Least favorite boss fights

[Rapier]

Dracula in Super Castlevania 4 (or whichever is the name of Rondo's Genesis version). Fuck these tiny platforms where you stand over an abyss while Dracula is shooting you, and you have to be very precise to hit him and take care to not be hit and fall to your death.

Umi Bozu in Nioh. It's easier to die because of the boss arena's design than it is to die to the boss itself - there are gaps around it, and sometimes after finishing a combo your character may step over it and fall to his death. If this doesn't kill you, then there's also a cheap shot of the boss' part: He shoots a laser that occupies half the screen and kills you in one hit if you don't dodge.

Mega Man (franchise) deserves its own list:

• Serges in Mega Man X2 - All you have are platforms moving up and down above spikes while the boss barrages you. He hits hard, his attacks are hard to dodge and it takes time until you get used to moving around the platforms without falling over or being knocked by an attack.
• Kaiser Sigma in Mega Man X3 - Tiny hitbox on his head, while he keeps barraging you with homing missiles. You do piss poor damage for each hit, while the boss takes half of your HP with a single hit.
• Gate in Mega Man X6 - Pretty much all of X6 is worth being complained over, but Gate's boss fight takes the cake. His arena is composed of a few platforms over an abyss, and he flies around shooting orbs that cause some nasty effects on your character (such as not being able to wall jump). The boss itself is invincible - you need to destroy these orbs and send their residual energy back at him. Which takes a long time, and it's easy to get hit by the projectiles that you're trying to hit the boss with.
• Red in Mega Man X7 - Suffice to say that platforming on a very janky 3D game is terrible, and that someone in Capcom really loves placing an abyss in boss fights.
• Sigma 2nd in Mega Man X7 - I can't even put into words my frustration with the boss.

So does Sonic the Hedgehog:

• Labyrinth Zone's Boss in Sonic 1 - Labyrinth Zone is anxiety in the form of a video game stage. The boss ramps that up to eleven by being simply a session of platforming while the water is rising and Sonic is about to suffocate at any moment. I remember I just despaired with this crap as a kid and never got through it until much later.
• Death Egg Robot in Sonic 2 - It takes precision to not hit his arms, or patience to wait until he drops down and crouches for a few seconds. It's also easy to clip through his belly and end up dying instantly.
• Chaos 4 in Sonic Adventure - If it's the version I'm correct about. Chaos stays underwater for a long time until he suddenly comes forth from one of the platforms you can stand on, where you have to hit him. It's simply boring, the platforms sink and the lake slows you down a lot.
• Metal Sonic in Sonic CD - The race itself is unfair, you have to deal with his attacks while also trying to run faster than Metal Sonic and dodging obstacles on your way.

The Jellyfish Boss (whose name I forgot) from Hollow Knight - It's Gate all over again, but worse: You damage it by hitting jellyfishes that it spawns. By hitting one, it'll freeze for 2 seconds before aiming and rushing toward you very quickly. The trick is making the jellyfish collide the with boss instead, which is easier said than done, because it's homed at you and quick.

The Fat Buu vs SSJ3 Goku fight in Xenoverse - Buu gangbangs you and Goku hard with his 6 clones, with more showing up after they're killed. You have to constantly keep on the run, hit one of the clones, then flee, because otherwise the clones will all reach and attack you at once. If Goku dies, tough luck. Did I say the AI is terrible in that game, and that it is a game over if a character controlled by the AI dies in story mode? Yep. It's a matter of beating Buu quick enough before Goku inevitably dies.

Ultra SSJ Trunks vs Perfect Cell in Legacy of Goku 2 - Trunks is too slow, Cell is much quicker than him and kills you in a few hits. It's very annoying.

Rom, the Vacuous Spider from Bloodborne - The boss spans more than a dozen spiders each time it teleports (which it does when it reaches 1/3 of its health). They're very annoying to deal with, gang up on you and can kill you easily. Then, on Rom's second form, she starts shooting you from time to time, with each hit killing you instantly if you don't have Arcane resistant gear equipped (and the one that does leaves you with a puny physical defense). It's more annoying than it is hard.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Rapier

[Ilboss]

8 hours ago, Rapier said:

• Serges in Mega Man X2 - All you have are platforms moving up and down above spikes while the boss barrages you. He hits hard, his attacks are hard to dodge and it takes time until you get used to moving around the platforms without falling over or being knocked by an attack.

Serges is easy, use giga impact on the first phase, then jump on his robot walk to the edge then spam charged sonic slicers.

[Lightcosmo]

I'm gonna jump on the Megaman boss hate and say MMBN 4 and 5's final bosses really annoyed me. 6 only on Falazar's side. But hitting those final bosses is such a pain and without the right setup, expect to run out of attacks and only shoot for a sad 1-5 damage depending on whether or not your charging shots, of course. 4's takes the cake, since I kinda hate that game in one sense but enjoy it enough to play through it multiple times in another sense. Oh and of course, you have to vs Dark Mega 1st, in which if you lose to Duo, you have to vs him again.

[vanguard333]

I can't remember its name, but the boss of part 1 of the final level in Megaman & Bass is an armoured... thing attached to a pulley that's attached to a platform. Okay, so you're supposed to get on the platform to raise the creature so you can shoot the now-exposed head. That's fine, though it doesn't make much sense that Megaman or Bass would outweigh a gigantic tin can. Then there are spikes under the platform (and the platform falls quickly once you step on it), so you have to constantly be jumping on and off the platform to avoid the spikes. But that's not the bad part; the bad part is that, while you're doing all this, there's a monkey robot constantly attacking you.

So, you have to: avoid a monkey's attacks, juggle a pulley system, and shoot the narrow exposed head of a giant tin can. That's not a challenge; that's just ridiculous. Sure; it's beatable, and I was able to beat it at least once, but it was a ridiculous fight. 

[Hawkwing]

Khidor (Rogue Legacy): I don't mind that this guy is a wake-up call boss. He does his job too well just fine, showing that you have to learn how to dodge in a platformer or else you won't last very long. My issue is that he's  a bullet hell boss, in a platformer. While every other boss requires dodging, at least they follow similar rules of the gameplay you've been doing for the last few hours. Khidor, on the other hand, requires strategies that you'll really only use there (although you'll use those tricks elsewhere, thankfully), you don't have a lot of space to dodge due to the small arena, and the margin of error is tiny.

To be fair, the fight is not impossible, nor is it unfair, and it does do a good job at showing that the bosses in the game won't be pushovers, but I still find him the hardest boss in the game. I always find myself resorting to abusing the Paladins shield ability and the magic spells just to save time with this fight, because otherwise it's more trouble than it's worth.

5 Star Hunters (Specifically Scar) (Blustone 1): This really only applies to Blustone 1. Blustone 2 decreased the difficulty jumps in exhibitions, and compensated by quadrupling the total amount there are. 3 Star hunters are when the character battles stop being beatable on the first try, 4 Star hunters are when an element of luck enters the fray due to the chance that their special moves can activate a second benefit (such as dealing extra damage, stronger healing, added buffs or debuffs, extra effects such as stun and bleeding, and so on), and 5 star hunters will have all their abilities and are nearing max strength. These fights require grinding, luck, and good strategy to complete, to the point that you'll be so powerful, the next few levels will be easier than expected.

It does not help that each class brings their own annoyance while fighting. While you can stop support and bombadier characters from using their special moves by defeating the monster they are supporting, the former prolong the fight (in a game where battles are timed. The Orthilicopter has a limited amount of fuel for the fight, and once it's out, your stuck with the character that was out fighting) and often give the moster some buffs, while the special attack damage of the latter is no joke and, again, usually has some buffs/debuffs added to it. Offensive class characters may not last long defensively, but the same will apply to you, and Defensive fighters are the inverse, not doing the most damage against you but in turn taking a lot to take down.

The reason I specified Scar up there? He's an offensive hunter... and the only one with an ability that boosts his defense. Needless to say, there's good reason why he was the final opponent for a long time.

Demise (Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword): This is more of a "love and hate" thing. I love that it's an honest to God swordfight in a series where I thought the previous ones were too gimmicky for my liking, the story and lore behind the fight help make it epic, there are no bullcrap moves on either side, and it brings a satisfying end to one of my favorite games in the series. On the other hand, he's also extremely difficult, having to realign the sword constantly is annoying, and if the gyro controls are acting up, you better hope that the issue is fixed quickly or else this already hard fight will become much more painful. I remember having to cheese part of it with an invisibility potion because I was having trouble, although I did finish it by my own merits. It's a duel I have happy memories of winning, and painful ones of actually fighting, and they tend to balance each other out. Hence why I'm listing it.

[Shadow Mir]

On 6/14/2019 at 1:45 PM, Ilboss said:

Kaiser Sigma (Mega Man X3) 

The hitbox is so small its damn near impossible to hit him with any weapon that isn't the X-Buster, and when you hit him you barely do any damage. I have played through this game twice, but I have never beat this fight before. (That's mostly because I only tried a few times before I got pissed and replayed Mega Man X for 50th time.)

