Line #10 ThatOneBoss/TalesSeries


1	This page is about bosses in the VideoGame/TalesSeries that give away grief like it's candy.
2
3	'''NOTE''': FinalBoss and WakeUpCallBoss can't be added unless they are overpowerful by ''their'' standards. {{Superboss}} is completely banned: it's optional and they are supposed to be overpowered in the first place.
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6	[[foldercontrol]]
7
8	[[folder:Tales of Phantasia]]
9	* Fang Wolf. He uses repeated combo attacks that can instantly floor even the [[SuperToughness toughest opponent]].
10	* Undine. She wouldn't have been so challenging if it wasn't for her wave attack. Her wave attack would run from right to left across the screen and would hit every one of your party members and had a very small charge time. The wave would hit for somewhere in between 600 and 700 damage to your entire party when, at that point in the game, you'll be lucky if anyone other than Cless has over 1300 HP. What really seals the deal for being absurd is that Undine ''is capable of spamming her wave attack''. If she starts spamming it, then there's nothing you can do to survive. It also doesn't help that she usually casts Delay on Cless so it becomes even harder for you to interrupt her.
11	* The Fen Beast is notorious for being extremely challenging. The only reliable form of damage is fire-based attacks (sans Maxwell), he has an attack that does sizable damage to Cress and moves himself ever closer to your cleric, summoner, and witch, and his ice lance attack, which allows Fen Beast to jump in the air so it's even harder to interrupt him, is essentially a guaranteed instant-kill against [[SuperToughness Cress]]. The only reassuring aspect of the fight is that Fen Beast has only 30K HP.
12	* Demitel can also wipe out your party pretty fast with his Summon: Lich attack, unless you can interrupt his casting. Considering he starts with several monsters between him and our team, doing so can be a nightmare. There are MORE monsters BEHIND your team, which will quickly make mincemeat out of your casters while you're trying to kill Demitel and his guards.
13	* In the PSX version, Dhaos's earlier forms definitely have this potential, especially on higher difficulty levels. Unlike the SFC version he starts in the present with full HP and still hits like a truck. Probably the point in the game where abusing interrupts will become a way of life during boss fights for most players - bonus points since this boss himself demonstrates the power of this technique by chain interrupting you with weak spells before hitting you with a nuke that will nearly wipe you out.
14	* Dark Eye is immune to all magic save the costly Origin summon, takes piddling damage from physical attacks, and if you stay too close for too long it'll shred you to pieces in seconds with a spinning blade attack.
15	[[/folder]]
16
17	[[folder:Tales of Destiny 2]]
18	* Elraine is also quite nasty, because she spams status effects, is very hard to stun, and has a [[AntiMagic 100% deflect ability]]. Like Barbatos, you have to fight her twice, and both times are brutal.
19	* '''Barbatos''', the second and third time you fight him. He's very fast, hits hard, poisons you, and will instantly cast spells (while invincible) specifically to counter your characters' healing spells or items. He also has a tendency to go into overlimit a lot more than you ever will, sometimes up to 4 times in a single battle.
20	* [[spoiler:Fortuna]] could also be considered this, simply because her fight [[MarathonBoss takes so long.]]
21	[[/folder]]
22
23	[[folder:Tales of Eternia]]
24	* Many summons are like this, but Undine and Celsius stick out in particular. Undine casts "Spear of Baptism", a move that pierces across the entire battlefield. It has to charge for a couple of seconds, which would be great--except that Undine is also untouchable while charging, which neatly nixes any attack chain you have going. Celsius, meanwhile, is extremely agile, can inflict Freeze with a touch, likes to sidestep physical attacks, and will cast Blizzard, one of the most powerful Ice spells in the game, twice in rapid succession, which can easily kill an otherwise appropriately leveled party with no room for argument. Oh and let's not forget Sekundes who can cast Maxwell Extensions. Consecutively.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Tales of Symphonia (and its sequel)]]
28	!!VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia
29	* Most boss battles with multiple strong enemies in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' are this. Kvar, Sylph, Yuan/Botta, Dragons, Bonus Team Battle in Colosseum...
30	** Normally, a HopelessBossFight is, well, a foregone conclusion and therefore not really rage-inducing, but [[spoiler:the first fight with Kratos]] is overtly sadistic about it. You don't get the slightest hint beforehand that you're not meant to win; he's even rather merciful initially, giving a HopeSpot to provoke you into taking it seriously and doubling down. First time through, you're probably blowing your entire wallet's worth of gels and life bottles with nothing to show for it, and Gods save you if you were reflexively resetting...
