Skullface was the main villain for a reason. #gaming #metalgearsolid
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00:00So when it comes to making video games, ideas are thrown about all over the place.
00:04And some are just thrown out entirely, whether in the early drafting stages,
00:08or perhaps even weeks prior to release. And sometimes it becomes clear that an idea just
00:12isn't working out, or maybe there just isn't enough time to get an ambitious element finished
00:16before that apparently unmovable release date. And so, video games tend to ship with a ton of
00:21extra game data for features that, for whatever reason, were cut or scrapped during production.
00:25And today we're talking about the boss battles that we never got to fight.
00:29So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:31and these are 10 Hidden Video Game Bosses You Weren't Supposed To See.
00:3510. The Egg Janken
00:37Sonic Mania
00:38The Sonic games are absolutely jam-packed with secret and half-finished bosses,
00:43though perhaps the most interesting example of all occurs in Sonic Mania.
00:47Shortly after the game hit stores and reversed the series' critical fortunes overnight,
00:51fans discovered an unused Robotnik-slash-Eggman boss hidden within the data of the Studio Opula
00:57Zone. Named the Egg Janken, the boss is an egg-like mech piloted by Robotnik with two
01:02screens on it, on which the player and Robotnik get to play a game of rock-paper-scissors.
01:07Hitting the underside of the egg causes both screens to draw their hands,
01:10and if Robotnik wins, the players will suffer through a barrage of tricky attacks,
01:14while if the player wins, Robotnik will incur damage. Such is the formula, until one side is
01:19KO'd. Unlike a lot of cut bosses still residing within the game's code, the Egg Janken is actually
01:24a fully functional boss fight, and considering its conceptual cleverness, it's surprising it
01:28ended up being left on the cutting room floor.
01:30Number 9. The Giant Chicken
01:33Silent Hill
01:34Believe it or not, the data files for Silent Hill contain seven more grotesque,
01:38otherworldly creatures that didn't make it into the final cut of the game. Though six of the seven
01:43monsters seem to be pretty typical Silent Hill enemies, the seventh contains far larger and
01:48more detailed data, suggesting that it was actually intended to be a major boss fight in the game.
01:53The enemy, simply dubbed CKN in the files, resembles a horrifyingly mutated fetus chicken,
01:59and certainly fits perfectly into the skin-crawling gallery of abominations that featured in the game
02:04proper. Quite where the player would end up battling this oversized walking pile of meat
02:08is anyone's guess, as is also true of Konami's reasoning for removing it from the full retail
02:12release. It's tough to imagine that this, no matter how gross the rest of the game got,
02:16was where the publisher decided, nah, that's too much.
02:19Number 8. The Light Cuphead
02:21It's clear that so much time, effort, and artistry went into designing and executing
02:26Cuphead's gorgeous enemies that it's difficult to picture any extras being buried in the game's
02:30files. But that's absolutely the case, the very oddest of which is surely The Light,
02:35who can be fought by modding Cuphead to access its debug menu. The Light would have appeared as
02:39a mini-boss during the player's encounter with King Dice, and at this point actually
02:43resembled the original 2010 design for Cuphead himself, a green creature wearing a top hat.
02:48Fans have speculated that this drawing was simply used as a placeholder during development,
02:52as were images of Cuphead's co-creator, Jared Moldenhauer's, head for the Light's minions.
02:57The fight itself also takes place in a rudimentary, incomplete area,
03:01a black expanse with two platforms and a series of beams firing outwards from the boss's position.
03:06The name of the game is to avoid the red-coloured beams and the Light's
03:09minions while attacking him until he perishes. The fight was clearly in an early stage of
03:13development that was believed to have taken place in a nightclub with a disco ball firing
03:17lasers at Cuphead. After players discovered the unfinished mini-boss, the developer's studio MDHR
03:22released a patch which removed it from the game code entirely. Boo.
03:257. Skull Face
03:27Metal Gear Solid V – The Phantom Pain
03:29When Metal Gear Solid V – The Phantom Pain was first released, many players complained
03:33about the conspicuous and disappointing lack of a boss battle against the antagonist Skull Face.
03:38Though MGSV generally lacked the series' signature tricksy boss fights, it was reasonable to expect
03:43a showdown with the game's human villain, rather than for him to be unceremoniously
03:47killed off in a cutscene, as was the case. And indeed, players who datamined the game uncovered
03:52extremely persuasive evidence that Hideo Kojima originally intended to have the player battle
03:56Skull Face as expected. The game's sound files contain samples of what resembles Skull Face
04:01engaging in combat with the player, with the implication being that players were at one
04:05point given the option of either killing him or taking him back to the Mother Base.
04:08This is further exemplified by the fact that Skull Face's custom leather action rifle,
04:12the Skull Custom, also appears in the game data as a usable weapon,
04:16and modders have even been able to import it for use in-game, though it can't actually be
04:19reloaded here. Quite what a Skull Face boss battle would've entailed is anyone's guess,
04:24but knowing that it was, at one stage, going to happen only makes its absence that much
04:28more frustrating. For Kojima's part, he decided that a boss encounter with Skull Face would've
04:32been inappropriate given the game's themes, basically stating that if he did give you
04:36this opportunity to fight Skull Face, then it would've been pandering to a Hollywood expectation
04:40of a happy-ending good-versus-evil showdown. Right.
