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Bonus Boss
"Tyrant Overlord Baal? Wasn't he just a ploy to force players into playing their games for 100 hours longer?"
— Disgaea 3

Originally, video games had a much smaller (and more devoted) fandom. In recent years, the demographics have greatly expanded.

What this means is that the general skill level has decreased away from Nintendo Hard, as it's no longer the hardcore devoted who are buying the products. This has upset said hardcore devoted quite a bit.

So, the solution has been the Bonus Boss (who often lives in the Bonus Dungeon). The Bonus Boss often exists outside the normal plot of the game, and requires quite a bit of conscious effort to get to. Its difficulty is usually much beyond that of the "story line" final boss. Occasionally, games may have more than one Bonus Boss. Sometimes the player may acquire some special ability or skill once they beat this extraordinarily difficult enemy, but it's usually just for bragging rights. Anyone who can beat the Bonus Boss has proved he doesn't need them.

A Bonus Boss can technically be a Random Boss, but then again, you went looking for it.

Compare True Final Boss, a boss that when unlocked ends up replacing or coming right after the Final Boss, requiring you to beat it in order to clear the game if you have unlocked it.

Examples:

  • Mortal Kombat was arguably the Trope Maker, with the first game having Reptile as a secret boss. There is a very small chance that he will appear before the fight begins and give you clues on how to find him (ex."Look To La Luna"). You can only fight him if, on the fight at the Pit stage, you don't block, get a Double Flawless on your opponent, and finish them with a Fatality. If the conditions are met, the screen will flash with the words "You have found me, now prove yourself!" appearing, whereupon you will be taken to the Bottom of the Pit to fight him.
    • Mortal Kombat II continued the tradition with Noob Saibot, Jade, and Smoke. Noob Saibot appears only if you win 50 battles consecutively. Jade appears if, on the fight before the question-mark box, you only use the Low Kick button to defeat your opponent (can be done on any round). Smoke is arguably the most difficult to get, as you have to make Dan Forden appear and say "TOASTY!" while fighting on the Portal stage, then hitting Down+Start while he's on the screen.
      • Mortal Kombat 3 had Smoke as a hidden boss via one of the 11 hidden treasures of Shao Kahn that you can access after beating the game, as well as Noob Saibot. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 added Mileena, Ermac, Classic Sub-Zero, and Human Smoke. Mortal Kombat Trilogy added Chameleon and Khameleon, who were basically all the male and female ninjas rolled into one, respectively. You can also fight every single one of these characters via the Kombat Kode system.
  • Chrono Trigger DS had an Alternate Final Boss, the Dream Devourer, which has ties to the final boss of Chrono Cross, the Time Devourer. It is unlocked after you clear all three of the Bonus Dungeons that appear after you defeat the normal Final Boss.
  • The bounty bosses in Skies Of Arcadia Legends. They are also That One Boss - because even for a bonus boss their difficulty is sadistic.
    • However the Rewards some of them leave make the rest of the game piss easy Captain's Hat + Berzerker Mail anyone?
  • Ragu o Ragula in all of the Wild ARMs games for Play Station, PS 2, and PSP. Angolmois, or, as it's more commonly misromanized, Angol/Angel Moa also appears in some of them. In fact, the Wild ARMs games have many bonus bosses, often found sealed in crystals found throughout the game. Ragu o Ragula is neatly incorporated into all of these titles as the sleeping demon who is fated to destroy Filgaia, centuries after the conflict-of-the-day is finished off. Big extra credit for overachieving heroes.
  • Gabriel Celesta and the Iseria/Isis/Ethereal Queen in Valkyrie Profile, the Star Ocean series, and Radiata Stories for Play Station and PS 2.
  • Demon Supreme Overlord Baal in Nippon Ichi's Marl Kingdom series, La Pucelle Tactics, Disgaea, Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, and Disgaea 2. In fact, most Nippon Ichi games let you fight characters from their other games as bonus bosses, and they're always at obscene levels. Laharl, Etna, and Flonne from Disgaea are all Bonus Bosses in Phantom Brave, for example. In many cases, defeating them will recruit them into your party. While the final bosses of the games tend to be at level 90-100, the bonus ones usually start somewhere around level 1000. That's start mind you. In "Etna Mode" of the new Disgaea PSP remake, Baal is literally level 9999.
    • Mind you, that's not all that impressive. He's actually the third level 9999 boss you've fought by then. He does, though, have about 3 or 4 times the stats of the last one, on an area that randomly clones one character a turn (friend or foe, but clones are all foes), triples all enemy stats, stops all special abilities, and prevents lifting.
  • They exist in pretty much every Final Fantasy game:
    • Ruby Weapon and Emerald Weapon in Final Fantasy VII.
    • Ultima and Omega, or Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon, appear in many of the games, including Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII. Omega also features prominently in Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. Ultima was a mandatory boss in Final Fantasy VII as well as Final Fantasy VI, under the name Atma Weapon. Omega and Ultima are storyline bosses in XI's Chains of Promathia expansion, and are Sequential Bosses to boot.
    • The Monster Arena monsters in Final Fantasy X, and the Dark Aeons and Penance in the International version.
    • The Via Infinito monsters, led by Paragon and Trema, in Final Fantasy X-2, which are rather nasty for causing status effects even if you're immune to them.
    • Hell Wyrm, Yiazmat, Behemoth King, Zodiark, Omega Mk. XII, etc. in Final Fantasy XII.
      • FinalFantasyTacticsA2 had Upsilons A1 (lvl'd somewhere in the 60s) and A2 (lvl 96) and the Level 99 mage clan.
    • Final Fantasy I had a special secret random encounter boss that was only able to be encountered on the walkway heading towards Tiamat. The boss was a mecha named Warmech and had damage capabilities surpassing Tiamat.
