"That one boss..."

[Esau of Isaac]

I find that hard to swallow, since limits are impractical in KH2 (and Trinity Limit's no exception), and the reaction command only shows up for about a second before the aforementioned attack, which means if you're not on the ground when he's about to do it, you're likely screwed.

Well, no, you have a couple seconds of time, when the screen goes dark and he takes his stance. You can simply spam it and get out of it nine times out of ten. And even if it does hit there's Curaga to heal you, and Reflega to get him off your back. Everything else he does is counterable and very punishable.

Kingdom Hearts' Sephiroth was a difficult battle, and time consuming at just about any level. The second game was a pushover unless one just spammed the X button like every other fight in the game.

[Elieson]

Salabog from Secret of Evermore is a complete jerk. Most of the time it's out of range, and it's only when it dives in to attack that you can attack it, which means it's a hit on your part if you mess up. You probably don't have enough ingredients for alchemy either. The kicker? The darn thing has 2000 HP, and this is the second boss in the game we're talking about here (for the record, 2000 is over triple what Thraxx, the first boss, had [600]). Verminator also counts for the same reasons, more-or-less.

Verminator was a challenge indeed, because of how he sits on those boxes, like a boss.

[Shadow Mir]

Verminator was a challenge indeed, because of how he sits on those boxes, like a boss.

Which basically limited your options to alchemy and hoping you had a spear sufficiently leveled up (incidentally, that's also the best option against Salabog).

[Elieson]

Well you should have a few shots for the bazooka to help too.

[Shadow Mir]

Well you should have a few shots for the bazooka to help too.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but doesn't the Bazooka come with only one shot? And you can't get any ammo until late in the game (not from what I remember at least).

Edit:

Well, no, you have a couple seconds of time, when the screen goes dark and he takes his stance. You can simply spam it and get out of it nine times out of ten. And even if it does hit there's Curaga to heal you, and Reflega to get him off your back. Everything else he does is counterable and very punishable.

Kingdom Hearts' Sephiroth was a difficult battle, and time consuming at just about any level. The second game was a pushover unless one just spammed the X button like every other fight in the game.

You realize that Cure magic in KH2 uses up all your MP, right? And I still stand by KH2 Sephiroth being harder on account of the fact that KH1 Sephiroth was more predictable.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Golden Cucco

[Keiya]

Sephiroth in either KH is hard at first, since prolly the first time you encounter him, you're gonna get blown up really hard.

But of the Square Enix fights, no other fight can match the sheer insanity that is Penance from Final Fantasy X International (and maybe the HD version). All the other boss fights? Go level up, go get certain items, go abuse certain mechanics. Penance, on the other hand, demands you to pretty much create a file around destroying the boss. The sheer amount of preparation you need to do (get the best weapons, get a Penance-specific armor set, pick up enough of certain Mixes for Rikku, and max out every single slot in the Sphere Grid), and the sheer amount of concentration and awareness it needs to beat him is downright insane. You think Zodiark was bad? At least Zodiark doesn't heal himself every turn, and at least his only really bad mechanics are the Palings he puts up, and Darkja. Although, of course, you can just blow Penance up with one Zanmato...

But for a more recent That One Boss experience, I'd say look no more than the Firelands in World of Warcraft, introduced in patch 4.2. No, not just one boss; the ENTIRE instance is out there to kill you. The sheer fact that even post-Heroic Dragon Soul (4.3), people have to be dragged into the Firelands kicking and screaming, and that's just so people can get either the Firehawk mount, or someone in the guild wants the Legendary Staff, Dragonwrath, which requires no less than THREE MONTHS of doing the Firelands every week. There's a couple of reasons why Firelands is so evil:

