What Makes A Good Colossal Boss?
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 12. 01. 2022
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Colossal bosses are instant centerpieces for any game, but their very presence can wreak havoc on a gameâs camera, mechanics, movement, and animation systems. Letâs talk about how to design a giant boss fight, work around some of the issues, and make a truly epic encounter.
Featuring:
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Streets of Rage 4
The Legend of Korra
Final Fantasy XV
Asuraâs Wrath
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy XIV
Shin Megami Tensei V
CrossCode
Bowserâs Fury
Ikaruga
Solar Ash
Metal Gear Rising
Shadow of the Colossus
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Giant bosses where you run towards and chase the boss is good
SoTC is art. That's it. No arguments. Beautiful art.
@@cesarhernandez6861 there is a VR game called Jet Island you may enjoy
@@fridgegaming1544 Then I shall my good man!
i was hoping to see phantasy star online giant boss fight in this video since it is the grandfather of mmo
Fighting as giant Bowser while flipping the DS on its side in Bowser's inside story has always be one of my absolute favorite boss fights ! It's must have years and years since I last played it, but everytime I think about it I have a residual feeling of how fun I found it
YES!
I came up on that boss while in the car with my parents. The entire time they thought I was losing or upset because of how much child me was flipping my shit. That boss battle came right the hell out of nowhere and it was incredible.
Lovely memories with that game :)
I used to have trouble with it as my ds had difficulty detecting my mic and blowing but it was fun.
Ohhh boy, just punching the hell out of that robot castle and just seeing it slowly break each phase is so satisfying.
And I love how each punch cause koopas and goombasto fly out.
Personally I think another important part of a giant boss is the arena size. One of my least favorite boss fights was the giant robot from mgs5, partially because of one shots but mostly because of how much space there was to actually fight him. Most of the fight consisted of me running away to get more ammo (another issue with the fight).The reason giant bosses are so threatening is their presence, but if the area is also colossal they have much less of a presence. Fighting a somewhat large boss in a small room is a lot more intense than just upscaling everything dramatically.
O&S second stage from dark souls. They shrink down the room just to add more tension to an already incredible fight
I love the fight because of the map you fight him in. The bigger issue personally is it's bullet sponging nature. That fight in particular shouldn't have been Vemon Snake vs Metal Gear, but rather Diamond Dogs vs Metal Gear, with Diamond Dogs calling in support with helicopters and dropping power weapons far into the distance to ensure safe delivery. A boss so threatening it would take a literal army to take down. That could have been a revolutionary colossal boss fight, but it was squandered by a rushed development cycle.
Instead of an army fighting against a giant robot, you get a fight where people actively look to cheese because it takes FOREVER to do it normally that it straight up kills the novelty of a giant boss fight. We are actively encouraged to build up Mother Base, why the fuck can't we use it when it mattered most?
Idk when I think of shadows of the colossus the huge maps are part of what makes them epic
@@Xonarag yeah but the proportions are still pretty normal. The colossusâs are WAY bigger than sahelanthropus and their arenas are also smaller.
Meanwhile some of my favorite boss fights are from Metal Gear Rising, where the two metal gear fights are in fairly small arenas and follow mostly the same rules as every other enemy kn the game. Plus, it probably helps that you suplex the giant robots.
Omega Flowey is certainly creative, letting all that space where the fights usually happens free to the player and the enemy, an amazing fight
And also a pretty good âunbeatableâ boss how you need to convince the souls, his power sources to revolt and defeat him afterwards
â@@sillyguy_5559convince? You just pass them attacks to just they revolt against him and heal you
it is certainly very creative! i really enjoyed fighting omega flowey
Undertale's neutral ending is probably the most climactic out of all 3. The true villain of the game. He tricked you at your lowest, and you never saw him again, until the very end when he is the most powerful being in the universe. Maybe I'm bias because Finale is my favorite Undertale song, but the juxtaposition between the terror and hopelessness of "Your Best Nightmare" and the blood pumping excitement and exhilarating satisfaction of "Finale" is so incredible.
@@thenecromancer4113 are we talking about the same ending here? isnt the pacifist ending the one with Omega Flowey and Asriel? been 8 years since i played but i couldve sworn it was just the pacifist route that had OF
Ultrakills 'corpse of king minos' boss is pretty amazing, it's seeing him looming in the distance in each stage leading up to the boss battle which makes it so cool.
THANK YOU. I was amazed when Ultrakill wasnât mentioned in this
That fight needed music and to get rid of the black hole. it took me maybe 5 tries before i just learned to parry his hand and Railgun if i got low hp
@@darknesshas1 Just move away from the black hole, i agree with the part about the music though.
The fact that you can parry his punches is really what seals the deal for me.
I personally think LEVIATHAN is even better. Is it foreshadowed less? Yes. But, instead of the invisible wall strategy Minos goes with, you can _fucking grapple onto it and wail on it._ That, combined with the big attacks and the _space program_, just make them feel so awesome.
Metal Gear Rising is a great example of a game that simply refuses to compromise its amazing mechanics, no matter how big the bosses are. For its colossal bosses, something still has to be compromised though, so Platinum chose to compromise realism, which unironically makes the boss fights even more over the top and amazing. You better believe we're parrying this giant robot the size of Rhode Island!
And you cant forget metal gear excelsius, where raiden just rips off one of its massive swords and uses that to destroy it. Sacrificing realism really was the way to go. Like Max0r said, "every game is now just worse for not having this"
@@oricalu448 really wish that during excelsius once you get that sword you could do a little more though...
I donât talk to people that think Metal Gear Rising is anything less than a 9/10.
@@landonadams9935 oh it for sure is and honestly as a bias rating its a 10/10 on an enjoyment level for me
@@twilight7721 Like slamming it into Armstrong's face when he peeks out of the Excelsius
I always though that Calamity Ganon was super boring, especially compared to the other bosses. I hope thereâs a better final boss for BOTW 2
I always treated "phase 1" in the castle as the boss and "phase 2" as a victory lap.
Yeah calamity ganon worst version ganon ever
the calamity boar thing is not a boss, is just a power trip after you beat the final boss. It's a reward, not a challenge.
Yeah both phases had a problem
Phase 1: too many weaknesses to exploit and some of the attacks are super easy to avoid
Phase 2: anticlimactic and WAY TOO EASY.
@@damp2269 It's a pretty lame power trip to be honest.
Personally, Terraria and hollow knight come to mind. They arenât like some of the games you mentioned but those games are super good with their bosses. Terraria allows you to shape the arena around the boss, the creativity it allows for is just great.
And with Calamity Mod the giant boss theme just goes crazy
Hollow Knight's bosses aren't THAT big though, all of them fully fit on screen, so there's no camera problems.
@@DeltaSignIsNotAvailable Oh yeah holy shit the Devourer of Gods, that shit scared me when I first saw it!
@@iveharzing yeah it didn't only scare me, it also scared my 2009 laptop
VisualMT devourer of framerate
Divine Dragon from Sekiro will always stick in my mind as an excellent collossal boss. Probably the easiest in the whole game, but goddamn, when the music swells and you get hurled into the air to redirect lightning? Still gives me chills just to think about it.
Honestly one of the best colossal bosses ever. The snake was cool too.
Just saw some gameplay and yeah that looks awesome! I need to play this game.
Sekiro is really on a league of its own
@@SP8inc favorite game of all time. Definitely a must play.
The most cinematic fight in the game by far, well thatâs if you donât count anytime you do a lightning reversalđ
Seeing the title paired with the thumbnail, my first thought was "That is NOT what makes a good colossal boss" lmao. Really hope BotW 2 does the idea better, if at all. My first thoughts for great examples were, of course, Shadow of the Colossus, as well as Metal Gear Solid Revengeance. It's such a cool concept, I really love when games flesh it out well. Great video!
Im sure Monolith soft are still helping and with the Torna final boss (im sure they learned what makes a final boss fight) i am Hyped
The thing is, everything WAS going for that boss... Design, atmosphere, build-up, scale, music...Everything!
