Game Bosses

* See also Rapture_Factions
* See also Splicers
* See also The_Ruins
* See also Rejected_Heavy_Hitters
Who could forget Sander Cohen or Stanley Poole or Grace Holloway ???
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Types : 
* Passive 'Bosses' (who only send minions)
* Fighters - who you have to battle with ( and thus are made very hard to kill )
* Creepy Mutants in their own Aquarium ...
* Some that are only 'in your mind' ...
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 "Bosses" Which Might Still Be Around in the MMORPG - Did you Kill Them in the Solo Games?? :
Players love bits of the previous games to be involved with the current one, So are Gil Alexander/Stanley Poole/Grace Holloway/Sander Cohen/Sinclair/Sofia Lamb still around to interact (drive plot) with ?? ( And did they change after their encounter with Jack/Delta ?? ) You might not be able to interact with them directly face-to-face again ( Hard to justify an 'impervious' nature required since every player will want to try to kill them "just to try it" ). Would be of interest for Players to see what happened to the BS1 personalities in the intervening years.
Were you sure you actually killed them (that Vita-Chamber thing makes 'all bets are off ...)
And one whack and their dead ?? ( I had a general disappointment that they didn't fight back much or even last longer than a packet of Capt. Salty's Chips in front of a Big Daddy ). No ? Please think ... ( You put a gun to your head, blew your brains out and came back to life after 7+ years, SO is it SO impossible that all those interesting personalities were just good at "playing dead" ?? )
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Gil Alexander was turned into Strawberry Jelly *or* just left Alive by you (your choice) in BS2. 
ADAM has significant regenerative powers, so HE could be back.
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Remember "Blue Velvet" Dennis Hopper :
Creepy and Nasty and Violent (Perfect).
Inhaler scene - crazed 'boss' taking a hit off his 'vapor' - Amyl Nitrate ( or some equivalent being 'huffed' ). 
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The LAIR of a Faction 'Boss' called The Barber who would have some interesting things for you.
Barber themed banter seems natural, but instead shouldn't he then VERY strangely talk like a Spanish Matador ( or something similarly disjoint/incongruous ... )?
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 'Boss' Archetypes :
* Outsiders - KGB CIA Nazis, oh my!! with Ruthless leaders on a 'mission'
* The smart 'BIG' Big Daddy (Big Daddy O' ??) 'Nightmare on Rapture Street' (Yeah that makes alot of sense)
* Sander Cohen, he's back. The ears are still on. ( Or a look-a-like clever enough to fool a few ADAM_Addled Splicers )
* Mini-Cults - Ryan/Lamb/Atlas wannabees - more delusions of the insane
* 'Mafia' Boss ?? Citizen Gangs and 'territories'. Underworld under the sea - This kind of Parasite was never quite eradicated from the city.
* The Big Sister 'Who would be Lamb' (delusions of tyranny and arrogant insanity)
* The "Squid Whisperer"
* Splicer Boss with his fiefdom ( usually controlling area with valuable resources : Food, EvePlants, Power, ... )
* The Grand Delusion - the rival 'Rapture' - somewhere on the other side of town - also 'rebuilding' ...
* How to 'get them back' (the Bosses) for the next big raid or quest/mission ??? How would this work? Like Dracula they ALWAYS come back ? Opponents just hard to kill. Too many Vita-Chambers unaccounted for.
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A Bothersome Boss :
Lil Sisters had a Sea Slug inside them (Holy Super Tapeworm, Batman !!), and were virtually indestructible (part of the de-controversy-ization measures the game makers had to put in - Cant have Players using them for target practice, and they ARE in the line of fire all the time), so why not some 'Boss' having some sluggy-goodness also ? We really didn't get many details of what Sea Slug implantations do to adults, other than they really don't work for processing ADAM.
So alternate strategies are needed : Actually would be available to you in the game because an important NEW MMORPG goal is to capture Splicers so they can be 'Cured', instead of slaughtering them wholesale ( "Don't shoot 'Leadhead' Louie, He's just some ordinary slob waiting to be set free !!!! Remember Mary, that could have been you getting your head blown off." -- Hmm, I can see a city public announcement Asset using that, and similar ...) "When in doubt, Let Splicers get away, And capture them, Another day - Burma Shave".
But what do you do to the Slug-Enhanced Boss ??? Maybe they don't regenerate ADAM the way (or as well) that Lil Sister do. And Little Sisters weren't completely invulnerable either - As you used to kill them all the time ( hidden behind that green flashy screen effect ) IF you were 'bad' Jack/Delta. Most Splicers who wanted to catch Gatherers also weren't going to just feed them 'chips and soda' until they vomited up ADAM ... ( Though the smart ones WOULD ... )
Various stun mechanisms and other ways to incapacitate opponents will exist in this game ( to be used in general on all Splicers ). But Bosses aren't actually meant to be eliminated in a 'consistent' MMORPG where they often have to get away and 'menace some other Player some other day' --- Not like the way MMORPGs currently operate, where you vanquish exactly the same Boss as a million other Players, in exactly the same place, in exactly the same situation. It will actually take some skill to vary scripting of their 'escape', so it isn't so ridiculously obvious that they are meant to always 'get away' in the end.
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Your Personal Nemesis :
Every MMORPG Player should have a Personal Nemesis -- A Name and Personality Different from other Players' Nemesis ... No two Players should have the same one ( or even being from a small set ). This would (have to) make use of the games Auto-generation mechanism which scrambles the character/backstory, and to customize make independent this 'Nemesis' personality ( Definitely more than just having a different name ).
One of "the Seven Deadly Parasites" ?? (A good start)
It will be a Challenge to Procedurally Generate within the game - to sufficiently randomize/customize this. Being a quite specific game element, it can have more effort put into cohesively detailing it ( an added Player Creation effort ), and to use many other lesser Templates ( Minions, Lairs, etc ... ). And interject its scenarios into the Player's other activities (( Note - that's ALOT of logic to make something like this work ))
There should be a Plot Arc dealing with this unique person - phases of relation development ( Finding+Intro, Your_Private_War/Conflict, Crescendo Events, Sustained/Continued Animosity )
There would be a Mechanism where the Player's Nemesis cannot be killed off ( slippery escapes ... "We shall meet again ..." ) Also the character shouldn't be just an assassin towards the Player ( Killing you would ruin the 'fun' ).
Should be more than just a 'Boss' - one that can go more places (or send minions) so that Player can't avoid them forever ( WHO trashed your New Rapture Residence ??? - YOUR NEMESIS DID !!! )
I suppose that if you don't like your Nemesis you can trade it in for a new one (only after a coupla months).
Sander Cohen Jr as your Nemesis !!! ( Or at least he calls himself that ... )
The rest of the time the developed 'Nemesis' character can be used as filler for other Players' missions (???)
There would be archetypes ( I suppose the Player might give input about what flavor of Nemesis the want to have - Perhaps the Players behavior in-game could help select a fitting one ).
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Odd Splicers - YET MORE (!!) MMORPG Splicer 'Bosses':
Boss (Or Wannabe-Boss) Splicers :
* Boss called "Farmer John" - whose Plasmids allowed him to talk to Turnips. Unfortunately the turnips have little to say. So therefore he usually just throws them at you. ( Screaming "Turnips COULD have been a product of early ADAM testing ... Yes that's the ticket !!! " )
* Boss Idea -- some kind of TV addict (crazy multitude of TVs scene - like from "12 Monkeys") Ryan/Atlas/Lamb/Tenenbaum/Sinclair/Sander_Cohen/Wahl - all seem to watch Jack/Delta/Sigma with no problem. So something to do with that surveillance aspect (with a decoy 'Boss Base' at one of Rapture's TV stations, with the real 'lair' being some small obscure apartment room. This boss lets you know 'HE'S WATCHING YOU' (kind of like the annoying Reed Wahl) -- a clever AI program to have him say what he sees you do/doing might be a AI programming challenge.
* The Saturnine saw a vintage Bela Lugosi movie, and decided it would be nice to drink blood ( might have been the germ of the idea for Little Sisters ? ) They killed off a Rival schismatic 'Chronusine" group ( 'Cronus' Greek form of Roman Saturn - a Titan actually ) who had some strange worship of clocks. 'Their Boss who calls himself 'Dacula' ( instead of "Dracula", which would be just plain stupid ... )
* Would it be cool to have a mini-Boss who is a Chimp, who was a test subject for Plasmids/Tonics in the early days? He COULD still be alive ( Plasmids may make him more resilient and live longer ) and maybe he's been hiding, OR (and this is more like it) maybe he's been running around throwing poop at/killing the human Splicers around Rapture. Hiding in some overgrown jungle-like farm complex. Bonzo's Revenge.
* Boss known as 'The Mummy' because of the bandages he wore to try to conceal his extreme disfigurement (party mask was not enough). Rumor says he doesn't like cats ( probably because they will think he is a big roll of toilet paper ). Followers dressed (badly) as mummies ? Too much like Cohen's 'plaster splicers' ?
* 'Retching Pete', you may seek to avoid.
* Boss called 'The Godfather' - Talks like a cliche Sicilian mafioso "He makes you an offer you can't refuse" His Splicer 'Syndicate' walks around dressed like 20's gangsters. Controls the ADAM racket on the 'Eastside'
* Consider : Might we see a shed-load of Zombie Dogs running around lead by a Splicer dressed as a dog ? 
* The Pizza Man, Another Mafioso? ( or whatever confused memories remain ) The idea might be that this 'Boss' does it all wrong and is more a mimicking of bad TV/Film gangsters more than anything real.
* Screaming Mime ( not the 'Screaming Meemies' or a 'Screaming Meme' ... ) - gesticulated wildly at you (not eloquently). Noted for their whiteface makeup, striped shirts, berets, and silent gestures/motions (acts out Schrodingers 'Cat in a Box').
* Uncle Squiggly ? Though animating of Tentacles is hard (alot of work to get right).
* Boss : Lord of the Streams - boss who does fly-casting - various 'orbs' cast and with the usual fishing paraphernalia ( all those little pockets full of nasty surprises ... ) 
* "ITS LORD GARTH !!!!" Original Star Trek Reference Insanity knows NO Limit 
* Give Me The Cuttlefish !!!!! - Joke from "The Venture BrothersAdult Swim network" about 'villians' in less than preferred circumstances ( much like would exist throughout Rapture for various 'Bosses' who are in less exalted situations than they feel they deserve. )
* Splicer who dresses/carved-their -own-face-with-knife to LOOK (sorta) like Andrew Ryan - "No Gods, No Kings, Just Me !!!!" "Follow the Great Chain, Or I Beat You To Death With It !!!"
* Boss - a guy who wears a big Snail Shell on his head ... ( Just looks stupid and he runs away alot because he can't really HIDE in that shell, can he ? )
* The Sausage King (Splicer Boss). You might imagine the nefarious reasons he would be called that.
* A Dentist called 'Dr Blood' (or 'Dr Payne' or 'Dr Mengeles' (Mangler)) : Dr Payne - "Let Dr Payne put you here in his chair, and have you tell him ALL your Secrets. That's good, the restraints made all nice and tight... There. Oh that tooth there needs work. I'm sorry, but this WILL QUITE BE extremely painful for you ..." (( See Rapture Dentist RolePlaying Game (hmmm) The Creepy teeth many Splicers have - "A disturbing adventure of the dental kind".
* "The Piccard" ( actually a ham pie - but a crazy Splicer Boss called himself this ) PIGS IN RAPTURE - Oh nooooos rampant boar in the farm area !!!
* Boss known as "The Stench" (You might need a gasmask for this one ...)
Bosses that are too weird can be a problem. Like Animals - the game Assets are a big problem ( Why do you think there was just one dead cat model - same model/texture reused like 40 times ? ). And further, Animating them, giving them proper behavior/AI is a whole LOT of work ($$$$$/Time/Skill). Player Creators can be dedicated enough to make creating them Their Life's Work/Mission, but a game company will try to dodge having them (and paying for them). 
Animals used for experimentation - ADAM testing, etc... Experimental Farm animals as used as 'minions' for 'Bosses' - we probably have some leftovers in 'farms' that would still be around, so the Assets would be reusable ( except for the fireball shot out of the cows backside ... )
NOTE - No all have to be 'Splicers' - Even creepier for them to get the way they are without THAT EXCUSE.
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Variations :
Pair of Bosses (take turns or double team you)
"They can't all be a Sander Cohen" (comment about bosses in games)
The Mad Cow of Deck 16 (another Boss ??)
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 "The Sausage King" (a MMORPG Splicer "Boss") : 
Splicers might get up to all kinds of strange activities in their ways to obtain resources and individuals to gain power ( in their odd little corners of Rapture's Ruins ). He got his sausage casing from somewhere ... ( make your own disconcerting assumptions about that ).
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The Postman :
Delivers what ? Death !!!
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The Cat Lady : (A Sorta Boss)
Bosses(Minor Characters) varying - have some (or many?) portable/nomadic ones which are not always same place - ones that wander around ( handy for the expanding New Rapture terrain changing ).
Complete with their 'lifestory' Audio Diaries/other disclosure
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Another Creepy Bosses To Find Out There ... :
Rapture Wheelchair 'Boss' -- Mr Wheels (I suppose The Wild Wild West's Dr Lovelace and his gimmicks could be an idea template - So call this guy 'Dr Hatemore' ... and maybe make him a Dr Strangelove-like ex-Nazi). Von Braun ( of V2 and US Space Program fame ) wasn't a Nazi, and started building Rockets long before WW2 (he though of going to the moon even then), and when his V2 project was starting to work effectively (finally) had it seized by the SS. So thick German accents will be heard in Rapture.
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Something Amusing - Villain on Turret Mechanism 'Wheelchair'
* 'Boss' For a Mission (at some enclave out in The Ruins)
* The cute putt-putt sound from the engine, as it draws near
* The chair... with various odd accouterments and devices
* Even better if it doesn't steer too well ( certainly having problems with uneven surfaces ).
* Villain has to have a proper White Longhaired Cat ( to be stroked while you are being told how you will die ).
* Talks like Dr Strangelovegoogle "Dr Strangelove" the movie with a German accent
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Something you might have seen in a Mad Max version of Rapture OR "DeathRace 1958"
That front shield shell rotates up to reveal the quadriplegic Super Villain ( the "80" may have been his old football team number before his disablement ).
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Another MMORPG Boss - "The Dentist" :
"Why does everyone keep calling me Dr Steinman ?!?!? "
"Root Canal !!!! "
"So I'll just drill into a healthy tooth until I reach the pulp... Is it Safe ? "
"You haven't been flossing ...."
"Was there ever a Masquerade mask shaped like a Molar ? This guy would have worn it ...
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The "Iron Lung Guy" - Another Boss ( Don't let his immobility fool you ... )
McClendon-made prosthetics of various bizarre sorts could make this interesting.
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REALLY !!! :
"During the early stages of BioShock 2, there was a Giant Squid Boss that Delta was supposed to fight outside of Rapture. "
Gilbert Alexander ??
Sounds good for a MMORPG Mission/Quest ( the bad guy gets away in the end though ). Decent 'tentacle' animations for once (Idea- reverse kinetics) ?? Probably really to be one of those 'Guys Hiding Behind the Curtain' explanations of how exactly it worked ...
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Plethora Of Opportunities For The Imaginative :
Boss Splicer who only speaks in quotes from Shakespeare ( Calls himself Barney the First - obviously a copycat ... ). It should be pretty easy to come up with enough different 'quotations' as reactions to the usual game situations. Some Splicers seem to find him impressive enough (he has followers), or maybe he is just clever and runs things in a smart way to keep things together. 
