Gaming’s Greatest Boss Fights

Image Credit: Grasshopper Manufacture, Marvelous

It’s wild to me that in about a year and half of doing these articles, I’ve never done a dedicated list about regular boss fights. When done correctly, these can be some of the most memorable parts of a game. It’s a great way to challenge the player on everything they’ve learned, or to teach them new skills that they hadn’t needed to use yet.

Today I want to talk about four of my favorite bosses. A couple of caveats for this list. I’m only going to be looking at regular boss fights. No final bosses, and no superbosses. We’re only talking about main story bosses this time around. If you want superboss content, I tackled that almost a year ago.

Magus (Chrono Trigger)

Image Credit: Square Enix, Akira Toriyama

Let’s start this list off with what I consider to be the greatest boss fight in a turn-based RPG. I’ve talked about Magus before in my Expedition 33 article, but I want to go more in depth on why I think that he works so well. There’s more to a boss than just the fight. There’s also the buildup to the fight, as well as the actual importance of who you’re fighting.

Magus is part of Chrono Trigger’s revolving door of antagonists. He’s a wizard from the Dark Ages (600 A.D.) and is the primary foil to Frog; one of your party members. After going on a time-hopping adventure, Crono and his gang reconstruct the Masamune for your amphibian friend. With his blade back in hand, Frog is ready to confront his past and avenge his fallen friend Cyrus.

The road to Magus is a long one. His keep is not only one of the best looking things on the SNES, but it’s also littered with forced mob fights and mini-boss fights against his three henchmen, Flea, Slash, and Ozzie. But at the end of this marathon of a dungeon, it’s time for the confrontation.

The fight with Magus starts with preparations. Magus’s gimmick is that for the first half of the fight he has an elemental barrier that changes what his weakness is, constantly shifting between the game’s four elements: Fire, Lightning, Water, and Shadow. You can only have three active members in your party, so you’re going to be down one element, no matter who you bring. Crono and Frog are both locked into your party for this fight, so that leaves just one slot to fill.

There’s merit to bringing each of your four current party members. Robo gives you access to Shadow magic with his Laser Beam Tech, and he has a great party-wide heal with Crono. Lucca gives you access to Fire magic. She has the highest natural magic stat of all your party members, and her Fire Sword Dual Tech with Crono is crazy strong if raw damage is what you’re looking for. And Marle fills a similar role to Frog, giving you Ice and healing magic. But depending on how much you’ve used her to this point, she may also have the exclusive Haste magic, which doubles the speed that your ATB refills, resulting in more turns for your party members. There’s no wrong answer for who else to bring. It all comes down to what you (the player) think is important.

As you walk into the arena, torches light up the dark room before you eventually confront the man of the hour. As a wizard, Magus wields extremely powerful magics that hit all of your party members. He can very easily overwhelm you if you start getting too complacent. Once his HP has gotten low, he’ll unleash Dark Matter, a powerful Shadow magic attack that shouldn’t be taken lightly. The game gives you a warning that it’s coming.

What makes Magus stand out to me is that by all accounts this should be the final boss of the game. But no. He’s only the game’s midpoint. Magus is a true test from the developers to see if you’re ready to take on what comes after him. And when it comes to presentation, this fight can’t be beat. From the torches lighting up as you walk through the room, to the silence being broken by his battle theme kicking in. It’s all a masterwork in RPG boss design, setup, and payoff.

Kieran (Pokemon Scarlet/Violet)

Image Credit: The Pokemon Company

From one RPG to another. For the most part, mainline Pokemon games aren’t filled with spectacular boss fights. By nature of the majority of bosses specializing in one type, the difficulty of the fights is going to vary wildly based on your team composition. I feel like if you were to ask 100 Pokemon fans what the most memorable boss fight in the series is, 99 of them would just say Cynthia because they were kids when they played Diamond and Pearl, and Garchomp is scawy ( ;´ - `;). But what if there was a better Champion than even her.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s DLC is better than it has any right to be. The lore with Ogerpon and the Loyal Trio is fantastic. I love the new characters that were introduced in Kitakami and Blueberry Academy. And it gave legitimate character development to a rival for the first time since Gen 2.

I think that Kieran is one of the most interesting characters to come out of modern Pokemon. I’d really like to do a full breakdown of his character at some point in the future. The TL:DR of his story in the first DLC is that he’s a huge fan of the legendary Pokemon Ogerpon. And when Ogerpon visits your character and Kieran’s sister during the festival, his sister (Carmine) decides it’s better to not let him know that you two saw Ogerpon. Kieran eventually does find out, which leads to his personality shift at the end of the Teal Mask DLC.

In the Blueberry Academy section of the DLC, you get to visit the school that Carmine and Kieran attend. Upon entering, you learn that Kieran has completely changed. He’s no longer the shy kid from Kitakami. Rather he’s become a total jerk that only cares about being the best trainer at the school. And after beating the Blueberry Elite Four, we’re granted our battle against the new and improved Kieran.

One thing to note about Blueberry Academy is that all trainer battles here are Double Battles, meaning you have to take a different approach to what Pokemon you use. Double Battles are also a lot faster and more explosive than Single Battles are. This whole section feels like Game Freak acknowledging the competitive VGC community, and I think it’s awesome!

So in the spirit of VGC, Kieran’s team feels like it was intentionally designed with that in mind. His team consists of Politoed, Dragonite, Grimmsnarl, Porygon-Z, Hydrapple, and the VGC God himself: Incineroar. 

The battle starts, and Kieran leads with Politoed and Dragonite. Politoed is a support Pokemon, with access to Helping Hand and the Drizzle ability to set the Rain for his partner. Dragonite comes armed with Hurricane and Thunder, both powerful moves that become 100% accurate in the Rain. It also has Breaking Swipe to lower the Attack stat of both of your Pokemon, and Extreme Speed to pick off low HP Pokemon.

After that comes Porygon-Z and Grimmsnarl; another support and attack duo. Grimmsnarl is here to set up Light Screen and Reflect to halve the damage output of your Pokemon, and use Spirit Break to weaken your Special Attackers. Meanwhile Porygon-Z is an all out attacker. Holding a Life Orb to boost its strength by 30%, it comes armed with Hyper Beam, Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam. This thing has nearly perfect coverage into anything you could throw at it.

And his last pair is Incineroar and Hydrapple. Incineroar is basically the mascot of VGC. Whenever it’s available, its usage percentage hovers around 70%. It’s a Pokemon that has everything. Intimidate cuts the Attack stat of both your Pokemon by one stage. Fake Out is used to steal turns. Sitrus Berry helps keep it on the field. Kieran is just missing Knock Off and Parting Shot, and this is every VGC Incineroar.

Hydrapple on the other hand is a Pokemon that sees very little usage. Back in Kitakami, Dipplin was Kieran’s ace Pokemon, and it’s nice to see that he kept one part of his old team in his new, tryhard team. Hydrapple is a dedicated Special Attacker, and Kieran will immediately Terastallize it to Fighting Type to remove its 4x Ice weakness. It also has the Assault Vest equipped, meaning it will take less damage from Special Attacks.

This team is almost perfect. If I ran into someone using this team, I’d be worried. If I made the team, the only change I’d make is using Porygon 2 over Porygon-Z. P2 is an amazing wall, and can set Trick Room to let slow Pokemon like Hydrapple and Incineroar move first. Change a couple items and some moves, and it’s a threatening team to take to a real tournament.

Going into this fight blind was an incredible moment. Knowing that Kieran could genuinely bring out any Pokemon was a weird feeling, and I almost ended up losing. There’s also a cool easter egg in this fight where if you bring out Ogerpon, Kieran’s AI will change to only attack her.

Like I said, Kieran’s fight feels like a love letter to VGC. It could be a way to show new players what the official competitive format is like. And for veterans like myself, it can still provide a solid challenge.

Argorok (Twilight Princess)

Image Credit: Nintendo

Out of all of the traditional 3D Zelda games, I think that Twilight Princess is my least favorite. I played through it in full once and didn’t really care for it. And every other time I’ve tried to go back to it, I fall off almost immediately. That being said, I can say without question that this game excels in two categories. The combat, and the boss fights!

I can say with certainty that Twilight Princess has the greatest set of bosses in the franchise. Any boss fight could easily be put on here. Zant is a fantastic penultimate boss fight that acts as a way for you to see how far you’ve come. Stallord is one of the most memorable bosses purely in terms of how you fight it on your Spinner. And Blizzeta gets a mention just for the pre-fight cutscene alone.

At the end of the Sky Temple, you ascend to a platform that is clearly meant to host some kind of fight in it. But as Link looks around, it’s completely empty. Then the camera pans to show you your foe. Twilit Dragon: Argorok!

For being a series that takes a lot of inspiration from Arthurian legend, the Zelda games don’t actually use dragons all that often. At this point you had fights like Volvagia, but that fight kind of sucked. Using a fire dragon to play wack-a-mole with was pretty lame. But Argorok on the other hand is a full-fledged ruler of the sky.

Starting the fight off, you have to use your nifty Double Clawshot that you got in this dungeon to scale the pillars around the arena. From there, grapple onto Argorok’s tail, strap on your Iron Boots from all the way back in dungeon two, and drag him to the ground, breaking his armor. Do that a couple of times to expose the core on his back.

From here, the fight changes. The wind begins to pick up. Rain begins pouring onto the arena, causing these Peahats to sprout and fly around. Climb the pillars once again and grapple onto the Peahats. Your goal is to get around to his back before he roasts you with his flame breath. Once you’re hooked onto him, you take out your sword and impale him Shadow of the Colossus style!

I’ll fully admit that Argorok isn’t the hardest boss in the world. Heck, he barely even tries to attack you. But the atmosphere, the aesthetics, the music, and the playable cinematic of it all is what wins me over.

Roxas (Kingdom Hearts 2)

Image Credit: Square Enix

When it comes to boss fights in Character Action games, none can match the quality of the rival battle. Getting to fight against someone who’s very nearly equal to the character you’re playing as is an incredible feeling, and they’re often the most memorable battles in their respective games. I’m talking about fights like Jetstream Sam, Jeanne, and if it wasn’t for my restriction on final bosses, Vergil from DMC3 would be here. 

I’ve talked about Roxas in another article earlier this year, but that was more about him as a character. I only briefly mentioned his fight in Kingdom Hearts 2. And what a fight it is! It’s wild to me that this fight wasn’t in the original release of KH2, only showing up in the Final Mix version a year later.

This fight is the best fight in the game for me. It’s a no frills, 1-v-1 duel between two Keyblade masters. There’s no silly gimmicks. No wind barriers to break. No water clones to destroy. No teleporting and shooting you off-screen. No card games. No berserk meter making him invincible. There isn’t even a single Reaction Command in this fight. Just a good, clean struggle between two warriors.

The battle starts off simple enough. Roxas has simple, fast Keyblade combos, a “get off me” attack with a large AoE, and an aerial retaliation if you hit his revenge value. But then you get to the second phase. Roxas dashes to the center of the arena and begins bombarding you with a barrage of light energy balls. This attack is easily dodged by just moving around the arena, but this is also the turning point of the fight.

From here, Roxas’s attacks will also come with these crazy fast light pillar projectiles that are unblockable by your normal guard. You’ve better have a leveled up Quick Run, Dodge Roll, or Reflect on your shortcuts menu because you’re getting sliced to ribbons otherwise.

I said earlier that there aren’t any Reaction Commands in this fight, and that was only half true. There aren’t the traditional Triangle RCs, but there is a secret to this fight. If you dodge around Roxas’s attacks without attacking back, Roxas will charge at you and initiate a quick time event where if you lose, you die. But if you win, you can steal his Keyblades and they’ll attack with you. This is a way to get a lot of burst DPS on him. Especially if you combine this with Sora’s Limit Form and Ars Arcanum.

And finally, the music. “The Other Promise” is my favorite song on KH2's OST. It stands out to me simply because this isn’t a boss theme. This is a song that I used to fall asleep to. This song isn’t here to get you hyped up, but rather to tell Roxas’s story through his theme.