Cheapest Bosses in Gaming!

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Just finished Vanquish on God Hard and it took me over 614 tries to beat the last boss . I swear to God there is no consistent strategy to beat them, since their attacks are so random and you can get into a lot of situations in which it is impossible to avoid their attacks. God Hard is not actually THAT hard. There's only like 3 parts of the game that are cheap as hell and the last boss is the very tip of the top. Darn you, Platinum .

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

R-Type III's final boss wins this prize hands down. :V

[Estebang]

Just finished Vanquish on God Hard and it took me over 614 tries to beat the last boss

You have the patience (and spare time) of a saint.

This may sound stupid, but I've never been able to beat Rockman EXE 3's final boss (Alpha), even with a reasonably powerful character and folder. I've tried it a few times every year since the game came out to no avail, and it's prevented me from buying any of the sequels. I think it's because I invested too many upgrades in Rapid instead of Charge. Wonder if I should actually start a new file.

Ys VI: Napishtim also has an incredibly overwhelming final boss that I've never been able to conquer. Something I've noticed that's common to Falcom games, be they action or turn-based RPGs, is that they will always have easy normal enemies and very tough bosses. There's no middle ground whatsoever.

[Moniker]

The solo fight against Wiegraf in FFT. When I first played it, it took me and my buddy forever and a ton of overleveling before he finally caved and looked up what to do. Cheap bastards, both of them.

[iconoclast]

There are some missions in Ninja Gaiden 2's Mission Mode that are absurdly difficult when played on Master Ninja. It's been two or three years since I've beaten them, so I can't point to anything too specific, but I do remember several missions driving me insane. One with Alexei, that has a load of armored beetle adds around the field, a gauntlet battle against the five Greater Fiend bosses back to back, and another gauntlet style mission that ends with a battle against Dagra Dai, which was nightmarish. Whoever designed that DLC is evil.

Just finished Vanquish on God Hard and it took me over 614 tries to beat the last boss . I swear to God there is no consistent strategy to beat them, since their attacks are so random and you can get into a lot of situations in which it is impossible to avoid their attacks. God Hard is not actually THAT hard. There's only like 3 parts of the game that are cheap as hell and the last boss is the very tip of the top. Darn you, Platinum .

I've only beaten them once, but I actually think there is a strategy that can beat them consistently - it's just very specific. If you can get them together, you can get them in a stun loop with the EMP grenades, so you have to kite them around the stage to the other EMP spawns while focus firing one of them.

It's a very hard fight though. There is absolutely no room for error, which is what makes it so satisfying once you finally kill the fuckers.

[Ruldra]

God Hand, hardest difficulty:

Samurai boss: Fighting him solo was hard enough, but he had the ability to clone 6 copies of himself and they would all attack you at once. It really took me a long time to figure out how to beat this fucker, until I found out that he won't clone himself if you stay close to him at all times. He'd still put up a good fight though.

Gay Brothers at the beginning: Very very tough too, but only because you had a very small lifebar and couldn't afford to make mistakes.

The solo fight against Wiegraf in FFT. When I first played it, it took me and my buddy forever and a ton of overleveling before he finally caved and looked up what to do. Cheap bastards, both of them.

Wiegraf and your buddy are cheap bastards?

That was easily the hardest boss in the game, but I had way more trouble with a level later where you had to protect a brother and a sister. If you had low-speed characters, the enemy could kill them before it was your turn to act. I don't remember how I did it but it was hell.

[shmuppyLove]

World 3 boss in Nightmare in the Dark.

[Zaarock]

I've only beaten them once, but I actually think there is a strategy that can beat them consistently - it's just very specific. If you can get them together, you can get them in a stun loop with the EMP grenades, so you have to kite them around the stage to the other EMP spawns while focus firing one of them.

Yeah, there definitely is a strategy.. but it was a long time ago when I beat it and it took me a couple hours to beat actually (I think I was the second or third to beat god hard on 360 at the time, the first guy took like 600 tries too ) EMP grenades, shotgun and rockets were pretty much it I think. and the fact that you can actually shoot from behind cover when you're perfectly safe (as long as your crosshairs arent shooting at the cover) And there is a little room for error, you can recover from damage by dodging and hiding but it will break your rhythm of course. But yeah, once you have one down you're pretty much down.. so if you find a way to damage them quick it shouldn't take many tries. I remember reading some strategy from iconoclast when I was doing it which helped a lot.

It's an awesome boss fight though, doing it on god hard made it even more interesting. on normal mode the boss fight is pretty easy.

[Ex-Cyber]

Jasper Batt, Jr. and his tornado punch -> teleport punch combo in the late second phase of the fight.

The video I linked does not actually show this bit of cheapness, but rather shows that a no-damage run against him involves basically skipping that part of the fight.

[Loris Biaggi]

90% of Super Mario bosses

[BulletMagnet]

Sir Sweet of the first Prinny platformer just about ruined that game for me - his attacks aren't really even all that "cheap" per se (compared to some of the other stuff the game throws at you, at least), but the fight has a strict time limit and requires you to position yourself perfectly and mash the attack button until your fingers hurt for the entire duration if you want a prayer at beating him. Infuriating.

[CMoon]

I would have said any SNK fighter boss, but that mention of God Hand reminded me of how on harder difficulties, you had to fight all three douchebags (skinny green, big blue, femme-red (sorry, can't recall their names) at the same time. Jesus. As much as Dark/Demon's Souls has been touting this whole 'hard' thing, those games always leave some back door for circumventing the difficulty. Not so with some of these other games.

[Moniker]

The solo fight against Wiegraf in FFT. When I first played it, it took me and my buddy forever and a ton of overleveling before he finally caved and looked up what to do. Cheap bastards, both of them.

Wiegraf and your buddy are cheap bastards?

That was easily the hardest boss in the game, but I had way more trouble with a level later where you had to protect a brother and a sister. If you had low-speed characters, the enemy could kill them before it was your turn to act. I don't remember how I did it but it was hell.

Yup. Can't say I really blame him, but even as a young'un I hated resorting to guides. Never had a problem with the twins stage (although, there's a couple of them.. all pretty difficult), but I guess I always kept ninjas on the payroll. Overpowered class, that. I had much more difficulty with the rescue Mustadio fight and the one at the gallows, but when I replayed the game on psp a few weeks back, they weren't hard at all.

[PainAmplifier]

I have a long term hate-on with Duriel from Diablo 2.


Charge attack
Unpreventable Freeze aura that slows movement and attack speed
Very strong melee attacks (Jab/Smite)
Very strong Resistences (Especially on anything other than normal difficulty)

And then what do they do? They put him in a super-tiny no-exit room!!!

Duriel is always a PITA for any non melee-character. Your only way through him is to either overlevel enough to kill him before your Merc Dies (It's impossible to carry enough Rejuvenation potions to last an entire fight otherwise.) Abuse certain skills like static charge. (Which got nerfed.) Setup a Portal just outside his room and just die/throw yourself at him until he finally goes down.

Duriel is the #1 reason I *never* bothered with playing Hardcore in D2. He's just too cheap.

[Drum]

90% of Super Mario bosses

What the fuck?

My answer: The Butcher in Diablo. Well, not so much cheap as just awfully designed to the point that it requires cheap exploitation of the (lousy) AI to beat it without grinding or stocking up on potions.

[Moniker]

Duriel's the act 2 boss, right? I've gotten past him on HC with a necro, amazon and sorceress. Sorceress was pretty rough. I don't know if I'd call him cheap. Definitely difficult and annoying, though.

Any of you play the D1 mod "The Hell"?

Try beating the Butcher on that SOB.

[jonny5]

World 3 boss in Nightmare in the Dark.

+1!!!!

[TransatlanticFoe]

Anything which can one hit kill you (in a game where you have some form of life meter of course!) without any warning or real strategy to avoid. Rather like this guy from No More Heroes 2:

Jasper Batt, Jr. and his tornado punch -> teleport punch combo in the late second phase of the fight.

The video I linked does not actually show this bit of cheapness, but rather shows that a no-damage run against him involves basically skipping that part of the fight.

