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

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)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

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.

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.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Manny Biggz

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.

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.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by LeHah

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

But you don't troll =p

Originally Posted by Monkey King

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.

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?

Quote:

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.

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?