Seeing you beat Punch Out on stream, starting from having never played the game before, was such a cool experience. Also, can't wait for the the drive-by non-subscriber comments all shouting "WELL ACTUALLY"
It was such a fun experience for me. I'm glad you were a part of it too! I can't wait for even MORE fun facts about how there's a password to go straight to Tyson or more about Mr. Popinskin having an alternative identity. So many fun, fun facts. So many.
I absolutely love seeing the genuine support that retro gaming youtubers show eine another. It's easy to post a comment on a video, but joining in and watching a long stream shows actual camaraderie.
When I was young, Blaster Master blew my tiny brain when it let me get out of the vehicle and walk around! It's always been special to me. Weirdly, I didn't realize how hard it was until I played it again as an adult. Apparently, 8 year old me was some kind of gaming savant because I can't finish half the games today that I used to play! Thanks for this great video. You channel is so excellent. I always look forward to the next upload! You have such a great speaking voice - you must be a professional!
Blaster Master definitely brings the challenge! This is a weird question, but are you playing your games in such a way that introduces any input lag? I know that I didn't realize it was a thing a long time ago and suddenly wondered where all my gaming skill went. When I got back to a CRT and original hardware, I was back to my own normal again. And thanks about the videos and your kind words about the channel. I just do this for fun along with the livestreams. No training! Just an enthusiast at heart :)
@jonathanwilliams2183 Oh, my. I remember Blaster Master- played it and found I was the only one who could beat it! My friends had me over to watch me defeat the final boss... and that last dungeon? Crazy!! Fast forward, and I can't even get off the second level these days! What happened? But this is the guy who beat Ninja Gaiden in 1990. Go figure.
I believe I could beat at this age. The last time i played i did. Probably 20 years ago. Still remember how to find areas. Game takes like 3 hours to beat. Or i have had the Nintendo freeze lol.
Your comments on GnG were spot on. The psychological toll of losing your armor and walking around with only one hit does fill you with dread as you continue through the game. Fun video as always =)
@@hungrygoriya I've finished this NES version too, but I really was astonished when I play the arcade version, later. Damn, I could so strongly recommand you to play it. If you have endured the NES version, you should REALLY love the arcade, for many points I'll let you get with with through the game
"Because of course that never happened to me. And I didn't throw my game into traffic" can confirm, Ghost 'N Goblins NES did indeed survive. Maybe one day I'll come back and finish that second loop. So many wonderful memories of watching you stream these delightful games, and thank you for such a fun and engaging video as always.
I hate ghosts and goblins simply because they make you go through the game a second time to beat it. No extra levels with actual good design to prolong the game in a meaningful way. Nothing is a continuation in the 2nd half. It is just lazy padding to churn out time to make it seem like a game worth the money. On top of it being unfairly difficult, it's a major slap in the face and one of the worst designed nes games for that reason. Pure trash, imo.
Yeah after multiple fails on snake rattle and roll the 45 degree ice stair set at the very end of the level is insane. Then you get a boss where you miss one hit on it it gets full health. Screw the devs on that decision. Your finger goes numb trying to get the insane intence button press required to nail that sucker correctly. Heard if you get there with two players the final boss is way easier.
@@rezterralico4369 I bet it's easier with two people... you can probably tag team the boss at least. I was really surprised I was able to beat it on my own but here we are!
I got Journey to Silius when I was nine. I played it for a while to hear the soundtrack until giving up a few months later. Here I am all these years later and I can only barely finish Stage 1, let alone the whole game! Great job beating it! I doubt I’ll ever do the same!
Hey thank you! I bet you could get through it if you practiced. I spent about 10 hours grinding it to get through, and it was only a matter of memorizing it and then putting a good run together. I believe in you!
Good list, these are all wicked hard, especially Snake Rattle n Roll and Ghosts n Goblins. If you want another tough but super satisfying NES cart, you might wanna check out Solar Jetman. It's a bit brutal, but the game is an amazing experience. I also wanted to say that I love your videos. Your style is a breath of fresh air compared to what I've seen on the majority of retro game channels. It's so nice to hear an original opinion that doesn't pander to the masses, and major props for knowing English. I know this might sound a bit harsh, but I get so tired of listening to people misuse and mispronounce words left and right in their misguided attempts to sound smart. 😆
Ooooo Solar Jetman! I've seen a few folks stream that and it looks ridiculously tricky to control. I'll add that to my list of things I need to track down. And that's a very sweet compliment! Thank you very much! I've been working hard to play these games without spoilers or help and follow up with a fair and genuine assessment. Writing takes me forever which makes my uploads a little sporadic, but I'm glad the time I'm putting into the scripts is paying off. Thanks so much for stopping in and for your kind words. I appreciate it!
@NintendoComplete Hungry Goriya is hands down my fav retro gaming channel (NESComplex and GenerationGapGaming are up there too but theyve both gone kind of radio silent recently). Hanging around here has led me to other cool channels as well. I get really sick of the pandering to the masses formulaic gaming channels, and its nice to have real quality unique content. Frankly I think the algorithm is fucked. Real channels like quwebs and Hungry arent promoted, and garbage *is*. The community is great too, minimal shitposters and lots of people having interesting reminisces and chats about the games. *wanders off to check out nintendocomplete's channel*
I was 10 when I beated Blaster Master, I started when I was 8. It was distraction from my mom and her twin screaming and attacking each other. I don't say that out of self pity, but a testament to how a game can be the only coping skill you know. Sometimes we need a little shelter.
This was great and I can totally relate to your feelings with games like Ghosts and Goblins and Mike Tyson's punchout that you shared. You definitely had me laughing out loud a few times with the moments of lash out frustration all of us have undoubtedly experienced with these notorious "NES Hard" games.
I'm glad the video was relatable in a couple of places. I definitely feel like I could have torn my hair out with GnG. It's nice that I finished it and that I don't have to play it again for a long while.
Snake, Rattle and Roll is the first game that defeated me as a kid, and I came back to it as an adult to finish. It was definitely a wild ride. So much character, especially for an NES game.
It's so goofy all the way through, right? I want to know in what universe you get to search under sewer lids for lethal toilet seats. Congrats on finally beating it!
@@hungrygoriya Beat this legit on the rare collection no rewind BS and junk. That finsl boss miss 1 hit he gets full health is total BS. Worst that the RECCA summer carnival 92 final boss. 40 hours to get good on that 3DS release on VC.
@@hungrygoriya On TMNT NES 1 on the cowabunga collection. I get to area 3 but figured out I can load up scrolls kai on all 4 turtles. The sewer jumps will need to learn.
@@rezterralico4369 Getting good is the only way! I'm glad I eventually beat it but good lord was it ever a grind! I was doing the game nearly deathless, getting there with a bunch of continues, and still dying. It's also really rude that they change the physics for that fight too.
There's a warp on the first level, where if you keep pushing right, moving as fast as you can, you can just about reach a rocket ship, which skips you forward 10 rounds!
i rented it a few times before using it with the game genie. then got stuck in an area where i didn't have the right arm coupled with an invincible or no time cheat.
Best NES game in my opinion. Very detailed and good depth and strategy for a game of its time. Quite difficult, but I could actually beat it fairly easily despite not being able to beat what were considered easier games. For some reason the controls of that game just clicked for me.
Seeing snake rattle and roll brings back quite a bit of memories. I used to get legitimately scared when Jason would pop up on me in Friday the 13th as a kid. Blaster master was one of my favorites and I would rush home from school to play it. Awww, the memories of the nes era. Good times.
Seeing Jason's name in the bottom corner gave me the willies pretty badly when I first started playing this one! Blaster Master is definitely an easy favourite for me from this list. No question! It was so much fun!
Snake Rattle and Roll was a real gem. I remember when Zaxxon and Congo Bongo were in the arcades and had an isometric view. This game took it to a whole other level and had some incredible platform elements and gameplay that differed from anything else and was particularly original and incredibly fun. I guess the timer was the most stressful part of the game. It would make you rush and fall too many times.
Great video! One of my favorite parts about this channel is that when a game gets difficult you don't just give up and say "this game sucks" you see it through and finish it! :)
Hahaha. The Soda Popinski *fun fact* fading away made me laugh pretty hard. Nice job on the video, my friend :) happy to be able to say I saw a lot of these playthroughs.
I have actually run arcade tournaments in the past and was well aware of Vodka Drunkenski on Super Punch Out as I have put that game in a tournament with great success.
Just came across this video today and wanted to let you know how enjoyable a watch it was. The NES was my first real console and I have a huge nostalgia for the games. So watching your authentic struggle with the same games I played and eventually overcame as a kid brought back some good memories. Maybe even gave me a video idea I wouldn't have otherwise considered making. So thank you! The joy is in the journey and you did a great job telling each story through the video. I have very little time to watch much content being so busy working on mine, but you earned my sub with this one. I remember all too well the nightmare of defeating Ghosts N Goblins as an 8-9 year old (it even gave me nightmares when I played it late haha), so anyone to finish it legit has my respect! 👍
It's always nice to meet more NES fans! I only had a couple of games for the system my whole childhood so it's been really nice finally getting to play some new-to-me stuff over the last decade or so especially. I love a challenge and the NES just seems to have that in spades. This was definitely a fun video to make from start to finish and a bit of a different spin on where my focus usually lies for reviews, but I'm glad it came across so well. I'm honestly blown away at how many kind and commiserating comments I've read here in this very comments section, yours included! Thank you so much! I took a peek over your way and see a whole bunch of awesome videos I need to catch up on. I can only hope you may some day make your own list like this, or something in this vein anyway, so I can revel in your struggles too! Misery loves company!
Wow. You beat Snake Rattle n Roll without a game genie? I didn't even think that was possible. I thought the game was designed to sell Game Genies. That gray ice level was the game killer for me. Even with a Game Genie I wasn't able to beat that final boss until my mid 20's. I admire your persistence. I don't have time or patience for things like that anymore.
It might as well have been sold with Game Genies with how hard that final boss is, but I didn't even have luck with one! I thankfully have endless patience so it was no trouble to stick with it and get it done. I can appreciate not wanting to sink the time in though!
@@hungrygoriya I find it interesting that you can still do that after becoming such a huge RPG fan. I grew up with Atari at a very young age and played games where there was zero progress other than your score or what level you could make it to before graduating to NES. After playing games like Faxanadu, Zelda II and Dragon Warrior, my patience for games that would reset you to zero after your continues ran out all but disappeared. Now that I'm an adult I can't even bring myself to play them anymore. Too much of a sense of lost time for me if I put a few hours into something and lose and it's gone. Right now it's been about 8 months since I even played a game, but winter is here so I will be playing something. :)
Oddly enough, the Game Genie wasn’t a help at all to beat the final boss in Snake Rattle and Roll. There wasn’t a tongue buff, and a jump buff and infinite lives only help you get to the final boss more easily just to fail more often.
@@hunam1464 Yeah. I remember that. It was one of the games that had codes in the official manual that didn't actually help you beat the game for one reason or another. Wasn't there something weird with Battletoads GC codes where it didn't actually help you too?
These are always some of my favorite streams to enjoy. The slow, incremental progress is so satisfying and encouraging! Always leaves me motivated to go take on similar games myself :D
Totally! I love watching people inch through games as well and get better and better at them. Watching you play Bubsy recently was a joy for that very reason.
Man every game you mentioned was banger after banger. I own these bad boys. Listening to your frustrations of the games took me back, so many memories from the 80s. I have not only beaten but conquered every game that you mentioned except for GNG. Watching your video reminded me that I have a score to settle with GNG.
Ghosts 'n' Goblins is one of those games where, if you have a grudge with it, it seemingly has a grudge with you. Let your hate flow through you, sharpen your focus and your reflexes upon it until they are razor-edged, and then drag it across the game's throat.
One game that really challenged me as a kid and forced me to actually think is Adventures of Lolo. Straight up puzzles, most games require you to react properly this little game you had to think about how to solve its puzzles. It really was satisfying figuring them out and even more so when your mind is so wired you figure out some of them without having to think very long. But then....there are those you think you have figured out but NOPE.
