10 Gaming Boss Battles Ruined By RNG

Most people who play video games find satisfaction in honing their skills and having those efforts rewarded with a well-earned victory at the end of the day, but developers often rely upon a mechanic to throw a curveball at players and keep them on their toes: the random number generator (RNG).

Though almost all games feature some aspect of RNG - often to make things seem more dynamic than they actually are - and far from all RNG is bad, it can often be implemented to ends both nefarious, as with loot boxes, and deeply frustrating.

Most modern action and role-playing games will include some measure of RNG in their battle mechanics in an attempt to make opponents appear as "real" as possible, but sometimes developers will take this too far and allow enemies to basically ass-pull devastating attacks out of nowhere.

And so, you might end up scraping through a mighty boss fight not so much through skill as sheer luck of the draw, that the digital dice rolls were finally in your favour after falling prey to it dozens of times before.

At its worst poorly implemented RNG can waste hours of a player's time and leave them feeling unsatisfied even when they finally win...

Unlike every other boss on this list, RNG mechanics don't make Final Fantasy IX's boss Hilgigars harder to beat, but instead harder to steal from.

In FFIX, stealing from bosses often allows players to obtain extremely rare and powerful items, and in the case of Hilgigars, he has the coveted Fairy Flute in his possession.

Even with the Bandit ability equipped, you've got a 1/256 chance of stealing the Fairy Flute, meaning that successfully acquiring the item from Hilgigars can take literally hours of spamming Steal until you finally hit pay-dirt.

Of course, you could get incredibly lucky and make off with it in just a few attempts, such is the cruelty of the RNG gods.

Either way, this sure seems like an active attempt by Square Enix to piss players off, enough that it basically sours the entirety of the fight.