coinkidenk

[Masamune·1600]

The enemy Fallen Emperor (or the Shade, if you prefer) guarded the Bolt Javelin and was optional. However, with 3000 HP, he hardly qualifies as a superboss, even in FFII terms. There are a number of treasure chests guarded by monsters, actually. Astaroth is arguably the most challenging of these, but is still nowhere near being interpreted as a superboss.

Some people like to call Warmech in FFI a superboss, but it's not really that difficult. A superboss, as I interpret it, should be significantly more powerful and more challenging than the final boss. While Emerald and Ruby, for example really aren't that difficult if you know what you're doing, they're both much more powerful than Safer Sephiroth.

One could interpret Omega and Shinryuu in the Lifestream Grotto in FFI-II DoS to be superbosses, especially since their counterparts in FFV actually are. However, I didn't include them in my definition since the whole DoS version is a massive departure from the original FFI, and is notably easier.

Returning to the original point, however, the concept of treasure chests being guarded by monsters has been fairly prevalent throughout the series. That, I suppose, would be another FF motif.