| abstract
| - In Platform Games, you'll often meet a monumental boss who's about as large as the screen and stands in the background layer behind the platforms, facing toward the screen. It'll typically stand stock-still while swinging its Giant Hands of Doom, or using a Breath Weapon or something, You may have to engage in a small Colossus Climb to reach its Weak Spot, (often its huge, grinning noggin), but in all cases the body of the boss (with obvious exception of its weak point and attacks) is not a threat even if the game features loose Collision Damage and your character is a One-Hit-Point Wonder. In 3D games, Background Bosses are a rarer occurrence due to the less obvious distinction between "foreground" and "background", but can still apply if the battle is fought at long range and it is (for whatever reason) impossible to actually close distance with the boss. Due to the impressive difference in scale between these guys and everything else in the game, they are often the Final Boss. As such, beware of minor spoilers in these examples! Examples of Background Boss include:
* Yoshis Island: Baby Bowser's amped-up magical form, as shown in the header picture. Unique in that he uses the powers of SuperFX to slowly stomp toward the foreground, looming larger and larger. Also unique in that instead of a Colossus Climb or other attempt to exploit his large geometry, the fight consists of the two of you shelling each other (with actual eggshells, no less) over long background distances.
* In Yoshi's Island DS, Bowser turns into this with Kamek's magic. but this time, he's right in front of you and just breathes fire and knocks boulders on you.
* Game Boy Donkey Kong: The absolutely very last fight with the ape involves him transforming into a very "kingly" foe.
* Donkey Kong Jungle Climber features King K. Rool increased in size with the power of the Crystal Bananas.
* Also, in the Donkey Kong Country 2 GBA port, you've got the boss Kerozene (added to K Rool's Keep/Stronghold Showdown as a boss). You can see it here.
* And before any of those Squirt's Showdown in Donkey Kong Country 3.
* Bleak from Donkey Kong Country 3. He doesn't take up the whole background, but he spends the entire battle back there as you basically have a snowball fight with him.
* In Donkey Kong Country Returns, Tiki Tong is one up until you destroy his hands.
* Contra provides several examples:
* The waterfall boss of the NES port of Contra.
* The Stage 3 boss of the arcade version of Super Contra, and the Stage 7 boss of the NES version.
* The stage 3 boss of Contra III.
* The stage 4 boss of Contra IV.
* The stage 1 mid-boss of Contra Hard Corps.
* The boss of Stage 2-1 in Contra: Shattered Soldier first attacks you from the background, then moves into your plane.
* The first boss of R-Type III would assault the player with shots in the background, coming into the player's plane of view to unleash a Macross Missile Massacre.
* Castlevania III - Dracula's third form.
* Symphony of the Night - Dracula as well.
* Aria of Sorrow - Balore and Graham's final form (similar to Symphony's).
* The Forgotten One from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.
* Dracula's second form in Vampire Killer.
* Dracula's final form in Castlevania: The Adventure: Rebirth
* Heart of Darkness - The Dark Lord in the final chapter. You can't harm him, though, and once you beat the last of his shadowy spawn he politely exits the screen.
* Noitu Love 2 - Penultimate Tango.
* Also in the first Noitu Love, the battle against the enormous Omega Darn. The battle takes place on a helicopter circling around the boss, and to defeat it you must fire super missiles at it while avoiding the rockets, lasers and lightning it shoots at you.
* Kirby Super Star - Wham Bam Rock.
* And in Kirby Super Star Ultra, Wham Bam Jewel.
* Partial examples: Ado from Dream Land 3 and Adeleine from The Crystal Shards. Both characters are artists whose drawings come to life, and most of the battle is actually against previous Kirby boss characters that they summon while they hide behind their easels. Ado/Adeleine only come out to assault Kirby personally at the very end, at which point a single attack defeats them.
* Come to think of it, many of the end-of-planet bosses in Crystal Shards do this (Adeleine is end-of-stage).
* Flash game Abobos Big Adventure turns the NES Contra example above into a Bait and Switch Boss, when the alien gets swallowed whole by a gigantic Kirby, who becomes the true Background Boss.
* Monster Party - the last boss.
* La-Mulana - one of the last boss villain's slightly more disturbing forms.
* Wario Land, Virtual Boy Wario Land and Wario Land 3 feature background final bosses - respectively, a Genie in a Bottle, another genie, and Rudy the Clown.
