When You Activate The Boss Fight Before You're Ready

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Z McQueen

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Published on August 1, 2017 6:32:43 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coLs_SOZld8

Game:

World of WarCraft (2004)

Duration: 0:55

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When you activate the boss fight before you're ready... We've all been there. Feel free to share this on social media if you can relate and if you want daily gaming content, go ahead and subscribe (it's free)! Thanks for watching!

"Do we still need boss fights? Well, I'm in two minds. It really depends on the game. There are those game where boss fights mesh well with the rest of the game play (Borderlands, Gears of War, Dark Souls, Dead Space to name a few) and those where the boss fights do not mesh well with the rest of the game (Batman: AA, BioShock, the final Fontaine boss fight that is, and ANY FPS game akin to Army of Two).

But there is some middle ground to consider - people in the comments do make a good point in suggesting boss fights add tension as you're expecting a fight and the closer you get, the more wary you get. Examples of this: The Leviathan in Dead Space is one; You see its effects throughout the level with its alien form warping the nature of the ship around you. Or whenever your HUD tells you there's "Some weird happenings" in a game and you begin to see more and more human bones and gore the closer you get to a particular point; you begin to silently sh*t yourself! I mean even though there was no boss fight, who wasn't wary when you see the globs of guts and weird marine in Halo: CE right before you see the Flood? You're going "Hey, this gunk must come from something... Gee I don't want to meet it!"

And then think when you're utterly let down by the anticipation of a boss fight. Foremost in my mind is Fable 2. You're building up to a massive showdown as in the first game, but when you finally meet your nemesis, it's an on-rails scripted fight that you only shoot one bullet in!! LET DOWN!! You felt cheated and robbed! So in terms of tension and keeping a game moving forward, boss fights are in my opinion, necessary. And if not boss fights, at least a harder enemy or tricky situation.

nd that brings me to the other thing to consider: Demi-bosses. I'm talking about the ones from BioShock, the mini bosses from Dark Souls and the Dragons from Skyrim. They're great for multiple reasons: Firstly you're not abruptly placed inside an arena with maybe a few waves on enemies trying to figure out a weakness and slowly whittle down a health bar before he goes into a berserker state etc. There's no sudden lava pit around you or dodging or scripted machine guns and thrown mines. It ain't Crash Bandicoot basically! Secondly, they're natural and flow with the gameplay more. As in BioShock and Skyrim, they're usually strolling around doing their thang. You could meet them in multiple places and have different situations. You're often not stuck in to versing them and can usually run away. And lastly, the approach you use can vary. Some boss fights are unvarying - you must use X weapon to take down X weakness then attack with X weapon until X health when X happens etc etc. With Demi-bosses, you usually can set traps, choose the right moment and use a lot of different techniques depending on the surroundings. For example in Skyrim I provoked a dragon into attacking, leading it to a small keep where I took cover and whittled it down. And in BioShock, Big Daddies were always easy prey when they ventured into water or near a bunch of explosives! So in terms of breaking up the monotonous equation of Level then Enemies then Boss Fight then Next Level, Demi-bosses are great for inserting when a player least expects it and can be used to expand areas far beyond if they'd simply had a big boss at the end.

That said, one of the best games I played on the PS2 was Shadow of the Colossus, which is pretty much an open world comprised ONLY of big boss battles! Go figure..."

Edited by SpawnMan (663 posts) - 5 years, 7 months ago
https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/boss-fights-are-they-obsolete-do-we-still-need-the-530324/

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