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{{trope}}
[[File:matador_small_5624.jpg|link=Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne|frame|[["Wake
{{quote|''"'We get off on your tears."''|AtlusAram, [http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3795 Official Blog Post about Demon's Souls at the Atlus USA forums], confirming what we've always suspected}}
Yes, one company has enough examples for its own page. Now, why is it not called [[Nintendo Hard|Atlus Hard]]?
== Shin Megami Tensei ==
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** You know what, that first Yuriko fight and pretty much all the Demon Summoner fights. They send ''waves'' of demons at you, with either 8 in each wave as one solid block of 8 or two groups of 4, and you can't talk your way out of them not only because they're required, but if they weren't, they're all unrecruitable species. Add in that each of your demons gets only 3 abilities, and you will quickly realize that your main character will spend most of these fights shelling out the macca to summon your other demons for the next round. On rare occasion, the first Yuriko fight will glitch so that after two turns of the first wave, her speech will start again and the first wave will regenerate. On the other hand, if any of your demons know [[Game Breaker|Bufu]]...
** Arachne. You have to go through a huge labyrith just to get to her that is overflowing with encounters (and it doesn't contain ''any'' items), and then at the end you find this. What really make her stand above almost all bosses before and after her is that you can't apparently charm her.
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'' has the fight with Satan at the around the end of the Chaos path, which primarily consists of "Satan pointed at [Name]! [Name] has died!". YHVH and Lucifer can also spam this attack if they so desire, but Satan seems to love using it the most.
* The Matador from ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' defines the trope. He comes out of nowhere during an early portion of the game and is far more difficult than any boss you've fought before. His main ability, Red Capote, buffs his evasion to the maximum level, and he has several powerful Force attacks. You really have to prepare in advance, fusing a Force-resistant team with Sukanda to lower his Evasion or Sukukaja to raise yours. It also helps if you grind to Lv.18 and fuse Ame no Uzume, who is Force-resistant ''and'' knows Media.
** There's also Mot. He stands out for a few reasons; first, he is one of the three bosses in the game who have a weakness (the other two being the first boss and the Troll), he comes very late in the game, and has basically 3 attacks. The actual reasons he is so hard are the fact that he is immune to everything ''except'' his weakness (Well, physical attacks can damage him, but they do so little damage they are basically useless) and said 3 attacks: one is a powerful spell that your character can't be immune to; one is a buff that boosts the damage of magic attacks (and thus the previous one); and the last one is a skill that gives him 2 turns. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|For free.]] So far, not so bad. However, there is a chance he will use that last skill twice in a row or even more, effectively giving him the chance to wipe out your party without you being able to do anything about it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5yjAjTibT8 (seen here)]. He also has a healing spell that gives him back around 50% of his health and a physical spell that hits the entire party-- but at this point, mentioning them is just overkill. Oh, and listen to the music in that video; '''he's considered to be a miniboss'''.
** Trumpeter. How bad can it be when the boss himself explains how his attacks work and he STILL manages to be a pain in the ass? To explain, the boss basically says that every time he toots his horn (about every eight turns, according to him) either someone will be fully healed or die instantly. NOTE: The death ability is completely unblockable, even if it's you and you're protected to the hilt against death. Life or death will strike the character with the least hit points. And note that the healing Holy Melody ([[My Rules Are Not Your Rules|but not the killing Evil Melody!]]) can hit ''him'' as well as you. As a result, it's common to find yourself down to nearly killing the boss when he revives completely, HP and MP. This, plus the fact that the battle is actually inconsistent. Trumpeter's count of the turns is really a crapshoot and the only real way to guarantee that something won't go horribly wrong in this fight is to breed a weak fighter to take the fall. This is, however, one helluva [[Guide Dang It]].
*** To add to that, if all characters are at full health when it comes time for him to use Evil Melody, then he can ignore the rule about attacking the weakest character and randomly attack anyone, including the Demi-Fiend. (Although, when this happens three times in a row, players might question whether it's really random.)
