Most Frustrating BOSS Enemies In Games!

[Casual Shinji]

The fucking CAPRA DEMON from Dark Souls. One of the only "cheap" fights in the game. Are you skilled? Well trained? Have good armor? Too bad, the Capra Demon will stomp your ass. It was the hardest boss on the game for me, and it relied on pure luck to defeat him. The whole thing was completely asinine, and shouldn't have made it into the final game. If I die, let it be because I suck. Everything else was perfect.

If you just go in with a regular knight build with proper shield defense, he really isn't that hard. Still a quite a chore, but nothing too frustrating. Go in without a shield and yeah, you're gonna get stomped.

Bed of Chaos was the real cheap bastard. It doesn't matter what kind of build you have, he will knock your ass into a pitt regardless. And than while he's flailing his giant tree arms around, you have to navigate through the midst of that and jump down onto a narrow path, at which point he carpetbombs the whole friggin area with fire. Even FromSoft realized how shit this battle was seeing as it has not one, but two checkpoints.

 

[Suomimaster]

Elana The Squalid Queen from Dark Souls 2 DLC. Her attacks are extremely punishing, and worst of all is how she can summon a boss from earlier to fight you while she bombards you with her spells. I haven't beaten her yet.

You have yet to face the TRUE meaning of THE MOST FRUSTRATING BOSS in Dark Souls 2: Sinh, The Sleeping Dragon (and he is right after Elana).

Sinh is up in the air ALL THE TIME, and keeps spamming ranged attacks THAT CAUSE TOXIC BUILD UP. Although fireball attacks are somewhat easy to dodge by just running to left or right. But what are not easy to dodge are Sinh's flyby-attacks and toxic fire sweeps (the fireballs and firesweep also leave behind toxic clouds).

When Sinh finally lands, he is most likely on the other side of the cave (which is really large)and you have just spent most of your stamina dodging Sinh's flyby attack, meaning you won't have time for more than few hits. Oh! And all of Sinh's melee attacks go through shields and they have a rather nasty habit of lasting longer than than they should.

 

[Elfgore]

Tiamat was a real ***** in Darksiders. This game works on a progressing life bar and at this point in the game, yours is pathetic. She deals massive damage, is fast, and the only way to stop her is by throwing an explosive barrel at her while she is flying.

Kuzan was annoying as hell as well in Pirate Warriors. He would just spam his freeze attack and then drop a massive ice chunk on you, dealt massive damage to Luffy and your X button.

 

[baddude1337]

I don't remember their specific names, but a lot of bosses in Dark Souls 2 are pretty frustrating solo. And I don't mean Dark Souls challeng-ey, just plain cheap. One I remember for sure are the skeleton lord bosses, who attack with loads of weaker enemies at the same time. Souls was not really designed for large mob combat and it feels very cheap.

It seems most bosses in the game are basically really hard solo, but trivial in co-op.

 

[sageoftruth]

Elana The Squalid Queen from Dark Souls 2 DLC. Her attacks are extremely punishing, and worst of all is how she can summon a boss from earlier to fight you while she bombards you with her spells. I haven't beaten her yet.

You have yet to face the TRUE meaning of THE MOST FRUSTRATING BOSS in Dark Souls 2: Sinh, The Sleeping Dragon (and he is right after Elana).

Sinh is up in the air ALL THE TIME, and keeps spamming ranged attacks THAT CAUSE TOXIC BUILD UP. Although fireball attacks are somewhat easy to dodge by just running to left or right. But what are not easy to dodge are Sinh's flyby-attacks and toxic fire sweeps (the fireballs and firesweep also leave behind toxic clouds).

When Sinh finally lands, he is most likely on the other side of the cave (which is really large)and you have just spent most of your stamina dodging Sinh's flyby attack, meaning you won't have time for more than few hits. Oh! And all of Sinh's melee attacks go through shields and they have a rather nasty habit of lasting longer than than they should.

I'm starting to think I might not be hardcore enough for the Dark Souls 2 DLC.

 

[sageoftruth]

I don't remember their specific names, but a lot of bosses in Dark Souls 2 are pretty frustrating solo. And I don't mean Dark Souls challeng-ey, just plain cheap. One I remember for sure are the skeleton lord bosses, who attack with loads of weaker enemies at the same time. Souls was not really designed for large mob combat and it feels very cheap.