May do the Hamlet soliloquy with a skull some Splicers claim is Andrew Ryan's. How exactly the Player would infiltrate a group of Splicers ( who are not trustful folk ) in order to witness this, that might be problematic.
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After Delta/Eleanor/Sofia Left Rapture, Who Was Left Still ? :
Who would have been left to serve to organize everyone/anyone who was left?
* Persephone (or a chunk of it) fell into the Abyss - taking the warden with it? Or was he already dead ?? Actually that explosion wasn't really enough ( the way the buildings in Rapture are built like German WW2 Submarine Pens ), A section there had its environment 'compromised' (it was flooded). The automatic bulkheads would have closed to minimize the area effected.
* Lamb killed alot of her own Splicers (and 'family') in places like Sirens Alley by drowning them and by flooding sections, which probably fragmented groups ( if her betraying them hadn't already ).
* Nothing said that Sofia Lamb had any large part of the City under her control ( the maps only show a small South part of the City ). SO lots of other areas inhabited in other modes of existence.
* Fontaine probably had no time to 'adjust' the Vita-Chambers for himself ( but you can't have logic 'get in the way' of a plot ... ) On the other hand, Jack chopped Fontaine into fishbait after the Lil Sisters 'vampired' all his ADAM.
* Fontaine/Atlas was killed pretty soon after he got Ryan's genetic control key ( if that wasn't just a ploy ) so probably didn't have alot of time to do much (resources) before Jack killed him ( and Fontaine likely would NOT have given power/control to anyone else - If there are many of his followers left ).
* Father Simon Wales was dead ( his brother Daniel too if you bother to kill him - but then he was a Pimp and he may also not have escapes Sofia's Flood anyway ), but someone from his 'Church' group may have had enough influence to hold some of it together.
* Whats-her-face in Paupers Drop might still be there - if you didn't kill her. Grace probably would only have a small pocket, she didn't have the technical control of anything larger than the little fiefdom Lamb had allowed her and probably it wasn't self-sustainable anyway.
* Some less-spliced people somewhere had been producing food for Lamb, and that organization probably survived.
* Some of Ryan's minions might have held out if they had control of some of Ryan's Splicers ( who also might have retained Fontaine Futuristics (Ryan's company now) as a source of ADAM/EVE ). 
* Ryan not actually being dead ( an obvious REAL Twist they missed out on ). Ryan himself could-have/did fooled Fontaine when he 'died' (used a Vita-Chamber to come back out of sight OR some otherway) and then was hiding in his Secret Grotto ... By 1968 Ryan still would only be about 60 years old and the Vita-Chambers are supposed to do some 'revitalization' and who knows what else ... This would change alot of things. But where was he up to BS2 times ?
* Sander Cohen potentially could still be alive ( again if you didn't kill him or possibly Ryan allowed his Vita Chamber to continue to work after you did 'off' him - and I saw him back at least once after I allegedly killed him ... )
* Delta was last seen floating down towards Rapture half turned to hamburger by the explosion, but Big Daddies have to have major capacities for self-repair...
* Eleanor potentially could come back ( and possibly reconstitute Delta again if needed )
* Ditto Tenenbaum after Minerva's Den (with a 'cure')
* Gilbert Alexander might be alive if Delta left him so. Might he overcome his insanity, might he extend further control now that Sofia wasn't there any more to block/contain him ???? Maybe he just headed for Japan to menace Tokyo or somesuch.
As with any real city, there is a huge hidden/out-of-sight part of it required to support the visible. Somewhere there was all the infrastructure that kept all the people alive ( Splicers don't stay alive by eating concrete/rust/water-logged wallpaper, and we saw many with enough free time to wander about ( before we slaughtered them ). We only ever saw a teeny-tiny bit of Rapture.
The different factions would probably congregate around/control the available resources ( ie- Fontaine's remaining minions would probably still be around Neptunes Bounty with its the source of fish ). And with less Adam available in Rapture, the levels of insanity might be somewhat reduced.
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Everyone Wants to Be An Inventor, And Artist, A Magnate ...
