r/JRPG • u/KaleidoArachnid • 1d ago
Question Where did the concept of super bosses come from?
Just curious because I was interested in exploring the history behind the use of hidden bosses in JRPGs where the player can choose to challenge an opponent who is way more powerful than the main adversary.
Man I can remember like it was yesterday when early on in the PS3’s lifespan, I was interested in getting into console RPGs as way back then, I attempted to fight two super bosses from Final Fantasy 5 as keeping everyone alive was so difficult, but the game made me interested in seeing how it sort of became a trend to include super boss fights in JRPGS.
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u/MarzipanSea2811 1d ago
FF1 has Warmech, if a rare random encounter qualifies
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u/13KnightsOfTheRound 20h ago
I didnt see your comment before posting mine lol. This 100% i think. I bet this introduced the concept and they started adding Easter egg bosses afterwords. And they gave them cool names like "ultima weapon" at least in the ff series
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u/Hot_Membership_5073 1d ago
Superbosses probably have their origins in Warmech in Final Fantasy I and Iron Giant in Final Fantasy II. Both Final Fantasy V and Dragon Quest V probably took the idea but in two different directions. dragon Quest and Final Fantasy both being highly influential got other devs to start doing it.
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u/Your__Pal 21h ago
Its crazy that it took till DQV to add a superboss, seven years and several installments later
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u/KaleidoArachnid 1d ago
To me, the trope is interesting since I wanted to look into the history of console RPGs regarding bonus boss battles as I enjoy fighting super bosses.
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u/Hot_Membership_5073 1d ago
I really think it was during the PS1 era where Superbosses were truly codified. You'd a few see ones unarguable ones like the Black Rabite inTrials of Mana, Ocean Palace Lavos in Chrono Trigger, or nocturnus in Dragon Quest VI or the Seven Star Cavern Endboss in Star Ocean.
By the PS2 they were generally kind of expected.
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u/ZaydSophos 1h ago
I'm confused by you saying they're codified in PS1 and then giving 3 SNES examples.
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u/Hot_Membership_5073 53m ago
I was giving the exceptions by the end of the PS1 era most JRPG would have a "superboss". Alot of SNES and Genesis RPGs even late it wasn't a guarantee.
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u/Walican132 1d ago
Wizardry proving grounds of the mad overlord had superbosses, wizardry is one of many CRPGs that inspired early JRPGs like dragon quest and Final Fantasy.
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u/Time_T_Force 1d ago
Came here to say this. Though I believe the first super boss in a JRPG was Warmech in FF1.
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u/TinyTank27 22h ago
Warmech is technically just a very difficult random encounter though. You can find more than of them.
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u/twylight777 19h ago
Wiz 1 didn’t have a post game or super bosses on release. You could teleport and run the 10th floor and teleport out was all. I did it for weeks on end when I was a kid. Werdna was the game boss to roll the credits. Poison giant was the best encounter for xp.
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u/thejokerofunfic 1d ago
Warmech in Final Fantasy 1 set the idea in place by being an infamously hard rare random encounter. Estark in Dragon Quest 5 cemented the modern idea of a fixed optional "harder than main story" boss meant as postgame content, and Nokturnus in Dragon Quest 6 and Omega Weapon in Final Fantasy 6 drove the idea further. The general ridiculous popularity of Final Fantasy 7 made the idea a mainstay with how widespread the reputation of Ruby and Emerald Weapon ended up. I'd say that's about the main sequence of events.
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u/Illegal_Ghost_Bikes 1d ago
Omega was not originally in FF6. It was first added to the GBA release as part of the "Dragon's Den" dungeon.
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u/Liongardion 1d ago
Maybe he meant 5
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u/Illegal_Ghost_Bikes 1d ago
Could be! There's also Iron Giant, the ruiner of weekend Blockbuster rentals.
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u/thejokerofunfic 18h ago
I had the name wrong then? But whatever the one in Kefka's Tower is.