      • The remake in Dawn of Souls for the GBA included optional dungeons with bosses from III, IV, V, and VI, although only Omega and Shinryu from V were much harder than the regular Final Boss.
    • Final Fantasy IV had four optional boss fights against Phantom Beasts: Ashura, Leviathan, Odin, and Bahamut. Only one of these was particularly difficult. The others required very specific strategies rather than a higly leveled party to defeat, making them closer to Puzzle Bosses than anything else. This was fitting, as the battles were intended to be tests of your skill. Furthermore, several powerful weapons and armor in the final dungeon are guarded by horribly powerful Palette Swap bosses, including one that hits the entire party with unblockable Doom when the fight starts (giving you a time limit before Total Party Kill).
      • The GBA version added some more, most notably, a modified version of Easytype Zeromus.
      • The DS remake removed most of those added by the GBA version, but features two new optional bosses only accessible through New Game Plus - Geryon and Proto-Babil.
    • Final Fantasy VI had Itangir, a random encounter which only appears before The End Of The World As We Know It, before any of the spells you could use to defeat it reasonably easily are available. Though this may qualify more as a Puzzle Boss...
      • Final Fantasy VI Advance adds the bonus boss Kaiser Dragon, a monster that was Dummied Out of the original game and, due to having an associated monologue, seems to have been intended to have been a bonus boss in the original version, but to have been cut for time.
      • In addition to Kaiser Dragon, the entire Bonus Dungeon leading up to him is full of bonus bosses, in the form of souped-up versions of the Eight Dragons, each much stronger then other bosses in the game.
      • There are also three new boss espers - Leviathan, Gigantuar and Gilgamesh.
      • Also, there are five bosses found wandering in a pit within the Dragon's Den - Dark Behemoth, Abyss Worm, Gargantua, Earth Eater, and the Malboro Menaces. All but the Malboros are relatively easy to take down, though. On the other hand, you have the three bosses-in-chests: Neslug, Plague, and the Flan Princesses, which use massive recovery, Doom to all, and Berserk to all, respectively.
    • Final Fantasy V had two of these, Omega and Shinryu, both who gave trinkets praising your deed upon death, and who made Neo Exdeath look like a marshmallow peep in comparison.
      • Final Fantasy V Advance was especially brutal with these, creating an entire Bonus Dungeon full of them. This included such prestigious opponents as Enuo, the frickin' original creator of The Void, which was the Mac Guffin that was Exdeath's entire goal, and something that he couldn't control in the end; Omega MK II and Neo Shinryu, souped-up versions of the bonus bosses of the original game, both of whom made their originals look like marshmallow peeps in comparison (Omega MK. II was very notable, housing a huge floor full of copies of Omega, each one as strong as the bonus boss of the same name, proving just how much stronger the players had to be to stand a chance)
      • Keep in mind that all of this being harder than the rest of the game is no mean feat - this was, after all, the Final Fantasy that was denied release outside of Japan first time around due to being too hard.
    • Ozma (unique in that his difficulty has little to do with inflated stats and almost everything to do with proper strategizing, albeit with more than a hint of Guide Dang It) and Hades in Final Fantasy IX. Kinda complementary - Hades turns out to be a legendary synthesist, and one of the rewards for beating Ozma is something you can synth off to obtain Ark, the ridiculously over-the-top summon.
    • Final Fantasy XI actually has a entire class of monsters for this: Notorious Monsters. While some are actually related to a quest or mission story, the vast majority of them only exist to kill for epik lootz and The Ridill.
      • Final Fantasy XI undoubtedly has the most vicious on this list. One guild attempted to kill the newest boss, "Pandemonium Warden," but gave up after fighting it for eighteen straight hours. Then there's Absolute Virtue, which has never been beaten without the dev team completely removing the method for doing so after it's been found. Ever.
  • Sephiroth (bragging rights), Ice Titan (bragging rights), Kurt Zisa (bragging rights), and the Clock Tower Phantom (gives you the last Stop spell upgrade) in Kingdom Hearts, as well as many of the tournaments. Likewise Sephiroth in the sequel.
    • In an added-content remake of the sequel, Kingdom Hearts II, the Bonus Boss cast included multiple difficulty separate versions of most of the villainous cast, including the ones who had died in a previous game. Not to mention an unplayable scene near the end of the game becomes an actual boss fight.
      • There's also an unknown Keyblade-wielding boss that's presumably one of the protagonists of Birth By Sleep can be found in Disney Castle. He's ''THE hardest boss in the entire game.
    • A similar remake of the original Kingdom Hearts featured a slightly redone Sephiroth as well as a new bonus boss named Unknown. This boss was later revealed in the sequel to be Xemnas of Organization XIII
    • In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, there's Dustflier. He can be found before beating the game, in a late-game mission where the goal is to defeat six bosses scattered through Twilight Town in succession, and only appears after all six are dead. And while you can complete the mission by only taking out the first six, you have to go and finish Dustflier to fill up the extra portion of the Mission Gauge, which is part of Hundred Percent Completion. (Fortunately, 358/2 allows you to redo missions at will.)
  • Mewtwo in the original Pokemon games, Red in the second generation (though it's debatable whether he's this or Final Boss, since the credits roll after you win), and Steven in Emerald version.
    • The fourth-gen games also give us Heatran, Giratina, Cresselia, and Regigigas; four legendaries that can only be encountered after you've beaten the main storyline and obtained the National Dex.
    • Lati@s and Rayquaza in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Rayquaza can be captured before you take on the Elite Four in Emerald.
    • Mew could also be considered a Bonus Boss, as he's only available via a glitch in the original Red/Blue versions.
