Characters.Final Fantasy XIV Raid Antagonists: Mythology Gag: He’s based on the infamous Marathon Boss from Final Fantasy XII. The first couple phases of the fight even retain the original's Damage Sponge properties before the party finally strikes its weak point, damaging the dragon's armored hide.
Trivia.Chippy: Within the game's most recent design, Monarch was originally planned to have three forms, but the last one was cut due to it making the stage way too long.
YMMV.Turbo Overkill: Arc Fatigue: Some criticism has been levied against the Vector-4 section for stretching the climax of the game a bit too much, as it goes on for two hours through three separate areas and is capped off by the absolute Marathon Boss that is Maw. And there's still one more level and boss to take care of after that!
VideoGame.Hexepta Mayor Attack: Anton Frost is on the stand for the majority of Case 6's second trial. He has a total of seven cross examinations - though the sixth one is a repeat of his fifth testimony.
Characters.Mega Man Battle Network 1: While having a shit load of health is standard for him, his Bass XX incarnations have so much it is possible to exhaust a chip folder before killing him.
YMMV.The Battle Cats: If your cats are strong enough to handle the stage's enemies, then Crazed Tank Cat falls under this. With enough meatshields, it's not hard to prevent the boss from pushing while you hold off its support, but with 3.2 million HP and being fought so early in the game, it takes forever and a day to die.
VideoGame.Bow Master: Metal Slime: The Earth Golem, surprisingly enough. Tall as half the screen, huge amount of life, has a devastating (almost) Always Accurate Attack, often show up in pairs... but they give thousands of gold and experience, and a maxed-out sextuple rapid shot with an electric arrow will fell even two of them in seconds.
YMMV.Rockman 7 EP: Contested Sequel: Despite the impressive use of ASM, this mod can feel quite lacking in comparison compared to Rockman 4 Minus Infinity due to the music tracks being reused from Mega Man 7, bosses having the same colour as the originals, only one Superboss fight, no Mechanical Arena, and the Wily Fortress level design being criticized for being overly experimental and throwing E-Tanks at you to get you through them. That's not even counting the final level and Bass whose sheer tedium in both winning and losing against him makes him the worst boss fight in the game.
VideoGame.God Of War II: Alrik the Barbarian King has several phases during his boss fight: first, he stands on his horse, attacking Kratos from afar with bow and arrows. Then, he summons the souls of the dead to fight for him. When Kratos slays all the revenants he absorbs the souls to turn into a colossus. Then, Kratos depowers him and proceeds to fight him one on one, steal his hammer and crush him.
Characters.Yakuza 1: The very first boss in the series to 6 bars of health in a single Boss Fight. Twice as much as the maximum 3 that Ryuji would have in the two seperate instances he's fought during the finale. He's got 7 in Kiwami 2 which arguably makes him tougher than most of the series' Final Bosses.
Characters.Death Crusades: Not because of Lucifer having a billion HP, but because the opening attack by a player targeted all of the enemies in the vicinity. In the end it all added up to be around 6 hours.
VideoGame.Wild 9: Karn isn't very difficult, he just takes a long time to beat.
Characters.Banjo Kazooie: The second dragon fought (no matter which one) will invariably have twice as many HP as the first one fought; as a result, all cannons will be required during the battle because each of them can only work until the boss is hit three times, and the total amount of HP of the boss is 3 x 4 = 12.
ThatOneBoss.Elden Ring: The Fire Giant which guards the giants' forge has a mammoth health pool, bordering on Marathon Boss levels, with even fully upgraded weapons taking a long while to bring him down unless you abuse mechanics like bleed to speed it up. On top of that, he not only does insane damage (enough to two-shot you even with a highly vigor invested character), but he has AOE fire attacks that make it difficult and punishing for melee characters to damage him and which can kill them instantly if they're not careful. His second form is easier to kite, but his defense skyrockets anywhere except his hands and the exposed eye in the center of his face-chest, and he can still cast multiple firestorms and rinse the battlefield with high-damage exploding rock shards, prolonging an already-grueling fight. On top of all of that, he's also somewhat of a "Get Back Here!" Boss, as he likes to roll away from you frequently.
