Split-Screen :: The Game-Geek’s Daily Read

By Ravi Sinha

Boss fights, like level design, can often make or break an entire game’s experience. A boss fight or encounter with a Big Bad is much like the turning point in the script of a show or popular novel: All that tension gathering up and finally executing in one creative fell swoop before pandering out again but the immense freakiness, shock & awe or curiousity is irresistibly attractive, if not intellectually addictive. Now, how many turning points in novels or movies cause you to bang your head or howl in frustration? No, not because they feature a disappointing twist that can’t capitalize on intensity built up (FF7: Advent Children, any one?) but because said twist is often so acutely complex or intelligent that it flies over our heads unless we really introspect. For instance, the true moral of Production I.G.’s The Sky Crawlers.

Boss fights, however, are more concrete. You either like them or you don’t. They’re either epic, funny and clever or derivative, annoying and lame. On occasion, a boss battle can be so enormous, that the developer goes above and beyond what is humanely fair and panders to downright cheapness. “It’s supposed to be cheap because size and power is directly proportional to the feeling of achievement.” Which developer is most guilty of this bullshit?

Yes, you guessed right: Capcom.

First, it’s fighting games: Gone are the days when M. Bison or Akuma was a balanced enough challenge. Even when the latter was mechanized in Marvel vs. Street Fighter by Apocalypse, he was still a fairer fight than the mutant Smurf-lord himself. If that weren’t bad enough, we got Onslaught, the most powerful Marvel Comics villain, as a boss in Marvel vs. Capcom. Abyss premiered in MvC2 – that a game who’s roster featured so many unbalanced characters (Cable, Iron Man, War Machine) featured a boss unbalanced enough to make them indispensable in the end-game says a lot. Other offenders to the throne include Gill from Street Fighter III, Seth from Street Fighter IV, Magneto in X-Men: Children of Atom and the eternal bastard king of cheapness, Goldibus (Kikaioh: Tech Romancer).

It’s action series never provided many problems in the boss fight department but Capcom has a tendency of disrespecting any skills or achievements accumulated thus far in the game. Devil May Cry 3′s Vergil was quick and vicious- falling to that opponent is far more honourable than getting beaten down by Sanctus in DMC4. Not only does he have a regenerating shield and floats every which way when you try to attack, but uses tons of projectiles (which knock you to the other end of the room) and a severe, unblockable rush attack that can kill you instantly near the end of the fight. There’s nothing like getting beaten up by old man simply by virtue of Capcom being his boss designer.

Then there are the bosses with multiple “forms”. Almost all Capcom final bosses have this trait, though the Mega Man X, Zero and ZX series are far more explicit in showing it off. Nothing says “fair” like fighting Omega’s normal form, then his powered-up form and finally his “true” form – which is essentially Zero with every attack from every single past Mega Man X game – in Mega Man Zero 3. Even Resident Evil bosses are nigh-impenetrable, unless defeated by an “uber-weapon”. Count ‘em off: Tyrant by rocket launcher in RE1 and RE2, Nemesis by rail cannon in RE3, Saddler by rocket launcher in RE4, Wesker by two RPG launchers in RE5 and so on.

Let’s not even get started on Capcom’s retarded practice of having you fight all the bosses over again before the final fight, a feature that’s been persistent from Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse and Mega Man to Devil May Cry and Mega Man Battle Network.

So congrats to you, Capcom. In the end, you really were just one big, fat cheap bastard. And as long as you keep making great games, I’ll always be coming back for my final round of supreme suffering.