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"Nintendo hard" is an informal term used to describe extreme difficulty in video games. It often refers to games with trial-and-error gameplay and limited or nonexistent saving of progress. The enduring term originated with Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games from the mid-1980s to early 1990s, such as Ghosts 'n Goblins (1986), Contra (1988), Ninja Gaiden (1988), and Battletoads (1991).

History

The Nintendo hard difficulty of many games released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was influenced by the popularity of arcade games in the mid-1980s, a period where players put countless coins in machines trying to beat a game that was brutally hard yet very enjoyable.^[1] The difficulty of many games released in the 1980s and 1990s has also been attributed to the hardware limitations affecting gameplay.^[2]^[3] Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in an interview regarding how NES games were made: "Everyone involved in the production would spend all night playing it, and because they made games, they became good at them. So these expert gamers make the games, saying 'This is too easy'".^[4] Also, Damiano Gerli of Ars Technica observed that extreme difficulty made it possible for a game with little actual content (in terms of number of levels or opponents) to provide a long period of gameplay.^[5] This specific method of increasing length through difficulty was also employed to combat video game rentals, with some games being made more difficult to prevent them from being beaten within a rental period and thus costing the developer potential sales.^[6]

The number of current games^{[clarification needed]} considered Nintendo hard decreased significantly with the fourth-generation 16-bit period of video gaming,^[1] including Super Star Wars (1992).^[7]^{[clarification needed]}According to Michael Enger, indie games like I Wanna Be the Guy (2007) and Super Meat Boy (2010) are an "obvious homage" to the Nintendo hard games of the NES era,^[1] labeled as "masocore".^[1]^[8]

Analysis

Arcade conversions and 2D platform games are commonly called Nintendo hard.^[1] The Houston Press described the Nintendo hard era as a period where games "universally felt like they hated us for playing them".^[9] GamesRadar journalist Maxwell McGee noted the variety of types of "Nintendo hard" games in the NES library: "A game can be difficult because it's genuinely hard, or because it demands you finish the entire adventure in one sitting. It can litter the playing field with spikes and bottomless pits ... or be so hopelessly obtuse you have no idea how to advance".^[10] He wrote that several NES games, such as Yo! Noid (1990), Silver Surfer (1990), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) garnered their Nintendo hard difficulty "for all the wrong reasons".^[10] Journalist Michael Enger did not qualify games with challenges that came from poorly-designed gameplay as Nintendo hard, but rather only games that were well made and are replayable but still extremely hard.^[1]

Examples

The games in the following list have been recognized as being some of the hardest NES games and for some, all platforms.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]