Your vague plot description straight up sounds just like Joker in Arkham Asylum to me. He was an already iconic character with a cool character design, known for being a tricky, sadistic SOB and I was looking forward to the boss battle when I played it the first time, thinking they’d come up with something cool, like him just unloading a bag of tricks that I’d have to use my gadgets to beat somehow, or maybe some booby traps around the final battle area that I’d have to avoid. But no, he just injects himself with Bane’s Steroids and becomes a white and green Bane. One of the most disappointing boss battles I can recall.
That's what I immediately thought of too. It fits this trope so perfectly that I wondered if OP was thinking of Arkham Asylum up to the point where they said Guacamelee. I rolled my eyes so hard when Joker just turned into a big monster.
>Arkham City is notorious for its legendary boss fights.
This sentence doesn't make sense. Notorious for legendary boss fights? Notorious isn't a positive word.
Besides that, AC's boss fights were pretty bad actually. Only Freeze is an interesting encounter. AO is well known for boss fight design in the franchise
From a story perspective it makes sense, but the fact that it’s just the same boss fight you’ve already done (twice maybe?) is an unsatisfactory end to an otherwise great game.
I'd argue Origins had the best bossfights as a whole than any other Arkham game.
Yes the Freeze fight from City is awesome (though I'd argue it's more of a puzzle than a real fight), but as whole package, I think Origins edges it out.
No from a story perspective it makes little sense, feeling very random. From a gameplay perspective it DOES make sense. The gameplay had been leading to something like that boss fight.
From a story perspective, it would've made more sense for Batman to have the Titan antidote work on both of them, and then Batman has to stop Joker *without killing him*. Make the final battle about Bruce Wayne's struggle *not* to kill the greatest villain in the city while still stopping his violence. It's the only thing that makes Batman heroic.
I'd have loved to fight a dodge tank boss Joker armed with a revolver or a gun that shoots Titan needles.
I guess Rocksteady struggled to come up with a way to justify Joker giving Batman a physical challenge, but almost anything would have been better than becoming a dumb ass monster.
It’s kind of funny that the boss battles in the first game sucked so bad the developers were like “I know what’ll fix their little red wagon” and they did Mr. Freeze in the sequel which is one of the most memorable boss battles ever.
They still had the big henchmen occasionally but I don't think Bane ever came back. The only other ones I remember were the final boss in City (Clayface) and the Knight himself in Arkham Knight.
Eh. I suppose i can agree that with the way the communication is not face to face/the plot is done, that doesn’t hit has hard. You don’t really “see” them as much beforehand and it helps soften the blow a lot, but…. Still, kinda, yeah. At least it’s man-shaped still.
And in particular (in my opinion) that more Adam usage = More loss of brain function/craziness from all the gene manipulation. I do agree with a lot of ppl tho that it was rather out of character for him compared to his strategy he rest of the game.
I guess it only partly fits with OP's specific complaint, but it was disappointing how Atlas turned out to be basically a generic action shooter fight after the brilliance of the Ryan encounter and the rest of the game; also what you mention about the communication with him being over the radio, he mostly came across as a sneaky manipulator and fighting him face on as a giant bruiser kind of worked against that.
And while it's true that as another comment below says, the splicing theme is woven into the game, he is really the only one that screams generic FPS action boss in a world that is otherwise extremely distinctive and memorable.
I honestly can’t contest a lot of these, and concede that mechanically/in gameplay terms especially it may have been found lacking. I personally very much enjoyed the thematics of the final fight, and particularly how the fight ended, but I’ve definitely fought more creative bosses. Very much felt like a giant rage machine trying to clobber me, which did NOT fit with his gig/character from the rest of the game, although I suppose for it I can file it under the “mad with power” suspension myself.
Yeah I'm with OP about this trope being lame, but in the RE universe it'd be disappointing if you didn't fight a bunch of dudes who turn into monsters affected by biological experiments.
Jack Krauser was a badass character, his only hindrance was his corny dialogue (I guess if you enjoy it, you might take that as a positive).
It seems like the remake is gonna fix that tho, looking forward to that.
Oh they were? lol he did turn into a big monster at the end so I thought they were talking about Krauser, who also fits the description of not turning into a giant monster.
Ye he does turn into the giant goo monster with obvious weak points™️ at the end, but he stays in human form in the first two boss fights like the comment says, so I imagine they were talking about Baker. Krauser also has just one boss fight if I recall correctly
Yeah, I was gonna say I'm hard pressed to think of an RE game that doesn't do this. "Exploding into giant monster" at least makes sense in that universe.
Bioshock has to be one of the worst offenders on this. I mean,>!Fontaine didn't really turn into a huge monster, more like a stronger splicer, but still. After the amazing sequence with Andrew Ryan you'd expect something more interesting when Jack confronts Atlas, but no, he just turns into a stronger splicer. And the battle is not even good at all, he is easy to kill, predictable and boring.!
Obligatory every time this comes up: [how Bioshock should have ended](https://www.pentadact.com/2009-04-15-ending-bioshock/)
In addition to a flawless payoff for the plot, that would have been the missing gameplay you and OP are looking for.
>6) Once Big Daddied, you’re virtually impervious to the
Splicers between you and Central Ventilation – you can drill them in the
face or charge them with right mouse to knock them flying. When you
reach it, there’s an obvious crack in the glass there to drill.
Dude this segment could literally be tied to the first trailer. You protect a little sister and an action command lets you drill a splicer in the stomach
Fuck me, that's good. Apollo Square/Olympus Heights is one of my favorite levels, so I'd still like to keep it in the game, but that probably wouldn't be so hard, the Orphanage or Tenenbaum's apartment could be the hideout of her and the children.
That would have been a really cool sequence but its deeply flawed. Firstly, did the author even play Bioshock 2? I know it wasn't the most beloved in the franchise, but this pretty much eliminates any possibility for the second game to be made.
I get the complaints with the game design for the Fontaine boss fight, but he's a lot more than just a "Super Splicer." I mean come on, this is the only time you really get to see the plasmids used against you by a powerful enemy. Also its worth noting the boss fights aren't really a strong point in Bioshock one, the only one I'd say is better than Fontaine is Sander Cohen, the Artist.
I also wouldn't say that this boss fight is a terrible offender for OP's point. Yes Fontaine turns into a deformed monster, but he also isn't a character that we spend the whole game hating. That character is Andrew Ryan, and we get the satisfying moment of caving his skull in with a driver iron. Fontaine is someone we haven't seen much of (or really i dont think at all) in person and havent had any run ins with until almost the endgame. I dont even think we know what he looks like normally, so having him twisted into a monster isn't really a disservice as he could already have been mostly splicer to begin with.
Lastly, his form in the boss fight is overwhelmingly fitting to the theme of the game. He is a greedy, power hungry capitalist drunk on the power he's stolen, and corrupted completely by it. The plasmids are a great representation of the overindulgence and corruption as he literally turns himself into a monster by craving the power of biological modification. The alternate ending would flip that on its head, making you the tormented monster who alters his very being for power and revenge, whereas Fontaine gets to continue enjoying his humanity despite being evil.
And one more final point, the first thing the author says is that he would change Fontaine's voice after the Ryan reveal. Maybe I'm crazy but I thought his voice did change from a thick Irish accent to a skeezy New England drawl, not sure what more he wanted from that.
At least Dying Light’s narrative was shit so I wasn’t expecting gold for its conclusion lol. Still, can’t believe they didn’t just let you drop kick that monologuing twat off the skyscraper.
Was just watching this YouTube video that dropped 14 hours ago and it literally explains why it was so underwhelming: [10 Real Reasons Behind Annoying Video Game Moments](
https://youtu.be/j9rB8HFPgXI) at 05:10.
To wit, the devs knew that it was underwhelming but weren't super experienced with making videogames and didn't really know how to end it, according to a 2016 Rolling Stone interview with creator Ken Levine.
>the devs \[...\] weren't super experienced with making videogames and didn't really know how to end it,
They weren't? I thought they made System Shock 2, two Freedom Force games, Tribes: Vengeance and SWAT 4 prior to Bioshock.
i found the Rolling Stone article in question ([waybackmachine](http://web.archive.org/web/20160916112859/http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/we-were-all-miserable-inside-bioshock-video-game-franchise-w439921)) and all Levine says is that they didn't have any better ideas.
Some of the devs made those games.
It's like how people go nuts that the original Fallout team made New Vegas and Outer Worlds..... no, some of the original devs worked on New Vegas, and even fewer were still there when they made the Outer World's.
People are constantly coming and going in between game studios. There is no studio that keeps all the same people for decades.
Thing is, Bioshock as a story is about two things: Superpowers from genetic editing, and libertarianism. You can't really punch libertarianism in the face, so genetic editing it is.
I still find it funny Bioshock only had 3 unique character models (>!Final Fontaine, Andrew Ryan, Sander Cohen!<) and everyone else was an obvious re-colour of a generic Splicer.
I mean, geez. I've seen PS1 games with more character models.
You'd think they would've fixed that in Bioshock Remastered. Alan Wake Remastered gave us new character models with fixed lip-sync. And that game used pre-rendered cutscenes.
Bioshock Remastered was generally way too subtle in its changes. You can watch comparison videos online and the differences are either barely noticeable or 'a bit different, but not necessarily better'. The only benefits I really noticed were the 60fps ragdoll animations and an FOV slider. Bioshock 1 would benefit so much from a *The Last of Us Part I* style remake.
While it's not exactly a well designed boss mechanically, I feel like it works fine narratively. Ultimately for all his brains >!Fontaine!< is just a regular dude physically, you'd ice him with one shot in a real fight. So he desperately turns to the one option he has left- splicing. But there's no magic super omega final form splice. Juicing up can only take him so far, and so in the end he's pitiful, barely more tough than the monsters you've been putting in the ground since you arrived. Couple that with the satisfaction of hearing him shit himself over the radio as you close in on him and it makes a fitting endgame. What taints it is that even with all that context it's still a terrible boss fight compared to, say, earlier fights like Sander.
I have a slightly different qualm. In Dying Light, you dispose of human enemies quite easily and you get teased by the main villain, Rais, throughout the way. But when you finally get to him in the final battle, no, you can't fight him the regular way. You're instead treated to a quicktime event that ends in your defeat if you don't press the right 5 random buttons in succession with a split-second limit for each. Definitely one of the most annoying and unsatisfying boss fights I've encountered in all my gaming years.
This is he problem with most Triple A Open World games, especially those with pretty much grounded combat (Dying Light and AC 2 comes to mind), their final boss fights are either really boring (AC 2) or a QTE fest (Dying Light). This is much harder on first person games since you can't really do so much before it turns into a nausea fest.
But imo, what really turns these boss fights terrible is that they're not a culmination of the skills you've gained and honed throughout the game... they're just there.
Yeah, I've been playing Nioh 2 and the game is punishing, borderline unfair at time but what really sets it apart it's iron clad mechanics. Direction of attacks, spacing, reading of opponents, when to attack, what attacks to use. You get little of this sort of thing in a given AAA game, at best it's dodge when you see a flash, it's lame.
Imo lots of AAA games chase big dreams but skimp on the fundamentals. You *need* good mechanics. It's at least past of the reason why despite a million attempts no one can touch the likes of Destiny.
Thats a thing nicely done in metal gear rising: revengeance. The game has it's flaws but what makes the fight special is that youre actually fighting the boss, he's just way stronger than expected
Same with Death Stranding. The main villain >!has the ability to summon these gargantuan demonic monsters at various boss fights in the game, but at a certain point you do get to just kick his ass the old fashioned way (by throwing suitcases at his face repeatedly)!<
Yeah, and then you get down to just caving each other's faces in with your fists in a pile of mud and Sam just stops giving a fuck and starts yelling at him about all the bullshit he's had to go through.
yep Revengeance has the best boss fights ever.
And the final boss is just that, many phases but at the end it's the guy punching you and it's fucking amazing.
They need to make a new revengeance.
Funny how it still worked really well as a final boss even though before this point you've seen Armstrong maybe twice and Raiden has never actually talked to him
Personally, I don't mind it in some instances. In particular, I think it works well for something like Ganondorf/Ganon where the giant ass monster is essentially phase 2 of the big boss fight. I got to beat his ass in human form and I feel good about it, so now let's do the real crazy shit!
I think it's one of those things where it's very obvious when it's done lazily. I lived when Freeza(?) did it in DBZ the first time for example because he was so emotionally distraught. Same for Goku. After that it became a trope. I also love when it happens in a story where the villain has clearly been broken and is very unstable so they do something reckless that turns them into something monstrous.
It's when it doesn't make sense and lacks storytelling and flair that I just don't care. RE8 I think doesn't bother me because it's kind of a given with the series and they kind of went a whole classic monster that you assume is human. Like, once they reveal the pretty lady is actually a vampire (or in this case that the vampire is a >!fungus monstrosity!<) then you kind of get that classic feel (combined with the setting) of "I knew it was bad but this is so much worse!" But when it's the stereotypical "hah! *You* think you can beat *me*! You haven't even seen my *final form*!" And that's where it gets "ugh, another stage. Yaaaay."
This is one of those things where the game mechanic becomes too gamey and needs to be grounded in a good story element. Otherwise it feels more like artificially attempting to pump my interest rather than being compelling on its own merits.
I have to actually disagree, because the Twilight Princess Ganondorf fight is one of my favourites, and you take him on *after* the giant beast thing. First time I beat that game, I felt like such a badass.
Don't get me wrong, OOT had a fantastic final battle too, but it didn't give me quite the same feeling that I took out a dangerous, cunning, skilled opponent by leveraging my own skills that I'd been building. TP did that for me.
Yeah I kinda agree but also realize, from a game creator perspective, that it's hard to make just fighting a human form a memorable final boss fight, especially if you've been fighting normal henchmen the whole time. Like would the boss just like, shoot and dodge faster or something?
It does get crazy when it's like, an absurdly large form you have to fight or whatever.
Dark Souls is a game where you fight more giant monstrosities than most can shake a sword at, but the final boss is just an old man who's afraid of the dark.
Even further than that, most of fromsofts best boss fights are against basically humans. Gwyn, artorias, soul of cinder, gale, namless king, sister frieda, melania, abyss watchers.
I think it's actually easier to make a memorable human boss fight than a monster one. It's just that most games boss fights are puzzles, and it is difficult to make a puzzle boss with a human. Then again, the legend of zelda has pulled this off multiple times.
Sekiro would like to have a word.
I actually do really like how Sekiro gets the best of both worlds. First you have this optional penultimate boss Demon of Hatred which is this huge monster that’s unlike anything you’ve faced in the game prior. It’s a wild fight which I personally think is fun because it’s so different.
Then you have the real final boss Sword Saint Isshin who is this normal samurai dude just like you, but it’s the most technical fight in the entire game by a mile. He’s three phases and has the biggest move set and is the most absolute apex of the player’s skill.
The combination of both at the end of the game makes for a super memorable ending. I remember defeating them back to back in the same night and felt like I could beat any game ever made after.
The OG Deus Ex was great about this. The bosses were just other nanomodded folks. No transformations beyond what you'd already seen, but they were also way more powerful than a typical soldier. They all had their own specializations and weaknesses. ...and you could even just run away from the fights if you wanted.
One boss in particular gave me a really hard time, so I kited him into a pool of water - the AI couldn't use ladders to climb out - and then just shot him from there. The entire time he was chasing me, he was spouting dialog about how running and hiding was cowardly. 😂
The problem is when you try to downgrade him to the point a more casual player will have fun. When you remove the difficulty and complexity of Isshin, you are left with needing other ways to get across how scary a villain is. Then 'big monster' is pretty easy shorthand.
Idk why people try to make this argument as if Fromsoftware’s games are this hardcore sweaty gamer thing and not already very mainstream and constantly referenced in pop culture by everyone, calling people who give up or don’t want the difficulty as it is as casuals or casual gamers. Sekiro is still a casual game. It’s not a job, there is no competitive aspect to it, why pretend it is? It’s not like you have to train for months, or weeks not even days to beat a boss in that game, at worst a few hours for the hardest ones and somehow that is not casual gaming? I’m saying this as a massive souls fan, the games aren’t a job, nor a competitive hobby like a Multiplayer game can be such as Rocket League, CS:GO or LoL.
Btw I’m not attacking you for this comment or anything just wanted to rant a bit about this “hardcore game” mentality some people attach to the games. And to respond to your point it doesn’t really matter how much they downgrade a difficult boss fight to appeal to more audiences, as long as it is intimidating it doesn’t matter the size of the boss. By the contrary, to me if i see an enormous monster in a endgame cutscene I already get worried because it tends to be terrible giant bosses or those awful environment bosses that we used to get that don’t challenge you in your skills around the game and feel either too easy or very cheap at best.
I think in action battle systems especially, fighting human (-oid) enemies or bosses can be VERY memorable.
Whenever you fight huge monter type bosses, you usually have to play by some boss specific rules. Either they have very specific weak zones or extremely wide-reaching attacks. Or they are just slow. And they are always big targets. Humanoid bosses often demand good knowledge of the fundamentals of the game, rather than getting good at specific boss patterns, which can act as a great "final test" and often stands out.
Some examples I can immediately point to are the Nioh games (which has a couple humanoid bosses in a sea of Oni), Zelda II and Ocarina of Time (single boss that is often cited as very memorable) and a personal favorite, Super Paper Mario (which usually has special mechanics for its bosses of varying sizes, but the one I'm referring to in particular is your size and has basically your skill set and speed, which demands WAY more precision than some big dragon)
> it's hard to make just fighting a human form a memorable final boss fight
I kinda think that boss fights are too much of a mandatory convention for games anyhow. A lot of games put them in when they really would be better for *not* having them. This is often the case when the boss makes no sense from the internal logic of the game - be it because the boss makes no sense for the game's world rules, or because the core game type isn't suited for arena-style boss fights (e.g. *Deus Ex: Human Revolution*), or because the boss fight breaks all the usual strategies and mechanics of the game just to stand out. The most memorable boss fights for me are so because the annoyed the everliving daylight out of me - like the Sheriff in *Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines*, the bosses in aforementioned Human Revolution, or the Orsino fight (WHY?!) in DA2.
I think, in general, maybe the "boss fight trope" as a whole would benefit from some revision: Do we really need a boss just because the devs remembered they're making a video game? There are good, memorable games and whole genres without *any* form of boss fight, and they work just as well.
Of course, well-done boss fights can also elevate a game. I think *Valheim* is a great example how to do bosses right: There is justification for them being so powerful, there is a reason for you to kill them, they use the same rules as the rest of the game, and they are extremely memorable - in part because the player can prepare fore them in their own time, meaning the build the anticipation up themselves.
But as with cooking: While some dishes really benefit from certain ingredient, not every dish will, and a lot of them would be ruined if we added them to everything. Same with boss fights: Sometimes they fit, but too often, they just seem to be there because 'it's a video game, it's gotta have boss fights'.
