What are some truly impossible videogames?

[Song of storms]

I don't mean games that are super hard, but videogames that you literally can't finish because of glitches.

 

[cearp]

100% impossible? probably hardly any, surely someone would have tested at least completing the game.
but as for some things being impossible, i think some ninja gaiden game for vita has a trophy that's 'impossible'. (requires finishing a level with 2 players, but vita is only one player (unlike ps3), so cpu is player 2, and cpu isn't good enough to finish the level with you - something like that)
the devs could release an update to fix it but i don't think they did.

so including trophies and achievements, there's a few i guess from just lazy stuff.
but the main games themselves, i doubt that many.
and now devs are arguable more lazy/relaxed anyway, because if there is some game breaking bug, they can just release an update.
if you include games that had these breaking bugs, before they had an update, you can make a bigger list.

 

[Song of storms]

I remember a Bubble Bobble remake for the DS that locked away more than half the levels because one of the first bosses didn't spawn.

 

[Taleweaver]

(please don't laugh at me ) I used to think that doom 2 was impossible. Straight into the second level, there is a part where you need to "jump" to the other side. However, as the game didn't have a jump button, the logical conclusion was that you'd need to use "IDCLIP" to noclip through that part. Granted, I managed to somehow run over ONCE, which somehow validated everything. To make matters more insane...in the first level where you meet that fire demon (circle of death), there is also such a section. That demon not only burns you on a distance (unless you hide out of sight), but the damaging part also lifts you up. Result: I actually lured him into a spot, let him damage me and then somehow "throw" myself on that small jumping section over the pit. This also worked, and I felt like The Boss* when I finally played the game "the way it was intended".

...much later, I learned that if you used the run key ("wait...you're saying doom 1 and 2 had a run key????? " ), then you'd fall much less fast, allowing you to cross both these gaps.


In another antic of the nineties: when I purchased 'super street fighter 2 turbo', one of the 8 floppies (yes...FLOPPIES) had something of a read error on it. I managed to install it by ignoring some general failure errors, but every time Deejay (one of the fighters) was selected as either the fighter or opponent, the game crashed. This was obviously only my copy, but explaining this as a kid toward an adult employee in order to get my money back flat out failed (result: I started continued a life as software pirate). So in the end, playing through the campaign got us quitting as soon as Deejay came up as random character (until I finally was able to copy the disk from someone else).

Ooh, and another one: hidden & dangerous. How could I forget that one? That game was A MESS! A MESS, I tell ya! One of the more amusing bugs was that if you saved while your guys were lying down, loading that savegame caused your guys to float on that location. But on some locations, there were so many holes where you could fall through the map that we called it "the minefield". I think we were able to finish it in the end, somehow, but from what I can think of, that one takes the cake as to what glitches are concerned.


As for games that flat out were never finish-able**...I honestly can't think of any.


*okay, that slang wasn't invented. It was actually "The Man" instead, but you'll catch my drift.
**obviously not counting games without an end state, like tetris or pac-man (...and pac-man probably deserves mentioning because it had a weird buffer overflow thingy if you played too long)

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

I think... A pretty bad European RPG called "Two Worlds" comes to mind. There was a game-breaking glitch somewhere in the middle that would just nuke your game and you'd not be able to finish.

 

[Deleted User]

PACMAN suffered from overflow at level 256 making it impossible to proceed.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Before Nintendo released the save fixing channel, there was a point in (I think) Faring Woods in Skyward Sword where something wouldn't trigger properly and you wouldn't be able to progress any further

 

[Deleted User]

There was also this game on a Samsung Dumb Phone similar to Bejeweled.
Technically the game finished at level 50 and would tell you completed the game and take you back to the main menu after, but if selected continue instead of new game it would take you to level 51.
This level had hardly any movement possible but was possible to pass if you got lucky (I played it like a hundred times to pass). It would tell you again that you won the game and take you to the menu.
If you decided to continue again it would take you to level 52 which was truly impossible.

