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00:06Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we're looking at the hardest licensed video games of all time.
00:12But before we dive in, we publish new content all week long,
00:15so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
00:20Home Improvement, Power Tool Pursuit.
00:30While it's definitely better known for being one of the weirder licensed games on the Super Nintendo,
00:36Home Improvement, Power Tool Pursuit is also pretty difficult.
00:39It follows sitcom dad Tim Taylor tracking down his stolen tools across the different TV sets where he films his
00:46show, Tool Time.
00:47Bizarre justification for a tie-in game aside, you'll realize quickly just how weak Tim is as a platform star.
00:54Slippery controls can send you plummeting off platforms at the worst possible moments,
00:58and Object and Enemy Placement seems chosen specifically to annoy you.
01:03You're given little to no direction in how to progress, with later labyrinthine levels leaving you to wander around until
01:09the time runs out.
01:22Gargoyles.
01:34With its darker tone and subject matter, Disney's Gargoyles seemed a perfect suit for a video game.
01:39Well, it got one, and it's still one of the harder adaptations The House of Mouse ever put out.
01:44The biggest proponent in its difficulty is how frequently it seeks to overwhelm you.
01:49Tanky, hit-sponge enemies can often crowd you in a tight space, with you only able to meekly swipe at
01:55them.
01:55Each level is a maze of hallways, towers, and sections at different heights, easy to get lost in, and then
02:01get cornered by said enemies.
02:04And, par for the course, the game isn't exactly gracious with its continues and checkpoints.
02:10Batman Returns
02:16Batman Returns was brought to various consoles through different developers.
02:20Of the bunch, by far the hardest one was the one on the least popular platform, the Atari Lynx.
02:27Squashed onto a handheld with far less processing power, this version strips away much of the polish and replaces it
02:33with punishing difficulty spikes.
02:35The biggest issue is how little of your surroundings you can see.
02:39Groups of enemies will suddenly come from off-screen, and if your reaction time isn't perfect, there's not much you
02:45can do to defend yourself.
02:46The limited-screen real estate of the Lynx makes everything feel cramped and chaotic, and leaves the Dark Knight vulnerable
02:53to many, many defeats.
03:03X-Men
03:11The X-Men have gone through their fair share of challenging adventures.
03:15Released on the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive in 1993, this game became notorious for jumps that were insanely tough
03:22to make, and its overwhelming enemies.
03:25Foes would be placed in such perfectly frustrating spots to make sure you always got hit when you weren't expecting
03:31it.
03:31Worse were the bosses, who trounced every single playable character in power and tactics.
03:37Beyond this, it features a now-infamous moment in Mojo's Fortress where players were meant to physically reset their consoles,
03:44a level of meta that no one was prepared for at the time, as if the barrage of death preceding
03:50this wasn't bad enough.
03:51Toy Story
04:01Most Toy Story games, and Pixar games for that matter, are fairly easy.
04:06But the first movie's game was still released within the window of absurdly hard tie-ins.
04:12And while it isn't on a level of unfairness, as many games we'll get to later, you better believe it
04:17deserves to be here.
04:18It joins many other platformers with punishing enemy placement, foes you will quickly grow to hate,
04:24but the biggest challenge is trying to get through the actual platforming while getting attacked.
04:29Poor controls make jumping hard enough, but certain levels demand near-flawless execution, or else you get used to seeing
04:36Woody fail.
04:37This all makes it really hard to appreciate any of the charm the developers tried to recreate.
04:43Spider-Man and Venom. Maximum Carnage.
04:56Despite there being two names in the title, Maximum Carnage is a single-player game.
05:01Which is a shame, because it would be really nice to have some backup.
05:05Though you can switch between Spider-Man and Venom, you endure this game's hordes of minions alone.
05:11And from the start, it's an uphill battle.
05:13Enemies swarm the screen in numbers that feel genuinely unbalanced for one player.
05:18You need precise reaction time to bob and weave through all of them, and know the proper moment to land
05:24an attack.
05:24Naturally, the bosses are a completely different story.
05:28Carnage himself is still one of the toughest bosses in Spidey game history.
05:40Back to the Future
05:49A game whose reputation certainly precedes it, Back to the Future on the NES is a nightmare for fans of
05:55the movie.
05:56And for fans of games, for that matter.
05:59This game took one of cinema's most beloved time-travel stories and buried it under layers of incomprehensible design decisions,
06:06all of which make it extremely difficult to play.
06:09The top-down sections are absolutely brutal.
06:12The streets of Hill Valley overflow with hazards in the forms of puddles, holes, random citizens, and the quickest bees
06:19known to man.
06:20The mini-games that divide these portions are also absurdly hard,
06:24since they're long sequences that require extreme speed and precision.
