didn't know about a lot of these games!
Beating Sonic 1 isn't really all that hard. Beating Sonic and collecting every chaos emerald is the challenge.
@@SegaLordX I find Sonic 2 a lot harder in that regard. Tails always drops the rings I collect!
You do have more chances in Sonic 2, but if you're not willing to backtrack and just play the levels normally, I still think Sonic 1 is easier. Once you get the hang of the controls in the S1 bonus games, they're not so bad imo.
@@BabusGameRoom You know you can play Sonic 2 without Tails right?
@@BabusGameRoom I got used to Sonic 2 special stages more easily than Sonic 1s. I guess I got better at timing my jumps or movements to mitigate the times Tails got hit. Some of earlier ones I had enough rings as sonic alone to pass.
@@tylerensminger I guess I just persevered through Sonic 1 and gave up with Sonic 2...haha
Sword of Sodan. Uh... No internet back in the day to steer you away from crap games. I was in Toys R Us with $50 burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought that one based on the screenshots on the back of the box. Colorful graphics... huge sprites... oh, what a fool I was.
I'm amazed I didn't have that experience much more often back in the day considering how often I got games based on the screen shots and other such things, but I've been there. I can understand how Sword of Sodan can look appealing when it's not in motion.
@@ravagingwolverine The worst part was that I was 16 at the time and working a part-time minimum wage job. It took me a month to save up for one game cart, and I blew my money on that stinker. Gah! It wasn't all bad. I played pretty far into it since I had nothing better to do. There was some fun to be had. I wish I could remember what became of the cart. I bet I traded it in for something else at a later time.
Sword of Sodan had just one good thing going for it, which I took full advantage of. It came in a cardboard box rather than a plastic case, which, if you cut open the shrink wrap very carefully with a razor blade and then taped it shut again with very clear tape, you could trick the clerk at K-B Toys into refunding your purchase as an unopened copy, which is exactly what I did after I played it. What an absolute piece of garbage. My experience almost wasting $60 on it fostered within me a deep hatred for Electronic Arts that is still with me to this day.
That game and the people who made it can eat shit.
Trust me when I say that the SNES version of "The Lion King" is even more difficult due to the screen resolution and game-breaking bugs (No, not the kind that Timon and Puumba love to eat) that keep the game from being easily beaten, especially since I always had a difficult time trying to get past the second stage, though I have no trouble playing through the game in the Sega Genesis version.
There’s a great video by @implantgames on how The Lion King is actually a shit game - it’s so unfair has a ridiculous learning curve. I still think the game is beautiful but it really plays like garbage IMO
@@jaymzx2587 And yet it got so much praise... My guess is this is because it was probably the only movie-license game since Batman on the NES to be more than a smoking pile of bovine feces...
On that note, NES Batman is absolutely epic. Hard as balls, but epic. That wonderful Sunsoft music too :P
@@jaymzx2587 - it's about time somebody said it. The Lion King is a horrible game, and it seems like most people never noticed. Probably because they never got past the second stage.
Apparently the reason the Lion King game was so bad was due to the fact that the original movie wasn't even done yet when the game started production. Like that boss at the end of the Hakuna Matata stage was originally supposed to be from a scene in the movie that got cut in the final edit. Also allegedly Disney wanted them to make certain parts intentionally more difficult, as that was the classic industry way to pad out a game back then. I wish I remember where I read about this, it might have even been a comment by someone who worked on the game on a video about the game, I can't find it now.
@@knightshousegames From what I understand it was a case of making the game harder on purpose for rental, in case anybody rented the game and completed it.
You have to ask, why was the Lion King so hard when it was a kids game!
Starlight Zone in the original Sonic is an odd "breather" stage that comes after a series of tedious and difficult stages (especially the previous zone, Labyrinth Zone, ugh) and is much easier than them. Not to mention the excellent calm soundtrack. Best stage in the game.
Also, no Kid Chameleon or Robocop vs Terminator?
KID CHAMELEON!!!! I didn't beat that until years later on an emulator
@@johnnylove2073 There a quick warp in one of the first few stages that warps directly to the last boss. That was the only way I beat it.
@@DeludedOne yeah I saw that on one of those Sega cheat VHS tapes back in the day. I think I did it and STILL couldn't beat the game back then.
