Some boss battles are a test of players mettle, pitting them against untold horrors or challenges the likes of which they’ve never seen before. Others, however, are little more than minor distractions, so easy to overcome that they barely register so much as a twitch from the player and can’t be bothered to last more than a second. Today, we’re covering the latter with the easiest boss battles of all time.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
The Electrocutioner, Batman: Arkham Origins
If we’re being blunt, Batman: Arkham Origins scraped the bottom of the barrel to construct its rogue gallery of baddies Batman would face.
Sure, there were mainstays like Joker and Bane thrown in to give it some star power, but others like Black Mask or Copperhead were either so old or so obscure of picks that they didn’t seem like they were worth remembering and would go down with nary a swat from the Dark Knight.
None of them encapsulated this feeling so perfectly as The Electrocutioner, a villain whose only claim to memorability was in how easily players could defeat him.
After he delivers the necessary “I will kill the Batman” villain monologue, he charges straight at the player and triggers the usual counter prompt. Upon doing so, players send him straight into the ground and then prepare themselves for when he gets back up.
He doesn’t though; one hit is all it takes to beat this boss. It would almost be frustrating if the game didn’t quickly move onto some at least passable challenges, and his defeat does give Batman one of his cooler gadgets from the game, but it’s still hard not to be in awe at how pathetically easy this boss fight is.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Lord Lucien, Fable 2
It all comes down to this. After years of planning, fighting and surviving, the player has finally come face to face with the man who killed his sister: Lord Lucien, a wealthy ruler of Albion who used his power and influence to resurrect ancient magics capable of reshaping the world.
He stands on the precipice of godhood and will soon be able to enact his plan if the player doesn’t stop him first.
As epic as this setup is, it really only describes the first few minute of this boss battle.
After the player arrives with an artifact capable of draining Lucien’s energy, the “battle” consists of a decision by the player to listen to his justification of why he did it, or shoot him dead in the chest and watch him plummet to his death at the bottom of the cavernous Spire.
Granted, it’s a nice thematic end to the story and serves as a stark reminder of how the hero’s revenge won’t undo everything that’s happened, but at the same time, it’s kind of shocking an epic hero’s journey ends with a single bullet.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Bob the Goldfish, Earthworm Jim
On its face, the premise of this boss battle is pretty strange. After making your way through a level as an earthworm equipped with a humanoid space suit, you come across a fish bowl that emerges from the protective casing of a column.
In it is a very angry goldfish who scowls at the player relentlessly. The word “Fight” flashes across the screen as if it’s building to some massive confrontation and then… Earthworm Jim eats the gold fish.
There’s no build-up, no explanation as to why this spunky goldfish thought he could take on a sentient worm with little more than his ire, just a sudden and abrupt end to it before you even know what happened.
Granted, the game does offer plenty of other boss fights in the game, some of which do pose a serious threat.
That said, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that, like this one, another boss fight will prove itself to be so outstandingly easy you’re not sure if it even needed to happen.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
343 Guilty Spark, Halo 3
Up until the climax of the original trilogy, 343 Guilty Spark acts as a quirky companion to Master Chief and his friends in their quest to save the universe from an interstellar conflict with the Covenant or widespread contamination by the flood.
Near the end of the third game though, he turns on the Chief and Johnson when they attempt to destroy a reconstructed Halo ring, which Guilty Spark claims as his own and necessary to his existence.
He delivers a fatal blow to Johnson before turning his blaster on the Chief, and a tense battle with a former friend begins.
Well, thematically tense at least.
Gameplay wise, this boss battle takes little more than the ability to strafe and charge a Spartan Laser at the same time. After a few blasts from it, Guilty Spark goes down for good, his destructive ambitions over almost as soon as they started.
A shame for fans of the character, but an even bigger shame for those who expected a tense shootout on par with other fights in the title.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Glass Joe, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
While the final boss of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is legendary for its difficulty, its first boss is legendary for how easy he is to overcome.
A frail and battered Frenchman with an abysmal record and more than a few hints of head trauma, Glass Joe is a nearly-assured first victory for players to build their career off of.
Not only do all of his attacks have clear tells and long wind-ups, but he frequently leaves his guard down for players to hammer him with a flurry of blows whenever they see fit.
On rare occasions, he doesn’t even make it past the first round, floored by the player in minutes and unable to recover in time to avoid a technical knock out.
