All Time Hardest Boss

[Darklink42]

Ballos from Cave Story sucks. I beat him...eventually. Let me tell you how...

To start off with all your guns get powered down to level one. (Your guns get three levels, each more powerful than the last). This is on top of the fact that you just got done fighting the three final bosses and so all you get is whatever health and ammmo you salvaged after the fight. Next, you have to get through the level with a time limit ticking. Of course, the time limit is simply to record how good you are, thankfully. And if, at any point in the mini level (and it's deadly and looongg) you die, you start all the way back at the beginning again. This includes during the boss battle. Save points and mid-level regens points are apparently for pansies.

So you make it to Ballos. There he is standing in all his pimptastic glory. He starts to attack, and right off the bat he's got some powerful moves. Nothing too hard to handle, but still powerful. I beat him in my first go-round (this was after at least 20 attempts to get to that point though). I sit back to relax, when he transforms to his second form. And before I can even figure out how to hurt him in this giant spherical form (and giant means you can't even see all of him on the screen) he lands on me and one shot kills my ass.

Not one to give up, I go through the level a few more times, and figure out you have to shoot the eyes. Easier said than done. Because as he's bouncing around, you have to find a way to jet yourself up to his level, shoot him in the eyes, and avoid the numerous smaller enemies jetting across the top of the level.

They say that to fight a cheap boss one must use cheap tactics. And indeed I did. I leveled up the one gun that allows you to "fly" (it has enough force when shot at the ground to propel you up, and with proper rationing of shots, will hold you there indefinitely). So now I'm flying around at the very top of the leave, just above the bats, and it takes about thirty minutes of agonizingly short targetable periods before I kill the fucker again. I sit back to rest on my laurels, not even thinking there'd be a third form. But sure enough. And in about three seconds, he's up on the fucking ceiling with me and one shots me again.

It took me at least three days to calm down enough to try it yet again. At last I discovered that I could hide in the corner to avoid his ceiling sweeps. It took as long to kill that third form as it did the second. And jokingly, I mentioned to a friend while I was playing that the worst thing that could happen would be that it had a fourth form.

It did. Fortunately, it proved to be the easiest and I finally beat it with no real troubles...

One of the few bosses that has truely challenged me in terms of time, energy, anger, and key holding durability.

(and as a final note, I hear that there are some people that can do the entire thing in ten minutes...)

[Dexie]

(and as a final note, I hear that there are some people that can do the entire thing in ten minutes...)

Only ten minutes?

[Maco70]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/40388.html

...

[Shining Mirage]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/40388.html

...

Why? Just...why?

[Triad Orion]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/40388.html

...

...that goes from the realm of difficult to just unabashadly retarded. That's not even a challenge. It's pure abject *torture.* Who wants their shooter games THAT ridiculous? Ikaruga and R-Type are one thing, but... damn.

[Chickenwarlord]

It's just a Bullet Hell. Sure, they're hard, but they always make you want to improve.

[Shining Mirage]

Bump. This is going to be long, so bear with me.

I posted about this in the "...and it made me smile" thread, but I just wanted to go more into depth about it.

There's an arcade game made by Data East called Hippodrome, where you are pitted against 9 different monsters all with their unique ability to drink health and piss you the fuck off. The first three only let you know how much you were about to be annoyed.

The dragon, who's attacks you saw coming from a mile away has a flame attack that was nearly impossible to jump over or at the very least, get the timing right. The tail swipe wasn't as bad, unless you get hit. Instant two bars... gone.

Getting gold for the game made it interesting. the array of items that you had to plan to get in order to survive made the game somewhat tolerable.

The impossible enemies... Mr. Solomon (The Wizard) and the final boss, Uber-angry, uber-huge Viking guy.

First, the wizard.

