I'd love the community's help in building a list of video games that are literally impossible to finish!
No difficult games (Ghosts'n Goblins), no endlessly-looping games (Pac-Man, Animal Crossing). Just programming and design flaws.

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION (Atari 7800, 1987)
The NTSC Atari 7800 version has a confirmed bug that makes the game impossible to win; it places some of the code pieces underneath computer terminals, which the player cannot search (since attempting to do so will access the terminal). The bug was fixed in the PAL version.

SVC: CARD FIGHTERS DS (Nintendo DS, 2006)
Almost immediately after the American NDS version was released, an unavoidable bug was discovered in the game. The bug occurs on the ninth floor of the tower, during the second play through. The game crashes after talking to an opponent named Jon, who has to be defeated in order to finish the game. Fixed versions of the game features a black and white graphic behind the title font on the cartridge's label, while bugged versions feature the label in full color.

JET SET WILLY (ZX Spectrum, 1984)
As originally released, the game could not be completed due to several bugs. Although actually four completely unrelated issues, they became known collectively as "The Attic Bug". After the player entered the room The Attic, various rooms would undergo corruption on all subsequent game plays, including all monsters disappearing from The Chapel, and other screens triggering instant death. This was caused by an error in the path of an arrow in The Attic, resulting in the sprite traveling past the end of the Spectrum's video memory and overwriting crucial game data instead. This bears similarities to a buffer overflow, and as such is an early example of such an error - and the problems it can cause.

RASTAN (Commodore 64, 1988)
The C64 version of the game was notably impossible to finish because of a bug early in the game. This bug prevented a player from making a critical jump from one platform to the other - Rastan would always fall short of the intended point and could never make it across.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (PC, 1989)
It has a massive design flaw in Level 3 that makes it unbeatable without cheating. (Uncrossable jump)

half of action 52 (nes) games.
destiny of an emperor MAY be impossible to beat since a bug made it random whether a key you need will be underneath a tree or not.
BATTLETOADS

and personally, f zero GX story mode.

half of action 52 (nes) games.
destiny of an emperor MAY be impossible to beat since a bug made it random whether a key you need will be underneath a tree or not.
BATTLETOADS

and personally, f zero GX story mode.

I'm looking for impossible games, not difficult games. Action 52 is kind of an outlier, but yeah.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on the Atari 2600 was famously broken in that regard, in that due to an oversight in programming it is virtually impossible not to fall into a hole right at the start and get stuck. Meaning, game over. For this reason it's generally regarded as one of the worst games of all time. ;)

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on the Atari 2600 was famously broken in that regard, in that due to an oversight in programming it is virtually impossible not to fall into a hole right at the start and get stuck. Meaning, game over. For this reason it's generally regarded as one of the worst games of all time. ;)

You didn't Game Over when you fell into a pit, and ET was a beatable game. Again, I don't mean difficult games, I mean impossible-to-see-the-ending games.

Heroin Hero. No matter how hard you try you won't catch that damn dragon.

martian gothic.. I could not kill a hanging monster of some sort every damn time either I got grabbed or it has unlimited health.. I shoot a few shoots and it dies but, this one has immortality