NintendoHard

A term used to describe games that are so incredibly hard that it takes much skill and practice to beat them.

The term originally came into use because many of Nintendo's early offerings were incredibly challenging to finish, including such greats as SuperMarioBrothers, Rygar, and ManyOthers. Of course, oftentimes it was possible to get so incredibly good at one of these that it was no longer hard... (ie, DanCicio and SuperMarioBrothers), but the average player would never beat the game.

I would argue that most of the original SuperMarioBrothers is not terribly difficult (especially if you abuse warp pipes). I think my personal favorite for "hardest reasonable videogame" is NinjaGaiden. The "reasonable" bit is because there are games out there that are bloody impossible to beat, but for whatever reason they're just not worth playing (e.g. poor control, crappy concept). Ninja Gaiden manages to be fun while killing you repeatedly. Even now when I play the game, having internalized just about all of the spawn points for the enemies, I still get slaughtered at a few notable points. In contrast, I can whiz through just about all of SMB without breaking a sweat (once beat the game three times in a row, in fact). -Chainmaille

• Yes, but if you'll note, the average player, as stated in the original discussion, doesn't know where the warp pipes are. Or anything else, for that matter. I suspect if a reasonably serious gamer who hadn't played the Mario games sat down to do so for the first time, he'd probably have some trouble.
  • Ah, but Ninja Gaiden is difficult even for a serious gamer who's played it before. Whereas SMB can be tricky for a while, but becomes (mostly) trivial once you've played it through once or twice.
    • Or you could get seriously stomped by SMB within the first level for the 5 times you try it before giving up.