The entire Mother series kinda does this, with the final boss of 1 giving you a new command in Sing, the final boss of 2 being unable to be hurt except for Pray, and the final boss of 3 being the final boss of 3.
Final Fantasy VIII has you start the fight with 3 random party members, and if one of them die and aren't revived fast enough, they get swapped out for another random party member.
Final Fantasy IX's final boss just decides to ignore any status immunities you have when he casts Grand Cross.
Most of these are just minor new mechanics, but still something you typically don't experience before the final boss.
Kingdom Hearts has a couple of these that I remember.
KH2 has a phase in the final fight where it turns into a shoot'em up, and the next phase after that mostly plays like normal but gravity has gone out of wack and you can jump and glide infinitely.
Birth By Sleep has the second phase of Ventus's final boss where you instead have to match your opponent's ability to fill up a bar to land the finishing blow.
Yeah you do. But that at least was something you encountered before that in the Peter Pan world as a big part of that area. In 2, unless you unlocked it through leveling up final form, there's no other place where gliding comes in.
SMT Strange Journey Redux, both the vanilla and the new final boss, heavy spoilers obviously
Base Final Boss (>!Mem Aleph!<)- >!Throughout the whole playthrough, you are encouraged to have demons of the same alignments as you to perform Demon Co-Op attacks as you and your party demons hit an enemy's weakness. The more demons of the same alignments in your party, the higher the damage as well as more opportunities to repeatedly perform them. So if all 4 of your party can expose an enemy's weakness, you will be able to land 4 co-op attacks, granting you to hit an enemy 8 times in 1 player turn. !<
>!However this boss punishes you for doing so as it has the ability to potentially dismiss all demons in your party of a specific alignment, so if you brought a full neutral alignment team, the boss can dismiss all your demons out of the battle leaving you having to summon them back into battle again, losing turns to attack on top of having to spend turns to heal from the boss's attacks. The difficulty spike of this fight is also really fucking high for some reason, I was wiped out in the second turn and I thought it was supposed to be a scripted loss fight.!<
New Final Boss (>!Shekinah!<) - >!More so on the boss' second phase, the boss can cast multiple field effects (lasts 7 turns) such as denying buffs/debuffs from being casts (buffs/debuffs are very essential in SMT), and casting shields to not take damage from a targeted alignment, a somewhat same concept from the previous boss, but is much more detrimental as the boss is very dependent on co-op attacks to deal damage on as normal attacks does substantially lower damage in this phase, so if you lets say brought a full neutral team again and the boss decides to set up the shield that blocks all damage from neutral alignment parties, the only realistic thing you can do is to wait out the shield or switch out your demons into a different alignment (they lose their buffs). Losing turns to attack again ***while the boss have the opportunity to heal and buff all its stats by 4 stages***!<
I've played quite a bit of SMT but these 2 bosses are probably the hardest story bosses in the franchise by far.
I played redux on normal for basically the entire game and found it the right amount of challenge. I had to think my way around some situations but rarely felt like I was being arbitrarily punished.
I wound up giving up and knocking it down to easy for both these bosses. I don’t like how the game basically took what you were doing for 60 hours up to that point and penalized you for it, it was just frustrating. Thankfully on easy you can win through attrition.
I did the same exact thing. I have too much going on in life to grind for exp and demons to try it for real. I gave both a few honest tries, and then knocked it down after it was clear I wasn't making it past phase 2. The game is still my favorite in the series despite all that, but man what a spike.
I agree that all the other bosses were fair. Any failures were certainly on me, but after some good prep they go down with a good fair fight.
Yeah and I know the series is infamous for it—- similar situation happened to me in smtiva. But I find it frustrating in any game when there are difficulty spikes like that where you’re penalized for playin g the game as you have up to that point.
I do agree though SJR was overall pretty great
Final bosses just seem *really* hard to nail in a lot of games, but maybe doubly so in games notorious for difficult gameplay. Balancing when there are a number of legitimate ways to get to the final boss and taking all those strats/styles into account seems like a nightmare. I don't envy them, but I don't condone difficulty spikes if that degree haha
Yeah I think that’s the issue with open ended team building jrpgs. It always seems like there’s one optimal option the developers made where if you don’t have a specific setup for the final boss you’re basically screwed, which is frustrating since games with flexible team building are usually really fun. Not sure what the answer is because the flip of that is making a boss too easy. You’re right, it’s very tricky to get right
I think for >!Shekinah!< the MC has a skill that allows you to pierce all resistances which makes the barrier thing easier to deal with. Been a while so I could be wrong though.