The biggest problem with Shadow of the Beast on Sega consoles (SMS and MD) is that the playability wasn't as tight as it should have been, until i tried the PC Engine CD and the Amiga 500 versions i wasn't aware of the huge difference. But yeah, it was a brutal game in every platform.
It's got some hit detection issues that really make you mad. The game is unforgiving in its design, so any added challenge due to its shortcomings was completely unwelcome.
The Genesis version of Shadow of the Beast is known to run too fast which makes it nearly impossible.
I'll mention again, the Amiga music was friggin awesome.
Fatal labyrinth is literally the OG dark souls
People actually think the first Sonic the Hedgehog is tough? That's surprising to me, cause i think its the easiest one in the franchise. I also think its the easiest collect all the chaos emeralds.
Yeah, I was pretty surprised, its definitely the easiest Sonic game on the Genesis.
Yeah, agreed. Collecting the chaos emeralds was always easy for me in 1 and 2, even as rentals. I had a harder time collecting them all in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
Had to add another comment with regards to Fatal Labyrinth. Another excellent pick for an extremely hard game that was a console precursor to Diablo and other modern day Rogue-like games. I'm still working on trying to beat that game but a trick I learned is when you have unidentified armor, scrolls, potions, and accessories I will take a chance tossing them at enemies so afterwards it will reveal what the item does as opposed to you testing on yourself and risking death or dangerous curses that make the game harder than it already is. Again, fantastic episode as always! :)
One of the best games on the Mega Drive and one of my favourites: Toejam & Earl. So difficult to complete considering you needed the whole day to play it, as there were no save games, and ideally a friend helping out as player 2 as playing by yourself was even harder!
doood that game was fkin tight !!!
I gotta shout out Red Zone for one of the hardest Mega Drive games. I am just, absolutely bewildered as to how anyone can play it. Found it at a pawnshop as a kid drawn in by it's screenshots and got utterly decimated instantly in the first level. It's like a much more brutal version of the Desert/Jungle/Urban Strike games. Your helicopter is a large target, you can't see very far ahead at any time (tho you do have a radar), movement and turning is sluggish and there's no strafing, your health gets shredded through in seconds with the first enemy you encounter and if you manage to somehow survive that you're not gonna last much longer because this game went the realistic route of having your chopper's individual components get damaged in battle, resulting in you losing weapons that get too damaged to use and even screwing with your controls, such as having your helicopter always drifting off to the left or right, basically guaranteeing that you're not surviving any longer since you're having to fight the drift slowing you down in an already sluggish vehicle. Even harsher, despite how quickly you die, you only get one life and dying even once sends you straight to it's chilling game over sequence informing you that the earth has entered a nuclear winter and all life is doomed to die out. I managed to beat the first mission once somehow. What followed was a genre shift as you take control of a character on foot, which I don't remember much of but recall being also extremely rough. It's got great music and amazing special effects reminiscent of Adventures of Batman & Robin, and I've heard some praise saying that Red Zone is a good game, but I always found it completely unplayable and can't get anywhere with it.
Other games I remember being hard:
Sonic Spinball (actually just beat it for the first time recently)
Mickey Mania
Alien Soldier
The New Zealand Story
Revenge of Shinobi
It took me 15 years to realize you could go left in shadow of the beast.
Atomic runner. Great gameplay, gorgeous backgronds, enemies and bosses, many weapons to use, nice music and difficult as no other.
Having Sonic in this video makes it a joke. The game is easy for anyone with even the faintest skill at platform games
There is this perception that Sonic is just about running from left to right which is why people find the games so hard.
Hi, not agree with lion king, its difficult but normal difficult, not that difficult, fatal labyrinth as well, just kill the fire tree with your bow !
love the diablo reference @10:13 ! fatal labyrinth was the darksouls of..no, nevermind you said it better.
good stuff, thanks!
It's almost not even a Roguelike, it very nearly is Rogue itself, with graphics and sound.
@@Rayofficial13565 eh that's a bit of a bold statement, it's a great game but Rogue's complexity is still something not commonly reproduced outside of roguelike's like tome nethack and powder
Starlight Zone music...my favorite!! Oh yea, great video too! lol
Big fan of that one, myself.
