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S3 Ep209: VGBD - Kill Boss
73 Plays3 years ago
MINOR SPOILERS: Metal Gear Solid 3, Metal Gear Solid 1, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 3 DLC, Elden Ring, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 10, Fallout 1, Fallout: New Vegas, and Undertale
Join Dave and Jake as they wonder why they're hearing boss music and the room is full of consumables in this week's episode of Video Game Breakdown!
Intro:
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
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Join Dave and Jake as they wonder why they're hearing boss music and the room is full of consumables in this week's episode of Video Game Breakdown!
Intro:
- Kill Bill Vol. 2 - Ambient
- RUINER - Ambient
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Middle Boss Theme
- UNDERTALE - Hopes and Dreams
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
I've
The Journey to the Last Target
00:00:01
Speaker
killed a hell of a lot of people to get to this point. But I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination,
Introduction and Podcast Playfulness
00:00:41
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I'm joined as... That's my second week in a row. But I have the edit this time. You can edit this one out so I can actually take it out if I so choose. But if I don't, how's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
00:01:03
Speaker
I know if you're obligated to mention the part at the beginning just in case you do take it out. Yeah. I'm going groovy. That's going to be my word of the day. That was a lot based on I'm just wearing tie-dye apparently. We took out so many racist remarks by you at the beginning of the episode. We shouldn't reference those. Well, that's why I give you the edit. I'm not doing it. You know how I feel about those people.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I thought you were going to put up a group to be like, oh. I was thinking about it. Jokingly hates these people. Yeah. My brain was doing the slot machine thing where I was like, the safest one is obviously just saying the Jews. Yeah.
Dark Humor and Identity Discussion
00:01:43
Speaker
Jews would have been good. Because everybody hates the fucking Jews.
00:01:46
Speaker
Dave is Jewish for people who haven't listened to the podcast. No, my brain went to like, so I was going to combo like aliens and to like destroy all humans or something, you know, like, oh, they're actual aliens or like men in black. Couldn't do it. Couldn't really find a way to close the gap on that joke. But I'm glad you're doing all right. Yeah. Weather's been okay.
00:02:17
Speaker
Mental state's been okay. I'm looking around. This
Mental State and Creative Spaces
00:02:20
Speaker
is my desk that will clue me into how I'm feeling. Where's my mood rock? Yeah, you're like, well, pen. Pen for one. And bills. Do you ever do that? Someone's like, hey, what's going on? Just look around and be like, is there any context clues? Like, oh, I went to a thing recently. Here's a receipt. I was looking for something to trigger that moment in the brain. Like, oh, this will connect the dots.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, social media is prevalent right now. No, that's the one. No, I mean, I do kind of stare off into nothing, but I don't think I look for specific objects. Right. Like I don't have this is the this is for the moment, my muse is this candle that's on my desk or anything like that. It's very much just like, all right, abyss, come on in. I need to remember what in the world I'm talking about.
00:03:13
Speaker
Usually I'll more so walk and think, do some rubber, but dear God, cut this. All right, let's go back. Rubber ducky debugging of my own life. I must think like, Oh, I might want to do this later and just like plan out part of my day. Maybe think about a work thing. Maybe think about like a social thing, whatever it may be. I know we talk out loud to myself too.
00:03:41
Speaker
That's fair. If I'm alone, I don't do it with other people. Right. Cause then you're talking to other people and who wants to do that? Right. Exactly. The worst. I think we talked about it, but like that's basically showers for me. Like the most creative space imaginable is just the shower. Just sit down, let the rain pour over me and reach Nirvana. And by that, I mean,
00:04:07
Speaker
not do that, but basically be there in the show. One of my jigs quoting Lizzie McGuire. I don't know the quote. Is it a song? Whoever the actress is, I think she has done some music either with Disney as the character or separately, but one of the songs is like, let the rain come down and wash away. And it was just like, oh, Jake's sitting in the. The rain's down in Africa.
00:04:41
Speaker
But no, it's a it's a great thinking space because like, I don't know, I feel like the physical sensation of the water kind of helps distract from other
00:04:53
Speaker
I don't I don't know, like mental distractions. And you're just like, all right, let's
What Makes a Video Game Boss?
00:04:56
Speaker
just focus up. And you also can't get distracted, really, by anything if you're just in the shower. I don't have like a shower TV or anything like that. So you just sit there and, you know, think through a thought instead of getting distracted by something else.
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's how I do most of my programming too. I'll be in a meeting, I'll be like, hey, I'll be right back. Don't worry, I have a wireless headset and the shower starts running. I will say back in the days of my parents had like a hot tub for a couple of years, I did everything in there and I do mean everything. But it was just so nice and warming, cathartic and your whole body relaxes.
00:05:48
Speaker
And you just feel at peace. There's probably like some like looking around at like your backyard or like nearby, but it really does give you a chance to have your mind be clear and think about whatever. Or we used to have like the hot tub conversations. Whereas like me, my buddy Chad and my buddy Matt at the time, like we'd all just hang out and just like talk for like three hours. And it was just a very chill, relaxed environment.
00:06:14
Speaker
Not chill. Ha ha. It was very hot. Very hot. Super steamy. Not gay. Not gay. Super steamy. It was more than marginally gay at times. Yeah. No, I mean, sometimes you just got to be in a hot tub, think the deep thoughts, investigate science, temple realities, make a time machine. That's where the joke is. That's the time machine joke. Okay. Yeah.
00:06:42
Speaker
Speaking about time machines, um, seeing Dave recoil in pain is basically, that's how I know I've made it. It's me stifling a laugh when I see you just abandoned things that I haven't given you anything off of it. Just like shuffle cue cards. Oh, sorry. These are out of order. Um, but yeah, time machine. This actually doesn't have anything to do with the time machine.
00:07:11
Speaker
Video game breakdown. Wow. Is that the new edit we're doing? Yeah, I think so. As of four seconds ago. You say that, but like here, here I go saving the timestamp and adding reverb. I'm not going to do that. We're gonna talk about bosses. This is actually also the first video game breakdown episode we've done this year.
00:07:43
Speaker
this entire year. What the fuck have we been doing for the other topics? We haven't talked about specific aspects of games, or we've talked about different games, but nothing that got categorized in an episode as video game breakdown. Damn. Whose fault is that? Probably mine. I'm sure that one of those episodes could have been in the series, but it wasn't.
