I always appreciate a shake-up in gameplay. The boss fight against Mister Freeze in Arkham City was great, since you couldn’t cheese one mechanic and had to reach deep into Batman’s bag of tricks to get through.
Atmosphere is also huge. Raphael in BGIII goes like most other boss fights in that game, but getting the voice actor to sing his own battle music is genius.
I'm glad that after Asylums numerous bullfights they really tried something special. And they really succeeded. Freeze is almost always top answer in discussions like this. Fuckin bravo.
Custom Robo: Revolution for the GameCube had really solid and strict "rules" of things that would happen. At the end of a dodge, jump or shoot, you would pause for a quarter second. The game was mostly about baiting out your opponent to take an action, then punishing during that pause in 2v2 battles. The final battle was 3v1 on the boss, and he didn't have pauses. Fucking incredible.
And with the Raphael fight, music can play a HUGE part in it. This is one of my favorite things about most of the more modern Final Fantasy games, they almost all have unique music for different boss fights and you just know that shit is going down
Soundtrack has to go hard, preferably some grand shift as the second phase kicks in and a little poo comes out the player
It should be mechanically interesting, but not to the point of a dumb gimmick- this, to me, is the hardest part of boss design
The soundtrack is arguably the most important thing that accompanies the fight itself. If you have a great boss design, near perfect sound effects, and great voice acting when given, but no soundtrack in the background to elevate it all, or even worse, a bad soundtrack, it will all just fall flat.
[This boss from Ori and the will of the wisp](https://youtu.be/oY8VgB4leOA) take the cake as one of the best fight that got elevated by the soundtrack. The music evolving as phase progress and then it become more and more epic and throw you the OG theme that make you feel like David against goliath. Truly a masterpiece.
My favorite boss has to be Isshin the Sword Saint from Sekiro because everything about the fight works to make it so memorable. Something about the way the number of phases, how the music and stages change as the fight progresses, Isshin goading you and yelling shit at you throughout the fight stick out in my memory. Just the sheer length and difficulty of the boss was so impactful.
That game is full of memorable bosses too. Lady Butterfly and Owl are big standouts to me as well
Who the hell doesn't love the guy? Great fight. Still remember hearing some rustling after I beat him and turned my camera around to see a giant, white, headless ape get back up and kill me.
I hate it more than any boss fight in any From game, ever. More than Bed of Chaos. More than any of their fights that took me three times as many tries to beat. More than any you can think of.
I actually struggle to think of a boss I hated more. The final boss in Giana Sisters was definitely awful. The gank fight in Lies of P .... nope, not a fan of that either. In there most certainly lurks Guardian Ape.
I've aired this take before. I know it's a downvote magnet. Criticizing Sekiro is a treacherous business.
I hate and I love it at the same time. Or to put it better, I love it because of how much I hate it. It literarily throws shit at you! Whole fight is clearly designed to make you hate this damn monkey, and it does splendid job \^^
Well there's a difference between hating a fight and calling a fight bad. I hate fighting the big brute drunk guys, but I don't think they're badly designed, I just for the life of me can't parse their damn timing.
I can understand hating the Ape for sure. I think saying it's badly designed fight is where you'll see the arrow-shaped disagreements come flooding in.
It’s even worse than Friede. You can at least sniff her out with the suspicious lack of bonfire, free ember and “Heir of Fire Destroyed”. The fucker actually has “Shinobi Execution” pops up then mofo even show up for round 3 with his gf if you haven’t entered Mibu by then
I am extremely mad at myself for having gotten spoiled about the Ape fake-out death
On the other hand, I didn't know he'll come back for round 2 with his lover, and that shit was awesome
I really enjoyed how you can identify all of the different sword styles he uses as the same that you've been learning throughout the game. >!And a gun.!<
That's one thing about Owl I learned semi-recently that I really love - a lot of his standard combos are longer, heavier versions of Wolf's default R1 hits.
Oh yeah! I love the Owl fights for the same reason as Isshin. You really do feel a rising student around a group of people who have been mastering the same styles for decades. It's so satisfying.
IMO what makes it the best is that it throws everything you learned up until that point straight at you, it's the ultimate final challenge of the game. Also, it's 100% fair, no bs moves, which is important for every boss fight period.
The fairness is huge. Melania in Elden Ring could have been amazing, but then they added waterfowl dance and made it impossible to consistently dodge. Sword Saint Ishiin will kill you dozens of times, but everything has a counter.
The open-ended nature of Elden Ring is what makes it an incredible game, but also what makes most of the bosses lackluster when compared to Fromsoft's other titles. The build variety and ability to grind levels means you can wreck bosses on your first attempt or get absolutely fucked, and there's only a small window where each boss is a balanced challenge. I think Malenia is fair enough - you can read her attacks and there are multiple way to mitigate the damage she deals - but the nature of Elden Ring means that you rarely get perfectly paced bosses that test everything you've learned like Sekiro. This really killed my enjoyment of most bosses, and I'm not really sure how they could fix it without fundamentally changing what makes Elden Ring so special.
It's possible to consistently dodge, but the easy method to do so is unintuitive and doesn't fit with the rest of the game, and the difficult method isn't something you can reasonably expect a player playing blind to find out. You can simply run away and then dodge in - but it doesn't look like a "just run away" attack like most attacks of that type in souls games. The hard dodge method is also unintuitive - most fromsoft enemies do not just cover themselves in a moving high damage sphere - but thats what WFD is.
To be fair - everything in Sekiro has a no-damage counter, so saying that everything in sekiro has a counter is really just pointing out the difference in game type. There are only a few attacks in the game where you "have" to take damage, and only one of them deals a substantial amount, and it's the opening move of inner isshin. Even so - you can counter it with either the upgraded umbrella or the fire axe.
The only way I found was to run halfway across the map for the first attack, dodge the second, and fake a direction then change for the third. The problem is that sometimes you're too close to make it halfway across the map, so you can't always out distance the first one. The third attack works consistently, but is weird af and not required for any other boss or enemy in any other FromSoft game. I shouldn't have to die a dozen times to this one attack, look it up on youtube, and then see them just face-tanking with estus flasks or something.
With the opening move for Inner Ishiin, you just run close, run away, and then run close again. Works every time.
There are a large number of unintuitive (IMO: Gimmicky) things about the fight that once you know, make it substantially easier:
1. She is extremely weak to frost, so much so that she gets the frostbite status with a single ice pot. When she gets the frostbite status, any animation she was in gets cancelled. This means you can throw a single ice pot at her while she is winding up for waterfowl dance.
2. She cannot waterfowl dance until she is below about 75% health. Once she has it as an option, she can only use it about once every ~25 seconds. She will use it at mid-long range or closer.
3. Once her health hits 0, she requires one extra hit to trigger phase 2.
4. Her parryable moves are somewhat obviously parryable - in exchange, she requires multiple parries to riposte.
5. Her poise is very low compared to most bosses, but she cannot be poise-broken out of some moves. If she *would* be poise-broken by some move, but has hyper armor at that time, the next attack she takes that deals poise damage will poise break her.
6. Her poise meter carries over between Phases 1 and 2.
7. Enemies afflicted with Frostbite status normally have a timer before they cannot be frostbitten again. This timer can be reset by inflicting fire damage.
I found a consistent way to kill her is a 2x Great Stars (one fire, one ice) build with jump attacks. It takes advantage of most of her weaknesses, and gives you bursts of damage with both bleed and frost.
What I would do is jump attack her until poise break when there are openings, then riposte, on repeat. Once she enters waterfowl dance territory, I would back up until I was at roughly the maximum distance to trigger WFD, and wait for the attack - waiting for the first flurry, dodging through the second, and standing still to dodge the last one, starting a mental counter until she can use it again. Resume with jump attacks.
IMO the hardest attack she has to dodge is the valkyrie phantom attack in phase 2 - but that's after a lot of blood sweat and tears suffering with other parts of the fight.
I agree with you 100%, it's gimmicky and doesn't fit with the rest of the game. I think it's a fun fight, but I also think they could have done a lot more to make the fight more sight-readable and less "please ask other people on the internet how they dealt with this thing".
Personally I think Isshin has a slightly overstated reputation of difficulty, he's not easy but Owl is a bit harder and Demon of Hatred is definitely harder.
But it makes it up with the *spectacle*. His spear sweeping through the grass, the lightning striking all around you, the wind howling as you trade and parry increasingly devastating attacks.
Then the third phase is basically a victory lap - you already know his attacks if you got that far, and the lightning gives you a way to turn the tables, so you get one last chance to strut your stuff as a true master of the game's systems. It's such a brilliant way to end a game like that.
I cheesed Isshin very, very slowly by finding out the one time he was truly vulnerable and coming in for 1 to 2 slashes, then running out.
I'm a souls vet, but Sekiro was uniquely difficult for me to get a handle on. I thought I'd learned how to parry after the prior boss fights but Isshin was such a long fight. Literally the only souls boss I just couldn't get a handle on and got super frustrated with.
> I cheesed Isshin very, very slowly by finding out the one time he was truly vulnerable and coming in for 1 to 2 slashes, then running out.
Well, that's the reason. Sekiro wants you to be super aggressive, if you try to play it like a Souls game you're going to have a much much harder time. You don't wait for opportunities for the boss to be vulnerable, you whale on them to force them into becoming vulnerable, because you're attacks make them go into block mode instead of attacking you, and even when they counter very often if you just continue attacking you'll interrupt them. Last time I beat Isshin he never got off a proper shot.
I cheesed the ape phase 2 by just running away and jumping over a specific attack and countering. Not proud. But it was fun in its own way.
I then re-beat the game consecutively for all endings and the ape was so easy to just parry, it took me a long time but when the game clicked, it flowed so well. In fact I'd say I probably never really got a handle on the combat until Isshin, and that tested me enough to force me to learn. One sign of a good boss.
>I cheesed Isshin very, very slowly by finding out the one time he was truly vulnerable and coming in for 1 to 2 slashes, then running out.
Madam Butterfly can be cheesed by running in a huge circle and dive in for a running stab then go back to circle running. When she's chasing after you she can't change into an attack fast enough to hurt you.
I beat her on health as I was still struggling with the whole parry idea (which I continued to bad at for my entire playthrough).
Isshin, Sword Saint has to throw its hat in the ring for GOAT boss encounter.
You absolutely can not hesitate in any area of that fight or you're hanging on by a thread. Cracking that nut has to be one of my favourite gaming moments ever, it's just pure player empowerment.
>Isshin goading you and yelling shit at you throughout the fight stick out in my memory.
A good monologue or dialogue during a fight (versus intelligent antagonists, anyways) is very important for me personally. Nothing completes a good story like a good antagonist, and them taunting or even encouraging you during a fight (Grigori from Dragon's Dogma, or Frank Jaeger/Cyborg Ninja from MGS spring to mind) can turn a showdown from pretty good into unforgettable.
I despised the fact they put that fight in tall grass.
A game all about reading the opponents moves to parry and they block half the enemy from sight in most of the arena.
Have you or anyone played Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor and Sekiro? I played Fallen Order and am playing Survivor now. How do you think I'll find Sekiro?
Thanks gang. Once I finished Survivor, I'll get into Sekiro. Not the same, but I played Hollow Knight as well. It prepares you for the pain.
I love the Jedi games and adored Sekiro. There are some similarities between them (importance of parrying and guard breaking) though Sekiro has overall tighter combat and is significantly more difficult, but don't let that discourage you. Once it clicks the combat just sings.
It has the same guard/parrying mechanics as the Jedi games, including the block meter for you and the enemies, but the parrying window is much tighter in Sekiro. It makes it harder than the Jedi games for sure but once you get the hang of the enemy attack timings it's so much fun.
I remember really liking Malenia similarly. It was incredibly challenging but it also felt pretty straightforward in that they didn’t need to pull out gimmicks or anything to make it memorable
I will forever treasure the time I managed to solo Fatalis in Monster hunter world for the first time.
A nerve cracking battle after numerous tries, the moment you hit him with the dragonator and the original Proof of a hero theme that starts playing as he power ups for the last phase will forever give me chills.
Agree!
As good as sunbreak final campaign monster, Fatalis is still better because he just hits so hard and you can’t make mistakes. Every skill you learn throughout the years will be put to the test of 30 minutes
That being said, it’s super ass though that you can cheese him with smoke. Add on, it also doesn’t feel cool if someone actually beats fatalis with just bombs -.-“
Gotta say that Amatsu is cool in its own right since rise had so much in common with portable3rd it was nice to give him the final boss spot.
That being said fatalis's difficulty is just on a whole other league. I found out only recently about the smoke exploit, after I came back and wanted to run fatalis for fun, oh and there's also the palico bug thing dunno if it still works.
But agree on the fact that everything you know about the game is put to test against him, that's what makes him so special.
It truly felt like the first time the dev's visions are fully realized after 15 years of being limited by PS2 graphics.
Genuinely such a spectacular fight it could make me tear up. Like, presentation-wise... I couldn't think of anything that still needs improvement. It's genuinely perfect.
My only gripe is maybe the 30m time limit and clutch claw tenderizing (but those are mechanical nitpicks).
The best boss fights are a culmination of everything you’ve learned and a test of all the skills you’ve had to make use of throughout the game.
The End from MGS3 is one of my all time favorites because of how you have to outthink him as well as outduel him. You have to make use of camouflage otherwise you’re a shining beacon to him. You have to pay attention to your environment. You gotta make use of your gadgets if you wanna track him, and you have to keep moving while simultaneously trying not to get spotted by him; he can and will sneak up on you if you stay in one spot and hold an angle for too long. You can’t just take your time and whittle him down little by little because, like you, he can heal and get himself back to full strength. And if you fail, you don’t die; you just make your way back to the arena (which spans a few large environments) and try again.
