Why are there no more epic boss battles?

[ZigTheHunter]

Look no further then Xenoblade Chronicles, that game has some of the best boss battles in any game I have ever played; from the incredibly music, to the character interactions, make the boss fights the true highlights of the game. there's plenty of build-up, foreshadowing, and story importance to nearly all of them. You will want to kill this boss, you want to make them pay, you want to see the character succeed, you want to know how things turn out. While not very hard these fights are still intense, they will get you pumped, and if your not overleveled then these fights can go sour in an instant, so you will need to make decisions fast. Each one is different requiring different strategies, you can't just go crazy on them and hope to win.

Also Kid Icarus: Uprising that game as well has great music and the character interactions during it are great, but while there is a great variance in difficulty levels, the bosses always seem to die faster then you would expect, only on the highest difficulties will they really last a good while, but the trouble is getting there without dying, since each time you die the difficulty level is lowered.

 

[ZigTheHunter]

Guess I'll just boot up the emulator, pick up the controller and replay Final Fantasy IX or something.

First of all, FF9 fucking sucked.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd argue that it depends on 1: your definition of "epic" and 2: what games you play.

Not that anyone was paying attention by the end of the game, but the boss battle against Knight Commander Meredith in Dragon Age II was pretty epic. The boss battle against Alduin in Skyrim was pretty epic. Hell, even the last stand at the missle tanks in Mass Effect 3 was pretty epic (as it stands in place of a boss battle).

That's just your opinion, FF9 is an amazing games, one of the best in the series, plus the creator of the series says that it his favorite and says its the closet to what he envisioned Final Fantasy to be, if you dislike it, then you kind of dislike what Final Fantasy stands for.

 

[Casual Shinji]

How has no-one mentioned God Of War 3 yet? I'm pretty sure Kronos is on record as the biggest boss ever included in a videogame. He stands a genuine mile high, you traverse his entire body as if its one ginormous level, and absolutely brutalize him in a thousand different ways.


Fuck, every boss in GOW 3 was pretty damn spectacular. It says a lot when one of the least exciting bosses in a game is a 50 foot scorpion you fight in the middle of a mountain.

Yeah, but then Kronos was pretty easily dispatched which feels a bit undeserving to his character seeing as you spend a good 1/3 of the first game running around on top of him.

For me GoW3 handled its boss battles rather poorly. You start the game fighting the fucking God of the Sea who himself is fighting a Titan, and you end the game with the weakest boss battle; the fight with Zeus. That's not a good way to pace your game. The battle with Hades and Hercules were badass though.

Personally, I really enjoyed the last fight with Zeus. He wasn't as huge or as over-the-top as the likes of Kronos, but it was a pretty lengthy battle staged out over three or four different arenas, and you could tell the developers were thinking outside the box for the whole thing. I mean, the fight starts off as a pretty awesome emulation of 2D fighters like Street Fighter, then somehow by the end morphs into a first-person hack and slash fight, where you get to beat the crap out of Zeus while viewing from behind Kratos' own eyes.

Personally, I wasn't disappointed. The fight with Zeus didn't need to have the bombast of the fight with Hades or Poseidon, it was much more up close and personal. Hammering circle to bludgeon Zeus' head into a messy pulp provided all the catharsis I was looking for.

It was ultimately just a retread of the Zeus fight in GoW2 though, which was all around a better battle in my opinion. That 2D section was very cool, but after that it just becomes a rather standard affair. And this was supposed to be the fight to end the series. The fight was actually going to include Gaia in a sort of three way battle, but due to budget restraints it got cut.

 

[RJ 17]

Guess I'll just boot up the emulator, pick up the controller and replay Final Fantasy IX or something.

First of all, FF9 fucking sucked.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd argue that it depends on 1: your definition of "epic" and 2: what games you play.

Not that anyone was paying attention by the end of the game, but the boss battle against Knight Commander Meredith in Dragon Age II was pretty epic. The boss battle against Alduin in Skyrim was pretty epic. Hell, even the last stand at the missle tanks in Mass Effect 3 was pretty epic (as it stands in place of a boss battle).

