Which FF boss is your nemesis?

[The Twilight Mexican]

Following an exchange in this thread, ForceStealer and I thought it might be a good idea to do a series of articles on the bosses from FF games who are really tough -- but we wanted to get your stories about them first.

Not the super bosses like Ruby WEAPON, Ozma, and Trema (though feel free to share if you'd like), but the regular bosses you fight during the course of the game who will really ruin your day if you haven't prepared for their unforeseen challenge. Maybe they're just really powerful relative to the average level of gamers at that point in the story, or maybe they have a particular attack that's complete horseshit, but for whatever reason, they just plain fucking suck.

Though this isn't an exhaustive list, some examples we thought of include:
Evil Wall (FFIV)
Schizo (FFVII)
Carry Armor (FFVII)
Adel (FFVIII)
Evrae (FFX)
Seymour Flux (FFX)
Elder Wyrm (FFXII)
Proudclad (last fight; FFXIII)
Velius (FFTactics)

Your options are by no means limited to this list. Feel free to mention whoever gave you a hard time.

For the sake of the discussion, I'm going to also allow the inclusion of optional bosses who can only be fought at certain times before the opportunity is lost, such as the Gil Turtle (FFV; though this limited opportunity doesn't exist in the GBA version, of course) and Tantarian (FFIX).

If you'd like, you can even contribute your post to the article for your selected nemesis. So, come on, share your tales of woe.

 

[ForceStealer]

Seymour Flux...which one is that? Is that the one on Mt. Gagazet? Because I really hate that battle. I remember having to grind a bit for that one. But he still wasn't as bad as Yunalesca, the whore. The Zombie-Revive combo gets old really fast, and she just won't. go. down. What with all her forms and stuff, all of which use that cheap combo

And keeping with the FFX theme: Evrae can be rough largely for that move he does when he's up close that hits and poisons the whole party. Since, for whatever reason, poison is freaking brutal in FFX. It was the first boss in that game that smacked me around and left me thinking "Well I dunno how I'm gonna beat this guy..."

And yeah...as you and I have commiserated before...&%$@ Velius/Belias. Sure, just summon 4 demons all of which cast Ultima while you summon...Lich, is it? over and over again to my fairly low-level Tactics party. Ramza with Jump is the ONLY reason I ever win that fight.
Especially if you waste a ton of the time in the one-on-one part upping your Faith and Bravery

 

[Lord Noctis]

My top three pains in the ass as far as bosses go inlude Yunalesca, for basicly the reasons Force listed.

I also hate Necron from FFIX. I still haven't beat him. His grand cross attack consistently left my party as a bunch of jibbering idiots, and I was never able to find any ribbons.

And of cours Velius from FFT, who killed my about fifty times the first time I reached that far in the game. Ramza was only lvel thirty, and he was my toughest dude. Eventually restarted the game and came back at level fifty-something, still lost badly many times. It only pissed me off more when ne of my buddies demolished the guy on his first try.

As on honourable mention I would like to point out Gafgarion at both the execution sight, and the castle. Pain in the ass if you aren't ready for him.

Not sure why Carry armour is on your list though, he was rather easy.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Yeah, Flux is the fight on Gagazet. He can be a bastard no matter how much you level up.

And, yes, Velius is walking, talking bullshit. His backup can't cast Ultima (Ultima Demons do that; Velius summons their palette-swapped kindred, Archaic Demons), but they can cast Dark Holy/Unholy Darkness, which is bad enough.

Velius himself, meanwhile, can pound on you with Lich, Cyclops and Titan.


EDIT: Force, care to elaborate on your inclusion of Carry Armor on our list?

 

[ForceStealer]

I also hate Necron from FFIX. I still haven't beat him. His grand cross attack consistently left my party as a bunch of jibbering idiots, and I was never able to find any ribbons.

Well, iirc, IX's Ribbons protect against elemental damage, so they wouldn't be much help.

As on honourable mention I would like to point out Gafgarion at both the execution sight, and the castle. Pain in the ass if you aren't ready for him.

Agreed. And I always end up making it harder on myself because the role-player in me always wants Ramza to take him on his own (The same with Algus/Argath, but that's an easier battle.)

Not sure why Carry armour is on your list though, he was rather easy.

Well screw you. I hate that freaking battle. Picking characters up (inevitably your primary healer as well) as long as his arm is intact, so all your attacks to the arm hurt your character as well. And he can pick up two of them!

But all of that is nothing to the recockulous move that is Lapis Laser. Just sweeps across for thousands of damage to the whole party. Oh, and he can do it twice in a row. Because, you can get him to jsut drop your characters by killing them, but I can barely keep up with healing as it is with as frequently as he uses that move. I hate that boss.

And I beat Necron my first try so...myah

 

[Xpelair]

*Cracks knuckles*
Glad to see a thread were I can take out anger on some bitched up bosses… RAPPS THAT MEANS YOU.


