What game(s) had a final area/boss that ruined the game for you?
- Thread starter Rajaah
- Start date
Szlia
Member
- 6,552
- 1,315
I think the TMNT stuff is only hard for children. I played this somewhat recently (like a couple years ago) and the bomb defusing sequence at the dam is really not that hard once you figure out what path to take and juggle between characters to manage health. The ending of the game on the other hand is very very dumb, so it's all about taking 20 minutes in the middle of the playthrough to farm the super OP special weapon (a scroll that generates a kind of wave in front of you) on all characters and then wreck the final stage and boss.
My picks :
NES Ninja Gaiden : Through the whole game you have infinite continues and it puts you back at the begging of the section you died in (each stage having 3 or 4 sections maybe ?), but for the last stage they decided it would be funny to kick you back at the very beginning of the stage every single time. This is extremely disheartening because it cuts drastically on the number of good attempts you can make at the final bosses to try and figure them out.
Final Fantasy VIII : While I appreciate the weird anti-JRPG vibe this game gives (no equipement, no chest, no conventional dungeon, etc) the meta game is pushed too far for me in the last area as you are deprived of all your combat menu choices and have to find and fight bosses in a huge manor to regain little by little the abbilities you gathered through the game. I was not amused, so I just visited a buddy of mine as he was beating the game and never touched it again (youTube was not a thing back then).
Demon's Crest aka Demon's Blazon : this game is a bit silly. You jump through a million hoops to reach the true final boss and the shit is impossible. I had to check the speedrun of the game to see some kind of fast kill I tried to replicate as any kind of "conventional" approach was pointless. At least the music was great ! Bonus : there is super true hidden final boss after that. No thanks.
Bonus : EU NES Rygar. Rygar is a cool if rudimentary action exploration games with some RPG elements. Notably, killing enemies gives you exp and as you gain levels you get more health and more attack power. For some unknown reason, the level cap for the EU version is significantly lower than in the US and Japanese version turning the ending into a gigantic pain in the butt as all the enemies in the final area tear you apart and take a million hits to kill. I personally reached the final boss and called it a day.
My picks :
NES Ninja Gaiden : Through the whole game you have infinite continues and it puts you back at the begging of the section you died in (each stage having 3 or 4 sections maybe ?), but for the last stage they decided it would be funny to kick you back at the very beginning of the stage every single time. This is extremely disheartening because it cuts drastically on the number of good attempts you can make at the final bosses to try and figure them out.
Final Fantasy VIII : While I appreciate the weird anti-JRPG vibe this game gives (no equipement, no chest, no conventional dungeon, etc) the meta game is pushed too far for me in the last area as you are deprived of all your combat menu choices and have to find and fight bosses in a huge manor to regain little by little the abbilities you gathered through the game. I was not amused, so I just visited a buddy of mine as he was beating the game and never touched it again (youTube was not a thing back then).
Demon's Crest aka Demon's Blazon : this game is a bit silly. You jump through a million hoops to reach the true final boss and the shit is impossible. I had to check the speedrun of the game to see some kind of fast kill I tried to replicate as any kind of "conventional" approach was pointless. At least the music was great ! Bonus : there is super true hidden final boss after that. No thanks.
Bonus : EU NES Rygar. Rygar is a cool if rudimentary action exploration games with some RPG elements. Notably, killing enemies gives you exp and as you gain levels you get more health and more attack power. For some unknown reason, the level cap for the EU version is significantly lower than in the US and Japanese version turning the ending into a gigantic pain in the butt as all the enemies in the final area tear you apart and take a million hits to kill. I personally reached the final boss and called it a day.
- 1
Cybsled
Avatar of War Slayer
- 16,415
- 12,040
The whole 2nd disc of Xenogears was shit. It was like they ran out of budget and tossed a bunch of random shit together to finish the game. It felt like a “clips episode”, with your main character sitting in a rocking chair and telling disjointed anecdotes
Last boss of Secret of Mana annoyed me also. “Don’t use Flammie magic or X will vanish”. So I didn’t use flammie magic and it took me like an hour+ to kill boss, and the guy still vanished. Lazy motherfuckers, they could have at least had multiple endings
Last boss of Secret of Mana annoyed me also. “Don’t use Flammie magic or X will vanish”. So I didn’t use flammie magic and it took me like an hour+ to kill boss, and the guy still vanished. Lazy motherfuckers, they could have at least had multiple endings
- 1
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 4,486
- 3,531
re: xenogears - sorta; apparently they had pretty strict "finish by x and release" timelines, and Squaresoft wanted Xenogears to be done. The material on the second disk wasn't finished (turnover/new hires/etc) as they were approaching the deadline, so instead of ending it at the escape from Solaris (where Squaresoft wanted to end it since the rest of the content wasn't fully complete) the director opted to try and tie up the storyline with the finished material in the montage format for disc 2.
