[QUOTE="Treflis"]"Battletoads" followed by "Ninja Gaiden 2", Both on NES.fend_oblivion
I ignore almost all NES games. I don't earn anything except bragging rights on the interwebz. Honestly speaking, that is not worth the effort and time.
I think Ninja Gaiden II: Dark Sword of Chaos and Battletoads are very much worth my time whether I beat them or not. I think they're more fun in failure than any sensation I get from beating many shallower difficulty-wise, newer games. And I don't "earn" much playing new or old games. While some might dismiss beating those older games as mere tedious trial and error, you won't beat Battletoad's third level by memorizing and trying alot, you will have to have very good reflexes and coordination to ever make it though, and you will need to sustain them at a high level for a significant period.
Also, keep in mind most of those old games would be 1-2 hours if not for their difficulty and when you recall that NES games cost $50 back then before you take inflation into account...well, how would you feel if you paid $200 for your next modern game and it had a 1 hour campaign, no multi-player modes and no other tangible replay value.
As to the original topic...
Since there are quite a few games I haven't beaten because of their high difficulty, I don't know how to rank them. Should I go by the fact that I can get "x" amount of distance, hours, etc. into the game before I get stuck? Or should I take into account what others have been able to do (ie, I haven't beaten it, but no one else has either vs. I haven't beaten it, but many others have)?
There are some songs in the Guitar Hero and even Rock Band series that when turned to their highest difficulty with certain instruments I can't seem to get more than a minute into the song (without messing with the options to allow playing regardless of how poorly your doing of course, but that's like a cheat).
Then there is the tricky dilemma of evolving games. I've heard there have been bosses in WoW for instance, that no one in the world has been able to beat and thus had to be nerfed. How tough does a boss have to be such that none of the millions upon millions of WoW players are able to beat it, and does it make WoW at the time the hardest game, even though the difficulty was subsequently rebalanced. Which brings to mind...
The problem of variable difficulty situations like JRPG bosses in non-linear games. I tend to get addicted to grinding early and hence have a fairly easy time of many situations prior to endgame play that I later hear were very hard from others. Depending how badly you wish to punish yourself you can make many feats into herculean tasks.
Speaking of Jak ii, everyone seems to believe the hardest mission in the game is the one where you get attacked by the guards on the bridge and jumping in the water will get you killed by a turret, but you could just turn dark jak, dark balst the water, which destroys the turret, then swim or jet board to the other side. Works with Hero mode too. 
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