31	** Ktugach, being the first dungeon boss in the game, also doubles as a WakeUpCallBoss. And like the above examples, it is also a FlunkyBoss, so good luck. Its two underlings will be constantly barraging you with Fireball spells, and the big man himself is so massive that it can easily wail on your entire party with one move. And once its HP starts going down, it will retaliate with Eruption, a mid-level Fire spell that covers a wide area and is devastating at that point in the game. First-time players will likely be restarting this one more than a couple of times.
32	** The Windmaster in Asgard is surprisingly tough, especially as it's often too early for Raine to know Photon and she's a mandatory participant in that battle. Plus the fake Wind Spirit knows [[BlowYouAway Air Thrust]] which takes off a lot of HP and has quite a wide field.
33	** Iubaris, the boss in the Tower of Mana, especially if you take the Hard Path[[note]]Go to Luin and Asgard before Palmacosta[[/note]]. It's fast, only weak to light magic and Raine will likely only know Photon at that stage and Colette's only light-based attack she has at that point, Angel Feathers, takes time to cast while Iubaris can use magic very quickly, charge, summon shadow-horses to ram the characters and can jump great distances to reach people across the battlefield.
34	** The fight against Yuan and Botta. Both flit around the battlefield a lot, have attacks that easily break guard or interrupting any caster trying to cast a spell and that includes your healer. You constantly need to switch between them because if you focus on only one, the other will wreck your party. And they [[ShootTheMedicFirst target your healer first]]. The boss fight that comes practically immediately ''after'' these two is much easier and feels like a BreatherBoss.
35	** The duel against [[spoiler:Kuchinawa]] is a huge pain no matter what difficulty you're on. You're forced to send Sheena in solo, which already makes the fight difficult for players that aren't used to playing as her. Furthermore the boss uses a combination of melee and ranged attacks, attacks very quickly and is difficult to stagger whereas he can stagger you with a single blow. Add the inability to use items for this fight onto all of that and you've got one of the toughest and annoying fights in the game. The good news is that winning is optional, but the good ending to this side quest is far more gratifying for Sheena's character and can net you some affection points with her.
36	** The fight against the summon spirit [[MakingASplash Undine.]] Her strategy is to back the party into a corner, and beam-spam the water spell [[ThatOneAttack Spread]], which hits every party member in a four-foot radius five times each. She also has a whopping [[DamageSponge 36,000 HP]], and a brutally fast 5 second cooldown after casting spells. Thankfully, most the other summon spirits are pretty easy to deal with, with the one major exception being Origin.
37	*** Sylph is no walk in the park either, especially if you choose to fight them before you go to Tethe'alla - there's three of them and they hit surprisingly hard. Sephie uses a sword and will periodically cast either Wind Blade, Yutis constantly teleports around the battlefield and peppers you with arrows that interrupt anybody trying to cast a spell and the Fairess rams you with her shield constantly and can cast both Wind Blade and the much more dangerous mid-tier spell Air Thrust. Each of them have about 6,000 HP each so it can be difficult to focus on one to take down with the other two's attacks interrupting you constantly.
38	----
39	!!''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld''
40	* The battle against Alice and Decus near the end of the game. You're fighting both of them at the same time, they both have [[LimitBreak Mystic Artes]], Alice can heal for about half of their substantial health [[ShootTheMedicFirst unless you target her first]], they have a lot of stun resistance (needing high dex to break through quickly), and you don't have any GuestStarPartyMember at the time, so if you've been neglecting Monster raising you're in for trouble. Unless you [[GameBreaker forged the Echo Tracer/acquired the Neither Traitor]], of course.
41	* There's also the Lookins. The fact that their role in the story is as packhorses for the Vanguard that you've been beating senseless throughout the whole game does not help. These things have an extremely fast rolling attack - fast enough to cross the entire battlefield in half a second. And they will be all too happy to spam this, as it's the ''only attack in their arsenal''. You can't combo them as they'll wind up rolling toward another party member, and since in this game getting hit while free running is a guaranteed critical, their attacks will be very damaging. And there's [[WolfpackBoss FOUR]] of them.
42	* The [[strike:Light-Frog]] Nasdroviae. Get it down to less than a quarter health and it will automatically perform two healing spells to bring itself right back to 50% health. Plus it's guarding while it's doing all this, so unless you pull off a REALLY well-coordinated combo (or have a high dex stat on a character/monster, ie guard-break) you're not going to stop it once it starts. It's no pushover in combat, either, and your only chance is to whittle its health down just above 1/4 health and then break out the best combo you can manage, ending it in a Unison Attack, and hope it's enough to kill it in one go.
43	* The fight with Hawk in Altamira, where he learns his Over-Limit skill and starts zipping around the battlefield, bringing your party members to near-death in only two hits (barring good equipment/levels/monsters).
