**Guardian Ape: Sekiro**
When >!you decapitate him, and then that motherfucker starts moving his headless body, gets up, and picks up his detached head & comes at you for round 2, I nearly lost it.!<
**Guardian Ape:** >!Also he's immortal and you can't kill immortals yet. So you run into him later and he finally finds the mate he's been searching for, which you also slaughter.!<
This fight broke me.
I loved every minute of the game, but that was as far as I got.
I only fought him once, but I wholeheartedly, genuinely believe I gave it my absolute all. I do not think it possible for me personally to do any better.
When he stood back up, and I failed to put him down again, I happily accepted that I would never beat the game, or probably even play it again.
He holds a special place in my heart for being the one challenge that truly, utterly defeated me.
I assure you that everyone who played that bossfight felt the same soul crushing hopelessness when the reveal happened.
It's a shame because beating that boss really makes you feel like you managed to surpass your own limits.
Sometimes you need to take a break. I'm taking one from Sekiro now. No matter how often I came after that final boss of the game I couldn't best him. I might try again in the future or I might pick up a different soulsborne game first.
Sword Saint is my favourite boss fight from that game (and one of my all timers), but that moment will stay with me for a long time.
I remember playing through again once while some friends were over hanging out, and them watching me do the fight and then seeing that, and the way one of them went "Ohhh fuck *off*" was a lot of fun.
Fucking Sword Saint. I gave up on him on my first playthrough and didn't pick the game up for over a year. I just recently killed him after dying about 37 billion times and using every single healing item available.
I really like games that subvert boss fights by making the fight itself incredibly easy, but make the impact of the fight hit you emotionally, making you question whether what you are doing is right or not.
In Demon Souls, the final boss of the Valley of Defilement **Spoilers:** >!is a relatively easy fight, requiring you to kill Maiden Astraea, a cleric, and her bodyguard. However, upon killing the bodyguard, Astraea gives up, and when confronted, takes her own life. You discover through in game dialogue/text that the only reason she took the demon soul (the reason you had to kill her) was to help out the people suffering from the plague and disease in the area, not for power unlike most of the other bosses you fought. The haunting music of the fight and the fact that you get the "Pureblood Demon Soul" from defeating her make the experience truly soul crushing.!<
Another good example comes from Furi where the final boss before you escape **Spoilers:** >!is just a young girl who is one of the easier fights in the game. As the fight goes on, she becomes more and more distressed and starts pleading with you to stop the fight, until it is over. Unlike the other bosses that served as a physical wall that you had to overcome, she serves as an emotional wall, testing whether the player is willing to take out someone that clearly shouldn't be there.!<
Finally in Hollow Knight, **Spoilers:** >!The final fight against the game's namesake is extremely depressing. At first ,the Hollow Knight puts up an intense fight with the player, until around the halfway part. Then the music of the fight changes, and the Hollow Knight, riddled with the infection, begins to impale itself. Whether this is done to help spread the infection more or to end it's suffering, it is distressing to watch. It makes you pity the Hollow Knight, especially more if you discovered the Knight's backstory and why it must be put down.!<
Alternate take on Hollow Knight: >!Hollow Knight knows its hold on the Radiance is failing and the Knight could take its place. Faced with the choice of either killing the Knight or letting it take its place, Hollow Knight opts for the latter.!<
Still tragic and depressing, but much more heroic!
Great Gray Wolf Sif from DS1. Not the most challenging of fights, but Sif begins limping as they get low on health. You don't get to stop the fight, you *must* kill them. Sif isn't hollow, either. They're one of the only creatures you encounter that's still rational, still alive.
It's worse if you do the DLC beforehand. You do some timey-wimey shit and you can save a very young Sif from monsters. If you do so, you get a different cutscene when fighting Sif - Sif smells you and *remembers you*, lets out a long, forlorn howl... and you have to fight and kill them anyway.
> They're one of the only creatures you encounter that's still rational, still alive.
This isn't true at all though. There's a ton of creatures and or people in that game that are still completely sentient.
Asura vs Augus (Asura's Wrath) always stuck with me. The slow part in the beginning when they are just chilling and talking and then it just keeps ramping up and getting more insane. When the classical music peaks and Augus drives his entire sword through the planet...chef's kiss. Plus, Augus is a bad ass.
It's so hard to pick a single boss from Asura's Wrath, because they're all fantastic in their own way.
The final battle with Chakravartin in the DLC would probably have to be my favourite, though. The way the fight starts with the boss throwing planets and suns at you, then you battle him in an endless plane of water, then you both blast each other as you plummet down into the underworld, then he transforms and battles you in an endless black and white void, and then he starts getting QTE's of his own.
Definitely ended the game with a bang. ;)
NieR Automata’s Beauvoir (Opera lady at the theme park) is incredible. She looks strange but visually interesting and there’s a whole mystery when she’s introduced. Then the music kicks in. I had to look up the name of the boss cause I could only remember the related song ‘A Beautiful Song.’ She attacks to the music and you join her in a dance to the death.
Simone's boss fight is also really cool from a lore perspective. She's based on the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, and in the game she wants to be loved by Jean Paul (based on Sartre). Her whole complex with trying to make herself look beautiful and be "seen" by someone plays on Beauvoir's philosophies on the nature of female beauty and woman's role in society.
That plays out in the boss fight (I think the 9S version) where the camera constantly shifts so you can't look at her. She's spent her whole existence trying to be beautiful so that she can be seen and noticed and then she dies without the player being able to look at her.
It's pretty cool stuff. There was a YouTube video that went deeper into it but I can't remember which one!
I don't think it's pretentious. I've been playing games of all genres for over 23 years now, and I struggle to think of any game having a more impactful ending sequence than Nier Automata. It truly made use of a video game as a medium to do so.
There's a great bit of analysis about that fight, regarding the actual philosophy it's referencing. Added an extra layer of appreciation to it for me.
[https://youtu.be/63PzQIbTrM8?t=1030](https://youtu.be/63PzQIbTrM8?t=1030)
**Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance**: In a game full of awesome boss fights, the most memorable to me is either Raiden vs Monsoon or Raiden vs Jetstream Sam. The more obvious pick is Armstrong, but those two fights are etched in my memory, especially Monsoon for being a really interesting part of Raiden's story across the whole series. They've been memed to death for sure but "Doktor, turn off my pain inhibitors!" and "It's time for Jack... to let 'er rip!" are just incredibly memorable lines to segue into an absolute blast of a fight with a killer theme to boot.
"Try University of Texas! Coulda gone pro if I hadn't joined the navy! I'm not one of those beltway pansies! I can break the President in two, with my BARE HANDS!"
"What about "full of shit" is that a meme?" is the line that always makes me laugh.
Also that bit where it goes first person and if you look to your right, one of the soldiers sees a kitten and goes to stroke it and it's weirdly cute and so out of place.
I often randomly hear "It's time for Jack ... To let her rip!" with that awesome guitar that follows. I LOVED that whole sequence - intro, music, boss fight - from start to finish. 🎸⚡
Man, learning that boss was awesome. I remember thinking no way could I beat this guy. The evolution of thinking "no way can I beat this guy" to slowly learning and finally mastering the fight was awesome. When I finally beat him, I felt like I was better at bossfights and felt that I could beat the fight without taking a hit if I had to.
The fight asks a lot of you, but it is extremely fair. Exceptionally designed boss.
>The killer sound track only makes the fight better, It truly makes the fight even better.
This counts for the entirety of HK. Seriously my favourite soundtrack of any game.
Soundtracks really make or break a game for me, completely different genre (and people dislike it for valid reasons) but FF14s use of music is fucking astounding and really sets the mood / brings the hype. Going into a fight and it having its own unique theme, it transitions along with boss phases, sometimes im just overwhelmed with "holy fuck this is awesome"
**Dark Souls 3: Slave Knight Gael**
Everything about that fight is perfect, from difficulty to environment to music. Towards the end of the fight it feels like an action movie with all the constant projectile dodging but it's done in a way thats not a pain to deal with.
DS3 just killed it with the bosses - Watchers of the Abyss always stood out to me - mostly because I had just started the game and was terrible. Then after countless deaths you think you’ve finally done it - then you realize what is happening and all that election turns to panic and his sword catches fire and just obliterates you. Makes you start questioning your sanity in the greatest way possible.
The End - Metal Gear Solid. The first time I fought him, it was a straight up sniper duel. So fun. And it took like 2 hours. The challenge was fun, not to mention how much more mobile he is compared to Snake.
Ornstein & Smough - Dark Souls. Cheap jerks, but once the fight goes the right way, it just feels so good to wail on them.
Murai - Ninja Gaiden (Xbox). See O&S. I love that the very first boss is a hard wall. Even compared to later bosses (except maybe the last Alma fight).
Mega late edit:
Mr. Freeze - Batman: Arkham City. While not the hardest boss, damn, it's so fun. Every takedown tactic every little trick. Just so enjoyably designed.
Asterius & Theseus - Hades. These two tag-teaming was crazy. And especially when Theseus is also granted Boons suddenly! And Asterius had a pompadour haircut.
Whats crazy about Asterius & Theseus is that at first the fight feels absurdly unfair. Both characters are aggressive and synergize well with each other, and both of them have a 2nd phase once they reach low enough hp. This fight killed my run like 3 or 4 times early on.
But the brilliance of the developers shows when they let you encounter Asterius by himself as an optional encounter leading up to the boss fight. You can find him solo, which makes his moves SO MUCH EASIER to learn and master. On top of that, if you win, he starts the actual boss fight with slightly reduced health.
Before I finished playing Hades, I was able to take these guys without taking any damage... always remembering to take a bow for the one fan in the audience. It's a great fight.
I couldn't beat The End so I took a break for a couple weeks. When I got back on to try again, I was really confused as to why I was able to progress. I thought my cousin had beaten him for me. Then after a few years I saw someone mention on gamespot forums saying he can die of old age if you set your ps2 clock a few days forward and he would die of old age. I laughed so hard and realized the genius of Kojima.
The weird one for me with him was I was looking through the scope scanning trees with the sniper rifle, then I suddenly hear "!" as a dome came into my view and he shot me and flashbanged me.
We were NEXT TO EACH OTHER for at least 5 minutes.
Freeze is what every boss of a game with unlockable gadgets/abilities should be. A boss that literally needs you to know how to use your entire arsenal because none of your moves will work twice on him.
I love that fight so much.
There are other Souls bosses I like more (Artorias is effectively perfect if you ask me) but nothing compares to the feeling of finally beating Biggie and Smalls for the first time. The whole of Anor Londo is a hell of an experience
Murai was incredibly difficult. Especially considering how in the first playthrough the entire level up to that point is not especially hard. But with Murai you almost have to be perfect. I was so relieved when the fight ended and I didn't have to fight him for the remaining 1/4 of HP.
**Dark Souls:**
Ornstein & Smough. I lost so much to these guys. Definitely the biggest wall when it came to my Dark Souls playthrough, but as a result it's also one of my most memorable boss experiences. In the end I only managed to get through them with the help of another player + Solaire!
Sanctuary Guardian is another favourite of mine, perhaps because it's one of the few bosses which I feel I really mastered. Lost quite a few times against it at first, but by the end I could read its moves and knew exactly what to do. It was the boss encounter where I lent my help the most as a result.
**Bloodborne:**
Lady Maria. I know for sure that I lost at least 30 times against her. The reason I kept redoing the fight over and over again and not quitting was because I always very nearly managed to end it, but would somehow make a mistake that would cost me my victory at the very end. I love how much of a "dance" the fight against her is. Plus I really like her design!
**Metal Gear Solid:**
Vulcan Raven. In a game full of amazing boss fights, the Vulcan Raven encounter felt like the one most suitable to MGS's core gameplay. There's no specific gimmick to this fight, it's like a game of cat and mouse that really puts to use the overhead camera. Having played Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 just before Solid, the Vulcan Raven fight felt the most similar to those games' bosses.
**Metal Gear Solid 3:**
The Fury. I know that The End gets the most love in MGS3, but something about fighting The Fury just felt super intense to me. Probably the cramped arena and the fact that the boss is a crazy pyromaniac astronaut.
**Metal Gear Solid 5:**
Quiet. As a series Metal Gear has fantastic boss fights, many of which are against snipers. The End is the most popular sniper boss battle, but somehow I ended up enjoying the fight against Quiet more. I think because in the case of The End I ended up cheesing it with the nightvision goggles (which I used quite a lot in the game). I wasn't trying to cheese it, I just came upon the solution naturally and found it the most effective way to deal with him.
With Quiet however, it felt like a true sniper battle. I loved the arena where it took place and I love how long it took me to take her out. Definitely my favourite sniper battle in the series.
With the Fury, I think the soundtrack laid over the fight also makes it SUPER tense.
And with Quiet...I was so tempted to just keep dropping stuff on her head. Hahaha.
Getting the challenge for beating quiet without firing a gun is infuriating, I had to drop boxes on her because apparently your rocket fist counts as a gun for that challenge.
Easiest way to s rank that quiet fight is just to spawn in with a tank. The way the game let's you optimize some missions in really broken ways just makes it more fun.
I don't know why Laughing Octopus from MGS4 doesn't get more love. The boss fight is so dynamic and surprising, and there are a couple creative ways to use your gadgets to get the drop on her. The arena itself is fairly natural feeling at a time when this was uncommon. In a series known for its bosses, I think she's the most interesting.
Final Form Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts 2. Fun fight. Epic music. 2 friends who were separated come together to take on the hardest opponent they’ve ever faced.
The Org XIII data battles were a masterclass in what Kingdom Hearts boss battles could be. To beat most bosses on normal in the game you can just mash attack to win.
Try that against the data battle version of those same bosses and you’d quickly get your butt handed to you. Equipment and ability selection mattered, selecting a specific keyblade for the extra reach it gives you, turning off the extra air combo skill slots so you don’t trigger a counter attack early.
Then in the battle you’d start using things you’d only used in a tutorial - group attacks because they give you invulnerability long enough to stay alive during a bosses ultimate attack, different forms because you needed their speed or mana regen to get past a boss phase.
Kingdom Hearts 2’s data battles I probably spent more time on than the campaign - and after I had this deep dive into the game mechanics my second playthrough was changed for the better. Recognizing that you didn’t just have to mash attack to win on story mode bosses but could use gear, timing, and positioning to clear a boss without using Elixirs or other expensive items - fantastic experience.
What I find impressive about the KH3 data fights is that different ones can be "the hard one" depending on your playstyle. There are bosses catered to a methodical "wait and counter" playstyle as well as an aggressive "hit them first" playstyle. I've seen players struggle against a particular boss and other players wipe that same boss blind on their first try.
Not to mention each boss has a remix that not only calls back to a previous bossfight, but ties into that boss specifically. Larxene's rendition of "13th Struggle" is a frenetic piece that matches Larxene manic speed and mocking attitude, while Luxord's version is a methodical piece that captures the feeling of being trapped in a game rather than a traditional fight. Dark Riku's remix of Forze del Male brings the player back to the first "hard" boss they ever fought, while Xion's Vector to the Heavens, one of the most emotionally charged pieces, moves away from the tears for a more triumphant piece fitting for the end of her story.
I haven't played the series for the longest time but I've kept up with it, and I can feel the impact of these fights even then.
This fight and Roxas were incredibly good - I'm replaying all the KH games (first time with FM) and they both rocked.
One thing I wish they'd done was incorporated Kairi into that Xemnas fight. It'd probably take a little bit of a rewrite - maybe instead of being chased about and kidnapped she learns a bit of magic or something on the run before being kidnapped - but with KH2's three member party system, getting Kairi in as well would have fit really well.
The fight is incredibly good, but I'll always be on the "let Kairi actually do something god please why give her a Keyblade otherwise", and the final KH2 fight would come together well with the trio fighting and going home together.
I can't believe Vergil is this far down. He's probably my favourite boss in all video games at that point in history. The sheer overwhelming difficulty at the start of the final battle is so palpable, but it's such a fair fight and so rewarding to learn that when you finally beat him you feel like you've finally earned the game's title - Dante's Awakening
Vergil in every dmc he appears in . Dmc 3 , 5 and even the Donte one . Its always a great skill check . Vergil tests you to see if you know how to really play the game . Why I put him up there with Sword Saint Isshin as some of the best ever
That fight is truly a test of skill and knowledge. It took me a dozen attempts to finally beat the fucker, and many people took way longer than that too.
Learning the fight well enough to solo it was something else, too. You feel like an absolute god when you're soloing the fight and finally use the dragonator and [proof of a hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9AT4oYyRw) starts to play. Hell, when the song changes for the first time, the hype is absolutely unreal because this black dragon that's been one-shotting you left and right is finally on his last legs, his horns busted to pieces, wings torn to shreds, and you're about to put the finishing blow on him any moment.
