When did giant, epic bosses start showing up in games?

[Zen_Amako]

Originally Posted by Gimpenstein

I remember playing a game called "Shadow of the Beast" on the Commodore Amiga around 1986 and there was a boss fight, which was essentially a foot!

I think the giant foot boss was mostly only seen by people who cheated, since the game was so incredibly hard and it was the final boss. Maybe they thought no one would make it that far, so why bother putting a lot of effort into the ending? I seem to recall the game's ending (after foot is defeated) being a single screen. Still an awesome game, tho'.

As far as huge video game bosses go, R-Type had some big ones (the whole third stage was a boss ship) as did Ghouls 'n Ghosts (end boss).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss6PMMmv_94

[Kyo28]

My first real 'whoa, huge boss' experience must've been Contra III on Super Famicom. Sure, by today's standards that may not seem like a lot but in those days, those bosses were incredibly huge. A few screenshots to illustrate:






Still one of my all time favorite games.

Another one that comes to mind is Thunderforce IV on Megadrive, which has bosses that were several screens long:



I think with God of War III though, we've reached the next step in huge boss battles. Never could've imagined such games would come out way back when I was playing my Super Famicom and Megadrive.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by Rob71

Attachment 11481

Phoenix?

According to Wikipedia, that is the first boss to appear on an arcade video game.

Prior to that would have apparently been a D&D video game from 1975 on a PLATO system (never even heard of it ).

But the one that came to my mind when I saw this thread was "Wolfenstein 3-D" with Hitler in a mechanized suit and chainguns (I never played it, but I've heard epic tales of it).

[StereoMike]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

According to Wikipedia, that is the first boss to appear on an arcade video game.

Prior to that would have apparently been a D&D video game from 1975 on a PLATO system (never even heard of it ).

But the one that came to my mind when I saw this thread was "Wolfenstein 3-D" with Hitler in a mechanized suit and chainguns (I never played it, but I've heard epic tales of it).

It's weird since he's not even the Final Boss.

[Pondosinatra]

"Get away from her you *****!!"

[Pondosinatra]

[Lopan]

Originally Posted by JAS

I remember LIFEFORCE ON NES!!

Yessssss!!!!!!!! I would play this constantly with friends and family.

up,up,down,down,left,right,left,right,B,A,Start.

[Lopan]

Originally Posted by JAS

When I saw the last ALIEN in DEAD SPACE... I was like

Yes, that was a cool final boss to play against, but too easy.

[MotionBlurr]

[Sagacious Koreo]

I remember this guy in the game Wild 9 for the PSOne:

[StereoMike]

Originally Posted by MotionBlurr

Mike Tyson was one giant mother****** final boss, who could knock you down with 2 punches!

Edit: Sorry I was wrong, Mike Tyson can knock you down with one punch!

[alphapyro]

this thread is full of epic nostalgic win

anyone remember descent?

[Me Myself and I]

Originally Posted by Zen_Amako

I think the giant foot boss was mostly only seen by people who cheated, since the game was so incredibly hard and it was the final boss. Maybe they thought no one would make it that far, so why bother putting a lot of effort into the ending? I seem to recall the game's ending (after foot is defeated) being a single screen. Still an awesome game, tho'.

As far as huge video game bosses go, R-Type had some big ones (the whole third stage was a boss ship) as did Ghouls 'n Ghosts (end boss).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss6PMMmv_94

I loved Shadow of the Beast on my Amiga. You actually didn't need to cheat to beat the game since in a nutshell it was all a memory game of enemy placement. I could get through the entire adventure without taking any damage I knew it so well.

As for my first big boss sighting, the mothership in the early '80s space shooter Phoenix was pretty big I recall. You had to blast its hull to get to the heart of it where the alien pilot could be blasted.



Bigger than that, I remember Activision's Dreadnaught Factor (also early 80s) on my Atari 5200. All of the enemies were boss star cruisers that were 3-4 times the size of your TV (far bigger than R-Type's 3rd stage boss). You had to fly over them taking out their defenses before blowing them up, like destroying the communications grid to confuse it's cannon's targeting systems or blow up it's engines to slow it down before it could reach your planet and destroy it.




As for large living mega bosses, the one that made the biggest impression on me was R-Type's first alien boss. That's the classic right there.

[Pondosinatra]

Originally Posted by JAS

When I saw the last ALIEN in DEAD SPACE... I was like

This one?