10 Video Game Bosses You ALWAYS Game Over On

Boss battles are a long-standing tradition in most video games. Even ones that don't have combat will often have a difficulty spike where you have to use what you've learned or unlocked to your utmost capability to get past.

Anyone in games development will tell you, though, that crafting a good boss battle is often one of the most difficult aspects of a game.

Even the craftspeople of some of the greatest games have this issue - Ken Levine of Bioshock fame admitted in an interview in regards to the 'Naked Atlas' final boss in the game, "We're not Shadow of the Colossus. Those guys have a genius for that. We don't have that particular genius."

There are certainly some great boss battles out there - Lord Shimura in Ghost of Tsushima; the Goddess of Order, Ashera, in Fire Emblem; or Yami from Okami. But one thing that both good and bad boss battles can have is the fact that if you walk into them unready, or sometimes even totally ready, you will see the 'Game Over' screen before you know it.

Even knowing what's coming in a game you've beaten before, you can find yourself muttering obscenities as you reload from your last save. Here are the boss battles that made you see the developer's finely crafted Game Over screen - probably more than once.

The Phazon Mines section of Metroid Prime is an often contentious stage in the game, even in the Remastered edition. With an easily-missed save spot before you head into the mines you can really go into the zone without proper preparation.

After going through three levels of tough enemies, including ones that can cloak and ambush you, you will finally wind up in the Elite Quarters of the third level - looking upon the gigantic phazon-enriched Omega Pirate in stasis. Cue boss battle!

Omega Pirate is just about every trope of BS you can shoehorn into a boss battle: Shoot the glowing orbs on its body to make it vulnerable, it’s immune to half your weapons, it will summon minions to protect it - oh, and it goes invisible and heals itself. Hope you brought enough missiles and bombs!

If you die at any point during the boss battle - all the way back to the start, which was likely an hour or two ago. Oh, and did I mention that this is your only chance to scan for the Omega Pirate’s log? So if you missed that before the battle, or couldn’t survive doing it mid-fight and you want to 100% the game...better reload that old save and do it all again.