You didn't stand a chance.
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00:00Have you conquered every FromSoftware title, bested the likes of Cuphead,
00:04and maybe you want to find a new Mount Everest? Well, there's really no such thing as a title
00:08that no one can beat, thanks to the collective time and dedication of the game's community,
00:14so what does that leave us with? Whilst the following games, largely of the retro variety,
00:18might not even be that hard, for one reason or another, nobody has ever finished them.
00:24I'm Si for WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 video games nobody has beaten, because it's
00:29impossible. 10. Space Station Silicon Valley
00:33It's worth reiterating up front that there won't be a lot of modern games on this list. While the
00:37industry has major issues in the current day with releasing games in broken states, they are at least
00:42beatable, and if not, updates and patches make that a reality. This isn't the case with older
00:48titles such as 1998 Bizarro Platformer Space Station Silicon Valley. Developed by DMA Design,
00:55now known as Rockstar North, SSSV is a game with plenty of its own quirks. You control a microchip
01:02that can attach itself and take control of a variety of robot animals to complete your goals.
01:07However, there's one goal that eludes every player. A trophy that spawns in the level Fat
01:12Bear Mountain cannot be picked up no matter what you try. This means you can roll the credits,
01:17but not officially 100% the title. Daniel Layden, a programmer at DMA Design,
01:22apologised for this as recently as 2021 in a YouTube comment of all places,
01:28remarking that he tweaked the item's collision elsewhere without thinking of the further
01:32consequences. Layden went on to joke that he won DMA's worst bug award for the mistake,
01:37which is cute in retrospect. But it must have been pretty mortifying at the time,
01:41knowing you were the reason N64 players could never reach that coveted 100%.
01:469. Great Gyurianos – ZX Spectrum Superstar video game programmers are
01:51few and far between, but David Perry really made a name for himself in the early 90s.
01:56He put his hand to several classics like Earthworm Jim, Cool Spot, and Disney's Aladdin for Mega Drive,
02:01formed Shiny Entertainment, and was all around a charismatic individual. However,
02:05his name is rather prominently featured in a game that is unfortunate enough to feature
02:10in a list like this. The infamous Taito released an arcade fighter called Gladiator and selected
02:15the small studio Elite Systems to craft a ZX Spectrum version for gamers at home in 1987.
02:21Now renamed to Great Gyurianos to avoid copyright issue, Perry really struggled to reduce the size
02:26of the game down to the much smaller Spectrum cassette. Desperate times called for desperate
02:31measures and Perry decided that the cuts would have to include the game's ending. In order to
02:35try and save face on this, he made the final boss of the title an invincible skeleton.
02:40The programmer has named the game his most hated piece of work, but this is probably
02:45little solace to the ZX Spectrum fans who grew up facing down this unscrupulous skeleton
02:50and inevitably lost.
02:518. Bubble Bobble Revolution USA 1 Version
02:55It's always sad to think of once arcade classics like Bubble Bobble and how they have not only
03:00failed to stay relevant, but had their legacy tarnished. Bubble Bobble Revolution was released
03:05for the Nintendo DS and was instantly met with critical revile. Right off the bat,
03:09the character art for the box of Bub and Bob and their cold, dead eyes is bad enough.
03:14But the game inside was lazy and tired, hardly offering much worthwhile revision.
03:18It was additionally a buggy mess of collision issues and even instances where entire levels
03:23could randomly be skipped. However, the North American version specifically was much worse.
03:29Despite the game having 100 levels in Japan and Europe,
03:31the American copy gets as far as level 30 before becoming unplayable. The boss of said
03:36stage doesn't spawn and thus players can't move on. Considering the American version came nearly
03:41a full year after the original Japanese release, how does this happen?
03:45Codemasters who published the title in America apologised and released a fixed version,
03:50but the USA 1 version still lurks out there in the depths of eBay,
03:54unbeatable and selling for several hundred dollars.
03:58So it might be a turd, but now it's a price-fetching collector's item of a turd.
04:027. Dr. Mario Game Boy
04:05You might be thinking, that can't be right, a game as legendary as Dr. Mario. But yes, in a sense.
04:11First of all, it's important to talk about the existence of the arcade kill screen.
04:15When classic arcade titles like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong run long enough,
04:18they eventually get to a point where the system hits its processing limit.
04:22In the former's case, the cap is 255 stages and when the game tries to load level 256,
04:28it instead spawns a garbled mess of graphics.
