End game bosses.(Rant)

Xluna

While playing Tekken 6 and SFIV recently it made me aware of how cheap and aesthically extreme end of level bosses are in fighting games these days. SFIV,SF3,DOA4 and Tekken 6 all have insanely difficult bosses and they all have concept designs which look out of place with most of the rest of the cast. It's a trend that annoys me a bit.

One of the things I liked about SF2 and the early SNK games where how down to Earth the boss designs, Sagat,Bison,Geese Howard,Akuma, Mr Karate ect, were and how they were challenging but not insanely cheap.

Tekken's gone from having Heihachi as boss to a giant purple Dragon. Maybe it's just a way for the designers to show off the abilities of the graphics but I don't like it.

RedXIV

Def see where your coming from, had a terrible time with Tekken's 6 new boss but I can see a few reasons for it. When the last boss used to be Heihachi, it didn't exactly make the last stage seem memorable, I'm handy enough at Tekken to have strategies developed when facing most of the characters but the last boss is pretty much "oh sh*t, oh sh*t, oh sh*t, oh sh*t, DAMMIT!"

I know its not the most skillful of battles but it does make that last stage a bit more fearful.

Same with Seth, having a ridiculous overpowered character at the end of the game seems primarily designed to put the player in panic.

On the bright side, when you beat these bosses, there is a much higher level of satisfaction

L31mr0d

That's "Arcade Mode", the bosses have to be crazy difficult.

In arcades they want you to feed the machine with your money, and the best time to do this is on the last stage when the player is least likely to want to give up and walk away. Whenever a game has a mode called "Arcade" you can expect that it has been designed to not want you to easily win.

Retr0gamer

OP I don't know why you are saying SNK have good end of game bosses because SNK fighting games have a history of having the cheapest end of game bosses in any fighting game. There's a good reason that in the fighting game commnity a cheap end boss is called an 'SNK boss'.

However I do get what you are saying about the terrible extreme aesthetics that fighting games have these days for bosses. The original street fighter 2's final 4 were excellent and represented a good challenge without being cheap (well bison a little bit). I think Seth looks awful and as for Gill in SF3, he is really badly designed (and his resurrection super art can go **** itself). Seth in SF4 really isn't all that bad, my main complaint is he is boring to fight against in arcade mode.

Sisko

Guys, you all need to play the arcade version of Super SF2 Turbo. Every single character you fight against is far harder then seth. They pretty much have it so that any button you press in the game, tells the AI to do the best counter possible at the same time as your character does the move.

Its insane even on normal difficulty.

K.O.Kiki

Sisko wrote: »

Guys, you all need to play the arcade version of Super SF2 Turbo. Every single character you fight against is far harder then seth. They pretty much have it so that any button you press in the game, tells the AI to do the best counter possible at the same time as your character does the move.

Its insane even on normal difficulty.

You forgot the part where charge characters DON'T NEED CHARGE.

Sisko

Jaysus yeah.

Sairus

I definitly agree on this point.
Off hand the only bosses I've actually enjoyed beating in a fighting game in recent memory would be Inferno and Abyss in Soul Calibur 1-3 and Abyss in Marvel VS Capcom 2 (though he is really easy, he's still fun). It's really something I hope gets bettr in future, but I can only see it getting worse.
I know Abyss from MvC2 definitely falls into OMGWTF boss visuals, but it works in MvC2.

Sagat06

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

You forgot the part where charge characters DON'T NEED CHARGE.

I still get shivers about Blanka in this game!!

Azza

Any character in ST on its lowest difficulty level was far harder than any Seth on hardest difficulty.

Seths pretty easy once you spot his patterns in arcade mode.

He only throws fireballs from almost full screen away. Jump over them but not at him and move up beside him and hold down back.

You can punish his hard punch and lighting leg kick on block and he will just keep doing them over and over. Don't attack him when he is waking up, just sit back out of his throw range. If he sucks you in with Tandem Engine again just hold down back and 9/10 he will try lighting legs, occasionally he will spd you.

He can ultra you if you attempt any speical move not in a combo so only attack him as a punish.

Only tricky bit is dealing with his teleport shennigans on wake up. Just hold back and jump away and then just work your way up close to him.

Arcade Seth is no where near as bad a decent player controlled Seth.

