Boss Fights.

[20percentcooler]

Name the most annoying boss fights from video games.
I'll start: Demyx from Kingdom Hearts Two. If you don't Recognize the name, you will recognize the annoying catchphrase "DANCE WATER DANCE!" "LIKE IT?"

[Sith_Happens]

I have horrible, scarring memories of Kazdan Paratus from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Specifically, of the giant junk golem he summons twice, in a room too small to avoid any of its attacks and devoid of things to throw at it to trigger a quicktime execution without whittling down most of its health bar first.:smallfurious::smallsigh:

[Acanous]

Never played any of the Kingdom Hearts games, and I actually had a remarkably easy time against those junk golems on my first playthrough. I just lucked out on the quicktime executions not being interrupted. My roommate got so frustrated about a week and a half later that he stoped playing. I asked what part, and was positively flummoxed he was having a hard time of it.

That's when I found out my playthrough was riding the bell curve at that particular boss fight XD

For me, I think it will always be Tyrant from Resident Evil: Code Veronica.
When you're in that tiny little cargo area, and he's walking unstoppably towards you JUST as you thought "Hey, I finally got off that dang zombie island and now I can relax!". Your ammo reserves are depleted, you've got no room to maneuver, and your panic button has a long recharge.

That, and the cinematic for it. Awesome.

[Weezer]

I hate the boss fights in Deus Ex: HR. The whole game lets you play a sneaky, non-confrontational style, but all the boss fights can only be beaten by the guns blazing approach. Really irritating.

[Zevox]

Marie, from Skullgirls. You know how lots of players complain about fighting game bosses being cheap? Usually they're wrong, and it's just a matter of figuring out how the boss works - the problem is that it requires a change of mindset from the rest of the game, since the bosses work more like a puzzle to be solved than a fight to be overcome. However, it seems the designers of Skullgirls decided to show off what an actual ridiculously cheap boss fight in a fighting game would be like.

She never takes hitstun, and has three forms, much like a Marvel vs Capcom boss, so you'd think she'd have slow, highly telegraphed attacks with lots of time in between where she does nothing, also like a Marvel vs Capcom boss. That is not the case at all. Instead she constantly fills the screen with projectiles - plenty of small skulls that move slowly, plus larger attacks from minions she calls up out of thin air. Your only warning of most of her attacks is a small movement of her arm, and that disappears entirely in her third form, where she becomes just a black sphere with no actual animation outside of her movement left and right across the screen. Oh, and in that last form she's floating in the air, outside the reach of most of the cast's super moves.

Oh, and most of the game's characters do not have anything resembling strong enough projectiles to fight her from a distance, and even the one that does is nowhere near as good at filling the screen with stuff as she is, making it hard for even her to just win a projectile war. Put that together with the "never takes hitstun" and "little or no warning for many of her attacks" parts you end up with a boss where you are completely at her mercy the whole time - at any point when you're hitting her she can decide to throw out one of her attacks, auto-hitting you because you obviously can't block mid-attack. And that's when you get in close, because again, most of the cast has to, and this boss is very good at keeping you from doing so, since she fills the screen with projectiles constantly.

Yeah, I really like Skullgirls as a whole, but damn that boss is awful. I can beat any other AI fight in that game on the highest difficulty, but I've never beaten her above normal, and have always required multiple tries to do even that.

Zevox

[Tengu_temp]

Dr Wily in I Wanna Be The Guy. He's so hard you're most likely to die within seconds, but he's also a part of a boss rush - the other two before him are really easy, but defeating them both requires a few minutes, most of which you spend waiting.

It's an extremely frustrating experience. And since it's IWBTG, it was designed that way on purpose.

[Sith_Happens]

Ooh, I forgot about fighting games. In that case Paratus pales in comparison to...

Eight-Tails Form Killer Bee during the epilogue of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2.

For those of you not familiar with the game, each character has a super mode they can go into once they're down to around 40% health, the catch being that your opponent has a 2-3 second window to stop you each time you try to do so. Killer Bee's is the second-most overpowered such mode in the game, to the point that if you successfully enter it you're pretty much guaranteed to win the fight, even if your opponent is still at near-full health.

Now, normally the boss fights in the game's story mode actually have non-standard setups and special mechanics rather than just being glorified, harder regular-fights. The designers apparently got lazy at the end though and didn't want to do that for Sasuke vs. Killer Bee, so instead they just make you fight two full health bars of the latter's super mode.:smallfurious:

[Knight13]

I hate the boss fights in Deus Ex: HR. The whole game lets you play a sneaky, non-confrontational style, but all the boss fights can only be beaten by the guns blazing approach. Really irritating.
I hear this complaint all the time, but I really don't see it. I built my Adam as a sneaky hacker, yet the bosses were, if anything, too easy. The first one can be easily defeated with a single Praxis point. After hearing all the hype about how hard the bosses were, I was seriously surprised when I beat him in 15 seconds. The second boss is cake if you have at least the first level of the Typhoon and not much harder if you don't. The third boss can be one-shotted with a single melee takedown. At that point the game just isn't trying anymore. The final boss has TWO different ways to bypass the entire puzzle fight and just kill her immediately.

As for me:

Xigbar, Kingdom Hearts 2: His attacks are fast, strong and difficult to dodge.

Sniper Wolf, Metal Gear Solid: Seriously, screw this chick. I always end up just taking the cheap copout option and hiding in the corner where she can't hit me so I can whittle her down with Nikita guided missiles.

Might think of more later.

[Cespenar]

That Damn Bosmer in Morrowind's expansion, Tribunal.

The guy approaches you and begs you for money, since he has been down on his luck as of late. First he asks for 50 gold. If you do give him the amount, he'll make up another excuse and want a further 100 gold from you. After that, 1000 gold. Then, 10000. Then, 1m. If you at any point refuse to give him the money, he'll get angry and stop speaking to you. And he doesn't even believe that you'd give him the final amount of 1m, because no one would have that kind of money. :smallfurious:

Anyway, regardless of how you deal with the situation, you end up upsetting him. Then, two days later, he somehow returns with a full set of Ebony Mail and attacks you on sight. He is stronger than any character in the game, including the pseudo-gods of the setting, of which one is supposed to have the power to rewrite reality... or something.

