The Best and Worst Boss Fights in Pokemon

theotherguytm said:
ok what.
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Ryota Mitarai said:
Clair's team, for most parts, has snake-like Pokemon in it (Gyarados and Dragonair), so I assume Dunsparce was put to follow the theme.
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Yeah, I was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel. It was between it or Arbok and I decided to opt for Dunsparce since, well, it was Gen II and what other character was going to use it (certainly not Whitney, she's more into cute/pink blob Pokemon. "But you gave her Aipom"? Aipom is cute... enough... if you look at it in the right way).

Similar case goes to Chuck getting a Pinsir, it gets enough Fighting-type moves and is a counterpart to Heracross (which I gave to Bruno since it can Mega Evolve into a Fighting-type) it might as well be Fighting-type. Though it's one of the few exceptions I'd allow him and Bruno to share a Pokemon: Hitmontop.

Karen also getting a Granbull & Jynx cause I'd already taken Delibird away from Pryce to give to Falkner so wasn't about to take away Sneasel too. So, like with Clair, I tried going with general theming. Going off the idea that general woman love Snubbull, I'd figure a woman with more particular tastes would instead like Granbull. And I feel Jynx is obvious.

And if you're wondering (probably weren't but I'll mention it anyway since I mentioned it in the above post), I was thinking of giving Murkrow to Falkner, Morty, and Karen. Falkner I kind of struggled with as originally I did take both Murkrow and Delibird away from him, but that would have left him with an entire team of Flying/Normal so decided he should at least have one non-Flying/Normal and since there were other Ice-types I could give to Pryce it was Delibird (yeah, I know, probably would have done better with the other Flying/Normal. If he didn't have the "bird Pokemon" only gimmick I would have given him a Gligar, though I guess if I want to stretch the definition of "bird" I could have given him Togetic).

Finally, if you're wondering where Spinarak/Ariados is for Bugsy, originally his first Pokemon was going to be Spinark but then I remembered that Ariados was made Janine's Signature Pokemon.
 
This may be unpopular but hear me out:

I think the Eternatus fight (the last one) in SwSh is one of the best designed if not the best designed boss battle in the franchise.

Bare in mind, it has issues.
The biggest one is the fact it's basically impossible to lose. You have to do something intentional for both the dogs, Hop AND your team to die before Eternatus does.

However, the buildup going into it, Leon failing to catch it and throwing himself and Charizard in front of the explosion to save you, the Pokeball he used literally torn in half, the impossible battle and then the two legendaries actively coming to save the world from their slumber because *you* were the worthy one, the music (which I love) and even the cutscene build up a extreme hype that makes you *feel* that you're doing something Epic, something that is more than just "I press a supereffective attack and the boss is dead"

I think they started this trend with the UltraNecrozma fight, which follows a comparable pattern (the build up was obviously much smaller, just you beating a possessed Solgaleo/Lunala and then chasing Necrozma into the ultracity) and also had the fancy animation of it awakening and boosting up to defeat you, but the iteration in SwSh was much better.

Going forward in next games, I really wish that the battles against the "big legendaries" keep following this scenario rather than just having you punch them into low HP then throw pokeballs until you win.
It's epic, it's memorable, and to this day I still love re-watching it on playthroughs or speedruns because of how good it feels.


On this subject I also think Leon's champion fight is arguably the best "normal" boss battle we had in a while.
He doesn't have a monotype team, which on its own is already good, but he also has a *good* team.Obviously your freshly caught Eternatus can screw him over 10 times, but that's a issue with all Pokemon games that have this bad habit of giving you 700 BST legendaries before the champion battle.
First, his team spikes up almost 10 levels from everything you battled so far. I was playing blind and on Set, and this caught me off guard, to the point I actually almost got swept down by his Haxorus as my team was all slower than it and I basically only killed it due to a Iron tail miss.
Second, his team is *actually good*. It varies based on your starter (I did the bad mistake of picking Grookey, which arguably gives him the best team too), but almost all the attacks are pretty legitimate, it's just a shame none of his Pokemon have EVs or Items. I'm a bit sad that "every pokemon has 4 attacks and he has 6 pokemon" is actually something I have to say, but there's that.
Third, his Charizard which is his standard GigaMaxer has coverage for basically everything you want to throw at him, so if you don't have a faster Pokemon or use your own Dynamax there he will usually also rack up a kill or two.
And obviously, the music and ambience are very good too.

