Favorite Boss Battles.

I tired searching for this, but I couldn't find anything, and since this is a subject that people change their minds on a lot, it doesn't hurt if there's a newer version.

So what are your favorite boss battles? I'll put mine in a list I guess.

5, Black Tiger - Resident Evil. Walking through a Zombie and monster filled mansion as a kid was great, but walking through a door and suddenly being faced with a giant-ass rotting spider solidified in my mind that this is the best game I had ever played.

4. Ultimate One Winged Sephiroth - Final Fantasy 7. Spehiroth is still a great villain in my mind, because he was a large part of the story, and you felt like you needed to kill him. And when he killed Aerith, it was one of my first "Shit is going down" moments.

3. King K. Rool - Donkey Kong Country. I will forever remember this boss, the feeling I had when my brothers and I finally beat all the levels, and were faced with the big boss is something no other game matched until #1 on this list. The music combined with the setting alone took it to the HNL.

2. THE BOSS - Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater. This was here to begin with, I didn't change it later after that guy replied.

1. Majora - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Majora is at the top of this list, because I don't think any other villain embodies absolute evil like Majora does. Unlike most bosses, Majora being evil is constantly being thrown in your face, you're never allowed to forget, that if you don't stop him, the entire world is doomed. Majora was not only a great villain, but a great character overall. While little of it is said in the game, the amount of detail Nintendo put into the character is fantastic. But the reason I like Majora as a villain so much, is that too often in games you don't feel like the boss is that big of a deal. Like beating the boss is more of an inevitability than an urgency. Recently replaying Ocarina of Time, reminded me that Ganon isn't a great villain. His motives are too vague. Take over Hyrule? You have the Triforce of power, and all you want to do is take over a single kingdom? As an adult, I still don't know exactly how Ganon took over the kingdom; He was chasing Zelda off before you became an adult, but what happened next? What exactly did he need to do to complete his goals? It's all unclear, and when compared to Majora, whose motives are in your face the entire game. Ganon looks like a guy who just happened to take over the kingdom, and you had to stop him. I never felt the urgency, or need to defeat him. Majora also had a better battle. With three different forms, all increasing in their monstrosity, and with each form, I felt as though I was really doing something extremely important. That if I wasn't doing it, the world was over, it was all up to me. That combined with the setting, music, utterly amazing lead up to the battle, and for lack of a better word, epic Fierce Diety mask, makes Majora my favorite boss.

And now I realized I just rambled about how much I like Majora's mask. So yeah, let's have some fun guys! And please tell me what Ganon was doing, I've googled it, but it took way too much effort for something that doesn't really detract from the game that much.

fighting THE BOSS in snake eater. not because its a great fight,which it is,but because it's so emotional. actually. any boss fight in snake eater. that game is like a masters class in boss fights.

Ooh! I forgot all about that fight. Yeah, that's replacing the Jubileus.

Basically every fight in SoTC

@DoctorDanger99 said:

fighting THE BOSS in snake eater. not because its a great fight,which it is,but because it's so emotional. actually. any boss fight in snake eater. that game is like a masters class in boss fights.

A great boss fight. The "fight" against the Shagohod while Eva drives the bike was also tops. I also really loved the hand to hand fight with Liquid Ocelot in MGS4. While the game was kinda on autopilot at that point (and the fight itself had a lot of quicktime events), I'll be damned if the changes in music, UI, and Ocelot's character didn't have my adrenaline going at full force.

Another of my favorites is one of the flying Colossus from Shadow of the Colossus. I forget which number it is, but it's this one:

I really liked the game up until that point, but when I saw that and realized I was going to have to get on this thing, I was floored.

Just a few that came to me, i'll probably post more later:

Vulcan Raven Pt.2 -Metal Gear Solid

The layout and mechanics of the fight are incredibly simple but, like the rest of MGS1, the room you fight in creates an incredible and unique atmosphere. It's easy to point out the innovative Psycho Mantis and Sniper Wolf fights but the simplicity of the second Vulcan Raven encounter makes it memorable.

The Four Kings -Dark Souls

A somewhat odd boss in the souls series in that it is a straight DPS race to kill each of the four kings before the next spawns in. If you've prepared correctly it's a quick battle but it gives an incredible thrill.

Tower Knight - Demon's Souls

The souls series has been at the forefront of keeping the boss fight alive in video games and this fight, much like Vulcan Raven, is incredibly simplistic in its layout but ultimately very memorable to me.

Many of the God of War boss fights are fantastic. The Hydra, the Colossus, Cronus, Ares, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus.... God of War has some amazing bosses. The Boss from MGS3 is probably my favourite, but The End was pretty special in that game as well. Kuja from FF9 is a special one for me as well.

So many to pick from.
 
Most of the Monster Hunter bosses are pretty awesome to fight, or the Zelda ones most of the time.

The End in MGS3. Holy fuck that fight is intense.

I'm gonna have to go for anything between MGS and MGS3. The End was pretty fantastic.

Omega in Mega Man Zero 3 was pretty good.

Nihilanth in Half-Life because it was WTF and that game sucked me into gaming in a way my childhood NES memories never could.

So many bosses from the FF and MGS series, and of course you've gotta mention Wheatley from Portal 2 and Shadow of the Colossus and Dark Souls but...

The #1 Greatest Boss Battle of All Time is easy: Old Monk from Demon's Souls.

Emerald & Ruby Weapon. FFVII

If I had to name only a few I'd say:

Legion in SOTN - Because the first time I saw that I was totally in shock, and the screams didn't help.

