/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.10444581]

When did final bosses in games actually get good? Most older games have pretty underwhelming final bosses

[Anonymous No.10444596]

What was the first actual boss in general? The UFO from Xevious?

[Anonymous No.10444640]

>>10444596

[Anonymous No.10444641]

to play armchair game dev, i'd say a boss should be a test in what you've learned so far. games are all about building an inventory of skills and knowledge, then applying those skills and knowledge. so by my definition, a good boss is one that tests all the skills you've acquired up to a certain point. some games do that, some games don't. if i were to totally rework a game like ninja gaiden, i'd say "alright, this boss is all about jumping. the next boss is jumping--plus slashing. boss 3 is about jumping, slashing, and sticking to walls" etc, etc..

aside from the actual gameplay, i think bosses like "safer" (supposed to be sephir...sephiroth? idk) sephiroth and lavos' final form are excellent just because they're huge fucking spectacles with great music. in both cases the music seems to be doing something greater than everything that preceded it. example, the final boss music in ff7 has vocals. nothing else has vocals in the game. the final battle in ct sounds like some demoscene shit.

i can also appreciate bosses that are incredibly cryptic, or do things you don't expect. i don't have an example of a cryptic boss, but the "real" boss at the end of ct is the goddamn bit that keeps reviving the weird duck in a suit and the other bit. sometimes when i replay ct i completely forget about this.

[Anonymous No.10444669]

>>10444596
No idea, back then we called them mayors and I don't know when the transition and normalization of bosses occurrd

[Anonymous No.10444897]

He filtered millions

[Anonymous No.10444990]

>>10444581
At the time they thought people liked bad bosses so when they were designing the game they would go "no dont put a good boss there put a bad one". We now know better.

[Anonymous No.10444997]

>>10444990
You say that as a joke, but a lot of people these days genuinely think the devs made the games bad on purpose. It's what they tell themselves when they get filtered.

[Anonymous No.10445008]

>>10444669
ok, australia-kun, but Gradius is from 1985.

[Anonymous No.10445019]

>>10444997
Banjo kazooie dev apologized to anybody who finished it, he said it was basically such a clusterfuck they had to ad warps and a bunch of other shit to make up for the arrant unfinished quality

[Anonymous No.10445026]

Isn't Kung-Fu the first game is bosses at the end of levels? so I would say, 1984 is when they got good.

>>10445019
Having to wrap and patch shit up badly because you couldn't meet your deadline isn't the same as making "bad on purpose" by design.

[Anonymous No.10445040]

>>10445026
Fair, it's notike silver surfer or a tion 52 were made shitty on purpose, or superman N64 it all those quarter eating arcade games at Noah's arcade.

https://youtu.be/O4tmzwrdTmY?si=BBi_gl-3-_pdtnHE

[Anonymous No.10445041]

>>10444640
solid answer

[Anonymous No.10445042]

>>10445026
Fair, it's not like silver surfer or action 52 were made shitty on purpose, or superman N64 and all those quarter eating arcade games at Noah's arcade.

https://youtu.be/O4tmzwrdTmY?si=BBi_gl-3-_pdtnHE [Open]

[Anonymous No.10445220]

>>10445019
Tooie*

he apologized for Tooie which is indeed a mess

[Anonymous No.10445435]

>10444669
The first gradius soundtrack calls them bosses, the "mayor enemies" shit is just some retarded thing Konami US did for gradius 3 snes manual for no real reason.

[Anonymous No.10445461]

>>10444581
Wart in Mario 2 was pretty good. Having to throw veggies in his mouth was pretty clever. Bowser in Mario 3 of course, but there were a lot of good final bosses by then. You're right though. A lot of early NES games had shit final bosses. Ganon being invisible the entire fight was annoying, Mother Brain just passively sat there. I guess Mike Tyson counts as a good one.

[Anonymous No.10445468]

I remember being blown the fuck away by the first boss in Conquest of the Crystal Palace when I was a kid.

[Anonymous No.10445483]

>>10444669
I remember it being kinda racially dependant. All the Asian kids I knew called them masters. While and 'spanics called them bosses. Blacks only talked about sports games and fighting games.

[Anonymous No.10445492]

>>10445026
>Isn't Kung-Fu the first game is bosses at the end of levels?
Legend of Kage came out around the same time and had bosses. Loved that game.

[sage No.10445743]

Pic rel from 1993 and 1994 respectively are the first two "actually good" final battles that come to mind

[Anonymous No.10445974]

What about Megaman? The whole game is bosses.

[Anonymous No.10448143]

>>10445974
No, there are tons of non boss enemies.

[Anonymous No.10448193]

>>10444581
The whole point of Wizardry is to make it and prepare for the final boss. He could annihilate your party in a single turn (like anything else in the game, heh).
>>10445026
Yes. Spartan X is a first for many things in gaming.

[Anonymous No.10448280]

The first good final boss (or boss in general) from an FPS was D'Sparil in Heretic. As important as Doom & Doom II were, every boss fight across both games sucks dick.

[Anonymous No.10448327]

[Anonymous No.10448541]

super star soldier had a phenomenal, 3 phase final boss fight. not bad for a 1990 home console shooter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfe-gzw4lvM

[Anonymous No.10449892]

Glories from silpheed

Genuine ptsd