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Saw this thread last night and was going to write a post about it, but decided to go to bed, and then completely forgot about it until just now.
There are a lot of good examples in there, even from games I've never played myself (thus the impact is probably less), and also from some games I have played (including some vague spoilers [which are, fortunately, behind spoiler tags] for Outer Wilds, which doesn't really have "fights" to "win," but I agree that it still fits, even so).
I've got one[1] that nobody mentioned in that thread.
It's EarthBound, of course.
(Beware.
End game spoilers for EarthBound after this point.
You have been warned.)
Ness and his friends have just had their consciousness transferred into robots and have been sent on an presumably one-way trip back in time, to where Giygas has taken refuge. They make their way through this strange place, fighting the strongest enemies in the game, when they finally reach a new area. While the previous cave had consisted of gray, metallic plateaus suspended over a faintly glowing gray abyss, the new place looked more... meaty, like intestines almost, with otherwise pitch black surroundings. They make their way ahead and reach a wall. It's a disturbing, H.R. Giger-esque looking thing, with a strange sphere in the middle. Everything begins to shake, and something appears in the center of the sphere. It's Ness's own face. Ness's nemesis, i.e. his next-door neighbor from the very beginning of the game, Pokey/Porky Minch[2], appears out of nowhere, in a giant spider-shaped mech, and begins to taunt Ness.
And then the final battle begins (with what is probably the single coolest track in the entire game). At first, Giygas, still the sphere with Ness's face on it at this point, is untouchable. Any and all damage is reflected back onto the party (aside from Brainshock, which is effective). So they start beating on Porky instead. Soon, Porky taunts a bit more, then turns off the "Devil's Machine" (a term never used before or after that point in the game), causing the Giger-wall with Ness's face to fade away, revealing the true form of Giygas, which is even worse. (And then Porky Gs TFO). Ness and the others fight Giygas for a while, seemingly with no progress.
After a bit, Porky comes back and taunts them yet again, telling them how pointless their struggles are. He sarcastically suggests praying for help, before leaving again (you never actually fight Porky again after that first bit). Paula actually has a "Pray" command, something she's had for the entire game, though it has been largely useless up to this point, since it just caused random minor effects (some good, like restoring HP or PP, some bad, like confusing everyone, enemy and friend alike, into potentially attacking their own allies, etc.). But now, it actually does something for real. As the battle continues, she starts to see visions of all the friends they've made around the world, and they all pause to express their wish for the safety of Ness and his group. This causes increasingly larger amounts of damage to Giygas. Giygas doesn't like this. Paula keeps praying, and more of their friends offer their help, with the final vision being of Ness's mother and sister (and even the family dog, who had very briefly joined Ness at the start of the game, before chickening out and running back home). This causes the largest damage yet, which Giygas really doesn't like.
The next call for help is absorbed by the darkness.
However, the final one reaches... well... you, the player of the game. (Just to note, at a certain point in the game, Jeff's friend, Tony, calls and asks you, the actual player, to enter your name into the game. You can input whatever you want, obviously, but the game treats it like it's your IRL name, and in my first ever playthrough, I actually entered my real name. Nowadays, I usually just put in "Kane Magus.") Giygas starts taking absurd amounts of damage, up in the tens of thousands, higher than Ness and the others could ever hope to deal, and then, soon enough, it's all over (that's only the "music" part of it, as it doesn't include all the sound effects). As Giygas starts to dissolve into red static, Porky shows up to taunt one last time, and then runs off to Mother 3. And then, finally, the essense of Giygas winks out and fades to a dot, like on the center of a dying CRT television, before disappearing entirely.
The war against Giygas is over.
The spirits of Ness and his friends leave the now-shattered robot forms and, somehow, return to their real bodies, back in the present. After that, you're allowed to travel all over this new post-Giygas world as you please, as a kind of victory lap, before finally returning home to the end of the game and the credits roll.
[1] - I thought I had two, but I skimmed through the thread again, and someone actually did mention the final boss fight in Super Castlevania where the "Theme of Simon Belmont" kicks in when you've got Dracula's lifebar close to empty. (Note, the version used in the final battle, linked to there, begins slightly differently from the "normal" version at the start of the game.)
[2] - His name in the US EarthBound is "Pokey," but his original name in the Japanese Mother 2 was "Porky," and since I'm currently in the final stretches of a playthrough of the "MaternalBound Redux" hack/mod of EarthBound (which might get its own post later), in which they rename him to the original "Porky," I'll be calling him that in this post.
