The 10 Hardest PS1 Games of All Time! (That I've Played)

[@aviationlba747]

I could never even get out of the garage in Driver! I used to play free roam or pursuit because the tutorial was so difficult haha

[@urabusxrw04]

I always heard about the tutorial but had no idea it was timed.

[@mattwallace2221]

I only got to play the story because my older brother could beat the tutorial.

[@plasticbudgie]

I remember being about 9 and it took me a few hours, it was solid.

[@JjWieczorek]

Ugh the tutorial was harder than the actual game was! Man I used to get so angry at that damn game!

[@1908fcim]

I used to have to get my dad to do it for me. Going back and doing it as an adult I realised it was actually fairly easy

[@otakamerd1220]

Rayman is what had me leaving bite marks in my controller as a child

[@prezidenttrump5171]

Stupid kid.

[@kirjuschaks]

😂I remembered doing this, too

[@KlomboFanClub]

Facts

[@prezidenttrump5171]

RETURD LOL. BITE MARKS LOLOLOL

[@ExplodingDreamz]

I still think its criminal we have gone 12 years without a new twisted metal game.

[@bruhnana1443]

Frogger for the PS1 is stupid hard too!

[@meatwad376]

Yeah that game is hard as shit

[@seanjjpaul]

That rayman game still pisses me off to this very day

[@orlandoacontreras]

I finished Oddworld Oddysee and Exodus 100%. I saved all of the mudukkons.

[@davidatkins7444]

Really I gave up on it

[@orlandoacontreras]

@@davidatkins7444 Really, I think I relied on a walkthrough at that time. But, yes, I saved them all in both games,

[@kennyhankins8850]

The very first Crash Bandicoot game is very difficult

[@robertseptim3579]

Nahh you were probably just a baby 😄

[@GodofDeathZero]

From Software also made Armored Core. People seem to forget that

[@icecreamgenius557]

Oh dude, you HAVE to play the Tenchu series if you haven't. And Abe's Exoddus too.

[@Notorious_G.O.D_76]

I want to give the public my personal hard games of all systems such as "Ninja Gaiden"..."Wet"...."Tom Clancy's "Rainbow Six"..."Rocky"...."Terminator Resistance"...."Pay Day 2" (Playing Alone)..."Need For Speed Most Wanted" ...."Grand Theft Auto 3" (Beta Version)...."Driver 3"...."Lost The Game"....& (Fighting Ice -T & Fat Joe) On "Def Jam Fight For NY"..... 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

[@otakamerd1220]

Death trap dungeon has gotta be one of the cruelest and least forgiving PS1 games

[@KingofBattle8174]

Another to add to the list is One. It is this really hard contra style shooter and it is a game i really like but was never good enough to beat.

[@kharizmatikone1481]

I used to watch my brother play this game and just watching him play it would get me frustrated 😂😂. It's that hard, especially the level after the desert where the floor is constantly collapsing.

[@yeahyeahwowman8099]

The one I remember having trouble with is Vagrant Story. The thing is I am going off memory alone, I remember a steep learning curve.

[@TheVolcominater]

I remember The Matrix being a pretty difficult game

[@markymark6229]

Bushido blade! Man this brings back the vibes. Never played it but always says ads in EGM and it always looked so dope

[@matthewRest]

My name a Jeff. Rayman is brick hard for sure. I remember Heart of Darkness looking fantastic but it was so hard.

[@terrypayne8658]

I’ve beat all these besides kingdfield and now I know why I need anger management and anxiety medication

[@prezidenttrump5171]

You black?

[@terrypayne8658]

@@prezidenttrump5171 is this a trick question mr president

[@gleam6370]

Love the obscure reference in the timestamp for the last game 😆

[@tuskoub]

Co-signing the Cheep Cheep Chicken Level thing. I replayed through all three Parappa games with my (name Jeff) girlfriend and we spent half of our playtime on that one level passing the controller back and forth. It was like the fucking moon landing in my room when we finally did it. Also definitely interested in King’s Field!

[@Andre-vr1ul]

😂

[@tylertheshark2494]

Yesssssss been waiting on this one

[@DETRACT0RD00M]

Being able to cut the bamboo during the fight in Bushido Blade was peak at the time

[@Jburneyjr]

Ive made it all the way to the Presidental Run on Driver and lets just say the tutorial stage has nothing on it.

