In this article, I’ll take a look at some of the worst bosses ever made. Please note that this is different from the hardest bosses ever made. It’s fine for a boss to be hard so long as it’s also fair and there’s a logic to it. Not all of the bosses on the list are even that hard…some are the reverse; an anti-climax after an epic adventure is even worse than an unfair boss.
Are these the worst RPG game bosses ever made?
1) Eredin, Witcher 3
After such a build-up, Eredin is disappointingly simple to defeat. With basically only three kinds of attack to use against you - all which are pretty easily avoided - it’s not a great way to end the game. It is still a great game though. I just wish that they had managed to end it in style rather than with such a meh of a boss fight.Witcher 3is still an amazing game though.
2) Human Reaper, Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect 2is debatably the best entry in theMass Effectseries to date. Well, it’s my favourite, anyway. It also included one of the worst boss fights in the series; the Human Reaper. On Insanity difficulty, facing this huge monster was a frustrating experience. It wasn’t that he was too difficult. Instead, it was just a sense that the game wasn’t really built with bosses this large in mind. It was also a fairly dull fight and one of attrition rather than tactics, as you face this titanic bullet sponge. Revive fallen ally. Shoot. Rinse and repeat. It was a lacklustre finale to an otherwise great game.
3) Dark Fact, Ys 1
In order to win against this god awful villain, you basically need to have the best gear in the game equipped and to also have Lady Luck smiling on you. He zigzags around the screen at a tremendous speed and throws an endless barrage of projectiles towards you. Whenever he hits you, a square of the floor falls away. Your best bet is to run away from him, hacking at him as often as you can. Hope his health runs out before yours does. Just know that most likely it won’t and you’ll need to reload for another frustrating try.
4) Lucien Fairfax, Fable II
Facing Lucien Fairfax was built up throughoutFable II’s story. The game starts with him murdering your sister, so I expected a satisfying fight against him at the end. What I got instead was an insanely dull monologue and the game then pausing to allow you to shoot him. You do and he then just dies. That’s it. What an anti-climax!
5) Lawrence ’The Bull’ Barrett, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
I pretty much hated all of the bosses inDeus Ex: Human Revolution. Why? Because I was sold on the idea of playing the game however I wanted. What I wanted was to avoid killing anybody and to get through the game on the toughest difficulty using a combination of stealth and diplomacy. To be forced to fight these gamey bosses broke that sense of freedom. Fighting him in such a confined space just didn’t suit my kind of character at all.
Thankfully, Eidos Montreal addressed the annoying boss fights with the 2013 Director’s Cut of the game. They also didn’t make the same mistake with the sequels. It’s worth noting that the boss fight sequences were outsourced to another company.
6) Yiazmat, Final Fantasy XII
I wouldn’t exactly describe this boss battle as hard. It’s more that it’s extremely tedious. Why? Because he has 50,000,000 HP. When you finally defeat it, you’re awarded with a pretty rubbish sword which you don’t really need by this stage in the game. Yay? His HP was reduced for theFinal Fantasy XII Zodiacedition of the game.
7) Hegel, NieR: Automata
NieR: Automatais a great game but this boss is a load of balls. No, really. Out of the desert it comes, flinging a load of projectiles at you that are almost impossible to track and harder still to avoid. I hope you stocked up on your health replenishing items because you’re going to need them.
8) The Destroyer, Borderlands
Another final boss fight that was disappointingly underwhelming. Hide behind a rock if his tentacles ever threaten to touch you. Pop out of cover and shoot his easily exposed sign-posted weak points. A final boss fight shouldn’t be this unchallenging.
9) Necron, Final Fantasy IX
I like the story inFinal Fantasygames. It’s the lack of a reason for Necron that frustrated me. The final boss fight just seems to be tacked on in order to give you one last thing to battle. Necron is the final boss of Final Fantasy IX, appearing in the area Hill of Despair and represents death itself, wanting to reduce everything to nothing. Its appearance is a mystery, as it arrives unexpectedly at the end of the game and its character isn’t fully explained. Why not just stick with a boss that had been built-up throughout the story instead? For me, it spoiled the end ofFinal Fantasy IX.
10) The Star Child/Catalyst, Mass Effect 3
I hate the Star Child/Catalyst. As a story-telling device, he’s god awful. It also leads to a really anti-climactic ending, with a choice of three colours to choose from and the Star Child effectively fixing everything thanks to the power of space magic. The Star Child/Catalyst’s logic for why it did what it did was also hideously flawed.
BioWareeventually added DLC to “fix” the ending toMass Effect 3and it helped to some extent but only a little. To add insult to injury, they added an ending where you can reject the Star Child’s ultimatum and just shoot him instead. But to add insult to injury, if you do so then you’re given the shortest of all the endings that basically tells you that you’re wrong. Ugh. A disappointing end to a great trilogy.
What are your worst bosses from RPGs that you’ve played? Please comment below and let me know.
If you liked this article, you should so check out theMy 5 favourite RPG game endingsarticle. You could also read theTop 5 best animals from RPGsarticle.
