My number one favorite will always be Utsuho Reiuji, the lead up to her fight and her music blaring and you look in pure horror as your screen gets filled with seemingly undodgeble bullets , and the satisfaction you get from learning her grueling patterns will NEVER be beaten by any other boss in my opinion, even the top tiers like HK. I could make an essay about her but i’ve already spoken about why she is my favorite boss battle so I will instead talk about my second favorite boss battle, Gabriel from ULTRAKILL
I’ve recently started playing this game called ULTRAKILL, and God damn it is one of the closest a game has come to beating touhou in terms of enjoyment, If you haven’t heard of it or checked it out, please do it is actually peak FPS gameplay. Anything below is going to be pretty large spoilers for Act 1 & 2
So in the first act, you deal with enemies like demosns which quickly become fodder and you assume they have low intelligence, the only enemy so far that you can even really comprehend is v2, who doesn’t speak. Once you reach the climax of Act 1 you expect a fight against another grotesque demon, because your surroundings are well, pretty grotesque. Then you start progressing the stage and Gabriel’s intro starts playing. In the game’s lore Gabriel is an archangel from heaven sent to regulate hell, and if you’ve bothered reading the books ingame, you already know who he is and it invokes a sense of dread, since he is already considered quite strong and this is your first encounter with an “angel” since going to hell. Gabriel threatens you and gives you a chance to basically go back (which obviously you can’t), so you continue. At first he is arrogant and probably will kick the shit out of you on your first few times, but as your learn how to dodge and parry him the fight (like every other ultrakill boss battle) starts to become extremely fun while still being a challenge. After you finally beat him you almost feel a sense of satisfaction after beating the shit out of that arrogant prick, and know that a grim future probably awaits him. This concludes the first act and the outro cutscene, showing Gabriel essentially being exiled from heaven and the threat that you thought you just dealt with suddenly becomes even more terrifying, as you know they will come back, and even angrier this time
Moving onto act 2, between all the crazy shit that happens most players would FORGET about gabriel, however you are promptly reminded in the final chapter, where as soon as you begin the level, Gabriel begins speaking to you. You immedietly notice something different, that his tone isn’t filled with arrogance or proud anymore, but a different undertone: Hatred and exhaustion. As you finish the first level of the chapter and move onto the climax of the chapter, the same sense of dread for your next encounter starts to build up. You reach the intro and the sick ass organ solo by gabriel starts playing has he starts monologuing. You finally reach the last room and there he is again, he begins his final monoogue, I won’t even describe this and just tell you to see it yourself
You can tell that Gabriel is not longer underestimating you and is fighting you with his all to defend what little pride he has left, there is only exhaustion and rage in his tone and the VA does a phenomenal job at the delivery. The fight is similar to his previous one but much faster and much more difficult, your ass WILL get kicked a ton and similarly to the final fight, you start to make progression until you FINALLY beat him. After you beat him instead of reacting with rage, he subverts your expectations and actually seems to be relieved about his loss, and then dissapers. The final cutscene of ACT 2 plays, and you really see how much you deafeating him have changed him, he no longer works for heaven or god, but himself and the final transition from him preparing to kill the last of the council, and accepting his “fate” to the LOUD music as he holds the heads of the council out for the world to see is jaw-dropping, almost to the extent of my first fight with Utsuho in Touhou. Overall it is one of the most badass moments in gaming i’ve ever experienced, and I don’t think there is much that will beat it and I look foward to seeing this boss later on when the game reaches it’s end