@@SegaLordX the remix with live studio instruments is also an amazing listen 👌
Always reminds me of the end credits of Sonic 1
The game, that gave me a run for the money was Wolverine Adamantium Rage. A friend of mine played it with another friend and they somehow finshied it. He told me aout this game and spoke highly. So I bought it and gave it a go. I can't tell, if I ever saw the 2nd level. Even with the friend, who told me about the game, it was nearly impossible to get to the end of that first level. Let alone the end of the game.
Another game, that I've never beaten is Dynamite Headdy. It's a fun and cute game, but it has also its moments to wreck a good run.
Mickey Mania. Beat it but damn it's hard.
I was thinking " lion King wasn't too bad" but as you went through it, I was reminded of how difficult it was.
I remember beating the Lion King as a kid in 1 sitting I don't remember it being difficult.
yeah it wasn't bad after sitting down and really learning the levels and understanding some of the odd ball levels like the stampede
Dark Castle was actually a true classic.... on the Mac. Obviously not so much on the Genesis. lol.
Yeah I remember playing it in black and white on the old Mac.
Dark castle and beyond dark castle on mac was awesome !
I hated it on the mac too. THen years went by and I saw the name... DARK CASTLE. Whoa! What a badass name! Then I heard the music and level select screen. "I think I found my favorite new game!"
then I played the game.
The older Amiga version of Sword of Sodan is easier, runs better, and looks far more extravagant
I get that impression. The Amiga version is quite liked.
Sega Lord x you are a true sega fan like I am. I packed bags at a grocery store at the age of 14 to buy my first sega genesis. My mom bought me and my brother a sega master system in 1986 for Christmas, boy was I a happy kid. My favorite all time master system game is wonder boy 3 the dragons trap. They now have a remake but I prefer the original. Keep you videos coming. I a fan and think your pretty funny👍
I played through Fatal Labrynth when I was a kid while listening to Pretty Hate Machine. I always associate each with the other.
Dark Castle isn't too bad on the original Macintosh. However, it had aged and was horribly converted to subsequent platforms. Also, why is Sonic 1 in there? I could understand an argument for S3+K, but not that game. Fatal Labyrinth was also a hair tearingly frustrating game. Due to inability to plan ahead due to randomised levels, and quick deaths due to bad RNG.
I beat everything as a kid because I would always memorize and keep trying until I did. Now as a old man I get frustrated and say how the heck did I do this at 10yrs old. And literally memorize every secret and level layout...😂 Dedication I reckon
Lion King. Boy does that bring back memories! That monkey toss stage! 😂
I disagree with Sonic The Hedgehog 1 being difficult. I've mastered that game pretty well.
I remember playing Sword of Sodan when it came out at my friends and both of us thinking WTF!?
When I saw a video about Genesis hard games, the first to come in mind is, aways, Shadow of the Beast. It's a good game (not excellent), with an amazing art and unfair challenge. Know none that beat it without cheat... and I know very skilled folks.
Sword of Sodan is a crap game... it's unfair to list it. Remember how I hyped it by magazines screenshots.
Sonic is an easy game... it just have a design catch, that is the pace slows at every stage. If the player tries to go all the game like Green Hill Zone the game will be hard... if played as any other 2d plataformer it will be very easy. And the bonus stages only require patience and some previous knowledge... what was easy by 4th gen standards.
5:53 from what I recall, Lion King was purposely made difficult so that people who rented it couldn’t beat it.
The bane of many games in the early to mid 90's.
@@SegaLordX Which is what NES suffered badly from.
Another hard 2D shooter for the Genesis is Raiden Trad. The game has checkpoints it sends you back to when you die, and with all your powerups gone (unless you play on Easy, then you only get a couple of them back). Keep in mind that it takes about a full stage without dying to get to max power.
Given the arcade version's brutal and punishing difficulty, the Genesis version didn't cut you much slack in that regard. There's also a special stage at the end of the game exclusive to this version that is one of the hardest stages I've ever played. You need to come in fully powered-up with a maxed-out bomb stock, and beat the whole stage without dying. Once you die, the enemies are way too powerful to recover. Even with savestates I can't beat it.
