Boss (video games)
In video games, a boss (sometimes called a guardian) is a particularly large or difficult computer-controlled character that must be defeated at the end of a segment of a game, whether it be for a level, an episode, or the very end of the game itself (final boss). Bosses appear in many video games, particularly story or level-based first and third-person shooters, platform games, CRPGs, and most shoot 'em ups. Most games feature multiple bosses, each often more difficult than the last.
Bosses in game structure
Many single-player games feature a level/episode structure, the game becoming progressively harder as the player advances. Bosses are a consequence of this structure, appearing at or near the end of a level or episode and being the hardest enemies to defeat. Other games have a storyline instead of a level-based structure, but they still feature boss-like enemies at various points in the story or at the end of the storyline.
The boss battle generally marks the climax of a dramatic buildup resulting from the player's anticipation and anxiousness. Game designers often add design elements, such as suspenseful music, that enhance this effect. For example, in Metal Gear Solid, the ultimate battle has been heavily foreshadowed in dialogue, and the threat represented by the boss enhanced by an attempt to disable or destroy it before it is mobile.
A boss fest is a game with radical emphasis on boss battles. Examples of this style are Milestone's Chaos Field for Dreamcast and Gamecube, Treasure's Alien Soldier for Genesis, and Taito's extremely rare Darius Alpha for the PC Engine, and especially Capcom's Devil May Cry 2 for the PS2. Final Fantasy VII, for the Sony PlayStation, is also a prime example of this, and has often been derided for its habit of throwing bosses at the player with little or no regard to how they fit in the story. This has sometimes been known as Random Boss Syndrome.
An interesting variation on a boss fest game can be seen in Freakout (Called Stretch Panic in North America) for the Sony PlayStation2. This game has only four "normal" levels in which the character gains points. These points are then used to gain access to the twelve different boss arenas that make up the rest of the game. Shadow of the Colossus takes this one step further, as the game features no enemies except the 16 giant monsters the player must hunt down and slay. It is very rare for a game to be comprised mostly of what would normally be bosses.
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Some games also include a special mode, or Boss Gauntlet, in which the goal is to defeat a number of bosses one after the other. Famous games with this kind of features are the Megaman series and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Some modes challenge the player with some kind of twist, such as in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, where Kirby couldn't use his copy powers. Often, modes like this are unlockables that are earned after beating the game to test a player's skill.
Bosses are traditionally used as choke-points in RPGs, used to ensure a player has taken the time to level-up (raise their abilities through fighting anonymous easier foes) before progressing to a new section of the game. A player may find that they have not increased in level sufficiently to weather a boss's attacks, and must spend time gaining experience points by fighting lowlier creatures (often a very repetitive process) before attempting the battle again. This can be viewed as an effort to ensure the player has the level the designer expects before they progress, however it is one of the more common frustrations with the genre.
In modern MMORPGs, where the game has no true "end", the boss structure is often used within game "dungeons" or "instances". For example, in World of Warcraft, the instance Uldaman has a number of small boss encounters, many of which are skippable if the players don't want or need to do them, and a huge, highly dramatic "end boss" encounter which finishes the instance: Archaedas, the Ancient Stone Watcher.
Types of bosses
Final boss
"Final boss" (also "last boss", "Big Baddy" or "End Boss") is the term generally used for the final antagonist of the game (e.g. Ganon from the Legend of Zelda series). They are normally much larger and more powerful than any other enemies that appear in the game. This is sometimes referred to as the "Last guy" derived from the common "bad guy", being the last "bad guy". There are a few common forms taken by the "last boss", including a massive creature with a small vulnerable spot and/or a creature which takes on a number of different forms during the final battle, with the ultimate form often being the most imposing. Sometimes, the final boss requires fighting in several battles, that is to say its first form as one boss and then an evolved form as the true final boss. The Biolizard in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sigma from the Mega Man X series are good examples. Defeat of the final boss usually means the game is complete.
In a number of games, there is a boss after the final boss that can only be accessed by completing a certain task within the game - this task often involves collection of a complete set of items within the game. Examples of this are in the games Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, where the boss 02 (Zero Two) can only be accessed by collecting all the Crystal Shards and defeating the 'regular' final boss Miracle Matter, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, where the boss Giga Bowser appears only if the Adventure mode is completed under a certain time.
Mini-boss
A weaker version of a boss that appears earlier in the level is called a mini-boss, sometimes derived from the fact that it is a smaller form of another boss (alternately known as a mid-boss or sub-boss). These are generally intermediate between bosses and standard enemies in their properties.
