Sulphur on 11/11/2016 at 12:17

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I'm in agreement with the general principles. Ideally, a boss encounter is a test of everything you've learnt so far at that point in the game.

In relation to that, I feel that the fight should also embody the principles of the game in general: take, for example, MGS 3's fight with The End. You could have a long war of attrition in that sniper battle, you could try sneaking up on him, or you could just wait for him to die of old age by setting the console clock forward. All of this is in keeping with MGS as a series' tendency to encourage experimentation and lateral thinking instead of just ramming the ol' brick wall head-on to progress. Contrast this with DX: HR's pre-DC boss battles, where the game had encouraged you to navigate encounters however you saw fit, lethal or non-lethal, but then gave you no choice in the matter for the big confrontations.

Apart from that, some of the best boss battles have been those that weren't wholly predictable. The general formula for a video game boss encounter is: wail on them until you expose the glowing weak point, then hit that until you drop an appropriate percentage (usually a third) off the life bar, rinse and repeat 3 times. The games that switch that up or throw surprises into the mix if they're getting too predictable tend to be the most memorable like, well, a fair few of the Shadow of the Colossus bosses. The mechanics didn't change as such, but navigating the bosses became the counterpoint that kept things fresh.

Yakoob on 12/11/2016 at 03:51

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Reading your posts, I think we can put all bosses on a scale between:
1) More powerful versions of regular enemies (i.e. Doom cyberdemon, most cRPG bosses)
2) Puzzle-bosses requiring specific solution (i.e. Zelda, GladOS, Dark Souls).

This is not a black-and-white categorization but just a dimension. JRPGs mostly fall somewhere in the middle, with bosses that are stronger version of regular enemies, but often have some underlying pattern or weakness you can learn and exploit (such as a big robot being weak to lightning and always using a drill if you attack it melee).

We can also add in the dimension of how many ways a puzzle boss can be defeated in: just one (Zelda) or multiple (Fallout).

There's also the idea of single boss villain (DX:HR, Zelda) versus a Boss encounter featuring multiple minions (Deus Ex final boss, many JRPGs).

This makes me wonder what other dimensions we can use to classify bosses...

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As far as what makes good bosses, I agree with everything in Thirith's posts plus the NV's and Sulph's points about the boss fitting into the preceding playstyle and the game adequately "training" you for the encounter. It's also great when they are built up as a villain through the story, rather than the game dropping some random monstrosity out of the blue (hello JRPGs).

Without repeating all points made, personally I dislike the "boss killed transforms into a stronger version" or "oh no the boss was not the REAL boss, here it is!" as it often leads to player using up all their best power ups they've been saving up. I am not totally against it and it can be used to a great "aha gotcha!" effect, but when it is abused, it gets tedious.

Additionally, re-fighting previous bosses before the last boss, which Grandia II makes you do at the end. Initially it is a nice "wow I am so much stronger, I've come so far!" feeling, but by 2nd or 3rd boss it just gets tedious. Hilarity points if one of those bosses proves harder than the final boss itself (as was Grandia's case).

Lastly, I'd like to add in the idea of the presentation of boss battles. The sound, music, visual effects, and building up of the villain are very important. Shadow of Collosus probably has the best example of how presentation can make bosses worthy of the title. Contrast with Serious Sam bosses which lack interesting camera framing, special VFX / screen effects, and their fast movement diminishes their sense of scale.

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As for my absolute favorite boss? The final battle in Beyond Good and Evil on the moon. It was the perfect mix of challenging player's skill, length, epic music and screen blur effects. It felt like a real difficult battle that made me use up most of my stocked up potions and tricks up my sleeve and ended just at the right time before overstaying it's welcome.

N'Al on 13/11/2016 at 10:33

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The best boss fights are those that resolve themselves:

[video=youtube;H75Tu8RpIfc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H75Tu8RpIfc[/video]