When it comes to video games, many people expect a satisfying final boss to help bring the game to a close. Many bosses can be huge and epic, like in Bayonetta. They could be incredibly emotional, like Gwyn from Dark Souls. Or they can equal your strength and test your skills like Henry from No More Heroes… Or sadly, they can suck so hard, that they make you question why you went through the game for this in the first place. That is what I want to talk about today. Final bosses that are built up to be epic, and in the end, suck so hard, that it literally leaves a bad taste in your mouth. First, the rules. Only from games that I play, and only one per franchise. Also, my idea of a disappointing boss may be different from a boss that you find disappointing, so remember that our opinions on what is a disappointing boss may be different. With that said, let us start the list.
#10: Gary Smith from Bully
Throughout the game, Gary has been doing some of the worst things a college bully could do. He causes total chaos across the school, bullies everyone lower than him, and even gets Jimmy expelled for vandalizing City Hall and rules the school with total anarchy and keeping the teachers hostage. After chasing him to the top of the school bell tower, you are finally able to give this guy the beating he so rightfully deserves. And I know that final bosses in Rockstar games are a bit… lackluster, but this is just terrible. All he is is a typical enemy with a larger health bar and a few button mashing moments. There is literally nothing special about him in this fight other than he is the last guy you got to beat up. Whoopity-doo. At least you did get to beat this prick up, so that was at least tolerable. But seriously, I would have at least wanted him to be more of a challenge for a guy who could take over the entire school.
#9: Final Hazard from Sonic Adventure 2
There were times when I saw this boss as being cool. Level design and music, yes, it is really cool. Hearing Crush 40 while fighting a giant lizard in space does sound cool. However, in reality, that was my dumb ten-year-old nostalgia blocking my mind from the flaws of this boss fight. In reality, the Final Hazard is just a giant monster for you to ram your body into at high speed, and hope that you can kill him before you run out of rings. Seriously, all you have to do is move forward, avoid his giant lasers, which is easier said than done, and ram your body into his giant bulging and hard to miss weak spots until he dies. While there are a lot of awesome things in this fight, it can either be really easy because he has only one attack, or it can be really annoying, because those lasers knock you all the way back and waste rings which will decrease as you are in Sonic form. Sonic Adventure 2 may not be a perfect game, but at least there weren’t moments that made me feel utterly annoyed. Final Hazard is one of those moments that annoyed me.
#8: Bowser from Super Mario Galaxy 2
I’m not gonna lie, I was not the biggest fan of Super Mario Galaxy 2. The first one was a great game, but the second felt a bit too similar to me. Granted, I had fun with the game still, but still had to look at the box of the game to remember that I was playing Super Mario Galaxy 2. However, one part that was never fun was the pathetic final boss. When you see Bowser get larger, you’d think it would be something so cool… Instead, it’s literally just “Do a ground pound a few times to win”. I wish I was joking, but no. You actually just have to ground pound a few rocks at Bowser (And by a few, I mean four times) and that’s it. I know that Mario games aren’t the most spectacular with their bosses, but REALLY!? You try to make a sequel to one of your most successful games in years, and you come up… with this? Say what you want about Mario 64’s final boss, at least it was interesting compared… to THIS!
#7: Hive Mind from Dead Space
Throughout the game, you are told about this creature called the Hive Mind, a creature created by the Red Marker and one that controls all of the Necromorphs you see in the game. You get to the planet to put the Red Marker where it belongs, and here, you meet the Hive Mind itself. You’d expect it to be a great fight, as it’s huge size is already intimidating enough… sadly, that isn’t the case. He is actually incredibly easy. His weak spot is incredibly easy to spot and to hit. It is only mildly challenging when he picks you up off the ground and holds you upside down where you have to shoot the weak spot to get him off. Sadly, it isn’t much, and it is as easy to get out of as it is to actually kill him. The only reason it lasts longer than it should is because he has a lot of hit points. Their easy to hit and his attacks are SO easy to dodge. In fact, I don’t think I used one medkit throughout the fight. For something that was seen as a god, it was pretty easy to kill, if you ask me.
