Why do Western Developers tend to avoid boss battles?

Boss battles require mastery of mechanics and engaging game design. Western games are deliberately designed to not possess these things so that they can be more cinematic.

>Testing your skills, but NOT TOO MUCH.

jRPGs are a bad example.

As for action games, it's because western action games focus on shallow mechanics with little in the way of switching from offensive to defensive play. This emphasis on crowd control over technical action means that boss battles and general climactic encounters are a fucking impossibility to design.

They design themselves into a hole and bullshit their way out of it. Shame, really.

I mean you could use arcade games as an exception, where western arcade games had the same emphasis on boss battles, but those haven't been a thing for a while.

Before I name any games, how much further do you intend to move the goalposts?

JRPGs are a fine example if the RPG is actually good. There are plenty of great boss fights in the SMT games.

>And no eastern europe doesn't count as western.
Then what are they called?

Slavic Reservation.

I don't know why most avoid it.

Like, the Spider mastermind in D44M was a great battle and tested your mobility in the arena against it.

It could be due to what user said

Right, but SMT is much closer to Wizardry than the poor man's Ultima that is Final Fantasy, that concentrated on superfluous bullshit so much that it coined jRPG.

Mr freeze from the arkham series is easily not only the best stealth related boss battle ever made but genuinely one of the best bosses of all time since you cant exploit the boss by doing the same move more than once

How many Eastern European games have boss fights? I suppose you could say Witcher, but the boss fights there are no different than any other encounter other than the enemy being a damage sponge.

Japan games tend to follow a script so they have clear ideas when boss fights should take place. Western games tend to be more freedom so they are not as scripted and hence harder to place bosses.

It's just a less aggressive Vulcan Raven with dogshit AI.

I don't remember much about pre 2010s western games. Did the western devs tend to avoid boss battles then too?

partly the latter, partly a reluctance to come up with a whole moveset that will only be used once which is why you get so many western games that basically use the same boss over and over again

Batman Arkham city
Batman Arkham Knight
Tomb Raider 13
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Borderlands 2
Borderlands the Pre-sequel
Skyrim
Fallout 4

and those are just off the top of my head.

Just name them cunt I want more games to play

From the top of my head I can only really think of Darksiders series.

Generally ARPGs have bossfights, but FPSes tend not to anymore.

Half-Life did boss fights to some degree.

>and eastern European doesn't count
You fucking weebs are pathetic
That's like me asking why are Asians games so pathetic? And no you can't include Jap games in this.

>good Boss battles require mastery of mechanics and engaging game design.
FTFY

can we just make a board for weeaboo/console games and banish all the children there for good?

>its just an X derogatory (retardedly oversimplified) explanation

I think the de-emphasis on boss fights happened because games have shifted away from level-based structure to story-based. In the NES days, most games had a story in the manual if you wanted it, but the games themselves were just made up of multiple levels, with a boss fight signifying the end of each level. They were milestones, of a sort. You knew after each boss you would be moving on to a new level. Modern game design focuses more on building a game around a narrative, with area/setting changes punctuated by story beats rather than boss fights. You might get a difficult encounter as a culmination of a story segment, but usually nothing that is going to outright halt the progress of the story.

Both philosophies work. "Boss fights" as an idea even in the NES era were sort of a holdover from arcades, much like the level structure and the lives system. Bosses were meant to be a test of skills, as well as a means of pulling a few extra quarters out of the player. Shifting away from that style of game design makes sense when the player isn't being shaken down for change constantly throughout the game.

Mr. Freeze is nothing on normal mode, and a decent, fun boss on hard mode, nothing more. The fact that people jump to him as a fantastic Western boss just shows how terrible and few Western bosses really are.

Oh it's an aussie so therefore shitposting thread. Carry on you soft cunt.

Then how about the Yakuza games?

I mean it's almost the same for 6-7 games, but people still like the fuck out of it.

I mean the battle system in that game isn't that deep even. But when you talk about Yakuza, you tend to remember boss battles a whole lot there.

I feel it's because most western writers for games are just people who wanted to get into show business but couldn't get a job for a movie or even a TV series so they settled for video game story writing, and of course that kind of format doesn't account for anything like boss battles.

Ridiculous. The vast majority of Western games are American. The rest will be British or Canadian. There are a handful of Eastern European games worth mention.

Most Japanese games, you either grind, or you exploit the battle system, I wouldn't exactly call that challenging, despite the shitposter who agreed with you.

The point of a boss battle is to test the skills the player has learned up to that point and push them to the limit, proving that they have mastered the systems of the game. If your game has very little depth and not much to learn, or nothing that makes it stand out from the other thousand games like it, then there's no reason to test the player's skills at all.

The other scenario is that it's an "open-world" game. Having bosses in a game that freeform is an incredibly difficult task, considering that most open-world games let you dick around so much that one player's progress 5 hours in could be the same as another player's progress 20 hours in. How do you test the player's skill when you have no idea how long they'll have been playing the game when they reach your boss fight?

Doesn't mean you get to change the meaning of western games.

Let me guess, youre a retard who thinks that something like DMC actually has good bosses?

DMC1 has great bosses but something like DMC3 and 4 are mostly examples of what a blight japanese "game design" can be and how retarded weeaboos eat it up just like every shitty anime

Not even him byt
>calling someone a cunt makes you Australian
I'm going to assume you're a burger and ask, why the fuck is the cunt so offensive to you?

Also for PS1 games I remember Future Cop had boss battles and so did Medievil. Also Team Buddies but that shit goes for a fair bit on eBay last I checked.

Latest Doom has awesome boss fights but you can feel a very strong Ys influence. Cyberdemon is basically Pictimos.

To be fair, this isn't limited to western games. Alot of eastern games are succumbing to this trend too. Look at Paper Mario: color Splash and Metroid Prime: Federation Force for example. What they call a "boss" is just a bigger normal enemy, or a rehashed enemy that has an extremely simplistic AI. There's no thought or effort put into it, no desire to make it a boss that tests your skills, nothing like that. It almost feels like they're just filling a quota, nothing more.

A boss should exist as a test of what you've learned so far, whether it's through that level, or through the whole game, or for a specific set of abilities. Sometimes they were used to get you ready for harder parts of the game, by asking you to learn attack patterns and multitask Nowadays everyone just uses them as glorified damage sponges, or they're just quick time events, or worse yet, they're just cutscenes.

It's laziness, regardless of origin.

No, it does. But it's a moot point because it's not like there's a bunch of Eastern European games with boss fights anyway. There are only a few worth mentioning to begin with.

Wew lad, keep moving those goal posts.

Yakuza gameplay is a bit stiff

The story for the characters and presentation is why bosses are memorable.

The gameplay itself, not so much.

>DMC3 and 4 are mostly examples of what a blight japanese "game design"
Explain.

No goal post was moved. There wasn't even one to move to begin with. What a non-sequitur.

hotline miami

That's the opposite of a problem.

Have a fun boss battle in the open world.

Hulk Ultimate Destruction did it.

I like how they have to be AAA, otherwise you'd have no point because you can arbitrarily set limits that Japanese games don't have to follow, because there aren't any AAA developers in Japan anymore.

Go ahead, name me one AAA Japanese studio that still actively makes games that would qualify under the same standards.

How retarded are you? You aren't even making an argument anymore. You're just slightly acknowledging the other guys point and then going off about something else.

That's just Nintendo being Nintendo. No one cares about Nintendo anymore, not even Nintendo.

>Name good boss fights
>Ok, here's one
>No, that doesn't count
Sure, no goal posts being moved

Grimrock 2 has some surprisingly fun boss battles.
>that one boss who constantly mocks you for whatever tactic you are using, notices even if you're using healing items
>that motherfucking last battle and reveal of the true identity of a boss

>Name good boss fights
Follow the reply chain, dunderbrain.

Federation Force is made by a western dev though

From Software

Vergil and credo are the tits though so shut up

What modern games DO have good boss fights?

Does Nintendo count? They're making that new Zelda, and I'm sure it's going to have bosses. Every Zelda game has bosses all over the place.

Arkham Knight didn't have boss fights though. Just BatTank shit.
And saying Fallout 4 has bosses is a real stretch

He's a weeb. There's quite a lot wrong with him.

My argument is simple. If you make a generalization about Western games, and are generally correct about it, and someone brings up some Polish game and tries to dispel that argument, it just doesn't work. It's like bringing up a Vietnamese game when talking about Asian games, all of which worth a damn are made in Japan.

But even then it doesn't matter because the Eastern European game industry is not popping out amazing boss fights.

You didn't say it was a good one. You said it was one of the best boss fights of all time.

Flashy boss with a rhytm of now its invincible and attacks/ now its vulnerable and doesnt attack

Something like DMC1 actually has you creating openings and constantly counterattacking- then leading to actually more mechanically impressive bosses like Nightmare that force you to manage your damage since you can break parts of the boss that will make it harder the next time it appears

You fucking faggot, I'm an aussie myself and I can spot my brethren a mile away. When you use cunt in that sense, you give yourself up. Now quit being such a little shit cunt or at least fuck off back to plebbit you mong.

Bayonetta 1 + 2 and The Wonderful 101.

>Is it because they can't do gameplay properly?
Yes for the huge majority of "modern" AAA this is actually the case.

In a lot of old games, the boss fights sort of felt like the focus of the game, and the levels leading up to them were just a means of getting you to the fight. The only games that exist today that still feel like that are the Souls games.

>it's a weebs try to justify their shitty game genre thread
el oh el

Vergil is way over-dicksucked. Bait out combos because he's otherwise invincible outside of specific circumstances.

Way lame.

>Flashy boss with a rhytm of now its invincible and attacks/ now its vulnerable and doesnt attack
When Japan does this, the bosses tend to switch between these two modes very quickly and you have to take advantage of it.

When Western devs do it, it's extremely tedious and lengthy.

Nightmare's difficulty is static.
Battle 3 will always be the same in Battle 3 no matter what you did in 1 or 2.

Or are you talking about in a single fight?
If so then Nightmare only has multiple cores in battle 3 and they all must break even if you save diving into the body for the end.

>Flashy boss with a rhytm of now its invincible and attacks/ now its vulnerable and doesnt attack
Which bosses are those?

>It's like bringing up a Vietnamese game when talking about Asian games
That still fucking counts. Vietnam is in Asia. If you were only talking about Jap games to begin with, you might have a point, but as you said
>when talking about Asian games
Even in your made up scenario you're moving the goalposts.

What the fuck are you two even arguing about? Eastern European games clearly aren't Western since Eastern Europe isn't part of the West. It's not up for debate or anything.

I didn't say anything about the fight, I'm just pointing out the goal posts being moved
But to be fair, Freeze is a great boss fight.

Oh okay so you aussies just don't know of places other than your own I get it.

I am sure he meant not complete garbage boss fights... more like at least somewhat comparable to japanese games in terms of polish, gameplay.
Yeah there is almost nothing from western AAA games.

If it doesn't matter then why specifically say "oh hey not these guys that totally fit under the definition."

It makes literally 0 sense.

Because western games tend towards the immersion aspect a hell of a lot more and typical boss battles are very gamey. Which is fine, but it does not tie in well with the more grounded immersion based style the western big publisher industry tends to focus on.

>How do you test the player's skill when you have no idea how long they'll have been playing the game
bonus bosses you can challenge any time but can just run away from if you're getting your shit pushed in

where do you draw your arbitrary line? is it english speaking? do french ubisoft games not count then?

>That still fucking counts.
It counts as an exception to the rule, nothing more.

>Even in your made up scenario you're moving the goalposts.
You don't even know what that means. It's a perfectly logical comparison considering we were talking about Western games. Poland is to America as Vietnam is to Japan, nothing more than an exception.

You must be from Melbourne.

Doom 4's boss fights were alright if a bit short.

So why make a game then?

ITT: someone who got wrecked by Cerberus in 3.

Part of me wishes that western RPG bosses have multiple forms or phases to make it a more thrilling end point of the game instead of just one tough battle. At the very least Shadowrun: Hong Kong's final boss had two phases which was neat.

>is it english speaking?
I can't even fathom how stupid one would have to be to think that "The West" means English speaking countries only.

Even action movies have boss fights.

Western developers just want to say they are making "art".

>In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") or Triple-A is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion. A title considered to be AAA is therefore expected to be a high quality game or to be among the year's bestsellers.

So yeah kinda.
Sony partly counts too. Point being op just wanted to shitpost so they limited it as much as possible

the definition of western game is "not made in asia" it's dumb but it's true.

>turn-based rpgs aren't games

Ok

Why are western game devs so ashamed of making video games?

>It counts as an exception to the rule
>Poland is to America as Vietnam is to Japan
What rule? Vietnam is literally in Asia. It's not even nearly the same thing as the arbitrary moniker of Western. Vietnam is literally in Asia. If you're talking about Asian games any Vietnamese game would certainly apply.

agreed. one of the things I liked about the Persona 3 final boss was that even if you were absurdly overlevelled that his health would reset after each phase and he would bust out new tactics meant the narrative tension was still preserved

Casual gamers have lower standards than movie goers.
Holding a controller instantly adds 4 points to the score of a movie.

Really though having the interaction makes scares/emotional scenes/whatever have more impact to them because they were playing it. You don't have to do it well to make people think it is good as a result.

Actually a bong but sick guess cunt.

>says western developers tend to focus on story
>posts an image of a JRPG

>If you're talking about Asian games any Vietnamese game would certainly apply.
It would, and no one would care, because the only Asian games worth mentioning are made in Japan.

I don't even care if Eastern Europe is considered Western. My point was simply that people shouldn't freak out and scream about changing goal posts when someone said you can't count Eastern Europe, because Eastern Europe doesn't matter anyway.

Because there are many different vectors from which interactive game systems can be enjoyed.

Do you really want to know why? You won't believe me if I tell you.

"Reinforces rape culture" since it lets "cis white males" have too much control over the medium.

I'm dead serious.

Kirby.

Yeah you see what you do here, you call things garbage.

>Arkham Knight didn't have boss fights though. Just BatTank shit.
>And saying Fallout 4 has bosses is a real stretch
Arkham Knight has a ton of boss fights where they test your mechanics and ability to use gadgets, and reward you based on how well you do and if you could avoid being seen, are you mentally retarded or just shitposting?

What about the fight against Two-face and his thugs? Or Harley Quinn?
There are ton of boss fights where they limit what tech you can use, and avoid being seen.

>where do you draw your arbitrary line? is it english speaking?

America is truly alone then since they are just a glorified third world shithole amidst people like the nordic countries who speak english as a favor to them

Speaking as someone who doesn't even play "movie games" or "walking simulators", games can be a lot of different things with a lot of different experiences aimed at a lot of different audiences. I think it's a mistake to say that every game ever should focus on exciting gameplay, or that immersion is not a valid goal.

So there isn't any difference.

>It would, and no one would care, because the only Asian games worth mentioning are made in Japan.
I thought Rabi Ribi was alright, even if it does look awful at first glance.
It has good bosses so so it's very relevant to this thread.

Divinity Original Sin.

Holy shit I can't believe someone can be this much of an autist.

Nothing can match the feel of despair when you realized that it was only the boss's first form/phase and you had already used up all of your items.

>no one would care, because the only Asian games worth mentioning are made in Japan.
It was a hypothetical scenario you made up. Let's imagine Vietnam was making games. Bam, they are relevant. Even if it's just one game, Japan making more games doesn't immediately disqualify the Vietnam one. Fuck off with your autism.

Monster Hunter

>What about the fight against Two-face and his thugs? Or Harley Quinn?
Those don't really do enough differently from normal enemy encounters to be "boss fights" imo. Neither does the Jason Todd fights. They're just regular fight/stealth segments but with named enemies instead of generic grunts.
Compared to Mr. Freeze and Solomon Grundy in Arkham City, the """"bosses"""" in Arkahm Knight are a fucking joke.

Do you enjoy having a conversation with yourself?

Should they really be considered boss fights if the entire game is boss fights?

>Let's imagine Vietnam was making games. Bam, they are relevant.
Not when making generalizations about a region in which games are developed, no. Japan doesn't make many military FPS games. If Vietnam started cranking a few out a year, we wouldn't start pretending that Asia loves making military FPS games.

Why mention old games or games no one has heard of?

Because sometimes boss battles just don't fit into the gameplay or the narrative. You can't really have a bossfight in a shooter with semi-realistic setting, because it will just turn in something retarderd, or a helicopter boss. Or the combat system is geard towars the fights against multiple enemies (shadow of mordor), and the concept of a bossfight just doesn't work there (not saying, that they should've made it a qte, but my point still stands, and even in the DLC it was a glorified ork-group fight). When westerm games aren't limited by those things, they do include bossfights (Doom4 as the most recent example). So do most of the rpgs.
On a small note: bossfights aren't necessary to make a good game, but, if executed right, they may be beneficial or even a highlight of the game.

They aren't they're just far more interested in experimenting with and expanding out of the old arcade "make the game hard so it eats their money" style for the most part.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze

>2-4 years old
>old games
>hotline miami or darksiders
>no one has heard of
leave

That has more to do with western AAA developers not being able to actually create polished, fun, skill based gameplay as foundation (and requirement) of fun boss fights.
They cant or dont have the ressources to create the gameplay required for good boss fights.

Robobot was a good game but I don't understand why the bosses had to have four phases each.

Well there's still small monsters and missions where you don't need to kill a boss monster at all, so yeah I'd say they count.

It's like that little freeware shmup, Warning Forever, yeah there's a FUCKTON of bosses but they're all still bosses.

You're right we wouldn't say they love making them.

But we sure as hell would say that they do make them. That would just be a fact. No matter what way you put it in this scenario it would be a fact that asia makes military fps games.

>Tomb Raider 13
That game had boss fights? I remember maybe one boss - singular - and a load of dude rush sections.

stay mad
>make the game hard so its their money
Holy fuck, how much of a casual are you?

>Not when making generalizations about a region in which games are developed, no.
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand. We're talking about examples of vidya from a certain region. If Vietnam has a certain game that fits that criteria then it can be provided. Not accepting it for some arbitrary reason is fucking retarded.

Did you even fucking play the game? Yes they do, especially on the harder difficulties, they're different in that they throw different things at you than normal encounters and are meant to test your mastery of gadgets and such, since you have to do things like not be seen while you're disabling the objectives, or take out everyone + the boss.

Which is different than when they just throw mobs of enemies at you.

These fit the exact parameters set in this thread where it tests the mastery of a skill, and isn't just a turn based rpg damage spong.

Friend, the reason boss fights ever existed was to make you lose so that the arcade machines could eat more of your money. This isn't a fucking secret.

99% of boss battles, west or east, are shit.
They're just harder hitting damage sponges. Sometimes they have a gimmick that you have to exploit three times in sequence.
Only a select few bosses are genuinely interesting.

Instead of a single boss character, the west prefers to put the player through a setpiece encounter, typically a gauntlet with a shitload of enemies attacking all at once, or some objective to complete while under attack.

>But we sure as hell would say that they do make them
Then I suppose Western games are full of boss fights since some occasionally have them.

