Boss (video games)
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In video games, a boss (sometimes called a guardian or master) is a particularly large or difficult computer-controlled character that must be defeated at the end of a segment of a game, whether it be for a level, an episode, or the very end of the game itself (final boss). Bosses appear in many video games, particularly story or level-based first and third-person shooters, platform games, CRPGs, and most shoot 'em ups. Most games feature multiple bosses, each often more difficult than the last.
History
Video games followed pinball machines. Since a player can never "win" a pinball machine game, video games initially were thought of as simply "video" pinball machines. Game developers therefore included no mechanism to "win" the game. Video games were viewed simply as contest against the machine, where the only goal was to accumulate points until the machine inevitably won.
E.g., early Nintendo and Atari video games such as Pong repeated the same challenge, although the speed of the object (or objects) of the game would increase. Eventually, the objects moved so fast that no player could win.
The first video game boss was the Golden Dragon from the 1975 video game dnd, running on the PLATO System, one of the first world-wide computer networks. Game developers such as those from Atari had access to the PLATO system.
The writers of dnd wanted to implement a "high score" feature. But, since players could save the game and continue from session to session, a "high score" seemed pointless. The writers devised an "end" to the game, so that a character used by a player would be retired and would then be eligible for the high score list. In order to make the game more interesting, a climactic battle was introduced near the end of the game. In order to win the game, a player had to defeat the Golden Dragon, a monster much more powerful than the player had previously encountered. dnd proved enormously popular, and was played until the early 1990s on PLATO.
dnd was written for a mainframe, and thus had considerably more computing power available than video or arcade games written at the same time. Thus, it would be some time after dnd before bosses were implemented in arcade or console games.
The Atari 2600 game Adventure, released in 1978, had three different dragons with differing abilities. However, it was not necessary to defeat any of them to win, and there was no level advancement in the game except by manual variation selection using the Game Select switch. In the first game variation, only the 2 slower dragons appeared. In the 2nd and 3rd variations, the 3rd and fastest dragon could be encountered. However, a player might not even encounter all of the dragons during the course of a 3rd variation game due to their random initial placement. For these reasons, the dragons are not now considered as true bosses.
The first arcade video game with a boss-like attacker was the 1979 game Galaxian. In Galaxian, waves of ships would attack the player. Each wave included a few "flagships". Destroying the flagships resulted in significant bonuses. The flagships appeared at the top of the screen, and were believed to direct the attack. The flagships were thus referred to as "bosses". Although the flagships usually were defeated by a player at the end of a level before advancing to the next level, it was not a requirement of the game.
The first arcade video game with a true boss was Phoenix introduced in 1980 by Centuri. In Phoenix, a player was first attacked with several different smaller types of enemies. After disposing of the small ships, the player is then attacked by birds. After the birds are destroyed, the player faced a large mothership. Only by defeating the large mothership could the player advance to the next level.
The first console games with a boss were Vanguard and Phoenix for the Atari 2600. Both games are ports from arcade video games. The games were released almost simultaneously. Vanguard has a part number of CX2669 while Phoenix has a part number of CX2673. If the games were released in sequence, Vanguard would have been released before Phoenix.
Bosses in game structure
Many single-player games feature a level/episode structure, the game becoming progressively more difficult as the player advances. Bosses are a consequence of this structure, appearing at or near the end of a level or episode and being the hardest enemies to defeat, often requiring a highly complex sequence of attacks or other actions that the player must deduce during the battle (and, usually, multiple defeats), in order to beat them. Other games have a storyline instead of a level-based structure, but they still feature boss-like enemies at various points in the story or at the end of the storyline.
The boss battle generally marks the climax of a dramatic buildup resulting from the player's anticipation and anxiousness. Game designers often add design elements, such as suspenseful music, that enhance this effect. For example, in Metal Gear Solid 2, the penultimate battle (against Metal Gear Ray) has been heavily foreshadowed in dialogue, and the threat represented by the boss enhanced by an attempt to disable or destroy it before it is mobile, and by scenes of it causing carnage to demonstrate how deadly it is to the player. The final scenes in Quake 2 also implement "quiet, too quiet" effects before the player finally confronts the Makron. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the cutscene before the final boss shows the world being covered in darkness and also includes the final boss of the game effortlessly reducing a previous powerful boss into a disembodied head, forshadowing the difficulty of the battle.
