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[Witherweaver]

So anyone have a game they played as a kid that they just got stuck on and couldn't figure out?  I guess this is more appropriate for those born in the 80's or early 90's, before you could just Google any question you had.

I had two:

1) Legend of Zelda II (NES).  All I remember about this game is a ton of confusion on why they moved from top-down to side-scrolling, having no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and constantly dying.

2) Breath of Fire II (SNES).  I really liked this game, a ton.  I actually never owned it, but I remember continually renting it from the store like every weekend and playing it a lot. But I could never get through one of the final dungeons.  I'd get to some plot scene, and the NPC would auto-kill my party (without even moving to battle screen, if I recall correctly), and I'd die.  I could not figure out anywhere else to go. I remember walking around the dungeon trying to figure out how to progress and not being able to find any alternate route. 

I guess if I played either of those games again today they probably wouldn't be an issue (I'd still probably dislike Zelda II though).. when I was playing them I was fairly young so I couldn't necessarily figure everything out. 

[sudgy]

I tend to not finish video games just because I get bored with them, although I've never had one I just couldn't beat.  I've beaten some really hard ones though.  SMB: Lost Levels is one, I did a 9-day 50-pikmin run in Pikmin, I beat the first LoZ, and I feel like there's more...

[Witherweaver]

I tend to not finish video games just because I get bored with them, although I've never had one I just couldn't beat.  I've beaten some really hard ones though.  SMB: Lost Levels is one, I did a 9-day 50-pikmin run in Pikmin, I beat the first LoZ, and I feel like there's more...

Well, I have a number of games I never finished because I wanted to max everything out and it took too long.  Like, almost every Final Fantasy after VII or VIII I never actually beat the final boss.  I guess for Breath of Fire II there was a time limit because I always had to return the game.

[sudgy]

Actually, the harder the game, I think the more likely I beat it because I want to conquer it...

[pingpongsam]

Burger Time

[Witherweaver]

So I think after doing some research, I was at the very last boss in Breath of Fire II.  But before an actual battle, there is a dialogue/plot scene in top-down view (as in dungeon exploration.. there is a separate cut to encounters a la Final Fantasy games) where the guy freezes your party.  I guess you have to break out of it by hitting the direction pad or something.  When I was playing, I could never get out of it and I thought the game just kept on locking up and I would always just reset.

[Polk5440]

Battletoads for NES. I didn't make it very far in that one.

[pingpongsam]

I was looking to see if Asteroids could be beat and the answer is no (although, I know I never made it much past 1 million) but I found this gem:
http://www.wired.com/2010/04/asteroids-record/

[jsh357]

There are plenty, but I am going to list only games that I spent a considerable amount of time on and THEN still couldn't beat.

There is plenty of salt here.  If I offended a game you like, sorry.  ¯\(°_o)/¯

SpaceChem - this is a really fun puzzle game with a unique premise (that's very hard to describe).  It's sort of like programming conveyor belts to combine parts and get a desired result.  Anyway, the game's difficulty ramps up considerably and very quickly.  I made it to the fourth set of stages and could not finish them; I lack the skill to do it.  I love the game, though.  It's one of my favorites.  I'm just bad at it. 

Rayman Origins - I enjoyed a lot of things about this game, but when it comes to needing exact precision for long sequences of time, I give up after a certain point.  The final levels of this game are maddening if you aren't that great at platformers.  Probably no worse than, say, Super Meat Boy's, but I barely played that game so I'm not listing it.

Resonance of Fate - I made it to the final boss of this weird tactical RPG, and basically just hit a hump.  My characters literally were incapable of doing enough damage to beat him before he could beat me.  I am actually quite good at JRPGs and the like, but I do not grind in them at all, seeing it as a waste of time.  I googled the ending of this game.  Not proud of it, but I was not going to run through the unskippable final area again to take more cracks at the guy after upgrading my weapons.

Super Mario Bros 2 (Japan) aka The Lost Levels - This game is bull, total bull. 

Dragon Quest II - Pretty much the same story as Resonance of Fate.  The game isn't that hard for 3/4 of the way if you are familiar with the other DQ games, but it takes a sudden turn for the crazy at the end.  The last boss was impenetrable for my party even using savestates, and I just decided it wasn't worth it.

New Little King's Story - I had never been more disappointed in a game, as the original is one of my absolute favorites (if you think there was nothing good on the Wii, give it a try).  NLKS removed almost all of the charm the original had, and I endured it for a long time until it finally got to me and I had to stop.

Mother/Earthbound Zero - I plan to finish this for real some day, but it has a maddening encounter rate that got on my nerves big time after a while.  Recent patches allow one to alleviate this some.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Trigger Warning, Zelda fanboys.  I hated Twilight Princess, thought Phantom Hourglass was mediocre, didn't even bother with Spirit Tracks.  I got this game hoping maybe the new controls would breathe some life in to this series for me, but it turned out they were awful, the overworld was awful, the dungeons were bland, and Fi ruined every surprise the game had.  I made it halfway through the Cistern dungeon and called it quits; just wasn't feeling this game and felt ripped off.  Fortunately, Link Between Worlds saved the series for me and now they're remaking my favorite game in the series, so I have not entirely given up on Zelda after this.  (I did watch footage of the story at the end, and I think it was a bad idea, for the record.  I will say that I regret finishing Metroid: Other M, and my refusal to let that disappointment happen to me again contributed to my hatred for Skyward Sword)

Ys 1 - The last few bosses in this game are the type that require precision I don't have, nothing to see here.  It's a boring game anyway.

Saga 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2) -  I played to the very end of this game as a kid, but I didn't actually understand the mechanics and lacked the party composition to finish the game.

The Legend of Zelda 1 and 2 - I have played both of these most of the way through multiple times over the years, but at some point I tend to just get bored with them.  Link to the Past fixed most of the issues I had with the first game, and to be frank I am just really bad at Zelda 2.  Love its music, though.

Viewtiful Joe - Too hard for me, even on kids mode

Plants vs zombies 2 - Once it became clear EA had ruined one of my favorite games ever with its greed, I uninstalled this and warned all my friends to never go near it.

Etrian Odyssey 4 - I respect this series a lot more than I like it.  Brutally hard classic-style JRPGs with enormous, confusing dungeons and ridiculous enemy encounters.  I have played 3 and 4, given up on both, but I made it 3/5 of the way through 4.  After a while, it just got taxing on me.  I saw another huge dungeon ahead and couldn't go on.  For the record, I have beaten Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and other first-person dungeon crawlers, so it's not like I was inexperienced here.  EO simply broke my patience, plain and simple.

Lufia 2 - I am convinced this is the most overrated game on the SNES.  I am an RPG nut and manage to get bored with this game every single time I give it a go.  To each his own, I guess.  I even enjoyed Lufia 1 for the most part.

[DG]

Goko serf bot.

[Teproc]

I remember trying to play Myst when I was something like 9 or 10 years old and being utterly disgusted by how hard it was.

[jsh357]

I remember trying to play Myst when I was something like 9 or 10 years old and being utterly disgusted by how hard it was.

I almost listed Myst, but I bought a guide to beat it back then so I can't count it.  Those puzzles are super obscure.  The environments are awesome, but man, it's hard to forgive those designers.  I have often wondered how many people ACTUALLY beat the game without some kind of help.  I can't imagine the number is very high.

[2.71828.....]

Had to look up the 120th star for Super Mario 64.  Just couldn't figure it out.  The missing one?  Princess Secret Slide for time.

[Tables]

A recent one for me was Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. I tend to like platformers, and I tend to enjoy tricky games, but this one seemed to me to be more punishing than anything else. Like, some platform collapses, or a pillar in the background collapses on you, or an enemy jumps out of nowhere etc and you die. Great, back to a checkpoint one minute ago. And along the way the platforming isn't easy, I'm making a bunch of tricky jumps and stuff to try and not die as I go, and so by the time I actually make it back to the trap that killed me last time, I might have forgotten about it and get caught out again.

The game looks great and I expect it'd be fun to replay through once you know what's going to happen, but that first playthrough wasn't fun for me, and I gave up about 2/3rds of the way through.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Trigger Warning, Zelda fanboys.  I hated Twilight Princess, thought Phantom Hourglass was mediocre, didn't even bother with Spirit Tracks.  I got this game hoping maybe the new controls would breathe some life in to this series for me, but it turned out they were awful, the overworld was awful, the dungeons were bland, and Fi ruined every surprise the game had.  I made it halfway through the Cistern dungeon and called it quits; just wasn't feeling this game and felt ripped off.  Fortunately, Link Between Worlds saved the series for me and now they're remaking my favorite game in the series, so I have not entirely given up on Zelda after this.  (I did watch footage of the story at the end, and I think it was a bad idea, for the record.  I will say that I regret finishing Metroid: Other M, and my refusal to let that disappointment happen to me again contributed to my hatred for Skyward Sword)

I don't mind people disliking Skyward Sword - there's a lot of things it did fairly poorly - most of which you've stated such as the lack of continuous overworld, the travel time between locations, Fi never shutting up ("Master, there is a high probability that the post you are making is just a summary of the post you are quoting, and thus will not gain you any resp-" SHUT UP FI I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING AND WANT TO WORK IT OUT MYSELF!) but the controls are really something that can't be faulted. They're highly accurate and responsive for everything except stabs. Now how you feel they were implemented, I can definitely see the argument against as there was an overuse of things dependent on directional slashes - but the actual motion controls are excellent.

[jsh357]

A recent one for me was Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. I tend to like platformers, and I tend to enjoy tricky games, but this one seemed to me to be more punishing than anything else. Like, some platform collapses, or a pillar in the background collapses on you, or an enemy jumps out of nowhere etc and you die. Great, back to a checkpoint one minute ago. And along the way the platforming isn't easy, I'm making a bunch of tricky jumps and stuff to try and not die as I go, and so by the time I actually make it back to the trap that killed me last time, I might have forgotten about it and get caught out again.

The game looks great and I expect it'd be fun to replay through once you know what's going to happen, but that first playthrough wasn't fun for me, and I gave up about 2/3rds of the way through.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Trigger Warning, Zelda fanboys.  I hated Twilight Princess, thought Phantom Hourglass was mediocre, didn't even bother with Spirit Tracks.  I got this game hoping maybe the new controls would breathe some life in to this series for me, but it turned out they were awful, the overworld was awful, the dungeons were bland, and Fi ruined every surprise the game had.  I made it halfway through the Cistern dungeon and called it quits; just wasn't feeling this game and felt ripped off.  Fortunately, Link Between Worlds saved the series for me and now they're remaking my favorite game in the series, so I have not entirely given up on Zelda after this.  (I did watch footage of the story at the end, and I think it was a bad idea, for the record.  I will say that I regret finishing Metroid: Other M, and my refusal to let that disappointment happen to me again contributed to my hatred for Skyward Sword)

I don't mind people disliking Skyward Sword - there's a lot of things it did fairly poorly - most of which you've stated such as the lack of continuous overworld, the travel time between locations, Fi never shutting up ("Master, there is a high probability that the post you are making is just a summary of the post you are quoting, and thus will not gain you any resp-" SHUT UP FI I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING AND WANT TO WORK IT OUT MYSELF!) but the controls are really something that can't be faulted. They're highly accurate and responsive for everything except stabs. Now how you feel they were implemented, I can definitely see the argument against as there was an overuse of things dependent on directional slashes - but the actual motion controls are excellent.

I have to disagree; for me, the controls were pretty inaccurate the whole way through.  Side slashes coming out as forward slashes, Link just not moving the sword now and then, bad swimming controls, the list goes on and on.  Matthewmatosis's review covers most of my issues with the game better than I can actually articulate them (seriously, his reviews are great and everyone should watch them), and one of his key points I particularly agree on is specifically in regards to the controls: in video games, we let a lot of dumb things slide that would be catastrophic failures in any other field.  You could say the controls work well 99% of the time, but we expect most things with this much time put in to them to work more like 99.9% of the time.  In a 40 hour game, that 1% happens a whole lot, even for players who claim the controls work 'perfectly.'  What if a car's steering wheel worked 99% of the time?  Unacceptable, and the worst part is that regular button controls would have sufficed in lieu of motion controls for most of the places Skyward Sword uses them, and those are tried and true, so the motion controls themselves can be seen as a straight downgrade.  I personally hope that Nintendo never uses them in Zelda again, but it seems unlikely to happen.  I don't mean to pick on Zelda specifically, though: Nintendo has goofed up a lot of games by relying on motion controls lately.  Zelda is just where it took the cake for me.

I don't want this to turn in to a SS-bashing thread, there are too many of those on the internet.  I'll rest my case here.

[pacovf]

SpaceChem - this is a really fun puzzle game with a unique premise (that's very hard to describe).  It's sort of like programming conveyor belts to combine parts and get a desired result.  Anyway, the game's difficulty ramps up considerably and very quickly.  I made it to the fourth set of stages and could not finish them; I lack the skill to do it.  I love the game, though.  It's one of my favorites.  I'm just bad at it.

Same here, but I think I reached world 5. Maybe 6? I completed the world with the fusion stuff, and it drained me. Absolutely amazing game, and each level you complete makes you feel a surge of adrenaline.
Still, I drown myself trying to find an elegant solution, and the possibilities... so many possibilities... arg.

I would classify it as 2D programming. Everybody ought to try the free demo, your mind will asplode.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Trigger Warning, Zelda fanboys.  I hated Twilight Princess, thought Phantom Hourglass was mediocre, didn't even bother with Spirit Tracks.  I got this game hoping maybe the new controls would breathe some life in to this series for me, but it turned out they were awful, the overworld was awful, the dungeons were bland, and Fi ruined every surprise the game had.  I made it halfway through the Cistern dungeon and called it quits; just wasn't feeling this game and felt ripped off.  Fortunately, Link Between Worlds saved the series for me and now they're remaking my favorite game in the series, so I have not entirely given up on Zelda after this.

Spirit tracks was alright, if not world-shattering. Twilight Princess was actually really good mechanically, although the light world - dark world thing gets weary after a while.

Speaking of which, Metroid Prime II is the only Nintendo game I own that I haven't finished because I didn't want to, I think (although it was definitely on the hard side, but I did manage to beat the final boss on a friend's save). Looks like the Light world - Dark world mechanic is hard to do well.

I will say that I regret finishing Metroid: Other M

I admire Team Ninja trying to make a 3D platformer out of Metroid. Like, really, it is a perfectly logical choice, it just didn't work out very well, and that's fine. But the story... blaaaaarrggghghghg. Oh god no just no what how why no. Only physical-copy game I regret buying. At least Hunters non-story didn't vandalize the universe.

Plants vs zombies 2 - Once it became clear EA had ruined one of my favorite games ever with its greed, I uninstalled this and warned all my friends to never go near it.

Word.


About games that I couldn't finish back when I was younger...

Fire Emblem (blazing sword). Talk about a cruel game for non experts, giving you characters that start out strong and quickly become outclassed by everything else, siphoning xp away from your useful party members. I also played pseudo-ironman, because I couldn't be bothered to restart missions, so I drove myself into a corner around 75% in.
I did eventually start from scratch again and beat it much later, with some online help.

An obscure one: Spacestation Sillicon Valley, for the N64. Completely incomprehensible for my young kid self. It's gathering dust somewhere.

A shameful one: Pokemon Crystal. I built up a redundant team because cool pokemons, so I couldn't beat the Elite Four shortly after first encounter, and I couldn't bring myself to drop one of my lovely pokemon (Red Gyarados probably) and train another one from scratch. So huh I just went back to kicking butt in Blue or something.

Does not 100%ing Sunshine count? Some of those non-FLUDD levels were Hell...

Can't think of anything else right now.

[Awaclus]

I have a pretty recent one, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. The part where you're supposed to open a door using a switch, jump off, enter the door and do some stuff there makes the game pretty difficult, since the game is autosaved after the "jump off" part, and if you ever load that save, the door is no longer open and you can't reach the switch again. Especially since you can't save manually in that game, and each autosave overwrites the previous one. Yep, still mad. 

[Galzria]

I remember trying to play Myst when I was something like 9 or 10 years old and being utterly disgusted by how hard it was.

I almost listed Myst, but I bought a guide to beat it back then so I can't count it.  Those puzzles are super obscure.  The environments are awesome, but man, it's hard to forgive those designers.  I have often wondered how many people ACTUALLY beat the game without some kind of help.  I can't imagine the number is very high.

Umm....

Well....

1.

>.>

I loved the Myst series of games, and always wished there were more.

[Galzria]

I remember trying to play Myst when I was something like 9 or 10 years old and being utterly disgusted by how hard it was.

