10 Video Game Bosses That Were Legitimately Broken

No fun allowed, only pain.

MK9 Shao Kahn
Warner Bros

It goes without saying that video game bosses are supposedly to be challenging - they're intended to test players' skill up to that point, presenting some enjoyable push-back while still retaining a sense of fun.

But sometimes developers go too far in their quest to challenge players, and the results basically end up ruining the entire experience.

That's certainly the case with these 10 games, all of them beloved classic titles that nevertheless served up one encounter so cheap, so unfair, and so poorly programmed that players couldn't blame their failure on their own inability.

Some of these bosses were busted enough that players were forced to restart the game entirely, wait for a patch or, worse still, just rage quit the game forever more for the sake of their own mental health.

Others persevered long enough to brute-force their way through, but regardless, every single one of these bosses went above sadistic challenge to genuine betray the rest of the game, while representing anything but quality game design...

10. The Plane Tyrant - Resident Evil – Code: Veronica

MK9 Shao Kahn
Capcom

Because Resident Evil's signature antagonist isn't terrifying enough already, Code: Veronica decides to hurl a Tyrant at the player within the cramped confines of a cargo plane, and it sure ain't fun.

The goal is to evade the Tyrant's powerful swipe attacks (which can kill you in just a few hits) while weakening him with what little remains of your arsenal, until you can knock him out of the plane with the cargo load.

But if it's your first time fighting the boss, it's highly likely you're massively under-prepared for the fight, which will make it nearly impossible to beat.

While you can technically use a knife to slowly chip away at the Tyrant's health enough to defeat him, you'll need a heap of healing items (which you probably don't have) and a preternatural ability to dodge its attacks.

Many players using just a single save slot had to restart the entire game with a far stricter approach to ammo/item conservation up until this fight.

Given that this would require re-playing almost half of the entire game, nobody could blame you for rage-quitting and never returning.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.