A boss fest is a game with radical emphasis on boss battles. Examples of this style are Milestone's Chaos Field for Dreamcast and GameCube, Treasure's Alien Soldier for Genesis, and Taito's extremely rare Darius Alpha for the PC Engine. Final Fantasy VII, for the Sony PlayStation, is also a prime example of this, and has often been derided for its habit of throwing bosses at the player with little or no regard to how they fit in the story. This has sometimes been known as Random Boss Syndrome.
An interesting variation on a boss fest game can be seen in Freakout (Called Stretch Panic in North America) for the Sony PlayStation2. This game has only four "normal" levels in which the character gains points. These points are then used to gain access to the twelve different boss arenas that make up the rest of the game. Shadow of the Colossus takes this one step further, as the game features no enemies except the 16 giant monsters the player must hunt down and slay. It is very rare for a game to be comprised mostly of what would normally be bosses.
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Some games also include a special mode, or Boss Gauntlet, in which the goal is to defeat a number of bosses one after the other. Famous games with this kind of features are the Mega Man series and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Some modes challenge the player with some kind of twist, such as in Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland and, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, where Kirby couldn't use his copy powers, or Kirby Super Star mode The Arena, which consists of endurance matches against a fixed number of bosses with recovery and ability change rooms between matches. Often, modes like this are unlockables that are earned after beating the game to test a player's skill.
Bosses are traditionally used as choke-points in RPGs, used to ensure a player has taken the time to level-up (raise their abilities through fighting anonymous easier foes) before progressing to a new section of the game. A player may find that they have not increased in level sufficiently to weather a boss's attacks, and must spend time gaining experience points by fighting lowlier creatures (often a very repetitive process) before attempting the battle again. This can be viewed as an effort to ensure the player has the level the designer expects before they progress, however it is one of the more common frustrations with the genre. A well-designed RPG will have the player level up enough to defeat bosses during normal play, and may provide bonuses if they have grown strong enough to defeat certain opponents beforehand.
In modern MMORPGs, where the game has no true "end", the boss structure is often used within game "dungeons" or "instances". For example, in World of Warcraft, the instance Uldaman has a number of small boss encounters, many of which are skippable if the players don't want or need to do them, and a huge, highly dramatic "end boss" encounter which finishes the instance: Archaedas, the Ancient Stone Watcher. In "Final Fantasy XI" monsters called "Notorious Monsters" exist in almost every area. These monsters have special names and are stronger than the surrounding beasts, and usually respawn after a special condition and/or time limit is met. They are not usually necessary to proceed in the game, just to gain items or complete quests. These might be considered bosses by some people. There are Notorious Monsters that are necessary to the story line but are in battle arenas and will limit your level so it is still a challenge no matter your level that you normally are.
Types of bosses
Note that some advanced bosses may combine any number of the following basic characteristics. For example, Ugh-Zan III, from Serious Sam, is classified as a puzzle, giant, strong, final and unbeatable boss, and alternates between these statuses like a multi-staged boss. This multiplication of characteristics is more frequent than not in most modern videogames.
Strong boss
This boss is difficult to defeat because it has a lot of energy and / or deals a large amount of damage. Defeating it is generally a matter of hiding from its powerful attacks and hitting it when it's not attacking, or simply wearing it down through attrition. This is the simplest boss type, and may just be a regular enemy with a lot of life.
A popular variant of this is that the boss will alternate between long periods of total invulnerability and short periods when a player's attacks actually weaken it - typically the difficulty in beating such a boss is that it will unleash devastating attacks which must be avoided during its invulnerable period by retreating or taking cover, but the player must then break cover and get close to the boss during its vulnerable periods in order to counterattack, then flee again before the next cycle. As a sporting gesture, most games employing this feature offer some clue to when the boss is vulnerable to attack and when it is not, often a change in appearance. A more recent version of this boss can be seen in Halo 2's Tartarus. See also Puzzle Boss and Unbeatable Boss.
Stylish boss
This boss is difficult to defeat because it is fast and has a lot of quick attacks that are difficult to avoid. Often this kind of boss is around the same size as the player's character, and is a martial artist or similar. This type may have a lot of life or be relatively weak but tricky to hit. Shiva from Streets of Rage is such a boss. Another notable one is Dark Link from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Another example is General Kim from True Crime: Streets of LA who blocks attacks rapidly and perfectly, and executes powerful Dragon Fist punches. Also in Metal Gear, Big Boss is very hard because he looks like you and runs very fast. As well in Kingdom Hearts, the final boss can kill you within a few hits because of his rapid attacks. Other examples from the sequel Kingdom Hearts II are Xaldin, who is armed with 6 powerful lances using fast-paced, multi-hit wind attacks, and Xemnas, the game's main antagonist and final boss, who uses a pair of lightsaber-like blades emitted from his hands along with powerful energy fields, blasts, and arcs to attack from all sides in short but lethal strikes demanding quick reaction times from the player.
