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{{trope}}
<div style="float:right; margin-left:5px; margin-bottom:3px; padding:0px; border:1px solid #ffffff; font-size:100%; line-height:120%; padding:0.4em; background-color:#eeeeee; border-bottom:1px solid #ffffff"><youtube width="480">uCyDfBEBjEA</youtube><br />Yes, the [[Rogue Galaxy]] final boss takes 90 minutes to beat.</div>
{{quote|''"[...] and where do you get off being so impossible anyway. we spent more than half the game fighting you."''|'''Problem Sleuth''''s [[Strongly Worded Letter]] to {{spoiler|Demonhead Mobster Kingpin}}, ''[[
Make sure you don't have to go anywhere later before starting a fight with one of ''these'' guys.
A boss fight which requires a significant amount of time to defeat. Can be related to [[Sequential Boss]], as while one part of the boss isn't long, all the parts together ''are''. Has a good chance of happening with [[Final Boss|Final]] and [[Bonus Boss
▲{{quote|''"[...] and where do you get off being so impossible anyway. we spent more than half the game fighting you."''|'''Problem Sleuth''''s [[Strongly Worded Letter]] to {{spoiler|Demonhead Mobster Kingpin}}, ''[[Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)|Problem Sleuth]]''}}
These bosses frequently elicit cries of [[Why Won't You Die?|"Why Won't You Die?!"]] among players. Compare [[Padded Sumo Gameplay]], of which it is often a logical consequence; contrast with [[Rush Boss]], this trope's inverse.▼
▲A boss fight which requires a significant amount of time to defeat. Can be related to [[Sequential Boss]], as while one part of the boss isn't long, all the parts together ''are''. Has a good chance of happening with [[Final Boss|Final]] and [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]. See the [[Marathon Level]] for the level version of this, which may well have a [[Marathon Boss]] at the end.
Not to be confused with [[Marathon Trilogy|Durandal]].
▲These bosses frequently elicit cries of [[Why Won't You Die|"Why Won't You Die?!"]] among players. Compare [[Padded Sumo Gameplay]], of which it is often a logical consequence; contrast with [[Rush Boss]], this trope's inverse.
{{examples
* [[
** The all-time god-king of this trope is Pandemonium Warden of ''[[
*** Square Enix has changed things in response to the bad press about Pandemonium Warden so that both it and Absolute Virtue are weakened and will vanish after two hours of fighting. However, while the new PW isn't unreasonable to beat within the alloted time, AV remains unbeaten without cheating. SE seems to be fond of the [[Guide Dang It]] [[Puzzle Boss]], except without the "guide" part.
*** While we're on the subject of AV: Square-Enix seems determined to make this guy literally unbeatable. Every time a group manages to defeat him, they claim that the method they used was "improper" and then patches him to cover that weakness. Even a strategy that Square-Enix ''themselves'' used to beat him, and subsequently ''published in a video'', was later patched.
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*** General Rajaxx and co in Ahn'Qiraj will send waves of his mooks and [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] before you fight him.
*** For that matter, every boss except Archimonde in Mount Hyjal, because you needed to kill eight waves of mooks before the boss even showed up. Fighting Illidan in Black Temple also takes around 15 minutes, when other bosses in the Black Temple take around three minutes each.
**** ALL of the Caverns of Time instances really, especially Dark Portal, you have little time to rest in between waves of miniboss / [[Giant Mook
*** Nowadays, [[
** ''[[
** The difference between the real bosses and the smaller "Area Bosses" in ''[[Maple Story]]'' is that the real bosses take upwards of two hours to kill ''with a full party of overleveled characters'' while the Area Bosses go down in less than two or three minutes if they don't kill you first.
** This is actually a built in mechanic for the ''Player Owned'' Station's in [[
*** Additionally, most of the higher end Sleeper drones in the more dangerous wormholes have incredibly high amounts of hitpoints and do staggering amounts of damage. So that even super carriers can't solo them.
* Fighting the more powerful dragons in [[The Last Remnant]] with an extremely underpowered team can take over 40 minutes. This is more due to being able to defeat strong bosses with a weak team with good tactics (heal spamming), than the boss itself having high hp. (Basically, the dragons will take out around half your team each hit, meaning each party member spents 99% of their time either dead or reviving other party members, and 1% of their time actually attacking the dragon, for a pitiful amount of scratch damage.)
