Truly difficult games

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I guess I'd personally say Sifu was pretty tough.
someone didn't play godhand...

but yeah, you did the best brutal takedown of what is "difficult" or "difficulty in games", at the end of the day it's kind of pointless anyway, for as much as i disliked the shittiness of doom dark ages i did enjoy the fact that they let me choose how much i could control on the game to make it "difficult" or "easier", reminded me of system shock 1 where i started turning off the puzzles to save time replaying it after beating the game fair and square on my first playthrough.

it's kind of what i expect games to treat me, not as some dumb niggercattle that can't press X to not die or some hyper autistic faggot that needs to min-max even when i'm going to take a shit, just let me have fun in your game.
 
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Dude… have you considered that the most difficult game… is the game of life?


"When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself." -Bob Marley

Real answer for a non “high score”-based single player game would be some kaizo bullshit.
 
pathfinder wrath of the righteous is hard on highest difficulty, but i suppose you would count that as "puzzle" and "you can just look up a guide"
idk but i suppose fucking tetris would meet all your metrics, its not solvable with a guide, its not rng and its not bulletspongey
Dark Souls?
i played that elden ring game and the hardest thing about it was the fucking camera that locks onto enemies and does what it wants instead of being linked to the mouse and independent from character movements
games where you fight against the controls of the games because they are shit instead of the enemies in the game are not fun
installed a mod for first person view, then it was easy but kinda boring
also invincibility frames are shit game design, bandaid for shitty combat mechanics
 
The OG Phoenix Wright Trilogy is another kind of difficulty. Mechanics are easy but some cases will test your intelligence and logical thinking to the extreme. It is mental difficulty and not mechanical. Amazing stuff!
I would love to delete all of my knowledge of this series and redo it at this age to decide if I think it is Hard or just obtuse because I remember a couple of really absurd paths you have to take to get to the killer when the player has figured it out like halfway through the case but the game makes you jump through a couple of stupid hoops (I can't recall the direct instance but..The Maya Fay being accused of murder channeling someone comes to mind as having some sort of obscene path to prove something that was easily provable with a shorter line)
 
The fucking 2008 reboot of Turok manages to be incredibly tricky and difficult not for any one thing by but multiple adding up. The first boss can instant kill you but is otherwise fairly easy which ends up tricking you becauss the other bosses are not easy and can kill you super fast despite the player having to jump through numerous hoops to take them down.

The enemy encounters are particularly nasty as well, as while enemies tend to die quickly, so does Turok amd the game loves ambushing you with guys.
 
Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous is also pretty tough even on Normal difficulty. Especially if you are not familiar with the Pathfinder Ruleset or lack experience with RPGs in general.
Its tough until it suddenly isn't, based entirely on your build and Epic Powers, you don't even have to be a Pathfinder insider to luck into them really, Angel or Trickster are fundamentally broken, which is good, as every enemy in that game seemingly has the entire suite of annoying buffs.
 
also invincibility frames are shit game design, bandaid for shitty combat mechanics
Well, that's officially made the list of the most retarded things I've ever read on this website.

Every fighting game ever made has invincibility frames. Virtually every game where a thing can hit another thing going back to the inception of gaming has invincibility frames. I'm not sure I'd even count it as a "game mechanic" because it's actually MORE fundamental than that.
 
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If you exclude puzzle games because you can look up the solutions you might as well exclude mechanically difficult games because you can mod them to get god mode. Cheating being possible shouldn't be relevant to the discussion.

All that to say that baba is you is the answer
 
Its tough until it suddenly isn't, based entirely on your build and Epic Powers
making a good build is half of the gameplay, treat it like a puzzle and it makes sense
as every enemy in that game seemingly has the entire suite of annoying buffs.
the other half of the game is playing out enemy weaknesses, you need a balanced party, dispell magic is a necessity on higher difficulty too, because you can often dispell +8ac or more from bosses
in the early game crowd control spells are very important too, some enemies have low will saves, others low reflex saves...
again, treat it like a puzzle
Every fighting game ever made has invincibility frames.
this is simply wrong, lots of games use dodge or block mechanics that do not depend on invincibility frames, but on actually dodging out of an enemies attack, or albeit rarely *grasps* parrying
kingdom come has a pretty cool parry mechanic for instance
i-frames are badly implemented dodge mechanics
I'm not sure I'd even count it as a "game mechanic"
this is pure cope
of course its a game mechanic, my character makes a roll into the big fat boss, stays on the spot because of collusion, the big ass sword goes through my character, but ive got my i frame :)
soulslike gameplay in a nutshell
 
Surprising to see nobody said Ninja Gaiden or Ninja Gaiden Black. Even the first level is challenging because the regular mob enemies are so fast and relentless, they can probably kill the main character with two hits. Checkpoints are few and far between from the distance you have to reach the bosses. All of the enemies in that game barely give you a second to react to their attacks, also often have cheap moves. While playing that game, there are only a few spots you can catch a breath.
 
I have 2:

Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1): simply because there's so many times after a fight that the game asks you to save. You do so not knowing you will be automatically tossed into the next fight. You can menu but that's it. Can't buy anything or go anywhere to prepare. And if you aren't prepared to beat part 2 of the fight, well you get to start back at the beginning of the game.

Actraiser (SNES): The final sequence where you have to re fight every single boss back to back with no magic refills. Fuck that. Have still never beat it.
 
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20 (REAL IRL TIME) minutes to survive. Evade two hard-as-balls CPUs that are smart enough to know where you're located even if they are one floor above/below you. You can only pick up 3 items at a time. Said items you pick up have a shelf-life after repeat usage AND each item has a different stun timer with the more powerful ones hidden in the basement... the same basement where you need to go down stairs with finicky controls that may or may-not cooperate with you half the time. There are hiding spots like inside the christmas tree or behind a random shelf in the attic but they too have a shelf life meaning the CPUs WILL find you and kill you.
 
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