That's Dr. Title, thank you!
This note on the main That One Boss page would seem to be the current standard for when a Final Boss or Wake-Up Call Boss should be on the page.
Just cut that note down that neither can be this AT ALL.
- Final Boss meant to be the hardest and such, when it is not it is an Anti-Climax Boss and many times the Penultimate Boss Fight is treated as the Final Boss difficulty wise. IE Final Fantasy X
- A Wakeup Call Boss could be it is if fights before and after are easier... but if that is the case it is not a Wake-Up Call Boss at all, it's a Difficulty Spike Boss or whatever that trope is named. A Wake-Up Call Boss is isn't a spike like an earthquake meter it is a jump and it levels out matching that boss going forward.
Huge generalization but progression wise
- Boss requires level 20 to beat
- Boss requires level 40 to beat
- Boss requires level 25 to beat
- Boss requires level 20 to beat
- Boss requires level 40 to beat
- Boss requires level 41 to beat
edited 9th Jul '17 9:05:49 AM by Memers
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
If I recall correctly, that note's been on the page for quite a while now, so I don't think it should be cut down without discussion. I don't know what sort of discussion took place to get that note up there in the first place, but it shouldn't be deleted just like that until more people have weighed in.
When was it added? It's part of what is heavily screwing up this trope and examples... looking at them I see Final Bosses just scattered in cause they are just kinda hard.
And every single Wake-Up Call Boss ever is on this and those can not be an example the way everything else on the page is written. Wake-Up Call Boss and That One Boss should be mutually exclusive due to game design of what comes before and after said boss..
edited 9th Jul '17 9:11:51 AM by Memers
I'm Sad Frogerson.
Going by the history page
, that note has been around since at least November 2013. Since the history page doesn't extend beyond April 2013, it's potentially been around for much longer. I say keep it.
edited 9th Jul '17 9:18:11 AM by chasemaddigan
No, the other one.
What I'd see as a boss that's both That One Boss and Wake-Up Call Boss is something like if the difficulty progression of bosses is something like 1-3-5-9-10-45-23-26-30, with the one at 45 difficulty being both tropes. It's both stupidly difficult for its place, and it marks the beginning of tougher bosses.
Likewise, for That One Boss and Final Boss, it'd be something like 1-3-5-9-25 (you'd expect the Final Boss in that case to be something like 10-15).
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That's Dr. Title, thank you!
Looking at the pages, one restriction we should add to the That One Boss page is that Self-Imposed Challenge isn't a reason to add a boss to the page (with a similar justification to not allowing a Bonus Boss); that will allows us to remove bosses with descriptions that say "X is hard in New Game+" or "X is hard if you are doing buster only no-damage" or "X is hard in Final Mix Critical Mode".
No, the other one.
Those examples are pointless. "This boss is hard if you make it hard by restricting yourself," is kind of self evident.
edited 9th Jul '17 1:21:33 PM by AnotherDuck
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Technical question: how is a conclusion on what measures to implement (if any) is reached? Does doing something like turning TOB/TOL into Complete Monster knockoffs (in the "needs to go through the thread" sense) require mod approval?
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
So that 23-26-30 can not exist like that, that is misuse, it would go 10-45-47-50-55. That is a real example of a Wake-Up Call Boss.
For example in Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne people call Matador a Wake-Up Call Boss cause you gotta level grind and rebuild your team to match his element and every boss in the game after him you have to do the same thing. Before hand the bosses were largely easy and you could get away with having a non-optimal team.
edited 9th Jul '17 6:32:16 PM by Memers
No, the other one.
No. Wake-Up Call Boss does not require the following bosses to follow the pattern exactly. It just needs to symbolise a steep increase in difficulty for the following game. Or as the trope says, when the game stops being easy.
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"Its stops being easy", that is what makes it not be That One Boss. That One Boss is an out of place difficulty spike boss. If it is still hard after the boss, which it has to be to be a Wake-Up Call Boss, then it can not be a That One Boss.
No, the other one.
"Hard" is not a single, uniform difficulty. It's possible to have something harder than that. You're describing something I didn't.
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That's Dr. Title, thank you!
@Memers: Demyx has been brought up as an example of somebody who's considered both a Warm-Up Boss (since he introduces the level of difficulty of Organization XIII bosses) and a That One Boss (since Dance Water Dance is That One Attack). Do you think he's a Warm-Up Boss, That One Boss, both, or neither?
