FAVORITE VIDEO GAME BOSS ENCOUNTERS

Boss fights on a video game is the crucial moment were you are putting all your game skills to the test, you know that after you defeat that boss you will complete the level or even finish the game, leaving you the best feeling of accomplishment in the moment.. But while in the boss fight, you will get a feeling of you against the world, you against all odds, since all the bosses tend to be bigger, meaner and more powerful, like David and Goliath.

I played many video games and I have encountered over hundreds of boss fights, from different games, and different levels; some of them were graphically impressive, others the difficulty was over the top or inhuman, and in others it involved lots of action, but some how, this following 5 boss fights are among my favorites.

In no particular order:


Boss name: Shaft

Game: Dracula X: Rondo of Blood

System: PC-ENGINE

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT5i0vKHImQ

Description: You finally fight Shaft the one responsible of Dracula's resurrection. When you reach the boss stage, the door closes after a pause he launches you a fireball and blocks the door way, later on he goes off screen while a pentagram spawns different bosses from the original Castlevania.

Why I liked it?: I always liked  the Castlevania series, an eternal fight between good and evil, but in this case evil has most of the odds of winning, so its you (the Belmont) against all the forces of hell. This boss fight is an excellent example of that. Having that idea in mind, combine it with the best boss soundtrack ever, even after 20 years of hearing it for the first time in the original Castlevania, the track titled Poison Mind starts playing once you are inside the room. The first boss that spawns is the Bat; the first time I heard Poison Mind track was when I encountered the Bat boss in the first Castlevania game, so this was an instant nostalgic experience, then the Medusa, the mummy, and Frankenstein all from the same classic game (obviously with redone sprites) come forward to fight you with different attack patterns that make it a really varied boss fight. Finally Shaft comes down and fight you, in a way it feels like an anime scene with all the elements in.

Boss name:  Barbon

Game: Streets of Rage 2

System: Sega Genesis

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTYJI9oVk_A

Description: After an interesting fight on the city streets you enter a bar where you fight couple more thugs, but you notice the bartender runs away. Later on when you leave the bar thru the back door you encounter just the sound of the rain with the bartender and his posse waiting for you for a brawl, and that is when the awesome boss soundtrack kicks in.
Why I liked it?: Well it's a combination of good storyboarding, illustration and excellent soundtrack. It actually felt like watching a movie using video game sprites. When you get into that back alley there was clearly no way out, and having just the falling rain sound effect makes it more dramatic and with suspense, it is almost symbolic in a way. When the soundtrack finally starts it gives you a sense of danger and adrenaline, it just makes you fight harder. Game play wise, the fight is not difficult at all, (it's the first stage boss after all), but gives you an idea of what you will be up against later in the game. And for Barbon, his fighting style looks cool, and his sprite intimidates. Oh yeah, when he flexes, his shirt rips out.

Boss name:  Minotaur

Game: God of war

System: Playstation 2

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ1uBbfGK54

Description: The boss of The Challenge of Hades. You walk and are trapped in this room surrounded by lava falls, then something big is banging a locked up door in front of you, when suddenly it breaks open and you see this gigantic minotaur with an armor. The fight consist of stunning him so you can run to the back of the room to shoot some speared logs at the minotaur.

Why I liked it?: The setting and sound track is awesome, its like watching a movie, even better than that cause you are playing it. This sense of fighting enemies bigger than the odds of winning is a great feeling to contradict it at the end eventually. This fight had me really tense at the edge of my seat, I still remember it was a Saturday night and the room was dark and I cranked up the stereo, and the fight took me a couple minutes to get it over with, which it even had me sweating. It was fucking intense you could feel each hit and each scream of pain. When I finally killed the beast and saw how that log pierced it against the door it was one of the greatest feelings of accomplishments I had on a game. I was amazed, mouth open looking at the corpse of the beast. I paused the game and went outside to rethink my life.

Boss / stage name:  Metempsychosis

Game: Ikaruga

System: Gamecube

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNSdcy-apU

Description: You finally encounter the final boss after a phase of mini bosses. The evil clown like satellite boss starts firing patterns of dark and white bullets that you could either avoid or absorb depending on your color. After some intense counter firing sequence that just gets faster by the second you destroy the boss. Afterwards you realize the boss had a final phase of extreme bullet curtain all over the screen, the only thing to do is avoid the bullets because firing is not an option. After surviving the mayhem the ship sacrifices itself to destroy the enemy.

Why I liked it?: This is one of the most intense and dramatic boss stage I've seen on a video game. It takes fast reflexes and concentration to beat this final boss, even blinking can cause losing a life. When you see this boss in front of you already know that a hell of bullets will be unleashed, and yes indeed you will find your self avoiding and absorbing bullets all over the place, until the boss fires you with missiles that you need to absorb and fight back, and so on, absorb, fire, absorb, fire, absorb fire… it gets to a point that its inhuman, you fall on a state of extreme concentration, where your soul, mind and ship are one, I can't even explain it, its just fast and intense. If you do drugs, fuck drugs, play Ikaruga. The thing is like in the description after you destroy that phase of the boss, there is this new phase were you cant shoot but absorb all the bullets. If you want a real challenge, this is a part you need to play. I was standing up the whole boss fight and in this phase I was actually face to face with the tv screen piloting my ship around all the bullets. Having in mind that you just went through an intense fight you hear some messages of your ship, and for the tone of it you know is not good, this is when you unleash fire against the remaining boss and destroy yourself before the boss is destroyed too, then the screen cuts to a white background…and top this with a classical musical score on the background that actually is well credited by many gamers. At the moment when I finished the game I didn't know if I wanted to cry, or what,…I just clapped, and said "this is a fucking great game".



Boss name:  Bowser

Game: Super Mario World

System: Super Nintendo

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkofJRfNJgE

Description: After going through different routes from the last castle, you get to the tower where you confront Bowser himself, this time with an aerial artifact used as cover and weapon. All this action takes place on a dark mood scenario.

Why I liked it?: I am not a fan of  Mario, but I did loved his 8bit – 16bit era platformers, after that I play occasionally Mario 64 just for the sake of doing it. But of all the Super Mario games I played, I think this boss battle is the most obscure and fun at the same time, actually thinking about it, the final Boss in Super Mario Bros 1 (who was Bowser of course) had a pretty dark theme too, but wasn't that fun. What I liked from this boss battle is the setting, the pitch black background that is accompanied with thunder flashes along with the rumbling sound that sound really hard. The music is the darkest from the Super Mario games I think, at least the ones I played, it doesn't sound to anything previous in the game, it is hard, fast, and dark. Having that setting already in mind, the boss fight is a fun one, it aint difficult at all, but you can't lower your guard. On a technical note, this is the first time I saw sprite scaling on a video game, now people will think it is stupid, but at that time it was something non-common. Every time I think of this boss fight I get transported back in time to the summer of 1992 were life was good, zero responsibilities and no worries. I still remember that (weird fact), I liked playing that boss stage and finishing it every day during that summer.

Runners up:
Other games that had memorable boss fights:
Gunstar Heroes - against Green. (Genesis and GBA version)
Resident Evil 4 – the water monster (Gamecube)

Super Contra 3 – the giant turtle, it is a classic (Super Nintendo)

Black Manta – the giant brawler, all over the screen boss. (Nintendo)
Castlevania - almost all the series had interesting boss fights (many systems)