* If you're playing cautious with your Pikmin, the final boss of ''[[Pikmin]] 2'' can go on for somewhere around 45 minutes.
** The Emperor Bulblax in ''Pikmin 1'' was even worse, if only because you had a limited time before you have to go back to your ship.
* ''[[Persona 3]]'':
** The [[Final Boss]] is the [[Sequential Boss|"lots of smaller fights in a row"]] variant. Unless you're insane enough to [[Level Grinding|build everyone to Level 99]], in which case... fifteen minutes. Less if you have Armageddon.
** The battle against {{spoiler|Fortune and Strength}} usually lasts about half an hour, though certain strategies, correct abilities and good timing on Fortune's Status Effect Roulette can end the fight in minutes.
* If you want to beat [[Hopeless Boss Fight|Gades during your first encounter with him]] in ''[[Lufia]] II'' and have put in the required amount of level grinding to actually LET you do it, you're in for a good
* ''[[
** Keep in mind though, once you have used said item seven times to destroy his shield the battle restarts with you fully healed, so that part is more like a qualifying round.
* ''[[
* Elizabeth Greene in ''[[Prototype (
* A lot of bosses in ''[[Metroid Prime]] 2'' are given ridiculous longevity (large amounts of HP and multiple phases), as well as the fun bonus of them being [[Puzzle Boss
** The final bosses take the cake, though. The first one has multiple phases, all of which are ''long'' endurance matches, while the second is timed and you have to use an almost [[Guide Dang It]]-y trick to beat it... fortunately, losing just causes you to go back to the beginning of the second boss.
** The chykka (wasp thing) takes a particularly long time. [[Dark World]] boss fights do have the light crystals, which slowly heal you, so they might have felt justified in that you have a theoretically infinite supply of health.
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** Metroid Prime's first form from the first game is very much this. The battle itself really isn't too hard, but it takes forever. Even your most powerful weapons, like the Ice Spreader, do only minor damage to it, and a lot of times miss and hit his impervious lower body. Nothing says "screw you" like wasting ten good missiles to hit him with an Ice Spreader, only for it to bounce off.
*** While you can just wait for it to stand (relatively) still so it can eat the missiles, its second form can be one due entirely to the RNG, since the only way you can deal damage to that form is to wait for Prime to do something very specific. If you're extremely unlucky, you may be just jumping shockwaves for a long while.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** Most players will have changed the lock-on setting to "toggle". Still, having to press the B (sword) button all the time takes its toll.
* Want to take over {{spoiler|Earth, Luna, Stardock Alpha or Ruby}} in ''[[Escape Velocity]]''? Demanding tribute from any one of those will force you to gradually work your way through the several ''thousand'' ships in its defense fleet.
** Or Omm in Override. For a planet of worm eating pacifist monks, they have a surprisingly large defence force. Council isn't even worth trying.
* And of course, ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'' has The End, a sniper battle that can easily take an hour or more if you don't kill him via [[Easter Egg]] (by sniping him before the battle starts, or by waiting a real-time week for him to die of old age.)
** {{spoiler|Or just save, quit, set the [[
** The fight with The Sorrow can easily become one if you've been playing aggressively so far, and you don't know (or don't use) the quick way.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'''s penultimate boss fight, {{spoiler|Metal Gear RAY}}. On the easiest difficulty setting, {{spoiler|you only have to take off enough HP to beat three and they can be killed in one attack}}. On the hardest two, {{spoiler|you have to take off enough HP to beat ''20'' and they all have masses of HP}}.
** In ''[[Peace Walker]]'', the {{spoiler|second Peace Walker}} fight can easily be one of these in single-player mode. She has massive amounts of HP, a weak point which she often moves around making it difficult to hit her, various attacks which can freeze you or knock you over, and an ability which makes rocket weapons useless for about two minutes. She also regularly takes cover behind some buildings you can't follow her to. And you have limited ammo.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** The Kaiser Dragon. He has 327,500 HP, which is about two hours of fighting, not counting time spent healing.
** Going beyond Kaiser, we have THE marathon boss in this game: The Omega Weapon. He has the same amount of HP as Kaiser, but dualcasts [[HP to One|Heartless Angel]] and Delta Attack, which results in your entire party dying, regardless of level.
