Boss Rush

Have fun!

"It's the Big Bossdown! Clobber all the bosses we've met so far on the adventure in a timed battle."

— Moe, The Legendary Starfy

The video game version of Run the Gauntlet. A segment — usually near the end of the game — in which you're forced to fight a collection of previously defeated bosses in sequence, often with little-to-no pause to heal or recollect spent resources in between. Depending on the game, the bosses may receive upgrades in order to remain challenging, or they may simply be a parade of Degraded Bosses that will drop like flies when faced with your improved arsenal, or they may be as deadly as they originally were in games where your character doesn't get an improved arsenal.

Occasionally this takes the form of a single enemy who simply mimics the other bosses' attack patterns. Some games feature the Boss Rush as an optional extra Arrange Mode after the normal game is completed, rather than taking place near the end of the game, and sometimes with Superbosses or even the True Final Boss exclusively appearing at the end of it.

It's a bonus if the Boss Rush is actually explained (if not, it could be considered as a special case of Artifact Mook instead). Part of the reason this trope exists is to reuse assets made for unique bosses on the already limited memory constraints of classic games. Most of the time, it's just an extra challenge.

Sub-Trope to Boss Bonanza, which covers any collection of bosses fought in sequence, previously-defeated or not. Not to be confused with a Rush Boss. If a game is just more or less one big Boss Rush, it becomes a Boss Game. Compare Boss-Only Level, which is one boss that takes up a whole level. For examples of games having an option to replay boss fights outside the normal playthrough and without any sequence, see Replay Mode.

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• Blasphemous has the "Strife and Ruin" update which includes one of these which allows the Penitent One to challenge each of the game's bosses one by one using all of their tricks and skills they unlocked throughout the game. It includes not only the main game's bosses, but also the "Stir of Dawn" bosses which include the Amanecides and Laudes. Clearing this mode gives you a new Aspect.
• In Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, two courses of this get unlocked once you finish the game. The bad ending only unlocks the first course, but the true ending unlocks both courses.
• Creepy Castle:
  • In The Depths scenario you may find one where you refight all the previous bosses of the scenario.
  • In The Final Fist scenario you have to fight shadow versions of bosses from earlier scenarios before fighting the final boss.
• Cave Story: The WiiWare version and Cave Story+ both have a Boss Rush as an unlockable mode. You start with the Polar Star and can choose to equip weapons and and upgrades with each boss you defeat.
• After you collect 100 mutations in Cubivore, you go to the final run, which has you fighting every single boss from all 3 runs at the same time. After that, you fight the King of Beasts alongside the 4 other 6-limb Rage beasts.
• Hollow Knight: The Godmaster DLC adds a new area, Godhome, containing five Pantheons made up of bosses from the game, with a few new ones added to the mix. You can also apply Bindings to make things harder for you. The final Pantheon has you fight every boss in the game.
• Illusion of Gaia: While climbing the Tower of Babel, each floor has a room which takes you to a previous Boss you must re-defeat in order to advance. The main differences are cosmetic; the rooms are all redesigned to resemble the Dark Spaces where you save your game and rest. The Bosses remain the same in strength, so your battles are (mostly) easier thanks to your upgrades since those initial battles. The only drawback comes in the form of more than one of those Bosses being That One Boss earlier in the game. There's also the added difficulty that there are only savepoints next to the first boss battle in this final rush. After beating boss #1 (Castoth), the player can heal and save before heading up to face boss #2 (Viper). Then a quick trip back downstairs will let you use the same heal/save point as before. Unfortunately, you then pass through a one-way gate on the way further up the tower, and there are no further savepoints after that. This means that you have to fight the annoyingly difficult boss #3 (the Vampire Twins), the easy boss #4 (Sand Fanger), and the really annoyingly difficult boss #5 (the Mummy Queen) without any chance to save or heal between fights. You'd better still have a lot of those healing herbs in your inventory, you'll probably need them!
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Level 7 has three Digdoggers and two sets of three Dodongos before meeting the dungeon's actual boss, Aquamentus. Some of the bosses in the level can be ignored. Level 9 has eight bosses you can encounter before reaching Ganon, though you won't have to fight them all if you know where you're going.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Ganon's Tower features all four of the Light World bosses with upgrades (icy floor for the Armos Knights, traps in the room for the Lanmolas, a weird floor layout for Moldorm, and two false images for Agahnim). The GBA remake features The Palace of the Four Sword, which has more difficult forms of the first four Dark World bosses as sub-bosses.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Turtle Rock has this with the sub-bosses from each of the first four levels and the sixth level reappearing in the dungeon as well as a brand new sub-boss.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Nintendo 3DS Video Game Remake has included the ability to fight previous bosses via Boss Challenge. Once each boss is refought, a boss rush mode called Boss Gauntlet is unlocked. In the latter mode, Link will have only five hearts as he fights his opponents in succession, though he has the option to recover his health between fights; in the Master Quest mode, the Life Meter is further reduced to only three hearts.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: In a lesser example, a hidden cave from Ikana Canyon allows you to fight a series of Mini Bosses you had already defeated in order to gain a Piece of Heart; each mini-boss requires Link to have a minimum of hearts in his life meter to be challenged, ranging from 4 for the three Dinolfos to 16 for Garo Master. The Ikana route in the hide-and-seek area of the Moon has a similar gauntlet (minus the requirement of additional hearts), and not only has a Piece of Heart as a reward, but like all other routes it's also necessary to complete it if the player wants to obtain the Fierce Deity's Mask before facing the Final Boss.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Ganon's Tower contains black-and-white repeats of every boss in the game bar two (Gohdan, who was set up by the goddesses of Hyrule as a trial to earn the Master Sword and wasn't a servant of Ganon, and the Helmaroc King), complete with the added challenge of allowing you to use only the items you had available the first time you fought the boss in question. However, you do retain the double-damage Master Sword, so the first two bosses drop like flies once you manage to get to their weak spot (the HP of the other two is still high enough to last for as long as they did in the original fights), as well as all of the Heart Containers you've collected up to this point.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: While the Take 'Em On All minigame is by default a Multi-Mook Melee challenge where you go through a bunch of monsters (adding the first boss at the end of the easiest setting and the first three over the course of the intermediate one), in its hardest setting it fully transitions into this, as you first deal with several mooks as usual (including minibosses in-between) in the first floors and then fight all all bosses (excluding Byrne, who isn't a monster and eventually redeems anyway, and the endgame bosses) back-to-back, followed by Dark Link at the very end.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword:
    • Lanayru's Lightning Round is one of these. You get to pick a boss to fight at first — win and you can carry on; but don't lose, or you'll have to start all over! The prize increases with each successive win, including a Piece of Heart, the game's Infinity+1 Shield, and more Rupees than you know what to do with. Note that you can only fight bosses you have already conquered (except the Bilocyte-infested Levias, who's oddly absent altogether) as well as the Horde blitz prior to fighting Ghirahim III. In Hero Mode, you also get the privilege of facing the Demon King, Demise, who is all kinds of fun. For extra challenge, after the first boss, Lanayru picks the next at random.
    • In the last dungeon, there's a series of Mini-Boss battles against two Moldorms, Dreadfuse, two Metal Shield Moblins, a group of Stalfos aided by Bokoblin Archers, and a Stalmaster aided by a group of Cursed Bokoblins.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, in order to unlock the pathway to the Final Boss (Yuga) in Lorule Castle, Link has to defeat the bosses and minibosses whose life force keep the big red gate closed (Ball and Chain Trooper, Gigabari, Moldorm, Arrghus); all of them have appeared in previous dungeons.
  • Hyrule Warriors has a stage like this. By collecting Gold Skulltulas, you can unlock a level where you face King Dodongo, Manhandla, Gohma, Argorok, the Imprisoned, and Ganon all at once. You can also unlock a bonus stage where you must fight all six of the playable characters who are evil (Volga, Wizzro, Zant, Girahim, Cia, and Ganondorf) via the same method.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The game is very open-ended, so if you decide to ignore all the normal story progression and skip straight to Hyrule Castle to confront Ganon immediately, you'll have to fight through all four of the main dungeon bosses, the Blight Ganons, before you can even face Calamity Ganon. Beating each boss in the dungeons removes that boss from the endgame, as well as doing some damage to the final boss before you fight him.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: You fight a massive horde of monsters before the final battle with Ganondorf, which itself is a 4-phase battle. Between them, you'll also have to fight any of the five temple bosses whom you didn't defeat prior, as well as Phantom Ganon if you didn't defeat him in Hyrule Castle. Clearing dungeons doesn't affect Ganondorf's health this time, only allowing you to summon the Sages against the horde and Ganondorf's second phase.
• Metroid Dread: The 2.1.0 update to the game added a Boss Rush mode accessible after finishing the game, featuring twelve bosses^note all seven unique bosses plus the Central Units from Artaria and Ferenia, the golden Robot Chozo Soldier from Ghavoran and Twin Robot Chozo Soldiers from Burenia, and the Elite Chozo Soldier from Hanubia. Samus is given roughly the same items and health/ammo capacity she would have fighting each one in the game proper. Continues are infinite, but time penalties are given upon death, and only ammo refills between fights. It comes alongside a practice mode that saves the best times for each fight. There's also Survival Rush (beat as many bosses as possible before time runs out, extra time being granted by defeating and no-hitting bosses) and Dread Rush (Boss Rush in Dread Mode).
• Nightshade (1992) has a Boss Rush hall where you face off with all four bosses before the final battle with Sutekh. This could be avoided by finding four artifacts of power scattered through the city, and severing their connection to Sutekh. Each artifact protected would be one less boss to fight.
• In Ōkami, you have to fight the first five bosses (Crimson Helm, Orochi, the Spider Queen, Blight, and Ninetails) again before you can proceed to the final boss battle (the penultimate bosses, Lechku and Nechku, are not fought as you're without Oki, who was necessary to shoot them down in order to damage them). Another example is the third Bandit Spider Demon Gate, which includes a rematch against three tough mini-bosses (up to three Evil Raos and two Wakas, all at the same time) previously seen through the main quest.
• One Piece: Unlimited Cruise has a couple of these, with two modes: a normal mode (in which item use is allowed), and a hard mode (no item for you).
• StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge. The second half of the final chapter is a boss rush of all the previous chapters (including the Scorpion mini-boss from Chapter 2). This is complete with black-and-white coloring for the bosses and backgrounds.

Action Game

• The House of Ruth level in 8 Eyes consists of rematches between six of the seven bosses from previous levels. The layout of each Boss Room is different from the ones in their own castles, so the player has to change up their tactics to survive the gauntlet.
• The final level of The Adventures of Batman & Robin (SNES, 1994) is just a boss rush of every villain Batman defeated in the previous levels. The level is named, appropriately enough, "The Gauntlet". Specifically, the villains you fight in this stage are (in order of appearance): Penguin, Scarecrow, Clayface, Catwoman, Man-Bat, and the Joker. Clayface and Man-Bat are not fought in any of the previous stages, and Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and the Riddler (who you do encounter as bosses in previous stages) don't show up in this level.
• In Bleed, the final stage has you fighting each boss from stages 1-5 in reverse order before facing the final boss. However, there is an added twist: you will fight TWO of each boss at the same time!
• The last level of Chalk contains only weaker versions of past levels' end bosses.
• Contra:
  • The final stage of Contra III: The Alien Wars also does this, with returning bosses from the original Contra and Super Contra.
  • Stage 5-2 of Contra: Shattered Soldier. After fighting Lance, you fight against remakes of several bosses from previous Contra games. Stage 6 combines this with a Sequential Boss.
• Gunstar Heroes (and the GBA sequel Gunstar Super Heroes) has an interesting variation. While you do fight all the main boss characters you faced off with before, they now have either entirely new war machines, or very different attacks and tactics that you must adapt to. What's also interesting is that the entire level is seen through the Big Bad's Control Station monitor, with all the bosses around him. When you defeat one, he directs another to move out and stop you.
• The final level of Shatterhand involves fighting some of the bosses from previous levels.
• Beating all the stages in TowerFall's Dark World expansion unlocks the "Dark Gauntlet" mode which serves as this.

