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[Ego_Shiner]

zero 2 was much easier overall but its still one of my faves because of the chain rod. z3 i would've loved except for omega zero. the least they could've done was given him zero's x4-6 design, which would've filled in a plot hole or two and made the boss less of a recolour with new attacks.

[Hempuli‽]

Metroid Fusion definitely had a disappointing final boss, IMO.
Spoiler:
The boss battle against SA-X was good, the second form was cool too. The escape was a nostalgia effect that would led to an epic boss battle, but instead we got a battle against a Big Metroid Lizard. Not to mention it's simple attack patterns and repetitiveness.

All the bosses in Fusion were quite boring!
But indeed, all the three last bosses were kinda tedious, and they really went from hard to easier!

[Copyrite]

zero 2 was much easier overall but its still one of my faves because of the chain rod. z3 i would've loved except for omega zero. the least they could've done was given him zero's x4-6 design, which would've filled in a plot hole or two and made the boss less of a recolour with new attacks.

I agree with the latter part. Not giving Zero's X series design to Omega is in my opinion the biggest fuckup Inti has ever made. Otherwise they have been doing a great job when it comes to, well, anything. Including final bosses.

[konjak]

Metroid Fusion definitely had a disappointing final boss, IMO.
Spoiler:
The boss battle against SA-X was good, the second form was cool too. The escape was a nostalgia effect that would led to an epic boss battle, but instead we got a battle against a Big Metroid Lizard. Not to mention it's simple attack patterns and repetitiveness.

All the bosses in Fusion were quite boring!
But indeed, all the three last bosses were kinda tedious, and they really went from hard to easier!

You two both be quiet, Fusion is great. And the original Metroid team loves final fights that are unconventional.

Speaking of Metroid, Metroid Prime 3 (being disappointing in many regards by taking loads of generic FPS liberties) had a very flaccid crescendo at the end for being the final battle of an entire trilogy. The final bosses kept stepping down a notch in being impressive.

Also, Dark Samus is a terrible character. Nothing imposing about her, she gets her ass kicked and has to flee in every battle with regular Samus. Also, they already did that whole thing, and much better, in Fusion... 

[MaloEspada]

Yeah, I think Fusion is great too . Despite not being like other games in the series (non-linear and sequence breakable), I still enjoy it a lot. My only concern was that boss battle in particular.

[John Nesky]

It turns out that I find Fusion is pretty fun if I play on an emulator with a fast-forward function to get through the exposition. And the XBox boss was neat! And SA-X was inspiring, if not actually fun to fight.

[Dom2D]

I believe boss fights to be the ultimate challenge of the skills and reflexes the player develops throughout the game. It is quite difficult to mix that mentality with storytelling, but some games manage to do it well. Portal's boss fight merged the two very well, culminating story and tossing the player in a stressful situation that requires quick thinking (destroying the AI parts as fast as possible) and agility (catching those parts in high places).

In Megaman games, the last stage (including the final boss) play that role to perfection. Levels are harder than most normal levels and the boss has multiple patterns and weaknesses. Same for Castlevania games.
I usually hate those because they're too hard most of the time, but still, they fit my definition of a well-designed final boss.

Although it was sort of flawed and that I couldn't really care for the rest of the ending, Metal Gear Solid 4's hand-to-hand boss fight was far from what I just described, BUT was still a great culmination to the emotional gradation in the game. So I guess my definition is kinda loose, since I enjoyed that final boss. I wouldn't recommend using a whole new mechanic for the last boss in any other game though.

Also:
Fallout 3's boss fight per se was really bad, but the ride to the end alongside that giant robot had one good thing going for it: I knew it was the end, so I started using all the good ammo I had gathered and saved throughout the game (mini-nukes, rockets, etc.). All the destruction did feel a bit epic.

And....Spelunky's boss fight was pretty cool.

[Melly]

Konjak knows ALL about his bosses.

Though I have to admit the final boss of Noitu Love 2 (specifically the final form) wasn't really mind-blowing. It also felt a bit on the easy side.

