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Quirky Miniboss Squad / Video Games

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  • Ape Escape: The Freaky Monkey Five fits this to a tee: Blue Monkey, the unicycle-riding rebel; Yellow Monkey, the flamboyant sumo wrestler; Pink Monkey, the psychokinetic diva; White Monkey, the eccentric old mech maker; and Red Monkey, the brawny and flatulent leader.
  • The various antagonistic bomber teams from the Bomberman series starting with the Five Dastardly Bombers from Super Bomberman 2.
  • Brave Fencer Musashi had the Leader's Force, consisting of Ben, Ed, and Topo. They constantly fight amidst themselves over who is the leader of the three, Ben is so stupid it borders on being a disability, Ed phonetically spells out his stutters in letters, Topo is just a spoiled brat of an Idol Singer who basically got roped into fighting a war, and they spend most of their time dicking around stealing valuables from the town rather than actually accomplishing anything. The final level reveals, however, they're actually pretty deadly when they decide to stop messing about and actually engage Musashi.
  • Cannon Dancer has the Teki ("Barbarians"), a group of three elite warriors. Kirin, their former ally, battles each of them throughout the game (the order being determined by a pair of branching paths), then all at once in the final stage in a formation they call, "Die Rudeltaktik."
  • Cave Story's Balrog and Misery are a two-critter Quirky Miniboss Squad. Balrog fits this trope to a T, getting no respect, showing limited intelligence, and generally being amusing to the point of likeability. Misery fills the role of the Dragon squad-leader. You may think this doesn't add up to an entire squad, but Balrog is more than ample enough to make up for it...
  • Chrono Cross:
    • Solt and Peppor appear at seemingly arbitrary points in the game, their appearances never move the plot forward, and they are so much weaker then the party during their later appearance that they begin to border on Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain status. That is until they call out their superior, Karsh, for the murder of Dario, and actually do get serious. This fight is completely optional, and they actually make credible threats in this go around. During one (and only one) appearance in one of the many alternate story paths, they even have a third member — the hulking Ketchop, who to their dismay started using Solt and Peppor as weapons.
    • And then there's the Dragoon Devas, consisting of the aforementioned Karsch (with betrayal issues), Marcy (get your ass kicked by a 9-year-old Tyke Bomb), and Zoah (hulking, loud giant behind a mask). They at least join the party after a while.
  • Magus' three "sidekicks" from Chrono Trigger: Ozzie, Slash, and Flea. Although Slash on his own is a running candidate for That One Boss the first time he's fought on his own, all of the trio's other appearance, individually or as a group, are not that hard. The two times Ozzie is fought alone, he just puts up a barrier and sits there until you figure out that you need to hit a switch behind him to beat him. Even their optional three-on-three boss encounter during the endgame side quests is easy compared to some of the other sidequest bosses.
  • City of Heroes has several, including Lord Recluse and his lackeys, and also their lackeys, who being supervillains have plenty of natural quirks.
  • Criminal Case: The Conspiracy has the members of Junior Ad Astra. Unlike the more serious and dangerous members of the group's original incarnation — who happen to be rich and powerful individuals with great influence over the city —, Junior Ad Astra simply consists of a group of quirky college students with delusions of grandeur and fanaticism over the philosophy of the original Ad Astra, and even if they happen to commit a horrible crime together in The Climax of the district they appear in, it certainly doesn't manage to reach the level of evilness the original members indulge in during the course of the story. Fittingly, the members of Junior Ad Astra happen to be the Arc Villains of a Breather Episode coming right off after a massive Wham Episode Disc-One Final Dungeon.
  • Neo Contra has the titular group of the same name. Aside from their leader Master Contra, there's the Elite Four, which consists of Guerrilla Contra, Plant Contra, Pheromone Contra who is actually Lucia from Shattered Soldier, and Animal Contra.
  • Cuphead has a few among its many boss fights (on base and DLC), who are challenging like the rest of the game:
    • The Root Pack, a group of vegetables comprised of Sal Spudder, Ollie Bulb, and Chauncey Chauntenay (plus the Secret Boss Horace Radiche, if Ollie is spared). Collectively, they're a relative Warmup Boss.
