10 Video Game Bosses That Made You Cheat To Win
How else were you going to beat Dante?? #devilmaycry #DMC #gaming
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00:00So I think it's fair to say that if you're into the medium of video games, then you, my friend,
00:04love a good boss battle, something that pushes you to your limits and sometimes a little bit
00:09beyond there, and offers up refreshing and new experiences as a little bit of a break
00:13from the regular gameplay. But equally, as much as we can love them, we can sometimes
00:18absolutely hate bosses that are utterly cheap, unfair, and played downright dirty.
00:23Well, you know what? We're going to flip the tables on them today. As I'm Jules,
00:26this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Video Game Bosses That Made You Cheat to Win.
00:3210. The Computer Controlled Players – Mario Party 1
00:36Now, in theory, the CPU players in a game of Mario Party should operate as totally individual
00:41figures. They're intended to emulate human players, after all. So you'd obviously expect
00:45them to mostly just look out for themselves, like a competitive game would entail. Only,
00:49if you play this game for long enough, you start to see that things are a little bit more suspicious.
00:54The AI players always seem to… win certain mini-games. But maybe that's just my paranoia,
00:59right? I mean, they clearly wouldn't make the AI unbeatable at mini-games when they're 90%
01:04of the game, right? Wrong, my friend, because these robots are made to be better than you.
01:10And yes, it's okay to be mad at that fact. In the first game especially, the AI is literally
01:15capable of pushing buttons faster than your controller can physically register them.
01:19This is especially true for the god-awful mini-games that require you to rotate the
01:23joystick with your palm, since you could literally tear the skin off your hand
01:26if you did it too fast. Whereas the computer, well, it's got no hands, and thus no issues.
01:32As such, nobody can blame you for almost definitely forming a sketchy and also sort
01:36of unfair alliance with other human players against the robotic threat.
01:40Sacrifices have to be made, after all.
01:429. Every Opponent
01:45Godzilla – Destroy All Monsters Melee
01:48When the AI does things that qualify as cheating, it's not exactly immoral to
01:52exploit this to your own benefit, right? Even if it does only create an unfair playing field
01:57that is instead in your favour. And this is exactly the case for a game known as Godzilla –
02:02Destroy All Monsters Melee. In it, the AI suffers from a rather bad case of omnipotence,
02:08as it's able to know where items are without being within viewing range of them,
02:12and automatically runs to collect them. While this is absolutely bogus,
02:16it is easy to use against it. By running in the opposite direction to your foe,
02:20you can get it stuck on the edge of the screen, and thus it's unable to get the precious item.
02:25And since it keeps running to pick up said item, you can use this time to just wail on it,
02:30throwing whatever it is nearby to mess up its day. Throwing a building at a stuck opponent
02:34isn't exactly an incredibly moral fighting tactic, but you know what,
02:38the AI started this war of cheating, you're just ending it.
02:418. Cheating the Cheater
02:44Digimon Digital Card Battle
02:46Digimon Digital Card Battle introduces a cheating AI by having your arch enemy literally hack the
02:52game in order to get some OP cards every time. However, hilariously, you can actually play this
02:57in your favour. Analog Man can cheat by hacking to get specific cards, but you can also cheat by
03:03using the hacking card to swap his buff Digimon's health with that of your own monsters, so long as
03:09they're a lower level. This isn't exactly a trouble either, as his monsters are usually so
03:13powerful that you likely won't ever have to worry about yours being of a higher level.
03:17Admittedly, this isn't exactly the same type of cheating as you'll find in other games on this
03:21list, as the hacking card is totally legitimate and not obtained by skullduggery, and Analog Man's
03:26whole shtick is that he's hacked his way in to fight you in the first place. But it is fun to
03:31see that cheating against an also-cheating CPU boss is such a well-established trope that games
03:36like this almost parody it in a strange, meta sort of way. Were this game to have the same kind of
03:42rep that the Pokemon card game did, this battle would likely be infamous. As it is, it's still
03:47entertaining to feel like you're caught in something of a hacking battle against a really
03:50dangerous rogue. 7. MK Walkers
03:54Mortal Kombat 3 It goes without saying that the highest
03:57difficulty level in a fighting game is pretty much always going to be the most devilishly tricky one.
