Boss Banter

""""

- GlaDOS, Portal

When a Boss talks to you during combat. Since they usually manage to say anything really important in the introductory cutscene, Boss Banter typically consists mainly of the Boss taunting or mocking the hero, possibly in an attempt to either guile you into a foolish mode of attack or to subtly hint at his weak point. Or, inexplicably, he'll just tell you what attack he's about to use, but that's another trope.

Related to Enemy Chatter, which is random chatter from Bosses and Mooks alike, and is not necessarily directed at the player character.

Action Games

 * Nearly every boss in Devil May Cry does this, especially Vergil ("Don't get cocky", "You are not worthy as my opponent"). When being beaten, he stops this, instead switching to "Now I'm motivated!" and "You are going down!"
 * Allen from Metal Slug.
 * C'mon, boy! You're mincemeat!
 * Most Treasure games involving voice acting ALWAYS feature this, in several of their boss battles. Naturally, it tends to be unusual.
 * In Dead Rising 2 each boss has a ton of battle quotes; the problem is that even if the boss is That One Boss, a fairly long boss or very talkative you're likely to only hear a quarter of their battle quotes.
 * This can be a great motivation for killing one boss in particular who won't stop making really bad cooking puns.
 * Most of the bosses in No More Heroes do this.
 * All sapient bosses in Darksiders, plus most Giant Mooks and Elite Mooks.

Action Adventure Games

 * A number of Bosses in Psychonauts.
 * The final boss of Beyond Good and Evil taunts you in alien language. While it's never translated, it's obvious from context that it's something along the lines of "We Can Rule Together!"
 * Various bosses in Iji will either laugh or make comments. In one case, Iosa banters towards a character assisting you.
 * Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time features this with the final boss. During the fight both the prince and talk to each other. The fight ends once the full run of the speech has been said. However, if you stop attacking, the speech stops, so you can't just casually dodge until it's over.
 * Tron Evolution gives as . However,.
 * In The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, if you do very badly against Ghirahim, he will take your sword and chastise you for your poor technique.

Adventure Games

 * The Silent from Lux Pain. Something is one the top screen in the beginning, near the middle, and near the end for each Silent (though each one says different things). The first and second thing are similar and are related to evilness, while the last one is about it dying. In addition, the Original silents say a bunch of stuff after you win.

Beat Em Ups

 * Every single boss, as well as every gang member, in River City Ransom has something snide to say to you as you pummel each other into currency.
 * The X-Men arcade game has some of the hammiest one-liners delivered by Magneto. "Kill you!" "X-chicken!" "You are DEAD!"

Fighting Games

 * Street Fighter IV has "Rival Battles", where you fight with someone who is somehow tied into the story of your currently selected character. As the fight goes on, voice clips of the two taunting each other will play, sometimes with new clips replacing their usual Super or Ultra startup/finisher soundbites.
 * Similarly in Blaz Blue, characters have altered voice clips when they fight characters deeply involved in their story. These clips vary greatly in nature from each matchup, from the disturbing exchanges between Jin and Ragna, to the hilarious interactions between the ambigious Covert Pervert Taokaka and Litchi Boobie Lady, not to mention the almost heartbreakingly tragic exchanges when Litchi fights her fellow ex-scientist and former colleague, Arakune, who lost both his body and mind when he started drawing knowledge from the Boundrary.
 * Nu's voice clips change A LOT when she fights Ragna the Bloodedge.
 * In the second game, so do
 * Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat will refrain from the pummeling just to inform the player that "You will never win".

First-Person Shooter

 * In Jedi Academy the enemies have combat taunts. The dark Force-users are more common to spam their comments as the lesser mooks tend to die much more quickly.
 * SHODAN from System Shock talks to you constantly. Constantly. For a self-proclaimed cybernetic goddess, she sure spends a lot of time repeatedly asserting how superior to you she is...
 * from Return to Castle Wolfenstein constantly brags about how he'll crush you like an insect, wrap you in your own guts and establish the reign of terror over the world. One can add, if he catches you.
 * Earlier in the game, Deathshead provides a sort of this - he's gloating in the control room while you're fighting  below.

Hack and Slash
""AH, FRESH MEAT.""
 * Most Bosses in Diablo II say a specific phrase when you first meet them. As do three bosses in Diablo I (the Butcher, the Archbishop, and Diablo himself)

MMORPGs

 * Most bosses in World of Warcraft nowadays. "Fools! Kill the one in the dress!". Especially the dear, old Kael'thas Sunstrider in Tempest Keep. He's like he can't do nothing but talk, talk and talk.
 * World of Warcraft has overdone this in some places, in the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons it's sometimes hard to find a boss that will shut up for more than 10 seconds. However this crosses often into Calling Your Attacks which can be useful, or even Bond One-Liner, which can be pretty awesome.
 * Common in The Lord of the Rings Online. At one point, Mordirith gives his entire origin story while his minions fight the players.
 * Runescape: While 99% of the game's dialouge is read-only, several of the bosses of daemonheim have voiced banter. Some of it is very well done, too.
 * Laughing Mad Blink, in particular. He says the most ridiculous things when you fight him.
 * Aptly-named Yk'Lagor the Thunderous was the first boss with voiced dialogue. ALL of his banter is in the form of Thundering One-liners:
 * Foxbat in Champions Online is rather notorious for this, including lines like "Admit it, you're just here for my autograph!" and "Would you classify yourself as a creepy stalker, or just an obsessed fan?"
 * City of Heroes not only features this frequently, but also allows it as part of the player-created content Architect System. Bosses can react as their health drops during the battle. Depending on the boss, this can be epic, hilarious, or annoying.

Platform Games
""You think you can defeat me!" "I will crush your tiny bones!""
 * Conkers Bad Fur Day features a musical example of this trope (and other, less savory tropes as well) in the form of the Great Mighty Poo.
 * Dr. Robotnik / Eggman in the Sonic the Hedgehog is fond of taunting Sonic during their battles (at least, in Sonic Adventure and onward). "Get a load of Get a load of Get a load of THIS!" All of which are heard so often that they received Memetic Mutation.
 * TAKE THIS,TAKE THIS!!! TAKE THIS, TAKE THIS!!! CHAAAARGE!!!
 * YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE MERRIER!
 * YOU LITTLE! YOU LITTLE!
 * TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PACE!
 * Even though the exact line in question wasn't delivered by the boss, Shadow the Hedgehog features a rare example where the in-battle banter is highly important to the plot:
 * Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has the little back-and-forth that includes the iconic line: "WHAT IS A MAN? A MISERABLE LITTLE PILE OF SECRETS!"
 * Mostly Drac goes for the constant Evil Laugh, but mixes it up with Punctuated Pounding:
 * The Guy from I Wanna Be the Guy, after he goes One-Winged Angel.

"Chorus: Who are you, Mastermind? Mastermind: Who am I? Come get me and find out!"
 * Not to forget the
 * Gruntilda in Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie. Particularly in Tooie, where she asks you quiz questions during the final battle (and goes easier on you if you get them right).
 * Most bosses in the Mega Man games with voice acting exhibit this behavior.
 * Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground! Burn!
 * The platformer Magician Lord is infamous for (among other things) the ridiculous taunts made by the Big Bad before each fight. "Be dead down here." "C'mon nice guy. But your life is mine very soon." "I'm destined just to die." etc.
 * The Ratchet and Clank series often has this, especially with the Final Bosses.
 * Some of the bosses in the Sly Cooper series do this. Particularly noteworthy is Clockwerk ranting about why he's so superior to the Cooper Clan in that eerie, lifeless mechanical voice. He doesn't even shut up after crashing into the lava.
 * In Scooby Doo: Night of a Hundred Frights, Redbeard's Ghost, of course, talks like a pirate. And the Mastermind comments on the lyrics of his own boss song.


 * In the 2009 version of Bionic Commando, the creators play around with this abit. If you fight one boss enough times by losing, the pre battle banter lampshades a Mondegreen. Then there's the penultimate boss, who rants to you inbetween attacks for awhile. Lose to him enough times, and you get a "skip dialogue" button which manifests as Spencer telling the boss to shut the fuck up and fight.

Puzzle Games

 * GLaDOS in Portal spends the entire final confrontation telling that you're a bad person, that things will be much worse if you destroy her, making petty insults and being bitter and resentful. For that matter, the whole game consists mostly of Boss Banter, with GLaDOS slowly dropping the facade of being a helpful AI.
 * in Portal 2 spends the entire Final Boss fight talking. And talking. And talking. And when he's not talking, the defective cores are, just like in the first game, only with a lot more dialogue this time. Since the battle is a Timed Mission, you will fail it if you try to listen to everything they have to say.
 * Some demons in Nethack. Examples: "I first mistook thee for a statue, when I regarded thy head of stone." "Go play leapfrog with a herd of unicorns!"
 * Every character does this in Punch-Out!! Wii, corresponding to their moves.

