7 Minibosses Harder Than Most Bosses in Any Game 

"I won't be doing that. No one can. I know I've just seen someone do it. It can't be done." Inspiring words.

Luke I'd just like to say that it's not "Running away" in Sekiro. It's "Tactical Evasion."😉

I also never realized Muffet wasn't an actual boss. I loved her and Spider Dance so much I ended up doing a cosplay of her

9:15 Muffet's a really fun, difficult challenge, but her theme's so darned catchy I never minded replaying her very well-crafted battle.

That camera turn to reveal the horrifying thing hanging from the ceiling in the Bloodborne entry was the stuff of nightmares. Like, if I saw that, coupled with the singing or screaming, I would probably mosey my ass back up the ladder and save that part for later/last 😂

The bloody crow of Cainhurst

Muffet's skip with the spider donut has always been a game saver. Not sure if i've ever legit been able to beat her

Bloodborne also has the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, a rival hunter who has maxed stats, maxed equipment, infinite bullets and infinite use of the Old Hunter's Bone. He's also the only NPC hunter that scales to New Game+. In fact, some theorize that he is meant to represent a min-maxing powergamer.

It may not count technically as a “boss”, but that water level in Ori and the Blind Forest was infinitely harder than the final boss!! I remember finishing the game and going “was that it?” because it didn’t destroy me mentally and emotionally like that god-forsaken water did

“If you make the mistake of shooting that shield, he’ll summon a ghost dog to chew your face off.” *frantically scribbles magic item suggestion for next dnd session* EDIT: In a list containing a Bloodborne entry, I did not expect Undertale to be the thing that set my trypophobia off 😅

This applies to pretty much every miniboss in Persona 3. The main bosses (the "Full Moon" bosses) are deliberately made to be more forgiving so that you’re unlikely to softlock yourself into an unwinnable scenario by not levelling up by the time limit. The Tartarus bosses have no such limitations. They can and Will grind you into a pulp. Highlights include that one demon table with no weaknesses.

I wanna call out the Shambler in Darkest Dungeon. I think the worst part is the way you can encounter it because it really leans into the "beat you when you're down" by showing up only when you have no torchlight making him so much stronger

Any Crucible knights in Elden Ring. They wreaked me more then most bosses. Also, they typically are gazing in the horizon begging to be backstabbed, but they either turn around right before you get close or let you poke them and realize they weren't even open to critical in the first place.

The rat from Hades isnt here? That thing is vicious and almost gave me a heart attack the first time it surprised me at the end of a run.

Ellen implying she maybe eats spiders gave me a good chuckle 😅

I love that you included the lynel, because it can also be one-hit with an ancient arrow. just blipped outta existence

Anti Sora got super nerfed in the 1.5 remake. That upward slash combo used to be able to near one shot you in the original 😅

Dunno if they qualify as minibosses, but once you start encountering Draugr Deathlord archers in Skyrim’s ancient tombs, they can be downright nasty depending on your build. High damage from their bows, and their shouts are powerful enough to ragdoll your character (whereas weaker draugr tend to just inflict stagger when shouting). Meanwhile, dragon priests (which are frequently found at the end of those same dungeons) are pure spellcasters, and there are counters to magic. Granted, ward spells help in both cases.

The delivery was on point for this one. Ellen pretending, even for a second, that she eats spiders, and Luke calmly declaring Zelda RU-vid stunts to be literally impossible are the highlights for me.

Watching Luke fight those bus sized, gargling, sea-horrors live was a highlight of my life. Schadenfreude

Let's go old-school: WarMech in the original Final Fantasy 1, found in the orbiting Sky Castle. He has only two attacks: a standard physical attack which is likely to one-shot whichever party member it hits, and the Nuke spell which is likely to one-shot your entire party. He randomly pops up on the long bridge just before the boss of the Sky Castle.

I was convinced that dark link was learning as we fought, so I always just used the giant hammer on him and it worked most of the time.

The speed of the shark giants in Bloodborne always catches me off-guard each time I replay it, they're so much faster than you'd expect for something their size

Luke, the writing and your delivery on the BotW section was spectacular. The whole video is great, then twice in that section I was laughing so hard I had to rewind so I could catch what I just missed. Oxtra you still just keep getting better 💜

1. Get Ogre it Luke... 2. Sora to bother you... 3. Mar-oh-dear... 4. Muffin but trouble... 5. It should have been the Fin-al boss... 6. Metroid Rage... 7. Lynel Risky...

