If there is one thing that God of War is famous for, it's the awesome boss battles.
- The first boss fight in the entire series is fairly epic. Fighting a hydra by pinning two of its heads into the deck of a ship, then slicing the hell out of the remaining central head until you use your chain-blades to haul it down and impale it on the jagged spike at the top of the mast is awesome. And you do this in the first level of the first game—you just know you're in for a good time after that.
- The Colossus of Rhodes in God of War II. It's as awesome as it sounds. It's also the first boss, and the game only gets more epic from there. This comic
perfectly sums up the general feel of the situation. - The boss fights in the second game are Kratos writing a The Bride-style list from a mythology textbook and working his way through it. Perseus, Theseus, the Kraken, Icarus...the list of mythological figures cut down by our favorite badass goes on and on. And he's not even halfway done yet.
- God of War III:
- Poseidon. Not the dude covered in Tron Lines from the previous game, but a huge construct of rock and seawater you have to fight with Gaia's help, culminating in riding a Megaton Punch from Gaia to force Poseidon out, and then beating him to death from his Point of View.
- Killing Cronos. Yes, the guy who was in the first game. Yes, the guy who's WAY bigger than the other titans. And you do it KEEPING YOUR HUMAN SIZE. Cronos thinks he won after he eats you. Really, you wanted to be eaten to retrive the Omphalos Stone from his stomach. How do you get out of his stomach? You disembowel him. More specifically, you drive the Blade of Olympus through his flesh, slice him open, and jump out while his intestines are falling out of his body. Afterwards, just for pissing off Kratos, you smash the crystal spike keeping Pandora's Temple chained to his back and drive it into his lower jaw to get up to his head, then stab the Blade into his forehead.
- Hades. Let's do the short version: you duel the King of the Underworld inside his own palace, literally ripping pieces of flesh off his body and trashing the palace in the process. This leads to a tug-of-war - with the River Styx as the boundary. Once you pull Hades in, you obtain his magical chain-claws...but then the Lord of Death returns once more, so ravaged by your assault that his skull is sticking out of his flesh. After giving him a few more good hits, you sink his own weapon into him and tear his soul right out of his body and absorb it, leaving his body to rot in the Styx as the souls of the dead fly back to the mortal world.
- Hercules. As befitting the most famous hero of Greek Mythology, his battle against Kratos is a definite highlight. As the fight progresses, Kratos tears off his armour, kills his minions for a one-on-one fight, and takes Hercules' own gauntlets to bash his half-brother black and blue. The visual indicators of Kratos' progress make this battle feel the most like a slugfest out of any other in the game, and even then, Hercules barely slows down. It's not until Kratos smashes his face to mush that Hercules is finally brought down.
- The final boss fight with Zeus, even though nobody gets giant, is possibly the most truly epic boss in the entire series, as much for the mechanics of the fight which demand you pull out every trick in your arsenal as for the drama that unfolds in tandem with it: Pandora's sacrifice, Gaia's return, and the creepy blacklight sequence in which Kratos finally forgives himself for his sins. Truly the momentous send-off the series deserved.
- The final battle against Peresephone in God of War: Chains of Olympus is awe-inspiring. You're fighting the goddess of the underworld inside the tower that holds the world together. At one point, you even have to scale Atlas himself when Peresephone knocks you out of the tower.
- Erinys in Ghost of Sparta. After seeing what she did to your soldiers?! Sweet revenge! Then there's her father, Thanatos. After rescuing Deimos and giving him the Arms of Sparta, Kratos joins him to fight the God of Death. Deimos is eventually killed by Thanatos during the fight. You almost feel bad for what's about to happen to Thanatos after that. But it was awesome.
- The first fight with The Stranger / Baldur in God of War (PS4), while much smaller in sheer scale than prior bosses in the series, is a suitably epic return for Kratos. After the Stranger's memorable intro, you engage in an equally matched fight that ravages the surrounding landscape from sheer force, even though the Stranger is mostly fighting with his fists. The choreography and brutality is nearly unmatched in the series thanks to the shift in perspective, and Kratos is forced to go all-out and beyond to put his opponent down. And since his opponent has Complete Immortality, Kratos's best is barely enough to slow him down for a few hours.
- God of War Ragnarök starts with an all-out brawl against Thor. It's already fantastic, but the highlight? Thor dealing a death blow with Mjolnir, then jumpstarting Kratos's heart with the hammer's electricity to continue the fight.
