History Main / DegradedBoss

** The Pacifistas. The first one encountered by the Straw Hat Pirates required the joint effort of all the crew members in order to defeat it. Cut to 2 years later, where Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji alone now can easily destroy two of them (although it's worth noting that the Pacifistas they defeated were [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind outdated models]]). [[spoiler:Much later, after the Warlord system is disbanded and the Marines go to capture Boa Hancock, with Blackbeard eventually showing there for her fruit), the secret project Vegapunk was working on to replace the Warlords turns out to be the Seraphims, newer and more effective Pacifistas modeled after the Warlords AND Lunarians, able to fight and put both the Blackbeard Pirates and the Kuja on the ropes.]]

* In ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'', there was a three-tier Mook system: Silver ones cannon fodder, blue ones smarter and tougher, gold ones mega-badass. ''At first.'' The first Bluehead was actually the series' first MonsterOfTheWeek. They became much easier to deal with afterward being more EliteMooks (though it never got to the point where the Rangers could beat them unmorphed.) Then there were the Orangeheads. The first one gave the Rangers a lot of trouble, clearly outclassing the two it fought at first and requiring the whole team to go all-out. The ''second'' one was powerful against but eventually fell to two Rangers. It was a while to the next one, but from then on, they were nothing special. Of course, as grunts of all tiers were summoned in ever greater numbers, it seems they just fell to ConservationOfNinjutsu. One Orangehead will ''always'' be worse than four.
** The next series also had a multi-tier grunt system. Hidiacs were the standard grunts, with Styxoids treated as being fairly elite, and on a couple occasions, one Styxoid would lead a bunch of Hidiacs, a la Blueheads leading standard Krybots. By the end of the series, it was common to see the two groups treated no differently; grunt fights had a mixed back of Hidiacs and Styxoids just to make the scene more flavorful.

* The Great Jaggi is your first large Monster Hunt in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter3Tri''. By the time you fight the Royal Ludroth, you're taking them on two at a time, and they're barely worth hunting anymore. Note that at this point, you're ''still'' fighting the weakest monsters in the game. In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterPortable3rd'' and the expansion ''Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate'', the lowest-tier large monsters end up being the first of many monsters fought successively on multi-monster quests.

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/OdinSphere''. The player normally encounters [[GrimReaper Halja]] in the Netherworld as midbosses, but in Oswald's story, two of them are fought at once as an end-of-stage boss.

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' has Mini Battlelords, which are, obviously, smaller and weaker versions of the Battlelord. They're still a huge pain in the ass, however, since "weaker" only refers to their health (a mere 1000 to the big one's 4500) and not their ''tremendous'' damage output -- worst-case scenario, they can shred you in under three seconds. Gets even worse when they decide to spam their grenade launchers. And then there's the fact that in one of the later chapters there's one level where you end up facing ''three at once''. The only thing they're especially weak to is the [[IncrediblyShrinkingMan Shrinker]].

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' has Mini Battlelords, which are, obviously, smaller and weaker versions of the Battlelord. They're still a huge pain in the ass, however, since "weaker" only refers to their health (a mere 1000 to the big one's 4500) and not their ''tremendous'' damage output -- worst-case scenario, they can shred you in under three seconds. Gets even worse when they decide to spam their grenade launchers. And then there's the fact that in one of the later chapters there's one level where you end up facing ''three at once''.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' series, some xenomorphs are victims of this trope. A warrior is the main villain of the first movie, while in the film ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', the warriors are demoted to EliteMooks. Easily [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by how the lone aliens in the first and third films are stalking prey that has no effective weaponry with which to fight back.