He isn't in any way a Warm-Up Boss, that is a boss at the end of the first level or tutorial giving you a full taste of the game but is usually not actually too difficult. In KH 2 Roxas' fight with Axel is a textbook example of that trope. It uses all the mechanics you just learned, 2 keyblades, timing counters, you can die and is very flashy but not really that hard. A good novice skill check for the game's mechanics.
Demyx is That One Boss because he stands out as a fight being damn hard, cheaply so, harder than anything else around that point in the game and long after.
The game itself is not brought up to Demyx's level after his fight too unlike what would be required for a Wake-Up Call Boss as well. He is just a blip on the radar not the sign of an invasion.
edited 10th Jul '17 5:36:56 AM by Memers
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
Bleh: I mean to put Wakeup Call Boss, not Warmup Boss.
Also, the first Demyx encounter isn't hard at all. The second Demyx encounter is the one everybody is talking about. (Unless you are talking about Demyx's Data Org fight, which is a Bonus Boss and therefore irrelevant.) Xaldin isn't that far after that Demyx fight.
edited 10th Jul '17 5:17:39 AM by thok
I forgot that the final encounter was a bonus boss, corrected it.
Here is the thing, look at the That One Boss subpage Atlus... for example the Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne section has 22 bosses listed that is more than half the bosses in the damn game... including the True Final Boss and the Wake-Up Call Boss.
Matador is the Wake-Up Call Boss of that game he signals the true difficulty of the game and the upcoming 20+ hardass bosses, he shouldn't even be on that page let alone the page image however he is a stellar example of a Wake-Up Call Boss.
I know that the game is Nintendo Hard and fans like it but it's just attempted gloating at this point and the rest of the page is even worse.
edited 10th Jul '17 6:28:32 AM by Memers
No, the other one.
Yeah, if a game is Nintendo Hard, any boss should be judged against that standard (or whatever difficulty the game is). If you think more than half the bosses of a game qualify, you probably don't reach the target skill the devs intended.
edited 10th Jul '17 10:06:04 AM by AnotherDuck
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Mad Archivist
So I just read the whole Fire Emblem section, and howdy there's a lot of things to clean. Following what i've seen on this thread (warning, huge wall of texte ahead):
-The very first example of the page is out of place for multiple reasons. It sarts as a generalization in the series, except very obviously Examples Are Not General and certainly not That One Boss . Then it tries to talk about a sepcific case (the fight against selena in sacred stones). First, the sub bullet point right after that is Conversation Onthe Main Page , but it also explain quite well why the selena fight don't fit the description : it's really easy to abuse the IA by baiting it to attack an unit it can't one shot (and it's not hard to find), healing it, rinse and repeat until the weapon's broken. I'd say cut entirely and, if there's actually a boss that deserve that mention because of that gimmick, to add it as a proper example.
Shadow dragon :
-on merciless mode -I'd say cut, as obviously something on the hardest difficulty is going to be hard. The example tries to claim one of the bosses mentionned is that one boss on every difficulty, though, so it might be worth rephrasing. From personnal experience of the game I don't even remember struggling with those bosses in normal difficulties, but if someone can make a convincing case about it, I'm nobody to say they're wrong. They probably would be more of a Wake-Up Call Boss than a That One Boss, though, considering it's the very beginning of the game.
-The Camus entry of the NES game seems fairly legit, but I haven't played the original to be sure.
New mystery of the emblem
-The katarina entry is legit, the reasoning is solid and I can confirm from personnal experience it was the hardest part of the game bar nothing, and it was because of her. The mention of lunatic could be cut if we consider it's obvious a That One Boss stays That One Boss in higher difficulties unless mentionned otherwise, but that's it.
-much less sure for the Ahtena/Jeorge entry, as in practice as long as you can swarm the boss (and it's not hard to do so), they aren't tanky enough to survive long enough to kill one of your units, but I won't argue much for that one, I just have zero memories of that chapter unlike the previous one.
-"The two final bosses in lunatic" cut on the principle that self imposed challenges situations don't count for that trope.
Genealogy :
not much to say here since I didn't played the games.
-The Chapter 7 entry seem either poorly written or not an example to me, as the example state that you can essentially bypass the issue by killing the boss with Shannan before he get his tome. Not sure if missing the Balmung is a self challenge or something easy to miss, but when i'm done reading the example, the only thing I think is "sooooo that's not a problem then, no ?" and that's not a good sign.
-the next three example seems fine to me.
