Amazing Technicolor Battlefield



""GWAHAHA! Great dark hurricane! Seriously, perfect backdrop for an awesome Final Battle! You really sweat the details!""

- Bowser, Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story

You've finally made it. You've beaten down countless Faceless Goons, cashed in your Plot Coupons, trashed the Quirky Miniboss Squad and done away with the Goldfish Poop Gang (and, if you have enough time on your hands, found the Infinity+1 Sword). All that's left is the final showdown with the Big Bad.

You're ready to take him on, but just before you can draw your sword, he snaps his fingers, and all of a sudden your party and the villain are transported to Another Dimension. The villain's castle is gone, likely leaving you only with a floating platform on the edge of the void, or often standing on nothing at all, with various gyrating, pulsating patterns of colours and multi-colored nebulae providing the only background.

There may also be floating asteroids or ruins surrounding you, so that the villain can show how Badass he is by making it look like he destroyed the Earth itself. If the villain has actually succeeded in destroying most of the world, this would seem like the most logical place to fight, especially if the heroes have just completed The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.

Seen mostly in many recent fighting games and fantasy-themed RPGs.

Compare Fight Woosh and Eldritch Location. May be the result of Trippy Finale Syndrome; Sub-Trope of Final Boss New Dimension.

Naturally, Spoilers ahead.

Action Adventure Games

 * The final boss in Brave Fencer Musashi has this.
 * The last battle in The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask. At first Link is transported to a rather serene meadow, but then after talking to the lone boy by the tree wearing Majora's Mask, he suddenly ends up in an altered dimension with a vortex of colors.
 * The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap gives Vaati two Amazing Technicolor Battlefields, the former resembling an acid trip and the latter a platform against a starscape.
 * He had it before that in Four Swords.
 * In a combined Oracle game, one of 's attacks turns the boss room into this for a few seconds. Oh, and reverses your controls.
 * Solatorobo's final boss fight is, which is full of floating squares in various shades of pink and purple.

Action Games

 * In Devil May Cry, before battling Mundus, he and Dante end up in space, for some reason because Mundus creates a universe for the two to fight in, where you proceed to shoot fireballs at him.
 * Space with lots of lightning. You then fall into a pit of lava and continue the battle.
 * In 3, you fight (who is, at the time, a black blob with purple streaks and four legs) in some kind of shallow pool of various shades of purple and pink with a lot of black spots thrown in (Said black spots being the eyes and mouths in the faces of the souls of the damned that make up said pool). And the exploding dolphin things he summons for you to fight to fill the time are also writhing in technicolour energy. Throw in your hero Dante's red coat, and the only trippy colours you're missing are green and yellow.
 * Subverted in Bomberman 64.
 * In Otogi Myth of Demons you fight the Big Bad Michizane in a pocket universe where he has been burning/bathing his body in the light and flames of eight million stars, growing ever more powerful and becoming a Physical God. And in the Sequel you fight the Nine-tailed Fox in the upper atmosphere of the planet, with snow and ice covered chunks of ground floating around.

Beat Em Ups

 * The final battle of Castle Crashers starts on a flying platform with a glowing red crystal encased in a wall of rock in the background, as the fight goes on, the wall of rock slowly gets destroyed until the platform you are on starts FALLING mid-battle. The boss himself gets pretty wacky as well.
 * Asura's Wrath has.

Driving Games

 * Played in the Mario Kart games, as well as F-Zero GX, where the last raceway is a rainbow-colored hologram track high in the night sky.
 * Sonic R, despite not having a boss, has something like this. The final level you unlock is a glowing racetrack apparently made of a rainbow or something.
 * It's more likely it's a racetrack inside/made out of a/the Chaos Emerald/s, considering presence on the racetrack changes the music   It doesn't happen on any other racetrack.
 * The final race in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity takes place inside a black hole on a mobius strip track with a dark stormy psychedelic backdrop.

