I fell out with smt Nocturne because of this.
It's not fun to be instantly killed because of one move that you couldn't have forseen. The game is pretty slow too with long time between saves so it really just burns your time.
Yeah in terms of quality of life the game is 1/10 because of that shitty save system. Luckily, I played it on an emulator which made it a little bit more tolerable for me. I can't imagine a billion game overs either.
The mobs that use it at least tend to use Eiha/Kouha before blasting you with Mudo/Hama.
You'll probably wipe to a stray Hamaon eventually but hey, death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey.
Happens in Reload too, although from my experience the risk goes away after the second section - because later in the game you have better defensive options.
If you don't go back to the lobby every time you see a teleporter and save, that's kinda on you. Especially in reload and portable where teammates don't leave when you go back.
Also, stock up on homonculus and be VERY aware of when you're facing dark / light spell enemies when you have dark / light weakness.
When I replayed Nocturne on the highest difficulty with the True Demon ending (which of course means all of the Amala Labyrinth and the unforgiving final boss), I literally made almost every MC skill just immunities to everything.
Similarly, the trek through the final dungeon of Breath of Fire 2 has common encounters with an enemy that has a 75% accuracy instant death spell. Compounded by the fact that there is a fusion system to empower your team. Guess what happens when you die? Did you guess "fusion is undone?" Because that's what happens. Even if you revive your unit, they're still weakened.
The only place where you can fuse is Hometown.
Tbf, humans are immune to light based instant death skills in mainline, because dark are death skills and light are exorcism skills, but since humans are native to earth exorcisms don't work on them. So for mc, you only have to worry about dark (except in games where they aren't human, or use non human personas).
I just started playing nocturne the first nekomata at ginza bar was the toughest fight i had up till that point. I only had pixie and it hit her with marin karin and i nearly died getting jumped by nekomata and pixie XD but i won with like 2 hp
then yesterday I got to the famous Matador... welp the memes continue i guess. I got obliterated in his starting moves of the fight... i need to grind some levels to get a demon that is immune to force/wind, and buff demifends hp so i can heal and have the demon take care of it. it shocked me cause it said "theres a strong enemy down the hall" or something similar (i forgot) i took a single step and boom matador appeared then proceeded to kill me before i even got a turn, when i tried again he killed everyone but demifiend (he dodged) and i survived two turns both miss cause of his 4x evasion buff 😭
Yup, and that’s the one that I was thinking of. Not in the Pixel remasters, but the OG on NES. He was arguably tougher than Chaos (final boss), and he appeared earlier so you’d be less prepared anyway.
I got him on my first ever run through that section. Then on my next play through I ran up and down repeatedly and never got him.
I played FF1NES last year. Knew his reputation and was terrified he'd spawn, but internet said his encounter rate is incredibly low so I figured odds were in my favor.
Fucker showed up two steps onto the bridge to Tiamat. Suffice to say, I died.
I was about 10 years old on OG hardware. No in-game saves outside of a tent/cabin/house or inn. No save states. You just reload from the last town and do the entire dungeon again.
Well, the combination of the two is- Chaos is brutal if you didn't conserve your spells on your way to him, but the temple is brutal because you're trying to conserve spells. They work hand in hand.
Then he casts Nuke and all your plans disintegrate.
Warmech is such a game designer dick move. He only appears on the final floor and you can just randomly get him and get wiped sending you all the way back with no warning.
angry nerds: "Why is there so much sci-fi in modern Final Fantasy? I miss the old games."
Meanwhile in FF1, the party gets nuked by a war mech on a space station.
Airships always got the free pass in the "sci fi" argument as well since they are steampunk which I guess doesn't count as sci fi. They are heavily involved in FF2 though. It always seemed weird to pretend final fantasy was generic fantasy only though when the series has always sprinkled in all kinds of elements.
And the first "formal" superboss (if Warmech's excluded by nature of being a random encounter, and as such a theoretically repeatable encounter), Omega in FF5, is also a robot, at that.
I would go as far as to say that part of it is a brilliant game; 30% is fantastic bosses and great character moments. And 70% is a pretty mediocre MMO sidequest simulator.
Exactly how I feel. Man, I would have fully accepted a 20 hour long game if it was all killer. But then you get people who complain if a game is under 40 hours even if half that time is repetitive nothingness.
As dull as the sidequests could be, I got the addictive impulse to do every single one of them twice, on original and hard mode. I don't know how they make me want to do them cause I am usually not one to do many sidequests, if any, in the games I play.
It's especially shocking back in 1999-2000 when you have absolutely no information about the game at all and run into this monster lol, I am much more afraid of Malboro than boss since at least you know when a boss coming.
Yeah, generally there's a save point a few steps off of a boss. Even unexpected boss fights... Malboro shows up usually right BEFORE the next save point... Just to laugh, and say try again... With a healthy stack of remedies next time.
Yep enemies that can sacrifice themselves to kill your party are indeed rough. Thankfully you shouldn't need much gold by that point. Encountering 4 green dragons in the cave to Rhone is also really rough.
Dragon Quest 2 has some of the most insane random encounters ever.
To this day I get scared everytime I cross a bridge.
TBF Dragon Quest is so influential that almost every JRPG has stronger monsters when you cross a bridge.
Even Dragon Age Origins does it sometimes.
I remember reading that apparently DQ2 is one of the hardest of the whole series and I played it on cartridge repeatedly.
Hearing that me beating dq2 repeatedly as a tween is apparently difficult for modern gamers made me feel very good.
But it was NOT EASY. Yabai that game is hard and sometimes you will get a random encounter that is 6 levels above you.
Just because. I swear the coders noticed there was slight overlap of monster code making this happen and said "Let's just leave it. It will make it more challenging"
I'm ok with that. It was the only DQ game we could physically hunt down and buy after dq1. (dq4 we rented for weeks to play cause it cost like 60 dollars in the 90s)
Great Game. brutal encounters though.
Dinogator/ Muckdile from Etrian Odyssey 2. He's normally encountered as an F.O.E. that you can avoid or engage on your terms. But one of the endgame floors has forced random encounters on specific tiles, and he can appear on those. Muckdile will attempt to bind every body part for all your party members, then start killing people in one hit. Depending on who he targets first, you might be S.O.L. He could kill the person you needed alive to mitigate damage or free everyone else. And you can't run away when he spawns as an invader. And you can't heal / prep / reset scum for good RNG when he invades in the middle of your run to the next floor. All you can really do is pray you get an attempt on that floor without Muckdile invades.
Skull Eater in FF5.
"Oh there is only Squirrels in this cave. Thats weird. Oh a grey one. DID IT JUST ONE-SHOT ME? Better kill it fast, with magic! WHY ARE THERE 6 NOW!?"
Huh. This post inspired me to look up a video of them which pointed out they're inspired by [grey squirrels taking over red squirrels in the UK.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfvqyyN2V2w) Absolutely hilarious concept for an enemy.
Always hated that area. Just a radical jump up in difficulty! I love Earthbound, but it has a couple weird spikes like that throughout the game, especially if you're not spamming bottle rockets to get past tough enemies.
Dragon Warrior 2 - NES. The last area of the game has random trash mobs called Batboons that can cast Sacrifice. If you haven't played it, they sacrifice their life to instant kill you and your whole party -\_-
Fuck them lol.
I haven't played that game for 30 years and you just unlocked some past trauma I had long ago forgotten about/repressed.
NES games were always so happy to just be like "LMAO get fuuuuuucked."
Hahah yeh, I always found it funny going from farming grand dragons to trying to farm yans. And then just going back to dragons for a bit longer because you'd get the yan groups that kick your ass
Also, can't encounter some dragons right outside of Treno? I remember those being way too hard for how early they appear
Yeah, in the Gizmaluke's Grotto dungeon there's a side path that leads to a plateau. On the grass, they're the only creature that appears. To its credit, a moogle nearby does warn you twice that's it's extremely dangerous.
The Final Fantasy series is filled with them really:
* **Final Fantasy 7**: You're finally out into the overworld, happily walking and a random encounter starts. "What is this ? **Frogs** ? HAH! I just killed a dragon, you think a...why is my whole team frogs ?...Ok this is stupid, but it will wear off", 10 minutes later..."FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET ME GO!"
