Nintendo Hard/Puzzle Games

• The Tetris: The Grand Master series was intentionally meant to be a challenge for seasoned Tetris fans.
  • The first TGM game a max speed of 20G halfway through the game (level 500/999; each piece dropped and each line cleared increments the level by one). In 20G, the pieces fall to the bottom instantly, and the player has half a second to move a piece before it automatically locks down. In addition, to get the Grand Master grade (the ultimate objective of the game), the player has to be above certain scores at certain "checkpoint" levels, and finish the game within 13 minutes and 30 seconds.
  • Tetris: The Grand Master 2: The Absolute also reached 20G at the halfway point, but it also decreased the delay between pieces and the duration of the line clear animation at every 100 levels after that to make the game faster. At level 900, the lockdown time limit decreases from half a second to 0.283 seconds. In addition, the new Master grade requirements include: A time limit on every section of 100 levels, a required number of Tetrises (4-line clears) on each section except the last, a total time of less than 8'45"00, and a grade (score) requirement at level 999. That's just for the Master grade; a player who earns the Master grade gets to play the bonus round: The playing field is cleared, and all pieces placed after that turn invisible the instant they lock down. A player must survive one minute under those conditions to earn the Grand Master grade. As of this update, only four players outside of Japan have achieved GM rank.
  • Tetris: The Grand Master 3: Terror-Instinct, the game in the famous "Invisible Tetris" video, took this even further. A player who performs halfway decently will hit 20G at level 300. The lockdown delay shrinks to 0.283 seconds, then 0.25 seconds. The delay between pieces shrinks all the way down to 1/15 of a second. Section time limits are tighter. And a player who reaches the bonus round is still graded on his/her performance during the invisible challenge. Finally, to actually earn the Grand Master grade, one must first get a MasterM (second-highest rank) or Grand Master-worthy (i.e. a score that would pass the Grand Master Promotional Exam) score 4 times in 7 games, pass the subsequent MasterM Promotional Exam by getting a MasterM or Grand Master-worthy score the next game to pass the Promotional Exam, then earn a Grand Master-worthy score that would pass 4 out of 7 more games, and finally earn a passing score on the actual Grand Master Promotional Exam. Note that failing a Promotional Exam requires you to get a score that would pass the exam 4 out of another 7 games, before you can try the Promotional Exam again.
  • It worth noting that while TGM3:TI came out in March 2005, the first person in the world to actually get a Grand Master grade did so in July 2007. It took two years before anyone truly beat the game.
    • And to this day, only three people have obtained the Grand Master rank. To be a Grand Master in TI is to be one of the greatest Tetris players on the entire planet. A fourth player--a Western one no less--has been getting the Grand Master promotional exam for several months now and has failed every single one.
• The poor design in many levels of the Bloons "Player Pack" games (consisting of selected fan-made levels) make success based on trial and error. The regular Bloons games are slightly easier though.
  • However, the Bloons Insanity Pack shows the hardest what the series has to offer. Pixel-perfect and sometimes well-timed shots have to be made to win.
• There's a reason why Irisu Syndrome describes itself as an "instant-death physics puzzle game."
  • A Boulder Dash clone called Supaplex took the same gameplay, made controls more responsive, but amplified the level designs to sadistic proportions (one of the level is even titled "Sadism"). One little mistake and back to beginning of the level.
    • And that's not to mention all the nightmarish Supaplex levels that have been made thanks to the level editor.
• The freeware game Bricks, yet another game inspired by the classic Klotski puzzle, certainly qualifies. Not only the puzzles themselves are tough as nails, but the discussion board, which you would expect to use for hints, SPECIFICALLY disallows sharing hints/solutions, even a tiny little nudge. You HAVE to take it alone.
• Anyone that claims to have beaten Solomon's Key without having thoughts of murdering the designer is a lying bastard.
• Portal: Prelude. I actually want GLaDOS back now. At least she gave you a fighting chance. You will use God and noclip. There is no other way. Portal: Prelude's insane and unfunny difficulty demonstrates by contrast how awesome game the original Portal was, where they actually playtested the difficulty of all parts of the game.
  • It's really not that bad. It's a game designed for advanced Portal players (You should at least have completed all the advanced chambers before playing). If you go in expecting a challenge, there are only one or two bits that seem luck-based. Still Nintendo Hard, though
• The 16-color nightmare that was Chip's Challenge. Sure, the first twenty or so levels are innocent enough, but when you reach "On the Rocks", a level that has you building your way, one block at a time, across a level filled with water to get to nine sparse islands so that you can collect an equal number of chips to get to the exit, you'll be crying real tears. Especially when you realize that this is a task that takes competitive players five minutes to complete, and if you make one single mistake (which happens more than you'd think), you have to start from the beginning. It only gets worse from there. It's no wonder most people have never reach the end.
