That One Boss...

[Wolf Kanno]

I've been reading too much of TV Tropes lately and was laughing my ass off in remembrance of the genre of gaming tropes known as "That One Boss"...

Basically its the Boss of the game that is not the Final Boss or some super powerful optional boss, it's just a regular boss who seems to be in a league of his own compared to everything else in the game and is insanely hard for one reason or another. The other clincher is that it is not a boss that has some trick to them unless its a trick you had no chance in hell of knowing about.

So who do you think is the most notorious "That One Boss" in gaming?

[qwertysaur]

Midboss :bigsmile:

[Vermachtnis]

Matador, there's a reason he's the page picture on Atlus' very one One Boss page. He's in the middle of a hallway. The first time he catches you off guard and probably under leveled. And there is his Red Copote. Sig~H I hate that move. And he's only like the second boss.

[Jessweeee♪]

I may have spent at least 72 hours of my life reading the gaming tropes alone ;_;

[Raistlin]

FFT: Wiegraf. I remember the first time I played through it FFT seemed almost impossibly hard, though with age and experience I now have limited trouble with most of the game. That being said, Wiegraf is never easy.

Suikoden II: Luca Blight. This may be more of a "Wake Up Call Boss" according to that article (except you're not supposed to learn much from it; it's just surprising), but boy he was tough my first time through. Although I actually thought you had to defeat him with all three parties... yeah, shut up.

[Rase]

I may have spent at least 72 hours of my life reading the gaming tropes alone ;_;
This.

[Lawr]

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a318/Sagensyg/Belias-Attack2-SW.gif

[Markus. D]

That Lava Golem Boss Thing in Valkyrie Profile 2 gave me a scare the first time... in-fact, it lead to me restarting the game.

All of a sudden I should of been dealing at least 500 or so damage with each character, I needed to learn how to play xD!

[Kyros]

Suikoden II: Luca Blight. This may be more of a "Wake Up Call Boss" according to that article (except you're not supposed to learn much from it; it's just surprising), but boy he was tough my first time through. Although I actually thought you had to defeat him with all three parties... yeah, shut up.

I can agree with this lol

[blackmage_nuke]

Psycho Mantis

[Kyros]

the final fight vs Seymour in FFX was pretty annoying

[Wolf Kanno]

Sleeping Table from Persona 3...

Imagine this, its a game where exploiting elemental weaknesses grant you extra turns and thus strategy is a higher priority than brute force. The Sleeping Table has no elemental weakness, is immune to instant death and its three main offensive spells are Maragidyne (High Level Fire spell that targets all), Megidoloan (most powerful non-elemental all party hitting spell that cannot be reflected or defended), Mahamoan (High level, all hitting holy instand death spell with a great chance of actually landing), and then an evil combo where he inflicts a certain status spell that practically incapacitates your party and then the second spell will instant kill anyone inflicted with said status affliction. Did I forget to mention that if the main character gets killed its an automatic game over?

Throw in he has HP and the highest stats of any boss at this point in the game and you have pure frustration. Your only hope is to somehow land a critical hit with a physical hit just so you can have a round to heal. He was the most notorious boss in P3 and was so reviled by fans that Atlus decided to bring him back in P4 as the second to last boss of the game on the route for the True Ending...

[qwertysaur]

the final fight vs Seymour in FFX was pretty annoying
That fight is so easy. Summon the Aeon of the same element as his main attack, sheild Ultima, and overdrive before moving to the next Aeon. :p

[Rocket Edge]

I have a few:

Streets of Rage: There was these two twin girls on the boat who kept jumping around the place and were really hard to catch. Tough Stuff.

FFX: Seymour, on Gagazet.

FFX: Yunalesca, albeit after a couple of tries I got the hang of it.

I'll think of some more later, blanking out.

[Yeargdribble]

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a318/Sagensyg/Belias-Attack2-SW.gif

Nothing on this list compares to the above.

That said, half of the bosses in Demon's Souls so far fit into this category... especially if you try to play a melee class. I quickly learned to invest in some ranged goodness.

[NeoCracker]

Sleeping Table from Persona 3...