Giant Boss
This type of boss is common in first- and third-person shooters. The boss is vastly larger than the player's character or any of the other bosses, often with a single relatively small weak point that must be attacked for massive damage (such as an excess eyeball, or a red bulb located on the hands or head), made difficult to hit by their sheer size, or no weak point at all (making it a puzzle boss). Examples of this type include Kraid in the Metroid series, almost all the first stage bosses of the Mega Man X series, AT-ST walkers in Shadows of the Empire, Tidal Wave in the Transformers PS2 game, Z Leo in Alien Soldier, Cthon in Quake, GOLIATH SD/9 in TimeSplitters: Future Perfect and all 16 of the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus.Ugh-Zan III, the final opponent from the PC game Serious Sam, is largely considered to be the most impressive example of a giant boss (as of 2006), as he towers several hundred feet above the human-sized player (although the method required to defeat him would also classify him as a puzzle boss) another Giant Boss is Finalhazard from Sonic Adventure II, where you alternate as Super Sonic and Super Shadow and try dodge his lazer beam and spore projectiles and hit him in a large red sore that mysteriously changes places.
Final boss
"Final boss" (also "last boss" or "end boss") is the term generally used for the final antagonist of the game, such as Ganon from the Legend of Zelda series or Safer Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. They are normally much larger and more powerful than any other enemies that appear in the game. This is sometimes referred to as the "last guy" derived from the common "bad guy", being the last "bad guy". There are a few common forms taken by the "last boss", including a massive creature with a small vulnerable spot and/or a creature which takes on a number of different forms during the final battle, with the ultimate form often being the most imposing. Sometimes, the final boss requires fighting in several battles; its first form as one boss and then an evolved form as the true final boss. Perfect CHAOS from Sonic Adventure, the Biolizard in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sigma from the Mega Man X series are examples. There could also be multiple final bosses in one game, such as both Trance Kuja and Necron in Final Fantasy IX Defeat of the final boss usually means the game is complete (unless there happens to be an extra "hidden boss", as explained below). Sometimes the final boss is fought before the final battle also, such as Dark Samus from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Jecht in Final Fantasy X.
Mini-Boss
A weaker version of a boss that appears earlier in the level is called a mini-boss, sometimes derived from the fact that it is a smaller form of another boss (alternately known as a mid-boss or sub-boss). These are generally intermediate between bosses and standard enemies in their properties, for example, in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. An example of this is Metal Mario from Super Smash Bros..
Occasionally, a defeated mini-boss or boss may return as a standard regular enemy at a later stage of the game. This often stresses the use of a certain strategy or action, and the player learns how to use it well for later purposes as a result. This typically only applies to bosses or mini-bosses which are not key characters in the game's storyline. For example, in Metroid Prime, the player encounters many Baby Sheegoths before a boss battle against a fully grown one; upon revisiting the level at a later stage, adult Sheegoths are commonplace. Other examples of mini-bosses include Birdo, Ridley (although he gains normal boss status in later Metroid games), and Boom Boom.
Non-Antagonist Boss
This type of boss isn't really an enemy or an antagonist. It is just a character that you must challenge in a sport or activity. A good example is a boss that you must simply race or beat in a game. Even some bosses like Eely-Mouth from Super Mario Sunshine aren't enemies, but are friends that you must help to fix something. Even though Non-Antagonist bosses aren't enemies, in a lot of cases, they might still inflict damage on you if you touch them.
Hidden Boss
Another version of this is the Hidden Boss (also Secret Boss or Superboss), which may be fought just before or just after the final boss. Its existence or location may only hinted at within the game, and usually requires the player to have already completed a certain task within the game - this task often involves collection of a complete set of some kind of item. Naturally, this boss is usually the most difficult one in the game, with game designers specifically adding this unbalanced boss to challenge hardcore gamers who have leveled their characters to be strong enough to easily defeat the last boss. Defeating it usually has a reward such as a rare item or ability, although many gamers feel they would need to be at such a high level of skill as to make the reward ironically useless. This is pointed out in "The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés." Although in recent games the item/weapons received for defeating an optional boss are ridiculously overpowering compared to the other item/weapons to the point the player can generally defeat any opponent with one or two strikes.
Not all hidden or secret bosses are at the end of an optional dungeon, some of these kind of bosses actually replace the last boss but generally can not be reached the first time. An example of this is Bomberman 64 where if the player has achieved 100 gold cards and then defeats Altair, instead of being saved by Regulus, Siruis Bomberman's ally throughout the game will kill Altair and reveal himself as the true villain which Bomberman will then have to fight.
