Awesome Bosses/Tales Series

Whatever the Tales being told, odds are they include awesome bosses.

Tales of Phantasia had the battle over Midgard. For players who had bought a Mecha-Halberd well ahead of time, being demoted to the Gungnir was a bit of a letdown, but flying into the sky riding Pegasus surely wasn't. The whole thing culminates in fighting a hell of a dragon boss in midair. Seeing as how the game was right in the middle of shifting into high gear here, this fight was nothing short of sweet.
- The optional arena fights. Cless enters alone, fighting through a variety of mooks seen over the course of the game, when he's offered a special bonus for just one more fight. If you accept, Cless is healed, he demands, "Start the music!", "Fighting of the Spirit" starts up, and you fight the Wyvern boss one-on-one. It's basically a Palette Swap of the dragon boss described above, but it's Nintendo Hard in the best way possible. The fight tests your fighting prowess to its absolute limit, especially since you can't bring your own items into the arena. It's just a sweet-ass fight between man and dragon, set to amazing music.
Sekundes in Tales of Eternia. Sekundes is the Big Bad of Tales of Phantasia and the series' original Well-Intentioned Extremist Dhaos. He has all of his trademark attacks and the battle has a remixed version of his original theme, Decision. Once Sekundes is below 50%, if you manage to hold him off long enough, Keele or Meredy will recite the incantation for Indignation and hit for 100,000 damage.
- The cameo battle in the arena against Cless and Arche. Some gamers keep a save file just to have the freedom to fight them any time.
- The battle against Rassius. Depending on your skill, the difficulty setting, and your levels, he's either really easy, or a guy who will break you mid-combo and counter with his own that include two unique attacks, and thus will beat the crap out of you, alot. Either way, the guy is so cool that fighting him is awesome in itself.
Tales of Symphonia: Lloyd's Duel Boss battle against Kratos. Kickass music, awesome build-up, and the resolution of the subplot about Kratos being Lloyd's father makes for what's easily the best boss fight in the game.
- Fighting Yggdrasill for the third time at the end of the descent into the Tower of Salvation, when you can- and have to- win. It's quite satisfying to finally be able to fight equally with him and actually be potentially able to withstand his attacks instead of getting one-shotted. The final battle with him in his child form Mithos is not necessarily disappointing, but doesn't have the same impact, although you are essentially beating up the legendary hero who took on all the Summon Spirits by himself.
- The third Sword Dancer. He's got tons of HP, with strong physical and magic attacks (not to mention a crapload of TP). Ya best be of high level, especially if you're playing alone; having other people tends to make battles a lot easier, not to mention way more fun.
- Much earlier on there's the battle against Kvar, whose actions resulted in the death of Lloyd's mother and Kratos' wife and whose defeat is made even more satisfying by Lloyd's line at the end of the battle and the cutscene that follows.
- Remiel. Combine probably the best boss theme in the entire game with the same sort of satisfaction you get from shanking Kvar. Recipe for AWESOME.
Anytime in the series where you can go to an arena for a pleasant Bonus Boss experience, but the one that comes to mind is Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3. The arena there is all five Tales heroes in the game (Cless, Stahn, Rid, Kyle, and Lloyd) in sequence, one-on-two versus your matched pair of Original Generation kids. All of them have their full spread of attacks, outrageous HP, unmatched tenacity, and their signature Hi-Ougis. But the true win comes if you fight your way through all five of them - and meet up with Stahn's sister Lilith, who will proceed to kick your ass by channeling lightning through a frying pan. And if you beat her? You get the ability to dress your heroine up as her and gain all her attacks. Thunder Sword!
- This was a real treat for the hardcore Tales fans, considering she was Dummied Out of the original Tales of Destiny and the remake had not been announced yet.
On a similar note, Tales of the Abyss: Luke and Asch's final duel, with the brilliant Meaning of Birth BGM. The final battle, although it does provide a Crowning Moment of Awesome, actually pales in comparison to the emotional impact of this duel.
- Nebilim in Abyss. She has the best Strike and Fonic artes in the game. She has absurdly high stats. She also sports a plethora of Mystic Artes like Big Bang, Mystic Cage, Rending Saber, and Innocent Shine. She also brings a brand new Mystic Arte that will horrendously slaughter anyone caught in it. Prepare to die over and over and very painfully each time, especially when Nebilim uses Indignation or Fragmented End.

Nebilim: "Know your place! Know what true power is! Fragmented End!"

- - Did we neglect to mention that that she's wearing skin-tight leather and sounds like she's really...excited?
- Cameo team battle in Abyss. You fight Reid, Mint, Philia, and Nanaly. The battle is basically a mirror fight; Reid is the sword-user, Mint is the healer, Philia is the black mage, and Nanaly is a hybrid of melee/caster. The cameo team can and will revive their teammates and use their own Mystic Artes, including Reid's trademark Limit Break, Aurora Wall, which will revive all dead party members and kill anyone caught in it. Aurora Wall is complete with its very own Theme Music Power-Up with a remix of Eternal Mind from Tales of Eternia.

Reid: We will not LOSE!

The Duel Boss battle against Flynn in Tales of Vesperia. Some feel it loses a whole lot of impact due to the whole Fighting Your Friend aspect, rather than the ultimate clash of Flynn's and Yuri's ideals it could have been if they were fighting as enemies. Others find the duel against Flynn to be awesome for precisely that reason. It is the ultimate clash of their ideals, it's just that they're such good friends anyway that that's how they work things out - by beating each other up. Indeed, part of what makes the fight awesome is how they're so casually having a conversation while they're beating each other up.

Yuri: You keep getting better!
Flynn: You do too!
Yuri: Guess life's taught us both a few things.
Flynn: How many years has it been since we fought like this?
Yuri: Uh... we fought in the coliseum. You forget already?
Flynn: Of course not! Just, y'know...a lot of stuff has happened. It's-
Yuri: Yeah?
Flynn: It's just different.
Yuri: Yeah...It feels different for me too.
Flynn: I wonder what it is.
Yuri: Does it matter? I am so gonna kick your ass!
Flynn: No no no no no. I'm gonna kick your ass.
Yuri: Oh, it's on now!

- And if that fight really wasn't good enough, maybe one of the game's many Bonus Bosses are. Specifically, the cameo battle. Tales fans must have been wondering when a character from the Gamecube / PlayStation 2 generation (i.e., Symphonia, Legendia, Abyss) would show up as an extra boss in the main series. Such a character was finally chosen for the boss fight at the end of the optional Labyrinth of Memories. That character? Kratos motherfriggin' Aurion, the only character to ever beat out Leon Magnus in Tales popularity polls (besides Yuri himself, ironically), voiced by Cam Clarke as the original was, using all the same powerful techniques, including the first appearance of his Mystic Arte, Shining Bind, on Western shores. Clashing swords with him is just as awesome as it was back in Symphonia. If not moreso.
- Team battle mode in the coliseum of the Play Station 3 version. Your chosen party of four will fight Schwann and his brigade (Leblanc, Adecor, and Boccos), then Clint, Tison, and Nan plus a helmeted Karol, then all four previous Tales cameos - Barbatos, Shizel, Dhaos, and Kratos...and THEN, just when you think the awesomeness has already overloaded, the rest of your party comes in to fight the four you chose. Each of these battles is like a full-blown fight against a rival adventuring party, especially the last one, for obvious reasons, and the fact that it's all in a row makes you wonder if even the Play Station 3 is powerful enough to contain such epicness!
- The fight with Estelle. Most of the second act has been building up to the The fight with Alexei and when you finally get there, he's not only got Estelle there to torment you, he forces you to fight her! And after he gets what he's after, he leaves everybody except Yuri immobile, and then forces Estelle to try to kill them again, thus leaving you in a one-on-one battle against her, to The Moon and The Shining Star. All signs point to Epic.
Whatever you may feel about the Contested Sequel Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, it's hard to deny how awesome the final boss fight against Richter is. Firstly, the party gets down to business after a relatively short conversation, a welcome reprieve from the villain going "Just Between You and Me" for ten minutes before any action starts; second, as they're fighting him, the party tries to talk some sense into him, reminding him of his Catch Phrase and ideals; third, the boss is on fire; and finally, the battle theme, "The Wilderness of Sadness", is one of the most badass final battle themes ever. Seriously, the game is probably worth it for that song alone.
- And also, the two fights after that if you got the true ending.