    • The King's Court, a 9-boss gauntlet lead by King Dice (Dragon to the Devil), but the Tipsy Troop especially counts. Its members Rumulus, Ol' Ethan and Ginette are glasses with alcoholic drinks that look like they'll tip over any time, yet are among the toughest of the King's Court.
    • The Moonshine Mob is massive, with its chief members being their small snail boss, a spider, a lightbug, and an anteater, backed up by caterpillars, flies, and living barrels of booze. They're more of a kooky type of mafia, thus less tough than some fights.
  • The second Digital Devil Saga game has the Tribhvana, the Karma Society's elite guard. They're a trio consisting of the manic Air, the aggressive Heaven, and the stoic Earth. You fight them three times, though they're a lot less quirky the third time when Earth eats the other two alive to gain more power.
  • The Prism Rangers in the Disgaea series.
  • Exit Fate has two in one game: the Caretakers and the Commandos. The Caretakers get one group battle before the group fractures in their second encounter with the party (thanks to Boris' death and Orlando's Heel–Face Turn). The Commandos appear more often, but after defecting to Almenga they suddenly aren't so quirky.
  • Final Fantasy has some examples:
    • Final Fantasy IV: Sandy, Cindy and Mindy (Japanese: Dog, Mag and Rag), the Magus Sisters.
    • The Turks, a subdivision of the Shinra corporation, from Final Fantasy VII are a classic example.
    • In Final Fantasy VIII Raijin and Fujin, Seifer's two sidekicks with their funny speech patterns. Raijin ends every sentence with "ya know?", (including a moment of silence in the beginning of the game). Fujin uses one to two word phrases, and speaks in ALL CAPS. It's a plot point when, near the end of the third disk, Fujin speaks normally and asks you to bring the Seifer they know back.
    • Final Fantasy IX had court jesters Zorn and Thorn, who later turned out to be less "quirky" and more freaky. It also had the Black Waltz, a trio of elite Black Mages.
    • The four bosses from the Duelhorn storyline in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 appear to be pretty much this, but you never fight them together and they actually overthrow their superiors (that you never meet) at the end.
  • The Black Fang from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. And inside of it, the Four Fangs (one of its members, Jaffar, will go under a Heel–Face Turn and join your group).
    • The Fire Emblem series in general has used this trope in every game since Binding Blade, possibly earlier. Most of these squads have three or four members; of those, one is often recruitable, and one is often fought either in the endgame or the chapter right before it.
  • The Hell Hounds in the Galaxy Angel gameverse, although they're much more serious (and creepy) in the manga.
  • God Hand:
    • Mad Midget Five is a team of 5 midget Power Rangers with themes based around the suits of cards, led by Joker. Unlike most other Quirky Miniboss Squads, they are actually quite tough like all the other bosses in that game.
    • God Hand also has the Three Evil Stooges, who took Gene's arm in the game's backstory.
  • Nana, Saki and Mio in Grandia.
  • The Reborns from Iconoclasts are a group of three bosses who form a Fighter, Mage, Thief trio and serve as the sub-bosses for the One Concern East area of the game.
  • Every fifth sector in Jetpack Joyride 2 ends with a boss battle against three scientists, collectively known as "The Science Crew". They avert the Harmless Enemy trope used by almost every other scientist, though the three are still quite comical characters.
  • Pete has taken up the role of a one-man Quirky Miniboss in the Kingdom Hearts series from Kingdom Hearts II onwards.
  • In The King of Fighters, you have the Four Heavenly Kings of the Hakkesshu, headed by Leopold Goenitz, The Dragon to Orochi. Subverted with Ryuji Yamasaki, in that he is a member of the Hakkesshu, but couldn't care less about Orochi.
  • Kirby: Squeak Squad gives us the titular Squeak Squad, a band of mice thieves who are after the same treasures as you are. Many levels end with the Squeaks chasing you after you collect a large treasure.
