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Awful bosses in great games

Satan in Painkiller.

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I don't know if anyone else had this issue, but I couldn't figure out how to beat him. I just got frustrated cause he wasn't killing me, but I couldn't figure out how to do damage to him. We were locked in a boring stalemate.

Probably didn't help that I didn't have the internet at the time, so I couldn't even look up a tutorial.
 
Any boss where you have to rig things around to kill both/multiple/all parts at once or they keep reviving. Sometimes the mechanics of the game make it work but sometimes you just don't have much to be able to deal with that properly.
 
Why do people not like the chess boss? By that point all the other bosses felt too easy, the chess battle felt like a welcoming challenge.

Not to mention the past 6 levels or so have been training you on how to beat them.
 
FrontMission Evolved: S.C.I.O.N

I just beat him last night...just boost in a circle until the attack is over take a few pot shots. Rinse and repeat forever.
 
the last fight in God of War 1 is tedious. In general I don't think it's a good idea to introduce a new mechanic right at the end.
 
You people actually LIKE Micolash? He was my motivation for making this thread. You guys are nuts.

Linkura said:
The Xenoblade one mentioned in the OP is my pick. Who designed that fight thinking it was a good idea?
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"You will pay for your insolence!"

Shmuppers said:
I think Micolash is fine. If we're gonna single out BB I would say Laurence is the weakest boss.
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Yeah, Laurence sucks too.

PeakPointMatrix said:
Time Lord or whatever the fuck in Sonic Generations. A complete "oh shit we're out of time and money" kind of boss from top to bottom. Not fun or challenging to fight, simply an overlong, janky battle with non-stop repetitive lines being hurled at you from supporting characters.

Really a shame in an otherwise fantastic Sonic game.
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Ahh, I knew I forgot someone. "That looks like a homing shot!"

Sir Ilpalazzo said:
I actually think Mundus is a really good boss fight. It's an out-of-place genre shift for sure, but it's still an engaging fight with a fair bit of nuance to it, and a lot of little tricks and strategies to learn.

My picks woould probably be Markham from Devil May Cry 3, the Savior from X
Devil May Cry 4, and Gigadeath from Ninja Gaiden II. And the first Alien Queen fight in the arcade Alien vs. Predator.
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PensivePen said:
I used to hate Mundus, but nowadays I actually enjoy both the shooting segment and the fight itself. Still think it's in a poor spot in a game though.

I'll elect Arkham from DMC3 though. Despite a cool story moment, it's a fairly boring fight that you lose your abilities for half of. It's a good thing the boss immediately afterward is fantastic, otherwise he would have drained all the energy from a game that already dragged on toward its latter half.
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Mundus on DMD was unbearable, I suck at shmups, so yeah...
But Arkham was pretty shitty too.

badcrumble said:
Orochi in Okami isn't so bad, it's just a bummer that you've got to fight him three times and he doesn't really change at all between encounters. Each of the different heads actually has some interesting different dynamics (and a slightly different personality) but the game's easy enough that you can just kinda breeze past it all.

I'm gonna have to nominate Doppelganger from DMC3. No excuse for that in a game that's mostly a masterclass in solid-to-excellent boss design.
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That's the problem. You have to fight Orochi THREE TIMES. And each fight takes at least 5-10 minutes. As someone who beat Okami like 4 times, that shit adds up.

Makonero said:
Any boss in a 2D Mario game
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Yoshi's Island says hi.
 
This dude right here

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Materia Keeper from Final Fantasy VII. Not a terrible boss on its own, but it becomes a terrible boss due to its placement in the game. He's the first boss you fight after you can unlock Vincent. The first time you play the game and unlock Vincent, you're probably going to use him in your party for a while - to check our his abilities if nothing else.

Well, Vincent's first limit break, Galian Beast, transforms him into an uncontrollable creature with two moves - one doing physical, and the other doing a ton of fire damage. Materia Keeper absorbs fire damage.

So, your typical first-time player is going to take Vincent into that fight, use the limit break at the first opportunity, and then waste a ton of turns trying to out-damage the healing they are performing on the boss themselves. You can, of course, kill Vincent yourself, and when you rez him he'll be out of his beast form, but it overcomplicates what should be an easy fight.
 
mrmickfran said:
Micolash, Host of the Nightmare - Bloodborne

What do you think when you hear the term Soulsborne boss? Fast-paced? Fun? Provides a tough-but-fair challenge? Well this guy is none of them. It's just a crawl around a confusing maze constantly chasing him while enemies are constantly harassing you. And when you finally get to him? He likes to spam a one-hit kill attack. Awful, awful boss.
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It wasn't great as a boss fight, but I always slightly forgave him for being so hammy, lol. "AH, marvellous!"

Also I found it very funny when you beat him and he goes "I'm waking up, now I'll forget everything!", except, in the waking world he's a long dead corpse.
 
badcrumble said:
Orochi in Okami isn't so bad, it's just a bummer that you've got to fight him three times and he doesn't really change at all between encounters. Each of the different heads actually has some interesting different dynamics (and a slightly different personality) but the game's easy enough that you can just kinda breeze past it all.

I'm gonna have to nominate Doppelganger from DMC3. No excuse for that in a game that's mostly a masterclass in solid-to-excellent boss design.
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Doppelganger was easy, but he had a pretty cool arena design and entrance.
 
Final boss in Quantum Break was a disaster imo. Wtf was that?
And i loved the game overall but whoever designed that boss fight should be fired.
 
That annoying boss in Xenoblade by the poison lake... You know which one.

