Most difficult boss you've faced.

[Colt47]

There are just so many bosses from single player games that gave me trouble near the end of my experience with them that it's sort of a toss up. I'd say the Final boss of FFXII Revenant Wings on 100% completion. The hardmode fight comes literally out of no where, as there is no warning that 100% completion activates the harder fight, and the boss has a level 99 summoned monster walking around one shotting anything that it crosses paths with.

Now MMOs? Hands down the hardest was No Light Yogg Saron. I think a lot of raiders thought they had seen the worst raiding had to offer after making it through Fire Fighter on the Mecha Gnome area. When people hit no light, well... that just got ugly rather fast. Only a handful of guilds actually managed to complete the challenge mode when it was at it's highest difficulty, and even after the raid got nerfed it still gave lots more guilds a run for their money.

 

[FFP2]

I actually didn't think she was that hard to beat. I only died twice against Jubileus. The first time was when you play as the other girl (I don't want to butcher the spelling of her name), on one of the jumps the stupid prompt for the quick time event never came up. My second death was when Jubileus freezes the arena, I got caught on the ice and was stuck frozen until I died.

Apart from that though... I just used the panther form to run away from the black holes and stuff and wailed on her about 30% of the time.

The girl that was in red for most of the game? Her name is Jeanne

On Infinite Climax she's a nightmare... mainly due to the fact that when she changes the environment the hazards (lava, ice etc.) can kill you in like 2 shots.

And no Witch Time really made the fight drawn out...

 

[Pieturli]

That fucking jellyfish thing inside jabu jabu in ocarina of time made me literally chew my face off as a kid

 

[Coffeejack]

The Primagen from Turok 2: Seeds of Evil held the top spot for a while. You could blow a hole in his head and clip his wings, but he's still regenerate and seal his wounds if you gave him a chance. He'd fly circles around you and was just generally a terrifying, hard bastard.

Mad Jack from Donkey Kong 64 replaced him for a time due to his ability to turn invisible and shoot lasers (and again, look very intimidating). He himself was then ousted by the second coming of Dagadon, a terrifying flying boss that you had to race against time to beat before the sinking platform you were standing on became completely submerged in lava. If you placed all your punches right, you could just about beat the clock to knock him out of the air before burning to a crisp.

 

[Zinzinbadio]

A mid level boss in Persona 3 just three stone hands with swords was literally stuck on them for months till I eventually fused a persona completely immune to their attack types and equipped myself with the one weapon that hurt them took a half-hour to beat them. Don't think the final boss was as tough as those things.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Seath is hard because he can curse you, and without the right armour set, he can do this very easily. He can raise crystals from the floor that fill up your curse meter when they touch you, and sometimes he literally fills the room with them leaving you no escape. If this (small) curse meter fills up, you instantly die and respawn with half your HP, making it nightmarish to lift the curse if you don't have the items you need to do so.

...which is why I put my trust in Paladin. Paladin armour will never let you down.

(No, really, the individual pieces at +5 have more curse resistance than most whole sets, it's like Gold Hemmed Black and poison resistance).

OT: Ornstein and Smough. Excess of 20 attempts the first time, and to this day have not completed them the first encounter on any of my 10+ characters. Four Kings, also difficult and unnaturally moreso on NG+, and Artorias was damn difficult as well, I had to go Red Tearstone Ring and Greater Lightning to take him down - and it's only been with one character.

Alma in Ninja Gaiden Sigma (I think it was...). Almost made me stop playing the game entirely after two straight days of attempts. Month later I had another go, took 4 hours but I was finally able to kill her and access the rest of the game.

The Flagship of FTL. Many posters here are already well acquainted, but it has laid waste to many a fine vessel, including my first really successful boarder-focussed ship thanks to its stupidly large med-bay and self-contained areas. An anecdote though: One time, I encountered the hardest RNG enemy I've ever faced just before I was ready to take on the flagship - a Rock vessel with three breaching mine weapons and more bombs than I had pixels, and it ruined me conclusively, the bastard.

Armored Core for Answer's mission Occupation of Arteria Carpals. 5 enemy ACs. Pretty hard at any rate, very hard without Kojima cannons, and impossible if you take them all at once. Worst of all, they're of course not all weak to the same thing, so you've got at most one or two weapons effective against each individual. Honestly, if you can't get three kills out of your Arsenikons, you're in for a rough time.

