What makes an epic bossfight?

[BanicRhys]

It's all about the music baby, a good soundtrack can make ANY boss battle [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bsqXUKljQY&t=0m24s] epic.

Case in point:

What we've got are piddly little characters with SNES/PS1 era graphics just standing still, selecting attacks off of a menu while still managing to be epic.

 

[Rems]

Music is certainly one of the most important factors, as is the build up.

One of my favorite 'boss fights' is from Ace Combat Distant Thunder. They're not really 'boss fights' but it is the final mission and you have to destroy a super weapon so it's close enough. First there was the build up. At the start of the game you were an unknown pilot, in a desperate war on the losing side. Throughout the course of the game the tide of war turns and you gain increasing recognition by both your own side and the enemy who single you out as an 'ace'. By the final mission you're a target, distinguished by your plane's symbol. In that mission though you lead into battle a whole squadron decked out with your symbol. You get tingles as your new squadron sounds off.



Secondly the music. Listen to this, it's awe inspiring.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

See FTL for an epic boss fight.

Multiple phases to keep it fresh because it makes you change your strategy. And most importantly it must really challenge the player without the fight seeming cheap or unfair.

Awesome music helps too.

 

[Thereisbearcum]

I think fighting the god of the games universe is normally my favourite when it comes to boss battles, because;
1)They normally have to be foreshadowed.
2)They are normally guaranteed to be the hardest monster in that game.
3)There is no better feeling of satisfaction in a game then knowing you went into a fight with the best a game could throw at you and you beat it.
4)The story should get a big payoff after the battle.
Of course these points aren't universal, and the only game I have played recently that really hit me with how epic it is was Xenoblade Chronicles.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Whatever you do, DO NOT make the boss fight either a QTE or feel eerily like one. Take Resistance 2's Leviathan boss...

Spoiler: A video and minor spoilers

Now, this should easily be one of the best, if not the best, boss fight in the game. The monster here is foreshadowed beforehand and is by far the largest enemy in the game, being the size of something out of Shadow of the Colossus. While this fight is certainly fun to look at, there isn't much actual gameplay involved and he ironically ends up being undoubtedly the easiest boss in the entire game - I'd even go so far as to say he's probably the single easiest enemy period in Resistance 2. Nothing about actually fighting him is challenging at all - just shoot a rocket when the game tells you to and run away when he does one of his ludicrously slow cinematic attacks. The default enemies you encounter when you're not fighting him actually end up being much more threatening, and they're not the point of this boss battle. It just fails in every way at being a good boss battle, outside of looking pretty.

This issue is also a major fault of Far Cry 3 (I still have yet to make that thread about my issues with that game <_<) and unintentionally becomes some of the most boring parts of an otherwise very fun game. As others have said, a boss fight should be a test of everything you've learned so far and should be an exciting challenge. QTEs and - as Yahtzee put it - those that are basically renamed QTEs do not test a players built-up skills in any way, and just makes the whole thing feel easy and unrewarding.

 

[Captain Billy]

How on earth has nobody mentioned GLADoS yet? I'll do it.

GLADoS.

It's my favorite boss fight because you're given context for it-not you, the game character, but you, the actual human being, sitting in your chair and playing a video game. She's personally pissed you off and tried to kill you, and you're ready and willing for the fight. Bonus points because it's an excellent (and high-stress) test of everything you've learned.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Epic opening. Either by having the boss crash into the arena, or the player character opening a massive pair of double doors, or having the boss emerge from scenery you thought was inanimate, an epic opening is good. Dark Souls does this continually, in particular Ornstein and Smough, the Gaping Dragon and the Asylum Demon. I wouldn't call the Stray Demon fight epic, because it's pretty unceremonious, but it is great in its own way.

Epic music. Goes almost without saying. Monster Hunter does this pretty well. Dark Souls as well, but some boss fights, like Sif and the tense Priscilla fight, don't go for epic as much as for a different mood.

