There is nothing like the warmth of nostalgia. Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers each have their moments of daydreaming about the “good old days.” We all longingly remember the “simplicity” of things when we were younger. For anyone born after the 1960s, video games are a huge part of the nostalgic conversation. Who doesn’t love the charm of Atari’s Ping Pong, or the first time they killed a Goomba in Super Mario? Those moments are filled with memories of first interactions with the entertainment of video games. For many, retro video games represent a time where you owned your friend in an arcade, instead of yelling at a person you don’t know while in the comfort of your armchair because they got the drop on you. You needed unlimited quarters instead of wi-fi, and your save point meant pausing your game and hoping no one bothered it. Yes, a much simpler time.

However, let’s not kid ourselves. Retro video games are not all the sunshine and rainbows people make them out to be. Some developers back then were out to get gamers, because many of the “beloved” games people fawn over were diabolical. From missing platforms to one-hit deaths, gamers had to put up with a lot back in the day. Today, if developers make unpopular decisions concerning the design or plotline of games, players can unload their frustrations on Twitter creating a public relations nightmare. In the 1980s and 90s, if you kept dying because of insanely hard enemies, tough! Let’s walk down memory lane and remember 20 retro games that probably made you put a controller through the television.

20 No Tranquility With Ninja Gaiden

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Ninja Gaiden is the go-to game for hard retro-game lists. There is a reason for this, the early 90s fighter side-scroller is not a walk in the park. Gamers have to literally create a rhythm for dealing with enemies to be successful in Ninja Gaiden. There are so many that come at once, that the game mechanics require gamers to hit enemies in perfectly timed attacks. If you miss a sword fight, it’s bye-bye Ninja. Now, imagine you somehow managed to figure out the “patterns” and make it to the end. Then, even to your surprise, you beat the boss. To your horror, you then find out you have to beat two more insanely difficult bosses. The Sega Genesis had you fooled with the friendly hedgehog.

19 This Game Causes “Mega” Headaches

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Today, we try out crazy strategies and speedruns because you have the safety net of saves. Back in the day, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) did not have a save system for their games. This was torture for people playing Megaman. Dying put you right back at the start. Get used to it because you will spend a lot of time here because you will die a lot. Listed as one of the ten most difficult games of all time by IGN, the developers of Megaman wanted to make gamers suffer. You could be mid-way through a run, and a platform could drop right from under you, killing you. Also, it was strictly sequenced, so if you missed the chance to grab certain essential items, you could not go back and grab them to officially “beat” the game. Anyone who can speedrun this game is a gift to gaming.

18 A Key To Retro Levels of Anger

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Solomon’s Key is an 80s puzzle title that pushed the boundaries of difficulty. It is so confusing that it is impossible to beat on the first try. If you touch an enemy one time you die, if you miss significant artifacts or “seals” in certain rooms you can make moving onto another level impossible, and there are hidden places you may have to find to keep going. There are forums dedicated to people discussing what they found and how they did it. Basically, you have to solve puzzles while using quick reflexes to avoid enemies. It’s like Tetris and Legend of Zelda combined minus the fun. You would have to keep a notepad and pen next to you to mark your missteps for later tries. Hmmm, is the nostalgia getting a bit stale yet?

17 Athena May Need To Come Rescue You

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Altered Beast is a 1988 Sega game. At the time, it was one of the first Genesis titles to feature 16-bit technology. However, in 2017, this game is talked about because of its insane difficulty. Even though enemies from games like Gauntlet and Diablo can be painfully hard, the logic of enemy attack makes sense. Enough to be challenging, but not too much to become impossible. Altered Beast does not follow this equation. Enemies come to you in swarms, and their attacks do not develop a rhythm so you cannot adequately block them or break away to attain powerups or items you need. There are still many who say they have never beaten this game even today. A game should be challenging because of smart design, and not faulty logic.

16 The 1980s Stanley Parable

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Seinfeld is known as the “show with no plot.” Well, Takeshi’s Challenge, a 1986 Japanese video game, is the game with no story or rules that make any sense. It is about the mundane life of an ordinary man. On the outset, it would seem boring, but the quirkiness makes up for it. The challenging part of this game is that you can lose for any reason. If you fail to talk to a particular person or enter the right password on the title screen, it is game over. There is one task where you receive a treasure map, but the contents will only appear if the controller is left still for an hour. The game guide even missed valuable details players needed to succeed. It is the pre-Stanley Parable.

