What Makes A Terrible Gimmick Boss?

Go to mondly.app/des... to get 96% off of lifetime access to 41 languages and start learning today!
Everyone loves a good boss fight gimmick. Not all games are so lucky, though. Terrible boss gimmicks can bring a game to a screeching halt. No two are designed the same, but when a boss gimmick falls flat, it often falls into one of a few categories. Let's go through some of them and look out for some of the game design pitfalls to avoid.
Featuring:
Super Mario Sunshine
Crash Bandicoot 2
Trauma Center
Dark Souls
Megaman 2
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams
Neon White
🎧 Patrons get ad-free episodes early, plus access to our behind-the-scenes podcast.
📢 Support Design Doc on Patreon: / designdoc
👕 Check out our merch store! crowdmade.com/...
Design Doc on Twitter: / warbot400
#crashbandicoot #supermariosunshine #darksouls

[@DesignDoc]

Go to mondly.app/designdoc to get 96% off of lifetime access to 41 languages and start learning today

[@404Errored]

Mmmmmmmm...no.

[@crashveretia8046]

aw hell naw (enjoy the money tho)

[@Akuretaki_Nikolay]

i know them all already

[@misirtere9836]

Pearson are really telling on themselves by allowing a 96% off sale. That's the kind of discount you only give to an ancient product you're trying to eke out one last bit of income from. Well, that or it was comically overpriced to begin with, as is the Pearson specialty.

[@LikeaMinecraftCat]

Scam

[@invisi-bullexploration2374]

Probably one of the most common mechanics for me. *Boss spends large portions of the phase flying or being out of reach.* *Boss flips over on the ground after being struck but sustains no damage. Player now must button mash the 'exposed weak point' given enough time to land two or three hits.* *Boss flips back over.* *Boss spends large portions of the phase flying or being out of reach.* Congratulations, developers! You just took all the fun of doing my taxes and made it into a boss.

[@kevingriffith6011]

The worst part is that you just described my favorite gimmick boss from Kirby Super Star. Computer Virus is 100% just waiting your turn, but dammit the gimmick is so cute I just can't help but forgive it.

[@samuelgarza2466]

From what I've read, I think you really REALLY hate Pyribbit. This perfectly describes the frustration of fighting him in the Kirby Clash games.

[@RoboSpaceJesus]

Basically every littlebigplanet boss

[@saparapatepete]

@@kevingriffith6011 I think Computer virus works because they play it for comedy by switching the music and committing to the bit by adding rpg battle text. Also, the time to hit the enemies is reasonably long so it doesn't get too slow and it's possible to dodge if the player is skilled, keeping the action despite the turn based gimmick. Also, the fact that the phases come from different monsters, each with a different moveset keeps things fresh during the combat. I think in a way, Kirby Super star managed to give the feel of an rpg battle without breaking the core mechanics by giving the boss a time based invincibility but also a time based vulnerability with roughly the same length, so it keeps feeling fair.

[@rahvithecolorful]

That's the kind of enemy fight I dislike the most. Just long ass stretches of dodging the same handful of attacks while waiting for the boss to do the one thing you need it to do so you can damage it. And it's even worse if getting it right requires you to be in the right position and is relatively easy to miss, so then you have to do it all over again to just have a chance of damaging the boss a bit.

[@michaelgum97]

7:08 I have to point out that Cortex had a laser gun in the original version of the game that he never once use.

[@PlebNC]

He uses it in Crash 1 and 3's fights and in 2 is more preoccupied with fleeing.

[@naramoro]

Yeah this fight got obviously reworked last second

[@michaelgum97]

@@PlebNC I specifically talking about the one he showed in the video, knowing it now somehow makes this "battle" even more pathetic.

[@LooseAsADEUCE]

I'm just glad they learned their lesson with the Crash 3 fight. That was prob my favorite Cortex fight.

[@samhein321]

they should of added stuff to that fight... why remake a game and not fix any of the issues? defeats the whole point

[@grfrjiglstan]

I really hate when turn-based JRPGs slap a big real-time timer on the top of the screen and say “get moving, people, this place charges by the hour!” If you want me to beat the boss strategically and intelligently, give me a turn limit. If you just want me to spam Zettaflare, by all means use a timer.

[@dzarthedemon4855]

Okumura from Persona 5 my behated

[@rayyansarkar198]

​@@dzarthedemon4855 Same

[@Crocogator]

the timers arent even all THAT bad themselves. It's especially egregious in FF7, 8 and 9 though, where the time ticks down even while in the menu and during battle transitions.

[@dondashall]

@@Crocogator But are you ever in any real danger of failing the timer though?

[@andrewhubbard4043]

​@@dzarthedemon4855 okumura was literally the first thing I thought of when I heard "bad gimmick boss". Honestly though, the timer felt like a band-aid for another bad gimmick---the "kill them all in 2 turns" requirement. My conservative, keep-everybody-mostly-alive playstyle was incompatable with this requirement, and I usually spent 15-30 min against the highest managers until they missed enough I could go all-out offence. The (otherwise fairly generous) timer feels like it exists to keep that situation from being a true draw.

[@typemasters2871]

A good Gimmick Boss would be Mysterio from Spiderman 2 (2004), he has multiple encounters but his most rememberable would be where you face him face to face, multiple health bars start loading, only for all those health bars to deplete instantly the moment you land an attack

[@MagusDouken]

I call the last Mysterio a Comedic Reprieve. It throws you over the edge, you've already done a ton of tense fights beforehand, and he's ended on a comedic note with how overdramaticised is since he is the only boss to "try" multiple health bars, especially when you consider the circumstances of the encounter.

[@aaron-justinanderson]

Having played this when i was 9 years old , a lot of the game sort of disappears into the fog of childhood , BUT I always remember this boss , because i hit him with a charged uppercut and I thought the charged uppercut had 'knocked' his helmet off

[@canthomaru]

He doesn't have any attacks and is basically a target. I waited to see if he made any sort of attack or diversion. Nope, just stands there, menacingly.

[@christopherearth9714]

Mettaton NEO has the same gimmick. A threatening intro, blaring music, and 75,000 ATK, unfortunately compiled with it's -225 DEF. The royal scientist's greatest invention... and it folds to a branch you picked up 4 hours ago.

[@christopherearth9714]

​@@aaron-justinanderson Honestly? Kind of adorable.

[@Kouhiko9674]

This one boss I faced fired me for coming to work late. And I was never able to defeat him

[@nobodyinparticular9640]

Should've bought the Gun™️ DLC

[@LorenzoBorromeo-bb8ve]

@@nobodyinparticular9640opps, you forgot to download the pipebomb mod

[@Thepluhmaster]

Should've turned on the silly "I HAVE A BOMB" move. It has a 50 percent chance of going well and a 2000 percent chance of getting you sent to a funny little secret stage called prison.

[@One-j9f]

Been there its not as fun as some people make it out to be i think it needs more work on it ​@@Thepluhmaster

[@metarcee2483]

I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize that you need to throw Chile peppers at King Boo in Mario Sunshine.

[@bengarrett4984]

I'm not even ashamed to admit I struggled. That boss is completely obtuse.

[@youtube-kit9450]

Well, one of the worst things imo a game can be is obtuse. The player imo should never be in the position of "what the hell am I supposed to do???" Ofc aside from games where that's the point. But in a platformer like Mario sunshine, the question should be "how do I beat this platforming section" and not "there's a boss, how do I damage it. wtf."

[@The7thDraconian]

I figured out the peppers just fine, because they were a unique shape, but it took me a lot longer to figure out I had to throw fruit at him afterwards.

[@metarcee2483]

@@The7thDraconian yeah, I full on had to look that part up. The worst part that there's absolutely zero in-universe hints. Even the Yoshi pineapple level said something about the bathroom stall having water damage.

[@vargsvansify]

It’s a well known fact that ghosts are weak to spicy food. Or not.

[@3ftninja132]

Bed of Chaos reminds me of a Caddicarus quote regarding Crash 4 It's About Time. _"If you expect perfection from me then I expect perfect from you"._

[@krrrarbad5724]

(Insert caddy’s thumb being broken)

[@smolboiproductions2984]

​@@krrrarbad5724when did that get there...

[@asierx7047]

A good exception to "Don't use the gimmick boss as the final boss" is Giga Queen from Deltarune's second chapter. You've already fought her in a battle that plays like the previous chapter, so the Punch-out segment is nothing more than a cherry on top and a nice callback.

[@Iveraxi]

And plus, you just fought a normal battle with Queen, so you get a normal Deltarune boss as well

[@finaldusk1821]

It helps that the fight's mechanics are: 1) Very intuitive even if you've never played Punch-Out before. 2) Integrated with the game's standard combat mechanics, rather than excluding them. 3) Deltarune already set a precedent for playing loose with its rules, especially for zany characters like Queen, so it's not a total blindside.

[@Rogeryoo]

Not to mention, you were already forced to play with these controls earlier in the chapter, so you're already used to the mechanic.

[@mintykiwi]

man i love deltarune

[@characookie241]

Plus the fact that it's technically just a chapter boss and not a final boss.

[@davidbrickey8733]

My least favorite category of boss is "This game doesn't have combat mechanics, so please just memorize this handful of attacks and dodge them with 0 mistakes for 2-3 minutes until it exposes its weakpoint". Which is frustratingly common in 2d platformers. The one that'll always stick out to me as the worst offender is the Meat Golem from Super Meat Boy. Its attacks are pure memorization and require no skill if you know where they're going, they always occur in the same order, it's too long, and you don't even attack it at all (it just knocks itself out after headbutting the ground a few times).

[@Arakus99]

Best way I’ve seen to make bosses for games like that is Celeste, where the boss is integrated into a series of levels(/screens) so it sort of just becomes a new type of stage obstacle, and the levels still have normal checkpoints so the boss can be a decent length without being annoying

[@dr.cheeze5382]

​@@Arakus99 It also probably helps that the boss is absolutely exhilarating to play and experience as well as a climax to that part of the story.

[@plaza3825]

That one boss in Celeste was way too long tho even with the checkpoints

[@yehoshuas.6917]

So an autoscroller boss combined with no skill, just memorization? Yeah that's horrible. That's been my main complaint with Death's Door bosses. The boss attacks are cool and all...but they're just on a loop. They're usually fairly easy so you just win in the first couple attempts, but the 3rd and 5th bosses are longer and harder, but they're STILL on a loop for like 90% of the fight. There's no thinking about positioning to manipulate the bosses to do specific moves, there's no healing so no risk/reward of trying to heal, etc. Honestly all the boss fights in the game are just too simple and predictable. Too few attacks, too few combat options, and barely any randomness.

[@Caroniver_Robocacci]

Exception to this is Helltaker, where it's actually super satisfying to dodge the chains.

[@superdoombro]

Starscourge Radahn was a great gimmick boss. In a game where you usually summon one npc to help, summoning an army to fight one big bad felt like an epic raid boss and a great change of pace.

[@shadowcyberdemon8776]

Elden Ring has great gimmick bosses, Rykard was particularly fun.

[@ismael9914]

Gosh In general I'm the "I'm not even try to understand fromsoft's lore until a youtuber makes a video about it" but Radahn's "feast" to kill him, that so many characters appear to give him a warrior's death, su freaking perfect man. PS: Nontheless I hate his meteorite to 2nd phase attack, I feel like the hit box is unclear as shit

[@Inferryu]

@@ismael9914 What do you mean? It's easy, if you can't see, you're dead.

