Recommended challenge runs

Games that are particularly good tend to justify spending time and effort to master.

You unlock and complete the game on the hardest difficulty. Maybe you do so without saving at all. Whatever the case, sometimes this isn't enough. Sometimes the player demands more from the game, further challenges beyond the benchmark the game expects the player to exceed.

What are some good examples of challenge runs I can try out myself? The only ones I know of are stuff like low % runs for Metroid, low level runs for Dark souls and Tyson mode in Doom.

F.E.A.R. melee only.

Neverwinter Nights OC low level run, probably with a rogue.

Single player, not multi, fucked up my embed.
Vinnie the pooh baseball nightm- game in moonrunes with no upgrades.
Binding of Isaac challenges.
Postal 1 with no casualties.

Dead Rising Series; 100% Run (Save Every Hostage + Get Best Ending)

Less "hardest difficulty" and more "create a difficulty where there's none" ? Pokemon's Nuzlocke Challenge. Especially when you add the "no items outside of battle items during battle", to avoid healing spam.

You mean the ones the game provides you with? That's not a challenge run then, it's just 100%ing a game

I once did an itemless equipmentless run of earthbound when I was younger
I had to equip some shot for ness's nightmare because that ohko was fucking me over every time
and then i forgot to unequip for a little while afterwards, but whatever

diablo 1 ironman

RE4 knife run

A 1cc in any arcade game is fairly challenging in itself. You could also try not using certain items or abilities, or try going for the lowest score possible by avoiding item pickups and destroying enemies.

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
1. Hardcore.
2. Stealth Archer.
3. You cannot kick.

Im srtill trying to 1cc donpachi and raiden 1. That shit is too hard. i did put raiden 1 on the hardest difficuly though

If it counts, I'm actually doing something of a challenge in the DoW: Dark Crusade campaign mode, which is to complete each faction campaign without taking the Pavonis spaceport.

Since the spaceport allows you to rush the territories with either elite troops for your honour guard or the ones with special abilities, it's pretty much broken as you can just rush your enemies with those troops during the early stages of battle on any conquest.

This makes for a distinct conquest path for every faction, forcing you to plan ahead for the battles you want to take on your way to completing the campaign.

However, this can create an issue. If you want to also take each and every one of the strongholds (like I do), there is a chance that someone else attacks a stronghold and takes it before you do. This is only if you want to do it though, it can be a huge relieve, especially if you plan to try this kind-of, sort-of challenge on hard difficulty.

I don't know if this counts for you OP, just gave my two cents.

Valkyria Chronicles
1. You cannot use the scout class.

Beating all of the stages in Cloudbuilt without using the booster was fairly enjoyable

I attempted a 3-heart run of Wind Waker once. Though since Ganondork and some other big bads can hit your for more than 3 hearts of damage, the Magic Armor becomes essential. And we all remember what a pain the trading quest for it was…

Baldurs Gate AD&D Edition:
1. Death means starting over.
2. You cannot save scum.
3. You get one ability score roll.

Star Wars KotOR: The Original Trilogy
1. You may only use force powers from the original trilogy or that come with a companion by default.
2. You must use a single lightsaber.

Final Fantasy: Theatrical Edition
1. You must bring a Fighter, Black Mage, Thief, and Red Mage.
2. You cannot grind for levels.
3. Fighter can only use swords.
4. Black Mage can only use a dagger or high-level spells.
5. Red Mage may only cast spells in boss battles.

they really don't, you sad no-life super-virgin incel loser

Fallout new vegas:
1.No save
2.Unarmed only
3.You must take every liqour you find as part of your alcoholic character

Are you really sure Holla Forums is the board for you?

Dragons Dogma
1. You are a Mage.
2. No pawns.

Solo mage is pretty easy. In fact any type of solo in that game is easy if you know what you're doing. I'd recommend solo fists only on hard mode. I've actually did it once and it's not as hard as it sounds, it's pretty funny too but you'll have trouble fighting some of the enemies.

DOOM UV -fast speedruns (meaning single segments, meaning you can't die unless you hit the end level trigger after you die) you know it's gonna be good when the official rules allow you to skip several things because they're "unfair"

Crash 1-3 no death or dev times for Crash 3

Any decent stealth game pure ghosting / no items unless absolutely required (Thief in particular, MGS is a good one too)

Megaman 1-10 buster only (no hit if you're a masochist)

Assault Android Cactus Ironman S+ (aka all the level back to back and back to 1-1 if not S+) 5-4 will make you it's bitch not even the hardest thing in the game either

Also a bunch of easier ones

Okami "godhood is your lifebar"

F.E.A.R no slowmo extreme

Armored Core 2 (and all the PS2 ones for that matter) energy weapon+tank legs (no KARASAWA, no LR, no H+/OPI)

Space Invaders 1999 maniacal one life clear

It's not so much difficult as it is painfully tedious because of how absolutely shit Mage is as a class.

Heh, this thread just motivated me to start a System Shock 2 Psi only run.

No guns, no wrenches, just your weird little Psi-thingamabob, YOUR BEAUTIFUL MIND and waay too many Psi-hypos.

This is pretty good, but fuck those bugged arrow traps. One of those ended my run in the Catacombs as I went from max to dead in half a second.

How do you handle this fucker consistently?

have you ever played a game where the challenge is not using the cheat code?

E.Y.E Damocles Sword only
1. Ghost difficulty and Invasion spawn rate
2. You can choose your armor (not like it matters anyway)
3. Psi powers are allowed

i haven't git gud enough

i havent even gotten that far

Nice, I like these ones.

Go fast or go home

...

Insanity.

Beat New Super Mario Bros 2 without getting any coins.

I don't know how fun it would be for anyone else or if I'd recommend a run of it if they were interested.

In Secret of Evermore, I did a no armor/alchemy run, with the added restraints of no 'unnecessary' enemy killing that could help to grind money; not allowing the dog to attack to do overpowered damage; the use of only the starting weapon and first tier spear for puzzle clearing.

It was surprisingly fun, imo, as there was suddenly a strategy where you had to manage your gold to buy both healing items and status restores. Pixie dust is basically a must buy to survive bullshit combo attacks.

The first two bosses are almost capable of killing you in 2 hits, if you're unlucky enough to get stunned, such as with the first boss: you get knocked back by the roar attack and alchemy gets cast on you immediately afterwards; you instantly die.

Fallout 4 Survival mode.

Solofists assassin or strider is fun. Problem is that you need two of those rings to get decent damage out of them.

A good challenge run outside of that is doing a hand to hand run in daggerfall. Without being a wereboar/werewolf, it focuses on extremely fast movement and rapid attacks to Punch demons out.