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[Griss]

Came to make sure Flamelurker and Orphan of Kos made the top 10. They did, so carry on. Nameless King being above them at 3 is a joke though.

Surprised the Boost Guardian from Metroid Prime 2 didn't make it in while the Spider Guardian did. Very odd decision, Boost Guardian is a famously hard boss.

Also, if Black Bull from F-Zero GX counted he'd be near the top of the list. EDIT: Or was it Deathborn? I've forgotten. It was that lava based chapter near the end.

 

[Auctopus]

I'd say O&S is more of a learning curve. It's a brick-wall when you first get to it but the game is somewhat fair about teaching you how to handle it.

There are some bosses in other games that are stupidly unfair (sometimes for the sake of it) that are difficult no matter how good at the game you are.

If it was a ratio of difficulty and quality though, O&S should be top spot.

 

[Barry Burton]

Just started reading. 98 tougher than Senator Armstrong? Hm.

 

[Mephala]

Not a single enemy in Monster Hunter? You would put in Ornstein and Smough but not that arena quest against two Black Gravios?

Not a single SNK boss? Never heard of the trope SNK Boss syndrome?

Shit list

Also, raid bosses that are designed for multiple people playing effectively and co-operatively to achieve tasks or team wipes such as some instances of Crota are the shittiest of difficulty for bosses. The boss themselves are not as difficult as the raid mechanics. You might argue there is no difference but to me there definitely is.

There are also some low key bosses that are quite brutal. I remember thinking some of the optional end game ones in Star Ocean 4 for instance gave me a lot of trouble.

Some of the bullshit bosses in Super Robot Wars is rage inducing.

 

[Skulldead]

List completely disrespects devil may cry. Also wheres that final boss from shinobi ps2 and rodin in bayo 1?

winner here, this is the most challenging bosses i ever beat, he took me, hours, upon hours, upon hours to beat. Unlock harder mode, i was a little cooky and i said myself, i understand the bosses mechanic, i can one-two shot every boss... nop took me days to beat him again... and on the hardest difficulty, i don't think i've beat him, i was near (like a chip hp) and didn't make it. i was mad so i had to stop for my mental healt.

This is for me the most challenging action bosses ever. It's not hard cheap, all the patern can be master, it jsut take a lot of time. In the end just get gud.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Weird list.

> No Ys boss, LOL

> No Monster Hunter boss, LOL

> They have Darksol from Shining Force, but not Zeon from Shining Force 2, which is way harder?

> Sagat from the original SF2, or I-no from Guilty Gear, or Huitzil from Night Warriors, should probably be on the list somewhere

> Shadows of Yharnam making the list at all is a joke. Easiest Bloodborne boss after Celestial Emissary and the Witch of Hemwick.

> Flamelurker and Maneaters can be absolutely cheesed with magic. Even with melee they aren't that big of a deal.

> Yuki-Onna is indeed the hardest Nioh boss to me, but the spear guy was a non-entity.

> Nameless King so high up, but not Gael, Sir Alonne, the Ivory King, the twin Princes or Sister Friede? Especially Sister Friede, she's the hardest Soulsborne boss, come on.

> Laurence the First Vicar is also harder than Ludwig the Accursed

They must not have played the Dark Souls III DLC because Sister Friede is harder than Nameless King.

They got the right Nioh boss from the base game, though. Yuki-Onna destroyed me.

 

[JustSomeone]

Where's captain claw's wolvington?

 

[Toxi]

List of hardest Monster Hunter bosses

• Clashing Fists Brachydios
• Descent into Hades Stygian Zinogre
• Cruel King of the Sea Ivory Lagiacrus
• Level 140 Zinogre
• Level 140 Deviljho
• Level 140 Shagaru
• Level 140 Yian-Garuga
• Level 140 Stygian Zinogre
• Okay, level 140 goddamn everything short of Velocidrome
• Beyond the Crimson Veil Crimson Fatalis, aka Spontaneous Combustion Simulator
• Whatever the fuck half that shit from Frontier is
• White Fatalis, aka Desert Bus

 

[entremet]

C'mon, guys. Share your own lists as well lol.

We get that you're not going to be in lockstep with a multi-author list written by a mainstream publication.