Except the battle itself. Because i honestly think it's one of the easiest bosses in the franchise's entire history. I wouldn't call it THE easiest (That goes to Link's Awakening Angler Fish), but it's definitely losing out to some very poor competition.
To be honest Ganon was the weakest part of the game, his four minions are just clones of each other, and the fight agaisnt it felt too short for my taste.
BotW is sad because it DID get large boss fights right. Specifically I'm referring to Talus fights. You could also argue the process of accessing some of the divine beasts are large scale boss fights done right too. It's just a shame they seemed to rush over the development for Dark Beast, because it was obviously designed with Shadow of the Colossus in mind and had so much potential to be great.
@@nidohime6233 You can't be serious. Every single blight of Ganon has different mechanics.
I keep thinking of Subnautica. Where it's less about fighting the collosal creatures and more about hiding and escaping. It introduces these monsters less as a enemy and more as a force of nature to be avoided at all cost. Like a game of cat and mouse. Except underwater and the cat is a gorgeous bioluminescent titan.
Specifically I'm talking about the giant dragon at the magma level. The other reapers are neat too but they have definite weaknesses to exploit.
The only other thing I wished you mentioned was sound design. The aesthetic to these fights can very easily be adjusted just with some super neat sound design. Naturally when we *hear* something that large it makes the fight much more intimidating and exciting. But maybe that's just me.
And when it comes to Subnautica, killing the big boys feels so good
@@georgesaffos1197 Ikr. Its like u dont gain anything from it, but pure satisfaction. It feels great
I knew I'd find a subnautica fan down here
The abyss leviathan is literally impossible to kill so it's horryfying to run it o when you accidentally go into the abyss and all you see is this GIANT FUCKUNG BEAST charging at you when it decloaks
@@funkie_junkie4289 Unless you mean in Below Zero, it is technically possible to kill the "Abyss" leviathans as they are just adult ghost leviathans.
I feel like Botw's Dark Beast Ganon fight was supposed to be more cinematic rather than actual gameplay, and the fight against Calamity Ganon was supposed to have the real gameplay in it. But I do agree that the fight against Dark Beast should have had a little bit more to offer gameplay wise
Itâs obvious how itâs meant to be cinematic by the fact he will miss you with his lasers on purpose
Yeah tp defo did dark beast Ganon a lot better in terms of gameplay combining both regular and wolf link skills
Even Ocarina of Timeâs Ganon fight felt more ominous and epic, despite being developed for vastly inferior hardware compared to the switch. Itâs a similar 2 phase fight, but in the case of OoT Ganondorf and Ganon both have great and intimidating character models, as opposed to the amorphous blobs with eyes and tentacles that you fight in BotW. In OoT you end up fighting Ganon on a dark field ringed with fire, and only really get a proper look at him when lightning strikes. BotWâs dark beast Ganon is just a big stationary pig that really doesnât threaten the player in any way. Killing him doesnât feel satisfying in the least. Hereâs hoping that TotK has great boss fights.
I love hollow knights take on them. almost every boss is several times your size and you have to learn to weave through all their attacks. This can feel unfair sometimes but the game gives you so many movement options it balances it out. You can jump over a throwing attack, then midair dash to phase through the boss to hit them from the other side, double jump to avoid a secondary attack, use spells to keep you in the air longer, then hit them again to reset all your movement mechanics. It excels at making you feel small and forcing you to adapt to that
I was hoping there was gonna be someone talking about Hollow Knight. I completely agree with you on all of those points.
Hollow knight doesnât really have any collosal bosses though theyâre all just big, love the combat though
Theyâre not that big really I wouldnât call it a colossal boss
@@TwistahsWorld yes and no, I agree that in most games they wouldn't be counted as colossal. However I would argue that In 2D games the colossal bosses are smaller than in 3D so relative to the game and the player size I would call at least at least a few of the bosses should be counted as colossal. :)
@@treelord4644 idk maybe radiance but radianceâs size really doesnât play into the fight
Fire emblem Three houses does something quite clever to make colossal monster fights work, by making it so that they take up more than one space on the grid, and having multiple health bars. It really helped represent the scale of it compared to the units that are all one square long, and making them tougher, without having to completely shift the gameplay to accommodate for it. It incentivises you to use battalions, which are attacks that can target multiple squares at a time but that you can only use once or twice per fight. Adds a strategy element: when does which character deploy their battalion? Just great design all around I think! :)
The excursion into having enemies that take up 2x2 or even 3x3 tiles on the grid was a really natural place to expand for the series- a long time coming, even. And 3 Houses did it well, both with giving you something to use your massive sweeping batallion attacks on, and using their barriers to complicate and vary the strategies for approaching them (e.g, the giant wolves having weaker barriers that were more effectively broken up close, or the mechanical dolls's barriers completely negating magic).
It really was an amazing move, especially for a grid based strategy.
It was my return toFire Emblem
I am so glad I got it!
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has you fight most of the actual map layout in a really cool fortress siege.
Unfortunately, the enemy units you have to deal with _as well,_ make this a lot less enjoyable than it could've been.
I kind of have mixed feelings about it to be honest. With actual bosses, it works great and makes a lot of sense. But when they try to do the same with "standard" enemies, it kind of just turned into a chore to deal with for me, with how many bloated health bars that came up and how much space they often all took up on the map.
I think that Super Mario Odysseyâs Ruined Dragon boss is a good example of this, it has a very epic feel, is camera-friendly, and has good gameplay. Plus, you can even climb on the dragon after defeating it, giving you a sense of scale.
You don't have to defeat it to climb on it lol.
I think both ruined dragon and Calamity beast ganon are some of the worst examples on how to make a colossal boss.
@@pete5423 Glad to hear your opinion.
@@pete5423 Glad to see that people have different opinions in this cruel world. It gives me hope for humanity.
@@thecatbrat42 are you new here?
I know Sonic Frontiers wasn't out at the time this video was released but Sonic Frontiers did really well with their colossal bosses. There some of my favourite bosses from any game
Agreed. I clicked on this video hoping he would talk about at least one Sonic boss even if Frontiers wasn't even out.
The game is really good at building up to the titan fight, where it all comes together, and my lord how worth it is. The way that Giganto absolutely floors you in your first encounter, and then when you tip the scales, Kellen Quinn shows up and knocks it out of the park so you can show Giganto who's the real boss. I also have always been such a massive fan of the fact that Wyvern flies around in the sky for the entire duration of the second island. It makes it so atmospheric, and it's a thousand times better when you're chasing Wyvern over the ENTIRE ISLAND. Then finally Knight, the final test of skill, where we're not learning how to be super sonic anymore, but we ARE super sonic. The end of the fight where sonic can use his cyloop to obtain Knight's very own sword, and SLASH HIM DOWN THE MIDDLE LIKE A GOSHDANG PROTAGONIST is such an excellently climactic moment.
Yeah sonic frontiers did great with the colossal bosses
I still need to play it
Hades and Medusa in Kid Icarus Uprising are two epic and long fights against an immense enemy that you have to beat by quite literally ranging them to find their weaknesses, dodging their minions and astonishing attacks.
Wonderful giga boss fights.
The boss of the Ancient Cistern in Skyward Sword has always been one of my favorites. Being able to steal its colossal swords to use against it was really, really cool.
I also like the child laughter after you beat it.
Are you talking about Koloktos?
@@Daikon_Micucci yes
I wouldn't really call Koloktos a COLOSSAL boss
Rules of nature
Personally, I like bosses that feel like a final check of all of my skills. Make it colossal, and you could really show how well you are doing.
In Bayonetta the Bosses that are Closer in Size or Smaller are the Hardest. Rodin, Alraune, Father Balder, Lumen Sage Balder, Loptr, Aesir and Jeanne are all bosses who have a low amount of Witch Time Available, Jeanne and Father Balder are an exception since their from Bayonetta 1. Aesir is larger than you, though not by much.
