Current Events > RPGs where bosses have strategy beyond spamming your most powerful attacks

(+) Yeah! (+)

Some games can get really dull in their boss fights.

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Yeah, I liked Yakuza Like a Dragon but that totally describes its boss fights.

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Divinity: Original Sin 2.

it can be really frustrating at times, though.

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Octopath Traveler, the player can actually cast statuses on bosses and organize team comp for ideal strategy

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This is a very specific example, but the Adel fight in Final Fantasy 8.

The first time I played FF8 (granted I was like 10 years old, so young and stupid), I steamrolled through the game with AOE attacks and summons. Then I was brickwalled at the Adel fight, which is a boss very late in the game on disc 4.

The gimmick is, this boss absorbs one of your party members and makes them a part of her body. And you have to single target and damage just Adel. If you damage your absorbed party member too much, you'll kill them and get a game over.

I could not win this boss fight the first time I experienced it, and you are also stuck in the area where it takes place (you cannot exit at this point). So stupid me had to start the entire game over again in order to better prepare for this one fight. Haha
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Antifar posted...

Yeah, I liked Yakuza Like a Dragon but that totally describes its boss fights.

Hey now Kazuma Kiryu, had a pretty interesting strategy.

Doe posted...

Octopath Traveler, the player can actually cast statuses on bosses and organize team comp for ideal strategy

kinda my experience with Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

like, I wasn't too into turn-based games at the time, so I kept getting my ass kicked at the Matador.

then I started buffing my characters as much as I could, debuffing enemies, using more passive abilities, etc., and it felt like a whole new different game, for me.

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Ozzie from Chrono Trigger. Luminaire ain't got nothin' on a random and overly-inquisitive cat.

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Xenoblade Chronicles is pretty balanced between bosses you just have to wail on, and bosses you need to treat like puzzle.

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Save your strongest attacks for when Emerald Weapon bring out his gems.

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Wild Arms 3 bosses usually have a fun gimmick, like setting this one character's afro on fire so he takes damage every turn, a boss that's strong against most attacks until you cast a fire spell followed by an ice spell, or this one female boss who flirts with one of your party members, gets rejected and verbally smacked down because he's happily married, and then she flies into a rage and exclusively targets that party member during her first fight.
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JE19426 posted...

Antifar posted...

Yeah, I liked Yakuza Like a Dragon but that totally describes its boss fights.

Hey now Kazuma Kiryu, had a pretty interesting strategy.

That and the Majima fight are like brick walls. I hadn't struggled with any boss up to that point or even between the two, but both of those fights took me multiple fucking tries.

Granted I have absolutely no qualms about that. Given who they are I would have been extremely disappointed it Ichiban had plowed through them.
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For the King
Darkest Dungeon

Some of the bosses in FFX are great for this.

1) First Seymour boss where is companions have auto potion and you probably aren't high enough level to just over power them.
2) Spherimorph where it constantly changes element and has different weaknesses.
3) The Seymour battle inside Sin he has these discs that constantly change colour depending on what you do and different combinations do different things so managing the discs is as important as dealing damage to the actual boss.


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Yunalesca in FFX. IIRC her third stage requires you to have zombie on your guys

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Undertale. >_>

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g0ldie posted...

kinda my experience with Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

like, I wasn't too into turn-based games at the time, so I kept getting my ass kicked at the Matador.

then I started buffing my characters as much as I could, debuffing enemies, using more passive abilities, etc., and it felt like a whole new different game, due me.

Yeah, I saw a ton of people complaining about Minotaur and Medusa in IV, but then I realized that they weren't as much a problem because Matador taught me how to prepare, and many who picked up SMT IV had not learned that harsh lesson.
Even later on, when you have a lot of more powerful options, you can't trivialize most bosses.

Pretty much most the Shin megami tensei games.

Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4 have basically the opposite strategy. You break the boss, use a brave order to reduce delay and then use your weak, fast attacks to get a bunch of hits in before the break wears off.

