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Why the hell do we call them Bosses?

F

Ferrio

Banned
I never questioned it before, but I don't remember gannon ever hiring Link, or Dracula contracting labor from Simon Belmont.

Who the hell came up with this term?
 
R

Ristamar

Member
Ferrio said:
I never questioned it before, but I don't remember gannon ever hiring Link, or Dracula contracting labor from Simon Belmont.

Who the hell came up with this term?
Click to expand...

Eh, considering the characters you mentioned essentially boss their minions around.... nevermind, this must be a joke thread.

EDIT: Yeah, in other words, what AniHawk said.
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
Ristamar said:
Eh, considering the characters you mentioned essentially boss their minions around.... nevermind, this must be a joke thread.

EDIT: Yeah, in other words, what AniHawk said.
Click to expand...


No i'm just an idiot. Though still begs the question, who came up with the term.
 
R

Ristamar

Member
Hard to say. It's been around forever. I can recall it being used in my early days of gaming during the mid 80's.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
No i'm just an idiot. Though still begs the question, who came up with the term.
Click to expand...

Well it must've come around when video games evolved from endless levels to ones which have beginnings and ends. Maybe 1984-1986 somewhere. After, during, or before Super Mario Bros.
 
S

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
Because 'I just defeated the "character I must defeat to fullfill the endgame criteria"!!' takes to long?
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
It comes from games like Double Dragon, Shinobi and Final Fight. As others have said, it's the boss of the level and all the henchmen you beat up.
 
F

FitzOfRage

Member
Just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if it originally comes from Bruce Lee's first movie, Fists of Fury which was originally called "The Big Boss" in Hong Kong. Bruce Lee has to wade through a bunch of underlings before reaching "The Big Boss". It was a huge hit in Asia and for a while it was the highest grossing Hong Kong film of all time (quickly supplanted by Bruce Lee's second movie).
 
E

emerge

Member
Hmm, boss is synonym to capstone, keystone or sagitta, i.e. the last stone to be set at the summit of an arch, i.e. the last thing that has to be tackled.

Edit: I like FitzOfRage idea too
 
F

fennec fox

ferrets ferrets ferrets ferrets FERRETS!!!
I see the term used in Japanese game mags as early as 1985. The Official Nintendo Player's Guide uses it by 1987.
 
D

drohne

hyperbolically metafictive
dunno. i remember that the manual for metroid called ridley and kraid "minibosses." that's almost certainly the origin of that term. but whether "boss" was coined for metroid or whether the word was already in use i'm not sure.

i don't remember if i ever called bowser or the bosses in zelda "bosses." :/
 
N

Neutron Night

Banned
Whenever I think of bosses, I think of this arcade shooter back when I was a kid that had these HUGE ships at the end of every level. That was what really made me think of "bosses" as being an essential part of videogames. (UN Squadron is another example, but it's not the game I'm thinking of).

Now that Drohe mentions it, "mini-bosses" (or sub-bosses) are bosses within a level, that aren't actually at the end of the level. I'm trying to think of a mini-boss right now...I got one. Dark Link from the Water Temple in OoT is an example of a mini-boss.
 
F

Flynn

Member
I'd wager that there's a connection between the dubbing of these characters "bosses" and popular elementary school phrase "you're not the boss of me."
 
M

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
I too know people who call them "masters." That sounds dumb as hell to me.

Personally, I seem to remember saying "bosses" ever since Super Mario Bros. (being the first game I played when I was 3 years old).
 
D

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
BenT said:
Life Force, one of my favorite Nintendo tapes, calls them Mayors.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember that! Gradius 3 does as well...

I always called them bosses, and the final boss, the "end guy", since the 80's...
 
Guileless

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I remember the manual to the early NES game "Kung Fu" used the term "boss." That made sense, as they were the actual bosses of the henchmen that attacked you before you got to the boss.
 
PanopticBlue

PanopticBlue

Member
Heh, I've been playing games since pong, and I'm having a hard time remembering a time when I didn't use the term "boss". Probably started using it during the Nes era (I was in sixth grade).


Life Force, one of my favorite Nintendo tapes, calls them Mayors.
Click to expand...
LOL, I knew some kids that called cartridges "tapes" as well, I wanted to punch them, I thought that was so retarded.
 
N

Naked Snake

Member
It's funny and strange because they are even called "bosses" in other languages, we always called the big bad guy at the end of the level "the boss" in Arabic when we were kids, and we sure didn't translate it from English back then.
 
suikodan

suikodan

Member
We also use the term boss in french but it's not really easy to translate, so we just use boss.

mini-boss
boss
last boss

;-)
 
T

Tommie Hu$tle

Member
Dice said:
It comes from games like Double Dragon, Shinobi and Final Fight. As others have said, it's the boss of the level and all the henchmen you beat up.
Click to expand...


I'd probably say Kung Fu was the first time I remember bosses and the henchmen were sent by the bosses to stop you on every floor.
 
B

b00duh

Member
Stryder said:
I've got a friend that calls bosses the 'master'
Click to expand...

I also had a friend who did that.. i'd call him on it every time when i was like.. 13..

he'd be all "oh man, the master of stage 3 in Gunstar Hereoes is so hard!"

I would immediately repremand him.. :(
 
N

NetMapel

Guilty White Male Mods Gave Me This Tag
I wouldn't be surprised if the term "boss" came from a horribly translated game back in the NES or pre-NES era...
 
F

FortNinety

Member
On a related noted, I used to call each level of a game.... well..... "levels." Then I came to NYC and everyone here calls them "boards." I thought that was like totally bizarre.
 
D

DopeyFish

Not bitter, just unsweetened
FortNinety said:
On a related noted, I used to call each level of a game.... well..... "levels." Then I came to NYC and everyone here calls them "boards." I thought that was like totally bizarre.
Click to expand...

that is ... really weird
 
H

human5892

Queen of Denmark
PanopticBlue said:
LOL, I knew some kids that called cartridges "tapes" as well, I wanted to punch them, I thought that was so retarded.
Click to expand...
Haha, me too. I mean, they don't have reels in them or anything. They're not tapes.

Also, it's definitely levels, not boards.
 
D

Datawhore

on the 15th floor
I never likes "Boss" growing up, so we called them "Guardians".

I do call them Bosses now, but I can't remember when I switched over. I still have a soft spot for Guardians though.
 
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