Boss Battle Design ~ Design Doc

On my opnion a good boss fight must have: variation of attacks and patterns, and things you have to do to counter attack they, a well ballanced dificulty with the context (if you are on the beggining of the game they must be not so easy , but simple, and while you are growing up on the game , the bosses must to be more hard).

Good dialogues, polishid with no bugs or exploits,

And a great art direction with beutifull moments



My opnion.

Can you do a list of the types of boss attacks? I kinda noticed some games have bosses with similar types of attacks like pounding/ using an object or weapon to try to splat/squash the player, shadow hint like the hit spot of an attack or falling debris,throwing stuff, shockwaves or any type of waves, attack pattern like zig zag, diagonal, orizontal, crossed lines, screen blinding, sending minions or other attacks in a pattern or straight line but leaving a free safe spot/space for the player, using a shield or armor, grow in size ( mostly if the boss is round) and rolling or bouncing around the arena barely leaving space for the player to flee, hide in a certain spot like a hole or cave until its their turn to attack, the player pulling a weapon or some part of the boss body like a tounge or chainball and letting go to hit the boss, the boss having a break or moment of weakness like getting stuck after striking while the boss tries to get it unstuck from the ground or wall( like claws, axe, or hammer, ) etc.

I kinda noticed that in Mario games , Kirby games, Spongebob, Balan Wonderworld, Kingdom Hearts, It takes Two, and Cuphead.

And can you give a little advice about how to make a boss battle unique, challenging but also fun and exciting?

please make the triple boss video because don't starve together's bosses The Shadow Pieces are good examples

I have an OC named starfox

The Star Fox Adventures one with Scales was really the most gut punching disappointing and wasted "boss fight" I've ever seen...

dr. zaius hilarious

Ya'll passed up on the most impactful part of the fight with The Boss. They make you pull the trigger, you don't watch a cutscene, they make you finish it.

i like what nintendo did in bowser’s fury. bowser has a health bar and you can basically attack bowser whenever you want while also avoiding attacks at the same time. its really fun and i hope nintendo keeps it up

My favorite final boss is Ganon from Ocarina of Time. Almost everything about that is amazing. The only fly in the ointment is the weakness. How does hitting the tail manage to destroy this legendary monster? But that’s just a minor nitpick on an otherwise flawless final boss.

I feel like the 3 hit formula for mario bosses feels less challening as the series goes on because of all the 3 hit or more regular enemies, not bosses or minibosses, regular enemies. Sure, most of them dont have an invincible spin or something beetwen hits like the broozer, but it just feels less of a challenge since normal enemies have the same hp.

Ok so Starfox Adventures may be bad but like we get to see Falco wearing sunglasses

The bosses and mid-bosses in Kirby and The Amazing Mirror are a skill test. Unless you call the other Kirbys or have certain abilities. Stone absolutely destroys some bosses like Kracko, while some abilties are just near useless like Parasol.

I’m a huge fan of the fight against azala (is that her name) at the end of tyran castle in chrono trigger. It felt so intense and when u get into the rhythm of it it’s awesome.

None of these bosses a good 😹😹😹

I had and played the absolute shit out of star fox adventures, but I never got past like, the first area, and I never saw the final boss.
The fact that it was just ANDROSS ALL ALONG, oh my god hahaha.

this video is amazing.

"Ads" are when the goons come out and you fight them instead of the boss. Actually a smart idea to replenish health, but if they're just thrown in as an excuse to pan out the battle, it's one of the most FRUSTRATING thing devs can do as a gamer playing your game. I used to play Remnant From The Ashes and that was the most annoying thing about the entire game. It's a souls-like as well, making it so that I'm trying to fight THE BOSS and instead the ads end up killing me. That's an unforgivable sin in a souls-like game.

the best boss fight is definitely the Ender Dragon from Minecraft

Ultra Snatcher from A Hat in Time is one of my all time favorite bosses. There are a lot of reasons why, but I don't feel like explaining any of them lmao.

could this maybe be applied to creating a geometry dash boss? lmao

So you're telling me that the boss called "The Boss" is the final boss, but the boss that's literally called "The End" isn't?

most games: complicated stuff. memorize it or the boss will destroy you
pvz: ok your peashooters are on a conveyor now, have fun.
pvz2: same, but make it harder.
pvz3: you guys have bosses???

One of my favorite bosses ever is the Wall of Flesh from Terraria.

So basically how the boss works is when you summon the boss by dropping something into a pit of lava in the UNDERWORLD it spawns on a side of the world...
However, instead of you circling around the boss or ducking under it as you dodge projectiles, the boss Chases you to the other side of the world with no way of getting past it without dying rather quickly.