06:28This game has a legacy for a good reason.
06:31The Adventures of Batman and Robin
06:41Based on the universally beloved Batman the Animated Series,
06:46The Adventures of Batman and Robin understandably looks great.
06:49And, particularly on the Sega Genesis, it is also maddeningly hard.
06:54This version is a ruthless run-and-gunner.
06:56Keeping aim at the outpour of enemies from every side of the screen quickly grows into a Herculean task.
07:02Between all of the goons and their various projectiles, it's a lot to dodge.
07:07Add on some expectedly tough boss fights, and damage can quickly rack up and take one of your precious lives.
07:13Even the co-op in this version doesn't help much, since power-ups are split between both players,
07:19which can make it even harder to contend with the onslaught.
07:28Super Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back
07:39Each game in the Super Star Wars series is a big challenge,
07:43but The Empire Strikes Back brings a higher level of pain than the other two.
07:48From the beginning on Hoth, the difficulty is piled on.
07:51This game has some of the most aggressive enemy spawn rates on the Super Nintendo,
07:56making it feel like you almost never have a chance to breathe.
07:59And every one of their hits knocks you back, possibly into a pit or one of the other hazards.
08:05Levels are huge mazes built with platforming that demands pinpoint accuracy.
08:10Some of the trickier designed sections even have some blind jumps for extra fun.
08:15As if trudging through all of this wasn't bad enough, checkpoints are also few and far between.
08:30Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge
08:44Released in 1992 for the Super Nintendo and later ported to other platforms,
08:48Arcade's Revenge assembled some of Marvel's most iconic characters
08:52and then proceeded to punish the player mercilessly for having the audacity to pick it up.
08:57Each of the five heroes, Spidey, Gambit, Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine,
09:02have their own abilities and stages designed for them.
09:05But each stage has its own annoying gimmick,
09:08Cyclops having to navigate some really tricky obstacles,
09:12and Storm's level being underwater.
09:14But each features extremely cheap enemy and trap placement.
09:19Worse, not only are there no checkpoints within individual levels,
09:22but there are also no continues.
09:25The heroes all share lives too,
09:27so it's only a matter of time before you have to start all over with Spidey.
09:40RoboCop
09:45Based on the first movie in the RoboCop series,
09:47this licensed game adapts its plot into a series of run-and-gun beat-em-up levels.
09:52As is the case with others at the time,
09:54what makes this game so hard are the overwhelming enemies.
09:57They often spawn at inopportune moments or places,
10:00dashing directly at you to catch you off guard.
10:03Even if you have quick enough reflexes to react in time,
10:06the controls, which were stiff even at release,
10:09makes doing so incredibly difficult.
10:11We knew that serving justice in dystopian Detroit was never going to be easy,
10:16but the challenge level here is absurd.
10:26The Simpsons
10:28Bart vs. the Space Mutants
10:36Fans of The Simpsons have enjoyed different types of games
10:40at different eras of the show's fame,
10:42but for anyone who picked up Bart vs. the Space Mutants back in the day,
10:46hoping for a wacky adventure with the family's scene-stealer,
10:50you have our sympathies.
10:51Because this is not some silly romp, but a lesson in pain.
10:55Levels are ridiculously long with unpredictable enemies
10:58and no checkpoints in between them.
11:00So if you die, you have to start each frustrating stage from the beginning.
11:05This game is also infamous for its unclear objectives,
11:08like having to spray paint certain items purple in the first level to move on.
11:13It's an awful lot of work for someone who's meant to be a slacker.
11:25X- Mutant Apocalypse
11:37Capcom knows a thing or two about making hard games,
11:40and that was particularly true during the 80s and 90s.
11:44Mutant Apocalypse is a pretty enjoyable X-Men adventure.
11:48It looks great, sounds great,
11:50and has five unique heroes to choose from,
11:52each getting their own stage.
11:54But that doesn't mean it isn't hard as hell.
11:57It combines your lives across all characters,
12:00some of which are harder to use than others.
12:02But you also have to deal with huge difficulty spikes
12:05and bullet sponge enemies depending on the level.
12:09And when you lose all of your lives,
12:11you lose your progress
12:12and have to redo levels you've already completed.
12:15Needless to say,
12:16that's pretty aggravating.
12:26Jurassic Park
12:35Depending on whether you play it on Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo,
12:39Jurassic Park offers a different experience.
12:41And wouldn't you know it,
12:43both are pretty tough.
12:45Genesis offered two campaigns,
12:47one as Alan Grant
12:48and one as a Raptor.
12:50Grant's sections see you swarmed with relentless enemies,
12:54but both are brought down
12:55and made difficult by fairly poor controls.
12:59The Super Nintendo version is even harder.
