8 Impossible Video Game Hard Modes You Must AVOID

So I think someone needs to go and have a word with the developers of the Ninja Gaiden franchise. Has anyone told them that people should actually be able to complete their games?!

Throughout the franchise, you can find a myriad of moments that are so crushingly difficult that even the normal modes act as most other games' Very Hard ones. From the original's insistence of spawning enemies off-screen at all times to knock you into insta-kill pits, to the more recent entries throwing you into rooms of deadly assassins and letting them kick the utter piss out of you, saying Ninja Gaiden games are hard is like saying The Blob from X-Men is slightly rotund.

However, things get worse when you explore the abysmally hard Master Ninja Mode on Ninja Gaiden Black. Now bear in mind Ninja Gaiden Black was itself a retweaked version of Ninja Gaiden made even harder for original Xbox players, and so adding an Ultra Hard mode on top is a bit of overkill. Late game enemies appear right away, you have the constitution of an Iron Lung patient, and your item satchel clearly has a hole in it because you lose items going between levels.

In fact, this was so hard that under 1000 people ever made it onto the Master Ninja Leaderboard while it was active, and bear in mind in order to get on the board all you had to do was beat the game on this mode.