44	* After defeating the FinalBoss, there are two post final bosses that serve as set dressing, and normally are no big deal... unless you're going for the worst ending of the game. In that case, you have to actually win the first of the two, which is framed as a HopelessBossFight with you as a solo Emil (not even mons) that normally just deletes you to advance the plot. It consists of a melee enemy and a mage enemy, and the melee is a pure LightningBruiser while the mage will simply incinerate you with spells. Good luck fighting off either one when the other is bearing down on you! And remember... if you REALLY [[EarnYourBadEnding want that bad end]] and you die, you get to fight the proper Final Boss again!
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Tales of Rebirth]]
48	* Geyorkias is one of the hardest non-optional bosses in the Tales series. He frequently hovers above the battlefield, barely within range, breathing fireballs that hit really hard and cover a wide area. When he hovers closer, your melee fighters have to be at the edge of the arena to dish some proper damage, but they run the risk of getting caught in his equally hard-hitting death ray. When his HP drops, he begins using powerful special artes and spells that can easily knock out your characters. Switching between them to get them to guard properly is highly recommended.
49	* All [[DuelBoss duel bosses]] against Milhaust, especially if the player hasn't been playing as Veigue. Milhaust is fast compared to MightyGlacier Veigue, he combos very efficiently, and his Mystic Arte Finality Testament ''will'' bring you down to a quarter of your HP. The second one is particularly brutal since unlike the first, you are required to win.
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Tales of Legendia]]
53	* Stingle. Crazy attack power, high HP, really long reach and (get this): he can enter stances that if you attack him, he'll counter-attack. This will hit everyone in range. ONE OF THESE IS AN INSTANT-DEATH SKILL. Which means that if you're not paying attention you can have three quarters of your party dead in an instant and not know why. Luckily the preceding boss drops an anti-One hit KO item, but if you didn't know this beforehand, you're dead.
54	* [[DualBoss Dark Senel and Dark Shirley]] deserve a few mentions. The former distracts you while the latter casts her un-dodgeable Blizzard spell, which can kill the entire party.
55	* And speaking of dark bosses, Dark Chloe is a nightmare. Not only does she make use of the actual Chloe's skills (and recall that Chloe is this game's sword user, meaning she has a variety of useful skills that cover all sorts of impressive ranges) and hit like a tank on steroids, but she is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to stagger, so she'll often charge right through any attacks you attempt on her and combo whoever the hell she wants to death. On the plus side, she's vulnerable to the Bind status, which temporarily immobilizes the target. The problem? The only way to inflict Bind is through one of Chloe's Compound Eres, which A. You may not have as your current Compound Ere, and B. The computer NEVER EVER USES COMPOUND ERES, so if you're not controlling Chloe yourself (and unlike other Tales games, you can't switch characters mid-battle in Legendia), or unused to using her Compound Eres, which are all counter attacks, you're still good and screwed.
56	* The Gigant at the end of the Ruins of Frozen Light is cited as one of the most difficult boss fights in the game. It has ridiculously high health and incredibly high attack strength, so not only does it hit really hard, it'll take a long time to kill. It's significantly harder than anything fought up until that point, and has a well-earned reputation for being one of the most frustrating bosses in the game.
57	[[/folder]]
58
59	[[folder:Tales of the Abyss]]
60	* Arietta, when you fight her at Choral Castle, is one of the nastiest bosses in the game. She has two monsters helping her out which are more than capable of killing your party, and that's before you factor in Arietta herself buffing them and casting dangerous attack spells. Want to try and stop her from doing so? You'll need an ally to help you attack her, otherwise she'll just shrug off your attacks and cast the spell anyway, and good luck actually getting your computer-controlled allies to not be idiots and attack her. This is assuming she doesn't go into Overlimit, which prevents hitstun even if you do get an ally to join you. If you're facing her with NewGamePlus benefits on a higher difficulty, she gains [[LimitBreak Mystic Artes]] too. And this is the ''second boss of the game''.
61	* Legretta. [[MeaningfulName They don't call her "the Quick" for nothing.]] Her normal attacks are not only ranged and incredibly fast but they also deal A LOT of damage thus leaving you very little room to attack her. But it gets worse, since her artes are not only incredibly powerful but [[ArtificialStupidity your teammates will never try to avoid it even if they aren't casting fonic artes]] so unless you have both Natalia and Tear on the field the rest of your team will start dropping like flies.
62	* Sync, whenever you fight him by himself, can also be a real doozy. He is similar to Legretta in that he is also extremely fast and has access to ridiculously strong physical ''and'' fonic artes, so he can easily destroy your party if you're not careful. He also shares the same habit of reserving his deadlier artes for until after he's taken enough of a beating--the second battle against him is a good example of a boss that starts out easy but can becomes ridiculously hard about halfway through.