* ''[[
** [[Bonus Boss
** There's also Sephiroth, the [[Final Boss]]. If you play through normally and don't grind for experience, the battle is about the length that you'd expect. However, reaching level 99 is a [[Cursed
* ''[[
** The [[Bonus Boss|Omega Weapon]].
** [[Final Boss|Ultimecia]] . There are two abilities that can break the standard cap of 9999 damage, and both are fairly hard to get, so you'll probably be damaging at or below that cap with every attack. The "Regen" spell heals you by a small amount every once in a while, apparently a set fraction of your maximum health. When you cast Regen on yourself with a maximum health of 9999 HP, that being another cap, the healing is still in the double digits. If Ultimecia's second form casts Regen, it'll heal itself in the high quadruple digits. Ultimecia has four forms. Have "fun."
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** Nemesis, the ultimate [[Monster Arena]] opponent, has 10 million HP. Many of the other creations may count too, depending on your level.
** Many of the Dark Aeons and the mother of all [[Bonus Boss|bonus bosses]], Penance, from ''[[
* ''[[
** Angra Mainyu.
** [[Bonus Boss]] Trema, who has 999999 HP, which is insane considering his defense. Funnily, he still goes down easier than [[That One Boss|Paragon]] that ''he killed in the pre-fight cutscene''.
* ''[[
** Yiazmat, the ultimate [[Bonus Boss]] shown in the picture above, regularly takes players as much as 12 hours to kill, thanks to its astronomical 50 million HP. You're allowed to leave and come back, though. The [[Updated Rerelease|International]] [[No Export for You|version]] nerfs him a bit by making him vulnerable to the four "Break" abilities, allowing you to greatly reduce his stats. Combine that with the fact that the damage cap is removed (so you can do more than 9999 damage per attack) and he goes down much easier. The real kicker? Near the end of the fight, Yiazmat pulls off a little trick that, if not caught and stopped, '''''heals him back to full health'''''.
** If you fight Zodiark as soon as you can (after beating Giruvegan, but before you can buy the spell Scathe), and aren't at a high enough level to slice off his last 50,000 or so HP before he [[Turns Red|puts up a Paling]], expect to spend at least half an hour taking off the last of his HP bit by bit with non-elemental magic spells such as Scourge or [[Useless Useful Spell|Drain]].
* ''[[
** For main game bosses, it's {{spoiler|Barthandelus}}. The first two fights with him can easily take up to 20 minutes because of his [[Fake Difficulty|ridiculously high HP]]. He actually [[Villain Forgot to Level Grind|goes down fast]] in his final incarnation, but that's only [[Sequential Boss|the beginning]].
** [[Bonus Boss|Vercingetorix]], who has 15.8 million HP (although it's worth noting that the default damage cap in that game is 99,999, not 9,999, and the fight will probably take no more than
** Some of the oretoises. An Adamantoise has loads of HP and its resistances mean you only do 10% of normal damage (1% of normal with any elemental attack.), although those resistances can be lowered by attacking its legs, which renders it briefly helpless and vulnerable. The target time for killing one is around 30 minutes (although a high-level party can potentially win in 2-3). The good news is that they're susceptible to Death, so with a little luck or a lot of patience the fight can be very short. Long Gui (the more powerful version of Adamantoise), however, are not vulnerable to Death.
* Not present in the original ''[[
** While {{spoiler|Feral Chaos}} is certainly intended to be a monster who takes a monstrously long time to beat, there have been reports of people manipulating the game mechanics (and not by cheating or hacking) to knock out all of {{spoiler|Feral Chaos'}} HP in less than five minutes.
** [[Memetic Badass|Jecht]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv_CN9DrGQ4 can take him down in 34 seconds!]
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** This can also be hilariously subverted at times, since it's possible to catch ''any'' legendary at full HP with any type of Poke Ball on your first throw - just exceedingly unlikely. Quick Balls from the fourth gen games in particular are most effective when used on the first turn of the battle, and can turn one of those battles into an [[Anticlimax Boss]] with just a bit of luck. People also frequently subvert this with Action Replay hacks like having 999 masterballs in their bag or inputting a code that makes wild Pokemon easy to catch.
** Also, the Elite Four are invariably a chain of Marathon Bosses, especially if you count the slog through Victory Road. Unless you should be lucky enough to have brought Pokemon that have a) crazy speed b) supereffective attacks against all opponents and c) a several-level advantage, you will be at it for quite a while. Luckily, the game ''does'' let you save and heal in between each boss.
