What's the hardest boss you've ever beaten in a video game?
What's the hardest boss you've ever beaten in a video game?
It's not even close for me.
Isshin, the Sword Saint - Sekiro
This guy gave me fits for a solid 6 weeks. Firstly, he's got a troubling first part where you have to fight... something else. That fight isn't difficult, but if you're not paying attention it can take off vital health points.
Once you've got through that first stage the fight truly begins. And this is where I really struggled. I'm thinking I had 80+ attempts at the guy before...I sort of just did it.
And without wishing to make it sound like I had a cheesy moment like in a sports movie where it just clicked....it definitely just clicked.
There was a bit of commotion on the street, and my partner was running in and out telling me about it..but I'm totally zoned in. Before I know what is happening I've got the guy down to maybe 10% of his health and then the pressure hits you....
Thankfully I used my knowledge of these games to back off and play smart (I've been burnt by trying to rush in many a time before), caught his parry attacks and got the job done...
Not without almost missing the final execution prompt of course.
What about you? Who's the toughest boss you've ever faced?
Landing on the Mun. That was hands down the biggest achievement I've felt in gaming. I jumped out of my chair whooping like a mad man.
O&S in Dark Souls 1 took me years to beat, they'd kill a run, and I'd put it back on the shelf. It wasn't until DS3 that I figured the games out, and was finally able to go back and beat the rest of the series.
My girlfriend has platinum in most Souls games, and is on Sekiro now. Really looking forward to her facing Isshin, I've never gotten past the big horse boss in that one myself.
8I thought returning from Duna was much harder, because there was so little room for error in terms of resource usage. It might seem like you planned everything out perfectly, that you were within your error tolerance (but not ideal) for fuel consumption and trajectory, only to find that you only have the exact bare minimum of fuel required to return. And since no launch or transfer ever goes perfectly, you'd be stuck in an orbit that got you close to Kerbin, completely out of fuel and no way to slow down and stay within Kerbin's SOI or avoid burning up in reentry.
Time to revert to the VAB to try and eke out a few more m/s of delta V, and try again...
Edit: and I never actually made it back from the surface of any other planet/moon that has an atmosphere
2
Dunno if it's the hardest boss I've encountered, or even if it really counts as a boss, but the one that made me rage quit the game and not go back to it for several weeks was the first encounter with the Marauder from Doom Eternal.
3I can't remember his name, but the boss with the big straw Asian style hat you have to defeat in Zelda: BotW in order to get the "Motorbike".
He took me ages and was driving me mad. Ganon was a piece of piss in comparison!
2Ganon was laughing stock weak in BotW. And the final fight was not much more challenging in TotK, only had more transformations and prelude, nothing mentionable.
1
Bloodborne. Ludwig at blood level 4.
Self imposed challenge to beat game without leveling up. 1k plus attempts. Started counting after 100 or so.
Never ended up beating it completely, but his move list is still etched in my mind.
1Recent bias but I haven't finished Metroid Dread because last boss is too much. I've come close a few times but it's been a while now.
1Not really a boss but the Darker Side of the Moon in Super Mario Odyssey, the grueling end-game gauntlet of platforming challenges without any checkpoints.
For an actual boss? Probably all of Cuphead, that game was insane!
1I spent hours trying to get through that level and it beat me. Eventually I gave up and haven't been back since. I decided to take on easier challenges like... Cuphead and Sekiro 🤣
2I loved Odyssey so I was really happy to have this big final challenge, and it did take me several evenings of saying "I am good at video games, I will not be beaten by a children's game" for me to finally get though it. Cuphead though... I got to the end and it said hey, you've unlocked hard mode and I just thought that's good to know.
1
Malania, Blade of Miquella. At level 30.
Normally I summon help for her and am at least level 90 if not higher, but I was level 30 and trying to twink out for invading. Something just clicked and I managed to beat her without even taking a hit; even through a bullshit spam cycle of the waterfowl attack (bitch did it 4 times in a row!).
The only thing I haven't beaten in any of these games is Owl in Sekiro (and technically everything after him). I have a hard time in that game because it's so damn hard to see the visual cues through all the sparks and anime bullshit that flies off your swords when you're deflecting and attacking hella fast. 😭
1The Radiance in Hollow Knight.
Huge difficulty spike compared to what comes before it. Accounted for a full 5 hours out of my 45-hour play time. Even when I was totally in the zone, it took some good RNG to get through the hardest part of the fight.
I don't regret grinding it out, but I'm certainly not going back for seconds any time soon.
1This topic has just reminded me of my friend playing Super Street Fighter 2 on his SNES back in the day.
He would get so angry on the fights near the end, he would throw his controller against his bedroom wall and start swearing claiming the game was cheating.
It turns out a few decades later, the game was in fact cheating, skipping a few frames of animation to make some of the characters attack moves impossible to block. There's been a few YouTube videos about it.
1