Be Excellent To Each Other

I rumbled up this list of Worst Video Game Bosses, which includes all the usual suspects (SF 4's Seth, Dead Rising's jeep douches, etc).

Anyway, it got me thinking: do we even *need* bosses in video games? With the possible exception of shoot 'em ups, they usually seem to be the least enjoyable part of a game - either too easy or too hard. Can anyone think of a game released in the past couple of years that was improved by the inclusion of boss battles?

Not off the top of my head. Left 4 Dead's crescendo finishes were a refreshing change from a boss battle. I'd much rather fight waves of twats rather than one big cunt.

Sometimes bosses are annoying but the occasional horrible bits in games can make the fun bits seem even more fun.

Nope. Bosses are an arcane throwback to when games had to be made artificially more difficult. With the exception of shmups, as you've said, they are unnecessary in modern games. It's what's put me off buying Rainbow Six Vegas 2, for example.

That's a bit of a rubbish philosophy. Do you also randomly punch yourself in the face to make the non-punchy bits of the day more fun?

Plus if we're talking about the story aspect of modern games, it's a bit of a downer when your massive nemesis rolls over with a whimper. See Fable 2. I'd rather it be at least challenging, but you could go to the extremes like in Sodding Force Unleashed.

I wouldn't let that put you off at all. The only boss is at the very end, when you've already had nearly all the fun you'll get out of it. Even then it's not that bad.

No, that would be absurd. Sometimes I'll walk up a big hill mostly to enjoy the view from the top, if I could just drive up there it wouldn't be the same. I'll go skateboarding and get really pissed off trying the same thing twenty five fucking times just for the joy of landing it. I can't imagine it would be as fun if I could just do anything I thought of straight away. As I said I don't mean there aren't horrible bosses, just sometimes a bit of frustration or the odd grindy bit is ok if you know there is more good stuff to come.

That article doesn't really go anywhere... I was expecting a lot more venom about the convicts in the jeep than just 'we hate these guys'.

I have no problem with a decent boss battle, or even a boss chase.

HOWEVER! I want to be able to kill the bastard at any point, and not once I've successfully gone through the dozen or so sections of the battle where he narrowly escapes at each point.

Think of the OG Loc chase in San Andreas... no matter how much you shoot the bastard, he doesn't die, and it's only after what seems like an hour do you finally catch up with him and 'defeat' him.

Likewise the ending of GTAIV... no matter how many bullets you might pump into the baddie, until you get to Happiness Island, he doesn't die.

Yes, yes, developers want a dramatic finale, but the guy's face doesn't suddenly become vulnerable to bullets because he's reached a certain location.

Something else that bugs me -- in 'realistic' action games like Rainbow Six, GTA, etc, how come the bosses can withstand endless rockets to the face? They should be just as vulnerable as their assorted underlings -- they're all human, after all.

Erm, it was a list of bosses that get my goat, and was advertised as such. What were you expecting?

I love fighting bosses, and don't share the rather cynical view of them most of you seem to be taking. They're often at their best in shmups, certainly, but I think they can be a fantastic expression of a game's core design in many other genres, too. The best bosses are the ones that force you to utilize several of the skills you've been learning throughout the levels, but they're only really shit when they're just bumbling sponges with gigantic health meters, or erratic and capricious bastards that you just can't suss out or hit. Thankfully, those sorts of bosses mostly are just relics of the past.

*Glares at Salamander's fourth boss*

All end of level guardians are bosses, but not all bosses are end of level guardians. We don't need end of level guardians, but good bosses are fun.

End-of-level guardian - I'd forgotten that phrase existed! I love old games.

Keep:
Shmup bosses
Capcom Bosses (aka Zelda bosses) etc.

Most other bosses can fuck off.

I'm generally not a fan of bosses in most games.

I usually prefer the levels leading up to the bosses because they tend to rely on genuine skill & hand-to-eye co-ordination etc (and you get to see the various parts of the level as you're playing through).

When a boss comes up though, it's often more a case of trial-and-error working out how to beat said boss, and that's just not much fun as far as I'm concerned. They are often a chore for me & I just want to get past them so I can see the next level.

I realise this is an incredibly sweeping statement (there are a few games where I love the boss-fights), and it certainly doesn't apply to all games, but my general feeling from the many games I've played is that we could do without bosses (on the whole).....

Are you guys insane? Bosses are (well, can be) awesome!

Zelda bosses are generally pretty fantastic.

Mad World had incredible boss fights.

Resident Evil 4 had kickass bosses (well, the QTEs got annoying, but most of the bosses were pretty good).

Megaman 9 (and indeed all of the previous ones) whole design is based around the robot masters. If you just reached the end of the level, they would be no way near as good.

That's not even mentioning SOTC.

Obviously bad boss fights are bad. Same with any element of game design that is handled badly. To be honest, I generally prefer a bad boss to bad normal enemies.

You know what I hate? Bosses that are brought back for the final level so you have to beat them all again before facing the "ultimate" boss.

Shadow of the colossus is proof of how awesome bosses are. I agree with the Zelda boss remark above and I'll also chip in with Castlevania Symphony of the Night, God of War and Resident Evils.

I remember Silpheed on the PC, way back in the day, a game so good I wore a joystick out playing it.

You only got the 'Barrier' powerup ONCE, and it was all but vital for your success, especially in the final battle against the giant space battleship GLOIRE. Barrier protected you from normal enemy bullets but ANY OTHER IMPACT would destroy it.

Suffice it to say, I just didn't manage to hold on and, not realizing it wouldn't appear again, carried on and had it auto-saved away from me.

So I reach the final level, and your ship is fully repaired in preparation for the big battle. Gloire throws a HORDE of bullets at you, but you can just about retaliate effectively with the laser cannon, the most powerful weapon.

Except, before you fight Gloire, you have to fight five normal bosses first. And one of them is the bastard one that reflects laser cannon shots back to hit you, meaning you can't take the laser cannon.

No laser cannon + no barrier = fail. Fuck it.

The other thing to note is that back in the day, the bosses gave the developers a chance to show off, what with being considerably larger than a standard enemy, it gave the artists a chance to show what they could do, and due to the enclosed arena, it freed up other capabilities.

This isn't really the case anymore.

And conversely, some developers still show off with enormously large and intricate bosses that you can't get to see as you're spending so much time running away from them in a 3D arena. A quick glimpse of awesome boss followed by 20 minutes of running to avoid explosions with no sight of the boss until you finally kill it. Metal Arms was guilty of this - the bosses were quite hard, but then IIRC the game had some stupidly hard difficulty curve which meant that it was the only game I've ever had to switch to "Easy" to actually get through.

I think there are good bosses and bad bosses but largely agree that they are badly implemented in an awful lot of games to the point of detracting from the game itself.

That's a pretty spot-on little article, Rev Owen, although I partially disagree with points 4 and 10. Three-hit weak-spots have made Zelda boss fights, for example, insultingly easy and brief, and boss rushes are one of the highlights of many shmups.

I agree with the shoot 'em up line of thinking. Bosses are essential to them. The running man in Rez is one of the greatest gaming moments of my life.

I like Mario bosses too. And Metroid ones. They can be a bit much in modern fighting games though. "Here's a bloke who's covered in fire/magic/poo, so you can't really make him out. But he can move three times as fast as you and fire lasers at you from thirty miles away". Awesome; thanks.