A tricky boss-beating poll from GFaqs

[Kirin]

Yes, I still answer the daily polls over at GameFaqs, no, I don't know why. But today's is kind of interesting.

I think my answer is Bowser, but I"m not 100% sure. I remember beating SMB3 and SMW quite a few times each in their original eras plus Mario64 a few times as well; I've beaten SMB1 a few times in re-releases, plus beaten several of the New portable games (though mostly only once each).

I've literally never fought Robotnik. No SEGA access as a kid.

Wily is a competitor, I played MM2 and 3 a good bit on the original NES carts, but I don't think I actually *beat* them very many times each. And then I played through 1-8 on later collections and 9 and 10 on PS3, but probably only once each.

Dracula... I dunno if I ever actually beat any old Castlevania carts in the day, so it'd mostly be a several runs of SotN (which might count twice each?) and OoE... I don't think I've actually beaten many of the others.

Ganon (I'm assuming both the 'dorf and the pig count) I've beaten several time in LttP and maybe once in LoZ, and then in LBW, but interestingly all of the other Zelda games I've played through don't feature him so my count is pretty low.

M. Bison is a weird one since anyone who's played much Street Fighter will have "beaten" him scores of times, so I assume we should at the least only count wins of story modes where he's a real boss, not just a VS character. I'd have a few wins against him that way from SFIITurbo back in the day, haven't played a lot of story SF since then.

Sephiroth is also a weird choice since he's mainly the boss of one game (where I've probably beaten him half a dozen times) though I guess now there's Remake. Oh and there's the times he's a boss in Kingdom Hearts maybe? A few more there if that counts.


Meanwhile I don't think there's a way to allow write-in votes in a Xenforo poll but feel free to do so in the comments as there's certainly other recurring possibilities. Ridley pops to mind, he would certainly rank in the top half of this list for me though I don't think he'd catch Bowser. (Actually, heck, I'm just gonna add that one.)

 

[zonetrope]

Unless only the final battle counts, almost certainly Robotnik, since you fight him at the end of every world.

 

[YangusKhan]

This is a fun exercise. My intuition is Wily and Dracula are competing for the top spot... hmmm...

 

[Phantoon]

I'm taking this as final / penultimate boss, otherwise it's Robotnik by a mile. It's got to be Ridley or Dr Wily. I don't replay Mario to the end as much as Metroid games, and my favourite Zelda games don't have Ganon in them.

Edit: scratch all that, it's M. Bison, a run through Street Fighter II is about 20 minutes tops and I played it religiously for years

 

[RT-55J]

I thought Bowser at first, but I don't think I've ever made it to the end of a Mario game that many times. I could count the number of times I've beaten him in versus Smash battles, but that feels against the spirit of the thing.

Dr. Wily is pretty close. I get the feeling that I've beaten the 17 classic Megaman games (1-11 plus Bass and the GB games) at least 3 or 4 times each (depending on the game), so it's a pretty respectable number at least.

While you fight Robotnik more often than Bowser in most of his games, I don't think I've played Sonic games enough for this number to actually be very high.

Surprisingly, Ridley might actually be the highest for me, if only because of the sheer quantity of bad rom hacks I've churned through over the years.

Gonna go with Ridley for this one.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Hmmm...

~I'm not sure "final boss only" counts, with M. Bison on the list - how would that work, count the number of times you've played through street fighter single-player?

~Bowser is often fought repeatedly throughout a game, same for Robotnik.

~I've played games with Bowser and Ganon/dorf more consistently and most recently, whereas Dr. Wily and Robotnik I beat a decent amount of times as a kid but haven't in a very long time. (Actually I'm not sure I actually beat Wily all that often.)

~A few Draculas here and there, but only a few.

~Sephiroth, I've only played through the entirety of FF7 once or twice (is it weird that I can't remember?) and never fought him elsewhere?



**To throw a big ol' wrench in the works too, If Smash Bros counts, Bowser shoots way up the list, with small bonuses for Ridley and Sephiroth.


Either way, I think in the end it's Bowser.

 

[Kirin]

Good point about Robotnik being at the end of every stage, but I think I'd go with not counting that - he "runs away" until the final battle when he's "defeated" (until the next game).

And Smash victories I certainly wouldn't count, like fighting M. Bison as a random VS character.

Of course, I'm not the boss of any of you, vote how you want!

 

[Patrick]

Definitely Bowser for me. Super Mario World, Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Galaxy 1+2, Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story, NSMB, NSMB Wii, 3D Land, 3D World, Bowser's Fury. Most of them I've beaten at least 2 or 3 times. Just a landslide of Bowser fights.

He's followed at a distance by Ridley and Ganondorf. I rarely beat Sonic games, and I've only beaten a handful of Mega Man/Castlevania games.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Sephiroth is also a weird choice since he's mainly the boss of one game (where I've probably beaten him half a dozen times) though I guess now there's Remake. Oh and there's the times he's a boss in Kingdom Hearts maybe? A few more there if that counts.

Is he the boss for Cloud in Dissidia?

 

[MetManMas]

Bowser, no contest. I play and replay Mario games all the time.

 

[Kazin]

It's Robotnik for me, Genesis kid here, and I played the crap out of the Sonic games (and still do, every year or two).

 

[Octopus Prime]

I make it a point to take out Wily about a dozen times a year and even games I *really* like don't get that kind of coverage

 

[conchobhar]

It's gotta be Dracula. I don't replay games very often, but I do play the game again as a second character (or similar modes)… so Castlevania, with both a healthy number of titles and regular bonus modes is the easy answer for me. Circle of the Moon is three Draculas alone!