  • "On the Rocks"' only real saving grace is that it's not on a timer. "Totally Unfair", on the other hand...
  • It doesn't help that, as is, in the PC version there were various bugs and glitches that made some levels easier. In the original Atari Lynx version, you had no such luck due to the better programming, so the otherwise pushover levels 49 or 135 are a lot harder to beat. Conversely, the different mechanics in the PC version made supposedly simpler levels like Spirals, or even the final level, much harder than expected.
• Kye: Even if you actually manage to get the objects, you will still need to solve the levels. Some of which manage to be The Maze, Time Trial and Trial and Error Gameplay while you are running away of monsters because your character is a One-Hit-Point Wonder. And unlike Chip's Challenge, Melyssa is not there to give you a free pass to the next level if you spend too much time locked in one.
• Super Monkey Ball games don't start off this way, but aftera while, they will get frustrating. As to drive the point home, using a continue results in the player unable to go to the Extra Stages, Master Stages and Extra Master Stages. Hell, the hardest stage on 2 is actually called Nintendo (it's a rotating Gamecube and you will die).
• Majestic Chess for the PC has varying degrees of difficulty with one that goes all the way up to Grandmaster. Given that actual grandmasters had input on the creation of the game's AI it's safe to say no normal player will ever beat that mode in their lifetime.
• Then there's Lode Runner where even completing the first level takes a while time. In the NES version, you can't see very much ahead of you due to screen not scrolling until you are quite far from the center of the screen. In addition, lots of levels have invisible pitfalls which you have to find out through trial and error.
  • To ramp up the difficulty Up to Eleven, a Championship Lode Runner was released where player has to use every single trick to beat the game and it's possible get stuck very easily. Lots of Guide Dang It moments ensue.
• Spelunker for NES is insanely difficult. You fell from one pixel higher than your own height? You die. Hats off if you pass at least the first level.
• The Colony for the Macintosh SE. In this first-person shooter/puzzle game, your ship crash-lands on a mysterious planet after receiving a distress call from a colony of inhabitants there. Upon awakening, your first order of business is turning on the lights in the ship. Unfortunately, the buttons on your console aren't labeled. Hit the wrong one, and you blow up your ship. The game gets harder from there. Good luck figuring out how to actually get out of your ship and onto the planet without blowing up.
• Bomb Squad for the Intellivision. You have a "code" of 1-3 digits to solve in order to defuse a bomb. Your coutdown is 30 minutes. In order to reveal the digits, you have to "solve" circuit board puzzles by cutting out and replacing parts. The "digits" are made up of 20 squares. Solving a circuit board lights up one square. And if you cut the wrong part, go in the wrong order, or replace a part with a component that doesn't work, the clock goes into double-time. And that's not counting the higher levels where parts catch on fire, speeding up the clock AND potentially blowing up the board, making that piece unsolvable. The Angry Video Game Nerd, no stranger to Nintendo Hard, was unleashing more ClusterFBombs than usual when he tried this one.
• All the levels in the GBA game Denki Blocks consist of a small 2D grid with some colorful blocks and unmoving white blocks. If two blocks of the same color touch, they stick together and move as one. With the D-Pad, you move all colored blocks while the white ones act as walls and the goal is to stick together all blocks of a specific color. Every opponent has 25 puzzles for you and you need to solve 15 of them to beat them. Sounds easy? Well, the first two or three opponents are quite easy and you'll probably be able to solve all 25 of their puzzles, but from that point on, the game stops kidding around and the further you get, the longer you will sit at a puzzle. The eigth and last opponent is infuriatingly hard to beat and it's likely that you never will.
• Panel de Pon. Okay, so you have the basics down--swap blocks and clear lines of 3 or more. Now, try playing for score. Or playing against higher-tier CPU players (or human players for that matter). It involves making chains, which 99.9% of the time involves continuing to swap blocks while the chain is in motion. It takes a monumental sense of control over the entire playfield to be able to pull off some of the more elaborate chains.
• In Gussun Oyoyo, Gussun is a One-Hit-Point Wonder who is menaced by all the usual Platform Game hazards and can't even jump--and you can't control him directly. It plays somewhat like Lemmings, but less forgiving.