Melia did quick work on her, otherwise it would have been hell.
 
I liked micolash, that howling made me lol while fighting him.

But some awful bosses in great games for me are:

All the boss battles in the original deus ex Human Revolution.

The final boss in Shadow of Mordor.

Even though I like the design of the mecha-tediz and the crazy doll puppet in Conkers bad fur day, that boss sucked to fight in the tank.
 
Code: 
[img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zQgXBMsSxYk/maxresdefault.jpg[/img]

The Forgotten One from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

I generally dislike bosses that change up the gameplay--where everything you learned up to that point doesn't matter--and this guy epitomizes that. Combos don't work, spells don't work, and you can't block or parry his attacks. You have to just hit and run on his exposed body parts for a long, long time and then do some QTE stuff to take him out.

On that note, the final boss of the game
(Satan)
is ass, too, for the opposite reason. If you have the ultimate magicks, you can take him out in like 30 seconds.
 
The Final Boss in Mirror's Edge Catalyst was a complete freaking joke. I loved the game in general, including the combat in most cases, but that final boss was literally the worst video game ending I have ever played.

It feels like they literally just ran out of money at the last minute.
 
mrmickfran said:
Micolash, Host of the Nightmare - Bloodborne

What do you think when you hear the term Soulsborne boss? Fast-paced? Fun? Provides a tough-but-fair challenge? Well this guy is none of them. It's just a crawl around a confusing maze constantly chasing him while enemies are constantly harassing you. And when you finally get to him? He likes to spam a one-hit kill attack. Awful, awful boss.
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This so much.

On my first playthrough I beat him from the first time, but fucking hell that NG+...

His one-hit kill drove me crazy, every playthrough when I get to him I'm like " aight,here we go again."

I looove micolash himself, but jesus goddamn his '' A call beyond'' attack is just bs.
 
The first Murai fight in Ninja Gaiden Black. After my 20th attempt I put the game down for at least a year until I learned to spam the flying swallow.

An awful boss fight in that he bitch slaps you only 10 minutes into the game when the rest of if is a breeze to play.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
The Final Boss in Mirror's Edge Catalyst was a complete freaking joke. I loved the game in general, including the combat in most cases, but that final boss was literally the worst video game ending I have ever played.

It feels like they literally just ran out of money at the last minute.
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Can that be called a "boss fight"??
It was 2 KrugerSec guys and then a cutscene. Lmao
 
Regiruler said:
Why do people not like the chess boss? By that point all the other bosses felt too easy, the chess battle felt like a welcoming challenge.

Not to mention the past 6 levels or so have been training you on how to beat them.
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Having to deal with like 12 of them at same time with the Knights jumping around, the fireballs flying around the place, the King's AOE, and the perpendicular laser attack at the same is just aggravating.

And that's not getting into the Queen and her fucking laugh.

That fight in DMD is the worst. Take out one and they all go Devil Trigger. So now you can only attack the King but having all the aforementioned shit flying at you in every direction.

Easily the worst part of the game.
 
Link's Awakening, AnglerFish boss:
LAanglerfish.jpg


I'm sure he actually has attack moves, but I sure as hell haven't seen them. Just keep swinging the sword at his obvious weakspot until he's dead, which takes about 4 seconds.
 
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - The Imprisoned


How did we get this far in the thread without it mentioned? It's ugly, all of your encounters with it are tedious, and the plot twist related to it is silly.
 
Ah Kos, or some say Kosm.

While not an amazing fight, he is a really fun character.


Also this is MGSV Skull Unit, the thread. What awful fights.
 
Deus Ex Human Revolution's bosses are terrible, but if you invest in Typhoon you can get through each one of them in about ten seconds.

The final boss in Bioshock stands out.
 
In general putting a boss/segment of above-average difficulty behind a point-of-no-return- particularly one that you're not warned about- is a cardinal sin of game design, such as the aforementioned FFT examples. This goes triple when it's an RPG and that segment forces you to use party members who you may not have leveled much. Persona 3 did it right in that the "full moon" bosses were generally pretty easy while the hard bosses were in Tartarus.

Another big example- any boss in FFX that could petrify and then shatter a party member. The fact that it straight-up removed the party member from combat rather than being a standard death was one thing. The fact that you couldn't proceed to sub in someone and thus were forced to do the rest of the fight undermanned was complete and total fucking bullshit.
 
Oh yeah. Any boss where you don't actually get to fight the boss but have to take out a bunch of regular guys in front of him while he throws things at you sucks, too.
 
I would also like to mention Dying Light and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Both great games but disappointing final boss fights.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
The Final Boss in Mirror's Edge Catalyst was a complete freaking joke. I loved the game in general, including the combat in most cases, but that final boss was literally the worst video game ending I have ever played.

It feels like they literally just ran out of money at the last minute.
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I loved the game soo much, I was like ohhhh shiieeeet I'm going to fight kruger to later discover it was only a cutscene.

giphy.gif
 
Micolash is easy once you learn that you can cheese him once he jumps down after the first half of the fight. You can just keep hitting him with poison knives and molotovs until he dies because he can't move.

The Flash said:
Warden Eternal - Halo 5

Just the last time you fight him.
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I wouldn't call Halo 5's campaign great at all, just its multiplayer, but Warden Eternal is certainly an awful fight and probably the thing that sunk the campaign for me more than anything else. Halo 3's final fight is more applicable to this question since it had an excellent campaign.
 
Really just any boss in all of the Halo games. The first one had it right and didn't include a boss fight, just an epic Warthog run.
 
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