** ''Ahriman'', oh boy... For the first part of the fight,he gives you rules that you must comply to,or you die. It goes from mildly disturbing (no items allowed) to absolutely crippling (Items ''and'' healing are forbidden.) And of course, he isn't affected by his rules and pummel you with his -dyne spells. In the second half, he drops his rules but start using Tentacle and Apocalypse. God help you if he decides to use those along with Megidolaon. While less dangerous than other examples here, he's no slouch either.
** ''Noah''. He only has ONE element that can ''affect'' him (not a weakness) at a time, which he changes ''every turn''. He can drain over 200 hp and mp from one of your party members, no questions asked. And while he only uses single-character spells for the first half, he hits the whole party for the second half. Argh. His weaknesses follow a fixed pattern, but that requires [[Guide Dang It|a guide]] or [[Trial and Error Gameplay|trial and error]].
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=== Digital Devil Saga ===
* Camazotz from [[Digital Devil Saga|the first game]], mainly because of extra-turn spells and ZOTZILAHA BANE, which can't be defended against and turns you into a bat, which has hideously low stats and a large Force weakness. Three guesses what all of Camazotz's damage-dealing attacks's element is. Void Force would be your only saving grace, but Zotzilaha Bane apparently overrides all resistances to Force with its weakness. Camazotz's downfall is that it has terrible HP for a boss, so if you aggressively assault him he'll fall like a pile of bricks before he can trash your party. Assuming, of course, he doesn't get overly lucky when he starts spamming Beast Eye.
** It seems appropriate for a boss which is named after a [[wikipedia:Camazotz|Mayan god of death.]]
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* Abaddon. The thing changes weakness, swallows your party members leaving you with two characters for most of the fight. Good luck not getting Argilla swallowed when he's weak to earth, because if you can't exploit his weakness and gain extra turns you will be spending ALL of the turns you have healing/reviving, and if you don't damage him enough in 4-5 turns he'll use a ridiculously overpowered attack...Om mani padme hum.
=== Persona ===
* While he IS a [[Final Boss]], Great Father {{spoiler|Nyarlathotep}} in ''[[Persona 2]]: Innocent Sin'' is VICIOUS. He gets ''five'' attacks on his turn, and can easily bring a prepared party to their knees. Unless you are at incredibly high levels, you are going to get destroyed. The only breather he gives is that sometimes he will switch over from attacking your HP to your SP. Use that time to deal as much damage as you can, because once he targets your HP again, ''every single effing turn will be spent healing''.
* ''[[Persona 2]]: Eternal Punishment'' has {{spoiler|"The Metal Trio"--golden statues of Jun, Eikichi, and Lisa, who were born out of Tatsuya's guilt.}} Like the Sylph battle example from ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', this is a team battle, your party against them. While each character doesn't have a huge amount of HP, each enemy is immune to physical attacks, and possess unique high damage spells that target all party members, and to further twist the knife, {{spoiler|Eikichi's}} 'Bloody Divorce' has a high percentage of causing instant death. {{spoiler|"Jun"'s}} 'Terror Fortune' special can inflict almost every single freaking status ailment on everyone with next to no fail, often leaving you utterly helpless.
* In ''[[Persona 3]]: FES'', Atlus apparently decided to go back to its roots; like in ''Nocturne'', pretty much ''every'' boss is difficult to kill. The real offender, however, is the final boss in the sixth level dungeon of The Answer: The Conceited Maya and the Jotuns of Blood. The Maya has a large number of hit points and will absorb damage from physical attacks, meaning your party is restricted to its [[Elemental Powers]]. However, every time it loses twenty-five percent of its health, it summons ''Jotuns of Blood,'' which are nearly as difficult to kill and are invulnerable to elemental attacks. Furthermore, they possess all of the high-level attacks (both single and multi-target) for the four main elements and will absolutely shred your party's weaknesses. It ''is'' possible to take a party with no weaknesses (the Maya and the Jotuns don't know Hama or Mudo skills), and to fuse a Persona without any - actually, this is required, because if Aegis has a weakness, no matter what the rest of the party has, ''they will focus on her''. And remember, [[We Cannot Go on Without You]].