Probably the only saving grace to how easy he is is that it makes defeating him over again after Tyson annihilates you quick and easy, and a nice confidence booster for the challenges to come.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Colonel Autumn, Fallout 3
After surviving all of the ravenous mutants, psychotic cyborgs and and deranged raiders the Capital Wasteland could throw at them, most Fallout 3 players were expecting something substantial from the main game’s final boss fight.
After all, other missions had pitted them against devious mad scientists who trapped them in a virtual world and a Super Mutant Behemoth that stood a hundred feet high, and the lead up to the confrontation involved an all-out assault with an experimental, nuke-lobbing mech known as Liberty Prime.
Unfortunately, what they got was a pathetically weak errand boy to the Enclave known as Colonel Autumn.
Joined by two other Enclave soldiers, he attempts to stop the player from purifying the Wasteland’s water supply with the full force of his pistol… and is promptly torn apart by whatever end-game weaponry players have gotten their hands on over the course of their 50+ hour play through.
Sure, it’s a nice realization of a player power fantasy, but for the last fight players will ever have in the main game, it’s exceedingly quick and takes next to no effort.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Professor Nakayama, Borderlands 2
In a series as irreverent as Borderlands, it’s no surprise there’s a boss that is intentionally made into an easily defeated laughing stock, albeit with a grim twist.
In the second game’s Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt DLC, the Hyperion Scientist acts as the primary antagonist and is responsible for a rash of wildly mutated beasts wreaking havoc across the planet.
Once players finally track the man down, he psyches himself up for an intense shootout from atop a high balcony and gets ready to come down on the player with a fury the likes of which they’ve never seen before.
He then trips on the hologram stairs leading down to the player, lands on his neck several times before reaching the bottom, and dies shortly after.
It’s a grim end for the character, and a hell of an anticlimax after everything players are subjected to over the course of the DLC, but it’s still good for a laugh and frees up room in the player’s schedule to take on more intimidating enemies.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Papu Papu, Crash Bandicoot
Though it’s better known for some of its more punishing levels, Crash Bandicoot’s first game presented players with one boss that was anything but difficult to defeat.
A lumbering chief of the local populace on an island, Papu Papu attempts to drive the player out of his hut with downward swings of a two-handed staff, flattening the Bandicoot into an orange smear if he isn’t quick enough.
That’s a big if though, as each swing is choreographed in a way that the player will know exactly when its coming.
With some basic strafing to either side, they can get into position to bounce off of his head, dazing him before he goes into an equally predictable spin attack.
Rinse and repeat three times, and the boss goes down after barely a minute and will probably barely register in the player’s memory thanks to the more memorably difficult confrontations with other bosses.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Gary Smith, Bully
Though not spoken of as often in today’s gaming circles, Bully was an entertaining, adolescent take on Rockstar’s open world Grand Theft Auto design formula.
As the juvenile Jimmy, players could do their best to rise up the ranks of different cliques, gain popularity and become the king of the school, overthrowing the current head honcho and colossal prick Gary Smith in the process.
By the time players nearly accomplish this though, Gary makes it clear he won’t go down without a fight.
Leading Jimmy to an abandoned rooftop on the school property, he challenges him to a fist fight to decide who will walk away in control of the school.
It’s not long after that players have decidedly cleaned his clock though, as he doesn’t offer much more of a fight than any other run-of-the-mill minion you’ve fought throughout the game.
It’s pretty disappointing, but considering it was Gary Smith, it was pretty par for the course.
Easiest Boss Battles of All Time
Mysterio, Spider-Man 2
While it makes for a fun easter egg, the appearance of Mysterio in the Spider-Man 2 tie in game was pretty hilariously easy.
Responding to a convenience store robbery, Spider-Man arrives to find a man decked out in a glass helmet and ornate robe.
In addition to grandiose claims that he is a space faring being in need of earth’s currency, he taunts the web slinger with threats of destroying him utterly, and claims he won’t hold back any of his power if they do face off.
Of course, most players responded with a quick blow to the super villain, which instantly puts the flamboyant troublemaker down. He then surrenders immediately and asks Spidey not to hit him again.
So much for his great and terrible cosmos powers.
It isn’t the most ceremonious end for the master of illusions, but it does offer a nice change of pace from the heavier themes the game throws at players later on.
What were some boss fights that were so easy you could barely believe it? Let us know in the comments below, and check out some of our other lists on topics like the easiest Xbox One achievements of September 2018.