Also to note is that the guy has a Luck stat of 770. In a game where 100 is the maximum (except with bug exploits).

[Mx.Silver]

Ah, Lost Odyssey. The game where the Bosses come in one of two varieties, relatively simple (most of them) or infuriating. Bogimoray, aka the second boss of the game, is particularly infamous due to having a very strong area effect attack that paralyses everyone and as such is bordering on impossible if you haven't managed to grind-up everyone to get paralysis-immunity. The Heavy Tank on disc 4 is similarly nigh-impossible unless you've managed to get everyone fire-immunity, as it can pretty much one-shot most of your party.

The special award though, has to go to Living Ice, whom you face during the obligatory 'split-the-party' section. You face it with essentially an all-caster team. It can cast reflect on itself, and it can do this before the spells your characters are casting have resolved. In other words you'll have had your offensive casters use their fire-spells, it casts reflect, and you get to watch as you team proceeds to incinerate themselves and there is nothing you can do about it.
Incidentally, the next boss that section of the party faces has reflect cast permanently on itself.

[Othesemo]

The dragon from Witcher II. I played through the whole damn game, and then I couldn't beat the dragon on easy difficulty. After something like twenty resets, I just gave up.

[Weezer]

I hear this complaint all the time, but I really don't see it. I built my Adam as a sneaky hacker, yet the bosses were, if anything, too easy. The first one can be easily defeated with a single Praxis point. After hearing all the hype about how hard the bosses were, I was seriously surprised when I beat him in 15 seconds. The second boss is cake if you have at least the first level of the Typhoon and not much harder if you don't. The third boss can be one-shotted with a single melee takedown. At that point the game just isn't trying anymore. The final boss has TWO different ways to bypass the entire puzzle fight and just kill her immediately.


The first run through I didn't really have any trouble, because I actually had guns/typhoon. The second I went purely non-lethal and thus was kinda screwed. The first boss was doable (threw explosive barrels at him), the second I'm currently stuck at because my only guns are a pistol and the MG you pick up right outside. I don't have typhoon, because I'm going non-lethal so it's useless. It's when you go for non-lethal (a playthrough style that is rewarded in every other area of the game) that the bosses become ridiculous. All the techniques/skills used for a non-lethal runthough are essentially useless.

[Rake21]

Speaking of Kingdom Hearts, I have to go with Xaldin. Seriously, screw that guy. I can't remember the last time I was that frustrated with a single enemy. The entire fight feels like your running away from the guy. I remember the game eventually taking pity on me and tossing me Mickey to save my ass afterthe fifth death.

For sheer obnoxiousness, though, I have to go with that damn catepillar boss from LOZ: Link to the Past. You know the one. The guy who really doesn't hurt you all that much, but instead likes to continuously knock Link off a raised platform down to a lower room. God, I hat that thing.:smallfurious:

Still great games though

[Teln]

Overdrive Sin from FFX. You have 16 turns to inflict 140,000 points of damage before Sin unleashes Giga-Graviton and triggers an instant Game Over.

[RagingKrikkit]

Ganon in Ocarina of Time. What's that you say? He's easy? Try doing it wearing the Iron Boots, using the megaton hammer (except the last two hits that you need the Master Sword for), without using anything else, including arrows, faries, and potions.

[Zevox]

Ganon in Ocarina of Time. What's that you say? He's easy? Try doing it wearing the Iron Boots, using the megaton hammer (except the last two hits that you need the Master Sword for), without using anything else, including arrows, faries, and potions.
That's just deliberately fighting stupidly though. Doing that can make just about any boss fight difficult.

Zevox

[Tengu_temp]

The dragon from Witcher II. I played through the whole damn game, and then I couldn't beat the dragon on easy difficulty. After something like twenty resets, I just gave up.

I didn't find the dragon to be very hard myself. I played the game on medium and only lost to this boss once, due to failing at the quick time event rather than the battle per se. Drinking potions before the fight helps a lot. The two big bosses in the first act were both much harder for me, and each one took numerous tries.

[Sith_Happens]

Ganon in Ocarina of Time. What's that you say? He's easy? Try doing it wearing the Iron Boots, using the megaton hammer (except the last two hits that you need the Master Sword for), without using anything else, including arrows, faries, and potions.


That's just deliberately fighting stupidly though. Doing that can make just about any boss fight difficult.

Zevox

That does bring up a good question though: I've never seen someone not get the Biggoron Sword; is Ganon noticeably harder without it?

[Zejety]

Marie, from Skullgirls.
I second Marie.

Instead she constantly fills the screen with projectiles - plenty of small skulls that move slowly
You forgot to mention that they move in the dreaded medusa head pattern. :smallfurious:

[Geno9999]

That does bring up a good question though: I've never seen someone not get the Biggoron Sword; is Ganon noticeably harder without it?

I've done it without the Biggoron Sword. I always switched to the Megaton Hammer for that fight until I got the sword back.
Overall I don't remember him being too hard.

Anyway, Sharkman from MegaMan BattleNetwork. He has two invincible duplicates on two of his columns, and if he or any of his duplicates are on the same row as you, they make an invincible dash attack. When you do find the real Sharkman, he uses Water Tower that homes in on your position. After taking some damage, he hides back in the "water" with his duplicates, in a random column, so you have to do the whole shtick again. He's Water type, sure, so the ElecMan navichip is useful against him, but I've noticed that Electric type chips are either slow or close range, so you have to hope that Sharkman is hiding in the front column.