04:02This is especially true for the Mortal Kombat series, which coined the term
04:06MK Walkers to describe the crazy challenging top difficulty the series' CPU possessed.
04:12In order to make battles more troublesome, the AI's reaction time is simply improved
04:16by incredible amounts, meaning that they can do basically perfect blocks and attacks all the time,
04:21since the speed that they can realise what to do is almost infinitely faster than you are.
04:26So, how did players combat the cruelty of combat? Well, in most games, you'd need to learn to
04:31outsmart and outmanoeuvre your enemy, except for Mortal Kombat 3. In the third instalment,
04:36your enemy had an indecipherable weakness – uppercuts. Thus, you can either painstakingly
04:41develop tactics by being brutalised by various robots, or instead just uppercut them into
04:46oblivion. Now, it's a tactic that would be slated if you used it against a human player,
04:50but it feels a little bit less cruel to use against a ruthless robo-opponent.
04:546. Car Troubles – Simpsons Hit & Run
04:58Since a whole lot of people played Simpsons Hit & Run when they were young or otherwise getting
05:02into games, it might seem like this was where the difficulty of the game arose. As anyone who's
05:07recently played it again can tell you, this is not the case. There are just certain portions of this
05:11game that are really, really hard. This is doubly true for the races that you can do in each and
05:16every level to get yourself a new car. These are basically designed to be a huge trouble for you
05:20to beat as you race against the car that you would unlock in the next level, which is often
05:24infinitely superior to the one you currently have. Now, it's at this point where many guides would
05:28recommend that you wait until you're a level or two past this mission before you actually play it,
05:33otherwise it can often be a lesson in humility. But we're not ones to wait around, so of course,
05:38some tactics that weren't exactly kosher in any other driving game suddenly became almost
05:42a necessary evil if you wanted to beat these races when you first got to them. Getting other cars
05:46stuck on environments, taking shortcuts that weren't actually meant to be shortcuts, anything
05:51is game when you've been demolished in a race against Marge Simpson for the umpteenth time.
05:56Eggs for Bart, indeed.
05:575. Dante – Devil May Cry 4
06:00Now, many games have uber-hard, extra-difficult modes that brave players will battle their way
06:05through, and Devil May Cry 4 has perhaps one of the hardest of these outside games that actively
06:10market themselves on being difficult, that is. And there's a reason that their most difficult
06:14mode is called Dante Must Die, and that's because Dante will provide you one of your
06:18most challenging fights. And that's because regular attacks just don't seem to ever get
06:22through to this guy. You can deflect, dodge, and parry, but being able to actually hit him
06:26without being blocked is seemingly impossible. And while players have beat Dante on this
06:31difficulty without using more sketchy methods, there is a popular way to cheese this boss.
06:36Should you grow tired of suffering, you can merely just parkour your way onto the altar
06:40in this room. Dante, in all of his infinite wisdom, will attempt to jump up, only for you
06:44to get an opening attack to him, swatting him back down. Then just rinse and repeat this until
06:49his untimely demise, leaving you either relieved to finally get through this fight, or a little
06:54ashamed of how you did it.
06:554. The Rhinock Race – Spyro, Year of the Dragon
06:59Now, the race for the dragon egg in Spyro, Year of the Dragon isn't impossible by a long shot.
07:04However, it can be really dang annoying, as your enemies are able to use their speed boosts
07:08whenever they want, and automatically know their way around the course, whereas you have to build
07:13up your boost via tricks. And since this isn't the most integral part of the game, it's pretty
07:17reasonable to just want to get past it as quick as possible, and to get back to the fun levels
07:21and boss fights. So, instead of repeating the race after you lose it, you can take a slightly
07:26different tactic. If you instead walk to one of the boost panels and just stand on it for a couple
07:31of minutes, you can stack up the boost that you'd otherwise have to work to get. As such, you can
07:36literally then go into the race and just constantly boost your way around the entire thing, making it
07:40so that your enemies have zero chance of ever catching up with you, let alone passing you.
