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| 9 | %% Due to the nature of this trope, finding an image will be very difficult. |
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| 11 | %% IP thread for reference: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1536623166078581300 |
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| 14 | -> ''"You feel like you're going to have a bad time."'' |
| 15 | -->-- ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', at the start of the FinalBoss fight of the most violent path possible |
| 16 | |
| 17 | This page is about bosses in [=RPGs=] that [[ThatOneBoss give away grief like it's candy]]. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | '''Note:''' FinalBoss and WakeUpCallBoss can't be added unless they are overpowered by ''their'' standards. {{Superboss}} is completely banned from being ThatOneBoss, because it's not mandatory to fight them and easily preparable. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | '''Note:''' Please don't add anything that amounts to [[Administrivia/WalkthroughMode telling the player what they should do to win]], as it could result in Administrivia/{{natter}}. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | If you're looking for ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]'' RPG examples, they're listed [[ThatOneBoss/SuperMarioBros here]]. |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | !!Examples: |
| 26 | |
| 27 | * ''VideoGame/AbsentedAgeSquarebound'': The Ruin Warden features an arena surrounded by water, which means that its knockback electric beam can easily decimate the player's HP bar if they're hit dead on. While other Ganger bosses are hard in their own ways, this one severely punishes the player for failing to dodge in comparison. Adding to that, the method for breaking its shield is much more specific than other Ganger bosses, since it won't normally take damage from Foxtrot. Even if the player manages to break its shield and force it into turn-based mode, it's still quite strong due to its ability to switch between physical and magical immunity, along with powerful AOE and knockback skills. |
| 28 | * Not only is Chaos Lord Ledgermayne in ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' bent on starving off all of Lore by sealing off ALL magic from it, it is also so incredibly tough to beat that it'll probably give you nightmares every time you fight it, especially if you're at a low level. Its toughness is explained by the special boss mechanic worked into it that requires you to pay attention during the fight. Every one in a while, it will automatically warp to the center of the battlefield and give off a colorful glow and a message will pop up, warning, "Ledgermayne charges a powerful attack! Enter the glowing safe zone!" This message urges you to quickly run to the glowing safe zones that open up every time it does this, and if you're not there in time, then [[ThatOneAttack the resulting blast from the attack]] will hit you with MASSIVE DAMAGE and, if you have under 1,200-1,600 HP, it can easily KILL YOU. Of course, once you're in the safe zones, the blast will end up healing you. |
| 29 | ** Wolfwing, an earlier Chaos Lord, can be a pain as well. Whenever you fight him, every time you've taken enough HP off of him, he will use an attack that hits one player for huge damage and, worse yet, heals him. He'll do this about five times per fight, and once his HP hits below 10,000 or a little lower, a message will pop up saying "Wolfwing goes berserk! End this before he ends you!" and therefore he'll start attacking TWICE AS FAST! He can heal himself at least two more times when he's berserk, too. Whoa. |
| 30 | ** Ladies and gentlemen, meet Tibicenas, the eighth Lord of Chaos. Just like Wolfwing, Tibi will steal HP from as many targeted players as he wants every time enough HP is taken off him. He'll do this about eight times per fight, and by the time he steals HP for the sixth time once his HP hits below 5,500, that's when he goes berserk, as evidenced by attacking twice as fast as a message pops up saying "Tibicenas goes berserk! Kill him quickly!" If you're unlucky, his HP-stealing [=AoE=] can even leave you with just 1 HP, no matter how much HP you have left. |
| 31 | ** And then there's his revenge-shade, Ultra-Tibicenas. He has almost the same amount of HP as the Frost King, plus, he steals HP more often and can even use an attack that petrifies at least one player for a few seconds every once in a while. Worst of all, he WILL go berserk once his HP hits below 20,000, therefore he'll start attacking twice as fast by the time a message pops up saying "Ultra-Tibicenas goes berserk! Kill him quickly!" Now this guy feels like he seems hopeless to defeat. |
| 32 | ** The third Chaos Lord, Vath. Basically, he has Stalagbite with him, and both have low HP, but here's the catch -- if you attack Stalagbite first, your damage will be significantly reduced when attacking Vath. And if you attack Vath first (or have someone in the zone attack him while you're going after Stalagbite)? Stalagbite will gain an enormous boost to his attack power and do quad-digit damage, usually resulting in a TotalPartyKill. |
| 33 | * There's an easy way to determine if a person has played ''VideoGame/AgarestSenki'' through the midway point. Mention the words Midas and [[ThatOneAttack Phoenix Wave]] in the same sentence, and see if the person you are talking to starts frothing in rage. Of course, there's also the massive amount of HP, the 12% HP regen that is difficult to break without [[LimitBreak certain]] [[CombinationAttack attacks]], and the other myriad of overkill attacks he can use that are normally left as combination specials. God help you if you haven't obtained one or more useful EX 2 combinations, Execution, Gore Crush, and don't want to do the extra LevelGrinding to promotion level. |
| 34 | * ''VideoGame/AgarestSenki2'' may not be crossing the NintendoHard line, but that doesn't mean that this game doesn't have the resident ThatOneBoss. Pain, thy name is [[spoiler: Sophia, one of your party members. She herself]] as a boss really isn't that hard. What makes [[spoiler: her]] hard is if you did not have any back up party members due to the fact that at this point, you lose ''four'' of your party members due to a series of [[PlayerPunch PlayerPunches]]. Oh, and this is also a case of BossRush due to the fact that before you even fight [[spoiler: her]], you are fighting off against two bosses who aren't hard themselves. However, whatever HP you have left at your last fight, it still carries over to this fight. And woe befall to you if you didn't equip your reserves with any equipment due to the fact that the game will not allow you to change equipment while in this section. [[spoiler:Her "Eternal Gleam" [[LimitBreak Original Skill]] should '''not''' be taken lightly however, as it's '''more than capable''' of wiping out your '''[[TotalPartyKill entire party]]''' should your party members not be spread out enough so that at least one or two party members survive.]] |
| 35 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Aion}}'', Draupnir Cave is supposed to be, progression-wise, the fourth-hardest dungeon in game (third-hardest for either faction, since two of the following dungeons are restricted by faction). The last boss of Draupnir Cave is harder than anything in the later dungeons except perhaps the hardest of the bonus bosses in the final dungeon. In earlier versions of the game, the captain of the pirate ship Steel Rake was also That One Boss, until his {{Nerf}}. |
| 36 | * ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery''. The Minotaur King and Nurrag Varn are just two, along with more [[BossInMookClothing Bosses In Mook Clothing]] than are healthy. If you ever see a named monster in this game, prepare yourself. [[YetAnotherStupidDeath Y.A.S.D.]] may be imminent. |
| 37 | * The final boss of ''VideoGame/ArcTheLad II''; the Dark One is the hardest boss in the entire game. He's so strong that, unless you have a powered up Choko in your party, you're going to have to level grind a ton if you want to even be able to scratch him. It's not recommended to take him on with a party below level 100. You can also expend 2-3 hours of real time constantly buffing Elc and Gruga over and over before taking a single swing each at him and then running back out of range to repeat the process until he dies. |
| 38 | * Demon Droguza from ''VideoGame/ArcTheLadTwilightOfTheSpirits''. He has physical attack power that's through the roof, and has ranged attacks as well -- a sweeping tail laser that slices across the midpoint of the battlefield (where you ''will'' be caught, unavoidably) and a giant energy ball that goes boom on your little cluster of fighters and nukes roughly half of their HP on a normal, non-grindfest playthrough. And your healer will very likely die. Add in the fact that the resurrection spells aren't likely going to be available to you at this point. |
| 39 | * ''VideoGame/AtelierIrisEternalMana'': Prism stats are ridiculously high and he loves to spam his beam attacks that can wipe out your entire party if you're not careful. |
| 40 | * Spirit User Tuoni and Wicked Witch Olly in Chapter 6 of ''VideoGame/AvalonCode''. You remember all the ass-kicking weapons and armor you had back during the InevitableTournament in Chapter 5? Yeah, you have none of that now. Same goes for the spirit magic, property manipulation powers, and even the ability to heal. One of them is a remixed Chimera with limited intangibility powers, and the other has [[TookALevelInBadass taken her meds]] since your last fight against her. [[Manga/YuYuHakusho Genkai]] said it best: "Best of luck, [[TryNotToDie I hope you don't die]]." |
| 41 | * Orb Of Undead from ''VideoGame/BaldursGateDarkAlliance'', he's not particularly hard on single player, but on co-op he get's buffed considerably, The Orb Of Undead is a FlunkyBoss who summons an army of undead to fight the player, when he summons his army he flies out of reach, and will only come down once you have killed all of his minions, but when he comes down he only he comes down for a few seconds before repeating the process, there's enough skeletons to surrond the player, and they can do it quickly doing high damage, don't be fooled, these skeletons aren't really cannon fodder you can kill in just a couple of hits. |
| 42 | * ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': |
| 43 | ** The Balor in the Underdark, which must be killed if you play a good character, is the first high-level demon you'll meet in the game (outside SequenceBreaking or OptionalBoss-esque shenanigans). It is immune to weapons of +2 quality or less (which will be the majority of your weapons at that point), and opens the battle with a party-hitting paralysing effect followed by spamming Vampiric Touch and a fire-damaging gaze. It can quickly wipe an unprepared party and unless you know the setting lore well enough to identify it by name, can quickly catch you unprepared. |
| 44 | ** Draconis the brown dragon, from ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIIThroneOfBhaal'', is widely considered one of the most frustrating enemies of the game despite the fact that his storyline role is essentially that of a door guard for his EvilOverlord father (who is considerably less difficult, as is every other boss in this extremely poorly balanced expansion). The problem with Draconis is that by the time you encounter him, you probably think you have dragon-slaying down to a science. Then you find yourself facing a dragon with high-level spellcasting abilities, who can buff and protect himself in ways that other dragons can't (amongst others a free action invisibility and permanent haste, rendering him an invisible assassin who is a giant dragon on top of it). And to top it off, he's the second part of a SequentialBoss fight that begins with his human form, meaning that any short-term buffs that you cast on your party before the battle will fade before or soon after he goes draconic on you. |
| 45 | ** Sendai is quite difficult, as she has seven statues of high level warriors, each of which results in two Drow arriving after it's defeated. You will defeat around 20 powerful enemies before even facing Sendai. |
| 46 | ** [[DirectorsCut The Ascension mod]], meanwhile, turns ''every'' Bhaalspawn fight (except Sendai) and the fight with Gromnir into ThatOneBoss. Yaga-Shura's HealingFactor no longer vanishes instantaneously, but instead slowly decreases throughout the fight, and he's now accompanied by very powerful lieutenants (including a mage that can cast Time Stop,) can throw fireballs at will, and his army becomes an ''actual'' army, at least tripling in size. And that's just the first Bhaalspawn fight (not counting Illasera, who is similarly beefed up, but not quite to that extent.) The others become even worse. |
| 47 | * ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'': |
| 48 | ** The two fights against the three Empire generals (Giacomo, Folon, and Ayme) are considered ridiculous for taking place within situations ''designed'' to screw the player over. For the first fight, you can get yourself trapped on the enemy airship with no way to level up; for the second fight, you're required to fight them twice in a row, [[SequentialBoss without a break in between]]. Thankfully, the game has the mercy to fully heal you between the fights. |
| 49 | ** Fadroh has a special move called [[ThatOneAttack Orb of Magical Offense]] that will boost his stats to insane levels, allowing him to destroy your party and turn an otherwise-unremarkable boss fight into a CurbStompBattle. The only way to prevent him from using this move is...[[LuckBasedMission by killing him before he does so. It is entirely random whether he will or not.]] It's not impossible to beat him, of course... Just ungodly hard enough so that the next boss, listed here as well, of course, is EASIER. |
| 50 | ** The fight with the [[FanNickname Angel of Darkness]] (which comes ''right after'' Fadroh). He has a ridiculously long combo attack (8 attacks, in a game where 5 hits is a very long combo for an enemy), which he always finishes with one of two moves. The first is Binding Winds, which inflicts paralysis, a status condition so ridiculously overpowered it puts even the paralysis in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' to shame -- in large part because it ''nullifies the character's defensive ability''. The second is Fangs of Darkness, which causes him to be healed by the amount of damage he just did in that combo. Not in that attack, in that combo. And after you get him down to around half health, he TurnsRed, and uses this combo ''twice per turn''. If he decides to use Fangs of Darkness on a paralyzed character, well, '''fuck'''. |
| 51 | ** The boss of [[ThatOneLevel Zosma Tower]], Ungyo and Agyo. Two giant dog-golems that pull the same trick Fadroh pulls; at first they seem easy, but then they buff themselves to ungodly levels. One buffs attack, while the other buffs defense. They're not ''as'' hard as Fadroh, mostly due to being easier to counter (fire and water), but they both have a mountain of hit points and are murder for an unprepared player. Just to top it off, Agyo also has [[ThatOneAttack A-Up Pentagram]], which deals ridiculously high damage to a single character, and they both can inflict their element's status effect with their finishers (Pillar of Flames -- Flames, Pillar of Ice -- Frozen). |
| 52 | ** [[spoiler: OneWingedAngel Geldoblame]]. You heard the mention of paralysis earlier? This monstrosity uses it too. However, he doesn't drain health, but rather uses it in conjunction with [[OneHitKill Forfeit Your Life]]. Forfeit Your Life seldom hits if you can defend against it...except paralysis removes your ability to defend. Oh, and he heals himself every turn, just in case you don't hate this fight enough. |
| 53 | ** Malpercio is the last major boss fight in the game. He still deserves to be here. His first form isn't hard at all, but his second form is nightmarish. He can do tremendous damage and move twice per turn, which is all to be expected. But, he's also a BarrierChangeBoss. Ever tried resisting and damaging ''all six elements''? Also, as you wear him down, eventually he TurnsRed and busts out Enchanted Blade, which replenishes his health based upon the damage the player takes. If you can't kill him within a couple of turns after he starts using that attack, you ''will not'' be able to win. Oh, and if you can't reduce his life from 10,000 (he has 20,000) to 0 in one turn, he uses Enchanted Blade on ''all 3 of your characters'' in a single turn. This makes him the ''only'' boss in the game that gets three turns in a row (even if only once in the battle). Unless you are loaded up with some of the GameBreaker healing items (Deluxe Sushi or Wonder Momos), you're in for some ''serious pain''. |
| 54 | * ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'' |
| 55 | ** Holoholobird, a hard-hitting FlunkyBoss. For starters, this boss is a huge difficulty spike above the last one. It hits hard and has a particularly nasty finisher, Wingflail, which knocks the whole party down and trashes your HP. Meanwhile, it constantly lays eggs, which hatch into chicks. The chicks not only hit hard, but can also heal the big bird for huge amounts of HP. Like the trio mentioned above, this also comes right after a disc swap that will trap you there without any way to train if you don't have another file on the first disc to reload from. |
| 56 | ** Giacomo returns to claim the ThatOneBoss title, this time by virtue of being [[EarlyBirdBoss the second boss in the game]]. Giacomo hits hard and fast, tearing through Sagi and Guillo's pitiful health very quickly and frequently knocking them down. Milly joins your party for the fight, but she's under the control of the AI, which is apparently too stupid to equip ''weapons'', which makes her only useful as a meat shield. Just to top it off, your only healing items are the rather underwhelming Low Potions, the borderline-useless Herbs, and the weak revival Fate's Cordial, while your weapons and specials are severely limited. Experienced players who know the ins and outs of the battle system can wipe the floors with him, but it's a brutal wake-up call for new players. |
| 57 | ** Many people found themselves stuck on the boss right before the Heart-to-Heart scene, the Godcraft. It has ''ridiculously'' strong stats, and is easily the most powerful enemy you'll face in the game (possibly even more than the final boss!). It can wipe out half of anyone's HP with a couple of normal physical attacks, and then KO them completely with a devastating finisher. It also has a finisher that will hit the entire party, meaning one of two things: everyone will be brought down into the red zone, or you'll be left with one or two devastated characters. Due to the move's damage calculations, if you've lost a character when it uses this, you're screwed, because it'll hit the two remaining characters for more HP than they have. The saving grace is that it's weak to Darkness...except Darkness is the rarest of the elements, with only two specials being Darkness-elemental. Hope you figured out Blackest Yang! |
| 58 | ** The Black Dragon. This guy's entire shtick is his sheer power: he's one of the heaviest hitting bosses in the entire game, ''and'' also has one of the highest HP counts in the game too. He'll frequently leave someone in critical condition if not outright kill them with a single combo, and when he uses Crimson Catharsis, he'll nuke your entire party for massive damage and may leave them in flames. This battle would be nearly impossible if you didn't have the opportunity to get a [[GameBreaker Book of Mana]] at this point. The battle's strategy is basically to assemble the heaviest hitting light-based combo you can manage (because that's his weakness), because otherwise you'll only be chipping at his massive health while trying to keep yourself alive. |
| 59 | ** [[spoiler:Quaestor Verus]]. FinalBoss, yes, but still can go here just for being completely different from any other fight in the game. For starters, you have to fight two waves of tough machina before you get to him, and losing sends you all the way back. Also, you don't get a break in between waves, so AfterCombatRecovery doesn't kick in, making this the one mandatory fight where you have to think beyond the enemies you're currently fighting. Not healing and reviving before finishing a wave is insanity. Then, when you get there, you find out he's a FlunkyBoss. He doesn't take damage until all the flunkies are dead, and he constantly revives them. Thought you could use [[GameBreaker Frigid Queen's Festival]] to annihilate him? '''[[YouFool FOOL!]]''' Thanks to the way the game's targeting system works, that'll only kill the flunkies. The boss himself will be unscathed, and your specials (and your best revival and healing) will be unavailable until the MP gauge turns back on, by which point he's almost certain to have introduced your party to his sword a few times, as well as reviving his mechanical pain dispensers. Also, if anyone in your party gets knocked down, he'll stomp on them, most likely finishing them off. |
| 60 | ** There's also the Hearteater which wouldn't be too difficult if not for it's [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong Ovulate attack]]. Not only does the move put a character to sleep, it also starts a countdown which ''kills them instantly when it hits zero''. There's no way to cure the character and the countdown doesn't stop for the attack animations either, so here's hoping you brought a few Fate's Cordials! |
| 61 | * The flash game ''VideoGame/BookOfMagesTheDarkTimes'': |
| 62 | ** Witchthorn. He is one of a very small number of opponents who will use Cursed bolts, which reduce your character's strength, and can stack to the point where your strength falls all the way to 1. The problem is that Witchthorn has ''610'' HP, in a game where 300 HP is above average and endgame-level enemies typically have somewhere from 300 to 400; never mind that you typically fight Witchthorn in the midgame, making for an absurd MarathonBoss. While the bolts can normally be blocked, Witchthorn will usually cast Silence before you have a chance to kill him, and when he does this, you are about to get cursed and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. To cap it all, if you choose to spare his life after your first fight, you might have to face him ''again''. |
| 63 | ** Burnstorm has his Combined bolt. This attack does an amount of damage exponentially above what Combined bolts are normally capable of; it's virtually guaranteed to one-hit kill you. And once his Special bar gets high enough, he will do nothing but spam that attack for the rest of the fight; note that another one of his abilities increases his Special bar. If you fail to prevent him from firing this attack, even once, you lose. To make matters worse, he is one of a vanishingly small number of opponents who can dispel status effects; good luck if you're playing a clan that relies on those, such as Dark Wood, which is otherwise [[GameBreaker the best clan to beat the game with]], or Poison Water, with its [[CripplingOverspecialization complete reliance]] on the Poison effect. |
| 64 | ** Another obnoxious opponent is Chilldream, who stands out as the only opponent in the game who isn't an OptionalBoss but can do something [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard your character can never do]] -- shooting 20 high attack bolts at once (your max is 15). Since Chilldream has maxed out attack power, that means 50 unblockable damage per round unless you got the High Defend Bonus skill (which is mutually exclusive with Low Attack Bonus, the latter of which is much more useful in literally every battle except this one). This assumes he doesn't simply cast Freeze Defend, which deals 100 unblockable damage. This, in a game where you might have 400 HP in time for the ''final boss'', and are likely to have under 200 around the time you can first face Chilldream. The saving grace is that it's possible to avoid facing him with clever use of the game's Relationship system, though doing this causes you to gain Reputation points (when on the Black path you want as few of these as possible, and Black players are the only ones who have to face Chilldream in the first place.) |
| 65 | * ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'': |
| 66 | ** Anita can be very frustrating for the unprepared. First of all, she’s a FlunkyBoss, with minions that respawn instantly whenever they die. Anita herself has very high defense, and spams an attack that can instantly kill a male target. (And since your party is 3/5 male at this point, you’re bound to have at least two of them on the field at any given time). Let’s hope you brought plenty of Proxy Feathers. |
| 67 | ** Wolfam ALPHA. Many find him to be even harder than the final bosses themselves. Especially his third phase, when he begins spamming a WaveMotionGun that will absolutely devastate your party turn after turn, unless you've learned how to be exceedingly creative with your accessory setup. |
| 68 | * ''VideoGame/BravelyDefaultII'': Glenn, the holder of the Salve-Maker asterisk. He only has a few moves he'll use, but all of them are painful. He can mix up a Gigapotion to heal himself for 5,000 health out of his 35,000 total (and you can find him when your level is in the low thirties, so your characters can only break 4,000 in specific equipment and job setups), he can mix up a nasty attack that deals 1,500 damage to each character and inflicts Contagion, and he can use Philtre to charm one character. The latter two of those are two of his three counter-attack moves, with Philtre coming off of physical damage and the 1,500-to-all as "Counter Any Damage". You want magical damage? He'll counter that with [=BP=] Tonic. Other turns, he'll Default often to build up for a two-Attack, 1,500-to-all, Philtre medley of pain. Run him out of magic points? That only stops his Philtre. Poison him? Gigapotion can't be stopped. The one mercy is that he is not a mandatory story boss, but should you desire his Asterisk... |
| 69 | * ''VideoGame/BreathOfDeathVII'': |
| 70 | ** The Usurper. He's got tons of health, [[FlunkyBoss two powerful flunkies]], an attack that targets all of your party members, and if you drag the fight on for too long, he would [[HealThyself heal all of his lost health]] and his stats would increase by 25%. Combine this with the fact that [[IncreasinglyLethalEnemy every enemy in the game gets stronger when the fight drags on]], and he ends up being a massive pain to kill. |
| 71 | ** Turrets. You fight [[DualBoss two of them at the same time]], they have all party attack, and to make things worse, if you destroy one turret, [[KillOneOthersGetStronger the other would get much stronger]]. And again, [[IncreasinglyLethalEnemy the nature of the enemies in the game]] makes things much worse. In fact, if you drag a battle long enough, then, after you kill one turret, the remaining one will more likely than not '''[[OneHitKO kill off your entire party in one hit!]]''' |
| 72 | * ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' |
| 73 | ** Barubary. He's statistically the strongest enemy in the game (this includes the final boss, by the way, never mind that said final boss is freaking '''[[spoiler:[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu GOD]]''']]). And to get a clue about the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Accessory]] location, you have to face him ''alone''. With no reduction in his stats. You do get free healing before the fight though if you do so. |
| 74 | ** Algernon and Wildcat definitely count as well. The main problem is that the OutsideTheBoxTactic for beating them is a ''massive'' GuideDangIt in both cases. And in both cases, when you're having trouble with said bosses and check a guide for them... you realize [[PermanentlyMissableContent you missed your chance]]. Tough luck. |
| 75 | ** Guardeye is a bit of an odd case, as if you're using a guide (which would be understandable, given all the GuideDangIt this game has to offer) he actually becomes ''harder''. Why? Because you need to spare the old man in order to [[spoiler:get the best ending]]. This means you can't use your strongest attacks, as nearly all of them hit every enemy, which will kill the old man. Hope you have some very powerful healing, since the eyes can easily wipe you out in a few turns if they're all alive. |
| 76 | * ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'': |
| 77 | ** The dice bosses known as I and II, encountered in Fou-lu's tomb. They're both packing plenty of HP -- that's brutal enough. To add insult to injury, their first move is always to use Statis, which prevents you from using the game's most damaging combos. So when you decide to fall back on Ryu's HP-granting dragon forms, they bust out a move called Revolution, which randomizes your characters' HP counts (healing Ryu in dragon form is impossible without a very special, very rare item). Their regular physical attack is very brutal. But, after all is said and done, the worst part about it all is that one die will always attack before your characters and one die will always attack after your characters, meaning planning any sort of defense or healing takes some good luck. |
| 78 | ** And before you venture into the tomb, you get to fight Won-qu. Won-qu has 32,000 HP, which is about twice as much as you've seen on any boss up to this point. His physical attack is brutal; his defense is very, very good. But what makes Won-qu so frustrating is that his first move is always Frost Breath, which is very bad for two reasons -- first, Ryu has a natural affinity to fire, which means Frost Breath hits him harder than average; second, it's entirely possible that half your party could be wearing armor that actually makes Frost Breath do ''more'' damage. Woe betide you if your front three fighters are wearing that armor. |
| 79 | ** A-tur (a PaletteSwap of Won-qu), fought in Chedo, is no slouch either. While he's not as brutal at that point as Won-qu is when you fight him, he does show up at the end of a very, very long dungeon which has probably drained you of most of your energy. |
| 80 | * ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' rarely has such bosses, mostly because all of the most powerful ones are pretty much for a full party (meaning at least SOMEONE has the right powers to either keep him busy or take him down), or a full open environment beatdown by everyone who can gather there, or have a specific method and set of tactics for defeating them that most players can do solo (though not without taking a world of hurt in some cases). However, in the Demonflame adventure pack, the final boss BECOMES ThatOneBoss not because of him -- but because of the horrible AI of your mandatory assistant. You must keep the Boss and his summoned mook busy as your assistant opens five mystic chests, releasing the power contained within. Unfortunately, it is timed -- and if the Boss or his mook attacks the assistant, the assistant fights back -- and keeps fighting until his target is dead, even if he's not being attacked anymore. Solo attempts on this boss are possible -- but if you lose twice, you're given a "mercy" win with no rewards and you'd have to start the whole adventure pack over again to try for a 'solid' win once more. |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'': |
| 82 | ** Miguel comes with a full complement of white magic: devastating spells, buffs, debuffs, [=TurnBlack=], and [=AntiBlack=]. And he's ''very'' good at comboing them for tremendous damage, as well as quickly turning the entire field white, which substantially boosts his already staggering magical power. And, once his HP gets low enough, he starts using [=HolyLight=] and [=MeteorShower=]. ''And'' the fight with him is preceded by a non-skippable, 3-4 minute ExpositionBreak (you can run away from the battle after his exposition, save, and rejoin, but few players will think to do that). |
| 83 | ** Garai is the first one in the game. He has very strong attacks which do heavy damage to anyone. And to top it off, he is a White element, which is bad news for [[spoiler:Serge who has recently been placed in his nemesis's body, giving him the dark element.]] This is probably the first boss that will wreck your main character. |
