Climax Boss/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A Boss Battle set after a major revelation, capping off the latest plot developments with an epic fight.

  • Straight: Dirk and his friends just retrieved the last Flare Prism, which they've been told hold the key to defeating Emperor Evulz... but surprise! General Jade was just using them as his personal MacGuffin Delivery Service! He overpowers Velvet when she tries to stop him, and takes off with her and the Flare Prisms, leaving behind one of his pet dragons to finish the heroes off. Cue Boss Battle.
  • Exaggerated: Before leaving, he taunts them by revealing that Velvet is actually Emperor Evulz' daughter! And that Blitz was spying on them all along! Oh, and he's not required anymore, so he can just be fried by the dragon too. And General Jade's going to betray Evulz and destroy the world in less than a week! Bye!
  • Justified: General Jade himself turns out to be the major boss battle.
  • Inverted:
    • Anticlimax Boss
    • A boss that comes as a total surprise in the middle of a part of the game where nothing important is happening.
  • Subverted: General Jade's pet dragon, despite being huge and fearsome, goes down in 2 hits.
  • Double Subverted: ... after which, it reveals its true, death-dealing form!
  • Parodied: Jade tries to give his big Drama Bomb speech, but Dirk and his friends keep attacking him and won't let him finish. Finally, he gives up in disgust, summons his dragons so he can escape, and slinks off complaining about his big moment being ruined.
  • Deconstructed: The heroes live in a place where using some poor beast as a cover for an escape is common and so have rigged a balista with trusted friends or mercenaries to kill the dragon when it inevitably shows up. The revelations shock them to the core but the dragon dies with barley a whimper due to proper planning.
  • Reconstructed: General Jade knows about the ballista and sends a Dual Boss dragon to attack that team before they can fire it.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: No major boss fight after a major plot turn.
  • Enforced: "That was a long cutscene. The players are probably itching for a fight."
  • Lampshaded: Jade says offhandedly that, now that Dirk & Co. are off guard due to such a dramatic revelation, its the perfect time to call forth his pet dragon.
  • Invoked: The heroes taunt General Jade into leaving behind his pet dragon so they can cut down his forces before he retreats.
  • Defied: The heroes attack General Jade before he can reveal anything
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: "You see, the problem with climax bosses is that you have to rewatch the cutscene every time you die."
  • Played For Laughs: Jade's speech revealing everything is interrupted by a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere crashing onto the scene. It immediately attacks the heroes; Jade is clearly surprised, but decides to just go with it.
  • Played For Drama: Jade revels in the grief and chaos of his revelations and then drops the Drama Bomb of changing Velvet, the Big Bad's daughter into her primal form: the dragon! Blitz, who was secretly in love with her, refuses to fight and is killed shielding the others.

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