Recent Final Fantasy games have become known for their challenging optional bosses, such as Omega and Shinryu from FFV, the various WEAPONs from FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII and FFX, Ozma from FFIX, the Dark Aeons and the Monster Ranch creations from FFX, and Trema from FFX-2. Other examples of this are Kingdom Hearts's Sephiroth (who appears in both the original Kingdom Hearts and in Kingdom Hearts II, with a slightly larger role), the Ice Titan, Phantom, the so-called Enigmatic Man and Kurt Zisa. Culex is also a hidden boss in Super Mario RPG acting as an example of a boss inspired by the Final Fantasy series. It is a common misconception that he was a final boss, yet this is not true.
Perhaps one of the most notable but little-known optional bosses, however, is Iseria Queen from Star Ocean 2: The Second Story. The opportunity to fight her only comes after completing an extremely challenging, multi-level hidden dungeon called The Cave of Trials. Even then, the player has little chance against her without utilizing a piece of armor called "Bloody Armor", which constantly drains the equipped character's health while making it impervious to all other damage.
Super Smash Brothers: Melee also has two notable (and quite well known) secret bosses: Crazy Hand and Giga Bowser. Although Crazy Hand does not actually come after the final boss, it comes in the middle of the fight, and only when specific requirements are met.
O2 from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards can be considered a hidden boss, in that it can only be fought once every crystal shard is collected.
Both Golden Sun games have a ridiculously strong Hidden Boss, but the defeat of them is necessary to gain every item or ability required. For instance, Golden Sun's Deadbeard guards the Demon Mail, the strongest armor in the game. Later, in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, the overwhelmingly strong boss Dullahan guards the Iris summon, the most powerful Djinn-based attack available.
In Soul Calibur III, the hidden boss is Night Terror, who can only be fought after following a specific path for each character, and with out losing any fights, or continues. Night Terror is the most powerful enemy in the game, and is extremely difficult.
In most Sonic games, Hidden Bosses (Called Extra Bosses) are reached by collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds. The Hidden Boss of Sonic Advance 3 is a large, orb-like robot, Super G-Mel, but is actually easier to defeat than the "final boss".
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the Hidden Boss is Bonetail, an undead skeletal dragon] with 200 HP and 8 offence points, reached by making it to the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials. It guards a rae badge.
Team boss
Team bosses are different from all other forms of bosses in the sense that while most bosses are portrayed as one significant enemy, these are shown as multiple normal or half-as-powerful-as-a-boss enemies. Common characteristics where the battle is not simply a fight against multiple bosses at once:
- The first boss of the Playstation 1 game Koudelka featured three spinning eyes that had to be killed independently of one another, and whilst each eye was only marginally harder to defeat than normal enemies, the trio together was sufficiently strong enough to constitute a boss.
- Tag Team battles in which usually two opponents may leave the fight and allow the other one to attack. These are usually solved by killing both of the enemies or just hitting both of them until the health bar is drained and they both die regardless of how many hits were delivered to either of them. Examples are the zombie dogs from Medievil and Agni and Rudra in Devil May Cry 3.
- Minion battles in which there will be one normal boss along with a few (2 or 3) mini-bosses or plain enemies. These are solved by either killing all of the opponents, or simply killing the "leader". Examples include many of the bosses in Tales of Symphonia, General Guy from Paper Mario, and most Boss battles in Tactical RPGs.
- Army battles in which a swarm of normal enemies will come at you wave after wave after wave. The waves usually get harder as you proceed through the fight. Examples include the "Robot Carnival" and "Robot Storm" levels in Sonic Heroes and a level involving a swarm of robots in the Futurama computer game.
- Another form of team boss is through the Key to Truth door in Monstro in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, where you have to defeat many Shadows and create a ruckus so Monstro sneezes, sending Geppeto and Pinnochio flying out.
- Generator battles, where one or more tough 'factory' enemies produce large numbers of regular enemies; the player must destroy or disable the 'factory' enemies while surviving the attacks of the regular ones they create. An example of this is the Icon of Sin from Doom II.
- Some team boss encounters involve a two-part strategy, where you must fight multiple bosses individually and in their more powerful combined form. Examples of this include Bit and Byte from Mega Man X3, and the Koopa Bros. which appear in Paper Mario.
- Another type of team boss fight is the Space Paranoids boss fight in Kingdom Hearts II. After you first defeat Sark, the Master Control Program increases the size and power of Sark. To be able to get a shot at the MCP, you must attack Sark until he is knocked unconscious, then break the barrier surrounding the MCP in order to attack it.
