Top 10 Hardest Sega Genesis Games

Turns out Aladdin’s journey from street rat to prince was a lot harder than we thought. While it was met with critical acclaim it’s certainly no cake walk. Enemies can dish out a fair bit of damage, especially with their frequent ranged attacks, and while the jumping mechanic can often mean the difference between life and death, the hazardous obstacles such as lava pits and falling rocks can easily catch the player off guard. It definitely requires practice or an abundance of beginners luck, and the less said about the Cave of Wonders stage the better.

Its style was considered almost revolutionary due to its high quality soundtrack and detailed parallax scrolling backdrops, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in most action video games. Of course, you didn’t really have time to admire the colourful scenery due to the mass of enemies and death traps coming at you non-stop. Due to a technical error when porting the game to the Sega Genesis, the frame-rate runs sixteen percent faster than the original, and due to the fact there are no continues available its difficulty increased exponentially. You’ll need precise timing and a good idea of where each threat is coming from if you ever want to beat this beast of a game.

These two cybernetic juggernauts going head to head is a sci-fi fan’s dream, though the final product didn’t quite live up to the thrill of the original four issue comic it was based on. Taking on the role of Robocop, players have to shoot and jump their way through a whole cityscape while being hunted by an endless series of Terminators. The difficulty stems from the latter suddenly appearing on screen without a moment’s notice, so unless your marksman skills are up to scratch you’ll find yourself layered with lead before you know it. The fact that Robocop is on the sluggish side doesn’t help either.

Though it takes out many of the essential ingredient that make up a classic Castlevania game, such as departing from Dracula’s castle, and not having the Vampire King as the main antagonist, Bloodlines is still regarded as an overlooked gem. The abundance of special effects and use of terrifying sub-bosses certainly upped the ante, even concealing the true ending of the game to those who weren’t brave enough to take on Expert Mode. Despite its rather short length, there’s enough difficulty in its mind bending stages and monstrous boss fights to give even the most seasoned vampire hunter a hard time.

The start of one of video game’s greatest franchises wasn’t without its own fair share of challenges. Sonic’s intense speed by itself is enough to quickly overwhelm any unfamiliar audiences, and considering this entry was its inception, that was probably just about everyone. With Robotnik’s minions just waiting to launch spike traps and bleed you dry of rings, not to mention that annoying as hell underwater Labyrinth Zone, this was by no means a simple platformer. Absent of any assistance from Tails, power-ups like the Aqua Shield or techniques like the Spin Dash ironically make Sonic’s debut a rather prickly one.

When the developer goes out of his way to make his game purposefully challenging to this extent, you may just find yourself gaining a hatred for everything dolphin. Following the adventures of the titular Ecco, players must navigate across oceans and across time in order to save the world from an alien takeover. What makes this game so tough can be summed up in two words – Air Gauge. If Ecco doesn’t come up for air on a regular basis then you won’t find yourself far form the Game Over screen. The most infamous of these is the level; Welcome to the Machine, an auto scrolling stage that can easily crush you if you don’t have the route memorized.

This group of mutated reptiles were made infamous among the gaming community due to the racing segments of their debut title. While the Sega Genesis port has toned down the difficulty just a tad to make it more accessible, it’s hardly more than a facelift. While the biker sections are slower in speed and there is an increase in the amount of starting lives at the begging of a level, there is still an absence of any continue mechanic as well as the irritating ability to accidentally do harm to the other Battletoads in two-player mode. It may be beloved by fans, but there’s still no denying that it remains unbalanced and brutal!

It may be set within the pages of a comic book, but the harsh reality of this game is made painfully clear; you and Sketch are not going to have an easy time. As players fight their way through comic panels whilestanding against waves of enemies and solving various puzzles, they have the option to punch through breakable objects and tear off parts of the panel to use as projectiles. However, these greatly diminish health. When you’re being attacked on all sides in such a small environment, and even your own weapons cause you damage, that quickly stacks the odds against you.

In order to save the soul of his beloved Princess PrinPrin, King Arthur will valiantly take on the undead legions of Lucifer. Unfortunately he comes equipped with the worst set of armour ever forged, as it all breaks apart after a single hit, leaving Arthur in nothing but his unmentionables and the player left running around the trapped filled dungeons. The armour can be recovered via treasure chests, but there’s always a chance it could be booby trapped, sending a half-naked Arthur to his grave. The lack of defence ensures that despite being able to fight back, players will be doing a lot of running of they want to make it to the next level.

Before we reveal our number one pick, here are a few honourable mentions.

“Altered Beast” (1989)

“Strider” (1990)

“Revenge of Shinobi” (1989)

The clue is in the title. While the original Contra was undoubtedly filled with challenges of the manliest proportions, it pales in comparison to the apocalyptic intensity of this fourth entry in the franchise. To put it in perspective, the Japanese port had to tone down the difficulty. In fact even Konami found this too challenging! With a limited number of continues combined with the fact that the game doesn’t believe in slowing down even for a moment, only players with ninja-reflexes will be able to blast their way to victory through crazy boss battles and dealing with more projectiles than you’ll know what to do with.

Do you agree with our list? Which Sega Genesis game do you think is the hardest? With new top tens published every day be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.