Summary
Don’t you hate when you’re dealing with a difficult Boss fight, only for them to pull a very cheap trick on you? Sure, they’re meant to be overpowered and force us to overcome them, but sometimes, the tricks they have on their sleeves are just dirty.
From attacks that can’t be avoided to whole fights that you lose simply because the script says so, there are quite a few evil moves the developers prepare specifically to toy with us during the encounter. Well, just for the fun of it, let’s take a trip into the annoying things they can do to us and how infuriating these things can be.
9Healing
The first dirty trick is a Boss that can heal during the fight. Sure, many games also give us that ability through powers or items, but a Boss’s health bar can be ten times bigger - or more - than ours, making that a lot cheaper than when we use it.
Some games at least follow the same rules, like inPokémon,where they also lose a turn to use items or need an ability that recovers health, or their attempt to heal leaves them vulnerable, such as the Dweller-In-Darkness in Guardians of the Galaxy, but some are not afraid to spam it and just force you to deal with it.
8Damage Sponges
As mentioned, we do expect bosses to have anuncanny amount of health,especially compared to us. But successfully attacking an opponent for minutes and seeing no big changes in their health pool doesn’t make the fight necessarily challenging; it makes the fight boring.
And that can be even worse in games where you don’t see the enemy’s health bar, which will only give you anxiety by wondering how much more they need to take before you can finally move on with the story.
7Minions
The true mark of a coward - asking for help during the fight. Unless it’s us with companions because that’sobviouslydifferent. The Boss gets seriously hurt, and they may start summoning creatures or making clones of themself in hopes of getting the upper hand. The worst thing is that this is surprisingly effective; even if the minions are weak, worrying about multiple targets can be overwhelming.
There’s also an interesting variation here: Two or more Bosses fighting together as a team, like Bödvar And Starólfr from God of War: Ragnarok. Instead of having nameless goons helping out, you actually have to worry about two powerhouses beating you at the same time.
6Status Immunities
As you upgrade your character during the journey, you may focus on equipment or powers that don’t hurt the enemies but instead cause all kinds of effects, such as slowing them down, paralyzing them temporarily, having them attack other enemies, or whatever other status effects the game offers you. Only to make all these abilities you upgraded not work on the Boss.
Sure, paralyzing the Boss all the time would make it easy; that’s understandable. But making the Boss immune to everything that doesn’t cause damage is too much. Or at least let them suffer the status, but they get rid of it quicker than regular enemies. Let these powers work at least a little.
5Temporary Invincibility
What’s worse than having your unique abilities or crowd-control powers ignored? Having everything ignored because the game decided you’re doing too well, and they want to give the boss a moment to recover.
The game is literally punishing you for outperforming the boss. And there’s nothing you can do about it other than stay on the defensive until the boss is done being immortal. This is even worse when combined with the self-healing power we mentioned earlier.
4Multiple Stages
Okay, to be fair to the developers, having aBoss fight that spreads in multiple stagesis not a bad thing. It’s actually a good way to upscale the tension in a fight sequence, raising the stakes as it goes. What makes it cheap sometimes is the execution.
Having your victory over an overly difficult Boss fight annulled because the Boss decided to stand back up, recover all their health, and transform into an even more challenging creature is just evil. Then, you get caught off guard, die, and now have to repeat the whole process over to have a chance of fighting this boss’s second-stage fight again. Just pray the game won’t throw a third stage after all that effort.
3Instant-Kill Attacks
Death is part of any video game - and dying is not that big a deal when you can respawn. This means dying a few times or more for a boss as you learn how to defeat them is part of the process. That doesn’t mean an attack that takes you down instantly is fair, though.
The execution here becomes extra massive if the one-hit kill move is particularly difficult to avoid or how much of the game you’ll have to re-do every time you die, making the whole situation even worse.
2They Just Can’t Be Defeated
One of the dirtiest things the game can do to you: A Boss you can’t beat. That’s it. They may have a health bar, but it’s just there for show. They’re so strong that they’ll beat you way before their health bar reaches halfway. Insert an unbelievably powerful attack that is also unavoidable and will take all your health away. Either that, or they’ll keep fighting even with zero hit points; the bar really is just for show.
Some games may award you for managing to defeat these guys, likeDevil May Cry 5’s secret ending,but most of them will just have the Boss keep fighting even if you somehow took all their health away because they’re supposed to win, as the script says. But there’s a trick even more annoying than that:
1You Win The Fight But Lose In The Cutscene
You face a complicated Boss fight, dying numerous times until you get it right. After all that trouble, you succeed, overcoming all of their attacks, multiple stages, and overpowered strikes, and finally become victorious. But alas, it was not meant to be, as the Boss defeats you in the scene that takes place right after your victory.
Now, all you can do is watch the baddie walk away victorious instead of you, despite all the effort it took to bring them down. Perhaps next time, if the script allows you to defeat them.
