You underestimate my willingness to lower the difficulty if I’m stuck
That best part of modern games. Couldn’t do that in the old school games.
Prehistoric 2 kicked you out of the game before the final level if you were playing in beginner mode.
My son kicks ass in Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but the original Mario not so much.
What a reference. That’s the first video game I ever played. Somehow it’s still hard af as an adult. The visuals are great to this day imo.
Getting kicked out of the final level on beginner difficulty is a little patronising though. I’d be lucky to even get there on Beginner in the first place, would be a kick in the teeth after all that hard work
I didn’t even know how you could switch difficulties for the longest time!
But there was a demo where where the code for the first level was shown (BBAB, I’m pretty sure), so I was able to start the game on expert that way, and eventually beat it. It’s tough though.
The code for the last level was 46EA, at least for the version I had. Looking around the web to confirm, there’s a lot of conflicting information, so I’m guessing the codes were randomised to some extent, maybe.
The final level of Mario Odyssey.
I’m pathologically stubborn and will stick with just about any game until I beat it, but Isshin the Sword Saint (Sekiro) took me a long time.
Beating Isshin is so dang satisfying! I really wish Fromsoft would bless us with another Sekiro.
God, I hope we see that one day. Maybe the anime will stir up some demand for it when it releases.
Isshin is one of the greatest boss battles in gaming. He’s a brutal, but fair, test of everything you learn in the game. The best part is you get to kill Genechro over and over.
IMO the Demon of Hatred is way harder because so few of your skills are useful in that fight.
I fought Demon of Hatred like a dark souls boss rather than a Sekiro boss. Lots of dodging. I’m sure there was a better way.
I spent a year stuck on that fight. Not the whole game, just Sword Saint. I don’t regret a single minute of it, and I revisit him at least once a year since. Best goddam boss fight ever made.
Seconding Isshin SS, I’m also stubborn as hell, sekiro is one of my favorite games and that fight took me so many attempts that I almost gave up multiple times. Felt so god damned good when I finally beat him though
No other FromSoft game could have a final fight as challenging as in Sekiro, because in the other titles, they had to consider a range of levels or builds that players would reach the end with. In Sekiro, they could really push the player.
Isshin only took me a few days to beat. Owl (father) on the other hand, took me a couple of months.
Owl is a hard fight too. It still holds me up for a while on replays of the game.
He’s a very bad dad.
I love this contrast with the top comment (about lowering difficulty). Yeah, it was a struggle, but we got through, and it felt all the more satisfying for it! It doesn’t feel satisfying to, for example, chop a tree in a game, because there’s no challenge. Something can only really be satisfying if it challenges you (emotionally, intellectually, and/or in ability).
I think an additional undervalued part of not having difficulty settings is that we have a shared experience. Everyone who did it has shared in it. We know what they went through because there’s only one way to do it. We don’t have to ask about settings or anything, only that they accomplished the task.
For me though, the one I remember struggling with the most is O&S in DS1. I don’t think they’re actually the hardest boss FromSoft has made, but I’ve gotten far better at their games since then. Even their hardest bosses now I personally feel like they could be more challenging.
I’m with you. What these games are selling is that feeling you get after overcoming their challenges, and if you modify that, it’s not the same product. It’s like asking an artist to also offer their painting with changes to the colors, scene, or poses of the subjects to appeal to personal tastes - yes, they could do it, but it’s a different piece of art at that point.
And omg yes, O&S. It’s not as hard now after many years of playing souls-like games, but relatively it was so hard on my first exposure to dark souls in DS1. I had no idea what I was doing, my build was jank as hell, and it took ages to beat.
Pure Vessel in Hollow Knight. I have a file that’s at like 111% and I just need to beat the final pantheon but I’ve never managed it. I don’t even know how bad Absolute Radiance is, I’ve never made it that far.
Practice down below. He’s no harder than NKG. The real final pantheon takes so long I haven’t done it again since i getting to radiance and losing. Instead i occasionally try to beat the first two pantheons all binds
I got stuck on Absolute Radiance and my thumbs took a break and haven’t made it back yet. It’s been at least a year.
Same. I think there’s something of a skill cliff here.
Abs radiance is worse, but not just because it’s more difficult. It’s also a lot less fun, at least in my opinion. Think buffed Markoth kinda BS (which I just now realized, makes a lot of sense thematically/lore-wise).
Pure vessel was one of my favorite fights despite taking me many many attempts to beat.
FYI the last pantheon isn’t a % point, if you’re at 111 you’re missing something else
Shit, I might have fucked up then. I’ll have to investigate
He’s talking about the Pure Vessel one before the final pantheon.