I almost listed Myst, but I bought a guide to beat it back then so I can't count it.  Those puzzles are super obscure.  The environments are awesome, but man, it's hard to forgive those designers.  I have often wondered how many people ACTUALLY beat the game without some kind of help.  I can't imagine the number is very high.

Umm....

Well....

1.

>.>

I loved the Myst series of games, and always wished there were more.

Actually, I should amend that slightly.

I always wished there were more sequels when I was younger. I've never actually played IV or V, released in '04 & '05 respectively. By that time I had moved on from the series to other games.

[dondon151]

Fire Emblem (blazing sword). Talk about a cruel game for non experts, giving you characters that start out strong and quickly become outclassed by everything else, siphoning xp away from your useful party members. I also played pseudo-ironman, because I couldn't be bothered to restart missions, so I drove myself into a corner around 75% in.
I did eventually start from scratch again and beat it much later, with some online help.

The funny thing is that these characters (that start out strong but don't grow quickly) are considered both newbie traps and are generally the best characters in the game by expert players.

[jsh357]

Even funnier thing is that FE7 is one of the easier games in the series

[pacovf]

Fire Emblem (blazing sword). Talk about a cruel game for non experts, giving you characters that start out strong and quickly become outclassed by everything else, siphoning xp away from your useful party members. I also played pseudo-ironman, because I couldn't be bothered to restart missions, so I drove myself into a corner around 75% in.
I did eventually start from scratch again and beat it much later, with some online help.

The funny thing is that these characters (that start out strong but don't grow quickly) are considered both newbie traps and are generally the best characters in the game by expert players.

Interesting. Please, explain.

For example, how is Marcus (from FE VII, mind you) be considered one of the best characters? Just because it can soften up enemies before your rookies deal the killing blow, or carry them so that they don't get killed? Or am I missing something?

[Witherweaver]

Oh, uh, one of the King's Quest... the only one I played.. King's Quest V.  I was still in elementary school I think.. got it with the very first computer my family got, around the same time as Doom and such.  I remember they had a hot-line that you could call and ask questions that we had to use :/  I don't remember how far I got, but I know I never got to the end.

[jsh357]

I am not as good at FE as dondon (I know this for a fact) but I can illuminate a little bit:

Marcus's base stats (among other prepromos/newbie traps) are high enough that he can in fact carry you through a lot of the game or take out problem units while your 'good' characters gain experience.  The key is in moderation there.  One strategy you could use is to strip Marcus and use him as a meat shield.  He will last a surprising amount of time this way, far past what the developers probably intended.  This makes him considerably stronger than Jeigan-type characters in previous Fire Emblem games, and that trend would continue in future Fire Emblem games. (Seth is a legitimately strong character in 8, Titania is good in 9, etc)

In higher level play like low-turn runs and challenges, Marcus's early ability to move huge numbers of turns and capture guests among other weak units also makes him invaluable.  You can send him with a weapon to get hard-to-collect characters and items, too. 

It's also quite possible to just use him in your main team throughout the entire game.  Sure, he's weaker than Kain/Sent/Lowen in the end, but the early parts of the game were the actual hard part.  Everyone is good once they're promoted.  This is true in a lot of RPGs!   Take FF1.  The reason Thief is such a bad class in spite of Ninja being mostly better than Red Wizard is that the actual hard part of the game was the start, where you were stuck with the Thief.

[Asper]

A lot of games that i tried but that i found to boring were left uncompleted. Of the ones i actually tried to beat, i remember "Lemmings - the Tribes". The games i probably spent the most time to beat were Banjo-Kazooie, Abe's Oddysee, Crash Bandicoot 3 and Donkey Kong Country 2. Oh, and James Pond 3 and Rolo -to the Rescue. Man, all of those had nasty hidden stuff.

About what other poeple said here: I found Donkey Kong Country - Tropical Freeze a bit more gentle than it's precedessor and overall very enjoyable (though it's a shame it's shorter than DKCR). Can't get myself up to do all the time trials, though.

Also while i see a lot of flaws in Metroid: Other M, i found it more enjoyable than most of the Prime Series (especially that horrible second part... shudder). Probably because i'm a die-hard Super Metroid fan. Fighting    Phantoon  at the end made me cry tears of joy.