14 Impossibly Hard '90s Games No Kid Today Could Beat

Created by the legendary developer Rare, Battletoads went down in history as one of the most frustrating games to complete of all time. Every level threw new challenges at the player that required quick reactions and expert timing to move forward. While the beat ‘em up sections were difficult, it was the turbo tunnel levels that truly stood out as the difficulty suddenly spiked.

There was almost nothing equivalent to those turbo tunnels in modern gaming. Here, you not only had to be quick on the d-pad to avoid all the obstacles but memorize minutes of gameplay so you knew what was coming next. With only a limited number of lives before you had to start the entire game again, it was an experience that even few gamers in the '90s could beat, let alone today's players.

The third entry in the celebrated, yet frustrating, Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts came out on the SNES in 1991. The game followed a similar premise to its predecessors and the platforming gameplay is what fans of the franchise would have expected from a sequel.

Along with seemingly endless enemies and a generous amount of spiked pits that kill you instantly, one particular feature of the game would likely force the children of today to turn off the console. Once a player got to the end and defeated the final boss, they were sent back to the very beginning of the game and had to do everything over again to actually beat the story. This was a huge slap in the face considering it would likely take hours in a single sitting to reach the end.

While most versions of The Lion King video game that released in 1994 were surprisingly hard, it is the SNES version that has gone down in memory as the most maddening to play. The first level acted as a sort of tutorial for new players, introducing them to the mechanics of the game and letting them get a feel for the controls. After this, though, the title morphs into something that is practically impossible to beat.

Even just the second level of the game was quite difficult for many players, surprising considering this was essentially a game for children. Obstacles appear out of nowhere, jumps need to be made with the upmost precision, and enemies can kill you in a single hit. With just three lives, anyone playing The Lion King will have to restart a lot just to make it through stage two, never mind the rest of the game.

Unlike many other challenging games from the ‘90s, Myst was difficult not because it needed lightning fast reflexes or skill but because it required the player to think carefully about its puzzles. The genre is no longer as popular as it once was and kids today will likely not have much experience dealing with thoughtful challenges that require plenty of brainpower to solve.

Some of the obstacles had solutions that required pure logic while others were far more deceitful. Players often spent hours at a time trying to get past particular puzzles and that is the kind of patience-testing that today's young players just aren't used to.

At first glance, Ecco the Dolphin might look like an innocent aquarium simulator. The truth is that it was a dark and mischievously difficult game that's main goal was to stop an alien invasion. It combined water-based combat that involved avoiding sharks and other obstacles with a collection of puzzles and riddles. These could often be obtuse and force the player to think in a very specific manner.

The worst part of the game was that the incredibly hard boss at the end of the game would send the player back to the previous level – something that was maddening considering the difficulty of the level. Today’s generation of gamers isn't used to such frustrating game rules.

1991’s Super Castlevania IV is another game that puts most modern platformers to shame with its sheer difficulty. Like other titles in the series, it was unforgiving in how it treated the player. There were masses of hazards in each environment that meant you needed to have excellent platforming skills, while each enemy had their own unique attack patterns.

Essentially, players would have to experiment with how to tackle certain enemies, mixing up their tactics to make sure they survived. That’s not to mention sections where multiple bosses lined up in a row to battle the player one after another.