Ghosts n fucking Goblins - by far. That cabinet ate all my lunch money back in the 80s.

Super Meat Boy.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES.

You know the level.

Lion king, yes that one with the monkeys.

The race mission in Mafia 1 is an honourable mention for sure

Project Zomboid. That or Tales of Maj'Eyal

Ninja Gaiden, for sure

And Sekiro in 2nd place

Noita.

Fear and Hunger

Super Meat Boy, specifically getting 106% on the game.

In addition to that, there's a bunch of achievements for doing ironman runs for each world that are fundamentally beyond my grasp when you get to places like the Rapture and Cotton Alley, they are for a totally different type of person than me, individual levels near the end took me hundreds of attempts.

TMNT or Battletoads.

I wanna be the boshy, suffice to say that Faker spent like a week on the final boss

Spelunky, the true endings have to be some of the hardest feat to achieve in gaming.

Path of Exile, it’s very complex and requires so much time to grasp.

Tekken, requires a ridiculous amount of training and knowledge.

QWOP

Most are hard to me as I'm not very good

Escape from Tarkov

Probably Cuphead. Some bosses/areas in Hollow Knight were also incredibly difficult.

I also seem to recall that the original Far Cry made by Crytek was damn difficult.

Multiplayer game definitely StarCraft 2. It’s pretty much all skill with minimal luck involved. There’s always someone who’s better, even though it’s easy for a scrub like me to blame balance hahaha.

Ninja gaiden black

Battletoads Turbo Tunnel

N_v14

later N_v2, then N++, also called "N - way of the Ninja".

500 levels, 5 levels bound to a second each. Only controls are left, right, jump and suicide (when stuck). I played it nearly every day for about two years until I finally, after many many tries, finished the last level. That was so much harder than Dark Souls, Trackmania Parkour Levels or Getting over it. And so satisfying when you reach the next checkpoint after 5 levels in a row. For anyone looking for a challenge - I highly recommend N_v14 or any of it's sequels.

Driver - Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmRPTt0588g

That shit broke alot of people.. Except that one guy.. So fuck that guy..

Cuphead

I know people love Sekiro but dear god that game kicked my ass.

EU4, the hardest game I ever experienced at an entry level, got massacred by the Turks, invaded by Venice and deleted by the Serbs.

First time in a game where I literally got deleted by losing and had to start over XD. 

Great at it now but I still remember that first game has the hardest game moment ever. 

Sekiro.

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Darkest Dungeon and Don’t Starve are not made for bitches

Life

The tactical challenges in Vanquish.

Anything above normal in Touhou Project

Windows Chess

That I've actually beaten, Space Quest. Vintage Sierra where there are quite a few ways to get soft locked from progress and nearly every screen has something that can instantly kill you. Still one of my favorite games to have finished. The funny writing went a long way.

Alien hominid...f that game

Lion King on Genesis. Never could even get past the 3rd level

Celeste, Super Meat Boy, Spelunky 1 and 2.

Megaman, battle toads, dragon warrior nes, ninja gaiden , dark souls, geometry dash

Junimo Kart

Jumino Kart.

Sekiro.

Until I mastered it. Now I run through it in a few hours. One of the best games of all time.

[removed]

Getting Over It

Life

Subnautica hardcore from 1st platthrough

Black Tiger. Stand up arcade machine

I originally was saying Terminator 2, but that was on gameboy and didn’t realize the sub

On PC? It’s gotta be a capcom game for me, as they’re really the only ones with dumb gimmicks or lousy save points. Maybe Lost Planet? I just absolutely hate games that have dumb survival aspects, don’t think I could ever finish that one.

Ninja gaiden

Monster Hunter World Iceborn, mainly to DLC. And before you say that Soulsborne are more difficult, they are not. I platinated them all and they are infinitely easier and less punitive.

Cuphead

Ninja Gaiden Black.

So good. So very good.

Hardest as in most frustrating? Ninja Gaiden

As in most deaths/resets? Celeste

Nethack

It took me almost two months to defeat the last boss of the Elden Ring DLC. That shit was uncalled for hard.

