Final boss battles you feel the series did right?

[Rez09]

I finished FF7 again for the first time in forever, and, without grinding at all or using Knights or limits, I just kinda . . . murdered the final boss in, like, three rounds. Pretty depressing, really. . _. But it made me wonder, has this been a problem through the whole series? Do you often get to the end pumped for an epic battle and bulldoze over it like little more than a normal encounter? What final bosses do you feel the series has done justice over the years?

[Fynn]

Having had that marathon a couple years ago I can safely say that the series has never had really interesting or challenging final bosses

[Rez09]

I know some people have tossed Orphan out to me a couple times as a good final boss; I take it you were quite unimpressed?

[Wolf Kanno]

I'd say the original versions of the Cloud of Darkness and Zeromus fights are the few that really do keep you on your toes the whole fight. The Emperor can be a serious handful if you don't come with at least one Blood Sword as well.

The interesting thing for me is that the more cinematic the fight becomes in presentation, the easier the fights tend to be. Kefka and Sephiroth are some of the most memorable from a presentation stand point but are easily the two most simple curbstomp battles in the series even if you don't come in with any game breakers.

[Lord Golbez]

I don't really mind because the boss was challenging enough to me when I played it initially. Of course, if I come along in the future with better knowledge of the system and the attacks to expect, he's going to be much easier, but on the flipside I would have been annoyed if that kind of optimization was necessary playing the first time. On my first time through I didn't really find Sephiroth any easier than Zeromus on SNES. If I compared him to someone like Ultimecia who I completely demolished even on the first time there's no conparison. I would also say Exdeath is especially tough because he does some kindnof crazy petrify attack that I'm not even sure how to heal. It seems like you at least need to both heal the status and then resurrect requiting two actions to undo.

[theundeadhero]

It was a trend that started with FFVI. The earlier bosses had some cheese mechanics, but in general they were tougher than what were seen after.

[Fynn]

I know some people have tossed Orphan out to me a couple times as a good final boss; I take it you were quite unimpressed?

Oh please. Orphan was the lamest one of them all, aside from maybe Yu Yevon, though I'd argue he doesn't count, as I consider BFA to be the actual final boss.

No, but really, I got him on my first try without looking anything up. In my experience, not a single battle in FFXIII required any actual thought, and the final boss was pretty much an extension of that.

[Lord Golbez]

I can't think of an FF final boss that I had to look something up for and most of them I beat on first try. Never got that far in FF13 though.

[Rez09]

The interesting thing for me is that the more cinematic the fight becomes in presentation, the easier the fights tend to be. Kefka and Sephiroth are some of the most memorable from a presentation stand point but are easily the two most simple curbstomp battles in the series even if you don't come in with any game breakers.

Those were certainly the two that first came to mind; I half wonder if the developers took the marathon nature of the encounters into consideration? I say that, but then immediately remember the 1-2 Kuja Necron fight, and I don't recall Necron being quite so leaf-in-the-wind-y, so maybe not. Hm. Same with Exdeath-Neoexdeath as well. I half wonder if the developers were less interested in giving players a challenge at that point in the game and more interested in allowing them to see the story to completion? It certainly has been a trend in gaming that I've noticed over the years, stepping down the difficulty overall in various ways to increase general accessibility to the audience, and with story being the primary selling point to most RPG fans I speak to, that might make some sense.


I don't really mind because the boss was challenging enough to me when I played it initially. Of course, if I come along in the future with better knowledge of the system and the attacks to expect, he's going to be much easier, but on the flipside I would have been annoyed if that kind of optimization was necessary playing the first time.

See, I wish I could go back to that, because I also remembered him putting up at least some kind of a fight, but I don't know what I did this time around I wouldn't have done back then -- the game's mechanics certainly don't seem like something that would have confused me at the time, and I wasn't doing much this time I thought of as exploit-y, the worst being Odin+Added Effect so I could Curse Ring and, like, Deathblow stacking. I actually kind of wonder if it was the cinematic nature of the fight, like Wolf mentioned, and my childhood mind being awed rather than just mugging the poor guy.

That said, your second point brings up an interesting point I've considered in the past when it comes to boss battles in general: the burden of knowledge and how much it should be relied on. A lot of my favorite boss fights in the series have some kind of gimmick to them you need to play around, like Chadarnook and Wrexsoul in 6 or Diablos in 8, but, at the same time, these fights can be extremely annoying for new players, and while I'd love for a final boss to have some kind of important mechanic you need to understand to properly beat them, I'm also forced to consider how important it may be that they don't. Could you imagine a Ruby Weapon style Ultimecia fight, for instance? I do wonder where a good balance on this front would be achieved -- perhaps a Bahamut like countdown? It's an interesting point to ponder.


