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Least favorite boss fights


Armagon
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Ys 6 final boss.

Without saying any spoiler, you are just fighting a overgrown rock with some pretty colors and lasers. Definetly one of the worst boss fights in all of Ys. It's extra dissapointing because the penultimate Boss was freaking amazing.

Ys 1 Batman (Vagullion)

Ugh. Randomness in a boss form. The worst boss in all of Ys. 

Trails of Cold Steel 2 Epilogue Boss

Rehashing the final boss of the first game and than tell the player that it was all useless after a sucky 16 floor dungeon IS.NOT.A.GOOD.WAY.TO.END.THE.DAMN.GAME. 

Edited by Shrimperor
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The most recent one for me is Eclipse/Eos from Borderlands The Pre Sequel. While he is a massive target a massive health pool with will take thousands of rounds to kill, short ranged weapons are ineffective due to him being at a moderate distance at all times, minions are swarming you at all times, the floor will eat hp away, there is no good cover,  when his health is at a certain percentage he will recharge with shields fully 3 times, and the missile barrage ability that can destroy in seconds. This boss felt like it was designed for multiplayer in mind. Took me 3 hours to take his guy down. 

 

Edited by Jingle Jangle
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Can I add many of Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight's bosses? Most of them have gigantic HP, although for some you do get little puzzles to reduce it first. The HP bloat means that without an optimized team on Expert, these will be chores to kill. They all also have scripted routines, which is fine for some postgame bosses, and some scripting is always fine beforehand, but these are 100% scripted. And if you don't memorize it, on Expert (which is supposed to be a challenge- that is much of the point of EO), their damage is very heavy. The worst of these bosses are probably Ginnugagap 2nd floor's, and most definitely the 3rd Stratum's boss, the miniboss in the 3rd is also rather bad if you don't have a Protector or Beast.

I'd also add the final bosses of Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Dark Dawn, and Dullahan the superboss of both. The final boss in DD is uncreative, but the real problem is Djinn Storm. You know how Fates Conquest on Lunatic has Inevitable End allowing enemies to debuff you to no end, and how stat debuffs can only wear off one point in every stat per turn? Djinn Storm forces all Djinn into Recovery Mode, which severely lowers everyone's stats until they've all recovered nine turns later. This also has another problem- it strips you of Wish and other party heals, probably Revive too, so not only are you more fragile, but you can't restore HP so easily. It's real cheap. 

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Trails of Cold Steel 2 Epilogue Boss

Rehashing the final boss of the first game and than tell the player that it was all useless after a sucky 16 floor dungeon IS.NOT.A.GOOD.WAY.TO.END.THE.DAMN.GAME. 

I mean, to be fair, that wasn't really the point of the fight. The characters all knew they weren't getting anything out of it. But that reminds me, i'm convinced that Falcom just doesn't know how to design good final bosses, at least in Trails. Let's take a look at each one.

  • Guardian (Trails in the Sky): Like Luciola's Fog Monsters of Doom, there are two......things, one immune to physical attacks and one immune to Arts. If you try to use Arts at any point, one of the things (i forget which one), shoots AA Cancelers at you, which nullify you're Arts. As if that wasn't enough, the boss, in all phases minus the third one (which you can't really lose), summons little drone things which blow up on defeat. And it'll keep summoning them....endlessly. Until the second phases is over.
  • Angel Wiessman: It's basically just a massive HP sponge. 
  • Final boss of Trails in the Sky 3rd: At this point, Falcom starts putting dumb gimmicks in their final boss fights. The first phase of the fight has the final boss summoning 7 pillars, each one representing one of the 7 elements. You can't damage the final boss at all until these pillars are destroyed. The thing is, these pillars have too much HP. To make matters worse, these pillars are also part of an attack so for the first few turns, you'll be taking these massive hits, which vary depending on how many pillars are left. The second phase of the fight gets rid of the pillars but now puts you in an area where the ground slowly disappears and eventually, the boss will use it's S-Craft which will kill anyone that hasn't Guarded. Oh and if you die you get to the whole fight all over again, starting from the first phase. Fun.
  • Demonized (spoiler) (Zero no Kiseki): It's really just the second phase this time. During the second phase, the final boss becomes immune to all physical attacks that aren't S-Crafts, so Arts are the main way of attacking at this point. Except offensive Arts suck in Zero so it just becomes a waiting game of placing Reflect on everyone and waiting for the final boss to use Arts while also waiting for you CP to fill up to at least 100. I will say that it's probably the least bad final boss in the series.
  • Azure Demiourgos (Ao no Kiseki): Continuing the trend of gimmicky final bosses, i forget what exactly you have you to do in the first phase. All i know is that you have to do something right, otherwise, if you defeat the first phase, it'll use it's Stand [M A N D O M] to rewind time and recover half HP. 
  • The first final boss of Trails of Cold Steel: Man, i love bosses in turn-based JRPGs that can render one of my characters completely incapable of action by trapping them. There was a minro boss earlier in the game that could do this as well but as this is the final boss, it also has a ton of HP and also constantly summons enemies.
  • The epilogue final boss of Trails of Cold Steel II: Like stated before, it's just the first final boss of Trails of Cold Steel but again but this time with the ability to cut everyone's HP down to one.