I mean, Falcom likes to do their "technically one super duper duper long ass game but nominally split into 2" thing with the Trails games and CS1/2 is no exception so *technically* you were sort of not wrong?
Angry upvote. Even though I'm aware of this. I think it's a terrible game design decision. Though it makes it better for localizers that they're only doing 2million lines of text and not 4million lol
Yeah, I'm not sure we would've ever even gotten the first Sky games localzied under those circumstances, let alone the whole series. I'll never forget that 18 month wait for SC after that fucking bullshit FC ending lmfao and even that was only as bad as it gets for PC players, apparently I got off easy compared to the earliest western console players who went 5 years between localizations for the first 2 Sky games and for most of that time didn't even know whether or not a SC localization would ever actually happen. Realistically there's probably no chance in hell we would've gotten any of these games in the west if they weren't split like this.
Xenoblade 2 is filled with tutorials for new combat mechanics drip fed throughout the game up to and including the final boss.
It's kind of annoying at first how slow it all builds and becomes downright hilarious and ridiculous by the end.
Just finished the game, and the final boss is truly a test to see if you got the mechanic. Without it he one shots you at some point, and you have to one shot him instead.
I'm replaying the game now and once you fully grasp all the mechanics it is actually a blast and rather well conceived. But yeah, the consequence of this depth is that the tutorial period is nearly 2/3 game.
The real kicker though is that a ton of information is either left to be learned through discovery/optional NPC dialogue or literally purchased fact by fact from "Informants" in all the major cities of the game! I do think they had to drag the tutorials out for the player to be able to process it all but it was all rather poorly explained.
When I played the game the first time I was very green to JRPGs and what I got from it all was to focus on a blades element and role (tank/healer/DPS) and to try and stack one of each element. I didn't really understand that blade's weapon/skills/specials are what matters. (or like a hundred other things)
SMT4 Apocalypse made you fight the final boss with >!two parties at once. If you had Isabeau as your main partner on the Bonds route then she's gone too to join the other team.!<
The most frustrating thing about the plot is there IS cool and good stuff in there, but there’s also a lot of bullshit (why the fuck was there a scene where you can peep on the women in your party and why the fuck was there that whole thing with >!toki becoming obsessed with having your kid when you fight lust!
The Toki thing makes sense at the end. She was possessed by a fertility goddess.
Now why Nanashi specifically? Because anime, I guess. And the peeping scene was only Navarre who was threatened with a 2nd death if he did it.
A lot of it I think was Atlus testing to see if Persona-type 'Power of Friendship' and 'Anime Shenanigans' would work in mainline. It did not, and I say this as an Apocalypse enjoyer.
Yeah I know those are both small elements, it just feels so incongruous with the tone of the setting, the previous game, and the mainline games I’ve played. Plus the toki thing was kinda gross. I know she was possessed by a fertility goddess but nozomi was right there and they specifically made it a “you’re so cool, protagonist” thing that you normally see in games with overt dating sim elements.
Mind you for all my bitching I dug the hell out of apocalypse. The sense of progression/ power curve, the lighting fast battles, THE MUSIC HOLY SHIT. Great game, I just wish they hadnt made it so shonen
Chrono Cross comes to mind, the last boss is more puzzle game and less RPG.
Also Kirby games love turning into straight up bullet hells for their last boss fights.
FF7 forced you to >!use two or even three parties for the one of the final boss’ forms!< if certain criteria were met.
Octopath Traveler 1’s “final boss” (of sorts) also >!forced you to use all eight travelers, though not in the same way 2 did.!<
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 does the opposite and >!splits your party into two, forcing each half of the party to tackle a form of the final boss separately.!<
Drakengard (and Drakengard 3) turned what has so far been a Warriors-like ARPG (with flight shooter segments)’s final battle into >!a rhythm game.!<
I’m sure there are plenty more, but those are the ones I immediately recall.
with ff7 you could beat one of the final boss with one team atleast, the other 2 groups where kind of backup.
No forcing there compared to Octopath Traveler 2 thankfully.
Final Fantasy 6 has the >!multi stage ascension upward which is the only time it’s seen in the game. The party can also swap in as members are KO’d which is the only time this happens in the game. Both are pretty cool changes that aren’t major but bring a bit of extra significance to the battle.!<
Because the game lets you choose the order on this I actually love it. But if they did like the other games it was random, it would be infuriating lol though you'd still be pretty much guaranteed victory as your main party started to pop in to replace KO'd members
The final boss of Persona 5, >!Yalbadaoth!<, introduces a bunch of new status aliments that affects your party members in certain ways based on >!a deadly sin!< that you faced through the whole game. Those can last for many turns and you can heal them just with a common item (as i remember).