    • In the first 2nd Generation games, the legendary that's not your version mascot also counts as a Bonus Boss; in Crystal, both Ho-oh and Lugia also count, with Lugia being only available by talking to a man in Pewter City and Ho-oh only being available by catching the Legendary Beasts.
  • Kangaxx in Baldur's Gate 2, who could only be hit by +4 weapons, and, in his demilich form, could cast the annoying insta-kill spell Imprisonment at will, which had the tendency to mess up romances if your love interest got hit. In the expansion pack Throne of Bhaal, the Bonus Boss was Demogorgon, an incredibly powerful demon imprisoned at the bottom of Watcher's Keep.
  • Divine Dragon / Divinegon in Dragon Quest III became available to fight after beating the game. You even needed to beat him five times to gain access to all of his wishes.
    • The Game Boy Color version of this game introduced yet another bonus boss, GranDragn. Getting to this boss required you to complete such a long, boring, and ridiculous fetch quest that even the most hardcore and dedicated gamers have never seen him.
  • God in Dragon Quest VII. Seriously.
  • The Dragon King in Dragon Quest VIII.
  • In the Sa Ga series of games, most of the game is optional, including many of the bosses. Saga Frontier does have a few optional bosses who are particularly difficult, including the Earth Dragon in the Bio Research Lab, and cheating bastard Jotnar, who likes to employ his most powerful attack four consecutive times on his second turn.
  • The Bonus Boss of Golden Sun, an undead pirate found at the bottom of Crossbone Isle, was of the 'purely bragging rights' persuasion of Bonus Bosses. The four Bonus Bosses of the sequel, The Lost Age, granted you incredibly powerful Djinni Summons after beating them. The last of these Bosses could only be reached if you had acquired all the Djinni in both games.
    • Deadbeard does guard the first game's most powerful armor... though the fact that it's cursed takes away some of its usefulness.
      • The Cleric's Ring, which eliminates the negative effects of cursed equipment, is acquired shortly before Deadbeard.
  • Paper Mario has Bloopers, who show up every time you find a new short cut in the sewer. Kent C. Koopa also blocks a road and makes you pay to pass, beating him lets you pass for free. Then there is a Dojo, where you can fight for bragging rights. The final blooper, Kent C. and the Dojo Master could all give Bowser a run for his money if he didn't have the star rod.
  • Bonetail in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is literally more powerful than the game's final boss and requires going through 99 battles to reach him.
    • 90, as you don't fight anything on floors numbered with a multiple of ten, except the last. And that's if you didn't meet any Movers along the way, to say nothing of if you took them up on their offers. But yeah. The best is if the battle on Floor 99 leveled you up.
    • The next game, Super Paper Mario doubled it, though the first of the two bonus bosses was really another version of the game's first boss.
      • Not to mention to even face the second boss, you have to clear a dungeon filled with even stronger enemies that are all pitch black, making distinguishing subtypes near impossible without Tippi/Tipptron until it's too late. twice
  • Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story has several: The Shroob trio, the X bosses and Bowser X.
  • Tales Of Symphonia had at least 6 hidden bosses (Seles, Abyssion, Maxwell, three former Tales characters, and the Sword Dancer, and the Living Armor at the end of Forbidden Anamnesis), the second of which gives you weapons that makes the rest of the game ridiculously easy - as if it weren't already for anyone powerful enough to defeat him in the first place.
    • Abyssion is actually really easy to defeat, if you use Colette's Toss Hammer.
    • Tales Of Phantasia had Pluto, who gave you his summon, and Odin, who is also a Duel Boss. Apparently, he really was that Odin.
      • Only in the remake, the original had neither of these. It did have a long, hard Bonus Dungeon though.
    • Tales Of Eternia had Dhaos Sekundes, the summon of Time, although you didn't have to beat him to enlist his services. Maxwell and Shadow were also technically optional, but you did have to beat them. Cless gives you his bandanna and the Eternal Sword if you beat him in the Arena, and Valkyrie stands before a lot of treasure chests. Things like this make Eternia end up a very long and interesting game.
      • The true bonus boss of Tales of Eternia is Nereid Regulus, and he lives up to that reputation too. He's the only boss this troper has yet to beat on Hardcore without using an all-divide.
    • Tales Of Vesperia has the "Traitor to the Heavens" ( Kratos fulfilling the role of a cameo boss). It also has a bit of an odd case with the Radient Winged One, who, while entirely optional, if the player opts to fight him, ends up as the last boss anyway.
    • Tales Of The Abyss contains Nebilim, who's practically impossible to beat on your first playthrough.
  • Akuma is usually a bonus boss in the games where he isn't the True Final Boss, particularly in Street Fighter Alpha 2 (as Shin Akuma) and in X-Men: Children of the Atom.
  • The four-legged Dragons (not to be mistaken with the two-legged wyverns) in Monster Hunter as well as Kirin the lightning unicorn.
  • Legion, Nucleouos, and Golden Bones in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. The former are more hidden than ultra-difficult, but the last...
  • In most Super Robot Wars games, there is a final mission and boss only available if you fulfil certain conditions, mostly either through finishing the game until this point within a certain amount of turns, or reaching this point while in hard mode.
    • Rarely, there will be bonus bosses that can be fought in earlier stages, as well. These are usually powered-up versions of the boss you would normally fight, or an extra boss you normally wouldn't fight. Possibly the most notable example is that, after fulfilling certain conditions in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2, after defeating Char , he will come right back in the even more powerful Nightingale, a souped up version of his normal unit, the Sazabi.