1. Problem with pacing. Before 4.3 and Dragon Soul, you entered into the Firelands with gear that was 2 patches too low for the dungeon. Moreover, unlike 4.3 and Dragon Soul, where they introduced 3 new dungeons and a weaker version of the Dragon Soul Raid, all 4 of which you can farm for gear, the only ways you can get decent gear before Firelands was to do a set of quests that took forever to get any reward from (it takes literally a month and a half to unlock all the content for the Firelands Invasion, and you start getting gear NEAR THE END OF THAT), or to farm reputation from Firelands mobs (more on that later), but after getting the first 2 reputation levels (and 2 out of way too many gear slots), the game will demand you to defeat bosses to proceed further. Bosses that you can only fight once per week. When you first start out, expect to not kill any boss for the first few weeks. This problem has been mitigated by nerfs and better gear from patch 4.3, but it was still pretty bad for those who played through it at the start.

2. The mobs. There's a reason why the Dragon Soul Raid doesn't have too many trash mobs anymore, except for a few meh ones at the first half, and the absolutely horrendous horde of Twilight Drakes before Ultraxion. The Firelands had mobs that were either absolutely sadistic in their damage, or had way too many mechanics for mobs (i.e. the mobs before Alysrazor, the mobs before Baleroc). Even when you already know how to beat them, there's way too much clutter in the Firelands, which extends the raid for at least 1-2 more hours than it should.

3. The bosses themselves. It's not just the sheer damage output, but also just the way the mechanics are constructed. There's way too much micromanagement and coordination in the Firelands bosses versus any other raid in World of Warcraft. And it's not just one boss. All of the bosses require a lot of mechanics that, if you screw up at least once, you wipe the raid. I learned it the hard way on Baleroc, where one wrong signal between the healers wiped what was otherwise a really clean boss kill.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Keiya

[Shinori]

No if you wanna talk about that one boss from a world of warcraft game there are plenty of harder ones in WoW.

Specifically, Heroic LK pre nerf. - I did this on 10 man, not 25 =|

Zero lights in the darkness, pre nerf - I got my Death's demise title ;P

Illidan wasn't TRULY THAT HARD but was an amazing fight.

Vashj and Kael were Amazing. Kael was one of my favorite fights.

Pre-nerf M'uru was amazingly hard as well.

But no, the king of all the bosses from WoW.

Pre-Nerf C'Thun. Seriously.

[Esau of Isaac]

You realize that Cure magic in KH2 uses up all your MP, right?

So use a Mega-Ether or Elixer. What's your argument?

And I still stand by KH2 Sephiroth being harder on account of the fact that KH1 Sephiroth was more predictable.

How is he more predictable? The fight in the second game is on a huge plane, where you can force him to use specific moves to punish. You can block every single one of his abilities barring Heartless Angel, with either a well-time Reflega, block, or reaction command leaves him wide open for a counterattack.

[Constable Reggie]

The boss that definitely screwed me over the most was Aztec Falcon from MMZ. First time I played it was when I was 8-9, and he was almost impossible back then. I think I had to grind a lot before fighting him back then.

-It's very early in the game

-Not many weapon upgrades by then because it's so early

-very annoying attacks (specifically the lingering bolts and ability to block shots..)

-a goddamn time limit

Come on, this is like, the second boss fight in the game. It's ridiculous. Even after going back to MMZ recently I had some difficulty with the fight. Easily the hardest boss in the series, maybe excluding Omega from 3.

edit: wow, I should probably read the whole thread before posting. At least it's good to know I'm not the only one who despises this asshole.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Davinatorman

[Shadow Mir]

How is he more predictable? The fight in the second game is on a huge plane, where you can force him to use specific moves to punish. You can block every single one of his abilities barring Heartless Angel, with either a well-time Reflega, block, or reaction command leaves him wide open for a counterattack.

I generally saw him try to attack when approaching, which I could just punish by jumping in and attacking. If you were still close to him after he attacked, he'd use fire pillars to force you away. And he generally follows some of his bigger moves with Heartless Angel.

[Scarlet]

Regarding Atzec Falcon in MMZ, he definitely is difficult if you face him unprepared (or in Hard Mode).

