History ThatOneBoss / FinalFantasy

* The final boss of the first DLC of ''VideoGame/StrangerOfParadiseFinalFantasyOrigin'' is a major step up in difficulty from bosses fought before this point: [[spoiler:the Warrior of Light]] is fought solo, so you can't count on having teammates draw their aggro while you catch your breath. The first half of the fight is fairly manageable, since they can easily be staggered with Soul Shield. Once the second phase kicks in, however, they become a lot harder to stagger, and a lot more aggressive in their attacks. The timing to try and hit them after a barrage of attacks is small, and they always block your first attack and counter with either a wide-ranged melee attack that you have to block again with Soul Shield, or an unblockable ranged attack that you must dodge. At such close range, and with such a small window of time to react, you'll have to be either extremely dexterous or extremely lucky to survive this assault.

* Garuda. He's weak to Dragoon abilities, but you've just gotten access to dragoon gear, so there's a lot of level-grinding involved. He has the Lightning attack; a ridiculously strong attack that hits your entire party for high damage. When you fight him, it's very much a luck based fight; even if you come prepared, he might still just go first and wipe your party with Lightning. The only real strategy is just trying to rush down his health with jump attacks before he kills someone. The DS version gives him a moderately powerful physical attack, meaning you might get some respite as he only attacks one party member... but the same version also makes him attack twice per turn, meaning that he might well fire off two lightning attacks right as the battle begins, obliterating your entire party before they can move a muscle.

** Adrammelech is a flying enemy, meaning that only ranged attacks can hit him, his Thundaja can one-shot your characters and at one point, if he doesn't kill you, he will cast Perfect Defence, meaning... invulnerable to anything for two minutes! Ironically, the real problem is not the boss himself but his allies. There will always be at least four Shambling Corpses aiding the Esper with AoE magicks and status-inflicting attacks. And they spawn endlessly.

*** For levity's sake, here's SdrawkcabName having his paycheck stolen: http://lparchive.org/Final-Fantasy-Tactics-Advance/Update%2034/

** Brynhildr. Her attacks aren't powerful enough to one-shot you, but they can be incredibly annoying, as they take off a good chunk of your health. Your party, as with the Odin fight, has only two people. This fight hammers home the importance of those buff and debuff spells that you've largely ignored up to this point, since without your party being appropriately buffed and Brynhildr being weakened sufficiently, you simply can't deal enough damage to make any progress. If Brynhildr doesn't finish you off, the Doom countdown is almost certain to.
** Bahamut. He has a three-hit combo of doom, which knocks whoever it hits into the air, making them unable to act for the entire duration of the combo. The combo can hit everyone in its radius, and if it hits Fang twice in a row before you can heal (which is very possible if your healers get flung skyward from the first attack), you're ''dead''.

** Wrexsoul, the boss of Cyan's Soul/The Dreamscape, for being a GuideDangIt PuzzleBoss. [[spoiler:During most of the fight, Wrexsoul will "possess" one of your party members. To make him reveal himself so you can damage him, you have to ''kill your own party members'' (or cast Break on them) until you happen to kill the one he's hiding in.]] You can technically end the fight without killing him by casting X-Zone/Banish on his minions, but then you don't get the [[DisadvantageousDisintegration Memento Ring]][[note]]protects against all OneHitKill status ailments[[/note]] he gives, which is rather nice.

** Doomgaze / Deathgaze. The thing about Deathgaze is that he's the one and only enemy that attacks you while you're in your airship. And although he's not overpowered for his level, he's level 55, and you get your airship in the World of Ruin about level 25-30. So if you have the bad luck to run into him early on, he can wipe the floor with you in seconds. He opens every battle with Level 5 Death, having the potential to deal a TotalPartyKill out the gate, then he spams Doom/Death, Ice 3/Blizzaga, and Aero for a couple turns before running away on his third turn. All in all by the time you're probably just getting everyone healed up and ready for the fight, he ends it. Then you have to hunt him down and do it all over again.

** In the Pixel Remaster version, Ice Dragon and Fiend both become this due to the enemy AI script being thrown away, meaning they can cast [[ThatOneAttack Northern Cross]] at any time they want, which afflicts Frozen to your entire party, meaning they cannot do anything. The only way to undo it is to cast fire magic on the frozen party member, best done with the Fire spell. Or wait for it to expire, but they can get quite a bit of damage in by then.

