Tentacle Bosses

L31mr0d

Please, for the sake of the thread, no Anime references :pac:

Just something I've noticed recently in games which is starting to get as irritating a convention as the QTE.

Bosses with multiple flaying tentacles/limbs with obvious glowing weakspots. Dead Space, RE 4/5, Borderlands, Spiderman: Web of Shadows, Dark Sector, Ninja Gaiden: Sigma, [prototype]... and I'm sure there are many many more.

It just strikes me as lazy game developing to throw in a boss which basically amounts to an elaborate game of duck hunt (shoot the pulsating yellow/red orbs) What is really irritating, for the majority of them, is that they think this is acceptable for a final boss to wrap the game. The boss is usually a stationary blob which flails a load of tentacles, which you have to take out 1 by 1, at which point another critical weakspot will open up that you then have to shoot to kill the game.

I played Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood there last week, and even though it wasn't the most solid of games, I praise it at least for not managing to weasel a tentacle boss into a western themed storyline.

So what do you think of the tentacle, here to stay and happy about it, or does it finally need to be put to rest.

Mr Freeze

L31mr0d wrote: »

So what do you think of the tentacle, here to stay and happy about it, or does it finally need to be put to rest.

Definitely put it to rest.....

Vegeta

It was probably around before this but The Legend of Zelda: OoT is the first game I played like that.

First game I played anyway where the boss was in the centre of the room, lots of strafing and locking on to tentacles.

Of course then it felt fresh (first exposure to it) and at least the Final boss was different with the energy ball tennis.


Yeah I wonder why they have to spell it out for us like that. Have we just become accustomed to it now and if the boss is not like that we struggle to figure out what to do.

Everytime I face a boss now, my thought process is
Survive long enough to learn the pattern
Find the weakspot
Attack weak spot

Rinse and repeat.

This can still be enjoyable if implemented in a fun way but yeah there is quite a reliance on it.

humanji

Ah sure it's been around for as long as boss fights have been (R-Type in the arcades springs to mind). It always annoys me when you have to use certain attacks on a certain area to tire them out before you can kill them.

The thing is, if it was realistic, a swift kick to the nuts would take the boss down and leave you feeling a little annoyed at how easy it was.

There isn't really much of a choice for these kinds of fights. You have the swift kick to the nuts method above where the boss is no different (health wise) to anyone else you've already killed, you've got the tentacle shooting kind, the QTE autokill kind and the only other one I can think of is just giving the boss a bit more health.

You can't really win.

johnny_ultimate

The giant orange weak spot business is a bit of a joke - lazy bosses like that can sabotage an otherwise enjoyable game. Resident Evil 5 had a plethora of them, as did Dead Space - just seems if you were to go out of your way to genetically engineer some kind of crazy ass unstoppable monster you'd go out of your way to remove the pulsating and obvious "shoot here" sign. Damn things don't stand a chance when it comes to evolution.

Overall I've started to feel the need to end a game with a boss has become a bit stale. Plenty of games fit the necessity for a final, huge enemy (RPGs or schmups, for example) but when something shoehorns in one just to act as a massive climax, it feels lazy. Two games that recently could have done without final bosses would've been Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2. Batman in particular

had a tentacle style boss, with a lazy repeat three times procedure. Thing is it felt out of character for Joker, and worse felt like a betrayal of the rich combat system and inventive action found elsewhere in the game

. I'd rather games were a bit more ambitious with the way they ended games in an exciting manner - as much as I have problems with the rest of Halo, the final buggy chase through an exploding base is far more interesting than just putting a boss in there.

L31mr0d

humanji wrote: »

Ah sure it's been around for as long as boss fights have been.

Yeah I know it's a convention, but it's a lazy one. For example

Borderlands Spoiler:

The last boss is a tentacle blob... whereas every single previous boss that went before it was excellent, I would of taken any of those over it. It was just a cop out, like they didn't know how to end the game so they throw in a tried and trusted tentacle boss. I was actually hoping for a game of cat and mouse with human, taking pot shots at each other

humanji

Actually, a perfect example of what I thought was an excellent ending was Call of Duty 4.

