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| 3 | %% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks! |
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| 7 | %% Image and caption selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1364776740089287400 |
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| 10 | [[quoteright:350:[[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DamageSpongeAVGN2_1205.jpg]]]] |
| 11 | [-[[caption-width-right:350:Gonna be fighting [[VideoGame/SuperStarWars that boss]] for [[MarathonBoss a while]]? [[ProductPlacement Grab a Snickers.]]]]-] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ->''"Whoa! Is that a long health bar, or are you just happy to see me?"'' |
| 14 | -->-- '''Nathan Spencer''', ''VideoGame/BionicCommando2009'' |
| 15 | |
| 16 | The absolutely most basic type of boss monster in a video game, generally a GiantMook or KingMook with much higher health than standard enemies and attacks that cause lots of damage. It generally makes no attempt to block or evade the player's offenses, so no special strategies are required -- just attack it until it dies, or if you want to get really fancy, [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer circlestrafe it]]. These sorts of bosses tend to become a battle of attrition where the player must spend large amounts of time grinding down the boss's health while avoiding making any mistakes. Can be considered the antithesis of a PuzzleBoss. Mostly prevalent in Japanese [[RolePlayingGame RPGs]] and the {{FPS}} genre. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | It doesn't make a difference whether it just has a humongous life bar, or extremely high defense so it only takes ScratchDamage, or that it has RegeneratingHealth almost as quickly as you damage it; in all cases, depleting its life bar takes forever. But if there's a trick to negating its defense or regeneration, you have an example of PuzzleBoss instead. Put this kind of boss on a {{time limit|Boss}} and [[ThatOneBoss you'll have lots of very angry players]]. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Named after an industry term for this type of boss, whose main attribute is that they can soak up damage like a sponge absorbs water. Their primary way of defeating the player is holding out until the player makes enough mistakes for their LifeMeter to run out. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | If the HP is ''really'' high and the boss doesn't have any interesting moves, you have FakeLongevity. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | Related to SmashMook, WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer, HealthDamageAsymmetry, and MarathonBoss. Supertrope to ScratchDamageEnemy. God help you if this overlaps with SequentialBoss. Contrast RushBoss, which [[GlassCannon goes down fast but hits hard]] to compensate. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | ---- |
| 27 | !!Examples: |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 30 | |
| 31 | [[folder:Action-Adventure]] |
| 32 | * In the old classic ''VideoGame/DemonStalkers'', which was otherwise a ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'' clone, there was one boss on level 100: the demon Calvrak. He occupied a huge chamber with many twisting side tunnels that [[WrapAround wrapped around]]. His attacks were lethal, so the only strategy was to pop out of a tunnel, toss off a couple of shots, and run back into the tunnel to circle around. Rinse and repeat. Many, many, many times. |
| 33 | * The {{Superboss}} 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. |
| 34 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 35 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': Helmasaur. As the first boss of the Dark World, its helmet can tank a ridiculous amount of hits from the hammer. Bombs can take it down in fewer hits, but the boss moves around enough that *hitting* the mask with the timed explosives can be a challenge, so either way it can take a bit. |
| 36 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' has Dark Link in the Water Temple, who can potentially become a damage sponge if you obtained a ton of Heart Containers due to his health mirroring yours. |
| 37 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': While there are many tanky enemies in this game and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild its direct predecessor]], there is one boss that really takes the cake in a way the game acknowledges. [[spoiler:During Ganondorf's second phase as the Demon King, his health bar refills and then keeps going... and going... and going, until it almost reaches the end of the screen, effectively giving him twice as much health as a normal boss. And this isn't even his final phase.]] |
| 38 | * The ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' from ''VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary'' takes a metric ''ton'' of shots to take down. Fully justified as it's a flipping '''T. REX''' and all you have to take it down are a pair of pistols and, if you're lucky, a [[GuideDangIt well-hidden shotgun]]. If you're doing it ''on a timer'', however... well, it's dumb enough to charge headlong into [[BossArenaIdiocy some spike-studded ''things'' in the area]]... unfortunately, it's also dumb enough to spend several minutes trying to turn around. |
| 39 | [[/folder]] |
| 40 | |
| 41 | [[folder:Action]] |
| 42 | * All the four horsemen from ''VideoGame/{{Apocalypse}}'' are reasonably tough, but the fourth and last, Beast, takes the cake. While he starts off with a pitifully small healthbar, after it's depleted he resurrects with a second one, twice as long, and then ''another'', again and again... it takes draining at least ''seven'' lifebars, layered one upon another, to finally destroy him. |
| 43 | * ''All'' the bosses in ''VideoGame/CowboyKid'' 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. |
| 44 | * About half of the Extra Ops missions from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' involve taking on an armored vehicle, tank, chopper or AI-controlled mech of some degree, all of which would qualify for this trope. The easiest way to clear one of these stages involves neutralizing a couple dozen escort troops, then slowly whittling down up to 85% of the vehicle's health before its pilot pokes his head out for a relatively easy shot. To get there, you'll have to restock your ammo several times during the battle, and only missiles and armor-piercing weapons have any hope of damaging the things even a little bit. |
| 45 | * ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': The secret final battle against [[spoiler:Henry, Travis's half-brother]]. As a boss he's rather easy, with AI that can easily be tricked into a loop, but it still takes upwards of 10 minutes to whittle down his health bar and win the fight. |
| 46 | * ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'': Rank 10 is equal parts a damage sponge (it's a giant BrainInAJar, they take some killing) and a GetBackHereBoss, making the fight feel even longer. |
| 47 | * Every boss in the obscure SNES game ''VideoGame/{{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. |
| 48 | * 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 one-on-one fight that can take more than 10 minutes in a game where they usually last around 2 to 6 minutes if you're playing well. |
| 49 | [[/folder]] |
| 50 | |
| 51 | [[folder:Adventure]] |
| 52 | * All the bosses in ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'' follow this mechanic: keep away from their decimating attacks. Attack whenever there's an opening. Continue for 15 minutes or so. Especially frustrating with the Mermaid Princess who you can only hit twice in a row before she retreats back to the ceiling for another attack. |
| 53 | * Judge Doom is the final boss of ''VideoGame/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' on NES, and as you might expect, [[spoiler:being a Toon,]] he doesn't go down easily. If you're lucky, you go into the fight carrying the maximum amount of bombs and exploding cigars that you can, and using those, you can whittle down his health by about a third right at the start. Once those are used up, though, your only strategy becomes "stay away from his punches and eye lasers, awkwardly hopping around building up Eddie's punch gauge, and slug him". Those punches barely do any noticeable damage to him, making for one ''very'' major case of ThatOneBoss in a game without any other sort of fight. |
| 54 | [[/folder]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[folder:Action RPG]] |
| 57 | * Exaggerated in ''VideoGame/CrossCode''. Lea goes up against a snail boss which has ''50 quintillion HP''.[[note]]That's 5 followed by 19 zeroes, or 50,000,000,000,000,000,000.[[/note]] In a game where a decent combo does about ten thousand HP of damage. Luckily for Lea, [[MissionControl Sergey]] cheats in her favor to make the boss capable of taking any sort of meaningful damage. |
| 58 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'': |
| 59 | ** The game has a plethora of bosses each possessing a significant amount of health and damage resistances, sometimes making it hard for the player to make it to the end of the fight. The NewGamePlus mechanism also bolsters their health and damage inflicted up until NG+7, where it's not uncommon to see an otherwise basic boss sport a massive health bar and oneshotting you. |
| 60 | ** The Stray Demon and Demon Firesage are both slow and are easily worn out by bleed-inflicting weapon, but they are more than likely encountered at a time when your equipment is not maxed out. |
| 61 | ** The Four Kings have the highest HP count in the vanilla game (9,500 HP, specifically), and you can end up [[WolfPackBoss fighting all four at once]]. It's played with a bit due to each individual king having his own health bar, and damaging him contributes to whittling down the total health. It's even worse in NewGamePlus, where the total HP gets boosted to ''16,000''; in a game where the hardest hitting physical attack doesn't deal more than 800 damage, this is saying something. |
