I'm been playing games for a long time, and there's nothing i enjoy more than a climatic showdown at the end of a game. Most notably for me would be Kingdom Hearts 2 and Sudeki. What I also love is a truly brilliant villain. But lately games have been lacking in those two beloved areas. Perhaps I haven't been playing the right games, but it seems to me villains and bosses are too easy or not worth killing. It hit me when I played GoW2 what had the potential to be an epic fight had consisted of nothing more than covering for a minute and then mashing B, dont even get me started on Fable II...

So is this because developer's are afraid we cannot finish a game or rather something different? I miss the good ol' showdown fights and would love to hear some games where a villain or boss is noteworthy or memorable.

Fable 2 had bosses?

Didn't Notice.

I would have thought Lucien was a boss BUT NOOOOOOOOOO

Serious Sam, baby.

Just about every boss in No More Heroes (although I particularly enjoyed Dr.Peace). Alright, they weren't that tough, but they were awfully cool.

How about the final bosses in Paper Mario 1&2. They were epic, difficult, and just satisfying in every way.

I have to agree with KH and KH2, the best parts of those games were the extra bosses (e.g. Sephiroth in KH). Another notable game for this was Crash Bandicoot (well back when the games were good).

I mean there's nothing more satisfying in a game than fighting over and over and over until you finally beat down that 1 boss and get to watch the little movie of his death with a huge grin spread across you cheeks!

Four words: Shadow of the Colossus

for me i have to go retro......
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
every boss fight was epic much like all LoZ games.......except Twilight Princess.....too easy no matter what anyone says.
followed by final fantasy's (not XII or X-2) just because you had to work it all out for your self........namely all the bosses

Indigo_Dingo:
What boss fight in God of War II consisted of cowering? Or did you mistype and mean GeoW 2?

I mean Gears of War 2. Forgot God of War even existed, should get back into that really.

exzachly:
Four words: Shadow of the Colossus

Ah thank you for refreshing my memory.

Majora's Mask/Incarnation/Wrath. great final boss if you don't use the Fierce Deity mask

majora's mask liked but the time thing got very annoying to be very blunt...........much like a spoon in the gut

Speaking of No More Heroes, I LOVED every boss fight in Killer7, whether they were easy or not. Fantastic ideas for all of them.

Shadow of the Colossus goes without saying.

All the metroid prime games had great bosses, but one of the best was that giant robot you had to take down in MP2... So epic and fantastic, I loved everything about that fight.

Actually, come to think of it, the final boss in Super Metroid is way up there as well.

I'll come up with some more tomorrow I bet.

No more heroes had really really really interesting ideas for bosses, great characterization and amazing fight visually and awesome styles. But the game pretty much involved dodging and blocking then attacking.

pretty much a low rez version of red steel

Final boss in Bioshock anyone?
Or perhaps this

I like the bosses in Diablo 2, those pesky demons!

Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time had some great bosses, ill never forget them!

The bosses in Fury 3 were great, if anyone has played that!

All the Metroid Primes and Super Metroid had some interesting bosses.

Star Fox 64 has good bosses.

Thats all I can remember.

MGS 3 the bosses in that can be very awarkward e.g the pain...... bullet bees very annoying

Conkers Bad Fur Day had awesome fights, like the hay monster that shoots missiles =D

Hey has anybody played the XBLA Castle Crashers? That had some wicked fights, especially towards the end how you fight that rabbit monster that paints those circus creatures and they come alive and attack you.

Indigo_Dingo:
What boss fight in God of War II consisted of cowering? Or did you mistype and mean GeoW 2?

Nitpick much?

Anyway, I know what you mean. And it is yet another reason I love Prince of Persia(new). It had some the most epic bossess I have seen since this whole "realism" craze started, not to mention they were some of the best bosses of all time.

DoW Lowen:
I'm been playing games for a long time, and there's nothing i enjoy more than a climatic showdown at the end of a game. Most notably for me would be Kingdom Hearts 2 and Sudeki. What I also love is a truly brilliant villain.

...eh... KH2's final boss made me piss myself due to zebra patterns. I thought I was watching Micheal Jackson sing thriller for the first time when I was fighting Xemnas(or mansex)...which left me confused but sad. I would say something about killer 7 or no more heros just because studio 69 is actually really kewl.

why hasn't anyone said psycho mantis from the first MGS? I mean it wasn't hard but damned frustrating the first dozen times when until I realized I had to change my control from port one and back.

MGS3 had the best boss fights i have ever played. I loved the different mindset you had to be in for some like when you had the sniping duel with The End and the "fight" with sorrow that fucked with your mind.

That was a big step up from MGS1 which had, well, Vulcan Raven. That boss made me hate the game (both fights).

BIGpanda:
why hasn't anyone said psycho mantis from the first MGS? I mean it wasn't hard but damned frustrating the first dozen times when until I realized I had to change my control from port one and back.