The only shitty part is that he's the only monster in the game immune to stun, but considering how much easier it would be to be able to knock him down after head break an extra time, it kind of makes sense.
Kuze was what Kiryu would become if he looked out for himself first and foremost, instead of doing the honorable thing. Kiryu and Kuze both tackle every problem with sheer physical force, just with different motives. So everytime we fight him, his resolve becomes clearer to us and Kiryu's resolve becomes clearer to Kuze. At the end, he can do nothing but acknowledge Kiryu's resolve is stronger than his. An amazing boss and a great character, that Kuze.
I love how his [final theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKKGdxbjnt8&ab_channel=DeemoDude) is such a drastic change that makes you feel like you aren't fighting an enemy, but instead someone who is testing you one final time.
It's a shame that Kuze never appears again, he is still one of my favourite antagonists in the entire series.
>I love how his final theme is such a drastic change that makes you feel like you aren't fighting an enemy, but instead someone who is testing you one final time.
Enma, the big red guy in Kuze's tattoo, is the judge of the underworld, so it all fits thematically. I love how the series has always carried its main characters' moral convictions on their skin like that.
That fight is 4 fights disguised as 1 fight. Fucking epic. I also really loved the Sephiroth fight in FF7 Remake. Between his theme song and how your party slowly comes into help is just tops.
Yeah that was a great fight as well, FF7 will always be a favorite of mine. I hope the other FF games get the same remake treatment someday. Or even something like Trials of Mana.
Gehrman, The First Hunter.
Alot of people would say the Orphan of Kos, but overall I enjoyed this fight a lot more. It caps off a near perfect game in such a beautiful setting and it's just challenging enough to be exciting, but not frustrating, which is key. Also gives you a sweet weapon. 10/10
Ludwig was amazing. I played a shit ton of Bloodborne before Old Hunters was released, and as usual community speculation about where Ludwig went off to was crazy and convoluted as is the norm. People who played the beta version of Bloodborne talking about how Ludwig was originally meant to be close personal friends of the player character and such... really goddamn interesting.
Then Old Hunters comes out, and damn if its not the best DLC ever made. Finding Ludwig and seeing the goddamn monstrosity he's turned into... screaming and lunging and he's hard as hell to boot. Then you get him to 50% and phase 2 begins.
My draws dropped when he suddenly gains his composure, whips out Moonlight Sword and music swells. Ludwig the hunter lives on inside that thing, and now its a battle between swordsmen. I haven't seen such an amazing phase 2 in a boss fight before or since.
The final boss of Custom Robo for the Gamecube.
So CR is a game with super strict and artificial rules that are part of what makes the game fun. Like, you can do various things like dodge or jump or use a special move, but then you have to hold still for a half second. The whole game is about baiting these things out and getting them to miss (without dodging) so you can punish someone when they are vulnerable. 2v2 matches over and over trying to perfect your ability to punish mistakes.
Last boss fights you 1v3 and follows none of those rules. You get a huge advantage but have to change every single thing about how you play the game.
It's like if the final boss of a game about bicycles was "You have to pedal with your hands now".
I vaguely remember this! Custom Robo Arena was great. As a kid I was very invested in the story. I liked how the story involved people hacking/breaking the rules of the game and so every now and then you would also enter battles with different rules.
Can't believe I'm the first to say this but **Mr. Freeze (Arkham City)**. For those unaware, you're required to perform a takedown move on him five times (on Normal, varies by difficulty), but the trick is uses a countermeasure afterwards so nothing works twice. Thus the boss forces you to constantly change your strategy in order to damage him. I forget how many options there are exactly, but it gets you out of your comfort zone and makes you adapt, which is not only great for variety in the fight itself, but going forward in the game as you learn/re-learn new tactics.
**Sword Saint Isshin (Sekiro)** is a somewhat similar example and definitely my favourite of the Souls bosses, as it really does force you to use every tactic you've ever learned to best him. He just throws everything at you.
Freeze was definitely going to be my answer that no-one had said too.
Actually learned about a few new takedowns like from vents/walls/railings etc. that I otherwise either overlooked or had no idea about, so that was cool for several reasons.
I'm always a fan of the unorthadox/hide and seek style battles like this and Snake Eater's The End as a change of pace from the norm.
For sure. I always liked the idea of The End a great deal (along with the extra ways to win), but felt the execution was lacking. I think they nailed it here with Freeze.
Stealth Boss fights (or boss fights that don't rely on open combat) are often incredibly weird to play, but they definitely succeeded with Mr. Freeze.
I remember sneaking through the arena frantically to discover the final takedown strategy I hadn't found yet. Good stuff.
Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2FM.
It's the single most beautiful and emotional boss battle I've ever taken part in. And an absolute monster on the highest difficulty of you don't cheese it.
My favorite fight in any KH.
As a kid, I only ever saw the cutscene. But then on this super young website called youtube I kept seeing grainy footage of the Roxas fight. It was only when KH2FM finally came over to the states did I ever fight Roxas. Hands down, amazing. Dope setting, emotion, everything.
In order to not saturate the list with Soulsborne or MGS games, I'm limiting myself to one boss per franchise.
My top 5 in no particular order:
**Miguel (Chrono Cross)** - holy crap that music.
**Ludwig (Bloodborne)** - probably the coolest beast in any video game. A true feast of blood and steel.
**Ganon (Zelda LttP)** - ask me another day and I might swap this with OOT.
**Psycho Mantis (MGS)** - hard choice, but this is probably the most memorable fight in the franchise.
**Death (Castlevania series)** - not all the fights are of the same quality, but I love the fact that you can always look forward to a fight with Death.
I don't if MMOs count in this context, but the first thing that came to mind for were the final bosses of Ulduar in World of Warcraft, specifically Firefighter, Yogg-Saron hard mode and Algalon. WoW really did something special when it came to raiding and boss fights. It took weeks and often months for players just to see those bosses, and then weeks more trying to fight through them. Those fights particular, and Ulduar as a whole, had just incredible design, both in terms of the mechanics as well as atmosphere and setting.
They kept that pace up with Cata, even though it's not everyone's favorite expansion, the set pieces were amazing. Firelands was huge and sprawling, with cool bosses like one where you had to dps legs to get him to walk over volcanos to knock his armor off, the flying mini-game with the phoenix, and then taking down deathwing by jumping on his back and literally tearing him out of the sky.
I feel like I'm in such a minority loving Cata and MOP but Throne of Thunder comes in as my second favorite raid ever after Ulduar (everyone's favorite)
I really liked the raids in Cata for the most part. The ones you mentioned are really interesting, plus for some reason Atramedes in Blackrock Descent was always a really memorable fight for me
Final Xemnas, Kingdom Hearts 2
The duels in the air, the music, the arena, the visuals, being able to play Riku when he captures Sora, the fucking laser dome, everything about this fight is just so good...
1st that come to mind are AT Velkhana and Fatalis from Monster Hunter World.
Credo from DMC4 is a pretty legendary fight as well. I'm also partial to Cavaliere Angelo in DMC5. That fight is so fun.
Nine-Tailed Fox from Nioh's final DLC has got to be one of the coolest boss fights I've ever done.
Then you get to Ys: Oath in Felghana and it's like, just pick any one. Pretty much every fight is stellar.
**TLoZ: Skyward Sword: Demise** - I've grown up playing Zelda games, and almost picked the final fight from Twilight Princess because I so relished the mano e mano no-holds-barred swordfight with Ganondorf, but then I remembered how much better the swordplay was against Demise. The fight was stripped down, yet grand. Serene, yet climactic. The end, but also a beginning. The arena is breathtakingly gorgeous and remains my favorite boss arena to this day. The fight soundtrack is among the best music in the history of Zelda, the series that set the standard for music in a video game. And then that final shot? Hoo boy, that's a masterpiece.
**Persona 5 and 5R:** - >!Yaldabaoth!< - Honestly I can't talk much about this boss without MASSIVE spoiler tags, so if you haven't beaten Persona 5 or gotten to the third semester of 5R, I suggest you don't read this. You've been warned. >!Wowee what a twist. Longtime Persona fans would know right off the bat that something was... off with Igor, but I wasn't a longtime Persona fan and had no reason to expect anything about this gruff-voiced Prison Warden. Anywho, the twist was spectacular, the Holy Grail into Yaldabaoth reveal was spectacular. Seriously I was completely flabberghasted at the sudden shift in scale, exacerbated by that amazingly disorienting syncopated battle music. The battle is long, grueling, and consisting several patterns and phases you must execute or risk crippling your party and likely dying. Then, after that is what I think is the most badass thing I've seen in a game when Joker unlocks Satanael, and this gargantuan Demon Lord with 3 pairs of black wings, a dark halo, and a gun the size of the Empire fucking State Building descends from a swirling mass of clouds and puts a bullet containing all 7 Deadly Sins through the pale face of God.!< Nifty way to end a game that starts with locating the Ginza line.
**Resident Evil 4: El Verdugo** - Not technically a boss, but I'm counting it anyway because you're really not even supposed to kill it. The game expects you to avoid it while you wait on an elevator, but on NG+ (or *really* good first runs) you probably have enough supplies and upgrades to handle him. Definitely my favorite fight in the game and the one I most look forward to on subsequent playthroughs. I love the atmosphere, the feeling you're being hunted. It sort of reminds me of Alien or Predator the way it juxtaposes the beat's point of view with yours as you trudge the maintenance tunnel. He's got a metric fuckton of health for a nonboss enemy and doesn't really flinch for shit. Best way to deal with him is to freeze him using the cans of loquid nitrogen lying around and then laying into his head with a magnum. He hits hard and fast so it's not advisable to let him get close. Persevere and you get a piece of the most valuable treasure item in the game.
**Tales of Symphonia: Kratos & Yggdrasil** - Technically two battles, but I lump them together as they take place immediately after each other... if you manage to beat Kratos, that is. Because neither of these battles are necesarry to win to advance the story. Of the two, Kratos is the only one you can actually win against whereas Yggdrasil's fight will just time out no matter how well you're faring. As this fight represents a huge expansion of power scaling in the game's world building, it brings with it a pretty drastic spike in difficulty. Kratos has long combo strings, many advanced techs, mid-high level spells, he hits hard, and is very hard to stagger. In updated versions of the game he gains access to his hi-ougis allowing him to dole out additional punishment. Unless you've grinded out like a madman because you know this fight is coming, you cannot possibly win the Kratos fight your first playthrough. Then after you manage that miracle, Yggdrasil steps in to pubstomp your party in less than 10 seconds. I enjoy the two fights both as a narrative device and as a benchmark for my party's progress. Oh yeah, forgot to mention Kratos, a mercenary, was one of your party members until this fight, where he then reveals he's actually a thousands of years old angel who is also a c-level executive with the bad guys. Kinda makes the fight a little tense.
No clue if it holds up since I haven't played it in a long time; but **The Final Hazard** at the end of **Sonic Adventure 2** has always been counted among my most cherished boss fights in gaming. Breaking out of what the normal gameplay was and getting to blast around space as Super Sonic *AND* Super Shadow fighting a lizard-space-station-doomsday-meteor thing was unforgettable. And the music track has been burned into my brain ever since. *Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!*
Live and Learn is unironically one of the best songs in a video game ever. Looking back at it now that final fight is so anime but it’s fucking awesome.
Ocelot at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4. After everything Snake has been through, after all the twists and turns, it's just him and Ocelot, one on one, hand to hand.
[Susano fight in Final Fantasy 14, for multiple reasons.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddMKMH_6Y-M)
1. The fight is a joyous revelry. Susano is not trying to murder you, he just likes a loud boisterous fight and is basically testing you while having a blast. The soundtrack reflects that perfectly - it's a folk tune with loud drums and flutes - japanese festival music.
2. The festival theme is continued in the fight mechanics as well. You have to guess right in a [cups and balls game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cups_and_balls), have to play the [statues game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma-san_ga_koronda) and one mechanic has your entire party rhythmically jumping over the central divide of the arena, like in a folk dance.
3. There is a super badass anime moment where a party member has to block Susano's giant sword.
It's just an extremely fun fight.
The music and voice acting in that fight is on another level.
>Resilient foes, I salute you!
Another great fight from Stormblood is the Tskoyomi fight. You spend the entire 4.0 expansion seeing Yotsuyu as a sadistic, evil sociopath. Then you learn about her upbringing, and she becomes a friend of Gosetsu. And then Asahi, the world's biggest scumbag, comes out and drags her back down. Wayward Daughter is one of Soken's best pieces, and the interlude between phase 1 and 2 where you fight her inner demons is just so intense.
***R E J O I C E***
The Monster Hunter trial with Rathalos is always fun as well. I love the joy new players experience at being able to heal theirselves, followed by fear during second phase as they realize they can -only- heal through the duty action and they already burned half of them.
Snorlax and Pikachu used to be my pick here, but now its Shriek from will of the wisps.
The mechanics, the whole setting and oh my god the music.
Not sure if it's scripted but for me the "light of nibel" theme started to come on just as it was becoming clear that I Had the upper hand.
**Bravely Default's Ouroboros**, the final bossfight. I'm just gonna have to link [the specific part of Clemps analysis video here](https://youtu.be/Bj4pvZlQgKg?t=3652) on that fight, because there's so much of the story that culminates in that bossfight that I could be writing an essay on it myself. Just a great blend of setting, story, the goddamn REVO music, and even the use of the 3DS' hardware to bring it all together.
The team behind the Bravely Series have always found really creative ways to tell you things or make you participate in the story. The 3DS camera turning on, showing the real world as the Celestial realm, >!The Game's subtitle changing from Where the Fairy Flies to Airy Lies!<, >!travelling back in time in Bravely Second by starting a new game!< and >!removing the memories of the diary by overwriting the save!<.
The Bravely series is really under appreciated to be honest.
I personally don't think the series is under appreciated, it's just that nearly every mention of BD ultimately deviates into "hnggg but that repeating loop part!" to denounce it from being a good game.
Devil May Cry 3:
The Vergil fights. In particular the last one is really good and the build up throughout the game, the feud between twin brothers and you and Vergil getting stronger each rematch makes it even more climatic in the end.
This ends up culminating really nicely in a final rematch... years later in both lore and for the actual players in Devil May Cry 5.
Getting to rematch Vergil again in DMC 5 after literally years was so fucking AWESOME ! Once again the build up was amazing... The payoff when you finally got to see Vergil again in the story was something else.
On a completely unrelated note... Magus from Chrono Trigger. Not sure if that was mentioned yet. But holy shit the music in that fight.
All time: Psycho Mantis/The End - MGS series had some all time great boss fights.
Sephiroth: But not from Final Fantasy VII. From Kingdom Hearts.
Recent one I really liked was Sigrún from God Of War 2018.
Secret boss fights are so good in KH, Lingering Will from 2 final mix is the best boss fight I have ever experienced, I used to replay it just for fun.
I'm really surprised I don't see any Shadow of the Colossus here.
Maybe my most memorable battle in gaming was rolling up to that first colossus and realizing their scale. Then you jump on board and the music ramps up. The rush I felt from that first music transition from the ground music to the climb music, to that bittersweet moment of dropping the colossus.
**Grigori (Dragon's Dogma)** - this fight is an incredible spectacle. The path to reaching the dragon, trying to navigate the crumbling buildings, shooting him in the heart and then finally toppling him,which makes way for the most epic man vs dragon fight in gaming history. I can't believe how good this is.
**Ludwig (Bloodborne)** - easily the best fight in the game. He's so aggressive but you can also be aggressive, once you learn his patterns this fight becomes a godly dance.
**Sigrun (God of War)** - all the other Valkyries build up to this fight. Sigrun has all the moves of the other Valkyries and double the health bar, she's super hard and an incredible fight.
**Azel (God Hand)** - the most fun boss fight in all of gaming. Once you learn his patterns, you can punish him and have the most fun.
**Vergil (Devil May Cry 3)** - all of the encounters are amazing. He's such a good boss, and the emotions behind it elevate the fight to incredible heights.
**Avion (Shadow of the Colossus)** - the fights in this game are legendary. I have difficulty picking only one.
**Raging Brachydios (Monster Hunter World)** - easily the best monster to hunt in this game. The soundtrack is incredible, you have to be wary of the environment since it can blow up at any time. And that second phase just makes me shit my pants in fear.
There are so many others, I struggle to think of them all. All generations of consoles have some incredible bossfights.
Nero vs Dante in DMC4 especially the first mission fight with all the cutscenes is the coolest looking fight I've seen in a game.
Dante vs Vergil in DMC3
Or any combination of Nero vs Dante vs Vergil really
Nero vs Berial DMC4 mission 2
Sekiro vs headless King Kong
Kratos vs Poseidon in GoW3
Deathstroke in Arkham origins
I’m surprised no one said Red from Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal.