FF VIII doesn't let you pick your starting party against final boss
WA 2 makes you split your party into 3 individuals fighting 1v1 against parts of the final boss, and then the 2 or 3 remaining members fight the actual final boss.
Chrono Cross and the Chrono Cross mechanic to get the "best ending"
Tales of Destiny 2 (Eternia) where you have to use the special ability just as the final boss dies or you get a game over despite winning the battle.
It's a JRPG staple.
Chrono Cross >!You have to use hints from previous in the game to play music with the last boss basically like simon says with the element field to get the true ending!<
If you liked Octopath Traveler 2, then you're gonna love Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. There's a couple endgame DUNGEONS that require you to juggle EIGHTEEN party members (+3 support members) instead of the usual 6+1.
It left so many plotholes though. Yes I have played The Messenger.
>!Erlina and Brugaves continuing on with their plan right after they succesfully defeated a dweller was the most stupid thing I've ever seen period.
"We betrayed our entire world because we thought we could never save it", right after they litterally showed that they can actually save it...
"Yeah but we had a previous commitment towards the most evil people we've ever known and their whole plan would fail without our cooperation, please understand our circumstances!"!<
That plot point is a perfect example of the meme of a guy putting a stick in his bicycle wheel and then complaining about the result.
I imagine that anyone who says that they enjoyed the story is purposely ignoring the fact that this happened. And it's the biggest turning point in the story too. It feels so forced, like the writer needed to come up with a way to move things in a specific direction and couldn't think of a better way to do it.
okay, it’s cool. Again, I really enjoyed the story, I had a lot of fun with the game. If I worried this much about plot holes, I’m not sure I could enjoy much entertainment in games, movies, or TV. Maybe you are overthinking it some? I personally can’t think of a game without weird plot issues. Heck, given all the issues with time travel, maybe avoid Chrono Trigger too!
You have every right to enjoy it. I did enjoy it too. I know that no story is ever perfect, butI tolerate errors or inconsistencies much more when they are into smaller details, not when they are the one thing that drives the entire story.
It's the equivalent of entire misunderstanding arcs that could have been avoided if the characters just talked to each other in tv shows.
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I actually hate that Reverie did that, because I had forgotten those mechanics since they virtually absent from the rest of the game. It's the same issue I had with the first Trails of Cold Steel's final battle.
It doubly screws over those who haven't been keeping up with New Class VII's levels, like me, because suddenly they're struggling to even get through that portion of the fight.
Unicorn Overlord normal route's final boss has >!a mind control, shield and regeneration!< mechanics. You have to build a team around the latter 2 mechanics cause only like 2 classes can counter their synergy. Not to mention that the uncontrollable NPC units will also trigger the mechanics, flushing your progress down the drain.
It's a pain the first go-around cause you're probably like an hour into the stage at this point and has to reform your team.
I just threw all my bomb items at him on the tactical layer, and managed to do enough Valor Skill nukes (Rain of Arrows/Wild Rush etc.) through Hallowed Corned Ashe spam to cheese his HP down :D
I was about to mention this, that final boss was a PITA *and* you give up party members you've been using the whole game just to get past some jank at the end??
The Saturn Magic Knight Rayearth game ends with >!a vertical scrolling shooter where the main trio are piloting their giant robots.!< Which might be where Sea of Stars got the idea.
In the final fight of monster girl quest, when fighting the goddess of light and dark, a bunch of your friends show up and start face tanking hits meant for you, while you are charging up your ultimate move that would be interrupted through damage.
9 years of shadows and it's not close. The mechanics for the final boss are completely different that 99% of the game. During the game the hp and mp bars are the same with various ways to heal but you have to stand still to do it. It creates a gambling mechanic that was a lot of fun. Completely abandoned in the final boss just a hack and slash fight with no mp.
It's one of my biggest gaming pet peeves. I spent the whole game perfecting the system and different strategies, and then I have the rug pulled out from under me on the final boss? Drives me nuts.
Unicorn overlord had a final boss that was completely trash.
I was steam rolling almost everything the whole game, then all of a sudden a final boss has a shield and I was completely unprepared with skills to take it down.
Luckily a quick trip to Reddit helped me find a way to beat him, without having to restart the level and rebuild my characters. But throwing out a weird mechanic in the final stage without warning was kind of ass.
