World Ten: Unusual ways to finish off a boss

Hello all! I would like for you to bear with me on this post...apparently the Blog interface is changing around and, quite frankly, I don't like it. So I decided that in order to get used to this UTTER SILLINESS, I would throw up a World Ten entry. I haven't done one in a while, and I've come up with some (hopefully) interesting ideas for them lately.

Bosses are my favourite parts of video games, hands down. Good bosses can put your skill to the most brutal test, force you to learn a technique that vastly improves your methods, or function as a really cool plot device. As such, finishing off a boss is always rewarding, even if it's just a sigh of relief because you don't have to deal with the bastard anymore. That being said...there are some bosses out there in the video game world that are defeated in some pretty unconventional ways, some of which I figured I'd list off for your entertainment. These are in no particular order, but they're the first 10 that I thought of so I figured I'd give them the highlight. Let's dive in, shall we?

Sushi Lunch - Earthworm Jim 2 (SNES/Genesis)

If there's any game series that can be filed under the category of "strange", it's gotta be Earthworm Jim. I don't really think I need to explain the premise of EWJ to anyone since he's such a groovy guy, so I'll cut to the chase. The first level of EWJ 2 is called "Anything but Tangerines", in which you fight floating octopi that carry blunderbusses, avoid falling old ladies as you ascend staircases using one of those automated seat things (what the heck are those called?), and use your sentient mucousy pal, Snott, to swing from phlegm patches that hang from the ceiling. This already sounds pretty messed up, so by the time you get to the boss of the level, Bob the Goldfish, you kinda think that maybe he's gonna have some weird trick up his fishy sleeve. Maybe he'll even put up some sort of fight, which is something he sure as heck didn't do in the first EWJ game! (As a sidenote, Anything but Tangerines has some awesome background music.)

Bob is often carried around by drone cats.

Well, I guess Bob just hasn't learned his lesson because he is a goldfish and goldfish are known for being notoriously stupid. Rather than fashioning himself some sort of robo-suit or maybe some massive sentry machine that would protect his oh-so-fragile fishbowl from being damaged...he instead doesn't. However, rather than simply smashing his aquarium this time around, Jim just plucks Bob right out of his fishbowl and straight up eats him! It's pretty outrageous, but totally brutal at the same time. You don't see Bob again after that, as far as I can remember. He may make an appearance in Earthworm Jim 3D, but that all takes place in Jim's mind, meaning every boss is just a figment of the imagination. I guess the...SCALES weren't tipped in Bob's favour?

The Green Migraine - The Incredible Hulk (Genesis)

The Incredible Hulk is...not the best game out there. The controls are mad clunky and the soundtrack is downright odd for a Hulk game, but it functions, more or less. I strongly doubt that I need to explain that you control the Hulk and proceed to make him smash things, robots, and people. As you play through the game, you make your way through various (badly drawn) environments and take down notorious villains such as the Rhino, the Abomination, and Crusher Creel. The main villain of the game, however, is the Leader...an enemy who was alluded to in the most recent Hulk movie with Edward Norton but wasn't followed up on...at least not yet. The Leader was also pelted with gamma radiation, much like Bruce Banner, but he grew an enormous brain rather than gaining super strength, making him ridiculously smart.

"Care for a glass of smarm?"

For some reason, the fourth level of The Incredible Hulk takes place INSIDE of the Leader. This is particularly strange because Hulk is massive...so to picture him inside of a relatively normal sized human being who just happens to have a giant head is odd. I always sort of assumed the Leader shrunk Hulk down to pint-size, but I don't know why the heck he'd then transport Hulk inside of himself. For a dude with a giant green brain, the Leader's pretty stupid. Anyway, at the end of this level, you make your way to the Leader's brain and basically pound the shit out of it. The amount of Tylenol he'd probably need after such a beating is astronomical...and this isn't even the end of the game! Afterwards, Hulk gets out and has to make his way through the Leader's fortress and push him off of a cliff to finish him. Must've been a pretty quick recovery for him to be able to run that far away after having his brain pounded to mush. There are a lot of games where you kill a giant brain at the end (another one's in this list, actually), but the thought of a tiny Incredible Hulk doing it to a green, big-headed nerd just makes it even more hilarious to me!

