Board 8 > Trdl's Top 25 Bosses -- The List + Writeups!

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trdl23
11/17/19 1:23:55 AM
#1:


Well, it took me a while to nail down what to put where, but the list is done and it's time to get these writeups going!

Some notes on how I made this list:

-The list considers gameplay much more than my previous top moments list. GLaDOS is a fantastic antagonist but that final fight in Portal 1 wasnt great, so shes not here. No VNs here either.
-However, gameplay isnt everything! Narrative focus and character quality separate the good from the great.
-If I didnt play it personally, I am not ranking it. Sorry, Bloodborne. If there are games in a franchise or significant routes that I havent played, I will note it below.
-Recurring bosses are considered as a set -- though
-As my previous ranking topics, I am limiting myself to only 4 entries per franchise at most.

I was surprised to discover just how many of my favorite games/series didnt actually have good bosses! Fire Emblem being an easy standout. The gameplay just isnt conducive to it since its much more built around scenarios.

I tried to run a predix contest but only got two entries... but that's no problem! The list must go on!

The list will be from the following franchises:

-Final Fantasy
-Touhou
-Persona
-MadWorld
-World Of Warcraft
-Metal Gear
-Golden Sun
-No More Heroes
-Pokmon
-Undertale
-Supergiant (Combining all of their games into one franchise)
-Risk of Rain
-Devil May Cry
-Dark Souls

First writeup tomorrow!
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Snake5555555555
11/17/19 1:33:03 AM
#2:


Tag

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LordoftheMorons
11/17/19 1:39:02 AM
#3:


tag

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Congrats to Advokaiser for winning the CBX Guru Challenge!
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Shonen_Bat
11/17/19 2:09:54 AM
#4:


Tag
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Hello again.
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MetalmindStats
11/17/19 2:12:14 AM
#5:


When I posted in the predix topic, I actually forgot I had also played Undertale, that's how small of an impact it left on me >_>

Anyways, tag.
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trdl23
11/17/19 2:07:14 PM
#6:


#25: This is it! Now is the time to choose! (Yunalesca, Final Fantasy X)

It is better for you to die in hope than to live in despair. Let me be your liberator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_vmauwceK8

I've said before that the cutscenes leading up to Yunalesca are the best cutscenes in video game history. The twist is gut-wrenching, the team chemistry is stellar, and it's just the perfect game-changer in the minds of all the characters and the player alike.

So why is Yunalesca so low on this list? It's actually a testament to how damn good the writing and pacing is that it made the list in the first place. The fight... well, it isn't actually all that fun.

It's unique, don't get me wrong. The status effects keep you on your toes, and it's a surprise to have a boss start pulling the "revive kills zombie" cheese on you. Try to go EZ Modo with an Aeon? She'll Mind Blast and Absorb to fuck its shit up. Her design is awesome too, starting sexy as a goddess in this setting should be, then growing ever more monstrous as her inner wickedness is revealed. The struggle feels genuine, and it takes great management of your action economy (or, if you're cleverer than me, some well-timed Reflects) to deal with the ways she inhibits your healing, strips you of your buffs, and shuts up your spellcasters for daring to try and counteract it.

And then Mega Death happens and the enjoyment drops substantially.

I should clarify: I have no problem with difficulty, as you'll see later on this list. But I despise "gotcha" mechanics with no precedent and no warning. This is especially true in a story-rich RPG where it feels meta-gamey that the characters will prep for a move they have no knowledge of, just because the player was gotcha'd by it and reloaded the save. Is this a weird thing to be irritated about? Probably, but it's one I've always had. In this case, Mega Death punishes you for reacting to all the other mechanics correctly and curing the Zombie status on your party members by insta-killing anyone without the status or Deathproof. There really is no way to see this coming aside from a guide.

All that being said, one terrible mechanic isn't enough to destroy all the story hype, uniqueness, and straight-up badassery that Yunalesca entails. Beating her was the turning point of the game for me, and it set up the story to become what I consider the best in the franchise.
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TheArkOfTurus
11/17/19 2:07:53 PM
#7:


Tag

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Xiahou Shake
11/17/19 3:06:03 PM
#8:


Ooooh, tag!
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trdl23
11/17/19 8:54:38 PM
#9:


#24: The Abysswalker (Knight Artorias, Dark Souls 1)

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgy1TV12LDc

Now that's one hell of a way to introduce your boss.

