I've played a lot of video games in my time. Starting from the Super Nintendo and going up to the 360, I've always found time to play the games that matter to me the most. However, they may not necessarily be games that I am able to complete, and I don't mean out of laziness or lack of enthusiasm (if I don't like the game then I won't bother completing it). No, I mean games that you love, yet, just can't possibly finish due racking your brain with difficult bosses or puzzles, or even just getting lost.

I got Jet Force Gemini for the N64 back in 99, and straight away regarded it as one of my favorite video games of all time.... and I only just completed it back in 2010.... yeah. I'd gotten to a point in the game where I had to collect key items to progress through to the game's climax, yet however hard I tried I never got close. After awhile I gave up on ever completing Jet Force, which saddened me since it was such (and still is) a masterpiece of an experience. Year by year I ended up picking it out from under my bed to give my old save another stab, always giving up in frustration.

Anyway long story short, I picked it up again with a strong desire to complete it, disregarding all other games on my then play list, as well as college work (I know, I'm terrible). And huzzah, finally got through to the ending, and it was a moment to rejoice.

So I was wondering, has anyone ever had a similar experience? A game that you truly appreciated yet just couldn't cut the mustard, and maybe still want to go back to?

The only game that took me years was jak&Daxter the precursor legacy which i first played when i was around 5 and beat when i was 11

I had 4 games that took me over a year to complete....



Mega Man 8- I couldn't get pass the sliding part in Dr. Wily's lab. So I stopped playing for a long time until I played it again and passed it.



Brave Fencer Musashi- I had this game back in the late 90's and I was trying to get to the ice palace and I ended getting lost in the forest maze. During those times I didn't have a strategy guide so I became frustrated, Then I stopped playing. A few years later, I found about walkthoughs online. Unfortunately, the game broke so I wasn't able to play it back then. Now that I have a psx emulator, I was able to play and beat it finally.



Metal Slug 3- The game itself on normal difficulty was easy....until I reached the last level . I was constantly getting pwned. When I did make it near the last boss with at least 1-0 lives left, I would always get killed on the same part. It would happen over and over and over again. I basically raged-quit because the level was really long and every time I lost my all my lives, I'm forced to start the level from the beginning. So I stopped playing for 3 yrs. Then I played it again and beat the game .



Phantasy Star Online- I had a lot of fun with this game in the early 00's. Then I met a buzz kill boss named De Rol Le. Every time I faced him, I died. I've raged-quit multiple times with this boss. As usual, I stopped playing for a long time. I resumed again and destroyed him. Unfortunately, the game broke (this was when the DreamCast and games were discontinued in stores) so I was never able to finish the game.

I got Spyro: Year of the Dragon the year it came out as a Christmas present from my aunt and uncle. I just finally got all the eggs and gems and beat it legitimately (I'd been using the level skip code before) this past summer. Just finding all the gems was bad enough, but some of those egg challenges were pretty grueling.

Any game that took me a long time to complete out of shear difficulty belonged to the NES generation (and a couple from the SNES). Video games were pretty much no longer super difficult when games moved off of side scroll games. Modern games can be really fun, but can't hold a candle to NES as far as difficulty goes. The closest would be Ninja Gaiden for XBox on Master Ninja mode.

Anyway, the one game that I can say took me years to complete was The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy (Not Dizzy The Adventurer) for the NES. My grandmother ordered that game for me from a catalog, and it was advertised as "the almost unbeatable game". They were not kidding. I got that game when I was in kindergarten, and I was not able to beat it until around 5th grade. The difficulty is not due to bad controls or glitches. It is just super long, you get very few lives, over half the things in the game can kill you, and you have no means of attacking or destroying enemies. The game still takes me about an hour and a half to 2 hours to complete, which is long for an NES game when you have beaten it multiple times. You have to know exactly what to do if you wan to win. But to get there, you have to go through the super long process of figuring things out and a lot of trial and error. Anyone who wants to play a game that makes Battletoads for NES cry for it's mother, check it out in the Retro Game Room. 

rcarter2 : Hmm...Sounds like a challenge . I'll check it out to see how hard it is.

Sonic Adventure DX: I ordered the game back in April 2009, beat it last year, here's why: Sonic vs Egg viper (not true final boss), I got stuck on the 2nd phase, A day later, I beat it. Tails vs egg walker, One time, I was one hit from winning, died, and went insane! Months later after playing, I did it. E-102 gamma vs E101MKII, You have to time your attack with your laser, I timed over a few times, and beat it the same day I fought him. Lastly, Sonic vs Perfect Chaos, (spoiler?) The second phase is hard (even harder if you can actually make it this far), He shoots lasers which can COMPLETLY slow you down and ruin your chances of winning, lost several lives, then with only a couple rings left, I finished the whole story.

Super Mario 64 DS: Got it back in like 2006 or 2007, beat the game last year WITHOUT Action Replay (A cheating device for DS)! The 3rd and final time you fight bowser, it's insane! Spike balls are farther away which forces you to spin bowser fast while releasing his tail at the perfect time, otherwise, he jumps back up, which shakes the ground and makes the floor a little thundered up. He's even stronger than the other times which he dies in one hit! this time, he takes 3 HITS! Not just that, when he takes 2 hits, he cuts the outside of the field so it's shaped like a star and makes it even harder! Really hard I have to say!

