15 Most Difficult Arcade Games Ever

If you think modern microtransactions are bad, check out a few classic arcade games sometime. Sure, they might only ask for a quarter or 50 cents to play, but that’s just the starting price. As soon as you run out of lives, it’s time to feed the machine again. In theory, you might be able […]

The post 15 Most Difficult Arcade Games Ever appeared first on Den of Geek.

If you think modern microtransactions are bad, check out a few classic arcade games sometime. Sure, they might only ask for a quarter or 50 cents to play, but that’s just the starting price. As soon as you run out of lives, it’s time to feed the machine again. In theory, you might be able to beat an arcade game for just a quarter. Actually getting there took weeks or months of practice.

It wasn’t uncommon to have to drop $20, $50, or even more to see the ending of some old arcade games. And of course, that was just for one playthrough. Yup, classic gaming was a whole different beast from what we have in the 21^st century with its host of mods and accessibility options. But even taking into account that these games were designed to make as much money as possible off of you, a few were truly devious.

15. Bagman

Bagman is one of the more obscure arcade games of the ‘80s, but anyone who has encountered it likely remembers its brutal difficulty. Much of the challenge stems from the surprisingly complex gameplay of the era. You can see influences from titles like Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong, but Bagman is very much its own thing.

As the Bagman, you’re tasked with picking up money bags in a mine and taking them to a wheelbarrow on the surface. But to do this, you have to avoid guards, carts, and elevators. You can even fight back with a pickaxe, though that requires setting down a bag of cash. There’s just a lot that can go wrong in a run, making it very difficult for any credit to last very long.

14. Haunted Castle

You may not have heard of Haunted Castle, but it’s actually part of the long-running Castlevania franchise and even stars Simon Belmont. It also looks fantastic for its time with big, well-animated sprites, and a soundtrack that still goes pretty hard. In theory, this should be a classic game. So why isn’t it more fondly remembered? Well, the high difficulty keeps it from being very enjoyable.

In many ways, Haunted Castle exemplifies some of the worst excesses of arcade game design. The controls are overly stiff and were probably made that way on purpose. Enemies are cheap and frequent, th