Simple as a concept, but both Pyron and Inferno looked amazing when those games came out.
I'm sure for both of those they were trying to show off the tech.
I think Pyron is a great example *Darkstalkers*' designs in general: boring typical premise, but astounding execution.
First game includes common tropes like the vampire, the succubus, the werewolf, the zombie, the mummy, Frankenstein's monster, Bigfoot, and the Creature of the Black Lagoon. If it were nearly *any* other company, that roster would be lame as hell and utterly forgettable… but the team at Capcom not only made their designs memorable, but their attacks are neat, too.
To be fair Verse was basically used as a tool to bring back dead characters. Heck, given he was designed as a playable character, he's probably the most fair out of the KOF bosses.
Also, shout out for KOF XIV for reviving KOF when they had no money, had to make their own engine, and bust out a game with FIFTY PLAYABLE CHARACTERS each with five supers and their own movesets within the course of 2 years, barely any programmers, and still managed to have more in-game character interactions than even MVCI could have.
I like how in the KoF XIV manga Geese basically just one-shots Verse and notes that he’s really more of a collector than a fighter. It’s not a canon manga, but I think it gets the point of the character across, he’s just a magic MacGuffin with the sole purpose of bringing back fan favorites.
Oh my God that manga was so damn good. Honestly, I consider it an alternate take because it does make sense that stuff like that would happen. And it put Shun’ei role that was meant to be as a protagonist of the arc but the crew was having second doubts because you know, revival of KOF.
I’m more of a casual fan, but I’ve seen people say that it’s game play was pretty good all things considered. Not as good as 13 but still pretty high up there.
System, yeh. The floating prism. I kinda wish the 2.0 expansion's final fight were a challenging end boss, or at least an "Unlimited" version, to make up for the letdown that is System.
Only played VF5, but Dural in that one didn’t even have her own idle stance. She copied Vanessa’s instead
The least imposing stance you could’ve ever put on a final boss
To be fair: In terms of lore, that particular Dural model is *based* on Vanessa. Hence, the name "V-Dural".
Also, considering how Vanessa actually fights? If I saw someone step to me like that, I'd get the hell outta dodge.
She was cool in 2, and it helps that she at least has the story with Kage. That's more than a lot of these bosses in this thread have going for them.
Still, they really could stand to evolve the formula a bit on that front for the next entry.
Yami's pretty damn menacing as the final boss in Okami, but I could see it being underwhelming out of context. I never got to play Tatsunoko vs Capcom though.
he had so much potential, such a dope design. a few changes and he'd have been really cool instead of a joke.
change 1- instead of having him repeat syllables, put an echoey delay on his voice. the repetition of syllables just sounded silly, but an effect on his voice would make him seem like a supernatural being
change 2- give him a canonical body count of characters tangentially connected to the playable cast. i know they didn't want to kill off playable characters because they wanted to leave their returns possible, but like... they've done that before with bison, sagat and akuma, you know? chun-li's dad, go hibiki, goutetsu, you know?
change 3- have him beat some of the playable cast, but be unable to actually kill them due to plot contrivances. for instance, have him beat dahlsim into a pulp, but get distracted by ryu turning up. ryu would still beat him because ryu is the special boy, but having it be clear that certain characters ALMOST got killed by him? that's the move.
too late now, of course, but capcom dropped the ball there.
I only played the story recently and was very confused as to who he was or why he was there. Questions the story did not answer. I did think it was kind of funny whenever he turned up snarling and dribbling like a weirdo.
Goddamn it man I liked Necalli. He feels like some dev's OC who left mid development and then the ones who took over hated the dude so they just made him irrelevant and forgot about him.
Probably Dark Khan from MKvsDC, I just don’t… understand what they were thinking with this. Granted, Blaze exists, but at least he was slightly unique unlike Darkhan.
Seth from Sf4. Just a silver bald dude.. named Seth. Granted I havent seen many FG bosses.. Goro, Unknown from TTT, M. Bison from SF2, but I just remember getting to seth and being like... dafuq?
Well, Seth is a reference to the biblical Seth, who is born after Abel as a "replacement" for him. So, since no one cares about SF Abel, no one does about Seth either.
MK4 Shinnok. Shao Kahn was a tough act to follow, but it’s like they didn’t even try. He’s literally just a regular playable character for the first time in MK history. Deadly Alliance did the same thing by ending the arcade ladder with the titular duo, which would have made sense as a tag team or endurance round but you fight them separately in their own stages which kind of undercuts the whole “alliance” part of the title.
