History Main / DamageSpongeBoss

** ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'': The Emperor Bulblax has more health than any other enemy in the game, with the {{Superboss}} being a close second. The only strategy is to FeedItABomb and then throw as many Pikmin onto it as possible.

** In ''Afterbirth'', [[spoiler:Hush and Ultra Greed]], are like this, due to having a special sort of DamageReduction. A GameBreaker of a run that would kill any and every other enemy and boss within a few seconds will still take a very long time to wear either of them down. In theory, a loadout that does less damage would kill them at about the same rate... except they also spawn ridiculous amounts of minions that could easily overwhelm you if you're not doing enough damage and, in the case of [[spoiler:Ultra Greed, ''heal him'' if you don't kill them]]. The skewed DamageReduction is particularly noticeable with [[spoiler:Hush, since you fight an unmodified version of the TrueFinalBoss of the original ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' as a warm up, and he generally dies in less than thirty seconds.]] You ''can'' kill them in a single hit with the Chaos Card and can easily beat [[spoiler:Hush]] if thrown correctly (throw the card at it from the bottom of the stage) '''[[LuckBasedMission if you have one]]'''.

** ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' is really bad about this due to taking it UpToEleven with the way [[HarderThanHard Mayhem Mode]] works. It scales enemy and boss health and armor up depending on Mayhem level, with 10 being the highest. Naturally, this turns many enemies into bullet sponges, unless you have a build that can easily shred health/shields/armor. Raid bosses are no exception, with at least one flatout demanding a full party to kill in record time, instead of being solo-able like the rest of the game's content. While this does come with HardModePerks in the form of significantly increased XP, money, Eridium, and loot drops, it still feels like pointless tedium added for little gain.

* One of the major criticisms with ''VideoGame/NamcoXCapcom'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' is that the more you progress through the game, the more the bosses start to feel like this. Really, the strategy comes from there being multiple bosses at a time, not from a single boss. The FinalBoss of the later game takes this UpToEleven by having even more health, wide reaching attacks that hit hard, and being able to summon ''other bosses''.

* The secret final battle against [[spoiler: Henry, Travis's half-brother]] in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' counts. As a boss they're rather easy, with AI that can easily be tricked into a loop, but it still takes upwards of 10 minutes to whittle down their health bar and win the fight.
* Rank 10 in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'' is equal parts a damage sponge (it's a giant BrainInAJar, they take some killing) and a GetBackHereBoss, making the fight feel even longer.

* ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' manages to subvert this with Giygas, the final boss of the game. You can hit him with your most powerful attacks, but they'll do extremely little damage, making players think he's a Damage Sponge. [[spoiler: The secret is to use Paula's [[ChekhovsSkill Pray Command]], which causes people around the world to send positive thoughts to you; these thoughts decimate Giygas's defenses, allowing you to destroy him]].

* Most Elder Dragons from the ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series, especially those in which the Dragonator make them barely tolerable. Whereas most fights in the game consist of being acutely aware of attack patterns and attacking when it's open, for these giant guys you just keep shooting cannonballs at them, tying them with ballista ropes, inflicting major damage at them with the Dragonator, and so on. It's less a matter of getting killed and more a matter of doing enough damage quickly enough (there is a time limit, if you're too slow you'll just repel them, and if you're really slow you'll outright fail). Notable examples include Ceadeus and Jhen Mohran in ''Tri'', as well as Lao-Shan Lung and Black Fatalis.

* In the adventure mode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', at one point you fight a Snorlax spirit. It doesn't attack; the challenge is doing enough damage within the tight time limit against an opponent who just sits there and takes it.