- The game Golden Sun and its sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, feature a good deal of team bosses. Though many regular bosses do appear, the major villains of both games appear as a pair, each with considerably higher health than most other bosses up to that point each. However, they can be taken down easily by focusing all or most of the player's effort on only one of the individuals.
Puzzle boss
Another type of boss is the "puzzle boss", which is invulnerable to conventional weapons. In order to be defeated, the player must solve a puzzle – often revolving around activating some type of super weapon which is able to defeat it. Other times the player may have to activate something that drops the boss down a pit, or the boss may be defended by some impregnable shield which the player will have to somehow deactivate before they can harm the boss. (Sometimes the boss's shielding will eventully come back.) Good examples of this kind of boss include the first and final bosses from Quake, many of the bosses from Half-Life (such as the three tentacles and the Pit Worm) and Psychonauts, the Sandopolis sub-boss from Sonic & Knuckles, The final Vorticon from Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons: Marooned on Mars, Bowser in Super Mario Bros. 3 (although Bowser can be defeated with fireballs from a fire flower or with a rare Hammer Bros. suit), and Oogie Boogie in Kingdom Hearts, along with the Hydra from God of War, a large number of the bosses in the Legend of Zelda series (usually beaten with an item the player found in the corresponding boss' dungeon), and Gorea from Metroid Prime: Hunters.
Trick Boss
There is a breed of boss sometimes called the "trick boss". This is a boss who is extremely powerful and can't be easily defeated by the characters at their current level. In many cases there is a particular weapon, skill, or special item that can be obtained to defeat the boss easily. Otherwise the player is left to continue to gain experience until they can beat the boss the normal way. For example, some undead characters take damage from HP healing spells, meaning an inexpensive spell or item typically used to immediately revive a character will immediately kill the boss instead (an example is Evrae Altana from Final Fantasy X, which can be defeated easily with Phoenix Down items). More common are elemental bosses: these tend to only take damage from their opposite 'element' in the game (dark against light, ice against fire, and so on) which the players may not be given until a certain point, until which an elemental boss will be impossible to defeat. Another typical, classic example of the Trick Boss is Metal Man from Mega Man II, who is killed in two hits from the metal blades that can only be obtained by defeating him first (One hit if played on the North American NES version's "Normal" mode).
Timed Boss
Occasionally the boss fight's length is determined not by the player's actions, but by a countdown of some sort. In such cases, the boss itself is generally impossible to destroy; the player must wait until the time limit expires and survive the boss' attacks until then. Variations include an invincible boss chasing the player to a certain point (as with the Shagohod chase in Metal Gear Solid 3, where the boss cannot be destroyed while chasing the player on the runway), a boss which the player must hold off while a timed explosive or other character defeats it, and a multi-stage boss where one stage is determined by time limit rather than damage (as with the Morphing Bydo boss' first form in R-Type III: The Third Lightning).
The opposite form also exists; in this type, rather than the boss being defeated after a time limit expires, the player must defeat the boss within the time limit; they will generally otherwise be killed or inconvenienced in some way when the time runs out. Reasons for the time limit vary: typical cases include a bomb with a countdown that will kill the player after a given length of time, the boss calling for unbeatable reinforcements that will arrive when the time runs out, another character being in peril and requiring the player to defeat the boss to render aid to them, or the boss building up a devastating attack it will unleash when the time runs out. Examples include the final boss of Revenge of Shinobi and Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.
A unique example is found in R-Type Final, as well as Ikaruga, where every boss has a time limit as well as a damage limit: in this instance, bosses will either explode on their own, destroy the player's ship or disappear once the time limit expires, allowing a player to defeat them simply by evading their attacks.
An interesting spin on this type of boss is where, in some situations, the game may give a special reward for dealing a certain amount of damage to the boss in a given time limit. An example of this is the X-ATM-092 from Final Fantasy VIII, which chases your party through the town, attempting to intercept the party. Once this boss is knocked down, you have the option of running or trying to reach its maximum damage limit before it gets back up again. Choosing the latter will result in a handy reward.
A recent, unique version of the "Timed" boss is the Luxord boss fight from Kingdom Hearts II. The boss has no hit points as per the custom of the game, but instead has a time bar, as does Sora. The point of the battle is to drain the boss's time bar faster than Sora's is drained. Both time bars drain at the same speed, but doing damage to the boss can cause his bar to drain faster.
