Sunday, February 12

Big Burly Bosses



I didn't really have an idea for this blog so I brainstormed a bit and came up with a topic that I tend to think about sometimes and have an opinion on.  The topic in question is the prevalence/necessity of bosses in video games.

What first got me thinking about this topic was playing Skyrim back in November.  The Elder Scrolls series does many things and does them on a huge scale, but there's always a small voice in the back of my head yelling that the games could be more enjoyable with big boss battles.  I realize that Alduin is pretty epic and all, and maybe for some he was a challenge, but at any decent level he's a pushover and the experience feels a bit lacking.  The fight mechanics are basically the same as fighting any other standard dragon in the game. (note the comments almost always relate to the easiness of the fight)





I know that playing at your own pace is a staple of that series' game play, but would it really be that difficult to scale Alduin's difficulty higher based on the player's level?  Again I realize that there is a feature right there in the game to adjust the difficulty at any time, but this doesn't really make the game much harder or easier; numbers that you don't even see are changed.  It does not add to the game play in any way.

Let's contrast that sense of 'well that was cool guess' to the awesome and creative boss battles in the God of War series.  The first major boss in GOW1 is a giant sea serpent, which you defeat by jumping around on a ship and impaling its head.  Many of the boss fights in the game are complex and multifaceted, giving the bosses a strong presence and leaving the player with a lasting impression.  



The game play in Skyrim is supposed to reflect that the player can choose how to take down the boss in many different ways, but I think a boss with many unique attacks and interesting movement patterns is superior from an immersion standpoint.  As Kratos you truly feel heroic when taking apart a huge boss piece by piece.

Another game series that comes to mind is Prince of Persia.  The boss battles also have that immeasurable scale to them which really opens up so many different opportunities for boss mechanics.  Yet another is Shadow of the Colossus, which features many giant (hundreds of feet tall) bosses which you must climb and slowly take down.  While I haven't personally played it, I've heard that it is an excellently designed game which is fun from beginning to end.



This is not to say that 'boss fights' have to always involve fighting a big enemy of some sort.  Many adventure games feature platforming or skill-based challenges other than beating up a bad guy.  A good example is Super Meat Boy, where boss levels follow the same mechanic as usual levels, but you must dodge and jump your way to victory, thus defeating the boss.

I don't think the giant chainsaw wants to be friends.


On the other end of the equation is games without any major boss-type mechanics.  I won't go into as much detail because usually these games rely on different mechanics to stand out.  Most action-adventure types don't have bosses because they don't need them.  A game that does well without many big bosses is the Halo series because its action flows smoothly throughout each level, and each level usually ends in a cliffhanger/leads well into the next level.  This way it doesn't require a climatic boss fight at the end of a level to keep the player interested.

Personally I don't mind whether a game features boss battles or not, but if you're going to add this mechanic, make sure they are designed to be engaging and spectacular.

No comments:

Post a Comment