For the fan of action and adventure games, boss battles
typically provide some of the most memorable and enjoyable moments. When
talking about Twilight Princess, people won’t typically mention a particularly
well-designed puzzle in the Arbiter’s Grounds, but rather their first time riding rails
on the spinner trying to smash into the floating demon head of Stallord. Fewer
people discuss the mundane encounters of admittedly challenging scrubs in Dark
Souls than folks that mention the time they finally beat that one Fat Guy and
his Quick Buddy (I’ve never played Dark Souls). For a game to truly leave a
strong impression, it’s gotta have good bosses. But what makes for a good boss
fight? We can explore that through what I believe to be the perfect case study:
the Super Metroid Ridley fight.
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| Can you get him to drop the Metroid? I've never been able to. |
Bosses are frequently just crazy-looking monsters that are
no more than mere obstacles in the player’s path. Remarkable bosses, on the
other hand, establish themselves as hateworthy before they challenge the player
to combat. One of the (innumerable) strengths of Super Metroid is its seamless blending
of an in-universe story and a narrative that the players themselves write when they
subjectively experience the game. Samus straddles (heh) the line between
character and avatar in a way that very few video game protagonists can match. When
Samus (and the player) are first exploring the Ceres Space Colony and encounter
Ridley as the first enemy in the game, it makes an impression on the player
(and Samus, by extension…do you see what I’m getting at here?) when he handily
kicks her/the player’s ass and runs off with the last Metroid. The objective of
the game, recovering the Metroid, has been laid out, and it’s clear that this
path will ultimately go through Ridley. This creates motivation not only for
the heroine of the game, but also for the player - it becomes personal. This
results in greater anticipation when he finally appears to fight Samus, and
greater catharsis after victory. This ultimately results in a stronger impression.
Boss fights are also periodic tests of skill. There are no
better example than Zelda bosses, who often reside at the end of dungeons, and
who require use of the most
recently-acquired item to defeat.
Bosses toward the end of a game, therefore, should require that the player use
most, if not all, of their acquired skills when fighting them. Let’s put a flag
in this concept, as it intertwines with the final, and perhaps, strongest
feature of the Ridley fight.
No matter the design of the enemy or environment, a boss
fight will only be as good as the actual battle itself. Unfortunately, bosses
seem to too often fall into a boring formula. The boss attacks a few times, and
then will show a temporary opening of an obvious weak spot. The player attacks,
and then the enemy will resume this pattern, maybe with a few new variations,
until they are eventually defeated. To me, this takes all of the tension out of
the fight for a couple of reasons. First, instead of a desperate struggle, the
fight just boils down to pattern recognition (the lowest form of intelligence,
I might add) and waiting. Once the sequence has been figured out, it’s
difficult to lose the fight. This turns the battle into a glorified cut scene
that only serves as a break from normal gameplay, not a truly challenging
moment to be conquered. Secondly, I find this enemy behavior to be unrealistic,
which destroys my suspension of disbelief. If some great enemy has several
attacks at their disposal, but only one of them makes them vulnerable to
counterattack, why would they ever use that particular attack against the
player? This destroys the illusion that the player is fighting a formidable
opponent, and makes it feel more like they’re following a pre-determined
course.
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| The entire fight is pretty much this intense. |
Which brings us back to Ridley. Ridley avoids these common
pitfalls by going all-out right from the beginning. Ridley is always
vulnerable; none of the attacks in his arsenal render him any more or less
vulnerable, and there’s never any pauses in his assault. He goes all out, and
it’s up to the player to dodge his attacks and find their own windows for
offense. This ties back to the previous concept: you’ll need every skill you’ve
gained to beat Ridley. Again, this is done in an organic and realistic way.
There’s no obvious tentacles that need to be cut with a boomerang (really
picking on Zelda today…sorry!). You have all of your tools, and it’s up to you
to figure out how to use them to fight Ridley. Do you patiently charge up your
Plasma Beam for more damage output per shot? Do you spam missiles? Do you use
Super Missiles early or late in the fight? Are Power Bombs best used to do
damage, or should they be reserved for an emergency Crystal Flash if you get
low on health? How good are your Space Jump skills, and how much of the fight
should you do while airborne as opposed to on the platform? The game, and
Ridley’s actions, don’t spoon feed you the answer. You fight the battle your way,
which parallels Samus fighting the battle her way.
The Ridley fight from Super Metroid doesn’t fall into gamey
tropes. It’s a totally believable display of what a fight between Ridley and
Samus would look like if both characters existed in the real world. Ridley goes
all out, not giving Samus/the player any unnecessary tactical advantage and
requiring that Samus/the player use every tool at their disposal - in their own
way - to defeat him. And because he has been established from the beginning as
an enemy worthy of being conquered, the fight establishes real stakes and
interest that elevate it to a brilliant example of Boss Fight Done Right!
Rhyming bonus activate.
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