| 1 | %% Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1609649797041058000 |
| 2 | %% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | [[quoteright:256:[[VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/macktheknife.bmp]]]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:256:I wonder which one's the boss? [[note]] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Obviously the ones in the front. [[/note]]]]]] |
| 6 | %% |
| 7 | ->''"Stop sending in the appliances and fight me like a real man!"'' |
| 8 | -->-- '''Retro''' from ''Anime/DeadLeaves'', complaining about being on the receiving end of this trope |
| 9 | |
| 10 | A boss that has several of its minions fight alongside it. For example, an EvilOverlord may call upon his henchmen, a queen alien monster may order her offspring to attack, a magic-based enemy will summon otherworldly creatures, a wizard will create clones of themself, a KingMook will enlist the help of the normal enemies to which it is related, and so forth. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | This trope contains a wide range of variations: |
| 13 | |
| 14 | * Taking advantage of these extra baddies may be required to beat the boss. For example, the game may require you to take them out before you can even ''hit'' the boss at all, or you may have to [[PuzzleBoss trick them into attacking their leader]]. Stunning the flunkies and then throwing them back at the boss is a variation favored by {{Elimination Platformer}}s and some {{Beat Em Up}}s. |
| 15 | * Only rarely do the minions actually stay dead. Defeating all of the minions will cause the boss to revive them, or summon more to take their place. The player can sometimes exploit this to their advantage by defeating all but one minion; other times the boss will simply revive ''any'' fallen minion. And then there are times where the minions simply {{respawn|ingEnemies}} on their own, allowing the boss to focus all of its attention on you. Alternately, the boss may become [[TurnsRed much more powerful]] as its minions are defeated. |
| 16 | * While these extra enemies to deal with may ostensibly make the fight harder, they may also represent an unlimited source of [[BossArenaRecovery health or ammunition pickups]], or [[LevelGrind experience points]] as they are defeated. This is a subtle method for the developers to essentially grant you infinite supplies and to prevent the battle from being {{unwinnable}}. |
| 17 | * From a story-gameplay perspective, especially when fighting a humanoid boss, this trope is a sensible choice to avoid such absurd situations as the player's party constantly beating down on a single guy who should've died long ago by regular enemy standards for the entire fight. By giving him minions, you keep other party members occupied in battle and can give the boss a more logical amount of HitPoints without turning the whole fight into an AnticlimaxBoss. |
| 18 | * Sometimes, bosses are very weakly tied to normal enemies and it feels like a boss just [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appeared in the middle of the battle]]. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | In many cases, the optimal strategy is to concentrate all your offensive efforts on the main boss, as killing him will [[NoOntologicalInertia defeat the minions too]] and constitute an InstantWinCondition, meaning there's no sense in wasting time and resources on the minions when they're probably just going to come back anyway. This is especially true if the boss itself has no form of attack, and its flunkies are its only form of offence. [[ShootTheMedicFirst The contrary can be true if the flunkies]] ''[[MookMedic heal]]'' the boss, or if [[ZergRush more and more of them would spawn]] if you don't kill them until you are [[DeathOfAThousandCuts overwhelmed by sheer numbers]], or if the flunkies come in limited numbers, and are GlassCannon doing most of the actual damage while the boss is a StoneWall. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | See also the overlapping tropes CognizantLimbs and CoresAndTurretsBoss. Compare DualBoss and WolfPackBoss, where they're not flunkies, but on equal terms, and EnemySummoner, for {{Mooks}} that run on this. WeaponizedOffspring may be a subtrope. |
| 23 | ---- |
| 24 | !!Examples: |
| 25 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[folder:Action-Adventure]] |
| 28 | * ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': The [[MuckMonster Mother Grub]] moves quickly around its fighting area as it detaches worm spawns to attack Ann while causing damage to a nearby generator. |
| 29 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyroTheEternalNight'': |
| 30 | ** In their battle's final phase, Skabb, Scratch and Sniff summon members of their pirate crew to assist them against Spyro. |
| 31 | ** The electric elemental spirit in the GBA version. On its own, it would be fairly easy. It's invulnerable and causes collision damage as its main attack, but it's not too hard to dodge. When it does become vulnerable, however, it summons a swarm of Ledge Bats to protect itself. |
| 32 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 33 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'': Patra, a swarm of flying eyeballs, consist of a large central eye that uses its smaller minions both to defend itself and to attack Link, the former by using them as shields and the latter by sending them flying across the room. Its incarnation in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleOfAges Oracle of Ages]]'', called Eyesoar in the English dub, works in the same way. |
| 34 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': |
| 35 | *** Arrghus protects itself with small jellyfish called Arrgi. |
| 36 | *** Blind The Thief gets beheaded twice in his boss fight, and his heads continue flying around the room and spitting fireballs as the fight continues. |
| 37 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': Queen Gohma summons its babies (although it's so easy you usually kill it before it even gets to do it). Armoghoma does the same in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', but this time it drops at least ten times as many eggs at once. They are easily killed with the Spin Attack, however, often even before they hatch. |
| 38 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'': Odolwa summons hordes of moths. |
| 39 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': Molgera will summon Lanmola-like larvae all the time, constantly jumping at you. Your locking system automatically locks to the closest larva to you, thus forcing you to either defeat the larvae or get even closer to the boss who is in quick sand, trying to swallow you. |
| 40 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'': Armogohma drops several eggs during battle, each of which is hatched near-instantly to give birth to smaller Gohmas that proceed to attack Link as soon as they're born. |
| 41 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'': Koloktos occasionally summons a few [[NightOfTheLivingMooks Zombie Bokoblins]] to attack Link. Moldarach will start summoning Arachas once its claws are ripped. |
| 42 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': Queen Gibdo, the boss of the Lightning Temple, has four [[MookMaker Gibdo Hives]] in her arena, allowing for a horde of regular Gibdos and Moth Gibdos once she TurnsRed. |
| 43 | * ''VideoGame/BubbleBobble'': ''Bubble Symphony'' has a giant VideoGame/{{Space Invader|s}}, who has updated sprite versions of the invaders as well as the UFO. The UFO also has eyes on its top. |
| 44 | * ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'' has a fair few, but while the henchmen can be annoying, they are actually helpful, as the player regains health from killing enemies. Bosses who fight alone are considerably harder, due to there being no way to regain health during the battle. |
| 45 | * ''VideoGame/XenaWarriorPrincess'': Most bosses. The Pirate King Pactolus and the Amazonian Queen both have their own legion of PraetorianGuard warriors flanking them in battle, while the ogre sub-bosses are backed up by harpies. |
| 46 | * ''VideoGame/XMenLegendsII'': Holocaust is backed up by ''hordes'' of {{Mooks}}, and will occasionally suck the life out of one to recharge himself. |
| 47 | * Many, many boss battles in ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' are of this type. This is because taking damage also weakens your weapons' EXP; the more you get hit, the less damage you can do, making any boss battle without an EXP source terribly unforgiving. Bosses without minions are generally easy ones, with the notable exception of [[BigBad the Doctor]]. Special mention goes to [[spoiler: the Undead Core (a Flunky Boss who has a Flunky that's a Flunky Boss on her own), the Heavy Press (accompanied by two {{Invincible Minor Minion}}s in addition to regular enemies) and Wind Fortress's G-CLONE (this is its whole gimmick).]] |
| 48 | * ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' has the Mega-Censor from the stage "Sasha's Shooting Gallery", and Jasper from "Gloria's Theater". The Hulking Lungfish mid-game boss may also count--she spits crawdads and sucker fish at you, but their threat level is so tiny as to almost be nonexistent. |
| 49 | * The WarmupBoss, first real boss, and final boss of ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'' are all Flunky Bosses. For the first two bosses, the flunkies essentially serve to give you something to do while the boss readies its attack--they consist mostly of harmless, low-power {{Mooks}}. In the final boss, you get hit with multi-stage, [[ShapeshifterGuiltTrip guilt-tripping]] baddies that do manage to pose a serious threat, and must be utilized to both attack the boss and to advance the fight in general. |
| 50 | * The final boss from ''VideoGame/GrabbedByTheGhoulies'' will summon mooks to fight for him each time the player character scores a hit. He does this by blowing a trumpet that will call upon (in this order) armed Skeletons, Zombies, Worms and Pirate Zombies who emerge from the various portraits hanging from the walls. When this happens, the boss cannot be harmed until all the lesser enemies are dealt with. |
| 51 | * Every boss in the ''VideoGame/NicktoonsUnite'' series but the final boss of the fourth game, ''Globs of Doom'', is this. Though the second bosses of ''Nicktoons Unite'' and ''Globs of Doom'' ([[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants Plankton's]] GiantEnemyCrab mecha and [[WesternAnimation/InvaderZim GIR]] gone crazy and stuff again respectively) are of the "sit back until you kill their mooks" variations. Hell, [[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents Mr. Crocker]] even shouts out for "guards, GUARDS!" or that he "wishes for ASSISTANCE!" when summoning enemies. |
| 52 | * ''VideoGame/NinjaShadowOfDarkness'': The Spider Queen boss, which is also a MookMaker; she will attempt to ensnare you with her webs and lay eggs which will hatch into baby spiders that chews away your health. She is the reason behind the massive number of giant spider mooks you consistently encounter in the caverns level. |
| 53 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Overlord}}'': Oberon, Sir William, Khan, [[spoiler:the Wizard]], and [[spoiler:the Forgotten God]]. Other than the fact that you [[PlayerCharacter play as him]], the [[EvilOverlord titular Overlord]] fits the qualifications as well. |
| 54 | * Natia in ''VideoGame/BombermanHero'' falls somewhere between this and DualBoss--or more likely, combines the two. The first time you face her, she's accompanied by Cronus, who seems to be on equal footing with her, but must be defeated before you can damage her (although she'll float around and be a nuisance during the Cronus battle unless you hit her platform with a few bombs, fitting this trope. The second time, she again has an equal in the form of a second Natia, but the trope applies in full force as an endless supply of miniature Cronuses will fall from the ceiling and try to interfere with your battle. |
| 55 | * Bad Girl in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' has an [[ThatOneAttack annoying habit]] of batting her gimp minions at you. |
| 56 | * Most of the bosses in ''VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron'' do this. The most notable is the boss fight against Soundwave in the Autobot campaign. He hides behind an energy shield while activating automated turrets and then sending out one of his familiar minions (Frenzy, Rumble, and Laserbeak) to attack you. Taking out the minions is the key to beating him, as the only time he leaves the safety of his energy shield is to retrieve the body of a fallen minion. |
| 57 | * Myconid Master and Snow Kong in ''VideoGame/WonderBoyInMonsterLand'' generate the smaller {{mook}} versions of themselves. |
| 58 | * The Myconid Maater repeats this in ''VideoGame/WonderBoyInMonsterWorld''. |
| 59 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': Many monsters in the series can summon their younger counterparts (that are encountered as small monsters) and use them as minions to fight you by either hindering your attacks and efforts, performing coordinated attacks or very rarely using them as fodder/amunition against you. In the lore of the games, they're the Alphas of a pack and generally command respect through their stronger power and massive size next to their lesser kin. |
| 60 | ** In the first generation, consisting of ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter2004'' and its rereleases (''G'' and ''Freedom'') there's the [[RaptorAttack raptorian]] "[[KingMook Drome]]" monsters: [[WarmUpBoss Velocidrome]], [[TheParalyzer Gendrome]] and [[PoisonousPerson Iodrome]]; who summon their smaller "Prey" kin to attack alongside them in hunts and fights against other monsters or the player. Interestingly, they could not actually summon or command their minions in the first games during a battle, only later did they get the ability to call and summon them. |
| 61 | ** The second generation, starting with ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter2Dos'', introduces three fanged beasts that can summon their smaller kin: Bulldrome, who summons smaller Bullfango to ram you; Congalala, who summons smaller Congas to swarm you; and Blangonga, who summons his Blango troops to beat you up and prevent you from properly fighting. The Blangonga can have this ability removed if his fangs are broken. ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterFreedom2'' introduces a fourth Drome in the form of Giadrome who summons his prey kin to fight you. ''Freedom Unite'' introduces King Shakalaka (a Lynian which cooperates with the smaller Shakalakas when facing a hunter) and Vespoid Queen (a Neopteron that not only receives help from the surrounding Vespoids during battle, but can also empower them with her pheromones). |
| 62 | ** The third generation, starting with ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter3Tri'', introduces a trio of {{Suspiciously Similar Substitute}}s of the "Dromes" in the form of the "Great" Bird Wyverns: [[WarmupBoss Great Jaggi]], [[ForcedSleep Great Baggi]] (both of them introduced in the generation's first game, ''Monster Hunter Tri'') and [[PoisonousPerson Great Wroggi]] (introduced in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterPortable3rd'') who summon their lesser kin frequently and use differing roars to either hound you or a monster they're fighting. Also introduced is the Royal Ludroth, a leviathan that can summon lesser small Ludroths to assist in a fight. The Qurupeco is an odd example of this, as while it doesn't have a "lesser" kin, it does summon Jaggis, Baggis, Wroggis, Bullfango, Ludroths and more (including [[ThatOneBoss Deviljho]]) with special calls. |
| 63 | ** The fourth generation has the Great Maccao, introduced in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterGenerations'', who uses calls to summon his lesser Maccaos to beat you up. However, his minions are far less cooperative with their boss if things get tough for it. |
| 64 | ** ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'' introduces two pack-hunting Fanged Wyverns in the place of previous raptorial Bird Wyverns: [[WarmUpBoss Great Jagras]] and [[TheParalyzer Great Girros]] who will hound on you to hinder your hunts. |
| 65 | ** ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterRise'' has the Great Izuchi, a raptorial Bird Wyvern inspired on the {{Kamaitachi}} who performs coordinated attacks with its smaller Izuchi kin. Also introduced is the Rakna-Kadaki, a spider monster that summons her children Rachnoid to attack. |
| 66 | * ''VideoGame/IttleDew'': Masked Ruby and the {{Superboss}} spawn enemies occasionally, but spawning stuff is basically the entire strategy of the FinalBoss. |
| 67 | * ''VideoGame/{{Jotun}}'': The Cave Jotun Fé will summon dwarves [[MultiMookMelee en masse]] during her fight. While they don't do too much damage individually and are killed in one hit, they do a good job of slowing the player down for Fé, and as the fight progresses they will swarm the player in greater and greater numbers. |
| 68 | * ''VideoGame/DarksidersIII'': Appropriately enough, Sloth fights mainly by sending waves of his insectoid minions against Fury. He doesn't really start fighting until you [[BerserkButton piss him off]] by destroying his throne. |
| 69 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonRumble'' adds this to KingMook; the flunkies are all lesser forms of the boss. |
| 70 | * ''VideoGame/DarkDevotion'' takes this to an extreme with Adonias, the King's Envoy. He does not attack you at all (and cannot be attacked, for that matter), instead summoning four pairs of increasingly difficult enemies for you to deal with. Once the last of them has gone down, he allows you to pass without a fight. |
| 71 | * ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'': |
| 72 | ** There are a few bosses (Soul Warrior, Broken Vessel/Lost Kin, the Collector and [[spoiler:Grey Prince Zote]]) who periodically spawn weak enemies. |
| 73 | ** Flukemarm is an unusual example in that repeatedly spawning Flukefeys is the only attack she has. |
| 74 | ** Uumuu doesn't summon minions in the main game, but does when confronted as part of the BossRush in Godhome. That's because Quirrel, who helps you in the normal fight by piercing Uumuu's shield, is not present, so the only way to deal damage is either to knock Uumuu's minions into it, or at least take advantage of their explosions. |
| 75 | [[/folder]] |
| 76 | |
| 77 | [[folder:Action Game]] |
| 78 | * ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'': During the UnexpectedShmupLevel of Chapter 14, you face "Temperance", a knock-off of the second boss, Temperantia. It wouldn't be anywhere near as difficult if it weren't for the constant swarms of Decoration angels flying through and firing green energy bullets at you. |