 

[Leemaster777]

As has already been said, I'll throw another vote for Kingdom Hearts Sephiroth on the pile.

Also, Nu-13 Unlimited from the hardest mode of Arcade mode on Blazblue. Using Tager. Had to retry that fight SO many times to finally beat it.

Also, the very first Big Daddy encounter in Bioshock, on Survivor difficulty. Seriously, this guy is CRAZY strong on survivor mode. I did eventually figure out a fool-proof method of beating him... using only 12 pistol rounds.

 

[Xannidel]

I will say the second Barthandelus in Final Fantasy XIII, took me over 10 times to beat him and it was only because of his stupid Doom counter, every time I got him down to 50% he would cast that ability. Really was annoying, Hope's Eidolon fight was also a royal pain because I did not really focus a lot of CP time with him.

The first time I fought a T-Rexaur in Final Fantasy 8 at the beginning of the game, I learned my lesson really quickly.

MMO-wise I would say the first time I went into MC in Vanilla WoW. That took a while to beat.

 

[UrinalDook]

Well, given that my inability to beat him - and subsequent intense frustration - led me to give up playing the game, I would have to say the first fight with the titular 'Assassin of Kings' in The Witcher 2. Maybe that game does end up having an incredible story, I won't be seeing it because the combat is... just awful.

I tend not to really play games that feature bosses, as such. Not these days at least. I can chuck a couple of Star Wars examples out though. The first being Jerec at the end of Jedi Knight. Probably wouldn't give me too much grief as an adult, but as 10 year old back when it came out... Jesus Christ! I think the problem I had was an inability to figure out what to do when he did his invincible meditation/healing thing. That and a lack of co-ordination that frequently ended with falling out the central tower, or force jumping to hard (at the time, the fact you could injure yourself by running into a wall with force speed, or smacking your head into the ceiling was a massive source of rage, these days I miss mechanics like that).

My other example would be the level two boss, Kazdan Paratus, in The Force Unleased on Sith Master or whatever the hardest difficulty was called. Holy crap, that would have resulted in a lot of broken controllers if I hadn't emerged from my teen years. Just the worst kind of 'Computer is a cheating asshole' boss fight. You were limited to a tiny portion of an arena he could, and frequently would, just jump right out of. He hit like a truck, blocked whatever you threw at him (which given you had sod all in the way of powers this early in the game, generally wasn't much) and was way, way too fast. Plus he had the old standby of calling in some big mook to beat you up while he was out of the arena and untouchable. One mistake, one single mistake, and those mooks would squish you. I just can't stand gameplay like that.

Eventually, I figured out you could replay the first two levels on the same save and get more XP, so you could max out all the abilities unlocked at that level. Again, not much but it did include this ridiculous combo that not even bosses could block, once you got them in a stunlock loop of sorts. You basically hit them four times, threw them into the air then crashed them back down, leaving you free to hit them while they were on the floor. Hold the block button till they open themselves up, and repeat. Used the technique on every boss for the rest of the game. And that, ladies and gents, is why I hate boss battles. It's always, always simply a matter of finding the one technique that works, amid hours of agony and failed attempts, and spamming it till victory. Booorr-rrriing!

 

[AgentLampshade]

Vergil(3) in Dante Must Die mode from Devil May Cry 3 regular edition. Defeating him without Devil Trigger is probably my proudest achievement. My blisters have blisters.

 

[Judgment90]

For me, it's the Dragovian Trials from DQ8.

I am currently on the 5th dragon and can't survive against its attacks. And it takes way too long to level up.

 

[Tallim]

Fucking Manus from Dark Souls and his bloody abyss magic. Even with the pendant it's a pain in the ass to time correctly, near impossible to dodge and one shots my character. FUUUUUUUUCK.

Captcha:

Which does a vegetarian eat? One of the options was soylent green...

I haven't really fought Manus yet, but I've heard that Artorias is harder. I can't say if it's true, but I can say that I believe it, since I came into this thread with him in mind. I certainly hope it's true, because if Manus is harder than Artorias I'll probably have a nervous breakdown trying to beat this fucking DLC.

Personally I'd say Manus was harder by quite a long way but might well depend on the type of character you run.

