Why Do Playable Bosses Always Have to Suck?
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- So is the boss nerfed because we beat them, or did we beat them because they were nerfed?
Last month I made a video talking about sequel power resets, and something I wished I would've gotten a chance to talk about was boss power resets. It's always bugged me when a boss joins the party and is nerfed moments after they were beating us single handedly. It's a shame in its own right, but I find it especially lame that usually friendship power gets blamed since it was what brought the boss over in the first place. This video discusses a handful of bosses that I feel dodge the friendship nerf and who even turn it into a friendship buff!
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FFX Footage from @Dansg08
Music List:
Final Destination (Super Smash Bros. Melee)
Modern Times (Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice)
Noki Bay (Super Mario Sunshine)
Battle Theme (Final Fantasy X)
Lulu Theme (Final Fantasy X)
Stepping Hard Beat (Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance)
Demons Party (Makai Kingdom)
Rising Up (Streets of Rage 4)
Seymour’s Ambition (Final Fantasy X)
Mount Gagazet (Final Fantasy X)
Hymn of the Faith (Final Fantasy X)
Seymour Omnis Theme (Final Fantasy X)
Invasion of the Devil World (Final Fantasy X)
Great Wilder Kingdom (Makai Kingdom)
They’re Back (Streets of Rage 4)
Mr. Y Theme (Streets of Rage 4)
Aerial Justice (Streets of Rage 4)
The Wandering Song (Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice)
You Go Girl (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness)
Fuka’s Theme (Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten)
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
What are your other favorite playable boss characters?
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
IDK if he counts, but DJ Octavio in Splatoon 3's Final boss is TECHNICALLY playable
@@TheXell Yo, this party's getting crazy! Dmc3 (when?)
@@TheXellhell yeah that's also mine
In South Park the stick of true you fight Kyle (or cartman depends on your choice) after that he join you in later battle and it will seem like some sick joke but if you play as Jew(it's South Park what did you expect?) kyle can one shot the final boss with his first ability
There's a game I want to make, where the Big Bad only joins the team if you've been trying to talk to him the whole game (it also helps if you bring his sister along, who was the otherwise last person to join the party), and he's needed for the Best Ending, because he's the only one properly able to seal the Bigger Bad back in its prison.
Sounds interesting!
@@Spikkleagreed
Isn’t that just Chrono Trigger?
@@PokeBattlerJaze Well, the game was somewhat inspired by Chrono Trigger, but there are several key differences. For one, the Big Bad is a known enemy from the start, since he caused the story's inciting incident, whereas Magus takes a while to take centre stage.
For another, whether or not Magus joins your party is based on one single choice, while my idea would have a kind of points system thing, where talking to him adds to an invisible meter and, during the final fight with him, you can talk him down if the meter's high enough; his sister just adds a lot to that.
@Bardic_Knowledge
Suggestion to the sister thing! Make it a multiplier to the conversation rather than a set amount, so she makes it much easier but your interactions before still carry a lot of weight. The idea being that, while the sister being there does make things easier, he won't forget what you did that upset him either and that can make his choice a bit more swingy.
Honestly, cool concept and I hope to see it!
I was reminded of an interesting glitch in the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue team. If you manage to get the boss to hold a reviver seed and defeat it, it will revive at full HP. If you then beat them again and recruit them, they'll keep their inflated HP stat from being a boss. So Rayquaza will have 600 HP, WAY more than it should normally have. Talk about avoiding the friendship nerf lol
Cthulu saves the world has a boss whos description reads “alot more powerful than he will be when he joins you”
Shonen: Friendship is the most powerful force in the universe!
Also Shonen: *nerf nerf nerf* get weaker *nerf nerf*
Nico Robin 😭 (at least Wano fixed her)
It makes sense for Shiva to be holding back in Streets of Rage 4. He doesn't want to hurt you. But he also knows you probably won't listen to him until after you've fought. So he fights defensively until the fight ends.
My first true playable boss character was Mewtwo in Red and Blue. And because Pokemon aren't nerfed when you get them, you just know Mewtwo tears stuff up. Still does today, albeit to a slightly lesser extent because of Dark types and the changes to the Special stat. I think the only real nerf pokemon get when you catch them is that for the ones that rely on luck (like the Golbat line, which confuses and flinches you all over the place if unlucky) are usually more effective in the hands of someone who doesn't think about the outcome if they don't get lucky (i.e. Pokemon's crappy AI). *I* am not willing to rely on Confuse Ray and Bite, but the AI certainly doesn't care.
