History OneWingedAngel / VideoGames

** Various other bosses sometimes have multiple forms. Examples include [[CircleOfTheMoon Camilla]] and [[SymphonyOfTheNight Olrox]] Whether the first form is fought or not is a case by case basis.

** This also applies to Vaati in ''TheMinishCap''. At the beginning of the battle, he morphs from his human form into a taller, more powerful-looking version of himself, and after ''that'''s beaten, he changes completely into a giant, spherical beast with one huge eye and giant claws.

** Malladus, the final boss of ''SpiritTracks'' plays this straighter than Bellum did, but is still a bit odd, in that he attains his last, monstrous form by taking over Chancellor Cole's body, mutating it in the process. In a strange coincidence, the result ends up looking somewhat like Ganon's Dark Beast form from ''Twilight Princess'', only more goat-like than pig-like.

** Following a botched attempt to mind control the main protagonist, Black Doom, the main BigBad of ''{{Shadow the Hedgehog}}'', transforms into Devil Doom, which was basically a giant two-headed dragon-like alien that melded itself into the Black Comet.

** Also counted as a MarathonBoss, since depending on the equipment could take upwards of 4 or more hours (it helps to have a magic regeneration ring and have the white dragon in play, but still...)

** Every final boss in Darkside Chronicles.

* Parodied in ''{{BloodRayne}}''. The final boss of Act 2 is General Mauler, a 10-foot tall Nazi cyborg with incredible durability. When you first empty his life bar, he collapses to the ground, then gets back up again, raises his arms high, triumphantly declares "You can't beat me ''that'' easily!'', then... promptly falls over dead.

** The final boss of ''KirbysReturnToDreamland'' also pulls this twice, with [[spoiler:Magolor]] switching into a much more grotesque form after the first form is beaten.

** In ''{{Persona 2}}'': Innocent Sin Nyarlathotep first fights the party as Hitler, then transforms into a monstrosity that's way too hard considering he's just screwing with the party by that point. Later in Eternal Punishment he gets slightly more serious, fighting in his default form of the Moon Howler and once you beat on that enough...

** [[MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail The Black Knight]] is a regular NPC you fight in a mounted duel after a short (but annoying) quest chain. Being an agent of the Lich King, he comes back zombified as the final boss of the Trials of the Champion instance, resurrecting the announcer who he force choked earlier as a ghoul. You kill him, but you can't loot him. Because he's back AGAIN, only this time, he's a skeleton. And then he summons about 10 ghouls. And then you kill him. And THEN he comes back as a ghost, even more powerful than the ten ghouls of the previous phase. Which you kill. He finally stays dead - until tomorrow, when you do the instance again!
** In the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeon, we have Professor Putricide (who happens to be one massive ShoutOut to [[{{Futurama}} Professor Farnsworth]] ). He imbibes some of his own concoctions during the fight, causing him to become extremely muscular and grow a pair of tentacles from his back a la [[SpiderMan Doctor Octopus]].

*** Also during the fight one of the raiders has to do this and become a Mutated Abomination and eat the ooze around the room that the Professor throws around and forms puddles.
** The trash (ladies of the night) before the Maiden of Virtue (see the irony?) transform into their true form (sucubbus or undead) when they hit half health.

* Similarly, in ''{{Warcraft}} III'' demon hunters like Illidan and mountain kings like Muradin can transform into bigger and monstrous version of themselves.

* Nearly everyone that gets possessed by Rhapthorne in ''{{Dragon Quest VIII}}'' pulls some version of this.

*** Finally, BigBad Tyrant skips the formalities and [[spoiler:nukes his own city before absorbing the souls of it's dead]] to become a 30 foot tall (but otherwise identical) version of himself.

* ''VikingBattleForAsgard'':

* Oogie in ''[[NightmareBeforeChristmasOogiesRevenge Oogie's Revenge]]'' turn into a giant monster after merging himself with mountons of bugs and trash.

