Ultimate Battle: the boss of the game (spoilers maybe)

[Atlas Greatcreek]

One important aspect of the final boss is individuality. The final encounter in the game has to be unique, whether by forcing you to use a combination of everything you have learned or acquired during the game, or by being nothing but simple, one-on-one combat with slick presentation.

The final boss need not be the hardest (just look at Final Fantasy), but it certainly shouldn't be a pushover. If the previous bosses in the game have conditioned you to expect challenging boss-fights it's going to be a real let-down if the last boss suddenly croaks with seemingly little effort.

Story is important: the player has to feel like they're going into a final confrontation, as if this is the end of the story proper, followed by the epilogue. Similarily, the boss has to make sense from a writing standpoint: if the apparent final boss has to be followed up by another, even more difficult encounter, then it should make sense (OoT, as stated before), and not simply appear out of nowhere (FFIX, I look at thee).

However, one of the most important aspects of a final boss battle, to me, is it's ability to stand apart from the consequences of previous gameplay as much as possible. I do not refer with this to level design or mood: a boss is supposed to have a connection of some sort with its surroundings. I think it best if I use an example instead.

[WARNING] THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR NINJA GAIDEN FOR THE XBOX AND ALL FOLLOWING UPDATES

The second to last and last bosses in Ninja Gaiden are some of the best examples of hackneyed scripting and evil (yes, evil) continue systematics in modern gaming. The second to last boss is apparently the Holy Vigoor Emperor, a fact which didn't dawn for me until I played the game through for the fifth time. Besides the scripting, there isn't much that is blatantly wrong about it: it may be somewhat less thrilling than the other bosses in the game. But what Team Ninja really bungled is the aftermath. The player starts off next to a save point, which in Ninja Gaiden is effectively a continue point. This continue point lies at the bottom of an irritating platforming sequence, platforming not being one of the game's strong suits, which means (in Sigma and possibly the original) that if you happen to die during the last boss, you have to do it all over again. An irritating and completely avoidable waste of time, but there's more. For some reason which escapes me, the designers felt that not including a shop next to the aforementioned save point would be conducive for a good challenge. This means that if you fought tooth and nail to defeat the Vigoor Emperor (who was no cakewalk) and subsequently ended up with, say, nothing but an Elixir of Spiritual Life in tow (the weakest portable healing item in the game), you would be hip-deep in excrement and sinking fast. This means that you are presented with the choice of either playing the last boss enough times to attain the skills of a master ninja so that the one Elixir is enough, or loading and playing through the Emperor again, this time trying to use less items. This happenstance, coupled with an addmittedly rash saving procedure on my part, led to me once being unable to finish the game after having toiled my way to the final boss: the lack of a shop meant the difficulty suddenly rose a couple of levels. This, coupled with one of the most ineptly scripted and badly implemented dramatic revelations in my personal experience led to me viewing the final boss an unsavory light, despite the fact that from a gameplay perspective, he is a very good boss.

SPOILERS END

On the whole, the final boss, if the game even has one, should be the end of the sentence (the grammatical one, smartypants). It should be a challenging and satisfying end to the game that stands slightly apart from the rest of the experience, so as to provide the player with a simple, pure conflict that somehow summarizes everything that has happened up to that point.

 

[Andy Chalk]

The best boss battles are the ones that don't exist. For every Transcendant One there are a hundred King of Shadows, ridiculous and contrived exercises in tedium that have no relevance to or bearing on the game whatsoever, and exist only because it's happened so often we've come to believe that's how games are supposed to end. I used to work through that kind of crap legitimately, but I've long since reached the point where, when I run into some idiotic, arbitrary end battle, I just cheat past it. I'm all for challenges, but boss fights too often degenerate into nothing more than tests of patience and endurance.

That said, a few good ones from over the years: The Transcendent One from Planescape, obviously, possibly the best ever. The final battle and escape from the Shivans at the end of Freespace 2. Soulforge. (If you have to ask, you'll never know.) The battles against Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann in Deus Ex, because either or both could be handled in far less conventional ways if you played your cards right and got a little bit lucky.

Umm. I guess I'll stop there.

 

[Muphin_Mann]

Ya know, I often fail to play games to the end. But when i do, i feel compeled to beat that last boss. Examples of what i think are a few different types of boss situations.