| 84 | ** The Hi-Ho Tank isn't easy either. The main threat comes from its [=ElementShot=] ability, which hits characters with their elemental weakness. Most characters can't stand up to two shots from it without healing, and it has several other attacks that are too powerful to shrug off. Also, it comes with two flunkies, who will repair the tank once it starts taking serious damage. |
| 85 | ** Polis Police, the second boss you fight on Disc 2. If you didn't defeat the OptionalBoss and got the rewards from it before coming here, '''you're already screwed as hell.''' Polis Police has not one, but ''two'' attacks that instantkill anyone thanks to it's huge damage. Not even Serge is safe from this guy. ''And it's not even 10 minutes since you switched the CD.'' |
| 86 | ** Giant Gloop. Attacks that can freeze your characters, which is the same as having a dead member, huge defenses that can only be passed thru if you use a hell of alot of Red Elements ''and an attack that at this point on the game, you can pretty much run away if you even manage to survive it.'' |
| 87 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', while an easy game, has several examples: |
| 88 | ** Magus is very tough compared to previous bosses, with powerful magic attacks that smack your whole party and [[BarrierChangeBoss change his barriers]] that make him impervious to all magic damage but one element of his choosing. He uses fire, water, lightning, and shadow barriers; any magic that doesn't correspond to the barrier heals him. Crono and Frog are required for the fight, so you'll be able to hit at least two elements. The third partner is where the decision comes in; taking Lucca or Robo will let you hit a third barrier (although Laser Spin is a pretty weak attack against a boss), but this can leaves your healing weak, and you need all the healing you can get. Thankfully, he eventually stops casting barriers around himself, but then he starts charging up to use [[ThatOneAttack Dark Matter]]. And if you take [[CombatMedic Marle]] along, it'll drag the battle out a lot longer. Thankfully, they did give you a show of mercy; Magus isn't immune to physical attacks, and repeatedly attacking him will cause him to swap the barrier, although he'll still make you suffer for it. |
| 89 | ** Giga Gaia is a giant golem you fight on top of the Mountain of Woe. You have to destroy his two hands, and then attack his head. This is easier said than done. If you leave the hands alive, they'll frequently work together to unleash a variety of powerful attacks. If you destroy them both, he'll regenerate them within a couple of turns. Just to add to that, his head has a ton of HP and his right hand can heal it. |
| 90 | ** The Golem Twins you meet in the Ocean Palace. Earlier, you fought one in a semi-HopelessBossFight (it's winnable but not necessary), but this time you have to win, and the twins will not make it easy on you. Aside from powerful normal attacks, which they switch up depending on the skills you use on them, they also possess the nasty PercentDamageAttack Iron Orb, which will instantly cut your HP in half, no ifs, ands, or buts, and is their counter-attack to physical attacks forcing you to go all-magic and deal with their ever-so-slightly less devastating magic counters. They also open up with two Iron Orbs ''and'' two powerful roughly 300HP attacks, right out the gate, ''before you can even act'', meaning it's easy to lose a party member before you even get your turn. In the end, the strategy essentially boils down to [[LuckBasedMission hope you survive their first onslaught and hope you can keep them pinned down with Boogie until they die]], or [[GuideDangIt hope you survive their first onslaught and just happened to find some rare, obtuse, hard-to-find, element-absorbing armors to negate their counter-attacks]]. It gets much easier if you can take out one of the golems, but that's a feat in itself. |
| 91 | ** Near the end, you can board the flying ship called the Black Omen. The boss there is [[spoiler:Queen Zeal]]. This boss has 3 forms. Aside from the usual high-damaging attacks, one of the boss's favorite attacks is Hallation. This is a "[[HPToOne Reduce everyone to 1 HP]]" attack. If you attack her hands at any point in the fight, she dualcasts Hallation and MP Buster. Have fun coming back from HPToOne and total ManaBurn. Your healers will spend a lot of turns keeping everyone alive and reviving dead party members. Due to ThatOneAttack, this boss can easily be more difficult than the FinalBoss. |
| 92 | ** Melphyx. He has very deadly attacks that can attack ''your whole party'' for ''around 150 or more,'' and has individual attacks that'll also be a [[OneHitKO one hit kill]] for the party. |
| 93 | * ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'': |
| 94 | ** For villain side, Positron can hit through high defenses with Energy damage, slow your attacks tremendously, and is loaded with plenty of area-of-effect attacks. |
| 95 | ** The Statesman Task Force version of Ghost Widow: in addition to ThatOneAttack (a high-damage hold that can break through almost any status protection), she's got a wide selection of ways to deal out damage, many of which heal her as a side effect. As a rule of thumb, if your team can make it past Ghost Widow, taking down Lord Recluse, the final boss, will not be a problem. |
| 96 | ** Nosferatu has an auto-hit Negative Energy aura that drastically reduces your to-hit chances, which stacks with his own attacks that do the same. Oh, and he can heal himself too. He's generally considered the toughest Elite Boss in the game; defeating him solo is considered the same level of accomplishment as defeating an Archvillain solo. |
| 97 | ** You fight Primal Colonel Duray in a DualBoss fight with his Praetorian Counterpart. While Praetorian Colonel Duray is tougher, and hits harder, Primal Duray is just ''annoying''. He periodically calls in Air Support (killing anyone standing on one of the mercifully small patches for too long), and has a tendency to teleport all over the multilayered battle field while his counterpart is alive, making it insanely difficult to keep up with him. |
| 98 | * Text-based HGame ''Corruption of Champions'' has the Minotaur King, second foe of the FinalBoss [[BossRush Rush]]. He constantly make your [[SanityMeter Lust]] bar fill up during the fight, which put the fight on a timer (there are items to decrease your Lust, but you can only carry a limited supply of them, and taking too much of those also limits how many HealthPotion you can have), he inflicts an enormous amount of damage, can stagger you with each hit (which, if you're unlucky, means you can go a few turns without being able to do anything). All of those would make him an annoying luck-based boss as is, but you also need to beat him at least twice and, more probably ''four times'' [[labelnote:Explanation]]He is one of the very few enemies that can only be beaten by raising the Lust of to 100, but the first time you do this, it automatically goes back to 0 and you have to do it again. The two more times come from the fact that he has a great resistance to Lust attacks unless you bring his [=HP=] down to 0(At the start, his Lust will only rise by 1 for each action you take. Bringing his HP to 0 once means that further Lust attacks will make his meter rise by 5, and beating him up a second time makes his Lust rise by 10).[[/labelnote]]. Combine all of that and you have a boss that even characters would have ground their stats to the max will have to rely on luck to beat. |
| 99 | * The Ape Princess in ''VideoGame/CthulhuSavesTheWorld''. She's got much more health than previous bosses, deals big amount of damage by her attacks, is very quick, and is [[FlunkyBoss assisted by]] two Mist Wolves, which are protected by her Princess Protection ability, which raises their defenses so hard every attack without defense bypassing would become a ScratchDamage. And thanks to the nature of the game, she and her flunkies [[IncreasinglyLethalEnemy become stronger with every turn]], and if not killed quickly, they will most likely destroy your party immediately. And don't even think about making her [[DrivenToMadness insane]], because that would make her even more dangerous due to increased damage. |
| 100 | * ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'': Go into the general chat, mention [=PengiBot=] Maximus or ComicBook/ThePenguin himself, and witness many highly equipped players swear like sailors. The former has dash and spin attacks that can suck you in and kill you in seconds, plus adds that can freeze or you set you on fire, blow you up or heal him making it hard to keep your distance and not get hit...and he's just the MINI-BOSS in the instance. The latter has an umbrella with a stun for close range, a machine gun or flamethrower for mid range and a grenade launcher that can hit you anywhere in the room all of the above will melt your face off in seconds. Even better? Its a SOLO mission so you can't bring pals to share the pain. They did add it as a Duo mission and dropped the Bot from that version but still. Ow. |
| 101 | * ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'': |
| 102 | ** La Saia, who has a bunch of ice attacks that can hit you from pretty much anywhere. One in particular freezes you, regardless of whether you have an anti-freeze amulet equipped, and lets her get 1-2 powerful shots in. |
| 103 | ** Sirus in ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle''. Not Griffon in his ultra-badass form. Sirus, as in that bastard rabbit with the voice of [[WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}} Phil and Lil]]. Not to say that Griffon isn't a gigantic asshole either. The fight will either take forever or you will barely survive. Dark Element is also a complete '''ass''' if you don't know exactly what you're doing and don't have really, really powerful projectiles. Gaspard, in all incarnations, is also a horror if you don't have really powerful weapons. Like, used the photo album exploit level powerful weapons. Really, half the bosses in the game can be considered ThatOneBoss to someone, but Sirus in Bunny form takes the cake for sure. |
| 104 | * ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'': |
| 105 | ** Flame Lurker is highly agile, highly aggressive, leaves few openings where it is truly safe to attack, and is a melee boss with various attacks that cover a wide range. To make matters worse, when it loses between half to three-quarters of its health it [[TurnsRed goes berserk]] and has pretty much all its attacks do radius damage. Flame resistance helps a lot, but even then it can cut down all but the toughest tanks (who can at least rely on high stamina along with a good shield) in a couple of direct hits, and gives few opportunities to heal. |
| 106 | ** Maneater is also very aggressive and fast, and in particular it has an [[ThatOneAttack incredibly annoying pounce attack]] that does heavy damage and can easily knock you off the thin ledge the majority of the arena is made up of (thankfully the centre of the arena is mostly safe from this problem, except you have to move past it to get there). Oh yeah, and [[DualBoss there are two]] who are both equally dangerous, although it is possible to wipe out the first one before the second becomes an issue. As a bonus, its understated introduction of demonic eyes approaching from the darkness is NightmareFuel. |
| 107 | ** False King is another LightningBruiser type boss (notice a pattern?), who can unleash many quick combos and easily break the guard of all but the toughest fighters. He also has an instant kill attack that covers at least a third of the arena (although you can knock him out of it pretty easily), and is the only (computer controlled) enemy in the game with an attack that can LevelDrain you. |
| 108 | * ''VideoGame/TheDenpaMen'': |
| 109 | ** The Ice and Aqua Golems in the first game. They have the ability to charge up, and can hit your entire party for truly brutal amounts of damage. This is especially so if your party happens to rely mostly on Red or Green Denpas. While there are abilities and items that can make your Men invincible, guess what? The skill costs a full ''75 AP to use,'' meaning that unless you've stocked up on the [[MagicIsRareHealthIsCheap rather rare]] Antenna Power items, you might only be able to use it twice per battle (if you're lucky). The Barrier item is also ''ludicrously expensive.'' Have fun! |
| 110 | ** The Ice Bug in the Guardian Tower. The whole tower itself is one long MarathonLevel designed to whittle you down bit by bit, and the Ice Bug is a boss who's poised to take advantage of you when you're at your weakest. It can blow a dangerous breath that paralyzes your whole party, and it's one of the few enemies resistant to the typically [[InfinityPlusOneElement endlessly applicable]] Light-type attacks. Which most of the enemies in the Tower are weak to, so you'll likely have a party full of them. And it's situated pretty far from any of the useful exit warps in the dungeon, so there's no good way to tailor your party to the boss without having to trek to it. Thanks to paralysis, you'll likely get by by the skin of your teeth when you do succeed. |
| 111 | ** The serpent lady boss in ''2.'' Just ''getting'' to her is rough -- unlike other bosses, she isn't found in a dungeon, but one of three randomly generated spots in the overworld. The only way to know which is to talk to a fairy in the center of the continent where she's found. ''And'' reaching that spot is timed. ''And'' there's no way to warp to those spots -- you have to walk all the way there, fending off encounters along the way, during which your time limit is still ticking down. Once you actually reach her, she ''starts off'' with a BreathWeapon that can leave your entire party under the effects of the nefarious [[StatusEffects Fatal Poison]]. And that's to say nothing of when she literally turns her charm on, giving your ''entire party'' only a 50% chance of being able to actually attack her. |
| 112 | ** In the third game the bosses of the Wind Tower are very tough. You are told at the start of the dungeon to not take any of the treasure chests. If you decide you need the items or if the game tricks you into opening a chest by making you think the chests are now OK to touch, at the end of the tower the boss will start off by making you fight three VERY strong fire enemies from the end of the game. You have to fight the Incarnation of Wind who is the main boss immediately after and you don't get to heal. The boss constantly puts a wind shield up over herself which makes almost all attacks, both magic and physical ones, do almost nothing and makes physical attackers get [[StatusEffects sniffles]] which do damage over time and which make them extra weak to wind attacks. AND she can heal and she is much faster than your party so she does it before you can get a chance to do anything. If you don't have speed boost skills all you can really do is [[MarathonBoss wait for her to run out of AP.]] |
| 113 | * ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'': Plaguewrath, a frustrating spitter boss. Basically he has a bunch of minions that all act the same way: they spit at nearly double, or even triple the speed of regular spitters, which means that often they'd drop a barrage of deadly spit that can drop you in seconds, before you can do anything. Add the fact that they don't have a melee attack, and unlike regular spitters, will actively run away from you if you try to get close, and you get one frustrating boss. Not to mention that the first time you'll encounter him, Plaguewrath himself takes forever to kill. |
| 114 | * ''VideoGame/DiabloII'': |
| 115 | ** Formerly (and for some builds, still) Duriel due to some loading issues early in the games life that resulted in him killing you before the game loaded his lair. Even now you spawn right on top of him, and if you get close to him, you are slowed heavily (making melee next to impossible without prepping thawing potions, something otherwise unused). The arena is also the smallest of all the bosses, making HitAndRunTactics virtually impossible. Despite being only the mid-game boss, is probably among the most dangerous of them and easily the most frustrating. For some reason, the designers thought it would be great to pit the player against an enormously fast boss, with an aura that irresistably slows the player, in a bare room perhaps eight times his area. This in a game where hit-and-run is god; half the classes are explicitly designed for ranged combat only. Another relies on enemy mooks corpses to summon minions. On top of everything else, you can't escape the room to catch your breath, even though you enter the room through a big hole in the wall. |
| 116 | ** The three Barbarian Ancients are pretty much the hardest encounter in the game, arguably topping Duriel, Baal, and even Diablo himself (who at least gave you ample room to hit and run). What made the Barbarian Ancients so damned difficult was that using Town Portal to escape would heal them back to full health, meaning yes, you had to kill them all in one go. The only thing that may make this easier over the Duriel battle is it takes place in a rather large area. If you lure them to one side, you can escape to the other and get time to heal. |
| 117 | ** The councilors in Act III on higher difficulty modes. They're just superuniques, but on higher difficulties they gain a lot of traits, and sometimes those traits work TOGETHER to create a new definition of pain. Can you imagine Conviction plus Might plus Cursed plus Extra Strong plus Lightning Enchanted plus Multi-Shot together? |
| 118 | ** The Lord de Seis is a mini-boss summoned before you fight Diablo. He is famous for his herd of ultra-powerful Boss In Mook Clothing minions, while his Fanaticism Aura makes his already strong minions hit very hard and fast, with an Attack Rating boost that gives them an extremely high chance to hit. |
| 119 | ** The Infector of Souls in the Chaos Sanctuary and his twin brother, Ventar the Unholy in the Woldstone Keep. Big, strong, and [[LightningBruiser faster than you can ever hope to be]]. Their minions also share these traits, so you will end up cornered by half a dozen monstrous demons in the matter of seconds with nowhere to run, and beaten down in just a few seconds. Ventar is only made easier because of the nature of the area you fight him in. It's possible to separate his goons and kill them one by one. If you're lucky. |
| 120 | ** Nihlathak (thankfully optional, unthankfully Randomly Drops the item needed to access the 1.11 patch's added bonus boss) in Act V thanks to his Corpse Explosion ability, agreed to be the Necromancer's best skill and one of the best in the game: it does 70-120% of a dead monster's maximum life as mixed fire & physical damage. Since enemy health increases much faster than damage or player health, Corpse Explosion hits very hard, while the mixed damage makes it hard to protect yourself.. He also can summon Mooks to attack you and fuel Corpse Explosion. |
| 121 | ** Lister the Tormentor is a nasty one. It takes forever to kill him, while all he does is [[ImplacableMan move toward you unphased]] and land in a nasty punch when close enough. You can't even run away because he follows you everywhere, and he has a huge pack of regular, but still extremely strong, Minions of Destruction accompanying him. One-on-one is the only way to fight Lister and win, but good luck breaking him off from the pack. |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' continues the tradition of murderous Act 2 bosses with Belial. It's a perfectly reasonable standard boss fight with mooks, like every other boss fight to that point...and then he goes OneWingedAngel and turns into the equivalent of a ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' raid boss, complete with phases where he AOE spams the entire narrow platform where you fight him. Even on Normal difficulty it's bad, especially for the squishier classes like the Wizard. |
| 123 | * In ''VideoGame/DigimonWorld3'' there are actually several, depending on the player: [[RecurringBoss all encounters]] with Bulbmon, who is super fast and whose attacks do ludicrous damage ([[spoiler: although one is technically part of the FinalBoss battle and therefore exempt]]); Byakko Leader, whose Mamemon can freeze your Digimon, giving them a huge chance of simply skipping their turn; Persiamon, whose basic attack hits four separate times and who can de-digivolve your Digimon, and Raidenmon, who basically takes all of those traits and rolls them into one big ball of nastiness. |
| 124 | * ''VideoGame/DigimonWorldDS'' had a few, including [[spoiler: Zhuqiaomon]] and [[spoiler: Leviamon]]. |
| 125 | * Exo-Grimmon from ''VideoGame/DigimonWorldDawnDusk'' is a really nasty step up from Chaos-Grimmon(despite being the final boss),his previous form, his attacks are much stronger than his previous form and his attacks either do horrific damage,kill your digimon of screw them over with annoying status effects, not to mention that if you die you have to reface Chaos-Grimmon who is easy in comparison and hands out large amount of EXP when he dies)The fact that getting to him involves going through enemy headquarters filled with unskippable RandomEncounter just to get through the maze-like [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Chaos Brain]] to reach this nasty piece of work,the fact that the game has a high encounter rate that is unskippable just makes this even worse. |
| 126 | * In ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', the talk with the union boss Evrart Claire can kill the unprepared. Claire's main agenda is to establish himself as the real authority in Martinaise and belittle, confuse and humiliate [[PlayerCharacter the Detective]], so the conversation him deals tons of Physical and Morale damage, especially if you are unprepared and your skills aren't up to snuff to help, meaning the Detective fails look through some of his ploys. If you haven't put some points into either Endurance or Volition, or have medications ready to use for both, you can die no less than ''two dialogue'' choices into the conversation, most infamously by ''sitting on a chair'' (it's ''really'' uncomfortable). |
| 127 | * Kurtis pulls this in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness''. The stage leading up to him and his fight is about 15-20 levels higher than anything you've faced so far, easily the biggest spike in difficulty you have yet faced. Grinding on your first play-through isn't easy either, so Kurtis really steals a moment away from you and forces you to sit down and grind up. |
| 128 | ** The fight with Void Dark in Disgaea 5 can be extremely frustrating for two main reasons: he has a decent army, and his Overload is freezing every enemy in the way. What this means is if you are hit, ''you instantly lose your turn with everyone in its range''. You cannot move them, defend, or attack. so they're just going to get slapped around for it. |
| 129 | * ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': |
| 130 | ** The Tower of the Circle of Magi has a few fairly tough encounters... but the infamous boss that takes a disproportionate part of its mission is the Sloth Demon. When encountered, he puts the player character and their squad to sleep and traps them in his personal section in the Fade (the realm of dreams). The player character has to move from one place to another PORTAL style, gain powers from NPC's, rescue your squadmates, and kill all the mini bosses. ''Then'' you confront the Sloth Demon in a tough fight where he changes form, shifting between a Darkspawn Ogre, a Rage Demon, an Abomination, a Shade, and finally its true form (that of an Arcane Horror). Dealing with the Sloth Demon takes more time and effort than defeating Uldred, the main boss of the Mage's Tower. |
| 131 | ** [[ThatOneLevel Orzammar]] alone is full of these... |
| 132 | *** Notably from Orzammar's Proving Grounds (the optional fights, not the main quest if you side with Harrowmont) is a fight against several elite class enemies, including a Templar (who is basically a toned down Revenant with higher health/damage), a Blood Mage (who is broken by sheer merit of being a Blood Mage), and dangerous mooks. |
| 133 | *** Then there's Jarvia. Ever wondered what it would feel like to take on a dozen rogues at once, including ones who are higher-level than yours? Wonder no more! Jarvia will thoughtfully bring along as many thugs and assassins as you could hope for, while using hit-and-run tactics where she repeatedly drops into stealth, runs back behind a fireball trap, and then comes out again once you're well and truly pummelled. Attacking ''anything'' leaves you open to attacks from everyone else, and most of them have stun, backstab, and/or stealth abilities that they use to persistently dish out massive damage. The net result typically involves reloading from the autosave many, many times. |
| 134 | *** The more notable boss of the Orzammar recruitment quest line is the Darkspawn Broodmother, the boss of the Dead Trenches. As if her grotesque appearance and horrific origin story aren't bad enough, there's the boss fight. The Broodmother has high levels of health, summons many tentacle ads that can stun the player along with Darkspawn ads. Players attacking her in combat can be grabbed and subjected to a one hit kill or an [=AoE=], that both involve vomit (literal NauseaFuel). |
| 135 | ** At the end of the quest to rescue Queen Anora, the player is confronted by one of Loghain's CoDragons, Ser Cauthrien. In addition to being Level 19 and having almost as much health as a ''High Dragon'', she's also backed by [[HopelessBossFight ten archers, two swordsmen, and a mage.]] The player is given the option to surrender, and if they do so or lose the fight [[PrisonEpisode they — and Alistair if he is part of the current party — are taken prisoner]]. Unless the player knows about the fight in advance and completely prepares for it, this is guaranteed to be a CurbStompBattle. It's not uncommon for players to need about ''50 health potions'' during the fight, and it's extremely difficult to avoid being stunned from ten directions at once by the archers' Scattershot attack before taking hundreds of points of damage from Cauthrien and her swordsmen. |
| 136 | ** Leliana's Song has the mage fights from the prison sequence. You have crappy gear (having lost the stuff you should have), a probably useless spec, and only 2 members to deal with an array of lethal mages and nigh unstoppable Mabari Warhounds. There is also the fight against an Amulet's guards. |
| 137 | ** The Golems of Amgarrak ALSO does this so often that it hits That One Dungeon levels, the worst example likely being a room containing four Boss-level golems with two Elite golems as backup and precious little room to maneuver. Expect to spend most of the fight flat on your back from a barrage of highly-damaging Slam, Quake, and Hurl attacks. |
| 138 | * ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': |
| 139 | ** The Ancient Rock Wraith at the end of Act I. It has massive health, massive armor (that only goes down after it uses a special ability), this special ability dealing AOE damage to your characters, deals huge damage, has huge range on it's melee attack (in addition to it's ranged attack), and summons mooks. |
| 140 | ** The next one is the Arishok, at the end of Act II. Normally, you fight him with your full party, against him and a bunch of backups. This is a hard, but not unbeatable fight. But, if you choose the right options, [[DuelBoss you can fight him one on one]]. Almost regardless of your build, this is a nigh impossible feat of endurance if playing above easy. |
| 141 | ** From the Legacy DLC, we have Corypheus. The former Tevinter Magister-turned-Darkspawn Emissary hits like a bus, boxes the players in with a maze of rock spikes, and is invincible for most of the fight unless the player can both activate a series of switches spread around the arena and kill off all his minions in a short time. Why a short time, you may ask? Because you only have about 20 seconds before he hits you with a nearly unavoidable gout of flame that he'll continually sweep the field with until you take care of everything else. Did we mention that he fills the field with other hazards such as mazes and elemental traps to slow you? Or that the only safe areas on the field are extremely small spaces behind corners next to each of the switches? Or that your AI allies aren't smart enough to run away from the giant flamethrower on their own, leaving you to constantly order them out of danger (neglecting your own character in the process) or watch them all die? Or that his minions are unaffected by all of this and will try to flush you out to die? Because that's what he does. |
| 142 | *** Lampshaded by your party members: |
| 143 | ---> '''Varric''': What, he has fire now? |
| 144 | ---> '''Merrill''': He absorbed it from the statue. |
| 145 | --> And later... |
| 146 | ---> '''Varric''': Sweet Mother of Pearl! |
| 147 | ---> '''Hawke''': Watch out for the ice! |
| 148 | ---> '''Fenris''': And the rocks! Don't get too close! |
| 149 | ---> '''Varric''': Okay, if he pulls a dragon out of his ass, I'm leaving. |
| 150 | * ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'': |
| 151 | ** For many players, Gurd Harofsen, the penultimate boss of the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC, is considerably harder than the DLC's Final Boss. He would only be mildly challenging on his own, but he shows up immediately after you've finished a tough battle with some of his DemonicSpider minions, and then he summons more as the battle goes on. If the fighting becomes concentrated in one of the more cramped parts of the room, then getting stun locked is a likely outcome. Even with a supply cache full of healing potions in the middle of the room, it takes careful preparation and very good crowd control skills to avoid getting wiped out. |
| 152 | * ''VideoGame/DragonFable'' has Razen al Ghoul. Unlike BigBad Sepulcher, he is someone the player is expected to be able to defeat, and one can't bring guests with them to fight him either. He has three attacks. One of them is a [=DoT=] that takes ''500'' HP every time it activates, but the second one is a stun, that leaves the player vulnerable to his first attack. Darn near impossible to beat, he can be found in Book 3's battlespire, and players above level 50 have trouble with him. |
| 153 | * ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'': |
| 154 | ** Serious players will come to loathe the name Sigmund, given the ease with which he slaughters players left right and centre. He usually shows up between the 2nd and 4th floors of the dungeon (meaning that you're approximately level 3 to 5 when you face him AT BEST) and comes with several nasty spells (Magic Dart, Fireball and Invisibility, all very nasty against players at this point in the game) and backs that up with a scythe (again, very nasty against players at that point). Oh, and depending on how the dungeon generates, he might just well be the FIRST boss you face. |
| 155 | ** Another nasty early-dungeon boss is Grinder, the unique shadow imp. He comes with a paralyzing spell as well as a ranged negative energy spell and pain-branded melee attacks. Undead characters don't have much trouble with the last two, but paralysis is extremely dangerous that early on in the dungeon. As with Sigmund, many people find themselves running away from him until they can level up a bit. |
| 156 | ** Later on in the dungeon, you may have the misfortune to run into Mara, a unique rakshasa. His fire bolt attack, [[DoppelgangerAttack ability to summon copies of himself]], and ability to confuse you by making enemies look like something else are all decidedly unpleasant, but manageable. The real kicker is his ability to create a fully-powered copy of any other creature in sight, ''[[MirrorBoss including yourself]]''; your clone will have all of your best abilities and will permanently copy your condition at the time of its creation, including status buffs like Haste or Berserk. One way to mitigate your doppelganger's effectiveness is to deliberately use crappy equipment (like weilding food as a weapon) up until you get cloned, and then switch out for the good stuff, apply buffs, etc. However, that means you're stuck fighting a dangerous opponent while unbuffed and with said crappy equipment, and caster characters can't even take advantage of that because their copied spells will be as dangerous as ever. |
