The most extreme resurrection in a boss you've seen

[Roboshi]

We've all had a situation where you discover a Boss in a game has more stages than you thought, with them coming back for one final round. But I'm trying to think about the "biggest" revival possible.

To put it more clearly, what is the boss you've seen get the most "dead" before reviving? I'm looking for the body activly starting to fall apart or dissolve before coming back for more.

Rules;

1-sequel revivals don't count. Sequels often recon villain deaths so they can reprise their roles but that's not what we're looking for here

2- there most be another round to fight. We're not looking for someone coming back up just to cough and die like crocomire from super metroid

3-It must seriously seem like they're dead. So if the boss has a health meter with something left in it during their death it's not fooling anymore.

 

[FalloutJack]

So, you get down into the crater after after beating Jenova, and you know who it is that's up next. You get into this several part battle, switching between characters as a necessity to finish the fight, and then once you finally do it...


You THINK you've beaten Sephiroth, but then you're treated to a latin-chorus Holy Shit, all of a sudden! This is perhaps the most iconic example of the situation, especially since he STILL wasn't dead, after the fact, and may still not be even now. So, for my money, especially for being my first video game RPG, I vote Final Fantasy 7.

Good runners up would be Skies of Arcadia (Ramirez final fight), Resident Evil 2 (G-Birkin on the getaway train), and Phantasy Star 4 (THREE Dark Falz battles).

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Saren from Mass Effect is the first to come to my mind. When you beat him at the climactic showdown in the Citadel Tower, he falls forty feet and gets impaled by a huge glass shard. Shepard even sends a squadmate down to shoot his corpse in the head to make sure he's dead, and then he still gets revived as a cyber zombie.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I was surprised by the 3-part boss fight against Shadar in Ni no Kuni. Seems like an obvious thing in hindsight.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Dark Samus in Metroid Prime 2.

Blow her up once and she's on (blue) fire but runs away.
Comes back for round two and you ignite her again causing her to fall off the top floor of an elevator on a mountain-high fortress.
Comes back again with her skin translucent so you can see her nucleus and skeleton. Blow her up a third time, seemingly for good.

...Regenerates from a cloud of Phazon particles once you've left to come back in the next game even stronger than before.

 

[Hawki]

I'll second Ezekiel's nomination. I'll also give nomination to:

-Ganondorf, Ocarina of Time (fight him twice, both in grand fashion)

-William Birkin/Nemesis, Resident Evil (bastards keep coming back over and over throughout their games)

-Maybe Seymour in Final Fantasy X, but I wouldn't call it an "extreme" case.

-Saren does come to mind as well, but it's only "extreme" in a narrative sense. As a boss himself, he's basically just a bullet sponge that scuttles around everywhere.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Narratively, I'd say Saren from Mass Effect or The Dark Prince from The Two Thrones. Saren is awful as a boss, and The Dark Prince barely counts as one, but both did a good job of taking me by surprise.

For actual gameplay, I could count the Empress of Time in Warrior Within but that seems like cheating. She did, however, die and come back...sort of...

 

[Glongpre]

Gill in Third Strike.

Especially if you managed to beat him round 1 without his super stocked, then you go for the kill in round 2 and are all excited, but then...RESURRECTION!
And you are just standing there like what?! You serious! You throw a jump kick but you get pushed back..and he has full health again.

 

[Cap'nPipsqueak]

We've all had a situation where you discover a Boss in a game has more stages than you thought, with them coming back for one final round. But I'm trying to think about the "biggest" revival possible.

You should always, always, always expect the final boss in a game to have at least two forms (traditional is three). It's practically a cliche, or at the very least a trope.

 

[Fox12]

So, you get down into the crater after after beating Jenova, and you know who it is that's up next. You get into this several part battle, switching between characters as a necessity to finish the fight, and then once you finally do it...


You THINK you've beaten Sephiroth, but then you're treated to a latin-chorus Holy Shit, all of a sudden! This is perhaps the most iconic example of the situation, especially since he STILL wasn't dead, after the fact, and may still not be even now. So, for my money, especially for being my first video game RPG, I vote Final Fantasy 7.

Good runners up would be Skies of Arcadia (Ramirez final fight), Resident Evil 2 (G-Birkin on the getaway train), and Phantasy Star 4 (THREE Dark Falz battles).

The sephiroth battle is so iconic and well delivered. There's no competing with it. I'll never forget the time I jumped in my seat as the trumpets blared. I knew shit had gotten real.

