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Thread: Most Anticlimactic Final Bosses in Video Games (will contain spoilers)

  1. #1
    The User DemonDragonJ's Avatar
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    Default Most Anticlimactic Final Bosses in Video Games (will contain spoilers)

    In any good video game, the final boss shall be a truly powerful and threatening menace, and the battle against them shall be hugely dramatic, with much suspense and tension leading up to it and emotional turmoil resulting from it.

    That is what a well-written final boss battle should be, but too many of those battles fail to impress, fail to live up to their own hype. Sometimes, a final boss is defeated too easily, or simply is not sufficiently threatening for the battle against them to feel properly epic and emotional.

    Therefore, this thread shall be for the discussion of final boss battles in video games that were anticlimactic, that did not provide a properly dramatic conflict, despite the game hinting that it would. I have chosen to discuss only final boss battles, and not all boss battles, that were anticlimactic, because there would be too many examples if we discussed all bosses, and because the final boss battle is naturally the most hyped and anticipated battle in the entire game. Naturally, all examples mentioned in this thread shall be major spoilers, so I shall ask all users who respond to cover their responses with spoiler tags, if this forum has such tags.

    Thankfully, I have encountered very few final bosses whose fights were anticlimactic, and they are as follows (I have made the text white to avoid spoilers, since this forum does not seem to have spoiler tags; highlight the text to read it):

    Wario Land II has fifty levels of varying length and difficulty, each with a unique piece of treasure that can be collected in the level and a puzzle piece that can be collected at the end of the level, as well as ten bosses (one for every five levels). If the player collects every treasure and every puzzle piece and defeats every boss, they gain access to "the Really Final Chapter," which is by far the longest and most difficult level in the game. When I played that level for the first time, I was expecting that it would have a boss fight at the end, and that that boss would be the most epic and difficult boss in the entire game, since many of the other bosses had been quite challenging. However, I was immensely disappointed to learn that the "boss" at the end of that level was nothing more than a giant spearman, a mini-boss who had been fought numerous time before that and was actually quite easy to defeat. To say that I was displeased would be an understatement; why not have multiple giant spearmen, and perhaps have a true boss after they had been defeated? That was nothing more than pure laziness by the game designers, since they could easily have given that level a proper boss, considering that they were able to fit fifty levels and ten bosses into the game.

    In Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, the normal final bosses are Onox and Veran, who are appropriately dramatic and climactic, so they do not qualify for this thread, but, if one is playing a linked game, the true final boss is Ganon, who, despite being the main villain of the entire Legend of Zelda series, does not live up to the hype that he is given in those games. While his attacks are powerful and he takes many hits to defeat, his attacks are also easy to dodge and he himself is slow and easy to hit, nor does he have alternate forms, as do many final bosses in LoZ games. When I fought him for the first time, I actually found him to be easier than I did Onox and Veran, which was a major disappointment for me.

    What does everyone else say about this? Have there been any final boss battles in video games that you found to be anticlimactic? I eagerly await your responses.
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  2. #2
    Anodized. Again. Konrad's Avatar
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    Default Re: Most Anticlimactic Final Bosses in Video Games (will contain spoilers)

    DIABLO 2
    Diablo is pretty big and bad, many players and certain classes/builds can have a really hard time fighting him. But the first few times I played the game happened to be with melee characters, and I quickly discovered that you can just get right in his face, stand your ground right on top of his toes, hack and slash and chop and poke away with near impunity, laughing off all of his awesomely devastating special attacks while he blasts them all off with a minimum range. It was just too easy to defeat him - every time - I really wanted more from the eponymous epic badass I'd been tailing from the refugee camp in Act 1 to the very depths of Hell itself.

    In the LoD expansion, Baal is also a little disappointing. He's equipped with plenty of dirty tricks and isn't as easily defeated by brainless hack-n-slash. But he is a rather anticlimactic epilogue when compared against the wave-after-wave of nasty minions you have to battle through just to reach him.
    My mind says Technic, but my body says Duplo.

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