[Derek]

Is that a proved thing? Do most people really prefer to have easy final bosses in comparison to the stuff they got through before it? I really don't think that's a good direction, especially when they fuck it up as to make the final boss just too easy, leaving a lack of satisfaction from beating him.

Is the people that enjoy having a tough final challenge a minority?

I've never seen anything proven about this, but it's the prevailing opinion in the bits of the industry that I've been part of, and it's ubiquitous enough in the games I've played that I assume it's an opinion held more or less universally within the industry, at least for games produced in the west.  I'm not saying that the opinion is right;  just that it's an opinion which is commonly held.

And nobody's saying that people prefer to have easy final bosses;  just that people tend to get more upset by becoming stuck on the final boss than they do by becoming stuck at an arbitrary spot in the middle of the game.  And as a result of that, a game's final boss fight is often intentionally made to be easier than the second-to-last boss fight, in order to keep anyone from becoming stuck on it.  (The theory is:  if a player can get past that second-to-last boss, then they'll definitely be able to defeat the final boss, and therefore not become angry about a perceived difficulty wall right at the end of the game.)

(The exception to all this, of course, is "secret bosses" or "challenge bosses", which often follow or exceed the game's standard difficulty curve, on the theory that they'll only be fought against by hardcore players who really want a serious challenge.)

A lot of mainstream game companies suck so hard at difficulty.  I agree with Melly, I get this impression that they're so obsessed with wooing the "core gamer" (I don't like that term any more) that they stop thinking about design in an objective way...

It's almost like seeing the ending is more important than playing the game?  I don't think challenge has to be super frustrating if you design it right.  I feel like if players give up at the end it's because they've been playing the game too long and it's become repetitive... not too hard  The fact that it's a tough challenge makes it easier to quit, but I don't believe it's the actual problem.

[GregWS]

That's interesting that you mention length/repetition Derek.  It does make sense that if you're already slogging through a game just to finish it that maybe you wouldn't want to keep slogging even harder.

Whereas if the game is still very fun and engaging, having a challenge to wrap things up only adds to the experience.

[Derek]

I believe that feedback from players can be misleading sometimes.  It's not the player's fault - they can't be expected to fix your game for you.  It falls on the designer to interpret what the player is saying to find the root of the problem. Quick fixes based on player feedback may not be "fixes" at all, but are band-aids on top of band-aids.

Regarding the difficulty thing:

Complaint: "This game's too hard!  I'm frustrated."

Perceived problem and quick fix: The difficulty is too high.  Make it easier.  Add an easier difficulty setting.

Real problem?  The game is unfair, possibly because of the controls.  Or you may not be giving the player enough incentive to get better (mechanics that are too simplistic).  Or the player might be losing patience because the game is dragging on too long or has become too repetitive (limited world, no new things to see).

Problem with quick fix: You're still not fixing the main problem with your game.  Also, easier difficulty settings are NEVER a good idea.  They create a terrible dilemma for your player: "Am I good enough?  Am I getting the full experience if I play in Easy Mode?"  There's a reason why old games used to insult the player when they played at an easier difficulty setting - because no one should be playing at an easier difficulty setting.  Just get the normal difficulty setting right.

That's what I think, at least.

[Melly]

Pretty much agree with everything there.

[Seth]

Although I think it's entirely possible to create an awesome final boss battle that isn't difficult in the same terms of the rest of the game--Giygas from Earthbound, for example.

[sergiocornaga]

Cave Story.

Can't agree with it. The secret boss was one of the most epic boss battles I've played in my whole life. The tension and everything else built by the extra stage was flawless.

Unless you were talking about the normal ending final boss.

Yeah, I meant the normal ending one.  I'm not pro enough to get secret endings.

I really like the normal ending final boss... 

[Don Andy]

Real problem?  The game is unfair, possibly because of the controls.

I believe I'm pretty much the only person who ever played that game, but GunValkyrie was a game that was god damn hard, unfair AND had ball breaking controls you had to master.

Beating the final boss (who was anything but a pushover) was the most satisfactory experience I ever had in a videogame.