Look GF, you might be doing a lot of mistakes in SwSh, but, please keep on this road with your boss battles. You're doing them right.
 
:rb/Snorlax:
Some may dislike it, but I really like the way RBY Snorlax is set up. It acts as a roadblock that you will likely see on a blind playthrough, encouraging you to progress the story.

Then, when you finally fight it, it can be pretty difficult for the average player. It's unexpectedly bulky, can pad itself further with Amnesia, and will use Rest to prolong the fight. It's surprisingly hard to catch too. I like the concept of really long Pokemon fights, but legendaries and the like tend to be just a bit too short for my liking. Snorlax tends to fill that void just a little bit, even if using Rest can work against it lol
 
The worst? As several others said before, Archer in the Goldenrod Radio Tower in Johto. You would expect some epic final battle with Team Rocket, but all you battle are a weak Houndour and a Koffing, and a Houndoom that's easy to beat with almost any Water type.

The best? Red in any Johto game. Since you'll most likely be underleveled, it challenges you to think about what you're doing. Something most casual players don't have to do, since most of the game can be beat by just mashing super effective attacks all the time. Against Red, that won't work anymore, so you need strategy.
 
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The best: Tate and Liza in Emerald
I'm playing emerald, and it's 7th gym time. No worries. In ruby, T&L(I'm calling them that since I don't want to type 'Tate and Liza' every 5 seconds) were positively easy, I even beat them with my Tentacruel. (Admittedly, he fainted shortly before winning.) They'll probably be stronger, but I have an Absol with swords dance and shadow ball, so that won't be much of a problem. Battle starts. I send out Absol and Swampert. They send out... Xatu and Claydol. Still no worries. It's not like they're strong Pokemon, right?
NO. T&L absolutely decimates my team. Claydol sets up screens and spams EQ which doesn't effect any of their pokemon. Xatu stacks CM boosts like a Simple Swoobat and sets up Sunny Day. Solrock spams sun-boosted Flamethrowers and Solarbeams my Swampert to death. (which is about 2 times.) Lunatone is... just there. But it stares at you, unflinching. Taunting. Laughing. My Absol, Swampert, and Crobat all faint, and I have to resort to reviving Absol to win. I barely get out of there alive.
What is truly great about this battle is that neither of them use 'good' Pokemon. They didn't have a Garchomp like Cynthia, a Metagross like Steven, or three(!) Dragonites like Lance. No, what they had were Xatu, Claydol, Solrock, and Lunatone. But they stuck with what they got, and utilized their Pokemon to their full extent. Pushed them to the limits of their abilities. And in their case, it paid off. They gave me what every trainer wants: a challenge.
 
Faba (Pokémon Sun and Moon)

Faba is a character who's so bad he's good and entertaining. He is a villain who talks a big game but could not back anything up. He proclaims himself as Aether Foundation's last line of defense, yet when you encounter him, his team consists of:

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A Singular Hypno. Of course a decorated person like him would not give up after a first loss so you have a rematch with him:

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He has added a two Pokemon and an ally that gives him dual screens support. Decent battle overall. However, Faba has stripped himself of all the credibility he had just before your match by stupidly revealing that he has the key to the president's rooms.

In the end, he went from being Branch Chief Faba, Aether Foundation's Last Line of Defense to becoming Intern Faba. Funny stuff. On the bright side, at least he gave the underexposed Hypo some spotlight by turning him as his ace. And his rematch as the new and improved Faba is quite challenging as well.
 
I feel like I'm someone who, as a general rule, is easy to please when it comes to Pokemon. Be decently challenging when accounting for casual play, and most importantly, don't waste my time/waste the potential of the battle itself.

