Boss fights by-and-large serve as brute force tests to examine player skill and proficiency with the game’s mechanics up to that point. They also provide a thrilling showpiece, memorable encounters, and or worthy challenges.

In combat-centric games, boss battles are all, but a given. However, not every combat focused game has boss fights. The games on this rundown, whilst all involving combat in some shape or form, largely eschew the boss battling trope, instead seeing the boss battle as a distraction from the game’s narrative, the context of the story or character arcs not consistent with a visually arresting showpiece.

There are showpiece encounters in most of these games, mind, but there’s no way they can be described as an examination of player skill, proficiency with mechanics, or assessment of character upgrades.