Natural Causes - Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Various systems)

If there's anything that people generally know about the Metal Gear series, it's that the boss encounters are practically unforgettable. Taking down super-powered villains like Vulcan Raven and Vamp is tense and requires some tactical manouvers, whereas scrapping giant mechanical monstrosities such as the Shagohod or Metal Gear REX takes some good pattern recognition, dodging, and...well, a metric ton of explosives. One of the most famous bosses throughout the series, however, is The End. The End is a very, very old man in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater who happens to be the best sniper in the world. He sleeps every chance he can get in order to save up his strength for that last shot at taking down Snake, and uses the environment and animals to his advantage. This entire battle takes place throughout 4 gigantic areas, and you must examine your surroundings for signs that The End has been near while also taking care to not alert him to your location. It is an extremely intense boss fight, and I distinctly remember the first time I fought him...I actually walked right over him without noticing him lying on the ground because of his camouflage. He stood up, mocked me, and then pegged me with a tranquilizer, sending me all the way back to a previously-cleared enemy base! What a pain in the ass.

Disclaimer: NOT Santa Claus.

Well, let's pretend that I was an impatient gamer and I got fed up with MGS3 at that moment in time and didn't want to continue. I put the game away and diverted my attention to a new distraction, Barbie Horse Adventures. After taking 2 weeks to conquer Barbie and acquiring every 'cheevo to increase my GamerScore (thereby obviously making me look like a huge badass) I then decide to try MGS3 again. After putting in the game disc and firing up the system, I'm all amped up to try and take down The End again! Except...he's already toast. I didn't manage to defeat him, but somehow he's a dead man. Turns out that MGS3 analyzes your system's clock and keeps track of time. If your save file has been left alone for about 2 weeks, The End will just die of old age and you're free to go! Although it's a really neat inclusion, I honestly feel bad for whoever encountered this little trick without wanting to and didn't get to experience the battle on their first playthrough. It really is one of those fights you have to play to understand and appreciate.

Patience - Gradius III (Various systems)

Gradius III is one of my absolute favourite side-scrolling shooters. I've covered it previously by gushing about its amazing amount of ship customization and cool powerup system. The premise of every Gradius game is pretty simple...pilot your ship (usually a fighter called the Vic Viper) through increasingly difficult stages, blow away enemies and take down the enemy empire that's threatening to destroy humanity. There are various antagonists in the Gradius series, but the most prominent one is an organism known as Bacterion. He's the source of all of your trouble, and often takes on the form of a giant brain or the head of an alien that happens to have one.

Yep, this big ugly dork just vaporizes after a few seconds.

One of the running themes of Gradius is that, for some reason, the final boss is always a pushover. People suspect that it's because the level you've just previously cleared (usually the toughest one in the game) is actually considered a part of Bacterion's personal defenses, and so in conquering the level you've already fought enough. In Gradius III, when you finally reach this big, ugly bastard, he pretty much just sits there, yells some terribly digitized dialogue at you, and proceeds to fire a few giant, slow-moving projectiles. You can shoot him if you want...but why would you do that when he just destroys himself after about 30 seconds? That's right, you don't even need to attack this final boss. As long as you can perform some painfully easy dodging, Bacterion'll die on his own and you can consider the game cleared!

Prayers and Abortions - Earthbound/Mother 2 (SNES)

The Mother franchise just doesn't get enough credit. One of Nintendo's less popular series, Mother 1, 2, and 3 are all RPGs with a strange setting and a general zaniness about them that just oozes charm from every pore...err, circuit. Mother 2, or Earthbound as it was called in North America, puts you in the shoes of a young boy named Ness who sets off on an adventure to save the Earth from an evil alien being known as Giygas. Along the way, you defeat hippies, possessed circus tents, and alien invaders while also picking up 3 more party members to dole out punishment with. By the time you reach the final area of the game, it's discovered that the only way to defeat Giygas is to actually travel far into the past when he is relatively powerless and kill him before he becomes a threat. As such, Ness and his friends transfer their souls to walking robots which are then sent backwards in time to handle this mess.

Well, this gets very creepy very quickly. The entire game up to this point is weird enough, but the fact that the very final area looks a lot like WOMAN PARTS is...a little strange. Also chalk up the fact that when you bash Giygas (who is the entire background graphic during the fight) enough during the battle, he eventually becomes unstable. This causes his form to alter and resemble...repeating shapes of a human fetus. Yeah, that's right...you're pretty much here to abort Giygas. Where's a coathanger when you need one? *drum roll*

Creepy...

