My two:

Very cliché, I played Ocarina of Time a ton as a child, have memories of playing it both on N64 as a wee child and on game cube as a less small child. Never got past water temple even with the game guide.

Yu-Gi-Oh forbidden memories. Played the crap out of that game on play station, constantly playing on free play praying for the cards I would need to get further. I was never able to beat more than 1-2 of the high mages. Watching speed runs on the game it turns out I was never ever going to beat that game as a kid. The final 6 are just disgustingly brutal.

      • _sideffect@lemmy.world
        5·
        11 months ago

        haha, I remember bugging my parents to subscribe to Nintendo Power, because they had a giveaway where if you subbed for like 2-3 years, you got Dragon Warrior for FREE. Like, new in box…I actually had two!

        • hactar42@lemmy.world
          21·
          11 months ago

          I guess that tells you everything you need to know about that game. They literally had to give it away. But I would have loved for a subscription to Nintendo Power.

      • Burninator05@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        I remember DW being really hard when I was a kid on my NES but I played it emulated on my phone a couple of years ago and it wasn’t hard at all.

  • Craig@lemm.ee
    19·
    11 months ago

    I beat it as an adult but as a kid could never beat the Lion King video game. Spent hours on that game

      • Groovygravygrape@lemmy.world
        3·
        11 months ago

        Ha! I didn’t even know that. Thanks to your comment and this thread, I’m gonna go and try to figure Myst out. Strategy is to think like a Vulcan. That should work, right? Lol

    • AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      11 months ago

      Huh. I could’ve sworn I never had an expansion pack, but now I’m wondering how I ever played / beat that game. A quick Google search says it was required and nearly capped usage of the additional 8MB, too. TIL.

      • moody@lemmings.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        The story I heard was that the game would crash on the standard N64 hardware, but it worked fine with the extra memory that the dev kit ran. They couldn’t figure out why the extra memory made a difference since it wasn’t actually using the full amount anyway, but including the expansion pak was an easy solution, so that’s what they did.

  • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
    10·
    11 months ago

    Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Absolutely loved that game. I played it constantly. Even when i got a new game, i would always go back to that cursed game. I don’t even remember how far i got, but i did not got far at all.

  • Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
    9·
    11 months ago

    Daggerfall. I played that game to death and didn’t even make it past the third or fourth quest.
    Eventually I’d give up and just wander off to do whatever I felt like. I must have visited every major city and country, but never set foot in one of those annoying dungeons :)

    • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      11 months ago

      Oh yeah some of those AOE2 campaigns were WAY too hard as a kid.

      I play aoe2 now days and got considerably good, but there were a few where you basically just wanted to win via save scumming. Aoe2 DE is amazing and if you haven’t checked it out it’s worth looking at!

      • MrDrProfJimmy@lemm.ee
        2·
        11 months ago

        Took me like 15 years on/off just to beat the campaigns on standard and some of those expansion campaigns are borderline bullshit

        • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
          4·
          11 months ago

          I’ve beaten all of them on hard.

          Lemme tell you, there is no borderline. They are bullshit and you must embrace the bull shit to win.

          I remember one specific campaign I was stuck until I had the thought to tc drop the ai then won.

          Then there was one where you had to like escort 5 different transport ships from the edge of the map to your base, and before each wave came you had to speed run to make a path. I saved after each successful wave so wouldn’t have to start over after each fail.

          Another one was like “no castles or walls allowed! This is about army” but they didn’t block building bombard towers, so…

          • wigbutton@lemmings.world
            2·
            11 months ago

            Woah man that’s impressive. I’ve played through the HD campaigns (their DE versions) and currently am doing the DE campaigns. Everything on standard. I want to do it all on hard but I don’t like losing so hard lol

            I remember the 5 ships mission. I beat it by blocking the first ship in the starting area with my own ships, so it would never reach the destination. I then slowly constructed a base and defeated all enemies before eventually letting that first ship cross. I never thought about saving between each shipment lol. Would have helped me beat it the “right” way.

            Maybe I should shift to hard difficulty. But based on what you say it seems like a lot of pain will be waiting for me that way

            • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
              2·
              11 months ago

              If I had thought of your method, I would have done that.

              The save scumming method was painful. That mission broke me… and is also what I suggest to people do as a joke to mess with people.

  • ardee@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    6·
    11 months ago

    All those old LucasArts games (Day of the Tentacle, LOOM, Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, &c) and similar adventure games (Kyrandia, King’s Quest, &c). My mother played all of them and beat them, and while I watched her play I never really managed to finish any of them without looking up guides.

  • droidpenguin@lemmy.world
    6·
    11 months ago

    GTA 3 / Vice City. My brother had a PS2 and would let me play. I never bothered with the story / campaign, I just liked to wonder around, steal cars, and drive. I enjoyed using cheat codes to spawn tanks and get full wanted level and outrun the cops.