Gill was far tougher but some characters had exploits to deal with him easy.

Sairus

With regards to Seth, while initially I had trouble with him, as you said, once you figure out his patterns he's piss to beat.
However, being piss because you can easilly exploit his cheapness doesn't actually make him a good boss, it just makes him a stupid cheap boss.

Sisko

I also noticed Seth doesn't seem to punish focus attacks, or at least not much. So you can pretty much get free hits on him that way too.

Xluna

Retr0gamer wrote: »

OP I don't know why you are saying SNK have good end of game bosses because SNK fighting games have a history of having the cheapest end of game bosses in any fighting game. There's a good reason that in the fighting game commnity a cheap end boss is called an 'SNK boss'.

Well, it is true that Geese Howard was pretty cheap and Mr Big and Mr Karate were very tough but at least they were humans. As in physically imposing and highly skilled martial artists,rather giant Dragons,Demi Gods ect. Of course SNKs intermediate and recent bosses are just as bad as the better known 3-D counterparts.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

However I do get what you are saying about the terrible extreme aesthetics that fighting games have these days for bosses. The original street fighter 2's final 4 were excellent and represented a good challenge without being cheap (well bison a little bit). I think Seth looks awful and as for Gill in SF3, he is really badly designed (and his resurrection super art can go **** itself). Seth in SF4 really isn't all that bad, my main complaint is he is boring to fight against in arcade mode.

I totally agree with you on SF2s four grand masters. Each were tougher than the rest of the cast and the cpu was a bit tougher. But it was a reasonable challenge with real martial artists. Seth...yeah he looks like he should be in a Marvel game or a Street Fighter 3 game.:pac: And Gill just look terrible. I mean in the "plot" it almost alluded to be an evil version of Jesus working for the Illuminati.:rolleyes: And that whole resurection super combo just made playing the arcade game a chore. Which sucked as I've yet to see all the SF3 endings.

Sisko wrote: »

Guys, you all need to play the arcade version of Super SF2 Turbo. Every single character you fight against is far harder then seth. They pretty much have it so that any button you press in the game, tells the AI to do the best counter possible at the same time as your character does the move.

Its insane even on normal difficulty.

I would'nt go as far to say they're as bad as Seth but not far off. ST is without doubt the most difficult version of SF2 ever made. I used to especially dread fighting D.J.

Dunjohn

Yes, I remember ranting about this when Seth's character design was first revealed. Why can't we just have normal people as bosses anymore? They have to be big, horrible mutants. In particular, silver naked mutants (see Dead or Alive. And Virtua Fighter started the trend).

I can't take Seth as seriously as Bison. There's no emotional commitment at risk in losing to an inhuman freak (you too, Gill). At least when you lost to Bison, even if he could shoot horizontally across the screen covered in purple flame, you felt like you'd lost to somebody real.

Xluna

Dunjohn wrote: »

I can't take Seth as seriously as Bison. There's no emotional commitment at risk in losing to an inhuman freak (you too, Gill). At least when you lost to Bison, even if he could shoot horizontally across the screen covered in purple flame, you felt like you'd lost to somebody real.

And this is my main gripe with SF3 third strike. Most of the cast belong in a super hero game like Marvel. It's no surprise that the only SF3 characters that made it in SSIV are all proper SF2 style martial artists,Dudley,Makoto and Ibuki.

For me SNK started this trend with the latter KOF games. It was no longer a battle of the worlds greatest martial artists-now it was a battle of the weirdest looking social misfits with super powers. I guess when the VS fighting genre kicked of martial arts moveis were still poplular,Bruce Lee was still idolised,Van Damme was doing the rounds,Boxing was interesting and lets not forget the Ninja craze of the eighties. Now you only see martial arts in western cinema when used by super heroes and sci fi ect. Traditional Japanese martial arts are not as popular to the young people of Japan as they once were and they'd rather see pokemon rerun than an Akira Kurasawa classix. Retro ftw. (Goes off to play Art of Fighting 2, watch Fist of Fury and do some Kendo training in protest.)

K.O.Kiki

Xluna wrote:

And this is my main gripe with SF3 third strike. Most of the cast belong in a super hero game like Marvel. It's no surprise that the only SF3 characters that made it in SSIV are all proper SF2 style martial artists,Dudley,Makoto and Ibuki.

