Nihilanth
- Appearance: Half-Life (PC)
- Tough boss with an even tougher name to pronounce
Nihilanth is the leader of the Xen army that invaded the Black Mesa lab, it resembles something like a giant floating deformed fetus. Although don’t let the looks fool you, this giant alien fetus thing is extremely hard to figure out on your first encounter. It has a shield that’s protected by crystals over its head, while you dispense all your ammo wondering why he’s not dying, Nihilanth will project balls of energy that cause damage or will randomly teleport you into a pit. After destroying the overhead crystals the shields will drop, exposing the body. Hit the body with your best guns and the head eventually opens up exposing a brain — there’s your chance to finish it off, try climbing the ledges around the map for a perfect vantage point.
Culex
- Appearance: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)
- The Final Fantasy reject
Culex is the optional encounter that puts the main boss Smithy to shame. He’s a powerful Dark Knight that looks like a cookie cut-out from a classic Final Fantasy game, but with exceptional HP. This is obviously an Easter Egg because he has four surrounding crystals that you have to defeat which alludes to the crystals that you were sent to collect in Final Fantasy for NES.
Located in Monstro Town, Culex has an array of devastating magic attacks including Meteor, Flame Stone and Dark Star. On top of that, the crystals all dish out elemental damage so it’s best to destroy the them one by one to weaken Culex. Your best shot at survival is to build up your elemental resistances and at the very least be over level 18.
The Old God C’Thun
- Appearance: World of Warcraft (PC)
- Considered unbeatable by devs
For the simple fact that developers used to consider this raid boss unbeatable, C’Thun makes the list for his incredible unbalancing. Early on, he was so strong that he could wipe out entire top-tier guilds; tentacles that emerge from the ground would crush teams before they could even focus on the body.
Back in the day there used to be mana limitations on your characters, that combined with the DPS damage required to destroy the tentacles made it mathematically impossible for him to be defeated. There were also reports of bugged tentacles that wouldn’t die and a beam attack that would wipe out entire raids. Hot fixes were later applied to make victory more attainable, now a team of a couple dozen can take him down with proper communication and focus.
There you have it — ten of the grittiest, anger inducing, most downright nasty bosses of our time. How many of these have you conquered? What bosses could have made the list? If you’re experiencing pain from reliving the horrors of facing them, take a deep ‘woosah’ and remember that it’s all behind you now.