What is the biggest challenge you have ever overcome in a video game?

[The Codebreaker]

Practically all of Jak 2.
The game has a really steep learning curve after the first few levels. There's tons of time limit missions where it seems like literally every second counts, and the driving missions were brutal as well.
It took me about a year to beat it, and I was pretty damn relieved at how much easier Jak 3 was.

 

[DEAMONS-666]

dudes ratchet and clank 3 up ur arsenal part 1 of dr nefarious is the hardest thing ive ever done it took me months 2 do it and it was cause i didnt hav the rino

also jak 3 is hard as. i cant get past this 1 level at all even wit cheats it sucks

 

[Kashagi]

Another challenge in a game that took me years to defeat was the final boss of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

While I usually defeat him nowadays, The Phantom was an absolute pain back then, with his giant scythe which he could hit you with at unfair distances. Not only that but it only took him about 6 hits to wipe out your health bar. Defeating The Phantom took alot of patience, and non stop movement, especially when he starts using one of the cheapest boss fight tricks and starts teleporting.

While the fight is tough enough, theres even more to it. I remember the first time I emptied his health bar... He kept fighting, and no matter how many times I hit him he wouldnt die. He would simply clutch his face for a moment everytime I hit him, but wouldnt die. For years I would keep fighting him, trying to find out if it was possible to beat him, and for a while I simply concluded he was unbeatable (I was not the only one).

Then it happened, I was fighting him, depleted his health and switched from normal fighting mode to nunchuck mode, I kept hitting him with the powerful nunchuck attack and then accidentally pressed a different button. There is a certain nunchuck attack that is very small, never hits any one and is seemingly useless, when I accidentally used it near The Phantom, Bruce jumped over him and strangled The Phantom with them. I have to praise the game for that, there is a walkthrough on gamefaqs that has concluded that The Phantom is unbeatable. But it is rather creative to have such a strange way to defeat him (though not strange at all, as it is exactly what happened in the movie).

I was so satisfied when I beat this guy, it was a very difficult moment.

 

[Hawkeye]

There's one that's just special to me,cuz I'm a total nerd:
I beat Ocarina of Time with no shield whatsoever,named it "The Legend of the Left Handed Swordsman"

Beating any Megaman X game,cuz Sigma's a complete douche in all fathomable aspects

Phantasy Star Online,for the same reason listed above except it's Dark Falz not Sigma

I plan on beating Sonic 1 2 and 3 this summer.they weren't difficult,I just was never able to sit my ass still and do it

 

[Dagger Dias]

Rodricks, your no shield challenge in Ocarina of Time sounds like it'd be fun. I'm going to attempt that at some point. As for Sonic.... when you get to Sonic 3 make sure you do the Sonic & Knuckles version that plays through both games, playing either Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles by themselves just does not do the game justice. Play through the version that includes both, in its entirety.... now that's epic.

Here's another one of mine. The original version of Final Fantasy 3 on the NES. The DS version (with the exception of Dark Cloud) is much easier in my opinion than the original. The original version took me until last semester to finally beat. I ended up gaining levels in the final tower until I reached level 99. I used 3 Ninjas and a Sage. The Sage healed everyone every single round while the Ninjas attacked with Shurikens or the legendary weapons. All Dark Cloud ever does is Flare Beam every round so it's more about survival than anything, and I still can't do it without a level 90+ party.

Then there's Earthbound Zero. The last leg of it is a candidate for the most frustrating event of any RPG because Mt Itoi at the very end of the game borders on unfair when it comes to difficulty, even for a maxed out party. It took me a miracle to get through there without having to "cheat" by resorting to resetting every time a tough random encounter happened.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

I beat Ocarina of Time with no shield whatsoever,named it "The Legend of the Left Handed Swordsman"

If only i still had my N64 or still lived with my old flatmate who had it on the Gamecube, that sounds like an awesome challenge.

And i fully agree with Dagger, play Sonic 3 with the S+K expansion. That way if you get all the Giant Chaos Emeralds, you can play as Hyper Sonic/Knuckles and, for some reason, Super Tails, and watch yourself fly through the entire stages with about 2 jumps at a ridiculous speed...... plus you unlock an additional boss fight at the very end.

 

[ABMorales787]

There's one that's just special to me,cuz I'm a total nerd:
I beat Ocarina of Time with no shield whatsoever,named it "The Legend of the Left Handed Swordsman"

I'm guessing you mean without the regular shield because the Mirror Shield is an obligation to damage the Spirit Temple boss. You need to catch 3 Ice o Fire attacks consecutively and bounce them back to hurt her. Its the only way to do it. Unless your sharked it.