VideoGame.The Legend Of Dragoon: The final boss deserves special mention. Even if your characters are all wearing Magical Rings and blasting it with Dragoon spells whenever they've built up enough SP, the final boss can be expected to last forty-five minutes to an hour easily - and not just because of its enormous quantity of hit points either: in its final form, it uses the Dragon Block Staff effect against you, so you can't use Dragoon spells. Hope you didn't use the Psyche Bomb too early.
Characters.Assassins Creed Valhalla: First, Odin has to disable three of his four legs, then attack his neck while he's weak. Then he has to repeat the process. Then Nidhogg revives himself with some assistance from the local souls, potentially all the way up to full health if Odin doesn't interrupt in time.
Characters.Sword Art Online Bosses: In the end, it ends up taking over an hour to defeat. And the hour in question is spent trying to escape the Boss Room.
GameBreaker.Final Fantasy: Quick freezes game-time and lets your character perform two actions without interruption. Sap drains HP in real-time, and nothing resists it (because it is horrendously slow; something like 7.5 damage per second). Using Sap as your first action, and then never taking your second action, will turn anything into a Marathon Zero-Effort Boss. This was unfortunately nerfed in the Pixel Remaster.
VideoGame.Mario Party Advance: Wolfpack Boss: The Koopa Kids who challenge the player in the Bowser minigames. Defeating them all is the only way to win the challenges and receive the Gaddgets from Bowser in Shroom City mode. Usually, the number of Koopa Kids present will be chosen randomly, but in Free Play mode the total is always set to 99, thus overlapping these minigames as Marathon Boss gauntlets.
VideoGame.Mega Man X Dive: The entire concept of Jakob's Tower, which are stages consisting of waves of enemies interspersed with rather tanky boss encounters. Many of these are designed with wildly fluctuating degrees of difficulty, and it only gets worse the higher you go. Worse, if you run out of time or die, you can't use that character again in ANY Tower stage until the next server reset. At least on the boss stages, the boss's health doesn't refill between tries.
VideoGame.Ys: The final bosses of I (excluding the TurboGrafx-CD version), II, The Dawn of Ys, Oath, and V.
VideoGame.Brutal Mario: The already Bowser's Keep level mentioned below is long enough, but if you choose the normal pathway, you're treated to fighting the seven Koopalings merged together. Said battle can take at least 20 minutes or so if you know what you're doing. In comparison, the secret pathway is another battle with Bowser that takes a significantly shorter amount of time.
Characters.Pokemon Reborn Team Meteor: It isn't that strong offensively without the Murkwater Field and Water Absorb supporting it, but it's got titanic defenses and HP, and heals itself if you don't change the field.
Characters.Pokemon Trainer Classes: They tend to have full parties when you battle them, but thankfully they also tend to use unevolved and baby Pokémon.
Characters.Brutal Orchestra: It has 300 health, more than both of the final bosses, though it's mitigated by the fact that it frequently damages itself.
Superboss.Role Playing Games: The Ancient Dragon is a brutal Marathon Boss with a lot of health and all of its attacks can kill you in one hit unless you have extremely high Fire resistance. The saving grace is that most of its attacks are fairly telegraphed and can thus be avoided rather easily. Except when it decides to fly up and rain fire on the arena. Avoiding that can be a struggle. Upon defeat, it drops a Soul of a Giant that makes the Superboss immediately below easier.
SuperSmashBros.Tropes A To D: Continuing is Painful: In the fourth game's Classic Mode, accepting a Continue when you lose takes away some of your prize money, a few of your earned rewards (from 1 prize at difficulty 2.0 up to 5 at 9.0), and automatically lowers the difficulty by 0.5. This last part is particularly infuriating for anyone going for the Challenge for beating Classic on 9.0, because a single Game Over anywhere in your run (including Master Core) means you must start over from the beginning. Additionally, unlike previous games, there is no benefit to getting a Game Over, since the player always has two stock.note In previous games, if the player got a game over, they would restart with the amount of lives they started the run with, allowing one to replenish their lives.
Persona5.Tropes G To R: The fight against the boss of the Cruise Ship Palace is really long, even factoring in that it's a Climax Boss. He has five separate phases, more than any other boss, and the last two have quite a bit of health. It can easily take over an hour from the start of the fight to the end of the cutscenes that play after the boss is defeated, assuming you don't skip anything.
