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Broken Cog posted:I'm surprised nobody has argued for MMO bossfights here. I haven't played MMO's in like 5-6 years, but they usually had some real thought put into a lot of those fights. I never played throne of thunder or blackrock foundry but imo bliz has never managed to surpass C'thun fight coolness/funness IMO
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Feb 17, 2015 02:10
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Gears of War 3 had a really lovely final boss. It felt like a MMO raid. You shoot the weakpoint things to make the boss weak, then you do the exact same thing a total of 3 times. Why is it always 3 times? First time is to showcase/identify the mechanic, second time is to reinforce what the mechanic is and third time is to make sure that the player can consistently do that mechanic.
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Feb 17, 2015 04:04
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Third page and nobody mention God Hand yet.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:03
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So Icey Seifuku posted:Third page and nobody mention God Hand yet. That ties pretty much into the "Japanese games have the best boss fights" idea, though. Yes, the bosses are incredible in that game. Virtually any of them would be final boss quality in any lesser game. e: Another awesome final boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul1xpkIPYyo A one-on-one fight, on top of a tank, with the rear end in a top hat sent to bury the evidence. Rush Limbo fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 13:06
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Just a Fish posted:Indie game, but Tower of guns final boss battle was pretty drat great Which one? The last boss or the TRUE last boss? Both are loving nuts, but the TRUE last boss is beyond bonkers.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:23
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Flavahbeast posted:I never played throne of thunder or blackrock foundry but imo bliz has never managed to surpass C'thun fight coolness/funness IMO Someone hasn't danced with Heigan in Naxxaramas.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:24
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Yeah I remember the good old days when you needed to jump on them eight times.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:51
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Cowman posted:Other than Platinum games I can't really think of a final boss fight that was worthwhile. Oh wait, Shadow of the Colossus had a great final boss fight. low quality jpeg posted:MGS boss fights are best imo I'd add the boss fights from the Demons/Dark Souls games in there as well. I remember a few years ago there was a talk at some indie developers panel, and a Japanese member of the audience asked Johnathan Blow, Phil Fish and a few others (the Super Meat Boy/Binding of Isaac guys etc.) for tips on game design. These developers just flat-out said that Japanese games are terrible and that Japanese developers suck and have no idea what they're doing. They were actually pretty rude and harsh to the guy, and I felt sorry for him because the whole room erupted into laughter while these guys went on a rant and he just stood there embarrassed after asking a genuine question and seeking advice. At the time there was some controversy over it but on further reflection I'd honestly say that Western game development is such a mess that the opposite of what those developers claimed is true. Western game design mostly revolves around cinematic experiences, quick time events, dumbed-down game mechanics and very linear/scripted progression with players being held by the hand through the entire game. I think that well-designed and fun, engaging boss battles are something you'll only find in Japanese games these days, in titles from Platinum Games, Kojima Productions and From Software. Looking ahead at future releases, the next games from these developers are Bloodborne (PS4), Metal Gear Solid V (PS4/XB1/PC) and Scalebound (XB1). That's about it as far as upcoming games with boss fights that will probably be good.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:54
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Corvo posted:Western game design mostly revolves around cinematic experiences, quick time events, dumbed-down game mechanics and very linear/scripted progression with players being held by the hand through the entire game. All the financially successful Early Access shite is Emergent Zombie Crafting, which isn't very much like the AAA FPS stuff, nor the middle-budget simulation/strategy stuff going on, which is also different to Kickstarter's kind of weird nostalgia for an imagined nineties but spruced up with goofy graphics and weak comedy, see everything Larian and Double Fine have ever touched.
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Feb 17, 2015 14:01
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This is more a problem with western AAA games than games in general and I think a lot of it is because bosses don't work unless they're challenging and built on solid game mechanics. If a boss is easy it's just a forgettable chore but if it's tough it will end up highlighting any problems in the game mechanics. Like the ghost fight from Bioshock Infinate was challenging compared to the rest of the game but it just ends up frustrating because the the game mechanics are really really bad. If a game is easy and has slick presentation you can get away with shoddy mechanics cause people will dig the story and the mechanics won't really get in the way of it, boss fights don't work that way though. That's only western bosses though, for the most part we're seeing better bosses than ever, even in the indie games. Like Valdis Story had consistently excellent boss fights and put a ton of work into them, every one is challenging and about half of them could be passed off as a final boss in any other game. I just checked the wiki for that game and it has more boss fights than enemy types. Bifner McDoogle fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 14:32
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there are plenty of games with good boss fights, i.e. Platinum games, MGS, Mario 3D World's last Bowser was legit good and cool, most Nintendo games in general, RPGs. Shadow Of Mordor was the most recent "boss battle" that completely poo poo all over the game for me, probably the wettest shittiest fart they could have taken for a climax. I don't think every game needs a boss battle, especially if it's shoehorned in, but goddamn at least put in some kind of ridiculous sequence if it's an action/adventure game instead of ending with QTE bullshit.
