Bosses you didn't want to fight?

[ThatDarnCoyote]

Ok, I'll say it.

Angel, Handsome Jack's daughter.

I didn't want to kill her but save her from her father.

And a bit of that feeling came from Jack's pleading with you to spare her.

Had to stop playing for a little while.

Thank you voice actors for giving life to those characters.

Yeah, as goofy as that game generally was, that whole sequence was surprisingly effective.

I also hated to kill the Big Daddies in BioShock, particularly after watching them interact with the Little Sisters.

 

[Silvanus]

Not bosses, exactly, but I generally don't like to kill the Dredge in GW2.

 

[00slash00]

How about another few from Dark Souls with Quelaag and Priscilla? Sure Quelaag herself isn't exactly a friendly bundle of hugs considering she pretty much kills anyone who enters her lair for their humanity, but then you open that illusion wall and find out what that humanity's for. It's made even worse if you have the ring, dear sister. Gah, I really wish there was some option to avoid that, it's too depressing! In a similar vein Knight Kirk is also someone I wish would have just stuck to farming humanity from rats instead of invading.

As for Priscilla, she just wants you to leave her and her people alone. She's already been exiled to a damn painting after spending her entire existence a hated prisoner because the gods feared her power, and you had to run through the level killing the only people who ever cared for her. At least she's optional and, unless you really want those weapons, it's really hard to say no to her.

Well you make me feel like an asshole. Not only do I kill Quelaag without any remorse, I kill Quelana as well, just so I can get her fire keeper's soul.
I kill Priscilla every time too, and I don't use daggers. I just want to xp from killing her.


My vote definitely goes to The Boss, from MGS3 and pretty much every boss in Nier but especially the wolf. These are both spoiler heavy. The boss had been loyal to the government her whole life, despite them constantly fucking her over. I completely understood why she would switch sides after everything they did to her and I kind of wanted to join her. I certainly didn't want to fight her. After the battle it's even worse, because you discover that she never switched sides and that her mission was to make the world believe she had so she could be killed by you and avoid a war. After everything the government did to her she was always loyal and her reward was to be killed and disgraced throughout the rest of history.

The wolf boss in Nier, in the first playthrough, just seems like a mindless pack of wolf creatures that attack the humans for no reason. When you later learn the other side of the story, you see that the pack leader doesn't want to hurt the humans and wants to live in peace, opposing the other members of the pack who want to attack the humans. Then they come across an area where humans had slaughtered half their pack just because they didn't want their king's wedding disrupted and had decided the needlessly murder the wolves, just to be safe. The pack leader who had been trying to establish peace is enraged and attacks the wedding reception. Then you have to hunt down the wolves and kill them all. Learning the wolves side of the story made their actions seem justified and made me hate the humans and hate myself for helping them. If that wasn't bad enough, after killing the leader you discover that it wasn't a wolf at all but a dog that had been turned in to a shadow creature, and it's desire for peace with humans was fueled by the love it had for it's owner, when it was younger.

 

[nyankaty]

The final boss at the end of Mother 3. Nothing more even needs to be said and those who have played the game know exactly why you don't want to fight that boss.

Also, Vyrthur in Skyrim's Dawnguard expansion pack. It's heartbreaking that you had to kill him.

 

[00slash00]

Solaire from dark souls.

Yes you can save him, yes he is kinda of optional and you can just leave he there.


But on my first playthrough I didn't knew that and when I saw him like that, kinda possessed and attacking me even after our long journey I just felt like I had to do it.

I just stayed there blocking and parryng his attacks for a good five minutes waiting and hoping he would stop...


But to be fair, I kinda wanted to duel him.

I never really understood why he was possessed or whatever but I had no issue with killing him. I never summoned him or anything so it was the first time I'd seen him since the beginning of the game. I was just kinda like, "hm, that's random. Okay, whatever." The only sad part about that for me was the fact that his gear was shit

 

[Blitsie]

I had to put Devola and Popola down in NiER it wasn't until the cutscene after beating them that I realized just what I had done. then.....Emil...oh Emil. T-T

Its been years since I last did anything involved with Nier (other than recommending it whenever I get the chance, of course!) but anyway... (major end spoilers!)

Spoiler

Surprisingly, he actually survives it if you go through the second playthrough (or was it the third?).

But then again you basically doom whatever is left of mankind to extinction in the end, so in theory if he ever meets up with the gang again he'll basically be treated to the sight of all his friends slowly dying, only to inevitably end up completely alone in the desolate world.

...Holy crap Nier was pretty depressing, huh?

Practically every boss in Nier nearly had me in tears while fighting them in the second playthrough, Spec Ops has got nothing on that game when it comes to making a person feel like a monster.

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

Not really a boss, but murdering all those child soldiers in Drakengard made me quit that game for a year or so before I finished it.

That apparition dude in Dark Souls.
He's just chilling in pain in front of his sister's grave and you just had to come along and steal his sister's clothes.
It's even more depressing if you kill him the easy way, where he hangs on for dear life at the lavafall and you just cut his hand til he lets go and falls to his death.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Also: Demon Gate from FFVII just because he was so f***ing hard >_<

Any version of Demon Gate in a Final Fantasy game is going to be difficult. Especially the version in Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. Speaking of...

Titan Hard Mode. This is the final boss you must defeat before you can claim your class' ultimate weapon. You don't want to fight it; you have to fight it. And the many, many, many, MANY, MANY,

Spoiler

[HEADING=1]MANY TIMES YOU WILL DIE TO THIS BOSS[/HEADING]

will make you rage quit life. It's basically a giant version of earthen dodgeball, and when you lose, you feel as if that giant earthen sumo takes a huge, liquid clay dump all over your broken corpse.

