Bosses

So: What do you think of video game bosses? How important do you think that they are in video games? What are your favorite boss battles in games?

Discuss~

When it comes to bosses in video games, I find there are good ones, bad ones, and annoying ones. One such annoying video game boss is a "Get Back Here Boss." In my eyes, that kind of boss is a big coward. As for my favorite boss battles, a few of my favorites are:

The first (scripted) battle against Exdeath in Final Fantasy V
The battle against both Dracula and Death in Castlevania Portrait of Ruin
The sword fight battle against Jyunichi in Saints Row 2

When bosses are good, they're really good. When bosses are bad, they're really bad,

Metal Gear series has awesome as hell bosses.

I don't really like bosses on video games, its a tired old formula.

Not that I hate them, I just find them to linear in the way its clear area, beat boss move on repeat.

Dark Souls does boss fights right. (except bed of chaos)

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

I don't really like bosses on video games, its a tired old formula.

Not that I hate them, I just find them to linear in the way its clear area, beat boss move on repeat.

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That's because bosses are typically designed to be a reward for the player for beating the level; a fun challenge that tests your skills.

Granted the bosses themselves have to be designed well, but when they are, they're often the best aspect of the game.

As long as beating them give you a feeling of accomplishement PLUS nice amount of good loot, they are necessary in video games.

I love Diablo from the second game for instance. For new players he is one of the hardest in this game. Diablo also happens to have nice loot sometimes.

One of my most favorites out there is Demise from Legend of Zelda series.

When I'd first faced off against him in Skyward Sword, I found him to be very challenging, and this is one of the things that I liked about this boss; although it could be kind of tiresome to be fighting against someone we don't have much clue as to how we could take down, he didn't seem to be overly-complicated.

At beginning, it might take a while to figure out his movements and whatnot, and once we do, we'll get closer to the formula of defeating him (if that makes sense, haha).

Spinosaurus said:

That's because bosses are typically designed to be a reward for the player for beating the level; a fun challenge that tests your skills.

Granted the bosses themselves have to be designed well, but when they are, they're often the best aspect of the game.

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Precisely this.

Best boss battle I can think of on the top of my head that fits this description is Mr. Freeze from Batman Arkham City. The battle in itself tests your skills with all weapons from the game, and the AI learns and adapts to the battle at hand. It's a fun and rewarding boss battle that I wish more boss battles emanated.

Some games know how to handle boss battles and make them appropriately epic, but then you get ones like Mass Effect 3's Reaper battle on Tali's homeworld that just sucks or Bethesda's tendency to make their boss battles "kite-hit-kite-hit" where there's no strategy to it and it's just a mash to make sure they don't kill you first (see: Fallout: NV's final boss)

Klippy said:

Some games know how to handle boss battles and make them appropriately epic, but then you get ones like Mass Effect 3's Reaper battle on Tali's homeworld that just sucks or Bethesda's tendency to make their boss battles "kite-hit-kite-hit" where there's no strategy to it and it's just a mash to make sure they don't kill you first (see: Fallout: NV's final boss)

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Emphasis on "kite" with New Vegas, considering at the very end you can just use Speech 100 to skip the final boss battle entirely haha. Man that game was such a disappoint compared to Fallout 3 (although F3's final "boss" - if you want to call it that - wasn't any better lol.)

Depends on the video game honestly, some games don't even need them :P

as for my favorite goes, atm I would have to go with Atheon from Destiny's Vault of Glass Raid. it's not just: Here is a giant pile of health with a powerful gun, go kill him. Oh yeah he has minions too, dont die to them. The fight actually has some nice mechanics to it. It's not meant to be one-man ezpz or impossibru fight it has 1 million health and you do no damage. The game gives you momentum at some point where you can easily kill him with the right gear, but the boss fight is at it's best when no one has the OP gear and the most satisfying moments can come from it when he finally dies imo

ShadowE said:

Depends on the video game honestly, some games don't even need them :P

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You mean like pretty much every RTS/TBS ever?