What Makes A Truly Fantastic Boss Battle?

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I like boss battles with phases. Where the game play switches slightly as you play, so you have to deploy a different technique. I also like it if one of those techniques is something that is only recently learnt!

I also like it to be a challenge. Not impossible, but something that you go away feeling like you have achieved something.

They also should be relevant to the plot. I play a lot of JRPGs, and, for instance (as it happens a lot with them) in Final Fantasy VIII I liked the giant robot boss as you escaped the missile base, as it was relevant to the plot... I also liked the return of that boss, even though it was a reduculous story point, at least it made sence. What I don't like are things like the Oilboyles underneath Balamb Garden... They come completely out of the blue, arn't linked to, or even mentioned in the plot and are just before another, actually relevant plot. The only purpose they have is to slow the gameplay down so that the delve beneath Balamb seems more epic than initially thought... They fall in with another sin... Bosses that turn into normal bad guys later... I know it can be a good way to show how much you have progressed, but really? It undermines that boss, and makes it less of a special moment when you finally destroy it. More often than not the regular enemy version has different stats and attacks anyway, so why don't they just make it a slightly different monster? Why is the enemy that is only found living in a pool underneath Balamb Garden also found wondering the hallways of the final castle?

 

[Autumnflame]

one of the zeldas i think twilight one.

when your fighting the dragon in the sky. having to hookshot your way around the pillars for position and then to strike was a great one for me.

 

[Vrach]

It's hard to find decent videos of these fights but if/when you play them my point will probably get across.

I wasn't that great a fan of Manus... could be that my brother sat with me and told me the tactics, but bottom line is, all you do is

Spoiler: Manus tactics

roll back, give the hand a stab and deflect his magic with the amulet, which you can just spam for the most part as long as your timing doesn't completely suck... and you can heal it off if he nabs you too

.

I preferred Artorias:

It's the most challenging fight I've had, aside from Kalameet when you're cutting off his tail (that's just a fucking nightmare), but the challenge is the cut, not Kalameet himself. I've hated Artorias for a while (only appropriate, seeing as his fucking mutt took me a while as well earlier in the game), but hell if that wasn't one of the most satisfying victories I've had in gaming. I've kindled my way to 20 Estuses thinking it would help, but the beauty of it was that when I beat him, I used less than 5.

It also retaught me the lesson that goes for literally any challenging boss fight (listen up all you MMO players) - it's not dead until it's dead. I've had a classic 1% wipe where I got overconfident through the fight and felt like "fuck it, I can kill him with one heavy blow - I'll trade blows, survive and he'll be dead". To which the Knight politely said "lolnope" and cut me in two like I was nothing.

Which is the essence of DS games to me, Artorias is one of the fights the embodies it perfectly. You can see all his moves coming and while it might take a bit of practice, they are not overly difficult to master avoiding. The downfall is in feeling like you're stronger than him. This is the beauty of Dark Souls, you can actively feel the progression - you can feel your character getting stronger and you can feel yourself getting better and it's never irrelevant. However, there is always someone who can and most definitely will knock you down a peg.

 

[lord.jeff]

For me a very important part of a boss fight is for it to not feel like your just going through a series of events to expose a weak point but actually has some flexibility in how you approach the fight. A bad example would be a game where the boss follows a simple rule like climb the furry bits and stab the glowing parts or the ever popular dodge at the last moment so he hits a wall fight.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

- Proper spectacle. The battle needs to feel meaningful and like an accomplishment, and a dramatic backdrop with appropriate music in the background is a good way to reinforce that.

- Buildup. You can't just throw bosses at us randomly, you have to let the player know what they're up against, lull a bit and then BAM! Think of the empty boss rooms before the boss appears in Zelda games as an example.

- Variety. Multiple stages or changing attack patterns are a good way to accomplish this and keep the player on their toes.

- Appropriate length. Longer boss fights doesn't equal harder boss fights (looking at you, Borderlands 2). And if you have long boss fights, let the player at least have a check point between the stages.

- Appropriate difficulty. Boss fights should always be a challenge, not just a bump on the road. Have the boss kill the player at least a couple of times before they figure out their attack pattern. But don't make the difficulty artificial by giving the boss unavoidable attacks or the ability to heal themself (I've always hated that).

- Don't make the only way to beat the boss a quick time event, or if you do, make it easy enough to pass in at most 2 tries. Zeus in GoW 1 and 2 was only beatable via a quicktime event, and neither of them left much margin for error.

 

[Trollhoffer]

I think a boss battle can only be excellent in context of the game it's in. This should stand to reason, but it's often glossed over; the battle against Gannondorf in Ocarina of Time is excellent in context of the game's mechanics, and what the game has taught you over the time you've played it. If you don't know that the hookshot (or longshot) can be used to draw enemies to you or take yourself closer to them, then the game's mechanics suggest that you can't defeat Gannondorf, no matter how many times you hit his blasts of magic back at him (barring the hover boots, but stay with me). If you didn't fight his phantom equivalent earlier on, you probably don't even get that you're supposed to hit those blasts back at him. So boss battles can be really finicky, because they generally need external support from one's previous experiences of the game.

As I type this, a boss battle more and more seems to be like a cinematic climax. You can't look at the climax of Jurassic Park, say "a good film climax has dinosaurs!" and then try to put dinosaurs into the final act of every film. The climax of a film is more or less a cinematic description of the resolution. Perhaps that could apply to video games if one replaced the word "cinematic" with "mechanical"? So perhaps a good boss fight can be thought of as a point in the game of apex mechanical tension, where the player is encouraged to use every relevant resource possible in order to return to a state of mechanical "rest" or normality.

So perhaps we can accept that boss fights require tension, and ideally, mechanical tension. That can come in plenty of different forms; perhaps you have to apply an existing mechanic in new ways, or apply a mechanic with a greater level of precision than before. Or you may have to resolve a scenario in which you have access to fewer mechanics, or where some mechanics are disincentivised. I probably wouldn't suggest adding new mechanics in such a critical situation, since that's likely to lead to frustration as players attempt to grapple with a new concept with little room for error, but otherwise, I'd probably consider a tense alteration of mechanical conditions to be the foundational concept of a boss battle.

Of course, that in itself is open to plenty of interpretation and questioning. For instance, is a boss battle not a boss battle when there isn't a tense mechanical alteration in play? Some part of boss battles, after all, is in their presentation, and boss battles usually have their own arena. Does an encounter count as a "boss battle" if you later encounter that enemy as a more regular adversary? What if there's an exploit that makes a boss able to be defeated without any mechanical tension? Do we look at the intentional design or the practical execution? I like my idea that a boss battle can be broadly defined by how it manipulates mechanical tension, but there's plenty of holes in it, and plenty of questions that haven't yet got solid answers.

 

[Nazulu]

For bosses that just pop up and haven't been mentioned before, you don't want it to be difficult, just enough to punish you if you don't concentrate and put whatever skills you've been building to good use.

As for the ones driving the plot or are important somehow, you want them to be intimidating and tough. They should have some sort of unique attack the other enemies can't use, then other attacks that don't need special so it doesn't feel like a one trick prick. It should go through some stages as well and seem more desperate by speeding up or pulling out bigger guns, and maybe some clue on how to avoid being hit by it.

Some problems I keep experiencing
- They should be in an arena that isn't difficult to move around in. Seems obvious unless you have obstacles you can hide behind or need to get over to reach a safe point. And, a very big AND, make sure there isn't a spot the boss can't reach and you can spam an attack to kill without effort. It happens so bloody often, I swear.

- If you are going to give the boss a regeneration ability, give a fair opportunity to stop or stun them. And if it takes effort to point the camera up high or low, just make it so they only do it on the floor.

- I reckon it improves a boss greatly when they have a distinct personality or monstrous sound. You want to be taking something that feels important so you should do any thing to separate them from the other enemies. Make them interesting, dammit!

