My favorite boss battles are those where you are in a very unique situation/prespective. Some games are really vivid in my memory-
Battletoads- The first boss, a giant robot, is fought from the prespective of the robot itself. As you damage it, its own optics get cracked/fuzzy. Very cool.
Earthworm Jim- There is a mid-boss battle in which you and the boss are falling down a chasm. That really threw me the first time I played it. Very nerve racking too.
Metal Gear Solid- The fight against Psycho Mantis, in which he bases his attacks off your own controller imput (EVIL!) and also it was really cool how he would read your memory card when he was ‘reading your mind’. Very creative boss.
I’ve extolled the virtues of this game before on the SDMB, but Rise of the Triad had some fantastic bosses.
Scroll about halfway down this page to read all about them. (This site is a pretyt good history of the game behind the scenes)
There was also a great “Satan” boss from an old Sega Genesis game…he had this shit eating grin on his face and tried to shoot lightning at you out of his fingertips and step on you. The rendering of that boss was fantastic. I can’t remember the name of the game, unfortunately.
[sub]Once again today, I can’t remember the most important detail while posting in Cafe Society…[/sub]
Prince of Persia. Jump through a mirror and suddenly you’re fighting an exact duplicate! Big trouble, until you put your sword away, prompting the duplicate to do the same.
Rez. The bosses are wonderfully abstract pieces of machinery, very different from each other, and the final level imitates them all before you fight the true final battle.
I would have to go with Magus, from Chrono Trigger. The whole atmosphere of the battle ground was just downright spooky, and the fighting was pretty neat.
Another vote for Magus. I still get chills when I replay it. Even though the graphics are very dated now, the whole setting is wonderful, and Magus just exudes evil cool.
Mz. Ruby in Sly Cooper was a real blast for me. I had never seen that before in a game. You just have to stop thinking about what you’re doing and just go with the rhythm.
The second to last battle in Final Fantasy X. It’s not very challenging, by it has a nice emotional attachment.
Also, the shootout with the Crazy French Mime on a unicycle as you’re been riden around on the back of a huge Scotsman pedelling a tricycle in India (NOLF2)
And how could anyone mention Earthworm Jim without the mighty boss battle between Jim and Bob the Goldfish?
I always loved the boss fight in Super Metroid. At first it seems like it’s going to be the same fight from Metroid, but then Mother Brain climbs up out of the ground and now you’ve gotta fight this giant, that you can’t seem to beat! She beats you up, and at the last second, while you pound on the buttons of the controller to try and get Samus to stand up, that giant Metroid swoops in and saves you, in the process giving you the most badass gun in the game!
Metal Gear Solid: MGS is like an encyclopedia of cool boss fights. Since Mantis already got mentioned, I’ll go with the HIND battle and the showdown with Metal Gear Rex. On Hard or higher, both are nerve-wrackingly intense–not to mention cool as all hell (I admit to some bias here, since Liquid Snake is possibly my all-time favorite villain).
Final Fantasy VII: Two fights spring immediately to mind: the rooftop showdown between Cloud and Rufus , and the last boss fight. It’s pretty tough to top a battle where you get to watch the solar system get destroyed, planet by planet, to an awesome Latin chorus.
Gunstar Heroes: Perhaps the most criminally underrated action game of all time, Gunstar Heroes is packed with a plethora of amazing boss fights. My personal favorite is the battle with Green at the end of the mine car level. He has this bitchin’ robot that alternates between seven completely different forms, and (on Hard mode or higher) you have beat ALL of them.
Kingdom Hearts: Hey, you gotta admit, it was pretty sweet to fight Sephiroth again. I liked that they made him the hardest boss in the game. Oh yeah, and the fight vs. Chernobog, with Night On Bald Mountain playing, was cool, too.
Anybody ever play Axelay on Super Nintendo? Holler if you hear “Level 8 boss which was a giant fire breathing, er, flame, shaped sort of like a man”… 16 bit graphics never looked so good.
The Omega Pirate and Meta Ridley in Metroid Prime were both rather awesome (and scary) to watch.
Lieutenant Horrigan at the end of Fallout II was the first, and only, boss in a turn-based RPG to scare me.
Yeah, the Omega Pirate fight in Metroid Prime was scary, just because he was so huge. The music was great in that part too.
Although the game overall wasn’t my favorite in the series, the final boss fights in Final Fantasy VIII were great. The music, the bosses, that was just a great ending.
