10 Hidden Video Game Bosses You Weren't Supposed To See
Skullface was the main villain for a reason. #gaming #metalgearsolid
Transcript
00:00 So when it comes to making video games, ideas are thrown about all over the place.
00:04 And some are just thrown out entirely, whether in the early drafting stages, or perhaps even
00:08 weeks prior to release.
00:10 And sometimes it becomes clear that an idea just isn't working out, or maybe there just
00:13 isn't enough time to get an ambitious element finished before that apparently unmovable
00:17 release date.
00:18 And so, video games tend to ship with a ton of extra game data for features that, for
00:22 whatever reason, were cut or scrapped during production.
00:25 And today we're talking about the boss battles that we never got to fight.
00:29 So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10
00:32 Hidden Video Game Bosses You Weren't Supposed To See.
00:35 10.
00:36 The Egg Janken
00:37 Sonic Mania
00:38 The Sonic games are absolutely jam-packed with secret and half-finished bosses, though perhaps
00:43 the most interesting example of all occurs in Sonic Mania.
00:46 Shortly after the game hit stores and reversed the series' critical fortunes overnight,
00:51 fans discovered an unused Robotnik/Eggman boss hidden within the data of the Studio
00:56 Opelezone.
00:57 Named the Egg Janken, the boss is an egg-like mech piloted by Robotnik with two screens
01:03 on it, on which the player and Robotnik get to play a game of rock-paper-scissors.
01:07 Hitting the underside of the egg causes both screens to draw their hands, and if Robotnik
01:11 wins the players will suffer through a barrage of tricky attacks, while if the player wins,
01:15 Robotnik will incur damage.
01:17 Such is the formula, until one side is KO'd.
01:20 Unlike a lot of cut bosses still residing within the game's code, the Egg Janken is
01:23 actually a fully functional boss fight, and considering its conceptual cleverness, it's
01:28 surprising it ended up being left on the cutting room floor.
01:30 9.
01:31 The Giant Chicken - Silent Hill
01:34 Believe it or not, the data files for Silent Hill contain seven more grotesque, otherworldly
01:39 creatures that didn't make it into the final cut of the game.
01:42 Though six of the seven monsters seem to be pretty typical Silent Hill enemies, the seventh
01:46 contains far larger and more detailed data, suggesting that it was actually intended to
01:51 be a major boss fight in the game.
01:53 The enemy, simply dubbed CKN in the files, resembles a horrifyingly mutated fetus chicken,
01:59 and certainly fits perfectly into the skin-crawling gallery of abominations that featured in the
02:03 game proper.
02:04 Quite where the player would end up battling this oversized, walking pile of meat is anyone's
02:08 guess, as is also true of Konami's reasoning for removing it from the full retail release.
02:13 It's tough to imagine that this, no matter how gross the rest of the game got, was where
02:16 the publisher decided, "Nah, that's too much."
02:19 8.
02:20 The Light - Cuphead
02:21 It's clear that so much time, effort, and artistry went into designing and executing
02:25 Cuphead's gorgeous enemies that it's difficult to picture any extras being buried in the
02:30 game's files.
02:31 But that's absolutely the case, the very oddest of which is surely The Light, who can
02:35 be fought by modding Cuphead to access its debug menu.
02:38 The Light would have appeared as a mini-boss during the player's encounter with King
02:41 Dice, and at this point actually resembled the original 2010 design for Cuphead himself,
02:46 a green creature wearing a top hat.
02:48 Fans have speculated that this drawing was simply used as a placeholder during development,
02:52 as were images of Cuphead's co-creator, Jared Moldenhauer's, head for The Light's
02:56 minions.
02:57 The fight itself also takes place in a rudimentary, incomplete area - a black expanse with two
03:02 platforms and a series of beams firing outwards from the boss's position.
03:06 The name of the game is to avoid the red-coloured beams and The Light's minions while attacking
03:09 him until he perishes.
03:11 The fight was clearly in an early stage of development, though it's believed to have
03:14 taken place in a nightclub with a disco ball firing lasers at Cuphead.
03:18 After players discovered the unfinished mini-boss, the developer's studio MDHR released a patch
03:22 which removed it from the game code entirely.
03:25 Boo.
03:26 7.
03:27 Skull Face - Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain
03:29 When Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain was first released, many players complained
03:33 about the conspicuous and disappointing lack of a boss battle against the antagonist Skull
03:37 Face.
03:38 Though MGSV generally lacked the series' signature tricksy boss fights, it was reasonable
03:42 to expect a showdown with the game's human villain, rather than for him to be unceremoniously
03:47 killed off in a cutscene, as was the case.
03:49 And indeed, players who datamined the game uncovered extremely persuasive evidence that
03:53 Hideo Kojima originally intended to have the player battle Skull Face as expected.
03:58 The game's sound files contain samples of what resembles Skull Face engaging in combat
04:02 with the player, with the implication being that players were at one point given the option
04:05 of either killing him or taking him back to the mother base.
04:08 This is further exemplified by the fact that Skull Face's custom leather action rifle,
04:12 the Skull Custom, also appears in the game data as a usable weapon, and modders have
04:16 even been able to import it for use in-game, though it can't actually be reloaded here.
04:20 Quite what a Skull Face boss battle would have entailed is anyone's guess, but knowing
04:24 that it was, at one stage, going to happen only makes its absence that much more frustrating.
04:28 For Kojima's part, he decided that a boss encounter with Skull Face would have been
04:32 inappropriate, given the game's themes.
04:34 Basically stating that if he did give you this opportunity to fight Skull Face, then
04:38 it would have been pandering to a Hollywood expectation of a happy-ending good vs evil
04:42 showdown.
04:43 Right.
04:44 6.
04:45 Streets of Rage 3
04:46 Now the case of Ash in Streets of Rage 3 is a most curious one indeed, because this mini-boss
04:51 actually did appear in the opening South Pier warehouse level of the Japanese version of
04:55 this game, which was entitled Bare Knuckle 3, before then being taken out for European
04:59 and American audiences.
05:00 In the Japanese release, Ash would rock up with a speedboat and sick two of his goons
05:04 on you before getting involved himself, and defeating him would leave him blubbering on
05:08 the floor.
05:09 It's never been officially confirmed why Ash was cut from overseas versions of this
05:13 game, but we'd hazard a guess that such a stereotypical, offensive portrayal of a
05:17 gay man would definitely cause issues.
05:19 Ash does, however, remain in the game's code across all regions, and though his mini-boss
05:23 coding is disabled for Europe and the US, he can still be accessed as a playable character
05:28 with a cheat code.
05:29 5.
05:30 Professor Oak - Pokemon Red and Blue
05:32 An entire article could be written about all the content that was cut from the Pokemon
05:36 games, though by far the most legendary of all of the unused enemies is surely Red and
05:40 Blue's hidden trainer battle against Professor Oak.
05:43 Fans discovered an unused fight against the inimitable prof, and considering the strength
05:47 of his Pokemon - which is a Tauros, Exeggutor, Gyarados, and Arcanine - it's basically
05:51 accepted that he was originally intended to be a bonus final boss after defeating your
05:54 Pokemon League rival.
05:56 The fight can only be played either by glitching or hacking, and while Oak has no battle dialogue
06:00 that lends further context to the fight, he can indeed be battled to completion.
06:04 Why such a cool fight was removed from the game proper remains a mystery, though at least
06:08 sufficiently committed players can experience some vestige of it for themselves.
06:12 4.
06:13 The Illusive Man - Mass Effect 3
06:15 Fans have a lot to say about Mass Effect 3's highly controversial ending, and one of the
06:20 many sticking points was the lack of an outright boss battle against the Illusive Man, who
06:24 is merely confronted in a dialogue-driven cutscene.
06:27 But Bioware originally planned to have players take him down in a more typical boss fight
06:31 as players have discovered by digging into Mass Effect 3's databanks.
06:34 The original release of the game includes unused audio from the Illusive Man, where
06:38 he seems to mock the player's attempts to attack him, and there's also a clip of him
06:41 roaring monstrously.
06:42 This coheres perfectly with the released concept for a Reaper-fied Illusive Man originally
06:47 planned for the end of the game, and writer Mark Walters reiterated to Eurogamer last
06:51 year that it originally ended with a Reaper-Illusive Man boss battle, not unlike the bombastic
06:56 fight at the end of the second game.