However, personally, I always grind up my weapon levels in the intro stage after beating it, at least until I can use the Lv2 charged attacks. Makes it so much easier to S-rank early missions like that one. The saber's charged attack works wonders on him.

Though even if you don't bother grinding, it's important to understand that for the most part, Atzec Falcon will simply thrash you in melee. His reach is bigger than yours and he'll often suddenly charge at you, so that should really clue you in that you might want to use the buster against him instead.

Of course, considering that a lot of MMZ players seem to treat the buster as if it wasn't there and attack in melee exclusively, I can definitely understand where the difficulty's coming from.

[BrightBow]

Regarding Atzec Falcon in MMZ, he definitely is difficult if you face him unprepared (or in Hard Mode).

However, personally, I always grind up my weapon levels in the intro stage after beating it, at least until I can use the Lv2 charged attacks. Makes it so much easier to S-rank early missions like that one. The saber's charged attack works wonders on him.

Well, you can grind of course but this is a Mega Man game. It's ridiculously short. I don't like the idea of grinding for like 15 minutes for a game that otherwise takes 2 hours tops.

Though even if you don't bother grinding, it's important to understand that for the most part, Atzec Falcon will simply thrash you in melee. His reach is bigger than yours and he'll often suddenly charge at you, so that should really clue you in that you might want to use the buster against him instead.

Of course, considering that a lot of MMZ players seem to treat the buster as if it wasn't there and attack in melee exclusively, I can definitely understand where the difficulty's coming from.

I would argue that it has more to do with Aztec Falcon being able to block most of your bullets. When he does not, he shoots in your direction or charges. And those bullets who go through his defenses will only deal pitiful damage. So no weapon is in any way intuitive against him. And again, the fight has a time limit. Playing it save with weak attacks is heavily discouraged.

[Scarlet]

Well, you can grind of course but this is a Mega Man game. It's ridiculously short. I don't like the idea of grinding for like 15 minutes for a game that otherwise takes 2 hours tops.

I see your point, but the fall-back option is there if you find that you absolutely cannot beat Aztec Falcon without Lv2 attacks.

Unless you're playing on Hard, of course.

Actually, though, if you camp the spider spawners and really just grind until you can use Lv2 charged attacks (rather than completely maxing out your weapon EXP), it only takes like 3 minutes to do.

I would argue that it has more to do with Aztec Falcon being able to block most of your bullets. When he does not, he shoots in your direction or charges. And those bullets who go through his defenses will only deal pitiful damage. So no weapon is in any way intuitive against him. And again, the fight has a time limit. Playing it save with weak attacks is heavily discouraged.

You just need to do a short hop to hit him with your bullets, they'll go right above his weapon (unless he's doing the bolt attack, where it'll probably indeed be blocked).

Besides, a Lv1 charged shot (always available) does 3 damage, whereas a single hit with your saber does 4. Aztec Falcon has 1 full life bar, which equals 32 HP. This means either 8 saber hits or 11 Lv1 charged shots will kill him. However, as I said, he'll most likely thrash you in melee; if you keep your distance, on the other hand, you have a much easier time dodging his attacks and can cheese his bolt attack by simply sticking to the wall. 90 seconds is plenty of time to get 11 Lv1 charged shots in (seriously, they take like a second to charge tops), even if you miss a few.

[Life]

Speaking of hard early bosses, there's Tales of Vesperia's Gattuso. I can't remember too much of the specifics, but he's really hard. And there's the last boss... His first two forms aren't too bad, but...

If you get all the Fell Arms, he gets a third form that's insanely hard (17 levels or so higher than his second, and much stronger to boot!). And while he retains Big Bang from his second form (which blasts everyone's HP down to 1), his new MA can only be described as killer. Brave Vesperia is a combination of the party's Mystic Artes, which means you're screwed (read; at least one of your party's a goner). And the worst part? It also heals him for a significant chunk of life; a real dick move if there ever was one.