* Dr. Crayborn in ''UndercoverCops'' locks himself into one of his experimental machines and mutate into a giant monster for the FinalBoss battle.

* In ''BodyHarvest'', the war with the aliens seems to be effectively over as Adam derails their last desperate plan and kills their leader, the colony HiveMind. [[EvilTwin The Man In The Black Suit]] who's been menacing you throughout the entire course of the game then shows up and glibly informs you that upon the Hivemind's death [[DragonAscendant he inherited all its powers]], promptly transforming into the alien behemoth Tomegatherion, the TrueFinalBoss.

* In [[JakAndDaxter Jak II]] there's a twist at the end where [[spoiler:Kor (spoiler filler)]] transforms into the Metal Head Leader, a house-sized monster that can fly and shoot lasers out of its mouth.

* In ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'', after being called pathetic for hiding in his teddy bear disguise by Lord Krom Wrath, Deady insults him for his lack of style sense and complies with his desire to see his true form before pulling off his teddy bear head and revealing his true form to be a giant tentacled skull with white eyes with light purple pupils in its eye sockets that goes by the name of Urkor Malravenus.

* In the Wii version of ''ABoyAndHisBlob,'' the Emperor of Bloblonia begins as a single blobby mass on a giant throne who goes down in a single hit. [[spoiler: He then flees back to WhereItAllBegan, and his form as the TrueFinalBoss is an immense, be-tentacled writhing black beast that can only be defeated with the power of [[InstantAwesomeJustAddMecha Mecha-Blob.]]

** Kronos/Miktran from ''TalesOfDestiny'' turns into an EldritchAbomination after being defeated once in the original game, but takes on a form resembling a purple demon in the remake.

* In ''{{Solatorobo}}'', when you come to finally fight against Bruno, who up until then had been a regular-looking Caninu, he's been transformed into a hulking monster [[spoiler:by Lares]]. Although Bruno does state that it's his true form, it's debatable whether this is true, or if [[spoiler:Lares]] is simply using him as a puppet.

** Speaking of Yggy, ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' does have Yggdrasil transforming from AdorablyPrecociousChild into some odd mechanical form in his boss battle. Unfortunately for him, [[ClippedWingAngel the angel form is much easier than his first form]].
*** As with most ''[[TalesSeries Tales]]'' tropes, this one applies to all of them. All the final bosses have at least two forms, usually with a spike in difficulty between the two (Yggy mentioned above would be the exception). Though ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Destiny}}'''s final boss deserves an honorable mention for being a cheap bastard, the most brutal is probably ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Vesperia}}'': [[spoiler: Duke gains a ''third'' form that's unlocked by collecting all the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Devil's Arms]] and defeating his usual first two forms. The third form makes pretty much everything you've fought up to that point look like a joke, and if you've made the mistake of fulfilling the requirements to unlock it (which isn't hard), you ''must'' fight and defeat it if you want to finish the game.]] Thanks, Namdai!
** The one game that doesn't fit in is VideoGame/{{Tales of Legendia}}. The final boss has only one form, though when you first fight her, the fight ends before you can deplete her HP, then there's a very long cutscene before the real fight, during which she is much stronger.
** It doesn't apply to ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' either, at least not as far as the FinalBoss is concerned. The main villain has a second form but he stays human, just ditching his armor, letting his hair down and acting like an even BIGGER ham than usual. (Okay, so apparently one of his arms turns metallic and the other has feathers, or something, but he's still very recognizable as a human being, not a monster.)

* Alarune, the final boss of ''{{PN 03}}'', transforms from a giant robotic skull to a {{beam spam}}ming SpiderTank.

* King Leoric was able to resist because at the time Diablo had just reawakened in the Soulstone. Prince Albrecht could not resist because as an infant he had little if any willpower to resist. The Warrior fell relatively easy because most the deeds Diablo caused Tristan were perpetrated to strengthen Diablo as well as perpetuate a XanatosGambit to attract a hero powerful enough to kill him in Prince Albrecht's altered form and who would think that they were able to imprison Diablo in there mind, body and soul. Of course, Diablo by this time became powerful enough to gradually takeover the Warrior's body gaining a much more powerful host.

