*As a kid
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| Here we see the elusive "woman" in their natural habitat |
For those whom may have not played Paper Mario, the premise is that in a paper stylized environment, you must collect the Seven Star Spirits (as Mario of course) to help rescue the Princess. Paper Mario is a very fun game, don't get me wrong. The game has a fairly simple mechanics and scenarios all the way up to the intermission(which you can control Peach) of Chapters 4-5. In this intermission, Peach has to bake a cake for an extraordinarily large Shy Guy called "Gourmet Guy" whom will tell you some info about the next Star Spirit. The first steps of the cake are fairly simple. Just move over to the ingredients, put them in the right order, and mix them into the bowl by pressing A a lot. Next comes the most difficult part, actually cooking the cake. You are asked to put the cake into the oven for exactly 30 seconds. There is no timer given to you in game, all you have to rely on is whatever method you choose. Of course this is pretty easy today with the internet stop watches and our smartphones. However, as noted in the asterisks I am simply referring to back when people whom had played this played it for the first time in the very early 2000s. This was a time where we didn't have smart phones or easy access to the internet. We had to rely heavily on our VCR clocks to guess, count with Mississippis, or just plain guess. There are few whom might have had assistance with kitchen timers, however sometimes this would fail us. The exactness and frustration this caused many kids is a reason why I have it at number five.
NUMBER FOUR: ROCK TUNNEL* (FIRST GEN POKEMON R/Y/B/FR/LG)
*Without HM05 Flash
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| Pop quiz! Is this a screenshot of Rock Tunnel or just a black box? |
The Pokemon series is another great series that never was too difficult. However, when time came around after the 3rd gym, that's when players ran into problems. The only way to get to the 4th gym after being Lt. Surge is to go though Rock Tunnel and then Lavender Town. The problem with Rock Tunnel is that it's basically pitch dark. You don't know where you're going. As a kid this is especially frustrating, since you don't know where anything is and you don't know where the trainers are. However, this is easily remedied with the hidden move Flash. As a kid though, it is never explained how you acquire the HM (you have to have caught at least 10 Pokemon), thus makes the task even more frustrating. Another way to make the cave easier is to just hug the walls until you get to an end and find a ladder, since thankfully the tunnel is very linear unlike Mt. Moon. Again, which thanks to the internet, this cave is very easily taken care off with online maps people make that can tell you exactly what's what and whom is where. However, without that, one could be helpless in number four.
NUMBER THREE: JUMPIN' JACK FLASH (IT'S A GAS GAS GAS)* (ELITE BEAT AGENTS)
*on something other than the two easiest difficulties
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| A 100% portrayal of the entire game |
As noted in the silly comic, Elite Beat Agents is a rhythm game for the DS which features covers of songs by many popular artists ranging from Queen, to Avril Lavigne, to Destiny's Child, and much more! Story is given some really silly scenario that needs helping with popular songs to dance to. The final song in the game is a more upbeat version of the song Jumpin' Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones. As a final song, you bet that the difficulty has to be hard. Which it is, it's pretty crazy. However, it's frustratingly difficult on the two final difficulties. The songs on these difficulties are of course harder than previous difficulties, but the learning curve is still not terrible. Perhaps after one or two tries you will get the hang of the songs. Not Jumpin' Jack Flash though. The punishment system in the game is that hitting notes more accurately keeps a colored bar from entering red. When the bar is all the way red you fail. In the two final difficulties for Jumpin' Jack Flash, this colored bar increases to red at an incredibly fast rate. So much in fact that you have to be nearly perfect on every single hit you get or else you could fail. You could literally get average hits on all of the notes in the first act of the song and you could nearly fail. However, with training and determination you can still pull it off and oh is it rewarding. Being a rhythm game, not everyone is great at these but it still deserves a spot on this list for how difficult it is for the people whom have played it.
NUMBER TWO: LIGHTFOOT TEST OF STRENGTH* (STAR FOX ADVENTURES)
*Without a turbo controller*
*it kinda still is even with a turbo controller
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| Fox: Bro do you even lift? (Upboats to the left please) |
Star Fox Adventures was... a game most people would like to forget was a Star Fox game. It went too far from the original, hell it wasn't even supposed to be a Star Fox game! It's original title was called Dinosaur Planet and it was slated to hit the N64, but delays plagued the game and then Nintendo decided it would be cool to add Fox in and make it a Star Fox game. The game is fairly frustrating in its own aspects but there is another very notorious part. In this part of the game, Fox wakes up in a village and has to perform three challenges in order to advance in the game. Two of the tests are of course challenging. But I am here to talk about the Test of Strength. The goal is to mash the A button as fast as you can in order to push the dinosaur looking guy (named Muscle Foot) into the pit. However, this proved very ineffective. A normal human cannot tap A that fast in order to win. Even if you can tap it very fast, it takes a long time to tap it in which you will get tired and eventually lose. The only legitimate way that I understood to beat this was with a turbo controller. As funny as it may sound, it is not 100% reliable. Hell, you can lose sometimes even WITH THE TURBO CONTROLLER. This was the roadblock for many children and I couldn't advance until I borrowed a turbo controller from a friend of mine. To this day the level still haunts me and it is a fitting number two.
NUMBER ONE: EVERYTHING ABOUT DARK SOULS EVER* (DARK SOULS)
*no asterisks
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| Cool looking game. I can't wait to play through i- oh wait |
This game is considered to be one of the hardest games in perhaps all of gaming. To be honest I don't even know what the entire story is. All I know is that you wake up in some prison, escape, and then do stuff. I rage quit from playing the game because the first level after you break out is just too much for me. "What makes it so difficult though?" you may ask. Well the fact is that the game just seems to give you little to no training of the game at all. It just plops you in and tells you to have "fun". It gives you no direction and no mercy. Hell, the first boss in the prison is too hard for a first boss. It's very easy to die multiple times before you can get a "pattern" down which since you're only level 1 is very hard to maneuver The second boss in the first area of the game you actually explore gives no mercy too. I am not sure how to fight it, I've tried multiple things multiple times and I just couldn't do it. What sets this apart from the other games on the list is that at least I've finished all of the above games. This game is just too "hardcore" for me and I refuse to play another drop of it for a VERY long time. Now if you excuse me I have to sit in a corner and cry about the horrid memories of this game after suffering from PDSTSD (Post Dark Souls Traumatic Stress Disorder).
2 comments:
I agree with EBA, but the cake baking I got it on my third try.
Hahaha when I was little I would do the cake wrong many times just for fun. I would add Cleanser to it. It's what I learned from truck driving school :)
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