Jaden, it's time to get off Cred Forums and apologize to Will for being such a disappointing son

>Movies (especially action movies) always have boss fights
>"Art"

>Western Devs shy away from boss fights
>"We are making art. We don't need something gamey like that."

>Yeah you see what you do here, you call things garbage.
Thats because thats what the boss fights are you posted objectively garbage compared to a even average japanese action game with bosses.

Europe is its own continent and is not part of the east vs west debate.

When we say western, we mean the Western Hemisphere, so American specifically.

What the fuck are you even talking about? Who are these people talking about art? What fever dream are you quoting?

You could try playing games that aren't for kids.
>muh fun
Fun doesn't mean immature.

>Thats because thats what the boss fights are you posted objectively garbage compared to a even average japanese action game with bosses.

Ok.

Arcades were doing that long before bosses existed

We aren't even disagreeing now, bosses were just another vector for them to do that.

Because the setting doesn't really allow for it in any kind of even semi-realistic setting. For example, the closest thing a shooter like BF or COD could have is a tank or helicopter fight which would still come with a swarm of dudes to make it somewhat challenging.

The concept of the Western World predates the colonisation of North America.

There's nothing wrong with that.

>"name some bossfights!"
>"sure:x,y,z"
>"but those don't count"

>movies can often be well written and funny, or serious

>meanwhile, video game """""writers""""" are too busy sniffing their own farts to proofread the trainwreck that they greenlight to be put into their interactive art pieces

Simple solution.

I don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing inherently more bullshit about a boss than any other part of an arcade game.

What the fuck

The "western world" literally refers to Europe you mongoloid. That term has been around since the height of the Roman Fucking Empire

>they're different in that they throw different things at you than normal encounters and are meant to test your mastery of gadgets and such
But they don't do that.

Having boss battles is the one of the most popular complains about divinity os

Batman games have tons of boss fights.
And that's because fist fights and street fights can turn into boss fights because they aren't using instant lethal force like guns that much. That allows a fight to be dragged on. Thats the only semi realistic was to make a boss fight happen. The west is all about real world references.

All the boss battles people want from western developers went to those making INDIE GAMES.

What does this mean? It means your favorite AAA developers are now run by rejects from the movie industry.

Rejoice guys. It's over. The west is done.

> that's because fist fights and street fights can turn into boss fights
Did you even play the fucking games? Mr. Freeze is often cited as the best boss in the series. It's been mentioned in the thread already.

>But they don't do that.
So you haven't played the game then huh?

It's been awhile, but there are several battles with enemies that lock onto you when you use detective vision

Then there are fights where they slowly either destroy the places you can hide, or mine them so that if you go near it you set it off. There are others too that I can't be assed to remember off the top of my head, but I also do remember it being more of a test on higher difficulties because you had less of a margin of error.

Yeah shit bosses are shit rise of Tomb Raider?
Fallout 4? lol what next gears 1?
Every single game mentioned in his list is a prove that most western aaa developers dont have what it takes to produce fun and polished gameplay that is needed as foundation for good boss fights. I mean you can all pretend there is not a really obvious quality difference between bosses when comparing japan games to western games .. but its there and big.

He's good. But I prefered the death stroke boss fight but that's just me. I liked the emphasis on timings.

There's a trend of making games "appear" less like games.

A good example would be something like Bioshock. Vita chambers are your save points, believable lived in setting, everything is there to make you feel like you're in another world. Boss fights aren't some hyped up climax, they're more of a difficult encounter you face along the way.

A bad example would be something like The Order. They go so far they forgot they're making a game.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but like with anything, lots of people will try it and fuck it up.

>Or is it because they think boss battles are not a serious part of games? Which is kinda ironic really.

To me, the western devs are trying desperately to utilize games as a medium for driving player experiences and serious storytelling and think boss battles are a very arcade-like aspect of video games.

So in short, they don't like games?

Pretty much every Soulsborne game

Exactly

They like video games as a medium but are struggling to fully appreciate it.

>A good example would be something like Bioshock. Vita chambers are your save points, believable lived in setting, everything is there to make you feel like you're in another world.

Thats been a thing since System Shock

They do, its just immersion has come a long way since 2D platformers

>there are several battles with enemies that lock onto you when you use detective vision
>Then there are fights where they slowly either destroy the places you can hide, or mine them so that if you go near it you set it off.
You realize regular enemies can do that too right?

This. Feminism is now the core ideology behind western game design.

>muh immersion
I want this meme to die.

how the FUCK do you get to sephiroth with only the organics?

Funny how you guys give shit about cinematic games but still probably defend games like Metal Gear Solid

Who is "you guys"?

Making Cloud a sorcerer.

Surely you realize the in-fighting Cred Forums does about supporting the MGS series?

The gameplay in MGS is important to people too though. Just look at all the people complaining about how MGS V's wasn't up to their standards.

MGS has boss fights

It's ironic you say that, because it sounds like you wanted to make a really interesting and insightful point but all you could do was rehash something everybody's been parroting since the dawn of time.

easily?
FF7 isn't a hard game in the slightest. The only asshole story boss is Carry Armor

According to some its "too video gamey" so yeah.

>tfw haven't played western games since the early 90's and never have to subject myself to lesser quality video games

Best choice I ever made.

same

Kojima might as well be an American

There are exceptions.
Im currently playing Darkest Dungeon and it is top notch.

except for 5

2011
>Skyrim, Desu Sex HR, Dead Spess 2, Rage, Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Spess Marine, Duke Nukem Forever
2012
>Mass Effect 3, Diablo 3
2013
>Bioshock Infinite, Metro Last Light, Rayman Legends, Crysis 3
2014
>DA: Inquisition, Shadow Of Mordor, Wolfenstein: New Order
2015
>Fallout 4, Wolfenstein: Old Blood
2016
>D44m

Not cinematic, too gamey.

>no eastern europe doesn't count as western
are you American perchance?

What the fuck does "gamey" even fucking mean?

You are playing a game anyway.

Holy shit is that really an excuse?

It's a poor version of saying something is too arcade-like.

There's no codex for what a game is supposed to be like. There's nothing inherently un-gamey about not having boss fights, just like there isn't about not having a health bar or a stat-based leveling system where they don't belong.

"this thing is too gamey" doesn't mean "this thing would define this as a game and that's embarrassing", but "this is just something many games do, it doesn't fit here". It's like cramming a stealth section or a vehicle section in games where they don't belong and don't add anything, that's gamey too.

The only acceptable exceptions are Deus Ex, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and Red Dead Redemption

>actually mentioning more than half of those games for your argument

Because most Western developers DESPERATELY wanna be like directors in Hollywood so they take out their angst by making their games as close to movies as possible

Games like The Last of Us are examples of this. Sadly, games like this usually get a lot of praise because 14 year old timmies thought it had a good plot.

>tripfag having shit taste

youtube.com/watch?v=_Buwei6ZWqU

>"this thing is too gamey" doesn't mean "this thing would define this as a game and that's embarrassing",
How I envy that child-like innocence.

>masterpieces
>TLoU
>Bioshock: That Card...

>What the fuck does "gamey" even fucking mean?
It means people who don't like games can't appreciate it.

>boss fight
>its just a stronger version of a regular enemy

I think Quantum Break had at least one sort-of boss fight even though it was a botched weird attempt at a different kind of storytelling
Then again you asked for prominent so I guess it doesn't count

I hate you gameplay or bust faggots.

Because to you, gameplay is moving and shooting. Never mind games where roleplaying a character, commanding an army, or building a city is the gameplay. Nope, if I'm not constantly moving and shooting it's too story focused.

Yes, if you explicitly look for people who have that kind of mentality you'll find that they use terms in a more pretentious and retarded way. Good job. What I meant is that the term doesn't INHERENTLY mean that.

>Skyrim

If you're playing a game that's trying to be immersive with a serious story and you have floating powerups and points that rack up to extra lives and normal human beings taking a hundred bullets for the sake of shoehorning in a boss battle, that's being too "gamey" for the game that the developers are trying to make.

Even if you're not interested in games like that, they're a valid type of game and a lot of stereotypical gaming conventions would be a poor fit for them.

>shit bosses
>shit "bosses"
>shit "bosses"
>shit "bosses"
>shit bosses
>shit bosses
>shit bosses
>shit "bosses"

>Yes, if you explicitly look for people who have that kind of mentality
But I didn't even try to find someone who thought that. The ideaology that games shouldn't be "videogamey" is becoming widespread and more accepted. And any game that doesn't conform receives obscene levels of hate.

>Starts with Skyrim
Literally 0 effort shitpost.

I don't like boss battles. I mostly play fps so it would just be shooting at a bullet sponge for 20 minutes. Yay how fun.

MGS is a perfect example for this thread.

MGS5 has no boss fights and is the worst game in the series.

>immersive

There's that word again

Western Developers still include a lot of bosses. There's just fewer of them per game as it's more of a narrative thing. A boss in the west is more likely to be a large plot point than it is to be a boss there to test your skill with a new weapon or ability. Anything that's going to be a hard mook at the end of the dungeon is also more likely to be a mini-boss than a boss because of this.

Take Wolfenstein: The New Order for example. The only real boss fight of note is the final one with Deathshead, which is a traditional boss. The trade off is that the devs will string mini-boss tier enemies throughout the harder segments of the level. This is common for western games: trading off bosses for a more difficult enemy pool and leaving bosses for moments of plot significance.

This is also seen in the modern Shadowrun games. If you're running through a corporate building and an alarm is set off, it's more likely that you're going to face a series of Class A drones than a giant Ork with a minigun. You're still going to fight a giant Ork with a minigun at some point, but when it's significant to the plot.

So it is part of concentrating more on the story, but boss fights are still there. You could also play something like Hard Reset or Shadow Warrior if you want a more traditional number of boss fights.

Snake's Revenge will always exist no matter what you deny

If you're playing a game that's trying to be immersive with a serious story then you should be watching a movie or reading a book.

You can immerse yourself in a book or movie.

That's not what makes a video game.

I think I'm gonna puke.

The fact that there's more people with that kind of mentality doesn't change anything either.
I'm not talking about ideologies, I'm talking about the meaning of the term "gamey". Yes you can take it too far and apply it to the good bits of a game, but we all agree that there are some game elements that don't fit everywhere, and yet are used indiscriminately. That's "gamey" too.

B-but muh Mr.Freeze!

But why can't games be that too?
Why limit what games can be?
Nobody is forcing you to play games that don't appeal to you.

Name 10 Japanese videogames made in the last 5 years that have actual skill based gameplay, are not turn based shit and don't have 6 phases for each in which said boss gets edgier with time.
Bonus points if you don't defeat the boss with a generic plot device or the power of friendship

I play video games to play a game, not try to pretend I'm actually in the game

Get out of here with that hipster garbage

Because they barely count as games.

Because they have as much gameplay as a DVD selection menu

>why limit what games can be

Because look what games have become

Why do westards think boss fights interfere with story telling?

You mean that they now look good, have good combat and consistent multiplayer? What a travesty

user, "too gamey" is only used by such retards

>Every Zelda game has bosses all over the place.

But despite this, Zelda has only a handful of good boss fights in the entire series. There isn't even a single game in which Ganon is actually a decent fight.

Nobody thinks that. Quote me 5 people saying that.

Would you feel better if people called them something other than a "video game"?
Why can't different forms of interactive entertainment coexist? We can have games with intense gameplay and boss battles and we can have games where there's none of that at all. There's literally nothing wrong with having different types of games with different development goals that appeal to different people.

nintendo is kill though.

>Boss fights are a test of the player's abilities up to that point.
That was one of the amazing thing about Mega Man's design.
You choose which order to do the stages in, and that makes all the difference when you discover boss weaknesses.

I can see where you're coming from user, but these people I speak of are attacking the very core concepts of a video game. Not just stealth segments or RPG segments or action parts. They're literally at war with the entire concept of interacting with the game to produce entertainment. Hell, the Order 1886 devs outright said "this stupid videogamey stuff got in the way of our vision". Don't forget Bioware, who was famous for "all games need a skip gameplay button".

Tell me this is a good thing.

Even the new DOOM, despite being haralded as a return to classic FPS, still has western bullshit like locked NPC conversations and a story.

Why can't it just not have any of that at all?

If I want to play a VN I'll play a VN. Western "games" are almost exclusively shit.

It isn't, it's just that as soon as somebody uses the term they are immediately labeled as "such retards" and ignored.
Also I take it you understood my description of the term. Would you say there's something wrong with it? People complain about "The Stealth section" and "The Vehicle section" and stuff like that (mandatory fetch quest, mandatory you lost all of your powers etc.).
Isn't "too gamey" an adequate way to describe the phenomenon?

Listen, I agree with you. What I'm saying is that complaining about those people isn't what I was trying to get at, it's that saying "too gamey" isn't inherently insufferable pretentious speak. It describes (or at least it can describe if we let it) something that we all recognize and mostly agree with.

>they now look good,
muh graphix
>have good combat
Are we still talking about western games here? Fucking lol
>and consistent multiplayer
How is this a good thing? Tacking on unnecessary multiplayer takes away development time.

yes user, while videogames get more artsy, there have also been developments in other areas, parallel to that.

How is that relevant to our talk?

Reminder that the people who say crap like this are the same faggots who bitch about weebs, JRPGs, and VNs.

No, it's not because "too gamey" means more gamey than needed/desired. But games are supposed to be gamey.

Too gamey videogame is like too wet water.

boss battles are to much like a video-game, too videogamey
t. Western Developer

I think he's a faggot and a shit on most JRPGs all the time.

>have good combat

I can't think of one recent western game that has good combat. Even D44Ms is flawed.

AI is one of the hardest things in a video game to make. Good bosses require good AI. If you haven't noticed the general level of skill and experience among workers in the video game industry has decreased over the years, so making good AI is something they're not capable of.

What really pisses me off is bosses that you don't even really end up fighting because of some retarded "mechanics". Like you'll run into a boss, and instead of just fighting it dead like a normal enemy, you've got to "defeat" it by doing some retarded shit like solving a jumping puzzle which triggers some event that damages the boss. Then you repeat it.

Such a lazy ass cop out. Even worse than just having a QTE for a boss fight because these fucks act like some kind of jumping puzzle is revolutionary and amazing game design.

One of the few times in recent years in which a western dev tried to make an interesting bossfight. It ended up being a glorified checklist though.
>who bitch about weebs, JRPGs, and VNs.
Those can be pretty shit too, with only a few exceptions being actually good

Multiplayer killed video games. I've refused to touch that shit since day one.

D44M is flawed but I would say it's good for the most part.

By good you mean repetitive?

Guy you quoted here, I don't even play AAA Western games and enjoy JRPGs and VNs. I just think that games with different goals have the right to exist even if I don't like them.

Batman Arkham series because you press a button and awesome shit happens and you feel like batman.

No, too gamey videogame is like being served a pizza with a topping of 1/4 pounds hamburgers. It's like watching a horror movie that suddenly swerves into a lighthearted musical for 10 minutes.

It's going "videogames do this, therefore let's put it in". You didn't address the examples I gave, but people complain about ill-fitting mechanics or sections in games all the time.

>saying "too gamey" isn't inherently insufferable pretentious speak. It describes (or at least it can describe if we let it) something that we all recognize and mostly agree with.
This ties into your other point, right? the one right here:

>People complain about "The Stealth section" and "The Vehicle section" and stuff like that (mandatory fetch quest, mandatory you lost all of your powers etc.). Isn't "too gamey" an adequate way to describe the phenomenon?

I don't think being "too gamey" describes these things. If someone complains about filler or a pace-destroying stealth segment, or a forced vehicle section, I think people would attribute that to just poor gameplay design, or poor pacing. There's quite a few terms for it, but I have never heard someone describe these faults in gameplay as "too gamey".

Whenever I hear the term "too gamey" it is always referring to a game actually requiring you to play it. As in, having difficulty that stops you from progressing unless you learn how to play the game properly. Game journalists left and right clamor on about how games should be easy and any semblance of challenge ruins the artistic vision. Any puzzle that doesn't solve itself is just getting in the way of the cinematic narrative. The plot is being burdened by this segment of gameplay that requires you to actually think. You know, stuff like that.

Don't believe me? Google "Why games should be easy and why game journalists should suck at video games" or something to that angle.

I can think plenty of games with excellent combat systems that can be repetitive like a sin. In DMC4 a lot of the fights didn't felt too different or well designed for example even if the combat system was pretty good. Same with MGR for example.

not him but you either have a replayable repetitive game or linear non-repetitive game.

Look at FF series, especially the one with "lightning". Ka-Chow !

I'm not sure I can come up with 10 good Japanese games released in the past 5 years. Not sure I can come up with 10 good Western ones either. For that matter I'm not confident I could come up with 10 even if I combined them.

Developers sure have gotten shit recently.

Are you sure that's how people use the term "too gamey"? Because I've rarely ever heard that phrase whenever someone complained about an out-of-place vehicle segment, or a random block pushing puzzle, or something like that. "Too gamey" feels like too vague of a criticism.

I didn't address them because ill-fitting mechanics=/=too gamey.

The problem with stuff like fetch quests or vehicle levels is that the gameplay is too shallow, not that it's too intense.

Kid Icarus

Ninja Gaiden 1,2
DMC 1,3,4
God Hand
Bayonetta 1,2
Vanquishe
Metal Gear Rising
Star Ocean 2,3,4
Tales of Vesperia, tales of..
...

Not that guy but he said 5 recent years.

>Why do Western Developers tend to avoid boss battles?

because they know they aim to terminal retards who very often buy games and never finish them, bosses are "hard" which mean they'll likely fail, it will add frustration and they won't finish it and will most likelly shit on it on facebook.

they want to avoid this risk, so just make QTE bosses, they won't see the difference and will be in awe with pretty (hah) animations and think they did something.

Sounds like pretty shitty boss mechanics if they have to lock down your items to make it "challenging".

>Ninja Gaiden 1 was released in the last 5 years.

Bayonetta 1
Bayonetta 2
The Wonderful 101
Vanquish
Asura's Wrath
Dark Souls
Dark Souls 2
Bloodborne
Dark Souls 3
Killer is Dead

Talking about JRPGs...
I am still struggling to find a modern one with decent boss fights. I recently started FFX and I was amazed seeing that quality bosses actually existed without making them bullshit impossible

He asked for ten AAA western developed video games that had prominent boss battles. Not "Top ten western games that did boss fights right by watchmojodotcom" you shit eating weeblord.

Xenoblade and Xenoblade X

Literally the only games on that list that would quality are the souls series. Everything else devolves into "killing generic bad guy with love and friendship and ancient memes".

Like Wonderful 101 for example. "Press X to save Earth XD!" That's literally it. Even if a mediocre boss fight preceded it, that kind of thing is just boring.

>Even if a mediocre boss fight preceded it, that kind of thing is just boring.
Jerghinga is far from a "mediocre" boss fight. You haven't even played the fucking game.

While it's a Nintendo property, Metroid Prime was made by Retro Studeos which is in the states

I'm not a big fan of Platinum games in general, so even bosses like Nightmare, Jubileus, jerghinga, and even the Vergil fights? They just don't appeal too much.

Hey mate, check this videogame I am attaching to this post!

