Ocarina of Time Ocarina of Time/Zelda Needs Better Final Battles?

[Blendercat]

I really love OoT 3D; it's an amazing game, with some really challenging battles and places. But... I feel that the battle(s) between Ganondorf and Ganon don't really live up to my expectations of a Final Battle. I mean, sure, they're good boss battles, but, they only really feel like a normal boss battle.

Think about it: Ganondorf has 3 attacks, all of which are easily avoidable and counteracted. Ganon has... one real attack, maybe two. Compare this to the likes of perhaps, Phantom Ganon or Morpha. These are two of my favorite OoT bosses, not only because they're pretty sweet, but they have really nice gameplay. You had to be aware of what was going on all around you, like with the first phase of Phantom Ganon, or Morpha's arms.

Sure, Ganondorf has to be defeated without L/Z-targeting, but, you only need to target him when you use the bow, and even when you slash at him, you can L/Z-target then. Ganon's battle, it's just too easy. It felt too straightforward for me for Zelda, especially when you look at battles like Phantom Ganon, or Stallord, or Morpheel. You just shot him with an arrow then smacked his tail. It just felt too easy for me.


Now, the final battle in Twilight Princess also felt a little easy, at some parts. I felt that Puppet Zelda was far too easy. Partially, I knew how it worked, but even so, I thought that the means of defeat were too easy. I'll admit, Horseback Ganondorf and Beast Ganon were battles I'd expect from a final battle. Beast Ganon had a really good mechanic, but it felt quite similar to Phantom Ganon. Horseback Ganondorf, I felt, really was different from most battles in the Zelda series.


Those are my thoughts. Don't get me wrong, though, OoT and TP were amazing games. I just feel as though the last bosses were a touch easy for me. Also note I've only completed three Zelda games; OoT, TP, and ST; so if there are really good final bosses, I probably haven't played them. If you agree or disagree, just say so, and why.

 

[Arbiters Ground]

Finals battle sometimes are a bit of a disappointment, I'll agree. OoT was okay. Majora's Mask has a pretty lackluster and boring final battle. TP has a good final battle. I don't know if there's a game where the final battle is one I'd consider the best. TP had better boss battles than Ganondorf. But I think Ganondorf's fight in TP was pretty good. Especially the horseback.

Overall my favorite boss battle in Zelda would be Argorok from the City In The Sky from TP.

 

[misskitten]

Yeah, final battles in general tend to not be as hard as some of the previous bosses, not just for Zelda-games but games in general. Going somewhat off-topic by, here by bringing up a non-Zelda game... but in the first Buffy-game, the final battle was against a vampire called "The Master", but he was dead easy to defeat, however, earlier in the game (towards the end, but not quite) there were some really tough-as-nail bosses, the hardest of them all were "Dark Slayer" which in some ways were similar to "Dark Link", as it wasn't considered a "boss" more a "mini-boss" and it was a darker version of your character which could duplicate/counter your moves as you played. Incredibly hard to defeat, and what made "Dark Slayer" way worse/hard than "Dark Link" were two things in particular: first of all there was nothing you could do to "Dark Slayer" that couldn't done to you, in fact there were things that did "Dark Slayer" no harm, but did you plenty if it was done to you. Another thing was that you had to go through a time-consuming puzzle (where you could easily fall to your death in the middle of...) to even get to this mini-boss and if you died you had to restart the level and re-do the puzzle... such a headache to get through, but so rewarding when you finally pulled through in the end. The final boss of the game in comparisson was actually one of the easiest in the game, save a couple...

I wonder why game developers don't pull out all the stops when designing the final boss battle... maybe it's because there's no real reward at the end of it? I mean, with other boss battles, you are doing the battle so you can continue with the game, while with the final boss... that's it, there's nothing to follow, except maybe "completing the game 100%". Maybe that's why they put more energy into designing "regular" bosses...

 

[Blendercat]

^I see your point, but I feel that a Final Boss should really challenge you, and make you use skills you've learned throughout the game. That's just my point of view, though.