Multi-stage boss
Many games contain bosses which change shape or gain alternate attacks as they grow more heavily damaged, and can occupy several types on the list in the course of the player's battle with them. Examples of this type are present in most scrolling shoot 'em ups, where the huge vehicles presented as stage bosses would often become smaller and faster as they became more heavily damaged, or else gain new and more powerful attacks. The various stages of these bosses can normally be considered separate bosses in the various classes they occupy, since it wouldn't make any difference from the player's perspective if a new boss flew on or the old one changed shape. Almost all endgame bosses in World of Warcraft are multi-stage bosses. This type of boss fight is common with the more powerful enemies of RPGs, such as Yunalesca from Final Fantasy X or Hojo from Final Fantasy VII.
Unbeatable boss
Related to the trick boss is the "unbeatable boss" or "scripted battle", often found in RPGs. This rare boss is actually undefeatable—either invincible or massively more powerful than the player—and for storyline purposes, the player must lose. This however does not result in a game over. Often the unbeatable boss will become defeatable much later in the game, when the player has significantly grown in power, obtained a certain ability/weapon/item or when some story element has removed the boss' invincibility; some multi-stage bosses start as an unbeatable boss, but after defeating the player in the first phase, something happens to remove their invincibility, and becomes beatable in the next phase such as Bowser in the N64 title Paper Mario. In some cases, a boss may seem unbeatable, but it can be beaten either by excessive leveling, or amazing player skill; since the player is supposed to lose the story will not change, or change very little should the player manage to win.
One of the best examples of the unbeatable boss is Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance's Black Knight. Appearing at the end of Chapter 7, he kills Greil in a single blow, then manages to dodge Ike's attacks with remarkable speed despite the huge suit of armor he wears. Later, he appears at Chapter 12's end, almost killing Ranulf while taking no damage himself. Only in Chapter 24 is his weakness (the Blessed Sword Ragnell) revealed. Even with Ragnell in hand, though, Ike can only do small amounts of damage to the knight at a time in their Chapter 27 fight, while the Black Knight (and his own Blessed Sword, Alondite) can easily wipe out half of Ike's Health in a single hit, and destroy Mist altogether with the same hit, all the while recovering health lost from previous attacks, essentially leaving him at the very high status of a Super Boss. Because of this, many players consider the Black Knight the game's hardest enemy, even though the Daein King Ashnard (who can be damaged by up to three characters and is extremely slow when compared to the Black Knight, though this is probably due to his Blessed Sword, Gurgurant's, extremely high weight) has yet to be fought.
Also, in Jade Cocoon 2, near the beginning, Kahu (the protagonist) has to fight an evil kalma much, much stronger than himself - the player has to lose in order for the plot to progress. This is the players enemy through a lot of the game and eventually the player gets to fight him again, in a match that the player can win. Another example would be Ramirez from Skies of Arcadia, who challenges Vyse and his party to a battle on their base, Crescent Isle. While possible, it is extremely difficult to defeat Ramirez in this part of the game at the normal level. Later, as a final boss, the player defeats Ramirez in 3 stages. Yet another excellent example of an unbeatable boss is Vile from Mega Man X. Vile is encountered at the end of the first level of the game. He cannot die, and he will be able to subdue you in only one hit. Vile is later encountered at the end of the game, when X and Zero team up to destroy him.
Lloyd from Legend of Dragoon you must lose to him in the first disk but in the third you fight him and must win.
Doopliss from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door steals Mario's identity and every time Mario passes a certain shed, Doopliss will appear and battle you. Doopliss is undefeatable during this portion, (this is explained in game as when someone dosen't know your name you can use incredibly powerful magic) however can be defeated at the end of the chapter.
In Tales of Symphonia, the party encounters Yggdrasil in the Tower of Salvation. Not only is Yggdrasil impossibly powerful, but is fought directly after two other bosses, one of which is also unnecessary to defeat to progress. Also, even if you are able to keep up, the battle ends without neither the player or the boss being defeated.
In Final Fantasy X, Tidus is attacked by an underwater enemy called Geosganeo upon first arriving in the main game world of Spira. The boss uses only one physical attack, which damages Tidus for half his current health, meaning he can never die - if he is reduced to 1 HP, the game rounds the damage of .5 HP down to 0. Geosganeo can be defeated much later on after the airship is acquired, and at this stage he is capable of killing party members, though he only poses a challenge to lower-leveled parties.
Also, in Final Fantasy II, the player's party is put up against four Black Knights at the end of the opening cutscene. They are impossible to defeat, even though they are only normal enemies - they can one-hit kill any of the party members (and proceed to do so) and have HP well into the thousands, against your party's normal attacks dealing roughly ten damage per hit. They are encountered as normal enemies much later in the game, and can be easily defeated at this point by most parties.