*** And ''[[
* The final bosses of both GBA ''[[
** Dullahan has more HP than the final boss, and if you play Hard Mode and randomly fight him in the Arena, he has the most HP any single monster can have. Alan Averill, formerly of Nintendo Power, said that most of the time he spent writing the part of the strategy guide for Dullahan was massive [[Level Grinding]]. To quote him, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"When Dullahan finally fell to my blade, I ran around screaming like a madman."]]
** For the first Golden Sun, there was Deadbeard, who was considerably harder than the final boss because of the fact that he resided in the biggest, hardest dungeon in the game.
* The level 7 boss and the Final Boss of the original ''[[Descent]]'' both took absurd amounts of damage before dying and would take you from full health to nearly dead with [[One
* ''Dungeon Siege II'' has a number of these bosses: with the black mage battles, you must destroy 3 crystal prisms that form an impenetrable shield around the boss before you can do any damage; you are then allowed to take away about a sixteenth of their health before the crystal prisms return.
* The Sa-Matra in ''[[Star Control]] 2''.
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]] and the Broken Angel'': Practically every boss fight is like this, especially the endgame, where you have to [[spoiler:fight THREE giant chimeras at the same time, one of which heals itself, then fight two more bosses with no refuel. And ''then'' two more bosses. While winning the last one is optional, it makes it pretty damn hard to achieve [[One Hundred Percent Completion]]. This optional fight is against {{spoiler|Colonel Mustang and Major Armstrong simultaneously. They have 6999 and 9999 health respectively, and your regular attacks do ''one damage'' per hit.}} [[Death of a Thousand Cuts]] indeed. The kicker? You need to do this fight ''twice'' to get 100% completion, because the fight ends before you can grab the item drop from whichever one you beat second.
{{quote|
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' has {{spoiler|Noah who likes to change what he takes damage from and is one of the few things resistant to almighty spells so if you don't have demons with multiple elemental attacks you will have a long ass battle, and even if you do its still going to take awhile.}}
* ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'': While he doesn't take as long as some of these other examples {{spoiler|Hitoshura himself}} takes around 30 minutes to beat ''at least.'' It doesn't help that he is ''extremely'' difficult where, if you are unlucky, you can wipe at any time (and ''not'' from [[That One Attack|Gaea Rage]])
* Diablo himself in ''[[Diablo II]]'', who not only has a ton of HP, but most certainly ''is'' a threat. You'll spend a lot of time attacking and [[Trial and Error Gameplay|a lot of time dying]].
* ''[[Mega Man (
* All of ''[[
** Debatable. The bosses of Monster Hunter are all arguably [[Puzzle Boss
* The [[True Final Boss]] of ''[[No More Heroes]]'', {{spoiler|Henry}}, on [[Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels|Bitter difficulty]], can take nearly a ''thousand'' hits before dying. You generally can do less than ''ten'' hits off a ''dark step'' (the timing for which is tighter in this fight than in any other in the game). Trying to exploit his normal openings will land you ''maybe'' three hits at a time, and a high chance of getting countered by something nasty.
* The [[Bonus Boss]] in ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' that is required for the [[Good Ending]] is a real grind. It's not particularly challenging, as its attacks don't vary much, but the fact that you have to fight it with only one character, who takes all the damage and has to do all his own healing, can make the fight last half an hour or more.
* In ''[[Rock Band]]'' and ''[[Guitar Hero]]'', while the time needed to beat them may pale in compaison to some other examples on this page, any song that reaches over eight minutes or so becomes one of these. "Do You Feel Like We Do" (Live) from ''Guitar Hero 5'' pushes it even further with almost '''fourteen''' minutes of playing.
** "Freebird", the [[Final Boss]] of GH2, and "Through The Fire and Flames", the [[Bonus Boss]] of GH3. Also, the final battle with the Devil in that game.
** And speaking of ''[[Rock Band]]'', the Endless Setlist challenges in the numbered titles are ''guaranteed'' to take over an hour. Subverted slightly in that you can pause in the middle of any song... unless, of course, you want that Steel Bladder achievement, in which case you have to never pause the game and never fail a song during the ''entire setlist''.
