Boss (video games)

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Flag Ship from the video game Gorf

In video games, a boss (sometimes called a guardian or master) is a particularly large or challenging computer-controlled character that must be defeated at the end of a segment of a game, whether it be for a level, an episode, or the very end of the game itself (final boss). Bosses appear in many video games, particularly story or level-based first and third-person shooters, platform games, CRPGs, and most shoot 'em ups. Most games feature multiple bosses, each often more difficult than the last.

Contents

History

Video games followed pinball machines. Since a player can never "win" a pinball machine game, video games initially were thought of as simply "video" pinball machines. Game developers therefore included no mechanism to "win" the game. Video games were viewed simply as contest against the machine, where the only goal was to accumulate points until the machine inevitably won.

E.g., early Nintendo and Atari video games such as Pong repeated the same challenge, although the speed of the object (or objects) of the game would increase. Eventually, the objects moved so fast that no player could win.

The first video game boss was the Golden Dragon from the 1975 video game dnd, running on the PLATO System, one of the first world-wide computer networks. Game developers such as those from Atari had access to the PLATO system.

The writers of dnd wanted to implement a "high score" feature. But, since players could save the game and continue from session to session, a "high score" seemed pointless. The writers devised an "end" to the game, so that a character used by a player would be retired and would then be eligible for the high score list. In order to make the game more interesting, a climactic battle was introduced near the end of the game. In order to win the game, a player had to defeat the Golden Dragon, a monster much more powerful than the player had previously encountered. dnd proved enormously popular, and was played until the early 1990s on PLATO.

dnd was written for a mainframe, and thus had considerably more computing power available than video or arcade games written at the same time. Thus, it would be some time after dnd before bosses were implemented in arcade or console games.

The Atari 2600 game Adventure, released in 1978, had three different dragons with differing abilities. However, it was not necessary to defeat any of them to win, and there was no level advancement in the game except by manual variation selection using the Game Select switch. In the first game variation, only the 2 slower dragons appeared. In the 2nd and 3rd variations, the 3rd and fastest dragon could be encountered. However, a player might not even encounter all of the dragons during the course of a 3rd variation game due to their random initial placement. For these reasons, the dragons are not now considered as true bosses.

The first arcade video game with a boss-like attacker was the 1979 game Galaxian. In Galaxian, waves of ships would attack the player. Each wave included a few "flagships". Destroying the flagships resulted in significant bonuses. The flagships appeared at the top of the screen, implying that they were directing the attack. The flagships were thus referred to as "bosses". Although the flagships usually were defeated by a player at the end of a level before advancing to the next level, it was not a requirement of the game.

The first arcade video game with a true boss was Phoenix introduced in 1980 by Centuri. In Phoenix, a player was first attacked with several different smaller types of enemies. After disposing of the small ships, the player is then attacked by birds. After the birds are destroyed, the player faced a large mothership. Only by defeating the large mothership could the player advance to the next level.

The first console games with a boss were Vanguard and Phoenix for the Atari 2600. Both games are ports from arcade video games. The games were released almost simultaneously. Vanguard has a part number of CX2669 while Phoenix has a part number of CX2673. If the games were released in sequence, Vanguard would have been released before Phoenix.

Bosses in game structure

Many single-player games feature a level/episode structure, the game becoming progressively more difficult as the player advances. Bosses are a consequence of this structure, appearing at or near the end of a level or episode and being the hardest enemies to defeat, often requiring a highly complex sequence of attacks or other actions that the player must deduce during the battle (and, usually, multiple defeats), in order to beat them. Other games have a storyline instead of a level-based structure, but still feature boss-like enemies at various points in the story or at the end of the storyline.

The boss battle generally marks the climax of a dramatic buildup resulting from the player's anticipation and anxiousness. Game designers often add design elements, such as suspenseful music, that enhance this effect. For example, in Metal Gear Solid, the penultimate battle (against Metal Gear REX) has been heavily foreshadowed in dialogue, and the threat represented by the boss enhanced by an attempt to disable or destroy it before it is mobile. The final scenes in Quake 2 are tensely quiet until the player finally confronts the Makron. In , the cutscene before the final boss shows the world being covered in darkness and also includes the final boss of the game effortlessly reducing a previous powerful boss (, specifically) into a disembodied head, forshadowing the difficulty of the battle.

A boss fest is a game with radical emphasis on boss battles. Examples of this style are Milestone's Chaos Field for Dreamcast and GameCube, Treasure's Alien Soldier for Genesis, and Taito's extremely rare Darius Alpha for the PC Engine. Final Fantasy VII for the Sony PlayStation is also a prime example of this, and has often been derided for its habit of throwing bosses at the player with little or no regard to how they fit in the story. This has sometimes been known as Random Boss Syndrome.

A variation on a boss fest genre can be seen in Freakout (Called Stretch Panic in North America) for the Sony PlayStation2. This game has only four "normal" levels in which the character gains points. These points are then used to gain access to the twelve different boss arenas that make up the rest of the game. Shadow of the Colossus takes this one step further, as the game features no enemies except the 16 giant monsters the player must hunt down and slay. It is very rare for a game to be comprised mostly of what would normally be bosses.

Some games also include a special mode, or Boss Gauntlet (sometimes called Boss Rush), in which the goal is to defeat a number of bosses one after the other. Famous games with this kind of features are the Mega Man series and '. Some modes challenge the player with some kind of twist, such as in ' and , where Kirby could not use his copy powers, or Kirby Super Star mode The Arena, which consists of endurance matches against a fixed number of bosses with recovery and ability change rooms between matches. Often, modes like this are unlockables that are earned after beating the game to test a player's skill.

Bosses are traditionally used as choke-points in RPGs, used to ensure a player has taken the time to level-up (raise their abilities through fighting anonymous easier foes) before progressing to a new section of the game. A player may find that they have not increased in level sufficiently to weather a boss's attacks, and must spend time gaining experience points by fighting lowlier creatures (often a very repetitive process) before attempting the battle again. This can be viewed as an effort to ensure the player has the level the designer expects before they progress, however it is one of the more common frustrations with the genre. A well-designed RPG will have the player level up enough to defeat bosses during normal play, and may provide bonuses if they have grown strong enough to defeat certain opponents beforehand.

In modern MMORPGs, where the game has no true "end", the boss structure is often used within game "dungeons" or "instances". For example, in World of Warcraft, the instance Uldaman has a number of small boss encounters, many of which are skippable if the players don't want or need to do them, and a huge, highly dramatic "end boss" encounter which finishes the instance: Archaedas, the Ancient Stone Watcher.

In Final Fantasy XI monsters called "Notorious Monsters" exist in almost every area. These monsters have special names and are stronger than the surrounding beasts, and usually respawn after a special condition and/or time limit is met. They are not usually necessary to proceed in the game, just to gain items or complete quests. These might be considered bosses by some people. There are Notorious Monsters that are necessary to the story line but are in battle arenas and will limit the player's level, so it is still a challenge, no matter the player's actual level.

Types of bosses

Note that some advanced bosses may combine any number of the following basic characteristics. For example, Ugh-Zan III, from Serious Sam, is classified as a puzzle, giant, strong, final and unbeatable boss, and alternates between these statuses like a multi-staged boss. This multiplication of characteristics is more frequent than not in most modern videogames.

Strong boss

This boss is difficult to defeat because it has a lot of energy and / or deals a large amount of damage. Defeating it is generally a matter of hiding from its powerful attacks and hitting it when it's not attacking, such as Dr. Octopus and The Rhino in Spider Man 2 or simply wearing it down through attrition. This is the simplest boss type, and may just be a regular enemy with a lot of life.

A popular variant of this is that the boss will alternate between long periods of total invulnerability and short periods when a player's attacks actually weaken it - typically the difficulty in beating such a boss is that it will unleash devastating attacks which must be avoided during its invulnerable period by retreating or taking cover, but the player must then break cover and get close to the boss during its vulnerable periods in order to counterattack, then flee again before the next cycle. As a sporting gesture, most games employing this feature offer some clue to when the boss is vulnerable to attack and when it is not, often a change in appearance. A more recent version of this boss can be seen in Halo 2's Tartarus. See also Puzzle Boss and Unbeatable Boss, or Hercules in Kingdom Hearts, who glows with 'godlike power' (as in the film) when he is invulnerable to attack.

A prime example of this is Sephiroth in the Kingdom Hearts series. He can deal a lot of damage with one hit in both and attacks with a flurry of hits. In both games he also has a move that leaves the player 1 HP close to being killed and no MP to heal with, which is usually followed with a quick hit, killing the player.

Stylish boss

This boss is difficult to defeat because it is fast and has a lot of quick attacks that are difficult to avoid. Often this kind of boss is around the same size as the player's character, and is a martial artist or similar. This type may have a lot of life or be relatively weak but tricky to hit. One example is General Kim from who blocks attacks rapidly and perfectly, and executes powerful Dragon Fist punches. In Kingdom Hearts, the final boss can kill you within a few hits because of his rapid attacks. Other examples from the sequel Kingdom Hearts II are Xaldin, who is armed with 6 powerful lances using fast-paced, multi-hit wind attacks, and Xemnas, the game's main antagonist and final boss, who uses a pair of lightsaber-like blades emitted from his hands along with powerful energy fields, blasts, and arcs to attack from all sides in short but lethal strikes demanding quick reaction times from the player. Another prime example is Jack Crowley, the final boss of ; he is fast, blocks efficiently, and is armed with several augmented versions of the player's attacks, as well as ones of his own.

Giant Boss

This type of boss is common in first- and third-person shooters. The boss is vastly larger than the player's character or any of the other bosses, often with a single relatively small weak point that must be attacked for massive damage (such as an excess eyeball, or a red bulb located on the hands or head), made difficult to hit by their sheer size, or no weak point at all (making it a puzzle boss). Examples of this type include Kraid in the Metroid series, almost all the first stage bosses of the Mega Man X series, AT-ST walkers in , Tidal Wave in the Transformers PS2 game, Z Leo in Alien Soldier, Mehrunes Dagon in , Cthon in Quake, GOLIATH SD/9 in and all 16 of the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus. Ugh-Zan III, the final opponent from the PC game Serious Sam, is largely considered to be the most impressive example of a giant boss (as of 2006), as he towers several hundred feet above the human-sized player (although the method required to defeat him would also classify him as a puzzle boss) another Giant Boss is Finalhazard from Sonic Adventure II, where you alternate as Super Sonic and Super Shadow and try dodge his laser beam and spore projectiles and hit him in a large red sore that mysteriously changes places.

Stealthy Boss

This boss is difficult to defeat because they are often hidden, either partially or completely. This can range from simply hiding behind various objects in the environment to complete invisibility. It is nearly impossible to defeat these bosses without revealing them in some way, usually because the arenas fought in are too large to allow for random attacking. These may also be considered puzzle bosses, as the method for revealing them may be fairly complex. Cyborg Ninja from the game Metal Gear Solid qualifies as a stealthy boss; once he has taken enough damage he turns on a stealth device and becomes nearly invisible. In Metal Gear Solid 3, The End is also a stealthy boss. He is constantly hiding in the forest and he constantly tries to snipe you. You need to try and snipe him back or sneak behind him. Another example is Demon Queen Sophia, the final boss of Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, who is in a large, dark arena, only detectable by the occasional lightning flash or her glowing eyes. Though these kinds of bosses usually appear in stealth games, first-person shooters and types of RPGS, they can also be in other genres. In Earthworm Jim, a run-n-gun game, Evil the Cat's second stage is a stealth boss. He hides in the background for short amounts of time and randomly leaps at you, to which you must quickly shoot him before he attacks.

