I know the idea of ‘bosses’ is being left behind by a lot of games, but I’ll always be attracted by the battles that are supossed to be the maximum test of skill in a game.
Or, at least, an amazing display of pyrotecnics, music and enemy designs.
My favorites are Bowser in Yoshi’s Island.
It’s just epic. I’d never seen anything like that in videogames by then. It break the rules a little because now you have to throw eggs having “3D” distance in account, but it’s too amazing to worry about that.
I know Ultimecia is not the most developed villain, but this multi-section fight is just great. You can’t trust in spamming GF, her attacks are incredible powerful and it forces you to be smart with every character, magic and limit break. Never the “THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM” anime cliche was more real.
Also, The Extreme is one of the best songs in the franchise.
One of my favorite bosses would have to be the Abyss Watchers in Dark Souls 3. Took me quite a few times to take out and I was pumped when I took them out. Look pretty sweet too.
My obvious answer is Lavos in Chrono Trigger thanks to the multiple variants of Lavos depending on when you try to defeat it. Not only that, each stage of the Lavos fight is thoroughly enjoyable. Although the fight now feels simple because I understand exactly what is required to defeat Lavos, it was tough as nails when I first got there back at release. I didn’t yet know what strategy to use so learning how to adapt to Lavos, who seemed to excel at adapting to the player (for a 90s game), was frantic and enjoyably stressful. And finally defeating Lavos for the first time, after running through all the outer shell bosses, the first internal Lavos boss and then finally Lavos’ full form was satisfying as hell. Not to mention that the Lavos battle music was killer:
There are other final bosses that I enjoy, but I’ll need to give it a think before I list them.
Edit: hmm, I think I have to include the Radiance. I love this fight. I’ve described it in past as a dance rather than a fight and I think that’s the perfect description.
Still thinking of others to post because there are definitely others I’ve loved.
Oooo, excellent topic. Final bosses are incredibly important. You know how I know? Because most of the examples I can think of of my favourite final bosses also come from my favourite video games!
Blood Letter from Mordheim: City of the Damned. For me, this really is a ‘final’ boss, as I have never managed to get past him. Not sure if I’d call him a “favorite” of mine though. It’s more of a love-hate relationship. No, wait, actually it’s pure hate.
This might’ve been posted already as I haven’t combed the thread as of yet but I would say the final boss of Bayonetta has always been my favorite if only for the shock value of it all. That game didn’t want to end and I will not complain about it. lol
Soul of Cinder (Dark Souls 3) and GLaDOS (Portal) are quite memorable to me. Could give a shout to Vergil (DMC 3) as well, since every fight against him is awesome.
Arzakon, the final boss of the Shandalar (MicroProse’s Magic the Gathering). A guy with a terrible, huge deck but tons of life (300 vs your 35). You had to get lucky but it was quite fun.
Diablo from the original game. Scared the shit out of me. I remember the first time i beat him i almost died because i ran out of healing potions.
Jon Irenicus, from Baldur’s Gate 2. He’s actually tougher to fight earlier on (Tree of Life) but still no pushover. Also David Warner did amazing voice acting for him. It is time for more… experiments…
20 years on nearly, and I still get a kick out of destroying these 2 on the regular, though might be because ive done them so many times that I find them a little too easy. Emperor Bulblax is terrifying on your first try, and whilst King Boo isn’t incredibly difficult, I like the use of the polturgust to shoot mines.
The bosses of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 are pretty cool ideas. (And as you kill them they have special death animations that are very gory and satisfying)
The bosses of Super Smash TV are awesome and quite memorable (and they scream and moan and taunt you as you shoot 'em up)
The boss of Duke Nukem 3D has a satisfying and hilarious end.
This guy. not a boss per say but probably the scariest enemy in a game
For this topic, I always immediately think of the final boss battle in Jet Set Radio. This game didn’t really have any other bosses actually, so it comes from kind of left field. Okay, from very left field, lol. It all takes place on a massive record on top of a skyscraper, where the evil CEO yakuza guy is now a DJ trying to summon an army of demons (“let’s get down!”), and giant rhino robots are breathing fire to stop you from tagging the summoning circles. It is pure insanity, and pure genius.
There is nothing left inside me now. Nothing at all. No hatred, not even regret. And yet, sometimes at night, I can still feel the pain creeping up inside me. Slithering through my body… like a snake.
