Overly Frustrating RPG Boss Battles - Sephiroth kicked my ass
 

I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen a thread based on this subject. I guess I've been in a big thread making mood lately.

When playing an rpg I enjoy a nice good challenging boss fight just as much as the next person. Boss battles are never any fun when they're too easy and there isn't really any strategy involved. As much as I enjoy the odd challenging boss battle, there are sometimes boss battles (sometimes the final boss or a secret boss battle in some hidden dungeon) that are so overly frustrating you just lose to them so many times it ups your level of frustration to the point that you feel like putting your fist through the television screen.

I'm having that experience right now from a nice little extra dungeon called the Seraphic Gate from Valkyrie Profile 2. I can not pass the boss of the second floor of that dungeon, and the funny thing is I have a lot more bullshit to go through since there are 5 floors to the Seraphic Gate, so I'm sure when I eventually beat that boss, the next boss will be just as ridicolous.

To the Gamingforce Community, what have been some of the most anal retentive overly frustrating boss battles you have ever faced.

If you feel when talking about a specific boss battle might ruin an important part of the rpg story, please use spoiler tags where applicable.

Final Fantasy Tactics:



Parasite Eve:



Final Fantasy X:



Keep in mind, I know for a fact that star ocean 2 tends to have the hardest boss battles throughout the majority of the rpgs that have ever been released. I just haven't actually sat down and played the game yet.

What have been some of the most challenging but frustrating boss battles you have ever faced.

Man, I killed Seymour flux in only a few hits. On the other hand, it took me six tries to beat Yunalesca.

I think the most frustrating boss battle I've ever been in though was Yazmat from FFXII. The constant one-hit kills were beyond aggravating. Especially annoying was when I accidentally used Renew on myself after he cast reflect on my party. Oops.

I'm at level 100 and STILL can't beat the final boss in Star Ocean 2.

Of course, he can't hold a candle to the bosses in the Cave of Trials. Man...

A lot of the bosses ARE hard in that game, but... a lot of others are only as hard as you make it. If you have an ill-prepared party (mainly an unbalanced one), a lot of battles will be hard...

But some... geez. I'm not grinding 100 more levels to get through the Cave.

Did you accidently turn off his limiter? If not you just need to go in with a good strategy. If you have Opera her a on one attack brutalizes him. If you don't have Opera here is a little strategy that I used once, control a spellcaster and just cast Energy Arrow on him repeatedly. It may sound stupid, but Energy Arrow is one of the fastest spells you can cast and it will interrupt his Explosion spell and hopefully stop him long enough for the fighters to get in a few hits.

Honestly most of the bosses in that have a particular trick that screws them over if you know about it.

Anyhow frustrating bosses? The final boss in Legend of Legaia. I got to him and was beaten within a couple rounds. Also once you hit the last dungeon you can't leave, so I didn't really have anyway to try to level up. So yeah... never finished that game because of that.

Mother F'ing Borgan from the original Lunar: Eternal Blue. That guy was annoying as hell! His freaking gravity bomb spell would easily take out 3/4 of my party's HP and that's BEFORE his three little orbs each made their own moves. Add to the fact that there's a nice long story sequence before the fight begins, and he has got to be the most annoying boss I think I've ever faced. I must've grinded for at least a good 5 game time hours just trying to level up enough to where he wouldn't wipe my party out in the first two or so turns. When Ruby makes reference to Borgan being harder than the final boss in the game, there's something wrong there balance wise.

Last boss in Arc the Lad 2 is pretty unpleasant if you aren't willing to power level your ass off or abuse cheesy tactics like Elc+Romancing Stone+Invincible spammage. (requires you to carry all the stones over from the first game and combined them in the second, though)

Jewel Beast and 10-stone Saruin are probably impossible without the chalice/infinite turn/overdrive trick in Romancing SaGa. (First one not so much if you wait til the end of the game to fight it, but if you want to avoid it smashing up the frontier towns I don't honestly believe there's another choice.) I've never heard of anyone beating Saruin without it at least. :(

Well, yeah, and that's why they knocked him down a few hundred pegs in the remake. And of course purists whined about the change, but come on... there was nothing in the game more difficult than him. It was ridiculous.

I was so relieved when I found out he wasn't a one hit kill wonder anymore. Anyone who liked that level of difficulty must've been a masochist. There's hard, yet fun and then there's hard and wanting to kill the developer who tuned his difficulty level that high.

I'd say the secret boss in Digital Devil Saga 1 was up there in frustration. After a bunch of instant kills, followed by a bunch more non-instant kills trying to fight him the real way.

Man, that shit sucked so much. The best strategy at the time was basically "Hope you fall asleep 6 times in a row, at just the right time." I never got past two. =(

Where to start...ah yes:



Speaking of cheap...






Now this next one was one of the most depressing moments I had ever encountered in gaming, but also one of the most frustrating battles as well:





That's all I can think of at the moment.

I love a challenging boss battle in RPGs. In hindsight, getting frustrated with super powerful bosses was sort of exhilarating. xD Sadly, I haven't encountered many overly difficult bosses in recent games (PS2 era, specifically) but then again I just might not be playing the right games. Here are a few frustrating bosses I just thought of:

Final Fantasy III (NOT VI, III):



MegaMan Battle Network 3 (=.="):



Final Fantasy X (seems pretty popular in this thread, actually...):



There are a few more which come to mind, but those three will do. I would have loved to have put a couple of Suikoden bosses in there, but...there isn't a single boss in the Suikoden series that has given me troubles. Not a one. Oh well~ Although one time I struggled beating that rat in the Two Rivers sewer..=P (Suikoden II)

Oh yeah and if you "Threaten" Seymour Flux, he's powerless, FYI.

Hmmmm... I'll have to try that one out! Thanks!

Now if I could just get to the guy without being eaten by those yellow blobs...

And I second the Dhoulmagus statement. ...

Ozma. It's a killer. It's a rubber ball...

I'm with Muzza. Goddamned Ozma.

If you weren't over-leveled, there was only one approach. PRAY TO ANY GOD YOU BELIEVE IN THAT YOU GET LUCKY AND TRIGGER THE PHOENIX SUMMON. That was it. Otherwise you were boned.

I'm gonna give the frustration nod to Odette from Odin Sphere, but not because of difficulty...

I must be really old but... How is it we're talking about difficult RPG bosses and no one has mentioned the Calbrina from Final Fantasy IV? That goddamned music, playing over and over and over.

Also of note - Wiegraf in Final Fantasy Tactics. His first battle in the opening chapter is tricky but not too difficult...

I've never attempted Digital Devil Saga's secret boss, but I've read a comprehensive strategy on how to prepare for and beat him and Christ. That gets my vote without even experiencing it.

Same two answers I always give to this thread when it pops up.

Saga Frontier II. Knight's or Gustave's time lines, the end battles. Gustave's strat-rpg battle was downright impossible. Performing every move as perfectly as you could still relied heavily on luck. Knight's battle through the sizable last dungeon seemed insurmountable. Hardly no restoration items to speak of. Level up system left largely to random and out of your control. Of course, up to that point the game was easy enough to where it didn't matter to much. The end made up for that though. So, there were, what, six optional bosses in the final dungeon, each one defeated knocked down the hp of the final boss and took away some strength and abilities I think. But you couldn't fight any of them because you would be too worn down to actually take him on. But you couldn't take him on otherwise because he then stood too tall. I seriously fought that fucker for over an hour and still could not take him down. Again, seemingly impossible.

Xenogears. Ramsus and Mieng back to back. One with an ability to knock you down to 1 hp in your gears, the cost for healing, half your fuel (or about). He does it more than once in the fight and you are screwed in the next that comes immediately after. Except it doesn't come immediately after. There is tons of text that you infamously can not scroll through before each fight. Fucking bullshit.

I also remember something about Breath of Fire 3's end boss taking a ridiculously long time to beat but not ultimately being that bad, just a grind.

I was only thinking about frustrating boss battles because of their tactics and difficulty, but now that you mention it you're right. That music annoyed me to no end and since I could never defeat them quick enough, after the dolls merged the boss battle music coming in was a relaxing sensation.

I forgot about that. When I replayed Final Fantasy IV a couple years ago that fight seemed easier then I remembered it, but everything else seemed harder then I remembered. But when I played it originally on the SNES, yes I remember that fight being annoying. It always seemed impossible to finish them off before they split up again and reset the fight.

Another annoying one I remembered is the boss in Cyan's dream in FF6. I can't remember how I originally beat him, but every time I played though after that it seemed like I had to use the vanish trick to win.

Myria, huh? I agree it's more the fact that she had so much health that it took quite a while to kill her. I recall it being like 20 minutes or so. She's not insanely hard, but I wouldn't call her easy either, she did have some cheap abilities. The one I remember in particular is the AOE random status effect spell she casted every few rounds. In fact when I think about it, just about every spell she had was AOE. That's what made it take so long, 1 person is always stuck healing, halfway near the fight the other is always using a turn to use those mp restore items, so really you only have Ryu attacking.