It’s not necessarily a difficult boss but… On my first ever play through I was caught by surprise.
After obtaining the Tiny bronco I visited Wutai, later to find that Yuffie Stole all the materia. And knowing me I relied heavily on materia which meant I was screwed. To top things off I was rather underleveled so I had to use up a lot of potions from fighting mobs.

Then in came Rapps. The fact that I only had my physical attacks to take it down with and the extra help of some magic items I had, meant that I was unable to heal my characters efficiently.
During the battle I had both Barret and Vincent, because at the time they did the most physical damage. I was pretty lucky they were in my party because em… *Cough* I don’t often use Vincent.
The fact that Rapps kept doing Aero3 really made things bloody awkward. The fact that my levels were low anyway meant that the characters would end up throwing potions, Hi-potions and Phoenix downs instead of damaging Rapps which in turn just made the battle drag unnecessarily. My characters all had around 2100 HP (Low in my eyes) whilst Aero3 was causing around 1,500(?) so I couldn’t use my limits either because the damn thing would simply wipe my entire party if I sacrificed a turn in attacking. Luckily during the time Rapps does his normal attacks (Which cause roughly 400 odd points) I was able to use my limits and DID eventually kill it. But damn was I there for awhile.
I guess that was me being a nub though >.< At the time I hardly knew the basis of the game.

 

[Joker]

I will make a veeery long post about this tonight when I get home from work.

 

[Lord Noctis]

Agreed. And I always end up making it harder on myself because the role-player in me always wants Ramza to take him on his own (The same with Algus/Argath, but that's an easier battle.)

Well to befair thegame hands you a one-on-one fight with Gafgarionat the castle anyways. At the execution sight I always set Agrias on him, since I figure she'd want a crack at him, and let Ramza double slash enemy knights and archers into oblivion.

 

[ForceStealer]

You're right, Xpelair, Rapps can really give you trouble if you're not prepared. Aero3 is crazy (and what the hell anyway? FF7 doesn't even HAVE Aero's 1 and 2).

Interestingly, you happen to have the best party for that fight. Its one of the times that letting Vincent just do his thing is useful as its your most magical damage available. And if you use Barret's Mindblow, Rapps can't use Aero3. But it was many many playthroughs before I put that together

That's true about Agrias, Noctis. I actually didn't use her in my first playthrough of Tactics. But she was always on my party when I did War of the Lions.

 

[Joker]

I will comment on that, tho - I never liked using Agrias, because while she was certaimly powerful, she was slooow and had a lower movement stat. Booo.

BEOWULF 4EVR MOTHERFUCKERS

 

[Elisa Maza]

THIS. FUCKER.

Tantarian from FF IX.

You have to kill the demon in the book. Zidane's normal attack and Fira works wonders on it, when the book is open, taking about 1/10 of his HP each time. Sounds nifty? Well, it isn't. This asshole of a demon hides within the book and comes out only 1/4 times it is open, the other three being another page that is unaffected. And then, the book is closed. And when this book is closed, things go downhill. I was unlucky enough to suffer Doom from this enough times to kill me. I was so stuck I almost threw the controller across the room. Oh, and did I mention that Zidane, the character with the best chances to hurt him was receiving the most damage by its Paper Storm?

Asshole... /rant

 

[Xpelair]

Carry Armor wasn&#8217;t too difficult to defeat, once I&#8217;d made a strategy. Specially with the Lighting and Ramuh materia it was even easier. But I remember messing it up one time. Forgetting that it was immune to statuses like slow. That was the first thing I did when I entered the fight, which was a BIG mistake. it&#8217;s critical to set up Big Guard, Regen haste etc and start pummeling it with the Ramuh and Bolt spells on either its left or right arms. Once you&#8217;ve got them out of the way it&#8217;s considerably easier.
I found that if a character gets grabbed by one of the arms the best thing to do is kill the character and then resurrect them. Which is easy considering that you can damage Armor and the victim together.

 

[Lord Noctis]

I forgot to mention the Demon wall in FF7. I can beat the guy just fine these days, but the first time I played through when I wasn't expecting the guy I got demolished. He's pretty easy if you know he's coming, but if its your first time he can and will bury you.

 

[Masamune]

I forgot to mention the Demon wall in FF7. I can beat the guy just fine these days, but the first time I played through when I wasn't expecting the guy I got demolished. He's pretty easy if you know he's coming, but if its your first time he can and will bury you.

Demon's Gate? Yeah, I was going to say him. He wasted me a few times during my earlier playthroughs. Thankfully, the last time I played, Aerith was kind enough to bring Great Gospel to the party. *fanfare*

 

[Dana Scully]

Omfg the one-on-one with Wiegraf followed by Velius is the hardest fight I've ever fought in any game ever.

And of course they offer you that save point immediately before, and you being the innocent first timer you are gratefully accept this offer and find yourself stuck in an endless death trap from which there is no escape.

I even had trouble with this in my second playthrough, mainly because it had been quite a while since I first played it, so I overwrote my main save file and then the screen loaded and I was like FUUUUUUUUU NOT AGAIN.

I did eventually manage to beat it in both cases without restarting the game, but it took me literally dozens of attempts.