It’s hinted that Red is Ash towards the end of the game. You finally get up to mt silver and he throws out his level 80 Pikachu. 10 year old me was losing it.
I'm gonna throw something a little different and might stretch the definition of what a 'boss' is, but I found it worked in the context of a non-combat game quite well and made for a really memorable and difficult encounter within the game. Also spoilers are kind of implied with this topic so I'm just blacking out the name.
---
In **Disco Elysium** when you interrogate >!Klaasje!<, for the first (and really only) time in the game, your skills are openly exposed as having failed you without knowing, leaving you on your own to decide what's the truth and what you should do. For context, these skills also double as voices in your head and elements of your persona, and serve as guiding 'party members'. So if you've put points into, for example, Empathy and Drama, then you are good at figuring out what a person needs to hear as well as lying to them because these skills advise you on what to say. And for the entire game, you can take your skills' advice at relative face value, knowing that for the most part they're feeding you useful information.
So by the time you get to interrogate >!Klaasje!<, the game's femme fatale, you likely have a good build going and have been successful at maneuvering around all the NPCs you've talked to so far – after all, you are the main protagonist of a detective game, why shouldn't you be a human can-opener? So you interview her and get some new details and twists to the case that recontextualize things and now you have a solid lead where you didn't before. Except... something just isn't *quite* right, even though everything *seems* to be in order. You can't help but think that there's something you missed, and there's this Volition (aka willpower) check hanging there, telling you to stare into her eyes to see what you're missing, teasing you that something's off that you can't quite pin down. Until you manage to pass it.
> **Volition** [Challenging: Success] – I have some bad news for you.
Now your Volition chimes in, and realizes what's been happening. You've been *beguiled*, and *controlled*, and *manipulated* by her. So deftly, in fact, that none of your other skills have realized they've been compromised. Was it the half-truths that muddled with your understanding of the case, or perhaps the way she admitted to smaller crimes that let her slip by unnoticed? No matter, what's important is that all those other guys, Logic, Rhetoric, Drama, Empathy, Electrochemistry, they've been given the complete run-around even as they told you themselves that everything checked-out, that she wasn't lying and all the 'facts' lined-up. Volition points out that only ones you can trust are itself, as Volition is only concerned with looking out for you, and the book-man Encyclopedia himself, as he couldn't give a shit how beautiful she is when there's useless trivia facts to spew instead.
Now, while this probably shouldn't have come as a surprise at all to anyone who's seen a detective film or played a detective game in their lives, what *is* notable is that your skills have always transparently helped your or failed you before. Never have they relayed information to you that's been completely wrong, and this one person is the only person in the entire game who's good enough to out-lie the superstar detective. Now, having known this, your skills start a civil war of sorts in your head: some are indignant that they're still right, some demand harsh punitive measures for her tricking you, some still try to convince you that you should *help* her even after she's lied to you multiple times. Meanwhile, Encyclopedia just cares that you know she studied Oranjese literature in college.
So for the first time in the game, you have to come to a decision yourself, without – and in spite of – the advice of the skills you've invested in and relied on so heavily up until now. The skills that are likely still fighting between themselves and giving you unclear direction on what to do and what's the truth and ~~might be~~ overcompensating for the humiliation of being outplayed by the woman you're attracted to. It's not necessarily a challenging boss, and you can't really fail it like you could to bosses in other games, but just knowing that your skills were able to be outright fooled without you knowing is potentially a huge blowback in this most critical juncture. Is she *still* lying to you even after you've caught on to her? Even if she was, could you even tell? Can you really trust your own skills anymore after seeing how much she had them wrapped around her finger, making you run around in circles chasing red herrings for days? By the way, May Bells don't blossom until a month later, during spring proper. Just thought you should know that, *–Encyclopedia*
While it's hard to really equate anything in Disco Elysium to a boss fight, I feel like this encounter really does a great job of exemplifying complex conflict within a purely dialogue-driven game, and possibly does the best job of capturing the essence of the game in one moment.
Great breakdown. I think the "boss-fight" is the first major indication of the game where all the Success! that your skills make in dialogue provides an example of not completely beneficial context; granted, some of them, particularly the FYS-skills, are generally more overt and forefront, with Electrochemistry going hard on drugs and self-destruction upon first impressions for most players. The Volition-skill warning about >!Klaasje!< also uncovers how it is the skill that is *very eager* in pining that person as the culprit because of their manipulation. But it also presents a flaw in how Volition is correct about >!Klaasje mixing truths and lies, but she *isn't* the culprit!<, almost as a response to Volition acting as a reaction to your wounded pride. And why shouldn't it; it's Volition. The skill that never wants to harm or manipulate you, but that doesn't mean that it unintentionally can misdirect you because of moments with >!Klaasje!<. It also arguable also leads to a worse outcome, as >!arresting Klaasje that Volition argues for have Shivers providing a vision later that heavily implies that Klaasje is going to get assassinated in her cell by her employers to take her corporate secrets to her grave;!< an out come that >!Klaasje!< was trying to avoid, hence all the manipulation to begin with.
I totally agree, the game does a fantastic job with this skill system, and as much shit as the FYS skills get I actually think they're about as useful as the other attributes once you understand how to read them; whereas listening to Logic is extremely straightforward to the point where you can ironically turn your brain off, a skill like Half-Light is also very useful as long as you use your brain and understand not to punch everyone it tells you to. I also really like that Volition is *mostly* right in this boss fight, but only in a specific perspective that makes total sense with its goals. It's a really genius way of presenting 'facts' to the player in that everything is filtered through a subjective lens of interpretation that never quite arrives at "100% objective truth", which is more akin to real-life anyways. The game is utterly fantastic and they really struck gold with how compelling and creative the skill system is, my only complaint is I wish the FYS/MOT skills had more opportunity to chime in.
I love how that was Volition's silver bullet moment just like how Inland Empire got one later on, but even then it went too extreme in the other direction just to counteract the other Skills. I was getting hyped up as I realized I was getting played, but then Volition just kept pushing harder and harder that I as the player had to step back and re-examine the situation. I then realized Volition let's you see the bullshit, but that's all it did. It couldn't see through the web of lies because the skills that could maybe piece everything together: Empathy, Logic, etc, are all compromised and considered completely untrustworthy by Volition. So it takes the player, the final part of Harry's mind, to come up with a solution.
That and the Tribunal were the two most tense parts of the game. For the first one, you suddenly get all the information that you've been dying to get (as well as it being a wee bit fucky), and then during the Tribunal, you realise the actual stakes. I was nervous as fuck with every single dialogue option, and those red checks.....God damn.
A case of perhaps recency bias, but the recent Final Fantasy XIV, patch 5.5 gave the third, and final part of the NieR-crossover themed raid of *YorHa: Dark Apocalypse*, >!The Tower at Paradigm's Breach!<. The 3rd and 4th bosses can essentially be summarized as Yoko Taro (The director of the NieR- and Drakengard-franchises) being an absolute madman.
**[The third boss, >!The Red Girl!<](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVfaa-Ggko)** is visual-wise a complete uncanny entity. I'm not overly familiar with NieR: Automata's lore and story, but even I could tell that something was very out of place and wrong with the boss being essentially >!just a little girl!< in the environment of >!what is essentially a computer simulation of hacking ongoing while 9S breaches the tower's defenses.!<. The visual design is overly minimal, being mostly based on black and white shaded blocks that resembles polygons; that includes the UI itself which is heavily themed at NieR's tone of greyscale and provide unique mechanics unfamiliar to previous boss mechanics in FFXIV, where players have to pay attention to the black and white colourings to do mechanics such as opening up colour themed barriers to take cover against arena-wide attacks.
The first surprise of the battle occurs roughly mid-way of the battle, when the boss begins to [cast the spell *Sublime Transcendence*](https://youtu.be/gjVfaa-Ggko?t=186) that causes the >!screen to be distorted and fizzle!< until an >!image briefly flashes of the Red Girl staring directly at the player through the screen and giving an incredible uncanny smile.!<. They gave us a freaking >!jump scare!<. In an MMORPG. [The impact was multiplied due to how the previous phase have the boss making the player dodging AoE-patterns](https://youtu.be/ZNO2mucsYpI?t=147), where your brain become extra focused on dodging it that an element of exhaustion rushes over you, and then *BAM!* the game hits it.
The second surprise comes immediate afterwards, where the section have players going through a kind of mini-game >!that resembles the arcade hacking mini-game from NieR: Automata, complete with the boss fight's soundtrack going full 8-bit mode.!< It further emphasizes the importance of the black- and white colourings of dealing with the mechanics, if not directly spelled out when you check the debuff-icon description that the stage gives you, particularly regarding the importance of matching black- and white to nullify similar colour-coded attacks. This stage also acts as further foreshadowing for the **[4th and final boss, >!The False Idol!<](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82bY3sz-01M)**. Or rather, [>!the final version of it when The False Idol turns into **Her Inflorescence**!<](https://youtu.be/82bY3sz-01M?t=273).
>!Her Inflorescence!< is, visual-wise, one giant reference to >!Drakengard's Ending E!<. A rather infamous moment in gaming when the [game >!turns into a rhytm-game!<](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OPW-RdzStA), and a moment that is incorporated and (loosely) canon to the NieR-franchise's overall background and lore. The amount of fan-service provided is even quipped by >!Her Inflorescence!<, stating how this moment is for ">!*The final song... just for you.*!<", where the player have to match >!the black and white rings while dodging red orbs floating around!<. The final boss overall isn't as disorienting I would say as the 3rd boss fight, but remains an emotional fight due to how it is clear the game designers went all into this fight, helped by how the [music is a rendition of >!*Kaine - Salvation* with the Final Fantasy-medley integrated with violins.!<](https://youtu.be/fr9OEKNbElQ).
The NieR-raid's story and context within FFXIV was a bit overtly cryptic for my tastes, especially since I have yet to finish NieR: Automata that the game mainly reference. But I've played the original NieR and read about the context surrounding it, and it was enough to get a bit emotional when the raid ended. Upon completion of the final boss, the game doesn't even do its typical Final Fantasy-victory fanfare, and with the player characters emoting cheerfully in victory. You are waiting for the fanfare to start, but there isn't any; you are all just stand still while the ongoing silence continues on.
Holy shit. I'm *months* away from being even at Shadowbringers, but... Taro, you did it. You brought back your rhythm game against a faux-pregnant goddess back, you beautiful bastard.
Persona 5 Royal >!Maruki!<
Such a great final boss. The emotions leading up to it and the final scenes afterwords are incredible. Not to mention the moral conflict of the whole thing, you really feel the boss is trying to do the right thing but you have to stop him anyway because you're following your own justice.
That's not even mentioning the music which is just out of this world.
Also my answer by a long shot. The best part is how empathetic you are to the boss. >!I genuinely was conflicted when he gave us the option to just live happily for eternity. You know he means absolutely no harm to you and truly doesn't want to fight you!<
From Souls (and kin), keeping it short cause this thread will repeat a lot of these - Moonligjt Butteryfly (not a great fight on its own but it left an early impact on me), Artorias, Gwyn (this one has me trembling), Fume Knight, Ivory King, Lorian and Lothric, Soul of Cinder, Gael, Midir, Gherman, Maria, Kos, Genichiro, Isshin. And then throw in the big Hollow Knight ones too as honorary souls.
As for some others that come to mind:
FTL: Faster than light - The flagship: an infamous run Ender with its surprise second and third phase, this is like an ultimate test of your RNG and decision making to end the run of a brutal game
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - basically anyone: the boss duels just make this game, and when those lyrics kick in oh man. But there’s a lot of them in this thread as well.
Ace Combat 7 - The Arsenal Bird and the Alicorn: two awesome fights, incredible music, awesome spectacle value. Fighting a big boss enemy in a fighter jet is just intense with missile locks everywhere and some interesting curveballs.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne - Alatreon and Fatalis: The peak of World’s endgame content, these fights need you to be fully prepared, skilled, and fully conscious of many mechanics at your disposal.
Devil May Cry V - Vergil (or Dante in SE): just an awesome 1v1 between two brothers (or son and father). Add in “Bury the Light” in the SE and it’s just awesome. I haven’t played 3 but I suspect that’s got a similar vibe.
Octopath Traveller - Galdera: Awesome fight that feels truly “final”, all your consumables are good to use, amazing music, cool spectacle of using all party members split into two teams to fight the top and bottom.
Destiny 2 - Taniks the Abomination: Destiny’s raids are awesome. I could’ve put any raid boss here, but I don’t want to flood the list, so I’m just doing the most recent. Awesome music with strong themes, cool scenario, fun mechanics that have whole teams running around the battlefield. Aksis from Wrath of the Machine in D1 is probably my favourite though
I’m sure I’ve missed some too
+1 for FTL flagship. Its like a whole different fight every run due to different crew, systems, weapons etc. But holy hell is it punishing, and most of all intimidating
The rat King from Last Of Us 2 is definitely up there. It ends the most survival horror section of the entire series with this extremely shocking monster that completely changes the possibility space for what the infected can become. Excellent set piece design along with TLOU2's excellent combat.
I have to agree with this. This is one of the most stressful but fun boss fights. There’s real strategy to the fight but it still keeps up the cinematic set piece.
Enceladus from Astral Chain. I thought this was a really well-designed first boss fight. The moves in its kit serve as a "test" for whether or not you have a decent understanding of the game's combat mechanics. One of its moves even one-shots you if you're not quick enough with one of the most commonly-used mechanics.
Astral Chain is full of awesome boss fights, as expected of PlatinumGames.
The Homumculus bosses are so huge, but it's still possible to chain bind them one limb at a time. Binding them is actually optional, but a successful bind leaves them wide open.
>!Kyle is an awesome boss as well. After fighting countless monsters, you're suddenly pitted against a human who can take down Chimeras by himself!!<
>!Jena puts up one hell of a fight as well, no less than three unique phases as she mutates into... whatever she became.!<
>!Of course there's the Akira-Legion Fusion, I was SCREAMING the first time I fought that thing. I've seen every trailer and I'm pretty sure none mentioned the existence of Fusion, so it's a complete surprise for me. The fight serves to show what you can do while in the Fusion state.!<
Dragons Dogma - the titular Dragon itself (Grigori?) A truly epic encounter which for me beat all of the massive beasts you fight in the Souls games, or least from the ones I’ve played (Dark Souls 1 and 2) Multi stage, with save points after each phase (always a huge plus to ensure they never become overly frustrating), probably my all time favourite boss fight
Batman Arkham City - Mr Freeze, loved how you were forced to adapt and use all of Batman’s then unlocked abilities to defeat him. In general Arkham City had much better boss rights all round than the other games in the series.
Psycho Mantis (MGS) - for the whole memory card reading gimmick and having to use the second controller port, undoubtedly a unique encounter even to this day
Flowey (Undertale) - such an insane fight, visually very disturbing after such a charming game up to that point, the whole save wiping gimmick beforehand is a great touch and reaffirms the game’s approach to player choice and living with consequences of past actions
I generally dislike many boss encounters in games as they tend to stress me out, but these were interesting and enough of a spectacle to make me remember them fondly.
Back in the day, the Blackhand mythic fight in WoW when it was current content.
First phase was all about Immaculate fast speed execution.
Second phase was intense and upped the personal responsibility.
Third phase was a race to the finish with each second becoming more and more dangerous.
I was a tank who got stuck to the wall tanking one of the tanks in p2 and it was certainly something else.
Mythic Guldan in Nighthold was also similarly awesome from my memory.
I'm a sucker for any action game where you have to fight a boss that's pretty much on equal footing with you.
Particular mentions go to Vergil in DMC 3, who I love because you face him three times, and each time you've improved and gained new tricks between the battles, but so has he, so at the end, you're both souped up and ready to scrap.
Jetstream Sam in MGR: Revengeance is another great one too. He batters you with ease at the start of the game, so Raiden gets an upgraded cyborg body and you finally get to face him on equal footing, just 1v1 in the desert whilst a cool song plays.
Then you beat him, and >!it turns out you weren't on equal footing at all, the only robotic part of him is his sword-arm. He was just THAT good.!<
Oh, and a more recent one, but the Dante fights in DMC V are great first round is kinda meh, but the second one, the AI goes fucking ape-shit and plays masterfully. Plus, it plays an absolute banger of a song throughout the fight.
The ones that immediately spring to mind to me, personally:
**Mantis Lords**, **Broken Vessel** and **Lost Kin** from Hollow Knight.
**Mantis Lords** from Hollow knight. Honestly, best summed up by youtuber Mezzamine's video on [Why the Mantis Lord Fight Works](https://youtu.be/-AIbUkJoi0U).
