Games you could never beat

[Megatron]

Don't know if this thread already exists, but... I just beat Kid Icarus, a game i have been playing since 1989.  Fairly excited here.  I have always sucked at it, despite being a pretty good gamer overall.  Anyway, it got me thinking about games you played growing up that you could just never beat.  Try as you may, it just wasn't your game.  And I don't just mean games that are notoriously difficult like Battletoads or Double Dragon 3.

For me, my big three are Shinobi on Game Gear, X-Men on Genesis and...*sigh*...the original Super Mario Bros.  These games have straight up kicked my ass for decades.  I can make it to the end, but just can't seal the deal.  There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'll leave it be.

So what games have YOU struggled with?

[Arseen]

NES:
- Little Memo: Dream master. I have beaten this, but not without level skipping as I could never find the last key in the water world.
- Darkwing Duck
- Flinstones
- Flintstones 2
- Athletic World on hardest duifficulty. I ran out of steam.

[Blumpkin]

Robocop and Star Voyager. Both of them on the NES. I have no idea how to get thru the first level of Robocop, and I never even understood what the hell you're supposed to do in Star Voyager.

[oatmeal flavor]

BattleToads

[mojoeskateco]

Just did a mega man 1-6 marathon.

Had never beaten mega man 1 and had never beaten 2 on difficult.

[Retro Deckades]

Two games come immediately to mind:

Ghosts 'n' Goblins
Adventure Island

Both for the NES.

[Seraph Man]

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Batman Forever
Star Fox

I beat Return of the Jedi. But ESB just gave me a hard time. I should go back and give it another go.

I did technically beat Batman Forever, but I had to use cheat codes to jump to the boss fight, which was fairly easy. I always got stuck at this one part, until I saw the AVGN do a video on it and discovered you could hop down by pressing R and Down. And when I did the level skip, I found out that the first level is the only time you ever actually use that feature. I'm sure I could beat it now without the level skip, if I had the patience for it. But it's Batman Forever. The game kinda sucks.

I loved Star Fox. But without a save feature, I couldn't finish it unless I went for the secret asteroid ending. I didn't have it in me to play that game all day and win. One day, when I have the entire day off, I'll give it a go. If I'm in the mood.

[BadChad]

Ninja Gaiden III and Double Dragon III, ugh.....

[Retro Deckades]

Ninja Gaiden III and Double Dragon III, ugh.....

Ah, adding the original Ninja Gaiden to my list. Managed to make it to the final boss, but got fed up with being sent back to the beginning of the last stage/world.

[madrocsz]

75% of the NES games I owned pretty much

[Moviefan2k4]

To this day, I have never beaten the original "Metroid" without using a cheat password.

[kaysow]

got to the final parts of castlevania, red alert 2, parappa the rapper & sonic spinball. prolly tons more. faxanadu i just couldn't figure out how to proceed which shouldn't be a problem today.

EDIT: also just got ninja gaiden (nes) and had a session with it. made it to like the fifth or sixth boss, got sent back all the way to the beginning of the stage and gave up for the moment.

last year i finally played through all of super mario bros without warps for the first time. should do smb3 as well, i remember never making it past a certain late world-7 stage. also beat megaman 1 whereas the clay dude (wily stage 1) used to end me.

[sheep2001]

got to the final parts of castlevania, red alert 2, parappa the rapper & sonic spinball. prolly tons more. faxanadu i just couldn't figure out how to proceed which shouldn't be a problem today.

EDIT: also just got ninja gaiden (nes) and had a session with it. made it to like the fifth or sixth boss, got sent back all the way to the beginning of the stage and gave up for the moment.

last year i finally played through all of super mario bros without warps for the first time. should do smb3 as well, i remember never making it past a certain late world-7 stage. also beat megaman 1 whereas the clay dude (wily stage 1) used to end me.

Oh man, Parappa the Rappa.  What a joypad throwing frustrating bitch of a game.  I played the hell out of it, and think I only ever got to about the 4th song.

So many games I didn't get finished, one that springs to mind is Jet Set Willy on the Spectrum.  Got close a few times - and did it with cheats (pokes back then) in the end.

[kaysow]

parappa the rapper is weird because i can do expert dragonforce on guitar hero but i can't fathom what constitutes a hit or miss in that game. keep failing for no real reason. in unjammer lammy i can't even make it past the first stage.

[mojoeskateco]

got to the final parts of castlevania, red alert 2, parappa the rapper & sonic spinball. prolly tons more. faxanadu i just couldn't figure out how to proceed which shouldn't be a problem today.

EDIT: also just got ninja gaiden (nes) and had a session with it. made it to like the fifth or sixth boss, got sent back all the way to the beginning of the stage and gave up for the moment.

last year i finally played through all of super mario bros without warps for the first time. should do smb3 as well, i remember never making it past a certain late world-7 stage. also beat megaman 1 whereas the clay dude (wily stage 1) used to end me.

The clay dude was a pain.  I managed to beat him this time without the select / pause trick.

I still found the hardest part was having to beat Bomb Man, Fire Man, Ice Man, and Guts Man with one energy meter.