Boss Battle Design ~ Design Doc
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- Опубликовано: 1 май 2019
- Boss fights can be the best part of a game, but they can just as easily be the worst. I brought examples. Let's talk about them! Skillshare Premium is FREE for two months for the first 500 people to sign up here: skl.sh/designdoc
This video was sponsored by Skillshare.
Patreon: / designdoc
Twitter: / warbot400 
Игры
I legitimately thought my game glitched on the General Scales fight when I played Starfox Adventures the first time as a kid. I didn’t realize it was intentionally that...jarring.
I remember the first time I played Star Fox Adventures and heard Krystal speaking, I thought my game was in German XD
*video about boss design, starts with persona boss music* fitting
But it doesn't have Sekiro bosses, unfitting
From that series I only played Persona 5 and Persona Q Shadow of the labyrinth but the new game plus super boss from Persona 5 is my favourite turn based boss until this day. I LOVE it so much fore so many reasons.
The first boss from Persona Q was also pretty awesome. Mainly because in both of my playthroughs it was such a "by the skin of my teeth" victory but also because of the epic reinforcement. The first time I was like "Thanks but my team could have handled this grunts" (I mean they acted exhausted during the cut scene but I meant from a game play perspective) but during the boss I realized I would have been so screwed if I had fought any more of the grunts before the boss. I also like the personality of the boss even if it was nothing to outstanding. Overall it was pretty epic.
My favourite boss to this day is Nyx from persona 3
Nyx was certainly memorable
@@Pontif11 Makoto: " "THE OPPONENT IS STRONG. DON'T DO ANYTHING RECKLESS"
Is it time for a new series?: Good Boss, Bad Boss
...maybe
@@DesignDoc please do it, it would be awesome
@@DesignDoc This would be amazing! It would hit both the nostalgia and the design aspect at once.
(dramatic voice) **GOOD BOSS**: The End is...
yes please
I was hoping you would mention that broodals are actually a huge improvement over koopalings simply because skilled players can skip the "invincible" phase and reach the boss without doing whatever they're normally required to. broodals reward decent knowledge of the moveset in a way most mario bosses haven't, and that doesn't make them amazing but it makes koopalings look like garbage.
Even beyond that, the boom-booms/koopalings/renzor are designed in such a way as to be a decent challenge to the unskilled player, but to the skilled player it takes virtually no time to clear it. (Same with the Broodals, though that skill ceiling is significantly higher) Mario games are designed to be extremely flexible in allowances they make to player approach--options for cautious play, options for bold play. So once you have learned how to defeat a mario miniboss, there's not much point to dragging it out unless it's the final boss. That's a significant step up from bosses in lesser games that are like "Oh, figured out how to do it? Okay, now hold down the fire button for twenty minutes" or ones that give every boss like five minutes of invincibility between vulnerable frames. Nintendo usually saves those for the final boss only.
@@rickpgriffin Yeah but when the 'boss' can be killed in 3 seconds or less (Bowser Jr in New Super Mario Bros DS), there isn't much point to the boss.
I think Nintendo has the right idea with making bosses scale-able to skill like that but there's a point where the significance of the boss is quite literally reduced to nothing, making me wonder just how interesting a challenge something so quickly beat-able could possibly be. If you can finish a board game with friends in under 30 seconds, I'd wonder how much of that was due to everyone's skill and how much was due to the shallow simplicity of the board game.
@@creativebeetle For speedrunners, learning to beat the boss as quickly as possible is definitely an interesting challenge. And top-level players will basically be speedrunning the game anyways.
I could add that Super Mario Odyssey has bosses that just uses Mario's stomping ability and bosses that uses Cappy's capture ability. It's a good mix.
same with inner agent 3. it will remove bad habits used in multiplayer. such as just shooting, and agent 3 goes: haha you goofy aww squid u no kill me! and obliterates you.
I love how The End dies of old age if you skip a week
because if we're talking about in universe, Snake was either just fucking sitting there doing whatever, or he slept for a week
that ending is more comedic than anything
The legendary Cobra unit:
The Joy
The Sorrow
The End
The Fear
and...
THE BEES!
NOT THE BEES!!!!!!!! also known as the fury
@@humbletom49 No, Mr Bees is The Pain. The fury is mr astronaut with a fuckin flamethrower
Every time I see that Andross twist I think of Matt from SBFP (RIP)
Matt: "It looks like Andross!"
Andross: *turns around*
Matt: "AAAUUGH MY GOD."
Fun fact. There was a moment while editing that I thought about using that clip. The Zaibatsu's reaction in that whole final part capture almost everything wrong with SFA.
