Best Final Boss Fights

[Glongpre]

I just finished Dark Souls for the first time (yes, I am that late). Wow, that was a really great and atmospheric end to the game.

Spoiler: Atmosphere

First, you go into the Kiln and you get this great view. Really spectacular.
When you get to the boss, you step in and are greeted by some very sombre and sad music, which honestly, completed caught me off guard and I almost ate his jumping attack, lol. (This song is really good on it's own, but also in context).
The fight itself is good, and I love 1v1 duels like this. Gwyn looks powerful, with a cool model, cool attacks.

I ended up doing the link the bonfires, being unaware of the alternative (which is a clever way of going into NG+, I must say). The ending is very brief, doesn't really tell you much if you aren't into the lore. I figured you sacrifice yourself to light the flame there, whatever that does idk, but it was a fine ending. Apparently it keeps a cycle going.

This fight was also great because I had just come from killing that piece of shit bed of chaos, and I needed a better designed boss to fight.

Anyways, the final boss himself was a great ending to the game, with a great lead up and fight, and some great music.

What are some other examples of great final bosses that really made an impression on you?

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Hm... some made an impression on me early when I was easier to impress, and some are just plain good with a lot of different elements to them.

There's only one I can think of right now that fits both- the entire final battle of Final Fantasy 6. The barrage of deadly foes in the first three tiers have no names and don't need them, leading to a barrage of fan theories about what exactly Kefka's grotesque tower is, whether it's a reincarnation of the Warring Triad or a tribute to Dante's Inferno.

My personal favourite is the idea that each is a reflection of an aspect of Kefka's personality, with the tiers being reflections of Destruction (huge black titan with angry face), Madness (cluster of nude men and women in various poses and colours), and Godhood (male and female angels) respectively. I really like how giving each tier final attacks when they die powerful enough to likely kill at least one party member in retaliation (10 Hits, Calmness, multiple uses of Shockwave) makes use of the whole 'replacement party members' dealie and forces you to create a balanced team. Actually I wish those attacks were stronger.

Less ambiguous is the final tier, but no less grand. In a game with less broken combat options, a boss who spammed Fallen One (all HP to 1) and Hyperdrive (7000+ damage when you probably have about 4000) like that might be considered overpowered. Here, it feels fitting. Goner looks so impressive-looking that it's disappointing how little damage it does compared to everything else, but that's about the only complaint I can think of. Dancing Mad (all 15 minutes of it) is one of my all-time favourite game songs.

An operatic end to a great adventure.

 

[Saelune]

Well, neither are about the fight, but then, either was yours, so I will use them.

Two Worlds 1: Not because of the fight, but because you are given a choice to join the bad guy or die (fight him). And...you can actually choose. If you side with the bad guy, some Paladin guys show up being like WTF!? And you fight them and the bad guy (and evil you) win. I wish more games did this. Hell, I wish The Elder Scrolls did this. As much as I love Morrowind, would have been cooler if you could accept Dagoth Ur's invitations.

Dishonored: Mostly inspired by Cry's (of Youtube/Twitch) anger at the final encounter. Its primarily a stealth assassin game, so being able to do just that for the final guy is very fitting. It can be an anti-climactic fight, which I feel is the point and suits the game. Your journey for revenge and justice leads you to a broken man. (Or he holds Emily over a cliff, but still)

 

[RedDeadFred]

Guilty Spark

...

Nah, I agree with the OP. I too recently completed Dark Souls for the first time and was blown away by that final fight. Apart from Artorias, he's my favourite boss in the game. The series seems to do swordsmen boss fights extremely well. I just finished the Abyss Watchers in Dark Souls 3 and for me, they're already up there among the best in the series.

