Penultimate Bosses that were harder than the actual final boss
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I always found Shadow Kanji to be far more difficult than any other boss in Persona 4, mainly because of his manly-men.
When I fought Izanami-no-Okami for the first time, I was expecting her to be ever more difficult than Kanji. I was sorely mistaken.
When I fought Izanami-no-Okami for the first time, I was expecting her to be ever more difficult than Kanji. I was sorely mistaken.
A few of the Pokemon generations have penultimate trainers that are harder than the Elite 4 leaders/champions. Special mentions go to second generation with Red, and 5th generation with Cynthia. I guess, in a way, the league champion counts in 5th gen, since the final boss is N... I guess.
Legend of Dragoon. The final boss is no push-over, but I was utterly staggered by the strength of the penultimate boss. Never did beat that one.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the 7 Stars. Culex. Ohhhhh, Culex. Again, the final boss wasn't exactly easy. Culex, however, was in a league all to his own.
Legend of Dragoon. The final boss is no push-over, but I was utterly staggered by the strength of the penultimate boss. Never did beat that one.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the 7 Stars. Culex. Ohhhhh, Culex. Again, the final boss wasn't exactly easy. Culex, however, was in a league all to his own.
Goro in Mortal Kombat 1, much harder than Shang Tsung.
and The Bio-lizard (I think thats what its called) in Sonic Adventure 2 when you fight him with Shadow, far harder than his final form when you fight him with Super Sonic and Shadow.
and The Bio-lizard (I think thats what its called) in Sonic Adventure 2 when you fight him with Shadow, far harder than his final form when you fight him with Super Sonic and Shadow.
Prototype. I had so much trouble with Greene, as I built myself in an odd way. I died so many times.... but the final boss dropped like a punk for me. *shrug*
I think a distinction must be made between penultimate bosses that literally precede the final boss fights, and then bosses that could be much further down in the chain but make no sense in terms of the difficulty curve. Demons gate in FF7 is seared into my mind as an example of a boss that was just completely out of place in terms of difficulty. Sure its easy in a replay, but that first time was fuked up!
I have a few personal examples of this. In no particular order:
Devil May Cry 2: Argosax the Chaos is much harder than The Despair Embodied.
Tekken 3: Ogre is much harder than True Ogre, at least given my play style. Some people seem to find True Ogre hard to beat.
God of War: The many-Kratos dogpile fight was a pain in the fucking arse compared the final fight with Ares.
God of War II: The Sister of Fate (at least Lahkesis and Atropos, not so much Clotho) gave me a much harder time than Zeus did.
Tomb Raider II: Dragon Bartoli was harder than the house invasion crew. Granted you can exploit the thing's AI so the fight is a cakewalk but I'm talking about a straight up fight.
Resident Evil 2 T-103 Battle Mode (aka, Mr. X post molten steel bath) is a ***** to fight. Birkin's 5th form is not.
Resident Evil 5 Uroborous Aheri took forever for me to beat for some reason (the kill sat didn't seem to do its job). Wesker, while a bit of a pain, was over quicker.
Right, I have more examples but I'm sure that's enough. On a side note, a lot of second entries to a series on here. Strange.
Devil May Cry 2: Argosax the Chaos is much harder than The Despair Embodied.
Tekken 3: Ogre is much harder than True Ogre, at least given my play style. Some people seem to find True Ogre hard to beat.
God of War: The many-Kratos dogpile fight was a pain in the fucking arse compared the final fight with Ares.
God of War II: The Sister of Fate (at least Lahkesis and Atropos, not so much Clotho) gave me a much harder time than Zeus did.
Tomb Raider II: Dragon Bartoli was harder than the house invasion crew. Granted you can exploit the thing's AI so the fight is a cakewalk but I'm talking about a straight up fight.
Resident Evil 2 T-103 Battle Mode (aka, Mr. X post molten steel bath) is a ***** to fight. Birkin's 5th form is not.
Resident Evil 5 Uroborous Aheri took forever for me to beat for some reason (the kill sat didn't seem to do its job). Wesker, while a bit of a pain, was over quicker.
Right, I have more examples but I'm sure that's enough. On a side note, a lot of second entries to a series on here. Strange.
Meta Ridley from Metroid Prime.
Metroid Prime itself was a fairly easy if long boss with nice telegraphed attacks. Ridley just pulled a face at you before he kicked your ass, I've never been killed by a boss so many times, even bactracking through the game to get all the upgrade, he still took several attampts to put down.
Fight with Super Saren took ages, before that, I told him to kill himself, he said thanks and did just that. Easy.
Metroid Prime itself was a fairly easy if long boss with nice telegraphed attacks. Ridley just pulled a face at you before he kicked your ass, I've never been killed by a boss so many times, even bactracking through the game to get all the upgrade, he still took several attampts to put down.
I had the opposite.spartandude said:
Fight with Super Saren took ages, before that, I told him to kill himself, he said thanks and did just that. Easy.
Not a penultimate boss, but Huff n Puff from Paper Mario was infinitely harder than crystal king or Bowser. So if that counts then that I guess.
Abyssion from Tales of Symphonia. Possibly the hardest -- and coolest -- boss I've ever had the pleasure of fighting.
I remember turning down the degree of difficulty and putting extra health/defense items on my melee party members the first time I met him, because I've heard that he's supposedly a ***** to deal with. He still killed 2/4 of my party within ten seconds the first time I faced him. He also has three times the health of the final boss, and at hard/mania difficulty, he fires off two spells that each can insta-kill the entire party if you're not prepared when he reaches 50%, and another of those when he reaches 25%. Oh, and he can kill anyone who's not blocking if you're not stunlocking him, which you can do about 75% of the time if you time everything perfect, but then he'll over-limit and be immune to any kind of staggers anyways. In short, he's damn hard.
He's still the best boss-fight ever.
I remember turning down the degree of difficulty and putting extra health/defense items on my melee party members the first time I met him, because I've heard that he's supposedly a ***** to deal with. He still killed 2/4 of my party within ten seconds the first time I faced him. He also has three times the health of the final boss, and at hard/mania difficulty, he fires off two spells that each can insta-kill the entire party if you're not prepared when he reaches 50%, and another of those when he reaches 25%. Oh, and he can kill anyone who's not blocking if you're not stunlocking him, which you can do about 75% of the time if you time everything perfect, but then he'll over-limit and be immune to any kind of staggers anyways. In short, he's damn hard.
He's still the best boss-fight ever.
Well in Final Fantasy XIII, it's not really a penultimate battle, but the three fights against Barthandelus are really, really annoying. The first battle against him, he has this laser attack that murders everyone. The last time you fight him, he has over Three Million health, and casts doom if you don't beat him fast enough. It's not difficult really, just annoying.
There's also the Proudclad boss, which has this incredibly specific attack pattern that is annoying to work around.
There's also the Proudclad boss, which has this incredibly specific attack pattern that is annoying to work around.
yeah, the hive tyrant was a bit too easy. i also dont like in dawn of war 2 they had the space marines that came in at the last minute both give and take no damage. i wish they had just made the health of the tyranids they fought really small, so that it was really like they were beating back a horde.Aeshi said: