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General Zelda Bosses: Making Them More in Your Face

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
So a couple nights ago (maybe it was two nights ago) I was playing Oracle of Ages trying to fend off the boss Eyesoar. Now, the problem is that you have to switch hook with him, make sure to avoid contact with his main body but there's also several smaller eyesores (lel pun) that fly at you and deal contact damage. Eyesoar is constantly in your face trying to kill you, which is a lot of fun but incredibly annoying ;p

Bosses in modern Zelda simply aren't in your face. Ghirahim loves to :? with you by sending tiny annoyances at you, but he doesn't deal severe damage and he doesn't deal it fast enough. Fyrus is a giant slowbro. Bellum is...Bellum. Malladus doesn't even know his own priorities lel. So what's up with it? Can we get more BLARGH YOU MUST DIE types of bosses in future zelda?
 

Sir Quaffler

May we meet again
Yeah, I see this as being more probable to happen in the 2D games than the 3D games simply because of the perspective. Like in ALttP, since you can see the entire battleground from a birds-eye perspective you can plan all your attacks better. So they can get away with being all in-your-face and aggressive in their attacks due to this. 3D games, on the other hand, have a much higher chance of getting turned around and confused if the boss just keeps jumping around all up in your business. Honestly it would just frustrate me in most cases. The only way I can really see that relentlessness happen is if the battlefield has no borders and it's just you and the bad guy... wait... where have I seen this before...?
 

Mellow Ezlo

Spoony Bard
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Dec 2, 2012
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eh?
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Slothkin
More in your face bosses are something that the series needs, yes. Bosses should be aggressive, and deal significant damage. Even the final bosses just kind of chillax and let you hit them, which is not what bosses should be like. They need to actually have the desire to hit you, and they need to show it.
 

Musicfan

the shadow mage
Joined
Mar 6, 2011
Location
insanity
Demise. But you didn't seem too found of that either.

Demise was not that great example of an action in your face boss all it was was shield bash and slash shield bash and slash over and over. Honstly sheilds were over powered in SS.
The closest thing I can think of is DL in OoT if you dont take him down in time even then...
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
DL? He was passive and only copied you.

Wrong. He gets aggressive if you have a lot of health and leave him standing. Like, he'll approach you and ATTACK, not approach you and backflip/idle.

Anyway, I highly disagree with everyone who claims that more aggressive, cornering-type bosses are hard to do in 3D Zelda because there are TONS of 3D games that manage this (do I need to crank out Kingdom Hearts again? :rolleyes:). All it takes is increasing the general battle speed (which isn't very hard) and giving special foes projectiles, a wider variety of attacks (with vastly different properties), and AoE.
 

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
Huh...well either way, he's still not aggressive if he's so slow that I haven't even noticed. Dunno why you want aggressive bosses though...they're even easier than the non-aggressive ones. 30 seconds to beat Demise if you do it right, because they traded his defense in for offense.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
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Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
Huh...well either way, he's still not aggressive if he's so slow that I haven't even noticed. Dunno why you want aggressive bosses though...they're even easier than the non-aggressive ones. 30 seconds to beat Demise if you do it right, because they traded his defense in for offense.

Demise and aggressive? Do I have to link you to my vid again? Counter-based foes =/= aggressive ;;;;;:I
 

Musicfan

the shadow mage
Joined
Mar 6, 2011
Location
insanity
Huh...well either way, he's still not aggressive if he's so slow that I haven't even noticed. Dunno why you want aggressive bosses though...they're even easier than the non-aggressive ones. 30 seconds to beat Demise if you do it right, because they traded his defense in for offense.

That's why you give a boss both life and offence I would not mind faster pace game play where the jumping is actually useful.

Also think Okami paced battles but with out the enemy getting stuned.
 

Mido

Version 1
Joined
Apr 6, 2011
Location
The Turnabout
I think that "In Your Face" factor is definitely less apparent in Zelda these days. However, I think it could be pulled off well if done well.

Most bosses in the 3D games always tend to keep their distance, and it's been seen time and time again. Bosses like Gohdan would just fly around Link, and engage in distance warfare. Some bosses try to get "in your face", but in those cases, it's mainly the bosses just sending their underlings to keep Link at bay. Now it does add some action in the battle, but it can often be tedious.

Bosses of the series who I think pulled this factor off well in some areas include Beast Ganon (TP) and Ganondorf (WW).
-Beast Ganon, like the wild animal he his, would attempt to gore Link into submission with his horns. Now if he was a bit more aggressive, I think the factor could have done better. (Now I haven't played TP in a long while, so don't bet on this info here!)
-Ganondorf in WW felt really engaging, at least to me. He constantly approached Link and attempted to skewer the hero with his twin swords. Now Link could easily run away from Ganondorf, of course, but I felt as if this Ganondorf, in my experience, was surprisingly aggressive.

Now I remember that "Horror in Zelda" thread, and thinking about it, I think a boss that built it's theme on horror, and trying to spook the player, would add a bit more of that "In Your Face" factor.
 

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
Dunno what you're talking about, Ventus. Demise was one of the most offensive bosses...behind tWW Ganondorf, which was also the 2nd easiest final boss.

@musicfan

I don't recall many of the Okami bosses being offensive, except for Ninetails.
 

Mudora

Innocent but not fearful.
Joined
Jul 27, 2012
Location
Canada, eh
I'd like that. It would be kinda fun, plus it would bring back a bit of that challenging old school Zelda that I really miss.
 

ihateghirahim

The Fierce Deity
Joined
Jan 16, 2013
Location
Inside the Moon
I think it's an ease factor. Games, Zelda included, have been getting easier. Don't believe me? Play the NES games and the play SS. Now that's not to say parts of those games weren't way too hard. I'm just pointing out that games get generally easier on all levels now. The bosses are just one [art of this equation, and a good old-fashioned boss that's in your face would be simply "too challenging" for our current pampered kid gamers.
 

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