Dark Souls in general. You think you've won, or gotten past some impossible obstacle, and then the game smites you.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Maybe Seymour in Final Fantasy X, but I wouldn't call it an "extreme" case.

I'm gonna put him in the Seriously UnCool part of the Cool Wall, and put up a new thread.

 

[BrawlMan]

Nemesis from RE3. He. Just. Won't. Die!

Phantom from Devil May Cry. You can fight this lava spider-scorpion demon to about 5 times.

All of Devil May Cry 4. It doesn't help that you have to backtrack through the same levels twice.

Seven Force and Golden Silver are both bosses that appears in three (technically four to the former as a shout-out in Astro Boy: Omega Factor) different games by Treasure. Seven Force is a boss that can change in to seven (six in Alien Soldier) different forms, controlled by a different person in each game.

Seven Force was in Gunstar Heroes first, then Alien Soldier, and finally Gunstar Super Heroes. It's almost the same for Golden Silver, though he appeared as an optional final boss for Guardian Heroes; depending on the path you take.

 

[hermes]

Okami for me.

Everything from the first half of the game makes it look like Orochi is the final boss, the king of all monsters and the stakes are high enough by the time you get to face it...

Spoiler

and then you discover he is only one in a race of evil monsters from outer space, or something like it, and the game is only half way over

. Of course, it returns later on, stronger than before. In hindsight, I should have expected it since half of the powers on my UI were not unlocked, but still... the game wraps up so completely most of the plot threads opened in the beginning I could have believed if someone told me this was actually two games put together.

 

[Dalisclock]

-Maybe Seymour in Final Fantasy X, but I wouldn't call it an "extreme" case.

This came to mind, mostly because of how much it annoyed me. Yeah, it's justified in game but that doesn't change the fact Seymour comes across as obnoxious(and seriously dude, put a fucking shirt on). Too bad Yuna sucks at actually sending the dude the first 3 times she gets the chance to.

 

[RedDeadFred]

It's not exactly extreme, but having the Abyss Watcher come back in his ember state was both awesome and demoralizing the first time I fought him. I was proud of myself when I killed him in the first stage, them I realized that I was only half done and had the hardest part still ahead of me.

 

[barbzilla]

You THINK you've beaten Sephiroth, but then you're treated to a latin-chorus Holy Shit, all of a sudden! This is perhaps the most iconic example of the situation, especially since he STILL wasn't dead, after the fact, and may still not be even now. So, for my money, especially for being my first video game RPG, I vote Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy was nowhere near the first RPG. In fact it is almost a decade to late for that accolade.

OT: I guess I'd have to say Simmons from Resident Evil 6. Not only do you end up thinking you killed this butthead multiple times, but each time he comes back he gets stronger like he is a friggin Saian or something.

 

[Glongpre]

You THINK you've beaten Sephiroth, but then you're treated to a latin-chorus Holy Shit, all of a sudden! This is perhaps the most iconic example of the situation, especially since he STILL wasn't dead, after the fact, and may still not be even now. So, for my money, especially for being my first video game RPG, I vote Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy was nowhere near the first RPG. In fact it is almost a decade to late for that accolade.

Where does he say FF7 is the first rpg?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It's not really a boss, well, nowhere near a boss...nor is it particularly extreme. But it did take me by surprise enough to warrant a phrase something along the lines of "hang on..wait, what? Ohh, fuck!" Out of me, Which hasn't applied to a real boss in years due to the complete predictability of most games.
SoulsBorne examples would be cheating. Well this is probably more cheating, but can't think of another example of surprise resurrection. Basically was a large multiplayer match on Battlefield 4 where I had slyly quadded (new verb!) around to the other end of the map to start capturing the furthest enemy base without being spotted, planted a motion detector then hid in a corner waiting for resistance. Which came in the form of a guy running around the corner, spotting my motion detector, shooting it, giving me enough time to kill them and breath a sigh of relief as the base slowly succumbs to my murderous charm or whatever it is. Except some sneaky medic must have been hiding around that corner close enough to the visible corpse, because the body jolted back to life in prone position and shot me before I had time to remember that players could even do that in the game. Suffice to say I never trust dead bodies any more!

Edit: Oh I do remember a very annoying repeated resurrection in Skyward Sword with that damn persistent giant black honey-monster thing that kept climbing out of the ground so I could begrudgingly chop its' toes off. What a chore. Nothing cool about repeat bosses, Nintendo.