Games Where You Can Debuff Bosses

Key Takeaways

• Etrian Odyssey and Bravely Default 2 showcase bosses vulnerable to status effects, unlike other RPGs.
• Emphasis on using status effects strategically is found in Tactics Ogre and Shin Megami Tensei
• Monster Sanctuary and Crystal Project require mastering status effects for successful gameplay.

You just picked up your favourite new game, a great RPG. You’ve been playing around with builds, making your way through all the random mobs. There’s some cool status effects you decide to build around. Ah, the boss is immune to them. All of them.

It’s the worst feeling, when the regular mobs are to weak to use status effects on, and then the bosses just aren’t affected by them. It feels like a betrayal to invest so much time into dedicated systems that serve almost no purpose. Well not every game is like that, and here are some that show you bosses are just as weak as everyone else.

10 Etrian Odyssey

The Etrian Odyssey games are Atlus’ push into pure dungeon-crawlers. They are joyful little games, though have rarely picked up as much steam in the West as they have back in Japan. That said, they do have one appealing trait that Atlus seems to quite enjoy – bosses that are susceptible to status effects.

The Etrian Odyssey games work on the basis that everyone can be affected by status effects, but also that they can gain immunity to them. So even though you can afflict a boss continually with powerful effects like paralysis, over-using it will just cause them to become immune.

9 Pokemon

It maybe seems a little silly to class Pokemon as a game that has bosses, just some of that high class trainers in the Pokemon League are exactly that. And you won’t be finding your way through a battle with them without some balanced movesets and a healthy dose of status effects.

Being able to put Cynthia’s Garchomp to sleep, or being able to burn a pokemon with high physical attack is just as essential to your survival as a powerful attack. That goes doubly so in Legends Arceus, where status effects play a big role in whittling down the most powerful of wild pokemon.

8 Final Fantasy 10

The Final Fantasy series has always been a bit back-and-forth on how it handles status effects, and even which ones are present. Final Fantasy 8 lets you junction status effects on your weapons so every hit has a 100% chance of inflicting Death. Still can’t use it on bosses though.

With Final Fantasy 10, the series underwent some dramatic changes, and the battle system was at the forefront. Returning to a more strictly turn-based style, long-term planning became more important. And in that sense, actually investing in status effects, poison especially, became a genuniely viable strategy.

7 Tactics Ogre

Tactics Ogre, which built the foundations of what Final Fantasy Tactics would become, has an incredibly large focus on status effects, and has a whole bevy of them that aren’t seen in most other games. How many other games have a Pain Aura and Leadened status effects?

The major focus on status effects in Tactics Ogre also necessitates you actually using more unconventional classes, since they mostly scale off your Mind stat. The sheer variety of effects means you actually have to use them, against regular enemies and bosses, to even survive.

6 Saga: Scarlet Grace

The Saga series is long and winding, containing many entries, spin-offs, and so on. And in those many games, they all handle status effects differently. While many of them tend to let you use status effects on bosses, Scarlet Grace deserves a special mention just for how baked into the experience they are.

Scarlet Grace ties each characters abilities to the gear they use, rather than inherent skills based on how they level up. This means you can very specifically build even your melee attackers around status effects, which can be freely applied to everyone. It gives you some great freedom for actually experimenting.

5 Chained Echoes

As has been the rush in the indie scene, there are many games that harken back to an older style of RPG that is much less common at the AAA level nowadays, and Chained Echoes is one of the finer examples. It also puts a big emphasis on status effects to really master its combat system.

While the status effects themselves aren’t anything special, it’s how they’re built into the system. They’re guaranteed to hit the first time, but take more and more time with each usage. Some abilities let you cast two status effects at once, while your equipment offers unique effects to buff them as well. It wants you to invest in these systems to create a long chain reaction of debuffs.

4 Monster Sanctuary

Monster Sanctuary, a cross between a creature-collector and Metroidvania, has you taming plenty of loving beasts to take part in turn-based battles and help you navigate the world. And not only does it make status effects viable, they’re nigh on essential to really make it through the game.

Every party you build is meant to work as a chain reaction of buffs and debuffs. Some monsters will inflict Bleed on enemies, while others might then dealer higher damage to enemies inflicted with bleed. Having monsters that can remove enemy buffs is just as important too. Status effects form the actually brunt of the game’s combat.

3 Bravely Default 2

Bravely Default 2, with its adorably miniature characters, styles itself as an olden-day RPG with some modern twists. Bravely Default indeed. The Brave and Default systems are its calling card, and the rest of its older stylings might have you thinking status effects are more a hindrance than any help.

Thankfully, that’s not the case. Bravely Default actually lets plenty of bosses be inflicted with even some of the more powerful status effects, like Slow and Paralysis. You won’t be Dooming them, but actually having some versatility here makes using those moves worthwhile.

2 Crystal Project

While Crystal Project is delighted to showcase its reverence to older RPGs, it throws in plenty of its own style and inventions as well. From the voxel graphics to an extremity of control over all of your attacks, Crystal Project wants to give you an experience where you’re in control.

The consequence of that is then a game that demands you understand it. From the very start, the game wants you to be using buffs and debuffs and all manner of status effects just to survive. It can come off as quite extreme, but having the freedom to build yourself out and actually have a chance to use all those abilities makes the initial climb all the more worthwhile.

1 Shin Megami Tensei 4

Many of the status effects of the Persona games also persist in the Shin Megami Tensei series, though they are given a much stronger emphasis here. And what makes these games so unique is that their status effects are rarely caused by a specific move, but a result of certain elemental attacks.

You can freeze enemies through ice abilities, paralyse them with electric moves, and so on. The more unique effects, like Sick, are scarier. This reduces your damage and evasion, but each turn has a chance of spreading. Terrible for your party, but great in enemy encounters. Shin Megami Tensei 4 and 5 in particular make status effects quite powerful to use against all enemies, even bosses.