You’ve spent the whole game building up to this point. The great final encounter. You’ve got your inventory sorted, your loadout set, and the will for that final push built up. But that final boss is never without some obstacles to trip you up on the final run.
In many ways, the penultimate boss has more to prove than the final boss. The latter has typically had the whole game to build them up, their threat encompassing the whole experience. The penultimate must be lesser, yet formidable enough to deserve their placement.
10Pokemon Black And White - N
Pokemonhas given birth to countless beloved characters, across the games, anime, and other extended media. Some have had plenty of time in the sun, yet one of the most beloved is also the most elusive - N, the very person who doubts the base structures of the world.
N is encountered multiple times throughout Black and White, never disguising his intent to create a separate world for Pokemon away from human intervention. In many ways, facing him as the penultimate boss hurts because he’s a victim of the world as well, with Ghetsis tossing him aside after his defeat to use his power to create a world he can dominate for himself.
9Bayonetta - Balder
Character action games, built solely around stylish combat and engaging characters, need to have boss battles that entice you. It’s their lifeblood, and the whole experience falls apart without it. Good thing then thatBayonettahas great characters that will also pummel you.
Though Jubileus is already an amazing final boss, Balder is no slouch either. He’s the real guiding force of the mishaps in the game, though he has to be gotten rid of first. He’s a challenging battle, gliding across the battle like a Phoenix, but there’s no topping Bayonetta herself.
8Sekiro - The Divine Dragon
Sekirowas the long-awaited departure from Souls games that had defined FromSoftware for the preceding decade, and it was a great success at it too. Putting you into the perspective of a solid character in the world, many of the bosses held a more personal connection.
The Divine Dragon is a gorgeous encounter. In the Divine Realm, you face this gargantuan dragon, themself stolen from their original home and corrupted. Though bombastic in scale, the mood is sombre. Defeating them is a mercy, an act to remove unnatural immortality from the world.
7Kingdom Hearts - Riku
Kingdom Heartsopened with Riku, and it will absolutely end with him too, whenever that occurs. It’s always been the case and will be for the series as a whole, too. Riku is the very first boss you encounter in Kingdom Hearts, and in many ways symbolises the end of innocence in the original game too.
For the most part, Kingdom Hearts is a whimsical adventure about exploring Disney worlds, until Hollow Bastion. Here, you face Riku, who is being possessed.It’s a challenging battle, and the best in the game, but is also the point where Kingdom Hearts became the series it is now. And Riku is the symbol of that growth.
6Devil May Cry - Nightmare
When you look back on it, despite the revolutions it made in the gaming industry, the boss fights in the originalDevil May Cryfollow a formulaic structure. Each boss is fought three times, and after this, you fight the final boss. That said, those bosses are still a great change of pace.
Take Nightmare, in many ways a culmination of every boss. They are a harsh amalgamation, yet when sucked into that mass, spawn versions of bosses you’ve fought previously. In their final encounter, and the penultimate encounter of the game, they even have Trish helping to defeat you. They’re infamously difficult, a test of skills before the real final boss.
5Persona 5 - Shido
A bunch of teens facing down god is a bit cliche at this point and is exactly whatPersona 5does too. The boss immediately before that, however, is much more tangible as a real-world villain and more plausible to take down, too - the Prime Minister of Japan.
Persona 5 is an exceedingly hollow game in its themes, but at least it can accept that men like Shido are a scourge upon society, even if the game itself doesn’t quite know why. Facing Shidoin his own palace, you see how he views himself - a man of obscenely large muscles, fabulously wealthy, and a cultural icon akin to rulers of old. And all it takes to beat him is a new generation.
It’s a great bit of storytelling, if absolutely unintended judging from the rest of the game’s writing.
4Undertale - Asgore
Undertaleis a game that defies standard descriptions, a status that it absolutely wanted to achieve. Visually, you can heavily feel the Earthbound inspirations, but so much of what it does is a subversion of its influences and other standards of the time. It’s a very honest game.
For most players, Asgore will be the penultimate boss. A shattered and misguided father, he wanted to have a better life for his people and was willing to go to great lengths to do that. Like all fights in Undertale, the very mechanics of the fight tell you the story, but Asgore is just one piece of a much larger story.
3Death Stranding - Higgs
Troy Baker sure is in this game as a character who thinks he knows what’s best for the world. A weirdly recurring role for him, he plays it great. Kojima has been known to make rather… eccentric characters for a long time, and Higgs is no different. Bosses are an odd part ofDeath Stranding, though Higgs' battle is one that is actually worthwhile.
On the Beach, you face Higgs one-on-one, with no weapons to help you. Sneaking around and beating him up is great fun, but the real star of this battle is the arcade-style fistfight at the end. Punching Troy- eh, Higgs is the pinnacle of the game, just don’t be too passive if you want to keep your ears.
2Final Fantasy 7 - Jenova
Final Fantasy 7is remembered as one of the greatest stories told in gaming and is also jam-packed with some of the most iconic music in the industry, too. All this despite an absurdly wonky translation in every other language. Sephiroth is renowned as a villain, yet often slipping to the side is his mysterious mother.
Jenova, a presence that is still vague within the games, is encountered multiple times in monstrous forms, including a final time before facing down Safer-Sephiroth. Like much of FF7, the things you face are long-dead, apparitions of scourges that still plague the planet. Jenova is the progenitor, and your actions against her will even affect the battle against Sephiroth.
1Metal Gear Rising - Jetstream Sam
TheMetal Geargames can be hit-or-miss when it comes to bosses. Sometimes, they are amazing, playing with expectations and even hardware in unexpected ways. Other times, in MGS5 especially, they can be glorified bullet sponges with nothing much else going on.
Metal Gear Rising is an exception, where almost every boss is a masterpiece. Jetstream Sam stands above them all. The sun is setting, the desert is barren, and two swordsmen with nothing but instinct left are forced to face off. Unlike most everything else in the game, there’s so little driven by their own ideology at this moment - just two men with nothing left killing each other just because it’s too late to change. And it’s amazing.