As for another major accomplishment from me, beating Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, all Gold medals, without the use of the Infinite Lives cheat. Now that's a challenge difficult to overcome.

 

[tnarage2]

For me it has to be seth from Street fighter 4 . this guy was so hard to beat it took me weeks to defeat him. Everytime I play a 3 match fight. I would win the first but the next 2 He was almost impossible to beat even on very easy. He would always does that thing where he pulls you in. Also he does that jumping spinning piledriver. just a few weeks ago I finally defeated Seth with Guile.

 

[Davi323]

Iron Mike Tyson. Replacement controllers for the NES were made precisely for games like Punch Out. Once you do it, you can beat him fairly regularly...but doing it for the first time is a royal bitch.

 

[Dagger Dias]

It's certainly not THE biggest challenge I've been through in a video game (see original post) but here's another good one.

Try to see how far you can get into Super Mario World without clearing any of the 4 switch palaces. At first the only major effect this has is that there won't be any Yellow/Green boxes by boss doors, but later on it starts to have a big effect on the difficulty. Bowser's Castle's 1st room saw the largest difficulty increase of any part of the game. It got so much tougher to avoid getting smashed due to the lack of platforms provided by the Red/Blue/Green/Yellow boxes that are supposed to be there. Star World 5 also became nearly impossible. It's a fun challenge, but I don't recommend it unless you're extremely bored.

 

[asslber]

The entire game of [PROTOTYPE]. I don't know if it's just me, but I find that to be one of the hardest games I've ever played.

Also Dark Carnival on Left 4 Dead 2. I had to play on Easy to beat that one.

 

[Nova Secura]

The trilogy of jak and daxter, amazing story brutal racing missions (jak2) Fantastic action and frustrating missions. That is what i had to deal with. and while it may not seem like much i was keep in mind only 8 when the first game came out. beating the final level of jak 3 was such a huge accomplishment that i did a little jig in my room to celebrate

 

[The Raven's Epitaph]

I also have a few..

Umaril from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
No doubt, Umaril is deffenitly hard on the hardest difficulty. With a wide range of spells and different attacks, he certainly kept me down for a few tries. It felt good after beating him on the hardest difficulty though. Espacially at level 18.

Reptilicus Maximus from Alundra
Alundra is no doubt the best game I've ever played. It's a 2D platform-RPG game on Playstation 1 and it's such a shame that the sequel wasn't as good as the 1st. It's also a shame that the Matrix Software and Working Designs company's went out of business shortly after creating the game. The boss itself is a pure strategy boss. Remembering all the different ways it can attack, espacially with all the minions around him. Deffenitly a hard boss.

 

[Greyot]

Getting the Crazy Hand trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

I spent the better part of a summer trying to get it. Basically, you have to beat Adventure Mode on Hard with no continues. Unfortunately, doing this usually results in the last fight being against Giga Bowser, who's a complete pain in the ass, and can easily kill you. So eventually, I got tired of trying and gave up. A few months later, I figure I'd go at it again and I got it. Crazy stuff right there.

Heh, I remember Earthbound Zero being super hard at the end. But I kinda powerleveled with that big robot that joins you towards the end. And the NES version of FF3 isn't really THAT bad. Final boss was pretty easy since all it does is Flare Wave. Two Ninjas throwing Shurikens and Two Sages healing every round make it a fairly quick fight. No powerleveling required (mostly...I did it at 60). But the whole lack of a proper save system would make anyone rage if you lost a fight on the final five bosses.

 

[Chicago1989]

I'll be honest with you, my biggest challenge in a video game has to be catching Entei, Raikou, and Suicune in Pokemon Gold, Silver, or Crystal. These bastards just kept moving around every time I got to their location, flee out of every battle after ONE TURN, and would break out every single Pokeball I throw at them. It was ridiculous. But when I found out about the strategy that everyone uses to catch them (Mean Look, sleep, and weaken), that was when it was easier for me.

 

[Remy LaCroix]

I have to post twice, maybe three times cuz I'm typing on a PS3.

Red's Snorlax in Pokemon Gold was a total bitch to knock out. Didn't it have Snore to attack when it was asleep? Other than that, I had no other problems with the rest of Red's Pokemon.

