How to Make Better Boss Battles?

[Jupiter]

I don't mean what type of specific bosses, but rather how to make the battles themselves better. What are your ideas? Here are mine:

Harder. I can't remember the last time I died fighting a boss in a Zelda game. That's just sad. Bosses in, say, AoL were really hard. Lately, I have finished them with a lot of hearts. Some of them are so easy that Nintendo should be embarrassed. Easy is not fun.

Non-obvious methods of defeat. This goes with the previous point. It is always sooooo obvious how you are supposed to defeat a boss (i.e. use the item you acquired in the dungeon). Plus, if you can't figure it out, you always get a clue from your helper. This is pathetically simple. For a lot of bosses, it should take some figuring out. Maybe you use a weapon from a previous dungeon or use a weapon in a unusual way, or maybe there is some special point or type of attack that makes sense but is not glowing and obvious.

Multiple methods of attack. This kind of contradicts the previous point, but for some (if not all) bosses there should be multiple ways to attack them, some which are more effective than others.

Personality. Not all bosses should be dumb, angry monsters. Some of them should have personality. Maybe some are intelligent (or human) and can talk to you, maybe some are more animal or monster like but have personalities--they could be crazy, or mock you, or be shy, or mysterious, or funny, or proud, or afraid of you, or super smart and respond to your style of attack...

Setting. Battles could take place in interesting places. I think it would be neat if one was in a sort of gladiator arena...they could be near a nest that the boss is protecting, they could be near a place where prisoners are held captive, they could be in the ruins of a church altar, they could be near an active volcano, they could take place on the backs of flying dragons in the sky...

 

[Link-182]

Well you just gave all the points of a better boss fight, so what else is there to say?
Maybe having different way of defeating a boss, say you fight a boss with bombs because thats its weakness, but later in the game, you somehow lose your bombs, then you have to find a different method of defeating the same boss, but this time you have to go through all your items and try all these different ideas, and when you find an item that works, it still doesn't do that much damage!
Ever played darksiders?
That game had MEAN bosses, so fun!

 

[Giraffesman3705]

Personality.[/B] Not all bosses should be dumb, angry monsters. Some of them should have personality. Maybe some are intelligent (or human) and can talk to you, maybe some are more animal or monster like but have personalities--they could be crazy, or mock you, or be shy, or mysterious, or funny, or proud, or afraid of you, or super smart and respond to your style of attack...

one example of that is the ghreat mighty poo from concers bad fur day. he is singing while you are defeating him. but anyways, great ideas! this reminds me of phantom hourglass. those have got the bosses really hard. es specially the cyclops guy!!!

 

[blackice_cc]

I don't mean what type of specific bosses, but rather how to make the battles themselves better. What are your ideas? Here are mine:

Harder. I can't remember the last time I died fighting a boss in a Zelda game. That's just sad. Bosses in, say, AoL were really hard. Lately, I have finished them with a lot of hearts. Some of them are so easy that Nintendo should be embarrassed. Easy is not fun.

Completely agree with that one. It's just no fun when you can take down every boss in about 5 minutes, even on the first play-through. I miss bosses like Phantom Ganon (ran out of arrows a few times on my first playthrough), Gyorg (just so darn hard), and Twinmold (magic shortage).

Non-obvious methods of defeat. This goes with the previous point. It is always sooooo obvious how you are supposed to defeat a boss (i.e. use the item you acquired in the dungeon). Plus, if you can't figure it out, you always get a clue from your helper. This is pathetically simple. For a lot of bosses, it should take some figuring out. Maybe you use a weapon from a previous dungeon or use a weapon in a unusual way, or maybe there is some special point or type of attack that makes sense but is not glowing and obvious.

That kind of goes hand-in-hand with the first point. To make the bosses more difficult, one must also make it harder to find out how to beat them.

Multiple methods of attack. This kind of contradicts the previous point, but for some (if not all) bosses there should be multiple ways to attack them, some which are more effective than others.

This is something I miss from MM. At least against the Snowpeak boss (forgot the name) and Gyorg you had optional ways of defeating them. On my first playthrough, I didn't even know you could defeat the Snowpeak boss as a goron, and spent a lot of time throwing a bomb out onto the track just as it ran by. Then with Gyorg, it was cool how you had the "safe" way of fighting from the platforms, and the more difficult way of taking it down as a Zora. It was also neat how it responded differently depending on if you were in the water or on the platform.

Personality. Not all bosses should be dumb, angry monsters. Some of them should have personality. Maybe some are intelligent (or human) and can talk to you, maybe some are more animal or monster like but have personalities--they could be crazy, or mock you, or be shy, or mysterious, or funny, or proud, or afraid of you, or super smart and respond to your style of attack...

That would be cool as well. Remember the King Thwomp from Super Mario 64? How come they don't have bosses like that in Zelda very often? I mean, they would have to be a bit more serious, because this is Zelda, not Mario, but you get the idea.

Setting. Battles could take place in interesting places. I think it would be neat if one was in a sort of gladiator arena...they could be near a nest that the boss is protecting, they could be near a place where prisoners are held captive, they could be in the ruins of a church altar, they could be near an active volcano, they could take place on the backs of flying dragons in the sky...

