10 Video Games That Want You To Hate Them

9. Ninja Gaiden (2004)

If, as a kid, you were looking for the shortest possible route from booting a game to your parents screaming at you to wash your mouth out with soap because of your language, Ninja Gaiden was the game for you.

Honestly, just about every Ninja Gaiden game is designed with sadistic difficulty in mind, but the 2004 remake had gamers rage-quitting in droves. Everyone has a different opinion on which Ninja Gaiden game is the most hate-inducing, but we’ve included this one due to the fact that Team Ninja actually had to re-jig the difficulty because players were losing their minds over how brutal it was.

Team Ninja delivered the easier ‘Ninja Dog’ mode with the Ninja Gaiden Black re-release, but they also included an even harder mode for good measure.

The game floods you with super tough and agile enemies, and combat demands a tonne of you to hang on for dear life. Your run-of-the-mill enemies are hard enough, but the bosses are absolutely insane, in particular the flying magenta nightmare boss Alma, whose encounter you have to play pretty much perfectly or you’ll die.

Though given you’re playing Ninja Gaiden you’re probably pretty used to doing that by this point in the game.