Current Events > Good video games with bad final boss fights?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just finished a replay of the original Legend of Zelda for the 35th anniversary. It's an awesome game, easily one of the top ten on the NES, but the final boss fight is a miserable experience.

Ganon teleports and is invisible. There's no real strategy. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you were expecting a grand finale), he only takes four hits to render immobilized. If you flail at the air blindly, you'll likely beat him with 75% health remaining. If you let him recover, or try to carry him through the fight to make it more engaging, you'll likely end up in a Casey at the Bat scenario. Because of that, the character is simultaneously too easy and too difficult.

Two Worlds 2

Ys

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FFX

Drakengard 3. Suddenly, it becomes a rhythm game.

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most FF games
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Super Mario Galaxy 2.
A lot of people say Bioshock's but I liked it.
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Borderlands

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Halo 4


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Octopath Traveler

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Final Fantasy IX

Not gonna spoil anything, but if you played it, you know exactly what Im talking about.

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Joker in arkham asylum

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Mass Effect 2

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Shadow of Mordor if that even counts as a fight.

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Ori and the Will of the Wisps

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The Bowser fight from Super Mario Sunshine was really uninspired.

I was shocked to find out Uncharted 2 is this for most people, I love that fight

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FF9
o

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Every SNK fighting game. All of them.

Any of the Uncharted games. I think 4 had the best one.

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No More Heroes 2

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Rogue Galaxy. Every individual party member has to fight part of it and it's intentionally something that the character can't easily get in to attack. Short range guy fighting a mobile thing, projectile only guy who has slow animations fighting the same thing meaning he's knocked out of his attacks all the time, melee girl fighting against something that zones you out and uses lasers to knock you away while you're up close, etc.


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Mass Effect 3

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Quite a few Sonic games.

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Kirby's Dream Course. Rather than one final hole or whatever that really gives you a challenge, it's... Literally just spamming aerial shots on a literal final boss.

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Furi

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Fable 2

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Oh right, and

Remnant: From the Ashes

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Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time... if you even count that last fight as a boss.


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Uncharted 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNUNLh2YF9Q

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Code Vein true/standard ending

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Veggeta X posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNUNLh2YF9Q

I don't know why the victory tune has my laughing so hard. I guess it must be because of the "thud" from the uppercut and the dude simply taking it.

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FFIX instantly came to mind lol

Not the final boss, but the fish fight from earthworm jim 2 is still worth a share:

https://youtu.be/Z92gPiMyTfk?t=29

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Demons Souls

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Sonic Generations.
Compared with the games other boss fights, which are fast, kinetic affairs that take best advantage of the games strengths, the final boss is similar to that of Sonic 3&Knuckles(Doomsday Zone) and Sonic Adventure 2, except much slower, floatier, and time-consuming.
In other words, its extremely dull and samey.

SolidShadow3 posted...

Fable 2

This

I fucking love Fable 2. The style, the writing, the aesthetic, the characters, everything.

I even like how the ending in the Spire is handled

But the final fight of the game not involving the antagonist? Stupid af

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Arkham Asylum.

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Letsago posted...

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time... if you even count that last fight as a boss.

Thats a post final boss. The actual final boss is pretty tough and fun.
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Spyro the Dragon (the first one)

EDIT: Even bigger example, Crash Bandicoot 2.

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Oblivion: Mankar Camoran and his kids aren't distinct from any generic high-powered mages, and the final mission drives home how the main quest really isn't your story, wherein you're merely escorting Martin to the temple and can't even damage Mehrunes Dagon once he's on the field.

Skyrim: I wouldn't necessarily call the final showdown with Alduin bad, and Sovngarde is a great setting. But apart from the meteor storm shout, there's nothing that really sets him apart from the dozens of other dragons you've fought up to that point, and unless you burned through the main quest as fast as possible and / or are purposely gimping yourself, it's very unlikely that he'll pose any challenge to you. On the other hand, Bethesda did finally learn a lesson here and at least made the final bosses of Dawnguard and Dragonborn more structured and eventful, if not much more challenging.

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Man, some of yall throwing out games I really enjoyed and dont remember the boss fights being bad :(

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GiftedACIII posted...

Thats a post final boss. The actual final boss is pretty tough and fun.

Yeah, I was stretching the definition of final boss a bit there.
Most examples of bad final bosses I could think of were just phases of a larger fight. Another example would be BotW.

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Phantasy Star Portable. I loved the game up until that point but after I tried that final boss fight one time I rage quit and never went back to the game again because of how cheap it felt

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Persona 3

Final boss tries to be "epic" with a million forms, the first twelve of which don't even do anything besides make you waste time watching animations, and the final form still doesn't even try to threaten you much at all until it gets low on health, but it does have tons of health and defense so it takes ages to grind through even though nothing is going on.

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GoW2

The final Brumak fight is dumb af
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Trumble posted...

Spyro the Dragon (the first one)

EDIT: Even bigger example, Crash Bandicoot 2.

Funny thing, I just beat Spyro 1 (remake) and I didn't even realize I was facing the final boss...I thought he was just another mini boss or something. Then the ending cutscene started playing and I was like :O

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I feel like I have better examples I'm forgetting, but so far I only have Half-Life.
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I wasn't a super huge fan of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, so I can't say it fits the "good video games" criteria from my perspective, though I think people generally liked it. Anyway, there was an obvious way you could easily one shot the final boss; it was just like... that's it?

As far as games go that I liked, Bomberman 64's drove me nuts because it was when I realized that the game wasn't truly analog, it was just 8-way motion, and I really struggled to get the right angles necessary to drop bombs on the boss's head and stun him.

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