Eight optional videogame bosses we hated
Optional/extra/hidden/secret videogame bosses are the guys that either get a lot of love – because they eventually serve as points of comparison to see how big your gaming wang is – or they don’t get noticed at all, because well, they’re optional. You could very well finish the game and not get pestered by them.
Their existence is an amusing one really, because much like the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus, they’re not out to ruin your day. They don’t suddenly show up at the end of a stage and challenge your honor or force you into a duel to the death or whatever. You’re the one who wandered into them. You’re the one who crashes into their world and asks them to duke it out with you because you rock oh so much.
What follows is a list of videogame bosses we loved to hate – which is a good thing since it’s their job for us to hate them – and we’ll gladly hunt them down again and again, even if they’re minding their own business.
Get the optional hate list after the jump.
Optional/extra/hidden/secret videogame bosses are the guys that either get a lot of love – because they eventually serve as points of comparison to see how big your gaming wang is – or they don’t get noticed at all, because well, they’re optional. You could very well finish the game and not get pestered by them.
Their existence is an amusing one really, because much like the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus, they’re not out to ruin your day. They don’t suddenly show up at the end of a stage and challenge your honor or force you into a duel to the death or whatever. You’re the one who wandered into them. You’re the one who crashes into their world and asks them to duke it out with you because you rock oh so much.
What follows is a list of videogame bosses we loved to hate – which is a good thing since it’s their job for us to hate them – and we’ll gladly hunt them down again and again, even if they’re minding their own business.
The Forgotten One – Castlevania: Lament of Innocence – KCET For a guy who’s stuck in a place called the Prison of Eternal Torture, he’s doing pretty well. For one this he’s still mostly shaped like a human.
There’s just something about the fact that the guy drops worms, maggots, or whatnot on you that creeps us out. Head that shoots lasers, acceptable. Hands that tries to smash you into bits, acceptable. An exposed rotting heart that serves as a weak point, acceptable. Maggots the size of a small dog that falls out of its abdomen? Nuh-uh. No. Gross.
Behemoth – Blood Will Tell – WoW Entertainment
Just getting the eighth chapter of this game to fight this boss is a pain. To unlock this stage you have to have found all 47 body parts found in Chapters 1-7. Then you get to fight this bastard, and then you find out that he has five forms. How hard is it? Well, take this snippet from Da_Great_SoFaRo’s FAQ over at GameFaqs.com:
If, by some miracle (cough cough GameShark cough), you manage to defeat the fourth form, you’ll be able to fight the fifth and final form. Its heart falls out, and from what I’ve heard, you have to use Slice Attack on it and get in– get this– 48 hits! Forty-eight ****ing hits! In one shot! That’s ****ing INSANE!!!
At least beating this boss is worth it. You get to unlock Dororo mode.
Yeah, the game may have gotten low review scores for a bad camera and repetitive action, but most of the reviews agree that it’s the boss battles that redeem this game. It’s hidden boss – The Behemoth – made us hate him enough to want to buy this game, instead of just renting it.
Reptile – Mortal Kombat Sega Genesis – Midway
Why was this guy annoying? Because he taunted us a lot at the start of our fights. Because he looks silly in green. Because he claims that we can’t match his speed. Because an annoying floaty head shows up a lot. Because most kids back then though he was the bees knees when really all he was combat-wise was a weird amalgamation of Sub-zero and Scorpion.
At least we got to fight him in that spike pit.
The Cow King – Diablo II – Blizzard
The rumor was that in the first Diablo there is a secret cow level. Sorry there wasn’t. Listen to the StarCraft cheat folks: there is no cow level. However, in Diablo II there is indeed a secret cow level, filled with …cows.
The stage is lead by the mighty and evil Cow King. Killing him grants you the item set “The Cow King’s Leathers,” unfortunately though, killing the Cow King renders the cow level inaccessible. Which sucks. Which is why we hate this piece of pixelized royal bovine.
Culex – Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars – Squaresoft and Nintendo of America
Culex is what happens when Square Enix (who was just plain Squaresoft back then) sneaks in a Final Fantasy reference in a game that’s already filled with Nintendo cameos.
We hate him because he made us wish that we were just playing a more difficult RPG instead of a turn based Mario game that could be beaten while at level 3. We didn’t really notice the lack of difficulty until we got to face the guy. So much for suspension of disbelief.
Oh, and the Final Fantasy music could’ve stayed in Final Fantasy.
The Original Athena – SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos – SNK Playmore
Not really an optional boss, but you do have to meet certain standards to get to her. Getting to fight Athena is easy enough: don’t lose any round from stages 1 through 7, and don’t win by block damage. But getting to fight athena isn’t what’s annoying about her. Compared to other fighting game bosses, she isn’t even that hard. Yes, the Bow move is damned annoying, but one can adapt. Here’s the annoying bow move; check out the guy’s life bar:
What we really hated about her is the endings you got after you beat her. There’s something about seeing the almighty ruler of heaven sitting down in front of TV and generally being a lazy bum that’s annoying. It’s humorous and even downright hilarious at times, but it’s just not worth the fight you had to go through to see it.
For example, Dan’s and Hugo’s ending after fighting Athena – a few comedic snippets, but then they’re ultimately too short. That’s that? Oh well, at least Athena’s a bit more pleasing to the eyes in this one.
Sephiroth – Kingdom Hearts – Square Enix
Not only does he have a move that zaps you for “massive damage”, he moves damned fast. In fact, if you weren’t able to manage the camera in the the first Kingdom Hearts, just looking at him was such a pain.
In the second run of the series, the camera was slightly friendlier, so figuring out where Sephiroth was standing and attacking you from was slightly easier. Sephiroth himself wasn’t any less difficult to kill though. He still goes batsh*t insane when he’s close to death.
Oh did we mention that Sephiroth has an absurd number of life-bars? One-winged bastard.
Yazmat – Final Fantasy XII – Square Enix
This annoying bugger has 50,000,000 hit points. That’s around 50 life bars, but even using the reverse spell this guy still takes at the very least an hour to beat. The really annoying bit when fighting this guy, is that his defense increases as the battle progresses, so basically at the start you’re pretty confident dealing maximum damage, but later on the damage you deal shrinks. Oh, and he starts to get pissed.
He’s weak against shadow element attacks, but that hardly helps. Tactically he’s relatively easier compared to other optional bosses. The thing is, he’s an endurance match that really tests your patience. This guy takes time to kill, and one wrong sequence of commands could very well lead to your demise.
Damn you Yazmat. You made us use Gambits.
What about you folks? Any optional bosses that really pissed you guys off? Any secret opponents or stages that you just needed to unlock with each replay of the game? Weirded out that we didn’t mention the Ruby, Emerald, Ultimate, Omega, Technicolor, Whatever-color-makes-sense Weapon from the old FFs? Mention it in our comments section, and let us know. Just keep it civil okay?
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