Id say you like Nintendo too much   Its a good idea now I think about it Ive been trying to think back to when bosses became popular a mite difficult seeing as I would have been about five years old and it seems that the flash point is in   However I am quite heavily biased toward scrolling shooters so Im probably missing something important Bosses are on the other hand probably more important in scrolling shooters than any other genre because they have to break up the linearity of the game  Anyway In  youve that Mario game thingy and Gradius which is the first time I can recall having to fight a huge boss character Then in  youve got Darius which is the earliest game I know of that had different bosses for every level I think it had minibosses too  And then it really gets going In  I can name RType Raiden and Rainbow Islands as having distinct bosses and by this point it was all pretty standard But Im just namedropping and articledropping too seeing as I wrote most of those articles   The point is that there seems to be a dark age of bosses before  so it would probably be interesting to unravel that  The very earliest enemythatcouldconceivablybethoughtofasaboss that I can think of not including that Dungeons and Dragons thing mentioned in the article which I know nothing about is the Flag Ship from Gorf an arcade game released in  in the prime of the Space Invaders Era Gorf was like five games in one and when the player completed a level they would move onto a level in the next game  The fifth level was a battle with the Flag Ship It has all the hallmarks of a boss Its much bigger than the players ship much better armed has its own forcefield and is only minorly damaged by the players weapon The only way to destroy it is to hit it in its weak spot  a reactor situated deep within the ship  Now I think about it I dont know why I didnt mention this before The thing is I always thought of the Flag Ship as a level rather than a boss There wasnt really any concept of a boss at that point in history Still its a start