A good boss fight is usually the best part of a game, or at least the most memorable. They give us an intense test of our skills, an incredible set-piece, and usually a memorable character to duel against. And these high points of gaming are bolstered by one last important thing: Their music.
The theme is what completes a truly great boss fight, elevating the atmosphere and intensity and making it far more memorable than it would be otherwise. From grand orchestras to bopping techno to even full vocal tracks, boss themes come in several forms, and all of them can be legendary in their own right, so here are the ten best boss-fight themes.
10 Your Contract Has Expired
Unlike final boss themes, boss themes don’t have to be anything climactic or important or even like anything else in the game; they just have to be a jam like A Hat in Time’s Your Contract Has Expired. This strange track plays when facing off against the most memorable boss in the game, the contract-making specter Snatcher when they finally backstab you.
The song serves as an excellent medley of the entire Subcon forest area, bringing together all the themes into a climactic boss theme that caps off probably the best chapter in the game. And the theme so perfectly reflects the not-at-all-serious but deadly attitude of the fight, making for quite the memorable theme.
9 Leshy’s Theme
While boss themes don’t have to be super atmospheric, they certainly can be, and it makes them incredibly memorable, such as with Leshy’s Theme from Inscryption. This haunting theme plays at the end of every run through the game as you face off against the gamemaster across from you, Leshy.
Leshy’s theme is the opposite of most boss themes, switching out any kind of intensity for sheer atmosphere with the howling of wolves and wind to signify the end of your journey, the song truly feeling like a call from the wilderness. And as a cherry on top, the song adapts through the various phases, adding in elements of every boss you faced as their mask shows up, making for a truly climactic fight… That’s only the beginning of your journey.
8 ASGORE
But sometimes, a boss theme can serve a more important purpose in helping to tell a story just through the music alone. This can be hard to pull off, but Undertale’s ASGORE does it perfectly. ASGORE is one of the last boss fights in the game, seeing you supposedly at the end of your journey, facing off against the mountain king who doesn’t want to kill you, but he must to save his people.
The track perfectly communicates the conflict going on with Asgore as it has both this grand atmosphere to represent Asgore as your greatest threat yet in the game and the king of monsters, but also a bittersweet tone to all of it to represent how Asgore doesn’t want this fight and believes he should perish instead. Not only that, but the track also throws in many motifs from other songs, including your very first boss fight to make for such a climactic moment.
7 Order
Part of a good boss fight is communicating the intensity of your duel, making sure you feel the pressure and the energy keeps going as the fight goes on, and Order from Ultrakill is the perfect example of this. Order is the theme of Minos Prime, the hardest boss currently in the game, the long-dead soul of a king out for vengeance, who you free from imprisonment only to duel.
Order is a song of grand proportions that perfectly encapsulates your opponent as it combines both regal violin melodies and harsh percussion with an intense choir to both represent the justness and purity along with the power and sheer strength of Minos. Combine that with so many callbacks to previous themes, and you have a perfect theme for a perfect boss fight.
6 Black & White Elite Four
Some boss themes want you to understand the true danger you’re in, such as Pokemon Black and White’s Elite Four. This theme serves as the final battle anthem before you can face the champion in Pokemon Black and White, setting the stage for the hardest fights in the game.
From the very first note, this theme keeps the intensity high as this pounding percussion almost never stops at any point in the song, keeping the pressure up at all times and letting you know the danger you’re in. The entire theme exudes the air of power, letting you know how utterly outclassed you are and how you’ll have to kick and claw your way to victory. This theme is the best of the best in terms of elevating the fear quality.
5 World’s End Valentine
While music can be used in boss fights for atmosphere, emotions, or to convey the intensity of the fight, it also can be made just to be a jam, like with World’s End Valentine from Omori. This regal and manic theme plays as you fight Sweetheart, one of the main bosses of the dream world and perhaps the hardest to face your first time.
Now, this song doesn’t serve any grander purpose; it’s just made to be a great piece of music with its intense mix of violin solos with frantic synth and percussion to make for a song that never grows old and keeps you on the edge of your seat. And the song is also a perfect representation of Sweetheart, with a regal appearance that masks an aggressive and manic personality.
4 The Only Thing I Know For Real
While boss-fight themes mostly exist to set the mood for the fight and keep up the right energy, these also act as the themes of the character you fight at and thus can also help to tell their story, such as with Metal Gear Rising’s The Only Thing I Know For Real. The Only Thing I Know For Real is the theme of your main rival, Jetstream Sam when you finally face him in a one-on-one duel.
This track does contain some incredible instrumentals with intense metal solos and samurai-sounding instruments thrown in for max intensity; the real strength comes in the vocals. Just like every track in MGR, this track has vocals that tell the story of who you fight, this track in particular, giving a powerful insight into Sam as someone who is completely lost and has no control left, only understanding combat, making finally killing him all the more tragic.
3 You Are The End
Some games choose to use tracks made by more official artists rather than having a traditional score, and while this can sometimes result in tracks that don’t always reflect the game perfectly, Furi nails it, especially with its track, You Are The End. You Are The End is the theme of the penultimate boss, The Beat, a poor young girl who stands as the last line of defense to keep you in your prison and off the planet.
You Are The End is a strange choice for a penultimate boss track, yet it works perfectly to set up both The Beat as a character and the finale of Furi. The song is this upbeat and heroic theme, perfectly encapsulating the young, starry-eyed girl you find yourself up against, one with dreams of saving the world. And yet, the whole song has this tragic and hopeless feeling to its notes, reminding you that she’s up against you, a destroyer of worlds — and all you can do is kill her. A horrifically tragic piece in context.
2 BIG SHOT
As said before, one thing boss themes can do is illustrate character, giving you a snapshot through song of who this character is, and in terms of that, nothing can be Deltarune’s BIG SHOT. BIG SHOT is the boss theme of chapter 2’s secret boss, Spamton NEO, a sleazy salesman obsessed with freedom, now ascended into a strange robotic puppet body to dance on strings.
BIG SHOT is a medley of all of Spamton’s themes into a perfect mixture, showing off his frantic and eccentric personality, his strange salesman attitude through the use of the iconic big shot sample, and even some of his tragic nature, being obsessed with freedom but never having it again. Combine that with clever callbacks to Undertale’s own NEO and dummy fight themes, and you have a perfect character ballad.
1 Rules of Nature
The first boss fight is the most important in almost any game, being the thing that sets the tone for all fights going forward and even the game as a whole, and the music is especially important, as illustrated by Metal Gear Rising’s Rules of Nature. Rules of Nature underscores your first fight in MGR, a fight against the massive war machine, Metal Gear Ray, a monster that used to be a final boss.
While this theme has a lot less characterization than MGR’s other themes, it serves one perfect purpose: Setting the tone. As there’s nothing as memorable in a game as catching the metal gear’s arm as the lyrics of the song kick in right on time, making you feel like an absolute badass as you chuck it into the air and slice it to pieces to this heavy metal. It’s one of a kind, and while not the best as music, it is the best as a boss theme.