[@lordsoros627]

That mission is a total bxtch, those secret service cars will make you their wife. Took me a good few days to of hard-core concentration to finally crawl to the end point with a car more battered than P Diddys GF

[@kharizmatikone1481]

Dude I'll never forget that level. I literally used the invincibility and no cops cheat just beat. I tried countless times beforehand and it would cause me to loose my shit 😂

[@Schmidddyyy]

I recently gave Abe's Oddysee and Exodus a run through again and they are SEVERELY underrated platformers.

[@Soonjai]

20:00 And once again we have a Videocreator complaining about Driver´s Tutorial while entirely ignoring the fact that they aren´t talking about the game´s Tutorial at all. What you are complaining about is the 1st Mission, and by the sound of it you, like many, many other people, never played the game´s Tutorial, and for that matter probably never even looked the manual. You see, there is a actual Training Mode in the game (the Traffic Cones on the Main Menu) and in that you get 2 Options: Desert and Garage. Desert is about basic car handling while Garage is a Demonstration of how to beat the 1st Mission, that Demonstration also features the required button presses on screen. After that Demo you get a guided run through the Mission where you follow a Ghost Car through the entire thing. If people actually bothered to play the Tutorial, not nearly as many people would complain about the 1st Mission being hard.

[@Ebstarrunner]

Hahahaha I just commented on it not being a tutorial too.. It's literally a test given to Tanner (a.k.a the first mission) And, you're totally right, just look in the manual!! No wonder they got rid of them; No one read them!!

[@robertseptim3579]

Bushido Blade has been considered one of the most accurate, realistic fighting games by sword enthusiasts. And yet it came out so long ago! So to see it on here is pretty cool. I imagine most of the difficulty comes from not being used to a game like this. But one of these days I gotta go back and see for myself

[@lordunidas5558]

Woop Woop Twisted Metal man. You get real good at them, your gonna cook everybody unless the bots cheese you in Twisted Metal 2 by freeze spamming till you die or dumping 20 random missiles per second behind them if your chasing them

[@verbage432]

I disagree with grouping Parrappa with Umjammer Lammy only because UmJammer Lammy is in a different league of difficulty

[@FinalFrantasy]

Thanks for the video, Jeff. I think I'm gonna give Tenchu a shot now :]

[@povtrips]

Jeff! I remember the last mission of Driver was ridiculously hard with cars crashing into you relentlessly, so much so that the only way i beat it was because the cars crashed so much into my car that i somehow clipped out of bounds and then was able to just cruise outside of the map towards the mission goal. To this day i have no idea how that mission is supposed to be played.

[@lordsoros627]

I was surprised he did not mention the last mission of Driver, its tough as rock. Took me ages to finally crawl to the end with a completely battered car that was but a clip away from destruction. It is ridiculously tough and takes a lot to figure out the best routes and techniques for dodging the trouble and even then your going to need some luck too.

[@Ebstarrunner]

That mission is UNREAL stupid hard.. So hard.. Plus the mission in Driver 2 when you have to chase that guy through the mountain side pass and damage him.. People now do it right in the beginning, but it's more luck based than doing it normal. So much RNG it's brutal...

[@krthrvy]

I can remember playing crash 1 back when I was kid and breezing through it. Now as an adult 😅

[@Krissy65100]

omg raymen and crash was so hard to beat. also croc and rascal was also hard too.

[@PAINNN666]

I'm a casual gamer. But still only final bosses in BB series are really hard. Yes. It's try and error game. It's only hard if your goal is perfect run. Even before final boss it's almost impossible

[@joshz7712]

I beat the og Crash back in the day. It was rough. Lots of trial and error. I felt accomplished afterwards. I also beat driver. Lots of re renting it from Blockbuster for that one. It would explain why I'm so good at racing games now lol.

[@ThinkingForward-we1ql]

I remember playing tomb raider 2 when it first came out, and later driver 1 and 2, driver 1 was fairly easy, it was driver 2 that got me! all of the tomb raiders were super super hard, took me literal years to beat tomb raider 2 and almost as long to beat driver 2, it probably helped that i was in the early teens when driver 1 came out, lol

[@Fluffychoupikkos]

I can only remember playing Tony hawk on PS1 on a friend's house and I think also some hercules Disney game or something. I had a Nintendo 64 then I went straight to PS2 and went all the way from there with PS consoles.

