Awesome Bosses/Super Mario Brothers Series

With dozens of video game appearances over the years and a starring role in some of the most enduringly popular games in the history of the medium, it's inevitable that the rotund Italian plumber has fought many awesome bosses in his time.

Platform games

 * Mouser in Super Mario Bros. 2 is a giant, Cool Shades-wearing mouse that throws bombs. 'Nuff said.
 * Also Clawgrip. Giant Enemy Crab!! Dude, it's just awesome!
 * Ludwig von Koopa in Super Mario World. His boss pattern is completely unique; after him, you basically fight harder versions of the other three Koopa Kids.
 * Of course, this pales in comparison to the final battle against Bowser, on the roof of his castle, as he cruises about in his Koopa Klown Kar. At first, he doesn't do much more than float back and forth and throw Mechakoopas down at you, but once you hit him a few times, he flies right into the camera. Game over, right? Nope, he starts raining fire down on your head, and as he swoops back in, Peach pops up from the Kar, screams for help, and throws you a mushroom... only for Bowser to shove her down and resume the fight, with a much more vicious attack pattern. This repeats itself, only for the Klown Kar itself to don a huge angry face and start smashing around on the roof of the castle. Added to this, the Crowning Music of Awesome gets more awesome during each phase.
 * Worth noting that all the boss patterns are somehow matched to the Five-Bad Band; Iggy Koopa and Larry Koopa, the two Evil Geniuses, have the same pattern; Roy Koopa and Morton Koopa Jr., the two Brutes, also have the same pattern; Lemmy Koopa and Wendy O. Koopa, the two Dark Chicks, have the same pattern again; and then Ludwig von Koopa, The Dragon, has a special one. And finally Bowser, the Big Bad, has a completely different pattern again!
 * Giant Baby Bowser in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is pretty awesome. Almost definitely the largest boss in any Mario game. Somewhere in between the face-melting guitars in the background and the fact that the battle consists of balancing on narrow ruined parapets whilst exchanging artillery fire with what is for all practical purposes Godzilla charging toward the screen, you may be quite forgiven for just drowning in awesome.
 * Really, the game was chock-full of bosses that broke the conventions of what bosses in 2D platformers could be at the time. Occasionally it shattered your preconceptions, as seen in the image on the index page (pictured in it, Raphael Raven). It might not look like much, but that was genuinely groundbreaking back in 1995. And incredibly fun too, if you didn't get dizzy...
 * Ironically, Giant Adult Bowser in the DS sequel is nowhere near as awesome.
 * The fight against Moltz the Very Goonie in Yoshi's Island DS is awesome. It's fought in free fall!
 * The final boss of Donkey Kong 94, which was a giant Donkey Kong, had to have been bigger than Giant Baby Bowser. For scale you can see that Mario is only slightly taller than Giant Donkey Kong's eye. (To be fair, Mario is the size of a barrel.)
 * Bowser in Super Mario 64; the fact that he was in 3D for the first time makes this worthy enough for a mention, but Final Bowser especially made you feel like Superman after beating him.
 * King Boo in Super Mario Sunshine. You fight the ghost on a giant roulette wheel that randomly spawns different enemies and items! It's a lot of fun.
 * Or the Glooper Blooper. Pulling off its tentacles is oddly awesome. And you get to fight it at least 3 times.
 * The battle in New Super Mario Bros. where
 * The final battle with Bowser in Super Mario Galaxy, backed up by some of the most epic music ever heard in a Mario game. And Mario finishes by punching Bowser into the center of the universe. More precisely, you punch him into a sun in the center of the universe. From the inside.
 * One word: Megaleg.
 * Fiery Dino Piranha. It's basically the first boss of the game, but on FIRE! It's really cool seeing the Warmup Boss become a That One Boss as well.
 * Kamella is really fun to fight as well. Especially in Deep Dark Galaxy.
 * Kingfin is also a pretty cool boss fight, even though it's underwater.
 * Iggy Koopa in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. For his Castle Battle, he rides on a Chain Chomp (which is something that nobody else does). He also laughs like a total maniac while doing so, firing magic out at you. In fact, he even shoots magic at you while you're going through his castle.
 * Kamek is quite fun, as well. The constantly scrolling/respawning blocks avert Boss Arena Urgency, but having your platforms steadily turned into Goombas and Bob-ombs (in a callback to the Magikoopas' attack in their first appearance in Super Mario World) sure keeps you on your toes!
 * New Super Mario Bros. Wii more than tops the previous game in terms of final battles. It starts out similar to the DS version, complete with the old-school finish. But then.
 * Super Mario Galaxy 2 examples:
 * Gobblegut is pure awesome. Why? Because he's a giant dragon who's trying to eat you! And you fight him on a tiny little planet that he smashes through! Also, playing the fight the way it was meant to be was really sweet.
 * Digga-Leg. Any chance to use the drill power-up is very welcome; getting to fight a boss with it is pure fun.
 * may be short and very easy, but it is also jaw-droppingly epic. It's basically the Doomsday zone IN A MARIO GAME.
 * To elaborate further, after you take him down in the first segment, you're about to take the Grand Star, when he comes up out of nowhere and EATS IT. You then fight him in zero gravity in the center of a black hole. And the finishing blow? Made even more awesome by the fact that he survives.
 * Bowser Jr.'s Boom Bunker. Ascending Bowser Jr.'s tower with the Cloud Flower is truly epic.
 * Super Mario 3D Land has the Final Boss fight with Bowser. Much like  the fight involves The last part of the first half concludes with the usual switch press to send him down into the lava old-school style. Afterwards, you get to climb through the second half of his crumbling castle All the while you get some kickass music playing! A great way to end the main story of this game.

