Boss trick

A boss tease is a common mechanic in gaming where the player is tricked into thinking they've defeated the boss, only to have a bigger badder boss show up to fight.

Personally, I much prefer a boss tease where you have to actually fight the fake boss before the real boss shows up. Whether you have to defeat the fake boss or simply survive long enough doesn't matter as much to me, but the bait-and-switch style of immediate replacement is not nearly as exciting.

Definition

There is a subjective distinction between a boss tease and a boss that is simply fought in multiple stages. A boss tease works under the principle that the player is tricked into thinking they have won, while a multi-staged boss occurs without any attempt at trickery.

There are generally three ways to handle a boss tease:

1. The real boss appears after the player defeats the fake boss.
2. The real boss appears during the battle with the fake boss.
3. The real boss appears before the player even gets a chance to fight the fake boss.

Examples

This is a list of games that are important to me which feature a boss tease. For all games, see the category.

Title	Released	Replaced	Notes
Bionic Commando	1988-07-20	Before	The story in the NES port treats Generalissimo Killt like he's the primary boss, but he's taken out by the real boss before you get to fight him.
Cave Story	2005-01-04	Before	Just as security robot is activated, he's smashed, and you have to fight Balrog instead.
Mega Man II	1988-12-24	After	After you defeat a multi-staged Dr. Wily, there is a twist.
Contra	1987-02-20	After	Upon reaching the alien's lair, a giant alien head appears, but it turns out to only be a miniboss.
Super Contra	1988-01-08	After	Stage 6 ends with a multi-faced alien boss, but, when you kill it, you discover it was only the babies!

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