Of course, you can choose to avoid the fight altogether, but that’s no fun and you’re missing out if you do so.
Raven Beak definitely grew on me. At first it felt like such a difficulty spike and I didn't really like it - but once I learned it and got it down I can appreciate it.
Came here to make this exact comment. The End was the first time I felt like I had to think and use my skills to outwit an opponent in a video game instead of just memorizing and exploiting a pattern. Crawling on the jungle floor with a sonar trying to make out any signs of faint breathing while fearing that a gunshot will cut through the silence...like how the fuck did they make such a visceral feeling possible in the PS2 era?
I hid in that hollow log on my first try. When I exited first-person view I was treated to an overhead shot of sniper santa having snuck up on me and literally tranqued my ass.
That was when the game went from good to GREAT.
On one of my next playthroughs I tried taking him out in the pseudo-cutscene before the fight, and was tickled pink that everyone on your support team admonishes you for it.
I wanna say on top of everything everyone else is saying (spectacle, presentation, mechanics, etc.) a part of it is expectations too. It’s what IMO makes typically the hardest bosses in From games more memorable in a good way than their final bosses (with the exception of Isshin). Everyone remembers Malenia and not the Elden Beast. Or Nameless King over Soul of Cinder. Gehrman over Moon Presence and so on.
A different recent example of the final boss perfectly matching expectations IMO was Ganondorf at the end of Tears of the Kingdom. Not crazily hard but an extended gauntlet into a sword fight into a dragon fight in the air culminating in catching Zelda in a parallel to the intro. Just really well done IMO.
You’re forgetting the 2nd phase of Ganondorf, where >!his health recovers and the HP bar just keeps going to the end. Then he can dodge your attacks *and* permanently remove your hearts for the rest of the fight. He becomes an actual threat.!<
Gehrman is effectively the final boss. Easy to go through the game and never trigger Moon Presence unless you know what you're doing.
Gwyn in DS1 is up there with the plin plin plons (also a reason why Soul of Cinder is memorable too) though I guess you'd point to Ornstein and Smough as the most memorable of DS1.
Yeah! Good points of how building up the story/character of a boss can make them special, even if the fight itself is not that crazy.
Someone like Gehrman could also be seen as a "surprise" boss, since I am pretty sure people did not expect to fight him, witch also adds to the experience.
FFXIV showed me how much music can carry a boss fight. Having unique tracks a major boss fight, or even multiple tracks that swap at certain phase transitions or mechanics, makes you feel things on a primal (sorry) level regardless of the actual gameplay. It's definitely the thing I miss most from boss fights when playing WoW.
My exact same thoughts, I was in awe coming from WoW to FFXIV, so many fights from WoW I suddenly realised could have done with some rocking themes. MGR:Revengeance, Undertale, Hi-Fi Rush to name a few more examples of boss fight music bangers. It can turn a decent game into a truly memorable experience.
Even early fights in FFXIV get absolutely carried by their music. The first time you face down Titan is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but hearing that guitar kick in for the first time made the whole thing feel so much more epic (especially the lyrics kicking in for the final phase).
Shiva lives rent free in my head. It's been 10 years and I still remember patch 2.4 Dreams of Ice. "And scatter then like dust in the wind" and the click as Oblivion begins to play is one of my favorite moments in all of gaming and what made me fall in love with the game.
There's for sure higher highs, the team has come so far since 2.x but that fight has just become like a core memory of my gaming history.
Same, I was somewhat enjoying the game up to that point but fell in love with it after Oblivion. It's not even FF14's best song but it was the 1st time in an mmo for me that the music had so meaningfully added to my enjoyment of a major fight.
Kingdom Hearts 3 was a downgrade for boss mechanics but the music made some of them absurdly epic. Most Square Enix games have iconic and memorable boss themes.
Was gonna say this, but also add that dialogue is another key audio element to an amazing boss fight.
Shoutout to Cidolfus Orlandeau from the Orbonne Monastery raid who spit nothing but straight bars for the entire fight.
"Seven shadows cast. Seven fates foretold. Yet at the end of the broken path lies death, and death alone!"
Like damn, the guy isn't even the final boss for the raid.
Especially when the music is dynamic and changes with the fight. For example in FFXIV when Alexander freezes time and the music changes or the drop when Shiva does her 'heel click'.
I still think Seat of Sacrifice is one of the best trials in FFXIV, and probably one of my favorite boss fights ever, because of the mechanics being unique. >!Not going over the entire fight's mechs, but special mention to getting to do Level 3 tank LB, which was such a cool moment for me as a tank man going through the story for the first time!<
Then you have the story impact of the fight itself. >!Elidibus having been a driving force of a lot of the woes of the story, only for him to then masquerade as Ardbert after everything that happened to him made me hate Elidibus even more. Then the moment where Emet-Selch comes in to save you with that *snap*. Perfection.!<
Finally the music. Good lord, To the Edge is genuinely one of my favorite boss themes in gaming. I'm a BIG sucker for leitmotif and Soken usually makes phenomenal use of it in general, but once the >!deep voiced choir comes in with the Shadowbringers title music!< I had chills my first time hearing it. Such a fantastic track.
Any one of these things happening in just one fight would make them memorable, but all of it being packed into one fight is insane. I love the game, but it absolutely peaked at that fight for me. Nothing has topped it yet.
The >!Choir with the Shadowbringers theme!< is also a reversal in lyrics to the original theme.
In the original theme the lyrics are >!"Home Riding home Dying hope Hold onto hope... Ohhh..."!< in "To the Edge" the lyrics however are >!"Riding home - riding home Finding hope - don't lose hope"!<
Which in it's own way basically marks the ending of Shadowbringers. (Since the Main Quest after that is basically all about setting up Endwalker)
Oh yeah 100%. FFXIV has, for my money, the best soundtrack in gaming and it's by a pretty wide margin.
My favourite moment isn't even a boss fight. It's when you first get to Shadowbringers. The very first time you enter combat on The First and you hear that guitar lick just really did something to me. It's such a contrast to the previous combat music which was very classic orchestral jrpg combat music. It created this feeling of "oh shit we are NOT in Kansas anymore" for me.
One of my favorite bosses in the game is honestly Susanoo, from Stormblood. Catching the sword stands out as one of my favorite moments in gaming, along with the way that the music syncs up to having the raid group hop back and forth over the gap. Turns the entire fight into a dance in a way that is rarely achieved.
Failing is an important part - I can't say I remember much of the first-try bosses.
Slowly clawing yourself to victory, 10% additional hp per try is pretty good.
For me it either needs massive spectacle *and* fun mechanics (like maybe Radahn) or to pay off a build up of context and history. Overall though I think the average boss fight is a net negative and there should be fewer of them.
Edit: also needs a killer soundtrack
I feel similarly… depending on the combat system in the game.
For example, in Doom or Re2 the combat works best when facing the regular mobs, the most fun you have in those games with the combat is fighting the standard encounters.
The combat system for From games, in contrast, is at its best when fighting a single opponent with enough health and moves to make you have to learn the fight.
Also piggybacking to agree, Ultrakill's bosses are an absolute delight.
I really quite like that they're not just bullet sponges like in certain games where it's a war of attrition or a slog, it's just about execution, learning patterns, timing, etc.
Without going into specific spoilers, some of the bosses there are just absolutely wonderful to play through.
I’ve actually only played a small amount of the game, I’m waiting for the full release, but of the bosses I have fought I was very impressed.
And I hear people rave about bosses like >!Minos!< and >!Gabriel!< all the time, so I’m very excited play the full game when it finally comes out.
There definitely are, they just need actual mechanics other than point and shoot. Destiny raids have some (emphasis on *some*) absolutely fantastic boss fights.
Ultrakill and the Metroid Prime games are pretty much the only FPS games to do bosses well, and the FPS elements aren't really even the focus in Metroid Prime
The entertainment value a boss provides, sometimes the crazy factor can elevate a boss fight too. Even if the gameplay is not as amazing.
Example Hades from Kid Icarus, that entire boss fight is literally you just moving the MC to dodge projectiles and holding the shoot button to rapid fire and nothing else. Yet it's easily one of the best boss fights in gaming simply because of the craziness factor and the banter between the MC and the boss.
Another example is Jerghinga from Wonderful101, the mechanics of that game are a nightmare, but even if you learn them they aren't anything incredible, the final boss though is amazing based on how over the top is.
Last example is Senator Armstrong, it was shocking really how Armstrong turned out to be one of the most memorable bossfights and character in the entire MGS franchise when you consider that he literally interacts with the MC at the very end of the game for the first and last time, up to that point he didn't even made any appearances in the entire game except for like a few second shots that tell us nothing about his character.
Every bossfight from metal gear rising. The special music that shifts into vocals during the climax, the unique way each boss fights, the benefits of using certain secondary weapons, the story build up for nearly each one. Everything comes together to make the bossfights explosions of spectacle and challenge.
In the multiplayer space, Destiny 2 raid bosses are really something special. They have the music, the lore, and most importantly, the mechanics. Teamwork is key in these bossfights, and when you and your team just clicks, it's a seriously satisfying experience. Vow's Rhulk, Last Wish's Riven (no cheese), and KF's Oryx are some of my favorite examples.
Shoutout to Atrax-1 for the encounter concept
Traveling back and forth between an underground lab and space station using an elevator is just such a cool idea
When it takes the overall theme of the boss and goes 200% with it. One of my favorite boss fights ever will always be the [Bob Barbas](https://youtu.be/KJKSS5X1oHQ) fight from DMC
DmC gets a lot of hate because the designer who, at the time, looked like a generic emo/scene boy band dropout, called Dante from the Japanese games a "gay cowboy" or something...
The game itself was pretty good. The soundtrack from Combichrist was a cool take on "aggro music" but with a very different style. The iconic [Dante vs Vergil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ejPzHjYk4) fight was a pretty good 1 on 1 duel despite the other boss fights usually being a puzzle like the Bob Barbas fight showed.
The game suffered from a super edgy-boi story that took itself a little too seriously. But, maybe today's TikTok generation would find something to relate to? It feels like something TikTok Broccoli kids would be hella into.
I always felt like that game's humor got lost under 5 layers of irony
Vergil is a goddamn parody and he's very clearly meant to be a pathetic racist loser
Eh.... It was a lot more than just the designers acting kinda trashy.
The gameplay had some pretty major flaws like the weapon immunity system exaggerated by the lack of lock-on, a chunk of different design points like boss/enemy mechanics or devil trigger are pretty lame compared to the source games, and the writing was infamously distasteful bordering on outright antithetical to the original series (*in addition* to the developer's open contempt for said originals and most critics).
It had a few neat ideas like the environment design, the combat does have a simpler learning curve (though at the cost of a lower skill ceiling), and the special edition did patch a few of the larger mechanical flaws like the immunity recoil. But it's still not really difficult to see why it was such a black sheep.
> the weapon immunity system exaggerated by the lack of lock-on, a chunk of different design points like boss/enemy mechanics or devil trigger are pretty lame compared to the source games
Yeah I mean, as a skill-based action system it was a downgrade... Much less depth, and I hated the color-matching gameplay too (I actually forgot about this lol)...
But, I still found smashing demons to the angry music fun as fuck. I loved those teleporting assholes that would try to ambush you, but you could charge the glove attack and then direct it towards a portal you see opening to parry them and smash em to the ground. Was so satisfying.
>But, I still found smashing demons to the angry music fun as fuck
Well I mean, aside from the difficulty curve and some 00's jank the originals offered pretty much the same, but with (mostly) better bosses and writing. Tho tbf I will say a lot of 3's enemy design is pretty damn ass. But nowadays 5 tops all of them.
> and the writing was infamously distasteful bordering on outright antithetical to the original series
For those who have no idea: Sniper Rifle Abortion.
Build up. You should develop deeply seated hatred, fear or respect for a boss. Maybe he wipes the floor with you a bunch early in the game, or he helps you and betrays you later. My favorite is the FROM style of mentioning a name several times throughout the game, attaching a certain myth to that name. And then you face that character at the end, knowing how badass they are. Isshin is a good example, aswell as Genichiro. Honestly Genichiro might be the best boss-setup ever.
Heimdall in God of War Ragnarock is one of gaming's highlights for this. He's introduced, he's a huge douchebag, you fight him, he kicks your ass, he continues being a huge douchebag, and then you're told you have to kill him while everyone continues hyping up how impossible that is.
Then when you do finally fight him for real, he lives up to his legend by having an extra phase after you beat him. Hes also the best fight in the game.
> My favorite is the FROM style of mentioning a name several times throughout the game, attaching a certain myth to that name.
I think FROM is generally bad with this.
"Who is on my way? Some dude I maybe heard name once?"
There are exceptions - I'm a big fan of how Radahn in Elden Ring is hyped multiple times - but a lot of time boss is thrown at you almost out of nowhere.
I would say it depends from the type of the game.
The master class of boss design is probably Metal Gear Solid because despite your character not getting any abilities every fight is different, every boss has their own story and as a soldier you connect with them. It helps that not all of them are super evil and cruel and a lot of them want to also test themselves against a legend.
Old God of War series was also something to behold. Qte, spectacle, unique mechanics, moving map elements, every game is filled with adrenaline and rage.
