What were your most challenging gaming achievements of 2020?

[Deleted member 46493]

I had a good 2020 with regards to challenging games - if I were to pick the hardest things I did this year they'd be:

Bloodborne

Defiled Chalice bosses. I think I spent more time with Orphan of Kos but these were the most challenging bosses for me in terms of frustration. I think the dog takes the cake.

Sekiro

Final boss, basically emptied out my inventory of any item that would give me health or resurrection. Still don't think I can do this more than once.

Cuphead

The dice boss. I'm no good at boss rushes (with just three hits!) and the final segment is tough to boot. This was tougher for me than the robot.

Hollow Knight

I just did this today, so recency bias: Pantheon of the Knight. Oof...

 

[Budi]

Hades was the most challenging game I've played this year. Half of that challenge was Joycon Drift though. Immediately got my first Hades kill when I played on a TV with proper working controller instead of handheld with the drift. But I didn't play any very difficult games this year. I guess I rarely do. I usually look for challenge in MP, but haven't been playing much MP anymore as I've stopped Wow and Dota 2.

 

[Version 3.0]

I went back and beat a bunch of old games that I was partway through, this year. One of them was Super Monkey Ball Adventure. I was stuck on Challenge Mode, Advanced level 2, call "Freewheeler". That level is a piece of crap, it rotates the whole time and freaks out the camera. Really poorly designed. But after being stuck there for the past 14 years, I finally beat it. And then breezed through the rest of the levels.

edit: the 2nd level in this video:





The hardest current game I beat this year was Doom Eternal. The final couple of boss fights are brutal as hell.

 

[Nocturnowl]

I went back to the half done farewell chapter of Celeste this year and finally finished it, I disliked how I felt like the game had unfinished itself with its addition, heck there was STORY content in that madhouse of nails platforming.
Real good content though, love the mechanics of the jellyfish and the last stretch really had me pace myself by chipping away at its uncharacteristically long checkpoint-less segment over a series of days.

 

[ALIENSUPERSTAR]

beat nioh 2 and i killed the final boss in one go. i wanted to just quit that game so many times

 

[Pendas]

Nioh... managed to complete the game 100% with all trophies, even the DLC. That was tough. Also getting the platinum in Monster Hunter World and Iceborne... that was a mission.

 

[SunBroDave]

The Pantheon of Hallownest, by far the hardest thing I've done all year.

 

[Noema]

Probably finishing Doom Eternal on Nightmare difficulty. I thought that game was gonna give me an ulcer. I'm not a skilled player, but I'm patient and persistent. Doom Eternal is the first time in a while that I fear that a game is beyond what I'm capable of doing. I think one of the tougher Slayer Gates took me 200 tries.

Getting the Platinum in Demon's Souls was a cakewalk in comparison. I can't even fathom how people manage to beat DE on Ultra Nightmare.

 

[kamineko]

I didn't do anything too hard

beat demon's souls ng++ with a melee build but it wasn't that bad

 

[Strike]

Beating Sekiro.

 

[SirThou]

Probably beating Nightmare King Grimm. Great music, tough fight, but quite rewarding.

 

[squidyj]

I killed some guy who was hanging out in a cave in valhalla who would one-shot me every time he hit me. The i killed a crazy magic poison lady but that wasnt as tough since i had abilities and the fancy dodge.

 

[cyberninja]

The biggest challenge for me was to find time to play.

 

[Deleted member 51539]

Not particularly hard, just time consuming.

Fatalis without Fatalis gear was proper hard though.

 

[Deleted member 679]

Doom Eternal's DLC. After beating the main game a bunch of times, I thought I was pretty good at Doom Eternal, then the DLC came and told me that I'm trash and should learn how to play. And so I did, but I got very close to deciding I couldn't do it.

It's crazy that the main game is almost boring in comparison now that I'm used to the DLC's tempo. What a masterpiece of a FPS.

 

[WolfeTone]

Beating the Celeste C sides and the Farewell DLC chapter was pretty tough. Don't have it in me to try for the golden strawberry no death runs.

Different kind of challenging but beating Slay the Spire with every character at Ascension 20 as well as getting some of the unique achievements like getting a one turn boss kill were pretty hard too.

I did everything in Hollow Knight, including Path of Pain but I couldn't beat the Pantheon of Hollownest, Grey Prince Zote and the jellyfish boss were just too random and the frustration of having to beat them each time was painful. Maybe someday...

 

[Phil32]

Completing The Ripsnorter in Sackboy: A Big Adventure. It takes all 15 previous Knitted Knight trials, which are timed bite-sized obstacle course levels with a central gimmick or theme, and makes you play through them all in one life with the gold time of being ten minutes or less. It's easy to mess up and have to start anew, and by the end of my finished run, my hands were shaking uncontrollably!

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Manually landing in the sun station in Outer Wilds is some "Interstellar docking scene" shit

 

[Guppeth]

I beat all three games in the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection on Brutal difficulty. This mode was added for the remasters and it feels terribly broken at times. It reminded me of Jackal snipers in legendary Halo, where you can be one-shot by enemies with 99% accuracy, so you just replay sections over and over until you get the lucky run where you reach cover before they kill you.

I also got the viciously hard Crushing... ...It trophies in Uncharted 4's co-op survival mode, through a mixture of teamwork, raw skill, and exploiting glitches.

And I beat Sekiro, which probably required more skill on my part, but felt like a fair fight.

 

[CannonFodder52]

Hmm. I checked through the stuff I played this year and most of it was fairly unchallenging.

Siren and Siren 2 stand out as being some pretty tough games. Although I did bring up internet help for Siren 1 a decent amount, which I usually try to completely avoid.

Also challenging in a different manner, I pushed through the remaining Silent Hill games I hadn't yet played. Origins, Homecoming and Downpour.
Homecoming was really rough.

 

[RoKKeR]

My first Hades clear, but the progression you feel over time is so rewarding.

 

[Deleted member 18823]

Sekiro: Clearing the Mortal Journey gauntlet on NG+5. It's part of the recent boss rush update and in that gauntlet you have to beat every single major boss in the game (including the 3 new ones) in one go without losing once. I'll see if I can do it again without the charm.

Bloodborne: Got the platinum a few days ago. I first played in 2016 and gave up at Amygdala of the Cursed Chalice Dungeon that I need to beat in order to get the Chalice for fighting Yharnam. Also cleared NG+5 (I think) after giving up on Shadow of Yharnam years ago

 

[Transistor]

Beating Hollow Knight and getting every trophy except the pantheon one (fuck that trophy, I ain't that much of a masochist)

 

[No Depth]

Nioh... managed to complete the game 100% with all trophies, even the DLC. That was tough. Also getting the platinum in Monster Hunter World and Iceborne... that was a mission.

Click to shrink...

Did the same, though only for the vanilla game. I burnt out when it came time to start the DLC.

Nioh 1 was good fun though, not as challenging as I expected, but certainly some tough moments.

 

[roflwaffles]

FFXIV Savage Raiding

 

[Hennessy]

Platinumed Ghost of Tsushima on hardest difficulty.
Platinumed Bloodborne.

Tried to get the Dark Souls 2 platinum.

Big mistake, after spending a week just grinding for the sunlight medals and the bell keeper ones for a trophy and seeing what else i have to do i gave up. Maybe next year.

Playing all the metal gears. Sitting through guns of the patriots is a challenge on its own.

Finished Nioh recently but i used sloth cheese so yeah doesn't feel right.
Also modded Fallout NV with around a 100 mods and it works.

 

[Deleted member 46493]

Tried to get the Dark Souls 2 platinum.

Big mistake, after spending a week just grinding for the sunlight medals and the bell keeper ones for a trophy and seeing what else i have to do i gave up. Maybe next year.

Click to shrink...

The Souls platinums are a perfect example of the Pareto principle haha. 80% of trophies are easy to get, but the lat 20% are time sinks. Even in Dark Souls I where the covenant item grind is short, getting all rare weapons is a pain.

 

[Hennessy]

The Souls platinums are a perfect example of the Pareto principle haha. 80% of trophies are easy to get, but the lat 20% are time sinks. Even in Dark Souls I where the covenant item grind is short, getting all rare weapons is a pain.

Click to shrink...

Yeah once you start to tell me i have to do new game ++ for some spells i'm drawing a line.
And i also farmed Giant Lord, cant remember why maybe to make the DLC's easier... they were not.
This would probably be my hardest platinum if i ever get it.

Bought ds1 remastered and didn't even glance at the trophy list.

 

[dralla]

Getting all of the gems in the Crash 4 (non-inverted) levels. Some of those levels (I'm looking at you, Crash Landed) were devilishly difficult when going for all gems, but oh so rewarding when completing them.

 

[Emergency & I]

I got a platinum in Dark Souls III.

 

[Moon Parade]

It would be the platinum for Persona 5, as it's a game that is long to begin with, but necessitates almost two playthroughs to obtain everything. That, coupled with losing my original save, meant that I had to salvage a mid-game save from the cloud, and retread some of my steps.

For anyone that has returned to a game after a break, particularly a long one, knows how tough getting over that hurdle can be. It was just something that I'd been meaning to get to for a good while, so was pretty gratifying.

 

[BWoog]

Definitely beating Doom Eternal. Man was I SWEATING.

 

[Falchion]

Made it to grand champion in Rocket League. Probably my biggest gaming achievement ever.