Back when Mario came out, players probably freaked over the size of the 8-bit Bowser they encountered at the end of each castle. As games advanced with the consoles, the bosses got a little bigger in scale and more challenging. The most notable ones I remember from my early years are the big Robotnick robot from the end of Sonic 2 and the Bowser floating device at the end of Super Mario World. As the consoles went on into the 3-D world and the games started requiring more strategy than before, the players found themselves spending more time with some bosses than they spent completing normal levels or tasks.
One of the first big bosses I remember when I really got into gaming, which were the beginning days of PS1, were the bosses in Resident Evil. Now these were the days before all the fancy evasion tactics we see now in games like God of War or the upcoming Dante’s Inferno. There was the Snake, Plant 42 and of course, the Tyrant. The following two sequels took the same root, with bosses of the same size, but no real challenge to them or good evasion tactics. The real good ones came with Resident Evil 4. This was when bosses began to get more interactivity with them, allowing the player to press buttons and perform moves that damaged the boss greatly or delivered the finishing move. The one from RE4 that stands out to me is the fight with the two El Gigante’s at once. Talk about time and draining ammo.
Games went on and began to bring more and more to the gaming table, trying to keep up with other games and try to bring something new to the table. When Shadow of the Colossus came out, it was a cult hit with PS2 gamers. The whole game was purely just seeking out the Colossi an defeating them one by one. Sounds like an easy game? Think again. The Colossi were massive beats that you actually had to interact with, scaling them and finding the weak point or points in some where you ha to stabbed them repeatedly until they were dead. This would also seem easy enough, but the creators added some mix in there, such as flying ones that you have to lure to the ground in order to mount them or underwater ones that required stamina for breathing under water and hanging onto them when they reached the surface. This brought a new twist to bosses in games and the interactivty between the player and them, freeing gamers from the usual evade, hit and evade again. This wuld soon to be a growing fad in games to come.
God of War added more to the interactivity with bosses, making bosses appear throughout levels, much like the Hydra or the Colossus of Rhodes statue. They appear in segments until you get to the final showdown to where you would have to beat them with your blades enough until a circle would appear above them so you could perform a devastating attack or a final blow to the usually behemoth bosses. Not only the bosses would begin to get bigger but the main enemies in levels would grow in size, such as the minotaurs and the cyclops’ that would appear. These, too, would begin to take more strategy when taking on multiples, evading and attacking, hitting them until you got that button symbol pop up above their head. This added more depth to the game play, more than just simply jumping on enemies like the good of days.
More and more games would follow this routine, following the fad of bigger bosses = more fun. The most current with huge, unwordly bosses is the recent Dante’s Inferno. It is expected that game that takes place in Hell would have mammoth creatures that defy the very laws of God and they would of course stop at nothing to delay your journey to claim back your beloved from the cluthces of Lucifer. The bosses such as Minos and the guard of Gluttony, Cerebrus are massive and only seek to add Dante to their souls there in Hell, but it is Cleopatra in the Circle of Lust that really got me. A huge, naked, purple toned Cleopatra on a tower that you have to ascend along with her as she crawls all over it. Having to climb the tower and defeat her on various levels, Dante’s must beat her to a certain point, avoiding the monsters she creats from her chest (disgusting) and hit a lever on a ledge above while she is distracted from the hits you dealt her. When this happens, flames shoot out from serpent pillars, causing Cleopatra to become pissed and climb further up the tower. Dante’s Inferno follows God of Wars rules, making the bosses huge and normal enemies bigger in scale, using levers and other items in the enviornment against the bosses.
Games continue to evolve and with technology continuing to advance, there’s no limit to what game developers can do. The games and the bosses are great, but this is just the beginning. The next gen systems are only a few years old and developers have not even tapped the potential power from either one. With these continued advancements, who knows what we’ll see next. With XBox’s Netal coming soon, the players will have to take matters in their own hands, actually using their own motions to defeat these beasts. The future of game bosses is just beginning…
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You know what game had some epic boss fights? Just about any games with the words, “Mega” or “Man.”
Any time the boss music hit in a Final Fantasy game hit, it always made me feel like I was way in over my head.
I do agree with you, Mr. Lucha, Final Fantasy had some good bosses. I liked FFVI – FFVIII the best, wasn’t pleased with the boss in FFX, thought the break 9999 damage sphere made Yu Yeven a little too easy, Jecht was impressive though. I didn’t leave Final Fantasy out on purpose, just went with action games mostly that had huge bosses