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Why do final boss fights stink this gen?

Keikoku said:
MW2 has no bossfights at all. Neither do Halo 3 (it still was the shittiest "twist" I've ever seen in a game :lol )
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I'm talking about that shitty "boss/ending" sequence which was the escape to the pelican thing, which tried to recapture the ending of CE's get away, but it was totally weak compared to such. I loved that escape in CE. Only thing that matched it for me was running from the truck in U2.

MW2's boss sequence
where price is getting his ass kicked after the chase and you have the mini-bash the button boss lol where you have to rip the knife out of you. Which I have question I meant to ask, does the knife go anywhere you throw it? I hit him right in his eye, but did it do anything different for anyone else?
 
Crewnh said:
You were responding to me, you know the guy who made the topic. I'm only speaking of final bosses. Galaxy's just doesn't live up to the rest of the game.
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Talon- said:
My post up there isn't to say that boss fights don't deserve to be in games at all; bosses fit in games where they make sense. The Mario example is an instance of where each boss is the culmination of the skills you learned within the levels. I would argue that the Bowser instances in SMG were defined by the platforming of the level to the leadup of Bowser rather than Bowser himself, as opposed to the other bosses where it was the other way around. That's good boss design.
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Read the thread.
 
The inFamous final boss fight was ok/good on normal. But damn they turned him into something out of Ninja Gaiden on the hardest difficulty.
J-Rzez said:
I'm talking about that shitty "boss/ending" sequence which was the escape to the pelican thing, which tried to recapture the ending of CE's get away, but it was totally weak compared to such. I loved that escape in CE. Only thing that matched it for me was running from the truck in U2.

MW2's boss sequence
where price is getting his ass kicked after the chase and you have the mini-bash the button boss lol where you have to rip the knife out of you. Which I have question I meant to ask, does the knife go anywhere you throw it? I hit him right in his eye, but did it do anything different for anyone else?
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I know that as long as you have it near the head it goes right for the eye. On my second play through I'm pretty sure I should have grazed his ear but it landed right on his eye. However, I never tried intentionally missing. They probably have an animation in case your too far off.
 
At first I was like, 'that's not true, look at...' but yeah most of them do suck. It's strange too because a lot of these games have great bosses, like DMC4, dead space, lost planet, MGS4, RE5, etc. Then when it's time for the last boss, they just slap something together. Very strange.

I haven't finished demon's souls yet but I'm expecting great things based on the previous bosses.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Borderlands had pretty much uniformly terrible bosses.
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But shooting the "clit" of the vagina bossmonsters was fun?

Seth was a bad boss. But no where near as terrible as "SNK Boss Syndrome."

HK/LK/HK/LK can break Seth (in general). Try doing that with an SNK/KoF boss and you're fucking dead in seconds.
 
poweld said:
Seth x 1000. Seriously bullshit boss fight. Made me NOT want to play the game through arcade mode any more.
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yea, he was so terribly easy and badly designed.

capcom is obligated to deliver better stuff early next year.
 
This gen had the revival of the original Boss Fight porn game, Punch Out!!

Even SotC and No More Heroes has nothing on this. Those games at least had transitions between boss fights.
 
I think the problem is that Boss battles themselves are using antiquated techniques. It seems stupid when you have this entire range of motion, accessibility and graphical realism that you program the boss to have the AI of Kraid from Super Metriod. Wait for opening, shoot missle, wait for form change/stance change use other weapon. Even when I played DMC1 a long time ago, some of the bosses kinda pissed me off because it was just....fuck, I know the boss pattern and it is not fun having to wait this shit out just to get in a few measley hits.


RE4 got boss battles right due to how quickly you can die. SOTC of course because with such immersion of approaching the boss you never felt like you were guided to said weakpoints, but actually exploring like a true adventurer said weakpoints. NMH people mentioned but the last boss IMHO felt a bit too traditional a boss battle and not all that 100% fun. However it was still good. Coincidentally I did love the hell out of Hitman 2's final boss battle.