Beat 'em Up

• The final stage of Bad Dudes had you fighting through all the bosses again, though Karnov and Animal (the stage 4 boss) are both zombified (according to the end credits of the Japanese version, which list those two and only those two as different enemies).
• In BOTS, the stage "Reboot" throws several bosses and Elite Mooks from preceding levels at you in quick succession. While you will have gotten stronger since then, which will help you survive, they remain more than viable threats to you at the intended level, and in some cases benefit from Elite Mook allies from later levels than their original appearance, such as Bugbear Beta being aided by the brutally powerful fire attack of the Mandragore accompanying him.
• Double Dragon
  • In the arcade version of the first game, the player must fight against twin clones of the Mission 1 boss (a Head Swap of Abobo) prior to the final battle, followed by three clones of the second boss (a head swap of the player) who fight alongside the final boss (Machine Gun Willy) as his bodyguards.
  • In the NES version of the first game, the final area of Mission 4 consists of a grand hall where the player must fight against a group of seven Williams and twin versions of all the other enemies (Abobo, Chin, Linda and Rowper), followed by Machine Gun Willy and then the True Final Boss Billy's twin brother Jimmy.
  • In the second arcade game, the player must fight against twin clones of all the previous bosses (Burnov, Abore and Chin) before the final boss fight with Willy and the player's own shadow.
  • In the Game Boy version of Double Dragon II, the player must fight against all the previous bosses (a boxer, a chainsaw-wielding Jason Voorhees-clone, a claw-wielding ninja, and a security guard with a club) before the final boss battle with Anderson.
  • In Return of Double Dragon, the Japanese version of Super Double Dragon, the final room forces the player to fight all the previous bosses (Steve, Jackson, the Chen twins, McGwire, and Carlem) before the final battle with Duke.
• Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure has two. In Bosses on Parade, you fight all of the platformer bosses in sequential order (except the flying battles if you're not playing as Goku or Krillin), with a rest area between battles where you have the option to use one of your limited supply of 4 full-healing items. In the One-on-One Survival mode, you start with a three-layer lifebar and fight all the One-on-One characters, including a duplicate of whoever you selected.
• Unlocked as an extra for beating the story mode of Justice League Heroes: The Flash.
• Several Konami arcade Beat Em Ups featured this. Not only does X Men have it (as mentioned above), Crime Fighters used a Boss Rush as a Bonus Level of Hell after the final stage, and Metamorphic Force featured one as the second-to-last stage (in an arena setting, no less) with a new boss at the end of the rush.
• In Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force's final stage, you face off against boss rush of the all of the previously beaten bosses save for Rising Dog in succession. Silpheed and Prisoner-β will also have flunkies aiding them during the re-match.
• Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter have a level appropriately titled "Bio-Beasts: The Counter Attack!" where you must fight all the previous bosses in a row before reaching the final stage. The revived bosses are all recoloured sprites of their existing original forms, via Palette Swap, but otherwise each fight plays out the same as before.
• The final stage in Panzer Bandit is made exclusively of this, with all the bosses from the previous 7 stages coming back for a second round, this time apparently dying off for real as they fade out among explosions.
• Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue needs you to re-defeat a bunch of the game's previous bosses before fighting Queen Bansheera, in order, Vypra, Loki, Jinxer, Darebolico, and Olympius, all of them summoned by a portal.
• The final stage of Raging Blades, the Palace of Divine Being, have each and every area containing a previously-defeated boss, all which you must defeat in order to reach Diglight the Final Boss.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game has a cheat code you can enter on the title screen to unlock the Boss Rush. You have to beat all 12 boss fights as fast as possible, with only one life, and almost none of the useable objects that show up in the main game except the things Todd throws around with telekinesis, and the Power of Love sword.
• Skeleton Warriors requires you to fight all four of Baron Dark's previous subordinates, one at a time, with Shriek and Aricula this time attacking together as a Dual Boss. Ironically, during this rush the first boss, Dagger, is re-fought last.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage was made of Boss Rush. First off, a less powerful version of every non-super powered sub-boss would become a grunt in the next level. Then, the boss fights would feature an ever increasing number of super-powered bad guys who would reappear after defeat at the next boss fight. Finally, after a rooftop battle against about 8 true bosses at once, the next level was a Sub-Boss Rush featuring all of the grunts powered back up to their boss-fight level.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin: When Spidey reaches the bomb, he must fight every one of the villains he has faught thus far. He can disarm the bomb while being attacked, but it is a real pain in the ass to do so.
• Streets of Rage:
  • Round 8 in the first game forces the player to fight against all the previous bosses (Antonio, Souther, Abadede, Bongo, and Onihime and Yasha) before the final battle against Mr. X. While the bosses have less health this time, unlike in the regular rounds, the player cannot summon the bazooka-launching police backup to help them out (since the battle takes place inside a building).
  • The sequel has Stages 7 and 8. Stage 7's second half contains almost all of the sub-bosses in the game, alongside Stage 2's boss Jet. Stage 8 contains all of the main bosses, minus Jet.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, the fourth level (appropriately titled "The Gauntlet") features rematches against the first three level bosses (with an extra health bar each) before sending you against the level's real boss.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus, the final chapter of the main campaign, adapting the "Rogue in the House" two-parter from the show, has a boss fight for just about every level. You have to go through the four Foot Elite, Hun, Karai, and a two-part Final Boss with the Shredder. The same occurs in the follow-up Mutant Nightmare towards the end of the "Exodus" campaign, in which you once again go through Hun and Karai, as well as two forms of the Shredder. Finally, the "Leo's Nightmare" level in the "Nightmare" campaign has you run through a bunch of mid-level bosses from the game, followed up by the True Final Boss of Ultimate Drako.
• Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy requires you to fight four of Captain Klapton's lieutenants, Sly, Misty, Big Guy and Burns, one at a time, before you face Klapton himself. Though it's hardly a surprise; in their initial encounters the bosses all pulls a Villain: Exit, Stage Left while taunting you.
• The final stage of Ultra Toukon Densetsu is set in the Monster graveyard, where players must defeat all kaiju and alien bosses and sub-bosses they've encountered throughout all previous stages, with little opportunity to rest in-between. The resurrected bosses also have plenty of Elite Mooks backing them up, including the only opportunity in the game to encounter Mochirons, before eventually leading to the True Final Boss, Tyrant.
• Viewtiful Joe and its sequel each have a Boss Rush for their penultimate level. In the first game, they're statues of the bosses come to life. In the second, you fight an android that morphs into the other bosses. In both cases, the repeat bosses have more health than the originals.
• In X-Men Legends 2 you face both Apocalypse's four horsemen (all of whom you've already kicked the butts of) and Apocalypse himself. However, none are as hard as when you face them the first time. The sequel Marvel Ultimate Alliance pulls the same trick but in a non-Boss Rush fashion with Doctor Doom being aided by an infinitively respawning Dark Fantastic Four.
• Konami's X Men arcade game has you facing all of the bosses except Pyro plus two Magnetos, one being a disguised Mystique, one real, on Avalon.

