Game Killing Bosses

[cojo965]

No I don't mean boss fights that make the game crash, I mean boss fights that kill any enthusiasm you might have had to keep playing. For example, I gave up on Borderlands 2 because of this fucking *****:

Spoiler

Angel. JESUS. This encounter still sticks out in my mind as the most tedious boss fight I have ever had the displeasure of taking part in. This is because you don't actually fight her you just do a really fucking boring horde fight and it's in no fucking hurry to resolve itself. It also sticks out because I was with some other players during the fight and we ran out of potential conversation it took so long! Oh it was fine for a while, running around, shooting robots, and reviving each other but as the fight dragged on and the conversation dried up, I realized I was on autopilot. Just doing with zero understanding while watching the other players get as tired of this bollocks as I was. Oh we managed to get through it but I never picked up a Borderlands game again. So well done Angel, you killed Borderlands for me.

So that's mine, what about you guys?

 

[Kingjackl]

Weirdly enough, the tutorial boss fight of Warrior Within ended it for me (Ms Iron Thong). Mind you, what happened was I died once and realised I had no desire to continue, so I think she was more the straw that broke the camel's back.

 

[stroopwafel]

Firelurker in Demon's Souls, I should probably replay the game to see how he is after I have more experience, the guy is just ferociously fast and hits hard.

That is one my favorite boss fights but yeah he can be pretty tough. As a melee character having the purple flame shield and water veil equipped definitely helps. Though, flamelurker becomes fairly easy if you defeat false idol first and just zap him from a distance with soul ray.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Weirdly enough, the tutorial boss fight of Warrior Within ended it for me (Ms Iron Thong). Mind you, what happened was I died once and realised I had no desire to continue, so I think she was more the straw that broke the camel's back.

She gets worse the second time you encounter her. You confront her on this plateau with pillars along the edge, and she has this shitty move where she kicks you square across the goddamn screen and over the side, resulting in an instant game over. And this can happen at any point; you could have her health down to a sliver and she could get a kick in. The only strategy is never getting too close to her, or hope when she lands a kick that you conveniently get caught by one of the pillars.

 

[Cette]

The end boss from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance.

Jet Stream Sam took maybe 3 tries and I hear he's supposed to be harder. 18 plus tries on the end boss and I decided I didn't need to see the end THAT bad.

 

[Kyrian007]

No I don't mean boss fights that make the game crash, I mean boss fights that kill any enthusiasm you might have had to keep playing. For example, I gave up on Borderlands 2 because of this fucking *****:

Spoiler

Angel. JESUS. This encounter still sticks out in my mind as the most tedious boss fight I have ever had the displeasure of taking part in. This is because you don't actually fight her you just do a really fucking boring horde fight and it's in no fucking hurry to resolve itself. It also sticks out because I was with some other players during the fight and we ran out of potential conversation it took so long! Oh it was fine for a while, running around, shooting robots, and reviving each other but as the fight dragged on and the conversation dried up, I realized I was on autopilot. Just doing with zero understanding while watching the other players get as tired of this bollocks as I was. Oh we managed to get through it but I never picked up a Borderlands game again. So well done Angel, you killed Borderlands for me.

So that's mine, what about you guys?

Borderlands 2 was awful for "boss" fights. Either they were so long they got boring (Angel and right before it the Bunker) or they were all build up and no challenge/payoff (Wilhelm and The Warrior.) The first game was bad enough, but it had some interesting bosses. And better gameplay. And better presentation. And it didn't try too hard with a so/so story, it just paid lip service to story to get back to the shooting.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Weirdly, I can't think of one.

A boss has never made me quit because part of the appeal of a game is overcoming boss fights, even if it take 20 tries.

I might have forgotten though. If I had to guess I'd say a TRPG has probably stumped me. I think I might have gotten stuck on Final Fantasy Tactics in the GBA, I want to say a Judge?

 

[Aeshi]

While it didn't take, the Monsoon boss fight from Metal Gear:Revengeance did make me contemplate quitting for a bit.

EDIT: And the Blade Wolf boss fight from the Jetstream DLC for Revengance actually did convince me to give up on that particular DLC.

 

[Hawki]

-Diablo II: Diablo. I really don't like how D2 handles bosses, and Diablo himself is the perfect example as to why. So, here we are, at the end of the game, and yadda yadda yadda. So, how do I take out the big bad? Rush in, do some damage, warp back to the Pandemonium Fortress, rinse and repeat until I grind him down through attrition. D1 handles its bosses better because if you warp out, their health resets. D3 handles them better because they're actual instances that use a specific set of mechanics. The D2 bosses are basically giant HP sponges that all require the same tactic - grind them down through attrition.

-Doom 3: Much as I love this game, the cyberdemon at the end is anti-climactic. Also perhaps the easiest boss in the game. Atmosphere is great though, but it's a sudden difficulty drop that...well, yeah.

-Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones: The Demon King is a pushover. Even if I don't spam Myrhh, he's still a pushover. I mean, it doesn't kill the game or anything, and narratively it's well done, but in terms of challenge...yeah. Not so much.