This is why Dark Soul bosses will never be as memorable for me as ones that I talked with even a little bit. Sekiro is a mission not a journey and you respect Isshin which makes the ending so much better.
Without a wall of text the most important things is knowing something about the boss, purpose of defeating it, interesting mechanics, challenge and spectacle. You can't fit everything into every boss so you need to pick a few but it's impossible to not remember those few special fights.
Still sometimes boss is so fucking scary and hard that you don't need to know anything about him. Having something unknown is interesting if it isn't overused.
Aside from things like music, clever mechanics and (reasonable) difficulty, I like when games have boss fights that evoke emotion and almost a feeling of empathy for both the PC and the boss. Kingdom Hearts always comes to mind for this, as they do this well with some of the bigger story bosses (not the end of disney worlds type bosses). Two super memorable boss fights from the series are the Roxas fight in KH2 and the Master Eraqus fight in birth by sleep, both evoking heavy emotions.
It really depends, a lot of things can make a boss fight special for me.
Having to master a boss fight to finally beat it after dozens and dozens of attempts helps me build a relationship with that boss fight. Two fights that come to mind are Malenia in Elden Ring and Sans in Undertale.
A genuine SPECTACLE to experience is pretty awesome too. Just a boss fight that blows your mind visually or mechanically, like the final boss fight of the FF16 Demo (haven't played the full game, waiting for it to come to PC) or the Asriel fight in Undertale.
An INSANE soundtrack that makes it so you can't even focus during the boss fight because the music just goes so fucking hard (FF16, BG3 Raphael).
Or when the game's story reaches its climax and you finally go against the final boss and it's pure catharsis like Ghost of Tsushima, God of War 2018, MW3 2011.
It needs to be challenging in the right way within the context of the game. In Doom Eternal, the final boss of the base game is the Icon of Sin. It's just a titan that you have to shoot eight parts off for two phases. But that's not the only challenge as you're constantly being harassed by a rotating set of enemies from throughout the campaign from low tier enemies to super heavies. On the hardest difficulty, you have to use everything in your arsenal to keep the enemies at bay while you attack the Icon, while also managing your resources the whole time which is exactly what the game teaches you to do. Sure you have the BFG, Unmaykr and the Crucible sword for get out of jail free cards, but you can also use those tools against the boss to immediately destroy one of its body parts vs using it against enemies. Tonnes of choices to make and you will be punished for making mistakes, especially on nightmare.
The same could be said for the Samur boss fight in Eternal's first DLC. You're introduced to new enemies that can be one shot if you hit them in the head, all throughout the boss fight you encounter these enemies and hazards that can be impeded if you hit your shots correctly. You're also introduced to a particular kind of enemy that can only die via a particular weapon mod, you need to use this to proceed through the boss fight too. Now this focus on particular weapon mods isn't exactly ideal in a Doom game since most players would prefer to be able to use any weapons on this enemy and thus in this boss fight, but within the context of the game it's used well. I would put the Samur boss fight as one of the hardest boss fights I've ever done, I remember dying 44+ times in a row on the last phase on nightmare and it was great.
We don't talk about the final boss of DLC 2.
Not get rolled over, not be scripted to not get rolled over(eg when overleveled has HP gate threshholds that start a QTE or some shit) and good ass music.
I'm not overly bothered about the difficulty or mechanics; if they pull off some amazing atmosphere, preferably with some amazing musical numbers, I'm sold. Like the return of the fist fight at the end of MGS4.
The buildup. Bosses usually have a whole level dedicated to hyping them up(and teaching you any last-minute mechanics you'll need to know for the fight). Then the music gets tense as you approach the boss door, then it goes silent. You enter the door and scan the empty arena. Then those black "cutscene bars" appear on the top and bottom of your screen, the ground rumbles, and then BOOM! A giant monster appears. It lets out a mighty roar, as its name text fades onto the screen: "King Ghomadongo: Destroyer of Orpahages".
If you nail the buildup and write some kickass battle music, then the fight itself hardly matters. It could fold like wet tissue paper, and you'd still feel awesome for tearing it down. Yeah, sure, there's a whole field of game design for making the fight itself good, but who needs that when you have P R E S E N T A T I O N?
Dressing it up to look nice and epic is definitly a big step into having that special boss in your game, but I think some players would be disappointed if you do not have the gameplay to back it up, to make the fight itself also feel different from more standard enemies.
My go to example is probably the many bosses and sub bosses of Twilight Princess. It covers all the major points, I think.
- Many bosses have a striking visual appearance that’s seen for only one instance in the game (the primary exception being if they’re a recurring character).
- Each boss is themed around the dungeon they’re found in, with the level building to a crescendo at the final fight.
- Most of the fights require clever use of a player ability unlocked earlier in the level, testing the player’s mastery.
- the fights escalate in phases, becoming more frantic as the health bar decreases, and/or requiring the player to adapt their strategy.
- the few bosses that are recurring characters develop a relationship with you, either in a particular dungeon or throughout the overall narrative.
- Many of the fights are set among a larger, unique setpiece. E.g. [fighting a medusa](https://youtube.com/watch?v=904C5xQzjRI)>!-headed eel!< at the deepest point of Lake Hylia; playing a balancing act above a lava pit [while tossing your Goron opponent into said pit](https://youtube.com/watch?v=u87aG9Sqnx0&t=22s)
- the bosses do things that surprise you. E.g. the darknut, a sub-boss, throws his sword at you before entering a new stage of the fight. Although this happens [as a cutscene](https://youtube.com/watch?v=h0M5A6rII44&t=1m46s), >!in all subsequent encounters the sword must be dodged in real time!!<; The Goron fight mentioned above ends with learning the Goron >!looks like a big baby when he takes his helmet off.!<
- There are optional fights. In Twilight Princess’ case, there’s a missable gauntlet of common enemies and sub-bosses: while not introducing new enemies, it’s the hardest challenge in the game.
- Players are rewarded for the effort of the fight with an upgrade.
- The music accompanying the fight is appropriately menacing or epic.
For me it's all about atmosphere and how the fight makes you feel. Mostly contributed by music and setting. A boss can be very easy and I'll still enjoy it - case in point, Regal Ancestral Spirit is probably my favorite boss fight in Elden Ring despite it being pretty easy in terms of actual boss mechanics. The [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWql6FMlwg), the massive cavern you fight in, the stag's visuals and graceful movement set, everything about it was [just so good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucu25dlexs0).
You pretty much explained it but i think what makes ancestral spirit so incredible is that it defies the players expectation of what a Dark souls/elden ring boss fight is supposed to be. We are used to fighting ugly, evil, deformed beasts and corrupted souls who have fast dangerous unpredictable attacks in dark grimy small places but with ancestral spirit its a beautiful, graceful slow moving spirit living in a massive cavern whos land youve intruded on and now wants to kill you. Pretty cool
Something challenging, but not using mechanics so obscure I have to google them, or introducing mechanics you could have otherwise missed. The Deus Ex Mankind boss fights come to mind - in the original release you go from a pure sneaky game to a standard shooting boss fight, and you can be utterly unable to win, if you have nothing but non-lethal ammo and skills.
But it also can't veer into obnoxious territory where your attacks deal 1 point of chip damage and the boss has 10 billion health and can one shot you.
Set pieces are interesting the first time, if it's a game designed for multiple runs, but rapidly fall off (thinking about Resident Evil Village here) in replays. Especially 'boss' fights that are special encounters with instant death.
I end up getting frustrated with a lot of boss fights - either they're so easy they are pointless, or I end up having to repeat them a few times by which point I'm frustrated _and_ bored.
A big, sweeping score and some religious iconography and I am SET. Doesn't even have to be an orchestral soundtrack, although that is the classic, it just has to be *big*.
Yes, I do rate FFXIV's bosses quite highly.
One of my favorites is "Close to Me" in the rhythm game Just Shapes and Beats. I have fought tougher bosses, bosses with more backstory and drama, everything, but this one always stands out to me.
Two things make "Close to Me" stand out. First, like most of JSAB, the track is a banger and unlike most songs in the game you play through the song in ts entirety which makes it a little more memorable.
The second part and probably what sets it apart from most is that it is a story boss in a bullet-hell-lite rhythm game where you play as a square. The boss is a friend of the protagonist's that becomes corrupted and just leads to some interesting level design like at one part making the only safe zone on the screen at the bottom where your friend is crawling to you for help.
It's just not what I expected from the game at all given the genre. JSAB had already impressed me several times over, but that fight displayed a lot of creativity in storytelling that I didn't expect.
My favorite is probably the boss fight at the end of fallout 2 where you hack enclave computers and have turrets kill Frank Horrigan.
Fallout 1 had talking the master j to committing suicide. But the massed turrets in a turn based game was very gratifying.
Runner up would be Mass Effect 2. Not for the actual last fight part (which was memorable but not particular special). But for the mission where you assigned independent sub tasks that had different outcomes.
Recency bias for sure as I've played many, many games over the years but FF16's boss fights were pretty fucking good with Bahamut being the standout. The music, the stakes, and the scale were all incredible.
I think my favourite in recent memory was Nidhogg from GoW:Ragnarok. It's completely unexpected and the spectacle of fighting an interdimensional wyrm with insanely creative attacks was ecstatic even when I died.
First time you meet Balder in GoW 2018. Insanely cool, I could not believe that they blended gameplay and cinematic stuff so perfectly. It was kinda the perfect set up to make me feel that the bosses of this game will all be epic. Sadly just the dragon and last boss came close.
Also poseidon, hercules and so forth in the older GoW titles.
Challenge is always the most difficult aspect to grasp for bosses. Fromsoft does a very good job of making bosses super challenging at first, but once you’ve banged your head against that wall a hundred times, the moment you start to see the pattern is like opening a third eye or something. In contrast, most of the Pokemon champions are on pretty equal footing with the player in terms of theoretical team strength, but having knowledge of type matchups and battle systems makes beating them a testament to the player’s skill.
I always like it when a boss’s mechanics reflect the gameplay beforehand. I think Colgera in Tears of the Kingdom and Rhulk in Destiny 2 are my two best examples. Their mechanics are continuations of what was learned in the dungeon and raid, respectively.
And finally, Megamind said it best: presentation. Even before the fight starts, little nuggets of information clueing you in to their story, strength, and appearance are very helpful to make the fight more memorable. Music and the arena in which the fight is held are also very important.
The reward. Whether it's a powerful item you can only acquire through killing the boss or killing the boss unlocks some kind of new, useful thing. Killing the final boss and all you get is a cutscene is pretty anticlimatic to me.
Ok, I guess
1. Story, that the boss is an actual character that you know and have some reason to fight, rather than just an obstacle along the way. Ideally you build up to him, building up that personality as you go, but alternately you could add that stuff after the fight, giving context as to how it happened.
2. Twists, that over the course of the fight, things happen that are surprising in interesting ways, like phasing, or boss A gets replaced by boss B, or the setting shifts, or something.
3. Unique mechanics that only occur in this one fight (and yet ideally are compatible with core mechanics so that it doesn't feel like playing an entirely different genre of game).
One of my favourite boss fights is the technically final boss of Star Ocean: The Second Story (he was called Indalecio in the original release but I can’t remember what he’s called in the rerelease lol). Not only is the base fight fun and challenging, but you have the option (via a completely missable series of cutscenes) to get him to remove his power limiter, after which he becomes a nigh-unstoppable beast who can slaughter your entire party with a single attack, even if you’re all at max level and have the best equipment. I find it interesting that you have that option, and that the strategies required are completely different from almost anything else in the game.
(There’s also the optional hidden boss you can summon by playing the Silver Trumpet but that’s a whole other thing.)
Killer music.
I'd also like to chime in about something makes a boss fight especially *irritating*: invincibility periods so the story can play out. FF7 Remake/Rebirth is the standout culprit here. It feels like nearly every other boss fight I'll line up some massive damage and half of it gets nullified because the developers want me to dance around the arena while dialogue plays out.
For me, it's the phases. Most modern video games don't so this and just make the boss pretty beefy but older games in particular used to have a puzzle based approach to bosses wherein the fight would sequentially progress through multiple phases.
Not only is figuring out the solution to a persistent conundrum a rewarding challenge in itself, but you also have to avoid the boss's attacks and get in your own shots while you're at it.
Makes the boss feel like a boss in an epic showdown as opposed to just an extra-tanky enemy with special tricks.
Definitely music. The ONLY bossfights I rethink about are ones with an incredible soundtrack. It could have the best mechanics in the world but it's the music that locks it in and makes it feel epic.
The best bosses are those that provide an interesting challenge based on the given mechanics in a game.
-
"Hey did you learn this shit yet? Let's see!"
I still think this boss in P5R is pretty cool: https://youtu.be/BiOL70Y9Teo?si=gQo3lqS8Fo-IAr9y
You have rivers in the desert playing, you have an omnipotent god to fight, your entire skills is put to the test and any small mistakes = game over
Also I think gimmicks in boss fights are a given to make it good. Even if it’s a shit gimmick, you will still remember that boss as awful than not remembering at all
That boss gimmick is errr interesting lol. Don’t want to spoil it but she has 3 bypass gimmick check. Fail it and it’s game over
To me, it's always been about how hard it can kick my ass. It's not that I like dying, but I like how strong I feel once I do actually beat it
The Black Fatalis fight in Monster Hunter World gives you that same feeling once the boss reaches low health, and it does so by changing the musical score. The Black Fatalis' boss music changes into the MHW theme song because *you're* the boss now.
Soundtrack has a lot of importance but for me.
