5 Signs Of A Badly Designed Gaming Boss Fight
4. Hey, I Just Remembered I Can Kill You Instantly!
Picture the scene: You've been locked in combat with a tenacious foe for minutes that have stretched into hours. Each move you make is coldly calculated to inflict the maximum damage with the least risk. You feel as if you have become one with the machine , a fusion of nerve-endings and circuitry with one objective - to fell the beast standing between you and your goal. You are unstoppable, relentless, undeniable...
Until you are instantly swatted by a blow that would shame One Punch Man.
This happens in so many games (Mr. X in the RE2 Remake, Mass Effect 3's Banshees, every bad Souls-like) and it is always terrible. The idea is to introduce an added element of tension in the fight, but it never does. No-one reacts to being hit with a one-hit kill move with "Oh ho, I shall endeavour to counter that in our next skirmish, worthy opponent!" Instead, their reaction is more akin to someone who has slammed their shin on the guest bed at a friend's house after stumbling back from the toilet in the dark - a sharp, murderous rage at being betrayed by a challenge they had come so close to completing.
To all video game developers: as Nancy Reagan once almost said, "One Hit KO? Just Say No!"