[@nguyen-vuluu3150]

​@@ismael9914 its a giant explosion coming from the sky with a clear trajectory. and you can summon torrent. its clearly telegraphed for you to dodge with movement instead of just rolling it

[@yehoshuas.6917]

@@shadowcyberdemon8776 Elden Beast on the other hand is super annoying. Immune to all statuses, removing that entire part of the game? Check. Runs away constantly? Check. Has very high elemental resistances, highly encouraging specifically a physical build? Check. Has near-undodgeable attacks (Wave of Gold, Elden Stars)? Check. Extra punishing (makes you re-do Radagon each death)? Check. At least the actual combat with him is fun once he decides to stop running.

[@coreymyers5321]

The worst boss gimmick is length. Take a boring/infuriating boss and make it 15-30 minutes, and it feels like forever.

[@Angel_Flash]

yiazmat :)

[@ToyokaX]

@@Angel_Flash 100%, the most boring long-winded boss in FF hahaha

[@gfdx3214]

that is my main issue with King Boo from Sunshine. The gimmick itself aint all that bad, but the fact that you have to wait for very slow animations every time makes it suck

[@SheepFreak2]

Most of late game monster hunter

[@youtube-kit9450]

Yeah, every single hated gimmick boss would be much, much less hated if the "gimmick" didn't take forever.

[@TheOrian34]

Speaking of terrible gimmick bosses, always be very very careful when making regenerating bosses. The wither in minecraft can be incredibly obnoxious because it tends to fly around and be a pain, but it also just regains health easily so you're pressured while dealing with the janky barrage of attacks.

[@bumbullbeebeebullbum5832]

Minecrafts hostile creature design has always been lacking (or straight up bad) in my opinion; Skeletons shoot too fast, have too much health, and are too mobile, (cave) spiders have (extremely) bad hitboxes, witches have too much health and their effect timers last way too long (easily dealing over a healthbar of damage with a poison potion), the end dragon is a janky pushover with only 1-2 real attacks, and most mobs boil down to them feeling like an annoyance of some sort rather than a fight. Zombies and the like are fine, but they are the bland basic enemy being hard to mess up design-wise, but even then, there's baby zombies who are just a zombie but smaller, faster, and sunlight resistant. This does nothing but exasperate the game's awful combat and janky hitboxes. A lot of modded hostile mobs have this issue as well, but some do very well with their creature design. Some honorable mentions for good enemy design would be creepers, ghasts, slimes, wither skeletons, and evokers (not including the also-terrible vexes). All that being said I play way too much minecraft lmao

[@DampWetstew]

​@bumbullbeebeebullbum5832 atleast skeletons fire in a constant rate, so you can strafe left and right and have them track your movement and miss wildly. But almost all the encounters in Minecraft suck, outside of potentially an interesting cave layout. Except maybe Creepers. A pack of enemies with a creeper mixed in with them is fun. (Prioritize the creeper to KO it first, or try to juke it to detonate to hopefully take out other enemies or collapse the floor underneath them. Never seen any good Modded encounters either. It's always just throwing more damage and healing to out last the boss. I did have a fun OP fight with a group fighting the Thaumcraft final boss. The rest of the party was highly kitted in tech and thaumcraft equipment, but I had witchery potions. I threw and Arrow Attraction potion, and the party swarmed it with arrows not realizing it has a shield up. It was flying around with a cloud of arrows orbiting it. The arrows *hurt*, but we dodged it until the shield dropped and it died in less than a second.

[@StarBeam500]

​@@bumbullbeebeebullbum5832creepers are not good game design. At least not with the way the game is structured. They can just pop up and kill you randomly without enough time to avoid it and can break your meticulously built structures. Outside of sneaking up on you, or should I say, creeping, I do agree they are good. I do agree that small mobs are annoying. We should have a weapon or even an enchantment that allows for more AOE attacks. (Sweeping edge still requires you to hit a target, and I think it just increases damage, so we need something better.)

[@asierx7047]

The only boss with self-healing i have no issues on is Fecto Elfilis from Kirby and the Forgotten Land, because its healing move is slow enough that you can easily do more damage than what it can regenerate over 1 use.

[@rainpooper7088]

@starbeam7679 I mean, yeah, that's the point of the Creeper and how it hinders your progress in this block-building game. And honestly, after playing enough Minecraft, that little noise of a Creeper lighting its fuse *IS* enough for me to instinctively drop whatever I was doing and make a mad dash to get out of the certain death range. Creepers teach you to keep track of your surroundings and always watch your back in a way that no other mob does. Also, working together with friends to bully skeletons into attacking the Creepers to get music discs from them are probably some of my best Minecraft memories.

[@RKIOrbMage]

The best gimmick boss I have ever played is the last boss of Kirby star allies. It does sacrifice a bit of normal gameplay, but the experience is unforgettable, expecially in local multiplayer

[@danielpayne1597]

Full agree! Kirby goes full DBZ and it's glorious. Me and the boys had a blast.

[@shawnshock8651]

Honestly you can say that for a lot of the modern Kirby games

[@dysr]

It also helps that they tend to be very lenient outside of the arena, so losing doesn’t feel punishing either.

[@micahrobbins8353]

I'm not a big Korby fan but this is true. Also why was the secret boss in that side mode the hardest thing I've ever done lol?

[@SylviaGrome]

@@micahrobbins8353because it’s not required to beat the game so the devs always decide to make the true arenas worth the time for people looking for challenge

[@MageKirby]

For RPGs, the types of gimmick bosses that forces you to pause progression to grind because you weren't born with clairvoyance to know that using a very specific character (that you haven't used until now) was the answer the devs built the fight around. Or even worse, a party based RPG suddenly puts one of your character to do a solo run. If you didn't know that was going to happen and didn't train that character, its time to do a bit of grinding.

[@LocalPlagueDoc]

Miitopia does something similar with its final boss, but i think better executed. You have 10 team members total at the end, but you can only take 4 at a time. The final boss makes you fight 3 "phases" with teams of 3-3-4 members per phase, and you can't repeat teammates. HOWEVER, the game splits your team multiple times even BEFORE the endgame AND there's an XP Bonus if a teammate is underleved.

[@FeistyVillain]

I think FFX handles the few solo bits well, Yuna in Via Purifico and Kimahri's fight with Biran and Yenke, for the first, even if you didn't level Yuna, you're not using her to fight but summoning, and the aeons are strong, and you quickly find your other party members. for Kimahri, the boss's power is scaled based on Kimahri's stats, so even if you never used him, the boss won't be too hard.

[@Salsmachev]

Also your party has some kind of shared equipment/supplies and you don't get an opportunity to reshuffle it before the split. Your ring of unlimited healing is equipped on Sir Not Appearing in this Boss Fight? Too bad!

[@One.Zero.One101]

The boss suddenly ignores your armor and evasion, and is immune to all status effects. Wow what a creative change devs, disabling game mechanics that you asked me to grind for. Instead of disabling mechanics, I'd rather the boss have new powers or patterns of attack.

[@foreignuser_]

The worst is when bosses are always immune to status effects. Older RPGs were bad with this.

[@FishdipDeen]

I would argue that all of Paper Mario: Sticker Star's bosses are Gimmick fights. They all are weak to 1 (or 2) specific Thing sticker, which doesn't sound bad on paper. The issue is that you have to find the Things in the overworld, turn them into stickers (which takes up your limited inventory), and hope you brought the right one because there's very little telegraphing before the fight. Oh did I say they're weak to them? I meant that they are REQUIRED. The worst is by far the Bowser final boss, which requires a near-perfect inventory management to actually beat him. How do you know which stickers to bring? Start the fight, progress a bit, then get frustrated because you didn't bring the correct set. Lose, FIND THOSE THINGS AGAIN, and repeat.

[@ericb3157]

yeah, the worst part is that YOU CANNOT RUN AWAY FROM BOWSER.

[@StartouchArts]

SS's bosses are even worse than that. They aren't TECHNICALLY required, but beating the boss without the correct Thing is extremely difficult. And the game even acknowledges when you beat it without the right key! Mockery. The game actually chastises you for not knowing the typically cryptic-as-fuck key to the puzzle boss and brute-forcing it. Kersti will say "Wow, that was a tough fight! But I wonder if you could've used a certain sticker to make it easier?" The game still never tells you WHAT could've made it easier :)

[@ericb3157]

@@StartouchArts oh, i've heard that Kirsti will give you a slightly less obscure hint to some bosses if you LOSE SEVERAL TIMES.

[@Carlhero-ce2xq]

​@StartouchArts I mean the pokey and Mr blizzard ones were OK. The formers stage being themed around the intended thing (Baseball bat) and the latter accepting a large variety of correct answers At least color splash had more dialogue and context clues over what to use and the thing needed would usually either be in the bosses level or were in plain sight somewhere in a story progression point

[@engineergaming3830]

I alvays hate it when you either have to wait an hour for the boss to finally be attackable over and over again or when they just become invincible and spawn a bunch of enemies you need to kill it just extends the fight and makes it a chore to get through

[@krrrarbad5724]

This shit makes me want to unalive myself

[@MuigetsuKirin]

Total immunity to status effects is the worrrrst

[@Irisverse]

Right? Like why even have these mechanics if you can't use them against the enemies that are actually halting your progression? It's basically telling your audience that there's only one viable strategy to playing this game.

[@erubianwarlord8208]

@@Irisverse you just described why Overguard in Warframe is pure trash

[@naokaderapider4210]

I remember playing one of the deus ex games wanting to play a stealthy boi just for the first boss to go all "MINIGUN TO THE FACE" which turned all of the stealth gear basically useless

[@aidankocherhans9861]

In deep rock galactic, the dreadnought bosses were immune to the electrocution status effect, which was a huge problem for some builds because many weapons can deal bonus damage to electrocuted enemies. Fortunately, they recently made them vulnerable to the status, just with a large resistance to the slowdown effect, but now those builds actually work! There's even a (very restricted) way to make them vulnerable to the burning status, which makes those builds possible too

[@SorghumEnjoyer]

The Scarecrow boss from dead cells is completely immune to stun for whatever reason and single-handedly keeps me from wanting to touch the debuff, which is annoying because its very powerful apart from that

[@GamingReinvented]

One of the worst examples of a gimmick boss not working properly is probably the Zeekeeper fight in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. Up until that point, motion controls were mostly optional. You could use them for some special attacks, and the finishing move for the prior giant bosses used them, but the former could be ignored entirely and the latter was impossible to fail. Then this boss came in, and half the battle revolved around using those gyro controls to move Luigi, dodge attacks and attack back in kind. Unfortunately, the gyro functionality in this game was... unreliable to say the least, and had a tendency to glitch out. Cue an unavoidable death or three as Luigi got stuck in place and pummelled into oblivion. Unfortunately, the next giant boss also used gyro controls for two major sections of the fight, and those were equally prone to breaking. Yay... I guess the ice boss from Luigi's Mansion 2 would be another good example of a terrible gimmick boss, simply because the main mechanic in question was used maybe twice before that battle, and never in the context of an actual fight. Add this to a bunch of additional features (the vehicle you're riding overheating and giving you an instant game over, the boss regenerating health, etc) and you had one frustrating battle.

[@familiarnamemissing3382]

I definitely remember the gyros glitching out during the Zeekeeper battle, that sucked.

[@MegaMilesprower]

The only way I could handle the gyro sections of some games(notably dream team and one of the Skylanders games... I think it was giants? Don't remember much except the final boss was a sheep) was to use a 2ds. For some reason, the gyro control on that specific console was better than my "'new'" Nintendo 3ds xl.

[@familiarnamemissing3382]

@@MegaMilesprower actually I do remember playing Dream Team on my little sister’s 2DS, but I think that was when I was having gyro issues and I beat it on a different DS.