  • Lollipop Chainsaw has the Dark Purveyors, who work as Co-Dragons for Swan. All of them have personalities that revolve around the music genres they're based on — Zed (Punk Rock) is a loud, foul-mouthed punk, Vikke (Viking Metal) is a boisterous zombie who fancies himself a viking warrior, Mariska (Psychedelia/Acid Rock) is a Horror Hippie stoned off her ass, Josey (Funk) is a party animal who enjoys dancing and playing video-games, and Lewis Legend (Classic Rock) is a flirtatious greaser who also is a trigger-happy sadist.
  • The MARDEK series has the World's Saviours, a second group of adventurers.
  • The Mega Man franchise has examples spread amongst its series:
    • Dr. Wily's lineup of goggley-eyed and quirky Robot Masters in the Mega Man (Classic) series.
    • The Mega Man Legends series has two sets. The first game introduced the Bonne family (Teisel, Tron, and their baby brother Bon) and their Servbots, and its direct sequel added a pair of Sky Pirates named Bola and Klaymoor.
    • Mega Man Zero gives us special cases:
      • The first two games had the Four Guardians, who each lead a specific section of the Neo Arcadian military. Harpuia leads the airborne division, Fefnir the ground troops, Leviathan the navy, and Phantom the stealth units and intelligence division. And they have expies in the four enemy MegaMen in the Sequel Series, Mega Man ZX (specifically, Advent). Each of them also have at least two generals under their command. Unfortunately, by Zero 3 Phantom is dead and the remaining three find themselves stripped of their positions to make way for...
      • Weil's Numbers are the new military commanders in Zero 3 after Dr. Weil convinces Copy-X Mk. II to make him the new head of military operations. Noticeably, the Numbers were formerly the Eight Gentle Judges of Neo Arcadia, tasked with overseeing the laws of the city-state, before Weil made them all Brainwashed and Crazy and recruited them as his muscle.
      • In Zero 4, with Dr. Weil having taken over Neo Arcadia but losing both Omega and the Numbers by the end of 3 at Zero's hands and saber, he creates a new squad out of the Einherjar Eight Warriors led by Commander Craft, tasked with destroying Area Zero or at bare minimum, run distraction on Zero and the Resistance while he prepares Operation Ragnarok.
    • Mega Man Battle Network 6 had Yuika's Lovelies The Justice Club The Cloudy Bombers the three minions who defected from WWW and can't agree on a new team name. The Darkloids (BlizzardMan, ShadeMan, CloudMan, and CosmoMan) from Battle Network 5 also qualify, though each of them works alone most of the time (and they didn't really provide any comic relief).
  • Most of the Metal Gear games have their own distinctive boss squad. However, they are portrayed relatively realistically, at least compared to other examples, replacing "quirky" with "homicidal", "batshit insane" and "nightmarish".
  • The Ninja Gaiden series has:
    • The Malice Four in the original NES game.
    • The Demon Clan in Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
    • The Four Great Beasts in Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
    • The Greater Fiends in the first two Xbox games.
  • Nintendo Wars: In Advance Wars games from Black Hole Rising and onwards, the Big Bad of the evil faction usually has one of these. Black Hole Rising has Sturm employing Flak, Lash, Adder and Hawke (with Hawke being The Dragon) and Dual Strike has Von Bolt employing Jugger, Koal and Kindle, with Lash and Hawke returning from the former game (Kindle is The Dragon this time around). And they are very quirky. In Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict there are two 'evil' sides and each of them are too small to truly count one of these as part of their number.
  • No Straight Roads has every artist that officially represents it, especially 1010, the local boy band comprised of five color-coded members and their manager. They're still just as challenging as any other boss fight.
  • Pokémon: Every game has its own antagonistic team, and sometimes there are a few notable executives that qualify for this trope.
    • Pokémon Yellow features Jessie and James from Pokémon: The Series.
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and their remakes feature Courtney and Tabitha for Team Magma and Matt and Shelly for Team Aqua.
    • Generation IV features Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, with Charon added in Platinum.
    • Generation VI features the Team Flare scientists; Aliana, Bryony, Celosia, Mable and Xerosic.
    • Pokémon Ranger has the Go-Rock Quads.
    • The sequel Shadows of Almia also has the Sinis Trio.