Occasionally, a defeated mini-boss or boss may return as a standard regular enemy at a later stage of the game. This often stresses the use of a certain strategy or action, and the player learns how to use it well for later purposes as a result. This typically only applies to bosses or mini-bosses which are not key characters in the game's storyline. For example, in Metroid Prime, the player encounters many Baby Sheegoths before a boss battle against a fully grown one; upon revisiting the level at a later stage, adult Sheegoths are commonplace. In Blood, Cheogh and Shial re-appear later as regular enemies after being slain. In Duke Nukem 3D, weaker versions of the Battlelord appear in later levels after he is defeated. Another example is the Golden Sun series, where after beating a boss near the beginning of the game, a nearly identical version appears near the end as a recurring foe; usually only the name changes: The Avimander from the boss fight appears as a Macetail enemy. Occasionally, in Final Fantasy games, a boss you fight reappears later as a minor enemy. This started in Final Fantasy II with bosses like the Adamatoise, Lamia, Big Horn, and Behemoth appear later on as minor enemies in the wild.
The game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness had a recurring boss character nicknamed "Mid-boss" as a running gag based on the players' knowledge of this terminology.
Hidden Boss
Another version of this is the Hidden Boss, or Secret Boss, which may be fought just before the final boss. Its existence or location may only hinted at within the game, and usually requires the player to already have a high level of skill simply to get there. Naturally, this boss is usually the most difficult one in the game, with game designers specifically adding this unbalanced boss to challenge hardcore gamers who have leveled their characters to be strong enough to easily defeat the last boss. Defeating it usually has a reward such as a rare item or ability, although many gamers feel they would need to be at such a high level of skill as to make the reward ironically useless. This is pointed out in "The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés."
Recent Final Fantasy games have become known for their challenging optional bosses, such as Omega and Shinryu from FFV, the various WEAPONs from FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII and FFX, Ozma from FFIX, and the Dark Aeons from FFX. Other examples of this are Kingdom Hearts's Sephiroth (who appears in both the original Kingdom Hearts and in Kingdom Hearts II, with a slightly larger role), the Ice Titan, Phantom, the so-called Enigmatic Man and Kurt Zisa. Culex is also a hidden boss in Super Mario RPG acting as an example of a final boss in the Final Fantasy series.
Perhaps one of the most notable but little-known optional bosses, however, is Iseria Queen from Star Ocean 2: The Second Story. The opportunity to fight her only comes after completing an extremely challenging, multi-level hidden dungeon called The Cave of Trials. Even then, the player has little chance against her without utilizing a piece of armor called "Bloody Armor", which constantly drains the equipped character's health while making it impervious to all other damage.
Team boss
Team bosses are different from all other forms of bosses in the sense that while most bosses are portrayed as one significant enemy, these are shown as multiple normal or half-as-powerful-as-a-boss enemies. Common characteristics include:
- Tag Team battles in which usually two opponents may leave the fight and allow the other one to attack. These are usually solved by killing both of the enemies or just hitting both of them until the health bar is drained and they both die regardless of how much hits were delivered to either of them. An example is the zombie dogs from Medievil.
- Minion battles in which there will be one normal boss along with a few (2 or 3) mini-bosses or plain enemies. These are solved by either killing all of the opponents, or simply killing the "leader". Examples include many of the bosses in Tales of Symphonia, and most Boss battles in Tactical RPGs.
- Army battles in which a swarm of normal enemies will come at you wave after wave after wave. The waves usually get harder as you proceed through the fight. Examples include the "Robot Carnival" and "Robot Storm" levels in Sonic Heroes and a level involving a swarm of robots in the Futurama computer game.
Puzzle boss
Another type of boss is the "puzzle boss", which is invulnerable to conventional weapons. In order to be defeated, the player must solve a puzzle – often revolving around activating some type of super weapon which is able to defeat it. Good examples of this kind of boss include the final boss from Quake, many of the bosses from Half-Life and Psychonauts, the Sandopolis sub-boss from Sonic & Knuckles, The final Vorticon from Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons: Marooned on Mars, and Bowser in Super Mario Bros. 3 (although Bowser can be defeated with a rare Hammer Bros. suit).
Trick boss
There is a rare breed of boss sometimes called the "trick boss". This is a boss who is extremely powerful and can't be easily defeated by the characters at their current level. In many cases there is a particular weapon, skill, or special item that can be obtained to defeat the boss easily. Otherwise the player is left to continue to gain experience until they can beat the boss the normal way. For example, some undead characters take damage from HP healing spells, meaning an inexpensive spell or item typically used to immediately revive a character will immediately kill the boss instead.