#6: The Hate from Condemned: Criminal Origins
I can’t begin to describe how stupid the game got near the end. I was okay with the story about the police officer Thomas going after Serial Killer X. But instead, near the end of the game, Thomas has to deal with this thing called The Hate, which is a creature that instills hate into people and makes them do horrible things or something? I don’t know. All I know is that this is stupid. Throughout the game, you are going after a man who murders serial killers, and instead, the final boss looks like something out of Hellraiser. This wimp always stands up at the top of the room while he sends his minions after you (Oh joy, my favorite). After he finally gets the guts to go and fight you, it’s pathetically easy. You just hit him with your weapon like any other enemy and then rip out a piece of his back before doing the same to his jaw. How Thomas grew the strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger to rip out a man's spine with his bare hands, I will never know. And all this just for a crappy jumpscare ending? Let’s hope they did better in the sequel… but, probably not.
#5: Tabuu from Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Oh god, this guy. I talked about this guy in my hated characters list, and I said that he was such a stupid villain. And now that I am better at writing lists… Yeah, he is still a terrible villain. Throughout the game, Ganondorf, Bowser, and King Dedede were seen as the game’s antagonists… And then it was just Ganondorf… and then Master Hand… And then this blue bastard. Why in the name of god would Nintendo create a guy this pathetically stupid at the last minute as the main villain. I hate bosses like that. Oh, but the fight is nothing special either. In easy, he’s such a damn pushover. But no one plays a fighting game on easy mode, so on the other modes, I kid you not, he is as cheap as a boss can get. He may not be Shao Kahn and Galactus levels of cheap, but still cheap. He has a lot of health and a lot of attacks that are hard to avoid. And also, one of his attacks is completely unavoidable, and is guaranteed to kill one of your characters in one hit. I am not kidding when I say he did this to me three times in a row, and I was left with one character. Now, for those who say I just put him on the list because I suck at fighting games, that doesn’t excuse him being such an unoriginal and stupid villain. And this is why I am okay with Super Smash Bros. 4 having no story mode. TO AVOID CRAPPY FINAL BOSSES LIKE THIS!
#4: The Joker from Batman: Arkham Asylum
We all know The Joker as one of the most sadistic and one of the greatest villains to ever be created. Always using mind games to mess with Batman, rather than using force to fight him… So naturally, that was all taken out of him when we got to fight him at the end of Batman: Arkham Asylum… and it was SO AWFUL! Seriously, what in the hell is this? Joker… on steroids? Why? Just why? Oh, and if you think it would be hard, NOPE! The total opposite. It is literally just a simple boss fight, as the Joker, for a guy now with the strength of a mutant (Sadly), does little fighting, as he uses his goons to fight for him, while he stands on the top (Sound familiar?). And when he does come down, it’s as simple as running behind him and punching him in the back… That’s it. Give the final boss of Arkham City some credit, at least it didn’t bastardize a beloved villain. The Joker should never turn into the freaking hulk with a goddamn mohawk. This boss fight is especially bad, as it isn’t just boring and tedious, as well as disappointing, but also insulting to fans everywhere. Nice going, Rocksteady
#3: Alec Trevelyan from Goldeneye 007
For a game that revolutionized the FPS genre, it sure hasn’t aged all that well. A perfect example is the final boss itself, Alec Trevelyan. Granted, Alec sucked in the film enough, as all he did was boast about him being better than Bond and constantly monologues, and is suddenly shocked because Bond gets away, as if NOT shooting him would allow him to escape. I can say this for sure… They definitely made Trevelyan suck as much in the game as he did in the movie, so at least they were faithful in that way. But I still find this to be disappointing because of one thing. The boss itself. Throughout the entire fight, Trevelyan is always running away from you like a coward, while he has his goons (GREAT!) to fight you. You only have a very limited time to shoot him before he runs away again, and he has SO MUCH HEALTH! And when you finally do injure him enough, he will lead you to a tiny platform, where he will begin to shoot you without his gun seeming to run out. But of course, he dies in a couple shots, only after taking a thousand bullets to the face. It stayed faithful to Trevelyan sucking, but at the very least make it a one on one match. Not a swarm of enemies coming from every corner of the level.
