Basic Trope: A boss battle that takes a ridiculously long time to beat.
- Straight: In the RPG Tales of Troperia, the Final Battle against Emperor Evulz lasts for about 40 minutes.
- Exaggerated:
- It takes about 10 hours to defeat Emperor Evulz.
- It takes at least a WEEK to defeat Emperor Evulz.
- The main risk when fighting Evulz is not his attacks, but running out of ammo before you can finish killing him.
- Emperor Evulz is pretty much immortal.
- Downplayed:
- While the boss collectively takes a long time to complete, you can work at your own pace. The game even comes with a Suspend function, and glory be: you can load it as many times as you want!
- Evulz is an average-length boss in a game full of ridiculously short and easy boss fights.
- Justified:
- Emperor Evulz has recently obtained a power that makes him nearly impervious to most attacks.
- Emperor Evulz can heal himself.
- Emperor Evulz receives Scratch Damage.
- Inverted: Rush Boss
- Subverted:
- Wielding the Sword of Plot Advancement can overcome the damage cap in the Final Battle, making the fight way shorter than it normally is.
- It doesn't take you that long to fight him, you just need to take that long to get an achievement.
- Double Subverted: ...which means instead of a 10 hours battle, you get a 40 minutes battle.
- Parodied:
- Emperor Evulz actually urges the player (yeah, you) to take a break every now and then in the Final Battle.
- You fight Evulz in a literal marathon.
- Evulz calls temporary truces several times during the fight so he and the heroes can rest up.
- Evulz comes to the fight in a track suit, holding a bottle of water. Every other character can pull up in a similar marathon-running getup.
- The fight with Evulz lasts so long and has so many phases that the player character gets fed up and stops the fight before the last phase can begin.
- Zig Zagged: Depending on the whim of the Random Number God, Emperor Evulz can have anywhere between ten thousand HP to ten million HP.
- Averted: The battle against Emperor Evulz is only slightly longer than average boss battles in any RPG.
- Enforced: The developers realized they slacked off on level design and made their game shorter than players expected; in a desperate attempt at last-minute Padding, they made the Final Boss take ridiculously long to beat.
- Lampshaded: "Prepare for a long fight!"
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz studies defensive tactics above all else, in order to make the inevitable fight with the heroes take as long as possible.
- Exploited: He does this so that they give up in frustration, go insane, and/or collapse from sheer exhaustion after fighting him for an hour.
- Defied: Emperor Evulz realizes that while turning himself into a Stone Wall may be practical, it makes for an incredibly boring fight, so he becomes a Glass Cannon instead.
- Discussed: "We do have the power to take on Emperor Evulz himself... but do we have the time?"
- Conversed: "You've been fighting this boss for what, an hour?" "Yes! And I cannot even save in mid-fight!"
- Deconstructed:
- The heroes may have vanquished Evulz, but they fainted after the fight due to loss of energy and injures.
- In the time it took to slay Evulz, he was able to wreak untold destruction on the surrounding landscape. Hardly anything remains of what the heroes originally set out to protect.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played For Laughs: Halfway through the fight, everyone collapses and has to catch their breath, take water breaks, toilet breaks, etc. (Hey, you try engaging in vigorous exercise for eight straight hours.) Well, except for Claidheamh; He's been through much more strenuous and longer exercises before. This is nothing. Now, eight straight hours PLUS thirty minutes is when he finally begins to slow down.
Take this! And this! And this! Argh why won't this guy die?! *40 minutes later* Okay, you may go back to Marathon Boss.