-The Julius example falls victim to the same problem than the first. It starts fine enough, but then comes the part with Julia. The example becomes basically "this is hard if you don't do it the intended way of wrecking him with Julia and the Naga tome". that's a self imposed challenge, i'd say cut on principle. Not to mention he's the final boss, so he's expected to be hard.
nothing to say about thracia 776, it seems fine to me(can't confirm again tho, those tow are the only I haven't played at all).
-Sword of seals :
"In general, Seals is extraordinarily cruel about weapon accuracy, which is a large part of the frustration. Some axes have a base hit of 50% or worse. The throne that nearly every boss sits on also provides the aforementioned Avoid boost of 30%." -Examples are not general. The first point must be cut.
-Chapter 7 :"if you're playing on hard mode" cut on principle. The leygance entry seems fine, the Henning one even more. Except... -"Murdock is basically Leygance on steroids. " So, following the "1 boss per game and reason to be hard", Leygance needs to be cut.
Blazing sword :
-I'm not far enough into the game to confirm, so it's a simple question : which version of four fanged offense is the one you tend to find in a normal playthrough ? The stated requirement is "sum of eliwood, hector and lyn's level >=50", and according to wiki, it's the 23th chapter, so almost end of the game, so it seems to me the version of the level that is described as that one boss is something you wouldn't see in a casual playthrough. Sooooo i'd say cut, but I won't argue too much though.
"The boss rush in the final chapter, especially linus and lloyd". If a boss rush that's not even the actual boss of the level can count, that's fine, otherwise cut and maybe move to That One Level .
-The zoldam entry is a long "it's hard to do if you try to s-rank it, and super hard in HHM". self imposed challenge, cut on principle. the boss is even otpionnal as the goal to survive, so that's about as relevant to say that takumi is hard in conquest chapter 10. Yeah, that's probably because you're not meant to beat him.
Vaida is potholed to SNK Boss and isn't even a boss you have to kill to finish the chapter. Cut on principle, move it to SNK Boss if the claim is true.
-The Maxime entry might need to be trimmed. The "he's even harder in HHM" part can be cut, unless we can account for the change of behavior make him even harder in HHM, even by the standards of the mode. His status as a boss could be contested as he's just a named enemy in the chapter (since Ursula's the actual boss) but I think that would be going a bit too far for the definition. Or if it doesn't belong here, it needs to be moved elsewhere. Boss in Mook Clothing, maybe ?
-Sacred Stones :
-I hugely disagree with the calleach&Valter entry as from personnal experience, Joshua soloed Caellach without breaking a sweat and Cormag killed Valter without problems. Though I won't argue much for that if I get told people legitimately struggled with those two, I might simply have had a really good joshua/cormag /grinded them too much.
-The Beran entry seems legit to me as I vaguely remember having a problem or two against him, but since the boss can be skipped, does he qualify ? or does that make him a Bonus Boss who's disqualified from that trope by default ?
Path of Radiance :
-Ashnard isn't too hard by final bosses standards and hard mode fall into self imposed challenge, i'd say cut.
For the Black knight, i'm not entirely sure. Though it IS a luck-based mission, the numbers aren't unforgiving. it's easy to max out ike's relevants stats by the time you reach the mission, ether has 28% chance to tirgger since it's still skill% in this game unlike radiant dawn, you get something like 10 hits on the boss overall, and you can largely win if it triggers twice. it's not that unlikely to win. Personally, I never lost against that boss. Now, to the merit of the example, I know a lot of people who says he is a real problem so maybe i've just been lucky, and it IS by far the hardest boss of the game, berserk Ashnard notwithstanding, so if we judge this by the game's difficulty standards it probably qualifies.
Radiant Dawn :
-3-10 is more a That One Level . The problem is keeping elincia alive against bow users, not the boss himself who's nothing to write home about.
-Dheginsea is also more That One Level and That One Attack than a problematic boss in itself. He does hits hard and you'd better not trigger his mastery skill, alright, but snipers like rolf and shinon whill decimate his HP, and you are forced to have a heron on the map, who can grant a second turn to them. From personnal experience, i've seen Rolf doing 2/3 of the overall damage to the boss, and it's not hard to have a few people finishing the job (Caineghis, Ike...). The only real problem with this is his Ao E attack that hits harder the closer you are, which makes is That One Attack. It could stay an example, but it could use some trimming.
- I'd say cut Sephiran. The example makes a big deal of the spirits guarding him, but it's easy to get rid of them once you know you need to, he can be killed quickly once they're out of the way and he doesn't hit hard enough to kill a well trained unit in a single attack.