Final boss

"Final boss" (also "last boss" or "end boss") is the term generally used for the final antagonist of the game, such as Ganon from the Legend of Zelda series, Safer Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, or Specter from the Ape Escape series. They are normally much larger and more powerful than any other enemies that appear in the game. This is sometimes referred to as the "last guy" derived from the common "bad guy", being the last "bad guy". There are a few common forms taken by the "last boss", including a massive creature with a small vulnerable spot and/or a creature which takes on a number of different forms during the final battle, with the ultimate form often being the most imposing. Sometimes, the final boss requires fighting in several battles; its first form as one boss and then an evolved form as the true final boss. Perfect CHAOS from Sonic Adventure, the Biolizard in Sonic Adventure 2, Volgin (and the Shagohod) from Metal Gear Solid 3 and Sigma from the Mega Man X series are examples. There could also be multiple final bosses in one game, such as both Trance Kuja and Necron in Final Fantasy IX. Defeat of the final boss usually means the game is complete (unless there happens to be an extra "hidden boss", as explained below). Sometimes the final boss is fought before the final battle also, such as Dark Samus from and Braska's Final Aeon in Final Fantasy X.

Sometimes, usually in plot heavy RPG's, a final boss may not be all that hard, and is really just there for the sake of story. An example of this is Necron in FFIX.

Mini-Boss

A weaker version of a boss that appears earlier in the level is called a mini-boss, sometimes derived from the fact that it is a smaller form of another boss (alternately known as a mid-boss or sub-boss). These are generally intermediate between bosses and standard enemies in their properties, for example, in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. An example of this is Metal Mario from Super Smash Bros., and the AT-ST from Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.

Occasionally, a defeated mini-boss or boss may return as a standard regular enemy at a later stage of the game. This often stresses the use of a certain strategy or action, and the player learns how to use it well for later purposes as a result. This typically only applies to bosses or mini-bosses which are not key characters in the game's storyline. For example, in Metroid Prime, the player encounters many Baby Sheegoths before a boss battle against a fully grown one; upon revisiting the level at a later stage, adult Sheegoths are commonplace. (However by this point of the game the player has aquired the Plasma Beam which can hurt a Sheegoth no matter where it hits.) Other examples of mini-bosses include Birdo, Ridley (although he gains normal boss status in later Metroid games), and Boom Boom.

Most Zelda games have a lot of these in the dungeons, particulary the Gameboy versions (save , where they mark the midway point of the dungeon, and one can warp back and forth to the Dungeon entrance. In , defearing the mini-boss of a dungeon will allow the player to collect the specific dungeon treasure, thereby unlocking previously unreachable areas of the dungeon.

Mini-bosses are common in fighting games, such as Goro, Kintaro, or Motaro from the Mortal Kombat series.

Non-Antagonist Boss

This type of boss is not really an enemy or an antagonist. It is just a character that you must challenge in a sport or activity. A good example is a boss that you must simply race or beat in a game. Even some bosses like Eely-Mouth from Super Mario Sunshine aren't enemies, but are friends that you must help to fix something. Even though Non-Antagonist bosses aren't enemies, in a lot of cases, they might still inflict damage on you if you touch them.

Stalker Boss

A type of miniboss, usually found in RPGs, that, as it's name implies, reapeatedly chases down the main character and fight's him or her at various points in the game, (3-7 times) getting increasingly stonger each time it is fought. An example is Montross from Star Wars Bounty Hunter. The player fights him on 3 separate occasions throughout the game, and he gets stronger each time, going from little more than a normal enemy with extra health to a powerful, heavily equipped boss that can do everything you can and more. Another example is The Turks from Final Fantasy VII, an organisation whose members you fight about 5 times total (although the last battle with them is optional, depending on which answer you choose to a question they ask you) and they rise in strength each time.

Hidden Boss

Another version of the miniboss is the Hidden Boss (also Secret Boss or Superboss), which may be fought just before or just after the final boss. Its existence or location may only be hinted at within the game, and usually requires the player to have already completed a certain task within the game - this task often involves collection of a complete set of some kind of item. This boss is usually the most difficult one in the game, with game designers specifically adding this unbalanced boss to challenge hardcore gamers who have leveled their characters to be strong enough to easily defeat the last boss. Defeating it usually has a reward such as a rare item or ability, although many gamers feel they would need to be at such a high level of skill as to make the reward ironically useless. This is pointed out in "[The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés]." In recent games the item/weapons received for defeating an optional boss are ridiculously overpowering compared to the other item/weapons to the point the player can generally defeat any opponent with one or two strikes. A good example of this is Abysson from Tales of Symphonia, who gives you weapons strong enough to deafeat the final boss in 5 or 6 hits.

Not all hidden or secret bosses are at the end of an optional dungeon, some of these kind of bosses actually replace the last boss but generally can not be reached the first time. An example of this is Bomberman 64 where if the player has achieved 100 gold cards and then defeats Altair, instead of being saved by Regulus, Siruis Bomberman's ally throughout the game will kill Altair and reveal himself as the true villain which Bomberman will then have to fight.