VideoGame.Super Smash Bros For Nintendo 3 DS And Wii U: Continuing is Painful: In Classic Mode, accepting a Continue when you lose takes away some of your prize money, a few of your earned rewards (from 1 prize at difficulty 2.0 up to 5 at 9.0), and automatically lowers the difficulty by 0.5. This last part is particularly infuriating for anyone going for the Challenge for beating Classic on 9.0, because a single Game Over anywhere in your run (including Master Core) means you're totally screwed.
ThatOneAttack.Final Fantasy: The Adamantoises generally don't have attacks that don't suck, but the worst by far is Roar. It deals horrifying damage to ALL party members, and, worst of all, tends to inflict Daze on at least one party member. Daze prevents a character hit with it from performing any kind of physical or magical attack. If it lands on the healer or the leader, or anyone at all if the damage from Roar KOed some characters...well, you're screwed. Everything else the toises have can be dealt with simply, but the best strategy for handling Roar is to kill the monster before it uses it. Good luck with that.
Characters.Undertale Other Characters: Muffet's fight is significantly longer than most of the mini-bosses you've encountered up to that point, with only the Mad Dummy having a long boss fight. Be prepared for a lot of trouble if you don’t have any way of skipping her fight.
DragaliaLost.Tropes K To P: The Astral Raid versions of bosses on Master difficulty, as they not only attack faster, but also have more HP, with the time limit being 10 minutes instead of 3.
ThatOneBoss.Super Mario Bros: Bowyer, the second boss, mainly because he can shut off one of your attack, magic, or item commands for several turns — and he'll pick which one he shuts off based on which one you've been using the most. While you do get a new party member for this fight, he's capable of shutting off your attack ability, forcing you to drain your limited magic points to zero, while he continues to attack you with powerful magic that hits your entire party and keeping your attack ability locked, leaving you helpless. Then, when you're low on health and magic points and need to use your items to recover, he'll switch on your attack ability and seal your item ability, which prevents you from healing, and forces you to continue fighting him while you're exhausted. He can alternatively seal your special ability, causing the fight to become a long battle of attrition as your magic is sealed, limiting you to normal attacks while he can still rain destruction upon you.
YMMV.Skylanders: Signature Scene: The final boss of Trap Team, Ultra Traptanium Kaos, is one of the most frequently talked about things in the community, whether that be how good the fight is, or how difficult and long it is. Then there's also the fact that after beating him, you're able to trap and then play as Kaos for the first time in the series.
VideoGame.Mafia Wars: The San Juan bosses. On the highest level of mastery, they have insane amounts of HP and take tons of stamina to defeat. You're given four hours for the highest level boss fights, and you will need almost every second.
VideoGame.Guitar Hero: "Do You Feel Like We Do (Live)" on Guitar Hero 5 and "2112" on Warriors of Rock (though only if all seven songs are played one after the other, such as in the campaign).Warriors of Rock has another in the form of the final battle, but rather than a single track broken up into several parts, it's a trinity of Megadeth tracks (three Megadeth Tracks). Doesn't make it any less epic, though. Likewise "2112" is broken down into its seven parts, so it's not as much of a marathon as DYFLWD (or "Free Bird" back in GH2). Granted since these seven individual tracks are pretty short in length.
GameBreaker.Capcom Vs: From Tatsunoko vs. Capcom:Tekkaman's super moves are incredibly easy to accumulate, very powerful, can be done from a distance, and extremely hard to completely dodge, which means that even if they're blocked, the chip damage alone is sufficient. Yatterman-1 has super attacks that automatically put him on this list considering how fast and powerful they are. His Yatterman Charge is so useful and powerful that it can take down the Final Boss Yami, in all three of his forms without even breaking a sweat. By far the most formidable character in the original release of TvC, Cross Generation of Heroes, is Karas. His pressure game combined with his speed created nearly inescapable corner traps. If on defense, you had to do everything you could to get out of the corner when fighting him or it was a doomed game. Thankfully, his speed has been significantly reduced for the update Ultimate All-Stars and thus has been brought down to a more reasonable level.
