We like some of these better than the bosses at the end of their games.
This is where the whole game has been building up to. The great last meeting. Your stuff is in order, your loadout is set, and you’re ready to make that last push. Still, that last boss always has some things in the way on the last run.
The next-to-last boss has more to show than the last boss in many ways. The second group has usually had the whole game to build them up; they’ve been a threat the whole time. The next-to-last must be weaker but still scary enough to earn their spot.
Pokemon Black And White – N
In the games, anime, and other forms of media, Pokemon has given us a lot of popular characters. Some have spent a lot of time in the sun, but N, the person who questions the world’s basic systems, is one of the most sought-after and hardest to find.
N is met several times in Black and White, and he never hides the fact that he wants to make a separate world for Pokemon where people can’t get involved. He’s the second-to-last boss, and facing him hurts because he’s also a victim of the world. After he lost, Ghetsis threw him away so he could use his power to make a world he could rule.
Bayonetta – Balder
Character action games that are all about cool fighting and interesting characters need boss fights that make you want to play more. It’s what keeps them going, and without it, the whole thing falls apart. So it’s a good thing that Bayonetta has fun figures that will beat you up too.
Even though the end boss Jubileus is great, Balder is also very good. He’s really to blame for all the bad things that happen in the game, but you have to get rid of him first. He’s a tough opponent who glides across the battlefield like a Phoenix, but Bayonetta is still the best.
Sekiro – The Divine Dragon
Sekiro was FromSoftware’s long-awaited break from the Souls games that had defined the previous ten years, and it did a great job of it. Many of the bosses had a more personal relationship with you, making you feel like a real person in the world.
Meeting the Divine Dragon is a beautiful experience. You face this huge dragon in the Divine Realm. It was stolen from its native home and is now corrupt. Even though the size is huge, the mood is sad. Beating them is a kindness that will take away their unnatural longevity.
Kingdom Hearts – Riku
Kingdom Hearts began with Riku, and it will definitely end with him too, whenever that moment comes. It’s always been that way, and it always will be for the whole run. And in many ways, Riku represents the end of childhood in the original Kingdom Hearts game as well. He is the first boss you face.
When you get to Hollow Bastion, Kingdom Hearts is mostly a fun adventure game where you explore Disney worlds. You are now facing Riku, who is being taken.This fight is hard and the best in the game. It’s also where Kingdom Hearts became the series it is today. And Riku is a picture of that growth.
Devil May Cry – Nightmare
When you think about it, even though the original Devil May Cry changed the way games were made, the boss fights in it are pretty standard. You fight each boss three times, and then you fight the last monster. Still, those bosses are a nice change.
Nightmare is a lot like every other boss in a lot of ways. They are a nasty mix, but when you get sucked into them, versions of bosses you’ve already fought will appear. In their last fight, which is also the second-to-last fight of the game, Trish even helps them beat you. They’re notoriously hard and serve as a test of your skills before you face the real final boss.
Persona 5 – Shido
It’s kind of a trope these days for a group of kids to fight god, and Persona 5 does the same thing. The boss right before that, on the other hand, is the Prime Minister of Japan, who is a much more believable real-life bad guy and also easier to take down.
The themes of Persona 5 are very weak, but at least the game can agree that guys like Shido are bad for society, even if it doesn’t quite understand why. When you look at Shido in his own palace, you can see how he sees himself: as a man with ridiculously big muscles, a lot of money, and a culture icon like old kings. And new people are all it takes to beat him.
It’s a great story, even if it wasn’t meant to be that way based on the rest of the writing in Basket Random.
Undertale – Asgore
Undertale is a game that doesn’t fit into any typical category, which is exactly what it set out to do. There are a lot of Earthbound references in the way it looks, but a lot of what it does goes against those influences and other standards of the time. The game is very fair.
Asgore will be the second-to-last boss for most players. He was a broken and lost father who wanted his kids to have a better life and was ready to do anything to make that happen. As with all fights in Undertale, the way the fight works tells you the story. But Asgore is only a small part of a much bigger story.
Death Stranding – Higgs
Some people in this game, like Troy Baker, really believe they know what’s best for everyone. He does a great job with this part, which keeps coming up for him. For a long time, Kojima has been known to make figures that are… strange. Higgs is no different. There are some strange bosses in Death Stranding, but Higgs’ fight is one that is worth it.
You are alone with Higgs on the Beach, and you don’t have any tools to help you. It’s fun to sneak up on him and beat him up, but the real event is the fistfight that ends it in an arcade way. If you want to keep your ears, don’t be too lax when you’re punching Troy. Higgs is the best at what he does.
Final Fantasy 7 – Jenova
Many people remember Final Fantasy 7 as having one of the best stories in video games. It also has some of the most famous music in the business. All of this is true even though the translation is wildly wrong in every other language. Even though Sephiroth is known as a bad guy, his mystery mother is often forgotten.
Jenova is still a vague figure in the games, but she shows up more than once in monster form, including one last time before Safer-Sephiroth. Like a lot of the other things in FF7, the things you fight are long-dead apparitions of evil that still hurt people. The mother is Jenova, and what you do to her will even affect the battle against Sephiroth.
Metal Gear Rising – Jetstream Sam
Bad guys in the Metal Gear games don’t always work well. They can be really cool sometimes, messing with our assumptions and even hardware in strange ways. Sometimes, like in MGS5, they’re just giant bullet sponges with not much else going on.
In Metal Gear Rising, on the other hand, almost every boss is a work of art. Airstream Sam is the best of them all. At dusk, when the sun goes down and the desert is empty, two swordsmen are forced to fight with nothing but their bodies. This part of the game is different from the rest because it’s not based on their own beliefs. Instead, it’s just two guys killing each other because it’s too late to change. It’s really cool.