00:08:10
Speaker
But going back in time, the first video game boss to kick us off, contributed by friend of the show Wikipedia, was for a game called D&D, which you might've heard of, but it was actually D&D, like the letters. It was a text-based game on the Plato system, which was like a instruction library for computers. In 1975,
00:08:36
Speaker
And it was supposed to be a dragon or something. It doesn't matter. It was text-based. But that's what Friend of the Show Wikipedia says was the first boss. That's your segue. Work off that name. All right. So we're talking about bosses tonight if that wasn't super clear from Jake's transition. And I think what we want to cover is kind of like what defines a boss, what makes a good boss versus something you just see with like a name and a health bar. Marauder shields.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like some of those things can easily overlap. It's like, it's a boss. And you're like, hmm, I guess. Yeah, also, I guess check the episode description, because there's going to be so many games spoiled that I'm going to be keeping track on the side. But yeah, I mean, that's on you. And if you can't read, I'm sorry. But you can listen to us. That's what's important.
Memorable Boss Themes in Gaming
00:09:34
Speaker
And if you're deaf, well, what are you doing here? I have questions, but I'm not sure how to relay them to you in my current format, as I am just the bits and bytes and the boops and the blips through the internet. We can talk about boops if you want. I don't mind a good boop. So this first boss in D&D, what sets it apart from other enemies in the D&D campaign?
00:10:04
Speaker
So my understanding is it was a dragon. So, you know, it has some of the stereotypical boss things. And this is based off Dungeons and Dragons, if that wasn't super obvious. It's a dragon. So big, ominous, potentially terrifying. I don't have the specifics of the mechanics of the fight, because again, this was 1975.
00:10:27
Speaker
And I feel like fight should probably be in quotes and maybe italics, because again, text-based game. But my suspicion, and in some way I know that the ultimate fight of some of these early adventures could go, is that you would gather your gear, get the prerequisite. Here's your key item. Use sword on dragon or something like that. I doubt it was much more complicated than that.
00:10:53
Speaker
So the sword is a key. Yes. It's a key that unlocks people's deaths. And the dragon is the door. Um, so you used at least a descriptor too, and there's kind of like a big ominous threatening, I guess more so than a standard anime to kind of set apart. Yeah.
00:11:15
Speaker
I would elaborate on that a little bit to say, um, so I was like taking some notes earlier and like for me, one of my cool thoughts I had was I think bosses are more of a test than a quiz. Okay. Everything that you have up until the point of the boss is usually like, Hey, here's the game plan. The cancer you're learning for whatever the medium is. I go to mega man as my go-to example for like very linear and straightforward. Um, you know how to jump and shoot.
00:11:46
Speaker
Congratulations. You've now made it to the boss door. And now here's the test of how well you can jump and shoot. You're in an enclosed space. How well can you do it? That's pretty much it. Yeah, Mega Man was actually on my list for like another aspect of boss fights that I want to get to in a bit. But even beyond that, it's really archetypical.
00:12:09
Speaker
of classic video game boss design, right? Like here is your level. Here is the boss at the end of the level, right? Like this is, this is your foe. Um, and then kind of plays into, like some games just have one boss, like one big enemy, but most games now I think have some staggered pacing around multiple bosses. And it's been like that for a long time. I think oftentimes you have a big bad though.
00:12:39
Speaker
Well, I think the last one to just have like one big boss was probably Metal Gear Solid 3. See, I had that joke also like right there for the end. We're just mashing through these notes. Sorry, sorry. I don't have Jake's notes. That was actually from the category. This is what I had prefixed it with. They
Boss Fight Mechanics Explained
00:12:58
Speaker
were named the thing. Metal Gear Solid. But I mean, Metal Gear Solid also had
00:13:06
Speaker
a lot of very iconic and interesting boss fights. That's another thing I want to immediately interrupt you with, but to catch on. I do think another qualification of a boss battle is it needs to be uniquely distinct. You can't just have a big version of the other guy you saw before 50 times.
00:13:28
Speaker
It works for some games, but we wouldn't really consider them a boss. Versus if we go to the example of Metal Gear Solid 3, you see all of these characters ahead of time. When you see the pain, who's the guy who's shrouded in bees?
00:13:45
Speaker
You see him in an earlier cut scene and they're like, you know, he's coming up because there's some bees around. There's some lead up to him. And then his whole fight is uniquely distinct from every other boss fight. You still have to use like the same types of tools of being sneaky, beaky shooting them and whatnot. But there's nobody like the pain. Right. Yeah. And I think, um, his specter was actually the inspiration for MGS five, which is great.
00:14:15
Speaker
I'm not connecting the dots here. It's specifically for Dave, but MGS 5 Phantom Ping. Yeah, OK. That one's really bad. It's the owl. Yeah, I actually haven't played MGS, most of the MGS games, but even so.
00:14:38
Speaker
There's a lot of iconic and interesting boss fights within there. And I think they do meet that criteria you're describing. They're interesting. They're more than your standard mooks or grunts or whatever the enemies you are facing. And while I've definitely fought bosses that are just like re-palettes, you know, recolors of standard enemies and they blow up the size, you're right that it never really feels
00:15:04
Speaker
know, it never really feels significant unless you're varying up mechanics or stressing the player in some ways that they haven't really been stressed. That's like one of the iconic parts of boss fights. And Metal Gear tends to do that in ways like historically that really stretch the bounds of
00:15:27
Speaker
What you would expect in a boss fight, I guess to say the least. Like this boy's sitting on psycho Mantis. I'm literally thinking of Psycho Mantis. Yeah. You want to describe Psycho Mantis?
00:15:38
Speaker
Psycho Mantis is one of the earlier documented bosses that subverted expectation and kind of went literally outside the game bounds, kind of breaking the fourth wall. Because Psycho Mantis would read your memory card and would actually say like, oh, you like to play Castlevania, going off the YouTube video now for this. Yes, that's the only quote I have anymore.
00:16:01
Speaker
Because he was psychic and could see what games you played read your thoughts and know your movements You actually had to switch your controller into a different port I believe to kind of confuse him and that was granted a gimmick But it was a really cool Unique approach that you would not expect in this game at least at this point absolutely
00:16:24
Speaker
and stuff like that is huge because if you're doing it for like run of the mill enemies and it's now they now subvert it this new enemy or the same enemy has different mechanics you're like okay how many times is this going to change is it going to be tied to a color for me to associate with it um it doesn't fit as much there versus hey here's a boss like okay i know they're big and bad and they got some cool stuff going on i just don't know how deep it goes
00:16:50
Speaker
Right. So like for FromSoft, it's like, oh, it's like a big, this type of enemy. Oh, they have the telegraphed attacks. Cool. And then they have something spicy you're not expecting. Or maybe it's another phase or something else. Yeah. I think like there's an entire, there's an entire genre, not a genre, it's not a genre, sub genre, cliche. No, trope, a trope.
