RPG Bosses that are far easier than people think.

Discussion in 'Games' started by Xylia, Mar 14, 2018.

  1. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    So I decided to start another fun little discussion thread about RPGs (Mainly J-RPG) bosses that are far, far easier than people let on, and I will of course provide an example to start the ball rolling.

    Now, everybody knows that in many J-RPGs, you can simply just levelup until the boss is absurdly easy. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about clever uses of characters, spells, abilities, or equipment that can be found that makes bosses that are designed to be difficult, cakewalk easy.

    So, let's get on with it, shall we?

    My First Example:

    Magus (Chrono Trigger): Seriously, this guy is far overhyped as far as his boss battle goes. He's somehow earned himself a place on TVTropes lists as "That One Boss" or "Wakeup Call Boss" and what-not, and people actually think this guy is hard for some reason that I can't really fathom.

    However, with a little preparation, you can easily turn this guy into a fight that you cannot possibly lose.

    To do this, we need to accompish two things:

    1). Buy a Demon Edge.
    2). Get Robo's Heal Beam ability.

    These are not as hard as you think. I know I specified in my OP that pure over-leveling does not count. I don't view this as simple grinding levels until you out-level the intended level you were meant to be to do certain content, though.

    To do both of these, you would play through the game until you are tasked with restoring the Masamune and getting Frog into the group. When you recruit Frog for the second time, he will mention about getting Water Magic from the End of Time. Do So and instead of going to 600 BC, instead go to 65M BC and go straight to the Hunting Range.

    Some of you might already know this trick, but I'll explain anyways: When it rains, a Nu can spawn, and if you know how to camp the Nus, you can reliably get one about 75-80% of the time when it rains, and each Nu will give you 30TP when you defeat it. The Nus cannot kill you whatsoever.

    Also, while in the Hunting Range, you will get Fangs, Petals, Horns, and Scales. Use these to buy weapons (the top two and middle two combinations are easiest) and sell those for the GP you will need to buy that ultra-expensive Demon Edge from Medina Village in 1000 AD. Each weapon vendors for about 2-3k so you would only need 20-30 of them. It takes 4 of two items to buy one, so a few trips and you'd have had more than enough to buy the Demon Edge (which is a really strong sword to boot) before you fight Magus. I can't find any info about how many Tech Points it takes to learn Heal Beam, but I remember it being in the 400-500 range. This means 20 trips through the Hunting Range should easily nab you the ability (which is being very generous), and each trip takes at most 5 minutes, so you're looking at two hours or less.

    Once you have these, proceed through Magus's Lair with Robo and Frog as your team, until you find Magus Himself. I'm sure you've likely found numerous Ethers (assuming you didn't sell/waste them), so you should easily have enough that you won't be running out of MP.

    During the first phase, simply have Robo punch Magus to force him to cast a spell. Anybody that's fought him before should know the drill -- anytime you attack him, he'll cast a spell and be weak against the same. If he casts Fire, simply have Robo punch him again until he casts Ice or Lightning.

    In Phase 2, do nothing but Heal Beam and X-Strike. Since the Masamune and Demon Edge both have bonuses against Magus (he counts as a "Magic Enemy" for the purposes of the Demon Edge), this will do enormous damage.

    Magus should be dead before he gets off a third Dark Matter spell, and Robo's Heal Beam can easily out-heal it.

    Easy-peasy, can't possibly lose.

    EDIT: And after you do this, Robo is your go-to team member for pretty much the entire game, because Heal Beam is just that stinkin' overpowered. The next several bosses end up being cakewalk because he can easily out-heal anything they can throw at you with the exception of HP-to-1 attacks.

    Anybody else know of over-hyped bosses that are ludicrously easy with alternate strategies?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2018
    Iris Blanche likes this.
  2. FoxDE2

    FoxDE2 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Omega Weapon from Final Fantasy 8. All you've gotta do is get your hands on some Holy Wars and the battle is a piece of cake. When I was young I used to play games with gameshark, and Tetra Break could beat the infinite health code. THAT led me to believe it was one of the most difficult bosses ever. However, when I got a bit older and started to become more tactical, I realized refining the Gilgamesh card was the easiest way to beat him (and subsequently Ultima Weapon from the same game.)

    Galamoth from Castlevania Symphony of the Night (which is kind of like an action RPG,) really isn't that difficult either. You don't even need an amazing weapon like the Crissaegrim, just the Beryl Circlet (I think that's the one.)

    In Kingdom Hearts, when you go to battle Sephiroth, all you need to do is be prepared for Heartless Angel which brings your health down to 1 HP and the battle isn't that hard. It was difficult enough to be enjoyable, but it wasn't as super hard as people used to say.

