Video Game Bosses

This PC Gamer piece asks a question: Are video game bosses good or bad? So, I think it's a good time to weigh in my thoughts about it.

 

First, let's define what video game boss is. For me, a boss is a non playable character or a group of that NPCs that qualifies two conditions:

• The character is intended to I have a Boner to Skeletonsbe stronger than the enemies precedes them.
• The character is intended to block the players progression until defeated.

Their purpose seems to be more challenging and memorable than regular encounters. They can be powerful tools, both to make your game design shine by making your player think and react differently than normally and to increase the weight of the narrative. But like any other tool, they should be used with consideration. And unfortunately game studios, especially big budget ones, have a tendency to just add things for meeting the presumed expectations of players. Some games would be just better without bosses, this isn't about "players being casual", unless you think " hardcore gaming" is being bored to death.
Individual bosses can be designed well or badly, but on two occasions they just flat-out don't fit to a game:

• The game isn't designed for having isolated encounters.
• The story has to warp in order to justify the boss encounter.

So let's look at these in more detail.

(screenshot is mine)

Hit Sponges

When someone complains about a boss in video games, almost always this is the reason. The boss can't provide any meaningful challenge besides just wasting player's resources more than a regular enemy does. Sometimes this is just lazy design but often developers genuinely can't do much, because the game isn't just suited for that.
For example, when battle system is designed for beating many enemies at once, like 2D beat-em ups or their 3D descendants such as Batman Arkham series, the games just seem to fail giving unique challenges. Just one enemy but bigger, hits harder and has more health. As you can see, this just doesn't mesh with the rhythm of the games. They can challenge the players normally just fine, what's really the fun of keep punching one person again and again. Even in otherwise excellent games like River City Ransom, bosses tend to be the low points of the game.
Another occasion is when the games are based around exploration. The point of having bosses is enforcing some kind of linearity, if your game's strong point is freedom then having boss encounters doesn't make too much sense. Dying Light is an egregious example, the game is entirely around surviving and traversing on the parkours, but the final boss is a quick time event for some reason. People often focus on the QTE part, but honestly it wouldn't be too much better without that either. When your game breathes on moment-to-moment activity,  specific points of tensions becomes antithetical to your game.
You certainly don't need bosses when the real adversary is the levels themselves. For example platform games. Bosses in Super Mario Bros are perfect, because they are honestly just an another platforming challenge, rather than a long encounter that relies on learning patterns. Platform games that have good and detailed boss encounters also have detailed fighting mechanics, like Megaman. Similarly, in Half-Life, the Black Mesa itself is the real enemy and the game sticks to using the that for the most of the time, except for the last boss which is clearly against the design ethos of the game.
Speaking of mechanics, your game definitely needs to be deep enough to justify bosses in the first game. In Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (I can't just stop talking about this game for some reason), the bosses are not boring because they are badly designed but the game has literally no area to challenge players for. You either find better weapons, bring up more potions and enemies just eventually perish. I remember only really few moments where I was somewhat rewarded for thinking, and they weren't even boss encounters.

We Need Things To Fight, So You Are an Enemy Now

There is something more offensive than dull bosses and it is bosses shoehorned into the narrative. You know when fighting doesn't make any sense but characters just do it anyway because plot needs it, or a character miraculously survives for another fight, or just inexplicably becomes stronger? The reason for such mistakes is that developers often try to use gameplay bosses in place of narrative bosses.
Let's clarify first: Gameplay bosses are the designed for challenging the player and only exist as obstacles to overcome, they are the most typical bosses. Narrative bosses on the other hand have, well, narrative weight. Ever played a game where you have to lose to a boss no matter what for example? That's a narrative boss. But a monster is waiting for them at the end of the labyrinth? That's usually just a gameplay boss.
Most games have only have gameplay bosses and that's quite okay when games are light on story or doesn't have a narrative that crates boss encounters naturally. Others use safe route and separate these two, like in Persona 3, where narrative bosses (Strega) are remarkably simple compared to Tartarus and Full-Moon bosses. (They have thematical importance but narratively mere obstacles.) If you design well enough, it can be both at the same time, like Undertale bosses.
Then there are those games. Characters have no need to be hostile to each other, but suddenly they say "we need to strengthen your resolve", "fate ordains that" or some other  flimsy excuse and then they just fight to the death. Or the game just invents a villain to fight. For the record , this isn't too bad of a gameplay boss excuse, as for example Trails games have boss battles where characters train or test each other but it doesn't actually change the course of the plot. No, what I am talking about is where writing just takes a dip, like this guy that was friendly to you a while ago in Fallout 3, or really most bosses in Uncharted series.

(source)

Dark Souls of Boss Fights

There are a lot of games with amazing boss fights, like spectacles of God of War, theatrical fights of Shadow of the Colossus, carefully designed puzzle bosses, narratively deep final bosses and so on. But often, even otherwise well designed games fall into the trap of dull bosses. Most truly memorable experiences come from when developers act brave in their design and usually being brave includes throwing away conventions you don't need. Take your weights off and you will fly higher, it will be worth it. At worst, you will reach the sun and end your journey in a blaze!