Anyway, I always forget what bosses frustrated me. Lets see...

Radiata Stories

Iseria Queen. I think everyone who went this far will know why. The game itself is really not all that hard, most bosses were hardly any challenge at all, but what made this fight so hard is because of the stupid battle system, where if Jack dies you go game over. This so pissed me off! I had 3 overpowered allies with me, one of which had a powerful ressurection spell, so why?! It really was a challenge to keep him alive in that fight, since he had nowhere near as much health as the others.

Star Ocean 2

Indalecio unlimited. This guy is just insane. Even with everyone at 255, best equipment available, all skills maxed, and whatever you might name, he's still insane. He'll move faster then your characters with bunny shoes, he casts nearly instantly, and some of his spells do 9999 damage no matter what your resistance is. Basically the only way you'll win, is to keep at least one person alive or it's game over, and I had that so many times, you had him at 10 or 20% and you screw up.

I'm going to second Indalecio Unlimited. That was a pain in the ass. Hell, I thought he was hard enough (especially when he got wings) when he was limited.

Other notables include the one on one fights with the gang from Wild Arms Vth Vanguard. If you didn't spam those Sheriff Badges, some could kill you instantly (aka do more damage than you have). That was a pain in the ass too. God damn Fereydoon and your 5000 damage attack...

The Polis Police in Chrono Cross. It took me for fucking ever to finally beat that boss. The way i finally beat him the first time was by accidentally casting Grim Reaper on him which did roughly 1500 damage. Then i beat him down with Saints and holy lights (for some reason he's a white boss that's vulnerable to white spells as well, it's weird). On subsequent play throughs i've learned some trick of the trade to make him easier, such as white plates, the and the Mastermune.

Seymour Flux in Final Fantasy X was also a huge moment of frustration for me. it took me roughly 12 times of dying of trial and error with various strategies, until i finally found an item combination of Rikku's that cast protect and reflect on all of my characters just in time for him to launch that huge mega attack on me. That with Mega phoenixes and Holy Waters did the trick.

Well, It wasn't so much that they were hard, it's more the fact that in my game, I used Rebecca, Dean and Avril, so when I saw that I had to fight the one on ones with the character I never used I was surprised alright. The Kartikeya was pretty insane, I'll give you that. I really had to boost Greg for that one.

This topic is curious to me, most probably not for the same reason as the threadmaker started it. I was reading through some of the replies and it has occurred to me that there haven't been any properly difficult RPGs that have been made anytime recently.

Ya, I know that by my saying this, you are mostly likely concluding that I'm being a pretentious dickwad who thinks he's a god at videogames. Well, I'm not. In all honesty, I really suck, but I'll at least admit that. Ya I got killed off by Emerald Weapon the first few times. Yes, I died at Omega weapon. Yes, I even got killed off by the Atma Weapon in Kefka's tower. This, however, does not mean that these bosses are difficult by any stretch of the imagination.

OK, level with me here. The first real RPG I ever played was Robotrek for the SNES. We all took turns playing the game. Man, there were a few super frustrating boss battles in that game. I remember an epic encounter with the Meta Crab. The bastard used up all my items but he eventually got his ass kicked. Then there was also this one boss that looked kind of like a cross between a butterfly and a fairy. That was probably the most damn annoying thing I've ever faced. The fairy thing could ravage my party in seconds and each attack my robots did only took off a single solitary hitpoint. I had an auto controller for my SNES so me and my friends managed to find a 'safe spot' on the screen where our characters wouldn't take any damage and we left my party to repeatedly attack over and over again, slowly whittling away the massive HP of this monster. Content with the probable outcome of this setup, we decided to break for lunch and let the auto controller work its magic. After two and a half hours, our stomachs were full and the battle was finally over, so we resumed playing the game until we got accosted by a golem. The stone statue proved to be an unassailable opponent so we quit playing out of pure frustration.

Ya, most frustrating boss battle, right? Well, I bought that same game off of ebay many years and many games later. I began replaying it and to my surprise, I basically sailed through most of these enemies. Even the Golem didn't prove to be much of a challenge. I had discovered that the quintessential strategy for surviving in most games is to be sure to build one's characters enough.