| 79 | * ''VideoGame/OnePiece'': |
| 80 | ** Spandam in ''Unlimited Adventures'' as befitting his SmugSnake status. He does this again in ''[[VideoGame/OnePieceUnlimitedCruise Unlimited Cruise]]'', as do Enel, Smoker, Oz, Vivi, and maybe Moria. Even though it's a video game trope, this also applies in the series itself to Perona. She would have gone down extremely quickly to Usopp if not for the fact she had about two dozen minions he had to deal with first and then a big angry Kumacy chasing him around. |
| 81 | ** Gecko Moria. After losing his entire crew in battle, he decides [[ZombieApocalypse to create a new, unkillable, crew,]] and rely solely on their power. It's not until his VillainousBreakdown that he does any fighting himself. |
| 82 | ** After the TimeSkip, [[spoiler: Demalo Black's plan to take on the New World hinged on his becoming this. He tricked several pirate crews several times stronger than himself into becoming his followers by making them believe that he was Luffy, intending to use them to take out any threats that Luffy's reputation didn't scare away first.]] |
| 83 | * The third Greater Fiend in the Platform/{{Xbox}} version of ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'', Marbus is interesting about this. The first time you enter his realm, he taunts you, but rather than fight, summons a previously killed boss to fight you (Yep, he's a Flunky Boss that uses ''other bosses as flunkies''). You kill the boss and leave with a plot coupon, then return to face another previously defeated boss, then he just gets ticked off and finally attacks you, while summoning a seemingly infinite stream of lesser fiends in groups of three. There's also Masakado the samurai, second boss of the game. On difficulties above normal, ''every'' boss has flunkies that drop by at every 25% of the life bar you knock off them. |
| 84 | * ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'': |
| 85 | ** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'': All of 'em except [[AdvancingBossOfDoom Killer]] [[MarathonBoss Croc]]. |
| 86 | ** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' does it again with the Ra's al Ghul, Joker and Two-Face (Catwoman chapter) boss battles. |
| 87 | ** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'' has plenty, even including Killer Croc this time! Some of them, such as Shiva, will even summon new ones later on (and they're martial artists, just for additional inconvenience), and the fight against Deadshot goes so far as to be handled as a stealth section where you take out his minions one by one so they don't [[MoreDakka interrupt]] while you beat him senseless (up until the end, when he calls new minions - when you take him down, [[BadBoss the remaining minions flee almost as quickly as the hostage]]). |
| 88 | ** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' at one point combines this with TacticalSuicideBoss - [[spoiler: the Riddler]] keeps turning the force-field to his MiniMecha off to bring in more {{Mook}}s...[[TooDumbToLive giving Batman the opportunity to attack him head-on.]] |
| 89 | * In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'', you don't have FrankensteinsMonster without his InvincibleMinorMinion, Igor, who only serves to distract you and throw additional fireballs at you while you're busy trying to whip Frank's head. |
| 90 | * In ''VideoGame/TheMatrixPathOfNeo'' the mission 'The Key' has a MiniBoss, GiantMook, EliteMooks - with five regular {{Mooks}} that distract and try to kill Neo. |
| 91 | * The final boss in the European exclusive game ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheTempleInfernalCrusade'' keeps summoning a more powerful enemy each time you provide him harm. Among those enemies, there are a few previous bosses as well. |
| 92 | [[/folder]] |
| 93 | |
| 94 | [[folder:Beat 'Em Up]] |
| 95 | * Riot, the traitorous First Mate from ''VideoGame/CrisisBeat'', whose battle against him comes with a seemingly endless number of knife-wielding mooks. |
| 96 | * ''VideoGame/RiverCityGirls'': Hibari constantly spawning {{mooks}} every third attack while normally being too far out of reach to attack, with the only way to bring her down to deal damage being by hitting her with her own needle. |
| 97 | * In ''VideoGame/TheNinjaWarriorsAgain'', picking up mooks and throwing them [[spoiler: is the ''only'' way to defeat [[BigBad Banglar]], who's protected from your attacks behind a glass capsule]]. |
| 98 | * In the ''VideoGame/ScottPilgrimVSTheWorldTheGame'', the first two bosses are always examples; Matthew Patel has his [[NinjaZombiePirateRobot demon hipster chicks]] and Lucas Lee can summon skateboarders. Other bosses spawn enemies too, but only when in co-op mode, to keep the game balanced. |
| 99 | * ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTurtlesInTime - The Hyperstone Heist'' has Tatsu (foot soldiers) and Baxter Stockman (mousers). If one is patient enough, these can be killed ad infinitum for extra lives...but since it takes 200 kills per extra life, it's usually better just to finish the boss and be done with it. |
| 100 | * Machine Gun Willy in the arcade versions of ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon'' and ''VideoGame/DoubleDragonII'' joins his flunkies during both game's final battle (the flunkies being bosses from previous stages). |
| 101 | * Basically every boss in the ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' series, nominally excluding Sodom/Katana, Rolento, [[FinalBoss Retu and Black]]. |
| 102 | * Death Bringer from the home ports of ''VideoGame/GoldenAxe'' surrounded himself with unkillable skeleton enemies, the toughest regular mooks in the game. The idea here was to make it that much harder to deal with the actual boss, and to that end, [[ThatOneBoss it was a rousing success.]] |
| 103 | * Mr. X in ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' tends to stand in the back shooting at you with his machine gun while he sends waves of {{mooks}} at you, not being [[BadBoss particularly worried]] about shooting them in the process. |
| 104 | * The penguin boss in ''VideoGame/DynamiteDux'' has six of his minions attack you while he hops in place. |
| 105 | * ''VideoGame/GaiaCrusaders'' goes nuts with this kind of boss. Each one surrounds themselves with a half-dozen lackeys at all times and immediately summons new ones to replace any you take out. With two players it's nearly manageable, but the game becomes a [[FakeDifficulty serious quarter-muncher]] if you're playing solo. Oh, there's also a BossRush at the end, and the bosses all bring in [[EliteMooks the toughest mooks]] from their respective stages. The exception is the Final Boss, who compensates by being very strong if you go full offensive. |
| 106 | * In ''VideoGame/CadillacsAndDinosaurs'' all bosses summon minions. The final boss downplays it, but still gets help. |
| 107 | * In ''VideoGame/CaptainCommando'', Dolg, the Shtrom family, Yamato and Dr.T.W. all have mooks to help them. |
| 108 | * In ''VideoGame/BattleCircuit'', Barbara summons jellyfish and Bike Gals. |
| 109 | * Ding Peng from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfTianding'' can summon hordes and hordes of mooks with his bell, either officers, soldiers, or his fellow collaborators. Incidentally, he's the only boss to do so, having no special moves, ranged attacks or gimmicks, his only ability being calling for an endless stream of minions to back him up. |
| 110 | * ''VideoGame/NotDyingToday'' has the Tanker, a zombie driving a weaponized pickup truck (!!!) whose back is a ClownCarBase that dispenses hordes and hordes of the lowest-ranking zombie minions while Tanker tries running you over or blasting you with his vehicle's missile turrets. |
| 111 | * ''VideoGame/RiverCityGirls'': Hibari summons zombies to help fight the player(s) during her boss fight. |
| 112 | * In the NES version of ''VideoGame/RollerGames'', the leaders of the "evil teams" (as well as the FinalBoss) would hang back and make you fight some of their flunkies before attacking you themselves. Ms. Georgia of Bad Attitude would sit on top of the roof of a garage and order her mooks around, getting visibly frustrated as you defeated more of them. Guru Drew of the Maniacs would wander underneath the floor you were fighting on and try to stab you with his spear. The Skull, leader of the Violators, was the only one who didn't show up at all until you dealt with his mooks first. |
| 113 | * The ninth boss battle in ''VideoGame/MadWorld'', the Shamans, fight like this. Your main target is the leader of this pack of wolfmen, but you'll need to deal with his underlings if you want to survive. Especially so if you want to avoid dealing with their particularly [[ThatOneAttack notorious wheel attack]]. |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:First-Person Shooter]] |
| 117 | * In ''VideoGame/AmidEvil'', the Scrounge, boss of the second episode, stands out because of this aspect, as he's able to summon horses of his Sons as a distraction or cannon fodder. |
| 118 | * A couple of bosses in ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' do this, among them the [[CampGay foppish Sander Cohen]] who calls on a troupe of dancing spider splicers to mince you for him, as well as the BigBad [[spoiler: Atlas aka Fontaine, who summons waves of splicers and even security bots at various stages of the final battle.]] |
| 119 | * The Siren from ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' keeps flying around the map, creating new enemies from corpses. |
| 120 | * A ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/JediKnightJediAcademy'' boss is accompanied by two enemies who recharge him once you do a certain amount of damage. They also have fully-decked out force powers and will use them on you, making them nigh-impossible to kill while the main boss is mobile. Doesn't help that the boss is ''very'' mobile and free to carve you up while you go after the flunkies. The only way to win is to attack him until the flunkies heal him, then kill them, which takes at least three consecutive defeats. |
| 121 | * ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'': The Omega Pirate summons a group of Space Pirates to defend himself when he repairs his armour from the damage you're inflicting, and Metroid Prime's core spawns two Metroids of varying types whenever it generates a new pool of Phazon. |
| 122 | * The final boss in ''VideoGame/ReturnToCastleWolfenstein'', Heinrich I, has a habit of not only sending flying ghouls at you who take off health and make your screen black for a few seconds if you get too far away, but also of respawning useless zombies that can send smaller versions of these ghouls at you (though mostly they just try to walk up and hack you with flailing limbs). The first boss, Olaric, does the same. |
| 123 | * ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'': |
| 124 | ** In ''VideoGame/DoomII'', there's a Spider Mastermind (though at this point it's a DegradedBoss) surrounded by several Arachnotrons, and in a later level two Spider Masterminds with a swarm of Arachnotrons in sight. Since it's Doom, you can [[SetAMookToKillAMook get the two monster types to kill each other.]] Additionally, the [[FinalBoss Icon of Sin]] summons demons as its only defense. |
| 125 | ** ''VideoGame/Doom3'': |
| 126 | *** The Guardian of Hell. The Guardian itself is blind, and uses flunky Seekers to see. |
| 127 | *** The Cyberdemon is assisted by mooks that are summoned from time to time. This proves to be his downfall, as killing said mooks fuels the Soul Cube so the main character can use it against him. |
| 128 | * Both D'Sparil in ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}'' and the Heresiarch in ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}}'' start summoning disciples after you reduce their health to a certain point. |
| 129 | * Almost all of the bosses in ''VideoGame/TitanFall2'' are this, with the exception of Richter, all of them got some backup, the most prominent one being the FinalBoss who will escape the room when she takes enough damage and will proceed to call reinforcement |
| 130 | * ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'': |
| 131 | ** While most of the Special Infected in general operate by trapping and incapacitating survivors among existing Commons, the Boomer's main method of attack is summoning whole ''waves'' of them by puking on the players. |
| 132 | ** The game tends to [[InvertedTrope stop spawning enemies completely]] while a [[DamageSpongeBoss Tank's]] in play, but sometimes you'll get unlucky and have a Special or two gunning for the survivors while they scramble around. In Versus Mode, however, all bets are off since the Infected team ''will'' keep spawning during Tank time, [[FromBadToWorse including Boomers]]. |
| 133 | * The final gunfight with Alec Trevelyan in ''VideoGame/GoldenEyeWii''. He isn't much of a threat by himself, as he simply follows a preset path, stopping behind cover to blaze away at Bond. The real threats are the minions (and, eventually, [[spoiler:the helicopter]]) he summons as backup, who have ''real'' AI, grenades, and endless reinforcements waiting in the wings. The kicker? [[spoiler:You don't even kill Alec; you just weaken him enough until he leaves, then you chase him for the ''real'' final showdown.]] |
| 134 | * ''VideoGame/SeriousSam: The Second Encounter''. The first boss, Kukulkan the Wind God, is said to defend the portal from your enemies as well as from you; it just happens so that [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard he and the mooks do not attack each other and focus on you]]. The second one is a huge biomechanical larva that spawns some smaller explosive bugs and hurls them at you. The final boss, Mordekai the Summoner, lives up to his title, with summons as his only "attack". |
| 135 | * The first boss of ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'' summons skeletons. He's Necrogiant so it figures. |
| 136 | * Nearly all of the bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'' are accompanied by a veritable ''army'' of other robots, and they (the bosses) can easily kill you on their own. Sometimes the best strategy was to clear out the {{Mooks}} first, then attack the boss one-on-one, but sometimes this is impossible, either because there are just so ''many'' {{Mooks}}, or because the dreaded [[MookMaker purple-web things]] are present. Sometimes the bosses themselves had the ability to [[EnemySummoner spawn more robots]] as they fought. |
| 137 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': |
| 138 | ** In ''VideoGame/Halo2'', there's the Prophet of Regret and his Elite Honor Guards, and Tartarus and his Brute Captains. |
| 139 | ** In ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', the Elite Field Marshal is accompanied by a trio of Zealot Elites, which themselves are [[BossInMookClothing bosses in mook clothing]], making this a borderline WolfpackBoss fight (on higher difficulties, they're also accompanied by an Engineer and a group of Spec-Ops Grunts). |
| 140 | ** In ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', the Warden Eternal is almost always accompanied by a horde of Promethean robots. |
| 141 | * The final boss battle in ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}''. In fact, the boss (Shub-Niggurath) has no attacks of her own, so once you defeat the minions, you're home free. |
| 142 | * Most of the bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' [[spoiler: (aside from The Destroyer)]], fight alongside generic {{Mooks}}. This can become very annoying for lower level players, but the mooks also serve as easy second winds and quite a lot of abilities you'd want to use against a boss require a kill to use in the first place. |
| 143 | * ''VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh'': When Jet's fighting Thorne in the Progress Bar to protect [=Ma3a=], the User-turned-Virus summons a small army of Z-lots to attack, forcing the player to deal with those, potentially having to leave [=Ma3a=] open to an attack. |
| 144 | * ''VideoGame/JurassicTheHunted'': during the tyrannosaurus boss fight, flocks of pterosaurs constantly swoop down on you from above. [[spoiler: In fact, they can actually pose more of a threat than the T-Rex. Good thing you have that mini-gun]]. |
| 145 | * ''VideoGame/NosferatuTheWrathOfMalachi'': The Moraie Succubus is surrounded by several monsters who can hurt you before, during, and after the fight with her. The Draija Succubus takes this up to eleven by making her fight you in a room that also contains a giant Portal that will continuously spawn Desmodiij until destroyed, which can often be more dangerous than her. |
| 146 | * ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorVanguard'': The first Tiger Tank the player fights (the second one to appear in the game) has the ammunition for the Bazooka, the only weapon that can damage it, scattered across three different buildings, which are guarded by [[EliteMooks Waffen SS infantry]]. |
| 147 | * ''VideoGame/{{ULTRAKILL}}'' doesn't have these in the main game, but each [[BrutalBonusLevel Prime Sanctum]] has one as it's first major challenge. |
| 148 | ** P-1 has [[spoiler: Flesh Prison, a tetrahedron flesh automaton that can summon flying eyes or, on Violent, mini Malicious Faces. Not only do these provide additional firepower, but the boss can heal by sacrificing them for portion of health. ]] |
| 149 | ** P-2 has [[spoiler: Flesh Panopticon, a supposedly upgraded version of Flesh Prison made to contain an even greater prisoner. It also has eye minions, but they are not as numerous, have more health, and their gaze turns all damage you receive into hard damage, removing your ability to regenerate until you do something stylish as long as they have a direct contact with you.]] |
| 150 | * In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' and its Episodes, antlion guards are usually fought alongside regular antlions, with the exception of the two that show up in the [[PrisonLevel Nova Prospekt]] chapter, in which the standard antlions are temporary allies. |
| 151 | [[/folder]] |
| 152 | |
| 153 | [[folder:Fighting Game]] |
| 154 | * In ''VideoGame/WarOfTheMonsters'', Robo-47 sends the American military at you during the single player battle. Expect a lot more tanks and helicopters! |
| 155 | [[/folder]] |
| 156 | |
| 157 | [[folder:Light Gun Game]] |
| 158 | * ''VideoGame/TheOceanHunter'' has many Flunky Bosses: Leviathan, a giant shark, sends minor enemies at you to rest between attacks; Charibdis, a giant angler fish, spits other deep-sea fishes as its first attack pattern; and the massive water worm Midgardsorm uses his parasites as ''his only form of offense'' since it ate you and you must destroy his heart from the inside. |