 

[osaka35]

No one mention superman 64 yet? or ET? Those'd be my vote. I could never beat those games. Gave Superman 64 an honest shot, though.

 

[lampdemon]

A while ago I saw a video of an arcade bullet hell game that was designed to be impossible to beat, which increased the number of enemies/bullets on the screen on every level.

I can't seem to find it now.

 

[zfreeman]

Original arcade cabinets of Smash TV did not have the ending, Pleasure Dome, programmed into it. They didn't think people would beat it, plus it incentivized players to spend more for replays. Total Carnage was also jacked up.

https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/9/3848592/total-carnage-confusing-ending

 

[AmandaRose]

1. Gran Turismo 2

North American copies could only reach 98.2% completion. Weirdly, English PAL versions overcompensated and could achieve 100.9% completion

2. Jet Set Willy

Everyone’s favourite Spectrum game was actually impossible at launch, due to a set of bugs. The most infamous was the bug which arose when a player entered a room called The Attic, which corrupted multiple other rooms. Half the ports were broken due to other bugs, too.

3. SNK vs Capcom Card fighters ds

Towards the end of the North American version, an unavoidable battle with an opponent named Jon would crash up your game good and proper, rendering the game impossible. SNK Playmore had to recall it and issue a fixed version, at considerable expense.

4. Battletoads

If you’ve got a North American copy of this and you’re hoping to beat it in co-op, you can’t – stage 11 has a bug in which player two can’t move and will be killed every time.

 

[Taleweaver]

Almost forgot: Metroid other M apparently had a potential bug if you didn't act the way that was intended:
http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Pyrosphere_door_glitch

Because nintendo and the internet didn't clash during wii days, they offered you to send your Savegame to them to have it fixed.

 

[Edgarska]

Before Nintendo released the save fixing channel, there was a point in (I think) Faring Woods in Skyward Sword where something wouldn't trigger properly and you wouldn't be able to progress any further

It's in Lanayru, and it only made the game impossible to complete if you did some things in a specific order, so even without the fix the game is playable.

Regarding the topic, I guess everyone already knows about this one, but Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. Though in that case the game isn't so much impossible to finish, it's more that it never begins because the other trucks never start racing.

 

[lampdemon]

It's in Lanayru, and it only made the game impossible to complete if you did some things in a specific order, so even without the fix the game is playable.

I remember something similar, if you time your jump attack right at a specific angle, you could jump on top of a fence and go to Lanayru, and you would be stuck there and had to reset.

That same fence jumping glitch could also be used to skip like half the game.

 

[Kioku]

Turok Rage Wars 1.0... Couldn't complete COOP as there was a bug that prevented you from progressing past certain missions.

 

[silvershadow]

I remember reading once someone saying monopoly on switch couldnt be cleared because the computer only makes the best moves, and if you completely dominate them, they will just stall and not make a move, or something like that lol.

decided to look for source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSw...poly_for_switch_game_breaking_bug_at_the_end/

 

[Song of storms]

PACMAN suffered from overflow at level 256 making it impossible to proceed.

Wasn't that done on purpose? All old arcade games had killer screens.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I remember reading once someone saying monopoly on switch couldnt be cleared because the computer only makes the best moves, and if you completely dominate them, they will just stall and not make a move, or something like that lol.

decided to look for source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSw...poly_for_switch_game_breaking_bug_at_the_end/

What the hell!

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I don't mean games that are super hard, but videogames that you literally can't finish because of glitches.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Wasn't that done on purpose? All old arcade games had killer screens.

Nope, it's a memory/storage limitation; you can store single-digit information in one byte up to 255 (assuming you start at zero, which is conventional coding practice), so I'm guessing that's all that was ever allocated to the level counter in Pac-Man. If it ever rolled over to 256 that would be equivalent to setting the next byte to 0, which obviously has pretty catastrophic results