Ornstein and Smough are the bosses that come to mind for most people when they think of Dark Souls 1, but Artorias is often a close second. Oddly enough, the big reason why we love Artorias so much is because he doesn't play by the rules of DS1. He's hyper-aggressive, it's hard to read what he's throwing out most of the time, and he just keeps swinging at you. Considering how deliberately clunky Dark Souls 1 gameplay is, his smooth transitions and difficulty to read stand out. It's an absolute thrill to learn his patterns, and then panic when he decides to change them. He's not quite playing Bloodborne, but you can see the seeds of that game in this fight.

I contend that Artorias has the best aesthetic of a corrupted knight in gaming. He drips the darkness of the abyss, even weaponizing it occasionally. His sword attacks are wild, but they still have that modicum of technique to keep them deadly. Unlike most bosses, he plays your game too, dodge-rolling away from your attacks and taking time to reassess his situation. Most of all, he's not that much bigger than you -- a cool foil to the player, and also impossible to juke underneath him like we all did to his poor doggo Sif.

His lore is pretty cool too, though like most Dark Souls lore, you have to dig deep to find it. I won't bore you with it here, but you can look it up on the wiki. It's good stuff. Sadly, it doesn't do much to enhance the boss fight with story hype like Yunalesca or many other on this list, but Artorias doesn't need to rely on that. He's a damn fun fight that's hard-but-fair, and taking him down was the most satisfying experience in DS1.
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LeonhartFour
11/17/19 9:57:52 PM
#10:


Yeah, Yunalesca is all about the atmosphere around it. The fight itself isn't very fun, I don't think. I'd go with Seymour Flux if I had to pick an FFX boss because it's challenging in a good way as opposed to Yunalesca, which basically boils down to keeping one person Zombied the whole time (with Reflect so they can't be targeted with healing spells) so Mega Death doesn't auto-kill you.

Unless you somehow lucked out and were able to forge a Deathproof armor by the time you got there.
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Anagram
11/17/19 10:03:23 PM
#11:


Tag
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trdl23
11/18/19 11:27:36 AM
#12:


No writeups today because of other plans, but the next update will feature the following (feel free to guess for fun):

-A manifestation of sexual confusion and gender roles!
-A bonus boss you can only fight by getting all the collectibles across two entire games!
-NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED
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trdl23
11/19/19 9:44:52 AM
#13:


Up, update will come tonight
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azuarc
11/19/19 10:03:28 AM
#14:


tag
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xp1337
11/19/19 10:26:21 AM
#15:


Only played Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne so far but Artorias is without a doubt #1 in Dark Souls. Maybe even with Bloodborne added too but my gut is telling me not quite.

trdl23 posted...

-A bonus boss you can only fight by getting all the collectibles across two entire games!

Well, that's Dullahan (Golden Sun: TLA)

trdl23 posted...
-NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED

could be a few based on the series listed

i'll say utsuho reiuji
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trdl23
11/19/19 10:04:07 PM
#16:


#23: The Hell's Sun (Utsuho Reiuji, Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism)

I wanted to go see above ground for myself... And then I'll melt it all away with my atomic fire.

https://youtu.be/vx3Kp7uRiBI?t=120

By the time I got around to playing Subterranean Animism, I'd seen some shit in Gensokyo. A maid who was an anime girl version of DIO, a ghost who can kill you by just wanting to, a goddess who was taking away all of my business, and even jackass squatters from the moon. Yes, really. Touhou is a crazy-ass fever dream of a series, and bless ZUN's perpetually drunken soul for it. Just in this game I'd wrestled an oni, had a psychic jerk use my tag-team-partner's magic on me, and fended off a catgirl who really, REALLY wanted my corpse along with her zombie fairy brigade. I figured I'd seen most everything that this game could call a bullet. Now it's time to beat up the bad boss, stop the vengeful spirits from leaking back above ground, and go drink some tea. That's how Reimu rolls.