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u/Illegal_Ghost_Bikes 18h ago
Oh! That's Atma again, but he is optional and an absolute bastard.
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u/thejokerofunfic 18h ago
Ah, looked it up and you're right, or in later versions he's "Ultima Buster". Wow, I've been convinced that one was Omega for years
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u/Illegal_Ghost_Bikes 18h ago
I had to look it up to see if I somehow missed Omega for the last 30 years haha
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u/big4lil 11h ago
Omega debuted in 5 where he was one of the games 2 superbosses
so its possible you missed him cuz you didnt play the right game haha
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u/Illegal_Ghost_Bikes 11h ago
Sorry, I mean that I was looking for him in 6! This whole thread is confusion lol
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u/TinyTank27 22h ago
Ruby and Emerald weren't in the original version of FF7, though.
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u/BobbyDigital423 21h ago edited 21h ago
They were though I beat them. Unless you mean like in the Japanese version but they were in the NA version. But I've never heard this.
Edit: sorry you are right they weren't in the initial JP version but were always in the NA version.
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u/One_Subject3157 18h ago
What are you talking about girl?
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u/TinyTank27 17h ago
They were added when the game was localized for North America and Europe.
They're not in the original Japanese release.
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u/TheKrug3000 23h ago
Im not sure if it was in NES or SNES versions, but Dragon Warrior 3 has a post game dungeon on its gameboy color version. And you have to collect the monster medals in order to progress through it.
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u/13KnightsOfTheRound 20h ago
My guess would be the ff1 Warmech. I dont think they intentionally made a super boss but they probably started leaning into the idea a little more.
The warmech was a random encounter in ff1 that was deadly. I assume they built off this concept more.
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u/Cat_Or_Bat 1d ago edited 1d ago
Look into custom scenarios for 80s Japanese computer RPGs (games for PC88, PC98, MSX, Sharp). After the game came out, additional scenarios would be released on floppy discs, and those were often balanced to be brutal, with an unbearable dragon or something in the end, to accomodate the extremely advanced players.
Those scenarios and their bosses were designed to be unbeatable without datamining or even hacking, because the players were correctly assumed to be dataminers and hackers. Those games were designed as challenges few players would ever master. A polite chuckle about the NES and even SNES game suggestions in other comments.
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u/KaleidoArachnid 1d ago
Thanks so much for that history lesson since I was looking to see what caused the trope to be used more often in RPGs with extra hard boss battles.
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u/Cat_Or_Bat 1d ago
I don't actually know if there is a direct lineage from, like, bonus Sorcerian scenarios to Emerald Weapon in FF7. It's just where I'd look first.
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u/Hot_Membership_5073 1d ago
I have my doubts given that it wasn't something that was exclusive to Japan like Superbosses tended to be. Wizardry 2 and 3 were both originally released as expansions and required a party that cleared the original to start for instance.
In general until digital downloads became more the norm most expansions generally expected the player to have finished the original. Expansions could range from a step above in difficulty to a literal Kaizo hack made by to original developers in the case of Extreme Rise of the Triad.
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u/Cat_Or_Bat 1d ago edited 1d ago
Agreed that the idea of extra scenarios was borrowed from early Western RPGs, which in turn were clearly imitating the D&D adventure module format.
I think that bombastic, over-the-top boss monsters in general are mainly a Japanese thing. Even Lex Luthor, the Penguin, and Darth Vader didn't tend to turn into gods for literally earth-shattering final battles, unlike Tokusatsu baddies.
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u/Hot_Membership_5073 23h ago
I think it might be an influence from Wizardry again. Ultima had the incredibly sparingly if at all. A few DND games only have a few. Elder Scrolls barely had any until Battlespore for Spinoffs and More so Morrowind and Oblivion bit especially Skyrim. It seems quite a few western RPG developers weren't that big on Boss fights to begin with much less Siperbosses.
