That One Boss / Atlus

"We get off on your tears."

— Aram Jabbari (AtlusAram), Official Blog Post about Demon's Souls at the Atlus USA forums, confirming what we've always suspected.

Yes, one company has enough examples for its own page. This is especially noticeable as typing "Atlus" into the search bar actually generated this subpage instead of the main Creator page at the top of the list at one point.

Note: Superbosses are not allowed; they're optional and have no standards for difficulty. (Yes, even the Demi-Fiend)

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Shin Megami Tensei

As a general rule, this only applies to the first playthrough. On a New Game Plus, it's easy to completely cream these bosses once you gain access to the Demonic Compendium / Persona Compendium, depending on what game you are playing.

Shin Megami Tensei

• Shin Megami Tensei I:
  • Gabriel. He will destroy you. He is immune to sword attacks and demon's physical attacks (and most Chaos demons are only good at physical attacks). Oh, and if you're on the chaos path, you probably got the Bullets of Darkness, which he is immune to. And since your main character can't cast spells, he can't do anything in this fight. This fight can last as long as an hour. Unless you are taking the law path (in which case he joins you — only for you to have to fuse him to make an item necessary to finish the game).
  • The police station's computer defense. Which is nearly immune to just about every element. AND has an attack that can send your entire party into shock, which means your turn won't happen. And this is only about halfway through the game!
  • There's Kongokai, which is really early in the game and has decent enemies. Then there are 2 okay bosses, not too bad. Oh, and when you go to leave, you have to fight two enemies that can't be attacked at the same time by multi-hit attacks, one of whom will boost his physical power and do massive damage.
  • All of the Demon Summoner fights. They send waves of demons at you, with either 8 in each wave as one solid block of 8 or two groups of 4, and you can't talk your way out of them not only because they're required, but if they weren't, they're all unrecruitable species. Add in that each of your demons gets only 3 abilities, and you will quickly realize that your main character will spend most of these fights shelling out the macca to summon your other demons for the next round. On rare occasion, the first Yuriko fight will glitch so that after two turns of the first wave, her speech will start again and the first wave will regenerate.
• Shin Megami Tensei II has the fight with Satan around the end of the Chaos and Neutral paths, which primarily consists of "Satan pointed at [Name]! [Name] has died!". YHVH can also spam this attack if he so desires, but Satan seems to love using it the most.
• Shin Megami Tensei if... has Vine, the boss of the Domain of Pride. He has both Zionga and Mazionga, at a point in the game where they deal enough damage to One-Hit Kill almost everyone in your party, and Electric resistances are hard to find. Buffs and debuffs do help, but only if Vine doesn't decide to target the protagonist first.
• Shin Megami Tensei NINE:
  • The fight with Green Bear and Titan in Chapter 2. The fight is normally fairly straightforward, with both of them struggling to even deal damage... unless they decide to use Mega Strike. At this point in the game, this attack is strong enough to wipe out the entire party in one shot, single-handedly turning the fight into a Luck-Based Mission.
  • On the Neutral and Chaos routes, Maria serves as one last difficulty spike before the Final Boss. As you chip away at her massive health bar, she summons powerful demons to support her — Cerberus can immobilize you with Panic Voice, Gryphon and Mizuchi can form combos with her vast skillset, Yamata-no-Orochi is practically a boss in its own right, and Nandi can heal her, potentially undoing entire minutes of progress. While this is happening, Maria is whaling on you with powerful spells, including several powerful Almighty attacks.
• Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has several, and not because of the Nintendo Hard difficulty of the game. In order of appearances:
  • The second boss in the game, the Specter, can be quite difficult, as part of the Early Game Hell. He will always summon 5 other specters (always outnumbering you) and attack you over and over, until they decide to all fuse into a huge ghost, an action that is exclusive to this fight. The large Specter's power, along with its "Foul Havoc" signature skill is determined by how many smaller ones were alive right before they fused; if 4 to 5 of them, or worse, all of them, managed to stay alive, the fusion will inflict enough damage to kill anyone in your party in one hit. It also notably has no weaknesses (even resisting magic) for such an early boss.
  • Matador absolutely defines the trope, to the point he was originally the page image when That One Boss pages still had example images. He appears to challenge you in the middle of a tunnel instead of a Boss Room like most others, with very little forewarning, and his fight is compulsory unlike the other Fiends to follow. The actual fight itself serves as a major make-or-break point for many players of the game, effectively forcing players to play on his terms or not be able to continue through the game. He opens the fight with Red Capote, which maximizes his evasion and accuracy, leading to you losing a lot of turns due to the Press Turn system penalizing misses by deducting two turns instead of one, so you'll have to compensate with Sukukaja or Sukunda to even land a hit. Making that worse, he has Dekaja (erases your buffs) and Dekunda (erases his debuffs), and if you lower his agility too far (namely casting Sukunda four times), he'll always use Red Capote again on his next turn. Once you get some headway and get him below half HP, he'll use Taunt to lower your defense and follow it up with Focus to double the damage of his multi-hit Andalucia. His fight needs quite a bit of preparation, and to rub it in, he appears right before you unlock the Demon Compendium, so you have to go through a lot of effort to adjust your team if it's currently not up to standard.
  • Dante (or Raidou Kuzunoha XIV in the Chronicle Edition and the HD Remaster if the "Chronicle" version was chosen at the start. They're functionally identical.) is faced at the entrance to Mantra HQ, and he's a very well-rounded combatant who cannot be easily cheesed. He responds to your debuffs with a Dekunda of his own, he has party-wide attacks of Phys, Elec and Force variety, and his signature attack has a very high crit rate. He also uses his own version of Taunt that makes you more vulnerable to everything he has. He resists all forms of damage with no weakness and has the usual Contractual Boss Immunity. No gimmicks or tricks, just a straightforward battle a la Devil May Cry, which makes preparing for him all the more difficult.
  • The second fiend in the game that you fight is Daisoujou, who's an utterly wretched piece of work if you don't come prepared. He is not as obnoxious with buffs as Matador is, but mainly because he doesn't need to. He starts with Meditation, a skill that saps your HP and MP which can run you dry unless you up your agility to dodge it. He then breaks out Preach which can inflict charm, sleep, or panic (and any of the ailments can cause you to lose control of your combatants) and as the fight nears its end he breaks out Mahamaon and Mamudoon — area-of-effect One-Hit Kill spells that aren't affected by buffs or debuffs. Bear in mind that the Demi-Fiend, at this time, can only protect himself from one variant while making himself vulnerable to the other. Thankfully, there's nothing stopping you from using Tetraja Stones, and once you've beaten him you unlock him for fusion, where his Meditation skill combined with Prayer makes the game a hell of a lot easier.
  • The Hell Biker, the third of the Fiends you fight. The guy has two unique elemental skills called Hell Burner and Hell Exhaust; Hell Burner is his own version of Maragidyne, while Hell Exhaust is a Force-elemental Dekaja. By this point in the game, it's impossible for your Main Character to be immune to Force or Fire without being weak to the other one, while it's merely very difficult for your demons to not have that problem.
  • All of the Rider Fiends, initially found in the Third Kalpa before scurrying off to random places, start the battle by summoning two supporters. Don't try to destroy them, though, since if any supporters die, the Riders will reply with Dragon Eye, a skill to gain four extra turns, which they will use to summon new supporters and spend extra time to smack you around.
    • White Rider is likely the first you encounter, because once you reach Asakusa, the White Rider's fight will trigger right outside almost any Terminal (save point) that you can access except for the one in the medical center, the one at the Manikin holy ground, and the terminal inside the Labyrinth of Amala. His followers support him with Mahama (area-of-effect Expel-based instant-kill) and Thunderclap (Expel-based HP reduction) and throw up magic-reflecting shields from time to time. White Rider himself, however, pummels the party with Prominence (one of the strongest random-hitting fire spells) and has God's Bow which is guaranteed to kill any target that doesn't have Expel immunity. It's not a fun time when you're in dire need of healing, just about to save, had the wrong Magatama on, only to have White Rider ambush you right outside your spot of safety.
    • Black Rider, considered to be the easiest Horseman, is the first boss to use Megidolaon (the strongest, party-wide, Almighty attack in the game), has Glacial Blast (ice version of Prominence above), and every now and then he busts out his Signature Move Soul Divide, which halves the HP of any party member that is not immune to Curse, and can inflict Mute to prevent you from using any spell. He also absorbs Ice attacks so you need to pay attention to what skills you're using. His Legion supporters know Mamudoon and Hell Gaze (very strong Death-based instant-kill spells), Tetrakarn (repels physical attacks for one turn), and Makakaja (a buff that boosts the power of magic attacks and thusly increases the damage dealt by both Megidolaon and Glacial Blast), and are immune to petrification unlike the minions of the other two Riders.
  • Dante (Raidou) becomes tediously nightmarish during his game at the Third Kalpa. The Player is forced to navigate a labyrinth with a series of switches that must be activated to proceed, all while avoiding encountering him. The problem is Dante will pursue you across the whole Kalpa while constantly shooting at you if you are in his line of sight and within a certain range. Each shot staggers you, and he fires at a high rate and with minimal breaks, so getting too close essentially means you are already caught. When he tags you, Dante will score a free hit on you, kicking you back to the beginning, and he will reset all the switches. Fitting, considering he basically went through some similar puzzle levels in his own game, but still unpleasant. To top it off, at the end of the cat and mouse game, it is another boss fight against him and this time he adds Almighty attacks (one of which comes with a chance of instant death). It's very cathartic when you finally get around to recruiting him at the bottom of the Labyrinth of Amala, and you get to use his exact powerful skill set to sweep enemy mobs.
  • The Specter in its rematch, has upgraded its resistances and now voids non-Almighty Magic attacks, forcing the player to use physical skills. He also packs Mana Drain, which he will utilize incessantly and then cast Megido to make up for the fact that the small Specters don't fuse into a big one. They also pack Dekunda so that you WILL have to use buffs. The one saving grace is that the Specters don't start with enough MP to cast Megido, meaning that if they can't take it off of you for whatever reason they're powerless... but who in their right minds would go into a boss fight with little to no MP?
  • Albion, the boss of the White Temple in the Amala Temple. This guy is a Flunky Boss who will revive his minions if you destroy them before taking him out and if there are two minions alive when Albion dies, they will resurrect him to full health. You need to pay attention to the status of the flunkies and Albion so that when you eliminate them, they won't come back.
  • Trumpeter, the last Fiend. How bad can it be when the boss himself explains how his attacks work and he STILL manages to be a pain in the ass? Trumpeter explains that, after every eight turns, he will sound his horn, at which point either Holy Melody or Evil Melody is cast upon the party member (or Trumpeter himself) with the lowest amount of health, which either fully heals them, or kills them right then and there, respectively. The death ability of Evil Melody is completely unblockable, even if it's you and you're protected against Death and Expel. It should be also noted that Evil Melody will not hit him (which, in the event of this happening, will have him aim Evil Melody at the Main Character), but Holy Melody can, resulting in Trumpeter fully healing himself right before you can land the killing blow. Endure will save you, but it works once per battle, so you can still die if the Main Character gets hit by Evil Melody twice. And since the boss spams Megidolaon every now and then, trying to control your party's health is not going to be easy, either.
  • Beelzebub in the Fourth Kalpa is a nightmare. He resists everything that isn't either Fire or Almighty and is very trigger-happy with Dekaja and Dekunda. When he Turns Red he starts using Death Flies, which will kill you instantly if you're not immune to Death and deals damage equal to Megidolaon if you're immune to Death.
  • Mot stands out for a few reasons; first, he is one of the three bosses in the game who have a weakness, and has basically 3 attacks. The actual reasons he is so hard are the fact that he is immune to everything except his weakness and physical attacks(which do so little damage that they are not viable), and said 3 attacks: one is Megidolaon; one is the previously-mentioned Makakaja; and the last one is Beast Eye, a skill that gives him 2 extra turns. For only 1 MP. So far, not so bad. However, there is a chance he will use that last skill twice in a row or even more, effectively giving him the chance to wipe out your party without you being able to do anything about it (seen here). He has other skills, but the above combo is what makes him infamous.
  • Noah, the second of Reason bosses, endgame bosses who must be fought after the alignment lock and just before reaching Kagutsuchi. He only has ONE element that can affect him (not a weakness) at a time, which he changes every turn, and you can't cheat with physical skills either because Noah repels those. And no, you can't get around this with Almighty attacks, either, because he resists 90% Almighty damage. And while he uses single-character spells for the first half, he hits the whole party and starts draining one of your characters' HP and MP for the second half. It is possible to bypass the tedium of his attack with a combination of Pierce and Freikugel on the Demi-Fiend, but the ability to do so is only available on one route.
  • Baal Avatar, the last Reason boss. She summons two healers, both of whom debuff you and buff their party. Both of the healers possess full heal. Which they will happily abuse. Oh, and Baal Avatar possesses Bael's Bane, a Curse-type skill which will turn one of your party members into a fly. This is incurable, renders them utterly useless, and leaves them with large weakness to Expel. You can be immune to this, but doing so leaves you vulnerable to her Instant-kill spells unless you prepare very far in advance for this fight.
  • The game's True Final Boss, Lucifer, is the epitome of this trope. You can't even fight him unless you're on the sixth ending and for good reason: You absolutely need Pierce on the main character^note you can also get Pierce on your demons as well, but that requires you to grind to the high nineties to fuse a very specific demon to even enter the room where you can buy that skill) because he resists 75% physical, elemental magic, and Almighty damage, has standard boss immunities, and has the most HP out of any boss in the game. He also has a ton of nasty attacks such as Evil Gleam (Charms your party), High King (very high Almighty damage on your party with some chance of Bind) and Root of Evil (either takes 1/2, 3/4, or 9/10 of your party's health, with the added bonus of having a chance to inflict stun, poison, or worse, mute and in the Nocturne Maniax Chronicle Edition will remove all your buffs regardless of what happens) at his disposal and if you die, you have to fight through Kagutsuchi just to fight him again. To rub salt in the wound, his normal attack is Almighty-Elemental and has a stupidly high crit chance. Finally, you also cannot use either of the passive abilities that allow party members to always score a Critical Hit on a specific Kagutsuchi phase, since the circumstances leading up to the boss fight disables the game's moon phase system. If you decide to play the Maniax Chronicles or the remastered version of Nocturne, you're thrown a bone considering the game's guest fighters can obtain Pierce and is a decent fighter in their own right... only for the game to completely nullify that advantage on Hard Mode thanks to the boss having an extra effective 40K HP thanks to Diarahan, which they will cast when they get low on health in this version.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey:
  • The first one is Asura. He can be very unpleasant because all the parasites you fought previously were annoying but not especially difficult, lulling the player into a false sense of security. While he carries a weakness to Ice, he has a very annoying skill by the name of Asura Roga. Remember earlier in the sector where much of the Strike Team was affected by the Delphinus Parasite? Well now, it's your turn to experience it firsthand! Asura Roga can affect the entire party with the Rage ailment barely seen anywhere else in the game; Rage boosts afflicted party members Attack, but it also causes them to attack anyone randomly. Very often the player will find their own party wiping each other out, or at least get injured enough for Asura to finish them off. Nothing in the original game can prevent Rage either. It can be cured, but Asura may just spam it and you'll be overwhelmed. While he also carries two more powerful attacks; Asura (powerful random target Physical attack that can hit multiple times) and Black Flame (basically Maragidyne except—again—hitting random targets), both of those tend to be much more bearable than Asura Roga.
  • Ouroboros, the final boss of the fifth block. She heals about 160 damage per round. Her attacks include Wild Thunder, a powerful group lightning spell, and Disaster Cycle, a spell that hits for moderate physical damage and inflicts random status ailments. That last one is really nasty because sometimes she gets really lucky with it and manages to either leave you with a dead weight party or petrify the main character (instant game over). All this is just her first form, however. Her second form no longer regenerates every turn, but she now uses Disaster Cycle almost every turn, and whenever she's not using Disaster Cycle, she's using Wave of Death which hits the whole party for nearly 300+ physical damage per hit! Her liberal use of Disaster Cycle almost makes the fight a Luck-Based Mission.
  • Captain Jack, fought in sector six. He shouldn't be that hard, theoretically, since he only has three attacks. Except the two he uses with any real frequency are: 1) an incredibly powerful gun-type attack that randomly hits your party members (thus it has a chance that it'll hit your MC four times), and 2) a spell that heals him for over 1000 HP and removes all debuffs from him. He's not immune to getting charmed, but good luck making that stick to him. To make matters worse, his third attack deals "light" damage to the entire party, but it's Almighty element. This means you literally cannot resist it in any way, and just to add insult to injury it lowers your attack. This makes it even harder to heal with his gigantic Healing Factor. And if that wasn't enough, he starts the battle with two Pisaca demons who can inflict the Bomb status on your characters. It basically means that if you get hit, you die and take the rest of the party with you.
  • Remember Asura? Well, he comes back in Fornax as Asherah and she is hard. She still has Asura Roga and thus can still wreck your party. The parasite you encounter beforehand can also qualify since its only skills are Maragion and Asura Roga.
  • Tiamat, the boss of sector six. Remember Captain Jack and his healing skill? Well, Tiamat has that same skill and additionally packs Captain Jack's almighty attack with nasty skills such as Mabufudyne (the strongest party-wide Ice spell in the game), Mother Earth (same as Mabufudyne, but healing Tiamat for half of the damage it deals), and Glacial Blast. Fortunately, Tiamat does provide a way to avoid her using the healing spell (do not reduce any of her stats to -4).
  • Maya, the boss of sector seven. You know you're in for a hell of a time when using magic on her is answered with a 100% ACCURATE INSTANT KILL. This also extends to your elemental gun skills, even though they technically aren't magic, as those too are grounds for getting killed instantly, although the basic gun attack or your non-elemental Gun skills are allowed. If you're going into this fight blind and are attempting to test elements until you find her weakness, expect a lot of deaths and resets. At least she has a weakness, unlike most of the endgame bosses (ironically, it's Gun).
  • One of the hardest bosses in the game is Ubergestalt Gore, fought in the Law and Chaos Paths. He has more HP than any boss in the game, even the two Final Bosses below (and the only boss that has even more HP is Demiurge), and it's made even worse by the fact the first time you deplete his 7500 HP, he will always get back up at full health, meaning, yes, that's 15,000 HP you have to deal with. He also hits like a damn tank, doing obscene amounts of physical and gun damage and the occasional status effects. His signature attack, Adaptation, will only be used on the main character, and it does enough damage to kill him if he isn't defending and resistant to physical damage, and that's if it is not buffed. His absurd HP alone makes this one huge endurance test. Did we mention he reflects any physical and gun attacks? It's saying a lot about Gore that he's one of the few endgame bosses with a weakness (Wind), and even exploiting it the fight still takes an hour.
  • The Final Boss of the Law and Neutral Paths, Mem Aleph, is hands-down the hardest boss in the game. She can cast the strongest forms of every single elemental spell in the game, including both instant kill elements, which means her Light and Dark spells will 100% kill you unless you are immune to both. There are only two ways to be immune to both Light and Dark, and one of them exposes you to her signature attack, Mother's Kiss, a multi-hit physical attack capable of killing a guarding protagonist at full health and level cap. She's also very aggressive with Reason's Start, which equates to Silent Prayer (nullifies all stat changes for both herself and the party) with healing on top, in case you try and debuff her more than once. Her second form is somehow worse, as she has an unblockable single target instant kill attack that also heals her equal to the amount of HP the killed character has, but that doesn't mean much if said target happens to be the main character; the attack can miss but very rarely. That's not even getting into her namesake attack: Mem Aleph, which will return any demons you have of a random alignment to the Demonica. While her second form does have a weakness, she also reflects two elements, and this changes each time she returns your demons back to Demonica. You may weep now.
  • The final boss of the Chaos path also qualifies. Like Mem Aleph above, the fight with Pillar Zelenin is also a Luck-Based Mission, since if the boss plays her unblockable one-hit kill move, Requiem, pray that it doesn't hit you. If it does, well...
  • The Redux rerelease reins the above bosses (except Commander Gore and Mem Aleph) in thanks to the ability to get rid of We Cannot Go On Without You and the higher levels you will gain from the Womb of Grief, but gives us a few new pains in the ass to compensate. The first one is Ishtar, the boss of the Second Sphere of the Womb of Grief. She opens up using Berserker God and Garudyne, the third-tier single target Physical and Wind moves, at a point where you'll only consistently have access to second tier. She uses Silent Prayer to nullify your stat boosts if you reach +3, and when that's the move you want to see, you know you're in deep trouble. When she gets low on health, she starts adding Magarudyne to the mix, which does Garudyne level damage to your whole party. She also gets a Physical move that lowers your attack by one stage. The most brutal move in her arsenal, however, is her Alluring Squall/Soul Steal combo. Alluring Squall does 1-3 hits of Wind damage and charms whoever it hits. Soul Steal deals a One-Hit Kill to anyone who is charmed and heals Ishtar by the amount of damage it deals. You have our express permission to weep Tears of Fear.
  • Zeus, the boss of the Fifth Sphere. He has Keraunos (Electric damage and four Rakundas to one target), Adamant Sickle (Physical damage to one target and two Tarukajas to himself), and enough raw power to put you down in one shot. Bring Luster Candy, War Cry, and the Reaper Colt (which gives you Storm Shot, a heavy Wind attack that hits his weak spot) or die horribly. When his health falls low, he can also choose to be completely obnoxious by using Sol Canus, which actively purges and prevents buffing and debuffing for a few turns.
  • The True Final Boss fought in the New endings of the game, Shekinah, exchanges the one-hit kill cheapness of the original boss with obnoxious gimmicks which makes her a Marathon Boss.
    • For starters, she has 12,000 HP, more than either Ubergestalt Gore or Mem Aleph, which she will fully restore for her second phase (when it falls to around 20% or so). Offensively, she packs spells similar to the original Final Boss; hard hitting versions of every elemental spell (except for Curse) along with Reason's Start, but additionally packs Divine Pain (her version of the Game-Breaker spell Antichthon: massive Almighty damage and all stat debuff), as well as Tables Turned (which reverses buff and debuff counts, meaning stacking buffs and debuffs becomes a bad idea). In addition, she plays Barrier Change Boss and assumes both the elemental affinities of previous Womb of Grief bosses as well as their signature attacks. Yes, this means you can die to Alluring Squal + Soul Steal combo again if you're not careful.
    • Once her HP is depleted and the second phase commences, she gains enormous resistance to everything (including Almighty) but Co-Op attacks, forcing you to focus on elemental weaknesses again as opposed to nuking everything with Almighty damage. She also gains a few new moves: Heaven's Arrow is a Gun-equivalent of Mother's Kiss, and every now and then she uses Preening, which not only heals her for 4 digits of HP but also buffs all her stats equivalent to 4 Luster Candies. Combined with her defenses, Preening makes the boss entirely unbeatable if the player's party can't consistently cancel her buffs and deal enough damage per turn.
    • A few turns after she displays her new skills, she will play Barrier Change Boss again, but this time she also gains the unique field skills of the Womb of Grief bosses, including Sol Canus and Cocytus, which negates her weaknesses entirely (reducing Co-Op effectiveness). However, the worst thing the boss can do is to set up one of three Torahs, which reflects all attacks from combatants of a single alignment (it doesn't reflect Almighty, but they only deal a laughable amount of damage at this point). The Torahs last for at least 7 turns and it will force you to spend turns changing your team around, reducing your damage output and potentially allows the boss to heal more with Preening and slowly wreck you with Divine Pain. In short, if you don't have a good mixture of combatants from various alignments nor the necessary spells to consistently exploit her weaknesses, she will lock you out for many turns, especially on higher difficulties when she uses Preening more often and her Torahs persist even longer.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV is regarded by series veterans as the easiest game in the mainline series, but it still has its share of troublemakers that stand out from other bosses:
  • Minotaur is the first boss you'll face, and he WILL end you. He is VERY fond of War Cry (decreasing attack/defense of all of your party), Charge (more than doubling the power of his next attack) and following up either of those two (or maybe even both) with Labrys Strike or Oni-Kagura, which in Oni-Kagura's case can instantly KO one of your party members or in Labrys Strike's case ALL of your party. He has a weakness to ice, and that's really your only hope. You get asked two main response choices and if you chose incorrectly, you can make him stronger or even allow you to be even weaker, the last thing you want in this fight. This is all worsened if the AI party member you get stuck with is Walter, of all people. He can and WILL use Agi. Minotaur nulls Agi. Minotaur then smirks and continues to KO everybody.
  • Very quickly after Minotaur comes Medusa, who is nothing but a nightmare. She doesn't have anything like Minotaur's Charge or War Cry, but she doesn't need either of those: all of her attacks do medium damage, which at that point in the game is very, very dangerous. She has Zionga, which will downright end anybody in your party weak to electricity, and alongside that are three gun attacks that are all equally dangerous: Tathlum Shot hits one person, Rapid Needle hits the whole party, and Snake's Fangs is a good 1-3 hits on everybody alongside putting bind on one of them. Don't even think about using that fancy new gun you just found on her; she resists gun. She also drains electricity, and the last thing you want is for her to get some health back. Thankfully, she's weak to force; like with Minotaur, that's your only hope. And also just like the Minotaur fight you get two response choices and if you get the second one incorrect, you get petrified (to be fair, that one IS pretty easy to avoid). If you over level slightly and fuse or evolve a Raiju the fight can be cheesed however.
  • Pluto, the boss of Blasted Tokyo is pretty annoying if you don't have the correct team. It loves to spam either a physical attack or a fire attack, both of which hits the entire party and can inflict nasty status conditions that can cripple them. It also has a hefty amount of HP with no obvious weaknesses.
  • King Kenji in Infernal Tokyo. He likes to spam physical attacks like Conqueror's Spirit followed by auto death spell Mamudoon. Toward the end of the battle, he becomes fond of Almighty spells and Ancient Curse which causes Sleep, Paralyze, Confusion, Sick and Poison. And, for YHVH's sake, don't pick up the remote... Justified in that he's not only the ruler of a society where Might Makes Right, but King Kenji is also considered to be the Final Boss of the Nothingness Ending since the Yamato Control Device doesn't do anything when you fight it.
  • Issachar White, the last White you have to battle during the endgame. While Hugo, K and Isabeau White can be debuffed into oblivion, Issachar White uses Luster Candy with enough frequency that it's a waste of time. He has no weaknesses, but thankfully no resistances that aren't a part of his Contractual Boss Immunity. During the first portion of the fight, he uses physical attacks and Charge, and his critical rate is ridiculously high. But the worst part is when he's down to less than a third of his health, which is when he starts using all three of the previous Whites' Signature Moves; Blank Bullet is a gun attack that hits everyone twice, Impossible Slice is a physical attack that reduces your defense, and Nought Wave, the worst of the three attacks, is an Almighty (read: unblockable) attack that hits for a lot of damage and has a very high chance of instant death. And it's neither Death nor Expel, so you have no way to resist it. Finally, he has two points where he will talk to you and prompt for responses. For his second set of Boss Banter, picking the wrong answer reduces your HP to One and your MP to 0.
  • Asura by himself is not as difficult as he was in Strange Journey, but your AI partner, due to A.I. Roulette, will almost always use nothing but skills he's immune to, giving him constant Smirk status. If you're going for the Neutral ending, he's mandatory, so you'll have to struggle with the fight, poor AI partner and all.

• Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse picks up the slack with several difficult bosses:
  • Sukuna-Hikona is a piece of work, having in his arsenal Needlestorm (Medium Wind damage with chance of Daze) and Infernal Hail (Medium Ice damage + Sukunda). You would be lucky to have access to medium-damage attacks yourself at this point in the game. He also carries Makajam which can shut down any party member. He also starts the battle by casting Rakunda, lowering your defense, and he will recast it during the fight as well.
  • Titan has a large pool of HP, no elemental weaknesses, and he's your introduction to Critical Eye, a buff that makes his next attack a Critical Hit. He's thankfully weak to ailments, but you're at the mercy of the Random Number God that they don't wear off at the worst possible time.
  • Maitreya of the Divine Powers is a nasty boss, by virtue of being the third boss in a series of boss battles. He surprisingly has two (not so obvious) weaknesses, but he carries an ability that allows him to turn his weaknesses into drains until the end of his turn. If his turn was skipped by an Assist Attack, his shield is still up until his next turn. He also possesses an extremely powerful almighty attack when Smirking. You have to redo the Boss Rush from the start if you die, by the way. Your saving grace is that shortly before you engage Maitreya, you'd have completed a storyline quest which should give enough experience for a Level-Up Fill-Up. If that didn't happen, you didn't purchase the app that grants you Level-Up Fill-Up, or if your vital demons died in the previous fights, well...
  • Krishna of the Divine Powers is quite frustrating to fight against, due to how effective status ailments are in this game. He possesses two unique skills called Venomous Raga and Dream Raga (he also has Combat Tara, but it's just a glorified Luster Candy); these moves debuff you while inflicting you with Nerve (Poison, Sick, Bind) or Mind (Charm, Confused, Sleep) ailments respectively. You can quickly find yourself inflicted with every ailment in the game at once bar Mute, Daze, and Brand. You can use Hallelujah's Warding Shout to protect yourself, but Krishna will still pummel you with his powerful attacks in the meantime, and Hallelujah has a chance at using the wrong move on occasion, potentially costing you the fight. It speaks volumes when you figure out how to fuse him after his defeat and those same skills under your command can turn many targets into sitting ducks.
  • Baal is the first and hardest of the guard bosses summoned by Inanna in the Cosmic Egg. He has multiple ways to hit very hard, possesses his own electric attack that can bind you, he Retaliates physical attacks and uses Silent Prayer very often, making sure buffs and debuffs can only help so much.
  • The final Divine Powers boss is Vishnu-Flynn, and he hits like a truck. While he doesn't get the first move, he'll generally ensure that his first move is Antichthon and that there are no buffs on you or debuffs on him. Survive that, and he unleashes Shine More, a multi hit multi target Almighty attack that inflicts Daze, while still occasionally using Dekaja, Dekunda, and Antichthon. He also has a second form in which he shifts weaknesses between Light and Dark while attacking you with the opposite element. Thought of bringing demons that null light/dark to stop this? His Light/Dark Nandaka attacks pierce resistances.
  • Even by Final Boss standards, the Creator God YHVH is a menace. He starts out the fight with two Luster Candies and he also resists everything, which means you need Awakened Power or a Pierce move to deal damage initially. The fight's gimmick is that there are two parties: Nanashi's and Flynn's. Flynn has the ability to remove resistances and create weaknesses with his unique move, and he has Energy Drain to keep him using it. YHVH himself has a few unique moves, most notably God's Mouth, which is a a repeat of the same move from II and guarantees One-Hit Kill if it connects, along with Divine Harmony, which removes all status effects on the party — buffs, Doping, Charge/Concentrate, etc. He also has Authoritative Stance, similar to Imposing Stance in that it cuts your Press Turn icons on your next turn, except instead of one icon he takes off three, leaving you with up to two turns at best if you exploit his weaknesses and outright giving him free turns if you have so much as one empty party slot. To make matters worse, he's a Sequential Boss, and in his second form, he has the ability to buff himself fully and gain Smirk with Infinite Power, or debuff the whole party fully with Unending Curse. On top of all that, he also gains Supernova, a devastating Almighty attack which can already inflict Total Party Kill when buffs and debuffs are not in play.
  • And this is already hard enough on the Bonds Route, in which Flynn has a full party (himself, Jonathan, Walter, and Isabeau). On Massacre, Satan is his only teammate and the game will not make an exception to the "number of party members = number of Press Turn icons available" rule for these two. That aforementioned Authoritative Stance? Pray (heh) that YHVH doesn't use it on Flynn's party.
• Shin Megami Tensei V:
  • The first Nuwa fight. She has a +7 Force Affinity, and the protagonist starts the game weak to Force, meaning unless you bought the upgrade to change the protagonist's weaknesses using essences, a stray Zanma will one-shot you. And if you forgot your Force Dampeners, Sacrifice of Clay will cause hideous amounts of Force damage and lower the Attack and Defense of the survivors. She also has a fat truckload of health, so much so that even though you only need to get her down to 50% of it to win, you're still in for a long battle.
  • Fionn mac Cumhaill is a quick reminder to keep your access to buffs and debuffs handy — he'll often start with a Tarukaja and a physical attack that's likely to one-shot a party member (or the Nahobino himself) unless you offset it with your own attack debuff and/or defense buff. The alternative is to give the Nahobino physical resistance or to expend a Phys Dampeners (which at this point are not purchaseable and hard to come by).
  • Lahmu. His first phase has him covered in 6 tentacles that act as shields. His Mudo +3 will one-shot most of the Demons you can use at that point in the game unless they resist it; if your Nahobino is still set to Aogami's elemental resistances, that includes him too. His individual tentacles also have a ton of HP and are only weak to Force and Light. However, the base Hama doesn't deal nearly enough damage, and the only demons you can get with Hamaon at this point are weak to Darkness. He also has a move that inflicts a special status ailment that makes the afflicted take twice as many press turns and fully restores the health of all remaining tentacles. Did we mention this is just his first phase? His second phase has completely different affinities from his first phase, a powerful multi-target Almighty attack that inflicts status ailments and a lot of HP.
  • Shohei Yakumo in the third area. He has an extremely high Strength stat and mainly Strength-based abilities that hit multiple targets. He can buff his attack, which makes himself much more dangerous, and can also remove your buffs with Dekaja. He also has a lot of HP and is resistant to Physical attacks, so he'll take a while to defeat.
  • If you're gunning for the secret ending, you will find yourself cursing Khonsu Ra. In addition to powerful Fire, Light and Almighty spells, he's backed up by an Anubis and a Thoth, both of which he can re-summon at will if they go down. He does have an exploitable Ice weakness, but Anubis can give him Makarakarn to protect him from that and any other magic-based attack for a turn, and his Mesektet's Path allows him to counter anything thrown his way with an Almighty attack that drains MP during your turn. His other Signature Move, Heliopolis Dawn, is a Fire attack that pierces resistance (just in case you thought you'd circumvent his attacks by bringing a whole party immune to them) and can completely wipe you out if you don't have a Last Chance Hit Point skill or item — he has to spend a Press Turn getting ready before he uses this, but if Anubis or Thoth strike a weakness with their attacks, Khonsu Ra gets to drop it on you before you have a chance to prepare for it.