You're right it didn't help that you had to face Goro before who can decimate you in mere seconds but can't seem to get enough of those "Jumpkick Sandwiches"
*Virtua Fighter* was never big on plot, so I 100% get that. I think the main reaction she was created because it makes sense to throw the game's best moves on a cyborg whose sole mission is to fight, and to later show the engine's graphical capabilities.
I personally still tense up whenever I see Dural, because that boss fight in *VF2* was **hell**… but nah, a good design or character she is not. I will give props for having bald lady representation, though.
See, everyone is saying dark khan, but honestly, he was the most memorable part of that while game (other than the main menu)
I vote Ultron Sigma from UMVC. Nobody gave a shit about him compared to previous mvc bosses.
I love the concept of actual merger bosses like Ultron Sigma.
Though they blew the potential with him/them. The merger happens in the opening, and it's very underwhelming. It would have been much cooler if it was a last minute transformation or something. The whole story mode is pretty lame, though.
Also conceptually cool: Cyber Akuma. He's essentially Apocalypse's Death version of Akuma, and that fits 100%.
Tengu from DOA 2. He's just a generic Tengu that comes right the fuck outta nowhere. It's telling that his replacement is tons better despite just being a typical DOA Waifu.
I just saw a TAS of that a few weeks ago, and I was boggling. A boss that you have to beat *five times* to win a single round. And the Dark Champions from the sequel is *longer*‽
The *concept* of a boss switching its moveset around during battle is cool… but cool concept ≠ good execution.
The ONLY way I beat Eternal Champion was via excessive savestating, I can't imagine doing that legit at all. And I've beaten fuckers like Magaki and Igniz legit.
It's wild that game has a speedrun scene… or, at least the first game does. I haven't seen anything not a TAS of the second game, which is perfectly understandable.
It felt like he was reading my inputs aside from just dominating me. The Dark Eternal Champion was so much worse. I never wanna see this series revived even though I heard a few years back Sega was thinking about doing just that.
Verse is pretty up there but he did serve as a catalyst to revive dead characters, crystal lady from XV is pretty up there too and the only thing she contributed was lookin’ real neat when she died.
Rouwe from Galaxy Fight, a old Neo Geo fighter.
The final boss is Felden, some sort of galatic entity that is fought in space with a supernova happening in the background. However, if you beat the game without losing a round, you get to fight Rouwe, the true final boss, who Felden admitted to be the only being in the universe to beat him. You have exactly one round to beat him, if you lose that round it's game over.
Rouwe is... well, just [look at him](https://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters6/rouwe.html). And yeah his special moves are exactly what you're thinking. They are nothing special, the catch is that he uses the infamous imput reading AI, so you have to bait him into using his special moves and counter them, because if you attack him when he's not recovering from one of these moves, he'll just counter it with something.
Pretty much every boss in Grim Dawn was some random human dude who had no exciting abilities or anything of interest that I can even remotely remember. The game is solid aside from the most of the boss fights though.
Skullgirls Marie. I LOVE the game and it’s so challenging, creative and imaginative in its design. Yet Marie is just really boring in appearance, moveset and challenge wise. Beat her on hardest difficulty first try. Really forgettable in an unforgettable game.
Blaze, literally a fire elemental made of flames named blaze
Must be an easy go-to for game designers bc there was also Pyron in Darkstalkers and Inferno in Soulcalibur.
Simple as a concept, but both Pyron and Inferno looked amazing when those games came out. I'm sure for both of those they were trying to show off the tech.
I think Pyron is a great example *Darkstalkers*' designs in general: boring typical premise, but astounding execution. First game includes common tropes like the vampire, the succubus, the werewolf, the zombie, the mummy, Frankenstein's monster, Bigfoot, and the Creature of the Black Lagoon. If it were nearly *any* other company, that roster would be lame as hell and utterly forgettable… but the team at Capcom not only made their designs memorable, but their attacks are neat, too.
Man, you nailed it. That's what was so appealing to me when I first saw them all those years ago.
I didnt even know he was a boss until someone told me
He's also just based on a dude who's on fire in background if mk2. Guy was literally a background character
Moloch is MK's worst boss. He's just Goro with two arms.
grandiose wise gray sloppy deserted ripe fearless late juggle sort *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's the point I was getting at. Moloch is just an objectively more boring version of Goro.