-Metroid Prime: Hunters: Gorea. Why? Because like most bosses in the game, it's tedious, monotonous, and due to the control scheme, physically painful (hand cramps). Oh, and he's the hardest boss in the game that requires pinpoint accuracy on a system that can't handle it and gah!

 

[Saltyk]

Joker from Arkham Asylum.

This completely went against everything that is the character. It just didn't get him. The boss fights in Asylum were pretty bad in general, but this one fight is one that just hurt the game. When I say that Arkham Asylum is a great game, boss fights and this one in particular are exempt from my praise.

 

[hermes]

Zone of the Enders 2

Spoiler: This bastard

The fight was long and a lot harder than any other fight in the game. It has homing missiles that do a ton of damage, insane combos, and almost every attack pushes me away, so the fight becomes a slow slog of me slowly coming closer to him while avoiding every single attack and maybe getting a couple hits in before he goes away and starting again.

It was also relatively close to the end, so restarting was not really an option. After a couple hours fighting it, I just put the game down and never looked back.

 

[Athennesi]

Majority of boss fights in Dragon's Dogma...ridiculous amount of mindless clicking in a typical target-that-glowing spot japanese action game design.
Plenty of bosses in Dark Souls were not difficult, but cheap( Kapri demon, in particular)...but at least they went down fairly quickly.

 

[cojo965]

Firelurker in Demon's Souls, I should probably replay the game to see how he is after I have more experience, the guy is just ferociously fast and hits hard.

That is one my favorite boss fights but yeah he can be pretty tough. As a melee character having the purple flame shield and water veil equipped definitely helps. Though, flamelurker becomes fairly easy if you defeat false idol first and just zap him from a distance with soul ray.

Agreed on favorite bosses. Leechmonger would be my counterpart based on the whole experience of the encounter.

For Flamelurker the very first time I ever fought him I was one hit away from killing him in all out melee. Then my strategy fell apart and I never got that same rhythm back, even after four more runs. Soul Rays did help, but so did the environment where he gets stuck behind a rock barrier on the left facing his altar.



On topic, half the bosses in Lords of Shadow 2 had me wondering why I ever started the game. Glad I finished it in the end, but the final boss was beyond annoying.

 

[cojo965]

Majority of boss fights in Dragon's Dogma...ridiculous amount of mindless clicking in a typical target-that-glowing spot japanese action game design.
Plenty of bosses in Dark Souls were not difficult, but cheap( Kapri demon, in particular)...but at least they went down fairly quickly.

The beauty of Souls is that in the off chance a boss is cheap, there's usually a way to be cheap right back. For ol' Capri, I ran up the stairs in the back and stood on the back ledge lobbing firebombs and arrows until he had a sliver of health left, then jumped down and gave him his coupe de grace with a sword.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Bosses rarely do that for me. Generally, it's how much stupid stuff I have to do to get back to the boss that kills the game for me.

Weirdly enough, the tutorial boss fight of Warrior Within ended it for me (Ms Iron Thong). Mind you, what happened was I died once and realised I had no desire to continue, so I think she was more the straw that broke the camel's back.

Warrior Within had one of the worst openings I've ever seen in a game. It demands that you make a massive, instant tonal shift from The Sands of Time to its new, darker, edgier aesthetic. It then decides to spend the first 5-10 minutes of the game on combat, rather than the platforming that people actually play Prince of Persia primarily for. It's almost as-if it was specifically designed to keep as many people away from the game as possible. And it's a shame because it had some of the best platforming and combat in the series. It just did an awful job introducing it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Namir in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. During my first playthrough, I opted to get the software upgrade at the Limb clinic which sabotaged me and left me Aug-less for the fight with Namir, and to add insult to injury, I was severely under equipped weapon-wise; basically, I was fighting him with a toothpick, a stick of chewing gum and sheer will. After about 25 tries, thumbs raw and spirit broken, I gave up; never had a game ever ?beaten? me so late in the game. I did eventually give it the old college try a few days later, and managed to beat him after another dozen tries or so. Needless to say, during my SECOND achievement clean up playthrough, I fucked off that upgrade and fucked UP Namir to my great satisfaction.

 

[sageoftruth]

Theseus from God of War 2, on Titan Mode.

His flaws were a bit more tolerable on lower difficulties, but ramping up his health and dropping my own killed it for me. The first half of the fight is fine, with a nice man-to-man brawl, but once he hops out of reach and starts summoning minotaurs, it becomes a chore, forcing you to kill minotaur after minotaur.
I feel that a fun boss fight has some semblance of a payoff, where you capitalize on a boss's vulnerability and get to deal some impressive chunks of damage from time to time, but in this case, fighting minotaurs earned me nothing but the privilege of getting to plink one or two arrows made of cool air at him, and thanks to there being no boss life bar I couldn't even tell how much progress I was making.
On top of that, on Titan mode, he was able to one-shot me with an annoying stalagmite attack, and I did not look forward to starting this chore over from the beginning.

 

[Saelune]

Another for Revengeance, but for me Sundowner.