 

[Durzo_Blint]

Emerald and Ruby Weapons in FFVII... Never did beat them

 

[Anachronism]

Ermmmm...As for video games...I dunno... Sarevok from Baldur's Gate was pain in the bum.

I always found the best way to beat him was to be really cheap and make sure you only fought one member of his party at a time. It's pretty easy to draw out Tazok and Semaj without triggering Sarevok's pre-fight dialogue, and they're pretty easy to kill by themselves. The tricky bit is getting Sarevok to fight you without triggering Angelo, because his exploding arrows can wipe your party in seconds if you don't watch out. If you're just fighting Sarevok he's actually pretty easy if you dispel his Haste; he has buckets of HP but isn't particularly challenging.

My most difficult boss, though, was Draconis from Throne of Bhaal. Ironically enough, he was difficult because of how cheap he was. First he's a high-level mage, and once you defeat him he transforms into a dragon. By that point most of your short-term buffs will have worn off and the dragon form can quite easily kill your summoned creatures. On top of that, he has huge magic resistance, uses wing buffet to knock your party to the other side of the map, can heal himself from being near death to full health, and can still cast spells during Time Stop. He's kind of a bastard.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

Haven't seen her mentioned yet, so I'll go with Alma from Ninja Gaiden. I remember just getting to her was a pain, and she was easily the hardest boss in the game. I hated that one move where she did some magic attack to pick you up into the air, stab you with her fingernails, and drop kick you back down to the ground.

 

[Silvanus]

Well, I'm not going to plump for the Dark Aeons myself, because they're beyond ridiculous-- they're into the realm of making the battles an issue of maths, where only ludicrously specific methods of fighting will earn you anything but instant death.

When only one move is available that won't earn your entire team a K.O., that's not a difficult fight, it's not a fight at all. It's just a pre-determined sequence of moves. It's a chess game with which all but one move disallowed.




... that said, Final Fantasy X would still take the prize, with Yunalesca. That was very (and legitimately) challenging.

Her, or Simin, Priestess of Dwayna from Guild Wars 2.

A battle between those two would be something I'd pay to see.

 

[FFP2]

Ah, I just assumed you fought her on normal mode.

I couldn't resist not getting 1K for it... so worth it.

OT: The most recent one apart from Bayo for me was Yukiko's Shadow from Persona 4. I didn't grind at all and when I saw the boss door I thought: "Why not try it and see what abilities she has?"

Took me an entire hour to beat her. Somehow I had a shit load of those items that revive you when you get knocked out so I didn't even need to focus on that knight thing.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Fucking Manus from Dark Souls and his bloody abyss magic. Even with the pendant it's a pain in the ass to time correctly, near impossible to dodge and one shots my character. FUUUUUUUUCK.

Captcha:

Which does a vegetarian eat? One of the options was soylent green...

I haven't really fought Manus yet, but I've heard that Artorias is harder. I can't say if it's true, but I can say that I believe it, since I came into this thread with him in mind. I certainly hope it's true, because if Manus is harder than Artorias I'll probably have a nervous breakdown trying to beat this fucking DLC.

From my personal experience, Manus is sightly easier than Artorias. This is mostly due to the fact that the secret white phantom was there. Still, I managed to beat Manus first try, while Artorias took a while. I'd say from the DLC, Kalameet is the hardest, although that's more due to the fact that Kalameet has a tail-weapon that's damn near impossible to get, and he doesn't function like regular dragons (fire resistance does nothing, magic resistance though is good)

The most difficult bosses for me have been:
-The Four Kings from Dark Souls. You really can't fuck around on this fight, take a little too long and you're absolutely fucked. It's an odd contrast to other bosses where it's possible to lay low and heal back up, but that's not really an option here.
-I remember having a difficult time with many of the final bosses in the Ratchet and Clank games when I was a kid. Not entirely sure why, but it would just get to that point where I guess I stopped paying attention and that would lead to my downfall.
-The SotC style bosses in Catlevania: Lords of Shadow. They weren't hard, just really time-consuming. The second one was the worst, as poor visuals meant you could easily get confused as to where you're going, and the boss will just throw you off. The last one wasn't hard, but took forever. I think when it was all said and done, I beat that boss in 30-40 minutes.