• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

Best Final Boss Lead-Up

DekuNut

I play my drum for you
Joined
Jan 30, 2011
Location
Tangent Universe
What games, in your opinion, have the best lead up to a final boss?
Ignore the actual quality of said boss. Just focus on the lead-up. Boss rushes, story sequences, that kind of thing.
 
Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight. Whooo, boy, friends, let me tell you about the Hollow Knight final boss fight. First of all, Hollow Knight has multiple endings, so I'm just gonna go ahead and do two levels of spoiler tags, before I start gushing about how ****ing perfect these endgame sequences and their respective build-ups are.

The build-up for the final boss of Hollow Knight is kind of done throughout the entire duration of the game. True to its roots as a Metroid-inspired game, you can immediately encounter the Temple of the Black Egg--which is where the final fight will take place later in the game. Additionally, the first thing you see when starting up a new file in Hollow Knight is the silhouette of the final boss screaming in its shackles, which is really well done suspense--and a cutscene I didn't even remember existed by the time I encountered the final boss.

Throughout your game's progression, you sort of piece together what it is you're up against with very subtle clues dropped through dialogue and tablets throughout the world of Hallownest. I myself kind of stayed in denial about what the final boss was, because I truly didn't understand why I would have to fight who I thought the final boss might have been. My suspicions were correct were in the identity of the final boss--and the way it plays out demonstrates something far more than just the final boss being evil. The final boss of Hollow Knight is not evil.

It was a very emotionally moving encounter, when you find the Hollow Knight chained up inside of the the Temple at that point. The atmospheric trill that gradually increases in intensity as you get further in the temple, and how the Hollow Knight watches you as you destroy his shackles is a very unsettling and depressing experience. As you break his fourth and final binding, he falls from the ceiling, and he's free. He lets out a painful shriek, and the battle music starts.

Depending on whether or not you have acquired an item known as the Void Heart, the Hollow Knight fight will progress differently. The Hollow Knight fight normally consists of him screaming four times. After the fourth scream, you can choose your ending, if you have the Void Heart. Hornet will tie down the Hollow Knight with her thread, and you can either keep attacking him, or dream nail him. Dream nailing him will take you to the true final boss, and what I think is probably the best final boss transition and build-up that I have ever experienced. It really adds to the climatic feel of what this bossfight is.

After dream nailing the Hollow Knight and getting inside his mind, you're taken to an empty, illuminated room. Everything is still and quiet. Another atmospheric trill. You can see the sun in the distance. You can pan the camera down and see the void below you. A few small platforms are floating in the center of the screen. When you hop to the top platform, a prompt comes up, reading "challenge." You challenge the sun. You challenge the ****ing sun. The sun in the distance grows wings. It's a few moments, before she appears in the foreground with a mechanical roar. The moment she approaches, a full screen title card comes up at the battle music's first chord: "The Radiance." Then the platforms disappear, and the fight begins.

im trash
 
This is a bit of an unorthodox choice, but I'd say Bowser from Super Mario 3D Land. I like how you shoot through the cannon at the end, and then it's just raindrops as you approach the final door opening ominously. It gave me vibes similar to Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time.
 

Castle

Ch!ld0fV!si0n
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Location
Crisis? What Crisis?
Gender
Pan-decepticon-transdeliberate-selfidentifying-sodiumbased-extraexistential-temporal anomaly
The build up to Saren in Mass Effect.

First all, this guy makes certain to introduce himself as a major jerkface in dire need of a spectre to take him out from the get go. This is within the first minutes of the game.

Throughout the game you never encounter Saren. You;re tracking his activities and dealing with his minions. Saren has proven himself a shrewd, cunning, soulless, and manipulative villain. Then the first time you encounter him, one of your team mates dies.

In the final climax, after fighting through an army of his Geth soldiers, you encounter Saren now fully corrupted by Sovereign. Whether or not you're able to logic bomb him into offing himself or take him out personally (the latter is much more satisfying) Saren loses it. The remarkable thing is that Saren is actually a mind controlled victim of the reaper Sovereign. Saren is still a sadistic jerk, but in his own way he only wanted to try to help the galaxy prepare for the imminent invasion of the reapers. In the end he couldn't resist Sovereign's brainwashing and he lost his mind and succumbed.

But the build up is so satisfying because throughout the game Saren makes himself elusive. You only ever meet the guy once, and not even the first time! He's like a ghost (or specter!). You keep encountering the evidence and victims of his machinations and by then it's certain that this jerk is a menace to the galaxy and desperately needs someone to go all SPECTRe on his butt. When you finally meet him face to face, he literally comes flying in out of nowhere, and it's just enough face time to make a serious impact. From then on, you know your next meeting will be final.
 