[Zevox]

That does bring up a good question though: I've never seen someone not get the Biggoron Sword; is Ganon noticeably harder without it?
I've sometimes fought him without the Biggorn Sword by choice (didn't want to give up my shield). You just use the megaton hammer when you get a shot at his tail - not a major change from the Biggorn Sword.


I second Marie.
Somebody else on this forum is playing Skullgirls? Sweet :smallbiggrin: .


You forgot to mention that they move in the dreaded medusa head pattern. :smallfurious:
:smallconfused: "Medusa head pattern?" What's that?

Zevox

[Battleship789]

The Gotenks fusion (you are Gogeta) fight in Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 on Z2/Z3 difficulty... I'm not sure if it is beatable. Since fusion dance forms have unlimited Ki for the duration of the fusion (normally ~30 seconds) and this fight has both characters permanently in fusion, there is unlimited Ki for the battle. Normally this would be a great advantage but the computer has perfect reflexes (and in Z2/Z3 mode, actually uses it), it can just teleport behind you until you make a mistake and fail to teleport. SO FRUSTRATING! At least it is beatable on Z difficulty...

Seconding Xaldin, especially his data version on the Final Mix of KH2.

Duriel in vanilla Diablo 2. With the expansion (and patches) it is rather easy to beat him as equipment is much better and drops more often compared to the original. However, in vanilla, the computers had a hard time loading the game very quickly so your character would be dead or almost dead when the screen finally caught up. This was even worse online, due to the delay from dial-up connections. On top of that, he is a pretty strong melee character, with a stunning attack, slow aura, and fairly fast movement speed which made him rather difficult.

[RagingKrikkit]

That does bring up a good question though: I've never seen someone not get the Biggoron Sword; is Ganon noticeably harder without it?

It takes at least twice as many hits.

And for a boss fight that is hard in and of itself, you have not known frustration until you have seen the line "Champion Lance used Full Restore!"

[Rake21]

Seconding Xaldin, especially his data version on the Final Mix of KH2.



I was unaware that there was another fight with him... So thanks for that new dose of fear.

[NeoVid]

Cthulhu at the end of The Stars Are Left for Magicka. 5 minute fight if you do it right... took me an hour and a half of trying before I beat him.

That Man from Guilty Gear: Overture. The fight with him takes the game from fighter to bullet hell shooter, with That Man himself being immune to damage until you bring down one of his minions... which makes him vulnerable for about 10 seconds until it respawns.

Unlimited Hazama from Blazblue CS. In addition to the normal massive stat boosts for being Unlimited, his unique gimmick is that he has a lifesteal aura, which only drops while he's being damaged by an unblocked attack.

[Bucky]

The single boss that stands out to me as annoyingly bossy is the quest nemesis from NetHack.
(spoilers spoilered)
You can go through half the game or so by walking up to enemies and hitting them until they die or running away if they don't die. Neither of those tactics works on the quest nemesis due to his/its particularly cheap tactics; damage it enough and it teleports away to heal, run away and it teleports after you.

You have to either flee all the way through the entire quest with the nemesis hitting you the whole time, until it finally fights to the death at the exit of the first quest level, or retaliate with something even more cheap.


That does bring up a good question though: I've never seen someone not get the Biggoron Sword; is Ganon noticeably harder without it?

That depends on your secondary weapon. It's easiest with deku nuts, possibly easier than with the Biggoron Sword.

[Othesemo]

I didn't find the dragon to be very hard myself. I played the game on medium and only lost to this boss once, due to failing at the quick time event rather than the battle per se. Drinking potions before the fight helps a lot. The two big bosses in the first act were both much harder for me, and each one took numerous tries.

I think my problem was that 1) I didn't any potions (aside from Swallow), and 2) That most of my talents were focused on Magic, instead of Swordsmanship (ever try knocking down a dragon? It doesn't work well).

[Lord Seth]

Dr Wily in I Wanna Be The Guy. He's so hard you're most likely to die within seconds, but he's also a part of a boss rush - the other two before him are really easy, but defeating them both requires a few minutes, most of which you spend waiting.

It's an extremely frustrating experience. And since it's IWBTG, it was designed that way on purpose.Personally I'd say Kraidgief and The Guy are more annoying. It took me years to beat The Guy, and I didn't even really beat Kraidgief the first time through, I just got lucky via a glitch and decided to go forward.
The single boss that stands out to me as annoyingly bossy is the quest nemesis from NetHack.Which nemesis? There's a different one for each role and they're all of varying difficulty, with some being drop dead easy (The Dark One) and some being pretty hard (Master Kaen).

(spoilers spoilered)
You can go through half the game or so by walking up to enemies and hitting them until they die or running away if they don't die. Neither of those tactics works on the quest nemesis due to his/its particularly cheap tactics; damage it enough and it teleports away to heal, run away and it teleports after you.

You have to either flee all the way through the entire quest with the nemesis hitting you the whole time, until it finally fights to the death at the exit of the first quest level, or retaliate with something even more cheap.Have you tried simply, after waking them up, teleporting to the staircase and fighting them there to prevent them from escaping? The only ones that won't work on are the Rogue quest and the Samurai quest (and in the Samurai quest, you want to kill the enemy in one hit anyway because of his deadly his weapon can be).

[MammonAzrael]

Duriel in vanilla Diablo 2. With the expansion (and patches) it is rather easy to beat him as equipment is much better and drops more often compared to the original. However, in vanilla, the computers had a hard time loading the game very quickly so your character would be dead or almost dead when the screen finally caught up. This was even worse online, due to the delay from dial-up connections. On top of that, he is a pretty strong melee character, with a stunning attack, slow aura, and fairly fast movement speed which made him rather difficult.

I'll agree with this. Also, any fighting game boss that cheats it's butt off.

[Sith_Happens]

And for a boss fight that is hard in and of itself, you have not known frustration until you have seen the line "Champion Lance used Full Restore!"

I feel your pain.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/256/165/195.jpg

[Tengu_temp]

I think my problem was that 1) I didn't any potions (aside from Swallow), and 2) That most of my talents were focused on Magic, instead of Swordsmanship (ever try knocking down a dragon? It doesn't work well).

I primarily used Swordsmanship, so here might lie the difference. I've heard the Magic tree is actually the most overpowered, but I guess that's only against normal enemies. Having not gone that route, I can only speculate.


Personally I'd say Kraidgief and The Guy are more annoying. It took me years to beat The Guy, and I didn't even really beat Kraidgief the first time through, I just got lucky via a glitch and decided to go forward.

I'll take your word on that, Dr Wily made me quit that game. It was fun until that point, but it just wasn't afterwards.

[Giggling Ghast]

I have horrible, scarring memories of Kazdan Paratus from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Specifically, of the giant junk golem he summons twice, in a room too small to avoid any of its attacks and devoid of things to throw at it to trigger a quicktime execution without whittling down most of its health bar first.:smallfurious::smallsigh:

Oh, the junk golem is at least useful for restoring your health. The fact that Kazdan Paratus shrugs off virtually every attack you can throw at him is the tough part.

[Avilan the Grey]

I hate the boss fights in Deus Ex: HR. The whole game lets you play a sneaky, non-confrontational style, but all the boss fights can only be beaten by the guns blazing approach. Really irritating.

This +100. It is just Epic Fail. The saddest part is that they were put in because higher-ups demanded it (AFAIR). That's why it is all so disconnected.

[ShinyRocks]

Whitney's Miltank. :smalltongue:

Also, in Phantasy Star Online there was a boss, I've forgotten the name, who you fought floating down a river on a raft. It would intermittently jab things into the raft and fire things at you. Required lots of movement before you could actually kill the damn thing.

It wasn't TOO bad, but then later on you had to do it again. Except this time you had a stupid fat scientist with you, 'observing' and he couldn't get out the way in time and if he died it was Game Over.

So. Much. Rage.

[Knight13]

Xigbar, Kingdom Hearts 2: His attacks are fast, strong and difficult to dodge.


Speaking of Kingdom Hearts, I have to go with Xaldin. Seriously, screw that guy. I can't remember the last time I was that frustrated with a single enemy. The entire fight feels like your running away from the guy. I remember the game eventually taking pity on me and tossing me Mickey to save my ass afterthe fifth death.
Dammit, I meant Xaldin. I guess it's time to play KH2 again, I'm starting to get Organization XIII's names mixed up.


Whitney's Miltank.
Seconded, that thing sucks. Massive HP and defense AND it can heal itself. Takes forever to whittle it down.

[DiscipleofBob]

I tried the first dot hack game. Then I got to the end boss, and found out that if you don't play your main character as white mage (and you haven't had reason not to pawn that duty off on someone else for the entire game) then you're basically screwed. Bringing along another character to act as healer just has them blindly attacking the final boss.

And oh the Pokemon bosses:
1st gen isn't so bad, though Giovanni can hit surprisingly hard if you're not prepared.

2nd gen had the Miltank o' doom, and either Dynamicpunch or Focus Punch hax from Chuck depending on whether you're playing GSC or HGSS. Then there was Clair and her goddamn Kingdra, which is only weak to a type of attack that you probably don't have and aren't going to have.

3rd gen has Wattson's Magneton with never-missing Shockwave, Flannery's Sunny Day+Overheat Torkoal, Norman's Focus Punch Slaking that was so bulky it could stall out all your moves, Winona's Earthquake Altaria, evil twins Liza & Tate, and that's all before the final gym leader and elite four! If you're doing a Nuzlocke run, and you pick Treecko, there's a good chance you don't have anything that won't get one-shotted by May's Combusken in the rival battle before Mauville.

4th gen has Fantina, and it took me several tries to beat Crasher Wake's insane Floatzel in a regular run. Cyrus is actually a viable threat in Platinum, and of course Cynthia and her Garchomp.

5th gen I haven't Nuzlocke'd yet, but Lenora's Watchog which is guaranteed to kill most any Pokemon sent out to face it and Elena's annoying Emolga + Volt Switch strategy. I didn't have too much trouble against anyone after her gym.

Let's see... who else? Some of the Epic Mickey bosses are pretty annoying depending on what approach you go for, but especially bad is trying to go the "good" route on the mad scientist.

And don't forget Super Smash Bros Brawl's Tabuu. Last trophy I ever got was beating him on the boss rush on highest difficulty. Not easy.

As annoying as Demyx and Xaldin were, I still don't think they compare to half the bosses in 358/2 Days.

[Istari]

As annoying as Demyx and Xaldin were, I still don't think they compare to half the bosses in 358/2 Days.

Agreed, while most of the bosses weren't too hard to deal with, they all had so much health that you were guaranteed to make mistakes and take large amounts of damage fighting them.

[Derjuin]

Hell mode hardcore Duriel, from Diablo 2. Nonhardcore is just as difficult, only it's okay to die.

Every boss from Sunwell Plateau in World of Warcraft, back when it was the most current dungeon. I have no idea how they stack up against the new heroic mode bosses though.

Crawmerax from Borderlands counts if you're trying to fight him solo. I've heard he's easier as a Siren, but I played Soldier...*shrug*

Ancient Chaos Wyrm, Emperor Moloch, Ssraxxarakex, Keriax, Nuurag-Vaarn and the Elder Chaos God from ADOM. Half of them aren't required for a normal game, though; the biggest danger for most of them is the environment in which you fight them. :smallsigh:

[Cespenar]

Ancient Chaos Wyrm, Emperor Moloch, Ssraxxarakex, Keriax, Nuurag-Vaarn and the Elder Chaos God from ADOM. Half of them aren't required for a normal game, though.

Nuurag-Vaarn was the one who brought me closest to death in the only game I was able to win. Though his pet magebane eyes and the temple's design are responsible for almost the half of the level's difficulty.

Ah, and also add the Cat Lord to that list.