Good Final Boss Situation: Dagoth Ur from Morrowind. Hours of game play and a lot of work getting legendary items topped off with having to kill the man that was your best friend in a past life, and who simply wants whats best for his people, but is completly insane and doing it the wrong way. And the fight itself is short, yes, but its not easy, since the second part requires you to ignore the guy while he pummels you.

Bad Final Boss Situation: Just so you can see a comparison i will use the same series. Oblivion had no final boss. The closest it had was a big guy that would have been awsome to kill, but that you just run past. And, this guy has no real connection with your character, he is just a big bad guy out to kill everyone. No real motive or past.

Really freakin difficult Final Boss Situation: That chick at the end of Phantom Crash. I loved that game, and the three one-on-one fights before her took me about 3 minutes each. The first time i played the game, i gave up. The second time, i prepared for weeks tweaking and testing my mech and the fight was perhaps the most nerve frying 30 straight minutes i have ever faced in that sort of video game. Hard Core.

 

[Vnonymous]

Another cool thing I would want in my final boss fight would be for the main character(s) and boss to exchange words during the battle. As in actual conversation, something like that anyways.

You'd love the Transcendent one. Not only do your characters open up with dialogue, the final conflict can be solved through it entirely. There are multiple methods of "dealing" with him, and all the characters involved are very, very solid and deep.

 

[LordOmnit]

The best boss battles are the ones that don't exist. For every Transcendant One there are a hundred King of Shadows, ridiculous and contrived exercises in tedium that have no relevance to or bearing on the game whatsoever, and exist only because it's happened so often we've come to believe that's how games are supposed to end. I used to work through that kind of crap legitimately, but I've long since reached the point where, when I run into some idiotic, arbitrary end battle, I just cheat past it. I'm all for challenges, but boss fights too often degenerate into nothing more than tests of patience and endurance.

Well, I can't say that I agree with you totally or disagree totally. Yes, there are boss battles that are pure exercises in tedium, but without some sort of boss battle (single powerful enemy, mass of enemies, or otherwise) at the end, it seems that a game doesn't have a sufficient ending. Of course I am talking only about games with some sort of story; Tetris doesn't need any sort of boss battle; Final Fantasy does. This is because the story has to lead up to some climax, and if it just leads up to an end, then there was no point in having it as a game instead of a TV show, movie, book, comic, or some non-interactive medium. A game's reason for existing is to present a challenge, that said, if it has no final challenge, then what's the point of going through with it up until that point?

 

[Zera]

Wow these are some pretty good insights on the subject. Glad I found this web site.

 

[Hengst2404]

Wow, those were all some fairly well-thought out answers. I guess I am a bit easier when it comes to end boss battles. I have found the battles at the end of Metroid Prime, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and Heavenly Sword to be great end battles. I rather enjoy the whole fighting various phases of the end boss, assuming they are not tacked on like in Bioshock.

I think that often the best end bosses are the ones you actually find yourself despising. I remember the mini boss in Twilight Princess, the Orc on the Boar who does the kidnapping. I was so annoyed with him that the second I had the chance to chase him down and fight I took it. I like getting swept up in the conflict.

I also think games like Baldur's Gate 2, which establish the villain from like the frist 5 minutes of the game are also great methods for creating a true villain. This is also one of the reasons I liked the boss in Heavenly Sword, well that and Andy Serkis making him come to life so well.

 

[ccesarano]

Metroid Prime was actually a very satisfying final boss the first time you played through. Unfortunately, once you figured out the easiest way to defeat...her? Prime wasn't that much of a problem. It was still very good, though.

As for having the final boss known from the start of the game, well, that can work. However, I also like it to be a surprise, or for your goal to shift. Final Fantasy 6 did a good job in having the final boss known from the beginning, but it was the person you least expected. Chrono Trigger provided an ultimate goal, but you had several other active threats along the way.

Once again, though, I think Halo did a great job of a game without a final boss. After all, you don't always need a final boss in a game, and can find other theatrical ways to end the game in a big climax. After all, Mother Brain was a horrible final boss in Super Metroid, but the race against time was much better. It actually pumped you full of adrenaline as you did your best to avoid obstacles and, hopefully, rescue the friendly creatures of Zebes.

 

[bue519]

I have to say that one of my favorite bosses is the warden in escape from butchers bay and how you finally get your revenge on him through "friendly fire"
another boss that I loved was was the King Tiger tank from Company of Heroes, who can crack your tanks open like eggs but when he finally blows up its a very satisfying moment especially since you avenge you co.