VideoGame.Luigis Mansion: The 3DS Hidden Mansion gives all the bosses except Boolossus their gimmicks from its European/Australian GameCube equivalent, except now these three have a bit extra going for them to drag the fight on:Chauncey will now always break free at around 40-50 HP, which is more important than it seems since Portrait Ghosts have 150 HP in this Hidden Mansion. This guarantees it'll take at least three cycles to beat him. Bogmire now engages in borderline Teleport Spam, and is far more ferocious in breaking free of the Poltergust. The Bowser suit's bombs can now go right to being seconds away from exploding, forcing you to wait for the next bombs to come. On top of this, King Boo now has 750 HP.
Characters.Maple Story NPC: Constantly summons her Chief Knights and Shinsoo as her boss fight drags on.
YMMV.Make A Good Mega Man Level Contest: Unexpected Character: Due to the number of characters, many of whom come from different sub-series and in some cases entirely different continuities, it's bound to be surprising who shows up.All of the Robot Masters from the Challenger from the Future and DOS games show up in the sequels, with Komuso Man and Volt Man, respectively, being devkit bosses in 2. One of the devkit bosses for MaGMML3 is Honey Woman, the prototype version of Hornet Man from Mega Man 9, and the basis of Vesper Woman's design from the Archie Comics. Also present is the Mega Mech Shark from the same game; not just a Wily Castle boss, but a massive, multipart boss with three health bars! Beck and Rokko Chan are both playable skins in the sequel, and the latter's cast make some appearances. The Wiki also confirms that they exist in the same setting in the MaGMML universe. Gordon Freeman can be found in a particularly silly Easter Egg in the second game.
FanDisservice.Video Games: The Binding of Isaac: After activating the item "Mom's bra", Isaac will wear this piece of clothing as a hat and enemies will be frozen on the spot. It also shows Mom in that bra upon activation. The problem? She is the protagonist's abusive mother, and so portrayed, in detail, as an unattractive woman drawn in the best Grossout Show fashion. One of the bosses added in Afterbirth has a very noticeable ass. The catch is that said boss is Ultra Greed, the giant, dried-up corpse of a child with coins in his eye sockets. And since he is designed to be a Marathon Boss thanks to the damage scaling mechanic, you'll be looking at his undead, rotting butt a lot.
Awesome.Kamen Rider Ex Aid: Graphite refuses to join forces with the CR Riders like Poppy and Parado and instead faces off in one final battle with Taiga and Hiiro. Due to Gamedeus' power, Graphite is now beyond Level 99, despite this, Brave and Snipe are able to match him as the battle lasts from literal Dusk to Dawn. Graphite reveals his reason to exist, to act as a game enemy and do battle, nothing more. This culminates in him fending off and sending Cronus flying when he tries to interfere with the finishing blow. Why? Because the Riders defeated him, fair and square. Then, due to Gamedeus' power, Graphite's Ultimate Absolute Final Crimson Dragon Slash managed to overpower Cronus' Critical Sacrifice! He then proceeds to just go right into the finishing blow. Nico performing a proper Finishing Move to defeat Graphite with Taiga's Gashacon Magnum: Rider Critical Finish, and the recoil of the shot is so powerful that Nico gets thrown back!
YMMV.Kirby Planet Robobot: Best Boss Ever: In a game within a series filled with them, this one is no exception, but the standout is easily the Final Boss, Star Dream. It's worth mentioning that it's a Marathon Boss with three forms, hard-hitting attacks, an awesome setting, and epic music. But the real kicker is that it's an Unexpected Shmup Level in the vein of Zero-Two, and the fact that you are basically fighting NOVA of all people... with the entire freakin' Halberd! And that's not even talking about the Soul OS version... There's a very good reason why Star Dream is considered one of the greatest final bosses in the series, if not the best. The first secret boss is none other than Dark Matter Blade from Dream Land 2, accompanied with a combined remix of both of his themes and a variant of all of his attacks from his origin game. Soon after, Galacta Knight comes back with yet another remix of his theme and a dynamic update to his fight in Return to Dream Land.
