[General Discussion] Overly Frustrating RPG Boss Battles - Sephiroth kicked my ass

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by SuperSonic

Speaking of cheap...

Final Fantasy IX:

The majority of the bosses in this game were cheap, but the one I remember most is the final one...I believe Necros was its name. First it had that one attack where it crossed its arms and shot a laser at a party member, reducing he/she to 1 HP. Then, there was Grand Cross...if your party members weren't at a high enough level, you were fucked. I remember my normal party of Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, and Vivi couldn't get the job done so I had to switch out Vivi for Amarant because he had higher HP.

FF9:

This one bothered me as well, probably because you have to endure two other boss battles before you are thrust into this (incredibly tricky) one at the end.

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:

Originally Posted by SuperSonic

Chrono Cross:

Miguel. Freakin, Miguel. He doesn't look tough at first, but the fact that one move in his arsenal can bring your HP to critical or even kill you is just unbelievable. I've forgotten the name of the move, but his whole arm becomes a light elemental sword (and the fact that two of my characters were dark elementals don't help either) and he just dashes and slashes once. Once is enough...heal fast or die.

Chrono Cross:

Yes. Miguel was frigging REALLY difficult, mostly the music makes you not want to kill him! Like most people who were playing it for the first time, I definitely did not expect to get thrashed by his giant holy excalibur or whatever he had stuffed in the back pocket of his khaki shorts. The boss in Chrono Cross who gave me a major run for my money was the knight who was under the spell of the Masamune (at least I think that's what was going on). He ripped through my group like we were tin foil and I remember not believing that I actually beat him eventually.

There's nowhere I can't reach.