Best boss fight of 2019?

Major !!!SEKIRO SPOILERS!!!:

Worst boss fight is any boss in Control or Remnant.

So anyway that Sekiro boss is great. And my favorite. What's your boss fight of 2019?

Remnant has some good boss fights. Some aren't great, but others are pretty good. Wouldn't say any of them really deserve to be called the worst boss fights, especially in a year with Kronika from MK11 who is maybe the worst boss fight of all time, so she wins the category easily.

As for Sekiro (Big spoilers ahead) Isshin, the Guardian Ape, Owl and Lady Butterfly are some all time great boss fights. It's hard to choose among them, and all the other fights in the game are also good. I'm also tempted to say Isshin though, it's a really fantastic fight. The progression of the phases and how it builds on mechanics you've learned throughout the game is just excellent. From games usually have disappointing final boss fights because they either overlook some easy cheese strat or they underestimate how levelled up people are by the time they reach the end of the game, Sekiro had none of those issues and Isshin really feels like the perfect boss fight to end the game with. Personally, though, I really like Owl. There's a ton of character in his boss fight(s). Choosing between Isshin and Owl is a tough decision I don't want to make.

I love the bosses in Remnant! The game's dynamic completely changes between solo and co-op, so grab a buddy or two on mic to really get the full experience from that game.

The bosses in Remnant do pale in comparison to those in Sekiro though:

Every boss in Sekiro gave me a feeling of accomplishment, of learning, of understanding of the world, up until the very end, but those two had an extra layer of drama that really set them apart from any other bosses this year.

@development: Very well said on the Sekiro bosses. I agree wholeheartedly.

Control's bosses leave a lot to be desired, but I think they are far from the worst boss fights of the year. I just think the rest of the game nails it so hard that the bosses stick out like a sore thumb. Hopefully Remedy continues the series and takes a few additional lessons from From Software.

DMC 5, that outdoor Urizen fight before the... twist. Mechanically on harder difficulties, it was incredibly well designed and had some great narrative stuff around it.

Or Divine Dragon because of the sheer awe of that whole thing.

The only thing that marred Sekiro's bosses was the reliance on the hidden extra phase. They pull that early and often enough that I just expected a boss to go down and then spring back to life in a new form.

Gonna also chime with Sekiro. I think Owl 2.0 is maybe the best boss fight in video games...maybe? It has such a magnificent rhythm to it that when you are playing the game well and countering the various abilities properly, the cadence of the fight is mesmerizing. As much as the final boss is a wonderful spectacular through all 3 phases, Owl 2.0 ranks just above it for me personally.

That game has neat bosses y'all!

Sekiro's Isshin is one of the best boss fights of video games, let alone limiting it to a single year. It is a near perfect final test of everything you've learned in the game so far and an incredible step by step process learning how to do it correctly. I fought him for a couple of hours and my final winning run was a fight that lasted about 2 minutes.

Isn't this pretty much the whole meaning of the "shadows die twice" thing? Expecting it makes sense but not sure I agree that they were hidden and/or marred the experience.

I haven't played anything with boss fights in 2019 besides Sekiro. So...

Also on the Sekiro train, but firmly in the Owl (Father) camp.

I think the Isshin, the Sword Saint fight is problematic on a couple of fronts. Primarily, Isshin is the boss that felt easiest to "break." In his early phases, Isshin can be looped too easily into the same, very parry-able, attack animation in perpetuity. And then, in the final phase, the Lightning Parry nullifies a lot of what made the fight a true dance. By that point the best strategy is simply to back off and reflect lightning over and over until the fight is won.

Owl feels like the culmination of everything the game is trying to accomplish. An out-and-out duel on equal terms in an environment that doesn't restrict your movement or impinge your vision. Sekiro and Owl have access to, mostly, the same fundamental abilities, and Owl's AI is much, much harder to exploit. That fight is basically the game's thesis statement made manifest. Brutally hard, tremendously fair, no arbitrary additive nonsense.

The boy with the plane in Goose Game

@inevpatoria: Yeah, but does Owl pull out a fucking 9mm?

@development: Haha. That's a fair point.

I don’t get the Remnant boss hate. The ones that are basically tougher versions of regular enemies are a bummer, but most of them are cool.

Control...I want to defend control, but I keep thinking about the mold boss. Also, the vanishing floor COULD be a valid component in those two(?) fights, but it needed to be designed better.

Generally, I think Control’s bosses are fine. I didn’t need more than 2-3 tries (Control was very easy to me in all but a couple of encounters with mobs), but I could understand people getting frustrated after enough attempts.