[@kylefarrell849]

My copy didn't have a gyro problem with the zeekeeper fight but did with bowser and thought the 3ds xl was at fault

[@Lar_me]

Dream Team gyro controls were so awful that I ended up ragequitting my Hard Mode playthrough at Giant Bowser after far too many instances of "death by nonfunctional gyro". Being unable to skip the prior cutscene is salt on the wound.

[@playerzking]

The first gimmicky boss fight I've stuck on wasn't really a boss fight... It was making perfectly grilled meat in Monster Hunter portable, took me an hour😂

[@MagusDouken]

Its mainly knowing you have to wait a moment after the music. in 3u/4u/gen, I found it easiest to watch the color of the bone lol

[@Dracas42]

So tasty!

[@LloydTheZephyrian]

@@MagusDouken Wilds is apparently mixing it up a bit for cooking Well Done Steaks... by adding in a SECOND PHASE.

[@illdoittomorrow2368]

Delirium from the binding of isaac has to be the biggest mess of a fight ever. The idea is really cool, but that thing just goes way too fast and telefrags you 10 times per minute.

[@massgunner4152]

They fixed the telefrag in repentance, doesn't change the fact it gains super sonic speeds when turning into mom's feet.

[@Angel_Flash]

@@massgunner4152 it gains supersonic speed when turning into any boss that moves around, like baby plum, gurdy jr, pin, etc.

[@massgunner4152]

@@Angel_Flash im mentioning mom's feet because they're faster than the other forms already and spawn on top of you.

[@konstralit2105]

TBoI is mostly about RNG, not actual skill

[@illdoittomorrow2368]

@@konstralit2105 That's what I call a skill issue. Bosses like mega satan are absolutely skill based.

[@Angel_Flash]

It doesn't really exist anymore but there was an 8-player fight in Final Fantasy 14 called Steps Of Faith where you're on a very very long bridge and you and your friends spend the entire time smacking the crap out of this huge dragon's ankles as it slowwwwwly walks towards a city's gates. The only stuff that really happens in the fight is a bunch of generic wyvern enemies spawn for you to kill, and at certain points there are spiral staircases you have to climb to activate a cannon that'll hit the dragon ONLY IF YOU TIME IT RIGHT. They eventually removed the fight a couple years ago and made it a singleplayer story event.

[@Flawless-Walrus]

Ugggggh, I remember that shit lol. I was wondering what FF14 boss counted for Gimmick, but that'd prolly be it. That or the old version of the Copperbell slime boss. AKA, the DPS get to go grab a sandwich.

[@Dracas42]

Ah, the memories. Not good ones, of course. The only cut content I remember fondly is Cape Westwind, and the solo duty it got replaced with is way more engaging than the meme I had too much fun joking about.

[@reissyboi7527]

I’ll have to give Bardam from Bardam’s Mettle dungeon title of worst boss fight in the entire game. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a party that’s failed it, you’re just waiting around for stuff to happen while you casually walk out of aoe’s, and there’s literally 0 combat

[@DraconicCatgirl]

I genuinely miss Vishap and would've rather that The Crystallis got turned into a Solo Instance.

[@viruschris3160]

They removed it? I didn’t know that. They nerfed it from the original version I thought they kept it.

[@Resetium]

God I hate Shadow Okumura. They give you a time limit to finish the boss (with no clear indication as to when that is, for all you know the robots are the first phase), and you're tasked with defeating waves and waves of enemies that will reset themselves (after nuking you) if you play any less than perfectly. Problem is, if you don't play perfectly it becomes harder to finish the wave when it resets, as you're forced to heal up and reapply buffs and waste extremely valuable time. The most upsetting part, though? It fucks with what difficulties are easier and harder. I was playing on Hard, ie not Merciless, but thanks to how Merciless affects combat, I had to turn the difficulty _up_ for Okumura to be beatable (at which point I beat it first try thanks to the ludicrously increased damage multipliers from Weaknesses, Criticals, and Technicals). The game also sets you up to expect to fight Okumura directly, just like with every other boss you've fought so far, but once you finish off his minions, you get to just kind of sit there and ask yourself, _"That's it?!",_ watching as he keels over and dies after Joker so much as breathes on him.

[@rac1equalsbestgame853]

I find him easier in Vanilla at least

[@reissyboi7527]

Okumura made me quit the game for half a year, only came back when Royal released and he was still a bitch to fight. I ended up buying Izanagi Picaro and spamming Myriad Truths because I didn’t care and wanted it over and done with

[@Rodri34451]

Don't forget that the timer keeps going on even on dialogues, so you better skip those if you don't have time to spare.

[@Resetium]

@@Rodri34451 which means not reading the dialogue the first time around

[@Resetium]

@@reissyboi7527 yeah that was one of the few fights where i pulled out royal personas just for shit like neo cadenza to speed it along

[@N0RDICST0RM]

Uumuu from Hollow Knight is such a weird outlier of a boss, especially considering Hollow Knight's other boss fights. It feels like a violation, having these fair but challenging boss fights like Mantis Lords and Grimm, and then having this one boss that you are only allowed to attack at random intervals.

[@piranhabones]

To be fair... the boss is pretty easy and not too long. The only "bad" thing I find with it is that it has periods of invulnerability, which some other bosses also have. And the pantheon version also fixes this, because it allows you to manually hit it with the explosive jellyfishes

[@f1reflam3]

Uumuu is more a cutscene than a boss fight to be fair

[@N12015]

Is Uumuu the mandatory jellyfish? Because my radiance Is that an awful one, specially compared The other 2 before the final being a platform challenge and a Duel with 5-6 Watchers who are an actual great boss. Uumuu Is either a tedious cutscene or an annoying Boomerang toss minigame where You cannot properly launch said Boomerang due to both parts moving and You needing to Dodge electric attacks.

[@Hopning]

Personally I'd argue the opposite, because the boss fight is so short and having an NPC come help who you've seen so often makes me like it a lot anyway, though I wouldn't if it was longer or I had somehow skipped Quirrell the rest of the game. The pantheon version however is frustratingly random to me. Funny to see how opinions differ so much

[@massgunner4152]

The intervals aren't random, you have to lure it to quirrel when he shows up.

[@pedroscoponi4905]

The most atrocious gimmick boss in FF14 is definitely Cuca Fera, the second boss of the Stone Vigil Hard dungeon. It is probably the single worst boss in the entire game, in a dungeon that isn't very good overall either. For those who don't know: Instead of playing the role and class you chose, you get to spend 2 to 5 minutes manning a cannon. Your options are shoot for damage, shoot a stun grenade, or do nothing. The most dangerous thing the boss can do is put up a Reflect spell that forces you to sit still - it will otherwise never hit you directly. If you're not paying enough attention to stun the interruptable room-wide attack or hold your fire, the boss will either kill you, or kill the NPCs in the room (which kills _everyone!_ ). But if you ARE paying attention, you are bored the entire time. It is truly very bad. The only saving grace is the dungeon is optional.

[@DesignDoc]

I forgot to get footage of that thing for this. That's one of the worst dungeons to get in daily roulettes.

[@Angel_Flash]

oh godddd i typed a comment about the old steps of faith trial but yeah cuca fera is way worse

[@Dracas42]

The only good thing about that fight is the blue mage spell Diamondback. And the fact that blue mages can just missile it down instead of using cannons. Neither of which are applicable to actually *running* the dang dungeon when you're in roulette or just unlocked it and are giving it a try for the first time.

[@SorcerorNobody]

Add in that if you're playing a healer and the party needs healing, you have to run around the arena to reach your three party members in the other corners. I hate it so much. Whenever there's a "what's the worst dungeon" discussion and everyone's saying Aurum Vale, I'm over here saying "no, Vale is fine, Stone Vigil (Hard) is the unquestionable worst". It also baffles me that they took the (somewhat tolerable) cannon mechanics out of the Koschei fight in Stone Vigil but left the more obnoxious ones in the Hard dungeon.

[@Professor_Utonium_]

I'll gladly take a few of those over the standard "raid wide, tank buster, prey attack, unique mechanic, repeat" that like 99% of bosses have. Changing the Yeti boss in Snowcloak by removing the snowball fight was one of the worst changes to any dungeon that they've ever done.

[@Daniel_Coffman]

The Boobeam trap's bad design is also not even mentioning the constant sprite flicker due to console limitations that makes it quite problematic to see what's going on. They definitely didn't design it with hardware limitations in mind.

[@MSCDonkeyKong]

Sprite flickering wasn't as visible on CRTs

[@TheOmegagoldfish]

@@MSCDonkeyKong It is still an issue on them. It's not as visible, but things can vanish a bit.

[@Mordalon]

The Sunshine King Boo boss made me realize, with a few exceptions, most bosses that involve a Slot Machine are either bad or at most tolerable. Even one of my favorite bosses, Yami from Okami, uses the slot machine a bit too much.

[@gladoseon4117]

Robby and Croaks from Cuphead are fun tho

[@CatsRule-sf4nw]

​@@gladoseon4117The slot section is the worst part though. The three attacks vary hugely in terms of difficulty. Though I will admit Ribby is a fun boss.

[@heeho8607]

God i LOVE when the ultimate test of skill in a game is completely parallel to the core mechanics ive been training all this time

[@Jikkuryuu]

I honestly can't tell if this is genuine or sarcastic :) Me overthinking things: "Okay so parallel is two lines travelling in the same direction. That could mean a different mechanic that uses the same techniques, which might make for a really cool boss. Perpendicular is two lines at a 90 degree angle to each other, so you're ostensibly _moving away from what you've learned_ which would be terrible. But parallel lines never cross so you might have a hard time transposing your skills across the gap, which would be bad. And perpendicular lines cross, which could essentially mean starting with a core mechanic and expanding on it in a way that's completely unrelated to the rest of the game. Which _sounds_ bad, but you're at least starting from a known and comfortable mechanic. Like leaving the trunk to follow a branch." English sure is a language of all time. XD

[@heeho8607]

@@Jikkuryuu parallel lines never cross, so they're essentially two completely different lines. No point in a line ever is also a point in a parallel line That's what I meant. Parallel as unrelated

[@stevenglowacki8576]

@@heeho8607 Generally if people mean things that are unrelated in a mathematical sense, they'll use "orthogonal", which is just a fancy way of saying "perpendicular" (it's just more general). One thing goes in one direction, and the other thing goes in a direction that has nothing in common with the first one.

[@GyroCannon]

Any boss that is invincible and forces you to wait for a long time until its temporary moment of vulnerability and attack them in one [very specific, time sensitive, and precise] way is a bad gimmick

[@Novarcharesk]

Would you say the Hive Totem in Metroid Prime 1 would qualify for this?

[@Koalavater]

I'd argue that one good example of this is Raven Beak in Metroid Dread only because dodging his attacks while he's invincible is so dang fun

[@pmahcgop6693]

The neon green boss fights are actually really fun. There’s 2 really important details that wasn’t mentioned. There’s health pick ups that spaced across the fight to help first time runs and the game’s hell rushes, so the game doesn’t ask you to play 3 minutes without getting hit 3 times just that you don’t get hit 3 times in a segment of the fight. The second thing is that there’s moments where he isn’t standing still but hasn’t set to crystals to give himself the invincibility shield. So you can optimize sneaking in damage during those parts of the fight and there’s even achievements for beating green before he reaches the top of the clock tower and before his final phase at the temple. It’s not perfect, the last fight has no way to skip phases of the fight just doing them faster, and has a bunch of one hit kill sentries in different points in the fight that punish you hard if you can’t aim the book fast enough, but it adds to the tension and serves as a great test of skill for the final fight. Also the music is the cinematic of the fights are incredible. Great video just wanted to comment about how the positives of the neon white boss fights since it’s one of my favourite games.

