Forum:Boss characteristics

What defines a boss, in our terms? Are we going with a game definition, characteristic definition or otherwise? Which characteristics will overrule all others should there be controversies?

Thus we have two bodies of text defining bosses: one in Category:Bosses and one recently written, under the page Bosses (surprise, surprise). I'll try to summarize what both these texts say, but feel free to interpret them at will.

In Category:Bosses, bosses:


 * Are (usually) fought at some point in a game
 * Must be "defeated" to advance further in a game
 * Tend to be bigger than other present enemies
 * Contained in a single room
 * Are never found in mini games

Bosses article
The bosses article tries to lie down some hardcore criteria specifically defining all exceptions and specific characteristics that define a boss. This isn't bad, but I do feel the definition of a boss should try to be as absolute as possible as to minimize the exceptions.

Bosses:


 * Must be the only one present in the level they are in
 * Are significantly larger than all enemies and the main character
 * Are found in the last level of a game or appear in "set" levels
 * (Often) require more effort to kill/defeat

Others
Something not mentioned in either of these criteria is the relationship the NPC has with the main character. I know this doesn't apply to many games; I was actually thinking more in context of the sun in New Moon. Your intention is to rescue "him". You're not actually trying to defeat him, even though he can deal you damage. Well, this is from what I've read so far, because I haven't gotten that far in Cheese Dreams. But compare him to say, Mother in the Toxic series, the hero intentionally wants to defeat the robot.

There are some characteristics of both pages that I think could work out, but are too specific and result in multiple exceptions. As repeated from above, we want a definition that is absolute but minimizes exceptions. 19:19, December 11, 2013 (UTC)