** The combo of Strength and Fortune, the October full moon bosses. Fortune can hit you hard with its attacks - which are pseudorandom - and you can't even touch it until Strength's dead. Most of the other full moon bosses aren't that bad, but this is definitely That One Full Moon Boss
** Before the two of them, you fight Chariot and Justice. Although they don't have many strong attacks, if you kill one but not the other, the next turn they will [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|revive their partner to full health.]] That, along with you not being able to control your teammates directly, means a lot of angry moments where you wanted to keep one on low health long enough to whittle the other one down [[Artificial Stupidity|right as that teammate that you put on healing/support decides now would be a good time to kill the weakened enemy]]-- and presto, you're fighting two high-health bosses again. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice job breaking it, teammates.]] Fortunately, you can deal damage to them both if they merge, though this doesn't always happen.
** Generally speaking, though, while some of the full moon bosses may be somewhat difficult they pale in That One Boss-ness to the harder Tartarus bosses, which is by design, since losing to a full moon boss means you have to sit through 10-20+ minutes of cutscenes again while a Tartarus boss death only sets you back the 30 seconds it takes to teleport back to its floor.
** Sleeping Table, the infamous boss from the fourth block, floor 135 of Tartarus. It was deemed difficult enough for most players that it earned a spot as a semi-optional boss (it's fought in the optional True Ending path) of ''[[Persona 4]]''. Its physical attacks are nothing special, but it comes armed with Maragidyne (highest-tier, party-wide fire attack), Hamaon (light-based instant kill) and Megidola (second-tier, unblockable, all-party Almighty attack,) has no weaknesses, and has such exceedingly high defenses that physical hits deal pitiful damage. In addition to that, it is immune to status changes. No fear, no panic and not even [[Game Breaker|Dreamfest]] can charm it. In other words, it will rain destruction on you and you cannot prevent it. When getting hit with Maragidyne is considered a ''breather'', you know you're in for a lot of pain.
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** If you thought the Natural Dancer was bad, then the Royal Dancers will certainly give you PTSD. In terms of straight-up attacks, they're actually ''less'' aggressive (in fact, they only have one skill that deals immediate damage), but more than make up for it by having almost every ailment-causing move under the sun; Tentarafoo, Poison Breath and Sexy Dance are just a few of their moves. They can use Patra, Charmdi and Posumudi if you try to use ailments on them, and they can also heal themselves. Oh, and the one actual attack they have is freaking Primal Force, one of the strongest physical attacks in the game.
** The [[Final Boss]] deserves mention for being a shining example of [[Fake Difficulty]] in a game which is otherwise tough but fair. He's a [[Sequential Boss]] with ''' thirteen''' forms. Twelve are normal boss fights, even a little on the easy side, but put together they take almost an hour to get through, and no saving in between forms. Then the thirteenth form likes to spam its unblockable hit-all attack, has 6000 HP, takes half damage from everything except the Almighty element, and will randomly stop your progress cold by using an energy shield that reflects everything. It takes about a half-hour to whittle down his HP to the point where he's finally had enough and busts out his ultimate attack -- which, in most cases, leaves you flailing for a few turns trying to recover, and then dead. Hard bosses are one thing, but bosses that make you go through an hour and a half of [[AI Roulette]] and tedium ''before'' clobbering you are a special kind of sadism.
** The Brilliant Cyclops, fought in the second dungeon of ''The Answer''. It's just one Shadow, and the previous fight pitted you against four. Besides, it's the second boss of the game! This shouldn't be too hard, right? [["Wake
* ''[[Persona 4]]'' has several bosses that are difficult if you haven't been leveling up your party, though it's easier than Persona 3.
