Josh H

My picks will be recent games, as I can't recall any from previous generations. I've probably unconsciously blocked out any memory of older, cheap ass bosses.

Nightmare in Metroid Fusion.

Total complete cheese. It's impossible to do the first part of the battle without losing 2 or 3 energy cells, and losing 3-5 is more typical.

Then the second part is total cheese. The bastard is huge (takes up about a quarter of the room) and flies around in loops with no particular pattern. One time he'll go clockwise, next counter clockwise, one time he'll go high, the next low. Combine that with his size, and it's damn near impossible to dodge him consistently. Touching him does massive damage (Samus is a ***** in this game) and you have to hit him like 20 times to kill him. Lastly, you have to shoot him with charged up shots, adding to the frustration when you have a narrow opportunity and you let off the button a split second too soon. To top it off, when you finally "kill" him after hours of trying, you still have to deal with X-core, which while not particularly hard you won't be able to take more than a hit or two after killing nightmare so you have to be perfect with the core.

It took me forever to beat this bastard the first time through the game, and I just tried for an hour and a half on my second time through. I don't know that I'll bother trying again.

Runners up:

The elite soldier and Meta Ridley in Metroid Prime. Nintendo really nailed chessy, hard bosses in the latest Metroid games.

sdcrym

It's nice to have a challenge every now and then. With a lot of games, I feel like I don't get my money's worth out of them because I breeze through them so easily.

Josh H

IMO, games should be long, because the are...well....long.

Boss battles like the one above are just cheesy ways to extend relatively short games.

But as I said in another thread, I'm different from "hardcore" gamers in that I mainly play to relax and unwind, and a hard, frustrating boss battle doesn't fit that goal.

My idea of a perfect boss battle is one that takes a little while to figure out (i.e. learn the pattern, figure out how to damage him) but is relatively easy to execute once you figure it out. I just like puzzle solving type gameplay in general.

The above battle there is some stuff to figure out, but once you do it's still near impossible because there are no clear, repeated patterns to the bosses movements. It's just a crap shoot. He's off the screen half the time and you have no way to tell where he'll pop back at, and once you see him coming, it's usually too late to get out of the way due to his size. It's just total cheese.

Goldberg74

The final boss in StarFox Adventures... that was a pain. I know there is a pattern with the boss, through all the stages, but its freakin' silly to have to hit the 'fire' button 20 x per second. (Thank goodness I had a Turbo button.)

Kellehair

There's a difference between hard and annoying. I came into this thread to nominate Nightmare from Metroid Fusion not because he was hard but because he was annoying. I'm sure I could have beaten him but I wasn't enjoying my attempts at it so I gave up. It's a shame too because that was such a great game otherwise. I had no problem with the bosses in Metroid Prime however. The last few were hard but not annoying.

Josh H

I agree, a definite difference beween hard and annoying. Nightmare is definitely annoying.

It's worth it to suffer through it the first time through because the rest of the game is awesome, I don't know if I'll have the patience to do it again, expecially after wasting an hour and a half on him this afternoon.

ChiefJustice001

Two Words:

Liquid Snake

1.) Shot him out of a helicopter

2.) Knocked him off the 50' tall Metal Gear in hand to hand fighting

3.) Shot him with a machine gun in a technical

Dies of a virus, robbing you of the kill!

Proviso-

None of these acts were extremely difficult, but as the storyline goes, Liquid's the ultimate die-hard.

Scorpio

Grendel the red dragon in Adventure for the Atari 2600. Damn, but he was a hard ol' boy back in the day.

Sloth911

I first boss in perfect dark made me stop playing the game.

Zodo

The T-Rex in Starfox Adventures made me stop playing the game.

He just pissed me off.

Groucho

I quit Starfox Adventures on the last boss. Way too tedious and unforgiving, and the game generally sucked anyway so I didn't feel so bad.

I about pooped my pants playing Zelda TWW when an almost identical boss showed up. Luckily, that one was done right and I got through it with no problems.

