10 Exact Moments That Saved Terrible Video Game Bosses
Fighting Kai Leng wasn't ALL bad.
Given that most action-centric video games will hurl at least a handful of boss fights at the player, it simply isn't possible for all of them to be incredible home-runs.
But even so, it's always disheartening when a boss fight lacks the imagination and creativity of the game's other encounters, and it's clear the developers simply shoved it in as padding or didn't have the time necessary to make it interesting.
Bad boss fights can derail a game's momentum at a crucial moment, though it's also fair to say that sometimes even a truly awful battle can be rescued from the doldrums by an unexpected fleck of brilliance.
Perhaps it's the boss unexpectedly revealing an incredible final form, dying in a totally badass way, or doing something that simply breaks up the monotony otherwise.
Whatever the moment itself, these bosses started off as groan-inducing chores, and yet by the time we finally cut them down, our opinion on the fight drastically changed.
While nobody's going to call most of these boss fights masterpieces or even genuinely great, they are proof perfect that one mesmerising moment is all it takes to turn the tide of opinion...
10. Wrecking Wesker With A Rocket Launcher - Resident Evil 5
As fun as the idea of battling Albert Wesker inside of an active volcano sounds, Resident Evil 5's final boss is ultimately a frustrating slog, boulder punching-insanity aside.
There are a few things that render the final clash intensely annoying: if you're low on ammo you're basically screwed, shooting Wesker's small weak spot is a chore, the QTEs are exhausting, and co-op players are put at a significant disadvantage by some of the hellacious button-mashing required.
Yet your perseverance is rewarded with a final outcome that's most certainly worth all those deaths and restarts. After finally defeating Wesker, a cutscene will see Chris and Sheva rescued via helicopter by Jill and Stone.
But a lava-soaked Wesker makes one final stand, trying to pull the chopper into the lava, until Chris and Sheva both grab tandem rocket launchers and fire them at him.
In glorious slow-motion, we get to see the rockets hit Wesker right in the face, exploding him into meaty, magma-y chunks.
While the boss fight itself was more irritating than fun, at least it gave us a definitive ending for Wesker worthy of his status as the series' all-timer antagonist: eating two rockets while on fire.