Top 10 Hardest Mario Bosses

The Top Ten
1 Bowser X - Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story

No contest, Bowser X is the hardest boss the Italian plumber has ever faced. What, he isn't a plumber anymore? Well he's always a plumber in my eyes, you can't stop me! Back on topic, let's list off the reasons why Bowser X destroys the other fights in the Mario series in terms of sheer difficulty. Let's start with the fact that Bowser has 7,000 HP, and you're on a turn limit. While the turn limit seems generous, with a maximum of 35 given to you, the other factors of this fight don't make it so forgiving. Firstly, Bowser X does insane damage, able to kill one of your bros in a few hits, sometimes he's able to one-shot you. And if Bowser X doesn't kill your other bro outright, you have to waste a turn reviving. Bowser also takes away your special items, which means you have to make as much use of them as possible. In other words, you need to have mastery on avoiding Bowser X's attacks (Which make Cackletta's Soul's attacks seem tame in comparison) and a mastery on each special attack's mechanics.
Or you could be like me and not care about it, I've got other games to play. Go ahead and be a sadist if you want, use the Challenge Medal while you're at it.

2 Cackletta's Soul - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

Cackletta's Soul is 100+/100 hard (and Mario & Luigi: Superstar saga is average to good).

The Shadow Queen is 100+/100 hard (and Paper Mario: The Thousand ear Door is bad).

Elder Princess Shroob is 100+/100 hard (and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time was mainly great).

Culex is 100/100 hard (and Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the 7 Stars is unbelievably great).

Bowser X is 100+/100 hard (and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is mainly bad).

Phantamanta is 100/100 hard (and Super Mario Sunshine is average to bad).

Bowser in the Sky is 74/100 hard (and Super Mario 64 on the N64 is beyond perfect/the DS version is average to good).

Bonetail is 100+/100 hard.

Tabuu is 96/100 hard on Easy, 100/100 hard on Normal, 100+/100 hard on Hard, 125+/100 hard on Very Hard and 150+/100 hard on Intense (and Super Smash Bros. Brawl is mainly perfect).

Fiery Gobblegut is 89/100 hard (and Super Mario Galaxy was a mainly average to good game).

Starts you off at 1 hp, and then spits a big energy ball towards you. It was really intimidating, and I died quite a bit. However, since I've owned that game for about 8 years, I could just kill it in a matter of 5 turns. The attacks that the soul have are really hard to time, such as when Cackletta freezes time, foreshadowing the altitude of the lasers shot by just a split second. All in all, harder than any boss I've faced in any Mario game, and I'm 1/2 through with Dream Team.

3 The Shadow Queen - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door The Shadow Queen is the overarching antagonist and final boss of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. She is widely considered one of the most difficult bosses in the Paper Mario series.

Oh my goodness... Seriously? What I did was give my self a WHOLE TON of jump power and used Vivian for veil when she was charged up... Easy fight but I will admit I died once... I find it irritating when you die because you Have to go through the Eteranal Cutscenes Of Doom again

A boss so powerful you have to correctly choose a perfect ratio of health, flower power, and badge power throughout the game to even have a chance at winning. If you don't, you will never win.

Without the help of the Shadow Siren Vivian, this boss is impossible. her attacks do so much damage! She can charge herself, making her even more devastating, and hit you, killing you almost instantly!

4 Culex - Super Mario RPG

Nothing falls even close. if more people have played legend of the seven stars, than this guy would be #1 by a huge margin. the fact that cackletta's soul, Bowser X, and Shadow queen are even close, let alone called harder than this guy shows how few people ever play legend of the seven stars. Bowser X is only hard because of the turn limit, but he is not bad if you get to level 55 with half decent stats and set, Shadow queen is actually decently hard, cackletta's soul is just get past first turn, eat max nuts, and don't suck.

Only reason why Culex isn't #1/2 is because not many have played that are on here...

Culex is crazy, unless you have lazy shell armor!

Putting Bouldergeist a few ranks above this is... Unbelievable!