    Ruby Weapon. I found a strategy that works pretty well on 'im. I used Red XIII as a pure magic user, who had quad magic/master magic, quad magic/master summon, counter magic/ultima, counter magic/master summon on him among other things. I also had W magic, W summon, Enemy Skill, Master Command, Mega All, HP Plus, Final Attack/Phoenix. I used a Wizard Bangle to keep more materia on him, particularly because it helps vs. Ultima and his physical attacks seem to be based on your total HP. The only thing you had to worry about was keeping his MP up in case Ruby decided to be a prick and attack multiple times in a row, resulting in you dying without being able to use Final Attack/Phoenix. A couple of Hero Drinks before Ruby officially decides to decimate two of your characters and the battle was actually pretty decently won. The only thing was, towards the end, you'd want to use a Knights of the Round or two (with W-Summon,) because he'd start to do nasty tricks like drain your MP and then hit you with ultima and stuff like that. Before that, I'd hit him if I had any spare moves that weren't geared towards recovering HP/MP (I used a bunch of elixirs in this battle too,) I used W-Summon/Quad Summon Bahamut Zero against him frequently.

    Edit: You'd want to use Hades once too before the battle became serious. It doesn't permanently freeze him, but it does permanently slow him.
     
  3. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Here's another one that crossed my mind:

    Sorcerer (Lufia and the Fortress of Doom):

    This boss (I'm not 100% sure about his name) is encountered right after you obtain the boat that you can control, after you meet Professor Shaia. He spams a lot of AoEs and is generally rather difficult to kill, however, there is a way you can gain an edge on him with a little bit of work.

    This is much easier if you saved your Poison Pins that you got throughout the game, though if you sold them you can buy them back at an island that has a shop that sells you everything that you've ever sold.

    Either way, the game will instruct you to sail West to get to the next town. Instead of doing that, sail due South instead and you will find an island with another Shaia lab. You're not really meant to go here until far later into the game, which means they will sell very powerful equipment compared to what you're using now. It may take some grinding to afford this equipment, but if you've enough poison pins, you get some smoke balls and fight some random battles right outside the lab. Wait until you run into two big frogs, and use your poison pins on those (all the other enemies seem to resist it). If you run into anything other than a pair of frogs, use a smoke ball and save frequently.

    Once you have this equipment, you will find that the sorcerer (and a few bosses after him, including that difficult Pirate fight) are going to be much easier with the superior equipment.
     
  4. Gerbilios

    Gerbilios Void-Bound Voyager

    Galamoth from Castlevania: SotN, shield rod special + alucard shield to melt it by touching it with the shield.

    Yiazmat from FF12. With proper gambits and techs you can reduce his dmg to a fraction. Set up the damage/def reduction and let gambits win.

    Shima Sakon from Nioh (its ARPG) dodge diagonally to his right (your left) to position yourself for back attacks or 2nd dodge for followup attacks.
    Nue from Nioh, rush into its left side when it breathes lightning to get a chance at weakspot hit and subsequent stamina burn.

    Data Axel from Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, dont douse his flames. You go down to 1hp but his attacks are easy to dodge and you can consistently smack him abit with reaction command.

    Can't remember much else.
     
  5. D.M.G.

    D.M.G. Master Astronaut

    He takes a couple of hours to beat tho x)

    My pick would be Alad V, from Warframe
    He ain't no superboss or such, but the way he's brought up leads to think he's quite strong
    Talk about a deception: two hammer swooshes and he was done xD
     
  6. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Salad V used to be a flippin' nightmare.

    He started out being super-easy then they increased his level, or made him scale or something and he became absolutely ridiculous to the point he was almost impossible until they finally fixed him.
     
  7. D.M.G.

    D.M.G. Master Astronaut

    Ooooh o:

    Welp, that explains a lot then :rofl:

    Alright, so this one is very silly but: the Eye of Cthuluh, from Terraira: I had a hell of a time fighting it the first time, cos I was terrified of him xD
     
  8. Sparklink

    Sparklink Ketchup Robot

    Hades from the game Kid Icarus Uprising. His battle looked like it was going to be exciting, but it turned out to be a little bit of a letdown. I managed to defeat him at difficulty level 8.0 (out of 9.0) Amusingly Hades was probably one of the best characters in the game; I liked his strange and nonsensical antics.
     
  9. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Oh, I forgot to mention, there's actually two Alad V battles. You probably fought the one on Jupiter? There's another one, IIRC, that's significantly harder. So that could be a 2nd reason as to why you'd hear about Alad being hard; the Jupiter version isn't these days, but I remember his infested version being a good slice harder.
     
  10. D.M.G.

    D.M.G. Master Astronaut

    Yea, I haven't fought Alad V mutalist yet


    He's awesome ya :3
     
  11. Jake9039

    Jake9039 Pangalactic Porcupine

    Muffet from undertale.
    So, you said no grinding for lv's so I'm going to assume I'm going in the pacifist run.
    Step one:eek:pen the piano room by playing the tone of the music box, and get the dog residue. Now clear out your inventory and go to temmy village.now, activate the dog residue, sell what comes out, activate it again, and so forth, until you get the 32bit integer worth of gold coins(go ahead and teach temmie college too.) When you get to Muffets store, purchase a peice of food for the absurd cost. Now muffet will allow you to continue unharmed.
     
