Games that put the toughest boss in the middle or early in the game (spoilers)

[shopkins]

Usually in a game you expect that your toughest challenge will probably be, if not the last boss, at least a boss somewhere near the end of the game. But I've played some games that definitely throw you for a loop on that one and put the hardest (non-secret) boss somewhere else.

The most recent one I've ran into is Alpha Protocol. In Alpha Protocol you fight a boss named Brayko, who you can access pretty early into the game. He's hard to shoot, faster than you, floods the room with thugs which puts you in a crossfire that's hard to get out of, and is a beast in melee combat, which he occasionally tries to force you to engage in by chasing you down with a knife. It took me a lot of tries to beat him, and I thought I was in for a big difficulty spike for the rest of the game. But all of the other bosses were relatively easy, and the last boss was a joke.

So, what games that do this have you run across? Do you think the toughest fight should be at the end, or would you rather have it in an unexpected place for variety?

[LiquidPolicenaut]

One that quickly comes to mind is the fight against Borgan in Lunar: Eternal Blue for the Sega CD. That was one bitch of a fight! They really toned down the difficulty, though, for that fight in the Saturn/PSX remake...

[Junkyrdsalesman]

When I was young I always had trouble beating Clayton in Kingdom Hearts

[kupomogli]

While I've always managed to get past, I'd probably say Wiegraf and Velius at the end of Chapter 3 in Final Fantasy Tactics. You always hear people getting stuck on that battle and having to restart their game or from an older save data because they've saved over their previoius file.

I usually have Monk and Square mastered around that time so I use a Monk with HP Restore, and repeatedly use Scream and Chakra when needed, after finishing off Wiegraf and getting two turns in a row with Ramza, Velius is no problem. I've beaten him normally once or twice, but he's way too much of a pain.

The next battle is also in the running for hardest in the game, because Rafa is retarded and 99% of the time goes up to the enemies and attacks them, getting killed before you can even take a turn.

[duffmanth]

The first few that come to mind is Hades in God of War 3, The End in MGS3, and probably the Crysalis battle half way through MGS: Peacewalker.

[kupomogli]

The End in MGS3

Might be the hardest, could also be the easiest. To me the stealth in MGS3 was unenjoyable as literally every area you had to wait sometimes minutes before you could proceed, so I didn't even attempt to finish this boss normally.

[duffmanth]

Might be the hardest, could also be the easiest. To me the stealth in MGS3 was unenjoyable as literally every area you had to wait sometimes minutes before you could proceed, so I didn't even attempt to finish this boss normally.

My first time beating this guy, it took an entire afternoon.

[exit]

Green Eye in Lost Planet quickly comes to mind, I really enjoyed the game up to that point, but stopped there because I just couldn't deal with being plummeted to death several hundred times.

[Yago]

Resident Evil 4. The fight against Krauser was a lot tougher than the fight against Saddler.

Also in the original Zelda I thought Manhandla was harder than Ganon especially when you figured out the pattern of Ganons's fire balls.

The toughest fight should definitely be at the end. I feel a game should get progressively tougher from start to finish but not impossible to finish like the end of NES Ikari Warriors. What's up with that crap? I always seem to get hit with the glitch making the game unwinnable.

[The 1 2 P]

We actually covered this thread before (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133940&highlight=castlevania+boss) although that was two years ago.

[SpaceHarrier]

edit: I totally misread the title of this thread. Sleepy time.

[dystopian]

I would say Lost Odyssey (either the dragon early on or the battle at the "Dam" of some type also early on -- memory evades).

[MarioMania]

We actually covered this thread before (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133940&highlight=castlevania+boss) although that was two years ago.

Can anyone use a search engine first

[Guyra]

Can anyone use a search engine first

Then again, people enjoys complaining about necrobumping really old threads. :P

[TonyTheTiger]

Cheating a bit but any Mega Man could qualify depending on which stage you tackle first.

Also cheating a bit but any RPG that has one of those unwinnable fights as a plot device could count since many of them are technically beatable.