What the title says, but I'm not talking about a game with one or two great boss fights, I'm talking ones that have a ton of them, and why you feel they are awesome.
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What the title says, but I'm not talking about a game with one or two great boss fights, I'm talking ones that have a ton of them, and why you feel they are awesome.
Probably Dark Souls 1. I love how much the Soulsborne series builds up its bosses with lore and environmental storytelling. That's just as important as the actual gameplay challenge itself. Dark Souls 1 is probably the best because of varied the bosses are, and the number of epic confrontations that just make it feel like you're doing something really important. Ornstein and Smough, Artorias, Gaping dragon, Kalameet, Priscilla. All of those are epic confrontations.
Final Fantasy XIV, mostly because its approach to boss fights is like a big spectacle through which you basically dance, and the music is always on point.
shadow of the colossus
lol
While I love me some Soulsborne bosses and Shadow of the Colossus, my vote is going for the Metal Gear series. The boss fights are always creative and interesting. Even the 2D entries had some interesting boss battles going for it. I also appreciate the multiple ways you can tackle them, which I feel is the true sign of a great boss fight.
When it comes to games with the best boss fights, I would have to go with any of the Castlevania games. Take the boss fight against Balore in Castlevania Aria of Sorrow for example. During the first phase of the fight, he uses his hands to try to crush you. Then during the second stage of the fight, he opens his right eye to fire beams that sweep across the bottom of the room.
I think MGS stands out in this category. Every boss fight is different and fun in it own way. Sure there are some standout ones (Psycho Mantis) that maybe pull ahead of the others, but the fact that every boss fight plays out differently is one of the great aspects of the game. And yeah, that certainly extends to the whole series, but I think it's particularly applicable to the first one (not to diminish from creative fights, like The End in MGS3, but I just don't think the other games match MGS in terms of the bosses as a whole).
I think the Megaman series (at least the good ones) fit this topic too. The games are all about the bosses in a way, so the good ones definitely have good boss fights, even if they lack the diversity of MGS (yeah, I'd definitely rank MGS higher but Megaman gets an honorable mention).
Yea, Mega Man.
Mega Man Legends, Flutter vs Gesellschaft is one of the best bosses ever. It starts with them dropping a bunch a ships. It's just a stall tactic so the main ship can catch up. Then you're fighting this giant airship. But you have a speed a movability on your side. You flying around targeting it's weak points. And then phase three happens and you're the giant target and they're the fast enemy zipping around. I love that role reversal. And there's the frog boss in the lake. The giant mining robot. Bruno in the Old City. And the final fight with Juno.
And on Mega Man, Zero 3. All the bosses were fun to fight. And the final dual against Omega. (SPOILER)Which is Zero with his moveset from X4.
Game: Street Fighter II Turbo
Boss: Akuma
The very first time Akuma showed up, that was pretty amazing..........then you just learn to smurfing hate him over the decades.
Game: R-Type
Boss: Dobkeratops (several other names)
Probably as famous as the series itself. I think it makes an appearance in some way in every game?
Game: Doom
Boss: Cyberdemon
"A missile-launching skyscraper with goat legs. 'Nuff said."
Game: MGS 3
Boss: The End
The series is known for it's creative characters and bosses, but The End is probably my favorite just for the numerous different ways you can interact with him or change how the fight plays out. You have more than one way of avoiding the fight altogether. Runner-up is fighting The Boss just because of the feels.
Game: Ridge Racer 4
Boss(es): Assoluto Volcano, Age Solo, Terrazi Utopia, Lizard Nightmare, and Pac-Man
The Ridge Racer games have always had fun little boss cars to unlock, and while Rage Racer might be my favorite in the series, I think 4 has the best boss cars. The Rocket Car and Pac_man always made me smile.
Bonus Boss I think I'd like.
Game: Mega Man 9
Boss: Splash Woman
So, the 9th installment gets a nod from me for simultaneously trying to make a game in the tradition of the early games in the series, while changing it up by finally introducing the first (and only?) female boss in the series.