04:436. Ash – Streets of Rage 3
04:46Now, the case of Ash in Streets of Rage 3 is a most curious one indeed,
04:50because this mini-boss actually did appear in the opening South Pier warehouse level of the
04:54Japanese version of this game, which was entitled Bare Knuckle 3, before then being taken out for
04:59European and American audiences. In the Japanese release, Ash would rock up with a speedboat and
05:03sick two of his goons on you before getting involved himself, and defeating him would
05:07leave him blubbering on the floor. It's never been officially confirmed why Ash was cut from
05:12overseas versions of this game, but we'd hazard a guess that such a stereotypical,
05:16offensive portrayal of a gay man would definitely cause issues. Ash does, however,
05:20remain in the game's code across all regions, and though his mini-boss coding is disabled for
05:25Europe and the US, he can still be accessed as a playable character with a cheat code.
05:295. Professor Oak – Pokemon Red and Blue
05:32An entire article could be written about all the content that was cut from the Pokemon games,
05:36though by far the most legendary of all the unused enemies is surely Red and Blue's hidden
05:41trainer battle against Professor Oak. Fans discovered an unused fight against the inimitable
05:45prof, and considering the strength of his Pokemon, which is a Tauros, Exeggutor, Gyarados, and
05:50Arcanine, it's basically accepted that he was originally intended to be a bonus final boss
05:54after defeating your Pokemon League rival. The fight can only be played either by glitching or
05:58hacking, and while Oak has no battle dialogue that lends further context to the fight, he can
06:02indeed be battled to completion. Why such a cool fight was removed from the game proper remains a
06:07mystery, though at least sufficiently committed players can experience some vestige of it for
06:12themselves. 4. The Illusive Man – Mass Effect 3
06:15Fans have a lot to say about Mass Effect 3's highly controversial ending, and one of the many
06:20sticking points was the lack of an outright boss battle against the Illusive Man, who is merely
06:24confronted in a dialogue-driven cutscene. But Bioware originally planned to have players take
06:29him down in a more typical boss fight, as players have discovered by digging into Mass Effect 3's
06:34databanks. The original release of the game includes unused audio from the Illusive Man,
06:38where he seems to mock the player's attempts to attack him, and there's also a clip of him
06:41roaring monstrously. This coheres perfectly with the released concept for a Reaper-fied Illusive
06:46Man originally planned for the end of the game, and writer Mark Walters reiterated to Eurogamer
06:51last year that it originally ended with a Reaper-Illusive Man boss battle, not unlike
06:55the bombastic fight at the end of the second game. While we technically had a boss fight against the
07:00Illusive Man, albeit a spoken one, only a few scattered remnants remain of Bioware's original
07:05vision for this battle, before deciding that it really didn't fit the character or the story
07:08that they were telling. 3. Tiny Forest – Mother 3
07:12Now granted, you could argue that Nintendo doesn't really want you to see Mother 3 at all,
07:16given that the legendary RPG still doesn't have an official release outside of Japan,
07:20despite being released all the way back there in 2006. But even so, hackers have discovered an
07:25unused enemy in the game's code by the name of Tiny Forest, which has a complete AI combat routine,
07:30and so can be fought like any regular enemy. Tiny Forest was originally supposed to appear
07:34at the Mole Cricket hole area of the game, and due to the extent of its attacks and the amount
07:38of HP it has, it was very clearly supposed to be a mini-boss in the least. Despite appearing to
07:42be a basically complete enemy, though, the Tiny Forest curiously lacks an overworld sprite,
07:47and so resembles a placeholder enemy until you engage with it. As for why this mini-boss was
07:51removed, well your guess is as good as ours. 2. Spongebob Steelpants – Third Phase
07:56Spongebob Squarepants – Battle for Bikini Bottom
07:59Now the final boss in Spongebob Squarepants – Battle for Bikini Bottom is Spongebot Steelpants,
08:04a giant robot version of Spongebob that is sicked on him by the malevolent Roboplankton. Now the
08:09boss has two phases, but fans ended up discovering a third unused phase in the game's code,
08:14where Spongebob sprouts huge inflatable muscular arms and dons a speedo to fight Patrick. Though
08:20this phase can't be played to completion, many of Spongebot's attacks and taunt animations are
08:24included in the game's files, suggesting that it was relatively far into development when it
08:28was given the chop. While the third phase was briefly featured in a trailer for the game on
08:32a bonus disc of Mario Kart Double Dash, it's fair to say that most players quickly forgot
08:36about that fleeting glimpse. Curiously, though, these files reappeared in the more recent Rehydrated
08:41remake, yet sadly the cut phase wasn't restored to the battle, as would have explained the file's
08:45reoccurring presence. 1. Clutch – The Binding of Isaac – Repentance
08:50Now here's an especially fascinating example of a cut boss battle that received enough attention
08:54from fans that, unlike Spongebob Steelpants' third phase, it was eventually added back into
08:59the game in earnest. The Binding of Isaac's third and final expansion, Repentance, was released last
09:04March, and soon enough players dug into the game's files and found an unused boss battle going by the
09:08monikers The Possessor and Clutch. Clutch's AI routines weren't entirely finished, but players
09:12could observe both phases of the battle, and so after enough fans tweeted at developer Edmund
09:17Macmillan inquiring about the boss, he decided to patch it back into the game. Lo and behold,
09:21the game's recent 1.7.8 update added Clutch as a legitimate boss, much to the fanbase's delight.
09:27And of course, they immediately began wondering whether some of the game's
09:30other incomplete bosses might also get the same treatment in the near future. Here's hoping.
09:48But before I go, I just want to say one thing. Hope that you are treating yourself with love and
10:02respect, my friend, because even though today we spoke about video game bosses you weren't
10:06supposed to see, I am seeing you right here, my friend, and I am telling you to give yourself
10:10some love and respect because you bloody well deserve it, and don't let anything or anyone
10:14tell you otherwise, alright? Go out there with love in your heart, and remember, you are a massive
10:18ledge. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you
10:22soon. Bye.