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Games where the final boss isn't the hardest mandatory boss

L

LiK

Member
SolVanderlyn said:
Lost Odyssey

Hardest boss is... the very first boss

latest
Click to expand...

Good lord, it took so long to kill him.
 
K

King Gilga

Member
I feel this applies to most games.

Devil May Cry 3, I found Virgil 2 way harder and it took me tons of attempts, Virgil 3 on the other hand was a piss walk and I one shot it.

Dark Souls, Gwen was an easy one shot.

Dark Souls 2, Queen lady was an easy one shot.

Lost Odyssey, one shot final boss big boots guy, died on the boss right before him so he's not even the hardest boss in that part.

Dragon Age 2, the one on one boss fight with the Arishok was infinitely harder.



ottomh, I can't think of any other final boss type games atm.
 
O

oni-link

Member
Kain-Nosgoth said:
when i think about it.... The thread should really be "games where the final boss is the hardest mandatory boss"

there's LOTS of games when the final boss is a let down and a too easy
Click to expand...

Well anyone is free to make that thread

Off the top of my head I'd say FF7 and MGR quality for that thread
 
T

Transistor

Banned
Spman2099 said:
Final Fantasy Tactics is never harder than when you fight
Wiegraf
. That is a pretty notable example in my eyes.

However, I feel like most games don't end with the hardest boss... I think the opposite topic would end up being far more fruitful, in all honesty.
Click to expand...

It's a triple dick punch, that part of the game.

1)
Weigraf is an absolute bitch of a fight
2)
Velius is an absolute bitch of a fight
3)
The Marquis on the roof and his goons that murder Rafa in damn near an instant is just fucking mean

And you can't go level up between each one! If you had a single save before
Weigraf
and you weren't prepared, you better be ready to start the whole damn game over.
 
L

Lombax

Banned
Lynel and various Gannon forms were much more interesting / difficult fights than the final boss in Breath of the Wild.
 
H

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order

Member
Pretty much Every Souls game is like this. False King in Demons Souls, Fatboy+Slim in DS1, Smelter Demon in DS2, Pontiff in DS3...
Depending on you're build,
i think Throne Guardians and Nashandra back to back are also worse than Aldia alone
in Scholar of the First Sin.

Final Fantasy also has loads of these. The FFXIII series has a few that are a pain whenever they flip your party around, and Barthandelus fight 1 can be horrible with low stats, FFXII has Spore Dragon and a number of other early game status effect heavy bosses.
Transistor said:
It's a triple dick punch, that part of the game.

1)
Weigraf is an absolute bitch of a fight
2)
Velius is an absolute bitch of a fight
3)
The Marquis on the roof and his goons that murder Rafa in damn near an instant is just fucking mean

And you can't go level up between each one! If you had a single save before
Weigraf
and you weren't prepared, you better be ready to start the whole damn game over.
Click to expand...

And of course, FFT takes the crown for Final Fantasy mandatory bull shit bosses. Similiar to FFXIII, any fight where it flips your setup around is infinitely harder than fights where you can bring your full team (or cheese with Orlandu in FFT).
 
S

skLaFarebear

Member
Thud said:
Every Trails game :p?
Click to expand...

Trails SC spoilers
literally right before the final boss is the hardest boss in the game, fucking Lowe man.

Trails TC spoilers
I haven't gotten to the final boss yet, but I'm pretty sure he's not tougher than Cassius. Cassius fucked me up for like hours straight and finally got a lucky run where he didn't constantly keep himself buffed.
 
G

Gulz1992

Member
Suburban Thug said:
I just finished Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and thought
Riku
was tougher than
ansem
.
Click to expand...

I had to repeat that fight so many times, and since the original PS2 version didn't allow you to skip cutscens I ended up memorizing every line of dialogue in that scene. Fun times.
 
K

KittenMaster

Member
oni-link said:
Why do you think this is though? Why are games designed so that the hardest boss comes before the end?

Is it that your skills are not as honed when you come across earlier bosses, and that makes them harder?

Are they designed that way on purpose, as a way as making the player feel like a badass?

Is it down to poor balancing?

Considering how few people beat games these days, why add the hardest part before the end?
Click to expand...
It's usually not on purpose, I find, and when it is on purpose it is usually extremely obvious when it is. Usually it's because of any combination of these factors:

1) Your character has all of their best abilities and equipment by the end
2) The final boss focuses more on cinematics and story elements
3) The final boss might have a design that doesn't allow for normal combat, so it relies on scripted events or puzzle elements
4) The final boss usually comes after a difficulty spike is already established by previous bosses, and is usually a test of everything you've learned over introducing new dangers
5) The final boss was tested with a pistol only start to the final level, in a game where most players continue with all of their equipment carried over from previous levels resulting in the mid-game Cyberdemon being a much better boss fight than the Spider Mastermind

When it's done on purpose, it's usually for story reasons or for balancing reasons. Sometimes a game has a "real" final boss and the following boss is made significantly easier as part of storytelling.
 
C

Coinspinner

Member
FFX. It made sense, though, Yu Yevon's strength was his control of Sin and Aeons, once confronted directly he was weak (though Square making the party immortal for this part seems like overkill to me, still.) The game had a pretty satisfying boss fight just a moment before, so I wasn't disappointed.

Lost Odyssey. As many have no doubt pointed out, the first boss is crazy hard and all others seem like a cakewalk by comparison. It was probably just power creep, diligent players could use the systems to stay way ahead of the curve compared to enemies. At the start of the game there's wasn't any opportunity for that yet.

Chrono Cross. Time Devourer has strong elemental attacks of all elements, but is kinda slow and totally predictable. Miguel, despite being fairly limited in what he can do, is far far harder. Time Devourer is intended as a puzzle boss, you have to solve a pretty obscure side quest and understand what's expected of you in that fight, then understand the boss's patter so you can make use of it. Just dropping it's HP to 0 and getting a bad end isn't hard.
 
