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MY TOP 3 VIDEO GAME BOSSES

NUMBER THREE:

GOHT

(The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask)

Most Zelda boss fights - let's face it, most adventure game boss fights - are glorified puzzle rooms with exciting music. Goht keeps you moving and feels exciting the entire time.

You enter a donut-shaped chamber and see a giant block of ice begging for some fire arrows. After you fire Goht breaks free and just begins rampaging around in a circle. The Goron mask allows Link to Goronify himself at will, giving him enhanced strength and a new rolling method of locomotion. After rolling slowly for 5 seconds spikes burst out, giving you great speed and some nice weapons for thwacking.

Chasing Goht around the chamber feels hectic and exciting. You ramp over obstacles and ram him whenever the opportunity presents itself, all the while dodging bombs and rocks falling around you. The challenge level isn't amazing and apparently it's easy to cheat by standing far away unloading arrows on him like some sort of Skyrim dragon fight (hey-o). But when it comes down to it the fight just feels fun. No thought required, just rolling after a giant robot goat and spiking it in the butt repeatedly.

NUMBER TWO:

META RIDLEY

(Metroid Prime 3: Corruption)

After a brief sortie against jetpacked Space Pirates you need to complete the third morph ball puzzle of the level to activate the generator. Yawn. It activates and as you start to saunter towards the next objective A GIANT MECHANODINOSAUR SLAMS INTO YOU FROM ABOVE.

You are now careening down a pit with a laser-weilding pterodactly bouncing around nearby. A ticking counter unobtrusively pops up on your HUD spinning down the number of meters you have until you slam into the ground at terminal velocity. Being an incredibly badass, rather than frantically searching for a means to slow your descent you decide, fuck it, I'm killing the dinosaur first

The fight itself is pretty standard. Ridley flies around you shooting lasers while you hit him in the conspicuous glowing regions. But damn does it get the adrenaline pumping.

NUMBER ONE:

Mr. Freeze

(Batman: Arkham City)

You're actually trying to stop Penguin, looking dapper with his broken-bottle monocle and stolen Freeze ray, when you first meet Freeze. After a bit of aggressive cut-scene negotiation, Batman convinces Victor to provide the override code to all Freeze gadgets within about 10 meters.

Bats does his thing and Penguin gets clobbered. But what's that? Freeze is going berserk? Holy unanticipated twists, Batman! Sally forth and put a stop to that vile miscreant!. Something something plot happens, boring let's fight.

Here's how it would go in any other game. He stalks around the room shooting while you wait for your plot-device hacker to charge up. You hack his armor, get in a few punches, then avoid his invulnerable attacks for another minute. Repeat until tender.

Let's see how Arkham City handles it.

Freeze stalks around the room with an energy shield pulsing. You activate your magical hacking tool to bring him to his knees. You run up and give him the old one-two before his suit begins to beep ominously as he stands back up to reactivate. You run back for cover, where you hear him taunt:

"That is the last time that will work on me." Freeze then recalibrates his suit's programming to prevent any further hacking attacks.

Well then. Didn't see that coming. What now...how about you hide in the floor panels. Wait patiently for him to step nearby, then jump out and punch him! Great, it worked!

Mr. Freeze stands back up and fires into the floor gratings, icing them over throughout the room.

Each time you penetrate his defenses the bastard learns from his mistakes.

Too many bosses feel like a well choreographed dance. The boss shoots his missiles, fires his lasers, then gets mad and attacks with his sword. Sword gets stuck in the ground, you get a few hits in, then he stands back up and you repeat. Slowly whittle down his health bar and possible additional forms. But why didn't he just keep shooting his rockets? Those hurt a lot. Why bother with the sword when it's clearly the only way that I ever get to hit him?

The Freeze fight mimics a strategic opponent with a minimum of actual programming effort involved. The player feels clever for outsmarting him and often has to stretch further than their comfort zone to find unexplored gameplay. Didn't know you could blow up a wall or electrify nearby magnetic coils (why do so many buildings have built-in magnetic coils?) to incapacitate a dude? Now you do. Go forth and use that on lesser minions.


Don't repeatedly design the same fight when there are simple and effective methods to make them intelligent.

To think on what it could have been, I leave you with the immortal words of Ahnold: