Here’s a question: has gaming ever been as hard as it was on the NES? The console that turned gaming into a household sensation also turned household walls into household holes. Let’s take a look at some of the hardest NES games that prepared children for the fact that, sometimes, life is just unfair and then you die. We are avoiding Battletoads and Ghosts ‘n Goblins, though. We all know they’re hard, let’s not put you dru hearing about them again.
Tower of Druaga
We’re getting it out of the way now that this isn’t a definitive ranking of the hardest NES games ever made, just because difficulty can be so subjective at times. Some bosses you find easy can be someone else’s “white whale,” so to speak, and vice versa. Still, most would tend to agree that Tower of Druaga lends itself towards the hard side of the difficulty spectrum.
Developed by Namco in an attempt to create a fantasy version of Pac-Man, Tower of Druaga sees the knight Gilgamesh trying to navigate a tower of sixty floors in order to rescue the maiden Ki. At least it’s not a princess like so many games of this era, but from the outline alone, Tower of Druaga doesn’t sound all that difficult.
So what makes this an infamous example of NES difficulty? For starters, imagine playing Pac-Man where the ghosts can travel through walls and launch projectiles at you. Sure, you have a sword and shield to defend yourself, but you’ll need to be playing at the top of your game in order to get through some of these floors unscathed.
Still, the real difficulty comes from the hidden objects you need to find on each floor, with all of them uncovered by completing a different specific task on every single one of the 60 floors. If that doesn’t sound like it’s difficult enough, you also need some of those items in order to actually beat the game, so unless you’re walking into Tower of Druaga with a full guide or walkthrough, chances are you’re not making it out alive.
The Adventures Of Bayou Billy
We’ll be the first to admit that if you know what you’re doing, The Adventures Of Bayou Billy isn’t the hardest game in the world. A beat ‘em up from Konami, Bayou Billy sees the fictional Louisiana bounty Billy West (no relation to Phillip J. Fry’s voice actor), fighting against the crime lord Godfather Gordon and his goons across the swamplands all the way to New Orleans itself.
Throughout the game’s nine stages, the majority of your time, specifically five of these nine stages, will be spent scrolling left to right, cracking skulls along the way like every other beat ‘em up you’ve ever played, and while the going gets tough, it’s not impossible. The real challenge comes with the game’s four other stages, which switch up the formula out of nowhere for many.
During stages two and seven, and stages four and five, the game turns into a rail shooter and a Turbo Tunnel like driving section respectively, with the second versions of both of these stages ranking among some of the most taxing NES gameplay on the console. It’s trial and error at its very core, requiring you to essentially bash your head against the wall to learn enemy placements and so on, so once you’ve got it down pat, it’s not too hard.
Still, there’s a way to make it even easier that the game doesn’t properly tell you: the main menu has a practice mode for each of the three gameplay types that, once completed, gives you a power-up that makes the game massively easier during the relevant section. These days, games would have a big flashing sign saying that’s the deal, and we’re not entirely against that.
Gauntlet
Gauntlet is possibly the most famous example of a dungeon crawling action RPG not named Diablo, so it’s a crying shame that there aren’t way more of them in the modern age. Between the success of Diablo and other similar games like Path of Exile, or the influx of dungeon crawling roguelikes such as Hades, there probably should be a couple more Gauntlet titles floating around. I know some of the comments would love to see the PS2 Gauntlet brought back in a big way, but we’re getting off topic.
After being a huge hit in arcades, allowing players to play infinitely if they were good enough, Gauntlet was ported to the NES, and this is where the intense difficulty became much more prevalent.
For starters, Gauntlet has no way of saving progress, and you’ve only got one character, so if you die, you lose your character, you lose your progress and you need to start from the beginning. Anyone who has played other NES videogames will know that’s par for the course, but when there’s 100 levels to complete, losing your near the end is devastating. However, the real difficulty in Gauntlet is that you’re forced to explore and pay attention. Throughout the 100 levels, there are treasure rooms to find that give you one of several characters of a password you’ll need to open the vault located on level 100.
If you haven’t been keeping note, or you enter the wrong password, it’s game over, which is the kind of brutally hard game design you can’t get away with these days.
Solomon’s Key
We’ve made the joke about games of this era really honing in on the “save the princess” trope as an outline, but there’s also one that we’ve already seen in this video that we’ve noticed too: the hero needs to go to the villain’s lair, which just so happens to be a certain amount of equally sized rooms that get progressively harder.