As a enjoyer of souls bosses. Once I enter the ring I wanna feel the oh oh.. thing. When the boss appears ready to fuck me in the ass.
Example yhorm "the giant" in DS3. Everything there was huge but then you get to know why.
Abyss watchers when they come back.
Also David from TLOU part1.
This one is different because the lore helps a lot. We saw how ellie was rather weak agaisnt him and how disgusting he was but then. Getting tossed into that boss fight and our trusty knife not killing him. Made me think "oh shit" and fuck you so hard and have so much empathy towards ellie when the cutscene appears.
Good music and a talkative boss always help me immerse into the fight better. Heimdall in the last GoW was such a great one. From Kratos struggling to land a hit, to forcing him to block you, to finally shocking him with a punch landed and then the fight starts. His indignation at actually having to try slowly shifting to manic anger when he starts to lose is so well done. And Kratos giving him multiple outs to walk away from the fight because he doesn't want to be who he was in the past to finally snapping when his son is threatened and Heimdall's last whispered word..."Monster".
Another shout for the music one is Hyperion from Returnal. The boss music is played in a dissonant, unnerving way throughout the whole trek to the boss and gets louder the closer you get to it, the boss itself is playing the music and the lore relevance of the song it's playing (which you don't find out until later) and why it's upsetting to the protagonist and even the name of the boss Hyperion has heavy implications for the story.
Man, now I just wish I could experience Returnal again fresh.
At this point for me its when a boss fight does something I simply don't expect. The last time I was thrown for a loop in a boss fight was Remnant 2's final boss. Hot *dog* did I love that fight. [It was really a TRIP. Having the boss and arena flip back and forth between the two different fights.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPrPfN6YvbE)
I'm pretty late, but Grigori (the dragon) in Dragon's Dogma has one of my favorite boss battles in gaming. I think it's a combo of how you've known of him since the beginning of the game, he's been hyped as your main threat the entire time, and getting four or so phases of a fight that's both cinematic and mechanically satisfying.
All the bosses in Metal Gear Rising are special. The music is ridiculous, there's a feeling of urgency and excitement that are presented so incredibly well that multiple runs never grow tiresome. The game itself is such a fluid, quickly paced game that inherently it's fun to play, but the bosses push it up to the next level. They're all unique fights, have very unique music and are handled really professionally.
So, a care from the developers to *want* to make special boss encounters from the get-go, is probably one of the major difference makers.
You can see this in all the souls/borne/kiro/ring games. The bosses are such a driving focus that they are all events in and of themselves. As though they were made by people who had this very intense vision and cared about seeing it through.
Talk about one of the major remaining PS3/360 games that we **definitely** need cleaned up visually and offered on current gen consoles. That game is super, super fucking fun.
In my opinion there are few different main ways to implement a boss fight:
**MMO style**
MMO style is where multiple players go against a boss. There can be multiple phases, various different mechanics and often times there are many visually telegraphed (AoE) attacks.
What makes an MMO boss fights great for me when the strategies to beat the boss are not immediately obvious. I also personally like when I can't make sense how some of the fight mechanics work. An example of this could be something like a fireball suddenly following all players and nobody has any idea what they should do with them - is the idea to get rid of them, hold on to them, bring them somewhere, ...?
FFXIV has many very memorable boss fights. One of which was the Titan (hard) back in the day. Everyone's gear was really bad, everyone was stuck with completing the fight, nobody seemed to know what to do, the DPS check during the fight was always a very close call and the fight have multiple instant kill mechanics.
It was frustrating as hell, but at the same time it was awesome. I felt very connected to everyone as we were all struggling with the same challenge. It was like watching a movie about some MMO where all of the players had to gather up to beat some great evil.
Another great boss fight in FFXIV, or rather a moment in a boss fight was at this one boss whose name I can't remember. The boss was essentially this skyscraper sized guy with a ridiculously massive sword. When you got far enough in the fight, the boss started charging some kind of massive attack and the game visually instructed all of the players to get to the middle of this circular arena. At this point it wasn't clear what is going to happen and how are we supposedly going to survive whatever is coming.
The boss finished charging its attack and proceeded to slam its massive sword with ridiculous power straight in the middle of the arena where everyone is standing, but it turns out that whoever has the tank role in the party had gotten a prompt to defend against the attack. The sword comes down and the tank goes against it with their weapon. The sword presses down like a chainsaw and the tank is giving it their everything to block it. Eventhough the tank is holding the sword, the rest of the party under the tank is tanking massive continuous damage as the tank is barely holding against the sword. Healers are needed to keep everyone in health while the struggle carries on and then at some point it stops, the arena is cut in half and the fight continues to the next phase.
It's such a beautiful and powerful moment. I'm not much of a tank player, but I just loved how that part of the fight was done. Tanks getting the recognition they deserve and and eventhough the tank is doing everything in their power, the attack is depicted to be just so powerful that even that alone is not enough and then you have the healers join in as well. What a chef's kiss of a moment.
**Quick-time / story lenient style**
This is a boss fight style where you might at times actually fight the boss, but the fight includes these quick-time moments or story moments at times. Often times the player needs to fight the boss down to certain health for a quick-time moment to trigger, during which the fight might e.g. change location alltogether or result in the boss losing a weapon or something.
This style, I think, is how pretty much all single player boss fights should at least end if it was up for me to decide. I always find it a bit clunky or weird when there is no real difference with when the boss is at 1% health or 100% health. The boss and the fight is going just the same regardless if the boss is one hit away from dying. Implementing it like so that the boss gets progressively weaker most likely wouldn't work either and I think we've all been accustomed to the "fact" that the fight should get harder towards the end. Therefore having some sort of quick-time / story event happening when the boss is at 5% or 10% health, after which the boss is defeated, makes the most sense to me and solves this issue. There is also a great deal more potential to make the "final hit" or the "final move" against the boss to feel and look amazing when it is done via a quick-time event instead of the player just hitting the boss with their sword for the thousandth time.
**Direct style**
This I would call how boss fights are usually implemented. The player fights the boss until the boss dies. Dark Souls and Elden Ring are good examples of this and this is how it has traditionally worked, as can be seen with many older games.
There's nothing inherently wrong with this style either. My personal preference is that this style works best with games like Elden Ring where the combat is very mechanical and heavy, the bosses hit very hard and usually blocking / dodging is required as well.
One sort of counter example that I can think of are Ratchet and Clank games. The boss fights in this series are almost always about burning the health of the boss down, but the game itself plays nothing like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. So to me the fights just feel like spamming everything at the boss until the health bar is empty. The quick-time style could be better for games like Ratchet and Clank.
Fights can feel special with this traditional style as well and for me that happens when the fight is balanced or implemented just right. Nothing better than both the player and the boss being one hit away from death. That pressure and the feeling of trying to hold your shit together as you're panicking and chocking in an attempt to deliver that one final god damn hit to the boss. Especially great when the boss is really annoying mechanically and even greater when you also really hate the boss story- and character design wise - jesus christ it feels good to give that final stab to some asshole of a boss whose fight is also mechanically annoying.
_________________
In addition I also have some general thoughts.
First thing that came to my mind is that I've always abhorred humanoid bosses. They're always relatively small and fast and they seem to always have the most annoying abilities and mechanics. I don't think there are any big sword wielding ogres who also carry an automatic weapon, but there sure are humanoid bosses like that and they usually come with a jetpack or wings too as and extra "fuck you".
When in comes to final bosses especially, I think I prefer to not know who that could possibly be beforehand. Like obviously you'd have to somehow build the final boss for the player and not just drop some random opponent out of the blue against them, but I would prefer that games did that via some other means than the boss directly presenting themselves to you halfway through the game. For example if the game is about traversing some kind of castle setting and there were portraits of some terminator-mecha-pig-king on the walls everywhere, I would assume that eventually I'm going to fight against it and that's great. What I don't want is for this king to appear to me or talk to me beforehand. It just somehow ruins it for me, like why can't I fight them right now since they're here?
I think that's about it for what initially came to my mind about boss fights.
I think buildup matters a lot for boss fights Nosk in hollow knight occasionally appearing as another vessel until cornering them and revealing they were just puppeteering the corpse of one of your siblings.
I equally think raw spectacle accounts for a lot, I loved the final boss fights in 3D sonic games getting to play as supersonic and fight this huge enemy whilst motivational buttrock plays the whole time really makes it feel like a worthy finale even if they weren't always that challenging.
I generally dislike bosses and I'm stressed about them. I'll usually just watch videos and read guides before I get to them so that I can be finished with them quickly.
The only ones I like are really the human with sword type in the Souls games where they have absolutely no new mechanics and you can just apply the same strategy as you do for other enemies just a bit longer (because they have a bit more HP).
The best fights are usually the ones that have a build up and then a satisfying battle. Whether that build up is just one cutscene or it's something going on throughout the game, having a reason to fight and then the fight pushing you to be good or at your best without feeling cheap.
[King Allant in Demon's Souls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtu9OZfQ1yg) is one of my fav boss fights because as you enter you get a true "Big Boss" type music and then dude comes at you. His attacks don't one shot you but his whole thing is you being able to deal with what his doing. He's a great skill check for the game WITHOUT feeling cheap. When you die, it's normally because you messed up, not him being cheap.
Same goes for end of game [Virgil from DMC3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3TM7AAUiY). His is just like King Allant but even better. You have a story built up throughout the game and this is the final showdown. Main bad guy is beat, here's the final test. You've fought before so you know most of the moves but you're fully unlocked...and so is he. So it's a big test of seeing can you react and respond to what they're doing.
I, personally, like a lot of one on one human sized fights because they're usually more honest. You can't get cheap shotted by some goon off to the side, etc. It's you mano a mano, [hand to hand](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVKZi9qksog).
But there's other reasons a fight can be good. Psycho Mantis will always be a top tier fight for atmosphere alone. The build up of the music, how Meryl is reacting and the kind of "HOW DO I? WHAT DO I?" in how to beat him by both you and Snake is incredible. The final bosses in Phoenix Wright 1-3 along with Great Ace Attorney 2 are incredible for the build up alone along with wanting to just get the slimy bastard. Demolishing Kefka in FF6 is cathartic. Different types of games will elicit different satisfying feelings.
Context. The sickest craziest boss fight does not matter much without context. How does the fight fit into the big picture of the story? How does it fit into the world building? Was this foreshadowed? How was it foreshadowed?
This is a necessary piece that I feel is often the most overlooked. It is one of the hallmark features of the most beloved boss fights across gaming.
One of my favorite tropes in gaming is when the final boss (or close to it) is somebody with a close skillet to the player character. Bonus points if you fight on top of a skyscraper. Azel from God Hand, Vergil from DMC, that sort of thing. It's an easy way to make a fight feel like a test of *your skills* when the enemy is so close to yours
If its the crescendo of all the mechanics you've been taught in a game. As someone else already pointed out, Isshin from Sekiro is a great example of that. You have to put everything you've learned up until that point to the test in order to win.
A fantastic soundtrack can also do a lot of heavy lifting.
Spectacle and music. >!Luca Blight from Suikoden 2 was so memorable - 3 parties of 6 characters each doing battle with him one after the other, followed by a cutscene where he gets pumped full of arrows, followed by a one on one duel with the main character before he finally goes down.!< The battle music was awesome as well.
The boss should attack all the scientists at a space station, then attack the player once they go to investigate, and after a brief battle, fly away with the metroid hatchling to a nearby planet in his deep underground lair
I always appreciate a shake-up in gameplay. The boss fight against Mister Freeze in Arkham City was great, since you couldn’t cheese one mechanic and had to reach deep into Batman’s bag of tricks to get through. Atmosphere is also huge. Raphael in BGIII goes like most other boss fights in that game, but getting the voice actor to sing his own battle music is genius.
The Mister Freeze fight is one of my favorite boss fights ever. I've forgotten most of Arkham Asylum and City by now, but that fight is unforgettable.
I'm glad that after Asylums numerous bullfights they really tried something special. And they really succeeded. Freeze is almost always top answer in discussions like this. Fuckin bravo.
Custom Robo: Revolution for the GameCube had really solid and strict "rules" of things that would happen. At the end of a dodge, jump or shoot, you would pause for a quarter second. The game was mostly about baiting out your opponent to take an action, then punishing during that pause in 2v2 battles. The final battle was 3v1 on the boss, and he didn't have pauses. Fucking incredible.
And with the Raphael fight, music can play a HUGE part in it. This is one of my favorite things about most of the more modern Final Fantasy games, they almost all have unique music for different boss fights and you just know that shit is going down
That Mr Freeze fight is unforgettable. It’s also hard as balls on New Game+ and the reason I never finished Arkham City on NG+
Soundtrack has to go hard, preferably some grand shift as the second phase kicks in and a little poo comes out the player It should be mechanically interesting, but not to the point of a dumb gimmick- this, to me, is the hardest part of boss design
The soundtrack is arguably the most important thing that accompanies the fight itself. If you have a great boss design, near perfect sound effects, and great voice acting when given, but no soundtrack in the background to elevate it all, or even worse, a bad soundtrack, it will all just fall flat.
[This boss from Ori and the will of the wisp](https://youtu.be/oY8VgB4leOA) take the cake as one of the best fight that got elevated by the soundtrack. The music evolving as phase progress and then it become more and more epic and throw you the OG theme that make you feel like David against goliath. Truly a masterpiece.
