EDIT: As of Page 3, Dark Souls III and BloodBorne together have been mentioned more than every other game combined. Pretty crazy. Ludwig is also the most mentioned boss by a long shot.
The boss fight is probably my favorite part of playing video games. At its best, these fights are intense, focused sequences testing all of the player's skills and knowledge, a perfect distillation of the game's mechanics into a single, climactic encounter. At their worst...well, they're still fun sequences to commiserate with other players about!
My question to ERA is: What are the best bosses of this gen so far? Feel free to count anything that you consider a boss fight, and feel free to include handheld games as well (3DS/Vita/Mobile).
To get the ball rolling, here are my Top 10 boss fights for this gen. I'm sticking just to PS4/XBO/PC to make it easier to manage (otherwise there would be a bunch of bosses from 3DS RPGs on here). I'm also sticking to one boss per game (so that this doesn't become a stealth Bloodborne thread).
(Note: Please spoiler tag at your discretion. For my list, I'll be spoiler tagging each entry and saying if it's an end-game boss or not.)
10: from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (End-Game Boss)
Calamity Ganon. BotW spends a lot of time building up to this fight, and fortunately it doesn't disappoint. While he can go down pretty quickly if you equip yourself appropriately and take out the other bosses at each of their respective divine beasts, this fight is still a fantastic spectacle and a great final exam for all of the combat skills you've learned in your journey across Hyrule. Now if only the same could be said about the true final boss...
9. from NieR: Automata
Beauvoir. The first major boss in NieR: Automata is a great microcosm of the game's strengths. She has a fascinating backstory, one which is touched on lightly in Route A, and further explored on subsequent routes. The encounter itself is an excellent mix of melee combat, schmup-style bullet hell, and even the introduction of the hacking minigame, which is a pretty big "out-of-left-field" moment when it first happens.
The music, of course, is also stunning, but that goes for almost every moment in the game!
8. from The Evil Within
The Keeper. Both Evil Within games offer a number of excellent boss encounters, but none of them quite touched the experience of the nerve-wracking encounter with The Keeper in TEW1. Juggling environmental hazards like traps and toxic gas, while scrambling around in an enclosed area with this killer is one of the highlights of the game, and one of the sequences that best nails the balance between action and horror - in the high-concept, setpiece-focused style that Mikami is known for.
7. from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Fenrir. For what it's worth, I have played very few boss fights that matched the sheer atmosphere of Senua's climactic duel with Fenrir. Hellblade's visceral combat is arguably put to its best use against this colossal beast, requiring a fantastic mix of reflex, strategy, and simply keeping one's nerves in check. The way that the beast flits in and out of the darkness also plays into the overarching themes of the game, and serves as a fascinating metaphor for the "beast" that similarly haunts Senua's psyche. Special mention to the music and lighting as well. Amazing fight all around.
6. from Nex Machina (End-Game Boss)
Supreme A.I. Talk about a challenge - Supreme A.I. is an insane and insanely awesome battle, a test of pure reflex and your instinctive understanding of the simple but satisfying mechanics at Nex Machina's core. The screenshot above says it all, really. Probably the most intense boss fight I've played this gen, and a perfect way to finish my first playthrough of one of the best arcade games ever made.
5. from Cuphead
Murine Corps. Picking the best boss from Cuphead is like picking the best Dragon Quest game - you might have an inkling of a preference, but there's so much consistency on display that it ends up feeling like a fool's errand. But, if I had to pick one, it'd probably be Murine Corps. The gameplay is solid, there's a great balance between figuring out what to do and then executing it, and - maybe most importantly - the animation is simply incredible. The moment when the cat smashes through the background and eats the mouse is one of my favorite gaming moments of 2017. Literally virtuoso-tier animation.
4. from Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
Marguerite. Another boss where the screenshot pretty much says it all. In VR, this was legitimately one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in a work of fiction - possibly the most terrifying. Your heart rate shoots up into the stratosphere as soon as she smashes through the window on the stairs, and from there it's pretty much pure adrenaline until she finally goes down. Creepy body horror, spiders, being attacked from every direction...what a ride. The first time I came running around a corner in the boss area, and she started climbing onto the wall to circle around and cut me off...I couldn't even handle that shit.