 

[Ascheroth]

It's a weak list.
It's obvious shmups or even the legendary bullshit fighting game final boss could make it with ease and dominate the top 20+ and let's not forget rythm game songs since they included those.
Then you have stuff like Dark Fact and a few ys boss or some Rabi Ribi bosses to name a few games that are completely missing in favor or random stuff (seriously the vortex queen isn't hard, what's hard is "welcome to hell" and that i'd agree for it's inclusion).
Special mention to Marrow final boss while i'm at it, it's a bad fight but it deserve a spot in most bullshit boss fights ever conceived.

Dark Fact isn't actually that random.
After trying him on Nightmare for a while, even if you keep failing, go back to him on Normal and he's a cakewalk.

 

[MudoSkills]

best versions to play would be PCB, xbox 360 (region locked) or PC

Mushi Futari and Muchi Muchi Pork/Pink Sweets were region free to be import friendly - they even released Black Label for Futari on the US/EU XBL stores.

 

[UncleSporky]

MMO bosses are hardly fair. If you consider how many people you need, how much time and how perfect you have to play for something like mythic raiding final bosses in WoW I don't think there's much of a competition anywhere else. You can't simply outgrind the bosses either until the next content drop.

Out of a player base of millions there are currently slightly over a hundred guilds to have beaten the current hardest boss. That's 100 x 20 for how many players, give or take some reclears.

To be fair, we shouldn't assume it is the goal of those millions of players to beat that current hardest boss. A lot of them are possibly lapsed, just doing dailies, just hanging out with their friends, not interested in raiding, or specifically hardmode raiding, or are just gold farmers etc.

Less than 30% of Skyrim players beat the last boss of the story mode. That's millions of people, but we can't assume it means the boss was too hard for them.

 

[You Pay This Much]

Ok Zelda 2 Dark Link was waaaaay harder than OOT's version. all you need is the hammer for that link!

Edit: ok it is higher but I still think OOT's link should be further down than up.

You've got that right. Maybe WITHOUT the megaton hammer it would be that high...

 

[Sephzilla]

Senator Armstrong at 99?!

 

[Toxi]

Would F-Zero GX Chapter 7 on Very Hard count as a boss?

 

[CaptainClaw]

Where's captain claw's wolvington?

I thought I was the only one here thats played Captain Claw... [I have a huge smile in my face rn]

P.S Omar was harder

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

To be fair, we shouldn't assume it is the goal of those millions of players to beat that current hardest boss. A lot of them are possibly lapsed, just doing dailies, just hanging out with their friends, not interested in raiding, or specifically hardmode raiding, or are just gold farmers etc.

Less than 30% of Skyrim players beat the last boss of the story mode. That's millions of people, but we can't assume it means the boss was too hard for them.

That's a fair point.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

No arcade is not surprising but still disappointing.

Mushihime-sama Final Boss.

Bless you for linking the real video and not the other one. You know the one.

This is the equivalent of playing a labyrinth game. Reason why i dont like bullet hell games. The whole concept boils down to: navigate through a tiny labyrinth while holding the shoot button. Sometimes you dont even realize what the boss looks like cause all you are looking at is the path to follow.

That's rather reductive. I don't think it is fair to boil down the entire genre as labyrinth navigation when this is a secret final boss. There are loads of genre conventions beyond dense bullet dodging.

 

[Spasm]

Alma? I guess it's because I have played Ninja Gaiden to death and it's my favorite game series but Alma is easy as shit lol.

I beat Alma on my 4th try. I gave up on NGII cause I couldn't beat the train demon.

 

[TheStatutoryKid]

Kaiser Knuckle's General laughs at your list.

You took my entry LMAO!!!!

https://youtu.be/vk3vfca9v5k

Also, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING BATTLE in Ninja Gaiden Razor's Edge on Ultimate Ninja. I DEFY you to find an action game makes you DREAD engaging in combat itself. And it gets SO MUCH WORSE as the game goes on. Luckily you get the skills to handle it later on, but the start of this game is going to be one of the worst experiences of your young lives.

 

[ApharmdX]

> Nameless King so high up, but not Gael, Sir Alonne, the Ivory King, the twin Princes or Sister Friede? Especially Sister Friede, she's the hardest Soulsborne boss, come on.

> Laurence the First Vicar is also harder than Ludwig the Accursed

Gael and Midir are absolutely way harder than Nameless King. Sister Friede I never had trouble with, however. She can be cheesed with bleed.

And Laurence, oh god. That fight is brutal! I had far more trouble with him, particularly the last phase.