I would also say Exdeath is especially tough because he does some kindnof crazy petrify attack that I'm not even sure how to heal. It seems like you at least need to both heal the status and then resurrect requiting two actions to undo.

I just want to say, White Hole is my favorite signature attack in the series; petrifying your dead party member is the ultimate dick move and I love it. Whoever came up with that can join my dream team of developers alongside whoever put a dinosaur outside of Rabanastre and whoever stuffed Shinryu into that treasure box.



Oh please. Orphan was the lamest one of them all, aside from maybe Yu Yevon, though I'd argue he doesn't count, as I consider BFA to be the actual final boss.

Yeah, most people seem to. I tend to view the Yevon fight like the final Sephiroth fight in 7, where it is really more to make a statement and add closure than anything else. Also, quite interestingly, both fit into Wolf's statement about the more cinematic a fight is, the less difficult it is as well. :p


No, but really, I got him on my first try without looking anything up. In my experience, not a single battle in FFXIII required any actual thought, and the final boss was pretty much an extension of that.

Hm, I wonder what the difference between what you and other people were doing was, and whether that falls under the burden of knowledge concept. You said you didn't look anything up, but I wonder if you managed to grasp some element of the system other people simply didn't? I haven't gotten past the introduction to the game so I can't offer more than speculation, but just looking around I do see that at least a few people ended up stalled on the fight.



Either way, this all brings up another question for me: how hard do you think final bosses should be? And what should make them difficult?

[Lord Golbez]

The biggest thing I can think of that I would be prepared for now that I wasn't when I initially fought Sephiroth is the status effects of his attacks. If you're not equipped to defend against confuse and you don't have attacks that do more than 9999 max (save for possibly Meteorain limit break), he puts up a decent fight.

To me I don't care that much about final bosses being super hard. I'll accept a little more difficulty than throughout the game and I'd prefer it not to be total cake, but I don't want it to be frustrating either. If I die a few times, that's generally fine for me, depending on the length of the fight, but I don't need to die to be satisfied. As long as I feel like I can die, I'll probably be happy. A few near misses will be good enough. What constitutes a near miss may change depending on whether it's turn-based or ATB. The key thing is that it feels like a close call. As long as it gets the heart rate up, it's done its job.

[Vermachtnis]

Bhunivelze in Lightning Returns is a pretty good final boss. He's a test on if you learned how to block and stagger.

The final boss of Stormblood Shinryu is fantastic. Especially at launch when everyone was 290 to 310. He was a test of how well you know the mechanics as he threw everything at you.

[Fynn]

The knowledge I implemented was pressing the A button. Occasionally the left trigger. That was literally it. Never felt like I needed to put any thought into XIII’s battle system at any point.

[Wolf Kanno]

Actually Neo-Exdeath was a pretty stellar final boss. Easy if you knew what your were doing, but a total dick if you didn't. The fact he's designed to screw over players who felt they could just use the broken Duel-Wield/Rapidfire/Flare trick for an easy one round victory was gold and something I feel more final bosses should do. Kind of reminds me of the Philemon boss battle in Persona 2:EP where he will counter the most game breaking Fusion Attack with his own version.

I generally prefer a little more challenge with my final bosses, which is why I've been pleasantly surprised by SaGa since it delivers on that promise. Granted, I feel the games could do a better job of preparing you for said challenge. The Egg and the Seven Heroes were awesome boss battles that really tested all my skills and made me appreciate the game mechanics better.

I still feel one of my favorite "oh crap" moments in a game was in Persona 3, when Yukari got confused by the final boss, and then healed them back to full health halfway through the fight.I know most people hate that, but I thought it was brilliant design.

[Rez09]

Actually Neo-Exdeath was a pretty stellar final boss. Easy if you knew what your were doing, but a total dick if you didn't. The fact he's designed to screw over players who felt they could just use the broken Duel-Wield/Rapidfire/Flare trick for an easy one round victory was gold and something I feel more final bosses should do. Kind of reminds me of the Philemon boss battle in Persona 2:EP where he will counter the most game breaking Fusion Attack with his own version.

