The most frustrating modern videogame bosses

Everyone has that one boss battle that reduces them to a cold sweat when mentioned.

Throughout the ages, we’ve bested some real controller-smashing, CD-snapping monstrosities who for some reason we just could not stop begging for punishment from.

If your parents didn’t abuse you, Mike Tyson did in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.

Here are some of the most virile and hateful end of level bosses of modern gaming I have ever encountered.

This has nothing to do with the experiences from my earlier childhood, which are best left between me and the various vintage consoles and PCs.

Penance – Final Fantasy X

Grade 7? More like Grade X.

This whole list could actually just consist of Final Fantasy bosses. These patience-testing benchmarks of abuse were without a doubt some of the most harmful things to come out of Japan, other than flooding and radioactive waste.

This was the secret and most powerful boss in the entire game. Appearing on the deck of the airship after various requirements had been fulfilled; Penance would reveal itself to the stalwart completionist.

Boasting over 12, 000, 000 HP and devastating insta-kill attacks, Penance took the hair-tearing fury-inducing antics of Final Fantasy games to the next level.

Being able to interrupt turns and deal 99,999 damage with his ultimate attack, Penance was several hours of sympathetic nervous system overdrive.

The Nihilanth – Half-Life

Inter-dimensional Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Deity.

This xeno God was the frustrating conclusion to one of the best journeys in gaming history.

After many, many hours crowbarring your way through hordes of polygon aliens, the near invulnerable giant baby freak was your final challenge, and oh what a challenge he was.

Teleporting you into a trance party full of aliens, volatile energy blasts and just plain old throwing handfuls of aliens at you were all part of The Nihilanth’s repartee.

Killing this guy wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was knowing that you’d finished Half-Life and now had to deal with the void and existential crisis.

I really hope that Black Mesa gets completed and the final part of the epic can be completed.

The End – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Grandpa can’t believe you’d stoop so low. Also, are you related to Quiet?

At one point in the wildlife munching escapades of the young Big Boss, the centenarian sniper ‘The End’ would have you in the sights of his Mosin-Nagant, launching a very long game of jungle cat-and-mouse.

Snake would need to use all of his sneaking skills to pull a fast one on the moss-covered geriatric, who’d been stealthy before communism even existed.

Spanning several hours (depending on difficulty and skill of the player) and several areas, this was one of the most tense and tricky boss fights ever.

That being said, the prick gamer could fast-forward the PlayStation 2’s clock by a week and load up the game. A cut-scene would then play showing The End dying of old age. Classic.

Players could also snipe The End right at the beginning of the game as he is being pushed in a wheelchair and not have to fight him at all. It’s the small things that make me love Kojima so damn much.

Vicar Amelia – Bloodborne

You are so done. Tickets, curtains.

This satanic reindeer drained my psyche and I could feel my ego beginning to crumble under the strain of dying again, and again, and again. One of my friends still cannot get past this boss.

Bloodborne was a tough cookie, everyone knows that. But for some reason, one of the relatively early-game bosses was just tyrannically undefeatable.

That being said, every person has their own menace they gnashed their teeth over, and if you played Bloodborne you might have just waltzed through this one.

Never having played a Souls game, Vicar Amelia was my true baptism by fire into this devilish realm of infinite death.

With wide-slashing and far-reaching attacks, not to mention a regeneration ability, any girl I meet called Amelia will automatically be my enemy.

Yiazamat – Final Fantasy XII

No game does monster design like Final Fantasy.

Yiazamat wasn’t necessarily the hardest boss I’ve ever encountered, but the sheer endurance required to take this leviathan out was ridiculous.

With over 50, 000, 000 health, this colossal whatever he is had more vitality than an undiscovered prehistoric deep-sea creature, more health than Buddha, more health than Oprah.

Packed with the typical insta-kill attacks typical of all secret Final Fantasy bosses and each attack having 5% of causing instant-death, this was one wyrm you really didn’t want to tango with.

I don’t know how long it took to end this hellish bulwark of virginity, but I started feeling pretty delirious towards the end. I’d clock it in around 4 or 5 hours.