  • In addition, Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2, one of the early missions tasked you with escaping from three bosses that you aren't expected to beat until the end game with a full party. Naturally, you only have three medium-level units and a battleship to fight these near-final bosses with. However, if you stick around and manage to beat them, their leader breaks the fourth wall to praise the player, and then after a minute gives up a whole load of special weapons and items to "shut you up and make you grateful".
  • Geese Howard in the Real Bout Fatal Fury games. He dies in the first game, only to come back as "Nightmare" Geese later on (it's implied that the Nightmare Geese battles take place in the player character's mind, as Geese has an odd aura around his feet, enhanced powers, and gets up and laughs at the player even if defeated).
  • In the Mega Man Battle Network series, there is so much extra content and so many bonus bosses that the time taken to defeat them is longer than the main story line. In all of them, however, you face Bass/Forte. Unlike other continuities, here he is a god-like Bad Ass.
    • The sequel series Mega Man Star Force is similar, although it doesn't take nearly as long to do so. Usually there's a secret area after beating the Final Boss where you have to fight upgraded forms of each boss in the game, followed by an all-new secret boss. After doing that, the storyline's final boss is upgraded, with it being the truly strongest boss in the game. The only exception to this is the second game, where after beating the upgraded final boss, you fight an upgraded Rogue after the credits finish.
  • Mega Man X Command Mission, meanwhile, had two Bonus Bosses plus another set of nine. Rafflesian and Duckbill Mole gave X, Zero, and Axl new abilities that were useful in what remained of the game by that point. Ninetails and the preceding eight Tails Clan members, on the other hand, could only be fought after beating the final boss, making the rewards for beating them pretty much worthless.
  • The 3 Golden Pigs at the end of the Bonus Dungeon (Mull's Dungeon) in Atelier Iris, which are significantly more difficult than the final boss.
  • In Atelier Iris 2, the fights at the Dragon's Nest, particularly the last one against 3 Instant Brownies. However, while they are more powerful than the last boss, the overly-easy battle system makes them no more difficult than anything else, provided the player has stocked up on resurrection items.
  • Lost Planet features a Bonus Boss, but it's rather unusual. Relatively early in the game, you encounter a giant worm Akrid that can kill you in one hit and take a massive amount of damage. You're expected and encouraged to run from it... but if you want the challenge, you can fight it and beat it, effectively making it a Bonus Boss. There's even an Achievement — a form of Cosmetic Award featured in Xbox 360 games — for doing so. There's also a Moth Akrid a bit later on.
  • Crazy Hand and Giga Bowser, from Super Smash Bros Melee.
  • While not a "boss" in the traditional sense of the word, this bonus level from Guitar Hero III, featuring DragonForce's "Through The Fire And Flames", may be harder to beat than any of the above examples.
  • Breath Of Fire 3 had the Berserker, difficult because it attacked for three to four hundred damage, and often attacked several times before any of your characters got to. Worse, it was a random encounter on the way to getting one of your dragon genes, and was a normal monster.
    • And in the same area was an even tougher Bonus Boss, the Arch Mage. He has far less HP than Berserker (only about 3,000 compared to the Berserker's 15,000), but regenerates 1,500 of it every single round, which is more than most casual players can deal in a single round, and is capable of hitting just has hard as Berserker. In fact, if you have one living and two dead characters, Arch Mage will USE A SKILL THAT REVIVES THE TWO CHARACTERS. Presumably, he does this simply as a means of embarrassing you further.
  • Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter had Dover, who was the final boss in the Bonus Dungeon. As long as you have a high enough level (around 50) he's not that bad. The only problem is is that his defense switches from regular ol' attacks to Dragon defense. So you're time limit is based on how much you have left on the D-Counter. Lin's/Rin's "Shatter!" technique is particularly effective here.
  • Culex from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. He appears as a boss character you'd expect to find in a Final Fantasy game although he has never made an appearance in one.
  • Soul Calibur 3 is another rare example of a fighting game with a bonus boss. The arcade and Tales Of Souls modes will almost always be fought against Zasalamel's demonic form; Abyss, but an even stronger opponent called Night Terror can be fought. Night Terror will replace Abyss if the player encounters and defeats Olcadan before arriving at the cathedral where the last few battles take place. Night Terror can also be fought in the 'Final Battle' mission of the games challenge mode
  • The boss of the Engine Room in Super Mario Galaxy is technically a Bonus Boss, because getting to the final boss only requires unlocking the Engine Room and collecting 60 stars (from anywhere). Of course, it is required to beat this boss for Hundred Percent Completion, as beating it opens up the last few levels.
  • The Demi-Fiend battle in Shin Megami Tensei game Digital Devil Saga, quite possibly one of the hardest bosses in the history of JRPGs, if not the hardest boss. Not only will he instantly kill you in the first turn if you have a "forbidden" move set, but the strategy required to defeat him requires a very specific use of one usually worthless skill that you would never use in the main game. I have no clue how anyone could figure this out without the use of a strategy guide. Beating him gets you a useful accessory that you can only use in the sequel.
    • Satan in the sequel is likewise enormously difficult, if a lot less so than the Demi-Fiend. Anyway, even without their instant kill skills, both are beastly difficult — you need to cap out your major stats to even have a fighting chance and then there's the actual strategy involved... which simply fails half the time due to bad luck.
  • Persona 3 has Elizabeth, although she can only be fought on the second playthrough after finishing all of her requests. Although she seems to be nothing more than a thin blonde girl with a taste for 80's dresses, she is the most powerful foe in the game, can only be fought one-on-one (she'll kill any other party members right away), gets to attack twice every turn (where you can only attack once), has multiple personas and powerful attacks, and heals herself completely when at low health. Even worse, if any of her attacks are nullified, reflected or absorbed (which they invariably will be, considering her attack rate and huge range of attacks), she goes berserk and spams a 9999-damage attack (out of max possible HP of 999) nonstop until you die. Amusingly enough, the Updated Rerelease version of the game features an upgraded version of your starter Persona which seems to be tailor-made to fight her as it resists every type of attack, giving you a good overall defense against anything she tosses out and avoiding driving her berserk.
