The Coop

Geonitz from KoF 96... He's almost as cheap a final boss as Rugal, but he's got one move that oin anything but easy he loves to use. He says something, and a column of air rises at a random point on the screen. It does a good amount of damage and he can call it up over and over many times in a row so all you do is block and lose health. Glad he didn't come back as a final boss a second time...

Here's one. The Red Dragon at the end of King of the Dragons on the SNES. That boss is nasty. Big time life bar, little damage done with even the highest level weapon, half the spells are useless on it, the other half only do a little more damage than your weapon, and between the head and two claws of the thing, you're constantly being knocked down, set on fire and chewed on. Definitely a nasty boss... cool looking, but nasty.

Got a new one. The crab boss in Zone "X" in Darius Gaiden. This thing, is HUGE. The Black Hole Bombs don't do much damage to it. It takes up over half the screen, has two large claws that move around as it does, it takes a rediculous amount of hits to die and if you lose you weapons by having your ship blown up... it's over. One of the hardest bosses in the Darius saga. Oh yeah. Those looking for Doom? Get Doom: Collector's Edition ($14.99 now). It's all three on one CD. And pick up JDoom. It's a great OpenGL addition to the original games that adds lighting effects, higher resolutions, new effect for the weapons (the plasma gun looks awesome firing), and all sorts of gameplay additions. And, it's free

Found a copy of Art of Fighting for the Genesis a while back. Got pretty good at the game... could even get to the final boss without continuing. Getting past the final boss? That's a different story all together. Mr. Big is his name, and fucking you up is his game. I had the thing on "Easy" and he was beyond cheap. You could see his weapons weren't hitting you, but you'd still have to block, or they'd still knock you back/down. Air attacks work allright for a round, but then he blocks anything and everything you do on the second and third rounds. Not to mention the guy's big, so he has a helluva reach. SNK... leave it to them to make bosses so damn brutal

Here's a fun one... The final boss in Weapon Lord. Some of the characters are semi easy, but the final boss, Zarak, is a complete and total tool. On anything but easy, he beats you into a corner and basically keeps you there. You jump, you're hit. You attack, you're hit. You block, he just keeps hitting you with supers that do a little damage at a time until you either die or run out of time. Cool game, but damn man....

After getting my copy of King of Fighters 2000 for the Dreamcast, I came across yet another boss that deserves to be here. I don't know his name (it's in Japanese), but he's the new final boss for the series. He is, in short, a dick. He's definitely going to be keeping Rugal company, as this new guy is nasty. Even on "Normal" (3 in the settings), he knocks you out of the air, keeps you at bay with long range attacks, is able to attack you EXTREMELY fast, and can do some nasty damage with his Special moves and his Super attacks. I waited for this game for what seemed like forever, and it's KICKING MY ASS! I love it

I doubt this is gonna make me any friends, but I wasn't very enthralled by this remix. The following is just my opinion... I know this is his first Dance/Electronica mix, but it never really seemed to go anywhere. In all honesty, it sounded like a three-plus minute opening. Drums fade in at :13, cymbals creep in at :31, a new synth sound comes in at 1:03, and that's basically where it stays for the remainder of the song. It's almost like it's in a perpetual state of being ready to lead you into the main crux of the song... but it just stays where it is. The only thing to break the song up from 1:03 on, is the howl-like synth from 2:16 - 2:31. Otherwise, it stays put. I do think this piece has some interesting qualities. Heavy reverb, minimalist note structure, howl-like sound-- all could be used to create an eerie atmosphere... just not in this Dance/Electronica mix. The instruments used did mix well with each other, and they sounded fine. The song was just very uneventful to me. In the end, this combination of Dance/Electronica instrumentation and ambience-like structure just didn't seem to add up to a good song. I saw this song's genre combination a little like a love ballad done in Death Metal-- interesting idea, but the end result doesn't mesh well... at least in this instance. As I said before... good ideas are in here. But, I feel those ideas have been marred by the genre they've been placed in. I'd like to hear this kind of ambience and sound effects combination as an orchestral piece. I think the evil/ominous feeling would be SO much stronger. But, as Dennis Miller said... that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Geese Howard from Capcom vs SNK. M. Bison in that game is a complete puss. But Geese Howard is a complete prick. On anything but easy, he knocks you out of the air when you try and jump in, he keeps throwing shit to keep you back and when you try a projectile attack, he jumps over it. Somehow, Capcom made him even more of a dick than SNK did.

Tell me about it... I had to beat the bosses with a regular controller. Damn near wore out the buttons. Instead of "A", "B", "X" and "Y", the tops of my Dreamcast pad's buttons just have a smooth surface

The boss with the chainsaw in House of the Dead 2. I can get by it now, but before, I was going John Woo all over that things weak spot and never getting a hit on it. Now I know the secret to it, but until I learned that, it was one nasty SoB!

The final boss in Giga Wing 2 on the Dreamcast. 2 forms, bullets flying anywhere and everywhere there's room, a body that just keeps getting damaged and damaged but never seems to blow up and an attack where she flies from bottom to top on the screen REAL FAST shooting all the way (have yet to find a safe spot ).

Agreed. The last boss in Blaster Master is a prick. Here's another such boss... The last boss at the end of Stellar Fire on the Sega CD. His head and hand are all that pop up out of the ground. If his hand hits you as you aiming for it's head, you get hit, take a nice chunck on damage, and get sent spinning. By the time you stop spinning, the boss is right back next to you and hits you again... and again, and again, and again... until, BOOM!... you're dead. Start the whole long, last stage over again.

Tunnel B-1. I can breeze through the game in general and reach the final boss with all sorts of great weaponry. But I have yet, in over 3 years, to beat the final boss of that game. I can even survive for quite a while in the fire fight full of bullets, homing shots and the like.

Wait! Here comes another... The final boss of Gun Griffon on the Saturn. Remember this guy? You're in a somewhat dark room... giving him the option of vanishing into the night for periods of time. When he finally appears in the light (assuming he's even in eye shot of you... his arena is HUGE), he's moving so damn fast you can't hit him bit a couple times and then he's gone again. Over course, as you fight him, a clock is counting down. You have to beat him, find the exit and get out before the missle hits and vaporizes everything. If you don't... game over.

Allright video game fiends. Here's another from the past. The Dragon from the Genesis game "The Immortal". You have to do the exact move at the exact time in the exact sequence... or your screwed. If you miss an object during the game and don't have it for this boss, you're screwed... have to start over from the beginning. It's just not a fair fight... big suprize there huh ?

Dug up yet another one from the 32X bin. T-Mek. The final boss? Nazrac. Seen him once. Got my ass thrashed in twenty seconds and have yet to see him again (I've owned the game for about four years). Unless there's a damn good cheat, I doubt I'll ever see that damn games ending .

Here's a fun one. Star Wars Arcade for the 32X. The final boss? The Death Star trench of course... ON ACID!!!!!!!!! There were three times as many guns and things to avoid hiting than there was in the entire trilogy of films. Of course, that was simply to capper for a game that was harder than a goddamned rock (I beat it twice... I recorded the ending the second time... and I still don't know how I got through it!)

I concur with you on that one. That time limit was the games final kick in the nuts. One slip up, and the game was over, period. No recovering. And thusly, you start from the beginning of the game. No FUCKING FAIR!

Allright folks. We're digging back a bit for this one. Red Zone on the Genesis. Final Boss of the game. Fat guy floating around wildly, shooting at as he zipped on and off the screen. Nearly impossible to hit, only beaten him a couple times since I bought the game back in mid 1990s. Now that I think of it, just getting to fat prick is an accomplishment

Is a serious read isn't it? 300 replies, over 10,000 views and 21 pages. I can honestly say I never expected this thread to hang on for so long. I guess that just shows you the power of a vicious boss battle... you never forget it and you never forgive both the boss itself, and the programmers that made it . Here's another boss. I dug out The Terminator for my Sega CD (yep... it's still going ). I was doing quite well, until you come to the part where you have to lure the Terminator's endoskeleton through a large factory, find the right path to get the weapon to blow of its legs, and then lure it towards the crusher. One wrong turn, you're dead. Miss the weapon, you're dead. So much as glance the endoskeleton chasing you with a thread of your clothing, you're dead. I eventually wound up cheating and using the stage select so I could get back there and find the way the kill to bastard again (I hadn't played it for about a year or so). Cheating? Yes. But I did it .

I have R-Type 3 on my ol' SNES. I have yet to get to the last stage, but now there's a little voice in my head saying "Go on... you know you wanna get there so you can get your ass kicked too!". Guess I need to up my medication dosage .

A blast from the past. Anyone remember Hellfire in the arcades or on the Genesis? Anyone ever get to the end end boss on the "Yeah... right" difficulty setting? If so, you know what I'm talking about. If not... Imagine a large robot. The top half looks like a futuristic knight in armor, the bottom half looks like a hover ship. He has a lance that he thrusts out at you, which fires about a dozen bullets in all directions once it's extended... which happens about once every five seconds. His ONLY weak spot it his head, which is blocked by a very large shield over half the time. The Hellfire missle (your "bomb" in the game) does little to him. He takes a lot of hits before he goes down, even more (like A LOT more) if you wind up dying and having to fight him with the weakest weapon level. I beat him, once, on that setting. Not a fair fight.

I don't know about EVIL, but they can be damn mean sometimes. Death in the first Castlevania ("hard" is an understatement for that boss), trying to see the full ending in Rocket Knight Adventures (on Hardest... which makes the final pig leader FUCKING hard with the "one hit and your dead" setup), handing over the Contra name for the two Playstation episodes <shudder>. But, if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have the Castlevania series. Back to the topic at hand... I agree though, Axelay's last boss on Hard is a vicious little son of a...

Here's one that probably only a few people have gotten to try. The entire final stage of Gradius II. I know, bosses, not stages... but hear me out. The ENTIRE last stage of Gradius II is just boss fights. Bosses from LifeForce, the previous Gradius, and a new one or two... one after the other. I believe you have to go through about seven bosses before it's finally all over and you move on. God help you if you killed, because you are SERIOUSLY screwed at minimum power and the slowest ship speed... as you start from the beginning of the stage ! Yep. You die, you gotta go through them all again with the weakest weapon and a painfully slow ship. Doesn't it just sound like it oozes fun?!

Saisyu Kasunagi?!?!?! Hell, I whipped him like a red headed step child (no offense to the red headed step children of the world ). I had no problem with him. Rugal kept knocking me out of the air 90% of the time, and kept using the same moves to keep me back on the ground. He also jumped over damn near every projectile shot. Maybe it's because I keep the difficulty setting on 4 for the KoF series.