  12. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Or, alternatively, you could just buy one of the cheap food items from the ruins back at the beginning of the game, no dog crap needed. Though I suppose that still requires you to go through the battle, but it's a bit shorter, IIRC?
     
  13. I_am_the_Storm

    I_am_the_Storm Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I have one example from Dragon's Dogma... called Ur-Dragon.
    Oh boy... I've met him on my first playthrough. I was around on level 70, class Assasin, with pretty good equipment and tons of healing items. When I've enterd the Chamber of Lament, I've immediatly knew that something BIG will come.
    I was not mistaken. The Ur-Dragon appeared, killed my pawns quite quickly (which isn't problematic at all, as their AI is dumber than frying pan) and I've barely escaped. I didn't had a chance to even scratch him. But... he was so big and powerful for my characters, so I decided to take him down at all costs.
    After tens of failed attempts (and broken keyboard) I've found an easy way how to deal with him : good old fisticuffs. Warrior was remedy for my serious gaming problems. It was just about slicing and dicing his legs and head, dodging his attacks, then jump on him, climb to one place on his body, punch that pulsating thing, recover from fall, dodge, jump and climb to another place, punch another, fall, repeat a hundred times... quite frustrating.
    At first, he might look as unbeatable, as he was originaly made as online boss, yet still accesible offline only with reduced health, but soon as you discover good tactic, he is quite easy to defeat.
     
  14. Gerbilios

    Gerbilios Void-Bound Voyager

    The Bishop Alexander + Void Worm encounter in Divinity 2 original sin (below HC RPG fan difficulties) Alexander and his cronies have the positional advantage, deny them that. Fight outside the gates, use ground effects and patience and sneak to your advantage. When the worm shows up, you most likely are outside the range of at least 1 of the bishops ranged cronies and can just nuke it out while also DPSing alexanders goons.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2018
  15. JB_Markowicz

    JB_Markowicz Void-Bound Voyager

    Should i play crono Trigger?
     
  16. D.M.G.

    D.M.G. Master Astronaut

    OH BOI

    YES YOU SHOULD!!!!!

    Seriously it's awesome ^^
     
    Xylia likes this.
  17. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    ^^
    This.

    Chrono Trigger is a very fun game that uses the ATB style battle system (like FF4 through 9) with a few tweaks (such as being able to quickly switch between characters who are ready to take their turn without spending their turn and also combo attacks).

    It features a lot of Time Travelling and in some cases, you get to see the effects of actions you take in different time periods.

    It's really nice.

    Just don't buy the Steam PC version; use an emulator or virtual console.
     
  18. JB_Markowicz

    JB_Markowicz Void-Bound Voyager

    Well that's great to hear, i love any game that has original mechanics, like Mario RPG games.
    I was worried IGN would trick me again, like it always does.
     
  19. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    CT was made back during Square/Square-Enix's golden days back before they tried to reinvent the wheel with every single new game they released. They had a system they knew worked, and worked well, their games were at the peak of popularity and people loved them.

    I think they started going downhill at about the FF8 era. They produced a mixed bag of PS1 RPGs that some were hit, some were somewhat misses. FF8 is very "eh" in many peoples' eyes; some love it, most are indifferent and some downright hate the game because of the weird Junction system it has. FF9, most people loved because it looked like they were ready to go back to their roots and the game has a very FF6 vibe to it. Then 10 comes out and we're re-inventing the wheel all over again and... they never really did get back to that tried-and-true style game, at least unless you count I am Setsuna and Lost Sphear, but those are games that are way overpriced for their length.

    But anyways, sorry about digressing... I'm an old fashioned gamer who misses the Squaresoft/SquareEnix golden era. Back when a new RPG being announced was met with excitement and bated breath.

    Nowadays, it's more "meh" than anything. FF13 and its sequels I felt were "meh" (I didn't even play them; I watched youtube footage). FFXIV 1.0 was a disaster, though they vastly improved 2.0/ARR, and FF15? Meh. Nothing about that "grabbed" me.

    FF7 reboot? MEH. Total MEH because they're turning it into Kingdom Hearts/Standard Action RPG Here when all I wanted as a Secret of Mana-like Remaster, not a whole reboot.

    But yeah. lol. I'm digressing even more lol. I'm just an old RPG nerd...
     
  20. D.M.G.

    D.M.G. Master Astronaut

    It is nice to have fellow nerds ^^

    But it is true that RPGs are not what they used to be
    But I think it is heavily linked to the spreading of the game medium nowadays, unfortunatly
    The larger scale, the duller (althought it is not always true)
     

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