[@thebosstin2420]

I agree, I loved neon greens fights, they were a really nice change of pace

[@nicjoy4407]

The fights are probably my least favorite levels in the game, they just felt way too long for me to take any risks and improve. I've gotten the red author medal time on all levels in the game except for 2 of the 3 boss fights, and it's simply because they are just too long for me to take risks and innovate without me spending hours on one level. The strength of Neon White is noticing a little improvement, learning how to execute it, and chaining a ton of these together to complete a run way beyond what you originally expected from the level. The bosses have almost none of those aspects.

[@pmahcgop6693]

@@nicjoy4407 that’s fair, I haven’t gone for red medals on those levels yet and it’s all a matter of preference.

[@shovelclaws]

yeah i have no clue why the neon green fights are here. they're impeccably designed, frankly, and it being "too long"... is honestly a skill issue lmao

[@pmahcgop6693]

@@shovelclaws there’s some good arguments to why it being longer is worse but it’s essentially just boils down to it being different which is the point of a boss

[@dinosaurpolitician3663]

TRAUMA CENTER MENTIONED!!!!! albeit for triti lol

[@DesignDoc]

*monkey’s paw curls*

[@Crocogator]

i had a physical reaction to seeing that again.

[@sbrowley947]

YEEE

[@hecatia666]

Trauma center is such a fun series until triti spreads....

[@migueeeelet]

At least the PGS for triti isn't a quarter as annoying.

[@GameFreak839]

I don’t know if anyone’s ever played this game much, but One Piece: Unlimited World Red has a gimmick boss - known as Black General Franky - that’s equal parts hilarious and also a massive headscratcher on how the devs even allowed it to be in the game at all. If you’re a fan of One Piece, you know how awesome the General Franky is. Heavy artillery, a giant sword, extreme physical strength, and even comes packed with easier methods for Franky to utilize his Cola stock. So when you get to an evil version of it in a game where the combat and boss fights are the absolute highlight, expectations are high. One might initially think you’re being put up against a super tanky opponent that can launch missiles from afar, transform into the General Franky’s different parts and attack that way, or even have a clone of Franky piloting it to avoid Radical Beams. But the truth is much funnier…the first time you fight it. When you first jump in, it does a sweeping motion with the sword, spinning around for a full minute and requiring you to jump over it repeatedly until it falls over, giving you the chance to wail on it. It then gets back up…and does that same thing again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN. And you realize it’s just gonna keep on doing that until it eventually dies. The Black General Franky fight is basically the equivalent of those sweeper arm contraptions you’d find at an amusement park or a party, only instead of having you duck and jump in sequence, you just play jumprope with it without any sort of variety whatsoever. It’s absolutely hilarious to witness the first time because you don’t expect it, but once the novelty wears off, you just think about what the fight could have been and it’s depressing. There IS an odd chance that it can do a body slam attack, but it never hits you and just leaves it open after use anyway. For such a cool part of Franky’s arsenal in the actual series, having a boss fight against it be this dull, to the point where it feels more like a Mario Party minigame, is a crime against humanity.

[@stevethepocket]

Sometimes just _having_ a traditional boss battle at all ruins a game because it requires an otherwise great story to bend over backwards to accommodate it. _BioShock_ is a commonly cited example-and keep in mind that's in a universe where a single guy roiding himself up into a massive übermensch is actually perfectly plausible in general; it's just a really boring, clichéd, and out-of-character way to cap off your conflict with the particular guy who does it.

[@Mordalon]

Kind of like the original Arkham Asylum Joker boss fight.

[@naokaderapider4210]

I guess a world full with gimmicks turns the gimmickless into a gimmick

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

​@Mordalon nah that fight is fun.

[@Mordalon]

​@@Ten_Thousand_Locusts I have no personal opinion of it, but it being fun or not wasn't my point. You expect a Joker boss fight to involve elaborate trickery, not a big brute that does the typical "dodge his charge to make him smack into a wall then smack his butt" plus waves of dudes.

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

@Mordalon eh, I thought it was a logical conclusion to the story, also it just feels satisfying beating the snot out of that stupid clown when he's been eluding you and committing atrocities throughout the entire game. Damn now I wanna play the Arkham Trilogy again...

[@LocalPlagueDoc]

Since you focus a lot on the bad executions in this video, I think i'd be nice to have another video that explain what makes a gimmick boss GOOD and why. 🤔

[@misterb3037]

A common trend with gimmick bosses seems to heavily involve janky controls

[@DirtiestDMusic]

Love the cameo from Strong Bad's "NO LOAFING!" sign.

[@r.alexandercorbitt1554]

I missed it. Time to rewatch. Edit: nvm I found it

[@thegoldenaegis]

"Monster hunter doesn't really have that many gimmick fights to surely-" *Sees zorah magdoros* "We don't talk about that one"

[@Johnnyb3g00d]

Felt fitting that it was shown during discussion of shooting for the stars, but missing. How cool of an idea, to climb on top of a monster that constantly shifts between standing and crawling. But oh how horrible it went.

[@william_sun]

Zorah Magdaros is significantly less awful once you learn that you can attack it directly either by climbing onto its head when it headbutts the barricade or by jumping onto its arm and climbing onto its shoulder when it punches the barricade. It's still just a giant punching bag, but at least you're not stuck loading cannons the whole time. Unfortunately, the game never even hints that these are even an option.

[@Johnnyb3g00d]

@@william_sun i could have sworn I tried that multiple times. Maybe I was just trying to attack it, and not climb aboard.

[@william_sun]

@@Johnnyb3g00d Yeah, most of its body can't be hit with normal weapons and is basically just considered to be terrain. When you're on its head, the only part that you can attack is the core on its nose. When you climb onto its shoulder, you have to wait for it to lower its arm again, jump back down onto its arm, and then you can attack its chest. I believe you can also access its back from both its head and its shoulder to go back and attack the original 3 cores on its back if you failed to break them during the first part of the hunt.

[@rubygraves978]

Where is my dragonator!? 😂

[@SpriteDuel]

The Rat from Enter the Gungeon. No, I've never played Punch Out, and it doesn't help that my reward for beating his 2-phase boss fight depends entirely on this.

[@reaven2535]

Triti 'was' a game ending boss for me, especially as a kid. Interestingly I'm now a doctor, but I hate surgery and never wanted to do it. Being reminded of Triti makes me wonder if there's any chance that impacted my future medical career decisions.

[@burnoutknight5326]

That mention of Triti certainly gives all the Trauma series veterans PTSD. There are two ways for it to spread: when removing a membrane/triangle, if another membrane has two thorns adjacent and a free side, it spreads to any and all sides that meet this condition OR when removing a membrane, if a different membrane has no other membranes connected to it, but has at least one thorn connected, then it spreads to all sides. Oh, and the mist that sometimes is created can spawn them as well. And it's an instant fail if the mist leaves the play area. And the game doesn't explain any of this. Even the characters are left dazed with their hands raised because they don't know what to do. EDIT: ALMOST FORGOT If you fought Triti in Under the Knife, it's an even tougher fight, since that game also adds the stipulation that you must excise the membrane once it has no thorns connected and THEN you can extract it, which gives you less time to work until the thorns regenerate... And you have to repeat this process if a thorn manages to spawn onto a membrane that you already excised. I still recall how it felt almost impossible to beat the so-called "archetype" version of Triti, purely because of how fast it becomes and how quickly you can be simply sapped to death.

[@gfdx3214]

your explanation didn't really help for me either...

[@burnoutknight5326]

@@gfdx3214 I assure you, a picture would make it much easier to demonstrate, I know.

[@arieelberian7614]

​@@gfdx3214 Don't worry, as a Trauma Center veteran, Triti still gets me sometimes

[@LooseAsADEUCE]

I actually thought of Trauma Center as having puzzle bosses right before he said it, and I still shuddered at the mention of Triti 😅

[@migueeeelet]

I think the biggest issue Triti has is that not only the membrane with the correct rules will spread, but the entirety of it, making it impossible to analyze while also making itself exponentially bigger. It's horrendous.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

I know you've done an episode on them already but personally there's a category of gimmick bosses that I kinda despise and that's giant bosses. Messing with the scale almost never goes well. The fight either becomes sluggish or a camera mess.

[@ChronoMoth]

we're looking at you Elden Ring Fire Giant

[@jurtheorc8117]

Soulstice (2022 game in the same genre as DMC, Darksiders and Bayonetta) did 'em quite well. If you've ever heard of the Saviour from DMC4, you'll probably have heard that it's a trainwreck. But Soulstice makes it work. - The weak spots are always consistent. Only ever the backs of the Harbinger's hands. When those are damaged enough, the Harbinger faints for a short period of time and you can lay into it. The Saviour has the weak spots all over its body, but the opportunity to attack those does not arise easily, and they need to be broken in full before you can move on. - Various of the attacks are quick, still involve the hands and linger for a bit. Like a haymaker, a slam on one end of the platform leading to a sweep to the other and, where it remains for a second or two, three. With the saviour it's a toss-up if it will actually use the attack that leads to the as-of-yet unbroken weak spots. - The platforming element is kept simple. Only four platforms going in a circle around the Harbinger, as opposed to the Saviour's haphazard levitating broken Jenga tower. - While there are non-Hand attacks, things like the shard rain and the enemy summon can be used to build up the Special resource (Synergy) by breaking the fallen crystals or Countering the summoned enemies. Countering is a central mechanic to the combat and not difficult to perform. So even if you can't directly harm the Harbinger, your reaction still leads to useful resource buildup for when it is vulnerable. Keeps the momentum going in a way. - Both have a colossal laserbeam attack that lasts for around ten seconds, follows you around and simply does what it does.

[@Dinoman972]

@@ChronoMoth Also Radahn to an extent. And the Dancing Lion. And the Golden Hippo. And all of the trolls and dragons.

[@michaelmcdonald2005]

@@ChronoMoth As an ex Fire Giant hater, I think it's actually a really good execution of the concept. His first phase is very telegraphed even though you're attacking the ankle and can't see him fully. The reason people dislike the fight (including myself for years) is the second phase, where the obvious solution is to do what you were doing previously: attack the leg. In reality, you're supposed to stand in front of him, as just about every one of his melee attacks has an extensive punish window on the hands and/or head.

[@pedrocto9474]

I kinda like how ULTRAKILL did it with the earthmover, making the boss also the stage itself

[@travisbergen2807]

One of my favourite is the giant bowser battles for mario and luigi Bowser's inside story. They definitely have a lot of flaws but few things match the exitment and spectical of punching an entire castle into submission.

[@WhitePaintbrush]

Giant Bowser fights are amazing until they force you to use the notoriously fragile microphone or be softlocked :’)

[@chillnagasden6190]

LOL BEd of Chaos. "make the jump to the root and you're home free" *Laughs as he gets lava pillared JUST BEFORE KILLING THE ACTUAL WEAK POINT, YES, UNDERNEATH THE BOSS*

[@AlexanderBrior]

Got kinda pissed when I saw Cortex on the thumbnail before I remembered that his second boss fight does, in fact, suck

[@LooseAsADEUCE]

I had a similar reaction because I thought of his fight from 3 first, but then I remembered the "fight" from 2 exists

[@cupofoats]

I will never forgive FFX for the yunalasca fight. The unskippable 10 minute cutscene (PS2) after you die each time is the icing on the cake

[@LooseAsADEUCE]

As good as I think that scene is, it's hard to keep liking it after you've watched it for the tenth time 🙃

[@One.Zero.One101]

I will never understand games that have unskippable cutscenes. We live in an era where people do multiple playthroughs, or do the mission over and over again to get a high score. Having unskippable cutscenes is being out of touch with how today's gamers play games.

[@LooseAsADEUCE]

@One.Zero.One101 Well, to be fair FFX originally came out in like '01. Cutscenes with voices were still a new thing back then lol

[@DesignDoc]

I adore the Yunalesca fight but it’s totally unfair for newcomers.

[@grammarmaid]

FFX is my favorite in the entire series. I say this for context, because the Yunalesca fight quite literally ended my playthrough. I gave up. Never got any further. It was simply too hard. I could probably do it now as an adult with more patience and ability to strategize, but even teenage me with nearly infinite free time thought, "I have better things to do with my time."

[@mattb6522]

Good video! I definitely agree with King Boo being dull in Sunshine, Neo Cortex in Crash 2 being anti-climatic, and Boobeam Trap in Mega Man 2 being tedious. One gimmick boss that comes to mind that frustrated the heck out of me was the Phantom in the first Kingdom Hearts where you had to stop time in order to prevent your party from dying off one by one. I never figured out the trick to beat him for awhile as most other bosses in the game, you pretty much just need to attack head-on!

[@munkaman8384]

The bosses in the first Kingdom Hearts do a really good job at letting the environment affect the fight. Gravity on Maleficent's platform, Blizzard/Fire against Trickmaster's feathers, the crocodile attacking Captain Hook if you send him overboard, etc. But almost all of the bosses don't NEED you to engage in those mechanics, so if you choose not to, fights like Phantom become impossible and feel out of place.

[@mattb6522]

@@munkaman8384 Yeah, the Phantom fight _required_ you to stop time, so if you didn't notice you could target the clock, it was an unwinnable fight. Granted, it is a secret boss so it should be difficult. However, the odds still felt way stacked against you compared to most other bosses (Sephiroth excluded).

[@SearcherRyan]

2 "gimmicks" i despise not from any bosses, but enemies in general: 1- if the enemy spawns minions to help him 2- if the enemy gest temporarily invincible

[@Ails1234]

The first one that comed to mind is Son of Sun from Chrono Trigger. You're more likely to beat it by accident than figure out what the gimmick is

[@Umbra_Nocturnus]

Reminds me of Blooper from Paper Mario Sticker Star. I assume it had some gimmick, like hitting the arms first and then the face maybe. But with the overpowered stickers you can pick up off the floor, it died in two turns. Then the little companion character complained that I "could have done that faster" if I had followed whatever strategy they had in mind for it. Maybe don't give me access to several "hits all enemies on screen" attacks if you want me to do things in order, Sticker Star.

[@pinksywedarnoc8017]

​@@Umbra_Nocturnus The music in that fight was fucking fire tho, couldn't stop listening and wishing you could fight bosses again after completing the story.

[@pokepress]

@@pinksywedarnoc8017 Yeah, even some heavy detractors of the recent Paper Mario games are willing to compliment the music.

[@PuppetMasterIX]

A bad gimmick boss that comes to mind for me is the Excavator from Batman: Arkham Knight. It's the only boss fight that involves being chased in the Batmobile. You cannot damage the drill yourself, but instead have to lure into it into three damage sources. It just so happens that the fight takes place in a dark, narrow, confusing-to-navigate sewer maze that makes said process a trial of frustration. Oh, and if the Excavator reaches you, you die instantly. Fun.

[@ericb3157]

yes, "vehicle bosses", where you are forced to use a vehicle INSTEAD of your normal moves, are a pain. AND having to lure him into the explosives on TOP of that,is really bad.

[@historicflame972]

The worst part abt bed of chaos is that getting on to the branch DOESN'T mean you're home free, if you spend too long trying to get to the bug, it can flood the hollow with fire and one tap you

[@Mart1n192]

"Whatever you do, don't phone in a gimmick final boss" **Kojima sweats profusely**

[@silvergamer7250]

He makes it work, cuz kojima

[@CoralCopperHead]

...Was the Death Stranding final fight a lame gimmick? I can't think of any phoned-in final bosses in MGS aside from maybe Sahelanthropus, but that's not a gimmick fight, just a solid mech battle. 1 and 4's fistfights were great and 2's swordfight followed suit, and The Boss was peak final boss design.

[@SandmanURL]

In a Borderlands 2 DLC there is a gimmick fight where you need to shoot small targets on an enemy called Jackenstein and it is not super fun since you don't know how much you have to shoot each target and it's also immune to elements and explosive damage. This fight is followed by the hardest boss in the game, Nakayama, who proceeds to fall down stairs in a cutscene and dies before you fight him in true Borderlands fashion humor.

[@donaghwilson7715]

I always felt elden beast was meant to be a gimmick boss of allowing torrent, and then they decided not to do that while still keeping the bosses movement and giant arena

[@GoblinSquid]

Game needed more horse bosses in general tbh.

[@massgunner4152]

​@@GoblinSquidhorse combat is so undercooked honestly, your only form of attack is a miserable swing or a puny stab that misses half the time, torrent can't dodge so you have to constantly run away, and he has so little mechanics you have to dismount to actually fight the boss. Torrent is more like a taxi with a bunch of sticks in the glovebox.

[@Umbra_Nocturnus]

They rather recently patched in the ability to ride Torrent in Elden Beast. Which I only know because I went through the misery of Elden Beast on foot one day beforehand, then tried it on a different character three days later to show my brother that "you can't ride Torrent, I just di-" (sentence cut off as my character gets on Torrent, Elden Beast down first try and it was a cake-walk)

[@yehoshuas.6917]

@@Umbra_Nocturnus Wtf. I can't believe they added that in over a YEAR after release. Does it actually play well with Torrent? His melee attacks don't look great to dodge on horseback, and it seems much slower to deal damage

[@Umbra_Nocturnus]

@@yehoshuas.6917 There are probably a few attacks where Torrent's fat butt could get you in trouble, but the extra speed more than makes up for it. I just stayed right up in its face, or I guess mostly the sides where the melee stuff doesn't reach too well. The lower damage output doesn't matter too much, since it can't push you around and make you miss your swings as easily, or you could just jump off Torrent and try to apply your grounded DPS anyway. The biggest upside I think is that it can't just run off to the other side of the stage all the time.

[@dana.d.4627]

I vaguely remember a good gimmick boss: The first Mysterio fight from Disney Infinity (Spiderman). Mysterio is invisible on your side, but visible on the mirror in front of you. It's simple, but effective.

[@riley_-zm8vr]

one that comes to mind instantly when i'm thinking of bad gimmick bosses is the minotaur from ultrakill. it has two gimmicks: a hard stone shell covering the entire front of it that makes most attacks bounce right off, and the fight taking place in a subway tunnel on three actively moving tram platforms. the tram platforms are the worst part because they already don't allow you to actually use your movement tools in interesting ways in the MOVEMENT shooter, but then on the regular difficulty and above the minotaur's speed is increased enough to where it consistently ends up leaving you with only one platform to use for most of the fight since one is broken and another is covered in acid. combined with the stone exterior, it makes for a fight where you just stick magnets and a screwdriver into the boss, shoot a bunch of sawblades and nails, and then jump into the air and dash back and forth to stall for more airtime instead of engaging with the fight in any meaningful way.

[@standard2998]

Due to lack of Turn-base game rpg example, I present FFV purobolos. You fight six of em and when they die they completely raise the other five, and it can happen more than once. So you need to kill them all simultaneously. It sucks when u just play blind, and they just do the loop of die and reviving each other.

[@N12015]

I have an Even better example: *Paper Mario: Sticker Star.* The boss fights are awful overall due to demanding an unintuitive gimmick you won't necessarily bring with you, and if you bring said object, then the boss fights Is an absolute joke. The only good boss fight in that game is the final boss of the 4th world, which is also the only one without gimmick but instead just a normal elemental weakness to fire as a giant snowman. And no, Color Splash didn't fixed it.

[@Yuglut]

This sounds exactly like persona 5's okumura. It was such a nightmare...

[@ericb3157]

@@N12015 yeah, i've seen a funny video picking that game apart. the worst part is that you have a "helper" who will give you a hint on how to beat a boss...IF YOU LOSE! oh, and there's a VERY nasty "gimmick" boss who will turn all of your "stickers" info "flip-flops", probably making you waste a bunch of expensive ones... AND that happens JUST before the final boss, who has FOUR phases, EACH of which is IMPOSSIBLE without ONE very specific "thing" sticker!

[@sleepeybunney]

Another one from FF5 is Archeoaevis, which is such a weirdly designed fight that I'm not 100% sure what the gimmick is even supposed to be. You have to kill it 5 times, but the first 3 deaths are completely invisible so it seems to just be randomly changing its stats & weaknesses & stuff every so often. Then the 4th iteration explicitly dies & revives itself, & the bad guy on the sidelines is like "wow this owns", but then the 5th time it dies for real.

[@comradecatbug5289]

I'd like to highlight one awful gimmick boss few have ever fought and probably no-one else will bring up: the Tree of Men from Salt and Sanctuary. It has so much wrong with it. It's fire attacks deal damage over time, often not killing you outright but leaving you helplessly staring at your depleting healthbar, knowing that you will die in a couple of seconds but without the mercy of making it quick. It rests between two lethal falls, and its stomps will knock you off to your deaths. To make it worse, the Tree is only vulnerable in the hanging men, most of which you can only reach by platforming and jumping, increasing your risk of falling. It's especially infuriating because you have little control of movement in the air, meaning there are many instances when you have to jump to reach a vulnerable spot but once you're in the air you can't react or defend against attacks that you can see coming. And the cherry on top is that when you kill all the bodies, it gets a single vulnerable spot at the very top of it, which is hard to reach and will deal fall damage if you jump to attack it and drop on the ground.

[@GreyWolfLeaderTW]

There is that rare time when a gimmick boss is better than all the standard bosses of the game. Good example of this is the original Spyro the Dragon. In that game, nearly all of the bosses have the same basic structure. Spyro has to attack them with a flame attack (because large enemies in the game are immune to damage from being charged into), and each successful hit makes the boss retreat to another section of his level. Hit most of them three times and they are done. Even the final boss Gnasty Gnorc follows this formula, although he only requires two hits and the first requires staying close enough behind him as he runs laps around his lair that when he briefly pauses on a pedestal at the end of the course to try to snipe Spyro with magic from his mace scepter, Spyro can flame him. The second section of the fight is a little more interesting since it a timed platforming gauntlet the player has to complete with charging, jumping, and gliding from one retracting platform to another over a lava pit corridor to get to the last room, but Gnasty goes down at the end of it with just one flame attack. Underwhelming and a bit anticlimactic for the last boss of the game. The only gimmick boss of the game is the fourth one, Metalhead. As a large robot (thus immune to charge attacks) made of metal (the game has a mechanic where enemies that wear metal armor or use metal shields are immune to fire at least as long as they face it towards Spyro) the only way to bring him down is to charge attack the metal electrical power poles that supply Metalhead with energy. The catch is the poles alternate between a state where they are actively broadcasting power (and Spyro cannot damage them as he gets shocked if he touches them in this state) and recharging. So the two areas Metalhead is fought in requires Spyro to run around the arena, breaking poles that are exposed, dodging the laser attacks fired by Metalhead as well as the minor enemies he throws like bowling balls at Spyro, and eventually get all the poles to starve Metalhead of power and cause him to break down. Compared to the other battles where it is a game of just chase the boss and then flame him between his attacks when he gets to a battle arena, Metalhead is the most interesting and unique/gimmicky of the bosses. And because none of the others really stand out and aren't that engaging, he's the closest to being the best one.

