Top 9 Giant Spider Bosses, 9.5 out of 10 based on 4 ratings

SMILEY FACE SPIDER STARES INTO YOUR SOUL!

With Halloween coming up soon, it’s always a good time to examine the things that terrify us. For many of us, the simple spider is a source of horror and disgust. Luckily, game designers have given us an outlet for our fear by making lots and lots of virtual spiders for us to squash. Of course, at some point, someone realized that little spiders were boring, so that evil person started to make giant spiders, giving arachnophobes something new to be afraid of. This list celebrates the cream of the crop when it comes to Giant Spiders, specifically those who were raised to boss status.

The rules for this list are simple:

1. It has to have eight legs.

2. It has to be at least half spider.

3. It has to be a boss, either having a proper boss fight or the a significant antagonistic role in the game.

As always, feel free to give your own suggestions for this list in the comments below and be warned that there may be some SPOILERS ahead.

9. Black Tiger — Resident Evil/Redident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles

What better way to start this list than with the prototypical Giant Spider Boss? Black Tiger is the boss of the underground in Resident Evil and he is certainly terrifying, especially in the Gamecube remake, where the improved graphics let you see every single hair and eye on its body as it crawled on the ceiling and towards your character as baby spiders descended from the web-covered roof. If you had arachnophobia, this boss could send you into shock.

So why is it not higher on the list? Well, while Black Tiger LOOKS scary… it’s actually one of the easiest bosses in both the game and on the list. Five magnum rounds or liberal use of the flamethrower will put this beastie down and it only gets worse in the Umbrella Chronicles where you can take it out as soon as you see it. Still, for driving Arachnophobes mad, Black Tiger has definitely earned its spot on the list.

8. Tarantox — Super Mario Galaxy

Daaaaaaaaaw… Look at the cute giant Spider! Alright, some of the bosses on this list are really tough, some are scary, and then there is Tarantox. I’ll be honest, this boss is on here because the fight, like a lot of other bosses in Super Mario Galaxy, is just so dang fun. For this fight, Tarantox is in the middle of a giant web (IN SPAAAACE) and spins around, spewing green slime from its orifices (okay… maybe he isn’t that cute).

In between running around the arena and dodging blasts of green gunk, Mario has to shut the flow of this gunk by doing some sweet rope action with the web to send himself flying at each hole (okay, really not that cute now that I think about it). Then, Mario has to smack the spider on the ass (uhhh…) to flip him over so he can hit him all over again. Okay, this fight is a bit weird out of context, but the using the web to slingshot yourself is surprisingly fun and the boss, aside from its slime spitting, is pretty cute.

7. Armogohma — The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Now, Gohmas have appeared several times in The Legend of Zelda series, but this is the one that most resembles a spider. As the boss of the Temple of Time, this Gohma has a couple tricks up its sleeve. In addition to being able to spawn dozens of it brethren, it has learned the ancient technique of EYE LASERS. Yes, the Gohma’s normally useless eye has been upgraded to fire a devastating beam that you’ll have to carefully dodge.

Still, while this overgrown, laser-shooting arachnid may seem rather intimidating, the boss isn’t too tough and part of what makes it so fun is how you beat it. Like other Gohmas in the series, you need to hit it in the eye to stun it, but to do real damage you need to activate one of the statues, which will cause it to smash the big spider with a huge stone fist. The effect is both comical and devastating and is part of why the fight is so great (in addition to dodging eye lasers and defeating dozens of mini-gohmas).

6. Bospider — Mega Man X

Now here’s a boss that would send my seven-year-old self into fits. Bospider comes at the end of the first Sigma stage in Mega Man X. Now, as a kid, you would think that the game would take it easy on you after you watched Zero die and finally killed Vile off, right? You’d think The game would let you have a breather before you take on the significantly tougher upcoming stages. No, instead you get to face off against this beastie, a mechanical spider that can zip around on the bars of its stage and spawn mini-spiders to attack you.

To the veteran Mega Man player this boss isn’t too tough, you just have to watch the bars and make sure that you are out of the way when it lands; the spiders can be dispatched even more easily with a charged mega-buster. However, the spider is very random and may not choose to follow its path. Its weakness, Ice Cracker, is also not readily obvious, so to someone who is fighting this boss for the first time, Bospider is quite the formidable opponent well deserving of 5th place.

5. The Master’s House — Radiant Historia

So you’re playing Radiant Historia, one of the last great rpgs to come out on the Nintendo DS, and you think to yourself, “This game is pretty good but I’ve beaten the final boss: what else is there to do?” So you go to Vanquier, the friendly goblin who has been teaching you and your friends techniques and hand in the last few pacts. To your surprise, instead of teaching you any new tricks, the goblin master instead offers you one more challenge: face him in a fight. Once you agree, Vainquier begins by bringing out his house…which is on top of a giant spider. The spider, of course, is like the other giant spiders in Radiant Historia, too big to fit on the 3×3 all other enemies fit on and extremely dangerous.

This boss is the exact opposite of Black Tiger. It looks silly but it’s certainly not easy. Oh sure, its magical defense is pathetic and it’s only the first form of the toughest boss in the game but this giant beastie makes up for it by hitting for almost 700 damage a turn and being able to inflict some very nasty status effects. If you don’t take this fight seriously, it will kill you in just a few turns or leave you in a terrible position for the when you fight its master. Therefore, for hitting like a prize fighter and being so big that it can’t fit on the battlefield, The Master’s House clambers its way onto the list.