Characters.Trails Series Calvard Miscellaneous: The final fight against Grendel-Zolga can take a while, partially due to the usual Sequential Boss formula, and partially due to the sudden reappearance of previous bosses from Daybreak and II:It starts the battle as "Grendel-Zolga SiN." The second part has it return to its usual form. Once the party deplete its HP to certain threshold, it changes the location to the base from Kuro II's prologue, with Van and Elaine as the only available party members. After that, the scene switches again, with Van, Agnès, Feri, and Aaron fighting against Aida-Ghoula and Demon Taikun. Following that, the scene changes to the top of Genesis Tower, with Van, Risette, Quatre, and Judith fighting against the demon forms of Gerard and Melchior. Finally, the last showdown is yet another battle against regular Grendel-Zolga.
Characters.Dragalia Lost Antagonists Campaign: Do not expect Xenos to die quickly, as he has a ton of HP in any encounter, and unlike Asura there's no massive attack buff to help you. It is not uncommon for endgame-geared players to take more than ten minutes ON NORMAL to defeat him, with some Very Hard runs taking upwards of a whole hour!
VideoGame.Crash Fever: Emperor's Live has the first floor consist of a Freyr and two hard hitting flunkies, then multiple bars on everything else.
PhantasyStarOnline2.Tropes A To M: The Primordial Darkness has an absolutely ludicrous health pool that puts every other raid boss in the game to shame. The fact that it's also a multi-phase raid ends up turning it into a Marathon Boss even with copious amounts of cheese strategies.
YMMV.Final Fantasy VII New Threat Mod: Breather Boss: While one huge aim of the Mod is to make any boss a decent challenge by giving them a stat boost and a better moveset, a few of them are still comically out of their league when they fight the party.Yuffie is scripted to heal herself 10 times before finally going down, so in theory her fight should be a Marathon Boss. However, she is also facing all 5 party members at the same time. (Red XIII and Barret are controlled by the AI.) Moreover, Red XIII is scripted to use Lunatic High at the beginning of the fight even if he hasn’t learned it yet, Yuffie doesn’t have much HP to begin with, and her attacks aren't very threatening. So it’s next to impossible to lose this fight if you know what you’re doing. All in all, the 'boss battle' feels more like Yuffie’s getting a pummeling. Palmer is probably the only boss who hasn’t been made harder compared to the original. While your characters are stronger thanks to the SP system. You do the maths.
VideoGame.Geomon: As mentioned above, Alpha Espers have much more health than any other opponent. Since the Shield, Heal, and Revive skills reduce or heal damage based on the user's maximum health, Alphas with access to the combo take ages to wear down, if it can even be done.
VideoGame.Thousand Arms: Difficulty by Region: In the original Japanese version it was fairly easy to defeat bosses before you could see the full range of their rather extensive combat quotes and animations. Atlus overcompensated for the US version, resulting in a game that, on top of the other issues with its combat system, is notorious for every boss being a tedious Marathon Damage-Sponge Boss.
DarthWiki.Pokemon Seasons And Ages: Given the extremely high level it's at, it can take a long while, upwards of more than half an hour, to defeat Crystaris.
WakeUpCallBoss.Metroid: Amorbis, the fifth overall boss yet still the first of the Temple Guardians, and therefore the first of many Marathon Boss opponents you will face across the game. The reason for this is because you actually have to defeat six giant worms in order to score victory. And good luck figuring out the requirement of the Morph Ball to ultimately defeat them without using a guide. Ironically, they become one of the easiest bosses if you decide to play a No Dark Suit run by using a Ghetto Jump to Sequence Break into Torvus Bog.note A No Dark Suit run only lasts until you acquire the Light Suit, which is normally obtained late in the game.
VideoGame.Hero Core: Sequence Breaking: You can bypass most of the game and get to the final boss with Expelling.Marathon Boss: Fittingly, the Plasma Hydra in Hard Mode. Also, Tetron and the Guardian.
Characters.One Piece Kaido: Villainous RRoD: =] While Kaido's ability to soak up hits is to say the least, impressive, as the Onigashima arc goes on and he continues taking damage and fighting, it becomes more and more clear that his stamina levels are starting to peter out. In the end, Kaido's flame clouds holding Onigashima aloft disappear before Luffy knocks him out, indictating that Kaido may have only gotten knocked out because his stamina flatlined at the worst possible moment.
YMMV.Wario Ware: Disappointing Last Level: When it comes to the microgames, compared to the Marathon Level status of Wario's Adventure (Mega Microgame$!) and Being Nosy (Touched) and the lengthy but challenging Dance Party Endings of Wario Mambo (Twisted), and Wario Dance Company (Smooth Moves and Gold), Get It Together!'s Potty Pursuit is much shorter and more straightfoward than any of the Final Boss microgames that proceeded it. This is likely because of the inclusion of "Showdown", a lengthy Marathon Boss against Pyoro.
DeathOfAThousandCuts.Video Games: In Borderlands you can knife any of the vehicles until it explodes. Hell, Brick can PUNCH a car to make it explode.In addition, a major part of boss fights is making sure you have enough ammo to kill them. On Mayhem 4 for Borderlands 3, any boss you could marginally take in a satisfactory time period gets 800% HP and 1000% Armor and Shields, so... you're gonna be shooting for a while. Those big numbers might as well lose a whole digit off the end for all that matters on 4.
ThatOneSidequest.Final Fantasy: The Cactuar searching sidequest from X is back with a vengeance. This time, however, it encompasses the entirety of Spira, so have fun to decipher cryptic messages to find the little green buggers. There is still an annoying (if optional to complete) minigame to play, and the sidequest is capped off by two bosses, one of which is truly hard Marathon Boss, being only behind Via Infinito bosses in terms of difficulty.
Characters.Destiny The Vex: The Templar's boss fight is a multi-phase one where Guardians have to defend objectives for a number of cycles, destroy a certain type of enemy or risk a Total Party Wipe, then take on the Templar itself, all while trying to avoid getting into contact with Vex enemies that set you up for the Templar's One-Hit Kill. Take more than eight minutes to defeat it when it spawns, and even more enemies will appear to overwhelm you.
Characters.Path Of Exile: You have to fight him three times, knocking off about a third of his health bar each time. And he has a lot of health.
AwesomeMusic.Xenoblade Chronicles X: In the Forest, the vocal version of "CODENAMEZ", is fittingly tense for the context in which it plays, that being squad missions against Nemeses. The mostly-spoken lyrics highlight just how grim humanity's situation is.
VideoGame.Forum Fantasy: The superbosses can take a while to defeat, but special mention goes to Felix Falora, who has a whopping 500,000 HP and can take up to an hour to defeat normally, unless you used Voidpulse, which, due to a formula error that caused it to do much more damage than normal.
VideoGame.Disgaea D 2 A Brighter Darkness: At the time of writing, no one has beaten Baal in under 30 minutes thanks to a combination of the removal of the damage formula changes from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, his insane stats, and the fact that he goes through six forms (each with a nasty evility) before finally being defeated.
Characters.Rabi Ribi: She has six life bars, with an Unexpected Gameplay Change in between each health bar where you're briefly tackling a shooting-style fight similar to Lilith's second battle and an Attack Reflector that makes it so you can't burst her down right after said shooter. Fortunately, each of her individual bars has a lot less health than usual, to the point where a skilled player can burst one down in the span of a 1-2 attacks. She'll also heal you a bit between health bars.
Characters.Dusty Revenge: William's life meter is massive, allowing him to tank explosions, bullets, fists and all sorts of projectiles like no tomorrow. Yet his attacks mostly revolves around swinging his sword around and the occasional projectiles. It's as repetitive as it sounds.
VideoGame.Beyond The Beyond: King Mook: A few forced encounters against enemy soldiers. Two of these are guarding a specific location and give no outright indication of just how much tougher they are, having several times the HP of normal men and bordering on Marathon Boss status (or at least Bait-and-Switch Boss), capable of one-shotting weaker team members with their arrows. Another one of these guys shows up later with several regular soldiers with him, and it is plainly obvious this time because he is quite noticeably taller than the others. You can be easily smashed by either encounter if you think it'll be over in a couple of rounds.
VideoGame.Kirby Planet Robobot: Story Mode: The penultimate level has a final encounter with an Invader Armor, rematches against three of the fourth Holo Defense API summons (Sphere Doomers, Ice Dragon, and Kracko, in that order), yet another Security Force miniboss, and ends with a fight against an updated Gigavolt, all with Robobot Armor. The following boss level has a rematch with Mecha Knight and the supposed final boss fight against President Haltmann. After that comes the Marathon Boss that is Star Dream.
Characters.Digimon Adventure 2020 Enemy Digimon: Usually the strongest opponents the heroes face up until then and take considerable effort to take down, especially when they digivolve on the spot.
Characters.Tekken Kazuya Mishima: Empowered Badass Normal: Per his possession of the Devil Gene, Kazuya has an array of power and abilities at his disposal, and unlike Jin, he fully embraces his nature as a devil. Even without that, however, he's an exceptionally strong and skilled martial artist who actually prefers to fight without using his demonic abilities up until 7. The climax of The Dark Awakens in 8 shows this in full; having been Brought Down to Normal by Angel Jin's power of purification, Kazuya dismisses the Devil Gene as a means to an end before serving as a Marathon Boss that requires Jin to utilize every technique at his disposal—Mishima and Kazama Style alike—before he's finally defeated.
Characters.Incarnation Of Legends: Superpower Lottery: Artoria is ludicrously overpowered. She has a skill similar to Liaris Freese that works so long as she's fighting alongside her familia on top of massively boosting their Endurance. She has three extremely powerful and useful magics in Excalibur (a Sword Beam that will obliterate even a Monster Rex), Avalon (an incredibly powerful Deflector Shield that also purges all negative effects), and Mana Burst (a chantless spell that expends Mind for a massive increase to Artoria's already monstrous stats). She also has eight Developmental Abilities through her Dragon Core Reactor skill, two of which are at an unheard of D Rank (for context, even Ottar's highest level skill is at E rank). It's little wonder that she's the Empire's strongest.
XenobladeChroniclesX.Tropes K To Z: Completing the game adds five powerful Tyrants to the world: Dadaan, the Strongest Prone, who summons his squad and will scrap your Skell with his bazooka if you try to use one against him; Lugalbanda, the Wanderer-King, which can debilitate you with Eye Beams and summon ovis to eat for healing; Gradivus, the Headless Emperor, a Barrier Change Boss millesaur with a permanently destroyed neck and 100 million HP; Leva'el, the Terminus, a Xern that summons squads of enemy Skells and Satellis units and has a One-Hit Kill Kill Sat attack; and Nardacyon, the Shadowless, a souped-up version of the Chapter 7 boss and a Lightning Bruiser extraordinaire that is summoned if you try to fight its pilot Nahum, the Red Hare while you're in a Skell. Some of these Tyrants drop unique weapons or special augments that add reflect effects to certain auras and Overdrives, and most of them drop unique holofigures.
VideoGame.Rabi Ribi: Forgotten Cave II, also in Chapter 6, is a Boss Rush with your only reliefs being that there are Auto-Save checkpoints and each defeated boss restores a large chunk of your health. Oh, and many of the bosses's attacks here slap you with Skill Ban if they connect, preventing Erina from using any of her attacks for several seconds. At the end, you fight a brainwashed Rumi, who boasts six lifebars.
WhatCouldHaveBeen.Ratchet And Clank: The Thug Leader giant robot fight late in the game was originally going to be a chase sequence, with Ratchet using a speeder while shooting back at the robot while it was chasing them throughout the city, but it was cut due to being out of place in the game, and lacking any strong firepower. It was replaced with Ratchet fighting it on foot and using nearby turrets to bring it down. Also, the robot was initially going to have an even bigger health bar, but it was shortened because the fight was long enough as is.
Characters.Final Fantasy Recurring Monsters: Took a Level in Badass: In XIII, the baby Adamanchelid can deal a Total Party Kill if you challenge it the first time you encounter one, and the adult Adamantortoise can do the same even to a party with maxed out Crystarium. The even stronger Long Gui and Shaolong Gui are effectively Super Bosses. Taken to infinity and beyond in XV. The Adamantoise becomes a lvl. 99 Superboss with a whopping 5 million HP that takes players on average about an hour to defeat.
ThatOneBoss.Fighting: Eternal Champions: The Eternal Champion himself. He can use any of his moves regardless of his energy meter, does a ton of damage with every hit, can actually make himself invincible at any point in the match for a few seconds, and requires a lot of hits to take down. Oh, and there are FIVE FORMS, all of them with their own moves. And there's no continues once you reach him; lose, and it's game over. Yikes. He's even worse in the sequel. While he doesn't cheat quite as blatantly, he's still ridiculously overpowered. And this time, he comes with NINE forms. And then you have to fight the Dark Champion, who not only has the same number of forms, but is even more powerful than the Eternal Champion. Oh, and unless you're on the lowest difficulty, there's still no continuing. So, that's a total of eighteen bosses you have to beat on one credit. If a fighting game is allowed to have a Marathon Boss, these two would be some of the clearest examples ever.
Characters.Iji: On the lowest difficulty, he has 900 health in a game where most enemies don't break 15. For comparison, Iosa's exoskeleton had 400 health.
VideoGame.Deadly Premonition: Forrest Kaysen, Phase 3. And if you screw up the last bit, he regains all of his health and you have to start over. George's final form may count as well, if you get too used to attacking its weak point.
Characters.Devil May Cry Vergil: He becomes this at the end of 3. If you don't deal him enough damage when his guard is open (which is not often), they will be nullified quickly since he heals when in Devil Trigger. Of course, he is even less open when his health is low.
Characters.Devil May Cry Villains: Argosax has a ton of health, but most of its heads can be safely blasted with the rocket launcher from outside their attack range.
VideoGame.Steel Empire: The Final Boss has several phases, the very last section of which has no less than 5 (where it changes its attack pattern per phase). Taken even further in the 3DS remake, which adds even more phases to it.
ThatOneLevel.Rhythm Game: "MILF", the third and final song of Week 4. It's basically "Dad Battle", but faster, more aggressive, and more note-heavy. The notes are much more varied too, with having to flip between fast-paced hold notes followed by storms of regular notes. You'll also be harmonizing with the opponent, Mommy Mearest, almost constantly, meaning there's hardly a moment to catch your breath. It's also the first playable song in the game to go on for two minutes. And we haven't even mentioned the beatdrop yet!
Characters.Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen: One-Winged Angel: Upon defeating him for a second time, the face on his stomach grows more prominent and his entire combat style changes, with fully restored and enormously buffed health. This "awakened" form poses a challenge even to those who have struck the level limit, as he has a penchant for spamming magic attacks and setting you on fire when you try to scale him.
OnePieceWholeCakeIslandArc.Tropes K To N: Luffy spent a whopping 11 hours fighting Charlotte Cracker with assistance from Nami. He spent most of that time eating all the Biscuit Armor constructs Cracker would make, and took advantage of a rare switch of offense battling that Cracker made to beat him. This is almost certainly the longest time Luffy had spent fighting a single adversary.His battle against Katakuri lasts just about as long, and the majority of it consists of Luffy taking and resisting Katakuri's attacks, having only been able to lay a hand on the Sweet Commander a couple of times in quick succession.
Roleplay.Smash Ronpa: The third and fourth trials both broke Dis-1's 14-hour record, both lasting into Sunday.
Characters.Dragon Quest IV: Psaro's Final Boss fight has the distinction of being a One-Winged Angel that averts Transformation Is a Free Action. While he originally presents himself as a clone of Estark, you have to sever each of his arms and then his head... only for his torso to sprout a face and keep fighting. He then proceeds to grow back each arm, elongate his legs, and finally manifest a second head atop his body before finally going down for good. Mechanically, it's a boss fight with seven phases.
BetterThanItSounds.Fan Works: Fanfic Theater 3015: Several years ago, a group of people got together online to poke fun at bad stories. In 2015, the group reformed. The Multipart Blitz: A Marathon Boss in the form of spring cleaning. This was a mistake. Troll Shuffle: A celebration of a holiday in reality is a trip into Hell.
VideoGame.Okami: The Mini-Boss battles during the Bandit Spider challenges are very lenghty, since both the minibosses involved and the enemies have their HP significantly buffed. Among the regular bosses, Orochi stands out for the need to destroy the seal (within a bell) in his central belly, and then the eight heads one by one. There's also Yami, which has to be fought across five lenghty phases, and in them Amaterasu has to retrieve the stolen brush techniques one by one, which further prolongs the fight.
DemBones.Video Games: In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, along with the introduction of the other members of the "Bones" family (Dull, Red and Dark), a Superboss is featured in the form of a skeletal dragon named Bonetail, the eldest brother of Hooktail and Gloomtail residing in the bottom floor of the Pit of 100 Trials. It is considered to be one of the game's toughest bosses, carrying a hit point count of 200 and its breath attacks carrying various status ailments.
