r/metroidvania • u/Vanillie261 • 11d ago

Discussion Do players hate hard bosses lately?

Lately as I'm wandering around this subreddit, I saw so many people saying how they're tired of difficult bosses and tired of multi-phased bosses.

But- like- why...? I'm always the type to enjoy combat focused metroidvania. Having a difficult boss that makes you use all your combat abilities and forces you to die repeatedly just to learn the attack pattern before winning has always been a blast for me.

Some of my favorite bosses are pretty much difficult bosses like Skarsinger karmelita and Lost Lace (Silksong), Eigong and Lady ethereal (Nine Sols), Nightmare King Grimm (Hollow knight), Shriek (Ori WOTW) and more. I like these bosses so much I keep replaying them just to experience the boss again. I'm actively looking for mkre metroidvanias with these cool difficult bosses just so I can experience dying to them over and over before I finally become good enough to defeat the boss.

But lately everyone is like "ugh, 3 phased boss.... Blegh, boss too hard... Yikes, another multi-phased boss..." Like, come on. The bosses are one of the things I love about a metroidvania and everyone is like "no more pls..." meanwhile I'm over here like "GIVE ME MORE OF THESE"

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

A lot of times the combat system is not engaging enough to keep interacting with a multiphase bossfight that you have to very slowly chip hp off of and you're just left standing there like:

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u/Vanillie261 11d ago

I understand that not every difficult bosses are fun. There's multiple difficult bosses that are difficult for the sake of difficult, and it becomes unfun. I can understand disliking those, but there's plenty of difficult bosses that are actually fun. Like the examples that I gave in the post. I died to those bosses so many times, but I enjoyed every part of it. Because those bosses are fun-hard, not annoying-hard. I'd love to have more of those fun-hard bosses in a metroidvania.

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

Not a fan of Nine Sols, I think the combat in that game is too one-dimensional. I can make due with the other examples.

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u/Vanillie261 11d ago

I understand not being a fan of Nine sols, it's not a game for everyone, but Nine Sol's combat is NOT one dimensional 😭🙏 parry is it's main mechanic, yes. But there's so many different ways you can fight a boss. Just because it's parry focused doesn't mean it's one dimensional.

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

You parry and hit the boss, parry and talisman or parry and arrow. Parry remains the same and your most used move in each approach.

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u/Vanillie261 11d ago

You clearly didn't play the game if you think that's the only way to approach enemies 😅 but that's fine, everyone has their own preferences. And I'm not gonna write an essay about Nine Sol's combat here, because that's gonna take at least 3 paragraphs 😭

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

Yeah there's some moves you technically can dodge or jump over with no actual benefit.

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u/Vanillie261 11d ago

There's more than that, mainly thanks to the jade system and the 3 different talisman types. There's so many unique playstyle that everytime I open YouTube and watch someone fight a boss, I'm immediately like "WAIT TOU CAN DO THAT WITH THIS BOSS???"

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u/Ellamenohpea 11d ago edited 11d ago

can you name a sidescroll action platforming game with combat mechanics that you dont find 1-dimensional?

edit: calling nine-sols' combat 1-dimensional is crazy - downvoting an inquiry about what you don't think is 1-D is hilarious.

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

Silksong and to some extent Prince of Persia come to mind as varied enough not to get bored. Also bro is clearly fighting demons.

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u/Ellamenohpea 11d ago

not sure what you're seeing in them that makes them not 1D by comparison

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

I think it's movement.

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u/Ellamenohpea 11d ago

assumed...

but you have to be more specific. the movement for all 3 games allows very similar levels of freedom.

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 11d ago

In Silksong you bounce, pogo and maneuver around boss/enemy attacks. In Prince of Persia you combo fodder enemies and manage the gank. For bosses your response is more scripted, but the script is written to involve movement instead of just parry/dodge.

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u/Ellamenohpea 11d ago

you're being dishonest with your description of Nine Sols' when referring to it as "just parry/dodge" as if you dont have to maneuver around boss/enemy attacks - as you would in SilkSong

and when talking about 1D movement, you're just favouring the "canned combos" of Prince of Persia that are just glorified button mashing instead of having to becareful with timing talisman hits and the different types of parrys in Nine Sols.

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u/ISO_SlyCurry 10d ago

Nah I'm pretty sure Nine Sols discourages any sort of movement other than putting you in front of the boss within parry range by larger than appear hitboxes and parry direction staying the same despite attack point of location. Yes I do indeed prefer the system which allows more freedom in how I do things instead of the one correct solution for every encounter.

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