Time will tell if Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4's final bosses are either good or bad but considering the only actually good final boss fights in the series are Ordine (Trails of Cold Steel) and the Vermilion Apocalypse (Trails of Cold Steel 2), i ain't holding out on hope.

Regarding non final bosses in Trails, i think Renne in Trails in the Sky SC is also pretty bad considering she opens up with an attack that his everyone and has a 50% chance of killing you instantly. You can equip insta-kill resistant items but i didn't know that the first time and also, bosses shouldn't open up with insta-kill attacks.

Edited by Armagon
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Lyon and Fomortiis (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones) - Both of them get a lot of hype in the storyline... and both of them fail MISERABLY at living up to it. They're a massive anticlimax for no real reason.

Black Knight was mentioned above.

Hyman/Reynard (Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon) - Much too fast for that point in the game EVEN ON THE EASIEST DIFFICULTY. (FFS, this is only the third chapter's boss!!) It gets worse on harder difficulties because he can one-round almost everyone. This means there's only one real strategy to win that doesn't involve breaking his weapon, and it's extremely luck-based.

Kotaro (FE Fates Conquest) - Extremely evasive (80 avoid factoring in the throne bonuses), and lowers your stats when he hits. He also has a Flame Shuriken, in case you think to sic a physically tanky unit on him. Due to Duelist's Blow, you might as well forget about hitting him when he attacks.

Takumi (FE Fates Conquest) - He's optional in chapter 10, and promoted in chapter 13, but he's not that much of a problem there. In chapter 23, however, he's a big problem - he's Kotaro-level evasive, but unlike Kotaro, he doesn't have a weapon that either lowers his stats every fight or lowers his evade. As if that weren't bad enough, he has 26 crit... in a game where crit chances that high are nigh impossible to completely nullify, at least without Veteran Intuition, which is DLC. But wait, there's more; he also has Vengeance and Rend Heaven, and exceptionally high Skill to the point where it's highly likely he'll proc one of them.

Henning (Fire Emblem: Binding Blade) - He's a MASSIVE difficulty spike in an otherwise unremarkable map. His stats combined with the throne bonuses mean there's no easy way to beat him.

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15 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Gattuso (Tales of Vesperia) - The short version is that this damn thing is a wtfmassive difficulty spike for that early point in the game (to put things in perspective, it's only the third boss, and the first two are kinda sorta pushovers. The boss right after that isn't that challenging either. Nor is the boss after that one. And neither is the boss after THAT). The long version... Hoo boy. First off, it's the first boss that comes with adds. Second, it's blindingly fast. Third, it can poison you. Fourth, it's the first boss that regularly uses Over Limit; Over Limit in this game allows you to attack continuously while it's active, among other benefits (including not staggering when attacked, but the player doesn't get this until level 4, which is a ways away).

There's all of that which certainly makes me hate him but worst of all is that the stupid thing has no reason to be so though. I hate it when they turn generic monster bosses into incredibly hard enemies. I recall Alexei being really though and I was fine with that because main villains should be strong. But Attuso is just some random Wolf the party meets on the road. 

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30 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

There's all of that which certainly makes me hate him but worst of all is that the stupid thing has no reason to be so though. I hate it when they turn generic monster bosses into incredibly hard enemies. I recall Alexei being really though and I was fine with that because main villains should be strong. But Attuso is just some random Wolf the party meets on the road. 

