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 or perhaps even
00:09weeks prior to release. And sometimes it becomes clear that an idea just isn't working out,
00:13or maybe there just isn't enough time to get an ambitious element finished before that
00:16apparently unmovable release date. And so, video games tend to ship with a ton of extra
00:21game 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,
00:32and these are 10 hidden video game bosses you weren't supposed to see.
00:3510. The Egg Janken – Sonic 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. Shortly after the game
00:48hit stores and reversed the series' critical fortunes overnight, fans discovered an unused
00:53Robotnik slash Eggman boss hidden within the data of the Studioopolis Zone. Named the Egg
00:58Janken, the boss is an egg-like mech piloted by Robotnik with two screens on it, on which
01:03the player and Robotnik get to play a game of rock-paper-scissors. Hitting the underside of
01:08the egg causes both screens to draw their hands, and if Robotnik wins, the players will suffer
01:12through a barrage of tricky attacks, while if the player wins, Robotnik will incur damage.
01:17Such is the formula, until one side is KO'd. Unlike a lot of cut bosses still residing within
01:22the game's code, the Egg Janken is actually a fully functional boss fight, and considering its
01:26conceptual cleverness, it's surprising it ended up being left on the cutting room floor.
01:309. The Giant Chicken – Silent Hill
01:34Believe it or not, the data files for Silent Hill contained seven more grotesque, otherworldly
01:39creatures that didn't make it into the final cut of the game. Though six of the seven monsters seem
01:44to be pretty typical Silent Hill enemies, the seventh contains far larger and more detailed data,
01:49suggesting that it was actually intended to be a major boss fight in the game. The enemy,
01:53simply dubbed C-K-N in the files, resembles a horrifyingly mutated fetus chicken, and certainly
01:59fits perfectly into the skin-crawling gallery of abominations that featured in the game proper.
02:04Quite where the player would end up battling this oversized walking pile of meat is anyone's guess,
02:09as is also true of Konami's reasoning for removing it from the full retail release. It's tough to
02:13imagine that this, no matter how gross the rest of the game got, was where the publisher decided,
02:18nah, that's too much.
02:198. 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, who can be
02:35fought by modding Cuphead to access its debug menu. The Light would have appeared as a mini-boss
02:40during the player's encounter with King Dice, and at this point actually resembled the original
02:442010 design for Cuphead himself, a green creature wearing a top hat. Fans have speculated that this
02:49drawing was simply used as a placeholder during development, as were images of Cuphead's co-creator
02:54Jared Moldenhauer's head for The Light's minions. The fight itself also takes place in a rudimentary
03:00incomplete area, a black expanse with two platforms and a series of beams firing outwards
03:05from the boss's position. The 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 lasers at
03:17Cuphead. After players discovered the unfinished mini-boss, the developer's studio MDHR released a
03:22patch which removed it from the game code entirely. Boo!
03:267. 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 about the
03:34conspicuous and disappointing lack of a boss battle against the antagonist Skull Face. Though MGS5
03:39generally lapped the series' signature tricksy boss fights, it was reasonable to expect a showdown with
03:44the game's human villain, rather than for him to be unceremoniously killed off in a cutscene,
03:48as was the case. And indeed, players who datamined the game uncovered extremely persuasive evidence
03:53that Hideo Kojima originally intended to have the player battle Skull Face as expected. The game's
03:58sound files contained samples of what resembled Skull Face engaging in combat with the player, with the
04:03implication being that players were at one point given the option of either killing him or taking him
04:07back to the mother base. This is further exemplified by the fact that Skull Face's custom lever action
04:12rifle, the Skull Custom, also appears in the game data as a usable weapon, and modders have even been
04:17able to import it for use in-game, though it can't actually be reloaded here. Quite what a Skull Face
04:22boss battle would have entailed is anyone's guess, but knowing that it was at one stage going to happen
04:26only makes its absence that much more frustrating. For Kojima's part, he decided that a boss encounter
04:31with Skull Face would have been inappropriate given the game's themes, basically stating that if he did give
04:36you this opportunity to fight Skull Face, then it would have 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 the most curious one indeed, because this mini-boss
04:51actually did appear in the opening South Pier Warehouse level of the Japanese version of this
04:55game, which was entitled Bare Knuckle 3, before then being taken out for European and American audiences.
05:01In the Japanese release, Ash would rock up with a speedboat and sick two of his goons on you before
05:05getting involved himself and defeating him would leave him blubbering on the floor.
05:09It's never been officially confirmed why Ash was cut from overseas versions of this game,
05:13but we'd hazard a guess that such a stereotypical offensive portrayal of a gay man would definitely
05:18cause issues. Ash does, however, remain in the game's code across all regions, and though his
05:23mini-boss coding is disabled for Europe and the US, he can still be accessed as a playable character
05:28with 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 of the unused enemies is surely Red and Blue's
05:40hidden trainer battle against Professor Oak. Fans discovered an unused fight against the
05:45inimitable Prof, and considering the strength of his Pokemon, which is a Taurus, Executor,
05:49Gyarados, and Arcanine, it's basically accepted that he was originally intended to be a bonus final
05:53boss after 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,
06:02he can indeed be battled to completion. Why such a cool fight was removed from the game proper
06:07remains a mystery, though at least sufficiently committed players can experience some vestige
06:11of it for themselves.
06:134. The Elusive Man – Mass Effect 3
06:15Fans have a lot to say about Mass Effect 3's highly controversial ending, and one of the many
06:21sticking points was the lack of an outright boss battle against the Elusive Man, who is merely
06:25confronted 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 Elusive Man, where he seems
06:38to mock the player's attempts to attack him, and there's also a clip of him roaring monstrously.
06:42This coheres perfectly with the released concept for a Reaper-fied Elusive Man originally planned for
06:48the end of the game, and writer Mark Walters reiterated to Eurogamer last year that it originally
06:52ended with a Reaper-Elusive Man boss battle, not unlike the bombastic fight at the end of the
06:57second game. While we technically had a boss fight against the Elusive Man, albeit a spoken one,
07:02only a few scattered remnants remain of Bioware's original vision for this battle, before deciding
07:06that it really didn't fit the character or the story that they were telling.
07:093. Tiny Forest – Mother 3
07:12Now granted, you could argue that Nintendo doesn't really want you to see Mother 3 at all, given that
07:16the legendary RPG still doesn't have an official release outside of Japan, despite being released
07:21all the way back there in 2006. But even so, hackers have discovered an unused enemy in the
07:26game's code by the name of Tiny Forest, which has a complete AI combat routine and so can be fought
07:31like any regular enemy. Tiny Forest was originally supposed to appear at the mole cricket hole area
07:35of the game, and due to the extent of its attacks and the amount of HP it has, it was very clearly
07:40supposed to be a mini-boss in the least. Despite appearing to be a basically complete enemy though,
07:44the Tiny Forest curiously lacks an overworld sprite, and so resembles a placeholder enemy until you
07:49engage with it. As for why this mini-boss was removed? Well, your guess is as good as ours.
07:532. SpongeBob SteelPants – Third Phase – SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom
07:59Now the final boss in SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom is SpongeBob SteelPants,
08:04a giant robot version of SpongeBob that is sicked on him by the malevolent robo-plankton.
08:09Now the boss 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 SpongeBob's attacks and taunt animations are
08:24included in the game's files, suggesting that it was relatively far into development when it was
08:28given the chop. While the third phase was briefly featured in a trailer for the game on a bonus disc
08:33of Mario Kart Double Dash, it's fair to say that most players quickly forgot about that fleeting glimpse.
08:37Curiously though, these files reappeared in the more recent rehydrated remake, yet sadly the cut
08:42phase wasn't restored to the battle, as would have explained the file's reoccurring presence.
08:46And number one, Clutch. The Binding of Isaac. Repentance. Now here's an especially fascinating
08:51example of a cut boss battle that received enough attention from fans that, unlike SpongeBob
08:56SteelPants' third phase, it was eventually added back into the game in earnest. The Binding of Isaac's
09:01third and final expansion, Repentance, was released last March, and soon enough players dug into the
09:05game's files and found an unused boss battle going by the monikers The Possessor and Clutch.
09:10Clutch's AI routines weren't entirely finished, but players could observe both phases of the battle.
09:14And so, after enough fans tweeted at developer Edmund McMillan, inquiring about the boss,
09:19he decided to patch it back into the game. Lo and behold, the game's recent 1.7.8 update added
09:24Clutch as a legitimate boss, much to the fanbase's delight. And of course, they immediately began
09:29wondering whether some of the game's other incomplete bosses might also get the same treatment
09:32in the near future. Here's hoping.
09:34And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 hidden video game bosses you weren't supposed to see. I
09:38hope that you enjoyed that, and let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section
09:41below. And if you want to chat to me further, you can do so over on Twitter, at RetroJWithAZero. And
09:46just to clarify, the O is a zero. Not that it's just RetroJWithAZero, all as one word as so many
09:51people have been putting in. Or if you want to see what I'm up to outside of work, you can go over to
09:55LiveAndLet'sDice, where I do all my streaming and Warhammer Bat reports. But before I go, I just want to say
10:00one thing. Hope that you are treating yourself with love and respect, my friend. Because even though
10:04today we spoke about video game bosses you weren't supposed to see, I am seeing you right here, my
10:09friend. And I am telling you to give yourself some love and respect, because you bloody well deserve
10:12it. And don't let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise, all right? Go out there with love in your
10:16heart. And remember, you are a massive ledge. As always, I've been Jules. You have been awesome.
10:21Never forget that. And I'll speak to you soon. Bye.