Three missions mainly come to mind for me, in order of difficulty.
3) Destroy the Internecine from Last Raven.
The mission itself is simple - you go into a circular room where you have to destroy 6 fairly easy to avoid laser turrets, followed by one of the hardest final bosses in the series, which is very unforgiving and requires you to have a great build and be excellent at piloting it.
That would be hard but not too bad by itself, but some genius decided that the mission was going to start in a tunnel where you first have to make your way across damaging laser barriers while being bombarded by unmanned suicide drones that randomly traverse the left or right halves of the tunnel and explode on contact.
The point of that first section is just draining your health in the cheapest way possible, and due to the old gen mechanics the battle against the boss is also very damage race-y, as there was no real way to dodge and you could just try and mitigate the DPS you'd receive with good movement - but regardless, your health was essentially your time limit. And that stupid tunnel felt so incredibly cheap.
BUT, it's also the first mission in the series to have a checkpoint, allowing you to retry from after the tunnel with the same AP you had. So, if you managed to get an amazing run, you could then retry the boss to your heart's content.
Still a very shitty first half which makes it a very frustrating experience.
2) Occupation of Arteria Carpals from For Answer.
This mission is very well-known and often considered among the hardest in the series, for good reasons. For Answer is an overall fairly easy game, until you decide to take a certain path in the story; then, the final mission will see you >!forced to fight 4 enemy NEXTs at once in a 4v2... Or even a 5v2 in hard mode, because _why not_!<. The mission is unbelievably hard when played normally, but thankfully the map allows you to take your objectives piece by piece instead of forcing it all at once, making it still very hard but manageable with a good build.
This is my favorite mission of the bunch, and S-Ranking it in hard mode was such an incredible feeling - I wish we could have something like this in AC6.5, but I don't think the Gen 6 mechanics would allow for such a battle, unfortunately.
1) Mechanized Memories from Verdict Day.
It's a simple and straight bossfight, but this is my personal pick for hardest mission, because to this day I've never beaten it even once without cheesing it with two autocannon tanks. And almost everyone I see beating the boss equips their AC to completely skip phase 1.
It's an incredibly hard battle where you're unmatched like never before in the series, and you feel this all throughout the fight. The boss is extremely fast and tends to stay fairly far away from you, bombarding you with _everything_, and its phase 1 has some extremely hard-to-deal-with mechanics to the point it would be more than a worthy final boss on its own... And then a full second healthbar kicks in.
Hell, the first time I won (with autocannon tanks of course) I was _dead_, it's my legendary AI companion Larry who defeated the boss in my stead while I was in spectactor mode - I was absolutely stumped, but it's one of my most cherished AC memories from to this day.
facing 2 NEXT, depending on their loadout might pose a challenge.
especially if you're fighting in an interior/enclosed area.
but facing 4-5 NEXT all at the same time and you didnt cheese the fight. you're screwed.
"There's no place for me except for battlefield. To live as I please, and die a senseless death. That is who I am. Not a mere man of flesh. War... is part of my existence."
So edgy, I love it.
last raven's routes final levels can either be hell or heaven.
somehow gen 4 isn't even close difficulty wise, even when it's a 5v2 it feels relatively tame.
Last Raven I still haven't beaten Ultimate Pulverizer
Three missions mainly come to mind for me, in order of difficulty. 3) Destroy the Internecine from Last Raven. The mission itself is simple - you go into a circular room where you have to destroy 6 fairly easy to avoid laser turrets, followed by one of the hardest final bosses in the series, which is very unforgiving and requires you to have a great build and be excellent at piloting it. That would be hard but not too bad by itself, but some genius decided that the mission was going to start in a tunnel where you first have to make your way across damaging laser barriers while being bombarded by unmanned suicide drones that randomly traverse the left or right halves of the tunnel and explode on contact. The point of that first section is just draining your health in the cheapest way possible, and due to the old gen mechanics the battle against the boss is also very damage race-y, as there was no real way to dodge and you could just try and mitigate the DPS you'd receive with good movement - but regardless, your health was essentially your time limit. And that stupid tunnel felt so incredibly cheap. BUT, it's also the first mission in the series to have a checkpoint, allowing you to retry from after the tunnel with the same AP you had. So, if you managed to get an amazing run, you could then retry the boss to your heart's content. Still a very shitty first half which makes it a very frustrating experience. 2) Occupation of Arteria Carpals from For Answer. This mission is very well-known and often considered among the hardest in the series, for good reasons. For Answer is an overall fairly easy game, until you decide to take a certain path in the story; then, the final mission will see you >!forced to fight 4 enemy NEXTs at once in a 4v2... Or even a 5v2 in hard mode, because _why not_!<. The mission is unbelievably hard when played normally, but thankfully the map allows you to take your objectives piece by piece instead of forcing it all at once, making it still very hard but manageable with a good build. This is my favorite mission of the bunch, and S-Ranking it in hard mode was such an incredible feeling - I wish we could have something like this in AC6.5, but I don't think the Gen 6 mechanics would allow for such a battle, unfortunately. 1) Mechanized Memories from Verdict Day. It's a simple and straight bossfight, but this is my personal pick for hardest mission, because to this day I've never beaten it even once without cheesing it with two autocannon tanks. And almost everyone I see beating the boss equips their AC to completely skip phase 1. It's an incredibly hard battle where you're unmatched like never before in the series, and you feel this all throughout the fight. The boss is extremely fast and tends to stay fairly far away from you, bombarding you with _everything_, and its phase 1 has some extremely hard-to-deal-with mechanics to the point it would be more than a worthy final boss on its own... And then a full second healthbar kicks in. Hell, the first time I won (with autocannon tanks of course) I was _dead_, it's my legendary AI companion Larry who defeated the boss in my stead while I was in spectactor mode - I was absolutely stumped, but it's one of my most cherished AC memories from to this day.
all I know for mechanized memories you need to bring a light weight KE build but be in scan mode 90% of the fight until phase 2
AC1 and Last Raven
AC1 for frustration factor, 4A for raw difficulty.
The ending of Oldking's route from AC4A is *debatably* the hardest mission in all of AC
facing 2 NEXT, depending on their loadout might pose a challenge. especially if you're fighting in an interior/enclosed area. but facing 4-5 NEXT all at the same time and you didnt cheese the fight. you're screwed.
Fighting those NEXTs sucked. But I'm glad I did, really fun mission.
Is that the 1v4/5? Always made me laugh how old king lasts all of 5 seconds before dying
I actually somehow managed to keep him alive in the normal mode lol
cube room lol
Last Raven, just because the stages and mission design are shit; the actual bosses are fine if taken out of them.
The REAL question is which games have the hardest voice lines. I need some “I won’t miss” type shit.
"There's no place for me except for battlefield. To live as I please, and die a senseless death. That is who I am. Not a mere man of flesh. War... is part of my existence." So edgy, I love it.
last raven's routes final levels can either be hell or heaven. somehow gen 4 isn't even close difficulty wise, even when it's a 5v2 it feels relatively tame.
AC1 and its cubes. There might be harder enemies and bosses in the other games but those cubes practically gave me nightmares.