| 157 | * ''VideoGame/DungeonFighterOnline'' has Dr. Moreau, a blatant DifficultySpike in the Forgotten Land. The game recommends that you fight him at around level 50-55 (where the cap is currently 86), but he is level ''79''. He has an absurd amount of HP, he can poison you or turn you into a Failed Test Subject (keeping you from attacking for a while; this also has the side effect of ''healing him'') and has [[FlunkyBoss an endless stream of test subjects]] that are hard to kill and do quite a lot of damage. He's also able to grab you and throw you, knocking you out of your attacks and letting the other test subjects gang up on you. Good luck beating him and the four other bosses in under 30 minutes! |
| 158 | * ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'': |
| 159 | ** The Dragon is a real pain, even with Ninten at level 25. Sure, a PSI-Block from Ana will make things easier, but what if the Dragon manages to kill her? You're pretty much screwed because she is the only one who knows [=SuperHealing=] at a low level. Of course, if Ana's learned PK Freeze Îł at this point, the Dragon becomes a complete joke. |
| 160 | ** Also in Magicant, though [[{{Backtracking}} much earlier in the game]], is the Fish. It doesn't have any special gimmicks, except that its Offense is ludicrously high for the point at which you encounter it, and you only have Ninten in your party. It's so strong that it's continuous attack can easily deplete all of Ninten's HP in one go before he can cast [=DefenseUp=] (which is practically necessary to survive) unless you did some MoneyGrinding and bought the very best armor in the game, or managed to keep a Flying Man as a meat shield (which again, is a LuckBasedMission.) at least if you do survive the first few turns, defeating it doesn't require much strategy. It's also [[SkippableBoss totally optional]], though fighting The Fish is necessary to get the Onyx Hook, which will make leveling up Lloyd and Ana much easier once you get them. |
| 161 | * ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'': |
| 162 | ** The Trillionage Sprout is a doozy. He's the boss of Milky Well, the third Sanctuary, but is very powerful considering how early he can be fought. For one thing, he starts with two Tough Mobile Sprouts, which are GoddamnedBats who can call for help and heal each other for large amounts. You need to ''[[ShootTheMedicFirst kill them first]]'' or it will be basically impossible to even dent the Sprout, who has considerably high health. He can also put up a shield to block damage or hit your party with PSI Flash, which causes a bevy of nasty status ailments. The real danger of Trillionage Sprout is when he uses an attack where he "glares with its eerie eyes", causing one of your characters to become [[TakenForGranite Diamondized]]. Diamondization is like death; if everyone gets Diamondized, it's game over. At this point, you have three characters, but only one has the attack power to deal any real damage to the Sprout. Also, Diamondization is instant, unblockable, and hard to cure at this point in the game. |
| 163 | ** Clumsy Robot. Fighting him is very much a LuckBasedMission; most of the time, he'll spend tripping over his own feet, but rarely he'll throw a missile at you. Said missile hits both party members for a staggering amount of HP; often more than Jeff even has at this point. The fight boils down to just smacking it over and over, and hoping Jeff and Ness can get through its sizeable HP before it hits you with the missile attack. It doesn't help that PSI is completely ineffective against it. |
| 164 | ** Let's not forget Shrooom!. He packs a fairly high amount of HP for the time being, but that's not the issue. What is the issue is the fact that he tends to scatter his spores on your party, which potentially sets the Mushroomization status on your team. It works sort of like Confusion, but you can still input your party's commands (they just might hit each other instead). So you can get your party ready to attack with their best moves, get Mushroomized, and [[EpicFail watch as they rip themselves to shreds]]. |
| 165 | ** Even if you're not trying to go OffTheRails, the Kraken is a tough boss. All three of his attacks hit the whole party, and while you can reflect the lightning attack with the Franklin Badge and block most of the fire attack with a Flame Pendant, chances are you'll only have one of each by the time you get to him. Also, [[ThatOneAttack his tornado attack]] can't be blocked in any way, and it does much more damage than the other two. Finally, your nonoffensive PSI won't save you, as his fourth attack dispels any buffs, debuffs, and status effects you might have cast. |
| 166 | ** Carbon Dog's second form, Diamond Dog, is a doozy. First of all, he has a tremendous amount of HP, the highest in the game in fact. He also has an attack that can diamondize (basically instant death) one party member, and the 'glorious light' attack, which is basically PSI Flash Omega and WILL paralyze or kill anyone without the right equipment. Giygas help you if you missed the Sea Pendant in the Lost Underworld. Finally, if you kill Carbon Dog with a Multibottle Rocket, say goodbye to Jeff; Diamond Dog starts out with a power shield, which will reflect the attack that finished off Carbon. |
| 167 | ** Ness's Nightmare from the same game is a ''huge'' pain in the ass to deal with -- first, because you're forced to go at it alone (unless you're lucky enough to keep a Flying Man alive up to that point, which is hard enough in itself), and second, because it tends to constantly use Lifeup Beta and power shields on itself before whaling on you with PSI Rockin (making it the only boss in the game that can use Ness's own extremely powerful offensive PSI against him other than the FinalBoss), and its "glorious light" attack (aka PSI Flash Omega, which has a ''37.5%'' chance of [[OneHitKill being an instant kill]]). It ''is'' possible to at least grab a special pendant that nullifies the effect of the "glorious light", but waiting for it to completely drain its PP so it can be rendered useless is a big hassle. (The power boost received at the end is a sweet consolation prize, though.) |
| 168 | * ''VideoGame/Mother3'': |
| 169 | ** The Steel Mechorilla, who you fight at the end of the Snowcap Valley sequence. Nothing gimmick-y about it -- it's just very, VERY powerful, powerful enough to beat up all your characters without the slightest difficulty. And it has a ton of HP. ''And'' he powers himself up if you [[spoiler:cast PK Thunder more than twice]], becoming even tougher (not helped by the fact that [[spoiler: Boney's EnemyScan ability tells you that it's weak to PK Thunder, but using that ability on it twice makes it go [[TurnsRed berserk]] and thus [[HoistByHisOwnPetard makes the fight even harder]]]]). It is not unheard of for a player to load all four characters' inventories with healing items... and end up using ''almost every single one.'' |
| 170 | ** The Barrier Trio, who guard the Needle at Tanetane Island, are widely considered to be the most frustrating boss in the game. They're a group of three stone guardians with a whole litany of powerful psychic abilities that can easily deal mortal damage to ''multiple'' party members in a single turn. As if that weren't enough, they also have a "posing" ability that renders them [[NoSell completely invulnerable]] to all but one type of elemental psychic attack--and you have to use trial and error to find out ''which'' attack still works against them ([[spoiler:if Barrier Man calls out their pose, they're weak to fire; if it's Barrier Gal, they're weak to ice; and if it's Barrier Dude, they're weak to Lightning]]). The only way to avoid getting utterly decimated by their psychic attacks is by [[spoiler:using defense-lowering attacks, [[AchillesHeel which can force them to expend a turn to bring their defense back up]]]]. Just for the final touch: when you're about to finish them, they throw the all-powerful PK Starstorm at you. |
| 171 | ** The fight with the Masked Man at the temple of the sixth Needle. You have to fight him after going through tougher Pork Troopers and he is able to attack twice per turn, destroy your shields, and use high-level PSI. It doesn't help that the only remotely close place to heal before going into the two-part battle is fairly easy to miss. You have to make do with whatever you've got left after struggling through the area, which is rare for this game, as bosses tend to be tough enough at full strength. |
| 172 | ** Fighting New Fassad is brutal. He utterly decimates a good portion of players on their first time through, probably because his attacks hit everybody at once, and he can barrage you with status effects: fleas (disables PSI and Thief Tools), forgetfulness (may force you to skip valuable turns), nausea (prevents you from using healing items) and uncontrollable crying (reduces the accuracy of regular attacks), among others. When you think you're making a considerable hole in his HP...''Fassad ate a Luxury Banana!'' and he gets back about 500-600 health points. His strongest attack is a "barrage of bombs" attack that hits your entire party for around 130 HP, ''and'' pierces any shields you have set up, at a time when your party has around 200 HP. You'll be using up your PP and items to heal everyone, giving New Fassad more time to heal, debuff and generally ''screw'' with your party. To hit the nail in the coffin, New Fassad is at the end of a dungeon ''teeming'' with DemonicSpiders that use attacks that deal severe damage to the party, and when you do beat him, you are usually low on health, and out of PP and items (in a game where there's an inventory limit), meaning that the enemies can now murder you. He's sort of like the Clumsy Robot to players who are just picking up on the series, but sadly, his healing is no fakeout. |
| 173 | *** Miracle Fassad is even worse. He's even more fond of status effects, and has moves like PK Starstorm, which do obscene damage, affect everyone, ''and'' can prevent a character from attacking. He also has some 5000 HP, and can use Luxury Bananas ON TOP OF an attack, so you'll get scenes like Fassad used PK Starstorm >> Fassad ate a Luxury Banana >> Fassad restored 587 HP! |
| 174 | ** Mr. Passion is a nasty WakeUpCallBoss. Aside from dealing a lot of damage normally, once you get him down to about 1/3 health, he TurnsRed and gets a ''massive'' attack power boost. Without making the most of Duster's special moves, you're going down. LevelGrinding and Thunder Bombs will only get you so far here. |
| 175 | ** The Pork Tank is bad enough on regular difficulty, with the nearly useless Salsa, the SquishyWizard Kumatora, and the powerful, invincible but CPU-controlled Wess fighting it. It has a powerful cannon that takes off 40 HP a shot even if you decrease its offense (both characters have about 100 HP at this point), an attack that damages both Kumatora and Salsa, and an attack that makes both your characters cry. On Hard Mode, where the HP of all enemies is doubled, it becomes an unholy killing machine with 3400+ HP. Here, it's a guarantee that Kumatora will run out of PP less than halfway through the fight. It really comes down to Wess being useful with his attacks, which he usually isn't. And if both Kumatora and Salsa die, you lose. Salsa, however, can actually [[spoiler:imitate that tank pretty darn well with his overlooked Monkey Mimic.]] Of course, you don't really think to [[spoiler:[[AbnormalAmmo make Salsa shoot cannonballs from nowhere]]]] ''right away.'' |
| 176 | ** The Jealous Bass, fought in the Club [[InherentlyFunnyWords Titiboo]] Attic, is probably ''the'' most infamous boss in the entire game. It comes with two flunkies, and combos with them to hit you up to four times at every turn (the Jealous Bass gets two attacks while his minions get one each). If you take out the mooks, [[TurnsRed the Bass gets angrier and powers up]], getting even stronger. Just to add to that, the only party members available during that part of the game are Lucas, whose PSI abilities are very limited at the time as they only consist of weak healing and one offensive attack, and [[ActionPet Boney]], who is a FragileSpeedster whose only special ability is an EnemyScan. If that wasn't enough, the Club Titiboo Attic is also a case of ThatOneLevel, as it is full of GoddamnedBats which not only are hard to avoid, but also guarantee that you don't make it to the boss fight without having to waste PP, items or losing HP. The Bass also [[{{Jerkass}} taunts you if it defeats you and you attempt to re-fight it]], so there's also that. |
| 177 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': |
| 178 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'': |
| 179 | *** The final boss of the Imperial Legion questline counts as well, mainly because he uses ''both'' an InfinityPlusOneSword and Infinity Plus One ''Armor''. [[ButThouMust That you just delivered to him]]. Somewhat forgivable in that he is the highest ranking legion officer in Vvardenfell and isn't really malevolent in any way, but [[KlingonPromotion you still need to beat him if you want his title]]. This is justifiably considered by many to be the single toughest fight in the vanilla game. |
| 180 | *** Gaenor from the ''Tribunal'' expansion. He reflects almost all damage from magic spells and mundane weapons due to having an insanely high leveled Luck. And no, there is not a puzzle to get around it. You just have to have a hell of a lot of HitPoints while you pummel this heavily-armored highly-agile guy until he falls over and dies. He starts as an NPC, but if you speak to him for any reason, he'll eventually come back in ''ebony armor''. Fortunately, he's easy to avoid if you know to do so. If you don't mind murder, you can also kill him immediately after your first conversation with him when he won't have these protections. |
| 181 | *** Gedna Relvel from the ''Tribunal'' "Crimson Plague" side questline. What starts with [[RatStomp killing some diseased rats]] and [[FetchQuest delivering a potion]] ends with you needing to defeat Gedna, a monstrously powerful lich. She's capable of flinging a very powerful area of effect spell, is immune or resistant to every from of Destruction magic, and 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. And [[DudeWheresMyReward what do you get]] for killing this notorious DamageSpongeBoss? Her enchanted Robe of the Lich (which [[PressXToDie deals 600 damage to you as soon as you put it on]]) and a once-per-day spell that restores a small amount of Health, Fatigue, and cures Common Disease (which, if you've gotten far enough in the main game's main quest, [[IdealIllnessImmunity you're immune to anyway]].) |
| 182 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'': |
| 183 | *** Ancano can be absolutely infuriating on your first attempt, especially at a low level. Your followers cannot help you, as Ancano will paralyze them at the start of the battle. Tolfdir tells you to use the Staff of Magnus on the Eye of Magnus, but not what it will do or how you can tell if it's working (the Staff of Magnus opens the Eye for a time, and Ancano can only be harmed while it's opened). Ancano knows high-level fire spells that he spams relentlessly and his One-Handed skill is very high, so he can rapidly deplete your health regardless of range. Cracking open the Eye also releases [[GoddamnBats Magic Anomalies]] that have a huge amount of hit points and move very quickly. Though they sometimes attack Ancano, he has much more health than you and can easily shrug off their attacks. Overall Ancano makes Morokei from the previous College of Winterhold quest look pathetic and is definitely one of the hardest bosses in the game. |
| 184 | *** Malkoran, from the quest that gives you the Dawnbreaker. He has a few shades with him, which are just annoying enough to distract you and deal enough damage to make you heal. But even if you take them out with a bow before you fight Malkoran, he has a fast Frost spell that will easily destroy anyone of a low enough level that isn't a Nord. Even on ''the lowest difficulty''. |
| 185 | *** Hamelyn from early in the Thieves' Guild questline. He's an absurdly powerful mage that's thrown at you right the hell out of nowhere during what's an otherwise standard infiltration mission (of a meadery, no less), and his lightning magic can fry you in seconds. You don't ''have'' to kill him to beat the mission, but good luck slipping past him: his pet Skeevers utterly ruin your stealthy approach by alerting him to your presence. |
| 186 | * For having bosses where most of the strategy is simply 'hit things until they die and get out of the way of attacks', one wouldn't expect ''VideoGame/{{Elsword}}'' to have one, but it does: Cutty Sark, the boss of 5-5 (Heart of the Spire, in Feita). For much of the fight, Cutty stays out of range of your attacks, with the only way of knowing where he is being the monster indicator at the edge of the screen. To bring him down to earth, you must knock him out of the air by hitting his wings with one of the ballistae on the field, which is easier said than done as he moves rather fast, and ANY attack can trigger a ballista, requiring some time to reload it. Cutty's attacks also hit quite hard, he swoops the field blindingly fast, he can drag you to the edge of the field, and he can summon more Stone Gargoyles on a whim. Couple this with the two bottomless pits on either end of the battlefield, and it's a real test of patience. Cutty does sometimes float above said pits, but woe betide you if you play a close-range character or one with no reliable long-range skills. |
| 187 | * ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'': |
| 188 | ** The first fight with Captain Dolce is not to be underestimated. Encountered after being separated from the characters that you have to use in her ship for an extended period, you're likely to be underleveled and Dolce will wipe the floor with you if you aren't prepared. She's faster than greased lightning, and packs a wallop and a half. Top it off with the fact that she comes with a pair of henchmen that will heal each other if you don't kill them in one go and do some decent damage themselves. |
| 189 | ** There's also the second fight against Tuba, which is a bit of this and a bit of WakeUpCallBoss. Bosses prior to him were no pushovers, but Tuba has the ability to kill characters in one turn if you don't block consistently. Possibly even multiple characters in one turn, since a couple of his attacks hit sizable areas. He can also heal himself for large amounts when he gets to low HP. Oh yeah, and the fight also requires you to use Beat in your party, so good luck if you haven't been leveling him up and keeping his equipment current. |
| 190 | ** Pretty much every human boss except the first Tuba fight and the [=PS3=] exclusive fight with Fugue can count. All of them have a tendency to run behind you so you can't block, and if you fail to block one of their attacks, you can't block any subsequent attacks with small block windows either. Also, all except [[spoiler: Frederic]] have multi-hit abilities with small block windows that can and will instant KO even your tanks. |
| 191 | * The final boss of the ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' expansion Gates of Discord, Tunat'Muram Cuu Vauax, was this for the whole player base as he was not killed until well after the next expansion came out. |
| 192 | * ''VideoGame/EverQuestII'''s Raid Battle against Venril Sathir qualifies for this in spades. Not only do you need 2 copies of the same item from a previous raid mob to even make him DOABLE (thankfully they aren't consumed by the battle), the fight is simply unforgiving of ANY mistake. Guy on statue duty lags? Everyone dies. Someone doesn't cure their poison? Everyone dies. Someone casts too much/not enough? Everyone dies. Venril Sathir decides to screw you by giving the same person both his curses at once? Everyone dies. Someone crosses the threshold of his room too soon? Everyone dies. Venril is the raid mob in ''[=EQ2=]'' responsible for more raid guilds breaking in half than any other. The kicker: He's not even an end of progression boss, he's in the middle of an expansion's progression. |
| 193 | ** Venril did eventually get nerfed. [=EQ2=] generally nerfs the high end raid bosses about 3/4ths of the wait until the new expansion to give the less uber guilds a better shot at getting them down. See also: Perah'Celsis (raid version) in the most recent expansion, who was changed so he no longer charms the tanks making the fight easier. |
| 194 | ** Also from [=EQ2=], the Leviathan. Even though it is a level 80 raid monster, and the max level is now 90, people still refuse to go anywhere near it for several reasons. At level 80, it would reflect spells up to level 87. This meant mages were near useless for DPS, and any group Debuff's cast by bards could turn around and hit you. You also needed at least 100 noxious potions to cure yourself. Then the time it took to kill. Guilds would often have to spend a week or two before farming fluids which you need to blow the mob up from the inside. And at the time, you needed to kill him to be able to access Veeshan's peak, and get your Mythical weapon. |
| 195 | * The Queen Bee in ''VideoGame/EVOSearchForEden'', for being a flying tank, essentially, with an uncharacteristically erratic flight pattern. Also, the [[MamaBear Mother Yeti]], for doing heaps of damage and causing knockback. |
| 196 | ** The Yeti in the next stage is a real bastard, too. |
| 197 | * In [[VideoGame/EvolutionWorlds Evolution: The World of Sacred Device]], the final encounter with Eugene Leopold. The first fight with just him is somewhat of a pushover, but then cue him showing up in a HumongousMecha. What mainly makes him so dangerous is a machine gun attack he loves to use that hits the entire party TWICE, and can poison them with a high chance. And even then he takes a ton of punishment and will sometimes heal himself for 3000 HP. On top of this, he's ALWAYS be at or above the level of the main character, AND since you're forced to always use your WhiteMage up until this point, [[FakeDifficulty you'll now be forced to have other means to heal and buff]] [[DamselInDistress since she's been kidnapped.]] The main character can get some, but only if you've actually been exploring the ruins and not just rushing to the end of each one. And if you start the sequence to get up to the boss, [[PointOfNoReturn you aren't going back to town until you've beaten the game.]] |
| 198 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': |
| 199 | ** The game stays away from bosses for the most part, but when you do find one, you need some serious skills. Most of them are Bonus Bosses, but the Giant Robo-Scorpion is not avoidable. It also has huge health, heavy armor, and a radioactive stinger cannon that can two-shot even really hardy couriers, and has nasty splash damage. Thankfully, the room is full of options to soften it up, but you will need to come under fire to reach them. |
| 200 | ** Near the end of the "For Auld Lang Syne" quest, telling the [[spoiler: Enclave remnants]] to side with the NCR, then failing a speech check when [[spoiler: Orion Moreno]] confronts you initiates a 1v1 battle against him. He's equipped with a Minigun and [[spoiler: Enclave Power Armor]]; also known as '''the toughest armor in the whole game'''. Granted, this battle isn't a requirement for the quest, but if your character's Speech skill is highly underdeveloped, there's no way to get yourself out of this fight unless you stall it and leave the bunker to grind more levels, or if you order the squad to side with the Legion, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere which has its own downsides]]. |
| 201 | * VideoGame/Fallout4: |
| 202 | ** You will fight Kellogg ([[spoiler:the one who killed the Sole Survivor's spouse and took their child away]]) during the main quest. Thanks to [[spoiler:the Institute]], he [[spoiler:became a {{Cyborg}} that makes him a tough boss to fight.]] He is also equipped with a deadly revolver, grenades and a ''stealth boy'' (which he constantly uses). He is also [[FlunkyBoss assisted by three Synths]] during the fight. Furthermore, he starts the fight aware of you making stealth hits on him pretty much impossible. |
| 203 | *** [[spoiler: However, a Sole Survivor that is particularly good at hacking can unlock an armory near the beginning of this dungeon that contains a Fat Man launcher and a single mini-nuke.]] |
| 204 | ** The Mirelurk Queen. There's one in "Taking Indepedence" and a few others elsewhere, like Spectacle Island, or the Murkwater Construction Site. A GiantEnemyCrab to the extreme, she's at least 5x as big as a Mirelurk, moves quickly, has a shitload of health, deals an extreme amount of damage if she hits, spews damaging acid as a long-range attack, and constantly spawns [[GoddamnedBats Mirelurk Hatchlings]] all over the arena. Even with minutemen helping you and distracting her, she can easily take them out before focusing on you. |
| 205 | ** The Deathclaw in Concord is a divisive example, as even in your power armor with a minigun, you're likely to suffer your first deaths in the game fighting it. Many Fallout veterans found the fight too easy and complained. While others argued it was too difficult even with the InfinityPlusOneSword of both the above pieces of equipment. |
| 206 | ** Slag, the leader of the [[PyroManiac Forged]] gang at Saugus Ironworks. He starts the fight aware of you so you can't stealth him, charges into melee with a ''very'' powerful FlamingSword, and is wearing power armor. Combine this with a claustrophobic boss arena and several EliteMooks backing him up (one of which ''will'' have a flamer) and you have a nightmarish situation on your hands. It doesn't help that you can get this quest in the 10-15 range when characters into the 30s can have trouble with it, depending on how you move through the main questline. |
| 207 | ** Sinjin, if you're trying to save [[spoiler:Kent]]. Not only does he have a pretty good amount of health, he comes with three strong raiders, starts the fight aware of you so no Stealth, and the ''very first thing'' he will try to do after his speech is to shoot [[spoiler:Kent]] in the head to instantly kill him. And if Sinjin goes down first, Avery will ''also'' try to murder [[spoiler:Kent]]! |
| 208 | ** Boomer, the Raider leader at Outpost Zimonja. He has a PoweredArmor which gives him a lot of health, uses a Stimpak to heal himself up should it drop low, ''and'' he comes with a Fat Man which can easily blow the player up. He's not the only one, mind, but his location near the safer areas of the map and lack of good cover make him worse than other examples. |
| 209 | ** Similarly, Wire, the leader of the gang at the ship-based Libertalia, is not only armed with a Fat Man but is a ridiculously good shot with it. Add in the fact that he has a clear shot at you from a ridiculously long distance away, and you have one of the hardest encounters in the game. Thankfully, the Institute quest that makes you run through the area replaces him with Gabriel, the quest target. |
| 210 | ** The DiscOneFinalDungeon of the ''Automatron'' DLC pits you against AHAB, an uber-tough AceCustom Sentry Bot with a Missile Launcher and dual Incinerators that quickly drain HP even through PowerArmor, followed by Ivey, the leader of the Rust Devils, who is clad in [[ArmorOfInvincibility T-60 Tesla Armor]] that can take [[MarathonBoss a crapton of punishment]], and wields the [[LightningGun Tesla Rifle]], which can [[ChainLightning arc between targets]]. Not to mention you have to fight her in close quarters alongside a [[LevelScaling level-scaling]] Assaultron, itself a BossInMookClothing. The one consolation with Ivey is that you may be able to get a lucky shot on her armor's Fusion Core, forcing her to abandon it and possibly killing her with the explosion (just make sure [[TakingYouWithMe you aren't too close]]). Worth noting is that the Sole Survivor can use Robotics Expert to shutdown and forcibly self-destruct any robot in the game, making every fight with a robot a 2 second button press... [[ContractualBossImmunity except AHAB]], who is ''completely immune to Robotics Expert'' and therefore ''must'' be properly fought and defeated. |
| 211 | * All three ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFuckboys'' games contain ridiculously hard and unfair bosses from start to finish, but the trophy goes to [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry Cranky Kong]] from Act 3 of the third game. He's got 999,999 HP, 600 defense, max speed and regenerates 10,000 HP per round, all of his attacks deal 27-28 ''digits'' of damage (for reference, you can only have 9999 HP per character), and with the exception of his cane swipe all hit multiple party members at a time and can potentially [[TotalPartyKill hit all four party members at once]]. And in later versions of the game, he silences Chica to prevent her from spamming Rising Phoenix to help cheese through his ungodly attack power. Essentially, if you don't go in with max speed, each character's best gear, tons of lollipops and the ability to act twice per turn, you'll be seeing the "git gud" screen in short order. |
| 212 | ** Even worse, after dealing with Cranky, you'll be almost immediately assaulted by the Phantom Refurbs trying to get revenge on you for killing him, and each one has several hundred thousand HP and a large stash of cakes to revive each other, making the fight almost as hard as Cranky. These fights are so hard that the FinalBoss (the only boss left after them) is a breath of fresh air in comparison! |
| 213 | * ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'': |
| 214 | ** The Kraken, boss of a sailing ship on the Karagol Sea. He's got 2400 HP, quite a bit more than the last boss's 1700 HP, and like most bosses in the game gets two attacks per turn. Even worse, it knows Ply, which heals it for about 100 HP a pop. Also, almost all of its attacks have a high chance of either inflicting status (such as its favorites Dark Blessing, Water Blessing. and Poison Beat) or of ignoring stats (Such as Spinning Beat, which has a chance of treating someone's defense as though it were HALVED). Add on a minuscule chance of it pulling a nastily powerful mercury elemental attack and you're pretty screwed over. No wonder most people who run from a few fights get stuck here, especially since once you get on the Karagol sea you can't go back to grind levels or buy new equipment and items. |
| 215 | ** Coming after [[ShiftingSandLand Lamakan Desert]], the Manticore can be a difficult boss. Unless you were really diligent with the oasis searching, you might be weakened from sunstroke. In addition, the Manticore can move twice per turn, and is the first boss to do so, so it will catch a new player off guard. |
| 216 | * ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge'': |
| 217 | ** Poseidon. If a player goes directly from gaining access to the ship to the Sea of Time (despite there being plenty warning [[DiscOneFinalDungeon it's not a place to be taken lightly]]), it's a HopelessBossFight. Even after going through all the tasks necessary to be able to lay a scratch on him, he's still a powerful boss. He has very strong Psynergy, [[SpellLevels with access to the most powerful Mercury casts.]] He has almost 5,000 HP, over 1,000 more than the previous boss and more than any other single boss character you encounter until the last area in the game. He also has a single-target HPToOne skill and a powerful party attack that deals a lot of damage and [[OneHitKill can drown them if their Luck stat is too low.]] Add a self-healing move and a counter to round out his moveset, and you have a serious BeefGate of a boss who will squeeze every ounce of power and strategy out of you to get past him. [[TheDreaded No wonder a character in the game itself calls him a leviathan!]] |
