This week in honor of the release of Bloodborne on the PlayStation 4 we're taking a look back at HARD GAMES, the most difficult games of all time. Games used to be a challenge but at some point we became soft. New games that are hard (without being cheap) are rare enough that we celebrate the release of each of them, but back in the day it used to be almost a standard.. Some we love to hate for their challenge. Case in point: Battletoads.
Of all my major accomplishments in life- professionally, in my marriage, raising my kids, or what have you- few achievements stand up to once beating Battletoads unassisted. No cheat codes, no Game Genie, just me and the game and hours of training and gallons of sweat from perfecting things till I could get through it all, start to finish, in the measly three lives developer RARE cruelly sought to provide us with.
Like many other kids of the era, I became absolutely hooked on Battletoads when it was released for the original NES in 1991, but my obsessions started even before. I really don’t know what awakened the curiosity in the game- was it the incredible-at-the-time graphics, the fun finishing moves that saw the Toads’ hands and feet being turned into giant weapons, the fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was currently a thing? Most likely it was Nintendo Power.
For a while, that was the bible for gamers. There wasn’t anything else like that, and volume 25, with the Battletoads living large on the cover, was the first issue of my subscription.
What helped? For most people, it was a Game Genie. Back in the day when games used to crush you without hesitation, and Game Genies were absurdly popular. A peripheral that ended up selling five million units worldwide, they were pass-through devices that plugged into the system itself and allowed you to enter codes that would essentially break the game to your liking. Using the device for Battletoads could give you infinite lives, easier enemies, or even skip levels entirely.
Among my cousins, among my friends, even among everyone on the playground at school- no one had beaten Battletoads without it. No one, but me.
Of course, the one bleary night I finally managed to defeat the Turbo Tunnel without a single life lost- cruising through the freezing ice levels, the surfing levels, the many giant bosses- I finally bested it and witnessed its lackluster ending sequence.... and was alone, well past bedtime. If only achievements had existed then, or cell phone cameras, or Twitch streams!
Now of course lots of people have done it- a cursory YouTube search proves that my achievement wasn't as remarkable as it felt at the time. I doubt I could ever do it again, nor would I want to. The knowledge that I once did it is enough. I remember, and Battletoads does too.
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What’s the hardest game you’ve ever completed? What game have you made your own? Let us know in the comments below.