Oh goodness... puzzles are not my strong suit but I've played a bit of Lolo before and enjoyed it! I'm not sure I could get through the harder stuff without pulling my hair out!
your narration sounds like an advanced AI doing a book report. believe it or not, that's a compliment. Ai isn't nearly this advanced, and i'm not sure it will ever comprehend the joy with which you describe your own machine learning process. A+ channel
I finally beat “Godzilla Monster of Monsters!” last week :) Lol, used to rent it constantly and never made it past the first grid.. Didn’t even realize you leveled up Godzilla and Mothra :p I really ham’d it up while playing and my son and I were cracking up the whole time while we slowly went insane from the repetitive music and sound effects. Best game ever.. Godzilla, Friday the 13th and Jaws are definitely stand-out gaming memories, playing along with my big sister and older brother.
Oh right on! Congratulations on getting the win! I've seen a little bit of that game played but haven't tried it for myself. It looks like a lot of fun. It sounds like you've made some great memories with your son too. I'm sure he'll cherish that time with you :) I haven't tried Godzilla for myself yet, but I did really like what I played of Jaws. It seems like there's a great challenge in there too!
That Punch-Out!! stream was one of my first streams of yours that I watched all the way through. That was a journey we all rode along with you on. Seeing you persevere (and hearing the pride and satisfaction in your voice) was uplifting to all of us :)
I'd say that one obvious option, would be to beat Contra, sans the 30man code, you get to use your three continues as normal,but it still takes a lot of gusto/perseverance. Good luck and great show
Fun Fact: Journey to Silius was originally going to be a Terminator themed game, however Sun Soft lost their licensing for it. The game was already being made, so instead of abandoning it, they changed the music, made some edits to the story, and changed the character's name.
Not only is this a stack of some of the hardest NES games, it's also a stack of some of the best! I'm all for a nice cozy NES game that doesn't break your head from time to time, but there is just something about how well these games were made and how they bring out the best in you.. and finishing them after putting the work in is so satisfying. I'd really love to see you take on Battle Kid, as it falls right into this category, but you already know that >:) Fun video, Grumbles.. well done. Oh, and referencing the Blaster Master wall softlock without actually showing the wall softlock: Power move.
Right? There are so many fantastic titles here, many of which were brand new to me in the last decade or so. And each one felt difficult for different reasons. I'm glad I finally beat Ghosts 'n Goblins despite the trouble it caused me. Watching you play through that so flawlessly today made me want to pick it back up again, but I know better... And dude, I spent so much time staring at that sad, sad scene of my little friend stuck in the wall. It brings me a great sadness, haha
@@hungrygoriya In certain time continuums, he's still in that wall..waiting.. and I know one day you will embrace the fun unpredictable challenge of GnG.
The two that I've beaten are Zelda II and Castlevania III. Zelda II was hard, but I had the patience to level up when the difficulty spiked. Well, the trip to the final dungeon was still very difficult no matter what. Now that I know the game better, I think I can alleviate its difficulty a bit better, suiting the level up system to my playstyle. Now, I still don't know how I've beaten Castlevania III, even the Japanese version.
It's nice that you can outpace things for a little while with levelling. I murdered those tektites with the fire spell for a long while to level up because I was getting destroyed in one of the palaces. It definitely helps to a point! Castlevania III was such a hard game for me. Out of the whole list, it's probably one of the more frustrating experiences I had. I haven't come back to it because of that but making this video has had me thinking about trying a different route...
@@hungrygoriya The final boss is definitely the biggest hurdle in that game. In-fact that whole final level is, and the checkpoint before the boss is far from generous. Took me hours to finish the final stretch of the game.
In Castlevania 3 I was really bad at the level where the blocks crumble underneath you. So restarted and took the alucard path so I could just fly. Little did I know that was apparently the hardest path. Still managed to beat it.
Yeah! None of these are games I really want to do a full review on, but I thought they were worth mentioning! Thanks for stopping in here. It's always nice to see you in the comments :)
What a deliciously nostalgic video! First of all, I give you all the kudos in the world for beating all of these super tough NES games! I love Blaster Master with all of my video game heart as I played that one back in my childhood. I borrowed it from a friend and after six grueling months of playing the game and making it just a little bit further on each playthrough, I finally managed to beat it! It remains one of my all-time favs to this day. CONGRATS on beating Snake Rattle 'n Roll as well! It took me 30 YEARS to finally beat that insane Ice Foot on the moon and I can't tell you how excited I was to finally pull that one off. The other games you mentioned are all superb as well. Beating Mike Tyson is still one of my best NES accomplishments. That fight was SO tough! And Ghosts 'n Goblins was a game I finally beat last year. Not sure I will play that one again anytime soon though. Journey to Silius is wonderful (music is SO good!) and Friday the 13th really grew on me once I learned how the map works. Great video! You should go after Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden next! ;)
Right on! Congrats on all your wins as well. These are not easy games and it's great to know that there are others out there grinding away trying to get the wins. It's funny because I've been casually into Battletoads most of my life but can never get past the snakes. I've never really sat down and tried too hard to beat it, but maybe this is the time. And for Ninja Gaiden, I've actually gotten to the second form of the final boss but just didn't have enough energy that night to keep going. Victory is in sight at least! Thanks for the encouragement. Hopefully there can be a part two someday, haha
@@hungrygoriya Thank you so much for the nice compliments and please continue to post the videos you are posting! I honestly just stumbled into your channel last night and I really enjoyed this video along with a few others. 😊 You’ve made some great points and it’s nice to see someone who is very candid and objective when they review games. I try to be that way but I’ll be the first to admit that my nostalgia rose colored glasses get in the way at times. 🤣 by the way congrats on at least making it as far as you have on Ninja Gaiden! I would honestly encourage you to really push to finish that one as it has a wonderful ending and to be perfectly honest with you the second game is way easier! The third Ninja Gaiden game is very tough as well but I still feel like the first one is the hardest overall. Battletoads might very well be the hardest game I have played in my life so you might want to just hold off on that one until you are truly ready for it lol. In any case you have my respect and I think you are a fantastic gamer to have beaten the games you have beaten!
@@tigmo55 See, the way you get around those nostalgia glasses reviews is to put the word "retrospective" in your title... then you can be as biased as you like, haha And thank you so much! I'm really happy to know that the videos here are fun. I can't really be anything other than myself so that candidness is always guaranteed. And not to worry: Ninja Gaiden and I have a date some day soon! I've got its number :)
You've upgraded a bit, nice! There's something about beating old games like this. Most people these days will just use save states and I'm a bit guilty of that sometimes but when you take a significantly challenging old school game and truly beat it that's a feeling like no other! On the Sega Genesis I've been able to beat Kid Chameleon a few times after years and years of my childhood being spent on it.
It's such a nice feeling! I love a good relaxing game sometimes but I also adore crushing something that has kicked my butt for a long time too. I play on hardware mostly so no save states available, but I will admit I have wished for them sometimes, especially after game overing in very long games like Blaster Master. Kid Chameleon eh? I haven't spent any time with it but I'd love to see what it's all about. Congratulations on getting through it!
It was great seeing Blaster Master on this list. I’ll never forget the feeling of figuring out the route to the last area. That game was definitely one my all-time favorite completes on the NES. Solstice was another one, and worth checking out if you haven’t already. Lots of ah-ha moments in that challenging game as well.
Blaster Master was so satisfying to finish up. I'm so glad I made it through after lots of trial and error towards the end there. And I love Solstice! It didn't make this list because I had a whole review planned just for it on its own, which I put out a few videos ago.
I love these videos. I put some time into the NES recently and absolutely love this system. I'm constantly finding games I'd never heard of on this console... NES is timeless. A relic of the past, but still so playable today and captivating to those willing to put in the time to enjoy its famous library of some of gaming's greatest.
You know, it's funny you say this because I've been heavily into NES for the last decade especially, and I'm STILL finding out about new games that I haven't heard of that look really fun! Do you have any favourites so far from your dive into the library?
@@hungrygoriya Wario's Woods will always be high on my list of puzzle games for the system. I grew up with the SNES version but picked up the NES version when I was in high school and it's still very good. My only knock is the lack of the versus mode against the ai that the SNES version has.
@@hungrygoriya Well my favorite NES game of all time is Kirby's Adventure! I love the Legend of Zelda and have been working on finally beating it recently . Was playing on original hardware and was at the last dungeon. Went to boot up my save file and... it was gone :*( so I'm emulating it lol. But other than Nintendo classics, I recently played Gradius and liked it a ton. First time giving Dragon Spirit a fair shot and I absolutely fell in love with that one. Bug's Bunny's Birthday Blowout is a surprisingly fun platformer! And anything else my wife and I decide to pop in for a few laughs or for some awesome couch co-op!
@@SMALLSandJOE Kirby is pretty fun! I'm so sorry about your save though :( I had a copy of the game that had a bad battery and could never save when I was little. I feel for you! I hope you crush it this time without any problems. Gradius and Dragon Spirit look like a good time. I need to play more shooters but I'm not so great at them. Couch co-op is the best! Do you have a Genesis? I played through Forgotten Worlds with my husband a few years ago and that was a blast!
Fri13 has to be the most underrated game of all time. It was called one of the worst games ever made in both Nintendo Power’s and EGM’s 100th issues, not to mention AVGN’s influence among so many others. I never understood this. It remains one of the most original action adventures I’ve ever played, with a looping map (yes it does make perfect sense) and a legitimate danger as your characters are meant to be underpowered compared to Jason. It should end like the movies end, with most characters dead. I thought you would like it, and I’m glad you did!!
Yes! I hope it comes back around as a positive experience for people once they actually start playing it. It's definitely a shame how poorly it's rated, mostly by folks that haven't even given it the time of day.
Inspirational viewing 🌟 Sometime soon, when I finally get a good chunk of recreation time to myself, I've got my eye on playing through a few old games that I've never got around to properly trying. In particular, I'm really looking forward to The Adventure of Link, and maybe even the dreaded Ghosts 'n Goblins... well, the first loop, at least! The only shame is that we didn't see Adventure Island 1 on this list. 🙂 Wonderful stuff, Hungry, I loved it !!!
I hated Zelda II as a child; it was my first unhealthy relationship in life. No matter how much I hated the game I kept going back to it; eventually 10 year old me finally beat it. 10/10 would recommend.
I got back from college the summer of 1997, and I decided to use my time off to go back and complete some games that I never beat and play games that I always wanted to try (this relates to your Illusion of Gaia review, that I swear that I will comment on). Two NES games in my library of games that I loved was Zelda 2 and Blaster Master, but I never beat them when I first got them. It felt like a serious accomplishment finally beating those two. If I had access to a Snake Rattle and Roll cart I probably would have attempted to beat that too (the furthest I ever made it when I was a kid was the final ice level).
Congratulations on finally getting through Blaster Master and Zelda II! I know that feeling of having that hanging over your head for a long time and then getting to those credits. I hope you'll play Snake Rattle & Roll again someday! It was so satisfying to finally wreck the final boss.
@@hungrygoriya By the way, that plastic Zelda trophy is sooo cool! I wanted one so bad way back when they were released. So much so, I was taking a childrens pottery class, and I made my own clay diorama. It was a scene from the lost woods. I made a clay Link, clay bushes and a staircase replacing one of the bushes. I got rid of it a while ago, because it looked like something an eight year old made, because honestly it was, but I was so obsessed with The Legend of Zelda at the time.
@@partridgestorm Awwww a whole diorama? That's awesome! I've never been good in the visual arts really, so I couldn't have dreamed of doing something that elaborate. The statue was actually a gift from a friend of mine who I bought some games from. He packed that into the box because he knew how much I loved the game. I'm really honoured to have it!
You have a very soothing voice, it's very nice to hear you talk about these old games. You're knowledge is great as well, please keep up the amazing work, I can't wait to see more from you!!!!
Fantastic list!! Journey to Silius is a favorite of mine I go back to frequently because of the challenge. To this day, the hardest NES game I've personally beaten is hands down Adventure Island. Looks very inviting, but about halfway through the game, everything changes and it becomes one of the most brutally difficult experiences ever. World 6 and 7 in particular were nightmares to get through.
Oh my goodness... I've finished every other NES/SNES Adventure Island game except for the first one. It makes me pretty angry! I've finished the original Wonder Boy which is essentially the same game but without the slipperiness that Master Higgins seems to exude in Adventure Island 1. Congratulations on defeating that one! I gave up in world 8 and never looked back!
