Sinistar by far is the hardest arcade game
I have scored 475k on Robotron and 350k on Joust
Sure both games are hard, but once you start to get good at them you fall in love with the games as I have
Defender is hard, im a below avarage player for sure but I do agree that its a fun game, I do remember seeing it for the first time in the mid 80s (and it had already been out for a while by the first time I laid my eyes on it) and remember seeing all the buttons and trying to play and feeling very overwheled as a young kid
As I got older that same machine stayed in my local arcade and I got used to it
Mappy used to chew me up and spit me out, and the game seemed simple enough, but was just impossible, the Mappy arcade was located at the bowling alley in Redding in the 80s not at the massive "Gold Mine" arcade that I spent all my time and money
Missile Command I love to death in the arcade, its crazy because I was the best Missile Command player back in the day and I only broke 100k maybe twice in my life
None of my friends could come close to 100k