@@DesignDoc what about scarecrow from batman arkham asylum the best batman boss
@@MyIndieGameDevJourney3818 More set piece than boss really. A great set piece no doubt but there's not much to Scare Crow as a boss other than being a dynamic searchlight.
@@DesignDoc we'll set pice or not it still the best boos of the batman arkham franchise in my book 💯
One of my favorites of all time is Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear: Rising.
While he enters the narrative really late, he still steals the show. And consider that he comes in right after you're done taking down a mech the size of an entire block, yet lays your ass down all throughout your initial battles, he establishes just how strong he is. Making it oh so satisfying when you get the High Frequency Murasama and can start paying him back for all the shit he put you through.
And mechanically, he forces you to use all skills you've accumulated over the game. Ninja Running to avoid pillars of fire he shoots at you, ninja-time to cut down the huge metal objects he throws at you, parrying when you can and either dodging or running when he uses unblockable attacks or his football grab, QTEs that are quick and lead to two means of concluding it so they're not a bother. If you don't use all those skills, he will lay you flat over and over. And once you finally beat him, you get the most satisfying zandatsu sequence as you rip out his still-beating heart.
He also has (personal opinion) one of the best boss themes of all time. It just add makes you overdose on adrenaline.
Nano machines son
And the memes, don't forget the memes.
NANOMACHINES SON! THEY HARDEN IN RESPONSE TO PHYSICAL TRAUMA! YOU CAN'T HURT ME!
Standing here...
8:30 "Countless other games include bosses that force you down a single path to pass them"
(Uses a clip of a boss fight that has a secret second way to beat it)
I mean, it doesn't negate the point since it took us, what, 14 years to find that second way? But it amuses me.
What is this way ? It was found on the remastered version ?
Desplanches Stevan You can kill that boss using the spring water from the great Deku tree. It has to be the special water, not just any water.
@@anavaeru Gonna check that, thanks a lot !
Also he shows an image of The Fear from MGS 3, there are at least 3 ways to beat the fear. 1 straight up fight. 2. poison him, and 3. fake your death and steath kill him.
@@DetectiveThursday did you just not watch the video?
Personally I think that the Broodals in Odyssey were much better bosses than the boomling jr fights. For one, you can interrupt their defense phases, and two there’s still big bosses in the game like the ones from sunshine, so they feel more distinct and more personal than taking down the big baddies.
Although the Broodals are more distinct and more strategy based, I personally prefer the koopalings for the fact that their boss arenas were actually different from one another. Honestly, I just want a 3D Mario title with the koopalings, just to see the difference between them and the Broodals.
@@LWren123 it didn’t make sense to me that Bowser was getting “married” but didn’t invite Bowser Jr or the Koopalings
Plus, they get together and pilot a giant mech to fight you in one of the last bosses in Mario odyssey,and in my opinion it’s one of the best bosses in the game.
You want a bad boss fight? Middle-Earth:Shadow of Mordor. And it come right after a real good one too.
One of the best things about the game is the Nemesis system, which gives players a personal connection to what would otherwise be random minions. You get jumped by some jerk named Ooga Kooga and you remember that name, hunt him down and kill him. But then he shows up again, and iron plate over the headshot that killed him, ready for more.
Right before the final battle, you face your ultimate nemesis. That one guy that just kept coming back, and fight him one last time. It's a fantastic test of skill, with the organic narrative of the nemesis system behind it. It is the most satisfying fight in the game.
Then, the final battle. The Dark Lord Sauron, the big bad of the entire god damn franchise. Teased the whole game as the final challenge, the root of all the conflict in the game.
You start the battle.
And it's a quick time event. 6 button presses, none of the combat system in the rest of the game, and you're done. Now that was a bad boss fight.
I don't think that qualifies as a bad boss fight, because a 6-button QTE isn't even a boss fight.
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter Agreed. QTE does not equal a boss fight. QTE aren't inherently bad or anything, but I feel like they were overused as if they were 'The Next Big Thing' or something, especially as they sometimes replaced boss encounters, which they really shouldn't, especially not final bosses.
Agree, I was extremely disappointed in that fight. I was terrified of how powerful this guy was going to be, and how hard it was going to beat him. I thought he was going to come back after you stab his face, but I guess not. It was just that easy.
Idk, the nemesis was literally the final boss for that game though. There’s a reason they didn’t try to overshadow it with a premade final boss fight
The flaw with the nemesis final boss is that if you later branded the nemesis, they won't appear, and not every act that can lead to an orc becoming your nemesis is something that harms the player, I.E. Just targeting an orc adds a point.
So in my case, the final nemesis battle was pretty underwhelming. I had a guy titled "the amputator". As an enemy... The guy was pretty pathetic. He was barely tougher than the average orc, and even had a tendency of just hiding in mobs of goons and simply revealing himself when I inevitably swung at him. However, nearly every time I killed him, he came back with a new prosthetic limb- he went from normal orc to bag-head with 2 claw arms and 2 peg legs, every battle I killed him easily aside from once where he ran away (and one of his few strengths is that he runs fast). However, him coming back and fleeing still counted, so when I finally got to the final boss... It was just the guy I killed 17 times and never got any tougher.
I was more the final boss than him.
I love that the boss shown at 8:30 as an example of a "only one way to defeat it" boss, actually has a second way to kill it
An episode on Freedom Planet's bosses would be really great. There main strength and weakness is they're all pattern focused, so once you get the pattern down they're easy to beat. However, they're all really tough the first time you fight them, so they must be doing more than just simple patterns. Especially love to hear a break down on Brevon. He's one of the best final bosses ever IMHO
The fact that Kirby has become a better shooter than Star Fox is almost scary
YEAH LIKE HOLY SHIT
ITS not Crazy, its deserved
Nova PTSD (star dream soul OS)
Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne is the test if you paid attention to the games mechanics, and Genichiro from Sekiro too
Agreed.
You cant just tease them and not actually do it
Right?
One of my favourite boss fights of all time is Shriek from Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
It has great build-up as it gives a fake-out ending before fighting but it doesn't act like the player expects the game to be over, which they don't. The boss isn't incorporated into the story too much but after you learn about its origin story and it kills your owl friend, it is quite obvious that it'll be the final boss.
When you start fighting it, the first phase almost certainly makes the player use a lot of the moves and skills that they have discovered and learnt throughout the game, the second phase calls back to the escape sequences earlier in the game while also incorporating even more moves that you've learned, and the third phase is simple more of the first phase but almost requires you to use the moves you have learnt. The final blow is so satisfying since the music is synced really well as you launch it into the forest!
I like how the final bosses of the Mother/EarthBound games require you to so something other than brute force your way through. In Mother 1 just before the final boss you get the sing ability that the whole team can use. You know you have to use it at some point. In EB with the last phase you have to use the prayer ability to finish off Giygas for good. And in M3 all you can really do is heal yourself until the end.
I still think Vergil 3 is the perfect boss fight in videogames.
A great test of skill, no matter the difficulty, Vergil will kick your ass if you don't use everything you've learned.
An amazing narrative device; the Dante vs Vergil rivalry is the main focus of the game and the fight delivers in that aspect.
And a culmination of what the whole game was building up to. Plus great music and a stage that represents what Dante and Vergil are: the border between the human and demon worlds. Vergil falls while Dante comes back.
I LOVE the Vergil fights in 5, specially with Nero, but Vergil 3 is just on another level.
Totally agree. Check the Rivals video for more ;)
Ahhhh I looove Vergil's boss fights in 5. Mostly because of Nero as well. Every aspect just culminated in one epic as hell fight. The emotion of Nero finally meeting his father, seeing his devil trigger for the first time, the anger in his voice as he talks with Vergil, the hype music, getting a second chance to fight Vergil after he already kicked your ass, and knowing that these past 11 years have been worth the wait.
I agree, 3's Vergil fights are simply perfection. But god damn, Nero vs Vergil was a long time coming. It was so satisfying.
Dante's boss fight with Vergil in V is the final test, Nero's is the best one narratively. As for 3...yeah, I should play it.
well, I found vergil stupidly hard in dmc 3, and yeah, even in easy he kicked my ass. I played the game in normal, and there was already a big difficulty gap between the arkham fight and the previous levels, but then the difficulty gap between vergil and arkham felt even greater, to the point that I switched to easy (I only beat arkham months after buying the game, so just wanted to be done) and even then it still felt impossible. I mean, it's easy mode, why is it harder than any other bosses I've fought in video games? I admit I'm not very good at DMC, but I still played and beat the first in normal mode, though nightmare 3 was really hard, but that was probably not really worst than arkham. btw, I'm talking about the final level of dmc 3 only.
The narrative in Vergil 3 is better than in DMC5, but the later is a better boss on a gameplay level.
The ability to stop his Judgement Cut End or knock him off his DT alone just make it better, while in DMC3 he had invulnerability windows, also style swapping.
I’m trying to code my own game, and this was a very resourceful video. You just earned yourself a new subscriber sir!
Been watching this series and very thankful f or your well reasoned explanations!
I liked the way you handled your promo. Very classy and as always, great video :)
I’m a huge fan of the fight against azala (is that her name) at the end of tyran castle in chrono trigger. It felt so intense and when u get into the rhythm of it it’s awesome.
I just wanna say, I love how Undertale both makes it's bosses changes of pace in combat and ties them into the story.
Instant Subscription
I could go on about how you earned it, but I'm sure it's been repeated again and again by others. Good work!
The ninetails fight from okami is a pretty good boss fight. The fight itself makes you use both your brush powers as well as your standard attacks. The best part is that the boss has a way to cancel out your special brush abilities if you take too long and can even attack you with its own brush powers.
Any boss that uses the player's abilities on them is great. Transistor does something similar, as do lots of Rival boss fights.
@@Mordalon "Who gets to go first? How about... me." Hearing that line was when I knew I was in for a challenge.
Another of my favourite bosses has the same rival structure, but since the game gives you flashy anime-worthy finishers, the rival in question gets them as well and you need to start running _immediately_ after seeing her charge up.
Technically monster hunter is nothing but boss fights. And one of my personal favorites is shagaru magala. It becomes even cooler if your first encounter with it is in the single player mode of mh4u where it's set up as the final boss of low rank village.
I was actually surprised they didn't mention Monster Hunter at all
Btw shagaru is indeed an amazing boss fight
mh4u has got to be my favorite Monster Hunter- it really shows that the games can successfully do a more involved story
I love this series. I even have a list of my favourite monsters to fight
1. Nargacuga
2. Brachydios
3. Shagaru Magala
4. Mizutsune
5. Dire Miralis
And I agree mh4u is the best one
Shagaru is great, but g rank shagaru? The homing explosions make it intense sure, but can be a little too frustrating at times.
My favorite in MH4U is Dalamadur. Never thought I'd be able to defeat that thing solo. Managing to do it with only 2 minutes left was within my Top 3 of best experiences as a gamer in my life
You know the video's gonna be good when it starts with Keeper of Lust playing
Good thing nobody would be crazy enough to make the final boss of a hack n' slash type game be a rhythm game with a seven minute song and no margin of error whatsoever that messes with your ability to see the notes coming. That'd just be silly.
Is this about Necrodancer?
@@shmigheghi No, Drakengard 3.
Magic Knights Rayearth for the Sega Saturn had the same issue for its final boss as the Starfox example. It was just as out of left field narratively (though sort of based on the story of the anime, so if you knew that twist it was a little less nuts?) and swapped you from Secret of Mana style combat into bullet hell for just one fight.
Actually that's a kind of bad habit for a lot of games: The boss battle that isn't a culmination of the skills you've been building but instead a totally different thing using skills you...haven't been building up. I get where it comes from, since the designers want the battle to be unique, but...It's Not Good. It's Bad.
Bosses Battle are one of my favorite things to do in video games. They test your skills and it's satisfying to do it.
And there so many boss to discover so, how about a series of great boss desing and bad ones? I want to see it and it will be a great experience .
😉
The End I chased his old ass around hitting him with tranq darts. Man I must've been doing that fight wrong lol
A Nod to Asura's Wrath would have been nice. Easily some of the most visually insane bosses in all of gaming. They may be QTE fests, but that isn't a bad thing, as its possible to do them right in a way that can make them compelling, and Asura's Wrath Delievers, unlike certain games with the name Telltale or David Cage attached to them.....
A boss fight that stuck out to me more than any boss fight I've ever played was Margaret Moonlight from no more heroes: desperate struggle. ever since the game came out, I always remember that boss, the sound track the game play, everything about it stuck with me, even when I didn't play it for years, it was always in front of my mind.
My favourite type of final boss is when you feel actual dread. When I was fighting the third phase of the infected broodmother in grounded, I felt like I lost before I even died
Great video. Nice to see how Rocksteady got better at boss design over the Arkham series, and it's definitely true that Andross felt really out of place in Star Fox Adventures.
As for some other examples of questionably done boss fights? Well, I think the ice boss (Shrewd Possessor) in Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon would certainly count there. The entire battle is built on a mechanic you've used once, maybe twice in the entire game, and its a mechanic that's never had anything resembling danger or a time limit in previous appearances. So you're thrown into an extremely dangerous set up with mechanics you've barely learnt, and expected to just kinda figure it out as you go.
It's a bit like Andross in Adventures really, except not the final boss.
I'd also say Dark Beast Ganon was poorly done in Zelda Breath of the Wild. After a somewhat easier than expected (yet still actually quite cool) Calamity Ganon fight, you get put into a battle where the boss lasts maybe two minutes, has one very easy to avoid attack and acts more like a cutscene than a challenge. It's disappointing, especially given how well past Zelda games did the multi phase boss fight (Ganon in Ocarina of Time, Majora in Majora's Mask, Ganon in Twilight Princess, Vaati in Minish Cap, etc).