Gattuso? Yes. Duke Form 3? Naw.

I'm playing ToV right now (beaten it a bunch of times) and the Goliath fight just turned really hard. I had to get Estelle to spam Sharpness on Yuri and Barrier on everyone to not die and break his shield. Never had that problem before.

I nominate... Roid Rage Psycho from Borderlands. I'm playing a new build with Mordecai (Rogue based) and god damn, this guy is hard to kill. Granted, I'm only like level 13 or so.

[Aizenberg]

Last boss in final fantasy 4. It stopped me from completing the damn thing

The third boss in gradius 3. I cant be dealing with 2-D shooters

Last boss in Aladin (megadrive)

[Constable Reggie]

You just need to do a short hop to hit him with your bullets, they'll go right above his weapon (unless he's doing the bolt attack, where it'll probably indeed be blocked).

Besides, a Lv1 charged shot (always available) does 3 damage, whereas a single hit with your saber does 4. Aztec Falcon has 1 full life bar, which equals 32 HP. This means either 8 saber hits or 11 Lv1 charged shots will kill him. However, as I said, he'll most likely thrash you in melee; if you keep your distance, on the other hand, you have a much easier time dodging his attacks and can cheese his bolt attack by simply sticking to the wall. 90 seconds is plenty of time to get 11 Lv1 charged shots in (seriously, they take like a second to charge tops), even if you miss a few.

That all sounds great on paper, but in reality the battle's much more difficult. This is like, the second boss in the game, where players probably won't know to do a hop charge shot or how to easily dodge all his attacks (especially the goddamn bolts). Around half the time Falcon's in a mode where bullets are ineffective (I believe during the magnet pull and firing the bolts in place). Considering the fact that the stage is very small, Falcon is very big, and you die in a couple of hits, it's frustratingly difficult (at least it was for me). In fact, I'm going to say on record that he's the hardest boss in all of the Megaman series. At least for Omega you could fall back on E tanks if needed, the devils are predictable enough through trial and error, and the flying fortress from MM&B can be beaten easily enough at least with Bass.

[Scarlet]

Well, but you need to draw the line somewhere. Pretty much every single Megaman and Castlevania boss ever is really difficult the first time you fight them, and it's definitely not uncommon to require multiple attempts to win.

Aztec Falcon is a difficult earlygame boss, but honestly, if you find that you absolutely cannot beat him, Megaman Zero is not for you. He just shows what a lot of the other bosses are gonna be like if you don't learn to exploit their weaknesses and utilize Zero's abilities, and most importantly, his mobility to their fullest.

Personally, I found nearly every single boss in the second game to be much harder than Aztec Falcon. (Then again, MMZ2 was ridiculously hard even by Megaman standards, so eh)

[Ein]

But of the Square Enix fights, no other fight can match the sheer insanity that is Penance from Final Fantasy X International (and maybe the HD version). All the other boss fights? Go level up, go get certain items, go abuse certain mechanics. Penance, on the other hand, demands you to pretty much create a file around destroying the boss. The sheer amount of preparation you need to do (get the best weapons, get a Penance-specific armor set, pick up enough of certain Mixes for Rikku, and max out every single slot in the Sphere Grid), and the sheer amount of concentration and awareness it needs to beat him is downright insane. You think Zodiark was bad? At least Zodiark doesn't heal himself every turn, and at least his only really bad mechanics are the Palings he puts up, and Darkja. Although, of course, you can just blow Penance up with one Zanmato...

Penance is just a horribly poorly boss.

[Constable Reggie]

Well, but you need to draw the line somewhere. Pretty much every single Megaman and Castlevania boss ever is really difficult the first time you fight them, and it's definitely not uncommon to require multiple attempts to win.

Aztec Falcon is a difficult earlygame boss, but honestly, if you find that you absolutely cannot beat him, Megaman Zero is not for you. He just shows what a lot of the other bosses are gonna be like if you don't learn to exploit their weaknesses and utilize Zero's abilities, and most importantly, his mobility to their fullest.