Digital Devil Saga

• Camazotz from the first game is not too bad the first two times you fight him, but the third time, he's a nightmare, mainly because of extra-turn spells and Zotzilaha Bane, which can't be defended against and turns you into a bat, which has hideously low stats and a large Force weakness. Three guesses what all of Camazotz's damage-dealing attacks's element is (Spiral Edge doesn't count since it's Physical and it's used in the previous fights). Don't even try debuffing him, as he is guaranteed to use Rage (this game's name for Nocturne's notorious Beast Eye) to give himself an extra turn solely to Dekunda himself and continue like you've never debuffed him at all. It seems appropriate for a boss which is named after a Mayan god of death.
• Cerberus, who has to be fought before entering the Brutes' base. It has no weakness, and has three heads, each has their own health bar and does different things: the right head buffs, debuffs and uses a shield spell to protect Cerberus from Ice attacks, the left head heals and occasionally busts out Mahama, and the center head uses powerful physical and magical attacks. All three have a fair chance of countering physical attacks and often perform combo attacks with each other to deal immense fire damage, so fighting them without fire immunities is basically just asking for a Game Over. In addition, should you leave the center head for last, it will use Psycho Rage and go completely nuts with fun attacks like Gate of Hell, which deals heavy physical damage and can petrify your party members.
• For series veterans, Vasuki. He uses ice and electricity, both of which are elements that can freeze or shock characters respectively, allowing him to critical hit them to death. The player can only shield against one of them at a time without crazy preparation, and Vasuki's AI is smart enough to attack with whichever isn't blocked, meaning he won't lose turn icons that way. To top that off, he's capable of using two unblock-able Megidolas in the same turn.
• Abaddon in the sequel. The thing changes weakness and swallows a random party member, leaving you with two characters for most of the fight. Good luck not getting Argilla swallowed when he's weak to earth, because if you can't exploit his weakness and gain extra turns you will be spending ALL of the turns you have healing/reviving (even worse since a press turn is immediately lost if the party member who was supposed to go next is currently inside Abaddon's stomach), and outhealing the damage he deals is complicated by the fact that Abaddon gets three press turns per round instead of the typical two for bosses that fight alone. If you don't damage him enough in 4-5 turns (which forces him to eject the swallowed party member unscathed) the swallowed party member will be spat out with only one HP left. Also, if the other two party members die while the third one is being digested, it's a game over right then and there. If you thought that's bad enough, the game forces Cielo into the active party for this fight as an extra 'screw you' to the player. Of course, he starts out weak to force and that's really your only time to get ANY reasonable damage in plus he only swallows someone once he takes a bit of damage.
• Vritra is often cited as That One Boss of DDS2. Especially if you go into battle expecting him to be weak against ice attacks, the weakness of Heat's previous demon form. Many gamers has burst a blood vessel to see their Ice attack repelled onto their party and watch their whole battle plan fall apart at their feet. And then Vritra calls you an idiot for thinking it would have worked. He also has a pair of tentacles that protect him from damage and must be destroyed before you can actually do damage to him. (These naturally regenerate after a couple of turns.) To top it off, he has a skill that has an extremely high chance of freezing your characters. In DDS2's battle system a physical attack against a frozen target is an automatic critical, (Which not only causes extra damage but gives the attacker an extra turn) which Vritra is more than happy to exploit. Also, he can also use a strong, unblockable almighty attack (whose name "Inferno Roar" and attack animation can trick you into thinking it is a fire-elemental attack when it isn't) after you take out his arms and attempt to throw party members into a panic immediately afterwards.
• Not long after Vritra comes Kartikeya, which pounds on you with an assortment of powerful party-wide attacks and raises a wind barrier that makes it nigh-impossible to hit the boss, whenever the boss feels like it. Repelling its own spells or using electric magic is guaranteed to hit it and break the barrier, but that's easier said than done. And as what seems to be a giant middle finger to magic users, Kartikeya is actually weak to Guns, which require you to be in human form to use, and he has Taunt, which drops defense like nobody's business.
• Meganada is also notable despite the fact that he is the penultimate boss in the storyline because he alternates what doesn't work on him and no matter what attacks can hurt, he has Contractual Boss Immunity and Electricity will be absorbed. Meganada starts the battle being immune to Physical until he begins using Moksha, at which point he suddenly nulls all magic except Electricity, which he absorbs (using it again will switch him back). When immune to Physical, he uses normal attacks and the occasional Mad Rush but once he loses a bit of health regardless of form, he starts using Black Bhakti, which has the boss charge up for one of two possible attacks: Viraj Blade and Meru Thunder. Viraj Blade is used when the boss is immune to Physical and you can't make the skill not hit like a truck since it's an Almighty attack that bases its power off of the boss's high Strength. Meru Thunder is, you guessed it, Electric-based and will shred your party if you didn't bother to cover Gale's weakness to Elec if you have him around. The boss can also use Fatal Charm and Tentarafoo if you're using Cielo as well as the Ma-Dyne level elemental skills, so this guy can thrash you no matter what skills you have.

