Metal gear rising is the only time I have gotten legit excited to see QTEs idk why but its so good unlike other action games.

The Godskin duo are perhaps the worst example, but Elden Ring has so many duo fights where you can tell the enemies were designed for 1v1.

A slight spin on the unwinnable boss trope that I feel VASTLY improves it: The boss you're *supposed* to lose to but, if you're good enough at the game (probably after having beaten it already), you CAN win against. DMC5 has a perfect example of this: you fight the Big Bad of the story, Urizen, at the end of the very first level. As a new player you are almost certainly destined to get your behind handed to you, but if you're good enough you can beat him and end the game early. Yes, that's right: if you beat the 'unbeatable' boss, you get a special ending where everyone celebrates your victory after the FIRST LEVEL, roll credits. Admittedly the special ending is just text, but at the very least your skill is acknowledged. Sekiro pulls something *kind* of similar, although it's a bit underwhelming by comparison: if you beat Genichiro in the introduction, he says a different voiceline than he does if he beats you, one that recognises your skill... aaand then beats you anyway. Although, the way he wins is useful as a teaching tool: he wins by cheating, which teaches you that no trick is too dirty to use, a core tenet of Sekiro's gameplay that rewards creative combat and using every tool at your disposal to win. But if you're good enough at the game to beat this fight, you probably already knew that. I wish more games did something like that. One particularly egregious example that *fails* to do so is Ghost of Tsushima (ironically the only game I've mentioned out of the three that's NOT Japanese-made despite being set IN JAPAN), in which you can face off with the final boss, the invading Mongol warlord Khotun Khan soon after the beginning of the game in a fight you're clearly meant to lose. He has a health bar that depletes when you hit him, making you think that if you git gud you COULD beat him - but I've seen good players take ALL his health and then... nothing, he just takes no more damage, forcing you to just take hits and lose to proceed. It doesn't reward your skill like DMC5, it doesn't teach you a useful lesson like Sekiro. Disappointing.

In terms of multiple enemy boss fights, Agni and Rudra feels interesting to me, because while they are equally fast, strong, etc, Dante is so much faster that if you do get overwhelmed, it's really your own fault.

The worse type of boss fight in my opinion is the one that isn't unwinnable but feels unwinnable. Like bosses in a lot of old fighting games, you just sit there and watch a combo movie and you can barely do anything about it. I also hate damage sponges because the health bar looks imposing until you realize you have been at it for an hour.

Vergil boss fight is always fun and not too hard or to easy on Normal amd Hard mode

Personally one of my favorite boss fights is Lady Maria in Bloodborne. Everything about her in my opinion is near-perfect when it comes to how she’s designed as a boss. The music, the fight itself, the lore, to me she’s one of the best bosses FromSoft has ever made! Great video, you’ve earned a new sub from me!

The Yakuza/Judgment games do boss fights extremely well, I always get hyped at the final sections of those games. Just absolute perfection.

Another note about QTEs: literally poking down on l3 and r3 to poke out Poseidon’s eyes in god of war 3 is probably the closest you can get to 1:1 interactivity with a qte

I think a few things could be added here, on both your Asura's Wrath mention and in general how bosses are designed. For Asura's Wrath, it's important to note that the QTEs are frequently telegraphed before they happen, so they move with Asura instead of allowing him to move. Additionally, the button you're pressing frequently matches up with his actual combat moves, which improves the sync between the player and the character. Even in-game they call this sync rate (or something similar). Lastly, Asura's Wrath very rarely punishes you for missing a QTE, which helps to avoid player stress. For boss movesets, I found something that's very important: bosses are allowed to be unfair as long as it doesn't directly cause a game over. A predictable boss is a boring boss, and I think Thunder Lotus's "Jotun" shows this quite well. Each boss in Jotun gets a chance to attack the player first with one of their three or four moves, allowing players an opportunity to get a feel for the boss's theme and style of attack. However, they each also have variations to this initial move that come into effect at the halfway point of the fight. This allows bosses to remain interesting and catch players off-guard, but doesn't feel like a sucker punch because while they may get hit they can still recover from it and watch for the changes to the move the next time. Genichirou in Sekiro also does with with his slam attack, which changes the correct reaction from a mikiri to a jump in the second phase. Another alternative is something like Lavos from ChronoTrigger or the first boss of DMC5. These bosses both have alternate cutscenes if you die to them or kill them. Lavos is considered one of the most memorable bosses because he's one you end up attempting many times (and are likely expected to die to), but each time you attempt it you're a bit farther in your journey. By the time you finally beat him, it's a major milestone because he's actually the last boss, and you've effectively beaten the game. On the opposite end, defeating Urizen in DMC5 ends up rewarding a joke cutscene, which considering he's telegraphed pretty hard as a supposed-to-lose fight I personally found very cute. Other than those two things, a very good video! Glad to see something like this from a small channel, hope it gets more attention.