[Tengu_temp]

Ah, and also add the Cat Lord to that list.

If you haven't killed any cats, instead of fighting you he gives you an awesome ring with bonuses to speed, dexterity and DV.

[Aotrs Commander]

And oh the Pokemon bosses:
Then there was Clair and her goddamn Kingdra, which is only weak to a type of attack that you probably don't have and aren't going to have.

Ooh, tell me about it. My Emerald team - not the most heavily optimised one, I'll grant you, but even so - got more or less solo'd by that bugger, so much so I've had to slap another five, ten levels on 'em before I'm trying that again. And non-VS Seeker games suck for levelling.



Gaara in Rise of the Ninja 2. I've got everybody to about level 50, and damned if I can beat him. I really need to check a stratagy guide or something, because I must be missing a trick or something...



Yunalesca in FFX was a pain in the arse, more so because of the really long unskippanle cutscene before the fight, thank you Square. (Until I spend ages levelling up to get anti zombie stuff as I recall...)

[Cespenar]

If you haven't killed any cats, instead of fighting you he gives you an awesome ring with bonuses to speed, dexterity and DV.

Obviously. But if you did massacre felines along your way, he's tougher than most orb guardians.

[Vauron]

I'm mildy amused that the Demifiend and Satan from Digital Devil Saga haven't been mentioned. Even if you do everything perfectly, have maxed out stats, and know exactly what they will do on a given turn, that just makes it theoretically possible to beat them. It doesn't help any that the Demifiend's boss battle music is in fact the random encounter music from SMT: Nocturne, implying that the heros are nothing more than a mid-game random encounter in comparison.

[Tavar]

Hellrake from Path of Exile. He's the first real boss, as since the other bars the way to the first camp, he's pretty easy. Now, as a boss, he has more health, in addition to his special abilities. Not too bad yet, but his specials are killer. First, he does Frost damage with all his attacks, so you can be chilled or Frozen. In addition, he attacks reasonably fast, making all the more easy for him to chain the freezing/chilling, annihilating your life as he does so.

Well, at least he's a melee boss, so you can kite him, right? Wrong. He uses what's considered the best spell in the game(ice spear), and can target you from outside the screen. Sometimes your first clue that the boss is here is getting frozen by the spell's missile. Oh, and he can spam the spell in question.

Then there's the fact that he has weaker enemies around him. Normally, it wouldn't be an issue, but since he can freeze you, it means that they all become essentially bonus DPS for him.

[Knight13]

I tried the first dot hack game. Then I got to the end boss, and found out that if you don't play your main character as white mage (and you haven't had reason not to pawn that duty off on someone else for the entire game) then you're basically screwed. Bringing along another character to act as healer just has them blindly attacking the final boss.
IIRC, one of your party members has to be BlackRose, so just bring a Wavemaster as your other party member, make sure they have healing spells and set their behavior to concentrate on healing. They'll stand there and do nothing but heal you the whole fight unless you give them specific orders to do something else.

Skeith is indeed pretty tough, but as long as you keep your hp up, cure the status effects from his Data Drain and Data Drain him when you get the chance, he's quite beatable.


Yunalesca in FFX was a pain in the arse, more so because of the really long unskippanle cutscene before the fight, thank you Square. (Until I spend ages levelling up to get anti zombie stuff as I recall...)
It's actually better to spend that whole fight in zombie status, since one of her attacks auto-kills anybody that isn't in zombie status. Her attacks don't really do much damage, so forget about healing and just concentrate on attacking her. When she manages to kill somebody, just throw a Phoenix Down at them and let her inflict zombie on them again.

[INoKnowNames]

......

I see people submitting Kingdom Hearts Bosses...

.....

and yet -NO ONE- has referenced the Bonus Bosses from Birth By Sleep Yet.

For shame. I'll enlighten you about how you would be more fortunate to fight Sephiroth, Demyx, and Xaldin at the same time than take on either of them.

The first boss heals himself whenever you use a Cure Spell.

Anyone remotely familiar with the series knows that's ridiculous, considering he's a Bonus Boss. I really don't need to go any further. A Bonus Boss that you only have limited healing on. You're basically required to be Perfect or Cheap. So the fight is hard to enjoy.

The second boss.... has a combo that ignores Second Chance and Once More.

Yeah, anyone that knows the series should understand right there why the second bonus boss is definitely the hardest in the series. Even the ones in Days aren't that ridiculous, despite having hundreds of times more hp.

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That aside, any fight in which I need to rapidly press a button, for a quick time event or whatever, I can't enjoy as much. Because rapid button pressing sucks. A reference right from this thread, actually. Wart in IWBTG. After Bowser but before Wily. Stupid Undodgable Bullet Bill. No other boss in the game has something stupid like that in there. Even the Guy was fun compared to that.

I honestly never had issues with bosses in Pokemon. Norman's Focus Punching Slaking seemed like a Anti-Climax Boss, since you can just keep taping it and it can never hit you. I've never done a nuzlock, though, so I could understand it being harder in that. But except for that, and online play, Pokemon's always been too easy. !I REMEMBER ONE THING THAT WAS HARD: SNAGGING SHADOW POKEMON FROM BOSSES! **** YOU SHADOW ENTEI! **** YOU!

[Knight13]

That aside, any fight in which I need to rapidly press a button, for a quick time event or whatever, I can't enjoy as much. Because rapid button pressing sucks.
I dunno about that, that part in the last phase of the Xemnas fight in KH2 where you have to hammer X and triangle to make Sora and Riku deflect eleventy billion laser beams was pretty awesome.

[INoKnowNames]

I dunno about that, that part in the last phase of the Xemnas fight in KH2 where you have to hammer X and triangle to make Sora and Riku deflect eleventy billion laser beams was pretty awesome.

That was awesome, and it was significantly easier than most "rapidly press x to not die." You have to press both, which might be troublesome the first time around, but you have quite a bit of frames of invincibility to work with on each press, and can alternate rather easily. I'll give that as a good example of it working right.

