Top 10 Best Final Boss Themes

With an almost heavy metal-esque presentation showing off the comparatively superior audio capabilities of the SNES console over the previous NES, the final boss theme of Super Mario World makes what felt like – for all intents and purposes at the time – the decisive, climatic battle between Mario and Bowser. While Super Mario World was obviously not the conclusion of the overarching Mario franchise (which continues well into 2025), the intense music and then-graphically impressive visuals could’ve very well been seen as such – and would’ve probably been a satisfactory denouement.

9. Doomsday Zone (Sonic & Knuckles, 1994)

Just like in the entry above, Sonic & Knuckles (more specifically, the combined and completed Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles) also had something of a final, decisive feeling to it – as supported by the implementation of the frantic and frenetic track “Doomsday Zone.” The track – which also plays in a different, unrelated boss fight in Knuckles’ campaign – is largely associated with its namesake: a final boss stage featuring “Super” Sonic in pursuit of Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik’s last, rocket-like mech through a very dense asteroid belt (with the latter firing barrages of missiles back at the former).

8. The Third Malformation of “G” (Resident Evil 2, 1998)

Quite possibly my all-time favorite final boss theme from the Resident Evil franchise (with RE3‘s “Nemesis Final Metamorphosis” being a very close contender), “The Third Malformation of ‘G'” is a wonderfully histrionic, quasi-operatic piece that really sells the climatic showdown with the constantly mutating creature simply named “G.” Its similarly titled rearrangement in The Darkside Chronicles might even be better in some regards, with “Third Demise” – its equivalent track from the 2019 RE2 remake – having an amazing opening section (despite being otherwise uneven).

7. It Has to Be This Way (MGR: Revengeance, 2013)

Punctuating the legendarily intense, difficult, and over-the-top final boss battle that launched a thousand memes, “It Has to Be This Way” is somehow both a hard-hitting and corny “emo grunge” song that sends off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on a delirious high note. One could argue that the song’s conflicting intensity and ridiculosity perfectly matches the equally intense and ridiculous nature of the nigh-apocalyptic confrontation between anti-hero Raiden (a cyborg ninja fighting with a high-tech sword) and anti-villain Senator Armstrong (a hulking man infused with nanomachines).

6. Serpent Devouring the Horizon (Bravely Default, 2014)

Effectively serving as a sort of conceptual successor to the eternally famous (and objectively more popular) final boss tracks “Dancing Mad” and “One-Winged Angel” from the Final Fantasy franchise, “Serpent Devouring the Horizon” (a.k.a. “Serpent Eating the Ground”) is a thrilling, rock opera-esque piece that scores the heroes’ last battle against a world-consuming god. Especially notable is the track’s latter half that incorporates triumphant reprises of the game’s overworld theme and each party member’s individual leitmotifs (heard after making significant progress in the battle).

5. Nameless Chaos (Lies of P, 2023)

The track “Nameless Chaos” from 2023’s Lies of P is such a highly discordant and malevolent-sounding piece that goes above and beyond in highlighting the incomplete (and, by its second phase, completely unhinged) nature of the game’s final boss. While I won’t spoil the opponent’s identity, I can still say that the deranged opening piano riff, the bombastic male and female choruses, and the foreboding instrumentation make it very, very clear that what you’re facing is a total abomination.

4. Elder Naytiba (Stellar Blade, 2024)

Briefly mentioned in my article on the best final bosses seen in the “modern” era, the self-titled track that plays during the (optional) last battle is a truly ethereal, even heartachingly beautiful piece of music that properly sells the overt majesty and dread of facing what is basically a seraph. The track’s resonance with the Elder Naytiba’s angelic design, as supplemented by the heavenly appearance of its chosen arena, presents a simultaneously awe-inspiring, fearful, and (dare I say) rapturous finale.

3. Demise of the Ritual (Shadow of the Colossus, 2005)

As I alluded to in a previous article discussing the game’s final boss encounter, the track “Demise of the Ritual” from Shadow of the Colossus is an unusually sorrowful, dirge-like piece that plays a very large part in the “melancholic and introspective” tone I used to describe it. As many others have discussed in their analyses of SotC, Demise’s heavy and emotional sound leaves players to consider what’s actually being accomplished, and if slaying the colossi is something to even be championed.

2. The Sun Rises (Ōkami, 2006)

Standing out from most of the other selections due to them primarily being very foreboding and intense-sounding, “The Sun Rises” – the gorgeous final boss theme of the genuinely stunning game Ōkami – relays something arguably more powerful: hope undying. Having nearly been killed by the seemingly invincible Yami, the ultimate (and oddly mechanical) embodiment of evil, the wolf-like avatar of Shinto deity Amaterasu is revived – and regains her full divine power – through the collective prayers of everyone she had met and helped along the way…and rips Yami to shreds.

1. FIGHT!! Ver.4 ~ The Final Battle (Grandia II, 2000)

To touch back on the emotional impact that the Dreamcast’s discontinuation had on me in the early 2000’s (and still feel to a certain degree), the very last release that I played and finished on Sega’s ill-fated console was Grandia II: a game with a story and characters that I wholeheartedly love nearly 25 years later. In-universe, the track masterfully presents a conflictingly ominous and hopeful sound that perfectly fits the final, decisive battle with (arguably) the franchise’s single-most despicable antagonist – but to me, it’s effectively the penultimate theme to the end of the Dreamcast’s existence.