Fighting Games

 * The final boss battles in all of the games in the Soul Series
 * Prominent in Soul Edge. The second to last battle: at a quiet port in Spain. The final battle: the same port (or chunks of it) drifting through trippy vortex-y space. The name of this arena: "World Atlas Collapsed".
 * Actually, the stage was "Valencia Port - Chaos". "World Atlas Collapsed" was the name of the BGM that accompanied the stage in the original release (its Updated Rerelease, Soul Blade, has the original soundtrack from Soul Edge, an arrangement of said themes, and a new set of tunes with another theme for the stage called "Doubtful Judgement".)
 * The only exception to date is in Soulcalibur II, where Inferno (the soul of the Evil Weapon sword Soul Edge) is fought in a stage called Tartaros. However, the tradeoff is that you're fighting in the traditional depiction of Hell.
 * Guilty Gear XX, in the battle with I-No. The screen will also Fade to Black when she unleashes her Megalomania super special attack, one that you can't use when controlling her...unless you're playing Accent Core as EX I-No. The chances of a non-CPU opponent falling for it are slim, making it kind of a moot point.
 * The fight against Master Hand in Super Smash Bros takes place on a single, flat platform before a swirling void. The fight with him in Melee starts in the same spot ("Final Destination") but then warps out of there, eventually flying over a sun-lit field. The in-game explanation is that as the fight goes on, it transfers to the "real" world.
 * The prototype Final Destination in the first SSB arguably counts as well. You begin the fight in space/a starry-lit sky with tons of shooting stars in the background, which then shifts into what appears the inside of a purple nebula, and finally a blue vortex that becomes more and more unstable as you whittle down Master Hand's HP.
 * Brawl has two Amazing Technicolor Battlefields: the Tabuu fight stage and the new Final Destination.
 * The stage the Tabuu fight takes place on could be considered a Continuity Nod (or perhaps Internal Homage) to the above-mentioned original Master Hand stage - the background is very similar, and the platform looks almost identical, only this time it's made of...glowy...energy...wing-shaped...stuff.
 * Battlefield in Melee also counts.
 * Also to be considered is the battlefield in Melee's Great Maze in Adventure mode, whenever you fight a cloned version of one of the fighters.
 * In Dead or Alive 3, you face off against Omega/Genra in a field surrounded by flames. Throughout the whole battle, the camera is shown at an over-the-shoulder angle, and the screen displays a perpetual motion blur.
 * The final battles in The King of Fighters '97 are pretty bizarre. The fights with Orochi Iori/Orochi Leona has the entire background turning red as a kind of symbolism for their current predicament (The Riot of the Blood), and the battle with the Orochi Team takes place at an altar where the elements change constantly: first, it's covered in purple flames, then a lightning storm rages, and then it's surrounded by magma. When Orochi himself shows up, weirdly coloured shapes and patterns flash by in the background. None of this is explained in-game.
 * In The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match, the stage select lists the latter two stages (which are apparently the same stage) as a "Different Dimension". The former examples are listed as "Bousou" ("Delusion") stages, which lends more credibility to symbolism. Magaki's stage in XI, "The Different Space", is similar in some regards: The floor in the background is alit with blue flames and an odd sphere of light hovers in the middle of the stage. Luckily, that's about it. Bear in mind that Magaki travels via pocket dimension and it makes a little more sense.
 * The final battle with Jivatma in Maximum Impact 2 takes place on a marble floor, surrounded by a starry field. As it only appears after Jivatma snaps his fingers, this is probably an illusion.
 * Orochi, Mukai, Magaki can all create Amazing Technicolor Battlefields with their Desperation Moves (Orochi and Magaki use rays of light and Magaki's attack in particular resembles an acid trip; Mukai attacks with pertification waves of white and grey energy to achieve a similar effect). Igniz's HSDM/MAX 2 in 2002: Unlimited Match encases you in a galaxy, which he then detonates.
 * The final fight with in the first Rival Schools takes place in a multicolor light-show stage called "Illusional Space", created by his hypnotism powers according to the story.
 * Happens in the first Samurai Shodown game, when, after wining one round against Amakusa, he does soemthing that makes the whole stage look destroyed and covered in multicolor flames, and the huge stone in the background opens to reveal a glowing, winged demon. The music also changes greatly and his AI gets somewhat improved. Curiously, after you win, the stage goes back to normal. Another example would be the final battle of Samurai Shodown 2, which takes place in hell and, accordingly, the stage is filled with bizarre visuals.
 * Emerl's multiplayer arena from Sonic Battle pretty much fits; it's a plain black background, and the entire foreground (i.e. the stage itself) is made up of a holographic-neon framework.
 * The stage "The Portal" in Mortal Kombat II has the combatants (sorry, kombatants) fighting on a stony ledge in front of a swirling red void.

Light Gun Games

 * Any fight against any of Anubis' incarnations in Battle Clash or Metal Combat.