Still, the DLC Boss for said game worked well, and I suspect you probably agree too, since he was shown in some of the clips in this video. That one actually did feel like a test of skill (in more ways than one), worked about as well as the final boss plot/context wise and provided a unique experience all at the same time.
Either way, kudos on the video, and I can't wait to see whatever others you post in future.
9:37 So that's why the fight against Asch in Tales of the Abyss is magnificent!
"No one knows who these characters are, so just put in (insert established characters here)"
That just sounds so bad lol. Everything starts out as unknown at first. Give us the chance to learn about these characters.
I love the carefulness with spoilers in this video. I wish every channel did this.
Oh hey, good to see Freedom Planet make the list at the end. How nice!
You hit me with the Will Power, I instantly like.
I think one of my favorite bosses is Insurrection Prime in Destiny 2’s Scourge of the Past raid. The boss isn’t just a prop like previous raid bosses. He moves around the whole arena and harasses the players while they try to summon the tank for DPS.
There’s also a variety of engagement ranges that make the fight unique. You have snipers on the rooftops, berserker enemies you need to kill quickly at a close range, etc.
The DPS phase is also pretty unique. A good chunk of previous raid bosses you might just stand on a point with your entire team and shoot the boss in 1 spot the whole damage phase. But in this fight you need to split up into 3 groups of 2, and essentially play musical chairs and switch places often mid DPS phase.
Another great video! Thank you!
Ffx hd penance is my favorite boss. High endgame stats and gear are needed but aren't enough. You also need on point strategy to win. Really made you master all aspects of the game. I appreciated it.
I had an idea for a game where the usual enemies are 8-bit, but bosses/mini bosses are bitcrushed photos of real things (ex: a boss would be a sculpture/statue of him/her)
You should try the best designed boss ever: Gate from MMX6.
Trust me, you're gonna LOVE him!
oh fuck me i just heard his boss theme after reading that. that guy scarred me for life.
My favorite boss in a game ever is So Enter the Gungeon’s alternate final boss: The Lich. He’s hard, fun, and interesting. He even ties the Dark Soul-esk lore together well. The feeling you get after beating him with the gunslinger after all that effort is almost heavenly.
I love and hate that General Scales’ reaction to Andross is a perfect metaphor for how Star Fox hijacked the original IP.
I was actually worried he’d bring up mr freeze when he brought up Arkham so clayface getting the spotlight was nice
Lmao the fact that the end can actually die of old age is hilarious
One of my favorite boss fights ever is Roxas in Kingdom Hearts 2. The remix of Roxas' theme along with the fast paced one on one fight made for one hell of a fight. He kicked my ass too, actually had to cheese him to beat him 😂
cheese him?
@@drekaflugan Use petty tactics basically lol. For example spamming
I loved Star Fox Adventure for the Zelda like gameplay, but I definitely agree with your stance on it as far as the boss goes. There wasn't much foreshadowing for it except in hindsight... at least I think it was supposed to be Andross that put Krystal in the uh... crystal.
yo, could you talk about smt3's matador some time? the boss is such a skill wall. making sure that you have an understanding of the press turn system and the importance of buffs that the game has been trying to teach you this entire time and why that's its more than just a meme. It's one of my favourite fights in JRPGS because of this.
Moonsoon from Metal Gear Rising is Also a Skill Wall if you need a Action Game example
This is probably the only time someone actually talked about the fight with The End and not just the ability to end the fight via messing with the date and time settings
Persona footage is reminding me of the 8 or so hours I've played of 5, and the sadness I feel in my dad taking over the TV just because he's home.
A boss I really found well designed, was Matador from SMT Nocturne.
He was hard, but the game made sure that all resources were available for you to beat him before you even faced him. And while there is a slight luck factor in the fight, it generally isn't too devastating. In addition, while the boss can steamroll you if you aren't careful, it's only if you let the boss do it. A newbie will get pummeled, while a pro can breeze through the fight with ease.
Meanwhile one boss I didn't like was Minotaur from the followup game. Like Matador it is an early game roadblock, but unlike him, the luck-factor in this fight is ridiculous. Add to that that the game actively strips you of resources and has the battle system so blatantly in the boss' favor even so early in the game and it just leads to a boss that feels cheap. It doesn't matter if you are a pro or newbie with this boss. It's down to luck whether you beat him or not.