| 62 | ** The DownloadableContent adds Manus, Father of the Abyss. His total health on a normal playthrough is at an intimidating [[NumberOfTheBeast 6,666]] HP, and his physical and magical resistances are some the highest, effectively cutting down your damage to ScratchDamage. |
| 63 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'': |
| 64 | ** King Vendrick has extremely basic, slow attacks and his actual health is only a bit above average for a boss, but any damage you do is divided by '''32'''. [[SubvertedTrope However]], he's really more of a PuzzleBoss: collecting certain items negates his damage resistance, each one doubling the damage you do with five letting you do full damage. |
| 65 | ** The Ancient Dragon has the highest possible health bar in the game, topping at a basic 19,840 HP. It's slow and really doesn't care about your attacks, and it will unleash one OneHitKill after another. |
| 66 | ** ''The Lost Crowns Trilogy'' is chock full of {{Optional Boss}}es whose health bar and resistances outstrip even the vanilla game's FinalBoss, with the exception being the Adventurer trio (even then, they have unreasonably high parameters for player-sized enemies). |
| 67 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': |
| 68 | ** Yhorm the Giant has the most health of any boss in any ''Souls'' game to date, at a whopping 25,000 HP, over 5,000 more than any other boss (including the DLC's). To make matters worse, he takes half damage on his legs, which are the only part of his body you'll actually be able to hit for most of the fight. Thankfully, he's incredibly weak to the Weapon Art of a specific weapon, which does around 8,000 damage a hit to him, and completing a specific chain of sidequests finds you an ally armed with his own personal copy of this weapon, making Yhorm's fight a breeze. |
| 69 | ** In response to player complaints that the FinalBoss went down too quickly, FROM made certain that the final bosses of the ''The Ringed City'' DLC fit this trope. Slave Knight Gael has very few, rather obscure weaknesses and can take over 10 minutes to fight even with fully upgraded weapons, while Darkeater Midir is actually recommended to be fought solo, since if you bring help to his fight, his HP is increased to truly tremendous levels and the fight arguably becomes even more difficult. |
| 70 | * ''VideoGame/EldenRing'': |
| 71 | ** The highest health pool belongs to Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, who has 89,613 hit points over two phases (30,439 in Phase 1 and 59,174 in phase 2), but, much like Yhorm before him, there's a specific weapon near him (the Serpent-Hunter) that deals massive damage to him, meaning that unless you're going for a SelfImposedChallenge the health bar isn't as troublesome as you might think. |
| 72 | ** The second-highest total goes to the Fire Giant with 43,000 hp, plus damage reduction, though hitting his already injured body parts (easier said than done, especially in the second phase) deals more damage. And there's no Serpent Hunter-esque gimmick with him; you gotta grind down that health bar the hard way. |
| 73 | ** Third place goes to Malenia, Blade of Miquella, with 33,251 across 2 phases. But the numbers are kind of misleading, because Malenia also heals whenever she lands an attack on the player (even if the hit was blocked- no turtling allowed!), meaning that any slip-up means you're going to have to go through the health she just recovered too. |
| 74 | ** Just out of the Big Three is Dragonlord Placidusax with 26,650 health, but he also has higher damage resistances than Malenia does, and doesn't damage himself during his phase transition like the Fire Giant does. |
| 75 | ** Mohg, Lord of Blood is in 5th place with 18,398 hit points, but much like Malenia, it's misleading because he will unavoidably heal ~25% of his health in his phase transition, giving him about 23,000 effective hp. |
| 76 | * The world of ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' contains three sets of [[{{Superboss}} 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. |
| 77 | [[/folder]] |
| 78 | |
| 79 | [[folder:Beat 'em Up/Fighting]] |
| 80 | * The Corn Boss in ''VideoGame/CastleCrashers''. While his constant disappearing-under-ground-and-popping-up-under-you might keep you on your toes and make it more entertaining than standing there and whaling on him, it also limits how often you can hit the bastard. Him dropping health every time he's hit also removes any challenge of staying alive, meaning you just dodge and chisel away at that enormous health bar for ages. |
| 81 | * King Famardy from ''VideoGame/KingOfTheMonsters 2'' has an extremely long life bar and the most damaging attacks you can use only take a small chip of it off. |
| 82 | * In the adventure mode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', at one point you fight a Snorlax spirit (in the form of a giant King K. Rool with 500 hp). 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. |
| 83 | * NANCY-[=MI847J=] of ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 6'' is a {{Superboss}} 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]]. |
| 84 | * ''Zatch Bell: Mamodo Fury'' has Victoream & Mohawk Ace in Story Mode. Their defense is only considered this in the North American release of the game, however. |
| 85 | * Shiva, if he is the FinalBoss on the highest difficulty in ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage 3'', has ''seven'' health bars. He moves fast and can hit you hard if you aren't careful, so the player has to be on perfect form to fully deplete his health. He has less bars of health on lower difficulties, but can still dish out the pain. The TrueFinalBoss also has seven health bars, but he also comes with a time limit imposed if you want to get the good ending. While not outright impossible to beat within the time limit, the boss's movement patterns make it very difficult to land a good hit on. |
| 86 | [[/folder]] |
| 87 | |
| 88 | [[folder:First-Person Shooter]] |
| 89 | * The Big Daddies in ''VideoGame/BioShock'' can take a ludicrous amount of punishment if one relies solely on bullets. A good example to do this is to set an alarm on the Daddy, spawning Security Bots to attack it. No matter what, the machine-gun fire from the bots (coupled with turrets if there are any in the area, and the player's own bullets) deal only ScratchDamage to the thing, and it takes time to whittle that health down. Even explosive weapons like grenades and rockets only deal a visible fragment of damage to the Daddy's health bar. Probably the easiest/most spectacular way to kill a Big Daddy quickly is by luring it into a tight corridor booby-trapped with electric bolts, or simply [[BoringButPractical spending all your upgrades on the wrench and whacking it to death.]] Alternatively, [[LetsYouAndHimFight you can set two Daddies to fight each other to the death.]] |
| 90 | * The Handyman from ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite''. Expect to spend a lot of ammo and death screens on this guy, as he cannot be truly weakened (only stunned) by Vigors and even direct hits from the RPG or Flak Cannon to his heart don't seem to have much effect on his health bar. |
| 91 | * Most bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' are either {{Puzzle Boss}}es or {{Flunky Boss}}es. Not so with the final guy, the Destroyer, who can soak up more bullets than most people can actually carry without the highest-level cargo expansions. |
| 92 | ** ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' ups the ante by having Terramorphous the Invincible, whose major selling point on release was needing more ammo to kill than a player is capable of carrying, and since bullet regeneration class mods are extremely rare, this lowers the player's options down to two characters unless you're in a party or use a combination like [[GameBreaker The Bee and the Conference Call]]. |
| 93 | ** ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' has EOS as the final boss of the claptrap DLC, a boss that is almost guaranteed to empty out at least one-two weapons from your inventory before death. It doesn't help that it regens its powerful shields during the battle three times, has 8 turrets attached to its body that have their own health, and has a first form that must be defeated first. It still takes an absolutely ludicrous amount of shots even when you're seriously over its level. |
| 94 | ** ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' is really bad about this due to 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. |
| 95 | * In the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series, Juggernauts are this ''with a light machine gun''. In ''[=MW3=]'', you can just gib them, but it takes about seven blocks of C4. Each of those blocks is a several-pound solid hunk of explosives. |
| 96 | * [[BigBad Nemesis]] in the ''VideoGame/CatacombFantasyTrilogy'', at least in the first game before he starts [[RemoteBody cloning]] himself. He takes more hits than anyone else and shoots for more damage and... well, there's no "and". |
| 97 | * Every pre-expansion boss in ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'', with the exception of a couple of the Raid bosses, is a KingMook with a much larger health bar. Strike bosses in particular are especially absorbent, and Golgoroth, the second boss of the Raid King's Fall, is even more notable, with conservative estimates putting his health at 10 million or more. |
| 98 | * ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': |
| 99 | ** The Barons of Hell (the first two of which are introduced as bosses, a.k.a. the 'Bruiser Brothers', at the end of the first episode) are considered to have hit points ''well'' out of proportion with their actual threat level. This led to the introduction of Hell Knights in ''VideoGame/DoomII'', which were about as dangerous (their plasma orbs and claw attacks did the same damage), but only half as tough, making them slightly closer to a GlassCannon that could be placed more often without needlessly slowing down the pace of combat. |
