Largest / biggest bosses

[qmish]

What are big boys? Overall and to each series?

Can't escape mentioning Great Thing or G.T.V. from Darius, etc.

And i think bosses that are themselves as stages should be in separate category (like those from Mushihimesama, Raiden Fighters, DeltaZeal etc.)

[xxx1993]

Gigantic Bite is probably the biggest of them all.

[Asure]

Metal slug has some big uns

Lots more here: https://imgur.com/gallery/iNDqq

[Bananamatic]

titanic lance from darius gaiden
jupiter from batsugun

[Lord Satori]

A few of the bosses from the XOP games cover the entire screen.

[OmegaFlareX]

The entire game of Omega Fighter is you dismantling this gigantic mothership, piece by piece.

[Shepardus]

Largest relative to the size of the player or the screen, I assume?

Stage 3 boss of ring^-27 is pretty big, it's the type of thing that probably could have been its own stage.

[Gespenst]

R-Type series' signature Warship and its different carnations

RefleX bosses especially stage 3's battleship raid

[Jeneki]

Speaking of R-Type incarnations, Pulstar's battleship boss has a full level attached making it an extra long stage.

[ZacharyB]

The mission targets in the Raiden Fighters series, if you can count them as bosses and not half the stage.

[gameoverDude]

The huge battleship in Soukyugurentai's final stage that you finish off right before the end boss.

[XoPachi]

The bosses in Raiden Fighters. They cant fit on the screen and act as stages. Sand Lobster is goddamn enormous.

[M.Knight]

P-47 Aces's stage 2 boss is quite huge and features multiple phases. It has a boss warning but at the same time is also the whole stage, so I am not sure whether it completely fulfills your criteria.

[qmish]

I'm grateful to hear both about "bosses-stages" and "just bosses"!

[Rue]

Apparetoride and Kaijin from 1944 Loop Master are pretty big.

[qmish]

Hi, I wanted to ask a specific thing...

Was Forgotten Worlds' (1988) War God the first "giant standing/floating guy" boss trope implementation, or something similar was also featured before that?
Either in shmups or arcades overall.

[Randorama]

Thunder Blade has multi-section bosses: it exploits Sega’s 2.5 early hardware. Capcom’s 1943 has also several bosses taking several screens to appear in full (e.g. the final boss Yamato). Forgotten worlds is probably the first one on *simple” 2D hardware (i.e. Capcom’s CPS-1), even if Seta’s has a stage-long boss (an air carrier on Stage 5).

Shameless plug-ins here and here

[OdiousTrident]

Hi, I wanted to ask a specific thing...

Was Forgotten Worlds' (1988) War God the first "giant standing/floating guy" boss trope implementation, or something similar was also featured before that?
Either in shmups or arcades overall.

First and last bosses of Mega Blast (Taito 89) might qualify.

[Bassa-Bassa]

"giant standing/floating guy" boss trope implementation

I guess you're looking for something with the whole guy somehow visible, but there's this from the year before:

[Jeneki]

I always thought the lead up to the skull boss fight in NES Salamander/Life Force was neat, as you fly up the rib cage to the head (in a weird, out-of-scale way). But that's not the same thing as a boss fight across the the whole thing.

[emphatic]

Mushihime-Sama stage 3 wins.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Giga Wing's S6 boss is both the biggest and smallest in the game. It starts off massive, and far enough down the screen that accidentally running into it is a real possibility. It also extends several segments during the fight that makes it even larger at times, but eventually it breaks apart into a tiny geometric form no larger than your ship.

[Lemnear]