Boss Battles...with stipulations!

I had this old Zatch Bell Mamodo Fury game (based off the anime) and I rematched all the bosses on Hard and attempted to get an A rank on them all to unlock everything I hadn't yet. There was one boss in particular, Belgim E.O, who was ridiculously challenging even on Easy Mode. It took me about 50 tries to get an A on easy against him and well over 100 on Medium. To get an A rank in general, you had to not only defeat the boss quickly, but your health has to be around 90% or above otherwise your chances of ending up with a B rank rise significantly. The thing with this boss in particular was that his weakest attack was insanely fast and could deal up to a massive 70% of health. Another one of his moves made projectiles fly all over the place and stun you, while basically every other one of his moves were OHKOs. I somehow managed to get an A rank after too many attempts to count by avoiding getting damaged due to a glitch that made him get stuck in one corner. Ever since then, I was never able to repeat the glitch, so once I got the A rank I called it good and never battled him again. <<

 

I've been playing a lot of MH4U lately, and every new large hunt feels like a boss battle. That said, sometimes I rush into the quest and accidentally leave my palicoes at home or have the entirely wrong weapon equipped. Sometimes I would go forward anyhow to these bosses and try to prevail, and only occasionally I would succeed. In MH games at least, adequate boss battle preparation is everything. I have no idea how some people do armorless hunts.

As far as intentionally challenging myself goes, I just finished Majora's Mask on 3-heart mode (well, last form of the final boss 75% beaten, but soon enough it will be true), and that deviation from the norm proved to be very difficult. 3-hearts, no sword upgrade, and no extra bottles means no sidequesting at all, so the game becomes 40% pre-dungeon, 40% dungeon, 20% boss battling. I thought the game would be a cakewalk, but starting in Ikana Canyon bosses got crazy hard. I'm talking each attack does 2 hearts, I only have 3 and a single fairy. 4 hits and you're out.