I'll recommend the very first Ninja Turtles game if you haven't played and/or beaten it already. When my brothers and I were 5-7 years old (can't remember exact age), we got all the way to the last hallway stretch to Shredder but would not have enough health or extra turtles to get past there at that point. When I was about 16 is when we finally revisited the game and beat it.
I actually haven't played the first Ninja Turtles game on NES yet. I've only experienced some of the second game. I'm definitely interested in playing it someday.
NES was also a big part of my childhood. It was the family system but I remember when my dad bought me a game that was all mine. Dragon Warrior taught me how to save money, level grind, and many more skills that would help carry me through my gaming life. Thank you dad R.I.P. ❤️
I've only played 1 and 2. Dragon quest 2 starts off with a similar difficulty level, but that difficulty really jumps once you get the boat. I cite #2 as the toughest game I've beaten. Just think of doing the Rhone cave without knowing where the pitfalls are.
SMB2 is my favorite game. I don't recall ever using a game genie for it, I'm sure I have...I mean I must have right? The hardest games I've beaten were Treasure Master, McKids, Holy Diver, Fester's Quest, TMNT, Solstice, BattleToads (clinger winger level was just crazy stupid hard) Kid Icarus, Metal Gear, Adventures of LoLo, Ghost n' Goblins, Top Gun (as an adult, I figured out the landing sequence controls and finally beat it) Ninja Gaiden, Wizard's and Warriors I and II, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, Bayou Billy, Double Dragon II and III, Mickey Mousecapades, Bubble Bobble, Blaster Master, All Adventure Island games, StarTropics (so fun) All Megaman and Castlevania games, Punch Out!, Adventures of Dino Riki, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Batman, (brutal) A Boy and his Blob (the legit way) and Mission Impossible. A few games I've never even come close to beating are Ikari Warriors, Robocop, Back to the Future, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Castelian, Silver Surfer, Skate or Die, Paperboy, Platoon (never even tried) Karate Kid (nope) Kid Kool (despite trying so many times, so so so many times) Cobra Triangle, Werewolf: The Last Warrior (should try it again) Rygar, Jaws, Shadowgate, Milon's Secret Castle, Contra Force, Time Lord, Street Fighter 2010, any Simpson's game, Bionic Commando (no interest) The Rocketeer, Beetlejuice, Rad Racer, Wizard's and Warriors III, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Krusty's Fun House (oh my GOD that game is so long) and ghostbusters. Some games i'd recommend trying would be Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Astyanax, Bucky O'Hare, Ninja Crusaders, Little Mermaid, Marble Madness, Tiny Toon Adventures, Wacky Races, Pirates! Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Gimick, Rampart, Legacy of the Wizard, Totally Rad, Shatterhand, Felix the Cat, Tecmo Super Bowl, Willow, Darkwing Duck, Gold Medal Challenge '92, River City Ransom, Sword Master, Nintendo World Cup, StarTropics II.
Hats off for finishing these titles...especially Blaster Master and Dracula's Curse. These are very tough nes games to finish. Your pride in these milestones is certainly justified. Can I offer another? I personally have finished a Romstar title by the name of Cowboy Kid. It is a fun game full of charm and uniqueness. If you have ever played The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja for the snes, you will certainly see the similarities between the two titles. Cowboy kid is very challenging and the boss battles are BRUTAL! I'm convinced that CK was designed specifically to make the NES player better. Thanks for reading my book and happy gaming :)
How'd I miss this video? I think You Tube's been screwing up. Excellent video though. I'll keep an eye out for these difficult NES games. I have a couple of them already. But, most of them I don't have.
Nice video. I’m an nes child myself. I still play these games to this day so it’s nice to see others play them as well. Much respect showing Link some love. I’ve never understood how people dislike that game.
It doesn't make sense to me why people dislike Zelda 2. It's as good a game as any other side scrolling action adventure game and definitely worth experiencing.
It's nice seeing Friday the 13th get a little love. I honestly think that if it had come out from any other publisher but LJN, it would be (rightfully) regarded as an extremely ambitious - but flawed - early survival horror game. Especially considering it was made by Atlus; one of their very first games. That should get it at least a little goodwill. What it really needed, more than anything else, was an onscreen compass. The camera and map DO make sense, if you can intuit that the camera is actually moving in 3D space mapped onto a 2D plane. Which is not exactly intuitive in a NES game. If they'd had a compass telling the player which direction they were heading, it would have made navigation so much easier.
I agree with you entirely. I think folks online tend to put a little too much stock in companies and shut down before even trying the game out for themselves. This is definitely one of the neater games I've played. I agree about the compass. I'd usually just choose a direction and check the map after a few moments to see which way I was moving, but you're right: a compass would've gone a very long way here.
Thanks for the reviews and bringing back childhood memories of retro gaming. Playing these challenging titles will give me hours of gameplay in my free time.
I "beat" Journey to Silius on the switch online version, literally constantly using the rewind feature. Beating it for real takes super human patience and skill. You are nothing short of astonishing.
Your channel popped up on my feed and I'm already a fan because of your love of the classics. Your voice and articulation is amazing too. Keep up the good work. 😁
HG! I know I say this often but your videos are soo comfy. I really like the new game intros with the tiny TV in a dark room, brings me back to sneaking in my own gaming sessions as a kid. I also rented Snake as a kid but only once, it was just too much for my baby brain!
Your patience is remarkable, well done on completing these. The only one of these I've beat is Zelda 2. We had it growing up... instead of Zelda 1, lol. But I didn't beat it until I was a teenager, and the first time I'm pretty sure I used the cheap but safe method of crouching in the corner to fight the final boss. Now I come back to it every once in awhile, and usually I only get a few game overs before the end. Probably my least favorite part is grinding all my stats to max level, but I don't like going into the final palace without them, haha.
You are a creature of habit, apparently! Nothing wrong with that! I'd really love to be more familiar with this game. I only finished it the one time, and while I'm looking forward to playing it again sometime, I think I'll just play Zelda 1 instead haha
Cool video..😁I've been playing nes since 1986 and beating some of the games on your list has been darn near impossible. I share a few of the finishes with you.. but I never found Ganon in the last maze!! Congrats
Loved the video, great list of games! Friday 13th and ninja turtles 1 and back to the future 2and3 were always my bane in childhood. I liked how you showed dream master in the ghosts and goblins section it's one of my favorite 😊
I really need to play Ninja Turtles 1 someday. I've only played a bit of the second game. And I haven't touched Back to the Future stuff at all. Little Nemo's a fantastic game. It was one of the only games I ever rage quit when I was a teenager, but I came back to it many years later and finally beat it. That train level is the worst!
Nintendo came out at a time when I had an extended stay in the hospital. It quickly became my healing friend and I played a lot. From your list, I recall only beating 5 of these and agree with the struggles you've pointed out. I would suggest Faxanadu; from recollection, it was one of the hardest I played if I'm recalling my childhood correctly. There were a number of really good RPG's on the NES so may be a bit blurred. Today, I don't think I'd be able to handle anything on this list. Maybe Zelda II because I have a certain fondness and patience for the series and Punch-Out for pattern recognition.
Awww I'm so glad that you had some games to keep you company while you were in the hospital. Faxanadu's actually my favourite NES game that I play through once a year. It's definitely a tough one and has some weird difficulty like how many keys to buy. Thanks so much for the suggestion!
"I'll never forget that time I beat Spy Hunter." A friend of mine told us all that lie once expecting us all to believe it. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We never saw him again after that day. My own personal experience with Mike Tyson's Punch Out is ongoing. I borrowed that game from a friend when it came out and still haven't beaten it to this day. I've knocked Iron Mike down 3x in one round but did I get a TKO? NO! He got back up on the 8 count and flattened me. That's as far as I ever got. I have beaten Zelda II and Ninja Garden 1-3. So I have that going for me. I need to sit down with Punch Out again and see if I can finally beat my nemesis once and for all.
Oh really? I think I beat him by TKO in round 2 if I'm remembering correctly. And it sounds like you've gotten through some pretty tough titles yourself. Nice work! Hopefully you'll be able to add MTPO to your list soon too!
I played most of those games and enjoyed them, but only ever finished a couple. The big advancement for me in Blaster Master was the day I learned that holding the grenade button during the overhead sections let you fix your direction while moving. It turned the crab from a prayer for luck into an easy win almost every time.
What a great list and video! I have played all of these and Blaster Master is the only one I remember finishing. The game I was most excited to beat from the NES was Rygar. There was something about it's world felt complete. I don't know if it's a hard game, but it took me forever.
Blaster Master's a tough one for sure. Congrats on making it through! Rygar is something I only first experienced within the last year or so and I loved it! I did a full review on it somewhere in this channel's backlog and I agree with you: it felt like a complete world more than most other NES games I've played. I used the manual which detailed where different items were and finished it in an afternoon, but it just clicked with me. I know of a lot of people who played it for much longer than I did.
I'm impressed by your perseverance. I played a bunch of these games as a kid in the 80s, and i absolutely did not finish any of them. As an adult, i'm an anti-completionist. I abandon books, movies, and games as soon as i'm not enjoying them. I never get "pot committed" to something, even when i'm close to the end. This doesn't mean i never play challenging games - i love the souls games, even speedrunning them a bit. But all of those "off screen enemy knocks you into a pit" games from the NES days are absolutely not on my bucket list! Great video. Subscribed...
Thanks for subscribing here. I don't know what compels me to finish what I start. I think a great deal of it must come from the fact that I stream a lot of my gaming these days, and having an audience to be accountable to really makes it more worthwhile than throwing in the towel. I never used to finish games when I was younger, mostly because I either a) couldn't or b) didn't want those stories to end. I left so many RPGs undone back then!
@@hungrygoriya Yeah, that makes sense. Though i'm not a completionist, i am someone who wants to fulfill my responsibilities. I don't like to let anyone down. So i can see how streaming would make you feel like you owed it to your viewers to show the games who's the boss.
great video. i guess youtube isnt putting your vids in my feed anymore cuz its been a while since i seen one. i miss this!! you make me want to play whatever game you do videos on. im probably gonna play castlevania 3 later today!
Oh bummer! Well thanks for checking in here. I have another video underway so I should have something out in the next week or so if everything goes well. Have fun with Castlevania 3. I hope it goes better for you than it did for me!
The ice levels at the end of Snake Rattle n Roll are crazy hard, and the end boss is definitely one of the worst. Journey to Silius has a great difficulty balance. It's challenging but it never seems unfair and bosses are all pretty manageable. That section in Castlevania III with the stairs and bone enemies is so brutal. I feel like Zelda II gets easier once you learn the downward stab because you can often use it to get over enemies and get by them without fighting. That was one of the first tough NES games that I was really satisfied to beat.
I'm so glad we're on the same page about so many of these titles. I really look forward to getting the downward stab in Zelda II. It's really satisfying to go around hopping over enemies and outrunning them to the next screen!
Great work beating those games, you gave me new respect for Zelda 2 and brought back flashbacks of Ghosts n Goblins...I had a Commodore 64 and they only had atari 2600 style single button joysticks then and the developers for the 64 thought hey let's just put jump on the spacebar...unplayable really.
Oh thanks so much! I had a blast with most of these, but GnG was definitely the meanest of the bunch. I can't imagine how the C64 version must've been...
Just found your channel (through this video) and I've gotta say this was a very enjoyable video! You've earned a sub from me, for sure! It's nice to see someone showing persistence with these games instead of just calling BS on them and quitting. Nicely done!
Thanks so much :) I'm glad you found me here. I seem to finish games more often than not these days. I personally don't like to review things I haven't completed, unless I get softlocked out of progressing deep into a game.
@@hungrygoriya I'm a huge proponent of the value of persistence. Hence why I've finished Jekyll and Hyde. lol But seriously, learning over time how to properly conquer challenges in videos games is so much fun. :D
Such a GREAT watch! I've seen few NES game endings in recent years. The struggle to not pull the Game Genie out, just for a little more ammo, life, magic etc. just tells me I'm not as patient as I once was. Ghosts and Goblins victory is truly a solid platinum achievement. That game has very little room for indecision and you are correct; hopping around in boxers is certainly not striking terror in your foes. Blaster Master is one I've ALWAYS gone out to lengths to beat and never succeeded. Your skills are definitely top notch in this day and age!