The king of boss fights for me has got to be the Touhou series. They do however only have 7 boss fights per game, so hard to say they have a 'ton' of them, and the quality does vary. Still, notable mention to two games: Touhou 11 Subterranean Animism, for having an absolutely stellar lineup of all memorable bosses, and Touhou 15 Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, for still managing to wow with bosses when you think you've already seen it all in these games.
Outside of Touhou - and this is prolly gonna be a *huge* surprise to people who know my tastes - I'm gonna give it to Ys: The Oath in Felghana. The boss fights are just so much fun in that game, with a lot of standouts. Honorable mention to Ys Origin which definitely has highly memorable bosses as well, it's just barely beneath Felghana for me.
Alright, so to add some life into this thread, what are your ten favorite boss fights of all time?
Galacticmon (Digimon World 3)
After spending most the game in the Digital World, the final dungeon is a space station above the real world. After fighting your way through it. The final boss fuses with it and your outside in space fighting it and it's massive. You start on it's tail and you see the main body in the background. And every so often the camera will pan behind you and show the Earth. You are quite literally the only thing standing between it and destruction. And after you beat the tail and move up to the body, it fires on the Earth and your partner takes the hit. Leaving it with 1HP. The music swells and starts playing a boss version of the opening theme as you move onto the core.
Magus (Chrono Trigger)
This is the guy we've been lead to believe will destroy the world. Fight your way through his castle and minions. And the buildup to the fight. With the lights coming on as you walk towards him. The music starts off with an ominous wind before it gets going. And this wasn't an easy fight the first time I played it. Switching between the elements with a lot of AoEs. Really felt like a test of everything you've learned up to that point.
Kuze (Yakuza Zero)
Especially the 2nd and 5th fight. Yea, you fight him five times. The second fight is crazy. He charges Kiryu on a motercycle and hits him with a iron pipe before the fight even begins. And goes on a whole Rocky spiel about how it's not about how hard you hit, but how you get hit and keep standing up. And he hates Kiryu at this point. But over the course of the game, he gains respect. And the final fight it's on equal grounds.
Nishikiyama (Yakuza Kiwami)
The final mission is tiring. You, the player, is tired. Kiryu is tired. There's just one loose end. Your ex-blood brother. And he comes in with six health bars. And as you're trading blows it'll flash back and show scenes of them from Zero and Kiwami.
Asch (Tales of the Abyss)
Tales games have great dual bosses. Luke vs Asch is the best. It plays Meaning of Birth, a boss version of the opening theme.
McBurn and Arianrhod (Trails of Cold Steel 3)
These are two of the most powerful people, if not THE most powerful in Kiseki. This is more personal. I broke Juna. I made her extremely tank. I dumped everything into defense and HP. She had like 5k more HP than the next guy. She also had auto-regen and auto-life that brought her back to full. Twice. I never thought that would come into play because for the most part she regens more than they can hurt her. But this fight has a mean little combo. McFireBro will drop everyone's HP to like 200 and Arianrhod will come in and clean-up. After all of that, Juna was the only one standing. With full HP and MP. And she know Seraphic Ring. Party wide full raise. And another thing about Juna, one of her class skills let's people skip turns.
Blade Bearer and Cannoneer (Code Vein)
The Blade Bearer, quick melee with icy attacks. The Cannoneer, slow ranged with fire attacks. Yup, it's this games answer to Smaugh and Ornstein. And when I say 'slow ranged' I being relative. This game is a lot faster than Dark Souls. And if you're not watching them both, they will get you. Luckily, they fuse after you kill youuntil the bonus dungeon fight. Even with one of them, it's still an intense fight all the way through.
The Final Boss (Bloodborne)
It was hard to choose between him and Soul of Cinder from DS3. Bloodborne was my first and it holds a special place. And the arena and music is beautiful. It's a fun fight and test of everything, especially parrying.
Omega (Zero 3/ZX)
Gesellscheft (Mega Man Legends)
I said those above.