 

[Szadek]

This list is all over the fucking palace. Some of the entries aren't even bosses and some of them were so easy I can barely remember them.
It's also missing boss you think should be here. Like they have the reaper from persona 3, but not the actual super boss, or the DLC bosses from DS3.
That's shouldn't be big suprise, it just shows that hardest boss lists by committee are a terrible idea.
I mean, Riku/Ansem at 15, but Lingering Will at 24? The End at 21? (awesome fight, but really not very hard).
You get the point.

Baldurs Gate 2 - Firkraag, I had to cheese this bastard by throwing poison clouds off screen.

I think Kangaxx and Twisted Rune are much harder, and that's only in the unmodded base game.

I defeated Sendai with upgraded AI a few days ago, and now I'm really scared of the other major boss fights.
The ascension version of the final boss is going to be insane.

Even though Beholders in Baldur's Gate aren't bosses they deserve top 10 hardest enemy encounters in a game, there's even a unique shield with the ability to reflect the Beholder's rays called Shield of Balduran. They can be legitimately impossible to defeat depending on your party composition and builds too.

Well, the fight against Twisted Rune also has a Beholder amoung other nasty things.

It reads more like a "here are 100 difficult bosses" than a top 100.

It should be "100 hard bosses from popular games"

 

[Dr.Acula]

56. Rebel Flagship
FTL: Faster Than Light

Too low!

Also, this is such a Destiny ad

Notable exceptions:

Ys: The Banished Omens - Dark Dekt (Dark Fact)
Guacamelee - Javier Jaguar

They could throw in a boss from Hollow Knight somewhere. I mean, does this list really need multiple Chrono Trigger entries?

 

[SOME-MIST]

Mushi Futari and Muchi Muchi Pork/Pink Sweets were region free to be import friendly - they even released Black Label for Futari on the US/EU XBL stores.

mushihimesama HD (not futari) is region-locked though, and the picture is of the original mushi and not futari.

I did forget about the PS2 version though

 

[xrnzaaas]

Goro at #17 seems way too high, he and Shao Kahn should've switched places.

 

[Zhadgon]

I remember having a hard time with Viewtiful Joe (the final boss I think), Dante's Inferno (make it to the last boss in hard, never beat him), No More Heroes Bosses (are really difficult especially the final boss in the second one).

And I don't know if there is in the list but Solgryn from I Wanna Be The Boshy, ending a run with the Lost in Binding of Isaac and anyone remember Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby could make you cry.

.n_n.

 

[semiconscious]

List completely disrespects devil may cry. Also wheres that final boss from shinobi ps2 and rodin in bayo 1?

list sorta doubles, by way of omission, as a 'games we never played' list ...

 

[Barry Burton]

Finished reading it. Interesting list. Nameless King is among the hardest bosses I've beaten, so I can see it being top 3. Would have also had Ebrietas very high up there as well.

I would have liked to have seen more representation from the Metroid Prime series. The last three bosses in the first game were extremely difficult, for example. And nothing from Viewtiful Joe?

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Way too many Destiny bosses.

 

[Iryx]

42. Wood Man ????
Wood Man is one of the easiest Robot Masters in the entire series with blaster only, not to mention he dies in like three Metal Blades, what on earth is he doing anywhere near this list.

 

[TheStatutoryKid]

Don't know if you guys are old enough to remember Darkstalkers 1, but if you SOMEHOW got past Phobos/Huitzil, Pyron might take the fighting right out of you. I swear he didn't give a fuck about the difficulty settings.

 

[Zyrox]

Where's the Demi Fiend? (Digital Devil Saga 1). Dude is absolutely ridiculous.

I appreciate the mention of the Shadows of Yarhnam though. Definitely the hardest boss fight in the main game imo (minus Chalice dungeons).

 

[Falchion]

This is an awesome article. Shout out to Titanfall 2 for making the list.

I wish their was a cross-game boss rush where you could play these all in a row.

 

[Tain]

I think this is where people miss the point. These lists are subjective by nature, like any list. So take into account the editors' views and gaming experiences. It was put together by many editors/writers. Like any list, look at it as a way to spur discussion, not as something authoritative.

Gaming is incredibly diverse medium. I haven't put in any time in MMOs or SHUMPs myself, so I wouldn't even rank those for my list.

it'd be cool (better, I'd argue) if they went out of their way to gather perspectives of all sorts of players, like the often-overlooked perspectives of those that have put time into difficult arcade games in addition to more known games like DS3 and Destiny

 

[Thud]

Dark Fact isn't actually that random.
After trying him on Nightmare for a while, even if you keep failing, go back to him on Normal and he's a cakewalk.

