Your Favorite Boss Battles of All Time?

[lestatdark]

2000cc said:

lestatdark said:

2000cc said:
Yiazmat (final hunt) in Final Fantasy XII, It took me 18 hours 20 mins (to beat him alone) but the last few hours when he is in critical at double level (Level 150 ish I believe) taking only 2/3rds damage and killing a (lev 99 with ultimate equipment) party member almost every hit is just epic, such an intense fight.

Plus add the hardest monster from any given monster hunter game in here, their toughest is always a blast regardless of the monster hunter game/version. But that basically IS why anyone plays the game

Speaking of which I need to buy a Japanese 3ds so I can get M.H 3G....

Oh dear...18 hours? And I thought I took it the slow way by taking 5 hours on my first attempt (later, with the proper gear for a 3-party, managed to get it under 90 minutes) xD. I bet solo-ing would be harder (and thus longer), but it would also be a big matter of chance since he starts spamming Death Strike after he's down to 60% of his total health and even with proper gear, the probability is still high (25% chance of it connecting).

Omega Mk. II Solo or Zodiark Solo on the other hand...now those would be some pretty insane fights

OT - My favourite boss battle of all time is probably the secret boss of Parasite Eve, Maya. Nothing could prepare you for that fight (both in context for the history of the game and the sheer difficulty of it), even though you had gone through boss battles on the Chrysler Building that made both Eve and Ultimate Being look like child play (especially the Queen Bee and Cockroach bosses).

But Maya...Maya was in a whole different level:
- Able to combo you to death easily if you didn't have an armour rating of over 200 (which was only achievable if you carefully fused armours through two entire gameplays).
- Able to put every status effect on you in every hit of the combo (thus you needing to also fuse armours carefully to have 8 slots for status protections).
- You could barely do over 100 damage to her if you didn't have a weapon with over 400 attack (this was almost impossible to get if you didn't went through the extremely tedious job of gathering 300 Junk pieces for forging one of the ultimate weapons, the AK-47 for me).
- Couple that with her 40000+ HP stat and the ability to heal for multiples of x000 each time you hit her when a fac-simile doll of her was on screen (hit her enough times and you'll heal her for 9000 HP a piece, which was basically gameover for you)
- And if that wasn't enough, she could do an Energy Shot type of attack that was instant death, no matter your protections or HP, after she was under 50% of her total HP and that attack took 90% of the screen size (you could only dodge it by staying so close to Maya you could smell her).

Basically she's like the mother of any superboss I've ever faced xD. She needed Two playthroughs of careful and planned preparation and even that was not enough to guarantee your survival of the Chrysler building itself, much less victory in that battle.

Unfortunately, couldn't find any youtube videos of the fight which aren't either someone overlevelled to 99 (which takes an absurd amount of time to do in this game, over 100 hours of fighting to get from 37 to 40, or via cheating device) or someone who has cheated his/her weapon&armour stats to godly stats, which are impossible to get in EX Mode 1.

That boss sounds AMAZING, i'll have to get parasite eve now, I was always under the impression it was kinda a shooter so I avoided it

Yiazmat in 90 minutes, How????? you didnt cheat did you (the reverse then renew trick, because that doesnt count, why even bother if you are going to do that I say).

Sorry the 18 hours 20 was for the whole Yiaz quest alone (including his 'little' buddy earlier) But Yiaz would have been a good 15 ish of that. Still beating 52 million HP when you can only do 9999 per hit (later 6666 per hit) in 90 minutes is mad, how did you manage?

Did you go through the ordeal that is getting the wyrmhero blade too? (beating yiaz, omega XII & winning the fishing comp then combining all the drops), that was such a bad sword for how hard it was to get, 80% of game platinums are easier than that one item, haha

Loved the Yiazmat fight though, so much fun Fighting a monster that looks that cool/is taht dangerous, inside an arena/colloseum, truly epic...
 (so epic in fact my ps2 frame rate started chopping up regularly during the fight because there was so much intense stuff going on at once, it never did it anywhere else in the game)

 

No cheats whatsoever, although the preparation for that fight alone took me at least over 30 hours.

