Top 10 Lists : The Top 10 Wake-up Call Bosses

#10 on the list is the boss of the first area of the game, Murai. You might have had a bit of trouble getting up to him, and that's fine, but once you reach him, he will kick your ass if you come in thinking you could just button mash. He hits harder than other enemies in the area, is a bit faster, and uses throws if you think you can guard. The use of a few combo moves makes this fight simple enough, but for those that don't know, he will beat you until you learn. And he's just testing you. He earns the number 10 spot because of the sheer frustration I had with him when I first played this game.

Number 9 on the list is a boss designed to stomp you into the ground, Vanguard. He shows up at the end of the tutorial level out of nowhere, and he has little trouble killing you in five seconds, as anything more than a sneeze from him will probably kill you in one hit. This is pretty much just a taste of what's to come, and teaches the importance of dodging attacks, as you really can't take much in the way of hits in this game. Most of his attacks are hard to dodge because the room is so small, and you can't get back into that tunnel that you reached him from. Killing him is possible, and it will net you quite a few goodies. In the event you do kill him, however, another boss up ahead will outright kill you right then and there. You're supposed to die at the end of the tutorial, so...

This boss ended up earning the number 9 slot because the game he shows up in only came out recently, and thus isn't the most well-known example.

Scarmiglione seems to be an interesting example for those who haven't played this game yet, as he pretty much comes out of nowhere. The DS remake for FFIV upped the difficulty by a lot, and through use of items and healing, you probably got up to this point. Scarmiglione shows up, and is pretty easy for some reason, just bringing a few zombies to help. Most players will have no trouble dispatching this boss in no more than a few minutes.

Upon crossing the bridge that he was guarding, he comes back with a vengeance. He pretty much gains a ton of offensive capabilities in his second form, and worse yet, he back attacks you, reversing your lineup, which means that the mages are probably going to be taking the large majority of physical hits, which is bad because in this form, he has no trouble killing frontline mages in one hit. This boss basically teaches you the importance of debuffs, buffs, and status ailments, as a combination of Slow and Darkness status neuters him entirely. No boss put up quite the fight this one did up to this point, and thus earns the number eight spot on the list.

Number 7 on this list is a boss that I wasn't expecting when I played this game, Croco. The fights you've had to contend with up to this point were fairly easy, and most enemies didn't pose much of a threat, but that changes quickly once you get to Croco. He stole an item from what appears to be a mushroom named Mallow, so you help him get his item back. Once you get the item back, he attacks, and somehow hits like a train compared to the other mobs around this area. The usage of the blocking system in this game, that is, hitting a button at the right time to reduce damage, is almost essential to winning here. He has no gimmicks, just an absurd damage output for that point in the game, and a way of healing himself.

Granted, the game is mostly easy otherwise, and one move completely breaks this fight, but other than that, the trouble I had with him when I played this game some time ago earns him the #7 spot on the list.

Dragon Age: Origins is a fairly challenging game, no denying that. The developers even patched the game to make the Easy difficulty easier. That's besides the point though. Most fights up to this point were fairly easy, maybe a bit challenging for some. Then comes the tower that this boss resides in, which also serves as a wake-up call level. Most enemies here pose a major threat, not to mention the amount of spell-casting mobs around. You may eventually reach the top through tactics like luring smaller groups of enemies.

At the top however, the gloves come off by comparison to everything else up to this point. The Ogre is huge, hits hard, and is surprisingly fast, amongst other things. He also has an instant-kill attack in the form of grabbing someone and punching them to death. Granted, you can inflict some damage and knock him out of doing this, but not without having an ally damaged somewhat. A simple tactic of everyone wielding bows and luring the Ogre around with someone while everyone fills him with arrows or spells makes this fight almost anti-climatic, but once again fulfills the purpose of a pop quiz to see if you know how the game works. This earns him the #6 spot on the list.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is a hard game, no denying that. Enemies hit hard, amongst other things. This boss shows up early, a bit after the first boss, who wasn't too hard. Somehow he manages to be harder than most other bosses in the game simply by virtue of his size and power. This fight basically teaches you that dodging is still important in metroidvania games, you still need to play defensively, and you can't let yourself get cornered at all. He's relatively challenging and can kill most players in five hits. Hard difficulty? Only one. Using a specific skill, you can get behind him, but he doesn't turn around, instead opting to arch his back, falling over, and somehow moving at an absurd speed to attack you until you get in front of him again.

This fight is hard to describe, but is somehow challenging enough at that point in the game to where it earns spot #5 on the list.