If you're hit in line with one of the biggish windows in the room, you're knocked through it and INSTADEATH. Bastards.

[louisg]

Anything which can one hit kill you (in a game where you have some form of life meter of course!) without any warning or real strategy to avoid. Rather like this guy from No More Heroes 2:

Panzer Dragoon Zwei, which I otherwise like, has a couple bosses which do that.

[Marc]

Not a popular choice, but a few of Dark Soul's bosses verged on the cheap.

[mesh control]

Yeah, the first Capra demon encounter was pretty infuriating.

[CStarFlare]

Duriel's the act 2 boss, right? I've gotten past him on HC with a necro, amazon and sorceress. Sorceress was pretty rough. I don't know if I'd call him cheap. Definitely difficult and annoying, though.

Duriel was pretty rough, and I'm pretty sure he was nerfed at some point. I remember him being hell on non-LOD D2 but he's not terribly difficult now.

[Elixir]

Duriel's difficulty was dependent on how much RAM your PC had.

Pretty much any boss in Romancing Saga 2 can kill you in one hit if you're not careful. I recall the director claiming something like, "a boss isn't a boss unless it can kill your entire party with a single hit".

Dark Souls - four kings. Everything else is scripted or gimmicky.

Futari Ultra - third mid-boss is grossly out of place in difficulty, required a bomb.

Touhou Fuujinroku - Stage 4 boss on Lunatic, followed by a very easy Stage 5 and Stage 6.

iDOLM@STER 2 - the rivals are rigged and you basically need to beat the game multiple times before it's even slightly possible to beat them consistently.

Tales of Xillia - third of the six Fell Arms has 72K HP and will OHKO any party member per attack. I don't know why they're going to shove stupidly powerful bosses in mid-game areas, it's just stupid.

[CMoon]

Yeah, the first Capra demon encounter was pretty infuriating.

Man, I totally understand why the master key shouldn't be available on your first playthrough. I started a new character and picked it, and by the time I even bothered with Capra demon (could have skipped it altogether), the fight was a total joke.

[Blackbird]

There's a pretty cheesy boss in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn that mind controls one of your party members with 100% accuracy at the start of the battle. Not a deal breaker, since you can win with the rest of your party, but it's really annoying because your AoE spells start targeting your former party member and I'm really uptight about not letting party members die at all (hey, if I'm going to play an RPG, I need to make it challenging for myself some how, because the game isn't going to do it for me). Pretty crap way to add difficulty anyway, in my opinion.

I ended up having to rush kill that boss down before it could do anything in order to avoid inadvertently killing my ally.

[dunpeal2064]

The Matador in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. That fight took me about 23 tries. It was so early in the game too, so I can't see how they would have expected you to be at a higher level.

Another fight that gave me a really hard time was the last boss fight in Lunar 2 on the psx. I crossed the barrier of no return with maybe 3 healing items, and there was no going back. So, again, this fight took me well over 20 tries, and each try took about 30 minutes, as the fight is long.

[Estebang]

Nocturne's Matador, and most of the game's bosses, are a joke if you enter the fight on a full Kagutsuchi with two or more Bright Might-capable demons. They barely get a chance to do anything against your huge amount of press turns.

Now, if it's the Archfiend from Digital Devil Saga we're talking about...if you go into the fight with any protections against his status ailment skills, he'll immediately cast GAEA RAGE, which is guaranteed to wipe out your party. That pretty much says it all.

[Jon]

^^^Yeah, I never managed to beat Hito or Satan from DDS2.

[CMoon]

Nocturne's Matador, and most of the game's bosses, are a joke if you enter the fight on a full Kagutsuchi with two or more Bright Might-capable demons. They barely get a chance to do anything against your huge amount of press turns.

The bosses in Nocturne are about knowing what you are doing (not about level or grinding). Matador is basically the first point (if you are new to the series) that the game effectively tells you that you are playing it wrong. My biggest concern with Nocturne is that sometimes it seems you need to know well in advance what you actually need to survive a boss.

[Estebang]

Personally, I read a FAQ.