Harder than hell. Took me like 50 times to beat him, but that guy with the lollipop in partners in time took me ages as well.

5 Elder Princess Shroob - Mario and Luigi Partners in Time

The elder princess shroob started out small, with a few irritating attacks, like football charge and fireball cannon. However, she heals.
The next form however, can kill you in a hit. You need to destroy the gold crown with copy flowers or trampolines, to be able to injure the main body. Use mix flowers to knock off the limbs. After an incredibly long and tedious battle, you have the choice: die, or have that massive beast die.

I remember struggling so hard with this boss first time I tried. I did not connect the fact that the gold crown on top of her head reduced the power of my attacks so drastically... That and its THREE consecutive boss fights.

At least in the NA release, the second phase has 3,000 HP, with an obnoxious gimmick that only lets you actually attack EPS for about 2 turns every 5+ turns! Not too bad if you knew there was a 3 stage boss battle coming up, and were prepared, but if you weren't, then good luck, especially if you run out of 1-ups, and are down to the babies...

6 Bonetail - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Bonetail should be stronger than Shadow Queen. It's much hard to beat him after going through 99 floors with stronger and stronger enemies. If you fail to beat him, you will have to go through the pit of 100 trials AGAIN!

Bonetail is about as difficult as Shadow Queen, the only real difficulty is just getting to him. I feel like people hate this because of the pressure the Pit of 100 puts on the player.

Bonetail can inflict every status ailment in the game on you with his breaths, has one of the few unblockable attacks, and you have to go threw 100 trials before him. Cackletta soul, shadow queen, and elder princess shroob are all hard, but he's just as hard

7 Bowser in the Sky - Super Mario 64

I worked so hard to defeat him in two days. The First and Second bomb throws are not too hard, though they can sap your power, and then Bowser turns the arena into a star. The best tactics to use are different from Fire Sea Bowser, and that is why it is so difficult. This is a great boss fight though, and I would love a remake of it in another game.

The most difficult Bowser: hard to avoid flames, harder to catch him by the tail, tedious to shoot him the bombs' right direction.

If you think this boss is hard try beating it with a Wii pro controller that the a button is messed up and the control pad barely WORKS!

8 Phantamanta - Super Mario Sunshine

Phantamanta in Sirena Beach is a giant manta ray that leaves behind electrical slime and splits into more rays every time you spray him. And the order of division is up to 6, with a cleft into 3 at the final stage, meaning that you will ultimately need to deal with ninety six little mantas to fight. Even worse, when only the small ones remain, they turn pink and actively chase you. And when going to refill FLUDD, you will find that the water pools are electrically charged.

The phantamanta is very hard to defeat, unless you stand on top of a tree. If you battle it alone, It splits up and attacks you from behind and all kinds of things like that. It is so hard to beat.

I I watched Bricks O Brian's gameplay of Super Mario Sunshine, and when he was fighting Phantamanta, Mario tripped over a wall into some murky water. He almost died!

9 Tabuu - Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Wait wait wait what! Number 12 tabuu can defeat all of the other bosses on this list in one blow that is if one of them is not just sonic in a disguse I mean really this needs to be number one in the top 10 hardest bosses tabuu was number one!

Tabuu should be number one, I died a lot and couldn't dodge his one attack were he gets those wings and practically uses dark pulse on you.

The boss was hard for me and it took me 10 attempts to defeat him.
In my list I think this should be number 3.

10 Smithy - Super Mario RPG

Smithy should be higher on the list than Bowser in the Sky. I could very easily beat Bowser in the Sky compared to Smithy.

The Contenders
11 Bouldergeist - Super Mario Galaxy

Now, you can argue the same for Cackletta's Soul being hard, but oh boy, here's a news flash. If you survive her first attack, you can just use a nut to heal yourself, making it a long and tedious fight that actually took me 30 minutes. However, you can't just get your 6 life back on a daredevil run, nope.