Oh? What did Exdeath do to counter that? I know he is multipart, so excess damage might be wasted, but I don't remember much else of note he really did, other than being deathly allergic to gill toss. <_______<


I generally prefer a little more challenge with my final bosses, which is why I've been pleasantly surprised by SaGa since it delivers on that promise. Granted, I feel the games could do a better job of preparing you for said challenge. The Egg and the Seven Heroes were awesome boss battles that really tested all my skills and made me appreciate the game mechanics better.

Sadly though, it is really inconsistent through the series, sometimes via intention and sometimes due to bugs/oversight. Saruin in RS1 has the potential to be an absolute monster of a boss and was intended to also be the game's super boss if you gave him the Obsidian Sword, but his poor AI and any form of water immunity render the fight completely negligible. The same is largely true of the final boss in RS3, as it was also designed as both the normal final boss and super boss, depending on player action, but they forgot to work with hp thresholds and most of the 'super' form of the boss fight can just be skipped. . _. That said, some of the Frontier bosses were well done and have solid gimmicks, like one swapping between physical and magical resistance or another gaining strength as you kill off its minions. But, yeah, on the whole I feel SaGa has done final bosses better.


Bhunivelze in Lightning Returns is a pretty good final boss. He's a test on if you learned how to block and stagger.

Oh, I just started that, actually. Like, today. Got me a pretty hot pink outfit ain't nobody with any self respect wearing; good to hear the final boss is going to put up a fight. Also probably bodes poorly for my game plan so far of 'run at things swinging and forget block exists'. :D


The final boss of Stormblood Shinryu is fantastic. Especially at launch when everyone was 290 to 310. He was a test of how well you know the mechanics as he threw everything at you.

I didn't take the MMOs into consideration, but they seem like a good place to look at the balance between difficulty and frustration when it comes to final bosses. I assume this boss is at the end of a raid, so there is a dungeon and several bosses to fight before him without any checkpoints in the event of a partywipe, so I'm curious: how trial and error was he before your group managed to figure him out? And were you ever annoyed getting to that point of understanding and gear level? I know I was playing Tera with a friend and she got super pissed at the end of the game with some of the raid bosses and grinding and we never made it to the final raid bosses.



To me I don't care that much about final bosses being super hard. I'll accept a little more difficulty than throughout the game and I'd prefer it not to be total cake, but I don't want it to be frustrating either. If I die a few times, that's generally fine for me, depending on the length of the fight, but I don't need to die to be satisfied. As long as I feel like I can die, I'll probably be happy. A few near misses will be good enough. What constitutes a near miss may change depending on whether it's turn-based or ATB. The key thing is that it feels like a close call. As long as it gets the heart rate up, it's done its job.

So tension and emotional response over difficulty? I wonder if that's why most of the final bosses in the series have a Big Bang/Heartless Angel/Merciless Judgement/ect. attack, which usually hit you with that, 'oh, crap!' moment in a generally theatrical manner without actually wiping you. Hmmm. You know, thinking about it, that philosophy even dates as far back as the original Cloud of Darkness fight, as even though Flare Wave can, and definitely will, kill you, there's more feeling to the fight than actual difficulty -- as long as your heal charges hold out she isn't likely to kill you, but there is that tension of being pounded wave after wave and watching your post healing hp total whittle down, having to juggle your secondary healer between DPS and medic duty. I definitely think they got that feeling right there, much moreso than with many of the other bosses. Curious, how do you feel about the Chaos, Emperor, and Cloud fights?

That said, developer intention aside, I do have to say those kinds of attacks have left me a bit desensitized, with the archetype being so common. It's too bad they haven't done a bit more with it, like tying in a risk/reward mechanic, like perhaps the boss entering a healing phase or something afterwards until you deal x damage, so you have to balance your own healing against stopping its healing. Or maybe the boss lands an AoE poison attack before using it, so you need to cure that so you don't die after the attack lands. An additional layer of interactivity would certainly be nice. :(

How do you all feel about super bosses relative to final bosses?