YIGAhim

Sole Survivor
Joined
Apr 10, 2017
Location
Stomp
Gender
Male
Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight. Whooo, boy, friends, let me tell you about the Hollow Knight final boss fight. First of all, Hollow Knight has multiple endings, so I'm just gonna go ahead and do two levels of spoiler tags, before I start gushing about how ****ing perfect these endgame sequences and their respective build-ups are.

The build-up for the final boss of Hollow Knight is kind of done throughout the entire duration of the game. True to its roots as a Metroid-inspired game, you can immediately encounter the Temple of the Black Egg--which is where the final fight will take place later in the game. Additionally, the first thing you see when starting up a new file in Hollow Knight is the silhouette of the final boss screaming in its shackles, which is really well done suspense--and a cutscene I didn't even remember existed by the time I encountered the final boss.

Throughout your game's progression, you sort of piece together what it is you're up against with very subtle clues dropped through dialogue and tablets throughout the world of Hallownest. I myself kind of stayed in denial about what the final boss was, because I truly didn't understand why I would have to fight who I thought the final boss might have been. My suspicions were correct were in the identity of the final boss--and the way it plays out demonstrates something far more than just the final boss being evil. The final boss of Hollow Knight is not evil.

It was a very emotionally moving encounter, when you find the Hollow Knight chained up inside of the the Temple at that point. The atmospheric trill that gradually increases in intensity as you get further in the temple, and how the Hollow Knight watches you as you destroy his shackles is a very unsettling and depressing experience. As you break his fourth and final binding, he falls from the ceiling, and he's free. He lets out a painful shriek, and the battle music starts.

Depending on whether or not you have acquired an item known as the Void Heart, the Hollow Knight fight will progress differently. The Hollow Knight fight normally consists of him screaming four times. After the fourth scream, you can choose your ending, if you have the Void Heart. Hornet will tie down the Hollow Knight with her thread, and you can either keep attacking him, or dream nail him. Dream nailing him will take you to the true final boss, and what I think is probably the best final boss transition and build-up that I have ever experienced. It really adds to the climatic feel of what this bossfight is.

After dream nailing the Hollow Knight and getting inside his mind, you're taken to an empty, illuminated room. Everything is still and quiet. Another atmospheric trill. You can see the sun in the distance. You can pan the camera down and see the void below you. A few small platforms are floating in the center of the screen. When you hop to the top platform, a prompt comes up, reading "challenge." You challenge the sun. You challenge the ****ing sun. The sun in the distance grows wings. It's a few moments, before she appears in the foreground with a mechanical roar. The moment she approaches, a full screen title card comes up at the battle music's first chord: "The Radiance." Then the platforms disappear, and the fight begins.

im trash
The Hollow Knight is the Final boss?

Minecraft

Ganondorf from all three LoZ games was actually really well led up to, with the music and atmosphere from OoT, the cutscenes from WW (The bed and the other ones after each phase if i remember), and the cutscenes from TP
 

Doc

BoDoc Horseman
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Gender
Male
With Deltarune being discussed lately, I am reminded of Undertale and the build up to the final boss was pretty amazing. The music that plays as you walk to the castle and are told the story of Asriel was a beautiful build up to the final boss of the game.

Spoiler: Question The Hollow Knight is the Final boss?
Yeah, in Hollow Knight, you don't actually play as the Hollow Knight. The Hollow Knight is a vessel like the main character, but was used to seal the Infection away. That's the basics of it, at least iirc.
 
The Hollow Knight is the Final boss?
Yeah, in Hollow Knight, you don't actually play as the Hollow Knight. The Hollow Knight is a vessel like the main character, but was used to seal the Infection away. That's the basics of it, at least iirc.
Yeah, what Doc said. You learn pretty early on in the game that you're not the Hollow Knight, but he is spoken of in high regard, and when I did the first ending, I didn't fully understand what his purpose was, so I was skeptical about how and why he would be the final boss. But, essentially, he failed to achieve his purpose, and was driven mad as a result. But you can kind of tell by how the fight progresses, that he doesn't actually want to fight you, but the thing inside of him (the true final boss) is forcing him to. The first and second endings (aka, the endings that are not the true ending) have you replace him and become the new Vessel. But no, your character is not the Hollow Knight. You are his older sibling.
 
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Location
Hyrule Castle
Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess have so much anticipation. Leading to the finale, you must go to the top of the castle, and in both, the music becomes stronger and louder the closer you get (Twilight Princess did a better job with this imo).
 
Metroid Prime

The Metroid Prime itself may not be the hardest fight but like @Satan said with Hollow Knight, the whole game feels like a lead up to it.

We're told about a phazon meteor hitting Tallon IV and the destruction it caused. All the Chozo lore tells of the strife and that they sealed the Impact Crater.

We know evil is in there, we know Metroids are the most dangerous beings in the known galaxy... so what the hell kind of abomination is the Metroid Prime?

So yeah, Metroid Prime gets my vote even though the actual fight aint hard, the whole game builds to that one final encounter.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom