5 Signs Of A Badly Designed Gaming Boss Fight
1. Forget Everything You Have Learned
So, remember back in the introduction to this article when it mentioned that a good boss requires the player to bring all the skills they have learned to bear in one final test of mastery? A bad boss does the exact opposite, forcing the player to adopt a cheesy tactic they will use once for this fight, then never again.
Even the best games can fall prey to this - the final battle in the otherwise excellent Borderlands 2 ditches the game's entertaining running 'n' gunning in favour of making you wait in one specific spot to chip away at the boss' weak point. Trying to play the game normally just results in being stomped on and incinerated, so you're forced to hide under a bridge and wait until the boss flashes its chest at you like it was a horny socialite taunting the homeless.
Developers: Cheese is fine on toast, with wine and even in 9:00 p.m. sitcoms, but never in games. Please make sure your testers are using more than one tactic to beat your boss.
These are just some of the ways game bosses have infuriated gamers over the years. If you have any other pet peeves regarding boss fights please let us know in the comments, and thank you for reading!