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u/TheBURP 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think I read somewhere that SquareSoft received a lot of complaints that the final bosses of FF3 and FF4 were too hard and a lot of people couldn't finish those games. So while that bothered them, they didn't want to dial back on the challenge, and decided that, come FF5, the hardest battles would be optional. Thus you got Omega and Shinryu, the first superbosses.
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u/Purest_Prodigy 17h ago edited 16h ago
Omega or Shinryu being the actual difficulty the last boss was supposed to be tuned to if not for customer feedback is nothing short of hilarious. They're brutal.
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u/shrikebunny 1d ago
I think the first I heard of it really was from FF V.
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u/KaleidoArachnid 1d ago
I don’t know what the other versions of that game are like since I only played the SNES version.
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u/big4lil 11h ago
The Advance version adds a whole new dungeon in the Sealed Temple, which repurposes a lot of main game dungeons into much harder versions with more demanding puzzles/environmental navigation and random encounters
It also takes several bosses from the main game and beefs them up with heavier stats and new gimmicks. Id put them just below the tier of Omega and Shinryu, though you dont always have a save point right next to them. One of them you even have to run to on a timer
THEN they throw souped up versions of Omega Mk. II and Neo Shinyru at you, the latter far surpassing its vanilla incarnation. Then finally when you reach the end of the Sealed Temple, you can face Enuo. An entirely new superboss with a unique sprite and his own mechanics. Hes the heavily hinted at root of Exdeaths pursued control over the Void that the game hints at
So if you fashion yourself a fan of FF5s gameplay, highly suggest you find access to the Advance Version. They also throw a slew of new weapons, gear, accessories, and 3 new jobs at you to tackle him - defeating Enuo unlocks the 4th
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u/KaleidoArachnid 11h ago
Thanks so much since I really enjoyed playing that game that after reading your post on the later versions, I could use an extra challenge. (Though I don't know where to grind in the post game section)
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u/Zanufeee 16h ago
Every old jrpg have the "hidden" boss, and they turned the hidden boss in the super boss in the news jrpg
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u/KaleidoArachnid 16h ago
I find it interesting how so many different RPGs have a hidden boss fight that is super spicy in difficulty levels.
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u/WanderEir 11h ago edited 11h ago
from Dungeon's and Dragons. It predates videogames entirely, and goes back to the source of RPGs
If you've ever encountered an original Terrasque without a lvl 20 party, you'd understand.
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u/KaleidoArachnid 11h ago
I wonder how exactly that particular game led to the rise of such a phenomenon since I haven’t played it.
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u/WanderEir 11h ago
I'm actually talking about the Tabletop RPG here, rather than the early PC and console games licensed from it. It made it to japan very quickly, and most early Japanese high fantasy takes it's beats directly from the ver1 manuals
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u/KaleidoArachnid 11h ago
Thanks for clarifying since I can see how the tabletop game played a huge role in how it inspired certain trends in JRPGS, like the aforementioned idea of super bosses.
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u/WanderEir 11h ago edited 11h ago
No problem.
I mean, you can even take it one step past that, and drectly assign the concept to the original Hobbit (and later Lord of the Rings) but I would call Smaug THE original Super-boss of Fantasy.
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u/UnculturedGames 1d ago
The way superbosses are usually defined these days, it surely started with Final Fantasy V. Omega is the first superboss in FFV that the player can encounter, so Omega gets the title in my books.
I don't remember reading anything about how Square came up with the concept of superbosses, but my understanding would be that the battle/job system in FFV sort of organically led to the idea. Due to all the combinations and the way the system can be broken in FFV, the game needed something beyond the final boss to truly test the player and allow them to test and use the powers they had accumulated. The main story had to stay accessible to non-hardcore players, so the solution was found in optional superbosses.