[@arturwelp1877]

Crash 2 and 3 are way easier in the PS1, the remake, jumps and all are totally different. The tutorial for Driver was not that hard for me, I always loved cars, so I knew what the tutorial said, even not speaking English. The rest of the game is super hard though. Tomb Raider was unbelievable difficult. I still have nightmares falling in the void of the first London level on Tomb Raider 3

[@norfairaffair]

I got so hoot at TM2 that I good beat story mode without dying and beat on Hard Mode without continuing. Field Of Screams level was the hardest with 9 enemies and nowhere to hide

[@baffledbrandon3132]

Not surprised at all to see the Tomb Raider series on this list.

[@kyleisreal_tv]

As someone who beat DKC on Sness all levels deathless beat Crash 1 PS1 deathless Heart Of Darkness is the hardest platformer of all time. I died 426 times playing that. GL beating that game under 400 deaths

[@durulvarol]

When we were kids we use to play Driver only in free roam mode. Because that's all what we can do with that game 😄

[@infamyjones3986]

Jeff:Sweetooth 🤡Bushido Blade and Bloody Roar are two franchise i would love to see comeback. Bushido Blade had me and my friends almost not talk to each other thats how serious we took it lol. Twisted Metal 2 is one of my favorite all time games. Great list my guy!

[@kharizmatikone1481]

If i could add a game it would be Saga Frontier 2. Not only is the learning curve confusing and steep asf but once you get it down it doesn't make any difference. The game would still be challenging no matter how skilled you are. Especially the last 2 battles. One takes about 40 minutes to an hour to beat depending on how strong your party is and the other is damn near impossible because you have to have flawlessly strategy while working with weak units who die in 1-2 hits.

[@bananajoe4203]

My name is Jeff, and that video was definitely tubular

[@rickydurant9149]

Bro i remember it literally took a group effort from family and friends to beat these games

[@SolidSnake684]

Feel like a ton of PS1 games fly under the radar for difficulty. You think hard and you think a shmup or an NES game, cause it's easy to see its challenge up front. But recently I played thru Syphon Filter for the first time, and man that game gets nuts at the end, requiring you to nail headshots with its old school controls. And thats a game that doesnt look too hard, but a lot of games back then would just ramp it up near the end, sometimes past what your character can really handle in game. It was a fun challenge for sure and took me back to when beating a game meant conquering it, but man the PS1 was still in that classic era of toughness for sure.

[@jadedheartsz]

Johnny Bazookatone is off the charts difficult, I read a retro review for it in Gameinformer that skewered it for it's awful controls and level designs.

[@MrDark086]

Oh uh for Rayman 1 its worth noting that the reason its so soul crushingly difficult is because it wasn't play tested during development. Its honestly a miracle the game is actually finishable with that in mind. Best i could do as a kid was Band Land and thats about it. Even as an adult i struggle heavily to even get passed Eat at Joes. If any of you ever get into game design NEVER SKIMP ON TEST PLAYING

[@JakeArtistIV]

Project overkill was really hard too, I could never beat it as a kid. Very fun game though

[@phyllojoe5346]

What a totally tubular video

[@marcussmith1000]

Tarzan ps1 aint no joke either but its a good game

[@kirjuschaks]

Were there 6 scenes with Mary Jane at the end? 😂

[@Ebstarrunner]

While my step-brother and I never had trouble in the garage in Driver, I do see why people did. But, it's not a tutorial, it's a test. Also, it's a trail an error type of area. Once you figure something out you just add it to your next run...

[@devilman4018]

Haven't played most of these games, other than Crash and Rayman, though I'm keeping an eye out for the Tomb Raider remaster collection when it's on sale since I've always wanted to give them a shot. Here's a couple of ps1 games that I've played that are pretty difficult:1)the Lost World Jurassic Park, most people probably never made it through the Compy or Human hunter levels, I played it a lot as a kid so I can breeze through it now, but I definitely threw my controller at the wall back in the day, 2) Alien Resurrection: super difficult game, but very atmospheric and is probably one of the first, if not the first games, to use modern FPS controls, unfortunately it doesn't work properly on the Ps3 or an emulator(though I think there's a fix for the latter)so you'll have to play it on a ps1 or ps2, 3)Yugioh Forbidden Memories: starts out easy, but gets more difficult as you progress, probably impossible without a guide to tell you who to duel on free duel to grind for good cards to beat the game,but all of us Yugi-boomers love it since it's usually the first Yugioh game we had, plus the soundtrack was awesome4)Einhander: a 2d shooter by Squaresoft, I remember trying it out because it looked cool after checking a video on ps1 games, almost broke my controller, one of the few times I flat out gave up on a game due to difficulty.5) Castlevania Chronicles: it's a remake of the original nes game which includes an original mode, a port of the X68000 home computer version of the game and an arranged version, the original version is brutal, the arranged version is not too bad.