    • Even with the proper setup, Elizabeth's battle is still a Luck Based Mission, due to a passive counter move you need on your persona. The luck comes from whether it decides to kick in if she uses a physical attack on her next turn when her HP is 10,000 or close to that. If it does on her first turn, she'll just heal herself to full, thus making all your progress go down the drain.
    • While nowhere near as insane as Elizabeth, the Reaper that can be fought in both version of P3 is no slouch when it comes to making a normal player tear their hair out. Fond of casting spells that hit the whole party for 700-800 damage and going insane on unblockable "almighty" spells if the player sets up reflecting items. This one is arguably more infuriating to the average player due to the fact that he appears when the player spends to long in Tartarus, the games central randomly generated dungeon.
  • Persona 4 continues the tradition with Margaret. While you can bring in party members and she won't (immediately) wipe them, she's just as frustrating. Nice changes include only healing once. She'll still 9999 Megidolaon you if you bring in a forbidden item, and dump lesser ones on you every 50 turns. She'll also exploit 1 More relentlessly if you give her the chance in the pattern.
  • Devil Survivor brings in the Fallen Morning Star, Lucifer, for its battle. While insanely difficult (infinite range, level 99, etc.), beating him does give you the ability to fuse him. Most people just take advantage of the fact that Recarm gives the revived the next turn to attack, and just suicide run him.
  • Most of the bosses in Dead Rising are Bonus Bosses. And the handful you do have to fight to complete the game are all That One Boss. The game is hard.
    • Technically you don't have to do any of the bosses. To finish the game you just need to be alive when the time runs out. You only need to do the quests if you want Ending A.
  • Tholapsyx, the red dragon from Neverwinter Nights 2. Quite possibly the hardest boss in the game, thanks to her size and fire attack; buffing the entire party (preferably with Energy Immunity: Fire and Stoneskin) and micromanaging spellbooks is almost mandatory, as opposed to the final bosses, whom you can just whack with sheer force if the party is well-equipped. The reward is 200,000 gold for your keep plus an insane amount of loot, including a cool weapon for paladins and clerics who bothered to take a certain quest in the keep.
    • The expansion pack has its own bonus boss, a seemingly harmless badger spirit that turns into a Gigantic Angry Badger of One-hit-kill Doom if you manage to anger it. Killing it nets one one of the only items in the game to grant permanent haste status (baring the time consuming item crafting).
  • Etrian Odyssey has four post game bonus bosses. The three dragons and primevil. Each dragon has a breath weapon that can instantly wipe out your party on turn one. You can't beat them without having a protector with antivolt/antifire/anticold lvl.5, and primevil has all three of those instant death attacks, so your protector has to have all three anti skills, and you need a turn guide so you know when to use which antimove. And you can still out right die if he uses his "disable all skills of all characters" move. You had to pray he didn't use it, or kill him very quickly. Good times, good times.
  • Panthera Cantus from The World Ends With You is the toughest boss in the entire game; that bastard's tough even on Easy level! It has the highest attack power of all the Noise and two separate bodies; a tiger on top and a lion on the bottom. Trying to avoid getting creamed by both at the same time makes the fight quite epic if not frustrating.
    • In addition, there are "Boss Noise" on various days, blue Noise symbols that lead to fights against much stronger Noise than average. For Hundred Percent Completion, you have to beat them all on Hard. Feel free to whimper.
      • And in addition to THAT, additional Boss Noise symbols appear on various days after beating the game. This is more of a convenience for those going for Hundred Percent Completion, since you don't have to go through the entire chapter to fight the boss again, and can retry the fight if you didn't get what you were looking for.
      • Unfortunately, some of these bosses were timed fights, so on your first time through you won if you managed to survive 30 seconds. No such escape clause in the post-game, and many of these bosses are still intimidating, even having killed the final boss.
  • The Black Rabite from Seiken Densetsu 3. Evil in its cutest form!
  • Icewind Dale II has two of these, both within the same chapter. The first is a black dragon in the "Crossroads", which can be killed to close the teleport to Kuldahar. Players don't actually have to fight it, and can achieve their goal in a much easier way, but the difficulty of the battle alone makes it worth it for many players. The other boss is the Six Lost Followers, in the Kuldahar graveyard. This is regarded by many to be the hardest fight in the game, because A) there are six different enemies to fight at once, B) they are several levels higher than your party, and C) because each has only a few specific weaknesses, being immune to all other forms of attack, and with the weaknesses being different between each member. Victory gives the player the Holy Avenger, the arguably the best weapon in the game. Unfortunately, this pisses off quite a few people itself, as the weapon can only be wielded by a Paladin, meaning that there is no reward for anyone without a Paladin in their party.
  • The Gundam RPG MS Saga has Ultima Gundam and Omega Gundam, made from a mix of parts from G Gundam and Gundam Wing mecha respectively. Their names are obvious homages to Final Fantasy's perennial Bonus Boss pair, Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon.
  • Live A Live features several bonus bosses. The caveman chapter has King Mammoth, who offers a decent reward in the King's Fang, as well as the randomly dropped "Soda." The ninja chapter has two, one which offers a weapon that you can also get at the end of the chapter if you don't kill anyone, and another that drops an item that can deal a decent amount of damage if used in battle. The final chapter has about five, four of which drop the most useful equipment in the game.
  • The Four Sword Links in the Zelda: Link to the Past port on the Gameboy Advance. Each Link had some abilities that Link could use, such as the Hurricane Spin, the Magic Cape, etc. Beating them was purely for bragging rights.
