8-bit bosses were generally the most bad-assest of them all in terms of sheer frustrility- but I invite you to bring your tender, unwhipped asses into a little arena we call Devil May Cry.
Not normal mode, and not hard mode, but the super-masochistic Dante Must Die mode. Oh dear god, the bosses in that mode are CRAZY.
Nelo Angelo, from the FIRST TIME YOU FIGHT HIM in DMD, has stremfed out to insane proportions. That bastard must eat his cereal with diesel fuel. Naturally, you have to beat him three times throughout the course of the game, with the last confrontation being THE most unbalanced, unfair, pain-and-suffering, weeping and gnashing of teeth--- GRAH!
Oh, how my rage boils. He simply demands a perfect battle- should he hit you once, the stun is more than likely enough for him to follow up with a Dante-mashing combo, which killed you in the first hit anyway. Or, he'll use his 1-hit life emptying uppercut - A FUGGIN UPPERCUT!! He's a got a sword bigger than Jesus, and he demolishes you with a goddamn uppercut... oaghagajhgrahg!!
I don't mean any disrespect to the guys who list RPG bosses as the most fierce- and I've cut my teeth against all types and flavors of Weapons, but guys, turn-based will never be as intense as hard core, OG action-based combat.
I've been tempted more than once to crush my copy of DMD into a fine powder and sprinkle it over my cereal and eat it with a hearty smile, just to prove to Nelo Angelo who the true king of Stremf is. But I know that even after being consumed, he will wrack my innards, shredding my precious colon with hard-coded binary malice.
One day, his ass is going down. Of course, the celebration will be limited, because the next step is to run head-long into Nightmare Revenge, who I fathom will be so cheap, invincible and uber that he makes Nelo Angelo look like Glass Fuggin Joe.
Glaximus