Awww thanks! I'm glad you liked the video. I will admit that none of these wins came to me very easily. I had to spend a lot of time working on them to get there. I know some folks that pick up a tough game and beat it the first time they play it, and that's just not in my blood I guess.
@@hungrygoriya I forgot to address your choice of besting Snake Rattle and Roll. Great job. That was one of my clearly misguided resolutions to start off 2022, and Snake Rattle and Roll consumed me like a nibbly pibbly. I could manage level 5 and saw level 6, but that was it. It's a masterpiece nevertheless and you are correct. The difficulty comes in gradually, but demands precision throughout. A jump at the wrong time, or held too long is a Snake screaming his last AAAAAAAA!
@@hungrygoriya if I try, I will catch on, but this new year's resolution will be to watch more of the great content of yours and other like minded creators. Thanks for your encouragement and for making such interesting videos.
Thanks very much! Until I finished the NES one, the only other I'd gotten through was the Master System version. It has a health bar, armour/weapon upgrades etc. It's such a nice game compared to the others.
Blaster Master traumatized me as a kid 😆 nice choice, that game is amazing. Kid Icarus is another one of those exceptionally hard games that feels like actual work. Awkward platforming, super long, and cryptic as heck. Cool channel, game on!
Blaster Master was probably my favourite game off this list. It was so rewarding to get through! Kid Icarus is one of those games I never thought I'd be able to beat, but it turned out it was just the beginning that puts you through the wringer. The rest of the game smooths out as you get better weapons etc. I was pleasantly surprised and ended up really enjoying my time with it after I got out of the first world. And thanks for stopping by!
Dude...Blaster Master is one of my all-time favorites! Legendary soundtrack...I never could beat it though and I still haven't to this day. Damn...you beat some difficult games...Now you have to try Battletoads and Contra! Geez...buying and playing the VirtualBoy was the toughest thing you've done within the mention of this video...Good of you to have kept it though, as I assume it grew in value. I haven't beaten ANY of these games. But I HAVE beaten Contra, Bubble Bobble, SMB 2, Fire and Ice, Double Dragon II, Zelda 1 (Both quests), Shadowgate, and some others I can't think of off-top.
Blaster Master's a phenomenal game that I look forward to playing again when some of where to go has faded from memory. I want to learn it all over again! I've been casually playing Battletoads all my life and have really only made it up to the snakes, but if I sat down and tried to beat it, maybe I could. Hopefully, anyway! I've finished Contra with the Konami code but I'd need to work pretty hard to get through it without it! My Virtual Boy's actually modified for AV out so I can play it on a TV. The games are a lot easier to tolerate and enjoy that way, though the mod negates some of the 3D effects. It's still really cool! You've definitely got some killer game completions on your list! Nice work!
Oh nice! Someone mentioned the pause glitch to me while I was playing but I didn't end up using it. Discovering it on the fly back then must've felt glorious!
The very first Hudson's Adventure Island. I still think back to how excruciatingly perfect you had to time your jumps in later levels and how I still can't believe I did it. I only just beat it about 2 years ago, after 30+ years of attempts. Yeah, this game is by far the hardest (for me). Congrats on beating GnG, a game I've personally never beat. Not for lack of trying, but I just never thought the NES version played particularly well when compared to the arcade or Genesis versions. Just far too stiff for my tastes.
I played Adventure Island up to world 8, tried forever to move on, turned it off, and haven't gone back to it since. I vastly prefer Wonder Boy on the Master System. I don't know if it's just in my head, but it seems to control a little better and is essentially the same game in many ways. Adventure Island belongs in my drawer of shame. GnG was definitely something that took me a lot more effort to beat than I care to admit. I wish it had been an easier time for me. I really liked the Master System version. It's almost the same as the Genesis game (with some visual downgrades) but it has a life bar! And permanent upgrades! Definitely a lot more approachable than other games in the series.
Zelda 2 was one of those games that definitely got easier when you learned a couple tricks. Fighting shield-wielding enemies was easier if you do a short hop towards them while swinging your sword, and swing your sword again from a crouch the instant you touch ground. You'll penetrate the shield ~75% of the time, and if you don't, it takes all of half a second to try again. Works on most mid-level enemies. And then for Dark Link, just crouch in the corner and keep duck-stabbing, you'll win in just a few seconds. If you have multiple enemies on the screen always focus on the little guys first--they do damage same as the big guys but go down easier so you can clear up the playing field and make it more likely to get in and out of a dungeon without taking a hit.
I started playing NES when it came out in the 80s. I played all the games you mentioned. Ghosts and Goblins was the hardest, I think. Final Fantasy was pretty hard because it was such a grind. Dragon Warrior 3 was really tough. Battletoads and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were very hard and super fun. Megaman is a must play game for any fan of the NES. Metroid is another one that you have to play if you're into the NES. Both of those are challenging and still super fun.
Oh nice! I had an NES growing up in the early 90s but I didn't have a lot of games for it. We got them for birthdays and Christmases and I think between me and my siblings, we had around 10 games or so for my most of my childhood. Most of these I've been playing as an adult after learning about them later in life. From your list, I've played Final Fantasy, Battletoads (up to the snakes), Mega Man 2 and 3, and also Metroid. I really need to get around to other Dragon Warrior games one of these days. I've still only finished the first game. TMNT is also on my list to play someday. I'm really only familiar with the second game.
I have not seen a video of you before but I absolutely adore that you bought up Journey to Silius and Blaster Master and their soundtrack you yourself another subscriber!
Hey thanks for checking out the channel! I loved both of those soundtracks very much. Do you know Vomitron? That's where I first heard the Blaster Master soundtrack long before I played the game for myself. I think he eventually covered Journey to Silius as well.
@@hungrygoriya Oh I have not, I will go check him out! I had played Blaster Master before but as a child I totally forgot about it, until recently I got recommended on steam Blaster Master Zero and as soon as I saw that car and heard the music it all came back to me
Awesome video! That first game looks really similar to Marble Madness. I finally beat Mike Tyson a couple of years ago during Covid. Had nothing better to do so I grinded it out and finally beat him. Felt good lol.
Congratulations on taking down Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! That's no easy feat and no matter the excuse, it's great that you finally got around to doing it. And I think Marble Madness is made by the same people. The marble falling off the edge has the same little snake scream, I'm pretty sure.
I loved Friday the 13th as a kid, but I never beat it. You have inspired me to try as an adult. I have beat Punchout and Zelda 2 which are probably harder games, so I think I can do it
Friday the 13th is very mysterious. I only made progress by experimenting and reading the manual, and eventually putting some important pieces together.
Finally someone who appreciates Zelda II. Its an under valued gem! One of my all time favorite games. Me and my son play through Zelda II on regular intervals.
That's great to hear! Zelda II is something I wanted to finish for a long time and didn't stop thinking about until I did. I' glad you and your son get to share that experience together on the regular.
My friends and I, beat goblins and ghost's. We used to leave the Nintendo on before school. Hoping she wouldn't turn it off. because we made it just a little bit further. Great video!
A general rule is if it is an NES game, it's going to be hard. If it's a Sunsoft game, it's going to be REALLY hard. The fact you beat these on the console is downright impressive! Also, thank goodness for emulators and save state 🙏
On Ghost's & Goblin's- good to know I'm not the only one who, out of frustration after hundreds of deaths, hit the start button with "1 player" selected instead of "continue". I was so angry I never played this game again- this was 1987!
Seeing you beat Punch Out on stream, starting from having never played the game before, was such a cool experience. Also, can't wait for the the drive-by non-subscriber comments all shouting "WELL ACTUALLY"
It was such a fun experience for me. I'm glad you were a part of it too!
I can't wait for even MORE fun facts about how there's a password to go straight to Tyson or more about Mr. Popinskin having an alternative identity. So many fun, fun facts. So many.
I absolutely love seeing the genuine support that retro gaming youtubers show eine another. It's easy to post a comment on a video, but joining in and watching a long stream shows actual camaraderie.
Actually, I dare you to beat Action 52. If it can be beaten at all, im not so sure.
Oh hell yeah! Been watching you for years and it's an awesome surprise to see you in these comments. Much love to both of you ♥
@@whitetrashd8225I second your admiration for SnesDrunk. Have been watching him for years also!!
I like the CRT shots you've used to introduce each game, nice touch!
Thank you! I'm enjoying trying out new things for transitions between topics in these longer vids.
Indeed… nice touch.
It's such a shock now seeing CRTs in "older" movies and tv shows, even though it wasn't THAT long ago.
very nice indeed!
Blaster Master was easily my favorite childhood game. Thanks for the nostalgia.
You're welcome! I loved Blaster Master. I think it might have been my favourite experience from this list.
i still have a thing for festers quest i like zelda 2
@@justintahair7128 LOL forgot about festers quest.
Oh blaster master......I feel better knowing I wasn't the only dealing with the frustrating levels.
@@geddon436Especially level 5 the crab boss.
Nes games was brutal back in the days and finishing a nes game is also one of the most rewarding feeling of all time.
Agreed! I love finishing games in general, but there's something really special about the NES stuff to me too.
When I was young, Blaster Master blew my tiny brain when it let me get out of the vehicle and walk around! It's always been special to me. Weirdly, I didn't realize how hard it was until I played it again as an adult. Apparently, 8 year old me was some kind of gaming savant because I can't finish half the games today that I used to play!
Thanks for this great video. You channel is so excellent. I always look forward to the next upload! You have such a great speaking voice - you must be a professional!
Blaster Master definitely brings the challenge! This is a weird question, but are you playing your games in such a way that introduces any input lag? I know that I didn't realize it was a thing a long time ago and suddenly wondered where all my gaming skill went. When I got back to a CRT and original hardware, I was back to my own normal again.
And thanks about the videos and your kind words about the channel. I just do this for fun along with the livestreams. No training! Just an enthusiast at heart :)
@jonathanwilliams2183 Oh, my. I remember Blaster Master- played it and found I was the only one who could beat it! My friends had me over to watch me defeat the final boss... and that last dungeon? Crazy!!
Fast forward, and I can't even get off the second level these days! What happened? But this is the guy who beat Ninja Gaiden in 1990. Go figure.
I believe I could beat at this age. The last time i played i did. Probably 20 years ago. Still remember how to find areas. Game takes like 3 hours to beat. Or i have had the Nintendo freeze lol.
Ive been tryimg to get a no damage run but that hasnt happened yet. A no death run is very possible
@@hungrygoriya Unfortunately, there's also the issue of your reaction times slowing down as you get older.
Your comments on GnG were spot on. The psychological toll of losing your armor and walking around with only one hit does fill you with dread as you continue through the game. Fun video as always =)
I always get the "it's only a matter of time now, death is imminent" dread feeling whenever I lose that armour! Thanks for checking this out :)
@@hungrygoriya I've finished this NES version too, but I really was astonished when I play the arcade version, later. Damn, I could so strongly recommand you to play it. If you have endured the NES version, you should REALLY love the arcade, for many points I'll let you get with with through the game
@@fabryce5271 I should add it to my list. I have a way to play them so I might give it a try someday.
"Because of course that never happened to me. And I didn't throw my game into traffic" can confirm, Ghost 'N Goblins NES did indeed survive. Maybe one day I'll come back and finish that second loop. So many wonderful memories of watching you stream these delightful games, and thank you for such a fun and engaging video as always.
I beat ghost and goblins recently. Level 6 kicked my butt
Haha yep, it's still there on the shelf! I hope you get through Loop 2 one of these days. I believe in you!
I hate ghosts and goblins simply because they make you go through the game a second time to beat it. No extra levels with actual good design to prolong the game in a meaningful way. Nothing is a continuation in the 2nd half. It is just lazy padding to churn out time to make it seem like a game worth the money. On top of it being unfairly difficult, it's a major slap in the face and one of the worst designed nes games for that reason. Pure trash, imo.
@@leargamma4912 it sucked lol
The icy staircase at the end of snake rattle and roll is no joke, kudos for finishing that
It was the rudest set of stairs I've ever met in a video game. People complain about the ones in Castlevania...! Those stairs have nothing on this!
Yeah after multiple fails on snake rattle and roll the 45 degree ice stair set at the very end of the level is insane. Then you get a boss where you miss one hit on it it gets full health. Screw the devs on that decision. Your finger goes numb trying to get the insane intence button press required to nail that sucker correctly. Heard if you get there with two players the final boss is way easier.
