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That One Boss

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Oh, I know all about Ze End.
I don't mind taking second place.

I can't defeat Air Man.
No matter how I try to dodge all his tornadoes, he just kills me again.
And even though I can get behind him
It's no use, I try to fight, but I get blown away in the end.
I shoot as fast as I can,
But when I had to go against Air Man's tornado I was helpless again
I'll try again, of course, but this is my plan:
I'll keep my E-Tank saved in reserve just as long as I can!
— I Can't Defeat Air Man (Kiwi Kenobi English Version) note 

That One Boss is, well, that one boss that falls victim to poor playtesting or was thrown in by especially cruel developers. You're leveling up normally, plowing through every battle, until you reach this particular battle and suddenly meet a nasty road block. Eventually, you Rage Quit, or you go on the Internet looking for assistance. In the event that you stop by the game's message board, lo and behold, everyone else is having the exact same problem, with entire topics asking "how do I beat That One Boss?". Walkthroughs usually list the worst offenders as "the hardest boss in the game", and eventually, such a beast receives a reputation for being just that freaking hard. A few of them may be awesome, but that still doesn't mean you won't be chewing on the controller in frustration despite it.

They are sometimes called the "brick wall boss", for obvious reasons.

NOTES:

Because there are so many examples of this trope, they have been categorized by genre for your viewing convenience.

Compare with the non-video game equivalent of this trope, Invincible Villain.