06:58 While we technically had a boss fight against the Illusive Man, albeit a spoken one, only
07:02 a few scattered remnants remain of Bioware's original vision for this battle, before deciding
07:06 that it really didn't fit the character or the story that they were telling.
07:09 3.
07:10 Tiny Forest - Mother 3
07:12 Granted, you could argue that Nintendo doesn't really want you to see Mother 3 at all, given
07:16 that the legendary RPG still doesn't have an official release outside of Japan, despite
07:20 being released all the way back in 2006, but even so, hackers have discovered an unused
07:25 enemy in the game's code by the name of Tiny Forest, which has a complete AI combat
07:29 routine and so can be fought like any regular enemy.
07:32 Tiny Forest was originally supposed to appear at the Mole Cricket hole area of the game,
07:36 and due to the extent of its attacks and the amount of HP it has, it was very clearly supposed
07:40 to be a mini-boss in the least.
07:42 Despite appearing to be a basically complete enemy, though, the Tiny Forest curiously lacks
07:46 an overworld sprite, and so resembles a placeholder enemy until you engage with it.
07:50 As for why this mini-boss was removed, well, your guess is as good as ours.
07:53 2.
07:54 SpongeBot Steel Pants - Third Phase
07:56 SpongeBob SquarePants - Battle for Bikini Bottom
07:59 The final boss in SpongeBob SquarePants - Battle for Bikini Bottom is SpongeBot Steel Pants,
08:04 a giant robot version of SpongeBob that is sicked on him by the malevolent Roboplankton.
08:09 The boss has two phases, but fans ended up discovering a third unused phase in the game's
08:14 code, where SpongeBot sprouts huge inflatable muscular arms and dons a speedo to fight Patrick.
08:19 Though this phase can't be played to completion, many of SpongeBot's attacks and taunt animations
08:24 are included in the game's files, suggesting that it was relatively far into development
08:28 when it was given the chop.
08:29 While the third phase was briefly featured in a trailer for the game on a bonus disc
08:32 of Mario Kart Double Dash, it's fair to say that most players quickly forgot about
08:36 that fleeting glimpse.
08:37 Curiously, though, these files reappeared in the more recent Rehydrated remake, yet
08:41 sadly the cut phase wasn't restored to the battle, as would have explained the file's
08:45 reoccurring presence.
08:46 1.
08:47 Clutch - The Binding of Isaac - Repentance
08:49 Now here's an especially fascinating example of a cut boss battle that received enough
08:53 attention from fans that, unlike SpongeBot Steel Pants' third phase, it was eventually
08:58 added back into the game in earnest.
09:00 The Binding of Isaac's third and final expansion, Repentance, was released last March, and soon
09:04 enough players dug into the game's files and found an unused boss battle going by the
09:08 monikers "The Possessor" and "Clutch".
09:10 Clutch's AI routines weren't entirely finished, but players could observe both phases
09:13 of the battle, and so after enough fans tweeted at developer Edmund McMillen inquiring about
09:18 the boss, he decided to patch it back into the game.
09:21 Lo and behold, the game's recent 1.7.8 update added Clutch as a legitimate boss, much to
09:26 the fanbase's delight.
09:27 And of course, they immediately began wondering whether some of the game's other incomplete
09:30 bosses might also get the same treatment in the near future.
09:33 Here's hoping.
09:34 And there we go my friends, those were 10 hidden video game bosses you weren't supposed
09:37 to see.
09:38 I hope that you enjoyed that, and let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
09:41 section below.
09:42 And if you want to chat to me further, you can do so over on Twitter @RetroJWithA0, and
09:46 just to clarify, the O is a zero, not that it's just RetroJWithA0, all is one word
09:51 as so many people have been putting in.
09:52 Or if you want to see what I'm up to outside of work, you can go over to LiveAndLet's
09:56 Dice, where I do all my streaming and Warhammer Bat reports.
09:59 But before I go, I just want to say one thing.
10:01 Hope that you are treating yourself with love and respect my friend, because even though
10:04 today we spoke about video game bosses you weren't supposed to see, I am seeing you
10:08 right here my friend, and I am telling you to give yourself some love and respect, because
10:11 you bloody well deserve it, and don't let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise,
10:14 alright?
10:15 Go out there with love in your heart, and remember, you are a massive ledge.
10:18 As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak