Groups comparison

Boss battles (Boss fights;Raid bosses;End level bosses) - 1980 to 2023
Includes one or more battles with enemies who are significantly more powerful than anything else thrown at the player prior, usually found at the end of a level.

Mini-bosses (Sub-bosses;Mid-bosses) - 1993 to 2023
Includes boss fights against characters that are on par or nearly so with real boss battles in difficulty, but often are not as important in terms of plot. Commonly non-unique unlike real bosses.

Joke boss - 1994 to 2017
Includes a boss fight that is such in name only.

Puzzle bosses (Puzzle combat;Puzzle fights) - 1996 to 2024
Boss fights that require using trickery, the environment, or some other non direct assault to defeat them.

Bonus bosses(Secret bosses;Superbosses;Optional bosses) - 2001 to 2019
Includes optional boss fights, often with great rewards not normally received from boss fights and hidden away in places hard to reach or find.

Boss arenas - 2001 to 2023
Constrained areas from where players usually can't escape before the boss is defeated. Mostly of interest when the game otherwise does not constrain itself to small areas.

Boss meter - 2002 to 2020
A variety of elements that pop-up for boss fights, possibly even prior to them starting out. Commonly stating the boss name at start, health, and in some cases some other (possibly useless) information.

Multi-stage bosses(Multi-stage boss battles)[Multi-stage boss fights] - 2014 to 2017
Includes one or more boss fights where the behaviour/mechanics of the boss fight permanently change during the boss fight, often referred to as second stage, third stage, etc of the boss fight.

bossbattles
minibosses
jokeboss
puzzlebosses
bonusbosses
bossarenas
bossmeter
multistagebosses
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