Boss (video games)

Mid-boss redirects here. For the Disgaea character, see Vyers (Disgaea)

File:Bowser (smb1).png

Bowser, a recurring boss in the Mario series of games, as seen in the original Super Mario Bros.

A boss is an enemy-based challenge which is found in most video games. The appearance of a boss halts the game's progression until the player is able to surmount the enemy. A fight with a boss character is usually referred to as a "boss battle".

History

File:Gorfmission5.png

Flag Ship from the video game Gorf

One of the earliest video games to feature a boss-like attacker was the 1981 arcade shoot 'em up Gorf. The game is comprised of five levels ("Missions") in which the player must survive against a horde of alien spacecrafts. The final level, Mission 5, pits the player in a one-on-one shootout against a "Flag-Ship". Defeating this formidable enemy earns the player a rank promotion, and the game repeats itself. That same year, SNK released Vanguard, a scrolling shooter comprised of ten "Zones". In the tenth Zone, the player engages a battle against the alien leader. Like Gorf, the player restarts at Zone 1 after the boss is destroyed, though the overall speed of the game will increase each time.

The 1980 space shooter Phoenix follows a similar structure: During the first two "Rounds", the player is attacked by a swarm of alien birds. In Rounds 3 and 4, Egg-shaped vehicles start to appear and transform into larger birds. After disposing of these enemies, the player faces a large mothership in the fifth and final Round. Vanguard and Phoenix were both later ported to the Atari 2600, making them the first console games to feature a boss battle.

The first known game to explicitly list an end-level opponent as "BOSS" was Renegade, a port of the 1986 Japanese beat 'em up Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (熱血硬派くにおくん Hot Blood Tough Guy Kunio-kun"). Unlike the characters of Kunio-kun, who have unique names, the generic fighters in Renegade are simply designated as "1P", "2P", and "BOSS".

Overview

In video games, a boss is an opponent which poses a bigger threat to the player character than generic enemies do. The player may be required to fight multiple enemies working together as a "boss", or one that has multiple forms or stages. Bosses exist to tax the skills that the player has accumulated over the course of the game. In games with a narrative structure, bosses often function as major story characters.

Single-player fighting games consist entirely of one-on-one duels against opponents of increasing difficulty, culminating in a battle against a boss character. Prominent fighting game bosses include M. Bison in Street Fighter, the four-armed Goro in Mortal Kombat, and Rugal in The King of Fighters.

The action-adventure game Shadow of the Colossus consists of little more than a series of boss battles, with sixteen giant enemies to defeat. The creator of the game, Fumito Ueda, attributed the design to his own enjoyment of boss battles and the desire to get to them quickly.

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Despite being an optional enemy, Final Fantasy VIII's Omega Weapon is more difficult to defeat than the game's final boss.

A mid-tier boss which is stronger than generic enemies—yet weaker than a full-fledged boss—is generally known as mini-boss or sub-boss. A mini-boss presents less of a challenge and serves to briefly break up the regular action, highlight a dramatic moment in the story, or is simply a warm-up to an actual boss. An enemy who appears at the end of a game is referred to as a last boss, end boss, or final boss (among other synonyms).

Certain bosses are unique in that they appear multiple times before they can be defeated. An example is the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, a boss character who constantly stalks the player throughout the game, yet cannot be truly 'killed' until the final battle. Certain bosses are designed to be literally unbeatable, usually for plot or design purposes; in some such cases, the player faces no penalty for losing.

Console role-playing games sometimes feature optional enemies which are not necessary to fight, yet can easily justify as bosses in their own right. This type of enemy is commonly known as a super boss, and they are usually hidden within the game as a challenge to experienced players. As the name might suggest, super bosses are often deadlier than their requisite counterparts. The Yiazmat from Final Fantasy XII can take many hours to defeat, with fifty million hit points and an ability to instantly kill playable characters at random. Other examples include Sephiroth, a recurring optional boss in Kingdom Hearts, and the Black Rabbite of Seiken Densetsu 3. Such super bosses often yield tangible rewards if defeated, such as powerful items, although often the mere accomplishment of defeating these bosses serves as its own reward, with no further renumeration.

Boss rush

Some games include a sequence often referred to as a boss rush, in where the player must surmount several bosses in a row or even all at once, often without a chance to replenish resources or health. Boss rushes are often used in game design to see the player endure a long rematch against all the bosses defeated prior to that point. Series noted for their boss rushes include Castlevania, Gradius and Mega Man, in which the titular character must battle each of the game's bosses a second time.

See also

• Mob (computer gaming)
• Non-player character

External links

• Top 10 Video game Bosses at Gamespot
• Retro Junk - Top 10 Bosses of the 2D Era at Retro Junk
• The 20 Greatest Bosses in Video Game History