I did not account for a birdgirl to have swallowed a god, gained the power of nuclear fusion, and started planning the annihilation of everything outside of the underworld. I had certainly not accounted for said bird shooting miniature suns at me Jesus fucking Christ

Pretty much all late-stage Touhou bosses are awesome. It's just how the series works. They're quite evocative to boot, especially when it comes to the special "spell card" attacks that the games are famous for. The music is legendary for a reason and captures the essence of each character. But Utsuho packed a punch not just for coming out of left field in a series where I thought nothing could surprise me anymore -- the real killer moment was the extra sound design that went into her spell card declarations:

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! The words scroll across the screen as honest-to-God nuclear warning klaxons blare in my ear. Beyond just cool music and ridiculous bullet patterns to dodge (by the way, you have no HP; one hit = one life lost), the additional aesthetics get me on the edge of my seat. This dumbass bird is playing with actual nuclear power, and we are immediately fucked if I don't deal with her right here, right now.

Finally, in true Touhou fashion, Utsuho gets this whole "cleanse the world in nuclear fire" shit out of her system after I smack her down, and we find out this whole thing was a plot from the antagonists of the previous game to generate electricity for their worshipers. That way, they could attract more followers and faith. A Moriya Shrine Conspiracy. God damn it. Another day in the life of a miko with no social skills.

In case you were wondering... that's just the fight on normal mode. You want to fight Utsuho on the hardest difficulty? Get ready to put some hair on your chest because I sure can't do this:

https://youtu.be/BQLIaZUOnBU?t=123

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SaveEstelle
11/19/19 10:05:16 PM
#17:


AHHHHHHH I FORGOT OH WELL

tag

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trdl23
11/19/19 10:12:04 PM
#18:


Oh, and that final attack? Yes, the sun is exerting a gravitational field and trying to pull you inside of it to be incinerated. You have to actively fly back more and more strongly as it grows stronger. I think that's the first time in the series a boss's attack had forced your character to move all on its own, and in a game with as many twitch-dodges as Touhou, it's a bit of a game-breaker.

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Shonen_Bat
11/19/19 10:37:57 PM
#19:


Utsuho might not be the hardest Touhou final boss, in fact she's probably one of the easiest, but damn if she isn't one of the most impressive ones anyway. Great choice.
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trdl23
11/20/19 10:13:30 AM
#20:


I was about to say well at least shes harder than Kanako and then I remember how ridiculous Kanakos final spell card is...

Or you could just use MarisaBugged for Mountain of Faith and cruise control to victory lol

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Xiahou Shake
11/20/19 11:56:42 AM
#21:


Subterranean Animism is some real god damn danmaku. Even having played every Touhou game from 6 to 12 I never feel like I can relax with SA. That whole struggle culminates in Utsuho, she's a great pick.
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The Mana Sword
11/20/19 11:59:16 AM
#22:


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trdl23
11/21/19 3:34:21 PM
#23:


Up

Exhausted, will try to get to this tonight but don't count on it. Definitely tomorrow at any rate.

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Waluigi1
11/21/19 4:40:10 PM
#24:


For some reason Yunalesca never really stuck with me. I've beaten the game twice but I never remember having any issues with her.
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banananor
11/22/19 12:17:34 PM
#25:


When I first went through the game, Yunalesca was the one I had the most trouble with. Second place was probably BFA.

Back then, I was morally opposed to grinding levels, and considered a game that required grinding to be bad. Additionally, I believe she was the first major boss after the armor crafting mechanic was introduced. I did not want to craft armor....

I think I eventually just looked up what to do here on gamefaqs, which was to grind materials and craft something or other.

I'd also like to add that the narrative leadup to the boss was powerful, but also frustrated me. Yunalesca is barely even a villain. (big spoiler beats ahead)

Okay. So there's a gigantic invincible monster. It will literally gobble up 10% of the population every year or something ridiculous like that. We've already seen it effortlessly demolish the most advanced army in the world.

However, there is one thing we can do. Ten percent of the population will be killed each year, unless one (1) volunteer every 10 years volunteers to sacrifice themselves. This will send it to sleep for a decade.

It's not evil to encourage this. The magnitude of suffering alleviated by one person is immense.

Attempting to kill the only person capable of facilitating the sacrifice is evil. People should be permitted to take on this sacrifice if they want- why take away that choice? The protagonists are just lucky they live in a video game and have enough DEF and HP and POW stats to actually defeat the invincible monster.

The only thing yunalesca did wrong was lie. She said that if we put the monster to sleep enough times it would eventually go away forever.

But is that worth getting all mad and killing her over? She didn't create the monster. the actual deal is still very strong.

anyway, the combination of difficulty, length, emotional stakes, and the odd disconnect i had with the party's reasoning all added up to a very memorable boss fight
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banananor
11/22/19 12:27:54 PM
#26:


Also, while I have beaten every soulsborne game in the series since Dark Souls (currently chugging along at Sekiro), I've never actually played the Artorias dlc. Or any of the games DLCs, in fact.

By the time DLC becomes conveniently & cheaply purchasable Im not in the mood to play through the entire game again.

But I've heard so many good things about Artorias from those I know in real life and online that I know I'll get to it someday.
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NFUN
11/22/19 12:43:07 PM
#27:


she attacked them for refusing to sacrifice somebody
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trdl23
11/22/19 1:09:30 PM
#28:


NFUN posted...
she attacked them for refusing to sacrifice somebody
^

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trdl23
11/25/19 2:08:48 AM
#29:


Won't someone, anyone, please accept me...? (Shadow Kanji, Persona 4)

What does it mean to be "a guy"? What does it mean to be "manly"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=125MzeECtXQ

And here we come to what I think is the most misinterpreted boss on our list, the flamboyant Shadow Kanji himself. Persona 4 is my second-favorite video game of all time because its cast is so well realized. The fact that almost all of your bosses are their Shadows is a major contribution. It's one thing to have hints at your party members' deep fears and insecurities -- it's quite another to have them manifest in such a way as to beat your face in.

Oh, and if you haven't played Persona 4, what the hell are you doing with your life? Get it now. I think it's on PSN. It's good shit. I'll spoiler tag the below, just in case, though the first paragraph itself was a bit spoiler-y.

Yosuke's shadow manifests from his selfishness and frustration with a new rural-town life that bores him to tears. Yukiko's shadow manifests from her hatred at being powerless to make her own choices for her career and life (and incidentally why her social link is the worst in the game, don't @ me). What of Kanji's then?

Plebs on the internet: "Well it's because he's secretly gay, duh!"
Me, an intellectual: "...Not necessarily."

Reread that intro dialogue again. What is the Shadow hung up about? It's not about how he actually loves men -- it's about how he despises women. But as with the other shadows, it's an exaggeration of a deeper insecurity: that Kanji, who enjoys cute fluffy things, sewing, and knitting, is too un-manly for a girl to take seriously. His status as a tough-guy delinquent is a front to overcompensate for it. Add his surprising attraction to Naoto, who he currently believes is a man, and you get someone so confused by his sexuality, gender roles, and desire to be desirable that it turns into a monster that figuratively beats you in the head with male sex symbols.

Then it literally beats you in the head with male sex symbols.

Could it be that he is gay (or at least bi, considering he still gets the doki-dokis for Naoto when he finds out her actual chromosome makeup)? Yeah. But despite what this shadow would have you believe, it's not a guarantee.

Okay, enough armchair psychoanalysis of vidya gaem characters. Let's talk about the fight. Most people think of Shadow Yukiko as P4's "wake-up call boss," but for me, it was one boss afterward. See, this is the first time you have to deal with a boss that has adds, and the Nice Guy and Tough Guy make a fairly simple boss much, much more tedious. In the video above they take down the Tough Guy first, but that's because it's in Very Hard where he hits like a truck. In normal mode, the Nice Guy is the larger problem, unbeknownst to dumbass me who thought "hit the guy that actually deals damage" was the right call.

P4 was my first Atlus JRPG, and Shadow Kanji in particular teaches you how to approach big fights in the Persona and SMT series. By this point you've learned the weakness system pretty well, but unlike most other JRPGs where temporary status buffs aren't worth the action economy lost, playing with your -kajas and, just as importantly, preventing the enemies' -kajas is crucial. Guess what Nice Guy does? If you guessed "puts -kajas and protective barriers on the other enemies," congratulations, you're smarter than I was. In Golden he even cures Dizzy from the Tough Guy to boot. Yeah, I got wrecked.