Ultimate Weapon in FFVIII - Funny thing about this fight was I was super prepared. I had Auras stacked, Rinoa with Angelo's Invincible Moon, and all the final weapons and i still got wiped. But, it just so happened I used a Phoenix pinion (I think that's what is was called) waaaaayyy earlier in the game that day just to see the summon and instead of getting game over I was resurrected and proceeded to beat him. Awesome!

Jenova-LIFE in FFVII - Well cause it's the boss fight that takes place right after Aeris/Aerith is killed an emotions were running high when I got to that point my first time especially.

Nineball Seraph in Armored Core Masters of the Arena - Anyone that played the original AC games knows that towards the end they put you through the wringer and this boss is no exception. I think besides the boss itself What sticks with me is the music that plays when you fight it, and the fact that you have to fight 2 regular Nineballs in the room before you even get to him.

Liquid Ocelot in MGS4 - Now I love the Boss as much as anyone else but imo this is the greatest boss fight in any video game ever period. The music, the setting, brutality, all of it comes together so beautifully. I completely lost my shit when I noticed the health bar change to reflect the games. And to be frank MGS isn't my favorite series, but that fight oh man that fight.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann from one of the TF2 halloween updates really turned team-based capture point gameplay on its head.

I actually thought the boss fights (minus the last one) in Deus Ex: Human Revolution were kinda good. That's right, fuck you, haters! Again, these fights completely reversed the way I'd been playing the game up to that point and made me realize that while I'd been using my brain for the rest of the game, I needed to use my brain in an interesting and different way to win against the bosses.

The End. Probably the most memorable sniper battle in any game I've ever played. Bonus points for sneaking up and killing him with claymores. Plus immediately following the battle, you get to climb the most memorable ladder in any game I've ever played.

Kael'thas Sunstrider - Raidboss in Tempest Keep

Nothing beats the relief of downing a tough-as-nails boss encounter after weeks of trying. He and his council strained our merry raid group to the brink of disbandment, and our collective outcry as he finally bent his knee to our prowess in defeat, t'was a victory as pure as there ever was. Wasn't around for the M'uru kill, but I can imagine how it must have felt to beat that thing after months of trying - should've been there for that.

Let's have a look how it went for the first merry bunch ever to have this same pleasure...

@ProfessorK said:

Liquid Ocelot in MGS4 - Now I love the Boss as much as anyone else but imo this is the greatest boss fight in any video game ever period. The music, the setting, brutality, all of it comes together so beautifully. I completely lost my shit when I noticed the health bar change to reflect the games. And to be frank MGS isn't my favorite series, but that fight oh man that fight.

yeah. def. just finished this. never has such a simple fight been so evocative and epic.

I have a couple of choices: My strange choice is probably Rudy the Clown from Wario land 3. For those who never played Wario land 3 for the GBC, the final boss ended up being this giant, scary ogre clown (or at least I thought he was scary from when I was a kid) that tricked Wario into getting these artifacts around the game world to free him. The boss fight is pretty simple, as the clown has 2 attacks, hook you with his fists or grab you at different angles (BTW, don't ever get grabbed). However, the surprise factor for me makes this one of my favorite bosses, because your fighting a GIANT CLOWN WITH RED EYES AND TRUMPETS AS EARS! HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT!? 
 
For recent boss fights, I really liked the Mr. Freeze boss battle from Arkham City. The fact that you had to think of a new way to take down Freeze's life bar was pretty clever as he made adjustments throughout the fight to never let the same mistake happen again. Did you attack him coming from those vents? Too bad, he'd going to freeze those vents for you to never use again. It was sort of ruined when Oracle told you all the ways to attack him, but I'm sure that's for players who would really struggle with the battle. 

The Sorrow in MGS3: Snake Eater. I like that boss encounter in a conceptual level. Fighting a dead guy who has an empty life bar. Every npc that Naked Snake might have killed at that point will reappear to haunt him. The encounter is a call back to MGS1. What Vulcan Raven told Snake at the end of their fight. Snake with walk a never ending path paved with the corpses of his enemies. My second favorite boss battle is the End. There are so many different ways to fight the guy. Sneaking behind him to get his camo is quite a challenge.

I'm not the biggest fan of boss fights tbh, but every single one in every single Metal Gear Solid game has been pretty damn great.

@Ravenlight said:

The End. Probably the most memorable sniper battle in any game I've ever played. Bonus points for sneaking up and killing him with claymores. Plus immediately following the battle, you get to climb the most memorable ladder in any game I've ever played.

I'll just leave this here.

That game is so good, I think that in general MGS bosses are amazing.

I really enjoyed the Mr. Freeze fight in Batman: Arkham City. It wasn't epic or anything--he moved pretty slowly--but I liked that I had to use different tactics to damage him each time. Colossus #13/"Phalanx" (the flyer) has already been mentioned, and for good reason. The final boss of Shadow of the Colossus is particularly ntoable as well, mostly because of all the emotion that's running in the lead-up to the fight (the collapsing bridge incident).

The first in my list would be The End from MGS 3. The feeling of final being able to best this old-man is great but it is nothing compared to how you do it. There are just so many unique ways to beat him that it make you feel like facing this boss is nothing short of an honor. And the second would be Vergil third fight in DMC 3. This fight is interesting because it gives you the feeling of facing someone who fight with extraordinary skill rather than some monstrosity abominations waving they tentacles to squash you. Oh, and it is more interesting to fight this dude on Hard mode and above using Royal Guard