Weekend Question: What was the last boss fight that made you rage?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: What was the last boss fight that made you rage?

Maybe you didn't rage enough to quit right out of a game, uninstall it, format the drive, put the drive in a bin, and finally throw that bin in the sea, but you probably said some rude words to the screen. You might have had to step away for a bit and drink some water.

There are plenty of annoyances in videogames, but boss fights are usually the worst culprit. They're deliberate progress-blockers, designed to slow your roll and make you sit up and pay attention to teacher whether you're in the mood for that or not. More than any other videogame frustration, they're the thing that makes us rage. That's OK, it was probably time to step away and take a break anyway.

 

[Brian Boru]

plenty of annoyances in videogames, but boss fights are usually the worst

Amen brother—various views from a while back:

Boss Fights—who needs 'em?

Yeah I know you're all going to hack n slash at me for this, but be warned: I stand 100 feet tall, with Thunderbolts and Thor's Hammer and Bad Puns. Boss fights totally annoy me. 20-30 minutes of same 'ol, same 'ol, to whack one mountain disguised as an opponent. Gets really boring after 30...

forums.pcgamer.com

Last annoyed quit from me was the FC Primal Ull fight mentioned in that thread. No biggie, didn't miss anything, didn't stop any other part of game—it was the last mission.

I make sure to watch boss fights on YouTube before choosing to participate, or not. It's almost always 'not', due to the combo of repetitive boredom and zero sense of accomplishment—just not my thing

 

[Zloth]

Horizon: Zero Dawn. That last Fire Claw caused some raging, but not all that much and it was mostly directed at myself for doing stupid things. One of the early cauldrons, though, got me pretty annoyed. The game teaches you about making traps early on, but I never used them after the introduction and pretty much forgot about them. Even once I remembered them, that was a rough battle. If anyone happened to wander by my window, I apologize for any distress I might have caused. Thank you for not calling the police.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Definitely has to be the Queen Valkyrie in God of War 2018. I found her very intimidating, but after numerous tries only got her down to 1/3 of her health left, then I was pretty annoyed.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Sword Saint Isshin in Sekiro.

I spent hours running at him the first time I played through the game, so much so I eventually noped out and went and played something else. I went through the whole game a second time and got him months later, I may have picked up more attack power, but mainly I think just got better at the game because I also got a lot more optional bosses the second time. So satisfying when I nailed him in the end. Havent broken a keyboard, controller, or smashed anything. Just standard cursing, which happens all the time.

 

[Frindis]

Had a really annoying fight last night in Elden Ring. It was against a version of the Erdtree Burial Watchdog that also spawns ads. My character is invested in poise/heavy weapons so I can't really roll much, making it easy to get killed with bleed buildup from the multiple ads. I could go naked in, but I need my clothes for style points. I'll go back eventually when I have made some firebombs and can bomb the shait out of the ads or get high enough int so I can cast the crystal burst spell.

 

[Pifanjr]

In Total War: Warhammer 2, in the end battle of my Vortex campaign with Direfin, I had been fighting wave after wave with meticulous micromanaging for at least 30 minutes, trying to be done in time before having to leave for an appointment, when my wife asked me to do something right as the last wave started and in my haste I accidentally pulled the plug out of my computer.

I was so annoyed, I just abandoned what I was doing and left for my appointment. I tried again in the evening and won the entire fight in about 20 minutes.

 

[Brian Boru]

bleed buildup from the multiple ads

I get that too, especially if it's a TV show I'm into—my eyes start to turn red and watery.

 

[Frindis]

You need to stop watching the Bold and the Beautiful @Brian Boru That stuff is not healthy!📺

 

[Frag Maniac]

You need to stop watching the Bold and the Beautiful @Brian Boru That stuff is not healthy!📺

It's probably the "Bold" ones they keep around for 30+ years that start looking a little rough around the edges.

 

[mainer]

These past few years I've been pretty lucky in that I haven't faced any truly terrible boss battles or final battles. Going back a few years, I think the last one I raged at was the final battle in Divinity Original Sin 2, I believe it was called "End Times" in the quest log.

There were a lot of conversation choices, both before & after, affecting the outcome of the game, but the battle itself was just brutal (and a bit over the top in my opinion). The main boss there was Braccus Rex of course, but there was also the Kraken, as well as other enemies and also summoned creatures. I felt like I spent most of my time healing and casting resurrection scrolls while the enemies were just beating the snot out of me.

