For games of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, difficulty was often used as a way to stretch out the average playtime of a game to both give customers their money’s worth and prevent most people from easily beating it when renting it from a video store, thereby discouraging them from buying it. Sometimes this made a good game into a masterpiece, and other times it made for pure gaming agony, especially when it came to boss fights.
Super Nintendo in particular had some legendarily vicious boss battles that inspired more than a few gamers to desert an otherwise fantastic title out of pure frustration. With instant access to countless guides today, some of these boss battles are at least a tiny bit easier, but for some all the pointers on the planet can’t help fans prepare for the torment they provide.
8 Lavos – Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger players can certainly make defeating the final boss easier on themselves by waiting until they’re super leveled up, stacked with double and triple techs, and loaded with powerful gear, but there really isn’t any way to make this battle genuinely easy.
That’s fitting, of course, as it represents the climax of a battle for the fate of the planet that spans the entirety of time itself. As hard as it may be, the challenge of defeating Lavos is part of what makes Chrono Trigger’s story so deeply satisfying to experience.
7 Ridley – Super Metroid
If players can make their way through the already-maddening labyrinth that is Super Metroid, and past all of the various tricky bosses laid out along the way, they’ll find themselves up against...Mother Brain. While this boss fight is no walk in the park, it will still come as something of a relief, because there is no doubt that the third-to-last boss, Ridley, is significantly trickier.
Fans often find themselves backtracking at this point in the game to pull in some more energy tanks and other items that can help them with this chaotic close-quarters battle. However, even when fully loaded this showdown in one of the best Metroid titles ever is no joke.
6 Moldorm – The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past
There are a few different bosses in A Link to the Past that deserve consideration for the most frustrating of them all, but Moldorm is a demon among demons. This bug-eyed multi-sectioned worm picks up speed and becomes more and more erratic with every subsequent hit, leaving the player's head spinning and their health depleted. It’s a nightmare.
As is the case with many of the hardest Zelda bosses, there’s a bit of luck involved in this face-off. Sure, players must be clever, nimble, and quick-thumbed, but good fortune is still a part of the formula, as is resisting the urge to load one's Super Nintendo into a catapult and launch it into the sun. Yet, in spite of this painful boss battle, this title ranks among the best Zeldas ever made.
5 Sigma – Mega Man X and X3
The Mega Man franchise has more than a few notably difficult boss battles, including the legendary Yellow Devil in the original mainline entry, but very few stack up to the final battles against Sigma in both Mega Man X and Mega Man X3.
Diving around, dodging relentless attacks while attempting to balance on the very edge of an electricity-blasting moving platform in order to find the perfect moment to send a fully charged X buster blast into Wolf Sigma’s sweet spot in X is pretty much just as difficult as dodging relentless attacks while endlessly climbing the wall in an effort to send a fully charged X buster blast into the comically tiny hitbox of Kaiser Sigma in X3, so they both must get the nod.
4 Castlevania: Dracula X – Dracula
Castlevania games are generally respected for the challenge they present. Dracula X, on the other hand, is feared for it. There’s just nothing about this game that’s easy at all, from the endless gauntlet of enemies players must stave off, to the various obstacles and tiny platforms they must traverse with expert precision, all the way to the unforgiving and unrelenting boss that awaits them at the end of it all. Yeah, this one can feel almost impossible at times.
In the final battle, Dracula appears in a puff of purple smoke to light players up with a few different difficult-to-dodge attacks as they hop around on frustrating little platforms. With some expert patience and careful move memorization, he can be taken down, but not before a ludicrous number of Game Overs.
3 Super Punch Out! – Rick Bruiser
The back end of Super Punch Out! is loaded with bosses that make medieval torture sound like an enticing alternative, and they never let up all the way up to the very end. Both Rick Bruiser and his brother Nick are absolutely grueling to beat, and although Nick is the final fight, Rick is actually a bit harder than him.
As much as it helps to learn his patterns so that players can dodge and counter him, it can still feel like a little bit of luck needs to be involved to get the KO on Rick. Very few moments in any Super Nintendo title can match the sensation of landing the knockout blow on this near-invincible mutant man.
2 Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts – Sardius
Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts is one of the best 16-bit games Capcom ever created, but it is also one of the most frustrating games that has ever been made, period. The levels constantly shift and transform, the enemies always respawn, and it only takes a few hits for Arthur to go down. Then, there are the boss fights…
The game’s final boss, Sardius, is a gigantic demon king that moves slowly but hits incredibly hard. Avoiding his weird mouth projectiles can feel nearly impossible at first, but with some relentless practice, the secret to dodging them and downing him will be revealed.
1 Mortal Kombat 2 – Shao Kahn
Certain bosses take such a titanic effort just to reach that facing off against them can prove too much for a player’s psyche. Then, when they discover just how quickly that boss can do away with them, and how improbable the idea of avoiding their attacks appears, that’s when the attrition truly begins.
Shao Kahn is a perfect example of this sort of retro gaming nightmare. He blocks everything players throw at him and then knocks off a majority of their health with one clean hit. The emperor of Outworld can seem totally insurmountable, but a truly dedicated fighter can eventually find the cracks in his foundation and ultimately take him down.