15 Most Influential Video Game Boss Battles Of All Time

12. Mike Tyson - Punch Out!!

What It Did First: Put a focus on pattern-recognition, reflexes and timing.

Every game predicated on beating a boss through pattern-recognition and the stringent watching of when animations begin and end, comes from Punch Out. Obviously at the time of 1987, Tyson was on the form of his career, and he wasn't about to license a game and not maintain some real-world level of challenge in-game.

As such, fighting Tyson was an absolute nightmare. With difficulty being a far simpler concept to program than the expansive 3D extravanganzas of code we find today, Nintendo simply ensured there were very specific patterns to landing any hits on Tyson, whilst his attacks would devastate your energy in seconds.

Once you figured it out you could - in theory - make him eat the canvas in the first round, but getting there was nothing short of a Herculean feat of mental strength.