honestly I really like unwinnable bosses. right up until you brought it up I was going to comment that "but the alternative would just be losing in a cutscene and that feels even worse" I'd just rather lose in gameplay than have the characters lose without me feeling like I can even slow it down, unwinnable boss fights are normally super obvious going into them so I just like to challenge myself to last as long as possible, if I last long enough that the fight just ends and skips to the cutscene I consider that a win, at least a couple of times I've found myself pleasently surprised that a boss fight that seemed unwinnable actually was fully winable, just very hard (but obviously this then leads to the dreaded, "losing in a cutscene after beating the boss" situation) also, ultimately I think that getting a player to really give it their all in a fight only to lose aids the narrative. it wasn't just the character that lost, you lost, and that makes you more emotionally invested in the defeat.

I think Milenias regen makes sense since its conditional and her base health is pretty low. Basically if you learn the dodge her moves she effectively has less Hp. Kind of th ultimate "get good" mechanic if you think about it like that. Although only god knows why she also heals the full amount off of blocked hits...

Ultrakill bosses are still my favourite really That 2nd fight with V2 might be the most fun I’ve ever had in gaming

#6 Don't: Bosses in which if you lose the fight, you load the save, and if you win, you lose the fight, but narratively.

IMO the worst bosses are the ones that are reskins of basic enemies or ones that get downgraded to basic enemies, it just makes you question why they're a boss in the first place, and these seem way too common as well.

My fave boss designs are basically "normal sized dude" because you know you're in for a mechanical slugfest. DMC 3 is a perfect example. Giant three headed ice pup? You're in for bites, and some kind of ice shit. But Lady will rock your shit even with endgame gear.

Metal Gear Rising and DMC is my all time favourite, Vergil and Jetstream Sam is just awesome

I think the "forced loss" boss battle can be done well if you have a way to beat it in a new game plus for some bonus loot/bonus hidden ending or thing like that. IIRC it's the case for the first boss in DMC5. It's also done pretty often in the Disgaea franchise that a boss is too strong for you in your first playthough but you are able to get a some secret ending by beating them the second time around, it's also balanced with some special bad ending when losing to specific bosses that are not force loss.

5:03 this could've worked if the aslamum demons added something new to their boss fights, as the same thing but different is something people can be into as well. With the donut anology Imagine you later get a straberry donut, then one with additional avacado and salt, or a crazy one with bacon and chocolate for some reason, it spices things up while using the same base thing: a donut. It still can get boring as there are only so many ways to redesign a boss before they're no longer unique. So then change the donut into a sandwich and the process begins a again, adding in multiple dishes to keep it fresh.

I'm only really okay with unwinnable boss fights if they actually make it unwinnable, like in a JRPG they could have the boss whip out some crazy move that wipes the party and then I'll register that as a valid loss, but if I see the boss go down and the cutscene tells a different story I just get angry

One of my favorite fights ever is nightmare king grimm from hollow knight , it covers all the categories , the fight is a spectacle , you enter this creepy dark hallway that ends with a red fog and a heart beating sound and then you enter the boss room and you see a giant red heart beating in the background with a creepy audience watching you from a far and then the giant heart opens up releasing grimm from the inside with a black title screen with a name written in red ( NIGHTMARE KING GRIMM ) and then you die in five seconds because he is the fastest man alive The spectacle is insane , the music is a blast , the fight is very challenging and demading yet it's not unfair at all , it doesn't have any cheap mechanics , the fight is quick and it never feels boring , it's the closest thing to perfect boss to me , the only thing the hinders it down for me is that I wish he had more attacks or a second phase that adds to the fight because I want more of this addicting boss , I think I fought him in godhome over hundreds of times already

I believe fights that feign the player's ability to win are fantastic when done right, especially if the fight being interactive is utilized or is significant later. In the beginning of Sekiro, you fight Genichiro and fail. As you get stronger, you gain newfound confidence in your ability to beat him. Just then, he shows up again and you slice the hell out of him. You even do it once again at the end of the game. At that point Genichiro is only a speed bump in your way, so he calls Isshin, instead. You see, the unwinnable fight at the beginning serves a purpose. It shows your growth as a player. I understand your point with them and I can see how they can be done poorly, but that doesn't mean they can't be done well.

Thanks for making this! It has a lot of good advice on how to make a boss and what to avoid. Took some notes: - Should be a test of what the players have learned thus far - Make sure the boss is readable (something that triggers pattern recognition) - Don't expect perfection from the player - Have the boss make sense - Boss fights should be a spectacle: the venue should be grand, the visuals stunning, godly music - Don't repeat the boss (mechanics) - Don't use external forces in excess (have other NPCs fight instead of the boss) - Mixed bosses should have synergy - make one slow, other fast - Don't force loss (unwinnable) without telling the player first - Don't QTE bosses (unless it feels like it has impact and it's involved)

Thank you for sharing with us the Disk Operating System and DON'TS of boss design!

love when i stumble across channels like this one

Really great video man, I wasn't expecting much objectivity but this is pretty reasonable

I personally like those bosses in jrpgs that dunk you (excluding ones that are quite beatable, but you lose in a cutscene) as they allow you satisfaction later on of seeing how much your characters have grown.