*
** If you thought {{spoiler|Shadow Yukiko}} was bad, {{spoiler|Shadow Mitsuo}} will make you cry. He takes way too long and constantly gives himself a shield of 1400 additional hit points every few turns. He has a ton of attacks: he'll attempt to put the Fear condition on the whole party and then use a whole-party attack which kills fearful foes. Sometimes, he will precede Fear with Stagnant Air, which raises the susceptibility of status ailments. Worse, it will consistently attack with a randomly-chosen, multi-target elemental spell while its barrier is down; if at least one character is weak to the element and is knocked down, it will immediately follow up with the party-wide Megidola that will almost certainly kill at least the weakened character, if not everyone else. And in barrier mode, aside from a powerful normal attack (that deals [[Non-Elemental|Almighty]] damage), it can also use the party-wide Gigadyne and a "Bomb" attack that delivers medium damage AND inflicts Exhaustion status (SP drops with every action, like Poison does for HP) with 100% success rate if the attack hits. It's almost a relief when he uses the barrier form's ordinary attack, which hits between 170-240 HP when you're likely in the mid-300s.<br /><br />To add insult to injury, while [[Mission Control]] suggests destroying it before it forms, it's pretty much impossible to destroy it before it reforms. While it is possible to break the shield before it forms (Rakunda to lower the boss' defense and Matarukaja to boost the entire party's strength, break his half-formed shield, wail on him with an All-Out Attack), this trick only works a few times: once his health reaches around 25%, he will use both his turns to reform the shield completely. ▼
*** And it won't do you any good to focus on the boss instead of her ally; the ally will heal the boss once for a significant amount, undoing your hard work. Not to mention that it has an attack called Terror Voice, which has a high chance of instilling fear in one of your party members. Right after it's cast, {{spoiler|Yukiko}} uses her turn to follow up with Shivering Rondo, which pretty much kills anyone with the fear status. Lousy bird.
** {{spoiler|Shadow Kanji.}} This boss has been known spawned some... rather [[Cluster F-Bomb|colorful]] [[Angrish|rants]] against certain things like his hugely powerful physical area attack, large amount of health, and, of course, that one son of a bitch who constantly gives him buffers and health restorers. Part of the reason he is so hard is that he comes at a time when you don't have access to top notch Personae (unlike most of the harder late-game battles), but he still has abilities that are devastating in their own right: Unlike {{spoiler|Shadow Yukiko}}, who's merely a harder than average [[Wake Up Call Boss]], and fairly manageable for a seasoned player, {{spoiler|Shadow Kanji}} is powerful enough to quite easily beat any team with a lucky critical, or at least make it an extremely close battle. ▼
▲** If you thought
** {{spoiler|Shadow Teddie}} can be difficult because you most likely set up a team to simply deal with {{spoiler|Shadow Rise}} and are not expecting a ''second boss battle'' right afterwards. For starters, you are not healed from your {{spoiler|Shadow Rise}} battle and are thrown right into battle with whatever your HP and MP are at. Then, you most likely have discovered that Yukiko is a great healer and have her around to handle that job...except she is ''horribly'' weak to ice attacks, which {{spoiler|Shadow Teddie}} specializes in and by extension is immune to, AND he has Mind Charge (which can power up his Ice attacks even more) plus Ice Break (reduces Ice resistance) and Marakunda (lowers party defense, which is bad for Yukiko due to being a healer). So, you are faced with a dilemma. Do you have the protagonist be the designated healer and drop Yukiko, or do you risk the ice weakness and bring your best healer along? As if this wasn't bad enough, you have the Nihil Hand move to deal with. While it has an obvious set-up and easy countermeasure (simply defending), towards the end of the fight you have less time to prepare for the attack and in a panic, you could accidentally do something other than defend. To top it all off, {{spoiler|Shadow Teddie}} likes to throw out both Foolish Whisper (a Silence spell, aka prevents use of your Persona) and Nullity Guidance, a move that will ALWAYS crit and give {{spoiler|Shadow Teddie}} a Once More (leaving you with even less time to prepare for Nihil Hand) and causes a Dizzy state, so hopefully you stocked up on Mouthwash before entering the dungeon and are prepared to spend an ally's turn to remove a status ailment (particularly if Silence is affecting your designated healer).▼
*** To add insult to injury, while [[Mission Control]] suggests destroying it before it forms, it's pretty much impossible to destroy it before it reforms. While it is possible to break the shield before it forms (Rakunda to lower the boss' defense and Matarukaja to boost the entire party's strength, break his half-formed shield, wail on him with an All-Out Attack), this trick only works a few times: once his health reaches around 25%, he will use both his turns to reform the shield completely.