MMORP Gs

 * World of Warcraft has a couple of these. The battle against Malygos, the Dragon Aspect of Magic, takes place in the Eye of Eternity, on a big floating rock platform surrounded by stars. During the fight, Malygos uses his breath to destroy the platform, which coincides with the entire background going into brilliant swirly colors. There is a bug where the colors occasionally don't go away once the final combat phase starts, causing severe problems for sensitive players. And Malygos isn't even the Final Boss of the game.
 * The Bonus Boss, Algalon the Observer Raid Destroyer, in Ulduar, is initially encountered in an observatory which turns into a starry outer space background once the fight is engaged. It makes sense, since Algalon is sent by the Titans themselves and looks like a humanoid constellation.
 * Outland in its entirety could arguably be considered this, as the shattered planet floats through the psychedelic colors of the Twisted Nether.
 * The For The Horde! achievement has the fight against Prophet Velen inside the Exodar- which is already one of these (Well, for The Horde anyway- it's a city to the Alliance), but Velen's suped-up priest abilities set off so many particle effects, it goes Up to Eleven.

Platform Games

 * The final battle against Dracula (and in a lot of cases Death as well), in a number of Castlevania games, most notably Symphony of the Night and Curse of Darkness takes place in a dimension that resembles a swirling vortex of colors.
 * Mega Man 2's final boss is an alien thing against a black starry background... The Sigma stages in Mega Man X 5 are probably the trippiest, though.
 * Each final boss in Mega Man Battle Network does this. We go from orange streaks in the first game to the background dissolving, being absorbed by a giant amoeba, swirly cosmic stars and planets, peoples' souls gathering, and finally trippy, psychedelic tye-dye designs in the final game.
 * Those are only notable examples, though, as every single battle takes place in a trippy battlefield.
 * The last boss fight of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction against Emperor Tachyon takes place in an asteroid field on top of a relatively great asteroid. This is after the initial part of the fight is over though.
 * In Dynamite Headdy, when Headdy finally reaches Dark Demon, he whisks the throne room away, transporting himself and Headdy to an area with nothing in it but zooming psychedelically-colored clouds, stars (or something), and invisible ground. This reverts to the throne room when he is defeated.
 * In Kirby Super Star, you fight Marx (who went One-Winged Angel right after his plan is revealed) in an area that consists of a purple ground with stars on it constantly moving (yet you're not affected by it), with small suns peeking out from the distance, all with a space background behind it. It even glows red and green when Marx's health is two-thirds depleted in the Video Game Remake. However, this was one-uped on by the battlefield of said remake's exclusive boss, which is more drug trip induced.
 * Most Kirby final bosses have this. In Kirby's Adventure, you fight Nightmare in the moon, which is a high speed, shiny blue version of the above example. The final part of Kirby's Dreamland 3 takes place on the Hyper Zone, an area consisting of a blue background with black clouds floating everywhere at a high speed (in the Boss Rush instead with high-contrast bright colors) And the place where you fight 02 in Kirby 64 is a red void with barcodes.
 * Most Kirby levels what take place in space have pretty trippy backgrounds as well.
 * The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning rebooted series' game finale took place in an area known as Convexity, which pretty much fit this trope, complete with floating rocks and strange jellyfish-like creatures roaming everywhere. See here.
 * The final level of Jet Set Radio Future is an odd jumble of a structure in a totally trippy world, away from the Tokyo setting of the rest of the game.
 * Non-boss fight example: Sonic Heroes, the haunted mansion level eventually turns into this after you hit a certain switch, with a few platforms floating in the midst of chaos. Once you hit another button...
 * A third Sonic the Hedgehog example: at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, the last level and last boss take place in a swirling, mystical void. Somewhat justified in that the boss actually has bitten a huge chunk out of the fabric of reality, and is simply letting that appetiser settle as he prepares to chow down on time itself. Appropriately enough, the area is called "The End Of The World".
 * Every Beastector battle in Mischief Makers is like this, as well as the battle with Monolith.
 * The Final Boss of Donkey Kong Country Returns.
 * The final battle against Bowser in Super Mario 64 is on a similar platform to the previous two fights, but has some funky lighting effects thrown in that qualify it as this.
 * The final boss battle in Super Mario Galaxy 2 has.
 * During the final battle with Reflux in Rayman 3, the battleground slowly degenerates from being the top of a stone tower, to floating shards of building with a swirly purple void in the background, to an arena bordered by giant space-plants with eyes.
 * The arena of  in Snailiad is very colorful.

Puzzle Games

 * The final level in Mighty Flip Champs takes place in what appears to be outer space. The background scrolls quickly.
 * Night Sky features a bonus world called  that is not mentioned until you beat the game. Once you complete the requirements to unlock it, you find yourself going through levels with bright checkerboard terrain and unnatural suns, Photoshop-filtered photos in the background, and even a level that's entirely composed of  ! The puzzles here are more quirky (and difficult) than the rest of the game.

Real-Time Strategy

 * Last level of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident where you're fighting in subspace.

Role-Playing Games

 * Most Final Fantasy games after that have their climactic battles on Amazing Technicolor Battlefields.
 * Averted in I - III, but only because there was next to no background. Played completely straight in the remakes though.
 * The fight against Zeromus in Final Fantasy IV. The swirling background scrolls behind him and your party as you fight, and his most powerful attack, "Big Bang", will actually reverse the scrolling for a few seconds before dealing massive damage to your party.
 * You get the same deal in Final Fantasy V. One of Neo-Exdeath's attacks even declares "The laws of the universe mean nothing!"
 * Justified in Final Fantasy VI, as Kefka already succeeded in blowing up the world halfway through, and the battlefield you're facing him on is his tower/the ruined sky.
 * Final Fantasy VII also throws in the One-Winged Angel and Ominous Latin Chanting for good measure.
 * Final Fantasy VIII's final castle is bookended by a psychedelic trip forward through time, and then an even trippier journey backwards as
 * Final Fantasy IX has the Amazing Technicolor Battle against Ozma.
 * Final Fantasy X's fight with, while NOT the final boss battle in the game, makes use of a totally cosmic Amazing Technicolor Battlefield. Complete with floaty ruins! The final battle against  is also an example, only in this one you have to
 * Final Fantasy XI expansion Chains of Promathia has a rather neat final battlefield with the characters
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy's stages had some of these.
 * Par for the course in Suikoden games when the final boss is an incarnation of a True Rune. Averted in IV when facing the giant tree from another dimension whose presence is hinted at during the game. You just fight it in the same room where it's been sitting.
 * In Earthbound every battle takes place in a swirling background, from cultists to killer bees to the hippie down the street—but the final boss
 * Mother 3 continues this trend just as well-- The boss battle against the Masked Man is pictured above (the second from the bottom).
 * In Kingdom Hearts the final dungeons and the final bosses of each game are usually in an ethereal, unsettling realm on the edge of reality.
 * Both games seem to be subversions (The PS 2 ones): The first has the final fight in the heart of reality itself, a dark featureless void (barring the Eldritch Abomination Final Boss), and the second (presumably) takes place in the remains of the Very Definitely Final Dungeon....which is a white featureless void.
 * In the first game, the battle against the Behemoth inside Hollow Bastion's Keyhole takes place in a more conventional Amazing Technicolor Battlefield.
 * The DS game then averted it by having the boss fight move between rooms of different worlds for each round, and then back to the place seen just before the battle for the last one.
 * Zig Zagged in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Terra and Aqua have fairly mundane Final Boss arenas.Ventus has his Awakening platform with a stained glass floor and black void.The Final Mix adds another technicolor field for Aqua,not too far from the first game's final world.
 * Dark Cloud's final boss Dark Genie teleports you to a kaleidoscopic purple space, in which you walk on air - transforming into a tentacle monster to make the experience that much more surreal.
 * Chrono Trigger has quite a few. Lavos's first form (which you get to see early in a Hopeless Boss Fight) takes place on a blueish background with ripples everywhere, as does a late-game boss intimately connected with Lavos. Lavos's "middle" form isn't one of these, but his final form takes place on a field of swirling colors, behind which scenes from the world's history can be seen. Altering the scenes is even one of the boss's abilities "Time warp", and it gains a specific attack spell with each different background. But before all of that, the magician Flea gets a starfield background, even though he's merely a mini-boss.
 * The Darkness Beyond Time from Chrono Cross. Slightly before that, the battle with the Dragon God might also count, as he tends to change the background on you from time to time.
 * A variation appears in the original Shadow Hearts; the final battle takes place in space, atop a summoning circle for a godlike alien, projected by a castle/biomechanical space station.
 * Legend of Legaia had a particularly trippy one. The only (deeply unsatisfying) justification given was that the battle took place in the belly of a giant creature.
 * In Tales of Phantasia, the final fight with Dhaos, after he transforms into his true form, takes place in outer space, apparently high above the protagonists' home world.
 * Tales of Symphonia, when you fight Maxwell, the Sin Incarnates, and the Robot version of the Big Bad. Also any fights in the book, Forbidden Anamnesis. And the area before the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, would count as well.
 * Tales of the Abyss, when you've beaten the Big Bad,
 * Tales of Vesperia's final battle starts off on regular stone platform, but gets more like this trope with each form of the boss you defeat.