Isn't the buster the only weapon that works on Kaiser Sigma? Admittedly, I never tried anything else. Anyway, the tiny hitbox sucks.

On 5/27/2019 at 8:25 AM, lightcosmo said:

Hmmm, I don't remember Quick man in Mega Man 2 being particularly hard. But, I haven't played it in a while, so who knows, probably better off, though.

Boobeam, yes I remember him. I always hated that thing, how can you forget that thing? It's like, the 3rd level around Wily's castle?

I guess not. But the sadistic choice the game imposes on you is just awful.

It's in the fourth Wily level, right before the boss rush.

Anyway...

Wolf Sigma

You can only damage him one of two ways, both of which are unwieldy and do piss poor damage (a fully charged buster shot, which only does 1 damage for all the time you have to spend charging it up, and the Rolling Shield, which doesn't fire straight and does 2 damage), and most of his attacks do a lot of damage to you if you're hit. Even getting a shot at damaging him can be tricky (you either have to wall jump up to his hands and hope they're out of position and not firing lightning or wait for him to bring down a hand and get on it), and odds are your window of opportunity to attack him is going to be narrow (especially if you get on his hand and ride it to his face, since it'll shoot lightning immediately after getting back to its original position, forcing you off).

Edited June 17, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Lightcosmo]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I guess not. But the sadistic choice the game imposes on you is just awful.

It's in the fourth Wily level, right before the boss rush.

I think getting to Quickman is the hard part, his level is kinda a pain. Also, that's like the only time I ever use Flashmans power, to get through the lasers of death.

Right, right, I forgot but knew it was around there. A lot of people seem to hate Megaman bosses, that can't be a coincidence.

[Shadow Mir]

On 6/17/2019 at 7:50 AM, lightcosmo said:

I think getting to Quickman is the hard part, his level is kinda a pain. Also, that's like the only time I ever use Flashmans power, to get through the lasers of death.

Right, right, I forgot but knew it was around there. A lot of people seem to hate Megaman bosses, that can't be a coincidence.

Fair enough.

Can't blame them. Some of them can be a real pain in the ass. Like the one I'm about to mention.

 

King Plane - You fight this thing over a bottomless pit, while jumping from platform to platform. Unfortunately for you, those platforms are destructible. The boss frequently releases bubbles with flashbangs, further complicating matters, as if you pop those, they go off and blind you, which can easily cause you to die. It also has a highly damaging, unavoidable beam attack, as if all this wasn't bad enough (mercifully, it can be prevented). Making matters worse, there's no checkpoint for that area, meaning you have to start that area over if you die.

For other bosses, there's the Great Commander in Star Fox (specifically, when you face it in Venom's orbit, as opposed to when you touch down). It has six tiny weak points, all of which you must hit to defeat it. Once you destroy most of them, the chance to attack the remaining weak points becomes really narrow to the point where you might have to risk collision damage to hit the remaining ones.

[Lightcosmo]

On ‎7‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 4:25 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Fair enough.

Can't blame them. Some of them can be a real pain in the ass. Like the one I'm about to mention.

Yep, that's Megaman for sure. Not completely relevant to the topic since it's not a boss fight, but I hate Megaman 4's Brightman stage a lot. You kill an enemy? There goes the lights. You pretty much are always jumping into instant death which is annoying, and to top it off, when you can't see, they put enemies that you jump into on the way, which coincidentally, knock you into pits and kill you!

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/4/2019 at 8:19 AM, lightcosmo said:

Yep, that's Megaman for sure. Not completely relevant to the topic since it's not a boss fight, but I hate Megaman 4's Brightman stage a lot. You kill an enemy? There goes the lights. You pretty much are always jumping into instant death which is annoying, and to top it off, when you can't see, they put enemies that you jump into on the way, which coincidentally, knock you into pits and kill you!

There are other enemies in that stage that restore the lights when you destroy them. To get back on topic:

Sabrina (Pokemon RBY) - Specializes in the best type in the game by far, with said type having no weaknesses (or to be more exact, no practical weaknesses) since the one type that is super effective against said type (1) only has three weak moves for damage, (2) most of the mons that learn said moves are weak against said type, and (3) the other type that was supposed to be effective against said type is useless against it instead; even if that weren't the case, though, it'd still be impractical for much the same reasons.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Lightcosmo]

39 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

There are other enemies in that stage that restore the lights when you destroy them. To get back on topic:

Sabrina (Pokemon RBY) - Specializes in the best type in the game by far, with said type having no weaknesses (or to be more exact, no practical weaknesses) since the one type that is super effective against said type (1) only has three weak moves for damage, (2) most of the mons that learn said moves are weak against said type, and (3) the other type that was supposed to be effective against said type is useless against it instead; even if that weren't the case, though, it'd still be impractical for much the same reasons.

Yeah I know, but it's still frustrating. But for another one on topic, the Mysterious Figure from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. This one doesn't need explanation since it's pretty much infamous for how absurd this fight is.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I hate these worms close to the Zeiss area in the Trails of the Sky series.

Their earthquake attacks are very strong and have a big range.

Since there are like a half dozen of them they can easily wreck my party.

[Perkilator]

Bumping this:

-Demyx: His water clones are nothing if you know what to do, but fighting him? Easier said than done when he does nothing but spam water attacks before you even have a chance to attack back.

-Thales (Shambhala): He goes down in basically one hit before he can even attack. And I lost several underleveled units for this?

-Ripper Roo (Crash 1): Being able to predict where he'll go next is so hard for me that I had to give up there. Luckily, his fight in Crash 2 make up for that with more cohesive patterns.

-Sinspawn Gui: This boss takes SO MUCH DAMAGE. ON EVERY. SINGLE. SECTION.

[Lightcosmo]

2 hours ago, Perkilator said:

Bumping this:

-Demyx: His water clones are nothing if you know what to do, but fighting him? Easier said than done when he does nothing but spam water attacks before you even have a chance to attack back.

First, is this data form or the battle in Hollow Bastion? I'm assuming this is 2.5 so Limit Form is a thing, Ars Arcanum works wonders here as well. Ether spam + Ars wipes boss fights fairly easily. Reflect spam also works of course.

[Perkilator]

14 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

First, is this data form or the battle in Hollow Bastion? I'm assuming this is 2.5 so Limit Form is a thing, Ars Arcanum works wonders here as well. Ether spam + Ars wipes boss fights fairly easily. Reflect spam also works of course.

Normal battle. But I didn't wanna rely on Forms to practically cheese it, I wanted to use every option available.

[Lightcosmo]

10 minutes ago, Perkilator said:

Normal battle. But I didn't wanna rely on Forms to practically cheese it, I wanted to use every option available.

Ah, I gotcha. I'm not sure if you know about Revenge values and such, but not getting super aggressive is a good start. Do you have abilities like Dodge Roll level 2? I personally get it ASAP, since it's a lifesaver. 

All options, do you mean like dodge slash? If so, I can understand where one of your issues lie.

Another thing that's important, how good is your reaction speed? 

Edited January 4, 2020 by lightcosmo

[Perkilator]

23 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Ah, I gotcha. I'm not sure if you know about Revenge values and such, but not getting super aggressive is a good start. Do you have abilities like Dodge Roll level 2? I personally get it ASAP, since it's a lifesaver. 

All options, do you mean like dodge slash? If so, I can understand where one of your issues lie.

Another thing that's important, how good is your reaction speed? 

Well, kind of. Also, my reaction speed is pretty mediocre.

[Lightcosmo]

Just now, Perkilator said:

Well, kind of. Also, my reaction speed is pretty mediocre.

Understanding RV's is important for boss killing. Nothing wrong with not being the fastet, it's still for sure doable. I think being more patient would help alot as well.

What mode are you playing on? Out of curiosity?  

I hope I'm not sounding rude or anything, asking about your reaction speed, understanding of game mechanics.

[Shadow Mir]

52 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

First, is this data form or the battle in Hollow Bastion? I'm assuming this is 2.5 so Limit Form is a thing, Ars Arcanum works wonders here as well. Ether spam + Ars wipes boss fights fairly easily. Reflect spam also works of course.

I suppose it would be a big help; however, I would be careful about using Drive Forms here - the chance of Anti Form showing up instead is greatly boosted against Organization XIII members (x5). Unless you get a new form shortly beforehand, in which case your Anti Point counter is zeroed out.

[Lightcosmo]

5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I suppose it would be a big help; however, I would be careful about using Drive Forms here - the chance of Anti Form showing up instead is greatly boosted against Organization XIII members (x5). Unless you get a new form shortly beforehand, in which case your Anti Point counter is zeroed out.

I wouldn't consider this a huge drawback, it's easy to manipulate your anti points. Besides, Limit Form is that worth it, easy boss wipe outs. Simply forcing anti form and world jumping to lower your points isn't that hard.