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    Survival Horror 

    Tabletop Games 

Miscellaneous Examples

  • Lone Wolf has multiple examples, which is very impressive for a gamebook series.
    • The Chaos-Master from the 11th book in this series of gamebooks. It's a hideously hard fight if you don't bring the Sommerswerd along. If you do? Chances are you will die horribly. There's a particularly infamous Let's Play of Book 11 that had the players redo the Chaos-Master fight twenty-seven times before they finally won. It's that hard.
    • So hard that pretty much everyone forgot about the series' FIRST killer enemy, the Gnaag Helghast, from The Jungle of Horrors. If you have a decent base Combat Skill, the Sommerswerd, and Psi-screen, it's a fairly challenging fight. If you don't have a decent basic Combat Skill... well, it's immune to Mindblast, so you're looking at a Combat Ratio of +1 under the best of circumstances. If you don't have the Sommerswerd, you can't do double damage. If you don't have Psi-screen you lose 2 Combat Skill points every round.
      • At the end of the same book, the Vordak fight on the skyship deserves special mention. If you don't have the Sommerswerd, you have a grand total of four rounds to win two fights; fail, and the skyship explodes and you're toast. If your starting Combat Skill is too low, it is IMPOSSIBLE to win this fight. It was so bad that Joe Dever gracious extended the time limit to six rounds in the Mongoose Publishing re-release.
    • Bested the Gnaag Helghast and those annoying Vordaks? Well done, now get ready for Zakhan Kimah in the next book, The Cauldron of Fear! If you have the Dagger of Vashna, you can settle this with a single do-or-die throw. Otherwise, prepare for a combat ratio of at best -3, and he has 40 Endurance. Oh, and if you have the Sommerswerd, he's also immune to psychic attacks.
    • Then there's Darklord Kraagenskul. Have the DoV and a reasonable number of Combat Skill boosts? Somewhat tough, but managable. Don't have it? Prepare to fight crypt spawn, then make a do-or-die lunge for his sword (although if you're successful, Kraagenskul isn't extremely tough). Have the Sommerswerd? You have a time limit to beat the crypt spawn and then have to make a do-or-die sword throw, otherwise you'll get killed even if you defeat Kraagenskul.
    • And then there's Ixiataaga, who comes at you with a Combat Skill of 60, and also at the tail end of a number of challenging battles, including Tagazin.
  • WarioWare:
    • In Warioware Inc., there is a boss stage called "Punch Out", whose third level contains an opponent that is fast, demands quick reflexes and has a One-Hit Kill move that is spammed. Unlike the other level up boss stages, which are optional, it must be completed to clear Remix 2.
    • Dribble and Spitz's boss stage from Warioware Twisted. You need to outrun a boulder and jump over holes, by violently shaking the GBA, which makes it hard to see the holes.
    • Ashley's boss microgame from WarioWare Touched features borderline Bullet Hell patterns of projectiles to dodge and an end boss that has three separate pieces shooting things at you.
    • Jimmy P.'s stage in Smooth Moves is level 2 of "Produce Stand-Off",in which you must defeat the Strawberry Bandit in a sword fight. Unlike the easy version of the minigame, the guide doesn't appear, and the opponent is much more unpredictable.
    • Warioware DIY has Orbulon's boss stage, a slider puzzle that comes in two versions. Both require multiple moves to complete under a rather strict time limit, making it the most complex boss in the game.
    • Warioware Gold:
      • The Ultra League has a boss stage from an earlier stage set to level 3 that always appears on the first playthrough, and in the case of the Dancing Team, it's the boss microgame Punch Out. This means your opponent is "Red Typhoon" Gaz Puncho. Despite having the exact same starting health as you unlike the third opponent in Inc., he still moves quickly, and he is free to use his uppercut at any point during the fight, and the uppercut is an instant KO. The Ultra League is hard so chances are you might reach this point with 2 or 1 life left.
      • Ashley's boss microgame in Gold is a harder version of Crossing Guard from Twisted!. You have to use the system's gyro controls to move suspended bridges and help kids and ostriches safely cross to the other side. Level 2 introduces even faster horseback riders, while level 3 has bombs that must be dropped.
    • WarioWare: Get It Together!
      • Continuing with Gold’s example, Ashley’s boss game, “Great Juice”, always appears in the first playthrough of Remix 2.0 on the third difficulty level, and it must be completed as 5-Volt, which is easier said than done. Because 5-Volt’s main movement is teleporting, you’ll land on the grapes with no jars underneath more times than not (and if the meter fills up, you lose), especially since the jars occasionally move, and the clunky movements make it difficult to correct that mistake (as well as the fact that if the timer on one of the jars runs out, you also lose). In addition, you’ll need to contend with the wasps, which must be hit so that they don’t reach the spill meter, but 5-Volt will instantly be knocked out if she touches the stingers, resulting in you instantly failing the microgame.
  • While the final bosses of the Ace Attorney series usually take longer to break than other culprits, the final showdown with Quercus Alba in Investigations gets special notice for being so long and difficult that there's a save point in the middle of the fight. And here's a song about how difficult it is. Amusingly enough, the song in that link is a parody of the Air Man song that is the page quote.
  • SD Gundam Capsule Fighter has three of them.
    • The first is the Psyco Gundam in the "Kill Three Psyco Gundam" mission, due to the fact that, at harder levels, it has infinite special attacks and, thus, it will gladly go into its Beam Spam special to prevent being killed. Even more frustrating when it does so at its last sliver of life with only 10 seconds left in the match.
    • The second is the Apsalus II from the "Destroy the Apsalus II" mission. Not only does it have a stun beam weapon and an ability that reverses your controls temporarily, it's flanked by two Acguy Repairs meaning that if you don't kill them off ASAP, it'll just keep regenerating its HP while it keeps hitting you with beam weaponry.
      • What makes the Acguy Repairs even more of a pain is that they're one of the few units with Auto Lock-On Jammer (which disables Auto Lock-On when the unit reaches 30%), thus you're resorting to the old Eyeball Mk I to shoot these guys down!
    • The third is the Aile Strike Gundam from the "Test Factory" mission. It spends 9/10ths of its time boosting around the boss room in the air and, as you're trying to shoot him down, you're attacked by Balls, Hizacks and Astrays, as well as missiles that will outright stun you in your tracks.