The actual fight must have you constantly moving and on your toes. Gaping Dragon loses out because you're trying to kite and circle most of the time, so it's just drawn out. Similarly, the Plesioth in Monster Hunter has long sections of just swimming around outside combat range. Also don't like bosses that piss off for a moment to summon minions and have them fight you as a sort of breakpoint. Good bosses are always engaging you. Ornstein and Smough come to mind, as well as something like the Rathalos from Monster Hunter. Additionally, I think it helps if the combat is in line with normal gameplay. If you have to hit levers or switches or throw barrels or something, I don't see that as epic unless it's the finishing move, in which case it's a case-by-case basis for me. Also not epic, bosses that get stuck in rocks or walls or something, or have deliberate periods of invulnerability where you just hack away at their...power crystal...or what have you...until they recover.

The boss must be somewhat difficult.

It helps if the boss is larger than you are, to the point where your camera is pointed up most of the time. It's just an epic angle to fight at.

An unexpected mid-fight change is always good for upping the stakes. O&S.

Build-up is important, but you shouldn't know what it is exactly. This is where the Iron Golem of Dark Souls fails in the unlikely event that you are a cautious player and observant enough to look at the boss from other places in the stage. Being able to see the arena though, or a clue about the boss, is still good build-up.

 

[Johnny Impact]

1) Pushes you to the limit. I should use every mana point, health potion, Phoenix Down etc. If I win on my first try, it was too easy.

2) Epic boss fight music. Has to get the adrenaline going and provide a sense of, for lack of a better word, epicness.

Spoiler: I was about twelve when I finished this for the first time (careful, it's LOUD)

8-bit MIDI, and only 30 seconds long, but still one of my favorite boss themes.

3) The villain is established as a nigh-unstoppable, world-crushing menace. No matter how powerful we've become, we should feel like our mission is basically suicide: "Okay, kiddies, lock S-foils in attack position and accelerate to attack speed, 'cause this is IT."

4) Good reason to hate the villain: killed your brother, instituted an oppressive regime, eats babies and puppy dogs, etc.

5) Modern bosses have to have a decent stable of moves. The old side-scrollers had to limit themselves to simple (if not necessarily easy) rhythm-oriented play. These days there's no excuse for that. Good example of a bad example: Fontaine. Dodge, shoot, dodge, shoot, dodge, shoot, he's dead. If I see every move in the first five seconds, the dev team didn't do their jobs.

6) Makes use of the skills you've learned along the way. Doesn't pull cheap shots or arbitrarily cripple you. I loved the first God of War, but when they took away the weapons at the end, I felt seriously cheated. I do NOT want to spend the game acquiring and mastering special weapons and moves only to have them all yanked for the final fight. That is what we refer to as A Dick Move. Let me bust out every fabulous trick I've learned, then have the boss show me he's still better.

7) Good gimmicks make the fight harder and harder, plus they usually don't feel cheap. "The longer you fight, the more floor panels fall away" is an example of a good gimmick.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I feel like you guys are focused more on the story aspect than the actual fight with the boss. The actual fight can entirely make or break the experience.

A boss that is completely fair - all his attacks have power and some scale to them, and all of them can be dodged or disabled with fair warning and moderate skill. But there still is a challenge, and there still must be franticness. A boss fight should be equal parts attacking and defending your health reserves, and either attacking or defending should be done with the player's general skill level.

A boss in FPSs that can attack you like other enemies, but has more health than other enemies, and killing him is just having better conditions and aim than him = bad
A boss in RPGs that is just a pretty powerful guy who you have to outlast = bad
A boss that plomps around and throws rubble, and then completely dies to a few hits in the shin = bad
A boss that stares at you while sending average minions and succumbs pretty easily = bad
And, the great exception to the "Dodging, attacking" rule: bosses that are invulnerable and have stupid attacks that you must dodge, and then stand still and are vulnerable = bad

Really though, I'm taking a more action game look, more like 2D bullethell games and sidescrollers. Contra and Metroid had them, slash and hackers like God of War had them, fast paced games like Quake and Painkiller had them... whatever type of game Metal Gear Solid is has them, the Bouncers in Bioshock,

But for bad boss fights: GLaDOS and Wheatley from Portal (though it is a puzzle game), around every turn-based RPG boss, Fontaine (and everyone but the Big Daddies) from Bioshock, most of Fable's bosses, pretty much all of Arkham Asylum, all of Bethesda's games, Dues Ex, Shadow of the Colossus (but painfully do I say that), Syndicate (2012), and maybe Okami. Those may have been built up bosses, but they weren't epic boss figths - there couldn't have been much tact to fighting them other than shooting a little better or having more health.