For story, Kanji is one of the most nuanced shadows, precisely because he screams to be the opposite. For gameplay, he teaches you to git gud for the trials to come. I was surprised he's so low on this list, but that just means even better entries are yet to come.

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LordoftheMorons
11/25/19 2:14:35 AM
#30:


Iirc Shadow Kanji was the hardest boss; I think it was shortly after that when I started to really get overleveled.

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trdl23
11/25/19 11:06:30 AM
#31:


Lets put a couple more hints out there besides the bonus boss one (which will obviously be the next):

-A post-game boss in a series with notoriously bad post-games and this was back from before I was in high school
-The only boss on the list that is the first boss in their game, but they earn every ounce of hate you and your party members have for them

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LeonhartFour
11/25/19 11:27:55 AM
#32:


I'm gonna @ you for misunderstanding what Yukiko's S. Link is about if you think it undermines what her Shadow was about. The point is that she eventually chooses to stay because she wants to stay, not because she feels trapped and obligated to do so. It was never really about running the Amagi Inn or not. It was about the choice to do so being hers. When she found out she didn't have to do it and her family was actually behind her leaving if she wanted, it made it easier for her to ultimately choose to stay because that is what she really wanted all along.

(I don't really like the Shadow Kanji fight so I don't care to say anything about that. Easily my least favorite dungeon in the game, to boot)
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trdl23
11/25/19 11:55:55 AM
#33:


Yeah, weve had this discussion before, and while I think that was the intent, the writing was clumsy and hollow. It felt far more like resignation and/or staying at the inn for the sake of everyone else but still sacrificing her ambition and agency as a result.

As for S. Kanji... wasnt really planning to get into this, but the insecurities he demonstrated resonated with me personally. I grew up doing theatre and musicals; I played sports, too, but my lack of strength was always clear. I sure as hell wasnt manly, especially compared to my state-wrestling all-star brother. It was only my freakish height that kept me from being ridiculed on the sports field or bullied in school. Hell, my parents had to give me the its okay if youre gay talk twice because even they were convinced I was deep in the closet.

Without good friends and family support, it could have eaten away at me too. The doubts took a while to clear regardless. Thank god they never festered the way Kanjis did.

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Leonhart4
11/25/19 12:13:50 PM
#34:


The problem is thinking Yukiko had to leave for the arc to be good, as if she needed to force herself to do something deep down she really didn't want to do to prove some unnecessary point. Ambition for the sake of ambition isn't necessarily a good thing. It may not have been the choice you wish she made, but Yukiko did get to make her own choice.
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trdl23
11/25/19 1:04:05 PM
#35:


Im still not satisfied that she did! But weve already laid out our positions on this before, and I doubt either of us are budging.

I will at least agree that Kanjis dungeon is definitely the worst one in a game filled with lackluster dungeons.

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Anagram
11/25/19 1:06:13 PM
#36:


The shadow aspect of P4 was so clever, I really enjoyed it. I would've liked it if the dungeons played up the gimmicks of their locations more, but I think all of the shadow fights themselves were good. I especially like title cards for their shows and clapping coming out of nowhere, with no explanation.
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LeonhartFour
11/25/19 1:10:50 PM
#37:


Eh, I thought the dungeons got a lot better after the first three.
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trdl23
11/25/19 9:41:15 PM
#38:


#21: The Keeper of Light (Dullahan, Golden Sun: The Lost Age)

If you want the sun's power, show me your own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83qpGTPWlL0

In middle school, my close circle of friends were fiends for the Golden Sun series. It was a full-fledged RPG "kinda like Final Fantasy" that we could play on our shiny Game Boy Advance SPs that we were so proud of. My friend Andrew even made a guide right here on GameFAQs -- or at least that's what I remember, but I couldn't find it on the Golden Sun TLA walkthrough/guide page. In any case, GS:TLA is the game that first brought me to GameFAQs, so it gets a shout-out here no matter what.

Golden Sun did something that was unprecedented at the time (and I'm not sure if it's even been done in the modern era) -- it let you import your data from Golden Sun to TLA, but you don't get your old party until midway through the game because you're playing as the "B team" in the first parts of TLA. 12-year-old me thought this was mind-blowing, and by the time we were approaching endgame, naturally Andrew had run numbers and calculations to give us a guide to optimal gear for each character, how to get them, and how to game the RNG in a certain area to guarantee rare drops. A decade later, Andrew would be the one who convinced me to attend the college I got my bachelor's in. Andrew's fucking awesome, is what I'm saying.