Nice video my homie. Thank you for making it and keep it up!

I think Krauser in RE4 was a pretty cool QTE boss fight

I haven't played Borderlands but I think the final boss makes some sense. The vault wasn't keeping people OUT, it was keeping The Destroyer IN. I'd hope there was some foreshadowing to that though.

I’d say another great way to do a boss fight where the main character looses is the early Urizen bosses from DMC V because they aren’t actually un winnable. They’re absurdly difficult but you can actually pull through and if you do, the credits literally roll on the game.

I know it's a lukewarm opinion but Malenia is actually one of, if not my absolute favorite boss of all time. Her moves are quite difficult to dodge but never unreadable. And they are absolutely euphoric to dodge. While she doesn't stop for a substantial enough time to count as an opening, good positioning and timing can help you attack in between her combos and even stagger her out of it. And what I really like is that even though we can get quite a lot of attacks in, greed is punished here with the hyperarmor kick or the deflect. You can't go on wailing, so the fight forces you to calculate your moves. And with a colossal sword, with calculated moves you can get posture breaks every minute. The flow of her fight is simply incredible and no, waterfowl doesn't change that for me. Probably the best flowing fight I have ever experienced with a few close seconds. The healing makes me wanna perfect my playstyle like no other boss and honestly she has made me better as a player with her demand for perfection. Not to mention the fight is visually incredible and Malenia being a character you can simultaneously hate and also sympathise with. There is quite a lot of hate for this boss and I can see why but none of that really hampers my love for her. Even among the likes of Gael, Vergil/Dante, Maliketh, Isshin, Mohg and Fatalis, she is my favorite boss. (OK maybe Gael is on par)

OK, so let's see how Fate/Grand Order fares in the Do's and Don'ts department (Story Mode and Main Interludes only): 1: No weak points in all except Zeus (who's a giant mecha). 2: All Servants have an NP (limit break) Gauge which you can avoid easily with practice. 3: The only ones that don't make sense are Chaos (and he's entirely cutscene-exclusive), and Altera (who just served as a promotion for her own game). 4: They've had a rocky start, but we now have the Beasts, Heaven's Hole, the Lostbelt Trees and Kings, the Outer Gods, and even the Headless Horseman riding a giant ghost wolf in a space ringed with fire (and yes, that's one of the tame ones)! 4b: The game has an entire page dedicated to Awesome Music on TV Tropes (AKA God) And now the Don'ts: 1: Heracles is a major offender in the early game, and the late-game still does consecutive fights, but they've gotten better with changing the mechanics every time, beginning with Hessian Lobo (recurring bosses) and Goetia (consecutive fights). 2 (in general): See Fate/Grand Order's Goddamned Boss page on TV Tropes, though it's nothing you can handle with a little preparation. 2a (Regen): Modern bosses have multiple health bars, but the mechanics do change up slightly. As for regen, the only real offender was a Boss Mook from Shinjuku that just so happened to be Romeo and Juliet. 2b ("Get Back Here!" Bosses): None. This is turn-based combat in a mobile game after all. 2c (Add-On Bosses): Following the experimenting done with Epic of Remnant, it's fair to say that they've finally got the hang of things. Xiang Yu's pair-ups come to mind. 3: No Real-Time Battle system like Final Fantasy. Just learn to combat the NP Gauge and you'll be fine, most of the time. 4: They're generally quite middling-to-great on the "Hopeless Boss" front (they nailed it from the start with the end of London), since you either just have to endure their NP, and there's a whole group of Servants on the Back Row, or shave off a break bar, and all those bosses have enough sufficient build-up to make it cinematic (a given, since Kinoku Nasu and Gen "Madoka Magica" Urobochi are on board). When you actually have to WIN those "hopeless" fights (eg. the first times you face Beast IV:L and Gawain) though... Yeah, Fate/Grand Order is a hard game of Chess, so any hopeless fight is a very good breather. 5: No QTEs.

I fucking knew you were gonna say Asura's Wrath when you said well-done QTE bosses

i will have to argue that DS1 belfry gargoyles and DS2 ruin sentinels are also good gank fights, one of the gargoyles is always trying to breath fire giving you time to get hits in some ware, the ruin sentinels have long wind ups and one of will jump at you separating itself from the other, also there hitbox is so narrow that you can sometimes hit both at the same time with some weapons.