Great video as always man. I'm not sure Sonic is a hard game, always found it a breeze compared to later Sonics.
The core game, I'd agree. But Sonic 1 could still be hard when taking the chaos emeralds into account. And remember, these episodes are about the journey. They aren't be all, end all lists that automatically discount other games. Nothing stopping Sonic 3 from being in the next video. :)
I always assume that if I can beat a game, it’s not that hard. Sonic 1, even with all of the chaos emeralds, never seemed that hard to me.
The rest of the games in this video are brutal, though.
@@mymangodfrey Sonic 3 is brutal.
Never found sonic to be that hard.
So you could blast through it, collect all 6 chaos emeralds, and see the real ending with no trouble? Impressive. Some of the chaos special stages alone were brutally hard.
@@SegaLordX I can easily grab 4 chaos emeralds by the end of marble zone. The last 2 chaos emeralds are the hardest ones. Oddly I always found the chaos emeralds easier to get in sonic 1 then in sonic 2 an that darn halfpipe.
I could usually get 3 or 4 pretty easily as well, but the later regular stages made getting to the special stages tough. If I missed an opportunity for a chaos emerald late, it usually meant the bad ending for me.
@@SegaLordX I might have to much muscle memory from playing sonic so much as a kid. It's easily one of my top ten favorite games of all time.
Dark Castle baffles me that it's considered a "game" since it's unplayable. I don't get it when people say The Lion King is too hard, for me it was just right and it took me about two rentals to beat it before I owned it later on. The rest of the video I would say is spot on, especially Sonic The Hedgehog.
I agree. Few games play as poorly as that God awful mess.
@@SegaLordX On Mac it's considered very good.
Lion King and Sonic are definitely some of those games where repetition breeds success though. I remember me and my mate could finish them quite easily after a while back when we were kids. And it's not like we had much choice but to play the same games over and over again back then. :)
I think that is what mainly separates the people that look at these kinds of lists. Were you a kid stuck with these games for months on end and played it to death, getting so good you could beat it in your sleep? Or were you the kid who that got their ass whooped a few times, had other games to play, and just moved on?
I am amazed you havent talked about Sub-Terrania. That game kicks my ass. Constantly running out of fuel, enemies that take way too many hits, trying to keep your ship afloat as youre spraying bullets at enemies way faster than you. and the mission objectives are confusing
Love this channel still remember when my uncle got shadow of the beast good times
One of the hardest games I've ever played on the Genesis was Wings of Wor. It's a super trippy side-scrolling shooter with this weird fantasy/mythological theming, and i have never been able to legitimately get past level 3. Worth taking a look at for a future episode!
Definitely. It was a tough one for sure.
@@SegaLordX For sure!! If you're interested in difficult (but not BS difficulty) Sega CD games, I recommend taking a look at Dungeon Explorer, as well! I loved this video and I'm looking forward to your next one!
@@QuestionBlockGaming One of the games that look so good on Sega CD is Popful Mail, but this one was a platforming game. Not a hard game as I havent played but it looks real good and I suddenly remembered it since you mentioned the Sega CD. Oh and the game is really expensive too. I hate that alot of these top tier Sega CD and Saturn games are so damn pricey in these retro stores.
Arrow flash, gynoug, musha aleste, undead line, gaiares and assault suit leynos were a few shooters that used to kick my ass until I had to git gud.
Ahh good old days. 👌
Thanks for showing us this, Sega Lord X. I'm looking forward to more videos in the future : )
Out of this list I've only played The Lion King and Sonic and completed both legit without cheats. I think The Lion King was the second game I've owned on the console after Aladdin, and it was a blast. As a kid I remember having some trouble but got to the point where I mastered it and completed it every time after then. Same with Sonic.
It felt good to finally get all the chaos emeralds and experience the true ending eventually. Sometimes when people say these games are hard I wonder what they're talking about but I guess I forgot of what I went through as a kid don't realize others haven't yet mastered them.
Sonic 1 is my favourite of the Genesis bunch, I'm surprised to hear it being that hard. It was my first game I ever played and owned, so I guess I should count in experience with that. Though I think of Comix Zone, Alien Soldier, and a bunch of other stuff before I'd think of Sonic 1, in that regard.