** The Pacifistas. The first one encountered by the Straw Hat Pirates required the joint effort of all the crew members in order to defeat it. Cut to 2 years later, where Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji alone now can easily destroy two of them (although it's worth noting that the Pacifistas they defeated were [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind outdated models]]). [[Spoiler:Much later, after the Warlord system is disbanded and the Marines go to capture Boa Hancock, with Blackbeard eventually showing there for her fruit), the secret project Vegapunk was working on to replace the Warlords turns out to be the Seraphims, newer and more effective Pacifistas modeled after the Warlords AND Lunarians, able to fight and put both the Blackbeard Pirates and the Kuja on the ropes.]]

** The Pacifistas. The first one encountered by the Straw Hat Pirates required the joint effort of all the crew members in order to defeat it. Cut to 2 years later, where Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji alone now can easily destroy two of them (although it's worth noting that the Pacifistas they defeated were [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind outdated models]]). Furthermore, after the Warlord system is disbanded and the Marines go to capture Boa Hancock, with Blackbeard eventually showing there for her fruit), the secret project Vegapunk was working on to replace the Warlords turns out to be the Seraphims, newer and more effective Pacifistas modeled after the Warlords AND Lunarians, able to fight and put both the Blackbeard Pirates and the Kuja on the ropes.

*** After you beat Garula at the Walse Tower, you can encounter it again as a random encounter near the Walse Meteorite. This version won't harm you.

** [[WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}} Ice Titan]] is a multiple-game example, and while it never becomes a mere enemy, it's Boss status has degraded as the series progressed. In ''Kingdom Hearts I'', it was a BonusBoss. In the ''{{VideoGame/Kingdom Hearts|Coded}} [[UpdatedRerelease Re:Coded]]'', it was a world boss. In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', it's fought alongside the other titans as [[WarmUpBoss the first world boss]].

** Xord is the first Faced Mechon you fight proper. Later on Mass-Produced Faces that look and fight exactly like him show up as regular enemies. One of the few examples that are entirely justified in-story though, as there are implications that Xord is a Mass-Produced Face himself, meaning the minor antagonist you assumed was TheBrute turned out to be just a run-of-the-mill {{Elite Mook|s}} who happened to have a backstory.
** Various Telethia fought [[spoiler: before Shulk revives and Dickson escape in Colony 6]], become optional enemies throughout the rest of the game.

** The Pacifistas. The first one encountered by the Straw Hat Pirates required the joint effort of all the crew members in order to defeat it. Cut to 2 years later, where Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji alone now can easily destroy two of them (although it's worth noting that the Pacifistas they defeated were [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind outdated models]]).

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' Moldarach debuts as boss in the third dungeon, and reappears as a miniboss in the Shipyard. In the case of Moldorms, one appears as a sporadic, optional enemy in a grotto from the Fire Sanctuary, but the next one is fought as a miniboss later in the same dungeon. The ones found afterwards (one in a grotto during the StealthBasedMission in Eldin Volcano and another in the grotto of a certain island in the Sky) are regular enemies, but another two are minibosses in the final dungeon.

** The Gah-Goojins gets hit with this trope. Operation 002 revolves entirely around defeating ''one'' of them, who appeared earlier in Operation 001 (you can tell it’s the same one because it’s missing its arm, which was destroyed at the end of the encounter) and [[TheJuggernaut it puts up a hell of a fight]] before finally going down (and even then it has enough energy to try a pull a TakingYouWithMe). When a second one appears in Operation 005, the fight ends early because the Wonderful 100 decide that hijacking it and using it themselves would be easier. In the final level, where the main characters have a giant robot of their own, Gah-Goojins basically play the role of TheGoomba.

* ''VideoGame/GloryOfHeraclesIII'' has one area where all of the random encounters are previous boss fights, including some of the first few boss fights in the game. [[spoiler:And since you've been [[BalefulPolymorph turned into a massive monster]], you can wipe them out with ease.]]

* The first encounter with the centaurs in ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' is considered a boss fight, because they're the first Atlanteans you see in the game and their appearance is a [[WhamEpisode shock.]] More centaurs are encountered later as regular enemies. The VideoGameRemake changes this by changing the first centaurs into a PuzzleBoss, and only the later ones act as regular enemies.

