Tech: My Toughest Games

Inspired by this post, here's some of the toughest games I've ever tackled:

Devil May Cry 3 - Dante is back and slaying demons and devils to set things straight in this surprisingly poignant PS2 action game. Great story, good graphics, insanely difficult boss fights the first time through. The boss of the second level is harder than most games' final bosses. The difficulty is toned down quite a bit if you can start to horde items.

R-Type 3 - A side-scrolling shooter. I've talked about the R-Type series before, but R-Type 3 is almost ridiculously unfair sometimes, even though the game gives you infinite continues. There's a level, shown above, where giant plumes of fire hurtle towards your ship in confined tunnels, all in a seemingly random fashion; you're guaranteed to die a half dozen times going through before fighting a boss. Then you get to go through the gauntlet again...backwards.

Super Ghouls 'N' Ghosts - King Arthur has to traverse deadly, monster-infested levels to rescue fair Guinevere in this game. While in the objective sense "Ghosts and Goblins" was harder, SG&G is notable in that it's hard, but it's fair(er). Arthur can actually double-jump now, though you still have no control over his trajectory during the jumps as is standard in other platformers. The cruelest part of the game isn't the demanding stages or tough enemies, though; it's the fact that the torch is probably the most useless weapon ever conceived, and it seems to spawn in every other chest.

Solar Jetman - A truly unique space shooter/adventure/exploration game. This little-known Rare gem was one of my first NES games. The first planet was deceptively easy, taking maybe half an hour for a first-timer. The second planet was many, many times bigger than the first and introduced a whole host of enemies, new game elements, and much stronger gravity. This jump in complexity kept me from completing the game for 12 years.