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Grant, for me personally, is just the worst for how much he squanders his potential. When I heard that the rock-type gym leader of Kalos would use the new fossil pokemon I got hyped because of how awesome it was that both Brock and Roark used their regions' respective fossil 'mons to make super interesting and fun gym battles. Grant here? Yeah no, he does none of that. Imagine, if you would, that you're about to face off against a team of dinosaurs. Ancient beasts that require having Jeff Goldblum on standby to sputter out some vague warning about how powerful they are, how many different possible team combinations and fun strategies you could have just using fossils, only to be greeted with
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....a half-way decent Amaura and a really underwhelming Tyrunt. I know for most this isn't really all that egregious when you consider how laughable most of Kalos's Gym Leaders are, it's more of a personal thing here. Amaura is the only one that can realistically pose a threat with a Refrigerate-boosted Take Down, access to Thunder Wave and Rock Tomb to lower speed, and a STAB Aurora Beam. Then you remember that both of these Pokemon have laughably low stats for the intended level you're supposed to be, seeing as how you'd have access to a middle stage starter (of which only braixen would be potentially troubled by typing if for some reason you don't have psybeam) but also several pokemon who could outspeed and ohko them with supereffective attacks.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Grant is somehow the worst battle in the game by any stretch, but he misses out on what could've been a really interesting idea for a Gym, and to me being disappointed and underwhelmed is just that bit more scathing than just being too easy.


To avoid repeating too much of what most people would expect, I'm gonna pick ones that just had such a grand feeling of 'whoah' (I hope that made sense):

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Pretty much all of the RR team leader fights, simply for the concept alone. They're all decently levelled, sporting their classic teams (for better or worse in the case of Archie and Maxie), and hail from universes where they won which means you have to contend with actual legendaries being thrown out at you.
This is the sort of over-the-top nonsense that I like seeing from time to time in Pokemon, you have to face off against suped-up versions of every evil team leader (sans Snagem, Cipher, and Skull) rocking their version mascot legendaries to boot, leading to some actually intense battles imho all culminating in a confrontation with the og evil boss sporting the og legendary pokemon equipped with a mega stone just to make it that much sweeter.

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Steven Stone in Emerald is such a fun battle, and probably the best example of type-theming done right for me, as each pokemon on his team relates to his passion for collecting rare stones and gems.
His team is very well balanced despite the general type-theme as each one carries some sort of coverage move for potential type advantages, but he actually leads off with a very smart pokemon in Skarmory, using it to pass badly poisoned statuses and entry hazards (I love this choice as it essentially forces you to either risk fainting from toxic and being battered, or switch out and face spikes and a STAB steel-wing or aerial ace). Just to add the icing on top of all this though, after going through a gauntlet of some of Gen 3's strongest 'mons you have to face Metagross, a pokemon you would've never seen until this point, that has stats on par with the box legendaries of the game as well as an ability that prevents you from debuffing it at all meaning it's always going to be going full force.
 

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My least favourite boss fight: Episode Rainbow Rocket multi battle with Lillie against Faba and a grunt. Lillie has only one Pokemon: a Level 60 Clefairy (worse than all the opponents) that knows dual screens, Moonblast that comes off 60 base Special Attack, and Sing. In my opinion, this is worse than Spear Pillar Barry in terms of “useless AI partner”, since he’s at least kind enough to bring other Pokémon with him to supplement his Munchlax. Once Clefairy goes down, you’re facing a 1v2 battle against a full team. The Grunt is mostly an annoyance because he has Snarl and nothing else on his first two Pokemon, which completely screws you if you thought you could bring a Ghost to this fight and ensures you will go last on every turn without a lot of switching. The Grunt also has a Shiinotic that can put you to sleep while Faba’s Hypno murders you with Dream Eater. And that’s if you even get to it, because Faba also has a Bruxish that hits like a train with Strong Jaw-boosted Crunch and Psychic Fangs (which also has the nasty side effect of destroying Clefairy’s Screens). It’s just not an entertaining battle when it’s 1v2 and extremely stally the whole time.
 
Primal Ivysaur said:
Pretty much all of the RR team leader fights, simply for the concept alone. They're all decently levelled, sporting their classic teams (for better or worse in the case of Archie and Maxie), and hail from universes where they won which means you have to contend with actual legendaries being thrown out at you.
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I loved this segment, but there was one thing about it that really bothered me, and that was the Lysandre fight in Ultra Moon.

