Be it a game that’s difficult in its entirety, or a particular challenge in a game that you just couldn’t complete.
For me, there are three that come to mind:
- Super Hostile: Waking Up (Minecraft Custom Map, Hard difficulty). That damn water section…
- Terraria Zenith Mode. Coming from someone to whom Master Mode is fairly easy, this was rough.
- Calamity Death Mode (Terraria). I beat DoG (this was back when a headshot was an automatic death), but I just could not click with the Yharim fight. I also think burnout was at play here because that was a LONG playthrough.
Control. Liked it despite being in 3rd person view up until the mezzanine fight an hour or two in, then realized that the enemies are just dumb high DPS bullet sponges, the PC is a low DPS squishy and fighting from a cover or any other tactical approach I’m used to doesn’t work.
EDIT: There was also a spellcrafting mod for Skyrim where the endboss was immunebto all magic and would teleport away as soon as you got too close while summoning a bazillion powerful minions. At level 50…60 it was litwrally impossible to figjt the bastard. After many tries I just console killed the bugger and was done with it.
I’m about 8 hours into it, and I would say try it again, and once you get the launch ability rely on that as your primary weapon. I only really use the gun in a pinch or against enemies that can dodge launches.
Maybe I’ll give it a retry at some point in the future. If I can recall my forgotten Epic login credentials, that is. Too busy with the thargoid war for the next few years, though.
I also bounced off Control. Really wanted to like it. 3D metrovania in a SCP inspired setting ,how cool is that. The game is a technical marvel. How Remedy got that game to run on base PS4; I will never know. However the gunplay just feels off. I don’t like how the gun recharges instead of an ammo reload system. I feel like I’m too squishy. The weapon mods feel materially pointless. Don’t get me the wrong the setting so super unique. Most of my time playing was spent glossing over all the lore bits. “Threshold Kids” is horrifically fascinating. As if it came straight from creepy pasta. I wonder if I would enjoy Control way more if it was a limited series on Apple TV.
So so so many. Right off the top of my head:
- Guild Wars Season 2, one of the later missions. It was stealth gameplay. I hate stealth. Paid someone 100g to run it for me.
- FTL’s boss.
- Warframe’s Glassmaker season fight with Nihil.
- Currently, Ace Combat 7’s Pipeline Destruction.
Currently, Ace Combat 7’s Pipeline Destruction.
Oof, that was really tough IIRC.
I mehhed out on Outer Wilds because of Brittle Hollow and Hourglass Twins. Great game certainly, magnificent atmosphere, clever-in-a-good-way plot, just not quite for me. Watching my daughter play through it was more fun than playing it myself.
I thought about playing the good and bad endings of Undertale, but it started to feel like work so did not. Plus I estimated that the Sans fight would’ve made be break something.
I adore the Outer Wilds vibe, but had the same experience and it still doesn’t sit well with me! Years later and the game still comes to mind, but the periodic resets were so unpleasant for me that I didn’t see it all the way through. Maybe this will be the year….
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“True Pacifist” route is worth doing if you enjoy Undertale, it’s not terribly difficult and fleshes out the characters a bit more. If you’re thinking about going the other way, I would say play up through Undyne and see how that feels. Edit: also play Deltarune if you havent
I really want to like Outer Wilds, but it just hasn’t quite clicked with me either. I’ve probably played about 10 hours but just keep bouncing off of it.
Hollow Knight. I love that game but I am in my mid 40s and my reaction time isn’t what it used to be. And it’s not even the bosses. I just can’t make it past the spike section where you have to air-dash all over the place and can’t be a millimeter off or you die.
I’m guessing you’re talking about the White Palace. It’s required for the “true” ending but you can reach the credits without it. It’s worth watching mossbag’s lore videos on YouTube whether you beat the game or not.
I don’t think so. I only beat 3-4 bosses or so. I think it was a dark bluish area with white spikes, some way down from the entrance.
Personally I got through the “standard” white palace (not the side path. Fuck that).
But I never could beat the Radiance. It’s fast, its attack hitboxes are completely bonkers, and I absolutely hate the fact I can’t properly train against it to make sense of its patterns. Because every time I lose I have to redo that stupid Hollow Knight section again. It’s not even a hard part, it’s just wasting my time and making me more nervous when I have to face the real deal.
Radiance really does have some bullshit about it, especially when attacks overlap each other. I can totally understand the frustration.
For me it’s not even that, i just get lost a lot and run in circles until i put it down and when i pick it back up again i’m even more lost.
In the fighting game scene, reaction time is studied, and the 40+ year olds can hang with the kids at the highest level. Your reaction time is a function of your focus. If you put your mind to it, yadda yadda yadda. Then it’s just up to you to decide if it’s worth sticking to it or getting to bed so you’re well-rested for work in the morning, because that’s what will separate you from beating Hollow Knight in your 40s.
I’ve just moved on to other games. I have a wife and a small kid. I can’t afford to spend hours and hours stuck on a game.
Right, that’s my point. Those things are keeping you from finishing the game, not your reaction times. Those tend to not drop off until far later in life.
The Path of Pain? Yeah I gave up on that too. Also gave up on trying to beat Grim, even in my second play through.
42 yo here, same as you! I tried the game multiple times as everyone was raving about it. Got so frustrated with the bosses that I gave up.
A lot of puzzle games, especially ones by Zachtronics. Eventually I get to a point where my brain just can’t keep up and at that point I consider it done.
Zachtronics games are hard. Every once in a while I try going back to beat Spacechem but I’ll just hit a wall, noodle with it for a few days and just sort of run out of motivation.
This was me playing Ocarina of Time.
It was also me when I played Majoras Mask. Young me did not comprehend that shit at all.
I never played Majora’s Mask. Having seen speedruns of it, I’m pretty sure it would have fried my brain as a kid.
Yes! For most genres of games, I’ve noped out of some games but completed others. It wasn’t until you mentioned it that I realized I’ve never completed a Zachtronic game. I absolutely adore what Witness was doing, but I haven’t finished it. I should go back to it.
I don’t think I’ve stopped in the middle of something without planning on coming back. If something is difficult I’m more likely to do better the next day.
But something that I know I would not have fun with is platinum any Yakuza game. And honestly, I’m glad this game taught me to not worry about not completing things I don’t care about.
I play most games on hard difficulty. But i gave up finish Nier Replicant on hard, not because i got stuck, but the hp of the monster was way to high to have fun.
Crypt of the Necrodancer
The characters are difficulty levels, some with additional rules.
It’s a rythm rpg, lore character #1 can miss beats, collect stuff, etc.
Lore character #3 can’t miss a beat or miss and can’t upgrade health, so you always die in one hit.
When I beat the 4 chapters with that character I was done :D
If I picked Wolfenstein: The New Order back up today, I’d probably have a better time with it, since it’s been a decade since I touched it last and my gaming abilities have improved since then, but for whatever reason this game was ridiculously difficult for me, even on the easiest setting. It finally came to a point where I just couldn’t finish it, and I’m not sure if I ever will.
I remember it being probably the most difficult shooter I had ever played up until that point. The campaign was genuinely so hard. I (barely) managed to beat it and the boss fight at the end took me real life months.
A bunch of old Sierra games. Like the Space Quest series.
Great games, but unforgiving. Having a walkthrough on hand is a must as a few sections are close to impossible without one
You are aware that the impossible sections were on purpose to sell hint books and to make money with the telephone hintline which one could call being stuck?
Yes, but I’m talking about in this day and age. There are no Hint Books or Hotlines anymore. So we fall back on ye olde walkthroughs, as without them, the games are close to impossible.
Puzzle games like Baba and high skill ceiling platformers like Celeste, Meat Boy.
Soulsborne games are just soothing now. Dodge dodge hit, roll, heal, item, run
Like every arcade game as a kid: Defender, Xevious, Galaga, Berzerk, Battle Zone, Asteroids, the Dark Knight pinball machine. My 10 year old self had no idea these games were supposed to be infinite/unbeatable. Or rather, I always assumed they were. I had no clue they could crash if you were super expert at them. I think Xevious actually had an end tho.
As for arcade games a casual could finish but I gave up on? A decade later, Virtua Fighter.
I’m about to just toss Remnant 2 out. I thought maybe it would be better than the first one, but it’s even more bullshit. Like, it’s a shooter and the first boss hurts you while you look at it. The intended method to defeat it feels way more like cheesing an exploit. I’ve gotten through the first quest in the Labyrinth and I’m hating the bosses even more than the first game with how just annoyingly unfair they are if you’re not playing with a group. They’re simply not fun.
Returnal is very similar in gameplay, and is even a roguelike with super brutal gameplay; even that game isn’t as frustrating as Remnant 2. The bosses are hard, but not unfairly so.
I have this weird thing where I love a game to be challenging because it’s not engaging if it’s easy, it makes the game boring to me, but at the same time I despise grinding and generally rote gameplay with the only purpose of amassing more points to be able to challenge the next boss. But very few RPGs I like are like that. Baldurs Gate 1/2 are excellent games that I love but I get extremely frustrated by some encounters which just feels like absolute bullshit and require extreme grinding or going off to do a myriad of side quests to bump up your level. Same holds true for Pillars of Eternity which I also love.
Though I tend to be a stubborn person so I generally come back a week or month later if I get stuck but I tend to put the game down once I’ve dealt with the immediate challenge and realize that I need to do all that boring stuff again for the next boss and then I just don’t start.
I definitely had that experience with Baldur’s Gate 2, but I’m about 20 hours into Pillars of Eternity so far and very much not having that experience. Pillars seems to give me all the information I need to know to get through an encounter while BG2 will just say “weapon had no effect” without telling you that this monster can only be defeated by a +3 weapon.
Well the “early” fight with the noble / king / count can’t remember in PoE had me tearing my hair on the difficulty I played on, took intense space bar action and every trick I could muster in terms of abusing targeting and kiting, etc to win it. I don’t know how many times I reloaded and how many days I tried, must’ve been in the hundreds by the end when I finally got it due to a few lucky crits and rolls.
I haven’t found a noble, king, or count 20 hours in yet, but there was a quest that said I had to go fight Lord Raedric, and then I’m warned by both an NPC and a quest description that this is something I should do later because it’s going to be very difficult. Is it possible that you missed the warning and went to do something late game earlier than you should have?
It’s a long game, I think I just overestimated how far in you’d be at 20 hours. Since I really jammed with the game (and it was before I had 3 kids 😂) I had done all the side quests I had found but I hadn’t explored further away than the zones the side quests took you to. I will say though that plot wise it would make absolutely no sense to save it to the “late game” if that’s even possible. But that is the fight I was talking about, 100%.
The first bit is basically me whenever I do a challenge run in a Pokemon game.
Diablo IV: Uber Lilith. I did just about everything else, got my character up to Level 100. Then the first season ended (which I didn’t even do) and somehow my character got nerfed – even basic enemies were suddenly much harder for no apparent reason. I was considering changing and upgrading my gear for this final challenge but I couldn’t even fight my way around the map anymore. Screw that.