All you needed was three Yagyu Darkblades (the ultimate Ninja Sword, which had a 22% combo chance mininum, was dark elemental, Yiazmat's Weakness, and had an attack power of 80. With a proper party, i.e. Levels >75, you would deal 9999 per hit) or two Yagyu and a Masamune (which had a 40% chance of combo). Getting the Masamune was "easy", as you'll only need to defeat Gilgamesh and finish it's Hunt (which is a challenging fight), getting the Yagyu's....now that's another matter entirely.
Yagyu Darkblade is only dropped by a single enemy in the game, the Bombshells, a rare enemy that only appears in one area of the Lhusu Mines (Lasche Span). Plus, there's always Aeronites in that area and they're very dangerous and can easily break a Chain of Bombshells if you're not careful on what enemy you're defeating. Now, Yagyu Darkblade only has a 3% chance of dropping at Chain level 0, and a maximum of 12% at Chain Level 3 (there's a bonus of multiple drops at Chain Level 3 though). So you can see how tedious this process is, since increasing Chain Levels can take from 6 to 30 battles per chain level(depending if whether you pick up loot or not), the probability of a Bombshell appearing is very low and having to go through the three screen swap to force a reset in the enemies of that area. It's only worth it if you're going for a record time on Yiazmat or wanting to get at least one Yagyu for completion sake (at least it's not as bad as trying to get a Danjuro).

For the battle itself: Have at least one Tank (preferably a high HP character, with the Masamune or Yagyu and Genji Gloves equipped, which increases combo chance to double, as he'll always be the one with less HP, and less HP = more attacks per combo), have one pure DPS (equip him with a Yagyu, a Bubble Belt and a Black Robe) and have one mixed attacker&spellslinger (with Yagyu, Bubble Belt and Black Robe as well). Having Bubble belt doubles your character's HP (even though the maximum that appears on screen is only 9999). This is essential for a fast time, since you can have characters at >12,5% Total HP and still be at 3000 - 3500 HP, increasing the number of hits per attack and still giving you a safe marging for Yiazmat attacks. Black Robes give you a boost in Dark Damage
Since the Tank itself doesn't have a Bubble Belt, you'll need to constantly be casting it on him as well as constantly casting Haste on your pure DPS (he'll deal less hits per attack, but will be attacking much faster than the Tank). Also, be mindful of the position of your characters, since you'll need your Tank to face Yiazmat head and the two other characters to be at each of the back side legs, where Yiazmat barely attacks them.

Having this setup, you can get him to the 50% HP stage in less than 20 minutes, where the damage cap will be lowered to 6999 no matter what and he'll start using Cyclone after every 40 of his other moves (every move counts, even the normal physical attacks) and Rake becomes a more common attack as well. When he gets to his last 9 - 10 bars and uses Growing Threat, usually you start dealing much less damage due to his double defense, but with this setup, you'll be constantly dealing 6999 no matter what. 

It's just a matter of preparing your characters for Cyclone (by changing to Windshear armour), equipping Demon Shields prior to the battle to halve all death % from everyone of it's attacks, especially Deathstrike.

The record stands at 50 minutes (on the battle ultimania guide) but the preparation needed for it is absurdly long xD.

As for Parasite Eve, it plays more like Vagrant Story but with guns instead of swords/poles, as it was Parasite Eve which introduced the same "Circular area of attack coupled with ATB" that VS had. It's a survival horror game but heavily dosed with RPG elements, it's my second favourite game (and RPG of all time). The other two PE games, PE2 and The 3rd Birthday, are much more shooter than RPG, since PE2 is extremely similar to the gameplay of the original Resident Evil games with a small dosis of RPG elements and T3B is a full Third Person Shooter.