What do you mean it's not a videogame? It's just a different type of game without gameplay and boss fights.

Not cinematic enough.

>Talking about JRPGs.

Depends on what you define as "JRPG".

> I recently started FFX and I was amazed seeing that quality bosses actually existed without making them bullshit impossible

But I'm more interested in this argument. FFX is piss shit easy, unless you're fighting the end optional bosses which require grinding, not skill.

FF in general is a very easy franchise. Even grinding is hardly a thing because you can just breeze.

I'm afraid that what you consider "bullshit impossible" is nothing more than a casual filter.

So... Batman series, Tomb Raider series, Borderland Series and Bethesda games? That doesn't really scream a lot of options, it's like saying there are tons of good JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 2, Final Fantasy 3...

You are reading way too much in my post.

What I am saying is that you can make interesting bosses without making them challenging with absurd stats.
No, I am not complaining about difficulty, I am complaining about not being able to find at least FF-quality of boss fights

Why does it always have to be AAA only with these kinds of threads?
Why can't I include indies?

>Skyrim

Lol shooting at dragons count as a boss?

I actually just got through replaying Metroid Prime, and all I could think about during the bosses was how much western devs fucking suck at boss fights. They're all just damage sponges that don't really do anything.

Like what is that shit Omega Pirate does where he just walks around with that beam shield up? What is that supposed to be accomplishing? Or when Ridley spends ten hours flying around the boss arena? Why does Flaahgra need to play an unskippable cutscene every goddamn time you hurt him? The boss fights are the worst part of the game.

They were more about everything culminating together to form the fight, you often needing to use items you gathered in their area to fight them, learning their strats, and then adapting when they changed the game up.

But yeah, they could've used some improvement. I won't deny that.

I don't like it. In concept, its a great idea for a stealth boss, but in practice all it is hitting him once with each of your tricks while he stumbles around the room.

Not really, Witcher 1 all the bosses are built around a gimmick like killing all Dagon's worshippers to damage him. Witcher 2, the bosses are all ultra flashy cinematic battles. And Witcher 3's main bosses are like action game bosses with multiple phases where they change their patterns.

Individually, I don't think the Witcher games had great bosses but as a whole I thought it was a pretty good series for boss fights.

Your pic is a pretty poor example of a boss fight, it may as well have been a cutscene at that point.

Really overrated boss fight. It's practically a checklist.
>Do every possible type of takedown once to win, you can't do the same takedown on him twice.
I'll give it some points because it's better than the absolute dogshit that are most of western bossfights but it's still too rigid and doesn't allow the player to be creative. I think MGS3 had a better idea on how to do boss fights in a stealth game, specially the boss fight against The Fury.

I don't consider Eastern European to be western either, given a difference in culture.
Would you really want to put games like Stalker & Witcher, under the same banner of the shit that comes out here?
I mean sure, those countries have shitty games too. But it's their own unique brand of shit.

You'd never see Forklift simulator being made in America.

All I'm reading here is that the western devs just go for excuses of gamey.

First answer, best answer

What are some good JRPG boss fights?

What the hell do you consider "western" culture if eastern european culture is so drastically different?

Maybe the culture from Western countries like the ones in Western Europe or America.
Because they're the West.

Get it?

They can only parrot a single quote as if it represents all western devs on earth

...

>SKULLs, Man on Fire, Quiet, Eli, Snuffleupagus

It just doesn't have a good boss density for the amount of time wandering around nowhere doing filler missions.

he asked for 'prominent' boss battles not good ones.
OP's implication was that they hardly exist or that developers flat out don't include them, Skyrim definitely includes a fight against the World Eater Alduin

>Why do Western Developers tend to avoid boss battles?
Because western developers are just people who couldn't make it in hollywood so they try to make video games into movies.

>tfw want to become a video game developer for patriotic reasons
I want to raise my country from the gutter, we have no good video game studios anymore.

>letho, witcher duo, loredo, aryan la valette
>ultra flashy cinéma

Who the fuck need good studio? They need good private sector and well-trained labors.

Lol, is that why dragon's dogma did boss fights so well?

It's because boss battles lose their purpose if they aren't hard and western AAA devs are allergic to difficulty because it scares away their treasured casuals and all their delicious money.

>Deus Ex HR
>multiple boss fights
>people complained that they had to carry lethal weapons on pacifist runs to be able to get past the bosses

>Deus Ex MD
>1 boss fight that can be cheesed and completed non lethally

AAA western games are now really moving onto "cinematic styles" of gaming.

The only western games that don't do this now are the multiplayer ones.

They did the right think in the worst way possible.

Did people complain that that there were boss fights in HR? Or just that they had to carry lethal weapons on pacifist runs?

Not every boss has to be hard though, they have to at least make you rely on more skills/knowledge of game mechanics than regular enemies; get multiple attack patterns and move around way more than regular enemies, using the map at their own advantage.
If it's a RPG, I am expecting bosses to at least make me waste some items to heal statuses or make me use boosters/debuffs because their initial stats will make the battle hard to substain after a while or just rely on some gimmick, like multiple parts, counterattacks, sealing your actions, have moves with cooldown timers to remember, instant game overs you can dodge in specific ways etc.

I still don't understand how people fucked up in HR so badly. I mean, you'd think they'd carry at least one gun as a backup even if they did want to be mostly stealthy. Did they want to leave their inventory entirely empty or what?

never underestimate autism

that they had to carry lethal weapons on pacifist runs.

People would literally run through the game with no lethal weapons at all, and then get to a boss fight and be completely unable to progress, so they'd have to reload an earlier save so they could pick up and upgrade a lethal weapon of some sort, and they also complained that it broke with their RP'ing since they wanted to stick to non lethal.

The direct result is that there are essentially no boss battles in the sequel and the one that is in the game can be done non lethal.

So in short, incompetence from the western devs because they didn't know how to program gameplay fights?

>Why do Western Developers tend to avoid boss battles?
It's because they learned in their game design school that boss battles are too problematic and also too videogamey.

>literally dozens of western fps titles released per year
>not a single one has a true bullet hell boss fight

>literally dozens of western fps titles released per year
>all of them are multiplayer

The first boss actually has poison gas barrels everywhere which can be thrown to stun him and a side room full of guns, so it's not even that hard if you go in totally naked. It's just that people absolutely didn't want to fight at all for some reason. Or they saw a boss fight and just gave up without even trying, maybe.

>getting to sephiroth with organics
JUST
RUSH
MY
SHIT
FAMPAITACHI

The boss fights were outsourced but yeah it was because of incompetence.

>this entire thread

>first person bullet hell
are you serious?

Etrian Odyssey

MGR could be only boss fights with cutscenes in between and it still would be top meem that's also praised for the gameplay

3D bullet hell sounds like it'd be either totally impossible to read, or so simple as to be pointless. Just stick with 2D games dude.

partially, but at the same time, how would you reconcile the trainwreck of trying to include a good boss fight in a game that revolves around a player being able to play a game multiple ways one of which is a pacifist/avoiding fighting way?

It's kind of an inevitability when you have stealth gameplay as an option.

It's like with the assassin's creed games, they have "bosses" but because you can assassinate most of them in one hit if you play stealthily they're not really up to par with what you have in Japanese games..

I've never played the MGS games, how does Kojima reconcile that, a game focused on avoiding combat through stealth, and yet has boss battles.

what is nier?

except the gameplay suck donkey dick. by level 3 I'm doing 150 hit combo just by mashing Y and get S ranks by occasionally push A+X and parry

>Not every boss has to be hard though
>they have to at least make you rely on more skills/knowledge of game mechanics than regular enemies
So they don't have to be hard but they have to be hard?
Understand that what you're describing is most definitely hard to the average casual.

I wouldn't count shooting your GF, hordes of space zombie children, and giant dragon dildo in your subconscious mind a boss battle

Half the time the boss fights are just straight boss fights where you shoot people. Sometimes they do let you be sneaky about shooting them though.
People talk about The End fight a lot because it's a sniper battle with lots of positioning and trying not to give yourself away and so on.

he give players weapons at the beginning of the fight.
the more "free" fights actually play like a tactical shooter with bullet sponge enemies.

I wasn't taking casuals in account I guess...

When it's right for normal enemies to not require more than dodge one pattern + attack, boss fights should be a bit more complex

No, he's only saying that FF7 isn't a game

And yet people still cry about monsoon and sundowner even today

I don't give a shit what you would or would not count.
>enclosed arena
>non standard combat scenario with non standard mechanics
>specific win condition
It's a fucking boss battle. Just because you don't like it doesn't fucking change that.

I liked the bloater in TLOU
I liked David aswell

Do they count?

But Sundowner was easy, if you got past the other bosses you should have no trouble with him.

If you wanted to make a point in favor of boss battles you shouldn't have opened with an Eastern game's boss battle that's basically a QTE.

because shitters thinks a light flash to signal an attack isnt enough. It should have a 60 minutes windup as wekk,

so essentially boss fights are an entirely different gameplay style than what you've been playing through the main game.

Western Devs don't like that, they think that the game should teach you as you go through it and each level should just be building on what you already know.

Japanese aren't afraid to make you learn a new gameplay style on the fly in the middle of nowhere... hence why minigames are randomly thrown into Japanese games but not Western Games.

If a minigame is present in a Western Game it's 100% optional. In a Japanese game, they're required to progress and a harder version of it is available for 100% completion.

>minigames are randomly thrown into Japanese games but not Western Games.
what is every open world games post morrowind ever?

Why the fuck is Cred Forums copying threads from neofag or neofag from Cred Forums?

Fuck you all

no because TLOU is objectively not a game

>how does Kojima reconcile that
He doesn't. He treats his gameplay as a "game" still. Something that the western devs try to avoid.