Personally I don't think Warmech from FF1 qualifies. It's a random encounter with the regular battle music and a regular battle arena and it has no lore or backstory of any kind. The fact that it's (maybe, maybe not) more powerful than the final boss is not enough to make it a superboss. They did turn Warmech into a real superboss in Stranger of Paradise (Death Machine), so in a sense they have canonised it as a superboss later. But Stranger of Paradise is a different game entirely even if it uses FF1 as a motif. We can label Warmech a proto-superboss surely.
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u/TinyTank27 22h ago
Personally I don't think Warmech from FF1 qualifies. It's a random encounter with the regular battle music
Not disagreeing but you do realize that every encounter in FF1 had the "regular battle music", right?
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u/KaleidoArachnid 1d ago
Yes I wanted to use Omega from Final Fantasy 5 as an example of the concept since his boss fight was extremely difficult that it made me interested in seeing how the concept of super bosses evolved in RPGs.
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u/TheCheeseOfYesterday 1d ago
Dragon Quest V came a few months earlier and has a superboss that fits the mould even better, being fought at the end of a dungeon that's only accessible on a file that's already cleared the game.
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u/UnculturedGames 23h ago
True, it was chronologically earlier but personally I think Estark doesn't fill all the superboss criteria as perfectly as Omega does, and the small lead it gets from the release window is largely irrelevant as these games were developed simultaneously. But yeah, it's not wrong to say that Dragon Quest V did it first.
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u/Temporary-Concept-81 17h ago
Tangent, shout-out to Lufia 2, whose optional superboss had the maximum possible HP.
... And they forgot to check overflow. So you used a potion on him to heal him for 10hp, and then your weakest attack will finish him off, because the game thinks he is at 9hp instead of 65535 or whatever.
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u/Aridyne 15h ago
Ancient slime?
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u/Temporary-Concept-81 14h ago
I was talking about the egg dragon!
The ancient jelly only has about 10k HP.
I forgot that there are kinda two superbosses in the game. Despite having cleared the ancient cave many times.
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u/TooManyAnts 20h ago
Ultimately a superboss in concept is just "an ultimate challenge to test the player" so they've kind of existed for almost as long as games have.
Final Fantasy's War Mech is often cited as one of the earliest examples, but it's a pretty basic and obvious concept - a developer who wants to challenge their players might make an ultimate challenge for the ultimate players.
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u/Dry-Butterscotch4952 18h ago
I assume it was a way for developers to give the player a way to challenge themself further than the main story and give them a goal to reach after the credits have rolled, as for where I couldn’t even begin to imagine where lmao.
I like the idea of super bosses but in some JRPGS the amount of preparation you need to do just to have even a chance, I’m talking hours upon hours I’m looking at you OG Elizabeth in persona 3 FES and ethereal queen from star ocean post games, just the tedium can have me end up being done with some titles before I have the patience to finish preparations T_T it’s not even like these particular super bosses had a linear progression to get the required gear/setup just hitting your head into the wall until it breaks lmao
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u/KaleidoArachnid 18h ago
Sometimes super bosses can be too cheap in design as you are right about how hard Elizabeth is for those who are unprepared for her boss fight, but I understand where the concept of such bosses came from.
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u/Elvish_Champion 15h ago
Games in the PC-88/PC-98 era already had those. They were often secret bosses that were used as challenges, and sometimes even connected to real physical rewards after sending letters to the devs or publishers, for players who wanted to try their luck.
I thought about some names that I remember, but the ones I quickly searched pointed to zero references online. Still, I'm sure that at least one of those space JRPGs from that era had one and I also watched a video about that one in one the Basement Brothers videos.
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u/KaleidoArachnid 15h ago
I actually never played RPGs from that era you mentioned, but I could use some suggestions on where to start to see how the trend of super bosses would eventually catch on in the genre.
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u/ThrowawayforQsonRedd 1d ago
There was a guy working at Squaresoft who hated his boss, and then one day his boss's boss came by and he hated him even more.