There are a lot of good examples in there, even from games I've never played myself (thus the impact is probably less), and also from some games I have played (including some vague spoilers [which are, fortunately, behind spoiler tags] for Outer Wilds, which doesn't really have "fights" to "win," but I agree that it still fits, even so).
I've got one[1] that nobody mentioned in that thread.
It's EarthBound, of course.
(Beware.
End game spoilers for EarthBound after this point.
You have been warned.)
Ness and his friends have just had their consciousness transferred into robots and have been sent on an presumably one-way trip back in time, to where Giygas has taken refuge. They make their way through this strange place, fighting the strongest enemies in the game, when they finally reach a new area. While the previous cave had consisted of gray, metallic plateaus suspended over a faintly glowing gray abyss, the new place looked more... meaty, like intestines almost, with otherwise pitch black surroundings. They make their way ahead and reach a wall. It's a disturbing, H.R. Giger-esque looking thing, with a strange sphere in the middle. Everything begins to shake, and something appears in the center of the sphere. It's Ness's own face. Ness's nemesis, i.e. his next-door neighbor from the very beginning of the game, Pokey/Porky Minch[2], appears out of nowhere, in a giant spider-shaped mech, and begins to taunt Ness.
And then the final battle begins (with what is probably the single coolest track in the entire game). At first, Giygas, still the sphere with Ness's face on it at this point, is untouchable. Any and all damage is reflected back onto the party (aside from Brainshock, which is effective). So they start beating on Porky instead. Soon, Porky taunts a bit more, then turns off the "Devil's Machine" (a term never used before or after that point in the game), causing the Giger-wall with Ness's face to fade away, revealing the true form of Giygas, which is even worse. (And then Porky Gs TFO). Ness and the others fight Giygas for a while, seemingly with no progress.
After a bit, Porky comes back and taunts them yet again, telling them how pointless their struggles are. He sarcastically suggests praying for help, before leaving again (you never actually fight Porky again after that first bit). Paula actually has a "Pray" command, something she's had for the entire game, though it has been largely useless up to this point, since it just caused random minor effects (some good, like restoring HP or PP, some bad, like confusing everyone, enemy and friend alike, into potentially attacking their own allies, etc.). But now, it actually does something for real. As the battle continues, she starts to see visions of all the friends they've made around the world, and they all pause to express their wish for the safety of Ness and his group. This causes increasingly larger amounts of damage to Giygas. Giygas doesn't like this. Paula keeps praying, and more of their friends offer their help, with the final vision being of Ness's mother and sister (and even the family dog, who had very briefly joined Ness at the start of the game, before chickening out and running back home). This causes the largest damage yet, which Giygas really doesn't like.
The next call for help is absorbed by the darkness.
However, the final one reaches... well... you, the player of the game. (Just to note, at a certain point in the game, Jeff's friend, Tony, calls and asks you, the actual player, to enter your name into the game. You can input whatever you want, obviously, but the game treats it like it's your IRL name, and in my first ever playthrough, I actually entered my real name. Nowadays, I usually just put in "Kane Magus.") Giygas starts taking absurd amounts of damage, up in the tens of thousands, higher than Ness and the others could ever hope to deal, and then, soon enough, it's all over (that's only the "music" part of it, as it doesn't include all the sound effects). As Giygas starts to dissolve into red static, Porky shows up to taunt one last time, and then runs off to Mother 3. And then, finally, the essense of Giygas winks out and fades to a dot, like on the center of a dying CRT television, before disappearing entirely.
The war against Giygas is over.
The spirits of Ness and his friends leave the now-shattered robot forms and, somehow, return to their real bodies, back in the present. After that, you're allowed to travel all over this new post-Giygas world as you please, as a kind of victory lap, before finally returning home to the end of the game and the credits roll.
[1] - I thought I had two, but I skimmed through the thread again, and someone actually did mention the final boss fight in Super Castlevania where the "Theme of Simon Belmont" kicks in when you've got Dracula's lifebar close to empty. (Note, the version used in the final battle, linked to there, begins slightly differently from the "normal" version at the start of the game.)
[2] - His name in the US EarthBound is "Pokey," but his original name in the Japanese Mother 2 was "Porky," and since I'm currently in the final stretches of a playthrough of the "MaternalBound Redux" hack/mod of EarthBound (which might get its own post later), in which they rename him to the original "Porky," I'll be calling him that in this post.
