7. The Professor Layton series
The Professor Layton games start off at a rather slow pace, but soon enough you’ll encounter that one riddle. The one riddle that, for some inane reason, you are absolutely hopeless at solving. What’s worst about the one riddle (apart from the fact that so many of them pop up in every single Professor Layton game) is the fact that it’s different for each person. There are just some types of riddles that certain people can’t solve to save their lives. Yet you still can’t help but love the Layton games for their enjoyable challenge and undeniable charm. And thus every game that comes out in the series becomes another impassable obstacle.
6. The Phoenix Wright series
The Phoenix Wright games all have fantastic stories. It’s the digital equivalent of a page turner but, unlike your favourite work of fiction, you can’t progress through the story if you get stuck on any of the investigation sections. The court scenes that characterise the game are enjoyable enough to not be too frustrating, but the investigation sections that see you gathering clues were just a damn irritant. They weren’t really all that fun, and you always happened to miss that one really obscure or hard to see clue, obstructing and impeding your progress indefinitely.
5. Puzzle Fighter 2
Puzzle Fighter 2 is a bit of a cult favourite among both puzzle game fans and Street Fighter aficionados. Yet it is also the puzzle equivalent of Mario Kart with its obscene catch-up logic. You can be chaining gems together and absolutely schooling your buddies but, with every combo you make, you give your opponent more gems that they can use against you. If you time it wrong and let up for even a second you’ll find the game flipping into reverse and destroying you. In terms of humiliation it is right up there with the blue shell, and earns Puzzle Fighter 2 the title of the fifth puzzle game that is most likely to make you want to tear your hair out.
4. Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir has a special place in my heart, and is one of the few really old school games that has made this list. The atmosphere and snappy dialogue made Noir an instant fan favourite and even though the puzzles were generally of a pretty standard difficulty, there was one section that had me on the back foot for the entirety of my youth. And the solution to this problem lay in one sodding letter. When you reach this point in the game you only need to return to the protagonist, Luton’s, office and find a letter that has been posted under his door. The problem is that the game had such a gloomy and dark graphical palette that the letter was almost impossible to spot. Once I found the letter the rest of the game fell into place and it has since become one of my favourite point and click adventure games, but that one bloody letter was enough to really drive me round the bend.