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Feb 17, 2015 14:44
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gay skull posted:The best part about Deus Ex: Human Revolution was how the game encouraged stealth gameplay and then threw boss fights at you that almost required brute force, so you were hosed if you actually played stealthy. I thought Missing Link's was pretty great, though, pretty much just a not-really-alerted long-range sniper/sentry and you can do whatever you want in a multi-route room full of enemies. It did have a little bit of "idiot hero falls into trap" but not as bad as the Tai Yong saferoom in the non-expansion.
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Feb 17, 2015 16:46
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Flavahbeast posted:I never played throne of thunder or blackrock foundry but imo bliz has never managed to surpass C'thun fight coolness/funness IMO Foundry's already shaping up to be the best one since Ulduar. Pancake presses, conveyor belts, rush hour trains, bad Arnie impressions and a boss where you spend alternate parts of the fight as the ghosts fleeing around a maze from giant monster Pacman. But yeah, in Platinum we trust really as far as boss fights go. So many games now have final bosses that are just wet farts in comparison.
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Feb 17, 2015 16:59
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i didnt like the qte fight at the end of dying light because I had a machete covered in electricity and extra blades that I wanted to stab him up with also one of the qtes in that boss fight was when the evil guy throws a stupid throwing knife at you. if you fail the qte it hits you. if you win the qte it hits you.
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Feb 17, 2015 17:07
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Nelson Mandingo posted:I think mechanically older boss fights might not be interesting, but on a cinematic level they were impressive. Here is a good example. On a mechanical level it's very basic, but the presentation is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mGOFQVhtFs i fuckin love this fight
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Feb 17, 2015 17:09
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Axikal posted:Which one? The last boss or the TRUE last boss? Both are loving nuts, but the TRUE last boss is beyond bonkers.
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Feb 17, 2015 17:12
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Maybe if you guys would buy all of the dlc they'd have the money to make better boss fights.
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Feb 17, 2015 17:16
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Most people who buy games never get to the final boss, so it makes sense to frontload the cool stuff.
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Feb 17, 2015 17:20
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Also I think MMO bossfights are awful. They're just tolerable because it's co-op content which is always more fun. Like, the first boss of Blackrock Foundry in World of Warcraft I just stand in a spot and move to the side every now and then and that's it. That's not fun or challenging or anything really. But when you pair it with 10+ other dudes all doing their dance it becomes interesting because everything has to gel. It's like synchronized nerd group dancing. Wasn't interesting enough though so I quit  ANYWAY, I think my favourite boss is Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid. Just an overall great fight with a bit of narrative going on as well. I also loved that Sniper Wolf boss battle. As far as I'm concerned the Metal Gear series is the best at boss battles. Even Revengeance had a lot of super fun boss battles Cheesy? Yeah, and also awesome and fun : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALkd3DG6HA I guess it's guilty of having the player sit through a lot of cinematic stuff but I liked it a lot. That's a 40min finale right there Zzulu fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 17:35
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Blister posted:Most people who buy games never get to the final boss, so it makes sense to frontload the cool stuff. actually thats pretty much spot on, i got around 200 games on steam and have competed maybe 10 of them
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Feb 17, 2015 17:48
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Ninja Gaiden had a lot of fun bossfights as well and many of them were quite challenging. There was this one boss, Alma, which was a flying demon woman in a church you had to fight and she had a reputation for being really hard to kill. I went in there on my first try and got her to like 10% health before I stumbled and died horribly. But I figured she'd be easy to kill after that since I got so close It took like 15 tries to kill that rear end in a top hat, god drat. So satisfying to finally get the kill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ7RQHruGQ8
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Feb 17, 2015 17:56
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I haven't played too many new games recently. The newest that I'm playing now is Samurai Warriors 4. The Warrior games are sort of the exception to the 'Japanese know how to make boss fights'. I've heard from some that Koei gets it right with Hyrule Warriors, but I've also heard others say the boss fights drag the game down. Other than that the 'boss fight' is one warrior with boosted damage and health, but if you played the stage correctly you won't notice since you and 3 allies will have him stunlocked. I also agree that WoW has done a good job with boss fights. The challenge is different from single-player games, but it's still there. Unfortunately the way mechanics change with each expansion or even each patch means that only the most recent content is actually set up to challenge the players at the right level.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:17