3. from Dark Souls III (End-Game Boss)
Soul of Cinder. Though it certainly has its critics, I thought Dark Souls III was a fantastic, consistent entry in the series, and nowhere is this better reflected than in the boss lineup. If you only count base games and not DLCs, this is probably my favorite set of bosses in the series - Champion Gundyr, the Dancer, the Twin Princes, Nameless King, etc. All amazing. While Soul of Cinder might not hit the same pure gameplay highs as something like the Dancer or Champion Gundyr, it more than makes up for it with the atmosphere. If the Souls series really is over (at least as we know it), then this fight was a hell of a way to go out - the eclipse, the concept, the field of flowers and ashen remains, the MUSIC. Literally got chills at the transition when Gwyn's theme kicked in.
2. from Horizon: Zero Dawn
Stormbird. This is, full-stop, my favorite boss fight from a game not made in Japan. This ferocious encounter with a Stormbird atop a snow-capped mountain is the highlight of the entire game for me. The animation, the weather effects, the various tools at your disposal. It's the same thrill that I imagine Monster Hunter gives you at its best (never played one though, looking forward to trying World!). This fight, and the fight against the Thunderjaw back in the Nora homeland, were the absolute proof-of-concepts for what Guerrilla wanted to pull off with the combat in this game. And they nailed it completely.
1. from Bloodborne
Lady Maria. Pack it up, folks. This is the best boss fight of the current gen, and even stands a cut above the other masterpieces it's flanked by (Ludwig and OoK - let's just pretend Living Failures isn't there...). One of the best character duels in video game history. Music, amazing. Concept, amazing. Setting, amazing. I died on purpose so many times just so I could keep fighting her, and the BL4 fight with her was one of the most intense battles I've ever played. A masterpiece and probably in my Top 5 boss fights of all time.
Well those are some of my picks. What are yours?
The boss fight is probably my favorite part of playing video games. At its best, these fights are intense, focused sequences testing all of the player's skills and knowledge, a perfect distillation of the game's mechanics into a single, climactic encounter. At their worst...well, they're still fun sequences to commiserate with other players about!
My question to ERA is: What are the best bosses of this gen so far? Feel free to count anything that you consider a boss fight, and feel free to include handheld games as well (3DS/Vita/Mobile).
To get the ball rolling, here are my Top 10 boss fights for this gen. I'm sticking just to PS4/XBO/PC to make it easier to manage (otherwise there would be a bunch of bosses from 3DS RPGs on here). I'm also sticking to one boss per game (so that this doesn't become a stealth Bloodborne thread).
(Note: Please spoiler tag at your discretion. For my list, I'll be spoiler tagging each entry and saying if it's an end-game boss or not.)
10: from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (End-Game Boss)
Calamity Ganon. BotW spends a lot of time building up to this fight, and fortunately it doesn't disappoint. While he can go down pretty quickly if you equip yourself appropriately and take out the other bosses at each of their respective divine beasts, this fight is still a fantastic spectacle and a great final exam for all of the combat skills you've learned in your journey across Hyrule. Now if only the same could be said about the true final boss...
9. from NieR: Automata
Beauvoir. The first major boss in NieR: Automata is a great microcosm of the game's strengths. She has a fascinating backstory, one which is touched on lightly in Route A, and further explored on subsequent routes. The encounter itself is an excellent mix of melee combat, schmup-style bullet hell, and even the introduction of the hacking minigame, which is a pretty big "out-of-left-field" moment when it first happens.
The music, of course, is also stunning, but that goes for almost every moment in the game!