** The recently released ''Kirby Super Star Ultra'' manages to one-up on [[spoiler: Marx in "The TRUE Arena" -- if you get to the final battle, you will see a movie where Marx brings back his soul by absorbing Nova's power. You will then fight Marx Soul, which is a more powerful and even freakier incarnation of Marx that has an ''absolutely terrifying'' death scream.]]

* In ''{{Solatorobo}}'', when you come to finally fight against Bruno, who up until then had been a regular-looking Caninu, he's been transformed into a hulking monster [[spoiler:by Lares.]] Although Bruno does state that it's his true form, it's debatable whether this is true, or if [[spoiler:Lares]] is simply using him as a puppet.

* Alarune, the final boss of ''{{PN 03}}'', transforms from a giant robotic skull to a {{beam spam}}ming SpiderTank.

* ''ResidentEvil''quite likes this trope. In the second game, [[RecurringBoss William]] [[ImplacableMan Birkin]] initially appears as a somewhat mutated man and keeps reappearing in progressively less human forms until by the end, he has [[ClippedWingAngel degenerated]] into a mass of teeth, flesh, and [[CombatTentacles tentacles]]. Mr. X initially appears as a large man, but grows a pair of massive claws by the end of the game. In [=RE3=], Nemesis first appears as a bazooka-wielding Mr. X-like humanoid, then sheds his BadAssLongCoat revealing his CombatTentacles, then finally resembles a giant squid with legs. Later, in ''Code Veronica'', Alexia appears as an ordinary human at first, but mutates into a hideous queen ant/human hybrid and then a dragonfly-winged thing by the end. In the ''[[{{Prequel}} Resident Evil 0]]'' [[spoiler: Dr. Marcus]] becomes a huge mass of leeches just before fighting the characters. Finally, in ''Resident Evil 4'', Mendez, Salazar, and Saddler all have hideous final forms. To make things rather more disturbing, they all seem to be in complete control of their mutations, unlike bosses in the previous games.

** The previous game in the series, ''DarkCloud'', played this one straight, more or less, but also pulled a bait and switch with it. The enormous, fat, oafish-looking Dark Genie, when destroyed, [[spoiler: turns out to have been a mouse that got sealed in the urn with the Genie, and had absorbed some of its power. Then the REAL Dark Genie manifests itself as a tower of muscle with no lower body, arms that can punch up out of the floor, and killer magic beams. THEN, when you kill it in THIS form, it turns into its ''final'' form--a massive creature resembling Gospel from the ''Mega Man'' franchise.]]

* Subverted with great gusto in ''DarkCloud 2'': the true form of the terrible, Dark Emperor Griffon who has been erasing people and places out of existence is [[spoiler:a cute anthropomorphic bunny (or "Moon Person" in the ''DarkCloud'' world) no taller than [[KidHero Max.]]]] However, when he [[spoiler:absorbs the power of the Sun, Moon, and Earth [[CosmicKeystone Atlamillia]]]], he becomes a towering, muscular behemoth with enormous sapphire wings. During the battle with him, he can even rip off these wings to use as swords; as his power destabilizes, he grows even ''more'' muscular and his veins [[PowerGlows shine with the magic]] running through them. Defeat reverts him to his [[spoiler:small, fluffy, and adorable lapin]] form.

* {{Kirby}} has faced a fair few of these. In Kirby Super Star there's [[spoiler: Marx]], and Kirby 64 has both Possessed King Dedede and the final form of Dark Matter, sorta. And there's even a regular enemy, Scarfy, that pulls this rather [[NightmareFuel terrifyingly]].

* Mimi from ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' is not the BigBad (in fact, she [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn turns good at the end]]]]), but she transforms into one of these frequently. It's also really [[NightmareFuel disturbing]]. Oddly enough, [[spoiler: you don't battle her regular girl form until the second time you battle her.]]

