Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

I saw some posts talking about difficult bosses and I thought I would ask posters here what were some of the hardest games you have beaten or perhaps felt the most rewarded beating.

Personally, I'm trying to think of some console or handheld games that would go on my list but I think almost all of mine would be on the PC. I'll add some console games if I think of some.

1. Might and Magic 6: This game was absolutely brutal with status effects and also filling certain high reward areas with high risk monsters. The town with the best equipment to buy was overrun by titans which makes you wonder why the shopkeepers stayed.

2. Might and Magic 3: Only old game in the series I played a lot, the final few areas were crazy in terms of monster difficulty.

3. Icewind Dale: Kind of like the dungeon delving version of Baldur's Gate. Some of the battles were absolutely crazy. For example at the bottom of one dungeon some evil queen like monster had 20-30 minions with her against my 6 party members, I had my mage summon about 7-8 skeletons to try to protect my weaker characters and spent the next 20 minutes moving one endangered party member around after another desperately finding ways to heal them.

4. Ultima 6: Great game, but hated the dungeons, everything looked the same, I plan on playing the recently released Ultima 6 Project made on a modern engine which supposedly also has some really tricky dungeons.

I'm trying to think of some hard console games, perhaps Dragon Quest 2? but really that doesn't compare to anything above.

I beat The 7th Saga.

I'll have to say that the hardest RPGs I've beaten were 7th Saga and Illusion of Gaia. Though games like these aren't really all that hard once you learn what strategies work best. I've also been able to beat Tales of Phantasia on hard mode while also completing all side quests (including the lower levels of the Moria Gallery). As for SRPGs, I've beaten Jutei Senki (both the story and expert levels), Tactics Ogre, Der Langrisser (Imperial path) and the three GBA Fire Emblem games along with the Snes Fire Emblem - Monshou no Nazo.

I've beaten 7th Saga also, Fire Emblem Thracia for the SNES was a very brutal game to beat but also a very good one.

They all basically have the same story.

It's difficult because of various dumb that arose during the localization process - you gain dramatically less stat bonuses from level up than you would in the Japanese version. And then the other apprentices that you occasionally have to fight are scaled to your level, and *have* gained the stat bonuses in-line with the Japanese version, which makes them a hell of a lot harder than they should be. As if the game wasn't excessively grindy already...

Eh, what are you talking about? You can avoid most enemy encounters in this game by walking away from the white moving squares on the upper sphere. This is one of the best games ever made and one of my all time favorites. Having seven characters also gives it a lot of replay value. The crystal ball is also useful for showing you where treasures are and the runes along with enemies and towns.

Please complete a few more dungeons first, and then tell us it's not ridiculous.

(no real, those missing stat bonuses will add up, and it won't be too long before you're finding yourself regularly dying in a single unlucky turn)

SPOILER BELOW:
At two points in the game, you will HAVE to fight one of the other characters (though supposedly the second is avoidable if you're lucky). When I played as the dwarf, I had to fight the priest. That is very bad. He has a high Magic stat, and the dwarf has a low magic stat (made even crappier by the broken stat generation). The only way I survived was by luck, and by knowing that if you defend one turn, you'll do double damage on the next. The priest will use Heal 2 if you do more than 90 damage to him, in addition to barraging you with his Ice magic. The only way you're going to survive is to hit him once, and then do a double-damage hit and hope you get a critical hit (2 attakcks) to do enough damage for the win.

Though if you have the priest as an ally, it will be a HUGE boost to finishing the game. At level 42, he learns the Elixir spell, that, as long as you keep his MP above 120, he can cast it to restore full HP and MP at any time (so with 240, you get infinite healing for both characters).

My favorite character would have to be Lux as he's got the highest HP and defense. He's attack is also very high and you don't need to equip any weapons on him (well, you can buy some stuff for him really late in the game where you can also get his stats boosted). Lux pretty much has the highest overall stat growth of all the characters. Esuna makes a good companion for him, but Valsu and Kamil are also good choices. All the characters have their strengths and weaknesses, you should choose to play with whom best suits your playing style and pick a companion who will fill in for your weakness (so if your playing as a fighter, choose a magic user as a companion).

Edit: There's actually a fair number of nice rare items hidden around in 7th Saga which would be hard to find on your own. Luckily, a person on youtube posted two videos which show you where you can find each one. I would post a link to it, but I don't want to spoil the game for you (personally, I don't know why people care so much about spoilers... I really don't and usually read an entire walkthrough before playing a game just so that I can get all the secrets and bonus/side quests, etc.). You can easily find them if you wish by running a search for "7th Saga hidden items". If you're looking for a section on the characters, magic, items, towns or the walkthrough, you can visit the shrine over at rpgclassics (gamefaqs is also good, but they don't have nice shrines for rpgs, just text documents).

No, there isn't any secret eighth character, just the seven which you see at the character select screen; Kamil, Olvan, Esuna, Wilme, Lux, Valsu and Lejes. It is called 7th Saga after all, there's seven apprentices who were trained by Lemele and whom seek the Runes.

Edit: A tip for 7th Saga, defend before you attack as it will do bonus damage. Using this with a attack doubling spell or item will greatly increase your attack power. You can even beat an apprentice in one shot this way! Use this strategy to your advantage!

7th Saga
Dark Law Meaning of Death
(for the hard puzzles more than anything else) Alundra
(for the hard puzzles more than the (easy) battles) Lufia 2
Rudra No Hihou (in fact this is one of the only games, of many many dozen that I have gotten past the 50% mark and yet, not beaten).
(Now this was years ago) but I think I remember Legend of Legaia being pretty tough. I would like to give that another spin and see.

I will try to think of more later as I have played a ton of rpgs.