Many battles against aquatic video game bosses place the player on a platform or more above a body of water, or riding in a boat or similar vehicle, while the boss moves around beneath the water itself. Usually, the boss is either in the water and attacks from there, jumps out of the water at the player from under the floor or, in rare occasions, is the water.
In some games, the player character can swim, but those games take measures to ensure they're not in the water for long. This often occurs by having Grimy Water that damages them if they enter it, threatening to push them offscreen as the platform and/or enemy moves away without them, depleting an energy or Oxygen Meter whenever they touch the water, or what-have-you.
Subtrope of Boss Battle. If both the player and the boss are on ships or similar vehicles, this may overlap with Epic Ship-on-Ship Action.
Examples
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Action-Adventure
- Bayonetta: The boss battle against Sapientia has Bayonetta surfing on a piece of scrap metal in the middle of the ocean while Sapientia tries to attack from underneath her. During the last section of the fight, the battle is fought in a giant whirlpool.
- Castle Crashers has the river rapids level where you surf on top of logs, rafts or even corpses against a giant Catfish.
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow has an unusual case in the form of Rahab, a large fish of some type. The area where you fight him is a pool, and there are no platforms for your hero to stand upon(he instead floats on the surface of the water), but the boss will frequently leap out of the water to attack in one of three ways. Defeating it nets you the ability to move around underwater.
- La-Mulana: Bahamut is of the boat-based variety, with the annoying caveat that you can fall out of the boat (which causes a lot of damage).
- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver: During the Rahab fight, Raziel jumps between eight pillars while Rahab swims around, shoots water at him or tries to bite him.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Morpha is fought in a room holding a large pool of water, with a raised edge and four platforms in the pool itself. Link spends the battle standing on these raised areas, while Morpha lurks in the water and uses its hydrokinesis to turn it into tentacles with which to attack Link. Morpha is invulnerable while underwater, so Link must use the Longshot to pull it on dry land and attack it while it crawls back into the pool.
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: The Omuai are a trio of minibosses fought in a room containing a network of flooded pits. They dive in and out of these to shoot projectiles at Link, and only become vulnerable when they pop out to take a shot.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The Twilight Bloat is fought in Lake Hylia, where it alternates between flying and rapidly swimming in the water while trying to ram into the floating raft on which Wolf Link is standing, and can only be attacked in the moment where it rises above the raft.
- The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: Gleeok is fought in a flooded chamber in the Temple of Ice, where the dragon remains half-submerged and only leaves its necks and heads above water. Link fights it while standing on an emerged platform, resulting in a very back-and-forth fight as Link can't leave his perch and Gleeok is a Stationary Boss that doesn't leave its spot, and the battle mostly consists of reflecting Gleeok's Breath Weapons back at it, and later of using a grappling hook to pull the heads across to where Link can reach them, while trying to ride it out its periodic flooding of the platform.
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Phytops is an octopus-like monster found lurking inside a large flooded pit. As Link can only stand on the edge of this pit and thus can't reach the creature, while Phytops has free reign to strike with its tentacles and spit globs of poison across the gap, he must wait for Phytops to attack, grab a thorn from its tentacles, and throw it at its eye. Doing this often enough will stun the beast and cause it slump on the edge of the pit, allowing Link to attack it directly before Phytops recovers and retreats.
- Overlord has a large sea serpent that sticks its head out of the water and attacks you while you're on land.
- Shadow of the Colossus has two water-based colossi battles, one against an electric eel and the other against a colossus who walks around a lake. The first one is unique in that the boss itself is the only platform in the arena, and it tends to drag you underwater, too.
MMORPG
- World of Warcraft:
- Maws is summoned out in the sea. The raid composition determines whether he's fought at the water's surface or underneath
- The Lurker Below in Serpentshrine Cavern, must be fished out of a pool of water (it's a gigantic sea monster sort of thing) to initiate the battle. The raid's preparation determines whether the water around it is filled with flesheating bastardly fish (bad) or boiling (not as bad), so it's generally advised to stay on the solid ring around the boss' pool.
