Boss Battle

"Mr. Mario, I feel that you and I are destined to do battle, again and again, for as long as the gods see fit."

"And while regular battles offer a great challenge...boss battles really up the ante!"

— Narrator, A Closer Look At Paper Mario: The Origami King

Most Action Games contain a climactic confrontation with a unique, stronger than average, and often monstrous enemy creature known colloquially as a "boss". They have several important features, depending on the genre of game in which they are found.

In old-school Shoot Em Ups and 2D Platformers, the boss comes at the end of a level or series of levels (commonly called a "world") and fits with the theme of that world. He will often require a special trick to defeat, or have a targetable weak point.

In FPS, 3PS's, and 3D platformers, they divide up the game. They might be common or uncommon, gigantic or small, complex multi-stage affairs or simple exercises in circle strafing while shooting.

In RPGs, they wait at the end of dungeons (though the larger dungeons may have multiple boss fights). They have a mountain of Hit Points. If they're the last one, you'll most likely fight them more than once. Most have a specific weakness.

In a Fighting Game the word boss is used a bit differently. As all the opponents in single player could be considered "bosses" by other games' standards, the term is used simply for the last character you fight, in that even when the rest of the battles have you going up against a randomly-selected opponent, the boss is always the same. The boss is typically not a playable character (though circumstances may allow him to be unlocked later), and tends to be the most powerful by balance standards. Occasionally, the penultimate and/or halfway-point battles will also be against a "boss". (The penultimate/halftime opponent is often dubbed a "Mini-Boss".) Recent fighting games, however, have added elements from other genres into the mix.

Though popularized by video games, the trope probably originated with the powerful enemies guarding hoards at the bottom of dungeons in Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, the first known video game boss battle is the Final Boss of the PLATO computers version of dnd.

Often accompanied by unique, tense, action-packed Battle Theme Music. Sometimes, special Fight Wooshes and Fanfares are also made just for this event.

Note that in some games, the boss isn't always at the end of any given level or dungeon.

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Tropes:

• Advancing Boss of Doom: A boss that keeps chasing you and you have to continually flee from.
• After Boss Recovery: After a boss battle, you get lots of healing items, or are healed fully for whatever reason.
• Anti-Climax Boss: A boss that turns out to be much easier than the plot implies it to be.
• Attack Its Weak Point: If you see a feature that's out of the ordinary on a boss's body, such as a weird eye, chances are that's what you need to attack.
  • Attack the Tail: If the boss has a tail, chances are, it's its weak point.
  • Go for the Eye: If the boss has a giant eyeball, nine times out of ten that's its weak point.
  • In Case of Boss Fight, Break Glass: If the boss has a glass cockpit, frame concealing an energy core, or generally any other glass part on the boss's body, nine times out of ten that's its weak point too.
  • Aim for the Horn: When a boss can be defeated only by targeting their horn.
• Awesome Bosses: Yeah, it was a tough fight, but it was awesome and you really looked forward to kicking that guy's butt!
• Background Boss: A boss that stands in the background and unleashes attacks into the foreground.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: You see a normal-looking boss, who's suddenly removed or killed and replaced with a much bigger or nastier one.
• Barrier Change Boss: A boss that changes what element it's weak to.
• The Battle Didn't Count: When you defeat a boss in battle, they'll just shake it off like it was nothing.
  • Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: A boss battle where you get a Game Over if you lose, but if you win, the boss immediately proceeds to beat you in a cutscene.
• Battleship Raid: The boss takes up the whole level.
• Boss Arena Recovery: Where you can find recovery items during a boss battle itself.
• Boss Banter: When a boss talks to you during combat.
• Boss Corridor: That one empty hallway right before the Boss Room.
• Boss Dissonance: Where the difficulty level of the bosses and the rest of the game are totally different.
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses
  • Hard Levels, Easy Bosses
• Boss Game: A game that consists of nothing but boss battles, or at least have them as the main draw.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: A battle with a "normal" enemy that, as it turns out, does a very good job at wiping the floor with you.
• Boss-Only Level: A level consisting entirely of a Boss Battle.
• Boss Remix: The music that plays during the boss fight is a remix of some other tune in the game.
• Boss Room: The room in a video game where the boss and the player exchange blows.
• Boss Rush: A segment in which you're forced to fight a collection of previously-defeated bosses in sequence.
  • Boss Bonanza: When a segment contains a surprisingly high number of new bosses in sequence.
• Boss Subtitles: Where the boss is introduced with a big show of its name and a title or descriptive line.
• Boss Tease: A boss fight is hinted at, suggested, maybe even warned of outright, but doesn't happen until much later.
• Boss Vulnerability: Some bosses are more susceptible to attack than others. This trope lists all types.
• Boss Warning Siren: A warning siren is heard or seen just before a boss battle.
• Braggart Boss: A blustering, over-the-top buffoon who confronts the heroic party, often completely out of nowhere, pompously and dramatically introduces himself, and challenges the heroes to battle.
• Breather Boss: A surprisingly easy, but not plot-critical, boss.
• Broken Armor Boss Battle: The boss is covered in armor, and you can't damage it until you get rid of it.
• Bullfight Boss: A boss that charges at you over and over again.
• Cat-and-Mouse Boss: Where you and the boss take turns chasing each other.
• Chasing Your Tail: A boss battle where the player and the boss run around in circles trying to catch and/or escape each other.
• Climax Boss: A boss fight usually occurring at a critical point in the plot, typically challenging.
• Cognizant Limbs: A boss with multiple parts of his body, each of which acts as a separate monster and can be targetted separately.
• Collapsing Ceiling Boss: A boss who shakes the foundation and makes debris fall out of the ceiling onto your head.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Any overpowered, incapacitating, or instant-death skill will be useless on big bosses.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss: A completely mechanical boss that mainly consists of turrets (which shoot at you) and cores (which you shoot at).
• Cowardly Boss: A boss that the party fights, that then randomly runs after taking a certain amount of damage, forcing you to have to hunt that boss down and fight them again.
• Crosshair Aware: The boss aims a weapon at the player, and a target sight will be shown tracking the player.
• Cutscene Boss: You don't even get to fight this boss, except maybe with a Quick Time Event.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The most basic boss type: Strong attacks, lots of Hit Points; the only strategy is to hit it until it dies.
• Defeat Means Playable: Beating the boss unlocks them as a playable character.
• Degraded Boss: Once you beat the boss, it comes back as a normal enemy later.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: When a boss is literally "falling to pieces".
• Disc-One Final Boss: Yeah, that guy who blew up your home? You beat him and he was someone else's minion.
• The Dragon: The villain that's second in power after the Big Bad, and is often the penultimate boss.
• Dual Boss: A battle against two bosses at once.
• Duel Boss: A one-on-one boss fight, in a game that primarily involves team battles.
• Dueling Player Characters: In a single-player video game, a boss fight against another Player Character.
• Early-Bird Boss: A boss that appears early on and is difficult primarily due to your characters' lack of stats and abilities that they will acquire later.
• Empty Room Until the Trap: A boss you have to go looking for.
• Enemy Posturing: The boss leaves itself open to attack when it takes time out of the battle just to taunt you.
• Fighting Your Friend: A Boss Battle in which you fight against a character who's explicitly on your side.
• Final Boss: This is it, man! One last challenge before watching the ending!
  • Final Boss, New Dimension: You have to enter a different "dimension" to fight the Final Boss.
  • Final Boss Preview: A fight in mid-game with the Final Boss or his second-in-command, which you will inevitably lose.
  • Final-Exam Boss: A boss that must be defeated by using just about every item, power-up, and skill you've acquired in the game.
  • No Final Boss for You: When doing things a certain way, or playing a certain character, makes you skip out on a Final Boss or two.
  • Pre-Final Boss: One last boss before the proper Final Boss to build up tension, usually followed by The Reveal.
  • Post-Final Boss: An easy to effortless boss battle after the real Final Boss in order to wrap up the plot.
  • Rival Final Boss: Where the Final Boss is The Rival rather than the Big Bad of the work, challenging the hero to a showdown once the villains are defeated.
  • True Final Boss: Where a second "Final Boss" appears after the first one, but only when particular requirements are filled.
• Fisticuffs Boss: A boss where you can't use weapons or abilities, just plain old duking it out.
• Flunky Boss: A boss that has several of its minions fight alongside it.
  • Weaponized Offspring: A creature gives birth to Cannon Fodder as a defense mechanism.
• Free-Fall Fight: A boss that you fight in freefall.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: A boss that you have to keep chasing after or stake out in order to beat.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A boss that comes out of nowhere and has no relevance whatsoever to the actual plot.
• Goddamned Boss: A boss that's not dangerous, but is frustrating for reasons beyond difficulty.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Comic relief antagonists who keep popping up, requiring you to fight them multiple times through the game.
• Healing Boss: A boss with the ability to heal themselves in battle.
• He Was Right There All Along: A boss who's hiding in the Boss Room, and won't reveal itself until the player does something.
• High-Altitude Battle: In which the hero of a video game has to go up in the sky and defeat the enemy.
• High-Speed Battle: Where the hero and villain are fighting whilst one is chasing the other on moving vehicles.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: An incredibly powerful boss which you are supposed to lose to, and won't get a Game Over when you do.
  • Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight: A boss fight seems hopeless until a cutscene makes it winnable.
• "Instant Death" Radius: When the boss has a far-reaching and very deadly melee attack radius, such that trying to fight him up close is suicide.
• I Let You Win: A boss battle which seems normal, but after which the boss says he actually let you win to further his nefarious plans.
• "Jaws" First-Person Perspective: An underwater boss who is revealed by a first-person view from the boss's perspective before it jumps the hero.
• King Mook: A boss who resembles an enlarged or palette swapped version of a regular enemy, possibly with a crown or some other identifying feature.
• Level in Boss Clothing: A battle that plays out more like a level than like a normal boss fight.
• Load-Bearing Boss: A boss-type monster whose destruction causes the location to collapse or self-destruct.
• Lone Wolf Boss: A boss that is not associated with the Big Bad in any way. He's an antagonist acting on his own.
• The Man Behind the Man: So you thought that guy was the Big Bad all this time? He was small potatoes. This is the real Big Kahuna.
• Make My Monster Grow: A villain grows to enormous size before the big beatdown.
• Marathon Boss: A boss that takes a really, really, really long time to beat.
• Mini-Boss: A distinct, generally unique (up until that point, anyway), stronger-than-average enemy that you encounter within a level.
• Mirror Boss: A boss in a game whose abilities are equivalent (if not downright identical) to those of the playable character.
• Mook Promotion: A regular enemy who functions as a level boss.
• Multi-Stage Battle: A boss battle that takes place over multiple stages.
• One-Winged Angel: The final boss takes on a bigger, scarier form.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: Said bigger, scarier form turns out to be Awesome, but Impractical or outright weak in comparison to the boss's prior form.
• Open-Ended Boss Battle: A boss battle that you can win or lose without triggering a Game Over or ending.
• Optional Boss: A boss that does not have to be defeated to complete the game.
  • Superboss: An optional boss that is often much more difficult than even the Final Boss of the game.
  • Legacy Boss Battle: An optional or out-of-context boss from another game by the same developers or company. Some can be normal story bosses, though.
• Parallel Conflict Sequence: Another battle is taking place at the same time as the main boss battle.
• The Pawns Go First: The boss lets his underlings fight the hero(es) for a bit before joining in.
• Platform Battle: A boss battle that occurs on Floating Platforms. Try not to fall off...
  • Colossus Climb: Where the boss is many, many times the size of the hero and must be climbed to reach a weak spot.
