RPG’s, or Role Playing Games, used to be the only genre of games I’d buy. I got hooked into playing them via friends and would buy tons of them. Some good, some bad, some easy, and that leaves the hard ones. These are my Top 5 RPG’s that I found to be the hardest ones. Please keep in mind the years when the games came out, the consoles, and my age when playing them. Games are listed newest to oldest and are in no particular order.

#5 - Albert Odyssey, Sega Saturn, 1997, age 16

This was one of the last truly hard RPG’s I played. The game would go smoothly until you reached one area then hell broke loose. You suddenly and randomly became under-leveled to everything which led to hours of pointless grinding every few major story plot updates. I know that a lot of RPG’s have you EXP grind but this one was of the first that really bored the crap out of me. It wasn’t for money, equipment, or new stats, it was because everything became 10 levels higher than you. This game stands out to me as being one of hardest because of it’s pain in the ass EXP grinding.

#4 - Mystaria: The Realms of Lore, Sega Saturn, 1996, age 15

I bought this game then saw it later entitled Blazing Heroes, why the name change is beyond me. Anyway, this game was a strategy turn-based RPG that played like the Shining Force or Final Fantasy Tactics series. You could not imagine how many times I had to redo the first battle. The animations in the game were incredibly slow so one battle took over 1 hour to fight. If you think of the battle chess scene in Star Wars with Chewbecca and R2-D2, the animation was like that but slower. And when you finally got the “top” part of the map to fight the boss, it would proceed to hand you your ass. A lot of the battles were like this - slow, long, and hard (that’s what she said!).

#3 - 7th Saga, Super Nintendo, 1993, age 12

This game put you against enemies, plus other companions set out to find Runes around the world. Oh, you got a Rune, well here comes another companion to swing by, kill you, and take the Rune for themselves. There was a lot of restarting and saving when playing this game. One redeeming factor was that you could recruit one of nicer companions to help you during the quest. There was a lot of saving, restarting, fighting, restarting, winning, then losing. It really kicked your ass. I finished the game once with the warrior and that was enough for me.

#2 - Phantasy Star II, Sega Genesis, 1990, age 9

One of my favorite RPG’s is also one of the hardest. The game’s massively in-depth dungeons and landscapes really made this RPG stand out for me. God forbid if you lost your map that came with the game because in those days, there was nothing else to rely on. Each dungeon usually consisted of minimal 3 floors and each floor was more confusing than the next. And who could forget finally getting to the top floor only to fall in a certain hole in the ground to the basement for a boss. I really had a love/hate relationship with this game. I did love it more than hate but there was a lot of times I wanted to toss the game out of a window.

#1 Final Fantasy, Nintendo, 1987, age 6

Jesus H. Christ - this game was so hard. One bad move and you were screwed, big time. I repurchased this game on the PSP and was able to get a lot further than I did on the NES version, mostly due to saving anywhere. I commend anyone who beat the NES version as it was something I could not do and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. Even if you picked a great set up, that didn’t guarantee your safety or skills and you could die in any battle, at any time. Truly one of the hardest games ever created.

There you have it, the hardest RPG’s that I played. I rounded down my age 1 year for each game due to release dates and my birthday (born in Dec. 1980 if you care to know). How does your Top 5 list differ? Agree with mine? Find something else harder? Please discuss in the comments below.