Basic Trope: The player must defeat a series of old bosses back-to-back.
- Straight: Before Bob can challenge Lord Bloodstone, he must face Drake, Skullcrusher, and Lilith in three successive rematches.
- Exaggerated:
- Along with those three, Bob must also fight Dr. Destructor, Lord Bloodstone's pet dragon, King Ogre, a coordinated team of Elite Mooks, Lord Bloodstone's most annoyingly persistent band of thugs, a promoted version of the very first Mook Bob fought...
- Bob must fight all of the game's previous bosses at the same time.
- The entire game is nothing but boss fights.
- Downplayed:
- Bob must defeat only two Bosses.
- The back-to-back bosses are all underpowered, so the rematches are less hard than the bosses' previous defeats.
- Mini-Boss Rush
- Boss Bonanza
- Justified:
- After being defeated in the past by Bob, the three lieutenants wish to exact their revenge on him.
- Lord Bloodstone is a Necromancer, he can always reanimate his lieutenants and deploy them at his leisure.
- Lord Bloodstone has a cloning facility for cloning his deceased lieutenants.
- The Boss Rush is actually a testing facility designed to test Bob's skills, allowing him to build up his confidence so that when he defeats Lord Bloodstone for real, he can unlock the True Final Boss fight against King Quartz.
- Inverted:
- Lord Bloodstone separates Bob's team and hunts them down one at a time. You must defeat the same boss with the unique skills of each of the five members.
- Lord Bloodstone has to defeat every member of Bob's team one by one before reaching Bob's hometown.
- Subverted:
- Lord Bloodstone's lieutenants arrive to challenge Bob to a rematch... only for them to be quickly occupied by Bob's other party members so that he can face Lord Bloodstone right away.
- The lieutenants arrive for a rematch, but this time they join forces and fight completely differently.
- The lieutenants are resurrected and upon seeing Bob immediately fuse with each other, kickstarting the first phase of the final boss fight.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob's friends are defeated, quickly, so he must face Lord Bloodstone's lieutenants anyway.
- The lieutenants simply turned Asteroids Monster, and break up into their original selves after taking damage.
- Zig Zagged: The climax progresses as follows: the first part of Lord Bloodstone's fight, then Drake's fight, then the second part of Lord Bloodstone's fight, then a Multi-Mook Melee, then Lilith and Skullcrusher at the same time, then a brief dungeon-like encounter, then the third part of Lord Bloodstone's fight.
- Parodied:
- While Bob fights the first boss in the Boss Rush, the other bosses are shown waiting in line to challenge Bob.
- It's just one guy, who poorly cosplays as each of the other bosses in sequence.
- Averted: The game does not include a Boss Rush mode.
- Enforced:
- The Boss Rush is added to pad out the game and/or increase replayability.
- It allows the boss engine to be tested without having to worry about the (currently incomplete) level engine (too much).
- Lampshaded:
- "Oh, God, not you guys again!"
- "Sure, you beat us all last time, but that's the LAST time, you hear me?!"
- Invoked: Lord Bloodstone revives his dead lieutenants so that he can use them against Bob once more.
- Exploited: Lord Bloodstone uses the Boss Rush to stall Bob while his Doomsday Device charges.
- Defied: Lord Bloodstone is so enraged that he attacks Bob the moment he sees him, avoiding the Boss Rush.
- Discussed: "I've reached Lord Bloodstone's fortress. All of his lieutenants swore revenge when they retreated, so I should prepare for a rematch."
- Conversed: "There's not a lot of time left in the episode but they still want to show all the villains one more time. It's going to be one battle after another before Bob gets to Lord Bloodstone."
- Implied:
- "Consider yourselves grateful that I assigned you this one last task. I want you all to take that pesky hero down, once and for all."
- Due to Lord Bloodstone awakening an Eldritch Abomination, it's powers start causing copies of the previous bosses to appear. After the third boss, Bob immediately cottons on to the fact that Lord Bloodstone is using the creature's powers to stall for time so that it can awaken properly.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is worn out by the Boss Rush, allowing Lord Bloodstone to easily defeat him or fire his Doomsday Device.
- In a game where boss fights are considered do-or-die affairs in which the player has to give it their all, the semi-final level is often considered That One Level due to it forcing the player to fight every boss again, back to back, with ''only'' their default attack and any healing items they brought with them. Suffice to say, most players get so frustrated that they quit before unlocking the final stage, often considered the Best Boss Ever and a worth reward for their struggles.
- Reconstructed:
- Due to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, Bob is so strong by this point that It only gives Lord Bloodstone a chance to fire his Doomsday Device...Not a guarantee.
- The Boss Rush is considered the highlight of the game... on New Game Plus due to it bringing out the best of the game's combat system and the player no longer being stuck with the limitations they had on the first playthrough.
- Played For Laughs: "You've got to be kidding me. I can't believe Lord Bloodstone got so desperate that he sent you clowns to slow me down. In any case, prepare to die! (again)."
Return to Boss Rush, where you'll challenge my council of advisors one at a time.