GS's story was "fine" in hindsight but not much to write home about. On the other hand, the combat system, where certain elemental spirits could equip to each party member and change both their stats and psynergy, was kickass, and the puzzles were really fun! I don't even like puzzles, usually. However, the coolest parts to us were the hidden super-bosses: Deadbeard from the original game, a nightmare of a ghost pirate, and then three more in the open world of TLA: Valukar, Sentinel, and the Star Magician. Valukar and Sentinel were way too easy for the hype, but Star Magician was a hell of a tactical fight that I thought would be the best in the series.

No, Andrew told me. There's one more, but even to access its dungeon, I needed every single djinn from both games. GS has a TON of Points of No Return, so I needed to do an entirely new play-through of both games to get into the Anemos Inner Sanctum. What followed was a brutal and thrilling dungeon that would have made my Top Dungeons list had it been selected in my poll. Is it nostalgia? Probably, but hell, I was 12 and this was the first time I'd ever gotten into a game this hard.

The reason I put so much setup is to demonstrate why Dullahan means so much to me. This was my first ever "endgame superboss," and he lived up to the name. Three actions per round, brutal melee hits, the ability to use a summon (no other enemy in any game can summon besides the PCs), and the ability to shred your stat buffs at a glance. Said summon had a decent chance of auto-killing a character, and he had a single-target spell that did the same. But the most brutal part was clearly the Djinn Storm. Not only does putting all your Djinn on Standby ruin any Summon plans you might have, it also shreds your stat and class boosts, making you lose HP, PP, and even a lot of your psynergy if you were mixing djinn. Mix in some insane HP regeneration and his inability to go OOM, and it was a long grind as I tried gimmick after gimmick.

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trdl23
11/25/19 9:43:06 PM
#39:


The ol' cheddar cheese of Summon Rush? I got splatted for my troubles. Seal Dullahan's Psynergy with Rime? Eventually I got Charon'd and screwed. Eventually, I realized I had to change my course and fight him straight-up, mano a mano. I think it took me a full hour from the start of my final run to actually clearing it, but man, what a rush. I have since learned that there are actual cheese strats, but I'm glad I didn't know that at the time. Beating it blind and claiming the Iris summon -- the most powerful summon in the game that is basically irrelevant once you get it -- meant something more to me because I persevered on my own, and I got to brag to all my friends in 7th grade about how I managed to beat the big bad Dullahan first.

...Except Andrew beat it two days before I did.

Damn it.

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xp1337
11/25/19 9:49:37 PM
#40:


trdl23 posted...
Golden Sun did something that was unprecedented at the time (and I'm not sure if it's even been done in the modern era) -- it let you import your data from Golden Sun to TLA, but you don't get your old party until midway through the game because you're playing as the "B team" in the first parts of TLA.

I mean, it depends on exactly what you mean by that, but Path of Radiance to Radiant Dawn does that as well, almost right down to the specifics.

Man I loved GS: The Lost Age so much.
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trdl23
11/25/19 10:02:57 PM
#41:


I never got to play RD. Did it import your items, too? Not that items usually matter as much in a FE game, but one of the coolest parts of the Golden Sun transfer was that some Best-in-Slot gear in TLA endgame came from GS1 only.

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xp1337
11/25/19 10:09:20 PM
#42:


Items, no.

Capped Stats at Level 20 would manifest as a +2 in RD. A-Supports transferred as "Bonds" which was basically like a free support (since it didn't count against the 5 supports per character limit) A couple of camp events including some major plot reveals locked behind transfer, including one that required an Ike/Soren A-Support transferred over.

I mean it wasn't exactly the same because letting you transfer over levels/stats/items completely would have made the Greil Mercenaries even more OP somehow but it had the whole "don't get (most) of these guys until like halfway through the game" bit down.
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xp1337
11/25/19 10:13:27 PM
#43:


But if you're just talking transfer level/inventory then .hack (both the IMOQ and G.U. series) has that covered, for instance. I assumed you meant some of the more unique twists TLA had with its transfer.
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LordoftheMorons
11/25/19 10:16:59 PM
#44:


I loved the Golden Sun games as a kid. I started replaying them on Wii U, but the beginning is so slow and I gave up.