13:02It's mostly composed of tedious overworld sections
13:05that lack clarity in what to do
13:06and awkward first-person sequences.
13:09But by far the hardest aspect
13:12is the questionable lack of any way to save.
13:15You have one life,
13:17one sitting,
13:18one chance to beat it,
13:19and that's all.
13:29Friday the 13th
13:40is a notorious publisher responsible for some of the most unfairly difficult games
13:46of the NES era.
13:49And as far as licensed games go,
13:51Friday the 13th is one of its most brutal.
13:53Not for the violence of its namesake, of course,
13:56but for a myriad of obstacles seemingly designed to eliminate fun.
14:01It is not only extremely unclear about what you're meant to do,
14:06but simply how you're meant to play.
14:08Mechanics and objectives aren't properly explained,
14:12so players would spend time wandering around identical forest and cabin areas,
14:17being attacked by wildlife,
14:18and zombies for some reason.
14:21All while being stalked by Jason,
14:23who would likely defeat you due to your limited options.
14:32Silver Surfer
14:44Another famously challenging NES game,
14:47of which we're obviously covering a few of today,
14:49Silver Surfer honestly feels like it's actively trying to hurt you.
14:53It doesn't matter how powerful the comic character is,
14:56the video game counterpart is a giant wuss.
15:00Even the slightest graze of a bullet will put him down,
15:03nor if you simply brush up against the environment.
15:06This has made all the more maddening by the Surfer's giant hitbox,
15:10and the fact that every level,
15:12whether side-scrolling or top-down,
15:14is flooded with enemies, projectiles, and hazards.
15:18You die over and over again,
15:21which earned this game a strong reputation.
15:23But it wasn't fun then,
15:25and it isn't fun now.
15:27Alien Trilogy
15:37In an effort for this list to feature something other than old Nintendo and Sega games,
15:42we have to pay tribute to this FPS classic that originally launched on PlayStation.
15:47Obviously inspired by the first three movies in the Alien series,
15:51it appropriately adapts the action and terror viewers felt while watching them.
15:55Emphasis on the terror, though,
15:57because these xenomorphs are relentless,
15:58and remarkably strong, too.
16:01Labyrinthine and often confusing level layouts don't help.
16:04You can get distracted by figuring out where you're going,
16:07only for enemies to keep popping out from any direction to take you out in mere moments.
16:12It isn't quite on the level of unfair difficulty as others on the list,
16:16but the tough enemies, and infrequent saves,
16:20definitely pose a challenge.
16:29Predator
16:36And now back to the days of the NES.
16:39Another violent 80s film to be turned into a video game was Predator,
16:43only this version of Dutch has a lot more to go up against than just the titular alien.
16:48Cheap deaths become incredibly common in a playthrough,
16:52whether they come from enemies strategically placed to ruin your day,
16:55or tricky platforming with stupidly tough jumps to make.
16:59As is to be expected from the time period, it's also very easy to lose progress.
17:04There are no checkpoints within levels, so you start them over when you die.
17:09And while you do have lives and unlimited continues,
17:13overall progression checkpoints are only kept at every five levels.
17:17You can only take so much dying and repeating before you're ready to give up.
17:30The Lion King
17:32The Lion King
17:52At the time, Disney required its games to be longer to deal with rental prices,
17:56which led to some artificially inflated difficulty.
18:00The second level, recreating the Can't Wait to be King sequence,
18:04famously had its difficulty raised,
18:06particularly with an annoying puzzle featuring a group of monkeys throwing Simba between them.
18:10Other moments of player frustration came during the stampede section that requires perfect reaction time,
18:16and the increasingly more aggravating platforming that comes with adult Simba.
18:21We know, it's tough to be king.
18:39Before we continue, check out this single from Sound Mojo's album Balance.
18:43Classical music reimagined as rock, hard rock, and metal.
18:47Check out the full track and album below.
19:03Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
19:15Like The Lion King, there's a specific level in the NES TMNT whose fame has long since taken on another
19:21life,
19:22as one of the most notoriously unfair levels in gaming,
19:25The Dam.
19:26And yeah, the harmful seaweed everywhere and the unforgiving time limit are hard to top.
19:32Still, the rest of the game is no walk in the park either.
19:34When the health of each turtle runs out, they're locked from play.
19:38You can save them later, but only one per level,
19:41and chances are good you'll need more than that.
19:44Some of the platforming here is some of the most diabolical of the NES.
19:49And as you continue to miss jumps,
19:51you've also got the many hearty members of the Foot Clan to face,
19:54with tactics and placement appropriately infuriating for the era.
20:04What are some of the hardest licensed games you've ever tried to play through?
20:09Share your thoughts in the comments, and we'll see you next time.
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