Another thing, Limit Form is user friendly and I frames + hp gain is very low risk.

Edited January 4, 2020 by lightcosmo

[Perkilator]

30 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Understanding RV's is important for boss killing. Nothing wrong with not being the fastet, it's still for sure doable. I think being more patient would help alot as well.

What mode are you playing on? Out of curiosity?  

I hope I'm not sounding rude or anything, asking about your reaction speed, understanding of game mechanics.

Beginner Mode. At least, I was. This was back in late 2017.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

5 hours ago, Perkilator said:

-Ripper Roo (Crash 1): Being able to predict where he'll go next is so hard for me that I had to give up there. Luckily, his fight in Crash 2 make up for that with more cohesive patterns.

I'm...surprised. The pattern always seemed pretty clear to me; the hard part was timing it right with the TNT crates.

[Lightcosmo]

3 hours ago, Perkilator said:

Beginner Mode. At least, I was. This was back in late 2017.

Well, I'm not sure what combo modifiers you prefer, equipped Keyblade, etc. Those things would be nice to know as well.

Also, Demyx is kinda the turning point of the games difficulty, at least I think so.

Edited January 4, 2020 by lightcosmo

[SSbardock84]

So I'm pretty good at Dark Souls 3. But no matter what playthrough I go through, I'm always having trouble with freaking Aldrich. Like, ugh. I really don't like Crystal Sage either. Not that they're hard or anything, I mean, they were many times. Then I was like, hmm, I should try a new approach instead of rushing. Switched to bow and that solved everything. I really just like hackin and slashin as my primary stuff, but what evs.

[Caster]

How did I just realize this thread existed?
Well, since I didn't notice it before, I'll post now. And I'll throw in a 3d platforming boss, and even an MMORPG boss because I haven't seen that many of either.
And from some games I don't think too many people have played.

Pac-Man World 2 - Cylde (It's actually Blinky, they messed that up somehow)
This boss is a mess. Unlike every other boss in the game up to this point, you cannot roll into him at all to damage him, which made all the other bosses in the game pushovers, so you can't do that, to start. You're on a secluded island surrounded by lava, the only other way to another platform is to rev-roll to the one of them (all other bosses had platforms going over to their other sides, this one doesn't, miss and you die.) He attacks quite fast and every attack of his leaves flames on the ground that linger for quite a bit and can still damage you. So you have to dodge every attack while also not accidentally running into the residual damage on the ground after he attacks. The only way you can hit him is to wait for him to stop attacking and give you an opportunity to attack by bouncing on top of him, which wouldn't be too bad, but his hitbox shrinks every time you hit him! So by the end you'll likely be spamming just hoping for him to die! The only saving grace is this game is very generous with it's boss checkpoints, if it wasn't... ew.
There isn't very good quality videos for just this boss fight, but I'll try to find one anyways. I only found out through this video that he's somewhat cheeseable if you don't move too much, because he isn't super accurate if you don't move... still a pain in the ass though...
 

Spoiler

 

And since I really love Runescape despite all it's flaws, it's still my favorite MMORPG and the only one I ever liked (At least old-school), so I'll post a boss I don't like from it!

Runescape - Treus Dayth
Boss of the Haunted Mine quest, a relatively relaxed quest that's basically just a chill puzzle up to this point. The boss is only level 95, which is honestly really low, especially for experienced level quests. Which would lead a player to think this fight wouldn't be so bad.
This fight is a pain in the ass. You fight in the middle of a room filled with boxes, cranes and minecarts. The boss barely ever directly attacks you, but he just constantly runs away, attacking you with constantly teleporting pickaxes barraging you and he possesses the cranes and minecarts to hit you whenever you pass them. He doesn't have too much HP, but you will barely get many chances to attack him because he's constantly running away and stops for barely any time to actually hit him more than once or twice. You have to chase after him and avoid the cranes and minecarts as much as you can, especially the minecarts.
Everything hits quite hard, harder than you would expect, cranes can do a number on you, and if you get hit by a minecart and don't eat enough, you are dead, because the minecarts combo you super hard and do so much damage that if you don't have enough food to eat through that combo damage you're dead, or even if you just aren't expecting it.
And if you don't have stamina potions it's very easy to run out of run energy and basically forfeit your attempt.

Started playing Runescape again, I found out this boss still is annoying even if you know it's coming and what to do. Very cool.
Found a decent example video for this boss.
 

Spoiler