I think the Broodals are a fair bit better designed than Boom Boom or the Koopalings simply because they have quick-kill options. You can always end the "invincible" phase early, and force them to be vulnerable before their requisite "vulnerable" phase, which makes them more interesting to fight
Besides, the koopalings have been used and reused into oblivion. The Broodals are much more unique and much more different. Besides, as hired mercenaries, they also have much more reason to be fighting you than Bowser's own children, who we never once see in a cutscene begging their dad to let them take down the guy that's destroyed him 40 times in a row across 30 years and multiple parallel universes. Sure, sometimes the Koopalings directly help kidnap Peach, but for all we know Bowser's just pretending that part was planned
Every time footage from Sonic 06 was onscreen, I could feel my fingers starting to fall off.
I haven't even played the game and I know they're bad
I hope those other good bosses we all know that you mentioned are still at least brought up and not skimmed over in the future. I'd like to see your thoughts on them to be honest
I always loved those hidden boss battles. While not a strong narrative path, it's like a test of strength, skill and endurance to defeat this huge boss.
Beating the end by rage quitting the game and coming back to it later and seeing he is dead is one of the most WTF moments I ever witnessed in a game.
On my opnion a good boss fight must have: variation of attacks and patterns, and things you have to do to counter attack they, a well ballanced dificulty with the context (if you are on the beggining of the game they must be not so easy , but simple, and while you are growing up on the game , the bosses must to be more hard).
Good dialogues, polishid with no bugs or exploits,
And a great art direction with beutifull moments
My opnion.
I see where you are coming from with the mario formula, but I also think that formula is part of the charm of the mario series.
After a recent play through of StarFox Adventures I have to say that Andross's reveal isn't out of nowhere, but is handled very roughly. The reason I don't say it was poorly handled goes back to the development of StarFox Adventures when it was on the N64. Before Nintendo dumped the Gamecube on Rare and Microsoft bought them out, Rare had a fully functional beta for SFA. In this beta they had the almost completed version that included some notable things not present in the Gamecube version. These would include: A boss fight with General Scales that saw him being immune to most of your attacks (The only way you could beat him is by getting Falco to shoot a bomb at him), Krystal being playable/ companion after the halfway mark, and a coherent story that tied in with the lore of 64 (Yes their is more to 64's lore than Pigma betraying Peppy and James). All of these things would have been in the final release, but the prior two companies would leave Rare to rush the game.
I will agree that Andross messed the build up and design of a final boss,that's the rough part that borderlines poorly, but the game shows and allows the player to piece the strings together to make it seem less out of no where.
If you need to talk about an RPG boss fight, you NEED to talk about Demi-Fiend from Digital Devil Saga.
12:23 "Gets your paws off me you dirty ape!"
1:27
Today I learned that no Mario games worth discussing existed before 2006. Only modern references. Anything else forbidden.
I was thinking of Earthbound's bosses. Jeff's Rockets trivialize a lot of them, but there is one that will reflect the rocket damage. And Gigas is a favorite final boss fight. It felt so awesome when I, the player, was dealing massive damage.
this video is amazing.
i like what nintendo did in bowser’s fury. bowser has a health bar and you can basically attack bowser whenever you want while also avoiding attacks at the same time. its really fun and i hope nintendo keeps it up
LOL this man actually called the Pain villain "The Bees" 8:54
Ending with Save the Light music? Was not expecting that. :o
SU: Save the light music!! Was not expecting that!
It's pretty good...if a bit buggy.
MGS3's final fight is so fucking good I started getting misty eyed when you showed footage. THAT is narrative impact.
I think some Mario games nail the boss design more than others, for example Mario World, Mario Galaxy, and New Super Mario tend to have more variety (while still remaining pretty simple most of the time), which makes it more exciting to figure out what the next one is gonna be, the rock ghost boss from SMG 1 stands out to me as a really fun boss, for one.
(I wrote this before watching)
Yay more design doc ;)
Best narrative boss I ever met: Luca Blight from Suikoden 2. Luca is one of the rare "evil for the lulz" antagonists, and the way he goes down is amazingly good. Spoilers after "read more".
You have to night ambush him with a ton of archers, make three full teams to fight against him, end up with a duel with the protagonist, and he still gloats in his dying breath because it took "hundreds to take him down".
Unfortunately, he isn't the final boss. But I'm sure everyone that played Suikoden 2 consider him the main antagonist.
Yep, that is probably my favorite Rpg Boss Fight, after he dies Jowy kinda Takes his spot as the villain but he's not really that evil or threatening, Luca is also an example that not every good villain needs to be sympathetic
metal gear rising revengeance is a good example of an excellent boss fights
The problem with 2D Mario bosses is that Mario's limited moveset restricts the design space for boss fights. If Mario can't defeat the boss by jumping on top of the boss a few times then the boss needs to provide some other win condition for Mario to use, whether it's by providing a switch that Mario can press to defeat the boss or by granting Mario a powerup or shells that can damage the boss.
