Boss appreciation/criticism thread

Connor McKoopa

Connor McKoopa

Who da fook is dis guy?
Pronouns
He/him
So who are you favourite and least favourite bosses? And in what game?
Today I'm gonna talk about my favourite and least favourite boss in Super Mario Bros Wii

My most favourite boss was Bowser Jr. All three battles with him was different and he was difficult to beat than the other Koopalings.
I liked Ludwig the battling with Ludwig Von Koopa too.

My least favourite was Kamek. I would say that the boss battle with him was made overtly difficult. When you try to jump on him, the probability of stomping him tends to zero. The blocks turning into goombas and other enemies was also really annoying.

My second least favourite is Larry koopa. He's the dumbest, stupidest and weakest Koopaling ever. His battle was a complete joke. You could even exploit his own battle arena in the castle against him.
 
My favorite boss fight is probably Bowser from... any encounter. The Bowser fights are always really well done. For instance, the fight with Bowser in Super Mario Odyssey, where you use the culmination of the game's mechanics against him. The hat throwing and deflecting, as well as the capturing and wearing of other hats, is used to full effect here in the sequences where you capture Bowser and the opening, where you must deflect one of his hats and don it for yourself. These are both references to the capture mechanic that you have been using throughout the entire game and the hat-based themeing of the attire that you find. This shows that Bowser is the final test of the skills you learned over the course of the game - it even ups the ante and becomes the first capture that you can use inside a 2D side-scrolling segment, another recurring part of the game's level design. The purpose of a final boss is to test everything that the player has learned over the course of the game, and that's why I believe that Bowser's Super Mario Odyssey incarnation is one of the best examples of a final boss in gaming.
 
I appreciate the times when Donkey Kong is a boss, mainly because Donkey Kong was the first villain that Mario faced! The boss battles in Mario vs Donkey Kong, and perhaps the subsequent games are great because you battle Donkey Kong! Similarly, Wario being the final boss is great, but too bad Wario never became a boss battle any more.

One criticism I have with Mario & Luigi is the tendency to insert Bowser as the final boss. You can claim that Shroob Princess is there, but remember that there's another phase after that one: Shrowser.

Thank you for reading.
 
i am going to give appreciation for torkdrift from mario odyssey because the song slaps and also its in wooded kingdom and you get to be an uproot for the whole thing
the other non broodal(robobrood gets a pass though) fights were actually pretty neat too
 
Bowser often has some of the best boss fights in any game here appears in, unfortunately when they half ass a game he suffers along with it.
 
Favourite boss - Super Dimentio from Super Paper Mario. The music was excellent, the plot surrounding the fight is amazing, as:

Dimentio betrays count Bleck and steals the Chaos Heart and combines himself with a vegetable hypnotised Luigi to become a gigantic evil Luigi clown puppet and you finally realise what a wicked villain he truly is. Because Luigi is the perfect host for the Chaos Heart, its powers are increased greatly and the end of the multiverse draws much closer, as you see three worlds already being consumed. It seems hopeless. But you see that Bleck and his minions were not evil people at heart and you realise that love wins out over evil, so the Pure Hearts are restored and allow you to slay the jester for good. But then the world is still in peril as his last act is to ensure you all die with him, so it once again seems hopeless, and Bleck and Tippi seemingly give their lives to unify the Pure Hearts and save the worlds, ending the mad Dimentio's chaotic scheme once and for all.

The quality of his character is amazing, the platforms and mechanical aiming gunfire sounds and targeting just truly make it feel like an epic battle. It truly is The Ultimate Show.

(Before you tell me how much of a pushover he was to beat I was nine years old the first time and he's still a god to me in every other way)

Least favourite boss - Koopalings in NSMBW. They have absolutely no personality or dialogue. Their fights have little strategy and skill to them. They don't have any memorable designs or music. So they're slightly interesting gameplay wise but other than that worthless.
 
The Elder Princess Shroob's second form. Especially its background BGM, the Final Reqiuem, which shows how much stakes is involved between them. I love it. I love how she sacrifices her own spaceships to get you. The giant tentacles attacking you. And then you using your awesome Bro Items on that giant thing.

Oh, and Mario Party final bosses have some pretty interesting bits. Frightmare is my favorite of them, but Mario Party 4's The Final Battle! isn't so bad either.

799px-Frightmario_5.png


I love shooting ink while you're riding on a book at fucking Kamek's ugly face in Mario Party DS too.

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Vivian said:
*ahem*
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Fawful_Darker.png


Greatest final boss of all time.
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Personally I never found Dark Bowser / The Dark Star to have any remarkable personality. Fawful on the other hand is excellent (my 4th fav character) but he doesn't speak between his defeat to Bowser and his final speech after the battle so I never really connected him to this fight. There's also no major plot twist prior to this fight besides "Oh no Dark Bowser ate Dark Fawful now he's even more powerful" and it doesn't have an emotional cutscene in the middle. Hence SPM and TTYD both have the upper edge on this one.

Super Dimentio has a more elegant design than Dark Bowser as he's very tall and impressive and yet freakish simultaneously.

As for music I can't choose as both tracks are utterly awesome.

Gameplay-wise is a bit harder. When I was a kid, I could beat Super Dimentio on my first try, but not easily. I tried so many times as a 10 year old trying to beat the final fight of BIS but I could never do it. Then I picked the game up as a 15 year old and absolutely demolished it and got to watch the ending for the first time (sadly I had some elements of it spoiled for me but it was mostly a first time and it was wonderful to see the ending of a game I have long loved but never been able to finish.) These days I could beat SD with my tongue if I want to but at least I can challenge myself with him e.g. try to win by only using Barry to deflect his own projectiles back at him (haven't actually tried that one but it sounds hard) whereas Dark Bowser is a bit more repetitive and has less freedom.