Exactly. I'm fine with the likes of a guild leader (like Barbos or the Don) or a highly skilled knight (like Schwann or the aforementioned Alexei) being a tough fight - a leader of, say, a band of mercenaries has to have some degree of skill on the battlefield to be recognized and respected as such. Not so much when what's essentially not so different from a random encounter is disproportionately hard.

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1 hour ago, Armagon said:

that wasn't really the point of the fight. The characters all knew they weren't getting anything out of it

I know. But the Epilogue shouldn't have existed to begin with. Especially not the dungeon + boss rehash. Game should've ended after the Divertissement. The Boss fight being sucky and then throwing salt in the wounds by saying ''all useless'' made me more pissed off at a game i didn't even enjoy most of the time. (Finale and Divertissement were pretty hype however, and ending the game with a good note would've made me forgive the game for pretty much alot of stuff).

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

'm convinced that Falcom just doesn't know how to design good final bosses, at least in Trails.

sadly, True. I didn't remember enjoying any of Trails' Final Bosses. The Penultimate Bosses are always pretty hype, however (and i consider them to be the real Final Boss fight because of that xD). I liked Sky3rd Party Split thing however. I also don't remember Sky3rd boss being that tanky (on Nightmare). 

And Sadly, the sucky final boss thing has been infecting Ys lately as well. While i did enjoy Ys7's final boss fight, Moc and Ys8 final boss fights are just a dissapointment. MoC's was just Ys6 final boss 2.0 and Ys8's final Boss was the Sponge of Life lol.

Edited by Shrimperor
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Xenosaga iii - E.S Levi - This fight was just awful. A lot of luck based factors the first time around, one shots any team mate not guarding or resisting fire, hard to damage because of his Vajra Armor skill, and overall really agile. I had a tough time beating this one, shout outs to the E.S Dan as well, although not nearly as bad.

FF XII Yiazmat - Okay, in the original version, this fight was just horribly slow and boring, repeating the same strategy over and over for a few hours isn't exactly fun to me.

KH3 - a lot of the reused boss fight ideas in general I suppose really disappointed me. While fun in other games, they just lacked something here to me.

 

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Ah yes, Least Favourite Boss Fights... I can name a few on the top of my head:

Ultros (Final Fantasy VI) - I really like him as a character because he's a reoccurring boss, but it's just the fact that he's literally just the same except has higher stats whenever you face him. Least favourite just because of that. Otherwise, he'd probably be my favourite.

Queen Myra (Gears of War 3) - Normally, I wouldn't dislike this fight purely because it's so great how it's created, mechanics wise. But I hated it because me and a friend tried to do this on Insane to finish the entire Campaign on Insane, and We. Absolutely. Struggled. The only reason we managed to beat it was because for some reason the game had glitched out where no enemy reinforcements spawned, it was just Myra. Thank god for that, otherwise we'd of never of done it.

Black Heart (Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth 1) - This was when I was new to JRPG's and encountered her fight in the story for the first time and lost so many times. She's so strong compared to you at first if you don't grind some levels, especially when one member of your time isn't very tanky. (*Cough* Compa *Cough*)

That's all I could really think of at first glance really.

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11 hours ago, Lady White said:

Black Heart (Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth 1) - This was when I was new to JRPG's and encountered her fight in the story for the first time and lost so many times. She's so strong compared to you at first if you don't grind some levels, especially when one member of your time isn't very tanky. (*Cough* Compa *Cough*)

Thinking back, it's not just Black Heart that does this but most bosses. Rebirth 1 has these weird difficulty spikes that come out of nowhere so you end up having to grind a lot. It gets worse when they start putting those really tanky skill and item seal drones and giving bosses the ability to autoheal like 200K HP every turn.

To this day, i still haven't beaten the final boss of Rebirth 1.

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11 hours ago, Lady White said:

he's so strong compared to you at first if you don't grind some levels

While i found her strong, she wasn't that bad. I didn't need to grind, either. I found it more problematic that we had to fight a big Bird and Noire back to back.

