The Purpose of Penultimate Bosses

Considering the name of this blog, it only seems appropriate to start with a look at penultimate bosses.

So, just what is a penultimate boss and how does it relate to the final boss? The obvious answer would be that it is the second-to-last boss in the game and it should be more difficult than any other boss aside from the final boss and this is indeed the case - sometimes. However, in many games, especially RPG's, the penultimate boss fight has at least as much significance as the final boss fight, if not more and it is not entirely uncommon for the penultimate boss to be significantly more challenging than the final boss. Why do these things occur? Is it just poor planning and balancing on the developer's part? Maybe, but let's take a look at some other possibilities.

First, there is the issue of penultimate bosses relatively frequently being more difficult than their respective final bosses. A likely explanation for this is one of spectacle. The final boss fight of a game often is designed to be memorable; the boss may go through a sudden, imposing transformation, plot twists may occur directly before or even during the fight, and generally awe-inspiring attacks and scenery changes are nearly inevitable. Of course, all of these twists and special effects only remain interesting the first or second time around.

For example, imagine if in Super Metroid, after acquiring the Hyper Beam, the difficulty was suddenly cranked up and Samus died repeatedly to Mother Brain and the following escape sequence. Even though the fight with Mother Brain at the end of this game is rather famous and often applauded, it would be absolutely miserable if the player had to watch Samus get saved by the metroid hatchling over and over and over. Instead, we have the imposing and impressive, yet very easy final fight with Mother Brain while the penultimate boss fight with Ridley is more simplistic and straightforward, yet significantly more difficult. Thus, aside from games where there is little to no focus placed upon plot and characters or games with frequent mid-fight checkpoints, it makes sense for the penultimate boss to be the hardest fight in the game in order to keep the spectacle of the final boss from wearing thin.

Another relationship between penultimate and final bosses is the penultimate boss tends to be the more personal rival or nemesis character while the final boss is often some unseen, shadowy leader or sealed-away demon which relates more to the overarching plot. Ridley and Mother Brain (or Metroid Prime or various other final bosses of Metroid games) again fit this relationship, but there are plenty of other cases too. Pokey and Giygas from Earthbound come to mind, with Pokey constantly running into and causing trouble for the party while Giygas remains a complete mystery until the very end.

Final Fantasy IX is probably the most notorious game for this chain of 'person followed by overarching' bosses with the final boss, Necron, coming out of pretty much nowhere. While many players were annoyed at this 'surprise' final boss, Necron's appearance sheds light upon the important of order in terms of 'scope'. Basically, it just wouldn't make much sense to first save the world or deal with whatever the main theme of the game is and then move on the smaller-scale personal encounter. In the case of Final Fantasy IX, Kuja may have gone off the deep end and attempted to destroy the world, yet his reason for doing so was to give a larger sense of 'meaning' to his life, which is the same desire which motivates every single other important character in the game and which therefore places him firmly in the position of 'rival'. On the other hand, Necron means very little to both the characters and the player, but he is the antithesis of the game's overarching theme of 'creating meaning in one's life' as he not only represents death, but meaninglessness, nonexistence, and stagnation.

This order of personal then overarching enemy can in part also again be explained by spectacle. Unless a game's rival goes through a massive last-minute transformation, the final boss is usually the more impressive of the two to look at. However, this spectacle of the final boss would be lost if the player constantly encountered this being throughout the game in the way the penultimate boss is encountered as there would be far less mystery and anticipation surrounding the final encounter with this being. While there are occasions where the penultimate boss is the overarching boss and the final boss is the rival, such as in Final Fantasy VII and Devil May Cry 3, or where the nemesis is also the overarching boss, such as in Final Fantasy VI, these usually only occur when the relationship between the protagonist and this personal antagonist is focused upon more than the fate of the world or where this antagonist's personality conflicts with the overall theme.

So, just what is a penultimate boss? It can be the second hardest boss in a game, the hardest boss, the personal rival or nemesis, the overarching boss, some combination of these things, or something else entirely. No matter which of these things a penultimate boss may be, one thing it almost always is is significant.

Opening Cutscene

Hello, everyone! There's not much to see here yet, but, as you can probably guess from the name, this is going to be a gaming blog. For the most part, I'll be focusing on some of the more obscure stuff on both the PC and consoles, so you can expect to see reviews, impressions, videos, and screenshots of many great (or horrible) games you may not know of.

In addition, I'll be posting short essays analyzing various aspects of some of the more well-known games, such as Metroid and Diablo III, and of gaming in general. I believe that video games have just as much right to the title of 'liberal art' as things such as movies, music, paintings, and literature, but the first step towards having them perceived this way is to treat them as such. Don't worry though if this stuff sounds too dry for your tastes as there will be plenty of less-serious posts too.

Well, that's it for now. You can look forward to plenty of posts from me in the coming days and, hopefully, for a long time to come and thank you for stopping by!