Personally, I found nearly every single boss in the second game to be much harder than Aztec Falcon. (Then again, MMZ2 was ridiculously hard even by Megaman standards, so eh)

Yeah, the other bosses are probably slightly harder, but the difference is that since it's so early in the game, you've got almost nothing to rely on. By the time of Aztec Falcon, you've got level 1/2 saber/buster (I find grinding in MMZ1/2 to be ridiculous, I prefer to just let it level naturally), no other weapons, lowest health bar possible, hardly any (if any) cyber elves, no element chips, and no subtanks. By the time of Devil (imo the second hardest boss in MMZ), you've likely got some maxed weapons, a bigger health bar (unless you're a crazy ranked completionist, in which case, you are a robot if you can flawless beat MMZ), likely at least one subtank, and several cyber elves at your disposal.

edit: as for MMZ2's bosses, I can't remember much since MMZ2 was my least favorite and played zero game (in order of 3, 1, 4, 2). Although I remember the phoenix boss being stupidly difficult (along with having one of the coolest attacks ever)

Edited September 12, 2012 by Davinatorman

[Scarlet]

(unless you're a crazy ranked completionist, in which case, you are a robot if you can flawless beat MMZ)

I'll take that as a compliment. |D

But yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there. The biggest difficulty in that fight is not Aztec Falcon himself, but rather your lack of resources. This does make the fight difficult if you're not yet good at the game (or just not good at not taking damage), but if you've played other X / Zero games before and are at least decently skilled at them, Aztec Falcon shouldn't be much trouble after the one or two failed attempts you may need to figure out his attack pattern.

[Constable Reggie]

Even disregarding the lack of resources thing, blocking half your arsenal and the lingering bolts are still pretty frustrating. At least most of the other bosses give you a bit of room for error, can't say that for Aztec Falcon.

[Esau of Isaac]

I generally saw him try to attack when approaching, which I could just punish by jumping in and attacking. If you were still close to him after he attacked, he'd use fire pillars to force you away. And he generally follows some of his bigger moves with Heartless Angel.

If he were to use the fire pillar then you can just spam Reflega and take minimal (sometimes no) damage.

And Heartless Angel is definitely a rare move for him to perform. In the average fight unless you are extremely under or over-leveled he will probably use it once or twice. And given an upgraded Sora's ability to move around the field at breakneck speeds, there's few times when he can absolutely screw you with it. And even in the catastrophic event that he actually does manage to be too far away, it's as easy as just standing in place and using an Elixir as the effect is about to be applied. You are then healed directly after taking damage, and have free time to block the inevitable follow up slash he uses. Which you then punish heavily.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Esau of Isaac

[Shadow Mir]

If he were to use the fire pillar then you can just spam Reflega and take minimal (sometimes no) damage.

And Heartless Angel is definitely a rare move for him to perform. In the average fight unless you are extremely under or over-leveled he will probably use it once or twice. And given an upgraded Sora's ability to move around the field at breakneck speeds, there's few times when he can absolutely screw you with it. And even in the catastrophic event that he actually does manage to be too far away, it's as easy as just standing in place and using an Elixir as the effect is about to be applied. You are then healed directly after taking damage, and have free time to block the inevitable follow up slash he uses. Which you then punish heavily.

I was talking about KH1 Sephiroth.

[Mew]

Matador for sure, had to spend ridiculous hours grinding--another pretty annoying SMT boss was the last boss in DDS1, I didn't come prepared at all so I spent -forever- on that boss. WHy didn't I reset and not waste hours of my life ugh.

I thought Queen Asura in FFIV was pretty awful as well. Took forever.

I haven't fought a lot o fthe bosses mentioned in this thread and now I'm a little scared~

[Esau of Isaac]

I was talking about KH1 Sephiroth.

How the hell was I supposed to know that? (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