My hardest boss is...
Breath Of Fire IV - the consectutive Tyrant Dragon > Astral Dragon battle. That battle is just insane. I mean, sure I beat them both, but it's frigan hard once Astral rips out a Soul Rend (HP goes to 1 for whole party). Why Ryu's dragon HP can't be restored by items other than Ambrosia is beyond me. There is one Ambrosia in the whole game and you're expected to make do with it. Ok, fair enough, I was able to finish the game with that alone, but it's still hardddddddddd But I have to say, I loved every minute of the final battle. I was literally on the edge of my seat, yelling at the screen and begging Fou Lu not to slaughter me after every Soul Rend. I distinctly remember the first time I defeated him I pointed at the screen and yelled "YOU DUMB BITCH!!! YOU THINK YOU CAN SCREW ME OVER??? YOU STUPID SHIT!!!". I was thrilled! Haha.
Final bosses in RPG's these days are becoming far too easy. Take a look at FF6 - 9 (I haven't played the others, but I've heard 10 is weak too), Vagrant Story (how pathetic was Guildenstern!!), CastleVania (I couldn't believe Dracula's 10 second effort in SOTN). It's pretty sad, we play through a whole RPG and the boss goes under so quickly and effortlessly. I think the Breath Of Fire series has the perfect standard of final boss. They belt the crap out of you, make you heal every 2nd turn, take ages to finish off, and best of all, they get me really involved personally, I start cursing them and yelling at my party to do a better job.
However, I am all for being able to beef up your characters so they absolutely slaughter the final boss as long as beefing up takes a lot of effort. Think Parasite Eve! The Chrysler Building is my all-time favourite dungeon. It's so perfect! There are lots of high-powered weapons and armour, Tools, Super Tools, and Rare Trading Cards there, but the enemies and bosses make it very hard to acquire them, which is what I like. There's nothing like a damn good challenge with a great payout in the event of success. Also the fact that you had to level up and utilise your BP if you were to stand a chance in hell against true Eve. And once you had done all that it took to defeat True Eve, the normal Eve and The Ultimate Being were a walk in the park! They were nothing! But the point is, it took effort to attain that kind of power. All the Final Fantasy's took so little effort in order to rip the final bosses in half with as little effort as possible. It didn't leave me feeling satisfied at all. I don't particularly like it when it's easy to reach Lv99. It's nice sometimes when Lv99 is unattainable, because it just makes you strive to get there and it's fun!
