To be fair, final bosses and bosses in general are a bit less common than they used to be; however, the topic of this thread will be about what makes a final boss great. Anyone can tell you the major tropes which final bosses usually use, such as
or perhaps the final boss is similar to a cutscene where it isn't very difficult and the gameplay itself is downplayed in favor of the story. One such example is in Mother 3.
In the end, I think it's fair to say nobody really cares for those types of lackluster final bosses. The best ones are those which make you palpitate and arch your back, focusing you entirely on the game. For JRPG fans, the best feeling in the world is fighting a very tough boss with no visible health bar and finally, after God knows how long, finally seeing the enemy explode/dissolve/or whatever they do when defeated and the subsequent victory fanfare.
What are some examples of such final bosses which really kick the intensity dial up to 10? The bosses in the pictures I posted don't necessarily follow these criteria, but for many people, they are the most memorable final bosses.
On that note, are the most difficult bosses always the most memorable? What exactly makes one boss memorable over another?
Good Final Boss (Fights)
It's literally just a "hey remember the gwyn fight"
Almost none of the bosses from that game are really memorable since they all follow the same format
Bayonetta had a good final boss(s).
my favorite final boss from the past few years
goty of 2017 for me
I see what you mean, and in retrospect perhaps Gwyn is a better final boss than Lord of Cinder, but I think most people remember the DS3 final boss because of the music. He wasn't very difficult by any means, but, as I mentioned, difficulty and memorability may not be mutually exclusive.
About souls bosses like that (just beat DaS2 last month, and just killed a hoard of priests "boss" in DaS3 last weekend), I think most of them are forgettable because most of them are just "large" knights. When it isn't "large" knights it's Billy Mays fights… "but wait; there's MORE!". I know Souls games aren't known for highly detailed lore, but I feel like the huge boss diversity and mostly compelling story for each made DaS2 and DaS3 (so far) feel shallow and repetitive.
Thinking about it right now the only boss fight I find memorable from DaS2 was the Ancient Dragon. The only reason I remember it is because it was so fucking easy compared to how difficult I imagined it would be.
still the best game from the past 11 years even if it makes some people poopie their pants
I mean, I'll remember it for the rest of my life as the final bossfight that made me feel something other than rage or smug satisfaction.
FFCC's Raem comes to mind.
He basically stops you from freeing the world off Miasma, before you can deal the final blow to the Meteor Parasite and then you have to beat his ass a few times.
The fights themselves aren't all that hard but the build up was really nice, especially for his final form and the way you beat him.
Fucking This.
The questions, the encouraging messages, and that fucking chorus when your fellow gamers come to take the hits for you makes this a boss I will likely never forget
Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth has a really good Final Boss Battle. It might hit the typical tropes as mentioned but it is really well executed.
if you havent played the Series yet then wait for the re-release of the first game which will hopefully soon come out in order to enjoy all the Buildup of the entire Story.
Out of all the amazing boss fights, the Shadolord fight was the best in the OG NieR, glad they saved the best for last.
Yakuza 0's final boss is up there with DMC3's Vergil and DMC4's Credo/Dante fights in terms of my favourite "rival" boss fights. It's the best kind of rival fight where their moveset(s) aren't exactly the same as yours, meaning you don't already know all of their moves, but are still similar enough for it to be called a mirror match. It's also thematically fitting that he fights similarly to how you do which is nice. Apart from that, his animations are beautifully detailed, the music's great, the dynamic intro is energetic as fuck and he's reasonably difficult too.
Yakuza Ishin has a very good (and, I think, much harder) final boss too, pretty much everything I said above applies to him as well. His second phase is quite interesting in particular because he dodges immediately after almost every time that you successfully hit him, which would normally be annoying, but it works very well since the style you're encouraged to use during that part lets you immediately cancel any of your attacks by dodging as well. So it ends up looking almost like a dance, which is what the style both you and he use during that phase is named after.
Apart from that series I really liked Grigori and Daimon in Dragon's Dogma. Both had good music, good build-up and felt like a good test of all the stuff you learn over the course of the game. I didn't really like the part of Grigori's fight that forced you to use the ballista to shoot him down but the rest of the fight is good enough that it's still up there for me. I also like the final bosses of the first two Fallouts, mostly for all the different options they present you with.
b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but Soul of Cinder is unparriable!