| 159 | * The Hanged Man in ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead'' sends swarms of literal GoddamnedBats after you in his first phase. The Emperor in the second game can summon previously fought bosses. |
| 160 | * Every ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis'' boss will call for backup during the running battle, summoning a few smaller mooks to harass you. |
| 161 | * ''VideoGame/LethalEnforcers1'': The second and fourth stage boss are assisted by weaker mooks popping out to attack you, but the third stage boss makes it a key part of his strategy, ducking behind cover and repositioning while a horde of his minions swarm out to attack you. |
| 162 | [[/folder]] |
| 163 | |
| 164 | [[folder:Maze Game]] |
| 165 | * In ''VideoGame/SaturnBomberman'', the first stage of the FinalBoss battle has Dr. Mechard hiding under a force field while twenty flunkies go to work. |
| 166 | * All the bosses in ''[[VideoGame/BattleCity Tank Force]]'' except the final boss have normal enemies fighting alongside it. These enemies must also be defeated to win the round. |
| 167 | [[/folder]] |
| 168 | |
| 169 | [[folder:[=MMORPGs=]]] |
| 170 | * ''VideoGame/ToontownOnline'': |
| 171 | ** Each of the department bosses[[note]]The Sellbot Vice President, Cashbot Chief Financial Officer, Lawbot Chief Justice, and Bossbot Chief Executive Officer[[/note]] will spawn several waves of the department's employees in the first few rounds of their fights. The CJ also has lawyers throwing evidence at Toons, as well as the scale to [[NonStandardGameOver try tipping the scales in the Cogs' favor so that you go sad.]] |
| 172 | ** Flunky Cog Invasions can make this trope literal, as Cog Buildings can have Flunkies as the boss of the final floor when there's a Flunky invasion. |
| 173 | * ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains'' lets you assume the role of one of these with the "Mastermind" player class. And in both this game and ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', the hardest foes are rarely found without at least a few Mooks on hand. |
| 174 | * Frequent among instance bosses in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', with varying boss patterns regarding their underlings. |
| 175 | ** ''Mr. Smite'' stuns you to allow minions to beat you senseless while he gets a new weapon. Van Cleef summons more at varying health levels. ''Instructor Razuvious'' in Naxxramas will destroy everything in his path... except his students, which are hardy enough to take hits from him if they are mind-controlled. The Karazhan Boss ''Terestrian Illhoof'' has a subversion of the "super-attack when minion dies" type: When his imp is killed, Terestrian is weakened until his imp {{respawn|ingEnemies}}. And many more! |
| 176 | ** Gothik the Harvester is one of these to such an extent that actually killing the boss after he's run out of Mooks to send at you is considered little more than a formality. |
| 177 | ** And there is Lord Ahune, which can only be fought during the midsummer festival. Most of the time, you're too busy fighting his hordes of mooks and a bigger mook to even bother with him (fortunately you can keep your distance from most of his attacks), then he becomes vulnerable for 30 seconds and doesn't attack at all. |
| 178 | ** Kargath Bladefist in Shattered Halls continuously spawn streams of his own mooks when you fight him. |
| 179 | ** [[ThatOneBoss Fathom-Lord Karathress]] in ''Serpentshrine Cavern'' is this as well, of the TurnsRed variety: he has 3 flunkies (which are all pretty challenging bosses in their own right) and for each one that dies, Karathress gets an increase in damage output ''and'' one of their nastiest abilities. By the end of the fight, when you're attacking Karathress proper, he's [[NintendoHard demolishing your tank, messing up your healers' mana and one-shoting everyone with his]] [[GameBreaker Spitfire Totem]] [[NintendoHard if your damage dealers are not REALLY fast killing it when it pops up]]. |
| 180 | ** The black dragon Sartharion is an interesting variant. In the instance are three drakes. You can either kill them before engaging the boss, or leave 1, 2 or all of them alive, which makes the battle significantly harder (Sartharion alone is a fairly simple fight, but with 3 drakes he's the hardest boss in the game, at least until patch 3.1 when a new raid instance is added), but with more and better loot drops. |
| 181 | ** In the first phase of the fight against Yogg Saron, an Old God imprisoned by the Titans in Ulduar, it takes the form of a friendly female NPC while a string of enemies start to appear. Each enemy causes heavy damage over a wide area when it dies, and the only way to reach the second phase of the fight is to have the enemies close enough to the disguised Old God when they die that they hurt her as well. |
| 182 | ** Lady Deathwhisper starts the fight by putting up an impenetrable mana shield and summons cultists from alternate sides of the room. Players must divide their time between killing her allies and attacking her to drain her mana until she runs out and the shield drops, at which point she stops calling them. |
| 183 | ** Alysrazor in Firelands is an interesting variation as your raid has to split up even more than usual. A handful of people grab her feathers, which grant them flight and increased damage, and then proceed to chase her in circles as she flies over the arena without being bothered at all by the fiery chaos on the ground. Meanwhile, the rest of the raid splits into two groups as they have to fight two of her hatchlings as well as waves of cultists. She also occasionally crashes down to the ground and allows everybody to get their kicks in for a bit. |
| 184 | ** Queen Azshara in the Well of Eternity instance is almost a WolfPackBoss as Azshara herself doesn't fight you directly, is invincible, and flees when her minions are defeated; but her ability to mind control members of the party, or mind control the entire party and have them [[PsychicAssistedSuicide commit suicide]], makes her the most dangerous person in the battle. |
| 185 | ** Warmaster Blackhorn in Dragon Soul is a Twilight Dragon riding Tauren with six drake riding Vrykul. He sends his minions out first, it's only after the raid deals with the six twilight drakes that he finally appears, joining any Vrykul raiders still alive, and bringing his dragon with him as a DualBoss. |
| 186 | ** The Will of the Emperor encounter in Mogu'shan Vaults is a MookMaker which is defeated by beating the two biggest mooks, [[DualBoss Jan-Xi and Qin-Xi]], while the machine keeps pumping out lesser mooks. |
| 187 | ** Then there also is Wind Lord Meljarakfrom the [[BugWar Mantis]]'raid called Heart of Fear. He has 3 groups of 3 literal [[EliteMooks Elite Mooks]], and each group a shared healpool, around him who, when added up, have almost as much health as he does. The whole thing gets even better in the heroic mode where his mooks even respawn after a time. He gets a 50% extra damage debuff for every dead mook group though and starts throwing bombs at 75% health, which, in cooperation with one of the mookgroup's ability to freeze single players in amber are going to kill the group quite quickly if the mooks are not killed first, giving them a higher priority despite their high health. |
| 188 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': |
| 189 | ** The game utilizes this heavily in many dungeon and raid boss fights. Most fights are designed for the underlings to be killed, sometimes by certain roles, at certain locations, etc. Depending on the party's gear and skill, these phases can become shorter or get skipped outright. |
| 190 | ** Most primals have add (underling) phases where failure to kill them in a certain time limit will cause that primal's signature move (e.g. Ifrit's Hellfire) to wipe the party. And then there's Knights of the Round, where half the fight is against the Knights instead of the King. |
| 191 | * ''VideoGame/RuneScape'': |
| 192 | ** The game has [=TzTok-Jad=], the second most powerful attackable monster in the game. Not only he's only reachable after you progress through sixty-something waves of enemies, which is enough for most players to run out of supplies during, but also he does indeed summon four little healers when he falls to half HP. You get a unique cape for defeating him, at least. |
| 193 | ** All of the bosses in the God Wars Dungeon have bodyguards that will violently defend their generals. |
| 194 | ** Some quests have bosses that does this, brought in mind is the Bandos Avatar from The Chosen Commander, who makes the statues in the throne room live when you try to get back the parts of Zanik's Crossbow back, which is the only weapon thay can truly kill him. |
| 195 | ** [[BossInMookClothing Glacors]] summon three glacytes when they reach half health. For an added twist, the glacors are invulnerable until the glacytes are dead, and take on the characteristics of the last glacyte to die. |
| 196 | * Almost all of the MVP bosses in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' are this. On the other hand, the bosses ''who doesn't summon flunkies'' can be counted on one hand. |
| 197 | * Every single boss in ''[[Website/GaiaOnline zOMG!]]'' except General Dreedle. Most of the time, these Mooks respawn infinitely. In one case, defeating one will make an even stronger one appear and explode right next to you. Fun times. |
| 198 | * Most bosses in ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' have several standard enemies with them. Zoldark the unholy is a clever variant- His defense in insanely high, but he has no direct attacks, only being able to power up his flunkies and ([[CastFromHitPoints by damaging himself]]) revive them. [[PuzzleBoss Figure it out]]. |
| 199 | * While almost every boss in ''VideoGame/Wizard101'' has a minion (or three if at least three wizards enter the fight) that can survive the boss's death. But some of the cheating bosses deserve special note |
| 200 | ** Angrus Hollowsoul summons a minion that must be killed in four turns or it will cast a spell that functions as a TotalPartyKill for the level players are suppose to face it at. |
| 201 | ** General Stormclaw summons three skeletons that must be killed from right to left with single target attacks or they punish the entire party with powerful attacks that can prevent players from doing anything for a turn in addition to the heavy damage. |
| 202 | ** Lyon Lorestriker summons one minion a round (two if a player has heal a over time spell effect on them) and if he is allowed to max out at three minions he gets to cast a free super powered blizzard spell in addition to his normal actions. Also once he gets just under half health his minions health drastically increases. |
| 203 | * Most bosses in ''VideoGame/DungeonsAndDragonsOnline'' are flunky bosses. In most cases, the flunkies don't respawn. It is also unusual in that killing the flunkies first is usually the best solution (The flunkies have much less HP than the bosses, have a combined damage output greater than him, may be MookMedic ([[ShootTheMedicFirst so kill them first]]) or have some annoying crowd control spells or attacks (such as Improved Trip, making you fall to the ground if you have low Str and Dex, preventing you from doing anything), and are usually vulnerable to OneHitKill, unlike the boss.) |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
| 205 | |
| 206 | [[folder:Party Game]] |
| 207 | * ''VideoGame/MarioParty5'': During the first phase of the FinalBoss battle in Story Mode, Bowser will send a horde of Mechakoopas onto the player's character. All of them must be defeated in 60 seconds of less to proceed to the next phase. The caveat is that the Mechakoopas cannot be stomped on or grabbed if they're breathing fire, or else their bodies' heat will hurt the character. |
| 208 | * ''VideoGame/MarioParty9'' has a few bosses that have other enemies fight alongside them. Lakitu throws Spinies into the fray that get in the players' way, while Wiggler is surrounded by Piranha Plants that sprout out of the ground and snap at any players that get too close. |
| 209 | [[/folder]] |
| 210 | |
| 211 | [[folder:Pinball]] |
| 212 | * In Creator/SegaPinball's ''Pinball/StarWarsTrilogy'', Darth Vader's target is hidden behind a set of TIE Fighter dropdown targets, combining this trope with ShieldedCoreBoss. |
| 213 | * In ''VideoGame/ThePinballOfTheDead'', Hierophant from the "Wandering" table periodically rattles the screen and causes groups of Mofish to fall onto the playfield. |
| 214 | [[/folder]] |
| 215 | |
| 216 | [[folder:Platform Game]] |
| 217 | * ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'': |
| 218 | ** All but the first boss of ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade''. Second one sics his robots on you, third one has an army of his clones that you have to defeat before you can even hurt the boss, and then there is final boss, which features the Metal Head leader and his underlings. |
| 219 | ** Every boss of ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'' if you don't count The Dark Satellite as a boss. |
| 220 | * ''VideoGame/Shinobi2002'' plays with this one - every single boss functions this way, and while the player ''can'' ignore the minions and go straight for the boss [[BoringButPractical and still win]], experienced players will wait around for minions to spawn and use them to build kill combos, as doing this will allow them to kill all but the first two bosses (yes, even the final boss) ''in a single hit''. |
| 221 | * The final fight with the vizier in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime''. The vizier sends out several clones to fight in his stead. His actual body is pretty frail, dying within 2 sword strikes. |
| 222 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'': |
| 223 | ** One of the bonus challenges for Hedgeshock the Erinaceroid in ''VideoGame/MegaManZXAdvent'' is to deliver her the finishing blow by knocking one of her rat minions into her. |
| 224 | ** ''VideoGame/MegamanLegends'': The caterpillar-like robot tank you encounter in the industrial ruins. It doesn't have any visible weapons on its surface and moves rather slowly, but it has a hatch on its back which will discharge loads and loads of robotic mooks to assault you. |
| 225 | ** In ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'', the final boss summons disgusting blobs and airborne platform enemies to distract you from its weak point and lasers |
| 226 | * ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'': |
| 227 | ** The original ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'' features [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKOgyZovuPI Boss Dumb Drum]], who pops out common mooks for you to fight. In fact, you can't even hit him at all, he dies after all of his mooks die.[[note]]In the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance remake, Drum doesn't damage itself — instead, TNT barrels appear after defeating a wave of enemies, which the Kongs must pick up and throw at the boss.[[/note]] |
| 228 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'' has King Zing, who, about halfway through the battle, shrinks, turns red (literally, not the trope) and gets a few bodyguards. You then have to knock a couple of the surrounding Zingers out and spit eggs at him before they respawn (how many you knock out doesn't affect respawn speed, though). The same game has Kreepy Krow, who summons ghostly Mini-Neckies to attack you. You have to kill the living Mini-Necky so that a barrel will appear, which you can use to attack Kreepy Krow with. |
| 229 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'': |
| 230 | *** Mole Miner Max is assisted by the large group of Mile Miners accompanying him in the train they're boarding. In fact, during the first 80% of the battle you'll only dodge their attacks and then dispatch them. Only when the boss is alone will be the moment you fight him for real. |
| 231 | *** Colonel Pluck releases eggs that hatch into mechanical cuckoos. |
| 232 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze'': Pompy, Skowl, and FinalBoss Lord Fredrik all summon enemies during their boss battles against DK and company. |
| 233 | * A lot of ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' bosses do this, particularly so the player can [[EdibleAmmunition inhale the weaker enemies as ammunition]] (or [[PowerCopying copy their abilities]]). |
| 234 | * ''VideoGame/LostRuins'': The Yuki-Onna summons snowmen in her first phase and snowman samurai in her second phase, to assist with attacking the Heroine. |
| 235 | * Splash Woman from ''VideoGame/MegaMan9'', whose singing summons fish that attack Mega Man. There's also ''VideoGame/MegaMan3's'' Snake Man and his Search Snakes as well as Hornet Man and his swarm of bees (also from ''9''). There's a fine line, though, between "flunky" and "projectile" in these cases; Splash Woman's fish just zoom straight across the screen. Hornet Man's bees will at least chase you around the room. |
| 236 | * In ''VideoGame/MegaManZero4'' we have Noble Mandrago, a flower-like reploid which throws "seeds" at you that after a second transform into minions to keep attacking you. And she also throws some goo at you that atract some bee-like minions as well. |
| 237 | * Used quite a fair bit in the ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' series, where usually, the enemy has to be used as ammunition against the boss. ''The Shake Dimension'' has some pretty odd examples though, such as the fourth boss which summons various mooks, then causes a mini hurricane that sends them flying at your character (or into the wall and the fifth boss, which has to be fed one or two mooks before spitting out a bomb which can be used to hurt said boss (FeedItABomb). |
| 238 | * Several bosses in the ''VideoGame/SlyCooper'' series, including Rajan and Jean-Bison in ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'', and The Black Baron in ''VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves''. |
| 239 | * Most ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}}'' bosses have flunkies, because you need to throw mooks at the boss to damage them. The one exception is the first phase of Polonte the Hatchling from ''VideoGame/Klonoa2LunateasVeil'', but that's because you can't use the ring what so ever. |
| 240 | * The Queen at the end of episode 4 of ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D''. It's bad enough that you have to fight her underwater and she's 2000HP tougher than the other bosses, but her constant laying of Protector Drones (DemonicSpiders) makes her into ThatOneBoss (or, if not, very nearly does). |
| 241 | * Happens several times in ''VideoGame/LegendOfKay''. This is to make the boss fights easier, since killing an enemy gives Kay extra fighting powers for a short time, and the effect is cumulative. |
| 242 | * ''VideoGame/RealityMinds'': |