| 100 | ** The Cyberdemon takes a lot of hits[[note]]About 400 bullets, 45-50 rockets or 150-200 plasma rifle shots. The BFG takes it down in only four blasts, but you don't have access to it during Episode 2 of the first game.[[/note]], shoots rockets which can one-shot you with a direct hit at 100% health, and is defeated by circle strafing and shooting. It led to the creation of the sarcastic "tip" of "[[CaptainObvious To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies.]]" The same goes for every other boss in the original ''Doom'' games, including the Barons of Hell and the Spider Mastermind. There's another complication regarding the Cyberdemon in the first Doom game. When you first encounter him, the level there has a [[SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity huge]] supply of ammo for your Rocket Launcher, which is (at that point in the game) the weapon with the most raw power. Problem is, the Cyberdemon is immune to splash damage, meaning that only the damage caused by the direct hit has any effect on him. If you opt to use the rocket launcher, the battle ends up being drawn out even longer. If you have a surplus of cells, it's far faster to whip out the [[EnergyWeapon Plasma Rifle]] instead. Thankfully when he appears again [[spoiler: in the secret level of episode 3]], you might've finally found '''[[TropeNamer the]]''' {{BFG}}, which makes the rematch [[CurbStompBattle a lot easier]]. |
| 101 | ** With the Spider Mastermind, which has 3000 HP, the fact that its Triple Chaingun is a {{hitscan}} weapon does require you to put a little thought into not getting killed. But still, that only changes the strategy to "Shoot it until it dies, and don't wind up full of hot lead." |
| 102 | ** The Mother Demon in ''VideoGame/Doom64''. If you thought the Cyberdemon's 4000 HP was huge, this one has 5000! If you did not collect the keys, enjoy wasting a lot of ammo against a plethora of enemies before facing the Mother Demon. Fortunately, the spot where the Mother Demon is located respawns supercharge soul spheres. Unlike the Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind, the Mother Demon is not immune to splash damage. |
| 103 | * The bosses of the second and third "episodes" of ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' are both defeated by shooting at them and dodging their non-{{hitscan}} projectiles. It's not the case for the first boss, whose main weapon is hitscan and is defeated by shooting at it over a wall. |
| 104 | * The Nihilanth in ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' provides a cruel example of '''combining''' this with PuzzleBoss: you have to jump through a set of hoops just to unlock the path up to his WeakSpot, then you have to do a ''ridiculous'' (as in "use up all the ammo of all your weapons, including rocket launchers") amount of damage to it to finish the game. This has to be done in mid-air, and unless the xen crystals in the walls are destroyed he'll replenish all his health. |
| 105 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': |
| 106 | ** In ''VideoGame/Halo2'' and ''[[VideoGame/HaloReach Reach]]'', Brutes soak up an absurd amount of damage and barely react until they suddenly collapse. Tartarus takes this to absurd levels in ''Halo 2'' as the final boss. |
| 107 | ** Hunters become this from ''Halo 2'' onward, becoming ever tougher in each subsequent release. To make things worse, unless you have heavy weapons, you'll have to aim at the orange spots if you want to do ''any'' damage. |
| 108 | ** In ''Halo 2'', the health of the three boss characters (the Heretic Leader, Regret, and Tartarus) increases exponentially with difficulty level. On Normal difficulty they go down as easily as a standard enemy, while on Legendary they can soak enormous amounts of punishment before dying. |
| 109 | ** One of the biggest criticisms of ''VideoGame/Halo4''[='s=] campaign is how insanely tough the Promethean Knights were, especially considering that they also had recharging shields ''and'' the ability to teleport away whenever their shields were down (plus the Watchers could both heal and ''revive'' them). They creatively rectified this in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians''; the Knights are overall tougher than they were in ''4'', but no longer have recharging shields or teleportation (or Watcher revives), and damaging them enough will expose big glowing weak points. |
| 110 | ** ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'': |
| 111 | *** Most Warzone bosses are basically this, since most of them are usually nothing more than tougher versions of regular enemies. In the campaign, the Warden Eternal himself on higher difficulties is this until you damage him enough to expose his weak spot. |
| 112 | *** These bosses are one of the more contentious issues in Warzone Firefight. Take the normal damage-sponge bosses, and then: add multiple iterations of the same boss, surround them with also-spongey Mooks and EliteMooks, add multiple phases of bosses within the same round, make them insanely accurate with their attacks, place them in a hard-to-reach position across the map from the players, make spawned-in power weapons irretrievable upon death, increase the respawn time to as high as 30 seconds, give the players 5 minutes to complete their objectives, and start the timer before the enemies even spawn. Have fun. |
| 113 | * ''VideoGame/Left4Dead''. The Tank is basically a BossInMookClothing in that they can take a ludicrous amount of punishment before their demise, which is why most players prefer to just toss a Molotov at one of them to kill them quickly.[[note]]The fire doesn't actually damage The Tank, but places it on a definite death-timer, which may-or-may-not be faster than just shooting it to death.[[/note]] The Charger in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' acts like a light version of the Tank in some respects, but dies much faster, so he's more akin to a BullfightBoss. |
| 114 | * ''VideoGame/NosferatuTheWrathOfMalachi'': Almost all of them except the penultimate one are this to some extent. They system of having to track them down in a coffin after fighting them to kill them at least introduces some sort of strategy. The only non-final boss without a coffin, the Foul Beast Vampire, is also the only one to require a more complex strategy for the actual fight (you don't have to use it, but unless you have the Chalice, it's suicidal not to). |
| 115 | * Any given boss in ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'' has a 50% chance of being either this or a PuzzleBoss. Or PuzzleBoss in one phase and DamageSpongeBoss in other phase. |
| 116 | * The boss at the end of ''VideoGame/StarTrekEliteForce'' was this ''despite'' having a bunch of glowing blinking gems on his body. What makes fighting it really aggravating is the fact that throughout the fight there is no indication that it's actually taking damage until it dies. |
| 117 | * ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': |
| 118 | ** The Tank Robot in the [[HoldTheLine Mann Versus Machine]] game mode in has no weapons, blithely follows a clearly marked linear path, and will not defend itself. The challenge isn't attacking it, it's attacking it ''enough'' to actually destroy the thing, since the only thing it recognizes is damage; no other effects will apply to it. The spongiest versions have 60,000 health--the equivalent of trying to kill ''200 heavies'', without the benefits of [[BoomHeadshot headshots]] or [[BackStab backstabs]] (and, by the way, the Tank takes less damage from bullets than other robots). And if it comes in the middle of a wave, you'll likely be combating [[GoddamnedBats other robots at the same time]], which means even less damage being directed towards the Tank. Needless to say, if your team doesn't have one or more Demomen, Soldiers, and/or Pyros at the time a Tank rolls out, you're ''dead''. |
| 119 | ** Also in [=MvM=] there's Captain Punch. Slow, 60,000 health plus 40% damage resistance to ranged attacks, a health regeneration mechanic ''on top of that'', one-hit-kill punches, [[MightyGlacier snail-like walking pace]] that can go ''over'' Engineer buildings. |
| 120 | ** A fairly tame, but nevertheless effective version for the easier modes, or simply as the first guy you fight on harder ones, is the generic [[GiantMook Giant Soldier]] which is no more dangerous than your average soldier-robot offensively, or the Giant [[CloseRangeCombatant Pyro and Demoknight]] whose slow speed makes them nothing more than bullet sponges with some sort of defensive gimmick to attentive players. |
| 121 | ** The Horseless Headless Horsemann always has 5000 HP at the very least (usually much more), and its only attack consists on [[OffWithHisHead decapitating you instantly with a swing of his axe]]. The only strategy that works here is "shoot him and stay the hell away". |
| 122 | ** Simpler versions of the fan-made Juggernaut game mode known as Versus [[TestosteronePoisoning Saxton Hale]], presented players with a fast, powerful single boss enemy with absurdly high health in the quadruple or quintuple digits (that only got higher as more players faced him) who could do one of three things: punch a player in the face, scream his name at them to frighten or stun anyone around him, or do a high jump. Beating him came down to outlasting him, as Saxton Hale could one-shot almost any class with a single punch, and the game's two OneHitKill attacks in turn didn't actually kill him in one hit. |
| 123 | ** Merasmus is an especially ridiculous version of this. He has at least '''''100,000 health'''''. Needless to say, team cooperation is absolutely required to beat him. Then there's the issue of his [[TimedMission 90-second time limit]] and constant {{teleport|Spam}}ation and [[GetBackHereBoss hiding]] on top of it all. |
| 124 | [[/folder]] |
| 125 | |
| 126 | [[folder:Hack N' Slash]] |
| 127 | * ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'': |
| 128 | ** Izual from ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' is legendary for this trope. Despite his scary appearance, the fallen angel doesn't do much beyond a couple of basic attacks--most characters can just stand there and attack him until the HitPoints are gone. This is so bad that the Amazon's Valkyrie summon can actually regenerate health faster than Izual can deal it, while slowly whittling his health down. He will also never change targets once he starts attacking your minion. Feel free to go make yourself a sandwich. The hard part about the fight is that your weapons will eventually wear out. He also has a cold attack which slows you, making the interminable fight even longer if your a melee class. |