63	* Near the end of the 2nd part of the game, you end up fighting Legretta, Arietta and Largo... all at once. Everything listed about Legretta above applies here, and while Largo's slow, he hits like a freight train. Arietta for her part isn't as bad as the first or third fights with her... except for the detail where she can ''revive Legretta and Largo if they're dead and she's not.'' Needless to say you'll want to focus her down, but good luck doing that while Legretta and Largo are after you! Playing on a higher difficulty? Let's add their [[LimitBreak Mystic Artes]] into the mix!
64	[[/folder]]
65
66	[[folder:Tales of the Tempest]]
67	* The final boss, [[spoiler:King Aurella]], actually puts up a fight: he hits hard, teleports around the battlefield, and attacks with several status ailments. This can take some players by surprise, because up until that point, every single battle could be easily won by mashing the A button. He's still not quite tough enough to be considered hard (especially because by the time you get there, you should have a lot of healing items), but compared to the rest of the game it's a huge difficulty spike.
68	[[/folder]]
69
70	[[folder:Tales of Innocence]]
71	* Cerberus. He's got several attacks that almost always miss, but he also frequently does a diving kick that chains into Grave/Stalagmite, which is very, very hard to dodge if it's aimed at you. However, he comes with a pair of dogs that, while they don't have any techniques at all, are very fast, have combos that will always interrupt your attacks and send you flying on a low enough trajectory to make it very, very unlikely that you'll pull off an aerial recovery, and have only ''slightly'' less HP than Dog Boy himself. Oh, and it's almost impossible to stagger them, in a game that pretty much requires staggering to pull off any kind of damaging combo and/or stop your enemies from wiping the floor with you. The only good thing to come out of this fight is that your last party member joins right after it, and their fighting style is pretty much exactly the same as Cerberus', albeit with the expected basic-techniques-only moveset.
72	* The Gigantess Omega. Its kicks, dashes and shots deal insane damage to the party, but to make things worse, its tornado is pretty much guaranteed to KO anyone near him who weren't quick enough to guard or move out of the way. Oh, but that's not even its trump card: it has an energy surge attack that knocks down and away anyone near it (i.e:the melee fighters, who are the #1 powerhouses) while dealing nigh-OHKO damage at the same time. And it uses it without any warning. Did we mention that it's constantly on the move, rarely touches the ground and never stays in one spot for more than a few seconds?
73	* Hasta. As if his pre-battle cutscene ramblings haven't disoriented you (and the party) enough. Hasta has nasty offensive and defensive power to begin with, and this is made worse by his choice in weapons, meaning he has wide range for his attacks. The DS version was even more merciless with him, since he brought monster companions and appeared at the end of extremely frustrating dungeons.
74	* Chien is much more dangerous; he's fought two times, and both times together with his two dogs. Both of which has stats like a standard boss. So yeah, he's a triple-boss. Seriously, good luck.
75	* Oswald. You'd think a fat, incompetent opportunist would be a pushover in a boss fight. Nope! He comes in on the party with the experimental [[PoweredArmor Gigantess Omega]]. Made to [[spoiler:take on Mathias]]. Fighting the battle is ''hell'' itself. His kicks, dashes and shots deal insane damage to the party, but to make things worse, his tornado is pretty much guaranteed to KO anyone near him who weren't quick enough to guard or move out of the way. Oh, but that's not even his trump card: he has an energy surge attack that knocks down and away anyone near him (i.e:the melee fighters, who are the #1 powerhouses) ''while dealing nigh-OHKO damage at the same time''. And he uses it without any warning. Did we mention that he's constantly on the move, rarely touches the ground and never stays in one spot for more than a few seconds, while also boasting ridiculous physical defense that render your frontliners little more than useless?
76	* [[spoiler:Ange and Albert]] in Tenos. A DualBoss where one is a fast and powerful melee fighter who can also heal, and the other is a ranged attacker who's constantly interrupting your team and can cause StatusEffects. And as an added bonus, you're short the party member who was probably your main healer.