07:453. Most Late Game Opponents – Yu-Gi-Oh! Rachef of Destruction
07:50In Yu-Gi-Oh! Rachef of Destruction, you face dragons, demons, and ancient Egyptian deities.
07:55You also face some downright cheating bastards, because nothing apparently is ever easy,
08:00and some people care a little bit too much about a card game. I say this as I look over
08:04at my Magic the Gathering collection right now. However, presumably, you also care about winning
08:08your card games, because when you realise that the later enemies you face will know what card
08:13you've put down even when they're face down, you're likely going to be a bit more than peeved.
08:17But you can game the system, by just creating a deck custom built to sabotage the fact that
08:22the enemy can see the stars and stats of your monsters. By using cards that appear weak but
08:27have abilities that automatically kill whatever enemy attacks it, you can strategically take out
08:32your enemy's side of the board, since they aren't able to read abilities quite the same as they are
08:36stars and stats. Again, it's not entirely immoral, as the minute you realise that your enemy can
08:41basically read your cards, it's a natural reaction. But it does change the dynamic of
08:46these fights from desperately holding your own against powerful enemies, to just gaming the
08:50system. 2. Level 9 CPU
08:53Super Smash Bros Melee
08:55Showing someone a high level CPU playing Super Smash Bros is basically a simple way of showing
09:00how easy it would be for them to eventually take over the world. Trying to duke it out with the AI
09:05is an experiment in suffering. It can dodge all of your attacks perfectly, counter attack you
09:09ruthlessly, and just generally use the perfect reaction to whatever you try to throw at it,
09:13quicker than the blink of an eye. Basically, they're frustrating enough to combat that many
09:17players choose to take them down, via less legitimate means. Which isn't actually difficult
09:23to do, because these opponents are pretty easy to mess with once you have an idea of how they work.
09:28Almost every character in Melee has an underhanded way that you can deal with them,
09:32not even counting the regular sketchy methods like flying under the level until characters
09:36jump to their deaths trying to catch you. Though learning all of these mechanics almost legitimises
09:40using them, you're still learning how to cheat instead of learning how to fight. But there's only
09:45so many times that you can be curb stomped by Donkey Kong before you need to do whatever you can
09:49to win. 1. Dark Link
09:52Zelda II The Adventure of Link
09:54The early Legend of Zelda games are a great ancestor of most of the difficult games we
09:59have to this day. This is exemplified in Dark Link, one of the most genuinely challenging boss
10:04fights in the franchise's history. He automatically attacks whatever you aren't guarding against,
10:09perfectly counters all of your attacks, and generally makes your life hell in that special
10:13way that only flawless AI reactions can. However, like most hard as nail bosses,
10:17players found a way to make this fight easy as hell with a cheesy exploit. As it turns out,
10:22if you go to the far left and duck, your evil doppelganger will just walk over to you without
10:26guarding, meaning that you can just hack away at his shins without ever having to worry about him
10:30blocking or launching a counter attack. Curling up in a ball and jabbing somebody doesn't exactly
10:35make for the most epic of battles, but your dignity has likely already taken a lot of hits
10:39by this point in the game, so you know what, we're gonna give this one a pass.
10:42And there we go my friends, those were 10 video game bosses that made you cheat to win. I hope
10:47that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
10:50section below. As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJ with a zero,
10:54or you can swing by Liv and Let's Dice where I do all of my streaming outside of work,
10:58and it'd be great to see you over there my friends. But before I go, I just want to say
11:02one thing, I hope you're treating yourself well with love and respect, not trying to cheat
11:05yourself out of that bit of self care, because it's very important to do that in our day to day,
11:10just taking some time out and realising that we are a massive ledge and we deserve the best
11:14things in life alright? And trust me, you do. Now go out there and absolutely smash it today
11:19my friend, I believe in ya. As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome,
11:23never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.