Is Pokemon a copout? To me the monster taming genre as a whole is just a huge "recruit the boss" simulator.
Yeah, one of the expected defining rules of a 'mon game *IS* that player vs. enemy mons all operate according to the same underlying mechanics so basically anything their mon is capable of, your same mon can be too.
After all the videos with disgaea music, he finally has an opportunity to talk about Nippon Ichi games and I am so excited! I just started playing the Soul Nomad and Phantom Brave pack.
Pokemon, particularly legendary pokemon are a good example of a challenging boss that doesn't get nerfed, they can do this because either usually there are alot strong trainer you will still have to fight.
2:22-2:24 Common misconception but no it is not 10 years. The amount of time is random. Ten years is just how long Braska’s calm lasted for.
I was looking to see if someone else had commented this before I did lol
It is not random. I can't confirm this with any sources, but every Calm gets shorter (playing to the Spiral of Death)
@@sabitsuita I mean it’s both because the amount of time the cycle is shortened is random.
I'm not even sure if Braska's Calm lasted for ten years. I always got the impression that Sin was gone for a few months at best, especially given that X-2 has people excited by the fact that Sin hasn't been around for two years as a basis for why Spira winds up changing so much.
@ no they explicitly say 10 years. The reason it changed so much is because FFX takes place right in the midst of a sin cycle where sin had already been destroying everything across the world for months. And in FFX2 they had 2 years to rebuild.
I hope to god that they consider playing DMC as a lil thing spawned from this. But I won’t make them do it or hold my breath for it.
You got that right
I will always defend power of friendship until the day i die
👍
Amen to that
Video is neat but feels like some sections aren't in the right order. Feels like the seymour and anima boss fight should have been right after the section introducing them rather than after a completely unrelated section about a different series. Feels like the video would flow better if it was each section related to the entry would have the boss battle and then recruitable version were sequential rather than separated by two other game sections
SMT games do this well. Matador for smt nocturne is a great example, infuriating to fight but also soon good to have on the team. Daisoujou too, in fact I'd say he's a stronger ally than he was a boss.
Dante and Raidou are also pretty strong in Nocturne. And then there's Demi-Fiend as a party member in SMT 5 Vengeance.
3 and five do it pretty well, cause either they have access to bust moves earlier than regular demons, come prepacked with a good lineup of skill that synergize very well, or they have a signature move that does 3 things in one. 4 kind of fumbles this one as most of what made things like Minotaur and others like hard as the abuse of the smirk system when you had limited options. Now he is just a demon with a higher than average STR stat....like about 5 other demons you get around that time.
@BuryTheLight-tds Oh absolutely, I just didnt feel like going over every single boss to op friend. Other notable mentions are Surt for having a crazy strong fire basic attack, and The Harlot for reflecting phys and her regular attack doing 7 hits. Oh, and Albion for being just stupidly beefy and hard to kill.
There is also the Reverse Version of it: Akechi in Persona 5 Royal, specifically in the true Ending Route. You have him in your party before for a bit while he acts lik a righteous person just to betray you and reveal that he is the person that is responsible for all the murder. You beat him like in the origina Persona 5 Story and defeat the original BBEG and Akechi is dead... in Reality.
Yeah, turns out someone managed to gain control over everyones cognition and reborned Akechi to make the protagonist "happy". Akechi didnt want a fake reality and started to work together with the Phantom Thieves, the group of the Protagonist and joined them in the process. You can boost his friendship with you like all the other characters and evolve his Persona, a personification of his rebellion. However, even if you dont manage to max out his friendship, he is still having most of his enemy movesets with almighty attacks which are unaffected by type-immunity and resistances, basically neutral to everything and also the strongest attacks in the game. The only thing he is missing is the Boss HP amount, but that might be because of the cognition world so we give it a pass.
I went into P5R, having played P5 but not knowing the differences between Royal and P5. Man, that was a great moment!
The floating head, Nas'hrah, joins the party.
Spoiling the best story in video game history with no warning should be criminal
Epic Battle Fantasy 5 does this right. Aside from the first, you fight every playable character before they join you, and none of them are nerfed.