| 243 | ** The {{Sculptor|s}} summons rock clones of Astrake and Reffian. |
| 244 | ** [[spoiler:Ridgefern has a White Essence and a Black Essence as allies, who reflect physical and magic attacks respectively.]] |
| 245 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 246 | ** [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 The Whomp King]] in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' has the ability to summon smaller Whomps called Whimps. He doesn't do it in his original game. |
| 247 | ** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'', FinalBoss Bowser tosses Mecha-Koopas out of his Koopa Clown Car from time to time, and throwing them back at him is the only way to defeat him. |
| 248 | * The [[GameMod ROM hack]] ''VideoGame/BrutalMario'' has a recreation of [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry Dumb Drum]] that functions as this. |
| 249 | * [[GiantEnemyCrab The Rattlecrab]] and [[FinalBoss Looger]] in ''VideoGame/{{Scaler}}''. Once it's sustained enough damage, the Rattlecrab starts to continously shoot out little crab-like creatures at you, who can be a merry pain in the rear to shoot down. Looger on the other hand, er, claw will, after a while, firstly summon a group of small {{Mooks}}, then a little bit later a couple of large ones, [[RuleOfThree then finally]] a really big one. |
| 250 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' series: |
| 251 | ** Squid Baron: |
| 252 | *** He's fought together with his many children in ''VideoGame/ShantaeRiskysRevenge'' |
| 253 | *** That he was fought together with his many children in the previous game is mentioned in his [[https://youtu.be/noxolWl3Ics?t=40 Character Spotlight]] for ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse''. |
| 254 | ** Ammo Baron in ''VideoGame/ShantaeHalfGenieHero'': He uses his newly crafted uniforms made of Magic Carpet to fly and command his men to fight Shantae directly. |
| 255 | ** ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndTheSevenSirens'': Water Lily Siren has an attack that plants seeds which quickly germinate into mobile {{Man Eating Plant}}s. |
| 256 | * ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'''s only boss spawns enemies every second time it crushes through the floor. The enemies often materialize off-screen (where they become inactive), thus making them a threat only once the player tries to reach the exit. |
| 257 | * ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'' has both Robot Carnival and Robot Storm. In those fights, there isn't even a boss; it's all just waves of enemies. |
| 258 | * ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'': |
| 259 | ** Inverted with Big Boiler (a.k.a. the Big Big Guy), as he's operated and commanded by the fiery imps and not the other way around. |
| 260 | ** Buga the Knut orders his Uga Buga minions to kill you; when you get rid of all of them, then Buga himself will challenge you for the definitive fight. |
| 261 | ** Downplayed with Count Batula, as the minions (squirrel villagers) who roam the mansion want to kill ''both you and him'', so what you do is to sacrifice the mooks to kill Batula indirectly. |
| 262 | * In ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'', five of the bosses summon minions to do you harm. Targitzan, Terry, Weldar and Hag 1 do you the courtesy of summoning minions you can actually kill; no such luck with Mr Patch, whose flunky is an invincible (but mercifully easy to dodge) boxing glove-molehill. |
| 263 | * The rabbit and pencil bosses of ''VideoGame/FancyPantsAdventures'' require the player to stun their mooks and knock them back at them when they're vulnerable to deal damage. |
| 264 | * In ''VideoGame/AkaneTheKunoichi'', Hiromi does not fight Akane directly. Rather, she stands on top of a platform while the area below her gradually fills with other, lesser enemies (including some which must be dodged rather than killed). She is defeated by running up an opposite wall and throwing kunais at her. |
| 265 | * Each of the four end-of-world bosses in ''VideoGame/McDonaldsTreasureLandAdventure'' summon minions during their battles. As Ronald must first have the bosses suck one of the magic gems from his life bar before he can be allowed to damage them, he does have to mind it, but can collect health power-ups by defeating the bosses' minions. |
| 266 | * In ''VideoGame/RugratsCastleCapers'', the bosses of four of the six levels involve Angelica summoning minions to attack the babies, and Angelica surrenders one of the babies' toys when she runs out of minions. In "[[ArabianNightsDays Ali Baby and the 40 Fleas]]" and "[[ClockworksArea Clock Work Babies]]", the babies simply have to avoid the minions until they disappear, and in "[[LevelAte Dessert Island]]" and "[[TheLostWoods Sure Would Forest]]", they have to feed the minions EdibleAmmunition to get them to disappear. |
| 267 | [[/folder]] |
| 268 | |
| 269 | [[folder:Real-Time Strategy]] |
| 270 | * ''VideoGame/DawnOfWarII'': Nearly every boss in the campaigns, with more difficult bosses spawning larger numbers and more powerful types of flunkies. Indeed, the main reason The Avatar and Bonesmasha are [[ThatOneBoss so frustrating]] is their tendency to summon ''bloody hordes'' of flunkies that include plenty of vehicles and elite soldiers. |
| 271 | * ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'': Enemy carriers and motherships. Being {{Battlestar}}s, they launch fighters and frigates (and, in the case of some motherships, ''heavy cruisers'') at you to fight. Thankfully, most of them are weakly armed, with only the Turanic carriers, the Kadeshi motherships and the Beast mothership are actually dangerous opponents on their own, and you have to actually destroy them on very rare occasions (once in the original game and once in ''Cataclysm'' for the Turanic carrier, once for the Kadeshi mothership (but you have to destroy ''three'' of them in that mission) and once for the Beast mothership), with the objective being to force them to run or to escape yourself most of the times. |
| 272 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': |
| 273 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': The RecurringBoss Empress Bulbax is a Flunky Boss in her second and third appearances. She continuously spawns Bulbax Larvae. While incredibly fragile (a single punch from one of your captains will turn them into slime), they are capable of instantly killing your Pikmin, and they're a nuisance to deal with. |
| 274 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'': The Scornet Maestro commands a horde of up to 100 Scornets and manipulates them into defending itself and attacking. The Maestro cannot attack or defend itself whatsoever without the help of Scornets. |
| 275 | * ''VideoGame/StarCraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'': |
| 276 | ** Zurvan periodically spits out primal zerg minions during his boss battle against Kerrigan in "Supreme". |
| 277 | ** In "With Friends Like These...", the space station that you need to destroy constantly spits out tac fighters as well as [[StuffBlowingUp deploying mag mines]] against the Hyperion. |
| 278 | * ''VideoGame/TotallyAccurateBattleSimulator'' has the chicken man, who summons chickens from his coat to attack with. Then there is the [[spoiler:chicken man ''man'', who summons chicken men]]. |
| 279 | * ''VideoGame/ATotalWarSagaTroy'': In battle, the Griffin Patriarch can shriek to summon lesser griffins to his side. |
| 280 | [[/folder]] |
| 281 | |
| 282 | [[folder:Roguelike]] |
| 283 | * ''VideoGame/AbsentedAgeSquarebound'': All Arc Monsters can summon minions to assist them, though only some mandatory bosses, such as Canavarı Alias and Plumocrat, can do the same. |
| 284 | * Some bosses in ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'' work like this, most notably Yulgash, the Master Summoner. |
| 285 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'', several of the uniques can summon monsters, and this can quickly get out of hand unless you make an anti-summoning corridor. Morgoth can even summon other uniques you haven't killed yet. |
| 286 | * ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac''. Most bosses spit out a few flies at minimum. Others, such as The Duke of Flies and Mom, spit out a lot more flies. [[spoiler:Mom's Heart]] spawns minions and hides until they all die, as does [[spoiler:It Lives]], but with a DegradedBoss or two instead. [[spoiler:Mega Satan]], however, is the king of this trope to the point where it crosses over with Boss Rush - throwing [[spoiler:the HorsemenOfTheApocalypse, the Super versions of the SevenDeadlySins, and dark versions of the Angels]] at you in three separate waves between direct attacks. Some bosses spawn with enemies naturally in their boss rooms, even if they can't summon enemies. For instance, in the original Binding Of Isaac, Monstro could spawn with 2 Black Flies. Rebirth expanded the monsters with Monstro could spawn with, including 2 Attack Flies, 2 Mulligans, 2 Gapers, 2 Hoppers, or 4 Frowning Gapers. 2 downloadable expansions for the Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth also let Monstro spawn with 2 Cyclopias or 4 Ministros, respectively. |
| 287 | * ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': Several bosses can spawn the mooks you've faced through the dungeon: |
| 288 | ** The Necromancer will pop out another combative skeleton every time he does anything, be it stressing the party or damaging them. Since his attacks aren't too terrible otherwise, the skeletons become the real threat, and it's a matter of grinding the Necromancer down before getting swamped. |
| 289 | ** The Siren has one single attack that summons one of the Pelagic enemies to her side. However, considering her other attacks, this is mostly an afterthought, and focus-fire takes care of the minion without much trouble. |
| 290 | ** The Brigand Cannon is perhaps the worst of the lot; at the end of every round, it'll summon reinforcements in the form of a crowd of brigands, which will mean up to three bandits can come every time, leaving a steady stream of brigands to kill or be killed by. Worse, one of the reinforcements is always a Matchman, who can actually ''fire'' the cannon. It is a must to kill or otherwise incapacitate the Matchman every round if you don't want your entire party to eat cannonball. |
| 291 | ** The wandering Collector boss has the ability to spawn unique Collected Heads of Highwayman, Man-at-arms and Vestal. While he himself can still attack and even heal himself, the heads are the main danger with their powerful attacks and abilities that support the boss. And should the few be slain, more will be summoned as long as Collector himself lives. |
| 292 | ** The infamous Shambler is one too. His attacks don't do much damage and mainly are aimed at party disruption. His every action, however, is complete with the summoning of Clapperclaws, two powerful monsters that deal the majority of damage and grow in stats every time they score a hit. Unsurprisingly, Shambler always moves behind the Clapperclaws, forcing the player to distribute their damage extremely tactically. |
| 293 | ** Brigand Vvulf, the leader of the Brigands encountered during "Wolves at the door" event is not only accompanied by a Barrel of Bombs that he can use to dish out powerful attack and regularly resummons, but can also call to his elite Brigands for extra pain. |
| 294 | ** [[spoiler: Shuffling Horror, boss of the first Darkest Dungeon quest, being the corrupted version of Shambler, relies on the summoned Cultist Priests to do real damage. ]] |
| 295 | ** [[spoiler: The first phase of the final boss is this, with Ancestor able to summon duplicates of himself to attack you. While he can't be normally hurt, some duplicates he summons can be Imperfect, and killing them will damage him. ]] |
| 296 | ** From the Crimson Court DLC, we have the Baron as a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] example. While mostly preferring to fight heroes alone, three times during the fight he summons multiple eggs and hides in one of them. The other three eggs contain various Looks of the DLC that will be released and ready to attack. Should the player accidentally hit the egg with the Baron first try, they will have to deal both with the boss ''and'' his flunkies. |
| 297 | ** Colour of Madness DLC brings us the Miller, who possesses a move "The Master Beckons", which allows him to summon a Farmhand,Scarecrow or Sleeper's Herald enemy. He even has a special interaction with the Farmhand, freezing him and using him as a shield that diverts attacks as long as it's alive. |
| 298 | * ''VideoGame/EnterTheGungeon'' has a great number of these, to the point where the first three chambers contain at least one boss with its own flunkies. A secret {{Superboss}} [[spoiler: Resourceful Rat]], as well as every [[spoiler: Past Boss]] and [[spoiler: [[TrueFinalBoss]] The Lich]] also apply. |
| 299 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fairyside}}'': The bosses of Natch are AllWitchesHaveCats. The first boss is a witch that summons the "Magical cat" boss, and the other two witches summon the previous floor's witch who then summons. |
| 300 | * The grand finale of ''VideoGame/{{Nethack}}'' features this over the final five planes; the Elemental Plane Of Air and the Astral Plane are by far the worst. Theoretically, the [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse Riders]] are supposed to be the bosses, but the bigger problem is the sheer volume of {{Mooks}} and {{Mook Maker}}s. |
| 301 | * Every single boss in ''VideoGame/NeuroVoider'' has regular enemy robots periodically teleporting into the arena. Even the PostFinalBoss comes with them. |
| 302 | * In the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' series, virtually every boss fight that isn't against a legendary Pokemon (Though even some of those aren't exceptions) will have multiple weaker Pokemon assisting the main boss(es). |
| 303 | [[/folder]] |
| 304 | |
| 305 | [[folder:Role-Playing Game]] |
| 306 | * ''VideoGame/BornUnderTheRain'': The final boss is [[spoiler:Anuket]] and her two River Shards, which she can revive them to full health with [[spoiler:Goddess's Blessing]], which is only used when both of the River Shards have been defeated, ''and'' defeating the main boss defeats the River Shards at the same time. |
| 307 | * There are many, many instances of this in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series: |
| 308 | ** Hidon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' and the battle with Sin immediately after you GetOnTheBoat in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''. |
| 309 | ** A LOT of bosses in ''VI'' do this. The Marshall miniboss you fight to save Terra VERY early in the game has two Lobos with him, Vargas has two bears who you have to kill before you fight him directly, The boss of Zozo will occasionally summon four or five Iron Fists. And don't forget the MOTHER of all flunky bosses that makes a great deal of ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI FFVI]]'' players wanna kill themselves: Wrexsoul. [[spoiler: For those who haven't played it, the battle with Wrexsoul can literally be solved by players killing themselves; it's possible to progress through the battle by having the player characters either ''slay one other'' or by ''slaying both of Wrexsoul's henchmen'' at the same time. Either way, many player characters and henchmen will be revived throughout the potentially long fight.]] |
| 310 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' has the CPU with heal and hurt orbs. Somewhat unique in that (in the more difficult DS version) you ''don't'' want to ShootTheMedicFirst because the hurt orb is super painful and the CPU itself is even worse if you destroy both orbs. Until of course it respawns them. |
| 311 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' has a miniboss that throws its minions at you for extra damage. Killing them before it removes this attack. |
| 312 | ** Several of the Lucavi in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' summon a few Ultima Demons with them when they fight Ramza's party, including the FinalBoss. |
| 313 | ** '''Every single boss''' in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles'' have two mooks fighting alongside them. These respawn all the time, and give no supplies whatsoever. They serve only to distract you from the main boss. Worse, the final boss have the hardest enemies in the game as its minions, and they instantly respawn if you kill both. Add to that two hits will kill you no matter unless you're seriously leveled, and you have yourself a fun battle. Infinite full-heal Cure spells is the only thing that keeps this boss from being NintendoHard. |
| 314 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' has few true bosses, but the second, Lord of the Flowsand, and lots of ''Marks'' (quest targets that are a bit stronger than the average enemy) have mooks that keep getting replaced until the boss dies. |
| 315 | ** A small list of bosses from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' that like having buddies: Jailer of Justice, Vrtra, Jailer of Love, [[NighInvulnerable Absolute Virtue]], Pandemonium Warden... there's also [[http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Pulling_the_Strings one fight]] where it's actually ''recommended'' to only kill the flunky, as fighting the boss will probably get you killed. |
| 316 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'': |
| 317 | *** Adrammelech and Zeromus, both of whom come equipped with almost-infinitely spawning (that's ''spawning,'' not respawning; ignoring them may lead to over a dozen on the battlefield at any given time), status-effect-spewing undead that can easily overwhelm the player, and Zalera, who has the gall to be ''invincible'' so long as his minions are on the field (oh, and that fight has a time limit on it as well). |
| 318 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings''. Every boss in the game, many with unlimited, [[TheComputerIsAcheatingBastard summon gateless]] minions. It is an RTS, though. |
| 319 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' had the Dragon Pod with its Dragon Flowers. All the Dragon Pod will do is summon Dragon Flowers, which will use status effect-laden physical attacks. The battles becomes much easier once you get the summon Golem, found in the same dungeon. |
| 320 | ** The segment where you had to fight the Guado and [[VideoGame/FInalFantasyX Seymour]], especially since they gave him buffs when they died (usually via [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Valefor's Overdrive]]). The boss immediately following (with the stupid giant and two Guado) was nearly as frustrating solely if you're out of the aeons' Overdrives. |