How about a list the reverse of this, where bosses from one part of the game reappear later when you're more powerful as mini bosses?

Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind. In the last mission, you have to disable the defenses in Sotha Sil's Clockwork City before defeating the final boss. The defenses are cores that can self heal with its minions, it packs a massive punch, and if you don't have a ranged weapon, the minions move almost as fast as you and can therefore run away before you can kill them and prevent the core from healing. Absolute bastard of a mini boss fight - Barbas was a nice treat after that.

Wow...I never realized that the Marauder summons the dog when you hit his shield...having this enemy type thrown in with regular enemies later in the game was just cruel.

Video idea: 7 NPC’s who never rewarded you for all your hard work.

19:07 Lukes attitude here is absolutely mine whenever I see the impossibly skilled nonsense some gamers are upto...I just don't have the time...I'm too old now.😪

You forgot Byetta, a boss from Disgaea who, after his first defeat is renamed Mid-Boss. Every time he shows up afterwards it's in the middle of other missions and hes always incredibly tough.

Muffet being there is soo true. I had more trouble with her than Undyne, I think, when I first played Undertale.

It feels like a long time since we’ve had a truly “boooo!” worthy joke from Ellen.

Sleeping Table in Persona 3. Also known as the horror roadblock at Floor 135 in Tartarus. If you've fought it blind, you know the trauma this can cause!

The Giant Scout-bots of Team Fortress 2's Mann vs Machine gamemode are a massive pain to deal with. While boss-bots can be easily be dealt with by just a few people shooting at it, Giant Scout-bots often take half your team just to stop it from sprinting past you and making you instantly lose the game.

Anti-Sora on my first Proud-mode KH1 playthrough was a NIGHTMARE. I honestly think it took me less tries to beat the hidden Xemnas fight.

i’d say the crucible knight fight from elden ring would fit this list. the fact that it’s in limgrave and that it’s harder than anything else there is a big kick in the behind

"Cast-iron bastard" is my new favorite phrase.

To add to the Lynel misery, if you take too long battling one of these slepnir-sized rage kitties then it will just yeet out randomly to some other place via teleportation, denying you the haul of better weapons to replace all the ones you just broke over its territorial carcass.

The Revenant in Dragon Age Origins. An attack that pulls you and all allies to his location, stun locks you all for a second, and does damage is almost game breaking on higher difficulty.

Had to think about the Shambler from Darkest Dungeon. While being fairly easy to avoid and not really mandatory, this nightmarish bunch of tentacles can easily rip even a well prepared adventuring party to shreds, if you get just a tad unlucky

Sulyvahn's beasts from Dark Souls 3, those giant crocodile dog things. Trying to get to the Aldrich Faithful covenant was a nightmare.

You forgot the prison guard in Yakuza 4's prison break sequence - he bats you with little little baton over and over with barely any healing items available. Absolutely blood boiling

Can’t believe the Twin Dragons from Spyro 3 never made the list. Pretty sure I’m not the only one that’s suffered a migraine trying to defeat them.

Two words: frost troll.

The angel miniboss just before the final boss in the original Persona 5 gave me FAR MORE TROUBLE to beat than the final boss himself, which I beat on my first try, unlike the miniboss who was litterally 5 minutes before.

Looking into the hero's eyes as he climbed down the ladder only to "realise" that the shark giant was on the ceiling behind him was the high point of my day.

those damn well sharks in Bloodborne, man even just SEEING that well at the start of the segment had me tense up and think "I don't wanna do this again", let alone the actual sharks themselves

Gargaros, Ogralus, and Orcanos from Yo-kai Watch are all extremely powerful, but they didn't have boss healthbars for the first two games, so they could be classified as minibosses (when they got healthbars they were significantly nerfed anyway...). Snartle from the same series is also a good example of a really hard miniboss, getting stronger as you go through the game. And while he never gets as strong as the minibosses I mentioned above (he does in the game where they became bosses and got nerfed, but that doesn't really count to me), he is still quite a force to be reckoned with.

As you say Bloodborne could fill many of these lists, though I assumed you were going to go for the other hunters generally that are scattered throughout the game (for no obvious reason except screw you) using weapons/tools/tactics of the player, including but not limited to flamethrowers, magic that summons lasers or cuthulu tentacles, and a big f off cannon the size of your arm, all capped off with the ability to heal.

