The Top Five Most Annoying Boss Fight Mechanics

So before I get into this article, you might want a bit of backstory on it. This was originally going to be a “Top 10 Best Boss Fights” list. However, when going over the vast number of games I’ve played, I’ve come to a rather depressing conclusion: a lot of boss fights suck hard. I then toyed with the idea of having a “top 10 worst boss fights,” but then came to the conclusion that this would cut into Chris and Steven’s favorite and least favorite moments, so I thought on it some more, and realized that a great many boss fights that suck tend to have certain factors in common, usually to hide laziness on the part of the developers. They construct a boss, and realize “hey, this guy is too easy. Let’s find a way to make him ridiculously hard without actually making the fight involve strategy.” This is what is called “fake difficulty.” This is where a fight is made very difficult without making it necessary or even possible to utilize some form of strategy. What this list is not about is very hard bosses in general. A boss fight can be loads of fun while still being very difficult, but this is where it just feels cheap, not hard. However, sometimes there’s just an irritating aspect about certain bosses in general, or sometimes it’s just lazy design in general. So here is a list showcasing these factors:

5. The Sudden Gameplay Change Boss

Okay, so you’re playing a game, the combat is good, or the stealth is good, or whatever the main appeal of the game does its job very well, and you’re in general having a lot of fun playing it. Then a boss comes along (usually the last boss of the game), and for whatever reason, the game designers thought it would be fun to take what the main appeal of the game is, and remove it for that fight, and suddenly drastically change the way you’re supposed to play it. The most prominent example to come to my mind is fighting a boss named Luxord in Kingdom Hearts II. The combat quality of the Kingdom Hearts series aside (don't worry, I liked it, but I know some didn't), this boss fight is just annoying as hell. First off, it's timed, which is something I already don't like unless there's a good reason for it, which there isn't. The point of the battle isn't to beat him until he has no health left, but to steal "time" from him by hitting him, or by playing real time little card based gambling games that seem to make up the rules as the fight goes along, and if you mess up, you get turned into a die or a card, and all it does is make the battle insanely frustrating.

4. The "Enemy Spam" Boss.

This is a very annoying type of boss, because in addition to often being extremely difficult, the reason they are difficult is essentially because the developers usually couldn’t be bothered to come up with a more creative way to make the boss fight memorable, or contain actual strategic difficulty, so instead, the boss’ primary strength is his ability to spawn tons of enemies at you while you fight him. Sometimes it’s just a shitload of weak enemies, or sometimes he spawns enemies that might as well be minibosses at you. Sometimes he runs off while you fight these enemies so he can heal or something, but other times he just fights you along with his hordes. Both are equally annoying, and it’s a really cheap mechanic. The worst offender for this type is probably Theseus, from God of War II. While when he actually fights you, he’s a fair fighting, difficult, yet fun boss, but halfway through, he jumps up to where he can’t be hit, and summons minotaurs to fight you while he spams ice spikes to come up through the floor to impale you. It’s cheap, it’s not fun, and just bugs me.

3. The "Get Back Here!" Boss


Hooooooooboy. I hate these bosses. I mean really really hate them. These guys aren’t the most difficult or cheap type of boss, which is why they don’t go in the number one slot, but they get this position because of just how god damn annoying they are. We’ve all fought one like this. He usually has fairly weak physical attacks, although not always, sometimes has poor physical defense, but again, not always, but what he always does do is either right before you hit him, right after you finally do land a hit on him, or before you can get to him, is either run away faster than you can catch him, or teleports out of the way. Bonus points if he mocks you while doing so. Again, it doesn’t really make for a cheap “fake difficult” boss, it’s just incredibly irritating to have to constantly chase him down over and over again, deal crap damage, and repeat the process. Note that this does not apply to any boss that happens to teleport. One of my all time favorite bosses, Nelo Angelo from Devil May Cry, teleports a lot. What makes this type of boss cheap is when he uses his teleporting to evade you for the sole reason that if he didn't, you'd mow him down in three seconds. Probably the worst example here is Professor Perry from Red Dead Revolver. He’s a sort of magician type who actually manages to combine both this aspect, as well as the “enemy spam type,” as he constantly gets his circus midgets to attack you while you’re trying to find him. No, I’m not making that part up.
Finding him is also very annoying, as the level is very dark, and he keeps teleporting all over the place while mocking you, and drinking some kind of weird potion to restore his health. Yes, Red Dead Revolver was a very strange game.

2. The “All Luck and No Skill” Boss

These bosses are just shit. Plain and simple. I love a good boss fight, especially when it’s got genuine difficultly to it, and involves the use of strategy and proper tactics to beat them. What the inversion of this is, then, is the implementation of a boss that is incredibly difficult, and there’s not really any effective strategy to beat them. By that I mean that when you finally do beat them, it doesn’t feel like “yeah! I bested you!” It feels more like “Jesus Christ, I finally killed you, you cheap asshole.” Chris has already covered this type of boss in one of his least favorite moments, the infamous Robot Spider boss from MegaMan X. It just scurries like mad all over the place, and if it touches you, you take an obscene amount of damage, and is invincible until it touches the floor, and then it’s only vulnerable for one hit, and the amount of time this vulnerability lasts for constantly diminishes, eventually only being about a fourth of a second. When he and I finally beat it, we were angry, frustrated, and it didn’t feel like a real accomplishment, because it just felt like we finally got lucky as opposed to actually beating it.

1. The Anti-Climax Boss

Alright, so you’ve slugged your way through the levels, you’re at the end of the final dungeon, you’re blood’s pumping for the fight of your life, and you’re ready to go. This shit is epic beyond belief. Anyone who comes here afterwards is just going to have to pull a Willem Dafoe from Boondock Saints because shit is going down here and now.

You you kick the doors of the final boss open, yell something awesome like “My name is Iningo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!” and then launch into it.
And then the bastard drops dead in one or two shots
What.
No, there has to be some mistake, he’s gonna revive and have an amazing second form, right? He has some kind of giant robotic suit with missiles and shit that he’s gonna jump into, or he’ll mutate and grow angelic wings while hurling fire down upon you, or maybe there’s some kind of reveal showing who his true master was, right?
Nope. He’s dead, and that’s it. Good game, right?
NO. Fuck that shit, I wanted an epic boss battle to end them all! Instead I get something comparable to just a random enemy? This is some bullshit right here.
Note that this kind of a fight doesn't have to be quite as blatant as that. In fact, what's sometimes even worse is having a boss that's been built up this whole time as an unstoppable force of evil just being very easy. At least if he just drops dead from one hit, the game might be trying to send some kind of message about how he was actually powerless the whole time, but when this happens, you just feel cheated.