Skullface was the main villain for a reason. #gaming #metalgearsolid
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00:00 So when it comes to making video games, ideas are thrown about all over the place.
00:04 And some are just thrown out entirely, whether in the early drafting stages,
00:08 or perhaps even weeks prior to release. And sometimes it becomes clear that an idea just
00:12 isn't working out, or maybe there just isn't enough time to get an ambitious element finished
00:16 before that apparently unmovable release date. And so, video games tend to ship with a ton of
00:20 extra game data for features that, for whatever reason, were cut or scrapped during production.
00:25 And today we're talking about the boss battles that we never got to fight.
00:29 So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:31 and these are 10 Hidden Video Game Bosses You Weren't Supposed To See.
00:35 10. The Egg Janken
00:37 Sonic Mania
00:38 The Sonic games are absolutely jam-packed with secret and half-finished bosses,
00:43 though perhaps the most interesting example of all occurs in Sonic Mania. Shortly after the
00:47 game hit stores and reversed the series' critical fortunes overnight, fans discovered an unused
00:52 Robotnik/Eggman boss hidden within the data of the Studio Opulence Zone. Named the Egg Janken,
00:59 the boss is an egg-like mech piloted by Robotnik with two screens on it, on which the player and
01:04 Robotnik get to play a game of rock-paper-scissors. Hitting the underside of the egg causes both
01:09 screens to draw their hands, and if Robotnik wins the players will suffer through a barrage
01:13 of tricky attacks, while if the player wins, Robotnik will incur damage. Such is the formula,
01:18 until one side is KO'd. Unlike a lot of cut bosses still residing within the game's code,
01:22 the Egg Janken is actually a fully functional boss fight, and considering its conceptual
01:27 cleverness, it's surprising it ended up being left on the cutting room floor.
01:30 9. The Giant Chicken - Silent Hill
01:34 Believe it or not, the data files for Silent Hill contain seven more grotesque, otherworldly
01:39 creatures that didn't make it into the final cut of the game. Though six of the seven monsters seem
01:44 to be pretty typical Silent Hill enemies, the seventh contains far larger and more detailed
01:49 data, suggesting that it was actually intended to be a major boss fight in the game. The enemy,
01:53 simply dubbed CKN in the files, resembles a horrifyingly mutated fetus chicken,
01:59 and certainly fits perfectly into the skin-crawling gallery of abominations that featured in the game
02:04 proper. Quite where the player would end up battling this oversized walking pile of meat,
02:08 is anyone's guess, as is also true of Konami's reasoning for removing it from the full retail
02:12 release. It's tough to imagine that this, no matter how gross the rest of the game got,
02:16 was where the publisher decided, "Nah, that's too much."
02:19 8. The Light - Cuphead
02:21 It's clear that so much time, effort, and artistry went into designing and executing Cuphead's
02:26 gorgeous enemies that it's difficult to picture any extras being buried in the game's files. But
02:31 that's absolutely the case, the very oddest of which is surely The Light, who can be fought by
02:36 modding Cuphead to access its debug menu. The Light would have appeared as a mini-boss during
02:40 the player's encounter with King Dice, and at this point actually resembled the original 2010
02:45 design for Cuphead himself, a green creature wearing a top hat. Fans have speculated that
02:49 this drawing was simply used as a placeholder during development, as were images of Cuphead's
02:54 co-creator, Jared Moldenhauer's, head for the Light's minions. The fight itself also takes
02:58 place in a rudimentary, incomplete area, a black expanse with two platforms and a series of beams
03:04 firing outwards from the boss's position. The name of the game is to avoid the red-coloured beams and
03:08 the Light's minions while attacking him until he perishes. The fight was clearly in an early stage
03:13 of development, though it's believed to have taken place in a nightclub with a disco ball firing
03:17 lasers at Cuphead. After players discovered the unfinished mini-boss, the developer's studio MDHR
03:22 released a patch which removed it from the game code entirely. Boo.
