Not sure how obscure this one is, but in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, there’s typically a bunch of creative ways to do things, and you’re punished for being consistent (you do mostly headshots? They get helmets!). There’s a boss fight with an ancient sniper known as The End, and Kojima wanted it to take a week to complete. He was told no, of course, but it’s still a massive exercise in patience.
Alternately, you can just quit the game, pop the cartridge out for a week, and when you start it up on day 8, The End has died of natural causes.
Similar to the boss fight in MGS with Psycho Mantis. You had to switch your controller to the second player port for that boss fight, so he couldn’t “read your mind,” and perfectly block all your inputs from the first player port.
There may have also been some save cartridge shenanigans, as it was a PS1 title
