So was watching a few let’s play video of old NES games on youtube and began to notice something, What ever happened to the idea of a mini-boss? Thinking about most of the games that have come out even with them being story driven and varied in action or style the mostly have followed the idea of get through this level or go through these actions and on look here is the boss beat him to move on. So I was just kinda wondering if its just the games that I play or if this is something that really happened to modern video games.
Minibosses left?
Granted, I really don’t play many newer games, but the more recent ones I can still recall mini-bosses being there (the God of Wars, Megaman 9/10…maybe not the best example).
At the least, they were still around through the 32/64 bit era.
I think Zelda still has minibosses in the games.
Half-way through dungeons, you fight a mini-boss and get an item.
Here is one from Twilight Princess
Sorry for the guy talking over it.
Okami had them also.
I thought this was going to be a thread about the band that covers video game music.
But yeah, I blame video game directors trying to become auteurs like pretentious film people. The idea of five or six nice even impasses where you have to beat someone tough probably doesn’t mesh with a sweeping eleven-and-a-half hour story arc. 
Games also aren’t as delineated between levels anymore either, however. A lot of RPGs and such will have you go somewhere, go back to town, and then return to fetch something else, often then exploring a branch you didn’t the first time. Was the boss you fought the first time a miniboss, or the final boss of a previous “story arc”? Who can really say?
ETA: Also, sometimes there are “miniboss structures” in place, where the developers may send at you a large force of enemies in lieu of a miniboss. Left 4 Dead’s AI director works on a simple emotional impact “peaking” system, and decides whether or not to spawn special infected based on certain criteria, so the presence of 2 or 3 special infected attached to a mob is essentially a “miniboss structure” instead of a true miniboss.
Mini-bosses, by definition, are mid stage bosses that take more than a hit or two to defeat, but do not pose nearly the same challenge as a boss at the end of the stage.
A good example are the various giant animal robots in the Mega Man games.
For some crazy reason, Kraid & Ridley from the original Metroid get labeled as mini-bosses a lot, when they are full-scale real bosses. Kraid in particular can be a bitch to fight.
Birdo & Boomer from the Mario games also get this title, which is debatable since you fight them so many times (although they occasionally change up their fighting style) that it becomes more of a chore than a challenge, but compared to the Koopa Kids and Clawgrip, could qualify. The hammer bros encounters in SMB3 are better examples of bonafide mini-bosses.