I think Elden Ring and DMC 1 are the best at reskinning bosses. Mixing up movesets, theming the little areas around those bosses, and changing up their appearances such as the Dragonkin Soldier. DMC 1 only has 5 real fights in the game, but changes them drastically as go along. Elden Ring has some bad reskinning problems in Mountaintops, Erdtree Advatars, Ulcereated Tree Spirits, Godefroy, and Astel, etc. But Astel was done a lot to show the transformation from Fallingstar Beast to a monster that is Astel. To mimic the growth cycle of an antlion. And then you talk about healing bs, but with those bosses outside of Lud and Zallen and Malenia, you can stop the healing if you look for it. The healing isn't a problem with those, what it is, is communication. But then again, this is the Souls series and you should figure that stuff out for yourself.

i think the Yakuza series has done repeated boss fights pretty well people complain about Kuze, but really the only similarity between each of his fights are the fact that you're fighting Kuze he has something new each fight

Aus Der Neuen Welt fourth movement is so hype, thankyou for mentioning that

For small humanoid boss, Sekiro has my favorite boss fights. For large monsters, Monster Hunter.

The wonderful 101 is one of the best usage of qtes I’ve seen every boss is an actual boss, but the cutscenes have relevant qtes that bridge between phases and usually the qtes pull on pre existing gameplay concepts like drawing the unite morphs. Also they all look both cool and self aware goofy as hell.

How do you only have 95 subs?? Great video man!

I thought of the Destroyer from Borderlands a second before you actually said it, that's how outstandingly horrible it is

The best alternative to unwinnable bosses are those you can both win and lose to, with the victory path not being a "haha you lose now in cutscene after 1h30m of perfect manouvering" and actually having some bonus or special reward for actually working to beat it. I think that the Trails / kiseki series is a quite good example of this kind of bosses.

When I played the bloodborne DLC for the first time blind and got to orphan I was astounded by the visuals, sound effects, music and attacks. Everything was perfect I had him at one hit but died and even then I wasn’t angry I was very happy to fight such an amazing boss again because the way it progresses from just a decrepit child defending itself to full on rampant abomination was absolutely outstanding. This was great video keep it up

Its weird why they fumbled so hard with Godskin Duo when the imo perfected the duo fight with Demon from Below and Demon in Pain

3:45 Having played a Dark Souls enemy randomizer mod with 30% chance of bosses appearing in levels,. you have no idea. He looks like a freaking super saiyan when ever he is in any dark areas and then leaps at you out of nowhere. He can get pretty scary thanks to his aggressive attack and heal reacting AI when ever he appears in claustrophobic areas.

Another aspect of bosses is, they should find a way to be memorable. I only finished Paper Mario a week ago and can't really remember any of the 8 bosses besides two, one of which is the obligatory Bowser final boss, and even then that's just cuz he's frequently the final boss. Even he didn't hold a candle to the Shy Guy General boss. It had the closest you could get to multiple forms relative to the game, and each form was interesting, leading to the whole thing being fun. All I remember of the Bowser fight is you had to waste a turn every once in a while because he became invincible, and you had to use a special move to counter it, but it was basically *go to action menu, select disarming action, done*. I had no idea what to expect with the Shy Guy General, but was pleasantly surprised with each wave

Enjoyable vid, good stuff!

Unwinnable boss fights can be used in a good way, I recently have been playing Scarlet Nexus and your first fight with Karen is this. It doesn't put on any airs about it being winnable - he's already been established as THE strongest guy in the setting, and to drive the point home his level is displayed as basically three times higher than yours when you first fight him (depending on how much you've been fighting). It's still "kind of" an unwinnable fight when you face him later in the story - he's still higher level than you, although not to the same extent, and you only need to get his HP down to a certain point. The purpose of placing the player in unwinnable fights feels like it's helping them get a handle on his attack patterns. First, it's "watch his moves and survive against them, maybe figure out when you can take a potshot at him." Second encounter you do go into it feeling like you have to win (and it really is only unwinnable from a narrative sense since you have to take him down to 50% HP so it's essentially just that his HP bar is different), so it teaches the player how to make use of the mechanics that they've been familiarized with through the game in order to create openings against him. The player can't just run and watch the attacks, it's necessary to get into the fight. They're unwinnable fights that do serve a gameplay purpose because Karen's got a massive moveset given he's a power copier that probably would be overwhelming if it were all introduced at once.

You know watching this I think the first Urizen fight in dmc 5 is interesting, considering that it's an unwinnable fight, yet you still can actual kill Urizen before the game starts. Granted it takes alot of skill and time to do so I this is a good approach to unwinnable bosses. Make it possible to win,but with really high skill ceiling

Vergil 3 in Devil May Cry 3 still is the best boss fighy and final boss hands down.I believe nobody came close do dethrone it as the best boss battle of all time.

My favourite boss, like ever is Sword Saint. He's in his prime, and he's a testament to all that you learn over the game. Plus he even tells you how to beat him

Re5 used for a good example? Never thought I'd see the day.

Thinking about it, Mettaton Neo in Undertale's Genocide is the exact opposite of the "unwinnable" boss fight. Because no matter what you do, he'll never attack you nor you can lose.

