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The difficulty and length vary wildly for boss fights in video games. It’s not always the final boss fight that’s the most challenging, especially in RPGs; however, some of these battles, upon launch, took too long. Some encounters are infuriating, whether it’s due to an overwhelming amount of health or that they can one-shot entire parties without issue.
While they are easier now, we cannot forget how tiresome some of these battles were upon a game’s original release. Some of these fights could be easily won through shenanigans, but even those can take an inordinate amount of time.
Which boss fights were the longest and most grueling in video games?
5) Admantoise (Final Fantasy XV)
Final Fantasy XV’s Adamantoise, at launch, took around five hours or so to complete, though there were easier ways to manage this. Packing 5M hp, this colossal tortoise can take even the strongest party a long time to overcome. Beating it gives an accessory that gives a character 9,999 HP.
It’s a long, frustrating battle; even when using the Ring of Lucii, it could still take 45 minutes to complete. For video games, especially modern ones, this super boss is one of the most frustrating.
4) The End (Metal Gear Solid 3)
The End may be the best boss in the entire Metal Gear Solid franchise, if not one of the best boss fights in all PS2 video games. Theoretically, you can kill The End the first time he shows up, but that is overwhelmingly difficult. It requires split-second timing. You can also sniper battle him in the last encounter of MGS3.
Exceptional players can quickly do this, but otherwise, you’re looking at a few hours of stalking and sniping an old man; however, if you want this to be one of the easiest boss fights of all time, you must wait.
Save during the fight and wait at least 8 days. The End will die of old age. It’s anticlimactic, but if you’re having trouble, you can make this one of the easiest boss fights. If you’re playing on original PlayStation 2 hardware, you can cycle the clock forward to make it take less time.
3) Yiazmat (Final Fantasy XII)
Final Fantasy XII’s Superboss is still a pain, even in the FFXII Remaster. As one of the hardest boss fights in the Final Fantasy franchise, Yiazmat is nothing to sneeze at. It has 50M HP, and if you can get it to half health, it will reduce your damage cap, so you can only hit for 6,999 damage.
Yiazmat can take several hours to defeat, depending on how good you are at interrupting its abilities. Otherwise, it could fully restore itself to 100% HP. Few things are more frustrating than that.
It’s only weak to Darkness magic - it halves everything but holy. It absorbs holy magic, so you are restricted in what you can use in one of the hardest boss fights.
2) Yggralith Zero (Xenoblade Chronicles X)
Yggralith Zero from Xenoblade Chronicles X can be defeated easily nowadays via Infinite Overdrive combo, but this was one of the worst boss fights ever.
The reason Yggralith Zero was so infuriating was that you had to rely on other players around the world to do their part. When this boss fight is triggered, all players in the game have a week to chip in together and fight.
It has less Hp than these other bosses - 777K - but it’s a humongous amount for Xenoblade Chronicles X. It took months to even get this boss to show up, then everyone had to work together. This is one of video game history's longest, most taxing boss fights.
1) Absolute Virtue (Final Fantasy XI)
Of course, this had to top this list of boss fights. Many groups of Player Alliances joined forces to try and defeat this superboss, and even after 20+ hours, there was nothing but defeat. Final Fantasy XI’s Absolute Virtue was a Notorious Monster that appeared in the Chains of Promathia expansion.
This superboss wouldn’t even spawn until Jailer of Love was defeated. It was the longest-running Notorious Monster to remain undefeated as well. Whenever players would find a sneaky way to overcome it, the developers would remove these non-legitimate means.
Repeatedly, groups of players would come together and spend 30 hours trying to defeat it, but would all fall to the Dragoon Absolute Virtue. Eventually, Eden Linkshell (Fairy Server) would defeat it in 2006.
The boss fight was made easier when the level cap for FFXI went from 75 to 99. While this fight is incredibly easy now, it’s remembered as one of the most difficult battles in any MMO, or across video games.
Boss fights in video games come in a wide variety of forms. Some have sneaky ways to defeat them, and some require you to do nothing. Others have millions of HP and no weaknesses. While there are other incredibly lengthy fights, these were some of the longest.