-Ashera is a Final boss. Now, she might be the toughest Fire emblem boss I've seen in the series, at least from personnal opinion, so she could still qualify, but she isn't horribly hard by Radiant Dawn standards, it's essentially Spehiran with more resilient barriers (and more of them to break) and more varied attacks. I'd lean towards keeping it, but not by much.
Awakening :
As a general note, every mention of hard mode/lunatic could be cut(self imposed challenge and so on), and that would trim half of the entry in itself.
now, more specifically :
I just don't agree for Gangrel, Wallhart and Validar being these. they might be forces to be reckoned and Climax Boss , but they're not a actual spike in difficulty that leagues above what you've seen before and will see after. especillay Validar, who essentially got ignis'd to death by my avatar in my playthrough on hard.
-The level with Aversa before Validar is not this trope either, but That One Level at best. the difficulty is explicitely not the boss here, but the deadlords that are the mooks of the chapter. and even them aren't as impressive as the example like to say. move to that one level or cut.
"Three words: LUNATIC MODE GRIMA " three words : "Self imposed challenge." Three other words : "Not an example". On top of that, he's the final boss so that's to be expected.
Fire Emblem Fates :
Haitaka seems like a legitimate example to me, as a boss who's statistically too imposing for the chapter he's fought in. the part about hard, lunatic and capturing him all fall to self-imposed challenge, though. I'd say trim.
I'm more reserved for Kotaro. the ninja cave is That One Level for sure, but the boss himself isn't something you can't overcome by throwing your best units at him and not taking useless risks. The most compelling thing I have to say about him being That One Boss is that it's a pain to kill him before Saizo reach him, and he will likely die fighting him. Although as an NPC unit, keeping him alive is Self-Imposed Challenge, which is not that trope.
-I agree for Iago and Hans, this chapter was even harder than the final battle to me because so many thing can go wrong so many times in this one. Although I must say that the bosses aren't the worst part of it. Iago killed me with a critical out of nowhere and hans is a threat, but it's really the level as a whole that is hard. Although that staff savant skill is a legitimate problem. Keep.
-Yukimura. "manageable, but in hard and lunatic" -Cut on principle.
-The Ryoma Entry is a legitimate one and you really need an overlevelled avatar to be able to reliably kill him. But the example need A LOT of trimming. We don't care about the spoiler reasons for why he wants us dead, it has nothing to do there and it just make the example unpleasant to read.
-the Takumi example might need some discussion. I disagree for the chapter 13 mention, at this point he's a tough but manageable unit (who tend to rush your army alone since he cross the river without being slowed down, so your strongest units can take him down before he becomes a problem) and he's not even the boss of the chapter. Chapter 23 is a more legitimate one, but he isn't absurdely harder than what comes before and what comes after. Again, I won't argue too much about that.
-The final boss... same than for Ashera. He's legitmately hard even by final boss standards, and his bold stance skill really hammers the point. Although in the end I still killed him in about two rounds of fight with my avatar. The hard part was to get to him. So, I'd say That One Level, although Takumi's laser beam that regularly forces you to hide behind the walls is one of the reasons the level is hard.
I'd say keep, but not too sure.
-No, just no for Anankos as the final boss of revelation, though. It falls in the final boss category, he isn't absurdely hard by those standards.
Nothing to say about the tear ring saga, although I'm not sure they're supposed to be there.
Phew.
edited 10th Jul '17 11:19:32 AM by Yumil
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."
The Unknown
Tear Ring Saga shouldn't be on that page. TRS is owned by different people.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Agreed with TearRing Saga. The game is a Spiritual Successor to Fire Emblem made by the same creator but by a different company, and not actually part of the Fire Emblem series itself. I think Tear Ring Saga should be removed from the page.
edited 11th Jul '17 11:52:14 AM by DivineFlame100
Mad Archivist
alright, moved the tear ring saga examples to Turn-Based Strategy and oooooooooooow.
