Favorite final boss? -

[Henry Wyatt]

One of my favorite final bosses is probably soul of cinder, the fight

Spoiler

involving every class is great and ties into the lore of it being every player who beat ds1 really well

I don't even care if this boss fight is pure fan service, it is fan service done right (similar to the mgs4 final boss)

 

[NerdShamer]

 

[Catgirl IRL]

Soul of Cinder as well. It was a great capstone to the franchise.

Senator Armstrong. Thematically, mechanically, and that goddamn music were all absolutely perfect. An under rated example of gameplay and story cohesion.

 

[Tour of Italy]

Plin plin plon.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Metal Gear EXCELSUS / Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising Revengance.

Essentially a super long multi-phase boss fight, the fact it STARTS with Raiden facing a giant mecha ant/praying mantis that fires death lasers and double energy swords, leading up to ripping one of the swords off and briefly dueling EXCELSUS with it (Before the quick time mechanic lets you basically do bullet time with a sword larger than most conventional buildings)...and then Armstrong just climbs out of the wrecked machine and proceeds to beat the shit out of Raiden with his bare hands and launching a million memes with NANOMACHINES.

And then when you face him again at the end of the Sam DLC, the entire intro is literally just taking the absolute piss out of how stupid everything is with nanomachines somehow being responsible for flinging around heavy military gear and Sam just standing there clapping at the whole thing.

But even with how utterly silly Armstrong is with his powers and fights, he's still a true Metal Gear villain at heart because before any of that, he spouts a bunch of socio-political jargon that's too long to get into detail, but like all good villains, his motivations actually make sense for what he wanted to do, just the means of how he wanted to do it are flippantly super villain tier evil.

The sad part is we will never get to see him in the same context as President Michael Wilson and Richard Hawke from Metal Wolf Chaos.

 

[Bitcoin Henchman]

It might just be nostalgia but I've always really liked the final Majora's Mask fight

 

[Dark Edea]

Gruntilda in Banjo-Kazooie. You are forced to show proficiency will every skill learned in the game. And there are no bullshit new skills thrown at you that are only useful for the final fight.

 

[NerdShamer]

 

[Stasi]

Persona 2 Innocent Sin

 

[ProfDongs]

Vergil-3 in DMC3, the main thing to say in summary is that he matches your growth throughout the game from the way he fights to what weapons he uses. He mirrors your abilities you've gained through everything, from his acquiring of new weapons, skills, and use of DT. Even the music to the fights builds on itself and gets more complex with each encounter. The game still manages to make the story of it a strong aspect of both Dante and Vergils characterization even though you have a ton of goofy stuff happening the whole way through. On the highest difficulty it also demands that you've mastered the game if you want to get anywhere in the fight as a single combo from him will all but kill you right away. If I weren't on my phone I'd write something much more concise, but I think thematically it's one of the best finales to a game.

 

[Namesarehardtocomeupwith]

(Absolute) Radiance in Hollow Knight. Mechanically fun to fight and has narrative payoff as a final boss.

 

[AutisticLoli]

Zeus from gow 3.

 

[Fek]

So it wasn't so much a singular physical final boss, but I think this take readily wins out for me:

I recall the (original) end of Final Fantasy: Tactics showcasing the grim realization that nothing your main character did ultimately made a damn bit of difference, and no one truly "made it out" without death or extreme trauma. You just die in obscurity with every single other person trying to make a difference, and the only person who knows the truth gets killed after being branded a heretic. The world carries on completely ignorant of this altruism you strove to achieve, and of the depths of evil surrounding one of their foundational moral institutions. I found that sort of existential looming dread-laced tragedy to be the best "final boss" I had ever seen before, as the power structure of the entire world is revealed to be against you. It truly is the final boss, and you cannot win.

For those of you who want it utterly spoiled (or a refresher), post #2 in this thread sums it up nicely. Do note that this take on the ending has been utterly destroyed via newer iterations of the game, the creator himself stating "lol no YoU lIvE hApPiLy EvEr AfTeR," etc.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

Don’t know if he counts as ‘Final’, but Slave Knight Gael was fucking awesome. The scenery, the story, and the fight are all so well done I just love it.
In terms of nostalgia, Glacata Knight from Meta Knight’s run in Kirby Superstar Ultra just brings back good memories. The sheer amount of raw hype I felt when I beat him on the school bus probably hasn’t been matched, and my entire life has been chasing that dragon.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

 

[Μusk]

 

[Hot Dawg]

Vergil-3 in DMC3, the main thing to say in summary is that he matches your growth throughout the game from the way he fights to what weapons he uses. He mirrors your abilities you've gained through everything, from his acquiring of new weapons, skills, and use of DT. Even the music to the fights builds on itself and gets more complex with each encounter. The game still manages to make the story of it a strong aspect of both Dante and Vergils characterization even though you have a ton of goofy stuff happening the whole way through. On the highest difficulty it also demands that you've mastered the game if you want to get anywhere in the fight as a single combo from him will all but kill you right away. If I weren't on my phone I'd write something much more concise, but I think thematically it's one of the best finales to a game.

Seconding this. The buildup to this final fight is what sells it through the entire game. You face him 3 times. He is clearly holding back in the first, are almost equal in the second, and Dante finally wins out in the third. His skills with Force Edge make him almost a clone of Dante and that Stinger out of nowhere is fucking nasty to be on the receiving end of for a change. Its just a shame that they locked his full moveset only to the highest difficulty.

I still will boot up the game on occasion and go a few rounds with him. Easily the best cap to a game both game play and story wise. Love it.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Cancer is always a pretty good one.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

Ghermin in Bloodbourne is another fight that’s just absolutely beautiful. The ethereal and flowered landscape is a fantastic battlefield for what is a dream, his movements and attacks are styled after how you as a hunter would play with his weapon, and it’s genuinely sorrowful to see how reluctant he is to do what he needs to. The Moon Presence has nothing on him, and I count that as more of a bonus boss than a final boss anyways.

 

[Slimy Time]

On the topic of Soulslike games - Genichiro/Sword Saint Isshin from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is probably my recent favourite.

You start the game and face off against the unbeatable boss Genichiro. Wrecks your shit with unblockables that you don't know how to avoid and fast combos and cuts your arm off. Then at about the 1/3rd mark of the game, you fight him again where he is this skill gate boss that you have to break through. You spend ages figuring this dickhead out, from his parry combos to unblockables, to when to heal because he pulls his bow out every time you do it. You beat him, and he demonstrates the "lightning return" ability that becomes invaluable later. Beat him, but he escapes.

He then shows up as the final boss, and is a complete joke at this point. He then kills himself to bring back his grandfather in his peak form, the Sword Saint Isshin. Throughout the game you are told how much of a badass this old man is, except he's sick, and he lives up to it completely. He does flying slashes, guard breakers, unblockable 360 degree slashes and so on. You knock off his first health bar, and he pulls out the spear of the guy he killed in the very beginning intro cutscene, completely changing his moveset, including using a rapid fire pistol, in addition to all the flying slash shit from before. Then the weather turns, and he starts using lightning attacks, prompting you to use the lightning reversal against him like you did with Genichiro's first fight. Fight ends with you splitting open his guts, him still standing and accepting the outcome, then asking you to seppuku him by beheading him. The pay off? After that you can use his flying slash attack in NG+. It's also all set in the place where you lost your arm at the beginning of the game, in a Ghermin styled flowered area.

Great final boss. Very enjoyable and a good test of skill.