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