20 minutes ago, Armagon said:

you end up having to grind a lot

 I feel like i am in the minority in this, but I didn't need to grind in R;B1 (or any of the Nep games for that matter, and i usually had Fortify enemies on)
It wasn't a cakewalk tho. But i like it that way more ;)

20 minutes ago, Armagon said:

tanky skill and item seal drones

only 1 boss battle had those iirc

21 minutes ago, Armagon said:

ability to autoheal like 200K HP every turn.

Kill guard -> KORE GA WATASHI NO HISETSU, NEPTUNE.BREAK. Exe-drive

21 minutes ago, Armagon said:

To this day, i still haven't beaten the final boss of Rebirth 1.

Maybe this can help you, my Party for the final Boss of R;B1

NepoNepo - MAGEStina - Tanko Blanco on the front
Vert - Compa - Noire as their support/Switch in
https://imgur.com/a/Xgz2ZOY

Here is the important Thing: You need to survive the Attacks, and Blanc and Nep are by far your tankiest Party Members, use them and use Blancs VIT buff and NepNep multipe buff to increase your VIT. Blanc becomes basically unkillable. Mages can attack and heal when needed.
Then use your break Attacks to destroy her Guard, which will take some time, and once the Guard is down
unleash your Exe Drives on her for the GG

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I just thought of another one

Mistral (Nights of Azure) - One of the bonus bosses you have to defeat to get the true ending of the game. This fight is one of the hardest in the entire game, second only to Christophorus (another bonus boss and my favourite character from Nights of Azure and the sequel).
Why don't I like Mistral? Because this thing can use a nearly unblockable A.O.E. move that kills your Servans (little monsters that help you in battle and are absolutely CRUCIAL to keep around, since the Alraune type Servan is one of only two ways you can heal in this game) in one or two hits even at max level. She also spawns snake mooks from pots dotted around the arena, so you have to destroy them, else you'll be ganged up on by poisonous worms. Here's the kicker, though: The pots actually respawn after a time.

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16 hours ago, Armagon said:

Thinking back, it's not just Black Heart that does this but most bosses. Rebirth 1 has these weird difficulty spikes that come out of nowhere so you end up having to grind a lot. It gets worse when they start putting those really tanky skill and item seal drones and giving bosses the ability to autoheal like 200K HP every turn.

To this day, i still haven't beaten the final boss of Rebirth 1.

That's fair. No wonder I enjoyed Re;birth 1 so much, it spiked up in difficulty and made me have to work to beat them XD

You still haven't beaten the Final Boss? Yikes. I hope you manage to complete it someday ^_^

15 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

While i found her strong, she wasn't that bad. I didn't need to grind, either. I found it more problematic that we had to fight a big Bird and Noire back to back.

Agreed. That's what made it so hard for me, because there wasn't a break midway to heal.

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17 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

only 1 boss battle had those iirc

You're probably right and i'm probably just confusing it for it's other appearances. Rebirth 2 and 3 also had those but way less tanky.

17 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Here is the important Thing: You need to survive the Attacks, and Blanc and Nep are by far your tankiest Party Members, use them and use Blancs VIT buff and NepNep multipe buff to increase your VIT. Blanc becomes basically unkillable. Mages can attack and heal when needed.
Then use your break Attacks to destroy her Guard, which will take some time, and once the Guard is down
unleash your Exe Drives on her for the GG

I think what it is is that i'm just underleveled. Even when i do VIT buffs, the final boss hits too hard and also has faster speed which results in her attacking more often which also means less time for me to actually make use of the buffs in the first place. Though i do wonder if it's also a result of not having proper equipment. Quests don't really give a whole lot of money for me to spend on both armor and weapons (i mainly spend them on weapons).

2 hours ago, Lady White said:

You still haven't beaten the Final Boss? Yikes. I hope you manage to complete it someday ^_^

Same. It just stands out when i can't recall any other final boss in the series that has given me such trouble.

 

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On 1.5.2019 at 10:03 PM, Shrimperor said:

Trails of Cold Steel 2 Epilogue Boss

Rehashing the final boss of the first game and than tell the player that it was all useless after a sucky 16 floor dungeon IS.NOT.A.GOOD.WAY.TO.END.THE.DAMN.GAME. 

I agree. 

That final dungeon was a huge disappointment compared to 1. Just a straight forward 16 floor dungeon of boredom and then a final boss literally out of nowhere which is basically just a rip off of the final boss of 1 regarding attacks. The final boss theme was really nice as using camouflage characters, but honestly this dungeon felt like a waste to me. 