[@dasaiyantv8483]

The quintessential series to look at for bosses is Devil May Cry, home to the best bosses in all of gaming with stuff like Vergil, but worst of them all with stuff like the Infested Chopper.

[@theimpersonator7086]

In so many games(DMC, KH, etc), the humanoid bosses tend to be the best and feel like real duels/dances between equals. Meanwhile, large/giant bosses tend to fall under: gimmick, Player vs weird hitboxes or the camera, button mash. Perfectly balanced as all things should be lol.

[@jurtheorc8117]

@@theimpersonator7086 Your comment reminds me of the Saviour from DMC4... which in turn, reminds me of the Harbinger from Soulstice. Which is a much, *much* better iteration of a "giant boss in front of a ledge" - The weak spots are always consistent. Only ever the backs of the Harbinger's hands. When those are damaged enough, the Harbinger faints for a short period of time and you can lay into it. The Saviour has the weak spots all over its body, but the opportunity to attack those does not arise easily, and they need to be broken in full before you can move on. - Various of the attacks are quick, still involve the hands and linger for a bit. Like a haymaker, a slam on one end of the platform leading to a sweep to the other and, where it remains for a second or two, three. With the saviour it's a toss-up if it will actually use the attack that leads to the as-of-yet unbroken weak spots. - The platforming element is kept simple. Only four platforms going in a circle around the Harbinger, as opposed to the Saviour's haphazard levitating broken Jenga tower. - While there are non-Hand attacks, things like the shard rain and the enemy summon can be used to build up the Special resource (Synergy) by breaking the fallen crystals or Countering the summoned enemies (Countering is a central mechanic to the combat and not difficult to perform). So even if you can't directly harm the Harbinger, your reaction still leads to useful resource buildup for when it *is* vulnerable. - Both have a colossal laserbeam attack that simply does what it does. It's legit quite a solid fight. The Harbinger immediately follows up the boss fight called The Omen, which is smaller but still three times the size of the player character and is the more mechanically challenging one of the two. Some melee combos, telekinetic rubble throw, a counterable laser attack, and employing two attacks from two previous bosses that are dangerous yet fair. There's another Giant boss called the Colossus that sits between the Harbinger and the Omen in terms of size. It's like a monstrous, somewhat ape-like creature birthed out of a flying head that vertically splits into two halves. The halves keep floating a little bit away from its arms. The Colossus has a kick, some combos with slams and swipes, and can use the face halves as a ramming shield for the left (right for his perspective) face, and as a slamming weapon after doing a big LEAP with the other half. I'd say it may be one of the easiest bosses in the game if you stay close and behind it, but is still no pushover-- if anything it's one of my favourites. Fun dude. The "gimmick" aspect is that sometimes it may retreat back into the halves of the head, which makes it invulnerable. During this phase it will burrow itself into the ground to cast laser geysers (a move that the Omen uses too), and can fly back up to perform a spinning move with a big mouth laser. (starts out slow, speeds up and goes slow again). After that it will fall down from overexerting itself, and you need to hit either halves of its head to bring the monstrous ape creature back out. There are two instances of the "Duels between Equals" too, which i shan't spoil. Generally Soulstice has very solid bosses spare for one. Can recommend it warmly for both gameplay and story.

[@Dracas42]

Infested Chopper? Which game was that from? Can't be DMC2, since that game doesn't exist... wonder why they just skipped straight to DMC3.

[@yehuda8589]

Why do people hate the Infested Chopper so much? it's just a regular bullet sponge DMC2 boss, not really particularly notable outside of how fucking funny it is, like I unironically love it

[@CoralCopperHead]

@@yehuda8589 I think for a lot of people, that fight was when it _really_ sank in that DMC2 was going to be all guns all the time. Just being at that specific part of the game makes it the poster bird for that fact by association.

[@darienb1127]

One of my least favorite boss gimmicks (if it even is a gimmick), are the fights where you need to take care of some other targets before you can attack the main body. This isn't an inherently bad idea, but most games tend to mishandle it. The biggest issue is that these fights are usually slooooooow. The worst one of these have you deal with multiple targets, then only give you a small opportunity to deal damage, sometimes only a few seconds! And then the boss becomes invincible again and the slow, tedious process starts all over again.

[@pootissandvichhere9135]

You Want To Get Beat? Hurtily? (Yes that’s the name) is annoying in limbus company. He’s not hard at all but he and his flunkies have 5 lives, and while each life has less HP, THEY DONT GO TO THE NEXT LIFE UNTIL THE TURN ENDS! To make matters worse, even if you know what to do and figure out how to turn the passive off? You still have to deplete 3 lives minimum on the main one. Spiral of Contempt on the other hand, while tough and nearly prevents all damage from its insane resistances, is super fun because using ailments lets you lower those resistances, there’s a hidden, yet risky trick to create two permanent damage type weaknesses, and by smacking the hands you can gain a buff to overcome the resistance (unless you do it to much then it becomes a debuff). By smartly building your team, you can shred it to pieces. In fact the bonus mode Refraction Railway has fun bosses which until 4 were basically immune to damage unless you could play to their complex gimmicks. Railway one had 3 flunkies who healed off all damage at the start of a turn, but if you out enough karma on them, they die. Once they’re dead it’s a straight up fight. Railway 2 had sign of roses, which spawned roses based on your team. If they live for four turns, the connected character dies. But killing them lowers Sign of Roses’ resistances and does some damage. There were even checks where you could increase the damage of certain types of attacks for both sides!

[@alfredoguzman6269]

(PM MENTIONED) *cough* To clarify how the fight proceeds, there are three enemies in the battle, and each has 5 "lives" individually unless the passive that enables this is removed. To initiate the event to remove said passive, you need to deplete 2 lives cummulatively. Its possible to: deplete 2 lives, one each from both mooks(they're the easiest to kill) on turn 1, then on turn 2 you will get the warning for the event coming next turn. Still during turn 2, damage the main boss, but don't kill it, get it as close to 0 as you can. Turn 3, perform a dialog choice to check the factory the enemy came from, but you need to deplete the main boss' health to 0 this time. When the passive activates, the enemy's max hp is decreased by 20%, but depending on the game mode, it can be hundreds of hp to chew through again, this ia why you don't deplete the boss hp until now. Assuming you blitzed the boss down on turn 3, next turn you get another event with another easy dialog choice to shut down the factory and remove all the extra lives and inflict them with a debuff thay increases all direct damage they take, and only use a very weak attack that deals sel-damage to the user. So, it takes a minimum of 4 turns to be able to beat an otherwise very easy fight, and that's IF you can do the whole song and dance as efficiently as possible. EVERYTIME you fight it. Now, I mentioned dialog choices, in the first one if you decline to check the factory, you have to slog through 15 total lives(albeit increasingly shorter ones), in the second, if you pick "Yes" 3 times in a row, the factory explodes doing a chunk of damage to all of our allied units deployed in the battle. There's no challenge or check for these dialog choices btw, its just a matter of having prior knowledge.

[@alexanderkosten7611]

The thing that really makes You Want To Get Beat? Hurtily?'s design failure obvious is that there's a "harder" version of it shortly thereafter, the even more ridiculously named Clippity☆Cloppity Tap Away, which is the same gaggle of cyborgs now wearing the Pink Shoes Abnormality (SCP objects, essentially). It tries to have a "more complex" mechanic involving a status called Desirous that changes up the attack pattern, but... you can just DPS it down in 1 or 2 turns. It's usually a joke, arguably the single easiest fight of its story chapter and one of the least threatening potential floor bosses in Mirror Dungeons. Actually, Mirror Dungeon is probably the biggest reason everyone hates dealing with Get Beat? Hurtily?. It's by far the most commonly replayed content in Limbus Company, something of a roguelike mode, and this specific boss is prone to showing up and wasting your time on the regular. It and Baba Yaga (a "boss" that consists of multiple waves of enough regular enemies that they always get at least two more actions per turn than your party, under a turn limit before Baba Yaga stomps you all) are by far the most consistent time-wasters, even though they rarely pose an actual challenge. Due to the floor theme Baba Yaga spawns on having a useful exclusive item, people are willing to deal with it anyway, and it was actually removed from Mirrors entirely for a very long time, so Get Beat? Hurtily? is much more hated. See also the other reply who has clearly memorized EXACTLY how to most efficiently min-turn the fight - due to Mirror Dungeon's buffs an optimal setup very frequently can one-cycle bosses, and these two specific encounters are the only early-floor bosses that can outright counter such builds. Technically other encounters like the snake Inquisitors are worse for forced damage, but everyone hates cyborgs and Baba Yaga way more because they're pure tedium over challenge. Other bosses with fight-stalling gimmicks are exclusive to the later floors (Shock Centipede, multi-phase story fights) and put up an actual fight in return rather than pure stall tactics.

[@sharoo_draws]

Projmoon mention :D! And I agree with folks here. In general bosses whose HP comes in phases, meaning it cannot be depleted past a threshold until the end of the next turn, can be very annoying. This approach makes sense for bosses who have phases, but giving a single miniboss encounter 3 lives like this and then making this one refightable for the purpose of Mirror Dungeons and weekly grinding really did not help to solidify what a drag it is to go through. When a boss tangibly forces you to wait, it's sticks out. Especially in games build to be snappy and focused on decimating enemies. "Take your time, I'll wait" should never be something the player sarcastically thinks in gaming. This applies also to bosses who are invulnerable/out of reach for the majority of the encounter before you can finally deal them some damage.

[@pootissandvichhere9135]

@@sharoo_draws Ahab and other big bosses are OK. I don’t wanna blitz through their interesting phases. But when it’s drawing out more of the same , cmon man!

[@pootissandvichhere9135]

The Project moon games however are excellently designed, and have the same ethos. First, all the mechanics are extremely simple, but the complexity comes from there being a lot of intertwined interactions. Next, there is a preplanning phase. You ready up a plan to get through the day/fight. However, while there is a lot of strategy, there is a bit of luck, not everything will go perfectly, so you have to be able to adjust on the fly as well. A work can go sideways or a clash that you’re sure would win goes belly up. On the flip side it can be awesome to try and stick a Hail Mary. Finally, as the game goes on, things get more insane. More attacks go out a turn, powerups get out, etc. Their games are making a plan, watching it go sideways, and salvaging it with improvisation.

[@eizneckam4936]

As an example of a good gimmick final boss, I'd like to submit the last phase of the final boss in Kirby: Planet Robobot. It's a genre change to a Star Fox-style shoot em up against a robotic planet. Kirby games aren't that difficult usually, so the genre switch isn't likely to throw you off that badly. You can build up your "Planet Buster" super attack by shooting down the boss' projectiles. The first two phases aren't that difficult, but the third one throws a new gimmick at you that shakes up the fight. He barely stays onscreen during the last phase, instead sending out various minion types to attack you. After a certain amount of time, he'll unleash a super attack that instantly kills you if you aren't at full HP. The boss is onscreen for too little time to defeat with your regular shots - you have to build up the Planet Buster by shooting down the minions, but they'll disappear if you don't defeat them fast enough. You also have to time your Planet Buster usage - its damage scales way up for every level, so you have to unleash the max level attack on the boss to deplete his health fast enough. It's not extremely strict - missing a few minions won't lose you the fight, but it can be tricky the first time. And it's extremely satisfying to unleash the max level Planet Buster on the final boss for over 50% of his health. Finally, you get taken straight to the final phase again if you die, so it's not incredibly punishing to fail. It's probably my favorite final boss in the series.

[@goldenwing6560]

It also, like many Kirby bosses, has great music going while you're fighting it.

