Boss battles.
You may have heard of them.
Mike Tyson?
Yellow Devil?
Soldier wearing a Tyrant's Helm with a pocket Medic?
All of these things are boss fights.
But why are they boss fights, and not Two-Swing Steve?
Like what defines a boss?
Well, I think I found a good formula for finding this, and it involves an allegory.
"Nanomachines, son!"
You might have heard of this guy before.
"Played college ball, ya know."
"University of Texas."
ARMSTRONG: "Coulda gone pro if I hadn't joined the Navy." FUNKe: Coulda gone pro if he hadn't joined the Navy.
Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising exemplifies
in a boss fight.
Armstrong doesn't just fight the part of a final battle, he acts the part.
"Fuck all these limp-dick lawyers."
"Fuck this 24/7 internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit!"
Armstrong doesn't pull his punches,
and that's why he's so great.
He is after all
"Making the mother of all omelets here Jack."
When I say I beat Metal Gear Rising,
what I actually mean is I beat everything up until Armstrong,
stopped playing for four months,
then tried to beat him again.
It's been three years since that day.
I haven't tried again since.
I guess in conclusion:
*Crowd Cheering*
Lots of other bosses have unique demeanors too.
GLaDOS: "Well, this is the part where he kills us."
Wheatley: "Hello! This is the part where I kill you."
Red really isn't grandiose when you pull back the curtain,
but imagine being some kid getting to this point and realizing:
Red's implied history is what gives him stake as a boss.
That demeanor is what makes you want to overthrow him.
And that is what describes the first Horseman.
So, what about the second?
By now someone's probably commented that Armstrong should be War and not Conquest,
because he wanted to start a second 9/11.
so...
He best exemplifies
in a boss fight.
He's got plentiful attacks, strong points and weak points,
ones that you can strategize around.
Like flailing at his head is easy,
but if you time your attacks on his neck, you can do way more damage.
And what about depth perception?
There's no shadows in this arena,
so it's even harder to gauge distance.
And there's no safe spot from him because he attacks you from above as bird.
So you have to position yourself wisely.
And once you get past that, you take him on solo where he really tests your reflexes.
Beating him feels earned and frankly, I think Nameless King is false advertisement,
'Cause he was taking names the whole time I fought him.
You know why Tony Two-Tap over here isn't a boss fight?
Because once you learn his movements, he's easy to read.
Even when you do learn Nameless King's movement,
knowledge is only half the battle.
Time to go apply yourself 20 more times.
A good fight tests your critical thinking.
Psycho Mantis required you to switch your controller plug,
GLaDOS required clever use of portals,
Monika required you to-
to delete your game files. Ok.
Nameless King brought my squash father down to his final Embers,
and when I finally won,
it felt fucking great.
And thus, Gameplay holds it's stake as the second horseman.
A GHOST!
This literally gave me nightmares as a child.
This fight is not even that hard 'cuz you just run the whole time,
But that's not why he scared me. He looks creepy.
He's bloated. His mouth is gaping, constant unsettling noises...
Some of you might say that he looks dopey, like a haunted toilet,
and you're right.
But god damn it, I love him too much.
King Boom Boo represents
in a boss fight.
A good boss design screams:
Malus, Egg Golem, and the Savior are monumental.
Or Giygas!
Because what's a childhood without a little trauma?
Or Flowey because
NO! NO-
Through The Fire And The Flames exemplifies
the importance of a soundtrack
in a boss fight.
And trust me, this song is a boss fight.
And I chose it for Famine because...
well, because I was running out of ideas.
A final boss is only as great as their theme song.
If it doesn't contain at least three drum sets and two distorted electric guitars,
It's not a boss fight theme.
"RULES OF NATURE!"
"And they run when the sun comes up-"
A good theme can reflect the personality of a boss.
Abyss Watchers have such a tragic history:
They lost their purpose and went mad fighting each other endlessly.
So a tragic theme is fitting.
Snatcher is chaotic and wild,
he spends the entire stage ordering you around and goofing up.
So his theme is totally hectic and loud.
King K. Rool is
♪ Gangplank Galleon - David Wise ♪
I got nothin'.
These are the four pieces to a great boss fight.
Every great boss implores some level of each of these.
But to be honest with you,
there's a fifth Horseman,
one that I haven't talked about.
The fifth Horseman...
is Providence.
For example, you probably didn't expect me to add a fifth Horseman.
I chose the Guardian Ape for apparent reasons.
At first glance he's pretty primitive:
Attacks wildly and well, like a scientist.
But decapitate him and you'll find that he's surprisingly a very adept swordsman.
His movements are even more erratic now, but his attacks are even more precise.
Where before you just had to evade an attack,
now you have to deflect and attack.
So not only were you unprepared for a second phase,
you're unprepared for an entirely new attack pattern.
And this is the beauty of expectations.
Luring players into that false sense of security,
and then hitting them with the:
"Oh, by the way, you're not even halfway done with this."
From Software is really good at this.
Health bars almost mean nothing half the time
because there's usually a hidden phase right after it.
Congrats, you beat the Abyss Watchers.
Fuck you.
You're halfway done with Pontiff Sulyvahn, man,
by the way, he has a Stand now.
When this happens, everybody thinks:
But conversely when you finally win, you have that moment.
By the way, there's a centipede inside the monkey, didn't expect that.
These are the five horsemen of great boss battles.
So now, let's talk about
Grunt rushes aren't boss fights,
boss rushes aren't boss fights.
And speaking of Devil May Cry 4,
giant bosses aren't fun when their entire gimmick is just running up and slapping a weak spot.
Bed of Chaos is so goddamn frustrating,
because she attacks you from above but the floors break below you.
Which means you can't focus on both at the same time.
And your 50% blind the entire fight.
Alduin, a final boss filled up so much throughout Skyrim, pretty much amounts to:
So if we know the best in the worst of boss battles, then what's in the middle?
A Big Daddy may as well be a real boss.
But it's technically not.
The circumstance of your encounter varies greatly,
And fighting isn't usually necessary.
They serve as more of a high-level grunt than they do a boss.
They look cool and they're harder to fight, but that's about it.
Another one I like is the Chained Ogre in Sekiro.
Technically, I didn't touch the ground there that doesn't count, I didn't-
OOOOOOOOHH (Come on and slam, and welcome to-)
This is an early game mini boss
who again, may as well be a full boss for all that he can do.
And he teaches players to be aware of their surroundings.
If you don't clear all the guards nearby,
It's gonna be a bitch fighting this ogre.
Lots of Sekiro's mini bosses follow this trend.
Oftentimes you can sneak a life bar off of them before fighting,
This rewards patient players, making mini bosses a great learning tool.
But at the same time this ogre leaves very little implication on the story.
And this fight isn't that memorable beyond the roadblock.
So a mini boss is about as good as you can put it.
So in conclusion,
I want to use my 5 examples here to calculate the best boss of all time.
One with personality,
difficulty,
an iconic appearance,
a memorable soundtrack,
and a challenge to your preconceptions.
San-
-dy.
Robot Sandy from Battle For Bikini Bottom.
She got that elbow drop attack,
oh shit!
♪ Demonetized Again ♪ (Patreon Version)