Poll: Boss fights. Worth it or just a headache?
- Thread starter Lord Hawkeye
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If done correctly, it can bring great closure to open questions and plots. If done poorly, ala use your normal weapons to take down a super-monster with 'weak points', it is just poorly executed plot and lazy writing. Why? Because no sane character would fight that battle, instead preferring to run away and ambush it or avoid the fight altogether. Sometimes they are even utterly pointless plotwise and act as simple artificial lenghteners to gameplay time.
And yet we are offered more and more of these kinds of poor boss battles. Why? I choose to blame the consoles and QTEs. Sure, PC gaming has had it's fair share of these (ending of the Throne Of Bhaal anyone?), but all one needs to look at is God Of War & likes to find the answer. Button-mashing-supposedly-'epic' fights that are boring and grindy, what with the boss enemy doing perhaps three or four different kinds of attacks at most and the only reason they take so long to finish is because they have a health bar long enough to stretch all the way to the sun. All for the sake of bringing just a tad more gore to the screen and some of that vaunted 'difficulty' to otherwise easy as heck games.
And yet we are offered more and more of these kinds of poor boss battles. Why? I choose to blame the consoles and QTEs. Sure, PC gaming has had it's fair share of these (ending of the Throne Of Bhaal anyone?), but all one needs to look at is God Of War & likes to find the answer. Button-mashing-supposedly-'epic' fights that are boring and grindy, what with the boss enemy doing perhaps three or four different kinds of attacks at most and the only reason they take so long to finish is because they have a health bar long enough to stretch all the way to the sun. All for the sake of bringing just a tad more gore to the screen and some of that vaunted 'difficulty' to otherwise easy as heck games.
Portal SPOILER WARNING!!!!
Boss fights need to be more creative, think about how great it was in Portal. You use the gun to get the boss to shoot itself, it drops a limb/organ, you then portal to to open a hatch to drop the organ into, Each time acquiring the limbs were different as well.
Boss fights in MMO's are great aswell, Sometimes the lead up to a boss fight was more fun than the boss itself. An example is in WOW when you fought in the Suppresion room in Black Wing Lair, or the Vael fight with infinite mana/energy/rage.
When a boss fight is outside of the normal tank and spank or shoot first to win scenario, they can be extremely fun.
In rail shooter games, when bosses have 1 weak spot that can be exposed by hitting another, even though its rinse and repeat when the stages change of the boss, it becomes challenging to maintain focus.
Boss fights need to be more creative, think about how great it was in Portal. You use the gun to get the boss to shoot itself, it drops a limb/organ, you then portal to to open a hatch to drop the organ into, Each time acquiring the limbs were different as well.
Boss fights in MMO's are great aswell, Sometimes the lead up to a boss fight was more fun than the boss itself. An example is in WOW when you fought in the Suppresion room in Black Wing Lair, or the Vael fight with infinite mana/energy/rage.
When a boss fight is outside of the normal tank and spank or shoot first to win scenario, they can be extremely fun.
In rail shooter games, when bosses have 1 weak spot that can be exposed by hitting another, even though its rinse and repeat when the stages change of the boss, it becomes challenging to maintain focus.
As long as they make sense, they dont need to be earth-shattering powerfull to be fun/challenging.
Like, not a boss guy in t-shirt that survives 20 kiloton nukes in the face. Make him fight smartly instead.
I also like bosses that are fast and agile, like grangrayda (sp?) from Metroid prime 3.
Massive, slow bosses are "meh".
Bosses with specific-spot weaknessses are getting boring to fight, since they are reetitive as hell to take down.
Zelda bosses wich require 3 "damage" to die are getting old.
Like, not a boss guy in t-shirt that survives 20 kiloton nukes in the face. Make him fight smartly instead.
I also like bosses that are fast and agile, like grangrayda (sp?) from Metroid prime 3.
Massive, slow bosses are "meh".
Bosses with specific-spot weaknessses are getting boring to fight, since they are reetitive as hell to take down.
Zelda bosses wich require 3 "damage" to die are getting old.
With proper build up, and a well scripted boss, the fights can get fairly enjoyable. But a tacked on boss that you didn't know of or hear about just feels like the developers were forced to cram in boss where there shouldn't be. Take Prototype for example, the final boss literally doesn't start to show only near the very end and without any real good reason either. Mr. "Oh hi! I was in the area and thought i should kick your teeth in" tack on that he took a silly amount of punishment with no sign that the missile you hit him with even hurt. Plus you only have 3 minutes or its game over.
If they make sense, for example, if call of duty, the next one ends in a giant mech battle against Ho Chi Minh then... Wait, that might be cool. But not in Call of Duty.
Ha! Remember back when everyone thought Elizabeth Greene was hard? I actually felt quite badass after each boss I killed in [PROTOTYPE], mainly because they managed to be hard without being cheap. Apart from the four minute timer. The bastard.Lord Hawkeye said:
OT - boss fights can make a break a game, but a lot of how good they are is based on the game they're in. Fortudio in Bayonetta and the Destroyer in Borderlands are great in their own games, but would suck arse in the other, as an example.
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They can be fun, especially if you get a good reward for doing so, but in games like Mass Effect where bosses are just generic enemies with more health than others, it's just annoyance and busywork.
Well like you said, Boss fights can be awesome if they are done well. I would say even the ones that involve QTE's can be pretty good as long as the QTE's don't comprise the entire fight. But again, as you said, just beefing up a regular enemy with more health and a BS one-hit-kill attack doesn't make for a good Boss fight.
I love them if they make me feel epic. The High Dragon in Dragon Age: Origins was awesome. As were Berserkers in Gears. Skorge was kind of dumb though.