Introduction to Bosses

There are two modes in which you can fight bosses in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The first is in Adventure Mode, The Subspace Emissary, and after you clear that mode once, you’ll unlock the other mode, Boss Battles. The first is a story-based quest where bosses will appear in set locations, including rematch battles in the last area, The Great Maze. The second, on the other hand, comprises nothing more than a marathon of the ten boss battles from Emissary and other modes. In Boss Battles mode, the player must select one character and carry that character through all ten battles without being KO’d even once (with a total of three replenishing Heart Containers for the duration between battles) in order to complete it. Because of its single-elimination nature, the bosses tend to be somewhat easier in this mode than in Emissary, where the player can have multiple characters and can afford to be KO’d a certain number of times and use continues. So, for example, Boss Battles on Intense will be like fighting the bosses in The Subspace Emissary on Hard or Very Hard. Another thing to remember about Boss Battles is that you’ll face the first nine bosses in a randomized order (Tabuu will always be the tenth and last), and the last five of those bosses will move faster than they would’ve if you’d encountered them among the first five. So if you’re playing Boss Battles on the higher difficulty levels, you’d better hope the game gives you the harder bosses early to get them over with in their somewhat slower incarnations!

Strategies for bosses will vary, especially depending on the character. For pure attack power, Charizard and Donkey Kong will be your best bets. The former’s Rock Smash (side-B) will tear huge chunks out of the boss’s life meter, but his slowness will make dodging attacks a real nightmare. The latter’s Hand Slap (down-B) will drain the enemy’s life very quickly, but the lag in this attack will leave you very vulnerable to attack—DK’s up-smash is a more attractive option because of its minimal lag. In order to truly succeed against these bosses, though (certainly on the higher difficulty levels, at any rate), dodging attacks is going to be key. For that, smaller and lighter characters may be a more attractive option. Toon Link has a down aerial that can keep him on top of bosses for a while, doing legitimate damage, but you put yourself at risk in so doing. Meta Knight has a neutral aerial that really saps away bosses’ strength, and Kirby wields a powerful Hammer (side-B), both with good dodging capabilities—but landing those hits does put them into the “belly of the beast,” as it were, making dodging harder. Probably the single best character for fighting bosses, however, would be Fox. He’s one of the fastest characters, jumps very high, has a long range Blaster, intuitive move system, and his aerials do a great deal of damage without putting him at too much risk. These are the six best characters for Boss Battles, Fox being the best overall (though Charizard and DK are almost sure wins at nearly any difficulty level under Intense). Regardless of character, perhaps the single most important move you’ll have to master in these boss battles is the art of the air dodge!