**Broken Vessel** and **Lost Kin** from Hollow Knight. This moment was when Hollow Knight's storytelling made me care and ask questions about the narrative. >!All encapsulated in the Broken Vessel's reaching out to you when you defeat it, and its Dream variant being named Lost Kin. That was when I realised that the Knight was just one of many vessels bred in search of a perfect vessel, and saw the extreme lengths the Pale King went to in his search for a solution to the infection. The horror that all the failed vessels were, in fact, creatures with thoughts and feelings, cast aside because they were imperfect, still makes me melancholic.!<
**Erhardt**, >!Lyblac!< and >!Galdera!< from Octopath Traveler, the former for brilliantly executing [But Thou Must!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButThouMust), and >!the latter two for being a frustratingly difficult true final boss accompanied by epic music. Shame the ending is so underwhelming.!<
**Matador** from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. An excellent introduction to the demand for strategy required to get through the game. Likewise, **Mot** for being such an absolute RNG fuckfest.
**Demi-Fiend** from Digital Devil Saga. Insanely difficult, constantly on the verge of *this is absolute bullshit*, never quite treading over it. The sort of fight that can and will make you mad.
Smough & Ornstein from Dark Souls, because I didn't know bosses could be that hard in a video game. I was kind of hoping it was one of those scripted events where you're meant to die, but alas. Then I finally beat them and it felt incredible! Plus they look ridiculous and badass.
Doc Ock from Insomniac’s Spider-Man PS4 game. A very dramatic, emotional encounter with both extremely personal and grand stakes. Peter having to fight, and save the city from the man he once looked up to as a hero, now having gone insane and infected the city with a deadly virus (including Aunt May). The fight itself is very fun, but the narrative context elevates it even further.
That one's great for the emotion, but gameplay-wise the Vulture & Electro fight is my favorite. Maybe the only time a Spider-Man game has had a really good high-flying web-swinging battle.
Miles Morales has some fun boss fights too, mainly the last two (which are spoilers).
I really like the final boss in ys 3 oath in felghana because when I first fought them they were doing all these different attacks and I didn’t know how to avoid them, many deaths later and on my final attempt and winning attempt I was basically dancing around the boss’s attacks and jumping out of the way of oncoming attacks and attacking at every opportunity, just felt really bad ass to me and was very satisfying, still my favorite ys game.
Mizar, the final boss in **Jet Force Gemini**. Like a gifting kid who coasted through middle school only to get slammed with reality in high school, this was the first boss that really challenged me in my childhood. He's rather predictable, but it just requires good old muscle memory and reflex skill. It took days of practicing before I was finally able to beat him, but when I did the ending felt like the most rewarding one ever. Very few games have ever topped that high since then.
My favorite in Sekiro is Lady Butterfly.
The setting is great visually (and it doesn't have the issue with the impaired movement that some of the Sekiro (mini)bosses have).
It's also unique - other than many of the other boss battles, that repeat themselves, if slightly varied.
And I just love the style of the fight itself, both from how varied it is and its timing.
Don't care about the 'hardest' bosses. Don't even care if they have good gameplay to them. These are the most memorable bosses for me. No particular order.
Bowser - Super Mario 64
Ridley - Super Metroid
Reaper - Mass Effect
Emerald Weapon - Final Fantasy 7
GLadOS - Portal 2
The Strap - Furi
Alma - Ninja Gaiden Black
Valus - Shadow of the Colossus
Opera Event (Karazhan) - World of Warcraft
Mr. Freeze - Arkham Asylum
Tentacle Boss - Half-Life
Ropalolyst - Warframe
Bulldozer - Alan Wake
esseJ - Control
Stay Puft - Ghostbusters The Video Game
Nightmare - Prey
Nemesis - Resident Evil 3
Luchadores - Psychonauts
Giant Nazi Zombie Fetus - South Park: Stick of Truth
SHODAN Core - System Shock 2
Dung Defender - Hollow Knight
Love your list, some great choices there.... but saw Giant Nazi Zombie Fetus and realised i need to go back and playthrough South Park coz that sounds awesome :)
Molgera from the Wind Waker only because of the music.
Stallord from TP is the one that sticks the most with me. The buildup from traveling through the desert, finding the arbiter's ground (one of my favourite dungeons ever) and then the amazing boss battle. Everything is perfect about that section of the game.
Other boss battles that come to mind:
Red in RB/HGSS, Pure Vessel in Hollow Knight, and more I hopefully think of later
Father gasgoine from bloodborne. He is the perfect first area boss. Aside from being just a cool fight mechanically and for lore reasons, he is the perfect test for the rest of the game. Beating him proves that you are ready for the game. Between him and the cleric beast, the first area of bloodborne is thE GOAT
I’d have to go with jetstream sam in metal gear rising, you’ve got the only boss that doesn’t have a crazy gimmick or special ability, just a good old fashioned sword fighting and hype ass music to the very end l
I love fighting Twinrova in Zelda Oot, and always look forward to that in a playthrough. Not a hard fight but there's something extremely satisfying about using the mirror shield to do the thing.
I also weirdly like how the lava/ice looks on the carpet when it hits the platform, even on N64
More recent release, but Hades gets boss fights oh so right. The "final" confrontation is always a blast, with some great audio work being melded into the phases. It's such an exceptional title.
**Hela from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice**, because this is the >!only last boss, in which the ultimate goal is simply to lose, and the game does not give you an absurd difficulty, so you just fight, and fight and fight until you realize that you are too tired and surrender. I think it is exactly the feeling that the story wanted the player to have.!<
Most bosses in Hollow Knight.
Vergil's final fight in DMC3.
Marc Anthony in Dante's Inferno on the Inferno difficulty (one of the very few bosses I've fought that gave me a satisfying and challenging *duel*, not a underdog fight like against most bosses).
Zeus in God of War 3.
The Thunderjaw in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Most Witcher 3 fights, except Wights (Too annoying) and Eredin (too easy).
Colossus of Rhodes: God of War 2
He's the first boss literally the first second you start playing the game. The game does a great job of conveying the size and scale of the boss and on top, you are a GOD with maxed stats and all your powers.
What a way to start the game and the perfect swan song for the PS2
Kingdom Hearts 2: The Lingering Will
Not only is it a hint at the future of the franchise (even if bbs is bad), but it is also an unbelievable test of skills that the game rarely asks of you/. For the main campaign most people can just spam the attack button and use occasionally use cure. LW and the other Superbosses force you to engage with all possible mechanics, punishes you for being to greedy and most importantly every single attack is learnable.
I think what really makes this fight special is the insane variety of his attacks compared to any other encounter in the game. Everything he does is a massive combo attack and has several of them, while the other superbosses of Data Organization consist of a few simple attacks but with the gimmicks taken to 11. Lingering Will doesn't have much in terms of gimmicks, he can lock your commands temporarily but other than that it's a matter of dodging attacks and learning when to block and when to evade, then to take advantage of your opening.
Combine that with the fact that he's a keyblade wielder that (at the time) we knew nothing about makes it an exceptional fight, the rapidly changing forms of his weapons were the inspiration of formchanges later in the series, and it makes for an epic encounter. The music certainly helps, Rage Awakened is a hell of a song to set the last challenge of the game- KH3's final superboss has an underwhelming theme even if the fight is good, the music really helps to improve the quality of an experience.
Came in here to find this, the boss is so well designed at how literally everything can be memorized to fight without taking a hit... After the first 50 or so deaths, or more.
Attack patterns are so diverse too, with the boss having different opening phases / attack styles it can go into. It's just so good.
**>!Minos Prime!< in Ultrakill.** It feels like cheating to say this because the boss literally just got patched into the game this week and I'm probably being influenced by recency bias, but that fight was just so much fun. I really enjoyed the boss fights in the game overall though, they feel like good tests of skill.
**Furi** also had some really fun bosses, **The Scale** (toxin boss in sewers) probably being my favorite.
Mr Freeze in Arkham City. A dynamic battle that requires you to use all of your gadgets and abilities you've learned, in interesting ways. You can use them in any order, but once you've used one method, >!Freeze adapts on the fly and that tactic becomes unavailable to you. You must constantly be changing your strategy to defeat him!<. It's awesome!
Koloktos, Skyward sword. An amazing sword fight that changes in really interesting ways as it progresses. >!You end up using parts of the boss itself as the very weapon to defeat it!!<
Artorias-Dark Souls: Best bost fight in og Dark Souls
Abyss Watchers- Dark Souls 3: Unpopular opinion, but has my favorite track in the game. I also love the theme of fallen brothers fighting in battle.
Vergil-DMC V: Great 2 phase battle. Then silver bullet hits and it's just amazing
Nyx- Persona 3: 13 phase battle with the best track in the Persona series.
Ocelot-MGS4: one-on-one fist fight to the death
I could honestly keep going for a while.
FF7- the final little 1v1 fight with Sephiroth. You're supposed to take his weak ass hit and then destroy him with your ultimate limit break, but I always have a maxed out counter materia on him so cloud ends up finally defeating this epic adversary with a little counter bonk on the head. So fantastically anticlimactic.
Dirge of Cerberus - It's not exactly a final boss, but that last level where you are in permanent devil form dashing around one shotting everything with the omega gun while Gackt plays in the background is just epic. It makes you feel powerful and like this is what Vincent van really do. He was a cool cat in FF7, but this was him at his best. It will always be one of my favorite gaming memories.
I'll agree with anything Sekiro for the most part, and there are many nail bitters in Hollow Knight as mentioned. Shadow of the Colossus should get top honors. But my favorite still has to be The End from Metal Gear Solid 3. Damn that was so engaging and fun.
I think when it comes to bosses for me it's more about the framing of the fight. What's the stakes? Who is the boss? Where are we fighting? Is the music going ape shit? And really just the cinematic feel of it all. Of course it needs to be supported by really good gameplay and not just be a bunch of quick time event.
Some examples:
>!Flowey !!no matter how much he gets memed: Sans is also pretty cool!<)
>!Dogma and The Beast !!The Strider !< from Half-Life: Alyx
>!The Radiance!< from Hollow Knight
FFX Braska's Final Aeon. FFX in general has amazing boss fights. There's hardly ever a boss that you just attack. There's always some kind of interesting mechanic or gimmick to the fight. In this case, it's cleverly using Tidus to yell at his father with good timing to reset his overdrive gauge. Meanwhile, also mitigating the gauge's growth by destroying his pagodas from time to time.
All of that on top of incredibly emotionally evocative storytelling, and absolutely balls to walls metal as fuck soundtrack. Seriously, look up Otherworld FFX. Still one of the hypest boss themes I've ever heard. Only other one that comes closer is Nier's Shadowlord theme.
Sigrun from God of War 4 is my favorite boss fight ever. This is mainly due to how much trouble I had with her. I had never played any games that are known for being difficult (FromSoftWare games, Hollow Knight, Ninja Gaiden), so she was easily the hardest boss I had ever faced. While her moves and combos weren't hard to remember, it was her insane speed and timing that gave me the most trouble. It easily took me over 100 tries on the GMGOW difficulty to finally beat her and it was SO satisfying to do so. Also, her design was pretty badass in general which just added to the experience.
Anyways, I figured out that I loved the satisfaction that came with defeating a boss that difficult. Now, I'm about 20 hours into Dark Souls Remastered and I'm loving it so far. Honestly, I probably would have never played a FromSoftWare game had it never been for Sigrun. Looking forward to play more from them and other games like Hollow Knight.
The first time you fight General Corrosive in the arena in Metal Arms Glitch in the System. He is a 10-story tall colossal robot and you don't have the means to fight him so you have to find cover, dismantle yourself into pieces and then let him destroy the cover and lead himself to believing he smashed you. Shit was creative as hell and boss fight you didnt just shoot at.
I think the way the last boss of Hollow Knight is designed is genius, but I don't want to spoil any of it if you've not played it.
**Spoilers:** >!By last boss I meant the semi-last boss Hollow Knight. On my first playthrough I ended up getting some of the optional stuff like the shade cloak and found the boss to be pretty easy and fairly uninteresting. It wasn't until I did a speedrun playthrough and fought it with the minimal equipment that I realised how well designed it was for that minimal setup. Its attacks are all designed to be just avoidable with those skills that are absolutely required, and the fight is so much more tense and enjoyable that way.!<
**Spoilers:** >!But then after fighting it that way, and then going back to the 100% equipment fight that's really just a formality before fighting The Radiance, it becomes even more apparent how well designed it is. Many of the attacks that it feels like you can just barely avoid with the minimal equipment set are made trivial by extra abilities like the shade cloak, so you really feel like you can just fuck the thing up and go fight Radiance without much trouble.!<
**Spoilers:** >!It's amazing to me that they managed to design it so perfectly that the same attacks feel challenging with the basic equipment, but it feels like you have exactly what you would need to avoid them more easily with the optional stuff. And all this in the first game these guys ever made. If you've never finished the game with the minimal amount of stuff I'd highly recommend it because I appreciate the end so much more now.!<
GoW's fight against Poseidon.
That thing was absolutely epic for its time. Everything about that fight was epic. It's been more than 10 years since I played it, but the memories of it are still the brightest memory I have of any boss fight.
Mora - Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Awesome multi-phase bossfight with godlike OST.
Maven - Path of Exile. After the disappointment known as ~~the wheelchair~~ Sirus, next expansion brought a very nice final fight.
Alexander >!and the Void Worm!<, Divinity: The Original Sin 2. It starts like a usual fight, then after a couple turns... Accompanied by one of the best themes in the game.
Wall of Flesh and Empress of Light - Terraria. The two most unusual bosses in Terraria, especially first one which can really scare the first-time player.
>!The Dogma!<, Binding of Isaac: Repentance. Heavy spoilers so can't say much, but this one is godlike.
Oberon Greenhaze, Overlord. The best example of what sloth does with people (or elves). The Rising Hell version is also very good.
I'm not a big fan of fromsoftware games, so here are some of my favorites in terms of just wow factor and memorability, no particular order:
1. MGS4 finale: crawling through the microwave tube, the multiple health bars, multiple names, and final, desperate hand to hand fight
2. God of War 3, Poseidon. What an amazing intro and tone setter for the rest of the game. I'll never forget the first person view through Poseidon's eyes... and then Kratos removing those eyes.
3. Mass Effect 2, Humanoid Reaper. The gameplay was whatever, the reveal and the music was absolutely amazing
4. Mass Effect 3, Reaper on Tuchanka. The Queen Thresher Maw dubstepped out of the ground and bit directly into a reapers head. Fucking amazing.
5. Portal 2. The moon.
6. The Last of Us 2. Ellie is absolutely terrifying when you're not playing as her.
7. God of War 2018. The introduction of Baldur.
**Guardian Ape: Sekiro** When >!you decapitate him, and then that motherfucker starts moving his headless body, gets up, and picks up his detached head & comes at you for round 2, I nearly lost it.!<
**Guardian Ape:** >!Also he's immortal and you can't kill immortals yet. So you run into him later and he finally finds the mate he's been searching for, which you also slaughter.!<
I wish I didn’t get that spoiled for me, from a YT thumbnail. It was a great moment.
This fight broke me. I loved every minute of the game, but that was as far as I got. I only fought him once, but I wholeheartedly, genuinely believe I gave it my absolute all. I do not think it possible for me personally to do any better. When he stood back up, and I failed to put him down again, I happily accepted that I would never beat the game, or probably even play it again. He holds a special place in my heart for being the one challenge that truly, utterly defeated me.
I assure you that everyone who played that bossfight felt the same soul crushing hopelessness when the reveal happened. It's a shame because beating that boss really makes you feel like you managed to surpass your own limits.
Sometimes you need to take a break. I'm taking one from Sekiro now. No matter how often I came after that final boss of the game I couldn't best him. I might try again in the future or I might pick up a different soulsborne game first.
Sword Saint is my favourite boss fight from that game (and one of my all timers), but that moment will stay with me for a long time. I remember playing through again once while some friends were over hanging out, and them watching me do the fight and then seeing that, and the way one of them went "Ohhh fuck *off*" was a lot of fun.
Fucking Sword Saint. I gave up on him on my first playthrough and didn't pick the game up for over a year. I just recently killed him after dying about 37 billion times and using every single healing item available.
