Best modern-day boss fights (Spoilers)

[EmperorZinyak]

Some people say that boss fights in modern day gaming are a dying art. In this age of military shooters and multiplayer games, it seems that boss fights are being phased out. If they're not disappearing, they're becoming crappier and less memorable. However, there are still some great fights to be fought out there. What, in your opinion, are the best boss fights of recent gaming history? Here's my personal list.
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Brooke Augustine-Infamous Second Son.

Spoiler

Brooke Augustine's final boss battle may not be the greatest of all time, but it's the most visually impressive boss battle that I've ever seen. Most of the boss fight is spent running away or dodging attacks from a gigantic concrete dragon as it bears down on you. The concrete monstrosity is extremely well designed and succeeds at being truly intimidating, one thing that bosses have trouble with these days. The fight wasn't unfair, but it wasn't easy either. If you stayed on your toes, you would eventually defeat it, but it required a lot of concentration to stay alive.
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Wardens-Saints Row IV

Spoiler

Wardens were one of the highlights of Saints Row IV in my opinion. What better adversary is there than an alien with the same super-powers as yourself? Fights against Wardens were challenging endeavors as both of you hopped from rooftop to rooftop, slinging powers at each other. Although the fights got easier as you progressed in the game, fighting Wardens in the early game was a great experience. The best part about the fights is that there's no enclosed arena that you fight them in; the whole city becomes a battleground for you two. I wish that more open world games had Wardenlike enemies that you could fight.
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Chris Walker-Outlast

Spoiler

Chris Walker is one of the most terrifying adversaries in a horror game. He doesn't teleport, he doesn't have any magical powers, and he doesn't burst out of closets. What he does do is hunt you down with a psychopathic determination that scares the ever living crap out of me. Although he's not technically a boss fight, I consider him to be a great enough threat to be considered a boss. When he's stalking you in the sewers, and you hear the sloshing of his footsteps and his mad panting as he draws ever closer? Thanks but no thanks, I think I'll try playing again in the mid afternoon during a sunny day. Chris symbolizes just how defenseless and hopeless you are during Outlast. If he catches you, he doesn't rip your head off your body: he rips your god damn body off your head! No other enemy in a horror game is as badass as Chris.

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

I first read that last one as chris walken... that would be a good boss fight!


For me good bosses are fun and challenging but not unfair. the warden's in saints row were a challenge at first but after the first 3 or 4 it became easy enough to pick them off.

Not the final boss fight but the captain off right before that in shadows of mordor was a butt load of fun for me. my orc warcheifs were all super powerful and they all had poison weapons so they just walked through sauron's warcheifs. they killed more of them than I did, only one who died was the one they make you take as a tutorial.

I've always loved the bosses in Phantasy star universe and that's not exactly modern but it's not that long ago either the psu game on vita had a really fun end boss.

 

[G00N3R7883]

I hate most boss fights. They usually fit into 2 categories.

- Ones that have infinately respawning minions. Sooooooo frustrating I can't even put it into words. I've just spent an hour killing these minions on my way to the boss, and now I want to actually, you know, fight the boss. But no, instead, I've got to fight more of these guys. They aren't really dangerous individually but they wear you down simply because they never stop respawning. And after a while you realise "this will literally go on forever unless I ignore these guys and shoot the boss", which then means you start taking damage from the minions. Especially annoying if its an FPS where your guns can run out of ammo because you waste it all on the never ending waves of minions.

Examples: I'm currently replaying Borderlands 2, so, every boss in Borderlands 2.

- Ones that have a repetitive attack pattern that you have to learn and avoid while you wait for it to expose the Glowing Red Weak Spot. Usually requires you to shoot the Glowing Red Weak Spot 3 times. I hate them because they're lazy and boring.

Examples: Most of the bosses from the Batman Arkham series.

So having said that, here are 2 examples of boss fights that I actually liked.

Mr Freeze, Batman Arkham City - because you had to use the skills you've developed during the game in an intelligent way, and use the environment your advantage. You needed to use stealth, and perform various "takedowns". You couldn't attack Freeze the same way twice because he would adapt to your tactics.

Giant Snake Thing, Resident Evil 6 (yes, number six) - it was invisible most of the time, so you have to really focus and pay attention. If you listen closely you can hear it hissing, and if you look closely you can see saliva dripping from its mouth.

 

[stroopwafel]

Probably

Spoiler

those 2 box heads

at the end of Evil Within. That was a harrowing fight. I almost didn't have any ammo left and the weapons I did have were poorly upgraded so I needed to fully exploit the traps in the environment to stay alive. I really couldn't let any ammo or traps go to waste so I restarted the fight quite a few times. I finally beat them and that was quite a relief.

 

[Mister K]

The sickest boss fight I've had in the recent games is most definitely

Spoiler

Senator "Nanomachies, son" Armstrong

The boss himself, the presentation, music, it all was goddamn glorious.

 

[small]

i enjoy the dragon fights in dragonage inquisition. they capture the epic feel of fighting a beast like that until i unleash sera's special ability and said dragon has lost 9/10th of its health in 5 seconds. early dragon fights are fun though

 

[Tatsuki]

The sickest boss fight I've had in the recent games is most definitely

Spoiler

Senator "Nanomachies, son" Armstrong

The boss himself, the presentation, music, it all was goddamn glorious.

I'll take this post and run with it.

The bosses from Metal Gear Rising in general.
I thought the game was a joke so didn't get it but eventually ps+ gave me it and the game was just beautiful out there fun and it really knows how to hype you up and get you going, I enjoyed the fights because I got into them so much which is what makes this game great. The game itself is... stupid quite frankly, but it makes you feel 110% awesome.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Probably my favourite boss fight in recent memory would be Knight Artorias from Dark Souls. The fight is pretty challenging as Artorias has a pretty tricky moveset to read, moves fast and is hugely punishing if you get too greedy. It's a hugely tense and exciting fight since you're almost always on the move, only able to really get punishing hits in.

 

[bliebblob]

Of what I've played myself recently: transistor.

Spoiler: Major spoilers for transistor ahoy!

Mostly because they had the guts to throw a completely new mechanic at you as the final boss fight. They did a good job subverting your expectations up to that point, (the double suicide of whatever their names were was a nice one.) but that one knocked it out of the park. Now if only I had any clue what any part of it actually meant...

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

To me, a good boss fight is one that pits all your learned skills/powers/weapons, abilities into that one fight. Or at least things you've accumulated up to that point. What I hate most is boss fights where he keeps regenerating - I don't mind having to kill a boss a finite number of times, but when it's just running around figuring out the exact sequence of things required to do while fighting/evading that boss, then it gets annoying. Much like:

Probably

Spoiler

those 2 box heads

at the end of Evil Within. That was a harrowing fight. I almost didn't have any ammo left and the weapons I did have were poorly upgraded so I needed to fully exploit the traps in the environment to stay alive. I really couldn't let any ammo or traps go to waste so I restarted the fight quite a few times. I finally beat them and that was quite a relief.

I actually found the fight to be more agreeable, fighting him the first time was much more painful.

However, one boss fight which I played recently was Shadow Warrior. Now the end boss is actually quite boring, repetitive and slow, but the huge battle with all types of minions *before* that fight was f'ing FANTASTIC. A good challenge, running around the battlefield screaming the entire time, letting loose with all manner of weapons. It was glorious, I just wish all the dead demon bodies stayed around on the ground until it was over.

 

[Evonisia]

What do you define as "modern" in this case?

For my few I'll just go with games from the Seventh Gen and Eight Gen onwards.

Spoiler

I say the final fight with Jeanne in the first Bayonetta is fantastic. It's well paced and the multiple stages demand the player change their tactics very quickly so it never gets tedious, plus it's a meaty challenge even during the longer segments when you aren't stood on a flying rocket. Bayonetta was a game that kept topping itself over and over again, but I don't think it ever surpassed that fight (which was luckily only about two missions away from the end). I don't think my RT button has hated me more before with all my dodges, and I play shooters with the bloody thing.

Spoiler

[image width=400]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7lv9PVVlYHM/UgBwAb53soI/AAAAAAAAMSo/vqAVhjTtqMg/s1600/WoWScrnShot_080413_054452.jpg[/IMG]

I can be boring and say that the Lich King fight from WoW is amazing. It's beautifully atmospheric with multiple stages which have the platform you're on cracking, rebuilding and then there are portions where you need to avoid expanding black pools of death while also killing winged harbingers of death trying to throw your allies off the platform. The ending's a bit crap, but it's a fight of lots of co-ordination with an enemy that is genuinely intimidating.

Spoiler

[image width=400]http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HaWfLKxno-Q/maxresdefault.jpg[/IMG]

Defeating Lopez in the final Carneles mission in the first Saints Row is damn good. Getting your aim right to destroy the plane while RPG thugs attempt to gimp your car in two blows is tense stuff, yo.

Spoiler: You may now have permission to shit yourself.

[image width=400]http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/64880/1558078-act5_generalraam.jpg[/IMG]

Honourable mention to RAAM from Gears of War, but as intimidating, meaty and atmospheric as the boss fight is, I just can't deny that it's a complete rip-off of the Tartarus final boss fight from Halo 2, and it irritates me whenever I think of it. Still, beating RAAM on insane will forever be a self-applause worthy moment.

I would agree with the Wardens if it weren't for the damn Stomp Wardens. The fights with them are more of a matter of patience than good timing because of SRIV's shitty knockback physics (partially because of the recover).

 

[josemlopes]

I have been playing Ninja Gaiden Black and those are good, its basicly either enemies that are hard to hit and hit hard (with a big health bar) or a big creature that has a varied set of attacks and you must find the best way to hit and not be hit by it.

It pits you directly against an big enemy, no qte or making the fight a bunch of disjointed scripted events.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Ornstein and Smough, 'Dark Souls': Challenging, visually cool looking, with a well-done dynamic (one is big, slow and hits hard, the other is small, fast, and hits not as hard), this was one of those bosses where after you fought them you wanted to learn more about them. The environmental destructibility also added a very epic feel to the fight.