Gattuso from Tales of Vesperia. Debatably the hardest battle in the game. This dog absolutely savages you, and if you actually survive, the game has the gall to unsarcastically state, "That was easy."

Ellen's rendition of the track from the Dark Souls bosses needs to be in the next From Software game.

All of the minibosses in Spelunky are harder than the actual end of game bosses. A fast knight with an insta-kill shield? Check. A giant piranha you would need bombs to kill if they didn't have an army of piranhas standing in front of, behind, and all around acting as a fishy shield? Check. Two different aliens with a one hit psionic kill attack? Double check. I can do this all day.

3:38 You freaking killed me. 🤣 Thanks a lot, I needed that.

I saw Breath of the Wild scroll by and immediately knew it HAD TO be the lionels. They are brilliant and terrifying and I love them.

I did just find the shark giants for the first time last week, so thank you for validating my pain

One thing I find interesting about the Muffet fight, is it really challenges the player on what they think a game will remember. It makes the player stop and think. And potentially encourages the player to reset the game, after a simple google search reveals how necessary the spider bake sales items are. And one of the most memorable moments I first had playing the game, is when I accidentally killed Torial and immediately reset. . . Only to find the game remembered my mistake. Chills. This is a game MADE to be replayed, and this fight is potentially a taste of that.

I feel like Asterius from Hades could be a solid addition. I struggled a good bit with him only to have to fight him AND Perseus as the boss was quite a shock to me

If anything, I'd have to suggest Galzus from Fire Emblem Thracia 776. If the player lingers for too long in a certain map where they have to escape, he'll appear to chase them down, and hot _damn_ is he well-equipped to hunt you down; uniquely having a stupidly high chance to move twice, he'll basically fly across the map and hit you with his double-attacking Meisterschwert, basically one-rounding any of your units unfortunate enough to be within swingin' range.

Final Fantasy X didn't had one, but 2 at once, Yenke and Biran the tough bullies that steal's Kimari's lunch money there's a few boss fights in the game that scale up the bosses according your whole party average level except Yenke and Biran are mini bosses, so they scale up to Khimari specifically, while you have to fight alone as him!

I love y’all. Every video that’s uploaded to this channel have not failed to make me atleast chuckle and I just love it

Tuffet: a cushioned chair with no back (if I remember right) Curds and whey: cottage cheese

Early on in Dragon's Dogma, ogres were the bane of my life - they hit hard, they're pretty fast, and when you injure them enough they can become enraged and just be even faster, with spinning punches and flying kicks and possibly picking you (or one of your Pawns) up and running off to a corner to have a savagely-painful munch. They get much easier once you've levelled up a way and got some skills and stuff, but considering they can be found in places accessible pretty early on in the game (and one needs passing as part of an early part of the Main Quest), you can probably expect some pain, even more so in the one or two locations where there are two of them together. And then on Bitterblack Isle (the location for the Dark Arisen expansion) you get elder ogres, who are much higher level and subsequently much, much tougher. And yet you never HAVE to kill them. They're just kind of...there. You can run around/away from them and avoid them if you want, as you can with all the other miniboss creatures (chimerae, cyclopses, etc). The final boss of the main game is a total pushover by comparison, and the one you fight a bit before that isn't hugely tough either, not unless you try to fight him at too low a level or something.

It was very reassuring to hear I wasn't the only one who struggled with Muffet... Somehow she is still one of my favorite bosses though?? I was so sad to learn she was in fact a mini boss/patreon reward and wouldn't appear in deltarune :')

The shark giants can be cheesed with a beast cutter from the ledge behind the ceiling shark. It does require killing the winter lanterns, but you can get the rakuyo far more easily that way than the other. Just be careful since the one with the anchor can still hit you through the ledge

I remember some of Final fantasy 7 Crisis core's enemies hitting like a truck and instantly! Like Why are you stronger than Sephiroth !?

Ah yes. I remember Luke's fight with the man-sharks from Bloodborne. They definitely earned their place.

Pacifist Muffet is unironically my favorite fight in the game

"Are you still there, viewer? All I see is a middle finger in my face." 🤣

19:05 “Huh nice! I won’t be doing that, no one can. I know I’ve just seen someone do it, but it can’t be done.”

