Before the Internet was so easily accessible for the use of cheats and walkthroughs. You had to beat games the old fashion way; by playing through.

With that being said, share your gaming experiences of when a particular game had you stuck and you were either unable to finish in the average window of time or unable to finish at all.

Donkey Kong 64. The Mario Arcade game had me stumped for about 2 years. I'd zoomed through the game (and loved every minute of it), but it was about 24 months before I was able to finally beat the damn Mario game and complete it.

Believe it or not I never beat DK64 either. Couldn't get the big guy out of the cage.

Nope. I still have cheat books from the 90's lying around for all sorts of old games. If I couldn't do it I'd just give up mostly, though.

Oh, and also the Great Bay Temple from Majora's Mask. Nintendo figured "Hey, the water temple was hard, you know what the kids want, another, more difficult water temple, with pipes!"

I actually bought my first ever game guide for MM because of that blasted Temple