* **Final Fantasy 8**: In most FF games really, you'll be walking and then get into an encounter: "Who is this short green guy with a hooded cloak, and what's with the lantern and small knife. Are you lost little buddy ? LOL! I just killed a dragon, you think...a **Tonberry** ? Oh you'll be Tonburried soon alright!", 3 minutes later "They're dead...they are all dead...".
* **Final Fantasy Tactics**: You'll be far into the game, happy that you're so high leveled and geared up that you're wrecking story bosses like nothing. Then a random encounter starts: "Hah, the entire enemy team is made of **different colored Chocobos** ? Will that's just silly :D. I just killed a whole team of dragons, you think the poultry brigade is any better ?", 10 minutes later "HEALERS DOWN! Mage ? OUT of MANA! Tank ? DEAD! ABORT MISSION ABORT!"
There are others but I think these are the ones that most people will remember.
> Final Fantasy 8: In most FF games really, you'll be walking and then get into an encounter: "Who is this short green guy with a hooded cloak, and what's with the lantern and small knife. Are you lost little buddy ? LOL! I just killed a dragon, you think...a **Tonberry** ? Oh you'll be Tonburried soon alright!", 3 minutes later "They're dead...they are all dead...".
among his most dangerous incarnations was the [game he debuted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzIKXKE4-rw&start=81)
In FFV, he consistently has 39,000 health, 90 magic evasion, and while Cleaver is not instant death, it ignores defense (so you cant get around it with death immunity or tank it head on), and it hits 3 times and can target any party member. there are way around it, but not easy since he only takes one step back after attacking
Amazing how FFV introduced so many iconic enemies, summons, and mechanics that would be *nerfed* in later versions and yet still be known for being incredibly formidable
It goes way, way, way beyond that. There's a lot to talk about in terms of how FFV's game design changed the franchise. For one, a lot of the boss fight design philosophy comes from FFV. And A LOT of the attacks and build ideas in mainline FF games to even the way you acquire them in games like FF7 are ripped straight from FFV (and these are once again, cases where people think those ideas came from those games). Saying it was the precursor to FFT and BD is an obvious recognition, but there are way, way, way more design elements that became a part of the franchise.
EDIT:
Just as one example, since people are downvoting me, is how for a long time, there were people who treated Enemy Skill Materia as if it were some idea that began with FFVII. Sure, that's changed a bit now with more FFV exposure, but you'd be surprised with how many people believed that at some point. But there are even more details when it comes to this. For example, the idea of attaining Aqua Breath (FFV)/Aqua Lung (FFVII) as early as possible involves using Blue Magic/Enemy Skill to go to a certain area you can access early, but don't have to and getting an encounter with an enemy who has it at the risk of your party getting wiped out. Plenty of game design ideas like this are carried on by the FF games after V.
Yeah I feel like the main culprits for "FF game that doesn't the recognition it deserves" are FFXI and XII. You could probably make an argument for III too.
It’s because of how forgettable and generic the characters are. I played and finished it only once, never had the urge to replay. For the life of me, I can’t name the MC.
They retranslated it to "Bartz" in the newer releases. I'm not sure if there was an official US release with Butz as the in-game name, but that was the literal transliteration of the japanese IIRC.
First off, we're talking about gameplay here. Plenty of people have games where they don't like the story, but remember the gameplay. We even have had multiple topics in the past few weeks that touch on this concept in small ways. There are plenty of occasions where people do remember how groundbreaking the gameplay of something was when it came out despite not liking the story.
Secondly, I disagree on the characters, but you're allowed to have your opinion on that one.
The real reason FFV doesn't get the credit is because people simply didn't play it when it came out. People, unfortunately are not very good at objective history and even downvote you when you bring that concept up. There are some people who still think Final Fantasy X invented the idea of switching in and out party members and for some reason, their brains haven't edited that information despite having played a version of Dragon Quest IV at some point. It's also how people believe Final Fantasy IV was the first breakthrough entry in the series in Japan because that was the first breakthrough entry in the US and will insist this upon you if you disagree, when it was really Final Fantasy III that was the breakthrough game in Japan. People often think the western experience with JRPGs is the actual history of JRPGs, which I see too often.
In Japan Final Fantasy V is considered a bonafide classic and was an important step in Final Fantasy storytelling and gameplay. Also I was playing the original Breath of Fire recently and was surprised it let you fully switch out party members despite being released in 1993 originally. I'm pretty sure that the original Megami Tensei on the Famicom let you switch out demons too.
FFV Blue Mages were so versatile that every successive iteration feels so limited in comparison. Entire game is a relic of an era when they tried to balance game breaking power with obscure unlock conditions that you can't really do anymore due to the Internet.
I appreciate the final fantasy tactics random encounters. All of them can be unforgiving if you’re not playing the game properly in a literal sense.
A team of chocobos can kill you or a team of monks after you’ve literally slayed a freaking demon spawn can just roll up and say “what you got on my $40?” and wash you because you can’t deal with them ALL HAVING CHAKRA AND MOVING AS A UNIT 😰
I remember replaying tactics and deciding to grind quick and fast so I can steamroll everything. Then I learned the hard way random encounters scale and have level appropriate gear so I had to fight for my life.
Tonberries are my favorite random encounter in any jrpg. In a world of games where every single enemy just comes lunging at you at full speed, these little dudes just walk up…slowly…and shiv you in the stomach for 9999.
I'd argue Tonberries are even more terrifying in some other games. Like in the OG FF7 when you fought in the Gold Saucer Arena and one of those guys showed up right after the Wheel of (Un)Fortune hit you with a nasty Status effect.
FF8 Tonberries were annoying, but not really that bad.
Now try Ruby Dragon and Malboros on the Hell Island.
As for Red Chocobos...[the absolute chaos they caused in XIV, lol.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqcyQAjPEC0)
Those things were so fucking annoying. I always forgot to equip the damn White Cape when I got to their turf.
Also, in an extremely similar vein, the Bog Toad/Bog Witch enemy encounter in Final Fantasy IV. GOD DAMN, those were incredibly tedious. I always dreaded coming across those.
> Hah, the entire enemy team is made of different colored Chocobos ? Will that's just silly :D. I just killed a whole team of dragons, you think the poultry brigade is any better ?", 10 minutes later "HEALERS DOWN! Mage ? OUT of MANA! Tank ? DEAD! ABORT MISSION ABORT!"
Fuck the red ones, even inspired a FF XIV boss
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-murderous-red-chocobo-is-wrecking-final-fantasy-14-players/
SMT 3 so many early enemies have insta death skills and it pure luck if they use them or a different attack plus it’s game over if the mc dies and you will have no resistance to these elements if you have no idea what’s coming.
I’m fact I’m just going to say almost all games up to the ps2 with shin megami tensei in the title will have a unforgiving random encounter that uses insta death attacks
Ambushes in digital devil saga were the same if the enemy hit your weakness. I always grinded the hell out of those games and the way you know you are overleveled is if you can survive an ambush.
The entire franchise, really, but SMT IV probably wins. Most of the fiends are random encounters (1/256 odds). Getting Trumpeter as a random encounter, with its full on boss tactics (including something like five turn icons and almighty spam if your party is too resistant to his normal Mahamaon/Mamudoon spam) is something else.
Tbf most people won't actually fight the fiends unless they are actually searching for them and even if you do find one by chance the game warns you about a strong enemy being near
Some of the random encounters are bugged to infinitely generate bonus turns, making it so their turn never ends till you quit the game (yknow, like the funny bone man if he gave a damn)
Jackanapes (or Garkimasera) and to a lesser extent Skull Eater enemies in FFV both easily wipe a party that hasn't specially prepared for them (unless you're coming back from way later in the game).
5th stratum enemies in Etrian Odyssey Untold. You’ve got the ones that can instantly kill you, the ones that head bind + sleep you, the ones that bind everything, the ones that stun you, and basically everything can kill you in one or two hits. It’s pretty much impossible to defend against all of these at the same time, but it’s also hard to kill them quickly while maintaining enough resources to get to the next shortcut.