| 129 | ** In ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Ghom is so much a damage sponge that the time you need to kill him is used as a way to calculate your effective damage per second so that you can compare your damage with other players. |
| 130 | * In the ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' series of video games, many endgame bosses usually end up as this. These games are already notorious for its mindlessly dumb A.I., and the company's idea of making the difficulty harder is to simply give the enemies more health and have them do more damage, instead of programming the A.I. to fight smarter, which unfortunately leads to artificial difficulty. |
| 131 | * In ''VideoGame/GinormoSword'', you can encounter the Golden Knight, an upgraded version of Living Armor. Much like Living Armor, the Golden Knight doesn't have any attacks of its own and can only harm you if you let it wander right into your sprite. It, however, has such an ungodly amount of HP that unless your level is deep into the ''thousands'' you'll spend at least 20 minutes (and no, that's not an exaggeration) whittling down its health bit by bit and praying that you don't accidentally wander off the screen and be forced to start all over again. There are other upgraded versions of various monsters that fall under this trope too, but this Golden Knight is the worst of them all, especially since it drops an armor that's all but required to beat the TrueFinalBoss. |
| 132 | * ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'' has [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword The Imprisoned.]] He doesn't target you directly unless he starts sliding and all he really does is slowly stomp around, but he has ''far'' more health than any of the other bosses and takes significantly longer to beat. Stunning him requires destroying all of his toes, and he is immune to the Focus Spirit Special Attack, which can normally down any other boss (besides Ganon). His weakness gauge cannot be depleted in one hit, as he automatically breaks out of stun when his weakness gauge reaches half. When you ''finally'' manage to deplete his weakness gauge and go for a Weak Point Smash? It takes off about a fifth of his health. The UpdatedRerelease made him significantly less tenacious by removing his automatic recovery and immunity to Focus Spirit attacks. |
| 133 | * ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has General Gravicius, the mid-boss of Act 3. Unlike Piety with her elemental StanceSystem or Dominus's waves of mini-bosses, Gravicius doesn't bring any special tricks to the fight. He just has some basic fire spells, a substantial amount of Energy Shield, and an aura that grants even more shielding to himself and his mooks. The boss fight amounts to "Cap out fire resist and chew through a lot of health." |
| 134 | * The FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/{{Torchlight}}'' is this in a nutshell. He has [[FakeDifficulty stupid quantities of HP]], does lots of damage, can summon swarms of dragons and very fast skeletons, and can de-summon those summons to heal himself. There's no strategy that can be employed outside "attack it with stuff and resurrect when you die." To make matters worse, the whole fight can reset if you stay away from the arena too long. Indeed, many of the bosses are like this, but the final boss is the most egregious. |
| 135 | [[/folder]] |
| 136 | |
| 137 | [[folder:Light Gun Game]] |
| 138 | * ''VideoGame/{{Teraburst}}'' has only four bosses, and ''all'' the bosses (even the first one) can soak up bullets for several minutes, with their health dwindling slowly while you fire away. Most of them have two or three attacks, save for the FinalBoss. |
| 139 | [[/folder]] |
| 140 | |
| 141 | [[folder:MMORPG]] |
| 142 | * ''VideoGame/AionOnline'' has tons and ''tons'' of this. One notable example would be Yamennes Painflare, with a whopping '''5.9 million HP''' and offensive capabilities enough to drop anyone unprepared. And he has the ability to buff himself, negate your tank's healing completely, and a massive area ''of'' effect nuke with a disable. It takes a full party of 12 max -- leveled characters at least fifteen minutes to kill him. And his {{Mook}} guards in the rest of the dungeon aren't slouches either -- with each having at least a few million HP of their own. And, as if he wasn't annoying enough to deal with, he constantly summons more mooks as the fight drags on. To put this in perspective, at max level your abilities won't have a base damage above twenty thousand at most, and that kind of ability has incredibly long recharge times. One, the Cursecloud of the Spiritmaster class, can only be used once an hour. |
| 143 | * The Outposts in ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaOnline'' are these. Each has 30,000 HP, when player ships almost never exceed 10,000, and more than enough firepower to shred even small groups of players. |
| 144 | * ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has Reichsman. He's got a quarter-million HP in contrast to a typical end-boss's 30,000, but other than that, he's got nothing that distinguishes him from the zillion other evil MirrorUniverse copies of [[FlyingBrick Statesman]] running around. The final battle is supposed to be a juggling act where the players need to balance their effort between fighting Reichsman and fighting the end-boss-class reinforcements he summons, but most teams simply focus on the bag of hitpoints and let splash damage take care of the rest. The typical run of the Dr. Kahn Task Force takes 45 minutes, of which 20 will be spent fighting Reichsman. |
| 145 | * ''VideoGame/EdenEternal'' is crawling with Damage Sponge Bosses, mostly as the game is driven around social interactions, so you're expected to play in groups. Most bosses also have attacks proportionate to their health bars, and a {{Mook}} attacking you during a boss fight is [[OhCrap not good.]] Being a social game, Eden Eternal is hard to play through solo as that turns some ''mooks'' into Damage Sponge Bosses. |
| 146 | * ''VideoGame/EverQuest'': |
| 147 | ** The game displayed an evolution of this as gameplay progressed. With each expansion, the developers had to find new ways to challenge players. In the Shadows of Luclin expansion, bosses (and even low-end trash mobs) with literally millions of hit points, at a time where it was rare for players to be able to inflict more than a thousand damage per second, were the next step in creating challenging content with the limited technology they had at the time. This often resulted in bosses that would take dozens of players pounding on them for a half hour or more to kill them. |
| 148 | ** The omega of this for ''[=EverQuest=]'' would be Kerafyrm the Sleeper. Never having been intended to even be attacked, they simply gave him a massive amount of HP rather than make him invincible. In the second run at this monster (the first was stopped by SONY because they presumed something was screwing up), it took over 180 players from the top three guilds almost three hours to whittle down his estimated '''quarter billion''' HP to nothing. |
| 149 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has the Delibrum Reginae raid, in which ALL bosses and minibosses are damage sponges, even more so than the other 24-man raids in the game. This is because Delibrum Reginae is special in that it allows you to use the potentially game-breakingly busted Lost Actions and Lost Items, allowing each player to gain insane benefits, so the developers scaled their HP accordingly...which means that not only are they much more durable than most bosses in the game by default, it meant that if anyone didn't use Lost Actions or Lost Items the bosses become ''even more'' of a damage sponge! Oh also, all bosses are capable of killing you if you fail to dodge any two avoidable mechanics, regardless of your current HP. |
| 150 | * ''VideoGame/GuildWars'': |
| 151 | ** The game has the infamous Rotscale, a bone dragon that has fairly simple moves, a small entourage of mooks... and over 20,000 HP. In a game where you normally have around 500 health, and a SERIOUSLY stacked player might get up to 1,500. If you somehow manage not to get mauled by the always-poisoned arena and the mob that's with him, it can still take upwards of ten minutes to whittle him down. |
| 152 | ** The Underworld, already the hardest and longest dungeon in the game (a normal run can take 3 hours or more), got an endboss, with roughly 100,000 health. The fight with him isn't that difficult compared to some others in the game, but you still have to keep paying attention or you die, ''for a whole 20 minutes''. |
| 153 | * Most of the (non super-)bosses in ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' are just slightly stronger versions of regular mooks, just with a LOT more HP. |
| 154 | * Every group boss ever in ''VideoGame/MarvelAvengersAlliance'' takes so much punishment that he must be fought multiple times to defeat him. |
| 155 | * In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', the final boss of the Mysterious Island War quest, The Man (or The Big Wisniewski if you're playing for the Frat Boys) has no special abilities other than having the most hit points of any monster in the main quest-line (unless you count [[OneWingedAngel the third form of the Naughty Sorceress]], which [[PuzzleBoss isn't even defeated in normal combat]]). |
| 156 | * In ''VideoGame/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnline'', a majority of land bosses (as in, all but about nine) are merely tougher reskins of pre-existing enemies. They have exponentially higher health and tend to deal more damage than the enemies they're based on, and the only change to any strategy you would normally have is "attack them even more". |
| 157 | * ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' has the Angeling, a souped-up version of the weakest (and most iconic) monster in the game. With 55,000 hitpoints - more than almost every non-boss monster in the game - daring low-level players may find themselves disappointed at the Angeling's inability to put up an actual FIGHT. Any player with the ability to outdamage its heals will almost certainly be able to kill it, provided their own healing potions hold out, but it will take a very, ''very'' long time if you aren't high enough level to render the creature irrelevant. |