[@derekj7468]

Used to play Twisted Metal Black on my dads PS2 when I was like 4 years old it scarred me for life

[@derekj7468]

jeff😂

[@lordsoros627]

​@@derekj7468what's all this "Jeff" stuff about? Americans.

[@derekj7468]

@@lordsoros627 looks like someone didnt finish the video

[@lordunidas5558]

Dude TM Black at age 4 was awesome

[@nightowlrally]

Games back then were more about "let's make it hard enough that players have to spend a lot of time getting better at it in order to get their money's worth" (or, obviously, from a lack of QA and testing) and not so much "let's streamline this experience so players get through single player mode faster to move on to other games so they buy more." At least, that's how it seems to me. Also I played Rayman on keyboard, and that was...an experience.

[@ericmurray1146]

I was able to get out of the garage after about 30 minutes in driver. The missions on the other hand made me give up😂

[@JoshuaVaughan-pi1sn]

I still own that Rayman game and I'm still stuck on the band looking level to this day I think I put that game down years ago and just never picked it back up it literally made me rage quite and that's rare for me 😂

[@kharizmatikone1481]

To be fair, driver 1 has a tutorial video in the game where it shows you how to beat the garage. It also gives you the what buttons to press but it still doesn't help all that much but its better than nothing

[@fictionalmediabully9830]

I remember Crash 1 being easier than Crash 2 when playing casually.

[@andrehooker3229]

Man ( Heart of darkness ) should've been added too, if you happen to play it. That game is notoriously difficult, even with chest codes 😅

[@Rwntylr]

GTA London was way harder from memory as a kid

[@lordsoros627]

Killing the Queen is not cricket

[@joxidearmageddonator882]

Abe's Exoddus was way easier than Oddysee as it had a quick-save function and the puzzles (these games are basically puzzle games masquerading as platformers) in Exoddus were way more forgiving. Rayman wasn't too bad - there was a cheat code to give you unlimited lives and then it was just a case of trial and error

[@zombieslayer23]

Twisted Metal 1&2 are actually easy to beat especially the first. The first has a cheese spot on the last level where you can go to a certain spot which isn't even a glitch spot cause it's literally part of the ground for some odd reason and the boss just falls constantly lol. If you played the og Twisted Metal you should know what I'm talking about

[@bartdierickx4630]

Never realized rayman was considered a hard game. I 100%ed it as a 12 year old. I had a challenging time, but always thought the game was challenging because of my bad skills. Compared to what I was used on the NES and mega drive platformers, this felt quite easy to me

[@kirjuschaks]

R-type, contra, metroid, were harder? Or super Mario 😂

[@Alianger]

Pretty sure TR2 didn't use the crystals on PS1

[@TheActualSquatch]

That top down GTA was brutal. The controls were just as bad as South Park for N64

[@jeremiaholin2859]

Abes oddysee reminds me of out of this world and blackthorne on snes

[@Franchise1718]

Minion in twisted metal 1 still haunts me …

[@cassiecatcat]

I really hope you added gauntlet legends.

[@shannonbayley3684]

Jeff! Any chance of ranking the 007 games? Goldeneye through to Legends. Plus your thoughts on the upcoming IO Interactive Bond game. Driver - I honestly got through the tutorial quite fast and didn't realise it was so difficult until fairly recently. Tomb Raider - Found it tedious and difficult. Packed it in pretty early on and never really played anymore til years later. Twisted Metal 2 was amazing. Quite difficult, but I loved it so much I just mastered the hell out of it. Still one of my favourite games. SingleTrac also made the first 2 Jet Moto games, which were awesome.. but difficult. They needed real mastery.

[@Intergalactic420]

Agreed! Would love to see 007 game ranking!

[@lukegarner6948]

I was introduced to Rayman on the Dreamcast with his (excellent) sequel. I got my hands on a PC version of Rayman 1 since I never had a PS1, expecting another great time (even though I was kind of surprised by the animated artstyle). Bruh, I barely made it through the first level and gave up after repeatedly getting my ass kicked on the second level.

[@chrizsi13]

Heart of Darkness is a must play game for the difficulty. I remember getting a demo disc for the PC at McDonald's. Played the first level over and over again. It was first as an adult I got the full game for my PS1 and playd the full game. Definitely a ratity among PS1 games where you had to play the first half on disc 1 and switching to disc 2 mid way.