@@rezterralico4369 I bet it's easier with two people... you can probably tag team the boss at least. I was really surprised I was able to beat it on my own but here we are!
Must have taken me a thousand tries to reach the final boss.
Luckily I was able to beat the final boss with my remaining lives.
@@Ruudos Nice! I lost so many lives on the final boss but I was glad I made it eventually.
I got Journey to Silius when I was nine. I played it for a while to hear the soundtrack until giving up a few months later. Here I am all these years later and I can only barely finish Stage 1, let alone the whole game! Great job beating it! I doubt I’ll ever do the same!
Hey thank you! I bet you could get through it if you practiced. I spent about 10 hours grinding it to get through, and it was only a matter of memorizing it and then putting a good run together. I believe in you!
I got to stage 4 once!
Good list, these are all wicked hard, especially Snake Rattle n Roll and Ghosts n Goblins. If you want another tough but super satisfying NES cart, you might wanna check out Solar Jetman. It's a bit brutal, but the game is an amazing experience.
I also wanted to say that I love your videos. Your style is a breath of fresh air compared to what I've seen on the majority of retro game channels. It's so nice to hear an original opinion that doesn't pander to the masses, and major props for knowing English. I know this might sound a bit harsh, but I get so tired of listening to people misuse and mispronounce words left and right in their misguided attempts to sound smart. 😆
Ooooo Solar Jetman! I've seen a few folks stream that and it looks ridiculously tricky to control. I'll add that to my list of things I need to track down.
And that's a very sweet compliment! Thank you very much! I've been working hard to play these games without spoilers or help and follow up with a fair and genuine assessment. Writing takes me forever which makes my uploads a little sporadic, but I'm glad the time I'm putting into the scripts is paying off. Thanks so much for stopping in and for your kind words. I appreciate it!
@NintendoComplete
Hungry Goriya is hands down my fav retro gaming channel (NESComplex and GenerationGapGaming are up there too but theyve both gone kind of radio silent recently).
Hanging around here has led me to other cool channels as well. I get really sick of the pandering to the masses formulaic gaming channels, and its nice to have real quality unique content. Frankly I think the algorithm is fucked. Real channels like quwebs and Hungry arent promoted, and garbage *is*.
The community is great too, minimal shitposters and lots of people having interesting reminisces and chats about the games.
*wanders off to check out nintendocomplete's channel*
@@childofcascadia I appreciate you. Thank you for your support!
beat me to it. I owned it and it is rediculous. I beat it with a game genie and SEVERAL hours of practice even with it.
Heya, Mr. Complete!!!👋🙂
I was 10 when I beated Blaster Master, I started when I was 8. It was distraction from my mom and her twin screaming and attacking each other. I don't say that out of self pity, but a testament to how a game can be the only coping skill you know. Sometimes we need a little shelter.
I'm glad video games were able to provide that for you. Sorry you had to go through that.
Sorry bout mom glad you had an NES to help distract you.
Videogames as escapism?!
You don't say!
@@joeyjojojunior1794 I hope you find some happiness in your life. Your bitterness will consume you.
@@emanon2794 I already choked on my high levels of sarcasm. Thanks for wasting your time with your comment.
This was great and I can totally relate to your feelings with games like Ghosts and Goblins and Mike Tyson's punchout that you shared. You definitely had me laughing out loud a few times with the moments of lash out frustration all of us have undoubtedly experienced with these notorious "NES Hard" games.
I'm glad the video was relatable in a couple of places. I definitely feel like I could have torn my hair out with GnG. It's nice that I finished it and that I don't have to play it again for a long while.
Snake, Rattle and Roll is the first game that defeated me as a kid, and I came back to it as an adult to finish. It was definitely a wild ride. So much character, especially for an NES game.
It's so goofy all the way through, right? I want to know in what universe you get to search under sewer lids for lethal toilet seats. Congrats on finally beating it!
@@hungrygoriya Beat this legit on the rare collection no rewind BS and junk. That finsl boss miss 1 hit he gets full health is total BS. Worst that the RECCA summer carnival 92 final boss. 40 hours to get good on that 3DS release on VC.
@@hungrygoriya On TMNT NES 1 on the cowabunga collection. I get to area 3 but figured out I can load up scrolls kai on all 4 turtles. The sewer jumps will need to learn.
@@rezterralico4369 Getting good is the only way! I'm glad I eventually beat it but good lord was it ever a grind! I was doing the game nearly deathless, getting there with a bunch of continues, and still dying. It's also really rude that they change the physics for that fight too.
There's a warp on the first level, where if you keep pushing right, moving as fast as you can, you can just about reach a rocket ship, which skips you forward 10 rounds!
Bionic Commando was a tough one but worth the effort. Great story, music, and action.
Yeah! I played through that one a few years ago and the control stumped me for a while before I got the hang of it. After that, I had a blast!
i loved that game as a child.....as long as you kept getting continues nothing could really stop you....not even the leader.....
i rented it a few times before using it with the game genie. then got stuck in an area where i didn't have the right arm coupled with an invincible or no time cheat.
Best NES game in my opinion. Very detailed and good depth and strategy for a game of its time. Quite difficult, but I could actually beat it fairly easily despite not being able to beat what were considered easier games. For some reason the controls of that game just clicked for me.
Seeing snake rattle and roll brings back quite a bit of memories.
I used to get legitimately scared when Jason would pop up on me in Friday the 13th as a kid.
Blaster master was one of my favorites and I would rush home from school to play it.
Awww, the memories of the nes era. Good times.
Seeing Jason's name in the bottom corner gave me the willies pretty badly when I first started playing this one! Blaster Master is definitely an easy favourite for me from this list. No question! It was so much fun!
Snake Rattle and Roll was a real gem. I remember when Zaxxon and Congo Bongo were in the arcades and had an isometric view. This game took it to a whole other level and had some incredible platform elements and gameplay that differed from anything else and was particularly original and incredibly fun. I guess the timer was the most stressful part of the game. It would make you rush and fall too many times.
Great video! One of my favorite parts about this channel is that when a game gets difficult you don't just give up and say "this game sucks" you see it through and finish it! :)
It's important to me to try to see things through to the end. And I'm glad to do it! I don't like leaving things hanging!
Hahaha. The Soda Popinski *fun fact* fading away made me laugh pretty hard. Nice job on the video, my friend :) happy to be able to say I saw a lot of these playthroughs.
I thought folks from the stream might appreciate that, haha! Thanks for watching and for your continued support!
I have actually run arcade tournaments in the past and was well aware of Vodka Drunkenski on Super Punch Out as I have put that game in a tournament with great success.
Just came across this video today and wanted to let you know how enjoyable a watch it was. The NES was my first real console and I have a huge nostalgia for the games. So watching your authentic struggle with the same games I played and eventually overcame as a kid brought back some good memories. Maybe even gave me a video idea I wouldn't have otherwise considered making. So thank you! The joy is in the journey and you did a great job telling each story through the video. I have very little time to watch much content being so busy working on mine, but you earned my sub with this one. I remember all too well the nightmare of defeating Ghosts N Goblins as an 8-9 year old (it even gave me nightmares when I played it late haha), so anyone to finish it legit has my respect! 👍
It's always nice to meet more NES fans! I only had a couple of games for the system my whole childhood so it's been really nice finally getting to play some new-to-me stuff over the last decade or so especially. I love a challenge and the NES just seems to have that in spades. This was definitely a fun video to make from start to finish and a bit of a different spin on where my focus usually lies for reviews, but I'm glad it came across so well. I'm honestly blown away at how many kind and commiserating comments I've read here in this very comments section, yours included! Thank you so much!
I took a peek over your way and see a whole bunch of awesome videos I need to catch up on. I can only hope you may some day make your own list like this, or something in this vein anyway, so I can revel in your struggles too! Misery loves company!
Wow. You beat Snake Rattle n Roll without a game genie? I didn't even think that was possible. I thought the game was designed to sell Game Genies. That gray ice level was the game killer for me. Even with a Game Genie I wasn't able to beat that final boss until my mid 20's. I admire your persistence. I don't have time or patience for things like that anymore.
It might as well have been sold with Game Genies with how hard that final boss is, but I didn't even have luck with one! I thankfully have endless patience so it was no trouble to stick with it and get it done. I can appreciate not wanting to sink the time in though!
@Gaea11 I did not. I play on an NES with the actual cartridges, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't.
@@hungrygoriya I find it interesting that you can still do that after becoming such a huge RPG fan. I grew up with Atari at a very young age and played games where there was zero progress other than your score or what level you could make it to before graduating to NES. After playing games like Faxanadu, Zelda II and Dragon Warrior, my patience for games that would reset you to zero after your continues ran out all but disappeared. Now that I'm an adult I can't even bring myself to play them anymore. Too much of a sense of lost time for me if I put a few hours into something and lose and it's gone. Right now it's been about 8 months since I even played a game, but winter is here so I will be playing something. :)
Oddly enough, the Game Genie wasn’t a help at all to beat the final boss in Snake Rattle and Roll. There wasn’t a tongue buff, and a jump buff and infinite lives only help you get to the final boss more easily just to fail more often.
@@hunam1464 Yeah. I remember that. It was one of the games that had codes in the official manual that didn't actually help you beat the game for one reason or another. Wasn't there something weird with Battletoads GC codes where it didn't actually help you too?
These are always some of my favorite streams to enjoy. The slow, incremental progress is so satisfying and encouraging! Always leaves me motivated to go take on similar games myself :D
Totally! I love watching people inch through games as well and get better and better at them. Watching you play Bubsy recently was a joy for that very reason.
Man every game you mentioned was banger after banger. I own these bad boys. Listening to your frustrations of the games took me back, so many memories from the 80s. I have not only beaten but conquered every game that you mentioned except for GNG. Watching your video reminded me that I have a score to settle with GNG.
Ooooo if you decide to tackle GnG, I wish you the best of luck!
Ghosts 'n' Goblins is one of those games where, if you have a grudge with it, it seemingly has a grudge with you. Let your hate flow through you, sharpen your focus and your reflexes upon it until they are razor-edged, and then drag it across the game's throat.
One game that really challenged me as a kid and forced me to actually think is Adventures of Lolo. Straight up puzzles, most games require you to react properly this little game you had to think about how to solve its puzzles. It really was satisfying figuring them out and even more so when your mind is so wired you figure out some of them without having to think very long. But then....there are those you think you have figured out but NOPE.
Oh goodness... puzzles are not my strong suit but I've played a bit of Lolo before and enjoyed it! I'm not sure I could get through the harder stuff without pulling my hair out!
that game is fantastic!
Opening up each title with a view of the glorious phosphor of the CRT like that is great editing. Good and fair list, Castlevania 3 was a toughy!
Hey thanks so much! It was really fun to film all of that except for how finicky some NES games can be to get going, haha
your narration sounds like an advanced AI doing a book report. believe it or not, that's a compliment. Ai isn't nearly this advanced, and i'm not sure it will ever comprehend the joy with which you describe your own machine learning process. A+ channel
I'm glad my writing sounds better than the junk AI comes up with.
I finally beat “Godzilla Monster of Monsters!” last week :) Lol, used to rent it constantly and never made it past the first grid..
Didn’t even realize you leveled up Godzilla and Mothra :p
I really ham’d it up while playing and my son and I were cracking up the whole time while we slowly went insane from the repetitive music and sound effects. Best game ever..
Godzilla, Friday the 13th and Jaws are definitely stand-out gaming memories, playing along with my big sister and older brother.
Oh right on! Congratulations on getting the win! I've seen a little bit of that game played but haven't tried it for myself. It looks like a lot of fun. It sounds like you've made some great memories with your son too. I'm sure he'll cherish that time with you :)
I haven't tried Godzilla for myself yet, but I did really like what I played of Jaws. It seems like there's a great challenge in there too!
Sweet!
That Punch-Out!! stream was one of my first streams of yours that I watched all the way through. That was a journey we all rode along with you on. Seeing you persevere (and hearing the pride and satisfaction in your voice) was uplifting to all of us :)
It was so fun having a whole pile of people along for the ride. I loved Punch-Out!! Thanks for being there with me!
I'd say that one obvious option, would be to beat Contra, sans the 30man code, you get to use your three continues as normal,but it still takes a lot of gusto/perseverance. Good luck and great show
Right right... to date, I've only finished Contra with the code and barely squeaked by. I need to sit down and start working on a codeless run.