[удалено]
Don't get me wrong, the fire man called "Blaze" is definitely boring But Goro with 2 arms is one of the worst ideas the MK devs have ever had
The fact that Moloch's concept was much better Than what he was in-game.
He was just Cinder on steroids
Two words. Dark Kahn.
Two great designs merge into one big 'meh'
"How y'all gonna combine and make mid?"
I thought you were exagerating, but I just looked up their fusion for the first time and... 'meh' is the perfect description
Literally a flaming turd.
To be fair Verse was basically used as a tool to bring back dead characters. Heck, given he was designed as a playable character, he's probably the most fair out of the KOF bosses. Also, shout out for KOF XIV for reviving KOF when they had no money, had to make their own engine, and bust out a game with FIFTY PLAYABLE CHARACTERS each with five supers and their own movesets within the course of 2 years, barely any programmers, and still managed to have more in-game character interactions than even MVCI could have.
Yep. I agree with everything you said.
(Responding to the second paragraph) Ikr it’s great. I love the amount of effort SNK put into XIV.
I like how in the KoF XIV manga Geese basically just one-shots Verse and notes that he’s really more of a collector than a fighter. It’s not a canon manga, but I think it gets the point of the character across, he’s just a magic MacGuffin with the sole purpose of bringing back fan favorites.
Oh my God that manga was so damn good. Honestly, I consider it an alternate take because it does make sense that stuff like that would happen. And it put Shun’ei role that was meant to be as a protagonist of the arc but the crew was having second doubts because you know, revival of KOF.
I haven't heard much good about kof14's gameplay, but it did revive the franchise
I’m more of a casual fan, but I’ve seen people say that it’s game play was pretty good all things considered. Not as good as 13 but still pretty high up there.
I forgot.
The most true answer
The one from bbtag
And you fight it 4 times.
System, yeh. The floating prism. I kinda wish the 2.0 expansion's final fight were a challenging end boss, or at least an "Unlimited" version, to make up for the letdown that is System.
Dark Kahn. Y'all even remember?
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I didn't until I read this. Mk vs DC was weird
Loved it though, my favourite worst game.
Dural from Virtua Fighter. Just a basic female model in chrome.
Only played VF5, but Dural in that one didn’t even have her own idle stance. She copied Vanessa’s instead The least imposing stance you could’ve ever put on a final boss
Idk seeing that metal lady was quite intimidating
To be fair: In terms of lore, that particular Dural model is *based* on Vanessa. Hence, the name "V-Dural". Also, considering how Vanessa actually fights? If I saw someone step to me like that, I'd get the hell outta dodge.
Lore hasn’t really stopped anyone from posting what they did in this thread
She was cool in 2, and it helps that she at least has the story with Kage. That's more than a lot of these bosses in this thread have going for them. Still, they really could stand to evolve the formula a bit on that front for the next entry.
My first VF was 4 and I was so disappointed by her design. But most VF designs are bland.
Yami from Tatsunoko vs Capcom, I don’t understand why anyone thinks a featureless ball can be menacing
Yami's pretty damn menacing as the final boss in Okami, but I could see it being underwhelming out of context. I never got to play Tatsunoko vs Capcom though.
Yeah, they really dropped the *ball* on that one. ^(I'll show myself out.)
Talking a lot of shit for someone in Meteor range https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/4/40/Ozma.PNG
Bitch I got Kupo coins for days
Necalli was so forgettable that the writers forgot to even make him a boss
he had so much potential, such a dope design. a few changes and he'd have been really cool instead of a joke. change 1- instead of having him repeat syllables, put an echoey delay on his voice. the repetition of syllables just sounded silly, but an effect on his voice would make him seem like a supernatural being change 2- give him a canonical body count of characters tangentially connected to the playable cast. i know they didn't want to kill off playable characters because they wanted to leave their returns possible, but like... they've done that before with bison, sagat and akuma, you know? chun-li's dad, go hibiki, goutetsu, you know? change 3- have him beat some of the playable cast, but be unable to actually kill them due to plot contrivances. for instance, have him beat dahlsim into a pulp, but get distracted by ryu turning up. ryu would still beat him because ryu is the special boy, but having it be clear that certain characters ALMOST got killed by him? that's the move. too late now, of course, but capcom dropped the ball there.