Despite all this cinematic shit Kojima does, he never treats his gameplay as a "cinematic" one.

MGS has god tier boss battles though.

There weren't any minigames in skyrim, oblivion, or morrowind.

elaborate.

I mean non open world Bioware RPG's did have minigames, KotOR DID require you to do the Ebon Hawk turret minigame and at least one swoop race..

But open world games I really can't think of any departures from the main gameplay style that were required.

just the title triggered me

companys who are cycling AAA video games cant stress over a traditional boss build up, to them it is a waste of time when the majority of people play games to have fun, not to stress.

i am niche video gamer, i accept that i will not like every video game.

>tl;dr changing opinons make the money go round.

Never trust anyone named Biggs or Wedge

>a game focused on avoiding combat through stealth, and yet has boss battles.
Well that depends on what kind of boss fights you add to the game. MGS has some boss fights that can be pretty annoying if you're playing stealthy and you aren't too familiar yet with how you should fight in a direct combat situation, MGS 3 fixes most of these issues by making sneaking around and more tactical approaches viable options so that they don't require mastery over twitch-like gameplay in order to win. Compare the fight against the Russian soldiers in MGS2 to the fight against the Ocelot Unit in MGS3, in one you can't sneak around and you're being shot at almost the entire time in a small corridor with very little cover and just a few "tactical" options, in the later you have multiple ways to approach the situation and you can even dispatch the entire unit without being seen and 0 bullets being shot at you or your enemies.

>the majority of people play games to have fun
Good bosses are fun though.

But AAA have the resource and the manpower to actually make fun games for everybody. Most people dont play games on the harder diff. They can always rebrand the difficulty as "story" "hard" "brutal"... with major differences between them to pander to anyone. They consciously make them fast and easy to complete because they fear the slightest sink in sales and to pump out sequel.

>bioshock infinite
there were boss battles in that?

What difference in culture? East Europe and West Europe have somewhat similar culture.

West Europe is cucked, East Europe has the last white countries on Earth.

What the hell sword is that? I don't remember that one at all.

a shitty zelda clone

Bullet sponge enemies that need to be killed in order to finish the fight. I guess that counts when you have the rock-bottom standards for boss fights that western triple A titles have.

The ghost lady and the dlc big daddy.
they like them so much they recycle them twice.

Deus Ex had bossfights and they were completely out of place. It just doesn't work out. GTA games don't have real bosses but they have still boss like missions where you need to get trough tough situations. Like when you infiltrated Big Smokes drug empire and the Tenpenny chasing after that all in one long mission.

Also bosses are really only cool in extremely fictional settings where you can have outrageous designs and such.

I never played the dlc, but I don't recall any ghost lady

>Deus Ex had bossfights and they were completely out of place
Because they were shit.

>Also bosses are really only cool in extremely fictional settings where you can have outrageous designs and such.

Yakuza had plenty of cool boss fights.

This, I wouldn't mind a Deus Ex-like game with well designed boss fights that follow the open-ended nature and rules of the game at least to a good degree.

>he thinks japan is a real place

I can't even name 10 AAA games from the last 5 years.
I think far cry 3 had a boss battle though?

So like the original deus ex?

Boss fights work well with melee. But every western game this days focuses on guns and other modern weapons.

Human bosses in grounded setting can also be cool as well
Make them play defensively against you with near perfect accuracy (that you must time to run into cover, roll, whatever. Or give up on hitscan weapons altogether) instead of using the simplistic charge-and-cover AIs most game uses. In short, just study how good shooters players play the game, break them down and turn them into pattern.

no, those felt out of place too

Similar but with the benefits of today's technology.

Most modern japanese games have shit tier boss fights too. What was there recent with good boss fights other than Dark Souls and Metal Gear Rising? All JRPGs have shit boss fights with bosses that are immune to all status effects and half your attack options.

Except even fucking call of duty has boss fights. Does anyone in this thread even play western games?

It's a clone of a bunch of things.

Boss fights are always boring as fuck with bullet sponge enemies. I remember in Dragons Dogma where I could remove 3 health bars at once with the great gamble arrow shot. This was a boss fight. Especially if you use guns and need to shoot the other guy 5 billion times this automatically makes a shit game.

video games

Reminder that FF7 has less gamplay than this

I've always hated that about JRPG's.

>normal fights you never need to use status effects, you can just mash attack or use the highest damage spell you have to wipe out everything. The highest level strategy is using corresponding elemental spells to an enemy's weakness

>boss fights where status effects would be useful... except the boss is immune to all status effects

I don't think I've ever used any of the status spells in any final fantasy game. No slow, stop, none of that, because they were all pointless.

Try DQ games.
Late game normal fights can feel like boss fights so status effects have a lot of power.

i've never actually played a video game before except for dragon warrior on nes.

Boss battles are too game-y for Western developers, Japan is master race as always

That's something Final fantasy 13 actually did right. Status effects actually did shit

I remember that Slow worked on almost all FFXII bosses.
I always felt like status effects were only meant to be dangerous for the player

Seriously?
God of War
Arkham
Darksiders
Duke Nukem
Elder Scrolls
Dragon Age
Destiny
Dead Space
Various Spider-Man games
Diablo
And I'm even limiting it to one per franchise. But answer me this. How come Japanese action games have shit puzzles. It's like they wanted there to be something to do besides going from room to room killing enemies but then just half-assed it.

>boss dies after one rocket to the face
>well designed
Yeah, how about you try harder

Games don't need boss battles to be good
Western games tend to focus on atmosphere and story and there's nothing wrong with that

Not that user but which DQ games have a good combat system? Gave the first one a try (snes remake) but felt too grindy.

I can't even name 10 AAA games that are worth playing.

>tend to focus on atmosphere and story

And still fail at that.

>Playing Metal Max Returns
>Literally every boss except the final boss has some crippling status it's weak to, even shit like instant death

Although it makes sense considering what you need to go through to actually have access to instant death in that game

exploiting the battle system is challenging, so is grinding to a degree.

Bayonetta 1 and 2
The Wonderful 101
Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X

I remember in FF7 one of the Jenovas are weak to time-based spells and another uses only water-based attacks, which makes the Water Ring, obtained just before the fight, super OP. For the vast majority of the series though,you're right.

I remember most bosses could just use the opposite spell to make yourself faster to kill the slow effect. It also never used up their turn. There is nothing more bullshit than getting an extra turn to tell you to fuck off with satus effect spells.

I've played IV and V on the DS. Still the same shit.

I mean I like some JRPG's, I loved FF6's story and cast and music and all that but the combat was a snoozefest.

Chrono Trigger same kind of deal, you never really get to use your status effect techs though there aren't many of them to begin with. At least the double/triple tech and positional considerations of techs made fights a bit more interesting.

I like the Tales/Star Ocean approach because well, then they're just action games with JRPG casts/worlds to explore/story.

But I considered turn based combat systems to be pretty much shit until Divinity: Original Sin blew me away with a combat system that actually made turn based fun and strategic.

... it also had not too shabby boss battles.... with some rather innovative mechanics to be abused to fight them with

It wasn't really much like Zelda for the most part.

But a game like Venetica had the bosses integrated just fine in the plot.

Very average game though
Played it because she's hot

I recently finished Trails of Cold Steel and status effects were a big part of combat.

Even weak enemies could easily overwhelm and kill a party member, but a well-placed status effect attack would totally shut them down and turn them into easy pickings.
For minibosses and weaker bosses I would be constantly trying to lock the boss down with the proper status. If I played my cards right, sometimes the boss didn't even land a hit on a party member.
For those very few story-relevant bosses that were totally immune, the sudden lack of lockdown options was jarring and a more than a little worrisome.

I'd say that status was almost TOO powerful in that game.

>It's like they wanted there to be something to do besides going from room to room killing enemies but then just half-assed it.
You answered your own question.

>But I considered turn based combat systems to be pretty much shit until Divinity: Original Sin blew me away with a combat system that actually made turn based fun and strategic.
The new Bard's Tale game might have an interesting turn-based combat system.
kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/the-bards-tale-iv/posts/1562643

Kojima separates gameplay from cutscenes. The same cutscene triggers regardless of how you finished the fight, there are just different ways to end the fight using different weapons. Usually non-lethals just aim to kill their stamina and not HP.

They usually die in the scene regardless since MGS isn't an RPG but it doesn't count as a kill towards completion. There are also rsre cases where you can end the bossfight before it even begins (The End boss comes to mind).

She's just elizabeth with shit haircut and wardrobe,

>kikestarter

yeah I mean.. I'll be more interested once it's actually set to be released but I'm just really wary of early access/kickstarter shit. Yes I know Div:OS was a kickstarter, and honestly, it's the only kickstarter game that I actually have bought and been really pleasantly surprised for. I really think they outdid themselves and am looking forward to the sequel (but I'm not going into the early access for it). Most Early Access games I've followed development on have made sweeping changes that made them not as interesting, or they decreased the scope of the game from what was promised, and then there's star citizen.

I just don't have faith in early access/kickstarter.

But hey, if they do release a new Bard's Tale game and it's good, awesome.

Kek, that's why I said "might". Sounds great on paper but it's kickstarter so they might shit the bed.

That's an opinion.

It seems that way because the more prominent western games tend to use settings/mechanics that aren't suited to boss battles in the sense that we usually define them- unique enemies that are stronger than the standard ones you fight that cap off a section of gameplay.

Mechanically, many games' combat systems just aren't built to work well when fighting that sort of enemy (this is why, for example, Uncharted 4's "boss fights" used QTEs or other alternative combat systems rather than the one you used to kill mooks.) And of course there's the realism thing- why does this soldier take ten times as many bullets to kill and has attacks that no other soldier has? Oh, he has better equipment? Then why is he the only soldier I've seen with that stuff?

okay so you're being realistic like me about it.

