BOSSFIGHT: REMATCH

Loyal readers might remember an old post i did, called BOSSFIGHT, about bossfights. It's alright, i guess, but i can do better.

To put things simply, a bossfight is a challenge to defeat an enemy that is stronger than average. Now come with me on a magical journey through the different types of bosses that can be found.

To start with, we're going with what i have called the 'AH! THAT'S NEW!' kind of boss. This refers to a boss that just sort of turns up in a level, some might call them minibosses. These are intended to shake up gameplay, by forcing players to adapt their playstyle to varying degrees. For an example, the Tanks and Witches in L4D2. Tanks are mahoosive zombies who have a lot of health and deal a lot of damage, with the bonus ability to throw cars and other obstacles at survivors. To defeat a Tank you simply have to shoot it, just quite a lot more than the other zombies. This means that Tanks aren't actually that difficult to defeat on paper, if you've got a healthy team with plenty of ammo in an open area then oftentimes a Tank will go down without even damaging a single survivor. What makes Tanks dangerous is how they combine with other infected. If survivors target the Tank, then they're vulnerable to hordes and special infected. If survivors don't target the Tank, it will punch them. This forces the survivors to split their efforts between the Tank AND the other infected - testing their ability to work as a team. Witches work very differently to Tanks, but they have the same effect. Witches will either be found remaining in one place or wandering a fixed path, but can always be heard by their distinctive crying sound. The interesting thing about Witches is that they do not need to be killed to proceed, and initially aren't aggressive to the survivors. They will only attack if they're disturbed, by being attacked or as a reaction to other player actions (bumping into them, making too much noise). When disturbed, they run towards the survivor who disturbed them and proceed to eviscerate them - instakilling on higher difficulties. The goal of Witches is to punish players for being poorly prepared, and to teach them the importance of observation for L4D2's gameplay. If a Witch is spotted beforehand, it's relatively easy for players to ignore her and proceed through the level if they turn off their flashlights and crouch when near her. She's similarly easy to 'deal with' if players decide to attack her - her attack is predictable, she's got relatively low health, and she's vulnerable to the stumble effect of explosive ammo and propane tanks. The point is, she's more of an obstacle rather than an enemy, and 'defeating' her requires a coordinated team effort like with Tanks. An important aspect of Witches and Tanks is that their spawns are semi-randomised. All campaigns have a certain number of points where Tanks and Witches can spawn, randomly selected across the different levels spanning the campaign (excluding the guaranteed Tank spawns in the train car in 'The Sacrifice' and on the road outside the tunnel in 'Cold Stream' - and the Bride Witch spawn at the Wedding in 'The Passing'). Outside of finale events, only one Tank can spawn per level whereas there can be multiple Witches. An interesting feature is that once a Tank has spawned in a level, it will always spawn in that level if restarted, but the specific spawn point will be randomised.

Essentially, Tanks and Witches are the pure gameplay aspect of bossfights. They exist to shake things up in the gameplay loop of L4D2, and test the skills that players have been honing on the less powerful common and special infected - namely observation, teamwork and quick decision making. They serve no wider narrative purpose aside from being weird looking zombies, and have no special cutscene or similar quirk (apart from their unique music). Although there is something to be said for the cinematic appeal of a group of survivors running for the escape vehicle with a Tank leading a horde in hot pursuit.