I haven’t played a ton of games with bosses this year...

I’m probably not going to find time for Sekiro, so I’m going to assume the final boss in Judgment is some dramatic and bananas shit that I’ll remember for some time...if not a final fight, at least one character must have a super-nuts encounter...

I hope to play Judgement before year’s end...wish me luck...

I'm a sucker for the Giant Ape boss fight in Sekiro. That moment when he springs back up after decapitating the mother fucker made me damn near soil myself.

Overall, it was a pretty solid year for boss fights though.

Definitely the final boss for Sekiro, it requires putting everything you've learned into a single glorious fight.

I’d love to say I love Lady Butterfly but that woman has been cheating death against me off and on for eight months now and I’m not sure I’ll ever be sure if it’s me or the technology I’m using to play the game that’s made her unbeatable. I love the feel of that fight, hate how impossible it is for me to finish (same for the whole game).

I [i]loved[/i] the last boss from Fallen Order though. She was readable but not predictable, punishing and unrelenting but not cheap, and I felt a huge rush when she finally went down after a dozen or so tries. On the one hand, it was weird how much of a difficulty spike she was. On the other, her fight felt in many ways like the ideal that game spent the previous 25 hours straining to meet.

My actual favorite boss fight this year was from Horizon’s Frozen Wilds DLC which I finally got to this year. I was hopelessly frustrated at times, but unlike Sekiro I could abandon old strategies for new ones, old toys for new ones, and really flex my creativity to solve my problems (sometimes creating new and different ones in the process) and succeed. Such an awesome experience and a killer DLC.

Horizon does not get NEARLY enough credit for the flexibility of its combat system. I think a lot of people just found a loadout and stuck to it. But that game makes experimentation so rewarding.

I have two that are battling with each other right now. One is my man Captain Fishhook from Luigi's mansion 3. He's a pirate shark ghost who can posses any part of the pirate ship you fight him on and he tries to eat Luigi as a boat. He has a great fight that's ton of fun and has an incredible final phase. He possess an entire side of the ship and he tilts the entire ship tilts over to force Luigi into the Fishhook's mouth but he needs to plunger shoot a target and get his vacuum attached to the plunger for Luigi to not take damage. Its a great little nod to Jaws the movie but it stays with the pirate theme of the floor. You can damage Fishhook's boat forms by launching barrel bombs into his mouth when its open and after a while his shark ghost form will pop out. After his ghost forms leaves himself defenseless then you can flash and vacuum Fishhook. THis fight was so freaking good!

The other candidate I'm thinking of for Boss fight of the year is the Arsenal Bird from Ace Combat 7. The Arsenal Bird is this game's equivalent to a Metal Gear Rex or Ray as its a major air weapon developed by the Erusians. Its a giant drone pane the deploys drone jets into battle as a way for the Erusians to have an air force where no human causalities on their side come from Air Combat. You fight this boss a few times, but the moment that gets climatic and brilliant is your final encounter with the Carrier Bird. It comes in Chapter 19 of the game and you see the Carrier Bird arrive for the final phase of that mission. What you need to do is shoot down the Arsenal Bird's main Propeller's in order for it to stop moving. It can't be destroyed by missiles or bullets so best thing you can do is take down its propellers to stop it from moving and it'll fall into the ocean. It does however have the power to launch a shield that can protect it. The description may sound rather simple, but the actual moment to moment combat during this fight is really special as you need to figure out how to spend your time between damaging the Main Propellers and the drone jets that are swarming at you and your allies. Also the music plays based on how you are in the fight and MAN O MAN this is the best boss fight theme of the year right here!

I think it's easily the Nero vs. Vergil fight at the end of DMC5, both narratively and mechanically a great fight, especially having it directly after the same fight with Dante.

For Sekiro, I want to throw in the Divine Dragon. It's one of the easier fights but it's just so incredibly spectacular. It's a great example of that FromSoft signature design where the lessons you learned earlier apply completely across the board. You can invert his lightning just like Genichiro's and the epiphany that you can parry him like every single enemy with a sword is damn cool.

Both fights against Vergil in DMC5. Both for obviously different reasons, one narratively and one mechanically. The build up, the presentation, the music, the nostalgia, it's just fantastic. It's also a crazy and very welcome difficulty spike playing on normal mode.