I don't know if it's a mini boss or just a boss but the valkyries are definitely much more difficult than normal bosses.I'm too scared to even try to beat the queen

The Pursuer is an fantastic idea for a miniboss. Which you would know if you did a Dark Souls 2 souls academy :)

I love that Doom and Souls went to the same school of "making the mini bosses reappear as a common enemy"

I actually got a mini boss if there’s a commenter edition. I don’t know if it’s a mini boss but it feels like one. Monica the Xenomorph( Alien Fireteam Elite ) This “mini” boss is found in the second of the first three levels. It’s a giant warrior-like xenomorph that charges around the rooms, trying to make you lunch. It always sneaks into vents and you always dread it to pop out of them(please also put this in the 7 bosses you dread the most, at least as an honourable mention.). It takes a lot of bullets, but you eventually defeat Monica at the end of the level.

I feel like a real gamer now, because I liked Lynels by the end. They made me learn how to parry and dodge properly.

Does she know you can move horizontally during the Muffet Fight? Also I'm pretty sure you can actually hit her??

The first lynel I encountered was that one at the end of the bridge (that I have forgotten the name of). I was there for the memory, having just seen Impa for the first time. The thing is, though, that compared to the other enemies in the game, the lynels take a really long time to register your presence (or at least this one did this time). So when the ? that is the first indication that an enemy is about to spot you did not show up, my thought process was as follows: Friend? New friend? … Not new friend. NOT NEW FRIEND!!!

"this pastry loving spider is infamous for being a miniboss so tough..." me, who ate a spider doughnut in front of her: *laughs*

5:34 Point of order, Disney is extremely fond of IP theft, but only when THEY are doing it (See Kimba the White Lion for an example case.)

Ellen always gets the spider parts in these videos. Be honest with us, Ellen, deep inside, you love spiders. As for my recommendation, Ancient Kaa the Soulless from Diablo 2's Act 2. He's not even an act boss, just a unique sub-boss randomly thrown into one of the 7 Tombs in the desert. Hard as nails, high-damaging and fills the place with electric blasts each time you strike him. Woe unto you if you're going in for close-combat.

"All I see is a middle finger in my face" LMAO 🤣 that killed me

I was a game tester on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - testing it 7 days a week for 34 days (one day short of 5 weeks) at one point - on a variety of platforms, so it tends to come to mind a lot. I'm thinking of the Titan Class of enemies - big guys who can stomp the ground to hurt you and have a mini-boss finishing QuickTime. Rancors (the big beast under Jabba in Return Of The Jedi) are among these. One candidate for this list would be in the level where you first meet a Rancor, soon after you get a LARGE arena-like space with FOUR of them. Another candidate is the Junk Titan, a giant made of random junk cobbled together with the Force. His made-of-the-force nature gives him more flexibility. First time you meet him is in an arena shaped like a bowl with one side missing, if you aren't careful you can step off the edge, and there are high paths on each side, one quietly goes past the edge and it's easy to drop down the Death Drop instead of dropping down to fight him. Worse is when you fight the real boss - the Jedi who force constructs these guys - sometimes he runs off and in the middle of this boss fight you get this mini-boss. Another contender is Darth Maul. Or rather Proxy, your training droid who can morph into Jedis for you to fight, his last form is Darth Maul. SUPER cool to get this super intense epic fight, but he's a MINI-BOSS! The real boss of the level is pulling down a Star Destroyer while dodging TIE Fighters, which is tough and difficult enough itself that it was a rite of passage for us testers to complete, so yeah, Proxy is just a mini-boss.

Shoutout to the Argent Wolf Berserker in Code Vein, a killer of first runs. Its a long stetch from the nearest mistle to it, with tough enemies in the way, he's fast with wide attacks in a boss arena that's best described as a slightly less narrow path than the cliffs around you.

Fun analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

15:45 I think Ellen’s “Ah, crap.” neatly captions Samus’s expression there.