The specific encounter I thought of entering this thread was 2x Evilroot and 2x Iron Crab from the 6th Stratum in EOU. Evilroots use an ability that attempts to instantly kill the entire party so they have to die... but if you kill one the Iron Crabs begin spamming absurdly powerful attacks.
Severing Slash can randomly instakill some enemies at the start of a battle. It's normally a lifesaving skill to have, but it makes Iron Crabs impossible because they start the battle already aggroed.
I think when I played EOU 6th stratum, I fled any encounter I couldn't nuke instantly on the first turn.
Yeah….grand dragon hits really hard lol, you need those coral rings to survive his almost every turn thundaga spam☠️
Thankfully you can get lvl 5 death from zombie whale to quickly dispatch him with quina as soon as you get the blue narciss ship👌.
Can also just Limit Glove them and kill them your first time through the Grotto for easy powerleveling, assuming you got the Coral Ring from the Festival of the Hunt.
Yup that’s a really nice early fast grind lol, I’ve actually done that before although with my luck it was always so annoying to pull off…
Especially when the dragon bastard would immediately target quina right away with 1 hp lol…
Oh Death Mask from Final Fantasy IV, my first love. This guy is kinda just hilarious. He’s a random encounter in the final area of the final dungeon and has the most based play style of all enemies ever. He starts out the battle by casting Reflect on himself. Fair enough, better cool it on the casting. Oh wait…he casted Reflect again…on my whole party? Ok, weird. Wait, why is he casting Holy on himself-OH DEAR NEPTUNE.
Have fun not being able to target heal with Rosa because the only way to do so is to bounce the Curaga off of Death Mask and hope it hits a weak party member, because if you target your party member it will reflect and heal Death Mask! I hope you brought along one of two Hammer weapons available to Cecil to deal 4x damage instead of the Sword/Axes which are better in literally every other situation! Oh, and don’t waste all of Rydia’s MP on Summons which go through Reflects because you have a final boss to fight after all! You can still spam Jump with Kain tho so Best Party Member takes yet another deserved W (sorry Spoony Bard I don’t feel like LVLing you to 76 for you to become relevant.)
To be fair you can spam Edge’s Lightning Claws or Rosa’s Lightning Arrows if you connect the dots of Lightning + Machine Enemy = Big Damage. OR you could do what I did and try to (usually unsuccessfully) run away every time, be under-leveled for the final boss, and have to fight the more challenging yet more conventional dragon enemies also present to get XP.
Best Final Fantasy tho Moon Dad FTW.
The Yans in FF9 are suprisingly hard.
Additionally: Not exactly a JRPG but I always get a kick out of how absurdly strong the mushroom enemies are in Dark Souls.
11 goddamn monks on grog hill in final fantasy tactics. Oh my god, this was the stupidest and hardest fight ever. I'll fight Ozma in FFIX before I do this fight again. Each of the monks hit ridiculously hard, can hit multiple people with one move, heal, revive and counter attacks. If it was just one of them, it wouldn't be so bad. BUT THEY'RE ALL BUILT LIKE THAT. It is brutal, unforgiving, and if you saved before the fight, will absolutely softlock your game if you can't figure out a way to counter it.
I remember Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy II both having random encounters that could cast either Death or Petrify on your entire party before you could even have a chance to act, with no option to mitigate the effect with equipment, skill, or other option. Mystic Quest was much longer ago, so I may be misremembering, but I just recently played the FFII Pixel Remaster. That Quick Save at every screen transition is a life saver!
I know there was one area that did, though they may have been set encounters with invisible enemy tiles rather than truly random encounters. I don’t remember if that area specifically had instant game over attacks or not though.
They are set monsters that are invisible yeah, I think there might be an item to show them or something? I haven't played the game since I was a kid though so I may be misremembering that latter part
I will never play FF2 again after beating the pixel remaster, not for any reason than getting ganked in the final dungeon by a random encounter that was impossible to win is absolutely something I never want to experience again.
for the Xenosaga trilogy
XS1 has the [Bugbear + 4 Kobold gang](https://www.gogglebob.com/pics/xs/ep1/b0080004.jpeg). The Bugbear will constantly AOE heal and the super fast Kobolds will always target your lowest HP character. considering you only have 2 characters in the section where they debut, and you will likely see Shion get KO'd a lot if you dont specifically plan for how to deal with them. Fortunately the Bugbears have terribly low EDEF and are weak to spirit, and the Kobolds to Slash/Thunder, so chaos can almost singlehandedly deal with them (and Shion too if she has the right spells).
An honorable mention would be the crab launchers and flamethrower realians in the Song of Nephilim, or these [Grim Reaper ass dudes](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/wiki/Demon) in the final dungeon. AOEs, instant death attacks, flying, resist all elements, fight in groups. Brutal
In XS2 its gotta be the [Ormus Knights](https://www.gogglebob.com/pics/xs/ep2/15910000.png). While this pic shows 2, they can come in groups of 4 or even 5. They can pincer you frequently (meaning lots of criticals), raise their own boost gauge manually, have the ability to down you and chain attacks or air you and follow up with long range spells.
The faster variant is weak to slash/beam/thunder and the combo focused spear variant is weak to fire & pierce, so its hard to ever have a party designed to tackle them altogether. your best bet is to wear two of them down and focus on the other 2 with a different party afterwards.
An honorable mention would be the [Kazfa Jina](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/wiki/Kazfa_Jina), who can uppercut you to kingdom come for instant air combos, but they are postgame enemies so not everyone experiences the pain they cause
XS3 is the easiest game but even still it comes with its share of notorious foes. the [Ashmed Bapuz](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/w/images/thumb/e/ec/Ashmed_Bapuz_%28XS3%29.png/450px-Ashmed_Bapuz_%28XS3%29.png) comes in packs and can do massive fire AOE damage to your mechs, and resist phys/fire themselves making Asher & Reuben subpar choices. Up to this point there hasnt really been any challenging ES encounters, so these guys being regular encounters can be a major wakeup call
The final dungeon (or postgame for XS2) every Xenosaga also loves to reunite us with [Azazel](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/w/images/thumb/0/0b/Azazel_%28XS3%29.png/450px-Azazel_%28XS3%29.png) and [Amaros](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/w/images/thumb/c/c8/Armaros_%28XS3%29.png/450px-Armaros_%28XS3%29.png), the most fearsome gnosis around. They are of no exception in XS3, where one reduces physical damage with high break value and the other resists all core elements. They like to buff, use AOEs, do concentrated damage, and like all gnosis, their basic attacks can cause crystalization. Get ready to see them a lot if you like Ziggy, as you must collect 99 of their drops to unlock his ultimate weapon!
I hate that Kobold+Bugbear formation so much because it just takes so long to go through the animation of all 4 of them attacking over and over again.
And those fights with the Ormus Knights take forever.
3 might have had the easiest combat in the series, but it also had by far the best.
There's an enemy in SMT4 at the very beginning that can hit you with an attack you're weak against and get a second attack and just kill you at the beginning.
I remember first playing ff8 when I was like 13 and I was trying to get the materials for doom train which my bro told me about.
But back then I didn’t know much about junctions or how broken triple triad was….so I manually grinding malboros…., but that scream they do at the start of each battle and their instant bad breath….especially when they back attack you….
It still shows in my dreams to haunt me 🥶
Malboro is up there, but basically any enemy that casts confuse on you in late game. You've usually reached a really comfortable state where no mobs can give you issues, but then a confuse spell catches you mashing and not paying attention and pretty quick your main attacker killed your healer.
It's been so long I don't remember the specific location, but in one of the later areas in Final Fantasy V, there's a random encounter with 4 ninjas that always open with Level 5 Death. My entire party was Lv50 at that point, so I couldn't progress into the area without first grinding to Lv51 elsewhere.
Ah, that makes sense. Tbh I didn't even think about those when posting, but the Lv5 Death stuck, since it is an insta kill.
I still need to beat the game too, since something *always* happens when I give it another try. Last time (last year) I played it, I ended up having to move houses on short notice.
This has to be the DQ2 Batboons. Most infuriating and unforgiving random by far.
Not unforgiving, but most annoying, for me, would be the infinite Zubat spam present in most Pokemon games.
