What are your thoughts on Boss Battles?

[NightmareFarm]

Usually I think they're a drag(namely the difficult ones) but at the same time a game would feel incomplete without them. There are some cases in which boss battles can be very fun even if you're dying over and over to them like with games such as Metroid Dread and Batman Arkham Origins but they aren't too common. Boss Battles are mainly fun in turn based JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei since it feels like a tactical chess match whereas fighting regular enemies is just going through the motions to gain XP points. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by NightmareFarm

[Clasher]

I particularly enjoy fighting the bosses in God of war though they can get really frustrating at times but every successful win gives you so much satisfaction.

Sometimes you get to fight two really annoying bosses at a time with equal speed and agility and you could die over and over again and would take atleast  30 minutes to defeat some of them.

Without those bosses there isn't anything to look out for so the gameplay becomes too forward atleast the bosses pose a really good challenge at times.

 

[NightmareFarm]

26 minutes ago, Clasher said:

I particularly enjoy fighting the bosses in God of war though they can get really frustrating at times but every successful win gives you so much satisfaction.

Sometimes you get to fight two really annoying bosses at a time with equal speed and agility and you could die over and over again and would take atleast  30 minutes to defeat some of them.

Without those bosses there isn't anything to look out for so the gameplay becomes too forward atleast the bosses pose a really good challenge at times.

 

I think it's possible for bosses to be difficult and take lots of tries but without feeling annoying or cheap however. Metroid Dread is a very good example of this and the bosses are by far the best part of the game IMO. 

[Kane99]

Depends on the boss battle really. There are some games that have some unruly bosses you have to deal with. While others are kinda tame and easy to get through. For me, the boss battle can be boring, annoying, too hard, and so on. 

There has been games like Beyond Good and Evil, that have an end boss I just hate. The end boss for that game, made you fight with your controls switched to the opposite direction. I told this story here before, but leading up to this boss battle, I saved at a point where I couldn't get anymore health items and was stuck with lower health. Due to this, I was technically screwed, as i didn't have enough health to beat it. Well I did, but I just sucked at it. So I gave up on the game because of it lol. 

With boss battles, I like them to be possible at least. I don't mind them being a bit tough, but damn, give me a chance at the least. 

Another game that comes to mind is Dark Souls with its difficulty. But I'd say the bosses aren't always the toughest, some of the smaller enemies can be a pain in your ass. 

But yeah, boss battles tend to suck in a lot of games, but there are some that do the boss battle good. 

[Withywarlock]

I have to agree with NightmareFarm's initial premise: for the most part they're a necessary evil, the binding agent to a game in which they're typical.

My biggest problem on the topic of bosses isn't even with the bosses themselves: it's the fights leading up to them. In World of Warcraft, particularly during the Mists of Pandaria expansion, there was great debate about how much 'trash' was too much. You had radical differences in fights of the same raid tier: Mogu'Shan Palace had a moderate amount of enemies between bosses, Heart of Fear had an insane amount of enemies between bosses, and Terrace of the Endless Springs had virtually none at all.

My philosophy is thus: if it has the dubious honour of being labelled and recognised as 'trash', why is it in the game? What purpose does knowingly implementing a bad idea have? No longer is resource management a thing in WoW, or indeed most games today, thus making it trash. The only purpose I can think of is to be a pallette cleanser, but then so does talking strategy for the next fight, or looking away from your screen. It's an unnecessary carry-over from the tabletop and older games where most resources such as health or spell slots only came back through resting (which wasn't always possible - and definitely not recommended - inside a dungeon).

Ahem. Getting back to the topic at hand.

There are cases where I like the bosses, even if I don't like the battles themselves. Crash Bandicoot is a textbook example on boss design:

• N.Troducing... The first two games didn't make their bosses known until the encounter itself, a trend that would bob and weave throughout the series. Dr. Neo Cortex, during his interruptions to visits to the lobby between adventures, would either congratulate Crash but warning him of the foes he was about to face (and later taunting him when his plans were spoiled). It was in the third game where the bosses really developed personality. They would introduce themselves, taunt Crash on the levels' loading screens, and eventually speak throughout the fight. Some of my favourite lines in video games come from these interactions.
• N. Stoppable. Throughout the life of the series the boss fights are mostly consistent. Ripper Roo requires environmental interaction (read: blowing things up), Tiny Tiger is about carefully navigating platforms, N.Gin usually has a gimmick involving weapons (and second phases), Dingodile, N. Tropy and Dr. N. Cortex having a preferred ranged weapon. Despite this fights are never samey. They're often incredibly easy but the mechanics change each time and there's always something to catch you out, or make you feel like you need to time something well or miss your shot. Before Dark Souls, Crash Bandicoot was the game for bosses telegraphing their weaknesses.
• N. Riching. The boss fights past the second game weren't just an obstacle: they rewarded you with a powerup that you could use in previous levels and would be required for some stages going forward. The imagination for these was stretched thin as time went on, from an almost useless wumpa bazooka to sneaky shoes. The games did eventually fully enhance all of Crash's basic abilities from jumping, belly flopping and sliding. It only took four attempts.
• N. Semble. What makes for an adrenaline-fuelled, heart-pounding, sweaty-palms, blistered-thumbed experience? It's not mechanics. It's the music and some of the most iconic video game music comes from boss battles. The first level, epilogue/credits and boss battles are the most important places for music to go. Again, let's look at (or rather, listen to) Dark Souls. The Bell Gargoyles are my favourite despite being an arse-ache of a boss, because the music makes it worth staying alive just that little bit longer to experience. Crash Bandicoot's a vastly superior game, so it doesn't need an orchestra. It could if it wanted to though. I bet you £5.