| 158 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': |
| 159 | ** Bosses like this are currently known as "Tank and Spank" bosses, due to the tactics used to defeat them: Have a tank hold their attention while dps spanks them. For raids or heroics they are often called "Gear Check" bosses; even with the best teamwork and strategy possible, if the group does not have sufficient stats deal the damage needed to kill them, the group needs to return to earlier content. |
| 160 | ** Another popular designation for these fights is "Patchwerk," named after one of the most famous instances of this in Classic. The original Patchwerk was a boss in the first iteration of Naxxramas with only one special ability that was easily countered. The main difficulty was his enrage timer, as he would wipe a raid if he was not killed before it ran out. Patchwerk returned in the ''Wrath'' version of Naxxramas, but like the rest of the instance he was considerably easier (the fight mechanics were the same but the enrage timer was more forgiving).[[note]]Other examples of such bosses include: Brutallus in Sunwell Plateau, Malkorok in Siege of Orgrimmar, the Curator in Karazhan, Ultraxion in Dragon Soul, Blood Queen Lana'thel in Icecrown Citadel, and the Butcher in Highmaul. The first real example of such a boss was Vaelestrasz the Corrupt in Blackwing Lair; in lieu of an enrage timer like Patchwerk, Vael cast a debuff on everyone that increased their performance but eventually killed them.[[/note]] |
| 161 | ** The first bosses made available on the Test Realms tend to be variants of this. The more complicated bosses appear later in the testing and raids. This is intentional, as having a gear check boss at the start of the dungeon (just as Patchwerk was to Naxxramas) serves as bouncer to turn away groups that are unlikely to have the stats needed to survive the more complex fights deeper inside. |
| 162 | [[/folder]] |
| 163 | |
| 164 | [[folder:Platformer]] |
| 165 | * WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd parodies this in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2bKVEVUOPg&t=20m25s Star Wars episode]], where the boss' health bar in one of the ''VideoGame/SuperStarWars'' games is [[SpecialEffects Photoshopped]] to stretch beyond his TV screen and across the room. |
| 166 | * The sentinel in ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' is specially armored and nearly invincible. [[PuzzleBoss You're supposed to just knock it into the electric shocky things]], but defeating it "normally" gives you a Supercharge. None of the infinite-ammo weapons have any effect on it, and getting enough ammo to kill it is a challenge in itself. |
| 167 | * ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'': |
| 168 | ** ''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. |
| 169 | ** The higher up you go in the Buddy Fighters Tower of ''[[VideoGame/KirbyFightersDeluxe 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 you need essentially makes the tower climb a LuckBasedMission. |
| 170 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'': Most of the bosses in the 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. |
| 171 | * In ''VideoGame/MegaManZX Advent'' the final boss' first form is a giant [[OurDragonsAreDifferent three-headed robot dragon]] that has so much health it's not even represented by a life bar (according to the Mega Man wiki, calculating for individual buster shots it has a whopping ''600'' units of health). For comparison, most life-bars in the ''ZX'' and ''Zero'' series have 32 units individually, and so even bosses with three life bars only come out to 96 units. [[note]]Combined with the two life bars of his second form, he has a total of 664 units of health. The next tankiest FinalBoss is [[VideoGame/MegaManZero3 Omega]], who has a total of three phases with three life bars each coming out at a total of 288 units of health.[[/note]] The trade-off is that he's also a StationaryBoss with a ''huge'' weakpoint that doesn't have long invincibility frames, meaning the fight is essentially all about burst-damaging him down while avoiding all the attacks he throws out. |
| 172 | * The ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series has two noteworthy ones, in that they're also the two {{Recurring Boss}}es of the series. |
| 173 | ** Mother Brain is notably straightforward, requiring dodging the laser rings, not falling into the lava that floods her chamber, and blasting her with rockets until she goes down in ''VideoGame/Metroid1''. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' has a second stage to the boss fight, where, after a particular powerup event, it's just you pumping missiles and energy blasts into her before she kills you. |
| 174 | ** Ridley is the prime example of the series, being fought in most of the games, if not multiple times in one game. You almost always fight Ridley near the end of the game, when you're loaded with energy tanks and missile upgrades, and he's programmed to take advantage of that. While most bosses require [[AttackItsWeakPoint finding the weak point]] and striking it while staying out of danger, Ridley's fights are raw, brutal slugfests, where he throws everything he has at you, and you do the same, hoping you're powered up enough to kill him before he kills you. |
| 175 | * Most of the bosses in ''VideoGame/TheNightmareBeforeChristmasThePumpkinKing'' have no real strategy other than attacking them while doing your best to avoid their attacks, one of the worst offenders being the [[spoiler:first]] battle with Oogie Boogie. |
| 176 | * What makes the battle against Rajan in ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' so [[ThatOneBoss difficult]] is his ''ginormous'' health which takes ages to chip down, all whilst he's sending in waves of mooks and continually attacking you. What makes it hurt even more is that you battle him as '''Murray''', the team powerhouse! |
| 177 | * Unlike most 2D ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, where they usually give out after 8 solid strikes, the bosses in ''[[VideoGame/SonicRushAdventure Sonic Rush Adventure]]'' have a ton of health -- for example, the very first takes ''20'' hits to defeat. As a trade-off, though, their weak points are vulnerable far more often, which makes them less of a pain overall. |
| 178 | [[/folder]] |
| 179 | |
| 180 | [[folder:Roleplay]] |
| 181 | * ''Roleplay/DestroyTheGodmodder'': The standard boss that isn't the [[BigBad Godmodder]] is one of these. However, as the series went on, more varied bosses introduced. |
| 182 | [[/folder]] |
| 183 | |
| 184 | [[folder:Role Playing Game]] |
| 185 | * The very first monster-slaying sidequest in ''VideoGame/AlphadiaGenesis'' is up against one of these as he has thousands of HP when your strongest attacks will likely be doing little more than 100. Thankfully he doesn't hit very hard and becomes even easier with the equipment upgrade from the second town. |
| 186 | * The "Tough" modifier in ''VideoGame/{{Bonfire}}'' turns enemies into these. It provides only minor stat boosts, but increases their HitPoints by 100. For standard enemies, this doubles their health! |
| 187 | * Most bosses in the ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' series, by necessity due to the mechanics. The 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 smack the boss sixteen times before it gets a turn. To avoid this, basically all bosses have enough hp to comfortably survive this tactic (making it very inadvisable, since you'd be completely vulnerable during the subsequent skipped turns). Thus, boss battles usually mean gradually wearing down the boss's hp and only braving out after you've used the "Default" command to build up spare turns or if you're '''very sure''' you can finish them off. |
| 188 | * The last two {{Optional Boss}}es of the second ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga''. Whereas the two optional bosses before them, Shiva and Vishnu, have roughly 10,000 HP, [[spoiler:Seth]] has 23,000 and [[spoiler:Satan]] has 30,000. What takes this into Damage Sponge Boss instead of Fake Longevity is that they do indeed have interesting moves, especially [[spoiler:Satan]]. |
| 189 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'': |
| 190 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' has the boss fight with the Lleviathan fairly early on. It doesn't doesn't really do anything special, it just hits a single target or your entire party with powerful physical attacks and takes an age and a half to kill. |
| 191 | ** The second and last phase of the FinalBoss in [[VideoGame/DragonQuestI the first Dragon Quest game]] is probably one of the purest examples of this. All it does is hit you hard either by physical attacks or breathing fire, and it has ridiculously high defense. The extent of the strategy is to attack it and cast Healmore on yourself when your HP gets low. If you can't win, do some LevelGrinding and try again when you're stronger. |
| 192 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'' has Bjørn the Behemoose. In the original game, he's tied with the final boss's [[OneWingedAngel second form]] for the most HP of any enemy...and Bjørn is fought a little past mid-game. In the DS remake, Bjørn has even more HP than in the original Platform/SuperFamicom version (though this puts him at merely second to the considerably buffed final boss). But in both versions he's not particularly hard, just time-consuming. All he does is hit you reasonably hard and [[StatusBuff raise his own defense]]. |
| 193 | * ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' 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]]. |
| 194 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': |