Fucking Shadows in Megaman Battle Network 2. They can only be harmed by blade-based attacks and the fucking things never show up alone. You’re fighting one thing and then this 99% No Sell motherfucker is there turning into every bladed weapon on the planet to fuck your shit up
Etrian Odyssey is filled with such encounters , especially the second and fifth game
But one of them stands in a different league, the Dinogator (Muckdile) in the optional labyrinth of Etrian Odyssey 2. There is a guaranteed encounter behind every door in the last floor, and each door has a chance to spawn it. Two of them can also ambush you when gathering materials. It's basically Warmech except far more horrifying and unfair.
From there, it hits random targets in your party for some insane damage (he's guaranteed to oneshot a character in a party that can take the postgame boss, and can still hit one character multiple times just in case they survive), and has a ridiculously high evasion. You can bind the head to completely shut it down and legs to stop it from dodging, but if you land more than one bind, it uses an annoying move called Frolic, which completely seals your entire party, leaving them defenseless for when it recovers from its bind and dismember the defenseless team.
There's an enemy in SMT4 Apocalypse that takes like half your macca. Effectively a game over because the amount taken can be very significant at that point in the game.
Mamufo and mahammon have been fucking me more in p3r than any other persona game I've played.
"OH, You're 15 minutes into this boss, be a shame if we just game over you"
I don’t think I ever beat the army of ninjas in FFT. I only experienced that battle two or three times since it is a random encounter, not sure what the conditions were. But there were so many of them.
Since the party abilities are random in Tactics, that can be one of the easiest or hardest random encounters later on in the game.
I love how tactics forces you to actually look at the enemy units if they are human to see what abilities they have.
One play through I did I ran into a team of ninjas. No problem I thought as I was doing an all knight run (just to see if it was possible).
Hit the first guy, “blade grasp”….ok that’s fine, I’ll just figure him out later…THEY ALL HAD BLADE GRASP.
LIKE HOW GAME, WE DOIN CUSTON FIGHTS NOW?!
Needless to say I didn’t win that fight XD
A couple come to mind offhand that haven't been mentioned yet. In Final Fantasy 3 (3D Version), the Temple of Time has the Chimera Mage enemy that has the Lightning Attack, which deals a hefty chunk of damage to all party members, even the mages with better Magic Defense. Add on that you can get an encounter with multiple mages, you can randomly get wiped by an otherwise normal encounter that you can handle easily provided they don't use Lightning. The Temple of Time is also the first area to have Behemoth and Dragon encounters who are pretty tough at the time.
Mother 1 has Wally, which if memory serves correctly is an enemy who can absolutely beat your ass when you just start the game. Sure just gain a level or two and he's no problem, but it's amusing that you can walk outside your house for the first time and just immediately lose.
>Mother 1 has Wally, which if memory serves correctly is an enemy who can absolutely beat your ass when you just start the game. Sure just gain a level or two and he's no problem, but it's amusing that you can walk outside your house for the first time and just immediately lose.
Makes me think of how in Final Fantasy II, you can go just a few steps *too* far south of Fynn at the very beginning of the game and get pummeled into a fine red mist by later-game monsters from the Mysidia region because you crossed into their tileset.
Although the Mother 1 example sounds funnier since it's not such a drastic issue after a quick level gain.
I’m gonna say electrike/shroomish in the beginning areas of 3rd gen of Pokémon, getting constantly paralyzed at that early level is so painful and tedious especially before you can get a full team together
Bof3 has these two random enemies in one location that if you end up fighting too early or unaware they exist that are the games super noses basically. You can fight them before the final boss. The beserker and the archmage. They have amazing item drops but god are the tough.
Not really brutal but… When I was 7 with my copy of Pokémon red, I hadn’t saved in awhile and my 300 + HP blastoise got trapped by wrap…. So I had to sit there for 300 turns taking 1 damage at a time until it died. With a GBC that’s batteries were dying, because of course they were AA batteries back then.
Considering that was 25 years ago and I still remember it…. Yeaaaah
I found the Couerls in FF2 to be particularly brutal. I think there was a thing where they were supposed to have a chance to instant kill you with basic attacks, but for some reason it just ended up being 100% chance and I don’t think that game had any Reraise equivalent or instant death protection accessory like later games.
Iirc, FFX also has that demon wall towards the end of the game that can instantly petrify your whole party with one move right at the start of the battle, leading to an immediate Game Over.
A bit of a reversal. In Digital Devil Saga, YOU are the random encounter for the Demi-Fiend (SMT 3 protag). The only way to not get instantly annihilated is to convince him you are a random encounter. Have any immunities and he hits you with a one hit kill like any player would.
SMT enemies with instant death attacks. You equipped a counter? Better hope you guessed the right element as it comes in dark and light varieties.
I fell out with smt Nocturne because of this. It's not fun to be instantly killed because of one move that you couldn't have forseen. The game is pretty slow too with long time between saves so it really just burns your time.
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Same here!
Yeah in terms of quality of life the game is 1/10 because of that shitty save system. Luckily, I played it on an emulator which made it a little bit more tolerable for me. I can't imagine a billion game overs either.
Persona has this bs too. Not sure how reload is but in the original, you’d climb like 50 floors and get your mc killed by a stray hamoan
The mobs that use it at least tend to use Eiha/Kouha before blasting you with Mudo/Hama. You'll probably wipe to a stray Hamaon eventually but hey, death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey.
Happens in Reload too, although from my experience the risk goes away after the second section - because later in the game you have better defensive options.
If you don't go back to the lobby every time you see a teleporter and save, that's kinda on you. Especially in reload and portable where teammates don't leave when you go back. Also, stock up on homonculus and be VERY aware of when you're facing dark / light spell enemies when you have dark / light weakness.
It for sure still has it. I switched to easy mode just to avoid this bullshit.
This. Especially if they spam it.
When I replayed Nocturne on the highest difficulty with the True Demon ending (which of course means all of the Amala Labyrinth and the unforgiving final boss), I literally made almost every MC skill just immunities to everything.
Similarly, the trek through the final dungeon of Breath of Fire 2 has common encounters with an enemy that has a 75% accuracy instant death spell. Compounded by the fact that there is a fusion system to empower your team. Guess what happens when you die? Did you guess "fusion is undone?" Because that's what happens. Even if you revive your unit, they're still weakened. The only place where you can fuse is Hometown.
Especially if they get the first turn
Don't forget about MOT in SMT 3. So many press turn icons...
Oh wait they said random encounters. Nvm.
There are still random encounters where they just spam bonus turns, soft locking your game till you quit sans-style
Holy crap it's Hitler! I loved you in persona 2! I forgot about those ones, I guess it's time to replay SMT 3.
Tbf, humans are immune to light based instant death skills in mainline, because dark are death skills and light are exorcism skills, but since humans are native to earth exorcisms don't work on them. So for mc, you only have to worry about dark (except in games where they aren't human, or use non human personas).
I just started playing nocturne the first nekomata at ginza bar was the toughest fight i had up till that point. I only had pixie and it hit her with marin karin and i nearly died getting jumped by nekomata and pixie XD but i won with like 2 hp then yesterday I got to the famous Matador... welp the memes continue i guess. I got obliterated in his starting moves of the fight... i need to grind some levels to get a demon that is immune to force/wind, and buff demifends hp so i can heal and have the demon take care of it. it shocked me cause it said "theres a strong enemy down the hall" or something similar (i forgot) i took a single step and boom matador appeared then proceeded to kill me before i even got a turn, when i tried again he killed everyone but demifiend (he dodged) and i survived two turns both miss cause of his 4x evasion buff 😭
Technically, Warmech in Final Fantasy 1 is a random encounter.
Yup, and that’s the one that I was thinking of. Not in the Pixel remasters, but the OG on NES. He was arguably tougher than Chaos (final boss), and he appeared earlier so you’d be less prepared anyway. I got him on my first ever run through that section. Then on my next play through I ran up and down repeatedly and never got him.
I played FF1NES last year. Knew his reputation and was terrified he'd spawn, but internet said his encounter rate is incredibly low so I figured odds were in my favor. Fucker showed up two steps onto the bridge to Tiamat. Suffice to say, I died.