The Colossal Bosses like in Both Bayonetta 1 and 2 offer different ways in which you battle them, fighting on a floating platform, surfing, flying, falling and swimming underwater are some of they ways you can battle Colossal Bosses in those games.
sword saint issin would like to talk to you
i beat vergil and it made me feel as good as beating a dark souls boss
I think monster hunter does these really well, (besides maybe Zorah) because of the sheer power that the monsters emit. Creatures like Shara Ishvalda and Safiâjivahave such a massive attacks that give such a good feel for their strength.
Shara and Safi don't really count as colossal bosses. They're massive yeah but compared to truly colossal monsters like Zorah, Lao Shen Long, Dire Miralis, Dalamadur, Dah'ren and Jhen Moran, and Ceadeus they aren't big enough to qualify
One thing's for sure tho, Goss Harag is definitley not a colossal boss, not sure why they only included it there when Narwa and Ibushi are in the same game lol
@@TheAlmightyPotatoGoss Harag may not be that colossal, but heâs one of my favorite monsters in the entire franchise
@@colehamrick6252 It is very cool, yes
I'm so super glad you mentioned Shadow of The Colossus. And saved it best for last too! That game was the greatest thing I didn't know I needed in my life.
Everything about that game makes it the most unique thing I've ever played and is really the first thing that got me into story based games. (Though I haven't played many games in my life)
Play Ico at some point. Totally different gameplay but the same style storytelling. Shadow of the Colossus is the prequel to Ico.
@@Thor-Orion isn't that game really old and unavailable to play cause it's an old portable game?
@@spacetaco048 no, Ico was a PlayStation 1 game. You can play it on an emulator right now I think.
@@spacetaco048 look at the name of the studio that did shadow of the colossus. Team ICO.
@@Thor-Orion Its also ported in a collection to ps3 alongside SotC so you can play it on rpcs3 or real hardware
Horizon Zero Dawnâs world bosses were really fun to me. Large, highly damaging, and having a lot of moving parts that can not only be targeted and knocked off for extra damage, but can be used against them if picked up off the ground.
was gonna say this. HZD really set my expectations high, they perfected those big machine fights. Always fun fighting them even on the hardest setting.
There is no more fun activity in the game than fighting a Thunderjaw!
That sounds like a crazier version of Skyward Sword's Koloktos fight.
Any giant boss fight that lets you use the boss' own weapons against them is peak video gaming if you ask me.
@@PhyreSpore imagine Koloktos but 4 times bigger, attacking like a feral animal and not giving you a second to breathe.
I always wondered how a fight with a titan class would go if it was framed like the fights with the Thunder Jaws or other 2 big Bois. I think a multi hour fight would be fun, with there being save points after every big hit for breaks, like blowing off a tentacle. It would like a game within a game.
I've always enjoyed Splatoon's campaign bosses! Like the Octobosses, Octo Oven comes to mind first! Takes up the whole center stage, no problems with camera control and movement, and you get to traverse its body three times with added hazards and difficulty each time! I think in general, people just don't know about Splatoon's campaigns, and I think that's such a shame, they're some of the best campaigns I've played!
Totally agree, I love all the splatoon campaign bosses, and I think that even the final octo expansion boss, the giant laser-eyed statue, is actually quite clever, as it pushes your maneuverability and accuracy.
oh absolutely! splatoon bosses are great fun, although i admit they make me very nervous, like most colossal bosses do... it took me like 15 minutes to beat octoshower my first time through because i kept missing my shots thanks to how much my hands were shaking. good times lmao
It's a shame the marketing for Splatoon isn't the best. If it had better advertising im sure it would lure in newer players. The Splatoon campaign is popular but it mostly gets ignored, it's not as big as something like zelda or mario which makes sense since Splatoon is a much newer franchise but Nintendo really needs to push the marketing for Splatoon (specifically Splatoon 3.)
@@reethelemon I definitely agree, I think generally the surface appearance of Splatoon probably turns off a lot of people that would otherwise really enjoy the game and what it has to offer. On the outside, I'm sure it just looks like another bright and colorful kids game that has nothing for teens or adults, when in reality, it works really well as a game for everyone, with features I think all ages can appreciate! And I totally agree that they should put better marketing towards gaining new players, as I feel they've catered a lot towards existing Splatoon players in their advertising!
The splatoon bosses are perfect for the style of game. They incorporate nice traversal and are goofy but not so it makes the fight feel like a cartoon. Also the music slaps
If thereâs one big boss that failed miserably itâs Dark Beast Gabon, you just take the bow, you avoid the incredibly minor amounts of resistance, and you shoot the boss.
7:58 I freaking died đ€Ł
Just like her
@@holvingar4375 đđđ
Asura's Wrath, DMC, Nier Automata and Dante's Inferno are all great examples of incredible colossal bosses.
Im so glad that Asuraâs wrath is getting some spotlight in this video! Such an amazing game, with some of the best fights ive seen in a videogame..
You get a MVP pass for mentioning Dante's Inferno
I mean Asura's wrath is like an interactive action movie rather than an action game, so it can make anything that is emotionally impactful and/or visually appealing feel good, and I haven't played Dante's Inferno and barely even remember what it looked like, but I would argue for the others that they are EXCELLENT games but the colossal bosses in them totally suck. Same goes for Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, hell, even Shadow of the Colossus, where the smaller colossi were the better ones. The only times colossal bosses work are when they're only colossal in-lore because you're assuming a larger form yourself to fight them, like getting in a mech or something.
That said, it's fun to have them for a setting. I like that Dalamadur is something that exists in MH's universe, and that at some point some hunters had to go stop it from rampaging even though it's like a mile long and they're like specks of dust to it. On paper "a tiny human slays a dragon as large as a mountain" sounds badass, but when you see the physical "reality" of it, it's just ridiculous and impossible to execute well.
@@vitriolicAmaranth i would say jhen moran is a fun exception
Monster hunter is also a pretty good example in most cases
Darkest Dungeon has it's fair share of big boy bosses, ranging from big, to massive. Weirdly enough, it ends up being something of an advantage for the player, since the positioning based gameplay, where the position of your characters dictates what enemy positions they can hit, is removed by their giant sizes.
Take Swine King. He takes up three slots of the enemy position, with Wilbur, his spotter, taking up nimber four. No matter if you push Wilbur to the back or to the front, your characters will always be able to hit the Swine King no matter what (unless one of their attacks targets the front enemy position.)
Of course it's made up by the fact that these are bosses, and they're gonna hit very hard. Their giant size just acts as a boon for your characters, allowing for more characters to be able to hit them, and for you to experiment with character combos more liberally (at your own risk, of course.)
Even the game itself lampshades the size thing.
"Monstrous size has no intrinsic value. Unless inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue."
And don't forget the unstable flesh, a single boss that took up all FOUR slots...but was incredibly weak to AoE because of it.
@@dusklunistheumbreon Unstable flesh.
Time for Dog.
@@NisseDood Yep lmao. One of the times that the Houndmaster REALLY shone was just using his bleed cleave against the Flesh.
Most of the time, it was a pretty bad ability since it did so little damage, and he was a pretty mediocre hero since his damage was kinda bad against non-beasts, and the rest of his kit kinda suffered from being a master of none - he had bleed, mark, heal, stress heal, and guard....but none of that was good enough to really replace any heroes who were just better at those things, except for the mark, which is genuinely very good as far as marking abilities go....but mark builds kinda suck anyway, especially since most of the targets who have enough health to justify using mark tend to have extra turns, making mark expire too quickly to actually do more damage than just hitting them would.
But in that one particular instance, he was one of the best possible characters. 4-12 points of bleed (effectively meaning 12-36 extra damage a turn since all three turns of bleed would proc before you got your next turn anyway) and a solid amount of damage, every single turn, QUICKLY rips through the Flesh.
