During my time playing Skyrim and Deus Ex..I ask you GU'ers. Do we have the need for "Boss Fights"? Alot of them are very average these days. The days of Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy Boss Fights are just not appearing these days..the days when it took you almost 30mins just to fight the last boss (Except when you were dealing 9999 damage in FF7 )

The only boss battles i enjoyed of late was on Batman - Arkham City..and that was just the one
Thoughts??

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Have to say the DX:HR boss fights (apart from Yelena, imo) were probably the games' weakest points.

However, only the other day I fought FFXIII's Barthandalus on board the Palamecia, and it was the most tense and epic boss fight I've had in a while. They're a great way to end parts of a storyline and to test your mastery of a game's combat system.

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I find boss fights to be rather important to a structure of a game, be it a good fight or not. Boss fights are, in a way, a means of dividing the story so you could kinda transition into one chapter, or close out another.

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It depends on what type of game it is, how the gameplay works, and how the story is structured. Usually heavy story games require bosses to create that point of tension for the player before a break in dialog and story progression. I've had games that give you more a feel of equality with your enemy so a strong boss wasn't necessary.

Bosses are essentially challenge points. Either to push you to the limits of what your character can do at that point, or to force you to master something you generally wouldn't have before. It's rare a game pushes you at all times (Dark Souls?). To do so locks out a majority of players who would attempt it. So I think Standard Gameplay followed up by a Challenging Boss is a great medium.

I'll say playing games like RPGs or Zeldas and finding that room of healup/savepoint. Then going into a large empty room. You knew something big was coming. And nothing quite satisfies more than when you beat a big baddy that is giving you a hard time.

It varies, but I believe bosses are key for some games. That said, I absolutely hate N3 and N3II bosses (for each their own reasons).

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This is a really good question.

I think personally for me it depends on the story, and if it's "needed" for plot-line resolution and development. Like Sci-Fi/Fantasy books, video games often have an adapted formula that they adhere to. Traditionally in games after every level, or "world", chapter (etc) we expect to have to overcome a boss, or we experience a cut-scene or something that places emphasis on the adversary. I think the problem with this is that when the writing isn't particularly engaging, or unique, our disbelief isn't suspended long enough for us to enjoy the boss encounter as an exciting part of the game. It's just this stupid cliche hard part, and you just want to get passed it so you can get back to the meat of the game (like bulletstorm-you just want to get back to trying to shoot everything in the groin and then kicking it into cacti).

But when games are treated more thoughtfully, and the story is engaging, sometimes I get so into the game that I don't really feel the "seam" where I went from playing the game mechanic to beating a final stage so that I may advance to the next chapter.

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I think final boss fights are good to have just to feel that accomplishment of getting to the final leg of a game and coming out on top. Take Red Dead Redemption for example. You've put countless hours into riding around, shooting people, saving others, and meeting some of the strangest people around. You NEED that sense of ending, especially with an open world game. Yes, even after the biggest baddie of all has been killed, you can still ride around and spend more time just exploring and shooting birds, but in order to feel that the story has come around full circle, you need that sense of closure.

On the same subject as RDR, I felt like the final boss fight was epic, given it only took less than a minute, cinematics and all. The need for a drawn out fight wasn't needed, unlike games such as Final Fantasy.

However, I like the thought of only having a "final" boss, and not an "end of the chapter" boss in games such as RDR and FF. I think that the more bosses there are, the more choppy the story feels. I want my game to have a continual story where I can't see the seems that hold it together. "Chapter" bosses usually take that sense of flow away from a story, in my opinion.

So, are final bosses good to have in a game? Absolutely. Chapter bosses? No thanks.

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Speaking on Deus Ex: HR, I didn't think that they were necessary, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. They were fun and challenging and I liked how a certain decision you make prior to one of the boss fights actually affects the gameplay. That was well implemented imo. Skyrim itself doesn't really have 'boss fights' in the traditional sense, a lot of them play out much like a regular fight, you don't get any special music or cutscenes, etc. It feels immersive and natural.

In general, I don't think boss fights are needed or necessary when it comes to pushing narrative, but I feel something would be missing from a gameplay perspective, like the game itself wouldn't be challenging or complete without them. Then again, you look at games like Demon's Souls and Prince of Persia (2008) and each fight is like a boss fight. Dislike the 2008 PoP as much as you like, but they were going in a very interesting direction with that combat system, it felt like a dance, I loved it.

On the flip side, you get Barthy from FFXIII (haha sorry if this seems like trolling), where the only challenge is that he can cast doom on you and some cheap insta-kill spell. Boss fights based on chance like that pisses me off so much, thus the amount of ragequitting I did when I was trying to finish FFXIII.

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I love boss fights when they are done well. Some of my favorite parts of games (especially platformers) are the epic bosses! The bosses in Classic Mario and Sonic games hold some of my most precious gaming memories!

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Well I find Boss Fights to be one of the most important part of a video game. It tests the player, it shows the player if he/she is weak or strong(if weak it shows the player there are specific skills to improve on aka "Grinding"), lastly is because they can be memorable.

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Does a game need boss battles to be good? No. Do boss battles make a game more interesting/engaging? Absolutely.

I'm a sucker for this tried-and-true mechanic of inclusion of bosses into video games. After hoping/shooting/throwing/slashing grunts for a while, throwing in an elite and preferably tougher grunt for good measure not only breaks monotony, but it also allows the gamer a sense of reward for taking whatever new tactic or ability they learned throughout a level and utilizing the old and new tricks to defeat said opponent that is meant to put our skills to the test.

When done right, boss battles only further add to a game's appeal long after the game is over, arguably more than any other event the gamer has experienced in the course of the game. Metal Gear Solid immediately comes to mind where boss battles where a great addition to the overall experience so much that many cite fights like Psycho Mantis and The End as defining moments for the franchise.

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