15 Hope You Passed Physics

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Sub-Terrania is an early 90s title from the Sega Genesis. The point of the game is to navigate a ship to save people on various planets. The thing that makes this game impossible to beat is the required handling of the spaceship. You have to continuously control the gravity of the ship (making sure it does not fall) while steering it. You also have to fuel the ship numerous times throughout the game, and stations are often located in awkward positions. If you hit anything that is not a loading dock or gas station you will crash and have to start all over at the beginning of the level. Also, have fun while aiming your weapon to shoot enemies and controlling the gravity and direction of the ship all at the same time. If you can master this, apply for NASA, they need you.

14 Ever Thrown An Atari Out Of The Window?

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The Atari and the many games released on its system are regarded as one of the first significant steps into mainstream mass gaming. Too bad it started the trend for games that show no mercy. Pitfall! was released in the early 80s and seemed like an easy concept: run, jump, and swing through jungles while avoiding crocodiles to pick up treasure. Well, you are timed throughout this whole process (no pressure) and you have to retrieve 32 treasure pieces. You have to collect them all and avoid getting hit within the time. If you miss, it is game over. To beat this game, you have to remember where every treasure piece is located. Again, grab that pen and paper because old-school games require old-school methodology.

13 “Testing 1, 2 Sega!”

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If that phrase doesn’t conjure up images of a long-haired blonde comic artist swinging from scene to scene, then you missed out greatly. Comix Zone is another early 90s Sega Genesis Title. The character plays a comic book artist who is pulled into his own comic while the villain escapes causing chaos. Obviously, this is now your problem. What makes it almost impossible to complete this game is the fact that everything can hurt you. You can easily die from the impact of your weapon, or lose a considerable amount of health due to crashing into walls and items. Unfortunately, both situations require you to start from the beginning. To top it all off, this game has no checkpoints. Sega developers should be happy this game has a killer soundtrack and off-the-wall visuals.

12 Disney Is Not All Fun And Games

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If you ever pegged a Disney game as being easy because it's…Disney, please grab an emulator and check out this title. Aladdin was released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Sega Genesis — albeit completely different versions. This game is insanely hard because of the long-range attacks of enemies. Aladdin could be on the other side of the screen and still be hit by a projectile. You can pick up extra lives as you go through the levels, but the other issue is the insane amount of jumping Aladdin has to do. Many levels are vertical which require you to time your jumps correctly. Many times, there are enemies right in the spot of where you need to go, which will either kill you or cause considerable damage. The Cave of Wonders deserves a spot on this list all by itself.

11 No Amount of Skill Will Help You Finish This Game

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Shadow of the Beast is a Genesis title from the 90s. This game is challenging because of the horrible game design. The game’s detection system is horrendous; you may clear a jump over a crater but still lose health. Also, enemies are hard to hit because of these detection issues. For some reason, your jump button may fail at certain parts of the game which makes it almost impossible to avoid certain enemies. The worst part of this game is the issue of missing certain items. Like Solomon’s Key, you might miss an item on the way to a boss fight, and if you do these out of order, the game will crash. Missing out on items can also get you stuck in some locations where you were not yet cleared to go.

10 And You Thought The First Contra Was Bad

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Contra: Hard Corps on the NES is almost just as bad as the first one. This game is exponentially faster. Watching this side-scrolling “beat-em-up” looks like a fast-forwarded VHS tape. Contra: Hard Corps took lives down from five to a one-hit health bar compared to the first fame in the series. This is a huge problem because players experience a barrage of enemies at breakneck speeds. Therefore, that health is hitting zero regularly. You are required to have reflexes of steel to bypass the enemies in this game. Every jump and attack has to be perfectly synchronized and timed to win. Good luck trying to remember stages, the game moves too fast for you to do this. Starting to see a pattern here?

9 When Realness Has Gone Too Far

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Prince of Persia is heralded as a groundbreaking computer game but also a considerably hard one. It debuted on the early 90s Apple II computer model. The movements of the characters were fashioned after the creator’s brother to add more realism. So the momentum you see when the main character jumps or lands on a platform is real. It can also lead to some unintended falls from balconies or dungeons, so you have to take the “physical human delays” into account. Also, this game only gives you two hours to beat it, so the pressure is on. You also have to stand still to regain health, which eats time away. Imagine the types of games an Apple console would produce today.

8 Got To Be #Flawless

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Super R-Type is a SNES side-scrolling shooter. It was brought from the standard arcade booths to home console systems. The problem with this game is that there is a highly limited amount of saves. If you are killed, you have to start all the way at the beginning of the level, which could be insanely long. The move from arcade to SNES also caused some set pieces of the game to go missing which makes certain stages misleading and confusing. Like many of the other games on this list, the challenge for gamers is in the game design and logic. Also, even if you select easy mode, beginners still have a steep learning curve with the logic of the game. It does not matter which level you choose; it is going to be tough.