 

[C. jejuni]

All of the bosses in Human Revolution. The big one with the grenades and gatling gun was the most annoying, but all of them were out of place. Well, the last one was ok but also a piece of cake.

And then there were Ornstein and Smaugh. Sif was sad once you got to the limping part. Luckily I didn't rescue her before having not entered Oolacile.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Jack of Blades - Not that I really agreed with him or anything because let's face it there really wasn't anything to agree with him on. His main motive was "I'm a bad guy and I do bad things and one of them involves hurting you hahaha"
But I really liked the guy.
He looked really cool and had that smooth reserved sinister voice. I thought that it would have made logical sense in a game all about choosing your allegiance to good or evil that you would be able to team up with the ultimate evil instead of fighting it and was quite annoyed that there was no choice to be the ultimate bastard and align with the devil himself

Saren - It's funny I absolutely hated him after Vermire I put all side missions off and focused on hunting him down but in the end yeeeah I felt bad actually having to finish him because I understood why he did it and it was pretty sad seeing him realize he was no longer the master of his own will as he writhed in pain while Sovereign seized his mind as he was becoming self aware.
He may have been a cold racist bastard and before he was indoctrinated but I guess you could say his heart was usually in the right place.

Wesker - Sentimentality. He was there since RE1 so it was sad to see him go, *rolls eyes* and it was also infuriating watching him be reduced to an idiotic Saturday morning cartoon villain. I know, I know "well it's Resident Evil what were you exp-" yeah I know RE has a story and characters practically written for a 80's Saturday morning cartoon, but with Wesker I always thought there was more to him than a simple "I wanna be king of the tentacle people DERPY DERPY DERP" He was cold, calculative, manipulative. A true puppet master, before RE5 that is so I always figured his motives were a little more grounded in reality and his goal was absolute control and power. I could have seen him running for President or something. How about that twist eh! Leon reluctantly working/protecting Wesker.

 

[NihilSinLulz]

Yep cutting kids brains out and brainwashing them into killing machines is certainly the right thing to do.

Well his ultimate was to end war as a business in its entirety and restore individual freedom. He was trying to make it so there would no longer be a need for child soldiers in the future.

Besides, he's arguably more moral than Raiden given that at least the suffering he's inflicting has a noble end goal. Raiden just kills because he enjoys it, which is revealed before you fight Monsoon when you hear the last thoughts of all of PMCs you're slaughtering.

Even the song lyrics during the final boss battle hints that the battle is much greyer than Raiden may think.

Standing here
I realize
You are just like me
Trying to make history

But who?s to judge
The right from wrong
When our guard is down
I think we?ll both agree

That violence breeds violence
But in the end it has to be this way

I?ve carved my own path
You followed your wrath
But maybe we?re both the same

The world has turned
And so many have burned
But nobody is to blame

Yet staring across this barren wasted land
I feel new life will be born
Beneath the blood stained sand
Beneath the blood stained sand

The Senator at least had the good grace to recognize that others might be right instead of Raiden's "rawr everyone in my way is wrong"-attitude.

 

[Grimh]

-Snip

I understand his motivations.
But he was having children kidnapped to have their brains scooped out so they could literally be turned into killing machines.
Also yeah Raiden's pretty fucked up, no argument there.

 

[JasonKaotic]

Every boss in playthrough B of NIER.
Anyone here who knows what I'm talking about, I invite you to cry on my shoulder if you'll let me cry on yours.
Every time I killed one, I'd think to myself "Okay, the next one had absolutely no excuse to be a dick in the first playthrough, what can the game possibly throw at me n- OH HOLY FUCK NO COME ON PLEASE NO DON'T MAKE ME DO THAT"
Then I'd kill them and it'd do the thing where it shows you what they were actually saying as they died and I'd emotionally destroyed for a while.

I never got 'round to playthrough C or D, though. Maybe someday.

 

[mrhappy1489]

The great wolf sif in Dark Souls. I find it incredibly difficult to fight animals in most game and tend to go to large lengths to avoid killing them at all. I'd also done the Artorias DLC and having saved Sif and seeing his dejected face when picking up the sword broke my heart just a little bit.

 

[deth2munkies]

Chrono Cross made me kill my girlfriend's father to the saddest music in the history of gaming. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd7ggm04GFo]

I did not want to have to do that. And mother fucking HolyDragSwd didn't make it easy...

 

[bliebblob]

Spoiler: Major final fantasy x and x-2 spoilers ahoy!

Slaughtering the aeons one by one at the end of ffx was pretty heart wrenching. And then there is that moment in ffx-2 where bahamut returns out of freaking nowhere and gives you no choice but to kill him. Again. What made that second part so sad to me is that you don't see it coming at all and have no idea why it's happening, or how it's even possible considering how ffx ended. So it's kind of a slap in the face when his appearance is later explained and it barely even makes sense.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

I think there was a boss in a game recently that I didn't want to kill cos I liked him but I can't remember what it was.

 

[NihilSinLulz]

-Snip

I understand his motivations.
But he was having children kidnapped to have their brains scooped out so they could literally be turned into killing machines.
Also yeah Raiden's pretty fucked up, no argument there.

I guess I just didn't see it stacking up in evilness to the terror of perpetual war and mass oppression, especially considering that the game's ending implied that child cyborg soldiers were inevitable anyways. *shrug*

"Needs of the many" sorta thing for me.

 

[StormDragonZ]

Wilfre from Drawn To Life: The Next Chapter. One of the few instances that I can claim that I'd agree with the good intentions of a villain even if did it under evil means.

Other than that, Albus from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.