Wait what?
Time to examine the "normal" 3S cast:

• Alex is a wrestler-type modelled after Hulk Hogan.
• Dudley is a black British boxer, with a gentleman's moustache.
• Elena is a Kenyan capoiera fighter.
• Ibuki is a female ninja.
• Ken, Ryu & Sean are boring old karate-modelled fighters.
• Yang & Yun are simple Chinese kung fu practitioners.
• Hugo is a REALLY big guy, modelled after André the Giant.
• Chun Li is a girl in a woman's body. Also thighs.
• Makoto is a tomboy in a karate outfit.
• Remy is a skinny emo.

And then the "weird" 3S cast:

• Necro is a mix between Dhalsim & Blanka, with pale skin.
• Oro is a REALLY old guy who fights with only one arm at a time.
• Gill wears a fundoshi (Japanese man-thong), has long flowing hair & dual-tone body paint.
• Urien is like Gill, but has metal skin.
• Akuma is a demon in human form.
• Q is Inspector Gadget. But mysterious......
• Twelve is a shape-shifting alien-type thing.

To my reckoning, that's a 13:6 split of "normal" to "weird" - So really only 1/3rd of the cast can be called outlandish (and Oro/Akuma are maybe's, at best).

Sairus

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Wait what?

• Q is Inspector Gadget. But mysterious......

Definitely the greatest way of describing Q that I've ever heard.

Sisko

Never really looked at akuma as being one of the freak characters. Although in SFIV he looks like a troll.

Xluna

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Wait what?

Time to examine the "normal" 3S cast:

• Alex is a wrestler-type modelled after Hulk Hogan.
• Dudley is a black British boxer, with a gentleman's moustache.
• Elena is a Kenyan capoiera fighter.
• Ibuki is a female ninja.
• Ken, Ryu & Sean are boring old karate-modelled fighters.
• Yang & Yun are simple Chinese kung fu practitioners.
• Hugo is a REALLY big guy, modelled after André the Giant.
• Chun Li is a girl in a woman's body. Also thighs.
• Makoto is a tomboy in a karate outfit.
• Remy is a skinny emo.

And then the "weird" 3S cast:

• Necro is a mix between Dhalsim & Blanka, with pale skin.
• Oro is a REALLY old guy who fights with only one arm at a time.
• Gill wears a fundoshi (Japanese man-thong), has long flowing hair & dual-tone body paint.
• Urien is like Gill, but has metal skin.
• Akuma is a demon in human form.
• Q is Inspector Gadget. But mysterious......
• Twelve is a shape-shifting alien-type thing.

To my reckoning, that's a 13:6 split of "normal" to "weird" - So really only 1/3rd of the cast can be called outlandish (and Oro/Akuma are maybe's, at best).

Hhhmmm....now that you list them I see where you're coming from but there's still more weird characters compared to any other SF game. I'd actually class Akuma as one of the normies,as he at least uses a real martial art. I always think of Yun and Yang as the same character in terms of concept design. There really only needed to be one of them but I suppose Capcom were trying to do the Ken/Ryu thing,perhaps in before they decided to put Ken and Ryu in after the lashback. I can't take Remy as a serious martial artist even though he's human. I mean, a skinny emo warrior?:D

I did'nt think much of Sean in terms of gameplay or personality. He just reeked of laziness from the designers imo. Some kid who fights a bit like Dan and's Kens student. Meh.

Robbknoll

For some reason on the harder difficulty you expect the bosses etc to be insane. But i have only one thing to say, Fei Long on normal :eek: still to this day he is such a ****er! haha.i find him nigh impossible sometimes :mad:

Xluna

Sisko wrote: »

Guys, you all need to play the arcade version of Super SF2 Turbo. Every single character you fight against is far harder then seth. They pretty much have it so that any button you press in the game, tells the AI to do the best counter possible at the same time as your character does the move.

Its insane even on normal difficulty.

The difficulty of ST was legendary. I remember playing the 3DO version and not finding it too bad but recently I played it on Capcom classics on the PS2 and it's a bitch. Even the first match. Which means either I've gotten a lot worse or the 3DO version was easier than the arcade. Having said that Art of Fighting 2 is'nt much easier.

Off topic. One great thing about the 3DO version was the arranged soundtrack came as standard. Chun Li's stage never sounded better.