00:17:14
Speaker
of games that have bosses that kind of subvert the gameplay at the end. I would be remiss if we did not mention our old standby Undertale. Like that game's ending, I don't even need to go heavy into spoilers, is a trip. It's absolutely a trip and
00:17:40
Speaker
It's super weird. It doesn't break its own rules. It actually stays true to the universe, which is...
00:17:47
Speaker
something I don't think like Kojima always does. Like he doesn't care if he breaks the fourth wall, literally reading memory card, things like that. But like if in your universe, for some reason, your character does know about the outside world and universe beyond. Or you conceptualize those concepts within your game as Undertale actually does. It's like save points. They're in the lore for some reason.
00:18:15
Speaker
Like freaking awesome. Like you've earned it. Show it off, you know, for those final fights.
00:18:21
Speaker
Even before the final fights, all of the bosses in Undertale are uniquely distinct. Granted, there's always the buildup of you getting to know their character and the theming ahead of time, which really helps. Undyne is probably a perfect example of there's so many times leading up to you're like, oh, she's this ominous, terrifying thing. But then when you see her, you're like, oh, I understand why she has her motivations.
00:18:48
Speaker
But then the way she attacks you in the boss phase is like, oh, that fits her character. Like, it makes sense. Or even the stuff with Papyrus where he has these silly bone attacks and then at some point you're like, I can't clear that jump and then you're able to fly. It's stuff like that. It's just absurdity. Yeah, it's a degree of absurdity and fun, but it all still fits within the same
00:19:17
Speaker
bounds of like how the fights are done. Yeah. But each enemy is distinct. Each boss is distinct. Yeah, the you actually use a key word there that I think I was missing from my notes, use the word theme and like a boss theming in general. Really awesome. Boss themes as in music, freaking iconic, like
00:19:42
Speaker
like O2's theme from Kirby Crystal Shards, or the Metal theme, which I can't remember, also from Kirby Crystal Shards. Like, boss music tends to stick around. There's a lot of absolute bangers out there, depending on the game. I also have that on my notes for music. Do you have an example in mind? I give my two examples of those. They're the only songs in it. No, I would say One-winged Angel, also. Super, super iconic.
00:20:11
Speaker
Um, love me some Sephiroth. Yeah. That's some outside of what you're implying at the moment. Um, like the theme of that. Cause granted he's a character throughout the entire game. Um, and you're literally following him the entire game. And then his music is off the fucking wall in comparison to everything else. It's like, it's a video game. This is like, I just put together 13 random stanzas and it works. Uh-huh. Um,
00:20:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's good to have something that's musically distinct as well to be like, oh, I will always associate this. Yep. Like, I can still think of delta rune tunes. I'm like, oh, this is Queen's music. Cool. This is this other fight. Nice. Unfortunately, Mega Man, I cannot put in this category because all of the boss music outside of when you're doing a specific Sigma fight, who's the final boss, all of the boss music is the same.
00:21:10
Speaker
Their levels are different, but once you're going to like the boss door and it closes, you see like the health pips go up and it's like boss music. Right. Admittedly, there's like 70 bosses per Mega Man games. If they wanted to go unique on music, it would have been quite the effort, but sometimes you got to put it in.
00:21:30
Speaker
I wish they'd put in any degree of effort with that fucking series. Mega Man, Mega Man. I will try Mega Man 8 at some point. I will try it at some point. No, that's fair.
00:21:46
Speaker
Moving along, Segway, I have to say it, so it doesn't count as an actual reasonable transition. Going back to some of the mechanics that make up boss fights, one of the series I think that is exemplary, absolutely excellent at it, is Legend of Zelda.
00:22:03
Speaker
a hot take. It's an indie darling. Not a lot of people know about it. But specifically, I could think of like Ocarina of Time. Oftentimes they would be like Legend of Zelda puzzle making video documentaries, documentaries about it on YouTube.
00:22:28
Speaker
Um, I recommend him. I think like boss keys. Dave is making money science. So I think he's also made some, um, he was shaking his head. He hasn't made any. I'm asking what, what you have in your right hand. Oh, uh, my phone. Oh, is it making noise? No. I'm just wondering why you're holding onto it throughout the record.
00:22:47
Speaker
Oh, sorry. I'm nervous. Well, I have like a fiddle kind of with my hands sometimes if there's something nearby. I'll put it in my pocket so I can't do that. Oh, his hand's still in his pocket. Boss Keys has a video on it, but Zelda uses like a specific type of puzzle solving where it's like, all right, introduce problem.
00:23:09
Speaker
Dang, how are we going to overcome this? Introduce solution, go back, solve problem. And they just do this through the entire game. Continue to improve your toolkit. And by the end of it, you're like, I'm a smart cookie because you're putting a bunch of things together to get through it. Not in like a Talos principle way, because that's crazy, but in a much more manageable, humane way.
00:23:31
Speaker
I mean, do you like that for boss fights? I'm going to lump Zelda into Nintendo as a whole. If you look at like some, I'm going to say 3D Mario games, a lot of Nintendo's formula for boss fights is like, hey, here's this thing. You got to do some platforming or some button mashing for like your hitting of stuff. But basically it's like once you figure it out, you do it three times and then you're done. Rule of threes, yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Do you do you like that for? Let me say one, do you like it in general and two or do you like it just for those types of games? I think it's not my favorite type of boss fight. I do like skill tests a little bit more than like puzzle solving. But it still like feels good to accomplish them. And sometimes they the games still handle things in a pretty interesting way, like
00:24:25
Speaker
Talking about Ocarina of Time, there's the Desert Temple. Man, it's been so long since I played this game. But you fight two witches, I think, is the boss fight, and you have to use the Mirror Shield for it. And you charge up the elements. One fires at you, so you can unleash the element on the opposite.
00:24:47
Speaker
And it was like a cool little mechanic. Like otherwise they weren't really vulnerable. You had to use Fire and Ice. And it kind of got you to use like a cool tool. And it also like builds your engagement with your gear, I think, which is really cool.
00:25:08
Speaker
bombs and Dodongo's cavern. You're like, all right, here we go. We got bombs. Use them to kill the boss. That's your win condition, your win con. And then Ganon himself. So Ganondorf, I guess, pre-beast mode. So you have to use the hook shot and the arrows, light arrows.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, Light Arrows, once he's vulnerable, but what he does is he plays tennis with you first. He shoots an energy blast at you. And this is where the puzzle solving kind of comes in, because otherwise it's a skill test. You're playing tennis. Time your reaction. But the racket that you pick makes a big difference in this fight.
00:25:57
Speaker
Because if you're swinging your sword, great, you can time that. It's kind of hard to do. There's not that many frames to a sword swing, but it does reflect and, you know, it'll continue to speed up and eventually he'll miss, be vulnerable and you hit him with a light arrow. But the advanced strat is use a bottle and you swing the bottle like you're going to catch something and there's more active frames when you swing the bottle. So it's easier to reflect it.
00:26:27
Speaker
And so there was multiple solutions to this mechanic in the boss fight. And I really liked that. That's something that I don't think that game did a lot. Um, but it's unique and I appreciate it. Okay. So you're good with the, the, the simple puzzle repeat type thing, as long as it's not the exact same thing every single time. Yeah.
Tension and Uniqueness in Boss Fights
00:26:50
Speaker
And I mean, to be fair, there, there is some skill involved with that last one too. Other boss fights are like, did you, did you figure it out? Okay. You're good. Right. Like that's it. As soon as you know what the weak point is or what the combination is, then you're good. But if you like mix that up a little bit, you're like dodge some attacks, do some skill checks and then try it. Um, I think it's better.
00:27:14
Speaker
Anything that can actually test our abilities? That joke will come up three more times.
00:27:24
Speaker
Cause that's really what it, a boss battle should be doing is testing your abilities. It's not, Hey, can you figure out the puzzle? I was going to say specifically a puzzle game, I guess, but then it's really a boss. Um, I don't think you necessarily need to have combat, but it's, I think a more tried and true method versus something that's just purely gimmick. Right.
00:27:52
Speaker
I like a good gimmick thing here and there. It's cheeky and fun, but those are never going to be the ones that really stand out to me unless I'm like, oh, that was a pain in the ass. I've only played Bloodborne once, but I still remember having to chase that one guy into a room to then fight him. I'm like, eh, I don't really like that approach as much.
00:28:12
Speaker
or doing something like Bed of Chaos, getting the Dark Souls preferences in, where it was like a simple enough thing. They just made it to be a pain in the ass and nobody enjoyed it. Yeah, I mean, there's some bad boss fights out there. Bed of Chaos is, it's up there. It is way up there for the game is not made better in any way for this. And it could have just been a background set piece. And Dvadi would have made a video about it and it would have been fine.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there needs to be some measure of urgency, whatever type of boss fight you have. So if it's like a puzzle boss where people are trying to figure it out, like put them on a timer and that timer is usually like, are you dodging attacks? Are you like up against a wall where you can't continue to fight it forever until you figure out? Like, um, things like that can help, especially in like more difficult games.
00:29:12
Speaker
Do you know what I'm now getting a memory for that somehow I missed when I was scrolling through Steam games? Some great examples of boss fights that are uniquely distinct have banging soundtracks, a sense of urgency, et cetera, et cetera, hitting all the dots. It takes two. Every level was so distinct and themed. And then the boss fit that area. And then you had different mechanics per area. Yeah.
00:29:41
Speaker
No, that's a delightful. Yeah, it's very much it lives in that space of the classic adventure game and bosses and adventure games really go hand in hand.
00:29:54
Speaker
There's actually you nailed all the criteria of another category I was going to talk about, which is kind of funny because I thought you were going to end up at the same conclusion. But this category is the boss fight is the game. And I have two entries for this one. Fury. Yep. Fury is the one. Can you guess the other? As a spoiler, we've played it together. But you played it a lot more than I have.
00:30:22
Speaker
honey pop together. Boss fight is the game. Much like honey pop, the word head is involved. Yeah. So cup head, uh, is the, is the other game. Okay. Which is basically a boss rush like fury. Yes.
00:30:49
Speaker
I still think it fits. Oh yeah. Because it's just a different style of we don't have, I don't want to say the chaff in between, but that's not what the game is. Granted, they do have levels where you are going through, but nobody's like, did you check out this one level? The highlight is all of the boss fights that are like,
00:31:10
Speaker
hand animated and drawn and have their own themes in different stages. And it's very, again, uniquely distinct because they'll have, oh, it's a genie boss. Cool. What is this going to be? And then he's opening Pandora's box. You're going through a pyramid. All these other things are happening that kind of you have to suspend your disbelief and just be along for the ride. Now, granted, it's a much more fantastical game so we can get away with that.
00:31:36
Speaker
but I like when my boss fights. I like when I walk into a boss fight, I'm like, oh shit, here we go, it's a boss. And then two, and it goes like, oh, we're not done?
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, bosses should be at the top of that sign graph. It's like, all right, for engagement or tension, boss vices need to be up there. And boss rush games tend to keep you there. If you're playing through fury, you're going to be sweaty by the end of it. If you played the game in one sitting, it doesn't matter if it's winter. That's just the reality.
00:32:14
Speaker
There's apparently a DLC for that, by the way. Just came out. I saw. Yeah. I'm considering, maybe. I'm on the considering, also. But they're quite fun games. They're interesting. And they kind of hearken back to arcade, I think, if your game is pretty much entirely boss fights. The one thing that you can't do, really, if your game is entirely about boss fights, is have bad boss fights. Because then, like,
00:32:44
Speaker
That's it. You put every egg in this basket and then you turned it over and dumped it on your own head. Thankfully, I don't think I have any examples of bad boss rush games, but I'm sure they exist. I think they usually keep that pretty clean and tight.
00:33:01
Speaker
Because if, again, going to something like Elden Ring, there's a number of bosses in it. Some of them are kind of more so a throwaway. Oh, it's something in a dungeon that I fought before type thing. That'd be an example of not a great one. But when you have such like a myriad of bosses to choose from, it seems like a drop in the bucket, you're not stuck on
00:33:23
Speaker
That one was kind of eh. But if it's all boss rushes, like Fury, you have like seven or eight bosses, you're going to remember that. If one's really shit. Alongside excellent music and gaming and just everything that makes a good boss fight, tension and questions and answers and Q and A's. It's really freaking good. Yeah. If you stick around post credits, the main character will actually.