** The very first [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI Final Fantasy]] has the Wizards (albeit not a boss, they are a fixed encounter). They have no special moves at all, but they are horribly ''tough''. They can soak up AND deal large amounts of damage. The first fight with them to obtain the Crown is a LuckBasedMission since random encounter logic decides whether you fight 2 of them or '''4''' of them.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'''s FinalBoss, Cloud of Darkness, has the highest hit points in the game, and one attack that nukes the entire party, and uses it over and over. Beating her is entirely a question of whether you can heal enough to keep up.
** [[OneWingedAngel Safer Sephiroth]] of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. He's the last form of a SequentialBoss, and the FinalBoss of the game. While he qualifies as a Damage Sponge Boss due to his high HP, how high that actually is depends on how much you've done by the time you reach him. If any of your party members are level 99, you defeated any of the {{Bonus Boss}}es, or you used the [[BackUpFromOtherworld Knights of the Round Materia]] on any of his previous forms, Safer Sephiroth's maximum HP goes up for every one of those proverbial checkboxes you've marked off. It's designed to be a challenge no matter how many endgame sidequests you've completed.
** Elvoret, the WakeUpCallBoss in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' is a relatively minor example. Albeit he has 3523 HP at the highest, at this point in the game, this is ''a lot''. Your measly physical attacks will deal around 50-60 damage per turn, and your magic will deal slightly more than 100. You pretty much have to rely on GFs and Limit Breaks if you don't wanna be stuck fighting the flying monster forever.
** The Wendigo from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''. Just after finishing up a [[SequentialBoss long-winded]] PuzzleBoss, you get to fight a big, dumb monster that can kill any member of your party in one punch, no other tricks needed. Thankfully, this boss seems to be missing the standard ContractualBossImmunity to being blinded.
** Also from ''X'', the Monster Arena {{Bonus Boss}}es. With the exception of exactly two bosses, HP values ''start'' at six digits and only get worse. Going into battle with any of these bosses without a character that can hit for 99,999 HP or more in one turn is asking to fail.
** Yiazmat from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''. He has over 50 million HP. Your party members can do a maximum of 9999 damage per hit, with that figure dropping to 6999 once you've gotten his HP down to half its starting value. Suffice it to say, [[MarathonBoss you'll be there for a while.]] Mercifully, you don't have to finish the fight in one sitting; you can leave the fight at any time, and when you come back, the boss's HP will be the same as when you left. This is made even more merciful in UpdatedRerelease of the game, which allows you to exceed the previous damage cap, while also providing you with stronger weapons and making Yiazmat susceptible to Expose, which will make it take even more damage. Oh, and near the end of the fight, [[spoiler:Yiazmat casts Reflect on the entire party without warning. If you had a Renew spell cued up, you'll end up healing him back to full health.]]

** Valfodr in ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXIII2''. Unlike Vercingetorix, he starts out with a decent HP count for a {{Superboss}}, but each subsequent fight with him raises his level, stats and number of abilities appropriately, up until his level 99 incarnation, where he starts out with 15,516,000 HP and rarely pauses when attacking you. His high resistances, coupled with the ability to heal and use status buffs on himself, all culminate in an uphill battle where your party has to deal with his area-wide debuffs and -ga level spells, giving you little time to fill up his stagger gauge.

** [[OneWingedAngel Safer Sephiroth]] of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. He's the last form of a SequentialBoss, and the FinalBoss of the game. While he qualifies as a Damage Sponge Boss due to his high HP, how high that actually is depends on how much you've done by the time you reach him. If any of your party members are level 99, you defeated any of the {{Bonus Boss}}es, or you used the [[BackUpFromOtherworld Knights of the Round Materia]] on any of his previous forms, Safer Sephiroth's maximum HP goes up for every one of those proverbial checkboxes you've marked off. It's designed to be a challenge no matter how many endgame sidequests you've completed.

** The very first [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI Final Fantasy]] has the Wizards. They have no special moves at all, but they are horribly ''tough''. They can soak up AND deal large amounts of damage. The first fight with them to obtain the Crown is a LuckBasedMission since random encounter logic decides whether you fight 2 of them or '''4''' of them.

* The FinalBoss fight against [[spoiler: Masato Aizawa]] in ''VideoGame/Yakuza5''. He's got the most health of any main story opponent in the series, with a whopping 8 health bars that can soak up heat actions like a sponge. During the final portions of the fight, he can even start recovering health. While you can do quite a bit of damage to him during the numerous [=QTEs=] of the fight, you're still looking at a fight that'll take quite a few minutes to win.

* The FinalBoss fight against [[spoiler: Masato Aizawa]] in ''VideoGame/Yakuza5''. He's got the most health of any main story opponent in the series, with a whopping 8 health bars that can soak up heat actions like a sponge. During the final portions of the fight, he can even start recovering health. While you can do quite a bit of damage to him during the numerous QTEs of the fight, you're still looking at a fight that'll take quite a few minutes to win.

* The BonusBoss in ''VideoGame/IttleDew1'' simply needs to be repeatedly hit until defeated, as opposed to the [[PuzzleBoss puzzle based bosses]] that occupy the rest of the game.