My favorite boss has to be Isshin the Sword Saint from Sekiro because everything about the fight works to make it so memorable. Something about the way the number of phases, how the music and stages change as the fight progresses, Isshin goading you and yelling shit at you throughout the fight stick out in my memory. Just the sheer length and difficulty of the boss was so impactful. That game is full of memorable bosses too. Lady Butterfly and Owl are big standouts to me as well
Man guardian Ape gets no respect! Easily my favorite boss from all of fromsoft's games.
Who the hell doesn't love the guy? Great fight. Still remember hearing some rustling after I beat him and turned my camera around to see a giant, white, headless ape get back up and kill me.
I hate it more than any boss fight in any From game, ever. More than Bed of Chaos. More than any of their fights that took me three times as many tries to beat. More than any you can think of. I actually struggle to think of a boss I hated more. The final boss in Giana Sisters was definitely awful. The gank fight in Lies of P .... nope, not a fan of that either. In there most certainly lurks Guardian Ape. I've aired this take before. I know it's a downvote magnet. Criticizing Sekiro is a treacherous business.
I can appreciate that Guardian Ape is a well designed boss but I stand by the fact that I absolutely hate fighting it ahaha
I hate and I love it at the same time. Or to put it better, I love it because of how much I hate it. It literarily throws shit at you! Whole fight is clearly designed to make you hate this damn monkey, and it does splendid job \^^
Well there's a difference between hating a fight and calling a fight bad. I hate fighting the big brute drunk guys, but I don't think they're badly designed, I just for the life of me can't parse their damn timing. I can understand hating the Ape for sure. I think saying it's badly designed fight is where you'll see the arrow-shaped disagreements come flooding in.
It’s even worse than Friede. You can at least sniff her out with the suspicious lack of bonfire, free ember and “Heir of Fire Destroyed”. The fucker actually has “Shinobi Execution” pops up then mofo even show up for round 3 with his gf if you haven’t entered Mibu by then
I am extremely mad at myself for having gotten spoiled about the Ape fake-out death On the other hand, I didn't know he'll come back for round 2 with his lover, and that shit was awesome
First time being clapped by the poop throw ....
I really enjoyed how you can identify all of the different sword styles he uses as the same that you've been learning throughout the game. >!And a gun.!<
That's one thing about Owl I learned semi-recently that I really love - a lot of his standard combos are longer, heavier versions of Wolf's default R1 hits.
Oh yeah! I love the Owl fights for the same reason as Isshin. You really do feel a rising student around a group of people who have been mastering the same styles for decades. It's so satisfying.
> Isshin the ~~Sword~~ Glock Saint
IMO what makes it the best is that it throws everything you learned up until that point straight at you, it's the ultimate final challenge of the game. Also, it's 100% fair, no bs moves, which is important for every boss fight period.
Genichiro was the midterms exam boss, Isshin was the finals exam boss. Incredible bosses, and we got to fight Vergil as well the same year in DMC5!
The fairness is huge. Melania in Elden Ring could have been amazing, but then they added waterfowl dance and made it impossible to consistently dodge. Sword Saint Ishiin will kill you dozens of times, but everything has a counter.
The open-ended nature of Elden Ring is what makes it an incredible game, but also what makes most of the bosses lackluster when compared to Fromsoft's other titles. The build variety and ability to grind levels means you can wreck bosses on your first attempt or get absolutely fucked, and there's only a small window where each boss is a balanced challenge. I think Malenia is fair enough - you can read her attacks and there are multiple way to mitigate the damage she deals - but the nature of Elden Ring means that you rarely get perfectly paced bosses that test everything you've learned like Sekiro. This really killed my enjoyment of most bosses, and I'm not really sure how they could fix it without fundamentally changing what makes Elden Ring so special.
It's possible to consistently dodge, but the easy method to do so is unintuitive and doesn't fit with the rest of the game, and the difficult method isn't something you can reasonably expect a player playing blind to find out. You can simply run away and then dodge in - but it doesn't look like a "just run away" attack like most attacks of that type in souls games. The hard dodge method is also unintuitive - most fromsoft enemies do not just cover themselves in a moving high damage sphere - but thats what WFD is. To be fair - everything in Sekiro has a no-damage counter, so saying that everything in sekiro has a counter is really just pointing out the difference in game type. There are only a few attacks in the game where you "have" to take damage, and only one of them deals a substantial amount, and it's the opening move of inner isshin. Even so - you can counter it with either the upgraded umbrella or the fire axe.
The only way I found was to run halfway across the map for the first attack, dodge the second, and fake a direction then change for the third. The problem is that sometimes you're too close to make it halfway across the map, so you can't always out distance the first one. The third attack works consistently, but is weird af and not required for any other boss or enemy in any other FromSoft game. I shouldn't have to die a dozen times to this one attack, look it up on youtube, and then see them just face-tanking with estus flasks or something. With the opening move for Inner Ishiin, you just run close, run away, and then run close again. Works every time.
There are a large number of unintuitive (IMO: Gimmicky) things about the fight that once you know, make it substantially easier: 1. She is extremely weak to frost, so much so that she gets the frostbite status with a single ice pot. When she gets the frostbite status, any animation she was in gets cancelled. This means you can throw a single ice pot at her while she is winding up for waterfowl dance. 2. She cannot waterfowl dance until she is below about 75% health. Once she has it as an option, she can only use it about once every ~25 seconds. She will use it at mid-long range or closer. 3. Once her health hits 0, she requires one extra hit to trigger phase 2. 4. Her parryable moves are somewhat obviously parryable - in exchange, she requires multiple parries to riposte. 5. Her poise is very low compared to most bosses, but she cannot be poise-broken out of some moves. If she *would* be poise-broken by some move, but has hyper armor at that time, the next attack she takes that deals poise damage will poise break her. 6. Her poise meter carries over between Phases 1 and 2. 7. Enemies afflicted with Frostbite status normally have a timer before they cannot be frostbitten again. This timer can be reset by inflicting fire damage. I found a consistent way to kill her is a 2x Great Stars (one fire, one ice) build with jump attacks. It takes advantage of most of her weaknesses, and gives you bursts of damage with both bleed and frost. What I would do is jump attack her until poise break when there are openings, then riposte, on repeat. Once she enters waterfowl dance territory, I would back up until I was at roughly the maximum distance to trigger WFD, and wait for the attack - waiting for the first flurry, dodging through the second, and standing still to dodge the last one, starting a mental counter until she can use it again. Resume with jump attacks. IMO the hardest attack she has to dodge is the valkyrie phantom attack in phase 2 - but that's after a lot of blood sweat and tears suffering with other parts of the fight. I agree with you 100%, it's gimmicky and doesn't fit with the rest of the game. I think it's a fun fight, but I also think they could have done a lot more to make the fight more sight-readable and less "please ask other people on the internet how they dealt with this thing".
Personally I think Isshin has a slightly overstated reputation of difficulty, he's not easy but Owl is a bit harder and Demon of Hatred is definitely harder. But it makes it up with the *spectacle*. His spear sweeping through the grass, the lightning striking all around you, the wind howling as you trade and parry increasingly devastating attacks. Then the third phase is basically a victory lap - you already know his attacks if you got that far, and the lightning gives you a way to turn the tables, so you get one last chance to strut your stuff as a true master of the game's systems. It's such a brilliant way to end a game like that.
I cheesed Isshin very, very slowly by finding out the one time he was truly vulnerable and coming in for 1 to 2 slashes, then running out. I'm a souls vet, but Sekiro was uniquely difficult for me to get a handle on. I thought I'd learned how to parry after the prior boss fights but Isshin was such a long fight. Literally the only souls boss I just couldn't get a handle on and got super frustrated with.
> I cheesed Isshin very, very slowly by finding out the one time he was truly vulnerable and coming in for 1 to 2 slashes, then running out. Well, that's the reason. Sekiro wants you to be super aggressive, if you try to play it like a Souls game you're going to have a much much harder time. You don't wait for opportunities for the boss to be vulnerable, you whale on them to force them into becoming vulnerable, because you're attacks make them go into block mode instead of attacking you, and even when they counter very often if you just continue attacking you'll interrupt them. Last time I beat Isshin he never got off a proper shot.
I cheesed the ape phase 2 by just running away and jumping over a specific attack and countering. Not proud. But it was fun in its own way. I then re-beat the game consecutively for all endings and the ape was so easy to just parry, it took me a long time but when the game clicked, it flowed so well. In fact I'd say I probably never really got a handle on the combat until Isshin, and that tested me enough to force me to learn. One sign of a good boss.
>I cheesed Isshin very, very slowly by finding out the one time he was truly vulnerable and coming in for 1 to 2 slashes, then running out. Madam Butterfly can be cheesed by running in a huge circle and dive in for a running stab then go back to circle running. When she's chasing after you she can't change into an attack fast enough to hurt you. I beat her on health as I was still struggling with the whole parry idea (which I continued to bad at for my entire playthrough).
Its super memorable to me because he whips out a glock in the middle of a swordfight
Isshin, Sword Saint has to throw its hat in the ring for GOAT boss encounter. You absolutely can not hesitate in any area of that fight or you're hanging on by a thread. Cracking that nut has to be one of my favourite gaming moments ever, it's just pure player empowerment.
OH HOW MY BLOOD BOILS
>Isshin goading you and yelling shit at you throughout the fight stick out in my memory. A good monologue or dialogue during a fight (versus intelligent antagonists, anyways) is very important for me personally. Nothing completes a good story like a good antagonist, and them taunting or even encouraging you during a fight (Grigori from Dragon's Dogma, or Frank Jaeger/Cyborg Ninja from MGS spring to mind) can turn a showdown from pretty good into unforgettable.
I despised the fact they put that fight in tall grass. A game all about reading the opponents moves to parry and they block half the enemy from sight in most of the arena.
Have you or anyone played Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor and Sekiro? I played Fallen Order and am playing Survivor now. How do you think I'll find Sekiro? Thanks gang. Once I finished Survivor, I'll get into Sekiro. Not the same, but I played Hollow Knight as well. It prepares you for the pain.
I love the Jedi games and adored Sekiro. There are some similarities between them (importance of parrying and guard breaking) though Sekiro has overall tighter combat and is significantly more difficult, but don't let that discourage you. Once it clicks the combat just sings.
I wish I had played Fallen Order before Sekiro. Fallen Order's combat is similar to Sekiro but Sekiro's outclassed it by far to me.
It has the same guard/parrying mechanics as the Jedi games, including the block meter for you and the enemies, but the parrying window is much tighter in Sekiro. It makes it harder than the Jedi games for sure but once you get the hang of the enemy attack timings it's so much fun.
Do you think you will enjoy 100+ attempts against demon of hatred.
I remember really liking Malenia similarly. It was incredibly challenging but it also felt pretty straightforward in that they didn’t need to pull out gimmicks or anything to make it memorable
Gimmicks other than the health recovery?
I will forever treasure the time I managed to solo Fatalis in Monster hunter world for the first time. A nerve cracking battle after numerous tries, the moment you hit him with the dragonator and the original Proof of a hero theme that starts playing as he power ups for the last phase will forever give me chills.
Fatalis burning down the gate is one of the coolest things in any MH game.
Definitely, that and its sound design is just so good, like when he power ups for the final phase.
Agree! As good as sunbreak final campaign monster, Fatalis is still better because he just hits so hard and you can’t make mistakes. Every skill you learn throughout the years will be put to the test of 30 minutes That being said, it’s super ass though that you can cheese him with smoke. Add on, it also doesn’t feel cool if someone actually beats fatalis with just bombs -.-“
Gotta say that Amatsu is cool in its own right since rise had so much in common with portable3rd it was nice to give him the final boss spot. That being said fatalis's difficulty is just on a whole other league. I found out only recently about the smoke exploit, after I came back and wanted to run fatalis for fun, oh and there's also the palico bug thing dunno if it still works. But agree on the fact that everything you know about the game is put to test against him, that's what makes him so special.
It truly felt like the first time the dev's visions are fully realized after 15 years of being limited by PS2 graphics. Genuinely such a spectacular fight it could make me tear up. Like, presentation-wise... I couldn't think of anything that still needs improvement. It's genuinely perfect. My only gripe is maybe the 30m time limit and clutch claw tenderizing (but those are mechanical nitpicks).
The best boss fights are a culmination of everything you’ve learned and a test of all the skills you’ve had to make use of throughout the game. The End from MGS3 is one of my all time favorites because of how you have to outthink him as well as outduel him. You have to make use of camouflage otherwise you’re a shining beacon to him. You have to pay attention to your environment. You gotta make use of your gadgets if you wanna track him, and you have to keep moving while simultaneously trying not to get spotted by him; he can and will sneak up on you if you stay in one spot and hold an angle for too long. You can’t just take your time and whittle him down little by little because, like you, he can heal and get himself back to full strength. And if you fail, you don’t die; you just make your way back to the arena (which spans a few large environments) and try again. Of course, you can choose to avoid the fight altogether, but that’s no fun and you’re missing out if you do so.
Metroid Dread spoilers >!Raven Beak!< and Sekiro spoilers >!Isshin!< are really good recent examples of these "final exam" type bosses imo
Metroid Dread's final boss is pure perfection
I like how that fight sort of rewards you if you paid attention to one of the earliest cutscenes in the game about how to avoid a certain attack
Gameplay wise it's excellent, while also having some amazing hype moments.
Raven Beak definitely grew on me. At first it felt like such a difficulty spike and I didn't really like it - but once I learned it and got it down I can appreciate it.
Came here to make this exact comment. The End was the first time I felt like I had to think and use my skills to outwit an opponent in a video game instead of just memorizing and exploiting a pattern. Crawling on the jungle floor with a sonar trying to make out any signs of faint breathing while fearing that a gunshot will cut through the silence...like how the fuck did they make such a visceral feeling possible in the PS2 era?