The Master certainly does have a lot of good build-up. I think Frank Horrigan has some build-up as well, but the way they force you to fight him with no cover fucked me up on my first run because I was not equipped skill-wise or weapon-wise for it. It's for that reason I prefer the Master.
Red - mysterious, silent, twice as strong as previous trainers. Also, being YOU from the previous games just adds to it.
Manfred von Karma - Intimidating, cunning, perfectionist. Even judges fear him. Never lost a case before facing you.
Sans - Reverts everything you've seen so far in the game. Avoids your attacks. Attacks you in the menu, throws his strongest attack first, and makes fun of you if you lose. His story in general is interesting, with him being kind of outside of the game, knowing about the timelines and shit. The other bosses in this game just…are.
That shit was a really neat callback though
Rootie tootie scrolly shooties have all the best final bosses. No other genre even comes close to their consistency.
I thought it was pretty contrived.
The fight was pretty good, I'll give you that.
What I love in a final boss is fair complexity. Let's compare and contrast a couple here.
Metal Slug 3 has an incredible finale that never lets up. Every time you think the game is over the rollercoaster keeps going until you finally fight the final boss as you fall back to earth having blown up the mothership. It's pretty damn cool when you're credit feeding the game. But when you're playing it seriously? Not so much. The final boss has a grand total of two attacks, an excessive amount of health, and one of the attacks is extremely cheap should you lose access to your slug. In actual gameplay terms, it is a fairly unsatisfying final boss that relies primarily on planning ahead in the previous stage by hoarding shitloads of bombs and not dying and making sure you grab the Flame Shot in a particular section and then climb into your slug and never use its ammo up, all in order to not be incredibly tedious as a final boss. Amazing lead-up and presentation? Yes. A fair test of player skill for that ultimate satisfying completion? Not really.
Now let's look at the final boss of Metal Slug 7. It has maybe 8 different attacks that all feel fair and it can't really be taken out quickly by dumping ammunition on it hoarded from the final stage. Much better boss, much more satisfying final skill test.
He's already the hardest boss with nothing helping him. If he used those, he would have been unstoppable. He doesn't even try to fight you until you've killed everyone else and are stronger than ever. Fucking why?
I really have to ask whether people who prop up a lot of RPG endings as exemplary final bosses whether they have ever actually played an arcade or arcade-like game in a single-sitting manner with limited retries. Do you know the feeling of going through a 30-minute challenge where the finale puts everything on the line and can force you to start over from the beginning if you fail? Have you ever felt the excitement and gratification of overcoming that?
My problem with most RPG bosses is they rarely ever genuinely try to test all the battle strategies you've developed over the course of a game and give you a game over, partly because developers don't want to have to force the player to slog through a ton of final exposition to start the battle over again (easily remedied with a skip cutscene/dialogue button but most RPG writers appear to be narcissists). I don't ask that an RPG be a short endurance challenge like an arcade game (though it might be pretty neat), but I absolutely hate it when the final boss isn't the penultimate challenge of a game.
I mean talk about fucking shit final bosses. Fallout 1 and 2's final battles are shallow as fuck, and the dialogue option is only an interesting option once.
Roguelikes are usually this, aren't they? Those are pretty satisfying to beat. Even if the final boss is just a gear check, you probably had to spend the whole game carefully managing your finite resources in preparation for it.
the best way to play persona 5 is to just pretend Yaldbaoth is an extra boss
Out of any JRPG i think persona 3 has the perfect final boss. 14 heath bars with the last being about 5 times as long. The fight takes like an hour.
While shido was a really good boss fight i really liked the 7 deadly sins theme going on with yaldbaoth
First pic blew my mind
Second and third pic are assholes who had it coming
4th gave me a surprise ass whooping
5th was a complete pushover
He was hoping you would have a change of heart, of course.
Also, he avoids your attacks anyway, so he makes your uber-strength irrelevant. That's one of the things that makes him a good boss.