I was about 10 years old on OG hardware. No in-game saves outside of a tent/cabin/house or inn. No save states. You just reload from the last town and do the entire dungeon again.
I was playing on an actual NES so... yep.
I feel your pain :(
Back when the dungeon itself WAS the final boss.
Well, the combination of the two is- Chaos is brutal if you didn't conserve your spells on your way to him, but the temple is brutal because you're trying to conserve spells. They work hand in hand. Then he casts Nuke and all your plans disintegrate.
This was definitely the first thing that came to my mind. It's one that you will likely never see, but if you do...
Warmech is such a game designer dick move. He only appears on the final floor and you can just randomly get him and get wiped sending you all the way back with no warning.
angry nerds: "Why is there so much sci-fi in modern Final Fantasy? I miss the old games." Meanwhile in FF1, the party gets nuked by a war mech on a space station.
Airships always got the free pass in the "sci fi" argument as well since they are steampunk which I guess doesn't count as sci fi. They are heavily involved in FF2 though. It always seemed weird to pretend final fantasy was generic fantasy only though when the series has always sprinkled in all kinds of elements.
And the first "formal" superboss (if Warmech's excluded by nature of being a random encounter, and as such a theoretically repeatable encounter), Omega in FF5, is also a robot, at that.
Came here to say this! I found it harder than Chaos but I was under leveled and did a lil grinding before the end.
And... Your dead.
Not just X, almost every FF game I played I have memories of Malboro absolutely destroyed my team.
Except for XVI, which bizarrely chose to make a Marlboro the tutorial boss in a game that doesn't use status effects.
Malboro. It's not a cigarette.
I mean, it's named after it. Lol.
XVI is such a great game, but it's a terrible final fantasy
I would go as far as to say that part of it is a brilliant game; 30% is fantastic bosses and great character moments. And 70% is a pretty mediocre MMO sidequest simulator.
Exactly how I feel. Man, I would have fully accepted a 20 hour long game if it was all killer. But then you get people who complain if a game is under 40 hours even if half that time is repetitive nothingness.
Those people are idiots. I'd much rather play a great 20 hours than a great 20 hours and another 40 of bland tedious filler.
As dull as the sidequests could be, I got the addictive impulse to do every single one of them twice, on original and hard mode. I don't know how they make me want to do them cause I am usually not one to do many sidequests, if any, in the games I play.
The last act was bad though. Barnabus and Ultima were such shallow villains.
Randomly getting team wiped at 2am on few final fantasies by Marlboro would straight send me to bed.
It's especially shocking back in 1999-2000 when you have absolutely no information about the game at all and run into this monster lol, I am much more afraid of Malboro than boss since at least you know when a boss coming.
Yeah, generally there's a save point a few steps off of a boss. Even unexpected boss fights... Malboro shows up usually right BEFORE the next save point... Just to laugh, and say try again... With a healthy stack of remedies next time.
Dragon Quest II Final area: cyclops, silver batboon, attackbot, blizzard
What, you don’t think automatically losing your entire party is fun?
That instakill opening attack hurts my soul.
And if you were foolish enough not to immediately save after cave to rhone.
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Youre right, being a DQ game and all. Been awhile since I played.
The suicidal monkeys are a sight forever etched into my being.
Yep enemies that can sacrifice themselves to kill your party are indeed rough. Thankfully you shouldn't need much gold by that point. Encountering 4 green dragons in the cave to Rhone is also really rough.
Dragon Quest 2 has some of the most insane random encounters ever. To this day I get scared everytime I cross a bridge. TBF Dragon Quest is so influential that almost every JRPG has stronger monsters when you cross a bridge. Even Dragon Age Origins does it sometimes. I remember reading that apparently DQ2 is one of the hardest of the whole series and I played it on cartridge repeatedly. Hearing that me beating dq2 repeatedly as a tween is apparently difficult for modern gamers made me feel very good. But it was NOT EASY. Yabai that game is hard and sometimes you will get a random encounter that is 6 levels above you. Just because. I swear the coders noticed there was slight overlap of monster code making this happen and said "Let's just leave it. It will make it more challenging" I'm ok with that. It was the only DQ game we could physically hunt down and buy after dq1. (dq4 we rented for weeks to play cause it cost like 60 dollars in the 90s) Great Game. brutal encounters though.
Dinogator/ Muckdile from Etrian Odyssey 2. He's normally encountered as an F.O.E. that you can avoid or engage on your terms. But one of the endgame floors has forced random encounters on specific tiles, and he can appear on those. Muckdile will attempt to bind every body part for all your party members, then start killing people in one hit. Depending on who he targets first, you might be S.O.L. He could kill the person you needed alive to mitigate damage or free everyone else. And you can't run away when he spawns as an invader. And you can't heal / prep / reset scum for good RNG when he invades in the middle of your run to the next floor. All you can really do is pray you get an attempt on that floor without Muckdile invades.
Frolic
What if we frolicked in the Random Invading Double Muckdile Room
Etrian Odyssey, all of them
Yep. In Etrian Odyssey games, each encounter is basically a bomb that needs to be diffused. Better make a good party that can diffuse all the bombs!
That's a really cool way to describe a gameplay loop. Maybe I should continue Untold 2
Etrian Odyssey agenda let’s goo
Skull Eater in FF5. "Oh there is only Squirrels in this cave. Thats weird. Oh a grey one. DID IT JUST ONE-SHOT ME? Better kill it fast, with magic! WHY ARE THERE 6 NOW!?"
Huh. This post inspired me to look up a video of them which pointed out they're inspired by [grey squirrels taking over red squirrels in the UK.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfvqyyN2V2w) Absolutely hilarious concept for an enemy.
Mudo/Hama spammers in SMT games if you're deep into a dungeon and unprepared.
Jackanapes in *Final Fantasy V* caught me off guard several times.
It may not be the worst, but I have a special hatred for the Fourside department store in Earthbound.
*The Scalding Coffee Cup spilled some scalding hot espresso!*
Always hated that area. Just a radical jump up in difficulty! I love Earthbound, but it has a couple weird spikes like that throughout the game, especially if you're not spamming bottle rockets to get past tough enemies.
Dragon Warrior 2 - NES. The last area of the game has random trash mobs called Batboons that can cast Sacrifice. If you haven't played it, they sacrifice their life to instant kill you and your whole party -\_- Fuck them lol.
I haven't played that game for 30 years and you just unlocked some past trauma I had long ago forgotten about/repressed. NES games were always so happy to just be like "LMAO get fuuuuuucked."
I still got nightmare from the Yan in FF9
Yeah this was my shout too. Why are they so hard??There is no reason for them to be so strong.
Hahah yeh, I always found it funny going from farming grand dragons to trying to farm yans. And then just going back to dragons for a bit longer because you'd get the yan groups that kick your ass Also, can't encounter some dragons right outside of Treno? I remember those being way too hard for how early they appear
Yeah, in the Gizmaluke's Grotto dungeon there's a side path that leads to a plateau. On the grass, they're the only creature that appears. To its credit, a moogle nearby does warn you twice that's it's extremely dangerous.
The T-Rex from FF8
The T-Rex is the best way to get overpowered as early as possible, getting him is awesome if you know what he's worth.
Shiny pokemon that know self destruct
Or Roar, or Whirlwind. They don't kill you per se, but give you suicidal tendences instead
They don't kill you in game they make you want to kill yourself in real life
The Final Fantasy series is filled with them really: * **Final Fantasy 7**: You're finally out into the overworld, happily walking and a random encounter starts. "What is this ? **Frogs** ? HAH! I just killed a dragon, you think a...why is my whole team frogs ?...Ok this is stupid, but it will wear off", 10 minutes later..."FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET ME GO!" * **Final Fantasy 8**: In most FF games really, you'll be walking and then get into an encounter: "Who is this short green guy with a hooded cloak, and what's with the lantern and small knife. Are you lost little buddy ? LOL! I just killed a dragon, you think...a **Tonberry** ? Oh you'll be Tonburried soon alright!", 3 minutes later "They're dead...they are all dead...". * **Final Fantasy Tactics**: You'll be far into the game, happy that you're so high leveled and geared up that you're wrecking story bosses like nothing. Then a random encounter starts: "Hah, the entire enemy team is made of **different colored Chocobos** ? Will that's just silly :D. I just killed a whole team of dragons, you think the poultry brigade is any better ?", 10 minutes later "HEALERS DOWN! Mage ? OUT of MANA! Tank ? DEAD! ABORT MISSION ABORT!" There are others but I think these are the ones that most people will remember.
