Video Game Bosses That Are Floating Heads/Things With Disembodied Hands

[UberScout]

Sooooo, StarFox 64, which I had on the N64 as a kid, introduced me to my very first encounter with a video game's final boss. I found myself flying through endless corridor after corridor until I ended up in a greenish-yellow void containing Andross, an ape's head with two floating hands.

He wasn't the only one to be such an entity. Other games I played had this trope too...and it fascinated me, for some reason.

Now, someone using the PICO-8 fantasy computer has made this: https://bridgs.itch.io/just-one-boss

It's called "Just One Boss" and....it's exactly what it sounds like. The whole game is a single boss battle against a magician hand mirror with two telepathic hands, using magician-themed attacks against you. Your only means of attack is by collecting glowing tiles that add to his damage. It's hard to do.

[insert topic continuing by itself]

 

[AGXStarseed]

Destroy All Humans! 3: Path of the Furon's final boss was a giant head too.

 

[Mr Allen]

Remember the end of level Boss in Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES? As I recall that was a Clown thing with no hands or legs.

 

[Misery]

Remember the end of level Boss in Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES? As I recall that was a Clown thing with no hands or legs.

Nah, the only bosses SMB3 had were the Koopa Kids (who were no bigger than Mario) and Bowser himself.

SMW on the SNES introduced the Clown Car, Bowser's flying vehicle thing. That's probably what you're thinking of.


Anyway, I've got an example of this particular boss type:

Easily one of my favorite gameboy games. A very challenging (and very LONG) platformer based on the original DK from a zillion years ago. When you reach the end of DK's tower, you fight him in a relatively normal boss fight (he's the boss of every area), he falls off, and then you get this scene in the next area.

Really loved that game, way back when. It was definitely one of those "Nintendo Hard" games. Back when people werent as scared of challenge.

 

[Isadoorian]

MINOR SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY SPOILERS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

SMO (Super Mario Odyssey) has a Boss that's designed in a Mayan-esque style that's a head w/ 2 hands, named Knucklotec; I'm 100% sure it's a Claymation styled Boss too judging from the movement/animation of his hands when you fight him

 

[GrownupGirl]

I remember a boss from Splatterhouse, a game I played on the Turbografix-16 years ago, which was a floating generic demon head with several zombie heads floating around it. I didn't know until years later, however, that it was a censored boss of both the original Japanese and the arcade version, which was zombie heads floating around an inverted cross.
It's still hard to believe I played such a creepy, gory game back then. It had a rather unnerving effect on me, especially the protagonist's boss fight with his girlfriend.

But that's nothing compared to the third game where if Rick doesn't rescue Jennifer in a certain amount of time she gets eaten alive by a boreworm, and her face is just...

 

[AGXStarseed]

Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash

One of the levels involves you travelling to Cairo, with the effects of the crystal meteors at the start of the game causing Cairo to have ripped completely from the Earth and with some of the crystals penetrating into the Sphinx.
This essentially causes the Sphinx to 'come to life' and serves as a boss at the end of the Cairo level - firing a beam from its floating head and using its hands to smash, throw boulders and shoot crystals at the player.

https://www.tohokingdom.com/images/vg/gu_ds/sphinx_screen.png

 

[Misery]

MINOR SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY SPOILERS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

SMO (Super Mario Odyssey) has a Boss that's designed in a Mayan-esque style that's a head w/ 2 hands, named Knucklotec; I'm 100% sure it's a Claymation styled Boss too judging from the movement/animation of his hands when you fight him

Reminds me of this:

One of the easier ones in the game, but that was a bit that you got to early.

 

[Misery]

Ooh, I've got a few more:

Recent game, difficulty is very extreme. Skip to 1:45 to see the bit with the hands, the boss's second form. Normally, this is a very long fight, but in this instance the player has an abnormally powerful build going, so the second form goes down fast. It has more attacks than the one in the video, but it didnt bother to use them.

And another from the same game. The hands arent "disembodied" but it's the same concept. Again, there are attacks not shown in the video... I'm kinda baffled it didnt use those, it ALWAYS uses all of them whenever I fight it. Normally, this is a much longer fight. The final attack is incredibly intimidating but not actually all that hard to deal with.

And finally ,this one is from The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. It's one of three ultra-long fights in the game, having about a squillion seperate phases to fight through. I love the music for this fight.

 

[onlything]

Not exactly a NES game but the topic really reminded me of the final boss from Alice Madness Returns.

[Spoilers]

 

[The mighty Boosh]

also bongo bongo - sort of like Andross

 

[UberScout]

I. Freaking. Hated. That. Boss.