That's just your opinion, FF9 is an amazing games, one of the best in the series, plus the creator of the series says that it his favorite and says its the closet to what he envisioned Final Fantasy to be, if you dislike it, then you kind of dislike what Final Fantasy stands for.

Well that's the great thing about opinions, they're just like assholes: everyone's got one. I'm entitled to my opinion that FF9 is a childish mockery of the classic Final Fantasy games and so boring that it can't be played beyond the first disc. Just as you and (apparently) the creator believe it's the best of the bunch. If you ask me, the last genuinely good FF was Tactics for the original Playstation. FF8 was the start of the downhill slide which has brought us to the abomination known as FFXIII.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Suda 51 makes the craziest, most awesome and badass bosses of any modern game visionary. Not since the first 3 Metal Gear Solids were the bosses this varied and personified. No More Heroes has a Pokemon-esque library of ridiculously cool bosses and the fights in Shadows of the Damned are big and epic, and each boss gets a funny story-book introduction. The best is stinky crow... "I bet you do more fapping than flapping."

 

[OniaPL]

Lost Planet 2 was fun, but aside from the massive monster in the image the fights didn't qualify as "epic".
And the train scene was just frustrating.

Vanquish had great boss battles, especially in the challenges. I wish more shooters would take a more "fun" route of shooting like Vanquish did.

Yes, while videogames become more serious boss battles become less easy to justify. But why can't games offer both experiences? I sometimes want to shoot headshots with realistic weapons, and sometimes I want a giant-ass sword I can shove into a monster.

Yes, a lot of bosses in the history of video games are about hitting a weak spot, but that's just shitty. It's lazy design that makes for a boring experience.

I also find that I yearn for more optional, really difficult boss battles. For example, in FFX when I for the first time ran into a Dark Aeon, i was both extremely excited and shitting my pants. While the design wasn't the best in those fights, I miss stuff like that; tests of skill, that not everyone can complete. Tests of skill that reward you.

Vanquish challenges, they were exciting, for example.

Half the time, those bosses weren't of skill, but of how long you grinded.

Well, yes, that's why I said that the design of those fights sucked. But the way they were set up and presented to me made me excited.

 

[OniaPL]

Guess I'll just boot up the emulator, pick up the controller and replay Final Fantasy IX or something.

First of all, FF9 fucking sucked.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd argue that it depends on 1: your definition of "epic" and 2: what games you play.

Not that anyone was paying attention by the end of the game, but the boss battle against Knight Commander Meredith in Dragon Age II was pretty epic. The boss battle against Alduin in Skyrim was pretty epic. Hell, even the last stand at the missle tanks in Mass Effect 3 was pretty epic (as it stands in place of a boss battle).

DA2 fucking sucked, and so did Meredith. That fight was shit, that story was shit, and the whole character was 60% shit.
Alduin sucked. It was yet another fucking dragon.
And the last stand sucked. Run to cover, blast blast blast, run to another cover, blast blast blast. Nothing that broke the monotone of blasting the same dudes. Don't get me wrong, I thought the combat was fine, but if it wasn't for the story, wouldn't play the game.

 

[RJ 17]

Guess I'll just boot up the emulator, pick up the controller and replay Final Fantasy IX or something.

First of all, FF9 fucking sucked.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd argue that it depends on 1: your definition of "epic" and 2: what games you play.

Not that anyone was paying attention by the end of the game, but the boss battle against Knight Commander Meredith in Dragon Age II was pretty epic. The boss battle against Alduin in Skyrim was pretty epic. Hell, even the last stand at the missle tanks in Mass Effect 3 was pretty epic (as it stands in place of a boss battle).

DA2 fucking sucked, and so did Meredith. That fight was shit, that story was shit, and the whole character was 60% shit.
Alduin sucked. It was yet another fucking dragon.
And the last stand sucked. Run to cover, blast blast blast, run to another cover, blast blast blast. Nothing that broke the monotone of blasting the same dudes. Don't get me wrong, I thought the combat was fine, but if it wasn't for the story, wouldn't play the game.

As I said, it primarily depends on what your definition of "epic" is. Clearly we've two different opinions on the matter.