[@N3Selina]

the driver tutorial i can completely confirm. it's really complex and somewhat hard to understand. (jeff)

[@jascoolo]

First Bushido Blade also had local multiplayer and we played the hell out of it in my academic years. BTW I passed the garage in Driver and even the first city, but after all I wanted to destroy this game.

[@Dmoney8720]

Think this creator doesn’t understand that a lot of older games you almost need a guide or walkthrough. Unless you liked being lost for hours.

[@adamantium4797]

Good vid

[@baseman3]

I was probably 8 or 9 years old and my first PS1 game was Rayman and it was just hard for no reason 😂

[@Chigurh007]

Great picks, you should try alone in the dark Jack is back. That one is impossible, and the loading screens are a joke

[@fnawfan]

You should do a list of great games with awful boss fights

[@defendor66]

I loved oddworld it was really trial and error 🎉 but twisted metal 2 was difficult for me

[@VenomShotYou]

Damn I was certain Blasto would be on here

[@NLaBar]

Ps1 features some of the most difficult games of all time. Some of them in a great, fun way… others in a glitchy, terrible controls sort of way

[@Lloyd00]

Not to mention at the time you can't just go online and look at a guide or a video for help

[@juansierrajr]

You can cheese by button mashing in Parapper the rapper

[@spahr001]

In Driver I could get through the garage legit without a ton of trouble in the PS1 version but for whatever reason I had a lot more trouble getting through it on the PC. I'm pretty sure I cheated somehow in the PC version to get to the main game. Now with Duckstation you can automatically pass any number of the required tests making it is easy as you want.

[@niemand7811]

Wrong about Samurai Showdown. SamSho is juts another fighting game franchise. Bushido Blade is very specific about fighting stance and positioning. One hit can kill but it has to be done properly. I really liked the concept and got mad about people rating it bad because they didn't get the mechanics.

[@MrDark086]

Beyond the Beyond was a cruel rpg. You get the best character at the start of the game, he's near immediately cursed and made worthless and by the time the curse is removed on him hes pointless to have because you had to bench him because of the curse making him a lead anchor for the party ofherwise so hes now horribly underleveled and redundant. This is of course only if you can even make it that far. Long dungeons, high encounter rates, and mercilessly difficult battles on random encounters alone. You can actually soft lock the game within the first 15min of gameplay if you don't explore the right way and get healing water. Its a ball buster and a half

[@zikzero6]

Damn.. nostalgia 😢

[@BLOODYWEREWOLF9]

yep driver is hard but the ending just takes the cake beating the last level will mack you sweat but i did mack it out of the garage believe it or not the manual for the game back then told you inside it how to do all the maneuver for the garage lmao jeff

[@zeonacepilot3420]

I like how you used all the weakest armor cars in twisted metal to fit your agenda rofl

[@knockout3630]

Mortal kombat 11 I’m missing one trophy that is to beat the advance tutorial

[@JoshuaKothapally]

Brother, why don’t you rank all the megaman games.

[@ML8443]

Abe’s odyssey when I was a kid seemed impossible

[@affliction1979]

I actually found the Driver tutorial pretty easy. I think I did it in my 3rd or 4th try, however I started karting back in 1984, when I was 5, and have been track racing since I was 16. I can definitely see how it would be off-puttingly difficult for your average gamer.

[@anthonyfaccaro7118]

I had to do the driver tutorial for all my friends, once i got it, it was easy.

[@Kuldaca]

A PS1 gem, Einhander.

[@kill_repeat8491]

I don't understand the discourse around Crash. I was caught off guard when the trilogy came out and everyone talked about how brutally difficult Crash was. Maybe it's because it was my first game, but it's really not that hard. Rayman is BS, though.

[@jumblejag6197]

I could never make it out the the garage on Driver.

[@Parisiancollector]

Got out of the garage (as a young adult). Heart of Darkness could've made the list.

[@josephbullaro4560]

Bushido Blade 2 wasn't all that diffucult. I unlocked every sword and character in a resonable amount if time. I never beat the 100 ninja run though.

[@wickdaline8668]

Rank the Dead Rising games next, please?

[@Bird-Birdy-Love]

Im surprised you did not mention Alien Resurrection ps1

[@BigSlick98]

Twisted Metal isn’t too bad. The ramming is janky which makes the first game hard. For TM2 just learn each enemies attacks and it isn’t too bad. Black is much harder. Also Crash Bandicoot isn’t too bad as well for me at least.