Persona

• Persona 2 — particularly Innocent Sin — is relatively easy (for an Atlus game, of course), but that doesn't mean there aren't a handful of troublemakers:
  • Shadow Maya in Innocent Sin, especially in the original PSX version. She starts off the fight by dealing a significant amount of damage to all party members before you even hit the battle screen. Several resistances, no weaknesses, high agility and heavy damage dealer. She has two different One-Hit Kill skills, one of which hits the whole party and is very likely to land if you don't block it, and one that hits one party member and absolutely cannot be blocked in any way. And then there's Diamond Dust: a poweful Ice skill that in her hands deals lots of damage, hits the whole party, and WILL freeze it. And she likes to spam it. A LOT. She is pretty toned down in the Updated Re-release, but in the original you'll be pulling your hair.
  • While he IS a Final Boss, Great Father Nyarlathotep in Innocent Sin is VICIOUS. He gets five attacks on his turn, and can easily bring a prepared party to their knees. This includes an attack called Master of 18, which, as its name says, strikes one party member eighteen times. He does have a trick in which he occasionally switches to damaging your SP for awhile, but that still means that while you won't have to worry about a party wipe for a bit, you have little SP to cast with, in a game where that's already a huge issue. How pleasant. And he's a Cognizant Limbs kind of boss, and each of said limbs has its own HP pool and elemental affinities, and due to the game's mechanics there are very few skills that can target all of them at once.
  • Takahisa Kandori in Eternal Punishment must've been working out between games as his Weaksauce Weakness is now gone and replaced with resistance to everything. He is flanked by four Anti-Magic Mini Mechas that can seal your party's Personas for three turns at least, have HUGE HP, and deal insane damage to the whole party. Good thing they're weak to Lightning. After they are gone, the main boss starts fighting you for real. He has a bunch of powerful attacks that are only shared by the Final Boss which are designed to cut down massive chunks of HP in one go, and he has a bunch of third-tier elemental attacks on top of it just in case you happen to have a weakness. Expect the battle to last a long time. He is no cakewalk in the PSP-exclusive Tatsuya scenario either. Not helping matters is that he is a Duel Boss, meaning that you have no fusion spells or party members to back you up. He also can heal himself with Diarama, meaning that he would recover more health than you could chip away from him. And to top it all off, he has a move that not only deals heavy Almighty damage, but also has a high chance of inflicting mute ailment on you. Unless you come well-equipped with healing items, the battle will drag on.
  • Eternal Punishment's "Metal Trio": golden statues of Jun, Eikichi, and Lisa, who were born out of Tatsuya's guilt. This is a team battle, your party against them. While each character doesn't have a huge amount of HP, they are all immune to physical attacks, and possess unique high damage spells that target all party members. In addition, they have better resistances than those you remember, so there's a good chance you heal them by accident — fortunately their own healing spells aren't really effective. As for each member individually...
    • "Eikichi" loves to spam Mamudo — Dark Instant Kill to the whole party which will work unless you resist it — and when he doesn't do that, he spams Bloody Divorce. On top of the same instant kill effect of Mamudo, it also deals very high Water and Dark damage. And yes, it targets the entire party.
    • "Jun" is an absolute nightmare. If his AI so pleases, he'll start spamming Terror of Fortune. That move can and will inflict almost every single freaking status ailment in the game on everyone with next to no fail, often leaving you utterly helpless, and it deals both Wind and Dark damage for good measure. He's the main reason why the Trio is on this list.
    • "Lisa" is not quite as nightmarish as the guys, but she's no pushover. When she's not buffing Eikichi to enhance his already monstrous attack, she's using Throw A Kiss to charm your entire party. And if that doesn't work, she had Lover of Darkness, which has a high chance of inflicting Charm, and of course will deal a ton of Earth and Dark damage.
  • Was Sugawara is a Damage Sponge that heals over 700 HP at the end of each turn, and there's no way to stop his recovery. Your only option is to deal him more damage than that, which is only accomplished with Fusion Spells, which in turn require multiple party members. However, he also spams attacks which inflict ailments to the whole party, forcing them either to forgo their turns or make the infected characters use their physical attack and nothing else. Not only are physical attacks hideously ineffective, he hits like a tank too.
  • The Final Boss of Eternal Punishment is just as vicious as he was back in Innocent Sin. He has two forms this time around. The first form varies its strength, depending on whether or not you restore Lisa's and/or Eikichi's memories. If you restore both, his first form, Moon Howler, will randomly reduce your team's remaining HP to half, and gains an attack called Guard Punish that deals large unblockable damage which, true to the name, doubles for guarding characters. The second form, Crawling Chaos, is harder no matter what you did. Among his new tricks are Wheel of Time, an unblockable Almighty attack that gets stronger with each use; Chaos Element, an unblockable attack that deals random damage between 100 to 800; Wheel of Fortune, which prevents you from changing Personas for 8 turns; and Transient Ripple, which negates your buffs, shields, and recovery over time. Don't bother crying. It's simply what Nyarlathotep does.
• Persona 3, compared to Persona 2, manages to be a significant Sequel Difficulty Spike in it having a mere plethora of nightmarishly hard bosses and tough-as-nails gameplay — to the point it could be regarded by some as the hardest mainline Persona game. Even with the Portable version's Anti-Frustration Features, such as Skill Cards and the Direct Commands tactic that was first introduced in the next game, these bosses are still no pushovers. Let's count the ways, shall we?
  • After the first bosses you fight manage to be challenging, but not enough to really qualify as That One Boss, the Intrepid Knight on the 59th Floor reminds you just what kind of game it is you're playing and who published it. Boasting Magarula and Garudyne, the Intrepid Knight does ridiculous amounts of damage due to having spells that you probably won't see until you're at Level 40s. On top of that, the Intrepid Knight has Hama (which may be a low-level Light insta-kill, but will still be a nasty surprise to anyone who doesn't expect it), Makarakarn (where it reflects all magic attacks), Mind Charge (which makes the next magical attack do 2.5x times more damage. Keep in mind he has Magarula and Garudyne), Heat Wave (second-tier all-hit Strike attack), and Wind Break (which outright nulls any resistance one may have to Wind spells). And the worst part is, he resists Charm, Distress, Panic, all physical attacks, and absorbs Wind. That said, the Interpid Knight is moderately susceptible to Rage, so casting Provoke or Infuriate would turn him into a Glass Cannon for a few turns and lessen the difficulty to a reasonably manageable level, but good luck not to get finished off in a few hits by his Rage-inflicted normal attacks.
  • The Fanatic Tower on the 85th floor is almost just as bad as the above Interpid Knight, albeit for a completely different reason. For starters, it's only vulnerable (but not weak) to Strike and Wind, since it resists all other physical attacks, can deflect all other magical attacks, and block all status ailments. Additionally, it utilizes second-tier elecricity attacks, can easily inflict Poison on all enemies thanks to having Poison Boost in its disposal, and worst of all, it also has Mind Charge. While Yukari has Garu skills, Akihiko's normal attack type is Strike, and Aigis has Kill Rush and Swift Strike, the Fanatic Tower can get One Mores from hitting Yukari and Aigis with their weaknesses as well as avoiding Strike attacks with the ever-annoying Dodge Strike.
  • As far as the Full Moon Shadows go, Chariot and Justice are a total pain in the ass. The boss fight is fairly tame if they're united but once they split up, you're in for one hellalicious fight: Chariot utilizes multi-hit Strike skills and has three status ailment skills as well as Power Charge. Justice on the other hand, excels in multi-hit Pierce attacks as well as the One-Hit Kill Hama and the heavy-hitting Vile Assault, which deals more damage to a downed enemy. And if that wasn't bad enough, both Chariot and Justice have Samarecarm in case one of them is KO'ed, and the ONLY way to finish these two Shadows is to deplete their HP at the same time.
  • Coming on the 110th Floor is the Natural Dancer, who packs both Garudyne and Magarudyne to pulverize anyone vulnerable to Wind (which Junpei is weak to) and Hamaon to randomly finish off anyone in one shot. It also has Sexy Dance backed with Charm Boost to cause discord within the party, and at this point your only means of curing Charm only affect one member at a time. Bringing Yukari, Ken, and/or a Persona/accessory that can resist or outright block Charm are almost mandated for this fight. At least it doesn't have Mind Charge and is vulnerable to Distress, though God help you if anyone in your party gets Charmed...
  • Out of all the Tartarus guardians, the infamous boss of the 135th floor, the Sleeping Table, stands out as one of the strongest Shadows you've ever fought to the point where it earned a spot as an end-game sub-boss in Persona 4. Its physical attacks are nothing special, but it comes armed with Maragidyne (highest-tier, party-wide fire attack), Hamaon (light-based instant kill), Megidola (second-tier, unblockable, all-party Almighty attack), Evil Touch (which inflicts Fear on an enemy), Ghastly Wail (which finishes off enemies inflicted by the Fear ailment), and is resistant to Slash, Pierce, and Fire attacks. In addition to that, status ailments and Strike attacks are useless against it. In other words, unless you bring Akihiko and Junpei for their Tarunda and Marakukaja (which Junpei learns once he reaches Level 44) respectively as well as Ken for his resistance to Light, it will rain destruction on the party and you cannot prevent it at all, especially to Koromaru and Mitsuru (who are weak to Light and Fire respectively). When getting hit with Maragidyne is considered a breather, you know you're in for a lot of pain. And the most insulting part? Sleeping Table is at Level 50, which is four levels higher than the Full Moon Shadows Fortune and Strength.
  • If you think Chariot and Justice are just a pair of one-timers, Fortune and Strength are far tougher and more irritating in that regard. The entire boss fight is a mix of Trial-and-Error Gameplay and Luck-Based Mission: Fortune has the ever-annoying Wheel of Fortune, which either heals, damages, buffs/debuffs, or inflict status ailments to either the party or them, while Strength would cast an invincible shield on Fortune and can inflict either Distress or Charm. And by the way, both of them have heavy-hitting skills and are capable of finishing you off in a few hits, especially if your party is inflicted with either Rage or Distress through Wheel of Fortune. On the bright side, if you've successfully inflicted Fear on them with Wheel of Fortune, you can easily kill them with Ghastly Wail to end the boss fight.
  • Straight off of the Sleeping Table on the 146th Floor are the Hell Knights, which are practically the Intrepid Knight on steroids. They resist all forms of magic and absorb Electricity, can inflict Poison, and between (Ma)Ziodyne and Mudo, they can get One Mores from hitting either Yukari, Aigis, or Ken with their respective weaknesses. Fortunately though, the Hell Knights can still be Charmed and Poisoned, Akihiko can shrug off Electricity attacks and learns Matarunda at Level 47, and Junpei learns Blade of Fury at Level 50, but keep in mind that you'll have to play support and defensive for this boss fight, since Aigis is weak to Electricity and none of your party members not named Yukari or Ken have party-wide healing spells.
  • The Judgement Swords on the 171st Floor are relatively unique compared to previous group bosses, because they wouldn't be too hard by this stage as a singular boss... but as the plural name implies, they're a Wolfpack Boss, and all other group bosses before it at least had the mercy of possessing an elemental weakness that can net you an All-Out Attack. Well, that is NOT the case for these guys because similar to the above Hell Knights, they don't have any weaknesses at all. They can also resist physical and Fire attacks, absorb Electricity, have third-tier Zio spells, Marakunda, Matarukaja, and Tempest Slash. Yukari and Aigis (who has Dekunda) are total deadweights for this boss fight due to their Electricity weakness. Even worse, Mitsuru is not available until November 14 and the only party member who can tank Electricity, Akihiko, has very little in the way of damaging them, leaving him to Heal/Support duty. Unless you have a Persona/accessory that blocks Electricity, Dekaja, and/or Dekunda, either the boss fight becomes dragged down to a slog of gradually whittling each one down or you begin trying to experiment with Ice/Wind/Almighty attacks to fight back. They are, however, susceptible to Panic, which shuts down most of their attacks and opens them up to Critical Hits despite resisting all Physical attacks.
  • The Stasis Giants on the 180th floor are another painful trio that appears not long after the Judgment Swords. They possess strong a variety of strong Slash attacks of both single- and all-target varieties, and they can each use Power Charge to massively amplify the damage of their next attacks. It is not impossible for two or even all three of them to use Power Charge into Blade of Fury or Deathbound back-to-back, which is very likely to cause a Total Party Kill unless multiple party members can dodge, counter, or nullify Slash attacks reliably. But if you thought that blocking Slash attacks would wall them, then you would be mistaken; they also pack Gigantic Fist and Double Fangs, which gives them access to all 3 Physical attack types and makes them hard to completely resist at this point. They also resist all Physical attacks themselves, have strong resistances against Fire and Wind, have no elemental weaknesses, greatly resist most ailments, and are capable of curing each other of said ailments if you manage to inflict them. Virus Breath and especially Thunder Call can speed up the fight if you have them, but the they can rip you a new one just as quickly if they feel like it.
  • The Royal Dancer trio on the 201st floor has no immunities or weaknesses, but use their numbers to their advantage by spamming group-affecting ailment skills. Between Poison Mist, Tentarafoo, or Sexy Dance, you will be spending most of the fight with at least one party member affected by Poison, Panic, or Charm, and while you're scrambling to regain control of your party members they'll hit you with Heat Wave or Primal Force, the strongest Pierce skill in the game. You can use ailments of your own to sow discord within their numbers, but the Dancers are also programmed to cure ailments from each other unless you afflict all three at once. The one guaranteed saving grace is their tendency to still use ailment skills while someone's already afflicted, because each combatant can only be affected by one ailment at a time.
  • By the point of the Sixth Block, Adamah, you'd have gotten strong enough to be a lot easier in fighting off the off-hand Tartarus Guardian boss. But then the World Balance appears; fought on the 236th Floor, it has access to all high-tier elemental spells, including the One-Hit Kill Mahamaon and Mamudoon as well as the dreaded Megidolaon. It's got the magic stat to back it up too, even if you have accessories that can block your party's weaknesses, and in case it's running out of SP, it'll cast Spirit Drain before following up with one of its spells. The boss spends the first one-third of its HP focusing on its elemental Dyne spells, the following third on its insta-kill spells, and the final third trying to strike an elemental weakness followed by a Megidolaon; and giving it a One More is the last thing you want when it is already packing enough heat as is. Worse still, unlike most bosses it may occasionally deviate from this pattern as it cycles through its spells, and reflecting any of its spells (either with Makarakarn or Magic Mirror) or attempting to paralyze it with Thunder Reign or Niflheim will cause it to spam Megidolaon every turn instead, which is potentially even worse unless the party can withstand and heal off the damage every turn.
  • Capping it off at the 252nd floor is Jotun of Grief. Good news is that this is the final Tartarus boss! Bad news, the Jotun of Grief is an absolutely infuriating boss, even given how powerful you'd become by now. It drains or nullifies all forms of attack except Pierce and Almighty, it packs the combo of Megidolaon and Mind Charge, Primal Force (a tier four pierce attack), all the multi-target debuff spells, and Stagnant Air + Infuriate to enrage anyone into healing it with Slash and Strike attacks. Thankfully, this is the last Tartarus Guardian, which seems like a cold comfort given whom the Final Boss is...
  • Said Final Boss is none other than the Nyx Avatar (aka the game's Big Bad Friend Ryoji). Even by Atlus standards, this boss is a total nightmare. It has FOURTEEN phases to it (one for each Arcana up to Death), with the final phase having a lot of health, and its Moonless Gown can deflect any attack and deals 500 damage, including Almighty spells. And at the very end of the fight, when the boss is at very low health, it begins to use Night Queen, a very hard hitting Almighty party wide-attack that randomly applies status effects to each party member. If your Persona has Unshaken Will, then finishing off the Nyx Avatar would be a cakewalk. Otherwise, it sucks be to you if a character with healing skills is inflicted with Charm, as they will almost certainly use their first turn to heal the boss back to full health. At this point, you might as well just start over again from scratch.
• While Persona 3 Reload is by and large much easier than the original Persona 3, it is not without its own grueling boss fights.
  • In the original releases, the July Full Moon featured Hierophant as a Wake-Up Call Boss while Lovers was comparatively easy. This time, it's the other way around: Lovers is now resistant to Pierce and Elec, invulnerable to Fire, has much more HP, trades Maragion for Agidyne (which Mitsuru is weak to), and has Diarama to drag the fight on longer. It also has a new skill named Seductive Mist, which is effectively a permanent Stagnant Air, in turn making it much easier for its Charm skills to connect and making Heartbreaker (which does more damage to Charmed allies) hurt like hell. While the MC has access to Me Patra at this point in the game, Leanan Sidhe is weak to Fire, making him a prime target for Agidyne. This fight also sets the tone for the remaining Full Moon Shadows.
  • Speaking of Full Moon Shadows, Chariot and Justice are far tougher this time around, mainly due to the buffs their combined form got. They have new heavy-hitting Signature Moves and now resist all damage while combined, requiring elemental Break skills or Theurgy to be able to do enough damage to get them to de-fuse. Even when they aren't combined, Chariot now resists all physical attacks and has high HP, while Justice resists all magic and has more Light skills, Mahama and Hamaon included. Fortunately, Chariot lacks any status ailment skills and the duo use Restore (Recarm on an ally but gets weaker with each use) in place of Samarecarm.
  • Fortune and Strength are bigger threats here, even more so than in the previous versions. For starters, you no longer have control over what space Wheel of Fortune stops on, and it now primarily (de)buff or deal fixed 300 damage on both parties, the latter of which can be a death sentence at this point in the game if your party's HP is less than 300. The Wheel of Fortune no longer inflicts status effects, but this means the Easy Level Trick to kill them with Ghastly Wail doesn't work anymore. Additionally, Strength now reflects Strike attacks and resists other physical attacks, and Fortune now absorbs all magic besides Elec and Dark, though Strength doesn't have Eerie Sound and Vile Assault, and Fortune has two weaknesses (Elec and Strike) and would cast a Wheel of Fortune that has no effect at all when low on health, making the latter easy prey for an All-Out attack if knocked down.
  • Hanged Man, previously just a Goddamned Boss, is much more dangerous. Part of this is because it has more HP and new resistances (reflects Dark, immune to Fire, heavily resists Strike), and part of it is due to the statues it summons now getting progressively stronger. However, it has much more to do with its new Grim Transcendence skill, which gives it three extra turns in an attempt to finish off the party with extremely strong attacks like God's Hand, Akasha Arts, and Maeigaon. It can also use Concentrate, Heat Riser, and Megidola(on) as a substitute for the Devious Maya summon and Armed & Ready skills, but thankfully will never cast Megidola(on) in the same turn as Grim Transcendence.
• Persona 4 may be the most cheerful game derived from the Shin Megami Tensei brand, and a bit of a Sequel Difficulty Drop compared to the Nintendo Hard Persona 3, but that doesn't mean the game doesn't have a few fellows that don't give misery away like free candy. In fact, especially if you're playing the original PS2 version and not the (marginally) easier Updated Re-release, you'd be surprised to see how hard some of the game's bosses can get:
  • While the first two bosses were meant to show the ins-and-outs of combat to the player, Shadow Yukiko on the other hand, sets the bar for the bosses in this game. She has access to a very powerful Area-of-Effect Fire Attack called "Burn to Ashes," which will get a One More as Chie is weak to Fire. As if that isn't enough, she has access to Terror Voice and Shivering Rondo, the former skill capable of instilling the Fear status in one party member, while the latter deals massive Almighty damage to anyone afflicted with fear. Then you have to contend with her Charming Prince flunky, who can also inflict Fear on you, and can heal Shadow Yukiko if left alone. Best part is? She has no weaknesses, despite seeming weak to Ice. Thankfully, Golden adds a weakness to Ice spells that mitigates the difficulty somewhat... but now she has White Wall and now Charming Prince has Makajam, which can silence any of your ice-casters. That being said, she would also waste a turn (sometimes) by "passionately staring" at the party first before attacking or throwing a fire elemental skill on them. Have fun!
  • Shadow Kanji proves that Shadow Yukiko is NOT a one-time thing. On top of having access to some very powerful physical attacks and an Area-of-Effect electric spell (which, again, is gonna get a One More since Yosuke is weak to it), as well as two flunky shadows Nice Guy and Tough Guy, who have 800 HP each and give him free support (heals and buffs). This alone makes a fight with him a major test of endurance, but then he ups the ante with Forbidden Murmur and Roar of Wrath: the former poisons both Yu and Yosuke with 100% success, which is bad enough given the amount of hurt he can deal. Roar of Wrath is even worse, as it inflicts both Yukiko and Chie with Rage — both flunkies either take negligible physical damage or drain it, which minimizes the attack boost from the status ailment. Meanwhile, having Yukiko under the effects of Rage means you've lost control of your main healer, and she's taking additional damage when she's already quite fragile on her own. Thankfully, Golden once-again numbs down the difficulty somewhat, by giving the flunky shadows weaknesses and making them lose their physical immunity... but also making Shadow Kanji drain electricity (which admittedly makes sense, since how can a thunder-user not be immune to electricity?), giving an extra 1700 HP to Tough Guy, Re Patra on Nice Guy to recover a downed or dizzied ally, Red Wall and White Wall to cover the flunky shadows' weaknesses, and Revolution, which boosts the critical rate of all party members, putting you at risk of being wiped out due to a chain of critical hits. Good luck!