  • Parasite Eve had a few in the Chrysler Building. While most of the bosses are color swaps of the storyline bosses, the giant cockroach and giant bee were exclusive to the building. The original Eve is at the very top of the building and defeating her gets you a different ending.
  • Lost Odyssey has seven: Persona, King Kelolon, the Cave Worm, the Blue Dragon, the Holy Beast, Legendary Spirit Sorcerer Fu and The Immortal One in the Backyard.
    • Players with access to X Box Live can get a new downloadable dungeon with an extra boss Professor K, aka The Killalon.
  • Gradius Gaiden has one, in a way. Normally, on Stage 8, you face six bosses, but play it on the second loop of the game to face a seventh: the Beam Spammin' Heaven's Gate.
  • While it's part of the natural plot, Chrono Trigger has Lavos at the Ocean Palace. It's meant as a Hopeless Boss Fight, but there's still the potential to defeat it with enough skill and planning.
    • The Updated Re Release adds in some more traditional ones, including evil clones of Crono, Lucca, and Marle, a rematch with Dalton, and the Dream/Time Devourer.
  • In any version of Initial D Arcade Stage, defeating every opponent in Legend Of The Streets mode will take you to a free battle with Bunta Fujiwara. He is extremely difficult to beat, often sporting Rubber Band AI. Whether or not you defeat him, the credits will roll afterwards.
  • Always present in Touhou games. The fans would probably riot and destroy Tokyo if ZUN ever released a "proper" Touhou game without one.
    • Perfect Cherry Blossom had an extra Extra Stage.
    • Lampshaded in the 11th game, Subterranean Animism. When playing as the Marisa/Alice combo, there's a conversation along the lines of: "Why are we here again? We already beat the final boss." "It's the Extra Stage, just do it."
  • Grandia Xtreme, rather than a new and unique boss, gave you the chance to go back to the old dungeons after beating the final boss, and in one of them you can fight a super-powered level 200 version of a boss you already faced.
  • Most MMORPGs have such things: Giant Monsters in City Of Heroes, world/raid bosses in Everquest and World Of Warcraft. Some are 'storyline' bosses, of course, but a lot of them are easily skippable.
  • zOMG features the Landshark, which appears semi-randomly in Gold Beach. The Landshark is one of the only charge level 10 (max CL) monsters in the game, and features insane attack power, extremely high HP, and attacks that can take up almost the entire screen. If you see one, running is advised.
    • A Recent update nerfed the Landshark to more manageable levels. (It's now only CL 7). However, a gamut of new bonus bosses were added in it's stead, as well as "Challenge" versions of all Instance Bosses. While none of these (With the exception of Sea Witch and Labtech X) are CL 10, they have the added difficult of only being vulnerable to individuals below a certain charge level. Meaning that players wishing to battle Airshark need to suppress their CL to level 2.
  • The Smokey Progg in Pikmin is one of these, as you have to go out of your way to find it and it drops an object that produces 100 Pikmin when it dies. It has the difficulty to match as well: just touching its slime trail can kill several Pikmin at once, and any Pikmin attacking the Progg will probably be thrown right into it.
  • The Whip's Memory, an image of Richter Belmont in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, is part of a ritual to unlock the true power of a weakened Vampire Killer whip. Unlike the rest of the game, you can only battle this boss with Jonathan. Thankfully, "dying" in this battle just boots you out of the battle with full HP and MP instead of yielding a Game Over.
    • The entire Nest of Evil with his plethora of borrowed bosses and new enemies.
  • Dynamite Headdy has a Bonus Boss called "The Money" that is unlockable with a password you get by beating the bonus game four times.
  • The Updated Rerelease of The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening for Game Boy Color featured a Bonus Dungeon based on color. The boss of the dungeon wasn't more difficult than the other bosses, but could only be defeated by knowing the color of his clothing and attacks. Trying to beat him on an ordinary, grayscale Game Boy would be impossible.
  • Monster Rancher Advance 2 features Ragnarok, a wandering, special Dragon who only appears after beating the final boss. He will only appear to fight you once a year, and only if you have a specific kind of monster on your farm. If you're not prepared to fight him on the week he comes to visit, too bad for you! His stats are extremely high (especially considering when your monster can first fight him), and he's tough.
  • World Of Warcraft also has its share of bonus bosses. The first one was Nightbane in Karazhan, where the only way to access him was to complete a certain quest chain. Wrath of the Lich King also introduced bonus bosses in some of the regular dungeons that are only accessible on Heroic difficulty. However, the WotLK bonus bosses tend to be much easier than the the Final Boss of their respective dungeons.
    • Just in case that isn't enough (likely, given how hardcore some fans of the game can be), many of these same bosses have special conditions that can be attained for Achievement points (AKA Bragging Rights Reward), which often turn fairly normal bosses into insanity. For example, two of these take place in dungeons where there are minibosses that you can kill to make the main boss easier; the achievement, though? All three get to stay up, one until you are fighting the main boss, the other until the main boss is dead.
    • The Temple of Atal'Hakkar (aka Sunken Temple) has the first bonus boss: The Avatar of Hakkar. You need to complete a quest chain to access him, too, and he's actually harder than the Dungeon's final boss, Erinakus the Dreamer.
  • The Trauma Center series has the X operations, which have you performing simulated/imagined/secret/God-knows-what operations involving Nintendo Hard variations of GUILT, Stigma, or Neo-GUILT.
  • La Mulana 's infamous Hell Temple has its own guardian, The Boss (no, not that one ), a giant blob with Naramura's (the game ideator) signature face that behaves a lot like the 4th boss of ''Maze Of Galious'' and summons smaller copies of himself that throw grenades around. Interestingly enough, The Boss falls victim to Boss Dissonance, since the level around him is THAT much more sadistic.