Imagine this, its a game where exploiting elemental weaknesses grant you extra turns and thus strategy is a higher priority than brute force. The Sleeping Table has no elemental weakness, is immune to instant death and its three main offensive spells are Maragidyne (High Level Fire spell that targets all), Megidoloan (most powerful non-elemental all party hitting spell that cannot be reflected or defended), Mahamoan (High level, all hitting holy instand death spell with a great chance of actually landing), and then an evil combo where he inflicts a certain status spell that practically incapacitates your party and then the second spell will instant kill anyone inflicted with said status affliction. Did I forget to mention that if the main character gets killed its an automatic game over?

Throw in he has HP and the highest stats of any boss at this point in the game and you have pure frustration. Your only hope is to somehow land a critical hit with a physical hit just so you can have a round to heal. He was the most notorious boss in P3 and was so reviled by fans that Atlus decided to bring him back in P4 as the second to last boss of the game on the route for the True Ending...

You forgot that part that if you go in immune Fire, he does nothing but Spam Megidoloan....

[Jessweeee♪]

Sleeping Table from Persona 3...

Imagine this, its a game where exploiting elemental weaknesses grant you extra turns and thus strategy is a higher priority than brute force. The Sleeping Table has no elemental weakness, is immune to instant death and its three main offensive spells are Maragidyne (High Level Fire spell that targets all), Megidoloan (most powerful non-elemental all party hitting spell that cannot be reflected or defended), Mahamoan (High level, all hitting holy instand death spell with a great chance of actually landing), and then an evil combo where he inflicts a certain status spell that practically incapacitates your party and then the second spell will instant kill anyone inflicted with said status affliction. Did I forget to mention that if the main character gets killed its an automatic game over?

Throw in he has HP and the highest stats of any boss at this point in the game and you have pure frustration. Your only hope is to somehow land a critical hit with a physical hit just so you can have a round to heal. He was the most notorious boss in P3 and was so reviled by fans that Atlus decided to bring him back in P4 as the second to last boss of the game on the route for the True Ending...

OH GOD WHY DOES THIS THING EXIST

[qwertysaur]

Sleeping Table from Persona 3...

Imagine this, its a game where exploiting elemental weaknesses grant you extra turns and thus strategy is a higher priority than brute force. The Sleeping Table has no elemental weakness, is immune to instant death and its three main offensive spells are Maragidyne (High Level Fire spell that targets all), Megidoloan (most powerful non-elemental all party hitting spell that cannot be reflected or defended), Mahamoan (High level, all hitting holy instand death spell with a great chance of actually landing), and then an evil combo where he inflicts a certain status spell that practically incapacitates your party and then the second spell will instant kill anyone inflicted with said status affliction. Did I forget to mention that if the main character gets killed its an automatic game over?

Throw in he has HP and the highest stats of any boss at this point in the game and you have pure frustration. Your only hope is to somehow land a critical hit with a physical hit just so you can have a round to heal. He was the most notorious boss in P3 and was so reviled by fans that Atlus decided to bring him back in P4 as the second to last boss of the game on the route for the True Ending...

OH GOD WHY DOES THIS THING EXIST
To make us cry :(

[Wolf Kanno]

Yeah... that is bad but the post was getting too long as it were.

To give you guys an idea, this a video of someone fighting the boss...
YouTube - Persona 3 - Floor 135 ( "Boss - Sleeping Table" ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2krgkZlGgrY)

I would also like to give a shout out to most of the bosses in Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne, yes, almost every boss in that game is "That One Boss" starting with the Matador Fiend and all the way to the final boss, only Dante offers a bit of a breather as far as boss battles go.

I would also like to nominate:

http://www.tautoz.com/xenogears/pics/miang.jpg http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/psx/xeno/walk/miangfights.gif

Miang/Opiomorph

Xenogears has a few "That One Boss" but most of them can be avoided if you know what't coming and prepare properly for it. Not for this fight. Its a Gear battle, your Gears don't level, rather you buy armor and engines to raise their HP, Defense, and attack power. So leveling is not going to help you much. Gears also rely on Fuel to do all the attacks and special abilites but its limited and although your Gears can recharge their fuel, its a pathetic amount without the aid of an accessory slot and there are still far better accessories (like ones that heal you)

Basically this is the second half of a two part sequential fight, the guy before her is not terribly powerful but he does have an attack that reduces your HP to one. Course you can use HP Frames to restore your health back but they cost huge amounts of fuel.

