The 20 most challenging titles for the Super Nintendo

For starters, there are a handful of games on this list that have “Super” in their title, and there could have been more. It was a popular go-to for game producers in order to indicate, “Hey, this game is for the Super Nintendo!” People love the “Castlevania” series, and this entry gets plenty of love as well. However, even those who like it will point out it’s not the easiest game, packed with enemies and featuring a feature wherein you use your whip to traverse certain obstacles, a feature that takes some mastering.

We started with a “good, but difficult” game, so let’s go to a “difficult because it’s bad game,” which is never as fun. Many “Simpsons” lovers were likely enthused at the idea of a new game built on the iconic show. For starters, the controls on “Bart’s Nightmares” are poor. However, the game is also just a series of mini-games, which means you are constantly being thrown into new scenarios with new goals, as opposed to the kind of game where you just level up the difficulty but within the same gaming parameters.

If you like a good RPG, you probably gave “The 7th Saga” a shot. You got to choose between seven playable characters with different skillsets and traits, which is fun. If you played it in Japan, you probably found “The 7th Saga” reasonably difficult, but not too tricky. For some reason, though, the American port ended up much harder, and also slower. Suddenly, a tough game became brutal.

“Hagane: The Final Conflict” has developed a cult following in the era of retro gaming. Given that you play as a ninja cyborg, the appeal is clear. Its admirers speak glowingly about the game’s mechanics and controls, but will then also point out it’s, well, super hard. “Hagane” is stuffed with enemies and obstacles. You don’t get a moment’s respite.

The title is fun, to be sure, but invariably “Zombies Ate My Neighbors” comes up in discussions of the toughest Super Nintendo games (but not Sega Genesis games, by and large, so perhaps that port tamped things down). Its legacy is built on being an endurance challenge. There are almost 50 levels, and the difficulty increases incrementally level by level. Plus, mistakes made early, when they seem innocuous, end up carrying on, making later levels potentially impossible unless you nailed the early ones.

“The Lion King” was a huge family film. Surely many a young child enthusiastically ran to Blockbuster to pick up the Super Nintendo game based on the beloved movie. Then, they got this game that looks great, but is quite difficult. Some cite, specifically, a level in the middle of the game wherein enemies approach you from both sides in a style that feels like a game whose reach exceeded its grasp, technologically speaking.

Let’s ride the IP-mining games for one more round! Now, “Jurassic Park” is also a classic film, though with its litany of killer dinos plays to an older audience, and also to older video game players. This game has the reputation for just throwing a ton of stuff at you and saying, “Good luck figuring it out!” With no save points, that meant a lot of restarting. The rise of the internet, and the ability to read up reports from other players who already parsed what you needed to do on a level, helped some people go back and, finally, beat “Jurassic Park.”

We’re dropping “Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts” here because, while it is immensely difficult, that is sort of the whole deal of this particular franchise. Whether you’re talking Nintendo, Sega, or Super Nintendo, if it’s a game from the “Ghouls ‘n Ghosts” family, it’s probably super hard. Even though the regular flavor of “Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts” is tough enough as is, the game also includes a difficult mode that might as well be labeled “impossible mode” for most.

Much like the “Ghouls ‘n Ghosts” franchise, “Contra” is a series famed for its difficulty. The Konami Code partially rose to fame as a way to actually beat “Contra” for Nintendo. While the first “Contra” game for the Super Nintendo looks a lot nicer, “Alien Wars” isn’t any easier than its predecessors or ancestors. Of course, to many that is the appeal of this series.

Also known as “Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame,” this computer game was ported over to the Super Nintendo, but it wasn’t a smooth port. While the original game is an old-school classic, this one ended up being exceedingly hard. Even contemporaneous positive reviews acknowledge the immense difficulty of the game, in both the PC and SNES versions.

Not just “Star Wars,” mind you, but “Super Star Wars.” There were actually three games in this series, one for each movie from the original trilogy, but “Empire Strikes Back” is a bit of the anti-Goldilocks. It turned out strikingly more difficult than the first “Super Star Wars” game, and after seeing the response, they were able to tamp it down for “Return of the Jedi.” That leaves “Empire Strikes Back” as the toughest of the bunch.

Consider this a shout out to “ActRaiser” and “ActRaiser 2,” two games often cited for their difficulty. “ActRaiser” was popular, but cited for its difficulty, and for the sequel they figured the difficulty must be a selling point, so they ramped it up further. “ActRaiser 2,” though, is an instance where it seems the difficulty went too far. It doesn’t often get mentioned as being the fun kind of hard, just plain hard.

“Earthworm Jim 2” also appeared on our list of the hardest Sega Genesis games, which makes sense as well, they are basically the same game. The only difference, other than the controls for the consoles, is the look of “Earthworm Jim 2” for the Super Nintendo is slightly different. It’s still a well-liked, but overstuffed and overwhelming game. You need a couple runs through of every level to get your bearings, thanks to sensory overload.

Taking a few levels from the arcade “R-Type II” and adding a few more, there aren’t a ton of levels to “Super R-Type.” The problem is in the familiarity you will likely develop with the levels. Not only is “Super R-Type” hard, but when you die, you go back to the very beginning of the level each and every time.

With the “Mega Man X” series off and running, the seventh game in the original “Mega Man” series seemed like a bit of an afterthought. The move from the NES to the SNES meant better graphics, but it did not yield much else in the way of notable quality. Also, in the midst of the technological upgrade, the series ended up notably difficult, but not different enough from previous iterations to earn much enthusiasm.

“Donkey Kong Country” was not exactly an easy game, but was a fun one, and one that many kids could manage to handle mostly with success. The sequel focused on young Diddy and Trixie, who must rescue a kidnapped Donkey, but even with the younger protagonists, the game ramped up the difficulty. While the game is still a pleasant visual experience, 52 levels of highly-varied gameplay can be overwhelming.

An early Super Nintendo game, “U.N. Squadron” is not unique in terms of its gameplay as a side-scrolling shooter. You’re piloting a plane, you’re shooting at the baddies, and so on and so forth. No, what makes “U.N. Squadron” stand out is how hard it is. It may look like a lot of games, but it plays tougher than most of them.

“Earthbound” was a flop, but it has found an intense cult following. However, there is probably something to the cult of “Earthbound” being built on the fact it was such a flop, and on the fact it is a truly weird game (specifically much of the localization efforts to “Americanize” it). Some find a curious object worth championing. Others find a weird RPG that is hard to get a handle on that requires a lot of grinding as well.

Other than a 16-bit graphics glow up, “Battletoads in Battlemaniacs” is strikingly similar to the original “Battletoads” for the Nintendo. Of course, “Battletoads” is often cited as the hardest game ever, so the Super Nintendo version of that, in turn, is in the running as the hardest game for that console as well.

We started with a “Castlevania” game often cited as one of the toughest for the SNES, but “Super Castlevania IV” isn’t the only game in the series in the running. While “Dracula X” came after “IV,” it’s sometimes cited as the proper follow up to the third “Castlevania,” as it has more-similar gameplay. However, it also has a sheer tonnage of obstacles that feels daunting to even those who love the franchise. The final boss battle with Dracula is also iconically difficult.