 * In Tales of Hearts, you fight the final final boss in the Journey to The Center of The Mind of the Big Bad, and the Bonus Boss at the bottom of some sort of warped space.
 * Tales of Eternia has the final boss fight with a background of black kaleidoscopic swirling.
 * The battle against Culex in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, as an homage to Final Fantasy and its use of this trope. Given Culex is traveling the Multiverse and the visual similarity, it may be the same location as the Interdimensional Rift Final Fantasy V.
 * The final battle in Xenosaga Episode I takes place in a multicoloured haze, with no attempt at justification. The battle music also changes from the standard music used in each other battle in the game (including boss battles) to an arguably calmer, less tense piece of music.
 * The fight against Umaril in The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion expansion pack Knights of the Nine. You go through the Final Dungeon, defeat him once, then you fight him again whilst hovering thousands of meters over the Imperial capital.
 * The final battle in Legend of Dragoon takes place in a surreal landscape that changes entirely from time to time as the fight progresses.
 * You can invoke these more or less at will by using Dragoon Specials.
 * All of the final dungeon in Phantasy Star IV, and the final (hard and above) part of the Dark Falz battle in Phantasy Star Online. Somewhat expected in the former, as the final dungeon (which seen from the outside is a hole in the ground visible from space) is
 * Done in the previous Installments also except Phantasy Star 1 in which it was just a black background (in itself unusual, as almost every other fight featured a background), but remade into a space like background in the Remake.
 * The final battle of Baten Kaitos Origins against takes place in a starscape.
 * In Persona 3 and 4 do this whether it's just a regular field enemy or a boss. Persona 3 really takes the cake for the final boss in
 * Dimentio from Super Paper Mario fits this trope to a T. Whenever you fight him, he teleports you to his own 'Dimension D', in which his power becomes 256 times stronger. Regrettably, the player's power is also increased, therefore nullifying the effects.
 * SaGa used this quite a few times throughout the series:
 * In Every Romancing Sa Ga Game, this was applied for the final boss.
 * You fought Saruin in a sky like area surrounded by pillars.
 * Stays the same in the remake, except the Pillars are an important role and the characters and Saruin are on a platform surrounded by them.
 * Death is fought inside some strange type of ruin that mixes a window behind him and the sun above him (Strange given where you are).
 * Schirach is fought on a bunch of pieces of what remains of the inner sanctum of the Shadow Palace.
 * You fight the Seven Heroes in a distorted realm.
 * You fight the Destroyer on a scrolling psuedo background, which also switched to an a drug trip like battlefield if it used its' Total Eclipse technique.
 * This was also applied to some of the final bosses for Saga Frontier.
 * Boss X was fought in a realm of a swirling mass of color, giving it a 3D Glasses like effect. In fact, invoking this trope is pretty much his special power, as when his Mooks are in trouble, he'll send them and the heroes to one of these (apparently called the "4th Dimension Magisphere"), giving said mooks a substantial boost in HP and power.
 * Orlouge had a kaleidoscope-esque background.
 * Genocide Heart could shift the background to any virtual realm it had.
 * Master Ring was fought directly above the reborn Margmel.
 * The Final Boss in Unlimited Saga was fought in outer space on the moon and you were drawn in towards the second moon on the 4th form.
 * The battle against the goddess Myria in Breath of Fire III is a fine example of this, as you are suddenly on a small floating platform and facing a huge serpentine monster.
 * In the PS1 version of RPG Maker, the final battle of the demo Gobli's Adventure has Gobli fighting solo against in a void with colorful rays of light radiating from a single point (with  placed so that it looks like he's in the center of it in the overworld). This same background can be used in one's own game.
 * The final battle of Freelancer takes place in a gigantic Dyson Sphere. We're talking way larger than any planet; Dyson spheres have a radius of about 150 million kilometers. The whole inside of this thing is covered in one big city.
 * Gleefully Lampshaded by Bowser in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, the one game where he's not the final boss, but He also comments that the current final boss has to have good taste to pick such an awesome Amazing Technicolor Battlefield.
 * In .hack GU, the final battle against is this.
 * The final boss in Dubloon takes place the darkness of, with aura of light emanating from the boss.
 * The Final Boss battles of both Ys I and II. The former arena is in a starfield, the latter is surrounded by a sea of flames.
 * Seiken Densetsu 3 has two such battles: Zable-Fahr, the Dragon God of Darkness, and the final Big Bad in both Hawk/Lise and Carlie/Kevin's storylines.
 * In Legend of Mana, the battles against the Lord of Jewels and take place in such a battlefield.
 * In the flash game Epic Battle Fantasy 3, the final battle against Akron is fought in a space-like void. Justified in that.
 * Ar Tonelico 2 has an odd variation in that you cause this to happen. And then the enemy dies to your hypercharged song magic.
 * The final boss in Xenoblade Chronicles is fought as you fly through one of these. In the second phase, he shifts the scenery between this and a beautiful blue sky when he uses certain attacks.

