Boss fights... ಠ_ಠ

Difficulty is a very difficult thing to tune; especially for a developer who, by the end of the project, has played their game to death and back again. And though some games have difficulty problems throughout the entire game, most games (that i finish) only let this problem show a select few times. During boss fights.

Boss fights, by their very nature, should be epic. When i finish one i want to feel great, like i've defeated my nemesis. I want to feel like i've overcome great odds to beat a foe whose pure strength was greater than mine, but whose mind obviously wasn't. I don't want to feel like i just beat i small child wearing full plate. And i certainly don't want to feel like i got lucky on my 5th or 6th try. I want to die.... but only one time!

The concept behind wanting to die during boss fights stems from my own expectations going into these battles. I expect bosses to be more difficult than anything i've faced thus far. Often, this is accomplished by making bosses powerful but flawed. This creates a situation where you need to react to an incredible foe, while also doing a kind of reconnaissance for exploits. Perhaps your enemy's AI runs in a kind of predictable loop or perhaps you need to hone a particular skill. Either way, doing these things while dodging attacks should be difficult.

This seems like it should  be a pretty simple design task; I mean figuring out patterns has been a staple of boss fights dating all the way back to Super Mario Brothers. But in practice, a lot of things can go wrong.

Too much health can make a generally fun boss monotonous. Lack of visual or auditory tells can make figuring out the right attacks to use too difficult. And lack of direction or equipment can make a boss nearly impossible.

I could name many games that feature one or all of these missteps, but that would be kinda mean. So instead I'll go right back to Mario.

When you fight Bowser you know going in that you need to figure out a way to jump on his head. The trick is figuring out what his attack pattern is and reacting to that. The pattern is usually pretty short, so this is possible in one life. Check! Moreover, once you figure out the pattern and start to master your dodging skills he's only 3 hits away from death. No damage sponge here! And most surprisingly, he also plays a ridiculously easy to read tell when he's been hit. While some games make you hit enemies in really weird ways and hardly let you know you're on the right track, Bowser is hurt the same way as everything else in the game and he still reacts to every hit. This isn't just good design, it's like a little reward after every hit!