That could also be pretty awesome. Instead of having just your normal boss arena, you could have bigger, open spaces, or a maze of corridors where you can't always see the enemy coming, or anything really. That was one reason I really liked the boss of The City in the Sky in TP, because the atmosphere and location of the boss arena really fit the actual fight.

 

[Vynn Sarr]

These are great ideas, the bosses in recent Zelda games have been so easy I could take all of them at once without losing a heart. Your ideas should definitely be implemented in future games, and hopefully the bosses in ZW will at least be harder.

 

[Epona]

I agree with this, especially about the personality issue. Twinrova from OoT is one of the most memorable bosses for me because of their banter and personalities.

 

[dur.i.am]

I think that to make the boss battles better, that Nintendo have to actually make them hard for to beat so that I can feel like I have actually acomplished something of note. Not just mindlessly bashed in an easy to beat boss, not presenting a challenge at all. I have actually already been thinking and talking about this in another thread actually, but for Nintendo to make a more challenging boss to start of makning it feel like a better boss battle, I'd like to see several things be put in place.

Firstly, I want the bosses to have more speed, it would make keeping up and hitting the boss harder whilst making it harder defend yourself. It would make the boss battles fast paced, you'd have less time to collect your senses and go on the counter attack, I'd find this very challenging and fun, it would make the boss battles so much better than they currently are where everything is slow paced. When it's slow paced it's easy to collect your senses and easily counter every single bosses strategy, it takes a majority of the fun out of it for me to be honest. Next, to help make it harder and funner, they should make some of the bosses more harder hitting too, it would make the battle fast paced even further as the player knows that he can't take as many hits as he used to. If the strategies weren't as obvious to counter, therefore making it harder to beat bosses even further, which in my opinion is much fun, an example is that they should use more skilled strategies that can be countered, but the counter can be countered also, I think it would make for epic boss battles. Finally, more health per boss would bulk out the battle, and combined with the other changes, would make for a challenging yet fun battle overall.

To top of making the boss battles much better and near epic, I think that each boss should have either a real powerful link to the antagonist of the game (So usually Ganondorf) or a powerful link with the temple and surrounding area itself. It would add real depth to each boss battle and the plots along side that, I think it would be excellent to see this in Zelda Wii, although it's unlikely to happen. It would be good if they actually had intelligence once in a while, instead of all of them being dumb, evil and raging beasts.

 

[Master Makar]

It would be cool if it happened like in yoshi's island and the main enemy kept on coming back and creating the bosses. Maby you could taunt bosses to recklessness.

 

[Phantom Zelda]

I like bosses that have a personality and a story with them. Twinrova I think has both of these and at the end is really funny But all good ideas

 

[deathsword94]

i think the main thing that should change with bosses is the areas in which you fight them. i'm kinda sick and tired of a chamber of fire with a center platform or an enclosed circular room with just you and the boss. i really like the boss battles that took it outside the dungoen, like Argorok in the city in the sky from TP. that battle was easy but really fun just because it was big and awesome. but my favorite zelda boss battle ever was ZANT. the fact that it took place in many previous environments was very enjoyable. zant was the antagonist who had the most personality of any zelda villain. personality is very important in boss battles. also, the reward at the end of a dungeon should be in clear sight the WHOLE battle so it makes it more of a goal to gain the object rather than kill the boss. have a piece of darkness or key locked inside the head of the boss or have it be one of the bosses prized possessions, like the mirror shard from snowpeak ruins in TP. these are some great ideas that would make an awesome game.

 

[Rontonton]

I really liked all the boss battles like in spirit tracks where
you had to beat that giant rock spider on the train and in
twilight princess where you had to fight the king bulbin on
horseback. those boss fights I thought were really unique
and engaging and I think they should have more of those
in Zelda Wii.

 

[Rontonton]

I really liked all the boss battles like in spirit tracks where
you had to beat that giant rock spider on the train and in
twilight princess where you had to fight the king bulbin on
horseback. those boss fights, I thought were really unique
and engaging and I think they should have more of those
in Zelda Wii.

 

[Ventus]

@ The Personality quote, I think the only way for enemies to have personality is for more taunting to happen. Like, I hope that in Zelda Wii we have a lot more Human/Hylian bosses, I don't like fighting giant fish anymore. And those bosses better be smart and have swords/arrows.

 

[Austin]

They need to make the bosses harder to dodge, and make the strategy to defeat the bosses hard. Back in the 2d Zelda games, you had incredible limited movement and made them the hardest games. With Twilight Princess, the boss regions were really big. This may add a cooler feel and look to a boss battle, but made it really easy. If they choose to use a big boss region, I want the bosses to have a better AI and possible move faster.

Looking at some bosses from different games. They are more then a generic run around and fight. TP tried to incorporate it, but they didn't do it well as they could. I hope Zelda Wii will have more of this and makes the boss battles funner and harder!

This is Zelda Dungeon's 100,000th post on June 14, 2010!

 

[Jupiter]

This is Zelda Dungeon's 100,000th post on June 14, 2010!

Wo! Really? Mases should post something about reaching 100,000 on the front page as a milestone...it is good timing with Zelda Wii being revealed tomorrow (or today depending on where you are).