  • In the dungeon before the Point Of No Return in Legend Of Dragoon, you are given the opportunity to fight the spirits of the three dragons you defeated. They drop some useful attack items, and they're also guarding chests containing powerful equipment.
    • There's also the four Dragoon ghosts in Velwebb, and not to mention Magician Faust at Flanvel Tower, who is the most powerful enemy in the game. Beating him does get you a great reward though in the Phantom Shield along with 30,000 gold. Here's everything you have to go through to get to him, which definitely puts him in this trope by the above definition: Throughout the game, there is a side quest to collect a total of fifty stardust scattered throughout the continent. Every tenth stardust, when shown to the proper character, will give you a different item. The final item is a mirror that is required in order to face Faust. Faust is an insanely powerful Wingly who was second-in-command to Melbhu Frahma, but ends up being a dozen times more dangerous, possibly due to having been alive and studying/training for the entire time his "boss" has been asleep. You then have to find the entrance to Flanvel Tower, following a winding maze of teleporters just to get to the tower. If you do not have the mirror in your possession the first time you see him, he WILL kill everyone in your party with one blow a piece, and you will be unable to touch him. As it turns out, this first Faust is merely a projected image. The real Faust is able to cast his magic through the image even while being twice as deep in the dungeon. And so, obviously, you must finish the maze.
  • Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia gave you the option to fight the Chinese vampire, Jiang Shi, in the Large Cavern bonus dungeon. He's not very hard though, seeing as how proper use of Melio Scutum and any slashing Glyph would easily reduce his 6000+ HP down to nothing. Though this boss is interesting in the fact that when he dies, a seal is placed on his face, but if you break it off with an attack, he comes back to life, allowing you to fight him again as many times as you want. Not worth the attribute points though (30 , 60, or 120)
    • If you don't know the Melio Scutum trick, Jiang Shi becomes immensely difficult.
  • Riviera The Promised Land has Hades, the boss who only appear in the extra content section after you complete the game and obtained the Key to Hell from the Zombie Dragon in chapter 6. His Breakout does heavy damage, but he only attack once every 3 of your each character's turns (estimated), so if you keep healing yourself with elixer and attack him, he's a pushover. Of course, the final boss can has its HP brought down by 53% with Fanelia...
  • All the Gene Forge games have an 'Expert' level dungeon with the toughest Bonus Boss in the game. Most of them generate repeated creations to add to their attack power, and traps that deal extra damage unless the player has the skill to disable them or at the least reduce their effect. The worst is Gene Forge 4's Titan, which each time it was weakened to low health would shift to a new form, with a new set of attacks, defenses and vulnerabilities, requiring the player to have mastered a wide range of combat abilities. And of course, leaving the dungeon to rest also reset this Boss to it's original form and strength.
  • Versions 1.00-1.09 of Diablo II had the Cow King as a sort of Bonus Boss, though he was substantially weaker than the actual final bosses. Version 1.10 introduced Uber Diablo as a new Bonus Boss, and 1.11 introduced the Pandemonium Quest and Uber Tristram.
  • Galamoth in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has more HP than Dracula and hits really, really hard. Fortunately you don't have to beat him to meet the Count.
  • Bahamut Lagoon has special "side quests" - essentially single battles - available throughout the game. One of them, appropriately named Hard Dungeon, is only available in the last seven chapters and is far more difficult than the final boss.
  • Illusion Of Gaia has Solid Arm, a boss originally from the first game in the series, Soul Blazer, who's only fightable if you collect all fifty Red Jewels.
  • All three episodes of Xenosaga have some:
    • Episode 1 has four: two mechas, Din Gareth and Jin Gareth, the sharpshooter Great Joe, and Mintia, an evil version of MOMO.
    • Episode 2 has a metric-buttload of optional bosses encountered in the game's many sidequests.
    • Episode 3 has two mechas: Omega Universitas/Id, and Erde Kaiser Sigma. The latter is the only mecha in the game who's fought without the use of E.S.'s.
  • The Virtual On series has several of these, some exclusive to certain versions. In the first game, if you win all your battles by Time Over, you'll get a Warning message and then enter a special battle with Jaguarandi, a mutated version of Raiden that varies each time you fight it. When you first fight it, it's about the size of a Raiden or a Belgdor, and it's color is the opposite color of your mech. If you continue against it, it changes to a miniature toy-sized version that is colored purple, and its armor weakens severely (so much so that a close range attack from Apharmd will kill it instantly), and if you continue again it can be killed in 3 hits by Temjin's Beam Rifle! In the PS 2 version, if you beat all 8 virtuaroids in under 30 seconds, you will hear a special chime and fight the original Fei-Yen instead of Z-Gradt. This version of Fei-Yen is always in Hyper Mode, but its armor is not weakened and its attacks are more powerful than the regular Fei-Yen.
    • The sequel, Oratorio Tangram, has Ajim - a crystalline, transparent virtuaroid. To fight him, you must win all your battles with a Time Over. He will randomly appear between the 2nd and 5th stages, crashing down on your opponent and replacing it. His stats are beyond mortal comprehension, meaning that he's faster and stronger than all other virtuaroids, and all damage done to it is lessened to roughly 5/8 of the usual. Oh, and you can't beat him via Time Over either - if you try and do this you will lose automatically. Encountering him automatically unlocks him for regular play in the later revisions, but on the Dreamcast version 5.45, he was only playable by beating him, then beating the game, and holding both Turbo buttons on the Random select box on the latter half of each month.