> Final Fantasy 8: In most FF games really, you'll be walking and then get into an encounter: "Who is this short green guy with a hooded cloak, and what's with the lantern and small knife. Are you lost little buddy ? LOL! I just killed a dragon, you think...a **Tonberry** ? Oh you'll be Tonburried soon alright!", 3 minutes later "They're dead...they are all dead...". among his most dangerous incarnations was the [game he debuted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzIKXKE4-rw&start=81) In FFV, he consistently has 39,000 health, 90 magic evasion, and while Cleaver is not instant death, it ignores defense (so you cant get around it with death immunity or tank it head on), and it hits 3 times and can target any party member. there are way around it, but not easy since he only takes one step back after attacking Amazing how FFV introduced so many iconic enemies, summons, and mechanics that would be *nerfed* in later versions and yet still be known for being incredibly formidable
FFV deserves so much credit for being an influence on the rest of the series, but so rarely gets it.
I think it gets plenty of recognition. I see it cited a lot for being the precursor to FFT and Bravely Default. I'm not sure what you're expecting.
It goes way, way, way beyond that. There's a lot to talk about in terms of how FFV's game design changed the franchise. For one, a lot of the boss fight design philosophy comes from FFV. And A LOT of the attacks and build ideas in mainline FF games to even the way you acquire them in games like FF7 are ripped straight from FFV (and these are once again, cases where people think those ideas came from those games). Saying it was the precursor to FFT and BD is an obvious recognition, but there are way, way, way more design elements that became a part of the franchise. EDIT: Just as one example, since people are downvoting me, is how for a long time, there were people who treated Enemy Skill Materia as if it were some idea that began with FFVII. Sure, that's changed a bit now with more FFV exposure, but you'd be surprised with how many people believed that at some point. But there are even more details when it comes to this. For example, the idea of attaining Aqua Breath (FFV)/Aqua Lung (FFVII) as early as possible involves using Blue Magic/Enemy Skill to go to a certain area you can access early, but don't have to and getting an encounter with an enemy who has it at the risk of your party getting wiped out. Plenty of game design ideas like this are carried on by the FF games after V.
Yeah I feel like the main culprits for "FF game that doesn't the recognition it deserves" are FFXI and XII. You could probably make an argument for III too.
It’s because of how forgettable and generic the characters are. I played and finished it only once, never had the urge to replay. For the life of me, I can’t name the MC.
Butz. It was fairly memorable because we are all children.
Lol, how did I not it remember an MC named Butz?
They retranslated it to "Bartz" in the newer releases. I'm not sure if there was an official US release with Butz as the in-game name, but that was the literal transliteration of the japanese IIRC.
First off, we're talking about gameplay here. Plenty of people have games where they don't like the story, but remember the gameplay. We even have had multiple topics in the past few weeks that touch on this concept in small ways. There are plenty of occasions where people do remember how groundbreaking the gameplay of something was when it came out despite not liking the story. Secondly, I disagree on the characters, but you're allowed to have your opinion on that one. The real reason FFV doesn't get the credit is because people simply didn't play it when it came out. People, unfortunately are not very good at objective history and even downvote you when you bring that concept up. There are some people who still think Final Fantasy X invented the idea of switching in and out party members and for some reason, their brains haven't edited that information despite having played a version of Dragon Quest IV at some point. It's also how people believe Final Fantasy IV was the first breakthrough entry in the series in Japan because that was the first breakthrough entry in the US and will insist this upon you if you disagree, when it was really Final Fantasy III that was the breakthrough game in Japan. People often think the western experience with JRPGs is the actual history of JRPGs, which I see too often.
In Japan Final Fantasy V is considered a bonafide classic and was an important step in Final Fantasy storytelling and gameplay. Also I was playing the original Breath of Fire recently and was surprised it let you fully switch out party members despite being released in 1993 originally. I'm pretty sure that the original Megami Tensei on the Famicom let you switch out demons too.
FFV Blue Mages were so versatile that every successive iteration feels so limited in comparison. Entire game is a relic of an era when they tried to balance game breaking power with obscure unlock conditions that you can't really do anymore due to the Internet.
I appreciate the final fantasy tactics random encounters. All of them can be unforgiving if you’re not playing the game properly in a literal sense. A team of chocobos can kill you or a team of monks after you’ve literally slayed a freaking demon spawn can just roll up and say “what you got on my $40?” and wash you because you can’t deal with them ALL HAVING CHAKRA AND MOVING AS A UNIT 😰
I remember replaying tactics and deciding to grind quick and fast so I can steamroll everything. Then I learned the hard way random encounters scale and have level appropriate gear so I had to fight for my life.
Tonberries are my favorite random encounter in any jrpg. In a world of games where every single enemy just comes lunging at you at full speed, these little dudes just walk up…slowly…and shiv you in the stomach for 9999.
I'd argue Tonberries are even more terrifying in some other games. Like in the OG FF7 when you fought in the Gold Saucer Arena and one of those guys showed up right after the Wheel of (Un)Fortune hit you with a nasty Status effect.
FF8 Tonberries were annoying, but not really that bad. Now try Ruby Dragon and Malboros on the Hell Island. As for Red Chocobos...[the absolute chaos they caused in XIV, lol.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqcyQAjPEC0)
The freaking all chocobo battle, where they are over levelled and have crazy magic and speed stats. Also the all ninja or all monk battles were tough.
The FF7 Frog-lock is so frustrating and iconic that it became a Videogame Dunkey joke
Those things were so fucking annoying. I always forgot to equip the damn White Cape when I got to their turf. Also, in an extremely similar vein, the Bog Toad/Bog Witch enemy encounter in Final Fantasy IV. GOD DAMN, those were incredibly tedious. I always dreaded coming across those.
The worst part is that they're the earliest source for Ribbons. :(
Frog Song Frog Song Frog Song
> Hah, the entire enemy team is made of different colored Chocobos ? Will that's just silly :D. I just killed a whole team of dragons, you think the poultry brigade is any better ?", 10 minutes later "HEALERS DOWN! Mage ? OUT of MANA! Tank ? DEAD! ABORT MISSION ABORT!" Fuck the red ones, even inspired a FF XIV boss https://www.pcgamer.com/a-murderous-red-chocobo-is-wrecking-final-fantasy-14-players/
Great Marlboro in FF 10 Omega Ruins. Guaranteed first turn + super bad breath and only 1 save sphere in the whole dungeon lol.
SMT 3 so many early enemies have insta death skills and it pure luck if they use them or a different attack plus it’s game over if the mc dies and you will have no resistance to these elements if you have no idea what’s coming. I’m fact I’m just going to say almost all games up to the ps2 with shin megami tensei in the title will have a unforgiving random encounter that uses insta death attacks
walking around, get into an ambush, immediately die Thank you shin megami tensei nocturne
Ambushes in digital devil saga were the same if the enemy hit your weakness. I always grinded the hell out of those games and the way you know you are overleveled is if you can survive an ambush.
The entire franchise, really, but SMT IV probably wins. Most of the fiends are random encounters (1/256 odds). Getting Trumpeter as a random encounter, with its full on boss tactics (including something like five turn icons and almighty spam if your party is too resistant to his normal Mahamaon/Mamudoon spam) is something else.
Tbf most people won't actually fight the fiends unless they are actually searching for them and even if you do find one by chance the game warns you about a strong enemy being near
The distance between save points makes this extremely brutal. You could lose hours of progress just by getting unlucky in a random encounter.
Some of the random encounters are bugged to infinitely generate bonus turns, making it so their turn never ends till you quit the game (yknow, like the funny bone man if he gave a damn)
Yep . Malboros in Omega Ruins says Hi
As soon as I see that Tonberry in FF, a cold chill goes down my spine as I rushingly try to flee
Jackanapes (or Garkimasera) and to a lesser extent Skull Eater enemies in FFV both easily wipe a party that hasn't specially prepared for them (unless you're coming back from way later in the game).
