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What hard-as-nails 2D platformer is your personal favorite?

Kid Chameleon. 100+ levels of variety, power ups, and unique art.


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Battletoads - anyone who says the difficulty is unfair is just too lazy to give it a real try I think. It's hard but at the same times gives you a lot of extra lives, continues, and warps.

Lost Levels - Only on NES. All Stars version is not the real version. All Stars version is easy.

Super Ghouls N Ghosts

Volgarr the Viking - anyone who likes Super Ghouls N Ghouls, get this on Steam. It's a current game made by people that appreciated the difficulty of Ghouls N Ghosts and it tries to give you a similar experience.

Contra 4 on hard - Tagline: "Think you're the master of 2D action? Not anymore, you're not." I beat it though.
 
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Castlevania III

Absolutely love this game but it's absolutely brutal. I played through the US version a few years back on virtual console, jesus christ.
 
Super Meat Boy. Controls so perfectly.

I was wondering why Rayman Origins was "hard-as-nails" for a moment but now I'm remembering how difficult some levels in the second half could be, plus those box chase levels and the Land of the Livid Dead. Good stuff.

Still my favorite level in a 2D platformer, and tied for favorite platformer level ever with Champion's Road from SM3DW.

And yes, another vote for Super Meat Boy. Took me a quick second to get used to his "floaty" jumping physics, but once I got past that, it was a real treat.
 
Battletoads - anyone who says the difficulty is unfair is just too lazy to give it a real try I think. It's hard but at the same times gives you a lot of extra lives, continues, and warps.

Lost Levels - Only on NES. All Stars version is not the real version. All Stars version is easy.

Super Ghouls N Ghosts

Volgarr the Viking - anyone who likes Super Ghouls N Ghouls, get this on Steam. It's a current game made by people that appreciated the difficulty of Ghouls N Ghosts and it tries to give you a similar experience.

Contra 4 on hard - Tagline: "Think you're the master of 2D action? Not anymore, you're not." I beat it though.

Battle toads is crushingly difficult. I want to beat it someday, but when I get to a new area, I usually die in seconds.

Great list!

I didn't give it an all in effort, but I couldn't beat the second level boss in Volgarr. Really cool game though. Will play again.

Super Meat Boy felt hard as nails, but I eventually cleared the main levels including the Bandage Girl levels, and a number of dark world levels. Really wish that game had multiplayer. You could have co-op and competitive modes pretty easily I'd think. Here's a game that needs a full featured reboot.
 
This is my vote. You will NEED those 1,000 lives.

That's kind of an exaggeration. I think I died around 200 times my first time through the game on normal, and then around 300 times when I replayed it on hard. Though, I suppose if your first time playing the game is on hard then maybe you could come close to reaching 1000 deaths.
 
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