Worst Boss Battles of All Time

@Akeldama said:

@believer258 said:

@Akeldama said:

@believer258 said:

We haven't had many memorable boss fights this generation, what a shame.

I can tell you haven't played anything in the Souls series.

I didn't say that we haven't had any. I just said that we haven't had many.

God of War 3 didn't do it for you? Every boss in Bayonetta? Space Buddah guy in Asura's Wrath? Laughing Octopus from Metal Gear Solid 4? Or the final fight with Liquid for that matter? The crazy doctor from Heavy Rain (a bit of a stretch I grant you that, but unforgettable all the same), sending Wheatley to the fucking moon in Portal 2? Need I go on?

I burned out on God of War a while ago so I haven't played that, I have no interest in the Quicktime-y Asura's Wrath or Heavy Rain, and I don't want to watch the overwritten MGS cutscenes. I simply haven't played Bayonetta.

Portal 2 was awesome, though!

Still, it seems like last generation had big boss fights as a standard. It was a game's real send-off, a good finale, and that doesn't seem as common these days. I don't think every game needs one, but I'd like to see more of them, and more creative ones too.

I agree with a bunch of the ones other people have mentioned, but the most awful bosses of recent memory all belong to NeverDead. The penultimate boss constantly regenerates and if you don't have the right ammo for your weapons you can end up in an infinite stalemate. The final boss is quite easy if you know what to do, but if you don't (and the game gives almost no help in telling you what to do) it is probably one of the most painful experiences in any game released this generation.

edit - Holy shit, how did I forget that awful, awful train monster in Lost Planet 2... or the final boss... fuck.

Recently I purchased and played through The Secret of Mana on IOS and the final boss in that game owns me every time. I remember beating that game multiple times on the SNES back in the day, but I cannot defeat the Mana Beast now. I have tried many times and get my ass kicked every time for my efforts. Very Frustrating.

@Nightriff said:

My personal worst boss battle is the last 2 bosses in Prototype.

Yes. I was planning on saying this . It was the first thing that popped in me head .

The final boss in Borderlands always sticks out to me. My buddy and I literally didn't move. We just stood still and shot it until it died. It never attacked. The whole thing was rather disappointing considering how much I enjoyed the rest of the game.

The Patriarch from Xenosaga Episode II. 20 minutes of tedium chipping away at his ridiculously high HP and then when he's around 20%, goes absolutely nuts and if you're unlucky can kill your entire party before you can even respond.

Satanail from Star Ocean 4. Has an astronomical amount of HP but doesn't do all that much damage, resulting in a very long and very boring fight. Took me almost an hour to kill him, which is fairly silly for an RPG with an action-based combat system.

Can't remember the name of it, but on Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams there is a boss you fight in a narrow street, that even with the most powerful sword at that point in the game with the helm splitter upgrade still took about 20 damn minutes to kill. A lot of the bosses in that game were similar, but that one in particular.

I'd have to say the bosses from the most recent Deus Ex were a bit of a bummer, I also recall Jinpachi from Tekken 5 to be a pain in the ass.

The final, final boss in Drakengard. For a variety of reasons. First, it is the one part in the game where it becomes a totally different type of game. Second, to win you have to not fuck up and at one point you have to hit around 40 notes in rapid succession. Third, the satisfaction of beating the boss is then ruined by the ending of the game and the subsequent final "Fuck You" from Cavia.

Every friggin' boss in the entire Dead Rising series. They're so bad that I can't bring myself to play the games anymore. I mean, crap.

Even though I liked FFXIII and FFXIII-2 I HATED the end bosses. FFXIII was bad but FFXIII-2 was even worse. They take so damn long, especially since I was underlevelled according to all the guides, and they were not enjoyable to actually play once I got 20-30 minutes in.

@Yummylee said:

• Borderland's bosses aren't very good, but then I still wouldn't go as far as to call them the worst ever.

I wouldn't hesitate to layer some icky language on Borderland's bosses. Do you remember the Rakk Hive? I didn't touch the left analog stick. And every other boss was a bullet-spongey waste of time that consisted of circle-strafing for ten minutes to avoid any and all damage and holding the trigger down until it was over. Pathetically easy, mind-numbingly boring, easily the worst parts of those games. They lacked everything that made the rest of the game enjoyable. Worst ever? Certainly not. Acceptable? No!

Marauder Shields

@Nightriff said:

@Jay444111 said:

The final boss of Fable 2... one shot and if you don't shoot fast enough the other guy does it and insults you for it... WTF!?

Oh God, I forgot about that. I didn't like Fable 2 at all and then that was the icing on the cake of a "Fuck You" from Moly. I was so pissed when that happened

You don't know what a relief it is to see that someone else thought Fable 2 was crap. I actually kind of liked that ending, just because it meant I didn't have to sit through some drawn out, pointless combat sequence.

But yo. FUCK Fable 2.

@nrh79 said:

Miang in Xenogears comes to mind.

lol wut?

What was wrong with a challenging battle?

@RWBladewing said:

The Patriarch from Xenosaga Episode II. 20 minutes of tedium chipping away at his ridiculously high HP and then when he's around 20%, goes absolutely nuts and if you're unlucky can kill your entire party before you can even respond.

Satanail from Star Ocean 4. Has an astronomical amount of HP but doesn't do all that much damage, resulting in a very long and very boring fight. Took me almost an hour to kill him, which is fairly silly for an RPG with an action-based combat system.

Everything about Xenosaga II blew chimps, why should the last battle have been any different?

As for SO4, ridiculous final battle are par for the course in that series

I hated the clown boss from Donkey Kong 64.

@MarkWahlberg: I'm listening to old bombcasts and I'm stunned at how much the crew liked that game. I thought it was complete shit the whole time but was just trying to convince myself that it was good

@probablytuna said:

While I wouldn't say it's the worst boss battle I've ever played but Lazarevic from Uncharted 2 was a pain in the ass. I was playing on Hard, so two shotgun blasts and I'd die and there were like three stages with no checkpoints (from what I can remember). Shooting backwards while running and jumping on platforms was not fun.

I really hope developers would ditch the boss battle formula by the next generation of games unless they do something interesting with it. I mean, sure there will always be boss battles in like Mario games but not every game needs one. I mean (using the Naughty Dog example again), I'm glad I didn't have to do the same thing in Uncharted 3, but the QTE-style boss battles wasn't fun either. I'm really interested if we would be rid of boss battles in The Last of Us.

Bioware ditched the final boss idea for Mass Effect 3.... see where that got them?

@DonChipotle said:

The final, final boss in Drakengard. For a variety of reasons. First, it is the one part in the game where it becomes a totally different type of game. Second, to win you have to not fuck up and at one point you have to hit around 40 notes in rapid succession. Third, the satisfaction of beating the boss is then ruined by the ending of the game and the subsequent final "Fuck You" from Cavia.

DON'T SPOIL!!! I just got that game yesterday!

@Jay444111 said:

DON'T SPOIL!!! I just got that game yesterday!

Good luck.

I'm not sure about worst, but I think Skyward Swords final battle was severely disappointing. It makes sense since it's the first, or one of the first in its timeline, but still, it was kind of crappy.

The bosses in Rayman Origins really spoiled that game for me.

@Yummylee: Borderlands' end boss was incredibly disappointing. I hid behind a pillar w/ my soldier and spammed rounds into the beast's eye. He died in 15 seconds. Prototype's boss fights were the opposite--super tedious,

In Deus Ex Human Revolution the bosses were ridiculous and I had specked sneaking around enemies not fighting them!!!

Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker "Final Boss" , it goes on forever! not only that but it starts with a timer you pretty much have to haul ass to get close to the enemy and hit it in a very specific spot without missing or you'll lose the battle instantly, once you get it out of that state then the real battle starts and at certain points the boss will get into the "you better shot me or I'll do this thing that will make you lose the battle instantly" you won't be preapered for it wich is the worst at least the first 3 times does that.

Seriously that's probably the longest hardest boss battle I ever had and I tried like 20 times , you have to fight with the controls, limited ammo , little to no cover or place to hide; all the boss battles on that game are super hard but that one takes the cake and the worst thing about it? after you finish the battle is not really over you still have to do something else to get to the last cutscene AND! that's not the "real" boss there's a secret ending kinda thing after doing some super repetitive thing you get to fight the real boss wich at least is much more easier (and dumb!) actually I'll say is easier than the rest of the bosses of that game ... still great game but fudge the last boss.

Bosses with multiple phases that replenish health bars.

@Yummylee said:

• Like close to everything else in that game, the boss battles in Operation Raccoon City are a travesty.

Boss battles? Oh, you mean the enemies who had huge amounts of health with no over attacks apart from 'Shoot Mini-gun' and 'Punch in face and trap you in a corner for an endless cycle'

If you could call those 'Boss Battles'.

@Jay444111 said:

@probablytuna said:

While I wouldn't say it's the worst boss battle I've ever played but Lazarevic from Uncharted 2 was a pain in the ass. I was playing on Hard, so two shotgun blasts and I'd die and there were like three stages with no checkpoints (from what I can remember). Shooting backwards while running and jumping on platforms was not fun.

I really hope developers would ditch the boss battle formula by the next generation of games unless they do something interesting with it. I mean, sure there will always be boss battles in like Mario games but not every game needs one. I mean (using the Naughty Dog example again), I'm glad I didn't have to do the same thing in Uncharted 3, but the QTE-style boss battles wasn't fun either. I'm really interested if we would be rid of boss battles in The Last of Us.

