I have to say that the most frustrating enemy encounter for me is variable. It's whatever the last 3 rages happen to be that I'm trying to leap on the Veldt in FF VI. Trying to get that one enemy group to appear so you can jump it and get the final enemy skill is fucking irritating. For instance, I just spent like three hours trying to get Hunting Hound, an enemy I will never use, purely for the completionist in me. Bah.

The veldt is clearly a perfectionist's frustration. You could spend hours upon hours in the WoB trying to fight the right enemy formations and getting all the missable rages, and even then you wouldn't even have half of the game's rages yet. As well, the fights that you can only fight once, have to trigger before the areas become inaccessible, etc. add to the frustration.

I too, in Earthbound, liked the struggle of getting exorbitantly rare Sword of Kings for Poo from a certain monster (Gold Starman?). The smiling sphere or something was a rare enemy in the game that also comes to mind.

My favourite horror story about rare monsters is FFIV's Pink Puffs(1/255?), and the equally rare chance of getting them to drop a certain item (1/255?). That must have caused many completionists much agony to have a mere 1/(255^2) chance at an item, when the monster was rare enough.

While moreso for challenge purposes, it's frustrating to try and encounter hamsters in VP1's Seraphic Gate. You could face them in the room before Iseria Queen, but 90% of the time the monster you ran into gives a battle with a deadly Loki Shade instead of the even deadlier 4 hamsters. That place was dangerous enough to loiter around, housing the most powerful monsters in the game which may even kill you at the highest levels even with Guts + Auto Item.

I honestly cannot stand searching for items or enemies or anything else with such an exorbitantly low rate of appearance. Little or none of the difficulty in finding the thing is skill based, but purely luck based. And it often requires constant repetitive action to the point where I will become bored with what I am doing. And since finding these ultra-hidden items usually is completely optional, I have no problem skipping them in favor of more exciting things in the game.

I think the most I ever did involving rare drop items was with Castlevania: SOTN. I filled up about half of the item drop list before I realized that if I finished it completely, I'd never want to touch the game again.

Ah yes, the Pink Tail, that really is hell. Not nearly as bad as 1/255 for each, the chance of encounter is 1 / 64 and the chance of drop is 1 / 64 as well, bringing you chance of getting a Pink Tail to 1 / 4096. Similarly with the Iron Golem in my first post, they can be found in one room and one room only.

My first play through I found the Crissaegrim completely by chance during my normal play through the reverse library. What did take some time was getting two heaven swords from some flying things in the clock tower and getting the rare drop from the dodo in the reverse entrance hall. I can't even remember what the item is now but I do remember that there's only one dodo and it's a three screen journey to respawn it. You can save time by using the wolf dash but then there's a danger you won't stop in time to pick the item up, should the little bastard actually drop it.

Crissaegrim took a while but I did get it without getting too frustrated. It sure did make the last fight a joke. Not that the game is tough otherwise.

Ever since the first time I decided to get it, I go for it in every playthrough no matter how many Starman Supers I have to fight.

You're probably right. I've debated about that particular aspect of the game in the past.

The funny part is that this only applies to the Easytype version. The Hardtype game has those monster summoning whistles which, if blown in that particular room, gets you Pink Puffs 100% of the time.

But yes, I too spent a ridiculous amount of time whacking Starmen trying to get the Sword of Kings. I never did get it, either. I finally just gave up and went on with the game like normal. I couldn't even imagine trying to win the Guts Bat off the Kraken in Magicant.

I remember there being one or two synthesis items missing for me to have everything done in Kingdom Hearts. I forget what the name of said crystal/shard/whatever was called, but it only appear from three seperate enemies in Hollow Bastion and possibly Twilight Town.

It took me 8 hours for that stupid thing to drop and it was so annoying. And somehow worth it.

Sure you do. You get the Chaos Ring (it's in one of the rooms in the Chaotic Realm. Since it's a Castlevania, no one gives you a bloody clue on where it is) which gives you infinite MP. Great for boss rushes and crushing the game in general.

Pink Puffs are like a 1/64 encounter with a 1/64 chance of dropping the tail, but they come in fives, IIRC. So it's actually 5/4096! Probably not worth it, but the Adamant Armor does make you virtually unkillable.

The Excalibur from Vagrant Story sure is a bitch, haven't got it yet :eagletear: To make matters worse I cant find my memory card :gonk:

As for some of the FFXII stuff, there is too much in that game that relies on certain things happening for my taste... guess that is just how things go in Ivalice in general :rolleyes:

Damn right. The most annoying by far was a rare giant in Yggdrasil that once you kill him you had to exit and enter the dungeon again for him to show off. You had to break his weapon to get the item, and it was VERY hard not to break off his arm instead, that is if you even HAVE a attack that targets the weapon area. =(