When it comes to my top ten favorite boss fights, these are my picks:
1. Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy series)
2. Darth Malak (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic)
3. Ridley (Metroid series)
4. Dracula (Castlevania series)
5. The Human Reaper (Mass Effect 2)
6. Magus (Chrono Trigger)
7. BNK3R (Borderlands 2)
8. Tartarus (Halo 2)
9. Cackletta (Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga)
10. Horseless Headless Horsemann (Team Fortress 2)
It's hard to make a top 10, so I'm not sure I will, but here are some top boss fights.
Mr. Freeze in Arkham City - Dang this fight took me awhile, but I applaud it for a couple different things. While most of the boss fights in the Arkham games amount to brawling type stuff, this fight focuses on the stealth mechanics, which in my estimation are the vastly better part of the game. Secondly, by forcing you to do different methods with each attack it keeps the fight interesting. While hard boss fights often become boring by forcing me to do the same things over and over and be cheap, this one is hard because it does the opposite. Rather than restrict your options too much, it forces you to attack with a bunch of different approaches. It also encourages some strategy in terms of how you're going to plan out your attacks. For example, the attack from the gratings is one of the easiest to pull off, but if you do it too early, you pretty much screwed up the gratings as a way to get around for the rest of the fight, which is bad, because dude's like Vulcan Raven if he gets you in his sights.
Psycho Mantis in MGS - I'm not sure this is the boss fight itself as much as all the meta stuff surrounding the fight, but this scene is iconic for the series. Reading your memory card is a fun stunt beforehand, but the fact that putting the controller in the second port allows you to play this battle differently and have an easier fight i brilliant.
Sephiroth in FF7 - I know this one is going to be controversial, because most will complain Sephiroth is very easy and he is, but my first time through that was not my experience. My strongest summon was Neo-Bahamut, I had the 2x cut materia, but not leveled to 4x cut. No quadra magic. My best bet was when Cloud got a limit break and I could do Meteorain and on top of that, I didn't have protection equipped for various status ailments that Sephiroth inflicts, including most notably, confuse. So it was actually a reasonably close battle for me the first time, and on top of that the production values were top notch for the time. A chorus for the final boss? I was definitely impressed. Kefka could probably get a mention on this list too, but I want to think about my other choices before going there.
Luca Blight in Suikoden II - They really sold the terrifying villain here. 3 parties of 6 to take him down, NPCs riddling him with arrows between fights, and after all that he's still standing for a one on one duel with the hero. That's one tough cookie. I actually like Jowy as the antihero/villain more, but in terms of boss fights, Blight has him beat.
The Magus Sisters in FFIV - It's a little hard for me to see why now, but this was quite challenging when I was a kid. Between using Wall and sisters being brought back to life if you fight them in the wrong order, there are some interesting strategic elements to this fight that generally aren't present in the more typical single enemy boss fights. I'm not sure I'd use a separate top 10 slot, but honorable mention goes to Rubicant. A fire based foe who absorbs ice if his cloak is closed? Didn't see that one coming.
I don’t usually think about bosses and it’s not exactly something that makes me come back to a game. However, I guess Zelda comes closest simply for having iconic bosses throughout the series. Special mention goes to the Hearts of Stone expansion to the Witcher 3. After a game that was mostly pretty easy with bosses that didn’t require much thinking, HoS actually made them fun, engaging, and memorable.
Best bosses in a game?
Metal Gear Solid 1.
The icy terror that took ahold of my body when I faced Revolver Ocelot. It still grips me as I type this. I'd used C4 inventively to blow holes in the wall, and on this high I swaggered in to rescue President Kenneth Baker. I felt like I was Solid Snake.
Then I saw him. Him. I am the proud owner of a pair of original leather unisex Sancho cowboy boots. Snug and smart, I receive a lot of compliments on them. Some from men, but even more from women. Yet then I glanced upon them. The man before me, his silver moustache resplendent, bore cowboy boots. And what's more, they were far more imposing and grand than any I could ever comprehend. Frankly, I wilted. Wilted like the flower I had given Svetlana on our third date to The Stag and Crown in Hampstead Heath. Incidentally you can get a very good Roast Haddock cake there, most exemplary.
"Six bullets!" the Russian mercenary in front of me crowed. "More than enough to kill anything that moves." My flight or fight instinct failed me, and I froze. My phallus instantly became flaccid. It flapped around loosely inside my BHS dressing gown, like a baby button mushroom. I was in real trouble. I ran around in frantic circles, desperate to shake off my furious foe.
"Don't you want to settle this?" he taunted. I tried to keep my eyes off my misfiring member and onto my SOCOM. I returned a volley of fire, but it was no good. Ocelot was entirely too nimble for me. The writing, and my brains, would soon be on the wall. Fallen, to the first boss. My shrivelled winky and I felt such shame.
And then I heard it. President Baker moaned. And moaned. And he moaned. It reminded me of a girl I had met on the Jubilee Line last Thursday, Katrin, from Tallinn. She had commented on how handsome I was, and in particular how masculine my ears looked, and I told her I had once presented them to Noel Edmonds (for those of you not from Britain, Noel Edmonds was THE hottest property in the UK in 1993. He ran a very successful game/talk show called Noel's House Party which featured celebrity guests, the gunge tank, hidden camera pranks, fantastic prizes, call ins. It was set in Noel's mansion in Crinkly Bottom, a fictional British village. The jewel in the Noel's House Party crown was Mr Blobby, a hilarious character in a pink and yellow polka dotted suit whose antics and shenanigans would frequently derail Noel's endeavour with a dose of slapstick comedy and a dash of chaotic anarchy) which she found to be most impressive. Long story short we ended up in bed together. And her moans sounded just like ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker's.
The song of President Baker invigorated me, just as a bard would do in an RPG party. My loins stirred at the sensual grunting. Something uncurled. My tallywhacker had awoken and not with a minute to spare. I lost control of my SOCOM. Round, after round, after round. All of them pumped out the barrel of my tightly gripped pistol. Ocelot didn't stand a chance.
Do you ever notice how you fall into a rhythm of play when fighting a boss? Snake fired his SOCOM. Ocelot grunted in pain. Baker moaned. I hardened. Snake fired his SOCOM. Ocelot grunted in pain. Baker moaned. I ENGORGED! And... amid the sulphite, the smoke, the sounds of battle faded. My nemesis... had he... finished? The feeling that came over me was carnal ecstasy. I had faced a crack Russian duelist in a battle of life or death, and I, Steve, Solid Snake, was most certainly alive! Was this what it was like to beat a video game boss? Well well well. I understood what the fuss was about after all this time. My thoughts drifted to Svetlana. To Katrin. To Delia Smith. I was unable to watch the ensuing cutscene, and what happened in the story at this point will forever be a blur. The fight replayed in my head again and again. On autopilot, I called Mei Ling to save my game, and began tapping out a furious text message. Katrin would have a Crinkly Bottom tonight.
I couldn't get past that next boss though, the Gunner in the tank. Still, a good game, I'd recommend it if you ever get the chance to play it.
Alternatively, Vagrant Story
I don't think we have ciddies anymore but that post would've won most of them this year
I've got to say the Yakuza series has the best boss fights. Yakuza's battle mechanics just tend to work best when you're fighting one-on-one, and each new boss fight requires you to up your strategy game (unless you're spamming Tiger Drop, which I totally do as soon as I unlock it :p). I also really like the way the boss fights are framed by the story. Boss fights frequently mark the end of a chapter, and it's rare that they blindside you with surprise fight. It often feels like the entire chapter is leading up to that single fight, to the extent that sometimes the story will get ridiculously side-tracked just for the sake of the fight. In most games, boss fights feel like they're a consequence of the story's events. But in Yakuza, it can feel like the boss fights themselves are driving the story. While this can result in some bloated storytelling in the game as a whole, it tends to make each fight a lot more meaningful. That plus Kiryu's theatrics always manage to make every boss fight feel like a fight to the death for the fate of the world, even if it's nothing more than a bar brawl.
It'll be tough to narrow it down for my top ten, but I'll try:
10) Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza 4) - It's really trippy fighting the guy who was the protagonist for the first 3 games, but it makes the stakes feel higher than they actually are. Also, Kiryu's just a really good match for Saejima's fighting style. He manages to counter Saejima's brute strength in a way that not many can.