• Play as a Boss: An inversion when the player gets to play as a boss, or a boss-like character.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When a boss gives you a threatening phrase before fighting you.
• Proactive Boss: The boss tries to kill you before you even reach him.
• Puzzle Boss: A boss that is beaten by trickery rather than force.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The higher a character is in his hierarchy, the better he is in a fight.
• Reactor Boss: A final battle where you have to blow up the enemies' main reactor.
• Recurring Boss: A boss-type monster who you have to face several times over the course of the game, typically not sequentially.
  • Varying Tactics Boss: A boss-type monster who you have to face several times over the course of the game, typically not sequentially, and they have a whole new battle strategy each time.
• Recurring Boss Template: Where bosses in the sequel(s) tend to act like their original counterparts.
• Retaliation Mode: The boss performs a special attack that temporarily renders them invulnerable after being hit.
• Ring-Out Boss: Where the boss himself has to be knocked or thrown back into a dangerous substance or obstacle to cause damage.
• Role-Reversal Boss: The roles of player and boss are switched.
• Route Boss: The player's chosen path determines which boss to fight.
• Rush Boss: A boss fight that doesn't take very long to beat, but can easily destroy you if you're not careful.
• Scripted Battle: A battle that follows a script, either for a segment or for the entire thing, instead of acting like a regular battle.
• Self-Recovery Surprise: When you think the boss is finished, he applies Healing Factor and the battle starts again.
• Sequential Boss: Multiple large-scale fights in a row.
• Sheathe Your Sword: A boss who can only be beaten by not fighting him.
• Shielded Core Boss: A boss whose weak point is protected by some kind of protrusion which needs to be destroyed before it takes damage.
• Skippable Boss: Boss fights that feature some way to avoid fighting them altogether.
• Smashed Eggs Hatching: A boss's smashed eggs contain enemy monsters.
• SNK Boss: A boss, usually found in Fighting Games, whose difficulty comes from their defiance of the game's conventions.
• Stationary Boss: A fight where the boss remains in one place.
  • Pivotal Boss: The boss stays in one spot, but can turn on that spot to face you.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The game is suddenly giving you a lot of good items? Have fun dealing with an exceptionally hard boss in the next room!
• Tactical Suicide Boss: The boss is impervious to the player's regular attacks, and would be impossible to defeat if one of its attacks didn't expose its particular Achilles' Heel in the process.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: The boss's weakness is something unique to the boss's own arena.
• Tactical Superweapon Unit: A boss balanced to fight armies by its lonesome, as opposed to, say, one determined soldier (regardless of badassitude) or four teenagers. Strictly a military unit, so a raid boss who requires a guild's worth of adventurers doesn't count. In short, a boss for Real-Time Strategy games.
• Teleport Spam: A boss that teleports all over the place.
• Tennis Boss: You have to reflect his attacks back onto him to defeat him.
• That One Boss: An infamous boss known to be frustrating and/or difficult.
  • That One Attack: Almost got him! Almost... almost — INSTANT DEATH?
• Throw the Mook at Them: Flunky Boss? Pull up those sleeves and throw his Mooks at him!
• Time-Limit Boss: Bosses which have to be beaten within a certain preset period of time or turns.
  • Boss Arena Urgency: Bosses who you have to beat quickly, or the boss will become impossible to beat.
• Tragic Monster: Where an ally is turned into a monster and then has to be fought as a boss battle.
• Training Boss: Area or location where the player can practice their moves on a more or less undefeatable character, sometimes as part of a tutorial.
• Treacherous Checkpoint: What you thought was a safe spot was actually the boss.
• Trick Boss: A suspiciously easy boss which turns out to be a trick; the real boss is right behind him.
• Turns Red: When the boss loses health, he gains power and abilities.
• Underwater Boss Battle: Are your Super Not-Drowning Skills up to par?
• The Unfought: An antagonist in the game who plays an important role in the story, but is never really fought as an actual boss. May overlap with Bait-and-Switch Boss and Cutscene Boss.
• Upgraded Boss: It's the same boss (or maybe an Underground Monkey), but it's MUCH harder.
• Vehicular Assault: Fight against a vehicle of some kind.
• Victory Fakeout: The boss is defeated, the stage is cleared and... wait, he's getting up again? What's he doing? Uh oh...
• Wake-Up Call Boss: An early boss who ends up being much harder than expected.
• Warm-Up Boss: The "test" boss or Mini-Boss that appears at the end of the first level or after the tutorial.
• Waterfront Boss Battle: Battles where the player stands on a platform above water while the boss swims around them.
• Whack-a-Monster: Fighting a Boss (or other critter) that is only vulnerable when it temporarily appears.
• Wolfpack Boss: A boss consisting of several Mooks who wouldn't be difficult by themselves, but when acting together provide a significant challenge.
• You Will Not Evade Me: A boss that keeps coming after you or in general prevents you from running away.
• Zero-Effort Boss: A boss that is so easy that you have to actively try in order to lose.
  • Foregone Victory: When a boss literally cannot be lost to.

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