Boss Fights

[Sovvolf]

Well given that it's sunny in England and us Englanders aren't used to the sun. I'm naked with a fan on so screw you Yahtzee.

Okay once you've gotten the horrifying thought of me naked out of your head I'll get on to the topic. Personally I enjoy boss fights of today. I like the challenge. Sure I guess your right, they should be a final test of what you've been learning to do through the games and I commend any game which actually does that. However I'm not going to knock points of a game for not doing that.

I enjoy that satisfying feeling you get from destroying that big arsed Giant Crab. That crab that's been kicking your for the last hour and gotten you frustrated to hell. Sure your just shooting the shit out of it like you've done for any other enemy, However it still feels challenging and satisfying.

 

[johnman]

But...But.. I'm not wearing a shirt

Well given that it's sunny in England and us Englanders aren't used to the sun. I'm naked with a fan on so screw you Yahtzee.

I am not quite naked but I do keep sticking to my leather computer chair.

 

[TheEnglishman]

Hay screw you, I like the clothes I wear.

 

[Slaanax]

Hey I have a nice shirt on, although my jeans are all rip torn.

 

[Frozenfeet2]

Making games costs huge amounts of money, therefore game developers don't take risks. This is partly why they conform and include boss fights; they primarily want their game to sell. Also it gives differing pacing throughout the game.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Hey! My clothes are just fine.

You are right, Yahtzee, boss fights just don't suit some games.
In a espionage game, it should be a "sneak past them" or "convince everyone on the bad guy's side to shoot them" or "pay a sniper to kill the fucker" fights.

Something along those lines.

 

[high_castle]

The boss fights in Alpha Protocol were definitely annoying. Though by focusing on stealth, they were still mostly manageable. It was only until:

Spoiler

I was in the final level, dodging a tank, that dumping all my points into stealth and hand-to-hand seemed like a bad idea. See, there only so many ways to take down a copter, and sneaking up behind it with a knife isn't one of them.

Yahtzee mentioned Deus Ex, and I think that game really deserves high praise for truly allowing you to take any path you want. Let's hope the upcoming Human Revolution continues with that route, but I for one am not holding my breath.

EDIT: just fixing a typo.

 

[FaceFaceFace]

Ah nostalgia. I see some people commenting on when bosses used to be hard. Really? I remember old platformers like Castlevania where boss fights were usually several seconds long because whichever of you spammed your one or two available attacks faster depleted the others health and won. Old boss battles sucked and usually came down to "Do you have the gamebreaking item/ability that will kill him in 5 seconds? No? Ok, flounder about for like 10 minutes avoiding attacks and hitting him once in a blue moon." At least nowadays they HAVE weakpoints.

OT, I was so looking forward to Alpha Protocol. Then I heard about forced combat and, of all things, boss battles. Why the hell does a game about spies have boss battles? I totally agree with Yahtzee, sometimes they fit, other times they don't fit so badly it hurts.

 

[Carnagath]

I think that the reason why people always expect a huge boss fight in the end is their subconscious desire for a climactic ending to the experience as well as a feeling of accomplishment that comes from proving that they have fully mastered the game mechanics. This is especially true if they actually liked the game. In that case, an anti-climactic ending is that much more bothersome.

I am personally not bothered by the absence of a final boss fight if the final encounter makes sense in the context of the game, and I don't think I'm alone in that. For example, I don't think anyone complained about the final encounter of Demon's Souls (the Old One), since a) it is presented in a truly mind-blowing manner, b) it makes sense that you are not actually expected to kill a Cthulu-esque monstrocity with a soft, intelligent, evil voice and the size of a mountain and c)the game has tested your skills...more than enough in order for you to get there. Even though there was not much of a "fight", it still felt extremely rewarding. The opposite is true for a game like Bioshock 2 however. I expected something there, some sort of final confrontation, but what I got instead was a couple of bad guys of the exact same type as the ones I have been killing for the last 15 hours. Oh, and don't even get me started on Assassin's Creed 2...

As you said, tropes are often there for a reason. Hanging on to them for dear life is not always the best decision as a developer, but at least you'd better make sure that you are presenting something worthwile when you choose to ignore them.

