History Main / PuzzleBoss

** A common enemy reappearing in various games is the [[FairyBattle magical pot]]. It talks and tells you to give him an elixir. Otherwise, it will either be simply undefeatable or it will knock you out in no time, if you try just to kill him. (Though, because he tells you how to beat him, you may argue how much of a puzzle it is.) In X, you can grab items from it by striking the correct eye (which is randomized), and in XII, you might very well not realize it's there in the dark levels until you piss it off and it sends a Flare (or something even stronger) at you -- which isn't helped by all the undead.

*** Omega, a notorious ThatOneBoss who'll wipe the walls with you no matter what level you're at, UNLESS you know [[GuideDangIt the trick to beating him]], which makes him almost pathetically easy.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has two super bosses that punish you for trying to fight them normally. Emerald WEAPON has an attack that deals 1111 damage times the number of materia a party member has equipped; use 9 materia or more and it's instant death. Using less materia will reduce the damage done from the attack, but now you have to learn to tackle the boss with reduced fighting capabilities. Ruby WEAPON starts the battle by removing 2 of your party members from the battlefield (with no way to get them back) and then summons a pair of tentacles for a pincer attack. You can counter this by starting the fight with 2 of your allies already dead so that the boss summons the tentacles, then you can revive your allies and fight as normal.

*** Yunalesca requires the player to keep the "Zombie" [[StatusEffects debuff]] in order to survive her Megadeath attack (as Zombies are immune to Death). However, this prevents you from being able to heal. Deathproof and Zombieproof is a viable, though expensive alternative.

* The FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/LethalEnforcers'' will tank every single round you put into the fuselage of the helicopter until you first destroy the numerous guns and missile pods on each stablizer wing, at which point a life meter appears and you can finally start doing damage to the pilot.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' has the Man on Fire, specifically in the second encounter with him at the Devil's House. As he's able to shrug off attacks from your standard arsenal, you're forced to find another way to neutralize him; dousing him with the contents of a water tower, knocking him into a reservoir, or using a vehicle to ram him off a nearby cliff are your best bets at doing so.

** In ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheAmazingMirror'', the fifth boss can only be harmed by 2 abilities... and pushing him into the walls of his arena.

*** The Reactor of the Halberd in can only be damaged with its own "reflector lasers".

** The Dragon of Xian in ''VideoGame/TombRaiderII'', where you must put the dragon to sleep, then remove the dagger, causing him to revert to human form.

** Flaahgra from ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' is the most unconventional boss in the first game, as Samus cannot damage Flaaghra with any of her normal weapons, although she can momentarily daze Flaahgra with enough shots. Instead, Samus must shoot a number of mirrors around the arena into position to reflect sunlight onto the plant monster, which stuns it long enough for her to destroy its access to the water supply with Morph Ball bombs. Only then does Flaahgra wither.
** The ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' series has a lot of bosses of the "reveal the weak point" variety, but ''Echoes'' has a few bosses that fall even more decisively under the Puzzle Boss heading. The Spider Guardian, Power Bomb Guardian, and the second phase of the final boss all require you to navigate a morph ball course. [[spoiler:Also, Dark Samus becomes invincible to conventional attacks in her last phase. You can only damage her by using the Charge Beam to absorb the Phazon energy she launches in a particular attack and launch it back at her.]]

*** From the same game, Draygon is easily beaten by breaking one of the weapon turrets, letting Draygon grab you, and then shooting your grappling beam into the broken turret. There's a massive electrical discharge that hurts you, but fries Draygon a lot quicker.

** Several in some of the newer 2D games. ''VideoGame/SonicAdvance2'''s Super Sonic fight entailed smacking missiles back into Eggman. ''VideoGame/SonicAdvance3'' has a boss which can be damaged by the platforms that fall as you jump off them as everything scrolls up, and also one where you hit balls to make them deadly to Eggman (the balls bounce around the room). In '' [[VideoGame/SonicRush Rush]] '', there is a scarab beetle boss in which you have to smack the ball, and make it hit the back of Eggman. And in '' [[VideoGame/SonicRushAdventure Rush Adventure]] '', there's a boss in which you must smack a pendulum based system with enough force to hit the weak point at the top. Both Rush games also have you knocking missiles into the Eggmen in the Super fights.
** ''VideoGame/SonicMania'' features one of the most literal examples of this trope in the series: the boss fight of [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 Chemical Plant Zone]] Act 2 involves [[spoiler: challenging Eggman to a round of ''VideoGame/DrRobotniksMeanBeanMachine''.]]

** ''VideoGame/Persona3 Portable'':
*** In the endgame, Margaret (of ''VideoGame/Persona4'' fame) opens up a door in Tartarus wherein you can fight four puzzle bosses -- for each one, your party, group of Personae, level/stats, and so on are set to a certain fixed thing, so grinding and such are useless; you have to figure out how to defeat each boss with what you're given.

*** The {{superboss}}, Elizabeth, is often considered to be an extremely difficult fight because of her ability to oneshot the player at any time and access to a full heal on top of being a DuelBoss. However, she only uses her oneshot ability if you break the rules she has set, most notably being immune to an attack that she is attempting to use or use a particular ability that inflicts 9999 damage without defeating her. This means you can either just not use personas that are immune to anything or to cycle through them so that the one you're using isn't immune to the spell she uses on you. She also only uses the full heal when below half HP and her HP is 20k, so if you track her HP yourself, you can pretty easily bust out that 9999 damage attack and end the fight fairly cleanly. Once you know the trick, she's actually not that difficult. In contrast, the [=P3P=]-exclusive superboss, Margaret, has to be faced by a full party and has a much more intelligent AI that is much harder to predict, meaning she has to be defeated the normal way and is consequently a more difficult fight.