#2: Jasper Batt Jr. from No More Heroes 2
After the amazing boss fight with Henry from the first No More Heroes game, the sequel had a lot to live up to… So the easiest solution was to not live up to it at all. Throughout the whole game, you were told about Jasper Batt Jr. being this amazing assassin, as he managed to become number one and outrank Travis himself. So, throughout the game, you defeat every ranked assassin, even learning much about life and death, from assassins Vladimir Taktarov, Margaret Moonlight, and especially Alice Twilight. And when you finally get to Batt. Jr… it is the most pathetic thing ever. Unlike the other bosses, Jasper has three different phases. His first phase is pathetically easy. Just wait for him to come near you and swat at him. However, the second phase is when things REALLY start to suck. He then gets SO much harder, punching you all over the damn room. And when he uses the Hurricane Punch, AVOID THE WINDOW AT ALL COSTS! And after that, you finally get to his third form… A giant parade float. As stupid and insulting as that is, it actually makes the fight equally hard, as he can punch you from anywhere in the room. And I know some people will say that Suda51 did this on purpose in order to show that revenge is never satisfying. Congratulations, Suda51, but this boss fight still sucks either way.
#1: The Didact from Halo 4
Throughout the game (I sure am saying that line a lot in this list), the Didact was seen as this epic and amazing villain, who could fling Master Chief around like a rag doll and mess him up badly. I know that making a boss to an FPS game is NEVER the easiest thing in the world, but perhaps the game could have had Master Chief hide behind cover as he sneaks around the Didact and hits him in order to actually hit him… So naturally, what do they do with him? Simple, really. They make his entire boss fight a simple quick-time event……… I am not making this crap up. You literally watch a cutscene, and push a button on the screen, and you kill the Didact… Are you kidding me? you make one button the only way to beat this boss…. I know what some of you are going to say about how there are other final bosses who used quick-time events. Yeah, there were. But here’s the thing. Those bosses had more than one button to press. The final boss of Far Cry 3 sucked, yeah, because it was all quick-time events, but at least you had to press more than one button. Here, in Halo 4, it’s ONE SINGLE BUTTON! And the worst part is that this was the only time in the series where you had to use a quick-time event. Ever! This was the one and only time, and they made it for the freaking final boss of it’s damn game. This goes against literally everything that the Halo franchise stands for. It is worse than the final boss of Halo 2. And, dare I say it, but it is true, it is even worse than 343 Guilty Spark. Yes, that annoying bucket of bolts was a better final boss than this freaking disappointment. If you make that annoying floating bastard a more satisfying final boss, than you fail miserably. The Didact…. You suck. Plain and simple
Well, there you have it. Did you enjoy the list? Tell me what you thought of it. With that said, I will see you all next time.
#10: Gary Smith from Bully
Throughout the game, Gary has been doing some of the worst things a college bully could do. He causes total chaos across the school, bullies everyone lower than him, and even gets Jimmy expelled for vandalizing City Hall and rules the school with total anarchy and keeping the teachers hostage. After chasing him to the top of the school bell tower, you are finally able to give this guy the beating he so rightfully deserves. And I know that final bosses in Rockstar games are a bit… lackluster, but this is just terrible. All he is is a typical enemy with a larger health bar and a few button mashing moments. There is literally nothing special about him in this fight other than he is the last guy you got to beat up. Whoopity-doo. At least you did get to beat this prick up, so that was at least tolerable. But seriously, I would have at least wanted him to be more of a challenge for a guy who could take over the entire school.
#9: Final Hazard from Sonic Adventure 2
There were times when I saw this boss as being cool. Level design and music, yes, it is really cool. Hearing Crush 40 while fighting a giant lizard in space does sound cool. However, in reality, that was my dumb ten-year-old nostalgia blocking my mind from the flaws of this boss fight. In reality, the Final Hazard is just a giant monster for you to ram your body into at high speed, and hope that you can kill him before you run out of rings. Seriously, all you have to do is move forward, avoid his giant lasers, which is easier said than done, and ram your body into his giant bulging and hard to miss weak spots until he dies. While there are a lot of awesome things in this fight, it can either be really easy because he has only one attack, or it can be really annoying, because those lasers knock you all the way back and waste rings which will decrease as you are in Sonic form. Sonic Adventure 2 may not be a perfect game, but at least there weren’t moments that made me feel utterly annoyed. Final Hazard is one of those moments that annoyed me.
