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[oni-link]

I don't mean games where you have a shield and then a life bar

I mean bosses (It's normally bosses) where they have a life bar, and then once that is depleted, there is another underneath it

I've played Bayonetta 1 and 2 recently and I'm halfway through Kingdom Hearts II atm and all three of these games have bosses with several life bars

It's not a huge issue but when I'm struggling with a boss it's nice to see how close I was to beating it each time I die. With Bayonetta the action is so fast and frenetic that all you can really tell is if there is at least one more life bar under the current one, and with KH2 it shows you how many bars they have left under the current one as little symbols

The entire point of having the bosses health on the screen is so you can see how close it is to death, so adding several bars and more visual shortcuts to indicate that seems like poor design.

I guess the point is to make it feel more epic, or to indicate when the boss will change form or move to another stage in the battle, but again this doesn't really need to be communicated with several life bars

MGSR Spoilers:

Spoiler

The final boss in MGSR does the "epic" thing really well without needing to add more life bars by giving the final boss 200% health, whereas all the other bosses in the game have 100%

Does anyone prefer or see the point to bosses with multiple life bars?

 

[Living Proof]

You must hate when you seemingly defeat a boss after struggling endlessly, only to find it's just his first form

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

No, they are useful for indicating when you are going to enter phase 2 or phase 3 of the fight.

 

[GuardianE]

Multiple life bars are often used when a developer wants to have a set "chunk" of a health bar removed per hit rather than a percentage. It's just a way to standardize how much of a life bar you destroy when performing moves, and makes it visually consistent.

I don't really have a preference either way, as long as it's clear when they have multiple health bars (and how many). It sometimes makes more sense when a boss has different phases.

 

[oni-link]

You must hate when you seemingly defeat a boss after struggling endlessly, only to find it's just his first form

Haha nah, but there is another boss thing that annoys me too

The "this fight is not one you can win, you have to die to progress the story, but we won't indicate this at all so feel free to struggle for ages and use all your best items in an attempt to win"

Multiple life bars are often used when a developer wants to have a set "chunk" of a health bar removed per hit rather than a percentage. It's just a way to standardize how much of a life bar you destroy when performing moves.

I don't really have a preference either way, as long as it's clear when they have multiple health bars (and how many). It sometimes makes more sense when a boss has different phases.

Yeah I suppose if each of your hits did 0.7% damage that might be disheartening to the player, so giving several bars to the boss where you can see your attacks doing damage might be better. Then again in most games with bosses like that, the action is normally so fast that if you're struggling it's not ideal to have to check the bosses life, and then count how many bars they have as well

 

[Sinfamy]

I hate it more when I defeat the boss only to have him escape or win in the cutscene afterwards.

 

[Syphax]

Yiazmat from FFXII would like to say hello. If I recall correctly he has 50 Million HP, and each bar has 1m.

 

[zeitgeist]

I've gotten used to it. Most games nowadays do it and have colour coded health bars.

 

[ElTorro]

Self-healing bosses are worse.

 

[Pinky]

Yiazmat from FFXII would like to say hello. If I recall correctly he has 50 Million HP, and each bar has 1m.

Should've been first post. Fucker took me 5 1/2 hours to kill.

 

[Dr Dogg]

Depends how they're done. If they're layered on top one another like Bayonetta then then can be a bit of a pain as you don't really know how much health the boss has. Where as Kingdom Hearts has separate green blocks outside the main health bar so you know exactly how much health they have left (which is exactly what you said in the OPP). Defiantly prefer the later but seeing that last health bar go down with nothing underneath can sometimes pull my into my a game.

 

[NoKisum]

Haha nah, but there is another boss thing that annoys me too

The "this fight is not one you can win, you have to die to progress the story, but we won't indicate this at all so feel free to struggle for ages and use all your best items in an attempt to win"

Oh fuck, I hate this so fucking much. This is probably my only, but extremely huge, gripe with boss battles. If I'm meant to die, just put that shit in a cutscene.

 

[SalvaPot]

I dislike the concept of health in general, I like more the concepts of hits it take to get a boss.

Like say, 5 critical hits right in the eye.

Stuff like that.