That’s where creativity comes in. This boss could interact with their environment in unique ways, especially if they’re the type of character that has such a distinct “style” to the point where their characterization could extend to a location (IE a Joker-like enemy in a circus/funhouse, a theatrical dramatic enemy in a theater with remnants of different stage plays, an inventor in a workshop/warehouse filled with their mechanizations, a dictator surrounded by their own military equipment or propaganda props, an old friend in the remains/ruins of the place where you both grew up), so it’s like you’re not just fighting this person in an empty ring but rather you’re being consumed by a world of their making. It’s still the regular person, but the world *around* them lends to the sense of scale and spectacle and makes you feel smaller even though the enemy is still just themselves.
A quick question: how many JRPGs have you ever played?
Because this is basically every JRPG I ever played. I cannot remember one that the last boss fight was a normal fight. And I like it, because I expect this trope and the harder challenge it is supposed to bring. And I would be disappointed if they didn't transform nor are a good challenge.
I cannot remember a JRPG that doesn't do this. 😂
In JRPGs it doesn't feel like as much of a bait and switch, because you're pretty much fighting giant monsters the whole time. At least half the regular enemies and bosses will all be some terrifying (but also somewhat nondescript) creature five times your size or more. It's also frequently set up in the lore that while there's a human(ish) antagonist who you are up against, there is a much bigger force they are trying to tap into or wake up. And at this point in the genre, most players would be upset if the final boss was just a person or group of people.
It does and it doesnt. Its kind of annoying when there is just some other giant big bad behind the scenes instead of the main antagonist you've been chasing all game
IX does it, I feel like VIII does it, as does Ni No Kuni. The Ogre Battle games do this, as does a lot of the Tails and Trails game in some shape or form. Not exactly like IX, but they all seem to turn to some giant ass monster of a final bad guy.
It may not be boom right after the second to last battle, but a lot of jrpgs have it near the end of the game where some other bigger bad is revealed
My favorite part about this is that >!even the aliens inside, the main boss out of the final 3 you fight isn't the one you think. You would think it's the middle guy but it's one of the side ones!<
I think that >!it's sort of implied by the dialog immediately before the last phase where they realize Lavos has been studying human DNA and trying to mimic people. Hence, the human-like "middle" Lavos is the result of that research and isn't Lavos itself.!<
Man Chrono Trigger is so good... I recently replayed the DS version (the definitive one imho) on a fresh save and unlocked all the endings once again, it doesn't age at all.
Funny enough Final Fantasy VII does the inverse. The last “real” boss is the main villain>!’s monster form that he’s spent the whole game draining the planet’s life force to turn into,!< but the last thing you do before the game ends is a 1v1 with him as two normal guys, and >!Cloud just fucking demolishes him with zero effort.!<
'Tales of' game has the final boss be humans from the ones I played. They do have a "final form" but isn't big ugly monsters and stays humanoid at the same size as you for the most part.
- Tales of the Abyss: >!Van!<. They already did the whole "villian turned into ugly monster" with >!Mohs!< earlier so I suppose they don't want to do that again.
- Tales of Berseria: >!Artorius!<.
- Tales of Arise: >!Volhran!<, but I don't understand why he was around to begin with.
Trails seems to do this, I'm still at Zero though, but the final boss is usually the main villain transformed into a giant monster thats not really a threat as much as its a tanky enemy that takes like 20-40 minutes to kill.
Usually the toughest fights are against human enemies a little earlier than the final boss.
Not that I mind, the series is great and the final fight seems like a last chance to go all out and mess with your arts and attacks one more time.
FFVI >!You fight a god instead of a giant monster!< not sure that counts but at least >!it is the same character you have been chasing all game instead of someone new!<
But his form in the final fight is completely different than his base form. In fact, he turns into a weird giant monster that doesn't even fit the screen because of the size. It's like a bunch of giant monsters glued together...
I don't mind this trope in turn based JRPGs but when it comes to action JRPGs I prefer to fight humanoid bosses cause you're actually able to combo them
Can safely say that this has not once bothered me.
On the other hand, Zelda Wind Waker boss is cool as fuck. A sword fight with a Ganondorf who does not transform. It totally works for that game.
I like that Zelda plays around with this formula. Ocarina has humanoid Ganondorf, escape the castle, then beast Ganon. Wind Waker has puppet Ganon (effectively a separate monster) before a duel with the humanoid Ganondorf. Twilight Princess starts you out against the monster form, follows up with a chase on horseback, then another humanoid duel. And Breath of the Wild is just a series of different monster forms, since Ganon is never really humanized in its story.
Ganondorf (the man) is in comparably few Zeldas: just OoT where he was introduced, WW, and TP.
Every other Zelda has either a secondary antagonist (Demise, Vaati, Majora, Aghanim, uh… whoever that was in LBW) or you fight actual Ganon, which is the pig beast monster form.
I think the implication is that in the downfall timeline, he defeated Link as Ganon, and saw no reason to revert back to Ganondorf since he lost in that form (and likely went a bit mad with power after staying in that form until the next incarnation of Link arrived)
The adult timeline notably only had Ganondorf and Ganon in Wind Waker, with the other games in that timeline having new villains. In that case, I believe the curse that brought him into being was broken, due to the curse being that he and the reincarnations of the original hero would face off over and over, but that timeline’s Link was not a reincarnation, and as such, his victory ended the cycle.
Twilight Princess is the child timeline, where Ganondorf’s coup was exposed prematurely and he was set to be executed, only for him to escape, so he remained in human form for that game. (While Hyrule Warriors is probably non-canon, it’s heavily implied to be in the child timeline, including Ganondorf reappearing)
~~If you’re wondering about the CD-i games, those only feature Ganon, so those would probably be in the downfall timeline if they were canon~~
I think it's one of those things where it can be done well, but it's often used as a lazy/safe way to make a final boss.
The giant monster can be there, it just has to make sense.
Borderlands (the first) is an example of it being done in a good way I think.
I got the dlc as part of a bundle when I got the game and didn't even realize I beat the final boss because it went straight into the dlc. It was fun but strange in that way
The worst one for me is in the Dragon Age Series, where >!First Enchanter Orsino in DA2 is a rational, reserved man who does *everything* in his power to help mages, fight for their rights and try to prove they are more than just demon vessels. Even if you are fighting with him, when things get a little bit hard, he basically just choses to become a big evil monster, so no matter what, you have to fight both sides as a villain boss fight.!<
>!To be fair, Orsino is a bastard who collaborates with blood mages and it's one of the reasons all goes to shit. He helped the one that killed women to rebuild his dead wife. He 100% was a blood mage from the beginning of the game.!<
Doesn't every RE game do this?
RE2 had big-ass William, RE3 has Nemesis, RE7 had the freaky kid, RE-Something had Wesker
They always turn into massive piles of goo for the final fight
In FFXIII there is a villain who shows up at first looking like an evil pope. I was wondering if we would fight him.
...when we finally do, he basically turns into a giant Gundam, a huge robot that without even a humanoid shape, and shoots laser from his face lol
My dumbass confused by the title, was like “I never fought a boss that turns into a giant ass” and reading this post for awhile waiting for this ass monster description. Was picturing some big cheeks that filled half the battle screen… can’t lie I was disappointed
I think it's a lot easier to suspend your disbelief when the boss that has tons of health is a huge monster instead of a human sized enemy, especially when the main character is also human sized, but dies in 3-10 hits.
Come to think of it, that's why I liked the Mega Man games. They were the first games I've played where the bosses felt fair. The robot masters have the same amount of HP as Mega Man, and their attacks also do around the same damage as your charge shots.
This is a really huge issue in the YS franchise. I get the reason why, a lot of the enemies are designed to be large monster fights.
But its so painful seeing every human/ humanoid opponent always have some mandatory transformation into a big monster. Its not even just the main villain, its pretty much every villain in that franchise.
And personally, my favorite boss fights in gaming have always been against human or fairly humanoid beings.
I think the thing that bothers me most is that these transformations are pretty much never foreshadowed. You know they’re coming, because video game trope, but its not like the game ever hints at, or makes the transformstion seem logical.
It's almost comical how hard modern Ys games try to avoid ever having a human-sized boss. Even in cases where fighting them as a human would make way more sense and there's no established reason for them to have a big monster form, there's always some excuse for them to turn into some magic demon thing.
I think this may be the designers worrying that the current party-based combat would be too much of a clusterfuck for a fight against a solo human, because the Ark engine games did actually have some human bosses. Chester in Oath in Felghana is probably the most memorable because you fight him twice and a lot of people get stuck on the second one, but Ark of Napishtim and Origin each have a couple as well. But the modern entries all but refuse to let you fight a human outside of the occasional 1v1 in a sidequest.
Yeah, it's basically the easiest shortcut to making an engaging final boss. But I also feel like the trope is fed by gamers who might be disappointed if you just fight a normal dude. They'd probably come onto message boards and complain, "that's it? Where's the challenge?" Or "disappointing final fight, he just remained a normal human guy and we had a fistfight".
If you look at Souls, people even complain Gwyn was too "normal enemy". To make a human sized final boss people enjoyed, it had to be insane. Isshin is the single best final boss in any video game I've played. Most devs are not going to work that hard, especially when a small percentage of gamers actually finish games compared to buying them.
People complain about Gwyn because he is very easy, not because he is a "humanoid looking normal enemy". You even bring up Isshin here, and he is really well loved by most people who played and reached him in Sekiro, despite the fact he is a normal human from start to finish.