All in all I think some of the best bosses are ones that you feel are almost equal to your character in terms of ability. M. Bison is perhaps the greatest example of that, a boss that can be cheap, but also can be used fairly in the regular game as well with and most important a character that although a challenge, can be beaten.

I hope in the future we can get some more boss battles that exhibit that similar magical combination of an enemy that is equal on your ability but has enough AI to not feel like a programed set of behaviours.
 
hamchan said:
I can agree about UC2 but not AC2.
You got to beat up the
pope
!
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Srsly. Fistfight, no less. Just being able to casually drop that into conversations made that boss fight entirely worth it, easy or no.
 
Dead or Alive 4 anyone? Good game, except this shitty end boss:

15.jpg


I nearly crushed a controller fighting this green jellywoman :lol
 
Demon's Souls final boss (if you can even call it that) is mega lame.

Fortunately, the rest of the game is amazing so it doesn't really matter at all.
 
-COOLIO- said:
metal gear solid 4s final boss fight redeems the whole gen.
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More like barely makes up for most of the rest of the shitacular boss fights in that game.

Rex versus Ray is the other good one, the rest are really boring and easy.
 
UC2's boss was a letdown.

I'd have much preferred something that was like a proper one-on-one shootout against a really intelligent AI, rather than a cheap multi-grenade throwing enemy where all you really do is run away and
shoot at blue goo
.

Could have been awesome.
 
besides MGS4 and No More Heroes (for me the most exciting fights this gen), MP3 also has good fights with final bosses, not at all comparable with previous releases, but very good ... at least, I enjoy them a lot :D
 
TenshiOni said:
nt.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Sure, as soon as I realized Ganondorf was going to be the final boss again I was a little disappointed. But Nintendo delivered again just like with Ocarina and Wind Waker before. Loved the Zelda possession fight. The idea that I was even fighting Zelda just blew my mind. :lol And then the fight against Ganon as Wolf Link was great. Loved the music there and having to stare him as he came out of the portals. And then, of course, the Link on Epona pursuit with Zelda firing light arrows...and then the one-on-one between Link and Ganondorf surrounded by a ring of fire...SO GOOD. Nostalgia wave hit me like WHOA. Sword clashing Ganondorf = :D
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couldn't have been that good... because this is the only LOZ game that I don't remember the ending/end boss to. Non of that sounds familiar. God, I was ambivalent about LOZTP.
 
BlazingDarkness said:
Boss fights i liked so far this gen would be Heavenly Sword, Folklore and MGS4. Those are the ones that stand out
Japanese devs are generally better at great boss battles which is why we haven't seen so many in the past couple of years
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Loved Heavenly Sword as well. I had a blast with the game despite the frame rate issues. Especially the Raven King was a cool fight (and build up).
 
Absoludacrous said:
I like the CoD4/MW2 approach. Boss fights for most games seems too arbitrary/video gamey now. Games like Bioshock/Batman:AA, for example, do so much to escape the trappings of a game only to about-face back into 1987 for their end fights.
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Isn't the whole point of a game to be "video gamey"? I appreciate a great boss fight way more than setpieces that try desperately to be like movies. Hopefully Treasure has some interesting shit cooked up now that Sin and Punishment 2 is released, they were always the masters at epic boss battles.
 
Dead Space and AC2 are both amazing fights. People nominating them for stink boss fights need to have their gamercard revoked imo.
 
This fucker (last gen but a good example) did final bosses right:

9qvafs.jpg


1. The fight against him is on equal terms and is entirely down to player skill
2. You fight him several times before, and each time you get closer to beating him (even though he doesnt get more powerful in any significant way, you just get more tools and better weapons)
3. It's still pretty damn hard if you're not in the zone [spoilers]of the enders[/spoiler].
4. it's more epic than the earlier bosses which included a 50-foot tall engine of destruction and an entire fleet of battleships
5. The series really wants to make you kill him, building up the fight throughout both games

It's proof you can have a fight on virtually equal terms without the game having to cheat, and still have the fight challenging, epic, and satisfying.
 