Personally, the Zelda final bosses are always a highlight. Having a horseback duel against ganondorf then the second phase just being a sword fight to the death was always challenging and climactic

I like 'unwinnable' fights that you can actually win, though they are pretty rare. Just, an extremely difficult early boss that with enough focus an apm, you can beat into the ground for a special reward/cutscene/secret ending.

to be fair micolash is a great boss and one of the most memorable in bloodborne because his funny dialogue keeps you from getting bored while chasing him

Ludwig the Accursed is a masterpiece of boss design for Bloodborne, His name is plastered on several items, he has significant lore and then you come face to face with this horse beast that retains some human characteristics making it even more disgusting. you fight him and he is actively going to kick your shins unless you use a stunlock weapon or other tactics just trying and trying to kill him over and over it's your first time and want an accurate experience. But then you just get him to 50% HP The only cutscene to happen mid-boss-battle in the entire game occurs, this Horrid beast collapses into the pool of blood it had created with it's many killings and then the music comes to a height. The feint blue light shimmering over Ludwig as he turns to face the blade that has appeared in most FromSoft games and then he speaks The cutscene just continuing on as the music changes from this horrid cacophony into this almost religious choir in the background as the man before you brings the blade to cover the half of his face most effected by the scourge. The cutscene ends leading into this almost bombastic orchestra as Ludwig The Holy Blade stands as the battle turns into a duel of hunters. utterly beautiful boss.

I've always felt QTE fights never HAD to be bad. Guitar Hero, DDR, etc are entire game empires that were built upon whats essentially QTEs as quite literally the ONLY gameplay element. Still surprised no one's taken that approach to make a combat engine designed around timing buttons presses like those while spectacle-fueled fighting bodies gave meaning to the buttons.

I personally like the Rais final boss in Dying Light. The main challenge and spectacle of the boss is just getting to him, because in Dying Light, Rais is just a guy. He doesn't have anything really going for him other than a massive amount of stuff to try to take you out with, and he uses it. You have to climb to the top of a skyscraper filled with all of his minions that he turned into zombies to stop you with, him shooting rockets at you, and even trying to use a crane to kill you, and when you get to the top, all he has left is a machete and a throwing knife. For practically the entire final sequence, you are fighting against Rais, it's just that he's at the top of a skyscraper, doing everything he can to knock you off it. You were always the better fighter and runner, and he always had all of the manpower, weaponry, and supplies. And now that he's leaving, he can throw everything he has, at you.

Whoever you are, because i'm a stranger on the internet who randomly discovered you, i respect you for 3 things: 1. Mentioning that the stuff you speak about was your own personal conclusion and findings, and thus not hammering in that it's some sort of objective truth. 2. Knowing of and showing off the Darksiders games. As a series it's not necessarily the peak in boss design, but it *is* a series I hold very dear. C. The usage of verbiage such as "Tomfoolery" and "Chicanery". A hack-and-slash type game i played recently by name of Soulstice had, in my opinion, a very solid selection of bosses. The first one you fight, called Arrowhead, makes sure you properly utilize a few of the most important moves the player characters have on offer-- counters and a quick ground-covering Stinger-like move. It also has a few different phases where it does stuff like send a ten-seconds long of arrows down on you, forcing you to keep moving, or making weak duplicates of itself that can still lay down strong attacks. It's also one of only two bosses that summons normal enemies a few times (that i can recall), but if you play well, they simply become combo fodder that can actually fill up your super form gauge, and thus give you an edge in the next round. Soulstice also has a Virgil analogue, a character named Donovan that fights with the same weapon as the main character and is quite fast and hard-hitting. As the only human-sized boss in the game, reading animations and tells becomes especially important alongside not using the dodge in a too flippant manner. He's simply really good, though some interesting things are that you don't have to fully empty his health bar all the way-- nor is he fighting at the peak of his power, because thanks to story reasons, he actually had to face off against the main character's out-of-control super form for a bit. Narrative-wise, it speaks a lot about how he managed to hold his own in such a way, how you're able to keep up with him, AND the fight doesn't end in a "you lost anyway". Instead, the main character simply comes to her senses now that she's let all her anger over recent story revelations out. But when he appears again later, in a similar fight, he now sports a Shade at his side, just like the main character, that builds upon his already existing moveset. The Shade has control over Donovan's body and the latter does not consciously *want* to kill you-- but his conscience now lies largely elsewhere. This combined with the growth of the main characters in terms of abilities, weapons and experiences gives an -in my eyes- logical explanation as to how we're still able to defeat Donovan in a fight. But he's not yet killed. For his unconscious body is taken away by one of the last bosses in the game, and that boss takes out *all* the stops. Three phase boss fight where you have to break down the enemy's shield to make them vulnerable for a short while to properly damage them, with smaller phases based on barrier-breaking or platforming in the first phase; a second phase that has you use the terrain-covering or ranged moves or weapons like the bow, Stinger move or whip grab while getting rid of various phantom copies; and a third phase that's much like the first, but faster and more aggressive. This is the boss that I died the most on and did give me a number of frustrations, but I don't hate it for the mechanics it seeks to employ. And the very final boss is, in my opinion, actually a pretty solid giant-in-front-of-a-ledge fight. Well-telegraphed and recognizable attacks that allow some moments of offense if you position yourself well, smaller counterable attacks, and utilization of the arena to flee from a ten-second long slow moving but very damaging death beam. Mayhaps not super outstanding, but i thought that a lot of the bosses in Soulstice were pretty solid. And I wanted to spread the word about the game.