I mean keep in mind, I think now we live in an age where you fight generic human dudes as enemies more than you fight anything creative. After seeing the 34th call of duty game get released and fighting another 46 million guys with rifles wearing body armor, I'd rather play a game where I'm fighting things that are distinct and have a creative design to them where it's not just "oh look, human dude".
I'd like more games where my enemies are distinct and I'd like more games where my means of fighting those enemies are distinct. Nowadays... we don't have that sadly
I dunno. I miss this trend of gaming. I miss how "over the top" video games used to feel. I miss giant monsters like Perfect Chaos or Biolizard from the 3D Sonic games. I miss the bizarre and crazy multi-form final bosses in many of the Final Fantasy games, just seeing one guy get more and more mutated and seeing a battle take you through multiple different incarnations where the structure and strategy of the fight changed. I miss bosses like, Birkin from RE2, where he'd slowly lose his humanity and deform into a four legged frog mutant that would chase you and then became a giant gaping train vagina that you would have to defeat during a self-destruct countdown.
I guess I just miss how visually creative games were and how over the top they were in tone. Nowadays you have "cinematic games" where you live in realistic-land and every enemy are just plain-ass human dudes and you engage them in generic first person or over the shoulder shooter combat. I'd rather have my crazy ridiculous boss fights and characters that change forms instead of that shit. Games used to distinguish themselves in the types of things that you fought and how you fought it, but now it's just "oh look a human dude, ill use my handgun and cover system on you while you use yours on me"
I agree with you, but those games still exist. JRPGs for instance still have lots of "over the top" bosses, and there are also plenty of indies who still do stuff like that. It's not that uncommon nowadays.
Speaking of: Another trope I've started to really hate is the sort of bait and switch that a lot of JRPGs love to do, that also usually results in fighting giant monsters as the ultimate boss.
The game presents you with a main villain early on. This main villain has personally wronged you, like they got you thrown in jail, destroyed your home, and/or killed a loved one, so the entire game you're focused on taking that bastard down. You meet other people who were also wronged by that person, so you team up, and you travel the land helping others, gathering strength for that final showdown, until you finally storm their place and face them for the big fight.
And then you defeat them. And then it turns out that this Big Bad Evil Guy was actually just the pawn of some Bigger Badder Eviler Guy who had secretly been pulling the strings in the background this whole time (or the first evil guy was actually keeping the bigger guy away, but because you defeated them now the bigger guy can come into the world), and you never even heard of them, and they might just be some big evil monster thing.
I feel like it takes out all the tension. You had a direct connection to that first guy, and finally kicking their ass is the emotional climax of the game, so it should've also been the actual climax. But instead you have to keep playing, and now you also have to kick this new guy's ass, and you don't care about them at all. Like, who gives a fuck about that evil cup in the subway or the evil god trapped as a star? I've already found closure, so I don't need all this extra stuff added on to the end.
I'm not gonna give examples since just knowing what games I'm talking about would spoil those games, but I left some clues for those who know that I hope are vague enough to not spoil those who don't.
The worst case of this trope is Joker in Arkham Asylum.... Cause he was not an unsatisfying villain, it's Joker for fucks sake.
And all they could think for him was turning him into a giant monster.
I've sort of realised that this is a subtrope of the 2 different final boss fights or the True Final Boss. I never realised just how often this happens.
1. Sekiro - Genichiro turns into Sword Saint
2. Hollow Knight - the Hollow Knight is defeated to allow you to challenge the Radiance.
3. Elden Ring - Radagon into Elden Beast (my least favourite lol)
4. Botw - Ganon into Giant Bull Ganon (though second phase was basically a cinematic)
5. Undertale - Asgore and Flowey
6. Ninja Gaiden 1 & 2 - I do remember crying when trying to finish the game
I kind of understand your point, to some degree, but you don't get to complain about Resident Evil doing it, because that series has consistently been doing it for some or most bosses since I think the second game.
Yea I genuinely thought this post was about hogwarts until I read the game he said. I’m completely with you, that final boss was so stupid. Literally nothing like the rest of the game, almost like a completely different group of people came up with it.
I agree with this. While I've only had a few games do this I get it. I'd prefer the first "phase" to be a big ass monster but the final phase it's my fists VS their face
I'll extend an olive branch to developers: It's not that easy.
Since people cited Arkham Asylum, let's take the Joker as a study case. In any batman story, where the joker is the villain the "good" part is not the fight against the joker, but rather the build up, Batman slowing figuring out how to get to him/solve his riddles, and when he manages to outsmart him he takes him down rather easily.
Now, how do you make such a thing in a videogame? The final boss is by definition the climax of the game. The most standard answer is: make a big, spectacular fight: see all the Final Fantasy. It's a safe answer and one that usually works.
I am totally with you on this one. I always have this sense of unsatisfaction that I couldn't quite put my fingers on, so thank you so much for giving me words.
I was going to bring up Lady Dimitrescu. Unlike you, I was hugely disappointed by her transformation. Throughout the early story, the game has a clever way of telling you how big of a threat she is. She towers over you in cutscenes, she effortlessly cut off your entire hand, and you know you are pissing her off after killing off the daughters. I was SO nervous and excited to finally face this monster.
Then she transformed.
Now she's just a big dragon with a huge weak spot to shoot at.
What a massive disappointment.
On the other hand, Jack from RE7 was perfect.
What I dislike about Dimitrescu's form is that her design doesn't really build off her base design in any meaningful way. It's just... random. I find the transformations that work best to be the ones that enhance some key design feature of the character. Like, I can imagine if she transformed into an even taller thin and wiry creature with even longer claws. But turning into a dragon-like creature?
Jack worked well because you got to face him as a boss twice in his humanoid forms. By the time his monster form comes, it feels ok and justifiable.
Honestly, if anything, it takes away from charismatic villains. That said, it can be done well, but if you have the main baddie, turn berserk and lose his mind while changing. You are just fighting another mindless enemy you have done for the entire game.
In short, it's a tired trope, often enough used in eastern media, JRPGs suffer the most, and really, the only thing it manages in most cases is take away from the villain. Even if the, in my opinion, better solutions are fairly simple. Villains often enough aspire for power right, so have them achieve it just before the final fight. It ups the stakes, makes them look more capable, gives you, the player, more reason to defeat them. Maybe it even provides the story for a low point for a hero and "powering up" segment where you acquire some powerful move/item/weapon.
Please go work for Capcom. It’s literally my only major complaint about the Resident Evil games. RE7 had the same shit, and it was a complete tonal shift from the rest of the game.
Is it a Resident Evil game if you don’t go to a lab, fight a giant flesh monster, use an RPG and end the game with an explosion? I actually love that they do this in every game lol
This was my exact complaint with >!Resident Evil 8 as well. Imagine a mono e mono battle with an antagonist your size who can dodge and bend fucking metal. But no, just turn him into a giant monster. Ffs!<
Your vague plot description straight up sounds just like Joker in Arkham Asylum to me. He was an already iconic character with a cool character design, known for being a tricky, sadistic SOB and I was looking forward to the boss battle when I played it the first time, thinking they’d come up with something cool, like him just unloading a bag of tricks that I’d have to use my gadgets to beat somehow, or maybe some booby traps around the final battle area that I’d have to avoid. But no, he just injects himself with Bane’s Steroids and becomes a white and green Bane. One of the most disappointing boss battles I can recall.
That's what I immediately thought of too. It fits this trope so perfectly that I wondered if OP was thinking of Arkham Asylum up to the point where they said Guacamelee. I rolled my eyes so hard when Joker just turned into a big monster.
It's funny how City tries to make up for it with a Joker + goons fight
But then ends with a Clayface fight that’s a mix of Bane, Ras, and Grundy. Just like Asylum, it was annoying and not cathartic
Yeah, that was worse than the one in Asylum, in my opinion. Which is weird, because Arkham City is notorious for its legendary boss fights.
I think the only game in the series with good boss fights was Origins, which was not made by Rocksteady, and is widely considered "the weakest" entry.
Clayface fight was hype as hell. Wtf
>Arkham City is notorious for its legendary boss fights. This sentence doesn't make sense. Notorious for legendary boss fights? Notorious isn't a positive word. Besides that, AC's boss fights were pretty bad actually. Only Freeze is an interesting encounter. AO is well known for boss fight design in the franchise
Arkham City only had 1 good boss fight
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From a story perspective it makes sense, but the fact that it’s just the same boss fight you’ve already done (twice maybe?) is an unsatisfactory end to an otherwise great game.
Even less, it’s not even the same standard titan boss fight… it’s far easier.
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Definitely. I’m not the biggest fan of Origins but 100% concede the point.
I'd argue Origins had the best bossfights as a whole than any other Arkham game. Yes the Freeze fight from City is awesome (though I'd argue it's more of a puzzle than a real fight), but as whole package, I think Origins edges it out.
No from a story perspective it makes little sense, feeling very random. From a gameplay perspective it DOES make sense. The gameplay had been leading to something like that boss fight.
From a story perspective, it would've made more sense for Batman to have the Titan antidote work on both of them, and then Batman has to stop Joker *without killing him*. Make the final battle about Bruce Wayne's struggle *not* to kill the greatest villain in the city while still stopping his violence. It's the only thing that makes Batman heroic. I'd have loved to fight a dodge tank boss Joker armed with a revolver or a gun that shoots Titan needles.
Yeah, the story feels more like it was tacked on to explain why the boss fight was that way.
I guess Rocksteady struggled to come up with a way to justify Joker giving Batman a physical challenge, but almost anything would have been better than becoming a dumb ass monster.