| 195 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'''s ''Tribunal'' expansion has Gedna Relvel, a lich, in its "Crimson Plague" side questline. She's capable of flinging a very powerful area of effect spell, [[AntiMagic is immune or resistant to every form of Destruction magic]], and [[HealingFactor quickly regenerates]] lost Health, Magicka, and Fatigue. Worse, she's supposed to have Health equal to 100x the player's current level, but due to a programming error, she has ''800x'' that amount, making her virtually unkillable at higher levels. Perhaps worst of all, [[DudeWheresMyReward you don't even get a very good reward]] for killing her. |
| 196 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' has the most extreme cases of LevelScaling and EmptyLevels in the series. Enemies scale based purely on your level, but your actual strength in combat involves many factors besides just level (health gain per level, attributes, equipment, and skills). Even if you've been [[MinMaxing careful in your leveling]], your damage caps at a certain point while enemy health does not, meaning high-level fights become increasingly drawn-out with even standard foes becoming damage sponges without providing much challenge. |
| 197 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', Alduin, the BigBad himself, is one. In the final battle against him, he has an obscene amount of health and 50% resistance to ''all types of damage''. It takes a lot to bring him down, though thankfully, you have [[spoiler:the [[LongDeadBadass ancient Nord heroes]] in [[WarriorHeaven Sovngarde]] to help you]]. |
| 198 | * ''[[VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIHeroesOfLagaard Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight]]'': Every FOE and boss (except for the second stratum's, oddly enough). Your biggest threat against them isn't their dangerous attacks killing you, but being worn down enough that you aren't able to put up with their attacks for 40+ turns. |
| 199 | * One of the two types of "bosses" in ''VideoGame/EvilIslands''. A few examples include the Ogre Brothers, the White Wolf and a fair share of lone dragons, cyclops or ogres. |
| 200 | * The ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games often include some of these as {{Superboss}}es. |
| 201 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'': The Piscodemons[[note]]Wizards in the first english translation[[/note]] (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. |
| 202 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'': The 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. |
| 203 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': [[OneWingedAngel Safer Sephiroth]] is 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 {{Optional 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. |
| 204 | ** ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'' has Minerva, who has 10,000,000 HP in a game where the damage cap is 99,999. Hard Mode doubles this to 20,000,000. The ''Reunion'' release tops them all, however, by beating Aeronite's record for most HP on a ''Final Fantasy'' boss by buffing Hard Mode Minerva's HP to ''77,777,777''. |
| 205 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': Elvoret, the WakeUpCallBoss, 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. |
| 206 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': |
| 207 | *** The Wendigo. 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. |
| 208 | *** The Monster Arena {{Optional 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. |
| 209 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'': Yiazmat 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.]] |
| 210 | ** ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXIII'': |
| 211 | *** Vercingetorix. As the final Cieth Stone mission boss, this bad boy sports a massive 15,840,000 HP health bar, and has the infuriating habit of casting Impenetrable Aura (impervious to all attacks, unable to be staggered, and constant healing for its duration) whenever your party has just begun or is in the middle of attacking it while it's staggered. It also gradually sends out stronger attacks as its health bar depletes, sometimes forcing you to switch to a defensive paradigm just to keep up with its onslaught. |
| 212 | *** Relatedly, the Long Guis found in the Archylte Steppe. A step up from the normal Adamantoises and Adamantortoises, these behemoths all sport a whopping 16,200,000 HP, which is not helped by the fact that you have to temporarily pause your attacks on its legs once it starts stomping the ground. To add insult to injury, it will sometimes cast [[FantasticNuke Ultima]] right off the bat, or use Roar in order to temporarily stun your party, allowing it to deal massive damage with a single stomp unchecked. |
| 213 | ** ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXIII2'': Valfodr. 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. |
| 214 | ** The Aeronite in ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' has a ridiculous amount of HP compared to any other boss in the game (11 million HP on Normal and 38.5 million on Hard, which can further be increased by an additional 50% to 57.75 million HP if you choose to fight it in a Chaos zone, topping Yiazmat's previous record for the highest enemy HP in the series by another 7+ million HP, although to compensate, you can remove 10% or rarely 25% of its initial HP if you strike it first). It mostly bombards you with -ra and -ga level spells, occasionally mixing in a much stronger, but heavily telegraphed special attack that needs to be blocked. It also takes very little damage until it's been staggered four times (each stagger doubling the damage you do to it, from 50% to 100% then 200% then 400%), but once that happens, it weakens greatly, losing access to its stronger moves and slowing its attacks, which turns it into little more than a punching bag. However, there's a time limit of 3 minutes for each stagger and if you don't accomplish another one before then and ultimately kill it off by the fourth stagger, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere it gets fed up and escapes]]. |
| 215 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'': |
| 216 | *** The game has an optional challenge in the form of Adamantoise, a mountain-sized turtle with HP and durability to match. Even with a well-leveled party and the best weapons available, he'll take almost an hour to whittle down and defeat. Even longer if you're underprepared! |
| 217 | *** Another side mission has Noctis out to catch the legendary Liege of the Lake, and what an ordeal that is. Even with mastery of the fishing mechanics, the best rod, spool and line and the right lure to snag him, he'll struggle every step of the way and it will inevitably take 10 minutes or more to reel in. |
| 218 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'': |
| 219 | ** The [[WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}} Rock Titan]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', at least relative to the other bosses. Two of his three attacks are ridiculously easy to dodge, and battling him is more of a matter of time than difficulty. |
| 220 | ** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Sephiroth]] from the same game is certainly so slouch, either. While he has less HP than the Rock Titan (1800, compared to the Titan's 2100) he has higher defense (46, compared to the Titan's "measly" 34) and, what's worse, favors the TeleportSpam and will be especially happy to pull it out whenever you try to combo him, meaning that, unlike the Rock Titan, which is slow and largely just stands there while you wail on it, you will only be able to give Sephiroth a couple of whacks at a time. |
| 221 | ** The second form of [[spoiler: Ansem]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' qualifies, having the second highest HP out of any boss in the game, only beaten by the bonus boss. He's also a StationaryBoss and is almost constantly firing various projectiles at you, that while very painful, aren't especially difficult to avoid once you memorize their movement patterns. |
| 222 | ** ''Days'' took the Invisible, a LightningBruiser demon Heartless from the first game with high (but not ridiculous) health, and gave it a lot more health. ''Days'' also has the [[BossInMookClothing Zip Slasher]] and [[MarathonBoss Dustflier]]. Thankfully, all three are optional. Most of the bosses have a lot of health, but these three stand out. |
| 223 | * In ''VideoGame/LordOfMagnaMaidenHeaven'', ''every single boss'' after Elfriede joins the party. The most glaring example is {{Final Boss}} Kaiser, who has around 1 million hp. This makes poison bottles a god-send, as your party members usually dish out damage in the four-digit range at best. |
| 224 | * Almost every boss in the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' games fit the bill. The challenge is less about finding a weakness to exploit (as most bosses don't have them) and more about keeping your party alive long enough to whittle down their large HP pools; moreso in the first game's remakes, where boss stats scale with Alex's level. Some of the late-game boss fights can go on for upwards of twenty minutes! |
| 225 | * ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' manages to combine this with '''PuzzleBoss''', of all things, somehow. Why? The boss in question heals off a certain amount every 3 or 4 seconds. The way to beat this boss is to hit it faster than it regens. This means using the attack you can spam the fastest. If you've been playing this game, you know which one it is. Overlaps with GuideDangIt too because of this. |
| 226 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': |
| 227 | ** The major difference between the difficulties in the first game was that on higher difficulties you had to spend more time sitting there on full-auto before anything died, leading to enemies taking comical amounts of punishment without the 'warp' de-buff or special ammo types. |
| 228 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' made it a lot more interesting, with one exception: a 'Praetorian' that replaces its barriers repeatedly. |
| 229 | ** In one boss section, where you are expected to whittle down a ship's drive core while fending off zombies, you can subvert this by just shooting it with a ([[EverythingMakesAMushroom sort of]]) [[NukeEm portable Nuke Launcher]] |