Why? This is why.

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At this point in the game, it isn't at all unreasonable to expect players to handle an Yveltal that knows Dark type moves, especially since the corresponding Xerneas has a pretty good moveset for coverage:

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Checking all the other Rainbow Rocket bosses, every single pokemon on their team has a move for their type, their secondary type if needed and then fills the remaining 2/3 slots with different typed coverage moves or statuses. Yveltal is the only one who needlessly doubles up on one of its stabs and neglects the other entirely; Giovanni's Mega Mewtwo Y is the only other one who doubles up on a stab (Psystrike & Psychic) and I assume that's more so it can nuke you on both def & special def

Feels like whoever set up the movesets either overlooked putting in Shadow Ball over Dark Pulse or, more comically, momentarily forgot that Oblivion Wing was a flying move and not a dark move.
 
R_N said:
shout out to Cyrus' houndoom for having Dark Pulse and Shadow Ball

I am struggling to think of an instance where the AI would ever go for Shadow Ball over Dark Pulse in this scenario.
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Specifically against Terrakion. Only two Pokemon resist all of Fire Blast, Dark Pulse, and Sludge Bomb: Tyranitar and Terrakion.

EDIT: Actually, resisted Fire Blast is stronger. 110*1.5*0.5=82.5. Unless the AI takes accuracy into account, they should never use Shadow Ball.

EDIT 2: Looking into weaknesses, there is also Gallade, Marshadow, Medicham, Mega Mewtwo X, and Mimikyu. However, neutral Fire Blast is still slightly stronger.
 
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I'm just dropping in to post this:
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I love this boss fight to bits purely because of this exploit.


I'll put some actual opinions in here as well.

Good: S/M Kukui
The professor fights you as the de facto champion. I found this to be an interesting way to hide the Champion throughout the game. Sure some of his mons don't have the best movesets but the team is mostly competent with decent variety. I was incredibly disappointed to see Hau take his spot in USUM.

Good and Bad: Battle Revolution Dusty
Probably one of the most challenging to beat consistently. For those who don't know, this is the boss in Sunset Colosseum, a place that uses a special mechanic where you have to pick 4 pokemon from 12 rentals before the start of every battle to use. All the AI in this colosseum cheats though because the 6 mons on their pass are always there and they always pick within those 6. This means that Dusty's team is competent as fuck, and Dusty himself is competent as fuck. It's a very hard boss.

Bad: Striaton Gym
This fucking gimmick exists purely so they can sell you a monkey.

Bad: Diantha
There are some choice mons on this team that I just dislike. I like the fact she's not a type specialist champion, but I don't like the fact that she uses both fossils on her team (as well as Gourgeist for some reason).
 
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The Good: Miror B. (Colloseum & XD)
-This one man singlehandedly makes me wish I had grown up with these games. In the present day, I do have access to Colloseum, but due to this thing called COLLEGE I never got to start a full playthrough of it after having put it off for a while as is. I've watched the footage of his fights though. This guy has it all: he's an underrated character from an underrated series who manages to be a challenge while managing to make the trope of using a lot of one evolution family of Pokémon an actually memorable part of his character design. My favorite parts of this is the music. Colloseum gives the player a very culturally inspired jazz-style beat that's pleasing to hear, and his theme in XD is nothing short of pure electronic perfection.

The Bad: Xerosic (XY)
-Looking through this thread I saw a lot of people say that they hated the final battle with Archer from HGSS. While it's definitely an underwhelming fight to say the least, I was somehow able to think of one that's even worse, being one of Team Flare's scientist admins. Admit it: half of you probably forgot this fat peppermint faced dude even existed. He's supposed to be the most significant of the group, arguably the second-in-command of the entire Team, but he ends up being extremely forgettable and poorly designed because he's got nothing to set himself apart. The one good thing he's got is his Contrary Malamar, but even that's kind of pushing it... he or the other admins don't have their own music or anything, and the worst part of all is that if you do end up fighting him at the end of the already forgettable postgame Lumiose story arc... his team doesn't change at all. Yikes.

Edit: No, seriously. Something about this dude reminds me of those white peppermint candies the teacher gives out before the big state tests.
 