Ok so. Bayonetta does “i win but i lose in a cutscene a LOT

5:55 These types of bosses actually can be done well if the story supports the idea. I forgot which game it was, but at the end it’s revealed that you’re the bad guy and the final boss is constantly running away, and just doing their best to survive while they try to say everything they can to convince you to stop destroying the world or something like that. It’s relatively easy, but man does it hurt to win

Im fine with the "unwinnable boss" trope if they're not actually unwinnable. Like in Chrono Trigger or DMC5. Both of these, you can actually beat the main villain early. It's ridiculously hard to do without NG+ or whatever, but it is possible and rewards you with a secret ending.

I remember one boss fight in Dirge of Cerberus where you're supposed to lose. But I didn't know that and there was no clue whatsoever that you're supposed to lose. I ended up using all my healing items only to learn that I was supposed to lose that fight.

5:40 This guy actually just unironically used the word chicanery, not even as a Better Call Saul reference. Impressive.

I really like the idea of an unbeatable boss that you get rewarded for surviving for long enough against.

-Wall of text warning Want to know when a boss is good? If you beat him, but still want to try the fight again, maybe with better gear or maybe with the same gear but now you know the fight so maybe you can try to no hit it. This happened to me with the Vergil fight from DMC5, with Jetstream Sam from MGR, Armstrong from MGR and although not really a 3D boss that doesnt fit in this category Sans from Undertale. All these bosses have something in common, and that has to be the fun you have while you fight them and especially the music you hear. Vergil has kickass attack effects that are fun to dodge, he can get a combo on you or you can combo him like a normal enemy. He is edgy but has the *power* to back it up, he is an equal to Dante, both having similar moves but completely different sides. Dante is embracing his human side while Vergil is pushing it away in favor of the demon. He has a theme that *BANGS* and causes minor head trauma after all that banging. His theme is the exact opposite of Nero and Dante who both have lighthearted themes, Nero having a childish but powerful theme that uses motifs from "Bury the light" and Dante having a theme that is exactly what he is, he is a metal head that acts like that drunk as fuck uncle at your birthday party who is about to backflip off a table. Sam is everything he is shown to be from the first fight against him, he is a fast, strong, hard hitting samurai that has a badass sword, you find out he is basically human except his right arm, he has a reason to fight you and in the end his sword ends up saving you. He isnt evil, he just does what he wants most of the time, he is good with best robo boy Wolf and doesnt even hate Raiden despite the two being rivals. Not to even mention his theme, that cuts in and out depending if he has his sword or not, if you crank the music up you can understand that its him struggling to decide between right or wrong after losing his arm, he takes it as lost honor and doesnt even know why he fights. Armstrong is the perfect ending boss and a twist to the usual "coward that hides behind a big mech" trope of characters. He is basically everything opposite of that. He was presented as this jerk that has a lot of money and uses it for child organ harvesting, but ends up being a cool ass dude that exploded a metal gear with his fists. Not to mention that his intentions are decent and not even evil, but his execution is just plain insane. He wants to make the US and its people stronger, but fails to realize that in doing so creates an anarchy. His music, like the one from Sam, cuts in or out depending on the stage of the fight, the theme is a banger that most of the time syncs up to the fight somehow and unlike "The only thing I know for real" from Sam, his theme is from Raiden and his point of view of Armstrong. Sans is just fun to fight because its a bullet hell designed right, its not like Touhou where you cant see wtf is going on half of the time, its a fight of endurance and skill where it tests your reflexes, patience after each death because of his comments and because the fight is given meaning. Sans breaks the fourth wall a couple of times in other runs but in the genocide one he just wants to piss you off until you give up. He isnt cocky, understands he cant win, but still doesnt want to die without trying anything. His theme, although a meme is a twist from what you actually expect the theme of a lazy big boned skeleton would sound like, and while he doesnt have lyrics in his theme, you dont need them to understand the reason for it playing.