H

HKA6A7

Member
Mortal Kombat 3, I always had more problems with Motaro than Shao Kahn... The fact that he was immune to most powers made him a real pain in the quad back in the day.
 
H

hans_castorp

Member
skLaFarebear said:
Trails TC spoilers
I haven't gotten to the final boss yet, but I'm pretty sure he's not tougher than Cassius. Cassius fucked me up for like hours straight and finally got a lucky run where he didn't constantly keep himself buffed.
Click to expand...
He isn't that bad if you use Kevin's S-craft and Earth-Wall.

Wait for the Nightmare arena. You are gonna love it xD
 
N

Nottle

Member
Many games, particularly jrpgs give you that victory lap boss where it's almost impossible to lose.

It's been a while but The spear guy in Kingdom Hearts 2 always was the hardest boss for me.

Just finished Xenogears and I died twice to one of the fights before the final boss, one of the cores that uses just really strong attacks. Some energy move that hits everyone
 
D

daveo42

Banned
FFX but only because
Yu Yevon was a joke that granted auto-reraise to your entire party. I think the Yunalesca fight in Zanarkand was a much more difficult fight due to the zombie status effect.

Edit: The double gear fight near the end of Xenogears is particularly hard if your gears aren't properly equipped for the fight. The
Ramsus
right alone can clear your fuel reserves and health and you still have an even harder fight ahead of you against
Miang.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
TokiDoki said:
FFX lol
Click to expand...

If you don't have the optionals aeons, I'd say it actually is the hardest boss unless you really level up on the Omega Ruins. EDIT: I don't really consider the
Yu Yevon
fight the final boss as that entire sequence seems more like a way to show you what happens while not just showing a long, long, loooong cut scene. The final boss is
Lord Braska's Final Aeon.

FF7, though, yeah, definitely NOT the hardest at all.

Bloodborne's actually can be the hardest... I guess it depends how high I've leveled. I usually do so many side quests and Chalice Dungeons that I'm more powerful by that point, but if I'm at a normal level, hot damn, it can be a tough one.
 
U

univbee

Member
I feel like this is probably fairly common, at least for specific playthroughs, in many RPG's, where you can develop a ridiculous amount of tools to steamroll the final boss with, tools you may not be able to get (or it's impractical to do so) earlier in the game so you're forced to fight these earlier bosses on, for lack of a better term, "fair" terms, while the last boss you can perform moves that hit 16 times for 9999 damage each and it'll only cost you 1 mana.
 
J

JnFnRu

Member
BOTW

I found
ganon
to be easier than some of the dungeons bosses, especially the
thundeblight
one
 
S

silver moose

Member
Toss another vote in for Dark Souls. Demon's Souls as well.

Ornstein and Smough and goddamn Flamelurker

At least to me, they were significantly more difficult than the final boss.

Edit: missed the mandatory part
 
P

Piers

Member
MadJackChurchill said:
Breath of the Wild for me. Was wildly easy, but then all of the main bosses were.

First Lynel fight was incredible.
Click to expand...

I found
Thunderblight Ganon
the hardest boss as a whole, including Lynels. You can at least spam dodge with Lynels, but TBG required a lot more precision I thought.
 
S

skLaFarebear

Member
hans_castorp said:
He isn't that bad if you use Kevin's S-craft and Earth-Wall.

Wait for the Nightmare arena. You are gonna love it xD
Click to expand...

I didn't wanna cheese the fight since it's like super cool, but im def gonna try to cheese the fuck outta nightmare arena with Kevin's S-craft and the gladiator gear.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
I think Sonic 1 and 2 are good non-RPG examples, come to think of it. Sonic 2's final boss used to be hardest for me, but I can destroy it pretty quickly due to the amount of opportunities you have to hit him. Probably Casino Night or Metropolis are harder (though the game as a whole is pretty damned easy nowadays).

1's final boss just requires a little patience. Labyrinth Zone is probably harder on a new playthrough.
 
L

Ludist210

Member
VGdrumCovers said:
8650217_f520.jpg
Click to expand...
Oh man, this fight. It made me so mad in college. This fight caused me to restart my playthrough and re-work how I leveled everyone up (I literally made sure every usable character was used at least once per fight to get them needed XP). Even after being better prepared, I still struggled with it.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
Widdle Puppy said:
I recall the God of war games having final bosses which were easier than others earlier in the game.
Click to expand...

That's actually a situation where I think most of them had harder final bosses. I can definitely avoid dying on the first two GOW1 bosses, but certainly not the final boss, especially Part 2 on harder difficulties.

GOW2's final boss was kind of difficult, as well, though several of them were, so it's hard to say with a certainty what's the hardest.

GOW3's was definitely hardest for me, especially on higher difficulties. The
Zeus Clones on hardest difficult are
brutal.
 
D

dawid

Member
Witcher 2
is one of the wierdest examples of this. You fight the last boss about half-way through the game and it's so fucking hard on higher difficultys. Then when you fight the same boss at the very end you're so much stronger, but the boss is exactly the same as the first time.
 
woopWOOP

woopWOOP

Member
The final boss in Wario Land 1 was pretty easy, while the first boss and that forest ghost boss gave me a real hard time.

Mega Man 1's final boss is pretty rough, but doesn't hold a candle to that Yellow Devil boss (though you can cheese both)

Parodius probably isn't fair since the final "boss" can't even fight back, but the boss before that is pretty easy too. Keep firing and his bubble projectiles won't even reach you. Meanwhile the second giant lady "boss" was always really nerve wrecking because a single step could kill you, and the bloating fish boss is plain bullshit on the higher difficulties
 
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