    • Its sequel Guardian Signs has the Pokémon Pincher Admin Trio. Two members play the trope straight, the other actually becomes the real Big Bad of the game.
    • Pokémon Colosseum: The four Cipher Admins: Ensemble Dark Horse Miror B., who uses a Rain Dance team; The Brute Dakim, who uses an Earthquake team; The Heart Venus, who uses a Non-Volatile Status Condition team; and Mad Scientist Ein, who uses a Toxic/Protect and Rain Dance/Thunder team.
    • Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness:
      • This game only has three Cipher Admins before reaching the Big Bad's lair: Lovrina, whose Valley Girl speech pattern disguises the fact that she's the Mad Scientist, and who mixes Ein and Venus's strategies; Large Ham Snattle, who favors Explosions; and The Brute Gorigan, who follows Dakim's example with an Earthquake team.
      • We also have the Hexagon Brothers, six grunts that are just a step above Mooks and color-coded by the Type of Pokémon they use: red Resix uses Fire, blue Blusix uses Water, brown Browsix uses Groundnote , yellow Yellosix uses Electric, purple Purpsix uses Poison, and green Greesix uses Grass.
  • The Minions of Saruin from Romancing SaGa. However they are not as quirky or bumbling like other minions in other games, since everything bad that has happened was because of their actions. You actually have to end up fighting all 3 in the final dungeon in the original SNES Version, but in the PS2 Remake you only had to fight one, however if you defeated all 3 in the final dungeon, then you have the same results as the SNES version
  • Silhouette Mirage has the Guardian Angels: Dynamis, Malak, Prinsdam, Gargantuan, Serah, Geluve, and Zohar.
  • Sin and Punishment: Star Successor has the Nebulox.
  • Skies of Arcadia's Admirals perform this role, forming bosses yet being completely pointless to the story, with a few notable exceptions.
  • Fiendish Five from Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus and the Klaww Kang from Sly 2: Band of Thieves, which also fit the Five-Bad Band trope. Averted by the villains of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, who are unaffiliated with one another. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time has Le Paradox's Gang.
  • The Kuvasz Special Operations team in Solatorobo, consisting of Totally Radical Kaluha, The Comically Serious Gren and Femme Fatale Operá.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Eggman's E-100 series, E-101 Beta, E-103 Delta, E-104 Epsilon and E-105 Zeta from Sonic Adventure (with a remodeled Beta as The Dragon). E-102 "Gamma" has a Heel–Face Turn and decides to rebel against his robot brothers.
    • Sonic Lost World has the Deadly Six, a group of Zeti under Eggman's control. However, about a third of the way into the game, Eggman loses that control and they become more of a Quirky Big Bad Squad.
    • The Hard-Boiled Heavies of Sonic Mania; a team of Eggrobos that were enhanced by the power of the Phantom Ruby and serve as bosses throughout the game in addition to Eggman himself. However during the True Final Boss, their leader, Heavy King, has had enough of Eggman's blundering and goes into business for himself, turning the final boss into a Dual Boss with Eggman and Heavy King fighting Super Sonic and to keep the Phantom Ruby from one another.
  • Star Fox 64 has Star Wolf, a group of four pilots in ships that were identical to your team's. They come back later with Amusing Injuries and Electronic Eyes piloting improved ships on the hard route (even if you didn't take the path where you fight them normally first). They also appear in the pretty much same way in Assault and Command, but with two of the original members gone and only one replacement, and with a dose of Defeat Means Friendship and Enemy Mine.
  • Pike the sadomasochist and Gillan the crossdresser from from the third Summon Night: Swordcraft Story game.
  • Super Lesbian Animal RPG has one of the main villains, Javis, create four "sons" using fragments of his life essence. Each one of them has a different set of Elemental Powers, Bigby can control the weather, Killer Ray can manipulate electromagnetic charges, Clintson has powers based on poison and decay, and Roy can manipulate time itself.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Inspectors from Super Robot Wars 3 and Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2 except for their leader Wendolo is portrayed this way, they even argue who is the leader of the four minor Inspectors.