Strange Experiments Were Done in Rapture ( Often By People Who Had Little Clue What They Were Doing ).
One case was 'Lord Morris', the cat, allegedly fed Brain Boost ( sometime during the Sofia Lamb-era ) and who developed super-human intelligence. Not unusual to believe happening in Rapture, where the Impossible was Possible ( Ryan's Mottoes did get absorbed into people's heads ). A Splicer Faction with a distinct 'cat' motif did exist, and with more than a few followers. The unfortunate demise of 'Lord Morris' spelt its ending. In actuality, it was a clever Splicer manipulating gullible people ( clever enough to provide them with survival - Which is no small accomplishment in post-Ryan Rapture, and which led many to follow ANYTHING that provided some order and more than a hand-to-mouth subsistence ).
Where do I keep coming up with stuff like this ? Well, Rapture is pretty broad in its possibilities and just about anything in your life or our modern world can be made to fit into it. And that's the kind of environment where people's imaginations can be employed, instead of a game rigidly defined by 'Lore' and 'Canon' of its genre.
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The Return of Master-Blaster :
Or is that concept copyrighted/trademarked/registered/whatever ?
That is the kind of question that needs to be answered by the MMORPG's Legal Department of the Company - How close to some existing thing can you get before even the threat of a legal action becomes possible ? ( They don't even have to win, just the legal expenses are prohibitive to a business model like the MMORPG would have ). Even if you threaten to send the lawyers some Mutants with Hooks(tm) to eviscerate them, the hungry lawyers will still ATTEMPT an extortion lawsuit they think has even a tiny chance of winning. ( Shakespeare, Henry the 6th - "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." )
Which is why you have to be very careful ( Process and Guidelines and Boiler-plate legal diarrhea ) to control/limit/insulate the company implied connections to anything produced or remotely associated with the MMORPG.
Note - Having The MMORPG be a 'non-profit' whose goal is the dissemination and education about Art Deco will NOT fly much in this particular situation. ( non-profits can still be sued ).
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"BIGGER DADDY" ( One 'Boss' For the MMORPG ) :
But then there are lots of "Bosses" out in The Ruins to deal with ...
No doubt it can be (cliche) some skinny 'guy' in a mechanized Daddy Suit PRETENDING to be a Big Daddy, and ruling over some not-overly-bright Splicers out there somewhere ...
It is like the "Emperor Dalek"Dalek : A "Dr WHO" reference all over again ...
"One Daddy To Rule Them ALL, and in Dark Rapture Bind Them." ( probably an Augustus Sinclair Quote )
Once you 'vanquish' him, he still can go someplace else and 'impose order' on other 'less-than-bright' Splicers. His skill in managing a Little Sister and procuring ADAM to 'buy' some influence probably isn't a bad idea. ( Perhaps a 'Role-Playing' scenario with this story could be done ).
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 "I CRUSH-A YOU SKULL !!!" :
Some Rapture MMORPG 'Boss' says this ( What is it ? A terrifying mutant Christopher Columbus ??? Its part of that Authentic Diversity thing ... ). Unfortunately you can't really kill him or noone else will get to find and hear him say that. ( The problem with so many MMORPGs is the static content which literally MILLIONS of players play through - exactly the same. )
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 Boss : Mr Cuttlefish :
Tentacles around the mouth (just weird and disturbing). Minor animation addition required.
Guy who can tell you something about what Gilbert Alexander has 'been upto' lately "Under The Sea". 
Bribe-able with special tasty sea food.
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Boss - Little Big Sister 
Through a genetic disturbance is a Little Sister who could not physically 'grow up' ( at least as far as other Big Sisters who can only really be as old as Teenagers ).
Talks like Hannibal Lector (in a high cute voice).
Die to the game industry's 'Cant Kill Children, or even punch them' Rules, they have to be untouchable. This really doesn't get in the way of imaginatively providing for that limitation.
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== BOSSES FOR THE INFINITE REDO ==
 
A big scene of it crashing into some landmark would have been impressive.
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