I can think of only two that were noteworthy:

Bioshock final boss kind of sucked, and Dead Space final boss was great.
 
Jax said:
couldn't have been that good... because this is the only LOZ game that I don't remember the ending/end boss to. Non of that sounds familiar. God, I was ambivalent about LOZTP.
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It's a boring, shallow experience that's more of a Frankenstein creation of hodgepodged together Zelda moments than an actual standalone game so missing huge chunks of memory isn't unusual.
 
I think I agree with final bosses this gen being somewhat underwhelming. I didn't even like MGS IV's final boss outside of the nostalgia rush I got from it.

The best Final Boss in my recent memory was Kingdom Hearts 2's last bosses. Talk about overly epic, and I didn't even like the game that much. FF XII had a pretty cool group of last bosses as well.
 
In terms of actual boss fights Twilight Princess has the best of any game I've ever played. Just not too crazy about the final boss. Was epic but not too fun.
 
Too bad with the mediocre boss fights this gen. With the technology these days they can be unbelievably epic. If the SNES can do a wicked epic boss fight like Kefka in FF6 can you imagine what these consoles do? Some times I wish that we got those 16bit/32/64bit games today. **Thinks of fighting Nemesis, Spehiroth, Metal Gear Rex, Luca Blight and every boss in Xenogears with todays technology***
 
Host Samurai said:
Too bad with the mediocre boss fights this gen. With the technology these days they can be unbelievably epic. If the SNES can do a wicked epic boss fight like Kefka in FF6 can you imagine what these consoles do? Some times I wish that we got those 16bit/32/64bit games today. **Thinks of fighting Nemesis, Spehiroth, Metal Gear Rex, Luca Blight and every boss in Xenogears with todays technology***
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Honestly, if those bosses came out today they'd feel fairly mediocre too. Compared to stuff like God of War, SotC, Okami, Metroid PRime, etc. They're actually fairly lame. Not counting Kefka of course simply for visual flair
 
Resident Evil 4 had the absolute best boss fights ever. RE5 had some kickass fights as well, but the last two were so infuriating.

So yeah, just replay RE4. That game, wow.
 
BAYONETTA boss battles are EPIC, especially Jeanne's as it's something out of Fist of the North Star! There is no other game like it so far.

Yes, I have read all the post in this thread and I'm sorry, Bayonetta cannot be beaten in this case.
 
Super Mario Galaxy: Epic and with the best music ever. Not too complicated but fun.

Punch-Out!!: Every one of the characters are bosses, and every one of them are awesome.

Portal: Holyshit, I mean, incredible.

NMH: All the bosses are awesome, again like in Punch-Out!! this game is more bosses than anyting else.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: BEST. 2D MARIO FINAL BOSS. EVER period.
 
Fuck the haters. Lost Planet had a really cool Final Boss. Who doesn't like a good ZOE 2 battle? It was fun,different and came out of nowhere and it looked cool. I really enjoyed this fight and makes me want a ZOE 3 even more :D .

RE 5 had a shit final boss but that doesn't bother me because the rest of the bosses sucked ass. Seriously, why are there bosses from Lost Planet (Bat) and Final Fantasy (Giant Crab) doing in a RE game? Give me my Tryants, Lisa's, Nemesis etc. The more "Humanoid" gritty bosses were always the best in that series.
 
Host Samurai said:
Fuck the haters. Lost Planet had a really cool Final Boss. Who doesn't like a good ZOE 2 battle? It was fun,different and came out of nowhere and it looked cool. I really enjoyed this fight and makes me want a ZOE 3 even more :D .