New Super Mario Bros. DS was actually really good on this front because the strategy needed to defeat the bosses changed ever so slightly between different encounters. The fights against Bowser require you to press a switch to defeat him, Bowser Jr. changes the strategy to beat him from jumping on his head to throwing shells at him, and each of the other 6 main bosses change the format in a significant way by limiting access to the vulnerability period, whether it's because the boss is flying, swimming/digging below the stage, or is too big to jump on normally.
8:30 "Countless games have boss fights that force you down a single path to pass them"
>Show "Zelda WW" Kalle Demos
You know this is actually the only boss with a secret way to end the fight instantly AND fits well with the narrative? It initially attacks the nearby Forest Haven, source of the mystical, life-giving Forest Water, while it's home, Forbidden Woods, Kalle Demos act as a parasite, poisoning the local water. So when the player pours the Forest Water into it's core flower, it will die instantly, exactly because it served as a sort of poison for the parasitic plant that was trying to destroy the source.
3:00
Oh boy, I'm pretty sure I know *exactly* what you're going to say about items #2 and 3. Couldn't have gotten more night-and-day examples, either.
love the first soundtrack from P5
Something that I think could be worth further discussion is the build up to a boss. There are a couple of examples I can think of where the boss itself is fine, but the content surrounding it doesn't properly prepare you for it. (coughManuscough)
Here's how Adventure could've been done right with Andross still in it :
Fox beats Andross, then returns to the Palace, only to find *General Scales* back up and ready to settle things *FOR REAL THIS TIME!*
And *he's* the *REAL* FINAL BOSS of the game!
each time you say boss i get mgs 3 snake eater flashbacks
Fighting game bosses are pretty polarizing entities when it comes to roles. If there is a story, then that boss serves as the narrative device, but I'm having a hard time agreeing that they are a test of skills, because they offer an UNwelcomed change of pace.
- They can read your inputs. Right off the bat, that's cheating. I get that they know how to counter me, but NOT what buttons I press.
- They can counter you at any point due to their 1-frame advantage. They can react faster than a human player.
- They have their own rules, whether be a time limit that you turned off, or a number of requires victories that you changed.
- They require extensive uses of the game's mecanics, such as only being vulnerable under a certain condition.
- They are often designed to be hard as nails.
* SNK games are the prime examples of unbelievably difficult bosses.
* Arcana Hearts 3 has a difficult secret boss, so hard that even the game reduces her health after a few tries.
* Galactus in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 sends 2 heralds at once to weaken you, before fighting you under a time limit.
* Tabuu in Smash Bros Brawl can OHKO with his ring attacks if you don't correctly time your sidestep, y'know, the evasive action nobody uses.
* End of Deathbringer from Battle Fantasia requires you to be a temporary Heated-Up state to damage him.
* Unlimited Hazama from BlazBlue Continuum Shift wrecks you with high-damaging combos (25 to 75%) and ends them with an Astral Heat.
* Seth from Street Fighter 4 "panics" in the second round and starts to spam his teleport move and his special grab.
* Gill from Street Fighter 3 has super moves with wide range... and can resurrect himself.
That being said, there are good bosses in fighting games... when they're not programmed to "munch your quarters" :P
By their design, fighting games don't really lend themselves to boss fights very well. Right now, the only great playing fighting game bosses I can think of are those in Smash Bros. I don't know if those really count because when you're not against other players or the CPU, Smash is essentially a modified Kirby game and those bosses are designed similarly.
@@DesignDoc Of the top of my head...
- Yami, from Tatsunoko vs Capcom, isn't as hard as the other VS Capcom bosses. The rules are also favorable to the players, such as healing in between rounds, including reviving KO characters.
- Shadow Labrys and Sho Minazuki, from Persona 4 Arena and Ultimax, are challenging enough, but the games are supposed to be for non-fighting game veterans, hence the easier difficulty.
- Master Hand and Crazy Hand are good.
- Dharkon and Galeem are manageable as well, depending on your line-up, skills and spirits. I will say though that the challenge of "defeating them both without being KOed" isn't something to take lightly ^^;
- Inferno from Soul Calibur 2 wasn't this bad. I will say that Soul Calibur bosses got harder as the sequels got made.
But yeah, fighting game bosses aren't just challenging CPU opponents, but actual bosses with their own set of gimmicks. Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive, Virtual Fighter, Guilty Gear, Injustice, name it, they all have AI that read and learn from you ^^;
MrJechgo I had to search online how to beat Tabuu, I had no idea sidestepping was even a thing.
Design Doc as far as the Smash bosses being modified Kirby bosses... yeah. That makes sense. If you ever do another one of these, some of my favorite final bosses come from Kirby, star dream and void termina both change up the gameplay for a multi-phased showdown of galactic proportions.