That being said, I hear stories of people doing speed runs (Like real ones, not TAS) of more modern titles -such as FF IX- and they manage to complete the game in under 10 hours with levels below 20 or some crazy crap. Somehow, these clowns also manage to beat the big ol' baddies without too much difficulty. This is why it is so curious to here you guys rambling on about how difficult bosses are in most Modern RPGs. See, I discovered something here. When you cannot defeat a boss or have difficulty doing so, it is either usually a case of insufficient levels, or more likely a case in not using your equipment / items / abilities to your best advantage.

In the case of Emerald Weapon, it becomes a whole lot less challenging of a battle once you breed a few birds, find a few rocks, and cast a certain infamous summon over and over and over again. If this kind of a strategy does not work, usually your adversary has a weakness that must be exploited. Be sure to check weapon and item combinations and re equip them to maximize your chances of success against your adversaries.

So how does this post relate to this here thread? Well, if you are having difficulty with an RPG boss, chances are it isn't because the boss is difficult, but rather because you aren't adhering to the simple guidelines listed above. It is for this reason that I think the new thread title is so fitting. (thanks for that, Qwarky)

Oh, so it's a Qwarky-Rat combination? No wonder it's so incredibly unfunny.

Also, by your logic there, cap'n, anyone who finds Mega Man difficult has nothing to do with the game, as they can just train their hand eye co-ordination and memorise patterns of enemies and they'll be fine. Same thing with any platformer.

Of course if you overtrain your characters things are going to be easy in an RPG. The point of threads like these is attached to an unmentioned rule of saying "on average levels" at the end.

Man, I don't know how anyone could find puzzle games hard. Just get used to the patterns and spend a few hours wrapping your head around the concept to train and it gets easy.

This is why no one takes you seriously.

P.S.

Never end anything with "it is for this reason that I think", as it makes you look like you're writing a 6th grade essay. Go home.

I remember also having significant difficulty with Ozma, although I probably kept trying prematurely. After winning the fight, taking many many many tries, I realized my characters were only level 39 for some reason, so I guess I could have went into that fight with more preparation. Meteor would be every turn and pretty much instant-kill, but even stuff like Holy was devastating still which goes to show that I could have went into it better. Ironically I faced Hades later on, went all out and beat him on the first try with Vivi as the sole survivor.


I'm very intrigued that SS mentions Miguel. That was also a fun and masochistic memory from my experience. He always beat you down with such style and brutality and that music was appropriate, but annoying to hear over and over again as your black innates get energy slashed to death anyways.

You mean you've never been in a boss battle where you've tried out a different strategy and then suddenly realize that's what you were doing wrong?

For example, I imagine you could make just about any boss in FFV almost impossible, but if you take a little bit of time and think about how to build your party, then you'll get phased by hardly any boss in the game.

In all my time at GFF, I don't think I've ever seen such a thinly veiled trolling attempt as this one. Sir, I am honestly insulted that you'd even think for a second that I'd bite on this. Sorry, but I'll pass.

Back on topic, I think the RPG that gave me the most harsh assraping has to be the original version of Tales of Phantasia for the SNES. I can recall countless bosses that required at least a couple of attempts to defeat and the one dungeon (can't remember the name but it I think it is the Mines of Morilia or something) was absolutely ridiculous. Even some of the enemies in that dungeon can wipe members of your party out with one hit. Fiendishly difficult, I say. While hard, that game has to be one of my favourite RPG experiences. I think I'm a sucker for old games.

As for individual annoying bosses, there was this one demon early on in the game. I recall traveling out to an island by boat from Venussia and the fight occurred in the basement of an old house there. Ya, the boss kept on casting lich on me, something that kept decimating my party. I think in the end, I just pounded the hell away on him and somehow managed to survive it.

While I also liked Tales of Symphonia, the game was really quite tame unless one tries the optional difficulty settings. Am I the only one who has witnessed an overall decrease in the difficulty of games since the NES era?

RR, my Robotrek RPG adventures are what taught me about the importance of character building in the RPG genre. Since the enemies in that game are visible, my 15 year old self saw fit to avoid all battles, a fact that was responsible for my lack of success that time around. The one thing I found very interesting about Chrono Cross was how you didn't actually gain levels in that game, at least not in a traditional sense. It really eliminated 'bullying' one's way through an RPG through grinding and forced the player to consider the strategy required to defeat the different bosses.

P.S. Essentially walking out

P.P.S. and then coming back in

P.P.P.S to attempt to throw one

P.P.P.P.S. last insult in on the other hand

P.P.P.P.P.S. doesn't make you look like an adolescent

addendum addendum oh and by the way just FIY kid post scriptum at all.

Just as a note, I haven't been to RPG for days and didn't change the name. Take your neckbeard elsewhere you you insecure fake american you!