▲**
▲** {{spoiler|Shadow Teddie}} can be difficult because you most likely set up a team to simply deal with {{spoiler|Shadow Rise}} and are not expecting a ''second boss battle'' right afterwards
** Kunino-sagiri is a pain in the ass. He has a ridiculous amount of HP and can ''control your party members'' so they try to kill ''you'' if you're unlucky. The hard part is when he uses Quad Convergence, which powers up the strength of one element and makes the other ones do close to nothing if you attack him with it. He also ALWAYS uses Ma-Dyne spells, which hit the entire group. If you're willing to use up four Magic Mirrors and you get lucky, this actually be turned in your favor and shorten the fight considerably. That supercharged Ma-dyne spell will bounce off your team and hit him ''four times'', depleting roughly a third of his life bar in one turn. He won't always do this, but it's ''so'' sweet when he does.
=== Devil Summoner ===▼
▲== Devil Summoner ==
* [[Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army]]: Mishaguji. Resistant to physical, immune to bullets. Powerful, with at least two moves capable of knockdown. Knows Cursed Emission-- an unblockable attack that leaves you (or your demon) paralyzed for much longer than normal paralysis, and Cursed Bolt-- a wide-area attack that takes up a good chunk of the battlefield, and charms whatever it hits. If it charms you BOTH (Raidou is paralyzed by charm, but his demon actively turns against him for the duration), you better pray your demon doesn't kill you, or worse, HEAL MISHAGUJI.
* Sukuna-Hikona, whose attacks aren't that bad... on the surface. But then it starts sending out attacks that paralyze whatever they hits, following up with a large beam that deals significant damage. As if that wasn't enough, if this beam hits your demon, and doesn't kill it by damage, it will ''seal the demon in its tube'' and you cannot use it for the rest of the battle.
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=== Devil Survivor ===
* In [[Devil Survivor]], if a boss has 'Bel' in its name, you might as well just start screaming in rage and frustration now. Because once the fight starts, you'll be too busy crying to do so effectively.
** During the first days you fight enemies that can be one-hit killed by exploiting the [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]], and even [["Wake
*** And his flunkies not only respawn indefinitely and include such utter nuisances as Vidofnir (Drain, anyone?) and Basilisk (Evil Wave ''and'' petrification abilities) but are also fond of the Petra Eyes/Mazan combo, which can kill an entire party in one attack. Consider that in this particular mission [[We Cannot Go on Without You|it's Game Over if the Hero falls]]...
** Belzaboul. His attack range is huge, and when you combine that with the small arena the fight takes place in, that means he can attack anyone in the field. [[Sarcasm Mode|And it gets better]]: He's surrounded by lesser demons, which might as well count as a small army of [[Demonic Spiders]], due to how annoying they are. So, you'd want to kill them first, right? Well, do that, and Belzaboul replaces them with his flies. They go down easily, but have [[That One Attack|an attack called Spawn]] that inflicts anyone it hits with the Fly status. Anyone with this status will die one turn later and spawn ''more'' flies. And Belzaboul's normal attack inflicts Fly, too.
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** The battle against the Osaka faction in Ronaldo's route can be an absolute sheer wall thanks in large part to Keita. The kid's got a downright vicious combination of Rage Soul and Attack-All, [[Total Party Kill|allowing him to level entire parties with a single attack]]. And if for some reason you survived? [[It Got Worse|He can initate battle twice thanks to Zouchouten!]] What's more, [[This Is Gonna Suck|the battle's on a time limit.]] May as well pray to the stars for salvation, because Atlus sure isn't showing any!
=== Other Shin Megami Tensei ===
* From Last Bible, we have Minotaur, who is effectively the third boss in the game, the Zodia/Mephist [[Boss Rush]], and the fight with Vaerial before you get to Terra.
== Snowboard Kids ==
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== Robopon ==
* Prince Tail in [[Robopon|the original game]]. Those dragon robots just...wouldn't...DIE!