Eastern RPG

• Bravely Default has one in the last chapter of the game, where every human boss you've ever fought (plus DeRosso) comes back to challenge you in teams of four. Also, the Boss Rush is entirely justified, and there's boss banter between the bosses themselves as to why they're all working together and why each team was formed with certain members — for instance, one team specializes in inflicting status ailments, with the leader of the team capable of dishing out incredible amounts of damage dependent on such status ailments being in place. These aren't Degraded Bosses, either. If you go in unprepared and without a strategy, especially in Hard Mode, prepare to be curb-stomped. It's an absolutely grueling gauntlet, although you are allowed to heal in between fights...the first time you face it. When you rechallenge the boss rush, the fights are all back-to-back, with no healing in between.
• Breath of Fire III pulls this one near the end of the game. One of the last areas you have to wander through has multiple rooms, many of which hold previous bosses under the name "Sample ##" (each boss had a different number; presumably, the new name scheme was an excuse to not show the HP of bosses that haven't changed one bit). Most of the weaker bosses simply came in groups rather than alone (for example, the game's first boss, Nue, came in a group of 3, but wasn't any stronger), and a few received upgrades (such as the Stallion boss, which was now 3 monsters instead of one, and each one now used and absorbed a specific element). There was even a new boss to fight (though still going by the "Sample" naming scheme), one resembling a giant bird (using the sprite of the Basilisk mook from the the previous game), which is supposedly a copy of a boss that was cut from the final game.
• The entire last area of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, as there is no chance to save once you're in.
• The first form of Lavos in Chrono Trigger mimics nine previously-fought bosses in sequence. The repeats receive no updates in stats at all, so the first several go down in one hit, even on your first playthrough. It helps that it allows you to heal and swap party members between each iteration, though it doesn't go out of its way to let you know about this. You can also skip it entirely by ramming the Epoch straight into Lavos, leading straight to the final bossfight.
• Digimon World Dawn/Dusk features a post-final-boss quest where you have to go through a new area featuring stronger wild encounters than any you have faced before, only to end up with a boss rush involving SEVEN back-to-back battles, of which two are against a pair of Digimon, while the rest are against only one (tellingly, most of them are either final bosses or eleventh hour superpowers from the anime or manga). Omegamon was nasty thanks to Royal Slash, and the fact he was not alone, then there's Dukemon Crimson Mode at the end who not only hits like a truck, but takes quite a while to bring down too. If THAT wasn't enough, there's another boss rush quest after you've done several other things, including the boss rush just mentioned. This time, it's 5 battles, each against 1-3 digimon, the last one being against a digimon that has obscenely high defences and resistances to most things, leading to what is a Marathon Boss (called Chronomon Holy Mode, a superboss who is the more powerful version of Digimon World DS's final boss, in which he also turns up as a superboss) if you don't have darkness attacks to exploit its weakest resistance.
• Digimon World DS does this with the final quest. First, you have to beat six bosses scattered across the game's later dungeons. Following that, you can finally travel to the final dungeon and encounter the True Final Boss, at which point the other six bosses, or superpowered versions of them, arrive and you fight them, one after the other, and the final boss.
• The final boss battle of Digimon World 3 is essentially one of these, as it's Nanomon, Valvemon and Armagemon under the command of a Tamer.
• In Digital Devil Saga 2, a sidequest allows you to fight the four archangels Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael in a certain area. The first three you fight individually, but in the final fight you have to kill them again before facing Michael. In addition, the final dungeon has an interesting case overlapping with Boss Bonanza — you have to fight four bosses from the first game: Harley/Hayagriva, Bat/Camazotz, Mick/Rahu, and Varin/Beck/Ravana.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest II: : In the final dungeon, your attempt to scale Hargon's castle to bring down the Big Bad is interrupted by fights with his most powerful servants, Atlas, Pazuzu, and Belial. To make matters worse, you can't defeat them then leave to save and heal and return. They come back if you exit the dungeon.
  • An odd version of this occurs in the final part of Dragon Quest III; before getting to fight the final boss Zoma, you have to fight his minions; three nasty midbosses. However, instead of being easily-defeated former bosses, these guys are amped-up recolors ^note  King Hydra, Soul of Baramos, and Bones of Baramos who can and will beat the crap out of you, inevitably leaving you weakened for the final boss. It doesn't help that they respawn; if you die and get booted back to town, or so much as leave the room, you'll have to fight through them all over again.
• Epic Battle Fantasy series:
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 4:
    • Defeating all four Dark Players on Battle Mountain opens up the summit featuring four separate Boss Rushes - one is dedicated to the minibosses (Wooly Mammoth, Jack, the Beholder, the Sandworm, the Protector, two Cosmic Monoliths, and a four-headed Zombie Hydra), one is dedicated to the regular bosses (Mighty Oak, the Crystal Golem, the Praetorian, and Rafflesia), one is dedicated to the superbosses (Armored Oak, the Diamond Golem, the Praetorian Mk.II, and Rainbow Rafflesia), and one is dedicated to the Dark Players, fought two at a time (Dark Lance and Dark Anna, then Dark Matt and Dark Natalie). There is also the Foe Marathon available, which is a 38-wave fight against every regular enemy in the game.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 5:
    • Defeating all five Evil Players in the Temple of Trials opens up the second floor featuring three separate Boss Rushes - one is dedicated to the minibosses (All of Chibi Knight's phases, and the Blaze and Zombie Hydras), one is dedicated to the regular bosses (Jotun, Neon Valkyrie, Laurelin and Poseidon), and one is dedicated to the superbosses (Sól and Skadi, Neon Valhalla, Telperion, Vulcan and the Crystal Hydra). There is also the Foe Marathon available, which is a 33-wave fight against every regular enemy in the game.
    • Beating all twelve Arcade foes unlocks a 12-wave boss rush at Matt's house. Their max HP is halved during the boss rush, to compensate for its length.
    • The Data Bunker has two Rushes against bosses from the previous four games, split by the number of player characters allowed.
  • Adventure Story: Completing the game unlocks one, along with a "Foe Rush" which has rooms of the regular enemies from each level. Interestingly, in the boss rush, the arenas have been upgraded to make the fights much harder.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy had each of the Four Fiends occur as pseudobosses in the final dungeon. However, unlike other Boss Rushes, they were actually interspersed throughout the temple, at a series of specific (unavoidable) squares. If you traveled over those squares repeatedly, you'd have to fight them again! Apparently to prevent easy leveling, the bosses all had low experience gains. In addition, the Boss Rush was slightly explained by taking place 2000 years in the past.
  • As a homage to the above, Final Fantasy IX does the same thing in Memoria, where the four elemental fiends are encountered at various points in the level. The big difference is that only one of the four previous encounters with the fiends were under player control. Expanding even further on the concept, the very last area in the game features endless copies of these bosses as the only random encounters in the area. Each boss improves slightly so their weaknesses are removed and get new spells.
  • Final Fantasy IV features repeats of the Four Elemental Lords in the Giant of Babel. Their stats are improved, but they lose a lot of their unique abilities that made them really challenging. Unless you're playing the DS remake, in which case they have lost nothing.
  • Final Fantasy V, In the GBA port, the Cloister of the Dead inside the Sealed Temple, which is unlocked after defeating Enuo, features most bosses from the game to be fought in a succession of waves, all of them slightly altered to adjust the challenge.
  • Final Fantasy VI, in its version for the GBA, has the Soul Shrine, a place where the souls of all the enemies go after being defeated. In order to appease them, you have to fight 128 consecutive battles, with only 5 breaks in between. These fights are random, and they can include the commonest of the foes, but you could end up fighting That One Boss as well. Repeatedly. Regardless, for the final 9 battles, you'll face the 8 Dragons after they've taken their steroids, and their angry daddy, the powerful and almighty Kaiser Dragon. Of course, you will be rewarded accordingly.
  • The Special Match in the Battle Square in Final Fantasy VII has elements of a Boss Rush. Three of the first four enemies are seen as final enemies in the Battle Square's normal matches (and also as normal monsters elsewhere), while the 5th and 8th enemies are bona fide storyline bosses.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake concludes with a Boss Rush extravaganza: 7 boss fights more-or-less back-to-back, starting with Swordipede, followed by Jenova Dreamweaver, then there's Cloud's one-on-one Duel Boss fight with Rufus and Darkstar, which is immediately followed by fighting The Arsenal, which segues into a short intermission with the Highway Chase and the on-wheels fight against M.O.T.O.R., after which you confront The Whispers and finally cap off the game with a showdown against Sephiroth.
  • Final Fantasy X: The ending sequence, which begins with Braska's Final Aeon, then all of Yuna's Aeons — one after the other — and finally, Yu Yevon. The fact that you have Permanent Auto-Life throughout the latter two parts takes away from the spectacle somewhat.
  • In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, once you approach the game, allows you to fight the bosses from the previous game in the series, Ring of Fates, although you can stop between each battle, and come back and face any of them again at any time.
  • Final Fantasy Brave Exvius:
    • The March of the Beasts, available on the Chamber of the Fallen. It is a 9-round dungeon requiring 30 energy, and Lapis can not be used to continue, meaning you only have one attempt to complete it. It features a gauntlet of bosses found in the main story, with increased HP and ATK. Completing the dungeon will grant the Demon Mail, which gives 30% resistance to Dark elemental damage.
    • The Torturous Trio trial pits you against three previous Chamber of the Fallen bosses: Elafikeras, Echidna, and Bloody Moon in that order. All three are identical to their individual trials, but you have to go through all three without resting. If you can beat Bloody Moon you can likely beat all three, but part of the problem is that Bloody Moon's strategy discourages the use of black magic, while Elafikeras is best defeated with wind-based black magic. Echidna, meanwhile, throws around status effects that you also have to guard against.
    • The bonus round of The Color of Heartlessness story event pits you against the the Brachiosaur, Greater Demon, and Intangir from the Chamber of the Indignant. Each has its own set of missions to complete, and like the Torturous Trio trial there's no rest period. It seems to have been put up solely to demonstrate what a monster 7* Hyoh, who was released with the event, can be as a pair, though it's certainly doable without him.
• Game Master Plus: On Grandora Island, there are three events featuring sequential boss battles. The Chamber of Tales has the hard mode versions of the board bosses and the Chamber of Secrets has the four mechs that guarded Eloire's equipment in the Hexagon Tower. The Chamber of Visions has Origin, the priest, and Anima.
• The Monster Arena in Golden Sun: The Lost Age can easily become this if you have defeated every boss there is. The normal bosses aren't that hard, but try surviving when there comes superboss after superboss. Or easier said, try surviving when Dullahan comes.
• Granblue Fantasy:
  • Chapter 61 of the main story has you fighting five bosses in its four sections. Lecia and Katarina fight Gandharva, Rosetta and Io fight Fenrir, Eugen, Rackam and the main character fight Leviathan Malice, and then the party comes together to fight Leviathan Malice (again) and Mithra Malice back to back.
  • Unlocking the final skill for each member of the Eternals involves using the member in question to fight nine consecutive Duel Boss fights versus each of the other Eternals.
• Before the final confrontation in Grandia II, you have to fight most of the pieces of Valmar you have defeated so far. Somehow explained, since Big Bad Zera absorbed them.
• The penultimate area of Holy Umbrella has a roulette wheel of six previous bosses, followed after a cutscene by a rematch with Donderasaurus.
• The Infyn Prism has the Knowledge Vault, a giant tower where the player must fight every boss in the game, save the Terracotta Kings, and the final boss. In-Universe, its size varies for each entrant, as the tower draws on the entrants memories and make the monsters stronger, creating a more powerful boss. However, this is only for show as the tower's order doesn't change for the player.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The 7th Stand User has a boss rush that can be triggered by running into an NPC in the final town after discovering Dio's mansion. It consists of all the Tarot bosses (except Kakyoin and Polnareff, natch) with higher stats and, in a few cases, new attacks and different gimmicks. For example, Tower of Gray has an attack that is normally exclusive to hard mode, and the battle with Hanged Man is completely different.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In the first game, you fight three bosses back to back at the end of your first visit to Hollow Bastion: Maleficent, her dragon form, and Riku possessed by Ansem.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep has the "Villains Vendetta" event at the Mirage Arena, which is a battle against eight Unversed bosses (well, seven Unversed and the Ice Colossus, actually) from all three stories.
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: Mission 89 on Day 353 has Roxas going around Twilight Town to take down 6 powerful Heartless: Gigas Shadow, Poison Plant, Stalwart Blade, Orcus, Veil Lizard, and Power Armor. There's also an optional fight against the draconic Dustflier, the strongest enemy in the game, that shows up in front of the Clock Tower once the other 6 have been defeated.
  • Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- has one, unlocked by opening 12 zodiac chests. It starts off with a Darkside, two swarms of Heartless, and a Demon Tower. But the final opponent? Say hello to an even stronger version of Phantom Aqua. She's by far the hardest boss of the game. Be prepared for hours of rage.
  • Kingdom Hearts III features one as the endgame, no less, mandated by the climactic Keyblade War. You face off against the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness. The game breaks them up into three-four rounds of fighting, with the first two rounds containing a crossroads where you choose which match of Seekers you want to face off with first. The first round has you fighting alongside Riku against Xigbar and Dark Riku, or you can fight Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene alongside Mickey. The second round of fighting has you either face off with Saix and Xion alongside Axel and Kairi (which later turns into you, Roxas, and Xion against Saix alone); or you fight alongside Aqua and Ventus against Terra-Xehanort and Vanitas. The penultimate round has you fighting Master Xehanort's Co-Dragons Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort alongside Riku and Mickey, and then you go to the final sequential boss fight against Master Xehanort himself. Oh, and all of this was prefaced with a fight with the Demon Tide. The DLC later has data versions of the Seekers for you to fight, which you need to complete if you want to get to the Secret Episode and the True Final Boss.
• Chapter 40 of The Last Story has rematches against Berith (first fought in Chapter 33), Zepha and Zesha (fought together in Chapter 35, fought separately this time), Zangurak (first fought in chapter 10) and Dagran as the Final Boss. Five bosses in total.
• Legend of Legaia has one of the most sadistic Boss Rushes in history. You're forced to fight three siblings of varying difficulty, one-on-one, with an equivalent fighter on your own team, before having to fight Koru — who doesn't do a great deal of damage, but comes with an inbuilt timer which blows him up in five turns, ending the game. Thankfully, there is a chance to heal and save between the Delilases and Koru. The Master Course of the arena also qualifies, though it is thankfully optional.
• To level up a library floor in Library of Ruina, you must defeat an Abnormality boss. To obtain the final upgrade, you'll have to fight a special "Floor Realization", which is a battle against a single boss with multiple phases. In each phase, the boss will copy the powers of an Abnormality of that same floor; but for the final, the boss will gain the powers of a completely new Abnormality. To get the true ending, you must fight against one of these: it's composed by the Keter Floor Realization, followed by a rematch with an enhanced Reverberation Ensemble.
• Live A Live has two, both being unique twists on the trope that depend on whether or not you choose Oersted as the final protagonist:
  • Choose one of the first seven characters, and the Boss Rush actually becomes the True Final Boss in the original version (the remake adds a proper True Final Boss). If you befriend everyone, beat Odio, and spare Oersted, Oersted will come back and pit everyone against their respective main boss. Depending on the version of the game, after all seven are beaten, Oersted either dies afterwards or Sin of Odio is revealed.
  • Choose Oersted, and the entire final chapter is an inverted Boss Rush. Since the first seven bosses are manifestations of Oersted's hatred, he can take control of them, letting the player play as the bosses against the protagonists. There are two ways to win: the traditional beat them all method, or by letting a boss get to low health, which allows you to use Armageddon.
• The main Lufia games have you fight all of the Sinistrals on Doom Island, including rematches of previously-defeated Sinistrals. Justified in that the Sinistral of Death has the power to revive fallen Sinistrals.
• Lunarosse has three boss rushes. You fight one midway through the game, with the other two located in a hidden dungeon and as post-game content. Each one ends with a unique enemy.
• Machina of the Planet Tree -Planet Ruler-: In the final dungeon, Felmut creates a seal on a portal that can only be lifted by fighting stronger versions of every non-humanoid boss.
• Starting with Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, the Mario & Luigi series has featured an area where you can face off against stronger versions of the game's bosses, with limited items and a turn limit imposed on you. You can face each boss individually, or face them all in a row ending with a superboss fight against either an incredibly powered up version of Bowser known as "Bowser X" (Bowser's Inside Story), Bowser Jr. (Mario & Luigi: Dream Team), or Dry Bowser (Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam). Dream Team also features an alternate mode where you face off against the game's Giant Bosses again. Dream Team actually makes The Gauntlet part of the plot as you have to go there and battle Grobot X to claim the Zeekeeper Feathers for the Fetch Quest.
• Mega Man:
  • All of the Mega Man Battle Network games aside from the first and fourth, despite being RPGs, have a boss rush towards the end of the main story that is split into multiple sections.
  • Mega Man Battle Network 2 had the Final Boss attack using images of three enemy Navis (Air Man, Quick Man, and Cut Man if you were curious) that the player fought just previously in the actual boss rush.
    • Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue had two unique situations of boss-rushing. One involved earning ranks to rise up in status in the Undernet, where Beastman shows up suddenly for a rematch, getting deleted again earlier than the other enemy Navis and not during the final stages of the game. To prevent a third fight, Wily terminates his operator, Inukai. The other instance of boss-rush beyond the norm is a series of battles against 15 Omega Navis, the strongest forms of all the Navis in the game, including post-game bosses (save for Optional Boss Punk), accessed by a secret code when you have surmounted five stars. These fights are punctuated with 3 battles against Omega-level viruses, then a battle against the Omega Navis. To find them, you have to stumble upon their hidden data on the Net. Beating them and earning seven stars causes Final Boss Alpha to morph into a respective Omega form.
    • Although the first game made the player go through similar dungeons from earlier in the game. The only thing that was missing was a boss at the end of them. And the 4th game only had only 2 non-final bosses you were guaranteed to face, with one of those bosses not really counting as a boss fight (until the post-endgame anyways) and the other boss isn't ever faced until the room before the final boss.
    • Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar and Cybeast Falzar in particular has two, with the second being a repeatable straight boss rush in the Bonus Dungeon that is required in order to challenge the superboss again. Similarly, the fourth and fifth games have the same setup, where the six bosses you gained Double Souls have dark counterparts that must be defeated to reach the superboss. In the fourth game, it's one-time-only fights, which eventually lead to a battle with Mega Man's Dark Soul. In the fifth game, going off to face the Chaos Lord warrants a rematch with the Dark Soul Navis each time you return to fight again — though depending on the average time it takes to defeat the Navis, Chaos Lord will assume the form of Nebula Grey, Bass, or Mega Man's Dark Soul.
    • The Battle Network games also had a habit of throwing waves of viruses at you in gauntlet-style battles, the circumstances depending on the situation involved. Sometimes, the virus fights could be as lengthy as 20 battles in a row! Yes, that's right — TWENTY!
  • Mega Man Star Force has all the FM-ians revived to face off with you as you progress through to get to Big Bad Cepheus — save for Gemini, who shows up earlier for a rematch. How they can assume the forms they took when merging with a human by themselves is handwaved by the fact they can copy the memory of these forms in their bodies, then mimic them perfectly.
  • In Star Force 2, there are two boss rushes of sorts. The first is the normal one where you fight all the bosses who aren't your friends (the usual type,) while the second is in the Bonus Dungeon, where you fight heavily upgraded versions of nearly every boss, (friends included,) as well as some new ones, ending with the superboss. Star Force 3 also does the same thing.
  • Mega Man X: Command Mission has these as well, despite being an RPG, like the above examples. It's handwaved into the Robots' "DNA" having been absorbed by the Big Bad and the Boss Rush versions not being the original bosses.
  • Mega Man Legends: The second game features a rematch against the Reaverbot bosses that guarded the keys to Elysium's inner chamber, each one relegated to their own floor as you descend. For whatever reason, the rematch against one of the bosses has increased gravity, restricting your jump.
• The Tower of Dread in Miitopia has the Miis fight the powerful bosses of each of the eight New Lumos districts in a row. There are no breaks between the battles, and therefore the Sprinkles do CANNOT be refilled.
• Monster Hunter: Starting from Freedom Unite, the games have the "Epic/Marathon" Hunting Quests. Made particularly difficult because you can't change your weapon mid-hunt and each monster is easier/harder to deal with using certain weapons more than others (e.g Dual swords on a Plesioth is pain incarnate; a bow or bowgun with Pierce shots will make sashimi out of one). In 3 Ultimate, these missions become the largest part of the final High Rank chapter (9 stars) in the Village route, and the most common in all of G Rank in the Guild route. In 4 Ultimate, many quests of this kind have the monsters infected by the Frenzy Virus, making them more difficult to hunt. And in Generations and its expansion, in addition to traditional multi-monster quests, there are also quests where you have to defeat multiple Hyper-powered monsters (and defeating just one such kind of monster is hard enough). To ease the pain, large monsters in multi-monster quests tend to have less health; a monster that typically takes you 15 minutes to slay normally can take only 10 minutes or even five.
• In the true final area of Octopath Traveler, you must rematch a series of 8 stronger shadow versions of different chapter 3 & 4 bosses from the main story (one for each character story) before fighting the True Final Boss, all without being able to save or fast-travel out of the dungeon.
• Odin Sphere:
  • The final chapter consists of challenging the five prophecied disasters that bring about the end of the world.
  • In the remaster there is a post game dungeon, Churning Rift of the World, that has you fight through EVERY boss in the game, including the new bosses from each area.
• Pokémon:
  • In Pokémon Black and White 2, there's the Pokemon World Tournament, where you go into a bracket tournament against a particular region's set of Gym Leaders. There's also the World Leaders Tournament, a bigger tournament with opponents from all regions, and the Champions Tournament.
  • In the ROM Hacks Sacred Gold and Storm Silver, there's a special Boss Rush in the Fighting Dojo. You face basically every boss from the game: all 16 gym leaders, the 4 Rocket Admins, The Rival, the Elite Four, Giovanni, Lance, and Red.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon does this in Alola region's Pokémon League where three of the Elite Four are Trial Captains or Kahunas you faced before (Olivia, Acerola and Hala). Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon replaces Hala with Molayne, who's also one of the Trial Captains (albeit former one, as he passed this title to his cousin Sophocles), and also throws in your Friendly Rival Hau to replace The Professor Kukui as your final opponent for Pokémon League Champion title.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield, unlike previous main series games, does not have an Elite Four. Instead, the finale is a tournament where the player rematches the rivals and three of the Gym Leaders before taking on the Champion.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's The Teal Mask DLC has this with a twist when battling Ogerpon, having you battle all four of its forms at once in a single battle.
• Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale has a Boss Rush of each dungeon's roster unlocked for beating it — useful for farming boss drops. The Bonus Dungeon also features a rush of every boss fight in the game — all 100+ of them.
• Riviera: The Promised Land has one in the final section of the game where the player needs to fight 5 Dark Progenitors, basically boss of previous chapters (except Ledah) before facing Hector, and then face Seth-Ra.
• Near the End of Red's Scenario in SaGa Frontier, you have to fight all of the major bosses again (Each has double the Initial HP they had in the first battle.) You do fight MBlack 3, but that is after the main Boss Rush.
• The Primal Cataract from Sands of Destruction is populated by mechanical reconstructions of the various beastlords you've fought. They're Random Encounters, though, so you probably won't encounter them in order and will almost definitely encounter them more than once — they're Degraded Bosses, but this is the only place you fight them and they're the only enemies in the area, making the level a variation of the traditional boss rush.
• Secret of Mana comes close to this trope with the Pure Land, an area near the end of the game featuring six bosses, many of them upgraded versions of earlier bosses. While you can leave at any time to heal or restock, doing so forces you to retrace your steps through a tough area replete with powerful enemies in order to make additional progress.
• In Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, after you have beaten the game once, you can access a strange pillar in the first dungeon in New Game Plus where you are pitted against the major sector bosses in the game. These bosses have the exact same stats as when you fight them the first time, meaning the first few will probably fall to your auto attacks, but the last few can end your run of you're unlucky. Also, because the game has different final bosses depending on what ending you've obtained, you won't fight literally all bosses until you have unlocked all endings.
• Star Warrior II: When the party enters the Deep in the true ending path, they aren't allowed to leave and they must defeat the Demon Vile, Rolling Bunker, Primal and Soul Wisps, and the Falchion Hi-Frame again before reaching the final save point.
• A series of events hardly hinted at in The World Ends with You causes Another Day's Neku to run into the main game's Joshua — with Another Day's Joshua in tow! It's then that main Joshua challenges Another Neku to an 11-reduction chain battle against just about every boss in the game. The only worthwhile prize to be gained from this (asides from a chance at the bosses' own individual drops multiplied by eleven, useful if you're having difficulty chaining them elsewhere) is five 10K Yen pins and the Angel Feather, which is Awesome, but Impractical, but at least it's redoable.
• The start of the hidden story path in Way of the Samurai 4 is this. If you managed to initiate the requirements of the hidden path, you will fight in this order: Akagi, Melinda, Kotobuki and the three Kinugawa sisters. What makes it difficult, is that you probably do not have access to healing items, as this fight takes place at the start of the game. The only healing items you might have are dropped by Prajna members fought during the tutorial fight.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, the stretch before the final boss places phantoms of Xord, Metal Face, Jade Face, and the Sani Telethia in your way. Oddly, you're allowed to simply run past them if you're not in the mood for fighting.

