hold up...dude couldn't beat Altered Beast? That game was mad easy bro. So were the Super Mario games. I was beating those at like 8, 9, 10 years old. Super Mario 2 used to have a lil nikka mad intimidated, though, after picking up a key and that head would fly at you and shyt...and the mouse boss...and the dragon...but then I learned about the warps...the Megaman X games were challenging but far from unbeatable as well.
You know what game, that if you beat it, would make you a god of video games in my eyes? Contra 3: The Alien Wars--if you could beat this game one player on Hard, you have successfully won at life.
Oh yeah, and fukk Rygar. NES had some impossible fukking games looking back, lol. There was this one game, where you rode a skateboard on like the first or second level...and the game had like 20 fukking levels and NO CONTINUES...that shyt was hard as fukk.