** Dr. Zero was no pushover, either, with one of his robots knowing the [[Game Breaker|ultra-powerful]] Alpha move.
** Of all people, Bisco can give you a good thrashing with his Hexbot. It uses a super strong Evil-type attack, and at this point in the game there's not much that can resist it.
** Kamat's army; since the minigames you're required to play at this point were not required earlier, there is a strong chance that you will be entirely unfamiliar with how they work.
** MR. Wild, the Legend5, has strong Robopon that can cause status effects as well as deal heavy damage. And he stole ''your'' Robopon, Dosbot, for the fight.
* In the second game, {{spoiler|Circe}} counts, with {{spoiler|her}} Robopon being fast and powerful. And unlike in the previous game, when you die you don't continue. You get [[Game Over]]. Cue hours of level-grinding rage.
** Insector can be particularly troublesome as well, due to the fact that he comes right after {{spoiler|Circe}} and most players will not find the only healing Robopon within the labyrinthine Pond Garden. In fact, most bosses after Mr. Gait have a tendency to have obscenely strong Robopon that use [[Standard Status Effects]] and [[Powers as Programs|software]] to decimate the player's team in a rough, aggressive blitz, much like {{spoiler|Circe.}}
** Give Maskman enough uses of Shield, and all attacks do 0 damage.
** Dr. Zero Senior, the final boss of the game, is ''harder than the [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]''.
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== Other Games ==
* Horrza, the Area 9 boss from [[Xexyz]]. He is quite possibly the closest thing to a [[Bullet Hell]] boss that the NES can actually produce. He also has much more health than previous bosses would indicate he SHOULD have, and kills the player in 4 hits. Very few players have killed him without emulator tricks. Owning him on a console is practically a [[Bragging Rights Reward]] in its own right.
* Dragon from [[3D Dot Game Heroes|Three D Dot Game Heroes]]. He does good damage and takes a ton of hits to kill, even with the most powerful sword available to the player, even IF it's fully upgraded. Also blocking his fireballs sometimes causes the player to take damage anyway.
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* There are a number of stupidly hard bosses in [[Catherine]], but ''Doom's Bride'' arguably is the worst. First of all, you fight her on a [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Ice Level]], where if you slip on ice off the edge, you die. Second of all, she is [[Lightning Bruiser|very fast]] at climbing compared to other bosses before her. Third, she has a move that causes an avalanche, if you are caught by this ''you are swept down to a lower level until it stops'', this is potentially lethal. And lastly, she brings [[Fake Difficulty]] on with her cyclone attack. Removing random blocks from the level to hit you with ''and'' making it difficult to see what's going on.
* The [[Final Boss]] of [[Master of the Monster Lair]] isn't particularly hard... providing that you spend nearly as much time you've already spent on the game to get to him farming for items to increase your strength. {{spoiler|The Devil Lord}} has such ridiculously high defense compared to very other monster in the game, in fact multiple times more than any other boss before him, that without copious amounts of grinding you'll be hard pressed to deal more than one damage at a time outside of weapon specials... and he has an attack that he deploys when he's down to his last third or so of health that WILL heal more than you'll deal in a single turn (in fact, try upwards of five). Oh, and did we mention that he has over 1000 health? All told, he's a difficult boss and he can take [[Marathon Boss|around an hour to bring down.]] {{spoiler|Thankfully, with all of the post-game equipment unlocked after beating him, fighting him when he shows up as one of the random bosses on the 20th floor is significantly easier.}}
* Baron, a late-game boss from ''[[Crusader of Centy]]'' fights you on a field that suffers heavily from [[Geo Effects]]. His slipping and sliding around causes the field to tilt like crazy, which in turn causes ''you'' to slip and slide around. However, you have far less control over your movement than Baron does, and your health will quickly drain as you're flung straight into his massive body or off the stage entirely. While his health looks low at first, depleting his life bar simply causes him to split into two slightly smaller blobs. He'll keep splitting into gradually smaller blobs, which further fills the field with hazards for you to slide into.
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