what the most disgusting/weirdest boss you ever played.

[doom_marine666]

My disgusting boss battle has go to: the great mighty poo of conker's bad fur day, he is a great poo nuff said...
My weirdest boss battle: it go to the skeleton dancing in the game monster party of the nes, they just dance and then die...

[DuckReconMajor]

EWWWW

[bytor]

EDIT: removed yt of Gharbad the Weak.

[hex11]

This Shub-Niggurath fellow is pretty damn weird, and the way you defeat is is just plain gross.

Btw, here is a famous D&D artist's depiction of ol' Shubby:
http://jrients.tripod.com/otus/otusddg.html
It's near the bottom of that page (which also contains lots of other nice illustrations by Erol Otus).

[crashhelper]

King Ralphis from UAC Military Nightmare.

[Technician]

So that's why he owns a Z28.

[Philnemba]

Beelzebub from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

[40oz]

[Shaikoten]

[Mithran Denizen]

Damnit, I can't top Lumbergh.

[RTC_Marine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXiXB9PhVqk

[Enjay]

I think the "Mighty" Shub Niggurath from Quake has to rank as pretty weird. I mean, it's just a giant sea anemone that sits there quivering. All you have to do is teleport into it (despite telefragging featuring nowhere else in the game as a game mechanic).

What's more, you have to do this when a strange spiky ball that, for no obvious reason, is circulating around the room passes through Shub.

Also, somehow, you are supposed to magically realise the spiky ball is a teleport destination. No other teleport destinations in the game look like it (IIRC). You usually only find out by trial and error. What kind of trial and error? You jump into the teleport and, perhaps, manage to work out that the place that you landed (usually in the middle of the lava) just happens to be where the spiky ball was. However, because you are now in the lava and probably dying, you haven't even noticed the small spiky ball that has continued to circle the room and is no longer in your field of view (if you'd even spotted it before).

The first time I did it, I just happened to teleport when the ball was inside Shub and I had no idea how I had won when I wasn't able to repeat the process on a subsequent play because I simply hadn't connected the ball to the teleport process at all.

I guess props for trying to come up with something different but, it is weird (and, IMO, not in a particularly good or satisfying way).

[Maes]

The ending of Midnight Resistance (an arcade Contra-Clone from the 80s) was pretty disgusting.



Also, Midnight Wanderers and Chariot - adventure through the sky by Capcom both had a unique "photorealistic" graphics style, and some very surreal bosses. Most were huge, weird, and quite a few of them suffered from Broken Angel Syndrome when damaged/destroyed.

[Doom_Dude]

Enjay said:

I think the "Mighty" Shub Niggurath from Quake has to rank as pretty weird. I mean, it's just a giant sea anemone that sits there quivering. All you have to do is teleport into it (despite telefragging featuring nowhere else in the game as a game mechanic).

The first time I went into that level, I was clueless as to what to do there and used up all my ammo, so I tried to kill Shub with the axe and crashed the game. I don't know how long I was hitting shub with the axe... twas over 10 minutes or something crazy. haha! Then I walked away whistling and didn't bother to try and kill it again until years later.

I thought the end boss for Half-Life, Nihilanth (or whatever it's called) was pretty damned weird. I always thought that thing looked like some deformed alien baby with a migraine..

[printz]

Enjay said:

I think the "Mighty" Shub Niggurath from Quake has to rank as pretty weird. I mean, it's just a giant sea anemone that sits there quivering. All you have to do is teleport into it (despite telefragging featuring nowhere else in the game as a game mechanic).

I think multiplayer Quake telefragging was being featured plentifully in magazines. And the purpose of the spiky ball could be deduced from the similarly oddly placed teleporter at the end of the walkway. Why is there a teleporter and why does it teleport you into the lava in a non-descript place? Why is it never the same destination? What is that large spiky ball supposed to do? Why does it move right through the boss-thing sometimes? Bingo!

[Enjay]

printz said:

I think multiplayer Quake telefragging was being featured plentifully in magazines.

I was aware of telefragging from Doom (I hadn't played Quake multiplayer at the time). I don't recall seeing it in many magazines (though, that could just be my memory). However, up 'til that point, telefragging had really been mostly a multi-player experience for me, and one that I mainly experienced by accident in coop by following (or being followed) too closely when someone teleports. I guess I never really expected to see it in the SP game (I suppose that I wasn't thinking out of the box). In my mind, telefragging had always felt like a thing that had been added to avoid the problem of teleporting and being stuck in another entity. It felt almost like a gameplay "bug fix" to me rather than a game mechanic.