Here are his attacks:

Acid Rain

Lightning

Fire Tower

Force Field

Gust (Some sort of dual-fired projectile that he shoots at you)

The main problem with your character vs. the wizard's attacks is that you have this piss-poor sword with no range whatsoever. You must get in close to cut him - - but the wiz puts up this force field that depending how close you come to him, will guaranteed to hit you anywhere between 2-6 times. Sort of like, "combo"-ing you into a corner where he can deliver more punishment.

Another problem with the wizard is his ungodly attacks. His Acid Rain covers half the screen (if I'm correct) and the side that you're on up to just shy of his force field range is the actual range of the rain. but don't get in close, he'll just switch up in mid-attack and smack you up with the force field. The rain does take poison damage (there are two variants of the game I think and the rain in another version, lines the screen as well as poison you) but the poison is a bit too long to wait to wear off.

The Wizard's lightning attack is just a random lightning strike what had a split-second telltale for where it was going to strike. Problem is, if The wiz decides to corner you with that move, the match is over. It's rare to see the wiz rush down any player, but when he does, just admit defeat.

Fire Tower is one of the most trickiest projectiles to dodge. A flaming pillar of fire depending on where he's standing will most likely determine his next attack. One thing that I will mention. You can jump the pillar before as he's casting it, but most likely, Mr. Wiz has intent on keeping it in Force Field range just in case. The sick thing about Fire Tower is, it moves with him. If he's casting it while walking forward, it's moving in front of him. That move alone is not only cheap, but can be used to pin you into a corner - - he can multi-cast this move.

His force Field didn't do any real harm to you, but it's just his ultimate defense against you. Get in close and he can use it to his advantage. Very rarely, does The Wiz force you into a corner and slap you up with force field. He usually varies it up with Lightning to scare you into getting in close, and then slams you with 2-6 hits of punishment. There's nothing really to evading or warning of this move it's just a sign of, "Go away."

And finally, there's Gust. Nothing special, he only uses this to "wake you up" for those few players who are trying to analyze his patterns. Although they home in on you, they only take one bar of health.

The final boss, Uber-angry, uber-huge Viking guy. He seems delivers an amount of pain incomprehensive to the many afterschool children who played this game. Wielding a disk and chain, everything hurt coming from him. 3-4 bars were gone. Upon the fact that this dick starts out with 20+ health, you already know that you weren't supposed to beat him by traditional means. Especially since his health doesn't move after the first 5-6 times that you hit him.

When he throws his disk, lies two problems: Depending on where you are, you won't have enough time to jump or evade the attack and/or the chain counts as damage done to you. Yes, you read that correctly. Touching the chain, counts as a hit.

He doesn't let up. As soon as the disk reaches range, he launches it again and the time frame for him launching these attacks is just shy of a second, which results in you being pummeled... repeatedly.

*sighs* Haven't beaten the game yet, but still, nothing is more insane than that top-down shooter boss that Maco put up.

[PuRe-eViL]

I thought Biomeka (last boss - an Eye thing with like a bajillion pain-in-the-ass things flying around his room attacking you) from Wonder Boy in Monster World was pretty hard. I still haven't beaten him >_>

[Bummer]

When combining the data from both Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Ages, you get a final showdown with Twinrova and Ganon himself. Not really something that earns the title of hardest boss of all times, but it was hard enough to be labelled challenging.

First off, you get to fight Twinrova separately. They fly around in the room, shooting balls of fire and ice towards you, while managing to keep up with an evil grin. That's the simple part though, and if you pump yourself with Pegasus seeds to boost your agility, avoiding their attacks will be slighlty easier. Returning their attack onto themselves is the way to go, and after three blows, it goes on to the next part.

As for the next sequence, you guessed it, they merge together and form their intensively evil (yet sexy) form where they can perform both ice and fire attacks. While in the Ice form, the floor is covered with ice which is making it hard to walk smoothly. The attacks consists of blocks of ice gliding around the room to hurt you, and ice balls directed in your way but who are easily to destroy with your sword. In the Fire form, the floor returns to normal, except for say a couple of holes filled with molten lava. I hate this form the most, since they can send of a shot of fire that gets divided into another three shots after reflecting the wall, and they can summon up homing fire bats (HOMING FIRE BATS PEOPLE!) to make the surviving process a little difficult. Just endure it though, beat them up with the ol' classical tap-sword-button-repeatedly technique, and deal permanent damage to them by a method I won't give away cause spoilers are baaaaad.

And finally, but not lastly, we have our very own pig dressed in armor and huge spear. Ganon. His battle style is simple, he appears and does an attack, and then vanishes only to repeat the same process only with a different attack. He can shoot three big balls, 4 smaller balls which in turn divides into three even smaller balls that covers the most of the room (but as long as you are in one of the corners, avoiding them will be fine), and appearing with a grand spear and tries to slice you (and it HURTS). As the fight goes on, he can also make you go on ecstacy, making the whole room blue, flipping the direction buttons making go left go right and go up go down. We also have his slam dunk technique: appear in the top of the room, charge up, shove his fist in the floor making you paralyzed, and then unleash his big ball of doom crashing down your way (needless to say, IT HURTS).

This is a typical "learn by your mistakes" battle. The more you fight 'em, the more you will learn their attack patterns and how to successfully come to the last part of the fight without getting to use your Life Bottle. Not impossible, but it sure is rough.

I would have to say Ozma. The secret boss in Final Fantasy IX, I had to spend months leveling up to 90+ with everyone in my party and getting the best armor, weapons and accesories that I could for everyone to beat him.

You don't need to gather that much preparations to beat him. Egoist's armlet absorbs shadow damage (Doomsday's damage buh bye), and just make sure that all of your characters can deal 9999 damage except for the healer. My team were:

Zidane: If you have stolen enough items, then Thievery does 9999 damage. You basically need to have stolen from tiem to time through the whole game to achieve that kind of level though. If you manage to steal all of Ozma's itmes (or at least his Pumice Piece), then that's fine and dandy too.

Freya: Screw Dragonbreath, Dragon's Crest requires little MP and is still powerful enough to deal a quadro-nine hit to Ozma.

Eiko: Healing. Curaga, Esuna, all that stuff.

Quina: Eat those frog monsters in the swamp to learn Frog Drop, then eat about 130 frogs and train him/her to level 80 and BAM you've got yourself a winning move. Plus that there are other great enemy moves to go by, such as Angel's Snack and Mighty Guard. Those can really help you out.

I cannot of course guarantee an instant win, since Ozma has many tricks up his sleeve to make this battle a complete pain in the ass. But yeah, my crew were all around level 80 (or was it 75?), and after a few attempts, Ozma had gone up in pieces. I even did it before going to Terra.

[MasterSenshi]

I can't say all-time hardest, but I remember the Metroid Prime from the original in the series was incredibly hard.

The stupid thing has like 6 patterns, and you're more or less trapped when you get to it's lair, so if you didn't get enough energy packs, you're more or less screwed. But really I was also out of practice... I know that some old NES games would rival it at least, but it's the hardest boss I've fought in recent memory.

[Antipode]

Oracles Ganon

Yeah - I thought personally that he was much harder than the Ganon from Link to the Past. It took several tries for me. Not the hardest boss, but one of the harder ones I've fought when coupled with both forms of Twinrova. By the way, for anyone considering it, that game is TOTALLY worth it when linked. I thought it was a lot of fun and it really brought back Link's Awakening for me. I'd recommend Seasons first, then Ages.

[Salluz]

Castlevania - Dracula X, last boss... Dracula, of course.

Primarily, fighting Dracula is a strategy issue. You had to beat him with your whip first, and then you had to use your powers. Once you had used your powers, he'd become harder, though his defenses had ceased. Also, the whole fight is hard because you cannot jump off of the cliff. Once, I made the mistake of jumping off of the cliff after beating Dracula, which is the most retarded thing any gamer can do.

BTDD of SNES was genuinely impossible after beating Roper, but on the zsnes emulator, I beat the spaceship, some slink, the Shadow Boss, and the Dark Queen. The hardest bosses were the bosses after fighting Roper. The Spaceship? NO ONE that I know can pass the spaceship level (Of course, I can cheat by saving state on the emulator, but that isn't at all easy).

Majora was a bitch on 64, but I couldn't call her the hardest.

SNK

I liked that about the last bosses in SNK games: they weren't cheap, and they could thrown down.

[ZeroBass.Exe]

The Nemesis weapon in Final Fantasy 10. It's the top elective battle you can fight at the monster ranch. I had Tidus to full power, max sphere grid, damage break skill on his weapon, BLitz Ace, so he did 900,000 damage per break, and everybody in the team had full overdrive bars, with the Entrust skill learned, so they could give Tidus their overdrive so he could Blitz Ace again. I popped off about 5 of these attacks, for nearly 5 million Hp damage total...still wiped the floor with me. One day I'm gonna go back and try again.

[Brushfire]

The hardest boss ever was Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream from Punch out. I could never beat them. I had a friend who swore up and down that he could beat him but when it came time to put his mouth where his mouth was, he failed more than I did.

[Bummer]

By the way, for anyone considering it, that game is TOTALLY worth it when linked. I thought it was a lot of fun and it really brought back Link's Awakening for me. I'd recommend Seasons first, then Ages.

I don't even consider it being a linked game. You just get a code after you clear the first game, and then you type it in when starting a new game in the other game, the story continues.

And yes, Season before Ages. That's how they do it in the manga.

[danimal cannon]

The Nemesis weapon in Final Fantasy 10. It's the top elective battle you can fight at the monster ranch. I had Tidus to full power, max sphere grid, damage break skill on his weapon, BLitz Ace, so he did 900,000 damage per break, and everybody in the team had full overdrive bars, with the Entrust skill learned, so they could give Tidus their overdrive so he could Blitz Ace again. I popped off about 5 of these attacks, for nearly 5 million Hp damage total...still wiped the floor with me. One day I'm gonna go back and try again.

I had a friend who I saw beat him. I think his trick was to use keep everyone at auto-revive at all times and use quick hit as much as possible.

[friendlyHunter]

I can't say all-time hardest, but I remember the Metroid Prime from the original in the series was incredibly hard.

The stupid thing has like 6 patterns, and you're more or less trapped when you get to it's lair, so if you didn't get enough energy packs, you're more or less screwed. But really I was also out of practice... I know that some old NES games would rival it at least, but it's the hardest boss I've fought in recent memory.

I remember it took quite a few tries on my first play through that game. But on my 0 energy tank run, I beat that guy on the first try somehow. That, after dying again and again at the Omega Pirate and Ridley. It probably took me multiple attempts to actually GET to the boss room too, those Fission guys are from hell. The Metroid Prime's not that bad though - all of its moves can be dodged or otherwise avoided, you've just gotta be ready for them =)

you're more or less trapped when you get to it's lair, so if you didn't get enough energy packs, you're more or less screwed.

If you step in some big glowy thing in the first room (the same room with the save station), aren't you transported back to the surface? My memory is a little hazy...

[danimal cannon]

BTW the answer is "The Final Boss in PS2's Shinobi"

[Rainman DX]

Okay, time for the antithesis post...

ALL TIME EASIEST BOSS... after the longest and hardest setup.

I was unfortunate enough to own a copy of Ultra's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," a functionally simple platformer whose complexity lay in the programmers' humorless idea of a joke by designing mind-numbingly frustrating levels and maps. The design is so specific to the level, in fact, that certain jumps make you appreciate anew the difference between a couple of pixels.

Levels include a three-platformed drop through turtle-sized holes while beating some spiked walls looking to squeeze you into green goo; a level boss who's located on the other side of a masterfully timed jump to a platform located off-screen (i.e. you don't know it's there) that must be made in conjunction with a masterfully timed projectile meant to eliminate the enemy waiting at that side, whose presence limits your ability to land the jump; the infamous Hudson River, whose contents include 8 bombs that must be defused, all in the time of three minutes (a timer is on-screen) while your precious turtles suffer damage from relentless omnipresent life-sucking... plants... with no method of replenishing life in sight.

All this and more to set the path for... Shredder, of course. Arriving in, yes, a Bolt of UberLightning, Donatello cowers in the corner as the final boss of this unfairly difficult game strides over to undermine the skill you thought you had for even getting this far...

Just to take it up the ass when one swipe from Donatello's Bo knocks him to the floor, allowing for a half-second delay animation, followed by a second swipe from the Bo, followed by a third, and a fourth, and...

That's it. Teh Suxor. Booooooorrring.

The game bitched at by

[Adun The Untouchable]

All of the later bosses on Metroid Prime doing a low % run were beasts. Hard mode made it suck even worse.

[DarkAura]

Okay, time for the antithesis post...

ALL TIME EASIEST BOSS... after the longest and hardest setup.

I was unfortunate enough to own a copy of Ultra's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," a functionally simple platformer whose complexity lay in the programmers' humorless idea of a joke by designing mind-numbingly frustrating levels and maps. The design is so specific to the level, in fact, that certain jumps make you appreciate anew the difference between a couple of pixels.

Levels include a three-platformed drop through turtle-sized holes while beating some spiked walls looking to squeeze you into green goo; a level boss who's located on the other side of a masterfully timed jump to a platform located off-screen (i.e. you don't know it's there) that must be made in conjunction with a masterfully timed projectile meant to eliminate the enemy waiting at that side, whose presence limits your ability to land the jump; the infamous Hudson River, whose contents include 8 bombs that must be defused, all in the time of three minutes (a timer is on-screen) while your precious turtles suffer damage from relentless omnipresent life-sucking... plants... with no method of replenishing life in sight.

All this and more to set the path for... Shredder, of course. Arriving in, yes, a Bolt of UberLightning, Donatello cowers in the corner as the final boss of this unfairly difficult game strides over to undermine the skill you thought you had for even getting this far...

Just to take it up the ass when one swipe from Donatello's Bo knocks him to the floor, allowing for a half-second delay animation, followed by a second swipe from the Bo, followed by a third, and a fourth, and...

That's it. Teh Suxor. Booooooorrring.

The game bitched at by

I had that game... WORST. GAMING. MEMORIES. EVER.

It didn't last very long in my clutches... I died multiple times over and over trying to defuse all 8 bombs without killing off the turtles... I think I even broke a controller or two... and eventually the cartridge...

[Effef]

Berserker from Legend of Legaia

Uses Curse often, which prevents its victim from executing a specific type of attack depending on the affected body part, Poison Gas which causes poison, and he spams Stone Circle which does around 500 damage to everyone in the party.

When you first come across him, he will rape you several times. You really have to go farther into the area, get stronger, and come back to fight him so you stand a chance.

[Final Guard]

Pick a Japanese shoot-em-up and play the extra stage. Most impossible bosses ever? Mushihime-sama (PS2, arcade) final boss, Touhou Mystic Square extra stage boss Alice Margatroid, Touhou Embodiment of Scarlet Devil extra stage boss Flandre Scarlet, games like that.

Seconded. Every boss in the Extra stages in the Touhou games is just insanely difficult. At least the games are awesome enough to make you want to keep playing on a regular basis.

[Haganegiri]

Devil Hand guy from God Hand.

Jesus christ did my thumbs break after fighting him on Hard mode.

[Lacour]

event #50 in smash bros. melee, the two hands. realize though that there's a difference between playing a boss when you're 6 instead of like 18, they get easier. i could be wrong though.