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:Tales of Vesperia]]
80	* Gattuso in the Ehmead Hills. Unlike the previous bosses, Gattuso is much higher level, has much more HP, more attack power, is much faster, is accompanied by two tougher than average wolves, can poison you with its melee attacks ''and'' can stun every member of your party too close to him when he roars. To rub it in your face, immediately afterwards the party ''talks about how easy the fight was'' (or at least [[SmallNameBigEgo Karol]] does), and the next boss is a freaking cakewalk. While it's not necessarily the hardest boss fight in the game, it just comes way too early for most players and gives them the real first taste of the boss brutality to come. Hence his nickname, "the Noob Killer". Interestingly, it's rumored that he's only this difficult due to a programming oversight: the developers intended for him to be this difficult for the demo (so as to entice players to buy the full game and grind properly to have a better chance), but forgot to nerf him for the actual release. The fight can be even harder for players who wants to complete the [[GuideDangIt Secret Mission]].
81	* The DualBoss pair of Tison and Nan at Mt. Temza. They're the first bosses whom you'll fight who introduce Mystic Artes proper, at a point where only [[MightyGlacier Karol]] can learn his. Tyson is a horrendous nightmare who can zoom around the field and even strike Estelle or Rita from afar to interrupt their casting, and Nan can use her boomerang blade to disrupt your party from any range, and she can heal for a bit. Her Mystic Arte has the potential of taking down more than one target if she initiates it when standing too close to many. Tyson also has a nasty habit of almost stunlocking whoever he is attacking due to how aggressive he is, meaning you can end up having a character locked down while Nan heals him, or targets the other characters.
82	* Captain Schwann. Your party is missing its two primary healers: Estelle [[spoiler:(who's [[DamselInDistress being held captive]] by Alexei)]] and Raven [[spoiler:(who is ''the boss you're fighting'')]], and he will take full advantage of that with devastating strike artes and a hard-hitting [[LimitBreak Mystic Arte]] that's likely following the killer combo he just pulled on your party since he was in [[TurnsRed Over Limit]].
83	* [[spoiler:Khroma]] has an incredibly damaging tail attack she just pulls out of ''nowhere'', and can fly around the battlefield, forcing you to chase her down. The worst part about [[spoiler:Khroma]] is ''definitely'' that attack when she sends multiple homing fireballs at you. It's nigh unavoidable and sometimes causes Sealed Artes.
84	* [[spoiler:Alexei]], because aside from being really strong, he'll spam his Brilliant Cataclysm Mystic Arte which he can literally pull out of ANYWHERE. In the middle of comboing him? Bam, Brilliant Cataclysm. He can even use it when he's not in Hypermode (which is '''the''' requirement for Mystic Arte usage) and the move is completely undodgeable and hits like a truck. In fact, it's so powerful that it can one-shot your entire party on hard if you're not overleveled or packed to the gills with defensive skills and buffs. In addition, he has two high-tier spells named Tidal Wave and Holy Rain, which are dangerous and capable of inflicting a TotalPartyKill just as much as his Mystic Arte. And to top it all off, he can heal himself for a lot with Guardian Frost, a fast attack that also does damage in a small area around him (making it much more difficult to interrupt with melee attacks), and which he happens to love spamming while in overlimit...so expect this fight to drag on even longer than his already chunky health bar would suggest.
85	* Yeager at Zaude. He's fast, he hits hard, and if you fling him into the air in any way (like with Shining Dragon Swarm or Tiger Blade), he breaks out of your combo and uses [[DeathFromAbove Aer Light]] on you. Also his secret mission is based almost entirely on pure luck and Raven's Rain arte.
86	* In the [=PS3=] version, to some extent, [[spoiler: Duke]]'s second form and his third form. Unlike the Xbox 360 version, Big Bang can kill, instead of leaving everyone with 1 HP. Since it deals thousands of damage on all difficulties, you're basically looking at an easy [[TotalPartyKill one-hit KO ]] on everyone. Better pack Rebirth Dolls and have that Resurrect skill ready.
87	[[/folder]]
88
89	[[folder:Tales of Hearts]]
90	* Cornelpin the mad scientist and Incarose-ILL. All that needs be said about Cornelpin is that, until names began catching on, he was known on virtually all message boards, videos, and other American fan works as "that fat bastard with the spin attack". The latter is a retread of a previous HopelessBossFight with more defense, more combos, bigger spells, a Hi-Ougi, and in general roughly as much power relative to the player owing to sheer annoyingness. And you're supposed to win.
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Tales of Graces]]
94	* The Slime Queen. The queen itself is not that hard, but the slime enemies she summons can poison your characters and easily gang up on you if you're not prepared. Since a lot of the boss fights in this game are [[FlunkyBoss Flunky Bosses]] that can inflict StatusEffects, the Slime Queen also serves as a WakeUpCallBoss.
95	* [[spoiler:Richard's first fight.]] He's the first encounter with a Nova aura and breaks out of combos and stuns very easily.[[spoiler: His Mystic Arte, Bloody Rose,]] can hit anyone on the battlefield even if they are nowhere near him, and you have a very small party at the time consisting of only Hubert, Asbel, and Sophie. To make matters worse, he targets Sophie any time she tries to heal.