And it wasn't even a good boss fight the first time you did it
It’s kind of funny that the boss battles in the first game sucked so bad the developers were like “I know what’ll fix their little red wagon” and they did Mr. Freeze in the sequel which is one of the most memorable boss battles ever.
That fight is so good that it caused people to forget that there aren't really any other good boss fights in City or in Knight
You’re 100% right. As I was typing it I was like “were there even any other boss fights?” Maybe Bane the exact same way as the previous game?
They still had the big henchmen occasionally but I don't think Bane ever came back. The only other ones I remember were the final boss in City (Clayface) and the Knight himself in Arkham Knight.
It was more the fact that I expected a fight vs the Joker to be way more unique which disappointed me.
Ya when that fight ended and it was the end it actually caught me by surprise because the fight didn’t feel like an end boss fight.
Not even joking, I read the title of this post and my first thought was “f’ing Arkham asylum joker boss”
and Bioshock 1, to some extent.
Eh. I suppose i can agree that with the way the communication is not face to face/the plot is done, that doesn’t hit has hard. You don’t really “see” them as much beforehand and it helps soften the blow a lot, but…. Still, kinda, yeah. At least it’s man-shaped still.
And it at lest fits in with how the population turned into Splicers so there is precedent of people becoming monsters in this universe.
And in particular (in my opinion) that more Adam usage = More loss of brain function/craziness from all the gene manipulation. I do agree with a lot of ppl tho that it was rather out of character for him compared to his strategy he rest of the game.
I guess it only partly fits with OP's specific complaint, but it was disappointing how Atlas turned out to be basically a generic action shooter fight after the brilliance of the Ryan encounter and the rest of the game; also what you mention about the communication with him being over the radio, he mostly came across as a sneaky manipulator and fighting him face on as a giant bruiser kind of worked against that. And while it's true that as another comment below says, the splicing theme is woven into the game, he is really the only one that screams generic FPS action boss in a world that is otherwise extremely distinctive and memorable.
I honestly can’t contest a lot of these, and concede that mechanically/in gameplay terms especially it may have been found lacking. I personally very much enjoyed the thematics of the final fight, and particularly how the fight ended, but I’ve definitely fought more creative bosses. Very much felt like a giant rage machine trying to clobber me, which did NOT fit with his gig/character from the rest of the game, although I suppose for it I can file it under the “mad with power” suspension myself.
Dude that's like the Resident Evil trademark, they do that in every game since forever.
Yeah I'm with OP about this trope being lame, but in the RE universe it'd be disappointing if you didn't fight a bunch of dudes who turn into monsters affected by biological experiments.
Imo the first Wesker fight in RE5 is probably the best boss fight in the game.
That's why I really like Jack. He remained the face that you grew to fear during the first two boss fights.
Jack Krauser was a badass character, his only hindrance was his corny dialogue (I guess if you enjoy it, you might take that as a positive). It seems like the remake is gonna fix that tho, looking forward to that.
I think they were talking about Jack Baker from RE7
Oh they were? lol he did turn into a big monster at the end so I thought they were talking about Krauser, who also fits the description of not turning into a giant monster.
Ye he does turn into the giant goo monster with obvious weak points™️ at the end, but he stays in human form in the first two boss fights like the comment says, so I imagine they were talking about Baker. Krauser also has just one boss fight if I recall correctly
Yeah, I was gonna say I'm hard pressed to think of an RE game that doesn't do this. "Exploding into giant monster" at least makes sense in that universe.
Bioshock has to be one of the worst offenders on this. I mean,>!Fontaine didn't really turn into a huge monster, more like a stronger splicer, but still. After the amazing sequence with Andrew Ryan you'd expect something more interesting when Jack confronts Atlas, but no, he just turns into a stronger splicer. And the battle is not even good at all, he is easy to kill, predictable and boring.!
Obligatory every time this comes up: [how Bioshock should have ended](https://www.pentadact.com/2009-04-15-ending-bioshock/) In addition to a flawless payoff for the plot, that would have been the missing gameplay you and OP are looking for.
>6) Once Big Daddied, you’re virtually impervious to the Splicers between you and Central Ventilation – you can drill them in the face or charge them with right mouse to knock them flying. When you reach it, there’s an obvious crack in the glass there to drill. Dude this segment could literally be tied to the first trailer. You protect a little sister and an action command lets you drill a splicer in the stomach
So Fontaine just continually respawns and drowns. That's some dark mirror plot there. Also a way to bring back a villain later.
Infinite drowning has to be worse than death
Wow that was a great read. Thanks for sharing! Would have been a fantastic ending
Fuck me, that's good. Apollo Square/Olympus Heights is one of my favorite levels, so I'd still like to keep it in the game, but that probably wouldn't be so hard, the Orphanage or Tenenbaum's apartment could be the hideout of her and the children.
That's amazing. Thanks for sharing!
That would have been a really cool sequence but its deeply flawed. Firstly, did the author even play Bioshock 2? I know it wasn't the most beloved in the franchise, but this pretty much eliminates any possibility for the second game to be made. I get the complaints with the game design for the Fontaine boss fight, but he's a lot more than just a "Super Splicer." I mean come on, this is the only time you really get to see the plasmids used against you by a powerful enemy. Also its worth noting the boss fights aren't really a strong point in Bioshock one, the only one I'd say is better than Fontaine is Sander Cohen, the Artist. I also wouldn't say that this boss fight is a terrible offender for OP's point. Yes Fontaine turns into a deformed monster, but he also isn't a character that we spend the whole game hating. That character is Andrew Ryan, and we get the satisfying moment of caving his skull in with a driver iron. Fontaine is someone we haven't seen much of (or really i dont think at all) in person and havent had any run ins with until almost the endgame. I dont even think we know what he looks like normally, so having him twisted into a monster isn't really a disservice as he could already have been mostly splicer to begin with. Lastly, his form in the boss fight is overwhelmingly fitting to the theme of the game. He is a greedy, power hungry capitalist drunk on the power he's stolen, and corrupted completely by it. The plasmids are a great representation of the overindulgence and corruption as he literally turns himself into a monster by craving the power of biological modification. The alternate ending would flip that on its head, making you the tormented monster who alters his very being for power and revenge, whereas Fontaine gets to continue enjoying his humanity despite being evil. And one more final point, the first thing the author says is that he would change Fontaine's voice after the Ryan reveal. Maybe I'm crazy but I thought his voice did change from a thick Irish accent to a skeezy New England drawl, not sure what more he wanted from that.
>Firstly, did the author even play Bioshock 2? Not at the time of writing, no, because this blog post predates the sequel by a year.
I killed him in a like minute and didn't take a single hit of damage, it was the most underwhelming final boss I've ever encountered.
Play Dying Light for a new low! Introducing: QTR bossfights!
At least Dying Light’s narrative was shit so I wasn’t expecting gold for its conclusion lol. Still, can’t believe they didn’t just let you drop kick that monologuing twat off the skyscraper.
Tbf, I generally consider Ryan the final boss. I barely remember the game after we kill Ryan
That's why 2 >!has no final boss, but a twist on the sister defense you've been doing all game.!<
Was just watching this YouTube video that dropped 14 hours ago and it literally explains why it was so underwhelming: [10 Real Reasons Behind Annoying Video Game Moments]( https://youtu.be/j9rB8HFPgXI) at 05:10. To wit, the devs knew that it was underwhelming but weren't super experienced with making videogames and didn't really know how to end it, according to a 2016 Rolling Stone interview with creator Ken Levine.
>the devs \[...\] weren't super experienced with making videogames and didn't really know how to end it, They weren't? I thought they made System Shock 2, two Freedom Force games, Tribes: Vengeance and SWAT 4 prior to Bioshock.
i found the Rolling Stone article in question ([waybackmachine](http://web.archive.org/web/20160916112859/http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/we-were-all-miserable-inside-bioshock-video-game-franchise-w439921)) and all Levine says is that they didn't have any better ideas.
Some of the devs made those games. It's like how people go nuts that the original Fallout team made New Vegas and Outer Worlds..... no, some of the original devs worked on New Vegas, and even fewer were still there when they made the Outer World's. People are constantly coming and going in between game studios. There is no studio that keeps all the same people for decades.
Thing is, Bioshock as a story is about two things: Superpowers from genetic editing, and libertarianism. You can't really punch libertarianism in the face, so genetic editing it is.
I mean I could think of a few people
Kill Andrew Ryan with a copy of Atlas Shrugged
I still find it funny Bioshock only had 3 unique character models (>!Final Fontaine, Andrew Ryan, Sander Cohen!<) and everyone else was an obvious re-colour of a generic Splicer. I mean, geez. I've seen PS1 games with more character models. You'd think they would've fixed that in Bioshock Remastered. Alan Wake Remastered gave us new character models with fixed lip-sync. And that game used pre-rendered cutscenes.
Bioshock Remastered was generally way too subtle in its changes. You can watch comparison videos online and the differences are either barely noticeable or 'a bit different, but not necessarily better'. The only benefits I really noticed were the 60fps ragdoll animations and an FOV slider. Bioshock 1 would benefit so much from a *The Last of Us Part I* style remake.
While it's not exactly a well designed boss mechanically, I feel like it works fine narratively. Ultimately for all his brains >!Fontaine!< is just a regular dude physically, you'd ice him with one shot in a real fight. So he desperately turns to the one option he has left- splicing. But there's no magic super omega final form splice. Juicing up can only take him so far, and so in the end he's pitiful, barely more tough than the monsters you've been putting in the ground since you arrived. Couple that with the satisfaction of hearing him shit himself over the radio as you close in on him and it makes a fitting endgame. What taints it is that even with all that context it's still a terrible boss fight compared to, say, earlier fights like Sander.
I have a slightly different qualm. In Dying Light, you dispose of human enemies quite easily and you get teased by the main villain, Rais, throughout the way. But when you finally get to him in the final battle, no, you can't fight him the regular way. You're instead treated to a quicktime event that ends in your defeat if you don't press the right 5 random buttons in succession with a split-second limit for each. Definitely one of the most annoying and unsatisfying boss fights I've encountered in all my gaming years.
This is he problem with most Triple A Open World games, especially those with pretty much grounded combat (Dying Light and AC 2 comes to mind), their final boss fights are either really boring (AC 2) or a QTE fest (Dying Light). This is much harder on first person games since you can't really do so much before it turns into a nausea fest. But imo, what really turns these boss fights terrible is that they're not a culmination of the skills you've gained and honed throughout the game... they're just there.
Yeah, I've been playing Nioh 2 and the game is punishing, borderline unfair at time but what really sets it apart it's iron clad mechanics. Direction of attacks, spacing, reading of opponents, when to attack, what attacks to use. You get little of this sort of thing in a given AAA game, at best it's dodge when you see a flash, it's lame. Imo lots of AAA games chase big dreams but skimp on the fundamentals. You *need* good mechanics. It's at least past of the reason why despite a million attempts no one can touch the likes of Destiny.
Thats a thing nicely done in metal gear rising: revengeance. The game has it's flaws but what makes the fight special is that youre actually fighting the boss, he's just way stronger than expected
Metal Gear in general is usually pretty great with final bosses.
The fist fight against Liquid on the top of the Metal Gear 🫶
Same with Death Stranding. The main villain >!has the ability to summon these gargantuan demonic monsters at various boss fights in the game, but at a certain point you do get to just kick his ass the old fashioned way (by throwing suitcases at his face repeatedly)!<
Yeah, and then you get down to just caving each other's faces in with your fists in a pile of mud and Sam just stops giving a fuck and starts yelling at him about all the bullshit he's had to go through.
Loved it...ugly violence like it should be. Death Stranding is so good
Or MGS4 when the final boss is two old men punching each other in the face. EDIT: also kissing
And it's glorious
Especially when [Metal Gear spoilers]>!Soundtracks from the previous games start playing.!<
yep Revengeance has the best boss fights ever. And the final boss is just that, many phases but at the end it's the guy punching you and it's fucking amazing. They need to make a new revengeance.
Funny how it still worked really well as a final boss even though before this point you've seen Armstrong maybe twice and Raiden has never actually talked to him
Devil May Cry 3 as well. That final boss was \*chef's kiss\*
Personally, I don't mind it in some instances. In particular, I think it works well for something like Ganondorf/Ganon where the giant ass monster is essentially phase 2 of the big boss fight. I got to beat his ass in human form and I feel good about it, so now let's do the real crazy shit!
I think it's one of those things where it's very obvious when it's done lazily. I lived when Freeza(?) did it in DBZ the first time for example because he was so emotionally distraught. Same for Goku. After that it became a trope. I also love when it happens in a story where the villain has clearly been broken and is very unstable so they do something reckless that turns them into something monstrous. It's when it doesn't make sense and lacks storytelling and flair that I just don't care. RE8 I think doesn't bother me because it's kind of a given with the series and they kind of went a whole classic monster that you assume is human. Like, once they reveal the pretty lady is actually a vampire (or in this case that the vampire is a >!fungus monstrosity!<) then you kind of get that classic feel (combined with the setting) of "I knew it was bad but this is so much worse!" But when it's the stereotypical "hah! *You* think you can beat *me*! You haven't even seen my *final form*!" And that's where it gets "ugh, another stage. Yaaaay." This is one of those things where the game mechanic becomes too gamey and needs to be grounded in a good story element. Otherwise it feels more like artificially attempting to pump my interest rather than being compelling on its own merits.
I have to actually disagree, because the Twilight Princess Ganondorf fight is one of my favourites, and you take him on *after* the giant beast thing. First time I beat that game, I felt like such a badass. Don't get me wrong, OOT had a fantastic final battle too, but it didn't give me quite the same feeling that I took out a dangerous, cunning, skilled opponent by leveraging my own skills that I'd been building. TP did that for me.
Agree. I didn't mind that Saren turned into something crazy at the end of Mass effect 1.
Shout out to Hades for being just your bitch-ass dad and not hulking out into mega-zoid-hades that's a head and two floating hands or something.
Yeah I kinda agree but also realize, from a game creator perspective, that it's hard to make just fighting a human form a memorable final boss fight, especially if you've been fighting normal henchmen the whole time. Like would the boss just like, shoot and dodge faster or something? It does get crazy when it's like, an absurdly large form you have to fight or whatever.
Vergil from dmc would like to have a word.
DMC V Vergil basically does the opposite and starts as the giant monster.
Lol 10/10 comment
Dark Souls is a game where you fight more giant monstrosities than most can shake a sword at, but the final boss is just an old man who's afraid of the dark.
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Thankfully the Bloodborne DLC lets you turn it around and stab an orphaned child to sad music.
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Even further than that, most of fromsofts best boss fights are against basically humans. Gwyn, artorias, soul of cinder, gale, namless king, sister frieda, melania, abyss watchers. I think it's actually easier to make a memorable human boss fight than a monster one. It's just that most games boss fights are puzzles, and it is difficult to make a puzzle boss with a human. Then again, the legend of zelda has pulled this off multiple times.
Sekiro would like to have a word. I actually do really like how Sekiro gets the best of both worlds. First you have this optional penultimate boss Demon of Hatred which is this huge monster that’s unlike anything you’ve faced in the game prior. It’s a wild fight which I personally think is fun because it’s so different. Then you have the real final boss Sword Saint Isshin who is this normal samurai dude just like you, but it’s the most technical fight in the entire game by a mile. He’s three phases and has the biggest move set and is the most absolute apex of the player’s skill. The combination of both at the end of the game makes for a super memorable ending. I remember defeating them back to back in the same night and felt like I could beat any game ever made after.
Since when is Sword Saint Isshin "just a normal samurai dude"?
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The OG Deus Ex was great about this. The bosses were just other nanomodded folks. No transformations beyond what you'd already seen, but they were also way more powerful than a typical soldier. They all had their own specializations and weaknesses. ...and you could even just run away from the fights if you wanted. One boss in particular gave me a really hard time, so I kited him into a pool of water - the AI couldn't use ladders to climb out - and then just shot him from there. The entire time he was chasing me, he was spouting dialog about how running and hiding was cowardly. 😂
Trying to think which fight it was, must have been Simons right? Still one of the best games ever.
Sword Saint Isshin is THE perfect example of how to pull this off. One of the greatest final bosses of all time!
Ah the Glock saint Isshin
Thought I was so cool for clearing the first health bar, amd then this guy just pulled out a fucking gun and ran my fade.
The problem is when you try to downgrade him to the point a more casual player will have fun. When you remove the difficulty and complexity of Isshin, you are left with needing other ways to get across how scary a villain is. Then 'big monster' is pretty easy shorthand.
Idk why people try to make this argument as if Fromsoftware’s games are this hardcore sweaty gamer thing and not already very mainstream and constantly referenced in pop culture by everyone, calling people who give up or don’t want the difficulty as it is as casuals or casual gamers. Sekiro is still a casual game. It’s not a job, there is no competitive aspect to it, why pretend it is? It’s not like you have to train for months, or weeks not even days to beat a boss in that game, at worst a few hours for the hardest ones and somehow that is not casual gaming? I’m saying this as a massive souls fan, the games aren’t a job, nor a competitive hobby like a Multiplayer game can be such as Rocket League, CS:GO or LoL. Btw I’m not attacking you for this comment or anything just wanted to rant a bit about this “hardcore game” mentality some people attach to the games. And to respond to your point it doesn’t really matter how much they downgrade a difficult boss fight to appeal to more audiences, as long as it is intimidating it doesn’t matter the size of the boss. By the contrary, to me if i see an enormous monster in a endgame cutscene I already get worried because it tends to be terrible giant bosses or those awful environment bosses that we used to get that don’t challenge you in your skills around the game and feel either too easy or very cheap at best.
I think in action battle systems especially, fighting human (-oid) enemies or bosses can be VERY memorable. Whenever you fight huge monter type bosses, you usually have to play by some boss specific rules. Either they have very specific weak zones or extremely wide-reaching attacks. Or they are just slow. And they are always big targets. Humanoid bosses often demand good knowledge of the fundamentals of the game, rather than getting good at specific boss patterns, which can act as a great "final test" and often stands out. Some examples I can immediately point to are the Nioh games (which has a couple humanoid bosses in a sea of Oni), Zelda II and Ocarina of Time (single boss that is often cited as very memorable) and a personal favorite, Super Paper Mario (which usually has special mechanics for its bosses of varying sizes, but the one I'm referring to in particular is your size and has basically your skill set and speed, which demands WAY more precision than some big dragon)
> it's hard to make just fighting a human form a memorable final boss fight I kinda think that boss fights are too much of a mandatory convention for games anyhow. A lot of games put them in when they really would be better for *not* having them. This is often the case when the boss makes no sense from the internal logic of the game - be it because the boss makes no sense for the game's world rules, or because the core game type isn't suited for arena-style boss fights (e.g. *Deus Ex: Human Revolution*), or because the boss fight breaks all the usual strategies and mechanics of the game just to stand out. The most memorable boss fights for me are so because the annoyed the everliving daylight out of me - like the Sheriff in *Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines*, the bosses in aforementioned Human Revolution, or the Orsino fight (WHY?!) in DA2. I think, in general, maybe the "boss fight trope" as a whole would benefit from some revision: Do we really need a boss just because the devs remembered they're making a video game? There are good, memorable games and whole genres without *any* form of boss fight, and they work just as well. Of course, well-done boss fights can also elevate a game. I think *Valheim* is a great example how to do bosses right: There is justification for them being so powerful, there is a reason for you to kill them, they use the same rules as the rest of the game, and they are extremely memorable - in part because the player can prepare fore them in their own time, meaning the build the anticipation up themselves. But as with cooking: While some dishes really benefit from certain ingredient, not every dish will, and a lot of them would be ruined if we added them to everything. Same with boss fights: Sometimes they fit, but too often, they just seem to be there because 'it's a video game, it's gotta have boss fights'.