Fun Fact: Journey to Silius was originally going to be a Terminator themed game, however Sun Soft lost their licensing for it. The game was already being made, so instead of abandoning it, they changed the music, made some edits to the story, and changed the character's name.
Glad they still kept at it because it's an awesome game!
Not only is this a stack of some of the hardest NES games, it's also a stack of some of the best! I'm all for a nice cozy NES game that doesn't break your head from time to time, but there is just something about how well these games were made and how they bring out the best in you.. and finishing them after putting the work in is so satisfying. I'd really love to see you take on Battle Kid, as it falls right into this category, but you already know that >:) Fun video, Grumbles.. well done.
Oh, and referencing the Blaster Master wall softlock without actually showing the wall softlock: Power move.
Right? There are so many fantastic titles here, many of which were brand new to me in the last decade or so. And each one felt difficult for different reasons. I'm glad I finally beat Ghosts 'n Goblins despite the trouble it caused me. Watching you play through that so flawlessly today made me want to pick it back up again, but I know better...
And dude, I spent so much time staring at that sad, sad scene of my little friend stuck in the wall. It brings me a great sadness, haha
@@hungrygoriya In certain time continuums, he's still in that wall..waiting.. and I know one day you will embrace the fun unpredictable challenge of GnG.
The blue wall, all the red flying demons was a real trip and you had to have that stupid cross shield to beat the boss in the castle!
That's where I got stuck for a long, long time. Cracking that blue area and getting into the rest of the game felt amazing.
The two that I've beaten are Zelda II and Castlevania III. Zelda II was hard, but I had the patience to level up when the difficulty spiked. Well, the trip to the final dungeon was still very difficult no matter what. Now that I know the game better, I think I can alleviate its difficulty a bit better, suiting the level up system to my playstyle.
Now, I still don't know how I've beaten Castlevania III, even the Japanese version.
It's nice that you can outpace things for a little while with levelling. I murdered those tektites with the fire spell for a long while to level up because I was getting destroyed in one of the palaces. It definitely helps to a point!
Castlevania III was such a hard game for me. Out of the whole list, it's probably one of the more frustrating experiences I had. I haven't come back to it because of that but making this video has had me thinking about trying a different route...
@@hungrygoriya The final boss is definitely the biggest hurdle in that game. In-fact that whole final level is, and the checkpoint before the boss is far from generous. Took me hours to finish the final stretch of the game.
@@chimp_star I'm glad I'm not alone!
In Castlevania 3 I was really bad at the level where the blocks crumble underneath you. So restarted and took the alucard path so I could just fly. Little did I know that was apparently the hardest path. Still managed to beat it.
That’s an impressive resume of 8-but glory. Fun video to revisit some awesome victories!
Yeah! None of these are games I really want to do a full review on, but I thought they were worth mentioning! Thanks for stopping in here. It's always nice to see you in the comments :)
What a deliciously nostalgic video! First of all, I give you all the kudos in the world for beating all of these super tough NES games! I love Blaster Master with all of my video game heart as I played that one back in my childhood. I borrowed it from a friend and after six grueling months of playing the game and making it just a little bit further on each playthrough, I finally managed to beat it! It remains one of my all-time favs to this day. CONGRATS on beating Snake Rattle 'n Roll as well! It took me 30 YEARS to finally beat that insane Ice Foot on the moon and I can't tell you how excited I was to finally pull that one off. The other games you mentioned are all superb as well. Beating Mike Tyson is still one of my best NES accomplishments. That fight was SO tough! And Ghosts 'n Goblins was a game I finally beat last year. Not sure I will play that one again anytime soon though. Journey to Silius is wonderful (music is SO good!) and Friday the 13th really grew on me once I learned how the map works. Great video! You should go after Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden next! ;)
Right on! Congrats on all your wins as well. These are not easy games and it's great to know that there are others out there grinding away trying to get the wins.
It's funny because I've been casually into Battletoads most of my life but can never get past the snakes. I've never really sat down and tried too hard to beat it, but maybe this is the time. And for Ninja Gaiden, I've actually gotten to the second form of the final boss but just didn't have enough energy that night to keep going. Victory is in sight at least! Thanks for the encouragement. Hopefully there can be a part two someday, haha
@@hungrygoriya Thank you so much for the nice compliments and please continue to post the videos you are posting! I honestly just stumbled into your channel last night and I really enjoyed this video along with a few others. 😊 You’ve made some great points and it’s nice to see someone who is very candid and objective when they review games. I try to be that way but I’ll be the first to admit that my nostalgia rose colored glasses get in the way at times. 🤣 by the way congrats on at least making it as far as you have on Ninja Gaiden! I would honestly encourage you to really push to finish that one as it has a wonderful ending and to be perfectly honest with you the second game is way easier! The third Ninja Gaiden game is very tough as well but I still feel like the first one is the hardest overall. Battletoads might very well be the hardest game I have played in my life so you might want to just hold off on that one until you are truly ready for it lol. In any case you have my respect and I think you are a fantastic gamer to have beaten the games you have beaten!
@@tigmo55 See, the way you get around those nostalgia glasses reviews is to put the word "retrospective" in your title... then you can be as biased as you like, haha
And thank you so much! I'm really happy to know that the videos here are fun. I can't really be anything other than myself so that candidness is always guaranteed. And not to worry: Ninja Gaiden and I have a date some day soon! I've got its number :)
You've upgraded a bit, nice!
There's something about beating old games like this. Most people these days will just use save states and I'm a bit guilty of that sometimes but when you take a significantly challenging old school game and truly beat it that's a feeling like no other! On the Sega Genesis I've been able to beat Kid Chameleon a few times after years and years of my childhood being spent on it.
That game gets hard out of nowhere. Idk how you managed to beat that one! It's fun tho!
It's such a nice feeling! I love a good relaxing game sometimes but I also adore crushing something that has kicked my butt for a long time too. I play on hardware mostly so no save states available, but I will admit I have wished for them sometimes, especially after game overing in very long games like Blaster Master.
Kid Chameleon eh? I haven't spent any time with it but I'd love to see what it's all about. Congratulations on getting through it!
It was great seeing Blaster Master on this list. I’ll never forget the feeling of figuring out the route to the last area. That game was definitely one my all-time favorite completes on the NES. Solstice was another one, and worth checking out if you haven’t already. Lots of ah-ha moments in that challenging game as well.
Blaster Master was so satisfying to finish up. I'm so glad I made it through after lots of trial and error towards the end there. And I love Solstice! It didn't make this list because I had a whole review planned just for it on its own, which I put out a few videos ago.
Fun fact:
Journey to Silius was actually a port of Terminator but Sunsoft couldn't get the license at the time.
I love these videos. I put some time into the NES recently and absolutely love this system. I'm constantly finding games I'd never heard of on this console... NES is timeless. A relic of the past, but still so playable today and captivating to those willing to put in the time to enjoy its famous library of some of gaming's greatest.
You know, it's funny you say this because I've been heavily into NES for the last decade especially, and I'm STILL finding out about new games that I haven't heard of that look really fun! Do you have any favourites so far from your dive into the library?
@@hungrygoriya Wario's Woods will always be high on my list of puzzle games for the system. I grew up with the SNES version but picked up the NES version when I was in high school and it's still very good. My only knock is the lack of the versus mode against the ai that the SNES version has.
@@hungrygoriya Well my favorite NES game of all time is Kirby's Adventure! I love the Legend of Zelda and have been working on finally beating it recently . Was playing on original hardware and was at the last dungeon. Went to boot up my save file and... it was gone :*( so I'm emulating it lol. But other than Nintendo classics, I recently played Gradius and liked it a ton. First time giving Dragon Spirit a fair shot and I absolutely fell in love with that one. Bug's Bunny's Birthday Blowout is a surprisingly fun platformer! And anything else my wife and I decide to pop in for a few laughs or for some awesome couch co-op!
@@SMALLSandJOE Kirby is pretty fun! I'm so sorry about your save though :( I had a copy of the game that had a bad battery and could never save when I was little. I feel for you! I hope you crush it this time without any problems.
Gradius and Dragon Spirit look like a good time. I need to play more shooters but I'm not so great at them. Couch co-op is the best! Do you have a Genesis? I played through Forgotten Worlds with my husband a few years ago and that was a blast!
@@sladevalen Such a bummer that they omitted the AI competitor :( Puzzle games are a lot more fun when you have someone to work against!
Fri13 has to be the most underrated game of all time. It was called one of the worst games ever made in both Nintendo Power’s and EGM’s 100th issues, not to mention AVGN’s influence among so many others. I never understood this. It remains one of the most original action adventures I’ve ever played, with a looping map (yes it does make perfect sense) and a legitimate danger as your characters are meant to be underpowered compared to Jason. It should end like the movies end, with most characters dead. I thought you would like it, and I’m glad you did!!
Yes! I hope it comes back around as a positive experience for people once they actually start playing it. It's definitely a shame how poorly it's rated, mostly by folks that haven't even given it the time of day.
Inspirational viewing 🌟
Sometime soon, when I finally get a good chunk of recreation time to myself, I've got my eye on playing through a few old games that I've never got around to properly trying. In particular, I'm really looking forward to The Adventure of Link, and maybe even the dreaded Ghosts 'n Goblins... well, the first loop, at least!
The only shame is that we didn't see Adventure Island 1 on this list. 🙂
Wonderful stuff, Hungry, I loved it !!!
I hated Zelda II as a child; it was my first unhealthy relationship in life. No matter how much I hated the game I kept going back to it; eventually 10 year old me finally beat it. 10/10 would recommend.
You can do it! Maybe you'll do us the honour of firing up a stream so we can join you?
NEVER Ghost and Ghoblins - *shudder*
I beat Ghost and goblins NES legit both play throughs on Wii VC. That 4th level with all the red flying gargoyles...
@@hungrygoriya wait... you put a 'u' in honour, and you don't have a British accent..
Does that mean you are a fellow Canadian? ;)
I got back from college the summer of 1997, and I decided to use my time off to go back and complete some games that I never beat and play games that I always wanted to try (this relates to your Illusion of Gaia review, that I swear that I will comment on). Two NES games in my library of games that I loved was Zelda 2 and Blaster Master, but I never beat them when I first got them. It felt like a serious accomplishment finally beating those two. If I had access to a Snake Rattle and Roll cart I probably would have attempted to beat that too (the furthest I ever made it when I was a kid was the final ice level).
Congratulations on finally getting through Blaster Master and Zelda II! I know that feeling of having that hanging over your head for a long time and then getting to those credits. I hope you'll play Snake Rattle & Roll again someday! It was so satisfying to finally wreck the final boss.
@@hungrygoriya By the way, that plastic Zelda trophy is sooo cool! I wanted one so bad way back when they were released. So much so, I was taking a childrens pottery class, and I made my own clay diorama. It was a scene from the lost woods. I made a clay Link, clay bushes and a staircase replacing one of the bushes. I got rid of it a while ago, because it looked like something an eight year old made, because honestly it was, but I was so obsessed with The Legend of Zelda at the time.
@@partridgestorm Awwww a whole diorama? That's awesome! I've never been good in the visual arts really, so I couldn't have dreamed of doing something that elaborate. The statue was actually a gift from a friend of mine who I bought some games from. He packed that into the box because he knew how much I loved the game. I'm really honoured to have it!
Oh man. I would have fallen to my knees and cried at that Ghosts N Goblins key death.
What makes you think I didn't? haha
I love your channel so much! You are a great gamer and a genuinely interesting person to listen to!😊
Awww thanks so much! I try to make all my videos a little bit personal in some way so that means a lot to know it's interesting to listen to.
You have a very soothing voice, it's very nice to hear you talk about these old games. You're knowledge is great as well, please keep up the amazing work, I can't wait to see more from you!!!!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed this one. I should have something new out in the next couple of weeks :)
I think we've all commented about her voice upon finding the channel 😄
There's just something about it.
@@technomage6736 I hope that's a good thing!
@@hungrygoriya Of course!
I agree, she could have a career doing voiceovers for instructional videos.
I think my NES stayed powered in for about two weeks when I was trying to beat Little Nemo. Omg, loved that game so much!
I wasn't allowed to leave mine on as a kid :(
This makes me remember a few notorious corrupted 40+ hour NES RPG battery saves for some reason, those were existential moments.
