[General Discussion] Favorite Boss Fights

Can I nominate everything from Zone of the Enders 2? That game had some really shining examples of how boss fights should go, as none of them were every really as simple as "regular enemy, except stronger".

You have no less than three battles against Nephtis, who cannot be directly attacked, and each time you have to come up with a new method of getting past its impenetrable shield. The most interesting one is the last fight, which takes place in a narrow hallway. You have to use other enemies as projectiles, or if you're a really good shot, slam Nephtis into the wall with the Gauntlet weapon.

Inhert was also a really unique boss. For the first quarter of his life bar it's a standard fight against a really fast opponent with moving bars getting in your way. Then he renders the room pitch black, and you have to fight completely blind with your computer giving you verbal directions.

The fight with Jean Bison in Sly 2 was a great diversion. You don't attack him directly; instead, you have Bentley running around with a walkie-talkie, giving commands to Sly up in a control room. The idea is to lure Jean into the fire vents, saw blades, or hanging logs, and hit the appropriate button to sic one of the traps on him. It technically plays out like a standard boss fight, but with a really unusual set of weapons.

Also, a second vote for Seven Force. That, I think, is the first time I've walked away from a boss fight physically exhausted. He just doesn;t stop coming. The remade version in Gunstar Super Heroes wasn't bad either, although his attack patterns are more predictable.

I think the big yellow thing from the Megaman games deserves mention too. I don't know what it's real name is, it's the big cyclopean guy who splits himself apart and flies across the room in segments. He still kicks my ass, simply because the pieces fly so fast, you never know which chunk is coming next, and it's really easy to get faked out.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Talking about Final Fantasy 10 made me think of the one fight that pretty much jaded me completely, the fight with Seymour on Mt. Gagazet. I actually stooped to levelling up my characters because I couldn't find any way to beat him. No amount of shuffling and self-buffing could keep me alive through his attacks, even using Tidus' haste spells, and trying to tank with the Aeons just got them instakilled.

Then I found out that the best method was to just level every single Aeon up to their Overdrive before the fight and using them all in succession in a sort of crack suicide squad, a tactic that pretty much makes a mockery of the game and retrospectively made me feel silly for actually doing work to beat Yunalesca.

There's nowhere I can't reach.