So you basically go into the Miang fight with at best, 50% of your health. She uses a special attack that llows her to hit your whole party with the accumulated damage your party has done to her which means you could easily lose if you are not paying attention to the dialogue on the scree, so you start having one character attack and wait for her to use the special attack (cause it resets after she uses it) to minimize damage but once she's lost half her health, she can start using the attack and do high damage without taking damage from you, worse, it gets stronger every round she's left alive... Throw in the fact the plot elements that happen right after are just a serious kick in the balls and you've got one of the most painful moments in gaming...

[Vermachtnis]

I would also like to give a shout out to most of the bosses in Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne, yes, almost every boss in that game is "That One Boss" starting with the Matador Fiend and all the way to the final boss, only Dante offers a bit of a breather as far as boss battles go.


I didn't find Noah and Baal Avatar all that tough. Of course the Noah fight was just really, really, rehehehely long. And by the time I got to Baal Avatar my team was Demi-Fiend, Dante, Metatron, and Beelzebub Fly Mode and they were LV99+ and immune to everything. Suffice to say, they were even more broken :p

[P4ine]

Atomos from FFV was insanely tough in my opinion.

http://www.ffonline.com/1_ff5boss/atomos.gif

Then on the other hand Odolwa from Zelda: Majora's Mask was, but only because I wasn't able to hold the controller properly in my hands because I had been scared :bou::bou::bou::bou:less. The same goes by the way for Bongo Bongo from Ocarina of Time. They could even scare me today.

http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/n64/zeldamm/images/odolwa.jpghttp://www.hylianhelpdesk.com/ocarina/imgs/boss/bongobongoscreen5.jpg

[Zeldy]

Then on the other hand Odolwa from Zelda: Majora's Mask was, but only because I wasn't able to hold the controller properly in my hands because I had been scared :bou::bou::bou::bou:less. The same goes by the way for Bongo Bongo from Ocarina of Time. They could even scare me today.

http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/n64/zeldamm/images/odolwa.jpghttp://www.hylianhelpdesk.com/ocarina/imgs/boss/bongobongoscreen5.jpg

haha, what! They wern't that hard, I was going to say the water dungeon boss in Zelda OOT, but the temple was harder than the boss from what I remember.

[LunarWeaver]

There's some douchebag in Final Fantasy Tactics that gave me some grief. Lazy post.

[Tavrobel]

Half of the bosses in Xenosaga.

[Meat Puppet]

ocelot revolver

[XxSephirothxX]

Those motherfuckers at the end of Star Ocean 2. Maybe that doesn't count since they're only one battle before the final boss, but goddamn, that battle. Goddamn.

[Snap Jumper]

The Grim Reaper in Castlevania. I have little trouble getting by Frankenstein, but this guy is near impossible. Then again, so is the Nintendo Hard corridor leading up to him.

[Yeargdribble]

Grim Reaper and Doppelganger in Castlevania III gave me so much grief as a kid.

[krissy]

i was having a lot of trouble with the boss of cosmo canyon in ff7 because i had no idea that leveling up made your party better so i just kept running from battles until that point

[NeoCracker]

Half of the bosses in Xenosaga.

Only bosses I remember having that much trouble with were Chimerea (I think thats what the guy turns into on Cathedral Ship) and that weird monster you fight on Kukai Foundation just before you to go The Song of Nephilim.

[Slothy]

Sleeping Table from Persona 3...

Imagine this, its a game where exploiting elemental weaknesses grant you extra turns and thus strategy is a higher priority than brute force. The Sleeping Table has no elemental weakness, is immune to instant death and its three main offensive spells are Maragidyne (High Level Fire spell that targets all), Megidoloan (most powerful non-elemental all party hitting spell that cannot be reflected or defended), Mahamoan (High level, all hitting holy instand death spell with a great chance of actually landing), and then an evil combo where he inflicts a certain status spell that practically incapacitates your party and then the second spell will instant kill anyone inflicted with said status affliction. Did I forget to mention that if the main character gets killed its an automatic game over?