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'' has the Fallen Defender, assuming you let the [[BeefGate Beef Gates]] guide you. It serves as the boss in the Hall of the Fire Lord dungeon, which is a mid-game dungeon. In the Tomb of VARN, a late-game dungeon, you find Defenders, Sentinels and Guardians of VARN, increasingly powerful non-boss monsters. The Fallen Defender is actually less powerful than even the ''least'' powerful of the non-boss variants (it lacks the secondary attacks and is slower), although that might have something to do with the implied reason for the Fallen Defender being so far from the rest of its kind: it's malfunctioning.

** The first Crystal Sage you encounter is an early-game boss. A second Crystal Sage shows up near the end as a miniboss, identical stats-wise to the first, except she has 50% more health and doesn't create clones of herself. The geography of the area also makes it much harder to follow her around as she teleports (the first one was fought in an open field), with her teleports being scripted as your ascend the level, and the premises are [[FlunkyBoss crawling with enemies]], so if anything she's actually harder than the boss version (and will almost certainly take longer to kill). She just doesn't have a health bar at the bottom of the screen.

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': The Burrowing Snagret -- the boss of the third dungeon you visit -- appears as a regular enemy later on in the game (and not that much later), and often in pairs. The Emperor Bulblax, which was the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'', appears also as a boss in one dungeon, but later on occur as mere mini-bosses and in pairs. The Beady Long Legs, the boss of what is likely to be the fourth dungeon, appears in the overworld after Day 30.

** The Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind boss monsters of the first game return in the sequels as regular level monsters (though they're just as tough as they were as bosses), while the final bosses are upgraded to multiple-stories-high monster-spawning buildings that take up the side of an entire wall. Both have since been re-promoted to bosses -- the Cyberdemon did so for ''VideoGame/Doom3'' and ''VideoGame/Doom2016'', while the Spider Mastermind, interestingly, did so not only for the 2016 reboot but also Episode 4 of ''The Ultimate Doom'', which was released ''after Doom 2'' made it a more common enemy. ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' degrades the Cyberdemon into a standard enemy once again, but in a more meta sense; the Tyrants aren't the same species as the Cyberdemon encountered in ''2016'', but they have a very similar moveset.

** ''Doom 2'' also adds the Hell Knights, a PaletteSwap of the Baron with half the health [[GlassCannon but the same power]]. Combined with the addition of the double-barreled shotgun, they show up more than the Barons without unbalancing things too drastically. Likewise, the Arachnotrons are basically smaller versions of the Spider Mastermind with plasma cannons instead of a chaingun.

* The Great Jaggi is your first large Monster Hunt in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter Tri''. By the time you fight the Royal Ludroth, you're taking them on two at a time, and they're barely worth hunting anymore. Note that at this point, you're ''still'' fighting the weakest monsters in the game. In the expansions ''Portable 3rd'' and ''Ultimate'', the lowest-tier large monsters end up being the first of many monsters fought successively on multi-monster quests.

** The Taurus Demon, the Capra Demon, Pinwheel and the Moonlight Butterfly can all be encountered as normal, respawning enemies later in the game. The Taurus Demon is particularly bad about this as with the others, you can sometimes fight them one on one, and in a relatively safe environment. The area where you first see the "Lesser" Taurus Demons (which actually have slightly ''more'' HP than the boss did) you see them in a recently cooled down lava lake, with still bubbling lava. Oh, and there's about seven of them.
** The Bell Gargoyles also reappear as non-respawning [[MiniBoss mini bosses]] in Anor Londo, although they're smaller and [[BreathWeapon breathe lightning]] instead of fire. Interestingly, these Bell Gargoyles are actually noticeably ''stronger'' than the boss versions (the DualBoss Gargoyles had respectively 999 and 480 hit points; the miniboss ones all have 1,119 hit points, plus slightly higher damage output and nearly twice as much damage resistance), but they can be taken down one at a time and your character is much stronger than they were in the first fight, so they're easier to deal with.

* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' loves giving an {{Elite Mook|s}} or GiantMook a screen-spanning health bar and unique arena in one area, only to have you fight statistically identical versions in other ones as generic enemies. Since the game world is so open it's completely possible, nay likely, to run into the "boss" after clearing areas where he's a common foe, to [[CurbStompBattle predictable results]]. Examples include large Scaly Misbegotten, Pumpkin Heads, Stonedigger Trolls, Demi-human Chiefs/Queens, Black Knife Assassins, Farum Azula Beastmen, Guardian Golems, Cleanrot Knights, and Grafted Scions.

* ''VideoGame/Killer7'': Many minibosses become this, since the miniboss battles are meant to introduce a new type of Heaven Smile for the next chapter (MookDebutCutscene included). The trope is averted for the first miniboss (Speed Smile) and the last two (Timer and Galactic Tomahawk), as they never show up again, and for the latter two it's justified due to their late appeareance in the game.

* Shocker, from ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan2005''. He's the first boss, and will later appear throughout the game's "City Events," where you will have to stop him from committing robbery or breaking in, and he'll be barely stronger than a regular mook.

* The first boss of ''VideoGame/BloodyZombies'' is a gigantic zombie brute who returns as a common GiantMook enemy. There are also several early bosses who returns later in the game in pairs as DualBoss, where they're actually easier in the second encounter because you have levelled up at that point and obtained far better weapons.

*** The trope is also inverted in one mission late in the game, when the enemy suddenly start fielding a large number of notoriously fragile and poorly-armed (albeit [[FragileSpeedster very fast]]) ''Spider'' battlemechs... which have been modified to act as TargetSpotters for a massive artillery cannon that can fire once every other turn from off the map and OneHitKill just about any mech that doesn't get out of the way fast enough.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'': The Undergrunt Gunner is a RecurringBoss in ''Super Mario Galaxy''. In the sequel, the Gunners are now ordinary [[{{Mook}} mooks]] appearing in Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet and the Fleet Glide Galaxy.

* The Gladiators in ''VideoGame/ThirteenSentinelsAegisRim'' are introduced about halfway through the game as a WolfpackBoss fight that establishes that they [[MirrorBoss function the same as your own first-generation Sentinels]]. By the time you reach the end, though, mass-produced versions of them have joined the rank and file of other Deimos {{mook}}s.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'', as a rule of thumb, will often have you fight a boss, then meet later a common monster counterpart. Specific examples include:

* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' loves giving an EliteMook or GiantMook a screen-spanning health bar and unique arena in one area, only to have you fight statistically identical versions in other ones as generic enemies. Since the game world is so open it's completely possible, nay likely, to run into the "boss" after clearing areas where he's a common foe, to [[CurbStompBattle predictable results]]. Examples include large Scaly Misbegotten, Pumpkin Heads, Stonedigger Trolls, Demi-human Chiefs/Queens, Black Knife Assassins, Farum Azula Beastmen, Guardian Golems, Cleanrot Knights, and Grafted Scions.

** [[ArtificialHuman Nomu]] was the main boss of the USJ Arc and beyond the level of the students or even their teacher, Aizawa, who is also a Pro Hero, with only All Might having any actual chance against it. Nomus are later shown to be mass-produced, although still beyond the levels of the students and only Pro Heroes have been able to beat them so far (thus, it's more of a {{Downplayed}} example). [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] though, as the original Nomu was especially worked on to defeat All Might, so it makes sense for it to be more powerful than the others.

* During the first seasons of WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower, Hordak serves as the main antagonist, when Horde Prime appears, clones equal to Hordak appear that perform as standard Mooks. [[spoiler: Even the Hordak himself is stripped of his individuality and becomes another random Mook.]]

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'':