[@Linktober04]

19:50 I personally was a fan of the boss fights in Neon White. I found it fun to optimize moving and shooting simultaneously at Neon Green, and there was a sequence break in the fight that was fun to discover when getting the red time. I don't remember the specifics of the fight that made it fun for me though, maybe I played a future patched version where it was much easier to whittle down Green's health over time? The clips you showed definitely made Green feel like a bullet sponge, which wasn't an impression I had fighting him personally. Overall a good video though!

[@al8188]

The Zorah Magdaros shoutout! Sieges in MH have a history, but like. They're awful. The spectacle does not make up for how repetitive, slow, and tedious they are. MH is about preparation, positioning, execution, and the relationship between monster and hunter. Monsters like Lao that mostly ignore you or Zorah Magdaros that seems totally unaware of you, that are fought with cannons and ballistae are so unbelievably lame. Monsters like Fatalis that incorporate siege weaponry and have multi-phase fights which demand both knowledge of their specific environment, a willingness to use a wide range of tools, and still center the core gameplay of hitting a monster with your weapon? Awesome.

[@QuaternityMain]

Seeing Chilly Ride from Luigi's Mansion brought back painful memories. Now that's a bad boss.

[@ScrewdriverGaming]

That boss is the sole reason I decided not to get the remake.

[@mintykiwi]

4:10 LET'S GO GAMBLING!

[@LooseAsADEUCE]

Ah dang it

[@hughmongus6959]

Ah dang it

[@Rodri34451]

Ah dang it

[@Carlhero-ce2xq]

Ah dang it

[@beefchopstick]

Ah dang it

[@dondashall]

I'm going to go with the final bosses of Yakuza (Kiwami) 2 and Yakuza 5. It's a straightforward boss encountered at first, except when you beat the boss you have maybe a second to hit a QTE prompt and if you fail - go back and do the entere fight again, and again, and again. It's not even the same QTE prompt so you can't even do "Ok, I'm pressing B", no you have barely and time whatsoever to identify the prompt and press it.

[@salvador6182]

maybe i just have better reaction time, but i didnt have any trouble with this? i checked back and the time for the QTE isnt that bad, theres definitely been far stricter QTEs in the series beforehand. definitely sucks to mess it up though i dont think its that hard

[@dondashall]

@@salvador6182 Maybe they've patched it since, but the speed in Yakuza 2 was much too fast for me to do. I ended up lowering the difficulty to see if it was better and it was, which ugh. Yakuza 5 I think has a little bit more leeway, I think I beat that on the 3rd attempt or so.

[@drawingtoptarp3101]

In Mario and Luigi Paper Jam, the King Bobomb boss fight is unique in the sense that there is a time limit for the fight, with a instakill happening at the end of the timer. The whole battle system is already super slow in the game and having your time be restricted just doesn’t feel good. The only way to get through the fight is to be sure to have your BP filled up, hope you got your attack and BP stats high enough, and better not mess up a single attack since that will cost you like 20-30 seconds or more out of the 4 minutes you have to defeat the boss.

[@WuhHuh]

I have to defend this fight because I remember during one playthrough that the timer ended and King Bob-omb exploded, but I think because of some gear I had at least one of the Mario Bros survived with 1 hp. I can’t remember the specific gear I had, but I remember being so surprised that I somehow lived, let alone won the fight because the boss just defeated himself lol.

[@Umbra_Nocturnus]

I mostly remember Wiggler for being an absolute difficulty spike after steamrolling through the game up until that point. I avoided jumping on him, since that's what usually makes him go red and angry. Even then, suddenly, it's Wiggler's turn until I'm dead. Really not sure what went wrong there.

[@ritachikorita6916]

The explosion actually is not instant kill, you can survive it by stacking defense boosting cards and having a lot of HP/Def (300+) while emergency guarding, as shown in a no dodge run. You can also counter his Bob-omb throwing attack for flat damage as well as adding a minute to the timer, which is how he is fought in any% no IBG runs, or just use the +5 minutes cards mid-fight.

[@OhCrapI_He]

14:47 There is a cheeky little trick you can use to destroy one of the turrets and one of the walls at the same time, so the fight only trchnically requires 6 shots, but it's not the easiest thing in the world to pull off. It really says something when almost every romhack of this game, even the ones designed to be more difficult, does something to make this boss easier (Quint's Revenge turns Crash Bomber into a screen nuke that destroys all the turrets immediately, the Atari demake has respawning weapon energy pickups, etc.)

[@ThatGP]

I've never been too fond of the Punch-Out segment of the rat fight in Enter the Gungeon. It's nothing like anything else in the game, so when you finally reach it, you are not prepared for it at all. Additionally, it's buried A FULL HOUR into a run, so you can't even practice it efficiently, so good luck remembering everything from your previous attempts. None of the items that you gather from the earlier floors help you in any way either, so you can't get carried by your gear. Lastly, the fight is kinda tough on its own. Sure, people who have played Punch-Out probably don't find it that hard, but you're screwed if you've never played it before. At the very least, it's an optional boss that doesn't end the run if you die to it, but it still just feels forced in without much reason or thought. I never managed to beat that segment until I found Gungeon mods, since they let you reset a floor over and over again, which I did to practice the fight. Good luck managing to learn this fight on your own without those tools, though.

[@DistheHero]

Agreed.

[@francisfranciscano]

I agree that it has nothing to do with the rest of the game, so it felt super frustrating until I got the hang of it, but I think you're taking way too long to get to the rat lol.

[@EGadjo]

Yeah I beat everything in that game and gave up after I did all the nonsense to be allowed to fight the rat and lost at the very end of a surprise punch out sequence

[@JohnThems]

Enter the Gungeon is the type of game where almost everything is built around making a joke or a reference and worrying about game design after. Even the entire game's concept was thought up in a single afternoon using the title as a starting point. Everything in the game that involves the Rat is horribly designed.

[@pablozaid6078]

I fucking love the punch out bit, it's my favorite part of the fight

[@lamptrent]

in the Zelda-ish title Community Pom for PS1, plant miniboss Audrey IV is entirely invulnerable unless you use a fully-charged melee strike on one of the spores it generates, which will send the spore sailing through the air and landing in the boss' face, hurting it. there's a lot of reasons why the player won't figure this out for at least half an hour: - hitting projectiles with a charged attack doesn't do anything special at any point before or after the boss (to my memory); this is a mechanic unique to this miniboss - when you're charging an attack, you automatically reflect projectiles in the direction you're facing, which does work on the spores, and they do disappear when they hit the boss - but this does absolutely nothing! - you have a wide variety of damaging spells, including fiery and explosive magic, that you can try using on the boss. none of them do anything - you can try spending a rare consumable fire-themed super attack item on the boss, and nothing will happen - if you time your charged attack wrong, it also won't work - the game's hit feedback isn't always the best, so it's easy to just think the boss has a lot of health - why would a plant be vulnerable to its own poison? if you know what to do, the fight's super easy, and just amounts to waiting for cycles (gee, lovely). if you don't know what to do, you'll run through every option in your inventory and beyond. at least it's obvious what they want you to do once you finally stumble your way into the solution... also, you can just leave through the door mid-fight for some reason. the door doesn't lock when you enter. if you leave, it'll reset your progress in the fight, and it's not hard to do on accident. community pom is not a very polished game! I do not recommend it! I looked up a playthrough to refresh my memory, and the let's player got stuck on it too lol

[@patriziopucci9316]

I am so glad that some frames showed Drakengard's final boss, it was such a difficult and strangely fun experience that I loved it (although I almost surrendered to not being able to defeat it, same for Drakengard 3)

[@theitalianmexican1035]

A little irrelevant, but I personally hate bosses that are "stupid" in the sense that they attack you in a way that leaves them vulnerable afterwards or during the attack, and then they keep doing that attack over and over as if it isn't going to cause them to get hurt over and over again. It's a problem that's in a lot of "turn based" style bosses, where you have to wait until they do this attack to hurt them. What makes it really annoying is just the fact that most of the bosses that do this aren't stupid enough to not realize what they are doing is clearly letting the player hurt them, and everytime I go against a boss like that I can't help but go "Really?.... Just stop throwing that attack!". What sucks the most though is that this is a VERY COMMON problem with bosses in hundreds of games. Most notably in Nintendo games like Super Mario and Splatoon. (And when I say Splatoon, I mean literally every single boss across all 3 games...). If a boss that is "supposed" to be pretty smart does an attack that leaves him vulnerable, then gets hurt solely due to doing that attack, and then proceeds to do it again and again like something will change, it's just a major sign the devs didn't really put a lot of effort into the boss fight when making it.

[@AndyJourney]

King Boo's slots will always give you fruits every two cycles, so the only bit of RNG is what's in between fruit cycles. I'm not defending the battle, just correcting misinformation.

[@Johnnyb3g00d]

Pretty sure that's mentioned in the video.

[@Dinoman972]

​@@Johnnyb3g00d He says that the game improves your chances of getting the fruit if you get unlucky. Clearly stating that the time you get the fruit does have some randomness to it in the first place.

[@ryanrouse5590]

I like how you showed the Luigi's Mansion 2 ice boss as an honorable mention thing. I hated that dude as a kid. The other bosses all only took a few tries, but that one just felt like trial and error. Even after you understand the strategy, figuring out exactly how to kill the dude requires some experimenting that you don't have time for.

[@OroppoWho]

ff15 adamantoise was easily the worst gimmick boss fight I've ever played. it's just a boss with no damage and a disgustingly large health bar, at max level if you perform perfectly it's still a half hour long fight, but in most cases it's 2 hours plus. I distinctly remember starting the fight, pausing, going to school, pausing, eating dinner and finally finishing the fight before I went to sleep. It was the most boring and uninteractive boss fight in a game where fights normally last less than 5 minutes. the boss is so big you only look at it's feet for the entire fight, and they barely move. It was the most "press square to win" boss ever. My biggest obstacle was dozing off halfway through the fight.

[@Samolexie]

It's worst when you consider it's vulnerable to the "wipe out of existence" skill of the ring. Basically the fight is either a long unfunny fight or not a fight at all (one shot) despite all the build-up.

[@xmgaming2444]

One of my least favorite gimmick bosses is Ares at the end of god of war. You've spent the whole game familiarizing yourself with the moveset of Kratos' blades of chaos, only to be given a completely new moveset that you have to learn on the fly while Ares kicks your teeth in. It would've been so much more fitting to have Kratos win with the very blades that Ares gave him too :(

[@Khornecussion]

King Boo was the only time I stopped having fun in Super Mario Sunshine. That game was my JAM on the gamecube. Animal Crossing, Super Mario Sunshine and Pikmin 1, 2 and 3. Bed of Chaos wasn't my frustrating moment. For me it was earlier. The Gaping Dragon breaking all my gear and leaving me with nothing to fight with because I didn't know it's breath attack would do that. I have an appreciation for Dark Souls though. Imagine having to design a game, balance it and make it viable for any person just slapping random points into random stats. Making it possible to kill every boss with any build must be HARD.

[@DevsClips]

The original release of Persona 5's Okumura fight. In Royal he's a lot easier due to his mobs having more weaknesses and the abundance of damage items, but in the original unless you bring a VERY SPECIFIC team you couldn't know about on your first playthrough, you're just screwed.

[@BikoFactory]

I loved Death Stranding but I gotta say almost all the bosses are quite gimmicky and pretty obnoxious. The giant BT near the end that you have to shoot a thousand times with a rocket launcher... Running around and throwing dozens of boxes at Higg's face... Tedious and repetitive. The scripted BT fights in general are quite broken since the game gives you a constant stream of items for you to beat them, a clear sign it's so detached from the core gameplay. It's interesting that IMO the Metal Gear series has some of the best and most memorable gimmick boss fights in video game history. Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, Fatman, Vamp, The End, all worked really well and are some of the highlights of the games.