The next type of bossk up for discussion is the 'Oh, you think you're a tough guy huh? PROVE IT!'. These are the types of bosses that are found towards the end of a level (or the equivalent of whatever gaming medium they be found in), and are intended to test the skills that the player has been developing throughout the course of the level. This is particularly apparent for games that introduce new skills/abilities to the player throughout the course of the game. One such example is Toriel, the boss for Undertale's opening area - the ruins. Toriel is (as you might guess from her name) Undertale's equivalent of a tutorial character, teaching the player about the world in which they be founded and how to navigate it thusly. Most importantly, she teaches the player that violence isn't the only option and that resolving monster disputes peacefully is not only possible but encouraged. Her 'fight' is born out of her desire to protect the protagonist, she's making sure that they are strong enough to survive the monster world by themselves. As a result of this, she will not kill the player. They can take damage from her attacks at first, but when their health is low enough Toriel's fireballs will avoid the player. She is defeated by either talking to her enough times to convince her to let the player pass, or attacking her where she is defeated in a single hit. She is Undertale's tutorial manifested as a single NPC, teaching players that they have two ways to navigate the game - truly pacifistly or genocidally. Or inbetween i suppose. This is a pure representation of Undertale's mechanics, rather than being a subversion (ooh more on that later ooh what a sneak peek) she is a boss'fight' that defines how a game is meant to be played.

The other important part about Toriel is that she is very different to the nameless Tanks and Witches above - she is a named and important character. What this means is that she has a lot of story significance for Undertale's wider world and lore - and her encounter is one way that is portrayed ingame. There will be more on story bosses later! But later is not now...

In starkly contrastitude to Toriel, a similar role other bosses take is to completely subvert a game's mechanics. On its own this is a great way of making a boss stand out from every other enemy in a game, showing that they don't play by the rules of other lower enemies. This makes them feel much more unique and memorable, and therefore more likely to give players an engaging fight. These shall henceforth be known as 'Ssobs'. For a good example of this, look at Undertale again because every boss is somehow a pure representation and a subversion at the same time it's a really good game but we're going to not do that and instead talk about Resident Evil 8. The majority of the bosses in RE8 are defeated by the tried tested and true technique of shooting them a lot until they fall over. So it's quite the surprise when you enter House Beneviento and find that you've been stripped of all your weapons. For a game where you can carry somewhere in the range of 4-6 weapons this is quite a setback. The good part is that there aren't any enemies to fight in House Beneviento (or are there?), so your lack of weapons doesn't impact your progress. Instead, House Beneviento acts as sort of a spooky escape room, where you have to solve a sequence of puzzles to find [REDACTED] and escape. This is unsettlified by the fact that all these puzzles revolve around a life-size wooden doll of your recently deceased wife, turning a relatively tame idea into a cruel joke at Ethan's expense (Ethan is you the protagonist you are Ethan Ethan is you Ethan Winters is his name Ethan). This brand of horror is atypical for the Resident Evil series, resource-based panic is the series' classic approach to spookums. This makes the basement of House Beneviento stand out among the other fights in the Village, even though the other fights are far from lacking in enjoyment and atmosphere.

It's later revealed that the haunted happenings are a result of the house's Evil Resident Donna Beneviento's mold powers, crafting illusions using plant spores and a can-do attitude. After you escape from the basement you're directly harassed by her doll, Angie, who then initiates a game of hide and seek where you have to find and scissor-stab her 3 times before the illusion is shattered and it turns out you were actually stabbing Donna this whole time woooahh plot twist!! And then you sell Angie to the Duke for some extra pesos. This whole encounter is very different from the other areas in RE8, the aforementioned escape room section followed by the frantic game of cat and mouse stand out from the 'shoot small people then shoot big person' criminal oversimplification of the other areas in the game. Subversion.

All of the bosses we hath previously discussed have one uniting feature - you fight them once. Witches and Tanks get killed or ignored, Toriel is only fought once no matter what path the player the you chooses, and Donna calcifies after scissor-death. But what if i told you, some bosses are fought MORE THAN ONCE?? These are called 'The Persistence of Bossery', and are illustrated in the coming section. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth sees protagonistS Ichiban AND Kiryu face off against a lot off enemies during their escapades in Japan AND Hawaii, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Notable for this section is Yutaka Yamai, a boss fought BY Ichiban 5.5 times and fights WITH Ichiban 1.5 times, for a total of 7 fights! This already gives Yamai a lot of screentime, but critically adds an extra level of interactivity to that screentime. Compared to the game's main antagonist, who has a lot of screentime but this is largely through cutscenes and dialogue, you develop much more of a relationship with Yamai through that extra layer of having to press buttons - making Yamai much more memorable as a character. When i first encountered Yamai i was all 'oh okay this guy is the introductory boss he's done now', then encountering him again was 'oh right so he's tied to Tomizawa's story okay cool' and then repeated interactions kept me guessing as to his intentions and motives, resulting in a really great character arc for a minor antagonist.