But even creepier!

How do you abort a giant evil alien baby in the past? Well, you pray, of course! One of your characters, Paula, has the ability to pray during her turn. Throughout the game, this can have random effects during battles such as causing instant death to an enemy, causing everyone in the party to cry and decrease their hit rate, or heal people a tiny bit. However, praying is the only way to win against Giygas, and you have to select for Paula to pray about 8 times which will gradually weaken your opponent and allow you to kill him.

Every game in this series has a strange but incredibly unique and effective boss fight that always seems to be presented incredibly well...Mother 3, especially. This is one quality that really makes the series stand out.

The Golden Shower - Duke Nukem Forever (Various systems)

Okay, so Duke Nukem Forever didn't turn out to be as good as everyone had hoped it would be...but I still found it to be pretty damn fun overall despite its glaring issues and it's one of the few games in recent memory that's made me laugh out loud. It at least retained the right attitude and humour, even though it makes Duke come off as more of a douchebag that I would have liked. The aliens from Duke Nukem 3D make a return in Duke Forever, coming back to get their revenge on Sir Nukem and conquer the Earth. They plan to accomplish this by modifying and using the Hoover Dam's generators to open up a portal and shunt the rest of their forces over to our side. Masterminding this entire operation is the Cycloid Emperor, a gargantuan, one-eyed overlord who, in all honesty, is pretty badass.

"It's down to you and me, you one-eyed freak!"

In Duke 3D's second episode titled Lunar Apocalypse, Duke eventually encounters a boss known as the Overlord, to whom he says: "I'm gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck!" Duke takes good care of him with a healthy dose of bullets, explosives, and high-tech weaponry and afterwards he makes good on his promise. Fast forward to the finale of Duke Nukem Forever, where you fight the Cycloid Emperor while alien forces constantly pour onto the battlefield. Duke yells "I'm gonna rip your eye out and piss on your brain, you alien dirtbag!" Several hundred rockets later, Duke follows up...after you finish off the Emperor, you approach his head and "Press RT to Piss" (XBox 360 version) in his eye socket. Always bet on the Duke...to deliver odd but hilarious finishing moves.

Self-conducted Electroshock Therapy - Super Metroid (SNES)

I remember my first time playing through Super Metroid and finding a lot of the bosses pretty tricky. Of course, this was when I was younger, hadn't memorized all the item upgrade locations, and didn't know any of the dirty tricks you could use against each boss. Super Metroid is split up into multiple differently-themed areas which are part of one cohesive world. One of these areas is called Maridia, and it happens to be the aquatic-themed region of planet Zebes. It's here that you encounter a boss known as Draygon.

Pudgy bastard!

At first, this guy's a hard target. Despite his gigantic size, he's pretty damn quick as he darts off and on the screen trying to run into you and deal damage. He can also hock up immobilizing grey blobs that will lock you in place, at which point he picks you up, swims around with you for a while, and whips you with his tail multiple times, dealing a hefty amount of damage. Seemingly, the only way to deal damage to him is to blast his exposed stomach when you have a clear shot...but that's a tricky thing to do, particularly as he speeds up the more you damage him. If only there were some way to take him down a bit more easily...

Well, if you look carefully around the edges of the room, there are small turrets that will constantly fire green energy spheres at you during the fight. These can be blown apart with Samus' trademark missiles, leaving an electrified panel on the wall instead. When Draygon decides he wants to pick you up and give you a tail-lashing, let him...and fire your Grappling Beam directly into the exposed circuits of that damaged turret. The electricity will flow through the beam, through Samus, and finally into Draygon. Although you sustain damage as long as you hold the beam in place, Draygon sustains more and will fall in a matter of seconds. Pretty cool stuff, and it turns a tricky, time-consuming boss fight into a relatively simple one!

1,000,000,000 UV Rating - Bayonetta (XBox 360/PS3)

Bayonetta is probably the greatest 3D brawler out there. The action is fluid, the challenge is pretty steep (particularly if you're insane enough to perfect the hardest mode), and the premise is ridiculous. You control the titular witch who is able to place weapons on her hands AND feet, and also uses her hair/clothes to make giant arms that pound enemies into oblivion. The enemies are angels and other heavenly creatures, strangely enough, and although I can't remember their exact motive right now because the story is so damn retarded, I swear they have one! At the very least, it is this: kill Bayonetta.

In case you couldn't tell by her name being in the image twice...this is Jubileus.

It makes sense that at the end of the game, you'll have to fight the person sending all these angelic adversaries after you...and who else would it be besides God? The God figure in Bayonetta is a giant woman named Jubileus, whom the angels manage to resurrect near the end of the game. After a fairly tough battle, you finish Jubileus off in one of the most hilarious and amazing ways that could ever be conceived: you punch her hard enough to rocket her into the sun from all the way outside of our solar system. Not only that, but you also have to steer her lifeless corpse such that it misses all of the other planets and actually reaches its destination, or you watch the planet explode and it counts against you as a death! This all happens while ridiculous pop music plays in the background. Stupendous!

This has to be one of the best finishers for a boss that I've ever seen. It's just so damn ridiculous, but somehow in manages to fit within the context of the game...and to say that a video game can even have this kind of context is insane in and of itself!

Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Double Dragon (NES)

Double Dragon is a classic, and if you don't recognize this game title then you should probably stop reading my blog immediately before I find a way to track you down.  The funny thing about Double Dragon for the NES is that you can't actually play a 2-player co-op mode, despite "Double" being in the title. Sort of hilarious, huh? As such, Double Dragon's single player mode puts you in the shoes of Billy Lee as he tries to get his one true love back from a clan of thugs called the Black Warriors. Brawling your way through the streets, some caves, and eventually the Black Warrior hideout is fun stuff and gaining experience to unlock new moves makes the game even more fun.

Apparently Chintai even got his own Topps Sticker! Who knew?

Most of the levels have a boss at the end...and the second boss happens to be an insane martial artist named Chintai. You fight him at the top of a building after having climbed three or four ladders to reach him. When he shows himself at the top of the building, the first think you think is "Damn, this is sort of precarious!" There's a cliff behind you, and a Bruce Lee wannabe in front. WHATEVER SHOULD YOU DO?! Just go back down the ladders until Chintai's off-screen, that's what! If you don't feel up to taking him on mano-a-mano, you can glitch out the game by moving back downward until he's out of sight. This registers as his graphic not being on the screen anymore, as if you had defeated him and he vanished...and so the level just straight up ends! Works 100% of the time, even if it is a tad cheap!

The Ultimate Haircut - Killer7 (GameCube)

Killer7 is one of the most fucked up games you will ever hear about. It's stylish as all hell, but has a near-incomprehensible storyline, abstract ideas, and extremely odd characters and gameplay. That being said, these factors come together to make it one of the most unique and unforgettable experiences you will ever have on a video game system. You play as...well, 7 people, sort of. Moreso one person with 7 different personalities who are collectively known as the Killer7. You can access these personalities at will to tap into different weaponry or abilities, which is a pretty cool game mechanic. Your goal is to rid the world of Heaven Smiles...basically genetically modified humans that function as living suicide bombs and have a creepy-ass laugh. The storyline becomes much more convoluted than that, but we'll leave it there for now.

Look at that art style.

In the 3rd stage, you're sent to track down a man named Andrei Ulmeyda who seemingly destroyed a football stadium. He's a man who gave himself every disease in the world and cured them all naturally, so it's claimed he's immune to everything. Well, the government shows up and sticks him with Heaven Smile to see if it has an effect on him or not, and sure enough...it does. His head blows off in a shower of blood, but is brought back down to his body by tentacles that spring out of his neck. You fight this boss within a maze of police and government vehicles all connected together to form a single command unit. Your target? Ulmeyda's afro, which is dragging on the floor behind him. With the right character it only takes one well-placed shot, so it's not even a very tough fight...but man, is it ever weird! It was this particular stage where I really started to question creator Suda51's sanity...and ever since I've accepted that yes, he is just as crazy as he seems.

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That does it for this entry! There are a lot of links to videos for you to watch, if you want to follow up on any of these boss fights. Also, if you care to share any bosses that die in really weird ways, don't hesitate to post a comment! There are tons more out there...enough to make even a second W10 entry about them! *FORESHADOWING...?*

Keep gaming, folks!

P.S. The new blogging layout did in fact give me some grief...if you notice anything weird or find that some of the links don't work, be sure to let me know!