- X-COM's Chrysalids weren't technically bosses, but the missions that include them as enemies almost all count as a That One Boss situation. Especially Snakemen terror missions. Chryssalids have 110 action points, which is usually more than double the action points your soldiers have. they have enormously high Energy and above-average stats all around, especially Strength 110 (when your soldiers will be lucky to have 40). They are all heavily armored and with enough health to shrug off gunfire and, if lucky enough, missiles to the face. They have an incredibly fast melee attack. And every soldier killed by a Chrysalid becomes a zombie, WHICH WHEN KILLED BECOMES ANOTHER CHRYSALID. So most engagements with Chrysalids are either "spot a Chrysalid a hundred meters away, see it run up to you in a single turn, see it bite the heads off two or three of your dudes in the same turn and they all turn into hostile zombies which even if killed will then turn into more Chrysalids", or "suddenly hear the noise a soldier makes when he's killed by a Chryalid, and notice one of them managed to sneak up from behind your squad and kill everyone". What's most irritating is that they show up relatively early but are on par with the 2 other nastiest aliens in the game, and the missions they show up on you have to take or pretty much lose the game. Some very succesful players, once they learn that Chryssalid enemies are present on the map, often prefer to just level everything with missiles, grenades and high explosives while ignoring civilian casualties, rather than hunting down the little abominations one by one. Some players go as far as carrying primed grenades in their packs if Chryssalids are lurking about.
- In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the Chryssalids are back and just as deadly, to the point that between them and Muton Elites, Chryssalids are the bigger threat, particularly on higher difficulties. This is because they violate the usual rules of the game. In cover for safety? Hahahah NO. Elevated? No dice. Assault sent forward? Hope he has insurance. Only Snipers are ever REALLY safe from them. As attached as you might be to your guys, if you've got a Heavy in range when a soldier gets his throat ripped out by a Chryssalid, your fallen trooper might just get a Viking funeral to prevent having to deal with another zombie or Chryssalid.
- The expansion, Enemy Within, turns Sectopods into these. How? Halve all damage to them (and effectively double Drone's healing) thanks to Reinforced Armor, nerf the counter to them; HEAT ammor from 100% to 50%, all whilst keeping the same traits that made them an absolute bitch to deal with. If you dally in the endgame for too long, tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye as you deal with FOUR of them.
- The sequel lives up to the reputation of pain by buffing every old enemy type (Sectoids are tougher, Mutons are smarter and are now an example of Kung Fu-Proof Mook, Floaters become Archons, Thin Men become Vipers, etc.) and introducing some new types of enemies, all of whom are happy to help you fill your memorial wall with pictures.
- The Chryssalids no longer create zombies!! HOORAY!! They now turn victims into cocoons that spawn THREE of them, with one popping out every turn. Did you just lose a soldier of civvy to these things? Kill 'em fast AND their cocoons, before you die to the Zerg Rush.
- Floaters went and had makeovers, becoming the rather angelic Archons. How are they worse? Take the Floater, give it a cover-wrecking Macross Missile Massacre, give it a buff when it gets hurt, buff its health (20 compared to a Sectopod's 30), and tack in a high defense score (25).
- Sectopods are back. Bluescreen Rounds makes mincemeat of them, sure, but that's a saving grace considering their high accuracy, ludicrous hack defense (meaning trying to disable them might just BUFF them), high armor of 5 (meaning -5 to all damage received, barring Psionics, explosives and shreds), and Wrath Cannon; an Ao E attack with massive range and width that straight up deletes everything it hits. Can't kill the Sectopod whilst Wrath Cannon is charging? Hope you like Code Blacks!!
- In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the Chryssalids are back and just as deadly, to the point that between them and Muton Elites, Chryssalids are the bigger threat, particularly on higher difficulties. This is because they violate the usual rules of the game. In cover for safety? Hahahah NO. Elevated? No dice. Assault sent forward? Hope he has insurance. Only Snipers are ever REALLY safe from them. As attached as you might be to your guys, if you've got a Heavy in range when a soldier gets his throat ripped out by a Chryssalid, your fallen trooper might just get a Viking funeral to prevent having to deal with another zombie or Chryssalid.
I'll wait for more opinions about the rest of the fire emblem page before editing things. And now i'm afraid for the rest of the section if things like the XCOM case is a common thing.
edit : oh god dammit I've tried to read the nintendo wars section of the page and here we are, with examples mixing up that one boss and that one level. I'm not delving deeper into this until the rest is sorted out, but we've got more than a fair share of work ahead of us.
edited 11th Jul '17 12:48:48 PM by Yumil
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."