* The final boss of ''LaMulana'' is Mother, who takes five forms: [[spoiler:a large stone face, a white flying silhouette, a [[NightmareFuel disturbing]] Virgin Mary look-a-like complete with what resembles Baby Jesus in her arms, a pair of eyes, and finally, a smaller but no less deadlier version of her second form.]]

** In the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeon, we have Professor Putricide (who happens to be one massive ShoutOut to [[{{Futurama}} Professor Farnsworth]] ). He imbibes some of his own concoctions during the fight, causing him to become extremely muscular and grow a pair of tentacles from his back a la [[SpiderMan Doctor Octopus]]. [[NightmareFuel Disturbing...]]

* ''VikingBattleForAsgard'': Hel's final form manages to edge its way into NightmareFuel.

* ''RiseOfTheKasai'' features four bosses(two are fought at the same time) who transform before the battle even begins because...who can blame them? The heroes just infiltratied their impenatrable fortresses and slaughtered their mook armies. Three transform into dragons, and the final one [[spoiler: transforms into a [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel hideous spider like monster with the animated corpses of its mooks fused to its legs]] still lashing out at the heroes]].

* In ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'', after being called pathetic for hiding in his teddy bear disguise by Lord Krom Wrath, Deady insults him for his lack of style sense and complies with his desire to see his true form before pulling off his teddy bear head and revealing his true form to be a giant tentacled skull with white eyes with light purple pupils in its eye sockets that goes by the name of Urkor Malravenus. Cue HighOctaneNightmareFuel.
* ''VideoGame/HauntingGround'' has [[spoiler: Lorenzo]] who starts out at first as a creepy old man with paralyzed legs who can only crawl pathetically towards you. He then proceeds to turn into a much younger version of himself with seemingly superpowered punches. You defeat this version by [[KillItwithFire pushing him into a pit of fire]]. He emerges from this in his final form: a ''[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel flaming skeleton who can kill you in]] [[OneHitKill one hit.]]''

** Speaking of Yggy, ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' does have Yggdrasil transforming from AdorablyPrecociouschild into some odd mechanical form in his boss battle. Unfortunately for him, [[ClippedWingAngel the angel form is much easier than his first form]].

* All of the characters in the "Bloody Roar" series are capable of switching between normal human form and superpowered creature forms AND a glowing 'hyper' version of the beast form, but in "Bloody Roar: Primal Fury", the hyper-beast form of the true final boss, Uranus, is identical to her human form. Her beast form is a chimera, which is interpreted as blue and scaly with red lines, covered in spikes, and kind of bull-like, so yeah, it's a monster.

* Arcanum's final boss, if engaged in combat, transforms into a massive bone snake-dragon..thing. Although in this case, he started out as a cloaked figure (so the transformation didn't really make him more [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman 'morally OK' to kill]]) and the dragon isn't really very good at fighting, so I guess he just thought it [[RuleofCool looked cool]].

* The boss of ''Monster Madness: Battle For Surburbia'' is Mr Huggles, a parody of Barney the dinosaur. At first, he attacks by singing and hugging. After you fight him his suit comes over revealing his hideous true form, a slimy Jabba The Hutt-like creature.

* In the original version of Lunar: Silver Star Story, the main villain would announce that it wasn't over after being defeated. He then turned into a rather stereotypical anime demon for no explicable reason. In the Silver Star Story Complete remake, this transformation was left out completely. Chalk it up to cliche overdose.

* Parodied hard in the Sega CD adaptation of Space Adventure Cobra. When a rather fragile sentient plant is confronted, it proceeds to laugh mockingly at Cobra before turning into a gigantic demon. Its speech is cut short at "My name is..." when Cobra blasts it, splattering it all over the room. Afterwards he notes "Next time I'll just whack it upside the head with a newspaper."