I'd consider the Meredith fight to be "epic" because of giant statues walking around and a whole host of NPCs joining in the fight.

I'd consider the last stand in ME 3 to be "epic" because of the context of the situation combined with everything that's going on. Banshees, Marauders, Brutes, and the entire time a Reaper Destroyer is shooting at you as your running around, trying to stay alive.

I'll agree that the Alduin fight wasn't fantastic, just another dragon fight. However when put into the context that you're in the Land of the Dead fighting alongside the spirits of ancient Nordic heroes to take down a dragon said to be the bringer of the end of the world.....yeah, I'd consider that a pretty epic battle as well.

 

[darlarosa]

At this point, while there are still good boss battles around, it seems like it would be hard to avoid imitating what has come before. Plus people get so picky about what is a "good" boss fight sometimes, and occasionally players have valid points...so it could just be quicker and easier to avoid it.

That and sometimes, depending on the game boss battles don't quite make sense, or the set up does not quite make sense. A lot of the time you end up being locked in an area fighting something and sometimes that doesn't work for the game play or narrative structure. Some games have tried to set up ways where you can avoid boss fights. Plus some games are...less hard than the majority of games used to be in a sense. The presentation has changed thus the boss fights have changed.

 

[The Abhorrent]

The reason for the general abscence of boss fights in games probably has to do with the glut of shooters and open-world games in the market right now, and neither genre is particularly fit for making good boss fights (shooters not at all, open-world games tend to have level-scaling).

Boss encounters are better fit for games from the action-adventure, hack-&-slash, and RPG genres. The first one is regrettably much rarer in the modern era than previous generations, the second has seen a dip in popularity, and the third has moved heavily towards more open-world games. Still, there are games which great boss fights out there.

---

Xenoblade Chronicles is one I've been enjoying a lot recently, and is something of a throwback to earlier RPGs (with some modern improvements); the sort of game which made people fall in love with the Final Fantasy franchise. The only real downside is the graphics aren't that great, but the art design compensates for it. But yes, we want boss fights to be the focus here. XBC has some very good ones, and the difficulty is perfectly tuned for most of them. The combat system also places a great deal of emphasis on the party's morale (called "tension" for some wierd reason, must be a translation error), and in the case of boss battles this becomes a very interesting element. When an ally falls in battle, you can revive them by walking up to them and physically getting them up (and you can often follow up by encouraging them); however, them falling means the party's morale just took a huge hit and you're in recovery mode for a bit (a chain attack can really help here). Bosses are naturally longer fights than normal, so allies falling against the tougher ones can be expected; this gives many boss fights a bit of an ebb and flow to them, and the gameplay elements often add an emotional rush when you claw out from the grasp of defeat and beat your foes.

Dark Souls is another recent game with great boss fights, though it is handled quite differently; they're hard as hell, and simply beating many of them is a feat by itself. They have their quirks and tells, and you'll die many times learning them and how to take advantage of their missteps. However, it's a very frustrating game to play as well; you will screw up, you will die, and your performance can easily enter a downward spiral as you just screw up more and die more due to the increasing frustration. This is offset by the huge burst of satisfaction when you finally conquer something, but there will be times you'll have to step back for your sanity.

Sadly, both games are something of niche entertainment right now; the mainstream is focused on games and genres which don't take to good boss fights very well, so they're just harder to find as a result.

 

[Gitty101]

God of War 3? The Witcher 2? Dark Souls? All of these games have epic boss battles. I mean, the fights in these games pretty much fit the description of epic boss battles.

 

[DocBot]

Shadow of the Colossus kinda spoiled us on epic and boss battle. Run up an enemies weapon to hit them in the face? Shadow did it. Wait till you're just a blink a way from an enemy chompin' on you to jump away and snag onto him to take you for a ride? Shadow did it. There is a mix of growing up and seeing it all to losing the time top dig into every title that leads to this nostalgia and longing for how you used to be. Alot of those boss fights are still out there but because you won't devote a day's worth of trying to get past that annoying boss to get to the big epic guy you'll never see it. And, it isn't worth your time. You've traded the wealth of time you've had when you were younger for more wealth monetarily at the cost of time. Suddenly wasting a day to get past that super cheap one-hit-kill boss isn't worth it. You put down the game and that awesome content is lost. It's not your fault, just sayin'.