8. from The Evil Within
The Keeper. Both Evil Within games offer a number of excellent boss encounters, but none of them quite touched the experience of the nerve-wracking encounter with The Keeper in TEW1. Juggling environmental hazards like traps and toxic gas, while scrambling around in an enclosed area with this killer is one of the highlights of the game, and one of the sequences that best nails the balance between action and horror - in the high-concept, setpiece-focused style that Mikami is known for.
7. from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Fenrir. For what it's worth, I have played very few boss fights that matched the sheer atmosphere of Senua's climactic duel with Fenrir. Hellblade's visceral combat is arguably put to its best use against this colossal beast, requiring a fantastic mix of reflex, strategy, and simply keeping one's nerves in check. The way that the beast flits in and out of the darkness also plays into the overarching themes of the game, and serves as a fascinating metaphor for the "beast" that similarly haunts Senua's psyche. Special mention to the music and lighting as well. Amazing fight all around.
6. from Nex Machina (End-Game Boss)
Supreme A.I. Talk about a challenge - Supreme A.I. is an insane and insanely awesome battle, a test of pure reflex and your instinctive understanding of the simple but satisfying mechanics at Nex Machina's core. The screenshot above says it all, really. Probably the most intense boss fight I've played this gen, and a perfect way to finish my first playthrough of one of the best arcade games ever made.
5. from Cuphead
Murine Corps. Picking the best boss from Cuphead is like picking the best Dragon Quest game - you might have an inkling of a preference, but there's so much consistency on display that it ends up feeling like a fool's errand. But, if I had to pick one, it'd probably be Murine Corps. The gameplay is solid, there's a great balance between figuring out what to do and then executing it, and - maybe most importantly - the animation is simply incredible. The moment when the cat smashes through the background and eats the mouse is one of my favorite gaming moments of 2017. Literally virtuoso-tier animation.
4. from Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
Marguerite. Another boss where the screenshot pretty much says it all. In VR, this was legitimately one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in a work of fiction - possibly the most terrifying. Your heart rate shoots up into the stratosphere as soon as she smashes through the window on the stairs, and from there it's pretty much pure adrenaline until she finally goes down. Creepy body horror, spiders, being attacked from every direction...what a ride. The first time I came running around a corner in the boss area, and she started climbing onto the wall to circle around and cut me off...I couldn't even handle that shit.
3. from Dark Souls III (End-Game Boss)
Soul of Cinder. Though it certainly has its critics, I thought Dark Souls III was a fantastic, consistent entry in the series, and nowhere is this better reflected than in the boss lineup. If you only count base games and not DLCs, this is probably my favorite set of bosses in the series - Champion Gundyr, the Dancer, the Twin Princes, Nameless King, etc. All amazing. While Soul of Cinder might not hit the same pure gameplay highs as something like the Dancer or Champion Gundyr, it more than makes up for it with the atmosphere. If the Souls series really is over (at least as we know it), then this fight was a hell of a way to go out - the eclipse, the concept, the field of flowers and ashen remains, the MUSIC. Literally got chills at the transition when Gwyn's theme kicked in.
2. from Horizon: Zero Dawn
Stormbird. This is, full-stop, my favorite boss fight from a game not made in Japan. This ferocious encounter with a Stormbird atop a snow-capped mountain is the highlight of the entire game for me. The animation, the weather effects, the various tools at your disposal. It's the same thrill that I imagine Monster Hunter gives you at its best (never played one though, looking forward to trying World!). This fight, and the fight against the Thunderjaw back in the Nora homeland, were the absolute proof-of-concepts for what Guerrilla wanted to pull off with the combat in this game. And they nailed it completely.
1. from Bloodborne
Lady Maria. Pack it up, folks. This is the best boss fight of the current gen, and even stands a cut above the other masterpieces it's flanked by (Ludwig and OoK - let's just pretend Living Failures isn't there...). One of the best character duels in video game history. Music, amazing. Concept, amazing. Setting, amazing. I died on purpose so many times just so I could keep fighting her, and the BL4 fight with her was one of the most intense battles I've ever played. A masterpiece and probably in my Top 5 boss fights of all time.
Well those are some of my picks. What are yours?
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