| 218 | ** Much earlier on, the same game has Briggs. Briggs is already a highly difficult [[FlunkyBoss Flunky Boss,]] but if you fight him as soon as you're able he becomes this trope. His near 1000 HP (only a little bit less than the previous boss, which was a GIANT SCORPION,) and high damage make him very difficult to manage for an under-leveled party, and to make matters worse, his flunkies are nearly as strong and tough as he is, and he can summon up to three more for the duration, for a maximum of two at once! However, the worst thing about this boss is that he's meant to be fought much later than most new players would assume. This is the very last thing that needs to be done in a fairly open ended section of the game, but the way the narrative is structured, not only does it look like this is meant to be done first, but it doesn't look like there's another option at all than beating this boss and beating him now. If a player leaves this section for later and comes back after Airs Rock, he will be considerably less difficult. |
| 219 | * ''VideoGame/{{Grandia}}'': |
| 220 | ** The first ''VideoGame/Grandia1'' had the fight with the female Garlyle officers Saki, Nana, and Mio all at once. Since they've been played up as the GoldfishPoopGang up to this point, and since they were pretty easy when you fought them individually, you're probably expecting an easy fight, right? Then they use a little move called Trinity Attack that hits the entire party for huge damage. Even though all three girls are used in the move, it only takes one girl to actually ''do it'' and the other two still get their turns (which might be ''another'' Trinity Attack)? Getting hit by two Trinity Attacks, one right after the other, can be very hard to come back from. |
| 221 | ** And lets top it off with ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'', and the Eye of Valmar. Prior to this fight, there were a miniboss set of four eyeballs that do a lot of damage very quickly and took a long time to kill. The Eye of Valmar would be hard enough as it is, being a typical Valmar Body Part boss (meaning stronger than usual) and having an ability to completely immobilize one of your party members, but ''it comes with another set of four smaller eyes!'' |
| 222 | * The Melc Crystal from ''VideoGame/GrandiaIII'' is a nightmare if you're under leveled. Not to mention it has two forms with different weaknesses and resistances, and switching between them tends to cancel your well thought out commands (literally at times). Beating this boss without using one of the orb summons is a feat in and of itself. |
| 223 | * ''VideoGame/GuildWars'': |
| 224 | ** Varesh Ossa in ''Factions'' is the hardest boss in the game - even harder than the ''final'' boss. She has unique abilities that either reduce the area of the stage you're at to nothing or force everyone to focus fire, all while simply shrugging off most of your attacks and you have to deal with a lot of flunkies. So you lit her on fire, inflicted bleed, poisoned her, and your mesmer cast Summon Phanasm? Well guess what - her health still only lowers bit by bit. |
| 225 | ** The Doppelganger in ''Prophecies''. They copy your abilities to a tee - and [[ArtificialBrilliance they know how to use them]]. Many people came in used to the game needing a party - and now they have to fight solo. Despite the PowerCreep rendering many ''Prophecies'' missions easy, this one kept up. Even if you can [[ArtificialStupidity cheese it]] by making a build it doesn't know how to use, it will still be quite difficult if you're a fragile class. And this isn't as easy as it sounds - ie give yourself a bit of sustainability? Well now ''it'' uses it too. Many consider this to be the BestBossEver as very few games have done anything like this, but at the same time it's also very much ThatOneBoss. |
| 226 | ** ''Nightfall'' has Shiro Tagachi. The amazing thing is that he was the BigBad of ''Factions'', and he wasn't nearly as hard there, despite the fact that he had two incredibly annoying and powerful skills in ''Factions'' that he doesn't have in ''Nightfall''. (On the other hand, in ''Factions'', the mission to fight him consists entirely of "Defeat Shiro." In ''Nightfall'', you have a fairly lengthy and difficult mission to get through before Shiro.) |
| 227 | ** Coventina the Matron... or any of the other Mursaat Monk Bosses from ''Prophecies''. It takes a specialised ''team'' to take them down effectively due to the efficiency of their self-healing... and can consume a LOT of time. Makes for much trouble if coupled with OTHER Mursaat bosses. |
| 228 | ** Elementalist bosses in general. All bosses and boss-like foes have an inherent double damage bonus (on top of the bonuses they get for their level), meaning some of them can pretty much wipe a party in seconds. |
| 229 | ** Then there is Dhuum, of the TheUnderworld, this boss is now a MANDATORY fight to complete the Underworld where before you just had to finish the quests. Those quests? You still need to do them all first before he appears and there is no second chance, if you all die that's it, you got to do it ALL AGAIN. Dhuum ranks up there with Kanaxai and Urgoz... |
| 230 | * Macha in ''Franchise/DotHack'' [[VideoGame/DotHackR1Games Volume 4]]. She has an attack which charms the entire party without fail, meaning that all you can do is watch your team beat each other up and hope they snap out of it before you get a game over. |
| 231 | ** Skeith in ''Franchise/DotHack'' Volume 1 is much worse. Three out of its four attacks are powerful enough to bring a full-health character down to under a third of its health, and of these, one hits the entire party and is impossible to dodge (IT is also percentage based so it won't outright kill you, but one of its other attacks, which it loves to use, will oneshot you afterwards). The fourth attack inflicts enough damage so that any other attack can kill, as well as causing every status effect in the game (which is the same attack that put Orca into a coma (which you also have, by the way). And the attack that shows up a few more times with other bosses. Fun). And its second phase is worse than the first, considering how much faster it gets. Plus the fact that it likes randomly inflicting status effects on your party, for some reason. Hope you stocked up on revives -- never mind that they were TooAwesomeToUse up until now. It does not help that Skeith lurks at the end of ThatOneLevel, so you're already hurting, or that you can't LevelGrind to make this battle easier; even at the game's {{Cap}}, all of the above still applies. And to top it all off, [[spoiler: he becomes Cubia after you beat him, who is ALSO on this list.]] |
| 232 | ** Then there's Cubia Core in ''Franchise/DotHack'' volume 2. It can render itself immune to all physical attacks or all magic attacks on a whim, when there's a character who has ''zero'' physical attacks forced into your party. It should also be noted that this character is a SquishyWizard who is basically the only way to deal sufficient magical damage when Cubia Core nullifies physical attacks -- "sufficient" because the bastard heals itself, repeatedly, thanks to its [[TheMedic Repth Gohmoras]] that it summons. A lot. Of course, this makes them a priority target, although Cubia hardly needs it as Cubia Core has three unavoidable attacks that can easily kill said SquishyWizard. Note that after reviving a dead character in this game, they start at 0 MP. Fun fun fun. |
| 233 | ** Tarvos in the fourth volume shows just how much the developers learned by repeating almost the exact same gimmick as Cubia Core. Granted, Tarvos doesn't heal itself, so it doesn't seem nearly as bad as Cubia Core...until it decides to use [[AlwaysAccurateAttack Cursed]] [[OneHitKill Death]] [[ThatOneAttack Play]]. |
| 234 | * The sequel to Franchise/DotHack, the VideoGame/DotHackGU, has AIDA<Oswald>. She's the first AIDA boss to spend all her time on top of you at melee range, and her melee attacks are ''devastating'' and trying to attack her with a scythe while not stunned is ''foolish''. On top of that, her bullet attacks slow you (to make you easier to smack around), her homing attacks tend to hover out of sight and swarm at an odd timing to make them harder to knock away, and her "laser" attack is a web that makes for micro-dodging hell. She'll probably be the first Avatar battle that you have to refight. |
| 235 | ** One of the difficulties with bosses in .Hack://G.U. is that certain bosses have attacks that cannot be avoided at all and must just be survived. The first fight against Azure Kite, the fight against Sirius, the fight against Tri-Edge (both times), and the third fight with Azure Kite, Orca, and Balmung, all have one attack the boss can use multiple times that cannot be blocked or dodged, and thus if your character is too weak or their equipment is too low-level, you are guaranteed to be killed no matter what you do. |
| 236 | ** The most difficult of all bosses is the second volume's final boss, [[spoiler:the true Tri-Edge]]. The ground phase of the battle has the boss continually spawn Neighbors which provide various support effects: one type will spam [[EnergyWeapon Lei Zas]], another will make the boss invincible as long as it's alive, and the third will repeatedly cast Ol Repth on the boss, undoing several minutes' worth of damage in seconds. On top of that the boss has several attacks which hit massive swathes of the battle arena and is one of the few to have an unblockable cutscene attack, which it uses fairly regularly. On top of that, the boss fight is followed by an Avatar battle against Corbenik the Rebirth, which isn't as outrageously tough but certainly a strong boss in its own right. The third volume features a rematch against the same boss, [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind but it's forgotten to level grind]] and is relatively easy to dispatch. However, the ensuing rematch with Corbenik has gotten much tougher, as its new form features a number of powerful and annoying attacks, and even Data Draining it has become much more difficult thanks to its new barrier making you have to land ''two'' shots in rapid succession within the time limit. |
| 237 | ** Cubia's back, and has some new tricks in store. Albeit it's mostly not TOO bad, considering it's the FinalBoss, the first two phases of the battle which are comprised of the last Avatar Battle in all the G.U. trilogy can be bothersome. Specifically, Cubia has an attack in the second portion of the Avatar battle that it only uses at low health, but can easily send you back to the very beginning of the entire fight, which is quite long to begin with. The attack is [[ThatOneAttack Chaos Gehenna]], which causes a stream of large, explosive Gomorras to fly at Skeith. The attack can deal ''huge'' damage, and it's almost impossible to destroy or dodge all of the suicidal {{Mook}}s. The Cubia Core can once again give problems as well (if you're not overleveled, which makes it an AnticlimaxBoss), since it sends an unending stream of Gomorras at the party, and it's Right Core can inflict multiple status effects, the most dangerous being Charm, which is basically a form of Confusion that cannot be cured by whacking the afflicted over the head. The main core itself can also fire many energy beams out of it's mouth, fly away and ram the platform the characters are standing on during which it cannot be harmed, and it's cutscene attack that makes energy blasts literally rain upon the party followed by a large explosion can hurt. |
| 238 | * Aragog from the Platform/GameBoyColor version of ''VideoGame/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets''. His attacks take roughly 25% of your hp every turn, plus he can poison you for even more damage. Did I mention that he can paralyze you to prevent you from healing between turns? Best part is, he starts off with a surprise attack. |
| 239 | * ''Hide 'n' Seek Battle Monster Tactics'' has a potential one in Trinchula, the first Target Monster of B5. It is highly resistant to ''every'' element except [[spoiler:fire]]. Since Kevin can have only ''one'' [[spoiler:fire]] technique at all at the time, it is virtually required to have [[spoiler:Kaen]] on your battle team, which is made unpleasant by the fact that there are two [[spoiler:wind]] monsters just waiting to take down your only character with a constant chance of dealing decent damage to Trinchula. What's worse is that [[spoiler:fire doesn't do heavy damage to anything else that is particularly dangerous, which combined with Kaen mainly having melee attacks and this being a game revolving around [[FogOfWar hiding and seeking]] does not bode well with the poor girl's usability in the first place]]. Unfortunately, if you don't have the character sufficiently leveled up (elemental multiplier includes the enemy's defense in this game, which means it won't help much at all with insufficient attack) and on your team, have fun dealing single digit damage to this triple digit HP pain. |
| 240 | * ''VideoGame/IllusionOfGaia'' has the two vampires in Mu. Mu itself already was a big DifficultySpike and the vampires are worse. They both erratically fly across the battlefield, fire projectiles along the path or have orbs flying around them that also damage you, if you get too close. Like all bosses, your attacks as Freedan do 2 damage to them per swing (and if you couldn't find the relevant Dark Space in the maze, you're stuck as Will dealing 1!), but unlike all the other bosses there are ''[[DualBoss two of them]]'' so they have ''twice as much life.'' And it's a ''timed'' boss, too, as you need to rescue Eric from a bomb that's going to explode. |
| 241 | * ''VideoGame/IcewindDale'' has Yxunomei. This demon comes at the end of a five-level dungeon (with no place to restock unless the group treks all the way back to Kuldahar), has a pack of [[FlunkyBoss henchmen]] and is fought is a restricted space (no hit-and run tactics allowed). As if it were not enough, she can only be hurt by +2 weapons (which not every party member might have so far acquired). |
| 242 | * The roguelike ''Iter Vehemens ad Necem'' (aka IVAN) brings us the apotheosis of all bastards: Ischaldirh. His stats are pathetically low even compared to other bosses in the game. He has, however, access to the most frighteningly powerful magic in the game, and is not afraid to use it. A favorite of his is teleportation, which he uses with relish. Get close enough to split him in two? Poof, you're on the opposite end of the screen. He also is fond of teleporting your gear away, not to mention teleporting your LIMBS away. He also can summon an explosion and then teleport that explosion on to you for massive damage. His most brutal tactic, however, is his summoning. He can summon any monster in the game. This includes other boss characters as well as golems made of material that give them ungodly high stats. Also he can clone you. These clones have the same stats and equipment as you. Considering you lived to see the end of the game you're probably very high level with very good equipment, so taking on just ONE of your clones can be a challenge, to say nothing of the mobs he's capable of summoning. Beating the game is literally considered to be a glitch, and with bosses like this it's no wonder. |
| 243 | * The Ravager in ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' hits hard, can recover his health in seconds with Chi healing, and is fond of rolling away or using area attacks to prevent the player from killing him before he can recover. He also has unlimited Chi, which makes it a matter of killing him before he can regenerate. |
| 244 | ** The Dirge Clones on Jade Master difficulty are incredibly hard to beat, since none of the cheesy strategies that you need to stand a chance against the bosses are particularly useful in this fight. Unless you exploit the poor pathfinding AI, it seems almost impossible to win, and even then it's a handful. |
| 245 | * ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureThe7thStandUser'': |
| 246 | ** Rubber Soul, with his high defenses and ability to drain your HP and SP. Good luck doing this fight with a Stand that has no elemental attacks, as they're your only hope against his untransformed form. He can transform into any of the other Crusaders and attack you with their moves as well. They hurt more, but at least his defense is lower in these forms. It is possible to skip this fight, but you'll miss out on EXP and items, as well as a great skill for Red Garland. |
| 247 | ** Enya. High defense for a long range attacker, and both she and her Stand can inflict one of several StatusEffects, including the dreaded ''Control''. Control is like Confusion except 1) the affected can also attack other party members, and 2) it cannot be cured by most things that would cure confusion. It is possible to have no control over this fight for several turns at a time, and all you can do is pray that your party members haven't been killed by either each other or Justice. In addition, Justice is an invincible MookMaker whose summoned Corpses have a surprisingly high damage output. There are two Stands that get an advantage in this fight (Pixies and Deep Purple) but the rest are more or less left to their own devices, especially the ones that lack long-range attacks. And if all that isn't enough, [[GuideDangIt unless you knew to have Jotaro in your party before the fight]], Jotaro has to fight Enya ''alone'', and he is about the worst-suited person for fighting her because he won't have any long-range attacks on a first playthrough. Your only option then is to just use Brainstorm and pray it works the first time. |
| 248 | ** The Anubis fights are all pretty tough, to the point where each of them deserve mention. [[BossRush It is also worth noting that there is nothing in between any of these fights, save for cutscenes]] and a save point between the two Khan fights. |
| 249 | *** First up is Chaka, who has the ability to go to "?" range which allows him to ''take no damage from any of your attacks'' and also occasionally heal. He can't attack while doing this, and there are other bosses that have this ability, but it is much more annoying with Chaka because he is a DuelBoss; Polnareff has to fight him alone. When he isn't out of range of your attacks, his attacks hit like a truck. This fight also introduces the first of the two Anubis gimmicks, in that all of them can use a move called Iai Slash. It does a jaw-dropping amount of damage to your whole party, and can kill a character in only one or two hits. However many healing items you have, they're all going to be reserved for Iai Slash, as it can instantly bring you to your knees if it doesn't outright kill you. |
| 250 | *** Next is Khan, who has [[DamageSpongeBoss ridiculously high defense]] and a respectable attack and accuracy, better than Chaka's. He also introduces the other Anubis gimmick, which is that he and the remaining bosses will occasionally say "I've memorized it!" which lets him ''heal and buff all of his stats'', which gets very annoying very quickly and takes his high defense through the roof. As his HP gets lower, he starts to move farther away, although never to ? range like Chaka. It is still a problem unless the protagonist has a long-range stand, though, as neither Polnareff nor Jotaro have many reliable moves that can hit faraway enemies. Plus, he's fought twice! |
| 251 | *** Anubis Polnareff is more of the same; he has the highest attack stat out of the bunch but otherwise follows the same, tough-as-nails formula as Chaka and Khan. However... |
| 252 | *** The best is saved for last, with ''Twin Blades Polnareff.'' He has the same high attack power as Anubis that only gets higher as the battle proceeds, but his AI seems to be more skewed towards just outright killing your party and using Iai Slash as much as possible. The worst part is, while this battle can be skipped with Brainstorm, it has some very nice rewards, including a skill for Polnareff that you can't get otherwise. |
| 253 | ** J. Geil isn't so bad in the main story, but during the optional BossRush he gets a new gimmick that makes him much more difficult. He hides in one of five oil drums with Hanged Man in the center of them all; destroying Geil's drum ends the fight. Hanged Man is nigh-invincible and loves to use OneHitKO moves, while the drums ''can throw dynamite'' and also drive your party Berserk. And with five of them, you're going to take a ''lot'' of damage before your next turn comes around. And the cherry on top? ''Geil's drum is randomized each fight.'' |
| 254 | * ''Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning'', an otherwise fairly easy game, features the Maid of Windermere: A boss who summons a horde of minions that can keep you almost permanently stunlocked and whittle your health down to zero within seconds unless your character happens to be specialized in crowd control -- and even then it's a difficult fight. By comparison, the final boss is considered by many to be easier. |
| 255 | * ''VideoGame/TheLastRemnant'': Gates of Hell. It has 2 free attacks that it can perform while it's in its turn, both which can hit all the deadlocked teams (it has multi-deadlock), not counting its attacks in its main attack phase, which means it can attack 3 times in a turn. The problem is that a lot of players will try to deal as much damage to the boss as possible, causing nearly all your teams to engage in deadlock with the boss, which will result in massive damages being dealt to nearly everyone. And if a group is dead, the boss will cast Pandemonium, turning the dead group against you. The best way to beat it is to keep only few teams to engage it, and let the rest acting as healers and rotate in if possible to maximize the survivability. |
| 256 | * Most of the bosses in ''VideoGame/LastScenario'' can be this thanks to EasyLevelsHardBosses, and because of this no one can seem to agree on which is the worst. The [[WakeupCallBoss first one]] that's likely to make you bang your head against a wall is the Marid King, but later ones (particularly the NighInvulnerable Riftgate; the Viviones, a mob of 5 [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere inexplicable critters]] that constantly heal and revive each other; and any boss that spams {{Total Party Kill}}s and [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard status effects]]) can be even worse. |
| 257 | ** Also, the full [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Omega Team]]. First off, it's not just a DualBoss -- there's ''three'' of them, and while Earp was a BreatherBoss in his first appearance, Helio tends to leave you with lots of status effects and has a nasty ice spell, and Flynn was pretty hard even when she was ''alone''. And because they all attack in different ways, and even if you equip water-absorbing armour to [[ElementalAbsorption absorb]] one of Flynn's spells, you're still at the mercy of RandomNumberGod, since she's prone to spamming [[ThatOneAttack Comet Slash]], which leaves your party in such a devastated state that it requires so much healing that getting in any hit at all is hard, and you're likely to run out of healing items and mana before they go down. |
| 258 | * Lenus from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon''. Casts ridiculously powerful spells that hit everyone, uses a physical attack... that hits everyone, and is so fast she'll likely get three or four turns in a row before your party gets to act. Better hope you've done enough grinding to get Final Burst! |
| 259 | ** The Grand Jewel can also count. It can mess with your character's ''levels'', changing them by 5 at a time, and it loves to lower your level multiple times in a row before actually increasing them. And it's even worse if you've gotten into the habit of getting as much of your transformation gauge filled as possible before using the Special command (all characters take on their Dragoon forms); doing that will make him use the Dragon Block Staff, which makes your Dragoon forms pathetically weak. |
| 260 | ** Jiango can be a hassle as well. While you can put him to sleep for a while with the Sachet provided to you in the same room, he still hits quite hard and will seriously test you after he wakes up. His most powerful attack hits your bulkier party members for close to 70 damage, while squishier characters (and Lavitz, since Jiango is Earth and Lavitz is Wind) can easily take over 100 damage each time it hits; said attack also hits your entire party, and Jiango has a tendency to spam it. |
| 261 | ** Emperor Doel may be a DiscOneFinalBoss, but he's also a very nasty surprise for an unsuspecting player. His [[spoiler:dragoon]] [[OneWingedAngel form]] is fast and is packed with powerful lightning spells and attacks that often hit all the team. And they hit like a truck too, especially if the characters are not in dragoon form. Basically, you have to strategically use your dragoon transformations in order to survive. However, if Doel decides to use his move that creates a magical barrier around him when they are transformed, you may just go in a corner and cry, watching your dragoons waste their turns while he [[NoSell no-sells]] all their attacks. |
| 262 | * Even ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has a member or two of this grand pantheon. The first, Baron von Ratsworth, is optional, but if you decide to fight him, he scales to your level, which is frustrating since level-grinding will actually just make him stronger. Defeating him on your character's first run through the game is incredibly hard. On subsequent runs or if you level up and get to access the Cola Wars Battlefield, it actually gets quite easy: get enough combat initiative to get the jump on him, then toss a Cola Wars Battlefield grenade at him. If need be, mop up with a strong enough guaranteed-hit skill. |
| 263 | ** The worse example, however, is The Bonerdagon, the boss of the Level 7 quest. Apart from the [[BigBad Naughty Sorceress]], it is the only monster capable of blocking skills and item use. Considering that it takes a rather substantial boost to one's stats to stand toe-to-toe against it compared to rest of the quest itself, it can prove to be very very frustrating. Unlike Baron von Ratsworth, however, one can just level-grind to take it on, but it can be a pretty severe bottleneck. |
| 264 | ** And speaking of the Naughty Sorceress, she herself was easily ThatOneBoss back in the day. Like Baron von Ratsworth, she scaled to your stats, meaning she was tough no matter what, and like mentioned above, she could block skill and item use, PLUS she dispels all your buffs right at the start of the fight, constantly healed herself, and shrugged off your de-leveling effects. And she was impossible to beat if you weren't equipped with a specific weapon, which has a mere 30 attack points. With the introduction of [=NS13=] though, she's much easier, as her stats are set around 200 and no longer requires the aforementioned weapon to beat (though it DOES have to be in your inventory). |
| 265 | ** Two of them are in Hobopolis: Frosty and Zombo. Frosty takes only 1-3 damage from any source, so quite a lot of damage sources have to be collected to chip him down within the 30-round limit. Zombo scares the pants, hat and shirt off of you, so you would have to be sufficiently leveled up to fight him naked. Skipping either of these bosses will make Hodgman the Hoboverlord ThatOneBoss instead, as Frosty will boost his already high damage resistance, and Zombo will scare your gear off your character in one round instead of his usual three. |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/LegendOfMana'': |
| 267 | ** While the game tries to avoid making baddies too difficult; either placing new lands close to home, or [[GameBreaker learning blacksmithing]] will let you through nearly everything. If you don't, though, it can get very ugly. Irwin essentially spams an area of effect power that fills the entire screen. The dragons hit a bit too hard to be fair. But the worst is the Sierra and Vadise fight. Large area of effect powers, some of which cause the player to fall asleep, nasty amounts of health, and you can only bring one ally where you'd normally get two. Even better, they get back up if you don't beat them both at the same time. |
| 268 | ** Tropicallo is pretty ridiculous. You can only damage it by destroying two flowers which respawn at a set rate, and one of these flowers has a self-destruct with a large range -- one corner is usually safe, but if you're unlucky the flower can get slightly out of position and blast you anyway. On No Future, the hardest difficulty level, this fight goes from "hard" to "utterly insane", as the explosion is a one-hit kill on just about anything, even from 999 HP, and Tropicallo's life bar is ''[[MarathonBoss huge]]''. |
| 269 | ** Boreal Hound has particularly hard to dodge special moves, and he uses special moves so regularly that you'll be lucky to get your own special moves off on him. |
| 270 | * The infinitely infuriating Kromar, from ''VideoGame/LilMonster''. He's got a metric buttload of HP, ridiculously high strength that makes even his weakest attacks do almost 100 damage, and copious healing gems. However, he ''also'' makes liberal use of Meteor Drop, the most powerful attack move in the game -- which does something like 230 damage per hit, coming from him. If you've been LevelGrinding up to that point of the game, you're likely to have about 400 HP, give or take. Yeah. He's ''hard.'' |
| 271 | * Hygrophobia[[note]]Gynophobia in the fan translation[[/note]], the second-to-last boss of [[spoiler:Oersted]]'s chapter in ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', makes the final boss of the chapter feel like a mook. She comes with two attacks: Sweet Nothings and Loving Adoration. Sweet Nothings puts you to sleep and inflicts Intoxication, which shuts off all but one of your attacks, while Loving Adoration does massive amounts of damage and heals her for the damage done. Loving Adoration only hits at close range, but Sweet Nothings covers much of the arena -- and your character's range is minimal in comparison, forcing you to fight within its hit radius. What's more, if you failed to find [[spoiler:the hidden field of healing grass]] earlier in the chapter, you may well end up fighting Hygrophobia without ''any means of healing yourself''. |
| 272 | * Many of the end-level bosses in the PC game for ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing'' had various tricks and unusual ways you had to fight them, but most were fairly straightforward -- There were patterns to their summoned allies, points where they couldn't be attacked, and times they were vulnerable. Then there was Gorbag, at the end of the "Minas Morgul" level. The only way to beat him was to first break his shield -- which required a spear -- then immobilize him -- which required another spear -- and only then would his health bar appear so you could wail on him for a few seconds before he ''got another shield.'' And actually picking up these spears, since you're a freaking Hobbit, takes forever, during which you're vulnerable to attack (Which knocks the spear out of your hand, so you have to get another one.) Oh, and he'll also leap at you across the whole level and begin rapidly assaulting you if you stay in one place (ie near the spears) for too long. Oh, and after you break the shield, he'll still fight, still be immune, and keep trying to attack you until you get that second spear. And don't take too long with that second spear, or he'll just grab another shield and you have to START ALL OVER AGAIN. |
| 273 | * ''Videogame/TheLordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'' has some pretty easy enemies and bosses... until you reach the Bridge of Khaza-dum and join Gandalf in his face-off against the Balrog. Showing why everyone was afraid of him in the movie, the Balrog proceeds to open a can of whoop-ass on your party, with two powerful attacks that hit everyone and deal Fire AND Shadow damage AND drain your ability-using points, his flame sword and flame whip that hit only one person for HUGE damage, having a high evasive stat, very high defense, and more health than all of the previous bosses combined. The only character in the party who can do any appreciable damage to him is Gandalf; the rest of you are there to heal, buff the party, and be mangled. |
| 274 | ** Once you encounter the Final Battle against the Witch King, you understand why even Gandalf the White is worried about him. Having the best stats in the game BAR NONE, only slightly lower HP then the Final Boss, being able to counter you if you DARE attack him, AND having a hit-all Life Drain so powerful, 2 in a row is a guaranteed party wipe out. Just for kicks, he also can stun a character so they can't move, good luck if he does it to your healer. |
| 275 | * The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has several tough bosses but the one everyone seems to struggle with is Tharzog, the first boss. This is mainly due to his high attack power, huge amount of health and constantly respawning minions. If you haven't been upgrading your character properly then expect to get your ass handed to you repeatedly. |
| 276 | ** Another hard boss is Wulfrun who enjoys hiding behind a wall of fire and constantly pelts you with fireballs. He also averts the SquishyWizard trope by possessing a lot of health and can do heavy damage in melee range. Whilst all the other bosses are fought at the end of chapters, Wulfrun attacks at the very start and can be a nasty surprise for ill-prepared players. |
| 277 | *** The Carn Dun Captain is Wulfrun cranked up a notch. He constantly teleports, bombards you with fire and summons hordes of tough enemies that will kill you in seconds if you get surrounded. The only way to safely take him down is to shoot him with ranged weapons which takes forever if you don't have the right upgrades. |
| 278 | * The Ice Magic Beast in ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'' has Reflect permanently on it, and casts several powerful spells that hit your entire party for ridiculous damage and can [[HumanPopsicle freeze your characters solid]]. That, and you're fighting it with a party of entirely [[SquishyWizard Squishy Wizards]]. |
| 279 | ** The Arthrosaurus sequence. [[spoiler:You encounter the beast as you approach Numara and have to face it to progress. It has just over 14,000 HP, and only has two attacks: a physical strike that deals around 200 per character, and a fire based attack that can do around 2000 damage to every character in a single line of your formation. A somewhat lengthy, but not too terribly difficult battle by itself...but then 4 more appear off the coast of Numara, and start heading for the city. You have to defeat all four of them before they reach the coast, and they move at a fairly brisk pace. If just one of them reaches the city, it's an instant game over. And while you're fighting one of them? The other three are still moving...]]. Thankfully, [[spoiler:[[UselessUsefulSpell Sleep]] works every time on them, and can freeze them on the world map for around a minute or three. The fight is meant to be a hit-and-run affair, where you wear away at one after another's health.]] |
| 280 | * The first three boss fights in ''VideoGame/LufiaAndTheFortressOfDoom'' happen to be some of the game's hardest. |
| 281 | ** The four Demon Lords love to cast Mirror, which makes Lufia's attack magic nigh-worthless, and Dew to damage all party members. While you get [[MightyGlacier Aguro]] just in time for the battle, his low MGR means that he'll get hit even harder by their Dew-spam than the Hero or Lufia. And because of how attacks target groups rather than specific enemies, getting your attackers to focus on one at a time is all a matter of luck. |
| 282 | ** The three Goblins[[{{Engrish}} (es)]] don't have any nasty tricks…just a ton of HP, attacks that can quickly add up if they gang up on a single member, and a stupidly-high MGR that makes Lufia's magic nigh-worthless (again). |
| 283 | ** The Apprentice is a DuelBoss, taking on the Hero solo. He has a ton of HP, can cast Fake to give himself more turns than the Hero, and has a nasty special attack that can take off half of the Hero's HP. Potions or Strong don't heal nearly enough to outheal Jolt and Hi Potions can't be purchased at any stores up to that point, leaving you to rely on chests and enemy drops to have enough healing. |
| 284 | * The Tarantula in ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'' is a pretty big kick in the nuts to first-time players, boasting high HP (relative to your damage output), the ability to summon smaller annoying enemies to aide him, an attack that knocks off a lot of damage from all your party members while having a good chance of poisoning each member, and a normal attack that also happens to have a chance of causing full paralysis to the target. Oh, and it heals, too. Fortunately, it's weak to Fire, and the previous dungeon coughs up a good Fire weapon. But unless you think to go back there after the boss is gone... |
| 285 | * Amon in ''VideoGame/LufiaTheLegendReturns'' is ''incredibly'' difficult due to the battle mechanics of the game. You have nine characters at a time in battle, and you can only act with three of them. Amon has a confusion attack that hits all nine of your characters, and confused characters can always attack. If you're unlucky, you can end up with eight confused characters attacking (and slaughtering) your lone non-confused character. There is an equippable item that will protect from confusion, but there are only three of them in the game... |
| 286 | ** [[spoiler: Guard Daos]] from ''VideoGame/LufiaTheLegendReturns'' is no slouch either. He has the very same confusion attack, as well as other attacks that hit your party for major damage and cause all sorts of status effects, a move that majorly increases his already-high defense, and to top it all off, he has a ton of HP. Oh, and once you finally beat him, you have to fight another boss immediately afterwards, and if you lose to that boss, have fun beating [[spoiler: Guard Daos]] all over again. Said boss is a [[BreatherBoss Breather Boss]], though, so it's not all bad. |
| 287 | * Both forms of Gades in ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals''. |
| 288 | ** His human form is one hell of a WakeUpCallBoss, hitting much harder and moving much faster than any enemy up to that point. He only opens himself for a second after his own attacks, before warping away. In the later stages of the fight, he gains an attack where he levitates in the air out of reach of attacks, dropping meteors down upon your character. Said meteors are very difficult to predict, and if his meteors or sword attacks knock you down, he won't hesitate to carve off most of your HP meter before you can get back up. Defeating him normally is enough of a challenge; trying to beat him fast enough to get [[GameBreaker his sword]] is a true test of skill and luck. |
| 289 | ** His giant-robot form requires you to dodge his hand-smashes and strike his right hand to expose his weakpoint. He'll frequently feint or attack twice in quick succession, requiring you to carefully watch his arms to predict his attack. Once his core is vulnerable to damage, you'll need to hop onto a rock in front of him to hit him with melee attacks -- but act too fast, and he'll start a three-hit combo that can kill even a STR-buffed [[GlassCannon Tia]]. When his HP gets low enough, he'll smash away chunks of the arena, leaving even less space to avoid his attacks. [[spoiler:And when you fight him ''again'' shortly afterwards, he'll start off by breaking down the arena to its smallest size.]] |
| 290 | * ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series: |
| 291 | ** Borgan gives a lot of players trouble in ''VideoGame/LunarEternalBlue'' on Sega CD. He has a spell that, if cast twice without healing, results in a TotalPartyKill. And he's fast enough that you couldn't be guaranteed a chance to reactively heal between castings, nor did you have the MP to toss out the healing constantly. It's bad enough that Ruby lampshades the Borgan fight in between stages of ''the final boss''. This was only in the Sega CD version, though. The remake toned down both his speed and damage to the point where he became an AntiClimaxBoss to anyone who'd played the original. |
| 292 | ** The final battle against Magic Emperor Ghaleon in ''[[VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete]]''. He is incredibly fast, attacks twice per turn, and has an ''incredibly'' powerful arsenal of doomsday spells that can devastate your entire party in two turns flat, not to mention a 1000-HP shield, an HP-draining attack, and an instant death spell. Some consider it ''impossible'' for any player to beat him on their first try. |
| 293 | ** While Borgan was underwhelming in Eternal Blue Complete, his companion "dragon" (the Black Fiend) ascends to That One Boss status in his place through sheer annoyance. Its speed can beat out Jean (the party's fastest character), and its favorite move, an Affect-All MP drain, tends to suddenly be that fast every time. And to top it off, the best defense against this, White Dragon Protect, costs a whopping 60 MP, and is best equipped on Jean, forcing one of your best attackers into a defender/support role. You're in for a long fight. |
| 294 | ** Zophar; even by Final Boss standards he's ridiculously tough in both versions. His first form isn't so bad, but his final form scrunches your party members into an enclosed space so area attacks affect multiple members, he gets around 4-6 attacks per round via his separate hands, is insanely fast, and if you kill one of his hands or take awhile in fighting him, he gets angry and can do an attack which hits for over 7000 damage when your max HP is 999, and in the remake you pretty much need to do that because one of his hands heals the others and his main body. One of his attacks hits the whole party, others can drain HP and MP, and he can also heal himself. All of his parts have a load of HP (in the original, they have as much his body), and each hand has different weaknesses and abilities. Before you start the second form properly you have to fight the invulnerable first form, forcing you to waste turns defending or buffing. Both forms have unskippable, lengthy cutscenes in between them. |
| 295 | * If you played ''VideoGame/MagiNation'', you'd definitely agree that Zet fits this trope to a T. He summons a lotta monsters that have a lot of energy and therefore take a lot of abuse before going down, despite being healed beforehand comes after a somewhat difficult boss (So you have no chance to rearrange the monsters you got), and ''can kill a monster in one hit regardless of their energy''. Stupid Cunning Blow. Sure enough... you never get it. |
| 296 | ** Ogar can give you some trouble. She summons multiple chaos jiles, which not only can be rather scratchy pains in the arse, but can use Consume, which on top of healing them, has a chance of inflicting ''an instant knock-out'' regardless of current health. |
| 297 | * [[VideoGame/MagicalVacation Magical Starsign]] has two bosses that qualify for ThatOneBoss status: |
| 298 | ** Mugwort has pretty high HP, high speed, a physical attack that can take off a third of one character's health, a physical attack that can take off a third of ''everybody's'' health, and a hit-all magical attack that will bring your healer to the brink of death. He's of the Wood starsign, so you can't exploit ElementalRockPaperScissors on him yet. Oh, and he knows Celestial Swap. |
| 299 | ** The Holy Sapling can deal nasty and unavoidable damage to one character, very nasty damage to all characters, or incredibly nasty damage to one character. That last one is also Wood Magic, meaning that your healer will probably die if she's hit by it. You can exploit ElementalRockPaperScissors here, but doing so causes the Sapling to summon an annoying minion. |
| 300 | * If you don't know what you're doing, the fight with Yellowjacket or Goliath in ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance2'' can reach TOB status. (Both play the same-you fight Yellowjacket on the anti-registration path and Goliath in the pro-reg path. To beat the boss, you have to chip at their damage until they get stunned, and then unleash a fusion attack on them. Problem is, if your fusion attack misses, or you use the wrong sort of fusion, or you take to long to pull the attack off, the boss regains the energy you just spent the past few minutes draining. And since Yellowjacket/Goliath are giants, it's hard to hurt them that much in the first place. And when they start calling in {{mooks}}... |
| 301 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': |
| 302 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'': |
| 303 | *** The Krogan Battlemaster at the end of Therum. While not too hard by himself, having fairly reasonable health and dealing moderate damage by endgame standards, most players go there fairly early on to get Liara. Most players have, up to this point, had a relatively easy time of it. And thus most players will die immediately. What makes it even more frustrating is that the game will not autosave immediately before the fight, so you'll end up getting reeeeal familiar with the dialogue immediately before. |
| 304 | *** Matriarch Benezia uses her biotics to move your cover or cripple you, and to make matters worse, you have to deal with Asari Commandos and Geth Snipers (which can kill you in one hit, by the way) in three separate waves. The level seems designed to make the battle as hard for you as possible, with virtually no solid/stationary cover, plenty of ways for enemies to flank you, and narrow walkways that [[CameraScrew drive your camera positioning insane]] whenever you're flung into their walls by Throw or Neural Shock. Worst of all, the battle is glitchy as hell; if you don't constantly shut down enemy biotics with Damping or your own biotics, be prepared to be flung into a stair or handrail and get stuck until you die, restart, or ragequit. |
| 305 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': |
| 306 | *** Praetorian is a good contender for the hardest fight in the game. First, it's a flying tank that can fire a powerful laser beam at you, [[GangUpOnTheHuman and often only you]], with perfect accuracy. It has a barrier that is difficult to bring down before you can even begin to deal damage to it. Once you take that barrier down, it will wait a few seconds and then slam itself into the ground, setting off a shockwave that stuns anyone nearby. Once the stun wears off, you have only a second to get away before the boss sets off an energy pulse that is almost always a one-hit-kill to anyone within a few yards. Then it will rise back into the air with its barrier fully recharged. The final kicker? It will always slowly float towards you, so while you're hiding under cover to keep away from its laser beam, it's getting closer and closer to getting you with the insta-kill energy pulse. For a game that is mostly tough but fair, such that if you die you'll know what you did wrong and how to do better next time, Praetorian suddenly crosses the line between challenging and NintendoHard. There are only two in the game (which are both ThatOneLevel to boot) and they're more than enough. |
| 307 | *** The Thresher Maw. This is a giant [[SandWorm worm thing]] with massive armor that shoots poison that can kill you in two hits and can only be hit at range. Fortunately you don't ''have'' to kill it, and can simply hide while the timer counts down, but it's a deceptively long time. |
| 308 | *** The Geth Colossus. Not so bad in the first game when you could drive circles around it while whittling its shields down with your vehicle-mounted cannon. Here, you're fighting it on foot with small arms, and it has cover and infantry support. And it can ''heal itself''. On Hardcore or Insanity (which you have to do in order to get the Bonus Weapon) the thing fires its pulses really fast to keep you in cover while its buddies run around and kill you. |
| 309 | *** Tela Vasir in the ''Lair of the Shadow Broker'' DLC is easily one of the toughest bosses in the series. She has '''extremely''' high barrier and armor defenses. She's ridiculously accurate with her battle rifle, uses a [[GetBackHereBoss biotic charge]] (something that only Vanguard Shepard was capable of before), shockwave, and tech armor. |
| 310 | *** Kasumi's Stolen Memory DLC has Donovan Hock at the end of her loyalty mission. At first it seems like a standard gunship battle, of which there are two in the main game. This one is different however, in that squadrons of Eclipse mercenaries and LOKI mechs will continually spawn that you have to take care of while Hock pelts you with fire from his gunship. When you deplete the ship's shields, they simply '''regenerate to full'''. The way the cover on the platform where you fight Hock means that there's a good chance he'll be able to fire at you from behind or the side while you're taking cover from the Eclipse mercs swarming the platform. Adding to this, your party for the Hock fight consists '''only''' of Shepard and Kasumi, since you can't take a third partymember to Bekenstein. It becomes pathetically easy after Kasumi uses some [[CutscenePowerToTheMax fancy acrobatics]] to permanently disable the gunship's shields, but to get to that point you have to survive several large waves of Eclipse mercs. |
| 311 | *** Enyala, the boss of Miranda's loyalty mission. A relatively unimportant enemy who ends up being a nightmare, especially on higher difficulties. She fights with the rare and devastating Claymore shotgun and powerful biotic attacks, and has multiple layers of protection, as well as a large number of EliteMooks backing her up. What really makes her boss fight into a controller-thrower, though, is the layout of the area you fight her in. It's set up like the perimeter of a rectangle, with a walled pit in the center. She comes around one side, while her troops take the other, trying to catch you in a pincer. While ''Mass Effect 2'' usually gives you a good length of time to recover health and shields between volleys, this battle comes with a pretty strict time limit, because if you delay even a little, she and her mooks will surround your squad and make you die. Both she and her mooks are immune to crowd control abilities until their protection is stripped (and being elites, the mooks have protection even on lower difficulty levels), and there's a very good chance your squadmates will get taken out by her allies before you can finish her off, or vice versa. |
| 312 | *** The bosses of Jack's and Grunt's recruitment missions. In Jack's, Warden Kuril has taken up residence behind a shield that has to have its emitters -- which are spread out across the field -- in a horrible snarled mess of a battlefield with awkwardly positioned waist-height walls and well-defended enemies who can come from virtually anywhere. In Grunt's, you need to deal with an YMIR mech, Jedore herself, and a seemingly endless chain of berserk, armoured krogan (there are actually only about four of them, but it feels like dozens -- especially given the krogan HealingFactor) who stroll forward firing shotguns at you and climb up onto the walkway you're on to flank you. Both of these are early enough in the game that you probably don't have high-level powers or all that many teammate options. |
| 313 | *** The Oculus. Like the Praetorian, the Oculus will float towards you. Only thing is, all the tricks you once used to defeat Praetorians no longer work. There's no other mooks in the fight to Biotic Charge at (and away from the boss), it sees through Tactical Cloak, and it has a single monolithic armor bar (which is immense at that), so you can't DPS it into a recovery phase. |
| 314 | ** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' contains an unintentional example: [[FanNickname Marauder Shields]], the last Marauder you meet in the game while limping, wounded, to the Citadel transport beam in the finale. While normally a simple {{Mook}} -- and this encounter was ''intended'' as such -- in this section, you have only a pistol and no shields, so on Insanity difficulty, he may well become the toughest encounter in the game, killing you if you miss even once. The [[RevisedEnding Extended Cut]] significantly nerfs Marauder Shields's, well, shields, making the fight much easier. |
| 315 | * The sequential Big Cannons from ''[[Videogame/MetalMax Metal Max Returns]]''. They shoot you while you're moving towards them on the world map, so you're not likely to start the battle with full armor. You only have two party members and ''maybe'' two player-owned tanks at this point. They can hit both party members with a single attack, and are capable of doing so twice in one turn. And they have a ridiculous amount of HP. |
| 316 | * ActionRPG ''VideoGame/MetalWalker'' has one in the form of B. Dragon. He does a fair amount of damage even if you grinded...and his amount of HP is MASSIVE. Even if you do 77 damage with each hit, he will likely kill you before you kill him, especially if he or his minions get good capsules. |
| 317 | * ''Videogame/MightAndMagic'': |
| 318 | ** In ''VII'', this Trope ''definitely'' applies to Robert the Wise or Toberti. (The one you have to fight depends on whether you're on the Dark or Light Path; [[GameplayAndStorySegregation cosmetic differences aside, it's the same Boss.]]) This guy not only has ''a lot'' of hp, powerful defenses and a few immunities, he can cast Hour of Power ''and'' Power Cure on himself, and his attacks can cause Eradication. [[spoiler:(It ''is'' possible to steal the item you need from him without having to deal with the fight. If you cast invisibility and have a character with Grandmaster Stealing, you can snatch it right off him and he doesn't know you're there. Oddly enough, [[QuestGiver the guy who gives you the quest to kill him]] and get the item still assumes he is dead.)]] |
| 319 | ** In ''X'', the [[JokeLevel Limbo]] dungeon has [[spoiler:something called Alien Technology, which looks like the Ubisoft insignia. This Boss has ''a million'' hit points - estimated -- is highly resistant to magic, immune to conditions, and has overwhelming physical defense. It can't attack you physically, but it has an ability that damages every character by half the damage it receives from physical weapons. (Fortunately, it's an optional Boss.)]] |
| 320 | ** ''Both'' the bosses in Fort Laegaire in ''The Falcon and the Unicorn'' DLC for ''X'' qualify. While they are about equal to your own party in level, ''you'' are severely handicapped because in this part of the game, [[NoGearLevel your gear has been confiscated]] and you have to use the second-rate stuff provided by the Blackfangs in the brig. The first one, Perren, [[FlunkyBoss has two Mooks helping him]]; one of them can inflict the Poison condition and the other can inflict the even worse Feeblemind condition. There's no way to obtain any potions that can cure these conditions here, so you have to depend on luck and your own healing spells. Perren himself can cast Fireball, and the only real defense against this is Fire Ward, if you can cast it yourself. The other one fights alone, but he's stronger, using Sun Ray and Pacification, which can cause the Sleep condition. Fortunately, once you defeat Perren, the Blackfangs sell some better equipment, and they also sell some Light Ward scrolls, but the only real defense against Pacification is the spell Burning Determination, if you have access to it. |
| 321 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterRacers'': |
| 322 | ** Reinhart. After a HopelessBossFight very early on (which will cause him to go nuts if you manage to beat him and his then-level-35 monster -- for reference, you're expected to be at level 8), most players would've eventually settled into the groove of [[GameBreaker 2 high bells and a ring of knowledge]] for everything except tournaments, where they would shuffle their equipment around to give their monsters an edge in the races. This works fine and dandy up until the European GP, where being 20 levels above EVERYONE BUT REINHART (and having fed your monster of choice lots of candy) will still make the difference in time between you and Reinhart's beast of a monster less than half a second. Making this much more painful is when he tells you immediately afterward that he was only beaten by one other racer. |
| 323 | ** The boss preceding Reinhart, Santos, isn't that easy either. Like the Reinhart example right above, this boss has a large speed boost on the terrain that his stage uses a lot. To make things worse, he has great speed and acceleration, and a defensive skill that means just bashing into him won't do you any good. |
| 324 | ** Even worse, there is a late-game battle that features you against Reinhart and Santos ''at the same time''. And a third boss, just to add insult to injury. |
| 325 | * The ''VideoGame/MonsterRancher'' series doesn't really have ''bosses'' per se (Well, ''VideoGame/MonsterRancherEVO'' did, but that's... [[UnexpectedGameplayChange well...]]), but it does have tons of computer-defined opponents -- some of whom could easily be ThatOneBoss, despite actually being "That One Monster." There are too many throughout the series to list all of them, but there are a couple patterns: |
| 326 | ** In the first game and if you lack speed. Golems, There was one in every grade (E was avoidable, every other grade was not). They had enough power to KO your monster in one hit possibly killing it afterwards, and worst of all many of the times you have to beat the said golem to win the tournament. |
| 327 | ** ''Monster Rancher 2'' had a species of monster known as a Gaboo. These had extremely high life and ridiculous attack. As you may have expected, they're absurdly hard to defeat, and some of their attacks can actually ''KO your monster in one hit.'' |
| 328 | * The 3 Death Knights in ''VideoGame/MysticArk'' is hands down, one of the hardest boss fights in the game. They all can attack for massive amounts of damage, Lux and Reeshine being the only ones who can take a hit rather well, they also know a moderately powerful fire spell, and all know the Kill spell to top it off. Unlike in ''The 7th Saga'' though, getting a party member, especially the main hero killed is sort of a big deal. To make matters worse, one of them will start casting the second best healing spell in the game if its allies are being threatened. Fortunately, the Deathguard spell/the Cross item helps take care of the Kill problem. Too bad they can still team up and annihilate, if they wanted to or if you're just plain unlucky, the main character, who is a GlassCannon, the WhiteMage, and/or the SquishyWizard. |
| 329 | ** The "Beast" is also a royal pain, being a DuelBoss in a game where the hero has only slightly more defensive capabilities than the squishy wizards. The thing hits ''hard,'' too. |
| 330 | * VideoGame/{{Neoquest}} and Neoquest II, the RPG games on the Neopets website have a few examples. In Neoquest I, Archmagus of Roo can cause players within his level range a lot of pain and suffering, and the Final Boss is very difficult as well. In Neoquest II, Zombom, an early boss in the game can do a lot of damage with his Decimate spell for that point in the game, and you only have one party character to fight with. The Leximp can also cause players a lot of problems as well. The Four Faeries, Hubrid Nox, and King Terask are the hardest bosses in the game, hitting extremely hard and are capable of healing. |
| 331 | * ''Videogame/{{Neptunia}}'': |
| 332 | ** The Killachine and CPU Breaker may be this to those who played the original VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptunia. They both hit pretty hard, spelling trouble even for Neptune in [[SuperMode HDD]], and the fact that you have to fight one after the other doesn't help at all. [[spoiler: Arfoire in the final battle can be both That One Boss and a MarathonBoss if you recruited the other three goddesses.]] |
| 333 | ** The first fight against CFW Brave in ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaMk2'': You can only use Nepgear and Uni (No rear party members), Uni is painfully underleveled so you better make sure Nepgear is strong enough for Uni as-well, Brave can attack 2-5 times during his turn and do 200-500 pts of damage, that's not even mentioning his super move. Finally your health will be somewhere between 2000 and 4000 HP depending on whether you do or don't boost your HP with an ornament or weapon and how many quests you do. |
| 334 | ** ''VideoGame/MegadimensionNeptuniaVII'' has one in the form of the [[spoiler:CPU fight. At one point in the Heart Dimension, [[BigBad Kurome]] has you fight mind controlled versions of the main goddesses. Not only do you have to fight four of them, but they love to abuse their EXE Drive moves, which will cause your HP to drop like a rock. And Noire and Vert are capable of attacking more than one of your party members with their specials, which could cause you to lose when you're so close to winning the fight. Not only that, but there's another boss battle right after it (Two if you chose the Heart Dimension route) with no save points in between. The second fight is very easy compared to the first, and if you chose the Heart Dimension route, the third isn't that tough, but don't die on either of them, or you're stuck doing them all over again.]] |
| 335 | * In ''VideoGame/NetHack'': |
| 336 | ** Master Kaen has the highest base damage in the game, the Eyes of the Overworld which give him immunity from wands of death, and he ignores [[spoiler:Elbereth]], which can be used to hold off most other enemies. Making it all the worse is that these strengths are especially dangerous to Monks, who are the only ones who have to deal with him anyway. |
| 337 | ** Demogorgon has everything. He moves fast, has a ridiculous number of hit points (he's nearly twice the level of the ostensible final boss...), casts every spell in the game with the same massively inflated level, has 95% magic resistance, pursues you between levels, teleports away to rapidly heal if you manage to injure him... oh, and he has an attack that puts you on a countdown to sudden death, and every subsequent hit cuts the countdown by two thirds! Most damnably, whether you will meet him is entirely random: Demogorgon appears whenever Demogorgon wishes to (he has a 1/200 chance of hijacking any summon spell cast in Hell) and there is very little a player can do to avoid or (for masochists) encourage him. (If you are a masochist: [[http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/demogorgon_faq.html there's a faq for that.]]) |
| 338 | ** The Wizard of Yendor himself is mind-numbingly annoying -- and dangerous as well. His abilities include casting powerful spells (some of them capable of being [[OneHitKill instantly lethal]]) as well as stealing certain important {{MacGuffin}}s and [[SelfDuplication creating clones of himself]]. And as if that wasn't enough, he [[ResurrectiveImmortality won't stay dead]] -- even if the player kills him or escapes the level, he will periodically cast nasty spells on the player or even return to fight in person again until the player reaches the Astral plane. |
| 339 | * The two dragons guarding the entrance to the FinalBoss encounter in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights''. One dragon is a massive pain in the ass to fight. Two are just ridiculous. |
| 340 | ** And, arguably, the room full of elite Old One guards right after them. Particularly considering you've barely any room to maneuver and can't use the Stone of Recall in that area.] |
| 341 | * ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'': |
| 342 | ** The three Shadow Reavers shortly before the final boss. They ambush you on a narrow bridge, blocking your escape on both sides and severely limiting your mobility. If your melee warriors are on the wrong side of your spellcasters, you're SOL. They are immune to most types of attack, and will continually regenerate until one of the characters speaks the words of power to make them vulnerable (this must be done for each Reaver). Only two characters can do this, and one of them is the party's only cleric, so that character is out of commission for several rounds while speaking the words, and can't cast the all-important Mass Heal. If the character is damaged while speaking the words and fails their Concentration check, they have to start over. Meanwhile, the Reavers emit a shock wave every time they regenerate, knocking your party down and stunning them for a round. This fight is virtually impossible to win unless you specifically prepare your party's spells and items for it in advance, and even then it will often take several tries. |
