The idea of the 'Boss Battle' was first implemented in DND, a dungeon crawling role-playing game based on the popular board game Dungeons & Dragons. It was released on the PLATO System in 1974 and featured the epic 'Gold Dragon' as your last encounter. The original idea of a boss was to provide the player with a challenge greater than that of the levels basic enemies, and as long as it was a bit bigger and a bit stronger than the usual grunts, that was all the boxes ticked. That kind of encounter may have satisfied gamers 40 years ago, but now players need a little more stimulation to keep them entertained. A final enemy now has to not only test the players stats, but their skills, reactions, logic and patience. The final skirmish has to present you with a true challenge of wits and prowess, not just an enemy that needs a few more bullets to kill than the others. The PS2 was a fantastic console for this sort of thing, as it was around in an era where developers werent afraid to experiment. The first Playstation provided an initial new generation of gaming, before the second gave us a range of titles the likes of which had never been seen before.