Template:Spoilers The most famous example of this is the Garuda in Final Fantasy III which can be beaten relatively easily by turning all of your party members into Dragon Knights. Other examples are the demon dog from 7th Saga, who isn't that tough, but can be defeated by a whistle you get from his former master, and The Emperor from Final Fantasy II, who is a final boss and can be defeated easily by using the deceptively powerful Blood Swords. The Phantom Train, a particularly tough boss from Final Fantasy VI, can be effortlessly beaten by using a Phoenix Down or other curatives to "bring it back to life." The Phoenix Down strategy can also be used with Soulcage from Final Fantasy IX and Evrae Altana from Final Fantasy X. Keeleon from Dragon Quest IV is another good example, and can only be beaten easily with the Sword of Lethargy. Psycho Mantis of Metal Gear Solid uses his telepathy to dodge nine out of ten attacks you fire at him, but this can be circumvented by changing controller ports so he can no longer read your input. In Super Metroid, Draygon can be beaten with only a modest loss of life by shooting the Grapple Beam at a ruptured electrical conduit while being held by Draygon. It's important to note that these bosses can be defeated by normal means, unlike Lasheic from Phantasy Star, Zeromus from Final Fantasy IV, or Poseidon from Golden Sun: The Lost Age who require special items to defeat. Anti Guy from Paper Mario has ten times the hit points as any other character in the level. If you give him a special item, he goes away and you can open the chest he guards. Also, in EarthBound there is a boss called Master Belch who is impossible to defeat, unless you give him an Item called Fly Honey; he will be too distracted eating the honey to fight. In the same game, the final boss can not be defeated unless you use a command called Pray 8 or 9 times. Said command is extremely overlooked throughout the rest of the game, as it causes something random to happen in a normal battle, and thus is not used regularly. The Ice Titan 'hidden boss' in Kingdom Hearts is viciously difficult to fight normally no matter what weaponry or levels you use to battle him, but if you utilize skills to reflect his own projectiles back at him, a tactic some players probably never or rarely used in the rest of the game, he is drastically easier and arguably a very fun, reflex-challenging boss to fight after this is figured out. Template:Endspoiler
Unbeatable boss
Related to the trick boss is the "unbeatable boss", often found in RPGs. This rare boss is actually undefeatable—either invincible or massively more powerful than the player—and for storyline purposes the player must lose. This however does not result in a game over. Often the unbeatable boss will become defeatable much later in the game, when the player has significantly grown in power, obtained a certain ability/weapon/item or when some story element has removed the boss' invincibility. Examples of this are Lavos from "Chrono Trigger", the unicorn brothers Balio and Sunder in Breath of Fire III, Shin in Star Ocean 2: The Second Story, Vile in the opening stage of Mega Man X, L'Kbreth in Wizardry III, Golbez in Final Fantasy IV, the Guardian in Final Fantasy VI, Geosgaeno in Final Fantasy X, the first fight against Bowser in Paper Mario, Yggdrasill in Tales of Symphonia, Zio in Phantasy Star IV, Ramirez in Skies of Arcadia, Calo Nord in Knights of the Old Republic, and the Artus encounter of Desaan in Jedi Outcast, not to mention Bass from Megaman Battle Network 3 (right after the time that you fight Flameman). Template:Spoilers A non-RPG example is the boss fight in front of the church at the end of the Street level of Maximum Carnage (for the Super NES and Sega Genesis game systems). Players are initially given two bosses simultaneously which, if beaten, are replaced with four beatable bosses, which are in turn replaced with four bosses with infinite health. The player character must die in order to trigger a cutscene, thus advancing the plot.
In some cases, a boss may seem unbeatable, but it can be beaten, either by excessive leveling, or amazing player skill; since the player is supposed to lose, the story will not change, or change very little, should the player manage to win. The first encounter of the Sinistral Gades in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is an example of this; in Lufia and the Fortress of Doom, the prequel, the player is faced with Gades as a lone hero extremely early in the game, and he is utterly undefeatable; even with cheats, the game will freeze upon his defeat. However, in Lufia II, a similar event occurs with Gades, but at a point quite further into the game and with a cast of four characters. Through extensive leveling, Gades IS beatable at this point, though obscenely difficult, and if downed the player receives an extremely potent one-of-a-kind weapon. In the latter chapters of Xenogears, Grahf challenges the party in his Alpha Weltall - while he certainly is formidable, he is beatable if the player uses a certain strategy and equipment configuration (and has a bit of luck). The game's plot goes on as if the player had lost, but the player is still rewarded with a rare item as a reward for their trouble.