Super Mario bros 1 NES 1985: World 8 is a huge problem, you'd better be ready because power ups are really scarce, there are no checkpoints in world 8 at all! When you continue, you get 3 lives, which makes it harder. I did warp to world 3 for many 1ups, warp to world 8, and beat it maybe 2010 for the first time, so easy now!

Blue_Rose88 : Good luck to you on that one. Definitely summon me back here to tell me how frustratingly difficult you found the game to be. here is the link to the game in the Retro Game Room.

https://www.vizzed.com/play/fantastic-adventures-of-dizzy-nes-online-nintendo-nes-284-game

Remember though, I had to play this on the NES cartridge before ROMs and Internet walkthroughs were even around. Try getting through the whole game without using save states or looking up a walkthrough to get the real experience

I also forgot, Sonic heroes! The hardest game I ever beat! I got the game in 2006 and took me 5 years! I could only beat the game with team rose, the easiest. That was before I had Internet, then it didn't work anymore, got a new copy from gamestop in august of 2011, and beat it like almost 2 months later. When I was battling the real final boss, I wasn't even able to know when to hit the boss, couldn't hit him at all, looked up a walkthrough, then FINALLY I beat the game, I have to get all emblems and A ranks, but also, if the playtime of your file goes past 99:59:59, your file gets deleted, (Bad move, SEGA) but I'm working on it. 30+ hours of playtime and haven't gotten either 100 A ranks or emblems, I hope to play the secret ??? Mode in heroes, in which I'll be 100% all done.

rcarter2 : I've played it and after a few tries, my expression went like this.................... (**** this I quit). LOL you weren't joking. I played this without save states and it's difficult. Especially since you can't attack. Although, I'll keep trying without the use of save states.

Blue_Rose88 : haha. Yeah. That game was the cause of a lot of my hair being pulled out. Just a forewarning, navigating through the mine cart track without having it memorized is probably the most frustrating part of the game (aside from figuring out what all the items do. In the whole game, there is only one item in the game that isn't necessary to use because it does the same as another item). Make sure before you have to do that, you are not in a bad mood, or you might destroy your laptop If you eventually beat it, you will officially be the only other person I know to have beaten it.

rcarter2 : Ha! Now I'm really motivated to try and beat this. >=)

Well now that You mention it I do Remember one game that was totally like that. It was Arc Rise Fantasia For the wii. Its not a really populuar game though. It was an action turned based rpg. So basically this was the gameplay The game is a turn-based role-playing game. The player and the enemy both move and fight during the same phase of battle, but the turn order is determined by the actions taken. Parties consist of three characters who each share a single AP gauge, which empties as various actions are performed. During certain parts of the game, the active team may be made up of four members instead of three, though the fourth can only be controlled by the AI. Multiple attacks can be chained together in combos, and the player may execute a special attack ;called a Trinity Act when each of three characters uses a certain ability. And the beggining plot: Arc Rise Fantasia is set in the world of Fulheim. Creatures called "Feldragons" are causing a lot of trouble as they pass the Meridian Empire in flocks. If one is killed, the resulting explosion poisons the local area. When the empire receives word that a massive horde has its sights on the capital of Diamant, it immediately sends out an army to fight them, including L'Arc, a cool and collected novice mercenary, and his friend Alf, the beloved prince and second in line for the throne. So yeah it was really hard to. LIKE REALLY HARD.

I have one of these too, it seems. Specifically, Final Fantasy Tactics, the oginal one for the PSX. When I got my Playstation from my brother, this was one of the games that came with it, and while it took me a while to see how good a game it was, it became probably my favorite Playstation game.

I actually got caught on the battle Inside Riovanes Castle - specifically, against Velius. Even more specifically, against his Cyclops summon. It would always land right before a turn I would be able to save the fight with. The bad thing was, I only had one save - Right before the fight. The good news is, I learned a valuable lesson that time - Always keep 2 save files. Of course, when I finally decided to have a crack at the game again, I was ready for the fight and breezed through it, but this was like a year and a half later. I don't even think I beat it then, I actually started all over ANOTHER time, for some reason I don't remember, and FINALLY beat it. Took me long enough.

I have been playing the legend of Zelda the ocarina of time on and off for the last 2 years I just don't have the most motivation when it comes to certain games but I am near completing it any time now.

I would say Legends of Zelda 2 on the nes it's a hard game I made it all the way at the end back in 1992 but the data reset it so i never played it again until 2004 when my sister bought me it as a christmas present so i played it then i could no longer find the magic capsule hidden somewhere in the game so a 3 month before typing this i watch a walkthrough on youtube and found about where it was located at.So then i finnaly went throught the final palace and use thunder on that firebrand boss and face off against Dark Link thats when i finally beat it

Halo, I never managed to finish it, until recently, just got distracted. Lol but it was fun and worth it, another game, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. But to be fair, I started it when I was very young.

There are plenty of games that I just never finished maybe because of time, or just because I got sick of the game...but I had few games that took me "Years" to beat.

I remember when I was a kid I spent a LOT of time trying to beat these games on the Nintendo:

Mega Man 2, and 3
Ninja Gaiden Series
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Blaster Master

Also I played WoW for 4 years and you can't really "Complete" that game because they are always coming out with something new.