* The world of ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' contains three sets of [[BonusBoss Golden Machines]] that are no different from their normal counterparts except for their much, ''much'' larger health pool. Even the best combos won't save you from spending a decent couple of minutes hacking away at them until they finally keel over. The game's actual bosses can also get pretty spongy, but at least they usually have the justification of being so huge that your attacks ''not'' dealing ScratchDamage would feel weird.

* NANCY-[=MI847J=] of ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 6'' is a BonusBoss who has ''ten'' times the health of any fighter in the game. It's also a TimedMission and one of the few ''Tekken'' matches which is susceptible to a RingOut. Also, it's a giant, [[UnexpectedGameplayChange centauroid robot with missile launchers, lasers, and machine guns]].

* The ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games often include some of these as [[BonusBoss superbosses]].

** Valfodr in ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXIII2''. Unlike Vercingetorix, he starts out with a decent HP count for a BonusBoss, but each subsequent fight with him raises his level, stats and number of abilities appropriately, up until his level 99 incarnation, where he starts out with 15,516,000 HP and rarely pauses when attacking you. His high resistances, coupled with the ability to heal and use status buffs on himself, all culminate in an uphill battle where your party has to deal with his area-wide debuffs and -ga level spells, giving you little time to fill up his stagger gauge.

* Due to RPG-Maker's limited mechanics, all the bosses in ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'' are these. Special mention goes to the BonusBoss [[spoiler:Sugar]], whose battle will probably take you a good 10 minutes even at a high level.

* Outside of the obvious [[BonusBoss superbosses]], ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' has Torl Marrin, a boss in a relatively late-game quest, that is level 50 and has over 2 million HP, when most enemies around that level will probably have 1/50th of that. That amount of damage can be done in a single [[CombinationAttack chain attack]], but getting that set up and surviving long enough to pull it off can be tricky.

** ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'': The Emperor Bulblax has more health than any other enemy in the game, with the BonusBoss being a close second. The only strategy is to FeedItABomb and then throw as many Pikmin onto it as possible.

* The BonusBoss in ''VideoGame/IttleDew'' simply needs to be repeatedly hit until defeated, as opposed to the [[PuzzleBoss puzzle based bosses]] that occupy the rest of the game.

->''"Whoa! Is that a long health bar, [[OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe or are you just happy to see me]]?"''

->''"Whoa! Is that a long health bar, {{or are you just happy to see me}}?"''

->''"Whoa! Is that a long health bar, or are you just happy to see me?"''

* Take to the extreme by ''VideoGame/TrillionGodOfDestruction''. That's an AntagonistTitle, by the way, and both describes the creature's name and ''how many health points it has''. By comparison, your playable characters even before they start training can shave off HP in the hundred-thousands, and they still only do ScratchDamage in comparison. The entire game is built around getting strong enough to whittle down its HP before all your Overlords fall in battle or the Netherworld is destroyed.

* Many 90's Beat 'Em Ups, starting with ''VideoGame/FinalFight'', would feature health bars for enemies. Sometimes short, sometimes long. Bosses would often have differently shaded health bars to indicate having multiple lengths of health bars, requiring you to pound on them repeatedly until they finally changed to whatever the standard health bar colour was, and eventually to whatever colour an empty health bar was. Later bosses would often force you to punch through an ever-escalating rainbow of colours to finally have the bosses registering damage.

* Related to the above ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage 2'' and ''3'' would have an indicator (Numerical or symbolic) that would show how many health bars you had to work through on the current boss.

** The Emperor Bulblax from the first game has more health than any other enemy in the game, with the BonusBoss being a close second. The only strategy is to FeedItABomb and then throw as many Pikmin onto it as possible.

* Most bosses in the ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' series, by necessity due to the mechanics. The player characters can "Brave" to take up to four turns at once, at the cost of skipping future turns. So any low-hp boss could be trivially beaten by having all four characters "brave out" and smacking the boss sixteen times before it gets a turn. To avoid this, basically all bosses have enough hp to comfortably survive this tactic (meaning it's very inadvisable, since you'll be completely vulnerable during the subsequent skipped turns). Thus, boss battles usually mean gradually wearing down the boss's hp and only braving out when you've built up spare turns with the "Default" command or if you're *very sure* you can finish them off.

* ''VideoGame/{{Ys}} 6'' and ''7'', where you take at least 3-5 minutes to subdue a boss. Likewise for the final bosses of most of the games.

* Most of the bosses in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'' trilogy are this way--especially in the first game. While later games gave the bosses more distinct patterns, the general strategy for most of them remained "Attack them while they're vulnerable; back up when they're not" strategy.

