Are bosses really necisary?

[Matrilwood]

Few games lack the presence of a boss separating each level like some sort of carnivorous loading screen. In my experience there are 2 kinds of boss; bosses with identifiable attack patterns and weaknesses, serving more as an action based puzzle more than anything else and bosses which are little more than normal enemies that require a bit more bludgeoning to death with your weapon of choice.Both types are designed to ramp up the difficulty and serve as an obstacle. However that's the problem with bosses.

Bosses break up the otherwise smooth difficulty curve associated with the progression of the game, and since the difficulty is the part of gameplay bosses work with, it makes their existent flawed. Often when your stuck at a certain point in a game, it's usually at the boss fight. It breaks up the flow of the game and makes you put the game away until you can face up to the boss again, and damaging the overall experience for you.

There is nothing in the rule book about all games requiring bosses so why do so many games insist on having them despite their blatant flaws?

[Prince Elite]

Sometimes they're necessary, although it'd be good if they actually fought properly and were difficult to kill.

[DoctorAllosaurus]

I mostly only ever play games for the boss fights, so yeah they are necessary... to me anyways.

[Robert Monroe]

Depends on the game. Bosses only break the flow of gameplay when the game itself isn't adapted to having bosses. Games like Zelda, however, are especially built around bosses every so often, and occasionally you have a crazy game like Shadow of the Colossus where the entire game is bosses.

[Deploy]

You DO NOT dis bosses. (a.k.a. the most epic parts of many games)

Some of the best parts of Star Fox 64 are the bosses.

In fact, there's one game for Genesis called Alien Soldier. It's AWESOME and is like 95% bosses.

If you don't like bosses, you wouldn't like games from Treasure. They are always boss-filled.

Also, you spelled "necessary" wrong.

[Milkyway64]

Touhou series. The entire thing, down to the hundred+ fangames. The only thing anyone cares for are the boss fights.

["User"]

What Robert said. Personally I can't remember a game I've played where I've been stuck at it's at a boss. Usually if I am having difficulty progressing it's mostly in puzzle type games - usually the old school DOS ones.

Bosses are necessary in some games/game series because it's a defining part. Mega Man and the Mega Man X series come to mind right off the bat.

Touhou series. The entire thing, sown to the hundred+ fangames. The only thing anyone cares for are the boss fights.

Yeah, I mean...after watching Milky play some of that I'm pretty sure that Touhou gives a whole new meaning to the concept of bosses. :blink:

[Robert Monroe]

What Robert said. Personally I can't remember a game I've played where I've been stuck at it's at a boss. Usually if I am having difficulty progressing it's mostly in puzzle type games - usually the old school DOS ones.

Bosses are necessary in some games/game series because it's a defining part. Mega Man and the Mega Man X series come to mind right off the bat.

Yeah, I mean...after watching Milky play some of that I'm pretty sure that Touhou gives a whole new meaning to the concept of bosses. :blink:

Assassin's Creed. It occasionally tries to make you fight a "boss" which is really just a regular enemy fight on steroids. They're annoying and just take too long to kill because they're immune to all the shit thats normally used to end fights equickly (counter-killer, execution streak, hidden gun, whatever).

[Dark D3s7r0y3r]

I've recently played through DMC 3, and though the bosses WERE FRIGGIN HARD AS HELL (Well, I mean, I guess that makes sense), I usually wanted to do nothing but fight the bosses. So yes, bosses are necissary.

Besides, if there were no bosses, I wouldn't be able to play on matchmaking :(

[Vulvokunvrii]

They are there to keep you on your toes and keep your attention on the game so you dont get bored. And they re fun in a way because they are more challenging than your average "grunt" of an enemy.

[Matrilwood]

You spelled "necessary" wrong.

It was necessary for me to spell necessary wrong.

[Deploy]

It was necessary for me to spell necessary wrong.

[Thu'um]

I love it when you whoop a bosses anus

[Vy'drach]

They're usually necessary, as they tend to mark a turning point in the game, guard the item you need/a rare item, and so on. Personally, I couldn't see the game Demon's Souls being really fun without the bosses, as some of those are still the hardest ones I've seen. Granted Armoured Spider and the Dragon God are easy if you know what to do (the latter is actually a puzzle, not a boss), there's ones like the Flamelurker, who is like a giant gremlin on fire, on crack, with a severe case of ADHD. He jumps around randomly, then decides he wants to attack now and does a leaping overhand slam at you that does severe damage. He also has a repertoire of other moves to use. Also, the last boss of Demon's Souls has an attack that drains your levels. I've been hit by that twice, once the first time because I didn't know what the move was or how he strikes with it, and the second time because I rolled back but didn't know he'll do a super-lunge with it if you're out of range.

