What is the most difficult boss/challenge in your favorite game?

[scorptatious]

Yeah, there have been a lot of threads asking "what was the hardest boss you've ever fought" and the like. So I decided to add a bit of a twist. I'm pretty sure a lot of us have favorite games that weren't necessarily the hardest ones they've played, so here I ask what the Escapist's favorite game is AND what was the hardest part about it?

My favorite game is Shadow of the Colossus, and really, the hardest boss in that game for me was no. 9. First couple of times I fought him, it was a pain to maneuver him over those geysers, plus if I wasn't on Agro, he would blast me to death with his electric balls of doom. Now, he isn't much of a problem for me anymore.

So how about you guys?

 

[God'sFist]

When I first fought Darth Traya in KOTOR II I was playing darkside sith lord and my main weapon was force storm I didn't have very many adv.medpacks or support packs and the three floating lightsabers nearly killed her. then I replayed it just recently blazed through it as a Jedi master.

Captcha: sippy cup. you saying I'm a wimp captcha? you have some nerve.

 

[piinyouri]

I've said it a thousand times I know, but to this DAY I will hesitate making a bad aligned character in Return to Arms because I know, one day I'm going to have to face Mithaniel Marr, and it could potentially end that file if I can't beat him.

As SOON as the fight starts he almost always opens with this bullshit leaping sword stab, except he must have rocket boots becausde he can travel ridiculous lengths to reach you. Now when this hit's you one of three things will happen.

It hits unblocked and get thrown way back and knocked down. While your character is goig through the 'get up' animation, it is not uncommon for him to be well within rang to use this attack again, and if he does, he can easily kill you. With two moves.

You block, and miraculously, you don;t get knocked down.

You block and for who knows what RNG reason, it goes through, you're knocked back, possibly killed as stated in the first possibility.

You absolutely have to stay in close range of him to avoid the rocket boot stab of cheap death, which allows him to get a good old fashioned hit in with his sword, which hurts a lot. Like say...two shots and you can be dead. You can block these attacks with a shield, but it leaves you fairly offensive-less. If you break your block to attack, it could all be over before you swing.

The bastard can't be stunned by the dark elfs blinding light skill, nor rooted by anyone. All of your fancy toys, regardless of class mean nothing and it comes down to a fuck ton of luck.

If you try to take him down by magic, you better hope you can kill him with whatever spell it is in around a second and a half, as that's how long you'll have before you're choking on his sword.

There has only been one character I've had that beat him pretty handily, and that was my dual-wielding barbarian whom I jacked up his critical attack rate and damage so much that combined with his crit rate buff, and ancestral call, I killed him in about 4 hits.(Could one shot every other boss, that build was nuts)

 

[The_Scrivener]

The geyser SotC battle was my last. After I got hit with the shock ball for the 80th time because Triangle only has Wander mount Agro once every 2 or 3 times, I decided it wasn't the masterpiece I'd been told about.

FF7 is my favorite game. Playing it with no items or materia was the biggest challenge I've had in it. Emerald and Ruby are obviously history at this point.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Favourite game is FFVII and first time I faced Emerald I got wrecked I just was totally unaware how much more powerful it was compared to anything I had faced before in the game. But yeah these days Emerald and Ruby are cake I have fun finding how many different ways I can kill them.

Second favourite game is Valkyria Chronicles and I dont remember having many problems with bosses but I do remember Selvaria simply because at first she cannot be beaten (I didnt know) and she will mince you seriously she is literally a one (wo)man army damn I loved that character. Second time she is also hard without the right tactics as she will dodge everything that is not 100% behind her and will counter with a deadly follow up.

 

[Voulan]

Kingdom Hearts for me, and that horrible Riku/Ansem boss fight to save Kairi. What makes matters worse is that you can't skip cutscenes in KH1, and the cutscenes before that fight is a good five minutes long at least.

You'll find yourself saying "it is I, Ansem, the seeker of darkness!" over and over before the day is out.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Dark Souls - Bed of Chaos

This is likely the worst fucking Boss I've ever come across in any game. It's a Boss fight that's almost entirely based on luck. No matter how strong, or fast your build is, you will get fucked over due to how badly designed this encounter is. Everytime I feel like playing a new game of Dark Souls, I instantly change my mind because I know I'll have to deal with this cheap bastard again.

Resident Evil 4 - Mendez

There are arguably harder Boss fights later in the game, but at this point you don't have any capable weaponry yet, and you have to fight him in a very small inclosed space.

 

[Aeshi]

"Occupation of Arteria Carpals" on Armored Core: For Answer

Basically, imagine taking on 4 good human players on all at once, because that's basically what you have to do on this mission. I'm really proud of the fact that I managed to get an S rank on that mission, while also saving the random NPC who tries to help you (though it was close, I killed the last one of them with my last bullet)

I'm not too proud to admit I had to abuse a glitch to beat the Hard mode version though (yeah, what I mentioned above? that's normal mode!)

 

[Launcelot111]

Goddamn Shadow Mitsuo in Persona 4. Not only does he hit hard, but he burns through your precious SP in a hurry as well. On top of that, he'll build his hero shell protective thing in like two rounds most times despite how many times you hammer him with all out attacks. It's a war of attrition in a game where SP regeneration is super rare

 

[Guffe]

Can't really remember any specific examples but Tales of Symphonia has a few challenging, yet good bosses!!

 

[shrekfan246]

Kingdom Hearts for me, and that horrible Riku/Ansem boss fight to save Kairi. What makes matters worse is that you can't skip cutscenes in KH1, and the cutscenes before that fight is a good five minutes long at least.

You'll find yourself saying "it is I, Ansem, the seeker of darkness!" over and over before the day is out.

Maybe I'll change my mind now that I'm playing through on Expert, but I always got more frustrated with Sephiroth than AnRikusem.

Anyway.

OT: I think it's called Ozma? It counts as a flying enemy and absorbs Shadow damage unless you do a side-quest, which right off the bat renders a large amount of the Final Fantasy IX party absolutely useless. It's also got a large number of high-damage AOE magic spells and can heal itself.

For favorite series overall, it'd be either Mass Effect or Kingdom Hearts, but since Mass Effect doesn't really have any boss battles that are worth writing home about, I'll go with Kingdom Hearts, which would be... a tie between the Lingering Will of II Final Mix, Vanitas' Remnant or

Spoiler: Minor Spoiler, sort of

Young Xehanort

in Birth By Sleep, none of which I've managed to beat yet. I only ever get a few hits off before getting absolutely wrecked.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Dark Souls - Bed of Chaos

I don't want to be "that guy" who says he hasn't experienced any of your problems and this is how you do it (for the record I dislike that boss immensely), but if you gain a heck of a lot of poise, face the swiping arms and move slowly to avoid the falling floor, it isn't *quite* as bad as an encounter based on luck.

On the other hand The Four Kings - Dark Souls, but only in NG+. When you're in the pitch black, with a ring slot gone and then each of these bastards just won't die quick enough so you get swamped by their attacks as they start to pile on you.

... or ... Director Phleg encounter in Abe's Exoddus. Basically a sequence that requires mastery of all the various vocal commands that the Glukkons can muster, performed with absolute precision and perfect timing. Or you get crushed by a mine grinder or eaten by Slogs.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Dark Souls - Bed of Chaos

I don't want to be "that guy" who says he hasn't experienced any of your problems and this is how you do it (for the record I dislike that boss immensely), but if you gain a heck of a lot of poise, face the swiping arms and move slowly to avoid the falling floor, it isn't *quite* as bad as an encounter based on luck.

Sure, but that isn't saying much in its favor. It's still a giant clusterfuck of a Boss fight, where your most prominent skill is the ability to not rage quit.

The fact that it's the only Boss in the game that has checkpoints goes to show even From Software knew how shoddy it was.

 

[KOMega]

Ozma from FF9. Bastard keeps casting high damage meteor. And he automatically gets an action when someone targets him.

Dark Souls - Bed of Chaos

This is likely the worst fucking Boss I've ever come across in any game. It's a Boss fight that's almost entirely based on luck. No matter how strong, or fast your build is, you will get fucked over due to how badly designed this encounter is. Everytime I feel like playing a new game of Dark Souls, I instantly change my mind because I know I'll have to deal with this cheap bastard again.