I've found that RosenkreuzStilette (that Mega Man doujinshi platformer) has an entire page dedicated to its bosses, with each game having seven examples. The problem here is that whoever created this page missed the point entirely that the games are just Nintendo Hard in general, so the hard bosses are to be expected. Take a look at the list:
Ah, yes, Rosenkreuzstilette. This franchise brings so much nostalgia to those who have played the classic Mega Man and Castlevania games. As a tribute to the difficulty of said games, you can be sure that it has some despicably tough bosses that you'd find within the different adventures in the series. In fact, these guys and girls are the main reason why this series is Nintendo Hard, and why many players have been humiliated with several references to classic computer and video games on their respective stages' Game Over screens. As a rule of thumb, Grolla and Pamela's versions are harder by default with their damage output doubled and use of melee attacks that require close-up tactics. They'll be mentioned however if differences are notable enough to change the strategy of the fight.
Rosenkreuzstilette
- In discussions about the game, all the bosses in the Sepperin Stages are mentioned frequently, especially the Demon's Wall. This thing is similar to the Mecha Dragon from Mega Man 2, and for good reasons; you have to fight it on only a few block platforms above a bottomless hole, and the Creepy Cool Crosses and energy balls it shoots at you travel across the screen rather quickly, and not to mention, once they're above or below you, said energy balls can split in two and its two sections can travel both upwards and downwards. And what's worse? It shoots even more of them once it Turns Red. And thanks to how narrow the platforms are, unless your character is standing on the opposite edge of where the attacks will hit, the knockback will kill you.
- While ostensibly its weakness, Klageharnisch is so unwieldy and awkward of an attack that aims vertically rather than horizontally, it tends to be discarded by many players even if it can kill it in four hits.
- It gets even worse when you fight it as Grolla, due to the fact that you'd have to get up close to actually damage it with your slash attack. Since her charged slash is the only reliable attack that has the range to hit the thing, and is your weakest attack if her health is above 50%, the fight becomes all the more tediously frustrating. Compared to the one in the main game, this thing in Rosenkreuzstilette Grollschwert is a complete and utter bastard.
- The Deviled Egg, a.k.a. the Yellow Devil from the Mega Man series, appears in Iris Stage II. Remember how hard the Yellow Devil was in the original Mega Man game? This guy's basically the same thing. The pieces of its body fly across the room so fast that they can be hard to jump over or slide under quickly. Its weak point is its eye, just like the Yellow Devil, except it opens up all over its body quite often, making it hard to hit. Oh, and what about when it turns red!? Yep, this thing has a new twist that makes it different from the Yellow Devil; once it turns red, it'll start flipping everything upside down every now and then, and vice-versa! The flipping has the same effect as the waterfalls from before the fight; once you're flipped, your controls are reversed, which means dodging its attacks is harder.
- For Tia this is mitigated by the boss's weakness, Liebessturm, being a full screen attack that doesn't care where the boss's eye spawns each time it reforms. Grolla, on the other hand...
- Before that, there's the Webmaster Spider, who's surprisingly just as tough as the Bosspider found in the original Mega Man X and its remake, Maverick Hunter X. The difficulty of figuring out where it will stop when it crawls down as well as the short amount of time it takes to shoot its red core before it closes back up, as well as its increasing speed as it takes damage explain it all. Oh, and there are also spears on the walls on each side of its arena. Additionally, its weakness, Freudenstachel, has an oscillating firing pattern that makes it difficult to line up the attack with its weak point.
- Freudia Neuwahl is a major jump in difficulty compared with the other seven RKS bosses.
- In the Opening Stage, she was a Warm-Up Boss that had a fairly simple pattern of throwing ice shards at you that could be dodged if you stayed to one side and jumped over them, and she doesn't turn red. She makes up for it in her home stage, what with her ability to throw more snowflakes than a Touhou game that fills a large chunk of the arena with ice, constantly fires a wall of lasers that will have you jumping awkwardly between a narrow gap while walking away from the icicles, creates multiple ice clones that use Freudenstachel (what's basically an ice machinegun) that can have you wasting time attacking them as they're hard to distinguish between the original and don't take any damage, and worst of all, her weakness weapon only knocks off half of her HP before draining completely. After that, you'll have to do the rest yourself. Assuming, of course, you didn't use it on the Quick Man death beams earlier in her stage. To put that in perspective, her intro stage as mentioned has no changes in her pattern. You know the gloves are off when her healthbar is completely red. Did we mention her stage itself is also That One Level thanks to said death beams?
- Freudia becomes harder in the rematch at Iris Stage III, for solely one reason: The arena the fight takes place at. Dodging her more dangerous attacks was somewhat easier because her boss stage was the most spacious out of all other bosses. The rematch stage feels cramped in comparison, her two most dangerous moves taking up the whole screen, leaving little to no room to dodge.