** Adrammelech is a flying enemy, meaning that only ranged weapons works, his Thundaja can one-shot your characters and at one point, if he doesn't kill you, he will cast Perfect Defence, meaning...invulnerable to anything for two minutes! Ironically, the real problem is not the boss himself but his allies. There will always be at least four Shambling Corpses aiding the Esper with all-range magicks and inflicting status ailments. And they spawn endlessly.
** Zalera spams Kill (a one-shot attack), various ailments that leaves highly vulnerable, such as Sleep and Disable, his Prime Lv. Death can one-shot your entire party ([[GuideDangIt Unless your characters are of certain levels]]), at the very beginning of the battle, he'll become pretty much invulnerable to physical attacks for a certain amount of time, and he's immune to any kind of magic. Ah, and his battle must be won under five minutes or you have to try again. Lovely.
** Cúchulainn's area will inflict a permanet Sap status to your characters that can't be removed and is much faster that normal. Also, he will inflict/spam Disable, Immobilize and Slow to your characters and has at least four Foobars helping him and they will respawns indefinitely, but luckily they will take a longer time respawning the more you kill. His worst attack though is without a doubt Invert, which inverts MP and HP, and can easily defeat a character either with his next attack or by the Sap status. Lastly, once his health is halved, he will raise his attack and reduce the damage received. Unless you have Bleck Belts equipped, which prevents Disable and Immobilize, well, you lose the second you step into his arena, and even then you have to take care of everything that comes later.

** Zeromus can inflict Slow and, god-forbid, Stop. He also uses Piercing Graviga (which ignore Reflect) and is constantly aided by, at least, ''ten'' Dark Lords which respawn indefinitely. And Magicks are disabled. That means that your only way of healing is to use items. How many X-Potions and Remedy Lore you have? You will need them. There's a reason the zodiac sign that represent this guy is the Cancer.
** Chaos disables the freaking '''Attack''' command. And is immune to every element (with him absorbing Wind)...except Earth. Which isn't an avaiable Magick unless you obtain Hashmal! Only five weapons can inflict Earth damage, with two of them being crappy and other two being easily missable. Non-elemental Magicks are good though but unfortunately he won't be much damaged by it. It's better to find certain offensive Technicks, such as Gil Toss, before fighting this guy since he can also wipe out a character's MP with Fearga. One last thing, half-trivial half-important, is that he's aided by four elements but they don't otherwise cause too many problems. Of course depending on how you have played they can also be your worst nightmare.

** Doomgaze / Deathgaze. The thing about Deathgaze is that he's the one and only enemy that attacks you while you're in your airship. And although he's not overpowered for his level, he's level 55, and you get your airship in the World of Ruin about level 25-30. So if you have the bad luck to run into him early on, he can wipe the floor with you in seconds. He opens every battle with Level 5 Death, having the potential to deal a TotalPartyKill out the gate, then he spams Doom, Ice 3, and Aero for a couple turns before running away on his third turn. All in all by the time you're probably just getting everyone healed up and ready for the fight, he ends it. Then you have to hunt him down and do it all over again.

** For those unprepared, [=TunnelArmr=], otherwise a GoddamnedBoss, can be a hell of a boss, since you have to use Celes’ mostly useless Runic ability to absorb the machine’s attack, requiring you to balance between attacking the thing and defending against it, and if Celes slips up, it’ll use a very strong poison attack to both of them.

** Wrexsoul, the boss of Cyan's Soul, for being a GuideDangIt PuzzleBoss. [[spoiler:During most of the fight, Wrexsoul will "possess" one of your party members. To make him reveal himself so you can damage him, you have to ''kill your own party members'' until you happen to kill the one he's hiding in.]] You can technically end the fight without killing him by casting X-Zone on his minions, but then you don't get the [[DisadvantageousDisintegration Memento Ring]][[note]]protects against all OneHitKill status ailments[[/note]] he gives, which is rather nice.
** The [=MagiMaster=] atop the [[ThatOneLevel Fanatics' Tower]]. He constantly nails your party with powerful spells and swaps his elemental weaknesses around every couple of turns. He also casts Ultima when he dies, which is a guaranteed TotalPartyKill. Casting Berserk on him stops his normal magic, but Ultima is still coming at the end. Your only options to survive are to either learn [[AutoRevive Life 3]], which will take some level grinding[[note]]Only one Esper teaches it, and at a x1 rate[[/note]], use the Palidor Esper to force your entire party to Jump at the same time and hope he's down to 0 HP before the last party member lands so they avoid it or [[ManaBurn Rasp]] away all his MP, and he has 50,000 MP so have fun with that.

** Doomgaze / Deathgaze. The thing about Doomgaze is that he's the one and only enemy that attacks you while you're in your airship. And although he's not overpowered for his level, he's level 55, and you get your airship in the World of Ruin about level 25-30. So if you have the bad luck to run into him early on, he can wipe the floor with you in seconds. He opens every battle with Level 5 Death, having the potential to deal a TotalPartyKill out the gate, then he spams Doom, Ice 3, and Aero for a couple turns before running away on his third turn. All in all by the time you're probably just getting everyone healed up and ready for the fight, he ends it. Then you have to hunt him down and do it all over again.

** Adrammelech is a flying enemy, meaning that only ranged weapons works, and his Thundaja can one-shot your characters and at one point, if he doesn't kill you, he will cast Perfect Defence, menaing...invulnerable to anything for two minutes! Ironically, the real problem is not the boss himself but his allies. There will always be at least four Shambling Corpses aiding the Esper with all-range magicks and inflicting status ailments. And they spawn endlessly.