Also, I played WoW for some time, and there were generally two types of bosses. There were the tactics based bosses, y'know, avoid this attack, stack up during this attack, spread out when he does X. Then there were the "gear checks," which is basically a tank'n'spank boss that you have to determine if your tank/offtank have enough mitigation and health, your healers have high enough spellpower and mana, and if your DPS kills shit dead fast enough. Your tanks aren't geared enough, they die instantly or take too much damage and the healers run out of mana and the tanks die then. Healers aren't geared enough, tanks die due to lower healing numbers or they run out of mana. DPS isn't geared enough, and the boss usually enrages after X amount of minutes, or the healers run out of mana because the fight took longer than expected, and the tank dies. The point of those encounters is to make sure you're geared enough for the bosses you fight after him, that require the numbers as well as the tactics.

Also, games without a boss type situation are generally boring as nothing breaks the monotony, as standard enemies are generally rinse and repeat tactics. And of course, that's not mentioning the impressive models that most bosses have.

Here's what is probably the second boss you fight in Demon's Souls.

[Deploy]

Bosses are necessary 99.9999% of the time.

THE END

[Sabre]

Bosses are just a forum of non standard gameplay. They break up the action while providing a peak in excitement and usually an opertunity to break out of the same effective tactics and use all the tools available.

Bosses can be really badly done, or they can be awesome. They are just like the driving level in FPS or the underwater zone in older games. They break up the action and stop you getting board.

[Prince Elite]

Just let me fight Bongo Bongo one more, c'mon.

[King of the Shrooms]

Shadow of the Colossus.

[Deploy]

Shadow of the Colossus.

Alien Soldier, too!

[Matrilwood]

I think RPGs are the worst places for bosses, dude, because what do you do when you can't beat enemies in RPGs, dude? Grind, dude, trouble is that makes the rest of the game too easy, dude.

[DoctorAllosaurus]

Alien Soldier, too!

Seconded, this game gets Doc's Seal of Approval (I need to make an image for that one of these days) for being a boss rush done right.

[ZM Anonymous]

I think RPGs are the worst places for bosses, dude, because what do you do when you can't beat enemies in RPGs, dude? Grind, dude, trouble is that makes the rest of the game too easy, dude.

Dude, dude, DUDE, DuDe, dUdE, DudE, dUDe, dUde, duDe, dudE, DUDe, dUDE.

In all seriousness though in an RPG, you can't really just run through the game, and you don't need to necessarily grind to get stronger. Sometimes, not all the time. The point of a boss battle is to find a weakness to an otherwise invincible enemy and use it to your advantage. RPGs are also made to entice you into interacting with other characters in hopes of finding something that can help you advance to the next part of the game.

[Robert Monroe]

I think RPGs are the worst places for bosses, dude, because what do you do when you can't beat enemies in RPGs, dude? Grind, dude, trouble is that makes the rest of the game too easy, dude.

Noone forces you to grind, dumbass. Your own fault for taking the fun and strategy out of a game.

[Sabre]

Dude, dude, DUDE, DuDe, dUdE, DudE, dUDe, dUde, duDe, dudE, DUDe, dUDE.

In all seriousness though in an RPG, you can't really just run through the game, and you don't need to necessarily grind to get stronger. Sometimes, not all the time. The point of a boss battle is to find a weakness to an otherwise invincible enemy and use it to your advantage. RPGs are also made to entice you into interacting with other characters in hopes of finding something that can help you advance to the next part of the game.

But you will be horribly under level and be hurting for supplies. At the end you will be unable to beat the boss that does 9999 damage per hit.

As for 'stratagy'. Block when he charages up, use opposate element to his, repeat for a hour. Unless you are talking about the infamous FF7 boss where you use a phoenix down on a zombie. Oh ho, how clever.

[Star Fox Runner]

I like boss fights because I feel that they give you a sense of accomplishment in a game.

Cutting down hundreds of the same generic mooks over and over again can get boring after a while. Because they're easy. A boss is there to provide a challenge, and it makes you think creatively to take him down, or to chain your strongest attacks together in a way to take him out before he takes you out.

And voila, you've taken down something that is much stronger than you, and it creates a sense of accomplishment from preforming that feat.