Top Ten Hardest NES Games

One of the best but most frustrating games on the NES. It's not as hard as Silver Surfer, but it can be more frustrating. Some people may ask, What's the difference? The difference is that hard includes the first level (the first level of Battletoads was pretty easy), but frustrating refers to the overall gameplay, where in Battletoads, it can't get any tougher. Silver Surfer, on the other hand, is rather sluggish (even though I never got past the first stage).

This is the best combination of a variety of gameplay and difficulty beyond belief. It's the most satisfying game EVER when you beat it!

Super hard game. Two hits and you die. Swarms of enemies come from all different directions. Your weapons are laughably underpowered and can only fire horizontally. Enemies spawn underneath you when you are in mid-air, leaving you no chance to survive. Don't forget the ultimate insult: when you finally beat the game, you have to play the whole thing AGAIN at an even HIGHER difficulty level.

This should be #1. I've played and beaten 95% of the games on this list. This one was by far the hardest to beat. They set it up so that wherever you jump, you die, and many are blind jumps. It doesn't help that you only have 3 lives. Most of these games took me a couple of days to a week to beat. This one... months.

I didn't play all the games here, but to me, this game is a lot harder than Gauntlet. I've only been able to beat it on an emulator, and I used a lot of save states/load states. To me, it's a battle between this game and Battletoads. I beat Ghosts 'n Goblins but not Bayou Billy. I don't know that game.

This game demands complete perfection. It should be ranked higher. You die once, and you lose your upgrades, which makes the game substantially more difficult and much less fun. I actually like this game...

I only played this a few times, but it was extremely frustrating. The slightest touch from anything will kill you, so you have to be extremely precise with your movements.

The first screen is soul-crushing. Three (four?) perfectly timed, highly precise movements are required, where instant death and repeat will be your frustrating learning curve. VERY different from the skill-building starting tutorials of modern games.

Steep learning curve, but even when you get the hang of combat, the most frustrating thing is being returned to the start every time you die, which will happen MANY times while going through Death Mountain on your way to the Great Palace!

Cryptic with some pretty hard bosses and sections. Not Ikari Warriors insane, not even Battletoads hard, and not as hard as Snake Rattle 'n' Roll either. But still very hard - harder than most in the top 10 list here.

You get knocked back when getting hit. In the early portion, it's okay, but as it progresses, it gets easier to get hit, and it becomes a lot harder and more time-consuming. Certain enemies are hard to avoid, like the Hunchbacks. It's not the hardest of all time, but it's one of them.

It may seem easy at first, but it gradually gets harder as the game goes on. Mike Tyson is known to be one of the hardest video game bosses, and even Mike Tyson himself can't beat him.

Do you know how hard this game is? You only start with 3 lives. Lose all 3, and you start all over again among the 8 worlds. What's worse is that each world gets 10 percent harder by adding more enemies and obstacles from the previous levels. Luckily, only the boss fights are super easy.