00:33:51
Speaker
Um, another thing I wanted to touch on, I actually don't have a pretext for this one is, um, large bosses or, or super massive bosses, um, and scale in general.
Impact of Large-Scale Bosses
00:34:02
Speaker
I had two colo- or two colossus spoilers, uh, two examples for this. Um, and I wonder if you have any experience with them shadow of the colossus and God of war.
00:34:15
Speaker
I was going to hum the theme. That was a decent deep cut though. I'll give credit for that. Meanwhile, I'm going to be screaming at Magfest. So Shadow of the Colossus I've played, let's say probably half of. You could almost argue that it's still a boss rush game, but it does have that exploration stuff in between.
00:34:41
Speaker
The word rush feels wrong. Yeah, it's the hard part to argue, but very much is like a series of bosses. I don't think there are standard enemies in that game, right? Unless you count the salamanders. Nobody counts salamanders. They're too fast. They just bundle up together and you're like, was it five? Was it four?
00:35:02
Speaker
That was actually just the salamander orgy or widows. Okay. Now it's six. What happened?
00:35:13
Speaker
So yeah, it's very much a, I'm the young adventurer, the small boy going up against literally a fucking mountain. Yeah. So it feels very cool to overcome something of that scale and literally stab it into weak bits. Um, and they're bad, right? Anyway, yeah, yeah, of course.
00:35:33
Speaker
It's cool because there wasn't anything like it at the time. You were literally climbing the enemy boss and then killing it. And granted, you were just like a boy with a sword outside of riding up there and using the sword of like tilt the light in the right direction. That's all you've done. So it was just a really unique game in that regard.
00:35:59
Speaker
but very fun. And I don't think they've tried to even replicate it at all. At least that style. Not really. Not that I can think of. The closest thing I can think of is like, there's a VR game. I can't remember the name of, sorry, friend of the show, VR game, where you like swing around with basically like a grapple hook and you can like surf. And I think you have a gun or something and you fight a bunch of like 3D bosses basically traversing them as terrain, which is really funny. That was cool.
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, it sounded and looked really good, but I was like, I'm going to throw up instantly if I was trying to play this. Um, but yeah, I think scale can be like a massive, no pun intended part of it. Like the idea is if you want to differentiate a boss, that's the classic way to do it. Here's the big guy. Here's, here's the big deal and God awarded it to, I think, um, and the older series at one point you fight the, um,
00:36:59
Speaker
Now I'm still on X-Men, but the Colossus, there's like a giant statue. Colossus of Rhodes? Yeah, Colossus of Rhodes, thank you. And it's huge monkeys. And you have to like fight its hands as it's trying to crush you to like injure it and then like run up it and eventually like work your way into it's like,
00:37:22
Speaker
Um, like automaton body, whatever it's like, fight the heart. Um, and you're basically fighting terrain, you know, because the scale is so crazy. Uh, and I mean, the new God of war also has a lot of standout examples for really cool boss fights because it's God of war, but, uh,
00:37:43
Speaker
I mean, no one's going to look at that screen for a second and be like, you're not fighting a boss right now. Come get dinner. You know, whatever. Just pause it. I can't. It's the Colossus of Rhodes mom. I'd always use the I'm playing online. I can't just pause it.
00:38:03
Speaker
It's just like a handheld thing, like clearly single player game. You're playing checkers versus yourself. I'm going to time out if I don't touch the turn clock at the next 10 minutes. Yeah, I played, or I guess we played the new God of War. Yeah. We did an episode on it. I don't remember as much of the individual bosses. I don't either, to be honest.
00:38:31
Speaker
I remember fighting a fairy in darkness. Uh, does that sound familiar? Yeah. Yeah. Vaguely, vaguely. So I think like dashes at you or something. It was in like nil five or something. Yeah. Yeah. No time. Yeah.
00:38:45
Speaker
take me to that special plane yeah i remember they were all still fun and large for the most part some of the enemies you were facing were definitely humanoid and other gods like you
00:39:05
Speaker
And kind of similar to what FromSoft does, there's the big larger than life beasts or giants with better tells. And then when you get to the person who's like, oh, it's you sized, where you go, oh, shit. Yeah, this is where it's real. Because we've given them quick mechanics and other things to do. So when you're fighting Sister Frieda in Dark Souls 3 DLC,
00:39:29
Speaker
she can fuck you up a little bit and then her dad joins the fight and you're like okay this is like the large part and i have to manage too and you're like that's it right and they're like yeah sure uh dark souls only has two phases this is something that's been true forever only two so do you get more threatened by a large boss or a u-sized boss
00:39:54
Speaker
I think, honestly, I am more scared most of the time of a U-sized boss. Large bosses, traditionally, they're very prevalent in games, but they have to have tells, because their attacks are going to take up half the screen. Something that's fast and unreadable is insane and unfair in a large boss. So most oftentimes, they're just kind of easier bosses.
00:40:24
Speaker
But like smaller bosses, bosses where the camera might have a little harder time tracking them or their parries and their faints and things like that are a little bit harder to read. Like, yeah, I mean, literally Dark Souls. I'm just thinking about Dark Souls now and Elden Ring. But those bosses are the difficult ones. You heard it here first, Jake loves Fire Giant because of how easy it was.
00:40:53
Speaker
I don't know. I didn't struggle with that one as much as some of the other bosses and mine, but I can't remember if I also just like brought in the gang of murderers to take it down. So it's been a little while. But yeah, it's it's obviously like a huge set piece boss, which is cool and awesome as far as theming, but it's not the.
00:41:16
Speaker
as close as like the abyss walkers. Ooh. Yeah. Where it's like, oh, I'm fighting them. But they're very much up on you. They have similar movesets to what an invader would. Yeah. I love, I love the abyss walkers. I'm glad you brought those up because they weren't on my list, but they're, they're like probably, they're a lot of people's favorite boss from Dark Souls 3. Soul of Cinder. Good.
00:41:45
Speaker
It's a good boss. Mechanically, you could argue it is or isn't, but like for the impact on the game, Soul of Cinder and fighting the amalgamation of every character. Yeah. The part is appreciated at least. And the fact that they're like, did you miss that Gwen music? Here you go. Here's the remix. He started beatboxing on me.
00:42:14
Speaker
But with the Abyss Walkers, I love the theme of based on their location, they're right above the crypt. Basically darkness or whatever force you want to call it seeped into them specifically and they were sworn to cut out darkness and destroy it in any form because they're the fucking Abyss Walkers, that's their job.
00:42:37
Speaker
But then when they started being infected by it, they started like have to kill each other, but they didn't, they don't permanently die. So they're dead. Eternal battle killing each other. It's a very hardcore opening cutscene and super confusing if you don't know what's going on in the game. Like does really seem like all the people involved in the boss fight are killing each other. Also, the boss arena is a pile of their corpses.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. And mechanically, some of the stuff it introduces that I really appreciate is like the Abyss Watchers are, one, they're a multi-boss, right? So there's a bunch of participants in the fight. And that's hit or miss for a lot of games, but I think that fight in particular nailed it well for a couple of reasons.
00:43:25
Speaker
But also the enemies individually, they don't have that much health. They're a shared health bar. And they don't really defend all that much. Their offensive attacks are more dangerous. And you can kind of just carve through them if you're good at the combat in the game. I don't think many people consider them the hardest boss or anywhere near it.
00:43:49
Speaker
But they can be dangerous. But it's 100% like, if you've got the skill down, boss fights done. Pretty much like that.
00:43:59
Speaker
I would say a lot of it comes down to timing and knowing when your specific weapon has a punish window because phase two is very much, did you fuck up? You're going to take a lot of fucking damage. Yeah. The other mechanic I think we got to mention is the mitigation effort. Some boss fights are like this where it's like, hey,
00:44:20
Speaker
Do you want to do this hard mode or you want to like do this easy mode? And Abyss Watchers has a couple of them start to spawn and you're like, all right, I can't really attack two at the same time. And the third one spawns and you're like.
00:44:33
Speaker
Yeah, this is going to get me to uninstall, which doesn't even make any sense. But it has red eyes and it starts attacking and distracting one of the other ones, turning it back into a one on one. So you have this peak of tension where you're like, I'm getting overwhelmed. I don't have any windows to attack. And then the windows come back if you hold out and a red eyed guy peels for you, basically. And like, what an interesting mechanic.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think there's anything else in at least the souls franchise that does anything like that. Mm hmm. Because there's definitely like some multi entity fights. Yeah. I don't usually like I think of one at the moment. There's a couple in Elden Ring, like multiple gargoyles, which I hated or the crucible knight and the beast guy, which I hated.
00:45:33
Speaker
It's it's definitely not as fun when you have to manage two two movesets. Mm hmm. Alexa, stop. Thank you. God, you're trying to interrupt the podcast. Alexa, we can go back. It's fine. Roll it back. But like Orange Seed and Smough is always like a big prominent two entity fight in Dark Souls.
00:45:57
Speaker
It will always kick my ass to a degree, because I've never been great at these games. But I'm always going to love it. Music's on point. You literally have to go into a church and ascend stairs to be like, all right, motherfuckers, I'm coming for you. And then there are two guys who are just full gilded, like, what's up? And you're like, shit. No. And then amazing chest ahead after that. So that's the important thing. Boss fights should have rewards.
00:46:27
Speaker
Boss fights should have rewards. There should always be a chance. There we go. One thing I have here of a note is boss fights are also like the time to actually use consumables.
Overcoming Boss Fight Challenges
00:46:45
Speaker
Oh, OK. And like I have in all caps, like this is the time to use your fucking elixirs. Because like when do I use this thing that's going to buff me temporarily?
00:46:55
Speaker
It's in situations like this where you're given a larger challenge and maybe you're hitting up against a wall as far as difficulty is concerned. Some of those mitigating factors can be, oh, I'm going to get some health regen, some stamina regen, physical damage resist, fire resist, and stacking some of those buffs to make this next attempt be less harsh.
00:47:19
Speaker
And boss fights are like where I think the players and the developers, usually for people who played games more, they're on the same page. They're like, I expect this to be a more difficult experience. I expect I'm going to have to expend resources. And a game can feel unfair if you're kind of surprised by that. But if it's a boss fight, players do expect it. So the developers can, you know, ramp up the difficulty. They can require more of you.
00:47:44
Speaker
on the consumable front. I know it's basically a meme. No one ever uses the potions until the end. ProsyD's literally made a skit about it, but this is the time to take your advantages or else you get stomped if it's balanced well.
00:48:05
Speaker
even in MMOs and things like that. Trash monsters? Nobody cares. Do whatever you want. Pull them together, kill them all. It's about efficiency. You get to the boss. Are you not using buffs? Do you not have like a potion for strength or anything like that? Nothing? Okay. All right. Yeah, that's where you...
00:48:23
Speaker
I don't know why my fishing is up 20 levels for 20 minutes, but here we are. You drink everything you fucking can when you get to the final boss of a raid. Yeah. And there's actually like, this touches on another category I wanted to hit on, but like super bosses or optional bosses.
00:48:44
Speaker
Some games have these. I don't think they're super in favor. They're, they're still pretty rare. I guess in games, there's not too many strictly optional ones. Dark souls is a terrible exception. Cause like it has optional bosses through the entire series, but, um, I'm thinking particularly some older games where it's, you have to go out of the way to do it, but it is an extra, extra difficult boss metal Sonic.
00:49:10
Speaker
Yeah, depending on the game because he's mandatory for some of them. I was thinking of Sonic Heroes where you had to specifically go back and do those bonus levels where you're on a sphere touching blue balls, not any other color of balls. Red is a bad color for balls. Yeah. You want blue balls.
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah, I was also thinking of my go to example. And to this day, I'm not sure if it's spoilers for the new game that hasn't come out yet or not. But Final Fantasy 7 has some of the most iconic super bosses for me. It's like, hey, we have.
00:49:56
Speaker
weapons that you have to fight and there's ruby weapon which i'm pretty sure is mandatory and there's platinum weapon which i'm pretty sure is mandatory but if you're paying attention in one of the cutscenes there's like another impact
00:50:11
Speaker
and the game's like that was it there's an impact whistle whistle whistle nothing nothing hidden here um but if you go like get the submarine and dive down under the water you can find emerald weapon swimming around in a circle and it's going to kill you and um
00:50:36
Speaker
like it was it was such an interesting man i don't think i ever beat that boss i'm thinking about it i know now years later how you're supposed to but it was a subversion boss where it's like hey this game has a great skill leveling system it's called materia you're gonna love it they they grow and once they max out you can like get them to duplicate now you have two of that same type that's awesome if your materia is
00:51:02
Speaker
quadruple the spell that you cast, whatever it's linked to. That seems great. If you use these on this boss, you're going to die. Didn't they deal damage based on the amount of material you had? Yes. The boss had a spell called, an ability called Iertam Storm.
