what do you mean with most difficult?
if you mean most difficult to solve it without dying, it's nethack imo

robertmo wrote on 2021-11-14, 18:44:

what's the most difficult game
and i don't mean manual difficulty

What do you mean by "manual difficulty"?

null

You should look into the 8 bit age. Things like Game Over, Ghosts'n'goblins and Exolon come to mind.

The internet

skifree

Daggerfall is pretty nasty and unforgiving on regular difficulty and downright depressing on the higher levels.

If we only consider games that are not a glitchfest and have decent controls then I would say:

Battletoads (NES), from the Turbo Tunnel onwards it's just bullshit, it keeps throwing at you levels that require hundreds of frame-perfect jumps and moves. And it's not because the controls are unresponsive or anything like that, the bastards just dialed the difficulty up to 11. And on top of that they had the nerve of limiting the amount of continues, forcing you to restart the entire game if you run out. If there's a game that made me want to beat the developers to a pulp it's this one, when we rented this with a friend shortly after it came out we spent the entire weekend cursing at the TV.

if by manual you mean things with hard controls (QWOP!) and total twitch games then we can miss lots off the list

also, presumably anything with bugs that break gameplay

so that leaves all kinds of games none of which are the hardest, but all of whom can exist in the set of games that are really hard to win

can add in things like doom and other games on hardest skill levels really - combine both fast reaction plus quick tactical thinking. then there are strategy games, especially some fine tuned city/civ/politics sims where every decision is 'bad' in some way

it would be a very long list

Probably any 90s milsim sans the accompanying bludgeon.

Realms of Arkania I (the DOS version, not the remake)
Darklands
Wizards and Warriors
get my votes.

According to Gamefaqs, these are the highest rated games in difficulty (none of which I've heard of):
1 Zombie Zoeds 0.87 5.00 ---
2 Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection 4.29 5.00 ---
3 Death Goat 1.35 5.00 ---
4 Hockey League Simulator 3.20 5.00 ---
5 Wolfsong 3.75 5.00 ---
6 TAIKU MANSION 1.80 5.00 ---

I wanna be the guy is probably the most frustrating game I've ever played

gerry wrote on 2021-11-15, 10:28:

if by manual you mean things with hard controls (QWOP!) and total twitch games then we can miss lots off the list

I beat QWOP once. Took a long time, but the game timer appears to be bugged so it showed as if I beat it in 53 seconds.

The most difficult Pacman clone I've played: https://youtu.be/e2m0SUQZJ4s

It's a "prank/joke" game. I think you're not even supposed to beat the 1st level.
And I'm sure there are a lot of games with a similar idea.

Urban Assault is the most difficult thing anybody could play since it requires constantly assuming direct control of vehicles, joystick control, at the same time mouse and keyboard to handle the RTS elements at the same time.

Of course a lot of the difficulty goes away if you have a position you can "turtle" against the AI, basically a part of the map that is virtually inaccessible to ground vehicles or otherwise takes a excruciatingly long time for them to get there. Even positioning your Host Station in areas that are inaccessible to ground units or causes your Host Station to be raised so far off the ground makes the enemy AI struggle to attack you unless they literally flood you with air units. (Air units under AI control do not obey flight ceiling rules for some stupid reason)

Deus, a DOS game form 1996

Apparently Robot Odyssey is tough - https://slate.com/technology/2014/01/robot-od … f-all-time.html

Chrome Dino chrome://dino without cheats you can only hit the max score in 17 million years of play time.

heres a game nobody can win I guarantee (self explanetory) https://www.free80sarcade.com/atari2600_Solaris.php