My 3 most important advices for Ghost´n Goblins_
1. Get the knife
2. Get the knife
3. GET THE KNIFE
The knife is definitely helpful. The flame is good for a couple of bosses as well though!
@@hungrygoriya It has the fastest firing rate and shoots a bit faster than the javelin (Default weapon from the start of the game).
Fantastic list!! Journey to Silius is a favorite of mine I go back to frequently because of the challenge. To this day, the hardest NES game I've personally beaten is hands down Adventure Island. Looks very inviting, but about halfway through the game, everything changes and it becomes one of the most brutally difficult experiences ever. World 6 and 7 in particular were nightmares to get through.
Oh my goodness... I've finished every other NES/SNES Adventure Island game except for the first one. It makes me pretty angry! I've finished the original Wonder Boy which is essentially the same game but without the slipperiness that Master Higgins seems to exude in Adventure Island 1. Congratulations on defeating that one! I gave up in world 8 and never looked back!
I'll recommend the very first Ninja Turtles game if you haven't played and/or beaten it already. When my brothers and I were 5-7 years old (can't remember exact age), we got all the way to the last hallway stretch to Shredder but would not have enough health or extra turtles to get past there at that point. When I was about 16 is when we finally revisited the game and beat it.
I actually haven't played the first Ninja Turtles game on NES yet. I've only experienced some of the second game. I'm definitely interested in playing it someday.
NES was also a big part of my childhood. It was the family system but I remember when my dad bought me a game that was all mine. Dragon Warrior taught me how to save money, level grind, and many more skills that would help carry me through my gaming life. Thank you dad R.I.P. ❤️
What a sweet memory. So sorry for your loss :(
My brother's and I loved Dragon Warrior as well. As well as its sequels. 5 is my favorite and I've not been able to find it anywhere.
@@bryantroyer8008 Good luck tracking it down someday soon!
I've only played 1 and 2. Dragon quest 2 starts off with a similar difficulty level, but that difficulty really jumps once you get the boat. I cite #2 as the toughest game I've beaten. Just think of doing the Rhone cave without knowing where the pitfalls are.
David Wise is hands down my favorite game composer, SRnR has some boppin tunes.
Totally one of my favourites as well!
SMB2 is my favorite game. I don't recall ever using a game genie for it, I'm sure I have...I mean I must have right?
The hardest games I've beaten were Treasure Master, McKids, Holy Diver, Fester's Quest, TMNT, Solstice, BattleToads (clinger winger level was just crazy stupid hard) Kid Icarus, Metal Gear, Adventures of LoLo, Ghost n' Goblins, Top Gun (as an adult, I figured out the landing sequence controls and finally beat it) Ninja Gaiden, Wizard's and Warriors I and II, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, Bayou Billy, Double Dragon II and III, Mickey Mousecapades, Bubble Bobble, Blaster Master, All Adventure Island games, StarTropics (so fun) All Megaman and Castlevania games, Punch Out!, Adventures of Dino Riki, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Batman, (brutal) A Boy and his Blob (the legit way) and Mission Impossible.
A few games I've never even come close to beating are Ikari Warriors, Robocop, Back to the Future, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Castelian, Silver Surfer, Skate or Die, Paperboy, Platoon (never even tried) Karate Kid (nope) Kid Kool (despite trying so many times, so so so many times) Cobra Triangle, Werewolf: The Last Warrior (should try it again) Rygar, Jaws, Shadowgate, Milon's Secret Castle, Contra Force, Time Lord, Street Fighter 2010, any Simpson's game, Bionic Commando (no interest) The Rocketeer, Beetlejuice, Rad Racer, Wizard's and Warriors III, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Krusty's Fun House (oh my GOD that game is so long) and ghostbusters.
Some games i'd recommend trying would be Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Astyanax, Bucky O'Hare, Ninja Crusaders, Little Mermaid, Marble Madness, Tiny Toon Adventures, Wacky Races, Pirates! Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Gimick, Rampart, Legacy of the Wizard, Totally Rad, Shatterhand, Felix the Cat, Tecmo Super Bowl, Willow, Darkwing Duck, Gold Medal Challenge '92, River City Ransom, Sword Master, Nintendo World Cup, StarTropics II.
I freaking love Snake Rattle 'n Roll! What a start to the list.
That music's so good! I love the gameplay. Definitely one of the hardest ones on this list!
BTW, if you beat ghosts and goblins, I bow to you, and am not worthy. I can't count the times I rage quit that game lol
I rage quit a bunch of times before I made it through, if it's any consolation. Finishing it once was enough for life!
Hats off for finishing these titles...especially Blaster Master and Dracula's Curse. These are very tough nes games to finish. Your pride in these milestones is certainly justified. Can I offer another? I personally have finished a Romstar title by the name of Cowboy Kid. It is a fun game full of charm and uniqueness. If you have ever played The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja for the snes, you will certainly see the similarities between the two titles. Cowboy kid is very challenging and the boss battles are BRUTAL! I'm convinced that CK was designed specifically to make the NES player better. Thanks for reading my book and happy gaming :)
How'd I miss this video? I think You Tube's been screwing up. Excellent video though. I'll keep an eye out for these difficult NES games. I have a couple of them already. But, most of them I don't have.
Daaaaamn, Snake Rattle 'n Roll. All of these are pretty impressive! Much respect. Great video and great job!
Hey thanks so much! I had to work hard to get through all of these and it was really rewarding to do it all.
Nice video. I’m an nes child myself. I still play these games to this day so it’s nice to see others play them as well. Much respect showing Link some love. I’ve never understood how people dislike that game.
It doesn't make sense to me why people dislike Zelda 2. It's as good a game as any other side scrolling action adventure game and definitely worth experiencing.
It's nice seeing Friday the 13th get a little love. I honestly think that if it had come out from any other publisher but LJN, it would be (rightfully) regarded as an extremely ambitious - but flawed - early survival horror game. Especially considering it was made by Atlus; one of their very first games. That should get it at least a little goodwill.
What it really needed, more than anything else, was an onscreen compass. The camera and map DO make sense, if you can intuit that the camera is actually moving in 3D space mapped onto a 2D plane. Which is not exactly intuitive in a NES game. If they'd had a compass telling the player which direction they were heading, it would have made navigation so much easier.
I agree with you entirely. I think folks online tend to put a little too much stock in companies and shut down before even trying the game out for themselves. This is definitely one of the neater games I've played.
I agree about the compass. I'd usually just choose a direction and check the map after a few moments to see which way I was moving, but you're right: a compass would've gone a very long way here.
I like that it’s been 40 years since the NES came out & there’s still some games that I’ve never heard of.
I'm still learning about new games too!
Thanks for the reviews and bringing back childhood memories of retro gaming. Playing these challenging titles will give me hours of gameplay in my free time.
Good luck with the playthroughs! I really enjoyed all of these. Blaster Master was definitely a favourite.
I "beat" Journey to Silius on the switch online version, literally constantly using the rewind feature. Beating it for real takes super human patience and skill. You are nothing short of astonishing.
Hey thanks! I'm glad you managed to get through the game. I would've killed for rewind in level 4!
Your channel popped up on my feed and I'm already a fan because of your love of the classics. Your voice and articulation is amazing too. Keep up the good work. 😁
I'm really happy to see some new folks in the comments here! Glad you stopped in and thank you very much :)
Awesome review! I’ve never been able to get past journey of silias so great job!
Thank you! I'm sure you could make it through if you spend some time with it. I believe!
HG! I know I say this often but your videos are soo comfy. I really like the new game intros with the tiny TV in a dark room, brings me back to sneaking in my own gaming sessions as a kid. I also rented Snake as a kid but only once, it was just too much for my baby brain!
Awww thanks very much for this! It means a lot that people can watch this channel and enjoy themselves while they're here.
Your patience is remarkable, well done on completing these. The only one of these I've beat is Zelda 2. We had it growing up... instead of Zelda 1, lol. But I didn't beat it until I was a teenager, and the first time I'm pretty sure I used the cheap but safe method of crouching in the corner to fight the final boss. Now I come back to it every once in awhile, and usually I only get a few game overs before the end. Probably my least favorite part is grinding all my stats to max level, but I don't like going into the final palace without them, haha.
You are a creature of habit, apparently! Nothing wrong with that! I'd really love to be more familiar with this game. I only finished it the one time, and while I'm looking forward to playing it again sometime, I think I'll just play Zelda 1 instead haha
Cool video..😁I've been playing nes since 1986 and beating some of the games on your list has been darn near impossible. I share a few of the finishes with you.. but I never found Ganon in the last maze!! Congrats
Congratulations on getting through some of this list. It's definitely rewarding to see these ending screens.
Loved the video, great list of games! Friday 13th and ninja turtles 1 and back to the future 2and3 were always my bane in childhood. I liked how you showed dream master in the ghosts and goblins section it's one of my favorite 😊
I really need to play Ninja Turtles 1 someday. I've only played a bit of the second game. And I haven't touched Back to the Future stuff at all.
Little Nemo's a fantastic game. It was one of the only games I ever rage quit when I was a teenager, but I came back to it many years later and finally beat it. That train level is the worst!
I still can't believe Anyone has Ever beaten that brilliant and frustrating Friday the 13th for our NES. Nicely done
Hey thanks! It's definitely doable. I just barely made it and had to sacrifice my last counsellor friend to win... but I did it.
Nintendo came out at a time when I had an extended stay in the hospital. It quickly became my healing friend and I played a lot. From your list, I recall only beating 5 of these and agree with the struggles you've pointed out. I would suggest Faxanadu; from recollection, it was one of the hardest I played if I'm recalling my childhood correctly. There were a number of really good RPG's on the NES so may be a bit blurred. Today, I don't think I'd be able to handle anything on this list. Maybe Zelda II because I have a certain fondness and patience for the series and Punch-Out for pattern recognition.
Awww I'm so glad that you had some games to keep you company while you were in the hospital. Faxanadu's actually my favourite NES game that I play through once a year. It's definitely a tough one and has some weird difficulty like how many keys to buy. Thanks so much for the suggestion!
"I'll never forget that time I beat Spy Hunter." A friend of mine told us all that lie once expecting us all to believe it. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We never saw him again after that day.
My own personal experience with Mike Tyson's Punch Out is ongoing. I borrowed that game from a friend when it came out and still haven't beaten it to this day. I've knocked Iron Mike down 3x in one round but did I get a TKO? NO! He got back up on the 8 count and flattened me. That's as far as I ever got.
I have beaten Zelda II and Ninja Garden 1-3. So I have that going for me. I need to sit down with Punch Out again and see if I can finally beat my nemesis once and for all.
Oh really? I think I beat him by TKO in round 2 if I'm remembering correctly. And it sounds like you've gotten through some pretty tough titles yourself. Nice work! Hopefully you'll be able to add MTPO to your list soon too!
I played most of those games and enjoyed them, but only ever finished a couple. The big advancement for me in Blaster Master was the day I learned that holding the grenade button during the overhead sections let you fix your direction while moving. It turned the crab from a prayer for luck into an easy win almost every time.
This is a very smart tactic. I couldn't find a way to easily hold the grenade button and spam the gun very easily.
What a great list and video!
I have played all of these and Blaster Master is the only one I remember finishing.
The game I was most excited to beat from the NES was Rygar. There was something about it's world felt complete. I don't know if it's a hard game, but it took me forever.
Blaster Master's a tough one for sure. Congrats on making it through!
Rygar is something I only first experienced within the last year or so and I loved it! I did a full review on it somewhere in this channel's backlog and I agree with you: it felt like a complete world more than most other NES games I've played. I used the manual which detailed where different items were and finished it in an afternoon, but it just clicked with me. I know of a lot of people who played it for much longer than I did.
I'm impressed by your perseverance. I played a bunch of these games as a kid in the 80s, and i absolutely did not finish any of them. As an adult, i'm an anti-completionist. I abandon books, movies, and games as soon as i'm not enjoying them. I never get "pot committed" to something, even when i'm close to the end. This doesn't mean i never play challenging games - i love the souls games, even speedrunning them a bit. But all of those "off screen enemy knocks you into a pit" games from the NES days are absolutely not on my bucket list!
Great video. Subscribed...