Bioware ditched the final boss idea for Mass Effect 3.... see where that got them?

Adding a boss fight at the end wouldn't have any effect in terms of the end outcomes Shepard would be choosing. In the ME3 art book they talked about how they were going to make

Whether or not the ending itself actually work is irrelevant to having a final boss battle in Mass Effect 3. And I applaud them for not putting a boss battle in just for the sake of it.

Any fighting game boss. But one that stands out as particularly stupid was OMEGA in Dead or Alive 3. Super difficult, the character was completely boring looking and they changed the camera position to over your shoulder for absolutely no reason.

I'm going to echo Fable 2. As far as I remember, that shard thing was the final boss and you music box'd the actual big bad to death for a really anti-climatic ending. Otherwise, I recall a couple of bosses in Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 that proved incredibly annoying without very specific paradigm setups.

One of the worst bosses that you can make bad for yourself was Yeager in Tales of Vesperia. There's a secret mission that nets you an achievement and rare drop if you make his heart explode, but the means to do it required perseverance to get him in the required state, some dumb luck to stagger him, and split-second timing to use one specific arte. I think I have most every secret mission done on that game, but just gave up after about a dozen tries.

apologies if answered already but, they didn't have the right weapon for that fight.

easy peasy when you do.

@Nightriff said:

I'm sitting here at working watching the Deadly Premoniton Endurance Run - Vinny and Jeff version and God Damn is the lanky lady that crawls on the walls the fuckin WORST!!! Maybe it is how they approach it but god damn it is my least favorite part of the ER by far. Some may argue it is not a boss battle but I would disagree.

@ds8k said:

The bosses in Rayman Origins really spoiled that game for me.

Really? Man, I love everything about that game, including bosses. They were hard but they never felt unfair.

I'm gonna go with Seymour's first and third forms in FFX. Fuck that guy.

@stinky said:

apologies if answered already but, they didn't have the right weapon for that fight.

easy peasy when you do.

@Nightriff said:

I'm sitting here at working watching the Deadly Premoniton Endurance Run - Vinny and Jeff version and God Damn is the lanky lady that crawls on the walls the fuckin WORST!!! Maybe it is how they approach it but god damn it is my least favorite part of the ER by far. Some may argue it is not a boss battle but I would disagree.

How should they have been approaching them? Just out of curiosity

Pretty much any boss in te second half of Ninja Gaiden Black. Holy shit those are so frustrating.

Final boss of Crysis. It's just a big ship thing that you have to fire that nuclear gun at. It would have been more fun just to kill a bunch of the tripod-squid-aliens. "Oh fuck they're going to sink the ship if we don't stop them! Nomad we need you to stop them in time!"

I hated the boss in Tekken 4 and also HATE Belial in Diablo 3

:::edit:::

oh and this asshole from SF3

His super regenerated his ENTIRE health bar. So much anger at him

Wesker at the end of resident evil 5 comes to mind, not the boss itself just the inexplicably hard button mashing required for one of the quick time events.

I was very disappointed by Alduin the oh-so mighty World Eater. Shouting against evil mist, really?

... at least make it black/red, not fucking purple.

I think that the boss battle of the Legacy DLC for Dragon Age II was terrible. The whole DLC was terrible, but whoever thought that Dragon Age II was suitable for that kind of gameplay should be shot.

Any boss from Alpha Protocol. And I'm one of the monstrous abominations who actually ENJOYS that game on the whole, but all the boss fights are absolute SLOGS.

@CL60 said:

Final bosses in fighting games can suck my balls.

Gil from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike immediately springs to mind. Or really ANY boss with a screen-filling, undodgeable super that takes down half your health when BLOCKED (looking at you too KoFXIII).

Edit: @s10129107: I actually found the Resurrect to be not THAT big of a deal cause if you can smack him, he only gets back 1/3 and then can't use his Super for the rest of the round, yet it's the one I hear complained about the most rather than the "Unstoppable, Screenfilling Health Drain" that I mention above.

I do not like the boss battle at the end of Act 2 in Diablo 3. I dont think it is anywhere near the worst, but it is probably the most recent boss battle I have faced that I did not like much at all.

I am not really sure what other boss battles are the worst. I didnt really like any of the boss battles in Arkham City (except for Mr. Freeze), but again those are probably not the worst of all time. Also, there are some terrible boss battles in Mass Effect 1. I remember some bosses where I would walk into the room and my entire party would just die. I dont think it ever got that bad in the other Mass Effects, but ME 1 had terrible boss battles.

@connerthekewlkid: Oh, man, you just reminded me how much I hated that boss in Lost Odyssey, took me forever. And then you had to fight all the soldiers afterwards, I hated that battle a lot.

The last boss of Space Marine.

What a pile of shit.