 

[Pebkio]

Fable 2. The faceoff against Lucien is by far the most gripping and immersive battle I've ever had to play through. The dialogue between the two characters as the match skill and wits through gripping counters and reversals, is second to none. The designers even realized that if the fight was taking too long, you'd need help, so they had one of the NPCs join you to help finally take him down. In no way was it just a disappointingly cliche monologue interrupted by an npc rudely shooting the guy before he could finish.

Thppppt.

---

I happen to like boss battles where the boss is just as skilled as you. It's like if the first PC decided to be the bad guy and you had to be the second PC instead. If you can block, he can block. If you can dodge, he can dodge. If you've got a bullet-time power, so does he. It forces you to get into a rhythm of having to flow into hitting him while avoiding being hit. The agent fight in the Matrix game is a good example of that, but an epic context was missing, so it wasn't quite epic.

But that alone doesn't make a boss battle "epic". It has to feel like this tough battle between equals has to be over something very important. But, at the same time, the two people have to have a personal grudge. For instance, Cloud and Sephiroth hate each other but are also fighting over the fate of the planet. Epic context but not an epic battle.

Finally, it takes an epic setting. Above something big and powerful, like a sparking reactor or high up in the air. A good example would be the final battle of Jak and Daxter. That was over a silo filled with nasty and you had to leap all over the place a mile above the ground. Epic setting, but the combat wasn't challenging, and therefore wasn't epic.

With all that said, the most epic boss fight I've ever seen wasn't in a game. It was in a movie. The fight between Mal and The Operative near the end of Serenity was everything I wish for in a boss fight. After throwing entire armies at each other, they then have to face off while their allies are dying, first by quick-draw shooting, then by aerial combat on chains, then by melee... all over a spinning reactor... battling over broadcasting the truth to an oppressed universe.

They were both nearly equal fighters, pissed off at each other but also fighting for greater causes, and in a suitably epic place. That's an epic boss fight.

 

[Ishal]

Just a person of equal caliber with roughly the same equipment.
Someone who can kick your ass without needing to look like someone who probably could (in other words, someone who doesn't look like the typical towering gargantuan with overkill weaponry).

Bonus points if it's the final battle and it's a one-on-one duel.

This.. but with a bit of a twist.

I'm a sucker for the old Doppelganger/rival trope. I've always loved it. Someone or something that is very similar to you the player and embodies what is described in the above quote. Perhaps they are a version of you if you had chosen a different path. They might share a unique trait that you the player has, making you and this other character unique in the world and share a bond.

Dark Samus from Metroid Prime comes to mind. Here you have a character that pretty much is you. When you fight dark samus she is described as a being that wears a variant of your suit and initially has no very distinct attacks of her own. Instead she attacks you with variants of your own weapons. There is something humbling about these characters, while I'm off doing my thing with my tools in whatever the game is, if there is a character like that in the world I know I'm not essentially alone. It often presents a looming threat on the horizon as well, knowing that eventually I'll have to fight the Doppelganger...or not, and then it becomes even more interesting.

 

[NBSRDan]

There is no inherent quality that makes a fight epic. You can't just select the boss's character sprite and scale it to 200% to make it 2x as epic. It has to be built up through the story, ascribing power, motivation, and stakes, which pay off in the confrontation.
Take Shadow of the Colossus as an example: it's not an epic game, because while the colossi are certainly immense in scale, there is barely a skeleton of a story behind it; I could walk away from the fight and not much would be different. Contrast with something like Golden Sun, where your enemy is just two people against your team of four. They have magical powers, but so do you. What's epic about the fight is that they've been billed as much more stronger than you and threatening the fate of the world. The story is what makes it epic.