| 343 | ** Only available to evil players is the FinalBoss fight against ''all your former companions'', a fight that is so difficult it almost feels like the game itself is punishing your for your FaceHeelTurn. The best case scenario has you and one former companion, if he survived and if you had [[RelationshipValues high influence]], against the other six, who have two tanks, a healer, two spellcasters, and a bard. The worst case scenario has you fighting those six plus an extra three by yourself. Even the best case scenario is notoriously difficult, since the AI suddenly becomes a lot smarter and keeps the healer and spellcasters away from you, forcing you to waste time whaling on the tanks while being barraged by ninth-level spells. WhosLaughingNow indeed...the worst-case scenario, meanwhile, is near impossible to win without deliberately sabotaging your former allies beforehand, and even then it frustrates some players enough that they resort to GodMode. |
| 344 | * Ukkuhr-Makhai, the [[DragonsAreDemonic Great Stygian Dragon]] from the first ''VideoGame/NexusWar'' game. Not only was he so phenomenally powerful that it took the combined efforts of most of the MetaGame active playerbase at the time to take him down, when he ''was'' killed it triggered a bug that the developer had to shut down the whole game to fix. That's right, he was a LoadBearingBoss so load-bearing that his death caused [[RocksFallEveryoneDies the whole game to crash]]. |
| 345 | * [[ShoutOut Porco Grosso]] in ''VideoGame/NiNoKuni'' is no pushover, in either the [=PS3=] or DS versions. In both versions, it has high defense, high HP, a resistance to physical attacks, and a ''brutal'' gatling gun move that will mow down your party. In the [=PS3=] version, it's also ''insanely'' fast and darts around the battlefield faster than ''anything,'' making using magical attacks on it difficult. |
| 346 | ** The Nightmares in the [=PS3=] versions. All of them are extremely fast attackers who love to spam battlefield-blasting effects. The thing that makes them really nasty, however, is the fact that they drop dark, [[PoisonMushroom "evil" Glims]] which harm you if you touch them. |
| 347 | ** Royal Jelly in the [=PS3=] version is a FlunkyBoss with massive amounts of HP who absolutely spams the battlefield with baby jellyfish. If you don't focus on getting rid of the jellyfish, they'll nickle and dime you to death. If you do focus on them, by the time you're done wiping them out, the boss will summon more. And if you focus on using hit-all attacks, your MP will vanish like that, leaving you with very little to heal with. Hope you stocked up on items! |
| 348 | ** Magmadame in the DS version. While her weakness to ice attacks is easy enough to exploit, she can deal ''massive'' amounts of damage to your entire party, and she keeps the pressure on. Since you fight her only just after acquiring the ability to [[{{Mons}} catch Familiars]], you likely won't have much to choose from when fighting her, and few of the storyline familiars can do much damage to her. You'll likely spend half your turns fighting her just trying to heal. |
| 349 | * ''VideoGame/NocturneRebirth'' already has plenty of tough bosses, but special notice goes to Ristill. Unlike previous bosses, she can use up to three elements, one of which can target Reviel's weakness. Worse yet, she has a skill that can cut a character's maximum HP in half, and this status can't be cured without waiting it out. |
| 350 | * ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': |
| 351 | ** Ophilia, Chapter 2: [[spoiler:Hróðvitnir, a monstrous wolf]]. This boss is going to make sure that the Kindling will not be a fun journey, let alone an easy one. The instant the fight starts, it gives itself a buff that lets it act twice per round, and it makes full use of attack buffs, attack and defense debuffs, and party attacks to maximize its durability and endurance. Ophilia is required for this fight, and while her healing spells will serve you well, she has Physical Defense equivalent to soggy toilet paper at best[[note]]She has great Elemental Defense, so naturally [[spoiler:Hróðvitnir]] is a physical attacker to render this upside pretty much null and void during this fight[[/note]], meaning she stands to die pretty often, along with some of your other squishies. [[spoiler:As the fight wears on, things go FromBadToWorse as it introduces, in order, the ability to increase its maximum guard points (acting twice per turn means it doesn't have to sacrifice an attack to do this), a party-wide debuff to disable your boosting, and the ability to act '''thrice''' per round]]. Have fun with that! |
| 352 | ** Cyrus, Chapter 2: [[spoiler:Gideon, the MadScientist of dark magic]]. His weaknesses are covered as long as his undead minions are alive. Said minions hit hard, as does the boss himself, with Executioner being an almost guaranteed OneHitKill move. He's also fond of using debuffs and Terror on your party to make life difficult for you. |
| 353 | ** Tressa, Chapter 2: [[spoiler:Omar, the hired lackey of corrupt city official Morlock]]. who starts the fight with two lackeys who can each hit the entire party for 500 damage with their Vacuum Slice attack. Add Omar's Sideswipe into the mix, and you have an enemy party that can easily wipe your entire party in one turn, even at the recommended level of 22, unless you can take out one of the lackeys very quickly. There's a reason Morlock pays him so well... |
| 354 | ** Therion, Chapter 2: [[spoiler:Orlick, keeper of the Ruby Dragonstone]]. He starts off the match with the assistance of two mooks that both cover up his weaknesses, stopping the player from breaking the boss at the start of the match. These two {{Elite Mook}}s have enough firepower behind them to be threatening, and enough HP to not go down quickly. The boss also has a respectable damage output himself, and can boost the firepower of both himself and his minions whenever needed, which can get quite overwhelming. Later on in the fight, he summons another minion that has enough HP and firepower to qualify as a miniboss on its own; it has over 12,000 HP, at a point where you might hit 600 damage with a fully-buffed character using 4 BP. |
| 355 | ** H'aanit, Chapter 2: [[spoiler:The Lord of the Forest, the stag-like guardian of the forest]]. If you allow the fight to linger, it has an attack that not only reduces your HPToOne and a self heal, but also changes the boss' weaknesses to one of three alternate sets. And if you let the fight drag on for too long, it will summon a third set of backups which will stun and silence lock you. |
| 356 | ** Alfyn, Chapter 3: [[spoiler:Miguel, the killer and kidnapper that Alfyn saved]]. Two attacks a round, a two-hit physical debuff, a hit-all attack and the power of a runaway minivan is bad enough. But every time he recovers from a break, he [[BarrierChangeBoss shuffles his vulnerabilities]], meaning you have to sniff them out all over again. Still not convinced? Halfway through, he TurnsRed and sets up for '''five''' attacks in a given round every time he recovers from break status, on top of shuffling his vulnerabilities. And when you include the possibilities already known, the odds of you walking away from that one go down drastically unless you break him again. Hope your burst damage and status-shifting game is up to snuff, 'cause if it's not, you're gonna need a miracle. Don't even ''think'' of trying to take him on at the recommended level of 32; most players would recommend that you be at level '''40''' at minimum. |
| 357 | ** Tressa, Chapter 3: [[spoiler:The Venomtooth Tiger, a vicious monster that guards the Eldrite]]. The boss hits hard and can poison your party members. Later on in the fight, it uses a skill called Peerless Poison, which causes the poison to drain your SP and BP, in addition to your HP. If you're having trouble keeping up with the healing or dispelling poisons, it will quickly overwhelm you. |
| 358 | ** Therion, Chapter 3: [[spoiler:Gareth, the right hand of Darius]]. He is able to drain your SP, can disable your items, has a hard-hitting attack that targets your entire party (healing his HP to boot) and gradually increases the amount of moves he has in one turn up to four times. Hope you brought your Leghold Trap. |
| 359 | ** Ophilia, Chapter 3: [[spoiler:the Mystery Man and the Shady Figure, two kidnappers who work for the Savior]]. This is a DualBoss fight between two entities that lack a shared weakness, meaning that they're unlikely to be broken on the same turn without extra effort from the player. Also, their elemental weaknesses get locked out after the first turn so long as both are alive, further narrowing the opportunity. They'll be constantly be barraging the group with whole-party elemental attacks, buff each other, and one will cast a 800 point heal to both of them (at a point in the game where you're likely only powerful enough to just barely hit quad digit damage) if they're able to act during their turn should their health fall low enough. If one dies before the other, they'll either start barraging the party with buffed two-hit spells or spam heavy damage on your debuffed party. Might want to start praying to Sealticge on this one unless you want to grind like crazy. |
| 360 | ** Cyrus, Chapter 4: [[spoiler:Lucia, a scholar who seeks immortality at any cost]]. The boss begins with a whopping '''30''' break points, although this is reduced to 15 after the first break and 8 after the second. The boss hits hard with a variety of strong physical and elemental attacks, which can potentially one-shot [[SquishyWizard Cyrus]] if he's underleveled. After the boss's first break, it gains access to an attack that can damage your SP, which can be rather problematic, since it switches to elemental weaknesses after its first break (although it has a mix of physical and elemental weaknesses after the second break). |
| 361 | ** Olberic, Chapter 4: [[spoiler:Werner, the mastermind behind Olberic's suffering]]. He loves to debuff the party's physical defense and then use a devastating area attack that will probably kill your squishiest party members, such as Ophilia, Primrose or Cyrus. He can also inflict Terror with said attack, crippling your fighters unless you have protection or an apothecary to remove it. What is more, he can kill instantly those affected by said ailment, so you will spend half the fight reviving your slaughtered characters. You'd better give your frailest characters the Cleric's Saving Grace skill if you want them to survive anything. |
| 362 | ** Alfyn, Chapter 4: [[spoiler:The Ogre Eagle, a beast whose feathers can cure a deadly disease]]. It has the highest HP of all the Chapter 4 bosses [[spoiler:unless you total Simeon's two boss phases]] and can not only hit hard, but its normal attacks can cause a random status ailment or debuff. It has Double Talon which can hit the entire party twice, and Swept Away which can temporarily remove an ally from the battlefield for three turns. If the rest of the party dies while the ally is swept away, it's a Game Over. But worst of all is when it reaches half health; it will unleash Toxic Rainbow which reduces the maximum HP of all party members by eight percent each turn. Saving Grace and Rehabilitate will not prevent it from happening since it's a field effect. |
| 363 | ** H'aanit, Chapter 4: [[spoiler:Redeye, the quarry of H'aanit's master]]. Even if you know what's waiting for you, it will blast you with a myriad of nasty status effects, with a party-wide blind (which it inflicts with a hard hitting physical attack) being the least of the concerns. It also will toss a party-wide ''concussion'', sometimes lasting multiple turns, and if that happens to the whole party, it's up to luck on whether or not it will use weaker, single attacks (IE: you survive), or its stronger, party hitting attacks (IE: total party kill). Even then, that's before it TurnsRed, gains another turn, and starts using its petrification attack, which means that if it kills the character that's petrified (and it ''will'' target only a petrified character to do just that), they're removed from the battle entirely. Take Alfyn, take a good tank, take a good thief, and pray. |
| 364 | * ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'' has most of its bosses falling into this category, but Velvet vs. Beldor and Belial is the one that has been known to drive some players to tears. To say it's a warping, spellcasting wizard (and even mook wizards are a terror and a half to fight) and a ginormous rampaging dragon teaming up to fight the character with the lowest attack power in the game is to make a gross understatement of the exact levels of evil the player faces in this fight. And then after it's over, Velvet [[spoiler: ends up captured by the bad guys anyway, to be rescued by [[BigDamnHeroes Cornelius]] later]]. So that's awesome. |
| 365 | ** Odette, who [[FlunkyBoss summons a constant stream of lost souls]], pushing the processor to the limit -- then when her health starts to flag, starts absorbing them to heal. Then there's her killer legs... |
| 366 | * The Phantom Evil King [[spoiler:(Epros)]] from ''VideoGame/OkageShadowKing''. Say goodbye to every Black Cat Jewel you might have owned, and if you don't have Big Bull with at least his second-level fire attack and a bunch of help from Stan, you'll be stuck here a WHILE. It's especially sad when a fight that ends up being harder than the final boss is [[spoiler:against someone who ends up joining your party]]. |
| 367 | * The Figureformer (and its allies) from ''VideoGame/{{Opoona}}''. It's not just that the Figureformer has both plentiful HP and defense. It's not that it has a number of {{Mooks}} flanking it. And it's not just that some of those mooks are [[ShootTheMedicFirst healers.]] It's that the Figureformer and its allies are all tanks being constantly healed and the battle is fought ''[[TimedMission on a time limit]].'' While the boss itself isn't likely to outright kill you, it and its cronies can stall for so darn long that the time limit alone will likely force you to lose. |
| 368 | ** [[spoiler: Commander Goldy]] is no slouch either. He has fairly dangerous attacks and a decent amount of health, but what makes him so dangerous is, once again, the time limit. Due to his powerful hits, you're likely to spend as much time healing and setting up buffs (which are also timed, and wear out eventually) as you are actually attacking, and if you don't bring him down quickly enough ''bam!'' The auto-time-limit brings you down once again. |
| 369 | * The Renegades in ''VideoGame/PaladinsQuest'', a pair of nasty sword-wielding bosses whose attacks can quickly shave off large chunks of your party's HP. |
| 370 | * ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'' had Lashiec, who probably was the single most difficult fight in the game, even more so than the final boss. The fact that he appears in ThatOneLevel, after a miniboss fight and MarathonLevel that virtually seems ''designed'' to screw the player out of healing items does NOT help. |
| 371 | * [[spoiler: Dark Falz]], the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline: Episode 1'', on Hard mode and up. On these higher difficulties, it gains a 3rd form. Said form has an extremely powerful and impossible to dodge attack, an insta-kill attack (granted, it's pretty easy to dodge, but still kills you if it hits), and the ability to take a piece of your soul to act as a voodoo doll so your attacks damage you as well. Plus, it can turn invincible and can't be hit by melee attacks, robbing Hunters of their one advantage. |
| 372 | * ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' has Banshees and Banthers, giant feline bosses that are equal measures fast and aggressive. The Forest variants, Fang Banshee and Fang Banther, like to hop into the tree tops, out of reach of most attacks, before lunging at you. On the flipside, you can also use the trees to protect yourself: the battlefield where you fight the Tundra variants, Snow Banshee and Snow Banther, is a flat and empty arena that affords no such protection. |
| 373 | * The FinalBoss of ''[[VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity]]'', [[spoiler:[[HijackedByGanon yet another Dark Force/Falz/Fulkis]]]], is pretty ridiculous. Its level scales to anywhere between 25 to 88, meaning that unless you fight it past level 100, you're going to be subject to the following: defense so ridiculously high you'll be surprised to ever see anything past 15, a size so cosmically out of scale that you can't even fit anything past its heels on the screen, trampling damage like most any other walking boss (De Ragan, etc.), most attack will easily take out half your HP, some attacks which can chain you to death if you're too stupid to keep strafing, and that's ''before'' it TurnsRed. When it gets to low HP (of course there's no way to see how much it has; that would give you hope), the [[ThemeMusicPowerUp game's theme]] starts playing and it starts attacking twice as fast and with extended combos. Then it [[TeleportSpam disappears]], and unless you've got a lot of HP, a good block ready, or great reflexes to dodge, will reappear ''right'' over you and do what for most will be an OneHitKill attack. The fight can ''easily'' last for over ''20 minutes'', in which you'll run dry of all your monomates, dimates, trimates, star atomizers, and any and all PP on Resta. Didn't bring a good light weapon or strong dark armor? You're dead. |
| 374 | * ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarZero'' looks like an easy run through Normal mode if you know what you're doing and keep your gear up to date. Then you get to Hard mode and you run into the brick wall known as [[HumongousMecha Humilias]]. If you don't [[{{Angrish}} invent compound swears]] after going through a stack of Scape Dolls against the guy, you have anger issues. Here's why: |
| 375 | ** His main laser is a freeze beam. If you get hit by this, unless you have a unit that prevents freezing, you will be a sitting duck. You need to roll away before you get shot, but the spread can be murder at longer ranges. The best place to be when he fires, damningly enough, is below or behind him, where he can't aim. |
| 376 | ** His sub laser is a slow beam. It will be a pain to dodge much of anything while this is in effect, so try to roll away or you will regret it in short order. This is introduced midway through the fight, but he fires it right after the freeze beam. |
| 377 | ** He also can combine his weapons into a laser sword for a single slash if you get hit by either beam. If you are still frozen when this goes off, you are taking a LOT of damage, and there is nothing you can do about it. |
| 378 | ** He also has a punch attack that's used as crowd control. He may use it if he doesn't get you with his lasers. It hurts as much as the sword. |
| 379 | ** He is also a [[CombiningMecha bipartite robot]], and can split into his two halves. He's completely invincible until he recombines, and he can still hurt you. |
| 380 | ** He can also arm the floor with a variety of traps that all hurt like your mother, and you better not color in all the panels if you know what's good for you. Red is pure damage, orange confuses -- [=CASTs=], keep your Sol Atomizers handy, because confusion is annoying. He can use this in tandem with his regular attacks, which is a source of rage on its own. |
| 381 | ** Finally, as one last "screw you", when he dies his upper half drives around uncontrollably while exploding, and it still hurts a ton. |
| 382 | * ''VideoGame/PerfectWorld'' has, among others, the Nightspike Bloodguard (previously called the Mantavip Scout). The problem with it is, not only is it extremely strong, very hard to tank (he uses magic attacks, which will kill a barbarian, and arcane classes don't have that much health), but it has 2 Dragon of the Depths as pets. That's 2 ''more'' bosses, swimming around it and killing your party along with those damn water casts. Oh, and he has [=AoE=]. And so do the Dragons. |
| 383 | * Dugog from ''VideoGame/PuzzleQuest: Challenge Of The Warlords''. He's the first storyline boss you face, has a weapon that randomly does + 12 extra damage, gets an extra turn every time he gains gold, and sports the Double Roar spell which is capable of killing you instantly. And at this point in the game, you probably won't have the stats or equipment to beat Dugog on anything other than luck or serious LevelGrinding. |
| 384 | * ''VideoGame/ReturnToKrondor'' has a few bosses that are candidates for this trope. The first candidate is a demon. This demon is huge, red, and muscular. It does not use magic attacks, but it has a claw attack that will hit your characters ''very'' hard and almost never misses. It is pretty much immune to magic attacks (However, it is possible to blind this monster with the spell Behold the Birthing Sun -- the second last magic spell you can unlock in the Fire Spells section). This demon a lot of health points, and you will need a good sword to hurt it. Your party against this demon consists of James the thief and Jazhara the mage. Wait, that's not all! Your decisions in the game will cause one out of a few scenarios to occur: 1. You fight the demon and one necromancer in a small room, 2. You fight the demon and two mages in a small room, or 3. You fight the demon, one necromancer, and at least four Nighthawks in the Bar. Have fun! The second candidate is at least one of the Grey Talon Mercernaries. Some of them have magical armour and weapons. This means that if you did not properly prepare for this fight, then you are going to spend forever trying to inflict damage on them. The party consists of William the warrior and six Krondorian guards. The third candidate is the Vampire Lord. Your decisions will result in one or two fights with this boss. One of the fights has the boss being able to completely restore all his health (He has a lot of health points) every time you bring it down to zero. He also will very likely hit you, and not only does he hit hard, but the vampire bite adds a lot to the damage he inflicts. This means that he can topple mighty Solon in a few hits. That fight ends after a number of turns, in which the Vampire Lord disappears in a puff of smoke. The other fight with him is the same as the last one with two differences: 1. He can no longer completely restore his health when you bring it down to zero and 2. He has three vampires and a zombie backing him up. At least this time he dies for good after a number of turns...if you last that long. The party consists of James the thief, Jazhara the mage, Kendaric the mage, and Solon the warrior-priest. The fourth candidate is the Dragon Soul. This boss is practically immune to attacks except for magic swords. It will simply shoot chain lightning at you on every turn. There is little defense against magic attacks. All you can do is try to survive for enough turns before it is automatically defeated. The party is the same as the one fighting the Vampire Lord. |
| 385 | * ''VideoGame/{{Robotrek}}'' has a load of these. But two that stand out in particular: Big Eye and De Rose. Just about up to the points where you fight them, they do a crap load of damage and have absurdly high defenses and are usually more a battle of attrition. |
| 386 | * ''VideoGame/RuneFactory3'': Even among the jacked-up bosses within the Sharance Maze, Golem and Siren stand out. Most have near-full-screen, multi-hit magic attacks which, while powerful, can be nerfed or outright nullified with the right equipment (Or dodged with the [[SprintShoes Rocket Shoes]]). Except for the Golem -- which simply chases you around with multi-hit punch attacks and {{Rocket Punch}}es and dizzies you with nearly every blow (setting you up for a knockout follow-up) and Siren -- which has "Siren Song". It throws musical notes at you, each color does different elemental damage (did we mention the accessories that nullify damage from one element gives you double damage from it's opposite?). It also contains black notes that will OneHitKO you. Oh, and as the notes drift towards you, they change color. So that water note drifting towards you could suddenly become fire or death just before it it hits you. Like many bosses on this list, if you have the right equipment, they're nothing to worry about. If you don't, you die. |
| 387 | * In ''VideoGame/RuneFactory4'': |
| 388 | ** Thunderbolt is the second boss. In comparison to Ambrosia who comes before and Marionetta who comes after, Thunderbolt is not only a WakeUpCallBoss, but also incredibly difficult. This early in the game you will likely have few useful weapons and few skills, and worse you probably won't have an acceptable cooking or medicine stat to make good consumables for battle, so scrounge what you can and buy what you can afford. Thunderbolt is not hard in the first phase, however every phase increases his damage and reduces the cooldown between attacks, so he'll get faster and faster. After the second phase, he'll fall to the ground and start exploding just like any boss, however he'll then stand up for a third phase (the only boss to do so) and continue. He becomes a massive pain as there is no longer any time between attacks, and the damage is so incredibly high. It's likely you'll die several times during the fight, and Thunderbolt will quickly become one of your most hated bosses. In addition, it's basically impossible to use anything except medicine during the final fight, as you'll practically never have the time to eat a food item before he stomps his hooves into your face. |
| 389 | ** In the Floating Empire, you have to face 3 bosses to get to Ethelberd, who is likely a That One Boss in his own right, but as the final boss it's expected the difficulty to ratchet up. The real problem is the Sechs Golem you have to face. If you're a character that doesn't use magic attacks, you're basically doomed to fail unless you have a maneuverable weapon or came in with a dozen consumables to replenish your RP and HP. The problem is that the golem resists physical blows, so in order to damage it, you either have to use a magic weapon, or deal minimal 3-10-20 damage against its huge health pool of several tens of thousand health. Furthermore, the golem has an attack where it spins its shoulders and walks towards you, damaging you on contact. This attack has zero wind-up so it's possible to be slapping the golem's shins only to suddenly get bodied by a shoulder and take several hits by accident, possibly even killing you. The second phase of the fight decreases his wait-time between attacks, so this battle is an absolute slog to face with the minimal damage you deal and the huge damage it dishes. |
| 390 | * ''Videogame/SaltAndSanctuary'' would naturally include some extra-difficult bosses, considering [[Videogame/DarkSouls the inspiration]]. Still, some stand above the rest: |
| 391 | ** The Tree of Men will ''not'' let you rest, not for a single second. Every platform is either breakable, falling apart in seconds once touched, or has a flamethrower installed, which will toast you if you stay still too long. Thinking of going to the main platform? ''Bad idea'', you'll get knocked off to your doom by AOE stomping, or worse, get utterly toasted by its second phase's fire breath. Moving around constantly is the only way to survive, and you will still need to contend with regular firebolts and the flaming blades its hanging victims toss out during the first phase. And once in the second phase, it becomes nearly invulnerable to slashing damage, its weak point is only safe to hit for brief periods of time (trying to reach it by jumping will usually lead to a painful fall), and if you linger in any platform for more than two seconds it will punch you off into the pits below. |
| 392 | ** The Third Lamb starts out slightly more difficult than the average boss, with high HP tricky attacks that need you to be on the move. Dodging its physical strikes needs you to roll away, while avoiding its highly destructive lightning breath needs you to stay right in its face, and the former have either significant knockback or cumulative poison. Reach the second phase, however, and it goes ''berserk''. All the above are chained in erratic combinations with no rhyme or reason, in contrast to nearly every other boss (which has set patterns for combos), there is practically no pause between attacks in each combo (which can have up to four), and almost everything it does is followed by a near-instant blast of lightning from its beak. Essentially, it becomes [[ConfusionFu utterly unpredictable]], as well as visibly faster, which will leave you little space and time to fight back. |
| 393 | ** The most infamous of them all is definitely the Witch of the Lake. She floats around, being difficult to hit due to switching attack ranges whenever she wants (and occasionally attacking you from off the map boundaries), and has impressive knockback with her melee swipes. And then come her spells, which make her truly hellish: Each of them spawns a crapton of projectiles, and getting nailed by one usually means enough hitstun that you will eat the rest of them, killing you near-instantly and leaving little margin of error. The homing spells are perhaps the easiest, and still rely more on proper positioning and jumping than any dodging capability. Arcane orb that shoots projectiles? You will either have to pass underneath the orb with impeccable timing to make dodging easier as it shoots (if you're running ''at'' it the moment it starts you're usually dead), or just flee the area quickly, which will usually lead her to meet you with the next spell: A machine gun-like burst of flame. The latter is ThatOneAttack: Be in the wrong spot, and you die with no questions asked. And that wrong spot is mid-range, right where you'll be if you're trying to return after dodging an arcane orb, or right where you'll be caught if she slapped you away in melee. As such, being in the wrong place at the wrong time is entirely lethal, and if at any moment you're unable to keep up with her movement, she will easily make you pay for it. |
| 394 | * ''VideoGame/SaGaRPG'': |
| 395 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendII'' has Venus. She's a sudden wake-up call since you had Mask destroying Ashura. Don't expect to win easily, but if you know to stock up on Muskets, she'll be easier at least. Then after that, the difficulty spikes again with Odin who -- like his ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' incarnations -- will kill you in about six rounds, on top of getting screwed by the Random Number Generator that summons a bunch of additional enemies. (But that's what the Hyper Gun is for!) |
| 396 | *** The Remake is even more vicious with Venus as she uses Rain of Death and Funeral Blaze, which hit the entire party. |
| 397 | ** ''VideoGame/SaGaFrontier'' has a few nasty ones as well. T260's final battle, the [=GenocideHeart=], which has forms that inflict status effects and hefty (as in, 500+) damage to your entire party at the same time. Right near the start of Riki's quest you fight Tanzer, who can one-shot anyone who has less than 350 or so HP (which will be most, if not all, of your party unless you did a LOT of grinding beforehand -- oh, and if you save in the room right before you fight him, you can't backtrack to grind anymore). But perhaps the most notorious is the [=DevilSquid=], another very early boss in Asellus' quest. Hits the entire party with enough water-based damage to take them out in a single blow, and there's really no good place to grind before you hit him. Your only real shot at winning is to [[spoiler: put one of Mesarthim's water-resisting armor items on Asellus instead]] or to have bought the Asura while you were still in Facinaturu (and you did buy it... right?). |
| 398 | ** ''VideoGame/UnlimitedSaga'' has Basil Galeos, especially since you have to fight 2 other enemies before fighting him the first time. Shadow Breath can instantly lop off LP and he can use Tail Lash/Dragon Tail to hit all allies, and he can Combo his own attacks making it even more difficult and devastating. |
| 399 | * Verminator in ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'', whose devastating spells can wreak havoc on an unprepared party. Because he's up on a big stack of boxes, your melee attacks can't reach him. By the way, your "party" is two characters, one of which is ''your dog'' who only has a close-range melee attack and is therefore worthless. The only attacks that can hit him are spells, and charged spear attacks, so we hope you've grinded some offensive magic or raised up a spear a level or two. |