| 321 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has two bosses that will revive their baddies. Attacking them will be a waste of time. |
| 322 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' |
| 323 | *** There are two storyline bosses (the final boss in Palumpolum and [[spoiler:Barthandelus]] where you're basically forced to kill the minions (you can kill them regularly, but they are nearly invulnerable and you face 5 enemies hitting you hard, making it very complicated). |
| 324 | *** To gain access to an optional area on Gran Pulse, you have to beat the boss Sycorax. To reach Sycorax, you have to beat 26 (twenty-six) "Numidia" small flying enemies, six at a time. Sycorax then appears, and starts summoning more Numidia. Allow us to recommend a high-level party with good area-of-effect skills. |
| 325 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' has two downloadable [[OptionalBoss Optional Bosses]] (Valfodr and Jihl Nabaat) who utilize summons. Nabaat can sacrifice her summons to heal herself or power up her signature move. Valfodr is already [[ThatOneBoss one of the most powerful enemies in the game]] and summons Chichu, a monster regarded as one of the best Commandos available. |
| 326 | * ''VideoGame/JourneyOn'': [[spoiler:The Avatar of Darkness]] can summon all the corrupted bosses as minions except the Corrupted Assassin and the Corrupted Wanderer. They all have their unique mechanics and abilities, though they go down easier than before. However, when the boss is near death, she will revive all [=KOed=] Corrupted, forcing the party to deal with all of them at once. |
| 327 | * In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'', the Martial Arts tournament features several team based battles. The first opponents are the Ravens while the second opponents are Kurt, Carna, Grant, and Anelace. The last team is the Intelligence Division, though this is more of a WolfpackBoss with Lorence at the lead. |
| 328 | * ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': |
| 329 | ** The Twilight Thorn will summon Creepers to assist it once the second stage of the fight has started (i.e. after the first round of Reaction Commands). They aren't a huge threat since they are easily avoided, though they can be dispatched quickly to grab HP Orbs. |
| 330 | ** During the back-to-back fights against Pete in Olympus Coliseum, several species of Heartless will occasionally spawn to assist him. |
| 331 | ** After Oogie Boogie is knocked off of his platform for the first time, his machine starts producing Heartless. They make dodging the boss' painful but predictable attacks a lot harder and are quite capable of taking you out on their own, meaning you can't afford to ignore them. |
| 332 | ** Demyx will start off his boss fight by using his sitar to conjure up watery clones of himself. Beating them is required, as they are accompanied by a timer that will cause a NonStandardGameOver if it runs out before they're all dead. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'': |
| 334 | ** The rare Lord Kyroo dream eater isn't much of a threat on his own, but a moment into the fight, will call close to a dozen of his fellow frog dream eaters to pester you. This made more annoying by the fact that he runs away after a certain amount of time, in addtion to the fact that he can break your target lock on him, making the act of retargeting him a pain. |
| 335 | ** Captain Pete stays on the sidelines of the fight as Sora fights the Beagle Boys, and only comes down after you KO the three of them and launch them at him using reality shifts. |
| 336 | * ''VideoGame/MariAndTheBlackTower'': |
| 337 | ** The Lich will summon multiple skeletons as they lose HP. In their rematch, they'll have all their minions from the start. |
| 338 | ** In the first fight with Vera, she'll summon nymphs to fight by her side. Sparing the nymphs will lead to additional rewards after the boss fight. |
| 339 | ** The Chess King has various chess pieces to support him, and when they die, they automatically activate a skill that gives a major boost to the king or punishes the party. In his rematch, he has an additional bishop and rook. |
| 340 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 341 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPGLegendOfTheSevenStars'': Mack, Punchinello, Booster, Jonathan Jones (who converts to a DuelBoss, challenging Mario to a one-on-one fight, when his flunkies are dead), Belome II, Megasmilax, Czar Dragon, Exor, and Smithy himself. |
| 342 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'': |
| 343 | *** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' also features a few of them. The most interesting example are beans spit at the plumbers. If you jump on them with the ActionCommand, they roll back and turn into mooks. If you jump ''over'' them, they just roll offscreen. If you don't jump, you get hit, obviously, but that also prevents them. Interestingly, hitting the beans to spawn the mooks is good for mid-boss grinding, as the mooks award the normal amount of experience and money as they would outside the boss battle. |
| 344 | *** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'' and ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory Bowser's Inside Story]]'' have quite a few of these boss battles, the former including Sunnycide and General Shroob, the latter including Dark Star and Junker. In most cases you have to use the mooks to weaken the boss enough to attack it, although in some cases they're just for annoyance. |
| 345 | *** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'': All Dream World bosses are this, due to how your attacks there hit multiple targets. Examples include Bowser and Antasma, Big Massif, Elite Trio and Kamek. The BigBad and FinalBoss are this too. |
| 346 | ** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'': Most of the (main) bosses after Tubba Blubba are Flunky Bosses who are significantly more deadly if the player ''doesn't'' kill the mooks first, making area-of-effect attacks important. |
| 347 | *** General Guy will order several of his soldiers to attack Mario in different formations before only he remains for the decisive battle. |
| 348 | *** Huff N. Puff spawns small cloudlike creatures every time he is attacked based on how much health the attack cost him - more damage, more mooks. These mooks, if not immediately dispatched, will either attack Mario on their own, combine with any one of Huff N. Puff's special abilities to make them stronger, or simply be sucked up by the boss himself, replenishing his health. |
| 349 | *** The Crystal King summons three Crystal Bits, who don't themselves attack but are used by Crystal King as ammo for his attack. Attacking them lowers the damage he can inflict but prevents you from damaging the King, so you have to ignore them if you want to win. Multi-hitting attacks like Multibounce, Shooting Star items and Star Power works, but you probably want to save them for when the Crystal King starts creating duplicates of himself. |
| 350 | ** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has an interesting variant with the pirate king Cortez. He starts off as a single opponent wielding four weapons. When he's defeated in phase one, he drops his weapons on the floor and switches to a serpentine form. When phase two is beaten, Cortez raises the weapons off the floor, and you now have ''five'' targets to worry about. The weapons can be knocked out, but they revive after two turns (unless Flurrie blows them completely out of the battle, the preferred choice since each weapon deals decent damage, one hits both Mario and his partner, and one inflicts status ailments). |
| 351 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'': Fracktail comes with flunkies in the form of wind-up duck things that appear when you hitch a ride on his body. The player then has to throw them at his antenna to defeat him. |
| 352 | ** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'': During the first phase of its fight, the Paper Mistake Buzzy Beetle attacks by creating floating Dry Bones heads out of the faces on its body and sending them chasing after Mario. |
| 353 | * ''VideoGame/SuperLesbianAnimalRPG'': The Gumball Goliath is a gigantic animated gumball machine with arms that spits out "Gumball Guys" to harass your party members with status effects. The Gumball Guys come in four "flavors" (Spicy, Sour, Chilly, and Toxic) each with a corresponding effect(Burns, Electric/Stun, Freezing, and Poison.) |
| 354 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': Calo in the second fight with him and Darth Bandon. Calo has a small group of grenade-throwing Rodians while Bandon has a couple of Dark Jedi. |
| 355 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 356 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': Totem Pokémon are larger versions of standard Pokémon, and each can summon a regular version of itself. However, the player is still allowed to only have one Pokémon out at a time. |
| 357 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': Lord Electrode fights in large part by calling down Voltorbs from its tree, which fall down around the arena and explode. |
| 358 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' also has quite a few. The Guardian, Giga Gaias, most of Lavos's forms. |
| 359 | ** The very last form of Lavos comes with two "bit" flunkies. [[spoiler: It turns out that one of the bits is actually the true boss, making this trope played with...]] |
| 360 | ** The Guardian is also especially noteworthy. He does revive his flunkies... but you still have to kill them, as if both survive, he'll hit you with a powerful counter that hits the entire party every time you attack him... and taking out one only weakens it to a very powerful single-target counter. You have to kill them, then quickly pound him in the time before he revives them, if you don't want to get slaughtered or spend half the battle healing. |
| 361 | %%** The Mud Imp is an odd example. |
| 362 | * ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'': |
| 363 | ** [[VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyI The first game]] has the fourth stratum's boss (Iwaoropenelep), which is on an entire ''floor'' of F.O.E.s (fighting ''one'' on by itself is hard) that become aggressive upon the player entering a battle. This can be avoided by simply killing said F.O.E.s and somehow not dying, or killing the boss before they force themselves into the battle. |
| 364 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIHeroesOfLagaard'' has two examples: |
| 365 | *** The first stratum boss is the Chimera, aptly subtitled "Lord of the Beasts". After a few turns, a massive flock of Slaveimps come to his cause, either casting Heal or Aura (an attack-up spell) on their master. If the Chimera dies, one still has to knock out any Slaveimps that made it into battle, but if there are any still trying to reach the battle, they disappear if the battle ends without them. |
| 366 | *** The Salamander, from time to time, will summon Baby Salamanders to join the battle. The boss has a skill that redirects all of the party's attacks to the baby into itself in order to protect them, as well as to frustrate the player by not being able to get rid of the babies. However, a clever player can then launch a wide-scale attack that, instead of hitting each target once, hits the boss multiple times to deplete its HP faster. |
| 367 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIVLegendsOfTheTitan'': The second stratum boss, the Hollow Queen, summons other Hollow enemies during battle. As she does so, she places herself into the rear area of the battlefield, meaning that the attacks of the playable party's rear characters won't reach her until the summoned enemies are defeated. |
| 368 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyVBeyondTheMyth'': The third stratum boss, the Undead King, will summon Undead Fencers and Archers shortly after the battl starts. Not only can these mooks attack once during their turns, the Undead King can enable them to attack a second time, which urges the player's party to exterminate them as soon as possible. |
| 369 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyNexus'': At one point, the boss of Southern Shrine (Shellbeast) will start summoning Dark Skulls which, though unable to attack individually, can team up to invoke a skill called Dark Mist. This skill is very dangerous, because it prevents the party from curing binds and ailments. The game also has the TrueFinalBoss, the Abyssal Princess, who will start summoning Gothic Souls (one per turn) that do nothing by themselves; but when four of them are in the field, they'll allow the boss to perform a TotalPartyKill (killing at least one Gothic Soul will prevent this). |
| 370 | * ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge'' has a few of these; Briggs, Moapa, and the Star Magician come to mind (who are accompanied by Sea Fighters, Knights, and "Ball monster" minions, respectively). Given what the Star Magician's flunkies can do (''Heal 1000 damage?! Reduce your attack damage to two digits?! [[VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn Eat your Djinn?!]]''), the Star Magician is also ThatOneBoss for many players. Essentially, the easiest way to beat him is to continuously defeat the mooks he summons and hope that he uses his "non-Mook-making" attacks...or continuously summons the least threatening type of mook, the Thunder Ball (a user of some mid-level attack spells) until his party is full. Then dedicate however many party members you need to towards healing each turn while the rest attack the Star Magician. |
| 371 | * ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' series has a couple of these: The solution is elegant in its simplicity. Fireball. Charm spells can be fun as well. |
| 372 | * This a pretty common trope in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' franchise. |
| 373 | ** Some example from the first ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' game could be: |
| 374 | *** Garl Death-hand, he is surrounded by khans, who won't hesitate in attacking you if you attack their dear leader. |
| 375 | *** Decker and Kane, they have some guards, but the real problem is kane, who hits as hards as a truck and has more action points that some of the thoughest enemies. |
| 376 | *** the final boss who also has the abilty to spawn hallucination in the form of super mutants. |
| 377 | ** some examples from ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' are: |
| 378 | *** the Wanamigo Queen, can become this if the player enter the mine directly into the breeding room. |
| 379 | *** Frog Morton and his nine goons can be a bit of a problem for a unprepared player. |
| 380 | *** Darion, he can be found in the last level of vault 15, the room where you fight him is full of guards that will attack you (and your companions) the moment the battle starts. |
| 381 | *** The optional boss Melchior the magnificent who can summon different enemies from the game including deathclaws |
| 382 | ** In ''VideoGame/FalloutTacticsBrotherhoodOfSteel'' at the end of the first chapter you have to kill Jesse Gomer |
| 383 | *** The final boss [[spoiler: General Simon Barnaky]] you fight him in a room full of robots. |
| 384 | ** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' maybe one with more examples of this |
| 385 | *** Happens again if you decide to fight Ulysses at the end of ''Lonesome Road'', who is backed up by a respawning pair of Eyebots that can regenerate his health, along with a horde of Marked Men. |
| 386 | *** Likewise for the [[OptionalBoss optional fight]] with Caesar himself, who is accompanied by eight {{Praetorian Guard}}s equipped with Ballistic Fists, who can actually take more punishment than him. |
| 387 | * A memorable encounter in ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' saw the party's BoisterousBruiser up against a massive Jade Golem and a never-ending wave of Mooks. It is entirely possible to spend all day slaughtering more soldiers than the game's army could technically ''support,'' even have the golem help out in this task, but you can't progress until you hack the golem down to size. Hilariously {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when, after killing a certain ridiculously high amount of enemies, a narrator who's been describing your prowess based on how many mooks you've slaughtered gets fed up and [[BreakingTheFourthWall breaks the fourth wall]], yelling at you to "just kill the damn golem, already!" |
| 388 | * The Orb Of Undead from ''VideoGame/BaldursGateDarkAlliance'', the only "attack" it has is to summon an army of skeletons and fly out of the players reach, but once you kill all of it's minions it will come back down to resummon it's army. |
| 389 | * ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'' is very fond of these types of fights, typically surrounding some bosses with upgraded versions of normal enemies from that dungeon, and even one of the [[FinalBoss final bosses]] gets this treatment. To make matters worse, the bosses frequently unleash powerful attacks upon the party when all the flunkies are killed. In the case of Master Ring, one of the game's seven final bosses, killing all nine of its powerful companions causes it to unleash the Revolution9 attack, which deals catastrophic damage in addition to giving the boss a substantial defense buff. |
| 390 | ** The Space Magic: Vortex makes the battle easier since it will negate Revolution 9, but it is much easier if you have Purple Eyes' equipped (negate Gazes) or have Mecs, and leave the Charm Gaze Monster alive, it will keep wasting turns using Gaze attacks meaning the only thing you have to worry about is Master Ring's Oscillation attack. |
| 391 | * ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'' has Tamiel, Armaros Manifest, and Kokabiel. All of them summon new minions on a regular basis, but the latter of the three is particularly notable for having literally ''dozens'' of extremely low HP minions that make keeping the actual boss targeted a pain, on top of swarming you to the point where you where you can barely even move if they aren't wiped out by some manner of area attack quickly ([[InvincibleMinorMinion Some of them are invincible]], though). The boss is also only vulnerable while creating a new batch of minions. |
| 392 | * ''VideoGame/RomancingSaGa'': |
| 393 | ** ThatOneBoss Ewei has 2 beastmen of 3 different varieties that assist him in battle, and respawn the second turn after they are defeated, they act as a shield for Ewei, and to add insult to injury he uses A powerful Terrology Spell to negate most of the damage dealt to him and 2 types of Attack all spells that can prevent using magic or attacking normally, in addition he can heal himself. The only possible way to defeat him is to have an Archer know Rain of Arrows or a Hand Axe user use Rolling Slash to injure both Ewei and his beastmen and have one character equipped with the Amethyst (Negates his Demonology spells) in addition to the Opal (Negates Terrology Spells). |