Hades, 'God of War 3': Probably one of my favorite boss fights ever. Very well done mechanics, a wide variety of situations and variations the fight puts you through, long enough that it feels epic, but not so long that it feels boring and padded, and a clear reward for winning (getting to then use Hades' very bad-ass weapons).

 

[Neonsilver]

Right now I can only think of The Boss from Metal Gear 3 Snake Eater. Any other boss I can think of is either a bullet sponge with onehit (or nearly) kill attacks, useless with many minions or you just have to learn their pattern.
Many bossfights, while appearing to be epic fights, end up to be easier than a group of trashmobs.

It's especially annoying if the boss is a combination of those types I mentioned before.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I really enjoyed the final boss from Xenoblade Chronicles. The difficulty was high enough to feel like a massive battle with a god, but it wasn't so great that it lead to so many deaths that I was completely taken out of the story. Visually speaking, it was quite impressive (by a Wii game's standards anyways), and it had a couple impressive songs:

Spoiler: Forms 1&2 (if memory serves correctly)

Spoiler: Form 3

Probably the most memorable thing for me in the fight, though (outside of the entire second form), occurred at the beginning of the third form. He launched an attack that left two of my party members incapacitated and the third one with barely any health. The problem: He had a couple minions in the battle that were bearing down on that third party member. The resulting scramble to build up the Party Gauge enough to revive the other two was quite a tense moment. Overall, quite a nice final boss in a game that, otherwise, hadn't really been that great in terms of bosses.

To a lesser extent, I also really enjoyed the first Letho fight from The Witcher 2. It really felt like two Witchers having a fight to the death, which was helped tremendously by just how tough Letho was. Yeah, the fight was rather easy once I learned a few ways to exploit Letho's moves, but it still felt like a major fight nonetheless.

 

[bossfight1]

Shovel Knight has great boss fights, though I don't know if that counts considering its heavy lean on the retro side of the coin.

Mr Freeze in Arkham City was great, and acted as a prime example of how to do boss fights properly: they are a TEST of your abilities. They're supposed to present a unique obstacle that you overcome using the skills you've learned over the whole game, or just in the preceding level. Games seem to have forgotten this; as my name implies, boss fights are my favorite bits in games, especially when they have epic music... plus I love when I can see their health meters, so I can see how effective my current strategy is.

World of Warcraft continues to have amazing bosses - people didn't like Pandaria that much, but I loved its raid content, particularly Lei Shen in the Throne of Thunder and Garrosh in the Siege of Orgrimmar. And today, the bosses of Warlords of Draenor are really fun, and the pace at which Blizzard releases raid content is great since it gave my guild plenty of time to chew into Highmaul before Blackrock Foundry opened.

Bravely Default had great boss fights, even if a majority of them were repeated over the course of the game, growing in power and teaming up in some instances.

Why has the games industry shirked boss fights? In more realistic games I could understand - no one was expecting a final boss fight with a giant-ass robot in GTA 5 - but games with zombies, giant monsters, aliens, the furthest they go is throw in either a standard enemy who just has more health than the others, a 'final push' to the game's 'fix everything' button or, in Dying Light's case, a crappy QTE fight with the bad guy. It's infuriating. A game of Simon is NOT a boss fight.

 

[Blitsie]

The Lumen Sage in Bayonetta 2

Spoiler: ta-da!

This guy is fast, relentless and packs some seriously awesome tricks up his sleeve. All three fights you have against him are one of the most epic and fast paced fights you get, and that's just the first few minutes of these fights, later on the shit really hits the fan when both Bayo and him summon up gigantic creatures to have a Godzilla-like brawl in the background while both of you continue duking it out.

Its quite understandable why this gem got so many game of the year awards....

 

[Signa]

Having finished Legend of Grimrock 2 recently, I have to say the Lindworm was one of the best battles I've had in ages. Monsters I encountered throughout the game keep spawning it, so you just get this "final test" feel from the battle. Each enemy you take down reminds you of the troubles you once had fighting them when you first encountered them. Also, the boss taunts you, much to do with the tactics you use. Fire magic? comments about it being lame. Rezzed a party member? Comments about cheating death, and approving.

 

[Rack]

Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2's boss fights in some kind of order, followed by Dark and Demon Souls.

Then Mr Freeze.

 

[Evonisia]

The Lumen Sage in Bayonetta 2

Spoiler: ta-da!

This guy is fast, relentless and packs some seriously awesome tricks up his sleeve. All three fights you have against him are one of the most epic and fast paced fights you get, and that's just the first few minutes of these fights, later on the shit really hits the fan when both Bayo and him summon up gigantic creatures to have a Godzilla-like brawl in the background while both of you continue duking it out.

Its quite understandable why this gem got so many game of the year awards....

I'm not sure on him myself. I loved fighting him every time and any design remotely resembling wings on humanoids gets my attention, but I feel like he's just the Jeanne fights of Bayonetta 2 (and they happen at roughly the same points in the story). But I do agree, his fights are awesome.