You underestimate my willingness to lower the difficulty if I’m stuck
That best part of modern games. Couldn’t do that in the old school games.
The final level of Mario Odyssey.
I’m pathologically stubborn and will stick with just about any game until I beat it, but Isshin the Sword Saint (Sekiro) took me a long time.
Isshin is one of the greatest boss battles in gaming. He’s a brutal, but fair, test of everything you learn in the game. The best part is you get to kill Genechro over and over.
IMO the Demon of Hatred is way harder because so few of your skills are useful in that fight.
I fought Demon of Hatred like a dark souls boss rather than a Sekiro boss. Lots of dodging. I’m sure there was a better way.
I spent a year stuck on that fight. Not the whole game, just Sword Saint. I don’t regret a single minute of it, and I revisit him at least once a year since. Best goddam boss fight ever made.
Seconding Isshin SS, I’m also stubborn as hell, sekiro is one of my favorite games and that fight took me so many attempts that I almost gave up multiple times. Felt so god damned good when I finally beat him though
No other FromSoft game could have a final fight as challenging as in Sekiro, because in the other titles, they had to consider a range of levels or builds that players would reach the end with. In Sekiro, they could really push the player.
Isshin only took me a few days to beat. Owl (father) on the other hand, took me a couple of months.
Owl is a hard fight too. It still holds me up for a while on replays of the game.
He’s a very bad dad.
I love this contrast with the top comment (about lowering difficulty). Yeah, it was a struggle, but we got through, and it felt all the more satisfying for it! It doesn’t feel satisfying to, for example, chop a tree in a game, because there’s no challenge. Something can only really be satisfying if it challenges you (emotionally, intellectually, and/or in ability).
I think an additional undervalued part of not having difficulty settings is that we have a shared experience. Everyone who did it has shared in it. We know what they went through because there’s only one way to do it. We don’t have to ask about settings or anything, only that they accomplished the task.
For me though, the one I remember struggling with the most is O&S in DS1. I don’t think they’re actually the hardest boss FromSoft has made, but I’ve gotten far better at their games since then. Even their hardest bosses now I personally feel like they could be more challenging.
I’m with you. What these games are selling is that feeling you get after overcoming their challenges, and if you modify that, it’s not the same product. It’s like asking an artist to also offer their painting with changes to the colors, scene, or poses of the subjects to appeal to personal tastes - yes, they could do it, but it’s a different piece of art at that point.
And omg yes, O&S. It’s not as hard now after many years of playing souls-like games, but relatively it was so hard on my first exposure to dark souls in DS1. I had no idea what I was doing, my build was jank as hell, and it took ages to beat.
Stay Puft…screw this pixel perfect dancing marshmallow lol so frustrating

That version of the 8-bit Ghostbusters game ending (just get past Stay Puft and your guys automatically go up to the building’s roof, cross their streams, and complete the game) is so much more merciful than the versions which added on extremely bullshit bullet-hell boss battles with Gozer afterward.
Pivot tables.
Excel is one of my favourite games, but I’ve never been able to completely grok those things.
They seem like a waste of time when it’s much easier to use formulas to construct indirect ranges and work on those.
Excel is like grind, grind, grind. You can level up a little and then it’s even more work. One column after another, then, row, row, row.
I like the sql better.
SQL is nice, but it gets a bit tricky once you get into recursive queries, especially when you’re trying to beat your fastest time record…
Pivot tables are quick. If used properly you can summarize data much quicker than any excel formula. When I use them it pretty much always takes under 30 seconds to get what I want. Imo, there are 2 things every user of excel should learn to use. Vlookup (edit: or xlookup, see below) and pivot tables. Once you learn to use both, you will use them all the time.
Anyone else constantly looking up tactics with AI? This game is so difficult, you have to memorize a lot of combos and the strategy to use them really takes time to click. I’m getting into this one again after a long hiatus
My mom. When she says, “Turn that off and get your homework done,” I always cave.
About 100 hours on the final boss of FF8 because I fucked up and saved right before the fight with basically nothing in my inventory. I repeated the fight for literal weeks, trying different strategies and item use patterns and stuff.
It was very rewarding to complete, but I’ll never play that game again.
I’ve never seen what’s beyond the fourth level of Battletoads for Gameboy. That fucking labyrinth.
Mike Tyson
Sekero is just about my favorite game. I’ve completed it at least 20 times and will do so again.
I’ve beaten the Demon of Hatred 2 times and I never want to play that motherfucker ever again.
Killed him once legit and then cheesed him off the cliff on every subsequent playthrough. Fuck that boss.
Haven’t beat the dual boss at the end of Elden ring, or the final DLC boss.
Think i’ve done most the rest of Soulsborn bosses.
In terms of time, some Demons souls boss I got stuck on, put the game aside for years, then went back to.
In terms of number of tries, I think O&S in Dark Souls one still holds the title. I ran into that brick wall for a long time before getting good.
Can’t think of any game series I had as much difficulty in and didn’t just give up, unless you count the Mun in Kerbal Space Program as a boss, cause that took a long time.
If you’re still interested, I could give you some easy to execute strategies to beat the final Elden Ring Boss and some decently easy ones for the final DLC Boss.
Also plug for !soulslike@lemmy.zip. It’s a nice and welcoming community :)
I don’t think it’s a can’t, it’s more of a “Ok, I’ve seen the game, this is a slog, I’m moving on to something else.”
Just got a PS5 so I’m absolutely loving Demons Souls, been like 10 years or more since I played it. First time playing magic in a souls game and it feels down right broken. Will likely work my way back through the series on the new hardware.
With all the bingo brawlers seasons I’ve seen all the end bosses, so doing it myself just hasn’t felt like a priority.
Then, have fun with Demon Souls :)
DS3’s Pontif Sulyvahn! GRR! I’ll get you next playthrough! Just you wait!
Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream in Punch-Out!! (I did beat them with Game Genie though).
I still haven’t finished Breath of the Wild. I think I pretty much did everything else in the game that by the time I should have gotten to the final boss but by that time I felt I had gotten enough out of the game and if it was going to just be the same kind of battle as the other two boss battles I wasn’t interested. I really enjoyed the game, just didn’t care to finish it 😅
Same for me but with TOTK. I spent hours upon hours doing everything else in the game, but the final boss fight seemed deliberately too hard, and I just really have no interest in forcing myself to beat it. I won’t get any more satisfaction out of the game just by seeing the final cutscene. Probably helps that I didn’t find the story particularly interesting and just played for the gameplay and atmosphere.
In Hollow Knight, the Grimm fight. I spent hours learning the patterns. I’m pretty sure that’s what created the drift on my joycons during that time.
Beating nightmare grimm is where I peaked.
It’s a perfect gaming mic drop.
I was actually never able to beat the nilianth in the final level of Half Life. I think I tried 2 or 3 times, it was extremely annoying getting sent to the parkour room constantly and I haven’t been back to try it again in a decade.










