Now I may be an unskilled weakling (couldn't even beat Metroid Prime though I did get to him, neither could I beat the escape level from Ninja Cop) but I still prefer overcoming the final boss with my ability rather than my character's. Something that looks all epic while being easy to me makes me feel like the game is boasting "look how great I am!" while being pushed to the limit of my ability and slowly growing to the point where I can finally beat that boss it feels like the game says "look how great you are, beating that guy!". Well, it really goes for any part of the game, not just the final battle. And it goes a bit into my standard rant territory but I dislike how games are ducktaping so much story and visible greatness to their singleplayer mode that replaying parts often feels lame because often the story and the great looks (means stuff like stunts or cool fights or whatnot) usually take precedence over gameplay flow (watching the character pull a stunt once is awesome, watching it ten times is.... "hit the skip button") and sometimes the gameplay is pretty much measured to be fun for this many hours so the game is exactly that long, FSM help you if you progress slower. Of course the solution game designers often find is making the game easier so you never have to replay anything (and if you do manage to fail you just get to restart exactly where you died) but it feels like a shallow victory then. If my character is so awesome he can pull off the greatest moves and slay hordes of enemies while I just mash the X button, what exactly am I contributing here?
Yeah, a too hard final boss tends to be offputting to me because there's not much to gain from beating him anyway, all I get is the ending and that's it. What I think is more important is the rest of the game. The main game should feel challenging and require ability to get through, I think the final boss shouldn't be a big step up from what's before him, that's what's really frustrating, when you get through a game and the final boss is a big difficulty spike. It should feel different but not much harder than the main game (but with a harder main game the boss would still be harder than most bosses now). In short, the final boss should require about as many attempts as other parts of the game, if it's normal that you need to practice to progress then doing the same on the final boss won't be out of place but if you've been walking all over enemies before and only now do you need to train to win then it's out of place.
Yeah, a too hard final boss tends to be offputting to me because there's not much to gain from beating him anyway, all I get is the ending and that's it. What I think is more important is the rest of the game. The main game should feel challenging and require ability to get through, I think the final boss shouldn't be a big step up from what's before him, that's what's really frustrating, when you get through a game and the final boss is a big difficulty spike. It should feel different but not much harder than the main game (but with a harder main game the boss would still be harder than most bosses now). In short, the final boss should require about as many attempts as other parts of the game, if it's normal that you need to practice to progress then doing the same on the final boss won't be out of place but if you've been walking all over enemies before and only now do you need to train to win then it's out of place.
I think a skilled player would want to try 100% completion and would therefore eliminate all the optional targets while a weaker player would not be able or willing to and face a boss that is too hard for him... Same applies to hidden powerups throughout the game, a skilled player will find them and have a strong character PLUS his skills while a weak player will miss more of them and have neither.Khizan said:
