The final boss is never the hardest boss, is it?

[Thirsk]

The first three Ratchet and Clank games, as far as I remember. The final bosses weren't insanely hard to beat, but quite alot harder than the rest. I recall always having to buy the biggest guns to take them down.

 

[Nifarious]

for all those mentioning Dragon Age, all you have to do is play every quest that the game offers (ie. get all your game content) and then the Archdemon doesn't stand much of a chance on the hardest difficulty.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

It is in Prototype. I still wiped the floor with him on hard, but he was the hardest.
Same for Borderlands. Okay, it is the boss after the final boss of Moff Tarkin's armory (or whatever it's called), and it's HUGE. And just as powerful as his size makes him look.

Spoiler

I TOOK HIM DOWN ALONE. Can I get a medal?

 

[Weaver]

So, Escapists, can you think of any games where the final boss was the most difficult thing in the game?

Metroid Prime, IMO.
I had a hell of a hard time with that final boss.

 

[Nazulu]

I can think of some games.

Metroid Prime's Metroid Prime was very hard to follow for the first time.

Even though Donkey Kong Country is very old now, I have to mention that the last boss was very painful in that. Especially when he regains consciousness after the credits.

Every shoot ém up game I played has the final boss as the most challenging. Especially really difficult games like BioMetal.

Actually I know a lot, it's just they're mostly old games.

 

[lucky_sharm]

Angra in Godhand was surprisingly a lot easier to understand compared to the other bosses in the game. He only killed me four times and after that I beat him without taking any damage at Lvl 3.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

I think your problem can be put into three catagories.

1. Extra bosses: These are boss's that aren't required to kill to beat the game, but provide a challenge in the game after all is said and done with the big baddy. The extra boss's in the Mario RPG's are harder then the final one, but are hidden at the end of challenge rooms and hidden away. I don't see much problem in these guys.

2. Boss's that just SEAM easier due to level: This is what I call "Darksiders syndrome" where the final boss is simply out classed by your level you have at the end of the game. In Darksider's, the first boss you just have some basic moves and one life bar, by the end you have 6 health bars, new and upgraded weapons (including a gun), and you have learned many cheap attacks. Developers need to learn how to make a difficulty curve that actually stays on line with the player.

3. Just the classic "easy end boss." These guys are just simply easy to kill. No two ways about it. The players level has little to nothing to blame, it is just easy. In Borderlands, if you have somebody with snipers with you, have one guy distract and another snipe the eyes, and he will die quick. Earlier I know about a bird thingy that has a life bar the sizes of a cruise ship and kills players with ease, and the only real way to beat it is to spawn piggyback with a friend (there is a town and spawn point very close to the bird) and just whale on the thing till its dead.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I think Bioshock's final boss is a lot harder than any of the mini-bosses, with the addenum that none of them are frustratingly unbeatable (largely because Bioshock isn't really "about" the boss fights. Although Dr Steinmann still remains one of my favorite videogame villains ever.)

 

[ESCAPIST DELETE THIS ACCOUNT]

That annoys me when at the start of the game you die a million times on one mission and at the end you just breeze through.

 

[Flamezdudes]

Final Fantasy 13... there's technically 3 and the 2nd is the hardest. I got stuck on that for awhile.

 

[Cold Blue]

It's because the final boss is tied to the plot, not the gameplay. Other bosses might have ramped up difficulty just to give you a (fun?) challenge. The final boss is usually just to wrap the plot up.

 

[Comma-Kazie]

The Legend of Dragoon stands out to me--Faust was WAY harder than Melbu Frahma.

 

[Matt Kloepfer]

Go ahead, play any FF game... nearly ALL will be the hardest boss you will have fought.

 

[HotShooter]

Tabuu was a pest in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Easily more trouble than the rest of 'em.

Does Crawmerax from Borderlands count as a final boss? The game refers to him as the "secret final boss" so... yeah... He deserves a mention for being so fother mucking hard anyway.

Crawmerax should totally count. I actually REQUIRED 4 people to take it down, because my team was slaughtered with only 3 of us.
And my friend and I couldn't take down Tabuu together on high difficulties because of his huge area attacks (although my friend isn't very good at Brawl, which didn't help).

 

[Red Rum]

God Hand for the PS2.

 

[Chamale]

The 16th colossus in Shadow of the Colossus was absolutely not the most difficult one. It was one of the most timeconsuming, sure, but you knew exactly what to do, and doing so was not particularily hard. It was way too easy and way to long to be a suitable final boss, so to speak. It was, however, very climactic.

I disagree. I didn't know exactly what to do, since I didn't use a walkthrough, and some of what I had to do was very counterintuitive.

Some games have final bosses that can be too easy or too hard depending on your playstyle. I only died once trying to kill [Prototype]'s final boss, because my strategy of throwing objects at enemies worked very well in that bomb-strewn area. My friends who relied on brute force to get through the game died many times trying to kill that boss.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

Final Fantasy X. In that game, the 'final boss' isn't actually the final boss. Right at the end you face Braska's Final Aeon, in two forms, and no save or healing between them. Those are the true final bosses, but after that there's a set of fights against all the aeons you've collected so far and then the apparent final boss, Yu Yevon. Those fights are impossible to lose though, unless you deliberately lose them by Banishing or Petrifying all your characters then attacking them. Otherwise, you have Auto-Life at all times so each time a character dies they come straight back with full health.

That said, the true Final Boss, Braska's Final Aeon, is actually an extremely tough fight and is definitely the hardest boss of the game, excluding optional bosses like the Weapons or Penance or the Dark Aeons. I could never beat Braska's Final Aeon, until I stumbled on a trick by using Rikku's Mix overdrive (the Trio of 9999 mix specifically) to do 9999 damage each attack, then other overdrives to do multiple attacks per turn (thus defeating him in the space of around three turns). A very cheap trick to pull, but it sure as hell worked ;D.

Wanna know what's cheaper? Hitting 99,999 every hit with an entirely maxed out Sphere Grid, Ultimate Weapons for each character and some other trickery that I probably never saw due to me having a cheat-save.

In my experience, the Final Boss has always been very easy, and I get stuck on some of the earlier ones. On that note, I have one thing to say. "Fuck you Demyx."

 

[kommando367]

Off the top of my head, I think of Infamous, Prototype, Gears 1, Soul caliber 3, and Riddick: escape from butcher bay as good examples of games where the final bosses where the hardest fought ones in the game.