* Edea, even if you draw/cast Haste from Seifer when you fight him first. She can cast Maelstrom for over 4000 damage to the entire party, which is a lot even if you have Junctioned Full-Life at this point, and she can also cast Death, which will instantly kill whoever she casts it on. She has no healing magic to draw either so you'll have to rely on your own stocks of magic to heal.

* Evrae, the guardian wyrm of Bevelle. If you are close to it, you can use your physical party members to damage it, but this also allows Evrae to use its stronger attacks - most notably Stone Breath and the multi-target Poison Breath, the latter of which is almost guaranteed to be an instant-kill. It also casts Haste on itself once its HP drops below 10,667, and will use Swooping Scythe - another multi-target move - if you are battling from a distance, which brings Evrae right back in range for its deadly attacks. Since you don't have Yuna for this fight, that means no aeons, and you'll have to rely on Rikku's stock of Al Bhed Potions for healing. It goes without saying that the battle can get stressful fast and requires a lot of careful maneuvering.

** For those unprepared, Tunnel Armor, otherwise a GoddamnedBoss, can be a hell of a boss, since you have to use Celes’ mostly useless Runic ability to absorb the machine’s attack, requiring you to balance between attacking the thing and defending against it, and if Celes slips up, it’ll use a very strong poison attack to both of them.
** Number 128 at the end of the [[spoiler:Magitek Research Facility]] due to his placement. He immediately follows five waves of forced encounters between which you cannot heal, you have to fight him with 3 characters because you just lost your fourth, and while the preceding events gave you a lot of new Magicite, you don't have time to learn their spells because you're locked in an area with no enemies beyond the five forced encounters, which don't give enough AP to teach anything worthwhile. On top of all of that, he's a difficult boss in his own right, with three parts that attack independently while also carrying the Kazekiri, an extremely powerful weapon for Cyan at this point that may take many tries to successfully steal, prolonging the battle.
** Ultima Weapon ([=AtmaWeapon=]) on [[DiscOneFinalDungeon the Floating Continent]] is usually very challenging for first-time players. The boss uses a myriad of powerful magic, whether it be offensive (Flare Star/Quake/Meteor) or defensive (Protect/Shell/Haste) that can deal significant damage to the entire party and nerf their damage output. It likes to follow this up by finishing off a weakened target with Flare for 700 (when generally most people won't break over 1300 by this time).

** Wrexsoul, the boss of the Dreamscape, for being a GuideDangIt PuzzleBoss. [[spoiler:During most of the fight, Wrexsoul will "possess" one of your party members. To make him reveal himself so you can damage him, you have to ''kill your own party members'' until you happen to kill the one he's hiding in.]] You can technically end the fight without killing him by casting Banish on his minions, but then you don't get the [[DisadvantageousDisintegration Memento Ring]][[note]]protects against all OneHitKill status ailments[[/note]] he gives, which is rather nice.
** The Magic Master/[=MagiMaster=] atop the [[ThatOneLevel Cultists'/Fanatics' Tower]]. He constantly nails your party with powerful spells and swaps his elemental weaknesses around every couple of turns. He also casts Ultima when he dies, which is a guaranteed TotalPartyKill. Casting Berserk on him stops his normal magic, but Ultima is still coming at the end. Your only options to survive are to either learn [[AutoRevive Curaga (Life 3)]], which will take some level grinding[[note]]Only one Esper teaches it, and at a x1 rate[[/note]], use the Quetzalli/Palidor Esper to force your entire party to Jump at the same time and hope he's down to 0 HP before the last party member lands so they avoid it or [[ManaBurn Rasp]] away all his MP, and he has 50,000 MP so have fun with that.

** Deathgaze. The thing about Deathgaze is that he's the one and only enemy that attacks you while you're in your airship. And although he's not overpowered for his level, he's level 55, and you get your airship in the World of Ruin about level 25-30. So if you have the bad luck to run into him early on, he can wipe the floor with you in seconds. He opens every battle with Level 5 Death, having the potential to deal a TotalPartyKill out the gate, then he spams Death, Blizzaga, and Aero for a couple turns before running away on his third turn. All in all by the time you're probably just getting everyone healed up and ready for the fight, he ends it. Then you have to hunt him down and do it all over again.

** Goddess, one of the three Warring Triad members that make up the BossBonanza near the end of [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Kefka's Tower]]. Not only can Goddess use decently powerful spells, she has one particularly dangerous attack that is nigh impossible to block called Cloudy Heaven. What it does is it sets a Doom timer on the whole party, but instead of killing afflicted characters, it turns them into Zombies. If an afflicted character dies by any other means, they still become a Zombie. The worst part is that thanks to a glitch with how the game treats status ailments, not only does Cloudy Heaven ignore any Relics you may use to make the party immune to Zombie, but once it hits Zombie is incurable, effectively removing that character from the battle permanently.