| 394 | ** Also the beastmen can use a technique that can knock your characters unconscious |
| 395 | ** And to even deepen the wound there is a unskippable amount of dialogue in a scene 3 Minutes and 22 Seconds long before fighting him every single time, you cannot escape from the battle which makes him an even worse offender than Miguel from ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''. So if you lose and have a Quicksave outside of Ewei's lab you have better do something to kill time until the actual battle starts. The dialogue is automated so at least you don't need to keep pressing the action button. |
| 396 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' features Don Mole, who is basically [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed James Brown in mole form]], who fights with the support of four "Soul Moles." There's also Evil [[spoiler:Jessica]], who constantly summons Shadows to help her out. She can call 3 at a time (and up to 6 total), they're resistant to a lot of attacks, and they've got a fairly powerful ice breath attack that really starts to add up when multiple Shadows use it in a single round. Have fun. |
| 397 | * ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'': |
| 398 | ** ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'': Several bosses either start the battle with or can summon regular enemies from the same area as them. Titanic Ant kicks off with two Black Antoids accompanying it, Trillionage Sprout does the same with Tough Mobile Sprouts, Master Belch can summon Slimy Little Piles, Starman Deluxe can summon Starmen and Starman Supers, and Master Barf can summon Even Slimier Little Piles. |
| 399 | ** ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'' has the Jealous Bass, which starts the fight with a Gently Weeping Guitar and a Beaten Drum. It uses them in a "jam session attack" which hits a character quite hard. FOUR TIMES. Even better, when you kill the flunkies, Jealous Bass increases his offense by over 20, allowing him to do what he was already doing. Combine this with the fact that you only have 2 party members, and only one of them has PSI "magic"... |
| 400 | * The boss battle with Minamimoto in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' has him summoning Taboo Noise every so often, and then challenging you directly after you defeat a few waves. He also [[ShapeShifting hops back-and-forth]] between [[BishonenLine human form]] and [[OneWingedAngel Noise form]] during the fight. |
| 401 | ** Konishi uses both noise and shadow clones of herself to keep you busy during her boss fight. |
| 402 | * ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'': |
| 403 | ** The first game has one of these, a powerful Gnosis flanked by two smaller helpers. It gets faster as its flunkies die, to the point that it's practically attacking ''between'' each of your party members' attacks when both minions are dead. |
| 404 | ** There's also the Sufal Mass in ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', which falls squarely in the "kill all my babies and I'll tear you apart" category; and also Fis-6, whose medic flunkies are easysauce when one considers they're mere humans and your party is composed of [[HumongousMecha Gears]]. |
| 405 | ** Another one of these is in ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'': the twist is that [[spoiler: putting the minions to sleep will cause their commander to ''shoot them and cause damage''.]] |
| 406 | * ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has Albion, a giant and the source of the four Zoas, his flunkies. Killing all of them causes Albion to revive them immediately, regardless of turn order. If he is killed, they revive him on their next turn. This is also the gimmick of all of the battles with TheFourHorsemenOfTheApocalypse. Each of the riders starts off the fight by summoning two demons, and go on with the fight while having their demons act annoying by casting buffs/debuffs and causing StatusEffects among your team members. Kill them off, and the rider will use [[ThatOneAttack Dragon Eye]] to summon them back and attack you with the extra turns. |
| 407 | * ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'': Every. Last. One of them. Midbosses included, will summon other enemies for the player to fight. The Queen of the Dead in particular never seems to ''stop'' summoning them. |
| 408 | * ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'': Usas summons Unicorns to fight alongside her. [[spoiler:The Demi-fiend, the strongest opponent in the game, takes this further - he has two minions out at a time and cycles through them if you keep killing them. However, you'll want to keep casualties to a minimum, as the main boss uses a hard to avoid One Hit Kill on the party after a certain number of them die]]. |
| 409 | * Nearly every single boss in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars OG Saga: VideoGame/EndlessFrontier''. The flunkies could be (and often are) [[DualBoss bosses on their own]]. The bosses themselves are ridiculously strong even compared to their flunkies. However, the game does make stylish use of this with one boss named Dorothy, whose allies are palette-swapped versions of a scarecrow, a tinman robot, and a beastman, named "Heartless", "Brainless", and "Gutsless". What ThemeNaming? |
| 410 | * The prequel to ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'', ''Baten Kaitos Origins'', has the Holoholobird, which is joined by two chicks that can heal the mother (and the mother will lay an egg that will hatch into another chick whenever one is defeated). It's ThatOneBoss. |
| 411 | ** And to make matters worse, it appears right after a PointOfNoReturn; if you don't either A) do quite a bit of LevelGrinding beforehand, B) keep an extra save from before said PointOfNoReturn so you can go back and do A, or C) get lucky, you could end up having to start the whole game over. |
| 412 | ** The [[spoiler:first]] final boss, [[spoiler:Quaestor Verus]], is a very tough one of these. First, you fight two waves of tough machina turrets, with no break in between waves, so you don't get AfterCombatRecovery. When you get to him, he has four of said turrets, which make it impossible to damage him until all four of them are dead. |
| 413 | ** The first ''Baten Kaitos'' had one as well--the Tree Guardian, which fought with a pair of Tentacles at its side that would regenerate after a few turns if defeated. Of note is that unlike every other boss save for one ''very'' early in the game, the Tentacles are not immune to StatusEffects. |
| 414 | * The Slaadi in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' summon more Slaadi for you to fight. Unfortunately, the summoned Red Slaadi don't grant XP or drop items. Fortunately, they disappear as soon as you beat the summoner. Unfortunately, your (computer-controlled) henchmen never seem to grasp this idea... Most spellcasting enemies also do this trick, summoning anything from a dire badger to an Elder Elemental. Of course, the spell is available for players too... |
| 415 | * You fight against the enigmatic Tri-Edge [[spoiler: which isn't actually Tri-Edge]] first in ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGU .hack//GU Vol.1]]'', followed by an awesome Avatar fight. Next time you see him, he's not alone, two bosslike enemies are with him. They have an annoying defence of being able to dodge every attack you throw when they glow translucent blue by teleporting, while the main boss himself stays idle. The real threat comes when he uses the power of all three to make a combo spell move or the unblockable combo attack. Defeating the two subbosses don't really make a difference, as the real one will invariably revive them two. |
| 416 | ** Also played straight with [[spoiler: Real Tri-Edge]] who summons a different combination of three orbs at regular intervals. The orbs either, 1) Shoot light beams at you, 2) Make the boss invulnerable until you destroy it or 3) Heals him. Extra fun when he summons a combo with 2-3-3. |
| 417 | * Several bosses (and even some [[DemonicSpider not-quite-bosses]]) in the ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}'' series continually make new creations until either they or you die. Unlike most examples, these creations generally [[NoOntologicalInertia stick around]] even after said flunky boss dies. |
| 418 | ** From the same developers, ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Avadon}}'' have a lot of these, too, although they're generally less likely to be summoners. The latter game has a particularly odd variant in [[WakeUpCallBoss Zhossa Mindtaker]], who never attacks you directly during his first fight, instead calling it a "game"--you earn a point every time you drop a flunky's HP to 1 and force him to heal it, he'll earn a point if his flunkies kill you and he devours your corpse. Earn enough points, and he'll eventually flee, leaving his flunkies to die. |
| 419 | * Just about every one of the Desian Grand Cardinals from ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia''. Magnius just has some generic Desians, Kvar has the Energy Stones, Forcystus has the Exbones, and the second battle with Pronyma features the Idun. Also the Ktugach with its Ktugachlings, the Adulocia with its Amphitra, the Toize Valley Mine Defense System with its Orbits, and the Gatekeeper with Angel Swordians. |
| 420 | * A lot of bosses in ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' come with several mooks ([[ActuallyFourMooks out of nowhere]]) to aid them. Some of the bosses (such as Dhaos in the past) may even be helpless while their minions are still alive. |
| 421 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'' has several of these, where the boss may come with flunkies but also have some where they ''summon'' flunkies. One of the problems is the boss is dangerous enough by themselves, and the AI knows it doesn't ''have'' to gang up on you to cause a game over...just that the flunkies have to be ''annoying''. (They ''love'' to pick on Sophie or Cheria, the healers.) Even if they don't ShootTheMedicFirst, they'll probably force the AI to attack them, thus reducing your DPS on the boss. So what happens if you focus on the adds, just so you can focus more damage on the boss? Then the boss will start running around and pick on your healers. What happens if you decide to focus on the boss so they don't go crazy? Then the ''adds'' start picking on you. |
| 422 | * In ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' one interesting example exists: [[spoiler:Dagon]]'s flunkys need to be killed to harm him, [[spoiler:as they are his worshipers and GodsNeedPrayerBadly]] |
| 423 | * ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'' enjoys this trope. One mini-boss fight includes a sea monster which keeps summoning weaker versions of itself and then disappearing while you wail on them, another boss involves a literal HiveQueen that beefs her minions up to insanely powerful levels, and an optional boss requires you to fight a bunch of raptors that call reinforcements (and eventually the boss) into battle. |
| 424 | * ''VideoGame/Persona2 Eternal Punishment'' LOVES this trope. And you have to beat ''all'' enemies for the fight to finish. |
| 425 | ** JOKER Tatsuya Sudou starts the fight by summoning two Minotaurs and two Shaxes, which are there to deal you even more damage and cause ailments. |
| 426 | ** JOKER [[spoiler:Noriko]] is flanked by three Mafia hitmen. While they don't have any real skills, they have a great damage output, unusually high HP for their type of enemy, and the boss keeps applying buffs on them to make them even harder to take down. It's only after you eliminate them that the boss starts fighting you for real. |
| 427 | ** [[spoiler:Demonized Sugimoto]] is flanked by two Red Berets, which are human mooks in the same dungeon. |
| 428 | ** JOKER [[spoiler:Ginji]] summons four Shoggoths at the start of the fight. They keep spamming a SuicideAttack that damages your party and deals ailments, while the main boss keeps reviving them. |
| 429 | ** Captain Shimazu is flanked by four SAT soldiers. They're arguably more dangerous than him, as they keep spamming OneHitKill attacks. |
| 430 | ** [[spoiler:Takahisa Kandori]] is flanked by four {{Mini Mecha}}s. Keep in mind that earlier in the game you fight a single one of them as a boss. And they're not as much trouble as the main guy. |
| 431 | ** For an example from ''Innocent Sin'', the last fight against the Longinus Spear robots features their ultimate and most powerful mech flanked by three regular ones. |
| 432 | * ''VideoGame/Persona3'': |
| 433 | ** The Hanged Man spends half its attacks summoning minions. This can become very annoying, since the very existence of some of these minions will make the boss float above the battlefield, unable to be attacked. |
| 434 | ** Almost every boss in ''[[ExpansionPack The Answer]]'' comes with a few minions. Usually you'll have to abuse the combat system to stop them from ever attacking if you don't want to [[NintendoHard die horribly]]. |
| 435 | * ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has Shadow Yukiko and Shadow Kanji, as well as the God Hand. Even some ordinary {{Mook}}s can summon minions. |
| 436 | * ''VideoGame/Persona5'' takes this to an extreme with Shadow Kunikazu. He hides behind an army of robots while casting minor support spells and cannot be damaged until all the robots are destroyed. Once on his own, he goes down without a fight. |
| 437 | ** In ''[[UpdatedReRelease Royal]]'', most Palace Rulers turn into one during their second phases: |
| 438 | *** Shadow Kamoshida manages to turn this into a PlayerPunch by summoning a cognitive version of [[spoiler:Shiho, the girl who was DrivenToSuicide by his abuse (she got better... eventually)]]. [[spoiler:She]] doesn't attack directly, but passes Kamoshida a volleyball that he uses for his strongest attack, which hits your entire party. You ''have'' to kill the cognitive [[spoiler:Shiho]] to avoid having your entire team wiped out. |
| 439 | *** Shadow Madarame begins constantly summoning elemental copies of himself to fight alongside him. The party note how fitting this is, given that one of his many crimes is counterfeiting. Once his health is down to about half, his artistic ability runs dry and he starts summoning defective copies with low health and status effects. |
| 440 | *** Shadow Kaneshiro summons two hired goons, one of whom will block any attacks aimed at Kaneshiro himself. Played with in that the intended strategy is to just put them to sleep and then ignore them while you beat down Kaneshiro as normal; once his health is low enough, he launches a desperation attack that quickly drains his coffers until he can't pay the hired goons anymore, [[PunchClockVillain causing them to abandon him]]. |
| 441 | * The Queen of Hearts in ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' periodically summons Card Soldiers into battle. Unlike the [=FOEs=] that you encounter earlier, though, the only threat that they pose is that they don't allow you to attack the Queen before you defeat them - they're weak to every non-physical element. |
| 442 | * ''VideoGame/PrayerOfTheFaithless'': |
| 443 | ** When Mia refuses to abandon Parker, Paladin Vance and his soldiers attack her, though Amalie joins Mia to even the odds. Unsurprisingly, the nameless soldiers go down much easier than Vance. |
| 444 | ** Emperor Daigo can summon six elemental swords that [[SupportPartyMember spam buffs and debuffs]]. While the swords have fairly low health and defense, Daigo will revive or summon at least one every turn. |
| 445 | ** The second fight with Vanessa has a twist on this boss design. [[spoiler:The win condition is to heal her back to full health, but she'll constantly spawn shadow versions of the party members, who will deal damage to her every turn.]] |
| 446 | * ''Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus'' has an odd variation: The archer boss on the first visit to the ''Literature/HarukaNogizakasSecret'' world will start sending out [[IKnowMaddenKombat soccer players]] when low on health. However, these versions are effectively invincible but they only perform their rushing attack 'till they run off-screen. And she sends out waves of them, giving the impression of a stampede. |
| 447 | * Rather common in ''VideoGame/ManaKhemiaAlchemistsOfAlRevis''. Plenty of optional bosses do this, as well as the first boss and the final boss. |
| 448 | * Lots and lots of the bosses in ''VideoGame/DragonFable'' have a couple of minions, usually one of the standard monsters from the quest up to that point. Luckily, only one boss so far has figured out how to respawn them, and his flunkies aren't good for much but CherryTapping you. |
| 449 | * Happens in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' with Matriarch Benezia. She is invulnerable to damage for the first part, so you are left to fight the mooks all around you. When you clear them out, she uses some of her power to...um, open doors...which apparently house more mooks. Eventually her power drains because of this and she is no longer invulnerable. |
| 450 | ** From a gameplay perspective, this translates to: three waves of enemy flunkies, cutscene, one-on-[[TrueCompanions three]] boss fight. She can also uses biotic powers of her own during the flunky waves. |
| 451 | ** Some minibosses in the first Mass Effect rely on this: |
| 452 | *** The human thug Fist is a variation. If you don't immobilize him early in the fight, he'll take cover behind his desk and activate two defense turrets who will shred you to pieces. You more or less have to destroy them from behind cover before you can get back to Fist. |
| 453 | *** Confronting a geth Armature, an EliteMook which had previously only been fought in vehicle sections, on Artemis Tau. Half of the fight's challenge (aside from the obvious task of ''fighting an Armature on foot, without the Mako'') is that there's also a squad of [[GoddamnedBats fast-moving stalkers]], [[EliteMook tank-like rocket troopers]] and snipers to deal with, while the Armature itself hangs back and occasionally throws devastating energy balls at you. Subverted in that both the Armature and the flunkies have to die to trigger the next event flag. |
| 454 | ** In the second game, Jedore is aided by tank-bred Krogan. There is also a [[BossInMookClothing YMIR Mech]] aiding her. |
| 455 | ** Marauder Shields and the three Husketeers. |
| 456 | ** In [=ME3=], Kai Leng always has backup nearby. [[spoiler:In his final appearance, the boss fight ends when the last mook falls, so it can be easier to win by taking them out than by focusing on Kai Leng.]] |