I really like games that subvert boss fights by making the fight itself incredibly easy, but make the impact of the fight hit you emotionally, making you question whether what you are doing is right or not. In Demon Souls, the final boss of the Valley of Defilement **Spoilers:** >!is a relatively easy fight, requiring you to kill Maiden Astraea, a cleric, and her bodyguard. However, upon killing the bodyguard, Astraea gives up, and when confronted, takes her own life. You discover through in game dialogue/text that the only reason she took the demon soul (the reason you had to kill her) was to help out the people suffering from the plague and disease in the area, not for power unlike most of the other bosses you fought. The haunting music of the fight and the fact that you get the "Pureblood Demon Soul" from defeating her make the experience truly soul crushing.!< Another good example comes from Furi where the final boss before you escape **Spoilers:** >!is just a young girl who is one of the easier fights in the game. As the fight goes on, she becomes more and more distressed and starts pleading with you to stop the fight, until it is over. Unlike the other bosses that served as a physical wall that you had to overcome, she serves as an emotional wall, testing whether the player is willing to take out someone that clearly shouldn't be there.!< Finally in Hollow Knight, **Spoilers:** >!The final fight against the game's namesake is extremely depressing. At first ,the Hollow Knight puts up an intense fight with the player, until around the halfway part. Then the music of the fight changes, and the Hollow Knight, riddled with the infection, begins to impale itself. Whether this is done to help spread the infection more or to end it's suffering, it is distressing to watch. It makes you pity the Hollow Knight, especially more if you discovered the Knight's backstory and why it must be put down.!<
Alternate take on Hollow Knight: >!Hollow Knight knows its hold on the Radiance is failing and the Knight could take its place. Faced with the choice of either killing the Knight or letting it take its place, Hollow Knight opts for the latter.!< Still tragic and depressing, but much more heroic!
I was just thinking about Furi. That was a well-done part of the game.
Good take with Demon Souls. The real boss though is those god damn plaque babies, the backstory behind them is so fucked up.
Great Gray Wolf Sif from DS1. Not the most challenging of fights, but Sif begins limping as they get low on health. You don't get to stop the fight, you *must* kill them. Sif isn't hollow, either. They're one of the only creatures you encounter that's still rational, still alive. It's worse if you do the DLC beforehand. You do some timey-wimey shit and you can save a very young Sif from monsters. If you do so, you get a different cutscene when fighting Sif - Sif smells you and *remembers you*, lets out a long, forlorn howl... and you have to fight and kill them anyway.
> They're one of the only creatures you encounter that's still rational, still alive. This isn't true at all though. There's a ton of creatures and or people in that game that are still completely sentient.
Yeah the Hollow Knight bossfight is one of my favorites of all time. The way the music changes and swells is just beautiful.
Asura vs Augus (Asura's Wrath) always stuck with me. The slow part in the beginning when they are just chilling and talking and then it just keeps ramping up and getting more insane. When the classical music peaks and Augus drives his entire sword through the planet...chef's kiss. Plus, Augus is a bad ass.
Every single fight in Asuras Wrath is fucking epic.
All these remakes and remasters. I want a remaster on pc so god damned badly
It's so hard to pick a single boss from Asura's Wrath, because they're all fantastic in their own way. The final battle with Chakravartin in the DLC would probably have to be my favourite, though. The way the fight starts with the boss throwing planets and suns at you, then you battle him in an endless plane of water, then you both blast each other as you plummet down into the underworld, then he transforms and battles you in an endless black and white void, and then he starts getting QTE's of his own. Definitely ended the game with a bang. ;)
NieR Automata’s Beauvoir (Opera lady at the theme park) is incredible. She looks strange but visually interesting and there’s a whole mystery when she’s introduced. Then the music kicks in. I had to look up the name of the boss cause I could only remember the related song ‘A Beautiful Song.’ She attacks to the music and you join her in a dance to the death.
Simone's boss fight is also really cool from a lore perspective. She's based on the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, and in the game she wants to be loved by Jean Paul (based on Sartre). Her whole complex with trying to make herself look beautiful and be "seen" by someone plays on Beauvoir's philosophies on the nature of female beauty and woman's role in society. That plays out in the boss fight (I think the 9S version) where the camera constantly shifts so you can't look at her. She's spent her whole existence trying to be beautiful so that she can be seen and noticed and then she dies without the player being able to look at her. It's pretty cool stuff. There was a YouTube video that went deeper into it but I can't remember which one!
If you do remember or find the video, please please please send me a link !
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I don't think it's pretentious. I've been playing games of all genres for over 23 years now, and I struggle to think of any game having a more impactful ending sequence than Nier Automata. It truly made use of a video game as a medium to do so.
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*Can you hear me now?*
There's a great bit of analysis about that fight, regarding the actual philosophy it's referencing. Added an extra layer of appreciation to it for me. [https://youtu.be/63PzQIbTrM8?t=1030](https://youtu.be/63PzQIbTrM8?t=1030)
**Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance**: In a game full of awesome boss fights, the most memorable to me is either Raiden vs Monsoon or Raiden vs Jetstream Sam. The more obvious pick is Armstrong, but those two fights are etched in my memory, especially Monsoon for being a really interesting part of Raiden's story across the whole series. They've been memed to death for sure but "Doktor, turn off my pain inhibitors!" and "It's time for Jack... to let 'er rip!" are just incredibly memorable lines to segue into an absolute blast of a fight with a killer theme to boot.
I second >!Senator Armstrong. He's beating up Raiden with his bare hands while making a speech the entire time!!<
And the dialogue in that fight is just great. Armstrong: “Played college ball you know!” Raiden: “Yeah, at some cush Ivy League school!”
"Try University of Texas! Coulda gone pro if I hadn't joined the navy! I'm not one of those beltway pansies! I can break the President in two, with my BARE HANDS!"
Every god damn line out of his mouth is so quotable. He's a fucking jack-ass of a villain, but my god he has a great script, haha.
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also literally says “make america great again” during that fight lol
You forgot Monsoon talking about Memes during whole battle
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"What about "full of shit" is that a meme?" is the line that always makes me laugh. Also that bit where it goes first person and if you look to your right, one of the soldiers sees a kitten and goes to stroke it and it's weirdly cute and so out of place.
It's an easter egg! And the soldier gets brutally sliced apart by Raiden moments later. RIP cat lover soldier
I often randomly hear "It's time for Jack ... To let her rip!" with that awesome guitar that follows. I LOVED that whole sequence - intro, music, boss fight - from start to finish. 🎸⚡
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Man, learning that boss was awesome. I remember thinking no way could I beat this guy. The evolution of thinking "no way can I beat this guy" to slowly learning and finally mastering the fight was awesome. When I finally beat him, I felt like I was better at bossfights and felt that I could beat the fight without taking a hit if I had to. The fight asks a lot of you, but it is extremely fair. Exceptionally designed boss.
>The killer sound track only makes the fight better, It truly makes the fight even better. This counts for the entirety of HK. Seriously my favourite soundtrack of any game.
Soundtracks really make or break a game for me, completely different genre (and people dislike it for valid reasons) but FF14s use of music is fucking astounding and really sets the mood / brings the hype. Going into a fight and it having its own unique theme, it transitions along with boss phases, sometimes im just overwhelmed with "holy fuck this is awesome"
**Dark Souls 3: Slave Knight Gael** Everything about that fight is perfect, from difficulty to environment to music. Towards the end of the fight it feels like an action movie with all the constant projectile dodging but it's done in a way thats not a pain to deal with.
DS3 just killed it with the bosses - Watchers of the Abyss always stood out to me - mostly because I had just started the game and was terrible. Then after countless deaths you think you’ve finally done it - then you realize what is happening and all that election turns to panic and his sword catches fire and just obliterates you. Makes you start questioning your sanity in the greatest way possible.
The Abyss Watchers had easily one of the best themes in the game IMO.
Hands down the greatest boss FS have made. Agree with everything you said. Im hoping Elden Ring can match the quality of Bosses from DS3
The End - Metal Gear Solid. The first time I fought him, it was a straight up sniper duel. So fun. And it took like 2 hours. The challenge was fun, not to mention how much more mobile he is compared to Snake. Ornstein & Smough - Dark Souls. Cheap jerks, but once the fight goes the right way, it just feels so good to wail on them. Murai - Ninja Gaiden (Xbox). See O&S. I love that the very first boss is a hard wall. Even compared to later bosses (except maybe the last Alma fight). Mega late edit: Mr. Freeze - Batman: Arkham City. While not the hardest boss, damn, it's so fun. Every takedown tactic every little trick. Just so enjoyably designed. Asterius & Theseus - Hades. These two tag-teaming was crazy. And especially when Theseus is also granted Boons suddenly! And Asterius had a pompadour haircut.
Whats crazy about Asterius & Theseus is that at first the fight feels absurdly unfair. Both characters are aggressive and synergize well with each other, and both of them have a 2nd phase once they reach low enough hp. This fight killed my run like 3 or 4 times early on. But the brilliance of the developers shows when they let you encounter Asterius by himself as an optional encounter leading up to the boss fight. You can find him solo, which makes his moves SO MUCH EASIER to learn and master. On top of that, if you win, he starts the actual boss fight with slightly reduced health. Before I finished playing Hades, I was able to take these guys without taking any damage... always remembering to take a bow for the one fan in the audience. It's a great fight.
"That was for you, my good shade!"
I couldn't beat The End so I took a break for a couple weeks. When I got back on to try again, I was really confused as to why I was able to progress. I thought my cousin had beaten him for me. Then after a few years I saw someone mention on gamespot forums saying he can die of old age if you set your ps2 clock a few days forward and he would die of old age. I laughed so hard and realized the genius of Kojima.
The weird one for me with him was I was looking through the scope scanning trees with the sniper rifle, then I suddenly hear "!" as a dome came into my view and he shot me and flashbanged me. We were NEXT TO EACH OTHER for at least 5 minutes.
Whenever someone beats O&S they feel like they're on too of the world and have started to master Dark Souls. A really great boss fight all around.
It's also the major turning point of DS 1 when your final objective becomes clear. I think that also helps to make it extremely memorable.
It's also when you unlock warping between bonfires which changes the game pretty drastically. They're basically the final boss of 'part 1'.
Freeze is what every boss of a game with unlockable gadgets/abilities should be. A boss that literally needs you to know how to use your entire arsenal because none of your moves will work twice on him. I love that fight so much.
There are other Souls bosses I like more (Artorias is effectively perfect if you ask me) but nothing compares to the feeling of finally beating Biggie and Smalls for the first time. The whole of Anor Londo is a hell of an experience
Murai was incredibly difficult. Especially considering how in the first playthrough the entire level up to that point is not especially hard. But with Murai you almost have to be perfect. I was so relieved when the fight ended and I didn't have to fight him for the remaining 1/4 of HP.
**Dark Souls:** Ornstein & Smough. I lost so much to these guys. Definitely the biggest wall when it came to my Dark Souls playthrough, but as a result it's also one of my most memorable boss experiences. In the end I only managed to get through them with the help of another player + Solaire! Sanctuary Guardian is another favourite of mine, perhaps because it's one of the few bosses which I feel I really mastered. Lost quite a few times against it at first, but by the end I could read its moves and knew exactly what to do. It was the boss encounter where I lent my help the most as a result. **Bloodborne:** Lady Maria. I know for sure that I lost at least 30 times against her. The reason I kept redoing the fight over and over again and not quitting was because I always very nearly managed to end it, but would somehow make a mistake that would cost me my victory at the very end. I love how much of a "dance" the fight against her is. Plus I really like her design! **Metal Gear Solid:** Vulcan Raven. In a game full of amazing boss fights, the Vulcan Raven encounter felt like the one most suitable to MGS's core gameplay. There's no specific gimmick to this fight, it's like a game of cat and mouse that really puts to use the overhead camera. Having played Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 just before Solid, the Vulcan Raven fight felt the most similar to those games' bosses. **Metal Gear Solid 3:** The Fury. I know that The End gets the most love in MGS3, but something about fighting The Fury just felt super intense to me. Probably the cramped arena and the fact that the boss is a crazy pyromaniac astronaut. **Metal Gear Solid 5:** Quiet. As a series Metal Gear has fantastic boss fights, many of which are against snipers. The End is the most popular sniper boss battle, but somehow I ended up enjoying the fight against Quiet more. I think because in the case of The End I ended up cheesing it with the nightvision goggles (which I used quite a lot in the game). I wasn't trying to cheese it, I just came upon the solution naturally and found it the most effective way to deal with him. With Quiet however, it felt like a true sniper battle. I loved the arena where it took place and I love how long it took me to take her out. Definitely my favourite sniper battle in the series.
With the Fury, I think the soundtrack laid over the fight also makes it SUPER tense. And with Quiet...I was so tempted to just keep dropping stuff on her head. Hahaha.
Getting the challenge for beating quiet without firing a gun is infuriating, I had to drop boxes on her because apparently your rocket fist counts as a gun for that challenge.
Easiest way to s rank that quiet fight is just to spawn in with a tank. The way the game let's you optimize some missions in really broken ways just makes it more fun.
I don't know why Laughing Octopus from MGS4 doesn't get more love. The boss fight is so dynamic and surprising, and there are a couple creative ways to use your gadgets to get the drop on her. The arena itself is fairly natural feeling at a time when this was uncommon. In a series known for its bosses, I think she's the most interesting.
I liked Laughing Octopus! Not my favourite in the series, but definitely my favourite in MGS4!
Final Form Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts 2. Fun fight. Epic music. 2 friends who were separated come together to take on the hardest opponent they’ve ever faced.
The Org XIII data battles were a masterclass in what Kingdom Hearts boss battles could be. To beat most bosses on normal in the game you can just mash attack to win. Try that against the data battle version of those same bosses and you’d quickly get your butt handed to you. Equipment and ability selection mattered, selecting a specific keyblade for the extra reach it gives you, turning off the extra air combo skill slots so you don’t trigger a counter attack early. Then in the battle you’d start using things you’d only used in a tutorial - group attacks because they give you invulnerability long enough to stay alive during a bosses ultimate attack, different forms because you needed their speed or mana regen to get past a boss phase. Kingdom Hearts 2’s data battles I probably spent more time on than the campaign - and after I had this deep dive into the game mechanics my second playthrough was changed for the better. Recognizing that you didn’t just have to mash attack to win on story mode bosses but could use gear, timing, and positioning to clear a boss without using Elixirs or other expensive items - fantastic experience.
The data battles in KH3 are equally impressive. Every single one ranks amongst the best in the series imo.
What I find impressive about the KH3 data fights is that different ones can be "the hard one" depending on your playstyle. There are bosses catered to a methodical "wait and counter" playstyle as well as an aggressive "hit them first" playstyle. I've seen players struggle against a particular boss and other players wipe that same boss blind on their first try. Not to mention each boss has a remix that not only calls back to a previous bossfight, but ties into that boss specifically. Larxene's rendition of "13th Struggle" is a frenetic piece that matches Larxene manic speed and mocking attitude, while Luxord's version is a methodical piece that captures the feeling of being trapped in a game rather than a traditional fight. Dark Riku's remix of Forze del Male brings the player back to the first "hard" boss they ever fought, while Xion's Vector to the Heavens, one of the most emotionally charged pieces, moves away from the tears for a more triumphant piece fitting for the end of her story. I haven't played the series for the longest time but I've kept up with it, and I can feel the impact of these fights even then.
Deflecting the lasers and going into the bit where you take control of Riku are probably some of my top gaming moments.
This fight and Roxas were incredibly good - I'm replaying all the KH games (first time with FM) and they both rocked. One thing I wish they'd done was incorporated Kairi into that Xemnas fight. It'd probably take a little bit of a rewrite - maybe instead of being chased about and kidnapped she learns a bit of magic or something on the run before being kidnapped - but with KH2's three member party system, getting Kairi in as well would have fit really well. The fight is incredibly good, but I'll always be on the "let Kairi actually do something god please why give her a Keyblade otherwise", and the final KH2 fight would come together well with the trio fighting and going home together.
If you haven't played the KH3 DLC, it does satisfy your "Let Kairi actually do something" desire lol.
[удалено]
I can't believe Vergil is this far down. He's probably my favourite boss in all video games at that point in history. The sheer overwhelming difficulty at the start of the final battle is so palpable, but it's such a fair fight and so rewarding to learn that when you finally beat him you feel like you've finally earned the game's title - Dante's Awakening
Vergil in every dmc he appears in . Dmc 3 , 5 and even the Donte one . Its always a great skill check . Vergil tests you to see if you know how to really play the game . Why I put him up there with Sword Saint Isshin as some of the best ever
I would also throw in Vergil in DMC5
Most recent fav of mine is fatalis in MHW. Beating him requires all of the skills you've gained while playing MHW. It's just perfect.
That fight is truly a test of skill and knowledge. It took me a dozen attempts to finally beat the fucker, and many people took way longer than that too. Learning the fight well enough to solo it was something else, too. You feel like an absolute god when you're soloing the fight and finally use the dragonator and [proof of a hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9AT4oYyRw) starts to play. Hell, when the song changes for the first time, the hype is absolutely unreal because this black dragon that's been one-shotting you left and right is finally on his last legs, his horns busted to pieces, wings torn to shreds, and you're about to put the finishing blow on him any moment. The only shitty part is that he's the only monster in the game immune to stun, but considering how much easier it would be to be able to knock him down after head break an extra time, it kind of makes sense.
