'Hard' RPGs

[Cait Sith]

The RPG can sometimes be considered a easy genre, grind out a few levels, mash on x and be done with it, but others are more challenging. What, in your opinion, constitutes a difficult rpg, and which style of RPG do you find the most challenging generally?

[Tailzo]

Valkyria Chonicles had some battles I had to really think hard about.

[Sagacious-T]

I prefer fair challenging difficulty, over hard bullshit difficulty.

Ie:

Using strategy to beat a boss
versus
Grinding higher level to beat a boss.

[Aeolus]

Turn based RPGs are not inherently hard unless it is also poorly designed. This is because RPGs tend to permit work around solutions to almost every problem (although 99% of these usually involves grinding levels). Of course most RPGs consider higher HP/Stats to be a greater challenge than anything else (especially Squeenix games).

[Esper_Crusader]

I remember some boss fights in Xenogears being really brutal...I think.

[FlamingR1ft]

Well, Resonance of Fate is the hardest RPG I've played in quite some time. Shin Megami Tensei games (excluding Persona 4) tend to have their difficult parts too.

As someone previously mentioned, Valkyria Chronicles too. Actually, I generally didn't find all the game that hard. But I remember this one battle against a huge tank that was an absolute pain.

[rpgseeker]

7th Saga.

[beach1]

7th Saga.

Ugh. Enix really ruined that game for the US version.

[Ashtrot]

Play Mass Effect 2 on Insanity.

Some battles in FFT are intensely difficult.

Valkyria Chronicles was pretty hard to get through.

[Aeolus]

Play Mass Effect 2 on Insanity.

Some battles in FFT are intensely difficult.

Valkyria Chronicles was pretty hard to get through.

None of those games are CRPGs though.

[Cait Sith]

^ All three of those fit the category of RPG perfectly lol.

And I agree FFT definitely had some tough parts, and anything Megami Tensei.

[CDFN]

I thought VC was relatively easy. I'm playing ROF right now and I think it's pretty hard. Demon's souls is supposed to be very hard but I haven't played it yet.

[Cait Sith]

Im also playing RoF fate right now and LOVING it to the max, and while I definitely found it extremely difficult, it mellows out after awhile, and the battles become more routine when you really get the hang of it, as long as you keep your guns customized.

[Lard]

Nocturne, obviously.

[Farron]

A lot of people are saying RoF is hard but I honestly can't see why. Challenging =/= hard !
But for me, as long as you manage some Tri-Attacks every now and then it's fine. But to not discredit some I must admit that whenever an enemy can cause you poison from easy it gets difficult really fast.

Maybe I'm being picky but I think Demon's Souls to be hard, because you don't have much room for error; in some missions of Valkyria Chronicles, sure, unless you came up with "the strategy of your dreams" they sure are hard, especially without losing characters but mostly it's just challenging.

My basic strategy for RoF is knowing which enemy to attack first, so I can build up Resonance points, then decide where to land on my Hero action, this for two reasons
1. So you can keep on running between you characters to build up Resonance points and
2. So you don't get punished to badly by enemies, and don't have to worry about using an item to cure yourself and losing the resonance points accumulated.

With this, only one boss in the game that took me about 5 tries, in most of them I don't even need to kill the minions.

A game which I thought it was near impossbile was SMT Devil Survivor on the DS. It starts just fine, not too hard, not to easy sometimes it challenges you a bit more, but still good. Near the end I don't know what happened but so many hard battles coming one after the other, especially those in which you have to save people from demons (it's already hard  to save yourself, let alone save others), but grinding was hard as enemies didn't give you much XP, money was so little I didn't even count it, you have a limited number of buys for that said demon, and near the last boss, so many of the bosses you fought come together, one after the other without even the option to save.
Later I found out I chose the hardest path ... So yeah, at least there's a reason for it (I think it was Amane's path).

I was about to post when I saw your post, Lard. You're right, Nocturne I was playing with cheats. Any normal enemy could kill you if you're not lucky enough.
Incredible that I didn't have much trouble with bosses, just the enemies themselves. Sometimes they attack one after the other, all on you, and there you go: Game Over.