Fighting Game

• The King of Fighters has a variation: one of the 3-man teams is all known bosses, Geese Howard, Wolfgang Krauser and Mr. Big. Later teams would feature original boss-level characters like Chris, Shermie and Yashiro.
• The final battle of Nowel's route in Magical Battle Arena has you fighting everyone you've fought along the way, except the Gadget Drones and your clones. The bad: Since this is a Fighting Game, Nowel is still as strong as she was then as she is now. The worse: You have to fight all of them at the same time with no allies. The worst: They're not handicapped in any way. Have fun!
• Medabots AX: Metabee and Rokusho: The World Robattle Championships are a long string of increasingly tough fights. Luckily, you get take a break after each victory to train or save the game.
• Soulcalibur V has "Legendary Souls" mode, where players fight seven hard bosses (Kilik, Nightmare, Siegfried, Cervantes, Edge Master, Elysium and Algol) in quick succession.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee: The All-Star mode is introduced to the series in this game, and in it the player fights all characters in a random order, in matches that start in 1-vs.-1 mode, go through 1-vs.-2, then 1-vs.-3 and finishes with a duel against 25 Mr. Game & Watches. Recovery between battles is allowed, with up to three Heart Containers present in the Rest Area. Brawl features this mode again, sorting the character order by the date of origin of their franchises. In 4, the order is based on the date of origin of the characters themselves (straight in the 3DS version, reverse in the Wii U version).
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl:
    • During the final level of the Subspace Emissary, The Great Maze, there's a Boss Rush which is a combination of the All-Star and Boss Rush modes, seeing as you have to not only fight all characters gained in the story but all the bosses as well. The Great Maze is also a Game Rush, since not only you have to fight all the other characters and the bosses gained and beaten previously but you also go through bits of most of the levels previously cleared in a single Metroidvania level. This page actually explains this part of the game, saying that the Great Maze is assembled with the pieces of the world taken to Subspace with the Subspace Bombs, and that the revived bosses and shadowy clones are the result of the Subspace Army's extensive analysis.
    • Upon completion of the Subspace Emissary, the mode Boss Battles is unlocked. Here, you have to defeat all bosses present in the game (Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Petey Piranha, Rayquaza, Galleom, Porky, Duon, Ridley, Meta Ridley and Tabuu) in one go without losing a life. It borrows the same format as All-Star Mode, allowing recovery between battles by providing up to three Heart Containers.
    • The final co-op Event Match in Brawl and For Wii U is two players against the game's playable roster, similar to All-Star Mode minus the breaks or recovery opportunities.
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:
    • As part of the path towards facing the True Final Boss in the "World of Light", the player must refight six bosses (Giga Bowser, Ganon, Marx, Rathalos, Dracula, and Galleom), which is immediately followed with the final battle against both Galeem and Dharkon.
    • Sephiroth's Classic Mode route has him fighting nothing but bosses, only excluding the Big Bads of World of Light to prevent spoilers.
• All versions of Melty Blood Actress Again have a Boss Rush mode which have you fighting a series of opponents. Simple, right? Except they're all SNK Bosses using the CPU-exclusive Eclipse style, which buffs them up to absurd degrees. Have fun going through all that crap.
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has three consecutive in the Arcade Mode. The four bosses are also Final Bosses in the Tekken series. The first battle is a tag battle with Heihachi Mishima^note Final Boss in Tekken 1 and Tekken 4 and his father, Jinpachi Mishima^note Final Boss in Tekken 5 and Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. The second one is with True Ogre^note Final Boss in Tekken 3, and the last one is with Jun Kazama who transforms into Unknown^note Unknown is the Final Boss in Tag Tournament 1 if you defeat her first.

First-Person Shooter

• The two penultimate levels of Batman Doom take place in the Arkham Asylum in the middle of an outbreak (mirroring the part from the comic book storyline Knightfall). All the inmates from Batman's Rogues Gallery — which is to say, the bosses you've fought throughout the game — are fought one by one throughout these two levels.
• Happens at the end of Blood (1997), where you have to fight the three bosses you defeated earlier before finally facing the Big Bad.
• Borderlands: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution brings back 2 bosses from earlier DLC, along with The Unfought from the main game as mission bosses. Before fighting the game's final boss, you must first defeat previous three in rapid succession. Much to General Knoxx's dismay, as he's been longing for death for more than an entire DLC by now.
• Dreamkiller sees you fighting most of the previous King Mook bosses in the final stage (alongside enemies exclusive to their levels), revived by the Dream Devourer who valiantly tries to stop you from reaching him.
• At the climax of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, you have to face a small army of tripodal Striders (which served as bosses in the two previous games), and two to three Hunters (which were used as bosses earlier in the game) accompany each one! This is made significantly easier than it sounds, though, since with a bit of skill you can one-hit kill both of them.
• The final stage in Ken's Labyrinth has you fighting the bosses of episodes 1 and 2 before fighting Ken.
• In the third-to-last level of Prey (2006), just before you fight the Disc-One Final Boss, you're pitted in an arena fight against practically every enemy type in the game, including the game's previous two boss characters.
• Sigil: Near the end of the final level in the mod's Ver. 1.21 and onward, Doomguy goes through a dark corridor where he has to face the three bosses of the original Doom back-to-back in reverse order: Spider Mastermind (from Episode 3), Cyberdemon (from Episode 2) and a small assortment of mooks that include two Barons of Hell (these being originally the Dual Boss of Episode 1).^note In version 1.0, only the former two bosses appear.
• In the last level of Will Rock (Mount Olympus) you have to fight waves of enemies, among the others several Cyclops and Eaphesti, a revived Medusa and finally Zeus himself.

Hack and Slash

• Bayonetta has degraded bosses show up as early as two levels after you kill the bosses they're based on, but in the final lengthy level of the game you wind up fighting all of them over the course of the stage, as well as Boss in Mook Clothing Golem and Joy(s).
• Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Devil May Cry 4 and Devil May Cry 5 have one level almost entirely devoted to this. Then again, they ARE Capcom games. Also, the penultimate boss of Dante's scenario in Devil May Cry 2 is a mishmash of most of the bosses you've fought up till that point, including one from the first game.
• Dynasty Warriors 4 sees this in the Battle of Jianye, which is the final stage should Wu be the last kingdom to fall. When it starts, it seems normal for a battle against Wu, with Sun Jian as the commander. However, once you slay him, the stage does not end, as his eldest son, Sun Ce, will declare himself as the new commander. Killing Sun Ce also doesn’t end the stage, as his younger brother, Sun Quan will then take up the role. Even Sun Quan’s death doesn’t mark the end, as his sister, Sun Shangxiang, will then declare her intention to realise the ambition of her family, taking the commander role, and thereby becoming the real final boss.
• In The Force Unleashed, the fight with Proxy resembles this. Every few times you hit him, he changes into a different boss that you have fought, before finally settling on Darth Maul.
• The PSN download game Malicious is pretty much a boss rush game masquerading as a Dynasty Warriors style hack & slash — it dumps you straight in a boss battle when you select a level and laughs as you run for your life. It only doesn't count as a Boss Game because there are mooks in the stage and you are supposed to kill a whole lot of them before seriously engaging the boss. Or you can try your luck, but that tends to end badly.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants In Manhattan: When the Turtles break into TCRI, they end up doing a rematch against every boss in the game before getting to Krang.

Light Gun Game

• House of the Dead:
  • The first game has you fighting previously fought bosses again. During the last level, you face off with the bosses of the first two levels. Chariot is the same, though Hanged Man is a little easier.
  • In House Of The Dead 2, you have two types of Boss Rushes in the game. You battle the first three bosses of the game again, as well as the final boss of the first game, throughout the last two levels, with some variations. Finally, when fighting the last boss, Emperor, his second attack strategy is actually to summon up transparent clones of the first four bosses, who attack once before fading away.

MMORPG

• In City of Heroes you can fight the archvillains of the Council individually in different parts of the game. In City of Villains you fight a gauntlet of them all in a single mission near the end of the game. Interestingly, you face the toughest ones early on in the boss rush.
  • "End of the game" meaning that this challenge is not available to the player until they reach level 45 in a MMO that has 50 levels.
  • The Lord Recluse Strike Force in the level 45-50 range of City of Villains features three boss rushes in which you fight all of the present elite Heroes simultaneously. Of course, since this is a MMO, "simultaneously" just means "be careful with the pulls".
  • Its heroic counterpart, the Statesman Task Force, has three boss rushes, each one higher up the Arachnos chain of command. The middle one takes it literally, as players have to defeat each member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad at a time to get to the next floor, before about a billion Mooks catch up.
• Final Fantasy XIV has Ultimate Trials, which pits you and seven others against a sequence of bosses in a theme before you take on a special version of the final boss made for this fight. Be forewarned though, Ultimate is absolutely merciless, requiring nigh-perfect execution and coordination with your team to clear the fight with absolutely no checkpoints in-between. Wipe anywhere in the encounter? Back to square one with you!
• MapleStory has Mu Lung Dojo, where you fight 39 various area and party quest bosses in order of weakest to strongest, with another boss at the end.
• Phantasy Star Online has the quest "Towards the Future", which is a boss rush of Episode I with a few rooms of enemies in between each boss. It's also the only thing anyone ever plays.
• Phantasy Star Online 2 has the limited quest "A World Engulfed in Shadows" which has no trash mobs but every boss from every ultimate area and like the Phantasy Star Online example above has the player play through a small section of each ultimate area. First, in ultimate Naberius Forest the player must fight a Dual Boss against Plosiorgles and Bayaribbles followed up with a fight with Diablo Igrithys. Then they progress to ultimate Lilipa Mines where they fight a dual boss against Falke Leone and Vilma Leopard after which they must defeat Zeta Guranz. After that they move on to ultimate Amduscia Caves where they must fight a dual boss against 2 Box Duvals before having to fight Drago Deadleon and then fight Greuzoras Drago. After that the player moves on to ultimate Naberius Ruins where they must fight a dual boss against Anga Fundarge and Dio Hunar.
• Vindictus has battlequest Prepare for Counterattack in the first boat and The Unveiling Truth in the second. The bosses in these spawn on a timer 3 minutes apart, which means that if any fight lasts longer than that it becomes a Wolfpack Boss.
• In World of Warcraft, Crusader's Coliseum features this in both 5-man dungeon form and 10/25-man raid form. You're given time to heal/rebuff/resurrect between each fight, though. The first fight of said Coliseum in the raid version pits the players against three different bosses in rapid succession. On heroic mode, each boss even comes with a set time limit before the next arrives, even if the previous one is still standing. The Crusader's Coliseum was Blizzards answer to players asking for less trash mobs between bosses after Ulduar. No trashmobs at all. No instance either, just a big circular arena.

Party Game

• Mario Party has one in two games, both of which require story mode to be completed at least once to prevent spoilers:
  • Mario Party DS has this as a "Boss Bash" Minigame, where you get to fight the bosses in order as a Time Trial. You don't have to worry about restocking or having to fight the bosses on reduced health — but you DO have to beat them all in a row or you'll fail the entire minigame.
  • Mario Party 9 allows the player to choose between fighting only minibosses, only main bosses or all of them. Since bosses can't kill characters (their attacks only reduce scores), the challenge is based on which of the 2-4 challengers deals the most damage in each battle. The character with the highest overall rank is declared victor.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$: One of the unlockable postgame modes is Total Boss, where the player is encouraged to play the boss microgames back to back. It's also an Endless Game, so when you get past the Final Boss you'll repeat them in harder versions until you run out of lives.