Sonic, spyro, God of war, monster hunter. All of those have such memorable giant boss fights in my mind
The new Nihilanth fight from Black Mesa Source was really amazing, a much needed upgrade to the original
I know many people are not the biggest fan, but one of my favorite colossal bosses are the ones in Twilight Princess, especially the fight against Stallord. All of the fights are pretty damn easy, but I always felt them very exciting since youâre eventually fighting giants with a sword, it gets even better when you manage to âexposeâ their weak spot and the fanfare starts to play, those bosses always felt so⊠epic.
Stallord and Koloktos are definitely two of the best boss fights in Zelda history. Honorable mention for Twinmold from MM as a good giant boss fight. The fight against beast Ganon in TP is also great, especially the "beast against beast" part where you have to grapple and throw him as a wolf.
@@coreywest9597 Molgera too!
Isnât that the point of bosses and video games in general? Making you, the player, feel epic and awesome! I think easy bosses are okay, if it done in a way that make you feel awesome and incredible.
Although I agree that easy bosses are ok, I wish that some Zelda bosses were a little more mechanically difficulty. I mean they ARE the bosses, but bosses are mostly the easier part of the games; so easy, to the point of me feeling like it's a playable cutscene that will unlock more of the story.
I love Zelda, but yeah.... not so fond of the bosses.
Twilight Princess absolutely nailed the bosses as well as the dungeons.
Sonic Generations actually did a really good job in their remake of the Perfect Chaos fight from Sonic adventure. Turning the boss into less of a fight and more of a stage with boss-specific hazards. I honestly wish more Sonic bosses adopted this type of design.
Elden Ring's Placidusax fight has become one of my favorite boss fights. Just wish some of the other dragon fights in that game were as good as him.
Atahl Ka is the single best boss fight Iâve had the pleasure of challenging. It starts off with a normal fight against a bug before it constructs a giant mech that you have to dismantle by attacking the threads holding it together. Best boss fight and a perfect end to GU
the spectacular final boss of Kirby Planet Robobot comes to mind, and it's especially cool since you as the player also take on a new colossal form to fight an even larger enemy
Kirby has done all of its colossal bosses good, sectonia, void termina(especially the smex one) hr-d3, nova nucleus etc etc
In the future, could you possibly add the titles of the games being shown on screen?
Perhaps even just as captions or something?
Sometimes I see something I really wanna try but I don't know what it is, the list in the description helps a bit, but sometimes it doesn't matter because it's just a quick clip and multiple games look similar.
Just a thought. Thanks. I love the content!
Agreed!
Boosting. Love this idea
Since he often showcases lesser known games, this is really a no brainer.
The struggle. Anyone know the name of the game at 00:45?
@@wellerday7370 pretty sure its spark the electric jester 2
14:13 Ultrakill's 1000-THR Earthmover is a great example of this.
Destiny 2 is also a pretty good use of colossal bosses. The Riven fight is great and you fight a huge boss in a cool way.
And oryx
Insurrection prime was big too (not as much as the others), and the tank usage gave it a lot more pressence.
@@diegocj02 yeah true wish i could've fought it lol
Kid Icarus: Uprising has several great colossal boss fights. Itâs rail-shooter phase does exactly what you described to make for some great bosses in that mode, but it also has great colossal bosses in its action-platformer phases. The giant reaper was one of my favorites.
I would kill for a sequel to that game
@@GuyAngon Like Hades said, gotta wait another 25 years
@@thew00dsman79
âTis up to Sakurai and Nintendo to prove Hades wrong there.
@@thew00dsman79 14 years now! Almost halfway there!
It ties in with the game mechanics as well, since different weapons have different effective ranges.
With those shots of Perfect Chaos from Sonic Generations, my mind does go to how Sonic the Hedgehog has handled those since Sonic 3 & Knuckles. In those cases they've been corridors that you chase the boss through. They required constant ring collection because you start with 50 and they deplete over time. You avoid obstacles not to avoid harm but to avoid slowing down and failing to catch the boss. After causing damage in most cases puts Sonic back at the start or in new corridor with different hazards and navigating them again. Some games do them better than others.
The Dark Gaia fight shown in the video was a bit lame. It was the bad part of the fight with the slow punches, but most of the fight is intense QTEs. While there are no corridors from what I can remember in that fight, there are multiple runs through the temple parts.
@@EvilParagon4 The Wii version let you throw the punches yourself in a Punch-Out style segment, sure it was a bit, jank, but still more involved and active than the HD version's QTEs
@@ArceusDX wii version of perfect gaia in general was strangely more fun i think, as jank as it was. it was disappointing that the HD version of the fight was just flying around its force field fighting snakes.
Giga Bowser in Mario & Luigi Dream Team was my first Colossal Boss and I will never forget it. So difficult yet so friggin fun.
I absolutely love the end boss fight in doom eternal against the icon of sin. Not only do are you chipping away at the armor and the flesh, you have to take cover from its stage wide attacks and re-up on ammo, health and armor from the smaller enemies that spawn, giving a small twist on the game loop you grow to learn throughout the game. Such a fun boss fight to play over and over again.
It is a VERY good boss fight.
I do wish that Megaleg got a bit more attention than its cameo in the intro. Super Mario Galaxy got to play around a lot with its bosses, since the compact level design taught you the traversal/combat mechanic in the same galaxy that you encounter the boss in. Megaleg wasn't ever going to be the hardest boss to beat, but it was a really nice platforming challenge and cemented Galaxy's theme of turning a boss's attack against them.
Odyssey mostly abandoned the concept, to my dismay, but the RoboBrood in Bowser's Kingdom does act as a welcome outlier. It mixes bullet hell with the cool Pokio fling mechanic the Kingdom's been teaching you, in a way that really allows for Odyssey's hectic momentum style of gameplay to shine.
Doom Eternal's Icon of Sin comes to mind. In an intense FPS game that functions very fluidly about dealing with enemies efficiently and managing resources for each. He comes across like the stage hazard, but has a large number of mobs around to doing the games basic combat dance so that you never run out of ammo and can keep up the fight.
I think he's probably well done for the FPS gameplay, but doesn't feel like you're fighting him as much as you should.
It was designed to be more of a demo for the destructible demons than anything else. Apparently the Cyberdemon from 2016 is really good, and the original Icon of Sin fight was apparently great, for it's time.
Another fps colossal boss is the corpse of king minos from Ultrakill. He moves fairly slow, but hits hrard with his fists (which can be parried), shoots projectiles, and drops blackholes that follow you. The atmosphere's also great, and the claustrophobic room forces you to move well and parry.
The Icon of Sinâs attacks were one of the few details I really loved about the fight. He wasnât just going âokay Iâm gonna hit right here you better get out of the way before I attack,â no he is *aiming* for you and every attack is meant to hit you. Every punch, every laser, every flame was aimed at the player. Which I feel makes the fight more personal, and makes me enjoy it a lot.
Also The Spider Mastermind from DOOM 2016, it was a "shoot it until it dies" with some nice special attacks, but nothing too special.
@@CesarGameBoy. at that, it seems as if it's slow, lumbering, and powerful at first, until it suddenly hammer-fists at you and swings it nearly as fast as a human being would, it really puts into perspective the fact that it's not big and dumb. It's dangerous, it's freakishly fast for something so big, and it's _intelligent_
Ultrakill's newest colossal boss is definitely the best.
Aside from its hand, the first one is rather standard: It shows up, you fight it in a small arena, you kill it, on to Gluttony you go.
The second one is way more interesting; you aren't bound to the arena and can even jump onto its head and damage its heart to do extra damage.
But the newest one... You're killing it from inside while it fights an eternal duel against an enemy.
This truly is the only way it should have ended.
broforce is a game i havent heard much people discuss, yet every single one of its boss battles feels epic and climatic. highly recommend it.