[Hideous]

Borderlands final boss.

Not challenging, just very very tedious. His attacks are mostly impossible to avoid, he takes an asslong time to kill and when you die you just respawn right in front of him again.

[Hempuli‽]

Super Metroid bosses (perhaps apart from Kraid); they look cool and act fine, but the area is so tight that it's awfully hard to dodge anything. Another, and perhaps even bigger problem is that you have an enormous amount of missiles and other weapons towards the end, so damaging the bosses is just button-whacking. Ridley was a good (bad) example of this: You could dodge his attacks, but with all your tasty powerups all you needed to do was to stand still and shoot all your missiles/super missiles at him. Same goes for Mother Brain, though the battle against her had probably more of an emotional impact than actual challenge as it's great part.

[JMickle]

I believe that feedback from players can be misleading sometimes.  It's not the player's fault - they can't be expected to fix your game for you.  It falls on the designer to interpret what the player is saying to find the root of the problem. Quick fixes based on player feedback may not be "fixes" at all, but are band-aids on top of band-aids.

Regarding the difficulty thing:

Complaint: "This game's too hard!  I'm frustrated."

Perceived problem and quick fix: The difficulty is too high.  Make it easier.  Add an easier difficulty setting.

Real problem?  The game is unfair, possibly because of the controls.  Or you may not be giving the player enough incentive to get better (mechanics that are too simplistic).  Or the player might be losing patience because the game is dragging on too long or has become too repetitive (limited world, no new things to see).

Problem with quick fix: You're still not fixing the main problem with your game.  Also, easier difficulty settings are NEVER a good idea.  They create a terrible dilemma for your player: "Am I good enough?  Am I getting the full experience if I play in Easy Mode?"  There's a reason why old games used to insult the player when they played at an easier difficulty setting - because no one should be playing at an easier difficulty setting.  Just get the normal difficulty setting right.

That's what I think, at least.

i think your forgetting, you made spelunky. seriously, there's nothing more frustrating than getting through all 16 levels to find yourself trapped between your own bomb and the boss.
or venturing slightly too close to a yeti and having him throw you off the bottom of the map.
or having a slightly trigger happy shopkeeper not like the way you threw a dice.
or somehow having ONE SINGLE FROG take off ALL your hp because of its weird jumps.
or not catching sight of that arrow trap when you jump towards the exit
..................................................................

 

[Melly]

Borderlands final boss.

Not challenging, just very very tedious. His attacks are mostly impossible to avoid, he takes an asslong time to kill and when you die you just respawn right in front of him again.

And the cycle continues...

i think your forgetting, you made spelunky. seriously, there's nothing more frustrating than getting through all 16 levels to find yourself trapped between your own bomb and the boss.
or venturing slightly too close to a yeti and having him throw you off the bottom of the map.
or having a slightly trigger happy shopkeeper not like the way you threw a dice.
or somehow having ONE SINGLE FROG take off ALL your hp because of its weird jumps.
or not catching sight of that arrow trap when you jump towards the exit
..................................................................

 

First, if the Spelunky final boss had been easier/pussier, I'd have felt cheated. "So I went through that hell for THIS? You gotta be kidding me.". And he's not even that hard once you get a good strategy going.

And Spelunky is pretty refined with tight controls. It's just very fucking hard, but mostly for people (like me) that are impatient. I forget how many times I died to arrow traps because I just kept running without looking. With skill and practice (and patience) You can reach the final boss consistently.

I do hate the dark levels though.

[Hempuli‽]

I think Derek makes a wonderfully valid point.

And Spelunky is just a matter of training, nothing else!
Let's not spoil stuff, but I was a bit disappointed in how easy the boss was. I would've expected something as amazing as the rest of the game!

Anyway, back to topic:
I think Fusion's great, but the boss are terrible in terms of challenge, and that is a fact. Anyway, I've yet to meet a mario game with actually a good final boss. I was ready to say "apart from yoshi's island", but then I remembered this was about final bosses, not bosses overall.