A Bad example of this would be in Resident Evil 5. Sheva Alomar trying to climb the cliff with Tentacle-Rape-Wesker following her. That 30 seconds of hell is not worth tolerating without a turbo controller.

And in IWBTG. I can do it now, but it's still lame as heck.

[DiscipleofBob]

IIRC, one of your party members has to be BlackRose, so just bring a Wavemaster as your other party member, make sure they have healing spells and set their behavior to concentrate on healing. They'll stand there and do nothing but heal you the whole fight unless you give them specific orders to do something else.

Skeith is indeed pretty tough, but as long as you keep your hp up, cure the status effects from his Data Drain and Data Drain him when you get the chance, he's quite beatable.

See, I brought a Wavemaster specced for healing, she still ran up to the guy, started hitting it with her staff and using OFFENSIVE magic, kept getting caught in various attacks and forcing me to heal her!

[Aotrs Commander]

It's actually better to spend that whole fight in zombie status, since one of her attacks auto-kills anybody that isn't in zombie status. Her attacks don't really do much damage, so forget about healing and just concentrate on attacking her. When she manages to kill somebody, just throw a Phoenix Down at them and let her inflict zombie on them again.

As I recall, the stratagy was something like have two out of three protected against zombie, and let her zombie the other one, to stop her doing something or other. Then if she wipes the standing up two, the zombie chucks a phoenix everyone (or whatever the heck that item was called - it's been a few years since I last played), get ko'd but brings the other up.

That's what I did, anyway, there may be better strategies than the one I used (which I'm sure came from a walkthrough of some type.)

[Ianuagonde]

Duriel in vanilla Diablo 2.

Oh yes. One major improvement of the expansion was to load his lair during the light show on the orifice. That made instant death from Duriel a mere possibility instead of a certainty.

Am I the only one who has been mauled repeatedly by Sarevok & friends at the end of Baldur's Gate 1? They seem to have random magic buffs, magic resistance, and the traps in their lair don't seem to affect them. Hurting them is hard, killing them is very hard.

[Battleship789]

......

I see people submitting Kingdom Hearts Bosses...

.....

and yet -NO ONE- has referenced the Bonus Bosses from Birth By Sleep Yet.

For shame. I'll enlighten you about how you would be more fortunate to fight Sephiroth, Demyx, and Xaldin at the same time than take on either of them.

The first boss heals himself whenever you use a Cure Spell.

Anyone remotely familiar with the series knows that's ridiculous, considering he's a Bonus Boss. I really don't need to go any further. A Bonus Boss that you only have limited healing on. You're basically required to be Perfect or Cheap. So the fight is hard to enjoy.

The second boss.... has a combo that ignores Second Chance and Once More.

Yeah, anyone that knows the series should understand right there why the second bonus boss is definitely the hardest in the series. Even the ones in Days aren't that ridiculous, despite having hundreds of times more hp.

*snip*

Imbanitas is annoying, but once one is used to his attack pattern it isn't too bad. Just bring potions (or Faith, if Ventus) for healing and do damage with mines and finishers.

The Mysterious Figure is annoying but spamming Thunder Surge is the way to go. You can air slide out of his fishing hook thing (FM version, not sure about the US release or original Japanese), and dodge/block all of the other attacks. (Though you have to hope he doesn't spam the auto-death ability, especially when he is really injured.)

The bonus bosses from the FM are also pretty hard, imo. Eraqus's armor has ludicrously high defense and really only takes damage from the ultimate shotlocks (Lightbloom, Ultima Cannon, and Multivortex), while No Heart has the most hitpoints in the game (10 heath bars) and probably the highest defense as well, will dodge all shot locks and most of his abilities will give you a status effect. These are even harder when you realize that the game caps the damage to bosses at 25 and then counts resistances. (Most people believe that Critical Mode No Heart has a 50% damage reduction vs. everything, so one can only do 12.5 damage per hit, at most.)


I was unaware that there was another fight with him... So thanks for that new dose of fear.
He is level 99 with 15 (maybe 17, been a while) health bars and a souped up desperation attack! Fighting him on critical mode is a pain!

To add to that, the Lingering Sentiment fight from KH2:FM is rather difficult.

[Eurus]

I'll take your word on that, Dr Wily made me quit that game. It was fun until that point, but it just wasn't afterwards.

Ditto, actually. Wily was the one part at which I finally felt like I just wasn't making any progress.

[RagingKrikkit]

And oh the Pokemon bosses:

3rd gen has Wattson's Magneton with never-missing Shockwave, Flannery's Sunny Day+Overheat Torkoal, Norman's Focus Punch Slaking that was so bulky it could stall out all your moves, Winona's Earthquake Altaria, evil twins Liza & Tate, and that's all before the final gym leader and elite four! If you're doing a Nuzlocke run, and you pick Treecko, there's a good chance you don't have anything that won't get one-shotted by May's Combusken in the rival battle before Mauville.

The hell you talkin' 'bout? Leaf Blade spam wasted them.

[Bucky]

Which nemesis? There's a different one for each role and they're all of varying difficulty, with some being drop dead easy (The Dark One) and some being pretty hard (Master Kaen). (spoilers snipped)

Spoken like someone who knows in advance what all the cheap stuff is. They pretty much all count. How many other bosses in this thread (aside from the ADOM ones) virtually require strategy help, or months of trial-and-error, to beat for the first time?

EDIT: okay, or death rays.

[INoKnowNames]

Imbanitas is annoying, but once one is used to his attack pattern it isn't too bad. Just bring potions (or Faith, if Ventus) for healing and do damage with mines and finishers.

Limited Healing means you've got to get good enough to play perfectly against him. Otherwise, you're sunk. Yes, by the time you've spent a couple of days training on just him, learning his patterns, and surviving longer than 30 seconds, you'll be able to beat him, but it's significantly less fun than most other fights in the series.