It seems most bosses in the game are basically really hard solo, but trivial in co-op.

Just a tip: Be sure not to kill a skeleton lord until you've wiped out all of the minions currently alive. They are only summoned when a skeleton lord dies. Kill too many skeleton lords at once and you'll have an entire skeleton army chasing after you. In their individual small groups, they're pretty manageable, especially since they're finite.

 

[sageoftruth]

The Capra Demon in Dark Souls. It's, like, the third (optionally the fourth, I think) boss that you can think if you're doing things in the intended order (Asylum>Shrine>Burg>Parish>Burg>Depths ect) and.. yep, for a level 19 Thief with rosy cheeks who feels really proud of himself for killing like a billion god damn dogs and tight-wearing zombie ninnies, that fight was like an ice cream sundae, but instead of delicious dairy products it's a glass full of shit and sadness, and the game is all like, "oh, you want to get to this slightly more pleasant shit and sadness and then work up to actual ice cream? too fucking bad, oh look all of your Stamina just got drained and now his dogs are murdering you".

Worst boss in the game, when you take into consideration when you fight him. Most of the game's bosses work more like Zelda bosses, or puzzle game bosses. The RPG elements just make numbers higher and simply lower, or shave a few seconds off the fight. But with the Capra Demon, it's all motherfucking numbers, and while the fight is supposed to make you embrace the game's mechanics, it didn't do that for me.

HATE. HATE. HATE HATE. HATE. HATE HATE HATE.

Numbers? I figured it was more about dividing and conquering. Still, the Capra Demon did suck a lot thanks to the fact that he took forever to reach and the outcome of the fight was often decided in the first five seconds, based on whether or not you managed to avoid getting stunlocked by the dogs and killed by his first attack. My advice would be to move around a lot. The dogs move quicker than the demon and you want them far away from him when you pick them off. Use the stairs at the other end to get some space.

 

[sageoftruth]

The fucking CAPRA DEMON from Dark Souls. One of the only "cheap" fights in the game. Are you skilled? Well trained? Have good armor? Too bad, the Capra Demon will stomp your ass. It was the hardest boss on the game for me, and it relied on pure luck to defeat him. The whole thing was completely asinine, and shouldn't have made it into the final game. If I die, let it be because I suck. Everything else was perfect.

The Bed of Chaos was perfect?!

You are a straaaaange maaaaaaan. >3>

OT:
Fighting Game Bosses... in particular mother f***ing Shao Khan from MK9, where they decided "HEY, lets have a boss do cancels that NO PLAYER should able to do, have damage NO PLAYER should be able to have, and have his AI occasionally spam an unblockable projectile that will stop a game about PUNCHING PEOPLE an impossibility!"

Did people already say Matador? Yeah, f**k Matador, that lovable prick.

And since this is now a Dark Souls thread: Dark Souls 2's Twin Avaas from the Ivory DLC. You want a new original boss? NO PROBLEM, here's the new boss you fought half an hour ago, recycled, and now there's TWO!... oh you lost?!
Thats ok, JUST TRAVERSE THE ENTIRE FRIGID OUTSKIRTS, the worst area in the souls series, AGAIN!

Crap! The last thing I need to hear about is another super-punishing boss from the Dark Souls 2 DLC. The main game wasn't a problem for me, but I think the DLC is where I've reached my limits.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

The final boss in Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. I generally hate any bosses where 90% of the fight is just them spawning minions, and this fight was no different. Just a really annoying and tough as hell fight.

I can't remember his name, but the General in act 3 of Path of Exile. Christ this guy was awful. All his attacks were basically fire related, and if you didn't have around 70% fire resistance he could basically kill you instantly. So instead you spent most of the fight running around in circles and trying to get a hit in. Except wait...that doesn't work in PoE because he has a regenerating shield. Thank God for parties.

Not so much a frustrating boss, but a really annoying one, but when you had to fight two of those giant flame armadillos in Ninja Gaiden 2. If they managed to corner you, there were so many effects going on it was impossible to tell what the hell was happening. They were actually really easy to beat, but you had to exploit a cheap weakness over and over again (just keep using the crane dive move) to do it.

 

[Aeonknight]

Elana The Squalid Queen from Dark Souls 2 DLC. Her attacks are extremely punishing, and worst of all is how she can summon a boss from earlier to fight you while she bombards you with her spells. I haven't beaten her yet.

