Ninja Gaiden isn't that hard. Everything is so pattern-coscious that once you learn how to pass certain spots, you can pass them in your sleep. I assume you're having problems with that room everyone calls "the hardest" in 6-2, the one with the swooping bird? That's actually incredibly simple; as the final bird swoops down, run to the right edge of the platform and duck - the bird will fly over you and the other enemy will walk off the screen and disappear. The bird will fly back to attack you again, but just jump over the pit and towards the ladder, and it will usually miss - and if it doesn't, it'll just knock you into the ladder, so you won't die.

Hard games, though? Solomon's Key. There's a game I'm actually proud of beating. With the best ending, all rooms cleared and no stupid continue code cheating. Took me months, but I finally managed.

Also, Gradius, that took me a week or so to beat.

(though if you want true expertise, my college roommate managed to beat the arcade Gradius 3 with me watching. That's the most impressive showcase of gaming skills I've ever seen. Holy crap that game is hard.)

Final Fantasy III
Which in my honest opinion is one of the very best 2D RPGs ever created not to mention it has a very nice english translation unlike many games of the era.....speaking of bad translations do the words Spoony Bard ring a bell

@Adamant: Thanks for the tip. I'll be sure and try that when I get back home this weekend. And your roommate seriously beat Gradius III arcade? Well good for him. I can't even make it past the second stage in that one (so glad Konami made the SNES port easier so I can actually make decent progress in that one )

@Waveboy: Yeah I agree with you in regards to Castlevania III. I can't make too much progress in that game without the ten life code. And I can see where your coming from in regards to Adventure Island also. I'm currently playing through New Adventure Island right now and those one hit kills are brutal. Thankfully you have unlimited continues and start back at the beginning of the level to help make it a bit easier. Does the first game have continues too?

@WaveBoy
Amagon was hard as old bread, have you watched a playthrough of it?
it is awesome to see someone beat it. in order to master that damn game that would have to be one of yer only games
you have to spend a lot of time mastering it
if the difficulty wasnt so high it would have made a splendid game

I geuss there's no better place to ask this. But after you complete 100% of Kirby's Adventure, is the hard mode actually a challenge?

I recently beat Castlevania: Rondo of Blood for what must be the gazillionth time. Its easy to forget how great some games are.

Beat New Adventure Island the other day.

I finished Neutopia yesterday. Bought it four or so years ago, but I'm sure I hadn't put more than an hour into it until the past few days. It was pretty good too, for an unabashed Zelda clone.

I've also been trying to beat Super Castlevania IV for the first time, but defeating the first boss of Stage B is proving to be quite a pain.

Anyone remember an NES game called Astyanax (from Jaleco)? That game was ridiculously hard, and I could never get passed the giant dragon medusa boss.

I wonder if it will ever come out on the Wii's VC...

on the wii VC i beat
legend of zelda 1 nes
castlevania 1 nes
finalfantasy 1 nes
paper mario n64

a few days ago beat links awekening on my 3ds

The vc games I have beaten are:
-Super Mario Bros 3 NES
-Kirby's Adventure NES (Who couldn't beat that?)
-Donkey Kong Country SNES
-Super Mario Kart SNES (Got gold in all grand prixs)
-F Zero SNES
-Super Mario RPG SNES
-Zelda Ocarina of Time N64
-Paper Mario N64
-Super Mario 64
-Mario Kart 64
-YS Books Turbo Grafx 16

I finished DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure a few days ago.

Mother 3

If I remember I can do more complete reviews.

Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo (Castlevania: Rondo of Blood)
I... liked... it.
I feel dirty since I've bashed it so many times. But a friend came over and we played through it, I dominated as Maria. If I didn't know how to unlock her I would have never finished it because those Ravens are just too damn annoying when you play as Richter.
I beat Dracula as Richter and only got hit once, because my backflip didn't go off for some reason.
I felt proud that I taught my friend a new technique for that fight. Jump and swing right when Dracula appears, then turn around and backflip over the fireballs. He's played every Castlevania game ever made (and can just stroll through 1 and 3), and I got to show him up on this one, so it made me happy.
I'll give it an 8/10.

Final Fantasy VI
Amazing game. I procrastinated on finishing it because I wanted to level up 12 characters to take to the final area. I settled on taking only 9 characters and the final area was a cakewalk.
Game was amazing overall. Locke is overpowered and so is casting 5 Ultimas per round.
Final set up was Locke with Atma/Illumina with Genji Glove and Offering, Terra casting double Ultima using X-Magic (Gem Box), Gogo Mimic'ing Terra, and Celes casting the 5th Ultima.

I give it 9+/10. I liked Chrono Trigger a little bit more but both are incredible games.

Edit: Almost forgot!
Today I beat Ys Book I & II for the second time. Great game.
I recommended it to a friend and he picked up the DS remake... big mistake. What a terrible remake of a great game.

I give it 9/10.

Ghosts 'n Goblins!
Arcade!