RPGs just have a lot of more build up. On an arcade game the boss either comes out of nowhere or is only mentioned in 1-2 sentences beforehand, and the game often takes only 1-2 hours to complete anyways. While in a RPG you're spending upwards of 20, 30 hours hearing about this big bad and how big his cock is and how he's gonna destroy/change everything
Ikaruga and Ys: Oath in Felghana did this and it turned me on beyond belief
Otogi 1's final boss gets a mention from me. He is a constant presence in the game, with the backstory of why things are fucked up beyond belief being tied to him and his enemies, the court sorcerers. The entire game is pretty crazy in terms of presentation, but the final battle takes place floating above a star that he was using to help achieve godhood. The actual battle is pretty good, and would almost qualify as a rival fight if his ability set weren't so much better than yours. He uses stuff like the magic originally used to send Raikoh to hell, some of the dragon homing magic, iirc, a dash which is just better, can actually block and does pretty good damage with his sword.
Otogi 2's final boss is good on the presentation end, but doesn't quite measure up to what Otogi 1 had gameplay wise. The boss is challenging, but also aggravating because it is a giant fox with a relatively small hit box. So you need to be in just the right spot to damage him, and he likes to move around, while having some really annoying attacks like summoning kamikaze enemies, and lightning on you.
technically I guess Yaldaboath is an extra boss? can't you get a bad end where the game ends after the Shido fight?
no, this was actually a really bad fight…
even if ff3 sort of rail-roaded you into only bringing two classes to the fight.
Possibly the best final boss fight in Monster Hunter history tbh.
Heck yeah! #feels #videoGamesAreArt
I remember it took me 30 minutes to whittle away the first time I attempted that boss, AD is such a fucking health sponge it isn't even funny
Ballos would've been fun if it weren't for the massive RNG factor those fucking angels put into the fight.
shoo shoo goon, no one likes you, go back to kingdom cuck.
And the fight really isn't much once you aren't a retard
Maximum Charge Tor.
Shit game has shit bosses.
Yo, that Shinryuu image gives me the idea for a final boss fight where the second phase has the world literally rotting away from it's power, and the only way to stop it is to kill the son of a bitch. The music that plays starts out quiet and slow, then turns into a crescendo playing the game's main melody.
No, you get the bad end if you sell out your friends during the interrogation with Sae right after Joker gets arrested.
I accidentally did that during my first playthrough because I got scared and thought it would be okay.
She may have fucked me over and scared the shit out of me when that first happened, but at least I still fucked her little sister later in the game.
Last Final Boss I remember really enjoying was the final boss in Dungeon Travelers 2.
Won with only 3 of my 5 characters alive. Took me probably 15 tries to figure out a proper team and strategy to get past the first form and deal with the second. That's only her weakened form though. I believe you can fight her at full power at post game along with the other demon gods. I remember running into one that went first, put my whole team to sleep, and casted death on the whole party. I didn't even get a turn to act. 10/10 game
The game was so god damn easy for the majority, but Magalor threw me a fucking curveball and I got my ass kicked until I memorized his patterns. My heart sank when I found out he had a second, harder to fight phase for the first time.
I misspelled it. I meant Magolor. Polite sage.
Self-explanatory
Brevon was FUN. And a hilarious difficulty spike.
>half the topics are casuals bitching about him or Mutant Serpentine
Dagoth Ur. Reminds me of Sauron, really. So powerful that he can't be stopped, so instead of fighting him you do something unthinkable: destroying a extremely potent source of power that could be used for world domination.
Xavier in Sengoku Rance. While the fight itself is nothing special, it's one of the most satisfying bosses to kill in any video game. Fucker had it coming. Also, that music.
Is Nier automata worth playing if I haven't played Drakengard or Nier?
Doom, well the older ones. I mean icon of sin was fun and someone even made the fight with it even better even nudoom did bosses pretty well.
Yes, there's a few throwbacks and one important plot piece from Nier that you can read up on if your autism demands it, but the game takes place thousands of years later
MELBUUUUUU FRAAAHMAAAAA
You should have been able to join him.
Best OST of all goats.
No, but not because of that. It's just a garbage game.
Is this all an elaborate ruse? Please tell me you're all being sarcastic.
Grow some feelings, faggot.
Bowletta from Superstar Saga is a boss fight I always look back on as excellent. Two big bads (un)willingly fused together to create a bigger bad, a multi-stage fight, and excellent build up.
As a kid it was tough to slog through all of the Koopalings, then Fawful, just to get to Bowletta, which made it really feel like the epic grind of a grand adventure. Looking back, the fight, the whole game really, is pretty easy to mow through, but it still feels like there's supposed to be an element of challenge to it, it still has the 'final boss' feel to it.
FFCC was a trip of a game. It goes from
to
;_;
The Boss from MGS3.