Recent Final Fantasy games have become known for their challenging optional bosses, such as Omega and Shinryu from FFV, the various WEAPONs from FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII and FFX, Ozma from FFIX, the Dark Aeons and the Monster Ranch creations from FFX, and Trema from FFX-2. The Game Boy Advance version of "FFI" and "FFII" (Final Fantasy: Dawn Of Souls) has 4 dungeons (Earthgift Shrine, Hellfire Chasm, Lifespring Grotto and Whisperwind Cove) scattered throughout the map which can be opened by defeating the boss whose statue blocks the entrance. After going through several levels that are completely seperate from the storyline, you end up battling a boss and finding items that are more powerful than the regular items... Other examples of this are Kingdom Hearts's Sephiroth (who appears in both the original Kingdom Hearts and in Kingdom Hearts II, with a slightly larger role), the Ice Titan, Phantom, the so-called Enigmatic Man and Kurt Zisa. Culex is also a hidden boss in Super Mario RPG acting as an example of a boss inspired by the Final Fantasy series. It is a common misconception that he was a final boss, yet this is not true.

Perhaps one of the most notable but little-known optional bosses, however, is Iseria Queen from Star Ocean 2: The Second Story. The opportunity to fight her only comes after completing an extremely challenging, multi-level hidden dungeon called The Cave of Trials. Even then, the player has little chance against her without utilizing a piece of armor called "Bloody Armor", which constantly drains the equipped character's health while making it impervious to all other damage.

In the RPG , there exists a special hidden boss at the bottom (99th level) of the Ancient Cave, an optional, randomly generated dungeon that is almost impossible to conquer at the first attempt. The Juggernaut Slime, next to being a secret boss, is also a timed boss, which won't attack your party and instead giving you only three rounds to end the fight by either using high powered attacks, or using the unorthodox method of killing your own party, also ending the battle. If the timer should expire, the Juggernaut Slime flees and you are forced to redo the entire dungeon to try again.

also has two notable (and quite well known) secret bosses: Crazy Hand and Giga Bowser. Crazy Hand does not actually come after the final boss, it comes in the middle of the fight, and only when specific requirements are met.

O2 from can be considered a hidden boss in that it can only be fought once every crystal shard is collected.

Both Golden Sun games have a ridiculously strong Hidden Boss, but the defeat of them is necessary to gain every item or ability required. For instance, ''Golden Suns Deadbeard guards the Demon Mail, the strongest armor in the game. Later, in ', the overwhelmingly strong boss Dullahan guards the Iris summon, the most powerful Djinn-based attack available.

In Soul Calibur III, the hidden boss is Night Terror, who can only be fought after following a specific path for each character, and without losing any fights, or utilizing continues. Night Terror is the most powerful enemy in the game, and is extremely difficult.

In most Sonic games, Hidden Bosses (Called Extra Bosses) are reached by collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds. The Hidden Boss of Sonic Advance 3 is a large, orb-like robot, Super G-Mel, but is actually easier to defeat than the "final boss".

In , the Hidden Boss is Bonetail, an undead skeletal dragon with 200 HP and 8 offence points, reached by making it to the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials. It guards a rare badge.

In New Super Mario Bros., Lakithunder and Mega Goomba are hidden bosses in hidden worlds.

Team boss

Team bosses are different from all other forms of bosses in the sense that while most bosses are portrayed as one significant enemy, these are shown as multiple normal or half-as-powerful-as-a-boss enemies. Common characteristics where the battle is not simply a fight against multiple bosses at once:

The first boss of the Playstation 1 game Koudelka featured three spinning eyes that had to be killed independently of one another, and whilst each eye was only marginally harder to defeat than normal enemies, the trio together was sufficiently strong enough to constitute a boss.

Tag Team battles in which usually two opponents may leave the fight and allow the other one to attack. These are usually solved by killing both of the enemies or just hitting both of them until the health bar is drained and they both die regardless of how many hits were delivered to either of them. Examples are the zombie dogs from Medievil and Agni and Rudra in Devil May Cry 3.

A few boss battles feature an "odd couple" that the player must face simultaneously. In such battles, one of the enemies is usually very large and powerful while the other is small and quick. Examples of this include Gorc and Pic from , Tweedledum and Tweedledee from American McGee's Alice, Logos and Ormi from Final Fantasy X-2 (although they are usually combined with Leblanc, you occasionally have to fight them alone), and the two men in trenchcoats from The Simpsons (arcade game). In the first two examples, the boss pairs are actually presented as twins, despite their physical differences.

Minion battles in which there will be one normal boss along with a few (2 or 3) mini-bosses or plain enemies. These are solved by either killing all of the opponents, or simply killing the "leader". Examples include many of the bosses in Tales of Symphonia, General Guy from Paper Mario, and most Boss battles in Tactical RPGs.

Army battles in which a swarm of normal enemies will come at you wave after wave after wave. The waves usually get harder as you proceed through the fight. Examples include the "Robot Carnival" and "Robot Storm" levels in Sonic Heroes and a level involving a swarm of robots in the Futurama computer game.

Another form of team boss is through the Key to Truth door in Monstro in , where you have to defeat many Shadows and create a ruckus so Monstro sneezes, sending Geppeto and Pinnochio flying out.

Generator battles, where one or more tough 'factory' enemies produce large numbers of regular enemies; the player must destroy or disable the 'factory' enemies while surviving the attacks of the regular ones they create. An example of this is the Icon of Sin from Doom II.

Some team boss encounters involve a two-part strategy, where you must fight multiple bosses individually and in their more powerful combined form. Examples of this include Bit and Byte from Mega Man X3, and the Koopa Bros. which appear in Paper Mario.

Another type of team boss fight is the Space Paranoids boss fight in Kingdom Hearts II. After you first defeat Sark, the Master Control Program increases the size and power of Sark. To be able to get a shot at the MCP, you must attack Sark until he is knocked unconscious, then break the barrier surrounding the MCP in order to attack it. Also, there are several times when you have to defeat a certain number of enemies to gain access to certain areas. The most notable occurrences are in Space Paranoids on the Solar Sailer (the sailer can't take the weight of the Heartless) and in the World That Never Was in the middle of the final boss fight (to destroy the engines on Xemnas' ship).

