^lol

For me the original 3 mario brothers (mario bros 1, lost level, 3) and the first Legend of Zelda

I love these kind of lists.

1. Battletoads - if you're not crying, then you're not trying hard enough.
2. Ninja Gaiden - if you're hands haven't started bleeding, then you're not trying hard enough.
3. The Legend of Zelda - I still don't know how I finished this when I was 6 years old.
4. Mario: the Lost Levels - addictive, but almost impossible to finish. Absolute magic.
5. Contra - even with the code it's horrendously difficult.
6. Megaman 2
7. Zelda 2: Link's Adventure
8. Mike Tyson's Punchout
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
10. Simcity on the SNES

REmake (can't remember how often I died because the character didn't respond)
Metroid (NES/SNES)
Probotector (=Contra)
Ghould n Ghost (Please someone tell me it's impossible to beat this)

Alundra on the PSX...Arrgghhh!

The game seemed to be straight forward at first then the difficulty shoots off like the Saturn 5 Rocket!

Tetris and Snake - you can never win!

Oh... and Chess.

Why has no one has mentioned Sonic Spinball?...

I agree with sim city 2000 BTW lol

Viewpoint(NG)
Actraiser 2

Empire Strikes Back (Jedi difficulty) on the SNES.  People complained so much about the difficulty that they made the sequel so much easier that i polished it off in a sitting.

Metroid Prime on hard difficulty, i just couldn't quite beat the last boss.

The story mode of F-Zero GX was infuriating, but i got there in the end.

I find by and large games nowadays aren't nearly as hard as they once were. Crappy games of the past seemed to use ridiculous difficulty as a crutch for poor production value :)

I haven't met a game in the last 10 years that I couldn't beat. However, games like TMNT(nes) and Kid Icarus(nes) were ridiculous. Contra was an odd game, either you couldn't beat it, or you were so good and had everything memorized such that you'd beat it without dying....for the most part. Oh and the original Ninja Gaiden was pretty rough too.