 

[Hengst2404]

Yesterday, finally, I finished Half-Life 2 on the 360, despite having the PC version and playing on and off for the last 3 years (I am a slow paced gamer). I loved the final level of the game, especially how the "boss" of this particular game was taunting you throughout the level. In fact, I also enjoyed how he had been transmitting his crap throughout the game, it made facing him much more satisfying to me. On top of all this, to see that man in the suit with the briefcase out of the corner of my eyes and in random places throughout the game was also quite well-done.

Perhaps one of my least favorite end boss non-battles was the game Darkside of Xeen. I remember leveling my party throughout the game, finishing every quest I could find and then when I got to the main villain, the whole battle took place via cut scenes. This was a serious letdown.

Finally, I did kind of like the way Advent Rising made your choices play into the final boss battle, although I apparently was the only person who liked this game and am sad that they will likely never finish the story.

 

[Captain_Horatio_Q_Muppetfactory]

Have there been any games (not RPG) with good endings that I've missed?

No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, while the bosses themselves were relatively simple shoot-a-person levels, had well done cinematic endings.

Deus Ex, while not having a final boss per se, had good endings.

But endings are one thing, bosses are another.

I always felt the final boss from Monster World IV (Wonder Boy) was challenging and difficult. Very rewarding.

The final boss from Doom II, to go way back, THAT was a damn boss level, even if the boss was just a WALL TEXTURE.

Nemesis from RE3, THERE's a final boss.

Hrm... great FPS final bosses... Hexen 2... and STRIFE.

 

[shadow skill]

Though not a final boss I think that the fight with The Darkness was great simply because the only way to win was to stop fighting. It's completely counter intuitive considering that the Darkness wants to possess you body and soul and destroy the world; its not about shooting the Darkness manifestation enough to kill it which would be your natural reaction since you want to exorcise the Darkness from your body. Instead you have to actually absorb the Darkness into yourself and thereby gain some level of control over it. Pure genius though I am sure bosses where you had to not fight them have been done before.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

I'm with those who generally don't like boss battles. They usually feel like contrived exercises that you have to go to through for some kind of closure, rather than a real climax to the game (which often for me happens before or after the battle, depending).

With that said, I do have some opinions on the final boss battles of games.

First of all, timers. I hate them, hate them with a passion. I hate having to not only fight a boss (like Metroid Prime: Echoes) but have to do it on a strict time limit. Most boss battles have enough dodging and shooting, you shouldn't have to be trying to dodge, shoot and race a clock at the same time. To me this leads to just frustration and annoyance, if I wanted to play a racing game, I would.

Anyway, I think if a boss battle is necessary, that who it should be should be more or less expected. I hate games where you get to the end and the bad guy jumps into some giant walking death machine that they just had sitting around that can pound you to dust and makes you wonder why they didn't just bring the thing out 20 hours and end the little charade.

I have no real opinion on the music of the battle, it really depends on the pacing of the battle and the game itself.

I'm really against marathon boss battles, to my core, especially ones that you cannot save during. But even when you can save on them, it's so easy to save yourself into a corner (whoops, used all my rockets) and then if you weren't using multiple slots you're in for a world of hurt. I think a boss battle shouldn't be more than a few minutes long, even the ending one.

Difficulty I think should be on the high side of difficult, but not just totally murderous. A cheap way some developers up the difficulty is just with a time limit, but again, I think those are just annoyances. The boss battle shouldn't be a walk in the park, but it shouldn't take thirty tries to get it right.

I like well developed characters, but they're rare in video games in general, let alone in the bad guys. A general bad guy bent on world destruction or global domination who up until their last breathe is trying to kill you (including that last, final attempt after you think they're dead) is usually pretty boring. But deep bad guys aren't too common anywhere, I thought General Hummel from the movie "The Rock" was one of the greatest movie bad guys, because, like many "bad guys" in the world, he was doing wrong, and was aware of it, but felt it was for the right reasons. Most video game bad guys are your run of the mill sociopaths who lack most human characteristics (aside from rage and sometimes the maniacal laughter).

And because other people have named them, I'll just throw out some of my favorite and lead favorite boss battles.

The Metroid games have great with the exception of Echoes, I've loved. They tend to be large scae, fairly fun, and epic in scale. Prime lasted a bit long, but it was still fun. Jet Force Gemini for the N64 had an ending boss battle I also enjoyed, mostly because it reminded me of a Metroid game. Also, Metal Gear Solid was good, Liquid was a pretty good villain, and the end battles with him and the Metal Gear were great.