EBF5 🎉🎉🎉
And that's why EBF5 is the GOAT!
I feel so vindicated. Just started playing V2 for the first time and it's every bit as enjoyable as the first time, now with even more content.
More to the point, the characters you recruit aren't needed when you get them, and only get stronger from there.
Anima is probably one of the best exceptions to "The boss becomes a wimp when you play as them". She has less HP than when Seymour used her, but she's several magnitudes more powerful than she was as a boss and it feels fantastic to use her. The only real downside is that you probably have seen all of her unique skills already.
honestly such a great video. I genuinely havent thought about bosses switching sides in games, but i really enjoyed your take on it. All the examples were great and spot on ahaha
looking forward to the next one!
God, all this talk of Makai Kingdom and Lord Zetta really brings me back. No one can forget the badass freakin' overlord, as voiced by the immortal Crispan Freeman. (Alas, he didn't reprise his role for Disgaea 4, it seems).
Sadly it seems to be due to Voice Acting Union Issues. Won't lie, Patrick Seitz has done a nice job with the voice acting.
Yo, what a cool video idea! It’s well researched and fun! A troupe we’ve seen a ton but I’ve never thought about how it’s handled in all these games.
I think my favorite use of this group is at the end of Fire Emblem awakening you get a chance to recruit 6 characters 5 of them previous bosses and they all have an unlock criteria
I think the main reason people remember the "playable boss friendship nerf" is because of Akira Toriyama. Magus from Chrono Trigger is an example you gave, but Dragonball Z is probably the most triumphant non video game example. Literally every Z Warrior EXCEPT for Goku, Gohan, and Trunks (and Goten if you count him) got their start as an antagonist either in DBZ or original Dragonball (yes, even Krillin when you factor in the training arcs where he tried screwing over Goku). Because of how DBZ works, you end up with a lot of people getting left in the dust.
In most RPGs, namely Final Fantasy and its many competitors / imitators, most of the balance between bosses and player characters came down to a scale of HP versus Damage. Bosses get huge swaths of HP, but the player is able to hit a lot harder to compensate. This, of course, usually meant that if a boss was able to hack off around half of your HP or more in a single hit, you were under-prepared for that fight.
This, of course, is why NIS games tend to be a lot of fun --- the developers really said "You see those inflated HP and stat values? You can legally acquire them, and look, here are some targets to test them out on!"
What is NIS ?
@julienserriere2395 Nippon Ichi Software.
Quick answer. Disgaea games.
Long answer. Nippon Ichi Software, the developer of such games like Disgaea.
@@xdonthave1xx Ty
"As you may recall" Oh I am honored you think I ever know what's happening in a final fantasy game lol
In all seriousness very interesting video! I've never played any of these games or can really think of one I've played with such a mechanic so it was really interesting to hear about!
Honestly a pony once told me about the magic of friendship and its true!
Friendship has more power than people know
Because Friendship is Mag-!
* Drop-kicked from orbit *
@Bluecho4 hehehe
Dont worry
That's just Star Drop Station in orbit
Guarding us well
Old enough that the first enemy to friend reversal I had was the Green/White Ranger and it blew my mind.
She seems surprisingly happy in that cage, tbh.
My favourite is Sarevok from Baldur's Gate 1 as the end boss, to be recruited at he later half of Baldur's Gate 2 with a lore conform debuff, but still a badass fighter that is fun to take with.
Sarevok is a mixed bag, actually. It has less hp and resistances as an enemy, but his stats are actually better, 92 points as an enemy vs 95 as a recruited character. And some of that nerf may be because of his gear (given, 100% resistance to pretty much every element is, AFAIK, imposible to get, so...). And the potential power of recruited Sarevok is much higher than enemy Sarevok, as you can go way beyond level 15.
...I need to play BG1 and 2 again...
Chrono Trigger is the best!
All right noted every other week is a "hmmm did you ever think about games like this" video from Boy Meets Girl
There must be a weird bug with this video, because there's about 20 songs used as background music, and yet I could only hear "Bury the Light" for the entire thing.
My first thought when I read the thumbnail was "Yeah, I hate when your boss hangs out with you."
