6 Deceptively Difficult Platformers - TheGamer

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The platforming genre has always been a wealth of distinctive and enjoyable games. From the first Donkey Kong game back in 1981 to It Takes Two in 2021, this genre has been able to draw players in with the promise of simple yet unique gameplay. The classic jump-n-run type game is often seen as a relaxing pastime. A way to release tension after a rough day, but that's not always the case.

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Sometimes, players don't want an easy sidescroller. Sometimes they want a challenge. A game that can get their brains stimulated as they struggle to come up with ways to overcome each obstacle. A game that, when conquered, gives players an almost overwhelming sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Game developers were happy to oblige and produced games with varying levels of difficulty. Normally, such games are advertised as being difficult, but some games manage to slip through the cracks.

6 Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy

When this game first launched, it advertised itself as being difficult. The creator, Bennett Foddy, blatantly stated that he made this game to hurt a certain type of person. Despite these warnings, many embarked on this trial and were met with a difficulty that they had not expected.

As soon as the game starts, you are given your controls and set loose in this world. Immediately, you'll notice how sensitive and janky the controls are and how precise the jumps are. If you overshoot your jump by even a fraction, you could be flung back to the starting point. Needless to say, this game has been the cause of a lot of broken keyboards.

5 Super Mario Sunshine

Super Mario, as one of the pioneering titles within the platforming genre, is no stranger to the difficulty curve. It's a natural progression of most games after all. As you run through the various levels, the enemies and obstacles become more difficult to offer a challenge and keep you invested. This remains true with Super Mario Sunshine, but it's a little different.

Not only are you tasked with navigating a series of levels, but you are also given a completely new mechanic. The F.L.U.D.D. This newly acquired item grants Mario the ability to travel across all axis, allowing for a new way to experience Mario. It's amazing to fly around like this at first, but with it comes a new way to play. Suddenly, a game that everyone knew up until this point, is different and everyone needs to learn how to play again.

4 Super Meat Boy

Super Meat Boy official game artwork smiley beaten up pose main title

Much like Getting Over, Super Meat Boy advertises itself as a difficult platformer. It promised to bring back the difficulty of old NES games such as Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man, it even has the protagonist running through a series of worlds to rescue their love interest as an homage to the games it was representing. At the end of the day, Super Meat Boy delivers on that promise, maybe more than some players would like.

While the gameplay is similar to the classic Mario titles, the world of Super Meat Boy is much more hazardous. This plucky lump of meat is forced to run through fields of buzz saws, collapsing caves, dilpidated hospitals filled with dirty needles, and hell itself. While the levels are fairly small, the developers put so much into these levels that, without quick reaction times and precise timing, you will be restarting each level over and over.

3 Castlevania

While the 8-bit era of video games was notorious for producing difficult, if not rage-inducing, games, Castlevania was its own particular brand of frustrating. There are a wide variety of monsters to fight in this game and each of them has a different method of attack and a different damage value. This wouldn't be much of a problem if there weren't so many different enemies on the screen at one time.

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To make things worse, the backup weapon system, a mechanic that is meant to give the game uniqueness, ends up working against you as you go on. While traversing through Dracula's Castle, you can find a series of "backup" weapons such as holy water, throwing axes and knives, a magic watch, and a boomerang-like cross. Like the game's enemies, each item is unique and one item could be better at dealing with a certain type of enemy than others. This creates so many factors that you can give yourself a headache just deciding how to proceed through a level and that's not even factoring in that level's boss.

2 Donkey Kong Country Returns

When people think of Donkey Kong, they don't think of an immensely difficult franchise to play. Yes, many of their titles offer a reasonable challenge, but they were made with the casual gamer in mind. Typically they don't reach the levels of Cuphead or Dark Souls, but Donkey Kong Country Returns is different.

If you go into this game thinking that it will be like the previous Donkey Kong Country games, you'll be in for a shock. This title throws so many different enemies, level designs, and gameplay mechanics that it can be hard to keep up. Yes, Super Kong is a thing, and a quick way to progress through a particularly difficult level, but he doesn't seek out items, meaning that, to fully complete this game, you will have to do all the work.

1 Spelunky

At first glance, this cute little platformer doesn't seem too challenging. You'll run through a series of procedurally generated, fully destructible levels while collecting every piece of gold and treasure along the way. Simple, right? Wrong. For all of its cute aesthetics, Spelunky is an unforgiving game.

Each level is littered with a variety of enemies, each wanting nothing more than to end your run before it starts. While some enemies can outright kill you in an instant, others can knock you into traps, into other enemies, or simply off the level. What's more, there are no invulnerability frames after you're hit, meaning you could lose all of your hearts after one unlucky hit.

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About The Author

Dexter Curtis Adams (12 Articles Published)

Dexter has always had a passion for writing ever since he was a child. Dexter greatly enjoys delving into the lore and story of video games. He takes pride in his ability to pick out the small and overlooked details and makes his own predictions on how a story will end. In his free time, Dexter enjoys writing short stories with a focus within the fantasy genre along with playing video games with his friends.