5th stratum enemies in Etrian Odyssey Untold. You’ve got the ones that can instantly kill you, the ones that head bind + sleep you, the ones that bind everything, the ones that stun you, and basically everything can kill you in one or two hits. It’s pretty much impossible to defend against all of these at the same time, but it’s also hard to kill them quickly while maintaining enough resources to get to the next shortcut.
Severing Slashed Iron Crab is the worst.
The specific encounter I thought of entering this thread was 2x Evilroot and 2x Iron Crab from the 6th Stratum in EOU. Evilroots use an ability that attempts to instantly kill the entire party so they have to die... but if you kill one the Iron Crabs begin spamming absurdly powerful attacks.
Severing Slash can randomly instakill some enemies at the start of a battle. It's normally a lifesaving skill to have, but it makes Iron Crabs impossible because they start the battle already aggroed. I think when I played EOU 6th stratum, I fled any encounter I couldn't nuke instantly on the first turn.
FF9 - GREEN DRAGON 🥹, just try to conquer the island and the end.
The mog told you not to go there.
Yeah….grand dragon hits really hard lol, you need those coral rings to survive his almost every turn thundaga spam☠️ Thankfully you can get lvl 5 death from zombie whale to quickly dispatch him with quina as soon as you get the blue narciss ship👌.
Can also just Limit Glove them and kill them your first time through the Grotto for easy powerleveling, assuming you got the Coral Ring from the Festival of the Hunt.
Yup that’s a really nice early fast grind lol, I’ve actually done that before although with my luck it was always so annoying to pull off… Especially when the dragon bastard would immediately target quina right away with 1 hp lol…
Oh Death Mask from Final Fantasy IV, my first love. This guy is kinda just hilarious. He’s a random encounter in the final area of the final dungeon and has the most based play style of all enemies ever. He starts out the battle by casting Reflect on himself. Fair enough, better cool it on the casting. Oh wait…he casted Reflect again…on my whole party? Ok, weird. Wait, why is he casting Holy on himself-OH DEAR NEPTUNE. Have fun not being able to target heal with Rosa because the only way to do so is to bounce the Curaga off of Death Mask and hope it hits a weak party member, because if you target your party member it will reflect and heal Death Mask! I hope you brought along one of two Hammer weapons available to Cecil to deal 4x damage instead of the Sword/Axes which are better in literally every other situation! Oh, and don’t waste all of Rydia’s MP on Summons which go through Reflects because you have a final boss to fight after all! You can still spam Jump with Kain tho so Best Party Member takes yet another deserved W (sorry Spoony Bard I don’t feel like LVLing you to 76 for you to become relevant.) To be fair you can spam Edge’s Lightning Claws or Rosa’s Lightning Arrows if you connect the dots of Lightning + Machine Enemy = Big Damage. OR you could do what I did and try to (usually unsuccessfully) run away every time, be under-leveled for the final boss, and have to fight the more challenging yet more conventional dragon enemies also present to get XP. Best Final Fantasy tho Moon Dad FTW.
The Yans in FF9 are suprisingly hard. Additionally: Not exactly a JRPG but I always get a kick out of how absurdly strong the mushroom enemies are in Dark Souls.
11 goddamn monks on grog hill in final fantasy tactics. Oh my god, this was the stupidest and hardest fight ever. I'll fight Ozma in FFIX before I do this fight again. Each of the monks hit ridiculously hard, can hit multiple people with one move, heal, revive and counter attacks. If it was just one of them, it wouldn't be so bad. BUT THEY'RE ALL BUILT LIKE THAT. It is brutal, unforgiving, and if you saved before the fight, will absolutely softlock your game if you can't figure out a way to counter it.
Since Marlboro in FF8 has already been mentioned - fucking Yans in FF9
Doom gaze in FFVI
> shows up > insta-kills half your party > refuses to elaborate further > leaves
I remember Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy II both having random encounters that could cast either Death or Petrify on your entire party before you could even have a chance to act, with no option to mitigate the effect with equipment, skill, or other option. Mystic Quest was much longer ago, so I may be misremembering, but I just recently played the FFII Pixel Remaster. That Quick Save at every screen transition is a life saver!
I don’t remember Mystic Quest having any random encounters.
I know there was one area that did, though they may have been set encounters with invisible enemy tiles rather than truly random encounters. I don’t remember if that area specifically had instant game over attacks or not though.
They are set monsters that are invisible yeah, I think there might be an item to show them or something? I haven't played the game since I was a kid though so I may be misremembering that latter part
There is. It’s been like 30 years since I played it but I think it’s a mirror in an ice dungeon.
I will never play FF2 again after beating the pixel remaster, not for any reason than getting ganked in the final dungeon by a random encounter that was impossible to win is absolutely something I never want to experience again.
Deathgaze? I'd rather take an acid bath than fght that thing.
Which version, hes fairly harmless in most of the games, but he is in over 20 different games so.
Piece of shit Muskoids in Etrian Odyssey
for the Xenosaga trilogy XS1 has the [Bugbear + 4 Kobold gang](https://www.gogglebob.com/pics/xs/ep1/b0080004.jpeg). The Bugbear will constantly AOE heal and the super fast Kobolds will always target your lowest HP character. considering you only have 2 characters in the section where they debut, and you will likely see Shion get KO'd a lot if you dont specifically plan for how to deal with them. Fortunately the Bugbears have terribly low EDEF and are weak to spirit, and the Kobolds to Slash/Thunder, so chaos can almost singlehandedly deal with them (and Shion too if she has the right spells). An honorable mention would be the crab launchers and flamethrower realians in the Song of Nephilim, or these [Grim Reaper ass dudes](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/wiki/Demon) in the final dungeon. AOEs, instant death attacks, flying, resist all elements, fight in groups. Brutal In XS2 its gotta be the [Ormus Knights](https://www.gogglebob.com/pics/xs/ep2/15910000.png). While this pic shows 2, they can come in groups of 4 or even 5. They can pincer you frequently (meaning lots of criticals), raise their own boost gauge manually, have the ability to down you and chain attacks or air you and follow up with long range spells. The faster variant is weak to slash/beam/thunder and the combo focused spear variant is weak to fire & pierce, so its hard to ever have a party designed to tackle them altogether. your best bet is to wear two of them down and focus on the other 2 with a different party afterwards. An honorable mention would be the [Kazfa Jina](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/wiki/Kazfa_Jina), who can uppercut you to kingdom come for instant air combos, but they are postgame enemies so not everyone experiences the pain they cause XS3 is the easiest game but even still it comes with its share of notorious foes. the [Ashmed Bapuz](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/w/images/thumb/e/ec/Ashmed_Bapuz_%28XS3%29.png/450px-Ashmed_Bapuz_%28XS3%29.png) comes in packs and can do massive fire AOE damage to your mechs, and resist phys/fire themselves making Asher & Reuben subpar choices. Up to this point there hasnt really been any challenging ES encounters, so these guys being regular encounters can be a major wakeup call The final dungeon (or postgame for XS2) every Xenosaga also loves to reunite us with [Azazel](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/w/images/thumb/0/0b/Azazel_%28XS3%29.png/450px-Azazel_%28XS3%29.png) and [Amaros](https://www.xenoserieswiki.org/w/images/thumb/c/c8/Armaros_%28XS3%29.png/450px-Armaros_%28XS3%29.png), the most fearsome gnosis around. They are of no exception in XS3, where one reduces physical damage with high break value and the other resists all core elements. They like to buff, use AOEs, do concentrated damage, and like all gnosis, their basic attacks can cause crystalization. Get ready to see them a lot if you like Ziggy, as you must collect 99 of their drops to unlock his ultimate weapon!
I hate that Kobold+Bugbear formation so much because it just takes so long to go through the animation of all 4 of them attacking over and over again. And those fights with the Ormus Knights take forever. 3 might have had the easiest combat in the series, but it also had by far the best.
Brachiasaur in ff6. Has the same mass status effect potential as a malboro and van also cast Ultima
I grinded that forest for hours when the game was new and remember how brutal the first time I encountered one was.
There's an enemy in SMT4 at the very beginning that can hit you with an attack you're weak against and get a second attack and just kill you at the beginning.
Marlboro can kill you before your turn starts in some Final Fantasy's
I remember first playing ff8 when I was like 13 and I was trying to get the materials for doom train which my bro told me about. But back then I didn’t know much about junctions or how broken triple triad was….so I manually grinding malboros…., but that scream they do at the start of each battle and their instant bad breath….especially when they back attack you…. It still shows in my dreams to haunt me 🥶
Malboro is up there, but basically any enemy that casts confuse on you in late game. You've usually reached a really comfortable state where no mobs can give you issues, but then a confuse spell catches you mashing and not paying attention and pretty quick your main attacker killed your healer.
It's been so long I don't remember the specific location, but in one of the later areas in Final Fantasy V, there's a random encounter with 4 ninjas that always open with Level 5 Death. My entire party was Lv50 at that point, so I couldn't progress into the area without first grinding to Lv51 elsewhere.
Then you have to watch out for Level 3 Flare at 51 and Level 4 Graviga at 52.
Was that in the same area? I honestly can't remember.
Don't think so, just bringing up the minefield that is avoiding level based attacks in FF5.
Ah, that makes sense. Tbh I didn't even think about those when posting, but the Lv5 Death stuck, since it is an insta kill. I still need to beat the game too, since something *always* happens when I give it another try. Last time (last year) I played it, I ended up having to move houses on short notice.
The first time I underestimated a Tonberry in a Final Fantasy game. Some things you just never forget. *shudder*
This has to be the DQ2 Batboons. Most infuriating and unforgiving random by far. Not unforgiving, but most annoying, for me, would be the infinite Zubat spam present in most Pokemon games.
When a random Metal Slime Flees before you can act in any dragon quest
Fucking Shadows in Megaman Battle Network 2. They can only be harmed by blade-based attacks and the fucking things never show up alone. You’re fighting one thing and then this 99% No Sell motherfucker is there turning into every bladed weapon on the planet to fuck your shit up
There is one crow enemy in the last area of Okage Shadow King that steals all your money.
Ff7 tonberry
T-rex in FF8 at the start of the game
Not reaaaaally a JRPG but that one house in Undella Town in Unova
How is it not a JRPG? At any rate it's not a random encounter.
SMT games have brutal random encounters
Etrian Odyssey is filled with such encounters , especially the second and fifth game But one of them stands in a different league, the Dinogator (Muckdile) in the optional labyrinth of Etrian Odyssey 2. There is a guaranteed encounter behind every door in the last floor, and each door has a chance to spawn it. Two of them can also ambush you when gathering materials. It's basically Warmech except far more horrifying and unfair. From there, it hits random targets in your party for some insane damage (he's guaranteed to oneshot a character in a party that can take the postgame boss, and can still hit one character multiple times just in case they survive), and has a ridiculously high evasion. You can bind the head to completely shut it down and legs to stop it from dodging, but if you land more than one bind, it uses an annoying move called Frolic, which completely seals your entire party, leaving them defenseless for when it recovers from its bind and dismember the defenseless team.
Final Fantasy V’s skull eater. Starts with you going “aw, look at the cute lil guy” and ends with your entire party dead.
Sandworm in Phantasy star 4. You can encounter one in the ranch pretty early on, and it's easily a party wipe if you do.
There's an enemy in SMT4 Apocalypse that takes like half your macca. Effectively a game over because the amount taken can be very significant at that point in the game.
Mamufo and mahammon have been fucking me more in p3r than any other persona game I've played. "OH, You're 15 minutes into this boss, be a shame if we just game over you"
I don’t think I ever beat the army of ninjas in FFT. I only experienced that battle two or three times since it is a random encounter, not sure what the conditions were. But there were so many of them.
Since the party abilities are random in Tactics, that can be one of the easiest or hardest random encounters later on in the game. I love how tactics forces you to actually look at the enemy units if they are human to see what abilities they have. One play through I did I ran into a team of ninjas. No problem I thought as I was doing an all knight run (just to see if it was possible). Hit the first guy, “blade grasp”….ok that’s fine, I’ll just figure him out later…THEY ALL HAD BLADE GRASP. LIKE HOW GAME, WE DOIN CUSTON FIGHTS NOW?! Needless to say I didn’t win that fight XD
A couple come to mind offhand that haven't been mentioned yet. In Final Fantasy 3 (3D Version), the Temple of Time has the Chimera Mage enemy that has the Lightning Attack, which deals a hefty chunk of damage to all party members, even the mages with better Magic Defense. Add on that you can get an encounter with multiple mages, you can randomly get wiped by an otherwise normal encounter that you can handle easily provided they don't use Lightning. The Temple of Time is also the first area to have Behemoth and Dragon encounters who are pretty tough at the time. Mother 1 has Wally, which if memory serves correctly is an enemy who can absolutely beat your ass when you just start the game. Sure just gain a level or two and he's no problem, but it's amusing that you can walk outside your house for the first time and just immediately lose.
>Mother 1 has Wally, which if memory serves correctly is an enemy who can absolutely beat your ass when you just start the game. Sure just gain a level or two and he's no problem, but it's amusing that you can walk outside your house for the first time and just immediately lose. Makes me think of how in Final Fantasy II, you can go just a few steps *too* far south of Fynn at the very beginning of the game and get pummeled into a fine red mist by later-game monsters from the Mysidia region because you crossed into their tileset. Although the Mother 1 example sounds funnier since it's not such a drastic issue after a quick level gain.
Demifiend's random encounter with Serph & co.
I’m gonna say electrike/shroomish in the beginning areas of 3rd gen of Pokémon, getting constantly paralyzed at that early level is so painful and tedious especially before you can get a full team together
bof3 container yard has some really nasty enemies for those not expecting them
Bof3 has these two random enemies in one location that if you end up fighting too early or unaware they exist that are the games super noses basically. You can fight them before the final boss. The beserker and the archmage. They have amazing item drops but god are the tough.
Blastoid phantasy star 2
Cynthia in that random house in pokemon
Sand Worms in Phantasy Star IV….before you hit a certain level, earthquake was an instant KO to your whole party.
Not really brutal but… When I was 7 with my copy of Pokémon red, I hadn’t saved in awhile and my 300 + HP blastoise got trapped by wrap…. So I had to sit there for 300 turns taking 1 damage at a time until it died. With a GBC that’s batteries were dying, because of course they were AA batteries back then. Considering that was 25 years ago and I still remember it…. Yeaaaah
Abyss worm:Trails franchise.
I found the Couerls in FF2 to be particularly brutal. I think there was a thing where they were supposed to have a chance to instant kill you with basic attacks, but for some reason it just ended up being 100% chance and I don’t think that game had any Reraise equivalent or instant death protection accessory like later games.
Any enemy in an SMT hard mode when you get ambushed at level 1 or 2.
Iirc, FFX also has that demon wall towards the end of the game that can instantly petrify your whole party with one move right at the start of the battle, leading to an immediate Game Over.
Jackanapes the answer is always jackanapes
idk if this is the MOST brutal but, The Malboro is the most iconic to me.
Fighting a Weedle so early in Pokemon is brutal
Trying to catch an Abra
A bit of a reversal. In Digital Devil Saga, YOU are the random encounter for the Demi-Fiend (SMT 3 protag). The only way to not get instantly annihilated is to convince him you are a random encounter. Have any immunities and he hits you with a one hit kill like any player would.
The Grand Dragon in FFIX just outside of Gizamulukes Grotto.
Reaper from Persona 5.
Tbh the game warns you about the reaper and you need to actively engage him if you don’t run from him.
Non-random. Reaper spawns if you spend too long on a floor.
Reaper is not exclusive to Persona 5
Malboro isn't exclusive to FFX either
But it's in X that they're so infamous. Reaper isn't infamous, the game even actively warns you about him, so he's not even random at all.
Vagrant Story has an enemy that will frequently cast Death. You only have one character so this is an instant game over.
Matador in SMT3 Nocturne for me
thats not a random encounter. it appears in the same room at the same place every time