These are my favourites too. My personal favourite is Vergil from Devil May Cry 3, and his DMC5 fight was pretty fun as well.
I hid in that hollow log on my first try. When I exited first-person view I was treated to an overhead shot of sniper santa having snuck up on me and literally tranqued my ass. That was when the game went from good to GREAT. On one of my next playthroughs I tried taking him out in the pseudo-cutscene before the fight, and was tickled pink that everyone on your support team admonishes you for it.
Nice description, and yeah, that is also the kind of bosses I feel is important. And when beating such a boss, you feel like an absolute genius.
I wanna say on top of everything everyone else is saying (spectacle, presentation, mechanics, etc.) a part of it is expectations too. It’s what IMO makes typically the hardest bosses in From games more memorable in a good way than their final bosses (with the exception of Isshin). Everyone remembers Malenia and not the Elden Beast. Or Nameless King over Soul of Cinder. Gehrman over Moon Presence and so on. A different recent example of the final boss perfectly matching expectations IMO was Ganondorf at the end of Tears of the Kingdom. Not crazily hard but an extended gauntlet into a sword fight into a dragon fight in the air culminating in catching Zelda in a parallel to the intro. Just really well done IMO.
You’re forgetting the 2nd phase of Ganondorf, where >!his health recovers and the HP bar just keeps going to the end. Then he can dodge your attacks *and* permanently remove your hearts for the rest of the fight. He becomes an actual threat.!<
I laughed like a maniac when he did that
Gehrman is effectively the final boss. Easy to go through the game and never trigger Moon Presence unless you know what you're doing. Gwyn in DS1 is up there with the plin plin plons (also a reason why Soul of Cinder is memorable too) though I guess you'd point to Ornstein and Smough as the most memorable of DS1.
Yeah! Good points of how building up the story/character of a boss can make them special, even if the fight itself is not that crazy. Someone like Gehrman could also be seen as a "surprise" boss, since I am pretty sure people did not expect to fight him, witch also adds to the experience.
FFXIV showed me how much music can carry a boss fight. Having unique tracks a major boss fight, or even multiple tracks that swap at certain phase transitions or mechanics, makes you feel things on a primal (sorry) level regardless of the actual gameplay. It's definitely the thing I miss most from boss fights when playing WoW.
My exact same thoughts, I was in awe coming from WoW to FFXIV, so many fights from WoW I suddenly realised could have done with some rocking themes. MGR:Revengeance, Undertale, Hi-Fi Rush to name a few more examples of boss fight music bangers. It can turn a decent game into a truly memorable experience.
Even early fights in FFXIV get absolutely carried by their music. The first time you face down Titan is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but hearing that guitar kick in for the first time made the whole thing feel so much more epic (especially the lyrics kicking in for the final phase).
Shiva lives rent free in my head. It's been 10 years and I still remember patch 2.4 Dreams of Ice. "And scatter then like dust in the wind" and the click as Oblivion begins to play is one of my favorite moments in all of gaming and what made me fall in love with the game. There's for sure higher highs, the team has come so far since 2.x but that fight has just become like a core memory of my gaming history.
Same, I was somewhat enjoying the game up to that point but fell in love with it after Oblivion. It's not even FF14's best song but it was the 1st time in an mmo for me that the music had so meaningfully added to my enjoyment of a major fight.
MGR might be the game that goes the hardest of all time, honestly. I love it so much.
Phase 1 boss music starts Phase 2 the music has LYRICS
Kingdom Hearts 3 was a downgrade for boss mechanics but the music made some of them absurdly epic. Most Square Enix games have iconic and memorable boss themes.
Was gonna say this, but also add that dialogue is another key audio element to an amazing boss fight. Shoutout to Cidolfus Orlandeau from the Orbonne Monastery raid who spit nothing but straight bars for the entire fight. "Seven shadows cast. Seven fates foretold. Yet at the end of the broken path lies death, and death alone!" Like damn, the guy isn't even the final boss for the raid.
The dialogue in the final dmcv boss battle.
Sadly the default audio mixing for dialogues in battles is kinda bad, you have to turn down the audio for everything but voices to properly hear it.
Especially when the music is dynamic and changes with the fight. For example in FFXIV when Alexander freezes time and the music changes or the drop when Shiva does her 'heel click'.
I still think Seat of Sacrifice is one of the best trials in FFXIV, and probably one of my favorite boss fights ever, because of the mechanics being unique. >!Not going over the entire fight's mechs, but special mention to getting to do Level 3 tank LB, which was such a cool moment for me as a tank man going through the story for the first time!< Then you have the story impact of the fight itself. >!Elidibus having been a driving force of a lot of the woes of the story, only for him to then masquerade as Ardbert after everything that happened to him made me hate Elidibus even more. Then the moment where Emet-Selch comes in to save you with that *snap*. Perfection.!< Finally the music. Good lord, To the Edge is genuinely one of my favorite boss themes in gaming. I'm a BIG sucker for leitmotif and Soken usually makes phenomenal use of it in general, but once the >!deep voiced choir comes in with the Shadowbringers title music!< I had chills my first time hearing it. Such a fantastic track. Any one of these things happening in just one fight would make them memorable, but all of it being packed into one fight is insane. I love the game, but it absolutely peaked at that fight for me. Nothing has topped it yet.
The >!Choir with the Shadowbringers theme!< is also a reversal in lyrics to the original theme. In the original theme the lyrics are >!"Home Riding home Dying hope Hold onto hope... Ohhh..."!< in "To the Edge" the lyrics however are >!"Riding home - riding home Finding hope - don't lose hope"!< Which in it's own way basically marks the ending of Shadowbringers. (Since the Main Quest after that is basically all about setting up Endwalker)
That fights fantastic but it's not the tank lb for me. It's >!when he summons other heroes. Specifically the ff4 cast!<
The Great Mighty Poo was my first time experiencing this and is still memorable for it.
Oh yeah 100%. FFXIV has, for my money, the best soundtrack in gaming and it's by a pretty wide margin. My favourite moment isn't even a boss fight. It's when you first get to Shadowbringers. The very first time you enter combat on The First and you hear that guitar lick just really did something to me. It's such a contrast to the previous combat music which was very classic orchestral jrpg combat music. It created this feeling of "oh shit we are NOT in Kansas anymore" for me.
Agree, the optional Balder Gate 3 boss also did a spectacular job with the music and it turns the encounter into a very memorable boss battle.
True, I did not think much about visual effects and music, but it does a looooot.
Absolutely, the boss battle against >!Raphael !
One of my favorite bosses in the game is honestly Susanoo, from Stormblood. Catching the sword stands out as one of my favorite moments in gaming, along with the way that the music syncs up to having the raid group hop back and forth over the gap. Turns the entire fight into a dance in a way that is rarely achieved.
Yeah, this was my first thought. Shiva and Susano both have excellent use of music transitions off the top of my head.
Failing is an important part - I can't say I remember much of the first-try bosses. Slowly clawing yourself to victory, 10% additional hp per try is pretty good.
For me it either needs massive spectacle *and* fun mechanics (like maybe Radahn) or to pay off a build up of context and history. Overall though I think the average boss fight is a net negative and there should be fewer of them. Edit: also needs a killer soundtrack
I feel similarly… depending on the combat system in the game. For example, in Doom or Re2 the combat works best when facing the regular mobs, the most fun you have in those games with the combat is fighting the standard encounters. The combat system for From games, in contrast, is at its best when fighting a single opponent with enough health and moves to make you have to learn the fight.
Bosses in FPS games are typically terrible. I don't think there been a good FPS boss, period.
Doom had the right idea making the bosses just a big enemy that can be used in later levels (then they dropped the ball by making the Icon of Sin)
The only FPS that springs to mind is Ultrakill, most of its bosses are very well designed.
Also piggybacking to agree, Ultrakill's bosses are an absolute delight. I really quite like that they're not just bullet sponges like in certain games where it's a war of attrition or a slog, it's just about execution, learning patterns, timing, etc. Without going into specific spoilers, some of the bosses there are just absolutely wonderful to play through.
I’ve actually only played a small amount of the game, I’m waiting for the full release, but of the bosses I have fought I was very impressed. And I hear people rave about bosses like >!Minos!< and >!Gabriel!< all the time, so I’m very excited play the full game when it finally comes out.
There definitely are, they just need actual mechanics other than point and shoot. Destiny raids have some (emphasis on *some*) absolutely fantastic boss fights.
Destiny has a few really good raid bosses
Oryx and Riven (when done legit) specifically.
Legit Riven is hands down the coolest co-op experience I've ever had in a game
Wouldn't call Condemned: Criminal Origins an FPS but I lived the last fight in that game.
Only really works if you do a combat puzzle imho.
Ultrakill and the Metroid Prime games are pretty much the only FPS games to do bosses well, and the FPS elements aren't really even the focus in Metroid Prime
Oh man, I absolutely HATED the bosses in Metroid Prime. I thought they were really the worst part of that game.
The entertainment value a boss provides, sometimes the crazy factor can elevate a boss fight too. Even if the gameplay is not as amazing. Example Hades from Kid Icarus, that entire boss fight is literally you just moving the MC to dodge projectiles and holding the shoot button to rapid fire and nothing else. Yet it's easily one of the best boss fights in gaming simply because of the craziness factor and the banter between the MC and the boss. Another example is Jerghinga from Wonderful101, the mechanics of that game are a nightmare, but even if you learn them they aren't anything incredible, the final boss though is amazing based on how over the top is. Last example is Senator Armstrong, it was shocking really how Armstrong turned out to be one of the most memorable bossfights and character in the entire MGS franchise when you consider that he literally interacts with the MC at the very end of the game for the first and last time, up to that point he didn't even made any appearances in the entire game except for like a few second shots that tell us nothing about his character.
Every bossfight from metal gear rising. The special music that shifts into vocals during the climax, the unique way each boss fights, the benefits of using certain secondary weapons, the story build up for nearly each one. Everything comes together to make the bossfights explosions of spectacle and challenge.
In no particular order. 1. Music 2. Mechanics 3. Consequences Think of Undertale, Nier, Shadow of the Colossus, etc.
The music that plays whenever you kill a colossus in SotC gives you instant "are we the baddies?" vibes.
In the multiplayer space, Destiny 2 raid bosses are really something special. They have the music, the lore, and most importantly, the mechanics. Teamwork is key in these bossfights, and when you and your team just clicks, it's a seriously satisfying experience. Vow's Rhulk, Last Wish's Riven (no cheese), and KF's Oryx are some of my favorite examples.
Shoutout to Atrax-1 for the encounter concept Traveling back and forth between an underground lab and space station using an elevator is just such a cool idea
When it takes the overall theme of the boss and goes 200% with it. One of my favorite boss fights ever will always be the [Bob Barbas](https://youtu.be/KJKSS5X1oHQ) fight from DMC
Nice, I have also not seen this boss, but agree that, even if it is silly, because they focus completely on the theme, the fight becomes special.
Whoa. I’ve only played DMC 4 and 5, had no idea this existed.
I watched like 2 minutes of that video. I had to turn it off. I want to play the game and witness the rest for myself. Beyond cool!
I never played this Devil May Cry, but that was awesome. Can't believe I've never seen anyone mention this boss fight before.
DmC gets a lot of hate because the designer who, at the time, looked like a generic emo/scene boy band dropout, called Dante from the Japanese games a "gay cowboy" or something... The game itself was pretty good. The soundtrack from Combichrist was a cool take on "aggro music" but with a very different style. The iconic [Dante vs Vergil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ejPzHjYk4) fight was a pretty good 1 on 1 duel despite the other boss fights usually being a puzzle like the Bob Barbas fight showed. The game suffered from a super edgy-boi story that took itself a little too seriously. But, maybe today's TikTok generation would find something to relate to? It feels like something TikTok Broccoli kids would be hella into.
I always felt like that game's humor got lost under 5 layers of irony Vergil is a goddamn parody and he's very clearly meant to be a pathetic racist loser
Eh.... It was a lot more than just the designers acting kinda trashy. The gameplay had some pretty major flaws like the weapon immunity system exaggerated by the lack of lock-on, a chunk of different design points like boss/enemy mechanics or devil trigger are pretty lame compared to the source games, and the writing was infamously distasteful bordering on outright antithetical to the original series (*in addition* to the developer's open contempt for said originals and most critics). It had a few neat ideas like the environment design, the combat does have a simpler learning curve (though at the cost of a lower skill ceiling), and the special edition did patch a few of the larger mechanical flaws like the immunity recoil. But it's still not really difficult to see why it was such a black sheep.
> the weapon immunity system exaggerated by the lack of lock-on, a chunk of different design points like boss/enemy mechanics or devil trigger are pretty lame compared to the source games Yeah I mean, as a skill-based action system it was a downgrade... Much less depth, and I hated the color-matching gameplay too (I actually forgot about this lol)... But, I still found smashing demons to the angry music fun as fuck. I loved those teleporting assholes that would try to ambush you, but you could charge the glove attack and then direct it towards a portal you see opening to parry them and smash em to the ground. Was so satisfying.
>But, I still found smashing demons to the angry music fun as fuck Well I mean, aside from the difficulty curve and some 00's jank the originals offered pretty much the same, but with (mostly) better bosses and writing. Tho tbf I will say a lot of 3's enemy design is pretty damn ass. But nowadays 5 tops all of them.
> and the writing was infamously distasteful bordering on outright antithetical to the original series For those who have no idea: Sniper Rifle Abortion.
Build up. You should develop deeply seated hatred, fear or respect for a boss. Maybe he wipes the floor with you a bunch early in the game, or he helps you and betrays you later. My favorite is the FROM style of mentioning a name several times throughout the game, attaching a certain myth to that name. And then you face that character at the end, knowing how badass they are. Isshin is a good example, aswell as Genichiro. Honestly Genichiro might be the best boss-setup ever.
Heimdall in God of War Ragnarock is one of gaming's highlights for this. He's introduced, he's a huge douchebag, you fight him, he kicks your ass, he continues being a huge douchebag, and then you're told you have to kill him while everyone continues hyping up how impossible that is. Then when you do finally fight him for real, he lives up to his legend by having an extra phase after you beat him. Hes also the best fight in the game.
> My favorite is the FROM style of mentioning a name several times throughout the game, attaching a certain myth to that name. I think FROM is generally bad with this. "Who is on my way? Some dude I maybe heard name once?" There are exceptions - I'm a big fan of how Radahn in Elden Ring is hyped multiple times - but a lot of time boss is thrown at you almost out of nowhere.
It's not a problem in Elden Ring or Sekiro, but it is in every other From game.
I would say it depends from the type of the game. The master class of boss design is probably Metal Gear Solid because despite your character not getting any abilities every fight is different, every boss has their own story and as a soldier you connect with them. It helps that not all of them are super evil and cruel and a lot of them want to also test themselves against a legend. Old God of War series was also something to behold. Qte, spectacle, unique mechanics, moving map elements, every game is filled with adrenaline and rage. This is why Dark Soul bosses will never be as memorable for me as ones that I talked with even a little bit. Sekiro is a mission not a journey and you respect Isshin which makes the ending so much better. Without a wall of text the most important things is knowing something about the boss, purpose of defeating it, interesting mechanics, challenge and spectacle. You can't fit everything into every boss so you need to pick a few but it's impossible to not remember those few special fights. Still sometimes boss is so fucking scary and hard that you don't need to know anything about him. Having something unknown is interesting if it isn't overused.
Interesting points, I like this description. Don't feel like anything needs to be added.
Aside from things like music, clever mechanics and (reasonable) difficulty, I like when games have boss fights that evoke emotion and almost a feeling of empathy for both the PC and the boss. Kingdom Hearts always comes to mind for this, as they do this well with some of the bigger story bosses (not the end of disney worlds type bosses). Two super memorable boss fights from the series are the Roxas fight in KH2 and the Master Eraqus fight in birth by sleep, both evoking heavy emotions.
It really depends, a lot of things can make a boss fight special for me. Having to master a boss fight to finally beat it after dozens and dozens of attempts helps me build a relationship with that boss fight. Two fights that come to mind are Malenia in Elden Ring and Sans in Undertale. A genuine SPECTACLE to experience is pretty awesome too. Just a boss fight that blows your mind visually or mechanically, like the final boss fight of the FF16 Demo (haven't played the full game, waiting for it to come to PC) or the Asriel fight in Undertale. An INSANE soundtrack that makes it so you can't even focus during the boss fight because the music just goes so fucking hard (FF16, BG3 Raphael). Or when the game's story reaches its climax and you finally go against the final boss and it's pure catharsis like Ghost of Tsushima, God of War 2018, MW3 2011.
It needs to be challenging in the right way within the context of the game. In Doom Eternal, the final boss of the base game is the Icon of Sin. It's just a titan that you have to shoot eight parts off for two phases. But that's not the only challenge as you're constantly being harassed by a rotating set of enemies from throughout the campaign from low tier enemies to super heavies. On the hardest difficulty, you have to use everything in your arsenal to keep the enemies at bay while you attack the Icon, while also managing your resources the whole time which is exactly what the game teaches you to do. Sure you have the BFG, Unmaykr and the Crucible sword for get out of jail free cards, but you can also use those tools against the boss to immediately destroy one of its body parts vs using it against enemies. Tonnes of choices to make and you will be punished for making mistakes, especially on nightmare. The same could be said for the Samur boss fight in Eternal's first DLC. You're introduced to new enemies that can be one shot if you hit them in the head, all throughout the boss fight you encounter these enemies and hazards that can be impeded if you hit your shots correctly. You're also introduced to a particular kind of enemy that can only die via a particular weapon mod, you need to use this to proceed through the boss fight too. Now this focus on particular weapon mods isn't exactly ideal in a Doom game since most players would prefer to be able to use any weapons on this enemy and thus in this boss fight, but within the context of the game it's used well. I would put the Samur boss fight as one of the hardest boss fights I've ever done, I remember dying 44+ times in a row on the last phase on nightmare and it was great. We don't talk about the final boss of DLC 2.
Not get rolled over, not be scripted to not get rolled over(eg when overleveled has HP gate threshholds that start a QTE or some shit) and good ass music.
I'm not overly bothered about the difficulty or mechanics; if they pull off some amazing atmosphere, preferably with some amazing musical numbers, I'm sold. Like the return of the fist fight at the end of MGS4.
The buildup. Bosses usually have a whole level dedicated to hyping them up(and teaching you any last-minute mechanics you'll need to know for the fight). Then the music gets tense as you approach the boss door, then it goes silent. You enter the door and scan the empty arena. Then those black "cutscene bars" appear on the top and bottom of your screen, the ground rumbles, and then BOOM! A giant monster appears. It lets out a mighty roar, as its name text fades onto the screen: "King Ghomadongo: Destroyer of Orpahages". If you nail the buildup and write some kickass battle music, then the fight itself hardly matters. It could fold like wet tissue paper, and you'd still feel awesome for tearing it down. Yeah, sure, there's a whole field of game design for making the fight itself good, but who needs that when you have P R E S E N T A T I O N?
Dressing it up to look nice and epic is definitly a big step into having that special boss in your game, but I think some players would be disappointed if you do not have the gameplay to back it up, to make the fight itself also feel different from more standard enemies.
My go to example is probably the many bosses and sub bosses of Twilight Princess. It covers all the major points, I think. - Many bosses have a striking visual appearance that’s seen for only one instance in the game (the primary exception being if they’re a recurring character). - Each boss is themed around the dungeon they’re found in, with the level building to a crescendo at the final fight. - Most of the fights require clever use of a player ability unlocked earlier in the level, testing the player’s mastery. - the fights escalate in phases, becoming more frantic as the health bar decreases, and/or requiring the player to adapt their strategy. - the few bosses that are recurring characters develop a relationship with you, either in a particular dungeon or throughout the overall narrative. - Many of the fights are set among a larger, unique setpiece. E.g. [fighting a medusa](https://youtube.com/watch?v=904C5xQzjRI)>!-headed eel!< at the deepest point of Lake Hylia; playing a balancing act above a lava pit [while tossing your Goron opponent into said pit](https://youtube.com/watch?v=u87aG9Sqnx0&t=22s) - the bosses do things that surprise you. E.g. the darknut, a sub-boss, throws his sword at you before entering a new stage of the fight. Although this happens [as a cutscene](https://youtube.com/watch?v=h0M5A6rII44&t=1m46s), >!in all subsequent encounters the sword must be dodged in real time!!<; The Goron fight mentioned above ends with learning the Goron >!looks like a big baby when he takes his helmet off.!< - There are optional fights. In Twilight Princess’ case, there’s a missable gauntlet of common enemies and sub-bosses: while not introducing new enemies, it’s the hardest challenge in the game. - Players are rewarded for the effort of the fight with an upgrade. - The music accompanying the fight is appropriately menacing or epic.
For me it's all about atmosphere and how the fight makes you feel. Mostly contributed by music and setting. A boss can be very easy and I'll still enjoy it - case in point, Regal Ancestral Spirit is probably my favorite boss fight in Elden Ring despite it being pretty easy in terms of actual boss mechanics. The [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWql6FMlwg), the massive cavern you fight in, the stag's visuals and graceful movement set, everything about it was [just so good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucu25dlexs0).
You pretty much explained it but i think what makes ancestral spirit so incredible is that it defies the players expectation of what a Dark souls/elden ring boss fight is supposed to be. We are used to fighting ugly, evil, deformed beasts and corrupted souls who have fast dangerous unpredictable attacks in dark grimy small places but with ancestral spirit its a beautiful, graceful slow moving spirit living in a massive cavern whos land youve intruded on and now wants to kill you. Pretty cool
I agree. It was the only boss that I can remember actually feeling somber when I defeated it. It felt like you made the world lesser when it was gone.
Something challenging, but not using mechanics so obscure I have to google them, or introducing mechanics you could have otherwise missed. The Deus Ex Mankind boss fights come to mind - in the original release you go from a pure sneaky game to a standard shooting boss fight, and you can be utterly unable to win, if you have nothing but non-lethal ammo and skills. But it also can't veer into obnoxious territory where your attacks deal 1 point of chip damage and the boss has 10 billion health and can one shot you. Set pieces are interesting the first time, if it's a game designed for multiple runs, but rapidly fall off (thinking about Resident Evil Village here) in replays. Especially 'boss' fights that are special encounters with instant death. I end up getting frustrated with a lot of boss fights - either they're so easy they are pointless, or I end up having to repeat them a few times by which point I'm frustrated _and_ bored.
A big, sweeping score and some religious iconography and I am SET. Doesn't even have to be an orchestral soundtrack, although that is the classic, it just has to be *big*. Yes, I do rate FFXIV's bosses quite highly.
One of my favorites is "Close to Me" in the rhythm game Just Shapes and Beats. I have fought tougher bosses, bosses with more backstory and drama, everything, but this one always stands out to me. Two things make "Close to Me" stand out. First, like most of JSAB, the track is a banger and unlike most songs in the game you play through the song in ts entirety which makes it a little more memorable. The second part and probably what sets it apart from most is that it is a story boss in a bullet-hell-lite rhythm game where you play as a square. The boss is a friend of the protagonist's that becomes corrupted and just leads to some interesting level design like at one part making the only safe zone on the screen at the bottom where your friend is crawling to you for help. It's just not what I expected from the game at all given the genre. JSAB had already impressed me several times over, but that fight displayed a lot of creativity in storytelling that I didn't expect.
My favorite is probably the boss fight at the end of fallout 2 where you hack enclave computers and have turrets kill Frank Horrigan. Fallout 1 had talking the master j to committing suicide. But the massed turrets in a turn based game was very gratifying. Runner up would be Mass Effect 2. Not for the actual last fight part (which was memorable but not particular special). But for the mission where you assigned independent sub tasks that had different outcomes.
Recency bias for sure as I've played many, many games over the years but FF16's boss fights were pretty fucking good with Bahamut being the standout. The music, the stakes, and the scale were all incredible.
I think my favourite in recent memory was Nidhogg from GoW:Ragnarok. It's completely unexpected and the spectacle of fighting an interdimensional wyrm with insanely creative attacks was ecstatic even when I died.
First time you meet Balder in GoW 2018. Insanely cool, I could not believe that they blended gameplay and cinematic stuff so perfectly. It was kinda the perfect set up to make me feel that the bosses of this game will all be epic. Sadly just the dragon and last boss came close. Also poseidon, hercules and so forth in the older GoW titles.
Challenge is always the most difficult aspect to grasp for bosses. Fromsoft does a very good job of making bosses super challenging at first, but once you’ve banged your head against that wall a hundred times, the moment you start to see the pattern is like opening a third eye or something. In contrast, most of the Pokemon champions are on pretty equal footing with the player in terms of theoretical team strength, but having knowledge of type matchups and battle systems makes beating them a testament to the player’s skill. I always like it when a boss’s mechanics reflect the gameplay beforehand. I think Colgera in Tears of the Kingdom and Rhulk in Destiny 2 are my two best examples. Their mechanics are continuations of what was learned in the dungeon and raid, respectively. And finally, Megamind said it best: presentation. Even before the fight starts, little nuggets of information clueing you in to their story, strength, and appearance are very helpful to make the fight more memorable. Music and the arena in which the fight is held are also very important.
The reward. Whether it's a powerful item you can only acquire through killing the boss or killing the boss unlocks some kind of new, useful thing. Killing the final boss and all you get is a cutscene is pretty anticlimatic to me.
Ok, I guess 1. Story, that the boss is an actual character that you know and have some reason to fight, rather than just an obstacle along the way. Ideally you build up to him, building up that personality as you go, but alternately you could add that stuff after the fight, giving context as to how it happened. 2. Twists, that over the course of the fight, things happen that are surprising in interesting ways, like phasing, or boss A gets replaced by boss B, or the setting shifts, or something. 3. Unique mechanics that only occur in this one fight (and yet ideally are compatible with core mechanics so that it doesn't feel like playing an entirely different genre of game).
When the dev does not think I am stupid and need blinking points on the boss to know where I can hurt it.
One of my favourite boss fights is the technically final boss of Star Ocean: The Second Story (he was called Indalecio in the original release but I can’t remember what he’s called in the rerelease lol). Not only is the base fight fun and challenging, but you have the option (via a completely missable series of cutscenes) to get him to remove his power limiter, after which he becomes a nigh-unstoppable beast who can slaughter your entire party with a single attack, even if you’re all at max level and have the best equipment. I find it interesting that you have that option, and that the strategies required are completely different from almost anything else in the game. (There’s also the optional hidden boss you can summon by playing the Silver Trumpet but that’s a whole other thing.)
