Here are the 7 hardest first boss battles that made gamers ragequit. Anyone who has played a video game has probably fought a boss at some point. For many, the chance to rumble with a powerful entity and test one’s skills is a high point in gaming.
Whether it involves developing a winning strategy or getting the muscle memory down for dodging, we’re typically eager for a bit of challenge.
First bosses typically act as pseudo-tutorials and teach us about important mechanics of the game. Other times, they’re just there to kick us down when we’re at our weakest.
For this list, we’re focusing on some of the most unfairly hard first boss battles that made us want to quit.
Devil May Cry 3 – Cerberus
Hardest First Boss Battles
Devil May Cry 3 was never an easy game. Back in the day, Capcom had to make guides for players because they couldn’t beat its impossible final boss. For many gamers who grew up on the PlayStation 2, this was the standout hardcore action game before Demon’s Souls kicked off the entire trend anew.
People who played Devil May Cry 3 were also likely in it for the stylish combat. Indeed, the moment you dive into the game you’ll immediately see Dante downing demons in classic cocky form.
For the most part, the game does a good job at teaching you how to play while evoking that sense of empowerment. And then, it quickly throws you off the deep end.
It doesn’t take long into the game before you’re fighting a boss named Cerberus. Just as the name suggests, this is a three-headed dog that’s guarding the entrance to the giant tower you’re supposed to climb.
Not only are you fighting him in a cramped room, he hits like a truck, uses multiple vague melee attacks, shoots out projectiles, and even drops icicles from the ceiling.
It’s hard to say whether Cerberus’ crushing difficulty was designed this way so that Capcom could teach players about what they were getting into.
The game does get relatively easier after this, but for many fans, Cerberus was true to its role as a gatekeeper to the actual game.
Bloodborne – Father Gascoigne
Hardest First Boss Battles
Now, I know what you’re thinking: the Cleric Beast in Bloodborne could be considered the first boss in the game. Ultimately, however, it’s just an optional boss that guards nothing but a dead end. Players who aren’t willing to have a shot at the menacing beast can just skip it and wouldn’t be any worse for wear.
You can’t, however, escape the clutches of Father Gascoigne so easily –he’s an obstacle that must be overcome, and man alive is he hard to beat! Things may have been fine and dandy with the regular enemies, but this boss makes a point on why you shouldn’t get complacent.
Gascoigne shares the same weapons and move set as your own character. In an ideal world, this would mean that you could more or less match up to him in a messy fight.
Unfortunately, Gascoigne is an aggressive fighter with no regard for his own safety. His health bar is far more durable than yours, and to make matters worse, the cemetery the fight takes place in is littered with stray gravestones, designed to give you a hard time in evading Gascoigne.
Think you’ve got him figured out? Well, look out, because now he can transform into a werewolf that’s far more vicious than he already was. A perfectly adequate twist for a first boss in a game like this.
Lost Odyssey – Grilgan
Hardest First Boss Battles
One word: Downburst. Lost Odyssey was an Xbox 360 exclusive, directed by the creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi. Like his iconic JRPG franchise, this game featured a traditional turn-based battle system. But even players familiar with the genre had trouble defeating this particular boss.
Grilgan isn’t really a special enemy. It’s a giant creature that so happens to ambush your party once you’re a little past the tutorial phase.
Even so, the boss doesn’t show any mercy and can easily kill your party if you’re not careful.
An attack called Poison Claw deals about half of a character’s health and then poisons them. You’re forced to make a hard decision between healing a character up, removing their poison status, or keeping the offense on the boss’ relatively large HP pool.
More obnoxious is Grilgan’s Downburst. This is an area-of-effect attack that hits your entire party, which is more damage than you can heal early on. If you’re unlucky, it’ll do this multiple times, which means you may as well redo the fight.
To say that Grilgan is a complex fight would be wrong. The strategy to defeating it is relatively straightforward.
But as a first boss, Grilgan demands a surprising amount of optimization, requiring that you utilize the proper equipment, have the right strategy, and make no careless errors through the span of the fight.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma – Murai
Hardest First Boss Battles
Without a good understanding of how he fights, the nunchaku-wielding Murai from Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a tough one to crack. In that sense, pretty much every person trying this game out with a clean slate is going to have trouble with this guy.
Like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden was also known for its hardcore and tough gameplay. Nothing could be more emblematic of this than the game’s very first boss.
Though the original 2004 Ninja Gaiden game on the Xbox 360 went through multiple iterations such as Ninja Gaiden Black, and eventually Sigma, Murai was never tweaked to be easier.