Some bosses go through phases, where in one phase the boss is unbeatable, but some story element occurs to make the boss beatable. For example, in the final chapter of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the player is forced to fight the Shadow Queen in what seems like the final battle. But the battle is scripted so that the Shadow Queen at one point heals completely, rendering the efforts of the player useless. The battle then ends, and more of the final chapter unfolds before the true final battle.
In some cases, the unbeatable boss may seem like a very difficult boss, which may trick the player into fighting it out and possibly using up large amounts of curative and attack items trying to defeat them, not knowing that the fight is futile, and the items are being wasted. In the game Breath of Fire II, Ryu may get in a fight with Tiga, who wants to marry Katt; Tiga seems like an average boss, and shows no obvious signs that he is unbeatable, but he has infinite health, unbeknownst to the player. In other cases, the undefeatable aspect of the boss is very apparent, and the boss will use attacks that simply wipe out the player; for example, in Final Fantasy IX, the player encounters Beatrix three times, each time will consist of a short battle, followed by Beatrix unleashing a powerful move to wipe out the whole team.
Another short example is from the beggenning of the game Paper Mario, you go to visit princess peach, thus, sending Bowser to attack, you are suppost to attack him untill he uses the help of the Star rod he stole from the star spirites making him invincible, wiping out all of youre hp Template:Endspoiler
Typical characteristics
Role-playing games
In complex games (particularly role-playing games), bosses are so noted for effective attacks and a large number of hit points. They also have "special" attacks, such as stunning/freezing the player, teleportation, inflicting massive damage onto the characters, inflicting curses on the characters that decrease their abilities, and so forth. Bosses are often immune to certain abilities that the player possesses, and often can only be defeated by specific attacks and strategies, or by using the environment or their own attacks against them. A common way of implying this power is to make the boss much larger than the player's on-screen representation, as opposed to normal enemies, who are more commonly smaller than the player, or at most roughly equal in size. Some bosses have multiple targets, the targets being either its allies (like a boss fight with one or two bodyguards) or multiple parts of its body. The battle with this breed ends whenever the main target or all of its parts die, but sometimes the pieces will be revived if the player doesn't kill them quick enough. In some games in which combat takes place in real-time (Like in The Legend of Zelda or MMORPGs), some bosses may use the environment to their advantage. This includes the boss picking up objects and throwing them at the player characters, lighting the stage on fire, dropping mine-like explosives, or by reducing the available space to fight in. Sometimes the player can use the environment to their advantage too, like standing in a specific space to avoid damage from an attack or knocking projectiles back at the boss and stunning him/her/it.
Action games
In fighting games such as Street Fighter II, the final few characters the player faces in matches are usually referred to as bosses, as they are placed at the end of the game and often have noticeably greater difficulty than previous opponents. Bosses in these games are often not available as playable characters at leisure, or may have a much weaker version available for play.
In scrolling fighting games and other arcade games, a boss's health level is often determined by a health bar comparatively longer than the player's, sometimes taking up several lifebar lengths. When not determined in this manner, the character may also flash red as he takes hits, progressively flashing faster until he is defeated. This not only determines the boss's health, but also permits internal programming to discreetly adjust it as players enter and leave the game during the boss battle. Sometimes, bosses may also adjust their attacks (including desperation moves when near defeat) according to how much damage they are taking.
First-person shooters
In more fantasy- or science-fiction-oriented First Person Shooter games like Doom or Quake where the player faces different species of monsters, bosses are generally large, highly durable monsters, often with their own unique weapons or special pre-scripted attacks and complex arenas. In more realistic FPS games where the player faces exclusively human foes, such as Wolf3d, bosses often are unique characters who behave exactly like regular enemies, only with better weapons, more health, and typically greater intelligence.
Scrolling shooters
Many scrolling shooters will have a Boss Stage, a stage in the game that is made almost entirely of one gigantic ship several screens long/wide, as well as any escourts. The player(s) usually have to destroy the ship piece by piece, often causing sections to fall off. The R-Type series is known for having one of the earliest examples of this kind of stage. There are also levels made entirely of boss fightings (3 to 5 bosses, approximately), which are called as the Boss Alleys or the Boss Parade. The Gradius series (since the second installment) are also known for featuring that kind of stages.