04:31To a degree, this is the end of the game, since the developers didn't anticipate
04:35players getting this far, they never bothered to program a proper ending,
04:39and fans tend to celebrate getting so far that the game can't actually run anymore.
04:44Dr. Mario is a weird example though, for a few reasons.
04:47First of all, the credits do play after beating level 20,
04:50but then following this, the game continues, which is unique.
04:53However, there is no graphical mess to celebrate when the game finally stops at level 28.
04:58The viruses declare spawn, but Dr. Mario himself is suddenly missing.
05:02Well, what happened? Did Dr. Mario spend too much time around
05:05infectious diseases and couldn't show up for work one day?
05:08Who's going to clean up these viruses? It's a bit of an anticlimax, and not much of an ending.
05:13Number 6, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DOS and Amiga.
05:17The 1989 NES TMNT game is pretty bloody hard.
05:21For most kids growing up with the title, it was realistically a game with just
05:25three areas that come to a screeching halt when they get to the brutal Hudson River Dam.
05:29But this is nothing compared to the DOS and Amiga versions of the game,
05:33that right away pulls out a trick that stops the drop-kicking,
05:36pizza-eating mutant reptiles in their tracks.
05:39Across the game's first level, players take their preferred turtle across the
05:42streets of New York and into the sewer system.
05:45However, there is a particular jump to cross that is actually impossible.
05:49No matter what you try, there's not enough room to leap to the next platform,
05:52thanks to a low ceiling that sends you plummeting into the sewage below.
05:56Now, people have beaten this game, and not just with cheats.
05:59The European version of Turtles corrects the problem.
06:02However, most bizarrely, later reissues of the game in America
06:05addressed other things in the code, but not this jump.
06:08Keen players weren't to be deterred, though.
06:10Using hex editing software, it's possible to move your turtle along past the jump,
06:15where you will find another impossible leap.
06:17Finally, the shredder figured out how to conquer his foes,
06:20and all it took was a few spare bricks and some mortar.
06:235.
06:24Smash TV Arcade Version 1.0
06:271990's Smash TV was an odd sci-fi dystopic top-down shooter.
06:31Inspired by the Schwarzenegger film The Running Man,
06:33the setting is a futuristic game show where blood sports have become the norm.
06:37You, alongside a friend, will fight hordes of enemies to the death.
06:40Your prizes vary wildly from cash to toasters,
06:43and there's some tempting talk of something called the Pleasure Dome.
06:46Supposedly, if you were good enough, this would unlock after beating the final boss.
06:50Pretty clear objective, right?
06:52Collect enough keys, rack up enough points,
06:54and make your way into this promised paradise.
06:57However, there's actually no such thing.
06:59Despite harping on about it, it's not in the original arcade game,
07:02because the developers didn't think that players would be good enough
07:05to get to the Pleasure Dome.
07:06Sure, Smash TV is tough, but they underestimated hardcore gamers
07:10that wouldn't back down from a challenge.
07:12As such, the 2.0 release of the arcade version,
07:15as well as all subsequent home console ports, included the hidden bonus level.
07:19Finally, you could surround yourself with a legion of pixelated women.
07:22Was it worth it?
07:24Number 4, Tales of Eternia PSP
07:27RPGs, by their very nature, can often have some unfortunately unwinnable situations.
07:32If you're underleveled or are able to sell key items for some reason,
07:35you can find yourself needing to restart your journey
07:38to correct these unfortunate mistakes.
07:40Tales of Destiny 2 released for the PS1 in 2000 and in 2001 in Japan and America,
07:46but Europe didn't see this instalment in a series
07:48until 2006 when it came to the PSP as Tales of Eternia.
07:53This time, it was American players who missed out,
07:56and they might actually be thankful for it,
07:58as the game is remembered by European folks as more of a headache than anything else.
08:03When the player gets to the boss summon fight against Vault,
08:06the game will freeze.
08:07This battle is about halfway through a 40-hour campaign.
08:11That's a lot of time wasted.
08:12What makes this even tougher is Namco's reprint,
08:15which is designed to fix the issue, was made as subtle as possible.
08:19You can't tell which version you've bought until you put it into your PSP.
08:23The only way to know is that the re-release will force a PSP firmware update to version 2.5.
08:29Fans looking to get a replacement copy, if they were unlucky,
08:32could wind up with multiple versions of the first pressing of the game,
08:35which is totally unbeatable.
08:37Number three, Mario Party 4's Doors of Doom.