While it also gets gradually faster as it loses HP even getting faster than the player when it has a very small pool of health left. And it has tentacles with fleshy mouths attached to them that break off the tentacles and chases you when you kill the tentacle, plus it shoots lasers and spawns giant worms to eat you.

I just think it's a really fun boss with a unique gimmick of chasing you forever until you kill it. It's also really menacing and horrifying seeing an infinitely tall tower of flesh rushing towards you.

I feel like Andross could’ve worked in Adventures as a final phase to Scales, or a secret final boss after Scales that could only be unlocked by… doing a thing. I don’t know, I’ve never played it.

I see where you are coming from with the mario formula, but I also think that formula is part of the charm of the mario series.

what if the player becomes the villain and becomes the final boss

One of my game’s bosses will be 2 Titans fought at once and share a health pool, if one boss takes damage, the other would too, this is due to the nature of the crystal inside the titan’s chests, one boss floats while the other runs into the player, they both have different behaviors.

Been watching this series and very thankful f or your well reasoned explanations!

One of my favourite boss fights of all time is Shriek from Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
It has great build-up as it gives a fake-out ending before fighting but it doesn't act like the player expects the game to be over, which they don't. The boss isn't incorporated into the story too much but after you learn about its origin story and it kills your owl friend, it is quite obvious that it'll be the final boss.
When you start fighting it, the first phase almost certainly makes the player use a lot of the moves and skills that they have discovered and learnt throughout the game, the second phase calls back to the escape sequences earlier in the game while also incorporating even more moves that you've learned, and the third phase is simple more of the first phase but almost requires you to use the moves you have learnt. The final blow is so satisfying since the music is synced really well as you launch it into the forest!

Honestly the Metal Sonic fight in Mania is one of my favourites in any game. Although you do need some a bit of Sonic history to appreciate all the callbacks

My fav. Boss is Failed Champion from Hollow Knight.

I just wanna say, I love how Undertale both makes it's bosses changes of pace in combat and ties them into the story.

I like how the final bosses of the Mother/EarthBound games require you to so something other than brute force your way through. In Mother 1 just before the final boss you get the sing ability that the whole team can use. You know you have to use it at some point. In EB with the last phase you have to use the prayer ability to finish off Giygas for good. And in M3 all you can really do is heal yourself until the end.

My favorite boss is probably Majora's Wrath from Zelda. Mostly because, there's no rules. He attacks, you attack back. You could come up with clever ways to take him down, or just go in with sword and shield and fight him the hard way. Ooooor just cheese it with the Fierce Deity Mask. It's the ultimate players' choice.

Is the Ender Dragon a good boss! Discuss.

using Orochi as an example of bad design really makes it difficult to take anything this channel says seriously. lol

I was thinking of Earthbound's bosses. Jeff's Rockets trivialize a lot of them, but there is one that will reflect the rocket damage. And Gigas is a favorite final boss fight. It felt so awesome when I, the player, was dealing massive damage.

A boss that shows what Mario bosses could be is the Badaline boss fight from celeste. Seriously. The attack pattern is basic but really cool, you use your platforming skill to beat her, having a good understanding of the game makes defeating her significantly easier, and it's also really interesting and integrates the boss into a well designed level really well. Oh, and it has an actual story behind it too that makes that section meaningful.

The sad thing about Scales is.... I'm pretty sure he was destined to be sidelined. Since even in Dinosaur Planet, he was not the true villain.

Remember the cyborg dragon boss from Adventures? HE was the original main villain who was manipulating Scales from the very start.... Though, to be fair. He likely would have at least been a better boss.

Metal gear: a game of awesome individual moments connected by a terrible story

I've got a question. In my rpg game, you go through a tutorial, pick your moves and meet the wizard. then, you fight the wizard. is that an enemy or a boss?

SPOILER WARNING FOR WILD ARMS RPG








One of my fondest memories, Wild Arms on the PS1 - the final boss wasn't actually the final boss - when you beat him everything seems great but then the party has to walk back to the exit and while going down an elevator ANOTHER FINAL FINAL BOSS attacks, that really made me smile, I was wondering why they gave the player control right after the boss fight and even had a save point right next to the deafeated "boss" - I thought hey the games over, just show me the ending now... and then WHAM! sneaky , sneaky and since I didn't heal up after the fake boss - it really got me. Never trusted final bosses after that, I always kept my guard up til the credits rolled.

A boss fight that stuck out to me more than any boss fight I've ever played was Margaret Moonlight from no more heroes: desperate struggle. ever since the game came out, I always remember that boss, the sound track the game play, everything about it stuck with me, even when I didn't play it for years, it was always in front of my mind.

I really respect and appreciate you for talking about good boss fights in the Arkham series without mentioning you-know-who. It get so tiring to see that boss crop up every time any of the Arkham games are so much as breathed in a conversation.

Edit: Nvm