  • Shadow Teddie specializes in Ice attacks and by extension is immune to them, AND he has Mind Charge (which can power up his Ice attacks even more) plus Ice Break (removes Ice resistance) and Marakunda (lowers party defense). As if this wasn't bad enough, you have the Nihil Hand move to deal with, which does cruel damage and inflicts the Dizzy status on the whole party — and if one or more of your party are already Dizzy, it's an instakill for them. To top it all off, Shadow Teddie likes to throw out Foolish Whisper (a Silence spell, aka prevents use of your Persona), Marakunda, Heat Wave, and Nullity Guidance, a move that will ALWAYS give Shadow Teddie a Once More (leaving you with even less time to prepare for Nihil Hand) and inflicts Dizziness. Oh, and unless you've specialized the protagonist for healing, Yukiko's still your main healer for this part of the game and her weakness to ice makes her a prime target. Your only saving grace is that Nihil Hand takes a couple turns to charge, giving you barely enough time to guard against it if your party members are still recovering from Dizziness. Oh, did we mention that he comes right after the Shadow Rise fight, meaning that there is no healing between both fights and that you're most likely weakened from said battle? Best wishes!
  • Shadow Mitsuo will make you cry. He takes way too long and constantly gives himself a shield of 1400 additional hit points every few turns. He has a ton of attacks: he'll attempt to put the Fear condition on the whole party with Evil Smile and then use Ghastly Wail, which instantly kills fearful foes. Sometimes, he will precede Fear with Stagnant Air, which raises the susceptibility to status ailments. Worse, it will consistently attack with a randomly-chosen, multi-target elemental spell corresponding to the elemental wall spell it casts while its barrier is down; if at least one character is weak to the element and is knocked down, it will immediately follow up with the party-wide Megidola that will almost certainly kill at least the weakened character, if not everyone else. And in barrier mode, aside from a powerful normal attack (that deals Almighty damage), it can also use the party-wide Gigadyne and a "Bomb" attack that delivers medium damage and inflicts Exhaustion status (SP drops with every action, like Poison does for HP) with 100% success rate if the attack hits. It's almost a relief when he uses the barrier form's ordinary attack, which hits between 170-240 HP when you're likely in the mid-300s. Of course, Shadow Mitsuo only uses Gigadyne if his barrier form is resurrected (and it likely will be), plus the barrier form's normal attack also gets more powerful after a resurrection. Unless your party members are equipped with the Bravery Vessel (an accessory that reduces the chance of being inflicted with the Fear aliment), have one of your party members guard while Shadow Mitsuo is exposed (which likewise protects him/her from being inflicted by Evil Smile), bring a Persona/item that can cure Exhaustion and Fear, or all of the above, then you're in BIG trouble. Go get 'em, champ!
  • Even by Disc-One Final Boss standards, Kunino-sagiri is just downright unfair. He has 8500 HP and gains access to the highest all -dyne spells, all of which he'll use at leisure to exploit your party's inevitable elemental weaknesses and, unless you block, will get a Once More and let him continue a rampage. Thinking of using Naoto to cast Tetrakarn and Makarakarn to repel attacks back at him? He'll simply respond with casting Life/Spirit Drain and then Tetra/Makara Break to shatter whatever wall Naoto puts up, and up and continue spamming his elemental attacks to siphon off weaknesses and do as much damage as possible. If you manage to bring him down to 75% of his original health, Kunino-sagiri will begin periodically using and re-using Quad Converge to boost the power of one element while nerfing all other magic affinities, while keeping his pattern uninterrupted as he continues to hit you with all kinds of elemental attacks. Izanagi help you if he hits a weakness during this phase, as it's practically asking to be two-shot if not one-shot as a direct result. However, it's also safe to use Makarakarn and Magic Mirrors during this phase because Kunino-sagiri doesn't use Life/Spirit Drain and Tetra/Makara Break until the effects of Quad Converge wore off. If by some miracle you survive that, Kunino-sagiri goes for the jugular with Control, which brainwashes anywhere from one to ALL of your party members to act as his flunkies for two turns. Even worse, your stolen party members would either attack or use a physical/elemental skill on Yu, so if you have a Persona that can block/absorb the damage inflicted by them, you can weather the storm and continue to whittle down Kunino-sagiri's HP... if not or you have a Persona that can reflect, you're in for a world of hurt. The only saving grace here is Kunino-sagiri would resort to normal attacks after using Control the second time and your stolen party members would sometimes skip a turn by "hesitating" while under the effects of it. If you manage to get through that, Kunino-sagiri simply begins spamming Unerring Justice, which is basically a fancier Megidola until either Yu or Kunino-sagiri drops dead. And the final insult to injury? He's just the first of the Disc-One Final Bosses and ends up being indirectly responsible for Nanako's death! If you want to have Nanako miraculously resuscitated and get to the True Ending, you need to answer the right responses, which are in a needlessly cryptic order, or risk getting the second-worst ending. Have a nice day!
• Persona 5 is regarded by many to be the easiest of the mainline Persona games, largely for the number of game-breaking advantages only the player has over the game's demonic enemies. But really, it wouldn't be an Atlus game if there weren't some hair-pulling bosses:
  • Archangel, a miniboss encountered inside Kamoshida's Palace. He uses Charge before attacking, doubling his damage and almost guaranteeing a One-Hit Kill against your party on higher difficulties, sometimes even if they're guarding. If he attacks Joker, then you're almost certain to lose. As if this isn't bad enough, he can switch from Cleave to Vajra Blast, an all-target Physical attack that does even more damage than Cleave, at low health. Luckily, Royal has him occasionally waste his turns, so he only delivers a charged up attack once every third round, rather than every other round. Plus, he no longer has Vajra Blast, which eliminates the threat of a Total Party Kill right near the end of the fight.
  • Shadow Madarame is where many players encounter their first real obstacle in the game. To even get to his main body the player needs to defeat four different paintings, each with their own turn and access to all of the main four elements (at this point in the game all of your party members are weak to one of said elements), a powerful physical attack, and stat buffs/debuffs. To make it worse, the four paintings don't have a common damage vulnerability, meaning every available Herd-Hitting Attack will heal at least one of the paintings. Even when the paintings are defeated and the main boss appears, the party only has 3 turns to damage him before he re-enters his painting form. From the second time onward, the paintings begin to use his signature move, The Artist's Grace, which renders one party member weak to all elements (including physical). This is always followed by a defense debuff on the same party member, forcing them to waste their turn guarding or risk being killed instantly. The paintings also gain the ability to revive one another, which given their elemental resistances will invariably happen at some point in the fight. To top it off, Merciless difficulty makes the paintings even more deadly, as they can easily One-Hit Kill multiple party members in a row by attackng their weaknesses. Thankfully though, Royal downgraded him into a Goddamned Boss: while his portrait form can use The Artist's Grace and Restore from the start, once defeated it does not regenerate; instead, Madarame will summon Ersatz clones that use a certain element but are weak to the opposite element and the attacks themselves do scratch damage. Combined with the buffed Baton Pass mechanics it's easy to rack up One Mores and then have an ally throw a Baton Pass-empowered elemental skill for massive damage at no cost. What's more, near the end of the fight he'll start summoning clones that spawn with random status conditions. Plus, the aforementioned Merciless difficulty lets you turn the tables in this phase by inflicting the same triple-weakness-damage misery on the Ersatz clones.
  • Shadow Fukurai (aka Baphomet) is no ordinary C-rank Mementos boss when you first fought him, mainly due to being at Level 47 as well as having high Magic and Endurance, which makes him harder to bring down even with his Ice and Bless weaknesses. His main gimmick is casting Brain Jack on the party as early as his first turn so he could easily wipe them out with Technical hits through Mapsio and Psiodyne strengthened by Psy Boost as well as having Eigaon and the One-Hit Kill Mudoon at his disposal. If THAT wasn't bad enough, he would also use Marakunda if he gets a One More from successfully hitting either Joker (if the equipped Persona is weak to Psy/Curse), Makoto (who is weak to Psy), or Akechi (who is weak to Curse due to his Persona being Robin Hood as Crow) with either of his Psy/Curse skills. And to put the cherry on top, beating him is required to max out Chihaya's Confidant.
  • Black Mask (aka Goro Akechi) isn't too noteworthy out of context, with no special mechanics beyond hitting like a truck and deliberately focusing only on Joker, but in context, it's a three-phase fight with only extremely vague hints that it might be coming, comes almost immediately after a damage-heavy miniboss fight with no opportunity to save between the two fights, and you can't rely on your memory of Black Mask's weaknesses, resistances, and abilities while they were traveling with you. If you know the fight's on the way, it's not difficult, but if you didn't see it coming, you're in for a world of pain. To make matters worse, his second form has a whopping total of 80 Strength, but has average Endurance, Agility, and Luck to compensate this, and at least his special skills have setbacks: Black Mask can use the Laevatein attack only after skipping a turn (ie. "glaring" at Joker) and his unnegatable buff skill, Desperation, turns him into a Glass Cannon for three turns.
  • Shadow Shido is a brutal Marathon Boss, with a grand total of five different forms the player has to fight through without a chance to save or heal up. All this totals to about 19,800 HP to work through, over twice the amount that the previous major boss had!
    • His Beast of Human Sacrifice form reflects physical and gun damage, but also has access to Makarakarn making it immune to every element except Almighty. His favorite tactic is to use Wage War to inflict Rage on the entire party so that they kill themselves via reflected attacks. He also has access to powerful physical attacks that can rapidly deplete the party's health. While a Persona with Null Physical/Rage or having an accessory that nullifies Rage (such as the Shackles accessory from itemizing Flauros or a Rage Gem) can easily trivialize this phase, the rest of your party members won't be spared, and it's unlikely one would have the foresight to allocate a skill slot for Null Rage either.
    • His Wings of Human Sacrifice form loses his reflection abilities but gains resistance to all magic except Almighty. He also has access to every single target dyne-level spell, so he can always hit your weaknesses regardless. That being said, his attacks are also telegraphed, prefering to cast a Fire/Ice/Elec/Wind spell first, followed a Nuke/Psy spell, and then a Bless/Curse spell before using the Royal Wing Beam attack, which has a chance of inflicting dizzy to the party if it hits.
    • His Tomb of Human Sacrifice form is a damage race for the party to finish him off before he can unleash colossal Almighty damage on your party. Good thing he ditches all magic resistances and has 28 Endurance in this form.
    • His Samael form has 80 Strength like Black Mask's second form and packs an attack called Tyrant's Fist that deals enough damage to kill weaker party members in one blow and inflicts fear to any that survive. Mercifully, there is a checkpoint at the start of this fight — dying to this form or the next will let the player resume the battle from here rather than from the very beginning.
    • His True Samael form is completely ruthless, having access to every top-tier elemental spell as well as the instant kill Curse and Bless skills. As well as Tyrant's Fist he also gains Tyrant's Glare, granting himself three consecutive actions, and Tyrant's Wave, an Almighty variant of Tyrant's Fist that hits the entire party. If that wasn't bad enough, he often casts Tarukaja beforehand so it hits harder, and with Tyrant's Glare there's absolutely no chance to use Dekaja against him. And just like his previous form, he also has 80 Strength, though his other stats are less than 50 to make up for it. ^note He has 40 Magic, 40 Endurance, 38 Agility, and 15 Luck.
    • The Royal version of his True Samael form is even worse: He has Charge at his disposal and in the next turn after casting it and Heat Riser, he would use Tyrant's Glare in conjunction with Tyrant's Fist, Tyrant's Purge (A potential One-Hit Kill version of Tyrant's Fist that can only be used on a party member not named Joker), and Tyrant's Wave in exact order. And if Shadow Shido is in his last legs, he'll force Joker to fight him one-on-one by removing three other Phantom Thieves (making it impossible to use Samarecarm or revival items), turning the final round of this boss fight into a frantic last man standing match.
  • The Arahabaki guarding the blue Will Seed in Madarame's Palace from Royal is a major pain in the ass to deal with. Not only it has the same tactic as the above Shadow Fukurai (ie. using Brain Jack on the party for Technical damage through Mapsio), but it also resists Gun, blocks Physical, can inflict Dizzy with Flash Bomb, and you likely won't yet have skills that can either cure or resist/negate the ailments inflicted on you by it. The only saving grace is this Arahabaki has a weakness to Wind and Nuke skills, but even with either Joker or Morgana hitting Arahabaki with its weakness element for an All-Out Attack, it's still not enough to finish it off quickly. And the most insulting part? The blue Will Seed is needed to complete the Crystal of Vanity accessory, which passively negates the equipped Persona's weaknesses in its base form, and gives access to a drain barrier spell called Bleeding Dry Brush when upgraded to the Ring of Vanity later.
  • While Shadow Okumura is quite easy in the vanilla game, he's among the most awkward difficulty spikes in Royal, considering that Shadow Sae or Shadow Shido later on are much more controlled. Unlike in vanilla, if you do not defeat any of his robots within two turns, he will reshuffle and send back all of his robots on that wave at full health and all of the robots will pile up on a single target, and he can reshuffle his entire wave any number of times as long as you don't kill them within the turn limit. Furthermore, as a very subtle case of That One Attack combined with what seems to be a move that deliberately induces player-sided negligence, he does use Rakukaja, followed by Rakunda and Famine's Scream to make sure he does stall you because most players are simply not prepared to remove something like a stray Rakukaja on one robot. That single Rakukaja actually lets him stall you without fail because a Division Manager or General Manager with a defense buff usually can't be killed in two turns. If you do not know how to use debuffs or buff removal against this, he will loop you until time runs out. Do not forget the Execurobo himself is still there unaltered and can take around 10 minutes to kill, and there's an extra enemy after him. In fact, most of his difficulty comes from absolutely ridiculous Trial-and-Error Gameplay, since there is no way to find out any of his more erratic behaviors unless you trigger it. Furthermore, the robots do not resist Gun and are very weak to a bunch of status conditions capable of inducing Technical damage, again impossible to find without trial and error. Surprisingly enough, Shadow Okumura is significantly easier on Merciless. Merciless vastly increases damage done when hitting weaknesses or inflicting Technical damage, both for the party and the enemies, and the robots have elemental weaknesses while mainly using physical attacks. The Executive Director can still kill you if you're careless, but the waves of robots are overall much easier if you know what you're doing. Hope you spent time at the pool and darts club!
  • Maruki and Azathoth from Royal are tough customers to beat, even moreso than Yaldabaoth himself. For starters, Azathoth has a passive skill called Shield Tendril, which can reduce the damage he took into Scratch Damage as long as all of his tentacles (which gives Maruki and Azathoth free support) are present (if you remove at least one of them though, Azathoth would take slightly less damage instead), while Maruki is very durable and would cast Regeneration every turn to bring back Azathoth's tentacles. Things are going to get a lot nastier in the second phase, since Maruki can disable one of your party's actions for a turn (in higher difficulties, he'll do the action ban twice in a row), while Azathoth's overall HP becomes doubled, would spam the Dizzy-induced Bless-elemental Eternal Radiance skill for Technical damage (having Akechi/Black Mask in the party is ill-advised for this phase due to his Bless weakness unless he's equipped with the Ring of Vanity accessory beforehand), and can sometimes impede your party's actions with Evil Smile. You'll also have to watch out for Piercing Strike (a single-target but stronger ten-hit Almighty version of Yoshitsune's Hassou Tobi), which is triggered when a message on top of the screen tells you that a specific party member not named Joker is being targeted, and Tyrant Chaos, which deals massive damage to the party after casting Tyrant Stance. And just like the Margaret fight in Persona 4, if you fail to deplete all of either Maruki or Azathoth's HP before the 40th turn, Azathoth would cast a Megidolaon that deals around 1300 damage to finish off the party. To make things a bit fair though, if you deplete all of Azathoth's HP, Maruki goes down in one strike after a cutscene, triggering the less difficult Adam Kadmon fight.
• Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth manages to take all of the difficulty expected of a Shin Megami Tensei-derived title and fuse it with its Nintendo Hard cousin, Etrian Odyssey. Hoo boy, where do we even start?
  • The Old Doll FOE in the Evil Spirit Club labyrinth will likely be the first major stumbling block for players, especially when it gives chase in the fourth floor — it's frighteningly fast and is likely to ambush the player frequently. It gets worse when the game issues a request to defeat it. While it has a number of weaknesses to exploit for boosts, it has a moderately-high evasion rate, resists all ailments (including the ability-sealing Binds), almost ten-thousand HP points (over twice that of the labyrinth's boss), and a massive pool of skills such as AOE 2nd-tier magic, nasty ailment inflicters like Evil Smile, Diarahan to fully restore its aforementioned enormous HP pool whenever it wants, and worst of all Mamudoon, which can easily instantly-kill two-thirds of the party; especially deadly for anyone who's playing the Persona 3 side on Risky mode, as the Persona 3 Hero is weak to Dark. The only saving grace the fight has is that this is one of the few FOEs who is only "resistant" rather than outright immune to light instakill attacks — you'll still need to be incredibly lucky to kill it this way, though. Ken or Naoto earn their pay this fight, not that hadn't been the whole game anyways.
  • The Festival Dudes FOE found in the Inaba Pride Exhibit. While they do have strong Physical moves capable of dealing heavy damage (which can be easily evaded with the right moves), their real pain is the fact that they, like the above-mentioned Old Doll, have Diarahan, a magic move that fully restores one's health. This means you'll have to try using a magic bind on them, right? Well, good luck on doing that, as that thing is highly resistant to binds and ailments, so you'll need to be incredibly lucky to land anything that prevents that move. They are something of a Puzzle Boss: if you use a party consisting of 4 guys, they won't use Diarahan. Elizabeth does hint at this when you first accept the request to defeat them, but its wording is a bit vague: she fails to mention that the party has to consist of only 4 guys (so you're down one member), but that they have to be human. (So Koromaru, Teddie and Zen don't count, and neither does Ken because he's too young.) The problem here is it's a trade-off: you prevent them from healing this way, but your main healers (Yukari and Yukiko) both happen to be female, so you have to do the fight without decent healing of your own, barring usage of Sub-Personas with healing skills.
• Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is no slouch either, compared to its predecessor:
  • This game goes for the throat early on with Super Kamoshidaman, the first main boss of the game. Not only does he have excellent offense (his two main attacks deal either heavy damage to a single character — potentially one-shotting the squishier ones, or weaker hits to multiple ones) but excellent defense as well thanks to possessing an Affinity Barrier that lets him resist all damage thrown his way until you manage to deal enough damage to break it — which is not an easy task when he's resisting all of it! And then once it is broken he can cast Fire Screen to cover his weakness to stop you from spamming All-Out Attacks. Depending on your party's level and the difficulty mode it is borderline mandatory to both have someone tanking hits at all times with Line Guard and have someone poisoning Super Kamoshidaman at all times as otherwise you'll run out of SP long before he'll be taken down.
  • Yosukesaurus, the second main boss, isn't all that hard at the start of the battle, although he does have some damaging Wind attacks, but the fight gets really difficult later on when the other herbivores come to back him up. Each of them can either buff Yosukesaurus's attack or inflict binds on the party while Yosukesaurus busts out his stronger attacks and buffs, including Double- and Triple-Sukukaja. Each Herbivore also has a different weakness and resists most other forms of damage to make defeating them more tedious. If you try to scout for multiple Herbivores' weaknesses with a group-hitting attack, Yosukesaurus will retaliate, and a buffed Yosukesaurus striking back with Magarula can level the party. The difficulty is greatly relieved once you notice that Yosukesaurus will only attack if you hit him or if he's being goaded with Nasty Taunt, but it might not be easy to see this behavior.
  • Climax Boss Doe can prove to be a pain to fight. His first phase combines Shielded Core Boss with Character Select Forcing — he's protected by a film which takes no damage from any elemental attack (yes, even your "physical" elementals) so you're forced into using pure physical skills to break it open. If you brought too many magic-oriented party members, breaking the film will be very annoying. Meanwhile, the boss will bust out dangerously powerful physical attacks, party-wide elemental magic, ailments, and even Mamudoon to threaten the party.^note If you were playing with 4 protagonists + Akechi in this party, that's three of your party who are weak to Curse and likely to die from this attack. Once the film goes down he has three weaknesses to exploit, but he's only vulnerable for 2 turns at most before it regenerates. The second phase unleashes Infinite Despair which triple-binds your entire party and ignores any bind immunity that party members might have, and you can only cure it using Hikari's Cheer. Although your Party Meter fills fast enough to use it every turn, Hikari's Cheer only works on one party member, and the boss recasts Infinite Despair often enough that you can only access up to three party members tops for a turn. If you don't plan well on who to unbind, this uphill battle can become more difficult.
• Persona 5 Strikers:
  • Shadow Mariko is considered one of the game's hardest bosses, despite only being the third major boss. She's much faster than her appearance would suggest, and has devastating AOE attacks that hit for huge amounts of damage, and her large size makes them difficult to escape. She can also cast a blizzard which slows everyone down, forcing you to go hit a switch to dispel it. Her most dangerous attack when she Turns Red has her eat one of your party members, forcing you to either drop a chandelier on her or else wear down her enormous knockdown gauge to free them; if this happens to your last conscious party member, it's Game Over. Hope you've mastered Haru by this point, because otherwise you're in for a hard time.
  • My Dear Joker, fought at the end of the Kyoto Jail. This is a mirror match where you fight a copy of Joker with no allies, and as such he's fast, hits hard and has no weaknesses.