- Weak spots. Don't make it a pain to get to, unless it kills it in one shot. I can deal with that, though I find it more satisfying usually to bring 'em down with big fire power. However some developers felt like making me run up hills and time perfect jumps and other shit just so I can finally hit the bastard. It's not fun to focus on obstacles that are easy to fuck up while avoiding attacks. You don't want to make everyone focus on too many things.

- Don't ever bring a boss back to life after the credits. I've found 5 games that's done this. And while were on tedium. If you die to the boss, make it so we can skip all the cut scenes/talks before the fight so we don't have to go through with it again and again.

- Something I personally hate is when a boss can become invincible when performing certain attacks. NO! It's dumb. At least give a reason why they have to go back to vulnerable formations then. This is so bloody common.

 

[scorptatious]

For me, a fantastic boss fight has to be at least somewhat challenging, not too easy or hard, has an amazing soundtrack, get me emotionally invested, and has me think about what I should do.

Shadow of the Colossus does all of this in spades IMO. Although recently, I've been playing the Persona games, and I find they also do boss fights pretty darn well. Particularly 4G. There's just something poetic about literally facing a physical manifestation of someone's inner most feelings.

Also, slightly off topic, nice to see someone who also has a Vivi avatar. That little guy's the bomb.

 

[Saviordd1]

I can demonstrate what to do and what not to do in one game.

DO: Make boss fights like the final emperor or Darth Vader fights in The Force Unleashed

DON'T: Make the boss fights like the fucking star destroyer from the same game.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Here's a list:

The player must use their recently obtained knowledge/skill to beat the boss
Don't include freaking regular enemies in the fight
Remove any sort of plot armour for the boss
Include unique music, better if there was one for each boss
Have the character improve in their combat ability and/or as an actual character

Those are what I think are the most important aspects of a boss battle

Yes all those are very good aspects of what a boss fight should be, esp. the part about fighting regular enemies. Can we not have the boss keep calling his friends. Also the Boss shouldn't be able to heal himself. That just makes the battle more drawn out then it needs to be.

 

[Piorn]

Here's a list:

The player must use their recently obtained knowledge/skill to beat the boss
Don't include freaking regular enemies in the fight
Remove any sort of plot armour for the boss
Include unique music, better if there was one for each boss
Have the character improve in their combat ability and/or as an actual character

Those are what I think are the most important aspects of a boss battle

I agree, but I'd change the first condition to:

"The player must use all their previously obtained knowledge/skill to beat the boss."

Too often in games like Zelda, you just rub the newly acquired weapon into the boss' face until it dies. There is no challange or fight in that.
This also prevents the items from being a one shot throwaway filler item, as they need to be integrated into the core game instead of just functioning as an elaborate "key".

 

[duwenbasden]

1. Never, EVER start / end a cutscene and start the battle with my character in the open. The first thing that I should not be thinking about in a boss battle is "where the fuck am I" followed closely by "find cover". The only exception to this rule is when the boss battle doesn't start with a cutscene, because then I know exactly where I am / where the boss is and take appropriate action to compensate.

2. Anytime I feel the boss battle is dragging on ie. whittling your health for 10 min while I took little to no damage, I am going to dev-console GG your arse because we both know you are wasting my time.

3. If an honourable non-summoner boss declare a "1v1" battle and then proceeds to summon minions, I get very annoyed (eg. Ulysses in Lonesome Road) and will start out-cheat your cheating since you are clearly not honourable.

4. Ledge battle with giant monster, because if I am the boss monster, why am I standing so close to the ledge and thus letting the protagonist hack my face away.

5. The boss should have a backstory. The what, why, and where part at least. It makes me feels like I am fighting an actual organic living entity, rather than another mook with a better diet and dental plan.

6. Don't do cutscenes in the middle of the boss fight. If you need to change form, just do it. Don't coat in 16 different flavours of cutscenes that focuses on your magnificent arse because I will need to relearn where I am / you are when the cutscene is finished.