96	** Any FlunkyBoss, but especially Kurt. Kurt attacks a lot, hits hard, and has a wide range of attack. He also delights in [[ShootTheMedicFirst ignoring the person dealing damage to him and picking on Cheria and Sophie]], while ignoring Hubert unless he starts healing. To make matters worse, he ''summons mooks'' into the battle. If you try to just pick on Kurt to burn him down, the adds will surround and kill you faster than Sophie and Cheria can heal. Stop and beat up the adds so they can't get you? Kurt will run over and pick on Cheria and Sophie. Having Malik out ''will'' draw his attention away somewhat, but Malik isn't the type of character who can get out of being comboed well, and if Kurt is given a second to start comboing Malik, he'll be down faster than Cheria or Sophie can handle, let alone Hubert. This fight practically requires Pascal to be on your team so she can make use of her AOE spells to beat up the adds and tank the damage Kurt puts out.
97	* And Emeraude. The only way to really fight her is make a full team of ranged attackers, because she has an aura active at almost all times that damages and staggers everyone in melee range every second or so. The only time this is not active is when she is attacking, during which she has Iron Stance active, which means that she can pull NoSell on ALL of your attacks. That, and she has ludicrously powerful attacks that often hit half the battlefield. Killer Field is particularly bad, as it hits the ENTIRE field for massive damage AND pulls your characters towards the center, where they are easy pickings for Emeraude's other area attacks. What makes this attack worse is it ''can'' be simply guarded, [[ArtificialStupidity but your AI partners are too stupid to do so.]] Fittingly, the best means of dealing with Emeraude are using your party's equivalent to the Fodran; Pascal's artes are practically designed to hit her from afar, and spamming Bloodflamme is usually the most efficient means of taking Emeraude down. Even still, Emeraude can be faily mobile, so it's important to keep track of her damaging aura so you don't get sucked in.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Tales of Xillia (and its sequel)]]
101	!!VideoGame/TalesOfXillia
102	* Jiao in the Sapstrath Deepwoods. He's the first boss you encounter after getting a proper [[TheMedic healer]] onto your team and you'll ''need'' her. Jiao is very bulky to begin with, with a lot of HP to whittle down and he's difficult to stagger. In turn, he can easily combo you and because he's TheBigGuy and uses a hammer he can, and will, cause a lot of damage to you. Elize will have her hands full healing your party. Jiao also likes to call some underlings - Wolves or Birds, which aren't tough in the general sense, but more minor annoyances because they like to trip your party up when you're trying to focus on Jiao. And defeating the underlings first merely results in Jiao calling more. It's not uncommon for first-time players to need to retry this battle at least once.
103	* Nameless Anomaly is an ''immense'' pain in the ass for a huge numbers of reasons. First of all, it's a flying enemy, and will spend the large majority of the battle well above your party's reach, forcing you to rely on what precious few aerial attacks you have in order to do any sort of damage. Second, the thing is massive, so its attacks have an incredible reach and do lots of damage. Third, but most certainly not least, it loves to spam all sorts of status ailments, using artes that can poison and seal your own artes, as if you didn't already have limited enough options to hit this thing. And its physical attacks? They're so strong that they'll stun you more than half the time. It may be a Wind elemental, and thus weak to Earth, but although you have two characters who can use Rock Trine, it will almost always miss due to it constantly flying around all over the place. Splash is actually a much more effective spell to use as it is more accurate and, since it strikes from above, can also ground it in place and make it easier for you to hit.
104	* The DuelBoss fight against [[spoiler:Muzét]]. She can hit you with pretty much every status effect in the game, and you don't have a healer to save your ass in this fight. Equip an Amulet to guard against the status effects? Her Artes can still burn (constant damage over time) and slow you down, on top of dealing a ton of damage... which just means that she can continue spamming her Artes on you to wipe the floor with you. Managed to dodge it? She has a really fast attack that strikes in all directions and knocks you down. Blocking constantly? She has an unblockable attack that can easily take off a third of your total health. Let her get in a hit, and she can hit you with an unescapable combo. She also has high-tier spells of pretty much every single element, has a crapton of HP and has such a high defense stat that you will only deal damage in the 3-digits, even with high-powered [[InfinityPlusOneSword Devil's Arms]].