Throw in he has HP and the highest stats of any boss at this point in the game and you have pure frustration. Your only hope is to somehow land a critical hit with a physical hit just so you can have a round to heal. He was the most notorious boss in P3 and was so reviled by fans that Atlus decided to bring him back in P4 as the second to last boss of the game on the route for the True Ending...

I'm not even close to fighting that boss yet, but thanks for scaring the crap out of me in advance.

[Raistlin]

i was having a lot of trouble with the boss of cosmo canyon in ff7 because i had no idea that leveling up made your party better so i just kept running from battles until that point

... xD

[black orb]

>>> The first encounter with Brahms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSj4qI6W6es) in Valkyrie Profile..:luca:

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm not even close to fighting that boss yet, but thanks for scaring the crap out of me in advance.

You're welcome ;)

He really does come across as being easier than you think and then Wham! MegaTen death. At least you can return to the lobby and save before you fight him...

[NeoCracker]

I'm not even close to fighting that boss yet, but thanks for scaring the crap out of me in advance.

You're welcome ;)

He really does come across as being easier than you think and then Wham! MegaTen death. At least you can return to the lobby and save before you fight him...

Did you NOT play that on hard mode in FES? I swear when I fought him then the bastard started off spamming that fucking almighty attack...

Also, that guy in your video? I swear that dude is on Medium too, and he got lucky that death spell missed as much as it did. :p

[Wolf Kanno]

I was looking for a video where it just murdered a party but no one likes to upload failure apparently. :D

Yeah they were lucky, especially considering the Persona his main was using is hardly a "good" Persona in that part of the game. I also would not have brought Yukari and would have opted for Akihiko so I could have another strong fighter and leave healing to the Main. His Yukari spent most of her time trying to save herself more than helping the party, the Main was almost killed a few times cause she prioritized herself more than him.

[Jessweeee♪]

Sleeping Table from Persona 3...

Imagine this, its a game where exploiting elemental weaknesses grant you extra turns and thus strategy is a higher priority than brute force. The Sleeping Table has no elemental weakness, is immune to instant death and its three main offensive spells are Maragidyne (High Level Fire spell that targets all), Megidoloan (most powerful non-elemental all party hitting spell that cannot be reflected or defended), Mahamoan (High level, all hitting holy instand death spell with a great chance of actually landing), and then an evil combo where he inflicts a certain status spell that practically incapacitates your party and then the second spell will instant kill anyone inflicted with said status affliction. Did I forget to mention that if the main character gets killed its an automatic game over?

Throw in he has HP and the highest stats of any boss at this point in the game and you have pure frustration. Your only hope is to somehow land a critical hit with a physical hit just so you can have a round to heal. He was the most notorious boss in P3 and was so reviled by fans that Atlus decided to bring him back in P4 as the second to last boss of the game on the route for the True Ending...

I'm not even close to fighting that boss yet, but thanks for scaring the crap out of me in advance.

You have to tell us how it goes your first try xDDD

[Zeromus_X]

Decus and Vesper (SO2) and Sleeping Table (P3) for me still.

I find it funny how all the "That One Bosses" in P3 were comparatively nerfed in P4.

[NeoCracker]

I was looking for a video where it just murdered a party but no one likes to upload failure apparently. :D

Yeah they were lucky, especially considering the Persona his main was using is hardly a "good" Persona in that part of the game. I also would not have brought Yukari and would have opted for Akihiko so I could have another strong fighter and leave healing to the Main. His Yukari spent most of her time trying to save herself more than helping the party, the Main was almost killed a few times cause she prioritized herself more than him.

I finally beat him by grinding up and making that weird rock with the old guy in it. I forget his name. :p

He has an insane Defense score compared to other Persona, and a high magic stat of an element the table wasn't strong against. :p


Decus and Vesper (SO2) and Sleeping Table (P3) for me still.

I find it funny how all the "That One Bosses" in P3 were comparatively nerfed in P4.

P4 was still hard, but no where near as unforgiving due to the fact you had full control of your party. That's what got you the most in P3 is the AI doing stupid things, regardless of the setting.

I always got pissed off when Mitsuru used that godawful status inflicting spell instead of raining some hell with her Ice magic and high magic stat. :(

[Jessweeee♪]

Ugghh I hated it when I fought an enemy that blocked every element and everyone wasted turns using X Break.