* ''All'' the bosses in ''Cowboy Kid'' for the NES. All the bosses do is follow the same pattern over and over, and take dozens of bullets and tomahawks until they finally go down. The worst boss is hands-down the Mad Brothers, who take the average player upwards of ''ten minutes'' to fight, and the fact that they can't even hurt you unless you deliberately jump up to their platform makes it all the more frustrating.

* Every boss in the obscure SNES game Xardion. Ideally you're supposed to level your characters up to do more damage to them, but even then they still take forever to kill.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'':

* Related to the above ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' 2 and 3 would have an indicator (Numerical or symbolic) that would show how many health bars you had to work through on the current boss.

* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}''

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''

* Some of the Tarturus bosses and Arcana Priestess in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and most of the mini-bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}''. [[spoiler: And the final boss of ''Persona 4'', to an extent.]]

** In ''Afterbirth'', [[spoiler:Hush and Ultra Greed]], are like this, due to having a special sort of DamageReduction. A GameBreaker of a run that would kill any and every other enemy and boss within a few seconds will still take a very long time to wear either of them down. In theory, a loadout that does less damage would kill them at about the same rate... except they also spawn ridiculous amounts of minions that could easily overwhelm you if you're not doing enough damage and, in the case of [[spoiler:Ultra Greed, ''heal him'' if you don't kill them]]. The skewed DamageReduction is particularly noticeable with [[spoiler:Hush, since you fight an unmodified version of the TrueFinalBoss of the original ''TheBindingOfIsaac'' as a warm up, and he generally dies in less than thirty seconds.]] You ''can'' kill them in a single hit with the Chaos Card and can easily beat [[spoiler:Hush]] if thrown correctly (throw the card at it from the bottom of the stage) '''[[LuckBasedMission if you have one]]'''.

* Subverted hysterically in the ''Videogame/SaintsRowIV'' DLC ''Enter the Dominatrix:'' early on, main-game BigBad Zinyak appears with a healthbar ''three screenwidths long.'' He goes down with one shot.

* During the final mission of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'''s expansion pack, ''Firestorm'', you must face a foe unlike any other encountered in the series before or since. [=CABAL's=] Core Defender is a [[HumongousMecha massive bipedal robot]] which can withstand obscene amounts of firepower; enough to level entire bases thrice over. It wields a powerful laser cannon from each arm, capable of shredding most any ground unit in one shot; even GDI's most powerful unit, the Mammoth Mk. II, can only take two hits. EMP also doesn't work, and using it propts an EvilLaugh from CABAL. The only silver lining is that there is only one of these things, and you don't necessarily have to beat it to complete the mission (doing so is [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome extremely satisfying]], however).
* Every single boss in the ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'' campaign is one of these.
* Every FinalExamBoss in the ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series is this in one way or another:

** The Titan Dweevil of the second game offers one of the longest battles in the series, as you also have to disable and extract the treasures attached to it, one by one. The boss itself is surprisingly bulky, but it's defenseless once you knock out all of its treasures.
** The only thing you can do to the third game's [[spoiler:Plasm Wraith]] is to simply swarm all of your Pikmin onto its body, but it can take a ridiculous amount of punishment even if you use [[QuadDamage Ultra-Spicy Spray]]. Worse yet, if you don't attack the blobs the boss drops upon losing health, it ''heals itself''. Said blobs eventually become cubes that you have to use a certain Pikmin type to take out, so the battle can drag on for a long time if you don't try to take out the blobs/cubes alongside attacking the boss.
** One non-final example is the Raging Long Legs from the second game. It's much slower than its relatives, but it has twice as much health as the final boss. All you need to do is attack it, wait until it stops raging, and then attack it once more.

* The higher up you go in the Buddy Fighters Tower of ''Kirby Fighters 2'''s Story Mode, the more likely bosses will have ridiculous amounts of health. The only way to make them manageable is to pick up plenty of Attack Stones or Boss Badges in-between battles, but even getting the necessary items to appear essentially makes it a LuckBasedMission.

* ''VideoGame/TeamKirbyClashDeluxe'' and ''VideoGame/SuperKirbyClash'' are both nothing but high-health bosses that need to be killed in a short amount of time. Collecting Gem Apples and buying weapons with them is ''crucial'' since later enemies are nearly impossible (If not definitely impossible) to defeat with bottom-tier gear.