Devil Summoner

• Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army: Mishaguji. Resistant to physical, immune to bullets. Powerful, with at least two moves capable of knockdown. Knows Cursed Emission— an unblockable attack that leaves you (or your demon) paralyzed for much longer than normal paralysis, and Cursed Bolt— a wide-area attack that takes up a good chunk of the battlefield, and charms whatever it hits. If it charms you BOTH (Raidou is paralyzed by charm, but his demon actively turns against him for the duration), you better pray your demon doesn't kill you, or worse, HEAL MISHAGUJI.
• Sukuna-Hikona, whose attacks aren't that bad... on the surface. But then it starts sending out attacks that paralyze whatever they hits, following up with a large beam that deals significant damage. As if that wasn't enough, if this beam hits your demon, and doesn't kill it by damage, it will seal the demon in its tube and you cannot use it for the rest of the battle.
• King Abaddon continues the tradition with Amatsu-Mikaboshi, the Star of Death. He's basically Sukuna-Hikona version 2.0, with even more annoyances. The major one being that 95% of the time he constantly teleports around the combat field, making him invincible. He also can use screen-covering attacks that do high damage even when blocked (or are just unblockable). And like Sukuna-Hikona, Mikaboshi too can fire "Mute Ray" which is the beam that seals your demons with no way to cure it except ending the fight. Sure he's weak to Ice and Force, but he's only truly vulnerable when he's firing the beam, and it doesn't help that most of the time you can barely hit him.
• The Soul Hackers game gives us Shemyaza. He hits very hard with all ma-type attacks, tends to move faster than your team and has a move that inflicts Confusion on your team, which stands a very good chance of making them decide to leave the battle. Adding insult to injury, if you lose then you have to go through a several minute long cutscene that you can't skip past before you can fight him again.

Devil Survivor

• The mechanics of the Devil Survivor series allow you to specifically prepare your leaders' skill sets for the bosses, but most major bosses in the first game have an additional factor that prevents the fight from being a complete cakewalk:
  • Beldr. He is immune to everything you hit him with except your main character's standard physical attack after you retrieve a plant-shaped cellphone strap. His flunkies not only respawn indefinitely and include such utter nuisances as Vidofnir (Drain, anyone?) and Basilisk (Evil Wave and petrification abilities) but are also fond of the Petra Eyes/Mazan combo, which can kill an entire party in one attack. He also periodically uses Vampiric Mist, a Mystic-element field attack. Which means it hits every team you have on the field. And it HEALS him. Consider that in this particular mission it's Game Over if the Hero falls...
  • Belial. His stage is one that makes it difficult to reach him, as the player needs to weave between the seats and his minions can block you off until your beat them. Belial himself has strong fire attacks to punish teams with no fire resistance and has Pierce to make his physical attacks unstoppable unless met with Repel, and he recovers 10% of his HP for every skirmish. However, the biggest issue in this battle is the fact Belial will periodically use Gomorrah Fire, a field fire attack which hits every friendly party on the map... along with the defenseless Haru who must survive.
  • Jezebel's stage involves a huge lava pool that damages anyone standing in it, but it's not that big a deal if you came with fire resistance to deal with that and part of her kit. However, she's bonded herself to Amane, who will take damage at the end of every skirmish with Jezebel so you have to either rush her down or devote some attention to healing her. Halfway through, Amane begins to break free, and Jezebel responds by summoning Evil Knockoffs to try and kill her, reducing the amount of time you can afford to attack her if you don't work on repelling the clones. Jezebel can really punish you if you don't go for the throat quickly.
  • Belzaboul. His attack range is huge, and combined with the small arena of this battle, that means he can attack almost anyone on the field at any time. And it gets better: he is surrounded by 4 parties of Demonic Spiders, who either has Chaos Wave to safely strike you from a distance, Constrict to reduce your party’s movement range, or Affection along with Prayer to heal themselves. So, you'd want to kill them first, right? Well, do that, and Belzaboul replaces them with his flies. They go down easily, but have an attack called Spawn which inflicts anyone it hits with the Fly status. Anyone with this status will take ridiculous almighty damage (which usually kills them) one turn later and spawn more flies. And Belzaboul can use Spawn as well.
  • Belberith's platform is sealed off by lowered bridges. To even get to him, you have to navigate narrow corridors to reach the switches in the center of the stage so that you can re-raise those bridges, which are located on the far sides of it. While you're busy doing so, Belberith is regularly harassing you with his infinite attack range and summoning minions that can teleport across the gaps and block you off. You can bypass a majority of the stage with Phantasma or Flight, which then leaves you to contend with his ability to act twice per skirmish on top of his regenerating health. And he is noticeably stronger on Yuzu's 8th day than if you fight him on other routes.
  • At the start of Atsuro's route, you have to fight Naoya, who runs away and sets down an endless number of haywire COMPs. Oh, and he has Devil Speed and Phantasma, and heals the speeder. It gets worse on Amane's route, because instead of him running away, he has stronger attacks and Loki shows up to help him.
• Devil Survivor Overclocked adds Eighth Day expansions for Yuzu, Amane, and Naoya's routes. Yuzu's is the aformentioned Belberith. As for the others:
  • The True Final Boss of Amane's 8th day is Okuninushi, who would prefer to destroy Japan and rebuild it anew rather than leave it in the Main Character's hands. On his own he would be not so bad, but he summons a whole bunch of weak demons that have had their levels and stats jacked up to make them very annoying and he is pretty powerful himself, boasting Holy Strike, Deathbound, Maragidyne, and the Pierce passive ability so that he can easily screw you over even if you block or absorb Physical. To further add to this boss's difficulty, Okuninushi will use a field attack that deals Almighty damage to everyone if nobody is in his massive attack range of six spaces whenever he gets a turn, he has Beast Eye, which allows him to attack twice in battle, and in order to defeat Okuninushi you have to kill him three times!
  • Metatron, the final boss of Naoya's 8th day, is infamously difficult. His inherent racial skill allows him to hit anyone, no matter where they are on the map, and they cannot do any damage in return. He also restores an insane amount of HP and MP after every attack. To add onto that, every few turns he creates a barrier around himself and prepares an attack that hits the six spaces in front of him. This normally isn't a problem, but during this time, you cannot hit him at all, which amounts to free damage from him and free healing at the end of the attack. He almost always starts with an extra turn that grants him more moves, and on turns where he has the barrier up he gets four attacks (due to having beast eye, which of course he has) on everyone while simultaneously healing at the end, and you can do nothing but sit there and take it. Unless you have a main character with insane magic stats and an elemental dance skill of some kind that does decent damage, and Kaido with Pierce and Deathbound, you have no chance IF you challenge him at his level (80 for the informed).
• In Devil Survivor 2...
  • On the 3rd day we have Ronaldo. At this point you've fought two of the Septentriones, so you figure, "How hard could some human boss be?" Very hard, as it turns out. A particularly nasty Wake-Up Call Boss, Ronaldo possesses a Baphomet with no weaknesses, a Suparna with only one, and he himself is a tough customer. His Baphomet gives him long range attacks and his Suparna allows him to teleport and make up for the loss of movement. He and his Baphomet both possess Drain, a devastating skill at this point, since it heals them, removes your precious MP, and is an almighty skill. The only good thing is at first he won't do anything, but your demons will drop like flies once he does. You also have to prevent his lackeys from escaping, which means you aren't at liberty to move around as much. Another problem is that at this point, you don't have any kind of way to revive fallen comrades. You fight Phecda, the third Septentrione, afterwards, but Ronaldo joins up with you at this point, and can easily beat the crap out of the Eldritch Abomination.
  • On the 5th day, should you choose to save Otome you will end up in a battle where you cannot allow a single enemy team to reach the escape point and this battle is difficult because of Bifrons. This demon has a Baphomet with no weaknesses and an Asp with only one backing him up, and Bifrons is a Fallen-class demon, meaning his race skill will heal his HP and MP every time he takes out one of your guys, so stalling him out isn't an option if you don't already have a team with full Fire protection. Considering that he has Agidyne and Maragi, both of which are being buffed by Fire Amp, and he can attack twice in a skirmish because of Beast Eye, that can happen quite a bit. His accompanying demons also give him long-range attacks, which can end poorly if you stand a little too close to him. The one saving grace about the mission is that it is not necessary to defeat Bifrons to clear the battle's victory condition.
  • On Day 6, we have Mizar. First of all, you're on a shockingly short time limit. Then there's the fact that defeating its tentacles requires you to run back and forth along the stage, and the narrow structure of the stage bottlenecks you right into the attack range of Mizar's tentacles. The boss fight can quickly devolve into a harrowing gauntlet as Mizar shoves your guys further and further back on the timeline, attacking relentlessly from a distance while you watch helplessly.
  • On Day 7, we have the Septentrione Benetnasch. First off, you can't summon any demons mid-fight because Trumpeter is using his jamming song to keep Benetnasch from dispelling the demons you already have. Second, Benetnasch is completely immune to all human attacks, so you'll have to rely on demons to do any damage. It reflects Physicals so you can't beat it up with Multi-Strike or the like. It has two forms, the second of which gets high level physical/force attacks and is the first boss to use Dragon Eye (giving it three attacks every turn). There are Megrez buds sitting around doing their usual full-map earthquake damage, and after you get so close Benetnasch fires four of them straight into the vicinity of Trumpeter (you get a Game Over if they kill him, by the way). And even if you do beat Benetnasch, all it does is break into four segments, each with their own high-level magic and special abilities that correlate to the seven Septentriones.
  • The battle against the Osaka faction in Ronaldo's route can be an absolute sheer wall thanks in large part to Keita. The kid's got a downright vicious combination of Rage Soul and Attack-All, allowing him to level entire parties with a single attack. And if for some reason you survived? He can initiate battle twice thanks to Zouchouten! What's more, the battle's on a time limit. May as well pray to the stars for salvation, because Atlus sure isn't showing any!
  • On the Neutral route, the Law-aligned bosses aren't all that bad, but the Chaos-aligned boss, Yamato, whose battle is appropriately named "Strong Breaker"... may YHVH help you, because this bastard is tough. In fact, not only does Yamato blatantly cheat by buffing his turn ratio out the ceiling, but the battlefield is set up so he can be surrounded by mooks. His possession of a Vile Arioch allows him to beat on you from afar, his Divine Remiel allows him to replenish his MP pool (which he abuses to spam Megido at least twice), and he himself can revive his minions with an auto ability. There is also at least one demon on the battlefield always nearby that can throw on more healing, and most of the others have Evil Wave and Chaos Wave, so they can attack you from a distance where you cannot retaliate. And if you do try to clean out his surrounding teams before challenging him yourself, his turn speed shoots through the roof as he gets fast enough to destroy your parties singlehandedly.
  • On every route except his own, the last fight before Polaris is against none other than the Anguished One himself while he uses his other identity, Alcor, the twin star of Mizar. This battle is utterly annoying because of a skill he uses called Ominous Star. This inflicts the Ill-Starred ailment that is never seen in any other battle on one team that makes that team take additional damage whenever they are hit by attacks. It wears off on the affected team's next turn, but Alcor has a bunch of demons supporting him and they can potentially kill the Ill-Starred team before their next turn. Take those demons out or drag out the battle and Alcor plays the Barrier Change Boss card by switching to a form that is weak to Physical and Force attacks while repelling everything else and resisting Almighty (his normal form is healed by Force and nulls Physical). This second form also packs a passive ability that lets him counter your attacks with twice as much power.
  • On the Anguished One's route, the penultimate opponent is Yamato. The smaller arena makes it easier to reach him in a couple of turns, but while you're bottlenecked by the stairways to the center of the field, he throws up a magic circle that drains away everyone's HP and MP. You're also walled by demon teams that regularly get revived by the Norn in the corner. When you finally get within range, he's a tough nut to crack, with a Megidolaon augmented by Magic Yin and Dual Shadow letting him rain lethal doses of Almighty damage all over your team, Prayer to heal off any dents you make against his numerous resistances, and Drain to sap away the last of your team's HP and MP.
  • Finally, Polaris' final form depending on the route you take. Even if you had little to no trouble fighting every other boss in the game, including her previous two forms, if you don't have good enough skills and resistances, you'll likely be utterly demolished by Polaris B, which specializes in doing insane amounts of physical damage, has infinite attack range, Ares Aid, and for certain routes, it adds Beast Eye and Double Extra to the mix. Do the math. And before you can even reach Polaris B you have to fight several teams of demons, which are periodically resurrected in full by Polaris Ab. And if you do manage to kill Polaris B? Polaris A will resurrect it after a few turns, so you have keep someone near it to take it out again before it can do too much damage while the rest of your team goes after Polaris Ab (which can also be resurrected by Polaris A). Polaris A isn't a pushover either; it periodically fires a Wave Motion Gun-style attack that deals Almighty damage to anyone who is on the only path to attack Polaris A close up, although it does telegraph when this specific attack's about to be used on its turn beforehand.
• Record Breaker introduces the Triangulum Arc with new bosses and new painful opponents.
  • The most prominent boss is Arcturus, who is basically Beldr 2.0 and a worthy successor in frustration. Like Beldr, it's completely invincible except for one character's normal attack (Yamato with the Dragon Stream). Like Beldr, you're finished if that character dies. Unlike Beldr, it hits your whole party with a status effect that makes them weak to all four basic elements before pelting them with a powerful Fire-Elemental field attack called Plough of Death. The only way to survive this is to use the main character's "Soul Bind" to draw all the curses into himself — which also means he'll be taking all the damage from the attacks. Better load everyone else up with Fire resistances if you want to make it through a turn! After all that, even once you get Yamato to Arcturus, you'll find his control over the Dragon Stream has weakened, leaving you to spend several turns barely scratching the damn thing until Miyako shows up to save the day. And that's when it stops holding back...
  • The final showdown with Miyako Hotsuin on Day 4 of Triangulum makes her "brother" Yamato look like a fluffy Angora rabbit by comparison. To start with, she resists everything, except Physical which she reflects, just in case you were thinking of cheesing her with Pierced Multi-strikes or Deathbounds, and is backed up by a Zouchoten that allows her to attack twice per turn, Dual Shadow EX, letting her attack twice per skirmish (meaning, in short, you'll likely eat four attacks per round from her), and an Osiris that can buff her magic through the roof and heal her to full at any time. If that wasn't bad enough, she's supported by a large group of human agents with powerful Auto Skills, healing moves, and the ability to give her random buffs. While she's technically optional, as instead of fighting her you can send her brother behind her to deactivate her machine and free Alcor, doing so takes three turns and will result in not just her but all her henchmen converging on Yamato's position. Oh, and he can't move during that time. And to top it all off, just when you thought you were out of the woods...
  • In the subsequent fight with Cor Caroli, like Benetnasch from the Septentrione Arc, you can't summon any demons mid-fight because Alcor is preventing her from interfering with the demons you already have out. Every time Alcor gets a turn, he'll take damage and it's Game Over if he dies so you have to keep an eye on him. Cor Caroli has two arms assisting her in battle, and they can act twice while she's boosting her defense with Asterion and can attack anyone on the field, including Alcor.