Aside from that, Sekiro has 4 or 5 stand out boss fights in a game chalk full of (almost) nothing but fantastic boss fights. I think overall you have to give it to Isshin. Besides the great presentation and stage of the fight, it tests you mechanically like no other fight in the game does. If you didn't 100% understand the mechanics by the time you get to this boss, you absolutely will by the end of it, because you'll never win otherwise.

The only thing I guess you could knock about it is that it caused a decent amount of folks to drop the game because of how daunting it is. But it being so daunting and intimidating is also what makes it as memorable as it is. You can't have one without the other.

Beating Isshin felt like such a release. I struggled with the game but the fact you didn't have a traditional RPG levelling system meant you kind of have to improve and learn by doing. As a result, I spent hours on the early blockades. When Ben showed his save file and it was 81 hours long before the endgame, I didn't feel so bad.

I think time away can be beneficial too.

Name practically anything in Sekiro, but the final boss in particular. Don't discount Genichiro though. It seems so overwhelming at first, but once the mechanics are learned you can walk in there and dust it off first try. They re-enforce that right at the end where you have to repeat a phase of the Genichiro fight as a formality before the final boss. After all you've learned beating him is as easy as flushing a toilet at that point.

@guardianbob87: oh shit you can parry DD??? Damn that’s amazing.

I am a lot more lukewarm on Sekiro than a lot of people. I think the spectacle and concept of the boss fights are fucking amazing and some of the best in all of gaming. But they all feel like Lords of the Fallen fights. Too much health and so many phases that they all turn into slogs. Part of that is that I tend to go glass cannon in Souls games until NG+(+), but it mostly is just problematic since it emphasizes my issues with there being "one" correct way to play Sekiro rather than a bunch of different options you pull out depending on the enemy and your preferences. Fights feel more like I am trying to learn what the devs wanted me to do rather than "what works". Part of me is interested in finding a mod/trainer that would just set all damage to 2x to speed things up (death and victory)

For me, I would probably still pick many Sekiro boss fights as my best of 2019. Like I said, they are flawed, but they are just so god damned gorgeous. I know people like them for the same reasons they disliked Gwyn in Dark 1, but I kind of put them in the same boat of "Mechanically these are kind of a letdown. But are you watching this shit?". Kind of reminiscent of Snake VS ??? (I think it was a wall of Rays?) while Vamp and Raiden have a cutscene fight. It actually didn't really work from a gameplay standpoint and I am too busy to focus on the shit I want to, but it still locks in my brain as "THIS IS AWESOME"

I liked one of the hidden bosses in Bloodstained.

The guy in Bloodstained where you hold down right trigger until they die oops that's all of them

@csl316: DMC 5 has some good end boss fights.

Nailed it. I guarantee almost all the frustration with Control bosses stems from poor checkpoints, which I agree could be better. I also didn't need more than 3 tries per any boss, as the first death usually happens so you learn the gimmick of the fight. Funny enough I had more trouble dealing with esseJ's rockets than the plant.

As for best boss fight of this year: I guess G (Phase 3) from REmake 2. This year hasn't exactly been a glowing year for boss fights, for the games I played, so I'm going with that one purely on spectacle and how cool it was.

I think just about all DMC5 bosses beat out the competitors. It only makes sense, right? The big good action games actually have fun bosses, 'cause the combat is stellar already. I'd say the black knight was my favorite, mechanically. However, the final boss is some legendary stuff, skillfully integrating gameplay and story and feeling like a seriously awesome finale. It's heartwarming. How often do you have a heartwarming final boss in an action game?

Sekiro does have some very memorable ones also. I might give it to either the one in the basin or to Genichiro, but I also think the one at the top of those big stairs is a really spectacular, atmospheric, beautiful fight. It feels properly mythical and the mechanics work well for a spectacle boss for once.

I've seen a fairly common minority opinion pretty often at this point that the Dark Souls bosses have started feeling samey 'cause all you do is dodgeroll around. I don't think Sekiro is much more mechanically varied than it, it's more or less Punch-Out, but I think From has managed to pull together bosses that are fun duels mechanically and still have all these cool unique moments to them that make them memorable experiences. Even just beating the frantic Caterpillar guy is a cool fight because you just stand there mashing L1.

But you also get to fight this giant on a big battlefield, and see all this creepy occult stuff happening to enemies. I do have some complaints that the enemies aren't that varied, but I still remember all these boss battles fondly. Except the one on the bridge, damn, she had me for a month.

This year I played through most of the From Software games for the first time and personally the boss fight with Lady Maria in the Bloodborne DLC was probably my favorite. Lorewise Maria is an interesting character and her boss fight is hard but doesn't ever seem unfair.