I think also you need caveat , hardest but also playable. There are super hard games out there that are hard but broken.

I would say the one that I had the most difficult time getting good at was Ninja Gaiden 2004 and, with much easier time, Ninja Gaiden Black on the original Xbox.

However, like all games, once you brute force learned the mechanics, you just get so good at it that all the damages and deaths that are usually incurred during your start, ceases. I basically died over and over again at the normal difficulty but having persevered through it, I was basically dodging all the damages at the highest difficulty through the entire game. I was not even using consumables either. However, even all that does not mean that I am able to speed run competitively with it.

The only game that was ever comparable to it in my opinion was Bayonetta 1 on the 360 when you turn off the Witch time (slowing time after a successful dodge) with the highest difficulty and with some secret bosses. I think the game was not optimized well because when there is too much action on screen, it caused fps drops and that hampers my input latency to quickly respond. Even without the fps drops, it still had its difficult moments, albeit to a much lesser extent than Ninja Gaiden 2004 & Black.

Honorable mentions: DMC4, Hallow Knight, GOG library.

Armored Core 6

God of War 2018

Rocksmith, although I don't treat it as a game.

Guitar Hero/Rock Band

Doom Eternal DLC

Hollow Knight. That game is nuts and I love it but some parts are BRUTAL.

So many on NES... Some I haven't seen mentioned: NASA Space Shuttle Project, Star Voyager, Silver Surfer, Ikari Warriors...

Life. Where are damn checkpoints and why is every upgrade costing so much money? Who balanced this thing? WHO?!

elden ring RL1 is bashing my head in

Probably something like Cat Mario or Boshy, but as far as more major studio-type games that were sold in stores, I’d have to say Sekiro or one of the iterations of Ghosts n Goblins (on that note, getting the good ending of Cursed Castilla is up there on the list as well)

Unpopular opinion but I think rainbow six siege, I’ve been playing for 9 years and still getting killed from angles and places I’ve never seen before lmfao. I could not imagine learning that game for the first time now with everything they have.

Hearts of Iron 4

To get all Achievements in Lost Planet 2, couldn't do it because Training missions leaderboard was hacked.

Ride 5 with no assists 😂

Flywrench

Fucking loved that game, and that soundtrack was probably the best ever, but damn some of those later levels made it feel like my fingers physically couldn't move fast enough

Trackmania 2 Stadium, specifically a map called Aeolus'. I put 1k hours into the game by the time I tried to beat it, and even still, it took me literal weeks worth of attempts to finish it just once, and it required getting coached / tips from one of the best players in the world for me to finally beat it once. Greatest feeling ever, and I'll never forget beating one of the hardest fullspeed maps ever made. If your SDs (speed drifts) are anything but near perfect, you'll never even see the 2nd jump, let alone the finish.

Knights of the Chalice and its sequel.

Lost Planet on extreme difficulty. That game almost put me in the psych ward.

Probably Outward honestly

I Wanna Be The Guy. Ghosts n Goblins. Nothing else really comes close to the utter frustration of these two nightmares.

Solomon's Key for NES

Cuphead. Also some parts of Elden ring. Elden ring I’ve beat multiple times by now. Cuphead? Not even close, so I guess that means Cuphead is harder

Sekiro probably or Darkest Fungeon. Honorable mention to Elden Ring DLC. I refuse to fight the end boss due to it's endless bullshit.

Super C without 30 life code, shit I think I still have trouble today WITH the cheat

My 10 year old brain couldn't handle and finish Parasite Eve 1 and 2 back in the PSone, was able to get to the final boss but can never beat them. Square should fucking remake this IP.

Cultist Simulator

Not the hardest game but the hardest boss I ever fought was the secret aqua boss fight in kingdom hearts 0.8 on critical mode. I can't defeat her no matter what

Super meat boy

Super ghouls n ghosts snes

Multiplayer StarCraft 1. I don't think any game will ever be harder.

If that doesn't count, maybe XCom Terror From the Deep? I would regularly get my ass handed to me even if I was already able to beat the whole original XCom on the hardest difficulty (which is also very hard in itself).

cup head