| 400 | ** Salabog is another one. Most of the time its spent out of range; you can only hit it while it dives in, and that's a hit on your part if you don't do it right. You also probably don't have enough ingredients to pound it away with alchemy. You can use your newly acquired spear as well. But the kicker is that Salabog has ''2000'' HP, and is the ''second'' actual boss. Thraxx, the first boss, has 600 HP. |
| 401 | *** To make matters worse, you can level up the spear to enable the boy to throw it. It doesn't take too long, but you do a pitiful amount of damage. |
| 402 | ** Rimsala is also the next one up. It has a short window of vulernability. There's also four statues near where Rimsala stays at during this time and they spam Flash. Despite Flash being a weaker spell at this point in the game, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard it's overpowered]]. You can outrun Flash though. |
| 403 | * Spiky Tiger in ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'', particularly notorious because he's the third boss in the game. (Of course, part of the reason he's so tough is because magic is overpowered, and he's the strongest boss in the game before magic is available to the player.) He jumps around the arena, with each jump knocking off huge amounts of HP and being extremely difficult to avoid. Occasionally, he'll roll into a ball and ricochet around the room or chew on one of your party members for a while, both of which do unreasonable amounts of damage. Every now and then, when he feels like adding in an extra bit of suffering, he'll jump onto a ledge in the room and attack with fire spells, which paralyze and damage whoever they hit. Just to add to it, if you haven't leveled up the bow or boomerang any, you won't be able to damage him when he's on the ledges. |
| 404 | ** Biting Lizard, which is right after Spiky Tiger, is a deceptively long boss. Most guides will tell you it has about 300HP. Except it heals itself three times to almost full HP. And it has a habit of chewing on one of your characters for a decent amount of damage for a while. |
| 405 | ** The Fire Gygas right after Spikey Tiger is this too for a player who hasn't learned to magic spam. All gygases count if you don't use magic. They very frequently change into an unhittable vapor, often magic spamming ''the player'' instead. |
| 406 | ** Boreal Face, the souped up PaletteSwap of Tropicallo, has an enormously high magic defense. Up until this point the player was probably relying on magic for quick boss fights. Boreal Face actually will still have more than ''half'' its HP left by the time you unloaded Popi's MP (included using Faerie Walnuts). |
| 407 | ** Magic is so overpowered in ''Secret of Mana'' that one of the hardest bosses in the game was the vampire, purely because the mechanics of the fight made spamming his magical weakness difficult. This guy can kill a full HP party member with a single spell, sometimes 2 members if you are a bit underleveled. |
| 408 | ** The Snap Dragon has the ability to eat players, which not only almost certainly kills them, but restores its health in the process. To make matters worse, if you don't walk out the front door of the Grand Palace and save, you will end up doing it all over again if you lose. |
| 409 | * The sequel, ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'', has one of these for each character path: |
| 410 | ** Duran/Angela: The Darkshine Knight. Being a super-powered version of Duran's class, he also has 2 of Duran's strongest techs: Vacuum Sword and Eruption Sword. Both can peg your whole party for 300-600 HP, which ''will'' kill you if you're not at or near full HP. Actually beating him basically comes down to him not using his Techs twice in a row, because if he does, you die, no ifs ands or buts. |
| 411 | ** Hawkeye/Riesz: Belladonna. She transforms into a cat-like creature right when the fight starts, giving her some nasty physical attacks including Rose Highclaw; it's not really a OneHitKill, but it does so much damage so quickly that it might as well be. Add that to the fact that she can heal herself and drain HP with Moon Saber, and you've got yourself ThatOneBoss. |
| 412 | ** Kevin/Charlotte: Fallen Cleric Heath. Not as powerful as the other two, per se, but he's notable for simply [[WhyWontYouDie being so tough to kill]]. He has [[ElementalRockPaperScissors no elemental weakness]], is immune or resistant to almost all magic, and he can use several summons from both Charlotte's and Riesz's movesets, including Marduk (which causes silence in addition to doing multi-target damage). It also seems that some developer added an extra 0 to his HP, as his fight seems to take longer than any other fight in the game, including the final bosses. |
| 413 | ** The Kevin/Charlotte path gets to fight Goremand, that path's BigBad's MonsterClown [[TheDragon dragon]]. At the start of the fight, he splits off two invincible copies, forcing you to guess which one can actually be hurt. Even when you do find the one you can damage, you have to hope that the game's auto-target system for physical attacks figures out which one you're going fo. While you do that, he's casting all sorts of nasty spells to hit you with debilitating status effects like Snowman and Mute, which at the worst will completely incapacitate one of your characters, and he's ''always'' casting. Oh, and did we forget to mention his instant-death spell? The one he likes to use three times in a row? |
| 414 | ** Moon Benevodon Dolan. Aside from being one of the stronger Benevodons overall, when his HP gets low, he will use an attack called Spiral Moon that in addition to being his strongest attack, temporarilly LOWERS your max HP. |
| 415 | ** Darkness Benevodon Zable Fahr, being the last one you fight, will also be quite the challenge, even though you get a class upgrade, which you will be very grateful you got, before you fight it. First you fight these two heads that hit you with stat lower and status effet moves (special and magic attacks in the ''VideoGame/WorldOfMana'' series can't be dodged, so you can't do much about them), and then the real monster head appears and revives them. If you kill the two weaker heads, the main one will revive them, so only attack the main one, which the death of will kill the other two. The main head will attack with powerful dark elemental attacks, very nasty when coupled with the stat lower attacks the other two heads, and has the spell that kills a character instantly if his/her level is lower then Zable Fahr's. |
| 416 | ** Even by final boss standards, one of the three available final bosses, the Archdemon (for Hawkeye & Riesz's route), seems to fit the trope really well. A lot of his attacks are very powerful, and most are also mainly aimed towards inflicting status conditions or lowering your stats, including but not limited to the aggravating Dark Curse, and he likes to spam them at fast rates and catch you off guard. Whenever you get him down to half of his health, he'll go OneWingedAngel again and the battle will be much harder than before as he'll use physical attacks more often and also rely more on the desperation attacks of the Benevodons, which is more likely to level your entire party in seconds flat if you're not prepared. It's no wonder he's generally viewed as the hardest of the three available final bosses, and for good reason. |
| 417 | ** The 2020 remake has a couple of its own: |
| 418 | *** Zehnoa. This boss puts traps around the arena and loves flinging you into them. Not fun -- hope you brought 9 of every healing item, you'll need them. You know the game recognizes the {{difficulty spike}} when it leaves ''three Poseidon's Claws'' in a chest right across from the last [[SavePoint Golden Goddess Statue]] before fighting it. |
| 419 | *** Angela. A DuelBoss MirrorBoss fought as SquishyWizard Angela, she is stronger than you. She doublecasts her spells and tracks them horrifyingly well. She uses her Class 4 LimitBreak on you. You're not likely to have 1,000 HP by the time you face her, using magic yourself leaves you in place and vulnerable, and Angela's magic defense is nothing special. Timing your Honey Elixir usage is critical here. |
| 420 | * ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' has a few of these: |
| 421 | ** Contact Core and NKL-107 from the Facility and slaughterhouse dungeons, respectively, are quite tough for dungeon bosses at the point they are fought. Contact core has tracking lasers that move almost as fast as the characters, with a limited area to dodge within, while NKL-107 has shield that can kill players instantly if not removed, combined with some generally complex mechanics. |
| 422 | ** Machine Tyrant as well has attacks that track players and do a lot of damage if they hit, combined with a powerful [=AoE=] attack that sometimes hits at the same time, and can be a challenge to unexperienced players when first encountered, due to the amount of attacks players need to keep track of. |
| 423 | * ''VideoGame/SepterraCore'': |
| 424 | ** Several bosses in this game are hard, but the Sonic Lava Boss is particularly nasty. It consists of three legs and an untargetable head. The legs have extremely high defenses, you have to destroy all three, and the head will revive them if you don't kill the other two fast enough. The three legs also use powerful fire attacks, and the head has a ''nasty'' hit-all attack as well. Oh, and you have to spend your accessory slot on Earplugs to even fight it at all. And to make things worse? It can even [[GameBreakingBug crash the game]]. |
| 425 | ** The Mining Helgak, fought shortly after the Sonic Lava Boss, is also fairly hard. It has a flap of skin around its head which you have to hit five times to get it to retract. Then you attack it once and the covering returns, meaning you essentially damage it with one out of six attacks. Oh, and if you don't attack it quickly enough while it's vulnerable, it uses a super attack on you and the [[strike:[[FreudianSlip fore]]]]skin moves back to it's protective position. It also has two antannae that shoots beams at you that seem to act independantly. |
| 426 | * ''VideoGame/SeraphicBlue'' has a few bosses that will be difficult for you. |
| 427 | ** Carnivore/Meatalicious/Eat The Meat: Namely as it's a DuelBoss and he hits like a truck, even with the right strategy and proper spheres he can still inflict various ailments on you and his Death Press is basically an HPToOne attack. Gaia help you if you get inflicted with Paralysis or Disease (Disease inflicts 20% HP damage per turn and reduces stats). It also hurts in the fact that you can't leave Envy until the episode is over, you can grind a respawnable enemy, there but you can't use the inn at the main district to resupply your Supplement pool. |
| 428 | ** Heidi and Fyodor: A RedOniBlueOni DualBoss; Fyodor relies on force while Heidi relies on Magic. It is best to follow Heidi's advice, As tempting as it is to defeat Heidi first as she uses Field Effect Magic since defeating Heidi first causes Fyodor to use Gamma Radiation every turn in a berserk fury. |
| 429 | * ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'': |
| 430 | ** ''Koudelka'' runs into this a lot, due to its less-than-admirable combat system. One particular example will suffice: Alias, a gunman who ambushes you on a staircase. He runs back and forth between two boxes, shooting at you and usually dealing enough damage to kill whoever he hits. But you can't reach him with a melee attack until you destroy the boxes, and he's somehow immune to magic, meaning he'll continually pick you off as you work on destroying the boxes... |
| 431 | ** In the first ''Shadow Hearts'', shortly after the TimeSkip, Alice has to fight Arcane Olga in a DuelBoss fight. Alice is the game's WhiteMage. The fight is on a timer because of her Sanity Points (the lowest in the game), and taking a turn to restore them could get you killed. And Olga can poison you. The fight boils down to spamming Alice's one attack spell and hoping to get it over with before she goes Berserk. |
| 432 | ** ''Shadow Hearts: From The New World'' |
| 433 | *** Malice Killer from the third game. His normal attack cause Instant Death, and his area-based one deal heavy damage to the whole party. On top of that, Killer can inflict "Seal status", blocking the use of magic, and cast powerful fire spells that reset your characters Stock Gauge, preventing Combos and Double attacks. |
| 434 | *** The FinalBoss: [[spoiler:Lady/Grace Garland and Malice Umbral]] is ''harder than most of [[OptionalBoss Optional Bosses]]''. First, they are two, so they can ''and will'' abuse the (Double) Combo mechanic against you. Note that their attacks hit already hard even when not comboed, and most of their attacks inflict Chain status so that next attack hurts even more. They are also fond of status attacks to cripple you or your Judgment Ring. The worst is however that [[spoiler:Lady]] will use a move Lost Progress, which dispels all your buffs, after you use any buff. To really punish you for trying however, she will ''skip her turn'' to dispel you immediately after you applied the buff (so no Entrance or the similar one-time buffs) and ''then she will get an extra turn'', meaning you must basically do entire battle without buffs. |
| 435 | * ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' has Recumen, the Red Gigas. While he is technically a HopelessBossFight, you ''are'' expected to survive the encounter with him for more than a few turns, which is difficult enough. And after him, you have to [[SequentialBoss fight Belleza in ''another'' ship-to-ship battle]]; this time, you DO have to win. You better have brought plenty of healing items for your ship, despite not even ''having'' a ship right before these events occured. At least with Recumen, once you figure out his pattern (hit him with multiple attacks on the turn before he uses Red Ray) you can get through it with no damage without fail. No such luck with Belleza. |
| 436 | * In ''VideoGame/SonicChronicles: The Dark Brotherhood'', there are two actual boss fights that are absolutely enraging. The first is against the TWIN giant scorpions, and the second is the fight with the TWIN Swat Bot [=MKIIs=]. The Giant Scorpions are hard the first run through the game for many reasons. They can easily poison you, they have '''very''' powerful attacks, they have way more health than ANYTHING you've seen thus far, and most importantly, your characters have virtually '''no upgrades''' on their specials. The Swat Bots, on the other hand, have '''downright ridiculous''' health, a considerable amount of defense and armor (No, that's not redundancy, defense determines evasion chance in this game), and the ability to resurrect themselves. If you don't kill BOTH on the same round, they'll get back up with 50 health. On your first run, you're hitting for maybe 15 damage if you're lucky at this point. The only consolation you get is that it is VERY EASY to prevent their specials from hitting you. |
| 437 | * Baron Brixius in the flash game ''VideoGame/{{Sonny}} 2''. He has HP 3 times the last boss, He also has an attack that he like to spam,with damage over time and reduce the amount of healing received, interspersed with powerful attack or recharging his focus. And also, this game didn't allow Resurrection in the middle of a fight. [[spoiler: Subverted however, as he is actually [[WakeUpCallBoss wake-up call]] PuzzleBoss, being the first battle that couldn't be defeated through brute force alone (although previous battle still need strategy though), which will be common throughout the game.]] |
| 438 | ** The Hydra, the final boss of the 4th area -- Just like Brixius, there have been multiple threads on sites where the game is hosted asking how to kill it. They also use similar strategy -- spamming attack with damage over time and heal reducer. Although Hydra has more manageable HP, it is a FlunkyBoss, it's debuff can be dispelled, the damage isn't that great if not stacked (the [[GlassCannon Fire Claw]] is the primary damage dealer), and [[spoiler: he is not a PuzzleBoss]]. |
| 439 | ** As a case specific to [[LowLevelRun Legend achievement runs]], Captain Hunt, the final boss of the 2nd area. Much like the Hydra, he is a FlunkyBoss, bringing his subordinates, the ZPCI Sniper and ZPCI Medic, along for the fight. For the first dozen rounds, his subordinates are protected by barriers that serve as a sizable chunk of ablative health. The ZPCI Sniper follows a fairly simple routine of throwing a couple buffs on himself before shooting for massive damage, the ZPCI Medic throws around small heals that become problematically large due to being able to cumulatively buff both his own healing output and the healing received by others (on top of packing a decently powerful shot himself in the event that he can't heal for whatever reason), and Captain Hunt has a habit of spamming Marked For Firing, a stackable debuff that causes the afflicted character to take 20% more damage from all sources while it lasts, usually more than that since it also reduces the victim's resistance to the element his subordinates use. Waiting out the barriers isn't an option either, as once the barrier times out, so too does the ''90%'' damage suppression it was inflicting on them, and Captain Hunt steps up Marked For Firing to Marked For ''Death'', which cranks up the amplification of damage taken from 20% more per stack to ''100% more'' per stack. The fight very quickly becomes a hellish game of triage, having to juggle putting damage toward actually winning the fight (made more difficult by the ZPCI Medic being, well, the medic, as well as Captain Hunt occasionally throwing out another debuff that cuts into your damage output and available resources) with the immense amount of crowd control and defensive support it takes to keep party members from being taken out in one round's salvo. And the worst part? [[spoiler: If you try to rush the Captain himself down, he'll put up an even bigger barrier than the ones his subordinates started with. Hunt's not letting you take the easy way out. The only positive is that this also stuns him until the barrier falls, letting you work the others over with a little more safety.]] |
| 440 | * The level in GPG's RPG ''Space Siege'' where [[spoiler: you decline Jake's offer of joining the Dark Side]] has you fighting a unfair number of fights, but the piss taker is [[spoiler: Jake himself]]. His Railgun attack is easy to avoid, but if it hits you it takes off a fifth of your Health Bar, but the real dick move is the undogable Fire Trap Spam (for want of better term) that turns a third of the playing field into mines. Which you can't destroy with the rocket launcher, but you can trick into detonating with HR-V or yourself. Think you can keep doing that in a game with sticky controls? |
| 441 | * ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory'': |
| 442 | ** Haniel and Michael (Vesper and Decus). First, they're the first boss fight that the bosses have voices in, and they ''taunt'' you to start: "You insignificant ''bugs!''" and "I WILL BURN YOU TO THE BONE!" They then proceed to do [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin just that]], with Decus throwing out a fire-based physical attack that is easily capable of one-shotting the whole party and Vesper backing him up with a beam move which hits multiple times and causes status ailments. Add to this the fact that LevelGrinding takes forever in the area since the random fights don't give a whole lot of experience, and you've got a recipe for good old-fashioned controller throwing. |
| 443 | ** There's also the Bark which has high health, defense, and only one attack called "Lost Patience" (how appropriate) [[ThisIsGonnaSuck which hits the entire screen and the team for an incredible amount of damage.]] [[spoiler: Later you can go to The Cave of Trials, and find out it has an evolved form which is a boss of one the floors, and then becomes a regular enemy on later floors which takes this fight to the extreme.]] |
| 444 | * ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'': |
| 445 | ** The Grigori bosses are usually tons more difficult than anything else you've faced in the area they appear and they have certain points on their bodies that must be hit if you are to do anything resembling decent damage. It doesn't help with the fact that said weak spots are pretty much stupidly difficult to unveil, let alone hit. |
| 446 | ** The Phantom Soldiers on your second visit to the first planet are an awful test of endurance. You fight eight waves in a row with no break, and while it's pretty hard to do any solid damage to them, they can certainly hurt you. And it isn't the damage that's the problem, it's the fact that they can spam a range attack that can '''stun you''' and interrupt your casters. [[spoiler:The biggest problem, however, is the Leaders, who have an aura buff that makes the soldiers hard to kill. The trick is to Dispel it.]] |
| 447 | * ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'': |
| 448 | ** The first ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden|I}}'' game: |
| 449 | *** The Zombie Dragon will be the bane of an underleveled team since it can hit the entire team for a large amount of damage, and you don't have a lot magic at this point which means you have to ''perfectly'' balance physical attacking and healing with your items to have the smallest chance of victory. What might help is building up your two new teammates' weapons at the Blacksmith so they hit harder, as well as [[spoiler: taking the Clone Rune, which you likely picked up earlier, and attaching it to Viktor.]] |
| 450 | *** During the raid on [[StoneWall Kwanda Rosman's]] fortress, you have to fight TheDragon which is actually a real dragon and have to deal with a fixed team, and also the fact that the dragon has incredibly high health and evasion which will make most of your physical attacks completely useless which will make things a lot tougher considering you don't have access to really powerful magic at that point in the game. |
| 451 | *** One of the duels,[[spoiler:between Pahn and Teo,]] full stop. Not only do you have to make sure that your fighter is at a really high level (i.e., must be in your party since recruitment basically), but you also have to read the enemy's next attack (as what they say is a giveaway), or defend constantly and hope that he uses his special attack. The important thing about this battle is the fact that if you lose, that character is KilledOffForReal and that prevents you from getting the good ending, so you MUST WIN. |
| 452 | *** Neclord can hit your entire party with powerful attacks ''and'' with multiple status effects at the time. He also has high health, attack, and physical evasion which means you better have some ''strong'' magic and healing or else Neclord will wipe the floor with your team. |
| 453 | *** The fight against Sonya Schulen in the Shasarazade Fortress. You face her not long after fighting an ''incredibly'' tough other boss and you can't save in between the fights. |
| 454 | ** ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'': |
| 455 | *** The Abomination. Most of his attacks targets the entire party and he can act twice per round, dealing riduculous amounts of damage that often leads to a TotalPartyKill. |
| 456 | *** The battle against Luca Blight is generally considered to be the toughest fight in the game for a variety of reasons, despite the fact that you attack him with THREE squads. And guess what? ''[[RasputinianDeath It's in-universe too!]]'' |
| 457 | *** There's a duel with Luca at the end. Even though he's at half health and you're at full, if you screw up ''even a few times'', game's over. You'll have to redo that entire battle again. And since he's MadeOfIron, he takes way more hits than you'll ever do. |
| 458 | * The first few bosses in ''VideoGame/SummonNight: Twin Age'' are a piece of cake to beat... and then you face Mardin at the end of Chapter 6. This summoner has a wide variety of attacks and appears to be MadeOfIron, as his HP are far higher than any enemy you've faced up to this point. Oh, and he loves to get up close and attack your party members head-on, so if you chose secondary WhiteMage Ayn instead of the [[TheBigGuy axe-wielding]] Nassau, expect her to be defeated once or twice (putting a dent in her [[RelationshipValues support value]]). |
| 459 | ** The second round against him manages to be ''even worse'', you fight Mardin with only both main characters and one of them is a SquishyWizard that Mardin can destroy in about ''three attacks'', additionally he's far stronger and his AI seems to be set to ShootTheMedicFirst mode and will almost always go after her. |
| 460 | * ''Super Robot Taisen OG: Endless Frontier'' gives us Kyon Flaurion. Kyon comes with two Joker Soldier sidekicks. All three of them have Shields, which means your first attack is more or less meaningless. But, unless you can keep them very high in the air (hard to do with Suzuka, who, as the fastest party member, ''always'' goes first), they're also the first enemies to truly abuse [[ScrappyMechanic Forced Evasion]], meaning your attacks get cut off. The Joker Soldiers can hit multiple party members, and also inflict Freeze and Stun with monotonous regularity. Kyon, meanwhile, does one of two things: either she attacks one party member with a long, unbreakable attack string, which is basically guaranteed to kill them, or she uses her Overdrive (at will, mind you), "Bronte Magic", which hits three people and can Freeze, Stun or Paralyze. Did we forget to mention you only have ''one'' worthwhile multi-target healing spell? And that in order to use it, you usually have to ''break your combo'' so that the character can access the menu? |
| 461 | * ''VideoGame/TacticsOgre'' has quite a few difficulty spikes. If one takes the right path, you have to fight both Oz ''and'' Ozma at the same time (Along with the rest of their units). Now during the other two paths, you only fight ''one'', and when they are defeated, the battle ends. It's much easier with just Oz because they are both rather difficult and he starts off rather close to your units. (Having a one-on-one match with Denim before they call their armies out) Let's also not forget the battle with Lans Tartare...considering he's the ''commander'' of the Dark Knights, highly justified. |
| 462 | %%* ''VideoGame/TheKnightOfLodis'' also has a few contenders, such as Aerial and Nichart. |
| 463 | * ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}''[='s=] Bloody Mary is the combo breaker in a series of reasonably easy minor bosses. She has high defense and powerful attacks, plus a floating ring of masks or something that screw you every time, as Ark's physical attacks are all close range. Your best bet is a magic ring, and you're limited to 9 of those. Making matters worse, Bloody Mary is actually ''statistically massively overpowered'' for the area she's in -- in ''Terranigma'' a few stat points make a ''big'' difference to your damage and if you just challenge her at the normal level you'd be at after playing through the game and clearing her dungeon at a natural pace, your attacks will effectively do ''ScratchDamage'' to her. You effectively ''have'' to level grind for a couple more levels to even have a ''chance'' at beating her. |
| 464 | * ''VideoGame/TreasureOfTheRudra'': Soma, due to the fact you have only 3 allies and you fight him after clearing several fights in a row leaving you weakened and depleted of MP. Laumen has a high defense stat, Mantras won't do jack squat on him. |
| 465 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': |
| 466 | ** [[MonsterKnight Undyne]], the boss of Waterfall. No matter which route you take, she is likely to give you hell. ([[GoldenEnding True]]) PacifistRun? You fight her [[LowLevelRun with your starting HP]] and can't attack her while she showers you with barrages of magical spears that you can't dodge and instead have to [[UnexpectedGameplayChange block with a magical shield.]] The only way to defeat her without killing her is to [[spoiler:run away from the fight, then run until she inevitably catches up, and then repeat until she collapses from exhaustion, which is only hinted to even be possible, let alone required, by a single line of dialogue just before the fight -- and even then it can be only done when she changes her attack pattern for a few turns]]. She gets a bit easier on a Neutral Run, where you don't have to bother with the [[ThouShaltNotKill no killing rule]] before or during the fight, [[TheDeterminator but even after having 0 HP, she still fights on for a few rounds]] -- but then comes the Genocide Run, where she seemingly turns into a {{Zero Effort|Boss}} CutsceneBoss... and then she becomes [[OneWingedAngel Undyne the Undying]], beating the crap out of the player with new, much faster, stronger and more random versions of her two regular attack patterns, with several new attacks thrown in. One way or another, defeating Undyne will take you a while. |
| 467 | ** Asgore Dreemurr, the King of Monsters, on a Neutral-Pacifist run[[note]]Since you can't get the [[GoldenEnding True Pacifist]] ending on your first playthrough, this type of run is the best you can do at first, although it cuts a lot of work out of getting the GoldenEnding[[/note]]. Since he ''[[InterfaceScrew destroys the Mercy button]]'' before the fight begins, ''[[ButThouMust forcing]]'' you to fight him, and has lots of health and very damaging attacks [[LowLevelRun compared to your own low stats]], it'll take a long time before he goes down, especially if you're unused to using the FIGHT command (which you won't have used much, if at all, during a Neutral-Pacifist run), and his attacks are hard to dodge. |
| 468 | ** The FinalBoss of the Genocide Route, [[spoiler:[[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Sans the Skeleton]]]], who decided to [[LetsGetDangerous take matters into his own hands]]. His attacks can only deal ScratchDamage and he himself is a OneHitPointWonder... thing is, said attacks ignore MercyInvincibility, making you recieve ''[[DeathOfAThousandCuts one hit point of damage per frame]]'', and each frame applies a stacking DamageOverTime effect as well. As for killing him in one hit -- it won't happen since he ''dodges your attacks.'' On top of this, his own attack patterns are ''gruelling''; he opens [[CombatPragmatist using one of his most powerful attacks before your first turn]] (meaning you can die before you even see the battle menu) and then starts throwing barrages of fast, hard-to-dodge attack patterns at you... and ''then'' he reveals he was ''holding back'' and starts [[ConfusionFu switching patterns mid-attack]], [[WeaponizedTeleportation teleporting the player into the way of his bullets]], and [[InterfaceScrew attacking the player during their own turn.]] The interesting thing about this boss is that everything about him is [[InvokedTrope purposefully designed]] to be as rage-inducing as possible. He ''knows'' about your ability to SAVE and LOAD and, by extension, that he can't actually beat you in a fair fight, as you'll just keep reloading until you finally get the upper hand. So instead he purposefully taunts you, breaks the rules, and generally tries to be as big of a pain in the ass as possible, all in the hopes of making you RageQuit. |
| 469 | *** Hell, he's this ''in-universe''. [[spoiler:Flowey the Flower]], who had the power to SAVE and LOAD before you, says that this guy was a pain in the ass to beat, and was entirely unable to whenever he showed up to put a stop to things. |
| 470 | * The fight against the [[EvilKnockoff copies of the Crystal Gems]] in ''VideoGame/UnleashTheLight''. Like in ''VideoGame/AttackTheLight'', the bosses can heal, have {{Status Infliction Attack}}s, and the copy of Amethyst can hit your entire party, though they don't start off especially strong. That is because [[KillOneOthersGetStronger every time you kill one of the copies, the rest get healed along with getting a buff to their stats]]. Killing just one of them causes a big spike in difficulty, the stat buffs mean the copies of Pearl and Garnet can inflict massive amounts of damage, the latter being able to potentially KO characters who launch close range moves via her counterattacks, and the copy of Amethyst inflicting heavy damage to your entire party. When the Amethyst copy gets the Flaming Gauntlet buff, she can [[DamageOverTime burn]] ''your entire team'' as well, and it ''stacks''. |