[Lord Golbez]

Pretty much. I don't know if I've ever died as a result of a Fallen One type attack, not sure if I've even had a single party member KO on account of one, so they've largely lost their effect on me. However, back in the SNES days they definitely gave that adrenaline rush of gotta use that megalixir right away. I would say those type of attacks work much better in an ATB style gameplay than in a strictly turn-based game. In turn-based they probably have to be paired with some other threat either status effects or debuffs at the same time, limited enough healing resources (either in quantity of curing items or how much you can cure per turn) to cause some concern even when you have a chance to think about your actions, or multiple attacks per turn for the boss. That last one could be too cheap though if they can actually randomly just do an unblockable HP to 1 attack (as HP to 1 attacks usually are) followed by a full party damaging attack with no chance to act in between. It shouldn't be possible for a final boss to do something that will result in a game over regardless of what the player does. Therefore, that last scenario should only be possible in games where a player can prepare for that eventuality with Life 3 type skills that raise you in case of death.

As for optional superbosses, they should be legitimately difficult or else what's the point in having them? That said, I don't generally care that much about optional superbosses and if I find them too frustrating I probably just won't beat them. That's fine with me. Leave them for the players that actually care about that stuff. As long as they're not required for the story, they can be as hard as the designers like.

[Wolf Kanno]

Actually Neo-Exdeath was a pretty stellar final boss. Easy if you knew what your were doing, but a total dick if you didn't. The fact he's designed to screw over players who felt they could just use the broken Duel-Wield/Rapidfire/Flare trick for an easy one round victory was gold and something I feel more final bosses should do. Kind of reminds me of the Philemon boss battle in Persona 2:EP where he will counter the most game breaking Fusion Attack with his own version.

Oh? What did Exdeath do to counter that? I know he is multipart, so excess damage might be wasted, but I don't remember much else of note he really did, other than being deathly allergic to gill toss. <_______<

It wasn't like a counter or anything, it's the fact that even though you could kill parts of him, their targeting never went away, so while the first round would guarantee two parts would be destroyed, the fact those defeated parts were still targeted and Rapidfire is randomized for targeting meant the move became less effective as the fight went on. You could have Neo ExDeath down to his last part, and watch as all eight hits "missed" him because they kept trying to hit the defeated parts instead of what remained, and that I felt was a great trick because it forced you to play differently.



I generally prefer a little more challenge with my final bosses, which is why I've been pleasantly surprised by SaGa since it delivers on that promise. Granted, I feel the games could do a better job of preparing you for said challenge. The Egg and the Seven Heroes were awesome boss battles that really tested all my skills and made me appreciate the game mechanics better.

Sadly though, it is really inconsistent through the series, sometimes via intention and sometimes due to bugs/oversight. Saruin in RS1 has the potential to be an absolute monster of a boss and was intended to also be the game's super boss if you gave him the Obsidian Sword, but his poor AI and any form of water immunity render the fight completely negligible. The same is largely true of the final boss in RS3, as it was also designed as both the normal final boss and super boss, depending on player action, but they forgot to work with hp thresholds and most of the 'super' form of the boss fight can just be skipped. . _. That said, some of the Frontier bosses were well done and have solid gimmicks, like one swapping between physical and magical resistance or another gaining strength as you kill off its minions. But, yeah, on the whole I feel SaGa has done final bosses better.

It sometimes still works out better than more conventional RPGs. My usual gripe is that most of the final boss battles are pretty easy if you utilize support/debuff magic, but since very few bosses in the main game ever require that strategy, it can feel daunting when you tackle a final boss. Even still, in recent memories, I've yet to have a SaGa final boss for me that didn't end with me barely winning with the skin of my teeth.

The Egg alone was just a nightmare since several of it's attacks hit your LP directly, so you really do only have a limited amount of time to taken them down or the battle is utterly lost. The Seven Heroes were just a nightmare because you would sometimes discover too late that while trying to build a proper defense for their early phases, they would pull off a few killer special moves late in the battle you would not be prepared for. Of anything, I appreciate the fact that the SaGa final bosses really feel more like endurance matches similar to Cloud of Darkness in the Famicom version, where the tension is really hoping you don't run out of SP/MP before the final boss goes down.


How do you all feel about super bosses relative to final bosses?

I've never been fond of them to be honest, I think a lot of that stems from how they are built nowadays. In contrast to my last paragraph, I don't like them being built as endurance matches. By which I mean I hate when an optional boss is sporting millions of hp just to drag the fight on. I also hate when the game creates special moves specifically to deal with the optional bosses because I often feel it skews the game's challenge overall. I often find that part of the reason some final bosses are so weak is because I get easy access to skills or abilities that are really designed for the optional challenges. Final Fantasy is especially egregious about this but other series are just as guilty.

