General Zelda What Makes a Boss Battle Challenging?

[Salem]

What are the aspects that make a boss challenging?

What makes the challenge of boss battle fair or not? What cheapens it?

I'm thinking more along the lines of how many hearts it each attack from the boss takes, when can I attack the boss, how long can I attack, how short the opportunity to attack.

I know I'm asking too many questions, but please try to answer them, if you want to.

EDIT:One more thing, please tell me what is the hardest boss you fought and why?

 

[Ocarina_Player]

I feel like whether you have to time your attacks or switch between multiple items (ex: bow and sword) definitely ups the challenge. I hate it when it's just running around and hitting with your sword repeatedly. Also when the boss has multiple phases that force you to change your attack method adds more variety to the fight.

How much damage you take I don't feel like matters too much when it comes to challenge, particularly if you go in loaded up with potions or fairies or have some special armor or spell.

I don't have a particularly favorite boss, but the the ones I like are the ones where you have to time your attack or use a special finishing move, if nothing else because finishing moves are badass.

 

[Curmudgeon]

The ante is upped considerably when creativity / problem solving is expected in tandem with manual dexterity. Being forced to think and react simultaneously makes both tasks considerably more challenging.

 

[Random Person]

I'd say the hardest 3D boss I've fought in the series is Gyorg from MM. He required patience, multiple item usage that wasn't obvious and skill. I'd say those are good qualities for a difficult boss. Also, one that switches up its tactics on more than a "new phase" basis.

 

[Musicfan]

Something that's fast pace and unrelenting. You need to do more then attack or defend.
It needs to be in you face.

 

[tketle]

A challenging boss will probably deal a lot of damage, take a lot of hits to kill, have attacks which are difficult to avoid, and the window of opportunity to attack it will most likely be small. Perhaps the fight will have multiple stages as well.

If the boss did any more than four hearts worth of damage for any attack, I'd consider that unfair. 2-4 hearts seems to provide a healthy amount of challenge, depending on how far into the game the fight takes place. Additionally, any more than two or three stages, depending on how arduous the attacking process is, would probably exceed a reasonable length for the fight and make it needlessly difficult.

The bosses in ALBW and MM make for good templates regarding how Nintendo should approach boss encounters in future 2D and 3D titles, respectively.

 

[43ForceGems]

I think it's when they don't make it so systematic. Like you shoot the bow and make this thing fall, and then use the freeze rod to make them stop moving, then hit their week spot, and do that 3 times the end. What makes it difficult, challenging, and in my opinion fun as heck, is when it's just a straight up battle. Like Odolwa. Or Ganon in WW. Or.... well shoot they really don't make very many of them But like almost every single TP boss, especially ones like Armoghoma... that's just boring. Oh, ALttP, every single boss in that game was just going at you and you just had to find your chance to get at them XD That was awesome

 

[snakeoiltanker]

I really enjoy Multiple Phases in battles. I also like it when the Boss is actually aggressive. Too many Zelda bosses are kind of a "sit back and let the boss do their thing till you can stike" type of battles. However not all bosses need to be aggressive to be fun. My favorite Boss battle (as far as fun goes) was The Gyorg Pair from MC. This battle was Intense and Fun. Here you are flying in the sky on this beast, you have to use your cape to jump from Boss to Boss, trying not too fall. Then you have to use your cloning powers to be able to hit all the Eyes at the same time. This was a hand Held title, and i feel it was one of the most creative boss battles i had ever played.

Another good challenge and very Interesting boss would be Koloktos from SS. Now i dont tend to boast on SS a lot, the over all game was missing a lot, but there was a lot of things that this game did very well. Boss Battles were one of them.... for the most part *cough* Tentalus. Koloktos really makes you think for a minute before you go in and defeat... im gonna say her, as when she died it sounded like you just murdered a 6 year old lil girl!

I realize that None of these bosses include what i like about boss battles in general minus the aggressive part. The whole Stages of battle, portion seems to be reserved for final bosses in the Zelda universe, and thats fine, but i sure wouldnt mind a zelda game that really put a big emphasis on boss battles, making them a lil harder would be praised by me, and more frequent. I like the idea of Bosses everywhere. Like having to beat a sort of Mini Boss just to get a warp point, as well as Mid dungeon bosses. But im getting slightly off topic here. so i'll stop while im ahead!

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I feel like whether you have to time your attacks or switch between multiple items (ex: bow and sword) definitely ups the challenge. I hate it when it's just running around and hitting with your sword repeatedly. Also when the boss has multiple phases that force you to change your attack method adds more variety to the fight.

