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.)
( Description of the entire final boss fight of EarthBound/Mother 2, with links to associated music tracks, behind cut )
[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.)
( Description of the entire final boss fight of EarthBound/Mother 2, with links to associated music tracks, behind cut )
[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.