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I think most of the Team Magma/Aqua fights are contenders for worst boss fights in the series. Take Maxie's final Omega Ruby fight for example, story-wise it's supposed to be this super intense final battle... but half of his Pokémon don't even have STAB moves, including his Mega Camerupt, since they didn't bother giving his Pokémon custom movesets, so they all simply use their latest level up moves.

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And the thing is, this isn't a problem exclusive to ORAS. Pokémon Emerald generally has some really good boss fights, but it's also the same game that had a Matt battle with a Mightyena that didn't have any attacking moves.

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And on the matter of bosses without custom movesets... shoutout to the iconic final boss from Pokémon Red & Blue. I'm specifically showing the Blastoise variant because it clearly shows that custom movesets WERE a thing in this game (Blastoise can't learn Blizzard by level up), they just didn't bother giving it to most bosses' Pokémon, including the FINAL BOSS' ENTIRE TEAM (aside from his starter)

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Yung Dramps said:
For what it's worth I'm convinced Maxie/Archie's final teams' awful movesets in ORAS were oversights. I mean ffs Maxie's first battle gave his camel Lava Plume and Earth Power

Either way still better than Archer at least lmao
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Yeah, Maxie's first battle is better, but here's the thing, that Camerupt's Lava Plume, Earth Power, etc, moveset is actually completely on line with what it last learns up to that level (27), same for his other Pokémon, so both of his fights lack custom movesets. Maxie's first fight having a Camerupt with a decent moveset was a complete accident
 
StarKirb94 said:
specifically showing the Blastoise variant because it clearly shows that custom movesets WERE a thing in this game (Blastoise can't learn Blizzard by level up)
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Note on this:

I have taken a limited look into the code into RB, and the feature that powers this is very limited. All it does is give a specified team slot a move that replaces the 3rd move in what is otherwise the default moveset. (You can notice in this example how the Blastoise doesn't know Skull Bash)

It still doesn't help most of the time anyway due to how minor this ends up in practice. (Sidenote: Yellow has a system to give full custom movesets)
 
CoolMan6001 said:
Note on this:

I have taken a limited look into the code into RB, and the feature that powers this is very limited. All it does is give a specified team slot a move that replaces the 3rd move in what is otherwise the default moveset. (You can notice in this example how the Blastoise doesn't know Skull Bash)

It still doesn't help most of the time anyway due to how minor this ends up in practice. (Sidenote: Yellow has a system to give full custom movesets)
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So was Lance's dragonite meant to have Barrier replace one of its moves but a glitch caused it to just have 5, then?
 
R_N said:
So was Lance's dragonite meant to have Barrier replace one of its moves but a glitch caused it to just have 5, then?
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the Dragonite still has 4 moves, as Barrier deleted Dragon Rage. The others are Agility, Slam, and Hyper Beam. (The original order would be Agility, Slam, Dragon Rage, Hyper Beam, making Dragon Rage the 3rd move)

My theory on why it is Barrier is that Barrier was originally Reflect, (considering Barrier is right next to Light Screen and even shares the PP coumt) and something in development changed the status of Barrier and then the devs forgot to change Barrier to Reflect.

Or they just put Barrier there instead of Reflect by accident
 
I really like the Totem Lurantis fight. You start the fight expecting it to use lame moves like Magical Leaf or something, like previous Grass-Type bosses, but no, it it has a pretty solid strategy of Castform setting up Sunny Day so that Lurantis can spam an extremelly strong Solar Blade, with Trumbeak as a way of taking care of whatever Rock or Bug-Types you have. It really pulls no punches for how early in the game it is.

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The best part is how it manages to make an otherwise very underwhelming Pokémon feel threatening. Lurantis isn't great gameplay-wise, it's pretty much a worse Tsareena in a lot of ways, but the Totem fight manages to get around its flaws extremelly well. It's early enough in the game so that you don't have anything with similarly high stats to fight back easily, its low speed is compensated by the Aura's boost, and a Sunny Day strategy is the perfect way of using its signature move Solar Blade.

It's just a really solid boss fight that challenges the player while showcasing its main Pokémon's most unique characteristics.
 
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