Post by yoritomo on Dec 23, 2014 12:15:29 GMT
You know what grinds my gears? Horribly planned boss battles in video games.
I recently picked up Kingdom Hears 2.5. While playing the Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix I was getting close to the end of the game. When you first the to the last world you fight a shadowy character. In the original KH2 you "fought" this guy by taking two or three swings at him which triggered a cinematic. You watched the cinematic and got a warm fuzzy feeling then went on. (sorry for being vague, I'm trying to to give away any spoilers). But when they remastered the game for the Final Mix version they thought this would be a great thing to expand upon and make it a proper boss battle.
Now normally I wouldn't have a problem with this. Giving me more game is never a bad thing. The problem is that when you die (and I have died a lot here) you go back to the previous zone. The previous zone in this case is a grinder where you fight over a hundred basic wimps one at a time. So I spend five minutes wading through the peons and get to the boss. The boss snaps his fingers and comes down on me like the freaking hand of God, taking all of fifteen seconds (if I'm lucky) to wipe me from existence and sentences me to another five minutes of tediousness in order to get another crack at him.
There are several situations where I'd actually be okay with this. If I kept the experience I earned from those five minutes of fighting every time I died I'd be okay because at least I know I was getting better and at some point I'd have enough Hp, or strength, or defense, or whatever to eventually beat him. No dice, I start over from scratch every time. Or maybe if it took him longer to kill me I could identify a pattern and have a better shot at winning. But after five minutes of fighting something else I'm not really focused on what I learned the last time the boss used me as a pinata.
It's really frustrating when the most effective thing you've done to beat a video game boss is throw your controller across the room.
I recently picked up Kingdom Hears 2.5. While playing the Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix I was getting close to the end of the game. When you first the to the last world you fight a shadowy character. In the original KH2 you "fought" this guy by taking two or three swings at him which triggered a cinematic. You watched the cinematic and got a warm fuzzy feeling then went on. (sorry for being vague, I'm trying to to give away any spoilers). But when they remastered the game for the Final Mix version they thought this would be a great thing to expand upon and make it a proper boss battle.
Now normally I wouldn't have a problem with this. Giving me more game is never a bad thing. The problem is that when you die (and I have died a lot here) you go back to the previous zone. The previous zone in this case is a grinder where you fight over a hundred basic wimps one at a time. So I spend five minutes wading through the peons and get to the boss. The boss snaps his fingers and comes down on me like the freaking hand of God, taking all of fifteen seconds (if I'm lucky) to wipe me from existence and sentences me to another five minutes of tediousness in order to get another crack at him.
There are several situations where I'd actually be okay with this. If I kept the experience I earned from those five minutes of fighting every time I died I'd be okay because at least I know I was getting better and at some point I'd have enough Hp, or strength, or defense, or whatever to eventually beat him. No dice, I start over from scratch every time. Or maybe if it took him longer to kill me I could identify a pattern and have a better shot at winning. But after five minutes of fighting something else I'm not really focused on what I learned the last time the boss used me as a pinata.
It's really frustrating when the most effective thing you've done to beat a video game boss is throw your controller across the room.
