The Tales of Symphonia boss example I remember personally, too. I think the funny part, if I remember right, is that if you defeat that guy another guy shows up and is entirely much stronger.
I dunno, I think it's fun to have supposed to lose fight that turn into optional challenges. In Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure there's a match with old Piccolo where you have to lose, which is true to the manga. And he's easily the fastest and strongest opponent in the game, your HP is down, you die after like one combo, if you knock him down he afterimages behind you with an attack.
However, coming back after being more skilled at the game feels really rewarding, since you can beat it without him touching you once. I remember enjoying going back after beating the game and dancing on this dude that gave me trouble. That's the fun part of supposed to lose-bosses. I think it's fine as long as losing happens very quickly if you're not very good.
I think Skyward Sword might take worst mainline Zelda too, but it depends on your criteria. The only mainline Zelda games I've picked up and never finished are 1, 2, Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword. 1 and 2 are practically ancient. Realistically they're just not something I will ever get into, but they're a product of the time. Spirit Tracks isn't great, but it's pretty alright. Maybe not as good as just about any other Zelda titles outside of these games, but it's playable. I played through most of it and just got tired out from the dumb gimmicks. It's about on par with Phantom Hourglass, the gimmicks were just way more annoying for me in Spirit Tracks.
Meanwhile, Skyward Sword I played about three hours of too and just gave up. That's a very, very boring game, and there aren't any excuses for it in terms of platform limitations or age. It's all on their design decisions.
The thing I appreciate most about the bad Zelda games is just that it gave their staff more experience - There's a lot of overlap between the people who made those DS titles and Skyward Sword, and the people who made Breath of the Wild and Link Between Worlds. They just needed some practice and some better ideas.
This gameplay trailer thing really came back into view for me this week with the reveal of that old Prince of Persia pitch video. (I was gonna insert it, but apparently the video inserter doesn't know this service?) https://youtu.be/nHbRCd8yzaw It looks like gameplay, right? That's what I figured it was, some cinematic AAA game with the menus taken out. Then on Twitter, a former Ubisoft dev(Jonathan Cooper) said this:
"Amazing work from animation director Khai Nguyen (For Honor) and team," Cooper wrote. "This target game footage (pre-rendered game pitch) inspired our own pitch for Assassin's Creed 3 as they did such a great job making it look like real gameplay."
And while that's good for a pitch video, it's like the most damning thing ever in terms of trailers. Imagine if this thing went ahead and we got served that trailer at E3 instead. That already happens with plenty of games, and it just feels insulting and underhanded.
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