Also, in Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast,at the end of the mining planet level, you will fight a Sith named Desann (Who you will fight at the end of the game) whom you fight,but he will have to drain your health for you to continue.
Typical characteristics
Role-playing games
In complex games (particularly role-playing games), bosses are so noted for effective attacks and a large number of hit points. They also have "special" attacks, such as stunning/freezing the player, teleportation, inflicting massive damage onto the characters, inflicting curses on the characters that decrease their abilities, and so forth. Bosses are often immune to certain abilities that the player possesses, and often can only be defeated by specific attacks and strategies, or by using the environment or their own attacks against them. A common way of implying this power is to make the boss much larger than the player's on-screen representation, as opposed to normal enemies, who are more commonly smaller than the player, or at most roughly equal in size. Some bosses have multiple targets, the targets being either its allies (like a boss fight with one or two bodyguards) or multiple parts of its body. The battle with this breed ends whenever the main target or all of its parts die, but sometimes the pieces will be revived if the player doesn't kill them quick enough. In some games in which combat takes place in real-time (Like in The Legend of Zelda or MMORPGs), some bosses may use the environment to their advantage. This includes the boss picking up objects and throwing them at the player characters, lighting the stage on fire, dropping mine-like explosives, or by reducing the available space to fight in. Sometimes the player can use the environment to their advantage too, like standing in a specific space to avoid damage from an attack or knocking projectiles back at the boss and stunning him/her/it. Sometimes it is a certain object in the area that can damage the boss. This is attributed to the "Puzzle Boss."
Action games
In fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, the final few characters the player faces in matches are usually referred to as bosses, as they are placed at the end of the game and often have noticeably greater difficulty than previous opponents. Bosses in these games are often not available as playable characters at leisure, or may have a much weaker version available for play. Bosses are also sometimes characterised by being difficult, or completely unrelated, to the rest of other fighter's templates owing to a strange size, shape or types of attacks. Example include Asmodeus of Mace:The Dark Age and Master Hand of the Super Smash Brothers series, who is completely different to any other opponents not only by size, but the way the fight decisions are conducted.
In scrolling fighting games and other arcade games, a boss's health level is often determined by a health bar comparatively longer than the player's, sometimes taking up several lifebar lengths. When not determined in this manner, the character may also flash red as he takes hits, progressively flashing faster until he is defeated. This not only determines the boss's health, but also permits internal programming to discreetly adjust it as players enter and leave the game during the boss battle. Sometimes, bosses may also adjust their attacks (including desperation moves when near defeat) according to how much damage they are taking.
First-person shooters
In more fantasy- or science-fiction-oriented First Person Shooter games like Doom or Quake where the player faces different species of monsters, bosses are generally large, highly durable monsters, often with their own unique weapons or special pre-scripted attacks and complex arenas. In more realistic FPS games where the player faces exclusively human foes, such as Wolfenstein 3D, bosses often are unique characters who behave exactly like regular enemies, only with better weapons, more health, and typically greater intelligence; or else they are vehicles such as tanks or attack helicopters to account for their greater durability and damage.
Scrolling shooters
Scrolling shooters almost always feature end-of-stage bosses, which are often screen-filling vehicles or creatures with multiple attack phases depending on how much damage they have taken; frequently they change shape to mark these phases. Mechanical bosses are often freakishly oversized, such as the Ground Battleship in Strikers 1945. Some scrolling shooters will also have a Boss Stage, a stage in the game that is made almost entirely of one gigantic ship several screens long/wide, as well as any escorts. The player(s) usually have to destroy the ship piece by piece, often causing sections to fall off. However, these stages tend to end in a traditional boss, generally the ship's engine or command section. The R-Type series is known for having one of the earliest examples of this kind of stage. There are also sometimes levels made entirely of boss fights, which are given varied nicknames such as Boss Alleys or the Boss Parade. The Gradius series (since the second installment) are known for featuring this kind of stage.
Arcade flight sims
While almost nonexistent in realistic flight sims, boss encounters do appear in those the focus more on action, such as the Ace Combat games. This will either take the form of an enemy 'ace' or group of aces significantly more difficult to hit than the standard enemies (ADFX-02 and other aces from Ace Combat Zero, UI-4054 from Ace Combat 3, or a squadron of X-02 Wyverns from Ace Combat 5: Operation Katina), or sometimes a massive vehicle such as Ace Combat 5's Arkbird enemy, a spaceplane as big as an aircraft carrier. Other 'boss' like encounters can be stages that require extremely precise flying, often down narrow tunnels; Ace Combat 04's Megalith stage fits this description well.