- Even if she's not about as tough as Freudia, there's no doubt that Grolla herself, as a boss, is still quite hard. Her unpredictable movements, as well as her fast tackle attack, can take off your health much quicker than you can say "plot device". And that's not all; her multi-cross-cut laser-like slash attack comes out fast and hard to avoid. Oh, and even if you use her weakness weapon, Trauare Wrede's Klageharnisch, she still isn't easy. It's also notable that both Freudia and Grolla are the only two bosses that aren't weak against their own weapon in the first game.
- As Spiritia, avoiding Trauare Wrede's attacks requires precise timing if you want to avoid getting hit by her Leviathan lunge and Klageharnisch. If she hits you with Leviathan, you'll likely lose one-third of your HP in a single hit! It doesn't stop there; once she turns red, she'll unleash her Doppelgänger Attack to follow her during her lunging attacks, making this fight require some cat-like reflexes to dodge Trauare, slide under her first doppelgänger and almost immediately jump over the second. Worse still, should you be too far away from her from her initial lunging attack, she WILL double back and lunge at you again, while her doppelgängers follow suit to make sure she hits you! Even worse still, If a player is unfortunate enough to gain too much distance from Trauare after dodging her attempt to thrust her Leviathan into you again, she can repeat this attack ad infinitum until she does. However, she's much easier if you take the low route in her stage. If you fight her there, the arena will be filled with water, giving you much more leeway in your jumps, and all you really have to worry about is not jumping too high into the spikes on the ceiling. The rematch in the penultimate stage doesn't have this luxury, however.
- Since you're playing as Grolla in the alternate mode, Spiritia takes her place as the graveyard stage boss in Rosenkreuzstilette Grollschwert. At first, she's not all that bad, (she'll just fire the occasional charged shot and send Lilly after you, which is easily tellegraphed thanks to the sound cue), but when she turns red, she becomes much worse than Grolla herself was as a boss. For starters, Lilly will give her a Cross-Tank to refill her HP, her Freudenstachel attack becomes annoying as hell when you're on the ground, and she can also aim her Lustatem at you if you're climbing the walls of the area, which can also be annoying. And if you think that's bad enough, when she gets close to you, she'll call forth her charged Klageharnisch attack. Since Klageharnisch was Grolla's weakness weapon in the main game, the resulting blast from her charged Klageharnisch may even kill you instantly! More generally, she avoids what made Zero an Anti-Climax Boss in Mega Man X5 by constantly dashing and firing strong attacks, which as Grolla are legitimately a problem as she takes double damage that makes up for her slower speed and more obvious signs of attack. It's as if the creator wanted to fix everything that made X pathetic as a boss with this fight.
- The first phase of the fight against Raimund Seyfarth pits you against his fast-flying scythe, Grassense. Grassense can be a pain because it flies around so fast, and in addition, several smaller scythes can also come flying at you really fast, which reminds players of how tough Death himself was in the Castlevania games (particularly to the original 1986 game and Rondo of Blood). Once you've done enough damage to Grassense that Raimund himself will turn red and face you head-on, the rest of the fight isn't too tough, unless you go ballistic and try to attack him when he's not doing his Grollschwert rain attack only for him to counter your attack with his own laser slash attack, of course.
- In the hands of a skilled player, his counter-attack in his second phase can be used as an A.I. Breaker. However, really only works for Spiritia and the trick to exploiting his counter-attack will require some practice to develop a rhythm to avoid getting hit (or take little damage as possible).
Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel
- In the C75 and C76 trial versions of Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, Grolla has easily proved to be the toughest boss in said demos, even tougher than she already was in the first game. She throws even more Sword Beams when she Turns Red than she did in the first game, and even more during her multi-cross-cut laser-like slash attack, in addition to being able to climb walls and attack you from above. And worst of all, the ground is slippery from the bloody rainstorm just like the last two rooms before her.
- And she's still pretty tough in the full version, and rightfully so. Just as you enter the boss room, she surprises you with a fast and long leap to the top of the wall you came in from and comes down to pull off her Sword Plant attack, which can catch you off guard if you're not careful. She is fast and her attacks are hard to dodge, even if her new multi-cross-cut laser-like slash attacks are now predictable.