Platform Game

• This can be bought with targets in Assassin Blue, after the game is completed.
• The NES version of Astyanax has a Mini-Boss rush in its final stage before the confrontation with the Big Bad.
• In Athena, before facing the Final Boss, you have to defeat every previous boss in order, with short segments in between.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt Series, a Spiritual Successor of Mega Man, not only has boss rushes in both the last stage of the story mode of each of its games as well as its unlockable modes, but the games even bring justifications for the story mode boss rushes:
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt has one of the bosses being a necromancer. Complicating the matter somewhat is that said boss has triple Literal Split Personality. In addition, when the bosses die the first time, their Transformation Trinket warps away, but the second time, the trinket falls and breaks apart. Noticeably, one of the bosses only reappears after the Final Boss on the way to the True Final Boss to provide some idea of what to expect. Also, the fact that Zonda never dropped a trinket at all after being seemingly killed and consequently never appearing for the boss rush ends up being important for the plot of 2.
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 has the Big Bad possess Magic Mirror & Master of Illusion powers seeing it's how Zonda faked her death in the first game, giving a visual cue that the boss rush bosses are not the real deal: The original bosses die going up in flames, while their boss rush copies revert into mirror reflection which then shatters. Despite this, however, the copies do possess the same personalities as their originals and even act the same with The Dragon's copy attempting a Taking You with Me on Gunvolt for the Big Bad (who is his adoptive sister). Also notably in that Gunvolt/Copen will only fight four of the seven main bosses in the rush (The Dragon is always one, while the other three are the three first encountered before the "Castle" stages). The second death animation also applies to the unlockable boss rush mode.
  • Luminous Avenger iX boss rush copies in the story mode with exception of Blade are physical holograms with no personality and different death animation from their originals; The original bosses die in an explosive flurry of feathers, while their boss rush copies glitch out and fade away. The technology behind this is the very same technology the Big Bad uses to create a copy of his old human form to fight Copen for the first phase of the final battle, while several more of said copies showing up in the ending. This boss rush is also different in that they make a point of dividing the returning bosses up alongside some new bosses between three separate missions. The first involves fighting Blade now in full-on Superpowered Evil Side, the second involves fighting three of the Falcons and Mytyl's brain, while the third involves fighting the other three Falcons, plus Asimov and Demerzel. As a break from the previous games, the unlockable off-story boss rush mode serves as the game's Hard Mode, where the bosses behave slightly differently than when you fight them in story.
  • Luminous Avenger iX 2 in-story boss rush has a comparatively mundane explanation: The bosses are all robots, so if they are destroyed, their boss can just rebuild them. This boss rush shakes things up by having the Brother–Sister Team show up for a Dual Boss first as the boss of the first of the end stages, then having Ypsilon as the boss for the next stage, then having the remaining four Gravekeepers appear consecutively in the second-to-last stage. In Hard Mode, which canonically takes place after the first boss rush, this pattern repeats, but Ypsilon is replaced by a mysterious figure who's revealed to be The Creator's ghost and is instrumental for the True Ending. Also, most of the bosses' weaknesses are switched around.
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 provides a Bait-and-Switch, as of the eight bosses four of them (the Berserk Adepts B.B., Shiron, Cayman, and Apollo) have pulled a Heel–Face Turn and are now on your side while the other four (the ATEMS Knights Sistina, Grazie, Prado, and Serpentine) are still alive and enemies but spread out in the three "Castle" stages which are still full levels of themselves. Prado is fought at the end of Golden Palace 1 as a traditional boss, and Golden Palace 3 has Grazie and Sistina fought at the mid-point and end of the level respectively. The closest this trope comes into play is Golden Palace 2, where Serpentine uses her Septima to create sentient illusions of Viper and Jota from 1 and Tenjian and Zonda from 2 as two Dual Boss fights spread through the level before herself at the end. There is also a traditional boss rush as Secret Mission 13.
• Blinx: The Time Sweeper's last boss forces you to beat the 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th bosses in one run, and then proceeds to fight you itself.
• Bomberman Hero: The final level; Garaden Star. After Bagular's revival, he brings back his four devils of Garaden previously fought by Bomberman in each world on new stages and different elements.
• The second-to-last stage of Bonk's Adventure involves fighting the bosses of the first four worlds all over again, the same as before. Bonk's Revenge's final stage is a Hub Level leading to four mini-levels each ending with one of the first four bosses. After clearing these, you fight the Round 6 boss and the Final Boss in sequence.
• Stage 8 of the Flash game Bow Adventure has you fight against all of the previous bosses, now accompanied by a Mook. If you get past them you then have to face Grizwald, who has access to almost all of their powers.
• Castlevania:
  • A bonus Boss Rush mode is a common unlockable feature in later games. Notably Harmony of Dissonance, the Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow duology, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia. You battle all the bosses in a row, aiming for the quickest time, often to unlock special weapons and equipment for the main game. Quite often given a bit of extra replay value though allowing you to use the bonus characters from the game as well.
  • Harmony Of Dissonance, while allowing you to play through the Boss Rush as Juste or Maxim, also lets you play as the original 8-bit Simon Belmont Sprite, with a remix of Vampire Killer for the music. He can't double jump or dash, but he is much tougher, dealing far more damage and having far more hit points.
  • Castlevania: Bloodlines features at the start of its Boss Bonanza final level, a fight against Death. While Death is normally a recurring staple of the franchise, before he's fought the player has to pick off cards that summon previous boss fights (in reduced abilities) from the levels, in a monochrome backdrop.
• Clockwork Knight: Pepperouchau no Fukubukuro and the US release of Clockwork Knight 2 have a bonus mode called Boss on Parade/Bosses Galore in which either Tongara or Ginger face off against all 10 bosses from the two Clockwork Knight games.
• Donkey Kong Jungle Beat: New Play Control! features a level called "Kong of the Mountain", where you have to fight Dread Kong, Karate Kong, Ninja Kong, Sumo Kong, and Ghastly King without any chance of recovery (and with only 500 beats, to boot).
• The Seal the Deal DLC for A Hat in Time has two of them as Death Wish contracts. The first is called Boss Rush which has Hat Kid fight all of the world bosses and the possessed outhouse in sequence. The other is called Seal the Deal which has Hat Kid fight the EX versions of the Mafia Boss, the Conductor and DJ Grooves, Mustache Girl, and an even tougher version of Snatcher EX that borrows projectiles from the other bosses.
• I Wanna Be the Guy unlocks a boss rush mode when you complete it.
• Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics had the player fight every single boss before the last boss.
• In Kero Blaster, the final challenge of Omake Mode is a gauntlet of fights against all eight main bosses from the Normal Mode. Since all your upgraded weapons are available during this challenge, the earlier bosses will melt to your attacks much faster than they would during a Normal Mode playthrough.
• The Kirby series tends to feature an unlockable bonus Boss Rush mode.
  • Several games (Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, and Kirby: Squeak Squad) simply pit you against all the game's bosses in order, with no chance for recovery. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror randomizes the order of most of the bosses (the Final Boss always being the last) and allows you a limited amount of healing items between rounds, similar to recurring game mode "The Arena"; Squeak Squad keeps the order of bosses the same, but provides a Maxim Tomato bubble at the start for Kirby to use if he's dangerously low on health.
  • "The Arena" was first featured in Kirby Super Star, where it pitted you against all the bosses from the various subgames in random order, ending with Marx, and gave you healing items between rounds that you had to use wisely. Its remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, added two new variants on The Arena. The first is Helper to Hero, where you play as one of Kirby's numerous sidekicks through a shortened, pre-set order Boss Rush ending with new boss Wham Bam Jewel; and The "True" Arena where you fight the new bosses and minibosses added by the game's new subgames; the standard bosses and mini-bosses are in random order, but the arena ends with the "Final Four", consisting of Masked Dedede, Wham Bam Jewel again, Galacta Knight, and a True Final Boss exclusive to the True Arena — a souped up version of Marx named Marx Soul. The healing items are also much less effective, making one of the most frustratingly difficult challenges in the entire series.
  • Kirby's Return to Dream Land continues the trend of having both a standard Arena and a True Arena: The Arena features bosses from the game's regular mode, while The True Arena features their powered-up forms from the extra mode and saves the five most powerful bosses for the end. Like Ultra, one of those five is actually exclusive to The True Arena, though this time it's not a stronger version of the final boss - instead, you fight Galacta Knight. The game’s remake, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe, soups it up by adding the new bosses from Deluxe’s new mode, Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler, alongside an even tougher version of Magolor Soul, with two health bars along with more attacks and improvements to the already existing ones. Deluxe’s True Arena is 21 rounds total, making it the longest boss rush in the series.
  • The Kirby series has had a couple of mandatory Boss Rushes as well. In the first game, you had to fight the four bosses again before you could battle King Dedede, going through short recreations of each stage before fighting the stage's respective boss. In Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby's Adventure, and several others, there's a level near (or at) the end where you face off with all the mini-bosses of the game again. In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, two of the stages in Royal Road feature rematches against the five main bosses, with slightly reduced health and a different attack order compared to their initial battles.
  • Kirby Mass Attack deserves mention for having two different Boss Rushes in a row and a more classic Boss Rush. The first is Stage 4-9, in which you fight revived versions of Big Warwiggle, Great Gear, and King Eelongo. Beating them unlocks a new miniboss: Buzzy Bat, who is regarded by many as the hardest miniboss in the game. Immediately after beating them, you fight the Final Boss, Skullord. Beating him with all of the Rainbow Medals, however, unlocks the real final area... which is a Boss Rush for all four major bosses: Whispy Woods, Lady Ivy, King Dedede, and Skullord. Beating THEM unlocks the True Final Boss, Necrodeus himself. Oh, and you get a more complete Boss Rush of most of the minibosses and bosses by getting all of the Medals and talking to Daroach.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe also has The Arena and The True Arena, following similar rules to Return to Dream Land's. This time, however, the boss exclusive to The True Arena is a stronger version of the game's original final boss (having been absent from the extra mode), with an additional phase, entitled "Soul of Sectonia". Aside from the two arenas, Triple Deluxe has mandatory rematches against all five end-of-level bosses in Royal Road, spread out across two stages, with their attack patterns being slightly different compared to the original battles. On top of that, the last leg of Royal Road stage 5 has a miniboss rush with a twist; you have the Hypernova ability, and proceed to one-shot multiple DX versions of the minibosses, ending with a third rematch with the game's first boss, Flowery Woods, that Kirby swallows whole in seconds.
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot mixes things up a bit for its take on The Arena by having you face the game's bosses in a fixed order rather than randomized, and gives you healing items periodically instead of from the start. Like Triple Deluxe, its version of The True Arena also ends with a True Final Boss battle against a stronger version of the original final boss, with an additional phase. The second boss of the game is also a small Boss Rush in itself, being a hologram projector creating four weaker versions of bosses and minibosses from previous games.
  • Kirby Star Allies gives The Ultimate Choice, a mode of variable difficulty that allows you to decide how many bosses you face in a row. Like with more recent Kirby games, the higher difficulties give you recovery items that heal less health and pit you against tougher bosses, with the final battle of Soul Melter difficulty being exclusive to the mode: a stronger version of Void Termina's last phase, Void Soul. After beating that and Heroes in Another Dimension, you unlock Soul Melter EX, which has more powerful variants of (almost) every boss, though it has better healing items to compensate. Unlike every iteration of boss rushes before it, Soul Melter EX features two exclusive bosses - A far harder version of Morpho Knight, simply named "Morpho Knight EX" ^note Though it's somewhat downplayed since Morpho Knight EX also appears in Guest Star The Three Mage-Sisters, and an even more powerful Void Termina, with a different final phase than even regular Soul Melter, "Void".
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land:
    • The Colosseum in Waddle Dee Town functions much like The Arena in previous games. The Meta Knight Cup (unlocked after clearing area 3) pits you against 5 bosses and Meta Knight, who is exclusive to the Colosseum. The Ultimate Cup (unlocked after defeating the final boss) has you fight all Story Mode bosses, all mid-bosses and Meta Knight. The Ultimate Cup Z (unlocked after clearing Forgo Dreams) pits you up against the Phantom bosses, Forgo Leon, Morpho Knight and Chaos Elfilis. Unlike the other entries, if you fail you're allowed to pay coins to retry the last fight you did, though the prices go up if you keep failing.
    • The Gathering of the Beast Council stage has a smaller version where you have rematches with Gorimondo, Sillydillo, and Clawroline.
• The Legend of Dark Witch's final stage features a boss rush level similar in style to the Mega Man games, where you fight the bosses from all of the other stages (except the one from the Forest). The sequels continue this with their final levels also pitting you against all the other bosses right before the final boss. The Legendof Dark Witch 3 has you go through an entire level right before the boss rematches.
• The Mega Man series is the Trope Codifier, and almost every game in the series uses this (albeit not always in the same way).
  • A Boss Rush is typically placed in the second-to-last or last level in the game, although the initial game in the first two series (and the remake of the second series' game) dispersed the Boss Rush throughout the last few levels. It's somewhat bearable thanks to the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors weakness to each boss, meaning you'll likely own them in no time flat with little to no damage. Another bonus is the fact that the game typically gives you health powerups after each battle, so you fight each boss on more even terms. In fact, it's so ingrained into the Mega Man identity that they continue to do it even when, for most games, most gamers do not like the Boss Rush as part of the main game anymore.
  • Mega Man 3 had Doc Robot, an enemy who copied the attack patterns of the bosses from the previous game. Two of them appeared in four of the stages once you beat the eight Robot Masters.
  • A few Mega Man X games handwave the boss rush:
    • Mega Man X doesn't provide an explanation for the boss rush, but its remake Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X does: Sigma swiftly patched up the bosses' corpses into living soulless husks.
    • Mega Man X6's handwave manifests in the Big Bad Gate's specialization in Reploid resurrection.
    • In Mega Man X8, the "revived" bosses are revealed upon death to be actually Reploids who have shapeshifted into them.
  • The Mega Man Zero quadrilogy plays with the trend:
    • Mega Man Zero skews the boss rush out of focus, picking out the four strongest of the Neo Arcadian Reploids (Anubis Necromancess, Blizzack Staggroff, Herculious Anchortus, and Maha Ganeshariff) in the final stage for a rematch, then pulls a Subversion by having rematches with the Four Guardians themselves, who actually haven't been destroyed yet. Then the trope is downplayed, when Hidden Phantom decides to pull a suicide attack. The return of the bosses is handwaved in retrospect — being a technological Mecca, Neo Arcadia can rebuild their Mutos Reploid warriors with ease.
    • Mega Man Zero 2 only has six Neo Arcadian Reploid rematches rather than the standard eight, but throws the player for a loop by changing the attack patterns of one of the bosses in the boss rush entirely (Kuwagust Anchus) by throwing in his brother you killed in the previous game (Herculious Anchortus). It's like they were feeling spiteful and wanted you to lose. Also, the return of these bosses is handwaved by the fact Elpizo used the power of the Dark Elf to bring them back — though with heavy brainwashing in effect. One of those bosses, Phoenix Magnion, also has an attack that invokes this, where he lifts Zero into the air and attacks him with phantom images of previous X-series bosses (Vile, Agile, Bit, and Colonel).
    • Mega Man Zero 3 and Mega Man Zero 4 handwave this with the Big Bad Dr. Weil specializing in Reploid "revival". Even more stunning — in Zero 3, no less than four bosses from the first game are brought Back from the Dead, all with brand new powers! If that wasn't enough for you, Copy X, the Big Bad of the first title, is one of them! However, he's now stuck with a Verbal Tic, and to prevent him from using his Seraph form and rebelling against Dr. Weil (and effectively becoming a case of final boss deja vu), Weil's rigged him with a self-destruct mechanism that goes off when he tries to transform.
    • In Zero 4, not only is there a regular Boss Rush, but Weil's Final Boss form has an attack that is effectively a Boss Bum Rush. He can summon the eight bosses from the previous game to quickly perform their signature attack before vanishing. Luckily, they don't have to be destroyed.
  • In Mega Man ZX and ZX Advent, the bosses are rebuilt in new bodies thanks to the usage of Model W. Advent also features a subversion where after beating the eight Pseudoroids, Grey/Ashe are confronted by all four of the enemy Mega Men just before the Final Boss, who make it clear they intend to shut them down right here and now. Instead of seguing into another gauntlet, Aile/Vent pull their Big Damn Heroes and blast a path for Grey/Ashe to go through while they Hold the Line in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
    • ZX, in addition to a normal mandatory Boss Rush, has optional rushes through eight select bosses of Zero 3 and 4 (the first 4 fought in the final stage of 3^note Blazin' Flizard, Childre Inarabbita, Devilbat Schilt, and Deathtanz Mantisk, and the upper floor of boss teleportation chambers in the final stage of 4^note Sol Titanion, Fenri Lunaedge, Pegasolta Eclair, and Noble Mandrago), in order to get the Model O^note Omega. Instead of beating those 8 bosses^note Or due to not having MMZ3&4 games or playing the game on a DSi or 3DS, which lack the GBA cartridge port, the player can opt to beating a single superboss — an ultra-pumped up version of Omega Zero (technically, residual data), which is Harder Than Hard. Enjoy using up the subtanks.
    • Also in ZX Advent, there is a Boss Battle Mode called "Survival Road" unlocked after completing the game with both playable characters, where you go through every boss of the game without breaks in between. You are given all A-Trans and 2 full Subtanks, but you are not given any Heart Tanks or Biometal Upgrades. Good luck!
  • Mega Man 10: The Wily/Weapons Archive; essentially, you're up against three sets of three floating pods who imitate the attack patterns of nine Robot Masters, one from each of the previous games, including 7 and 8. And then you have the classic Boss Rush expected from the game, later on.
  • In Mega Man V for Game Boy there are two boss rushes: the first one is a sequential one with the Mega Man Killers and Quint, and the other one is a typical teleport one for the 8 Stardroids.
  • Mega Man fan games and ROM hacks:
  • Rockman No Constancy gave the boss rooms slippery floors.
  • Mega Man Unlimited, true to Mega Man tradition, has one of these in the fourth endgame stage. However, there is an added twist: Before you fight each boss again, you have to traverse a mini-stage based on the obstacles and enemies in that boss's original stage.
  • While Wily 3 is more of a Metroidvania, the Mechanical Arena unlocked in Rockman 4 Minus ∞ by beating the game is a straighter version (a homage to the Arena in Kirby Super Star). It even has refills in the resting area and a method of travelling to the boss arena.
  • Rockman 7 EP forgoes the usual teleporter room and forces Mega Man to fight the eight bosses in sequential order a la ActRaiser.
• In Metal Storm, you fight all of the bosses you've met so far, then you fight the final boss.
• Mighty No. 9, one of Mega Man's spiritual successors, has an unlockable boss rush mode, though unlike the usual Mega Man games, there is no actual boss rush in the last stages of the story mode.
• Miku Monogatari : Yume to Taisetsu na Mono has two boss rush mode (normal and hard) that put you against every boss in the game. Oddly, they're already available from the title screen even when you just start the game for the first time.
• Miracle Girls: Tomomi to Mikage no Miracle World Adventure has rematches with all the bosses at the end of the game, though all of them are still Mini Games.
• Ninja Gaiden II justifies this when you eventually go To Hell and Back. Along the way, you meet all four of the major bosses that you've killed before, kill them in hell, fight the evil ninja who started the whole damn thing, save the girl, and THEN you get to the final boss.
• During the Final Boss of Pizza Tower, Pizzahead, no worse for wear after his first bout with Peppino, summons all four previous bosses to fight for him. Peppino ends up having none of it, launching into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown upon hitting a returning boss (ripping half their healthbars out with every impact), with Gustavo joining in to assist with the rematches with The Vigilante, The Noise, and Fake Peppino by letting Peppino throw him at the bosses to open them up for a beat down. This then leads into Pizzahead's final phase, which has Peppino savagely beat him up like the rest of 'em.
• In the final level of the Nintendo DS version of Power Rangers: Super Legends, the Omega Ranger has to defeat Gluto, Master Org, Lothor and Trakeena in repeats of their boss fights before engaging in the final battle against Lord Zedd.
• Level 19 of the SNES version of Prince of Persia.
• Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?:
  • The second-to-last level, Sweet Palace, pits you against souped-up versions of bosses you've fought in previous stages interspersed with short platforming areas. What makes this example interesting is that, depending on which boss (or bosses) you battled in the six initial stages, some will change up during the rush. For example, if you chose the Demon Sea Casino Stage first, you battle Bok Choy, a Zombie who's extremely easy. In the aformentioned Sweet Palace, he decides to sic Cyberclops on you instead of rematching. If you already beat Cyberclops by choosing the stage fifth or last, it gets upgraded to 2.0 and has harder to avoid attacks. Likewise, if the High Tome Forest was picked first, you fight Kim, a Magic Knight. In Sweet Palace, she calls up her twin sister, Chi, to assist her in the fight. If Anise the Cat Witch was involved in any way (including the 3 on 1 midnight battle), she faces you alone.
  • Prinny's sequel changed things up: while the bosses in the second-to-last stage were pre-determined, meaning it didn't matter much which stages you did in a particular order, they were also monochrome "Junkie" doppelgangers, which gets Lampshaded by the originals as they square off before you intervene. In turn, this stage caps it off with an endurance match against 100 Junkie Prinnies!
• Rayman:
  • At the end of the game, the final "boss" is in fact three boss fusions fought back-to-back.
  • The fan remake Rayman Redemption has the Dark Chimera who was the final boss in the original game, The Boss Rush where you fight all bosses in the main game and The True Boss Rush where you fight stronger versions of the main bosses, all the mini-bosses and a new boss at the end Darkest Mr Dark.
• Ristar has "Boss Rush" available through a code.
• RosenkreuzStilette, a doujin clone of Mega Man, obviously has this.
• In Shovel Knight, when you complete the Ascent stage of the Tower of Fate, you literally drop in on the bosses' dinner party, and they each attack you one by one. The order is different each time you face them. In the case Plague Of Shadows, you literally drop in on the bosses' dinner party, but then Shovel Knight drops in on you, and he ends up in the chair where Plague Knight would normally sit. The bosses attack you one by one, again with the order being different, but then you fight Shovel Knight as the final opponent in the Boss Rush. The Boss Rush is removed from Specter of Torment.
• Something: The True Final Boss. Also, Mario has to do it without power ups.
• Used in several Sonic the Hedgehog games:
  • The Sonic/Tails version of Sky Sanctuary in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which gave you versions of the Green Hill and Metropolis bosses from the first two games, before the level boss, Mecha Sonic. Interestingly, due to slight alterations of sprite proportions and Jump Physics between the Sonic games, the difficulty of the two nostalgia bosses here is inverted from their original difficulty.
  • The first Sonic Adventure featured a boss rush for the regular six characters that you can access in Trial Mode after beating their stories. Amy and Big's "rushes" consist of only one boss since that's all they have, and Gamma's rush only has his first and last bosses since his other boss fights are actually part of levels. Also, none of the battles against other playable characters were included in the boss rushes.
  • Sonic Adventure 2 had an optional extra three Boss Rushes: a rush of all the boss battles in the Hero Story when that story is complete; a rush of all the boss battles in the Dark Story when that story is complete; and a rush of all the boss battles in the game when Last Story is complete. Beating each rush is worth one Emblem.
  • The final level (X Zone) of Sonic Advance is a miniature Boss Rush of classics — specifically, the first bosses of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, before the real final boss shows up.
  • XX Zone, the final level of Sonic Advance 2 is a Boss Rush of all the prior bosses from the game, although they take half the hits to beat. After all that you reach the final boss. This is also a literal example as all the bosses in the game are rushing away from you and you have to run to it.
  • The Game Mod Robotnik's Revenge is essentially a Boss Rush (and Boss Game) of all the bosses from Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. There are two modes in this boss rush: "Time Attack", which gives you infinite lives and checkpoints and rings between the bosses, and "Survival" which gives you three lives and no checkpoints or rings.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I has the game's final zone, E.G.G. Station Zone. It consists of fighting the game's previous bosses before fighting the final boss.
  • The Nightmare Zone of Sonic Lost World has Sonic fighting all members of the Deadly Six together with various boss Nightmarens from the NiGHTS into Dreams… series.
  • The final "regular" boss of Sonic Mania alternates between fighting Eggman and going through upgraded versions of the Hard Boiled Heavies.
• Spanky's Quest repeats every previous Boss Battle in the final tower.
• In the final level of Street Fighter 2010, you have to beat every previous boss and the final boss all within the same time limit. Not helped by the time limit still counting down through the cutscene before the final boss.
• Strider:
  • The last stage of the arcade game intersperses the majority of the bosses and mid-bosses from throughout the game, some of them fought simultaneously, with the boss of Stage 1 ultimately carrying the player to the scene of the final battle.
  • The NES version of the game has a Sub-Boss Rush in the final area of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, with Hiryu facing off against the 4 Mini Bosses from previous stages, before taking on Matic and the final ZAIN computer.
  • Strider's Spiritual Successor, Cannon Dancer, does it in the final stage. In order: the game's first two bosses, a Mirror Boss and the entire Quirky Miniboss Squad, who are now all fought at the same time.
• Super Catboy sees the titular character battling the first three bosses, Mole, Rottweiler and Bull in a rematch in three separate areas prior to reaching Dr. Ungefug's lair, though this time he can choose the orders to fight them with.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2: World S has the Boss Blitz Galaxy as one of the last three galaxies, and in it you go through a boss rush of five bosses from the original game.
  • Super Mario 3D World: The level Boss Blitz is located at the end of World Flower. Every boss except Prince Bully (who's a Mini-Boss) and both Bowser forms will challenge Mario and his friends here.
  • Super Mario Odyssey has this in the Dark Side of the Moon, where Mario has to fight all four Broodals one by one as he climbs to the top of Rabbit Ridge, where in turn Mario fights them together as they pilot the RoboBrood.
• Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan: Before facing the Final Bosses, Sydney needs to defeat the other Mayan deities one-by-one that Kinich Ahau resurrects.
• In the Sega Genesis version of Wardner, towards the end of the final level, you fight all the bosses from the previous five levels again.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, which is also The Maze, has you fight each previously-encountered boss at a certain point. They're just as tough as before, but you're probably much stronger now. Of course, if you take the wrong path and get sent back, you have to fight them again. And there are no continues here. Wonder Boy in Monster World also has one in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.

