Hardest Superboss

[chaos7]

Just make sure you have knights of the round, mime(3 would be best), final attack phoenix paired with final attack(3 for each character), and the underwater breathing mataria and you will have no problem.

[Skyblade]

Ozma, because his battle, no matter how strong and powerful you are, will always require some luck in order to beat him.

Which means he's not a "hard" boss, he's a cheap boss. There's a difference.

It's the same reason why I don't count Yiazmat as a hard boss. Luck is not difficulty. If there's an attack you can't block or mitigate at all that can kill you instantly, then, yeah, it will kill you.

That doesn't make it hard.

[Ultima Shadow]

Which means he's not a "hard" boss, he's a cheap boss. There's a difference.

It's the same reason why I don't count Yiazmat as a hard boss. Luck is not difficulty. If there's an attack you can't block or mitigate at all that can kill you instantly, then, yeah, it will kill you.

That doesn't make it hard.

^- Yep. A hard battle means that you actually need to try hard and play smart in order to win. This is why, despite the fact that I consider Omega Weapon in FF8 to be one of the easiest super bosses, he's still also one of my absolute favourite battles in the entire FF series. He's the least random super boss, thus it's almost purely strategy and timing that decides the outcome instead of luck.

Just make sure you have knights of the round, mime(3 would be best), final attack phoenix paired with final attack(3 for each character), and the underwater breathing mataria and you will have no problem.

...or, you can choose to not ruin an awesome battle, while also saving yourself the trouble of getting all those materias, by simply equiping a minimal amount of materia in order to prevent Aire Tam Storm from being devestating, plus kill all of the "eyes" except one of the yellow ones.





...also, my vote goes to Penance.

[Raistlin]

Just make sure you have knights of the round, mime(3 would be best), final attack phoenix paired with final attack(3 for each character), and the underwater breathing mataria and you will have no problem.

Hah, yes, if you spend tens of hours doing nothing but leveling up materia late-game, Emmy's a cinch.

[chaos7]

well if you can't beat him the regular way that's you best bet.

[Elpizo]

Ozma, because his battle, no matter how strong and powerful you are, will always require some luck in order to beat him.

Which means he's not a "hard" boss, he's a cheap boss. There's a difference.

It's hardly cheap, it's the way Meteor's damage works in FF IX. It can do high damage or low damage, always, not just when Ozma uses it. It works that way when you use it, too, so. It's not some unique move they gave him in order to make him harder, they simply used existing game mechanics. Deathguise opens with meteor, and you just need a little luck that it won't do a lot of damage. That's how it works, and I don't see that as cheap. If it is, then every single boss in the whole history of gaming is cheap, because part of the battle will always be you getting lucky he doesn't use this or that move at the wrong moment. Luck will always play a factor in RPGs, unless you have bosses with set patterns, which are a laugh.

[Karifean]

If it is, then every single boss in the whole history of gaming is cheap, because part of the battle will always be you getting lucky he doesn't use this or that move at the wrong moment. Luck will always play a factor in RPGs, unless you have bosses with set patterns, which are a laugh.

I don't know about that. Emerald Weapon has a set pattern. Omega Weapon from VIII has a set pattern. Penance X has pretty much a set pattern. Shinra has a set pattern. Finally, Numerus has a set pattern. Of course, all of them deviate a bit but mostly by a 50% chance or something and that's it. I consider all of those hard bosses.

[Ultima Shadow]

If it is, then every single boss in the whole history of gaming is cheap, because part of the battle will always be you getting lucky he doesn't use this or that move at the wrong moment. Luck will always play a factor in RPGs, unless you have bosses with set patterns, which are a laugh.

A small amount of luck being involved doesn't make a boss cheap. Yes, almost all RPG bosses are random to some degree. But whatever the boss throws at you, there should be a way to respond to it/counter it/prepare against it. The existence of an attack combination that's 100% impossible to survive and which a boss might use randomly can make the battle completely up to luck alone, however. If there is no possible way to prepare for or defend against a random non-timed/conditional attack, then I'd say that attack is a bit cheap. And I wouldn't say that it makes a boss hard, since luck is the sole deciding factor.