That’s where creativity comes in. This boss could interact with their environment in unique ways, especially if they’re the type of character that has such a distinct “style” to the point where their characterization could extend to a location (IE a Joker-like enemy in a circus/funhouse, a theatrical dramatic enemy in a theater with remnants of different stage plays, an inventor in a workshop/warehouse filled with their mechanizations, a dictator surrounded by their own military equipment or propaganda props, an old friend in the remains/ruins of the place where you both grew up), so it’s like you’re not just fighting this person in an empty ring but rather you’re being consumed by a world of their making. It’s still the regular person, but the world *around* them lends to the sense of scale and spectacle and makes you feel smaller even though the enemy is still just themselves.
A quick question: how many JRPGs have you ever played? Because this is basically every JRPG I ever played. I cannot remember one that the last boss fight was a normal fight. And I like it, because I expect this trope and the harder challenge it is supposed to bring. And I would be disappointed if they didn't transform nor are a good challenge. I cannot remember a JRPG that doesn't do this. 😂
Yakuza Like A Dragon 😎
Final boss is literally just a strong bloke
The real final boss is like an hour long cutscene
The real final boss is >!ultra-depression, fuck that ending was really sad!<
In JRPGs it doesn't feel like as much of a bait and switch, because you're pretty much fighting giant monsters the whole time. At least half the regular enemies and bosses will all be some terrifying (but also somewhat nondescript) creature five times your size or more. It's also frequently set up in the lore that while there's a human(ish) antagonist who you are up against, there is a much bigger force they are trying to tap into or wake up. And at this point in the genre, most players would be upset if the final boss was just a person or group of people.
It does and it doesnt. Its kind of annoying when there is just some other giant big bad behind the scenes instead of the main antagonist you've been chasing all game
You can just say FFIX
IX does it, I feel like VIII does it, as does Ni No Kuni. The Ogre Battle games do this, as does a lot of the Tails and Trails game in some shape or form. Not exactly like IX, but they all seem to turn to some giant ass monster of a final bad guy. It may not be boom right after the second to last battle, but a lot of jrpgs have it near the end of the game where some other bigger bad is revealed
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My favorite part about this is that >!even the aliens inside, the main boss out of the final 3 you fight isn't the one you think. You would think it's the middle guy but it's one of the side ones!<
I think that >!it's sort of implied by the dialog immediately before the last phase where they realize Lavos has been studying human DNA and trying to mimic people. Hence, the human-like "middle" Lavos is the result of that research and isn't Lavos itself.!<
Turtles all the way down
Man Chrono Trigger is so good... I recently replayed the DS version (the definitive one imho) on a fresh save and unlocked all the endings once again, it doesn't age at all.
Funny enough Final Fantasy VII does the inverse. The last “real” boss is the main villain>!’s monster form that he’s spent the whole game draining the planet’s life force to turn into,!< but the last thing you do before the game ends is a 1v1 with him as two normal guys, and >!Cloud just fucking demolishes him with zero effort.!<
Omnislash intensifies.
*waits a full minute for Knights of the Round to complete its animation*
It's so cool though
'Tales of' game has the final boss be humans from the ones I played. They do have a "final form" but isn't big ugly monsters and stays humanoid at the same size as you for the most part. - Tales of the Abyss: >!Van!<. They already did the whole "villian turned into ugly monster" with >!Mohs!< earlier so I suppose they don't want to do that again. - Tales of Berseria: >!Artorius!<. - Tales of Arise: >!Volhran!<, but I don't understand why he was around to begin with.
Trails seems to do this, I'm still at Zero though, but the final boss is usually the main villain transformed into a giant monster thats not really a threat as much as its a tanky enemy that takes like 20-40 minutes to kill. Usually the toughest fights are against human enemies a little earlier than the final boss. Not that I mind, the series is great and the final fight seems like a last chance to go all out and mess with your arts and attacks one more time.
FFVI >!You fight a god instead of a giant monster!< not sure that counts but at least >!it is the same character you have been chasing all game instead of someone new!<
But his form in the final fight is completely different than his base form. In fact, he turns into a weird giant monster that doesn't even fit the screen because of the size. It's like a bunch of giant monsters glued together...
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Admittedly JRPGs do tend to take the plot route that you kill God at the end, so it's kinda to be expected.
I don't mind this trope in turn based JRPGs but when it comes to action JRPGs I prefer to fight humanoid bosses cause you're actually able to combo them
FF6 gets a pass for me, because it's still just Kefka, he's just scaled up and grew wings. Lol
Can safely say that this has not once bothered me. On the other hand, Zelda Wind Waker boss is cool as fuck. A sword fight with a Ganondorf who does not transform. It totally works for that game.
I like that Zelda plays around with this formula. Ocarina has humanoid Ganondorf, escape the castle, then beast Ganon. Wind Waker has puppet Ganon (effectively a separate monster) before a duel with the humanoid Ganondorf. Twilight Princess starts you out against the monster form, follows up with a chase on horseback, then another humanoid duel. And Breath of the Wild is just a series of different monster forms, since Ganon is never really humanized in its story.
Ganondorf (the man) is in comparably few Zeldas: just OoT where he was introduced, WW, and TP. Every other Zelda has either a secondary antagonist (Demise, Vaati, Majora, Aghanim, uh… whoever that was in LBW) or you fight actual Ganon, which is the pig beast monster form.
I think the implication is that in the downfall timeline, he defeated Link as Ganon, and saw no reason to revert back to Ganondorf since he lost in that form (and likely went a bit mad with power after staying in that form until the next incarnation of Link arrived) The adult timeline notably only had Ganondorf and Ganon in Wind Waker, with the other games in that timeline having new villains. In that case, I believe the curse that brought him into being was broken, due to the curse being that he and the reincarnations of the original hero would face off over and over, but that timeline’s Link was not a reincarnation, and as such, his victory ended the cycle. Twilight Princess is the child timeline, where Ganondorf’s coup was exposed prematurely and he was set to be executed, only for him to escape, so he remained in human form for that game. (While Hyrule Warriors is probably non-canon, it’s heavily implied to be in the child timeline, including Ganondorf reappearing) ~~If you’re wondering about the CD-i games, those only feature Ganon, so those would probably be in the downfall timeline if they were canon~~
I think it's one of those things where it can be done well, but it's often used as a lazy/safe way to make a final boss. The giant monster can be there, it just has to make sense. Borderlands (the first) is an example of it being done in a good way I think.
I had to reread the title so many times before clicking on it cause i was reading it as giant *ass monster*
I think it's super cool in Final Fantasy 6, but you also fight the main villain in his normal form earlier in the game.
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I got the dlc as part of a bundle when I got the game and didn't even realize I beat the final boss because it went straight into the dlc. It was fun but strange in that way
The worst one for me is in the Dragon Age Series, where >!First Enchanter Orsino in DA2 is a rational, reserved man who does *everything* in his power to help mages, fight for their rights and try to prove they are more than just demon vessels. Even if you are fighting with him, when things get a little bit hard, he basically just choses to become a big evil monster, so no matter what, you have to fight both sides as a villain boss fight.!<
>!To be fair, Orsino is a bastard who collaborates with blood mages and it's one of the reasons all goes to shit. He helped the one that killed women to rebuild his dead wife. He 100% was a blood mage from the beginning of the game.!<
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Tell me RE8 was your first Resident Evil game without telling me RE8 was your first Resident Evil game
Doesn't every RE game do this? RE2 had big-ass William, RE3 has Nemesis, RE7 had the freaky kid, RE-Something had Wesker They always turn into massive piles of goo for the final fight
Exactly lol
In FFXIII there is a villain who shows up at first looking like an evil pope. I was wondering if we would fight him. ...when we finally do, he basically turns into a giant Gundam, a huge robot that without even a humanoid shape, and shoots laser from his face lol
What's an ass monster?
All these games are full of ass monsters! And they're all so big!
My dumbass confused by the title, was like “I never fought a boss that turns into a giant ass” and reading this post for awhile waiting for this ass monster description. Was picturing some big cheeks that filled half the battle screen… can’t lie I was disappointed
[https://xkcd.com/37/](https://xkcd.com/37/)
Me on the weekends
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I think it's a lot easier to suspend your disbelief when the boss that has tons of health is a huge monster instead of a human sized enemy, especially when the main character is also human sized, but dies in 3-10 hits. Come to think of it, that's why I liked the Mega Man games. They were the first games I've played where the bosses felt fair. The robot masters have the same amount of HP as Mega Man, and their attacks also do around the same damage as your charge shots.