03:25 Number 7. Skull Face - Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain
03:29 When Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain was first released, many players complained about
03:34 the conspicuous and disappointing lack of a boss battle against the antagonist Skull Face. Though
03:38 MGSV generally lacked the series' signature tricksy boss fights, it was reasonable to expect a
03:43 showdown with the game's human villain, rather than for him to be unceremoniously killed off
03:47 in a cutscene, as was the case. And indeed, players who datamined the game uncovered extremely
03:52 persuasive evidence that Hideo Kojima originally intended to have the player battle Skull Face as
03:57 expected. The game's sound files contain samples of what resembles Skull Face engaging in combat
04:02 with the player, with the implication being that players were at one point given the option of
04:06 either killing him or taking him back to the mother base. This is further exemplified by
04:10 the fact that Skull Face's custom leather action rifle, the Skull Custom, also appears in the game
04:14 data as a usable weapon, and modders have even been able to import it for use in-game, though it
04:19 can't actually be reloaded here. Quite what a Skull Face boss battle would have entailed is anyone's
04:23 guess, but knowing that it was, at one stage, going to happen only makes its absence that much
04:28 more frustrating. For Kojima's part, he decided that a boss encounter with Skull Face would have
04:32 been inappropriate given the game's themes, basically stating that if he did give you this
04:36 opportunity to fight Skull Face, then it would have been pandering to a Hollywood expectation
04:40 of a happy-ending good vs evil showdown. Right.
04:43 6. Ash - Streets of Rage 3
04:46 Now, the case of Ash in Streets of Rage 3 is a most curious one indeed, because this mini-boss
04:51 actually did appear in the opening South Pier warehouse level of the Japanese version of this
04:55 game, which was entitled Bare Knuckle 3, before then being taken out for European and American
05:00 audiences. In the Japanese release, Ash would rock up with a speedboat and sick two of his goons on
05:04 you before getting involved himself, and defeating him would leave him blubbering on the floor.
05:09 It's never been officially confirmed why Ash was cut from overseas versions of this game,
05:13 but we'd hazard a guess that such a stereotypical, offensive portrayal of a gay man would definitely
05:18 cause issues. Ash does, however, remain in the game's code across all regions, and though his
05:23 mini-boss coding is disabled for Europe and the US, he can still be accessed as a playable character
05:28 with a cheat code.
05:29 5. Professor Oak - Pokemon Red and Blue
05:32 An entire article could be written about all the content that was cut from the Pokemon games,
05:36 though by far the most legendary of all of the unused enemies is surely Red and Blue's
05:40 hidden trainer battle against Professor Oak. Fans discovered an unused fight against the
05:45 inimitable Prof, and considering the strength of his Pokemon - which is a Tauros, Exeggutor,
05:49 Gyarados, and Arcanine - it's basically accepted that he was originally intended to be a bonus
05:53 final boss after defeating your Pokemon League rival. The fight can only be played either by
05:57 glitching or hacking, and while Oak has no battle dialogue that lends further context to the fight,
06:02 he can indeed be battled to completion. Why such a cool fight was removed from the game proper
06:07 remains a mystery, though at least sufficiently committed players can experience some vestige
06:11 of it for themselves.
06:12 4. The Illusive Man - Mass Effect 3
06:15 Fans have a lot to say about Mass Effect 3's highly controversial ending, and one of the many
06:20 sticking points was the lack of an outright boss battle against the Illusive Man, who is merely
06:24 confronted in a dialogue-driven cutscene. But Bioware originally planned to have players take
06:29 him down in a more typical boss fight, as players have discovered by digging into Mass Effect 3's
06:33 databanks. The original release of the game includes unused audio from the Illusive Man,
06:38 where he seems to mock the player's attempts to attack him, and there's also a clip of him
06:41 roaring monstrously. This coheres perfectly with the released concept for a Reaper-fied Illusive
06:46 Man originally planned for the end of the game, and writer Mark Walters reiterated to Eurogamer
06:51 last year that it originally ended with a Reaper-Illusive Man boss battle, not unlike
06:55 the bombastic fight at the end of the second game. While we technically had a boss fight against the
07:00 Illusive Man, albeit a spoken one, only a few scattered remnants remain of Bioware's original
07:05 vision for this battle, before deciding that it really didn't fit the character or the story
07:08 that they were telling.