| 457 | * ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'': Absolutely every goddamned boss in the goddamned game. |
| 458 | * ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': The combat system is largely biased towards gang-ups, flank-attacks and back-stabs, so a boss who fights alone would normally be very easy to defeat. Therefore, most of the bosses in the game are accompanied by {{Mooks}}, and some even by a massive swarm of mooks (though [[AntiGrinding never endless]]). Bosses who fight alone are rare, and when they do they are usually extraordinarily over-powered to make up for their numerical inferiority. Many bosses are made ridiculously easier to defeat if you can somehow draw their mooks away and take care of them first. |
| 459 | ** And then there's someone like [[spoiler:Ser Cauthrien]], who comes with massive amounts of mooks, and even if you managed to seperate [[spoiler:Ser Cauthrien]] from the mooks (or kill all the mooks first), she is still ridiculously hard to take down. Thankfully she's an OptionalBoss. |
| 460 | ** The ultimate example of this from the game would have to be [[spoiler: the Archdemon]] because in its case, the Mooks really ''are'' neverending, and are just there to distract you from the boss itself. Thankfully, [[spoiler: you can call in armies of allies to deal with the Mooks, making ''the player character'' something of an inversion.]] |
| 461 | ** The Harvester in The Golems of Amgarrak DLC summons Boss-level mooks to assist it. |
| 462 | ** There's also the Broodmother, which calls Darkspawn to protect it. |
| 463 | * ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2 Mask Of The Betrayer'' has two. The first is against Okku and his spirit army. Since Okku is a god, his worshippers grant him oodles of HP and immunity to weapons until they die. After enough are down, he's killable, and he drops to far below his max HP by the time all of them are dead. In the second one, the boss is a Genus Loci, which consists of five trees that do nothing but spam summoned allies until they are destroyed. However, in both cases [=AoE=] blasting will handle them pretty easily. |
| 464 | * ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'', being big on gimmicky boss fights in general, has three unconventional takes on this: |
| 465 | ** First up is Phalanx, the very first boss in the game, a giant blob of tar surrounded by smaller blobs of tar wielding big shields and spears (just like the ones you fought a minute ago). They do a pretty good, but not perfect, job of keeping the big blob protected, but if you can get an opening, or simply kill off all the little blobs first, you'll find that it really is just a big blob of goo with no weapons or defenses of its own and a deceptively large health bar. |
| 466 | ** Then there's the Fool's Idol, who spawns clones of herself as decoys as well as teleporting around the room once attacked to keep players guessing. The clones have a weaker version of her magic attacks. |
| 467 | ** Finally, there's the Storm King, a giant-sized version of the flying manta rays that have been dogging you throughout the Shrine of Storms. It's also surrounded by an entire sky full of the smaller ones. The twist here comes if you decide to come back to this area after beating it in order to take a second crack at killing those two [[MetalSlime crystal lizards]]: Turns out those smaller mantas weren't part of the boss fight at all; they just live there! And they respawn just like the regular enemies in any zone! |
| 468 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' and ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' follow up on this by each having a fight against a "boss" who has low HP and damage but is flanked by a crowd of infinitely-respawning clones, and half the challenge is figure out which one the big health bar at the bottom of the screen actually belongs to. |
| 469 | * Soma in ''VisualNovel/AseliaTheEternalTheSpiritOfEternitySword'' has no fighting ability since he's just a normal human. He lets his brainwashed minions do all his fighting for him. And when they go down... |
| 470 | * In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon'', the boss of the Queen Fury/Ghost Ship section is actually a group of RespawningEnemies. Four Ghost Knights, accompanied by a stronger Commander, attack you. Killing one, including the Commander, simply 'downs' it for 1-3 turns, after which they stand back up at full health. If you are unlucky they may even rise back up before you even get your next action. The only way to win is to down all 5 enemies at the same time, which is easier said than done in a game where the only multi-hitting attacks you have are limited items and, at that point in the game, very few Dragoon Spells, only one of which is actually powerful enough to take them all out at moderate health, besides the Commander. May very well become ThatOneBoss if you aren't prepared for it. |
| 471 | * ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' does this, most notably with a number of the bonus Wanted battles. Gordo is first but his 3 chef pirates don't get brought back or replaced when defeated. Then you have Lapen (spike drones), Daikokuya (bodyguards) and Lord Zivilyn Bane ({{mook}} Zivilyn Banes). These three will summon replacement flunkies a set number of times but do stop eventually so you can feasibly kill them all and then focus on the boss. |
| 472 | * ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' has got unique monsters (and a lot of superunique monsters) which have several minions fighting alongside it. Also, Act I and III boss rooms are filled with normal enemies which can attack with the boss. |
| 473 | * In ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'': |
| 474 | ** The Capra Demon is infamously flanked by two attack dogs, who are ''very'' good at stunning the player and leaving them open to the Demon's powerful sword blows, especially considering the cramped arena. Hence the most famous piece of advice in the ''Souls'' community: "Kill the dogs first." |
| 475 | ** Nito, First of the Dead is accompanied by a bunch of skeletons, including one ''giant'' skeleton. Because he's a necromancer, those skeletons will also respawn continuously unless they are slain with a divine weapon. |
| 476 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'': |
| 477 | ** The Mirror Knight can summon warriors from other worlds to assist him in battle. The twist is that in addition to NPC's, he can also summon ''other players'' who happen to be online at the moment. |
| 478 | ** Elana, the Squalid Queen will summon skeletons as well as a previous boss, Velstadt, to help her in her fight. And occasionally she'll summon those three piglets from the beginning of the game by accident. |
| 479 | ** The Burnt Ivory King will continuously be helped by Charred Loyce Knights. You can stop this by bringing uncorrupted Loyce Knights into battle, who can freeze the portals they spawn from. |
| 480 | ** In NewGamePlus, both the Flexile Sentry and the Lost Sinner will be accompanied by black phantoms in their fights. |
| 481 | ** The Executioner's Chariot fight takes place in an area full of skeletons and necromancers. The necromancers rez the skeletons and cast spells at you if they have line of sight, so while the Chariot thundering over the skeletons can knock them down, it doesn't actually cause them much trouble. |
| 482 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': |
| 483 | ** The Curse-Rotted Greatwood will be joined by numerous Undead Settlers during the first phase of its fight. You can kill them, but more will come shortly. |
| 484 | ** High Lord Wolnir will periodically summon skeletons to help him. Skeletons that have to be killed twice to stay down for good. Fortunately, Wolnir isn't careful with his attacks and will kill his own servants quite often. |
| 485 | ** The Champion's Gravetender in Ariandel starts out with a small pack of wolves helping him, and is later joined by a single enormous Greatwolf who is a boss in its own right. |
| 486 | * In ''VideoGame/OkageShadowKing'' every boss [[spoiler: save the for the ''FinalBoss'']] has minions that fight with it. |
| 487 | * Pseudolonewolf's ''VideoGame/{{MARDEK}}'' series uses this a few times; Moric summons zombies and Droma the first and second times he is fought, Ss'leneck brings two Reptoid Warriors with him, [[spoiler: the King of Goznor summons Aether Clones of Mardek and his party members (active and reserve), at level 30, with any equipment equipped on their real life counterparts]] and finally Qualna summons Aether Clones of Mardek in the Astral Tunnel, at level 30, with any equipment he has one him. |
| 488 | * Alraune, the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/{{PN03}}'', occasionally summons groups of Eichels, the GoddamnedBats encountered throughout the game. |
| 489 | * The fight against O. Dio in the Western chapter of ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' is this if you did not set up very many traps beforehand. If you set up none, his flunkies will be fourteen in number and take up the majority of the battle screen. |
| 490 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'': |
| 491 | ** [[spoiler: Lorithia]], ThatOneBoss near the end of the game sends lots of nebula enemies to attack you - rather annoying since these are creatures that are highly resistant to physical attacks, inflict status ailments, and explode if left alone with little HP. They also spawn often and share their damage resistance with the boss if so much as one of them remains alive. |
| 492 | ** Xord, who regularly summons a mob of weak mechon to assist him. They're necessary for beating him, as you need to use a chain attack to make him vulnerable to damage, and defeating them is the only practical way to max out your chain gauge. |
| 493 | ** Metal Face is accompanied by two Mass-Produced Faces in his final battle, and Face Nemesis is backed up by four lesser Mechon. The latter is an interesting example in that your goal is to ''avoid'' killing the main boss [[spoiler:since it's Fiora piloting it]] and focus entirely on wiping out the flunkies. |
| 494 | * Several of the bosses in ''The Lord of the Rings: VideoGame/WarInTheNorth'' are backed up with hordes of respawning mooks. Once the boss is killed, any remaining enemies must also be slain in order to progress. This can become very frustrating if you just managed to survive the boss only to get finished off by a lowly Goblin that you forgot to take care of. |
| 495 | * Several bosses in ''VideoGame/TheLastStory'' summon enemies to disturb the player's strategies. Terracor (first fight), Marbas and Necromancer are only some examples. |
| 496 | * One of the two types of "bosses" in ''VideoGame/EvilIslands''. |
| 497 | ** [[spoiler: Erfar]] takes it to its logical extreme, {{Zerg Rush}}ing you with at least fifteen {{Mooks}} who you will likely two-shot by then (the boss himself included). |
| 498 | ** A less serious and way more dangerous example would be Bandit Chief's Lieutenant. Encountered fairly early in the game he has an assortment of six to eight bandits that will come to his aid once engaged. It's possible to pick them off one by one before the main fight though, otherwise you're in for a slugfest. |
| 499 | * ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'' sets up the final battle to be against a ReactorBoss (which turns out to be oddly simple, assuming you did as instructed and armed your characters with [[RayGun blasters]]), and then promptly teleports you to face the Kreegan Hive Queen and a horde of lesser Kreegan the moment you destroy the reactor. |
| 500 | * In ''Mage Gauntlet'', [[FinalBoss Hurgoth]] is one of these. [[spoiler:Justified in that he's a weak coward whose only job is to hold the Dark Realm portal open, and the portal is the actual boss, with him trying to shoot you through it.]] The FinalBoss of the {{Roguelike}} GaidenGame, ''Wayward Souls'', is almost exactly the same (though this time, it's not Hurgoth, but [[spoiler:the Altered Shadow]]). |
| 501 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'', Parasite spits out six flunkies in the BossBattle's second stage, and you have to kill them all before its [[GoForTheEye eye]] opens again. Killing the flunkies gives you good XP. |
| 502 | * ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' features a boss named SV Snaggerjag, a pirate attached to his ship - literally. One of his only moves, called Takin' It All, is to pull fish flunkies out of the water. There are three types - one attacks physically, one attacks with water, and one heals Snaggerjag. Up to two can be at his side. To make it worse, when he has two, he starts charging his most powerful, A Fisher's Life, which cannot be interrupted by defeating a flunkie. and you get no extra XP for the flunkies. The game might just hate you. |
| 503 | * ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' has several. The Witches of Hemwick summon mooks who wander the arena and attack you when you move near, though it's subverted in that there's a simple method to stop them from ever spawning, which turns the fight into a cake walk. Played straight with Rom and the Celestial Emissary, relatively weak bosses who barricade themselves behind walls of respawning mooks. |
| 504 | * ''VideoGame/{{Earthlock}}:'' |
| 505 | ** Mushriga (optional, but drops loot required for OneHundredPercentCompletion) is a giant mushroom. It spawns smaller mushrooms with a poison attack. |
| 506 | ** The FinalBoss spawns shadow versions of the party. Don't spend too much time fighting them -- the boss soon sacrfices them to power itself up. |
| 507 | * ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'': |
| 508 | ** LetsPlay/PewDiePie can summon a seemingly endless amount of literal {{Straw Fans}}. As in, they're actually small straw dolls. Killing them is a waste of time as Pews will revive them at the end of every turn. |
| 509 | ** Pews' boss [=RayWilliamJohnson=] will resort to call followers as the battle goes on. |
| 510 | ** Lady Anita, an over-the-top parody of Anita Sarkeesian from ''WebVideo/FeministFrequency'' as an insane cult leader, will keep calling her "sisters" to aid her in battle. Unlike the underlings of Pews and [=RayWilliamJohnson=], Anita's Social Justice Warriors ''do'' pose a treat, making the fight much harder. |
| 511 | ** One_Wing, the Chapter 6 boss of will regularly spawn a flurry of "Underwings" to keep you busy while he hides and heals. |
| 512 | * ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Most bosses summon a couple of weaker minions to support them, and in some cases use them as bodyguards to prevent their vulnerabilities from being hit. It's a sign that you're up against a very dangerous boss when they don't summon any minions. |
| 513 | * ''VideoGame/YIIKAPostModernRPG'' has The Golden Alpaca, who summons invincible Soul Survivors to aid it in battle. The Soul Survivors themselves aren't too dangerous, just having a single mediocre attack, but the Golden Alpaca can absorb them to (depending on the version) evolve into stronger forms or unleash an HPTo1 attack on the entire party if they are not banished. |
| 514 | * ''VideoGame/CrisTales'': [[spoiler:Mayor Enzo]] is very dependent on his Hounds, [[CallASmeerpARabbit large monstrous dogs]] he trained himself from pups. They do almost all of the direct damage while he stands behind them and gives commands. It is not the best idea to focus entirely on him though; he can sacrifice his Hounds to heal back a lot of his HP, then summon another. He also begins with two Hounds but can have up to four of them at a time, which will overwhelm the player party. It's more efficient to get rid of his Hounds as soon as possible to prevent him from healing and to keep his pack manageable. |
| 515 | * ''VideoGame/{{OMORI}}'': |
| 516 | ** Mr. Jawsum never attacks the player, instead leaving the Gator Guys he summons to do the attacking for him. Jawsum cannot be harmed as long as a Gator Guy is alive on the field, and he will constantly keep summoning more once you manage to take one down, so you'll have to time your attacks just right to get a shot at damaging him. Thankfully, Jawsum does not have a lot of HP. |
| 517 | ** [[OptionalBoss The Unbread Twins]] will constantly summon enemies to aid them in their fight. |
| 518 | ** King Carnivore is accompanied by two roots that are capable of healing it. |
| 519 | * ''VideoGame/TitanQuest'': Shadowmaw is an mini-boss who spawns Shades to assist it via a special attack. |
| 520 | * ''VideoGame/AVeryLongRopeToTheTopOfTheSky'': Sylvia summons Drones to assist her after she detects hostility, which she will, since she's being fought. |
| 521 | * ''VideoGame/WerewolfTheApocalypseEarthblood'': |
| 522 | ** During his boss battle, Pachu'a calls in a constant stream of Red Talon warriors to harass and distract Cahal. |
| 523 | ** In the final boss battle, Wadkins call in teams of Endron fomori to bog Cahal down. |
| 524 | [[/folder]] |
| 525 | |
| 526 | [[folder:Sports Game]] |
| 527 | * Dry Bowser from ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games]]'' has three Dry Bones with him. |
| 528 | [[/folder]] |
| 529 | |
| 530 | [[folder:Shoot 'Em Up]] |
| 531 | * Several bosses in the arcade classic ''VideoGame/SunsetRiders'' are backed up by a few straight-up, standard-issue, gun-toting {{mooks}}. Notably, as they ''don't'' respawn (although the final boss has so many, you might not think so at first), it's more tactically sound than in most scenarios to go after them first. |
| 532 | * ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': |
| 533 | ** Meiling summons fairies for a few patterns. Oddly, this is for her nonspells, which are normally gimmick-free zones. |
| 534 | ** This trope seems to be Rin Kaenbyou's gimmick, as she is accompanied by various minor enemies for many of her spellcards, the worst being those creepy zombie fairies that burst into a shower of bullets when destroyed, only to revive again within seconds. |
| 535 | ** Yoshika summons spirits for her first spellcard, which do most of the attacking. The catch is that she'll recover health if you kill them. |
| 536 | * The Cave Ceiling boss in the horizontal scrolling ShootEmUp ''[[VideoGame/Area88 U.N. Squadron]]'' (SNES version). It's this large moving machine on the ceiling whose [[AttackItsWeakPoint weak point]] can only be attacked from below, and its downward flamethrower attacks shouldn't pose much trouble. The problem? There's a conveyor belt on the floor where homing missile launchers AND upward-firing flamethrowers will come in from both sides, making your life a ''[[NintendoHard living hell]]''. Unsurprisingly, its ThatOneBoss. |