For the bad...I would say Metal Gear Solid 2 had a pretty bad ending battle, I thought. The sword fight felt just out of place, and on the harder difficulties was just long and annoying, it brought my overall view of the game quite a bit. I mentioned it earlier, but Metroid Prime Echoes with the timer was just a pain...as well as most other games with them.

My two cents...

 

[GloatingSwine]

The key factors in a successful Final Boss are:

1. That they should be defeated using the key skills the player is expected to use during the rest of the game. If you have to unlearn everything that got you to the final boss in order to defeat them, the final boss is a failure.

2. That they should have a logical and explainable presence within the fiction of the game so far. A final boss who pops up out of nowhere is not satisfying to defeat, because we have no reason to desire his defeat.

Take, for example, GLaDOS. The end battle requires you to use portals to redirect objects, as you have been doing with energy balls, to get to higher places, as you have been flinging yourself around willy nilly up to that point, and to overcome time pressure, like all the other button pedestals. It uses pretty much every aspect of the portal gun, and GLaDOS has been with you since the beginning of the game, so you know who she is and what you're about in the fight.

Everything a final boss should have, all in one place.

 

[Hengst2404]

Okay, any spoiler folks look away:






For me, the great new PS3 game kind of took a step backwards as far as End Bosses go. For starters, the encounter only lasted a few minutes and it ended up using those stupid button sequences, which made the actual encounter last 2 minutes once you knew what to do. This made the Bioshock boss seem like one of the best I had ever faced.

I would much rather do an escape sequence vis a vi Halo, than fight a stupid short end boss encounter seemingly tacked on for no good reason.

 

[Robomanjr]

To me it seems that we traded a good final boss battle for better graphics and more overall game play (In certain games anyways) I will always love a good old fashion duke it out with big bad undefeatable boss guy any day but it seems we've steered away because maybe its become to played out? I think we need to go back to the good old days of gaming in the Final Fantasy 7 days and rebuild the world of gaming from there, in higher resolution though.

 

[Fraeon [deprecated]]

Whoever listed Gill as a great boss must be out of their minds. There's a name for those kinds of bosses. It's called the SNK Boss Syndrome.

Gill (like bosses from most fighting games) is an utter cheat. He has skills you have no hopes of matching (Resurrection? What the hell were they thinking?). So, um, yeah. He's not nearly as bad as Krizalid from KOF, but he's plenty bad and I wouldn't even list him as a good boss, no matter how sweet his theme music is.

Oh, and put another vote for TTO here. Nobody's mentioned Irenicus from BG2, though, which is a bit of a shame. You know, the dude that steals your very SOUL? One of the few bosses that make sense from a gameplay and a story standpoint.

 

[propertyofcobra]

To me, an endboss requires several key things to make it good, most of which have been mentioned before.

SAME as the rest of the game, meaning it's not all of a sudden completely different gameplay than earlier, an example of how not to do an end boss would be God of War's final sword-swinging hitpoint-tug-of-war duel.
If it's short, sweet and well executed however, this can be forgiven. (MGS jeep ride, for example)

Makes sense. I wanna know WHO I'm fighting, I wanna know WHY I'm fighting him. Final Fantasy 9's endboss, who pretty much popped out for a fight for no reason whatsoever once you defeated the prettyboy, is a good example of what not to do here.

Challenging. Not a brick wall by any means, but the difficulty should be enough to make you feel like you're wrung out, the game developer should NOT pull punches, you're SUPPOSED to lose a few times to this guy, it's the final boss of the game for heaven's sake!

Awesome factor. The more awesome the endboss is portrayed as, the more awesome you feel for defeating him. (Ugh-Zan the vicious warlock, most Resident Evil endbosses, etc.) In this category, things like "looks wicked", "great theme music", "story-awesome" and such go in as well.

So, an endboss that uses the same gameplay as the rest of the game, who makes sense for the story, who's hard to defeat and who is awesomely portrayed, is a good endboss in my book.

 

[lemming52]

1.) Whenever i think of Boss Battles, i always remember the first bowser fight in Mario 64.

It wasnt particularly hard or anything like that, but because it was the first true 3D game i'd ever played i remember getting a massive thrill from grabbing him by the tail and swinging him in 3 dimensions.

2.) Zelda, Ocarina of Time was another game that blew me away with its boss fights, the one that seems to stick in my mind is the big dinosaur thing in the fire temple, im sure if i went back and played it now id be shocked at how bad it looks but back then i thought it was the dogs bollocks.