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37 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Quests don't really give a whole lot of money for me to spend on both armor and weapons (i mainly spend them on weapons).

Colosseum gives very good equipment. And in R;B1 colosseum was pretty easy iirc.

37 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I think what it is is that i'm just underleveled.

What level are you? Also, if it's too hard, you can use weaken enemies Plan.

Edited by Shrimperor
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Well, I will add 2 dishonorable mentions to this:

Octopath Traveler - Final Boss

Final Fantsy III - Cloud of Darkness

Spoiler

Both of these bosses suffer from the fact that they will require (heavy) endgame grinding to even have a chance against them.

To reach the final boss in OT you first have to go through a boss rush, consisting of bosses from various points of each Traveler's story. Galdera is at least an interesting fight with his 2 forms, each having multiple appendages with different attacks.
However, it requires all of your travelers to be leveled up because you need to use a different party for each fight. This simply doesn't work. Off-party members do not gain any EXP and the progression in this game doesn't really allow you to rotate your party so you can distribute the EXP evenly.
That means you will have to add some hours of grinding to be ready for the fight. To be fair, this fight can be cleared at a reasonable low level if you plan out your party properly, so it isn't terrible to reach that level. It's just disappointing that grinding is required in a modern title as OT and before this fight it was still decently paced with a set party.

Which brings me to Cloud of Darkness. My god, this is a serious stain on an otherwise well-paced RPG.
Not only is the whole final dungeon incredibly frustating between a massive difficulty spike and technically a boss rush through the entire thing, Cloud of Darkness is full of bad design. Stupidly high damage from AoE attacks each turn? Check. Can potentially 1-shot one of your party members and you can't do anything about it? Check. Takes forever to die? You bet!
And honestly? The fight is overall pretty boring. You just have to be durable enough not to get wiped by the AoE attacks, that's it. There's really nothing much to it but get high enough stats to endure its attacks.

 

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I find it strange seeing the Black Knight mentioned so often. I mean, yeah, sure the luck thing is not great. I just find it strange that someone would pick him over Ashnard. You don't actually have to defeat the Black Knight, so you can just go with whatever outcome you get. Ashnard on the other hand is obligatory. So if Ike got sufficiently stat screwed, then you're just stuck there.

I can't comprehend how they were smart enough to allow you to escape from the Black Knight battle in case Ike couldn't possible win, but then two maps later they force you to use him to beat an even stronger boss. If Ike couldn't survive against the Black Knight, he won't be able to take on Ashnard either.

Edited by BrightBow
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6 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

What level are you? 

Everyone's in the 50-60s range. The lowest leveled is Vert at Lv.50 while the highest leveled is Tekken at Lv.63.

7 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Also, if it's too hard, you can use weaken enemies Plan.

I have been.

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13 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Everyone's in the 50-60s range. The lowest leveled is Vert at Lv.50 while the highest leveled is Tekken at Lv.63.

Huh. Did you skip battles or something? Because i didn't grind and i was 60-70s range as you see in the pictures.

Want me to send you my Save files? I have one for Normal End and one for True End(however even higher leveled, because i just went and did all extra dungeons and stuff after normal end and before attempting True End)

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10 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Huh. Did you skip battles or something?

I probably did. But that's just a habit of the genre for me. I don't fight everything i come across against when playing JRPGs.

11 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Want me to send you my Save files? I have one for Normal End and one for True End(however even higher leveled, because i just went and did all extra dungeons and stuff after normal end and before attempting True End)

Nah, that's fine. I'd like to beat the game on my own save file. Appreciate the offer though.

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25 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But that's just a habit of the genre for me. I don't fight everything i come across against when playing JRPGs.

Ah i see, i usually battle everything i see once (unless overlvld, then i skip).

 

25 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I'd like to beat the game on my own save file

Good Luck^^

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To add another of mine, Xenoblade Chronicles, the battle against Zanza was a letdown. Considering he has both monados, I guess I expected a lot more from him, but he felt really lackluster, with all the possibilities that he had there I thought he would have this awesome moveset. I also felt like the battle against Dickson had a lot more impact than the finale.

Edited by lightcosmo
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