Murai comes at you with swift attacks from his nunchakus, which you’ll have to learn to block. But block for too long and he’ll hit you with an unblockable blow. Finding an opening on Murai is also tough since he’s perfectly capable of blocking your attacks.
As for his own attacks, he doesn’t really telegraph them very much. Even throwing stars are completely useless, effectively forcing you into a one-on-one against a somewhat unpredictable AI.
The best way to defeat Murai is strangely gimmicky, which involves running up the nearby walls and sending a downward slash his way. He becomes much more manageable this way, but this wouldn’t be a tactic you’d figure out any time soon.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit version) – Tiny balls of Doom?
Hardest First Boss Battles
When someone mentions Sonic 2, most people think of the beloved 16-bit classic for the Sega Mega Drive. Little do many talk about the handheld version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Indeed, back when Sonic 2 was at its peak and selling like hotcakes, Sega had also released an 8-bit version of the game for its Game Gear console.
The Game Gear, limited as it was, also brought some challenging restrictions to Sonic 2. The game ran on a tiny 160 x 144 resolution across a 3-inch screen.
This meant that players had be extra careful of hazards, since they could rarely see objects in Sonic’s way before it was too late.
This is part of what made Sonic 2’s first boss so dreadful. Once you’re through the first level, the ever-meddling Dr. Robotnik catches you in mid-air and places you on a sloped hill. Without warning, tiny black balls start bouncing down the hill.
Since Sonic doesn’t have any rings he can hold onto at this point, simply touching these balls results in a game over. The goal is to dodge the balls enough times for the sequence to end.
What makes this so frustrating isn’t just the one-hit kills. The movements of these black balls (hang on, could they actually be boulders?) are erratic, sometimes bouncing high or low.
They’re also randomized, so good luck trying to react to and evade each incoming projectile in the tiny space that this game offers. It goes without saying that this first boss was incredibly harsh for seemingly no reason.
Dark Souls 3 – Iudex Gundyr
Hardest First Boss Battles
Across FromSoftware’s many iterations of the Souls games, it seems that the developers eventually became aware of players’ easily-identifiable habits whenever they played these games.
The turtle strategy is a familiar tactic to Souls veterans, which involves defending yourself with a shield until an opportunity to attack presents itself.
Dark Souls 3’s Iudex Gundyr immediately aims to put that strategy on the shelf. From the get-go, this opponent is swinging hard and fast.
If you block any of its attacks, you’ll find that you’ll have very little time to recover and retaliate, which means that dodging is the next best option.
Though Iudex Gundyr telegraphs its attacks, the timing for when they’ll actually land is deceptive compared to the bosses of previous Souls games.
Let’s not forget that partway through the fight, a giant and slimy creature bursts out from the boss, with an all-new moveset you’ll have to be wary of. Better roll like your life depends on it because this thing can crush you.
Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow – Brock
Hardest First Boss Battles
The Pokemon series was never really known for being difficult, and to be fair, Pokemon Red and Blue on the Nintendo Game Boy wasn’t really that tough of a game.
The series has maintained the concept of a carefree RPG about catching and collecting monsters for years, even in its most recent iterations.
Pokemon Yellow was a new version of Pokemon Red and Blue introduced due to the popularity of the cartoon series at the time. Familiar characters such as Brock and Misty can all be found in these games as gym leaders.
Speaking of gym leaders, Brock is the first boss you’ll encounter in Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, who duels you with his Geodude and Onyx.
Now, Geodude and Onyx aren’t particularly difficult, but it is important to note that both of his Pokemon are Rock and Ground types.
When picking your starter Pokemon in Red and Blue, you’re offered a choice between Charmander, Bulbasaur, or Squirtle, which are Fire, Grass, and Water-type Pokemon respectively. In terms of affinities, Ground is weak to Grass and Water and takes normal damage from Fire.
If you somehow thought Bulbasaur or Squirtle were cuter and picked either of them, then Brock would probably be a breeze for you. Charmander users, unfortunately, would have pulled the short end of the stick. Being weak to both Ground and Rock, bringing Charmander into the fight would prove to only be a fool’s errand.
This situation gets worse in Pokemon Yellow, which pairs you up with a Pikachu as your starter Pokemon. Being an Electric-type, most of Pikachu’s attacks will end up being ineffective on Brock. Those who bought this version simply because they loved the cartoon series were probably in for a rude awakening.
That’s it for our hardest first boss battles that made us ragequit!
About the author