Monster Hunter is automatically the game that sticks out to me as that boss battle game. The series has a few supersized fights like Lao Shan Lung or Zorah Magdoros, where your thrown into the arena, given all of these fixed weapons and are told âsee that? Kill itâ
Other fights like Fatalis are less shocking in terms of size, but your fighting a giant dragon in which every other life form in this game lore fears, literally the beast that razed a kingdom in a single night. Fighting something like that with a giant sword is just downright breathtaking
Fatalis in World was one of the best (if not the best) large boss fights iv encountered in any game. I have not played the older MH entries.
@@yuomovaeh3028 tbh it's good that you haven't met Fatalis in the older games. He's a genuinely pretty awful fight, just a living, breathing wonky hitbox with sluggish movements and jank attacks. You're really not missing out on much, World Fatalis is an excellent boss.
@@Slaking_ same with world alatreon
@@tacticalpacklimbo129 Alatreon in the old games was actually good, Iceborne Alatreon is good but the elemental DPS Check and the Escaton Judgement was unneccesary and bad.
Ngl without context or mentioning monster hunter just saying fighting giant monster with a giant sword makes me think of berserk.
One of my favourite colossal bosses has to be the NILS Statue at the end of the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion. As easy as the fight is, taking elements from the multiplayer such as the need to cover lots of turf in ink and integrating it into a proper fight is so cool to me.
I liked dj Octavio from splatoon 1 putting you through everything from the single player campaign in a constantly moving environment that isnât just a giant circle
Aside from a very well made and informative video, youâve also helped me remember the name of one the most memorable colossal boss games Iâve ever seen- Solar Ash! Iâve spent over 2 months trying to remember what it was called after seeing it over a year ago, thank you so much for letting me find it again
Even though Moon Lord from Terraria is hardly in a "colossal" scale, I think he's a pretty good example that "bigger" does not always equate to "better".
If we count mods, calamity has much of that, for example, de DoG
I've always been a little opposed to the calamity mod and other mods along those lines because of exactly that reason. Moon Lord is the final boss. Supreme Calamatis just feels like a bad edgy boss, especially with the quotes she says in the game's chat. If you were to ask my opinion on the calamity mod, I'd tell you that it shouldn't be a mod. Calamity should just be its own thing. I think it's pretty awesome but it doesn't fit into vanilla Terraria that great. The minute of waiting for the Moon Lord to show up is one of my favorite parts of the whole of Moon Lord. Most of the time, you're just standing there, just before the climax of the game where you're left in silence, but at the same time, it's so loud. It really leaves such a noticeable imprint on the boss saying "This is really it." What a joy the boss is too.
"I'm counting two scarabs! I repeat, TWO SCARABS!!"
You can't forget about the scarabs in Halo 3. They are some of the best giant boss fights in gaming, and definitely the best in the otherwise somewhat big-bossfight-sparse FPS genre.
Its funny that there are so few examples of colossal bosses in FPS games considering they don't run into the problem of unwieldy combat and as long as the arena is well designed, camera issues shouldn't be much of an issue either. Bungie has continued having some pretty big bosses (maybe not quite colossal bosses) in Destiny 1 and 2, some of which have been very good, especially raid bosses. GTFO is also an FPS game with a very cool colossal boss. GTFO is definitely a more niche game, but is fun nonetheless.
@@jellyismyjam7864 yeah, I think that one of the main reasons most FPS games don't do flying vehicles and other targets as well as collosal boss fights while Halo does and pulls it off is in part due to a quirk of the Halo targeting reticle. The reticle in Halo is slightly lower than vertical center, meaning of you drew a line across the screen halfway up your TV, that line will be above your reticule rather than cutting the reticle in half. The reason they did this since Halo 1 was because they wanted to make you look slightly up to aim straight ahead, causing you to get a psychological sense of grandeur in the Forerunner structures. This also means that more of your screen is looking at the sky, opening up the opportunity for flying and massive targets. Most FPS games put the reticle in the center, including newer Halo games made by 343 Industries instead of the OG Bungie, so they don't get this opportunity like Halo does, especially Halo 3.
As another bonus to this off-center reticle style, the ammo, shields, and grenade count at the top of the screen don't block so much of your view. Most FPS games have a lot of wasted screen space looking at the floor, but by bringing the reticle down and thus the screen up the empty space is put into the sky where most games would place their HUD elements anyway. This clears them out of the way a by almost the full height of those same HUD elements.
So many tiny innovations on the FPS genre were made in Halo that most people don't even know about because the rest of the FPS genre didn't get the memo and just kept making games that really could be that much better if they paid attention instead. It's a loss for gamers everywhere, honestly, as even games like The Elder Scrolls could benefit from this reticle design trick.
@@Will_Forge Very interesting, I was unaware of that. There are also other examples of psychological tricks to draw attention without that specific reticle trick. I believe Half-Life's wires are a popular example.
@@Will_Forge There's an indie game called 'Roboquest' which gives the option of having the reticle not in the middle of the screen, I didn't think of why it would be impactful though!
I always fight those things with a Ghost if I can get one. Brilliant bosses, always loving the feel of tiny man in robot suit with access to many weapons and vehicles vs huge alien robot capable of squashing you and marinating you with your own blood.
While they technically aren't "bosses", they Thunderjaw and Stormbird are great examples of how to build a fun, dynamic battle against a giant enemy. They both have different attacks that can be disabled by destroying certain parts, armor that can be torn off to create weak points, and the Thunderjaw can even have one of its weapons blown off and used by the player. They are really fun to fight, since they can go from a long, epic battle when you first fight one, to a quick, do or die sprint when you learn how to quickly and efficiently tear them apart.
What game is this? It sounds Monster Huntery
@@TheRealErurainon horizon zero dawn
I always despised those guys... Probably because I just suck at Horizon lmao
Stormbirds fucking suck.
@@AlfonsoSRT Agreed, stormbirds never got easy for me lol
One of my favorite "Giant Boss Fights" is Malladus. It's nothing special, but the gimmicks it uses with Zelda and the amazing song to back it up makes it so memorable for me especially when playing that final Spirit Flute song
omg i agree!! such a great battle
Something about Zelda's POV made him look more intimidating.
The spectacle of colossal bosses never ceases to amaze me it gives you the feeling of dread and awesomeness at the same time it amazing
When it comes to Monster Hunters spectacle hunts in my opinion Dalamader is the gold standard. You have this giant snake coiled around a mountain and is never quite fully in frame. You must climb the terrain and it to hit weak points and break parts as it destroys parts of the stage and is actively attacking you. Honestly most of the other monsters of that scale just feels like you are fighting an actual mountain or boat.
Dalamadur is phenomenal. Attacking its claws while they swipe you or its head shoots giant fireballs, and attacking its tail just hanging off the edge of a mountain, ready to turn and come barreling at you any time with a size and speed that makes it seem like a small building is being swung at you. Whatever hitbox you target, you still feel the pressure of the rest of its body on the other side of the map, feeling its giant size and making you wonder how much damage youâre even dealing to it.
And then thereâs the meteors and wave motion breath attack. Really feels like youâre fighting a terrestrial deity.
When it finally snakes around the mountain so you can climb on its back and attack its head, stunning it as it collapses on the ground in whatâs the only situation where it actually appears vulnerableâŠthrilling as hell.
I really like how Dragon's Dogma handles big monsters. You can use magic or enchanted weapons they're weak to to stun them, attack or break certain parts of their bodies to knock them down or limit their offensive options, and climb on to them to make it more difficult for them to move or hit their weak points directly.
This.
I always lament that the industry largely ignored Dragon's Dogma's lessons in handling giant monsters. Hacking away at ankles isn't particularly interesting, and being able to systematically break down the boss, climb onto them to reach certain weak points or provok certain actions you can exploit, made large monsters more engaging than usual.
Pretty much the only good Big boss battle that actually feels and looks good to me.
It's an absolute shame Dragon's Dogma didn't make it into this video. It could easily have been the entire "how to do it right" section. Hard to blame him though, considering how little attention the game got in general. That's another shame in its own right.
@@RicochetForce Not to mention if you wanted to you could gain access to magic that felt proper for the scale as well. Finding the safe spot to charge your magic before hurling huge pillars of ice into a titanic monster and watch its health bar drop appropriately to the huge display was amazing.
I love when games have you on equal scale with a giant boss, whether that be from your character naturally being giant or some means to grow to their size. It's fun to get some Kaiju vs Kaiju action in to mix things up.
Youâd love Gigabash and Dawn of the Monsters
I love how ori does giant bosses as escape sequences, sometimes with a short fight before or after. For example the Foul Pressence, Kwolok, and Sand Worm. Kwolok, The Howler, and The Shrieker are amazing examples of the actual boss portion of the fights, all displaying different types of fights. Kwolok is just a big hit box that can take alot of damage, but can deal out alot aswell. The Howler is a great first boss, introducing the combat system, you have to keep hitting him back to stop you from getting cornered and attacked. The Shrieker is an amazing boss from being to end. This is an example of a boss that's on the same plane as you, and one that is in the background. First phase is a standard, but fun, just hit them whenever you're able section. Second phase is an escape, running across a decaying, and broken spirit willow, through logs, and across long gaps. Phase 3 is a much harder version of the first phase. Phase 4 is the same as phase 3, but Shriek slowly destroys the platforms, and causes an endless rain of fireballs. Phase 5 the floor is just gone, and you have to bash off the fireballs to stay in the air, while dealing damage to the boss. So for example you might launch yourself downward so the fireball goes flying at Shriek, then immediately catch yourself and use your bash, launch, and glide to stay in the air long enough to bash off another fireball. It's overall an amazing series, and I highly recommend playing it, especially the 2nd one.
I wanted to mention Ori too! I think they did a really good job with big bosses. The last phase of Shriek fight is so unique and unforgettable
I really like the Jhen Mohran fight in Monster Hunter. Been a while since I fought one, but I remember it being a really fun collosal fight that does both the mounting combat and normal combat really well.
Was hoping to see s1 mention it
It was by far one of the best sieges in the series!
Still one of many magic Moments of tri
Dalamadur though. Now THAT is a colossal boss
Hang on, I thought it was illegal to mention Monster Hunter games that came before world.
Dr. Edgar Zomboss battle from pvz 1 is one of my favorites
It doesn't require any gameplay changes, only adds to the mechanics with it unique behaviors like the snowball or fireball, bungee zombie yoyos, and the *van*
And it get pretty satisfying when you clear out all the normal zombies before the boss comes down and be able to be damages, as all your plants are now targeting him instead of other zombies, granting massive damage.
Ikr! That fight was such a satisfying ending to the somewhat repetitive rest of the game
I got to say, this is your first video that I'm about to watch but I've already subscribed. Just by the thumbnail art and judging the topics you talk about from the titles of your other videos, I got to say you already resonate strongly with me. Glad to see this channel in my feed!
Figthing the Profound Darkness in PSO2 is one of my favorite experiences ever, you have this ginormous monster made of pure evil trying to escape a hole and you try to push it back by attacking its arms and the tendrils it uses as support all the while an incredible soundtrack plays in the background
I'll never forget it
I love how often you find a reason to bring up CrossCode. That game is criminally underrated.
I honestly didn't like CC due to its "platforming", but I do see why it is a good game in its other aspects.
NieR: Automata 's Engels is one of my Favourite, it is the very first boss where you first fight its arm, then after investigating the area, turns out the entirety of that area is the boss that you have to fight. You also don't always fight it normally mechanic wise, because before getting the "power up", you basically tickling them and only after 9S got beaten, you will fight it on "equal" ground using flight unit and gameplay that resembles Shoot 'em ups. This phase your damage increased significantly, the climax of the fight is you beat it by slashing it using its own hand (getting MGR vibe here) where you just need to tap button for finisher and they do humongous amount of damage. After beating it, they fall into despair when it turns out there are more of those big damn boss as the fight with even iust one of them is far from easy.
Nier Automata's Engel boss fight did a perfect demonstration of what should have happened when you fight collosal boss when the game isn't designed for or based on that.
1. Give your charcter one-off powerup exclusive to beat this boss.
2. Do ocassional QTE to show off that they are not just big sizes but also a big threat.
3. Do variety of damage from hitting different kind of place, can be masked via moving into other phase where you now hit different part of the boss because honestly nothing is sillier than hitting the boss in the leg for extended amount of time and it die.
Yes the flow between the different game mechanics really shines in this fight
Loved the boss fights here. It also gives you a sense of achievement when you fight another one a little further in and actually harm it. And, spoilers in case, you actually get to use one to fight an endless wave of machines, then facing off against another engels in a goddamn robot punchout.
On the opposing side of the spectrum, GrĂŒn is a bad colossal boss fight and I dread having to fight it each time I replay Automata. It's got the same issue as Adamantoise from FFXV where it just feels like you're just pumping bullets into a slowly moving wall
@@celeste1823 i agree, not to mention more than half the battle sees you circling the thing instead of actually fighting it alongside being a long, tedious, and annoying fight.
@@celeste1823 I don't disagree, but it was epic enough that I liked it anyway.
Iâve been watching a lot of writing and drawing tip videos and this one popped in my recommended. I thought it was gonna be about creating a big boss in a story or designing one, but this video was pretty good too. It gave me ideas of how my hero should slay the final boss in my story. This was interesting to watch đ
I love your content, Design Doc! I'm just a little nurse who loves to develop and world build in her free time but your videos always hit the interesting I've got nobody to talk about to and the examples you show are definitely inspiring! Thank you so much for making these â„ïž
FFXV's Leviathan fight is one of the most intense moments I've ever enjoyed in a game. Flawed as it was, flying over the ruined city and confronting a summon was pretty epic.
That game deserved so much more love than it got. I know, it wasnât the best developed, but it had so much potential. I almost tear up every time I hear âyou guyâs are the bestâŠâ
And Apocalypsis Aquarius is one of my favorite songs ever.
Now that you mention it, in a vacuum, that fight is pretty stunning. Unfortunately, it's ruined by how awful the rest of the game is. I forget it's even a fight half the time because I like to forget about XV
Jhen/Dahâren Mohran, Dalamadur, and sometimes even Lao-Shan Lung are some of my favorite battle experiences in monster hunter. Jhen Mohran and Dahâren Mohran especially, thereâs something very exhilarating about primarily using the artillery on your sand ship to combat this enormous desert whale rather than your trusty weapon for the majority of the battle, especially when you have friends to divvy up the responsibilities with.
Shara and Safi are my favorite, was about to add Alatreon but I'm not sure if he still counts as "Big" boss
Never got to face the Morhans or Dalamadur yet , I'm a Fifth Fleeter myself, tho I have fought Lao Shan Lung and he was pretty damn fun for me too
I know it's hated by a lot of people, but i loved the underwater fights with Ceadeus
Ceadus is and some of the larger winged wyverns are also great bosses!
@@natas5022A rather large portion of MH players, myself included would like to see underwater fights come back, with adjustments of course, because it was just so cool.
@@natas5022 I hold the big blighter in a pretty high regard myself
Thanks for mentionning Cross Code. The boss fights were indeed pretty well designed and the game has a good number of giant bosses. Excellent game !
one of the most memorable colossal bosses i've fought was definitely Riven. by far she's the biggest final boss in the destiny franchise. dropping into her chamber for the first time and seeing her dragon/whale/octopus body twisted around that central pillar was unforgettable, and at the end of such a great raid too. her mechanics are challenging, involving a lot of communication between shooting her mouth, tentacles, and the correct eyes, until she initiates her final stand and you output all the damage you can muster straight into her mouth and heart.
I feel Kid Icarus: Uprising works its mechanics into colossal bosses excellently when it has them, like Giant Reaper, Medusa, and Hades, especially with the weak-point system and the different weapons and powers you can choose. Hewdraw and Twinbellows feel like colossal foes too!
Yes! I especially loved the final battle with hades as you try to charge your laser. It was an amazing game
But its also 3 different types of games run in sequences. Opening phase is a Railshooter, Second phase is a more typical platformer beat-em-up, and the Boss fight tailors itself to whatever they want to do with it. Its seriously underrated how that game managed to function as good as it did, as so many things could had gone wrong with just the control scheme (DS Stylus) on its own.
In fact, the whole game itself is a fantastic case study into a sheer mountain of highly valuable discussions, that translate well into the current state of games being released. Including, but not limited to:
- How the original's lack of genre defining characteristics allowed Sakurai to reinvent it any way he wanted.
- How they crafted a bunch of lore and characters that all felt like they've always been that way; and how they worked that into both the story and mid-game dialog without being as huge a distraction as it ran the risk of.
- Merging up and shuffling 3 radically different genres under a common control scheme, along with how the camera setup (while far from perfect) managed to do a job well when it should had been a total disaster.
- And it did one of those genres to peak performance without skipping a beat.
- How the year before there was a Yarr's Revenge remake into the same kind of rail shumps, and did everything wrong that Uprising did right.
-Hynden Walch is my spirit animal
- The whole voice cast and character writing is absolutely on point.
- Pulled the most successful plot twist in recent Nintendo history... Twice....
- Executed some of the dumbest tropes in game writing, and flipped them into a good/fun thing
- How the gang of composers took like 6 theme songs, and turned it into 3 and a half hours of some of THE best music in the Nintendo catalog.
- Is now the second most well known and most played Smash line up where you probably never played (or possibly knew) the game they came from. (Mr Game and Watch still being the champ).
- Even the side activities meshed well with the game, even if it wasn't a core part of it.
- Did I mention the soundtrack? Because its important to mention the sound track.
Uprising seriously is like, a perfect game
Probably one of the most underrated nintendo gems out there sitting under everyone's nose. How that game failed to create its own on going series using that specific format? Absolutely beyond me.
You showed it for a moment but Quadraxis from Metroid Prime 2 is one of my favorite boss fights in a video game. That thing is intimidating, makes you use almost ALL of your abilities - Beams, Super Missiles, Visors, and even the different Morph Ball abilities like Boost, Spider and Bombs and the music is perfect. It's not painfully slow either, you don't have to wait for more than 5-10 seconds to damage it and the difficulty might seem hard which it should for such a late game boss, but also can be made work of easily when you know what you are doing.
Quadraxis was the best boss in that game. And Prime 2 had the best bosses in the series to me.
@@Brandonious15987 I agree, Prime 2 has some fantastic bosses.
It's personally my favorite game in the series.
@@ExtremeAce My Favorite is still Prime 3. It has my favorite environments.
Same here. The final phase even makes the bossâs body a mechanic you need to use to defeat the boss.
kept waiting for you to bring up Solar Ash - glad it was not left out, it's a nice platforming twist on the classic trope of a bombastic fight
Been working on a FPS about fighting 6 giant bosses. These tips help me out. Thanks!
The Mario series is incredibly good at giant bosses. Bowserâs Inside Story and Dream Team have the best giant bosses Iâve ever seen.
I think itâs a double edged sword. They love using gimmicks for these fights and when they do work - like the two games you mentioned - theyâre magical (specially that final one on Dream Team - such a great throwback to the previous title). However when the gimmick doesnât land it deflates the whole experience - like the papercraft battles in Paper Jam or the giant Bowser in Galaxy 2, that felt more like a minigame dressed up as a boss
The only downside i can think of is that in the original release of inside story you had to use the microphone for the fire attack
@@History507 My lungs still havenât recovered from the Fawful Express
I think Midir is my favorite example of a colossal boss fight in the souls series. Most colossal bosses in those games boil down to either being gimmick fights or ankle biting simulators. In fact, the first colossal boss in that series is literally that. And itâs one of the better ones. But Midir is different. Rather than standing tall with only his limbs available to hit, he is typically crouched low to the ground, with his head facing towards you like a prowling lion. The game very clearly wants you to hit his head: head hits do so much more damage than leg hits, and he uses his most devastating moves when youâre not right in front of him. By contrast, his more manageable and easy to dodge moves are used when youâre right in front of him. Since most souls players are used to attacking the legs when fighting bosses like Midir, he got a bad rap early on by players who werenât fighting him in the way that he was supposed to be fought. My only criticisms are that sometimes the windows of time available to attack him are a little too short when youâre using big weapons, and the camera can also be pretty annoying at times. But it isnât anything like Amygdala, Loran Darkbeast, or Bloodletting beast. Plus, I think it helps to sell the absolute magnitude of the foe youâre up against.
Midir is almost perfect, but his huge healthpool, high damage output and lack of attack openings make him frustrating and even a bit boring at times, mostly thanks to his lack of variety between his two phases. This boss would be perfect if he had less health, or took more damage to the head, or if he had some more differences between phases. I mean, I had way more fun with Friede and Gael because they both have 3 phases, each with their own twists.
I love midir, I only wish he had more branching movesets (ala sekiro) and less drawn out moves that become memorized and routine very fast
Midir is still a lackluster fight just because it sidesteps a few of the souls games core difficulty rules by having way too much health, having attack windows being too short, and doing too much damage.
In that sense, Black Dragon Kalameet is much better, except for not being as large or imposing.
@@necromax13 eh I donât really care about too much damage and health when his attacks are mostly pretty easy to dodge. The tiny attack windows are pain in the ass though
@@necromax13 I think his hp is fine since you arent fighting a human, but a giant dragon thats a descendant of archdragons. Attack windows big enough to get 2/3 hits in wich is like most bosses in ds and his attacks are really well designed and fair
Great, now i want to fight Ahtal-ka. Having a big monster , that can simply assemble a collossal metal-dragon-puppet-thing and controll it really was a surprise the first time and definetly a fun fight. Also a befitting end of mh classic as it combined your average big monster with their colossal bosses in the same fight.
Quadraxis from Metroid Prime 2 is my personal favorite colossal boss (outside of pretty much the entirety of Shadow of the Colossus), as it nails pretty much every aspect of what you talked about here; it has an amazing sense of scope while giving the player plenty of room to maneuver and avoid attacks, and with a litany of abilities and three completely separate phases utilizing almost every ability Samus has in her arsenal, it makes for a fantastic boss fight!
As a kaiju fan, I've always loved the idea of colossal bosses. Kind of like how some monster hunter games do, i like the idea of having to fight these enemies via other methods involving either other supporting characters' assistance, the use of turrets and other environmental weapons/tools, or setting up traps or hazards in the creature's path. This has always been my favorite approach as it truly gives you a sense of scale as you can't just kill this thing with regular means by slashing it with your sword or something.
I like how dangerous most elder dragons can be. Even weaker elder dragons inherently destroy the local ecosystem. Mh is pretty good at showing the affects of monsters in the world of mh.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story solves this by making Bowser even bigger than the colossal bosses through plot shenanigans. It's really fun to lay waste to things several times your usual size, even if the controls are finnicky.
I feel like the Borderlands series nails the giant bosses perfectly. Crawmerax The Invincible for example. You take a HUGE elevator up to this enormous arena, and there in the center is a colossal Crab Worm. Unfun as that fight is, the framing is perfect. It focuses you on exactly what you should be looking at, the giant purple crustacean in the field of grey. Even more examples from Borderlands include Graveward from 3, you slide down into the arena and he pops up and you get a sense of his scale despite half of his body being outside or the arena, The Destroyer from Borderlands 1, you don't see that much of it, but what is there is large enough to show that it's a biiiiiig beast. The Sentinel from the Presequel.... Much as I hate Borderlands TPS, the end boss is well done, the way that you have to look up the whole fight, theway you're walking around him the whole time to avoid the hazards....
Another example I wanna point out is form a game I have yet to play, but the first boss of Hi-fi Rush, big robot dude on a ring around the edge of the arena. What a spectacular first boss, gives you a good idea of just how awesome the game is gonna be! I can't prove that it's awesome yet though...
You have no idea how happy it makes me to see Solar Ash in here! It's one of my all time favorite games, and as soon as I saw this video, I thought of Solar Ash, and was thinking the whole time that after watching it I should comment about Solar Ash. And then it actually showed up!!!
Yoshi's Island has some of my favorite boss fights in games. Most of them share weaknesses with their smaller, more common counterparts, but have some twist to test your skills (Burt the Bashful flies higher than normal Burts, Sluggy the Unshaven requires multiple precise, consecutive hits compared to 1-hit Sluggies) or subvert the usual mechanics (Jumping on Hookbill lets you bounce or get eggs instead of launching him from his shell like normal koopas, and Raphael the Raven's planet pulls you into its gravity).
Don't forget baby GODZILLA himself!
I've always liked the giant battles in both Bowser inside story and Dream Team (Besides the Zeekeeper due to the motion controls, and a bit of the giant browser fight as well for the same reason.)
Monster Hunterâs final bosses are super good. A challenge with many hunts is the ability to hit a particular part of the monster. The final bosses on the other hand often boil down to -dodge big attacks, go in for big damage-
XenoâJiva would like to know your location
The part of the video where you talked about combining methods of designing giant enemy battles unlocked a memory of watching my little brother play Halo, & the awe of realizing you can go INSIDE the Scarab! Epic moment, lol!
I absolutely love the finally boss fight of Kid Icarus Uprising. It has a couple large boss fights but the final one uses completely new mechanics that really helped make the end so satisfying.
one thing comes in mind.
RULES OF NATURE!!!
AND THEY RUN WHEN THE SUN COMES UP
WITH THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE!!!
My personal favorite type of Colossal boss fight is a battle like Evilized Kaos in Skylanders Swap Force you have multiple parts of the battle with each phase having you fight a different part of Kaos an example of what those phases could be could be something like 1. Fighting the hands. 2. Fighting the feet. 3. Fighting the head. And 4. Fighting the brain.
I always appreciated that Sonic Generations' Perfect Chaos fight is more like another level than it is a pure boss fight, which allows it to seamlessly integrate into the standard gameplay while still feeling like a boss fight. I hope Sonic does more boss fights like that in the future, they're really fun!
Before watching this, there's some common problems I have with giant bosses.
They're either mostly immobile or are covered in weak spots. You're not fighting an enemy, you're punching a target with turrets on the walls, and somehow destroying that one target on the giant's shoulder is enough to fell the entire beast.
Ya itâs always hard for me to believe the giant is taken down with a bunch of paper cuts on its giant eyeball, but itâs still fun usually.
@@spencercase5370 A challenge? Sure, but it takes me out of immersion.
yea I was hoping that problem would be talked about in the video!
like: Oh, I hit a giant with my sword, which is like a toothpick for that boss, and I hit his toe perfectly 5 times - the giant is dead now. What ??
Then there's MGR where it did very good job with giant bosses, just split it wide open. Begin with their limbs, machine guns, rockets, and maybe their arm that has giant high frequency blade so you can use it to finish them off.
The problem with that comes from the requiring of molding the story around the giant boss. If you don't do the legwork of preparing the story to give you the tools needed (either from support, or abilities, or some temporary powerup), then the only way to make fighting a giant boss possible is to dumb it down so that it doesn't use ANY of the advantages being big gives it. If they actually used their size to the fullest, the standard hero would just get swatted like the annoying fly they are.
Morpheel from LoZ: TP is a great example of an intimidating colossal boss with a terrifying and suspenseful build up as you sink to the bottom, only to have little challenge and for that fear to fade away before i even get a chance to strike its weak point
I agree! Also the great adaptive soundtrack every time your time to hit comes, really one of my favorites x3
9:06 bro just suplexed a train
Discussion of _Streets of Rage 4_ very succinctly summarises all the problems I have with Marie in _Skullgirls_
Up until you fight her, the game has been teaching you to play a certain way, but that all goes out the window with a character that can't be comboed
When done right, colossal bosses can be the absolute highlight of a game. Two really good examples are the Dah'ren and Jhen Mohrans from Monster Hunter and Zu Pharg from Xenoblade Chronicles X.
The Mohran isn't the hardest thing in the world but it's incredibly memorable in how you go about fighting it. You start of chasing it in a ship, using the ship's artillery and dragonators to weaken it whilst climbing onto it when it gets close. That's already a strong start, but there's something about the second phase that ticks all the boxes for me. Your on a race against time to stop the Mohran from destroying the ship, so you charge at this hulking goliath and throw absolutely everything you can at it, climbing all over its body and removing its horns. I love the way it starts as well - it feels like a true standoff.
The Zu Pharg might be my favourite non final boss ever conceived. You've just been given the ability to fly in your mechs, and now your faced with an enormous flying aircraft that transforms into a colossal five legged skell. It isn't the most complex fight ever, but its beyond satisfying to fly around the behemoth, destroying parts of its body as it rampages across the entire continent of Sylvalum whilst launching fleets of smaller skells at you. I love that it's one of two fights in the game not locked to a certain arena and is fought throughout an entire major region, and coupled with the epicness of NoEx01 blaring in the background makes it an insanely memorable fight.
When the size of enemies signaling strength was brought up I was expecting Xenoblade Chronicles X to show up. That game is littered with giant enemies, the size of the enemy dictates the difficulty individually of level. And the fact that the same applies to the player is very cool. You can fight a giant boss in your giant robot, or you can fight it on foot. Then just to top things off, every individual enemy has various targetable limbs that can be broken, giving the fights a sense of focus even with the camera having trouble keeping some enemies on screen.
Zhu Pharg. 'Nuff said.
I think one of my favourite Giant Bosses falls under the Living Level type(that might also just be my favourite) is from Gears and it's the Worm you traverse the insides of using the Lancer to cut the hearts out
One of the best I've experienced was in Transformers War for Cybertron. On the Autobot campaign you wind up fighting Trypticon over like 2-3 stages where he's in his various massive forms and they did a really good job making the fight flow well with interesting mechanics.
The Minish Cap bosses have fun manipulation mechanics with the items
The Scarab fights in Halo 3 are an interesting example, especially the first one on the mission The Storm. You've got a massive 4 legged mech driven by its own AI, not on a scripted path, and the only way to destroy it is to do enough damage to the core inside the aft of the mech. The core is nearly impossible to shoot when outside the Scarab, but there are several options on how to get at it. You can damage any of the four legs to cause it to enter a 30 second repair cycle where it kneels down, allowing you to board. There are also hatches on the side that can be blasted open to create alternate paths in. You can try to ramp a vehicle onto it by luring it close to a ramp, or use a deployable gravity lift to get on board, or even try to jump from a nearby crane if it gets close enough. The back portion of the Scarab can also be shot off with heavy damage, exposing the core much more from the outside. There are anti-vehicle turrets you can use nearby but as they are immobile you make yourself a big target for the Scarab's main guns. Even if you get on board there is a whole crew of lesser enemies stationed on board. Ultimately it doesn't take more than a few grenades to destroy the core itself, but how you go about doing that is a whole adventure that can play out so many different ways.
My favorite way was to hijack an aircraft and bail out onto its back.
Even if they were fairly easy, it makes perfect sense that they're fairly easy. A Scarab is a modified mining platform, and even if its been modified for combat it still mostly just excels at destroying whatever large thing happens to be in front of it. Hence, they're best at breaking fortifications but require support for general combat. And in all 3 of the fights in Halo 3, they are both lacking sufficient support and not being used for their intended purpose.
One of the best that I can think of is the classic Lao Shan Lung from Monster Hunter. Early on (and maybe later unless you have good gear) it feels like a walking mountain and every time you hit it, it feels like you're chipping away at a mountain with a pocket knife. Eventually it leaves because you annoy it enough or kill it which is different from most of the other "relatively" sized monster (most of which fight you to the death rather than run away or leave because they're bored of you).