This week’s question pertains mostly to videogames, but if your brain works in abstract ways yet unknown to mankind, you can most likely relate it to boardgames, tabletop RPG’s, or even a day at work in the office. The question is purposefully left very general, so that you can take it however you like.
What is the hardest boss (enemy) you’ve ever fought?
Along the same lines, have boss fights in games gotten too easy? With the onset of remakes of classically difficult games like Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins, set to come out for the PSP tomorrow, are gamers lusting for those good old controller-destroying experiences? Perhaps it takes a game like Shadow of the Colossus to show us that bosses can be many, difficult, and yet still entirely too much fun. Perhaps games like Final Fantasy VII, where the hugemongous Weapons (pictured) loom about the game world just taunting you to come near them and die. Perhaps we’ve just gone soft, you decide!
Ruby Weapon: breakin’ down and bustin’ a move
Fuck Ruby Weapon.
Besides the fact that you had to play until it sucked the correct two party members into the sand, leaving Cloud to face it solo…when I finally did beat it, my computer crashed. I was on the phone with my best friend at the time, and I don’t think he can hear correctly to this day.
Needless to say, I didn’t waste anymore of my time on THAT bitch. Stupid Desert Rose.
I’ve had more exciting boss battles than that, but usually they were the first or second try, and I pulled it out of my arse to beat them. Ruby stands as the hardest.
You know who I think is harder than Ruby Weapon…. Sephiroth from Kingdom Hearts II. At least with Ruby Weapon you had the chance to get lucky, making the fight a bit easier. Sephiroth must be fought one on one, and he basically has the ability to four hit kill you at will. If you somehow get out of the way, he’ll just do it again until you die.
I still have not beat him, despite several hours of trying.
I should have put my own response to the question in the post, but I’ll do it here:
Actually one of the hardest bosses I can remember was the final one in the very first Final Fantasy, Chaos. Perhaps it was escalated by the fact that I must have been only 9 years old at the time, and strategic turn-based thinking was not yet in my vocabulary (this would be the first place I learned it however), but for having a paltry 2,000 hit points (the most you’d see back in those days) he was one hell of a fight.
Other then that I can’t think of any one major enemy that gave me a lot of problems, but I also haven’t played the new Ninja Gaiden very much yet.
Must be something about the Final Fantasy series that makes awesome bosses.
While I’ve strugged with a number of Final Fantasy end bosses in my day, there’s one that stands out in my mind as the absolute hardest boss ever, who I have never beaten: the boss of Final Fantasy Legend 1 for the original Gameboy.
The reason the boss is so hard? He’s God! He decimated me every time in only a few turns. I guess there’s a lesson there somewhere.
Ninja gaiden had some horrendous boss fights (especially when you ramped up the difficulty). One of the hardest is the first one where you have to fight a mounted samurai. He’s hard because you haven’t developed any of your special moves and your weapons still all suck.
The original ninja gaiden series also had a number of ridiculous bosses (particularly the last one).
What about the original half-life boss? The one where you have to jump on ramps and shoot rockets into some things head. That may be unreal though, can’t remember exactly.
I find that most RPG bosses are either very hard or very easy. Neverwinter nights is a good example of pretty much always easy boss fights. By the end of those games your character is so ridiculously powerful it is sad. On the other hand your FF games (which admittedly I’ve never played) seem to just make bosses so difficult it requires luck to win. Any game where it requires pure luck to defeat the boss is a poorly designed game, but that’s just me.
Emerald from FF7 would probably be the toughest boss I ever fought. He was completely ridiculous…his best attack forced you to limit the number of materia that you used! Irritating!
Remember that option that every final fantasy game makes you pick in the beginning of the game about whether you want the battles to be set on wait (enemies waited to attack while you scrolled thru menus), or to be set on active (enemies attacked while you scrolled)? Only a fool would choose active, and so I chose wait just like everybody else, that way when I was in a tough battle I could think about what I wanted to do and change my mind if necessary and the enemies would wait for me.
Not Emerald. Emerald doesn’t wait for anybody. Seriously. Even if you had the game set on wait, Emerald would continue to attack you as you scrolled. I was getting frustrated after dying for like the 20th time at the speed at which Emerald attacked, so I tested to see if he waited if the game was set on wait. He didn’t. I kept scrolling through menues, and he kept attacking. I know the computer can’t cheat or anything, but…Emerald totally cheats.
FINALLY I was able to beat him by setting the battle speed to the slowest setting.
The other really tough boss I remember fighting was from the Street Figher game called ‘Three’ (I think that was the name). The final boss was sooo much better than the other characters; his ‘special move’, unlike everyone else who had like a superfireball or super-uppercut or something, HE had a second life that automatically activated after you KO’d him…life…totally refilled. Never beat him. Stopped trying.
The WEAPONs in FF7 are definitely high on my list.
After that would be Edea from FF8. I’ve never been able to beat her on my own. It’s also a really annoying battle, but that’s another topic.
A challenging non-FF one was in Lunar 2, which was a great contrast to Lunar 1. The final boss there was way too easy.
Oh, josh, the ff bosses do require skill, and knowing what accessory to put on, character combo, etc. Luck isn’t really that high. Well, maybe with Edea, but FF8 is in a class all it’s own.
Original Sultan – (In regards to active/wait mode in FF7)
And therin lies the reason why I pwnt Emmy on the first try. Wait mode is for the weak, I tell you!!! 😛
Any boss from Karnov…..enough said…..and don’t bother trying to dispute it ::crosses arms::
Your Mom is a tough boss.
Okay, good question. First, Sephiroth in KH2 is decent- only if you do not know what to do, otherwise he is cake. be at at least lvl 85 with ultima weapon and forms maxed out, have any counterattacking and combo extension abilities equipped and YOU MUST HAVE GLIDE. not enough time to explain the rest of that, just look it up somewhere.
now for my list of hardest bosses:
#3, from FF8, omega weapon, without Holy War or Hero. But the battle does become easier with those items used.
#2, from ff7, Emerald WEAPON. granted it would have been way easier if i mastered KOTR and mime materia but it still would have been a pain. Final Attack-Revive combo is a must.
and now number one, and for those of you who have played FF10 international, you know what i mean… the winner is Penance (WITHOUT ZANMATO). this SOB makes Nemesis look like a pushover. 12 million HP and ur stats need to be maxed out just to try and keep up, AND you have to defeat all the Dark Aeons (honorable mention) first.
that is sad i raped every thing that you talked about they are the most easiest bosses ever that is just sad emerald ruby all of those things you mentioned they were gone in 5 mins. your pethetic sit around level get ultimate stuff to kill the bastards for petes sake.
i belive the final boss of ys. the ark of napishtm on nightmare mode is one of the hardest boss ever…second only to emerald.
I’m very impressed by the fact that hacker has never faced a hard boss. Very impressed. The internets will sing praises to the elusive ‘hacker’ of http://www.yahoo.com ! Three cheers! I’m so pethetic for pete’s sake.
the weaapons from FFVII where easy just train enough and 4 the sand sinking shit just kill 2 comrades yourself before the fight starts. sephiroth was suprisingly hard on the normal diffuculty in kh2 strang enough i had no troubles beating him on the hard diffuculty he was easier on that diffuculty strange never really had a though boss in any game.
greatz RA
ooow 4 hacker euhm you don’t really need the strongest items i never had them be sure to have all characters 7777 hp and limit full 4 emerald that will do allot of damage and when defeating emerald you can get the harp thingy and trade it for master materia that should make the battle against ruby allot easier once again i never had a gold chocobo to get knights of the round first 😛 well good luck to everybody whose still trying!
greatz RA
sorry another comment on sephiroth beating in kh2 you don’t need to be at level 85 i was on 58 on the hard difficulty just be sure you train all your diffrent forms to the max so you can use all the abilities without transforming since you can’t transform in this battle have elixers ready ass well and it should be 2 hard. good luck!