It's also perspective, the first time a giant robot comes breaking through a wall to smash you into hero paste, you think 'it's such a huge mecha monstrosity! How can I kill it with this pea shooter I have?!' and when you do and it blows up into little bits it feels great. Well after shooting giant robots in Blazing Lazers. Giant aero assault vehicles in Ikaruga. And last, but probably the most vicious of all, giant wasps in Do Don Pachi, those big robots aren't so scary. So when one comes charging and does its super-move for the first time, it gets a jump out of me. Though I will never be as excited as when I was eight sitting cross-legged on the living room floor and suddenly the music changes and you're faced with that massive boss.

 

[ArkhamJester]

Looks at collection of Shin megami tensei games, portal 1 and 2, radiant historia, Dark Souls, Catherine... (stretching a bit but still counting it) Son, epic story related boss fights still exist, you simply need to know where to look.

 

[TornadoFive]

I recently played Dark Souls, and the boss fights were great, but I still miss the story context the boss fights used to have. They were built up and foreshadowed enough, so that when you actually had to fight this boss, you were all like "Oh shit! OH SHIT! This is it! The time is now! D: ".

Games like Dark Souls kinda missed this, and from what I've heard Dragon's Dogma did too.

I may give it a whirl though.

Totally agree with you about the build up. When you hear about how powerful this boss is and what they can do and the things they've done, it can really make it seem epic!

Most recent example I can think of (for me anyway) was in Skyrim during the Thieves Guild quest line.

Spoiler: Thieves Guild quest spoilers inbound

When Mercer and you are entering the crypt to track down Karliah, she's been built up as a stealthy assassin, who can turn invisible, is deadly with a bow, uses poisons and has killed her former teacher. Not gonna lie, making my through that crypt to find her was the most tense experience I've had in a videogame since that one building in Fallout 3 (if you've been there, you know the one I'm talking about).

Of course it's kinda ruined by the fact that you don't fight her after all, but still! The build up to the fight made it much better.

 

[Launcelot111]

I do and don't agree with you, OP.

There have been plenty of kickass boss fights in recent years.
-Mr Freeze from Arkham City
-the Lagiacrus from Monster Hunter Tri
-everything from Bayonetta
-Everything from Metroid Prime 3
-the Long Gui from Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2 (it's a regular enemy, but it's epic, so I don't care)

On the other hand, there have been so many shooters, which generally don't lend themselves to good boss fights. I think the perceived dominance of the WRPG over the JRPG doesn't help either, because in my book, JRPGs always have much better bosses. Dark Souls may have had epic bosses, but the likes of Skryim and Fallout were very weak in that respect. JRPGs may still have huge bosses, but less people are aware of them compared to Emerald Weapon back in the day.

 

[rhyno435]

How has no-one mentioned God Of War 3 yet? I'm pretty sure Kronos is on record as the biggest boss ever included in a videogame. He stands a genuine mile high, you traverse his entire body as if its one ginormous level, and absolutely brutalize him in a thousand different ways.


Fuck, every boss in GOW 3 was pretty damn spectacular. It says a lot when one of the least exciting bosses in a game is a 50 foot scorpion you fight in the middle of a mountain.

My personal favourite boss in that game was Aphrodite hehehe...

 

[Lunar Templar]

Asura's Wrath is made of these (watched via let's play's)
also
Devil May Cry, i suggest you get antiquated
and then there's Bayoneta

I'd also throw lollypop chainsaw in there, having seen the fight with Zed on youtube (i sadly can't play it)

they are out there, one need out only look

 

[Lunar Templar]

How has no-one mentioned God Of War 3 yet? I'm pretty sure Kronos is on record as the biggest boss ever included in a videogame. He stands a genuine mile high, you traverse his entire body as if its one ginormous level, and absolutely brutalize him in a thousand different ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s1TJn4jYpZs#t=505s
(the framing thing isn't working :/)
Wyzen is bigger

i think Bayonetta's Jubilaus is bigger to