Training Boss

Area or location where the player can practice moves on a more or less undefeatable character. The usual experience isn't given, although a character may earn information or special items. You can't win the fight, and you can lose.

If the player is forced to fight them at least twice, the character will get more difficult with each fight. Thus, it may become a Recurring Boss.

Compare Warmup Boss. Contrast with the Training Dummy, which is an opponent that you can't lose against.

Examples of Training Boss include:

• In ONI the training stage has you practicing moves and combos on droids. When defeated the droids will lay down for a second or three, and then wake up and be ready for another whupping.
• In Monster Rancher Evo, Baron Dotty is a training boss with a twist: You can't lose to him. In addition, he's a Recurring Boss, but always rather hard to lose to every time. His theme song and fight song are cool, though.
• Your superiors, Girardot and Abelia, from the early chapters of Soul Calibur III's Chronicles of the Sword mode. They challenge you to test your worthiness in battle at first, but when you face off against them later on: it's for keeps.
• Master Tetsu in Legend of Legaia. Near the end of the game, he becomes a Bonus Boss.
• Gato and Spekkio from Chrono Trigger.
• Orca from The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. Later in the game, you can win a prize if you spend a ridiculously long amount of time whaling on him.
• No More Heroes has Death Metal, who arguably functions as one of the easier bosses in the game, provided that the player knows what he/she is doing. The sequel has Skelter Helter, who functions as more of a training boss more than Death Metal did, yet is harder than his successor, especially on Bitter mode.
• The Komamen from Jump! Ultimate Stars.
• Mother 3 has a function in the Battle Memory that lets you practice Combos against an unresponsive version of any enemy you've encountered.
• Radius in Chrono Cross.
• In an interesting take, Vagrant Story actually gives you dummies to practice on, which you find in various places. This is useful even late-game because as you attack the dummy, your skill against that particular enemy type (say, lizards) will increase even though the dummy never moves and is practically indestructible.
• Call of Duty 2 actually justifies this - immediately after basic training, the player must destroy a German armored car that enters the area.
• Tales of Vesperia has Adecor and Boccos, a pair of knights who are after Yuri for his miscellaneous crimes. They appear and challenge you several times throughout the first part of the game, and serve to teach the player about various combat techniques such as Overlimit and Burst Artes.
• Averted HARD in Demon's Souls Its first boss is beatable, but it can and will one hit KO you. If you survive that one, there is a second, bonus boss, waiting for you. One that cannot be damaged. Don't worry though, after you take a level in badass, you get to kill both of them later!
• Before the real fight against him, Augus from Asura's Wrath is this for the Tutorial Level in episode 3. You don't have to fight him and he can be skipped, though, but it does cost battle points.