Other Megami Tensei

• From Last Bible, we have Minotaur, who is effectively the third boss in the game. He has a lot of HP, can hit the entire party with Flare 1 for decent fire damage, and his regular attacks hit like a truck. If you haven't been keeping your equipment up to date, Minotaur will punish you badly.
  • While Zodia isn't too difficult, he serves to wear you down for the fight against Mephist, whom you fight immediately afterward. He is very fast and hits even harder than Minotaur earlier; he swings for at least 200 damage per hit when your characters might be just pushing 300.
  • Vaerial. Hits hard, resists all magic (except the Holy series, but those are risky to use due to their chance of failure) and loves throwing out Status Effects and instant death spells. In addition, he has just shy of 5000 HP, so the battle takes a while.
• Giten Megami Tensei has the second fight with Dantalian. Even though it occurs almost immediately after the first fight, the difference in power is massive — he's now Level 25, at a point in the game where both your party and any enemies you encounter are around level 10, no longer has a weakness to physical attacks and Fire, and has much more powerful magic that has the potential to one-shot whoever he targets.
• Catherine:
  • The fifth night's Doom's Bride. First of all, you fight her on an Ice Level, where if you slip on ice off the edge, you die. Second of all, she is very fast at climbing compared to other bosses before her. Third, she has a move that causes an avalanche — if you are caught by this you are swept down to a lower level until it stops, which is potentially lethal. And lastly, she brings Fake Difficulty on with her cyclone attack. Removing random blocks from the level to hit you with and making it difficult to see what's going on.
  • The Child With a Chainsaw is the boss after the above Doom's Bride. Players who think that this boss is merely a pumped-up version of its previous, third night appearance are in for a very painful awakening. The chainsaw-child is fast and has two deadly attacks. The first throws flaming rocks onto a row of blocks, which is generally the currently highest block which you tend to be on, and those all end up as cracked blocks that crumble after stepping on them once or twice. The worse attack has the baby add block-sized miniature, round chainsaws onto certain blocks, which then travel either horizontally along the row or vertically up its other axis. And they continue this for quite some time. Touching one of them spells instant death, though they are extra dangerous because the level has several spring blocks — jumping on this block throws Vincent up several rows, convenient for proceeding in the level. Not convenient when you use one and, due to lack of seeing above very well, immediately throwing Vincent into one of the chainsaws and killing him.
  • Catherine herself is frustratingly difficult, seeing as you're forced to both climb as Vincent, and do your damnedest to guide Katherine, who is much slower than Vincent, can't cliff hang, can't use power ups, and cannot be directly controlled by the player. Instead, you have to scream at her to stay put or move to you while Catherine is chasing you up the stairs. You're forced to stand still several times over in the boss fight, and if Katherine dies it's game over. Often times you'll find yourself having to provide multiple climbing paths in the hopes that even ONE of them will be usable. Sometimes she can find herself in positions that hinder your block-moving space. You don't get any mid-level checkpoints either, which makes failure more punishing.

Not Megami Tensei

Etrian Odyssey

• Etrian Odyssey:
  • Iwaoplen, the boss of the fourth stratum. While it's hard enough on its own (unless you have Immunize, your strategy is hoping that it doesn't use a certain attack, regardless of your level), the challenge comes from the requirements of permanently killing it. In order to do that, you need to take out every F.O.E.^note F.O.E.s are essentially minibosses. on the floor, which is simply flooded with them, and if you take too long to kill all of them, they just respawn. While you can kill Iwaoplen without clearing the floor of F.O.E.s, all it does is have the bird respawn and act like you didn't even fight it. It got a reincarnation in Untold (this time called "Iwaoropenelep"): while you don't HAVE to kill all the F.O.Es in order to put it down for good, it's still highly advised you kill all of the ones in the room he starts in, as they can ambush you during your fight and dealing with them on top of the big bird is a very, VERY bad idea. Unfortunately, if the boss or any of the F.O.E.s spot you, every single one of the sixteen F.O.E.s respawns. It ultimately boils down to either an unholy race against time or a Stealth-Based Mission where you warp out of the Labyrinth whenever you're seen until you find a path that lets you sneak up on each enemy without the other ones seeing you while you fight it. Thankfully, just leaving the Labyrinth doesn't make beaten F.O.E.s respawn and Floor Jump lets you get from Etria to the 20th floor almost instantly, letting you save right before fighting the boss itself.
  • Ren and Tlachtga, while they aren't too hard in the original, becomes this in The Millennium Girl due to the changes to the boss battle itself: First, Tlachtga starts in the back row which means melee attacks from your frontline party members do half damage while backline party members can't even reach with melee attacks, and not only that, has a new skill, Revenge Curse, a HP-based attacking skill that proportionally scales with HP lost from the max HP, which means if Tlachtga has lost a large portion of HP, Revenge Curse will very likely One-Hit Kill a party member, in addition to Chaos Curse (which can inflict basically almost any status effect in the game) that is also in the original, as well as Sapping Curse (which debuffs your entire party's ATK, meaning it's even harder to burst one of the duo), Cranial Curse (attempts to binds head on all party members) and Abdomen Curse (attempts to binds arms on all party members). On the other hand, Ren has Drawing Stance, which increases evasion (the original equivalent, Iai, increases AGI by 200% while reducing DEF to 75%), the Hyosetsu / Frigid Slash (which is single-target in the original, but becomes party-wide hard-hitting attack in the remake), Kubiuchi / Beheading Cut that can One-Hit Kill a party damage (and still does very high damage if it doesn't proc Instant Death), and Kesagiri / Slantwise Cut which attacks random party members up to 6 times with each hit being almost as strong as a single attack (and it uses legs, not arms, meaning it can still happen with Arm Bind). Also specifically in the remake, Tlachtga at below 50% HP or if their partner is killed will start spamming Chaos Curse every other turn. Ren on the other hand with the same condition will stop using Drawing Stance, but will utilize the very-damaging, multi-hitting Slantwise Cut.
• Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard:
  • The original game made the first game look easy by taking out all of the cheap moves you'd use to actually survive well. Even the fact that some bosses cause mass confusion is nothing compared to the terror of Colossus. It was a hard enough fight as is due to massive damage output, resistance to every element, massive Damage magic counterattacks, and the occasional defense debuff, but those poor people trying to use Buff-centric parties had no idea that having buffs active triggered Mad Rush, That One Attack that does about 40-80% of a max-level character's HP (depending on class) and simultaneously will multi-bind your party, likely preventing your healer from even being able to do anything...
  • The Fafnir Knight has its fair share of bosses that can qualify, mainly due to the habit of dramatically inflating the HP of a lot of them on top of making them Flunky Bosses. Some even verge on Puzzle Boss with a fixed pattern and an obscenely high damage to punish the player for choosing the wrong kind of defense.
  • Arteline and Wilhelm, fought at the midpoint of the 15th floor, can do what your party members of the same class can do and more, but the biggest difficulty stems from the fact that they can also use Force skills at low health. Their Force Break will knock them out after they are executed, but possess enough power to level the entire party, and it's still a Game Over if both sides are knocked out. Ideally, the party has to do a quick burst of damage once they unleash their Force Boost in order to knock them out before the Force Break happens. You can No-Sell those attacks with the correct class' Force Break, but a Force Break can be used once per battle and there are two enemy Force Breaks to block.
  • Scylla in The Fafnir Knight has massive HP reserves, but while this amount can be reduced to about half before you even engage her, the fight will still be a long one. Her main attack, Cry Soul, can easily destroy the entire party if not for its terrible accuracy, but she is capable of attacks that put your party to sleep so they won't be able to dodge that attack anyway. The problem is that during the course of battle, tentacles will appear to assist her, and if they are not killed promptly they will bind and stun the party (rendering them unable to dodge) just before Cry Soul is used again. You will need skills that hit all enemies to keep the fight bearable, because the longer the battle goes on, the faster these tentacles appear.
  • Harpuia can be seen as harder than Artelinde and Der Freischutz. She spams more and more severe status effects than Artelinde does, though at least you can mitigate that somewhat with the Wind Guard ability, which you can get as a grimoire from enemies on this stratum. She also hits your entire party like Der Freischutz, but for far more damage a hit. However, she also has FEAST. At first this move doesn't seem so bad... it hits your entire party at random and causes random binds, but it only hits 2-3 times, right? Wrong. It deals more hits each time Harupia uses it, and in a protracted battle, she can easily reach 18 hits with it! Why is it worse? Unlike those two, who telegraph when their attack is coming and K.O. themselves in the process of using it, Harpuia can use Feast without warning and as often as she wants. It does at least do less damage than the other boss's Force Break so you are likely to survive with at least one or two of your party members still alive, but you're still going to lose momentum, and in a game like this that means you'll probably only survive one or two more turns at best.
  • The Colossus is back in The Fafnir Knight with the new name of Juggernaut. While his attack and defense have gone down slightly and he doesn't call in allies mid-battle, this is made irrelevant by his HP, which is 72000, which is almost triple that of the final boss. This time around you have to dispel his attack buffs and your defense debuffs before he uses Mad Rush, now called King's Rush. If you haven't, you're done for. You can get some good damage in with the attack buff he gives you at the start of his attack cycle, but don't let it stay for too long, before he uses King's Rush anyway. Basically, consult a guide. You can cut his health down on the field with some bombs, but he'll still be left with 45000 or so when the bombs stop spawning. Any way you cut it, it'll be a long fight.
• Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: The first few bosses are fairly tame, but then you get to B10 and fight the Deep One and Deep Lady, essentially reskinned monsters from the lower levels of the fourth stratum. The Deep Lady can buff the entire enemy party to give them elemental resistances or hammer your whole party with Zone Icicle. Meanwhile, the Deep One will use Cover to soak hits for the Deep Lady, or use Crystal Edge to chase the damage from Zone Icicle with powerful physical attacks. Without some way of disabling their abilities, these two are likely to halt your exploration in its tracks.
• Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan has some pretty hard bosses already, but ramps up the difficulty to unfair levels with the second boss, the Hollow Queen, an unholy fusion of Flunky Boss, Wake-Up Call Boss, and the good old-fashioned Atlus experience we've all come to know and love. She summons 4 powered-up versions of her Hollow minions, while hammering entire lines with her Darkness Wing and Dimensional Cut attacks, and swamping the entire party with mass confusion and the dreadful Icy Aria. And, both her and her minions are borderline impossible to hit without first binding their legs. And unlike the Berserker King, bindings do end on her, and even binding her head won't stop the infernal Lover's Breath ability from removing every binding and ailment you can inflict on her in one fell swoop. Not even Wufan's involvement can abate the holy terror of this boss fight.
• Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth has the Final Boss, even if you are careful. The Eternal Tyrant has a terrible ability called Grudge Miasma, which while in effect calculates how much damage the boss took, and then delivers it evenly to the party and the boss again. Playing too aggressively and dealing, for instance, 5000 damage in one turn (Which is not hard, despite the games Nintendo Hard difficulty) can easily lead to your party getting wiped out. Holding off on attacking only helps so much, because after two turns, it absorbs the Miasma to use Burning Miasma on the next turn, which is strong enough to wipe out a fully leveled party without defenses, on top of applying a defense debuff that leaves survivors very vulnerable to the boss's other attacks. Speaking of which, nearly every one of its other attacks hits multiple party members at once while also slapping ailments or binds on them. This is one fight where higher levels can get the player killed faster.
• Etrian Odyssey Nexus: Blót, being the Climax Boss, serves as a sharp difficulty spike. As a Hero himself, he can generate afterimages which repeat his previous attacks, and those must be destroyed before they begin piling on more damage than the party can keep up with. However, he can't generate an afterimage if he can't even act, so a good arm bind or paralysis should keep him locked down for a while, right? He purges that with Clear Mind EX, which also heals him for 1750 HP. This move can't be stopped, and takes away a lot of momentum from a disable-focused party. And when he's at low health, he triggers his Force Boost, increasing the rate at which he generates afterimages and making him use Miracle Edge EX to level the party every third turn. And, yes, every — his Force Boost lasts indefinitely, and his Force Break doesn't terminate the Force Boost.

Robopon

• Prince Tail in the original game. His Draco is one of the strongest Robopon in the game and knows Dragon moves, which do major damage at the cost of losing a turn.
  • Dr. Zero was no pushover, either, with his Brute knowing the ultra-powerful Alpha moves, which are normally only known by Golden Sunny.
  • Of all people, Bisco can give you a good thrashing with his Hexbot. It uses a super strong Evil-type attack, and at this point in the game there's not much that can resist it.
  • Kamat's army; since the minigames you're required to play at this point were not required earlier, there is a strong chance that you will be entirely unfamiliar with how they work.
  • Mr. Wild, the Legend5, has strong Robopon that can cause status effects as well as deal heavy damage. And he stole your Robopon, Dosbot, for the fight.
• In the second game, Circe counts, with her Robopon being fast and powerful. And unlike in the previous game, when you die you don't continue. You get Game Over. Cue hours of level-grinding rage.
  • Insector can be particularly troublesome as well, due to the fact that he comes right after Circe and most players will not find the only healing Robopon within the labyrinthine Pond Garden. In fact, most bosses after Mr. Gait have a tendency to have obscenely strong Robopon that use Status Effects and software to decimate the player's team in a rough, aggressive blitz, much like Circe.
  • Give Maskman enough uses of Shield, and all attacks on his Robopon do 0 damage.
  • Dr. Zero Senior, the final boss of the game, is harder than the Optional Bosses. His entire team is strong, fast, and very bulky, and if they get good hits on your healer, you're done.

Summon Night

• The first game shows up a good example: Inferno Kirin who is exactly the same as before but with a VERY large amount of HP that is sure to break one or two weapons if you don't have Weapon Shield on. Also it deals extremely high damage with ANY attack even if you have high def values.
  • Bonus if you use the strongest weapons in-game which have the lowest DUR.
  • Actually, Inferno Kirin has very obvious (and unique) movements preceding all his attacks, which serve as hints as to which attack he'll use next, allowing you to dodge as necessary. Granted, you'll probably get killed repeatedly the first few times as you try to figure him out, but the massive EXP you get for killing him justifies learning his attack patterns; it's a given that you WILL level up more than once per battle, at least till you're nearing the maximum level.
• In the third game V.E, Jade and Tier will just make you cry with their overpowered multi-hit attacks. ESPECIALLY V.E and her Axe's skill Aqua Burst that can sweep your HP to almost nothing if fully hits you.