And while mines can take him on, especially Aqua's Seeker Mines, it still doesn't really make the fight fun. You can use Ventus' Tornado command to get a pretty easy kill against him too, if I remember what I saw, but such a fight is pathetic... doesn't really qualify as a fight.


The Mysterious Figure is annoying but spamming Thunder Surge is the way to go.

Fights in which you can only use one ability to win are fights I don't particularly enjoy. An enemy having a weakness to exploit is one thing, but that move being the only thing out of hundreds of moves available that you can even remotely use is... well, stupid. And it's not like the moves are inaffective; they work just fine against the Final Bosses and in the Mirage Arena. They're just useless in here, including your Super Moves.

Also, I used the Fire version of the Surge. It still stands that Surge is the only reliable way to take him on.


You can air slide out of his fishing hook thing (FM version, not sure about the US release or original Japanese), and dodge/block all of the other attacks. (Though you have to hope he doesn't spam the auto-death ability, especially when he is really injured.)

In the Japanese Release, he doesn't exist. They added him (and other bonus bosses) in the Final Mix, but he was American Specific for a bit.

And in the American version, you CAN NOT do -ANYTHING- to get out of his Unbreakable Attack. You have to -HOPE- to be spared if he hits you with it. You can dodge it. That is the only saving grace you have; that you can dodge it. But if you get hit once (and it's got quite a bit of range and a lingering hit box), you can only pray to not be seeing the reset screen, because you are delayed enough in your action to be unable to respond, but count as having used up your defensive abilities, meaning ANY hit will kill you from there. And since he can do it -TWICE- in a row, that's an auto good game with no saving throw at all.

His other attacks are much less annoying, but still more annoying than most other bosses. If he clones himself and you get hit by a single one of them performing a 20 hit combo, it's interesting to watch as they all start comboing you, beating you down mercilessly. You eventually get stunned, with 1 hp, while he has 30 minutes to decide what he wants to do with you.

The rest of his moves aren't bad... but that Autodeath (WHICH IS -ANOTHER- RAPID BUTTON PRESSING MOVE) doesn't actually seem to reset if you break out of it. So you only have a number of chances with it before he has yet another -instant kill-, no save, good game, go home.

The invisibility he does as he's injured is -so- annoying... minutes where you can't even remotely aim at him, while he is free to slaughter you....


The bonus bosses from the FM are also pretty hard, imo. Eraqus's armor has ludicrously high defense and really only takes damage from the ultimate shotlocks (Lightbloom, Ultima Cannon, and Multivortex), while No Heart has the most hitpoints in the game (10 heath bars) and probably the highest defense as well, will dodge all shot locks and most of his abilities will give you a status effect. These are even harder when you realize that the game caps the damage to bosses at 25 and then counts resistances. (Most people believe that Critical Mode No Heart has a 50% damage reduction vs. everything, so one can only do 12.5 damage per hit, at most.)

I haven't actually fought the Mirage Arena Final Mix Bonus Bosses. I still want to. Those fights actually look interesting. You can actually use melee combos against those bosses without being punished for it (via them healing it or dodging and killing you), and you can actually use your special moves and your super moves. And the bosses don't have ways to instantly kill you. No Heart is really only close to being unfair because of how much health he has, but he's still not nearly as ridiculous to watch as the Mysterious Figure.


He is level 99 with 15 (maybe 17, been a while) health bars and a souped up desperation attack! Fighting him on critical mode is a pain!

Really? I don't remember that, and I did get to fight all the data-remixes. They actually weren't that hard. Heck, they're like mooks after a while: annoyingly weak, but easy to grind for cheap bonuses.

Now, the white-room before it to unlock them... -THAT- was a Hell I will -never- repeat.


To add to that, the Lingering Sentiment fight from KH2:FM is rather difficult.

Eh, the hardest thing about him is when he locks your Magic or Physical Attacks. Other than that, he doesn't have anything that's bad... although if he's got a cannon shot out and hits you with the bow, you're ****'ed. But dodge-roll the cannon shot (assuming you don't block it back at him), and just dodge the bow shots, and you're good.

Yeah, I'd definitely fight anything but that freaking Mysterious Figure again... at least the American version.

[captainspazam]

Oh my gosh, almost half the bosses in Odin Sphere were beyond ridiculous.

I'm looking at you, Titania boss in the Mercedes chapter!

[Lord Seth]

Spoken like someone who knows in advance what all the cheap stuff is. They pretty much all count. How many other bosses in this thread (aside from the ADOM ones) virtually require strategy help, or months of trial-and-error, to beat for the first time?

EDIT: okay, or death rays.Not Thoth Amon, who I believe I beat without reading anything about him. I just whacked him with Cleaver until he fell over.

[Crow]

Am I the only one who has been mauled repeatedly by Sarevok & friends at the end of Baldur's Gate 1? They seem to have random magic buffs, magic resistance, and the traps in their lair don't seem to affect them. Hurting them is hard, killing them is very hard.

Dude, screw those guys! I gave up and just console killed him.

Doing a second play through now (many years later!), and hoping to take him down legit, now that I know how to min-max.

[Lhurgyof]

The Shark from Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

I still don't know how to even hurt him.

[Traab]

The emerald and ruby weapons in ff7. Seriously, the only way to beat them is by using heavy duty cheap crap. There is like, all of one or two strategies that dont revolve around you winding up dead that will work.

Duriel sucks, god I hated him so much. He made my skellymancer miserable. Every swing he took slaughtered at least one skeleton, maybe more, and I had to chain summon my clay golem to give him something else to attack instead. Thats assuming he didnt dash right at me and punch a hole through my skull in one shot. First move, every damn time, open a freaking portal. Save myself a long walk back, and make it possible to leave and go get more corpses to turn into skeleton warriors. Other classes the fight is just silly. Fissure spam or blaze spam with my druid or sorc and let him run himself to death as I keep traveling in circles, since my merc tended to die right away. Thorns paladin I stand there with restoration potions and let him beat himself to death on my damage shield.