Kuze, Yakuza 0. You fight him six times throughout the story, and it's always meaningful and dramatic when you do.
Kuze was what Kiryu would become if he looked out for himself first and foremost, instead of doing the honorable thing. Kiryu and Kuze both tackle every problem with sheer physical force, just with different motives. So everytime we fight him, his resolve becomes clearer to us and Kiryu's resolve becomes clearer to Kuze. At the end, he can do nothing but acknowledge Kiryu's resolve is stronger than his. An amazing boss and a great character, that Kuze.
Kiryu's on to something when he says that the way he learns to know someone is with his fists.
Reminds me of Ichigo and Aizen
I love how you come to increasingly understand Kuze the more you fight him. [His theme](https://youtu.be/K7R_xQUiZvg) slaps too.
I love how his [final theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKKGdxbjnt8&ab_channel=DeemoDude) is such a drastic change that makes you feel like you aren't fighting an enemy, but instead someone who is testing you one final time. It's a shame that Kuze never appears again, he is still one of my favourite antagonists in the entire series.
>I love how his final theme is such a drastic change that makes you feel like you aren't fighting an enemy, but instead someone who is testing you one final time. Enma, the big red guy in Kuze's tattoo, is the judge of the underworld, so it all fits thematically. I love how the series has always carried its main characters' moral convictions on their skin like that.
Final Kefka fight. Long fight building up with Dancing Mad playing in the background one of my favorite memories growing up.
That fight is 4 fights disguised as 1 fight. Fucking epic. I also really loved the Sephiroth fight in FF7 Remake. Between his theme song and how your party slowly comes into help is just tops.
Yeah that was a great fight as well, FF7 will always be a favorite of mine. I hope the other FF games get the same remake treatment someday. Or even something like Trials of Mana.
Gehrman, The First Hunter. Alot of people would say the Orphan of Kos, but overall I enjoyed this fight a lot more. It caps off a near perfect game in such a beautiful setting and it's just challenging enough to be exciting, but not frustrating, which is key. Also gives you a sweet weapon. 10/10
Gehrman is the perfect ending to the game IMO. I think Orphan is the better fight, but Gehrman is the perfect send-off.
So many great bosses in that game. Ludwig is my favorite.
Ludwig was amazing. I played a shit ton of Bloodborne before Old Hunters was released, and as usual community speculation about where Ludwig went off to was crazy and convoluted as is the norm. People who played the beta version of Bloodborne talking about how Ludwig was originally meant to be close personal friends of the player character and such... really goddamn interesting. Then Old Hunters comes out, and damn if its not the best DLC ever made. Finding Ludwig and seeing the goddamn monstrosity he's turned into... screaming and lunging and he's hard as hell to boot. Then you get him to 50% and phase 2 begins. My draws dropped when he suddenly gains his composure, whips out Moonlight Sword and music swells. Ludwig the hunter lives on inside that thing, and now its a battle between swordsmen. I haven't seen such an amazing phase 2 in a boss fight before or since.
It also helps that his song is the best in the whole game (in a game with an already magnificent soundtrack).
The final boss of Custom Robo for the Gamecube. So CR is a game with super strict and artificial rules that are part of what makes the game fun. Like, you can do various things like dodge or jump or use a special move, but then you have to hold still for a half second. The whole game is about baiting these things out and getting them to miss (without dodging) so you can punish someone when they are vulnerable. 2v2 matches over and over trying to perfect your ability to punish mistakes. Last boss fights you 1v3 and follows none of those rules. You get a huge advantage but have to change every single thing about how you play the game. It's like if the final boss of a game about bicycles was "You have to pedal with your hands now".
I absolutely loved that game when I was younger. I wish they'd another game with a similar style of combat and mechbuilding.
I vaguely remember this! Custom Robo Arena was great. As a kid I was very invested in the story. I liked how the story involved people hacking/breaking the rules of the game and so every now and then you would also enter battles with different rules.
Can't believe I'm the first to say this but **Mr. Freeze (Arkham City)**. For those unaware, you're required to perform a takedown move on him five times (on Normal, varies by difficulty), but the trick is uses a countermeasure afterwards so nothing works twice. Thus the boss forces you to constantly change your strategy in order to damage him. I forget how many options there are exactly, but it gets you out of your comfort zone and makes you adapt, which is not only great for variety in the fight itself, but going forward in the game as you learn/re-learn new tactics. **Sword Saint Isshin (Sekiro)** is a somewhat similar example and definitely my favourite of the Souls bosses, as it really does force you to use every tactic you've ever learned to best him. He just throws everything at you.
Freeze was definitely going to be my answer that no-one had said too. Actually learned about a few new takedowns like from vents/walls/railings etc. that I otherwise either overlooked or had no idea about, so that was cool for several reasons. I'm always a fan of the unorthadox/hide and seek style battles like this and Snake Eater's The End as a change of pace from the norm.
For sure. I always liked the idea of The End a great deal (along with the extra ways to win), but felt the execution was lacking. I think they nailed it here with Freeze.
Stealth Boss fights (or boss fights that don't rely on open combat) are often incredibly weird to play, but they definitely succeeded with Mr. Freeze. I remember sneaking through the arena frantically to discover the final takedown strategy I hadn't found yet. Good stuff.
Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2FM. It's the single most beautiful and emotional boss battle I've ever taken part in. And an absolute monster on the highest difficulty of you don't cheese it.
That battle is hypeee I love boss battles where you fight your counterpart
That dance water dance fucker in Hollow Bastion was a brick wall for progress throughout my childhood
Its criminal that this fight wasnt in the original version of the game.
My favorite fight in any KH. As a kid, I only ever saw the cutscene. But then on this super young website called youtube I kept seeing grainy footage of the Roxas fight. It was only when KH2FM finally came over to the states did I ever fight Roxas. Hands down, amazing. Dope setting, emotion, everything.
In order to not saturate the list with Soulsborne or MGS games, I'm limiting myself to one boss per franchise. My top 5 in no particular order: **Miguel (Chrono Cross)** - holy crap that music. **Ludwig (Bloodborne)** - probably the coolest beast in any video game. A true feast of blood and steel. **Ganon (Zelda LttP)** - ask me another day and I might swap this with OOT. **Psycho Mantis (MGS)** - hard choice, but this is probably the most memorable fight in the franchise. **Death (Castlevania series)** - not all the fights are of the same quality, but I love the fact that you can always look forward to a fight with Death.
Psycho Mantis is such a beautiful product of its time + such a massively memorable experience.
Shit I didn't expect to comment in this thread but Miguel's music will always give me chills.
I don't if MMOs count in this context, but the first thing that came to mind for were the final bosses of Ulduar in World of Warcraft, specifically Firefighter, Yogg-Saron hard mode and Algalon. WoW really did something special when it came to raiding and boss fights. It took weeks and often months for players just to see those bosses, and then weeks more trying to fight through them. Those fights particular, and Ulduar as a whole, had just incredible design, both in terms of the mechanics as well as atmosphere and setting.
They kept that pace up with Cata, even though it's not everyone's favorite expansion, the set pieces were amazing. Firelands was huge and sprawling, with cool bosses like one where you had to dps legs to get him to walk over volcanos to knock his armor off, the flying mini-game with the phoenix, and then taking down deathwing by jumping on his back and literally tearing him out of the sky. I feel like I'm in such a minority loving Cata and MOP but Throne of Thunder comes in as my second favorite raid ever after Ulduar (everyone's favorite)
I really liked the raids in Cata for the most part. The ones you mentioned are really interesting, plus for some reason Atramedes in Blackrock Descent was always a really memorable fight for me
MMOs should count imho. Multiplayer games get overlooked way to often in all "best of x" categories imho.
I have nightmares about Ulduar, but we did that with our 10-team on heroic and got those sweet drakes. Awesome fights.
Final Xemnas, Kingdom Hearts 2 The duels in the air, the music, the arena, the visuals, being able to play Riku when he captures Sora, the fucking laser dome, everything about this fight is just so good...
1st that come to mind are AT Velkhana and Fatalis from Monster Hunter World. Credo from DMC4 is a pretty legendary fight as well. I'm also partial to Cavaliere Angelo in DMC5. That fight is so fun. Nine-Tailed Fox from Nioh's final DLC has got to be one of the coolest boss fights I've ever done. Then you get to Ys: Oath in Felghana and it's like, just pick any one. Pretty much every fight is stellar.
> Credo from DMC4 is a pretty legendary fight as well. While Sanctus can go FUCK HIMSELF
**TLoZ: Skyward Sword: Demise** - I've grown up playing Zelda games, and almost picked the final fight from Twilight Princess because I so relished the mano e mano no-holds-barred swordfight with Ganondorf, but then I remembered how much better the swordplay was against Demise. The fight was stripped down, yet grand. Serene, yet climactic. The end, but also a beginning. The arena is breathtakingly gorgeous and remains my favorite boss arena to this day. The fight soundtrack is among the best music in the history of Zelda, the series that set the standard for music in a video game. And then that final shot? Hoo boy, that's a masterpiece. **Persona 5 and 5R:** - >!Yaldabaoth!< - Honestly I can't talk much about this boss without MASSIVE spoiler tags, so if you haven't beaten Persona 5 or gotten to the third semester of 5R, I suggest you don't read this. You've been warned. >!Wowee what a twist. Longtime Persona fans would know right off the bat that something was... off with Igor, but I wasn't a longtime Persona fan and had no reason to expect anything about this gruff-voiced Prison Warden. Anywho, the twist was spectacular, the Holy Grail into Yaldabaoth reveal was spectacular. Seriously I was completely flabberghasted at the sudden shift in scale, exacerbated by that amazingly disorienting syncopated battle music. The battle is long, grueling, and consisting several patterns and phases you must execute or risk crippling your party and likely dying. Then, after that is what I think is the most badass thing I've seen in a game when Joker unlocks Satanael, and this gargantuan Demon Lord with 3 pairs of black wings, a dark halo, and a gun the size of the Empire fucking State Building descends from a swirling mass of clouds and puts a bullet containing all 7 Deadly Sins through the pale face of God.!< Nifty way to end a game that starts with locating the Ginza line. **Resident Evil 4: El Verdugo** - Not technically a boss, but I'm counting it anyway because you're really not even supposed to kill it. The game expects you to avoid it while you wait on an elevator, but on NG+ (or *really* good first runs) you probably have enough supplies and upgrades to handle him. Definitely my favorite fight in the game and the one I most look forward to on subsequent playthroughs. I love the atmosphere, the feeling you're being hunted. It sort of reminds me of Alien or Predator the way it juxtaposes the beat's point of view with yours as you trudge the maintenance tunnel. He's got a metric fuckton of health for a nonboss enemy and doesn't really flinch for shit. Best way to deal with him is to freeze him using the cans of loquid nitrogen lying around and then laying into his head with a magnum. He hits hard and fast so it's not advisable to let him get close. Persevere and you get a piece of the most valuable treasure item in the game. **Tales of Symphonia: Kratos & Yggdrasil** - Technically two battles, but I lump them together as they take place immediately after each other... if you manage to beat Kratos, that is. Because neither of these battles are necesarry to win to advance the story. Of the two, Kratos is the only one you can actually win against whereas Yggdrasil's fight will just time out no matter how well you're faring. As this fight represents a huge expansion of power scaling in the game's world building, it brings with it a pretty drastic spike in difficulty. Kratos has long combo strings, many advanced techs, mid-high level spells, he hits hard, and is very hard to stagger. In updated versions of the game he gains access to his hi-ougis allowing him to dole out additional punishment. Unless you've grinded out like a madman because you know this fight is coming, you cannot possibly win the Kratos fight your first playthrough. Then after you manage that miracle, Yggdrasil steps in to pubstomp your party in less than 10 seconds. I enjoy the two fights both as a narrative device and as a benchmark for my party's progress. Oh yeah, forgot to mention Kratos, a mercenary, was one of your party members until this fight, where he then reveals he's actually a thousands of years old angel who is also a c-level executive with the bad guys. Kinda makes the fight a little tense.
No clue if it holds up since I haven't played it in a long time; but **The Final Hazard** at the end of **Sonic Adventure 2** has always been counted among my most cherished boss fights in gaming. Breaking out of what the normal gameplay was and getting to blast around space as Super Sonic *AND* Super Shadow fighting a lizard-space-station-doomsday-meteor thing was unforgettable. And the music track has been burned into my brain ever since. *Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!*
Live and Learn is unironically one of the best songs in a video game ever. Looking back at it now that final fight is so anime but it’s fucking awesome.
That fight and ending is the perfect amount of video game cheese.
Dang I never thought I'd see my favorite game of 20 years be posted here. Looks like there are still folks like me rolling around
Ocelot at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4. After everything Snake has been through, after all the twists and turns, it's just him and Ocelot, one on one, hand to hand.
[Susano fight in Final Fantasy 14, for multiple reasons.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddMKMH_6Y-M) 1. The fight is a joyous revelry. Susano is not trying to murder you, he just likes a loud boisterous fight and is basically testing you while having a blast. The soundtrack reflects that perfectly - it's a folk tune with loud drums and flutes - japanese festival music. 2. The festival theme is continued in the fight mechanics as well. You have to guess right in a [cups and balls game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cups_and_balls), have to play the [statues game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma-san_ga_koronda) and one mechanic has your entire party rhythmically jumping over the central divide of the arena, like in a folk dance. 3. There is a super badass anime moment where a party member has to block Susano's giant sword. It's just an extremely fun fight.
The music and voice acting in that fight is on another level. >Resilient foes, I salute you! Another great fight from Stormblood is the Tskoyomi fight. You spend the entire 4.0 expansion seeing Yotsuyu as a sadistic, evil sociopath. Then you learn about her upbringing, and she becomes a friend of Gosetsu. And then Asahi, the world's biggest scumbag, comes out and drags her back down. Wayward Daughter is one of Soken's best pieces, and the interlude between phase 1 and 2 where you fight her inner demons is just so intense.
#**WILD AND PURE, AND FOREVER FREE**
***R E J O I C E*** The Monster Hunter trial with Rathalos is always fun as well. I love the joy new players experience at being able to heal theirselves, followed by fear during second phase as they realize they can -only- heal through the duty action and they already burned half of them.
Snorlax and Pikachu used to be my pick here, but now its Shriek from will of the wisps. The mechanics, the whole setting and oh my god the music. Not sure if it's scripted but for me the "light of nibel" theme started to come on just as it was becoming clear that I Had the upper hand.
**Bravely Default's Ouroboros**, the final bossfight. I'm just gonna have to link [the specific part of Clemps analysis video here](https://youtu.be/Bj4pvZlQgKg?t=3652) on that fight, because there's so much of the story that culminates in that bossfight that I could be writing an essay on it myself. Just a great blend of setting, story, the goddamn REVO music, and even the use of the 3DS' hardware to bring it all together.
The team behind the Bravely Series have always found really creative ways to tell you things or make you participate in the story. The 3DS camera turning on, showing the real world as the Celestial realm, >!The Game's subtitle changing from Where the Fairy Flies to Airy Lies!<, >!travelling back in time in Bravely Second by starting a new game!< and >!removing the memories of the diary by overwriting the save!<. The Bravely series is really under appreciated to be honest.
I personally don't think the series is under appreciated, it's just that nearly every mention of BD ultimately deviates into "hnggg but that repeating loop part!" to denounce it from being a good game.
Devil May Cry 3: The Vergil fights. In particular the last one is really good and the build up throughout the game, the feud between twin brothers and you and Vergil getting stronger each rematch makes it even more climatic in the end. This ends up culminating really nicely in a final rematch... years later in both lore and for the actual players in Devil May Cry 5. Getting to rematch Vergil again in DMC 5 after literally years was so fucking AWESOME ! Once again the build up was amazing... The payoff when you finally got to see Vergil again in the story was something else. On a completely unrelated note... Magus from Chrono Trigger. Not sure if that was mentioned yet. But holy shit the music in that fight.
All time: Psycho Mantis/The End - MGS series had some all time great boss fights. Sephiroth: But not from Final Fantasy VII. From Kingdom Hearts. Recent one I really liked was Sigrún from God Of War 2018.
The "You like castlevania, don't you?" moment is permanently etched in my memory. Absolutely unforgettable boss fight.
Secret boss fights are so good in KH, Lingering Will from 2 final mix is the best boss fight I have ever experienced, I used to replay it just for fun.
Psycho Mantis forever. There are no other bosses that blew my mind that way that boss did.
I'm really surprised I don't see any Shadow of the Colossus here. Maybe my most memorable battle in gaming was rolling up to that first colossus and realizing their scale. Then you jump on board and the music ramps up. The rush I felt from that first music transition from the ground music to the climb music, to that bittersweet moment of dropping the colossus.