07:09 3. Tiny Forest - Mother 3
07:12 Now granted, you could argue that Nintendo doesn't really want you to see Mother 3 at all,
07:16 given that the legendary RPG still doesn't have an official release outside of Japan,
07:20 despite being released all the way back there in 2006. But even so, hackers have discovered an
07:25 unused enemy in the game's code by the name of Tiny Forest, which has a complete AI combat routine
07:30 and so can be fought like any regular enemy. Tiny Forest was originally supposed to appear
07:34 at the Mole Cricket hole area of the game, and due to the extent of its attacks and the amount
07:38 of HP it has, it was very clearly supposed to be a mini-boss in the least. Despite appearing to be a
07:43 basically complete enemy, though, the Tiny Forest curiously lacks an overworld sprite, and so
07:47 resembles a placeholder enemy until you engage with it. As for why this mini-boss was removed,
07:52 well your guess is as good as ours.
07:53 2. SpongeBot Steel Pants - Third Phase
07:56 SpongeBob SquarePants - Battle for Bikini Bottom
07:59 Now the final boss in SpongeBob SquarePants - Battle for Bikini Bottom is SpongeBot Steel
08:04 Pants, a giant robot version of SpongeBob that is sicked on him by the malevolent Roboplankton.
08:09 Now the boss has two phases, but fans ended up discovering a third unused phase in the game's
08:14 code, where SpongeBot sprouts huge inflatable muscular arms and dons a speedo to fight Patrick.
08:19 Though this phase can't be played to completion, many of SpongeBot's attacks and taunt animations
08:24 are included in the game's files, suggesting that it was relatively far into development
08:28 when it was given the chop. While the third phase was briefly featured in a trailer for the game on
08:32 a bonus disc of Mario Kart Double Dash, it's fair to say that most players quickly forgot about that
08:36 fleeting glimpse. Curiously though, these files reappeared in the more recent Rehydrated remake,
08:41 yet sadly the cut phase wasn't restored to the battle, as would have explained the
08:45 file's reoccurring presence.
08:46 1. Clutch - The Binding of Isaac - Repentance
08:49 Now here's an especially fascinating example of a cut boss battle that received enough attention
08:54 from fans that, unlike SpongeBot Steel Pants' third phase, it was eventually added back into
08:59 the game in earnest. The Binding of Isaac's third and final expansion, Repentance, was released last
09:04 March, and soon enough players dug into the game's files and found an unused boss battle
09:07 going by the monikers "The Possessor" and "Clutch". Clutch's AI routines weren't entirely
09:12 finished, but players could observe both phases of the battle, and so after enough fans tweeted
09:16 at developer Edmund McMillan inquiring about the boss, he decided to patch it back into the game.
09:21 Lo and behold, the game's recent 1.7.8 update added Clutch as a legitimate boss,
09:26 much to the fanbase's delight. And of course, they immediately began wondering whether some
09:29 of the game's other incomplete bosses might also get the same treatment in the near future.
09:34 Here's hoping.
09:34 And there we go my friends, those were 10 hidden video game bosses you weren't supposed to see. I
09:38 hope that you enjoyed that, and let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section
09:41 below. And if you want to chat to me further, you can do so over on Twitter @RetroJWithA0,
09:46 and just to clarify, the O is a zero, not that it's just RetroJWithA0, all is one word as so
09:51 many people have been putting in. Or if you want to see what I'm up to outside of work,
09:54 you can go over to LivAndLet'sDice where I do all my streaming and Warhammer Bat reports.
09:58 But before I go, I just want to say one thing. Hope that you are treating yourself with love
10:02 and respect my friend, because even though today we spoke about video game bosses you
10:06 weren't supposed to see, I am seeing you right here my friend, and I'm telling you to give
10:10 yourself some love and respect because you bloody well deserve it, and don't let anything or anyone
10:14 else tell you otherwise, alright? Go out there with love in your heart, and remember, you are
10:17 a massive ledge. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll
10:21 speak to you soon. Bye.