The Quality of Final Bosses

Go play NSMBW's final boss and all your worries will be destroyed. 
 
(welcome to giantbomb, you are a good poster so I am following your blog)

I mostly agree with this, but why is Halo 3 on here?  The only thing in that game I'd consider bosses are Scarabs, and none of them are the "final boss".  Do you mean the guilty spark?  Once again something I'd barely consider a boss.  I think the last level (Warthog sequence) is totally exhilarating and fun. 

I actually played Gears of War 2 for the first time this past week. I was like "Oh man riding this thing is pretty epic." and then it got huge and I was like "OH MAN THIS IS GOING TO BE UBER EPIC" and I pressed the right trigger and the credits rolled and I cried myself to sleep.

" I mostly agree with this, but why is Halo 3 on here?  The only thing in that game I'd consider bosses are Scarabs, and none of them are the "final boss".  Do you mean the guilty spark?  Once again something I'd barely consider a boss.  I think the last level (Warthog sequence) is totally exhilarating and fun.  "

Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses.

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

Halo 3 didn't have a final boss, the final level was a Warthog escape (which was awesome). The Scarabs were kinda like bosses but they were more to the middle of the game than the end.

" @Darkstorn said:

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

Two brothers, duke it out till the end. Only one man can be the winner. "

" @Darkstorn said:

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

Two brothers, duke it out till the end. Only one man can be the winner. "

The Joker fight was pretty disappointing.  Dodge 3-hit combo, hit him a bunch, fight dudes, pull him down, repeat. It was like a checklist that you had to go through 4 times

" @TheMustacheHero said:

" @Darkstorn said:

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

Two brothers, duke it out till the end. Only one man can be the winner. "

I don't have a PS3 yet.  But I plan on picking up MGS 4 right when I get my Tripple in January.  Had to stop myself from reading the above spoiler.  "

A good ending can greatly influence the overall experience you had with a game, but having a good ending is tricky. 

" @Chyro said:

" @TheMustacheHero said:

" @Darkstorn said:

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

Two brothers, duke it out till the end. Only one man can be the winner. "

I don't have a PS3 yet.  But I plan on picking up MGS 4 right when I get my Tripple in January.  Had to stop myself from reading the above spoiler.  "

Not really spoilers, but I'll put a warning tag on it. "

My problem with boss fights has always been when they basically have you do the same thing over again for like three times or something before the boss dies.

The one boss fight that comes to mind in detracting from the overall quality of the game is the fight with Xemnas at the end of Kingdom Hearts II.  The game isn't particularly difficult for the most part, but Jesus.  Xemnas has four or five completely different forms, and they're all boss fights in and of themselves.  The whole thing drags on for far longer than it should, particularly when they throw a flying segment in for no apparent reason.

" AC 2's boss fight was really lame. "

Never really thought about it like that. I suppose Modern Warfare's boss fight was really... not a boss fight. But it was still awesome. It felt far better than a lot of actual fight fights do.  
 
Don't know if you've played Brutal Legend, but I loved the final boss fight and the final cutscene involving the boss. It was incredible.

" Never really thought about it like that. I suppose Modern Warfare's boss fight was really... not a boss fight. But it was still awesome. It felt far better than a lot of actual fight fights do.  
 
Don't know if you've played it, but I loved the final boss fight and the final cutscene involving the boss. It was incredible. "

Speaking of Modern Warfare, I really enjoyed MW2's final boss fight against     
 

" Speaking of Modern Warfare, I really enjoyed MW2's final boss fight against     
 

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

General Shepherd. Like MW before it, it's not strictly a boss fight, but it still felt really satisfying to nail that fucker between the eyes with a throwing knife. So it's just a QTE sequence, it was still awesome. 

"

" @chstupid said:

" AC 2's boss fight was really lame. "

Another game I have yet to play.  Though I never really enjoyed the first AC.  So I will probably skip this game all together. "

inFamous, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted 2, Condemned 2. 
Very... strange last boss-things.
 
And MW2 had the stupidest last boss-thing ever. Seriously.

You guys forgot Fable 2. The "Final Boss battle" consists entirely of holding one button and pressing another. So... anti-climactic.

" @demontium: Boss fights are sadly dying. "

" You guys forgot Fable 2. The "Final Boss battle" consists entirely of holding one button and pressing another. So... anti-climactic. "

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

I noticed Fallout 3's final boss (if you can call it that) was rather anticlimactic as well. The ending was nice and all, but it just took one shotgun blast to the head and he was gone. I think they could have done better. Nice post btw

I think at the end of the game, they want to put in something you'll remember.  So it is usually a little different than the rest of the game and we remember it for the wrong reasons.
 
