15 Most Influential Video Game Boss Battles Of All Time

2. Bowser - Super Mario Bros.

What It Did First: Established the threatening size and multiple design aspects of every future battle.

Whilst another game actually pioneered the very idea of a boss being a one-on-one encounter with a foe far stronger than yourself, chances are the earliest bosses you'll remember are of the Bowser or Doctor Robotnik/Eggman kind.

As such, Shigeru Miyamoto's idea of a gigantic lizard-like turtle-thing standing in your way at the close of Super Mario Bros. etched itself into the minds of multiple generations going forward. Bowser's design had angular spikes protruding from his back and head, along with an assortment of screen-filling moves that further set in stone what a boss should 'do' or 'be'.

Every ostentatious design choice for every boss afterwards owes something to Bowser and the childlike impressions those designers had when coming up against the character, an influence you can see to this day in something like the brutally hard Dark Souls series.