When thinking of memorable bosses, both conventional and unconventional baddies come to mind. I think the term “boss” can be loosely applied to many characters in video games (and to people whose name you can’t remember…if you are “that guy”), and I intend to exercise that liberty here.

Please note: MAJOR SPOILERS for Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Borderlands, Far Cry 3, House of the Dead: Overkill, and Super Mario Bros. 2.

I had wanted to play Animal Crossing New Leaf so badly that I actually bought at 3DS to do so. I wasn’t disappointed. In just over a year, I had clocked in over 700 hours. My town looked amazing. My Main Street was glorious.

But that flingin’ flangin’ museum.

For anyone unfamiliar, the museum is only “complete” after you have donated one of each possible specimen to it in the following categories: fossils, bugs, fish, and art.

Certain bugs and fish can only be caught at certain times of the year. Some can only be caught at certain times of the day or night. Since I have never once been wiling to “time travel” in the game (basically you mess with the settings to manually change the date and time), I painstakingly tuned in to this real-time game to do everything straight up.

I completed the fossils first. Hooray! The next to be completed was the bug section. Super hooray! The next was the fish section. Super duper hooray! As for the art…

I still need one more painting and one more statue.

Once I finally obtain those two things, my museum will be complete and I can finally claim that elusive museum statue for my house. (As a side note, when I tried to obtain an image of that museum statue reward, I could literally find none online. None. Let that be an indication of it’s exclusivity.)

So as you see, a year and a half later (and 700+ hours), that museum is the most elusive final boss yet.

Recognize what that weird thing is?

Nope?

Neither did anyone who played the game. That’s the good ol’ messy crab dude from the end of Borderlands.

Oh wait, I’m sorry. It’s the “Vault.”

Good one, Gearbox.

The first time I played through the game, I was expecting (as was…just about everyone else who played it) a glorious vault full of loot. So when I finally got to the end of the game and found this…thing, I did a double-take and was like, “I’m sorry; what now?”

You watch a grody cutscene, and suddenly you see this “thing” plop out of the side of a cliff or something, and it becomes immediately apparent that you must kill it. It’s the final boss.

Surprise!

It wasn’t a difficult boss, and when it was finally slain, I was expecting merry piles of loot to come flying out of it’s crappy moist-crab self. But no no no. Why would they do that?

It ralphed up a sad little collection of items and that was that.

I remember looking over at my partner, he looking at me, and both of us making the same lackluster sound.

It was the weirdest and lamest boss to any game I can recall playing in the last long while. But it sure was memorable.

Vaas from Far Cry 3 needs no introduction. He announces himself.

I had never played a game where the villain was as ruthless, and gleefully so. From the start of the game, you know his act isn’t an act, and he won’t think twice about killing anyone.

But I suppose it was the drug-fueled “boss fight” that most stuck with me. The feeling that you almost weren’t in control at all. The visual feast of the experience. The music. It all came together for a moment I won’t soon forget.

And I was glad when that jerk was dead.

Oh boy.

This one is so weird, I don’t even know how I’m going to recount it without putting someone off their Wheaties.

I first played House of the Dead: Overkill on the Wii, and I knew it was done in the Grindhouse style, but I wasn’t prepared for how over the top it was going to be (at the time it had the record for the game with the word “f*ck” in it more than any other).

It did quite well in the rail-shooter vein (it was perfectly suited to the Wiimote), and I was having a great time. And then my partner and I got to the final boss.

Mother.

We fought our way through, beat her, and that was all fine and well. It was what happened after that I won’t ever forget.

After she lays defeated, the Warden Clement Darling is so distraught that he proclaims he wants to “go home.”

And he proceeds to crawl back up into his mother’s womb.

Complete with awful squishy noises.

I remember not being able to take my eyes off the screen no matter how much I wanted to. I literally couldn’t believe what I was seeing (or hearing). I was even more surprised that it was on the Wii.

Again, my partner and I played this game together, and we both looked at each other like, “Oh what the f*ck was that?!”

Truly. What the f*ck was that?

Super Mario Bros. 2 was the game for me. It’s what really turned me from, “I like games” to “I love games.” I was obsessed with it. And when I got to the final boss, I wasn’t let down.

Wart looks like he just needs a hug and for someone to reprimand him for his choice of accessories. But he’s a jerk and he’s trying to kill you so you have no choice but to take him out.

I can not only recall the music from this encounter vividly, but the wonderful “WHONNNKKK” sound he would make when one of those vegetables hit home. It was like some digital goose had been squeezed in a weird place.

When you finally defeated him, you were treated to the end of the game and the knowledge that it had all been a dream. But you also got to see the “credits” of each of the enemies in the game. I loved it.

So my friends, there you have it. Five of the bosses that stick out in my memory as remarkable in one way, shape, or form.

I do love video games. They’re so wonderfully weird.

P.S.

When I started playing Destiny, one of the first things I noticed was the sound that the Harpy makes when it is defeated. It’s remarkably similar to the “WHONNNKKK” sound Wart makes. It would make me amused each time, and it only got better one day when I was fighting Atheon and one of the fireteam members referred to it as a “Spaghetti Monster.” When I asked why, he said, “Because it has NOODLES coming out of it!”

Quite true.