I only took one shot to kill the bad guy, but it was done in such a thrilling, cinematic way that really made it stand out.

Retr0gamer

I really love my bosses and don't have any problems with tentacle bosses if, and it's a big if, they are done right. Western developers are particularly bad for not realising how to do a boss properly. However I'd rather no boss in a game where it feels totally out of place or even no boss if they can't get them right.

Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime I don't mind the bosses in because they did them right. On the other hand Resident Evil 5 was very poor in this area and Dead Spaces final boss was a big disappointment. MGS 4 was also an absolute joke in a series reknowned for good boss fights.

seraphimvc

i cant really recall any tentacle boss :pac: maybe most of them are too crabs to be remembered - the only outstanding one is the Kraken in God of war2.but even that is boring after a few times of repeating the attacks...

as soon as they can make it right,a tentacles boss can be challanging i suppose,imagine its attacks come from all angles,there is a way to dodge all of them and you slain it after that!hmmm,need some controlling skills tho

Jumpy

L31mr0d wrote: »

Yeah I know it's a convention, but it's a lazy one. For example

Borderlands Spoiler:

The last boss is a tentacle blob... whereas every single previous boss that went before it was excellent, I would of taken any of those over it. It was just a cop out, like they didn't know how to end the game so they throw in a tried and trusted tentacle boss. I was actually hoping for a game of cat and mouse with human, taking pot shots at each other

I agree.

My favourite of course was

Mr E

There is only one tentacle boss worth talking about.
The one who wants to TAKE ON THE WORRRLLLDDD!!

cherryghost

sure isnt the latest spoiler in mw2 a Giant Tentacle Monster in space as the final boss? :pac:

Jazzy

i like solidus at the end of mgs2. was a good take on normal tentacle bosses. in fact most of the bosses in MGS games were good. i didnt like the one at the end of arkham asylum.. was very lazy for a good enough game.

the secret behind a good boss is you have to make it challenging and purposeful, as in it has to fit the game and conditions of where you take it on. Metroid games are good examples but its quite hard to get them wrong as normally you get the mcguffin you need straight after and the boss is using said mcguffin.
The cyberdemon is a perfect example of a boss suiting a game. hes big, hurty, shoots lots and makes a frightening noise as he walks around. just what Doom is.

one thing i was dissapointed at with fallout 3 was the lack of really good bosses. you had super mutant behemoths but they were very meh... just an oversized regular dude. if i could work on any part in the games industry it would be boss creation they just dont make em like they used to

DirkVoodoo

Starfox...King of the tentacled boss!

"Oh look, I'm opening an exhaust port, my only weakness...now closing....oh, opening again, can you hit it yet?"

I think Gradius on the NES might have started this pattern. It was pretty common on 2D side scrollers as bosses didn't have a lot of freedom of movement, so having a series of spindly appendages to pick off before finishing him off made it more "challenging".

Some of those bosses in Starfox (64 I think?) drove me nuts.

No excuse in modern 3D games really. That last fight in prototype was poor.

Best tentacled boss, with actual tentacles? The blind one from Half Life, never before had I been in a game where making as little noise as possible was part of the solution, brilliant!

Retr0gamer

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I think Gradius on the NES might have started this pattern. It was pretty common on 2D side scrollers as bosses didn't have a lot of freedom of movement, so having a series of spindly appendages to pick off before finishing him off made it more "challenging".

Konami invented the boss as we know it with Gradius in the arcade. I think slamander or gradius 2 were the first games with tentacle bosses.

DeVore

I think Nemesis preceeded that... didnt it? It definitely had tentacle bosses but they fitted the style of game.

DeV.

tman

While I was fairly disappointed with the

Poison Ivy and Joker

boss battles in Arkham Asylum, I'm still glad that the developers realised that boss battles with someone your own size just plain don't work.
I'd rather fight yet another tentacle boss than have a QTE ridden slug fest with someone my own size with a ridiculously large health bar

Retr0gamer

DeVore wrote: »

I think Nemesis preceeded that... didnt it? It definitely had tentacle bosses but they fitted the style of game.

DeV.

Nemesis is Gradius

madrab

Retrogamer just nedslapped devore...oh its on!