I mean, I liked the parts you could actually play on disc 2, but yeah I was extremely disappointed with how it was when released. Still one of my favorite games of all time, but definitely a let down in presentation for the last third of the game.
SoM, I think I actually just abused the ever living crap out of max level holy magic (the one with the beams) where if you kept casting it fast enough the beams would tangle up before hitting the boss. That was like... 90% of the damage I did, and it was maxed out so doing 999 with every cast. Literally just spammed it and ate the mana regen nuts until it died, entirely because they said not to use the thing to make it more powerful. Could have been a translation issue, but yeah definitely not the "intended" way to fight the boss.
I mean, I liked the parts you could actually play on disc 2, but yeah I was extremely disappointed with how it was when released. Still one of my favorite games of all time, but definitely a let down in presentation for the last third of the game.
SoM, I think I actually just abused the ever living crap out of max level holy magic (the one with the beams) where if you kept casting it fast enough the beams would tangle up before hitting the boss. That was like... 90% of the damage I did, and it was maxed out so doing 999 with every cast. Literally just spammed it and ate the mana regen nuts until it died, entirely because they said not to use the thing to make it more powerful. Could have been a translation issue, but yeah definitely not the "intended" way to fight the boss.
- 1
Chris
Potato del Grande
- 18,163
- -393
This is why I didn't play any of them after doing a bit of Assassin's Creed 1 at a friend's house - as a student of that time period.
Played Oddessy earlier this year and it was amazing until some random lesbians in the modern day showed up to deliver SJW dialogue.
Randin
Trakanon Raider
- 1,924
- 875
Yep, incredibly difficult (and lengthy) boss that comes after an also-lengthy Megaman-style boss rush (no saving in between, naturally). It may literally be the only game that I've ever put down after dying to it and said, "Okay, good enough. I'll just look up the ending on YouTube."
Chris
Potato del Grande
- 18,163
- -393
Game had production issues and two major rewrites to change the main character:
#1 "Can't have Ashe be main character, our japanese male audience can't relate to a women"
#2 "Can't have Basch be main character, our effeminate otaku audience can't relate to a man"
Every FF game has some crazy twist ending with some sort of godlike being to fight, FF12 gave us nothing.
FF14 did take up that plot thread in an awesome way though and even reused the names (eg Venat).
Chris
Potato del Grande
- 18,163
- -393
Yeah although it's very chronologically and geographically challenged and I guess just an alternate universe version.
But I meant they explored the whole shadow entities behind the scenes plot with the Ascians/Ancients.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 11,169
- 14,834
This brings back a deep forgotten memory. I think I played this as a kid.
I loved RPGs like this that were like 90% imagination and featured micromanaging of levels and equipment.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 11,169
- 14,834
Just remembered an almost ruined-game.
God of War Ascension. Trials of Archimedes, near the end of the game. That part was so goddamn ridiculously hard. Took me like two hours before I finally lucked into a win.
It's right at the end of the game, before the final boss, and totally slows the game to a crawl. Nothing else in the game is remotely that difficult, including the final boss.
Later I platinum'd that game which meant I had to beat the game on the hardest difficulty level. Took 3 hours to get through the Trial that time. And apparently they nerfed it before I ever played it, and it was originally even WORSE.
God of War Ascension. Trials of Archimedes, near the end of the game. That part was so goddamn ridiculously hard. Took me like two hours before I finally lucked into a win.
It's right at the end of the game, before the final boss, and totally slows the game to a crawl. Nothing else in the game is remotely that difficult, including the final boss.
Later I platinum'd that game which meant I had to beat the game on the hardest difficulty level. Took 3 hours to get through the Trial that time. And apparently they nerfed it before I ever played it, and it was originally even WORSE.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 4,486
- 3,531
Vaan and Penelo were obviously tacked on. Just part of the development cycle when the devs are given specific instructions. I think it was more that they had spent so long on Vayne that they kind of forgot about all the other shit that made his nonsense absolutely retarded. Then they introduced the Occuria, which were -obviously- the fucking main problem with the world... but then it goes full circle and "But Vayne!" and you have to do the airship hop.
The potential anti-occuria hop would have been goddamn epic, especially if you could recruit Venat to the cause. But instead we got.... guy in armor with friends in armor who also kind of don't want complete societal collapse? And the main "bad" dude just wants order and to avoid societal collapse? It's... not a great sell, either way.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 11,169
- 14,834
The Mana Beast is probably a translation thing, like FF7's "attack when its tail is up!" being the opposite of what you're supposed to do. I didn't even know it was killable without using Mana Magic.
The end of Xenogears Disc 1 is actually a potentially good stopping point and feels like the end of a normal RPG anyway. However if they'd stopped there and saved the rest for a sequel, then Squaresoft didn't greenlight said sequel... that would have been a huge waste. So I don't blame them for squishing all of it into the game to meet the deadlines. They had one shot at this and wanted to finish the story in case they never got the chance.
Just a shame that they got rushed like that and a shame that Square didn't let them make any sequels. It was quite obvious that it was intended to be Episode 5 of a six-game series, A New Hope style.
Not getting Xenogears Episode 1 through 4 is probably the biggest missed opportunity in gaming history for me personally. We got teased heavily with the Xenosaga games being a "retelling" of Xenogears Episode 1, at least, but we got absolute squat for Episodes 2, 3, and 4. I think Episode 4 in particular would have been perfect for an RPG, with the Solaris/Shevat war and the Diabolos invasion etc. But I'm just as interested in Episode 2 (early civilization, Emperor Cain's reign) and Episode 3 (Zeboim civilization, AKA the modern world).
Xenogears is the only game I know of that has a potential story as rich and time-spanning as Dune. They just abandoned most of it though and gave us a quasi-reimagining of one portion of it and it drives me nuts. Maybe that's why I can't get into any of the Xenoblade games, because every time they do a new Xeno I just want it to go back to the first one's Jungian concepts and Mitsuda orchestral arrangements.
If I woke up one day and found out Monolithsoft got the rights to Xenogears from Square and their next big project will be a six-game deep dive of the entire unused Xenogears mythology, it would literally make my decade. Even if each game takes like 3-4 years to come out or something. I'll take anything.
Note: I've been told that the Torna DLC of Xenoblade 2 is basically a Xenogears Episode 4 retelling. I think Xenoblade X has some things in common with Episode 2, specifically humanity starting over on a new planet with a crashed ship as a base. But I don't know, I haven't played either. Maybe I should.
Gotta love the way they just shoehorn that stuff in. It probably isn't even the main writers. I envision a scenario where the main (talented) writers do all of the historical stuff, then the Corporate wing butts in and has their people add some present-day scenes with Wokeness that have little to do with the rest of the game and add nothing, but sufficiently boost Ubi's social credit score with Blackrock to keep the investment dollars going.
- 1
Chris
Potato del Grande
- 18,163
- -393
It was so jarring, that's exactly what I was thinking.
The male game designers got nerdy about Ancient Greece and did all the Greece stuff behind the backs of the blue hair writers who thought that their 20 minute contribution, the LGBT employee group and culture day in the work canteen justified their wages.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,889
- 102,596
I remember Xenosaga being god damn hard with its combo system.
Never finished it as I was in the army at the time and we had to go off somewhere so I stopped playing it.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 11,169
- 14,834
Might be thinking of the second one. The third is more of a traditional RPG (and the best one). I THINK the first one is too. I barely remember the first, except that it didn't have much music and all my friends and I thought it was Xenogears Episode 1 so we were playing it like six hours a day waiting for Deus and Abel to show up.
Abel actually IS in Xenosaga, but they don't do anything with him. What a goddamn tease.
At least Shion is pretty fucking hot. At the time I was just leaving my teens and had a total redhead-wearing-glasses fetish. Funny thing is, a couple of my later GFs ended up being exactly that, including my longest-term one who I was with for 7 years.
KOS-MOS is also hot, can't say I've dated any robots. Back before the game came out, EGM described the game as an "innuendo-filled sexy relationship between Shion and KOS-MOS" which is weird because the game has nothing of the sort.
Then you have Xenosaga 2, which feels more like "disc 2 of Xenosaga 1". Not a lot happens, it's like 12 hours long, and they overhauled all the character models to less-appealing ones Luclin-style. I think XS2 is the one that had a weird combo system where you could only win battles by doing your attacks/moves in a certain order that'd unlock other moves, but it didn't make any real sense. I'd end up looking at a guide to find out how to beat a particular boss and it'd always be some different combination of moves that made zero sense to me, that'd drop the enemy's guard or whatever. The game wasn't good enough for me to "git gud" at it so I'd just look up the combos and beat the bosses with ease, not unlike how you'd look up the answers to a puzzle. And I didn't care, just wanted to get it over with. What a bizarre game.
Threelions
Victory Through Harmony
- 932
- 562
Xenogears was one of the best games I remember playing as a teen. Absolutely deep story. My game froze and corrupted right at the last boss. Ended up watching the ending on youtube years later
- 1
If you roll up a spear / constitution build, its a ton easier to learn the fights while doing good damage. I think thats my most hated fight too until you learn it
Arbitrary
Tranny Chaser
- 27,045
- 71,518
My only completed run of that game I was using most of the no leveling setup (where you junction no random encounters during your first hour) and it was still a pain. Even without doing random fights that game is grindy as hell.
Related to that -
This year I was trying to finish up my first run through Pathfinder:Kingmaker before a Path of Exile league launch and the last area was just fucking my face. I was restarting each fight just again and again. It was such a goddamn slog. The story took out the only character I had with Knowledge:Arcane so I couldn't identify any of the gear there until I ran my face through the belt sander enough to level. Do the last fight, it goes fine, bam, roll credits. Except it's not the last area I was in. There's an entire chapter left and at the start of this chapter all of your characters are mega mega mega cursed. I called it and haven't been back.