8 Hard to Beat Nintendo DS JRPGs

The Nintendo DS was a low-key haven for JRPGs, and it came at a time when the genre was most certainly on the downturn of things. Luckily, so many iconic franchises came to the rescue on this handheld gem.

Along with that quality, though, came some incredibly difficult games. They wanted you to be sweating while playing on the go, and if that was the goal, mission accomplished.

We're going to check out some of the hardest JRPGs on the Nintendo DS.

8 Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

No More School Days

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is a weird-as-hell entry in the long-running SMT series, and it's a pretty big departure, gameplay-wise. Instead of the typical combat you'd get in SMT games, fighting here takes place on a grid, and then breaks down into first-person skirmishes in turn-based form. Yeah, that's confusing, and it doesn't make a lot more sense in action either.

The battles on the strategy grid don't often end the fight outright, and the winner of said battle gets an extra initiative on the strategy map, meaning one loss or misplanned move can absolutely tank your entire strategy in the blink of an eye. It's got the standard difficulty for the Devil Survivor series too, which is brutal at its most basic. On top of that, if the main character dies, it's auto-game over, and you're starting the fight over from scratch. It's beyond brutal and unforgiving.

7 Radiant Historia

History Interrupted

Radiant Historia is a really tough game to get through, and it's not necessarily because of the combat all the time. The combat is unique here, with a row-based system that requires you to knock enemies into each other to deal damage to multiple units fast. This can get chaotic fast, and managing your ability points and figuring out the puzzle that is each fight can be pretty tough, especially for the fights that load the screen with threats.

But aside from the combat, just figuring out where to go and what past to try and fix and how to move the story forward is a puzzle in itself. You get hints on what has a cause and effect, but you never know what the right path forward may be, and it makes it difficult to figure out where to go at certain points and requires a guide if you want a clear path forward much of the time. Still, it's one of the hidden gem JRPGs out there.

6 The World Ends With You

Two Battles at Once

The World Ends With You was an incredibly experimental game with tons of content that flew a bit too close to the sun for my money. Honestly, the concept was cool, with two characters being controlled at once, something incredibly novel and original. Unfortunately, unless you're a very specific kind of gamer, this in practice is a nightmare. It's just not easy to make sure you're doing things right in two separate games at the same time.

One character is controlled with the D-pad while the other is controlled with the stylus, and if that sounds weird, well it was; it's no surprise that the remaster of it featured a different battle system where you summon your partner instead of controlling them at the same time. That made more sense as, despite the ambition here, this system was just wildly unorthodox to play and too difficult to bother with.

5 Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

The Dark Before the Dawn

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is the long-awaited sequel to the first two classic games in the series and while it's a superb game and one that's pretty underappreciated, it can be brutally difficult at times. In battles, enemies can occasionally take multiple turns in a row, meaning when it's your turn, you have to predict what the enemy might do next in order to plan your attacks or defensive maneuvers accordingly.

I hate when games do this because it feels like your enemy has a clear advantage from the start, and it's no different here, unfortunately. Bosses are particular nightmares here because of their simply ridiculous health pools, and beating them revolves around an insane level of preparation. It's really difficult to beat bosses on your first try because so many have party-wide attacks, so you need to be ready for each character to be ready for what they bring, and sometimes, it's beyond what you're currently capable of.

4 Pokémon Black 2 and White 2

A Touch of Grey

Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 takes its ominous title to heart as it's got some of the most punishing gameplay in the entire series. The AI here is fantastic, and while it's a challenge, it's an impressive display of enemy intelligence. Enemies use some seriously advanced tactics here that generally only the player would be able to utilize. They use weather to their advantage, items, moves that set up other moves, and just feel like real people when you're facing off against them.

Then there's the challenge mode, which takes the aforementioned and turns it up to 11 on top of way higher-level Pokémon than the trainers would normally have. It turns a decently challenging game into one where your roster has to be up to snuff for every single fight. The enemy AI gets jacked up here even further too, with the aggression by enemy trainers turned up to a level that demands you pay attention to every single move they do, as nothing is done without reason. It's the best way to play the game though, so don't be scared away by it.

3 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Roxas's Journey

Complete with a ridiculous name, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is arguably the most difficult game in the series. That's saying something when it comes to Kingdom Hearts, as not a single game in the series could really be called easy with a straight face. Here, though, things are really tough, especially in the early goings. Your options for combos are very small to start, and all the fun reaction commands that Sora generally enjoys throughout the series are nowhere to be found.

The mission structure of the game is really tough sometimes too, with objectives requiring you not to take damage, or finish something within a time limit; the overall feel of the game is just so oppressive. For example, where magic was usable pretty much whenever you'd like, as long as you had the MP in other games in the series, now it's a consumable resource. That means if you want to heal, you need to consider whether you really can afford to waste a Cure spell at that point. This comes into play against some of the tougher bosses in the game too, many of which demand careful resource management to come out on top. It's one of the most important story-wise games in the series, though a fantastic time if you can handle the darker and more difficult nature that it brings.

2 Etrian Odyssey

Only for the Hardcore

Etrian Odyssey is a series that seems to exist specifically to crush your soul. Starting on the DS, Etrian Odyssey is a game that has you literally build the dungeon that you're exploring. So, on top of the brutal combat and dungeon crawling, you also have to be a mapmaker on top of all of that. A small request, of course. There is no guide here, no marker telling you where to go, and creating a dungeon so you can explore it.

With that level of pain in mind, when you run into the FOE's or Field on Enemies here, most of the time, they look harmless, almost cute even. That cuteness goes away as they decimate your party in just a few hits. Run into enough of these, and your resources will be tapped into in no time. And these dungeons are massive labyrinths with barely any reprieve, so you won't be finding much respite during your arduous journey here. I was fooled initially by the graphics here, so don't make the same mistake that I did. This series is brutal, and the first game sets the tone.

1 Final Fantasy IV

New Look, New Pain

While the original game isn't all that difficult, the 3D remake introduced a whole new set of systems, and with that, the difficulty of the game picked up considerably. Seriously, from the first boss of the game, you can feel the difference in difficulty. The bosses are far more aggressive and damaging than they used to be, so you need to figure out the new Augment system really fast if you want to survive.

Random encounters on the overworld map are way tougher too. If you wander to an area you're not ready for, you're going to get completely crushed early and often. It's a refreshing experience for sure, as Final Fantasy is generally not that difficult as a series. Final Fantasy IV on the DS disputes that heavily, delivering what may be the toughest mainline entry of the entire series, and a great one at that.