The Worst Boss Fight of All Time | Design Delve

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In today’s episode, J & Ludo stumble upon what could possibly be the worst boss fight of all time.

Music used in order of appearance:
Intruder - Stray OST
The Abyss - Hyper Light Drifter OST
Checking in - Celeste OST
The Notebooks - Stray OST
Secret Lab - Stray OST

[DeadSparkMan]

Small clarification, Dante doesn't flip a coin because he doesn't care, but because he wants people to THINK he doesn't care. The coin has 2 heads, so he's helping people every time. He uses it to appear aloof, to hide that he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart.

I don't fault anyone who's hated DMC2 to know this, though, since it's revealed after you play the whole game as Lucia. And who wants to replay THAT game ? x)

[grfrjiglstan]

I love that it’s called an Infested Chopper solely to justify why you have to fight it. It doesn’t use its infestation for any attacks, when you knock it down the blades don’t turn into tentacles or anything, it fights exactly like a normal helicopter would.
They say helicopters exist in videogames solely for the purpose of being shot down, but considering how much health it has, it practically fails at that too.

[danidm]

When Itsuno was brought in to fix DMC2, with only a few months to do so, he found the team had:
- no finished levels
- no finished enemies
- no finished movesets
- ONE SINGLE animation that was considered "completed" and ready for the final product (the Stinger animation, which also happens to be the worst Stinger animation out of every single game).

Honestly, it's a miracle the game is in any way a playable product at all.

[KittyLitterYT]

"Actually two hours later it turns out he's not dead and he just... dies again" is an accurate summary of marathon-watching the star wars movies on chronological order

[hawkeyegough]

i dearly hope Yahtz was forced to look upon that foul hedgehog creation

[theopeneyes]

Fun Fact: DMC2 was so terrible the director who was dragged in to fix it in 5 months, Hideaki Itsuno, was so ashamed of the project that he refused to accept it as his only contribution to the DMC series and went on to develop the legendary DMC3 entry. In short we literally wouldn't have the GOAT that is DMC3 without DMC2's horrible outcome.

[MysteriousJojo]

Says a lot about Devil May Cry 2 that even knowing how awful the Infested Chopper is, there were still several other candidates from the game running through my head, like the Infested Tank that literally can't hit you if you stand right next to it, or the underwater fight against the giant fish that's randomly invisible on higher difficulties

[ReloKai]

Probably not as bad as Infested Helicopter, but Sauron from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. He's the final boss, the king of all evil...and he's just 3 quick time events.

[shrmpsush]

Fun fact about that "random knight" from the ESO trailer: Despite getting stabbed through the torso by his own sword and having an entire rampart dropped on him hard enough to put him through the roof he was fighting on, he's still alive.

[Elmo]

Boss fights have gone downhill ever since that basketball-playing rabbit in Wario Land 2 who wants to stomp you, turn you into a basketball, and then slam dunk you, and you have to do the same to him, and it's first to three wins. Nothing else has ever come narratively close.

[HyperdrivePlaysAGame]

When I saw the title, my brain went "its probably the fish fight from DMC2", glad to see my intuition was kinda on point.

[draconusfrigidus]

Best part is Sega released 'Shinobi' the previous year, which also has a demonically possessed chopper as a boss (with multiple phases to boot), except there the devs has the forethought of "Well combat in this game is largely melee focused with limited ranged options, so we'd better do something like have the chopper remain close to the ground so you can actually reach it with your jumps...oooh and maybe have the boss' arena be something like a parking lot, or an oriental garden, with objects you can climb to jump higher for when it's not close to the ground! Oh, and since you can charge special attacks by killing normal enemies, let's have some of those spawn every so often so the battle doesn't get too monotonous and you have the means of preparing additional options for dealing more damage!"

[thesacredbeast]

When I saw the thumbnail, I was planning on countering with the dmc2 helicopter, looks like you were right though.

[bbeauart]

The Bed of Chaos from DS1 has to be up there for frustrating boss fights, particularly as the design of the model is so cool and also barely visible throughout the fight.

[Shintenpu]

I remember that many final bosses of Assassin's Creed do not involve stealth assassination, but big huge melee fights. Fights that you've been taught to avoid for the whole game.

[shards-of-glass-man]

Oh, Infested Chopper, we meet again. The loop of turning one's brain to the music and then pressing gun a quintillion times. That being said, it's your mistake that you even fought it "every phase" - you can just run from it all the way until it corners you atop a tower. Which might be actually the intended way to do it.
...I'm serious, this is the first time I've ever seen someone actually stop to shoot at it in a not "leave me alone I'm running" way at any point that is not at the skyscraper, much less at EVERY point. Until the bar depletes all the way for each. ...my condolences.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

The pre-Director's Cut of Lawrence Barrett in Deus Ex Human Revolutions is the worst boss, mainly because it actively punishes you for taking any route except combat upgrades, despite the choices being the entire _point_ of the game dynamics and what made the original Deus Ex so groundbreaking.

[pixelpeek]

Last boss on Dying Light. Takes away all your weapons and puts you up against a copy and pasted enemy that’s nothing but a 30min sponge. It’s horrid.

[ThatGuy-izvy]

"Yahtzee the Hedgehog" is one of the greatest inside joke jabs I've even seen

It's attack "fire tits" is the cherry on top 👌 🤣

[zoakdo]

I think the worst boss fight comes from Dead in Vinland. This game has a very interesting leveling system. When a character levels up, you get to choose between 5 options. They are either small buffs or a larger buff with a debuff. It’s an interesting way of going about it where you’re more often not becoming straight up stronger across the board, but instead more specialized. It’s interesting and really requires you to approach your entire group as a team that needs to support each other.

One of the bosses in the game has an ability that negates all positive buffs on your team. And all these level ups are treated as permanent status effects. So all of the benefits you have obtained over the game are gone, but the downsides are still in play. So in order to beat her, you need to fight her with characters who have never gotten any combat skills so they won’t be debuffed. It doesn’t feel great needing to abandon your core combat team in order to use characters you’re completely unfamiliar with in combat. And narratively, it means the strongest warrior on the island can be taken down by a group of complete amateurs.