Zore posted:the only reason they were hard or long was because people sucked same
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:40 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:21 |
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People who say games should Always or Never do anything, whether it's having boss fights or not having boss fights, are usually dummies And yeah Nintendo handhelds are successful because they've been making the best ones by a substantial margin since the original Game Boy
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:40 |
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Double Dragon II had the best boss fight because you fought a shadow of yourself! Shadow Link was good in Zelda also.
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:41 |
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Where's my man Abobo at?
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:42 |
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SunAndSpring posted:I've also seen articles where game journalists get upset at the concept of a boss fight. I wonder if that contributes to anything. I bet if I posted this on some shithole like NeoGAF or The Escapist, I'd find idiots coming out of the woodwork to say "Oh, boss fights aren't cinematic. They're a relic of the past." This is a big part of the issue. Thing is, there's a kernel of truth in this. Not every game needs boss fights. Deus Ex: Human Revolution would have been a better game if it entirely lacked boss fights, for example. It just didn't need them, and the ones they implemented were implemented poorly. There's a lot to be said for doing away with having boss fights just for the sake of boss fights. But then came the articles (and wannabe-intellectuals who agree with those articles) saying that boss fights as a whole are bad and shouldn't be included. They're not "cinematic," or they "don't serve the narrative," or something like that. So the idea that boss fights in general are bad game design proliferates. Then you get developers who remove boss fights (because they're not cinematic enough for their super cinematic third-person shooter) and then don't bother to replace them with anything interesting, and you end up with several years' worth of big-budget game releases with really unsatisfying conclusions. It's one of those trends that I hope passes soon so that games that should have boss fights start having them again, and games that shouldn't have something equally satisfying in their place.
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:43 |
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Alain Post posted:are there any FPSes with final bosses that you'd actually call good (instead of memorable, I guess? I freaking love Hans Grosse and Robo-Hitler but they aren't exactly the deepest fights in the history of FPS gaming) I've always been partial to the Makron from Quake 2. That was a cool FPS boss fight, despite being a 'conventional' battle. SunAndSpring posted:So, I've been noticing a lot of video games recently seem to have two recurring flaws. One, they're too loving short and yet cost 50-60 dollars for some reason. But that's another topic. Two, all bosses or the very final boss is a Quick Time Event. Personally I think there's been a general downward slide in boss battles over time. It used to be that it took a lot of skill, patience and practice to beat bosses - they were a test of just how good you were at the game and you had to pay constant attention to dodge their attacks and get in hits of your own. Then I found a lot of them changed to 'puzzle bosses', which were completely invulnerable to anything but a bunch of very specific environmental things (which conveniently were located in their lairs) and the whole battle was a total cakewalk once you figured out what you needed to do to kill it. And now they're at QTEs, which is like a puzzle boss but without the puzzle part. I honestly don't understand the downward slide either, other than people not liking a challenge. You could just play my Warcraft III campaign, OP. I didn't wuss out on the boss battles in that one. Soul Reaver fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Feb 16, 2015 |
# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:45 |
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Harrow posted:This is a big part of the issue. It's funny because boss fights do serve the narrative because narrative is more than just writing, see The Boss, Claus, Jergingha, etc
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:51 |
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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. Disclaimer: Speaking mostly from WoW and Rift experience.
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:53 |
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Dark souls has amazing and fun boss fights. Also monster hunter is a game that is basically pure boss fights. Both are Japanese and its actually hard to think of a good western developed game with good boss fights.
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:57 |
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Looper posted:It's funny because boss fights do serve the narrative because narrative is more than just writing, see The Boss, Claus, Jergingha, etc Oh absolutely. It's just that a lot of recent games have pretenses of being "realistic," and having a boss fight where you have to shoot some human a bunch of times, no matter how fun that is, isn't "realistic." (Let's ignore that the player character is often a bullet sponge himself and "realism" doesn't matter there, but oh well. Actually I'd love to see a game like Uncharted but the final boss is just another rear end in a top hat who plays by the same rules the player does and can regenerate by hiding behind things, but that's beside the point.) Or sometimes there are situations where the game's plot dictates that the final battle not play by the rest of the game's rules, and rather than making an awesome boss fight out of that (see MGS4), they turn it into a long series of QTEs (see a list of games too long to include here). But there are tons of boss fights, like the ones you listed, that really do make the story better. I'd say the experience of fighting, say, Armstrong in Metal Gear Rising absolutely made the overall experience of that game's ending better for me. Or out-stealthing and out-CQCing the Boss in MGS3--that entire sequence is memorable, including the fight itself. I'm sure there's a long list of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1/2 bosses that didn't need to be there, but I think there's an equally long list of bosses from those games that enhance the entire experience of playing. Basically, boss fights work best when they're used well, which is a super simplistic way of putting it. Don't overuse boss fights, or they'll lose their meaning; at the same time, don't shun them just because other games overused boss fights if you don't have something equally satisfying and appropriate to challenge the player with.
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:59 |
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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. Of the few MMOs I've played, it's really only WoW and Tera that have done boss fights semi-decently. WoW actually tried to make them action game boss fights, albeit there's still the issue of heal spam being just an accepted thing, and Tera is basically just Monster Hunter and athat's hard to mess up. GW2 has terrible boss fights.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:01 |
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God of War 3 had a pretty cool boss fight especially the part where you're punching Zeus' face in and the game just lets you punch for as long as you want and the only way to progress is to stop punching.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:04 |
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Probably at least part of the reason for more QTEs is that sometimes the devs want to show off a cool set-piece sequence they came up with. If QTE's not used excessively, I'm perfectly fine with this.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:07 |
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-Troika- posted:Probably at least part of the reason for more QTEs is that sometimes the devs want to show off a cool set-piece sequence they came up with. If QTE's not used excessively, I'm perfectly fine with this. I mean, people are slobbering all over Platinum ITT and Bayonetta had some truly terrible QTEs especially outside the bossfights QTEs are like anything else, it's all how you use them
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:08 |
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The Arkham games have had some pretty good boss fights. Mr Freeze from City particularly stands out, as does the Dr. Strange predator section. Firefly in Origins is a really cool fight, but not particularly difficult. The real star of that game is Deathstroke, though. Too bad it takes place so early in the game.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:11 |
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Zombies' Downfall posted:I mean, people are slobbering all over Platinum ITT and Bayonetta had some truly terrible QTEs especially outside the bossfights Bayo's QTEs are really bad, but MGR and W101's are really good. I mean, the devs clearly learned from that
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:12 |
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Because most games blow most of their budget on graphics and gameplay takes a backburner to making things look really good.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:34 |
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Looper posted:Bayo's QTEs are really bad, but MGR and W101's are really good. I mean, the devs clearly learned from that I think it works in MGR since you already get button prompts for finishing moves in the base game anyway, so it doesn't feel as awkward.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:35 |
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I remember Giants: Citizen Kabuto being a Western game with a good final boss fight, complete with fake credits like someone mentioned Bayonetta having. This was also pretty good, although the guy playing it sucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFHDM08peho Nition fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Feb 17, 2015 |
# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:51 |
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Wolfenstein: The New Order had some pretty cool boss fights. The last boss was a fitting tribute to Mecha Hitler while still doing its own thing. It has two stages, one which is the traditional 'puzzle' fight (you have to destroy Zeppelins that are powering his shield, then beat the crap out of him) but the last fight is a proper arena fight with just you vs him. Most western boss fights suck. Even Quake had some terrible ones. Shub-Niggurath was terrible, if you consider killing him to be the actual fight and not the million enemies you have to kill to begin with. e: Final boss of The New Order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Ipw5dvBfU It's been a while since I've played Wolfenstein (the one before this) but I remember some of the boss fights in that being pretty cool too. Rush Limbo fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Feb 17, 2015 |
# ? Feb 17, 2015 00:56 |
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Alain Post posted:I think it works in MGR since you already get button prompts for finishing moves in the base game anyway, so it doesn't feel as awkward. MGR did a good job of matching the QTEs to the normal inputs. I can think of a few weird ones like pressing the jump button to kick Armstrong out of his elbow drop, but most of them work better than that. Blade mode was also really good for that because it let them use a dynamic and familiar game mechanic in the middle of a QTE, instead of just playing simon says
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:18 |
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A Steampunk Gent posted:
but but but my game is ~*art~*!!! pay special attention to the vaguely libertarian 7th grade level analysis of American history
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:22 |
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Ddraig posted:The last boss was a fitting tribute to Mecha Hitler while still doing its own thing. It has two stages, one which is the traditional 'puzzle' fight (you have to destroy Zeppelins that are powering his shield, then beat the crap out of him) but the last fight is a proper arena fight with just you vs him. One sucky part about the second phase is that the boss is completely immune to damage whenever he plays his "you just did some damage to me" animation, so the most effective way to fight him is to fire a rocket or two, wait for that animation to finish up, then fire another rocket or two. They should just let you go all-out at that point instead.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:24 |
icantfindaname posted:but but but my game is ~*art~*!!! pay special attention to the vaguely libertarian 7th grade level analysis of American history I'm having flashbacks to Bioshock: Infinite and that lovely fight with the ghost mom now, thanks.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:26 |
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The fact that people are basically just using action platformers or cinematic beat'em ups as having the best boss fights here might lead credence to the argument that some types of games are easier to make good/interesting fights for. Personally I never liked the cinematic stuff like they use in Bayonetta, God/Gears of war and the likes. I much prefer games where you are 100% in control of your character during the fights, even if it makes them less flashy(See Serious Sam, the Zelda games etc etc...).
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:27 |
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SunAndSpring posted:I'm having flashbacks to Bioshock: Infinite and that lovely fight with the ghost mom now, thanks. glad that came across icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Feb 17, 2015 |
# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:29 |
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Broken Cog posted:The fact that people are basically just using action platformers or cinematic beat'em ups as having the best boss fights here might lead credence to the argument that some types of games are easier to make good/interesting fights for. This is part of why MMO boss fights impress me a lot more than the stuff in an action platformer where you have one player with a precisely known, fairly minimal ability set Like WoW bosses are rarely incredible but it has got to be so difficult to design a good one without just copying one that already exists
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:30 |
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I just want more boss fights where 2 dudes punch each other's fists as fast and hard as they can
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:33 |
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The Deathstroke bossfight in Arkham Origins was god drat A-grade, even if the rest of the game wasn't. Well, see ya
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:39 |
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Geight posted:One sucky part about the second phase is that the boss is completely immune to damage whenever he plays his "you just did some damage to me" animation, so the most effective way to fight him is to fire a rocket or two, wait for that animation to finish up, then fire another rocket or two. They should just let you go all-out at that point instead. Is this correct? They may have changed it but I remember beating him on Death Incarnate by just unloading everything at him. Didn't seem to matter much if he was in the 'I'm hurt' animation.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:41 |
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Games with boss fights are so 1990's.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:51 |
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Ddraig posted:Is this correct? They may have changed it but I remember beating him on Death Incarnate by just unloading everything at him. Didn't seem to matter much if he was in the 'I'm hurt' animation. I am pretty certain this is the case based on my own experience and what people were saying in the thread back when the game was new, but it wouldn't be the first time myself and many other goons have been collectively wrong about a thing.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:51 |
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The Uncharted games are cool fun platformy shooty games but every single game has ended with a boss fight and every single game it's pretty much dropped the ball. The first game ends with you shooting through mooks to get to the final bad guy who's sniping at you, and it's not too bad because it flows with the existing game mechanics and the final QTE is literally the exact same three-hit combo you've used all game. Uninspired but not terrible. Then the second game had not one, but two ridiculous bosses in it. The mid-game boss is a bullet sponge that absolutely must 100% have an arbitrary amount of damage done to him before he has to die via QTE and he's never mentioned again. The final boss was a ridiculous race around the arena shooting at blue glowing objects. The third game was a QTE punchfest and I didn't understand why they didn't just have the punching go naturally within the cool environment, making the player actively jump from section to section, instead of making it happen in a QTE half the time. Naughty Dog you made the Crash Bandicoot games, why did you mess up boss fights in your action game. At least the Last of Us only had boss fights in the form of Bloaters which are killed with a single molotov, and David, which was fun in a stealth gimmick way.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:52 |
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Far Cry 3 probably had the worst boss fights of any game in recent memory drat what a bad boss fight, i said after all of the qte-mashing-bullshit the big ooga booga voodoo god guy was bad too
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:53 |
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Alain Post posted:are there any FPSes with final bosses that you'd actually call good (instead of memorable, I guess? I freaking love Hans Grosse and Robo-Hitler but they aren't exactly the deepest fights in the history of FPS gaming) Hahaha gently caress no. The best one I can think of was the gigantic final boss of Serious Sam 1 but even that one wasn't stellar or anything. The best final boss of all time was Mike Tyson. More games need to have a colorful cast of stereotypes that leads up to a real world champion.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 01:58 |
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I really liked the boss fights in Dishonored. You could fight or stealth them if you wanted to. You could even run away from one and skip the other entirely if you avoided the crazy old woman completely. There was no real last boss fight and that was fine.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 02:02 |
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SunAndSpring posted:I'm having flashbacks to Bioshock: Infinite and that lovely fight with the ghost mom now, thanks. I still have trouble believing this was actually a thing that happened and not some stress hallucination on my part. Its so baffling and ridiculous.
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 02:04 |
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Indie game, but Tower of guns final boss battle was pretty drat great
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 02:04 |
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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. Did the final boss in that game have that problem too?
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 02:06 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:21 |
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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?
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# ? Feb 17, 2015 02:06 |