Trauma Center

• Aletheia in Under the Knife 2, despite being a Final Boss. It's a Final-Exam Boss due to how it summons waves of previous GUILT strains, but due to restrictions of the surgery environment the GUILT summoned by it can behave much differently from when they were encountered in the main story. It becomes temporarily vulnerable when defeating individual GUILT bodies during a wave, but good luck getting to inject the main body while managing what's going on around it.
• Onyx in New Blood is a particularly devastating Rush Boss. Its primary defense is to make fake clones of itself and burrow into the organ, requiring the player to discern where it is with the ultrasound like Kyriaki. However, if you uncover a fake (a possiblity given the small size of Onyx making it difficult to determine if it's fake or real), or take too long, Onyx will immediately do 70 damage to vitals in a game where the maximum vitals vary from mission to mission, and create 5 lacerations to deal with. And if this wasn't bad enough, every Onyx after the first will cause an Interface Screw and start directly draining vitals when they're near defeat.
• Triti is a shining example among enemy pathogens, being a regenerating Puzzle Boss with a mechanic that's poorly-explained in-game. Your enemy is the time limit rather than any serious vital damage — if you've figured out how it regenerates, you can extract Triti before it deals any significant damage. Getting rid of it without using the Healing Touch or having extremely fast hands, though, is like trying to punch out a brick wall. It's even worse in Under the Knife, since you need to cut it out before extracting it, and using the Healing Touch absolutely destroys your rank.
  • While Triti thankfully didn't return in UtK2, Post-Triti, faced in mission 6-1, is also not to be underestimated. On paper, the surgery isn't too difficult... if not for the fact that you have to do it with no stabilizer and a limited supply of antibiotic gel.
• While most missions are ultimately tests of skill primarily, Deftera is nearly 90% luck. If two pairs of Deftera of the same color collide at the start of the second phase, you might as well restart — Either the tumors will kill the patient outright, or you'll finish with the tumors just in time to fight MORE tumors when like colors meet AGAIN- never having the opportunity to attack Deftera itself. If Deftera isn't on its best behavior, you may also have instances of a Deftera pair wandering on the organ for a long time before a red-blue pair finally comes together. Deftera can be blocked off by antibiotic gel spread in its path like a wall. This is hinted at in one sentence in the manual that doesn't even directly reference Deftera — only that the gel can repel parasites. Good luck making that connection when Zombie Cancer is eating your patient.
• Whenever Kyriaki is involved, you can expect a spike in difficulty, especially once the Queen Kyriaki starts showing up in Under the Knife 2. If regular Kyriaki's "Get Back Here!" Boss tendencies weren't annoying enough, have fun dealing with the Queen who not only keeps diving into the organ to hide and giving you lots of wounds to treat, but regularly lays eggs (hidden as well, of course) which hatch into more Kyriaki after a few seconds or if you attack her, the latter also provoking all other Kyriaki on screen to immediately open another wound. Better master the use of the ultrasound if you ever want to beat, let alone S-Rank, any of those stages.
• Pempti is less well-known than Triti, but worse. You start by injecting nanomachines into its core, which causes it to withdraw its tissue and then expose itself in self-defense. Now you just blast it with the laser, which is infinite-use during this treatment. Simple, right? Of course not, this is an Atlus game. While you're attacking it, Pempti generates mini-cores that can cause lacerations, send up a wave of fluid that creates small tumors, or just drain the vitals directly. It's relatively simple to fight them off, but once you start taking hits, it's easy to get caught in a downward spiral, especially since taking any time to fix wounds or restore vitals means taking the laser off of Pempti and its mini-cores, which causes you to lose more ground. Is it any surprise an entire chapter was devoted to finding a way to kill this thing? Under the Knife 2 mixes it up by making Pempti split into two, forcing you to split your attention across two corners of the operating field. When one Pempti dies, the other Turns Red and attacks much more aggressively until it's destroyed, potentially dooming a player who was focusing all their firepower into one Pempti core at a time. The X mission then complicates this slightly by making one core take a little more punishment than the other before it goes down, just to trip up the players who figured out to spread the damage evenly.

Other

• Horrza, the Area 9 boss from XEXYZ. He is quite possibly the closest thing to a Bullet Hell boss that the NES can actually produce. He also has much more health than previous bosses would indicate he SHOULD have, and kills the player in 4 hits. Very few players have killed him without emulator tricks. Owning him on a console is practically a Bragging Rights Reward in its own right.
• 3D Dot Game Heroes:
  • Dragon. He does good damage and takes a ton of hits to kill, even with the most powerful sword available to the player, even IF it's fully upgraded. Also blocking his fireballs sometimes causes the player to take damage anyway. Later in the fight, it randomly starts flying and smashing down, creating a giant shockwave that's difficult to dodge.
  • Kraken's not too bad of a fight normally, but trying to book it in the Bestiary is an exercise in patience. It takes a whopping 70 hits with the Bestiary to book it, but this is relieved by the fact that its tentacles count for the total... Except they have terrible Hitbox Dissonance and randomly deal damage for no reason at all. And the head only pops up in a few spaces, and the arena is composed of islands with Wire Rod posts, making it an endurance match for booking.
• The Red Sage and Blue Fool from Riviera: The Promised Land. One Overdrive can easily one-hit-kill a party member.
• Yggdra Union:
  • Gulcasa. Dear lord, Gulcasa. He has very high stats, he isn't weak to any element, he has almost exclusive access to a weapon type that is effective against the most common weapon types and weak against none, and worst of all, his personal skill, Genocide. It sacrifices his team, then he gains a HUGE boost, breaks your charge bar and then proceeds to violently destroy you. A lot of the strategy against him boils down to killing him before he can use Genocide. And he's a Recurring Boss, so you get to relieve the nightmare multiple times.
  • Even though he's only encountered twice, and the first one is optional, Nessiah is also a truly unfair foe. His stats are through the roof, he has troublesome helpers and a TON of Morale to last a while. What makes him hard is his Resurrection skill, which allows him to revive his entire team, and switches their weapon type to one that is strong against yours. Thus, you either beat him before he can do it, or outfit yourself for an uphill battle. This is one fight where Crusade may prove useful yet...
• Knights in the Nightmare:
  • It's considerably easier to list which bosses don't qualify for this trope than mention ones that do on the Normal difficulty alone, in which case they're almost certainly a Goddamned Boss instead. Every enemy class has its own skill in this game, and Bosses each have a unique ability of some kind on top of the usual two bullet patterns and a special attack, and it's often the reason why they are so tough.
  • The Cursed Knight, Gunther, is highly mobile (a common trend for Boss Units), his bullets reduce your timer by quite a bit for this early in the game, and his special skill lets him instantly kill any Knight in his direct line of vision, in a game with permadeath. This unfortunately includes Maria/Mellia. He's also invincible during its execution. This means that you need to blindside him when you attack if you actually want to do damage.
  • Fights with your archangel rival (Melissa/Marietta) are always hectic do to them having much stronger Bullet Hell abilities than most enemies in the game, as well as the game making you compensate for them being relatively squishy by giving you a fairly short turn limit to beat them. It doesn't help they later get the ability to temporarily No-Sell anything, and that all their attacks will shred your timer in seconds, so you better get used to their patterns fast.
  • The Dotaurus fight is annoying due to its Dual Boss nature. For the first part, you can't actually harm Dotaurus as he's out of reach (but he can hit you). Instead, you're fighting his pet dog Garm, as well as whatever hound enemies he summons. All of these (especially Garm) will continuously drain your Knights of their Vit if they're spotted while charging up, which is almost as bad as Gunther's special ability^note  Vit is very hard to recover, requiring leveling up (which is not effective in most cases, and even detrimental in some) or sacrificing other Knights to do it.. Taking out Garm prompts Dotaurus to take to the field, at which point the fight is more straightforward.
  • Scoppio is not a mandatory boss, unless you want to find the Ancardia, in which case he's here to drive you insane with anxiety. Before even talking about this fight, to even get to the secret level where Scoppio is the player first needs to fulfill an extremely obtuse condition to open the path to the bonus Scene.^Explanation You need to destroy an invisible object hidden in an innocuous corner in the preceding level, twice (which means breaking it, then waiting several turns for it to respawn to break it again). The only clue you get of this is that your companion will pass through this area several levels later and remark on a feeling if you didn't access the secret level. In other words, no clue at all.. Now, as for the boss itself: Scoppio has the dubious distinction of having the second-highest HP count in the whole damn game, second only to the Final Boss, nearing the million benchmark on Normal alone, when he's found around halfway through the game! This means he's here to stay for a while, which is bad news, because if you want to find the Ancardia, you need to start opening chests (the bonus stage is filled with them) and pray that it pops out. The problem is that Scoppio: 1) Hits like a damn truck; even if his patterns are uncomplicated, the damage is brutal. 2) His special ability lets him destroy breakable items in the room. Which means the chests. Which may mean the one with the Ancardia. Scoppio's battle isn't harrowing because of the boss itself (despite his massive pool of health, he's slow and a large target, so it's a matter of time to beat him), but because you're on a Luck-Based Mission to find the chest holding the Ancardia (which may not even spawn in the first round of treasures) before Scoppio destroys it. And because you have no way at all to figure out if Scoppio did get the one with Ancardia, most players will be paranoid enough by this point that they will reset the very moment he breaks one if the staff hasn't been found yet. It's possible to stop Scoppio as he winds up for the chest-destroying swing, but it takes more damage the longer the fight drags on and the higher the difficulty goes. The one mercy is that once you do find Ancardia, the staff will be completely safe from Scoppio's rampage despite still being on the map. Insultingly however, players of the Blue route who clear this stage and find Ancardia did so for nothing, as Mellia breaks Ancardia herself as one giant middle finger to Marietta, which locks you into the bad ending not even halfway through the game!
  • If you're fighting Pische, be prepared for Rocket-Tag Gameplay. Basically, the Boss is a small and fast-moving Glass Cannon whose bullets do huge damage and cover a lot of the screen, but has little health in comparison and thus dies quickly. The problem is that Pische's special skill lets them heal themselves for most of their health if the player doesn't interrupt this action, which is made harrowing when they're too busy dodging bullets to focus on what the Boss is doing. While it's not that hard to win quickly on easier difficulties, as soon as you hit Hard you'll find that this encounter becomes exponentially more frustrating as the Boss takes less damage, has more health and faster cycles, meaning that to effectively counter this boss, the player absolutely cannot let up on the offensive.
  • Sacchito's very squishy, and that's basically the only consolation, because the bullets are strong and you will find yourself severely limited during this fight. Yous see, the area you fight the boss in is a huge abyss with some lone footholds here and there. Only Lance Knights can move between the spaces, and only on one layer (there's two layers of footholds, one on each side of the stage, that can be accessed by your Knights), and that's basically the only thing they're good for here because they can only attack one square at any time in this stage and the boss constantly teleports between them. Expect your attacks to miss a lot, as well as spend a long time doing nothing but holding a skill on charge, waiting for the boss to get into position. You may find you sometimes used turns just for positioning your Knights so a different class (a Wizard or an Archer, likely) can cover more ground in a future turn.
  • Zolgonark is nasty. First off, he's got three heads, each acting independently from one another (and each having its own lifebar and attack cycles, meaning he's essentially three bosses in one!) with their own attacks and abilities, so much like the fight with Leonil earlier in the game, the player has to get used to dealing with three different patterns from the same boss, only at the same time. His attacks are powerful and the player can find themselves cornered at times, but that isn't what really makes this boss a struggle. Every enemy in the game has a Healing Factor that lets them regenerate some of the damage you deal, but Zolgonark's is especially strong, which means that if you can't deal substantial damage continuously, it's very possible that over the course of the battle, Zolgonark may end up healing for more health than any enemy in the game! The key is taking out a specific head which boosts his Healing Factor, but that does not diminish his threat in the least, only speed up the process.
  • The Final Boss Melad Margus is easily the worst one of the lot, which is saying something. Aside from having the highest HP in the game, bar none (over a million in Normal difficulty, which is represented as ?????? in-game), it's very fast, moving constantly over a restrictive battlefield where the boss is normally vulnerable only on certain spaces, its bullets are incredibly deadly (so strong, in fact, that getting hit just a couple of times ends your turn if you didn't Guard in time) not to mention unpredictable and hard to dodge. This needs to be repeated, actually—the boss's attacks cover basically the entire screen and their natures make dodging them come down to reflex and sheer luck. One of its most dangerous characteristics is that the boss has very short attack cycles, to the point that you can end up having to dodge several attacks in a row with no respite as the boss unleashes attacks while other attacks are still going on. Coupled with a stronger-than-usual Healing Factor, this boss can be quite unforgiving and leaves very little room for error. The one saving grace is that if the player is on the Red Path and has found Ancardia, then Maria has the ability to severely speed up the battle by shredding through huge portions of Melad Margus's lifebar with her Limit Breaks, if the player can dodge well enough to charge Maria up for it.
• Radiant Historia
  • The Thaumachine fought in the Alternate Timeline's third chapter is one of the first bosses in the game to bring out the good old-fashioned pleasant Atlus experience. By itself, it has three attacks: a normal physical attack, Bull Claw, a multi-hitting physical attack that targets one character, and All Crash, a Wave-Motion Gun that hits the whole party for roughly a third of their health bar. The real pain are the bombs that it constantly summons, which do nothing except blow themselves up, dealing severe damage to whoever's targeted. Trying to chip away at the boss's health while destroying the bombs before they blow up is quite a painful experience, because if you can't keep up with your healing for even a second, the pain will pile up alarmingly fast and it's time to say hello to the game over screen. The biggest problem is that the game expects you to use Rosch, as he has attacks that can hit all bombs at once, but due to being absent from your party for large portions of the game, he will be severely underleveled when you fight the Thaumachine, unless you grind up his experience to make up for the time he was gone.
  • Any time you see a Giant Spider, it is a sign that you're in for a ridiculous amount of pain. All of them have very high attack stats and an area-of-effect skill that inflicts status problems, and worse, they take up the entire grid, making Aht's extremely powerful traps completely useless.
• The Final Boss of Master of the Monster Lair isn't particularly hard... providing that you spend nearly as much time you've already spent on the game to get to him farming for items to increase your strength. The Devil Lord has such ridiculously high defense compared to every other monster in the game, in fact multiple times more than any other boss before him, that without copious amounts of grinding you'll be hard pressed to deal more than one damage at a time outside of weapon specials... and he has an attack that he deploys when he's down to his last third or so of health that WILL heal more than you'll deal in a single turn (in fact, try upwards of five). Oh, and did we mention that he has over 1000 health? All told, he's a difficult boss and he can take around an hour to bring down. Thankfully, with all of the post-game equipment unlocked after beating him, fighting him when he shows up as one of the random bosses on the 20th floor is significantly easier.
• The eagle boss at the end of Level 4 of New York Nyankies/Rockin' Kats. Even when you have the twin shot equipped, it can be tough to get a hit in thanks to the fact that it has a pitiful range, and the big bird loves to fly JUST out of your range. On top of all this the foul fowl hits like a Mack truck, it drops boulders on you, and you have to duck at JUST the right time to avoid it when it's swooping. Unless you know the heart-refilling trick, you're probably going to die a lot.
• Kamikaze from Choro Q (HG 4) is by far your most difficult opponent to race. No matter what type of track you're racing on he is guaranteed to catch up and steal your win. He's at his absolute worst in Trans Trip SL where once he passes you, your hope of ever winning that race is demolished. Even if you have the Devil or Angel parts, he'll be a total pain in your ass from start to finish.
• Power Instinct series, prominently the Series Mascot and Mascot Villain characters, the Goketsuji sisters, Oume and Otane. They are mostly the Big Bad in the series, but even as normal characters they are very difficult to beat, like Otane in Power Instinct 1 and Oume in Power Instinct 2. Basically the sisters are the Trope Namer of Never Mess with Granny.
• Stella Glow:
  • Dealing with Dorothy is a huge headache. Not only are her attacks powerful, but she'll become a bigger problem if you only focus on using some of your party members to distract her while the others focus on a more important objective (like in Chapter 5 when you're aiming to protect Mordimort's sister, who is later revealed to have been Dead All Along anyway), as her strength will put the character fighting her in greater danger of being KO'd from battle. The sooner you dispatch Dorothy (for which you'll have to order several party member to attack her to deplete her Life Meter, even if that means slowing down the course of your objective), the better.
  • Mordimort herself, after the true nature of her current "home" and its "inhabitants" is exposed. As with all Witches, to tune her (so she can then join your team) you must approach her as you make your way through her Spirit World, which is much easier said than done. Due to her ability to create minions out of mud, she'll invariably summon for more (or, as she often says, "mor") of them when the number of enemy units is low. What further increases the difficulty is that she also summons a very obnoxious Plant Mook whose Sweet Breath has a significant range, and puts all characters who receive it to fall asleep, preventing them from dodging any other attack; last, but not least, if the plant is attacking someone you're positioning from the east front, its attack will reach the Witch as well, and while she can cure any ailments received she cannot recover her HP, and if she dies before Alto reaches her you'll suffer a Non-Standard Game Over.

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Charon: Oh, it's you again. You died so carelessly...

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