Repeated bosses, from a pure gameplay point of view, run the risk of being boring by repeating mechanics and environment. Yamai remedies this by scaling difficulty along the course of his fights through the introduction of different skills - keeping the core skeleton but replacing a few bones with piranhas. This challenges players to interact with all the game's available combat mechanics, as Yamai is growing along with the player and utilising grapples, elemental attacks and positioning to their full potential. Another really good example of repeated bosses growing with the player can be found in like every Pokemon game. The typical formula of 'going on an adventure with my buddies' results in you clashing with your buddies in trainer battles at different points on your adventure. What makes this feel like a character growing is their Pokemon team, they'll add 'mons to it as they proceed but also keep and evolve them like the player does. This ties into the overarching theme of trainers bonding with their tiny monsters, as the best way to get stronger in Pokemon games is to level up your Pocketed Monsters to be the best they can be. Even if most of the ones you catch do end up in a cupboard.

And now, the concludifying boss characteristic. This is what makes a boss truly great, the secret sauce scattered across all the bosses found above. And that sauce is story. This has been touched on in the above sections, and hopefully you've picked up on each of the bosses i described having a high level of appeal outside of pure gameplay. You can craft an exceptional boss battle, but what makes it really resonate is what that battle means for a game or character's story. This is why you won't find any truly great encounters in boss rush games, Cuphead is a great game but the bosses are there for visuals and fun gameplay rather than a wider purpose. This isn't a criticism of Cuphead, this is 100% by design and they're not bad bosses but what makes them good ends at 'their fight is fun and the animation is cool'. How a boss is fought can do wonders with illustrating their character and progressing a game's story, paying off the additional investment required to craft this bespoke encounter. It can be difficult to explain how good bosses are to a game's story when people haven't played said game, but i'm sure all of you reading can think of a good example, because ultimately these are personal experiences.

As you might have guessed from earlier, Undertale has somehow flipped on cheat codes to make every single boss an incredible encounter worthy of full posts by themselves. The final boss of the True Pacifist route is my favorite bossfight of all time, it is perfect. No use in embellishments. i refuse to spoil anything, i highly encourage you to play Undertale if you haven't already. Another example i will talk about in slightly more detail is Yakuza: Like a Dragon's final boss - Ryo Aoki. i have long been numb to the world but the ending moments of this game very near brought me to tears. i fucking love Ichiban dude. Explaining Y7's labyrinthine plot would take far too long here, contact me for a private infodump, but know that Ichiban absolutely refuses to give up on Aoki. Their relationship comes to a perfectly orchestrated conclusion at the peak of the Millenium Tower, a suitably dramatic and LENGTHY SPIRE for the final boss of a JRPG. The setting is, uh, set, so what about the actual fight? This takes place in 2 stages, the first being in the typical style of Y7's party-based combat - facing off against Aoki and his hired goons with the help of Ichiban's friends. Players here are free to use all the wacky skills at their disposal, like throwing beans to summon pigeons or a spinning ladder attack. When this stage has been completed, Ichiban pursues Aoki alone to a higher floor, where the two face off in a pure slugfest. Ichiban is automatically changed to his starter class, Freelancer, which is a pure bare-knuckle street-fightin' set of skills. This is so appropriate for this dramatic final encounter, given the ties Aoki has to Ichiban's past it's only fitting that they clash using the same moves they were using in their earlier years. This is the subversion spoken about earlier, earned subversion that does wonders for constructing an incredible encounter. There's no other word for it, it's gorkdamn cinematic.

...i feel like i'm forgetting something. i'm sure i'll remember later. Thanks for reading!