The following Frontier Brains (don't know if that's the G4 term or the manga adaption's term) on Pokemon Emerald: the tournament one with Salamence, Charizard and Swampert who ALL knew Earthquake; the Battle Pyramid (teleporting floor to floor while going through mazes in the dark while facing Pokemon with status ailments) -- I didn't use Sacred Ash BEFORE the battle with the guy; the one in which your Pokemon fight for themselves (my Pokemon kept loafing around!!!).

Tower Tycoon Palmer in Pokemon Diamond. His Rhyperior annihilated my team so many times. And then when I'm going for the second series of the streak there is ALWAYS a Chancey who overuses Minimize to a point where you wanna throw the DS at a wall.

I play alotta Pokemon.

 

[Remy LaCroix]

In Alundra 2 for the PSX (is that what they call the original?) the puzzles were too damn hard for a ten year old. Highly recommended if you want mind-numbing puzzles. No boss in the game was difficult now that I think about it, but the puzzles make up for it tenfold.

In an old PSX game called Swagman the very first boss was my last cuz it was impossible and I lost the game, only to be found three years later unable to load at times and freezing. Anywas, the boss is a giant fire-breathing pumpkin (game is about nightmares) who didn't have a health indicator of any kind -- it took way too many attacks to beat it after watching a video online a few months back -- and he had a one-hit KO attack that made it impossible to dodge if you got cornered.

In Resident Evil: Code Veronica, the final boss in which you shoot it with some gun was difficult cuz you had to wait so it was working. It was a pain in the neck trying to get a steady shot cuz it attacked so many times, which made surviving while waiting harder.

 

[Remy LaCroix]

On Final Fantasy III for the DS I had trouble beating Zander (or whatever his name was). After doing so I had to continue through some realm in which clones of him in treasure chests were just as hard. I played this back in December of last year and haven't continued since.

Most Espers in Final Fantasy XII had some sort of stipulation that made it difficult to defeat. The one in the mines that lead to the waterways of Rabanastre had a 5 minute time limit which wasn't enough time for me. I then looked for advice and found a way to take down his protective pailing (or something) that took too long to go away. And there was another Esper in which no magic could be used, so I had to buy a buncha items. And Girugamesh the second time in the Henne Mines. .

^^^ I'm pretty sure it's cuz I'm underleveled in the games.

 

[Platypus Palsy]

Red in Pokemon Gold was just ridiculous to beat. I had one pokemon at 100 (Ho-oh) and the rest were about 40 when I first tried fighting him. I ended up spending a shit ton of time training my Mareep to get a 100 Ampharos, no idea why I picked that though. It ended up working out and I beat him with just those 2 pokemon and a few appearances from my other pokemon.

The flying missions on San Andreas were fucking ridiculous when I first tried them too. After spending at least 20 hours on the missions to get your license alone, I finished. I then had to try and beat all the other missions which took at least 30 right there. Nowadays when I play back through, I can pass all of those missions on the first try, but when I started it was probably the hardest part of the whole game.

 

[Remy LaCroix]

The flying missions on San Andreas were fucking ridiculous when I first tried them too. Nowadays when I play back through, I can pass all of those missions on the first try, but when I started it was probably the hardest part of the whole game.

This too. The part about replaying is especially true.

I hated having to catch up with officer Tenpenny in the end of GTA:SA.

In GTA:VC I hated having to race that fatass in the Sabre Turbo outside of the Malibu -- I needed a getaway driver for the bank heist mission. And it really pissed me off sooooooooooo much soon afterward cuz he shows up when I hafta lose the cops and HE GETS F***ING KILLED AS SOON AS HE STEPS OUT OFF THE GETAWAY CAR!!! He was useless cuz I drove to the bank in the beginning of the mission -- they coulda just left the car in front of the bank in the first place. I WAS the getaway driver.

Oh and when I had to go through checkpoints on a boat for both Diaz and after I buy that marina asset.

 

[#Britton#]

the star wars forced unleashed game, man when u did the levels on the harder difficulty it was a bitch, one or two shots from a storm trooper could kill u. And lets not forget the infamous starship level. Where u have to pul a MASSIVE ship down to the ground, for starters u had to change the angle constantly, and not only that tons of tie fighters shot at u, and when u stopped to take them out the ship would RESET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
god i wasted 5 hours of my life on that level and 3 remotes, one time i was about to do it, and i has a power cut, god i was mad. Once i did the level i let my mate borrow the game, and he did the level first time!!!!!

 

[LigerBomb]

Probably RockBand 2's endless setlist on expert drums, without a pause or a song fail in the game play. It's about 6.5 hrs of straight game play and as far as drums made my left leg, lower back and forearms hurt for a day after.