RE 5 had a shit final boss but that doesn't bother me because the rest of the bosses sucked ass. Seriously, why are there bosses from Lost Planet (Bat) and Final Fantasy (Giant Crab) doing in a RE game? Give me my Tryants, Lisa's, Nemesis etc. The more "Humanoid" gritty bosses were always the best in that series.
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I've always found humanoid characters to be the shittiest bosses. They're equal in stature to you, yet can absorb an almost limitless number of hits relative to your character. And if they are equal to you, that sometimes means they have the same ability to constantly block your attacks. Blocking attacks is only cool when you're the one doing the blocking.

RE4 had that Krauser fight, but at least the hide and seek aspect was cool. I could dig that. Wesker, on the other hand, was bullshit. Twice.
 
Ferrio said:
Because not all games need them, no reason to shoehorn them in. It's the journey, not the destination.
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Yeah, this is true.

But if devs are gonna bother with putting boss fights in their games they should at least have the audacity to do it right.

Right now it feels like they are only putting final bosses at the end of the game because they feel they have to.

If you want to make a cool set piece, do that. Don't half ass a boss battle and call it a day. Either make a good boss or don't make one period.

So yeah, qualities they need based off of what people have said in the thread:

Difficulty - A boss, final or no, doesn't really have to be that difficult. If you give the player a random giant with an overly long health bar, but make it so that the thing can barely even kill you, chances are the player will be underwhelmed.

I'm looking as you Gears2. Can that thing even kill you?

Adding to that, don't make the boss ball-crushingly cheap in some lame attempt to up the difficulty. There's a difference between fairly challenging and fucking annoying.

Experience - Visuals do not matter(that much). Though I suppose they can make a mediocre boss fight seem cool. Same for music.

Gameplay Mechanics - The boss fight can incorporate every technique I've learned throughout the game, but if the boss isn't fun to fight then fuck you. Ganondorf at the end of windwaker was simple. It only required your swordfighting skills since Link's other gadgets basically did jack, but it was still a fun fight.

Shooters - Stop it. Just stop it. It's understandably hard for devs to make bosses in shooters, so unless you know for a fact that you'll put a lot of effort and imagination into making one, don't do it. Seriously. The only shooters I can think of with decent bosses are probably RE4 and the MP series and those aren't even pure shooters.
 
batman AA's final boss fight was so bad that it almost invalidated all the good things before it. absolutely abysmal finale
 
Fimbulvetr said:
Yeah, this is true.

But if devs are gonna bother with putting boss fights in their games they should at least have the audacity to do it right.

Right now it feels like they are only putting final bosses at the end of the game because they feel they have to.

If you want to make a cool set piece, do that. Don't half ass a boss battle and call it a day. Either make a good boss or don't make one period.

So yeah, qualities they need based off of what people have said in the thread:

Difficulty - A boss, final or no, doesn't really have to be that difficult. If you give the player a random giant with an overly long health bar, but make it so that the thing can barely even kill you, chances are the player will be underwhelmed.

I'm looking as you Gears2. Can that thing even kill you?

Adding to that, don't make the boss ball-crushingly cheap in some lame attempt to up the difficulty. There's a difference between fairly challenging and fucking annoying.

Experience - Visuals do not matter(that much). Though I suppose they can make a mediocre boss fight seem cool. Same for music.

Gameplay Mechanics - The boss fight can incorporate every technique I've learned throughout the game, but if the boss isn't fun to fight then fuck you. Ganondorf at the end of windwaker was simple. It only required your swordfighting skills since Link's other gadgets basically did jack, but it was still a fun fight.

Shooters - Stop it. Just stop it. It's understandably hard for devs to make bosses in shooters, so unless you know for a fact that you'll put a lot of effort and imagination into making one, don't do it. Seriously. The only shooters I can think of with decent bosses are probably RE4 and the MP series and those aren't even pure shooters.
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The Half-life series does boss battles really really well too. Nihilanth? The epic strider battles at the end of ep. 2? Incredible
 
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