To be honest I love bosses which you are supposed to die to, but if you are able to beat them you get some cool loot. Like the first thing in salt and sanctuary, I like that

A couple things: Sekiro is a game which handles QTEs wonderfully. All deathblows are QTEs that you have to deliberately earn and it makes them feel epic. Especially when it's one of those difficult bosses and you manage to break their posture quickly through skillful play rather than witling down their health until it runs out. I will say QTEs are the reason I never tried to get into God of War, from the outside looking in when I saw people playing those games I thought it was boring and unearned. However I realize that is unfair since I have yet to play those games for myself. I'm not fully on board with scripted deaths being bad. I think a scripted death in a boss fight can be done right, especially if you actually can kill that boss. Elden Ring and DMC5 both do this to good effect, although DMC5 does go overboard by having like two or three scripted deaths. A great example of a terrible scripted death is Seathe the Scaleless when you first run in to him, although it is clear you cannot damage him at all and his attacks do such massive damage that you won't usually spend much time trying to kill him before he kills you.

I wouldn't say Dark Souls hasn't managed to give us a good "gank" boss after O&S. DS3 has four of them in the Abyss Watchers, the Twin Princes, Sister Friede and Father Ariandel and the Demon Prince. The best example of a forced loss fight is honestly Urizen from DMCV. Yes, you're supposed to lose to him but if you're good enough you actually can beat him. It gives you small secret ending and then automatically unlocks the next difficulty as a reward. Which is honestly pretty dope. Also, I had to think on it but I think the only two JRPG's that don't have a forced loss boss is Persona 3 and 4.

"im not saying the boss needs 94 years to ready an attack" Godrick the grafted: 👁️👄👁️ 🤜🐲

[Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice Ending Spoiler] Probably the best and recent example I can think of for the "boss fight you're supposed to lose but have no idea you're supposed to" is Hellblade's final battle. At the end of the game you are stuck on a floating area with tons of enemies both melee and ranged and what was supposed to happen is you eventually get worn down and "die" but then it starts a cutscene that finishes off the game (after making you fight something else really quick I think). However, what happened with me was I was for some reason petrified of dying in this game specifically because of how they explained the death mechanic in this game, so during this fight I was constantly getting a small portion of passive health regen whenever I was almost dead so I was abusing that mechanic if I messed up attacking an enemy and for about probably 10-15 minutes I sat there trying to not die until I realized that there was constantly just more and more enemies and so I just got more agressive trying to kill things faster but died because of it. Everything about the game was fantastic but the fact that death was so scary in that game and then they decided to make an unavoidable death fight at the VERY END of the game kinda sucked just for that last part.

What's your opinion on bossfights in games like Terraria? More open-world games than the story ones discussed in this video

I think genenichiro at the beginning of senior was a good force lost fight in my opinion

JRPG bosses that demolish your party? Dialga's Fight to the Finish starts playing

Bosses that have huge AoE attacks, with no windup, and can be spammed over and over while you manage things like HP or Stamina are frustrating to no point and I want to strangle the level designers for putting them in. I'm looking at you, Bloodborne. Also, there is a boss room in the dungeon crawl segment in Code Vein that contain two Boreal Brutes. This normal-ass enemy shows up ONCE in the entire normal game and is harder than a lot of the boss fights. When you enter the dungeon crawl segment of the game and there are TWO of them, it's actually harder than any other fight in the game, even the final double boss fights, for the reasons mentioned above, AND once you get one of them to 50% HP they get ice armor which mitigates your attacks to like 10% of what they normally do. Did I mention there are two of them?

"Repeating the same boss multiple times is a bad boss fight" Monster Hunter: hold my beer

Thank you for mentioning asura's wrath

DISCLAIMER: I do not mean any offense by this, and I agree with most of the other points in the video and really like this vid 😊 I think this is the first person I’ve ever seen who actively dislikes unwinnable battles in games rather than just feeling neutral about them. Is it really that much of an issue? The protagonist would try their hardest to beat the enemy even though it’s impossible at that point in time, so why shouldn’t the player get immersed in that by trying? If you figure out that it’s an unwinnable and don’t want to try, just don’t try. But for those who like those battles/are ok with those battles, it should be a secret from the start.

not me repeating DMC5 Mission 19 for the umpteenth time because god i love glazed donuts

I think that there's easy ways to make your player realize that a fight is unwinnable, for example if the boss level is WAY higher than everything that you fought until this point and if your attacks don't deal any damage at all, Artorius fight in Tales of Berseria does that. But there's also a very bad way of doing it, for example: Scarlet Nexus. There is a part of the story that you're level 20 something and this character which is very important to the history appears as a boss level 50. He's totally different for everything you fought until this point, he's powerful, fast and breaks the main rule of that universe: every individual only has one power, and he has ALL the powers. The problem is that on this fight you need to await for him to say all his dialogues and then a cutscene kicks in, but if your HP reaches 0 before them...is GAME OVER. So what you need to do is dodge all the attacks as he's showing off in front of you while you can do nothing about it...I mean, it would be too much to play the cutscene anyway seem that you cannot win!?

"I am no game designer, just been playing lots of videogames". Pffff wow, please hear this guy out. He knows.

Keep Doing It!

I like your video. Just discovered your channel :) What is the game at 5:25?

3:21 disagree because the element of surprise is actually a great thing in Ds2. It's an aspect that works wonders because you have no idea what is going to happen next. Not every boss should be spectacle with pattern recognition. Look at Maiden Astrea as an example of a surprise when she kills herself. It becomes to predictible. Dark Souls 1's Taurus Demon or Ds2's Pursuer fights as well as Nemisis from Re3 perfect the element of surprise.

I like what Elden Ring and Sekiro do (especially sekiro), with the unwinnable bosses at the beginning of the game. When you first fight the boss, you will get destroyed, and then a cutscene plays, usually having story significance. I especially like this in sekiro, since the fight with genichiro at the start has so much significance, even at the end of the game I also like how with unwinable bosses, on future play throughs, it’s fun to go back and see if you can beat the bosses you’re meant to die to. The cutscene that kills you off after you beat the boss is kind of a nod to the player “good job, but we need to progress the story lol.”

I disagree with the unwinnable boss fights take, I do think there's very stupid ones, but there's actually good ones too, a good example(and an oldschool one) is Vile from Megaman X, where you can't win the boss fight no matter what you do, but right after it shows Zero defeating him with zero effort pun intended, it shows that this is what X will become, and by the end of the game when you fight Vile again, X defeats him very easily, being the only boss in the game where you don't need a wall to dodge him, since youre just way stronger than him.

im kinda late to the party but what do you think about god of war qte in the old game they never seem to bad for me but again i played these game a long time ago so maybe its nostalgy speeking. ps nice video glad it fall on my recomandation

Such a nice video.

Quicktime event bosses are okay IF it's after you've beaten the boss in terms of healthbars. Never have your boss fight be just quicktime events, but quicktime events can be good. A good example, from what I've seen, is some scenes/bossfights from the god of war series

That boss is hands down one of hardest bosses in dark souls type games I defeated him but it was tough

One of the worst example of those "forced defeated" bosses are Urizen from DMC 5. Like srsly, one fight you have to lose, the other you must win the 1st phase and then have to lose on the 2nd phase. Thankfully he is 'defeatable', if you were good enough to avoid all attacks and push through hard enough during those supposedly unwinable fights, you'll be rewarded with a hidden cutscene

something im not keen on is gimmick boss fights like yhorm where you just equip the storm ruler and he is dead in a few seconds sometimes they are done alright though like with rykard since even with the serpent hunter he is still dangerous

To be fair, I think the qte for rais in dying light worked personally,. if they made him a bullet sponge it would be immersion breaking as every other human enemy gets one or two shot in the head, and if he just went down with a single pop it would feel anticlimactic, like his minion from earlier I don’t even remember the name of

So, about unwinnable bosses. They're good, especially when used to establish power discrepancy between player and villain. Sunder and Balio from bf3, first boss from dmc5.

MGR is a game where you could cut out everything but the bosses and have a marginally improved experience

ER I generally don't mind most of the repeating bosses, since most come off as sub bosses at best, and glorified fodder with a boss bar at worst, but there were definitely ones that bug me, mostly Astel, but to a smaller extent, the ancient dragons. And Malenia's healing doesn't bug me to the level that WFD does, even though there is a pattern to it. Of course, I also found a cheap way to kill her, and I've heard other cheap ways from other players like throwing pots, so... we're even?

Onimusha 4 dawn of dreams the final boss was terible. He stood above you behind an invisible barrier which prevents you from hitting him. He'd throw multiple attacks that you never experience anything like in the game at you. 1 of which is an instant kill unless you block then it'll only probably kill you as it breaks your guard. Eventually he throws these energy balls at you and you have to hit them back at him, and be accurate too if you miss it doesn't count. YOu NEVER do that in the game. Then when you do hit him with one of those balls you hit back you have to hit several I'm going to say orb things because it's been nearly a decade since I played the game and only then can you damage him. And is that moment interesting? Nope he just hangs there while you hit him a bit then flies back up and repeat the annoyance from earlier. Worst boss I ever faced, although the bird thing from Darksiders sucked too. And no one talks about that boss fight. Shame really as it means Onimusha is so over looked, and capcom doesn't get called out for a poorly designed final boss.

A boss I think that is designed badly would be Shadow Okumura from Persona 5. He just sends a bunch of enemies and makes one of them self-destruct. Those enemies also run away after 2 turns and if even one runs away, you have to fight more. If you don’t fight an extremely specific way which is by exploiting baton passes, you will have a frustrating time. Additionally, the last enemy (second to last if Royal) casts an instant kill move after a few turns unless you’re hungry, forcing you to go through all of it again. It’s also timed, but the timer is the least of your troubles in that fight. Overall, it’s the worst designed bossfight I have ever played in any JRPG ever and cements Okumura’s portion of Persona 5 as my least favorite part of Persona 5.