Duel Boss: Difference between revisions

[[File:FrogVsMagus_7591FrogVsMagus 7591.jpg|link=Chrono Trigger|frame|Come, let us finish this charade!]]

Sometimes you have to do this [[Fisticuffs Boss|without your weapons]] as well.

[[Worthy Opponent|Worthy Opponents]]s and [[Blood Knight|Blood Knights]]s are the opponents most likely to try this.

Do not confuse with the (deliberately) similar-sounding [[Dual Boss]]. If the [['''Duel Boss]]''' is also the [[Final Boss]], this trope overlaps with [[In the End You Are on Your Own]].

* The last level of ''[[Onimusha]]: Dawn of Dreams'' has each character facing down each of their personal rivals by themselves with their [[Leitmotif|Leitmotifs]]s playing in the background (save for Jubei, in which case it's a remixed version).

* The [[Bonus Boss|Whip's Memory]]/{{spoiler|Richter Belmont}} in ''[[Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin]]'' is fought with Jonathan alone, without his partner Charlotte, though this loss isn't a very big deal.

* In ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Brawl'', at the end of "The Glacial Peak" stage, [[Pokémon|Lucario]] challenges [[Kirby|Meta Knight]] to a fight, reducing the Ice Climbers into mere bystanders. A unique thing about this particular Duel Boss is that you can choose to play as either Meta Knight or Lucario.

* In ''[[Desperados Wanted Dead Or Alive|Desperados]]'' you control a rag-tag team of foolhardy guys and gals in pursuit of a notorious bandit El Diablo. Each of the Desperados has unique abilities for you to use in appropriate combination and only the leader can climb walls. At the closure of the pursuit El Diablo so conveniently collapses a lift leading to his lair, so the leader is forced to face the villain alone.

* It's traditional for each game in the ''[[Tales (series)]]'' to have at least one [[Duel Boss]]. What's notable is that almost every duel is fought between friendly characters who are not fighting out of malice, but rather as a means to resolve some outstanding issue or difference of opinion. There's often the added subtext of the less experienced fighter trying to surpass the more experienced one.

** ''[[Tales of Eternia]]'' has Reid fight {{spoiler|Cless}}, though it becomes a [[Dual Boss]] on harder difficulties with {{spoiler|Arche}} joining in.

** ''[[Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World|Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World]]'' has Emil fighting {{spoiler|Ratatosk}} ({{spoiler|to assimilate both his personalities into one, and to prove that Emil has surpassed his original self in strength of personality.}})

* It's starting to look like it would be easier to list the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games that ''don't'' use this trope...

** In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', Barret goes up against his former friend Dyne, who has gone [[Ax Crazy]]; rather, he says; "[[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|Stay the hell out of this, Cloud! This is]] ''[[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|my]]'' [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|problem!]]" And about four hours earlier, Cloud takes on Rufus and his mutant dog alone, as the rest of the party escapes from the [[Disc One Final Dungeon|Shinra Tower]]. In [[Wutai]], Yuffie takes on the Wutai Pagoda and her father by herself. At the end of the game, Cloud fights Sephiroth in an [[Unwinnable]] battle... that is, [[Unwinnable]] for [[Single-Stroke Battle|Sephiroth.]]

** In ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'', Zidane duels Amarant (at that point known only as "Red") as a test of strength. He [[Defeat Means Friendship|joins your party afterward]]; earlier, the first Black Waltz and Sealion fight Zidane in a combination of Duel Boss, [[Dual Boss]] and [["Wake -Up Call" Boss]].

** ''[[Final Fantasy X -2]]'' had one sidequest battle where Yuna must fight Rikku and Paine in a one-on-one fight as two separate battles.

** In [[Final Fantasy XIII]], Snow is the only party member to fight his [[Summon Magic|Eidolon]] alone. Since his is the Shiva Sisters, the fight is technically both a [[Duel Boss]] ''and'' a [[Dual Boss]].

* Once you've depleted half of Jonathan Jones's HP in ''[[Super Mario RPG]]: Legend of the Seven Stars'', Johnny [[Turns Red|powers up]] and challenges Mario to one-on-one combat. An easy trick to avoid this duel is to not defeat all of Johnny's [[Flunky Boss|flunkies]]. Later, Dodo briefly forces your second character into a one-on-one during the fight with Valentina.

* This happens to Sora repeatedly in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'': first against {{spoiler|Riku}}, then the [[Rule of Three|third]] Darkside fight, and then two rounds with [[Final Boss|Ansem]]. He also has optional one-on-ones with Hercules, the Ice Titan and Sephiroth (oh, and all the Olympus tournaments have a solo mode).

** It'd be easier to count which bosses ''aren't'' a [[Duel Boss]] in ''[[Birth By Sleep]]'', mostly because the characters are alone 90% of the time.

* Before Yuri can rejoin the party in ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'', he must defeat the to-this-point [[Implacable Man]] Fox Face in single combat.

* ''[[EarthboundEarthBound]]'': Ness must face an entire world in his own mind (and thus by himself), including the requisite [[Duel Boss]], before the shift to the endgame; said [[Duel Boss]] is [[Battle in The Centre of The Mind|the embodiment of the dark side of his mind]].