I believe I made 3 attempts, trying various strategies, and didn't even get close to killing Braccus. And being turn based combat, the combat rounds felt like they lasted forever. Finally, in frustration, I just had to turn it off and walk away before I broke something.

But I came back to it the next day with a clearer mind and a calmer attitude, and I was able to finally kill Braccus as well as the Kraken and complete the game. DOS2 is a great RPG, but knowing what that final battle is like prevents me from replaying it. But I do think it helps to walk away from a game for an hour, or two, or even a day if you find yourself raging, then go back to it in a better state of mind. It seems to work for me anyway.

 

[Sarafan]

I'll go with something standard. The first thing that comes to mind when you think about hard bosses is the Dark Souls series.

There's an interesting swamp location in Dark Souls 3. You can encounter some really hard moments in this location, but the worst in my opinion is the last part which ends with a boss fight - The Abyss Watchers. It's one of the hardest (if not the hardest!) boss fight in this game. If you're really unlucky even the first part can get messy. You confront 2 or 3 sword warriors with a really nice choreography of sword wielding. They have a tendency to fight with each other, but this helps only a little. If you manage to defeat them, there's the second part (like with almost every other boss fight in DS3). This time the adversary is only one, but it has a flaming sword and barely gives you time for healing.

I needed maybe 30 tries to beat this boss with my character and it costed me a lot of nerves. The situation was so bad at some point that I even considered not only bringing some online help, but dropping the game completely. Thankfully I managed to beat it before I lost all my hair. The memories however will stay with me forever...

 

[Zimbaly]

The demon baby spewing boss from The Last Remnant. I raged quit from that game so hard that I didn't play it for years, then when I installed it each time years later I was like I love this game why did I stop..... oh yeah demon baby chucking boss.... delete.

 

[Withywarlock]

The Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls Remaster. I don't mind cheating to win a fight, but there was nothing a cheat engine, trainer, code or exploit could do to help me in a month of Fridays. The encounter essentially consists of needing to go to the left and right side of the map (in an arc), whilst avoiding the crumbling floors that lead to certain doom. All the while there are branches trying to smack you into these newly-made chasms, meaning you can't take your time.
There is no trial and error, it's do or die. Which wouldn't be so bad if, like Dark Souls II, bonfires were placed very near or directly outside of the boss' door. Unfortunately, the travel to the boss eats up a player's most valuable resource: time. You don't need any consumables, weapons, armour or spells for this encounter because it depends entirely on you not standing on a platform that's going to crumble beneath you.

I've often called things bad design when they don't go my way, but I take most of that back. The Bed of Chaos tops the charts for measurably bad design because there's no patterns or signals. It goes entirely against the idea of Dark Souls being punishing instead of difficult, or in this case, obtuse.

 

[Zloth]

The demon baby spewing boss from The Last Remnant.

View: https://youtu.be/ZzozcZ7_Wjw?t=321


When I first did it, I didn't realize I could skip the cutscene before it. I had to watch it a LOT while in a pretty foul mood! (I've been through the game three times - never fought like this guy did. I just make sure all unions can heal/rez and the battle isn't too bad.)

That's not the hardest boss in that game. This one is close:

View: https://youtu.be/BELbkzjftRY

 

[SBan83]

The Matriarch in Gears 5; it led me to uninstall the game and never play it again. Well done, devs.

 

[Zimbaly]

By all that is unholy demon baby chucker!!!!

 

[Zloth]

By all that is unholy demon baby chucker!!!!

It's QUITE naughty! And you're just letting it go?

When you get further into the game, there's an optional version of Gates of Hell you can fight for fun.

 

[Frag Maniac]

The Matriarch in Gears 5; it led me to uninstall the game and never play it again. Well done, devs.

That was my first reaction too, well, not to the point of wanting to uninstall the game, but frustration for sure. The trick is to go in with a freeze canon, which is easy to do since they're relatively plentiful beforehand, then freeze it, drop the canon, run behind it and attach a grenade on it's back, run back and pick up the canon, rinse and repeat. This is easier and faster than shooting the ice and making it fall in the cold water to freeze it, because when you do that you can't get close enough to it to plant a grenade on it's back, which does far more damage than shooting it's back or tossing a grenade at it. Once you know where the other freeze canons are in the battle area, it's a ton easier. About the only thing you need to watch out for is the phase where it rages, affecting your vision, just keep your distance during that part though and you'll be OK.