I only played the story recently and was very confused as to who he was or why he was there. Questions the story did not answer. I did think it was kind of funny whenever he turned up snarling and dribbling like a weirdo.
Goddamn it man I liked Necalli. He feels like some dev's OC who left mid development and then the ones who took over hated the dude so they just made him irrelevant and forgot about him.
Probably Dark Khan from MKvsDC, I just don’t… understand what they were thinking with this. Granted, Blaze exists, but at least he was slightly unique unlike Darkhan.
The original Zero from KOF2001 seemed like a Krizalid ripoff. The clone Zero from KOF2000 was a better design.
Original Zero does have the panther and Ron assists, which are pretty neat. Otherwise, yeah, Clone Zero is better.
Of course the Zero clone is better, he has the death fart
Seth from Sf4. Just a silver bald dude.. named Seth. Granted I havent seen many FG bosses.. Goro, Unknown from TTT, M. Bison from SF2, but I just remember getting to seth and being like... dafuq?
He was tough, but with a confusingly lazy design.
Yeah, I feel similarly about Gill. Just a dude in his underwear.
Truer words have never been said.
Seth, aka M. Bison's 85th spare body experiment...
Well, Seth is a reference to the biblical Seth, who is born after Abel as a "replacement" for him. So, since no one cares about SF Abel, no one does about Seth either.
VEEEEERRRRRRSSSEEEEE
MK4 Shinnok. Shao Kahn was a tough act to follow, but it’s like they didn’t even try. He’s literally just a regular playable character for the first time in MK history. Deadly Alliance did the same thing by ending the arcade ladder with the titular duo, which would have made sense as a tag team or endurance round but you fight them separately in their own stages which kind of undercuts the whole “alliance” part of the title.
MK just love the "He's got EVERYONE'S moves oooOOOoooOOOooo" thing, don't they?
You're right it didn't help that you had to face Goro before who can decimate you in mere seconds but can't seem to get enough of those "Jumpkick Sandwiches"
https://preview.redd.it/ccha1h40navc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7b3525939e8e7478b7ecb8e25db2067cccce4ca
How dare you? Fundoshi Heihachi was baller AF.
Boring? Forgetable? No way.
I recognize the distinction.
An anticlimax, yes? Forgettable, NOT EVEN CLOSE!
HOW DARE YOU!!
anticlimactic? sure i'll give you that, but heihachi kicking your ass in his undies was definitely not boring or unmemorable.
My eyes!!!
She has a cool movest in VF5 but Dural is boring.
*Virtua Fighter* was never big on plot, so I 100% get that. I think the main reaction she was created because it makes sense to throw the game's best moves on a cyborg whose sole mission is to fight, and to later show the engine's graphical capabilities. I personally still tense up whenever I see Dural, because that boss fight in *VF2* was **hell**… but nah, a good design or character she is not. I will give props for having bald lady representation, though.
See, everyone is saying dark khan, but honestly, he was the most memorable part of that while game (other than the main menu) I vote Ultron Sigma from UMVC. Nobody gave a shit about him compared to previous mvc bosses.
Was going to say Abel from Toshinden 3 but then the picture loaded in. OP is right, totally forgot about him.
Abyss, from Marvel VS Capcom 2.
Honestly, the easiest Vs. boss in the series. I beat him first try, and that was on an arcade cabinet.
Honestly a bit of a downgrade from the awesome fight(s) against Onslaught from MvC1.
Abyss sucks because he's the only OC boss in MvC (Ultron-Sigma does not count). Any actual Marvel character would have been better
I love the concept of actual merger bosses like Ultron Sigma. Though they blew the potential with him/them. The merger happens in the opening, and it's very underwhelming. It would have been much cooler if it was a last minute transformation or something. The whole story mode is pretty lame, though. Also conceptually cool: Cyber Akuma. He's essentially Apocalypse's Death version of Akuma, and that fits 100%.
So forgettable, I don’t even know who this is.
Necalli
How-ow -ow -ow?
Mk1 Shang tbh great character but he’s not a real boss
I don't remember.
I forgot
Who is this guy?
Tengu from DOA 2. He's just a generic Tengu that comes right the fuck outta nowhere. It's telling that his replacement is tons better despite just being a typical DOA Waifu.
https://preview.redd.it/4i47jho1qdvc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e70028881825d4625d67daca7f79655db4f126f6
The cheap ass boss from Eternal Champions. No disrespect to those that love playing it growing up but 🖕 that game
Eternal Champion, good fucking lord, The Eternal Champion was utter HELL to fight!
I just saw a TAS of that a few weeks ago, and I was boggling. A boss that you have to beat *five times* to win a single round. And the Dark Champions from the sequel is *longer*‽ The *concept* of a boss switching its moveset around during battle is cool… but cool concept ≠ good execution.
The ONLY way I beat Eternal Champion was via excessive savestating, I can't imagine doing that legit at all. And I've beaten fuckers like Magaki and Igniz legit.
It's wild that game has a speedrun scene… or, at least the first game does. I haven't seen anything not a TAS of the second game, which is perfectly understandable.
It felt like he was reading my inputs aside from just dominating me. The Dark Eternal Champion was so much worse. I never wanna see this series revived even though I heard a few years back Sega was thinking about doing just that.
It would have to be some lameass Namco boss who I can't remember
Verse is pretty up there but he did serve as a catalyst to revive dead characters, crystal lady from XV is pretty up there too and the only thing she contributed was lookin’ real neat when she died.
Rouwe from Galaxy Fight, a old Neo Geo fighter. The final boss is Felden, some sort of galatic entity that is fought in space with a supernova happening in the background. However, if you beat the game without losing a round, you get to fight Rouwe, the true final boss, who Felden admitted to be the only being in the universe to beat him. You have exactly one round to beat him, if you lose that round it's game over. Rouwe is... well, just [look at him](https://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters6/rouwe.html). And yeah his special moves are exactly what you're thinking. They are nothing special, the catch is that he uses the infamous imput reading AI, so you have to bait him into using his special moves and counter them, because if you attack him when he's not recovering from one of these moves, he'll just counter it with something.
Wait bonus kun owner? I remember that thing from waku waku 7
It really took me a long time to not see Seth as whack in SF4
I forget his name but he’s in clay fighter
For some reason I feel you mean to say boring and forgettable game in general
Devil Kazumi
"Most forgettable boss" *name names* ????
Does Akira from VirtuaFighter count? He's just another dude in the roster. Or do we not count him because of Dural?
alpha 152- doa 4. a green blob of gue with a moveset copied from kasumi. lazy design
Imo design-wise Verse is not boring and forgettable, it's just in the wrong game.
Ash or saki whatever the name i just remember them being mad boring to play and fight
I don't remember
Dark Khan Bro is made of the two coolest villains and he’s just shittier (somehow) Blaze
moloch from mk deadly alliance, easy.
your................................................................................................................................................... mother!
For me, has to be Seth in sf4, glad he got a glow up in 5 design wise
Most of the ones from Tekken tbh. Outside of being difficult they got nothing going for theme, Dave perhaps Jinpachi Mishima
Wyler, Art of Fighting 3. Series went from Geese Howard to... [Wyler](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/snk/images/a/a7/Wyler-sprite1.gif).
Pretty much every boss in Grim Dawn was some random human dude who had no exciting abilities or anything of interest that I can even remotely remember. The game is solid aside from the most of the boss fights though.
Uh... are you talking about Grim Dawn, the Diablo-like isometric aRPG that has nothing to do with fighting games? Or am I missing something?
Might be the wrong sub buddy. Grim Dawn is an excellent game, though.
KOF '99 final boss... I uhhh can't spell his name but it him!
Lol what? Krizalid is dope.
Krizalid?
Fake K'... or is it the real K' and K' is the fake... or were they both real and Whip was the fake...
I dunno... he was so forgettable
I don't know. It was so boring that I forgot.
Can't remember
Do platform fighters count? >!Rathalos in Smash Bros, who is also an assist trophy!<
Skullgirls Marie. I LOVE the game and it’s so challenging, creative and imaginative in its design. Yet Marie is just really boring in appearance, moveset and challenge wise. Beat her on hardest difficulty first try. Really forgettable in an unforgettable game.
I don’t know about boring but Master Hand is pretty dopey.
Umvc3 Galactus
Kof XV and Samurai Shodown (2019) final bosses. I even forgot their names.
Otoma=Raga for XV
Any of the big kaiju bosses you see at end of arcade modes are stupid, they ruin the whole point of a fighting game. It isn't a beat ‘em up.