Makes me weep a little with despair and frustration just thinking about it tbh.

 

[ForceStealer]

And of course they offer you that save point immediately before, and you being the innocent first timer you are gratefully accept this offer and find yourself stuck in an endless death trap from which there is no escape.

This this holy crap this. Why did they do that those sneaky assholes?! My first playthrough I felt so helpless. I don't think I restarted (I had already restarted once by that point and wasn't going to again), but I know I didn't play it for some time.

And then, exactly like you said, by my War of the Lions playthrough I had forgotten and happily saved again. akhfak;eghawothnabg

 

[Joe]

I will make a longer post at some point but, Evrae FFX. So much this.

 

[Xpelair]

Godo was another one I struggled on, because I seriously wasn&#8217;t expecting the difficulty from the fourth boss (Staniv) to the fifth one to drastically change like that.

Although I know better now, on my first play through I rarely levelled Yuffie up. Godo's faces were pretty puzzling as well because during my first play through I had no idea what was to be expected. The red side was easy to handle because its Beast Sword causes 250 points. It also attacks with that Trine (causes 1000) which was a bugger at the time. I should have done the side quest much later but during my first play through I thought I had to do it to progress in the story somehow. I can&#8217;t remember how many tries it took, but every time I would change around my materia for the best combinations. I also HATED THE GOLDEN HEAD because it caused either mini Or sleep, which were both a pain in the ass; AND because I could only protect myself against one of them.

The hardest part was Godo healing. He heals more then what I was able to take off. Even equipping Added Effect-Poison was pants because again, it healed more then what I could deal. Gradually I got the hang of it and found that equipping her with Counterattack, Heal, Time, and big guard helped. Godo was still healing more then what I was hitting, although eventually I managed to knock him out by spamming the Trine spell which did eventually kill him.

It was one fucking lucky battle. If it weren't for me constantly casting Trine I would have lost. I didn't give a damn about my hp, I just went for it and hoped for the best.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I remember having issues fighting Dyne when first hitting Corel Prison, because Barret was SEVERELY under leveled, and it's a 1 on 1 fight, and it's hard to level him up when the Two-Faces would blow him up right before the battle ended. Aside from that, I don't recall any horribly difficult fights from VII...

It's been FOREVER since I played it, but I recall Diablos kicking my ass in FFVIII. Right when I got the Magic Lamp, I always figured that I could just jump in and stomp whatever was in my way, and not knowing that you could Blind him didn't help, plus I wasn't really great at the Draw System.

They were annoyances, but I wouldn't necessairly say either of them were my Nemesis... I'll have to think it over still.


X

 

[ForceStealer]

^Another great part of Spoony's VIII review

Dyne, huh? That's interesting. I remember I steamrolled him because I used Barret a lot, but I do seem to recall being a bit more intimidated in playthroughs that I wasn't using him. And again that pesky role-player in me doesn't like having Barret summon a hundred unearthly creatures of immeasurable power against his friend.

 

[Sigbru]

Omfg the one-on-one with Wiegraf followed by Velius is the hardest fight I've ever fought in any game ever.

And of course they offer you that save point immediately before, and you being the innocent first timer you are gratefully accept this offer and find yourself stuck in an endless death trap from which there is no escape.

The 3 bosses after Velius are even worse. Marquis Elmdore isn't so bad (for now) but his two assassins are just broken, since they have a one-hit death attack and one of them can make a male team member of your team betray you with 100% chance unless you're wearing the right equipment >.>

It doesn't help that the mission object is to protect an NPC that rushes after them in a suicidal attack. Given how fast the assassins are it's not unheard of that you may lose the game without even getting a turn. I think they toned down the NPC's suicidal tendencies in War of Lions


I also had problems with the first Lucavi boss. His status effects are just deadly if you don't prepare yourself... and like Velius there is also a save point just before him to make you trapped

 

[cheeriolord]

have to say reading these posts just from ff7 i got through it fairly unscathed ........ except for that FUCKING DEMON WALL !!!!!!!! truly hated that sod when i first played through as aeris was totaly useless and underleveledfor me. but reading up on some folk who had a lot of trouble with rapps .... i guess i was lucky in that i vaguely remember beating him first time same with carry armour ...... but then again i also remember getting my ass handed to me by the materia keeper in nibelheim a couple of times before i beat him

 

[Xpelair]

Barret, Be careful!

hmm?

Attack while it's tail's up!

Okey-dokey.

It's gonna counterattack with its laser.

lolwut?

Gameover

FUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!11one

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Midgar Zolom, actually. I've never been able to defeat it at a level I consider to be fair. Obviously once I'm hugely over-leveled it's no problem, but that feels like cheating.

Never had any problem with Carry Armour. Lost Number is a pain.

But the worst of all are those big chickens in the mines in Crisis Core. They kick shit out of Zack every time.

 

[Max Payne]

That bastard in FF9 gave me the most trouble out of all of them.

Oh and that fucking poison bastard snake hunt in FFXII.