You're right. Sonic 1 is not hard. It's a fun, casual playthrough, even getting all the chaos emeralds was easy on a rental with no prior experience.
yes you’re right those games were hard but don’t forget the brutal difficulty of X-MEN 1-2, SONIC SPINBALL, COMIX ZONE, EARTHWORM JIM 1-2.
He did those in 1 an 2
I always love finding lists like these to add most of the games to my collection. More often than not though the difficulty is usually different from one person to another. If the game is designed well, the difficulty fades really quick. If the difficulty is from shrewd design, ridiculous enemy placement and just plain punishment for the sake of extending the game (lion king) it's not really what I would call a worthwhile challenge. If there's ways to learn from what took you out before and make progress every time, that's good design. Hagane is one that speaks out to that. It was on top of a lot of lists and I sought out a copy. It was difficult at first but it wouldn't crack a top 10 for me at all.
If you need suggestions for difficult shooters, what about Subterrania? Trial and error levels, limited fuel, gravity that gets progressively stronger each level, and very few lives/continues. Looking forward to the Sega CD video! I'll be very surprised if a few FMV games aren't present - Night Trap, Road Avenger and so on were really punishing.
Giares. It's hard as hell but the music will NEVER get out of your head
Fatal Labyrinth. I had that one and I did like it. If you play it enough, you realize the level layouts (maps) are limited, but repeating every so often. One could probably label the maps by how they're shaped. It seems like it had 100 floors, and you could learn which maps and/or levels had the trap-doors and where they were, and which ones had the warps that'd let you skip some number of floors. Of course, you miss out on building the XP... It seems like Level 20 was a big open room. Level 99 was always the same too. And it seems like it took 3 or 4 hours to playthrough in one sitting, and I don't recall if it had passwords to let you continue. I'm pretty sure it didn't.
Great videos! Maximum Carnage has always been impossibly difficult for me too.
I remember being super excited to be upgrading to 16-bit on a family vacation not long after both Genesis and the TG16 came out. I'll never understand why, but I bought the Turbo and Legendary Axe. That night in our hotel room I was devastated because it didn't feel like a big jump up to me. I've never had so much deflated hype. The next day I got my dad to talk the Toys R Us into letting me return it, swapped for a Genesis and Ghouls N Ghosts. I played it in our RV for the entire 10 hour trip home, which passed in a blink of an eye. To the day it's one of my favorite games of all time! And yeah, it's tough :) I'm not saying TG16 is bad by the way, but I just wasn't impressed at the time.
I loved my Turbografx when I got it. It was so impressive over the NES, graphically. I agree though, most of its games at the time weren't as impressive as the Genesis.
@@SegaLordX yeah, and I was a huge Altered Beast and Ghosts N Goblins fan, so I really can't fathom why I didn't pick the Sega first. Must have been advertising or something. But I will say I never regretted getting the Genesis after.
Here's a few more challenging games for the Genesis I don't hear mentioned often:
Sword of Vermillion
Shadow Run
Viewpoint
I had Dragon Crystal on the Game Gear, which is the 8-bit sibling of Fatal Labyrinth. I really liked it at first, despite the weird game design which was quite foreign to me. I would play again and again to see how far I'd get. And I got pretty far until some bad items and bad status effects along with overpowered enemies took me from full power to dead in a few seconds. I've never experienced gamer rage quite like that. I thought it was bad luck. I revisited that one in an emulator a couple of years ago and learned that the game ramps up the difficulty very sharply. I don't know if I could get my character strong enough for the late stages, and I tried fighting everything. I can imagine Fatal Labyrinth being similar.
I always thought Arrow flash was pretty damn hard
I could easily do The Lion King on the SNES when I was 10 but try it now and no hope I'd reckon. I had loads of time back then and no other new games to play so I got good at it. As for Ghouls N Ghosts, got through it once around the same age, by the skin of my teeth, and I threw the controller down in frustation and dismay when I found out I had to play it through again at the end, I just about got through it once! It had to go back to the rental shop later that day so one completed playthrough was the farthest I ever got. Tough games but you definitely felt a sense of accomplishment after you beat them. Maybe if I had have owned GNG's I could've gotten through the 2 playthroughs, who knows though.
Ah, just got home from work and then I heard that sweet music!
Great video. Genesis was known for hard games, made sure we got our money's worth! Jeez, nobody should play Dark Castle or Sword of Sodan, though...
That moment when you beat Ghouls ‘N Ghosts!!! That sucked up an entire summer for me.
The Master System 'prequel' to Fatal Labyrinth, Dragon Crystal, is also a really fun, really unforgiving roguelike dungeon crawler
Hey SegaLord X, I notice you threw Whip Rush in, butall your footage shows your speed at the same level the entire time. Part of doing well in Whip Rush is managing your speed and learning what speed to be at during specific parts. I think the C button manages it, I havent played in a while, but give it another go if you ever have time and experiment with your speed!
I'm bad with the speed set to slow or fast. I can get through the tight bits a little better slower, but then on the other side I'm wrecked by enemies anyway.
@@SegaLordX Hahaha, its all about learning to adjust it as you go and also learning the level layout. You're definitely on the right track by slowing down on the tighter parts. Too much speed is what causes you to throw your ship into a wall or ceiling or whatever.
I don't see a lot of people talking about this game ever, and this is one of my favorite games ever! I've had it since I was like 5 and absolutely love it. Thanks for covering it!
Great choice with the tunes as always.
Great stuff man but something is bugging me, I have to ask :
Did you use some smoothing filter while recording ?
I had already noticed it during your Mega Sg review.
I don't know man, some of this footage looks blurry, these are not sharp pixels.
I'd be cool if you mentioned "troubleshooter" for the Genesis. that one was pretty tough, plus the soundtrack was badass to!🎹💫💥💀👍
Did you know it has a sequel with an even better soundtrack?! I just found out about it a couple years ago. I listen to the soundtrack all the time. Check out the level 1 music. ua-cam.com/video/vEF6oyZI-bA/v-deo.html
A lot of these games I took down but one I didn't see on here was the shooter Gaiares that was one tough game.
Shadow of the Beast is hard, but it's much harder in the US because it's another one of those games (like Back to the Future III) where they took a 50hz PAL game and didn't bother to reprogram it, so it runs about 20% faster than it's supposed to.
SLX. AWESOME VID AND COMMENTARY AS ALWAYS
I thought every game on the Genesis was difficult. Sega prided themselves on giving their games and edge, putting them just out of a normal person's reach. You had to focus and be cool to beat them.
I hadn't played a Sega mega drive game since the mid 90s until the mini Mega drive was released and it's really noticeable just how unforgivingly hard many of the games are. Lots of one hit deaths!!
Sonic the hedgehog is not that hard to play through (albeit incredibly frustrating at times). The really hard bit is collecting all the chaos emeralds. I'd say exactly the same thing about Sonic 2.
Games in general were very difficult back then especially arcade games because they were meant to steal people’s money and be nearly impossible to beat.
Beavis and Butt-Head for the Genesis! I NEVER got to find all the Ticket Pieces for the GWAR Concert! That level where WWE's "Ultimate Warrior" theme music is playing and you are CONSTANTLY running into Health Packs (THAT KILL YOU!) and being chased by a GIANT FAT NAKED MAN IN A DIAPER while driving what looked like a golf cart through a Hospital was as far as I ever got! R.I.P. Dave Brockie and Cory Smoot!
The Lion King always got me at Stage 2 when you're on the Emu running, it was exteremely difficult to time your jumps perfectly to get the bird to jump either over the tree branch or go under it, it had to be pixel perfect and that was the most frustrating part of the entire game. Strangely as the game goes on it gets easier and once you've grown into an adult Lion the game becomes more laid back.
I don't agree on Sonic 1 being in this list, I can see how the enemy placements can be a little frustrating at times but I don't think it's overly difficult to get through, but then again, I have played this game to death! Every Sonic 1 hack that comes out where only the Green Hill Zone has been altered leaving the rest of the game the way it's always been in the original and going through that each time for each hack out there really helps in memorization and quick timing.
Dark Castle and Sword Of Sodan are just horrible! Not even worth firing up for a quick try.
Thank you for another video Sir SegaLordX.
Well, like I said in the video, Sonic 1 was difficult when it came to getting all the chaos emeralds in a single run. The stages and bosses themselves posed little issue, otherwise.
