5 SNES RPGs Everyone Had Trouble Beating

Published Sep 19, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT

Ben Brosofsky has been writing for Screen Rant since 2022 and editing since 2024. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor's in Cinema & Media Arts. Writing serves as a much-needed distraction from tackling a backlog of Steam games that will never be surmounted.

Role-playing console games hit their stride during the reign of the SNES, and fans of the genre were suddenly spoiled for choice compared to the generally simpler fare available on the original NES. Embarking on a grand adventure had never been easier, as it rarely took much more than slotting a cartridge into a console.

Seeing these adventures through to the end, however, could be a lot harder. In some SNES RPGs, crossing the finish line was a garguantuan task. Whether they suffered from unfair difficulty spikes or simply wore out their welcome, these RPGs made reaching the credits seem like a distant dream.

Breath Of Fire 2

Unlike some of the toughest RPGs on the SNES, Breath of Fire 2 is a generally venerated game. While its critical reviews were largely more good than great, the Breath of Fire series has plenty of loyal fans, and there's a lot to love in the original sequel. A mature story, interesting cast, and detailed, expansive world provide plenty of reasons to stick around, so beating the game wasn't all that uncommon.

That didn't mean, however, that it wasn't a challenge. Trying to simply move along the path of the story won't get you very far, as Breath of Fire 2 never really explains how much you need to poke around to survive. Getting good gear for each character is essential, and knowing where to go to grind is almost as important.

Speaking of grinding, an intense encounter rate and slow pace of movement can make doing all that extra work feel even more tedious, sometimes making Breath of Fire 2 feel more like a day job than a grand adventure. With enough patience, Breath of Fire 2 pays off, but it's hard to blame anyone who calls it quits early and switches over to a more approachable game.

Ys 3: Wanderers From Ys

Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys is another SNES entry in a beloved RPG series, but this particular installment isn't a common favorite. Not only is Ys 3 generally ranked toward the bottom of the series, but the SNES port in particular has certain issues that can make it uniquely frustrating.

On a basic level, Ys 3 requires grinding, with each new side-scrolling area being populated with enemies that will make short work of a player who doesn't prepare ahead of time. On SNES, certain difficulty spikes mean you'll have to grind even more than in other versions of the game, which can quickly make it feel like a chore.

Throw in boss fights that take longer than other versions and some rough hit detection, and the SNES port of Ys 3 becomes a truly hard sell. It's not necessarily one of the hardest RPGs of all time, but as a true exercise in patience, you might have trouble beating it without falling asleep by the time you do so.

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

As tactical RPGs, the Fire Emblem games all require a fair amount of strategy, but some more so than others. Recent games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses have gone through pains to make the series accessible to newcomers, and veterans of the franchise can likely breeze through some of them on Hard without breaking a sweat.

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, on the other hand, is a true monster. Long regarded as the hardest Fire Emblem title (at least when discussing standard difficulty settings), Thracia employs plenty of mechanics that can be hard for players to deal with. On top of that, it doesn't tend to explain these mechanics adequately, leaving players who don't read up on the game in the dark as to how core functions of the game are working.

If you do your research, Thracia 776 becomes a lot more accessible, and its reputation for difficulty has arguably been inflated by fans who may not have even attempted to play the game in earnest. Even so, this one definitely led plenty of players to give up as their units dwindled and campaigns stalled.

Drakkhen

Drakkhen is a weird game, which is both its biggest selling point and its biggest problem. Its surreal nature and rich atmosphere are undeniably compelling, and the experience doesn't feel anything like the average RPG of the time. At the same time, it's also an exercise in frustration that can test the patience of any player, and its oddities often occur at the player's expense.

Any given playthrough of Drakkhen will likely involve plenty of confused wandering around, largely due to a non-linear nature that recalls the experience of the first The Legend of Zelda game. Unlike Zelda, though, Drakkhen also has punishing encounters that trigger in unexpected ways, and the gameplay lacks the same fundamental excitement to keep the wheels spinning.

While Drakkhen doesn't feature the hardest combat of any SNES RPG, it also won't stop you from running off and getting in over your head at every opportunity. From its incorporation of vector graphics to its bizarre sound design, there's a lot to love here, but puzzling your way through to the end might not be worth the headache.

7th Saga

If any name is synonymous with the idea of tough SNES RPGs, it's 7th Saga. If you played a Japanese copy of this classic, you might not notice anything too odd, but North American audiences were treated to a very different experience.

In the same vein as games like Contra: Hard Corps and Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse, 7th Saga ratcheted up the difficulty in localization. Rather than simply nerfing player character stats or buffing enemies, 7th Saga decided that it was appropriate to do both, which could make battles feel like unrelenting slogs, especially when considering the game's high encounter rate.

To add insult to injury, it was all too easy to get treated unfairly by 7th Saga. A flawed translation obscures the meaning of some direction and hints. Certain enemies scale to the character's level, which can actually make some fights harder for those who grind. One segment of the game renders magic useless, which obviously affects a magic-focused character build to a disproportionate degree. It's still quite possible to triumph over 7th Saga's trials on the SNES, but it's not always very fun to do so.