The best tunes for a hero’s grand finale.
You’ve collected every coin. Done every side quest. Spoken to every single NPC. S-ranked every level. Now, at last, the ultimate reward: an all-out fight against one final boss complete with an epic song that usually encapsulates your hours of hard work and your character’s growth into some freakishly powerful being.
For me, most of my exposure to boss themes growing up came through the endless stream of JRPGs I played. Final Fantasy 7’s One Winged Angel will be the one that springs to mind for a lot of people, but I’m an absolute sucker for Final Fantasy 6’s Dancing Mad—a whopping 18-minute, four-movement symphony that plays when facing off against Kefka Palazzo.
I’ll also forever adore the final battle in Kingdom Hearts 2, where Yoko Shimomura takes a far more stripped-back approach with gentle piano and vocals that almost feel like the antithesis of a big boss battle—eerily calm and unsettling all at once.
