The Hardest PS2 Games Published By Sony, Ranked

The NES days were some of the most challenging in all of gaming. Tons of games seemed impossible to beat which was a bit intentional. Ninja Gaiden, for example, was notorious for being a challenging game at the time and it still is.

Games were hard back then because they were covering up the fact they could be beaten within an hour at max. As games evolved, so too did the brain-busting difficulty levels. Even though the PS2 isn’t known for having brutal games on it, there are certainly some that are hard to get into due to weird mechanics or other factors.

8 Mister Mosquito

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 3/5

Mister Mosquito was published by Sony in Japan but by an Eidos Interactive brand in the U.S. As it is a challenging game, let’s still count it as one of Sony’s since it was an exclusive. The game starred a mosquito who had to drain the blood from a Japanese family throughout a few levels. It was a stealth game as getting detected by the person in the middle of a blood session would wake them up and cause them to start attacking players. Mastering the controls and art of stealth could be tricky although nowhere near impossible.

7 Ico

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 3/5

Ico is celebrated as one of those touchstone games that comes along every few years or so. It starred a young boy, Ico, with horns escorting a mysterious girl, Yorda, through decrepit ruins. The entire game could best be described as an escort mission which video game fans probably know is one of the hardest challenges in any game. If players weren’t fast enough to protect Yorda from dangers like shadow people, it was game over. It was also not the best controlling game on PS2, making some of the platforming sections and puzzles harder than they probably were.

6 Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 3/5

A lot of video game fans probably grew up on racing games like Super Mario Kart on SNES which is a very accessible racing game. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec and other entries in the series are more technical and simulation racing games. They’re not for the average user and demand skill above all else.

That’s why these games can be some of the toughest on any system they grace. It takes a lot of practice, time, and dedication to achieve victory through the many courses and modes in this highly acclaimed PS2 racer.

5 Dark Cloud

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 3/5

Dark Cloud is the very first game developed by Level-5 who would go on to create many more RPGs. This first outing was about an evil genie who destroyed the world by capturing people and things in little capsules. Only one survivor, Toad, could stand against this evil. Players would have to venture into dungeons to fight monsters and retrieve these NPCs and objects to rebuild the world. It was a neat idea at the time, but the action combat was deeply challenging. It’s almost like a roguelike in terms of the gameplay loop and challenge.

4 Jak 2

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 4/5

Grant Theft Auto 3 truly changed the landscape of video games on the PS2. Every developer after wanted to make an open-sandbox city game and that’s exactly what Jak 2 was. It was a more mature in your face kind of experience that was no longer a child-centered platformer.

This meant that the difficulty level was cranked up to eleven as well. It wasn’t so much the combat or platforming that was the problem though. It was the arbitrary time extensions and other limitations on certain missions that could make life a living hell for players.

3 Siren

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 4/5

Siren is an underappreciated horror game series that never felt like it got its proper due on any console. One of the reasons for this game in particular may be due to the high challenge level since it was a horror game without a lot of player feedback.

It was more of an adventure game with players solving puzzles and trying to progress through this ever-increasing eerie city in Japan. Besides puzzles solving, players could hide and run from zombie-like humans and other creatures of the night. It still looks good on PS2 and getting through it will be a rewarding and terrifying experience.

2 Lifeline

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 4/5

Lifeline is one of the most forward-thinking horror action games on the PS2. Unfortunately, it was a little too ahead of its time because the technology wasn’t there. Instead of controlling the protagonist, Rio, manually, players had to instruct her through a peripheral headset. They could walk around the space station, look for items, and solve puzzles.

When aliens were found, battles began like in an RPG akin to Parasite Eve. On its own, it would be remembered as an interesting one-off PS2 horror-action hybrid. Because of the odd and unresponsive controls though, it’ll go down as one of the hardest games on the system.

1 Final Fantasy 11

GameFAQs Difficulty Level: 4/5

Final Fantasy 11 is another game tied to a peripheral although this one was successful. To play this game, players needed to get the PlayStation Hard Drive for the PS2 which some other games took advantage of too. This had to be one of the hardest games in the series since the NES days. To gain levels, players had to put a massive amount of time into the game.

Getting a party together helped, but some players weren’t gifted with comrades. Those who stuck to the franchise’s first MMO knew exactly how challenging and rewarding the experience was over a decade after starting.