105	----
106	!!VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2
107	* [[spoiler: Volt]] is a '''very''' annoying/tricky boss to defeat in this story (He was quite manageable with enough preparation before, [[spoiler: unlike this variant of him]]) if you haven't grinded up your party's skills in advance, as he can easily mop the floor with you if you don't learn the new Power Hits mechanics to take him down quickly enough. He '''loves''' to jump around, making moderate-sized electrical shockwaves around your party, weakening/KOing them with ease most of the time as well as firing a full 360 electrical laser that spans the entire battle area. Hope you unlocked Ludger/Alvin's "Bullet Fiesta" linked arte as it REALLY can save your ass in this fight '''big time''' when used effectively on him since, unlike the other optional bosses, this one is '''directly''' tied to story progression, so... good luck.
108	* Chronos is the most extreme example in the game. Every time you fight him, he has the ability to reset the fight if you're not able to stop him in time, he always has support from several rings that can nearly OneHitKo your party members and each time you fight him and you're unable to set your own party up until the final boss fight with him. It doesn't help that on the second time you face him, you're playing with just Ludger, Milla, Gaius, and Muzet, which means you have no real healer. It's not uncommon to see players die easily at the fight.
109	* [[spoiler:Victor is a close second. Not only does he have ALL of Ludger's artes, he also has Chromatus, meaning he has two mystic artes he can hit you with. To add to that, he loves inflicting status effects with his guns. Oh, and he starts the boss fight in Chromatus form, meaning there's a huge chance he'll use his Mystic Arte and nearly wipe out your entire group...simply because they were close enough together. Similar to the above, you have no real healer save Jude]].
110	* [[spoiler: As is typical of [[DuelBoss Duel Bosses]] in the Tales series, Julius. He can kill you in a few hits, inflict Bleed and worse, ''Confusion'' (see ThatOneAttack above), has a hard-to-avoid Mystic Arte... and his defence goes through the roof when he's on low HP.]]
111	* Exoplasma might very well be the most difficult Monster Hunt. To start with, the game flat out tells you it can't be hurt by anything, and that the only way to do so, is to strike at his replications. The problem is that its defense is super high, so you have to block and use Power Charge 3 to break it, or trigger Chromatus. However, the time it takes to do that and correctly guess when it'll use its replica ability, is a split second. The clones can be killed easily, but they often gang up and perform a very powerful spinning attack that takes off a clean chunk of HP. To make the matter worse, they can hide underground and strike up at you, which makes comboing them even harder. They can even hide while in Chromatus form! They also inflict nasty status debuffs like Fire.
112	* Though it's technically a FinalBoss, the route to the game's bad ending will [[EarnYourBadEnding make you earn it.]] It pits you as Ludger, alone, against [[spoiler: the entire Xillia 1 cast, plus previous FinalBoss Gaius and Muzet.]] Right away, you're solo, so no link abilities, including your normal mystic arte, for you- while your enemies DO have Link capability and will use it. While the game compensates by giving you Chromatus Level 3, it only does so much; while [[spoiler: Jude]] goes down pretty easily, your remaining 7 enemies... [[spoiler: Alvin and Gaius are tanky and hit like trucks, Leia out-ranges Swords and Hammers with ease, Muzet and Rowen will call upon their spells if you don't keep them in check, Milla's a full JackOfAllStats and knows it.... and lets just say you want to burn Elize the moment she makes herself known]]. Its telling that the point to go to this boss is to instead branch AWAY from the game's DuelBoss... and that one's listed here, too, so no matter what you're in for a bad time!
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Tales of Zestiria]]
116	* Evil Plantasm. For starters the boss has insane range and deals high physical damage at what is only a quarter of the way through the game. It has two attacks that are frustrating to deal with; a one-two punch that deals massive damage, and a spinning attack that deals more then one hit and deals massive damage. It also randomly ignores attacks sometimes, meaning it'll likely one-shot a character for no reason. When its health gets low it gets Zooming Punch which can and will one-shot someone who is guarding. Making this fight worse is the little plant enemies, which are boosted thanks to a brand new, never shown trait that makes enemies of the same type linked together and have increased stats. If you focus on the little ones, you'll have the boss ripping you apart but if you focus on the boss the little plants will swarm your team. It's a pretty unfair boss at this early in the game.
117	* Medusa is the only story boss that can inflict petrification, which cannot be cured except by letting the boss kill the petrified character and then reviving the victim. While Dezel and anyone armatized with him can NoSell this ailment, the other Armatus pair will need to have the Aejis stack skill set up, which is hard to pull off without Lord of the Land grinding.
118	* Even if you've had little trouble with previous bosses you may have difficulty with [[spoiler:Maltran]] due to her high speed, longer reach and tendency to chain her attacks together, leaving you little room to counter. Not helping is that Alisha replaces Rose for this segment, which means you only get one Armatus pair. On higher difficulties, Alisha's weapon and headgear are also going to fall behind everyone else's, hampering her damage output further and making this battle much tougher.