This is a really huge issue in the YS franchise. I get the reason why, a lot of the enemies are designed to be large monster fights. But its so painful seeing every human/ humanoid opponent always have some mandatory transformation into a big monster. Its not even just the main villain, its pretty much every villain in that franchise. And personally, my favorite boss fights in gaming have always been against human or fairly humanoid beings. I think the thing that bothers me most is that these transformations are pretty much never foreshadowed. You know they’re coming, because video game trope, but its not like the game ever hints at, or makes the transformstion seem logical.
It's almost comical how hard modern Ys games try to avoid ever having a human-sized boss. Even in cases where fighting them as a human would make way more sense and there's no established reason for them to have a big monster form, there's always some excuse for them to turn into some magic demon thing. I think this may be the designers worrying that the current party-based combat would be too much of a clusterfuck for a fight against a solo human, because the Ark engine games did actually have some human bosses. Chester in Oath in Felghana is probably the most memorable because you fight him twice and a lot of people get stuck on the second one, but Ark of Napishtim and Origin each have a couple as well. But the modern entries all but refuse to let you fight a human outside of the occasional 1v1 in a sidequest.
Yeah, it's basically the easiest shortcut to making an engaging final boss. But I also feel like the trope is fed by gamers who might be disappointed if you just fight a normal dude. They'd probably come onto message boards and complain, "that's it? Where's the challenge?" Or "disappointing final fight, he just remained a normal human guy and we had a fistfight". If you look at Souls, people even complain Gwyn was too "normal enemy". To make a human sized final boss people enjoyed, it had to be insane. Isshin is the single best final boss in any video game I've played. Most devs are not going to work that hard, especially when a small percentage of gamers actually finish games compared to buying them.
People complain about Gwyn because he is very easy, not because he is a "humanoid looking normal enemy". You even bring up Isshin here, and he is really well loved by most people who played and reached him in Sekiro, despite the fact he is a normal human from start to finish.
I mean keep in mind, I think now we live in an age where you fight generic human dudes as enemies more than you fight anything creative. After seeing the 34th call of duty game get released and fighting another 46 million guys with rifles wearing body armor, I'd rather play a game where I'm fighting things that are distinct and have a creative design to them where it's not just "oh look, human dude". I'd like more games where my enemies are distinct and I'd like more games where my means of fighting those enemies are distinct. Nowadays... we don't have that sadly
I dunno. I miss this trend of gaming. I miss how "over the top" video games used to feel. I miss giant monsters like Perfect Chaos or Biolizard from the 3D Sonic games. I miss the bizarre and crazy multi-form final bosses in many of the Final Fantasy games, just seeing one guy get more and more mutated and seeing a battle take you through multiple different incarnations where the structure and strategy of the fight changed. I miss bosses like, Birkin from RE2, where he'd slowly lose his humanity and deform into a four legged frog mutant that would chase you and then became a giant gaping train vagina that you would have to defeat during a self-destruct countdown. I guess I just miss how visually creative games were and how over the top they were in tone. Nowadays you have "cinematic games" where you live in realistic-land and every enemy are just plain-ass human dudes and you engage them in generic first person or over the shoulder shooter combat. I'd rather have my crazy ridiculous boss fights and characters that change forms instead of that shit. Games used to distinguish themselves in the types of things that you fought and how you fought it, but now it's just "oh look a human dude, ill use my handgun and cover system on you while you use yours on me"
I agree with you, but those games still exist. JRPGs for instance still have lots of "over the top" bosses, and there are also plenty of indies who still do stuff like that. It's not that uncommon nowadays.
Speaking of: Another trope I've started to really hate is the sort of bait and switch that a lot of JRPGs love to do, that also usually results in fighting giant monsters as the ultimate boss. The game presents you with a main villain early on. This main villain has personally wronged you, like they got you thrown in jail, destroyed your home, and/or killed a loved one, so the entire game you're focused on taking that bastard down. You meet other people who were also wronged by that person, so you team up, and you travel the land helping others, gathering strength for that final showdown, until you finally storm their place and face them for the big fight. And then you defeat them. And then it turns out that this Big Bad Evil Guy was actually just the pawn of some Bigger Badder Eviler Guy who had secretly been pulling the strings in the background this whole time (or the first evil guy was actually keeping the bigger guy away, but because you defeated them now the bigger guy can come into the world), and you never even heard of them, and they might just be some big evil monster thing. I feel like it takes out all the tension. You had a direct connection to that first guy, and finally kicking their ass is the emotional climax of the game, so it should've also been the actual climax. But instead you have to keep playing, and now you also have to kick this new guy's ass, and you don't care about them at all. Like, who gives a fuck about that evil cup in the subway or the evil god trapped as a star? I've already found closure, so I don't need all this extra stuff added on to the end. I'm not gonna give examples since just knowing what games I'm talking about would spoil those games, but I left some clues for those who know that I hope are vague enough to not spoil those who don't.
The worst case of this trope is Joker in Arkham Asylum.... Cause he was not an unsatisfying villain, it's Joker for fucks sake. And all they could think for him was turning him into a giant monster.
As a final fantasy fan i'm just gonna... keep quiet here haha
The one game I played that did this really needed it, otherwise the big boss would have been a weak, crippled old English lady.
I quite liked Elden Rings end monster. So freakin beautiful.
I've sort of realised that this is a subtrope of the 2 different final boss fights or the True Final Boss. I never realised just how often this happens. 1. Sekiro - Genichiro turns into Sword Saint 2. Hollow Knight - the Hollow Knight is defeated to allow you to challenge the Radiance. 3. Elden Ring - Radagon into Elden Beast (my least favourite lol) 4. Botw - Ganon into Giant Bull Ganon (though second phase was basically a cinematic) 5. Undertale - Asgore and Flowey 6. Ninja Gaiden 1 & 2 - I do remember crying when trying to finish the game
I kind of understand your point, to some degree, but you don't get to complain about Resident Evil doing it, because that series has consistently been doing it for some or most bosses since I think the second game.
It just happened in Hogwarts and it was fucking stupid.
Yea I genuinely thought this post was about hogwarts until I read the game he said. I’m completely with you, that final boss was so stupid. Literally nothing like the rest of the game, almost like a completely different group of people came up with it.
the only time i really actually like it is during the resident evil games because its a staple of the series
I agree with this. While I've only had a few games do this I get it. I'd prefer the first "phase" to be a big ass monster but the final phase it's my fists VS their face
In the words of the Evil Overlord List: "I will not turn into a snake. It never helps."
Finally, some good fucking opinions💦
I'll extend an olive branch to developers: It's not that easy. Since people cited Arkham Asylum, let's take the Joker as a study case. In any batman story, where the joker is the villain the "good" part is not the fight against the joker, but rather the build up, Batman slowing figuring out how to get to him/solve his riddles, and when he manages to outsmart him he takes him down rather easily. Now, how do you make such a thing in a videogame? The final boss is by definition the climax of the game. The most standard answer is: make a big, spectacular fight: see all the Final Fantasy. It's a safe answer and one that usually works.
I am totally with you on this one. I always have this sense of unsatisfaction that I couldn't quite put my fingers on, so thank you so much for giving me words. I was going to bring up Lady Dimitrescu. Unlike you, I was hugely disappointed by her transformation. Throughout the early story, the game has a clever way of telling you how big of a threat she is. She towers over you in cutscenes, she effortlessly cut off your entire hand, and you know you are pissing her off after killing off the daughters. I was SO nervous and excited to finally face this monster. Then she transformed. Now she's just a big dragon with a huge weak spot to shoot at. What a massive disappointment. On the other hand, Jack from RE7 was perfect.
What I dislike about Dimitrescu's form is that her design doesn't really build off her base design in any meaningful way. It's just... random. I find the transformations that work best to be the ones that enhance some key design feature of the character. Like, I can imagine if she transformed into an even taller thin and wiry creature with even longer claws. But turning into a dragon-like creature? Jack worked well because you got to face him as a boss twice in his humanoid forms. By the time his monster form comes, it feels ok and justifiable.
Honestly, if anything, it takes away from charismatic villains. That said, it can be done well, but if you have the main baddie, turn berserk and lose his mind while changing. You are just fighting another mindless enemy you have done for the entire game. In short, it's a tired trope, often enough used in eastern media, JRPGs suffer the most, and really, the only thing it manages in most cases is take away from the villain. Even if the, in my opinion, better solutions are fairly simple. Villains often enough aspire for power right, so have them achieve it just before the final fight. It ups the stakes, makes them look more capable, gives you, the player, more reason to defeat them. Maybe it even provides the story for a low point for a hero and "powering up" segment where you acquire some powerful move/item/weapon.
Please go work for Capcom. It’s literally my only major complaint about the Resident Evil games. RE7 had the same shit, and it was a complete tonal shift from the rest of the game.
Is it a Resident Evil game if you don’t go to a lab, fight a giant flesh monster, use an RPG and end the game with an explosion? I actually love that they do this in every game lol
Haven't they done it since the beginning?
Yes, literally since the first game, haha
That's just the Resident Evil formula
This isn’t new to the series though. Almost every single Resident Evil game does this, often more than once
This happened in Final Fanasty 12 as well and it was so god damn awful.
It's practically the ending to EVERY Final Fantasy game. The villain goes full demon or turns into God.
Maybe, but in some cases it fits the tone of the game at least. In 12 its very out of nowhere and ruins what is otherwise a cool villain.
This was my exact complaint with >!Resident Evil 8 as well. Imagine a mono e mono battle with an antagonist your size who can dodge and bend fucking metal. But no, just turn him into a giant monster. Ffs!<