Awesome Bosses/Pokémon

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Hundreds of collectible monsters, and plenty of awesome bosses along the way.

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• Facing Legendaries, though technically the goal isn't to defeat them...
  • Arguably, Tate and Liza in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. They're the only double-battle Gym Leaders in the main games (rematches in Emerald notwithstanding) and require the player to push their double-battle strategies to their limits - or to come with one on the spot - if they haven't been Level Grinding. The battle may take longer than most battles up to that point (even though there are only two Pokémon), but that's part of the charm of RPGs bosses for some players.
  • The battle against Primal Dialga and the preceding cutscenes in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness were epic win. No arguments.
  • Also in PMD2, battles with Dusknoir seem to be magnets for Crowning Moments.... that is, if you're not busy having a Heroic BSOD from the plot developments.
  • Explorers of Sky adds to this with the final secret mission. Grovyle, Dusknoir, and Celebi versus Primal Dialga as they all slowly disappear due to the timestream repairing itself. It ends with all of them being revived by Arceus and getting to see the first sunrise of their lives. A perfect end to Grovyle's story.
• The final boss encounter in Pokémon Ranger... was just amazing.
• XD001. Becomes an Anticlimax Boss with the Master Ball, and even without the Master Ball it's easy to KO. Just not to catch.
• The Elite Four. Hell, the battle with Cynthia alone. (By the way, the propaganda about Spiritomb having no weaknesses? Not true. If you use Foresight to remove the Ghost-type immunity to Fighting-type moves, it's just as weak against them as any other Dark-type would be.)
  • The "propaganda" is referring to the fact that Spiritomb has no permanent weaknesses, not weaknesses in general. Without using Foresight (which a lot of people run into, as most Pokémon they're using by this point have at least one move that is more deserving of the space), Spiritomb has no weakness.
  • In the competitive environment of Pokémon, gimmick moves like Foresight or Psywave are generally tossed aside for type coverage and setup type moves. Pokemon like Noctowl or Hitmonlee are generally lower tier because they are unable to break out of their niche. To note, while Spiritomb CAN be exposed to a weakness, there is no way any viable Pokémon would use those moves when there are moves for something better. But in that case, it is not to be said that Spiritomb has no weaknesses at all. Two Pokémon are capable of getting super effective damage on a Spititomb: Miltank and Kangaskhan. They come pre-equipped with the Scrappy ability, which means that they can hit Ghost Pokémon regardless of type. That Fighting weakness that Dark Pokemon carry? Free hits. And the beautiful part? Spiritomb has no weaknesses that it can exploit on them.
  • If you do decide to use a Fighting-type with Foresight... have fun with Spiritomb's Psychic attack. But then again, half the fun with the whole Elite Four was seeing what kinds of crazy moves their Pokemon would try to throw at you to compensate for their weaknesses, and adjusting your battle strategy accordingly.
  • Cynthia is generally improbably cool. Not only she has a kickass well-trained team, an awesome battle track, but she is an appealing character as well, walking around and helping the player character because she thinks newbies are cool.
• Steven in Ruby/Sapphire (he apparently abdicated his Champion position to Wallace in Emerald, but he remained in the game as an even stronger Bonus Boss). Although he was the first Final Boss in the series to not have a direct connection to the player (as opposed to your rival in the first generation and the below-mentioned Red in generations two and four), he overcame that disappointment with an incredibly difficult-to-defeat team and a kickass battle theme. He also had a pretty cool, easygoing personality...and an interior as hard as the Steel-types he uses. Pretty badass.
• Miror B. Hard? No. Epic? No. But he's a disco dude with an enormous Poké Ball-colored afro and the most hilarious Pokémon battle music ever. What's not to like?
• The True Final Boss of the second generation and its fourth-generation remakes. You've obtained sixteen badges, and defeated every Gym Leader within your reach. Your team of Mons is fully-evolved and totally ready and pumped to kick some ass. You've literally defeated every other trainer in the two regions. Who could possibly be left to challenge you? Who else but Red, the protagonist of the previous game, who after four generations still wields the highest-leveled Pokémon in the series (even taking his crown back from Platinum's rival in the DS remakes, with his Pikachu getting bumped up to level 88). He's got some of the most famous and traditional Pokémon from the three evolved Kanto starters to Pikachu, Lapras (in the remakes), and Snorlax, the last of which is easily one of the most difficult battles in the game. As if all that wasn't enough, he doesn't even say anything as you fight him, speaking only in ellipses as a callout to every player character's silence. It was an incredible way to tie the first two generations together and bring everything full circle. It speaks volumes of how awesome this fight is when there is absolutely no dialogue or context involved and it still manages to feel epic based solely on the Previous Player Character Cameo.
• To some, HeartGold and SoulSilver have some of the best battles in the series. Red? Check. Blue? Check. Clair and Lance while teamed up with Silver? Check. Giovanni? Check. Too many legendaries to count? Check. Euisine? Sure. Red and Blue in a double battle? Noooooooooooooooooooooo.
• Mewtwo as the final boss of Pokémon Rumble. Every time you clear a rank, you can see his silhouette in the background, and you finally find out why in the Rank S Battle Royale... When he comes out of absolutely nowhere in the middle of your battle with the Legendary Bird Trio, accompanied by an awesome remix of the original wild Pokemon battle theme from Pokemon Red and Blue, as he focuses all of his most powerful attacks on you, while swarms of enemy Pokemon try to destroy you themselves. This is made even more awesome in Advanced Mode, where his silhouette is replaced by those of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina... And he's still the final boss.
• Cyrus in the Distortion World in Platinum. You're at the end of a confusing world where the laws of physics as you knew them have no meaning, led through the puzzles by Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf, and before you get to go capture Giratina, you gotta beat a guy who, if you fail, will destroy existence and remake it in his own image as a world without emotion, thought, or free will. Just that alone should point to how epic the buildup is, and the boss usually doesn't disappoint, especially not with the epic music.
  • The Giratina fight following it also is very awesome, due no doubt to the music and just the fact that you're fighting a powerful being that probably isn't too happy with what Cyrus was doing and probably thinks you're part of it. It's also a pretty tough fighter in its own right and won't give up easily.
• Mewtwo. Generation I. You've gone through the Pokémon League, tackled Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, proved once and for all that you're better than Blue, and now you're at the end of Cerulean Cave. There you see it before you: a single solitary Pokémon. You remember the journal entries from Cinnabar Mansion: the scientists finding Mew and cloning it to make Mewtwo, who proceeded to escape and destroy the laboratory/mansion. This is Mewtwo. Level 70. And you can catch it. The only way to ruin that fight is to use the Master Ball, in which case it's an Anticlimax Boss.
  • Another way to make it an anticlimax boss is to fight him with a Tyranitar in FRLG, allowing you to catch him with baseline Poké Balls with total ease, if a bit of a time investment. As a Dark-type, it is unaffected by Mewtwo's Psychic-type offensive moves and its ability calls constant sandstorms to whittle down Mewtwo's health, which is healed with Recover before he can faint.
    • Then there's the solo battle in Pokémon Stadium. That he challenges you is his way of saying, "Hey. I can beat you and your whole team by myself. Bring it on!" The arena is made of a bunch of transparent crystalline material, and he has music befitting a final boss. And because the balancing issues hadn't been sorted out yet, he stood a pretty good chance of actually wrecking your team all by himself.
• Yes, we all know that beating a Gym Leader is a CMOA, but to get real satisfaction out of the ordeal, try beating them with underleveled Pokémon.
  • Black and White brought it up a little when the music shifts to an upbeat remix of the classic Pokémon theme when the leader is on his/her last mon.
• N and his father, the leader of Team Plasma from Pokémon Black and White, play things a lot more differently than the other main Pokémon games. They are fought RIGHT after defeating the Elite Four. You first fight or capture the version-exclusive legendary, then you fight N with that Pokémon as his first Pokémon, along with five more Pokémon, then you fight six more Pokémon from Ghetsis. You fight the Champion after rematching with the Elite Four.
  • Add the fact that he is in a very short list of villains who have actually obtained a Legendary Pokémon and use it against you. To date, only one other villain has done it: Greevil in Pokémon XD, with Shadow Lugia.
    • And the Kanto Legendary Bird Trio.
    • And then the Legendary Beasts of Johto were divided amongst the lesser Cipher Admins in Colosseum.
  • Ghetsis and more specifically, his HYDREIGON. That meta-gaming jerk has a mid-50s Hydreigon (the game mechanics have it evolving at 64), plus it's loaded down with SURF, FIRE BLAST, FOCUS BLAST, and... Dragon Pulse?... Anyway, so yeah. It'll just about oneshot ANYTHING it can line up a type weakness against. So your list of types to fight it with are slim. Best option is a PURE Fighting-type, as it is a Dark / Dragon. Barring that, Water (Samurott and/or Jellicent) works, too.
• Some of the later battles against Norman in Emerald can feel like this. It's not just the thrill you get after taking out his skill-swapping Slaking, which received a negative ability just to keep them balanced. It's what he says after you beat him: "<Your Name Here>... What is your dream? My dream... Hahaha...It has already come true, actually." To summarize: it's not just beating him, it's that instead of resenting that his child has defeated him multiple times, he's genuinely happy for you.
• Fighting Maxie and Tabitha at the same time alongside Steven in Pokemon Emerald was pretty cool, and the music only made it better.