Also, with it only being needed once in the whole game there was little way to learn it (even less for people who don't play multiplayer). When I realised what was going on, I have to admit it felt like a bit of a let-down and a cheap way to do it. Suddenly, killing the boss became very easy - a one shot kill (in fact, not even that). Of course, the battle before the teleport was reasonably hectic.

printz said:

And the purpose of the spiky ball could be deduced from the similarly oddly placed teleporter at the end of the walkway. Why is there a teleporter and why does it teleport you into the lava in a non-descript place? Why is it never the same destination? What is that large spiky ball supposed to do? Why does it move right through the boss-thing sometimes? Bingo!

And, I guess, that is the thought process I went through eventually. Mind you, the location of the teleport isn't that odd. A teleport at the end of a walkway really isn't that unusual. I think that my initial conclusion was that it was merely a nasty trap by id. "Ha ha punk, you are used to teleports taking you somewhere useful? Well, this one is a death trap." Either way, it is pretty much the case that you are expected to die (or at least mess up pretty badly) a few times before you figure out what is going on. Again, that seems a bit off to me.

I know that many bosses can kill you easily when you first encounter them and that learning how to fight them is part of the process. However, learning a contrived mechanic like this via trial and error and initially apparently random results seems a bit, I dunno, unsatisfying to me. I think it feels that way because it isn't the boss or the fight that gets you, it is a very artificial feeling mechanic which may, or may not, just dump you in some lava with little or no warning after fighting through the whole damned game. It could just be me though.

The spiky ball (which I initially thought may be a variant of the Vore attack, then I thought it might be something I could jump on to and be carried by (ie I was getting closer to solving it)) is also just one of those silly boss battle arena oddities. Why do so many bosses set up home in a large arena that seems custom built for attacking them and even often provides the sole means of destroying them too? It must suck to be a game boss. ;)

[Reisal]

Junkyard boss in Earthworm Jim, looks like a typical fat redneck mechanic but he vomits fish out at you in attempt to hurt you.

[Ichor]

[Epyo]

Beelzebub's a good call. He is a giant effing rotting corpse, and his attacks are just when the flies get pissed and attack you. The weird thing is, it's impossible for him to have gotten into that boss room. Simply not enough doorway room. Actually that's true for a lot of bosses come to think of it. Like Ridley in Metroid games.

[Shaikoten]

Here, have a ton of weird bosses.

[valkiriforce]

40oz wins with the Contra fish, but you can't forget these two:

For the second one skip to 5:30

[Chopkinsca]

Ozma from Final Fantasy 9... It's just a sphere.

[Tango]

Philnemba said:

Beelzebub from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

the only boss in the entire game that i refused to play as a kid, out of fear that he would give me nightmares.

[Nomad]

The Mutant Master from Fallout 1 was pretty creepy.

[Foodles]

[Stroggos]

Cassus Vicus from Clive Barker's Jericho was pretty rancid.

[Belial]

Stroggos said:

Clive Barker's Jericho

I still can't believe I bought this crashfest based on how enjoyable Undying was. Never even got to that boss due to how buggy the game was.

[Maes]

Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend had a final boss that was basically a giant grey mutant Satan/minotaur with cow udders that said "FUCK! SHIT!" each time you hit him.

[hex11]

I also have a soft spot for this guy:
http://members.shaw.ca/tom.t/ab/ab-boss2.gif

There's also Shadow of the Beast, which has weird shit through the whole game (not just the bosses). Check out these ripped sprites:
http://s3.invisionfree.com/bogleech/ar/t854.htm
And in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHU2guYH7Og

Well that video's not so great, colors all washed out, mono sound, even framerate looks wrong. You'll get a better experience with an emulator. Amiga version is better but controls suck. Genesis/Megadrive port is more playable and looks/sounds okay (but not as good as the original).

[Stroggos]

Belial said:

I still can't believe I bought this crashfest based on how enjoyable Undying was. Never even got to that boss due to how buggy the game was.

Agreed I encountered a heap of framerate issues but nothing really to stop me from playing entirely. It's simply sad that Undying was so good so expectation here were high. The game made more annoying because you couldn't jump!