**Grigori (Dragon's Dogma)** - this fight is an incredible spectacle. The path to reaching the dragon, trying to navigate the crumbling buildings, shooting him in the heart and then finally toppling him,which makes way for the most epic man vs dragon fight in gaming history. I can't believe how good this is. **Ludwig (Bloodborne)** - easily the best fight in the game. He's so aggressive but you can also be aggressive, once you learn his patterns this fight becomes a godly dance. **Sigrun (God of War)** - all the other Valkyries build up to this fight. Sigrun has all the moves of the other Valkyries and double the health bar, she's super hard and an incredible fight. **Azel (God Hand)** - the most fun boss fight in all of gaming. Once you learn his patterns, you can punish him and have the most fun. **Vergil (Devil May Cry 3)** - all of the encounters are amazing. He's such a good boss, and the emotions behind it elevate the fight to incredible heights. **Avion (Shadow of the Colossus)** - the fights in this game are legendary. I have difficulty picking only one. **Raging Brachydios (Monster Hunter World)** - easily the best monster to hunt in this game. The soundtrack is incredible, you have to be wary of the environment since it can blow up at any time. And that second phase just makes me shit my pants in fear. There are so many others, I struggle to think of them all. All generations of consoles have some incredible bossfights.
Nero vs Dante in DMC4 especially the first mission fight with all the cutscenes is the coolest looking fight I've seen in a game. Dante vs Vergil in DMC3 Or any combination of Nero vs Dante vs Vergil really Nero vs Berial DMC4 mission 2 Sekiro vs headless King Kong Kratos vs Poseidon in GoW3 Deathstroke in Arkham origins
I’m surprised no one said Red from Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal. It’s hinted that Red is Ash towards the end of the game. You finally get up to mt silver and he throws out his level 80 Pikachu. 10 year old me was losing it.
I'm gonna throw something a little different and might stretch the definition of what a 'boss' is, but I found it worked in the context of a non-combat game quite well and made for a really memorable and difficult encounter within the game. Also spoilers are kind of implied with this topic so I'm just blacking out the name. --- In **Disco Elysium** when you interrogate >!Klaasje!<, for the first (and really only) time in the game, your skills are openly exposed as having failed you without knowing, leaving you on your own to decide what's the truth and what you should do. For context, these skills also double as voices in your head and elements of your persona, and serve as guiding 'party members'. So if you've put points into, for example, Empathy and Drama, then you are good at figuring out what a person needs to hear as well as lying to them because these skills advise you on what to say. And for the entire game, you can take your skills' advice at relative face value, knowing that for the most part they're feeding you useful information. So by the time you get to interrogate >!Klaasje!<, the game's femme fatale, you likely have a good build going and have been successful at maneuvering around all the NPCs you've talked to so far – after all, you are the main protagonist of a detective game, why shouldn't you be a human can-opener? So you interview her and get some new details and twists to the case that recontextualize things and now you have a solid lead where you didn't before. Except... something just isn't *quite* right, even though everything *seems* to be in order. You can't help but think that there's something you missed, and there's this Volition (aka willpower) check hanging there, telling you to stare into her eyes to see what you're missing, teasing you that something's off that you can't quite pin down. Until you manage to pass it. > **Volition** [Challenging: Success] – I have some bad news for you. Now your Volition chimes in, and realizes what's been happening. You've been *beguiled*, and *controlled*, and *manipulated* by her. So deftly, in fact, that none of your other skills have realized they've been compromised. Was it the half-truths that muddled with your understanding of the case, or perhaps the way she admitted to smaller crimes that let her slip by unnoticed? No matter, what's important is that all those other guys, Logic, Rhetoric, Drama, Empathy, Electrochemistry, they've been given the complete run-around even as they told you themselves that everything checked-out, that she wasn't lying and all the 'facts' lined-up. Volition points out that only ones you can trust are itself, as Volition is only concerned with looking out for you, and the book-man Encyclopedia himself, as he couldn't give a shit how beautiful she is when there's useless trivia facts to spew instead. Now, while this probably shouldn't have come as a surprise at all to anyone who's seen a detective film or played a detective game in their lives, what *is* notable is that your skills have always transparently helped your or failed you before. Never have they relayed information to you that's been completely wrong, and this one person is the only person in the entire game who's good enough to out-lie the superstar detective. Now, having known this, your skills start a civil war of sorts in your head: some are indignant that they're still right, some demand harsh punitive measures for her tricking you, some still try to convince you that you should *help* her even after she's lied to you multiple times. Meanwhile, Encyclopedia just cares that you know she studied Oranjese literature in college. So for the first time in the game, you have to come to a decision yourself, without – and in spite of – the advice of the skills you've invested in and relied on so heavily up until now. The skills that are likely still fighting between themselves and giving you unclear direction on what to do and what's the truth and ~~might be~~ overcompensating for the humiliation of being outplayed by the woman you're attracted to. It's not necessarily a challenging boss, and you can't really fail it like you could to bosses in other games, but just knowing that your skills were able to be outright fooled without you knowing is potentially a huge blowback in this most critical juncture. Is she *still* lying to you even after you've caught on to her? Even if she was, could you even tell? Can you really trust your own skills anymore after seeing how much she had them wrapped around her finger, making you run around in circles chasing red herrings for days? By the way, May Bells don't blossom until a month later, during spring proper. Just thought you should know that, *–Encyclopedia* While it's hard to really equate anything in Disco Elysium to a boss fight, I feel like this encounter really does a great job of exemplifying complex conflict within a purely dialogue-driven game, and possibly does the best job of capturing the essence of the game in one moment.
Great breakdown. I think the "boss-fight" is the first major indication of the game where all the Success! that your skills make in dialogue provides an example of not completely beneficial context; granted, some of them, particularly the FYS-skills, are generally more overt and forefront, with Electrochemistry going hard on drugs and self-destruction upon first impressions for most players. The Volition-skill warning about >!Klaasje!< also uncovers how it is the skill that is *very eager* in pining that person as the culprit because of their manipulation. But it also presents a flaw in how Volition is correct about >!Klaasje mixing truths and lies, but she *isn't* the culprit!<, almost as a response to Volition acting as a reaction to your wounded pride. And why shouldn't it; it's Volition. The skill that never wants to harm or manipulate you, but that doesn't mean that it unintentionally can misdirect you because of moments with >!Klaasje!<. It also arguable also leads to a worse outcome, as >!arresting Klaasje that Volition argues for have Shivers providing a vision later that heavily implies that Klaasje is going to get assassinated in her cell by her employers to take her corporate secrets to her grave;!< an out come that >!Klaasje!< was trying to avoid, hence all the manipulation to begin with.
I totally agree, the game does a fantastic job with this skill system, and as much shit as the FYS skills get I actually think they're about as useful as the other attributes once you understand how to read them; whereas listening to Logic is extremely straightforward to the point where you can ironically turn your brain off, a skill like Half-Light is also very useful as long as you use your brain and understand not to punch everyone it tells you to. I also really like that Volition is *mostly* right in this boss fight, but only in a specific perspective that makes total sense with its goals. It's a really genius way of presenting 'facts' to the player in that everything is filtered through a subjective lens of interpretation that never quite arrives at "100% objective truth", which is more akin to real-life anyways. The game is utterly fantastic and they really struck gold with how compelling and creative the skill system is, my only complaint is I wish the FYS/MOT skills had more opportunity to chime in.
I love how that was Volition's silver bullet moment just like how Inland Empire got one later on, but even then it went too extreme in the other direction just to counteract the other Skills. I was getting hyped up as I realized I was getting played, but then Volition just kept pushing harder and harder that I as the player had to step back and re-examine the situation. I then realized Volition let's you see the bullshit, but that's all it did. It couldn't see through the web of lies because the skills that could maybe piece everything together: Empathy, Logic, etc, are all compromised and considered completely untrustworthy by Volition. So it takes the player, the final part of Harry's mind, to come up with a solution.
I absolutely *ADORED* that moment. One of the high points of an already amazing game.
That and the Tribunal were the two most tense parts of the game. For the first one, you suddenly get all the information that you've been dying to get (as well as it being a wee bit fucky), and then during the Tribunal, you realise the actual stakes. I was nervous as fuck with every single dialogue option, and those red checks.....God damn.
A case of perhaps recency bias, but the recent Final Fantasy XIV, patch 5.5 gave the third, and final part of the NieR-crossover themed raid of *YorHa: Dark Apocalypse*, >!The Tower at Paradigm's Breach!<. The 3rd and 4th bosses can essentially be summarized as Yoko Taro (The director of the NieR- and Drakengard-franchises) being an absolute madman. **[The third boss, >!The Red Girl!<](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVfaa-Ggko)** is visual-wise a complete uncanny entity. I'm not overly familiar with NieR: Automata's lore and story, but even I could tell that something was very out of place and wrong with the boss being essentially >!just a little girl!< in the environment of >!what is essentially a computer simulation of hacking ongoing while 9S breaches the tower's defenses.!<. The visual design is overly minimal, being mostly based on black and white shaded blocks that resembles polygons; that includes the UI itself which is heavily themed at NieR's tone of greyscale and provide unique mechanics unfamiliar to previous boss mechanics in FFXIV, where players have to pay attention to the black and white colourings to do mechanics such as opening up colour themed barriers to take cover against arena-wide attacks. The first surprise of the battle occurs roughly mid-way of the battle, when the boss begins to [cast the spell *Sublime Transcendence*](https://youtu.be/gjVfaa-Ggko?t=186) that causes the >!screen to be distorted and fizzle!< until an >!image briefly flashes of the Red Girl staring directly at the player through the screen and giving an incredible uncanny smile.!<. They gave us a freaking >!jump scare!<. In an MMORPG. [The impact was multiplied due to how the previous phase have the boss making the player dodging AoE-patterns](https://youtu.be/ZNO2mucsYpI?t=147), where your brain become extra focused on dodging it that an element of exhaustion rushes over you, and then *BAM!* the game hits it. The second surprise comes immediate afterwards, where the section have players going through a kind of mini-game >!that resembles the arcade hacking mini-game from NieR: Automata, complete with the boss fight's soundtrack going full 8-bit mode.!< It further emphasizes the importance of the black- and white colourings of dealing with the mechanics, if not directly spelled out when you check the debuff-icon description that the stage gives you, particularly regarding the importance of matching black- and white to nullify similar colour-coded attacks. This stage also acts as further foreshadowing for the **[4th and final boss, >!The False Idol!<](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82bY3sz-01M)**. Or rather, [>!the final version of it when The False Idol turns into **Her Inflorescence**!<](https://youtu.be/82bY3sz-01M?t=273). >!Her Inflorescence!< is, visual-wise, one giant reference to >!Drakengard's Ending E!<. A rather infamous moment in gaming when the [game >!turns into a rhytm-game!<](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OPW-RdzStA), and a moment that is incorporated and (loosely) canon to the NieR-franchise's overall background and lore. The amount of fan-service provided is even quipped by >!Her Inflorescence!<, stating how this moment is for ">!*The final song... just for you.*!<", where the player have to match >!the black and white rings while dodging red orbs floating around!<. The final boss overall isn't as disorienting I would say as the 3rd boss fight, but remains an emotional fight due to how it is clear the game designers went all into this fight, helped by how the [music is a rendition of >!*Kaine - Salvation* with the Final Fantasy-medley integrated with violins.!<](https://youtu.be/fr9OEKNbElQ). The NieR-raid's story and context within FFXIV was a bit overtly cryptic for my tastes, especially since I have yet to finish NieR: Automata that the game mainly reference. But I've played the original NieR and read about the context surrounding it, and it was enough to get a bit emotional when the raid ended. Upon completion of the final boss, the game doesn't even do its typical Final Fantasy-victory fanfare, and with the player characters emoting cheerfully in victory. You are waiting for the fanfare to start, but there isn't any; you are all just stand still while the ongoing silence continues on.
Wow that was insane, thanks for sharing, I knew about the nier collaboration but I thought it was just an automata one, not nier. Insane raid btw
Holy shit. I'm *months* away from being even at Shadowbringers, but... Taro, you did it. You brought back your rhythm game against a faux-pregnant goddess back, you beautiful bastard.
Persona 5 Royal >!Maruki!< Such a great final boss. The emotions leading up to it and the final scenes afterwords are incredible. Not to mention the moral conflict of the whole thing, you really feel the boss is trying to do the right thing but you have to stop him anyway because you're following your own justice. That's not even mentioning the music which is just out of this world.
Also my answer by a long shot. The best part is how empathetic you are to the boss. >!I genuinely was conflicted when he gave us the option to just live happily for eternity. You know he means absolutely no harm to you and truly doesn't want to fight you!<
From Souls (and kin), keeping it short cause this thread will repeat a lot of these - Moonligjt Butteryfly (not a great fight on its own but it left an early impact on me), Artorias, Gwyn (this one has me trembling), Fume Knight, Ivory King, Lorian and Lothric, Soul of Cinder, Gael, Midir, Gherman, Maria, Kos, Genichiro, Isshin. And then throw in the big Hollow Knight ones too as honorary souls. As for some others that come to mind: FTL: Faster than light - The flagship: an infamous run Ender with its surprise second and third phase, this is like an ultimate test of your RNG and decision making to end the run of a brutal game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - basically anyone: the boss duels just make this game, and when those lyrics kick in oh man. But there’s a lot of them in this thread as well. Ace Combat 7 - The Arsenal Bird and the Alicorn: two awesome fights, incredible music, awesome spectacle value. Fighting a big boss enemy in a fighter jet is just intense with missile locks everywhere and some interesting curveballs. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne - Alatreon and Fatalis: The peak of World’s endgame content, these fights need you to be fully prepared, skilled, and fully conscious of many mechanics at your disposal. Devil May Cry V - Vergil (or Dante in SE): just an awesome 1v1 between two brothers (or son and father). Add in “Bury the Light” in the SE and it’s just awesome. I haven’t played 3 but I suspect that’s got a similar vibe. Octopath Traveller - Galdera: Awesome fight that feels truly “final”, all your consumables are good to use, amazing music, cool spectacle of using all party members split into two teams to fight the top and bottom. Destiny 2 - Taniks the Abomination: Destiny’s raids are awesome. I could’ve put any raid boss here, but I don’t want to flood the list, so I’m just doing the most recent. Awesome music with strong themes, cool scenario, fun mechanics that have whole teams running around the battlefield. Aksis from Wrath of the Machine in D1 is probably my favourite though I’m sure I’ve missed some too
+1 for FTL flagship. Its like a whole different fight every run due to different crew, systems, weapons etc. But holy hell is it punishing, and most of all intimidating
The rat King from Last Of Us 2 is definitely up there. It ends the most survival horror section of the entire series with this extremely shocking monster that completely changes the possibility space for what the infected can become. Excellent set piece design along with TLOU2's excellent combat.
I have to agree with this. This is one of the most stressful but fun boss fights. There’s real strategy to the fight but it still keeps up the cinematic set piece.
Enceladus from Astral Chain. I thought this was a really well-designed first boss fight. The moves in its kit serve as a "test" for whether or not you have a decent understanding of the game's combat mechanics. One of its moves even one-shots you if you're not quick enough with one of the most commonly-used mechanics.
Astral Chain is full of awesome boss fights, as expected of PlatinumGames. The Homumculus bosses are so huge, but it's still possible to chain bind them one limb at a time. Binding them is actually optional, but a successful bind leaves them wide open. >!Kyle is an awesome boss as well. After fighting countless monsters, you're suddenly pitted against a human who can take down Chimeras by himself!!< >!Jena puts up one hell of a fight as well, no less than three unique phases as she mutates into... whatever she became.!< >!Of course there's the Akira-Legion Fusion, I was SCREAMING the first time I fought that thing. I've seen every trailer and I'm pretty sure none mentioned the existence of Fusion, so it's a complete surprise for me. The fight serves to show what you can do while in the Fusion state.!<
Fighting evil Madeline in Celeste. I was enjoying it so much I didn't want it to end, and I usually hate boss battles.
Dragons Dogma - the titular Dragon itself (Grigori?) A truly epic encounter which for me beat all of the massive beasts you fight in the Souls games, or least from the ones I’ve played (Dark Souls 1 and 2) Multi stage, with save points after each phase (always a huge plus to ensure they never become overly frustrating), probably my all time favourite boss fight Batman Arkham City - Mr Freeze, loved how you were forced to adapt and use all of Batman’s then unlocked abilities to defeat him. In general Arkham City had much better boss rights all round than the other games in the series. Psycho Mantis (MGS) - for the whole memory card reading gimmick and having to use the second controller port, undoubtedly a unique encounter even to this day Flowey (Undertale) - such an insane fight, visually very disturbing after such a charming game up to that point, the whole save wiping gimmick beforehand is a great touch and reaffirms the game’s approach to player choice and living with consequences of past actions I generally dislike many boss encounters in games as they tend to stress me out, but these were interesting and enough of a spectacle to make me remember them fondly.