Withall being considered, Super Dimentio takes the cake for me but both final bosses are undoubtedly in my top three alongside the Shadow Queen.

I had to force myself so hard not to look at BLRM's post on Partners in Time
 
TG's done playthrough of TTYD recently that I commentated while he was playing it, and it did feel like I had a part to play in making strategies.

I gotta say the buildup to Smorg's battle and the battle itself are actually pretty cool.

Other than that Bowser wins easily because he's got a lot of encounters. You're bound to find some amazing battles there. But although it sounds biased, Mario Galaxy's final Bowser battle was just truly spectacular.
 
Fiora said:
TG's done playthrough of TTYD recently that I commentated while he was playing it, and it did feel like I had a part to play in making strategies.

I gotta say the buildup to Smorg's battle and the battle itself are actually pretty cool.

Other than that Bowser wins easily because he's got a lot of encounters. You're bound to find some amazing battles there. But although it sounds biased, Mario Galaxy's final Bowser battle was just truly spectacular.
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Who is TG?

Smorg: One of the only parts of this chapter I actually liked, I was amazed to see the passengers kidnapped and having to fight this strange monster on top of a moving train. Still though, I can't remember the music and it had no personality, just sort of inexplicably scattering once defeated. Good, but not amazing.

Bowser: Quality over quantity. I'm dissapointed whenever I see a speechless stereotypical Bowser as the final boss of any Mario game. I assume you're talking about SMG1 - that fight is probably my second favourite Bowser battle after his second fight in TTYD but still... he had quite a predictable personality and it doesn't compare to a high-stakes scene of Grodus threatening to murder Peach being interrupted by Bowser falling through the ceiling and wondering if he ate too much.
 
Sure, maybe Grodus does seem threatening at the end of the day, being E V I L and whatnot but tbh his personality is something I see in a lot of villains, that I honestly tend to make fun of him most of the time. His tbh kinda dumb design doesn't help.
 
I don't think threatening to kill a princess quite stacks up to fighting your arch nemesis in the center of the universe after declaring your intent to make a big intergalactic empire.

And the fight with Bowser in TTYD is just a re-tread of his fight in the original game but he doesn't have access to the star rod. Frankly it's kinda lame to be honest.
 
Vivian said:
*ahem*
Giant_Dark_Bowser.gif
Fawful_Darker.png


Greatest final boss of all time.
Click to expand...

Came here to say this. Alright, I'm probably super biased because BIS is my favorite game of all time, but I still think the final battle is one of the coolest fights in the whole Mario series. A combination of cool attacks and cool music make it the perfect ending to one of the best stories a Mario game has ever told. Unless that's just nostalgia speaking.
 
The problem with that battle is the dark bowser part of it is pretty weak as a final battle for Bowser.

Dark Fawful was more satisfying.
 
Yeah, it's a bit disappointing. Bowser deserved more from that fight in general. The whole game is primarily about Bowser and his adventures, and then the final boss seems almost entirely up to Mario and Luigi once you inhale spidey boi. I know it's a Mario & Luigi game to begin with, but I just can't help but feel cheated out of good Bowser action. But hey, I'll take what I can get. Other than that personal grievance, it's a damn good fight.
 
MiracleDinner said:
I had to force myself so hard not to look at BLRM's post on Partners in Time
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Sorry about that, I've put that under a tab. I didn't know you were interested in playing the game at some point in the future nor did I know you have yet to play it. You should play it.

Though there is a lot of spoiler material in this thread so...
 
Mcmadness said:
Bowser often has some of the best boss fights in any game here appears in, unfortunately when they half ass a game he suffers along with it.
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I'm still giddy over the delightful surprise battle of W8-Castle2 in 3D Land.
and I haven't played 3D World yet but from what I saw on youtube it looks promising too.
And I still hold happy childhood memory of Bowser battles in SMW, SMB3, and SM64. I like it when they are creative with him.
 
Mcmadness said:
You really ought to correct that. At least since you're such a fan of the series.
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Just as I said in that other thread, I have it on my Wii U VC and I really want to try it which I probably will once the Xmas holdays start. But my life is as busy as hell rn

However I did get my Wii U this June or so so I could have played it over the summer. But having finished my first playthrough of TTYD only two months ago I wanted to spread them out a little.

Mcmadness said:
I don't think threatening to kill a princess quite stacks up to fighting your arch nemesis in the center of the universe after declaring your intent to make a big intergalactic empire.
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Well the thing is that the fight in SMG1 was quite dramatic, but of course it is, you expect it to be, it was a large-scale game with a large-scale final boss fight with no suprises.

Whereas the TTYD fight was a highly comical interruption in a more earnest plot moment and I find it easier to appreciate that comedy than an epic battle which you long expect to be epic and doesn't really have anything fundamentally unique or memorable about the surrounding plot (Edit: having said that SMG1 does have quite a deep ending for a Mario game but TTYD still wins.) Plus, I prefer the music and gameplay in the TTYD Bowser fight compared to SMG1.
 
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Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii's final fight was what I'd call actually a fight. It's better than the glorified obstacle courses we got in 3D Land and 3D World imo. Oh, and Odyssey has the best fight out of the 3D Mario platformers, and it's not even close.
 
I don't see why not talk about unofficial mods. They sometimes come up with way better than the original.
 
LeftyGreenMario said:
Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii's final fight was what I'd call actually a fight. It's better than the glorified obstacle courses we got in 3D Land and 3D World imo. Oh, and Odyssey has the best fight out of the 3D Mario platformers, and it's not even close.
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I actually dislike that since you are just in a clown car shooting at an airship. It lacks any use of the abilities you've been using throughout the game.

Newer Super Mario bros DS is much better in that regard.
 
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