By the way, now that the summer gaming drought is kicking in, you really need to put your hardcore hat back on and play through Demon's Souls. You need to have fully experienced this as a game critic. Not only is it an astonishing game, but it will give you a LOT of things to consider and talk about, regarding pacing, atmosphere, level design, boss design, minimalistic storytelling, the integration of elements from late 19th century horror literature in gaming, combat mechanics, challenge and more.

 

[Halceon]

My shirt is awesome!

 

[Lono Shrugged]

I like any game where you can use cunning to cheese a boss. In Oblivion I killed the last boss with poisoned arrows. Or Hitman where you can poison their drinks. Sometimes Indiana Jonesing a boss is sexy-awesome

(I like pizening people)

I do sometimes like epic tough boss fights if done well like in Jedi Outcast where you have been after the guy all the game. Or something that feels right for the style of game. I think the games with flashing hit spots should board the western ships and approach boss fights from an almost cinematic perspective, Where you feel incredible satisfaction emotionally as well as gamerly. Max Payne 2 ends like a Lethal Weapon or Die hard movie.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If there's one thing I don't want it's Boss battles in shooters.

Half-life 2 did a terrific job of making the citidal the "Boss" as in, the final confrontation. But then again, the entire game had a great way of being creative with it's gameplay mechanics, wich for some reason most FPS' are unable to do.

 

[cononor]

I'm almost ashamed to admit that the last paragraph made me chuckle, on account of the fact that I'm not wearing a shirt at the moment.

 

[PopperThingi]

I don't want to change my shirt. I like Orphaned Land. And boss fights for that manner.

 

[Super Jamz]

I'm perfectly comfortable with my dress sense thank you.

Honestly though, i remember when boss fights used to be a challenge that relied on SKILL rather than whatever stupid power you bought earlier on and remembering its attack pattern to an almost balletic performance.

Take Shinobi for the PS2. The game mechanics were deceptively simple and yet the bosses were still hard and challenging enough that i was all 'FUCK YEA' when i finally managed to cut them in two.

 

[Jared]

I think boss fights, in some cases, are certainly a painful thing...and in Alpha Protocol, its an excellent example...you need force to succeed,and without it you fail. Which is pretty sad really when it says any approach can work...

 

[blindthrall]

I'd like to speak up as one of the people who beat System Shock 2 with a Marine and Navy engineer without cheating. But the PsyOps playthrough, yeah, I had to cheat for the end boss, so Yahtzee is still right.

 

[Popcicle42]

Boo, hiss, boss fights. Epic scramble at the end, a hectic movie-climax kinda ending, is great. But the big baddy you have to kill only by empting your entire ammo supply (where the hell do I carry all that ammo, btw?)... horsepoop!

Oh, and Yahtzee... I've beaten System Shock 2 multiple times with multiple characters on hard difficulty... and while some were harder than others, sure, I was able to beat the game "psionic-y", "hack-y", and "guns-blaze-y". It's the reason SS2 will always be right there with Deus Ex as my favorite video games of all time... no matter what, there's a way to do it your way.

Just like Burger King.

Spoiler: Hint for psions in System Shock (contains spoilers for those who haven't played)

Oh, and for those who struggle with SS2's psionic class: get invisibility. The game gets exceptionally easier at that point. Hell, playing a psion, I don't remember even firing a shot at Shodan. Just ran around and dropped those auto-hackers into the panels while invisible.

 

[DRD 1812]

I'm not sure if it's a problem with "tropes" specifically or if it's just one more content generation issue. It's time to design, build, and finalize the end of the game and development time is running short because you've already spent it designing, building, and finalizing the other 98% of the game. Everyone is already exhausted and you have a decision to make: cut back on making a compelling ending or go full-force on fixing the thousands of bugs that have been piling up. Nine times out of ten it's going to be the second option. Thus, we get the classic boss fight, or even worse in my opinion, the exact same enemies you've been fighting the whole game only twice in number with maybe a time limit ticking in the background.

Where tropes come in and trash the hotel room is when you've played an entire game where stealth is the only option and are forced into combat. At least shooting things is an option in Alpha Protocol. I'd rather be told "you picked the wrong option, try again" instead of, "there is only one option and you will probably never good enough at it."