The Hardest Game Series Of All Time

Summary

• Legendary game series are known for being brutally hard, challenging modern players in various genres.
• From Dark Souls to Ninja Gaiden to Touhou, these series are iconic for their punishing difficulty levels.
• Whether mastering illogical puzzles or dodging bullet spreads, these games require skill, perseverance, and quick reflexes.

It’s one thing to have an incredibly difficult video game, but it’s another to have an entire series be known for being brutally hard. Entire series like that are hard to come by these days, as recent entries tend to go a bit easier, but for these legendary series going decades back, they must uphold their savage nature.

Most of these series go back a long way, but a few have risen from the 2000s, challenging modern players. The hardest game series vary in genre quite a bit. They can be FPS games, action titles, shmups, platformers, and more.

10

King’s Quest

The Hardest Adventure Game Series

Sierra On-Line was a huge developer and publisher throughout the ’80s and ’90s, with its most famous series being King’s Quest. King’s Quest was known for two things: its wacky fantasy world and its brutally difficult puzzles that hardly anyone could figure out.

Whether you need to use the backwards alphabet, turn someone into a cat, or use a random piece of cheese on a device, these puzzles made no sense. The logic here is so consistently illogical that it has to be the point. The crucial rule when playing these games is that the less sense it makes, the better.

9

The Impossible Quiz

The Hardest Tests You’ll Ever Take

There were plenty of wildly challenging flash games, including The World’s Hardest Game and Give Up, but the longest-running difficult series would have to be The Impossible Quiz. Mainly a test of outside-the-box thinking and never trusting the game ever; you’ll have a rough time beating these titles without a guide or help from stream chat.

They’re incredibly punishing, with a few trap questions involving reading a long message being infamous. The first two games are challenging enough, but The Impossible Quiz Book Chapter 2 is definitely the hardest, as you’ll need to play minigames. A guide won’t help you much here, so hopefully, your Pac-Man skills are up to the test.

8

Dark Souls

The New Age Hard Game

Back in the early 2010s, single-player games were getting easier and easier, but Dark Souls came in to bring hard games back. The most iconic and recognizable hard game series in the past 15 years, Dark Souls not only brought pain in terms of its aggressive enemies and bosses, but also added difficulty in its level design. There are many ways to go once you first arrive at the Firelink Shrine.

For beginners, you likely won’t find the best route immediately, meaning you’ll die countless times until you decide to go elsewhere. Even in the sequels, what direction you’re going can be a total crapshoot and a waste of time, adding to the frustration. The actual combat difficulty isn’t too bad once you get used to it, but all the other factors make Dark Souls deserving of its reputation.

7

Serious Sam

The Largest Amount Of Enemies You’ll See In An FPS

Serious Sam is one of the most underrated and hardest FPS series ever made. Debuting in 2001 with Serious Sam: The First Encounter, the series became infamous for throwing an absurd number of enemies towards you. If you play on Serious difficulty, which has the most enemies, it’s incredibly hard to keep up with these massive hordes.

Nearly every item pickup is a trap, too, an aspect you’ll learn really quickly. The sequels were just as difficult, if not harder. Yes, you can run backward while shooting, which can help sometimes, but in the harder arenas, that’s not a viable option as there’s not much room to go backward.

6

Super Monkey Ball

No Monkeying Around

While you can say that Super Monkey Ball did get easier as time went on, the overall series is still one of the hardest in gaming, especially when you consider the endgame levels. The original two GameCube games are the hardest on the system because of how tight and precise the movement is.

Even Monkey Ball 2, which allowed you to play with 99 lives compared to three in the first game, upped the difficulty by making the Master levels harder. Banana Blitz, while easy for most of the game, gets savagely hard in worlds 9 and 10, evoking the classic titles. Banana Splitz on the Vita has some brutal levels towards the end as well.

5

Donkey Kong

Monkey Ball Isn’t The Only Hard Monkey Series

Yes, Mario games can get pretty hard, especially those completionist levels like The Perfect Run and Champion’s Road. However, the hardest Nintendo series overall would be Donkey Kong. Even from the original Arcade game, any youngster playing it today would be hard-pressed to get to the second level.

Then Donkey Kong Country really upped the difficulty with its timed barrel blasts, hard companion levels, and only two hits until death. Retro Studios’ DKC games were the hardest yet, with temple levels that’ll take you hours to beat, requiring precise timing and platforming to pass. From start to finish, the series is just merciless.

4

Contra

The Series That Made The Konami Code Famous

The most well-known cheat code in all of gaming is the Konami code. It’s also known as the Contra code due to its infamous use in the original NES game. Beating NES Contra normally using three lives is incredibly hard and takes a lot of practice, but with the code, you get 30 lives. Ever since, the series has always been brutally difficult.

The US release of Contra: Hard Corps was challenging on a whole other level with how intense it is, and Contra 4 forced you to play the highest difficulty to finish the game. Codes are sometimes put in to help, though their usefulness differs, especially when they’re so well hidden they take years to find.

3

Ninja Gaiden

Brutal In Both 2D And 3D

When transitioning into 3D, games can get easier, but Ninja Gaiden proved to be just as difficult in 3D as in 2D. In fact, it got harder. The classic games were difficult due to the stage hazards, boss marathons, and enemies doing wild amounts of damage, but 3D NG required significantly more skill.

You actually needed to learn the game to beat it, which catches so many people off guard. If you want to bump it up to the max difficulty, the 3D Ninja Gaidens are some of the hardest games of all time, requiring quick reflexes, using the weapons to their absolute best, and sheer perseverance.

2

Ghosts ‘N Goblins

Saving The Princess Has Never Been Harder

While Ghosts ‘n Goblins isn’t the longest series, as it only has a handful of titles, all of them are the hardest 2D action games you can play. In nearly every game, you only have two hits, and these levels are ridiculously hard. Avoiding damage feels like you need to be The Flash to evade all these enemies and obstacles coming at you.

The series is also infamous for the brutal trap of having you play the entire game twice in order to see the true ending. The newest game, Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Resurrection, retains the series’ brutal difficulty. You have easier difficulty modes, allowing you to take more hits, but the levels are still hard-as-nails with sparse checkpoints and entirely new Shadow levels, making your second run harder than ever before.

1

Touhou

The Hardest Bullet Hell Games Ever Made

You may have never heard of the Touhou series, but once you start playing, or hell, even look at it, you’ll understand this is the hardest game series of all time. The best example of a Bullet Hell shooter, Touhou dishes out ludicrous bullet spreads that very few people can dodge.

When playing video games, you might say, “This is impossible,” but you can probably beat it. With Touhou, however, that saying is correct because only an elite few can actually beat these games on their hardest difficulty. Just look at the bullet spreads. There’s virtually no room at all to get by.