As for topic, I had hueg problems with Mother 1 Giegue. I was probably badly underlevelled (despite my best efforts) and so Giegue could wipe me out fast, considering you had sing a good 10+ turns. It took me so many game overs and reloaded quicksaves to finally get lucky enough to survive this attack, heal enough on this turn to finally beat him it wasn't even funny. Awesome battle and set piece either way~

That is one of the main things I always appreciated about Chrono Cross. While I see the point Deni brought up earlier, I always felt that it was a bit different with RPGs. Different as in very little thought is required in grinding. You dedicate an hour or so and that usually will let you blaze through the next 2 - 5 bosses in you average RPG. I always found it funny how some of the Shin Megami Tensei games made it even easier by letting your characters auto attack. Talk about mindless.

Auto-attacking got me in more trouble in SMT than not, what with the reflecting/nulling/absorbing physical attacks.

Although, I want to throw up Matador as being a fucking bitch too. You might have media, but it doesn't matter, since he goes twice and hurts you more anyway. Not to mention his constant buffing evade, and the fact that you don't have access to dekunda. The only strategy I found on a new new game is to throw up the snuffleupagus and hope that he got hit with a zanma. Also popping health like an addict. =/

When it comes to JRPGs, I think that grinding for an hour just to fly through four or five bosses detracts from the overall gaming experience. When I mentioned level building in my post, I was more commenting on problems that can arise if a player doesn't pay attention to developing his / her party i.e. blowing through the game and avoiding as many fights as possible. (If you are playing a game that allows you to do this.) I personally have run into this problem because when I become fatigued while gaming, I'll try to avoid as many fights as possible.

I think an interesting game design was the boss fights in Lunar Silver Star Story. In the PSOne iteration of the game, the boss stats were always based on the stats of your main character so no matter how strong your party was, the boss fights were always frightfully intense. I noticed when I went to fight Galleon that my three supporting characters were far too week to do much good. With all the powerups from the super weapon and armour set, my main character ridiculously outbalanced the rest of my party so while he stood tall against Galleon, the rest of my party was continually wiped out in short order. As a simple solution to this problem, I actually build up the levels of the support characters while sending my main character running from all the battles I was fighting. This evened things out a bit and made for a much more tolerable experience.

Hmm, does anyone remember the underwater Gear battle with Ramses and Miang in Xenogears? I remember that one was a royal buttpain as well. Those gears always running out of fuel.

I never had much of a problem with the gear battles. It was my experience that if you optimized power over fuel, you could beat them down in fairly short order.

edit: I should say, the first time I played through I tried to use the frame hps and all that other bullshit and wound up getting my ass kicked on several occasions. On subsequent play throughs I optimized power over fuel and never had a problem.

That's as far as I ever got in that game, never did finish it because of that strategy battle.

I found the battle against the Esper in FFXII where you can't use magic incredibly difficult, mainly because I walked in there having no idea I wouldn't be able to use magic and having very few items on me. I did actually beat him on that first attempt but my party were pretty over-levelled and I got really lucky with a mist chain that damn near took off three quarters of his hp.

As far as FFX goes, I never had any problems with any of the stories but I never managed to beat a single dark Aeon. They just require too much level grinding to reach the point where you can make a dent on their ridiculous hp levels and I didn't enjoy FFX nearly enough to be bothered.

I'd also say that Lucifer in SMT Nocturne is very tough, if only for the insane amount of time it takes to build a decent party to fight him. I ended up killing him with the Trumpetter, Metatron and Beezlebub but getting each of them with Pierce skill on takes some effort.

That's the thing. The moment you see the enemy first using great magicks, that applies. I think even Barbarossa's Calamity Blast can one-shot you if you don't have guts. This trend remains throughout the entire game, which makes guts no longer optional. As for Iseria, because of guts, your basically good to go, the chance of guts failing on all 4 is pretty small. I've seen if a few times myself, but not often enough to resort to angel curios. Besides, as I recall she only used Cosmic Spear every 3 rounds or so, plus you can reduce its damage significantly by equiping -dark items. All her other attacks were single target.

If you want frustrating, talk about the 2 Dragon Tyrants that appear in SG. They still scare me, even today. They are basically 2 Bloodbanes, except 3 times stronger. Pretty much ALL their attacks hit the entire group. =/

I'm over here Rat. You're talking to the wrong guy.

I don't think that RPGs have gotten easier over the past few years, they just have become more balanced. Take 7th Saga, from the SNES era, which had one boss battle that was just so frustrating that I just stopped playing it. This battle was ridiculous because the boss would get stronger as you levelled up, meaning that you had to rely on sheer luck to win the fight.