9) Gigantaur (Final Fantasy XIII) - The animations for this thing are ridiculous, but aside from that it's also a pretty fun fight.
8) Yiazmat (Final Fantasy XII) - Easily the longest I've ever spent fighting a boss, and that's if you don't inclulde all the times I died. How did anyone ever did this on the PS2 without 4x speed I'll never know. But it felt awesome when I was through.
7) Akira Nishikiyama (Yakuza/Yakuza Kiwami) - Not much I can say that Vermachtnis didn't already say, so I'll just quote them:6) Flemeth (Dragon Age: Origins) - She turns into a dragon, which was completely unexpected. She was also the first dragon I ever fought in Dragon Age, so it was a cool milestone. Pretty tough fight, though, I had to leave and level up a bit before I could manage it. But honestly at that point in the game I cared more about Morrigan than I did about fighting the Archdemon, so it was worth it. Of course, she still managed to come back and screw with Morrigan's head in Inquisition :mad2:. But it gave Morrigan peace of mind for a decade, so that's something :shrug:.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vermachtnis
5) Goro Majima (Yakuza 5, Final Chapter) - This has a similar vibe to the fight with Nishiki in Yakuza Kiwami, but it has even more impact, since you've gotten to know and love/hate Majima over the course of 5 games.
4) Daisaku Kuze (Yakuza 0, Ch. 6) - Again, Vermachtnis said it all:3) Bituitus, the Pillager (Final Fantasy XIII) - The deadly combination of Miasma and Bituitus's generally high stats made this one of the more difficult bosses in the game for me, but also one of the most fun.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vermachtnis
2) Goro Majima (Yakuza/Yakuza Kiwami, Ch. 11) - Majima pretty much always fights with the same style, but this one's my favorite for a couple of reasons. First, at this point in the series you can still take Majima seriously as a villain. Pretty soon you start to realize he'll never actually hurt Kiryu or Saejima, but here he's still very plausible as a bad guy. Second, during the course of this fight, you end up breaking through the marble floor and falling into the basement. It's a really cool transition in a series that usually sets its boss fights in static arenas.
1) Gol and Maia Acheron (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy) - A lot of 3D platformers have really bland boss fights, but not so in Jak and Daxter. Defeating Gol and Maia requires mastery of all of the game's Eco powers, making it feel like the perfect culmination of the game's mechanics. It's a pretty satisfying ending to the story, as well. And it features Daxter's only really moment of character development in the entire series, which is pretty impressive.
Shadow of the colossus was legendary
thank you for this. this is an incredible, beautiful postQuote:
Originally Posted by Iceglow
I did enjoy the megaman battle network bosses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Golbez
Yes, props to mentioning The End!Quote:
Originally Posted by sharkythesharkdogg
Hmm, not sure I can come up w/ a listed 10, but I can do a sort of hybrid list of answering the games w/ best bosses and specific bosses that stood out and put them in order... Ehh, I can probably do a top 10, but there may be some games repeated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Hyper Light Drifter - Masterfully designed boss fights, imo. They were extremely hard, but I NEVER felt cheated or as if they were unfair. I think this was one of the few action games whenever I died on a boss, I never got angry (yeah, I rage at times... :erm: ). The bosses were all sorta "same-y" (dodge/reflect stuff, dash in and attack, dash out, rinse and repeat), but man, they were all a great, fair, and fun challenge.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - the only soulslike game I ever beat, or even cared to beat really (Nioh is close, tho). I'm not a fan of soulslike games. I hate stamina management, corpse running, and the save/respawn systems. Sekiro doesn't have the former 2 and is the only reason I bothered to play it. Now I'm glad I did, b/c it's a Top 15 all-time game for me. It was one of two games ever that I ever felt compelled to play again or play NG+ (the other being Mark of the Ninja). I only wanted to play NG+, so I can keep fighting the bosses that I had become addicted to. Some bosses did feel cheap for whatever design or hurtbox/hitbox reason, but overall, they were pretty great as a whole. Sadly the Guardian Ape was spoiled for me, or else I think it would definitely resonate w/ me more had I experienced it unspoiled. Also, after beating Sekiro, I felt a calm about myself...that my days as a rage gamer were over. ...then I played ScourgeBringer. And Cyber Shadow...