- In the full version of Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, we have Schirach Fühler. Every time she jumps and lands on the ground, she causes an earthquake, which wouldn't be so bad, except she does it all the freaking time. And sometimes she creates earthquakes simply by standing and striking the ground with her hammer. And if you're ever stunned by an earthquake, she will grab you and send you flying with a painful Megaton Punch. Her other gimmicks include falling rocks and hurling huge boulders that are difficult to avoid. Worst of all, her weakness, Freudenzwinger, can be somewhat tricky to land, as it ends the moment Freudia gets hit, and you only have limited weapon energy.
- Dolis Warmind can be pretty tough as well. Seeing that Freudia, who was previously the hardest of the RKS bosses in the first game, is now playable, it's rather fitting that Dolis take said position in Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. Dolis is fast and unpredictable and loves to surprise players with hard-to-dodge attacks and leave them not knowing where she'll strike next, which makes her a pain in the ass to take down. Not to mention, her Fesselspirale attacks are pretty fast as well.
- As with the Deviled Egg back in the first game, Devil fights are never fun, not unlike those in the Mega Man games, and the Dark Devil, the One-Winged Angel form of Eifer, is definitely no exception. Remember how the Shadow Devil functioned in Mega Man X5? This beast acts the same way, even if it's not as bad as the Deviled Egg was. However, once it turns red, it gains a new attack that creates a wind that slowly pushes you along the floor as its body pieces fly across the screen à la Deviled Egg, which can make them tough to avoid. And if you think this thing is tough enough for Freudia, wait until you fight it as Pamela, because this thing can be a NIGHTMARE for her.
- Speaking of Pamela, she as a boss in the main game has a pretty intense fight of her own, which is basically what Grolla aspires to be. She's insanely fast, and her attacks can easily catch you off guard. She jumps and teleports around a lot during the battle, making her hard to hit. Her fire dash attack is fast as well, and she gets even worse when she turns red. The fact that her weakness weapon, Weißteufel, doesn't slow her down doesn't help, either.
- Zorne took a serious level in badassery in this game. She went from a fairly linear boss who threw bombs that were easy to dodge if knowing the right timing to it, to an ungodly fast bomb-throwing Cute Bruiser who jumps around the walls either to strike with her gauntlet, or to jump over the player to throw bombs that now explode upon contact with each other should another bomb be thrown, which happens frequently, making her attacks fairly unpredictable. While not as hard as most examples mentioned in this page, Zorne certainly becomes a trickier boss compared to the first game.
- Even by final boss standards, the two-phase boss in the final Iris stage is considered ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS, so much so that it's not even funny. First up, you have to face a Brainwashed and Crazy Spiritia, who outshines even Iris herself in terms of difficulty, as dodging her attacks requires fast reflexes, split-second timing, a lot of patience, and a quick eye. Her attacks come out fairly fast, and most of them are hard to predict, meaning you'd have to react just as quickly in order to avoid them quickly. Perhaps her most infamous attack has her raining swords upon your head and then turning them into lightning bolts at the same time that she slides at you. After her, you face Iris herself, in her Wings of Madness form, whose attacks are just as fast and hard to dodge, and also require fast reflexes to avoid. More energy balls would come down and split into two more that quickly travel across the floor after the homing ones beforehand zoom in on you. Iris' larger homing energy balls would also require fast reflexes and plenty of patience to avoid completely, and lots of them would home in on you one at a time. Her multi-Blitzstrahl attack follows you one lightning bolt at a time, and Iris herself finishes up the attack with a whole line of lightning bolts that takes up much of the screen, and you would have to be on either edge of the screen to avoid this screen-filling technique completely. And to top it all off, this is just about the only boss fight where the boss itself has an extended health bar. Oh, and if you think that's tough enough with Freudia, just wait until you get to this boss as Pamela. Have fun!
Out of all the examples on the first game, I would say that the Deviled Egg (an Expy of the Yellow Devil) is considered to be That One Boss because even with the knowledge of its weakness, dodging its body segments requires very quick reaction times and its very easy to mess up here and die. Many players consider it THE hardest boss in the game for the same reasons as the Yellow Devil, so I would say cut all examples from the first game except the Deviled Egg. I haven't played the second game though, so I can't say which is considered That One Boss from that game. What are your thoughts?
edited 11th Jul '17 1:40:50 PM by DivineFlame100
Having played the first game and not the second, I'd leave Grolla and possibly Traure in there since they're both a giant pain in the ass. Everything else can go though.
By the way, I went and trimmed down the That One Boss section of Sonic the Hedgehog. Notify me if I did something wrong.
edited 11th Jul '17 1:48:09 PM by ElloMe
The trope page itself says,