Goldberg74

You ain't kidding. I went out and bought a controller from GameStop for $10 just to get a Turbo button to defeat the towers on the Pteradactyl. I then continued to use it on the boss in the tower, but put it away until the end battle. You have to get through all three phases of the boss which is a pain. It took me about 4 hours over three days to finally do it.

And when you get to the top of that tower in TLOZ:TWW, at least the boss gives you a chance (giving you arrows) and has a single pattern to follow. Made it a little easier.

There are too many similarities between SFA and TLOZ:TWW... way too many.

The most annoying thing for me in Star Fox Adventures was tied between the Test of Fear and the Race around the Treasury.

Michael Corvin

The giant rock guy from Metroid Prime. Wow. Toughest boss I've seen in a long while.

Groucho

Yeah, the inane mini-games had me close to quitting several times. And unlike the Zelda games, they weren't optional.

khai

Hmm, refresh my memory. I seem to only remember the last boss in PD.

salamander2

The last boss in CLOCK TOWER 3 almost made me throw the game out the window. The last level in DEAD TO RIGHT x-box version, I threw it across my room, still havent bothered looking for this disc.

Bell65

agree,last boss in dead to rights is fun,hey nic cage is making it into a movie! pretty sweet! yeah,im 21,was home on break visiting folks over xmas, somehow my mom grounded my 280 lb fb playin ass, as i said the lord's name in vein and then threw a piece of ham at the tv and the game box at my dog!i.e. yeah the last boss is hard, but find the cd and finish it, great ending,or maybe wait for the movie...

Sloth911

khai - i dont remember the level name, but it is the level where you have to place 3-4 bombs on these shrine like things.

you have to blow a wall up with a rocket launcher (or some kinda explosive gun)

eventually you go into this large room with a bunch of pods, then another room with a guy that you have to kill -- it would take me about 20 minutes to get that far, than the guy would kill me, i made it to the boss about 6 times - and finally gave up.

i like the challenge of making it through the FPS levels - and i like how most FPS's have stuck to having only a few boses.... if any (GR = none)

gr8fuldave

The rooftop helicopter (not a boss but really really hard to beat) in SOF 2. I tried to beat it for days and finally ended up uninstalling and trading in the game for store credit

Tyler_Durden

For adventure gamers, the ending of "Escape From Monkey Island" was a little lacking in the ideas department. Not only do adventure games not really need "battles", this one was just incredibly stupid.

flair

Bloodrayne comes to mind for me. I tried for days to beat the last two bosses, i ended up just getting a god mode cheat off the internet to see the end. I wizzed right through this game until fighting those two bosses, which made it even more frustrating.

The Dude

Not really a specific boss, but the idea of having to refight ALL the bosses in the game that you have already beaten in order to get to the final boss in the game has always annoyed me (see LOZ:WW)

tanman

Snake Rattle and Roll. The final foot. I could never beat him. I even used the game genie and that stupid foot still couldn't be beat. That is what you call cheap and annoying.


I have to say that I enjoy tough battles like Nightmare and others in the two recent metroid titles. Like someone said I think that many boss battles are getting to easy. I guess its difficult for game designers to balance the spectrum of players.

retihsuhnt

For me this boss fits in both the annoying and hard categories. I can not recall his name, but he was half of the screen in the PS1's Castlevania. Where you had to throw everything you had plus the kitchen sink to kill him. It was early on in the game, but Im sorry but when everything I have "stored" from earlier in the game is used to kill the SOB it s a bit much.

Luckily later in the game you can obtain two (2) identical swords and destroy Dracula in under ten (10) seconds. Good times.

remjim

The toughest boss battle that I ever encountered was probably the final boss in Golgo 13. I still remember the day that I beat him...I don't think I've ever been so happy.

Runner-up: the last two bosses in Ninja Gaiden.

In modern games, the bosses aren't as tough as they used to be during the 8 bit days. Man, that makes me sound old