History ThatOneBoss / Gradius

* The third-to-last boss of the game (and second-to-last, in terms of bosses that put up a real effort), Heavy Ducker. It's a massive version of those "Ducker" walker enemies that have been a staple of the series since the first game, and it pulls absolutely no punches, from a machinegun with bullets that demand precision dodging, a WaveMotionGun attack that forces you to quickly position yourself to its blindspot, and an attack where it drops mines with high-reaching explosions, dashes to the background, and fires shots at you from the background that can potentially corner and kill you since those shots fire ''while'' the mines are going off. It is perhaps a relief that it is one of the few bosses that does not get any major upgrades from the second loop beyond.

* The third-to-last boss of the game (and second-to-last, in terms of bosses that put up a real effort), Heavy Ducker. It's a massive version of those "Ducker" walker enemies that have been a staple of the series since the first one, and it pulls absolutely no punches, from a machinegun with bullets that demand precision dodging, a WaveMotionGun attack that forces you to quickly position yourself to its blindspot, and an attack where it drops mines with high-reaching explosions, dashes to the background, and fires shots at you from the background that can potentially corner and kill you since those shots fire ''while'' the mines are going off. It is perhaps a relief that it is one of the few bosses that does not get any major upgrades from the second loop beyond.

As an arcade ShootEmUp series, ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' has its fair share of [[ThatOneBoss bosses of outstanding difficulty]]. Not helped by this is that in most games, dying to a boss [[{{Checkpoint}} takes you back to right before the boss]], [[ContinuingIsPainful with barely any powerup items to re-arm yourself with]].

With more BulletHell of random unpredictable patterns, all the bosses in Treasure-developed ''Gradius V'' can be considered this even for experienced players, but these examples below stand out.

With more BulletHell of random unpredictable patterns, all the bosses in Treasure-developed ''Gradius V'' can be considered this even for experienced players, but these below stands out.

* Stage 10 features Disrupt, a CoresAndTurretsBoss but with parts of the floor and ceiling sliding up and down to restrict your movement, followed right after by Shadow Gear, yet another "survive this indestructible boss until time runs out" fight, while Duckers walk up and down to harass you. It's an eight-legged mech that often moves four legs at a time and has a severe case of HitboxDissonance, sometimes getting you killed when no part of its body is visibly touching you. There's even a [[GameBreakingBug crippling bug]], albeit a rare one, where [[UnwinnableByMistake Shadow Gear's hitboxes inexplicably fill the screen and kill you with no way to counteract it]]! But apparently, just facing each of them isn't enough, because there is ''no checkpoint'' between Disrupt and the Shadow Gear, so if you die at any point in this set, you have to fight Disrupt all over again!

* The first example is Blaster Cannon Core, the boss of Stage 5, the asteroid base. What makes this boss hard is the exact navigation the pilot has to go through; the meteor field for the boss is much thicker than the rest of the stage (as if it wasn't thick enough to begin with), and when the blaster first spirals onto the screen, it's leaving behind a trail of mines that produce two shockwaves of bullets. You CAN destroy the mines before they explode and no bullets will come out of them. Once the rock flow changes and the Vic Viper can attack the core, this machine spams BulletHell on you and you have to navigate the asteroids (the blaster's superlasers can destroy the rocks, but make sure you're in the center of the vertical axis). It's also the current page image of that trope's Shoot 'Em Up page.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gradius_v_blaster_cannon_core_thatoneboss.png]]]]

* Stage 10 features Disrupt, a CoresAndTurretsBoss but with parts of the floor and ceiling sliding up and down to restrict your movement, followed right after by the series-traditional Shadow Dancer, an invincible boss where your only hope is to survive until it passes by, while Duckers walk up and down to harass you. But this version of Shadow Dancer features a unique eight-legged design that often moves four legs at a time and has a severe case of HitboxDissonance, sometimes getting you killed when no part of its body is visibly touching you. There's even a [[GameBreakingBug crippling bug]], albeit a rare one, where [[UnwinnableByMistake Shadow Dancer's hitboxes inexplicably fill the screen and kill you with no way to counteract it]]! But apparently, just facing each of them isn't enough, because there is ''no checkpoint'' between Disrupt and the Shadow Dancer, so if you die at any point in this set, you have to fight Disrupt all over again!