And here's the funny part, Bouldergeist was already a tricky boss, but now he's even harder with the fact that if you slip up, it's game over. I died about a whopping fifty times on this one boss until I finally overcame him.

Everyone has their own experiences, but let's face it, it was undeniably hard to beat, no doubt. We can't deny that, unless you're that guy who's like, "Noah, what are you talking about? I've been playing Mario since I was 2, and now I can't lose to anything in this game ever." And all that.

Coming from the Ghostly Galaxy which is located in the Kitchen, this boss does not dissapoint. He is overall my favorite boss in the series and might even be in the whole Mario franchise. This boss has the right amount of difficulty to make the game more interesting. His first phase is pretty straight forward. What you have to do is hit the bomb boos which he summons, at his rock body. After doing this three times you meet his second phase. Whats diffrent about this phase is that he has arms and now could do more moves using them. Most are his fist punch, growing rocks, and his hand slam. Normally you get 3 or 6 lives depending on the amount of star bits you have. But on daredevil you cannot decide. You will only have 1 and you will have trouble.

12 Antasma X - Mario and Luigi Dream Team

This boss was SUPER HARD! It's not every day where you have a boss that can take away your special attacks AND get several extra hits on you if he hurts you!

13 Dreamy Bowser - Mario and Luigi: Dream Team

This guy is hard! First you most likely would like to disable the arms. If you don't then your in trouble. The right arm makes sure that most of the time that you can't do damage to Bowser or his arm. The left arm is equally bad. Guess what. One second you have to players, the next you don't. He grabs Mario and Luigi and you can't use BP. Then even if you get those arms disabled, you got to beat Bowser himself. He can still use moves even with arms disabled like a hammer attack that You have a second to react and even you react correctly he still hits the other bro. Another attack where timing is everything so he shoots fireballs and then splits in two and shoots even more fireballs. Then where he runs at you and shoots 3 rays of fire. And don't you dare get me started on the minion attack. He spawns a bunch of his troops while he goes and eats which heals him tremendously and then the troops run at you and even if you dodge then Bowser Pounds the floor. Then that shy guy ship. again timing is everything. the shoot cannonballs you shoot back. So hard

14 Dark Bowser & Dark Star Core - Mario and Luigi - Bowser's Inside Story

Can't inhale the stupid Fawful spider unless you improve Bowser's speed a whole bunch throughout the game. Nice soundtrack, though.

Have most people forgotten this boss? It took me legitimately years to beat. Sure, after you beat them once, it gets easier, but that is only because I'm now a very experienced gamer. If tant firever but I must go to bed. ):

This boss would've been easy.
I simply had trouble inhaling the dumb Dark Star Core.

15 Fiery Gobblegut - Super Mario Galaxy 2

I rented Super Mario Galaxy 2 from my town's rental store. I did a great job getting through World 1. Then I came to the world's boss. You have to punch his red things (easier said than done!) But the part that I really struggle with is when he goes underground (peaceful, isn't it?) then he pops up right under you which is extremely hard to dodge! (DRAT!) I spent the last 2-3 days playing the game trying to beat him (which I didn't). CURSE YOU Bowser Jr. FOR HAVING SUCH A HARD BOSS TO BEAT (Even though Bowser Jr. is my favorite Mario character).

This boss is hard but I beat it twice.

He is tricky without the life shoot.

16 Fawful Express - Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

You're telling me I'm limited to using only Bowser's fire breath? That attack that uses the DS's horrible mic? Joy. Oh, and if I try to punch the hill golem instead of lighting it on fire, the boss will heal itself? Double joy. Not to mention that this fight has a time limit that basically asks you to play at least near perfectly or get a game over. I had more trouble with this boss than I did Daredevil Bouldergeist and Cackletta's Soul combined.

I remember a few years ago this boss gave me trouble because you can only make two mistakes and that is it. If you don't win quick enough, then you will fall off the cliff and die. And you can't punch the train because it is very low. So you have to burn it which means you can't crush the train.