* The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games sees Link fighting the last boss - a dark dragon - in a side-view arena, requiring him to leap onto the dragon's claws to slash at its head.
* Mega Man X and X5 have the last form of Sigma be one of these, with only the head and the two claws being foreground objects. X2 and 3 pit you against similar bosses at the end of the introductory stage, though they're much less of an obstacle.
* Rangda Bangda, Sigma's second boss in X1, is the background.
* Rangda Bangda is "revived" into a smaller, yet deadlier Boss in X5, and Sigma's One-Winged Angel from the same game is also this; it's one of his largest forms in the series!
* Rangda Bangda shows up again in Mega Man Zero 4, although it's a lot smaller and mobile this time. Still in the background though.
* Several bosses in the original series were coded as background objects, due to the limitations of the NES graphic engine, but the best example is probably Gamma, the final boss of Mega Man 3. Only the very top of its head was vulnerable (and only to two weapons, and aside from its weak spot and its hands, it didn't inflict Collision Damage.
* X7 features a miniboss in Tornado Tonion's stage that follows you up the tower (he's in the center and you move around the outside of the tower), only his claws and head can hurt you and be hurt. Sigma's final form is an enormous body that's fought in space, with your characters on floating platforms. He teleports around and unleashes several varieties of projectiles both far away and up close, and has a rushing punch attack. X and Axl can shoot him at almost any distance, while Zero has to either reflect certain projectiles or wait till Sigma punches to score hits.
* The first form of the Death Egg boss for Sonic in Sonic 3 and Knuckles tries to crush you with his mechanical fingers.
* Earlier on in the Lava Reef Act 2 boss, Eggman initially behaves this way by launching missiles at you from a distance until you reach the dueling point.
* Dynamite Headdy - Spinderella, and Trouble Bruin in the flying level.
* I Wanna Be the Guy - Both Mike Tyson and The Guy's second form. Interestingly, Tyson is one of the first bosses you can fight.
* In Earthbound, the final boss is the background.
* In Muramasa: The Demon Blade, the final boss of the standard ending to Momohime's story is a giant statue of the guardian of heaven, Fudo-Myoo. As two lesser deities try to attack you, you must disrupt the barrier protecting various parts of Fudo-Myoo's body by destroying the lesser deities. It's made harder by the fact that large rocks are constantly threatening to crush you and the two deities have some powerful attacks that they will happily unleash upon you.
* Alien Hominid has one of these for the penultimate boss.
* Spawn for the SNES has Malebolgia hanging around in the background, tossing lightning bolts as you fight the real boss, the Mad One. Fortunately, Malebolgia doesn't seem to care much if he hits you or Mad One and will damage him for you if you stay out of the way.
* This Mecha Grunty boss in Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge (or is this 3D?)
* Metal Slug 5 had a rather awesome final battle in the form of a gargantuan flying demon wielding a scythe.
* The Z-Master from GaoGaiGar in Super Robot Wars W is laid over the background of the stage. The unit that represents him in battle is placed on the tile that is his eye.
* Tor of Iji jumps back and forth from foreground to back. He can only be injured when he's in the foreground, though.
* In Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter, the Giant Robosa is partially this.
* Seiken Densetsu 3 has Zolan, the werewolf, who is so large he dwarfes the tower which formerly held the mana crystal, his prison. Add to that his impressive claws and absurd special attacks and you can get ready to pack the healing magic out.
* Mephistos from Purple goes this after growing disproportionally.
* The giant Moai head in Gradius Rebirth. In order to defeat it, you have to destroy the core when it pops out of the head and starts bouncing around, all the while dodging smaller Moai heads and the lightning that generates when the core hits the ceiling or floor.
* Lil Horn (Also known as the Meat Golem) in Super Meat Boy. Unlike most background bosses, Lil Horn is surprisingly easy: he has the same attack pattern no matter what.
* The final boss of the second Disgaea Prinny spin off game.
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time inverts this by featuring a Foreground Boss: Shredder manning a laser turret at the end of the Technodrome stage, with the battle presented from Shredder's point of view. The player defeated him by throwing his Mooks into the screen.
* King Drool in Bonk's Revenge.
* Humongous Mecha Coyote in Road Runner's Death Valley Rally.
* The World Ends With You boss Ovis Cantus can barely fit on the screen... and that's just because he's crouching. However, he still swings his arms and fires energy spheres in an attempt to squash the player.
* Battletoads: The first boss also inverts this with a boss-view cam.
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