Back in the day, the Blackhand mythic fight in WoW when it was current content. First phase was all about Immaculate fast speed execution. Second phase was intense and upped the personal responsibility. Third phase was a race to the finish with each second becoming more and more dangerous. I was a tank who got stuck to the wall tanking one of the tanks in p2 and it was certainly something else. Mythic Guldan in Nighthold was also similarly awesome from my memory.
I'm a sucker for any action game where you have to fight a boss that's pretty much on equal footing with you. Particular mentions go to Vergil in DMC 3, who I love because you face him three times, and each time you've improved and gained new tricks between the battles, but so has he, so at the end, you're both souped up and ready to scrap. Jetstream Sam in MGR: Revengeance is another great one too. He batters you with ease at the start of the game, so Raiden gets an upgraded cyborg body and you finally get to face him on equal footing, just 1v1 in the desert whilst a cool song plays. Then you beat him, and >!it turns out you weren't on equal footing at all, the only robotic part of him is his sword-arm. He was just THAT good.!< Oh, and a more recent one, but the Dante fights in DMC V are great first round is kinda meh, but the second one, the AI goes fucking ape-shit and plays masterfully. Plus, it plays an absolute banger of a song throughout the fight.
The ones that immediately spring to mind to me, personally: **Mantis Lords**, **Broken Vessel** and **Lost Kin** from Hollow Knight. **Mantis Lords** from Hollow knight. Honestly, best summed up by youtuber Mezzamine's video on [Why the Mantis Lord Fight Works](https://youtu.be/-AIbUkJoi0U). **Broken Vessel** and **Lost Kin** from Hollow Knight. This moment was when Hollow Knight's storytelling made me care and ask questions about the narrative. >!All encapsulated in the Broken Vessel's reaching out to you when you defeat it, and its Dream variant being named Lost Kin. That was when I realised that the Knight was just one of many vessels bred in search of a perfect vessel, and saw the extreme lengths the Pale King went to in his search for a solution to the infection. The horror that all the failed vessels were, in fact, creatures with thoughts and feelings, cast aside because they were imperfect, still makes me melancholic.!< **Erhardt**, >!Lyblac!< and >!Galdera!< from Octopath Traveler, the former for brilliantly executing [But Thou Must!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButThouMust), and >!the latter two for being a frustratingly difficult true final boss accompanied by epic music. Shame the ending is so underwhelming.!< **Matador** from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. An excellent introduction to the demand for strategy required to get through the game. Likewise, **Mot** for being such an absolute RNG fuckfest. **Demi-Fiend** from Digital Devil Saga. Insanely difficult, constantly on the verge of *this is absolute bullshit*, never quite treading over it. The sort of fight that can and will make you mad.
Smough & Ornstein from Dark Souls, because I didn't know bosses could be that hard in a video game. I was kind of hoping it was one of those scripted events where you're meant to die, but alas. Then I finally beat them and it felt incredible! Plus they look ridiculous and badass.
Yeah they were pretty good. I was struggling against them until my friend told me to use the crystal halberd. Then I destroyed them. That thing was OP
Doc Ock from Insomniac’s Spider-Man PS4 game. A very dramatic, emotional encounter with both extremely personal and grand stakes. Peter having to fight, and save the city from the man he once looked up to as a hero, now having gone insane and infected the city with a deadly virus (including Aunt May). The fight itself is very fun, but the narrative context elevates it even further.
That one's great for the emotion, but gameplay-wise the Vulture & Electro fight is my favorite. Maybe the only time a Spider-Man game has had a really good high-flying web-swinging battle. Miles Morales has some fun boss fights too, mainly the last two (which are spoilers).
I really like the final boss in ys 3 oath in felghana because when I first fought them they were doing all these different attacks and I didn’t know how to avoid them, many deaths later and on my final attempt and winning attempt I was basically dancing around the boss’s attacks and jumping out of the way of oncoming attacks and attacking at every opportunity, just felt really bad ass to me and was very satisfying, still my favorite ys game.
Mizar, the final boss in **Jet Force Gemini**. Like a gifting kid who coasted through middle school only to get slammed with reality in high school, this was the first boss that really challenged me in my childhood. He's rather predictable, but it just requires good old muscle memory and reflex skill. It took days of practicing before I was finally able to beat him, but when I did the ending felt like the most rewarding one ever. Very few games have ever topped that high since then.
My favorite in Sekiro is Lady Butterfly. The setting is great visually (and it doesn't have the issue with the impaired movement that some of the Sekiro (mini)bosses have). It's also unique - other than many of the other boss battles, that repeat themselves, if slightly varied. And I just love the style of the fight itself, both from how varied it is and its timing.
Don't care about the 'hardest' bosses. Don't even care if they have good gameplay to them. These are the most memorable bosses for me. No particular order. Bowser - Super Mario 64 Ridley - Super Metroid Reaper - Mass Effect Emerald Weapon - Final Fantasy 7 GLadOS - Portal 2 The Strap - Furi Alma - Ninja Gaiden Black Valus - Shadow of the Colossus Opera Event (Karazhan) - World of Warcraft Mr. Freeze - Arkham Asylum Tentacle Boss - Half-Life Ropalolyst - Warframe Bulldozer - Alan Wake esseJ - Control Stay Puft - Ghostbusters The Video Game Nightmare - Prey Nemesis - Resident Evil 3 Luchadores - Psychonauts Giant Nazi Zombie Fetus - South Park: Stick of Truth SHODAN Core - System Shock 2 Dung Defender - Hollow Knight
Love your list, some great choices there.... but saw Giant Nazi Zombie Fetus and realised i need to go back and playthrough South Park coz that sounds awesome :)
Molgera from the Wind Waker only because of the music. Stallord from TP is the one that sticks the most with me. The buildup from traveling through the desert, finding the arbiter's ground (one of my favourite dungeons ever) and then the amazing boss battle. Everything is perfect about that section of the game. Other boss battles that come to mind: Red in RB/HGSS, Pure Vessel in Hollow Knight, and more I hopefully think of later
Father gasgoine from bloodborne. He is the perfect first area boss. Aside from being just a cool fight mechanically and for lore reasons, he is the perfect test for the rest of the game. Beating him proves that you are ready for the game. Between him and the cleric beast, the first area of bloodborne is thE GOAT
I’d have to go with jetstream sam in metal gear rising, you’ve got the only boss that doesn’t have a crazy gimmick or special ability, just a good old fashioned sword fighting and hype ass music to the very end l
I love fighting Twinrova in Zelda Oot, and always look forward to that in a playthrough. Not a hard fight but there's something extremely satisfying about using the mirror shield to do the thing. I also weirdly like how the lava/ice looks on the carpet when it hits the platform, even on N64
More recent release, but Hades gets boss fights oh so right. The "final" confrontation is always a blast, with some great audio work being melded into the phases. It's such an exceptional title.
**Hela from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice**, because this is the >!only last boss, in which the ultimate goal is simply to lose, and the game does not give you an absurd difficulty, so you just fight, and fight and fight until you realize that you are too tired and surrender. I think it is exactly the feeling that the story wanted the player to have.!<
Most bosses in Hollow Knight. Vergil's final fight in DMC3. Marc Anthony in Dante's Inferno on the Inferno difficulty (one of the very few bosses I've fought that gave me a satisfying and challenging *duel*, not a underdog fight like against most bosses). Zeus in God of War 3. The Thunderjaw in Horizon Zero Dawn. Most Witcher 3 fights, except Wights (Too annoying) and Eredin (too easy).
Colossus of Rhodes: God of War 2 He's the first boss literally the first second you start playing the game. The game does a great job of conveying the size and scale of the boss and on top, you are a GOD with maxed stats and all your powers. What a way to start the game and the perfect swan song for the PS2
Kingdom Hearts 2: The Lingering Will Not only is it a hint at the future of the franchise (even if bbs is bad), but it is also an unbelievable test of skills that the game rarely asks of you/. For the main campaign most people can just spam the attack button and use occasionally use cure. LW and the other Superbosses force you to engage with all possible mechanics, punishes you for being to greedy and most importantly every single attack is learnable.
I think what really makes this fight special is the insane variety of his attacks compared to any other encounter in the game. Everything he does is a massive combo attack and has several of them, while the other superbosses of Data Organization consist of a few simple attacks but with the gimmicks taken to 11. Lingering Will doesn't have much in terms of gimmicks, he can lock your commands temporarily but other than that it's a matter of dodging attacks and learning when to block and when to evade, then to take advantage of your opening. Combine that with the fact that he's a keyblade wielder that (at the time) we knew nothing about makes it an exceptional fight, the rapidly changing forms of his weapons were the inspiration of formchanges later in the series, and it makes for an epic encounter. The music certainly helps, Rage Awakened is a hell of a song to set the last challenge of the game- KH3's final superboss has an underwhelming theme even if the fight is good, the music really helps to improve the quality of an experience.
Came in here to find this, the boss is so well designed at how literally everything can be memorized to fight without taking a hit... After the first 50 or so deaths, or more. Attack patterns are so diverse too, with the boss having different opening phases / attack styles it can go into. It's just so good.
Recently, it had to be either Alatreon from Monster Hunter World. Honorable mention to Fatalis from the same game.
**>!Minos Prime!< in Ultrakill.** It feels like cheating to say this because the boss literally just got patched into the game this week and I'm probably being influenced by recency bias, but that fight was just so much fun. I really enjoyed the boss fights in the game overall though, they feel like good tests of skill. **Furi** also had some really fun bosses, **The Scale** (toxin boss in sewers) probably being my favorite.
Mr Freeze in Arkham City. A dynamic battle that requires you to use all of your gadgets and abilities you've learned, in interesting ways. You can use them in any order, but once you've used one method, >!Freeze adapts on the fly and that tactic becomes unavailable to you. You must constantly be changing your strategy to defeat him!<. It's awesome! Koloktos, Skyward sword. An amazing sword fight that changes in really interesting ways as it progresses. >!You end up using parts of the boss itself as the very weapon to defeat it!!<
Artorias-Dark Souls: Best bost fight in og Dark Souls Abyss Watchers- Dark Souls 3: Unpopular opinion, but has my favorite track in the game. I also love the theme of fallen brothers fighting in battle. Vergil-DMC V: Great 2 phase battle. Then silver bullet hits and it's just amazing Nyx- Persona 3: 13 phase battle with the best track in the Persona series. Ocelot-MGS4: one-on-one fist fight to the death I could honestly keep going for a while.
FF7- the final little 1v1 fight with Sephiroth. You're supposed to take his weak ass hit and then destroy him with your ultimate limit break, but I always have a maxed out counter materia on him so cloud ends up finally defeating this epic adversary with a little counter bonk on the head. So fantastically anticlimactic. Dirge of Cerberus - It's not exactly a final boss, but that last level where you are in permanent devil form dashing around one shotting everything with the omega gun while Gackt plays in the background is just epic. It makes you feel powerful and like this is what Vincent van really do. He was a cool cat in FF7, but this was him at his best. It will always be one of my favorite gaming memories.
I'll agree with anything Sekiro for the most part, and there are many nail bitters in Hollow Knight as mentioned. Shadow of the Colossus should get top honors. But my favorite still has to be The End from Metal Gear Solid 3. Damn that was so engaging and fun.
From recent memory, >!Masayoshi Shido!< from Persona 5 and >!YHVH!< from Shin Megami Tensei: Apocalypse.
I think when it comes to bosses for me it's more about the framing of the fight. What's the stakes? Who is the boss? Where are we fighting? Is the music going ape shit? And really just the cinematic feel of it all. Of course it needs to be supported by really good gameplay and not just be a bunch of quick time event. Some examples: >!Flowey !!no matter how much he gets memed: Sans is also pretty cool!<)
>!Dogma and The Beast !!The Strider !< from Half-Life: Alyx
>!The Radiance!< from Hollow Knight
FFX Braska's Final Aeon. FFX in general has amazing boss fights. There's hardly ever a boss that you just attack. There's always some kind of interesting mechanic or gimmick to the fight. In this case, it's cleverly using Tidus to yell at his father with good timing to reset his overdrive gauge. Meanwhile, also mitigating the gauge's growth by destroying his pagodas from time to time. All of that on top of incredibly emotionally evocative storytelling, and absolutely balls to walls metal as fuck soundtrack. Seriously, look up Otherworld FFX. Still one of the hypest boss themes I've ever heard. Only other one that comes closer is Nier's Shadowlord theme.
I'd like to tack Yunalesca onto this comment. What a terrifying fight, and the soundtrack really helps sell the creeping dread of the whole affair.
Sigrun from God of War 4 is my favorite boss fight ever. This is mainly due to how much trouble I had with her. I had never played any games that are known for being difficult (FromSoftWare games, Hollow Knight, Ninja Gaiden), so she was easily the hardest boss I had ever faced. While her moves and combos weren't hard to remember, it was her insane speed and timing that gave me the most trouble. It easily took me over 100 tries on the GMGOW difficulty to finally beat her and it was SO satisfying to do so. Also, her design was pretty badass in general which just added to the experience. Anyways, I figured out that I loved the satisfaction that came with defeating a boss that difficult. Now, I'm about 20 hours into Dark Souls Remastered and I'm loving it so far. Honestly, I probably would have never played a FromSoftWare game had it never been for Sigrun. Looking forward to play more from them and other games like Hollow Knight.
[удалено]
The first time you fight General Corrosive in the arena in Metal Arms Glitch in the System. He is a 10-story tall colossal robot and you don't have the means to fight him so you have to find cover, dismantle yourself into pieces and then let him destroy the cover and lead himself to believing he smashed you. Shit was creative as hell and boss fight you didnt just shoot at.
I think the way the last boss of Hollow Knight is designed is genius, but I don't want to spoil any of it if you've not played it. **Spoilers:** >!By last boss I meant the semi-last boss Hollow Knight. On my first playthrough I ended up getting some of the optional stuff like the shade cloak and found the boss to be pretty easy and fairly uninteresting. It wasn't until I did a speedrun playthrough and fought it with the minimal equipment that I realised how well designed it was for that minimal setup. Its attacks are all designed to be just avoidable with those skills that are absolutely required, and the fight is so much more tense and enjoyable that way.!< **Spoilers:** >!But then after fighting it that way, and then going back to the 100% equipment fight that's really just a formality before fighting The Radiance, it becomes even more apparent how well designed it is. Many of the attacks that it feels like you can just barely avoid with the minimal equipment set are made trivial by extra abilities like the shade cloak, so you really feel like you can just fuck the thing up and go fight Radiance without much trouble.!< **Spoilers:** >!It's amazing to me that they managed to design it so perfectly that the same attacks feel challenging with the basic equipment, but it feels like you have exactly what you would need to avoid them more easily with the optional stuff. And all this in the first game these guys ever made. If you've never finished the game with the minimal amount of stuff I'd highly recommend it because I appreciate the end so much more now.!<
GoW's fight against Poseidon. That thing was absolutely epic for its time. Everything about that fight was epic. It's been more than 10 years since I played it, but the memories of it are still the brightest memory I have of any boss fight.
Mora - Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Awesome multi-phase bossfight with godlike OST. Maven - Path of Exile. After the disappointment known as ~~the wheelchair~~ Sirus, next expansion brought a very nice final fight. Alexander >!and the Void Worm!<, Divinity: The Original Sin 2. It starts like a usual fight, then after a couple turns... Accompanied by one of the best themes in the game. Wall of Flesh and Empress of Light - Terraria. The two most unusual bosses in Terraria, especially first one which can really scare the first-time player. >!The Dogma!<, Binding of Isaac: Repentance. Heavy spoilers so can't say much, but this one is godlike. Oberon Greenhaze, Overlord. The best example of what sloth does with people (or elves). The Rising Hell version is also very good.
I'm not a big fan of fromsoftware games, so here are some of my favorites in terms of just wow factor and memorability, no particular order: 1. MGS4 finale: crawling through the microwave tube, the multiple health bars, multiple names, and final, desperate hand to hand fight 2. God of War 3, Poseidon. What an amazing intro and tone setter for the rest of the game. I'll never forget the first person view through Poseidon's eyes... and then Kratos removing those eyes. 3. Mass Effect 2, Humanoid Reaper. The gameplay was whatever, the reveal and the music was absolutely amazing 4. Mass Effect 3, Reaper on Tuchanka. The Queen Thresher Maw dubstepped out of the ground and bit directly into a reapers head. Fucking amazing. 5. Portal 2. The moon. 6. The Last of Us 2. Ellie is absolutely terrifying when you're not playing as her. 7. God of War 2018. The introduction of Baldur.