** You do get help from the Flying Men (though it's impressive if you get any of them to survive long enough to accompany you to the boss point). Of course, these are also part of you, so it's still a duel. Of course, the boss is ALSO a part of your own mind. So technically, while up to three fighters can be involved, only one person is actually doing any fighting.

* ''[[Mother 3]]'' ends with a [[Duel Boss]] battle between Lucas and {{spoiler|the Masked Man}}, who has blasted down the rest of his party with a powerful lightning strike, Lucas being protected from it by his Franklin Badge. While Lucas CAN use [[Healing Hands|healing PSI]] to revive everyone, this just provokes the enemy to ''immediately'' respond with the same lightning attack and strike them down before they can even make a move. When Flint tries to interfere about halfway through, he too gets taken down brutally.

** The [[Dual Boss]] fight against Uzuki and Kariya is also a ''[[Duel Boss]]'' fight because they fight in no way different than the player characters, having a light puck of their own and even ''a [[Limit Break|Fusion Attack]]''. This makes them [[That One Boss|Those Two Bosses]] for most people, especially if you're not over leveled.

* ''[[Beyond Divinity]]'' ends with a duel against {{spoiler|The Death Knight, your NPC partner/companion throughout the entire game}}.

* Almost every ''[[Wild ArmsARMs]]'' game has at least one of these in the course of the main storyline (not including each character's individual prologues where they typically go through a dungeon and a boss fight alone):

** ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 1]]'': Jack vs. Harken and Cecilia vs. Elizabeth; in Alter Code F, {{spoiler|Rudy's optional fight with the Rotting Beast to save Surf Village. Again.}}

** ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 2]]'': Ashley has a couple of solo fights that coincide with going [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Knight Blazer]] - the first against recurring WA monster Trask, the second against {{spoiler|Caina}} (and as Knight Blazer is pretty much the most powerful party member, they go down ''very'' easily); Tim and Kanon each get a duel against Judecca; Ashley gets one against Vinsfeld at the end of Disc One (not forced into Knight Blazer like the others, but he can certainly do it); three party members of your choice get one against the Kuiper Belt roots in the final [[Boss Rush]]; {{spoiler|and Ashley gets one last one against Lord Blazer, although he uses the [[The Power of Friendship]] anyway. [[And This Is For|But]] [[Combined Energy Attack|it's]] [[Crowning Music of Awesome|still]] [[Theme Music Power-Up|totally]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome.]]}}

** ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 3]]'' is actually the exception: aside from each character's prologue boss, the party manages to stick together for the most part so that no one ever fights a boss alone.

** ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 4]]'': Jude vs. Kresnik.

** ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 5]]'': ''Everyone'' but Avril gets one. Dean fights {{spoiler|Nightburn}}, and the remaining four each take on a member of the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] for [[It's Personal|their own reasons]].

* The ''[[Lunar]]'' games have a few instances of this. In ''[[Lunar Silver Star Story Complete|Silver Star Story Complete]]'', Alex faces Tempest in a one-on-one match when the latter attempts to hang a con man for selling fake medicine; before the remake occured, Alex needed to fight two Dragon Angels alone in Althena's Tower. In ''[[Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete|Eternal Blue Complete]]'', Hiro and Jean face Leo and Lunn (respectively) in solo matches, and the final boss of the Epilogue is also a [[Duel Boss]]. In ''Dragon Song'', Jian does this a lot: he has a series of gladiator-style solo fights, takes on the Beast King Zethos alone, and ''tries'' to fight without the rest of the party on several other occasions.

* In ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'', when you confront {{spoiler|Loghain at the Landsmeet}}, regardless of whether you won or not you will end up in a duel with him. You can choose any party member, apart from your dog, for this, or just do it yourself.

** In Dragon Age II, the Arishok will challenge you to a duel, depending on whether or not he respects you (or if Fenris is in the party). You can deny this challenge, in which case both the rest of your party and the rest of the Qunari in the room have you standard massive brawl.

** Back in ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'', this was done twice -- Johnathantwice—Johnathan Jones with Mario (upon defeating his [[Elite Mook|Elite Mooks]]s), and Dodo with whoever's in the middle of your party (during the battle with Valentina).

* Croix versus [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Prince Targana]] in ''[[Ar Tonelicotonelico 2II: (VideoMelody Game)of Metafalica]]'', of the [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself]] type. It's complicated.

* In ''[[Nie RNieR]]'', the player character starts out controlling one character but slowly builds a party of [[True Companions]] over the course of the game. In the endgame, he loses all of them and is forced to fight the [[Final Boss]] {{spoiler|and [[True Final Boss]]}} by himself. As an additional twist of the knife {{spoiler|the [[True Final Boss]] is one of his friends.}}

** In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics a 2A2]]'', after getting {{spoiler|Frimelda}} to join your party they have a special mission of their own where they fight Ghi Yelgi one-on-one.

[[Category:Duel Boss{{PAGENAME}}]]