Final Fantasy VII - Emerald Weapon, Ruby Weapon, Sephiroth...all of these are still vivid memories in my mind.
Metal Gear Solid series - as stated above...The End was just incredible. Not just an all-time boss fight for me, but an all-time gaming experience. Psycho Mantis, Vulcan Raven (for just being cool), The Sorrow, Sniper Wolf, Crying Wolf...the MGS series is loaded w/ memorable boss fights. It's funny, MGS2 is hands-down my favorite MGS, but I also acknowledge it easily has the least interesting and memorable boss encounters.
Shadow of the Colossus - pretty self-explanatory. The encounters were solid mechanically (tho I remember hating that lightning boss in the colosseum), but the actual sense of scope and scale, made it just so epic.
World of Warcraft - too many to list or even remember, tbh. And so many whose names I forgot. I was a dedicated raider from the end of vanilla through WotLK. I did some raids in MoP and Legion, but just casually, LFR stuff. But even those were great. I was the ball-runner on G'huun and just that is incredibly fun (dps had to have 2 ppl each on the left and right platforms rotating picking up a ball and throwing it in some some biological receptor thing). I never learned the full boss fight itself, just mastered my role of running a ball back and forth lol. I wish I got to truly experience Yogg-Saron. When Ulduar was new, I only got to the 3rd to last boss. A buddy and I tried to 2-man Yogg when Ulduar was like 3 expansions old, and we still couldn't down him lol. I could probably put 5+ WoW bosses on a Top 10 list across all games, but I'll try to be as discerning as possible. And also, honestly, these experiences ARE a bit skewed, since they are co-op, and essentially influenced by the people you play with. But I'm still trying to be objective, as if I was playing w/ a raid of silent AI teammates lol. Oh and the WoD raid bosses...i didn't do those til I outleveled them just for mog runs, but I can tell, plenty of them were unique as heck.
Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal - a lot of the boss fights themselves are decently memorable, but what stood out to me was the build up or the scope of some of the encounters. Truly badass and epic.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Divine Beasts and Lynels. 'nuff said. Or is it...*hint hint*
Okay, my Top 10. I will add, this weighs mostly the encounter, but also does weigh secondary/tertiary things like the buildup, story flavor, even music, etc. - sort of the "whole" experience.
Honorable Mention: FEAR - Paxton Fettel (SPOILER)not really a boss FIGHT, but...play the game!
10. Razorgore the Untamed (WoW)
9. Sniper Wolf (MGS)
8. Hysteria (Sundered)
7. Flaahgra (Metroid Prime)
6. Naydra (BotW)
5. Paragons of the Klaxxi (WoW:MoP)
4. Emerald Weapon (FF7)
3. The End (MGS3)
2. Folding Screen Monkeys (Sekiro)
1. Mantis Lords (Hollow Knight)
Wow, I'm actually surprised I came up w/ so much diversity. I thought it'd just all be FF and MGS and Sekiro bosses lol.
Thanks for this fun thread. :)
Especially for the extra boss and dungeon added, Persona 5 Royal takes it for me. Some of the bosses felt extremely personal by the end and the satisfaction in knowing that you were changing the world in both small and large ways felt gratifying. Granted, a few of the fights verged on the annoying with what felt like an endless stream of minions being called into battle but for the game to wrap up with the final fight, I definitely give it my vote.
Take care all.
Most of my favorite bosses are from FFXIV. The incredible music may be influencing that. So far my favorite from all of them is Warrior of Light. Love the use of the random order of "mini phases" within the last phase, and sharing a buddy through all the mechanics. Its a bonding experience. And that opening bass line :excited:
Also a bit of an unpopular opinion, I love the last boss of Mass Effect 2. The first time I thought it was really cool. Suddenly this SPOOKY SKELETON pops up behind you and goes BWWWAAAAAAHHHHH! Now I think its adorable. Like a kid trying to surprise you by saying "boo!" and you act like you're all scared.