The game Golden Sun and its sequel, , feature a good deal of team bosses. Though many regular bosses do appear, the major villains of both games appear as a pair, each with considerably higher health than most other bosses up to that point each. However, they can be taken down easily by focusing all or most of the player's effort on only one of the individuals.

Another type of team boss is simply a set of enemies that work together as one full boss. Reznor, the Fortress Guardian of Super Mario World, can be considered such a boss.

Puzzle boss

Another type of boss is the "puzzle boss", which is invulnerable to conventional weapons. In order to be defeated, the player must solve a puzzle – often revolving around activating some type of super weapon which is able to defeat it. Other times the player may have to activate something that drops the boss down a pit, or the boss may be defended by some impregnable shield which the player will have to somehow deactivate before they can harm the boss. (Sometimes the boss's shielding will eventully come back.) Good examples of this kind of boss include the first and final bosses from Quake, Sophia Leigh from Tomb Raider 3, many of the bosses from Half-Life (such as the three tentacles and the Pit Worm) and Psychonauts, the Sandopolis sub-boss from Sonic & Knuckles, The final Vorticon from Commander Keen in ', Bowser in Super Mario Bros. 3 (although Bowser can be defeated with fireballs from a fire flower or with a rare Hammer Bros. suit), and Oogie Boogie in Kingdom Hearts, along with the Hydra from God of War, a large number of the bosses in the Legend of Zelda series (usually beaten with an item the player found in the corresponding boss' dungeon), and Gorea from '.

A unique example of a puzzle boss, or possibly a trick boss, is Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid where the player must figure out a way to defeat Psycho Mantis, who has the ability to "predict" the player's moves, so conventional fighting will tend to only be blocked or countered.

Trick Boss

There is a breed of boss sometimes called the "trick boss". This is a boss who is extremely powerful and can't be easily defeated by the characters at their current level. In many cases there is a particular weapon, skill, or special item that can be obtained to defeat the boss easily. Otherwise the player is left to continue to gain experience until they can beat the boss the normal way. For example, some undead characters take damage from HP healing spells, meaning an inexpensive spell or item typically used to immediately revive a character will immediately kill the boss instead (an example is Evrae Altana from Final Fantasy X, which can be defeated easily with Phoenix Down items). More common are elemental bosses: these tend to only take damage from their opposite 'element' in the game (dark against light, ice against fire, and so on) which the players may not be given until a certain point, until which an elemental boss will be impossible to defeat. Another typical, classic example of the Trick Boss is Metal Man from Mega Man II, who is killed in two hits from the metal blades that can only be obtained by defeating him first (One hit if played on the North American NES version's "Normal" mode). Another might be the optional mime boss in Final Fantasy V, who can be defeated by proving that you're a better mimic than he is. Since all he does is wait for you to act, then mimic you, the way to get him to surrender is to take no action for several minutes. Yet another trick boss is at the end of Silent Hill. This boss automatically dies when the player runs out of ammo, so an easy way to take it down is to use up all of the character's ammo except for one bullet in one gun, then firing that last bullet during the fight. The Spiked Harriers of are yet another example, involving the recruitment of Kid Yoshi (or whatever the player calls the Yoshi) to defeat them. Otherwise, they're invincible. Raem's second form in is another example, who can only be defeated using the player's memories, which become magicite for the player to use.

Timed Boss

Occasionally the boss fight's length is determined not by the player's actions, but by a countdown of some sort. In such cases, the boss itself is generally impossible to destroy; the player must wait until the time limit expires and survive the boss' attacks until then. Variations include an invincible boss chasing the player to a certain point (as with the Shagohod chase in Metal Gear Solid 3, where the boss cannot be destroyed while chasing the player on the runway), a boss which the player must hold off while a timed explosive or other character defeats it (as with Llednar Twem in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance), and a multi-stage boss where one stage is determined by time limit rather than damage (as with the Morphing Bydo boss' first form in ).

The opposite form also exists; in this type, rather than the boss being defeated after a time limit expires, the player must defeat the boss within the time limit; they will generally otherwise be killed or inconvenienced in some way when the time runs out. Reasons for the time limit vary: typical cases include a bomb with a countdown that will kill the player after a given length of time, the boss calling for unbeatable reinforcements that will arrive when the time runs out, another character being in peril and requiring the player to defeat the boss to render aid to them, or the boss building up a devastating attack it will unleash when the time runs out. Examples include the final boss of Revenge of Shinobi and Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid. Other Metal Gear Solid timed bosses are The Joy (which ends after 10 minutes with jet fighters bombing you, the boss and the entire fight location) and Colonel Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3 in which you have an unidentified (but short) time before the C3 bombs that Naked Snake himself set before the fight blow up the whole area. Frequently, the Resident Evil series has employed these types of bosses as their final bosses.

A unique example is found in R-Type Final, as well as Ikaruga, where every boss has a time limit as well as a damage limit: in this instance, bosses will either explode on their own, destroy the player's ship or disappear once the time limit expires, allowing a player to defeat them simply by evading their attacks.

An interesting spin on this type of boss is where, in some situations, the game may give a special reward for dealing a certain amount of damage to the boss in a given time limit. An example of this is the X-ATM-092 from Final Fantasy VIII, which chases your party through the town, attempting to intercept the party. Once this boss is knocked down, you have the option of running or trying to reach its maximum damage limit before it gets back up again. Choosing the latter will result in a handy reward.