You have yet to face the TRUE meaning of THE MOST FRUSTRATING BOSS in Dark Souls 2: Sinh, The Sleeping Dragon (and he is right after Elana).

Sinh is up in the air ALL THE TIME, and keeps spamming ranged attacks THAT CAUSE TOXIC BUILD UP. Although fireball attacks are somewhat easy to dodge by just running to left or right. But what are not easy to dodge are Sinh's flyby-attacks and toxic fire sweeps (the fireballs and firesweep also leave behind toxic clouds).

When Sinh finally lands, he is most likely on the other side of the cave (which is really large)and you have just spent most of your stamina dodging Sinh's flyby attack, meaning you won't have time for more than few hits. Oh! And all of Sinh's melee attacks go through shields and they have a rather nasty habit of lasting longer than than they should.

I am inclined to disagree. Sinh was not that bad, a little more annoying to kill than Kalameet but overall very predictable.

 

[RejjeN]

I don't remember their specific names, but a lot of bosses in Dark Souls 2 are pretty frustrating solo. And I don't mean Dark Souls challeng-ey, just plain cheap. One I remember for sure are the skeleton lord bosses, who attack with loads of weaker enemies at the same time. Souls was not really designed for large mob combat and it feels very cheap.

It seems most bosses in the game are basically really hard solo, but trivial in co-op.

Just a tip: Be sure not to kill a skeleton lord until you've wiped out all of the minions currently alive. They are only summoned when a skeleton lord dies. Kill too many skeleton lords at once and you'll have an entire skeleton army chasing after you. In their individual small groups, they're pretty manageable, especially since they're finite.

Pretty much this. Only time I've ever died to Skeleton Lords was when I brought a summon for funsies and he went straight for all the lords, at which point all the minions mobbed me... (Getting a surprise wheel skeleton in the back can do that). Ever since I've just dealt with them solo... Much easier that way (and more fun).

 

[Shocksplicer]

...I like fighting Capra Demon...

OT: ALL the bosses in MGR Revengeance. The non-boss gameplay does a TERRIBLE job of teaching you the mechanics you need to survive the bosses.

 

[Tyrant_Valvatorez]

The Mysterious figure from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Pretty much a game design 101 on how not to make a boss fight... never mind optional super boss.

The MF one shots all three characters without second chance or once more, regardless of level so leveling up only increases the damage you do to him. Im specifically mentioning the original PSP version of the fight but the only difference on the HD 2.5 version is there is no longer framerate drops and collision magnet no longer instant kills, you can also easily air dash out of it and lastly the camera is more easily controlled making keeping track of the MF in his last phase easier.

Alarm bells should ring right away when developer interviews state the dev team could not beat the boss and even worse Nomura jokingly mentions something to the effect of "I tried the fight and could not win... add another health bar *laugh*" The biggest frustration factor to the boss is his sheer offense leaves minimal openings, collision magnet in the original version bypassed both second chance and once more meaning instant death... the move was also bugged as you could randomly fall out of it or he would drop you and immediately do it again.

Next offense is the fact that he has two specific counter mechanics, the first being if an attack is a critical hit he will block and restore health and the second which the trigger for is unclear but he can reverse time and completely negate an attack... and thats not even mentioning the framerate dropping clones that you better hope you can kill as they appear.

Last offense is the biggest one, what exactly is the expected strategy for a boss even the dev team failed to beat? by out cheaping the boss by spamming fire/thunder surges which are elemental dash attacks with a lot of invincibility frames. The only reason this works is because Ventus and Aqua can abuse the hell out of their dodges which have too much invincibility frames, allowing you to wait for a chance to launch a surge which if timed right can knock the MF out of his attack. Oh and you think ok got the strategy so now I can win right? lol no get MF to less than 2 health bars and he throws an invisible tantrum, granted you can still see the MF by following either his ethereal blades or the vague silhouette he leaves as he moves but good luck doing that with the PSP's poor camera controls and being unable to lock-on to an invisible enemy!

To put this ramble to a close pretty much a combination of frustrating design and having to resort to spam make it a poor boss... not to mention fighting it as Terra is torture due to his slide dash outright lacking the invincibility frames that Ventus and Aqua have via dodge roll/cartwheel, thus with Terra the fight boils done to pure luck and going full throttle thunder surge spam.