I have a lot of friends who play this Early access space survival game they keep trying to get me into. I mean yeah they're enjoying it and they've gotten into it for $10 at times on sales, but to me.. principle of the matter is I don't support early access games. Even that game has made SWEEPING changes to the game itself since they first got into pre-alpha, and are now in alpha. The game is promising procedurally created planets like No Man's Sky, but with multiplayer/pvp.. but as of yet does not have any procedurally generated worlds or anything like that.

I just tell them.. tell me when it has a release date.

>Press X to attack over and over again
>Occasionally heal

Wow... this is the power... of superior Japanese games...

Gears of War 3 had good boss battles
Dead Space 3
Bioshock Infinite had one boss battle, kinda sucked though...
Since Bioshock Remastered has been released, I remember that the first game had some boss fights? Like the plastic surgeon and the Ice Man etc
Haven't played, but I'm guessing the 2 new Halo-games have boss battles and also that Sunset Overdrive game on the Xbox One
I wanna put Shovel Knight on the list, it had a big budget actually.

Some journalists at PC Gamer does.
There is a Deus Ex Revolution boss battle that is being used as an example over and over again

Dark Souls

Though I consider gameplay to be pretty shitty if it can't even allow proper boss fights - it's better to skip them if you can't really make one working with your current system

Most RPGs can be oversimplified like that, especially if you grind.
RPGs are about choices, not mechanical skill

I get your point OP, but you probably shouldn't open your thread with an image of an objectively bad boss.

I mean, that wasn't even a boss, really. It was a slightly-interactive cutscene.

MGSV had the best solution for this, and failed to do it more than once.

>Mechanically, many games' combat systems just aren't built to work well when fighting that sort of enemy (this is why, for example, Uncharted 4's "boss fights" used QTEs or other alternative combat systems rather than the one you used to kill mooks).
What a weird thing to say. Uncharted has already proven to incorporate boss fights with its "kill mooks" gameplay that doesn't just focus on QTEs.

How did it feel to be the "Lean Mean Rean Bean Delay Machine"?

1st time stealth run here. All I had was a silenced pistol as a means to fight the bosses, and I ONLY had it because it would shoot cameras/robots.

The bosses fucked with the entire concept of playing the game as an RPG, especially when the entire ad campaign leading up to it was masturbating over all the different ways you could play it based on your equipment and build.

I had zero combat skills, all non-lethal grenades, hacking tools and candies filled in my inventory, with a single pistol I luckily had (as explained above), and enemies were bullet sponges.

See above. The game was literally pitched to people that they could play however they wanted to, so to expect that you would need a lethal weapon at all is either poor foresite on the developer's part, or they lied about how flexible the system really was.

Personally, I just saw it as a "stealth tax" since the rest of the game is a cake walk to get by abusing stealth and hacking, but I'm also not ignorant enough to think that average consumers who don't really play as many video games as I do would be able to cheese their way past some of the bosses if they decided to do a similar build first time go.

Dragon's Dogma.

So in short you didn't mind that there was a boss fight. What you minded was the studio fucked up on how to do the gameplay for the boss in regards to that kind of run.

Meaning the western devs don't know how to actually balance gameplay in regards to that.

Western developers often have a 'simulationist' attempt in their game design. They want the game to work with a distinct set of rules and have everything within the game be in accordance with these rules.

Boss battles tend to break the rules in the sense of giving the boss abilities which the player or other enemies have not without a good explanation.

Bosses simply don't fit in all types of games. In RPGs there are some pretty strong bosses in western games; take Baldur's Gate 2 for example (especially with Ascension), however, the abilities of these bosses are reasonably explained within the context of the game.
On the other hand it doesn't make sense that in a game where people shoot each other with firearms a boss is capable of surviving being shot in the head multiple times.

Of course I don't mind there are bosses, and yes, the devs fucked up implementing those bosses against anything but combat builds. But at the same time, I can't think of a single "do anything, go anywhere" game that has done bosses right anyways. Even old school CRPG's that have crazy flexible builds all chalk up to having fairly crappy bosses in actual practice.

I once read a Kamiya interview in which he stated that western gamers have the need to feel everything's connected with everything. Like, if the boss came out of a cave, how did it fit in that cave, where did it come from, what was it eating, etcetera. So the western final boss usually is the same gameplay they've been having for bigger and faster.
For jap players, the boss doesn't matter. The boss has to be a break from the usual gameplay flow. So you have a gigant crab falling from the sky and lauching nuclear bombs out of his mouth and nobody cares.

The problem in HR was not the boss fights per se but the way they were implemented.

The boss fights in HR broke the rules of the game in the sense of forcing the player to go through with them the way the developers intended rather than giving the player opportunities to solve them in the way the player intended. In Deus Ex, you could choose when and how to engage the boss - or whether you wanted to engage at all. The bosses in Deus Ex were essentially just regular enemies (just stronger) which were subject to the same rules as regular opponents. e.g. they could be easily killed through preparation by placing traps, they could be fooled with certain types of augmentations, they could be stealth killed from behind, or they could be circumvented altogether. The game even reacted to the player not-fighting them in the sense of commenting or it or having the bosses show up later again.

In HR, you were railroaded into boss fights and you had to solve them in the manner of a regular FPS game. The game completely gave up on the element of freedom, exploration, stealth, allowing the player to find a way that suited his character - essentially the whole "special agent" thing, which focusses on planning and finding the right approach rather than blindly stumbling into a dangerous situation and fighting the enemy on the terms dictated by him. That could happen in Deus Ex too - but only to players who were careless, who then usually instantly died to the boss and were taught to be more careful next time.

Different ideals in game making. Western devs have been all noted to make gsme after what they think would make sense to play against. Jap devs however seem to focus on flashy boss battles that look cool to play against.

serious sam

I bet you voted for Credit you mongoloid.

they aren't fun, i can list off my hand every game with good boss battles western or not. mario and luigi superstar saga, uhh uhhh. they are for the mostpart damage sponges for an epic 10 minute to hour long battle doing the same shit until it dies, i would much rather play the game. and if it isn't that, its fucking lame, with an obvious solution which trivializes the battle and turns it into an epic setup section! wow i jumped off the ceiling and stabbed him so cool do it again!! or even lamer, shit like doom where they are just slow asshole bulletsponges

>doing the same thing for hours is challenging
no

A lot of western games don't have mechanics deep enough for a boss fight that would make it substantially different from a normal encounter. Or the narrative itself won't allow for one.

A lot of western developers simply don't care that much about gameplay mechanics. They make something that they think is fun enough and that's it. Any kind of boss battle is going to be either a heavily scripted sequence or a normal enemy that just has a shitload of health.

Most games tend to be realistic, so they can't have some giant monster or robot as a boss. Can't have a superpowered human. And narratives are so weak and lame that there aren't even good villains that would at elast feel satisfying to kill

Still, SOME developers do still see appeal in boss fights, but mostly smaller developers. Furi is a boss rush game that came out a few months ago and is pretty dope.

Honestly, it saddens me that people hate boss fights. They are the best parts of video games, no contest. People that don't like them would be better off watching movies.

You could have typed just the first line and had the same thread there was no need for the next two questions all they did was kill any discussion outside of those specific answers

tell me what games have bosses that dont boil down to
>Any kind of boss battle is going to be either a heavily scripted sequence or a normal enemy that just has a shitload of health.
it isn't western exclusive, there is no way not to make it fucking lame other than to not make bosses, and instead introduce more generic enemies that die quickly but introduce another challenge.

Journalists are paid to make shitty clickbait though.

Basically yelling at the clown for smelling on the flower that shoots water, its an act, they get paid for it.

Have you even played a video game

I don't think you have

>action movies
>art

Dark Souls

Because when you put a boss battle in a game people are like

>"WOW THIS GUY TAKES SO MANY HITS, FUCKING DAMAGE SPONGES"

Because not even niggers want to live there lol
sage for bait thread

Dark Souls has mostly crappy bossfights that boil down to hugging a huge creature in clip-tastic close combat where you can barely make out what's happening and abusing a shitty invincibility mechanic during rolling to avoid attacks that should actually kill you.

Isn't one of the biggest complaints that a lot of the bosses are just generic dudes in armor?

nice shitpost

all hitsponges until you figure out their setpiece weaknesses.

Because pic related. Also I can tell its morning in America now because its night time, so these East vs West garbage threads keep popping up

Refer to and to see the problem with boss fights.

...

EDF is the best 3D bullet hell.

Games with good boss fights:

Shadow of the Colossus
Devil May Cry
Devil May Cry 3
Devil May Cry 4
God Hand
Bayonetta
Metal Gear Rising
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 9
Mega Man X
Mega Man X4
Mega Man Battle Network 2
Mega Man Battle Network 3
Mega Man Battle Network 6
Demon's Souls
Dark Souls
Dark Souls 2
Bloodborne
Dark Souls 3
Every half-decent shmup
Kirby Super Star
Mischief Makers
Alien Soldier
Contra Hard Corps
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages
Gunstar Heroes
Drill Dozer
Super Metroid
Metroid Zero Mission

You want me to list more?

Because I can list more

How many games have you played? i'm honestly curious

Making a good boss is tricky. You need the same sort of consideration given to boss design as you'd give stage design in a game, and it's outright more work, you have to go and design attacks, design how the flow of the fight goes, keep it from being repetitive, etc.

In Japan, a lot of games, the main focus is on the bosses. They're the star of the show, and in some cases, stage design suffers because less time was put into it than boss design. In the west, the opposite happens.