#8: Bowser from Super Mario Galaxy 2
I’m not gonna lie, I was not the biggest fan of Super Mario Galaxy 2. The first one was a great game, but the second felt a bit too similar to me. Granted, I had fun with the game still, but still had to look at the box of the game to remember that I was playing Super Mario Galaxy 2. However, one part that was never fun was the pathetic final boss. When you see Bowser get larger, you’d think it would be something so cool… Instead, it’s literally just “Do a ground pound a few times to win”. I wish I was joking, but no. You actually just have to ground pound a few rocks at Bowser (And by a few, I mean four times) and that’s it. I know that Mario games aren’t the most spectacular with their bosses, but REALLY!? You try to make a sequel to one of your most successful games in years, and you come up… with this? Say what you want about Mario 64’s final boss, at least it was interesting compared… to THIS!
#7: Hive Mind from Dead Space
Throughout the game, you are told about this creature called the Hive Mind, a creature created by the Red Marker and one that controls all of the Necromorphs you see in the game. You get to the planet to put the Red Marker where it belongs, and here, you meet the Hive Mind itself. You’d expect it to be a great fight, as it’s huge size is already intimidating enough… sadly, that isn’t the case. He is actually incredibly easy. His weak spot is incredibly easy to spot and to hit. It is only mildly challenging when he picks you up off the ground and holds you upside down where you have to shoot the weak spot to get him off. Sadly, it isn’t much, and it is as easy to get out of as it is to actually kill him. The only reason it lasts longer than it should is because he has a lot of hit points. Their easy to hit and his attacks are SO easy to dodge. In fact, I don’t think I used one medkit throughout the fight. For something that was seen as a god, it was pretty easy to kill, if you ask me.
#6: The Hate from Condemned: Criminal Origins
I can’t begin to describe how stupid the game got near the end. I was okay with the story about the police officer Thomas going after Serial Killer X. But instead, near the end of the game, Thomas has to deal with this thing called The Hate, which is a creature that instills hate into people and makes them do horrible things or something? I don’t know. All I know is that this is stupid. Throughout the game, you are going after a man who murders serial killers, and instead, the final boss looks like something out of Hellraiser. This wimp always stands up at the top of the room while he sends his minions after you (Oh joy, my favorite). After he finally gets the guts to go and fight you, it’s pathetically easy. You just hit him with your weapon like any other enemy and then rip out a piece of his back before doing the same to his jaw. How Thomas grew the strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger to rip out a man's spine with his bare hands, I will never know. And all this just for a crappy jumpscare ending? Let’s hope they did better in the sequel… but, probably not.
#5: Tabuu from Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Oh god, this guy. I talked about this guy in my hated characters list, and I said that he was such a stupid villain. And now that I am better at writing lists… Yeah, he is still a terrible villain. Throughout the game, Ganondorf, Bowser, and King Dedede were seen as the game’s antagonists… And then it was just Ganondorf… and then Master Hand… And then this blue bastard. Why in the name of god would Nintendo create a guy this pathetically stupid at the last minute as the main villain. I hate bosses like that. Oh, but the fight is nothing special either. In easy, he’s such a damn pushover. But no one plays a fighting game on easy mode, so on the other modes, I kid you not, he is as cheap as a boss can get. He may not be Shao Kahn and Galactus levels of cheap, but still cheap. He has a lot of health and a lot of attacks that are hard to avoid. And also, one of his attacks is completely unavoidable, and is guaranteed to kill one of your characters in one hit. I am not kidding when I say he did this to me three times in a row, and I was left with one character. Now, for those who say I just put him on the list because I suck at fighting games, that doesn’t excuse him being such an unoriginal and stupid villain. And this is why I am okay with Super Smash Bros. 4 having no story mode. TO AVOID CRAPPY FINAL BOSSES LIKE THIS!