Unfortunately for me, I watched Egoraptor's Metal Gear Awesome and knew exactly what to do. Loved psycho mantis in number 4 though.

DoW Lowen:

BIGpanda:
why hasn't anyone said psycho mantis from the first MGS? I mean it wasn't hard but damned frustrating the first dozen times when until I realized I had to change my control from port one and back.

Unfortunately for me, I watched Egoraptor's Metal Gear Awesome and knew exactly what to do. Loved psycho mantis in number 4 though.

aw...AW. is MSG4 really that big of a killer?!
I didn't play the game but with all this feed I'm getting I'm thinking I don't want to. long cinematics aside that was a good series.

My favourite boss has to be in Portal. Not only is it clever, but it's just fucking funny. Actually, maybe the Zelda bosses. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask especially. And Wind Waker in fact (sorry, I liked it).

Not in terms of boss fight but in terms of villainous awesomeness, Mobius from Legacy of Kain: Defiance & Soulreaver. Its a great and well constructed villan

wind waker for some reason made me feel as if i was playing a more vivid a link to the past because you get the master sword and you are still the kid as in LttP.

The ingredients of a good boss fight are, in my opinion: an impressive-looking boss, a good setting, a strategy that relies on skill rather than luck, and a satisfying end to the fight. As such, I enjoyed almost all bosses in the Metroid series (all the games, not just the Prime ones). They were fun fights that required both thinking and fast reflexes to beat, which added to the satisfaction when you actually beat them. Another game that comes to mind when thinking of great boss battles is Second Samurai, a golden oldie from the Amiga era, which featured the same kind of boss fights as above. More recently, I enjoyed the God of War boss fights for the same reasons.

As for villains, my definition of a good villain is someone who establishes an eerie presence throughout the story, so that every time you meet him/her, you involuntarily gasp and hold your breath in anticipation of something bad that's sure to happen in the next few minutes. A good villain doesn't even need to fight you - he/she just shows up and ruins your day, then walks off to plan further misery for you. In this respect, for good villains I'd nominate:

Kain in the Legacy of Kain series: every time he showed up, you knew you were in for mind games. I'll agree that the storyline was messed up after Soul Reaver, but I still remember that incredible sense of foreboding Kain instilled in me.

The Queen of Blades in Starcraft: unusually for a RTS game (at the time, at least), Starcraft featured a pretty good storyline, and the Queen was a major part of it. We got to see her "transformation" story from start to end, when she comes into her own in the Brood War expansion.

Darth Malak in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: of all the Star Wars villains they have created for games, Darth Malak was the closest they got to making a "new" Darth Vader.

The Queen in Ico: She puts in only a handful of appearances during the entire game, but she is chilling malevolence personified.

The villain(s) in Shadow of Memories (I think it was called Shadow of Destiny for you American people): I'm not saying who in order not to spoil it, but if you play this game, you're in for a twisted time-travelling storyline that, in my opinion, has no equal in gaming. For the better part of the game, you don't even know who the villain is as you do anything and everything to foil his/her (successful!) attempts to kill you. Even when you finally think you know who it is, the game throws another twist at you. A total mind-job.

Legend of Dragoon had some epic boss battles, if you can remember that game from PS1. The supervillian Lloyd was quite the character.

i still wish i had my copy of legend of dragoon still.
falien i second you on the darth malek thing......pure evil if you ask me

DoW Lowen:
I'm been playing games for a long time, and there's nothing i enjoy more than a climatic showdown at the end of a game. Most notably for me would be Kingdom Hearts 2 and Sudeki. What I also love is a truly brilliant villain. But lately games have been lacking in those two beloved areas. Perhaps I haven't been playing the right games, but it seems to me villains and bosses are too easy or not worth killing. It hit me when I played GoW2 what had the potential to be an epic fight had consisted of nothing more than covering for a minute and then mashing B, dont even get me started on Fable II...

So is this because developer's are afraid we cannot finish a game or rather something different? I miss the good ol' showdown fights and would love to hear some games where a villain or boss is noteworthy or memorable.

Well, that is pretty much it. Developers are in fact scared about frustrating the player. To ensure that the player is not frustrated, the difficulty and challenge is removed, and thus bosses are first to go.
Basically, to sell units, you have to keep the customer happy and not frustrated. Since we can't please everyone, we go for casual gamers. Because casual gamers are the lowest common denominator. If we don't frutrate them, we won't frustrate the experienced gamer.

But yeah, you are right, bosses will eventually dissapear completely, and possibly one day, antagonism will also be removed from games altogether.
We are in the era of casual gaming and nearly every product is made with them in mind. Not the experienced gamers.

that will be the day that i will die because i love the way the older games are so challenging when you are oung and when you grow up, they are still hard no matter what you do.

I posted a thread exactly the same as this not a while back. Im not complaining as I totally agree with you. Boss battles used to be the bees kness now its the cows ass.

Shadow of the Colossus of course.

MGS3, God of War 2 had some real winners and No More Heroes.