In CoD4s defense, I don't know how else they could do it.  The badguy is just a guy, like all of the guys you dropped before him.

I think that this gen, MGS IV takes the cake. I mean, that final fight, was a great thing. All the things that led to it, the previous scene where he pushes himself through that place, the music in the final battle. It all helped to create the mood for a great fight, that I will never forget. 
 
MW and MW 2 hold a second place. They also have great ending "bosses" full of "interaction". 
 
Today I finished Gears of War 2. And despite the fact that the level before the final boss was really amazing, the final boss itself was a joke.

Possible Spoilers for year-old games.
I don't mind if the last boss "fight" is bad, but if it's a good encounter for the story or gratifying in some other way. Top of my head I can think Fable II and Fallout 3. In Fallout I was able to defer an entire fight with my speech and came to a peaceful solution, which, being the wasteland jesus that I was, was exactly what I had wanted to do. I was impressed by that and it felt good.
 
In Fable II, I always suspected that Lucien was never going to be a boss battle, and I was right. I thought maybe a shoot-out, but didn't expect it. Basically I backed him into a corner and showed that he can't win. (now granted that dick Reaver took my gratifying revenge-kill from me, but that was to Fable's credit of awesome direction and humor.)
 
Basically what you said about MW4 was spot on. It was nice to put my bat-grapple into the joker's back though. Too bad it was otherwise like every other fight.

The whole Boss concept in general really hasn't aged well.  They were fine when games were always totally crazy the whole way through anyway, but now you have games that try to establish a believable(ish) setting and then they shoehorn in a Boss fight at the end where, for no reason at all, the main (regular human) bad guy can take ten times as much damage as anybody else in the game.  It's a pretty lazy way to wrap up a game and there are far better ways to create a memorable ending.
 
You're right, there have been a lot of Boss fights this year that added absolutely nothing to the overall quality of the game.

last bosses have become a formality these days

" AC 2's boss fight was really lame. "

I think about this crap all the time! How to make boss fights exciting. For good boss fights, check out Metal Slug, God of War or Shadow o the Collossus.
 
One unconventional final boss I loved was in Bioshock. SPOILERS; I don't know how to tag things as spoilers!
 
There are kind of two things in that game that I'd class as an ENDING. The first is when you meet Andrew Ryan, the big boss man behind Rapture. You're kind of brainwashed all the way through the game to hate the guy, and just before the boss fight I was (stupidly) expecting him to be in like a giant robot or a helicopter, or be some huge muscle guy or something, but it was like a fuckin 60 year old man, and the game just says "there's your final boss. beat it." and you do. You take a golf club and forcefully beat this defenseless old man to death. He doesn't even try to run or anything. And it's such a huge, amazing moment that ties all the crazy story business together and it's weird and crazy and awesome.
Now the second thing I'd class as an ending would be the ACTUAL END to the game where you fight a huge muscley dude with all the powers in the game. He like charges at you n stuff and you dodge out the way. It's such a letdown :/
 
Yep, just some stuff I wanted to mention. Doesn't really have much to do with amping up the climax of a game.

just  play  serious sam HD

"@chstupid said:

" AC 2's boss fight was really lame. "

  End game spoilers!!!What... dude you had to fist fight the fucking pope what do you WANT MAN?? "

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

" @Evilsbane said:

"@chstupid said:

" AC 2's boss fight was really lame. "

  End game spoilers!!!What... dude you had to fist fight the fucking pope what do you WANT MAN?? "

I't wasen't a fight I just easily kicked is ass while he was talking which was pretty funny "

Other shitty last boss fights include Infamous, Uncharted 2, Resident Evil 5 and Batman. 
 
The last really good boss fight in a game was probably... MGS4.

" Other shitty last boss fights include Infamous, Uncharted 2, Resident Evil 5 and Batman.  The last really good boss fight in a game was probably... MGS4. "

" @Darkstorn said:

" Metal Gear Solid 4 > all in terms of bosses. "

MGS3 bosses > MGS4 bosses  God damn, the MGS4 bosses were all boring as hell. Undeveloped boring characters with poor gameplay in the fight itself. "

Just going to throw this out there.
 
Spirit Tracks had some really cool bosses. Granted some of them had the same concept as old Zelda bosses, but the final boss fight was really satisfying.  And the ending scene was pretty epic.