In the sea of thousands upon thousands of video game boss fights, it is truly impossible to shine a spotlight of recognition upon just ten of the best. Because, honestly, hundreds of them deserve to be on a Top 10 list. So, in the spirit of loving boss fights, here’s another of ten of my all-time favorite boss battles in gaming!
10) Inti ~ Iconoclasts
I’ve talked on multiple occasions about my love for Iconoclasts by this point, but the first actually moment in the game itself where I felt I was truly onto something special was during the boss battle against Inti, the mechanical protector of a underwater city gone haywire. It’s an extremely intuitive fight, teaching the player brand new mechanics while still remaining fun and engaging, is longer than a typical fight but doesn’t wear out its welcome, and is the first chance you get to play as the shotgun-toting pirate Mina. It’s a blast, and the perfect segue into some crazy plot twists just past the next door.
9) Prince Dail ~ Freedom Planet
I only briefly touched on how epic and challenging the boss fights are in Freedom Planet during my short review, and your first showdown with Prince Dail is where that fact becomes blatantly obvious. He isn’t pulling any punches, and his giant mechanical peacock (such a visually unique boss design) is the toughest challenge you’ve faced yet at this point in the game. With Prince Dail’s heavy shredding guitar theme song blaring, you have to take this robotic behemoth down, all while dodging its sharp beak strikes and devastating energy cross beam. Not to mention keeping your footing, since you ARE battling atop a tiny airship high in the skies!
8) Lusamine ~ Pokemon Sun and Moon
At its core, Pokémon is a children’s franchise, so it isn’t very hard to pick up on patterns and repeated gameplay loops. Battle through gyms (or a gym-equivalent), conquer the champion, and win the Pokémon league. The evil team leader is taken down in a similar way too…except for in Pokémon Sun and Moon, wherein the sadistic President Lusamine bonds with the alien parasite Nihilego, fuses into a giant demon octopus thing, and then battles you with a team of Pokémon powered-up by the corruptive energy of Ultra Space, all to the tune of a psychotic orchestral soundtrack. It’s madness, super fun, and easily the best final villain showdown in Pokémon.
7) Skowl ~ Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
I’ll be the first to admit that, if I’m finding a boss fight really fun and just the right amount of challenging, I don’t care how long it goes on for. This is the reason why, when I first fought Skowl and found out he had three phases of escalating stakes and difficulty, and takes nine hits to defeat (a sharp contrast from the ol’ “Rule of Three” most platformers abide by), Skowl became my favorite boss fight in the whole Donkey Kong series. The way you defeat Skowl is also a lot of fun, involving chaining jumps on his little owl minions to gain height and deck the boss in the face, so your extra skill is rewarded. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the stellar soundtrack.
6) Airstrip Ustanak ~ Resident Evil 6
As the only living human being who enjoys Resident Evil 6, it is my civic duty to praise the game whatever chance I am given. Thankfully, it is pretty easy in this instance, considering that the climactic tussle with the implacable Ustanak on the Chinese airstrip is one of gaming’s best boss battles. Four heroes (controllable by up to four human players) race through this junkyard while the towering titan Ustanak wreaks havoc. There’s a nearly infinite number of ways to damage the behemoth, and plenty of options to navigate around the arena to stay safe. A mid-battle scenery change also switches things up, forcing you to work with a new partner and deal with the Ustanak’s new attacks. This battle just never gets old!
5) Invading Executioner ~ Code Vein
Usually dying within five seconds of a boss fight starting isn’t a great sign for me. Sometimes, though, it means I’ve found a real memorable challenge, and that was certainly the case with the Invading Executioner. For only the fourth (or potentially even SECOND) boss in the game, she really sets the standard for how brutally challenging the fights in Code Vein can be. She has close range sweeps, ranged water attacks, a lightning fast and insanely deadly charge, and can inflict the “Slow” status condition to bog down your movements. At the same time, her moves have generous tells and windups, she gives periodic breaks to rest or attack, and her overall health is low. A perfectly balanced showdown!
4) Nakarkos ~ Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
Not every gigantic siege boss in Monster Hunter is a winner (glaring daggers in your direction, Kulve Taroth), but the standout ones really make an incredible impact. Nakarkos is a massive cephalopod-like beast that seems to be a sentient shell with skull tentacles, before inevitably revealing it’s gigantic squid-y head in phase two. The staggering uniqueness of this boss is already a huge plus, as Nakarkos can swim around raining down fireballs, change the skulls on its tentacles to grant it new moves, and fire a screen-wide red laser beam of instant death. Like all good siege monsters, though, the beauty of the fight lies in your options, as you can attack the tentacles, stab its face, mount its back, shoot it with cannons, and restrain it with ballistae.
3) Ganondorf ~ Twilight Princess
For how impactful Ganondorf is as a villain, his final standoffs are usually pretty anticlimactic (play tennis with a ball of light, run a circle behind him and attack, kill him with A STICK), but Twilight Princess‘s incarnation of Ganondorf laughs in the face of those other pitiful showdowns. Across four entire phases and nearly an hour of runtime, Ganondorf puts every single skill you’ve honed over the course of the game into one meaty, unforgettable final battle. Phase one tests your reflexes, phase two tests your ability to control Wolf Link, phase three tests your aptitude with horseback combat, and phase four tests your swift swordsmanship. Each phase is excellently scored by Nintendo’s best musicians, and the catharsis of landing that final blow is basically unparalleled in all of Zelda.
2) Otakemaru ~ Nioh 2
The first Nioh ended with a pretty lackluster, cluttered boss fight against a giant serpent from nowhere, so while I obviously wanted something better from Nioh 2, I didn’t have astronomical expectations. I should have, apparently, because Otakemaru is awesome! Not only is it narratively satisfying to go toe-to-toe with the cruel monster responsible for the entire game’s events, but the actual gameplay challenge of doing so is that blessedly perfect balance of tough-as-nails but also fair. Otakemaru has a huge range of moves and versatility in the elemental attacks he can conjure, but he also provides ample opportunity to dodge, guard, and counterattack. Once learning his moveset, you can dance circles around him with your Yokai shift and special moves, whittling him down before landing the killing blow (and I ADORE how the music is timed to crescendo right as you land that final strike).
1) Yinu ~ No Straight Roads
It’s telling that I’d rank Yinu at the highest position on this list, and yet the game she’s from only scored a 5/10 in my review last year. Let me assure you, the majority of those points came from Yinu, because she is one stellar boss battle, and easily the standout moment from the otherwise “meh” No Straight Roads.
Yinu really shines on three accounts.
One: She’s just an exceptionally well-crafted fight in her own regard that manages to introduce new mechanics organically without messing with the pacing or logic of the fight, and is the perfect amount of difficulty for where she’s faced in the game.
Two: She’s head-and-shoulders above any other boss in No Straight Roads, which really places emphasis on just how epic the showdown with her is. Not only is her personal narrative the best written and most emotional, but the fact that she’s the only boss in the game to have a victory-screen fakeout and surprise third phase just cements this already memorable encounter permanently into your mind.
Three: Her battle soundtrack is phenomenal. Like, unbelievably so. No Straight Roads already has an amazing soundtrack (even I can’t deny that), but Yinu’s theme still shines the brightest by a mile.
If you have a few minutes to spare, here’s a link to some of the best piano playing you might ever hear: PHASE ONE and FINAL PHASE
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 