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FF9's boss was a dud plotwise, but just surviving to get your hits in was a challenge in itself.

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FFVI - Where one of the only ways to beat the boss is to cast Reflect on it so that it heals you instead of itself. Otherwise, the heals-per-turn was so high that you essentially couldn't out-DPS it.

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Son of Sun

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Demigod_Elessar posted...

This is a very specific example, but the Adel fight in Final Fantasy 8.

The first time I played FF8 (granted I was like 10 years old, so young and stupid), I steamrolled through the game with AOE attacks and summons. Then I was brickwalled at the Adel fight, which is a boss very late in the game on disc 4.

The gimmick is, this boss absorbs one of your party members and makes them a part of her body. And you have to single target and damage just Adel. If you damage your absorbed party member too much, you'll kill them and get a game over.

I could not win this boss fight the first time I experienced it, and you are also stuck in the area where it takes place (you cannot exit at this point). So stupid me had to start the entire game over again in order to better prepare for this one fight. Haha

Lol that happened to a friend of mine too. Had absolutely nothing good for junction to attack and couldn't do any damage

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DarkRoast posted...

FFVI - Where one of the only ways to beat the boss is to cast Reflect on it so that it heals you instead of itself. Otherwise, the heals-per-turn was so high that you essentially couldn't out-DPS it.

FF4 as well when fighting the mirror version of Cecil and the only way to win was to let the mirror version attack you.

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Nearly every boss in FF4 is a puzzle

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Demigod_Elessar posted...

This is a very specific example, but the Adel fight in Final Fantasy 8.

The first time I played FF8 (granted I was like 10 years old, so young and stupid), I steamrolled through the game with AOE attacks and summons. Then I was brickwalled at the Adel fight, which is a boss very late in the game on disc 4.

The gimmick is, this boss absorbs one of your party members and makes them a part of her body. And you have to single target and damage just Adel. If you damage your absorbed party member too much, you'll kill them and get a game over.

I could not win this boss fight the first time I experienced it, and you are also stuck in the area where it takes place (you cannot exit at this point). So stupid me had to start the entire game over again in order to better prepare for this one fight. Haha

Adel made my sister quit the game because she relied on GF summons the whole time.

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FFV Gogo boss battle.

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FFIX low level is great.
FFVI NMG or low level.
FFRK really pushed the bounds of classic jRPG strategy before it went full-speedrun.

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Demigod_Elessar posted...

This is a very specific example, but the Adel fight in Final Fantasy 8.

The first time I played FF8 (granted I was like 10 years old, so young and stupid), I steamrolled through the game with AOE attacks and summons. Then I was brickwalled at the Adel fight, which is a boss very late in the game on disc 4.

The gimmick is, this boss absorbs one of your party members and makes them a part of her body. And you have to single target and damage just Adel. If you damage your absorbed party member too much, you'll kill them and get a game over.

I could not win this boss fight the first time I experienced it, and you are also stuck in the area where it takes place (you cannot exit at this point). So stupid me had to start the entire game over again in order to better prepare for this one fight. Haha

Lmao. I had the same issue! It's the reason I never beat FFVIII, i never sat down and started a new game.

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Haha, sorry to bring back the PTSD for the Adel fight! Kind of makes me feel a bit better though that others had the same experience.
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Cero_Miedo posted...

FF4 as well when fighting the mirror version of Cecil and the only way to win was to let the mirror version attack you.

Or you can turn off ATB and just do nothing.

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harley2280 posted...

That and the Majima fight are like brick walls. I hadn't struggled with any boss up to that point or even between the two, but both of those fights took me multiple fucking tries.

Granted I have absolutely no qualms about that. Given who they are I would have been extremely disappointed it Ichiban had plowed through them.

the Kiryu fight was pretty easy when you realize he won't hit women, so you can have Saeko or Eri heal the entire time and just go balls out with the others

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g0ldie posted...

kinda my experience with Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

like, I wasn't too into turn-based games at the time, so I kept getting my ass kicked at the Matador.

then I started buffing my characters as much as I could, debuffing enemies, using more passive abilities, etc., and it felt like a whole new different game, for me.

The Persona games are the first ones where I actually used buffs and debuffs on the bosses. Literally never do that in other RPGs which really is my own fault for being an idiot

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MaxEffingBemis posted...

The Persona games are the first ones where I actually used buffs and debuffs on the bosses. Literally never do that in other RPGs which really is my own fault for being an idiot

To be fair, so many games make bosses immune to status and debuffs that most of the time I don't even try it.

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Blue_Inigo posted...

Nearly every boss in FF4 is a puzzle

FFIV is a truly fantastic RPG from a mechanical perspective.

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DarkRoast posted...

FFIV is a truly fantastic RPG from a mechanical perspective.

The 3 sisters that did the delta attack was a fun fight. So was the Lugae fight where he used reverse gas

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Xavier_On_High posted...

Xenoblade Chronicles is pretty balanced between bosses you just have to wail on, and bosses you need to treat like puzzle.

I wouldn't call having to apply Monado Purge every 15 seconds treating a boss like a puzzle

Same issue in VIII

Made me quit the game.

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Most Pokemon games are good with this.

You can say what you want about Pokemon, but the battle system is very fleshed out.

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I would love it if more RPGs allowed you to actually inflict status effects on bosses. I feel like so many of them have immunity just to artificially inflate difficulty, and it makes any sort of status effect moves pretty much worthless.

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Etrian Odyssey and Bravely Default will get you annihilated for that.
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Dragon quest main series games are tough in boss fights.

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Doe posted...

Octopath Traveler, the player can actually cast statuses on bosses and organize team comp for ideal strategy

Came in to say this. The job system and knowing when to use your boosts can really make some fights much more manageable

Plus donate BP is an OP skill

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mcpwnia posted...

harley2280 posted...

That and the Majima fight are like brick walls. I hadn't struggled with any boss up to that point or even between the two, but both of those fights took me multiple fucking tries.

Granted I have absolutely no qualms about that. Given who they are I would have been extremely disappointed it Ichiban had plowed through them.

the Kiryu fight was pretty easy when you realize he won't hit women, so you can have Saeko or Eri heal the entire time and just go balls out with the others

Holyyyyyyyyyyyyyy fuck. I never even considered that. I'm pretty sure I had my group set to the four guys during that fight because they had skills he was weak to.
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im actually amazed that so many people had problem with Adel fight. i played that game in Japanese without actually knowing Japanese, and can figure it out on first try.

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SpaceBear_ posted...

Or you can turn off ATB and just do nothing.

I think you had to actively defend might be wrong though been a long time.

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codey posted...

I would love it if more RPGs allowed you to actually inflict status effects on bosses. I feel like so many of them have immunity just to artificially inflate difficulty, and it makes any sort of status effect moves pretty much worthless.

If you have a Switch, and haven't already, try out Bravely Default 2. One of the very few games where you can apply status effects to a good number of bosses.
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I think Etrian Odyssey is my favorite series when it comes to strategy and general turn-based combat balance. If you haven't played any before, Untold 2 is a great place to start.

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FF4 is the gold standard for puzzle bosses.

FF5 did it less sparingly but still had puzzles here and there

FFVI same as 5, hello deathgaze

FFVII and VIII were largely just plow your way though, though VIII had an interesting gimmick outside of battle with ragnaroks enemies

IX was back to some puzzle bosses some plow your way in.

XII was like IV mostly puzzle bosses especially the secret hunts


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Doe posted...

Octopath Traveler, the player can actually cast statuses on bosses and organize team comp for ideal strategy

oh god Octopath... beating some of those bosses was an actual nightmare. I still refuse to finish the damn story because I know how hard the final boss is.