** In ''[[Rock Band]]'', the Endless Setlist challenges will take (on average) 5+ hours. The challenge itself is to play the entire game's tracklist in one concert. 84 songs x 3(on average though usually higher) minutes, = approximately 300 minutes, or 5 hours.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'', [[Valkyrie Profile|Freya]] becomes an [[Bonus Boss|optional boss]] you can fight after completing the main game. She has 20 million HP (and that's just on easy mode!) and her attacks, namely [[One
** Her predecessors The Celestial Queen and Lenneth, while not even possessing a fraction of her power can drag on for an eternity. Raise Fayt's defense to the point that he takes zero damage from their attacks, and the fight still drags on for on the upper echelon of 45 minutes. Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'''s [[Bonus Boss
** In ''[[
* Of the six bosses in [[
* ''[[Touhou
** Arguably, every Extra boss in the Touhou series is relatively guilty of this. The only thing that really puts Yukari in a league of her own is her final card/attack, Danmaku Bounded Field. She's invincible during the whole thing, and it lasts for a minute and a half. Have fun. The timer for her last card stops any time you die or bomb until your invincibility wears off, unlike every other time-out card in the entire series. Have fun, indeed.
** Typically the last spellcard in any game is absurdly long. The average spellcard lasts about
* Since ''[[.hack|the .hack// games]]'' try to emulate an MMO, they had to include a couple of these bosses. For instance: most of the Phases, in particular Macha, [[Final Boss|Corbenik]] (both from Volume 4), and Skeith (from Volume 1), the last of which is arguably the hardest boss in the ''series'', and especially the final Cubia fight, in which you fight your way through three of his "Cores", with each having more health than the last. Then you get to fight Cubia proper... and he fully regenerates his health once you kill him. So you get to kill him ''again''... and then he regenerates ''again'', at which point the plot takes over and he's killed in a different way.
* [[Bonus Boss|Bonetail]] from ''[[Paper Mario:
** And [[Bonus Boss|Culex]] from ''[[
* Bouldergeist from ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]''.
* Amaltea, the Guild Quest Bonus Boss from ''[[Arc Rise Fantasia]]'': High HP, multiple layers of defense against magic, physical, and Excels(single, Trinity Acts, and Excel Trinities).
* Luca Blight, from ''[[Suikoden II]]''. You have three fights in a row against him (each time with 6 different characters), in which he may or may not kick everyone's behinds before proceeding to the next one. Each one of these fights take around 15 minutes, and after all that you get to run after a fleeing Blight, fight a few mooks, and finally you kill him... after a one on one duel in which he may OHKO you if you pick a single command wrong. You can't save between fights either.
* Reflux, the final boss of ''[[Rayman]] 3: Hoodlum Havoc'', goes through several phases and can take over an hour to defeat.
* Spoofed in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'', where the final battle actually doesn't take all that long, but the dialogue at the start of the third form claims it is:
{{quote|
** Spoofed again with Ed the Undying, whom you have to fight seven times, dismembering him into progressively smaller collections of limbs (and halving his maximum hit points each time). {{spoiler|You eventually sweep his remains into the corner while he's still taunting you.}}
* Bosses in the first two ''[[
** Darm in ''II'' is also a really long boss fight, even with your EXP maxed out. Then there's his [[Teleport Spam|teleport spamming]] and the constant rain of fireballs you must dodge.
** Arem, the [[Big Bad]] of ''Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys'', takes it [[Up to Eleven]]. He has three lifebars(the last form fortunately is a [[Clipped
* Some of the later bosses in the DS FPS ''Moon'' can take 192 bullets from your rifle (that being the maximum you can carry) and still be less than halfway to dead. Matters are exacerbated by the fact that sniper rifle ammunition is rare and the pistol's hard to use while dodging, so you'll be using your assault rifle for the rest of the fight, which damages bosses so little that only on the rare occasions they stop shooting at you temporarily will you be able to see their health bars going down as you pump them full of lead. Dying and retrying four or five times can lead to physical pain in one's left hand (that being the one in charge of holding down the L button to rapid-fire.)
* ''[[
** On Gin's path, you lose your demons, ALL of your demons, before going up against Babel's final form. This is annoying on your first playthrough, but your characters would probably be roughly on par with your demons so it wouldn't be THAT bad if you prepared for it. However, if you're not aware of how the fight works and are on your third or fourth playthrough, during which you probably completely relied on the end-game demons you carried over from each game, it's a good chance you'll lose due to being underleveled. Now, while the story hints at this, it's easy to assume you'd lose your demons AFTER Babel dies. Nope.
* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games have a bad habit of this. The worst offenders are probably the [[Original Generation]] games. In [[OG 2]], any boss worth mentioning is going to have over 100,000 HP, and the last few stages will have [[Sequential Boss|lots of them in a row]]. All of the last three stages (four if you face the [[True Final Boss]]) are going to have over a million HP's worth of bosses, and that doesn't even include [[Mooks]]' HP.
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* The final boss of ''Gundemonium Recollection'', Elixirel, has ''11 forms'', one for each node on the Tree of the Sefirot. The good news is the 11th is the [[True Final Boss]], so you only have to deal with 10 most of the time.
* Dark Gaia, final boss of ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'' will force the player through multiple rounds of at least three different, yet similarly difficult styles of gameplay that must be executed with near flawless percision to win. Mercifully, the game marks each genre change as a checkpoint of sorts, meaning that deaths aren't ''too'' frustrating.
** Previously, many of the bosses in ''[[
* Hot Limit and other "long version" songs in ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]: 5th Mix''.
** Or you know [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSKP-ItlQk4 This]. Not only clocking in at seven minutes (while the average DDR song is under two,) it also has in the neighborhood of 2000 steps, meaning you can get multiple 300+ combos in a single song (where as 300 is about typical for one song on the highest DDR difficulty.) Granted, you have to find and download the song for yourself to run in Stepmania, but some of us go out of our way to run (nearly literal) marathons.
* The [[Big Bad]] Primagen in ''[[Turok (
* ''[[
** Ansem, the final boss for the [[Another Side, Another Story|Reverse/Rebirth]] mode, is just as bad, if not worse.
** ''Kingdom Hearts: [[Birth By Sleep]] [[Updated Rerelease|Final Mix]]'' has No Heart. Like most [[Bonus Boss
** The series' other [[Bonus Boss
** All ''Kingdom Hearts'' games seem to end with ridiculously long bosses. [[
* The boss of the Rubina level in [[Hydorah]] doesn't actually have much health, however there are two rotating rings of shields which make hitting it really difficult. Plus your weapons are almost certainly at the lowest level when you face it, given [[Continuing Is Painful]] and the [[Nintendo Hard|difficulty]] of the preceding level. Expect to hear the music loop multiple times during the fight.
** Unless you use the Wave, in which case [[Curb Stomp Battle|you can defeat it in seconds]]. Unfortunately, you can't get the Wave until much later in the game, so it doesn't help unless you deliberately skip Rubina and come back to it later.
* Tropicallo from ''[[Legend of Mana]]'': instead of taking damage like a regular boss, it loses a set fraction every time one of its two tendrils dies. One of them is an insanely tough attacking type tendril, the other casts magic and has a humongous self-destruct attack when detached.
** This gets turned [[Up to Eleven]] in the [[New Game
* Bosses in the ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' series usually have much more HP or higher defense than normal characters, and most are [[SNK Boss
* Non-game example: the fight against DMK in ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'' takes up nearly half of the entire series. It's a deliberate parody of JRPG boss fights though, so it's heavily [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] of course. [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=001735 Just one example...]
{{quote|
* [[
** Not nearly so bad as it's made out to be, as each of those can be bypassed: If the player moves extra characters to the reserve, you can take down all six of the Anima Masters...which has the unfortunate side effect of reducing your party for the last of them (admittedly, he's the hardest). There is also a guaranteed drop of a second item that prevents LP damage, much earlier in the game, but you have to choose to fight rather than bypass a particular battle. Admittedly the final boss is still lengthy in this case, making it as much of a [[Guide Dang It]] as a Marathon Boss.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZSxRuxrjfk This video]. Even with the assistance of a macro to spam the fire button, it's still absurd.
* A prominent [[Bonus Boss]] in ''[[
** Also another Tales' [[Bonus Boss]] is [[That One Boss|Nebilim]] with the situation is relatively similar and that's on Normal with you're level in the 90+ and higher.
** Any of the "giant monster" bosses from Tales of the Abyss Unknown Mode, especially Replicantis. The very first ''[[Mooks|monster]]'' ''battle'' on Unknown usually takes about 15 minutes, just to get an idea.
** However, a rare [[Tales
** On higher difficulties, practically every single boss in ''[[Tales of Xillia]]'' ends up like this, due to how low the party's overall damage output is compared to other games in the series and the fact that bosses can escape from combos a lot more easily then in previous games. Only once one has fully powered up the Fell Arms and/or boosted their party's stats significantly with items do they go down in what could be considered a normal span of time.
