Those who have been playing video games for any meaningful length of time will know that boss fights can be a true spectacle. They can also be impossible standards of gameplay skill that I’ll never have! Recently I polled some of the members of our Mage Chat Discord for information: the bosses that proved to be more than we could handle. Whether it meant corrupted data, impenetrable walls of difficulty, mad dashes to strategy guides, or being forced to start over from the beginning again, these are the bosses that were too much boss for us.
Consider these our arch-nemeses. The boss fights that got the better of us in more ways that one.
I save locked myself before this battle and I was supremely under-leveled and under-prepared, so Belias actually forced me to restart the entire game. All that grinding… gone…
-The Well-Red Mage
Still never defeated Ruby Weapon on FF7. When I was younger I was the most avid gamer of my all my friends. They use to call me the walking strategy guide. But the one thing I was never able to help anyone with was taking down the big red bastard
I have one, the Primagan from Turok 2. Couldn’t beat him without cheats. Same goes for the Campaigner from #1.
-The Family Mage
The hardest boss for me would probably have to be Cynthia from the Elite Four in Pokémon Platinum. Back as a kid the Elite Four were already hard enough but then facing Cynthia. Oooo boy! Took me so many tries I lost count. Definitely in the double digits though. Back then that felt amazing. It truly made the Elite Four and the champion feel like they owned their titles for a reason and beating them was a genuine accomplishment.
I’ll take Aksis from Destiny’s Wrath of the Machines, the final raid boss, a SIVA-enhanced Arkon Prime. This fight required an extremely high level of 6-player fireteam coordination. More than any previous raid boss. Do everything perfect up until the final damage phase and you can still wipe, as you need everyone pulling their weight to max out DPS before the room goes critical.
-The Slipstream Mage
I had a fight on a mountain in Xenoblade Chronicles that I had so much trouble with. I saved closer to the fight than the closest skip-travel point in order to have easier access. Reloading my save over and over again became a problem when, just before hitting “a” to prompt the load, I hit “zr” to prompt save deletion just as I was rapidly pressing “a”. I was already 24 hours in…
-The Valiant Vision Mage
There was a boss in Xenosaga Episode 1 that made me drop the game, because you basically needed this one accessory to beat it and there was no way to get that accessory once you entered the dungeon.
Giant Toad boss from Nioh. Several bosses are brutal and take many tries to finally beat but this one is something special. Only way I could finally get past him is to call upon a co-op “visitor” to help tackle him together.
-The One-Winged Mage
The stupid Spiky Tiger boss in Secret of Mana that is just straight up busted, with that magic you can’t evade.
-The Mail Order Ninja Mage
The final boss from Rainbow Moon was an insanely large jump in difficulty from the enemies and bosses at the end of the game and I had to grind for like 10 hours just for that one battle. God, I hated that game.
-The ABXY Mage
Seymour in FFX. How he can inflict zombie and kick party members out of the fight. I quit, and haven’t ever felt like going back to it.
It was 1997/8, and I was getting sell into my first ever RPG experience, Final Fantasy VII. Not being too savvy with how the genre worked, I figured I could save time with battles by just running away every time so I could enjoy the story. But my plan came crashing to the ground atop bleak Mount Nibel, where that big, blue jerk the Materia Keeper resided. To get to Rocket Town I had to get past him, only due to my underdeveloped stats he absolutely destroyed me… I had to trek back to the world map and spent hours grinding just to get to a state of mediocrity! Now, whenever I face that boss, I still get a pang of terror… even though I can kick his ass with ease!
-The Bizzaro Mage
When I used to revisit FFVII long after my first play through, I would always, ALWAYS die to Motor Ball.
It basically became tradition to lose to him. I’d level up, right gear, Materia etc etc.
Nope. Dead.
Finally, like five years ago, on my replay, it didn’t even cross my mind, and I beat him on first try. And then it hit me traveling the world map, “hey… I DIDN’T DIE!”
Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.