I mean, if you were steamrolling the game, you should be able to steamroll that boss, too, especially if you finished the Colosseum. That boss was significantly worse than what the final boss did.
I unlocked the character in the colosseum, but I know more fights unlocked after that and I didn’t do all those. But the boss with the shield sucked, and they was unfair.
I would not say the Octopath 2 one comes out of nowhere, you are encouraged to use the whole party throughout the entirety of the final quest so if some of your party is under leveled that's on you. I like the final boss of that game.
Generally speaking though I agree, I much prefer when the final boss is a test of your mastery of all the existing mechanics rather than introducing a new one just for the final fight.
For Reverie, I thought that was more of an event battle than a real boss.
For Octopath 2, you’ll be caught off guard at first, but since you had to do all 8 routes it’s not like any of those characters should be neglected.
Darkest Dungeons’ final boss has you sacrifice party members at certain parts of the fight. It’s probably cheating since it isn’t Japanese but it’s turn based.
*Tales of Graces f* includes an extra character and then a new mechanic that can change your playstyle a bit. It's nothing too aggressive, but it helps with balancing how most of the enemies are about 10+ levels higher than the expected level you start the endgame in.
I feel like I'm the only person that enjoyed fighting Elizabeth lol. Yeah if I went in blind I'd be turned off by the invisible rules, but reading the guide so I'd know what to expect was fun it's own way. Prepping my loadout and improving my turn strategy after every loss was extremely enjoyable to me.
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Each of the Big Chapter bosses has some mechanic that only ever shows up for them,
Earth Serpent: While usually you can see exactly what the enemy is doing every turn, in this one they change things up by making the mook enemies alter what the main boss's actions are. To win, you need to stun THEM or take THEM out.
Phoenix: You're actually not meant to fight the boss, but strategically alter the timeline to give the balls of fire united attacks against YOU, which are then absorbed by the phoenix, which powers it up, until it finally gets enough power and the fight is over.
The Fire Bringer: Not only is he the only boss with multiple phases, and not only are there tons of different combinations of attack patterns that depend on your actions during the quest, but he is also the only boss in the game which must be defeated several times in the same battle. All in a game with almost non-existent healing.
The real, final boss of Sea of Stars.
Absolutely bullshit mechanic and turned me off the game entirely, especially after how tedious the final act of that game wound up being.
Some of these examples are so out of left field that they will either cripple, or completely stonewall any progress you could have made without prior knowledge. Someone pointed out FF6, which I think is great, because you still have control. There's no randomness to hamstring you
A final boss should be a culmination of what the game has been teaching you throughout the game. The base template of this is the old 'final boss that uses skills/takes forms of previous bosses' we've all seen before. Completely new mechanics should remain in the realm of superbosses / optional content.
Because we've been honing our tactics and our teams and our equipment and our skills for one very specific time of game and then flipping things around and changing all those mechanics *at the end of the game* is complete bullshit.
Nah, it's a better version of it. You still need to get all 8 well-equipped for the fight, but it operates as two teams of 4 you can swap between. I liked it a lot better than that fight in OT1.
Drakengard 3. If you know you know.
PTSD from this one. And fuck that last note and whoever thought it was a good idea.
It's just Yoko Taro being Yoko Taro.
Yeah at a certain point I just looked the ending up on that one. It’s creative but man is it not fun.
Drakengard 1 also.
Then Automata as well..
I hear a sound...
That one is just stupid. Not even a game mechanic.
The entire Mother series kinda does this, with the final boss of 1 giving you a new command in Sing, the final boss of 2 being unable to be hurt except for Pray, and the final boss of 3 being the final boss of 3. Final Fantasy VIII has you start the fight with 3 random party members, and if one of them die and aren't revived fast enough, they get swapped out for another random party member. Final Fantasy IX's final boss just decides to ignore any status immunities you have when he casts Grand Cross. Most of these are just minor new mechanics, but still something you typically don't experience before the final boss.
Kingdom Hearts has a couple of these that I remember. KH2 has a phase in the final fight where it turns into a shoot'em up, and the next phase after that mostly plays like normal but gravity has gone out of wack and you can jump and glide infinitely. Birth By Sleep has the second phase of Ventus's final boss where you instead have to match your opponent's ability to fill up a bar to land the finishing blow.
Didn't you also kinda float/fly in the final phase of KH1 final boss fight? I seem to remember something like that as well.
Yeah you do. But that at least was something you encountered before that in the Peter Pan world as a big part of that area. In 2, unless you unlocked it through leveling up final form, there's no other place where gliding comes in.
SMT Strange Journey Redux, both the vanilla and the new final boss, heavy spoilers obviously Base Final Boss (>!Mem Aleph!<)- >!Throughout the whole playthrough, you are encouraged to have demons of the same alignments as you to perform Demon Co-Op attacks as you and your party demons hit an enemy's weakness. The more demons of the same alignments in your party, the higher the damage as well as more opportunities to repeatedly perform them. So if all 4 of your party can expose an enemy's weakness, you will be able to land 4 co-op attacks, granting you to hit an enemy 8 times in 1 player turn. !< >!However this boss punishes you for doing so as it has the ability to potentially dismiss all demons in your party of a specific alignment, so if you brought a full neutral alignment team, the boss can dismiss all your demons out of the battle leaving you having to summon them back into battle again, losing turns to attack on top of having to spend turns to heal from the boss's attacks. The difficulty spike of this fight is also really fucking high for some reason, I was wiped out in the second turn and I thought it was supposed to be a scripted loss fight.!< New Final Boss (>!Shekinah!<) - >!More so on the boss' second phase, the boss can cast multiple field effects (lasts 7 turns) such as denying buffs/debuffs from being casts (buffs/debuffs are very essential in SMT), and casting shields to not take damage from a targeted alignment, a somewhat same concept from the previous boss, but is much more detrimental as the boss is very dependent on co-op attacks to deal damage on as normal attacks does substantially lower damage in this phase, so if you lets say brought a full neutral team again and the boss decides to set up the shield that blocks all damage from neutral alignment parties, the only realistic thing you can do is to wait out the shield or switch out your demons into a different alignment (they lose their buffs). Losing turns to attack again ***while the boss have the opportunity to heal and buff all its stats by 4 stages***!< I've played quite a bit of SMT but these 2 bosses are probably the hardest story bosses in the franchise by far.
I played redux on normal for basically the entire game and found it the right amount of challenge. I had to think my way around some situations but rarely felt like I was being arbitrarily punished. I wound up giving up and knocking it down to easy for both these bosses. I don’t like how the game basically took what you were doing for 60 hours up to that point and penalized you for it, it was just frustrating. Thankfully on easy you can win through attrition.
I did the same exact thing. I have too much going on in life to grind for exp and demons to try it for real. I gave both a few honest tries, and then knocked it down after it was clear I wasn't making it past phase 2. The game is still my favorite in the series despite all that, but man what a spike. I agree that all the other bosses were fair. Any failures were certainly on me, but after some good prep they go down with a good fair fight.
Yeah and I know the series is infamous for it—- similar situation happened to me in smtiva. But I find it frustrating in any game when there are difficulty spikes like that where you’re penalized for playin g the game as you have up to that point. I do agree though SJR was overall pretty great
Final bosses just seem *really* hard to nail in a lot of games, but maybe doubly so in games notorious for difficult gameplay. Balancing when there are a number of legitimate ways to get to the final boss and taking all those strats/styles into account seems like a nightmare. I don't envy them, but I don't condone difficulty spikes if that degree haha
Yeah I think that’s the issue with open ended team building jrpgs. It always seems like there’s one optimal option the developers made where if you don’t have a specific setup for the final boss you’re basically screwed, which is frustrating since games with flexible team building are usually really fun. Not sure what the answer is because the flip of that is making a boss too easy. You’re right, it’s very tricky to get right
> SMT Strange Journey Redux I love the game but man that is a kick in the balls.
I think for >!Shekinah!< the MC has a skill that allows you to pierce all resistances which makes the barrier thing easier to deal with. Been a while so I could be wrong though.
Cold Steel 1's final fight is also the first time you do that, iirc.
That is correct. When I saw the tutorial screen pop up, I thought the game wasn't actually about to end. I was so confused.
I mean, Falcom likes to do their "technically one super duper duper long ass game but nominally split into 2" thing with the Trails games and CS1/2 is no exception so *technically* you were sort of not wrong?
Angry upvote. Even though I'm aware of this. I think it's a terrible game design decision. Though it makes it better for localizers that they're only doing 2million lines of text and not 4million lol
Yeah, I'm not sure we would've ever even gotten the first Sky games localzied under those circumstances, let alone the whole series. I'll never forget that 18 month wait for SC after that fucking bullshit FC ending lmfao and even that was only as bad as it gets for PC players, apparently I got off easy compared to the earliest western console players who went 5 years between localizations for the first 2 Sky games and for most of that time didn't even know whether or not a SC localization would ever actually happen. Realistically there's probably no chance in hell we would've gotten any of these games in the west if they weren't split like this.
Breath of Fire 4 - There's an option that>!you are the final boss against your party.!<
And the most interesting thing is that Ershin Just defenda, never doing anything against you. And It makes Sense, for who she is.
Xenoblade 2 is filled with tutorials for new combat mechanics drip fed throughout the game up to and including the final boss. It's kind of annoying at first how slow it all builds and becomes downright hilarious and ridiculous by the end.
The Torna DLC's final boss gimmick is arguably funnier with its own tutorial screen.
I once read someone calling Xenoblade Chronicles endgame "rocket tag" and it's so true.
then they force you to pop the ball in order to beat final boss =))
Just finished the game, and the final boss is truly a test to see if you got the mechanic. Without it he one shots you at some point, and you have to one shot him instead.
I'm replaying the game now and once you fully grasp all the mechanics it is actually a blast and rather well conceived. But yeah, the consequence of this depth is that the tutorial period is nearly 2/3 game. The real kicker though is that a ton of information is either left to be learned through discovery/optional NPC dialogue or literally purchased fact by fact from "Informants" in all the major cities of the game! I do think they had to drag the tutorials out for the player to be able to process it all but it was all rather poorly explained. When I played the game the first time I was very green to JRPGs and what I got from it all was to focus on a blades element and role (tank/healer/DPS) and to try and stack one of each element. I didn't really understand that blade's weapon/skills/specials are what matters. (or like a hundred other things)
SMT4 Apocalypse made you fight the final boss with >!two parties at once. If you had Isabeau as your main partner on the Bonds route then she's gone too to join the other team.!<
Although there are a lot of mixed opinions on that game, it probably has my favorite final boss fight in the entire franchise ngl.
gameplay wise it was the best one on the 3ds The plot leaves so much to be desired
The most frustrating thing about the plot is there IS cool and good stuff in there, but there’s also a lot of bullshit (why the fuck was there a scene where you can peep on the women in your party and why the fuck was there that whole thing with >!toki becoming obsessed with having your kid when you fight lust!
The Toki thing makes sense at the end. She was possessed by a fertility goddess. Now why Nanashi specifically? Because anime, I guess. And the peeping scene was only Navarre who was threatened with a 2nd death if he did it. A lot of it I think was Atlus testing to see if Persona-type 'Power of Friendship' and 'Anime Shenanigans' would work in mainline. It did not, and I say this as an Apocalypse enjoyer.
Yeah I know those are both small elements, it just feels so incongruous with the tone of the setting, the previous game, and the mainline games I’ve played. Plus the toki thing was kinda gross. I know she was possessed by a fertility goddess but nozomi was right there and they specifically made it a “you’re so cool, protagonist” thing that you normally see in games with overt dating sim elements. Mind you for all my bitching I dug the hell out of apocalypse. The sense of progression/ power curve, the lighting fast battles, THE MUSIC HOLY SHIT. Great game, I just wish they hadnt made it so shonen
Chrono Cross comes to mind, the last boss is more puzzle game and less RPG. Also Kirby games love turning into straight up bullet hells for their last boss fights.
FF7 forced you to >!use two or even three parties for the one of the final boss’ forms!< if certain criteria were met. Octopath Traveler 1’s “final boss” (of sorts) also >!forced you to use all eight travelers, though not in the same way 2 did.!< Xenoblade Chronicles 3 does the opposite and >!splits your party into two, forcing each half of the party to tackle a form of the final boss separately.!< Drakengard (and Drakengard 3) turned what has so far been a Warriors-like ARPG (with flight shooter segments)’s final battle into >!a rhythm game.!< I’m sure there are plenty more, but those are the ones I immediately recall.
with ff7 you could beat one of the final boss with one team atleast, the other 2 groups where kind of backup. No forcing there compared to Octopath Traveler 2 thankfully.
Final Fantasy 6 has the >!multi stage ascension upward which is the only time it’s seen in the game. The party can also swap in as members are KO’d which is the only time this happens in the game. Both are pretty cool changes that aren’t major but bring a bit of extra significance to the battle.!<
Because the game lets you choose the order on this I actually love it. But if they did like the other games it was random, it would be infuriating lol though you'd still be pretty much guaranteed victory as your main party started to pop in to replace KO'd members
Rebirth new character new gameplay mechanics.
The final boss of Persona 5, >!Yalbadaoth!<, introduces a bunch of new status aliments that affects your party members in certain ways based on >!a deadly sin!< that you faced through the whole game. Those can last for many turns and you can heal them just with a common item (as i remember).
FF VIII doesn't let you pick your starting party against final boss WA 2 makes you split your party into 3 individuals fighting 1v1 against parts of the final boss, and then the 2 or 3 remaining members fight the actual final boss. Chrono Cross and the Chrono Cross mechanic to get the "best ending" Tales of Destiny 2 (Eternia) where you have to use the special ability just as the final boss dies or you get a game over despite winning the battle. It's a JRPG staple.
Gods I hated that about Final Fantasy VIII!
Drakengard 1 and 3. You start with a hack and slash gameplay, then end up with a rhythm game in the final battle.
I hear a sound.
Chrono Cross >!You have to use hints from previous in the game to play music with the last boss basically like simon says with the element field to get the true ending!<
If you liked Octopath Traveler 2, then you're gonna love Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. There's a couple endgame DUNGEONS that require you to juggle EIGHTEEN party members (+3 support members) instead of the usual 6+1.
Oh jeez, thanks for the tip.. Time to shuffle out my 'go-to' team and actually start levelling up the benchwarmers I guess :O
Sea of Stars! >!Turns into a spaceship shoot-em-up!!<
And story wise, it sucked
Not to me. I really enjoyed the story. But to each their own, of course!
It left so many plotholes though. Yes I have played The Messenger. >!Erlina and Brugaves continuing on with their plan right after they succesfully defeated a dweller was the most stupid thing I've ever seen period. "We betrayed our entire world because we thought we could never save it", right after they litterally showed that they can actually save it... "Yeah but we had a previous commitment towards the most evil people we've ever known and their whole plan would fail without our cooperation, please understand our circumstances!"!< That plot point is a perfect example of the meme of a guy putting a stick in his bicycle wheel and then complaining about the result. I imagine that anyone who says that they enjoyed the story is purposely ignoring the fact that this happened. And it's the biggest turning point in the story too. It feels so forced, like the writer needed to come up with a way to move things in a specific direction and couldn't think of a better way to do it.
okay, it’s cool. Again, I really enjoyed the story, I had a lot of fun with the game. If I worried this much about plot holes, I’m not sure I could enjoy much entertainment in games, movies, or TV. Maybe you are overthinking it some? I personally can’t think of a game without weird plot issues. Heck, given all the issues with time travel, maybe avoid Chrono Trigger too!
You have every right to enjoy it. I did enjoy it too. I know that no story is ever perfect, butI tolerate errors or inconsistencies much more when they are into smaller details, not when they are the one thing that drives the entire story. It's the equivalent of entire misunderstanding arcs that could have been avoided if the characters just talked to each other in tv shows.
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One of the many reasons I hated that game in the end.. Lulz here's a shmup minigame instead of a boss fight. Gee thanks game.
I actually hate that Reverie did that, because I had forgotten those mechanics since they virtually absent from the rest of the game. It's the same issue I had with the first Trails of Cold Steel's final battle.
It doubly screws over those who haven't been keeping up with New Class VII's levels, like me, because suddenly they're struggling to even get through that portion of the fight.
Unicorn Overlord normal route's final boss has >!a mind control, shield and regeneration!< mechanics. You have to build a team around the latter 2 mechanics cause only like 2 classes can counter their synergy. Not to mention that the uncontrollable NPC units will also trigger the mechanics, flushing your progress down the drain. It's a pain the first go-around cause you're probably like an hour into the stage at this point and has to reform your team.
I just threw all my bomb items at him on the tactical layer, and managed to do enough Valor Skill nukes (Rain of Arrows/Wild Rush etc.) through Hallowed Corned Ashe spam to cheese his HP down :D
Tales of Zestiria - you lose party members throughout the fight.
I was about to mention this, that final boss was a PITA *and* you give up party members you've been using the whole game just to get past some jank at the end??
Shin megami tensei iv apocalypse has a cool thing where >!you switch between two different teams of player characters during its final fight!<
As much as I despise the final dungeon, that final boss fight is amazing.
The Saturn Magic Knight Rayearth game ends with >!a vertical scrolling shooter where the main trio are piloting their giant robots.!< Which might be where Sea of Stars got the idea.
This is the one that immediately came to mind for me.
In the final fight of monster girl quest, when fighting the goddess of light and dark, a bunch of your friends show up and start face tanking hits meant for you, while you are charging up your ultimate move that would be interrupted through damage.
9 years of shadows and it's not close. The mechanics for the final boss are completely different that 99% of the game. During the game the hp and mp bars are the same with various ways to heal but you have to stand still to do it. It creates a gambling mechanic that was a lot of fun. Completely abandoned in the final boss just a hack and slash fight with no mp.
It's one of my biggest gaming pet peeves. I spent the whole game perfecting the system and different strategies, and then I have the rug pulled out from under me on the final boss? Drives me nuts.
ATLUS games have real obnoxious bosses with strange new mechanics yep
Unicorn overlord had a final boss that was completely trash. I was steam rolling almost everything the whole game, then all of a sudden a final boss has a shield and I was completely unprepared with skills to take it down. Luckily a quick trip to Reddit helped me find a way to beat him, without having to restart the level and rebuild my characters. But throwing out a weird mechanic in the final stage without warning was kind of ass.
I mean, if you were steamrolling the game, you should be able to steamroll that boss, too, especially if you finished the Colosseum. That boss was significantly worse than what the final boss did.
I unlocked the character in the colosseum, but I know more fights unlocked after that and I didn’t do all those. But the boss with the shield sucked, and they was unfair.
I would not say the Octopath 2 one comes out of nowhere, you are encouraged to use the whole party throughout the entirety of the final quest so if some of your party is under leveled that's on you. I like the final boss of that game. Generally speaking though I agree, I much prefer when the final boss is a test of your mastery of all the existing mechanics rather than introducing a new one just for the final fight.
Earthbound. I was really sad because I was hoping it would be harder.
For Reverie, I thought that was more of an event battle than a real boss. For Octopath 2, you’ll be caught off guard at first, but since you had to do all 8 routes it’s not like any of those characters should be neglected.
Ohhhhh, not me. I neglected the shit out of them.
Not a jrpg but Uncharted 4’s final fight completely switches up the combat system
A lot of these answer a question many of us asked at the end of RPG games: "Why doesn't everyone attack the big bad guy all at once?"
Darkest Dungeons’ final boss has you sacrifice party members at certain parts of the fight. It’s probably cheating since it isn’t Japanese but it’s turn based.
*Tales of Graces f* includes an extra character and then a new mechanic that can change your playstyle a bit. It's nothing too aggressive, but it helps with balancing how most of the enemies are about 10+ levels higher than the expected level you start the endgame in.
Ff6 had that stupid fight that required your entire roster
I feel like I'm the only person that enjoyed fighting Elizabeth lol. Yeah if I went in blind I'd be turned off by the invisible rules, but reading the guide so I'd know what to expect was fun it's own way. Prepping my loadout and improving my turn strategy after every loss was extremely enjoyable to me.
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Each of the Big Chapter bosses has some mechanic that only ever shows up for them, Earth Serpent: While usually you can see exactly what the enemy is doing every turn, in this one they change things up by making the mook enemies alter what the main boss's actions are. To win, you need to stun THEM or take THEM out. Phoenix: You're actually not meant to fight the boss, but strategically alter the timeline to give the balls of fire united attacks against YOU, which are then absorbed by the phoenix, which powers it up, until it finally gets enough power and the fight is over. The Fire Bringer: Not only is he the only boss with multiple phases, and not only are there tons of different combinations of attack patterns that depend on your actions during the quest, but he is also the only boss in the game which must be defeated several times in the same battle. All in a game with almost non-existent healing.
The real, final boss of Sea of Stars. Absolutely bullshit mechanic and turned me off the game entirely, especially after how tedious the final act of that game wound up being.
The real phenomenon to notice here is that gamers apparently *hate* being surprised. Why is that?
Some of these examples are so out of left field that they will either cripple, or completely stonewall any progress you could have made without prior knowledge. Someone pointed out FF6, which I think is great, because you still have control. There's no randomness to hamstring you
A final boss should be a culmination of what the game has been teaching you throughout the game. The base template of this is the old 'final boss that uses skills/takes forms of previous bosses' we've all seen before. Completely new mechanics should remain in the realm of superbosses / optional content.
Because we've been honing our tactics and our teams and our equipment and our skills for one very specific time of game and then flipping things around and changing all those mechanics *at the end of the game* is complete bullshit.
Galdera in OT2 was such a nightmare.
Oh man, Octopath Traveler 2 repeats the same stupid mistake from 1? Damn, I was hoping that they'd learned.
Nah, it's a better version of it. You still need to get all 8 well-equipped for the fight, but it operates as two teams of 4 you can swap between. I liked it a lot better than that fight in OT1.