YMMV / Mission Impossible (1990)

• Anti-Climax Boss: The leader of the Sinister Seven is barely a challenge. He brags about how World War III is about to happen, but then stays in his chair shooting at the player before dying to a single hit. You still have a fair bit to go before reaching the supercomputer, though.
• Demonic Spiders: Both enemies that use fire are incredibly dangerous. Not only does fire deal half your life bar in one hit, but both are durable, taking two hits to defeat when almost every other enemy only takes one attack.
  • The Molotov Cocktail-throwing enemies (Identifed as Fido T. Flamethrower and Light 'Em Up Joe in the manual) throw their firebombs that explode, covering an area for about a second, which is long enough to kill your agent given the lack of Mercy Invincibility. The firebombs fly over walls and other obstructions when your attacks will not, adding to the challenge. Most are programmed to simply bombard a specific area, often to deny you an easy path to them. A few, however, will aim specifically for your agent, and given the top-down view, it can be hard to get them in view of the screen without exposing yourself to their attacks.
  • The last level introduces Jorge Burns, who attack with flamethrowers. You meet three of them who only shoot in a preprogrammed direction, which is easy to avoid, and they only take one hit to defeat. The next ones you meet, however, are much more powerful. Their flamethrowers douse a sizeable area in flames that stay for as long as it remains on screen, they move very fast when they see your agent, and, like Fido above, take two hits to kill. Only two rooms feature them, but those two rooms are some of the toughest challenges in the game.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Despite its difficulty, it's a very good game, and it got good reviews. The large levels with multiple objectives and puzzles was a nice break from the usual cheap platformer cash in most licensed games were infamous for.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The final boss of the game has you playing a game against a supercomputer. Come Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, the Big Bad is actually a rogue A.I..
• Nintendo Hard: While not as well known as other NES titles, it is still renowned for being an incredibly difficult game. Each level can take a long time to explore, and you only have your three agents to complete each level. Lose them all, and you have to restart the whole stage. Even then, losing even one agent will deprive you of their skills, making trying to complete the stage much harder with your remaining team. Enemies deal quite a bit of damage, there are limited health pickups in each level, and there's a lack of mercy invincibility. There's also the One-Hit Kill traps and obstacles in the levels too that add to the game's challenge. Passwords exist, but only to take you to the beginning of the level.
• That One Boss: The boss of the third level is a ninja who teleports everywhere and attacks. The main danger is the floor crumbles beneath your feet, threatening to send your agent plummeting and losing a life.
• That One Level: The sixth and final level is by far one of the most complex and difficult ones on the NES. You have to go through a very long level where there are a lot of traps, puzzles and dangerous enemies that are around the level. To top it off, if you fail the final segment where you deal with the super computer, you have to start from the beginning of the last level all over again!