Try shooting arrows at his sides. It saves you the trouble of actually running over there (It'll take a few arrows to break through some of the branches. Maybe like 10-13 each side.) and you can do it safely from the edges of the starting position area where none of the ground will fall (edit: and also safely out of range of those sweeping hand branches. Don't worry about those until you have to jump into the middle.). You just have to make sure to sidestep those fire attacks, but taking a few steps back and forth is pretty easy. You'll still have to time and make a run for the middle part, but I'm sure this method will save you a lot of trouble.

My god, my face when I broke its sides with just arrows lol.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Dark Souls - Bed of Chaos

This is likely the worst fucking Boss I've ever come across in any game. It's a Boss fight that's almost entirely based on luck. No matter how strong, or fast your build is, you will get fucked over due to how badly designed this encounter is. Everytime I feel like playing a new game of Dark Souls, I instantly change my mind because I know I'll have to deal with this cheap bastard again.

Try shooting arrows at his sides. It saves you the trouble of actually running over there (It'll take a few arrows to break through some of the branches. Maybe like 10-13 each side.) and you can do it safely from the edges of the starting position area where none of the ground will fall. You just have to make sure to sidestep those fire attacks, but taking a few steps back and forth is pretty easy. You'll still have to time and make a run for the middle part, but I'm sure this method will save you a lot of trouble.

My god, my face when I broke his sides with just arrows lol.

Yeah, I tried that, but it got really hard to see whether I was actually doing any damage.

What stacks onto the suckage of this Boss, is the trek to get to him once you die. Either you have to run through the frikking lava and the fire gargoyles. Or you have to get past the giant headless sentinel guy and the fire gargoyles.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Sure, but that isn't saying much in its favor. It's still a giant clusterfuck of a Boss fight, where your most prominent skill is the ability to not rage quit.

The fact that it's the only Boss in the game that has checkpoints goes to show even From Software knew how shoddy it was.

Oh I agree. The skill factor in the boss fight is uncharacteristically low for that game. I recall reading that an encounter of that sort is what they are looking to exclude from the sequel.

 

[AlotFirst]

Well, I don't know too many difficult bosses in any of the games I'm currently playing, but I think Liadri, the Concealing Dark, in GW2 is quite a difficult encounter. I'm not saying that she is well designed or anything like that because she's not, in my honest opinion.

 

[KOMega]

~snip~

Yeah, I tried that, but it got really hard to see whether I was actually doing any damage.

What stacks onto the suckage of this Boss, is the trek to get to him once you die. Either you have to run through the frikking lava and the fire gargoyles. Or you have to get past the giant headless sentinel guy and the fire gargoyles.

idk. I guess I've tried it enough times to know where to shoot.

Actually alternatively,
(I just thought of something. I'll try it myself later when I get home. And have time to play it -_-)
When the fight starts the first time, why don't you walk to the sides like normal, but just roll around to break the branches but not the big glowy orb. Do that for both sides and then just snipe both from starting position?

You'll only take make a couple arrows each side to get the right angle, and you won't fall to your death since the floor only goes if you destroy a side.

Also the trek there isn't so bad. I've got killing titanite demons down to a science, even on a narrow bridge. And if I'm taking the lava path, the little fire guys aren't too tough. Although I know what you mean since just walking there is a pain in a way.

 

[dementis]

Mundus at the end of Devil may cry, mostly due to the inverted controls before the lava arena boss fight, when I eventually beat that dick I cheered so loud that my parents thought I had injured myself.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

"Occupation of Arteria Carpals" on Armored Core: For Answer

Basically, imagine taking on 4 good human players on all at once, because that's basically what you have to do on this mission. I'm really proud of the fact that I managed to get an S rank on that mission, while also saving the random NPC who tries to help you (though it was close, I killed the last one of them with my last bullet)

I'm not too proud to admit I had to abuse a glitch to beat the Hard mode version though (yeah, what I mentioned above? that's normal mode!)

Oh yes.

You definitely made out of that fight better than I did. I was at triple digit health at the end, had swapped out my legs for treads just to have the any weapon sup weapons, went both Kojima cannons to start out and, i don't remember what my sub weapons were but, so close. For any one who has not played the game you have a 5 digit amount of life usually you worry when you get to about 9000, and I think I finished that mission at 300ish health with Old King dead.

I don't see myself doing the hard mode version any time soon.