 

[Guffe]

I liked Gihraim and the last God in Skyward Sword, why?
Cool looking characters (well Link is same as always), both equally big in size, and they weild swords.

 

[lachlan4567]

Riku in the original Kingdom hearts is a great example.He is incredibly over powered during the beginning of the game, and is well established as Sora's rival yet still a friend. So by the time you have the actual boss battle against him it feels personal it feels like you have to win the fight, you could almost never (well I never could beat him anyways)on the island and now it feels like with a struggle and all you have learned up until this point, you can finally beat him.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Story significance, a good long build up and preferably a rival character you can duel to the death.

Good music is also a necessity. Depending on the type of battle, an epic choir with extravagant lyrics or a fast-pased Metal-Gear-Rising style battlefield of instruments.

The fight itself should be a culmination of every strategy you've used so far in the game without it feeling like a gimmick battle.

 

[Parallel Streaks]

A lot of games try to do this and fail, but what I like is a boss that is clearly more powerful than you that you have to outwit with cunning. My example ain't exactly a boss, and I've kind of been obsessing over it as an enemy on these forums, but the Handymen in Bioshock Infinite. The part where you encounter one just before going to Comstock House was possibly the most thrilling part of the game for me. Staying near a Handyman is basically certain death, you have to be constantly be on skyrails, shooting whilst moving and- OH WAIT THEY CAN MAKE THE ELECTROCUTE THE SKYRAIL. Well, as long as I have distance between us he won't be able to- ONE JUMP, REALLY, HE REACHED ME AND PUNCHED ME IN ONE JUMP.

I replayed that battle several times just for the sheer fun of it, seeing what strategies worked and what-not. Bosses should keep you constantly moving and thinking, getting comfortable for a second removes all of the fear and just makes it a chore. My ideal boss is one that I spend half the fight trying to get far away from, and the other half trying to make every shot count because if I miss I'm not getting another chance for a long while.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've really enjoyed the bosses in Metroid Fusion. I haven't beaten the game yet but there's been this one thing zooming around the arctic sector and I think that's my next boss. Nightmare they call it...I wonder what...oh...Oh no...OH GOD NO!!

I fought Nightmare a few times and despite being killed multiple times, this is the kind of boss fight that has me shouting, "you will not beat me!".

My favorite bosses are the ones that you fight on equal grounds though such as in Megaman X when you fight against Sigma or, any of the Robot Masters. I hate when you go through a game hearing about a specific person then at the end they jump into a giant mechsuit that you need to crawl on so you can hit the 3 buttons which make the credits roll by.

 

[Kilo24]

You need enough careful design to make sure that the boss is something interesting and new (both in terms of gameplay and in terms of aesthetics), enough depth in the basic gameplay mechanics to make sure that figuring out how to fight him is fun, and enough difficulty in the game to make sure that the player needs to think about how to beat him. It's best if there are multiple viable options to fight him with, and that they arise organically from the mechanics of those options rather than as hardcoded weaknesses for the boss himself.

The boss also needs to not be tedious to fight; once you have figured out a good way of dealing with him, it gets old pretty quick if the challenge is in repeating it twenty-plus times or in hitting a very narrow timing window. Too often, game developers go for the route of just making bosses more punishing/take longer to kill instead of strongly encouraging players to try new tactics.

Dark Souls/Demon's Souls are excellent and very reliable for epic boss fights, and that several boss fights in Devil May Cry 3 (especially Vergil) are the best I've seen.

 

[Latinidiot]

What makes a good boss?
Make it fair but hard. Depending on the game, make the bossfight a more intense version of the normal game. if there is dodging, make it harder to dodge the bastard. If they do a lot of damage, make it do more damage. But avoid bolstering their health too much. That just bores the crap out of us.



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