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trdl23
11/25/19 11:33:06 PM
#45:


xp1337 posted...
But if you're just talking transfer level/inventory then .hack (both the IMOQ and G.U. series) has that covered, for instance. I assumed you meant some of the more unique twists TLA had with its transfer.
I didn't get too far into it in the write-up, but yeah, there's of course more to uncover there.

I wish Dark Dawn hadn't been so disappointing. Then again, the Dullahan fight in Dark Dawn is a bit less brutal due to the game's mechanics -- but it also has the badass aspect of Dullahan summoning YOUR summons against you with YOUR Djinn.

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Raka_Putra
11/25/19 11:58:09 PM
#46:


The arcana is the means by which all is revealed.

The silent tag within one's topic whispers the most profound wisdom.
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Kamekguy
11/26/19 12:10:34 AM
#47:


Since we're taking into account the emotional aspect of things, I'll leave some cents on Shadow Kanji here, with my own experience.

As the biggest Kanji/Naoto shipper around here I dare you to find someone who would come close I will teach them the meaning of romance, I do have strong feelings toward Kanji's sexuality on a base level. Namely that P4 does a really bad job empowering non-heterosexuality, but a really fantastic job portraying what it means to be a teenager struggling with those. I struggled really hard coming to grips with my sexuality as a teen, and the one line "It doesn't matter guys or chicks, I'm just scared shitless about being rejected" resonated with me like nothing else. It made me feel it's okay to be somewhere in between, that being me was enough, just like it was for Kanji, and I can figure it out on the way without a definitive answer. And that made watching his character transformation through the game all the more special, because it inspired me to change or find resolution in myself, too. And that's, y'know. Kinda cool. I guess.

Admittedly I think Shadow Kanji himself is a kind of "Whitney's Miltank" situation where it's more there to check DO YOU KNOW WHAT BUFFS AND DEBUFFS ARE and is hard for requiring knowledge of how the game expects you to play it rather than taking the all-out offensive approach, making it more memorable as a result, so the encounter doesn't stand out to me quite as much. It was my hardest boss on my first playthrough, but I've seen many a playthrough where he ranges from "impossible" to "yeah okay whatever".

And,uh... yeah. Tagging, obviously.
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trdl23
11/26/19 8:51:48 AM
#48:


Persona in general does an awful job of portraying non-heterosexuality, which is super disappointing and sticks out because it covers so many other aspects of people better than any other RPG on the market. P5 is the worst among them. I think thats more of a reflection of Japanese society than anything: Persona games are shamelessly hyper-Japanese even via localization, and despite what yaoi and yuri manga would have you believe, homosexuality is highly stigmatized.

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trdl23
11/26/19 11:30:24 AM
#49:


trdl23 posted...
-A post-game boss in a series with notoriously bad post-games and this was back from before I was in high school
-The only boss on the list that is the first boss in their game, but they earn every ounce of hate you and your party members have for them
And another one:

-His grievance was legitimate. His heart was good. But only one more person could escape, and it was him or one of us.

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Kamekguy
11/26/19 2:23:53 PM
#50:


I feel Persona is less "awful" and more "tonally blind". There are moments like in Persona 4 Arena where Naoto's able to talk about her sex and glass ceilings in relation to Labrys's struggle and how perception doesn't matter because she is satisfied with who she is and it's such a powerful statement. And then she has sexy DLC because it costs money and Ann is forced to pose nude after overcoming sexual predation and harassment because THAT'S FUNNY. But then Lala Escargot exists and is mature and a figure to learn from in the same game. Feels like too many cooks trying to appeal with Japanese shorthands for comedy and quick buys... and honestly that usually makes sense as Persona games are super uneven across the board.

Still, the one bit I love about Kanji is that he's, like, the only character to really mature post-game. He encounters his shadow again in Arena, and rather than turning into a sniveling mess like the rest, he hits himself and goes "dang, I thought I was over this shit. Dude I've moved on, so I'm gonna beat the crap out of you 'till YOU accept ME". I think it's just the perfect capstone to his arc and all the crap Yosuke gives him through the game.

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