Space Sims
Unlike conventional flight sims, space sims often contain bosses, usually in the form of colossal, heavily armoured capital ships which dwarf the small ships piloted by players and conventional enemies (almost invariably one-man fighter or bomber spacecraft). Descent: Freespace and its sequel Freespace 2 are excellent examples, frequently relying on boss levels in the form of missions where squadrons of small craft must engage and either destroy or capture vast enemy vessels. Conversely, sometimes in such games the roles are reversed, for example when an allied capital "boss" ship must be defended against swarms of regular enemies. Occasionally two capital ships engaging each other in a boss fight actually form nothing more than a backdrop to a conventional dogfight.
Criticisms
Bosses have recently fallen out of favor with some videogamers and specific game designers; it is argued by them that they are a hangover from pay-to-play arcade games, and inappropriate for current games. Poorly engineered bosses may simply be an enemy which absorbs or deals an exasperating amount of damage without providing especially engaging gameplay, existing purely to slow the player's progress. Particularly boss-heavy games may lack coherent segments between the bosses; this is frequently an issue in 2D shooters such as Gunstar Heroes.
Some gamers have complained that bosses can break the suspension of disbelief by disrupting the level of realism. In games which attempt for a "realistic" atmosphere where the player character and the enemies can survive about as much damage as a "real" human being (albeit perhaps one wearing body armor) could, it can be quite jarring to suddenly encounter an enemy who can survive superhuman amounts of damage, especially when this enemy is apparently human - this is particularly noticeable, for example, in Max Payne. Developers have tried to justify these occurrences by various (sometimes far-fetched) means, like providing the player's opponent with extremely advanced body armor (such as the final boss in the otherwise (gruesomely) realistic Soldier of Fortune). An interesting justification for a human character's extreme resistance to damage (or, more likely, the pain it causes) is found in Hitman: Codename 47, where a "boss" character snorts a preposterous amount of cocaine before engaging the player in a gunfight.
Also, the incongruously drawn-out boss battles in Red Faction 2 and other similar games were derided by many as repetitive, awkward endings to otherwise dramatic, coherent games. However, the frequent lock-in battles of some games which claim to be without bosses are often just as problematic for suspension of disbelief, since they require the player to accept that, for example, a character with a rocket launcher could not destroy a flimsy door barring his escape.
Alternatively, some view bosses as the ultimate expression of the concepts in the game's design, the other segments bridging and introducing ideas to be explored fully in the boss battles. Developer Treasure constructed Alien Soldier as a relentless series of bosses to interesting effect; the Metal Gear series includes its bosses as the ongoing storyline, battles with them driving the plot ahead; in the Metroid saga, bosses test the player's skill and grant them new abilities that allow the gameplay to expand.
Games may instead have various scenarios which serve as boss "replacements," however, such as requiring the player to defeat a larger-than-normal amount of (often strong) enemies in a limited period of time or a confined space with little cover. This kind of 'boss room' is especially common in first person shooting games, with its origins in the Doom series. A common version is to force the player to remain in one location while waves of enemies attack them; the player being forced to fight them all to progress either because they are locked in (a frequent occurrence in Black, where such a situation occurs at least once on most levels, and the Serious Sam games which consist of little else) or because there is something in the area they must protect for a fixed period of time (possibly the most well-known example being the infamous sequence in GoldenEye 007 where the player must guard Natalya; the Pegasus Bridge and Pavlov's House sequences in Call of Duty are other examples). In World 4-1 of Super Mario Bros. 2, there is no boss. Rather, the boss music plays and Mario/Luigi/Peach/Toad must go through a room with a large number of Autobombs.
It is also worth noting that the line claimed to exist between these "replacement" scenarios and a true boss is not a clear one, and many consider these situations just as much boss encounters as any other type; as an example, the final boss of Serious Sam: the Second Encounter, Mordekai the Summoner, has no means of directly attacking the player and can only summon other enemies. He is thus effectively an object the player must destroy to end a "boss room"-type battle, much as some such battles would end when the player destroys a bunker or computer in the room. Certain games combine the "puzzle" and "army" boss variants to form a situation reminiscent of a boss fight, attempting to perform a complicated sequence of actions while under assault from endless waves of enemies, without technically having a boss present.
Related article
External links
- The Ten Best Boss Fights – according to GameSpot.com
- General-purpose Boss Fighting Guide
- Who's the Boss? from Wired News