Misused: Recurring Boss Template

Where's the prefix for "underused" ?

Anyway, let us count the issues with this trope:

• It sounds like it's related to Recurring Boss, but it's not ... well, not strictly. You might call it the meta version of Recurring Boss.
• Some Square Peg Round Trope in the related usage. The definition of this trope is a boss battle whose format recurs series-wide, but it's got a handful of links treating it like "any resemblance between boss A and boss Z". And from a three-handful total that's significant. Let me quote a few:
  • Mega Man: "Guts Man's image is a blatant inspiration for large, bulky robot masters such as Stoneman."
    (This has no bearing on the actual boss battles. The shield- and Yellow Devil boss battles should have been noted instead, but curiously, they're not.)
  • New Super Mario Bros Wii: "All of the tower bosses, as well as the ones in six of the castles, attack with wands."
    (This also has no bearing on their actual battles.)
  • Robo Warrior: "Three of the game's bosses have the exact same strategy."
    (Single game, not a series)
  • Solomons Keep: "The Infernal (student difficulty), The Unincarnate (wizard difficulty), The Unsummonable (archmage difficulty) and The Unholy (demigod). You fight one of them right before Solomon Dark. They all use eye beams and fire walls, but a new attack is added for each proceeding difficulty."
    (Single game, not a series.)
• "[Trope Name] + Template" is a horrible title format anyway. This is a trope page, not a template page.

edited 23rd Feb '12 11:11:58 AM by Stratadrake

Well, it's not used a whole lot, and it's a few years old. It feels like it should be more prevalent.

I'd say the Yellow Devil boss battles are recurring over the series, as it is the same boss, more or less. Likewise, Dracula and Death are the very same people. And the Koopalings.

I'm not convinced this is a trope. "A game contains a boss that happens to resemble a boss in an earlier game".

If intentional, that is either a Recurring Boss or a Shout-Out. If not intentional, that is coincidence. In neither case do we need this page.

If intentional, that is either a Recurring Boss or a Shout Out.

Phantom Ganon and Ganondorf from Ocarina Of Time. 2 different guys, so not a Recurring Boss, and I don't see how you can make a Shout-Out to something that happened earlier in the same game. Oh, wait, they need to be in separate games? Why is that a requirement?

edited 23rd Feb '12 12:18:02 PM by abk0100

I don't see why they can't be a recurring boss if they're two different guys. Super Mario World has several bosses that are each other's siblings, but are mostly identical in terms of gameplay - that strikes me as recurring even if you do add a Palette Swap.

This is at least as tropable as Expy, except it's copying gameplay tropes rather than characterization tropes.

Within the same game or in a different game by the same developers, it's extremely unlikely that a boss that is suspiciously similar to a previous boss is a coincidence. They're re-using a formula they liked, they're reusing a formula players liked, they're too lazy to come up with something entirely new, or all three.

The way Recurring Boss is currently defined, it doesn't fit if they're different characters.

The Kingdom Hearts example, for instance, is neither a Recurring Boss (even if you count palette swaps) nor a Shout-Out.

edited 23rd Feb '12 12:33:53 PM by ccoa

Okay, so we have "boss who is the same guy as an earlier boss" and "boss who uses the same attack patterns as an earlier boss", which can be two different tropes that sometimes overlap. That could work.

Can't say I like this name, though. It sounds like it's "Recurring Boss plus one additional trait" but it's not.

Expy isn't strictly characterization, just similarity. They can look completely the same and act completely different(or vise versa). This is really just boss expy.

^ But if their characterizations don't match (to some degree), it violates the definition of an Expy. Take the quoted Mega Man example....

edited 24th Feb '12 7:54:46 AM by Stratadrake

edited 24th Feb '12 12:18:19 AM by rodneyAnonymous

edited 24th Feb '12 1:20:54 AM by abk0100

So it should be something like Boss Gameplay Expy?

^ That could work, but it's a little bit unwieldy.

It's only four four-letter words...

I meant it doesn't roll off the tongue well.

Clocked. Let's see some activity in here.

I can support expanding the definition to eliminate the "series wide" requirement (in other words, legalizing examples that are from single games), but we do at least need a cleanup effort. Let me go back and expand upon my Wick Check....

Not going to complain about these

• Boss Battle

• Fraxy: "Several bosses, both presupplied and user made tend to be flying Laser Blades."

• Characters.House Of The Dead: "See also Strength and Death for a similar boss fight."

• Raiden: "The first boss battle of the first three games pits you against a duo of ground enemies (gun platforms in the first, spider tanks in II and giant tanks in III) with the weaker one appearing slightly before the other."

• Robo Warrior: "'Three of the bosses have the exact same strategy''- they float around the place, throw globs around, and those globs turn into Mooks should they hit the floor."

• Solomons Keep: "The Infernal, The Unincarnate, The Unsummonable, and The Unholy. You fight one of them right before Solomon Dark. They all use eye beams and fire walls, but a new attack is added for each proceeding difficulty."

Not sure about these

• VideoGame.Kirby: "Half of the bosses in Amazing Mirror are blatantly Alternate Universe counterparts to previous bosses. King Golem is Whispy Woods, Dark Meta Knight is obvious, and the final boss starts off as an expy of Nightmare before ending up as an expy of Zero."

• Major Stryker: "There are three such templates, each used once in each episode, though with differences. For instance, each episode has a boss which splits into two smaller copies of itself for its second phase."

• Rune Factory 3: "While most of the bonus bosses recycled from earlier games still have all their signature moves, they're a lot tougher this time around."

• Thunder Cross: "Eggeroid, which appears as the first boss in both games. In the first game, you could attack its weak point directly, in the second, you had to attack its tail first."

• Touhou Labyrinth: "Alice and Maribel will have 3 summons that is a physical attacker, a magical attacker, and a supporter."

Fixing

• House Of The Dead

• Karoshi: "The final boss for the first two games was your own head, it being a clone or the actual thing varying."

• Lets Go Jungle: "Both the giant tarantula and the octopus from the sequel. They act as the first boss, and come back in the third stage where they are finally defeated. Plus, both of them have eight legs!"

• Characters.Mega Man: "Guts Man's image is a blatant inspiration for large, bulky robot masters such as Stoneman."

• One to Million to One: "Some games also give [Teleport Spam] to the Phantom Bat. Similarly, Super Castlevania IV gives this ability to the mummy boss, Akmodan II, who teleports as a stream of loose bandages."

• New Super Mario Bros Wii: "All of the tower bosses, as well as the ones in six of the castles, attack with wands."

I'd support renaming it to Gameplay Expy.

Bump. So are we doing anything here, or do we close this as it is well past clock expiry?

Spark, please create the crowner before hollering for one to be attached. Thank you.

What sort of crowner was asked for?

"Should Bonus Boss cameos from previous games even count?"

I would think that would be its own trope I can think of many Reoccuring Bonus Boss es from RP Gs some become a company staple.

Page action. I can't find a button to create the crowner though, I thought only mods could do that?

Instructions are here if you scroll down a bit.

Mods can hook blank crowners if requested, but other people can make them too: How Crowners Work has the guide.