Here's a list:

The player must use their recently obtained knowledge/skill to beat the boss
Don't include freaking regular enemies in the fight
Remove any sort of plot armour for the boss
Include unique music, better if there was one for each boss
Have the character improve in their combat ability and/or as an actual character

Those are what I think are the most important aspects of a boss battle

and all that.

 

[RJ 17]

Lot of good suggestions already, and this might have been said already as well. But in case it hasn't, I'll point out that there shouldn't be patterns to the boss' attacks. Like it shouldn't be

(example of an RPG boss fight)
Turn 1: Hit random party member.
Turn 2: Cast Damage Spell on random party member.
Turn 3: Heal.
Turn 4: Afflict Status Ailment.
Turn 5: Charge big super move.
Turn 6: Unleash big super move.
Turn 7: Repeat process.

So yeah, no such patterns like that. And that's really why I got bored with WoW end-game raids. You weren't really fighting boss battles, you were just memorizing a precisely choreographed dance from which you cannot deviate. Go here until this % of life is gone, use DoT's for 2 minutes. Run around the boss to avoid beam attack. Cut all DPS for 4 minutes. Etc. All it was is memorizing a routine, and a good boss battle shouldn't have such a routine.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

I like to reference Yahtzee's Deus Ex review in that regard. So, with that in mind, the best boss is Nyx Avatar from Persona 3.

1)We know who he is. Nyx Avatar isn't some random schmuck who appeared from nowhere, it's our friend Ryoji! An honest and kind hearted fellow who would never hurt his friends, but who is bound to become that monstrosity.
2)We know what's at stake. We're explicitly told that should Nyx succeed the Fall will come and all humans will become the Lost. Ok then, who are Lost? Oh, that's just people suffering from Apathy Syndrome. Ok then, what's Apathy Syndrome? Oh, that's just a condition that turns normal people into husks with no will to live. Well I guess I should win then.
3)Fight itself is challenging, separated by phases, and both tests your knowledge of previous kinds of enemies and introduces a new element.
4)And a bunch of cool little things, like an AMAZING music, and design and behaviour of boss itself.

I mean seriously, that music is freaking incredible
<youtube=A7ZlvtjBWI8>

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

A good boss:

1) Should instill a feeling of dread, or at least nervousness. When it's time to fight a boss, I want to at least thing "Oh crap, here we go", or even better "shitshitshiiiiiiit this is gonna suuuuuuuck! "

2) The boss should be fun to fight. It should be challenging, but there should be a strategy I can figure out and use to deal with whatever it does. Persona 4 and Etrian odyssey do this a lot. Like, one of my favourite bossed in Etrian Odyssey 4 was the 4th boss, or as I like to call him, the "fruit mixer". Even though he can wreck your party super quickly, if you pay attention, you can figure out everything you need to know about him in 6 turns, plan a strategy and execute it. Until you get to the end of the fight and he pulls a sudden surprise out of his ass. XD

The above point also kinda depends on the battle engine being able to do a lot of creative things and giving your player some clever/useful skills.

3) I'd really like to care about fighting the boss. It should be something I really want to kill. Sadly, I broke this rule myself a lot. XD

I made an RPG last years where I tried to follow all of these, and although 5 out of the 6 bosses have no real impact on the story, I think I nailed everything else. XD

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Bosses that involve one on one fighting, mano a mano with a similiar skill set.

Examples:
Dante vs Virgil
Sora vs Ansem Possesed Riku
War vs Death
Travis TOuchdown vs Ryu
Travis Touchdown vs Henry
Travis Touchdown vs Jasper Batt Jr ( You see why I love this game?)
Zero vs Copy X

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Anyone play Lollipop Chainsaw? I feel that game did boss fights perfectly, like really amazingly well.

Every boss fight was unique and had multiple changes in mechanics throughout and all used the skills you had learned from that point onwards in different ways.

Fantastic game