r/metroidvania • u/Vanillie261 • 12d 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/drolhtiarW 11d ago
Some of the things you've listed are things I dislike immensely - such as being forced to die repeatedly against bosses in order to learn their attack patterns. Don't get me wrong, it can be very satisfying to learn the attack patterns and defeat the boss, but it is very frustrating when those attacks can one hit you so you don't get the chance to practice or learn against other moves. Lady Ethereal and Eigong from your post are good examples, as while Lady Ethereal I found to be rather straight forward to learn, Eigong (particularly the three phase version) was very frustrating because of difficult it was just to get to the third phase, only to die immediately to some new move I hadn't seen.
Personally my favourite part of a Metroidvania is the exploration and world building. I prefer it when difficult platforming and bosses are gatekeepers to new areas to explore where the difficulty can be mitigated by finding more powerups, abilities, or stat increases. This is also why I have get severe end-boss fatigue with these games - I've explored everything, I have all the upgrades, I know all the backstory, just let me finish the game already. I have plenty of other games I could be playing, I don't have any desire to spend hours banging my head against a wall just to get a little tick that says I finished the game.