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Film — Live-Action
"... What's the point of making a game if you... can't even... win it... so stupid...."
— Evan, Superbad
Music
Your journey, it began because YOU DIED
Out of your cell you ran and then YOU DIED
You pause to catch your breath,
And die another gruesome death,
So now you creep around each corner TERRIFIED
Out of your cell you ran and then YOU DIED
You pause to catch your breath,
And die another gruesome death,
So now you creep around each corner TERRIFIED
MURI DA!! MURI DA!!translation
Boku no jitsuryoku deha... translation
MURI DA!! MURI DA!!translation
Koe rarenai...translation
Mou dame nanoka? Dame nanoka? Akirame youka?translation
Muzukashi sugite susume nai...!translation
GOOD NIGHT!!
Boku no jitsuryoku deha... translation
MURI DA!! MURI DA!!translation
Koe rarenai...translation
Mou dame nanoka? Dame nanoka? Akirame youka?translation
Muzukashi sugite susume nai...!translation
GOOD NIGHT!!
Newspaper Comics
"I mean, what's the point of playing if you can't win every time?"
— Jason, FoxTrot
Stand-up Comedy
I cannot beat one game on my Sega Genesis machine. On my old Nintendo, I could beat a couple of them, but not Sega Genesis. It's impossible, and I refuse to upgrade to a faster, smarter machine because of it. I'm not blaming the machine, mind you. I don't get mad at it, or throw things at the TV when I get frustrated. But if I ever meet the guy who invented Sega Genesis, I'm going to beat the living shit out of him.
— Drew Carey, Dirty Jokes and Beer
Video Games
"Good luck! You'll need it!"
—The host, Smash TV
Losing is Fun!
— The official motto of Dwarf Fortress
You call that normal?!
—Steam achievement for beating The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures on "Normal" difficulty
"This is wussy compared to older games."
— The King of All Cosmos, commenting on Me And My Katamari
"And that's for lulling me into great side-scrollers that are nearly impossible to beat!"
"When games were new, they wanted a lot from you. Daunting you, taunting you, resetting and delaying you. Players played stoically. Now everyone's turned off by that. They want to burn through it quickly; a quick fix for the fickle, some tricks for the clicks of the feckless. But that's not you, you're an acrobat. You could swallow a baseball bat."
Otacon: He used to be a weakling, but countless trials over the years have toughened him up.
Snake: And by trials, you mean "Game Overs"?
Otacon: Yeah, you should know all about that.
Snake: And by trials, you mean "Game Overs"?
Otacon: Yeah, you should know all about that.
—Codec conversation about Pit, Super Smash Bros. Brawl
"With a limitless stock of bullets in the compartments of these weapons, our firepower is unparalleled in coverage and destructive strength! These munitions have beaten back the repeated attacks of lone wolf pilots and our achievements have earned us a top position within our industry."
—Dr. Ingram K. Daugh, DoDonPachi Maximum, basically saying "We at CAVE have produced many balls-hard Bullet Hell games and we're proud of it."
"Oh ho ho, I hope you don't think one measly death gets you out of your contract! We're only getting started..."
—The Snatcher, upon the player dying at some points in Death Wish, A Hat in Time
Darkest Dungeon is about making the most of a bad situation. Quests will fail or must be abandoned. Heroes will die. And when they die, they stay dead. Progress autosaves constantly, so actions are permanent.
The game expects a lot out of you. How far will you push your adventurers? How much are you willing to risk in your quest to restore the Hamlet? What will you sacrifice to save the life of your favorite hero?
—Opening Screen, Darkest Dungeon
"Clear rate less than 1.0%."
—Tag Line, Bullet Hell Monday Black
Web Animation
Ninja: OH, YOU THINK THAT'S HARD? I'M JUST THE TUTORIAL LEVEL! THERE'S THE NEXT LEVEL OVER THERE!
Army of Buff Ninjas: What's up?
Arin: OH GOD, HELP ME!
Ninja: GOD CAN'T HELP YOU NOW!!
Army of Buff Ninjas: What's up?
Arin: OH GOD, HELP ME!
Ninja: GOD CAN'T HELP YOU NOW!!
—Awesome Series, "Awesome Gaiden"
"See, the thing you gotta realize about games in the NES days was that lastability was even then a big issue. Games were anywhere from 30-60 bucks, and that's shit's steep! You couldn't pay for this with your fuckin' lunch money. The NES cartridge didn't have a lot of space, so developers had to mind their limits, but also try to make a game that lasted a long time so gamers got their fortune's worth. The easy out at the time was making a game that was frustratingly hard. Most of the time it was in cheap ways."