00:51:22
Speaker
which people eventually figured out was Materia Storm. How'd they figure that one out? It took longer than it should have. And I think it dealt a thousand points of damage for every Materia that your party had equipped.
00:51:36
Speaker
Hence, you could equip a bunch of materia on each person and the maximum health was 9,999 for party members. So 10 was an instant wipe, fewer was tons of damage. And I think it also weaved in auto attacks. So if you're trying to play cheeky with it and you're like, I've got nine materia, it's like, yeah, well, I'm going to kill you anyways.
00:51:58
Speaker
Um, used it multiple times. And then there was a timer, a real time timer at the top of the screen. That was like your oxygen. Cause you all get out of the sub to fight it. And I think it was like 10 minutes, but some of like the strongest spells in the game or like something like quad cast nights of the round. Exactly. Um, which that's two hours, your fucking life.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was an unskippable cutscene in that game. They did not let you skip the timeline. Japan, I've been saying this for years. Knock it off with that shit. For the most part, I think they got better.
00:52:37
Speaker
It was like devastatingly powerful and like the most action economy efficient thing you could do basically. Uh, and also a bad idea basically to use it against this boss. Cause there's a real life timer running in the background for 10 minutes as you're watching King Arthur do his stuff again. That seems a little bit insane for those types of constraints, but I do love a good secret boss. Yeah.
Super Bosses and True Challenges
00:53:00
Speaker
If we're staying in the final fantasy realm, Anima. Ooh.
00:53:05
Speaker
Animo was always really cool themed because you see him as Seymour's summon. And I think the second fight with him? Or maybe the first. Which one's this from? Final Fantasy X. Gotcha.
00:53:20
Speaker
To any shanes out there. But you can actually get Anima as a summon that you have to go out of the way and fight and kill Anima in like some secret location. Gotcha. But it was really fucking cool. So I appreciated it. Granted, it was optional. There's not like this whole build up and everything, but it's still like a big, a big badass character. You got to be.
00:53:49
Speaker
I really, I really like the idea of super process. I don't always engage with them, but the, it allows the developers to be like, Hey, you know,
00:53:56
Speaker
Rest of this, rest of this, you're supposed to be able to beat this. Now for the gamers out there, right? And then turn to you with sunglasses on Doritos bags in both hands and then like Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew, let's go with Monster, Monster. They're like, okay, all right, I'll give it a shot and just kick your butt repeatedly.
00:54:19
Speaker
Like, I love those. Sephiroth and Kingdom Hearts. He's not really a secret boss. He's just kind of like, if you talk to me again, I'm going to kill you. You're like, ooh, interact button. But he's a tough fight. He's not meant to be easy. And people who just want to get through this story absolutely can, because the rest of the game is not that hard. But he is. And he goes.
00:54:48
Speaker
Would you consider Melania to be a super boss? Yeah, I think no overly difficult in some some facets. I think so. I think that like this is going to sound extremely elitist, but like if she were to be disqualified, it would because there are so many ways to mitigate her fight. Right. Like.
00:55:12
Speaker
I don't think you can cheat outside of literally cheating like GameShark or something like Sephiroth or Emerald Weapon or something like that. But like Milania, yeah, you could just you could just bring the voice, right? You're like, all right, get them. And it doesn't diminish the accomplishment if you do, you know, solo fight that boss. That's a massive accomplishment, perhaps to the people that do it.
00:55:38
Speaker
but it is literal gatekeeping, right? Like they are the gatekeeper and you have the option of making it easier in that game. I'm trying to think of another game that would have
00:55:53
Speaker
something but it's I feel an older tactic for the most part for game design it's usually like why would you add this extra difficult thing that people have to go out of the way to go do just because oh the challenge people want to do it and now I'm like oh Hollow Knight White Palace it's not a boss per se but it is
00:56:14
Speaker
overly difficult challenge for the sake of just pretty much I did it. I love one of those though because if I ever get to that point of insanity where I want to do it and then I do it, I will feel very accomplished.
00:56:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I'm actually going to turn over one of my trap cards right now because you mentioned Hollow Knight, which was in the category true bosses for me. So games that have a true boss that you have to meet some criteria in order to meet it. I think this is more popular in secret bosses for the same reason you described. People just might not find or engage with secret bosses.
00:56:54
Speaker
But the idea is, if you didn't collect all the things, or you didn't make some sacrifice along the way, you're going to fight a final boss, but it's not the final boss.
00:57:12
Speaker
Sonic does that, Hollow Knight does that, Bloodborne does that. That's basically what Metal Sonic is. But the thing is, with Hollow Knight, I love the game so much, so that having those extra pieces to unlock that door to have it as an option.
00:57:28
Speaker
is less of an egregious pain in the ass versus something like Sonic or even a blasphemous had like, Oh, I don't remember if you needed specific items for it, but it's like, Hey, this is the real final boss. At that point, it's just kind of not feeling it. So it's, if it's a game you like, it's easier to try and like get all those achievements and go out of your way to complete it. So to speak versus if you're like, Oh, it's just eating additional of my time. Fuck that.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think there can be a different way in how it's implemented to the games. I make all these jokes about Doritos in the hands and all of that. For the most part, I kind of like when games allow people to be more casual and Hollow Knight lets you do that. If you get to the end and you fight, I'm not going to spoil anything actually, and you fight the boss.
00:58:19
Speaker
um great you know you get your cutscene and you're like hmm interesting um but perhaps there's more and you have a lot of indicators that there are more your save game can just be continued like you didn't just beat the game you have a percentage indicator that tells you how much of the game you've beaten and it's not a hundred if you haven't you know gotten the final ending so like
00:58:45
Speaker
There's plenty of indicators that you can and should jump back into it, and they want you to. Games like Sonic or Bloodborne, I think, to some degree. I'm not sure exactly if Bloodborne
00:58:59
Speaker
lets you resume right before the, no, it doesn't. I don't think so. Well, I can't remember the end state for bloodborne, but I know for Sonic, if you want to like start over and you're like, no, this time all the chaos and roads, you got to do all those bonus levels, which means starting over a run. Right. Um, so you can't pick up where you left off. And I think that I appreciate that when you can. Yeah.