The Sires are not terribly hard either once you know where each next one spawns. Just grab a pipe and beat em down, on the hardest mode you'll probably have to trade out the pipe for a new one before killing the last few, but pipes are plentiful there.

 

[SBan83]

That was my first reaction too, well, not to the point of wanting to uninstall the game, but frustration for sure. The trick is to go in with a freeze canon, which is easy to do since they're relatively plentiful beforehand, then freeze it, drop the canon, run behind it and attach a grenade on it's back, run back and pick up the canon, rinse and repeat. This is easier and faster than shooting the ice and making it fall in the cold water to freeze it, because when you do that you can't get close enough to it to plant a grenade on it's back, which does far more damage than shooting it's back or tossing a grenade at it. Once you know where the other freeze canons are in the battle area, it's a ton easier. About the only thing you need to watch out for is the phase where it rages, affecting your vision, just keep your distance during that part though and you'll be OK.

The Sires are not terribly hard either once you know where each next one spawns. Just grab a pipe and beat em down, on the hardest mode you'll probably have to trade out the pipe for a new one before killing the last few, but pipes are plentiful there.

Yea, I read about the freeze canon trick recently but can't remember now whether I'd picked it up at any point leading up to that mission or not. But not going to reinstall 100+ GB just to find out though lol.

It'd have been ok if not for the vision thing... but that just did it for me. Even lowering the difficulty didn't help in this mission due to the one-hit-kill blow of this monster in all difficulties.

Honestly don't know how these types of decisions are made during game design tbh. Surely a lot of playtesters must've brought this up, I imagine.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Yea, I read about the freeze canon trick recently but can't remember now whether I'd picked it up at any point leading up to that mission or not. But not going to reinstall 100+ GB just to find out though lol.

It'd have been ok if not for the vision thing... but that just did it for me. Even lowering the difficulty didn't help in this mission due to the one-hit-kill blow of this monster in all difficulties.

Honestly don't know how these types of decisions are made during game design tbh. Surely a lot of playtesters must've brought this up, I imagine.

I don't feel there's anything wrong with the game design to be honest. Gears has always been a borderline horror type game, so you have to expect moments of unexpected frustration, like when you're in that small, dark room where the Flock first appears. It's pretty common games with horror elements mess with your vision at some points in the game. The thing to remember about the Matriarch though, is it only locates you by sound, not sight. It's what Berserkers came from, so it has that in common with them. You just need to be aware from previous attempts when it's going to rage and turn the screen red, and be a distance away from it, or at least around a corner so it can't run your direction. The main thing is keeping still though. The worst possible thing to do is run like hell if you're caught near it when it rages, That will only make it find you quicker.

As far as others complaining of this, yes, on first reaction, but typically once good tactics are explained to those struggling that haven't uninstalled the game, they'll either not respond, or thank the person giving the advice after trying it and succeeding. If I uninstalled every game I had boss fight frustrations with, I probably wouldn't even be gaming anymore. I think it's excellent design when a boss fight makes you work hard, and stop to think about how to hone your tactics. Like the fight against the Swarmak in GoW 4. I died a ton of times when I tried it on Insane. I had to really think about how to do each checkpoint segment, but it made beating it all the more rewarding.

Here's how to do it if you don't bring in a freeze canon. The only slight mistake
he made was forgetting to resupply grenades before freezing it one time.

 

[SBan83]

If I uninstalled every game I had boss fight frustrations with, I probably wouldn't even be gaming anymore.

Honestly, I've been in that state of mind a fair bit recently. Maybe a bit of a break from such games is what I need for a while. With everything else in my life, I just can't seem to motivate myself to put that level of effort into games anymore.

I do appreciate you taking the time out to explain the nuances of this boss though, I really do. Maybe I will put it in effect eventually but not at the moment.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Honestly, I've been in that state of mind a fair bit recently. Maybe a bit of a break from such games is what I need for a while. With everything else in my life, I just can't seem to motivate myself to put that level of effort into games anymore.

I do appreciate you taking the time out to explain the nuances of this boss though, I really do. Maybe I will put it in effect eventually but not at the moment.

Fair enough, a lot of people are indeed going through a lot of stress these days, and we all have different ways of dealing with it. You're welcome for the advice, hope it helps you get through the game someday, it's a great game really.