* The ''[=DoDonPachi=]'' series has the PerfectRunFinalBoss Hibachi, which starts off as a giant bee. When destroyed, it turns into a much smaller bee with an aura. And then it proceeds to [[ThatOneBoss obliterate you six ways from Monday]] with a [[BulletHell Category 5 storm of bullets]].

* Even a vertical shoot'em'up with space fighters can have this. In the final level of ''Tyrian'' Vykromod, the alien assassin who's been stalking the player for some time, seems to turn into a giant floating face - a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth

* Nearly everyone that gets possessed by Rhapthorne in ''Dragon Quest VIII'' pulls some version of this.

* In Soul Calibur 3 Nightmare pulls this off [[spoiler:at the end of his story, an imput from the player turns him into Night Terror, a glow-y Nightmare with wings (and the true final fight of the game).]]

* ''Panzer Dragoon Saga''. In a single, long, psychedelic battle you first fight [[spoiler:the five extreme forms of your own dragon]], then Sestren - the final final boss, who of course changes into an even more horrible form.
* ESP Galuda 2's 4th stage boss starts small, then becomes gradually bigger (by assimilating mechanical accessories) as he's nearing his defeat (as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAd-vPODVOA here]]). Normally, in shmup games, many non-final bosses feature minor weapons or parts that are (optionally or not) destroyed or discarded, as the boss start using increasingly more difficult attacks, and this example comes as an unexpected, uncommon inversion

* The ''Phantasy Star'' series has LOADS of these.

* "Mario and Luigi: Partners In Time" features one with Princess Shroob, who turns into a [[CognizantLimbs multi-tentacled]] beast. The fact that [[spoiler:this is the SECOND Princess Shroob]], and that you don't learn this until after you beat [[spoiler:the first Princess Shroob]], the existence of [[spoiler:the second princess]] probably counts as an example.
** ''Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story'' features the main antagonist, Fawful, transforming into Dark Fawful, and during Bowser's battle with [[spoiler: Dark Bowser]], the Mario Bros. fight Dark Fawful in a giant form with many limbs that must be attacked (similar to the previous two final bosses before him). Although in actuality he is really quite small, since Bowser can inhale him.

* Celestia Lindwurm, final boss of the shmup ''eXceed 3rd: Jade Penetrate'', transformed from a girl with wings into... a girl with larger bizarre-looking wings. Then [[UpdatedRerelease Black Package]] came along, and she instead becomes a something like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdC6xM0H3nQ fifty-winged angel]].

* Armon Ritter of ''Sin and Punishment 2: The Star Successor'' has based his entire ''fighting style'' based around this. He has three One-Winged Angel forms: The first is an enormous bat-looking things capable of summoning missiles, floating balls of goop that attack you at both long and close range, and ''fighter jets''. His second is an [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant insectile monster]] that can box you in and play a game of deadly pong in that energy box with you in it. And his final (and hardest) form? Five killer whales. [[SarcasmMode Scareeee.]] At least all of his forms have a Godzilla/Mothra-esque scream that accompanies every charge shot you throw at him.

* In the Wii shooter Conduit2, John Adams (yes, THAT John Adams) infiltrates Atlantis, bringing several of his Trust soldiers in to fight you while he tries to snipe you from far away. After you damage him enough, you knock him back through a portal and end up in Agartha, the center of the Earth. There, Adams is no longer a chubby old man, but a giant, armored and horned alien. He laughs and comments on how it had been a while since he had been in his "true" form.

* Doctor Tongue in ''Zombies Ate My Neighbors'' quaffs his mad scientist potions and becomes, first, a giant spider, then a giant floating head of himself - that fires tongues!

* The classic arcade game ''Smash TV'' features a difficult boss named Scarface: an enormous green, well, ''face'' who spits swarms of bullets and ricocheting mines at you. You'll spend five to ten minutes (and about that many lives) grossly disfiguring him with ammunition until he finally dies and explodes, only for [[spoiler:his skull to scream "NO WAY!" and blast you with death beams from his eye sockets.]]