Final fantasy 14

>All those megermans
>No Zero games

gud list though

I don't like the Zero games, I think they're way too hard

ZX is pretty cool

Did you just started gaming in 2010? Genuinely curious.

In Mega Man only the first boss poses a problem. Once you have the right weapon and know the order you can easily beat all bosses. Dark Souls combat is best against single, humanoid opponents. Against multiple opponents or giant monsters it falls apart.

Have you tried the entire series, or just the first one? I was actually turned off from the Zero games for a long time because Zero 1 is absurdly difficult, but when I got around to trying the rest of the series I found they weren't nearly as crazy.

I always get a good chuckle in any instance when people list the DMC games and 2 isn't included

Put in Ninja Gaiden Black

This is very much in line with what I said in . There are different design philosophies in the east and the west. Japanese designers have a more artistic approach, while western designers have a more scientific approach, wanting everything to make sense and be coherent.

alright, so bosses really aren't for me. hope you aren't confused enough to make this same shit thread every other month because the answer remains the same. the majority of people don't like bossfights like these and they are shit.

This thread has showed me how many casuals are actually on this board, jesus fucking christ.

furi
doesn't have anything else though, it's a boss rush game

>boss fights are shit

Maybe if they stopped playing western AAA dogshit with dogshit game mechanics you'd stop getting dogshit boss fights. The last GOOD western game i can remember is Mount and Blade: Warband.

The first bit about Mega Man is mostly true in the originals.

Mega Man X, bosses are a bit more balanced and many can be handily beaten with the buster, it's just their weakness weapon is a bit more effective. The effectiveness varies too.

Like shotgun ice totally shuts down Spark Mandrill. But rolling shield is only kinda good against Launch Octopus. And Chill Penguin, it's actually easier to use the buster against him than the short range flamethrower.

I played around a bit with the second, fought some snake boss and got my ass kicked. Also loved the insta-kill spike cieling earlier.

I've watched LPs and speedruns of them. The boss fights look pretty good, but the level design just seems like they're meant to be as cruel and unfair as they can.

Though maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance.

I didn't make this thread.

I'm sorry you hate video games and fun.

I don't think you've played a single game on that list. In fact, I don't think you're old enough to have played them. I'm not insulting you, the way you type just comes off as someone that's maybe 13-15.

*cough cough*

Maybe he should specify

Why are boss battles in Japanese games always so shit?

hurr durr but metroid and megaman and devil may cry bosses et al aren't complete boring shit

>I'm sorry you hate video games and fun.
oh boy here we go, the implication people who dislike boss battles hate games. i want to play the game not play a shit boss. i have dropped every megaman game at the wily segments because i realized it wasn't fun. yellow devil is the definition of an awful repetitive boss. i don't have to explain myself to you, you are wrong that i haven't played those games.

>but metroid and megaman and devil may cry bosses et al aren't complete boring shit
You're right, they're not.

To have good bossfights you need good gameplay mechanics, and that in itself is almost impossibly to find in mainstream western games because they don't focus on good gameplay.

Cerberus and Vergil are always fun. I don't need stupid QTEs to finish the bosses off or a cutscene of a bossfight.

They aren't, Devil May Cry 1 is 15 years old and it still has better boss fights than most high profile western games.

anime, probably

>yellow devil

Literally everyone complains about this shit. You probably just watched some shitty youtuber or streamer play it and bitch about how hard it is.

Also, I'm not implying you hate games and fun. I'm stating it explicitly. You hate games and fun.

At the very best, you probably played some shitty boss fights one time and in your not fully developed child mind thought all boss fights are bad.

Accept the fact that you're wrong and go properly educate yourself.

I can't find it on steam is it still not out?

there is not one super metroid boss battle that isn't "le shoot at it until it dies" while dodging slow projectiles. maybe i just enjoy challenge, not this boring stand in one or two places and repeat the same fucking strat until this chore is dead.

>he says as he posts a series inspired by western games

Why are western game bosses just bullet sponges and QTE?

I can appreciate that this is hilarious, but I still feel like being able to do this is a failure on the game's part.

nah, kill yourself shitposter. you are going to believe what you want to anyways. im going to keep shitting on bossbattles and enjoying an industry going the way i want it too. every single game ive ever played with bosses would be better without them. smoother level transitions, more plain fun.

So a movie then.

Yeah okay, so you are about 13 years old.

Don't worry kid, you'll learn one day.

>>Press X to attack over and over again
>>Occasionally heal
sounds like a Bethesda game

ok

ITT

Westernbabbies who started on 7th generation consoles that can't handle the fact that mainstream western games are shit

Incase you have not noticed the industry is rapidly getting away from single payer games all together and i am sad to see it happening i have no idea what ill do for fun once everything is multiplayer

Sounds like Bethesda, show yourself Todd.

Pity those who don't understand the ultimate test of your skills.

The first FF was heavily based off of dnd.

Remember that EVERYBODY IS A WINNER, no need for skills. Fuck the participation trophy generation.

multiplayer games are easier to make, but the most popular games in the world right now are singleplayer only. it wont just die

>the ultimate test of skills
manipulate the stupid ai
exploit a weakness
do a repetitive task until hitsponge dies

great fun, excellent departure from the rest of the game's gameplay

Yeah. Most differences of opinions in games, I just chalk up to different tastes.

But goddamn, if boss fights never existed, games would fucking suck.

Like, it's literally the equivalent of the big fight scene in a movie. The climax. How you gonna have a game that DOESN'T have a fucking climax? That never gets you hyped for anything?

A video game without boss fights, you just put it down and say "yeah that was fun I guess". Like you'd never get blown away.

I legitimately feel sorry for people that don't like boss fights. It's like the same sorrow I feel for dudes that can't get an erection.

You're just playing the wrong games.

You should play a real game, like Touhou.

I don't think Mr.Freeze is the greatest boss fight ever but he's a excellent boss that forces you to use every silent, stealth move you know in order to beat him. Of course, you only need 3 stealth moves in casual mode.

He's the best boss of the series.

>I have only played shitty western games

Sounds like you've only been playing shit post-2007 games. Let me guess started with the 360?

cry more

>every single game ive ever played with bosses would be better without them
You haven't played games with good boss battles then, remove bosses from something like Devil May Cry and you'd be removing some of the best parts.
>smoother level transitions
They often act as milestones so they're quite good for pacing actually, a boss at the end of a level is like punctuation at the end of a sentence.
>more plain fun
Using everything you've learned in a game to overcome a boss is often one of the most fun elements in games, it's a shame you don't seem to have experienced that feeling.

Twilight Princess

this. he should play some real boss battles, like super mario world and quake!
oh wait. maybe he might enjoy umihara kawase and serious sa-
oh wait. they are all shit. fuck whats a good game ill scrounge up a name.. uh uhh MARIO KART? no, TOUHOU that will show him a good boss battle

Nigga, I ain't even mad at you.

I pity you.

Like I pity a homeless person.

You just describe the AAA western scene. Literally just movie simulators with Mr. Gary Stu as the super crafter/soldier.

NAME 10 GOOD WESTERN BOSSES YOU WEAK PATHETIC FOOLS

are you mocking me

?

ok

i literally cant.

kek. Now this is autism, continue on.

Depends, post-2010 or pre-2010?

Any.

DID I STUTTER

Sorry, bruh. Got caught up mirin' those pecs.

Goddamn, didn't school start back up?

Why are there so many kids that don't know shit shitting up this thread

Get off your phones and study you useless sacks of shit.

Maybe you'll learn something like boss fights being essential to video games.

[insert contrarian comment here]

>a boss at the end of a level is like punctuation at the end of a sentence.
What a retarded analogy.

if your goal is to make a segment so fucking shit it makes the rest of your game shine in comparison yeah its essential.

How about the fucking climax of a book or movie for an analogy?

You literally want games with no climaxes at all. No moments that get you pumped up or excited. You just want some sterile experience where you're never challenged and nothing different or new ever happens.

Here

Shao Kahn 1
Shao Kahn 2
Shao Kahn 3
Shao Kahn Jr.
Shao Kahn Sr. Jr.
Shao Kahn Jr. Jr.
Shao Kahn The Great
Hannibal Shao Kahn
Shao Kahn-chan
Shao Kahn-sama
Hades

Yeah yeah we all know you've only played shitty post-2006 western games.

Yeah, its shitty watching shitty LPer being shit at boss fights because its too long. Us gamers, right?

SPLATOON
BLOODBORNE
DARK SOULS 3
BAYONETTA 2
FURI

An thats just of the top of my head you western dog.

ALL THESE GAMES HAVE FANTASTIC BOSS BATTLES

So what we know about this guy:

- He started playing video games with the 360 and only ever played the latest popular AAA game.

- He watched streams or LPs of people bad at games, and they shat on the bosses because they're bad at games.

- MAYBE he watched some AGDQ and saw people exploiting or cheesing boss fights and thinks that that's the normal way of playing

That about sums it up.

None of this would be a problem if he'd just admit he doesn't know what he's talking about. If he had a more humble attitude like "hey boss fights seem to be kinda bad, but I don't have much experience, are there games with good boss fights?" that would be fine.

not him, ill bring up umihara kawase again. great game, terrible bosses. ive beaten all of them except for one i havent even found yet and the only enjoyable ones were the school of fish "boss" which was really a lot of smaller enemies which i actually rather enjoy in games. level design is based around skills you learn with your lure, areas are locked off not by keys but by your skill level. this is what i like in a game. i have never faced a boss which actually challenged me for the skills i have learned in a way that was enjoyable, the level design is my boss battle, and defeating it, seeing the credits roll, that is my climax. it would be an even better game without those bosses.

ok