Five of our all-time favourite retro boss battles…

After a full weekend of playing Turtles In Time we were reminded of the cool Footsoldier-flip ending so thought we'd run you through five of our all-time favourite final boss battles…

A new Castlevania game is on the way but will the boss battles be as thrilling?

5. CASTLEVANIA: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT
PlayStation [Konami] 1997
Though Dracula is a recurring villain throughout the Castlevania series, he has never been better used than in 1997’s Symphony Of The Night. This genre-bending masterpiece defied convention from the very start by actually beginning the game at the end of the previous one. It put you in control of Richter Belmont, the hero of 1993’s Rondo Of Blood, and forced you to face the dark lord and, ultimately, lose before the story kicked in for real. As well as tying in brilliantly with another classic Castlevania, this bold beginning also ensured that you dreaded the final encounter with Dracula, knowing all along just what he was capable of from the start.

4. SINISTAR Arcade [Williams] 1983
If you like your videogame bosses to be big, mean and scary then they don’t come much bigger, meaner or scarier than Sinistar. He might not look like much on paper, but trust us, he’ll have you quivering on the spot the first time he comes after you. Appearing in the arcade game of the same name, Sinistar is slowly constructed by little worker spaceships as you fly around mining asteroids for bomb parts. And when the hulking great star of steel is complete you’ll be made aware by a booming off-screen voice announcing “I live” before he homes in on your location, sucks you up and chews you to bits. Terrifying.

3. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG Mega Drive [Sega] 1991
In the history of videogames, has any other boss been as persistent as Dr Robotnik? Not just content to pop up as the major villain at the end of the game, Sonic the Hedghog’s arch nemesis waits at the end of every single world, each time with a slightly better contraption designed to stop Sonic in his tracks. Like the videogame equivalent of Wile E Coyote, he never seems to give in even after so many failures and only bounces back with an even sillier invention than before. Even Bowser has been known to take a rest, leaving his kids to handle some smaller levels, but Robotnik just keeps on going.

2. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES IV: TURTLES IN TIME
SNES [Konami] 1992
Though the arcade version of Turtles In Time was already a brilliantly made scrolling beat-’em-up, Konami’s SNES conversion pulled out all the stops to deliver an even better experience complete with new levels, challenges and, yes, bosses. Though the addition of Rat King was bound to please hardcore TMNT fans, it’s the revamped Shredder fight that impressed gamers the most. Making imaginative use of SNES’s sprite-scaling abilities, it challenged you to beat the iconic baddie by hurling foot soldiers over your shoulder and into the screen behind which Shredder was situated, seemingly safe from harm. Such inspired game design is rare in the beat-’em-up genre.

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This arcade game deserved a classic end boss battle.