The problem with the boss fights in Dead Rising 2 isn't their difficulty, it's that they put a complete halt to the game's own beloved style. I mean yeah once you learn how to do them they're easy, but I feel it comes at a cost to the theme of the game itself.
Dead Rising 2 is loaded with sexual innuendos, comedic levels of bloody slapstick violence, hilariously inappropriate weaponry and outfits, and of course amusing ways of regenerating health in a pinch. But looking past all the silliness, maybe somewhat forgettable narrative, and repeated (but intriguing) cleavage shots, I realized that Dead Rising 2 really gets the notion of a "zombie world" correct. People have literally accepted zombies for what they are, and they for all intents and purposes omnipresent. They represent "pockets" of anarchy in society where they reside, and people fight for their own agenda. Their are the corporations profiteering heavily off them, the looters taking advantage of shop owners fleeing for their lives, the people who have lost their sanity amongst the chaos the zombies bring and can never be returned to reason, and the survivors who just refuse to accept what has happened and try their hardest to cope with it as much as they hate themselves for doing so.
One thing Dead Rising 2 does right over any other zombie game is that it prides itself on improvisation and adaptation, which is EXACTLY what one should be expecting to be paramount in a zombie scenario. You might laugh at Chuck tossing poker chips and footballs at zombies (and I do too), but this is really what you should be expecting. Anything goes and Dead Rising 2 prides itself on the fact that you need to do whatever it is necessary for survival and sustenance; if I'm getting swarmed, why *shouldn't * I be able to grab that nearby rake, bowling ball, or pair of boxing gloves and just start wailing? A number of weapons will prove more effective than others (combinations especially), but the fact remains that Dead Rising 2 wants you to kill zombies by any and all means necessary, as it sure as hell should be. You can fight however you want, whenever you want, and with whatever you want.
And this is where the boss fights become a problem. Because the entire previously mentioned "anyway, anyhow" style of Dead Rising 2 just comes crashing down, and the vast majority of the boss fights require a very limited subset of weaponry and at best one or two tactics; and if that subset of weaponry happens to be Light Machinegun and Sniper Rifle from nearby pawn shop, well you can expect the disappointment train to arrive on time today, and believe it or not the conductor isn't checking tickets this time. The bosses themselves fit well into the story and the notion of a zombie outbreak, and while not necessarily difficult once you figure out their gimmick (with a few exceptions, ugh), they feel so wholly unnecessary and tiresome in their devastation of Dead Rising 2's fantastic freestyle gameplay.
Despite the boss fights, I still do love Dead Rising 2. But really, Blue Castle obviously knows exactly how to dance liberally around that fine line between creating the most believable zombie world possible while still sporting chainsaws duct taped to canoe paddles, so I really wish they would have taken a really good look at the psychopath encounters and reconsidered how the player should generally deal with them.
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