Tiamat, a dragon boss in Ultimecias castle (also Final Fantasy VIII), attacks in a unique manner: Her attack is named "Dark Flare". When Tiamat reaches her turn in battle, she won't attack, but spell the attack letter by letter, adding one letter for each turn, starting with "D", continuing with "Da", "Dar", and so on. when the last letter is added, Tiamat will attack.

A recent, unique version of the "Timed" boss is the Luxord boss fight from Kingdom Hearts II. The boss has no hit points as per the custom of the game, but instead has a time bar, as does Sora. The point of the battle is to drain the boss's time bar faster than Sora's is drained. Both time bars drain at the same speed, but doing damage to the boss can cause his bar to drain faster.

Multi-stage boss

Many games contain bosses which change shape or gain alternate attacks as they grow more heavily damaged, and can occupy several types on the list in the course of the player's battle with them. Examples of this type are present in most scrolling shoot 'em ups, where the huge vehicles presented as stage bosses would often become smaller and faster as they became more heavily damaged, or else gain new and more powerful attacks. The various stages of these bosses can normally be considered separate bosses in the various classes they occupy, since it wouldn't make any difference from the player's perspective if a new boss flew on or the old one changed shape. Almost all endgame bosses in World of Warcraft are multi-stage bosses. This type of boss fight is common with the more powerful enemies of RPGs, such as Yunalesca from Final Fantasy X or Hojo from Final Fantasy VII.

Unbeatable boss

Related to the trick boss is the "unbeatable boss" or "scripted battle", often found in RPGs. This rare boss is actually undefeatable—either invincible or massively more powerful than the player—and for storyline purposes, the player must lose. This however does not result in a game over. Often the unbeatable boss will become defeatable much later in the game, when the player has significantly grown in power (as with Saturos and Menardi in Golden Sun), obtained a certain ability/weapon/item or when some story element has removed the boss' invincibility; some multi-stage bosses start as an unbeatable boss, but after defeating the player in the first phase, something happens to remove their invincibility, and becomes beatable in the next phase such as Bowser in the N64 title Paper Mario. In some cases, a boss may seem unbeatable, but it can be beaten either by excessive leveling, or amazing player skill; since the player is supposed to lose the story will not change, or change very little should the player manage to win.

One of the best examples of the unbeatable boss is 's Black Knight. Appearing at the end of Chapter 7, he kills Greil in a single blow during a cutscene. Later, he appears at Chapter 11's end, almost killing Ranulf while taking no damage himself (his actual appearance during the chapter occus after the allied team first engages the regular boss of the chapter). Only in Chapter 24 is his weakness (the Blessed Sword Ragnell) revealed. Even with Ragnell in hand, though, Ike can only do small amounts of damage to the knight at a time in their Chapter 27 fight, while the Black Knight (and his own Blessed Sword, Alondite) can easily wipe out half of Ike's Health in a single hit, and destroy Mist altogether with the same hit, all the while recovering health lost from previous attacks, essentially leaving him at the very high status of a Super Boss. Because of this, many players consider the Black Knight the game's hardest enemy, even though the Daein King Ashnard (who can be damaged by up to three characters and is extremely slow when compared to the Black Knight, though this is probably due to his Blessed Sword, Gurgurant's, extremely high weight) has yet to be fought.

Also, in Jade Cocoon 2, near the beginning, Kahu (the protagonist) has to fight an evil kalma much, much stronger than himself - the player has to lose in order for the plot to progress. This is the players enemy through a lot of the game and eventually the player gets to fight him again, in a match that the player can win. Another example would be Ramirez from Skies of Arcadia, who challenges Vyse and his party to a battle on their base, Crescent Isle. While possible, it is extremely difficult to defeat Ramirez in this part of the game at the normal level. Later, as a final boss, the player defeats Ramirez in 3 stages. Yet another excellent example of an unbeatable boss is Vile from Mega Man X. Vile is encountered at the end of the first level of the game. He cannot die, and he will be able to subdue you in only one hit. Vile is later encountered at the end of the game, when X and Zero team up to destroy him.

Doopliss from steals Mario's identity and every time Mario passes a certain shed, Doopliss will appear and battle you. Doopliss is undefeatable during this portion, (this is explained in game as when someone does not know your name you can use incredibly powerful magic) however can be defeated at the end of the chapter. The Shadow Queen, the final boss of the same game, can't be defeated in her first form, and she uses her undead hands to absorb the audience, restoring her health. However, she is weakened and becomes vulnerable after a few turns and is (relatively) easily defeated with the right items and experience points.

In Tales of Symphonia, the party encounters Yggdrasil in the Tower of Salvation. Not only is Yggdrasil impossibly powerful, but is fought directly after two other bosses, one of which is also unnecessary to defeat to progress. Also, even if you are able to keep up, the battle ends without neither the player or the boss being defeated.

In Final Fantasy X, Tidus is attacked by an underwater enemy called Geosganeo upon first arriving in the main game world of Spira. The boss uses only one physical attack, which damages Tidus for half his current health, meaning he can never die - if he is reduced to 1 HP, the game rounds the damage of .5 HP down to 0. Geosganeo can be defeated much later on after the airship is acquired, and at this stage he is capable of killing party members, though he only poses a challenge to lower-leveled parties. This cannot even be circumvented by the use of cheat codes, as using the Action Replay cheat cartridge to utilize ultimate attacks will result in the animation of Geosganeo dying, then reappearing and continuing with the game.

Also, in Final Fantasy II, the player's party is put up against four Black Knights at the end of the opening cutscene. They are impossible to defeat, even though they are only normal enemies - they can one-hit kill any of the party members (and proceed to do so) and have HP well into the thousands, against your party's normal attacks dealing roughly ten damage per hit. They are encountered as normal enemies much later in the game, and can be easily defeated at this point by most parties.

