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00:09Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we're taking a look at some of those moments in retro games
00:14that truly felt unfair. Let's dive in. Before we begin, we publish new content all week long,
00:27so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
00:33Don't get turned into an eggplant, Kid Icarus.
00:45Encountering an eggplant wizard in the fortress stages is one of the most oddly frustrating
00:49experiences in retro gaming. These enemies pelt pit with projectile eggplants that, upon contact,
00:55transform his head into a giant eggplant, completely stripping him of his ability to attack,
01:02as he then moves around like a complete derp. What makes this mechanic profoundly unfair is that
01:07the transformation is permanent until the player actually backtracks through hazardous, enemy-filled
01:13corridors to find a specific hospital room. Because the fortresses are structured like confusing mazes,
01:19and has a worthless map feature, a single eggplant lob can completely ruin a successful run,
01:25forcing players into a tedious defenseless backtrack as a helpless purple nightshade.
01:39Red Crystal Tornado Cliff of Utter Confusion, Castlevania II, Simon's Quest.
02:00So what do you do when you don't know what to do? Confusing, right? Well, such is the case with
02:06the
02:06red crystal, the cliff, and the tornado. To summon the elusive tornado in Castlevania II, Simon's Quest,
02:13you must equip the red crystal, kneel at Deborah Cliff, and wait for a whirling tornado to carry you
02:23onwards. This moment is famously unfair because the game provides absolutely no logical hints at all,
02:29or even any context clues for this very specific action. A player could easily get stuck forever
02:35staring at a dead end cliff, as the solution requires an arbitrary combination of an item,
02:40a location, and a posture that defies all standard video game logic, let alone in this game.
02:52The very first Ring Maze Superman 64.
03:04The infamous opening ring maze in Superman 64 immediately deflates you with its janky,
03:10broken controls and abysmal visibility. You are dropped into a muddy screen of kryptonite fog,
03:15with mere seconds to steer Superman, or try to steer Superman, through a sequence of floating rings. But,
03:21the flying mechanics feel completely unresponsive, turning this seemingly simple task into an agonizing
03:28test of patience. This introduction is deeply unfair, and unfun, because the game demands precision from
03:34you, while saddling you with a glitchy, unplayable camera and erratic collision detection. Worst of all,
03:40this opening nightmare gauntlet is not an anomaly, not at all. It's actually a warning, as the gameplay never
03:45gets any better, and the entire experience remains completely broken until the very end. Yay! What fun
03:51it is to be Superman in this game! Woohoo! Sarcasm!
03:55Final Boss Reset Ninja Gaiden
03:57The final gauntlet in the original Ninja Gaiden for the NES is legendary for its brutal and deeply unfair
04:04punishment system, even by retro standards. After fighting your way through grueling enemy-filled stages,
04:09you are forced to battle three distinct and punishing final boss forms back to back.
04:23If you happen to lose any of these forms, which most of us mere mortals likely will,
04:28the game does not just restart the boss fight, it cruelly kicks you all the way back to the very
04:34beginning of the massive Act 6 section. This design choice feels devastatingly cheap, as a single
04:40mistake forces you to waste 15 minutes replaying the toughest platforming sections in the game,
04:45just to get another attempt at the boss. Instead of getting reset to the beginning of this video,
04:51much like Ryu in Ninja Gaiden, why not parkour over to our 24-7 video game livestream right here on
04:57Mojo Plays, after of course wrapping up this video about unfair retro game moments. Just scan that QR
05:03code on screen. The Backward Warp Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels
05:20Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels pulls the ultimate betrayal with its downright unfair backward warp zones,
05:27designed specifically to punish your curiosity and just ruin your run. Unlike the helpful shortcuts in
05:33the original game, these hidden pipes catch you completely off guard by sending you backward,
05:38sometimes reverting you multiple worlds into the past, like from World 3 back to World 1. How rude.
05:44It is a deeply cruel trick that exploits your hard earned muscle memory, turning a classic
05:49reward mechanic into a devastating trap that can instantly erase an hour of flawless, brutal platforming
05:55progress. But, I mean, come on, it is the Lost Levels after all. I guess we should have seen this
06:00coming.
06:10Save the Rat! King's Quest V Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder for PC.
06:21Oh, thank you, thank you, good sir! Early in King's Quest V, players can easily, and we too mean easily,
06:28walk right past a seemingly minor, inconsequential event where a cat chases a helpless rat,
06:34creating one of the most ridiculous dead man walking scenarios in adventure game history.
06:39If you do not react immediately and throw a specific object, such as a dusty old boot,
06:44to save the rat, the game lets you keep on playing without any warning whatsoever,
06:49only to completely lock you out of finishing the story later down the line. What? Seriously? Yeah,
06:54it's true. The payoff for being a hero comes much later, when Graham is tied up in a cellar where
07:00the grateful rat returns the favor by chewing through his ropes, a vital rescue that is completely
07:05impossible if you let the cat catch it earlier on. Oh, and yes, the rat talks.
07:10I told you I'd repay your kindness when you saved me from that horrible cat! Good luck, friends!
07:22I just want to get through one lap, please, Mafia, from 2002.
07:37Fancy yourself trying to control a bar of soap flung down a water slide? Well, you're in luck then.
07:43The infamous racing mission in 2002's Mafia, the OG version of it at least, is a legendary roadblock
07:49that came out of nowhere, shifting a gritty mafioso action adventure into a brutally unforgiving
07:54driving simulator for some wacky reason. Dropped into an uber-fragile high-speed race car with
08:01realistic slippery physics, players were forced to win a multi-lap Grand Prix, where a single spin-out
08:07or collision could spell disaster. This spike in difficulty was deeply unfair because it demanded
08:12professional race and game precision from players who had only mastered the game's action combat,
08:18stopping loads of fans dead in their tracks, and forcing many to abandon the game entirely in the
08:23OG version of this game. Look, it's a cakewalk. You go five laps, you need to come in first for
08:29us
08:29to win. You come in second, the dough's lost. But since we cleaned that clown's car a little,
08:34everything should go smoothly. You thought you beat the game? Ha! Ghosts and Goblins NES.
08:52The final room of this classic hair-pulling gothic adventure pulls one of the cruelest tricks in
08:58gaming history by exposing your hard-earned victory as a complete illusion. After surviving some of the
09:04most punishing and cheap levels on the NES, defeating the final boss rewards you with a soul-crushing text
09:10box, claiming the battle was a trap devised by Satan. The game then ruthlessly strips away your
09:16progress and forces you back to the very first level, demanding you beat the entire unforgiving
09:21gauntlet a second time on an even higher difficulty just to see the true ending. It is a legendary moment
09:27of arcade-era sadism that shattered the countenance of oodles of players who thought they had finally
09:32conquered the nightmare that is this game. Haha. Oh, oh yeah. Now, nope. Now I feel dead inside. Cool. Cool,
09:39cool.
09:48That gosh darn monkeys in trees swinging section. You know the one. The Lion King.
10:02The I just can't wait to be king level in this game turns a cheerful Disney song into a tough
10:07as nails
10:08nightmare with its brutally unfair monkey swinging puzzle. Players must roar at specific monkeys to
10:14change their direction, creating a path to swing young Simba across a deadly swamp by their tails.
10:19This section feels deeply cheap because the timing window to grab each tail is microscopic and the
10:25puzzle itself relies entirely on frustrating trial and error rather than actual skill. Missing a single
10:31jump sends you plummeting directly into the water for an instant death or just somewhere you didn't
10:35even want to go. Turning what should be a fun movie moment into a devastating progress killer. It's
10:41kinda like this game was devised to be extra cruel in order to extend your rental period for more money
10:46squeezed out of you and your family. Oh, yeah. Wait, no, that's that's because it was sweet.
11:00Reset the computer. Oh, you mean my console X-Men.
11:16The reset the computer moment in this 1993 X-Men game for the Sega Genesis is legendary for breaking
11:22the fourth wall in the most unfair, confounding and wackiest way possible. After defeating Mojo, nice,
11:29Mojo, because this is Mojo Plays, you know, where I work. Oh, okay. You know what, never mind. I thought
11:34it was funny. And proceeding onwards in the level, the game then instructs you to reset the computer
11:39now to wipe a virus, but gives absolutely no in-game menu or button to do so. Like most of
11:45us then,
11:46you scoured every nook, cranny, and playable game space to press everything and anything you could,
11:51but nothing. In an era before internet walkthroughs and Google searches, no 90s gamer could have guessed
11:57this solution. You had to physically walk up to your real life Sega Genesis console,
12:02oh, the horror, and lightly tap the actual reset button.
12:10It was a brutally cruel puzzle because pressing the button too hard would wipe out hours of your
12:16hard earned progress, turning a creative gimmick into a devastating, confusing trap for anyone who
12:22didn't read about it in a gaming magazine or hear about it on the playground. So what did you think
12:26of
12:26our picks for this list? What are some of the most unfair moments in retro games that you've experienced?
12:31Let us know in the comments.
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