The other type of superboss I find annoying is just the ones that have a very specific pattern, so as long as you know the pattern, you can almost guarantee victory. It's exciting the first time going in blind, but once you know the trick, they become easy prey afterwards.

I feel that's why I really love Omega and Shinryu in FFV, because both fights are really more about utilizing the tools available to win, and likewise, the battles are going to be fast one way or the other and never drag on. Omega is about knowing your abilities while Shinryu is about equipping your party well to cover weaknesses. Even though Omega even requires a pretty game breaking special to beat him, as I mentioned above, Neo ExDeath has defenses in place to keep it from breaking him. Other than that, I prefer optional superbosses in games like the Souls series or Bloodborne since they're more skilled based along with equipment, so victory is never always guaranteed unless you just become a zen master of the game.

[Lord Golbez]

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I always found that whether I beat Omega or not pretty much comes down to random conditions more than anything else. One way or the other the battle is over extremely quickly. I can have a different result using the same exact strategy just based on random differences in how the battle starts.

[Wolf Kanno]

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I always found that whether I beat Omega or not pretty much comes down to random conditions more than anything else. One way or the other the battle is over extremely quickly. I can have a different result using the same exact strategy just based on random differences in how the battle starts.

There is a bit of a random factor for beating Omega but there are also numerous strategies with a wide variety of builds that can take him out as well which is what I enjoy about him. Skills like Romeo's Ballad can inflict Stop on him with high accuracy, he's weak to thunder, and using a chemist can also just trounce his stats. He's actually pretty fun boss because there are several strong strategies to beat him and the only move he really has that will likely screw you over is Encircle, but that's why you bring someone with Time Magic. I often find the issue with many of FFs superbosses is that there is usually only one real strategy to win or two at best, often opting for the one that kills them the fastest because SE started turning them into health sponge bosses, so people stick to pragmatic and often boring strategies to win over more creative ones.

The true beauty of fights like Omega and Shinryu in FFV is that by the second or third round, you should have a pretty good grasp of where the battle is going which I appreciate.

[Karifean]

FF IV had a pretty intimidating final boss, tho not sure if that was just cause I started to lose patience with all the goddamn masks and behemoths and started running from random encounters. Still beat him first try, but only by a hair.

Other than that I'd say Necron is the toughest final boss, given the amount of shit he can throw at you you likely don't have any protection against. He somehow manages to generally be a really tense fight while still not overwhelming you completely, and feeling perfectly beatable the whole way through.

Most other final bosses are underwhelming in a way, in particular since the only way you'll have a challenging fight with them is if you don't spend time on side content. That's where superbosses come into play and I do feel the series has some pretty good ones. I made a Top 5 list on this a while ago, but I'd say the series' best are the Judge Magisters in FF XII IZJS/TZA, and Chac in FFX-2, in particular because they pretty much not fall into the traps that Wolf Kanno described; not that they are without issue, but they are so damn satisfying to overcome.

Omega and Shinryu I feel are a bit too far in the other direction; they have a similar problem to me as Ozma in FF IX. The fight is most likely not going to last more than a couple rounds, either you overwhelm them, or they overwhelm you, it's mostly both sides launching at each other attacks that they can't last through if they don't finish it quickly. I don't even think Rapid Fire is the biggest problem in FFV, I'd say it's Dance; it does 4x normal damage IIRC which means you don't need any buffs to hit for max damage, and while you only have a 50% chance to get Sword Dance, it can be targeted and will never miss (and unless you're facing a Zombie boss it's not like the other two dances are really bad either).

For me the perfect superboss is kinda like a dance, where you have to control the rhythm of the battle and be able to counter everything they throw at you, without having it get stale. I think it's fine for it to just be superbosses being that way though; final bosses have the burden of concluding the narrative and a deep dive into perfecting the player's gameplay would be out of place. Superbosses are kinda the game's best opportunity to push the challenge to its limits.

[Lord Golbez]

FF IV had a pretty intimidating final boss, tho not sure if that was just cause I started to lose patience with all the goddamn masks and behemoths and started running from random encounters. Still beat him first try, but only by a hair.



Edge is definitely your friend during that last stretch of the final dungeon before Zeromus. He'll drop like a sack of potatoes during the actual fight though.

[Cell]

I found Griever/Ultimecia a bit of a slog until I figured out I could just refine cards and use Holy War Trials.

Most final bosses in the FF series are pretty forgettable. From easy (Sephiroth) to pointless (Yu Yevon). Neo Exdeath is one of the better ones.