Edit: Having completed Dark Souls 3, I now actually think it might have the best final boss. It has everything:
A huge and interesting moveset
A good difficulty (definitely the hardest final boss of the series IMO)
Some of the best music in the series (only the Twin Princes beats it in this IMO)
Excellent lore (some call it fanservice, but I think it's fine since it makes sense from a lore perspective)

 

[ShoobieDoobie]

Megaman X5 Sigma first form for the music alone.

 

[Glongpre]

I like Ocarina of Time and God of War 1 for end battles. Also the original Starfox was pretty tight. Probably one of the first battles I ever remember actually having gameplay physics influenced by the boss's actions.

 

[BrawlMan]

Bayonetta - Jubileus. The music and grand epic scale alone are worth it. The guiding her to the sun mechanics I could have done without. The mechanic is fine on Normal or lower, but on Hard and Infinite Climax, it is a pain the ass.

Devil May Cry 3 - Vergil. Any DMC fan knows why.

No More Heroes - Fighting an opponent who is bare-handed and uses MMA moves is worthy and different for a final boss. Of course Jeane is not the true final boss. Henry is, and one of the best final bosses ever.

 

[FalloutJack]

The final Colossus (Malus) of Shadow of the Colossus is a given. That game is art, that world has its own kind of atmosphere, and it was a grand setup to lead to this final confrontation. I had found each and every one of the Colossi difficult in a unique way, so naturally this became frustrating for me. Of course, now that I know the method, I could do it again and again, but the point is that it was all just well-done.

While I find it hard to determine whether Persona 3 or 4 is my example of what I think of as the best RPG, the one by which others should be judged, I would say that the superior final battle must belong to the third game, against the Nyx Avatar, and then to force your way towards sealing the actual goddess of the night. The music was excellent. I always loved the theme of the Velvet Room, and this was a battle theme with it in it? Cool! The fight was long-but-entertaining. The boss itself was properly challenging (unless I used Apocalypse). It was good all around.

I will second Megaman X5, though I will say MAN I had trouble with that, at first! (I'm referring to all of it, not just the first part.) However, I would also like to shout out to X4, because of all that went into it. Every Megaman X game has its own flavor. X4 was the big transition to a new console, and they just ran with it. I love that game. Fighting Sigma, though... I like his themes. He gets good music. I also liked the voice-acting for the guy. Somehow, that fit more than Maverick Huner X. Still, fighting that scything maniac...and then having to battle with him while he's merged with a station?! Dayum, boy!

Now, I will admit that Final Fantasy 6 did a great job with its tower of evil rising up towards the heavens with Dancing Mad playing as the team battle their way up to Kefka to take that clown down, but I have to give my props to Final Fantasy 7, once again a breakout RPG onto a new system AND the first video game RPG I ever even played! I had no idea, at first. I had no idea how it was going to be. Then, Sephiroth shows up as a GIANT MONSTER, with my characters battling from different angles and requiring coordination in order to beat him! That was challenging, at first, and fun. And then...well...hello final form AND last hurrah! I didn't expect you there! Satisfying, though.

(I'm going to stop bringing up the music, because they always have great music on these.)

I also want to spotlight Xenogears for having a game revolving around giant mech battles against a galactic warfare doomsday machine! Deus Ex Machina, the thing that is effectively god in the world and literally God of the Machine, or God from the Machine, or some other varient on that. You can actually decide how hard you want this battle to be, dependent on if you attack some of its supporting mechanisms or go for the big one first. There are people who severely test themselves on the hardest level of the boss, SOLO!

Speaking of doomsday devices, HELLO Zelos, Silver Gigas of Arcadia and destroyer of the world via Rains of Destruction! We didn't forget about you, the crowing achievement in an epic air pirate game that I sorely miss playing! You who are like nanotech Unicron, having to be fought against with a comparatively tiny battleship, and then as part of the last battle with Ramirez, the bastard who gave you life! (I so miss Skies of Arcadia... Such a great game.)