History
Video games followed pinball machines. Since a player can never "win" a pinball machine game, video games initially were thought of as simply "video" pinball machines. Game developers therefore included no mechanism to "win" the game. Video games were viewed simply as contest against the machine, where the only goal was to accumulate points until the machine inevitably won.
E.g., early Nintendo and Atari video games such as pong repeated the same challenge, although the speed of the object (or objects) of the game would increase. Eventually, the objects moved so fast that no player could win.
The first video game boss was the Golden Dragon from the 1975 video game dnd, running on the PLATO System, one of the first world-wide computer networks. Game developers such as those from Atari had access to the PLATO system.
The writers of dnd wanted to implement a "high score" feature. But, since players could save the game and continue from session to session, a "high score" seemed pointless. The writers devised an "end" to the game, so that a character used by a player would be retired and would then be eligible for the high score list. In order to make the game more interesting, a climactic battle was introduced near the end of the game. In order to win the game, a player had to defeat the Golden Dragon, a monster much more powerful than the player had previously encountered. dnd proved enormously popular, and was played until the early 1990s on PLATO.
dnd was written for a mainframe, and thus had considerably more computing power available than video or arcade games written at the same time. Thus, it would be some time after dnd before bosses were implemented in arcade or console games.
The Atari 2600 game Adventure, released in 1978, had three different dragons with differing abilities. However, it was not necessary to defeat any of them to win, and there was no level advancement in the game except by manual variation selection using the Game Select switch. In the first game variation, only the 2 slower dragons appeared. In the 2nd and 3rd variations, the 3rd and fastest dragon could be encountered. However, a player might not even encounter all of the dragons during the course of a 3rd variation game due to their random initial placement. For these reasons, the dragons are not now considered as true bosses.
The first arcade video game with a boss-like attacker was the 1979 game Galaxian. In Galaxian, waves of ships would attack the player. Each wave included a few "flagships". Destroying the flagships resulted in signficant bonuses. The flagships appeared at the top of the screen, and were believed to direct the attack. The flagships were thus referred to as "bosses". Although the flagships usually were defeated by a player at the end of a level before advancing to the next level, it was not a requirement of the game.
The first arcade video game with a true boss was Phoenix introduced in 1980 by Centuri. In Phoenix, a player was first attacked with several different smaller types of enemies. A player is first attacked by a series of small ships. After disposing of the small ships, the player is then attacked by birds. After the birds are destroyed, the player faced a large mothership. Only by defeating the large mothership could the player advance to the next level.
The first console games with a boss were Vanguard (Atari 2600) and Phoenix (Atari 2600) for the Atari 2600. Both games are ports from arcade video games. The games were released almost simultaneously. Vanguard has a part number of CX2669 while Phoenix has a part number of CX2673. If the games were released in sequence, Vanguard would have been released before Phoenix.
Criticisms
Bosses have recently fallen out of favor with groups of videogamers and specific game designers; it is commonly argued that they are a hangover from pay-to-play arcade games, and inappropriate for current games. Poorly engineered bosses may simply be an enemy which absorbs an exasperating amount of damage without providing especially engaging gameplay, existing purely to slow the player's progress. Particularly boss-heavy games may lack coherent segments between the bosses; this is frequently an issue in 2D shooters such as Contra: Hard Corps.
Some gamers have complained that bosses can break the suspension of disbelief by disrupting the level of realism. In games which attempt for a "realistic" atmosphere where the player character and the enemies can survive about as much damage as a "real" human being (albeit perhaps one wearing body armor) could, it can be quite jarring to suddenly encounter an enemy who can survive superhuman amounts of damage. For example, the incongruously drawn-out boss battles at the finales of Half-Life and other similar games were derided by many as repetitive, awkward endings to otherwise dramatic, coherent games.
Alternatively, some view bosses as the ultimate expression of the concepts in the game's design, the other segments bridging and introducing ideas to be explored fully in the boss battles. Developer Treasure constructed Alien Soldier as a relentless series of bosses to interesting effect; the Metal Gear series includes its bosses as the ongoing storyline, battles with them driving the plot ahead; in the Metroid saga, bosses test the player's skill and grant them new abilities which allow the gameplay to expand.
A notable game which doesn't include bosses is Thief II: The Metal Age; however, these games may instead have various scenarios which serve as boss "replacements", such as requiring the player to defeat a larger-than-normal amount of (often strong) enemies in a limited period of time.
Related article
External links
- The Ten Best Boss Fights – according to GameSpot.com
- General-purpose Boss Fighting Guide