Re: Most Disappointing Audiogame Boss Fights
Hmm. Bosses. A very interesting topic for me. It's funny, only a few bosses have given me a real adrenaline rush. Others were flat-out disappointing.
First off all the boss fights in Super Liam I found disappointing. Wild Bot was the worst. Not to slag on the game too hard, after all it was the first of its kind and I was barely 12 when I played it, so something hard wouldn't have been good for me, but most of those fights were not hard for me. Laser Bot was hard until I figured out it was a matter of timing. X1 was also hard because I didn't know what sounds did what, but I was playing over cheap speakers and couldn't hear things clearly, and was too focused on jumping around to pay attention. After later cheating and listening to the game sounds, I pretty much instantly knew what to do and beat him within 5 minutes.
I'd say about a year later I got introduced to the boss of Troop2. AT the time it was a nightmare, but I've gotten a bit bett
er at it. Though it is disappointing in terms of firepower and mechanics, it still scares me to death because the bombs are pretty hard to hear. The sound they use isn't trimmed very well so the closer to the ground they are, the less audible they become. In higher difficulty levels such as normal, sometimes you only get a glimpse of the bomb locations and you just have to hope to get lucky. No way I'm trekking out in the middle of that barrage to chase down Vector, he can come to me, thanks. For the record I've beaten Baby Black Hole on insane, and it really is insane. Perhaps unfairly insane, and I can only do it about two thirds of the time. A lot of it is luck. Other missions I can barely beat on normal.
Blast Chamber was a boss I was quite disappointed with. Hit enter, wait for a pause in his gunfire, try to arrow to him, shoot him a few times, rinse, wash, repeat. Now if the guy had been audibly running around and there were random bits of ammo scattered ar
ound that either you or him could pick up, we'd be talking. Or if there was some environment to chase him through, or at least something else to get in your way... even better. But that boss fight had me shaking my head, after we paid iirc $35 for the game. Probably the hardest part of that boss is figuring out what you're supposed to do. Once you do, the challenge is gone. Time isn't even a threat to you anymore and only constitutes how many lives you have left.
Alien Outback's boss I found mildly disappointing. I actually had to play the game twice to notice the roller bots, which behave as advertised in the manual but aren't much of a threat on easy. On normal, however, the game does get pretty hard. I can't remember if I made it to the boss on normal or not. I have a funny feeling I did but was killed, but then again I'm not sure. It's been so long. While I love the game's atmosphere and how it feels, I didn't like how repet
itive and long it was.
Q9's boss was also meh. If you have 3 or 4 shields and a few dozen slingshot ammo, you'll easily kill him. Now obviously if you don't have that, then there's a problem and he would present one hell of a fight. Fortunately I've never been in that situation, at least on normal, which was as far as I was willing to push myself. Though with my AAC and The Gate experience I could probably do a lot better now than I used to. Speaking of which...
The AAC boss I found lackluster. Just run right, keep a safe distance, wait for him to drop down, make sure he's not about to fire something, and swoop in and smash him with weapons. The biggest threats are the obstacles he sends out, which if you're good at timing shouldn't be an issue, and after a while you can just feel the battle out. The first time I played it, I found it frustrating. I recently played through the game about 6 weeks ago and this time I just found it meh.
The rest of the game is worth more than that battle.
Now, imho The Gate got it right, at least as far as the boss battle is concerned. Hades has proper phases which clearly indicate progress. With that said it's pretty daunting to keep track of everything at once, which you need to do, as he can make short work of you in a matter of milliseconds. You have to be in the right mindset to fight him, and by the time you reach him, you'll be sick of staking vampires and killing enemies. You'll be bored or sick of a lot of the game in general, but the Hades battle is definitely not a disappointment. It's a proper challenge which had me rage quitting a number of times, but eventually beating. I only beat him on normal once. I haven't even thought of trying hard.
The boss of Judgment Day is a little disappointing, as it feels more cacophonous and recycled than I feel it should. My favorite part honestly is the enemy build-up followed by the satellite. The
final boss doesn't feel as powerful as he wants to be, even on hard.
World of War though is a different story for me. The sound design in that game actually makes the battle a little more intense than Judgment Day. When you have to fight the satellite thing and avoid what I think are bombs, for example, all of those things sound dangerous and I would not want to be hit by any of them, even though I doubt they do a whole lot of damage. Fighting that helicopter thing is also scary, though it's easier than it looks. With that said, on normal things don't mess around, and your ship hits the fan fast. I have yet to beat it on normal.
A lot of the bosses in BK3 were pretty awesome, though I am not good at those types of games and just powered my way through most of them. Still, I had my fair share of frustration and adrenaline while playing the earlier bosses. In fact it was because of the stone wall throwing thing that I finally stopped playing, though I later di
d manage to beat him with another friend's save. Now that I know how to do it, I think I would fair better on my own. I have not yet tried to beat the stage 25 boss, and from what I've heard, it might make me go completely insane, which is one reason I've stopped playing the game for now. The final boss in BK2 drove me insane. Those sounds are scary and rub me in an uncomfortable way for some reason. The music also set me on edge. I was trying to play late at night, I was tired, and didn't have patience... it just didn't go well. I'll have to try again at some point.
I know most of these games have been older or more simplistic, but I am not really into more complex games. Though with the recent commentary on Shadow Line, I'm tempted to try it, though I would not be interested in a heavy focus on RPG details like character development and what have you. So maybe it wouldn't be the right game for me. I still should give it a try, it's
free and iirc the JGT add-on is also free, so I don't think I have anything to lose.
That's all I can think of for now.
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