Number four on the list is Wendigo from Devil Survivor. Long story short, your death clock in the game has reached zero, meaning you'll die that day. You also received an e-mail on your demon summoning device saying that three people will die to a snowman in a blizzard. There are three people on your team. A blizzard starts up in an area. You do the math.

This boss serves as a pop quiz like almost every boss on this list. All battles up to this point were fairly easy until this dude comes around. This boss hits hard, has healers, and loves to abuse weaknesses if he can. If you understand demon abilities in this game, you can easily turn this battle into a matter of keeping the boss slowed down while everyone else clears the map of other demons before ganging up on Wendigo. If you know the tactic, this fight is easy enough, but if you don't, this battle becomes one of attrition, even with the most powerful demons up to that point. This earns him the #4 spot on the list.

Anyone who's played the first Diablo immediately knows who I'm referring to. None other than the dude who killed an entire platoon of troops, The Butcher can be unexpected if you aren't prepared. He sits in a small room that seems inconspicuous otherwise, and when opened, the infamous phrase "AH, FRESH MEAT!" is accompanied by a very swift death. He's fast, hits unbelievably hard for that point in the game, and won't stop chasing you until you're dead. The best part of this is that you're given the quest early on, and you're pretty much lulled into a false sense of difficulty. Most enemies up to that point aren't a threat, until you run into the Butcher.

The game's difficulty rises the further you go in, and you may have to come back later to kill the Butcher. In that regard, this boss fits the cliche perfectly. He signifies a huge difficulty spike, and teaches you that you aren't as strong as you think you are. There is a cheap trick that takes advantage of the AI in the game, and using it lets you beat him with ease, but the sheer fear this dude instills in many players, among other factors, earns him the #3 spot on the list.

#2 on the list is the quintessential example of a Wake-up Call Boss in a video game, Matador. SMT games in general are known for being rather challenging. You probably got to this boss with some degree of challenge, but that won't matter when you get to this boss. He comes out of nowhere, is somehow a higher level by a wide margin than most demons in the area he resides, and can easily kill your party. This boss serves as a pop quiz, showing that if you don't understand the importance of buffs and debuffs in general, this boss will kill you. Quickly. Over and over, until you learn. And this is just a mere taste of what's to come, and to what lengths you'll have to go to beat most bosses in this game.

The battle either way is interesting. He loves wind-based spells, so to survive, you'll need a team resistant to it. He also hits hard, so you'll need some good healing. You can whittle him down over time, but once you cause enough damage, the gloves come off. He casts "Red Capote", which means his evasion spikes upward to it's maximum. In other words, good luck hitting him. The use of two skills lets you beat him easily. Fog Breath/Sukukaja, which lowers evasion for the enemy or ups the evasion/accuracy rate of your team, or Dekaja, which nullifies stat boosts for the opponent, although I'm not sure if you'd have the latter up to that point in the game.

This boss would take the #1 spot easily, if the next one on the list wasn't so well-known by comparison.

And last but not least, in first place is none other than Brock and Misty from Red/Blue/Yellow. These two happen to be much tougher than most trainers in the surrounding areas, have powerful attacks, and force you to use type advantages if you want to really hurt them. God help you if you chose Charmander, as both would end up becoming bosses that'd give you a headache without another pokemon to exploit their weaknesses. This is made worse by the fact that most pokemon that are catcheable before the battle (Bug, Normal, Flying, Poison, and Electric types) really have no chance of denting Brock's pokemon.

Yellow presents an interesting case. Your only starter is Pikachu, who cannot hurt Brock's pokemon much, and takes super-effective damage from all of them. To remedy this, Mankey, a fighting type (who can hit them for SE damage) can be caught early on, and more pokes learn better moves early on. This fight basically serves to teach you not to rely on one pokemon alone.

Misty also qualifies for this, as she shows up relatively early ingame, and has an offensive powerhouse named Starmie. If you cannot get a good type advantage over Starmie, it will have no problem killing your pokes over and over again. The fact that these two show up so early in the game and are well-known earns them the #1 spot on this list.

Overall, there isn't terribly much left to say. Games can still put you in your place if you don't know what you're doing. Of course, as this is a Top 10, I couldn't post as many examples as I wanted to, but that won't matter much, as all of these bosses can cause a potential headache or cause controllers to be broken in more extreme cases. Chances are, there are some harder examples out there, but that might be because I haven't played those games yet. These bosses would accompany my personal hell if it existed.

List by BahamutZero92 (08/18/2010)

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