Camille Flage in Have a Nice Death is absolutely brutal, and harder than every boss in the game except the secret one

I can definitely agree with the Lynel section of the video; during my first ever playthrough of BotW, I didn't fight a Lynel until after the final boss. I literally just ran and hid every time there was even a hint of a Lynel in a 10-mile radius. But after I beat Calamity Ganon, I decided it was high time to finally fight one of those monsters and then made my way up Shatterback Point. It wasn't too difficult at that point; it was the weakest kind of Lynel and I had numerous powerful weapons, so it wasn't as nightmarish as it would've been at the start of the game. BUT THEN I decided to fight some other Lynels on the map....and every single one of them was a Silver Lynel. I cried

Due to the elemental rock-paper-scissors aspect of combat in Genshin Impact, some of the elite enemy NPCs with elemental shields can be longer fights than actual bosses (mini and major alike) if you entered combat without any of your party with adequate counter-elements to set up elemental reactions that can destroy the shield faster since you can't change paty members when in combat. Even worse if your weapons, skills, and artifacts aren't upgraded, so your damage is anemic. It essentially devolves into a long trudge of hitting them over and over again, peeling away miniscule slivers of their health bar, in the hope enough damage gets through to finally kill them-which tends to happen before the shield itself goes down.

I love how at the beginning they use Dark Link as an example of what a Miniboss is on a list of tough miniboss! While Dark Link is nowhere near as bad as some of the Lynels in Breath of the Wild, he's still pretty tough & makes the Water Temple's main boss look like a walk in the park, as Morpha! The main problem with Dark Link is he can jump on Link's Master Sword allowing him to get a free hit & interrupt his attacks! Mind you, you can utilize the Megaton Hammer against him, though a better option is the Biggoron Sword which OoT should start working to obtain as soon as they have access to Epona & are able to release King Zora from Red Ice (your gonna need to go through the Ice Cavern for the Iron Boots anyway, though you can opt to free him early by purchasing Blue Fire from the Potion Shop in either Kakariko Village or Hyrule Castle Town if you have gained access to traveling back to the past using the Pedestal of Time which requires you to learn the Warp Song for the Temple of Time from Sheik! The Biggoron Sword's increased attack power & greater range, make it ideal for the Dark Link fight as he can't jump on top of the Biggoron Sword like he can the Master Sword! To me, he is by far the most frustrating miniboss in the game, as he's located in the notoriously difficult Water Temple!

Was playing Sekiro when I started watching and was 100% sure you were gonna mention O'Rin!!! Although I completely understand your reticence

For another example from Sekiro, I want to nominate the Headless. Although technically optional, they are brutal enemies that slow your movement speed when near you, inflict a status condition with every hit that can instantly kill you even if you block their attacks, are almost impossible for you to stun or interrupt except for via a late game item, and like to teleport behind you for an instant kill grab attack that sees them rip your soul out through your bum. Even better, they're a recurring enemy with a total of five encounters spread throughout the game, and in the last encounter you get to fight two at once.

19:05 Still one of my favorite OxBox/OxTra quotes to this day

The minecart-riding Hinox Bros from Zelda: Tri Force Heroes are worth an honourable mention. Mainly because there's always that one player who keeps getting the whole team blown up.

In my beginnings at StarFox 64, team StarWolf was a pain regularly, and when I got to Venom via the Area 6 they came back upgraded to the teeth and massacrated me. Their ships in their rematch have the barrier roll to take less damage, know how to use the sumersault and have a second barrier to cancel homing blasts and bombs so is the hard way or nothing. Things get worse if your team shield meter is low because if one of your teammates falls the member of StarWolf who doesn't have a target now will go after you making it a 2 vs 1 and so on until the whole team is at your tail. They leave Andross as a walk in the park.

Lenus’ first fight in Legend of Dragoon was way harder than she had any right to be. She brings a dragon later and somehow is less threatening

The comedic timing of the camera pan at 12:24 is some prime cinema lol funniest movie I've seen all year 5/5 Stars

I guess it's more of an optional boss than a miniboss, but Side Quest monster Gordi Schnarr G in the turn-based Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (Especially on Nightmare difficulty). This beast usually has enough HP at the beginning to outlast all of your character's S-Breaks (Limit Breaks essentially) at once, a very-quick charge attack, decent melee attack range to hurt at least half of your onscreen party if standing next to him, and has an on-demand buff that both heals his HP by a third, raises STR, DEF, and SPD. And if his melee attack doesn't OHKO you, it will also likely inflict Faint (Unable to act), which means even the smallest F up can stunlock you early into yet another game over.

9:40 Tuffet: A small grassy mound or clump of grass. Curds & Whey: Another way of saying "Milk & Cheese."

For the curious: A tuffet is a tuft, more specifically a low hillock or clump of grass. While sitting on one, Miss Muffet ate curds and whey -- better known as cottage cheese.

"I know I've just seen someone do it, but it can't be done."