How much damage you take I don't feel like matters too much when it comes to challenge, particularly if you go in loaded up with potions or fairies or have some special armor or spell.

I don't have a particularly favorite boss, but the the ones I like are the ones where you have to time your attack or use a special finishing move, if nothing else because finishing moves are badass.

Yeah I agree with you on that, to beat a boss you should have to switch between weapons, that makes it more interesting. I like it when the bosses eventually adapt and make you have to use weapons in a different way than at the start of the fight... I'd like to see that expanded on more.

 

[Ocarina_Player]

Right? It was fun in ALBW when you merged onto Stalbind's Shield and after a couple of times he had enough of you and just got rid of it. Then you were like "oops, new tactic!" So I like when bosses show a little ingenuity and switch their game up after you get a few hits on them.

 

[Zorth]

I find that boss fights should rely on creativity and past knowledge from the game to be fun/hard.

What I absolutely hate, is frustrating boss fights. Where the mechanics of the boss itself, aren't that hard to figure out, but what makes the fight hard is either bad controls or just stupid overpowered enemies that take a lot of damage to kill while killing you in one hit. I do like enemies that punch really hard, but not so hard that when a single small mistake or brain freeze can lose you the fight, a fight which has to be fought for a long time without making a single mistake. A fight which gets even harder if the required thing to pull off in order to damage the boss is a tricky combo of button mashing and/or timing of a certain event, both of which are largely dependent on luck.

So, something that basically takes away raw punching power from the bosses and instead gives them more intellect. Then also simple things like dynamics could make a fight ten times more fun, where change in the environment and/or your own approach to the fight will change the mechanics and what the boss does, instead of being a repeated pattern.

Although then again, to give depth and challenge to a boss fight requires also to make Link more challenging to play himself. Having only a few sword strikes, a block and some random dungeon item is pretty boring and there is limited options to what a boss fight can look like in order to make it interesting. To really make a change, Link's own arsenal would need a big upgrade in the moves he can make and items he can use. Then from there, advanced boss mechanics could be constructed.

 

[Big Octo]

I suppose a handful of things could constitute a good boss.

Something I personally like is dynamic battles, or battles with two or more phases. I appreciate the changing up of the potential monotony of the original phase to a whole new beast, so to speak, that requires a shift in strategy. It can also work well if it's only but a minor change made to the battle, so the structure of the fight is familiar, yet fresh.

When considering damage infliction (on the boss), hacking it with the sword until it stops moving should generally be avoided if the boss has a very telegraphic attack pattern. This design could work if the attack style of the boss could be easily be mixed and matched, allowing it to be unpredictable. An alternative method of damage infliction (which is very prevalent in the 3D games) is getting the boss to its critical point (usually with an item other than the sword) and slashing it from there. This works decently, so long as it doesn't constitute the entire battle. An easy remedy for this is adding a phase or two to the fight that shakes things up a bit (see above).

A boss, being true to its name, should be a challenging fight that actually requires effort from the player. Now, all bosses don't have to be put on a Dark Souls level, of course not. But some past bosses could have really done with some difficulty scaling. Hopefully future bosses will be an obvious upgrade in terms of challenge compared to said previous bosses. Back on point, difficulty can not only come from the amount of damage the boss deals to the player, but also the amount of thought required to figure out the boss' weakness. Personally, I think adding puzzle elements to bosses really benefits the challenge, and it's certainly a nice variation from simply using a newly acquired item on the boss. If implemented well, the results should be very satisfactory.

I could spend a considerable amount of time with the likes of themes and atmosphere, but I'll summarize it with this: "Good arena. Good music. Good design. Good boss."

 

[sailormars109]

The boss can be challenging when it has nothing to do with the temple and what you went through to get to the boss. For example, battling Ghirahim in both Skyview and the Fire Sanctuary had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the dungeon. That seems like a waste of time preparing for something that has nothing to do with what you just went through.

If you are anything like me, the boss can be challenging when you forget that you have weapons that you can use. Been there, done that on more than one occasion.

Another thing that makes the bosses more challenging is when you have a timing to do something. Like in Bongo Bongo. The timing seemed a little like a pain in the butt to me my first time through.

Also, on countless occasions have I ran out of arrows and had to wait for something to happen before I could get more arrows. That makes the boss very frustrating.

 

[Ocarina_Player]

Well the nice thing about Skyward Sword with the wii motion plus is that enemies like Ghirahim where they're basically hack n' slash were challenging, because you had to time your attacks and slash a certain way. I actually enjoyed that extra range of motion beyond vertical-horizontal-thrust-jump.

 

[Salem]

Guys, I amended the OP.