Thanks for subscribing here. I don't know what compels me to finish what I start. I think a great deal of it must come from the fact that I stream a lot of my gaming these days, and having an audience to be accountable to really makes it more worthwhile than throwing in the towel. I never used to finish games when I was younger, mostly because I either a) couldn't or b) didn't want those stories to end. I left so many RPGs undone back then!
@@hungrygoriya Yeah, that makes sense. Though i'm not a completionist, i am someone who wants to fulfill my responsibilities. I don't like to let anyone down. So i can see how streaming would make you feel like you owed it to your viewers to show the games who's the boss.
great video. i guess youtube isnt putting your vids in my feed anymore cuz its been a while since i seen one. i miss this!! you make me want to play whatever game you do videos on. im probably gonna play castlevania 3 later today!
Oh bummer! Well thanks for checking in here. I have another video underway so I should have something out in the next week or so if everything goes well. Have fun with Castlevania 3. I hope it goes better for you than it did for me!
The ice levels at the end of Snake Rattle n Roll are crazy hard, and the end boss is definitely one of the worst.
Journey to Silius has a great difficulty balance. It's challenging but it never seems unfair and bosses are all pretty manageable.
That section in Castlevania III with the stairs and bone enemies is so brutal.
I feel like Zelda II gets easier once you learn the downward stab because you can often use it to get over enemies and get by them without fighting. That was one of the first tough NES games that I was really satisfied to beat.
I'm so glad we're on the same page about so many of these titles. I really look forward to getting the downward stab in Zelda II. It's really satisfying to go around hopping over enemies and outrunning them to the next screen!
Great work beating those games, you gave me new respect for Zelda 2 and brought back flashbacks of Ghosts n Goblins...I had a Commodore 64 and they only had atari 2600 style single button joysticks then and the developers for the 64 thought hey let's just put jump on the spacebar...unplayable really.
Oh thanks so much! I had a blast with most of these, but GnG was definitely the meanest of the bunch. I can't imagine how the C64 version must've been...
Blaster Master is one of my all time favorites. The last few levels can be a huuuuuuge slog, so bravo!
I think it only took me one or two tries to get through the final stage, and most of that motivation was not wanting to use Wall 2 anymore, haha
Just found your channel (through this video) and I've gotta say this was a very enjoyable video! You've earned a sub from me, for sure! It's nice to see someone showing persistence with these games instead of just calling BS on them and quitting. Nicely done!
Thanks so much :) I'm glad you found me here. I seem to finish games more often than not these days. I personally don't like to review things I haven't completed, unless I get softlocked out of progressing deep into a game.
@@hungrygoriya I'm a huge proponent of the value of persistence. Hence why I've finished Jekyll and Hyde. lol But seriously, learning over time how to properly conquer challenges in videos games is so much fun. :D
Such a GREAT watch! I've seen few NES game endings in recent years. The struggle to not pull the Game Genie out, just for a little more ammo, life, magic etc. just tells me I'm not as patient as I once was. Ghosts and Goblins victory is truly a solid platinum achievement. That game has very little room for indecision and you are correct; hopping around in boxers is certainly not striking terror in your foes. Blaster Master is one I've ALWAYS gone out to lengths to beat and never succeeded. Your skills are definitely top notch in this day and age!
Awww thanks! I'm glad you liked the video. I will admit that none of these wins came to me very easily. I had to spend a lot of time working on them to get there. I know some folks that pick up a tough game and beat it the first time they play it, and that's just not in my blood I guess.
@@hungrygoriya I forgot to address your choice of besting Snake Rattle and Roll. Great job. That was one of my clearly misguided resolutions to start off 2022, and Snake Rattle and Roll consumed me like a nibbly pibbly. I could manage level 5 and saw level 6, but that was it. It's a masterpiece nevertheless and you are correct. The difficulty comes in gradually, but demands precision throughout. A jump at the wrong time, or held too long is a Snake screaming his last AAAAAAAA!
@@samfritoI hope you don't give up so easily! If I can do it, so can you!
@@hungrygoriya if I try, I will catch on, but this new year's resolution will be to watch more of the great content of yours and other like minded creators. Thanks for your encouragement and for making such interesting videos.
Ghosts 'n Goblins is the toughest game I've played on NES. I can beat the SNES one but the NES one is brutal. Congrats on beating it!
Thanks very much! Until I finished the NES one, the only other I'd gotten through was the Master System version. It has a health bar, armour/weapon upgrades etc. It's such a nice game compared to the others.
I was watching the Blaster Master segment and thinking, wow it'd be awesome if she did Zelda 2 as well, and I was really happy you did!
Hooray! I was happy to finally put Zelda II to rest after many years of leaving it undone.
Never heard of your channel until it popped up randomly today. Awesome content and happy to subscribe and check out other videos.
How lucky for me! Thank you very much for checking out some of my videos here. I appreciate it!
Blaster Master traumatized me as a kid 😆 nice choice, that game is amazing. Kid Icarus is another one of those exceptionally hard games that feels like actual work. Awkward platforming, super long, and cryptic as heck. Cool channel, game on!
Blaster Master was probably my favourite game off this list. It was so rewarding to get through! Kid Icarus is one of those games I never thought I'd be able to beat, but it turned out it was just the beginning that puts you through the wringer. The rest of the game smooths out as you get better weapons etc. I was pleasantly surprised and ended up really enjoying my time with it after I got out of the first world.
And thanks for stopping by!
Beating Ghosts ‘n Goblins all the way through the second loop? Massive respect.
Yes. I couldn't leave it undone so I did both loops and said goodbye forever.
Dude...Blaster Master is one of my all-time favorites! Legendary soundtrack...I never could beat it though and I still haven't to this day. Damn...you beat some difficult games...Now you have to try Battletoads and Contra! Geez...buying and playing the VirtualBoy was the toughest thing you've done within the mention of this video...Good of you to have kept it though, as I assume it grew in value. I haven't beaten ANY of these games. But I HAVE beaten Contra, Bubble Bobble, SMB 2, Fire and Ice, Double Dragon II, Zelda 1 (Both quests), Shadowgate, and some others I can't think of off-top.
Blaster Master's a phenomenal game that I look forward to playing again when some of where to go has faded from memory. I want to learn it all over again!
I've been casually playing Battletoads all my life and have really only made it up to the snakes, but if I sat down and tried to beat it, maybe I could. Hopefully, anyway! I've finished Contra with the Konami code but I'd need to work pretty hard to get through it without it!
My Virtual Boy's actually modified for AV out so I can play it on a TV. The games are a lot easier to tolerate and enjoy that way, though the mod negates some of the 3D effects. It's still really cool!
You've definitely got some killer game completions on your list! Nice work!
Naturally discovering the Blaster Master Boss glitch is one of my most fond core memories as a kid.
Oh nice! Someone mentioned the pause glitch to me while I was playing but I didn't end up using it. Discovering it on the fly back then must've felt glorious!
The very first Hudson's Adventure Island. I still think back to how excruciatingly perfect you had to time your jumps in later levels and how I still can't believe I did it. I only just beat it about 2 years ago, after 30+ years of attempts. Yeah, this game is by far the hardest (for me). Congrats on beating GnG, a game I've personally never beat. Not for lack of trying, but I just never thought the NES version played particularly well when compared to the arcade or Genesis versions. Just far too stiff for my tastes.
I played Adventure Island up to world 8, tried forever to move on, turned it off, and haven't gone back to it since. I vastly prefer Wonder Boy on the Master System. I don't know if it's just in my head, but it seems to control a little better and is essentially the same game in many ways. Adventure Island belongs in my drawer of shame.
GnG was definitely something that took me a lot more effort to beat than I care to admit. I wish it had been an easier time for me. I really liked the Master System version. It's almost the same as the Genesis game (with some visual downgrades) but it has a life bar! And permanent upgrades! Definitely a lot more approachable than other games in the series.
Zelda 2 was one of those games that definitely got easier when you learned a couple tricks. Fighting shield-wielding enemies was easier if you do a short hop towards them while swinging your sword, and swing your sword again from a crouch the instant you touch ground. You'll penetrate the shield ~75% of the time, and if you don't, it takes all of half a second to try again. Works on most mid-level enemies. And then for Dark Link, just crouch in the corner and keep duck-stabbing, you'll win in just a few seconds. If you have multiple enemies on the screen always focus on the little guys first--they do damage same as the big guys but go down easier so you can clear up the playing field and make it more likely to get in and out of a dungeon without taking a hit.
Great thoughts here!
I started playing NES when it came out in the 80s. I played all the games you mentioned. Ghosts and Goblins was the hardest, I think. Final Fantasy was pretty hard because it was such a grind. Dragon Warrior 3 was really tough. Battletoads and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were very hard and super fun. Megaman is a must play game for any fan of the NES. Metroid is another one that you have to play if you're into the NES. Both of those are challenging and still super fun.
Oh nice! I had an NES growing up in the early 90s but I didn't have a lot of games for it. We got them for birthdays and Christmases and I think between me and my siblings, we had around 10 games or so for my most of my childhood. Most of these I've been playing as an adult after learning about them later in life.
From your list, I've played Final Fantasy, Battletoads (up to the snakes), Mega Man 2 and 3, and also Metroid. I really need to get around to other Dragon Warrior games one of these days. I've still only finished the first game. TMNT is also on my list to play someday. I'm really only familiar with the second game.
You rock Hun! Keep up the great work, and we'll keep watching :D
Thanks for the encouragement!
I have not seen a video of you before but I absolutely adore that you bought up Journey to Silius and Blaster Master and their soundtrack you yourself another subscriber!
Hey thanks for checking out the channel! I loved both of those soundtracks very much. Do you know Vomitron? That's where I first heard the Blaster Master soundtrack long before I played the game for myself. I think he eventually covered Journey to Silius as well.
@@hungrygoriya Oh I have not, I will go check him out! I had played Blaster Master before but as a child I totally forgot about it, until recently I got recommended on steam Blaster Master Zero and as soon as I saw that car and heard the music it all came back to me
@@SoulBL4D3 You're in for a real treat if you like metal covers. Very high energy stuff! I hope you enjoy it!
Awesome video! That first game looks really similar to Marble Madness.
I finally beat Mike Tyson a couple of years ago during Covid. Had nothing better to do so I grinded it out and finally beat him. Felt good lol.
Congratulations on taking down Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! That's no easy feat and no matter the excuse, it's great that you finally got around to doing it.
And I think Marble Madness is made by the same people. The marble falling off the edge has the same little snake scream, I'm pretty sure.
I have ZERO arguments with this LIST!!! Thank you! NES was my second experience to 8-bit gaming (Sega Master System was my first)
My pleasure! Glad you enjoyed the video :)
I loved Friday the 13th as a kid, but I never beat it. You have inspired me to try as an adult. I have beat Punchout and Zelda 2 which are probably harder games, so I think I can do it
I believe in you! Good luck!
Loved the music and sound effects for Friday the 13th. I never knew back in the day that you could switch counselor's easy.
Friday the 13th is very mysterious. I only made progress by experimenting and reading the manual, and eventually putting some important pieces together.
Finally someone who appreciates Zelda II. Its an under valued gem! One of my all time favorite games. Me and my son play through Zelda II on regular intervals.
That's great to hear! Zelda II is something I wanted to finish for a long time and didn't stop thinking about until I did. I' glad you and your son get to share that experience together on the regular.
My friends and I, beat goblins and ghost's. We used to leave the Nintendo on before school. Hoping she wouldn't turn it off. because we made it just a little bit further. Great video!
What a gamble! I'm glad you all made it through it!
Soltice better be at least mentioned in this video! That game without a guide took me like 2 years to beat as a kid.
I have a separate review on Solstice. I loved it!
First video I've found of yours. 3 seconds of Faxanadu theme, subscribed👌
It's my favourite NES game! Thanks so much!
A general rule is if it is an NES game, it's going to be hard. If it's a Sunsoft game, it's going to be REALLY hard. The fact you beat these on the console is downright impressive! Also, thank goodness for emulators and save state 🙏
I have a lot of patience and I'm a little stubborn too. I don't like leaving things unfinished! Thanks very much :)
On Ghost's & Goblin's- good to know I'm not the only one who, out of frustration after hundreds of deaths, hit the start button with "1 player" selected instead of "continue". I was so angry I never played this game again- this was 1987!
Is it time for vengeance? Perhaps enough time has gone by now...