Also, in , at the end of the Artus Prime level you will fight a Dark Jedi named Desann (who you will fight at the end of the game) whom you fight, but he will have to drain your health for you to continue.

Kingdom Hearts' Leon is also an example. Even if you beat him (which is a hard task at that point in the game), the story makes it so that Sora collapses from fatigue in battle, losing to Leon.

In MegaMan Battle Network, ElecMan.EXE is invincible because he constantly "regenerates" lost power. MegaMan.EXE is only capable of hurting the NetNavi after Lan has turned off the main fuse switch of the power plant, where the NetWork where MegaMan is facing off against ElecMan is found. In MegaMan Battle Network 3, Bass is unbeatable upon your first encouter. You encounter him after he knocks out FlamMan (FlameMan) and proceeds to attack you. His DarkAura prevents you from being able to beat him at that time. And in MegaMan Battle Network 4 ShadeMan.Exe is invincible in his first encounter, as well as his second one, where he falls only because of a plotdevice. He has a returning hidden battle in the Undernet though, where his only weak spot is a specific one of the four bats he splits up into.

The game Chrono Trigger has an end boss named Lavos, who is encountered in one supposedly-impossible encounter midway through the game. It is possible (especially with the New Game+ option gained on beating the game once) to defeat him at that point; doing so actually ends the game in an easter-egg victory.

features a Fire Giant Bhaalspawn called Yaga-Shura. Yaga-Shura is invincible because his heart had been removed with a spell cast upon it. After a lengthy quest of retrieving it, and undoing the spell, Yaga-Shura can finally be felled.

Non-boss

Sometimes a game will hype up one of its antagonists, implying that the player will be forced to face the villain as a major boss at some point in the game. When the moment arrives, though, the boss battle is either interrupted or surprisingly easy. This is sometimes due to the preceding level being incredibly difficult (after which a simple boss battle is a welcome surprise), or it is sometimes used as a means to introduce a more powerful, more threatening antagonist (after which a different boss battle may follow).

The best example of this is Bob the Killer Goldfish, who appears as a non-boss in both Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2. Though there is little if any fighting between the game character and Bob, his entertaining parody of a boss battle sequence has made him a memorable villain.

Another example of this is the "Launch Base Zone" appearance of Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Despite making problems for Sonic and Tails from the very beginning of the game, Knuckles' confrontation with the hedgehog is interrupted after the first punch, as Dr. Robotnik launches the Second Death Egg and intiates the actual boss battle.

Typical characteristics

Role-playing games

In complex games (particularly role-playing games), bosses are so noted for effective attacks and a large number of hit points. They also have "special" attacks, such as stunning/freezing the player, teleportation, inflicting massive damage onto the characters, inflicting curses on the characters that decrease their abilities, and so forth. Bosses are often immune to certain abilities that the player possesses, and often can only be defeated by specific attacks and strategies, or by using the environment or their own attacks against them. A common way of implying this power is to make the boss much larger than the player's on-screen representation, as opposed to normal enemies, who are more commonly smaller than the player, or at most roughly equal in size. Some bosses have multiple targets, the targets being either its allies (like a boss fight with one or two bodyguards) or multiple parts of its body. The battle with this breed ends whenever the main target or all of its parts die, but sometimes the pieces will be revived if the player does not kill them quick enough. In some games in which combat takes place in real-time (Like in The Legend of Zelda or MMORPGs), some bosses may use the environment to their advantage. This includes the boss picking up objects and throwing them at the player characters, lighting the stage on fire, dropping mine-like explosives, or by reducing the available space to fight in. Sometimes the player can use the environment to their advantage too, like standing in a specific space to avoid damage from an attack or knocking projectiles back at the boss and stunning him/her/it. Sometimes it is a certain object in the area that can damage the boss. This is attributed to the "Puzzle Boss."

Action games

Baxter Stockman, the boss of the first level of . Note that he is flashing red, indicating that he is close to defeat.

In fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, the final few characters the player faces in matches are usually referred to as bosses, as they are placed at the end of the game and often have noticeably greater difficulty than previous opponents. Bosses in these games are often not available as playable characters at leisure, or may have a much weaker version available for play. Bosses are also sometimes characterised by being difficult, or completely unrelated, to the rest of other fighter's templates owing to a strange size, shape or types of attacks. Example include Asmodeus of , Onslaught from , and Master Hand of the Super Smash Brothers series, are is completely different to any other opponents not only by size, but the way the fight decisions are conducted.

In scrolling fighting games and other arcade games, a boss's health level is often determined by a health bar comparatively longer than the player's, sometimes taking up several lifebar lengths. When not determined in this manner, the character may also flash red as he takes hits, progressively flashing faster until he is defeated. This not only determines the boss's health, but also permits internal programming to discreetly adjust it as players enter and leave the game during the boss battle. Sometimes, bosses may also adjust their attacks (including desperation moves when near defeat) according to how much damage they are taking.

First-person shooters

In more fantasy- or science-fiction-oriented First Person Shooter games like Doom or Half-Life where the player faces different species of monsters, bosses are generally large, highly durable monsters, often with their own unique weapons or special pre-scripted attacks and complex arenas. In more realistic FPS games where the player faces exclusively human foes, such as Wolfenstein 3D, bosses often are unique characters who behave exactly like regular enemies, only with better weapons, more health, and typically greater intelligence; or else they are vehicles such as tanks or attack helicopters to account for their greater durability and damage.