Role-playing games

 * Super Mario RPG was the first Mario game to have some really bizarre boss battles, but the battle against Bundt is probably the most memorable. The awesomeness can be summarized as such: You are battling a two-tiered wedding cake, one that will probably destroy you with ridiculously powerful magic attacks the first few times you fight it. To defeat it, you have to blow out its candles (attack it around 8 times) while it can regenerate one candle with each attack, then battle the bottom tier (Raspberry). On top of all that, when you finally beat Bundt and Raspberry, Booster finishes it off by eating it; bonus points for the scene between he and the Snifits beforehand being a Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Heck, the final battle with Smithy was pretty dang epic as well. At first, it seems straightforward, with him attacking with his hammer and spawning minions. Then, you get to Stage 2 of the fight, he loses the Santa beard, and begins unleashing mighty attacks like Rain of Swords and Rain of Spears that are deadly as hell.
 * The optional fight with Culex is essentially Mario & Co. in a Final Fantasy game. It sounds a little ludicrous (and, okay, it is), but it was sweet. Added to this, Final Fantasy 4's boss battle music is playing, and once you beat Culex, the standard victory music doesn't play; instead, Final Fantasy's own iconic victory music plays, making the fight so much more satisfying.
 * The Final Battle of World 6; you've just taken on the Czar Dragon / Zombone, who's fairly tough already, only to find that he was a Disk One Final Boss and the REAL fight is with the Axem Rangers, who not only look cool and offer up a very nice Team vs Team (as opposed to all the 3 vs 1 fights and the occasional 3 vs 2 Bosses), but offer a Crowning Moment of Funny each when Red responds to their complaints as you knock them out.
 * The battle against General Guy (and his army) in Paper Mario. General Guy is the leader of all of the Shy Guys under Bowser, and he's been assigned to guard one of the Star Spirits. So Mario blasts his way into General Guy's fort, and General Guy sends out his army to fight him. This army comes in a couple of waves, all of which consist entirely of totally unique enemies fought nowhere else, whose attacks are completely different from all the other Shy Guys you've fought. Mario beats them up, and General Guy drives out in a fucking Tank. And starts shooting lasers and bombs and shit at Mario. He's just hard enough to present a challenge without causing controller-biting rages. Also, he was completely unexpected. He basically comes out of nowhere.
 * The final battle with Cackletta in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is simply epic. First off, the second battle with her has been hyped up throughout the latter part of the game. Then, there's the fact that she's easily one of the hardest final bosses in the Mario series, starting off the battle with a blitzkrieg of attacks while you have only 1 HP each. Even if you survive that, she has all kinds of powerful and hard-to-avoid attacks to use on you, and she keeps throwing in new ones as she gets closer to defeat. At the same time, she avoids Fake Difficulty: her attacks can all be avoided once you learn how she signals them. Basically, she is the definitive example of how to create a difficult yet fair Final Boss. Oh, yeah, and you also get Crowning Music of Awesome for the whole thing.
 * The first battle against Cackletta is pretty awesome, too. She doesn't have many attacks - she just clones herself, shoots lightning at you, and has her clones split into bats if you hit them instead of the real Cackletta... oh, and at the start and end of the fight, she generates shadowy holes that she then launches at you, while putting on a Nightmare Face for good measure. Still, the fight is definitely worthy of the Climax Boss title, and it has some sweet music to boot.
 * The battle against the Shadow Queen from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is just... awesome. First, there's the fact that the Shadow Queen is a bit more apocalyptic than other Mario villains, and powerful enough to banish the previous boss with a gesture. Then, once you get her down to roughly half health, she regenerates it all! Finally, when things look their bleakest, and the Queen is demanding that you surrender, the voices of everyone you've helped throughout the entire game start cheering you on, and . Finally on even footing with the boss, pumped up from the cheers of Mario's friends, its time for a final showdown for the fate of the world. EPIC.
 * The end of Chapter 5. After beating Cortez, you free a massive number of captured Toads, go outside with them only to see Lord Crump leading a giant black and spiky pirate ship and is bombing the waters with cannonballs. You then go back and convince Cortez to let you use his ghost ship to fight it. It culminates with an army of X-Nauts fighting a mixed army of blue fire ghosts and Toads launching across at each other between ships in a storm of sprites and you fighting Lord Crump and an X-Naut army in the middle of it.
