To this day, I still have the entirety of the “Kairi’s inside me” cutscene in Kingdom Hearts memorized, because I was stuck on that goddamned Riku fight for like a week as a kid.
Me trying to finally beat The Radiance in Hollow Knight, having to first beat The Hollow Knight AGAIN every. single. time. just to get to the second boss fight. I never felt the game was too tedious except for that one detail.