The bottom line is that I'm looking for games that you thought had good 3D boss battles. No games with a first-person perspective, top-down perspective, or "2.5" perspective, please. Just 3D games where you directly control a playable character in third-person and fight bosses in an action-oriented style of gameplay. No games with indirect combat like turn based battles.
Everything below gives insight as to why I'm looking for these specific types of 3D bosses, as well as my future plans and why I'm studying these bosses at all.
But you can completely ignore it entirely. It's just… unimportant.
And rather than letting this thread become about agdg-lite advice and how to develop these 3D boss fights, I'd rather just use this thread to discover new games I haven't played yet with said 3D bosses. To have fun playing them, yes, but also to see how other devs went about creating theirs.
I feel like someday in the future, I will eventually be able to create my dream game. A fun 3D boss rush game. I may be just an amateur 3D modeler right now, but I do seem to have a natural talent at using Maya/Max. It truly does feel like my calling in life. I'm also pretty young with free time to spare, too. If I must, I can devote the remainder of my life towards acquiring the skills necessary to complete this project of mine.
It doesn't seem like an unrealistic goal imo. I'll just create (at least) 8 big rooms with 8 enjoyable boss battles. Just that, basically. Unlike some super ambitious games like Yandere Simulator that take an immense amount of time to plan out and execute, I'm more grounded in reality and realistic about the limits of my own capabilities. The 8 boss fights/rooms will be accessable from a simple MegaMan-style menu, and all 8 will be isolated to their own level. Nothing fancy or time-consuming like creating a massive overworld or something. Just 8 bosses that I can test and polish individually in their own separate levels. Sounds (relatively) simple enough for one guy to do. Nothing totally impossible like trying to recreate a GTA 5 from scratch. Now THAT'S unrealistic.
When things start to get tough, I'll always use the developer of Cave Story as inspiration to pull though. He persevered and managed to make his dream game after years of hard work. If he was able to do All That by himself, I too can do likewise and keep trying at it until I finally succeed at creating my own 3D boss rush game. It's just a matter of time.