 * The entirety of Chapter 3. Beating Rawk Hawk to become champion is one of the sweetest feelings in the game.
 * In Partners In Time, Bowser accidentally falls into the past through a Time Hole. In the past, Baby Bowser has previously been heckling you and generally causing trouble-- and when he meets his adult self, things quickly come to a head in a hilarious Dual Boss battle. Neither version of Bowser figures out the identity of the other.
 * Brobot in Super Paper Mario. A shooter battle against the most HP-fueled boss in all the game. Controlled by Luigi. With a kick-ass music.
 * Brobot L-Type. It's a painfully easy fight, sure. However, it has been rebuilt so that it is basically a giant mecha Luigi, has even more kick-ass music, and to top it all off, And it doesn't even stop there.  Possibly the most awesome of crowning moments in the Paper Mario series.
 * Then there's the final battle in Bowser's Inside Story, in which Bowser squares off against a dark, monstrous version of himself. That gets bigger throughout the fight. Does Bowser lose? No. Does he run away? Hell no. How does he finish that fight? By punching the ever-living crap out of it. FINALLY a Crowning Moment for Bowser, who was seriously derailed since Super Star Saga!
 * You don't need to get to the final boss to see a cool boss. How about Bowser's Memory ML? They are 'memory' versions of the Mario Bros. that use old-school references to attack (such as grabbing a Super Star to ram into them, getting a Super Mushroom and hitting blocks, Luigi being chased by a 'memory' Boo, and a couple of others); the best part is, they're used as an 'anti-virus' system for Bowser's brain. It doesn't get any cooler than this.
 * And then there's the time Bowser fights a train. A train that can merge with a hill to form a Humongous Mecha. And that's only halfway into the fight.
 * The battle with Bowser inside the clinic is quite entertaining, especially considering that you're essentially going up against a character you've been playing as for much of the game, and he's using your own special attacks against you. Having to grab onto Starlow to avoid his flames is a good example of how evading attacks has become more sophisticated in this game.
 * Bowser X, the final Bonus Boss of the Gauntlet, is well worthy of being the final challenge due to testing so many of the skills you've learned across the game. He forces you to master nearly every one of the Bros. Attacks rather than rely on spamming one constantly, requires careful planning of equipment and badges to avoid running out of turns, and has a wide variety of powerful, tricky to dodge attacks that constantly put pressure on the player, yet, with practice, can be overcome.
 * To say nothing of the fact that you're fighting Bowser while you're inside Bowser's body.
 * There is nothing more kick-ass then the final Giant Bowser battle against . First off is standard stuff: punch it, deflect attacks, ect. Then, "ACTIVATE BLACKHOLE ENDGAME". It fires a frickin' black hole behind Bowser which slowly gets closer as the battle rages. When it gets him, he's sucked in. Does he die? No. He forces himself out of the blackhole and uses himself as a projectile against the boss! Soon, another blackhole opens behind the boss, trapping it as well. With both trapped, Bowser finishes this up by repediatly firing himself from his blackhole, forcing the boss into its own. Best. Boss. Ever.
 * How 'bout them Partners in Time final bosses, huh? You've made it through a difficult, labyrinthine, and freakish dungeon just to meet with the Shroob Princess. She manages to survive falling out of the sky after the player destroys her mothership, and makes haste in attacking you with her shield-generating, laser-equipped throne, complete with an |optional tripod attachment.
 * Then, after you knock the Shroom Princess out, you accidentally help revive her brutish older sister, who wastes no time in trying to destroy you. She's willing to use her considerable bulk against you and has the Shroobs' fleet of UFOs at her disposal, who assist her in everything from summoning her Shroob-ified Chain-Chomp to restoring her health. And you've got nowhere to run, as you're standing on a platform with the boss, in the middle of a thunderstorm. At least Peach helps you to take out some of those UFOs.
 * ...But the real kicker is the elder sister's second round. She transforms into a bigger, much less humanoid and much more alien entity, which causes Princess Peach to pass out. Not unlike the fight with Crackletta's soul, the player must cause considerable damage to parts of Elder's person before meaningful damage to the boss herself is even possible. Combine this with new attacks that require both quick reflexes and/or active memorization, and you've got yourself a boss that's very tricky to deal with. That's to say nothing of the darker atmosphere that this battle takes place in, established wonderfully by dire, yet supremely sublime battle music.