Top 5 FAKE Boss Fights in Video Games 

The image of a raid boss Shedinja is genuinely hilarious.

Professor Nakiyama from Borderlands 2 is a standout for me. Throughout his entire dlc campaign hes building himself up as your new nemesis after you kill his boss Handsome Jack (who he was in love with) and talking about his new superweapon. Then at the end, after you beat his weapon he freaks out, hypes himself up, arms himself against you, his health bar appears... and then he trips down a flight of holographic stairs and dies, each impact on the stairs chunking his health bar. Its even the only boss in the game with a seamless cutscene to gameplay transition because he fucking trips mid-cutscene lmao

10:58 never forget that Electric Tera Shedinja with Air Balloon was so toxic to fight that it and Liepard completely killed the National Dex Anything Goes format in Smogon

Rick the Door Technician was likely a reference to a comedy skit from Adam Driver himself where Kylo Ren disguises himself as a radar technician.

Funny thing, soon as I saw the title of this video my mind immediately went to #5, which made me happy. Also, #1 makes me think Mysterio is aware of the fact he's in a videogame. Because as a master of illusion, the three health bars he seems to have are for your sake, not Peter's. He's tricking you as the player into thinking he has more health than he really does.

My favorite one of these is Waddle Dee from the Revenge of the King mode in Kirby Superstar Ultra.

The thing about the Soldier of Godrick as a tutorial boss is that every time I am in that arena there are a ton of bloodstains. So people are getting their butts kicked by him, somehow.

One of my favorite fake bosses will always be the Negative Man from Mother 3. Being that you randomly encounter this unique enemy when exploring a dungeon, and not only is the music pretty foreboding (he uses Strong One, the same theme for some of the hardest bossesin the game like The Masked Man and The Barrier Trio), but he has a ton of health too. And the game already had a super tough optional boss way earlier with Lil’ Miss Marshmallow. So at first, I unloaded all my strongest PSI moves on him, only to then realize he was literally useless and didn’t attack like…at all. Allowing me to pretty much defeat him with no opposition whatsoever. Then again, Mother/Earthbound is a series that’s pretty well known for screwing around with the player for a gag (like waiting real-world minutes behind a waterfall in order to progress), and so this’s pretty much par for the course when it comes to it.

When I think of fake boss fights, I immediately think of Mettaton NEO from Undertale. Except, given the circumstances of fighting him in the first place, it is not at all a joke boss fight. If anything, it's TERRIFYING how easily you beat him.

One of my personal favorites has to be from the indie game SLARPG, where in the quest to the heart of an abandoned industrial-fantasy factory, the party comes across a computer they try and open a door with. Not making progress, it asks them if they would like to activate the “Help Wizard”, which they agree to. A voice rings out, asking who DARES disturb its slumber, before launching the party into combat. The bold text “A WIZARD APPEARS!” along with a holographic png of a Gandalf-esque wizard shows up, paired with the bodd music, before promptly being defeated in one hit. Its extra funny because the game offers plenty of options to buff the party, so its not uncommon to spend the first turn bracing your team for the worst, making the fake out hit that much better. Such a rush of emotions and one of my favorite moments from the game.

For me, I’d have to go with the second Yahata encounter from Yakuza 5. They do let you know what you’re getting into because Kiryu says that he will take the guy down in one punch, but they give Yahata the most jacked health bar in the game, only to be taken out by a single punch that’s executed through a few QTEs that are mainly dodges and the last one is where Kiryu throws his singular punch. Honestly very similar to Rick the Door Technician.

One of my favorites is Littleneck from Dusk. This secret boss can be found in the third last level of the game and is a tiny version of one of the most basic enemies in the game, Leathernecks (which are similar to the likes of Leatherface and Dr. Salvador). What's brilliant about his execution is that he at first appears to be normal sized when you open the door to his arena, but you quickly realize that it's an optical illusion (the small hallway narrows to make it look like a long corridor) and that he's actually tiny, dying in only a few hits.

Actually, shedinja is like ditto, where it becomes more viable when legendaries are added. Zacian (no way it carries aerial ace, its other moveslots are too valuable), Kyogre, Xerneas, Calyrex Ice Rider, etc are walled by Shedinja. It can even protect allies, since it learns ally switch to switch places with its partner. Also, gamefreak not allowing shedinja in scarlet and violet was a deliberate choice. The reasons for which the other comments have explained why.

I don't think this even CLOSE to counts, but I'm thinking about Waddle Doo from Kirby 64, had a whole hp bar like a boss, but all they do is run towards you like any other enemy, sometimes jumping, and when they miss, they trip and fall onto their giant eye, and start crying for a second, leaving them open to more attacks. You'd think something getting possessed by a malevolent force such as Dark Matter would put up more of a fight to be honest. The only saving grace is that Waddle Doo doesn't go down in one hit, but their hp still isn't all that impressive anyways.