Sometimes it’s a tower, other times a castle of some kind, but at least Solomon’s Key has the decency to do something a little bit different: a “Constellation Space”. Doesn’t that sound a bit more fancy, at least? It’s the only bit of comfort you’ll get when playing Solomon’s Key though, because this is a game that feels like it was developed in a lab, designed with one purpose in mind: make you break your controller in rage.
Players control a sorcerer called Dana as they try to navigate the 64 levels of Constellation Space, including the final confrontation and over a dozen bonus levels. Much like Druaga and Gauntlet, there’s plenty of secrets to be found here that make progressing through the levels much easier for yourself, and you’ll need it because these levels are brutal. Infinitely spawning enemies, level design that’s bordering on the sadistic and the age old classic of retro gaming that is one hit kills make Solomon’s Key one of the most notoriously difficult NES games of all time.
Seriously, you should give this one a go, if only so the people around you can see the light fade from your eyes as you die, again. And again. And again.
Fester’s Quest
Some games are just incredibly difficult because they’re a bit, let’s be honest, shite and don’t really want you to play them. You’re going to find it a bit more difficult to actually finish a game when the mechanics, graphics, sound and everything else just feels so abhorrent. Fester’s Quest is absolutely one of those games.
Yes, Fester from the Addams Family, Fester. Remember Super Fester World 3?
Granted, this tie-in game managed to predate the classic film by about two years, as it’s based on the TV show from the 60s. The game follows Fester as he deals with an alien invasion that’s resulted in all of the townspeople getting beamed up like it’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. It’s up to the premier Gothic family’s resident baldy to save the town by — let’s just see here: blasting all the aliens in the face.
A top-down shoot ‘em up, Fester Quest sees Fester exploring the town and clearing out buildings to save the town, with the building exploration transforming into a 3D dungeon crawl. Five of the buildings contain bosses, which you’ll need to defeat all of them to obtain the puzzle pieces and clues to enter the mothership and complete the game. The problem? As always, infinitely respawning enemies that pop back in should the screen even slightly move away from them, along with power-ups that actually power down Fester.
That’s “fun”, but the big hurdle is the absolutely useless continue function. If you die here, you respawn at the start of the game, the bosses you’ve already killed don’t respawn and that means your items aren’t replenished after beating them. Essentially, dying puts you at a huge disadvantage, so the only reliable method to beat the game is to do it in one run. Here’s a secret: I won’t.
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode
Some games are hard because they’re a test of your abilities and reflexes, but there’s a different kind of difficulty that tends to keep people up at night: games that are difficult because they’re obtuse and weird.
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode definitely fits into the cryptic and weird category, which isn’t all that surprising considering it’s based on the Golgo 13 manga that’s been going since October 1968, and has been putting out tankōbon compilation books of its chapters as late as December 2025. If you’ve got room on your bookshelf for nearly 600 chapters across 219 books, with plenty more chapters still needing to be printed, there’s your reading recommendation. Cultured Vultures book club, anyone? I’ll recommend The Day My Bum Went Psycho.
We’re not talking about how difficult the series is to get into though, we’re talking about the game Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode. Much like Bayou Billy, Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode throws new mechanics and ideas at you like Patches O’Houlihan throws wrenches. The opening level plays like a side scrolling shoot ‘em up, like Contra but a bit slower, but you need to follow instructions and explore in order to find where you need to go, only to be shoved into a helicopter for a different, more intense shoot ‘em up. Then the game turns into Silent Scope, complete with wind and other factors to consider as you line up your sniper shot, and then you’re in a 3D, first person maze that you’ll get lost in immediately.
Throw in enemies that deal way too much damage, and it’s likely you’ll quit before the game ends. It’s ambitious as hell though, so be sure to seek it out.
Air Fortress
Shoot ‘em up games of the NES era either focused on one of two modes of gameplay. Either you’re in a big ship doing big shooting, or you’re a little man doing big shooting. It was big shooting either way most of the time, but Air Fortress is one of those rare games that allowed players to experience both on one cartridge.
The game follows the brilliantly named Hal Bailman as he defends his home planet from a group of eight Air Fortresses and the aliens that are assigned to defend them. Each Air Fortress contains two levels, with the first one having players approach the Fortress in Hal’s Starship in an attempt to reach the airlock, while the second level is all about trying to reach the core, setting a bomb and escaping before it blows up.
The challenge of Air Fortress isn’t in the first section, though your performance in those levels will affect how hard the second stage is, as you need to collect energy and ammo that can be used inside the Fortress. The real challenge then comes once you’re inside the Fortress, as not only do you need to find the core and plant the bomb without getting shot to smithereens, you also need to find your escape route that’s in a different location to where you entered.
Naturally, Air Fortress doesn’t give you a lot of time to actually escape before being turned into space dust, and some of the layouts in the back half of the game are truly fiendish. You want the added kicker? You have to play through it again on hard mode for the true ending. Best of luck pinball wizard.
Legacy Of The Wizard
Action RPG Legacy of the Wizard might have the reputation of being the hardest NES game ever created, but what’s less known about it is that it’s actually the fourth entry in the Dragon Slayer series, itself a precursor to the currently ongoing Legend of Heroes series.
Half the difficulty comes in trying to figure out the timeline of a series like this, but that’s not why Legacy of the Wizard has the reputation it has. An open world action RPG of sorts, in what many would describe as a Metroidvania before the term was even coined, players controlled the Drasle Family as they descended into a dungeon that’s home to an evil dragon named Keela. To do that, you need four crowns to unlock a magical sword conveniently named the Dragon Slayer, and use it in order to beat the game.
Sounds simple in theory, but the problem is that the game is so vague at times (at least, if you’re not reading the instruction manual) that it’s hard not to get flummoxed. Aside from combat being difficult anyway, each of the family members has their own strengths and weaknesses, but you need to use specific people in different parts of the dungeon to actually find the Crowns.
If that’s not enough difficulty for you, important items like the shield, which makes combat so much easier, can only be located in a hidden store that you either need to know where it is ahead of time, or stumble upon it in a sheer bout of dumb luck. Anyone out there who managed to beat this without a walkthrough, we commend you. That’s some serious dedication.
Bart Vs The Space Mutants
The Simpsons is no stranger to video games. Well, in the last 20 years they are.
But back when the iconic yellow family were just a series of shorts on the Tracey Ullman show, plans were in place to turn The Simpsons digital. Development was broached back in 1989, when Acclaim approached veteran developer Garry Kitchen about working on the game, though it’d be two years before the first ever game based on The Simpsons made its way to shop shelves. That game would turn out to be Bart Vs The Space Mutants, and most would rather that the game would unmake itself and go away, never to darken our doorsteps again. Not only is it a bit of a chore to play, it’s bloody hard too.
It’s unfortunate because the game actually has a decent premise of “what if Bart was the main character of They Live?” El Barto himself gets a pair of specs that allow him to see an alien plot to take over Springfield, and in order to thwart it, he needs to collect a bunch of knick knacks? Or remove the colour purple from a level? Yeah, it’s another one of those games that forces players into solutions that don’t make sense. Why does collecting every purple object in the first level unlock the boss fight? Doesn’t matter, shut up and do it.
This strict mentality over what is essentially chores as gameplay mechanics is compounded by the fact that controlling Bart in this 2D platformer feels like you’re ice skating through molasses. It’s genuinely difficult to play, both intentionally and otherwise.
Tecmo World Wrestling
It’s probably not a secret at this point that we’re suckers for wrestling.
Allow us, then, to introduce to you the majesty that is Tecmo World Wrestling, regarded by many to be the best 8-bit wrestling game ever made.
The reasons for that are numerous: 20 moves per character on this 10 character roster, which felt like a huge step up from other games, a play-by-play announcer who’d react to your actions and moves, even if just through text boxes, and a dedicated replay system whenever you hit your strongest signature moves. All the elements were there for wrestling games to essentially steal from going forward, making this a landmark game for the genre.
So what exactly about this generally beloved game is so difficult? First of all, in between each fight in the game’s single player ladder is punctuated by a training mini-game that allows you to become stronger and hit harder. In order to pass those games though, you need to mash the buttons on the controller like they owe you money and you’re being paid by the press.
That’s not too bad on its own, but if you lose a match, you lose some of your training progress, and you’ll need to be max level if you want to have any hope of beating the final boss, a wrestler able to use all the techniques of the entire roster. It’s a huge difficulty spike right at the final hurdle, and one that likely stopped most people from ever reaching a happy ending, like LA Knight whenever he climbs to the top rope.
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