You showed the fight against the plant boss in TLoZ:WW during your segment of straight forward, but you can use some of the water from the Great Deku tree to one-shot it.
Just thought I'd point it out~
the megaman zero series has a lot of rough points in their designs, but the bosses in those games are easily some of my favorite. inticreates went on to continue showing their boss battle design mastery in other games too, and as a developer I greatly look up to them and only hope to be able to emulate a small amount of what makes their battles special.
Great video. Thanks for the spoiler warning too, as simple as that sounds I woulda been sad if MGS 3 got spoiled bc I'm bouta jump into 2.
One of my game’s bosses will be 2 Titans fought at once and share a health pool, if one boss takes damage, the other would too, this is due to the nature of the crystal inside the titan’s chests, one boss floats while the other runs into the player, they both have different behaviors.
I really thought Mr Freeze was gonna be on this instead of an Honorable mention, since this was about Arkham for so long
Seeing Yunalesca after recently getting a game over because of her had quite an effect on me...
Gruntilda was one of my hated yet favourite bosses of all time
Boss fights are 1 on 1 affairs.
Me and my 100 Pikmin on our way to fight a Spider wielding a Flamethrower, a Tesla coil, Mustard gas, and a Bluetooth Hose would like to disagree.
Can you do a list of the types of boss attacks? I kinda noticed some games have bosses with similar types of attacks like pounding/ using an object or weapon to try to splat/squash the player, shadow hint like the hit spot of an attack or falling debris,throwing stuff, shockwaves or any type of waves, attack pattern like zig zag, diagonal, orizontal, crossed lines, screen blinding, sending minions or other attacks in a pattern or straight line but leaving a free safe spot/space for the player, using a shield or armor, grow in size ( mostly if the boss is round) and rolling or bouncing around the arena barely leaving space for the player to flee, hide in a certain spot like a hole or cave until its their turn to attack, the player pulling a weapon or some part of the boss body like a tounge or chainball and letting go to hit the boss, the boss having a break or moment of weakness like getting stuck after striking while the boss tries to get it unstuck from the ground or wall( like claws, axe, or hammer, ) etc.
I kinda noticed that in Mario games , Kirby games, Spongebob, Balan Wonderworld, Kingdom Hearts, It takes Two, and Cuphead.
And can you give a little advice about how to make a boss battle unique, challenging but also fun and exciting?
Ultra Snatcher from A Hat in Time is one of my all time favorite bosses. There are a lot of reasons why, but I don't feel like explaining any of them lmao.
I feel like Andross could’ve worked in Adventures as a final phase to Scales, or a secret final boss after Scales that could only be unlocked by… doing a thing. I don’t know, I’ve never played it.
Can I thank you for not talking about the Mr Freeze fight for what would have been the millionth time on this website
you're missing information on the Joker bossfight.
he drugs both himself AND Batman, hoping they can be two monsters fighting in front of all of Gotham. but Batman resists and cures himself, not wanting to stoop to his level or lose his mind.
i guess that's a story reason for why the fight sucks lol it definitely could've been better regardless.
Yeah, I always found it absurd how many people insisting that the roided out Joker makes no sense. It makes perfect sense.
Not only has The Joker actually done the *exact same thing* in the past, but the entire plot has centered around The Joker and Titan. So of course the final boss is The Joker using Titan. Plus, his whole shtick is irreverent chaos. He isn't quite as "mind over matter" as people try to make him out to be when they complain about this fight. For crying out loud, no one ever seems to complain about when you fight him while he's not enhanced whatsoever in the Arkham games, as you go at him in a completely normal manor.
Meanwhile, the Clayface thing comes out of nowhere. His presence isn't alluded to at all. That felt just as jarring as the Andros fight in StarFox Adventures. Sure, it might make some sense in some perspective and hindsight, and the fight plays out pretty cool, but Clayface still comes out of nowhere. He's supposed to be the big twist, even though he had never appeared in either game before. (Not even Origins later on.) That's kind of a problem with the Arkham games. So many important plot details happen between games. (I mean, Barbara has already become Batgirl, then Oracle between the events of Origins and Asylum. That's a *huge* time gap.) The games just expect you to know who anyone and everyone is without introducing them, other than The Joker in Arkham Origins; the one villain everyone should know anyway. People constantly complained about the same thing with Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, how you're just expected to fill in the gaps yourself with knowledge of the previous games to understand who is who in this... "reboot" of sorts. But, for some reason, with Batman, it's somehow perfectly ok? (It even gets away with "Press F to pay respects.")
“The TWO FACE fight is pretty fun and works as a final test”