| 230 | ** In both of the first two games during a recruitment mission (Liara's in the first, Tali's in the second) you have to fight a Geth Colossus on foot. If you don't have the nuke launcher, it becomes an exercise in ducking, shooting, ducking, shooting, again and again until its dead. [[spoiler: In the first game, if you get behind the wall on the left once you take out the smaller geth units you can stand there with impunity and keep shoot through the holes, so not even ducking is involved]]. |
| 231 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'', many post-game bosses are guilty of this, especially the ones from high-level quests. Their HP tends to be around 4,000-6,000 on average (for comparison to a regular {{Mook}}, a Giant [=UFOs=]'s HP ''almost'' reaches 2,000). Their other stats (unless they're weak to magic) are no walk in the park, either. Keep in mind that damage per hit is {{Cap}}ped at 999. |
| 232 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': |
| 233 | ** Most Elder Dragons from the 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 ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter3Tri'', as well as Lao-Shan Lung and Black Fatalis from [[VideoGame/MonsterHunter2004 the very first game]] and its G expansion respectively. |
| 234 | ** ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterPortable3rd'': Duramboros is an enormous, mossy Brute Wyvern with curved horns and a round tail that can take a '''lot''' of punishment from hunters before finally dying. If the player doesn't wish to spend too much time fighting it, then it's recommended to capture the monster when it's weak enough. |
| 235 | * Due to RPG-Maker's limited mechanics, all the bosses in ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'' are these. Special mention goes to the {{Superboss}} [[spoiler:Sugar]], whose battle will probably take you a good 10 minutes even at a high level. |
| 236 | * Was Sugawara in ''VideoGame/Persona2 Eternal Punishment'' not only has absolutely ridiculous HP, but physical attacks are practically useless against him, ''and'' he heals over 700 HP at the end of each turn with no way to stop him. And his entire moveset focuses on forcing the party to use physical attacks. He can easily turn into a MarathonBoss if you don't know what you're doing (or you're just that unlucky). In fact, he is so tough that the party is forced to throw him in a BottomlessPit to win, and even so they doubt that he's dead. And in case you were wondering, yes you first have to cleave through that huge HP to trigger that cutscene. [[ThatOneBoss/{{Atlus}} Have fun!]] |
| 237 | * Some of the Tarturus bosses and Arcana Priestess in ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and most of the mini-bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}''. [[spoiler: And the final boss of ''Persona 4'', to an extent.]] |
| 238 | * [[spoiler:Masakado]] in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV''. He has double the HP of the final bosses, resists Almighty to an absurd degree, is fought in a brutal TimedMission, and, oh, yeah... ''[[NoSell drains or nulls]]'' '''[[NighInvulnerable everything]]''' you throw at him without Pierce attributes. |
| 239 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 240 | ** Although not usually a true boss, [[StoneWall Chansey and Blissey]] count. They have the highest HP stats in the game (at level 100, their HP is a ''minimum'' of 600, and can easily reach up to 700), and a very notable Special Defense stat. To make up for this, their physical defenses are practically nonexistent, making them extremely vulnerable to Fighting-type moves. |
| 241 | ** One infamous subversion of this trope is Wobbuffet. Its stats are pitiful across the board except its HP, one of the highest in the franchise (Chansey and Blissey above are among the few whose HP are higher). You would think that such a battle would be a simple matter of hammering away at its high HP, but what makes Wobbuffet a subversion is the fact that it causes damage using [[CounterAttack Counter and Mirror Coat]], which causes double the damage to an opponent who used a physical or special attack, respectively. Due to Wobbuffet's massive HP and poor defenses, it will be able to survive attacks that cause a lot of damage and cause twice the damage to opponents, making it almost certain that Wobbuffet will not be defeated without taking down at least one opponent (it can also guarantee this by using Destiny Bond, which knocks out the opponent if their next attack knocks out Wobbuffet). This is made even worse by the fact that as of Gen III, Wobbuffet's ability is Shadow Tag, which prevents opponents from escaping, so unless you're playing a Gen VI game and you have a Ghost-type in the front of your party, if you run into one, you're screwed. |
| 242 | ** Also of note is Zygarde, specifically its [[GodzillaThreshold Complete Forme]], which it gains access to starting from ''Sun and Moon'' onward. In this forme, the only real boost Zygarde gets is that its HP is doubled (from an already great 108 to '''216'''), and a slight increase in Special attack (from a mediocre 81 to a passable 91). Outside of the HP boost, Complete Zygarde's stats are strong but overall quite underwhelming for a legendary. However, its insane amount of HP lets it perform a variety of roles, one of which is boosting its offensive stats and Speed to ridiculous proportions with Dragon Dance and/or Coil while having the bulk to perform it multiple times safely. Add in the fact it can use an unavoidable Ground-Type Attack with Thousand Arrows, and you've got yourself a ridiculous powerhouse. In fact, it was the first Pokémon in the Generation 7 Metagame Smogon saw fit to ban to Ubers. |
| 243 | ** The Dynamax phenomenon in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' enlarges the user and increases their HP by 50% (plus 5% per Dynamax level, up to a limit of 100%) without affecting any other stats; the Pokemon on the end of this is just as durable as their defenses would otherwise endorse, but Max Moves are more powerful in most instances, which semi-averts this trope. [[spoiler:This is played much more straight with Eternamax Eternatus, who has maximized HP and both Defenses to make the fight drag on for a while, and heightened Attack power to make it a legitimate threat to anything that could oppose it. Were it not for Zacian and Zamazenta making copious use of Behemoth Blade and Behemoth Bash, you'd be fighting it for a good long while because of this. And even if you catch it, you're only using normal Eternatus; the stats for the Eternamax version were edited to make it a boss battle, and thus it cannot be obtained by any legitimate means.]] |
| 244 | ** Tera Raid bosses in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' have their HP multiplied by an increasing factor based on the raid difficulty (up to ''several dozen times'' their original HP), eventually resulting in bosses who can tank ''several super effective hits'' from Pokémon that have been ''buffed to the maximum''. Bear in mind that in regular gameplay, one-shotting an enemy Pokémon without using buffs is often easy to do. |
| 245 | * In ''VideoGame/RavenswordShadowlands'', the werewolf that resides in the Ancient Ruins takes a ''lot'' of punishment before he finally dies, more so than the FinalBoss himself. |
| 246 | * The Water Guardian boss in ''VideoGame/SummonersWarSkyArena'' has 500% increased health, and to make things worse, gets increased damage as time goes on. This makes [[PercentDamageAttack Continuous Damage]] the only viable way to take him down. |
| 247 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2'': [[spoiler: Fortuna]]. She has so much HP and defense it can take a skilled player 20 minutes to beat her. |
| 248 | * The Gaets in ''VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia'' have truckloads of HP compared to other bosses (The first one has triple the HP of the previous boss, and the last one has the highest HP in the game), but aren't particularly difficult due to being huge targets and slow attackers. |
| 249 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheTempest'': All bosses are this to some degree because of how easy the game is, but the first fight against Albert is particularly bad. He has 12 000 HP when you probably won't be doing more than 100 damage per strong hit and may not be over 1000 HP yourself. |
| 250 | * Dangaard in ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana''. The fight isn't difficult, just ''long''. It is split into four phases, alternating between overhead and side views. Prolonging the fight even further is the fact that you have to recast any buffs or debuffs you want to use each time the perspective changes. |
| 251 | ** All of the Benevodons, each of which is the EvilCounterpart of the elemental Mana spirits that bestow their powers unto your party to aid them in their quests (with the aforementioned Dangaard being associated with the [[BlowYouAway wind]] and [[ShockAndAwe thunder]]), is this, as each of them has HP in the thousands and can hit hard. Dangaard still stands out from among them enough to possibly count as a MarathonBoss as well, however, due to the four-phase nature of the battle against it above as well as having the highest amount of HP among the Benevodons. |
| 252 | * Taken 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. |
| 253 | * Ovis Cantus, the first week boss of ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', has 8000 HP. The next major boss has 3141. However, Ovis is entirely stationary, whereas other bosses move around a bunch and can be a pain to even hit at all, so he's not too tough to whittle down. |
| 254 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' has the level 71 tyrant Gradivus, the Headless Emperor. While not particularly impressive on the offensive front, he has ''100 million'' HP, ten times that of the level 99 superboss Telethia, and high resistance to most damage types. |
| 255 | * Outside of the obvious {{Superboss}}es, ''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. |
| 256 | * ''Videogame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'' and ''VideoGame/YsSEVEN'', where you take at least 3-5 minutes to subdue a boss. Likewise for the final bosses of most of the games. |
| 257 | [[/folder]] |
| 258 | |
| 259 | [[folder:Real-Time Stategy]] |