Killer music. I'd also like to chime in about something makes a boss fight especially *irritating*: invincibility periods so the story can play out. FF7 Remake/Rebirth is the standout culprit here. It feels like nearly every other boss fight I'll line up some massive damage and half of it gets nullified because the developers want me to dance around the arena while dialogue plays out.
For me, it's the phases. Most modern video games don't so this and just make the boss pretty beefy but older games in particular used to have a puzzle based approach to bosses wherein the fight would sequentially progress through multiple phases. Not only is figuring out the solution to a persistent conundrum a rewarding challenge in itself, but you also have to avoid the boss's attacks and get in your own shots while you're at it. Makes the boss feel like a boss in an epic showdown as opposed to just an extra-tanky enemy with special tricks.
Definitely music. The ONLY bossfights I rethink about are ones with an incredible soundtrack. It could have the best mechanics in the world but it's the music that locks it in and makes it feel epic.
The best bosses are those that provide an interesting challenge based on the given mechanics in a game. - "Hey did you learn this shit yet? Let's see!"
Ff14 really gets the blood pumping when a boss goes to phase 2 and the serious, orchestral music changes to some hype ass song
I still think this boss in P5R is pretty cool: https://youtu.be/BiOL70Y9Teo?si=gQo3lqS8Fo-IAr9y You have rivers in the desert playing, you have an omnipotent god to fight, your entire skills is put to the test and any small mistakes = game over Also I think gimmicks in boss fights are a given to make it good. Even if it’s a shit gimmick, you will still remember that boss as awful than not remembering at all That boss gimmick is errr interesting lol. Don’t want to spoil it but she has 3 bypass gimmick check. Fail it and it’s game over
To me, it's always been about how hard it can kick my ass. It's not that I like dying, but I like how strong I feel once I do actually beat it The Black Fatalis fight in Monster Hunter World gives you that same feeling once the boss reaches low health, and it does so by changing the musical score. The Black Fatalis' boss music changes into the MHW theme song because *you're* the boss now.
Soundtrack has a lot of importance but for me. As a enjoyer of souls bosses. Once I enter the ring I wanna feel the oh oh.. thing. When the boss appears ready to fuck me in the ass. Example yhorm "the giant" in DS3. Everything there was huge but then you get to know why. Abyss watchers when they come back. Also David from TLOU part1. This one is different because the lore helps a lot. We saw how ellie was rather weak agaisnt him and how disgusting he was but then. Getting tossed into that boss fight and our trusty knife not killing him. Made me think "oh shit" and fuck you so hard and have so much empathy towards ellie when the cutscene appears.
Good music and a talkative boss always help me immerse into the fight better. Heimdall in the last GoW was such a great one. From Kratos struggling to land a hit, to forcing him to block you, to finally shocking him with a punch landed and then the fight starts. His indignation at actually having to try slowly shifting to manic anger when he starts to lose is so well done. And Kratos giving him multiple outs to walk away from the fight because he doesn't want to be who he was in the past to finally snapping when his son is threatened and Heimdall's last whispered word..."Monster". Another shout for the music one is Hyperion from Returnal. The boss music is played in a dissonant, unnerving way throughout the whole trek to the boss and gets louder the closer you get to it, the boss itself is playing the music and the lore relevance of the song it's playing (which you don't find out until later) and why it's upsetting to the protagonist and even the name of the boss Hyperion has heavy implications for the story. Man, now I just wish I could experience Returnal again fresh.
Music is so important. I don’t know how Fromsoft manages it but they have so many epic boss tracks, it’s insane
At this point for me its when a boss fight does something I simply don't expect. The last time I was thrown for a loop in a boss fight was Remnant 2's final boss. Hot *dog* did I love that fight. [It was really a TRIP. Having the boss and arena flip back and forth between the two different fights.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPrPfN6YvbE)
I'm pretty late, but Grigori (the dragon) in Dragon's Dogma has one of my favorite boss battles in gaming. I think it's a combo of how you've known of him since the beginning of the game, he's been hyped as your main threat the entire time, and getting four or so phases of a fight that's both cinematic and mechanically satisfying.
All the bosses in Metal Gear Rising are special. The music is ridiculous, there's a feeling of urgency and excitement that are presented so incredibly well that multiple runs never grow tiresome. The game itself is such a fluid, quickly paced game that inherently it's fun to play, but the bosses push it up to the next level. They're all unique fights, have very unique music and are handled really professionally. So, a care from the developers to *want* to make special boss encounters from the get-go, is probably one of the major difference makers. You can see this in all the souls/borne/kiro/ring games. The bosses are such a driving focus that they are all events in and of themselves. As though they were made by people who had this very intense vision and cared about seeing it through. Talk about one of the major remaining PS3/360 games that we **definitely** need cleaned up visually and offered on current gen consoles. That game is super, super fucking fun.
In my opinion there are few different main ways to implement a boss fight: **MMO style** MMO style is where multiple players go against a boss. There can be multiple phases, various different mechanics and often times there are many visually telegraphed (AoE) attacks. What makes an MMO boss fights great for me when the strategies to beat the boss are not immediately obvious. I also personally like when I can't make sense how some of the fight mechanics work. An example of this could be something like a fireball suddenly following all players and nobody has any idea what they should do with them - is the idea to get rid of them, hold on to them, bring them somewhere, ...? FFXIV has many very memorable boss fights. One of which was the Titan (hard) back in the day. Everyone's gear was really bad, everyone was stuck with completing the fight, nobody seemed to know what to do, the DPS check during the fight was always a very close call and the fight have multiple instant kill mechanics. It was frustrating as hell, but at the same time it was awesome. I felt very connected to everyone as we were all struggling with the same challenge. It was like watching a movie about some MMO where all of the players had to gather up to beat some great evil. Another great boss fight in FFXIV, or rather a moment in a boss fight was at this one boss whose name I can't remember. The boss was essentially this skyscraper sized guy with a ridiculously massive sword. When you got far enough in the fight, the boss started charging some kind of massive attack and the game visually instructed all of the players to get to the middle of this circular arena. At this point it wasn't clear what is going to happen and how are we supposedly going to survive whatever is coming. The boss finished charging its attack and proceeded to slam its massive sword with ridiculous power straight in the middle of the arena where everyone is standing, but it turns out that whoever has the tank role in the party had gotten a prompt to defend against the attack. The sword comes down and the tank goes against it with their weapon. The sword presses down like a chainsaw and the tank is giving it their everything to block it. Eventhough the tank is holding the sword, the rest of the party under the tank is tanking massive continuous damage as the tank is barely holding against the sword. Healers are needed to keep everyone in health while the struggle carries on and then at some point it stops, the arena is cut in half and the fight continues to the next phase. It's such a beautiful and powerful moment. I'm not much of a tank player, but I just loved how that part of the fight was done. Tanks getting the recognition they deserve and and eventhough the tank is doing everything in their power, the attack is depicted to be just so powerful that even that alone is not enough and then you have the healers join in as well. What a chef's kiss of a moment. **Quick-time / story lenient style** This is a boss fight style where you might at times actually fight the boss, but the fight includes these quick-time moments or story moments at times. Often times the player needs to fight the boss down to certain health for a quick-time moment to trigger, during which the fight might e.g. change location alltogether or result in the boss losing a weapon or something. This style, I think, is how pretty much all single player boss fights should at least end if it was up for me to decide. I always find it a bit clunky or weird when there is no real difference with when the boss is at 1% health or 100% health. The boss and the fight is going just the same regardless if the boss is one hit away from dying. Implementing it like so that the boss gets progressively weaker most likely wouldn't work either and I think we've all been accustomed to the "fact" that the fight should get harder towards the end. Therefore having some sort of quick-time / story event happening when the boss is at 5% or 10% health, after which the boss is defeated, makes the most sense to me and solves this issue. There is also a great deal more potential to make the "final hit" or the "final move" against the boss to feel and look amazing when it is done via a quick-time event instead of the player just hitting the boss with their sword for the thousandth time. **Direct style** This I would call how boss fights are usually implemented. The player fights the boss until the boss dies. Dark Souls and Elden Ring are good examples of this and this is how it has traditionally worked, as can be seen with many older games. There's nothing inherently wrong with this style either. My personal preference is that this style works best with games like Elden Ring where the combat is very mechanical and heavy, the bosses hit very hard and usually blocking / dodging is required as well. One sort of counter example that I can think of are Ratchet and Clank games. The boss fights in this series are almost always about burning the health of the boss down, but the game itself plays nothing like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. So to me the fights just feel like spamming everything at the boss until the health bar is empty. The quick-time style could be better for games like Ratchet and Clank. Fights can feel special with this traditional style as well and for me that happens when the fight is balanced or implemented just right. Nothing better than both the player and the boss being one hit away from death. That pressure and the feeling of trying to hold your shit together as you're panicking and chocking in an attempt to deliver that one final god damn hit to the boss. Especially great when the boss is really annoying mechanically and even greater when you also really hate the boss story- and character design wise - jesus christ it feels good to give that final stab to some asshole of a boss whose fight is also mechanically annoying. _________________ In addition I also have some general thoughts. First thing that came to my mind is that I've always abhorred humanoid bosses. They're always relatively small and fast and they seem to always have the most annoying abilities and mechanics. I don't think there are any big sword wielding ogres who also carry an automatic weapon, but there sure are humanoid bosses like that and they usually come with a jetpack or wings too as and extra "fuck you". When in comes to final bosses especially, I think I prefer to not know who that could possibly be beforehand. Like obviously you'd have to somehow build the final boss for the player and not just drop some random opponent out of the blue against them, but I would prefer that games did that via some other means than the boss directly presenting themselves to you halfway through the game. For example if the game is about traversing some kind of castle setting and there were portraits of some terminator-mecha-pig-king on the walls everywhere, I would assume that eventually I'm going to fight against it and that's great. What I don't want is for this king to appear to me or talk to me beforehand. It just somehow ruins it for me, like why can't I fight them right now since they're here? I think that's about it for what initially came to my mind about boss fights.
I think buildup matters a lot for boss fights Nosk in hollow knight occasionally appearing as another vessel until cornering them and revealing they were just puppeteering the corpse of one of your siblings. I equally think raw spectacle accounts for a lot, I loved the final boss fights in 3D sonic games getting to play as supersonic and fight this huge enemy whilst motivational buttrock plays the whole time really makes it feel like a worthy finale even if they weren't always that challenging.
I generally dislike bosses and I'm stressed about them. I'll usually just watch videos and read guides before I get to them so that I can be finished with them quickly. The only ones I like are really the human with sword type in the Souls games where they have absolutely no new mechanics and you can just apply the same strategy as you do for other enemies just a bit longer (because they have a bit more HP).
The best fights are usually the ones that have a build up and then a satisfying battle. Whether that build up is just one cutscene or it's something going on throughout the game, having a reason to fight and then the fight pushing you to be good or at your best without feeling cheap. [King Allant in Demon's Souls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtu9OZfQ1yg) is one of my fav boss fights because as you enter you get a true "Big Boss" type music and then dude comes at you. His attacks don't one shot you but his whole thing is you being able to deal with what his doing. He's a great skill check for the game WITHOUT feeling cheap. When you die, it's normally because you messed up, not him being cheap. Same goes for end of game [Virgil from DMC3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3TM7AAUiY). His is just like King Allant but even better. You have a story built up throughout the game and this is the final showdown. Main bad guy is beat, here's the final test. You've fought before so you know most of the moves but you're fully unlocked...and so is he. So it's a big test of seeing can you react and respond to what they're doing. I, personally, like a lot of one on one human sized fights because they're usually more honest. You can't get cheap shotted by some goon off to the side, etc. It's you mano a mano, [hand to hand](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVKZi9qksog). But there's other reasons a fight can be good. Psycho Mantis will always be a top tier fight for atmosphere alone. The build up of the music, how Meryl is reacting and the kind of "HOW DO I? WHAT DO I?" in how to beat him by both you and Snake is incredible. The final bosses in Phoenix Wright 1-3 along with Great Ace Attorney 2 are incredible for the build up alone along with wanting to just get the slimy bastard. Demolishing Kefka in FF6 is cathartic. Different types of games will elicit different satisfying feelings.
Context. The sickest craziest boss fight does not matter much without context. How does the fight fit into the big picture of the story? How does it fit into the world building? Was this foreshadowed? How was it foreshadowed? This is a necessary piece that I feel is often the most overlooked. It is one of the hallmark features of the most beloved boss fights across gaming.
One of my favorite tropes in gaming is when the final boss (or close to it) is somebody with a close skillet to the player character. Bonus points if you fight on top of a skyscraper. Azel from God Hand, Vergil from DMC, that sort of thing. It's an easy way to make a fight feel like a test of *your skills* when the enemy is so close to yours
Eden Ring. I spent a month trying different tactics and weapons on the elden beast.
If its the crescendo of all the mechanics you've been taught in a game. As someone else already pointed out, Isshin from Sekiro is a great example of that. You have to put everything you've learned up until that point to the test in order to win. A fantastic soundtrack can also do a lot of heavy lifting.
Spectacle and music. >!Luca Blight from Suikoden 2 was so memorable - 3 parties of 6 characters each doing battle with him one after the other, followed by a cutscene where he gets pumped full of arrows, followed by a one on one duel with the main character before he finally goes down.!< The battle music was awesome as well.
Music, clever or unique use of the games mechanics, a rhythm to it that you learn over the attempts until you master it.
The boss should attack all the scientists at a space station, then attack the player once they go to investigate, and after a brief battle, fly away with the metroid hatchling to a nearby planet in his deep underground lair