      • FORCE, the 3rd installment, has Shadow versions of your team that you can fight by, once again, getting Time Overs. These Shadow V Rs are manifestations of a virus in the system, taking the forms of your V Rs and making them much stronger than the normal version. Jaguarandi also returns, but as the default mid-boss, and this time it becomes LUDICROUSLY HUGE, taking up over half of the arena. It's also a mutated Guarayakha now instead of a Raiden, trading in most of its long range advantages for godlike close range combat tactics. Ajim also appears, with a female version of it called Guerlain, but as the final boss.
  • In Mega Man Zero 3, a secret area in the second-to-last level that can only be opened by going into cyberspace, Zero will encounter Phantom, who died two games earlier, ready to fight him to test his worth as a hero. Victory will net the player the infinity plus one, er, boots.
  • In Mega Man ZX, there is a similar type of battle. I forget the details, but near the end of the game you can find Omega Zero, from the last battle in Megaman Zero 3, complete with famous quote. This battle is noteworthy for actually being HARD, not just "OMG he's level 500". Zero has taken steroids since the last game, and can defeat you in literally seconds if you're not quick with the fingers. Beating him gives you Model OX, who is - you guessed it, Omega Zero, complete with a crapload of awesome special moves and total badassery.
  • Both Galaxy Fight and Waku Waku 7, being made by SUNSOFT shared a common bonus boss named "Bonus-Kun", a punching bag (from "the Punching Bag Planet") with limited moveset who parodies Ryu. In Galaxy Fight after you defeat Felden you get to fight a final Bonus Boss in the form of Rouwe, an old man dressed in a karate gi.
  • Samurai Shodown 2 had a very tough Bonus Boss in Kuroko, whom you could either fight by meeting certain conditions, or just randomly after stage 3.
  • The enemy fountain from Defense Of The Ancients. It will fuck up anyone who goes in unprepared, and since The Enemy Gate Is Down its destruction is completely unnecessary.
  • Lots of missions in the Ace Combat games feature enemy aces whose defeat is not necessary for mission completion. Unlike traditional examples of the trope they're not really harder than the compulsory aces. On the other hand, there is a more traditional one in Mobius One and his Raptor, who would be encountered in an Ace difficulty run of the Gauntlet if you did well enough. Similarly are Scarface One and ZOE Commander in a certain Skies of Deception mission.
  • Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Alrevis had 5 Bonus Bosses in total: four that were cameos from other Gust games, and the fifth is a Palette Swap of the True Final Boss. Each of them are fought individually, but later three of them can team up for a sixth battle, which can be very difficult if the player's not prepared. The only saving grace for that battle is their common vulnerability to a physical attack.
  • International Super Star Soccer Deluxe for the SNES introduces a bonus match against an All-Star team with perfect stats after you win the World Series. Not only is this team supremely talented, but all your players are tired or very tired.
  • After beating Machinedramon and finishing the main story in Digimon World, you can continue the story and find a new level with high powered Mook Digimon. At the end is Machinedramon once again, only this time his health is maxed out at 9999 and his stats are also quite high. This is all for bragging rights.
  • The Legend Of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon has Elite Enemies in every chapter. They look like normal enemies with a few modifications. They're not. They're hard to damage, let alone kill...
  • Fatal Frame has a particular optional boss only on the Xbox version. A samurai ghost named "Armoured Warrior" who only appears on the final night on the hardest difficulty, who can instantly kill you if he touches you AT ALL. Oh, and he's fully invisible too.
    • And he can't be pushed back with a critical shot like every other ghost can be so he's ALWAYS coming towards you without stopping. Again, being invisible, you can't see him but rather HEAR him, unless you get a shot of him fading in and out quickly while looking through the camera, which is the only real way to defeat him.
  • No More Heroes has Henry who pops up at the end for a truly long and frustrating battle.
  • One Must Fall has a few.
    • In the One Player story mode, there's Fire and Ice. To take on Fire, you need to be playing on at least the hardest non-hidden difficulty, beat your opponent on the Fire Pit arena, do a destruction on them, and enter a robot-specific code. If playing on the very hardest difficulty, beat Fire and do the destruction and code again and you can fight Ice. These two are extremely hard to beat, but the devs reward you generously for doing so. Normally the end of round bonuses on the hardest difficulty are 400,000 points. For Fire, they're 2 million points, and for Ice they're 20 million points. Good luck getting a perfect round against Ice. The only way to not take any damage from him is to not take any hits at all, as he can still damage you even when blocking.
    • In the tournament mode, there are various unranked challengers in each tournament. All of them are hard, and most require you to be playing on the hardest difficulty. If they're going to show up, they'll challenge you after doing a destruction on some other opponent. There's at least one occasion when one unranked challenger will challenge you after beating another unranked challenger, too.
  • Borderlands has some in the optional side quests, some of which like Mothrakk and Marley and Moe can reach That One Boss status.
  • While it's "only" a Mod, the Knights of the Old Republic Brotherhood of Shadow has a flashback to Malachor V. You're pretty much stripped of all your gear, and have to re-create the single-combat against Mandalore that ended the Mandalorian Wars. Comparatively, the canonical Final Boss fight against Malak is nothing.
  • Armed Police Batrider has a crapton of Bonus Bosses, all of which appeared in the Mahou Daisakusen series and Battle Garegga. Said bosses include Bashinet, the Stage 1 boss of Mahou, and Black Heart, the Stage 5 boss of Garegga that, thanks to the stage edit feature, you can fight as early as Stage 2.
  • Mother 3 features several. First there is Lord Passion who carries Duster's Infinity Plus One Shoes, Lil Miss Marshmallow guards a decent weapon for that point of the game, and the King Statue is just there for experience and is ridiculously easy if you know what to do.
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