#4: The Joker from Batman: Arkham Asylum
We all know The Joker as one of the most sadistic and one of the greatest villains to ever be created. Always using mind games to mess with Batman, rather than using force to fight him… So naturally, that was all taken out of him when we got to fight him at the end of Batman: Arkham Asylum… and it was SO AWFUL! Seriously, what in the hell is this? Joker… on steroids? Why? Just why? Oh, and if you think it would be hard, NOPE! The total opposite. It is literally just a simple boss fight, as the Joker, for a guy now with the strength of a mutant (Sadly), does little fighting, as he uses his goons to fight for him, while he stands on the top (Sound familiar?). And when he does come down, it’s as simple as running behind him and punching him in the back… That’s it. Give the final boss of Arkham City some credit, at least it didn’t bastardize a beloved villain. The Joker should never turn into the freaking hulk with a goddamn mohawk. This boss fight is especially bad, as it isn’t just boring and tedious, as well as disappointing, but also insulting to fans everywhere. Nice going, Rocksteady
#3: Alec Trevelyan from Goldeneye 007
For a game that revolutionized the FPS genre, it sure hasn’t aged all that well. A perfect example is the final boss itself, Alec Trevelyan. Granted, Alec sucked in the film enough, as all he did was boast about him being better than Bond and constantly monologues, and is suddenly shocked because Bond gets away, as if NOT shooting him would allow him to escape. I can say this for sure… They definitely made Trevelyan suck as much in the game as he did in the movie, so at least they were faithful in that way. But I still find this to be disappointing because of one thing. The boss itself. Throughout the entire fight, Trevelyan is always running away from you like a coward, while he has his goons (GREAT!) to fight you. You only have a very limited time to shoot him before he runs away again, and he has SO MUCH HEALTH! And when you finally do injure him enough, he will lead you to a tiny platform, where he will begin to shoot you without his gun seeming to run out. But of course, he dies in a couple shots, only after taking a thousand bullets to the face. It stayed faithful to Trevelyan sucking, but at the very least make it a one on one match. Not a swarm of enemies coming from every corner of the level.
#2: Jasper Batt Jr. from No More Heroes 2
After the amazing boss fight with Henry from the first No More Heroes game, the sequel had a lot to live up to… So the easiest solution was to not live up to it at all. Throughout the whole game, you were told about Jasper Batt Jr. being this amazing assassin, as he managed to become number one and outrank Travis himself. So, throughout the game, you defeat every ranked assassin, even learning much about life and death, from assassins Vladimir Taktarov, Margaret Moonlight, and especially Alice Twilight. And when you finally get to Batt. Jr… it is the most pathetic thing ever. Unlike the other bosses, Jasper has three different phases. His first phase is pathetically easy. Just wait for him to come near you and swat at him. However, the second phase is when things REALLY start to suck. He then gets SO much harder, punching you all over the damn room. And when he uses the Hurricane Punch, AVOID THE WINDOW AT ALL COSTS! And after that, you finally get to his third form… A giant parade float. As stupid and insulting as that is, it actually makes the fight equally hard, as he can punch you from anywhere in the room. And I know some people will say that Suda51 did this on purpose in order to show that revenge is never satisfying. Congratulations, Suda51, but this boss fight still sucks either way.
#1: The Didact from Halo 4
Throughout the game (I sure am saying that line a lot in this list), the Didact was seen as this epic and amazing villain, who could fling Master Chief around like a rag doll and mess him up badly. I know that making a boss to an FPS game is NEVER the easiest thing in the world, but perhaps the game could have had Master Chief hide behind cover as he sneaks around the Didact and hits him in order to actually hit him… So naturally, what do they do with him? Simple, really. They make his entire boss fight a simple quick-time event……… I am not making this crap up. You literally watch a cutscene, and push a button on the screen, and you kill the Didact… Are you kidding me? you make one button the only way to beat this boss…. I know what some of you are going to say about how there are other final bosses who used quick-time events. Yeah, there were. But here’s the thing. Those bosses had more than one button to press. The final boss of Far Cry 3 sucked, yeah, because it was all quick-time events, but at least you had to press more than one button. Here, in Halo 4, it’s ONE SINGLE BUTTON! And the worst part is that this was the only time in the series where you had to use a quick-time event. Ever! This was the one and only time, and they made it for the freaking final boss of it’s damn game. This goes against literally everything that the Halo franchise stands for. It is worse than the final boss of Halo 2. And, dare I say it, but it is true, it is even worse than 343 Guilty Spark. Yes, that annoying bucket of bolts was a better final boss than this freaking disappointment. If you make that annoying floating bastard a more satisfying final boss, than you fail miserably. The Didact…. You suck. Plain and simple
Well, there you have it. Did you enjoy the list? Tell me what you thought of it. With that said, I will see you all next time.