Platform Game
- Bug has the boss of Splot!, a swamp worm. Bug rides a platform floating on the water while the boss lunges out of the water or takes potshots at him. Once the boss takes enough damage, the platform sinks, and Bug has to Goomba Springboard on the boss' body onto an even smaller platform. Notably, it's the toughest boss in the game since getting hit will cause knockback, resulting in Bug falling into the water and drowning instantly, Mercy Invincibility be damned.
- Contra: Shattered Soldier: The Jinmen-Gyo (Man-Faced Fish) from the fourth stage attacks by jumping out of the water, trying to eat the player from one of three floating platforms, as well as sucking the platforms into his mouth in a bid to swallow the player alive.
- Donkey Kong:
- Diddy Kong Racing features a boss race against an octopus.
- Donkey Kong 64 has the player, as Lanky Kong, motor around in a boat while navigating a maze of electrified bouys during the battle with a giant pufferfish.
- Freedom Planet: The boss battle at the end of Aqua Tunnel has Milla on a raft drifting down the toxic waters of a water treatment plant as a giant anglerfish pursues and attacks her.
- Ghosts 'n Goblins: The second boss of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the Kraken, is fought from a tiny raft.
- Kirby Super Star: Fatty Whale attacks either by bouncing atop the floating platform Kirby's standing on or by swimming around said platform while attack.
- Metroid:
- Metroid Fusion:
- Serris jumps out of the water frequently, its entire attack pattern revolves around snaking in and out of the water while you either try and dodge from one of several platforms or hang on an overhead ladder on the ceiling and try and avoid from there.
- The second B.O.X fight — this time you're on an overhead ladder across the ceiling while it stays in the water, electrifying it, while occasionally jumping at you and shooting missiles.
- Nettori just kind of stands there above the water, but the water has deadly plants growing in there which eat you alive and make it difficult to get out of the water if you fall into it.
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: The Chykka larva swims around in toxic water while you stand on a platform. You can attack it while it's swimming, though it's very hard to hit. He does occasionally jump out of the water and also occasionally jump onto onto the platform partially to try to eat you.
- Metroid Fusion:
- Rocket Knight Adventures: In the second part of Stage 1, Sparkster flies through the air with his Jet Pack as a robotic Segmented Serpent lurks in the water below, occasionally jumping out of the water to try to attack Sparkster.
- Sonic The Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has two bosses like this, neither of which actually involve water:
- Hill Top Zone's Flying Eggman Mech jumps up from a lake of lava, spits a fireball, then dives back in post attack. Hitting it doesn't hurt you, but hitting the lava does
- Oil Ocean's Flying Eggman Mech 2.0 also comes up from below periodically, after spending a while attacking with a spiked claw and a laser gun from under the oil. You can actually jump into the oil and as long as you keep jumping, you won't sink to your death.
- Sonic Adventure: Chaos 4. Because it sometimes takes a while for him to pop out of the swamp, he can on occasion be one of the longest boss fights in the game.
- Sonic Colors: Planet Wisp's Rotatotron in the DS version is above water while you are too, but its major weak spots are underwater, only reachable by use of the drill wisp.
- Sonic Mania: The mini-boss of Hydrocity Zone Act 1 involves Sonic piloting the original Act 2 boss machine, attempting to suck up Eggman into the propeller blades as Eggman did to him in Sonic 3.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has two bosses like this, neither of which actually involve water:
Role-Playing Game
- Mega Man Legends: MegaMan fights against Tron's Frog Bot at Lake Jynn while he's riding in a boat he got from Wily's (no relation to the Mad Scientist of the original series).
Shoot 'em Up
- Einhänder has Salamander, the amphibious stingray submarine with a pair of arms. It attacks you from the water during the first half of the fight... after which it gets out of the water to attack you while hanging from two bars above..
Stealth-Based Game
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Vamp swims through the water in the room, but only attacks you when above it.
Survival Horror
- Resident Evil 4: Del Lago is fought as it drags the hero around a lake in a small boat. Fortunately, the boat conatins an unlimited supply of harpoons.
Third-Person Shooter
- Gears of War 2 has the Leviathan, a Kraken/piranha mix that tries to drag your boat down and then eat it whole.
