Boss battles as cutscenes has to end. I hate it. I hate it more than I hate that movie Contact. And let me tell you, I hate that fucking movie. It's longer than Dune. It's twice as boring as Gigli with less famous people. There are no robots in the movie or super heroes. No tits. No pinball machines. It is essentially the worst movie ever. Even titanic had tits and some murder. This movie has nothing. I sometimes sit in anger and say "Why the fuck did I watch Contact?" I can't be the only one. A lot of people gripe about that movie. It fucking lingers. It's like a chigger or vanerial disease. You can't get rid of it.



I want a boss battle that actually is a fucking battle. Not a "hit him with this, run behind him, touch a button during the movie, then do that a couple more times." I want a fucking epic battle. Castlevania has epic and real boss battles. Metal Gear Solid has real boss battles. Gears of War does not. Gears of War 2 has a battle with a man with two chainsaws that essentially comes down to dodging his attacks, something I hate doing in a game especially one meant to make you feel like a tough guy, then pressing a button more times and faster than him a few times to kill him. Bullshit. That isn't a battle. That's a movie with me pushing a button and watching what happens. A choose your own adventure where I have no choice. It has to end.



Resident Evil has boss battles. A good boss battle is one where you shoot at enemies until they die. New ones, if a weak point gets exposed and THEN you go into crazy button press mode, that's okay. Especially where its apartment that you're doing damage like in the recent games. Otherwise the most classic battles to me are from the first two. Running around fighting whatevers with the magnum is so satisfying. I just aim, shoot an asshole, and he takes damage. Run around a bit letting him chase me and try and attack, then shoot him. Dead, no wait not really! Then somehow you get rockets and now he's dead. Then in Fable 2, bosses wouldn't take damage until they felt like it. Until all these little ghost creatures where destroyed. Or when they stopped talking long enough for me to shoot them. In a way, it was hilarious and wonderful that it didn't have the boss I expected. In others, that was disappointing. Considering I paid sixty dollars for the game. Don't even get me started on the final one. An un-boss. Also worth mentioning is Resident Evil 5, a game that wasn't out when I first wrote this. The final boss there had several goof ups. I had to shoot a rocket, then shoot the rocket? Then in that last battle I had to run up and press X to finally kill him. I tried for a few hours unleashing every bit of weaponry I had. I thought I had to hit his weak points, but no. I had to run up and press X. That's it! Just press one button and kill the boss and that's it. That's your finale? All these years with the series and THAT was all I had to do?



Final Fantasy has some bosses. Bosses that are just regular enemies, but super powerful. Persona has some bosses. These bosses are what I want. Marvel Ultimate Alliance has bosses that infuriate me. As awesome as the game is, the boss battles are nothing more than watching movies and pressing buttons at the right time. The Kraken boss is the most awful, as you have to have him smash a pillar, run into it, press some buttons in a Shenmue style game, then do that four times and he's dead. That's not a boss battle. Some boss battles are more akin to regular beat em up flair, which is wonderful. Like a scene where you fight an Iron Man villain. That was cool. But when you fight Galactus and it is just the Silver Surfer flying around attacking in the same pattern four times, my rage kicks in. Something that can be more painful than Spider-Man's brand new day. Seriously, Mephesto didn't want Spider-man and Mary Jane to be married? What the fuck. Seriously Marvel, that was the dickest of all the dick moves. Clones I can take. Marrying Mary Jane, sure. But this shit is a step backwards. Way backwards. And this was over a year ago, and I'm still feeling it. I feel hurt. Like something that I considered special was laughed at and tossed to the side. Spider-man's games have always had AMAZING boss battles, if nothing else, but what made them so special was that I fought them just like a regular enemy. Rhino in Ultimate Spider-man for example has you dodge his attacks, then attack him from behind where he can't see you. Yes, that sounds horrible. But its what I'm talking about. You just regularly attack his back. No special button presses. It makes sense for Spider-man to dodge him when you're so tiny compared to him. But in Gears of War you're captain eat shit for breakfast and take names for lunch. You literally have a friend run over and slap you to bring you back to life. Spider-man has to use some sort of cunning to roll around a boss and dodge his attacks, he has no healing nonsense. It's about doing a normal attack on his back. Same with the Shocker battles. You web up his paddles and hit him. That's a good boss battle to me, using what you've got your basic regular attacks to do some damage.



You know what's really horrible in an RPG? Boss battles you're supposed to lose. That you're supposed to lose. I don't like to lose. I'll use a fucking game genie if I have to win. I don't care. I'm the type who thinks baseball players using performance enhancers is fully acceptable. No problems for me, let's see how gigantic and disproprtional they can get. Same with wrestlers. I'll bet some of them can't wipe their own ass without assistance. I hate losing a battle. Especially in an RPG. Its exactly what you're supposed to not do. Losing is dying, and dying means restarting. Legend of Dragoon for example has a battle on the third disk you're supposed to lose. I didn't know. I kept trying it and trying it. I hit reset when I die so I don't have to watch twenty minutes of "GAME OVER" with some horrific song playing. I just wanted to play the fucking game. Just blast through and get it over with. Gameshark let me get to the fourth disc with extreme ease, but when I got there I was so bored and knew I could beat it that I just didn't bother. Years later I tried again and couldn't get off the first disc. I don't know, I guess that's one for the never finished articles.

I said the F word eight times in this article.