 

[FistOfSyn]

It'it doesn't bother me.

It's either that or one huge ass condensed bar where you feel like you're doing no damage, lol.

 

[mrmickfran]

Bayonetta's bosses go down fast, and they have checkpoints midway, not really something to complain about.

 

[maxcriden]

Self-healing bosses are worse.

That's for sure. Friggin' Paper Mario TTYD. Still never beat the game.

 

[Morning Star]

It's really just a different graphical representation of "this isn't even my final form" or a health bar where your attacks don't move it at all. Doesn't bother me.

Self-healing bosses are worse.

Even worse is a boss that will charm your party members and they'll fully heal the boss.

 

[CMojicaAce]

Self-healing bosses are worse.

Best boss fight.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I absolutely love Ocarina of Time but I ragequit that game as a kid, eff you Ganondorf

 

[John Kowalski]

Self-healing bosses are worse.

Bosses that charm your healer and are fully healed by your own... that's the worst of them all.

 

[mrmickfran]

Bosses that charm your healer and are fully healed by your own... that's the worst of them all.

The Persona 3 struggle.

 

[Razmos]

Yiazmat from FFXII would like to say hello. If I recall correctly he has 50 Million HP, and each bar has 1m.

Came to post this, lol.

 

[oni-link]

Bayonetta's bosses go down fast, and they have checkpoints midway, not really something to complain about.

Well like I said in the OP it's not a huge issue, Bayonetta 1 & 2 are some of my favourite games, I just think in most games if there was a toggle in options for "several life bars" or "one life bar" I'd probably pick "one life bar"

 

[Srey Plaughtered]

The Persona 3 struggle.

We've all been there.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

The Persona 3 struggle.

More bearable than a random Light Dark killing the MC and game over.

 

[luka]

you bring up kingdom hearts 2 spicifically, but that game has visual markers telling you exactly how many bars remain, so i'm not sure how it can possibly be an annoyance. kingdom hearts doesn't scale it's bars to the size of the screen, so low hp = tiny life bar. high hp = large life bar. massively high hp = multiple life bars. it makes perfect visual sense to have more than one bar for bosses with an exceptional amount of hp.

likewise, nearly every game that does it provides some kind of visual identifier for how many bars you have left

 

[Rocketz]

Nope. Bosses with adds are the worst. It shows your boss isn't good enough and you needed to make it more difficult.

 

[John Kowalski]

The Persona 3 struggle.

Literally killed the last boss at least four times before it died.

 

[HowZatOZ]

It'd actually part of the boss mechanics in Skyforge, and it's a lot of fun then just having one ridiculously long health bar.

 

[Tizoc]

Seems not many of you have played classic beat'em-ups a lot

 

[zoodoo]

viewtiful joe is a prime example of that. Playing 2 now on Ps2.

At least in viewtiful joe, once you see a red bar you know its the last one

 

[faridmon]

That's for sure. Friggin' Paper Mario TTYD. Still never beat the game.

lol me too was about to right the same thing

Spoiler

Never really liked Peach after that game, I started hating her even more

 

[Regiruler]

The big issue with bayonetta and W101's bars is that you don't know how many are left. The final bosses in each have at least 8 or so.

 

[oni-link]

The big issue with bayonetta and W101's bars is that you don't know how many are left. The final bosses in each have at least 8 or so.

Haha next up for me from my backlog is The Wonderful 101

Also you made the point I was trying to make about Bayonetta much better than I did, it's more an issue with not knowing how many you have to go

Like another poster pointed out, at least KH2 does give you that information

 

[mrmickfran]

We've all been there.

Literally killed the last boss at least four times before it died.

I think TV Tropes said it best:

Hard bosses are one thing, but bosses that make you go through an hour and a half of A.I. Roulette and tedium before clobbering you are a special kind of sadism.

Well like I said in the OP it's not a huge issue, Bayonetta 1 & 2 are some of my favourite games, I just think in most games if there was a toggle in options for "several life bars" or "one life bar" I'd probably pick "one life bar"

I see what you mean. But, I don't think that any dev would take the time to do that

More bearable than a random Light Dark killing the MC and game over.

But could you imagine if Nyx Avatar had those on top of everything else it had? Would be the ultimate in bullshit.