* ''[[
* Bosses in ''[[The Legend of Dragoon]]'' are all like this due simply to the mechanics of the game. If you haven't played it, magic is outrageously rare and is pretty much for use on bosses only. Only two characters have healing magic at all,<ref>Shana, [[Jonas Quinn|Miranda]], and Meru, but Shana and [[Miranda]] are ''so'' much better at it than Meru and Boss battles with Shana and Miranda take ''forever''</ref>
** This isn't to say anything about the [[Final Boss]], ''really'' requires you to take out an hour or so.
* Bosses in the arcade version of ''[[Double Dragon]] II'' are in general much tougher than the first game, but Abore, the Andre The Giant [[Ersatz]] in Mission 2 , takes the cake. It doesn't help that you fight two of him in the final stage.
* {{spoiler|Lord Burroughs}} from ''[[Clock Tower (
* ''[[Gaia Online|ZOMG]]'': The Landshark and Shallow Sea / [[Sea Lab]] X. It can take 6 hours to complete the latter with a full crew. On medium. The former takes around an hour to beat...with 20 other people attacking it.
* The Arishok in ''[[
** However, this is only if you duel him. He's way easier if you opt to face him along with his goons, because at least then you have a party helping you.
* ''[[Magic:
** At least he's still vulnerable to milling and poison.
* May God help you if you fight [[
* The final bosses in most of the ''[[House of the Dead]]'' games, especially The Wheel of Fate and The World (two forms and two lifebars, to boot).
* The Facebook game ''Viking Clan'' scoffs at those puny bosses. World bosses are meant to be fought by thousands of players together (anyone can take part in the battle). The Phoenix, the weakest of these bosses (Level 10, apparently), has ''26,343,750,000'' health points. That's 26 ''billions''. The battle is timed, lasting 14 days, and individual players must wait 4 hours between attacks. Fortunately, it's really just a question of length as it doesn't seem to heal and deals very little damage.
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* The final boss battle in ''[[Child of Eden]]'' has about five forms and can take over 10 minutes to complete; witness it in all its glory [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDdVD7K1Y9U&feature=relmfu here].
* The final boss of ''[[Dawn of War]] 2: Chaos Rising'' has 3 million HP and can regenerate about 200 000 at a time. Your units can deal 1000-2000 damage at best. Kind of justified, since he's a [[Eldrith Abomination|Greater Daemon of Nurgle]], and those are said to be able to destroy whole planets alone.
* {{spoiler|Tyr/Myria}} from ''[[Breath of Fire]]''. Then again, you should have known after the previous bosses that after the health bar you actually ''see'' is only a ''fraction'' of their ''actual'' health.
* The final fight against the Thugs 4 Less leader in ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]''. Mostly because you'll be sat in a turret, constantly trying to shoot away his bombs, rather than actually just shooting him. Even the developers admit he simply has way too many hit points.
* ''[[Rockman 6: Unique Harassment]]''
** The Jewel Man boss has four phases: Three phases dealing with his elemental jewels and a phase dedicated to the Jewel Man boss fight itself.
** The Dr. Wily fight has a total of 6 phases in this game. Luckily, Mega Man gets a Yashichi after 2 phases.
* [[Tank Goodness|Neon Valhalla]] in ''[[Epic Battle Fantasy]] 5'', the only enemy in the game that constantly regenerates its health, as if having the second highest health in the game (just below the [[Final Boss]]) wasn't enough. It's also immune to damage-over-time effects and comes with turrets that attack on their own and bombs that kill all 3 characters in combat after a few turns and require the player's attention as well. Altough manageable in normal difficulty due to its lack of magical damage and not attacking every 4 turns, trying to beat it in epic difficulty is where the true marathon begins, as it requires every character to sacrifice some damage for durability to stay alive while Neon Valhalla's regen also gets a massive boost along with the doubling of damage and health that comes with this difficulty setting. It's nearly impossible to outdamage Neon Valhalla's regen in epic difficulty without a specific strategy around the syphon or sudden death effects to get rid of its turrets and bombs.
* ''[[
* The ending of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is like this, with a long sequence of all the surviving characters throwing all they have at the Father, in hope of exhausting his powers. he also goes through a total of three forms.
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[[Category:Boss Battle]]
[[Category:Marathon Boss]]
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