5 gaming feats of strength every gamer holds as a badge of honor

There are some gaming accomplishments that stick with you for life. It's not because they unlocked a skin for you, or got you a Platinum trophy, but because they demanded everything from you. They were tough, unforgiving, and sometimes soul-crushing. But when you finally beat them? You felt like a god.

This isn't about beating difficult bosses, but rather unlocking achievements or beating games that every gamer holds as notches on their belt — feats of strength that they casually bring up in every gaming conversation, forever.

6 Beating Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

An exercise in patience, learning, and tenacity

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Beating Sekiro is a badge of honor for any gamer, even the Soulslike veterans who pride themselves on beating the Souls games. This isn't a game that allows you to circumvent tough bosses or areas by just changing your build, incantations, or armor, no. In Sekiro, there is just you and your katana from beginning to end. If you can't beat a boss or keep dying in one particular area, there is nothing to do except one single thing — keep trying and get better.

From Lady Butterfly to the Demon of Hatred, and then to one of the toughest bosses ever, Isshin, the Sword Saint, Sekiro is packed with fights you will struggle to get through, and that's the whole point. What Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice teaches its players is that they have nobody to blame but themselves, and once they realize that and decide to keep dying, coming back, dying again, but getting better, it becomes a learning experience.

You can't blame your weapons, because there is only one. You can't blame your armor build, because there are none in Sekiro. You can only keep retrying, and becoming better for it. A beautiful exercise in tenacity, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a wonderful game that is less Soulslike, but quintessential Miyazaki.

4 Beating Contra with no cheat codes

There's no Konami 30-lives code to save you

Beating Contra with no cheat codes, and just the classic three lives, is one of those feats that make you feel like you've achieved gaming nirvana. This is no mere test of reflexes or muscle memory, no. It's about knowing exactly when to shoot, jump, duck, and slide through a barrage of pixel-perfect bullets from soldiers and machines that never seem to run out of fuel or batteries. You get no second chances in Contra. There's no armor or regenerating health here, either. Just you, a buddy or brother if you're lucky, and the raw desire to not see that "Game Over" screen if you eat just a single stray bullet.

For the longest time, I couldn't even finish Contra with the 30-life Konami Code. Heck, I'd only get to play it during summer breaks at a cousin's place on a bootleg Famiclone, and when those fifteen short days ended, so did my chances. It wasn't until the pandemic years later, while sifting through my retro backlog, that I finally beat it. But even then, it was with the infamous cheat. No shame, sure, but the real trophy came over a decade later, when I finished it clean when college shut down during the pandemic. No Konami Code, just pure, unfiltered side-scrolling chaos.

Beating Contra with three lives feels like you've truly cracked the code — the one you earn, and not the one you input.

3 Unlocking the "Seriously..." achievement in Gears of War'

This one required skill, endurance, and sheer force of will

What's the digital equivalent of etching your name onto a granite wall of legends? It's getting the "Seriously..." achievement in Gears of War. This is an achievement that doesn't require traditional skill. Instead, it demands sheer, relentless endurance on the part of the player. 10,000 kills. Ten. Thousand. Kills. That's what this achievement demands from the player. And these aren't campaign or horde kills, either. These are pure, unfiltered multiplayer versus kills. Just hearing about it makes my head wobble — it's clear that only the players who love the game could ever unlock this one.

Back in the day, however, things were even tougher. This had to be done only in ranked matches, but the Ultimate Edition of Gears of War relaxed that constraint by letting players count kills from any multiplayer versus mode to go towards unlocking "Seriously...". Make no mistake, though. Hitting that 10K, even in the Ultimate Edition, was a grind of epic proportions.

This wasn't something you got by accident, no. You required laser-focus and monomaniacal obsession to unlock this achievement. You needed to live in those lobbies, with your lancers and gnashers becoming extensions of your body as you counted each kill like rings on a tree stump. That ticker climbed ever so slowly, teasing you, egging you on towards that elusive goal.

Very few people have this achievement, and fewer still got it in the original version of the game. I just can't wait to see what Gears of War: E-Day's version of this achievement will be.

2 Beating Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!

An achievement everyone who beat Iron Mike still talks about

Beating Iron Mike in Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! isn't about reflexes or pattern recognition — that trick might work for other fights in other Punch Out games, but not with Mike. For him, you have to enter a Zen-like state, where your thumbs, brain, and soul are all in perfect sync. Why? Because Tyson doesn't fight fair. He doesn't give you time to warm up. Heck, those first 90 seconds are among the most intense in all of retro gaming. One wrong dodge, one mistimed jab, or a split-second glance away from the screen, and Little Mac is flat on his back before you can even blink. Tyson can't be beaten with luck, guys. You have to transform into a machine to beat him.

I remember playing this game on the family Famiclone, never getting past Bald Bull. Tyson was an entirely different story, or even an unreachable fable. A final boss I never even saw, let alone beat. But years later, when emulation opened the doors again, I came back, I studied, trained, and got knocked out a hundred times. I even came close to breaking the controller multiple times. But with every Load State, I could feel myself closing in on that flow state, that Ultra-Instinct transformation where I could sense every uppercut and hook before Tyson even twitched.

I never got there, though. Beating Tyson is not something I've done — a missing badge from my sash of 25 years of gaming. But I know people who have, and those that did all have one common thing to say — they sat there in stunned silence after beating Iron Mike, and that victory is one they will tell anyone who is willing to listen.

1 Beating Doom Eternal on Ultra Nightmare

A crucible meant only for the strongest of Slayers

I've jumped into the jaws of hell and come out grinning with a blood-soaked double-barrelled shotgun. Yes, I've beaten Doom Eternal on Ultra-Nightmare difficulty. This particular feat doesn't need you to just be 'good' at shooters. Instead, it requires surgical precision, environmental awareness, split-second decision-making, and above all, sheer refusal to quit. Ultra Nightmare makes enemies harder, ammo scarcer, one life, one death, and it sends you all the way back to the start.

I do understand that the permadeath feature could've been better implemented, and could've taken a page from Dead Space 2's book, but even then, there's nothing like Doom Eternal's Ultra Nightmare mode. You don't get to panic here. You don't get to experiment, either. Every jump, flame belch, chainsaw rip, and meat hook dash must be executed with intent. You need to know every map, every arena, and every enemy like the back of your hand. This is where you have to become the Slayer — the quiet, furious marine who doesn't think. He rips and tears.

There's nothing like Ultra Nightmare in Doom Eternal. Beating this mode means you've mastered the game in every sense. Not just the mechanics, but the pace, the rhythm, the spawn points of the demons, and the rhythm and dance of it all. You slip into a trance, chaining kills, cycling weapons, and reading arenas in a heartbeat, all while your own thunders in your eardrums.

These achievements were more than just tests of skill

There's always a mountain to climb, and once you reach the top, you'll never forget the view.

The beautiful thing about gaming is that no matter your skill level or genre preference, there's always a mountain to climb. Once you reach the top, you'll never forget the view. These feats are some of many that became more than just tests of reflexes or endurance. They became trials of will, patience, and above all, passion.

Maybe you've done them all. Maybe you've got your own, too. But what binds all gamers together is that we remember the fights and achievements that nearly broke us, but gave us something to hold with pride for our lives.