  • Minecraft:
    • The Ender Dragon falls into this category, especially notable in that it was the only boss before version 1.4 was released. It flies out of sword range, likes to knock the player off of things (usually off of the of The End and into the void), and regenerates health whenever it goes near an undestroyed Ender Crystal, located on the tops of very tall obsidian pillars. 1.9 definitely took it up a notch; the dragon now has the ability to spit magical acid, and becomes immune to arrows when it perches on top of the inactive exit, making it almost invincible at that stage in single player unless it starts killing the Endermen around it.
    • The Wither is an even worse offender. It is capable of killing you and all your friends and allies before the fight even begins by releasing a massive explosion from its body. The actual fight is no better; it flies around and spits exploding skulls that also gives any target it hits a 'Wither' debuff, with said debuff draining their health bars much like normal poison. However, unlike normal poison, this debuff will kill the target instead of leaving them with 1 HP, and, thanks to the Wither being a three-headed monster, it can spam the skulls as well as attacking multiple targets simultaneously. You can snipe it with arrows in the first part of the fight, but, after half of its health is gone, it gains a shield that makes it immune to said arrows, leaving you with Splash Potions of Health/Healing and your swords. And if you try to hide? The Wither will eat through blocks you're hiding behind. Did we mention it has a Healing Factor and Life Drain capabilities?
  • Nintendo Land's Pikmin Adventure attraction has mostly average boss difficulty... except for the Emperor Pinchipede. For his first phase, he has about 7-9 weak points, some big and some small. When you take out a small weak point, it disappears. But when you take out a big one, it stays on the field, acting as a spinning disc of doom that wanders about and damages you if you touch it (but not the boss). You must take out all weak points to move to the next phase, and it moves too fast to be able to reliably aim at any specific weak point, so you'll most likely hit the big ones and have 4 spinning doom discs on the battlefield while you continue to toss pikmin at the small weak points. And that's just the first phase.
  • Warframe:
    • The dual boss fight with Captain Vor and Lieutenant Lech Kril on Phobos isn't that hard, as the bosses don't do much damage, but it is NOTORIOUS for glitching out and being impossible to beat. Have fun farming the Miter, Twin Gremlins, and Trinity!
    • General Sargas Ruk can be a pain in the ass for new players. The first phase of the fight is pretty easy, all he does is spray fire at you, and you have to blow off his arm. The 2nd phase he gets a room clearing Supernova that's next to impossible to dodge and knocks you down, doing a huge chunk of damage, he also gains a missle attack in this form that will absolutely WRECK you if you get hit by it, and you WILL get hit by it. His 3rd phase cuts the bullshit and he gains an attack that launches Fire Pillars out of the ground underneath you similar to Ember's World on Fire, with the appropriate damage, standing still for more than 3 seconds with kill you unless you're playing as Rhino or another beefy frame.
  • In Puyo Pop Fever, normally you have to deal with Popoi at the end of a story route, who is already fairly challenging. However, if you do well enough on the hardest story route, you run into Carbuncle, who will outright BREAK you. Basically, his dropset gives him a ton of large Puyos-more than any other character in the game-making it easier for him to both set up large combos or offset repeatedly to trigger Fever. Couple this with a brutal AI that can set up 5 and 6 chains in the blink of an eye and is prone to immediately going into a 30-second Fever mode the moment you think you have him threatened and you have one of the nastiest single-player fights in the series.
  • In Stern Pinball's High Roller Casino, the Craps game comes across as this, as it has a difficult target to shoot, an open-ended number of shots to make, and can only be advanced during single-ball play.
  • StreetPass Mii Plaza: The final boss of Warrior's Way, Emperor Fynalle. Every other battle up to him was a mix of properly dividing an army and Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors. Fynalle, on the other hand, is a straight out five round game of Rock Paper Scissors against an army that starts out eight times your size. There's no strategy; it's a Luck-Based Mission that requires either grinding for Play Coins or extreme luck in telling what he will do.
  • In Tony Hawk's Underground, it's the final skate-off with Eric Sparrow. He challenges you to a race across your hometown to regain a tape that had your ultimate stunt on it. To win it, you pretty much have to play Follow The Leader, hitting every marker while Eric drops... some sort of flames to mess you up. Oh, and you only have 3 minutes to do this. Thankfully, the game decides that once is enough and subsequent plays use a version which gives you a very satisfying Take That, Scrappy!.
