Jake and Mike Videogame Show

Batman: Arkham Asylum, Gunstar Heroes, Mega Man X, Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, The Legend of Zelda. Under any other circumstance, You would probably assume I was listing off some of my favorite games of all time, and you might have been right. In this case though, I’m telling you some offenders of a dirty little secret that just won’t die.

No game is complete without boss battles. Whether it’s the final confrontation with the main villain you’ve been chasing the whole time, or a run in with that pesky minion that just won’t stop showing up at the last second to ruin your hard work. Over the years, whether it is a game released 20 years ago or a game that came out just last week (Bayonetta, I’m lookin at you!) it seems that developers cannot shake the need to make you face the same foe three, four and sometimes more times throughout the entire span of the game.

Now sometimes, this is done to further a plot line, or convince you to feel an emotional response when the same villain shows up several times to thwart your hard work time and again. Oddly enough, RPG’s commit this crime the most, but in the RIGHT way, and other games could learn a lot from the way they do it. Rather than throwing the same thing at you over and over and making it become derivative, they allow you to feel the same way about a returning enemy or villain and use it more or less as a template but with completely new talents and abilities (not EVERY rpg does this, some are just as guilty of the “same guy new color” problem I talk about here, so no need to mention that here). What I’m talking about is when a game feels the need to throw a boss you fought in the first 4th of the game at you in the final half but with a a few copies along side to mix things up. Perhaps take an enemy you’ve been fighting the whole time comes back as a boss but just a bit bigger and with more life, or if you’re Devil May Cry, a giant flaming spider feels the need to continually come back for more just one more time.

Now don’t get me wrong, this simple problem rarely ruins a game and Batman: Arkham Asylum is a great example of this. The game was considered by many one of the best games of the year, even though it was one of the larger executors of this type of boss battle scheme, but not ruining a game doesn’t mean that it didn’t dilute some of the fun that could be had.Heck, the last boss and the first boss are almost identical, not somthing that ruined the game, but a missed opportunity in many ways.

Now to play devil’s advocate, I can’t say that I could make a better game than a lot of these very talented studios or even that being creative and coming up with unique experiences is something that is easily attainable. I understand the type of work that goes into these games and the sort of entertainment these people are selling us. I’m just saying that I think developers should pride themselves on the unique content they’re able to bring to the table with their video games and not fall into the trap of just reusing something from the beginning of there game and throwing it at you a few more times.

-(MS)Mike out.