08:41We're getting really particular with this one,
08:42but it's such an incredible example that needs to be included.
08:45Most people would assume finishing a Mario Party title
08:48would simply include grabbing all the unlockables and perhaps setting some high scores,
08:52but in Mario Party 4, it's impossible to actually get to the end of one particular minigame.
08:58Doors of Doom is a single-player minigame, which is as simple as it gets.
09:02The player is presented with two doors,
09:04with a 50% chance of proceeding to the next room and a 50% chance of being stopped by Bowser.
09:09There's no one to beat, it's about getting through as many doors as possible,
09:13however that 50-50 split gets more tense every time.
09:17On the one hand, there's no actual victory, but there is an end point.
09:21At 30 doors opened, the next will always be Bowser, a hard-coded limit in the game.
09:26However, there's no recording of anyone ever legitimately getting this far.
09:30The current world record is a total of 14 doors, not even half.
09:34If you want to get mathematical about things, that's where the real juice is.
09:37Because each room has a 50% chance of success,
09:40doing this 30 times makes for astronomical odds.
09:43It's calculated that the possibility of getting to the game's hard-coded end
09:47is 0.00000009%.
09:52That's less than 1 in 1 billion.
09:55This isn't a party, this is a nightmare.
09:58Number 2, Robocop, Commodore 64
10:01The 1988 Robocop multi-format release was immensely popular.
10:05In fact, somehow it became the best-selling video game in the United Kingdom of the entire decade.
10:10Take that, Mario, Zelda and Pac-Man.
10:12As such, gamers who grew up in Britain in the late 80s and early 90s
10:16might have a dreamy, far-off look in their eyes when they think of it,
10:19unless they own the Commodore 64 version.
10:22Level 3 of the game is literally designed to be impossible to beat,
10:25thanks to the time limit.
10:27Old Roborosser simply doesn't move quickly enough to reach the goal.
10:31This was imposed by the developers at Ocean for a very specific reason,
10:35to hide the truth.
10:36See, it is possible to get through level 3 by repeatedly crouching next to a specific wall
10:41and pushing yourself through it.
10:43On the other side, level 4 begins,
10:45which is a mess of tiles and sprites, completely unfinished and unplayable.
10:50Ah, that's why the time limit is so strict.
10:53This is the worst example of a studio putting a band-aid over a broken bone,
10:58or perhaps more fittingly, a stop sign just an inch from a brick wall.
11:01Robocop is broken, so let's just make it harder than it is so people give up.
11:06Awful, awful stuff.
11:08And number 1, Action 52 and the Cheetahmen series.
11:11Where there's a money-making industry, there will be those looking to exploit it.
11:15Legally dubious plug-and-play systems and homebrew multi-cart releases
11:19get by on the promise of games just like the ones you love,
11:22or in the case of Action 52, having a buttload of content.
11:26After all, NES cartridges were quite small storage-wise,
11:29so including 52 in one is mind-bending.
11:32Of course, this was a major selling point.
11:34My parents would only have to buy me one gift, little Jimmy would exclaim in 1991,
11:39and I'd have 52 new games to play.
11:42Well, little hypothetical Jimmy, be careful what you wish for.
11:45Not only would completing Action 52's contents be a slog
11:49because of most of the games being unquestionably awful,
11:52it is outright impossible because of how equally broken they are.
11:55The game's so-called feature title, Cheetahmen, is the most notable example.
11:59Not only is it terrible, it features a game-breaking bug where you can become
12:03trapped and are forced to use all of your lives to start from scratch.
12:07To cap it all off, there somehow also exists a sequel.
12:10The 15,000 copies of Cheetahmen 2 that were produced and left in a warehouse
12:14eventually found themselves out in the wild.
12:17Clearly unfinished, which begs the question of why it was even put on a cartridge
12:21in the first place.
12:22Cheetahmen 2 cannot be beaten as it stops progressing after level 6 of 10.
12:27The Cheetahmen are the mascots for the bad, the broken, and the unbeatable.
12:31Most of these unbeatable games are the result of weird development stories,
12:34and if you'd like to hear more development stories,
12:36why not check out this video on screen now for 10 video game risks
12:40that actually paid off for a more positive slant.
12:43Don't forget to leave a comment down below on other games that you know about
12:46but can't actually physically be beaten, and don't forget to like this video,
12:50subscribe and head over to whatculture.com for more content every day.
12:53You can follow me on Twitter at signiac underscore 123.
12:57I've been Si for WhatCulture, and have a good week.