yeah I don't see why not. In Undertale I feel it's easier because that game has random encounters with most scripted encounters having a specific cutscene and everything. While all encounters are found on the overworld in Deltarune.
While I agree with your take, there are some questions that that line of thinking brings up. I still don't really like Titan Spawn as a boss battle for some reason and I'm not sure why, though.
Under your logic, which of these battles (if any) would you consider minibosses?
- The Desert Board (Sword Route) encounter with the bird
- The Manhole Dungeon black monster, and maybe some of the other dungeon rooms in there too as the enemy in those rooms have specially buffed stats
- Ralsei's tutorial enemy in Castle Town that you can fight in ch1
- The Solo Tenna encounter inside hell board
- Party Dojo encounters, despite how they can be refought (but not in a different place), in particular Jigsaw Joe
Besides the Shadow Mantle I don't really see any of the enemies from the Sword Route being like real fights in a sense, but I'd be fine to include them but the fact they aren't even given unique pages shows the general lack of consensus that they are real fights in the first place.
By nature of being a tutorial like a directly stated one I think to not include it
The Solo Tenna encounter I feel technically but also he has a full boss page that already describes his full fight and encounter in Board 3 so it seems unnecessary to count him as both
Jigsaw Joe is definitely more tutorially for me but I'd be fine with him being stated as one
The main point of a subjective definition like this isn't to be air tight but more to illustrate the point that these enemies are unique and important in some way either in gameplay or story
Also I was gonna include it in my original post but it didn't really fit, I agree the Titan Spawn aren't Mini Bosses but that's purely on the hunch that because they increase the Slay Counter and they come across as smaller normalish enemies, they'll appear more in later chapters in some way
Boss/Miniboss should be purely a gameplay term, not a story term. We already have "Main Character" as a story term.
I agree that there are enemies like Clover, Tasque Manager, Miss Mizzle, etc... that should be recognized as special compared to regular enemies.
... But it is equally as important to recognize Berdly, Lanino&Elnina, Jackenstein, etc... as different from those.
Idk I don't really agree with that, story and gameplay are intertwined with eachother, for the purpose of a wiki it's good to separate events by their importance but having too many classifications, adding Elite, Major enemy, etc. I feel will over complicate a simple idea
honestly my idea with such a subjective thing is to make like a google form or a poll about it and posting it around, maybe on discord or something.
It is not a coincidence that most boss fights are against main characters, and vice versa. But that isn't an absolute rule, and one shouldn't be in the definition of the other.
Lancer's Castle Town battle isn't made any more of a boss battle just because Lancer is important to the story.
The Sound of Justice's battle isn't made any less of a boss battle just because the Sound of Justice isn't important to the story.
You're under-complicating a complex idea. Right now, the wiki lists at least two very different types of enemies under one umbrella term. Some of those "minibosses" are a lot more similar to regular enemies than even other "minibosses".
Sound of Justice is very obviously important for the story, his entire section is a major part in pushing Ralsei and Susie's development in the later half of Chapter 4. I know just saying "I don't agree" sounds reductive but like I think most of the mini bosses I stated are of equal importance to me, which is why I define them as one.
Personally, I feel like there are three tiers of boss: boss, miniboss, and "microboss". As that might be a bit too specific and confusing for the wiki, these "microbosses" can just be considered enemies, if creating a third term is not preferred.
Bosses: Jevil, King, Spamton NEO, Queen, Giga Queen, Shadow Mantle Holder, Tenna, Knight, Mike, Gerson, Titan.
These are all either final bosses, or major optional ones. They all have their own unique theme, and are plot relevant.
Minibosses: K. Round, Lancer&Susie, Sweet Cap'n Cakes, Berdly, Spamton, Lanino&Elnina, Shuttah, Jackenstein, Sound of Justice.
These are all encounters with their own unique theme (The CH3 ones share it, but still), are semi-plot relevant, and have a decent set of attacks.
"Microbosses": Lancer, Clover, Tasque Manager, Mauswheel, Werewerewire, Miss Mizzle
These are all rare encounters, most of which being unrepeatable, that do not have their own theme. While Miss Mizzle is certainly much less of a boss than Jackenstein for example, making her the same level as a Rudinn feels wrong.
Basic Enemies: Watercooler, Titan Spawn.
For the watercooler, it's pretty obvious. You fight it twice, both identical battles, it needs to be defeated twice to be recruited, and it's fought again in CH4. Just a rare enemy. Titan Spawn I know is more controversial, and to be honest, I can't really back it up with facts. It just seems like this is the type of enemy that will re-appear in later chapters, and its fight is so short that it doesn't feel like a boss at all.
Again, if the idea of creating a third type of boss is too specific for the wiki, you can consider all the enemies I put under "microboss" as just under normal enemies (If you're going to consider these comments as a vote in any way)
I don’t think Shuttah is a miniboss. If anything, microboss
It has a unique theme, shared with Lanino and Elnina that is called boss in the files, and it is the finale of Round 2. It has essentially the exact same role as Lanino and Elnina, acting as the major encounter in the board; and it has a bunch of attacks. It's true that it acts as a basic enemy later, but it's much weaker then. It's a much more complex fight than Mauswheel or Miss Mizzle for example.
Going through Shuttah again, I can see the case for that one specific enemy to actually be a special version of the enemy. There probably is in fact a miniboss Shuttah, sort of like how K. Round (miniboss) is actually a C Round (which is a normal enemy) but powered up because of the crown (which it got from just walking to the end of the board, “kinging” itself)
I also consider them as special enemies. I consider them the counterparts of CORE enemies in Undertale.
The only entity that I’d say could genuinely be considered a “microboss” would be the RG01+RG02 fight from Undertale.
EDIT:Okay Undertale actually has several things that could be considered as such, looking at the game’s structure. Napstablook, Greater Dog, Mad Dummy, and Muffet are the DE FACTO minibosses. Doggo, Dogamy/Dogaressa, and RG 01/RG 02, are also minibosses, but there’s a very real sense in which they’re less of a boss than the ones I named. Calling those microbosses makes sense.
But in Deltarune? The enemies in question here are closer to Final Froggit than the RG01/RG02 fights.
Maybe we can call them "elite" enemies? They would be considered normal enemies in in the navbox, but would be placed at the end of the section, and we'd call them an "elite enemy" in the introduction paragraph. Outside of those two things, we'd treat them like any other normal enemy.
Also, if we're counting Watercooler as one of these, C. Round strangely fits too, as it's a one-time encounter. We could also categorize the Titan Spawn as one, until it re-appears in a later chapter numerous times.
Personally, I consider all of the ones on the list to be minibosses except for Werewerewire and Titan Spawn.
Titan Spawn has its own unique theme and is unrepeatable. It might appear again later (maybe... maybe) but until then it should be at least a microboss.
Otherwise, i kinda agree with this. This "4-tiers" categorization seems pretty accurate to how toby designs his level, even back in undertale.
Okay
Great criteria the only ones that i disagree with are the titan spawns and shuttah i can understand why titan spawns are considered like that but we see multiple in other zones we just can't fight them for some reason
I finally came back to revisit this topic. The two main proposals I’m seeing here are using encounter uniqueness (the enemy cannot be re-encountered later while the exact same battle plays out) to determine whether a character should be more than a regular enemy, and splitting off special enemies from minibosses. Encounter uniqueness is the criteria that we’ve used so far, so I can agree to that. I can see the appeal behind splitting minibosses and special enemies, but I don’t see any particular criteria proposal there. Is the only differentiator between these two groups that special enemies do not have a unique battle theme?
The list would look like this with only encounter uniqueness taken into account:
- Minibosses: Lancer, K. Round, Clover, Susie, Sweet Cap’n Cakes, Berdly, Spamton, Tasque Manager, Mauswheel, Rouxls Kaard, Lanino and Elnina, Shuttah, Jackenstein, Miss Mizzle, Sound of Justice, Titan Spawn
- Regular enemies: Werewerewire, Watercooler
With the split into special enemies, if the criteria for splitting is a unique battle theme, the list would look like this:
- Minibosses: Lancer, K. Round, Susie, Sweet Cap’n Cakes, Berdly, Spamton, Rouxls Kaard, Lanino and Elnina, Shuttah, Jackenstein, Sound of Justice, Titan Spawn
- Special enemies: Clover, Tasque Manager, Mauswheel, Miss Mizzle
- Regular enemies: Werewerewire, Watercooler
What are your thoughts on these lists?