http://pc.ign.com/articles/774/774907p1.html
So IGN has this list up of hardest games. I'll give them most of the titles on that list as I've played the majority of them.
Then they go and put Megaman on there. Now, if they put any entry from the Zero series in there, or the later X games (like 5 on), I'd have their back. They put the FIRST one in there though.
Yes, it didn't have save points, but hard? Perhaps, but nothing nearly approaching the level of those other games. Megaman actually got EASIER from there for a while. The first X game was noted as being almost offensively easy in fact. Megaman is an interesting series mainly because in the current era, they seem to have substituted ridiculous difficulty for innovation. The current Megaman games are way harder than the old ones.
What should they have put in there? Well, I for one submit that Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels (Japan's SMB2) would be a great contender. That game was HARD.
Well, Database Error wiped out my first post (So annoying!), so I'll (try but probably fail to) be brief...
My problems with the list:
-Mega Man -- completely agree. The NES games aren't that hard in retrospect. Mega Man Zero, Mega Man & Bass, or Mega Man X6 is the hardest, not MM1-NES.
-R-Type -- hard, but overrated. I've actually beaten R-Type and R-Type 2, unlike a whole lot of other shmups... their very puzzle-intensive level designs are what makes them beatable. They certainly are incredibly frusterating games, but once you figure out what you have to do in each level you'll beat them. The games are very ordered, so your solution to each situation will work almost every time... no, while I consider them hard and really frusterating (and not much fun to replay, as a result) there's no way I'd call R-Type the hardest shmup ever. Not even close. Newer bullet-hell games are harder, for one -- see Mars Matrix, DoDonPachi, the Touhou shmups, etc. I will admit an exception for versions of R-Type games with limited continues, since that means that just instead of replaying the last segment until you get it right you need to replay the whole game until you get it right, but even there, there's harder. And most of the versions of the R-Type games have unlimited continues, as far as I know. Super R-Type and R-Type DX do, for sure...
Really, I'd even consider Gradius I (NES) harder than R-Type. "If you die at any time in the game you should start over, because that's the best way to get to the next level" is harder than "you'll get through once you figure out the pattern"... Gradius III's arcade version is also worthy of mention (that's also the version available on the PS2 and PSP). The SNES version is hard but fun, but the arcade one is infamously insane in its difficulty level. And more. The shmup genre is the hardest one around... it's probably impossible to say which one is hardest. So instead of trying they simply said "oh forget it let's go with the obvious choice and say R-Type!", which is too bad.
-MDK2 -- no way does it deserve to be on this list. Yes, I know that the DC and PS2 versions have savepoints, while the PC version that I own and completed has save-anywhere, and save anywhere makes games much, much less frusterating. I just don't remember it being that ridiculously hard... now T.M.N.T. (the sidescroller -- that is, the first NES game, or the PC port of that game that I owned), THAT is hard. MDK2? Frusterating in parts thanks to where it puts its savepoints I'm sure, but deserving of this list... not from what I played.
-Contra -- Contra is hard, for sure (I had a friend in college a few years ago who owned a NES and that game and loved it and said he could finish it without dying sometimes, but that had obviously taken years of effort...), but ... the hardest? It's not even the hardest game within its own series! Contra: Hard Corps for the Genesis is harder. Limited lives, limited continues, NO HUNDRED-LIFE CHEATCODES... that game had some great design ideas with branching stages, an actual plot, etc, but the utterly ridiculous difficulty sabotages it.
I can't argue with Battletoads, Super Ghouls & Ghosts, or F-Zero GX, though... (except to note that they obviously don't mean "hardest to learn", or the winner would be a flight or driving sim like Grand Prix Legends or Falcon 4.0. Old games, but still among the most complex ever...)