| 471 | * The MMORPG [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_Saga_of_Heroes Vanguard: Saga of Heroes]] has many very hard bosses, but most importantly Akande, which is necessary to kill to get the Griffon, the standard flying mount of the game. This boss was nigh impossible for anyone but best equipped groups, which still kept failing a lot. There was supposed to be a trick to kill Akande easily, but apparently nobody ever found out what it was. Even after Akande was toned down a lot later, it was still an almost impossible kill. |
| 472 | * ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'' has several candidates for ThatOneBoss. Most of them pop up in Hard Mode only, though. |
| 473 | ** The first boss that can be counted as "hard" is the pair of [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Beholder]]-like Hel Servants in the Hard-Mode-exclusive Dark Tower of Xervah. They are extremely durable, hit hard, and can bring each other back from the dead if you don't kill them off at the same time. Compounding this is your lack of access to really good equipment, since the best weapons and armor can only be accessed if you transmute a certain item... and the Servants guard the first prerequisite to that item. Appropriately enough, their {{Palette Swap}}s later reappear in several other dungeons as DemonicSpiders. |
| 474 | ** Wraith is possibly the first boss to break out the extremely-damaging Great Magic moves that you've been using throughout the game. His Great Magic, Gravity Blessing, comes out when he hits 50% health and really hits hard. He also has a move that hits multiple times and can lay on the hurt with magic attacks. Unless you have [[WeaksauceWeakness Holy Water of Mithra]], be prepared to slug it out. |
| 475 | ** Akhetamen starts out the battle with Reflect Sorcery, forcing you to go through the two weak Undead Slaves that guard him. Once you kill them, Akhetamen starts fighting, and his physical attacks are pretty manageable. However, every two turns he likes to cast the Great Magic Seraphic Law, which will put a dent in your party's HP. He also heals himself to full if you bring him to 20% HP, so you have to hit him a couple of times before tossing a Holy Water at him: otherwise it'll be wasted. The worst part, though, is that Akhetamen comes after the end of a long and convoluted dungeon with a ton of torturous puzzles. |
| 476 | ** Before the battle with the {{Big Bad}}s of both the B ending and the [[GoldenEnding A ending]], you have to get past his two "bodyguards". The first of them is Bloodbane the dragon, and he is ''tough''. Bloodbane hits really hard with a single claw attack ''("I'll crush you!")'' and then follow up with a deadly flame attack ''("Feel my flame!")'' that hits the entire party multiple times. Bloodbane absorbs massive amounts of damage before getting really nasty: by the time you slice through half his health bar it is likely that he will start using the special magic "Gravity Blessing", just like our old pal Wraith mentioned earlier, which will most likely kill all of your characters EVERY FREAKING TIME, and he will be using it every turn afterwards. With Bloodbane, the [[GameBreaker Guts-Auto Item-99 Union Plumes combo that allows you to survive a possible]] TotalPartyKill is less of a convenience and more a ''necessity'' for survival, as you will inevitably have to survive "Gravity Blessing" after "Gravity Blessing" or slog it out after Bloodbane heals himself back to FULL HEALTH. In Valkyrie Profile, your party can do insane amounts of damage (as there is no 9999 damage cap) but that does not help much when the thing has 380,000+ hit points. In comparison with him, the other bodyguard and the BigBad himself are cakewalks. |
| 477 | *** The thing about Bloodbane is that, on the OTHER path, he's a Bonus Boss. Getting to him involves mixing up a certain type of fire to melt the blockade barring your way to him, and he's every bit as tough HERE as he is on the other path. Fortunately, he drops a pretty badass sword on either route if pummeled severely enough(which can be hard on the Golden route thanks to not having access to Shining Bolt). |
| 478 | ** Due to the fact that the dungeons appear in random order when searched, there's the chance that you'll run into Barbarossa in the Lost City of Dipan before you'll hit Wraith. He can also use a Great Magic attack, Calamnity Blast, and it will wipe out your party if you're not prepared for it (either by equipping to protect against fire or the methods listed in GameBreaker). Also, unlike all of the above examples, he shows up in every difficulty level, and you're only going to survive on Easy if your hit points are full. |
| 479 | * The PC's ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade--Redemption'' had Mercurio, a rogue student of necromancy who popped up quite early in the game and proceeded to walk all over the small party with persistent area-effect attacks to which he himself was immune. Had to be nerfed by a patch as too many people were complaining about how tough he was. |
| 480 | * From the sequel, ''[[VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines]]'': the two endgame bosses. Depending on who you side with, you have to defeat one or both of them. |
| 481 | ** The first is Ming Xiao, who starts off with a NightmareFuel-riffic transformation into her [[OneWingedAngel final form]], a giant tentacular [[BlobMonster blob of goo]] that can spawn copies of itself, on which superpowered attacks are next to useless; you're basically screwed if you don't have a high Firearms skill and the flamethrower, and even then, if it wasn't for the game letting you save during a fight, an unfortunately-timed spawning can destroy you. |
| 482 | *** Actually, the Flamethrower can make things worse depending on your computer/how heavily you've patched the game. It stacks damage over time effects on the enemy, but she has enough damage resistance and HP to tank it. These stacked effects have been known to crash the engine, especially if you empty the flame thrower's fuel supply on her, which she can easily survive. In other words, she weaponizes the game's infamously buggy engine. |
| 483 | ** The second is the Sheriff, who also transforms into the [[GiantFlyer Chiropteran Behemoth]]; again, you need some crazy firearm skills and the sniper rifle to take him out, and it's a long, long slog. There are two little things that can even out the fight, though: you can activate [[spoiler:various high powered lights on the roof top which blind him, bring him to the ground and allow him to be wailed on with melee weapons & your fists for a bit]], and b) he intermittently [[spoiler:flies down to the street below and returns with a mook who was walking past.]] Still, should you decide to take on the Sheriff, prepare for the fight of your un-life. |
| 484 | ** Also from ''Bloodlines'', Bishop Vick. He's super fast and has a shotgun with unlimited ammo. If you decide to turtle, you'll either get ganked by his army of zombies, or Vick will just superspeed next to you and kill you in half a second. He's also a vampire, which means that he's extremely resistant to bullets himself. To make things fair, you can hit him while he reloads, but even if he doesn't complete the animation he receives a full six shells (although it seems like more) to destroy you with. Unless your character is completely combat oriented (which the game actively discourages), your only hope is to pray that the AI bugs and Vick gets caught in a loop. Unlike Ming Xiao, he's optional, but beating him is required to complete a long sidequest chain and get an extremely helpful item. |
| 485 | * Gorak the Ancient (aka, Lightning out his ass) in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Online'''s The Lost Vale is frequently an exercise in frustration. He hits MUCH harder than the bosses that come before and after him, and will occasionally go into a trance in which he fires a series of lightning bolts at random targets. If these weren't bad enough, the bolts can chain from person to person if they are too close. Even without the chain, a squishy target taking two or three bolts in a row will frequently go down, leaving the group either short a healer or a DPS. To make it even worse, he sometimes refuses to reset after the party wipes. If this happens, it requires an instance reset and hacking through some EliteMooks to get back to him, meaning it could be 30 minutes or so of running and clearing before you can get beaten down by another cheap shot set of bolts. |
| 486 | * ''VideoGame/WildArms2'' features Kanon, who is easily ThatOneBoss though [[spoiler: she joins her party after you fight her three times]]. Her attacks, each of them, are infinitely useable, occur at random, and deliberately overpowered. The two strongest of them are her favorite ones to use, and each are capable of [[OneHitKill one-shotting]] the lowest defense characters of your party. The fun part? She's in the middle of the first disk. The bosses that you fight after her aren't nearly as difficult, which disqualifies her as a WakeUpCallBoss. |
| 487 | * ThatOneBoss of ''VideoGame/WildArms4'' comes in only about halfway through the game, in the form of Hugo. He was annoying in that he would '''almost always''' decide to stop time and dodge your attack right before you try to attack him! Use lock out? He'll move to a new square. And don't even try to trap him around a lock out, because that stops you as much as it stops him, leaving you open to his attacks. His swords can become a fucking bow! The strategy -- [[spoiler:corner him with three characters; he can't get past them]] -- is a "why didn't I think of that?!" moment, but then again, it's also not hinted at very well, if at all, unlike every other PuzzleBoss in the game. |
| 488 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant'': Magna Dane and the Lord of Dark Forest can be extremely challenging if you aren't well-prepared. Magna Dane uses some of the most powerful damage/instant death spells in the game, is immune to most magic, and has a remarkably strong physical attack. He can easily wipe out the entire party in one round. He's also backed up by up to 8 High Fathers, who are all almost as strong as he is. The Lord of Dark Forest is lightning fast and hard to hit, can instant kill your party members easily. He's backed up by a large group of condition spamming Monks and Ninjas who can also do instant kills on your party. He'll occasionally summon a Godzilla monster, which is strong enough to wipe out your entire party on its own unless you are extremely overpowered. And on expert mode, there's two of him. |
| 489 | * Minamimoto the first time around in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'': a boss so difficult that nearly every guide suggests just setting the freaking game on easy mode. |
| 490 | ** There's a [[PuzzleBoss trick]] to Minamimoto, but it's a hell of a GuideDangIt: [[spoiler: his chain teleporting is triggered when he's touched with the stylus -- as in, you the player touch him on the screen. Notably, he's the only the enemy that directly reacts to being touched like this. If you have pins that don't necessitate actually touching him, he's much easier for Neku to pin down.]] |
| 491 | ** Minamimoto gets worse in the Solo Remix for the iOS. For one, the changed gameplay mechanics work against you since Joshua attacks with a pin rather than as a separate character, meaning while you don't have to keep an eye on him, its more difficult to land sync hits on the Taboo Noise and Minamimoto's Noise form. And even if you're good with sync hits, you still have to deal with the fact that Joshua's pin will eventually enter cool down, reducing your overall damage output significantly until Joshua charges up again. Finally, Joshua's attacks are triggered by swiping down on the enemy, meaning you're going to be hearing [[TeleportSpam "Zetta Slow"]] alot. |
| 492 | ** And if you thought Leo Cantus was fun now, wait until you see [[VideoGame/NEOTheWorldEndsWithYou Leo Cantus Armo]]. While there are no stylus motions, anyone who thinks they can just use one psych at a time against him is zetta slow in the head, as he will dodge that psych unless he's armored... and when he is armored, you have to chip at it before he starts taking regular damage. Add in that he's fast and strong with wide-reaching attacks, and you've got quite the fight ahead of you. It's important to note that you only have five psychs available to you by this point, and you don't get your sixth until after this showdown. There's also [[SuperBoss Felidae Cantus]] if you're feeling masochistic. |
| 493 | ** Uzuki and Kariya, at least if you try and fight them on Hard or above. Uzuki by ''herself'' is a nightmare, even when she's not teamed up with Kariya. She's got multiple BulletHell esque energy shot patterns, but the real problem with the fight is how she switches screens with her shadow self. When she does it, it has the effect of her {{Flash Step}}ping and breaking your comboes, even if she goes ''exactly'' where her shadow was on the other screen. How often does she do this? Let's just say that, on Hard, she makes ''Minamimoto'' look "zetta slow". It's ''really'' hard to pass that light puck when she doesn't allow Beat to land more than 2 hits of his (5-6 hit) combo. |
| 494 | ** Kitaniji and [[spoiler:SHIKI]]. [[spoiler: Shiki]] gets a massive power boost out of nowhere since [[spoiler: she was in your party]] and Kitaniji can FREEZE TIME to try and hit you, and that's just on normal!! On hard Kitaniji gains 2 Bullet Hell-esque energy blast attacks, and loves comboing them with his time stop move for maximum pain... |
| 495 | * Mikhail Rasputin, the boss of the second act of ''VideoGame/XMenLegends 2: The Rise of Apocalypse'' is probably the hardest boss in the game. In the first stage of the fight, Mikhail creates many duplicates of himself which must all be defeated. Then he tosses up a forcefield that must be brought down by beating up various minions until they turn into control panels. And finally, he decides to just bring on the pain while summoning near endless goons to challenge you. |
| 496 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'': |
| 497 | ** Solidum Telethia. It's not really the Boss himself that's the problem: it's Tyrea who fights alongside him. The Telethia will evade any and all attacks unless you use Purge on it. easy enough. But you've only got so much time before the effects of Purge wear off and it begins attacking again. This is annoying but not impossible. Tyrea makes it worse because not only is she capable of attacking any of your characters, she's also capable of casting a Shield on the Telethia, making damaging him very difficult indeed. Now you may think it's easy to get around this, just take Tyrea out first right? WRONG! The Telethia likes to use a move that's kinda like Pokemon's Follow Me, as it forces you to attack the Telethia himself. Oh, and if you're using [[TheHero Shulk]], which you probably are since only him can silence the Telethia, all his attacks will do ScratchDamage to Tyrea. Fun times. (Though at least if you die to this boss, you will respawn outside the room with Melia back in your party and you can now teleport to landmarks and level up if need be, where you previously couldn't in the High Entia tomb) |
| 498 | ** The second fight with Jade Face is a strong contender as well (The first one is simply a TrickBoss and he runs away after you deal some damage). Not only he keeps summoning mooks to annoy you, he's got several powerful attacks (Especially [[ThatOneAttack Laser Bullet]]) which unless you tank will decimate your party, and he's fairly durable, even. To make matters worse, the game makes you think you might auto-win after dealing a set ammount of his HP on damage since you're "buying time"... nope, you do have to deplete all his HP. To put in perspective, you face HIS boss five minutes later, and despite him having similar tactics, ''he's much easier''. |
| 499 | ** Disciple [[spoiler:Lorithia]] is a meme among the fans for being the most annoying boss in the game. Flunkies with sizable health bars that you need to take down or your physical damage to the boss will be nerfed to hell (until [[OhCrap they're brought back]]), attacks that cause StatusEffects (The really bad ones, too), high HP, and worst of all, the area is surrounded by acid pools that cause your HP to start going down fast. Your computer-controlled allies [[ArtificialStupidity are too dumb to run out of the pools]] and she is so large she will often push your party into them. And to top it all off…[[BrokenRecord "You'll pay for your insolence! You'll pay for your insolence! You'll pay for your insolence!"]] |
| 500 | ** Then there's Dragon King Alcar. Not only is he stronger than most Level 79 enemies, but he does tremendous Spike damage. |
| 501 | * In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', the Chapter 7 DualBoss against Malos and Jin is commonly cited as the hardest in the game. They're both difficult bosses to fight on their own, due to having a whole slew of annoying tactics, and having them gang up on you makes it even worse. Malos can disrupt Blade Combos by either reducing the timer on them or sealing your specials entirely, and he can lower your Blades' affinity to make them less useful overall. Jin can use the entire Driver Combo in one attack with Heavenly Disrupt, [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules force Launch]] with Stunned Swallow, cancel any affinity bonuses with Skyward Slash, and disable healing with Zero Zone. Both can inflict Blowdown on the entire party at once, and overall most of their attacks hit like a truck. Malos also has an art that increases his defenses by a fair amount, and Jin is hard to hit at all thanks to his naturally high agility. And for the first half of the fight, [[spoiler:you don't have Pyra/Mythra, who is in all likelihood your party's biggest damage-dealer]]. |
| 502 | * ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' has several of these throughout the game. The first one that comes to mind is the second fight against the FiveManBand that fights for Solaris. What makes it hard is the fact that you first face two of them at once. Then you have to face three of them at once and you don't get a chance to heal before it. Then you have to face [[spoiler:Elly]] with all of the damage received from the previous battles. |
| 503 | ** Redrum is another pain to fight. Not only does he have Bloody Rain, a move that will damage your party and heal himself at the same time, he also has Murder, a move that kills one character and heals himself at the same time. Worst of all, he's found in the sewers of Kislev, which is ThatOneLevel due to its size. |
| 504 | *** What makes this fight so punishing is not what he can do, but that most players may have been led into a false sense of security with how easy fights out of gears were beforehand. He hits hard and has more HP than the previous two bosses (Elly and Dora) ''combined''. |
| 505 | ** Id is a pain to fight each time you face him since he can do massive damage to any character in a short amount of time. |
| 506 | ** One of the first fights that you have in the second disc against the Sufal Mass and Sufall. You can't do elemental attacks against him or it will heal him. If he happens to [[spoiler:kill the last Sufal]] he will unleash a massive attack against your party. |
| 507 | ** The Elements also are quite a pain to fight, mostly because they can heal each other, and if you use the wrong elemental attack it will heal them as well. Don't even think about attacking Domimina until you beat everyone else or she will heal herself regardless of what you to do attack her. |
| 508 | ** [[spoiler:Hammer]] is another example. When his HP gets low enough he will [[spoiler:start to [[TurnsRed glow red]] and will blow up, killing everyone unless you either defeat him before he blows up or runs away. Running away however will prevent you from getting a rare and awesome item.]] |
| 509 | ** The first fight against Deus is a pain the ass if you don't understand the trick, [[PuzzleBoss namely that you have to do nothing for multiple turns as he cuts both his and the party's health in half repeatedly. Eventually his health gets low enough that you can kill him in one attack, but that may not be obvious at first.]] On top of that, the fight has a very infuriating tendency to [[GameBreakingBug freeze]] if he uses a certain attack, which freezes more often if you are playing the digital version on [=PS3=] or PSP. |
| 510 | ** The last Ramsus and Miang boss fights. Ramsus has an attack that causes HPToOne in every character. If everybody on the team has more than 1 HP, he will do the attack again later on in the fight. The main problem is that you have to heal yourself and fight him at the same time while keeping an eye on your fuel. Miang is worse since [[spoiler:she will mirror the damage done to her back onto you.]] |
| 511 | ** Though if you know this ahead of time, Miang can actually be the easiest boss in the game due to the fact that she can't hurt you unless you hurt her. So if you try to do as much massive damage as possible in as little time as possible, she will be a nightmare, but if you take it slow or at least don't bite off more than you can chew, she's not too bad. |
| 512 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' trilogy: |
| 513 | ** Commander Cherenkov's Gnosis form in Episode I qualifies, also. Not only is it him (in a surprise battle, nonetheless), he also gets two pain-in-the-rear minions with an area-of-effect attack and that's not all: if one of the minions is killed, he gets a stat boost, if he is hurt while the minions are alive, there is a high chance that they will heal him double the HP an average leveled party can take out of him in one turn; if both minions are killed, Cherenkov's stats triple, meaning he can kill any party member (except [[MightyGlacier Ziggy]]) in two hits, and there is a substantial chance he will get two turns in a row. Worth mentioning, he's the [[WakeUpCallBoss first enemy]] the player encounters who can and gladly will [[OhCrap seal the ether abilities of party members, rendering healing if not impossible much, much less effective.]] |
| 514 | ** Episode I also has Tiamat who quickly becomes this trope while on foot or if your A.W.G.S. aren't at peak condition. You have to use Boosts as much as possible and the "Recation to [character]'s Consciousness" is really annoying. |
| 515 | ** Orgulla from Episode II. She was a nightmare that did terrible damage, including poisoning party members, and acquired boost at a ridiculous rate, which gave her the ability to kill your entire party in a short amount of time. The only real strategy against her was attack, heal, and pray. |
| 516 | ** The Patriarch Sergius fight at the end of Episode II. Sure, his first form is pretty easy, but his second form is tons harder. He has a habit of boosting multiple times to cast an Ether attack on the same person (the damage gets higher for each successful Ether attack of the same element) including one a version where he first knocks you down and then casting another for maximum damage, but you can't boost over enemies so you just hope your characters evade or you have enough heals ready. He also can summon a machine by the name of Proto Omega to do massive damage in one attack as well, which can be combined with an attack from the Patriarch that can send your characters in the air. And this is just a few examples. If you're below level 40 then god help you, but even if you're above that, it becomes an exercise of you healing and him doing more damage at some points. |
| 517 | ** Red Testament from Episode III is a rather interesting example. Most fights in the game are strategic, and level grinding is avoidable, but this guy blows every boss before him out of the water, as well as the FinalBoss. Being preceded by a [[{{Crunchtastic}} spoilerific]] TrickBoss fight beforehand, and the game's SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} doesn't temper this, but it may lead the player to a false sense of security. By this time, every character can have Safety and Best Ally available for use, which automatically revive a character it is cast on after they die. This is important, as Red will beat the tar out of every squishy character with incredible speed, and with Break every tough character with that same speed. Victory comes from poking the enemy to death over the course of the entire fight. |
| 518 | ** Also from ''Episode III'': the fight against ES Issachar near the beginning of the final dungeon. She's one of the fastest ES bosses, and gets a lot of turns, evades an irritating number of attacks, and almost never misses. She has vicious all-enemy attacks, too, though none that are likely to one-hit any of your ES. These factors alone would make her one of the hardest fights in a relatively easy game, but it gets worse. She's one of the rare enemies that uses the 'defend' command, once her HP starts getting low. This doesn't sound too bad until you notice that she heals 75,000 HP every time she defends. That's as much as a mid-level [[LimitBreak Anima Awakening]]. And sometimes she does it twice in a row. Even if you can survive her nasty attacks, the second half of the battle is essentially a LuckBasedMission. |
| 519 | * "VideoGame/Wizard101" is well known for this with certain cheating bosses (bosses with mechanics like being able to act more than once per turn, automatically reacting to certain player actions instantly, and so on). Many fights are intended to easily be steamrolled by the players, especially those who know some of the strategies, like having the bare essentials in your deck so you always draw what you need (since you draw 7 cards per turn, a popular strategy is to just put 7 cards in your deck so you will always pull them guaranteed). It might even deserve its own subpage |
| 520 | ** During the first 5 worlds, Malistaire was well known for this at release, having [[DamageSpongeBoss 100000 health]] where no other enemy/boss at the time got to even 10000. Since then, he was reduced to 10000, and later 8000. |
| 521 | ** With the introduction of cheating bosses starting in Celestia, many bosses responded to certain conditions. For example, some enemies may use shields that reduce damage by 90% unless a certain condition is met. One may require the player to use a blade, and then they will remove the shield. One may require the player to use a heal before he removes the shield. |
| 522 | ** One of the most infamous bosses has its home in Zafaria, known as Belloq. Every round he doesn't take damage, he uses a spell called Ra, which by that point may consume a considerable amount of the player health, especially on a class with low health or resist. The player fights this boss a few more times as a recurring boss later in the story. |
| 523 | ** Another notable example exists in Avalon. Jabberwock hits players very hard every few turns with a version of meteor that does 1500 base damage, about 5 times what the regular one does. |
| 524 | ** Azteca has some notable cases as well. |
| 525 | *** Ponce de Gibbon tries to trick players into using spells against their own team with beguile. If a player doesn't realize that they've been affected by this, they could accidentally use a heal on the enemy team, or hit their own team very hard. |
| 526 | *** Later on, the player fights another version of Malistaire where he was forcibly resurrected by shadow magic, known as Malistaire the Undying. He's invincible to all attacks, the only way to defeat him is to defeat his minions, where he will die due to the damage done to the battlefield. |
| 527 | ** Khrysalis doesn't stop either. |
| 528 | *** Ghost Dog has multiple appearances in this world, notably using a damage over time spell, and if it's not dealt with, will be "removed" after it is detonated, dealing nearly 3000 damage. |
| 529 | *** He's also a minion of a boss known as Kravenly the Hunter, where if the player takes him to certain health thresholds, he responds by dealing around 1500 damage to the entire team. If multiple thresholds are passed in 1 attack without defeating him, he will do so multiple times. This will likely kill off teammates who aren't prepared. |
| 530 | ** Polaris gets a bit better, although in some cases, it can still be a bit sadistic. |
| 531 | *** About a quarter way through the story, the player has to fight Baba Yaga. She has the ability to turn players to eggs (making them unable to act, except giving them the ability to use a spell called hatch, a 50/50 chance for them to turn back to normal), as well as summoning very annoying minions if the players don't kill her quick enough. |
| 532 | *** At one point, the player is tasked with taking on the Trial of Wisdom, where the player is put against 2 bosses, and the player must determine who has the poisoned claw and kill them first. Choose incorrectly, and the entire team gets wiped out 1 by 1 by being poisoned. |
| 533 | ** Empyrea has some as well. |
| 534 | *** The optional [[BrutalBonusLevel Beastman Fight Club]] is well known for this. It was made on purpose in response to the game being too easy. Among other mechanics, every other turn, someone will typically just straight up die. |
| 535 | *** For the most part, most of the fights in the first part aren't really that bad. At least until near the end of [[LethalLavaLand Inner Athanor]], which features Bat Bots, minions that don't seem special, but are actually invincible (except every few turns where they become vulnerable to damage). |
| 536 | *** The next notable boss isn't until the Nexus, better known as the Dream Hive reuses Belloq again, with 300000 health. The trick though is that if you kill his minions, he will deal damage to himself. |
| 537 | *** Shortly later is the Tumbler. He starts by using an aura that increases his damage immensely (100 for each player in the battle, up to a maximum of 400), which can easily kill off unsuspecting players as his damage is increased 5 fold. |
| 538 | * Website/GaiaOnline's MMO, ''zOMG!'' has a few. First up is Katsumi's Kokeshi Doll. She's far, far stronger then the already nasty Kokeshi Dolls wandering about Zen Gardens, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that she will always attract a ''horde'' of these lower-ranked DemonicSpiders as you try to kill her. By a horde, we mean about a dozen at a time, with more coming in every couple seconds. Oh, you've got area affect attacks? Well, watch out for that Pink Fluff! Oops, you hit one? BOOM! |
| 539 | ** The Battle Of The Three Bridges. You fight three Nexus Animated, which are much stronger versions of the regular Animated roaming the gardens. Both are assisted by two normal Animated. The Kokeshi Nexus is arguably tougher than Katsumi's Doll. The Drum Nexus can play kickball with you, and has a nasty [=AoE=] attack. And the Lantern Nexus is way tougher than any of the other enemies in the area, and only spawns at night. (Meaning if you don't kill it before the sun rises, you have to wait an hour for it to respawn again.) And if you get too close to the edge of the bridge, there are still exploding Fluffs. |
| 540 | ** Stone Coatl is the definition of ThatOneBoss. He takes all the annoying bits of these previous fights and amplifies them. The fight starts with [[GoddamnedBats Tiny Terrors and Witch Doctors]], the second of which can heal their allies and slow you down considerably. After each wave of Animated, you fight a Mask of Death and Rebirth, which could [[BossInMookClothing qualify for this trope in their own right, despite being "mooks"]]. And the last wave of monsters before you even fight the boss ''itself'' are Bladed Vases which have a ridiculous area of effect attack that deals heavy damage in a circle to anyone even kind of sort of near it. Oh and if you don't work fast, the vases can easily wipe out a party because they keep spawning until a certain number is reached. Finally, when you reach Stone Coatl, he has the most HP out of any boss you've fought, has several different attacks, one of which ''knocks you back across the entire screen'' when you've been to close to him during the fight, and he spawns an infinite number of Animated which can be any or all of the types previously mentioned. Stone Coatl is easily harder than the final boss. |
| 541 |
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