  • The Super Smash Bros. series always has a mob of character models before you face the final boss; the first game has the Fighting Polygon Team, Melee has the Fighting Wire Frames, Brawl has the Fighting Alloy Team, and the fourth game has the Fighting Mii Team.
  • The Dark Knights in Tactics Ogre. Despite that most of them really aren't that quirky, some like Barbas do have a tendency to show off how powerful their discovery of a "gun" is only to shoot one of their own men.
  • Touhou Project tends to have single bosses rather than squads, but the Prismriver Sisters fall into this trope. Touhou fanworks also have "Team 9" led by Cirno, who are always getting into some manner of mischief or another.
  • Theo, Pontz, and Francine, the three demons in Treasure Hunter Man 1.
  • Umineko: When They Cry has the Seven Sisters of Purgatory, a team of red-eyed Ms Fanservices with Names to Run Away from Really Fast, each representing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Although they commit numerous murders, they're also just playful sisters that later are summoned by the protagonist's sister, Ange, as her only remaining friends. One of them lets the protagonist chase her around for stealing his breakfast, so "quirky" is a good word for it. They also like to smother Maria's stuffed lion-turned Sakutaro. Later on the Chiesters appear. And then the Eiserne Jungfrau show up.
  • Undertale has the Snowdin Canine Unit, a group of guard dogs who are dressed for war, but aren't all that sharp in the upstairs department.
  • Wild ARMs has the Quarter Knights (Belselk/Berserk, Alhazad, Lady Harken, and Zeikfried/Siegfried), who play with this trope a bit. Belselk is killed off early on in the game, only to be replaced by Boomerang. Also, when the Big Bad that they are trying to revive ends up wanting to destroy the world rather than conquer it, they betray her. Even after Mother revives herself and possesses Zeikfried, they still remain a prominent threat, rather than becoming a Goldfish Poop Gang. In fact, Zeikfried defies all odds and ends up surviving Mother's possession to become the final boss.
  • World of Warcraft uses this a LOT. This is largely because Big Bads in this game usually need to build armies, so they need at least a few boss-level minions. Usually each member of the squad commands an order or some other kind of faction within the Big Bad's evil army. Either that or they are at least working on separate projects because the Big Bad's plans tend to be very large scale. There are at least four examples, but the best known is the Shadow Council: composed of Gul'dan, Lord Banehollow, Cho'gall, Nagaz, Jergosh the Invoker, and Taragaman the Hungerer. They are certainly quirky, in that they have a wide diversity of abilities and are from several different cultures. They are the behind-the-scenes leaders of the First Horde in the original Warcraft games (through Warchief Blackhand), and after a slight change in membership appear in World of Warcraft ...as agents of the Burning Legion.
    • There's also the Four Horsemen from Naxxramas; they fight as a group but are very distinct from each other. Mograine is aggressive and martial, Lady Blaumeux is cruel and bloodthirsty, Thane Korth'azz insults the players, and Sir Zeliek is a good guy acting against his own will. They have arguments as the players approach, and each have their own comments and quips during the battle. In Wrath of the Lich King, Mograine is replaced by Baron Rivendare from Stratholme, who has pretty much the same role and personality.
  • The Elements from Xenogears. Much of their quirkiness is due to the interplay between ditzy Seraphita and Robot Girl Tolone, and Hot-Blooded Dominia and The Stoic Kelvena.
  • Xenosaga has the Testaments, a group of cloaked figures which are actually people who died, but were revived by Wilhelm
  • Ys IV (both the SNES and PC-Engine versions) has the Clan of Darkness, V has the three mages, and VI has the Fairies, who fight alongside Ernst in the penultimate battle.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction has the elite Neo Ghouls: Rare Hunter, Arkana, Strings, and Lumis and Umbra. It also has Pegasus's lackeys: Panik, Puppeteer of Doom, Mimic of Doom, the brothers Para and Dox, the illusions of Espa Roba, Bonz, Rex, Weevil, Mako and Mai, and the brainwashed Mokuba.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule GB, Mokuba, Weevil, Rex, and Mai are Kaiba's four Dark Masters and control the RPG Worlds housing one of Yugi's friends.

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