| 537 | * Nearly half the bosses in ''VideoGame/HeroCore''. Notably, the Reaper Drone takes this trope to its logical extreme, being able to use its flunkies as both shields and weapons ''simultaneously''. The Grand Mother is also this on multiple levels, as it spawns Mothers, which are themselves {{Mook Maker}}s. The Guardian also has statues in his room that come to live once you damage him enough, and the Liquid Metal Processor can only be harmed after its flunkies are destroyed. |
| 538 | * The jet bomber boss in the ''VideoGame/{{Raiden}}'' series sends waves of mini-jets after you, and the [[BaseOnWheels mobile fortress]] boss in the second game can spawn turrets. |
| 539 | * The ''VideoGame/GIJoe'' arcade game gives us Metal-Head (who is aided by standard mooks), the Baroness (uses robots and aerial forces), Major Bludd (mooks and a laser cannon from the background) and Destro (air and sea forces). |
| 540 | * Sleeping Spire, the first boss of ''VideoGame/ArcAngle''. Being based off the [[SevenDeadlySins sin of]] [[LazyBum Sloth]], it does absolutely nothing at all. However, the programs in the area will attack you, and that even includes another copy of the MiniBoss! |
| 541 | * Several bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' fight alongside waves of smaller enemies: |
| 542 | ** Hilda Berg summons small planes for her fight, and [=UFO=]s in her final phase. |
| 543 | ** Cagney Carnation occasionally launches seeds that sprout into enemies. |
| 544 | ** Baroness Von Bon Bon lets her minions (and later, her living castle) do most of the work, while the baroness herself stays back and fires a shotgun at Cuphead. |
| 545 | ** Beppi the Clown summons living balloon animals, and later, penguins who throw baseballs. |
| 546 | ** Grim Matchstick uses living flame creatures that jump up at Cuphead in his second phase. |
| 547 | ** Wally Warbles is accompanied by parades of small birds with nails attached to their heads, and later his two medic birds that carry his stretcher. |
| 548 | ** Rumor Honeybottoms, as a queen bee, has the bees of her hive attack you. |
| 549 | ** Captain Brineybeard and Cala Maria both attack largely by summoning various sea creatures. |
| 550 | ** Sally Stageplay's 'big wave' attack in her third phase is actually a stagehand running across the screen with the prop. |
| 551 | ** King Dice will make you face a BossBonanza of his lackeys (known collectively as the King's Court) before him, and when he attacks, it's by marching living waves of cards out of his sleeve. |
| 552 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Octogeddon}}'', the Big Boss Bass enemies will summon smaller robotic fishes to attack Octogeddon while they themselves circle around it. |
| 553 | [[/folder]] |
| 554 | |
| 555 | [[folder:Stealth-Based Game]] |
| 556 | * ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'': Most bosses (targets) have guards with them, although in many cases they can be bypassed through smart stealth/surprise. Played completely straight with [[spoiler:Al-Mualim]] and his AncientAstronauts AppliedPhlebotinum which allows him to teleport and summon ghostly versions of himself and your other targets... or are they? The [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII sequel]] inverts this with Ezio uses the same (or a similar) piece of Phlebotinum against the ''Pope'' and the [[MagicStaff Papal Staff]]. ''Brotherhood'' uses this too with the final battle with [[spoiler:Cesare Borgia]], where mooks will appear to aid [[spoiler:Cesare]] in every phase... for all the good that does, as he's immune to counter kills or kill streak executions unlike [[spoiler:[[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Il Carnefice]]]]. (In contrast, [[PraetorianGuard Papal]] [[EliteMook Guards]] are immune to counter kills but ''not'' kill streaks, which actually makes them more survivable on their own.) |
| 557 | ** Actually exploitable in ''[=AC2=]'' once you get the Poison Blade -- time the injection just right and get out of sight, and in his death throes the poisoned bodyguard may inadvertently kill the target for you, as several players have proved in gameplay videos. |
| 558 | ** Ironically, ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]]'' essentially makes Ezio himself a Flunky Boss -- from late-Sequence 4 through Sequence 8 and in post-story free-roam, he can summon Assassin apprentices to make kills for him or to fight alongside him in Open Conflict... but if the player is not pressed for time, it's usually to make kills for Ezio. |
| 559 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGear'': |
| 560 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', [[AmazonBrigade Crying Wolf, Screaming Mantis and Raging Raven]] are all examples. However, the first two would be laughably easy were it not for the regular enemies, while the latter is actually easier ''because'' of them. |
| 561 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'', when you fight Armored Vehicles, Tanks and Choppers they are helped by Escorts. Also the Chrysalis and it's Kidnappers. |
| 562 | * Yushchenko in ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter: The Omega Strain'' is accompanied by a squad of EliteMooks wearing red berets and flak jackets and packing magnum pistols, in addition to the level's normal guards. |
| 563 | [[/folder]] |
| 564 | |
| 565 | [[folder:Survival Horror]] |
| 566 | * From ''VideoGame/FatalFrame'': |
| 567 | ** Ryokan Kurosawa from [[VideoGame/FatalFrameII the second game]] occasionally disappears and summons two Veiled Priests during his boss battle. Taking out the Priests renders him unable to summon them again, and defeating Kurosawa himself makes the two die right afterwards if they're still active. |
| 568 | ** Yoshitatsu Kiryu, also from the second game, uses the dolls in his workshop floor as his main method of attack, both as a grapple and direct attack by having them ram onto Mio. His Fatal Frame moment is when he finally tries to hurt you himself. |
| 569 | ** The [[VideoGame/FatalFrameIII third game]] has Yoshino Takigawa, a victim of the Tattoo Curse turned hostile as a ghost. When battling her, she's always surrounded by shadows that continually re-spawn until she's defeated. |
| 570 | ** The [[VideoGame/FatalFrameMaidenOfBlackWater fifth game]] has [[BigBad Ouse]]/[[InconsistentSpelling Ose]] Kurosawa, during her actual final battle. |
| 571 | *** When fought underwater, she summons 5-6 Guardians around her, who disperse and attack separately if not defeated quickly. Fortunately said Guardians go down in one hit or two. |
| 572 | *** When fought above water surface, she summons some {{Mook}}(s) you've encountered earlier in the story. And Guardian(s), if summoned, emerge out of water to grab you by the ankle before disappearing. |
| 573 | [[/folder]] |
| 574 | |
| 575 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 576 | * The ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' Adventure System board games have several: |
| 577 | ** In ''Castle Ravenloft'', Klak combines this with GetBackHereBoss; if he's close enough to a player to attack, he will, but otherwise he teleports to new rooms and summons monsters to attack the party. |
| 578 | ** Also from Ravenloft, Count Strahd combines this with TurnsRed; if his health gets below 5HP, he teleports to his crypt and starts summoning monsters. |
| 579 | ** In ''The Legend of Drizz't'', Methil prefers to attack by activating existing monsters, and will summon a new one if there are no monsters to activate. |
| 580 | ** Also from Drizz't, Jarlaxle calls a mercenary if there are no other monsters on his tile. |
| 581 | [[/folder]] |
| 582 | |
| 583 | [[folder:Third-Person Shooter]] |
| 584 | * Silhouette, Coyote Bongwater and Ponsonby from the ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'' series count as this. |
| 585 | * Shows up several times in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne1'' of all games, with a number of subversions: |
| 586 | ** The first boss you run up against legs it after a while, leaving half a dozen Mooks to finish you off despite his having an [[DiscOneNuke Ingram]]. |
| 587 | ** There are various Mooks conveniently loitering along the path of your pursuit of Vinnie Gognitti, who function in much the same way. (The level where you take on B.B. is similar, but he barely counts as a boss seeing as this is the level when you get the [[InFinityPlusOneSword Jackhammer]].) |
| 588 | ** Jack Lupino has two henchmen flanking him when he deigns to join the fray... after about two ''dozen'' others have been whaling on you from two sides when you have no proper cover; it's actually a bit of a relief when he shows up, even if he is MadeOfIron and [[JustifiedTrope tripping out on V]]. |
| 589 | ** The closest thing to a completely straight example are the Trio, three {{Miniboss}}es[=/=]{{Giant Mook}}s spread across the level who have a couple of regular enemies lurking nearby. In the PC version you don't trigger the "MiniBoss defeated" flag until you kill these Mooks as well, not that you're likely to notice. |
| 590 | * In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne3'', [[FinalBoss Becker]] sends several squads of UFE officers at Max while occasionally taking shots at him with his grenade launcher, and earlier on his right-hand man Bachmeyer is fought alongside the officers in his command as you're left to [[PuzzleBoss figure out how to kill him while he's dug into cover]]. |
| 591 | * Every BossBattle in ''VideoGame/EatLeadTheReturnOfMattHazard'' includes flunkies, except the ones that are {{Quicktime Event}}s. |
| 592 | * Stay Puft in ''VideoGame/GhostbustersTheVideoGame''. |
| 593 | * Zeta Prime from ''VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron''. |
| 594 | * Bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' are accompanied by large amounts of minions whose purpose of making the fight difficult is only secondary to their role in [[BossArenaRecovery keeping the player supplied]]. The Corpus Razorbacks stand out in that their impenetrable defences can be breached only by the Bursa mechs that appear in Razorbacks' chambers, which you can hack to turn into your temporary allies. |
| 595 | [[/folder]] |
| 596 | |
| 597 | [[folder:Tower Defense]] |
| 598 | * ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'': All bosses spawn alongside other enemies in the level, but special mention of this trope goes to Patriot - when he is defeated the first time, more guerrillas will parachute down into the field. This leads to potential SequenceBreaking by keeping the enemy killed count below the required amount for Patriot to summon reinforcements until he is defeated, saving the player the effort of having to kill additional enemies. |
| 599 | * ''VideoGame/Infinitode2'' has Constructor, the boss faced in 3.8, spawns enemies as long as it's active on the field every 5 seconds and when it drops to 75%, 50%, and 25% HP. The foe types spawned are usually Regular, Fast, and Strong, but other enemies from the level's portal can also appear (other than Healer). |
| 600 | * ''VideoGame/Junkworld'' features a couple bosses and mini-bosses that have capabilities of summoning flunkies on their own: |
| 601 | ** Arachnox summons his own Spiderlings to feast on Scavengers. |
| 602 | ** Failed Experiment creates Leechazoids, strange leeches that are the closest he has to offsprings. |
| 603 | ** Third form of Tyrant can brainwash Scavengers units and turn them into Order Inquisitors. |
| 604 | ** [[spoiler: Hadron summons a multitude of Order units through teleporters, as well as summons Order Juggernauts on his own. His mecha form keeps these traits. ]] |
| 605 | * Every boss in ''VideoGame/KingdomRush'' series is accompanied by associated enemies. Some, however, stand out by virtue of being able to summon minions themselves instead of relying on those that come out at the same time: |
| 606 | ** Original: |
| 607 | *** The Juggernaut, the very first boss in series, is a lone towering mountain of steel. That is, u til it uses a built-in cannon to launch capsules that spawn clusters of Golem Heads either before or after your defenses. |
| 608 | *** Vez'nan can summon Demon enemies from pentagrams on the floor during his first phase. |
| 609 | ** ''Frontiers'' |
| 610 | *** Naseru the Red Efreet can snap his finger to turn your troops into Lesser Efreeties that also go towards the exit and can bash your other soldiers. |
| 611 | *** Quincon can pound his stomach, summoning Mandrilos to beat the bananas out of your allies. |
| 612 | *** FinalBoss, [[spoiler: Umbra]], can summon [[spoiler: Shade Elementals]] from thin air. Interestingly enough, they are the ones who can cause the player a loss during the fight, since the boss himself never goes towards the exit. |
| 613 | ** ''Origins'' |
| 614 | *** Hi-Hi Ehna can howl to summon fellow Gnolls. This works very well with his ability to boost the damage of nearby allies. |
| 615 | *** [[spoiler: Spider Goddess]] can summon spider enemies when it lands on a different path at certain hp thresholds. |
| 616 | *** Post-game boss, Godieth, can indirectly summon enemies by spitting a very damaging and wide-area glob of Dark Blood that turns every unit it kills into a Shadow Spawn. |
| 617 | ** ''Vengeance'' |
| 618 | *** Jokull can summon Wyverns during the fight that spawn from a small hole on the left side of the map. |
| 619 | *** Alleria Swiftwind can create a green portal to summon Elven Rangers. She's more of a MiniBoss, however. |
| 620 | *** Gerald Lightseeker, a more proper boss, -doesn't actually summon enemies himself, but should any of separately spawned ones come near him, he can buff them by giving them 80% armor. |
| 621 | *** Winter Queen can turn any unit she kills into an Apex Shard. |
| 622 | *** The Dragon King is also unable to summon enemies, but he can spit globe of water that allow his Mogwais and Nyans to activate their abilities. |
| 623 | *** Mirage from Hammerhold DLC is an interesting case. Not only can she blow the horn to summon Nomads to jump out of the trees and the hidden path, as well as Djinni from the lamp, but she can strike the ground, ''creating illusionary duplicates of enemies already present. '' Surprisingly still, these duplicates can take away your health should they reach the end of the path. |
| 624 | *** Alric, another mini - boss from the DLC, returns with his ability to call forth Sand Warriors. Unlike those from Frontiers, these persist indefinitely. |
| 625 | [[/folder]] |
| 626 | |
| 627 | [[folder:Turn-Based Strategy]] |
| 628 | * Most boss monsters in ''VideoGame/ChromaSquad'' come with several {{Mook}} allies, and some of them can even summon more goons mid-battle -- it's easier to count the bosses that fight you completely on their own (and even some of those will summon temporary objects that attack or explode). [[spoiler:[[TheDragon Lord Gaga]]]] is particularly notable for using ''other bosses'' as flunkies, ''including'' some of the bosses that can summon their own minions. That particular fight can get... [[ThatOneBoss hectic]], to say the least. |
| 629 | * Every boss comes with some sort of back-up in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness'' because 10 on 1 generally isn't much a fight. A few notable examples are: Hoggmeiser, who comes with a group of monks who do nothing but stand there, appropriately all called "Meat Walls", Maderas, who comes to battle with a group of Succubi (it has to do with the plot.) and the big bad [[spoiler:Vulcanus]] who brings a small army into battle with him! The good news is that most bosses don't start moving around for the first few turns. |
| 630 | ** A notable exception is Captain Gordon, '''defender of earth!''', who is on equal level with [[RobotBuddy Thursday]], making them a DualBoss. |
| 631 | ** The final boss of ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 4|A Promise Unforgotten}}'' starts off with back-up units, summons more on each turn, and also gets powered up based on how many of them are on the field. Fortunately, he's the first boss in the history of the series where defeating him also results in the defeat of all his minions. |
| 632 | * Every boss in ''VideoGame/HeroesMustDie'' is this because the bosses themselves are immune to normal attacks and must be hit during a combo which can only be achieved by hitting 3 or 6 Mooks in a row. |
| 633 | * Like ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' above, nearly every boss in ''VideoGame/VanguardBandits'' has some form of help around with them. [[DuelBoss There's only a handful of fights that don't.]] |
| 634 | * ''VideoGame/IntoTheBreach'': Every Leader Vek is fought on a map alongside regular enemies, with the player needing to protect buildings from both threats. While neither the regular Vek nor the leader need to be killed in order to win, killing the Leader Vek is one of the side objectives of the mission. |
| 635 | [[/folder]] |
| 636 | |
| 637 | [[folder:Wide-Open Sandbox]] |
| 638 | * Every boss fight in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'', as the "use them for health" variant. Soldiers and human infected are a complete non-threat to Alex, only existing as a health bonus. The fights against Supreme Hunter and Greene take it up a notch by using hunters, who are genuinely threatening in their own right, but still exist mostly as a health boost for Alex. |
| 639 | * Technically every boss in ''VideoGame/InFamous'': |
| 640 | ** Sasha has her reapers, however these reapers are merely illusions brought upon by her ability. |
| 641 | ** Alden has his scrap crabs, though these are most likely an extension of his own powers. |
| 642 | ** Kessler has his giant electric clones, again by his own powers. |
| 643 | * Similarly, several of the mutant bosses in ''VideoGame/{{inFAMOUS 2}}'' summon mooks. If he goes down the evil karmic path, Cole can even make some of his own! |
| 644 | * In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'', [[spoiler:Big Smoke]] constantly calls Vagos until you kill him. |
| 645 | * ''VideoGame/StarlinkBattleForAtlas'' has the recurring Extractor fights, which can't be targeted if any of their Nodes are alive. Kill the Nodes and it becomes attackable, at least until it respawns more. |
| 646 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', after Jimmy defeats Bif in the [[NouveauRiche Preppies']] [[TheBoxingEpisode boxing ring]] in a bid to show them up, clique leader Derby refuses to acknowledge him as their champion, and sets the other Preppies on him. Jimmy then needs to fight his way past them to take Derby down proper. |
| 647 | -->'''Jimmy:''' You pathetic wretch, hiding behind your friends!\ |
| 648 | '''Derby:''' I'm leveraging the assets I have and you don't: friends! |
| 649 | * Most bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Necesse}}'' summon large amounts of weak enemies to help them. The Queen Spider throws eggs that hatch, the Pirate Captain has an infinite crew that will come in while fighting him, etc. |
| 650 | [[/folder]] |
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