—Egoraptor, Castlevania 1 vs. Castlevania 2
BULLLLLSHIT! No one dies on the first boss, and I'll be buggered if the trend starts with me, coin-munching son of a bitch! And y'know? It's a crying shame! With some modern controls and some camera angles, you might just be fun, instead of a side-scrolling lesson in frustration and ass-pain! Also, your cavalier attitude in regards to my coinage ruffles my feathers! A good day, sir!
"It's like I finally collapsed into my tent after a long day of successful artic expedition, whereupon one of the huskies trotted over and pissed on my head. And this was only on Normal difficulty! Talk about a 'skill ceiling'; this is the Sistine fucking Chapel!"
—Zero Punctuation on getting a "D" rating in Streets of Rage 4
If there's one thing [the indie gaming sector] quite likes above all else it's retro gaming, and high difficulty is associated with retro because of the arcade era, when gaming was less "art" than "rigged carny game with no prizes".
Web Original
Battletoads wasn't a game, it was a secret project to electronically destroy the human soul. The game was harder than a diamond strap-on and did similar things to you when you played with it. Either that or it was a secret project to trigger latent psychic powers, as that was the only way to get past the jet bike levels. It was proof that kids would spend four months subjecting themselves to thumbscrews if that was what they'd spent their birthday money on.
I've never had the pleasure to beat this level. Never, and believe you me I have tried many times to no avail. I'm not even sure if I fully understand what exactly is going on. You are supposed to get through the level, I do understand that basic fact, but no matter what happens it ends with an explosion and me starting over...Seriously, what am I to do here? Lay down in a fetal position and cry? Well, this game has been forcing me to do that for 18 years now and it still hasn't gotten me past this level.
Tell me, please, why does the GAME have to win? Huh? What happens when the game wins and I lose? Is there some huge fucking kegger waiting for it when it gets done? Is there money involved? Or perhaps the motives are more sinister. Maybe the game's family is being held hostage by another game and that game has its cock in F-Zero's wife's mouth and he's holding a cell phone up to her and F-Zero can hear her pained moans and cries for help and the asshole game then says, "You beat that cock-sucking human, or I'll blow her brains out." I COULD UNDERSTAND THAT. I CAN BE SYMPATHETIC.
"The idea of struggling against a game that does absolutely everything in its power to put you down, where every level completed is another tiny and insignificant victory against the malicious game designer, has some sort of weird appeal... A lot of die-hard retro gamers often pine for the days when games were a real challenge—The Tower of Druaga exemplifies this in spades. So, if you're sick of modern games holding your hand with endless tutorials, and want a genuine challenge that will almost certainly crush your enthusiasm for all forms of electronic entertainment, be my guest!"
1000 chances to be a hero (or die trying)
—Press release for Prinny 1 & 2: Exploded and Reloaded
The reason contemporary retro games usually fail to emulate the "Nintendo hard" experience no matter how hard they try is because they are, in fact, trying. The greater part of "Nintendo hard" didn’t emerge from intent. It emerged from a. nonexistent quality control, and b. game programmers straight-facedly insisting that obvious bugs were actually intended features.
Every addition to Super Mario Bros. 2 (with the one exception of Luigi's higher jump) was designed to make the player's life more difficult, from poison mushrooms to Piranha Plants that don't play by Piranha Plant rules to backwards fucking warp zones. I'll take a doctored Doki Doki Panic any day, thank you. (...) Final Fantasy II is very much like the original Super Mario Bros. 2 in its evident eagerness to pound the player into timorous submission. You've got to wonder what was discussed at that important SquareSoft staff meeting in early 1988: "okay, so we have a runaway RPG hit on our hands and we need to make a sequel while there's still interest. I think our goal for Final Fantasy II should be to make as many people as unhappy as possible, and we can begin by revamping the mechanics so that the most efficient way of increasing your characters' stats is to have them beat the hell out of each other in battle. Sound good to you folks?"
Final Fantasy was not an easy game. You can only save in inns or by buying houses, and by doing so didn't remove status effects like poison. Fallen allies can only be revived with the White Mage life spell, or by using heart shaped clinics, which were crossed shaped churches in the Japanese version. Enemies didn't drop items and some of the later game spells became insanely expensive. And then there were ineffective attacks, meaning if one of your party members killed an enemy before the others got a chance to take a shot at them, their moves, or even their magical charges, would be wasted. The monsters would also jump from being a walk in the park to a virtually impossible deathmatch at a moments notice, and Square would tweak each upcoming sequel in an attempt to balance the overall difficulty level.