Shoot Em Ups

 * Star Fox had this for its classic trippy final boss fight against Andross, with a swirl of colors. Star Fox 64 continues the tradition with a similar eery background, which actually gets weirder when it becomes less trippy as Andross shows his true form.
 * There was also a secret path in the asteroid belt that sent you throguh a trippy alternate dimension asteroid belt that nobody in game notices.
 * The final battle of Chimera Beast takes place in such an environment, the screen from the intro in fact, located at the center of an atomic explosion.
 * In the battle with the True Final Boss in Hellsinker practicly goes from somewhat confusing to downright Mind Screw. Must be seen to be belived.

Simulation Games

 * Manages to even show up in Pokémon Snap, the photo-safari game. After getting photos of all the other Pokémon, Professor Oak sends you after Mew by launching you on a rather trippy voyage through a strange cosmic realm out of a mid-80s Heart Video.
 * You get in the final mission of Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere. Though if.

Stealth Game

 * The Rectum in Metal Gear Solid 2. Having fought your way through the corridors of a high-tech but vaguely naval-looking, you arrive in a gigantic void with a platform made of what appears to be data. There are no visible walls, the floor is covered in shadows and there's mist above you, and it's difficult to tell whether you're inside the thing or on top of it. This is lampshaded in Substance, where one of the non-canon Snake Tales uses the setting to represent.

Turn-Based Strategy

 * Last part of the last level of Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis.
 * The battle against in Pokémon Stadium has you fighting him in a void filled with various shades of blue/green and purple with a white Poké Ball design in the center of the battlefield.

Web Games

 * Robot Unicorn Attack, ever so much.

Non-Video Games Examples
"Khrima: Because... you can't have a final boss fight... without the psychadelic twirling coloured background!"
 * Space Sheriff Shaider has the Strange Realm.
 * In Adventurers Khrima constructs an elaborate hollow sphere with displays on the inside surface so that the climactic Boss Fight can be fought seemingly suspended in swirling purple stuff.

"Radd: Far out! This system rocks!
 * The background gets progressively destroyed during the battle until the entire sphere has been demolished.
 * In the webcomic Kid Radd, our heroes have entered an RPG game. The battles take place in these, where all you can see is the enemy against the swirls and stripes. The game is based off of Earthbound, of course. Radd and his friends enjoy the trippy feel, for it's a nice change of pace for them; they're more used to platformers.

Itty Bitty: Dig it.

G.I. Guy: Is this a battle screen or a disco?"


 * Not from a video game, but the fight between in The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya takes place on a constantly shifting technicolour background.
 * The final battle(s) against the in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are set in outer space, in a very colorful
 * Another non-game example comes from Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds. Activating the Speed World spell card does this, minus the ever-changing colors. The same is done with the Neo Space card in Yu-Gi-Oh GX, though the entire battlefield is a rainbow-colored shimmering landscape, including the floor.
 * In the movie Labyrinth, Sarah's final showdown with the Goblin King Jareth takes place in a room that looks like it came out of a painting by MC Escher. Toby is there, too, crawling around happily.
 * Zero time from Star Driver fits this trope to a T.