Those are some of my many thoughts, most of which I'm afraid aren't about bosses.

[Clasher]

6 hours ago, NightmareFarm said:

I think it's possible for bosses to be difficult and take lots of tries but without feeling annoying or cheap however. Metroid Dread is a very good example of this and the bosses are by far the best part of the game IMO. 

Some bosses are so difficult they make you sick when I first encountered the nameless king in dark souls 3 a tall armoured man wielding an electrified spear.

His attacks are so unpredictable and so difficult to avoid at the same time.

It was so frustrating I had to let it be for a day and then return the next day to fight it again though I eventually defeated that boss.

[Justin11]

Failed on many occasions trying to scale through playing God hand boss. That was one of the hardest boss fighter of my gaming career, that saw me try over 100 times to down the boss fighter but I couldn't and I just have to abandon the game and move on. 

[NightmareFarm]

2 hours ago, Clasher said:

Some bosses are so difficult they make you sick when I first encountered the nameless king in dark souls 3 a tall armoured man wielding an electrified spear.

His attacks are so unpredictable and so difficult to avoid at the same time.

It was so frustrating I had to let it be for a day and then return the next day to fight it again though I eventually defeated that boss.

I've fouight many bosses like that.

I remember this boss in sekiro in this night type area around the start of the game, he might have been a troll or something idk. He gave me absolute hell and I didn't even continue the game because of him. 

[Clasher]

6 hours ago, NightmareFarm said:

I've fouight many bosses like that.

I remember this boss in sekiro in this night type area around the start of the game, he might have been a troll or something idk. He gave me absolute hell and I didn't even continue the game because of him. 

I have never had to quit a game like totally because of a boss, I see them as a challenge and defeating them in the end makes the game a lot more interesting to proceed with.

[NightmareFarm]

3 hours ago, Clasher said:

I have never had to quit a game like totally because of a boss, I see them as a challenge and defeating them in the end makes the game a lot more interesting to proceed with.

I've dealt with many tough bosses but this is one of the few exceptions for me. I can't keep playing when I know I have to constantly fight bosses of that level of difficulty the entire game. Soulsborne games really need to include difficulty options. 

Edited August 12, 2022 by NightmareFarm

[Empire]

On Halo legendary, some are fun, but most aren’t. I don’t like being one hit by janky enemies that move at 500% movement speed. You really have to go against the grain to beat a lot of these guys, and you just shouldn’t have to. Most boss fights were good, except for bassus and adjutant resolution, adjutant resolution because I couldnt figure out his weak spot for the first 5 tries and even then he's just a bullet sponge.

[Clasher]

4 minutes ago, NightmareFarm said:

I've dealt with many tough bosses but this is one of the few exceptions for me. I can't keep playing when I know I have to constantly fight bosses of that level of difficulty the entire game. Soulsborne games really need to include difficulty options. 

Adding difficultly options wouldn't be a bad idea so that for beginners they could get to adapt to the game more slowly as opposed to starting at a already difficult level, you could go from beginner and as you advance you go higher in level.

[NightmareFarm]

1 minute ago, Clasher said:

Adding difficultly options wouldn't be a bad idea so that for beginners they could get to adapt to the game more slowly as opposed to starting at a already difficult level, you could go from beginner and as you advance you go higher in level.

Exactly. It benefits both newcomers AND veterans rather than just gatekeeping the game from the newcomers and cutting down its consumer base. The only benefit of a lack of difficulties is so people who beat the game can wank themselves off over it.

[Clasher]

8 minutes ago, NightmareFarm said:

Exactly. It benefits both newcomers AND veterans rather than just gatekeeping the game from the newcomers and cutting down its consumer base. The only benefit of a lack of difficulties is so people who beat the game can wank themselves off over it.

I think soulsborne games were developed to satisfy the need for more challenging and intriguing game and the bosses were designed for that purpose as well.

Adding difficultly level could defy that purpose but it would definitely allow gamers to be able to get into more souls games as opposed to having only people with some patience and extra gaming skills to play this game and also boosts sales just as you mentioned.

[Heatman]

You're welcome to see what I passed through with dealing batting with Seriko : Shadow Die Twice bosses in the game. Take for instance, dealing with Isshin, The Sword Saint was one of the most frustrating and gruesome battles I faced in the game. The most difficult and punishing of them all would be the Demon of Hatred. When you deal with a boss that have a one shot kill attack, that's the height of it.