 

[Super Cyborg]

With some of the SMT bosses mentioned, I'm surprised none mentioned Margaret and Elizabeth from P3 and P4. Both have high stats, and I believe in both cases you have to use certain attacks to not get hit by their instakill attacks. You also have a limited number of turns to beat them, or you lose instantly. Any fight that requires a strategy guide to win is stupid, even if it is optional.

The first few bosses in Nocturne and SMT IV are hard, but matador is especially a nuisance in both games.

Also the weapons from FF7. They hit hard, and are not easy to win.

 

[Alma Mare]

Elana The Squalid Queen from Dark Souls 2 DLC. Her attacks are extremely punishing, and worst of all is how she can summon a boss from earlier to fight you while she bombards you with her spells. I haven't beaten her yet.

You have yet to face the TRUE meaning of THE MOST FRUSTRATING BOSS in Dark Souls 2: Sinh, The Sleeping Dragon (and he is right after Elana).

Sinh is up in the air ALL THE TIME, and keeps spamming ranged attacks THAT CAUSE TOXIC BUILD UP. Although fireball attacks are somewhat easy to dodge by just running to left or right. But what are not easy to dodge are Sinh's flyby-attacks and toxic fire sweeps (the fireballs and firesweep also leave behind toxic clouds).

When Sinh finally lands, he is most likely on the other side of the cave (which is really large)and you have just spent most of your stamina dodging Sinh's flyby attack, meaning you won't have time for more than few hits. Oh! And all of Sinh's melee attacks go through shields and they have a rather nasty habit of lasting longer than than they should.

I am inclined to disagree. Sinh was not that bad, a little more annoying to kill than Kalameet but overall very predictable.

Sinh is a freaking health sponge, that's the biggest thing going for him. If you can attack from range you can deal with his flying patterns very easily. If you still need help, the summons the game provides are freaking raid bosses.

Kalameet was a freaking monster, though. Incredibly agressive, lots of variety and he didn't need the gimmick of random unblockable attacks. He'd just dead angle you out of nowhere.

Elana still takes the cake, though. I've recently beat her in NG8 and holy shit, 3 Veldstat summons in a row.

 

[Cryselle]

With some of the SMT bosses mentioned, I'm surprised none mentioned Margaret and Elizabeth from P3 and P4. Both have high stats, and I believe in both cases you have to use certain attacks to not get hit by their instakill attacks. You also have a limited number of turns to beat them, or you lose instantly. Any fight that requires a strategy guide to win is stupid, even if it is optional.

The first few bosses in Nocturne and SMT IV are hard, but matador is especially a nuisance in both games.

Also the weapons from FF7. They hit hard, and are not easy to win.

I think the reason people don't talk about Margaret or Elizabeth much is that they're very scripted fights that you WILL win if you follow the script right. That makes them nearly impossible if you don't know it, but not frustrating at all once you do.

Demi-fiend is super frustrating because knowing his script is the start. All the setting up, memorizing attack patterns, etc... that gets your foot in the door. When I was fighting him, it wasn't the demons he summoned, his ability to complete heal, or his Gaea's Rage that caused me to lose. It's the fact that his normal attacks are full party, hit hard, crit often, and apply status effects. Notably, confusion, mute, and stone. In a fight where you're expected to have a character that is weak to status effects. A bad set of status effects or crits at the wrong time, you lose. There's no way to guarantee playing around it. There's no way to guarantee defending against it. You can simply randomly lose at any point in a fight that can take a full hour to complete. That's what pushes Demi-Fiend from being just amazingly hard to truly frustrating.

 

[Super Cyborg]

With some of the SMT bosses mentioned, I'm surprised none mentioned Margaret and Elizabeth from P3 and P4. Both have high stats, and I believe in both cases you have to use certain attacks to not get hit by their instakill attacks. You also have a limited number of turns to beat them, or you lose instantly. Any fight that requires a strategy guide to win is stupid, even if it is optional.

The first few bosses in Nocturne and SMT IV are hard, but matador is especially a nuisance in both games.

Also the weapons from FF7. They hit hard, and are not easy to win.

I think the reason people don't talk about Margaret or Elizabeth much is that they're very scripted fights that you WILL win if you follow the script right. That makes them nearly impossible if you don't know it, but not frustrating at all once you do.