A boss can be hard if it has an attack that's really hard to survive, like... if Omega Weapon used Terra Break randomly, he would be harder since it would require you to be prepared for a Terra Break at all times. You would either need to have a character using Defend through the whole battle, or keep your party under Protect and at full health during each of Omega's turns. There would be some luck involved, since Omega using Terra Break often would be difficult to handle, while him hardly ever using it wouldn't be too bad. But it would be possible to go into the battle, and come out victorious even if Omega would decide to use Terra Break very frequently. Thus the random Terra Breaks would be a challenge to overcome.

But a random instant-game over is just a reset button. It can mean that the player will require a greater number of attempts to win, but it doesn't offer the player any challenge to be overcome, since there is nothing the player can actually do.

[TreasonWall]

[QUOTE=Ultima Shadow;3261811]

Just make sure you have knights of the round, mime(3 would be best), final attack phoenix paired with final attack(3 for each character), and the underwater breathing mataria and you will have no problem.

...or, you can choose to not ruin an awesome battle, while also saving yourself the trouble of getting all those materias, by simply equiping a minimal amount of materia in order to prevent Aire Tam Storm from being devestating, plus kill all of the "eyes" except one of the yellow ones.

I tried doing that multiple times, but Emerald is just so damn fast and violent that I gave up trying after a while. Admittedly, the victory ended up coming too easy and my Emerald video is boring as hell, but at least I won. On the positive side, I played it fair against Ruby and that worked really well. And I managed to prove the point that really matters: not only does Chocobo breeding seriously suck, but it isn't necessary to achieve anything in the game. Proof is, you can beat Ruby with none of the Materia from the Materia Caves, and then you get a Gold Chocobo anyway, so tough.

As for Ozma, I'm on the side that says it's badly designed. The trick with the ATB is original and does bring something genuine to the fight, but it's really cryptic and you'll never understand it unless someone else just flat-out tells you what the deal is. As for Curse and Meteor, they are plain and simply unfair. Like most players, I ended up winning because it randomly decided not to cast them.

[Skyblade]

If it is, then every single boss in the whole history of gaming is cheap, because part of the battle will always be you getting lucky he doesn't use this or that move at the wrong moment. Luck will always play a factor in RPGs, unless you have bosses with set patterns, which are a laugh.

I don't know about that. Emerald Weapon has a set pattern. Omega Weapon from VIII has a set pattern. Penance X has pretty much a set pattern. Shinra has a set pattern. Finally, Numerus has a set pattern. Of course, all of them deviate a bit but mostly by a 50% chance or something and that's it. I consider all of those hard bosses.

Not to mention Margaret or Elizabeth from Persona, and I'd rate either of them as more difficult than any battle I've faced in any Final Fantasy game.

A small amount of luck being involved doesn't make a boss cheap. Yes, almost all RPG bosses are random to some degree. But whatever the boss throws at you, there should be a way to respond to it/counter it/prepare against it. The existence of an attack combination that's 100% impossible to survive and which a boss might use randomly can make the battle completely up to luck alone, however. If there is no possible way to prepare for or defend against a random non-timed/conditional attack, then I'd say that attack is a bit cheap. And I wouldn't say that it makes a boss hard, since luck is the sole deciding factor.

A boss can be hard if it has an attack that's really hard to survive, like... if Omega Weapon used Terra Break randomly, he would be harder since it would require you to be prepared for a Terra Break at all times. You would either need to have a character using Defend through the whole battle, or keep your party under Protect and at full health during each of Omega's turns. There would be some luck involved, since Omega using Terra Break often would be difficult to handle, while him hardly ever using it wouldn't be too bad. But it would be possible to go into the battle, and come out victorious even if Omega would decide to use Terra Break very frequently. Thus the random Terra Breaks would be a challenge to overcome.

