What happened to my boss fights?

[Neosage]

I love end bosses that are hard but not too hard for me to give up on a game. AND have awesome music.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

I hated getting ridiculous boss fights at the end of games. Good ones, ones that made sense in relation to the games, I didn't mind but the formulaic Big Final Boss with Special Gimmic Action™ I found more tedious than challenging. (Gears 1's fight with General RAAM being a perfect example of it done poorly... I'd much rather have the end fight of Gears 2, becuase at least it's not boring.)

But it always made the games so much more satisfying when you did beat them. I find that in games without them I just see the credits roll and think "Well, is that it?" With a boss fight stuck on the end I am much happier when I do see them roll.
Also, the Gears 2 boss, not boring? You stood in a raven and used the hammer on it. Quite boring if you ask me.

Bad phrasing on my part, sorry. What I meant is that the ending of Gears 2 doesn't outstay its welcome; it's there, it gets done, splashy cutscene. RAAM, however, with that dumbass Kryll-Cloak of Cockblocking was just more tedious to kill than rewarding. Beating him wasn't a thrill, it was more a relief from pain like the feeling you get when that splinter finally comes out of your thumb. I don't do masochism; if I want miserable repetitious chores I'll go to work where they pay me.

-- Steve

[spoiler text="Spoiler for the final level of Gears of War 2"]Personally, I found the Brumak rampage getting to that final scene dramatic enough. That could just be a difference in play-style preference between you and me, though.[/spoiler]

The change in place was nice although:

Spoiler: Gears spoiler

I would have preferred it personally if they didn't have Skorge chase you on his hydra, and have him somehow stop the bomb forcing you to fight him again. Only he has got some new tricks or something. I just think that they really could have improved the ending with a good solid boss.

I really loved RAAM as a boss. He forced teamwork between you and your partner. One of you had to focus ton the shield with any explosives while the other had to get any other powerful weapon (there was a troika) and take him down when he goes boom. But I can see how it would be annoying with the AI, they have always been stupid as shit in Gears campaign.

 

[joystickjunki3]

I miss boss fights a lot. The Metroid games (the 2D ones) come to mind when I think of really enjoyable boss fights, especially near the end.

 

[Kilo24]

In Devil May Cry 3, they were (almost all) excellent. Painfully hard, but gratifying to both beat and fight against. DMC4 had good boss battles for the most part. Both of them generally let you try a wide variety of tactics (less so with 4) that could potentially work.

Then there are boss fights in RPGs that demand a lot of tactical analysis on how to best beat them. Final Fantasy Tactics (though somewhat atypical) comes to mind, along with the Baldur's Gate series. In RPGs that are deep enough to offer you a lot of meaningful choices, they can be quite fun.

Shadow of the Colossus is only boss fights. They're atmospheric to the extreme and it still is fun to fight them again. However, they're still built around the gimmick principle.

Aside from those, I really haven't found many great boss battles. Zelda's are almost only gimmicks; none of them are challenging once you know the trick and they're impossible to beat unless you know the trick. Bioshock's final one was completely out of place. Frequently, without a gimmick, poorly designed bosses are little more than slightly higher roadblocks to steamroll your overpowered party/character over.

 

[Vlane]

Play to the end of Ninja Gaiden II if you want some annoyingly difficult boss fights. I believe it was about 4 bosses in a row.

Oh come on. I used the scythe (Raining Blood is cheap as hell), the bow and the claws. The bosses were easy if you use those weapons (especially when you fight against the last boss).

The scythe is the most unfair thing you can use against the bosses and it breaks the game.

 

[cainx10a]

Killing the Colonel at the end of Fallout 3, was fun. Wait ... Nevermind ....

 

[messy]

shaddow of the collosus (spelling) is a perfect of example of how bosses should be done. If you don't already know the game is just 13 huge boss fights one after other with each one taken out rather cooly. However the main reason boss fights have shown a decline is the apparant want for overly realistic games, mainly in FPS, cause a super powerful end of level boss just wouldnt really fit in with COD4 etc.

 

[Fingerprint]

I love end bosses that are hard but not too hard for me to give up on a game. AND have awesome music.

Then personally i think Painkiller is the game for you - assuming you haven't already played it

 

[TJ rock 101]

Metroid prime bosses are the best, especially the dark samus fights.

 

[Neosage]

I love end bosses that are hard but not too hard for me to give up on a game. AND have awesome music.

Then personally i think Painkiller is the game for you - assuming you haven't already played it

Argh I totally forgot I bought that game.

 

[Fingerprint]

I love end bosses that are hard but not too hard for me to give up on a game. AND have awesome music.

Then personally i think Painkiller is the game for you - assuming you haven't already played it

Argh I totally forgot I bought that game.

I know what you mean, i was replaying it until i got Fallout 3 and now it's just hovering somewhere around my PC.

 

[Neosage]

I love end bosses that are hard but not too hard for me to give up on a game. AND have awesome music.

Then personally i think Painkiller is the game for you - assuming you haven't already played it

Argh I totally forgot I bought that game.

I know what you mean, i was replaying it until i got Fallout 3 and now it's just hovering somewhere around my PC.

Heh...I kinda tried to install on laptop failed. Then couldn't be arsed to install it on ma big comp.

 

[Aardvark]

The Cyberdemon is my bossfight yard stick. Once you knew how to take him down, he was simple, but the sheer terror you felt the first time you heard him roar into life and start pelting you with rockets is rarely matched in fancy-pants modern FPSes

Serious Sam's boss always rates a mention in bossthreads.

Sweet, unholy jesus does it ever.

Other than that, I prefer the bosses who are powerful, tough, have awesome weapons and can only be killed by the contents of the room conveniently stacked with ammunition, which serves as a marker to let you know there's a boss-fight coming up.

Bosses that require you to use some jumping platform, elevator or teleporter to hit some secret weak spot that only requires a few rockets to take down give me the shits, same with bosses who are killed by the story, rather than by you.

 

[Vlane]

Shadow of the Colossus. Do I need to say anything else?

 

[rainman2203]

FF7- awesome bosses, awesome story line. And there was always another, even more ridiculously powerful boss to beat. They had it right back in the day. I think the turn based system made it more dramatic too, as you had time to sit there and think about how not to get your face stomped.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. In all the games I've ever played there's always some "boss." even if its not a traditional giant, stomp-your-face in monster, it's still some big hard challenge that comes at the end of the level/game. Maybe bosses are changing into non-traditional bosses where they are a large challenge of smaller foes or puzzles, rather then a 400 foot tall mutated super-freak with a weakness under the armor in his left knee cap that requires exactly two shot gun rounds after he swings his club slightly to the left if it happens to be Tuesday during a rain and the stars are in alignment...

 

[tendo82]

Hard boss fights only inspire me to do one thing - throw my controller across the room. Surely we can aim for a more varied experience than that.

Variety, as other posters have pointed out, is the key. A good boss fight should ask us to take the skills we've learned so far and apply them in a new way, as opposed to a faster more furious application of the same skills we've been using the whole game.