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Shadow Warrior also had really good classic FPS bosses. Completely cliche presentation and mechanics, shoot glowy bits until it dies, but great fun to get through. Reminded me of a much tighter Serious Sam.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:20
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Dragon's Dogma had cool boss fights where you fought huge monsters but the game still allowed for melee and ranged characters to do damage. Plus you got to climb on a giant dragon.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:27
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Ddraig posted:That ties pretty much into the "Japanese games have the best boss fights" idea, though. When people are saying "good" or "lovely" boss fights are they talking about in the concept or the execution because this fight loving sucked to actually play.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:41
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If you're playing some shooter game and your enemy is another guy you have two options for a final boss fight: Either he's a bullet sponge and takes like a million bullets to the dome or you load him into a mech suit as a reason why he takes half your arsenal to kill. I never really found boss fights satisfying for that reason, they typically divert wildly from the gameplay, usually in a "this guy takes more hits to kill" way. There's games that do boss fights ok but the stapling a health bar to a dude just because he's a named enemy need to go. Especially if the villain is portrayed as a cowardly string-puller who can't stand up to the hero but then they're suddenly a worthy opponent all along. In my opinion it's more satisfying if the boss dies just like anyone else. "Boss levels" are the way to go IMO, the ending to Hitman: Blood Money is a great and satisfying ending to that game. Honestly most of the Hitman games do a really good job with the final level being really loving hard and also a kind of weird diversion from the stealth gameplay without just suddenly making some guy take 10 clips of bullets to the head where before single headshots were dropping everyone. Character action games can obviously get away with a lot more since you have to wail on or shoot dudes for longer to drop them to begin with, but there's ample room to make them more challenging and unique encounters without making them feel spongy. gently caress every game whos idea of a boss fight is just repeating some stupid platforming puzzle to drop shields so you can deal a predetermined amount of damage before shields come up again.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:43
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RagnarokAngel posted:When people are saying "good" or "lovely" boss fights are they talking about in the concept or the execution because this fight loving sucked to actually play. I think the actual fight on the tank is pretty cool because it rewards knowing your unarmed moveset but the turret part before it is just a huge slog and really makes the fight not worth replaying ever.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:48
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Dragon Age: Origins had good boss fights
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Feb 17, 2015 18:52
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So did the Metroid Prime games
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Feb 17, 2015 18:52
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A Stupid Baby posted:If you're playing some shooter game and your enemy is another guy you have two options for a final boss fight: Either he's a bullet sponge and takes like a million bullets to the dome or you load him into a mech suit as a reason why he takes half your arsenal to kill. Well, sure. I think there's a difference between "some boss fights are lovely and boring" and "the concept of the boss fight is outdated," of course. I find boss fights immensely satisfying, so long as they're actually done well. Like you pointed out, character action games tend to have great boss fights (they often live or die on the quality of those fights). The Souls games have (some) really great bosses. But obviously, just taking a normal enemy and making them hit harder and take more hits to kill is not a good boss fight in any game. I like the idea of "boss levels," too. Obviously some games shouldn't have boss fights, but having "boss-level challenges" is still nice. That'd be what I'd go with in a case where, to use one of your examples, the villain is a "cowardly string-puller." In that case, yeah, a face-to-face fight is going to be the wrong idea, but having one final challenge before you get to kill the villain like the cowardly little poo poo he is instead of just jamming a string of QTEs in there is going to be a lot more satisfying.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:56
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A Stupid Baby posted:If you're playing some shooter game and your enemy is another guy you have two options for a final boss fight: Either he's a bullet sponge and takes like a million bullets to the dome or you load him into a mech suit as a reason why he takes half your arsenal to kill. Yep, Boss levels are the answer here. The Boss level from Max Payne 3 owned. A level that requires you to play smart and use every trick you've picked up in the game to succeed rather than just a singular entity that you pound rounds into for 20 minutes. Far Cry kind of ended with one of those where you're fighting through hordes of trigens and soldiers on foot and in vehicles, then finally bust in on the big baddie, and one shot lays him out. I didn't even realize he was the evil scientist until I'd already dumped buckshot in him.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:56
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I kinda liked Syphon Filter's approach to bosses where they were as either as easy to drop as regular enemies but had special win conditions, like take them down with a stealth KO or survive against them long enough for your support team to defuse the dead man switch they're holding, or they're invulnerable to conventional attacks for plausible in-game reasons and were more more environmental puzzle challenges. Granted some of them weren't fantastic in execution but it was a great idea and would be a cool thing to see more realistic action games experiment with again.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:57
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Scrub-Niggurath posted:Dragon Age: Origins had good boss fights Which is why the final boss in dragon age inquisition is such a letdown, because holy cow was the origins final battle amazing. (And the DA2 boss fight was absolutely bananas). The DAI fight is just bland in comparison.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:00
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Remember that one time when Oblivion built up to this huge climactic fight with a giant and then your character literally fights and kills him in a cinematic and the game ends? Good thing they corrected it in Skyrim by having the final boss be the same as all the other dragons you fight in the game except with a scripted tutorial sequence built in.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:03
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Every boss in Dead Rising 1 and 2 is total loving bullshit and the reason why I hate those games. I assume 3 is the same.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:04
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Geight posted:I think the actual fight on the tank is pretty cool because it rewards knowing your unarmed moveset but the turret part before it is just a huge slog and really makes the fight not worth replaying ever. ah yes the wide variety of viable moves you can use in that fight like "jump kick" and "jump kick"
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Feb 17, 2015 19:05
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A Steampunk Gent posted:I kinda liked Syphon Filter's approach to bosses where they were as either as easy to drop as regular enemies but had special win conditions, like take them down with a stealth KO or survive against them long enough for your support team to defuse the dead man switch they're holding, or they're invulnerable to conventional attacks for plausible in-game reasons and were more more environmental puzzle challenges. Granted some of them weren't fantastic in execution but it was a great idea and would be a cool thing to see more realistic action games experiment with again. I agree totally. Flamethrower guy was awesome, but killable in like a second if you got perfectly point blank and Shotgunned his fuel tank. God bless you, Gabrielle Logeen
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Feb 17, 2015 19:08
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CharlestonJew posted:ah yes the wide variety of viable moves you can use in that fight like "jump kick" and "jump kick" You forgot jump kick.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:08
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Most of them are, but I'll try to think of some I liked. -I haven't played it myself because I haven't played WoW in a long time, but Kargath Bladefist from their new raid looked pretty cool. It's in a gladiator arena, and he's constantly running around swinging his giant sword hand and raising pillars of fire from the ground while these jungle cats run at you, and there's a mechanic where he grabs people and tosses them into the stands, where they have to go beat up all these drunken audience members who are throwing bombs and booze and poo poo at the people in the arena. The whole thing has a gauge of "Excitement" where you can get the crowd to root for you by doing stuff like getting Kargath to run into his own fire, and it buffs your stats the more pumped up the crowd is. It looked pretty creative. -Arkham City had Mr. Freeze, which was sorta the old trope of "use all the things you've learned throughout the game on this", but done in a really cool way. -In Monster Hunter pretty much everything is a boss fight, but for sheer spectacle Jhen Mohran stands out. He's a whale dragon you fight on a ship, and you have to use cannons and balista and stuff to try and fend him off as he tries to ram you. There's also a huge drill you can use to stab him through the mouth if he gets in front of the boat. Then there's a second phase where the boat gets stuck, and you just have to try to kill him as he slowly advances towards you, and there's really good music too. It's kinda dull after you farm him for a while, but the first time it's crazy. -Guacamelee! has a pretty cool final boss, because you defeat him by piledriving meteors into his face. -This probably doesn't count as "modern" but anything from MGS3.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:19
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Anonymous Robot posted:I've been enjoying the boss fights in Shovel Knight. They aren't quite difficult enough (I've beaten them all on the first go), but I like that they reward aggression rather than being strictly wait-for-telegraph, and it feels like the enemy characters have an array of options on par with the player's. I'd second that. Really well conceived bosses. Although a bit of skill with the shovel dive (or whatever it's called) makes them easy enough to beat. It feels like bosses haven't really been a big thing for the last few generations. They seemed like a bigger deal back in the SNES era.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:25
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