But a random instant-game over is just a reset button. It can mean that the player will require a greater number of attempts to win, but it doesn't offer the player any challenge to be overcome, since there is nothing the player can actually do.

Yep, that's the thing. It's not a "small amount" of luck. It's something that determines the entire fate of the battle, that you literally can do nothing to control or mitigate.

Essentially it gives Ozma the ability to rage-quit the fight any time he wants. It's not "hard", it's cheap. If you take away his ability to say "that's it, this fight is over, I'm out", he's actually a pathetically easy boss.



Perhaps a better example, though, Ultima Shadow, is Ultima Weapon from FFVIII. He's faster than Omega, and has no pattern. There is literally nothing preventing him from tossing out three Light Pillars, each of which does 9999 damage, and wasting your entire party. Except that you have GFs that can block them, and Defend which can negate them. True, you might not be expecting them and have the right person blocking at the right time, but you can mitigate the attack if you plan well, prepare, and know what he's tossing out. That's luck affecting a fight. Not luck deciding a fight, which is what Ozma is (although I do still considering Ultima somewhat cheap, since there's nothing keeping him from throwing them out continuously as far as I know, which forces the battle to a stalemate, since you'd spend all your time Defending with no time to attack or revive, but you can still get the point).

[Gamblet]

Just make sure you have knights of the round, mime(3 would be best), final attack phoenix paired with final attack(3 for each character), and the underwater breathing mataria and you will have no problem.

I'll find another way.

[Elpizo]

A small amount of luck being involved doesn't make a boss cheap. Yes, almost all RPG bosses are random to some degree. But whatever the boss throws at you, there should be a way to respond to it/counter it/prepare against it. The existence of an attack combination that's 100% impossible to survive and which a boss might use randomly can make the battle completely up to luck alone, however.

True, but again, in case of Ozma, Meteor isn't 100% impossible to survive since Meteor's damage is entirely random, no matter what enemy (or Vivi) uses it in the game. In IX, Deathguise opens with Meteor. The first time I faced him, it killed me in one hit. The second time, it barely did any damage at all. It's how the spell works. Now if Ozma had something that could always, 100% instant kill you, then I would agree it's cheap. But as it is, he doesn't, he just attacks fast and hard, and has one, one move that requires you to be lucky. It might kill you, it might not. I don't agree that that makes Ozma as a whole cheap. Especially since there are ways in which you can set yourself to survive even if Meteor decideds to smurf you, like auto-life. Ozma has no real, 100% instant game over move. He does have one move that's like rolling a dice, and you just need luck, and that move isn't even exclusive to him since the player has access to it as well.

[TreasonWall]

Wait, how did I forget? Let's ask someone who's almost vanquished all of them, though he admittedly likes to over-grind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLMcU-6bxsA

[Loony BoB]

If you count MMO's, then XI had a boss that took something like an estimated 36 hours to beat (and was never beaten at that strength) if I recall correctly - although they nerfed that dramatically from what I understand. Of the bosses I've faced in XIV, van Darnus was hardest and I didn't even face the 'hard' version of him. I find MMO bosses more challenging because I never had a strict group of eight so it was always a case of learning how to adapt to a 2-3 new players each time. We got there in the end, though!

Of the single-player bosses I've faced up to, five-starring Vercingetorix was a mission and a half, but beating him in general wasn't too bad. Five-starring Gigantuar without relying on something like the luck of Random Chain would be very tricky, too.

I'm not a massive superboss hunting guy, though. I haven't even beaten some of the superbosses in FFVII despite it being my favourite game.

[Wolf Kanno]

I might say Ozma, but for me, his cheap factor was never Meteor as much as it was his ability to Mini your party which is one of the only status effects you can't defend against and pretty much makes Quina 9and a lot of remedies) a requirement in your party.

Beyond that, I don't feel many of the super bosses are hard, like Skyblade, I feel MegaTen's recent games have all made super bosses that would make the hardiest of super bosses in FF wince at.