00:59:24
Speaker
It's like, we talked about this with eldering, but trying to get like the different endings, people would just modify their save state instead of, you know, playing through the entire fucking game again, just for that one other thing of, Oh, I chose color red versus color yellow type shit, but people wanted to complete it still, but not go through all that pain and suffering. Yeah.
00:59:46
Speaker
It's really funny. You said color red versus color yellow. Cause that brought me all the way back to like mass effect. That's I'm always going to make that type of comparison, but like some of the ending cut scenes for Eldering were just the same video, but a different color scale. Like it was just different camera angle to this one. This one's gray. This one's red. It's just different, different voiceover. Yeah. The Indians could have been better. There's a couple of nice ones though. Um,
01:00:12
Speaker
And I know we're coming up on time, but this one should be specifically applicable for us, but the alternate wind condition.
Alternative Win Conditions in Boss Fights
01:00:23
Speaker
This is the category for boss fights where you could, but what if we didn't, right? Like maybe you do run in guns blazing, rock hit lawn chair, and get through it, but maybe there was an alternative path. And I have a couple candidates for this one. One of them I know you played, although I don't know if the alternate conditions were there when you played Deus Ex Human Revolution.
01:00:54
Speaker
I've played this game. I will go on record to say. Excellent. So my follow up point is the boss fights for that game, not well received. People were like, why are these here? And they were all combat mandatory. And they were combat mandatory, but you might not be running a very good combat build. Maybe it's a stealth build or tech build or something.
01:01:15
Speaker
So they had to give you like all kinds of guns and ammo and they put it all over the place. So you basically couldn't box yourself into a loss. And no one liked that.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't seem like the best game design where it's like, hey, this game is all about approaching the entire game with a variety of different options based on how you want to go. Oh, you're diplomatic. You talk your way through all things. Cool. Oh, you're brute force. You want to like lift boxes to like take vents everywhere. Cool. It sucks to always funnel people into, hey, I don't know what you're doing before, but we're all doing this shit now.
01:01:55
Speaker
That's like having a friend come over to a party and they just put in like a VHS of something and you're all like watching the game or whatever. It's a dick move is what I'm saying. People don't know what VHS actually are anymore. I remember seeing that someone had a post of like, approve you're an adult or something. It's like, what is a VHS for? What does it stand for? Or what is it used for?
01:02:20
Speaker
And there's all these like fake answers. You're like, oh, it's a medical tool or something like that. Or it's like used for video recreation or no, it's like used for multimedia recreation. And it's like you had to pick one of those to prove that you were this old. And so I know it stands for video high school. So yes, I think I'm a 90s kid.
01:02:42
Speaker
I think you're good. But I was going to say they did come back. This is the alternate part of it. And for the director's edition, I believe they added the ability to like go through side doors and hack turrets and detonate cores or whatever they needed to do to have you. You still killed the people.
01:03:02
Speaker
And they realized the absurdity of it. So the bosses didn't count against your pacifist play through, even if he killed them, but they at least gave you side paths for it. Um, I had two other examples and I'm basically good. I know, I know it's never ends, but there's a lot of good boss fights out there. Um, and they're both from fallout. Uh, the first one was in fallout one, uh, where the ultimate antagonist at the very end of the game,
01:03:31
Speaker
You could get enough information together and basically just convince him through science and deduction that his plan was impossible. Like otherwise it's this massively difficult fixed in placement, tons of like hard enemies boss fight, but you could be like,
01:03:48
Speaker
No. And here's why. We're literally going to the YouTube breakdown. And similar for Fallout New Vegas, you could convince through what is it, dialectics? Basically be like, I think it's like a philosophical argument or something, but you can convince them like,
01:04:12
Speaker
your plan is not going to work. And here's the rationale for it as presented from a perspective that you would understand. And it literally requires like speech 100. Like that's the joke, but you can do it and just avoid a hard boss fight because you're like, me think big.
01:04:32
Speaker
I mean, I like it as an option. I feel like it promotes discussion amongst people in today's society for podcasts. It promotes podcasts. So if you'd like to. Yeah. Who's your favorite boss? Not in real life. That's a, that's a trap. The current one I have. Money, money, money, money.
01:05:05
Speaker
And you can lie as a preface. The bonus points if you don't. I've definitely not had enough time to think about like a good answer. An iconic answer for going back to like Sonic Adventure Battle 2. All of them. Like King Boom Boom will always stand out to me as an interesting boss fight. Not mechanically or anything or design wise or music wise. It's just I will always have a burned memory in my brain of that rainbow ghost.
01:05:35
Speaker
I really like the Last Boss of Sekiro. I actually enjoy the fuck out of that. That was gonna be my, I was gonna bait into a different answer and then pivot into Last Boss of Sekiro. Like I don't remember the music for that, but I remember like how fucking sweaty I was. It's incredibly dramatic. I'm gonna kick this person's ass.
Personal Favorite Bosses
01:05:55
Speaker
There are not many bosses that I couldn't beat the night that I started fighting them after trying for like four hours. What's funny about this, the secular thing is I know previously we've talked about like the white monkey and like that fucked me up.
01:06:12
Speaker
And you're like, oh, I did that like, you know, five or six times, figured it out. I was like, how did you like, oh, you can punish this one thing. I'm like, I'm going to memorize what Jake said and apply. And I did that and I beat him. But for this final boss, it was like six or seven for me. Yeah, it was weird. Like that was the turn of like, that's where my sweatiness came on. Yeah, no, I had to alter my mindset and it required going to sleep to actually have a chance to beat him.
01:06:41
Speaker
But that's my favorite kind of boss. It's a skill test, you know? Yeah, I want something that I'm not going to beat first try. I want something that's going to kick my ass several times. Sorry, Melania. Mimic gear exists. I fucked you up. My joke answer, which I do feel I do need to contribute at this point, is Senator Armstrong for Metal Gear Rising Revengeance.
01:07:05
Speaker
It's classic until his boss fights. Okay. It's a great thing. I mean, no, but for those out there beyond in the, the, the, the other realm of the internet, uh, hopefully you guys have played some video games solitaire or something. Um, what are your guys's favorite boss fights? If you have one or multiple.
01:07:35
Speaker
or an essay, I can't guarantee you would read it, but an essay, or you want to be our essay, you can send in your suggestions to sofestonepodcast at gmail.com, or you can join the discussion on Facebook where we're actually gathering together to take down the corporate bosses at facebook.com slash sofestonepodcast. The revolution will be televised.
01:07:59
Speaker
That was it, that's what I called them. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night. Have a good night.
01:09:09
Speaker
you