Boss fights are supposed to be the most challenging battle in the game, which often requires all the skills and resources you have been acquiring over the course of the game. However, sometimes the developer just overkills it and makes the fight way longer than it needs to be.
In this 2025 updated article, we list out some of the longest boss fights ever in video games history, including a couple of additions from newer titles and classics that still hold up. Times are based on average player experiences, high-level play, and historical records.
12 – Melbu Frahma (The Legend of Dragoon)
The epic finale of this PS1 RPG classic features Melbu Frahma across four distinct phases interspersed with seven "generations" that trigger lengthy cutscenes and environmental shifts on the Moon. Mastering the precise timing of the Addition combo system is essential amid strong defenses, instant-kill attacks like Dragoon Block System, and escalating difficulty, turning a 20-30 minute base fight into upwards of an hour of pure stamina testing.
11 – Bahamut (Final Fantasy XVI)
A 2023 standout now iconic in 2025, this cinematic Eikon clash pits Clive's Ifrit against Dion's Bahamut in a multi-phase spectacle shifting from hack-and-slash to beat 'em up and intense bullet-hell sequences across skies, space, and atmospheric voids. Destructive spells like Zettaflare and Megaflare demand perfect parries and endurance, lasting nearly an hour in one of the series' most visually intense and replayable fights.
10 – The Immortal One (Lost Odyssey)
The first boss to kick off this list is The Immortal One from a lesser-known RPG named The Lost Odyssey. This game is more or less a traditional Japanese RPG, with players forming parties, go on an adventure and fight bosses. The only thing that’s wrong about The Immortal One is his imbalanced HP value comparing to the strongest attacks of the player. Even with a high-level team (recommended 60-70), you would have to chip away at his health over and over until the end using skills like Divide and Reversa. The clunky menu and slower animation do not really help – you would need over an hour to beat this boss, with secret bonuses for under 30 turns.
9 – Nyx Avatar (Persona 3)
Persona 3 Reload (2024 remake) keeps this classic intact: the Nyx Avatar has 14 phases, each with different strengths and weaknesses and a separate health bar (preventing Armageddon one-shots). If you are unlucky, your various attacks could be nullified, absorbed or even reflected back. The damage of the previous 13 phases are decent, but at her last phase, you would be greeted with a big surprise. The last form has a special attack named Night Queen (under Moonless Gown), which inflicts random effects including charm. If one of your party members is charmed, they might even heal her back to full HP. Clears take 45 minutes to over an hour, or more on higher difficulties.
8 – Abyssion (Tales of Symphonia)
Not only is this guy hard to fight, but it also takes forever to gather the required items to fight him. Those items are called Devil’s Arms, and they are scattered all over the game world, with each being a quest or boss fights. The reason that Abyssion is such an annoying boss is that he is able to scale based on your party and even copy your spells to use against you—120,000+ HP that grows tougher with better gear. Because of that, the better your party is, the harder the fight would get. If you manage to retrieve all 8 needed items, it is best to prepare before turning them in, as the boss fight would begin immediately and would take 45 minutes to over an hour to complete, especially on Mania.
7 – Yiazmat (Final Fantasy XII)
The Final Fantasy Series is famous for some of the most amazing bosses in the video game world… and some of the worst, most tedious ones too. Yiazmat is the most tedious boss in the game, with 50,112,254 HP, which would take quite some time for your party to cut down. The worse part, however, is his second phase when under fifty percent HP: all your attacks would be reduced to 6,999 damage, which would make the fight much longer than you expected. You need to be careful when fighting him as well – he frequently cast a spell that recovers 100% of his total HP pool via Balefire, which would effectively reset the fight. You would definitely need more than an hour of constantly playing to beat this guy, assuming you never let him heal—low-level runs can exceed 8 hours.
6 – Boss Rush/Yami (Okami)
Okami’s final boss is pretty unique, as it would summon all the bosses you ever faced in the game for you to fight a second time. And there are a lot of them—around 15 rematches with no breaks. Once you have fought and defeated all the bosses in the game a second time, Yami would appear to fight you with her various forms, including 8 elemental orbs and chainsaw attacks. While this fight is not too hard or complicated, you would have to fight constantly for like two or three hours, battling fatigue in this watercolor marathon.
5 – The End (Metal Gear Solid 3)
This is probably the only fun fight in this list, despite the time it would take to beat the guy. The End is a sniper that would constantly stalk you throughout the game. Equipped with a gun that shoots tranquilizer darts, he would pretty much appear out of nowhere to ruin your day in a vast 5km² jungle arena with dynamic weather, camouflage, and stamina management. The hard part is to find the guy – and when you face him, it would be a super hard challenge of patience and stealth. It usually takes about two to three hours to beat the guy, or alternatively, wait one full week in-game for the 100+ year-old to perish naturally.
4 – Adamantoise (Final Fantasy XV)
Similar to the first boss in this list, Adamantoise comes equipped with nothing but an ultra-high HP pool—over 5 million. It would take a lot of patience to bring his health down, as even if you are maxed level and gear with Ultima Blade warp-strikes, the fight would last for about three to four hours. The original plan was for this boss to last 15 hours (or up to 72 real-time hours unoptimized!), however. At least defeating him would give you really good drops like the Squid Shield, unlike the other bosses who are just additional challenges.
3 – Pandemonium Warden (Final Fantasy XI)
The first Final Fantasy MMO, Final Fantasy XI, comes with some of the most powerful bosses in the series. At the time it was released, Warden was the game’s ultimate challenge. The first clan who tried to defeat it spent about 18 hours only to give up afterward (players literally vomiting from exhaustion!). After a while, Square Enix finally decided to tone down the difficulty – along with a two hours despawn timer to force the player to defeat the boss in only two hours. The toned-down version still sported a big health bar along with 20 different forms, but it's trivial now with iLv gear.
2 – Absolute Virtue (Final Fantasy XI)
Yet another boss from the first Final Fantasy MMO, Absolute Virtue is pretty much the final boss of the game. The average amount of time that players have to spend to defeat the thing is about thirty hours pre-nerfs, with the developers trying to patch out any method to defeat the thing as they see fit (including exploits after 36-hour attempts). After a wave of bad press about artificial difficulty, the stats of the boss were scaled down, and the previously mentioned 2 hours limit is also imposed post-Jailer of Love. Along with the level limit for players getting increased from 75 to 99, the boss fight has become easier nowadays, clearable in under 2 hours.
1 – Yggralith Zero (Xenoblade Chronicles X)
This is a world boss that requires the participation of every single player in the game to take down – it has 12 massive health bars (effective millions of HP), and each time its defeated would remove one bar. Getting to fight Yggralith is not an easy thing to get done either, as it usually takes several months to spawn atop Kw'arah Villa. Taking the thing down would usually take from five hours to a week of server-wide organized play in the original, and remains a high-RP squad grinder in the 2025 Definitive Edition with new content.
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