In 1991, Super Nintendo Entertainment System took gaming to a whole new level. The Super Nintendo is one of the greatest video game consoles of all time, if not the hardest, but rather a portion of its titles can be significantly hard for current or more youthful gamers to return to. The SNES was a massive hit, and over the course of its life, more than 700 titles were released.
Everything was massively improved when the console was upgraded from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the SNES, but it also made a lot of games even more difficult than the ones that were released on the NES. Let us check out these 10 SNES games people are still trying to beat today in no particular order.
1) Super Mario Kart (1992)
Super Mario Kart took racing games to a whole new level with some of the best multiplayer gaming ever coded up to that point. The game also included a solo campaign, but most players found joy by playing the player-vs-player combat option, or the racing portion of the game with their friends.
What made this game difficult was the solo campaign challenges. Between drifting, hopping, maintaining speed, and generally just avoiding the game’s aggressive CPUs, Super Mario Kart demands complete mastery should players even think about challenging 150cc. This is a game so hard, even longtime fans of the series never managed to do better than 100cc.
2) Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (1995)
Donkey Kong Country introduced an entirely new form of graphics technology, it was innovative and masterfully coded. This made the game one of the best-selling games on the SNES. The sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong Quest, was released in 1995 and had the same look and style as its predecessor.
This game had a total of 52 levels, and each one is more difficult than the last. If gamers didn’t time their moves properly, they’ll find themselves falling and dying a lot. The game requires a huge amount of patience and dedication.
3) ActRaiser (1990)
Half side scroller action RPG, half-life simulator, ActRaiser is one of many games Quintet released for the SNES and one of their harder titles. Where ActRaiser II opts for hair-pulling frustration, ActRaiser settles on regular frustrating.
The game features brutally hard side-scrolling stages, the boss battles at the end of the levels are hard enough to beat, but it’s tough just getting to them, so you might never have to deal with them.
4) Populous (1989)
Populous was released on the Amiga in 1989, it placed the player in the role of a deity leading their followers in a battle against opposing gods while improving and building their civilization. Throughout the game, you’ll need to make numerous decisions as you guide your followers through their growth and decline. Every minor decision has consequences, so you can end up playing through a game, only to make a bad decision that leads to ruin.
The game was complex when it came out, It was very important for players to pay attention to everything, or they’ll need to restart.
5) Super Castlevania IV (1991)
Super Castlevania IV is actually easy to sit down and finish. It’s a forgiving game with an incredibly generous continue system and mechanics that can make competent players outright overpowered. That said, reaching that point requires skill, patience, and mechanical mastery.
The whip is tricky to get used to, as holding the attack button too long activates the flail, ensuring that whip presses need to be precise and true with no error. Not just that, Super Castlevania IV is still hard even with continues.
6) Hagane: The Final Conflict (1994)
Hagane: The Final Conflict is actually a hard game to track down, as it was incredibly rare. Even today, cartridges can sell for as much as $500 on eBay. Not many players got the chance to play it. This game was an action side-scroller that uses every single button on the Super Nintendo controller, creating a level of mechanical depth that frankly rivals most games released today.
Hagane is punishingly hard, actually requiring players to make use of their entire skillset. The game scales its difficulty as you progress, and it can get frustrating at times when dealing with unforgiving enemies. Players need to focus 100% of their attention on everything happening on the screen and must time their moves perfectly.
7) Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (1999)
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 was released on the Super Famicom, and it was one of the last games released on that system. Thracia 776 is a great note to end the series’ 16-bit run on, even if it is brutally hard even by the franchise’s standards. Thracia 776 is unforgiving, relentless, and downright cruel at times.
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 is easily one of the hardest games in the entire franchise, while other Fire Emblem games are traditionally difficult. It’s a challenging game but in a good way. But players new to the franchise should not select this title as their starter but instead, select Genealogy of the Holy War as it is an easier SNES alternative that’s just as good.
8) Earthworm Jim 2 (1995)
The first Earthworm Jim was a classic hit for the SNES. It was whacky and funny, and those elements made it into the sequel. Players need to explore their way through the levels, mini-games, bosses, and special levels that require a huge load of redundancy and master timing, and along these lines, the game is viewed as frustratingly troublesome by the gaming community.
9) Super R-Type (1991)
Super R-Type is easily the most frustrating game on this list. While other titles might be much harder, Super R-Type requires that players operate on another level entirely. The game throws all sorts of enemies, lasers, bullets, plasmablasts, and everything else the enemy could come up with in your direction, and it’s a one-hit, one-kill sort of situation. Super R-Type is a Super Nintendo game that only veterans of the genre will be able to get through. However, it is a good game–for those that have the patience to actually memorize patterns and learn how to play.
10) Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1993)
To be honest, all three Super Star Wars games deserve their own spot on this list, but the second, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, is usually cited as the most difficult of them all. The game was obviously based on the movie. The various locations you’ll visit, and the enemies you fight were inspired by the film.
The developers did everything to make the game frustratingly difficult, and players will find themselves bombarded with enemies that never stop spawning in several areas of the game. When you finally get through those, you’ll stumble into a boss fight, which will somehow be easier than the mobs you had to beat to get to them.
Know about more tough Super Nintendo Games? Let us know about your experience with them in the comment section below!
Source: Ranker