[@lemonscentedgames3641]

Yeah kojima is very much a gimmick boss guy and gimmicks are exclusively hit or miss never just meh

[@droopyb8728]

The Steak battle from Paper Mario Color Splash, probably one of the most puzzle bosses in the series and it is atrocious.

[@squidsalotl]

The steak fight is a joke.

[@Novarcharesk]

It doesn't end there. The amount of situations in that game that require PRECISELY the right Thing Card with sometimes only a very vague hint of what one to use is ridiculous.

[@theawesomepanda1lance241]

I will concede that Paper Mario: Color Splash has incredibly weak boss design but using the Steak as an example feels misguided. Like, if you're analyzing Steak as a serious miniboss as opposed to a silly jokey way of framing the puzzle, you're already in the wrong mindspace. I don't know if squidsalotl was being derisive of the Steak battle or simply stating the truth but yeah it's pretty much just a joke lol

[@zaneheaston8254]

Mot from SMT3: Nocturne Beast’s Eye spam intensifies

[@chickennugget6684]

It's Mot's turn, and only Mot's turn.

[@forgedfight5158]

No mentions of Sonic frontier's hard final boss?! Missed opportunity there. It fills most of the boxes of this video.

[@aeiouaeioujajaja1750]

Poor Man's kirby planet robobot final boss

[@CyberDagger003]

​@aeiouaeioujajaja1750 Ever heard of a game called Ikaruga?

[@pinksywedarnoc8017]

For real, i was playing most of Sonic Frontiers on hard and that was still pretty easy up until The End boss where half way you do little to no damage and it goes into bullet hell mode and only having 3 lives and losing them quickly. I couldn't get past that and skipped the fight which ended the game; but I wanted to do the fight again on a easier mode but you can't and only get to fight supreme.

[@RKIOrbMage]

@@aeiouaeioujajaja1750 haha agreed

[@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606]

Alatreon in Monster Hunter World is a good example of several good boss gimmicks in my opinion. Escaton Judgement is a DPS timer of sorts, where you have to deal enough of his elemental weakness or he'll inescapably kill your entire team, ending the quest if you have a full team. This is a good boss gimmick, forcing the players to interact in certain ways, and achieve great skill to defeat one of the final bosses of the game. He has access to five different elements of attacjs, and each element has several unique moves. This is a good boss gimmick, it forces you to learn a wide variety of moves, significantly more than any other boss to that point, and makes you consider your own elemental weaknesses and resistances given by your armor. Finally, Alatreon shifts his elemental weakness between ice and fire, with dragon in between. His horn must be broken off, or he shifts elements entirely, making your elemental damage puny. This is a good boss gimmick, it forces you to focus on breaking a part. Unfortunately, Alatreon has ALL THREE of these boss gimmicks in the same fight, which turns a fun challenge into a panicked, stressful slog for most players. Stack on too many gimmicks, and a gimmick boss becomes a horrible player experience for all but the most elite skilled players, and if that's not your target audience, your players will mostly hate it

[@jossuecabrera8611]

One of my favorite boss gimmicks from the paper mario series would have to actually be from color splash (rare color splash W) from Bowser himself. Huey adds an extra layer of fun yet difficulty into the battle, forcing you to block to bank every damage you dealt onto bowser. While you are encourage to do this battle fast as there is a time limit, bowser's attacks will get faster and harder to block, adding a form of strategy if you want to take it the long or fast way and neither method of approaching this battlw is wrong. Honestly, if only this battle was in a different paper mario game, preferably ttyd, this wouldve probably been one of the best paper mario bosses.

[@edcrichton9457]

Zhaitan fight in Guild Wars 2 core campaign. It stops being an MMO and you spend lots of time sitting in a turret. And it is slow.

[@Dracas42]

Oh god, I blocked that fight from my memory. Easily the least fun I've had in that entire game.

[@corpsepatty6730]

Back before the balancing updates this fight was quite challenging. The absolute hordes of enemies that swarmed in kept you on your toes. Now the enemies are just optional flavour... They did Zhaitan dirty

[@HauntedKnight-cj8kv]

I absolutely LOVE when the boss is a tanky support. I don't know why it's not done more, since it is just so cool.

[@chromite9068]

The window from DMC4

[@3dmarth]

The two that I immediately thought of were: - Slow-paced and wastes your time, usually through waiting for the cycle to end (applies to bad bosses in general, really) - Makes heavy use of a totally different skill set than the one you've been using _for the entire game_

[@cannon9009]

I don't see how "slowing down time" is cheesing the Guilt boss. If it multiplies faster than you can clean it, then slow down time. Suddenly, it's multiplying slower, and you can more easily clean it up. Seems pretty simple. In fact, it sounds like the intended solution.

[@henke37]

You get a major score penalty for doing it. If that's not saying "this is not the optimal solution" then I don't know what the game is trying to say.

[@cannon9009]

@@henke37well gee i sure wish the narrator said that, almost like leaving out that context for people who have never played the game before would negatively impact how they think about the gimmick

[@thisisnotdan1]

@@cannon9009 I dunno, I just assumed there was some unspoken downside to using the "slow down time" mechanic.

[@burnoutknight5326]

@@thisisnotdan1 More often that not, Trauma Center games that include Healing Touch have most missions with a hidden bonus that adds a multiplier to your final score at the end of a mission if you didn't use your Healing Touch. As the game says in the story, it shouldn't be used all willy-nilly since it puts a huge strain on the user. Hence why, if you use HT, you lose out on score... Maybe even a rank. I had a mission with 9999 score in Under the Knife, but since I popped the HT, it instead gave me an A Rank instead of S Rank.

[@evanseifert8858]

The point is that it bypasses the mechanics of the puzzle without requiring any risk or effort. That's cheese.

[@PuppetMasterIX]

The story I've always heard regarding Bed of Chaos - and Lost Izalith, as a whole - is that it was made near the end of the game's development cycle, and was so severely rushed that it wasn't fully playtested. This does not explain why the remaster keeps it basically the same though.

[@thefuturist8864]

I suppose it would have been too much work and they just wanted to remaster it for modern systems rather than remake it from the ground up like Demons Souls.

[@Mordalon]

While I love DS1, the whole later half of that game after getting the Lord Vessel is unfinished. Seeth's boss fight is dull and the runback to it is tedious, and while Tomb of Giants isn't the worst, it still feels very clunky.

[@lemonscentedgames3641]

Because remasters arent remakes. Dark souls 1 is getting there though. I wonder if blue point will make a 1:1 remake like with DeS or if From will actually add the cut content. DeS cut content was not added so i doubt DS1 will ever have a perfect izalith without dragon butts

[@lemonscentedgames3641]

​@@thefuturist8864fromsoft didnt remake DeS

[@lemonscentedgames3641]

​@@Mordalonyeah the final boss also sucks, is weak to fire despite holding a fire sword, and is parryable. I typically stop DS1 playthrus after the DLC

[@Urthdigger]

I feel like my least favorite gimmicks are those that require you to wait, and the ones that come to mind most are the obligatory Super Sonic bosses of most Sonic games. You're invincible so your slowly dwindling ring count is your only opponent, and because of this so many of them take a route of just not letting you attack them for most of the fight. The worst offender in this regard is the Time Eater from Sonic Generations. You're chasing it around a loop and even boosting seems to just not let you catch up to it. It appears to be completely random when the game decides it slows down enough for you to catch up and get an attack in.

[@sleepeybunney]

iirc you go faster in the middle of the tunnel

[@victor_creator]

It seems like restructuring Neon White's bossfights could be really good for them. I'm thinking along the lines of having to chase the boss down along a normal level, taking pot shots when you can. Then doing well would be about how much damage you can do while keeping up.

[@Arakus99]

The first two fights sort of work like this already? The boss levels have normal enemies, and you can shoot at Green while he’s moving between locations to do extra damage (which can let you end the fight way before the “scripted” final end point)

[@ApexGale]

The Luxord fight in KH2 was awful, because it effectively takes the fun and fast paced combat and says "Nah, play this minigame if you want to finish this fight in under 5 minutes." If you get hit by certain moves he transforms you into a card or dice and makes you unable to perform normal actions. Was such a letdown of a fight.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

Yeah, as much as I've seen people also complain about Demyx, Luxord always felt far more disappointing. I don't think Saix's fight is good either personally from what I remember of it, but at least Saix and Demyx use their goddamn elemnents. The arguably most disappointing thing about the Luxord fight is that aside from the timer that's barely a threat, he doesn't use his Time element in any real way at all even though time is what you're supposedly gambling. His fight is only made even more disappointing given how much better the later Xigbar and Xemnas fights are and how well they represent their elements. (Even if the Xemnas fights arguably drag on--har har--ever so slightly.)

[@Novarcharesk]

To this day, I still have no idea what I'm doing in that fight. I forget to look it up afterwards because the pace of the game is coming to the climax, so I don't worry about it. I actually think that weird "we ran out of narratively sensible times to fight these guys, so just go and kill them out of nowhere" approach they took with Luxord and Saïx. Like, there was no build up. It was just 'they're still alive, and you need them dead, soooooo... just go and kill them now.'

[@shiny2421]

Luxord in both KH2 and 3 has the same, boring feel to it. I never feel "satisfied" beating either. I'm just glad when they're over. Which sucks considering how AWESOME he is in Days as a playable character, and yet, he gets literal minigames as a boss.

[@denischen8196]

In Princess Peach Showtime's figure skater level, there is a boss where instead of attacking the boss normally, you have to find a way to get 8 figure skaters to follow behind you so you can surround the boss. There are also bosses that are just platforming stages in disguise, like Light Fang from Princess Peach Showtime, or Draggadon from Captain Toad Treasure Tracker.

[@sebastianmartinrosas]

Kirby gimmick final bosses are so good

[@WiiCON-49000]

A game with a terrible gimmick boss is Claymates on SNES. The entire game is a challenging platformer, but the final boss is a flying shooter. No other level in the game is like that, and it's very difficult. All the tricks you learned and all the powers you used throughout the game do not apply to the final boss. It is like a completely different game that plays worse than everything before it. Geist on the GameCube does the same thing.

[@happysmilesworldandgames8755]

5:35 yoko taro: phone in two 10:34 yoko taro: i want that

[@ap_red]

Hyperbolica's something I'm gonna criticise for a gimicky boss - I love the game, but the ending boss is a three-phase fight in the shifting geometry, after what is mostly relaxing puzzles, or 1-minute minigames. It completely shifts the pace and tone, and not really for the better. Granted, I can't compare a game made mostly by one person, to those made by hundreds.

[@Calicoma]

Yeah I get that and it kinda is tough at first but what I liked about it is that it was a shoot to the moon moment where it actually went full hyperbolic in all 3 dimensions instead of just two like the base game.

[@MadSwedishGamer]

Darkest Dungeon has a lot of gimmick bosses, most of them pretty good. One that stands out as particularly egregious though is the final boss of act three of DD2. It was so complicated, unintuitive, and punishing that it had to be reworked more than once. If you went in blind you were all but guaranteed to lose at least once and probably more just to figure out the mechanics of it. When runs are 2-3 hours long, that's a problem. I haven't played against it after the latest rework, but I hear it's better now at least. There's also the Thing From the Stars from one of the DLC packs of the first game. That one gains a fuckton of damage resistance as its health gets lower, so hopefully you bought the stand-alone Shieldbreaker character that can bypass it, or it's going to be a huge slog.