 

[PsionBolt]

I like the Kingdom Hearts style a lot. It's far superior to having your hits move the bar less than a pixel each. Just feels better to see huge chunks of bar disappear. In an action game, it's important to have details like HP bars be very visible, because you don't have time to look at them with anything more than the corner of your eye.

The first Mysterio fight in Spider-Man 2 was also an absolutely fantastic application of the concept.

 

[GoldStarz]

Not if they're some indicator of how many bars are left like color or a side bar. I'd probably hate it if it was a percentage bar, I'd have no clue if I was really making that much of a dent or not if they had a lot of health.

The first Mysterio fight in Spider-Man 2 was also an absolutely fantastic application of the concept.

Bless that 'boss' fight.

 

[Celegus]

FFXII Yiazmat says hi.

 

[Muskieratboi]

Feh.

DMK has y'all beat.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

In Bayonetta you're referring to the different colors the bar goes through, right? That's just an aesthetic thing, really. I happen to like it as it makes me feel like I'm making progress, as opposed to having a single color that represents the entirety of an enemies health but goes down more slowly.

 

[chemicals]

I agree with the person who started this thread. The purpose of having a visible lifebar degrade over time is useless when said boss has more than one lifebar.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Yes! It annoys the shit outta me. What's the point of the bar if it's just gonna fill up again? I hate it because it feels like they've moved the goalpost after you've scored the touchdown and say "fuck you, keep going."

 

[prag16]

The big issue with bayonetta and W101's bars is that you don't know how many are left. The final bosses in each have at least 8 or so.

In bayonetta I thought they were color coded, making it possible to tell.

 

[GoldStarz]

I agree with the person who started this thread. The purpose of having a visible lifebar degrade over time is useless when said boss has more than one lifebar.

How is it useless though? Multiple health bars show you the difference you are making, if a boss has a lot of HP and only one bar you might not even notice if you're doing damage at all.

Yes! It annoys the shit outta me. What's the point of the bar if it's just gonna fill up again? I hate it because it feels like they moved the goalpost after you've scored the touchdown and say "fuck you, keep going."

The problem is that you're thinking of it as refilling rather than only seeing a cropped version of the total health bar.

 

[oni-link]

In bayonetta I thought they were color coded, making it possible to tell.

Unless I missed it the order of the colours is arbitrary, you can only work them out by fighting enough bosses to memorise them (easier said than done, as it's a fast paced game)

I'm also pretty sure they change the colour patten from Bayo 1 to Bayo 2, so even if you remember the order from the first game you're back in the dark for the follow up

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong or have missed something obvious

 

[Teppic]

I really disliked it in the Mega Man Zero games. It was hard to tell how much hp the boss had left. Not a fan of them in general.

 

[GoldStarz]

Unless I missed it the order of the colours are arbitrary, you can only work them out by fighting enough bosses to memorise them (easier said than done, as it's a fast paced game)

I'm also pretty sure they change the colour patten from Bayo 1 to Bayo 2, so even if you remember the order from the first game you're back in the dark for the follow up

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong or have missed something obvious

No, IIRC they were in fact in a pattern, whether the pattern changed or not though, I can't recall.

 

[PsionBolt]

I really disliked it in the Mega Man Zero games. It was hard to tell how much hp the boss had left. Not a fan of them in general.

Incidentally, Zero is one of the only series I can think of where the player also has access to multiple stacked lifebars. It's kind of odd that it's much less common for players to do it than bosses.

I'm struggling here trying to remember which fighting game it was that had stacked lifebars. I'm pretty sure it was a big name game, but I can't quite remember which one.

 

[Regiruler]

In bayonetta I thought they were color coded, making it possible to tell.

The colors aren't in a particularly intuitive order though. You'll only have the last 2-3 memorized.

 

[Trup1aya]

This sort of design really pisses me off on a first play through... Many people adjust they're play style according to how much life they have in relation to the boss. This design has tricked me into getting aggressive prematurely...

If they would idicate next to the bar how many 'lives" the boss was going to have, it wouldn't be a problem... Or they could just use one big bar... Either way, it would be better than multiple bars...