The 3ds remake made this boss battle much easier as Nintendo removed the use of microphone support and now you tap Bowser on the touch screen at the right time. I even beat all the giant battles in the game including this one on my first attempt.

17 Shrewd Possessor - Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

I hate you ice monster. Even if I were to win in one try today, the pain you've caused over the years is too much to excuse. I love a good boss fight, but this one's not fun, out of place, and just plain frustrating.

It's so hard trying to shoot as his ice shields because it constantly spins!

Try it in the car. Then come back to me and tell me how hard it is to get three stars

18 Bowser Jr. - Mario and Luigi Dream Team Bowser Jr., or sometimes simply Jr., is a video game character who appears in Nintendo's Mario franchise as the secondary antagonist. He is the youngest son of the series' primary antagonist, Bowser.
19 Giant Baby Bowser - Yoshi's Island

And one of the best bosses ever. I love Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, one of the best Mario games ever for too many reasons!

What kind of a name is 'Giant Baby Bowser'?

20 Dark Bowser & Fawful - Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story

I've been stuck on Dark Bowser for over a year. Seriously, I'm not exaggerating. If it's taken me THIS long, only to get that far, I'm never going NEAR Cackletta's Soul.

High attack, high defense, moves that mess with your mind and take advantage of your instincts, and a timed 4th phase. This boss is hard.

I really hate his attacks. Plus, Fawful heals himself constantly.

21 Ludwig Von Koopa - New Super Mario Bros. Wii Ludwig Von Koopa is a villain in the Super Mario Franchise. He is the self-proclaimed leader of the Koopalings and has a pompous and arrogant personality. He is said to have all the powers of the other six Koopalings. He can clone himself, cause earthquakes, teleport, and shoot lightning bolts from his hands. He can also flutter. He was named after Ludwig Van Beethoven and both have similar hair... read more

Um don't mind the previous comment Ludwig is really hard and that was 3 years ago when I had bad grammar so yeah...

It's hard just getting to him in the final boss for world 7.

Very hard you are on three tiny platforms and he shoots like five fireballs at a time

22 Giant Bowser - New Super Mario Bros. Wii

The final fight with Bowser in New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the hardest final boss in the entire SERIES! In the second phase, Bowser grows humongous and chases you down the hallway, while shooting incredibly big fireballs! Later on, magma waves appear as well, so you will need to keep track of Bowser, his fireballs, the lava flows, and an already impossible platforming challenge, all at the same time!

I remember my siter and I were playing and my dad was watching. My sister and I played co-op and we stepped on the button and bowser was in the lava. I was thinking it wasn't over and my dad told me it was, I rescued the princess, but I really rescued that annoying drunk turd Kamok. He made a GIANT bowser taking over the whole screen and it took me and my sister a WHOLE DAY to beat him.

It's hard because you have to dodge attacks and do plat forming and make sure not to fall in the lava. How to make it harder: Don't use the Propeller Mushroom or bring along a friend or 2. Or 3.

23 Dark Star X - Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

The added fact that you have a limited time to beat him, and then the invincibility segment and the increased HP, Attack and defense just makes this boss a pain in the rear.

I have beat him many times. If you have leveled up a lot (me L57) it is as easy as Dino piranha.

Antasma X was way harder then this guy. It's only his stupid invincibility that makes him hard

24 Shadoo - Super Paper Mario

When you destroy yourself going down the Flopside pit of 100 trials and finally get down to the 100th floor ready to fight the boss the most annoying thing happens. He Makes You Go Down The Pit All Over Again! I'm not joking. Also you better stock up on items for his fight because he does lots of damage to you if you get hit.

The game was the best, the music was the best, the story was the best, and the bosses were the best. And by that I don't mean that they were the easiest.

You MUST be prepared! Each have 100 hp, with 10 attack, but mario's hammer, Luigi's high jump, and bowser's attacks all are 20 attack each. AND you have to go through the flopside pit of 100 trials TWICE.

25 Tower Power Pokey - Paper Mario Sticker Star

I hate this fight a lot he just keeps healing and healing and HEALING

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