Picture right now a video game that features a tough boss fight. It can be from any genre or series; just go ahead and picture it. Now, focus on how you had to defeat that boss. What did you have to do to kill it/defeat it? Did you have to wail away at it endlessly? Did you need to exploit key weaknesses so you could do massive damage? Or was there another path to victory? That topic was something that Masahiro Sakurai focused on in his latest video. Specifically, he highlighted what style of boss fight he prefers versus ones that feel a little too “flavorless.”
For example, he noted series like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Mega Man, and more where boss fights play out in an exact fashion. In the first series case, he highlighted the Gohma fight, where you always have to attack the spider monster’s eye and then hack away at it until it dies. Or how Mega Man’s abilities, which he collects over time, are meant to be used to counter future bosses.
While Sakurai notes that this is a “valid way” of making games, he doesn’t like it that the gameplay is restrictive within the fight. He even likened it to being more like a “tutorial” than actually playing against a boss and figuring out how to take it down.
He then shifted over to Castlevania, which lets you wail away at enemy bosses you come across with whatever weapon you have equipped. Sakurai stated that this is also a valid way to handle boss fights, but it’s also a bit “flavorless” because it means you can win with virtually any weapon so long as you don’t get hit too much first.
Then, there are titles like Persona 3 Reload, or certain RPG franchises in general, where you need to figure out the weaknesses of the enemy boss, exploit them, and then attempt to repeat the strategy until they’re put down. As for titles like Monster Hunter, they let players choose the weapons they feel “most comfortable with” and then attempt to beat the boss with them.
In the end, the “best way to handle a boss fight,” according to Masahiro Sakurai, isn’t so much about trying to mimic something but to “hone in on your design” and attempt to make a system that works for your game. Not everyone will like it, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong way to go.