7 If You Can Get Past Grisly Child Death Scenes…

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Heart of Darkness is a late 90s PlayStation One and PC title. It is about a boy who goes into another realm to search for his missing dog. It seems too wholesome until you realize this game is a nightmare. It does have unlimited lives, but this game requires tons of trial and error play. Levels are long, and you have to get the hang of where enemies spawn and how they attack to succeed. This takes a crazy amount of memorization and patience. Couple that with the fact that many of the enemies are one hit kills, and you will pull your hair out. Also, this game may be hard for some to get through because Andy is murdered in some of the most gruesome ways ever seen in gaming for a child.

6 N64 Wasn’t All Marios and Metroids

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It may be hard to believe, but The Nintendo 64 had challenging games other than Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Jet Force Gemini was a 1999 N64 title that many consider being one of the hardest on the console. This game was incredibly huge. Because of this, players had to master various settings of the game to be successful: platformer, shooter, puzzler, and exploration. The plot also requires you to revisit many key places you already encountered, so you are playing through the game twice, one alone and the other with your newly found comrades to retrieve items. The second time around, you have to make it through levels without dying. You will need a whole day to get through this one.

5 First Flight Simulator…Cool? NO!

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Top Gun was released in the mid-1980s on the NES. This game is insane. There are four missions, each with unnecessary stressful situations. In Mission 1 (and in other places in the game) you have to land your plane on an aircraft carrier perfectly. As the game prompts you to land the aircraft, it tells you to move “Up, ” but you actually need to press the “Down” button (mimicking the controls of a real plane), you would have no idea of this the first time you played and would likely crash. Also, your precision has to be perfect. When an old airplane flies by to refuel you, you have to perfectly lock onto it, if you miss by a centimeter you are dead. This one sacrifices fun for realism.

4 Touch Anything…And You Die

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Silver Surfer is the bane of many gamer’s existences. It is an 80s NES title that has to be responsible for damage to tons of floor model televisions. This game has quite a few reasons to make players frustration levels reach epic proportions. First, enemies are always coming at you as you fly through stages, and you have to avoid being hit by all of them. If you cannot manage that impossible task, you will have to start from the beginning of the level. Also, you are forbidden to hit any walls, ceilings or structures. If you do, you will also die. It is like a virtual game of “The Floor is Lava,” but with everything. Currently, the list of those who completed this game without the help of cheats is pretty small.

3 No Mobile Paddle and Brick Game Has Prepared You For This

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Arkanoid is a “brick and paddle” style arcade game that was playable on many consoles, but most in America played it on the Atari or later on the NES. There are 36 levels to the game, and most cannot get past level five. As you move on to later levels a number of times the ball needs to hit the brick to make it disappear increases almost exponentially. You also only appear to have six lives in higher levels. This game was designed to be impossible for anyone to beat. Another point about Arkanoid is the insane amount of endurance gamers need to move through all 36 levels. As each brick begins to need ten strikes each to disappear, you are in for a long experience.

2 Make Sure Your Driving Skills Are Up To Snuff

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With a name like The Adventures of Bayou Billy, the last thing you would probably associate with this title is “difficult.” Don’t be fooled. This game was made to test your patience and anger levels. The Adventures of Bayou Billy is an 80s NES title. The combat in this game may be the worst on the list. Enemies are always faster than you and can hit you and move away before you can react. Also, multiple enemies always leave you vulnerable since you can only effectively attack one at a time. However, they can all continue to attack you. You could use a gun, but there is extremely limited ammo with no opportunity for pickups during the game. Lastly, levels four and five require you to drive, if you hit one post you are finished. Have fun in the bayou!

1 Defeating The Grim Reaper Should Be Hard…Right?

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Chakan is a Sega Genesis title. You are battling to get your well-deserved slumber after beating the Grim Reaper. The game design has set you up for failure. You can easily fall off platforms into a bottomless pit, and boss fights are insanely difficult, you only have one chance to beat the final boss. If you lose, you get put right back at the beginning of the game. Think about how many gamers would hit Twitter and Facebook to tell off the gaming company for a troll like that. A more social world has almost made issues like these non-existent in modern games. Imagine a Final Fantasy game that put you back at the very beginning if you could not beat a boss. Your shiver to the thought is noted.