Dr. Wily is probably a close second, though, thanks to Mega Man Powered Up's playable robot masters (I didn't finish it with all of them, but I know I did a few).

 

[Falselogic]

My defeats of Dr. Wily in Megaman 2 alone probably puts him at the top of my list. Throw in the other MM games and there's no question.

 

[Sarge]

This is a fun exercise. My intuition is Wily and Dracula are competing for the top spot... hmmm...

Pretty much me. I mean, I played a ton of all six NES Mega Man games. But then I wonder if Dracula has caught up over the years. And Bowser is lurking in there somewhere simply because of the sheer number of times I beat SMB3 for one of my cousins.

 

[4-So]

I played SF2 so much when it came out on SNES and over the years that it's M.Bison by a country mile.

However, since Street Fighter is distinctly different than the rest of those games, in the spirit of the thing, the answer is Dr. Wily. I have played the NES Mega Man games so, so many times. Dracula and Bowser are very close to each other but either one is a distant second to the good (bad) doctor.

 

[dosboot]

Dracula. There's just too many games in the Castlevania franchise, and I'm enough of a fan that I periodically want to keep exploring the series.

The mathematical essence of this question is N * R, where N = number of games and R = replayability, but once I started thinking about these franchises I don't think R ends up shifting the rankings very much for me. In fact, it makes me realize that the scale of what counts as "replayed a lot" or "replayed to extreme degrees" does not symmetrically map onto how we think about total games played. For example, replaying Ocarina of Time 10 or 20 times would make an individual sound like an absurd outlier in most discussions, but playing 10 or 20 total Zelda playthroughs across all games is just a fan.

 

[Issun]

I've played the first 6 Mega Man games so many times it's got to be Wily.

 

[Gaer]

Out of that list prolly Ganondorf in all his incarnations, but you’re taking to the person who needs to farm FFXIV extreme primals 99 fuckin’ times to buy the mount cos I ain’t gonna win it in a roll.

 

[Beowulf]

Okay, so, I think Bowser is the winner: I beat Super Mario World a lot, and SMB1 and SMB3 a bunch of times; then there were all the times I beat him in Mario & Luigi games, Paper Mario, New SMB, 3D Land, Mario Kart, Smash Brothers...

Ganon/dorf is probably second. I've beaten Zelda 1 and ALttP a lot; plus his appearances in various spinoff games.

Dracula is the only other big challenger; I've probably beaten his incarnations 20 times in an assortment of Castlevania games. Depending on the requirement of him being the final boss, I may have beaten him more than Ganon.

Even if you count him in Dissidia, Sephiroth is only a handful of times. Same with Ridley--I've played Metroid 2 more than any other game in the series, and he doesn't appear in that.

M. Bison, Dr. Robotnik, and Dr. Wily are all rare cases for me. I'm not actually very good at any of their respective series. Well, maybe Mean Bean Machine.

 

[Regulus]

Of these, probably Wily. Maybe Robotnik if you count each individual fight as a defeat rather than beating him at the end of the game.

If he were listed, I think Sigma would be my answer.

 

[pudik]

of those, I think it has to be bowser. Overall im not sure. I guess the first boss of dodonpachi or strikers 1945 or some other shmup boss that i can attempt 20 times an hour

 

[Torzelbaum]

I think Bison takes the top spot for me with all of my solo time in SF games. I think Ganon would be next followed by Bowser (but those two might be close to tied) and then Dracula.

 

[Issun]

I've played the first 6 Mega Man games so many times it's got to be Wily.

Bowser, Ganon and Ridley would be in the conversation though. I've played games in those series, some a handful of times, but Mario World, LttP and Super Metroid a lot. Probably throw Zeromus in tthere, too, as I've played FF4 more than any game ever.

Yeah, those 10 games are my comfort food, along with Chrono Trigger.

So yeah, throw Lavos in there.

 

[lincolnic]

Bowser's at the top of my list, and it's not even close. I played so much SMW and SMB3 growing up that I pretty much had both games memorized. Ganon probably takes second place; as a kid I'd frequently load up my endgame save file of LttP just to fight him again.

Third place probably goes to either M. Bison (shoutout to SF2) or Dr. Wily, but I don't really have a good way to measure that.

 

[Voncaster]

If its unique games its Dracula. If its number of times defeated I've defeated said boss its Bowser no contest. There was a time when I tried to go through all of SMB1 with no warps on 1 life. The best I could do was 2 lives. But I must have beat Bowser 20x in SMB1 alone.

Bowser (6): SMB1, SMB3, SMW, Mario 64, Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros Wii
Dracula (8): Castlevania IV, Castlevania Bloodlines, Castlevania (N64), Rondo of Blood, Symphony of the Night, Castlevania Chronicles, Harmony of Despair, and Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

With my son's interest in Mega Man games, I probably have to give this to Dr. Wily. We've finished every game in the main series several times over. The only reason I hesitate is because you fight Bowser multiple times in each of the 3D Mario games, so it's not impossible that he's our most-beaten big bad. No-one else is close, IMO.

 

[Adrenaline]

Bowser is the only one that has a chance of competing with Ganon for me.

 

[Kirin]

So yeah, throw Lavos in there.

You know, that's a good point. I've gotten every ending of CT on multiple systems, and some of them many times over, so even with only one game Lavos is easily in the top half of my list somewhere. (I suppose you could count the Time Devourer from CC as a form of Lavos as well, which adds another few as I beat him both ways there a few times.)

 

[Son of Sinistar]

LttP randomizer put Ganaon the top for me, otherwise I think Bowser might have won out.