No matter whether you’re slaying Skyrim’s Alduin for the first time or getting slaughtered by any one of Elden Ring’s numerous big bads, fighting bosses is one of the fundamental realities of most gaming experiences.
After all, how can you prove that you’ve absorbed all of the lessons and mastered all of the powers that a game can throw at you, other than by merking some mighty monster or omnipotent opponent in a high-stakes duel to the death?
When it comes to all of the medium’s amazing adversaries, perhaps the most difficult task is picking which of them puts up the toughest fight, though this hasn’t stopped players on ResetEra from giving this a go.
How many of these big bad bosses have you bested?
Posting to begin the ResetEra thread on the topic, user nogoodnamesleft asked: “What is, hands down, the hardest boss you’ve ever beaten in a single player game?”, adding: “it can even be a normal mode end game boss that you were so stuck on (that) it left an imprint on your memory.”
Immediately, a number of their brethren descended to offer some suggestions, with Kingdom Hearts 3’s Yozora jumping out to a bit of an early lead, as user Strings described: “there are fights that have taken me longer and felt messier, but I'm not really sure if anything else required as much from me.”
Naturally, incredibly strong competition was swift to arrive from a number of FromSoftware titles, with the likes of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’s Isshin, the Sword Saint, Bloodborne’s Orphan of Kos and Elden Ring’s infamous Malenia all receiving a lot of votes, with some players attesting to having quit the game out of frustration before beating them.
Also in the running were fearsome foes like Hollow Knight’s Absolute Radiance, God of War’s Sigrun and Ninja Gaiden’s Alma, with all three having inflicted misery upon unfortunate gamers.
A few suggestions were slightly more atypical, with Mike Tyson from NES classic Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Being nominated by a few old-school boss battlers and user Menome saying: “It took me 12 years to finally beat the Death Egg Robot at the end of Sonic 2 on Mega Drive.”
On the other hand, user DammitLloyd had a pretty interesting pick, saying: “(the) ‘Hairpin corner’ on the A-9 licence test in Gran Turismo 7. Took me the whole day to get gold!”
Regardless of whether you’d rather try to round a tight corner in about 17 seconds or fight one of the other terrifying bosses listed above, make sure to follow us for coverage of some mods that might help you make it through the likes of Elden Ring using only one hand.
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