10 Video Game Sub-Bosses With Unexpected Second Phases
Video Game Sub-Bosses With Second Phases You Didn't Expect!
Bosses are meant to represent the ultimate challenge for players in video games; an imposing obstacle that usually takes everything you've learned so far to beat. Sub-bosses, despite not being treated to the same dramatic entrances and epic fight music, can often be just as deadly as the real thing, however - especially when they linger on for more than one phase.
These days, you kind of expect a boss to have at least two different stages to their fights, with their attacks or even physical form changing halfway through. You rarely ever expect that of a game's lesser bosses, so when it does happen, you're more than likely going to be thrown for a loop.
Every been in the position where you see a sub-boss's health slipping below half and think, "yep, I've got this one in the bag", only for it to then change itself up and send your unprepared player splatting against a wall? Of course you have.
And these second phases don't always completely reinvent the encounter, either. But just the fact that the enemy's doing something you never saw coming in the final moments of the fight is often enough to kill you if you get too complacent.
10. Granny Rags - Dishonored (2012)
The villainous characters in Dishonored aren't presented as 'bosses' in the traditional sense. Most of the time, it's the environments they're in that are the real challenge, and killing your target is sometimes as simple as sneaking up behind them and running them through.
Granny Rags, one of the series' most popular characters, is only a villain if you choose to make her one - i.e., if you don't turn a blind eye to the fact she's kidnapping people and boiling them alive.
At the end of Chapter 7, you'll find Granny preparing to kill and cook Slackjaw, the leader of the Bottle Street Gang. If you choose to assassinate her there and then, she'll appear to die...then dissolve into a swarm of plague rats and teleport up to a higher level.
Effectively, this fight has an infinite number of stages, as Granny Rags is unkillable until you sever her immortality by burning a cameo of her in a furnace. After this, she can be taken out in any number of ways, but unless you know what to do going in, you'll have quite a frustrating fight on your hands.