Top 5 Horrible Resident Evil Bosses

I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil lately. Well, in all honesty, I let my bf do most of the actual playing while I watch and we try to solve the puzzles (which are quite simple really) and scream together. I take over occasionally when we get stuck or he gets too frustrated, but he does most of the playing. Nevertheless, we've decided to play through the entire series, from the beginning to the end and so far we've gone through Resident Evil (PS), RE2 (PS), RE3:Nemesis (PS), RE: Code Veronica X (PS2), RE: Survivor (PS) and are currently playing RE: Zero (which I've played half way through before). Next up is the RE Remake for GC (which I've played through a couple of times) and then onward to the newer games like RE4, 5 and 6.

Since I've been spending so much time with these games, which also happen to be among my favorite game series all time, I thought I'd make some sort of post about it. I could make a post about why I love the RE universe so much, where the first game really is my all time favorite (although I actually prefer the remake), which games I like the most and why, and I might do that some day too. But instead I thought I'd make a post about some of the bosses in the game, specifically the most horrible bosses. The RE universe has a butt-load of bosses, most of them are decent, some are lame (a giant moth, really?) and some obviously harder than others. By horrible, I don't necessarily mean overly hard or scary, but in some way really annoying. I'm sure you can all guess at least one boss on this list.

Since this is a list of bosses I can unfortunately not add some of the more annoying mobs, like the Crimson Heads from the Remake of the first RE and the Hunters from various games. This list will also just hold bosses from the classic games, the ones mentioned above, simply because I haven't played the newer ones yet (and maybe it's suitable considering the newer ones took a different direction). So let's get started.

5. Gravedigger (RE Nemesis)
The Gravedigger actually occurs in Code Veronica as well, or at least a similar version of it, but then it's called something else. The fight I am thinking of in Nemesis you don't even have to kill it, all you have to do is push two buttons to open the locks to a ladder and run away, sounds simple enough, right? No! To get to the buttons, you have to run dangerously close to the holes from which the Gravedigger emerges, and you literally only have a split second to push the button before he comes out and starts chewing on you. Once he's out, it's almost impossible to get to the button and you have to lure him away and try it again. This is true when you need to leave through the door as well, meaning you can die only because your character isn't facing the exact inch it needs to face to be able to interact with the ladder. Just watch the video and you'll see what I mean.

4. Nemesis (RE Nemesis)

You knew this bastard was going to be on this list, it's impossible to make a list like this and not include what is possibly one of the most annoying bosses in the series. Now, Nemesis isn't actually that difficult, the fact he's so annoying is because he refuses to stay dead. I've lost count on the amount of times he pops out like a jack in the box, screaming STARS!, that horrible music starts and he comes charging after you. Those times he's not even killable, trying to do so is just a waste of ammo. At best you knock him down long enough for you to be able to escape, but trust me - he'll be back. Every now and then he comes at you as a proper boss, and at those times it's not that bad actually. He's difficult but not too difficult and those encounters are generally decently made boss fights. Every single time you end up wasting him, thinking that's the end of him, but of course you'd be very wrong. He adds a stressful element to RE Nemesis that I am sure the creators are very proud of, and personally I can't decide whether I think it's great or horrible. Since he's on this list, it's probably the latter.

3. William Birkin, Second (Dog) Form (RE2)

You fight Birkin several times during RE2, and the first time you fight him he's pretty bad ass, the last time you fight him he's just weird. The second time you fight him however, he's turned into this dog like thing and this fight is annoying for many reasons. First of all, you fight him in a really narrow and enclosed space, where the locked camera angles of the older RE games really do their best to make sure you don't have any clue as to where the boss is or where you need to aim. Furthermore, the Birkin-dog is very fast, jumps around all over the place and if he gets to you and starts chewing you, you go from fine to danger at best. More likely you're one shot.

2. Alexia - Queen Ant (RE Code Veronica X)

The Queen Ant, actually a transformed Alexia Ashford, has a couple of phases as is a common theme for the bigger bosses in the RE games. The Queen Ant actually has two forms that are really annoying, although none of them are overly hard. First off, she threatens to kill Chris' sister Claire, and you have around 1 second to save her. This is simple, just shoot Alexia in the face. But the first time you do this fight you don't actually catch on quick enough and by the time you figure it out, you're way too late. Alexia has killed Claire and it's game over for you. That's such a mean thing to put into a game. Shooting Alexia will have her transform into her first proper form. This form isn't too hard, but it's very annoying for two reasons. She keeps spouting little insects that bite you. If you don't continously kill them, they will basically hump you into a corner and kill you, simply because you won't be able to shoot anything while you're being bitten.

Secondly, Alexia doesn't seem to have a regular hp bar in this form, but rather you need to shoot her as much as possible. If you have a hard hitting but slow weapon like the Magnum or the Shotgun, you're worse off than if you have a faster but weaker weapon like the sub-machine gun. There is no way to know this except by trial and error, and most people will equip their usual go-to weapons for boss killing which only makes this boss harder. And those little things are so very, very annoying. But it gets worse. For her last form, she starts to fly around the room throwing fire at you. Avoiding the fire is quite simple, but now you're supposed to shoot her down using the Rocket Launcher in the vicinity. Trying to target her is almost impossible, because not only does she fly all around the room, she also actually dodges your shots when you fire at her. That means you're only chance at hitting her is when she's close enough so she can't dodge. To shoot her you have to aim with the Rocket Launcher, which means you can't move or see anything since you're looking through the scope, which by the way is a bastard trying to control. I don't know, maybe we were just particularly bad at this, but this boss is definitely one of the most annoying ones we encountered so far.


1. Tyrant on a plane (RE Code Veronica X)
In Code Veronica X, not only do you have to deal with what probably is the most annoying character of any RE-game, Steve Burnside, but also what probably is one of the most annoying bosses of any RE-game - the Tyrant on the plane. When you get to this point, it's quite possible that you don't have any heavy weaponry and/or larger amount of healing still on you, in which case you're basically screwed (almost, I'll get to that). This boss is on this list partially because he's annoying, but mostly because he is damn difficult. There is no way to just kill him, you need to wound him enough to be able to throw him out of the plane using the crate-launcher in the cargo hold. To do this you need to shoot him, a lot and position him in the right place, in the middle and in the back of the plane. The cargo hold itself is tiny, the Tyrant will charge at you if you're too far away and slam you down if you're too close. He knocks you down from charging at which point you have a couple of seconds to get up and out of the way before he slams you. If he does slam you, you're basically DEAD. And the knocking and flailing about he does, does a lot of damage to you.



When me and the bf got to this boss in the game we had basically exhausted most of our stronger weaponry and had only three or so healing items. We had something like 12 grenade shots, which is way too little to do any good damage to this boss. We tried fighting him so many times, failing and failing. Eventually we took a break from the game and none of us had the energy to pick it up for several weeks. We had basically given up on the game, thinking that we would probably have to replay it and save some better items to be able to progress, when I read a tip on the internet. If you were out of the stronger weaponry, your best shot would be to knife the sucker down. Yes you read that right, the Combat Knife turned out to be our savior against this mofo. We tried it and managed to down him on the second or third try, unbelievable, or so we thought. But I still shudder at the thought of this fight, it's horribly difficult and unfair if you're unlucky enough to not have saved your very strongest weapons.

It'll be interesting to see what bosses RE 4, 5 and 6 hold in store, maybe I'll return with another list then.