Racing Game

• The Purple Gem Cup in Crash Team Racing has you racing against all the non-final bosses in the game on their home tracks. At least they don't drop 1000 TNTs per lap anymore.
• The Big Bad of Need For Speed Carbon hired the three last bosses where you have to at some point beat them, but individually. However, the final race requires you to defeat all three in a canyon race and a street race before taking on the Big Bad, then you can take him on in a street race and canyon run. That puts the end at four consecutive races.
• Ridge Racer V's Battle Royal mode pits you against all four boss cars in a single race, and you have to use one of the boss cars to hulk them out.

Real-Time Strategy

• Dynasty Warriors 6 has this in Lu Bu's version of the Battle of Hu Lao Gate. Apparently the only remaining challenge for him was to have two dead bosses (Zhang Jiao and Dong Zhuo) come back from the dead, the leaders of the Three Kingdoms unite, and for almost everyone else in the game to dog pile ya. If you beat them all, though, they all come back from the dead (in Zhang Jiao and Dong Zhuo's case, again) in Hyper Mode.
• Pikmin:
  • The Hole of Heroes from Pikmin 2 is a Boss Dungeon, with some regular floors, some rest floors, but mostly boss floors, pitting you against most of the game's previous bosses, and ending with a boss exclusive to the hole: the Raging Long Legs. Luckily, you DO get to save between levels.
  • Similar in structure to the Hole of Heroes is the Cavern for a King from Pikmin 4, in which the Rookie faces a wide assortment of enemies and bosses, all spread across 20 sublevels (of which only three are rest areas). Waiting at the end is the final boss: the Ancient Sirehound.

Rhythm Game

• beatmania:
  • The Kaiden course in later beatmania IIDX installments consists of the four hardest songs out of the entire series. The Single version of the course always ends with Mei, and the Double version always ends with Quasar^note Except IIDX Distorted, where Quasar appears as the first song.
  • Chuuden course introduced in beatmania IIDX 23 Copula similar to Kaiden, featuring four different boss songs. Unlike Kaiden, four of the songs aren't exactly the hardest song like Kaiden, but still very challenging compare to 10th dan.
  • In beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro, unlocking "Sol Cosine Job 2" for the Extra Stage requires you to, among other things, invoke this trope yourself by playing a set consisting of tracks that were previously One More Extra Stage tracks.
• Dance Central 2 has a final stage composed of 5 dances, which are the final or boss-type dances of each dance crew.
• All DanceDanceRevolution games have this in some form. The Wii games have a medley of bosses from each previous game, but most other games just have you play them back-to-back.
• DJMAX Technika has the Conqueror Set, a Technical course whose stage 1-3 songs consist entirely of boss songs from previous courses.
• Parappa The Rapper offers a bizarre example: You're desparately standing in line for the bathroom with all the previous stages' bosses, and you have to out-rap them to get past them in line, otherwise you'll poop yourself. The sequel Parappa The Rapper 2 does something similar to this, in the form of a Food Court video game in a stage late in the game.
• In Rock Band 2, the career mode features four setlists called "Guitar/Drum/Vocal/Bass Legend", in which you play the five hardest songs on each instrument in the game in order of difficulty.

Roguelike

• Before the Final Boss of Abomi Nation, you must fight a rematch against all six of the previous bosses fought over the course of the main game. They attack as one team, so you must beat them all in a single battle.
• In The Binding of Isaac:
  • The Chest, the final level of the game, almost every room contains at least one of the game's bosses, which leads up to the final boss: ??? (AKA Blue Baby)
  • Rebirth introduces an optional challenge room that can be accessed if you defeat Mom in under 20 minutes. What lies inside this room is a massive gauntlet against thirty bosses, two at a time. Fortunately, hearts always drop for every two bosses that go down on the Normal difficulty, and the arena itself is about four times the usual size of a boss fight area, giving the player a lot of room to maneuver. This is an example of a boss rush encountered relatively early in its game: Mom is the Disc-One Final Boss, and with all chapters unlocked, there is a total of at least four additional floors to get through after the rush opens.
  • To a lesser extent, Rebirth also has it's True Final Boss, Mega Satan. He spends half of his first form attacking and the other half hiding completely invincible, sending other bosses out at you.
  • Afterbirth+ drops all pretenses and introduces The Void, which contains multiple Boss Rooms, only one of which contains the True Final Boss Delirium. Said boss itself qualifies for this trope, as its main attack method is to simply transform into nearly any other boss encountered (including the Disk One Final Bosses), shifting between bosses faster and faster as it gets lower on health. The other boss doors can also contain other "final"/major bosses, with the exceptions of Mom, Mega Satan, Hush, and Ultra Greed, likely due to their room conditions, the length of fighting the latter three, and Ultra Greed being exclusive to Greed Mode.
  • The True Final Boss of Repentance (and officially the entire game) is a fight against six bosses back-to-back with only one small pause for a cutscene. It starts with a fight against Dogma, a multi-stage boss tough enough to be an end boss by himself. You then switch to a Shmup-style and fight the four Ultra Horsemen, beefed up versions of the Four Horsemen bosses. Finally, you take on The Beast.
  • Downplayed with boss challenge rooms. They usually have a chest or item in them, and upon collecting them, the player has to fight only two or three (depending on how far in the game the room is) waves of bosses based on which floor the room is in.

Shoot 'em Up

• Halfway into Battle Garegga's fifth stage, a rebuilt version of MD-113 "Nose Laughin", the bomber plane that served as the first boss of the game, returns to give you hell. The rebuilt incarnation of SF-5418 "Mad Ball", the hovercraft platform that served as the second boss, comes shortly after. Then you are confronted with a gigantic Slayer gunship carrying an important cargo. And when you destroy the Slayer, it ejects the primary boss of Stage 5: a prototype stealth fighter codenamed G-616 "Black Heart".
• Blazing Lazers has this in Area 9.
• Coryoon ends with it's final stage being a rush against all previous bosses - the unicorn, giant lobster, gryphon, serpent, phoenix and crystal turtle, before you fight the Final Boss.
• Chariot, the Shoot 'Em Up in the three-games-in-one Three Wonders, has the player facing off against all of the previous bosses in groups of 3 during the final stage.
• G-Darius has an optional Boss Rush mode, where you can pick which bosses you want to fight, the order you fight them in, and so on and so forth. Given each boss comes in two seperate flavours and there's fifteen stages, you could fight up to thirty bosses back to back if you wanted.
• DoDonPachi dai ou jou features a very cruel take on the Boss Rush in a mode called Death Label. You fight the bosses of the game at second-loop difficulty, and at the very end, you get something better than a True Final Boss: TWO of them! Also, if you pick Leinyan as your doll and use her laser bomb, the bomb heals the boss! The final stages of both dai ou jou, and its sequel, DaiFukkatsu, also features rematch against the many bosses of DoDonPachi.
• The Fantasy Zone series always featured a boss rush immediately before the final boss. Said boss rush is made all the harder by the fact that you cannot go to the store to re-purchase useful items unless you die.
• A bonus mode in Frantic 2 lets you face all 30 bosses without breaks.
• Elemental Master end with you outside King Gyra's quarters and requires you to re-fight all the past bosses - the Flame Demon, Thunder Dragon, Earth Porcupine, Water Serpent, Gyra's Co-Dragons Clauss and Salome - before facing Gyra himself.
• Fraxy is a Boss Rush shmup where the bosses are user-created.
• Gradius:
  • Each subsequent game in the main series features a variation — a rush of five or six bosses from the previous game. Salamander (the second game) featured three of the Big Cores from Gradius, Gradius II (actually the third game) had up to four Salamander bosses. Gradiuses III, IV and V had all-new bosses mixed into the rush, but always included at least one boss from its immediate predecessor. V does it twice, first in Stage 2, then in Stage 6. As for the Gaiden Game, Gradius Gaiden, its rush consisted entirely of completely new bosses, though two Deaths make up part of one of the bosses.
  • The incredibly Nintendo Hard Salamander 2 doesn't have a boss rush. Neither does Gradius Galaxies; the first mid-boss of Stage 8 is less of a Boss Rush and more of a Sequential Boss.
• The Guardian Legend had a special mode where you ran through all of the vertical-scrolling shooter stages in a row, skipping the mazes and key-collecting. There's also the boss rush while escaping, where you fight many previously-encountered bosses, then just when you think it's over, "It", a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere, shows up, apparently in a final act of revenge for the destruction of Naju.
• Heavy Weapon has "Boss Blitz" mode, where you have only one life to take down all 19 bosses. Considering that 11 of them can kill you instantly regardless of shielding, it's pretty understandable why it's Nintendo Hard.
• Towards the middle of Hellsinker, the player is taken to a strange dimension and must fight through four or five difficult bosses (as well as a strange midboss that looks like a giant bloody crystal but meows like a cat). Oddly, you have infinite lives for this level, and are therefore at no risk of Game Over'ing, but screwing up the boss sequence results in you losing pretty much all of your score.
• The last stage of Lightning Fighters includes rematches with the Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 6 bosses before the final two.
• Mission 5 in Metal Slug 3’' has you fighting the second boss from the first game, then the final boss from the first game. Then there’s a brief space shooter section before you fight the final two bosses from 2. Then'' the level proper starts, with two more (new this time) bosses.
• Pixelvader: The bonus level has you refight all 10 previously defeated bosses, with seemingly all of them also having higher HP.
• The final levels of both Rez and Child of Eden do this.
• rRootage is one big Boss Game, consisting of four modes (normal, PSY, IKA, GW), each one having 40 stages. Each stage consists of a five-boss Boss Rush, and the 40 stages consist of 30 stages of pre-defined bosses and 10 stages of randomly-generated bosses. 5 bosses * 30 pre-defined stages * 4 modes = 600 bosses. Tally in the random stages and you have a near-unlimited number of bosses.
• Space Harrier's eighteenth and final level (Absymbel) is solely a parade of six of the previous bosses, except that now they get names; given the nature of the game, it actually turns out to be somewhat of a Breather Level. Do well enough on the level and, depending on which version you’re playing, you may get to face the hidden boss Haya-Oh.
• Star Soldier on the PSP presents you with Boss On Parade, a boss rush mode which is unlocked when you beat the game once.
• Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View has one in the extra stage, in which you have to defeat every character in the game in succession. Additionally, the fans have composed a couple of amazing boss theme compilations, known as Last Boss Rush and Extra Boss Rush, which covers the Leitmotif every Final Boss and superboss through the 12th game, respectively.
• The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is nothing but boss fights, what makes it interesting though, is that there will be over 70 bosses with unique patterns and fights, and who you face will be randomly determined.
• XOP and its sequel, XOP Black, have boss rushes as bonus stages. The original's Extra Stage 2 also features fights against the various minibosses from the other levels, in a rare example of a Miniboss Rush.

Simulation Game

• In Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, there is a bonus stage, "The Gauntlet." In it, three different ace squadrons come after you, one after the other, without restoring either your health or your ammo (well, not automatically - there's a Return Line). If you defeat the final squadron quickly enough, Mobius 1, The Faceless Player Character from Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, will come after you alone. And the special appearance is only available on Ace difficulty, the hardest difficulty. And Mobius 1 is just as hard as you'd expect. Especially considering they made it Nintendo Hard by letting the AI have Improbable Piloting Skills, and can fire multiple missiles at once. Backwards.
• ActRaiser has an extremely sadistic Boss Rush at the end of the game. The bosses are extremely hard, but can made simple by using all of your magic on them. But facing them all in a row with no chances to heal or refill your Magic Meter in between makes this Boss Rush next to impossible. And all the bosses are sped up, and immediately after all the bosses are defeated, you'll fight the final boss.
• Can happen in Evil Genius 2, during the last mission in the game. If the player hasn't been taking time to deal with lengthy sidequests usually spanning large parts of the game to kill off or enlist the numerous different crime boss and superspy characters, all the surviving powerful characters will participate in the siege of the player's lair.
• Warship Gunner 2 has a mode called Boss Rush you unlock once you beat the game. It is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. You fight the game's superweapons one at a time without being able to reload your weapons or repair your ship in between.

Stealth-Based Game

• In Assassins Creed, during the final confrontation with Al-Mualim, the Piece of Eden is used to create specters of each of Altaïr's previous assassination targets to throw him off.
• The Metal Gear Solid series is another game with an unlockable Boss Rush. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has a one section where you fight clones of the bosses you've previously defeated right before fighting the de facto head of Desperado Inc.. Interestingly enough however, this happens just a little over halfway through the game and not at the end, there are a few more chapters and bosses after this.
• Tenchu 3: Wrath Of Heaven offers one as the final Co-Op mission, pitting two players against 5 teams of two bosses each.
  • Tenchu: Fatal Shadows has it as the last unlockable option in its Red Blade mode, which pits the player against all the game's bosses in quick succession.

Strategy RPG

• Devil Survivor has a form of this in one of the Multiple Endings; the Final Boss, before you can even touch him, will summon all Bel bosses. Sure, some of them are much easier due to the difference in levels. Others... not so much.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: Big Bad Julius has 12 beefed-up Mooks defending the final castle, waiting to charge your army as soon as you get close. They've got names, insane stats, powerful weapons, some even have holy blood. Plus, before that, he sends out 3 frustrating Falcon Knights and right-hand lady Ishtar... just as Arion goes for your home base with a group of dragon knights! (Luckily, these can be taken care of by having Altena talk to Arion. They'll become friendly NPCs after that.)
  • Fire Emblem: Thracia 776's final level has 6 of the aforementioned beefed-up Mooks, and this time, they're clones of other characters (namely, Raydrik, Sara, Lifis, Galzus, Eyvel, and Dagdar) and will take their forms if they are dead.
  • The final chapter of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade contains soulless clones (with mostly maxed-out levels and statistics, as well as legendary weapons) of the most dangerous Black Fang members in the game, plus Marquess Laus, and sics them on you all at once. One of the few exceptions to the "never tougher than the originals" rule. Fortunately, these morphs have no luck, possibly due to their lack of a soul, and are easy targets for high-skill, crit-happy units.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • Chapter 20 has you fight Cervantes, Excellus, and finally Walhart in succession.
    • Chapter 22 brings back the Deadlords, except here they have more or less a chapter to themselves (two actually, if you count the DLC which pits you against 36 of them).
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The final chapter of the Verdant Wind route has the resurrected Nemesis and the 10 Elites against your army. Each one of Elites buff up Nemesis's stats so you have to take them all down first before properly facing him off.
• The last few levels of Freedom Force have you trying to rescue a team member from a time controlling villain. In order to get to him, you have to fight through slices of time, each containing a previously defeated villain at the height of their power.
• The final chapter in both Namco × Capcom and its sequel Project × Zone involve fighting not only the Big Bad, but also the villains from the many franchises of Namco and Capcom (and Sega in the latter game). For the sequel, however, not only must you fight Byakushin, Saya, Sheath, as well as Dokumezu and Dokugozu, but you must also fight the villains of each series that have remained at large up until this point (with the exception of Juri Han and Baby Bonnie Hood), which include Sigma, Pyron, Ranmaru, Metal Face, and Kamuz. Project X Zone 2 has a more straight example in one of its bonus levels, which is a boss rush against everyone except Sheath.
• Shining Force II has a bonus map after the game that allows you to fight all the bosses at once. As a bonus Shout-Out, the map is shaped like Sonic.
• Super Robot Wars is usually generous with only having one or two bosses per-level at the very worst, but sometimes they just get mean.
  • In Super Robot Wars 3, the second-to-last level can hypothetically involve taking on Scirroco, the Big Bad from Zeta Gundam, his girlfriend, Enfant Terrible Wendolo, and three-fourths of his Quirky Miniboss Squad. And all their subordinates, for a grand total of 35 units. And you take them on with half of that. Fun.
  • The version of that fight in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2, was only slightly less difficult, making you only fight Axel and half the Quirky Miniboss Squad before facing Wendolo. Then the next stage threw you against both the Einst and Shadow-Mirror, and the Shadow-Mirror don't have the courtesy to wait until you're finished with the Einst.
  • In Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, the battle against Muge Solbados from Dancougar is a boss rush. He first sends his three henchmen against the team (along with several mooks). Once they're killed, Muge himself appear and summons four killed boss characters, two of them from previous games.
  • Super Robot Wars K sets a case of this fairly EARLY in the game by having to face almost all the named Overman King Gainer characters very early. Two missions also send them alongside some GUN×SWORD bosses.
  • The real battle in the final scenario of Super Robot Wars Compact 3 begins as Alkaid gives it his all and raises the Shura Gods to use against the team. Shou can't believe that they have to take on all the defeated Shura Gods as well as Alkaid at once but Marvel tells him not to get weak and Quattro says that those are just fakes without the real owner piloting it but Alkaid says that the fake Shura Gods are imbued with his power so they're as strong as the ones the team once faced.

Survival Horror

• In Alone in the Dark 2, the zombie pirates you kill throughout the game are re-encountered on their ship. It's justified in one of the texts, which explains that part of their pact for immortality causes them to return to the place of their pact (the pirate ship) and for a period, they can be Killed Off for Real using weapons from their original time. This even applies to one of the pirates you don't encounter earlier in the game, whom you first fight on the deck of the ship — and after you kill him once, he immediately respawns on the deck of the ship and can be put down for good.
• Deadly Premonition has the "Psychic Spot C" sidequest, in which you are forced to fight all three of the game's bosses in a row. Since the second boss has two forms and the third has three, it's six back-to-back fights. You are given a chance to sleep between bosses, but not to save or restock on items.
• Inverted in Eternal Darkness. The game is a series of chapters taking place in various times and locales, each with a different player character. During the final battle, the heroine from the framing story channels each of the dead PCs in turn so they can take one last crack at the Big Bad.
• A variant of this appears in Five Nights at Freddy's 4:
  • In Night 6 and 20/20/20/20 Mode, you must survive the 4 main Nightmare Animatronics (Nightmare Freddy, Nightmare Chica, Nightmare Bonnie, and Nightmare Foxy) until 4 A.M. At 4 A.M., Fredbear takes their place, forcing you to square of with the most difficult foes in the series.
  • This also applies to Night 8, with you having to face the main 4 until 4 A.M., then having to deal with what is essentially a harder version of Fredbear named Nightmare. It is much more difficult, as not only are the Main 4 cheap beyond all belief, but Nightmare is much more relentless than Fredbear. It's so difficult that it's almost unfair.

Third-Person Shooter

• In Kid Icarus: Uprising
  • Beating the main campaign unlocks this as an option, though technically the Final Boss isn't part of it, as he takes up the entire final level anyways.
  • In-game, there are two specifically, one in Chapter 9 and one in Chapter 24. The first one has Pit fighting three of Medusa's commanders created by fusing souls together and giving the creation the powers and appearance of the original which serves as Foreshadowing to how Hades recreated Medusa in the first place, and the second has Pit fighting three bosses recreated by Lord Dyntos as a test before fighting a tag-team of Magnus and Dark Lord Gaol hired by Dyntos, a fake Palutena created by Dyntos, and finally the very weapon Pit came to get from Dyntos to fight the final boss.
• Mass Effect 3:
  • As part of the Citadel DLC, BioWare had to create boss-level hostile versions of all six player classes for the showdown with Shepard's evil clone. For obvious reasons the storyline only uses one of them, which would be something of a waste, so they added the 'Mirror Match' option to the Armax Arena which sends three each of all of them at you over three rounds.
  • Another Armax Arena example comes from completing the glitch hunt sidequest, which culminates in a multi-round fight involving Atlas mechs, Geth Primes, Banshees and even a Possessed Praetorian.
• The final stage of Sin and Punishment: Star Successor has you fighting each member of the Nebulox before fighting Commander Deko.
• Splatoon 2: The Salmon Run mode has this as a tutorial level; its main purpose is to teach you how to fight the seven most common Boss Salmonid that appear in the mode, but if you think that's hostile, it's nothing compared to fighting several Boss Salmonid at once on top of the actual hordes.

Tower Defense

• Plants Vs Zombies 2: At the end of the game, the last three levels involve the player defeating bosses from previous worlds. However, the player gets different plants than they originally had to fight those bosses. Also, the player can take a break between the boss fights.

Western RPG

• The original ending to Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, the expansion for Baldur's Gate II, was to feature all the bosses you previously fought... in one battle. This was nixed in the final version (which just had a lot of enemies) because of a deadline, but the semi-official mod Ascension put it back in. This battle is both much harder and much more satisfying than the vanilla ending. Ascension even goes so far as to have Melissan casually resurrect Irenicus and Bodhi, Big Bad and Dragon of the previous game, for you to warm up with. And if you have Sarevok in the party it's possible for him to turn on you too, meaning you get to face every storyline boss in the entire saga again. Oh and if Imoen's around she'll turn her into the slayer and force her to attack you. Although in her case you just have to stay away until she snaps out of it.
• In Bug Fables, Doctor H.B. runs the device known as B.O.S.S. (Battery Operated Super Simulator), which allows you to refight any boss or mini-boss the player encountered earlier, either as a single battle or all in a row.
• In the Gauldur Amulet questline in Skyrim, you must defeat three unique powerful Draughr Deathlords to recover the pieces of the Amulet. When you take them to the one place they can be assembled, the spirits of the three return for one last crack at you. They obligingly take turns though they offer no breaks in between fights.
• Curiously inverted in Fallout: New Vegas; depending on the choices you make and how many side-quests you engage in, the final battle at the Hoover Dam is you and MAYBE a few of whichever major faction you're hanging out with (NCR or Legion) against huge waves of the other major faction. The more side-quests you complete and allies you build up, the more rounds of back-up you receive, up to and including massive artillery strikes and bomber runs as well as a literal army of killer robots and tactical strike teams of Brotherhood of Steel Knights and Enclave Remnants. Against guys in light armor with MAYBE rifles.
• Icewind Dale 2 has one of the enemies at the end summon the shadows of a few formerly fought bosses.
• Jade Empire did this with the penultimate battle in the Gold Division of the Arena, where you fought all enemies you previously faced in one battle (there was a delay between the appearance of each, so you wouldn't be completely overwhelmed). This fight is optional (as is the entire Gold Division).
• South Park: The Fractured but Whole has the 2nd to last battle between you and King Douchebag, where it's separated in phases where you switch party members and enemies. First phase has the party you've chosen vs. King Douchebag, 2nd phase is Mosquito, Toolshed, and Tupperware vs. Warrior Clyde, 3rd is Super Craig, Wonder Tweek, and Fastpass vs. Thief Craig, 4th has Human Kite, Call Girl, and Mysterion vs. High Jew Elf Kyle, and finally your chosen party vs. King Douchebag again plus all of the previous bosses along with Paladin Butters.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow Features one of these at the end. Upon completion of the tale, Jack and Will escape from the scaffolding just before they are hanged. The player regains control of them and they must fight their way to the docks through a ton of Mooks and expys of the games hardest bosses. You have three lives between the two of you and there are no rest stops, save points or healing items so good luck with that.
• Undertale has the second phase of the True Final Boss, Asriel Dreemurr. He has absorbed the souls of all your friends, and to rescue them, you have to engage them in battle, where they use the attacks they used in their previous boss fights (though Alphys uses Mettaton's attacks, as you never actually battle her, and Toriel and Asgore, as well as Papyrus and Sans, are fought together). Your goal, however, is not to defeat them, but bring them back to their senses.

Unsorted

• The SNES Animaniacs game has you re-face four bosses before the final showdown with Pinky and the Brain. Okay, the King of Spades has been replaced with the Knight of Clubs, but the battle is basically identical.
• All games in the Another Century's Episode series have Extra Mission 1 & 2, which are essentially boss rushes where you face two bosses at a time.
• The penultimate stage of the freeware game Blip & Blop: Balls of Steel is a boss rush against Big Bad Dario and his fellow comrades, all of whom are original bosses that you haven't fought yet.
• The Tower Defense game Canterlot Siege has seven extra bosses attack after Wave 50 in the third version of the game.
• Chrome Hounds subverts this in the final mission. You think you're about to fight two of the previous bosses at once but when you kill one the level ends.
• The final stage in Cyber-Lip has a set of eight doors, most of which lead to repeats of previous bosses. The last door leads to the Final Boss.
• Tower events in Elemental Story consists of bosses typically present in trial battles.
• The bonus mission "Arena" in F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate is a large arena-type area in which various enemies drop in to fight you. Between each wave of regular Replica soldiers a Boss in Mook Clothing drops in to beat up on you; first a Heavy Armor soldier, then a Powered Armor unit, then a riot shield Heavy Armor soldier with a minigun, and finally a huge Leviathan mech walker that serves as the "final boss" of the level.
• In Feel the Magic: XY/XX, you're eventually forced a hallucinogen which makes you relive the three boss-level minigames as nightmares.
• The last stage of Ghostbusters for the Sega Genesis includes rematches with all of the previous bosses except Stay-Puft.
• The final battle of Hand of Fate is this — the Dealer will in turn summon the Jack, Queen, and King of each of the four suits, and when each wave is defeated, the player has the chance to attack the Dealer directly.
• The last stage of Hyperzone.
• In the final battle of Iron Tank, you fight the Think Tank Main Body, followed by an F-type, then a C-type.
• In Iron Twilight, if you spare the generator and also choose not to kill Felipe after defeating him in his dragon form, you're awarded with a new arc called the "Riot Arc". The plot changes significantly where Felipe tells the player that he wasn't the culprit, but a female vampire called Era Poi Riot was. Era Poi Riot comes about the area in which she summons shadow versions of Felipe, Josephine, Death and Vulka. She summons the shadow again in the part where you have to fight her in person to make it an unfair match.
• The Maria Watches Over Us doujin game Lillian Fourhand has its final level consisting of a rush with all of the mini-bosses and the first two bosses before you reach the final boss, a triple tag-team of the game's latter three bosses.
• Each mission (except the Premium Mission) in the first season's final chapter of Marvel: Avengers Alliance has no goons and the boss is directly revealed. The boss is accompanied by other eight mini-bosses (which can be fought alone if you desire to ease the battle against him). The first mission features Thor's villains (being Loki the main boss), the second Hydra (being Baron Zemo the main boss), the third Hood's Gang and mystic villains (being Dormammu the main boss) and the fourth A.I.M. (being M.O.D.O.K. the main boss). And the fifth mission? Each boss of the other missions acting as mini-bosses to the Red Skull.
• The last set of levels in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 feature various rushes against the sub-bosses. Nick Fury also uses the abilities of previous bosses, but in different ways
• In the Monster in My Pocket NES game, you face the first five bosses in the final level and then get two units of health before fighting the main boss. Then you have to fight him again.
• A quiz arcade game based of the third season of Sailor Moon has this in the final level. Sailor Moon must defeat all five members of the Witches 5 and Kaolinite before the final quiz battle with Professor Tomoe. Bizarrely enough, the Witches 5 and Kaolinite were all minibosses in the previous levels- the bosses were all monsters from the show.
• The old PC game, Piranha Panic, where you play a piranha who must travel from one lake to another collecting various piranha eggs, while battling all kinds of aquatic enemies, in order, jellyfishes, barracudas, crabs, marlins and great white sharks, and the boss of each level being a King Mook version of the level's theme enemy. The final level, however, has no mooks, where instead you fight the previously-defeated giant jellyfish, giant barracuda, giant crab, giant marlin and giant shark, all at once.
• The PS2 game Seven Samurai: 20XX has the "Colliseum Mode", an unlockable option that lets you fight against all non-giant bosses from the main game, including the superbosses.
• After beating all of the challenges in Shady's Poopong: 20th Anniversary Edition, the player has the option to play against all four of the game's bosses again, with one life.
• In Sly Spy, the climb up to the Final Boss recapitulates every previous Boss Battle that wasn't fought underwater or in a vehicle.
• Solatorobo: Red the Hunter features two post-game "simulation" missions available on the Golden Roar, both of which pit you against every boss in either the first or second half of the game, back to back, with no heals. The Type G's Gradual Regeneration and the Auto-Revive parts are fairly useful here.
• Super Spy Hunter has you fight upgraded versions of the Stage 2 and Stage 4 bosses before the Final Boss.
• The 3DS game based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) has Shredder transforming into each of the game's bosses, in order, when his life meter is dropped to 0.
• Trigonometry Wars 4 has Death Label mode, in which you fight eight bosses in a row: The first two are new, the next two are pulled from other games by the same creator, the fifth and sixth are the game's True Final Bosses, and the final two are heavily modified versions of bosses from Cave games.
• The final level of Corridor 7: Alien Invasion ends in a series of small rooms, each one containing the previous bosses of the game, ending with the final boss.

Non-Video Game Examples

Anime and Manga

• Katanagatari's finale has Shichika defeating 12 warriors wielding the 12 katana he's been gathering with Togame during the entire series, but using upgraded tactics. Since it's part of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he curbstomps them all, and it's awesome.
• In Kill la Kill, Ryuko spends episodes 8 through 11 fighting against the Elite Four. Except she only fights and defeats three of them, because Nui interrupts the beginning of the showdown with the last remaining member, who she defeats with a single move. Nui ends up becoming Ryuko's fourth opponent and for Ryuko, things do not end well.
• In Kuroko's Basketball, Kise's Perfect Copy feels like fighting all 5 Generations of Miracles at the same time as he uses Aomine's speed, Murasakibara's defense, Midorima's 3 point shots, Akashi's future sight and Kuroko's passes to beat Kagami and Kuroko. However, Seirin still wins the match, barely.
• In Medaka Box, the 100 flowers run is an event where Medaka fights 100 previously defeated opponents. She's given a time limit of 90 minutes, too.
• In Naruto, the army that the Big Bad brings with himself to the final battle includes immortal undead made of most of the greatest badasses of the last three generations, including most of the series' deceased villains.

Fan Works

• Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V: The Fifth Factor: Chapters 62-66 are basically this as Zarc summons powerful opponents from the previous series for the heroes to face off against, a list of which includes Marik Ishtar, Maximillian Pegasus, Darkness, Jaden Yuki, Z-one, Rex Godwin, Aporia, Vector, Don Thousand, and Yuma Tsukumo

Films

• Spider-Man: No Way Home sees the main antagonists of the first five Spider-Man live-action films (specifically, Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro) getting dragged into the Marvel Cinematic Universe to fight its Spider-Man along with their respective Wall Crawler.

Literature

• A Certain Magical Index: After siding with Othinus and making an enemy of the world, Touma has to fight through a series of powerful opponents, most of whom he's already fought before. Notable in that most of them actually let him win, or allow him to pass after he explains himself.
• When the protagonist in Imaro goes to face Isikukumadevu, he has to make his way past the four most dangerous enemies he's defeated in his past, conjured up through Isikukumadevu's psychic powers.
• Lion: Son of the Forest: The end of the novel has the Lion fighting a shape-shifting Warp entity that takes the form of each of his brothers; every time the Lion beats it, in transforms into a different Primarch, starting with his Friendly Rival Leman Russ, and ending with his Arch-Enemy, Konrad Curze, with all fifteen of the remaining brothers in between.

Live Action

• Kamen Rider occasionally has these. Especially in movies, where the villain of the movie calls in the help or resurrects the baddies of the series.
• Some final battles of the Power Rangers, though Conservation of Ninjutsu often applies. The final battles of Power Rangers in Space, Power Rangers Wild Force, Power Rangers Ninja Storm and Power Rangers Jungle Fury all end with one of these.
• Naturally, Super Sentai also has these, as it is the source material for Power Rangers:
  • In an episode of Ninja Sentai Kakuranger has one of the baddies resurrect four previously defeated monsters, resulting in this trope.
  • The final battle of Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger has the rangers fight manifestations of the previously defeated bad guys.

Pinball

• A variation appears in Stern Pinball's The Avengers; to complete the sub-Wizard Mode, "Assault on the Helicarrier", the player must make each Avengers' shot, in order, twice.

Mythology and Religion

• Irish Mythology: The Battle of Ventry, where The King of the World, Daire Donn, invaded Ireland with the intent to conquer it. Fionn Mac Cumhaill, his Fianna, and their allies fight their way through The King of the World's armies and henchmen over the course of a year and a day. Culminating in a grand Final Battle where Fionn duels the Amazon Queen Ogarmach and Daire Donn back to back without much rest in-between and defeats them both.

Tabletop Games

• One challenge in Sentinels of the Multiverse for Spite, Agent of Gloom doesn't make him any harder — instead, it makes it so that when he's defeated, the players immediately set up a game against Skinwalker Gloomweaver without a chance to change heroes, reset or heal. That said, they do get to keep out any cards they had in play against Spite, which softens the blow of a difficult task.
• The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has a card called "Boss Rush," part of a series of cards based on Gradius. The effect is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, in that the player may summon a "B.E.S." or "Big Core" card (these representing Gradius Bosses) at the end of each turn that a B.E.S./Big Core was destroyed. Since all these cards come into play with no counters, they're destroyed in battle (some cards can prevent this), but get a replacement at turn's end. If your opponent lacks Spell removal or monsters with over 2500 ATK, this can cause them problems, at least for the twelve turns your stock of Bosses holds out, assuming you have a full stock. Boss Rush can be stacked for More Dakka over a shorter time period.
• Red Hand of Doom: If you let some of the enemy commanders get away, fail to accomplish certain missions or even forgo whole areas, the Battle of Brindol becomes much harder. You will face several Red Hand forces during that battle consisting of those enemies you failed to kill or stop from helping the Red Hand. You could even fight the very enemy commanders you didn't kill!

Web Original

• The Adventure Zone: The main trio face a boss rush near the end of The Crystal Kingdom arc, having to defeat re-animated robotic versions of the bosses of the previous story arcs. Also referred to by name during The Suffering Game, where the party is forced to fight mannequin-construct duplicates of major fights from every arc thus far. It gets cut off early when the Red Robe manages to summon a door, allowing the boys to escape.
• Kings of Power: 4 Billion%: most of the animation consists of this, albeit with only boss fight per boss.
• The Perfect Run: protagonist Ryan “Quicksave” Romano has the ability to create save points and rewind to them when he dies. When he arrives in New Rome his objective is to perform “The Perfect Run”, where he defeats all enemies and saves everyone. On his sixteenth loop, as he and his friends are getting ready to the final loop, Ryan tells one of his friends to be prepared because “This is going to be a Boss Rush, and half them willbe people you know”.

Western Animation

• Trollhunters sees Angor Rot, Gunmar, and Morgana all defeated within the span of the final episode of the series.

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