** In the very first game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, the final boss of the Makai route gets that played straight. [[SchizophrenicDifficulty It has a surprisingly low number of hits compared to the first form though.]]

* Following ''SonicAdventure'', the ''{{Sonic the Hedgehog}}'' series seems to have grown to love this trope almost as much as Square Enix does. For instance:
** The original ''SonicAdventure'' has Chaos Zero, who actually has ''seven'' different transformations, one for each Chaos Emerald he absorbs[[hottip:.:Note that he never transforms into Chaos 3 or Chaos 5, as he was given two Emeralds at once as Chaos 2 and 4, respectively.]] After absorbing all the Emeralds, he transforms from a water elemental-like mutated chao into a watery Leviathan powerful enough to destroy entire airships in one blast.

** In ''SonicAdventure2'', there’s the Biolizard, [[SuperPrototype the prototype of the Ultimate Lifeform]]. After it was initially defeat by Shadow, its successor, it uses Chaos Control to warp right out of the room and binds itself to the [[hottip:Space Colony ARK:a giant space station housing, among other things, a weapon capable of destroying a planet]] and begins a crash course for Earth.

** Valvatorez of ''{{Disgaea 4}}'' provides a heroic example, with his final attack transforming him into a humanoid dragon.

** Speaking of Yggy, ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' does have Yggdrasil transforming from CuteShotaroBoy into some odd mechanical form in his boss battle. Unfortunately for him, [[ClippedWingAngel the angel form is much easier than his first form]].

* Played with in NoMoreHeroes2 with Jasper Batt Jr. Played fairly straight for his second form, for which he [[spoiler: injects himself with steroids and dons a themed superhero costume (not unlike Batman's), before unleashing hell on you.]] Outright spoofed with his ridiculous third form, for which he [[spoiler: somehow turns into a massive flying mascot-like baloon version of his former self - with a good dose of ClippedWingAngel for this battle is MUCH easier than the second phase.]]

* Taken to an extreme in ''{{Wild ARMs 3}}'', in which the final boss has a whopping '''''ten''''' forms.
** The first ''[[WildArms1 Wild ARMs]]'' game has a few of these. Several bosses will take another form after their apparent defeat, only to return bigger and badder than ever (so they claim) such as Mother, Ziekfried and Boomerang (after his final death you can fight his resurrected form in the arena). Alhazad doesn't transform, but he has always worn a white cloak covering his body, and he finally takes it off to reveal his true form. But the best example in this game that fits the trope perfectly is Zed - a bumbling wannabe boss who in a side quest late in the game finally loses his cool and turns into his true form, a huge grotesque monster and becomes arguably one of the toughest bosses in the game.

* The classic arcade game ''Smash TV'' features a difficult boss named Scarface: an enormous green, well, ''face'' who spits swarms of bullets and ricocheting mines at you. You'll spend five to ten minutes (and about that many lives) grossly disfiguring him with ammunition until he finally dies and explodes, only for [[spoiler:his skull to scream "NO WAY!" and blast you with death beams from his eye sockets.]]

*** Also lampshaded in the story, whereupon defeating President Hugo, Valvatorez warns the party that they're not done yet, as Hugo has "three levels of transformations, with additional power multipliers every time!" [[spoiler:And then when everybody's gotten themselves warmed up to fight those three other forms, [[SubvertedTrope Hugo just throws in the towel and admits that the his power has dwindled enough that he can no longer transform]]. Valvatorez does not find this anticlimax amusing.]]

*** Also lampshaded in the story, whereupon defeating President Hugo, Valvatorez warns the party that they're not done yet, as Hugo has "three levels of transformations, with additional power multipliers every time!" [[spoiler:And then when everybody's gotten themselves warmed up to fight those three other forms, Hugo just throws in the towel and admits that the his power has dwindled enough that he can no longer transform. Valvatorez does not find this anticlimax amusing.]]