Stay Puft…screw this pixel perfect dancing marshmallow lol so frustrating

That version of the 8-bit Ghostbusters game ending (just get past Stay Puft and your guys automatically go up to the building’s roof, cross their streams, and complete the game) is so much more merciful than the versions which added on extremely bullshit bullet-hell boss battles with Gozer afterward.
Pivot tables.
Excel is one of my favourite games, but I’ve never been able to completely grok those things.
They seem like a waste of time when it’s much easier to use formulas to construct indirect ranges and work on those.
Excel is like grind, grind, grind. You can level up a little and then it’s even more work. One column after another, then, row, row, row.
I like the sql better.
SQL is nice, but it gets a bit tricky once you get into recursive queries, especially when you’re trying to beat your fastest time record…
Pivot tables are quick. If used properly you can summarize data much quicker than any excel formula. When I use them it pretty much always takes under 30 seconds to get what I want. Imo, there are 2 things every user of excel should learn to use. Vlookup (edit: or xlookup, see below) and pivot tables. Once you learn to use both, you will use them all the time.
Vlookup
Please use xlookup instead.
Forget about lookup, vlookup, hlook-up or index(match()).
Only use xlookup.
No place I have ever worked has had a version of excel with xlookup, so I can’t really comment on it. Im not on 365 or a newer desktop version. We are on Office 2019, as I suspect many offices still are.
Ok, xlookup is better because it doesn’t return false positives and it also doesn’t require the data to be sorted.
It almost does the same as index(match()), only better, easier and faster.
Arrayformula() friendly too
Pivot tables are great because they force people to put their data into tables.
Formulas suck. You only need sum. Everything is a sum, if you enter your data correctly in a table.
Want to substract? yes, that is a sum in which one of the numbers are negative. Multiply? Yes that is more sums.
What about IF statements then? No, no, no. Conditions are simply factors in a sumproduct.
Learn the keyboard shortcut for sum. It’s the straight edge and compass of excel math.
Anyone else constantly looking up tactics with AI? This game is so difficult, you have to memorize a lot of combos and the strategy to use them really takes time to click. I’m getting into this one again after a long hiatus
My mom. When she says, “Turn that off and get your homework done,” I always cave.
I’ve never seen what’s beyond the fourth level of Battletoads for Gameboy. That fucking labyrinth.
About 100 hours on the final boss of FF8 because I fucked up and saved right before the fight with basically nothing in my inventory. I repeated the fight for literal weeks, trying different strategies and item use patterns and stuff.
It was very rewarding to complete, but I’ll never play that game again.
Sekero is just about my favorite game. I’ve completed it at least 20 times and will do so again.
I’ve beaten the Demon of Hatred 2 times and I never want to play that motherfucker ever again.
Killed him once legit and then cheesed him off the cliff on every subsequent playthrough. Fuck that boss.
Mike Tyson
Haven’t beat the dual boss at the end of Elden ring, or the final DLC boss.
Think i’ve done most the rest of Soulsborn bosses.
In terms of time, some Demons souls boss I got stuck on, put the game aside for years, then went back to.
In terms of number of tries, I think O&S in Dark Souls one still holds the title. I ran into that brick wall for a long time before getting good.
Can’t think of any game series I had as much difficulty in and didn’t just give up, unless you count the Mun in Kerbal Space Program as a boss, cause that took a long time.
If you’re still interested, I could give you some easy to execute strategies to beat the final Elden Ring Boss and some decently easy ones for the final DLC Boss.
Also plug for !soulslike@lemmy.zip. It’s a nice and welcoming community :)
I don’t think it’s a can’t, it’s more of a “Ok, I’ve seen the game, this is a slog, I’m moving on to something else.”
Just got a PS5 so I’m absolutely loving Demons Souls, been like 10 years or more since I played it. First time playing magic in a souls game and it feels down right broken. Will likely work my way back through the series on the new hardware.
With all the bingo brawlers seasons I’ve seen all the end bosses, so doing it myself just hasn’t felt like a priority.
Then, have fun with Demon Souls :)
I was never able to beat the final boss in Alpha Protocol because it would just CTD upon starting the fight.
A legitimate victory by forfeit.
I was actually never able to beat the nilianth in the final level of Half Life. I think I tried 2 or 3 times, it was extremely annoying getting sent to the parkour room constantly and I haven’t been back to try it again in a decade.
Hogger
… fucking Hogger, man
The vid was posted 10 years ago but it’s much older than that. I remember watching it on Google videos right around Burning Crusade coming out.
Anyway, gl next time you’re in Goldshire.
That’s the best thing I’ve seen all year. Miss doing stuff like that.
The final battle in Star Trek 25th Anniversary (before it was patched). It’s just not possible to win this!
A real Kobayashi Maru, you say?
Unintentionally by the developers, but yes, absolutely! Good one!













