Why are there no more epic boss battles?

[OniaPL]

I like Persona 4's boss fights.

The first boss is weak to electricity, your starting element, turning it a bit of a back-and-forth. However, before this point you've only ever fought one real fight, AND you don't have any party members, making it a bit more frantic. You're also weak to its wind attacks. It's designed to teach the player what guarding does, so it's not very difficult.

The second boss is weak to your partner's wind techniques, so it goes down rather easily, too.

The third boss is where things pick up. By that time, you've gotten a party member who uses Ice attacks. Considering the pattern of bosses before, it would only be logical that it be weak to ice, right? Nope. It's not weak to anything. Furthermore, it doesn't telegraph its attacks like previous bosses, so you can't tell your fire-weak party member to guard when it's about to use fire attacks, and when it hits her weakness, it gets an extra turn. It can do a ton of damage with a single attack. AND it summons a minion that can use more powerful healing techniques than you can. Speaking of healing, none of your party members have any multi-targeting healing spells. If you've been fusing Personas correctly, you, the protagonist, might have one. You're also potentially the biggest damage dealer in the party, so you need to choose whether to prioritize offence or defence. You're not just repeating the same moves, either; the boss has a lot of HP for this point in the game, so chances are you'll need to save your SP to heal. You don't have any multi-target buffs, so you'll probably be using any buffing items you find in the dungeon. This is a difficult fight, so much so that it's been changed in Persona 4: Golden to be weak to ice. When you're not prepared, it will kill you. I thought it was pretty epic, honestly. There's nothing more satisfying than emerging victorious after a long and tough boss fight.

I enjoyed the Persona series. For example, Persona 3's final boss qualifies as "epic" IMO, because of the story context, the music during the fight, the presentation of the boss.
What I dislike about the Persona games is the grind; you run into a boss, realize you are 5 levels too low and grind.
I quitted Persona 4 with the final area left, just didn't want to do the grind again.

 

[Harbinger_]

I would argue that Mass Effect 2's final boss battle and the mission leading up to it was pretty awesome.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I think it's nostalgia. Most of the games I play seem to have bosses, or at least significantly harder enemies that have to be killed with a measure of strategy. Skyrim probably sticks out as a recent example, but the LEGO games still do boss fights very well, everyone raves about God of War, Portal 1 was a clever mix of everything you'd learned throughout the game being used to win in a very fixed time limit, Stranglehold (a little older) was a third person shooter which had several boss fights that could be really tough on harder difficulties, and you really had to use every trick and skill to survive. Similiarly Max Payne was pretty good at boss fights.

If you play the right games then you'll find Boss Fights everywhere.

 

[OniaPL]

I would argue that Mass Effect 2's final boss battle and the mission leading up to it was pretty awesome.

This is the first time I have seen an opinion that was just straight wrong!

Nah, all kidding aside, I liked the final mission, it was my favorite part of the game and the fact that you actually got to lead your squad and people could actually die made it that moer exciting, but the final boss was just lolworthy. It wasn't exciting from the perspective of the story or the gameplay.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Technically, the boss in Asura's Wrath is cheating. The scenes of him hovering outside the Earth are obviously quite separate from the scenes with Asura. What Capcom have done is effectively the same as sticking a man in a Godzilla suit and plonking him on model city set.

As for Jubileus, she's big, but not that big. Comparitively, she'd still only be up to Kronos' knees.

not the point Wyzen was still bigger (and to be honest Asura's Wrath was more epic in pretty much every way )

any way if memory severs Jubileus was bigger,

and after a quick you tube search, i was proven right and wrong >.> clearly falling into the sun is a killer weight loss plan.

cause one second she's big enough to to use planets as a back stop, the next sec only a few hundred yards tall >.>

 

[Furioso]

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.

How so? That one is generally regarded as one of the greats, and was leagues better than FF8


OT: Shadow of the Colossus, the game is built on epic boss fights

 

[Exius Xavarus]

The battle with the dragon in Dragon's Dogma was beyond epic. So was the very final battle.

Vergil is also a pretty fuckin' epic boss.

 

[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.

How so? That one is generally regarded as one of the greats, and was leagues better than FF8

Saying it's better than FF8 really isn't saying much since FF8 was pretty crappy as well. Too damn easy and every character has at least one issue he or she is absolutely emo over with Squall being King ***** Emo. As for 9, yeah, I know that apparently in the minority in thinking it was crap (though I have met plenty of others that feel the same as I) but the best I can describe it is a childish mockery of all the classic FF's, and as someone who grew up playing the classics (1-6) I just couldn't stand it.

I will say I liked FF8's card game better, though.

 

[Furioso]

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.

How so? That one is generally regarded as one of the greats, and was leagues better than FF8

I will say I liked FF8's card game better, though.

I did love the card game in FF8, I pretty much became a master at it, didn't like the whole spreading of rules part though

 

[Nicolairigel]

Actually, I think I prefer boss fights that are epic due to context more than mechanics. I know some may see this as poppycock (I dunno, I felt like using that word)but I find I get really pumped and find a fight more epic when it's just a one-on-one mano y mano fight with an opponent that's built up to. Honestly, I find boss fights with hard and annoying mechanics, as creative as they may be, to just be immersion-breaking. Don't get me wrong, there are some great mechanic and context boss fights; this may not be the best example but facing-off against the reaper on rannoch with nothing but a targeting laser had both a fun mechanic and intense-context atmosphere.

For instance, I love the Kei-lang boss fights purely do to the fact that you and this egotistical-assassin have it out for each other. Sure the mechanics weren't great, really not much more than any other Cerberus phantom accept with a pussy-failsafe, but I was pumped as hell and really got into the fight, especially when I killed leng with a Charge/biotic punch to the face.

The same goes for the Fallout New Vegas Dlc boss fights. In Dead Money, spin-kicking Father Elijah into a metal chasm after uncloaking behind while encumbered made it an instant classic for me after all of the interactions and connection my courier had with him. And of course, the Uyleuss boss fight in Lonesome Road was nothing more than a one-on-one fight against two medical bots and a pissed-off Jamaican, but the history and emotion shared with him made the fight mean something.

I guess this says something about what type of gamer I am, good personal story context will always more than make up for meh mechanics for me.