Diablo is another hated enemy of pet classes everywhere. Hate that red lightning, he would take out every damn pet at once with that and there was nothing I could do. Last time I tried to play, that damn fire nova would kill half my skeletons before I even got to SEE the bastard.

[Tono]

The only boss fight that's ever really stuck with me(Beside's Persona 3's Nyx, but that one only because of how many 'forms' he has,) would be Final Fantasy Tactic's Wiegraf fight in Riovane's Castle. Hmm. 2/3rds of the Riovane's Castle segment actually. One boss because it is actually a good 'boss' and the other because of its annoyances.

A one-on-one fight with against a guy made for it. He has, not including Ramza's cheese, one of the better skill sets, decent evasion, and the ability to hit hard every time you attempt to hit him. Nowadays, I can do it easy, I just take 10 minutes out of what ever play through I am doing and make sure I have some decent setup for him. The first time I played through the game I had my Ramza as a Bard/Black Mage and didn't over level. I ended up just resetting the game because I didn't know to make a second save slot. With what I know about the game now I think I could have made that build work, but that first time. Man. And to top it off, once you do beat him, you immediately go on to fight his 'second' form, which is a big bad with 4(3? I think 4) 'Ultimate' Demons that cast nukes on your allies, while he is slugging around a really good summon and good physical attacks. Was not ready for that at all. Hated him so much. So awesome the first time I beat him. (And still is whenever I beat him with something not 'optimized' for it. Beat with a calculator and a stick last time. So fun.)

To top it all off, once you finally defeat the boss, you have a 'protect this stupid woman who doesn't care to protect herself' mission, in which the Ai thinks its a good idea to be a squishy caster, and go poke either the magic samurai or the demonic assassins. If you have a ninja or two (Or maybe someone with the +1 speed shoes, I think you have them then) sometimes you can be fast enough to save her from her own bravado, but chances are your first play through you end up re watching the scene again. and again. and again. And again until the RNG has pity on you.

Now that I think abut it though, that game has a few spots to catch the unprepared. And for those who simply over level. Well, there's always Finath River's Chocobo death squad to slow you down.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

The Shark from Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

I still don't know how to even hurt him.

You have to go underwater and hit oxygen tanks to make them rise to the surface. He'll bite the tank, Jaws-style, and you hit it with a FireRang to make it explode.

I can't think of a boss fight that really stuck with me for the purposes of this thread, sorry.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Not a "Boss" strictly, but the most annoying fight I've ever done? Probably the Rakshasa somewhere at the end of Chapter 2 in Neverwinter Nights, in Luskan.

It's actually a mook you fight alongside the "real" boss (who goes down with a single SOL), but it's still extremely frustrating to fight it at level 11-13, as a single-classed Wizard, with no 9th-level spells, and your AI companions having a breakdown and refusing to do anything but stand there and watch you die.

[DaedalusMkV]

Elizabeth Greene and the Supreme Hunter in Prototype are generally frustrating on the game's normal difficulty, with attacks that can all but instantly kill you, massive HP totals, some very hard to dodge attacks and in Greene's case an endlessly respawning army of mooks to attack you in case you get careless. Both took many tries to beat the first time through. On Hard Mode, they're nightmarish in every sense of the word. Greene can and will instantly kill you, and just getting to her is a challenge in itself, much less actually whittling down her rediculous HP pool. She'll blow up a tank or helicopter you get into in seconds, so one of the effective tactics in Normal mode is basically useless. Your only hope is skirmish tactics, hitting her with a Devestator then retreating to regain health, and she can and will kill you no matter what you do if you get unlucky. The Supreme Hunter is worse; take all that and add a draconean time limit, then subtract the ready source of food. It requires absolute flawlessness from beginning to end; the slightest mistake and you have already lost. I never managed to beat it.

The Eldar Avatar on Primarch Difficulty in Dawn of War 2. The Avatar itself isn't a huge threat as long as you move around quickly enough to avoid its instant-kill attacks and keep Tarkus in melee with it, since he can be invincible as a tank. The reinforcements that come occasionally, on the other hand, will relentlessly murder your entire force in a single second flat, and every normal game-breaker strategy fails. I hope you're ready to rely on sheer dumb luck, because no other means will allow you to win.

On a slightly less murderous note, Kessler from InFamous was pretty damned frustrating. Enough HP that you'll need to spend at least ten minutes killing him? Check. Attacks that do more than half your health in damage? Check. Far faster than you and with none of your limitations? Check. The only way to win is to memorize all of his attacks, which will allow you to evade them and properly counterattack. It's precisely the opposite of the rest of the game, which favoured careful consideration and sound tactics over twitch reflexes and rote memorization.

[Lea Plath]

Roheen Theer.

Giant floating bat/demon dude with 2 epic swords. Tied into so much of the EQ2 lore. He has the power to kill gods and wow he is fun and tough.

He gets powers from runes you destroy and the more runes you destroy, the greater his rewards. His fully powered up version summons adds, curses people, makes copies of himself and a fun little mechanic where 2 people have to touch or the raid wipes.

This takes place on a floating chessboard where panels will fall away after a few seconds warning, and diffrent tiles give diffrent buffs to you and him.

Awesome.

[Cespenar]

The only boss fight that's ever really stuck with me(Beside's Persona 3's Nyx, but that one only because of how many 'forms' he has,) would be Final Fantasy Tactic's Wiegraf fight in Riovane's Castle. Hmm. 2/3rds of the Riovane's Castle segment actually. One boss because it is actually a good 'boss' and the other because of its annoyances..

My main beef with that fight is that at that point the game had lulled you into thinking that you don't have to grind at all to get past most levels. Then that level happens. It's like the devs saying "Ha! You forgot that this was a Japanese game! Joke's on you!"

Needless to add, I hate grinding. The first time around, I quit the game on that level.