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Tales of Berseria]]
122	* Eleanor's final fight, which is a DuelBoss between Velvet and Eleanor. If you slip up, Eleanor can combo you into oblivion and not even give you a chance to recover. This was more forgivable in the previous two fights, but now that it's one-on-one, a single mistake could cost you the fight.
123	* Kamoana can be a real trip-up. She resists just about everything you've got, does constant wind elemental damage, and can constantly push you into a corner - ''out'' of Magilou's healing circles. When she pushes you into the wall like this you also are staggered unless you guarded at the right time - and you're staggered for ''a while''. Basically by that point, you have to really know the intricacies of this battle system.
124	* Medissa, the Snake Queen. She's a FlunkyBoss who constantly summons snakes to help her fight. The snakes themselves can Poison you and prevent you from healing, and they force you to take your attention away from Medissa herself, who's a real monster. She can Petrify your party members with Gorgon's Eye, which you have no way to prevent or cure outside of single-use Panacea Bottles at the time. And Medissa's Break Soul is so strong, it can easily one-shot your close-range fighters like Velvet and Rokurou. Plus, even for when she's encountered, her HP is almost absurdly high. All of this means spending several seconds recovering, only to be surrounded by snakes and going right back down, making it very hard to build up any kind of offensive momentum.
125	* The second, and final fight against Oscar is one of the hardest fights in the game. For starters, you literally just got done fighting Teresa, so unless you had food set to auto-cook, you're going into battle with less than ideal conditions. [[spoiler:Oscar also uses Armatization now and, using a wind Malak, has powerful attacks that hit a wide arc, and now has high mobility meaning unless you manage to get a small combo going, he'll be running through the arena attacking everyone he sees. His mystic arte hurts but his strongest attack is Cloudburst, which will kill anyone in its way, and like his normal attacks, hits a large arc.]] This boss fight exists to show you how tough the game's final fights with the Exorcists truly are.
126	* The game's second-to-last battle, which is a DualBoss against [[spoiler:Artorius and Innominat, fighting your party together]], primarily due to the latter. So, you know Laphicet's final spell, Insubstantiality? The one that blankets basically the entire battlefield for a ton of damage, balanced somewhat by the rather long casting time? Well, this boss can cast it too, in about half the time Laphicet needs to get it out, and his passive ability grants him immunity to staggering for up to 15 hits while he's casting, making it almost impossible to knock him out of his chant and cancel the spell (especially if the other opponent is hacking away at your backside while you're trying to hit the first bastard). It's basically worth half your team's HP (or more) with no reliable way to prevent it. And he spams the HELL out of it. Have fun! Oh, and don't forget about the second half of the Dual Boss, either! He doesn't hit nearly as hard, but if he catches you and starts comboing you, you'll be a sitting duck for Insubstantiality!
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128
129	[[folder:Tales of Arise]]
130	* Lord Ganabelt, the ruler of Cyslodia. His speedy attacks render Rinwell's charge attacks largely useless, he creates clones of himself that can cause even more chaos and damage to your party, and worst of all is his Mystic Arte, "Indignation". It's an unavoidable, unstoppable AOE (for every difficulty past Story), that will utterly wipe out your party except for Alphen if he's of sufficient level AND at full health. You will not only have to spend several moments struggling to revive your party ''but'' you will also have at most, ''four'' Gananbelt clones to deal with aside from his vastly more powerful move set now that he's in his second phase. Even with proper resistances, this is still a brutal battle of attrition that will drain your resources, especially if you can't pass the DPS check to stop his second Indignation.
131	* Almeidrea's boss fight is a massive war of attrition. Not only is she a DamageSpongeBoss of 160000 HP (''DOUBLE'' the amount of the boss fought in the dungeon prior to hers), but her God's Breath spell forces the player to zip around the battlefield. Once her health bar is down to the last quarter, she starts spamming Chaotic Disaster, a powerful, unblockable spell that keeps the player from getting close to the boss and dealing damage, forcing them to waste even more items and healing. Considering that items in this game cost a lot and money are hard to come by, you have to spend a lot of time farming for rare enemy drops to sell.
132	* Before you fight Vholran, you must fight a FlunkyBoss... and the FlunkyBoss summons ''another'' copy of itself. It then proceeds to merge, bringing it back up to full health. And both of these forms are quite [[DamageSpongeBoss spongy]], meaning that on any difficulty above Story you must go through roughly 200,000 HP of damage. The only mercy is that it's weak to dark damage (which means Dohalim will be of huge help in this battle) and has a core you can attack to weaken it.
133	[[/folder]]

Context ThatOneBoss / TalesSeries