Boss Battles- The Needless Necessity

Plus XP Contributor Andrew Highton outlines the decline of Boss Battle in modern gaming.

Please note: This article contains spoilers for multiple games from the very beginning. You have been warned.

[Nicaragua]

Good article.

I was actually pondering this kind of thing myself recently as I have been playing Bayonetta during the PSN outage. I enjoyed the boss fights against Jeanne, who was basically your equal with a similar set of moves, because it felt more skillful than when fighting the massive bosses who required a pre-set attack pattern to beat. Likewise in GOW3 I found the Hercules battle to be more fun than any of the Titan or God fights which again just required a set attack pattern.

[colonel179]

Spoilers (I guess)

Uncharted 2 comes to mind. The game is highly enjoyable throughout but the final boss is a mess. In Uncharted 1, the final boss is just like you which it just requires to be cautious and hide, just like in real life might be.

Uncharted 2 on the other hand, changed it with a freaking guy that throws 10 grenades at you, even the blu avatar guys from the last levels are impossible to kill.

The best bosses are never the cheapest. Just look at Shadow of the Colossus, they managed to make the bosses challenging and they don't even atack you most of the time. Even Demon's Souls have great bosses and even when they are difficult, they are not cheap.

[jessupj]

I think the best boss battle for it's time is The End in MGS Snake Eater.

Hideo really played with my mind. For the first 5 minutes I kept second guessing if I was actually in a boss battle or not. It was completely unique.

[InspectorG]

I have enjoyed almost all of the bosses in MGS series. Especially The Boss, The End (actually almost all boss battles in MGS3 were great) and Psycho Mantis (just for the fact I have never encountered a boss battle like it before then)

[earbus]

Boss battles are a big turn off for me its too predictable.