7 Ridiculously Hard Boss Battles Hiding In Easy Video Games
That came out of NOWHERE.
In the wonderful world of internet culture, difficult games are highly revered. Managing to complete Dark Souls without levelling your character, completing any Halo campaign on Legendary, XCOM on Ironman, Hardcore Fallout. Hell mode, critical mode, speed-runs - we just love to make things harder for ourselves so that we can enjoy that sweet victory brag to our peers.
However, now and then, it’s great to just relax after a hard day at work milking the content cow, put the slippers on, and enjoy a carefree, easy game. The likes of Minecraft and Stardew Valley are great for forgetting all your real life problems for a couple of hours, and are simple enough that you won’t be breaking any controllers trying to complete them.
Or... so you think.
Some games masquerade as easy, lulling you into a false sense of security and then hit you with a boss fight so ridiculous that you’ll be scrambling to boot up Dark Souls for a respite. The games themselves are easy, simple to learn, but perhaps taking time to truly master, and each with one standout encounter that truly doesn't belong.
7. Brock - Pokemon Yellow
In the original generation of Pokemon Game Boy games, players were given the choice between grass-type Bulbasaur, fire-type Charmander and water-type, Squirtle.
No matter who you picked, you’d have a decent head start at the beginning of the game, able to tackle the first gym leader Brock with a decent advantage. Even Charmander’s ember would deal a decent amount of damage, despite not being super effective against Brock’s rock-type Pokemon.
But you didn’t have Charmander, or Bulbasaur, or Squirtle in Pokémon Yellow, did you? You loved the TV show, and got a Pikachu. Little did you realise that this carefree monster training adventure would begin with the harshest type disadvantage possible.
Not only are Pikachu’s lightning type attacks completely ineffective against Brock’s hard rock and ground specialisation, but the other pokemon in your team are likely to be so under-leveled that they’ll get steamrolled by Geodude’s tackle and stun-locked by Onix’s bind.
The rest of the game is comparatively very easy, but this first encounter is one hell of a hump you have no choice but to get over.