Jeg har valgt at dele min mail til dem her, hvor du også kan læse med. Forhåbentligt er du enig i mit budskab, men det er selvfølgelig også rimeligt, hvis du ikke er. I mailen forsøger jeg at liste nogle enkle trin til at forbedre boss fights som et fænomen, hvor jeg naturligvis fokuserer på Revelations (ingen spoilere, i øvrigt). Jeg fortæller blandt andet, at man enten er nødsaget til at lave nogle forbedringer eller droppe boss fights helt og holdent. Du kan læse mere om det i selve mailen, men nu har jeg taget det første skridt, og det er Capcoms tur. Det bliver interessant at se, om de lytter til en misfornøjet og tvær gamer i lille Danmark! Og ja, du er nødt til at købe og spille spillet i dag, til trods for hvad jeg mener om dets boss fights, for det er virkelig et godt spil.
English version:
I've been against boss fights for quite some time. In fact, I hate most of them. Why? Because most of them are redundant, frustrating and not the slightest bit creative. Most developers seem to just throw in countless numbers of enemies in every boss fight. It feels like that the boss itself isn't the real challenge but rather it's to avoid and survive the endless hordes of goons and minions. I've had enough of these fights and now I'm spending a lot more time and energy in order to make the developers either drastically improve or remove boss fights entirely.
I've taken the first step today. I'm playing Resident Evil: Revelations and I absolutely love most of it. I've been a fan of the series since the first game and I've witnessed the rising focus on action. Although I'm not all that against the changes I do miss the horror aspect. But fear not because I can happily state, that Capcom has managed to bring back an actual sense of horror with Revelations. It's amazing to be a part of. But most of the game's boss fights are shamefully done which is why I decided to write a lengthy mail to Capcom.
I've decided to share the mail here with you and give you a chance to read it. Hopefully you'll agree with me but it's alright, of course, if you disagree. In the mail I try to explain a few, single steps to improve boss fights and I naturally use Revelations as my focus. Don't worry, though, because it contains no spoilers. I basically say that the developers either need to make some drastic improvements or give up on boss fights entirely. You can read more about it in the mail but I've taken the first step and now I await Capcom's reply. It will be interesting to see if they actually listen to a grumpy gamer from the small country of Denmark! Oh, and yes: you need to buy and play this game today despite how I feel about the boss fights because it is a very good game.
The mail:
Dear Capcom,
let me just say that I’m a huge fan of the Resident Evil franchise and I
sincerely hope to see many more games in the franchise. However, I’ve been
playing Resident Evil: Revelations on the consoles and I feel the need to
express my feelings regarding your boss fights: they are poorly designed.
I’m not a fan of boss fights. In fact: I hate most of them. Why? Because
they are a drag to get through and they often bring the entire experience to a
crash. Revelations is an excellent game and the spirit of survival horror is
found almost everywhere. But whenever I get to one of three of the game’s boss
fights, that spirit is gone and replaced by utter frustration. The game
maintains a perfect pace throughout but these boss fights obliterates it, and
that’s a shame because it’s a good game. If you, and other developers, maintain
that boss fights aren’t unneccessary ludological things of the past, then here’s
what I believe that you need to do in order to improve them:
1. Creativity.
Most boss fights in modern games tend to have a rather simple boss. In
order to counter this the game will throw in countless numbers of respawning
enemies. This creates both tension and frustration. However, the sense of
frustration overwhelms the tension due to it’s extremely cheap and lazy nature.
These boss fights aren’t creative – they are annoying. Having a boss fight
indicates fighting an actual boss; not the boss and countless more of his/her
minions and goons. It is extremely frustrating to lose a boss fight simply
because the player was overrun by what seems to be an endless amount of enemies.
How did this become the standard in gaming? Who approved this design? You, the
developers, can do so much more and better. To improve boss fights in this
regard you need to drop the idea of throwing in numerous enemies on the screen
and instead make the boss itself creative. If this can’t be done then don’t have
a boss. It’s that simple, really. Let me give you an example: the first boss in
Revelations is the comms officer and the game just throws in the enemies. They
actually respawn when they’re killed. How is this even legal? To improve the
comms officer sequence you need to remove the other enemies, or at least
drastically limit the number of respawns so that the player can focus on the
boss. You don’t make the boss fight easier by doing this, because you would
focus on the boss’ abilities instead. Give the boss a few extra tricks up its
sleeve and it would be fine.
2. Abilites.
Don’t create a boss that has ridiculous advantages over the player. In
Revelations the player can perfom an evasive move – which doesn’t work all the
time, by the way, adding to the frustration. Some of the bosses are fast and can
attack before the player can do anything and that particular evasive move is
useless when it doesn’t work consistently. When you create boss fights then make
sure it’s an equal fight. Don’t give the boss insane advantages, like speed or
AoE, when the player can basically do nothing to counter it. What you needed to
have done was to give the player an evasive move that could be performed
manually and not only in certain instances. You should have given the player a
dash move, or something like that, that could be performed at any time. For
instance, the Rachel boss fights. She can be insanely quick and land several
cheap hits due to issues with the evasive move not working. This disadvantage is
easily improved by not handicapping the player. Make the boss fights equal but
give the boss a few, small creative advantages to maintain tension.
3. Boss patterns.
Boss fights are usually divided into obvious ludological steps. To give an
example: in classic fights the boss will usually have three forms that the
player need to vanquish. Boss fights regularly have a certain amount of steps
that the player need to do or fight in order to beat the boss. This is obviosly
something to prolong the fight and the tension, but it is also redundant and
annoying. During each of these steps the player has to fight specific areas of
the boss, like a heart conviently showing at certain points during the fight,
etc. What you need to do is to make boss fights that contain seemless steps
where the game doesn’t telegraph the actual changes in the fight. Or even
better: don’t have these steps. The boss should always have certain points on
his body that can be damaged to a higher degree by the player. For instance, the
Norman boss fight: Norman teleports around the stage and slamming his claw into
the ground (it’s extremely difficult to avoid taking damage from these slams due
to the evasive move not functioning manually as it should) in the first step. He
repeats the pattern in the second step but now feature a “second him”. This
pattern continues where he gains something for each step. This was acceptable
when developers didn’t have the technology to create more varied boss fights but
today it is hopelessly redundant and unacceptable. You do have the technology to
create seemless boss fights so please do it.
To sum it all up:
- have a single boss that uses creative means to combat the player.
- don’t flood the screen with countless enemies, or at least limit them
drastically.
- make boss fights equal but give the boss a small edge to maintain
tension.
- move far away from the idea of step-by-step boss fights.
- if the above can’t be done then reconsider having the boss because when
done wrong it will potentially harm the game.
I sincerely believe that this is the way to improve these fights. As far as
I know, more and more players are giving up on the idea of boss fights in their
current form and are actually annoyed and frustrated by their presence. I hope
that you at least are inspired by my mail to improve them and, once again, I
hope to see many more games in the franchise. I also hope to see you fully
return to the horror aspect of Resident Evil because it works wonders in
Revelations and in Leon/Helena’s part of RE6.
Yours truly,