That's because the damage output is very different.

That bat boss and Dark Fact are quite unfair, because their patterns are quite random.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Beat 0&S on like my 2nd try or so, yet the mirror knight took me like 20 tries lol. These things can be pretty random

 

[Thor Molecules]

Lol at Skolas being number 1. He was hard, but hardest boss of all time? Hardly. And Crota and Atheon don't belong anywhere near this list. Getting to Atheon was harder than beating Atheon and the entire Crota raid was easy. Someone has serious Destiny bias.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Sans alone can break most gamers.
Also the lack of SNK bosses is weird.

 

[Zushin]

I remember NG+ Four kings giving me a lot of trouble. But then again, I was a noob at the time. Hard to judge.

Edit: Oh god, yes Dark Fact. I'm so uncoordinated I can't believe I actually have beaten that boss.

 

[shaneo632]

Some assorted reactions as I read the list:

Viper in Titanfall 2 hard? lmao.
Kai Leng was vaguely annoying but beat him on like my 3rd try.
Top Gun runway needs to be in the top 10
Malus was long but not particularly difficult.
Heavenly Sword, really?
Liquid Snake is cake
The End was incredible. Frustrating and long, but amazing in retrospect.
Triggered by the mention of KH Sephiroth.

 

[Brerlappin]

They left out Black Dragon Kalameet? Holy shit. Hes tougher than almost every souls boss in the list bar: Orphan of Kos & Nameless King. And Slave Knight Gael is probably harder than them all and hes not there either

 

[MysteryQuesadilla]

Number 92 should be number 1.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Haha, clearly only beat Vergil on normal difficulty.

 

[c0Zm1c]

Having beaten a few of them listed there, and as someone with only average skill and an inclination to quit when things get too tough (when I'm no longer having fun) I have a hard time believing these really are the most difficult bosses in all of video gaming.

Challenge varying from person to person is another factor though I guess; the two Shadow of the Colossus bosses listed weren't the hardest for me.

 

[Fugu]

I think this is where people miss the point. These lists are subjective by nature, like any list. So take into account the editors' views and gaming experiences. It was put together by many editors/writers. Like any list, look at it as a way to spur discussion, not as something authoritative.

Gaming is incredibly diverse medium. I haven't put in any time in MMOs or SHUMPs myself, so I wouldn't even rank those for my list.

I find this argument more than a little bit silly. If someone who has only seen 100 films is tasked with making a list of the 100 greatest films of all time, he's going to come up with a bad list. He can't justify his bad list by saying "well, I've only seen 100 films"; he's just not qualified to make a list.

It's all well and good to say "these are my 100 favorite films" -- although then still one wonders what the point of the list is when you've only seen 100 films -- but to talk of relatively objective criteria and only look at a very narrow scope of the topic because you want to make people feel involved in your list seems very strange to me.

You don't learn anything from a list like this. You are indeed correct that video games are a very diverse medium and that the diversity that this list covers incidentally includes very few actually difficult games, all things considered.

 

[mephixto]

No Defiled Watchdog of the Old Lords (Bloodborne)?

 

[ZedLeppelin006]

I was waiting to see Alma on there and was satisfied with her placement it took me 37 tries to beat her the first time.

I'm rather nervous to see them pick the

Spoiler

Sephiroth

battle from KH2 as I'm currently playing through that now and found him thrilling but difficult as fuck in KH1.

As well, if we're putting in a platforming section in like Ori, they need to have the final final level from Rayman Origins in there. I swear that damn level took me and my wife a few hundred tries to beat.

 

[Dissent-]

A list like this will always be silly because of things like this. There are countless fangame bosses that are absolutely absurd that some people spend hundreds of hours to clear.

 

[Ronin Ray]

Where's the Demi Fiend? (Digital Devil Saga 1). Dude is absolutely ridiculous.

I appreciate the mention of the Shadows of Yarhnam though. Definitely the hardest boss fight in the main game imo (minus Chalice dungeons).

First thing I thought of was the Demi Fiend fight .

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Some of those bosses were quite easy... The Nameless King being one of the easier ones that I could not understand people's trouble with, and Shadow of Yharnam is a really odd choice from Bloodborne. And Woodman... really? Liquid Snake and Psycho Mantis? Also strange is the Spiderball Guardian over the Boost Guardian.

I definitely agree with those that said #92 should have been #1. Fuck that shit, seriously.