I think my all-time favorite Boss to Ally is White Knight Leo from Lunar 2 EB. Bro is the biggest zealot, takes on an alternate (albeit obvious) disguise when he begins to question the order then eventually not only joins you BUT brings along The Dragonship Destinty one of the coolest transports in any game.
Yo-Kai Watch 1, the first boss is pretty tough on your first go around at it, and you fight it again at the end of the game with beefed up stats, but it's way easier and feels like a way to show how far you've come (if a bit random to me).
In Yo-Kai Watch 2 Bony Spirits (meaning that the boss, Slimamander, is version exclusive... But Fleshy Souls gets a different boss so...) you can find a side quest to refight Slimamander, and after the day you beat him, you can either battle him once a day or treat him like a soft reset hunt and keeping fighting him until after you beat him he joins you. He's shrunk a bit, but other than that he's surprisingly stronger as a party member since his magic attack hits all foes instead of just 1 like all other Yo-Kai. This makes him really good
Think Pizza with Mushrooms!
My favorite example is from trails in the sky series. The character joins your party as a npc who you can't control and kinda requires you to make sure they aren't hit even once. The more discerning players would notice that the npc has 3x the player character's hp. Which clues that player into knowing there's more to this character than meets the eye. I won't say anymore as the it would be in super spoiler mode but players that know, will know.
2:06 at first I was surprised Kaiju no 8, a manga, gave the main character his powers from an ancient army that also fought monsters. But then they go even further and say the power is their hatred and regret. Basically all of their dark feelings towards the monsters who killed them.
I love your guys' vids, you two are fantastic and give me hope that I can acquire skills and find a person to grow along side.
Except Virgil.
Oh, I see why they're not married yet. He's afraid that if he marries Teryn, she'll be his boss. Then if she decides to be his friend, she might reset to level 1.
OH Thanks!
I somehow missed Streets of Rage DLC.
Training is easy in disgaea games, just make a tower and put the newbie in the middle of the tower. Power train everyone on high level characters.
i canNOT believe i never thought to use anima against the last seymour battle. they really thought to give him dialogue for it huh.
and then you have sturm, the final boss of advance wars 1 and 2.
hes playable too, and goddang is he scary.
with busted stats, he truly is a force of nature.
he isnt a character for competitive play, he is a character people should fear.
Hears zetta: "Alucard?"
Bro Anima was the most busted thing as soon as you unlock him in that hidden place... Oops Chaos D 1 Million damage XD
Vergil mention!
Now make tardy play dmc!
What do you mean Anema is best summon.
What about Three sisters?
They got really ood representation in FF manga that was made by Square enix)
Sink pizza with mushrooms
My disappointment when I kill a boss and get their weapon and the game scales the weapon down to my player character size. Booooo.
Not me watching the whole video not realizing it was boy meets girl
Disgaea 3 and disgaea 4 footage?! I adore those games and I know you use the music from those games in your videos. I really hope you make a big video on disgaea someday
"Sorry Yojimbo fans"
How did he know I was like "but what about my boy Jim"
more OSRS content pls my fav duo
Yakuza 7/Like A Dragon has a boss encounter that later joins your party, and while he obviously doesn't have the HP he had as a boss, he's still really good.
I think every playable boss character turned out to be cool. I can't think of one that wasn't. Edea, Seymour, Heihachi, Beatrix.
common Boy Meets Girl W
Lol, game balance isn't a thing in NIS games period.
Zetta sounds like a chuuni dev's cringy self-insert.
True.
From what I remember, Anima was only the strongest if you blew through the game. You made all the other Aeons stronger by increasing the stats of the party member associated with them, that party member's ultimate weapon also gave it's effect to their associated Aeon, and you could use Rikku to farm items to the other Aeons to increase their stats.
So if you did any of that, whichever Aeon you chose to power up by feeding it all the items, and increasing the stats of that one party member exclusively, they'd be much better.
Especially since Anima was the slowest Aeon, and it's attacks slowed it even more. You'd summon it, it'd get one attack, then die before it got another turn, against anything threatening.
And the magus sisters were better because there were three of them. Action economy, AHOY!
What made Anima OP is her multi-hit Overdrive that could devastate pretty much anything. Sadly the original NA PS2 version of the game nerfed her down to a useless single hit, making Yojimbo and Magus sisters far superior back in the day.
@@fangzor9851 I remember Anima still being strong back then, but you're still right about Yojimbo and Magus Sisters.
@@fangzor9851 whichever one wakka was was always the strongest, because his ultimate weapon was the easiest to get, just win blitzball
She can be the best summon when she can one shot penance like yojimbo.
Friendship Buff for Shiva?!
The way this video splits the same character into multiple parts and rotates through them makes it harder to follow.
If Vergil isnt on here...
Didn't expect you to be into Disgaea dood.
Mass effect 3 when? 🥺
just let tarn out of the basement already!!! its so moist and chilly down there!
May I be the nth person to say there's a fan mod/game for streets of rage that adds all sorts of playable characters including elektra (the woman with the lightning whip)
Well, so much for my hope of seeing Tarny playing FFX. Bummer.
The Evangelion: ReDeath quote almost makes up for it.
Almost.
Peak video happy to be within first 10 comments
"i made my girlfriend play pizza tower" when? no this is actually related to this video that game technically has a playable boss
Wait, anima can use its overdrive in the boss fight??!!! I always assumed his overdrive bar was juuuuust a tiny bit smaller than its health bar. Because I never saw it doing the overdrive until after unlocking it.
Why do I feel like you only made this video to convince us to play FF10?
We will save her!
Isn't there some editing mistake ? the FF10 sequence end on a black screen and come back at 10:20
Ah, fudge...
Need to skip this one, still on my todo list and the first 3 minutes spoiled a really key aspect already...
Of course one of the top 2 most powerful beings in the Disgaea universe is a freaking Prinny, dood...... seriously, wtf?
Anima can one shot most any dark Aeon too super op
Be neat if a boss joined you and kept their massive HP total... But had no attack command or magic. Because they didn't when you fought them, their nasty pair of Adds did the damage. Your 6th party member fills the role of lardball item junkie.
nice
Great video but I’m begging you, make sure to put a spoiler warning at the start. I know the game is old but new gamers don’t naturally come equipped with the knowledge of older games. If you want an example I got to watch my elder bro go through Bioshock for the first time like 3 years ago. He didn’t know about the twist at all. It was amazing seeing his face. Again sick video and love the work just saying.
I mean, yeah Anima is strong, but she’s not “one-shot every enemy in the game including super bosses” strong.
I loved this video
You should make your girlfriend play ffx and asura's wrath.
Woah woah woah, wasn't expecting the offensive cholo voice from an old JRPG.
lol "discruction" 😅
WUT? Most playable bosses are broken.
It's Nerf or nothing
This video needs a spoiler warning lmfao
Does it though? All these games are super old and from massively popular franchises. It's more a trip down memory lane than anything else.
Oh no joke
@jamestatsumi7095 i didn't play all of them. That's why I stop watching
@@jamestatsumi7095I’m actually pissed there’s no spoiler warning. This is hands down my favorite story in video games and he just ruined it for many.
Just because something is old doesn’t mean everyone has played it, people even go so far as spoil new games and say “Oh they datamined blah blah blah I thought you knew” What I’m trying to say is blind play throughs are impossible unless you never consume media and that’s not ok. People need more self control or at the very least be considerate.
You aren’t the only person in the world and not everyone IS you so stop assuming crap.
Sorry went on a tangent, not trying to single you out personally I just think that mindset is bad and people have gotten way too lax about it
@@scrublord9505dude... the title alone should have given you enough warning of, "hey, this video is about various bosses that can team up with you. Spoiler: bosses from various games can team up!!!!"
where did this come from?? xD this just felt a little... rambling? haha. Not a great introduction or structure to follow
The whole friendship stuff is over used like no other. I remembered when something you can't explain...you just say it was magic. Will, it's the same thing. But now, it's friendship
Disappointing misleading title.
Top comment is NOT gay
You Edited Because You were the Top Comment 😂
is too!
This mf edited his comment! GET HIM
is being gay bad or something 🙂💀
I wiah it was 😍
I always thought it was silly. Oh the is now our friend 🤨 the same person who wanted t murder us & everyone we loved? And we're going to trust this person. Only in games & movies 😂
Wait so does this mean Boy meets Girl had a Goku and Chichi situation where she beat you as a final boss for something and then made you join her party? Or was she the final boss?
Sink pizza with mushrooms
Sink pizza with mushrooms