| 260 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'': During the final mission of the ''Firestorm''expansion pack , 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). |
| 261 | %%* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWarII'': Every single boss in the campaign is one of these.%%How? |
| 262 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': Every FinalExamBoss in the series is this in one way or another: |
| 263 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin2001'': 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. |
| 264 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': |
| 265 | *** The Titan Dweevil 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. |
| 266 | *** 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. |
| 267 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'': The only thing you can do to the [[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. |
| 268 | * ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'': There's really not much else you can do to Dr. Zomboss's Zombot but let whatever offensive plants you got whale on it until it explodes. If you have spare Ice-shrooms, though, you can prevent him from getting back up for a while, letting you finish the fight sooner, or gain a few more plants before the horde attacks again. |
| 269 | [[/folder]] |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder:Shoot-em-ups]] |
| 272 | * In ''Brotato'' by Blobfish is a top-down shooter roguelite. In this game, it can sometimes by hard to take down enemies that have over a 100 health. When you reach Stage 20 of the game, you'll encounter 1 of a [[FinalBoss possible two types of Boss]], Predator and Invoker. Both of these bosses have 29,900 health! In addition, they're also a FlunkyBoss who regularly sends EliteMook to attack and harass you, trying to kill you while preventing you from launching a sustained, concentrated attack on the boss. It's telling that victory happens when the time runs out while you're still alive since, depending on how lucky you were in finding items and choosing stat increases, it can be impossible to kill the boss before the time ends. |
| 273 | * In ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForce'', all bosses are big ugly damage sponges. The only one that goes slightly against type is a SegmentedSerpent exclusive to the SNES version, which is only vulnerable in the head. |
| 274 | * Nearly every boss in ''VideoGame/{{Raiden}}''. Basically, both the boss and the player fill the screen with bullets until one of them dies. |
| 275 | * The final boss in ''VideoGame/SunsetRiders'', ''a guy in a business suit'', can take an absolutely insane amount of punishment [[JustifiedTrope because he's wearing]] an iron plate under his shirt. Once he laughs and drops it, he goes down easily. |
| 276 | [[/folder]] |
| 277 | |
| 278 | [[folder:Survival Horror]] |
| 279 | * Most of the ''Franchise/SilentHill'' games that have a hard mode give the bosses insanely inflated health that will make you regret not hoarding all your ammo for this very moment. For instance, the [[spoiler:twin Pyramid Heads]] at the end of ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' can normally be defeated by just waiting for them to give up. They don't do this on hard mode, insteading requiring close to the ''entire game's'' supply of rifle bullets (the strongest ammunition!) to take them down. The one saving grace is that most bosses have a way to [[AIBreaker trap them in a pattern]] and spend several minutes chipping them to death with melee weapons, but this involves a lot of trial and error as well. |
| 280 | [[/folder]] |
| 281 | |
| 282 | [[folder:Other]] |
| 283 | * Not a video-game example: monsters and large enemies in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy''. They've no defensive abilities except their armor and/or damage reduction, relying instead on an (often insanely; think several thousand when most player characters are unlikely to ever break 300) vast pool of HP and the quite often nasty bites they can give back. |
| 284 | * ''VideoGame/{{Balatro}}'': One boss blind, The Wall, requires a score that's four times the amount of the base for that ante but otherwise doesn't impair the player. One of the FinalBoss choices, Violet Vessel, works the same but with a six times boost to value. |
| 285 | * ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': |
| 286 | ** 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 directly at it from the bottom of the stage) '''[[LuckBasedMission if you have one]]'''. |
| 287 | ** The game's TrueFinalBoss, introduced in ''Afterbirth+'', is also extremely tanky. Fortunately, it does not have DamageReduction, just an absolutely gargantuan amount of health. It also doesn't help that this boss has a habit of teleporting around the room every few seconds and moving very quickly when he's ''not'' teleporting, making it difficult to deal consistent damage. Oh, and the Chaos Card? It's the one and only thing in the game immune to it. So, no one-shotting this thing.[[note]]Technically it ''can'' be one-shot by the item Plan C... [[KaizoTrap except Plan C also kills you before its death animation finishes]], so only one playable character can potentially get away with this.[[/note]] |
| 288 | * ''VideoGame/CandyBox 2'' has The Teapot, a 1 million HP 'boss' that is, in fact, a perfectly normal teapot, save that it is giant and has one million HP. Damage is, at best, measured in hundreds per second. The Result: a boss most easily defeated by leaving the game running and auto-attacking for a few hours. |
| 289 | * Most of the games in the ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForce'' series (no relation to the shmup listed above) have a final boss that fits this theme, generally a huge alien ship that can tank a few hundred rockets and sniper rifle rounds before dying. Most also have a Kaiju miniboss battle at some point -- a contrast to the huge swarms of relatively weak enemies seen in most stages, but they dish out massive damage and absorb more than enough firepower to be a threat even by themselves. Arguably moreso since there's no mooks around to drop health powerups for you. |
| 290 | * Due to the mechanics of ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', the vast majority of bosses, particularly ones that aren't story-relevant, are simply standard enemies with noticeably upgunned stats and stronger weapons. The only real strategy is "march your strongest unit over and have them slug it out with the boss while someone else heals them; if the boss is vulnerable to a WeaponOfXSlaying, use that on them." Most of the time, [[HardLevelsEasyBosses the strategic part comes more from reaching the boss than fighting them.]] |
| 291 | * ''VideoGame/GearsTactics'': Brumaks. While their attacks are easily avoided, they can only be taken out by destroying the Immulsion tanks on their backs. Unfortunately, while the tanks are an obvious Attack Its Weak Point, there are three of them and they take up a lot of damage. Since the Brumak also turns to face its attacker, it also halves the damage by forcing the player to flank the boss on both sides. |
| 292 | * The ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series has a history with this: Sonny, the end boss of ''Vice City'', is different from your average mobster only in that he can take ''three rockets to the face'' before dying. Likewise, [[spoiler: Big Smoke]] is wearing body armor, which can let him survive your gunfire for quite a while before dying. Even if you make headshots against him, he can take quite a number of them before going down. |
| 293 | * The bosses in ''VideoGame/KirbysPinballLand'' are all defeated the same way -- keep hitting them until they fall down. |
| 294 | * 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 up a notch by having even more health, wide reaching attacks that hit hard, and being able to summon ''other bosses''. |
| 295 | * 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. ''From a pistol.'' |
| 296 | * The first ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' loved these, pretty much any enemy that can't be instantly killed (or nearly so) is more or less a wall with health. Elizabeth Greene is particularly annoying, it's at best a 10 minute boss fight if you're lucky and have the right abilities, and if you don't it can take upwards of 45 minutes of CherryTapping. The Supreme Hunter takes this and tacks on a 6-minute time limit just for fun. Even common mooks like Hunters are quite spongey, which is annoying since they are RespawningEnemies. |
| 297 | * ''VideoGame/Rockman4MinusInfinity'' has the Wily Machine, which has several ''dozen'' life bars (though each bar can only take 3 or 4 hits apiece) and ergo takes a good while to kill. Its second form, thankfully, only has one bar. |
| 298 | * Every single boss (and enemy) in the VideoGame/StreetPassMiiPlaza game ''Find Mii''. This is because there's no accuracy stats or hero lifebar so to speak, enemies simply scare away each hero after their attack. And the final bosses have between 150 and 250 health, in a game where a low ranked hero might be able to do between 3 and 6 damage. |
| 299 | [[/folder]] |
| 300 | |
| 301 | [[folder: Non-Video-Game Examples]] |
| 302 | * ''Literature/ADearthOfChoice'': Omen, the second-floor boss, is immune to several kinds of damage, and highly resistant to most other kinds. Unless the adventurers can find something that he's vulnerable to, it's a long slog to take him down. Fortunately, he's nothing special on offence; he has a giant sword, but is only moderately capable with it. |
| 303 | * ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'' has three notable examples, each of a different type. Akash'Thriya is the conventional kind with 200 HP (For context, the average villain has ~80 and the average attack does 2 damage). Iron Legacy has compartively low health, but has a dizzying array of methods to block, redirect and heal from damage, making getting past his defences a slog. And Spite has massive amounts of healing, making it extremely difficult to make an attack stick. All three are likely going to be the longest fights in the game. |
| 304 | [[/folder]] |
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