—Game Trailers on Final Fantasy
Like Castle of Illusion, before you start the game, you are taken to the game's options screen. You have the option of setting the game to Very Hard (listed on the options screen as "Easy"), Ridiculously Hard (Normal) and Impossibly Hard (Hard). You can also change the number of lives that Mickey has, which are known as dreams in this game. It is set at 3, although you can only decrease them, if you feel man enough.
—Classic Gaming Blog reviewing
Fantasia for the Sega Genesis
Fantasia for the Sega Genesis Web Video
Brent: I'm a decent gamer, why is this not easy?
(You're just a loser and you suck verily
Can't beat a game from back when you were three)
Pat: Is there no easy mode or a secret code?
(Bad gamer, no, you'll get no cheating code)
Pat: Eat a toad!
(Lame gamer, there is no easy mode)
Both: What a load!
(Bad gamer, there is no easy mode)
Brent: Easy mode?
(There's no secret code)
Pat: Secret code?
(Never, ever, ever)
Both: What's the coooooooode?
(No! No easy mode or codes)
Brent: (as Mario) Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia
(Ask your momma for a code)
Pat: Miyamato, will you ever make it easy for meeeeeeee?
(You're just a loser and you suck verily
Can't beat a game from back when you were three)
Pat: Is there no easy mode or a secret code?
(Bad gamer, no, you'll get no cheating code)
Pat: Eat a toad!
(Lame gamer, there is no easy mode)
Both: What a load!
(Bad gamer, there is no easy mode)
Brent: Easy mode?
(There's no secret code)
Pat: Secret code?
(Never, ever, ever)
Both: What's the coooooooode?
(No! No easy mode or codes)
Brent: (as Mario) Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia
(Ask your momma for a code)
Pat: Miyamato, will you ever make it easy for meeeeeeee?
"This shit is so HARD!" (stomps off)
—Brentalfloss, "My Mega Man 9 Review In 5 Seconds"
"You're breaking my 'BALLS', Mario!"
Anthony: I didn't even beat Trauma Center!
Ashly: Nobody did, it's a fuckin' Atlus game.
Anthony: People beat Atlus games.
Ashly: No, they don't.
Ashly: Nobody did, it's a fuckin' Atlus game.
Anthony: People beat Atlus games.
Ashly: No, they don't.
"What sick psychotic fuck playtested this and said 'Yeah, you know what, dying all the time's alright, but I wish the game killed me more?"
"Go dig up an NES and tell me how many of those games you can actually complete. None of 'em! Don't lie, you probably can't even complete Bubble Bobble. Even the titles that were directed specifically at younger children make Dark Souls look like fucking DuckTales, except that DuckTales is probably harder. Going forward, however, games would continue to become more and more approachable as developers found out that people actually like to win."
"I swear, these games were programmed by The Joker."
— The Angry Video Game Nerd on Batman liscensed games
"It's as if they programmed the game and then said: 'You know what? It needs an Expert setting'. And then they programmed it, but forgot to add it in the menus. It's a theory, but it's the best guess I can come up with."
— The Angry Video Game Nerd, this time on Ghosts 'n Goblins
"If, by accident, you go back into one of the same buildings you've already been in, you can't just go back out. You gotta go through the whole building again, just to get to the exit. What a cruel punishment for a simple mistake! This game offers no forgiveness!"
— The Angry Video Game Nerd on Dick Tracy (NES)
"Unless you've played this game, you have no idea how hard it is. Let me try to explain, OK? Imagine if I were to draw a maze on a sheet of paper. I'm asking you to draw a line from the beginning of this maze to the end. You can't run into any dead ends, and you can't touch any of the lines. Now, while you're trying to do this, I'm moving the maze to the left. It would drive you fucking nuts."
— The Angry Video Game Nerd on Silver Surfer (1990)
"That's not a cheat! That's just how to play the fucking game! The basic rules of the game needed Nintendo Power. THAT is some fuck."
— The Angry Video Game Nerd on Milon's Secret Castle
"I'm either going to break a window or fall on my ass and kill myself...aiming the newspaper into the mailbox is like trying to slingshot a dingleberry from a playground's roundabout that's situated on a moving parade float, aiming into a bottle cap that's tied by a string to a Himalayan snowcock—while drunk. It would take somebody from NASA who knows how to calculate exactly when a certain asteroid is going to pass by a certain planet when it's lined up with a certain constellation during a certain moon phase."
—The Angry Video Game Nerd on Paperboy
"Whoever's responsble for it obviously hates anyone who plays video games. There's absolutely no reason a game based on Dennis the Menace should be this hard. Fuck Contra and Ninja Gaiden; Dennis the Menace makes those games look easy. It's like they didn't want anyone to play it. It has no purpose other than for sadistic shit-seekers like myself."
—The Angry Video Game Nerd on Dennis the Menace (SNES)
"It's not the shittiest game in the world, although it is shittier than a Mormon prom. But what it is is the most nipple-twisting, nut-aching, hair-pulling, ulcer-causing, butt-itching, frustrating motherfucker of a game you ever saw... Now, I know some people will come forward and, like, tell you the Gradius games or, like, Ghosts 'n Goblins, they're a real challenge. They don't know what they're talking about, because I fucking guarantee you that nobody has beaten The Adventures Of Bayou Billy fairly — not without some kind of emulator or Game Genie or divine intervention."
"Let's talk about the puzzles in this game. La-Mulana is not forgiving. La-Mulana is not your friend. La-Mulana stole your bike when you were eight."
"I'm never gonna start this game, am I? It's just not gonna happen. This was created by a very, very angry man... This guy was an orphan, he was bullied in school, and what he decided to do was to create a game designed to torture people. Which is what he has succeeded in doing."
"When it was ready for international release, Nintendo of America ultimately canceled the idea of this game coming to America as well as Europe. And why's that? BECAUSE THE GAME WAS DEVELOPED BY SATAN HIMSELF!"
"Trust Tomb Raider to make their own damn level-select screen a trap to avoid as well."
"Quite frankly, this whole game is pain. In a good way, but also, not."
— TheGameSalmon on It Is Coming.
on It Is Coming. Real Life
My work is a thing to kill the player.
— Takumi Naramura on La-Mulana
Getting away with murder should not be easy.
— Alex "YandereDev" Mahan on Yandere Simulator
Shigeru Miyamoto: There's something I've learned from making this new Mario title multiplayer.
Satoru Iwata: And what's that?
Miyamoto: I realized that, fundamentally, Mario is a game where if you fail and lose a turn, you'll be sent straight back to the start.
Satoru Iwata: And what's that?
Miyamoto: I realized that, fundamentally, Mario is a game where if you fail and lose a turn, you'll be sent straight back to the start.
Satoru Iwata: Back in the NES generation... For example, let's say everyone debugs a game after it's finished. Everyone involved in its production would spend all night playing it.
Chief Arino: The people who made it?
Iwata: Yes. And because they make the games, they become good at them...
Arino: That's true!
Iwata: So you've got these expert gamers making the games, and then saying things like "This is too easy." And that's—
Arino: They're like, "We need to make this part harder!"
Iwata: And that is why you're reduced to complaining as you play.
Arino: So I'm jumping immediately into games made for professionals?
Iwata: Exactly.
Arino: Well, no wonder they're impossible, then! I see it now.
Chief Arino: The people who made it?
Iwata: Yes. And because they make the games, they become good at them...
Arino: That's true!
Iwata: So you've got these expert gamers making the games, and then saying things like "This is too easy." And that's—
Arino: They're like, "We need to make this part harder!"
Iwata: And that is why you're reduced to complaining as you play.
Arino: So I'm jumping immediately into games made for professionals?
Iwata: Exactly.
Arino: Well, no wonder they're impossible, then! I see it now.
—Retro Game Master, "Balloon Fight"
"But, of all things, did you tell none other than Treasure to make it more difficult?"
— Satoru Iwata, discussing Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
Rik Mayall: Super Mario Bros. is pretty tricky; Super Mario Bros. 2 is a little more advanced; Super Mario Bros. 3 is [recoils in fear]; but Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is so difficult, it may actually unhinge the balance of your mind!
Tagline: Super Mario All-Stars: Ninfuriating, Ninnovative, Nintendo!
—UK commercial for Super Mario All-Stars
Introducing the hardest software ever.
—Cover page, Konami catalog of computer games (1990)
We get off on your tears.
Please have fun playing Mega Man 9, and when you inevitably ponder why this game is so freaking hard, please remember that Inafune-san has a decanter on his desk full of broken gamer spirits that keeps him perpetually youthful.
— Press release for Mega Man 9
You know, when Nintendo gets just a bit mean, like in the last Mario worlds? In this meaning of the word, we can say this game is very Nintendous.
—The Italian Official Nintendo Magazine on VVVVVV
"I would have to be paid a lot of money to go back and play NES games, I mean they were tortuously difficult."
When video game magazines featured high scores from the game for the first time [in 1996], readers were shocked to see no one had actually succeeded in beating the game. The ruthless level of difficulty became legendary among gamers at the time.
—Battle Garegga Rev.2016 official website
The legendary developers at Treasure invite all fans of the Genesis / Mega Drive to try this shooter! Test your skills against 25 challenging bosses. Just remember—you can learn new tactics from every defeat...
—Nintendo Switch Online Sega Genesis app, on Alien Soldier