@@SegaLordX My lord, you don't have to justify your thoughts and opinions on these games to little ol' me, as much as I love agreeing with you, I also enjoy disagreeing with you at times, that's what makes things interesting. I agreed all the way with you in the video until it got to Sonic 1. I was actually taken by surprise when I saw Sonic come up but we are all different and I guess I really don't consider Sonic 1 to be a hard game. I feel it's not in the same league as some of the other games you put in this list but thank you for letting me express my opinion all the same.
Bad games are always too difficult because I don't want to spend several hours trying to finish them
I would love to see a Sega Saturn edition of this
Shadow of the Beast = Hardest Genesis game I owned! And one of only 2 games I ever traded away - because it was so hard! The other game I traded was Crackdown and that was because it was such a bad arcade conversation.
Anyway, another great video, SLX
Haha, can't say I blame you. Shadow of the Beast was truly unforgiving.
I had three nightmare games from Mega Drive: Lion King, Comix Zone and Mickey Mania.
1:26 Abe’s Oddysee does this. It wants you to play a certain way. If you get good you can blast through it. Those two Oddworld ps one games and Stranger’s Wrath are all time favorites of mine.
Love your work
What i remember being hard about Lion King is Scar. I've beaten whole game several times all the way to Scar but could not figure out how to defeat him, so I never could finish that game.
@@TheElisaDay thanks 4 d info. I really hated it as a kid when I spent so many hours playing the game and not being able to beat the last enemy and finish d game - it just wasn't fair. Similar case was with Aladdin.
Oh my God 😂 lion king, and don't get me started on Aladdin
Aladin was a lot tougher than lion King imo especially the last levels and boss
The way I was able to beat Shadow of the beast was from starting point go right and go into the castle to get the gun then return back to starting area to get the key etc and then go back to castle to beat it,was super super hard game
Totally agree with Shadow of the Beast although you may want to go play the second game on the Amiga,try playing an even harder game using a joystick I broke several Zipstick (my favourite joystick) playing that. Up to jump is one of the most annoying things in gaming I really don't know how we coped so long like that,whoever thought of adding a second button to controller is a saint.
The damn ostrich jumps in Lion King get me all the time.
I burst out laughing at your description of sword of sodan as "a steaming pile of ssssshit!"
Shadow of the Beast was a botched conversion that ran 16.7% too fast. The original Amiga game was my brutal introduction to gaming way back in 1989 so it has a special place in my heart
One of the ironies is that Sega games in 1991 and some of 1992 had the reputation of being too easy.
I need a sega lord x sticker for my car
I'd even pay you in actual money
Isn't Fatal Labrynth a roguelike? I thought that was a given lol. Good one tho, it's fun and has some unique twists. Only played it for the first time recently.
(Oh you mention it's a roguelike right at the end lol)
I enjoyed these three videos right now. I'm surprised in none of the three you mentioned Gaiares, which is also a though shooter.
Shadow of the Beast was always the showpiece for Amiga... but I don't know many who actually played it, let alone to completion 😂 Thanks.
I dnt think the first sonic should be on the list maybe el viento should though.
Yes definitely although getting all the chaos stones was rock
*Spoilers*
Fatal Labyrinth's stupidly easy once you exploit the bow equip bug - don't equip any armour, and once you find two bows, equip both one after the other, to reduce your armour class to... 99, as long as you don't equip any further bows or armour. There's also a supposed weapon glitch where if you pick something up, drop it and then pick it up again, you get its power along with the accuracy of fists (but you have to repeat it every level).
The problems with Fatal Labyrinth stem from the pits back to previous levels (after level 11, I believe), the ability to get cornered, getting slept/confused/teleported/made ill a lot, the random value awarded by eating food which can lead to overeating or even death, the random canes/potions/scrolls/rings, swords and money items which are more likely to become ghosts, and the lack of musical variety - the same theme for nine or ten levels. Of course, without using either exploit above, it becomes a very tedious, frustrating and tactical crawl (enemies don't move until you move or change direction), rather than a particularly difficult one. Still, I've never played a game since where the money has a singular purpose - to provide a better grave and more mourners upon death. :)