What is the hardest NES game you beat without resorting to cheats or a walkthrough?

[Razzie.P]

On 4/25/2022 at 5:40 PM, electricmastro said:

How many people here have beaten these games without a guide?:

 

Ghosts 'n Goblins
Dragon's Lair
Silver Surfer
Battletoads
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Ninja Gaiden
Back to the Future II & III
Spelunker
Deadly Towers
Die Hard

 

Of that list, I beat the following, no cheats, no guide -

Ghosts 'n Goblins -- was brutal, but I just figured it as "the norm" back then.  Didn't occur to me as being anything special.

Battletoads -- I'm with Tanooki - not as difficult overall as people seem to thing, but a couple of levels wreck it

Ninja Gaiden -- this was always super easy to me, until the last level, or maybe just the last boss, I don't remember.  I just remember I could blaze through the entire game with little to no effort, and fall to pieces at the end.

 

[mbd39]

Despite my previous reply (didn't read the topic carefully enough), I definitely used some online help for beating Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden, but they were still quite hard. They're not like point and click adventures where there's no skill involved once you know what to do. For sure it was harder to beat games back in the day before there was internet and video tutorials. Although you could get tips from friends, magazines, etc.

 

I did beat Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and Castlevania as a kid with little or no help. And I came close to beating Zelda 2.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by mbd39

[CapitanClassic]

Beat these:
Ghosts 'n Goblins: Had to stay up 12+ hours, but did beat GnG bitd, twice through. 

Battletoads: Took two 2-day rentals to beat, the first time got all the way to the Queen’s Tower, but the clouds beat me. Liked the game so much though that it was one of the few games rerented.

Ninja Gaiden: Didnt find it as difficult as Street Fighter 2010
Spelunker: tooBeat it on Atari800, that count?

 

Owned/Rented, but never beat: rented bitd (2 day rental), but didn’t find the games that enjoyable. Could see beating B2tF, but so many other games to play first.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Back to the Future II & III
 

Never Owned/Rented (bitd): At this point I couldn’t see a reason to put myself through the pain and suffering to attempt to beat these games.

Dragon's Lair
Silver Surfer

Deadly Towers
Die Hard

 

I figure the reason why I was able to beat so many NES games bitd was that I didn’t have access to a GameGenie or many magazines with cheat codes. I had to master a game like Contra, and the route memorization you get from playing a level hundreds of times makes it easy to beat with the starting lives (let alone 6+ times where the drones start coming out constantly)

[Razzie.P]

2 hours ago, CapitanClassic said:

I figure the reason why I was able to beat so many NES games bitd was that I didn’t have access to a GameGenie or many magazines with cheat codes. I had to master a game like Contra, and the route memorization you get from playing a level hundreds of times makes it easy to beat with the starting lives (let alone 6+ times where the drones start coming out constantly)

Same here!  Never had a GameGenie and didn't see any magazines until sometime around Gamepro "previewing" the Sega Genesis, so left to our own devices, it was either "figure this crap out or give up n' go outside or something"

[electricmastro]

More difficult NES games if anyone happened to not use a guide or cheats:

 

Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure
Mission: Impossible
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Ghostbusters
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements
The Hunt for Red October
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Home Alone
The Uncanny X-Men
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends
Top Gun: The Second Mission
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The Terminator
The Adventures of Bayou Billy
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones
Zanac
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
The Krion Conquest
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
Dick Tracy
King's Knight

[GameGirl420]

I beat Stinger and Goonies II as well as alot of other games on NES  

 

In Stinger, it's one of those endings where you need to choose between two endings lol. 

 

As far as games I really need to beat but haven't yet it's RC Pro Am,that game is tough af.

 

[+thegoldenband]

On 4/27/2022 at 10:28 PM, electricmastro said:

More difficult NES games if anyone happened to not use a guide or cheats:

 

Ghostbusters
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Uncanny X-Men
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends
The Adventures of Bayou Billy
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight

For what it's worth I beat Ghostbusters, Bayou Billy, and Double Dragon III back in the day without cheats or a guide, and very nearly beat X-Men too (I got to Magneto and failed; I've since beaten the game 3-4x).

 

The Ghostbusters health rollover isn't a cheat in my book, since it's a glitch that arises through routine gameplay -- to avoid it, you'd have to not open any doors, which isn't reasonable. Up until that staircase sequence, it's fairly easy.

 

I don't think DD3 is hard at all until the very end, as I've said before. Bayou Billy is tougher, still not sure how I managed that. Farming for health with the gators helps.

 

Street Fighter 2010 has infinite continues so it's not too bad. Rocky and Bullwinkle isn't really hard as much as complete jank.

 

The problem with TMNT isn't really something a guide would help with, since the real issue is that the sequence with the jetpack soldiers is just broken -- they take too many hits, even with scrolls, and you basically can't get past them unless you figure out how to manipulate their movement patterns in a very non-obvious and finicky way.

 

I did use Nintendo Power as a kid to learn the game, but ultimately I don't think the first 5 levels are very difficult. It's the 6th that goes way out of control, and really only in that one hallway. I got to Level 6 repeatedly back then, but never beat it until a few years ago. Despite watching a video I still wasn't really able to control the jetpack soldiers' movement. By comparison Shredder is an utter pushover.

[dudeguy]

Castlevania. fucking brutal, but infinite continues and lots of checkpoints basically equates to save states

[Tempest]

3 hours ago, dudeguy said:

Castlevania. fucking brutal, but infinite continues and lots of checkpoints basically equates to save states

I remember thinking I beat CV back in the day and then Dracula turned into that white beast thing.  I was so surprised that I died in a few hits as I had almost no life left.  I've since beaten it several times.

[+jeremiahjt]

On 4/27/2022 at 9:55 PM, lushgirl_80 said:

I beat Stinger and Goonies II as well as alot of other games on NES  

 

In Stinger, it's one of those endings where you need to choose between two endings lol. 

 

As far as games I really need to beat but haven't yet it's RC Pro Am,that game is tough af.

 

I do not think R.C. Pro-Am has an end. Don't the tracks loop endlessly?

[+thegoldenband]

12 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

I do not think R.C. Pro-Am has an end. Don't the tracks loop endlessly?

It does, but there's a clear loop point after Level 24, so most people call it beaten at that point. Rare ought to have put some kind of ending there, but didn't.

 

If you prefer, the trophy cabinet fills up after 48 trophies, but after that the game just inserts whatever trophy you've won in the 48th slot -- it doesn't even reset the trophy cabinet. Again, Rare could so easily have put a cherry on this sundae, and one wonders why they didn't!

[Frozone212]

If by beat you mean narrowly won

then the answer is baseball simulator 1000. 14/15