* Starting with ''Gradius II'', nearly every game has one boss in the "enemy base" stage (usually the last or second-to-last stage) where a giant screen-filling mech appears and you must maneuver your way around it, [[FlunkyBoss while regular enemies continue to harass you]] and become even deadlier due to your limited breathing room. Oh, and several of these bosses are ''invincible'' (Club in non-NES versions of ''Gradius II'', Shadow Gear in ''Gradius III'', Sol in ''Gradius Gaiden'', to name a few), meaning that [[HoldTheLine the only way out is to survive until it leaves]].

* Starting with ''Gradius II'', nearly every game has one boss in the "enemy base" stage (usually the last or penultimate stage) where a giant screen-filling mech appears and you must maneuver your way around it, [[FlunkyBoss while regular enemies continue to harass you]] and become even deadlier due to your limited breathing room. Oh, and several of these bosses are ''invincible'' (Club in non-NES versions of ''Gradius II'', Shadow Gear in ''Gradius III'', Sol in ''Gradius Gaiden'', to name a few), meaning that [[HoldTheLine the only way out is to survive until it leaves]].

* Stage 10 features Disrupt, a CoresAndTurretsBoss but with parts of the floor and ceiling sliding up and down to restrict your movement, followed right after by the series-traditional Shadow Dancer, an invincible boss where your only hope is to survive until it passes by, while Duckers walk up and down to harass you. But this version of Shadow Dancer features a unique eight-legged design that often moves four legs at a time and has a severe case of HitboxDissonance, sometimes getting you killed when no part of its body is visibly touching you. But apparently, just facing each of them isn't enough, because there is ''no checkpoint'' between Disrupt and the Shadow Dancer, so if you die at any point in this set, you have to fight Disrupt all over again!

* In the second loop of ''Gradius Gaiden'', Deltatry, the fourth boss of the Stage 8 BossBonanza, not only fires its usual red flak spam that can at least be shot down, but also fires blue flak that can't be destroyed and blocks attacks other than the Lord British's Disruptor laser. This makes for a longer and more unsafe fight. The exclusive final Stage 8 BossBonanza boss only seen on loops 2 or higher, Heaven's Gate, is even worse. It's the BeamSpam of Big Core MK. II, combined with the containment lasers of Big Core MK. III (minus the reflecting lasers). Oh, and [[KaizoTrap it shoots suicide bullets upon defeat]].

%% ** Any gunwall in the series except for Gradius II's (Which has a rather pathetic safespot). Salamander/Lifeforce's gunwall spams indestructible cores that bounce about the area and are hard to dodge (and to add insult to injury, the boss is worth ''zero points''), and Gradius III's gunwall spams large amounts of enemies and bullets at you, plus the arcade version is equipped with SmashingHallwayTrapsOfDoom. Thankfully, most ports of Salamander and the SNES port of Gradius III tone down the gunwalls.

* ''Gradius Galaxies/Generations/Advance'' has [[DualBoss Bolboros]], which looks suspiciously similar to Rolling Core. The smaller ship attacks like Big Core MK 1, and the larger ship simply fires two long lasers. However, destroying either ships will [[KillOneOthersGetStronger make the other ship]] [[TurnsRed more aggressive]]. The smaller ship fires streams of bubbles, while the larger ship moves closer to your fighter.

'''Special note regarding this page:''' Normally, {{Final Boss}}es normally do not qualify for this trope. However, a quote from the main trope page: "Final Boss and Wake-Up Call Boss cannot be That One Boss without being overly hard ''by their standards''." As the standard for final bosses in this game is "[[ZeroEffortBoss defenseless]]", and it's easier to count how many bosses ''do'' fight back, difficult ''Gradius'' final bosses ''can'' qualify for this trope.

'''Special note regarding this page:''' Normally, {{Final Boss}}es normally do not qualify for this trope. However, a quote from the main trope page: "Final Boss and Wake-Up Call Boss cannot be That One Boss without being overly hard ''by their standards''." As final bosses in this game are typically [[ZeroEffortBoss defenseless]], and it's easier to count how many bosses ''do'' fight back, difficult ''Gradius'' final bosses ''can'' qualify for this trope.