The ending of a game is often the most memorable part of a game for many reasons, but the final boss is perhaps the most important. These encounters can bring together everything a game has built up for the ultimate test of skill and finisher to the story. A good final boss can sometimes save a mediocre game as much as a bad one can ruin great games.
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But these final showdowns wouldn’t have anywhere near as much weight without the music to go along with them. These themes can hold so much power from hyping the player up to setting the mood perfectly or even bringing everything together musically. The best of the bunch manage to do all three, so let’s see some of those fantastic themes.
10Nightmare King
From the lesser-known title ofWandersong, a game that prides itself on its music, Nightmare King is the penultimate track of the game, and it shows. Without spoiling too much as this ending is very worth experiencing, this track plays as you try to stop the world from ending, trying to stop the natural course as stars reign from above, and the intensity shows that.
This song is loud and powerful in many ways, each of its drops letting the hopelessness of the situation sink in before tiny bits of hope keep it going, perfectly encapsulating this final struggle with Wandersong’s unique musical style. And the way it pulls together all the various character themes with the central inversion of The Dream King is just the cherry on top.
9Living in the Light
While not thefinalboss theme, the theme ofThe Binding of Isaac’sfinal boss’s first phase easily overshadows the rest. This is a theme that somehow pulls together every theme of Isaac’s complex story in this dark twist on the game’s title theme, now turned into an intense guitar ballad.
The whole song is made from a mix of static and metal guitar to make a truly unique type of oppressive solo. But while the guitar is enough already for a memorable theme, Living in the Light throws in a unique style of lyrics with snippets of zealous preachers shouting scripture at the top of their lungs, adding to the oppressive feel and perfectly representing the root of evil in Isaac’s story.
8Hopes and Dreams
While Megalovania is certainly the star out ofUndertale’sboss tracks, Hopes and Dreams perhaps works as a better finale track. This track plays for the final boss of the pacifist route, and it’s the perfect mix of showing the pure might you stand against and also the unending hope you hold.
The song is the perfect mix of orchestra and Undertale’s classic chiptune style, making it feel like a perfect climax to the game’s entire score. And that especially comes across in how the whole theme is a twist on the very first song you hear when booting up the game. It’s a song that perfectly encapsulates everything about Undertale’s pacifist route far more than Megalovania did for its route.
7Bombs for Throwing at You
ThePortal 2OST is something people always seem to under-appreciate for how fantastic it is and the final boss theme is no exception. This theme takes the Portal series' iconic sound and turns it into a chaotic theme befitting of a facility falling to pieces due to a villain with much less tact.
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The song’s chaotic style fits Wheatley perfectly, direct and to the point yet utterly unhinged at this point in the story. The theme almost has a sad and desperate sound to it that reflects the tragic state of Wheatley, driven mad by the central mainframe and on the breaking point. That’s not even mentioning how many bits of the song are taken from previous tracks! It makes for a perfect final to a perfect game.
Kirbyis a series known for pulling the rug out under the audience with grand, sometimes horrifying final bosses, and nothing shows this better than Zero Two. The final boss of Kirby 64 is one of the most unexpected in the series, a return you only see if you 100% the game and one with a dark gloomy setting and a bleeding eye.
The theme pushes this feel as where the rest of Kirby 64’s soundtrack is very upbeat and bombastic, Zero Two slows things down for an almost melancholic final theme. It sells the feeling of an utterly hopeless final battle and acts as a perfect way to finish off the delightfully dark story of Zero.
5God of the Dead
Supergiant Games earned their fame in part due to their fantastic music andHadesis no exception as it pulls out all the stops for God of the Dead. This final battle against Hades is the biggest roadblock on any run and also the most personal of the fights and all of this is sold through the fantastic mix of metal and the unique sound of Hades.
This song has an interesting progression as it first starts out mostly with acoustic guitar and a slower pace to sell the overwhelming presence of Hades before the second phase pulls out the metal and picks up the speed to show that this is no longer impossible, but you’ll have to go all out to win. Bring in the fact that it’s all a remix of the main theme and you have a final theme that sets the mood perfectly.
4Dialga’s Fight To The Finish
Pokemonhas always been known for its fantastic music and yet even with that, nothing in the main series can compare toMystery Dungeon Explorers’final theme. This theme immediately sets the mood, a somber and hopeless battle where no matter if you win or lose, you’re getting a bad ending and yet you keep fighting on for your partner.
The mix of the violin and that iconic whistling makes for a track that will give players chills every time they hear the beginning of the drop. It’s far from a traditional final boss theme, much more mellowed out and somber, yet it does what it needs to and it’s always a joy to listen to.
3In The Final
One of the most recognizable final boss themes ever, the finale ofBowser’s Inside Storysports one of the best music pieces in all gaming. This track encapsulates the feeling of a fight to save the world better than any piece of music I’ve heard in a game before, a perfect mix of dreary piano and those hopeful high notes.
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It’s a track so epic and grand you wouldn’t expect it from aMariogame and yet it fits perfectly in Mario and Luigi, mixing the more traditional elements with the game’s more synth sounds, now twisted to be serious instead of goofy. It probably comes as no surprise that this track is like this, considering the composer ofKingdom Heartswas behind it, and it easily stands as one of their best works.
2It Has To Be This Way
Metal Gear Risingis a game that clawed its way back to fame with the help of its music, the final track of It Has To Be This Way being its most iconic. This song plays for the iconic fight with Senator Armstrong and through both its excellent metal work and lyrics manages to communicate the themes of Rising as a whole.
Like all of Rising’s tracks, the metal is great as always with incredible solos and progression but the thing that makes the song so special is the lyrics. Through its vocals, the song summarizes Raiden’s entire arc through the game of accepting the complexities of the world and that he isn’t the pure hero he wished, understanding that Armstrong isn’t some true evil, and yet that he must fight and has to accept that. The vocal performance is amazing and has all the emotion it needs for this bombastic finale.
1Dancing Mad
There’s heavy debate among people between the two titans of final boss themes,Final Fantasy 7’sOne Winged Angel andFinal Fantasy 6’sDancing Mad, both groundbreaking orchestral symphonies unlike anything done before. But, while One Winged Angel is great, Dancing Mad edges it out for just how out there, experimental, and impressive it is.
Dancing Mad is a 13-minute-long song split into four distinctive acts and that alone is impressive, but each one also goes for a completely different orchestral style to fit its layer. The song jumps from an imposing symphony to a strange waltz, a religious chorus, and all-out madness, befitting the clown Kefka. All of it is expertly composed to where it wouldn’t be surprising to hear this in an actual symphony. But the killer aspect is that it was all somehow done on the SNES, a console with lots of limits to its sound and music, and yet this masterpiece was made with it. For that alone, Dancing Mad stands as one of the most important songs in video game history.