  • Bloons Monkey City takes this to Tower Defense genre. Can you take on Bloonarius who can spawn a lot more bloons as it degrades? How about Vortex who stuns Bloons in its radius? Or maybe Dreadbloon who can cover itself in ceramic properties every degrade while also having lead properties? Or something like Blastapopoulos who can shoot stunning lava? Didn't we mention they can get even tougher than a Z.O.M.G.?
  • Dwarf Fortress:
    • Of the non-procedural megabeasts, Bronze Colossi qualify the most. They're huge, extremely tough, and far faster than one'd think for a statue of that size, meaning that any solid hit or grab on any of your dwarves will result in certain death, and unless you use cage traps, cave-in traps or gravity only the best of squads, armed with masterful iron or steel, will even survive.
    • Of the procedurally generated beasts (Titans and Forgotten Beasts), two things can bring them into this position. One is being made of a hard material, like rock or metals, as they will be just as invulnerable as bronze colossi with the added bonus of unusual anatomy and any extra attack such beasts can get (such as poison secretions or fire-breathing); especially bad if you get a metal Blob Monster, because there is no anatomy to exploit. The other thing is webbing: While fire breath and deadly dust are dangerous, there are ways to handle them and aren't necessarily instant death (or even death at all, if you have good shields and layout). Webs just mean every last one of your ultra-legendary warriors will get bogged down by web that makes sure they cannot dodge or block, only try to escape and take every blow at full force. And taking a blow at full force from something the size of Godzilla is obviously not an option. The only way to fight them is trap abuse, getting lucky with a dwarf that manages to escape and hit back, or notoriously buggy marksdwarves.
  • Splatoon 2 gives us the Octo Expansion DLC campaign, which alongside some of its Nintendo Hard levels are revamped boss rematches from the main game's Octo Canyon single-player campaign.
    • Octo Samurai's Revenge has the titular boss be much faster than its predecessor. And you aren't fighting him with a standard weapon; you have to face him with the Baller special, which has a pretty slow detonation speed. Thankfully, you can't take damage while using the Baller. Unfortunately, this is balanced out by you becoming incredibly susceptible to knockback. This can already be frustrating in mutliplayer, but when fighting 1-on-1 on a tiny arena with minimal fencing to prevent you from flying off? It can be a nightmare, and the AI is more than aware that this is the only way it can kill you.
    • The penultimate boss fight, a Brainwashed and Crazy Agent 3, is a Mirror Boss with scarily good AI, a very small arena, multiple phases, and the ability to cheat by changing and spamming specials (most notably, using Splashdown four times in a row at one point). It is not uncommon for players to just take the skip offer due to losing five times, and is regarded as harder than the Final Boss (which just has you finding and destroying a bunch of stationary and defenseless targets). And this is the easier version of the fight against this character; a much, much more difficult version awaits as the True Final Boss for those trying to get 100% Completion.
  • The 2005 electronic handheld game Pokemon ThinkChip+ Battle Trainer involves you training Pokemon and battling trainers. But good luck battling Gym Leaders (such as Clair) that have Pokemon with moves with status conditions (which, unlike the main core games, prevented your Pokemon from moving at all and made you unable to throw Pokeballs in wild battles) without the items to cure the status and using only one Pokemon.
    • Besides Gym Leaders, the main goal of the Battle Trainer is to, according to the manual, get a high enough Trainer Point count and catch the three Legendary Beasts (Entei, Suicune and Raikou), Lugia, two of the Weather Trio (Kyogre and Groudon) and Ho-Oh in events which rarely occur and you can only catch them if you get them to the HP zone of the 100s. However, some Legendary Pokemon will make it tedious.
      • The first of such that you will have difficulty with is Raikou. It carries two powerful moves; Thunder, which paralyzes your Pokemon automatically if it is not spammed, and Hyper Beam. It gets even worse if you got the Battle Trainer that comes with only the Charizard figure, since once Raikou unleashes Thunder, even if you got Charizard to the maximum HP (which is 450 HP), it's often an instant One-Hit Kill, meaning you had to get Raikou to the HP zone of the 100s and pray that it doesn't use Thunder.
      • Kyogre. Where to begin? It carries three moves, which are Ice Beam, Water Spout and Hydro Pump. Ice Beam will often become a problem, since if Kyogre uses any other move after using Ice Beam and then uses it again, this technically means that Kyogre can simply freeze your Pokemon solid again. If you don't have any Full Restores, Burnt Berries or Frozen Cures, you are screwed.
      • Groudon, if you bought the initial release of Battle Trainer, which comes with the Pikachu figure only. It carries Earthquake, which means that it can deal a huge amount of damage to Pikachu.
  • 100% Orange Juice!:
    • The normal mode has the Store Manager, who has 8 HP, +3 Attack and +2 Defense, making him a pain in the rear to defeat, as he can easily KO any one at full health if he's lucky enough to roll a 6, or sometimes a 5. Even Marie Poppo, Arthur, and Kiriko, who have the largest HP pools (7 and 8 respectively), aren't safe.
    • The 2019 "Minions Of The Masters" Event adds three giant bosses to the new Co-Op mode, but among them, The Star Devourer is arguably the worst. The Star Devourer is basically a giant star-riding Marie Poppo who has 75 HP, +1 Attack and -1 Defense, however, she comes with a passive that deals +1 damage for every 200 stars she has. She can also use cards to give her a boost. She's also accompanied by Big Poppo (Yep, she's back), who will hunt down other players and force them to fight her; Big Poppo doesn't deal damage, but she can steal stars from them depending on the force of her blows, and the stars go to her boss. The Star Devourer can also use cards to give her a boost: sometimes she steals stars from players who are at a certain distance from her or Big Poppo; there is a card that have the players pay stars when they want to use cards for one chapter; another one reduces all stats of the players to -1 for one battle, among other nasty tricks. So, you have to play smart and being lucky enough to dish out enough damage before she gets too strong because, as stated before, she deals +1 additional damage for every 200 stars she has in hand, and if she defeats all players or amasses 1000 stars, you lose.
    • The 2019 summer event "Summer Games" adds the Summer Beast, which is basically just a tanned QP in a swimsuit. Her base HP is only 5, which may sound pathetic and easy for Co-op boss standards, but there's a catch. She can revive up to 10 times per KO and has a hype mechanic which when full, allows her to gradually increase her HP by attacking players with Rampage. She can summon up to four Seagulls to her aid and she has some very nasty AoE attacks at her disposal with the potential of inflicting a Total Party Kill if you're unlucky. It's a deceptively difficult battle and one that will test the patience of you and your allies.
  • A particular Mario fangame, ''Super Mario Adventure'', has a sadistically hard one that's part of a boss gauntlet in the final area that many people have just resorted to outright cheating. The gauntlet starts up. A fiery version of Hookbill the Koopa is the first boss, and he is considered rather easy, as all you have to do is jump on his head a couple of times while avoiding a fire shield that spins around him (but worry about the game's awkward hitbox). The next boss however is possibly harder than most bosses on this list. It's Fry Guy - a boss that in his own game, could be defeated by Mushroom Blocks. Those aren't here. Instead, you have to wait for some Fly Guys to fly in and jump on top of them for them to fall on Fry Guy. The game has no indication whatsoever on this, and no other fight has worked like this. You're going to have to pray to the Random Number God, because his flames and direction are completely random and unpredictable. The Fly Guys thankfully don't hurt you, but you're going to have to rely on the Fly Guys being above Fry Guy before jumping on one. Fry Guy's hitbox is also abnormally big here, meaning you're likely to get hurt trying to jump on those Fly Guys too. The game expects you to land 15 hits on Fry Guy with this, making it a huge chore as well. Expect a Luck-Based Mission with this, because unless if you happen to cheat with this one, you're going to be here for a while. If you happen to defeat Fry Guy, you're not done yet - the game has two more bosses to throw on you. The following one is Luigi, who fires out Bullet Bills you have to bounce back at him - while he's spamming fireballs, but is still rather manageable. The last one is Bowser, who follows a simple pattern, but is very hard to land a hit without getting hurt due to a fire shield similar to Hookbill before. But the painful part is what happens if you lose to those following two? You have to go all the way back and fight Hookbill and Fry Guy all over again. How fun.