Real Time Strategy

 * Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour has a "challenge campaign" that puts the player up against the various subfactions in the game. The leaders of these subfactions taunt the players and react to situations on the battlefield. "Oh, look! I have a nuke all ready for you!"
 * Some of these taunts seem to play randomly, though. This troper once witnessed a futile attack of around three helicopters against the troper's heavy anti-air defenses be accompanied by the enemy General noting that "Fools rush in, General."

Role-Playing Games
"Zagi: I'm going to kill you, and carve your name into my blood!
 * Jack of Blades in Fable.
 * As of the the fourth generation games of Pokémon, important bosses, such as Gym Leaders, will taunt the player based on the context of the battle, such as when they send out their final Mon.
 * This is present in most of the 3D Tales (series) games, the majority of it tending to occur at the beginning of the battle.
 * Tales of Vesperia has several bosses in which they have an entire conversation with the party as the boss fight is going on, where is where we get this gem from:

Yuri: Yeah... that's pretty disgusting."

"Lloyd: How can your world be ideal when you've caused countless innocent people to suffer?
 * A particularly awesome example is the first segment of the Final Boss in Tales of Symphonia, with Lloyd and  trading Kirk Summations and Hannibal Lectures respectively over the din of the battle.
 * Human. Don't tell me what's right and wrong."

": What do you know?! My methods are my business! I don't need you telling me what to do!"
 * Not to mention the sequel, where the party gives Kirk Summations to, who politely tells them to shut up.

"Axel: BURN, BABY!"
 * Tales of the Abyss ramps this up by giving nearly every human boss a conversation sequence at the start of the fight...which changes slightly depending on which party members you're using. The Final Boss even changes more depending on who's leading the party.
 * Tales of Xillia has this, though with the addition of stylish animated character portraits that appear as each character speaks their lines.
 * Some of the bosses in the Paper Mario series chat with you during their battles, but the most prominent of these is probably Rawk Hawk--a grandstanding Professional Battler who is in it for the show.
 * And, in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Fawful chats at you throughout his entire fight. This would probably get annoying, if Fawful wasn't made of concentrated funny and doom mustard.
 * Oddly enough, he doesn't say a single word when you fight him in Bowser's Inside Story, though he does engage in some Evil Laughing.
 * The end bosses in Baldurs Gate tend to do this. Not as much as some, and it mostly involves shouting battle-cries, but still...
 * Common in Persona 3 and Persona 4, though in the former it only appears when fighting Strega,, in The Answer; the other bosses, being Shadows, don't speak human languages. In the latter, every plotline boss does it.
 * Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V has a tendency to talk more than what he actually fights... frequently giving excuses for him running away and
 * Final Fantasy V loves this, it's by no means just Gilgamesh.
 * "Ouch! Seafood soup!" "Meatheads? I hate 'em!"
 * Final Fantasy X is a rare example where the player can respond to the taunts. During certain fights, a "Talk" option appears on some characters' combat menus. Using it wastes a turn but grants the character a rather large stat boost.
 * Final Fantasy X 2's Ormi: Feel like taking a spin?! *throws shield*
 * FULFILL YOUR FOCUS AND GAIN ETERNAL LIFE. DESTROY THE WORLD THAT DESPISES YOU!
 * IGNORANT SLAVES OF PULSE! DOES ETERNITY NOT ENTICE YOU? THEN YOU CHOOSE THE PATH...OF OBLIVION!
 * In Paper Mario, most of the Boss Banter follows a progression, and they tend to only say something when entering a new phase and when you discover a weakness. Although the Koopa Bros. alternate between two units of chatter while they're hidden in a lame Bowser disguise, and later, when they're out of it, say "Woah! We're going over!" when Mario throws them off-balance.
 * Although the Final Bosses of the series are the real banterers. Especially the  who when she becomes invincible, will taunt you for 3 turns before   IN A MARIO GAME. Wow...
 * Its not three turns, you need to attack each of her parts (2 hands, main body) once, otherwise you're stuck in that fight with no way to win.
 * Dagoth-Ur in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind spends a lot of time during the Final Battle explaining why you cannot kill him: he is a god. It turns out, you really can't kill him.
 * Dagoth-Ur also starts the penultimate battle outside of the by having a civil Q&A session with the protagonist. And then he lets the player make the first blow.
 * All of the Ash Vampires actually have unique dialogue, limited though it is, but you have to Calm them before speaking to them. Dagoth Endus will offer you a drink of Ancient Dagoth Brandy before your fight him and, if you accept, also lets you have the first strike. Dagoth Uthol even has unique dialogue that lets you pass him without contest.
 * This is a tradition in the MOTHER trilogy. Each of the game's final bosses interrupt the action every turn to say something, and then attack.
 * EarthBound Zero has
 * Earthbound has Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness... Giygas says other stuff, too, none of it any less disturbing.
 * Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack... Nom, Nom, Nom, Nom, Nom... Pants, Pants, Pants, Pants, Pants...
 * Mother 3 has
 * Kingdom Hearts bosses do this a lot. Ursula, for instance, warns you to "Get ready for this!" while Hades invites you to "Feel the heat!"
 * "Dance, water, dance!"
 * All of the Organization XIII bosses have some pretty cool lines during their battles.
 * And then of course we have Quinton Flynn's wonderful work with Axel, which, to sum all of his lines up:

""Sora... are you certain you can trust Riku?" "Riku... are you sure you're not jealous of Sora?""
 * The Final Boss of Kingdom Hearts II has some, uh, memorable banter. First, for those of you who haven't played the games: It is, among other things, the story of two boys who are close friends and, before the game started, rivals, who, after making some horrific mistakes and serious sacrifices spend three games and the better part of two in-verse years trying to fix what went wrong, find each other, and go home, their rivalry abandoned because dammit there are more important things than one-upping each other and through it all, never losing trust in each other. And all that is if you don't believe they're romantically inclined towards each other. The final boss's taunts?

""Descend.... Heartless Angel." "Give in to the dark!""
 * And who could ever forget Sephiroth in this game too?

And if you stray from him without fighting for too long..."What's wrong? Are you afraid?" ""Welcome oblivion!" "It's over.""
 * The final boss of the original Kingdom Hearts. Due in part to both awesome dialogue and an awesome voice actor, some of the game's most memorable lines are spoken by the Big Bad during the battle with him.
 * Saix says some of the most badass lines while trying to pummel you.
 * The Duel Boss againts Rikunort in the first game. Some generic lines made cool by his Voice of the Legion and just how cool the boss fight is.

"Azar Javed: Did anyone warn you about pissing upwind? Geralt: You talk too much. Azar Javed: You just pissed in a tornado!"
 * The Witcher is filled with banter between Geralt and named enemies. The most is with Azar and the Professor because of their history of chase and false finishes, with banter before, after and throughout combats.

"Kai Leng: You're still slow, Shepard!
 * Drakengard 2 does this often. Of particular note is Yaha, who's banter consists partially of him HITTING ON the male characters. He's also male himself, so...
 * In Destiny Of An Emperor, Sima Shi and Sima Zhao keep taunting the heroes as you beat the stuffing out of them.
 * The World Ends With You has most of the major bosses engage in this. Most of Ensemble Darkhorse Sho Minamimoto's more memetastic lines show up in this format.
 * GRAAAAH! GRAAAAH! DON'T LET LIMITS SLOW YOU! GYAAAH!! HEHEHEHEHEH...ENJOY THE MOMENT! OPEN UP YOUR WORLD!
 * Several boss battles in the Knights of the Old Republic games will pause partway through so you can have a brief conversation with the boss. Sometimes, you can convince them to stop fighting you, maybe even join your party, but when you fight Darth Malak, the best possible result is that he admits that he made a mistake going down the dark path before he dies. All the other results just end up with him taunting you, and most of these conversations start out as taunting and Volleying Insults.
 * Harbinger's battle quotes during Mass Effect 2: “This hurts you”, “You cannot resist”, “This is what you face”, “Face your annihilation”, “You are bacteria”, “You are shortsighted”, “Pitiful", “We will end you”, “We are the beginning, you are the end”, “I sense your weakness”, “Your attacks are primitive”, “You cannot sustain your attack”, “Your attack is an insult”, “You are no longer relevant”, “My attacks will tear you apart.”
 * And, of course, we can't forget the most imp--ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.
 * Kai Leng in Mass Effect 3 tries this out during the final battle with him. It backfires.

Shepard: I'm only slow because I'm not running! You ran at ! You ran on !

Kai Leng: Sh...shut up!"


 * Xenosaga bosses frequently taunt, curse, or threaten you both in person and over the comm.
 * Especially notable in the second game's Final Boss, where  spends most of the battle simply taunting Jr. Justified because.
 * Many Resonance Of Fate bosses find deadly combat to be the best time to exposit their political and religious philosophies.
 * All the human bosses in Eternal Sonata will throw one-liners at you when the battle begins, before calling their attacks, and once their turn is over. Special credit goes for the last two bosses, who spend longer talking that performing their attacks.
 * Digital Devil Saga has this, but one of the bonus bosses Gui-Xian gets special mention because the dragon and the tortoise occasionally argue amongst themselves.

Shoot Em Ups

 * And, of course, Ultimate Crab Battle. "You cannot stand between me... and my destiny!" and so forth.
 * Most bosses in Star Fox 64 talk during the battle. Surprisingly, Andross himself only talks in cutscenes and even contacts you during the final level to taunt you, but during the battle he only laughs. Other games in the series are less keen on this but it still happens. The Star Wolf team is especially prone to do this.
 * Pigma in particular has some pretty cruel banter, such as "Too bad Dad's not here to see ya FAIL!" (referencing how he helped conspire to kill him).
 * Andross actually does speak during your battle with him. It's easy to miss because it isn't uttered over the comm channel like all other speech in the game. When Andross is stunned and rubbing his eyes, listen carefully and you can make out the phrase: "Gaa! You fool!" It is in the same voice he laughs/screams with.
 * Every major battle in the Touhou series of danmaku shooters, at least in the Windows series, and in the series' two fighters is preceded and concluded by dialogue between the protagonist and the boss. Some levels even feature an exchange with the boss in the middle of the level.
 * Ten Desires has just taken it further, with one spellcard of the final boss being her calling for assistance from her allies. The 3 (2 allies come to help) have dialogue boxes above their sprites, and the battle is not interrupted whatsoever.
 * In Kid Icarus Uprising, they don't just talk throughout the boss fights, but the entire level too. In a World of Ham, this can be pretty entertaining - and distracting on higher difficulties.

Stealth-Based Games

 * Metal Gear Solid loves this trope - from Ocelot comparing Snake (favorable or not depending on how long you take) to Big Boss, while The Fury will scream insults at the player when he gets hit, etc.
 * In the first Hitman game, the drug dealer (read: a living Shout-Out to Scarface) will interrupt the battle for each and every bullet he gets hit with... even when you're using a machine-gun.

Third-Person Shooter
"Wesker: The human race requires judgment. Chris: And you're going to judge us? Do you get all your ideas from comic book villains?"
 * Just about every boss in John Woo's Stranglehold will do this during your battle with them.
 * In Resident Evil 5, every boss-fight with Wesker involves him taunting you and/or explaining his evil plan in great detail. Towards the end, Chris finally had enough...

"YOU WILL ALL BE MADE ONE!"
 * In Resident Evil 4 the boss battle with Salazar is the ONLY boss battle (besides the final boss) to talk with you. And it can be used very tactically as he only talks for 3 reasons, besides his introductory You will suffer like Ashley did. 1, whenever you shoot the Verdugo, he mocks you saying things like That tickles, 2 whenever he grabs with you with the tentacle, and the best of all, when he uses his one hit ko move. Which is very useful since you can tell when to dodge.
 * Dead Space 2:


 * In Gears of War 3,

Turn-Based Strategy

 * Quite a few bosses in Fire Emblem will say something along these lines when you first attack them, or when a specific character attacks them.
 * Super Robot Wars in all of its incarnations does this. Oftentimes this only happens when the current boss you're up against has some relation to the person that's attacking them, but the final boss of a game almost always has a few lines of conversation with any conceivable member of the group.
 * And that's just the field dialogue. Banter also accompanies literally every attack delivered, received, dodged, or intercepted. (Warning: Video contains spoilers in the above-mentioned variety of Boss Banter.) And even that is sometimes preceded by unique one-liners when fighting bosses. Super Robot Wars really loves this trope.
 * Final Fantasy Tactics - Quite a few story battles consist of Ramza arguing with his opponents, trading dialogue (and/or banter) at various (scripted) points of said battle, turning these fights into an exercise in Shut UP, Hannibal. If you take along the right special characters to the right story battles, they've got some optional dialogue too.
 * Every boss in Vanguard Bandits, and even a few grunts will have lines once you attack them. Faulkner takes the top position, as he regularly taunts the party without being attacked.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * Sasha from In Famous keeps talking about being in love with you and being angry about you loving another woman while you fight her.
 * Kessler too. Made funnier