Scrolling shooters

Scrolling shooters almost always feature end-of-stage bosses, which are often screen-filling vehicles or creatures with multiple attack phases depending on how much damage they have taken; frequently they change shape to mark these phases. Mechanical bosses are often freakishly oversized, such as the Ground Battleship in Strikers 1945. Some scrolling shooters will also have a Boss Stage, a stage in the game that is made almost entirely of one gigantic ship several screens long/wide, as well as any escorts. The player(s) usually have to destroy the ship piece by piece, often causing sections to fall off. However, these stages tend to end in a traditional boss, generally the ship's engine or command section. The R-Type series is known for having one of the earliest examples of this kind of stage. There are also sometimes levels made entirely of boss fights, which are given varied nicknames such as Boss Alleys or the Boss Parade. The Gradius series (since the second installment) are known for featuring this kind of stage. Its spin-off series Parodius feature the Stage of Moai in every installment.

Arcade flight sims

While almost nonexistent in realistic flight sims, boss encounters do appear in those the focus more on action, such as the Ace Combat games. This will either take the form of an enemy 'ace' or group of aces significantly more difficult to hit and exponentially more skilled than the standard enemies (ADFX-02 and other aces from Ace Combat Zero, UI-4054 from Ace Combat 3, or a squadron of X-02 Wyverns from Ace Combat 5: Operation Katina), or sometimes a massive vehicle such as Ace Combat 5's Arkbird enemy, a spaceplane as big as an aircraft carrier. Other 'boss' like encounters can be stages that require extremely precise flying, often down narrow tunnels; Ace Combat 04's Megalith stage fits this description well.

Space Sims

Unlike conventional flight sims, space sims often contain bosses, usually in the form of colossal, heavily armoured capital ships which dwarf the small ships piloted by players and conventional enemies (almost invariably one-man fighter or bomber spacecraft). and its sequel Freespace 2 are excellent examples, frequently relying on boss levels in the form of missions where squadrons of small craft must engage and either destroy or capture vast enemy vessels. Conversely, sometimes in such games the roles are reversed, for example when an allied capital "boss" ship must be defended against swarms of regular enemies. Occasionally two capital ships engaging each other in a boss fight actually form nothing more than a backdrop to a conventional dogfight.

Criticisms

Bosses have recently fallen out of favor with some videogamers and specific game designers; it is argued by them that they are a hangover from pay-to-play arcade games, and inappropriate for current games. Poorly engineered bosses may simply be an enemy which absorbs or deals an exasperating amount of damage without providing especially engaging gameplay, existing purely to slow the player's progress. Particularly boss-heavy games may lack coherent segments between the bosses; this is frequently an issue in 2D shooters such as Gunstar Heroes.

Some gamers have complained that bosses can break the suspension of disbelief by disrupting the level of realism. In games which attempt for a "realistic" atmosphere where the player character and the enemies can survive about as much damage as a "real" human being (albeit perhaps one wearing body armor) could, it can be quite jarring to suddenly encounter an enemy who can survive superhuman amounts of damage, especially when this enemy is apparently human - this is particularly noticeable, for example, in Max Payne. Developers have tried to justify these occurrences by various (sometimes far-fetched) means, like providing the player's opponent with extremely advanced body armor (such as the final boss in the otherwise (gruesomely) realistic Soldier of Fortune). An interesting justification for a human character's extreme resistance to damage (or, more likely, the pain it causes) is found in , where a "boss" character snorts a preposterous amount of cocaine before engaging the player in a gunfight.

Also, the incongruously drawn-out boss battles in Red Faction 2 and other similar games were derided by many as repetitive, awkward endings to otherwise dramatic, coherent games. However, the frequent lock-in battles of some games which claim to be without bosses are often just as problematic for suspension of disbelief, since they require the player to accept that, for example, a character with a rocket launcher could not destroy a flimsy door barring his escape.

Alternatively, some view bosses as the ultimate expression of the concepts in the game's design, the other segments bridging and introducing ideas to be explored fully in the boss battles. Developer Treasure constructed Alien Soldier as a relentless series of bosses to interesting effect; the Metal Gear series includes its bosses as the ongoing storyline, battles with them driving the plot ahead; in the Metroid saga, bosses test the player's skill and grant them new abilities that allow the gameplay to expand.

Games may instead have various scenarios which serve as boss "replacements," however, such as requiring the player to defeat a larger-than-normal amount of (often strong) enemies in a limited period of time or a confined space with little cover. This kind of 'boss room' is especially common in first person shooting games, with its origins in the Doom series. A common version is to force the player to remain in one location while waves of enemies attack them; the player being forced to fight them all to progress either because they are locked in (a frequent occurrence in Black, where such a situation occurs at least once on most levels, and the Serious Sam games which consist of little else) or because there is something in the area they must protect for a fixed period of time (possibly the most well-known example being the infamous sequence in GoldenEye 007 where the player must guard Natalya; the Pegasus Bridge and Pavlov's House sequences in Call of Duty are other examples). In World 4-1 of Super Mario Bros. 2, there is no boss. Rather, the boss music plays and Mario/Luigi/Peach/Toad must go through a room with a large number of Autobombs.

It is also worth noting that the line claimed to exist between these "replacement" scenarios and a true boss is not a clear one, and many consider these situations just as much boss encounters as any other type; as an example, the final boss of Serious Sam: the Second Encounter, Mordekai the Summoner, has no means of directly attacking the player and can only summon other enemies. He is thus effectively an object the player must destroy to end a "boss room"-type battle, much as some such battles would end when the player destroys a bunker or computer in the room. Certain games combine the "puzzle" and "army" boss variants to form a situation reminiscent of a boss fight, attempting to perform a complicated sequence of actions while under assault from endless waves of enemies, without technically having a boss present. Finally, Shadow of the Collossus takes the convention of bosses in a whole different direction: in the case of the Collossi, the bosses are the levels.

List of video game bosses

External links

[The Ten Best Boss Fights] – according to GameSpot.com
[General-purpose Boss Fighting Guide]
[Who's the Boss?] from Wired News

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