Um, how about General Scales from Starfox Adventures. He's hyped up through the game as a big threat and powerful.....but when you "fight" him....he can't even damage you. Seriously, he has no attacking AI.

I went overkill the first time I saw Dynamax Shedinja. I see the eight barrier bars and have no idea what to expect from this fight, so I Dynamax my Cinderace and use Max Flare, watching two barrier bars break and that health bar drop in a sixth-of-a-second. Yeah, it was hilarious. Also, the Shedinja Spirit Battle in Smash Ultimate. It could POTENTIALLY be tough if you take too long (theoretically?), but I think I won that fight in less than three seconds because their idea for Wonder Guard was to make G&W gold and turn invincibility on and off occasionally.

It probably shouldn't count on this list due to how little there actually is to this "fight", but Letz Shake in the first No More Heroes game immediately comes to mind.

In Elden ring I actually somehow struggled with the tutorial boss

omg i love rick the door technician, when i first saw him in a playthrough of the game i couldn't stop laughing XD

Armogohma phase 2. You know that thing where you squish a spider and suddenly baby spiders are swarming everywhere? That's the second phase. What makes it even better is how Link reacts. At first, he's doing his usual post boss victory taunt, but he hasn't even finished searching the master sword before realizing the boss is not yet dead. Even better, to damage Armogohma, you use the dominion rod. Not the Master Sword. Link drew the Master Sword just to twirl it around all fancy, and immediately found his celebration was premature. A joke of a boss that made a joke of the hero.

I should point out that Dynamaxing was icredibly centralized in Copetitive Pokémon battling. The whole mechanic was banned in Smogon singles for a reason, and VGC followed suit soon after

There's plenty of No More Heroes bosses who feel pretty fake as they get defeated in cutscenes following their introduction

The first thing I think of when talking fake boss battles is the Golem Overlord from Chrono Trigger.

Lucien from Fable 2 comes to mind, which says something considering he's also the final boss. I remember a Let's Play where they were so bored by the end they were skipping through and basically killed him by accident.

A Gen 9 equivalent of Dynamax Shedinja Raids is Tera Ditto raids. Ditto will always transform into the host's Pokemon. So if you, say, host a Ditto raid and bring a Level 1 Magikarp, and all your buddies bring Level 100 legendaries, it's a bit of a joke, even 6-star Ditto raids. Note this won't work in singleplayer since the AI allies match your Pokemon's level.

Zote the Mighty at the end of the Coliseum of Fools

Justice for Rick the door technician

Funny enough I like to quote Handsome Jack from Borderland 2 with max pokemon "OH NO YOU DON'T SHIELDS UP!!"

The "final boss" of Fable 2 is what came to mind for this.

Honourable mention to the honourable Gendrome in Monster Hunter Stories 2 (technically a mix of joke/surprise boss after the bombs start falling down.) There's also the Undead Jed "fight" in Runescape 3 where he gets a massive health bar only to go down in one hit.

Zote the Mighty from hollow knight would have been a perfect fit for this video

i was certain that Mettaton NEO was going to be first place. how is it not even on this list????

Two bosses come to mind. Zinyak in the Saints Row IV DLC Enter the Dominatrix, and Acanti from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Zinyak goes down in one hit while complaining that he had a massive health bar in post-edit commentary, and Acanti you don't even take out yourself. It goes down via a cutscene of some parts of a ship ramming right into it.

I always think of Golem Overlord from chrono trigger when this topic comes up, always been one of my favorite joke bosses

Honestly, this could've been an April Fools' List but you gave it now and I love it. Been a long while since I laughed at a boss fight list. Thanks, may you have better times in your life.

The first joke boss I thought of was the Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 movie tie in game with that one notable boss fight with Mysterio which he goes down so pathetically after hyping himself up with 3 health bars that it wastes no time taking the piss out of him that it is genuinely funny, I'm glad it showed up on RabbidLuigi's list since he has talked about it before.

Spiderman 64 meanwhile has an...interesting Mysterio boss fight.

The spongebob movie game had a minigame called 'The Ultimate Challange' which was a fight against a single jellyfish

I like big health bars and I cannot lie. But the ones that are just artificially big are simultaneously hilarious and a bit of a letdown. I'm not properly chewing through all that meat; it just crumbles away into dust.

I love Mysterio, he's the most ridiculous man

I'm imagining Rick the Door Technician having a Warframe poster of John Prodman in his bunk now. Massive points to the one little dude trying to make his hero proud.

All I could think of, when I'd first seen the image for this countdown, was Mysterio from Spider-Man 2: The Video Game. And, lo and behold, there he is where he belongs: at the #1 spot.

Hollow Knight's Tiso in Godhome was pretty funny

Where is Bob the Killer Goldfish from Earthworm Jim? He was such a great candidate that they had him as a fake boss fight twice, once at the end of the 3rd level of the 1st game, and then again in the 1st level of the 2nd game

I'll take a fake boss over not having a final boss at all. I've played a game or two like that, as well. Also, Mysterio's orb isn't his real head?

I knew it was gonna be that #1. Hilarious every time.

Zote from Hollow Knight should've made the cut.

On the last 1 back when I was playing that Spiderman 2 game on the PS2 way back then I had played my way through and when I reached the section where the theater was on fire and you were battling the droids of mysterio I struggled my way through it and ended the battle with just a slither of health left and was left hoping to find something quick and easy to complete to get my health back up so I swinging through and the first thing I find is a store robbery and it takes me into the boss fight against mysterio and I am thinking no fair I just survived the last big thing you threw at me and I havent recovered yet and then his HP bar goes up several levels wasnt certain how many at the time but knew that looked like a lot of health so as soon as the cut scene released me I launched into a flurry of attacks just praying for the best but figuring I was doomed on my slither of remaining health and 1 hit later Mysterio went down and I was left laughing and being extremely grateful at the same time.

There's the one GBA Hluk game, I think, with a boss you yeet the fuck out of the screen.

>Dynamax didn't ruin competetive the same way Megas or Z moves did. Pffffffft hahaha, that's a great joke. .....y...You're joking right?

Spoilers for OMORI! One of my favorite fake bosses is against Mari at the end of the Basil boss rush mode in the Switch version. Not only is she directly after one of the toughest optional fights in the game, but her background is the same one used by Perfectheart, the strongest post-game boss in the game. When I got to her I immediately thought to myself "oh no... I'm SCREWED." What does she actually do in the fight? She just idles and heals you and Basil, which continued to make me think something strong was coming up ahead. A few turns later and BOOM, she suddenly turns into her dangling corpse after the staged suicide, and you and Basil become Sunny and Basil in the real world segments. Even though I saw it coming it still freaked me out because it's meant to symbolize the moment Sunny and Basil both develop Somethings of their own.

Glad to see you back after a break.

Soldier of god, Rick is the strongest entity in all of elden ring, he is using but a fraction of a percent of his power against us feeble tarnished, we are barely worth a finger of his power

I knew he would be number 1, best fake boss ever :0

Another "Joke" bossfight in Pokemon is the Team Magma Admins in Omega Ruby. Both carry 1 not-so-high leveled Pokemon that's 4x weak to water in a region NOTORIUOS for having "too much water" literally 1 water move and they're dead

Wished you mentioned any of the Gradius final bosses.

A few other examples Final Fantasy VI Siegfried Final Fantasy V Gilgamesh The fact that some one in school kept insisting there was a hidden Bowser Boss Fight in in the Flyswatter Game in Mario Paint and he never shut up about it. A Boss fight that never existed, true Fake Boss Final Fantasy VI Ultros Salt and Perper Chrono Cross I think Chrono Triger had a guy who was 1 hp too I feel like other too can't recall. A lot would be from Super Mario RPG, Secret of Evermore, Secret of Mana, Monkey Island, Star Wars Jedi Knight, KotOR, Zelda things like that. on the opposite end Chrono Trigger had some bosses who looked easy but hit very hard and had tons of HP I think in Ultima every NPC could be battled and if you beat up shop keepers the guards came after you then if you battled the King his HP was insanely high.

9:48 *Singles players banning Dynamax meanwhile*

Adeline from kirby and the crystal shards.

Something immediately came to my mind when he explained the rules and it's a number 1 where it should be. All is right with the world.

Mr Luigi, you missed Lucien from Fable 2. The entire story is build around the idea of it being our destiny to take down the big bad Lucien, and that we need to get stronger and more powerful. Then at the end if you don't one shot him with any plain weapon, literally one of the 3 heros that follow you do it for you if you take too long...

I thought we were gonna go with mist noble 😂

I thought it would be wolfe glick For having a hack is pokemon and they'll be able to play The Game competitively.

what about dark beast ganon or demon dragon

I love this kind of thing a lot.

Indecisive between "joke" and "fake" there?

I thought this was about fakeout bosses, and thus show Hollow Knight's Tiso

The No More Heroes series has some great boss fake-outs

I am disappointed by the lack of zote on this list

Can you bring your intro and outro back? I miss seeing them...

Nominating songbird for top worst

I was hoping for your #3 pick would show up when I clicked on the video

Huh, interesting topic, hm, what’s next?

12:06 2004*

Welcome back sir!

Patches is a much better fake out fight than soldier of godrick imo. For those unaware when you get him down to half HP he stops the fight and begs for mercy. You can then either finish him or spare him and he becomes a regular NPC merchant

A fake boss fight can still be serious. Off the top of my head Axiom Verge has 2 and they're both pretty narratively heavy.

Missed you bebe 😘

Good video! However, Mettaton Neo.

Correct #1 pick

Yeah, I hate Doogee. Had bad memories with it.

Rick The Door Technician really deserves a raise for having to deal with Cal Kestis!

With the P3 remake on the Horizon I wanna be mindful of spoilers but: . . . . . So roughly around the 3/4 mark of the game one of the villains is let out if the hospital and immediately picks a fight. They're still wearing the white hospital gown and everything. It goes about as well for them as one would expect looking at the scene.

Zote in The Colloseum Of Fools was funny in my first Hollow Knight playthrough. But adding Grey Prince Zote to screw with, not just mine, but with everyone's Pantheon Of Hollownest runs, that is Team Cherry just being cruel. Grey Prince Zote is supposed to be a Joke Boss, yet he's actually intimidating in every run.

The best part about the Mysterio is that you can do some long distance web combos on him and make him ragdoll without dealing any damage. So he'll just ragdoll to the floor and still keeps doing his lines to try and intimidate you. And apparently that charged punch you showed in the clip also has the same effect, huh. Good to know.

Honorable mention: that one borderlands dlc boss that dies by falling down the stairs.

I will have you know Rabbid, Dynamax Shedinja doesn't have 1hp.........it has 2

I love it when games put in fake bosses, I always get a chuckle out of them. So far I feel like they've been implemented with the appropriate amount of restraint, in that there's only 1 per game. If you were to put 2 or more fake bosses into a game it'd likely be disappointing because at that point you'd feel like the devs were denying you an interesting boss.

As soon as I saw the title I knew that Mysterio was going to be on the list. I was genuinely excited when I saw he was number one! Fantastic list video.

Come on where is Scales from Starfox Adventure?

After how grueling the gauntlet was for that inperial base, I felt *so* bad but still laughed seeing Rick show up.

You should rename your title to "Top 5 Video Game Joke Bosses" Edit: the main point of Dynamaxing was to please the VGC players. Unfortunately, just like Gen 9's Terastilzation, the Dynamax gimmick falls in execution in the single player experience. . .

Just starting, but I really hope that door guy from Jedi Survivor shows up. That cracked me up.

Fun list there were only 2 examples I could think, so it was fun to see others. If anyone's curious, those 2 are Zote in the Coliseum of Fools in Hollow Knight and Bandana Waddle Dee from kirby superstar ultra.

I think you should mention zote (the coloseum of fools one) battle from hollow knight

I'm genuinely baffled by the comments about Max and Tera Raids there. Like, ignore the comments of calling Mega Evolution and Z Moves 'cheap' when compared to Dynamax- Higher level Raid battles are basically unplayable. The Pokemon's health is fucking huge which wouldn't be a big deal if not for Max Moves being such a huge swing in the user's favor by either setting up favorable terrian, weather or just stat boosts. On the player it's neat since the game accounts for that in Max battles and you only get three turns of it. On the AI, it's basically 'fuck you' because it has CONSTANT access to those moves, snowballing it more and more while the game never accounts for this. The Pokemon can also just decide to....shut off everything at once, from stat boosts on your side to stat drops on it to status to even Abilities. Mind you, Tera Raids sliced this in TWO seperate actions at specific moments instead of just being a random occurence. Then we have the shields, which are hit based for some reason and reduce FAR more damage than the Tera shields. ... As well as blocking ALL secondary effects and status while up. Again, only half of this is true in Tera Raids. Which could ALL be accounted for if you could save your Dynamax for this mome-Oh wait, the Dynamax mechanic CAN'T be controlled. You either use it NOW or wait for it to recharge. At which point the Max Pokemon likely knocked out the AI partners because they have ZERO defenses four times-aaaand you're fucked. I mean, for god's sake. I know we're all supposed to circlejerk and say SV are the worst games in the series (even as the likes of the Gen 6 games are RIGHT there) but don't try selling me Max Raids as being better.

Doom 2 is a fantastic game, but the Icon of Sin is a hitbox inside a wall texture. It doesn't move, it doesn't animate, it doesn't even directly attack you, just spawns monsters.

I'm honestly very surprised that he didn't include Jinroku from GOT because bro had the boss bar and everything but just surrendered as soon as the fight started.

I hear that Life Will Change playing in the intro... Edit: after watching the video, i was originally hoping to see the first holy grail fight; but now that seems a bit outside the scope of this video

I gotta erm achtually but dynamax was probably the worst gimmick for competitive play and the only one banned out of the three