Highlights

• Game Boy games lacked tutorials due to storage constraints, making them notoriously difficult to figure out.
• Contra on Game Boy is a challenging run-and-gun game with intense bullet hell action on a tiny screen.
• Yu-Gi-Oh Reshef of Destruction is tough, requiring strategic deck building against iconic villains and cards.

For many of us, the startup music of the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance systems will elicit memories of nostalgia. For others, it will drag up feelings of annoyance and outright rage. Both are valid because, as much as we look back fondly on the iconic pocket system, some of the games were unbelievably and unfairly hard.

These days, games love to hold your hand — to the point where developers will set timers so that if, you remains in one location too long, hints will appear to nudge you forward. The Game Boy had very little storage to work with, so every line of text was a luxury that had to be carefully vetted for storage. As a result, these games have almost no tutorial, and you had to figure everything out for yourself, often with great difficulty.

Updated on March 7, 2024, by Marco Vito Oddo: Nintendo's Game Boy era pushed the industry to a whole new level by offering amazing experiences that remain in our memory despite the technical limitations of the handheld console. In addition, the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance were home for so many though as nails games that we felt we needed to expand on that list and add a few overlooked gems.

13 Contra: The Alien Wars

Game Boy

With only six stages to the whole experience, Konami knew it had to make a brutal game to keep players engaged. Any Contra fan should not be surprised to see this title on the list. Contra is a run-and-gun side scroller, where you can only take a single hit before losing a life.

The Game Boy title is truly brutal. Contra is a chaotic bullet hell, and playing it on such a tiny screen is no small feat. This game is cooperative, like its previous instalments. However, in the age of cable cooperation, and the luxury of owning a Game Boy, you would be hard-pressed to find a Lance Bean to join your Bill Rizer in the intergalactic fight.

12 Batman: Rise Of Sin Tzu

Game Boy Advance

Rise of Sin Tzu is a Batman game that is hard for all the wrong reasons. Platforming is inconsistent, player guidance is minimal, and checkpoints are scarce. However, this by no means makes this a terrible game; in fact, it's very enjoyable and satisfying to pummel the creeps of Gotham.

Navigating the levels of this title can be difficult, as there can be doors that need specific items to open. These are items that can be easily walked past or are held by an enemy that you don't have to beat to progress. This was also in the days of game design when boss difficulty was equivalent to the length of the fight. This means that most bosses are nearly invincible, except for a few seconds of each fight, making each battle a test of endurance.

11 Metroid Fusion

Game Boy Advance

Metroid has always been known as an unforgiving experience and Fusion is no exception. It tests not only your combat skills but also your problem-solving and critical thinking abilities.

Even the easiest enemy will cause massive damage, and hunt Samus down if she is not paying attention. This game is so overrun with enemies that many guides urge you to run away from and avoid as many enemies as possible to conserve health and ammo. All this doesn't even account for the bosses, which are some of the hardest in the series, as they are basically steroid-infused variants of previous bosses.

10 Boxxle

Game Boy

Boxxle is a classic puzzle game about pushing boxes. If you haven't played it, it's like a 2D version of Blorx where a block must be pushed with precision to achieve a certain pattern.

This game would probably be fairly easy these days with walkthroughs, guides, and discussion boards at our fingertips. However, keep in mind that, when this game launched, these options weren't available. The closest you could get would be an official strategy guide, but what company would publish a book of solutions to a puzzle game? This game was so brutal that some recall taking over three years to beat the game fully.

9 The Invincible Iron Man

Game Boy Advance

This game really went all out in terms of copying and pasting enemies. This MegaMan clone features the Iron Man pitted against hoards of robot enemies. While Iron Man is powerful in this game, he stands little chance against the sheer number of enemies scattered through each level.

To make matters worse, the bosses in this game do massive damage with each hit and often cannot be dodged. This means that you have to get through the hordes of enemies with nearly full health to stand a chance of making it to the next level.

8 Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

Game Boy Color

This lesser-known title was the counterpart to the PlayStation 2 game of the same name. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets took the JRPG route with fights against enemies taking place in a separate arena to the overworld and using turn-based combat.

This turn-based model made for many of the fights being left up to luck more than skill, especially in the early part of the game. Spells have a high miss chance early on, and your party members can only take one or two hits before being down for the count.

7 Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone

Game Boy Advance

As the name may hint, Yggdra Union is a JRPG where you take control of a whole battalion, rather than a small party. This game is an extremely unique and well-built game and is highly recommended if you are a fan of the JRPG genre.

Yggdra Union is so difficult because of its incredibly detailed combat system. The outcomes of fights are determined not only by levelling and the abilities you choose to use but also by the units you decide to ride into battle with. The tide of battle can be determined by luck, the number of units, type of units, and many other mechanics, all working in tandem.

6 Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef Of Destruction

Game Boy Advance

Many fans of this old Yu-Gi-Oh title look back fondly on the card-based strategy game. Reshef of Destruction is a detailed deck builder game and with over 800 cards to choose from, your options for a deck are almost infinite.

This Yu-Gi-Oh title is a hard one, as it pits you against some of the most iconic villains and cards in the series. You'll have to overcome well-built decks, some that even feature the Egyptian God cards. This means that if you want to stand a chance, you'll need to have almost every card in the game to build an appropriate deck for your opponent.

5 Super Mario Land

Game Boy

Super Mario Land was the first title in Nintendo's flagship series to be developed for a handheld console. Following the tradition of Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Land features excruciating platforming levels that demand pixel-perfect precision from you.

While Super Mario Land is on the shorter side of Super Mario games, the title is still a memorable adventure that takes place in a unique setting, named Sarasaland. The unique line-art style of the game also helps it stand apart from other titles in the series, making it a classic of the Game Boy era.

4 Robocop

Game Boy

Game Boy's Robocop lets you take control of the iconic action hero who's half-man, half-machine. With levels inspired by the first RoboCop movie, the Game Boy title also became known for being extremely difficult.

Mixing run-and-gun and beat-'em-up mechanics, Robocop offers an adrenaline-infused arcade experience that you could take anywhere on your Game Boy. The portability of Robocop suited the game well, as you had to squeeze a few minutes of gameplay everywhere you went to master its hard levels.

3 Mega Man World

Game Boy

With Mega Man World, Capcom tried to repeat the success of its Super Nintendo action platformer series. In the United States, each game of the Mega Man World subseries launched without "World" in the title, instead using Roman numerals to differentiate it from the mainline games.

Besides a unique naming convention, all the games of the Mega Man World subseries feature the beloved Mega Man structure. Since the start of each game, you'll have several levels available to conquer, each featuring a unique boss. Defeating the boss allows you to collect their power and use it to do other levels. Each boss is weak to the special power of a different boss, leading you to try out different combinations to overcome the incredibly difficult battles.

2 Super Ghouls 'N Ghost

Game Boy Advance

Super Ghouls 'n Ghost haunted a generation in the Super Nintendo by offering platforming levels filled with enemies that can easily kill you. Your only tools of survival are a spear you can throw and armor you can collect to give you an extra layer of protection. However, any hit strips you of your armor and forces you to face the evil hordes in your underwear.

The Game Boy Advance port of Super Ghouls 'n Ghost keeps all the challenges of the original, including a painful Game Over screen that appears once you depleted your lives. What hurts the most in this Game Over screen is the idea of redoing the whole game from the very first level, hoping this time you'll manage to survive until the diabolical final boss.

1 Metal Slug Advance

Game Boy Advance

As part of an arcade series, the Metal Slug games were conceived to kill you as fast as they could, so that you might spend more coins (and money) buying Continues to beat gargantuan bosses and hordes of enemies. Metal Slug Advance took the series' challenging tradition to the Game Boy Advance.

Metal Slug Advance keeps the core elements that made the series so famous. In the game, you can choose between four characters to try to overcome levels by running and gunning everything in your way. The series' detailed pixel animation, thrilling soundtrack, and enviable variety of weapons and vehicles help to keep you coming back for more, even after dying dozens of times in a row.