5 NES Games That Were Impossible To Beat As A Kid

Revisiting the original Nintendo Entertainment System catalog from a modern context is probably the most nostalgic experience most of us modern gamers can go through. Thanks to the Nintendo Classics NES library for Switch Online, many gamers have had the opportunity to replay games from their childhood on a modern console, something we once thought may never be possible.

While not every NES game from our childhood is available for Switch Online gamers, there are several games you can play now that were borderline impossible to beat when we were kids. While infamously impossible games like Battletoads and Ghosts 'n Goblins gave even the most seasoned gamers of the time a hard time, there were plenty of games that, despite being clearly marketed for kids, were absolutely not kid-friendly in terms of difficulty.

5 Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 2 is an oft-glossed-over classic from the original NES that seemed absolutely insurmountable as a child, at least from my experience. While the original Super Mario Bros. and even Super Mario Bros. 3 to some extent were within the realm of reason, the second installment's funky vertical-screen mechanics, limited available lives, anxiety-inducing enemies like Phanto, and not-so-obvious methods of defeating bosses like Birdo and Mouser made this game unnecessarily frustrating for young players like myself.

It was far too late in my life when I realized that Princess Toadstool was OP for getting past just about every major encounter or challenging map thanks to her floating dress, and as a young boy with a very 90s mentality about gender norms, the princess was definitely not my character of choice, to my own detriment.

Admittedly, even playing Super Mario Bros. 2 now via the Classics catalog on Switch 2, I still struggle to get past World 7-2, which has a notoriously challenging difficulty jump that I thought would be easier as an experienced gamer in my late 30s, but clearly not much has changed, or I'm just not as good at games as I thought.

4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

This entry won't come as a surprise to most gamers, seeing as it's one of the most infamously frustrating games ever released on the NES. If you were some sort of savant or legend back in the day, you'd have earned undeniable bragging rights simply for getting past the damn dam in the game's second main area. If you somehow managed to make it past that point (god forbid actually beat the game), it's unlikely anyone actually believed you.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of the very first games released on the NES, and it wasted little time introducing young players to just how cruel a video game could be. The aforementioned dam level has become the stuff of legend, forcing players to swim through tight corridors of electrified seaweed while racing against the clock to disarm a series of bombs. The awkward swimming controls certainly didn't help, nor did watching your Turtles' health disappear after one poorly judged maneuver.

And yet, the dam wasn't even the worst of it. Players who survived it were rewarded with increasingly punishing platforming levels, relentless enemies, confusing areas to navigate, and a roster of Turtles whose usefulness wasn't exactly balanced. Donatello and his ridiculously valuable staff could become your best friend, making his loss particularly painful when the game inevitably found another way to ruin your afternoon.

By the time the Technodrome entered the picture, anyone still holding a controller had already endured more than enough to earn their bragging rights. The dam may be the section everyone remembers, but actually finishing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles required surviving an entire game's worth of reasons to throw the controller across the room.

3 Paperboy

While Paperboy was technically an Atari arcade game before it ever released on NES, the newer console didn't make it any easier. What was supposed to be a simple job of tossing newspapers onto neighbors' doorsteps to earn an honest day's pay ended up being a frantic obstacle course where seemingly the entire neighborhood is trying to murder a kid on a bicycle.

Paperboy had a simple enough premise, but as a kid, timing your throws while dodging around cars, dogs, RC cars, tornadoes, and whatever other random obstacles the game could throw at you was downright maddening at times. It wasn't until later in life that most of us even realized the game actually had an ending, which requires you to complete "just" one full week of work.

Paperboy tasked players with making it through an entire week, from Monday to Sunday, with the difficulty steadily increasing along the way. Between the unforgiving controls and absurd number of hazards, making it to the weekend was an accomplishment worth celebrating, and it definitely wasn't for the faint of heart.

2 Contra

I probably wasn't supposed to be playing Contra as a kid, but it somehow slipped past my parents' radar and got me hooked on shooters for years to come. Before I later discovered the secret 30-life Konami code, I don't think I ever made it past the waterfall area, much less the second base, largely because one-hit deaths were the bane of my existence as an inexperienced gamer.

Even with a friend or cousin by my side playing co-op mode, Contra was relentlessly unforgiving and would often result in us switching over to something manageable like the OG Super Mario. That said, once you discovered the Konami Code, there was no turning back, and it quickly made you realize there was no chance you'd beat the game without the cheat enabled, especially after finally seeing what endgame levels like the Snow Field and Alien's Lair actually entailed.

1 Batman (1989)

Seeing as Tim Burton's Batman on VHS was constantly on replay in my house as a kid, finally getting the Batman game for Christmas was like a dream come true. Unfortunately, it eventually became more of a nightmare, and would go down in history as one of the most challenging platformers ever released on the NES, and maybe across gaming in general.

In particular, players would have to master Batman's absurd wall-jumping maneuver if they wanted any chance at advancing through the game. While Batman could rebound between walls to climb narrow shafts, later stages demanded increasingly precise wall jumps that, as a kid, seemed downright mean. Younger players could still understand the mechanic, but struggle enormously with executing it consistently nonetheless.

As far as frustrating and nearly impossible-to-beat games go, Batman was like a personal albatross for me, one I was never able to go back and conquer, even as a grown adult. It's an NES game that, on paper, should have resulted in nothing but fond memories and happy times, but ended up on my list of games most likely to get a controller thrown across the room.