SMT games in general have challenging boss battles. Playing Nocturne on Nightmare mode was just ridiculous, I got my ass kicked in most of the random battles, and some of the boss battles were basically impossible, like Matador and Lucifer. With Matador you were ridiculously underleveled since it was still early in the game, and there weren't enough effective demons available, so you just had to pray that he didn't use his uber attacks. Lucifer was even worse, and I must have grinded for hours just to be able to stand up against him, and even then it was a battle that took me over an hour because I had to keep healing all the time.

DDS2 was also pretty difficult, mostly because you were force to use certain characters at various boss battles, so you would end up being slammed because you couldn't compensate for their weaknesses (Heat in EGG was incredibly frustrating). I tried a few of the optional boss fights, but even after a few hours of grinding Shiva still kicked my ass.

Uh, this is common in RPGs. The enemies level up along with the players to allow for, you know, a challenge in gameplay.

I'll never forget getting smashed by some of the bosses in Final Fantasies 4-5 including IV's Wyvern (who guards Cecil's final sword) and the optional mega-bosses in V - especially that damned turtle Gilgame and the infamous Skulleater squirrel who flat out owns your ass the first time you run into him and don't realize you have to run like hell. In Final Fantasy VII, Bizarro Sephiroth kind of a pain because enough of my party members stunk to the point that each of my two teams had some real dead weight characters who I'd foolishly ignored throughout the latter parts of the game.

I also hated FFIV's Dark Elf/Dark Dragon, who throttled me 2-3 times because I didn't realize he was weak to Cecil's Legend Sword (which, apparantly, is a holy weapon) and his Dark Breath kept wiping me out. Again, my levels were probably kind of lousy.

In FFVIII, I kept trying to fight Diablos (the summon you carry around as an item for a while) way too early, and that quickly became frustrating.

No matter what game it's from, I always hated battles where the boss could wreck you with a level 3-this or a level 5-that, especially Level 5 Doom or something. FFV particularly stunk with this, because your characters level up roughly parallel throughout the game, so one of those attacks runs the change of shredding you just because you didn't remember your whole team was level 40. I always thought those attacks were cheap and stupid.

Fuck off Lehah, I'm not an idiot. Of course this provides challenge as long as the systme has, you know, balance. If I gain one level and the enemy gains 10 levels, I wouldn't exactly call it a fair system. Learn to read an entire post, as I was just citing 7th Saga as an example of how unbalanced games can be.

Now this next one was one of the most depressing moments I had ever encountered in gaming, but also one of the most frustrating battles as well:

This thread seems to be going down in flames rather quickly, so I'll try to say something interesting.

The very first time you play through Suikoden II, Luca Blight seems to be almost impossible to beat. Three consecutive battles which, if you happened to somehow emerge victorious from the last of them, are rewarded with the hardest duel in the game. Suikoden II was weird in that, no matter how good you are at the RPG genre, you don't really seem to be good enough to do all the right things to prepare for the fight until you beat it and play through it again.

Of course a part of that reason is because you now know what's going to happen, but the game's mechanics don't seem to be perfectly clear until you've taken some time to absorb the information.

As Suikoden II fans know, when you're playing the game a third or fourth time, Luca Blight is frighteningly easy. Those first two battles you fight against him that seemed impossible are now being intentionally lost because you want some semblance of a challenge for the last fight and duel.

I didn't assume it was you for no good reason there, slick. Rat claimed you'd done it.

So you know, feel free to go fuck yourself at your leisure, Moby.

No, Rat just claims anyone is trolling when someone proves him wrong. As a result, Rat feels he gets trolled a lot.

Can't we just talk about the topic at hand? This shouldn't get bogged down in melodrama.

To add to the growing list of hard bosses, I think I'd put Bloodbane from Valkyrie Profile up there. He's easily the toughest boss in the main game, and the only boss outside of Seraphic Gate that really requires you to know Guts (a skill that has a pretty good chance of reviving your character if they are KO'd).

And you took his word for it.

I wouldn't bare to show my face around here. Luckily you have enough facial hair to hide behind.

Well, not really. The normal status quo is that bosses remain at a static level - you just meet bigger and stronger bosses as you progress through the game. If you get stuck, normally you can go level grind for a few hours and get a leg up.

7th Saga occasionally had boss fights against the other selectable main characters, and they would all match your level. Level grinding would often be counter productive, since coming back at a higher level meant THEY would be boasting a host of new abilities as well.

The game was particularly unfair about this, since your partner typically wouldn't help you out when dueling the other main characters. This made life particularly harsh if you were playing as one of the magey types. The elf wizard chick had practically 0 defense, so trying to use her meant getting your head punched off in the first couple turns.

I just remembered a really frustrating example, and I hope it just wasn't me being slow or something. If anyone has played Illusion of Gaia, they should probably remember those DAMN vampires at Mu! You had:
1) The time limit of the bomb countdown going on throughout the fight.
2) Two enemies at once.
3) To disarm the bomb after you kill both vampires.
4) Poor, poor attack strength unless you made a long trek back to a warp door to change into Freedan instead of being Will.
5) The vampires doing massive damage to you with certain attacks.

That certainly was one of the most frustrating fights I remember with all those factors kicking in.

Just making up for your bald-headed/faced antics there, O master of techno and all things early 90's.

I always found the fight in the pyramid to be a lot more frustrating. I don't think I ever beat it without using a few of my herbs up (and I needed them for the red gem dungeon :().

While I can honestly say that I can hardly remember anything from Illusion of Gaia, I mean it was a game I rented for a few days, about 10 years ago or so, I can absolutely back you up on that, buddy.

That fight truly was insane, there was so much stuff going on at once that you couldn't help but get overwhelmed. I sure as hell got my ass kicked. I never even made it past that fight. =/

Though technically NOT a boss, I could never defeat that little urchin in Tales of Phantasia.

Other frustrating bosses from games I've played:

Chrono Trigger: That stupid imp with his blue and red beasts was very difficult without the right elements in play. Spekkio as well, in his Level * form (modified MasaMune), was challenging. You freakin' need to have Crono on Luminaire, and the other two as support healers, to survive.

Secret of Mana: Spiky Tiger in Elinee's Tower was quite tough, since the battle was fought before you had recovery magic, and you were limited only to 4 candy and chocolate bars. Dark Lich, I think, killed me once when I was very careless and got too near his disembodied hands.

Seiken Densetsu 3: That stupid Black Rabite killed me very many times. The rest of the game wasn't too tough since I love to over-level.

Final Fantasy 4: To be honest I don't remember much about the game.

Final Fantasy 5: They say Omega Weapon was tough, but the right equipment sure showed him (reflect). On the other hand, Shinryu kills me pretty fast. But I got my vengeance in FF5 Advance. (And then the FF5A bonus dungeon proceeded to own me even though all the enemies at the last normal dungeon area were pushovers.)

Final Fantasy 6: I hate those Master Pugs. Hate 'em a damn lot. Intangirs, without super powerful magic, were difficult. These were not a problem in the SNES game though, since vanish+doom=victoly :D MagiMaster, on Fanatics Tower, was very tough with his Ultima counter - if you didn't rasp/osmose him or don't have high enough HP, jump, or Life 3, you're a dead man.

Final Fantasy 7: Emerald Weapon didn't present too hard a challenge (I sapped half his HP with Lucky Sevens before the battle even started :3:) Ruby Weapon, however, was the toughest boss here, since he was immune to physical attacks and had a nasty habit of blowing off party members.

Final Fantasy 8: This game wasn't too memorable for me, strangely enough. I recall having quite a bit of trouble with Omega Weapon though.

Final Fantasy 9: There was a point in the game where you could prematurely encounter a super powerful dragon who can kill you in 1 round. I died 3x before realizing the area was off limits. Optional boss Ozma massacred my party six times before I beat him.

Kingdom Hearts: Riku, on Destiny Island, beat me 15 times before I could defeat him once :( The Ice Titan in Olympus Colosseum pwned me as well, before I gave up and consulted a guide. Sephiroth, I felt, wasn't quite as tough once you start using those megalixers.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories: The final battle with Riku Replica was extremely tough, especially when playing Riku's story. I think I finally resorted to save state/load state to beat him with Riku, since the pre-made deck stanked.

I would classify a lot of these I'm seeing here as simply difficult rather than frustrating bosses, though frustration obviously has different meaning for everyone.

The only bosses I can remember being truly frustrated with were all in Dragon Quest 8. God that game made me rage like an eight year old with some of those bosses. That game would get me so worked up that it would put me in a bad mood and I ended up going as far as snapping at my girlfriend a few times while suffering though that misery.

Dhoulmagus, Rhapthorne and that damned giant bird toward the end of the game stick out in my mind though I'm sure there were plenty others along the way. I don't even know why I kept playing the game until the end. I still rage a bit just thinking about it now.

I like to go by the dictionary, which tells me that difficulty and frustration can go hand in hand perfectly fine. Don't bring that kind of stuff into this when you yourself admit that it's all opinionated anyway.

Usually "difficult" implies a challenge, though it's a fair challenge. Frustrating is generally something that seems unfairly difficult. For example, the tiger in SoM that zerg mentioned was actually one of the first battles I thought of, but then I realized in the five or so times I've played through the game, it's only beaten me once. Every time I won that battle I had done it when I was out of healing items, and everyone was dead except for one character. Whereas, say, Maximo crossed the line from difficult to frustrating for me. Or perhaps that mission in GTA:VC where you had to recruit the driver for the bank job. I don't think I've ever beaten that one without using the trick to get the non-default car.

Fair points, Cetra and RacinReaver. I blurred the distinction between frustrating and merely difficult in my post. Let me put up a feeble defense by saying that I tend to be a level h00r, and the fact that I've sank all this time into buffing up my characters, and still get whooped, is kind of frustrating to me :)

"Difficulty" only implies a struggle; it doesn't imply a degree in which it's difficult. For you, "difficult" means a fair challenge, while "frustrating" means you're practically forced to use tricks or loopholes.

All I was saying is that, in the end, it's entirely semantics, and I only complained because it sounds like Cetra's trying to correct people by saying their choices aren't in fact frustrating.

But you don't troll =p

I'm not quite sure how I feel about needless grinding in RPGs. When I say needless grinding, I am talking about taking a brief respite from the action to "get a leg up". I mean like I said in my first post in this thread, enemies often have a weakness that can be exploited. How you equip your party members and which abilities you choose to use have as much of an effect as simply bullying your way through a game. When I spoke of grinding, I was speaking more of building levels to 'catch up'. Some people, such as myself, have a propensity for blowing through a game and having low character levels.

For the sake of discussion, it is obvious to state that a lot of the appeal in the JRPG genre comes from the act of character building. So at least from my perspective, the whole point of having the optional bosses/ dungeons is so that people can train their characters to attempt an ordeal of sorts. They go, collect special items, special equipment, and build their characters move list and stats. I mean really, if there wasn't some asshole to defeat, what would be the point in collecting everything in the game?

That game has a reputation for being brutally hard. I still haven't given it a proper chance yet, mostly because of time. I didn't really get into RPGs until the Playstation years so I have really only played a few RPG staples on the SNES. (the obvious ones, of course)

Has anyone here beaten the final boss in Legend of Dragoon? I saw a friend take on that guy, only to be wiped out two hours later. She was pretty pissed off after that.

Well what I meant about frustration having different means is the context as well. Example: I personally don't see optional bosses with cheap abilities being a frustration point as they are optional and not required to finish the game. But I find storyline bosses with cheap moves that halt progress through the main game to be highly frustrating.

But Generic Badass is correct. I didn't mean to imply other people were incorrect and that there is some universal measurement of frustration, rather I personally found many of the mentioned bosses to be difficult but fair and the fairness helps remove any frustration I might have otherwise felt.

You know, I'd have to say the most challenging boss battle that comes to mind at the moment (but it felt awsome when I did beat him) was

I actually had a lot of trouble with the fight against Grimekhala in SMT Nocturne. I wasn't used to enemies having so many immunities/repels against elemental magic and wound up pwning myself again and again.

Aside from that, the battle that comes primarily to mind was the fight against Colossus in the Castle of the Ancients in Shining Force 1. I remember the Mishaela battle frustrating me, and then this was like Mishaela x3. I'm no stranger to being worn down by regular enemies by the time I reach a boss, but when there are 3 bosses...ouch. And the guy who decided you had to fight Darksol and Dark Dragon in succession, and then re-fight Darksol if you egressed from Dark Dragon, was a sadist.

That fight was epic. Thank goodness for Zylo and Gantz. I lost Zylo but not before unleashing a couple of critical attacks on Dark Dragon. I wound up finishing Dark Dragon with the main character just because I thought it would be appropate. It's cool how your main guy is all decked out in black after promotion. Along with the green sword, he reminded me of Luke from Return of the Jedi.

Yeah, that and the special finishing move he gets if you deliver the final blow to Darky with him.

Hmm, I've got some that haven't been mentioned yet it seems:

I know I'm months late, but let me just say fucking Ozma. Jesus Christ.

When you read faqs that say "here's some good ides, but winning the fight is mostly luck because he's fast," you know you're in for a bad time.

Sup L99 Party with all spells and skills.