Demi-fiend is super frustrating because knowing his script is the start. All the setting up, memorizing attack patterns, etc... that gets your foot in the door. When I was fighting him, it wasn't the demons he summoned, his ability to complete heal, or his Gaea's Rage that caused me to lose. It's the fact that his normal attacks are full party, hit hard, crit often, and apply status effects. Notably, confusion, mute, and stone. In a fight where you're expected to have a character that is weak to status effects. A bad set of status effects or crits at the wrong time, you lose. There's no way to guarantee playing around it. There's no way to guarantee defending against it. You can simply randomly lose at any point in a fight that can take a full hour to complete. That's what pushes Demi-Fiend from being just amazingly hard to truly frustrating.

For those fights, are there hints to figure out what to do, or do you have to spam attacks until you figure out each one to use each turn? Because if it's the former, that's not too bad, if it's the latter, then that is stupid. I only tried against them a few times, and I stopped trying, because I had beaten the games already, and had other stuff I wanted to play. Also I rather not use guides.

As much as I love Nocturne, the beginning really felt like you needed luck to get through a battle. Near the end, it was less so because you could customize your party much more, and you could adapt your character as needed. With Matador, you have a few options, and almost no demons to change. You just have to pray even at a decent level. Once I got past that part, the rest of the game was a lot of fun, except for a few times where it was impossible to know where to go unless you looked everywhere, or used a guide.

 

[vid87]

Thinking back, the final boss Zeromus from FF4 is actually an interesting use of the ATB system:

After an introductory few turns and getting to his true form, he opens - and seemingly always will - with a hit-all attack that takes off a good 3/4 of health. As you're likely scrambling for Cure 3, he easily picks everyone off. It only takes 3-4 turns to get wiped out. The idea, after some repetition and memorization, is to *start* by selecting Cure 3 and *wait* for him to use the attack, then immediately cast it. After some cycling he can use the hit-all again, hopefully lessened by buffs, but it's still nasty and requires high levels, patience, and an understanding of the turns system to survive to the end.

 

[sageoftruth]

Elana The Squalid Queen from Dark Souls 2 DLC. Her attacks are extremely punishing, and worst of all is how she can summon a boss from earlier to fight you while she bombards you with her spells. I haven't beaten her yet.

You have yet to face the TRUE meaning of THE MOST FRUSTRATING BOSS in Dark Souls 2: Sinh, The Sleeping Dragon (and he is right after Elana).

Sinh is up in the air ALL THE TIME, and keeps spamming ranged attacks THAT CAUSE TOXIC BUILD UP. Although fireball attacks are somewhat easy to dodge by just running to left or right. But what are not easy to dodge are Sinh's flyby-attacks and toxic fire sweeps (the fireballs and firesweep also leave behind toxic clouds).

When Sinh finally lands, he is most likely on the other side of the cave (which is really large)and you have just spent most of your stamina dodging Sinh's flyby attack, meaning you won't have time for more than few hits. Oh! And all of Sinh's melee attacks go through shields and they have a rather nasty habit of lasting longer than than they should.

I am inclined to disagree. Sinh was not that bad, a little more annoying to kill than Kalameet but overall very predictable.

Sinh is a freaking health sponge, that's the biggest thing going for him. If you can attack from range you can deal with his flying patterns very easily. If you still need help, the summons the game provides are freaking raid bosses.

Kalameet was a freaking monster, though. Incredibly agressive, lots of variety and he didn't need the gimmick of random unblockable attacks. He'd just dead angle you out of nowhere.

Elana still takes the cake, though. I've recently beat her in NG8 and holy shit, 3 Veldstat summons in a row.

Jesus! 3 in a row? I know I'm done for the moment she summons one of them. Is it just me or are all the DLC levels meant to obliterate magic users? The damage my hex mage has been doing has been pretty negligible.

 

[Nerexor]

For me, and I realize this one is subjective, it's Deadshot from Arkham Origins. I've played through the game up to his fight twice and then just gotten so annoyed by it that I end just not playing it anymore. Once he gets that hostage a single wrong move ends the fight and then you get to do it all over again.

I'm sure the other bosses I've seen repeat mention of are possibly much harder, but I've rarely had a boss fight make me just give up on the damn thing, especially in a game franchise I otherwise really enjoy.