  • In the Third-Person Shooter game Remnant: From the Ashes, the first dungeon boss is randomized each time the level is played through on Campaign or Adventure (like most bosses in this game). It could be Shroud, it could be Brabus. Or, it could be Gorefist. He has some pretty powerful sword attacks that sometimes inflict Bleed. Sounds like something you can get used to dodging, right? Well, the real threat of the battle isn't him, but the Rot Warts that spawn occasionally and can swarm you from either side or if you're trapped in a corner. If they explode on you, they deal as much damage as Gorefist can with one swing of his sword, not to mention inflicting Root Rot, assuming a whole gang of them doesn't explode on you at once and kill you right away. It is very difficult to solo this boss, especially if it's your first time playing, since one would have to shoot Gorefist, dodge his attacks, and keep an eye open for the Rot Wart, either shooting them or dodging their explosions, all at once, with very little time to heal or use Oilskin Tonics. He's not unbeatable even solo, but still pretty tough for a first boss of the game, especially since on your first playthrough, you won't have Root Mother at Ward 13 yet and thus will only have the minimum of three Dragon Hearts (the most effective method of healing). To put it in perspective, one of the two potential world bosses, the Ent, summons Rot Warts as well, but he's much easier. (Although, an update did decrease the amount of Rot Warts to make it a little easier)
    • Or, you could get Riphide at Leto's Lab. Throughout the battle he multiplies, eventually having eight of himself throwing projectiles and unleashing shockwave-like blasts that are easy to dodge if there's only one or two of him, but difficult with eight of him, at the same time trying not to get too close to them because of their physical attacks. In addition, occasionally one of him will start healing them. Hitting the ones doing the healing twice will stop the process, but it's difficult to do so if they happen to do this at the same time as the shockwave, especially when there are eight, in which two will cast the healing spell at once. They share the same health meter, too, so you can't just eliminate some of them to make the fight easier. And like Gorefist, if it's your first time playing, you won't be able to upgrade your Dragon Hearts before this.
    • Raze, one of the four possible dungeon bosses of Rhom, can be very difficult solo. (You will get two dungeon bosses at random, the first of which must be beaten to progress to the world boss and the Undying King) He breathes fire which you cannot dodge and which inflicts Burn, and he summons many skulls and exploding enemies that inflict Radiation.
    • Then there's the Root Mother. Well, actually you're not fighting her, you're protecting her from a horde, so it's more of a horde battle than a true boss battle, but it is harder than any other horde battle (aside from The Risen) due to the fact that if they kill the Root Mother, you lose, so it's not just your health you have to worry about. Aside from the fact that you can get two archers and a Root Brute at once, all of whom can inflict Bleed, this is also the second "boss" you will encounter in the game (and one of few that will always be encountered on every campaign), and like Gorefist, if it's your first time playing, you won't be able to upgrade your Dragon Hearts yet since Root Mother herself is the one who upgrades them for you after this battle is over. Not to mention likely not having a lot of weapon mods unless you've beaten a lot of bosses on Adventure, with only three Dragon Hearts.
  • Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville: The optional Bounty Hunt boss Captain Featherbrainz will drive you bananas. At first, he just seems like Captain Deadbeard with an inflated health pool, but at three points in the fight, he will hide in his barrel and turn invincible, at which point you must defeat a wave of minions to force him out— the first consists of three Parrot Pals, the second has four more Parrot Pals and an All-Star, and the last is five Parrot Pals and two All-Stars. The Parrot Pals aren't terribly sturdy, but they're small, agile, and can hover out of the range of any melee attacks while pelting you with lasers. By contrast, the All-Stars are much bigger and tankier, and can drop Dummy Shields for further protection. Both the Parrot Pals and the All-Stars have more health than usual. On its own, that would be annoying, but not too bad... but there's also a three-minute timer that causes you to instantly lose if it runs out. That timer turns what would otherwise be a tedious but overall tolerable encounter into a harbinger of salt-encrusted migraines. Of course, taking the boss on with a few allies can make things easier, but it's still a chore to fight him solo.
 
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Video Example(s):

Mot (SMT III: Nocturne)

Mot: Beast Eye (gives two additional Press Turns) + Makakaja (improves magic atttacks) + Megidolaon (severe Almighty damage to all enemies) = no turn for you!

Pontiff Sullyvahn

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