Goblins 'n Ghosts, Ghouls 'n Goblins, Ghosts and Ghouls, what's a radical bonafied Goblin spookster to do? Beat the bloody original bad boy that started it all back in the glorified Arcade days, that's what! Now, I have some teeny weeny sprinklets of mild nostalgia revolving around the Nes port which completely shredder-ised me as a young Wavester, but I can't exactly remember the arcade original back in my never ending cheesetastic Chuck E cheese days. But that's ok, because this one apperantly is exactly the same as the NES version, just with superior graphics and sound of course!

The brutal frustrating difficulty is still here in full force and only the masters of Retro Video Land will beable to conquer this little rutheless evil gargoyle lingering trip to medieval Hell. The graphics are nice and capture the spirit and atmosphere perfectly, plus the music will definitly get stuck in your head....Either because it's good, or because there isn't a lot of variety.
The goal of the game is to save your babe, aka: The princess who gets snatched out of the blue instantly in the cut scene introduction causing half naked Aurthor to bust out his lady killer trusty rusty armor....All from the clutches of some evil unknown(Ok...he's smack dab' on the Box Art.lol) beast you'll eventually face off against in a laughably easy battle which completely boggles the mind, yet still provides a mesmorising battle visually speaking.

You'll hop through zombie infested grave yards, run through icy towns swarming with ogres and scatter through gloomy caves where those incredibly annoying Red flying gargoyles with the insanely unpredictable movement patterns reak havoc! It's one hell of a tough game no doubt. the difficulty is as true as everybody says, and you'll have to use all of your skills to make it to the end to capture your long lost pixelated booby rockin' damsel in distress.

My only real gripe with the game however was the crouching/ducking mechanic. It was so stiff feeling and it would even lock at times which caused me too many flipping accidental deaths. Overall, i much prefer the SNES sequal Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts in basically every way imaginable, but this one is still worth checking out....Especially if you're into tame-fun with tons of frustration.

Graphics! 7
Sound! 7
Fun Factor! 7
Difficulty! 9

OVERALL! 7/10 Strawberry Gargoyle Hot Dogs!

CAaAAastleVaAaAaAniaAaAaA!!!
NES!

Looks like I'm going to keep this shorter than a Mario hating dopey Koopa Kid's IQ, I've already beaten this one a few years ago which i remember being pretty brutal in the Challenge Drac-department. Yet i wanted to play this on Halloween(which i clearly missed out on) to go along with Ghosts 'n Goblins. And now playing it for a 2nd time....well, I practically blazed through Drac's brooding sprite-ified castle up until Stage 5....Where 'Death' completely obliterated me for 2 straight hours to the point where i literally wanted to throw my Wii Remote at the TV screen. there were moments where i wanted to scream at the top of my goopey Spicoli lungs, like when i finally killed Death, but his 3 remaining sickles were still tickin' in full force! and they took care of me before i could snag the Red ORB!

His translevania crew of floating sickles sliced and diced my fresh Belmont mullet like a swarm of bee's on rasberry rainbow honey! But like always, i never give up...I can't stand being defeated by any NES game(yet Blaster master and the original TMNT have beaten the Wavemyster sad to say! ) I think it took me over 3 hours to beat this little vampire Nes nugget tonight, with a little vampire bloodShake to get my Belmont Veins pumping so i could once again face and take down that bone rack Death and his little floating sickle goonies.

And this is the thing, i breezed past the final level after a few or so tries, and i took down Count Dracula maybe after 7 or 8 tries. But I've been through this game before, so I've got more of an advantage. The only real challenge 'this time' that Castlevania gave me was the combination of that crazy hallway full of medussa heads and axe throwing Knights in Stage 5 which lead to Death, who is hands down one of the most devlishly tricky and toughest bosses to burst out of the NES. I ended up mastering that area with the Cross and Axe after many attempts, but death...Well he was another beast all together...He makes Dracula look like a willy wonka whimp in comparison! As for the music, well it's CastleFreakinVania, what do you expect? memorable tunes across the board i say!

Anyways, I do have one more 'extended' Halloween video game treat left to blast up tomorrow King Hippo style before i take down my halloween decortions, but it's not Retro, It's Ju-On: The Grudge for the Wii muhahahaha. So there you have it boils and ghouls, Translevania has been drenched in waves once again, and overall once again i had pretty great time in Castlevania. But it's bested buy CIII: Dracula's Curse and completely Nintendo Zapper-Zapped to pieces by Super Castlevania IV.

Graphcis! 8
Sound! 8
Fun Factor! 8
Difficulty! 8

Overall! 8/10 Mullet Boppin' Belmont Babies!

Ogre Battle 64 is a game that gives you a job of recruitment and assembling your units in the right formation of attack. Depending on how creative and organize you deliver on those front, you will win the battles.

Personally the best Virtual Console game I download.

Majora's Mask. I can without a doubt say that it's my favorite Legend of Zelda game and it secures its spot as one of my favorite games of all time.

I somehow managed to beat Super Ghouls N Ghosts the 2nd time through to get the real ending. I spent three nights just trying to beat the second to last boss with the bracelet, and then the final boss I managed to beat in about 20 minutes. Definately one of the hardest games I've ever beaten.

congrats on that, im at the same spot as you were in the game...but i cant beat the game with the bracelet still, ive never had this much trouble with a game