Last but not least, in fact possibly the biggest and baddest, Asura's Wrath in the battle against Chakravartin, who is god. No, literally. Not an emanation of god like in Shin Megami Tensei game (Still awesom, BTW.), but THE GOD responsible for everything. EVERYTHING! All the suffering, all the power, all the everything...and all because he essentially wanted to retire and move on. What does Asura - whose powers came from him - do in response to that? Punch him in the face! He punches him and punches him and keeps on punching him until he's down and out and GONE. Asura is the TRUE god of war, and his story is much better!

 

[CritialGaming]

The boss fight that really stands out to me is Sephiroth in FF7. You fight with everyone in your party, split into three groups and you have the most epic sound track as he literally throws world ending spells at you. I first played the game when I was 14 and didn't know how badly you could cheese the game. I got there, underleveled and underprepared, it was fantastic and still to this day it really is one of the only final bosses that I can even remember.

Honorable mention goes to the Lich King heroic in World of Warcraft's ICC raid. That fight nearly broke my guild. I remember being super pissed because the night we got our kill was the night they asked me to raid on my shadow priest alt because not enough ranged showed up. So I basically just gave the group vampiric embrace and did fuck all for damage, yet still got the LK kill on a character not even geared enough to sneeze in the LK's direction. And my uber heroic geared DK just shaking her shoulders like, "Da Fuq?"

 

[Scarim Coral]

No More Heroes - Fighting an opponent who is bare-handed and uses MMA moves is worthy and different for a final boss. Of course Jeane is not the true final boss. Henry is, and one of the best final bosses ever.

I know right! That boss had a killer theme song and aswell that awesome instant cool move! Also like the previous boss was just plain annoying for dodging your attack 99% of the time, the final boss was indeed an equal to you, Travis.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Kefka was a laugh. Corax of Hexen 64 was a ***** too. OH OH! The alien from Conker's Bad Fur Day!

And I know everyone but me and that one dude has completely forgotten about it, but all of the Brothers from the Void were amazing. The Void is basically Shadows of the Colossus, except you us magic paint to fight off the Lovecraftian themed giant monster men so you can watch their naked hot sisters do sexy slow-motion dances while you rub paint on them...

Hold on, I'm gonna' go play something.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Super Metroid's Mother Brain:

 

[Glongpre]

I also really enjoy the Street Fighter Alpha 3 final fight with Bison.
It has a great theme.
The stage itself is really fitting and cool.
You fight a special version of Bison who only has one super, and that is a screen filling psycho crusher.
He doesn't feel really cheap, like a lot of fighting game bosses.

Now, the fight is actually pretty easy once you learn to bait out the super, but regardless, when he has the super it makes the match so damn intense!!

Spoiler: Final M.Bison

Super Metroid's Mother Brain:

That bass riff is so good. God damn, it is stuck in my head now!

I like Ocarina of Time and God of War 1 for end battles.

Ganon was a great fight. Which reminds me, I really enjoyed fighting him in Twilight Princess as well.
Ares was pretty decent, however, the second part is really hard and annoying (basically impossible on God mode).

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I really liked the Ganondorf fights in Twilight Princess. Nostalgia tells me Ocarina was better, an artsy part of my brain says Wind Waker was better but I had a much better time fighting Ganon in Twilight Princess.

Another one I really liked (though it wasn't the final boss) was the final fight against Trance Kuja in FFIX. Necron or whatever was a bit of a weird addition but fighting with Kuja (who somehow achieved Trance) felt pretty cathartic.

 

[Hawki]

Keeping it to one entry per franchise:

-Diablo III: Diablo
-Doom II: Icon of Sin
-Fire Emblem, the Sacred Stones: Demon King
-Final Fantasy X: Sin/Jecht/Yevon
-Gears of War: RAAM
-GoldenEye: Trevalyan
-Killzone 2: Radec
-The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess: Ganondorf
-Mass Effect: Saren
-Super Metroid: Mother Brain
-Pokemon Gen 1.: Blue (or whatever you call your rival)
-Resident Evil 3, Nemesis: Nemesis (it's in the title, damn it!)
-Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Death Egg Robot
-Super Mario 64: Bowser

Lot of these would have runner ups (e.g. the other Ganondorf fights) or are stymied by lack of experience in the series (e.g. haven't played that many Mario games), but, there you go.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Devil May Cry 3 - Vergil. Any DMC fan knows why.

It was a beautiful boss fight and a beautiful ending.

But there's another great one from the PS2 era - Metal Gear Solid 3!

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

I always thought bosses were the weakest part of many games. They're usually meh and not really satisfying to beat.

I really loved the first Dark Soul but Gwyn didn't really phase me at all. To top it of the fight is rather easy too. Definitly prefering the fight in DS2 for example.

At the moment #1 Boss is definitly Sans from Undertale though. The setting you fight him in is very special, his bevhaviour before and during the boss fight is always catching you by suprise, it gives the character you've seen for 10 hours before suddenly an incredible depth and it's also another twist on the overarching story too.
And the boss fight itself is fair but very difficult. I've friends that never beat him and stopped their run.

Which is the other amazing aspect of that fight. Because that's the whole point. He's there to make you stop. You, as in the player and he tells you so. Ugh, the mind fucks that game keeps pullin' over and over while you play it is amazing.

Edit: It's also the first boss fight i felt genuinly bad afterwards - even though i screamed of joy the moment i've beaten him, but the next instant remorse came flooding in.

 

[Kingjackl]

I like to say my favourite final bosses are the final bosses of Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Rising Revengenace, for the EXTREME tonal contrast between them. But both are amazing in their own way, and a wonderful climax for the respective games.

Dark Souls 1 had a decent final boss concept, but let down in execution. I felt Bloodborne and DS3 captured the same basic idea better, and DS3's had a real stroke of genius with it's first phase gimmick. Music was beautiful for all of them. Undertale had great final bosses in all three routes.

Also, let's give a shout-out to Pokemon's final bosses. With the exception of gen 3 and gen 6 (which were anticlimactic and shit), they've all been spectacular. From the last second reveal of the champion in gen 1, the showdown with Red in gen 2, and the complete formula shake-up in gen 5, they've generally been good and worthy.

 

[Legomaniac91_v1legacy]

I'm going to put in Doom Dragon from Golden Sun: The Lost Age. This boss kind of comes out of nowhere, but it hits like a runaway semi if you're too under leveled. It starts off as a three headed dragon that loses its head and some of its powers as you deplete more and more of its health. The only problem is that while its final form has fewer abilities as its first two, its attacks hit way harder and screw you over more easily. It goes from cast Curse and Cure moves to Djinn Storm (You didn't need those advanced classes and stats did you?) and Cruel Rain (because Fuck You and everyone in the same timezone as you!!) every other turn.

Cynthia from Pokemon Platinum. I can't speak for her Diamond and Pearl incarnations, but her Platinum team does not screw around! She starts off with a Spiritomb ( a bulk Ghost/Dark type, meaning no direct weaknesses in that generation) and it can all go downhill from there. Her Roserade might give you a break, but her Garchomp can easily ruin however much you tried to recover. Its not an impossible fight if you know what you're dong, but she makes you work for that Champion title!

Finally, Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. The Metal Gear series has always (to me) been a stupid and silly series that takes itself too seriously. Well here comes a Nanomachine buff Senator who rambles on about how awesome Right-Wing politics are while body slamming anyone who disagrees to wipe out any sense of seriousness this game might have had!! I wasn't really sure how this guy was going to put up much of a fight after I had sliced his giant mech to pieces (since thats usually how fights with evil politicians/businessmen end) but I was amusingly surprised by the result. The fight itself is appropriately fun and over the top too; with him using fire enhanced tackles, erupting fire geysers, and hurling pieces of the Metal Gear at you to slice through.