Boss Dissonance: Difference between revisions

In most games, fighting enemies comes down to two phases. A) Fighting through waves of normal mooks and baddies and making your way through levels, and B) fighting boss villains. Of course, a boss is supposed to be a tougher challenge than a normal mook, but they are also a singular enemy (or at least a small amount), and bosses usually test the player's current ability instead of becoming a tyrannical wave of destruction (at least not [[That One Boss|most of the time]]).

 

 

If you find a game like this, congratulations, you've encountered Boss Dissonance.

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

* ''[[Castlevania: Lament of Innocence]]'' varies depending on the character you use. With Leon Belmont's defensive abilities and special weapons, levels can be quite challenging, especially when you have to engage in any platforming due to [[Camera Screw]], but the bosses are easy once you learn their pattern (yes, even [[That One Boss|Death]]). With bonus character Joachim Armster, it's the opposite - his attacks blaze through regular enemies, most of the platforming challenges are removed (since he has no whip swing), but because he can't block or use healing items, the bosses are ''insanely hard''. The worst is [[Bonus Boss|the Forgotten One]], who is hard enough for Leon to beat, and nigh impossible for Joachim to beat. While the Orb it drops acts as Leon's [[Infinity+1 Sword]], for Joachim the Orb does nothing at all.

* The first ''[[Splatterhouse]]'' game has only two examples:

** The fifth boss, Mutant Jennifer, is a pain in the ass compared to her long but somewhat easy stage... that is, if you avoid taking the path to the necromancer midboss.

* ''[[Diablo]] 2'' does both kinds. Act 1 and 2 have bosses that can chew you up in the matter of seconds if you blink. Especially [[That One Boss|Duriel]], who's not only super tough and super fast, but you must also [[Boss Room|fight him in a small chamber that doesn't even leave any room for strategy]], so if you're playing a ranged character, you can kiss him goodbye. In Acts 3, 4, and 5, the [[Elite Mooks]] and their [[Boss in Mooks Clothing|leaders]] that you need to fight before facing the boss are MUCH harder than their infernal masters. Mainly because when facing the boss, all you really need to do is dodge. In hell difficulty, act bosses and superuniques without minions are usually much easier than normal uniques and their minions since act bosses don't get extra boss modifiers and immunities.

 

* ''[[Atlantica Online]]'s'' many dungeons have an odd version of both types. In order to complete a dungeon, each level must be cleared of enemies, including mooks and a boss, and usually a couple of minibosses.

** It is level-focused in that if you fail to kill all enemies on a floor within an allotted time, you fail the dungeon. Also, nearly all enemies will group together in 3s, and most are much stronger than their level indicates.

* ''[[Zombie Panic in Wonderland]]'' manages to hit BOTH kinds of dissonance on the same game. The first world is what you'd expect (i.e.: Easy), but the boss is [[That One Boss]], with [[Turns Red|attack patterns that change as his health goes down]] and hard-to-dodge moves. The other two worlds are notably harder, but their bosses are really easy, with their predictable, non-changing patterns and dodgeable attacks. Clearly the dev team took more time to make the first boss than the other two combined.

 

* ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'' manages to have both types simultaneously. It just depends on how you actually approach the fight. All of the bosses are trivial if you know which weapons they are vulnerable, too. For example, the first boss can easily be eliminated by {{spoiler|throwing the barrels of poison gas lying around or spamming him with the Stun Gun}}. The {{spoiler|Typhoon augmentation}} also pretty much serves as a [[Game Breaker]] for three of the fights. However, this is potentially a very stealth heavy game, some of the most effective weapons against them are not the most obvious choices, for example, the {{spoiler|Combat Rifle}} is pretty awful compared to most other weapons for the boss. It's entirely possible to walk into the third boss with little ammo, ineffective weapons, and if you make a certain story decision {{spoiler|being unable to use any augments and having an [[Interface Screw]] on top of that}}. So, if you go into the bosses prepared properly, they are trivially easy, but if you are not properly prepared (which might be likely due to [[Wrong Genre Savvy]] and assuming very effective anti-boss weapons are useless since they would be in most games) then they are far more difficult than the rest of the game.

 

** Even more infamous are some of the guitar parts. "Constant Motion" in particular is a 6/7, which looks fairly accurate until you hit the guitar solo, which is widely considered to be one of the most difficult (if not ''the'' most difficult) one in the entire game, including the 1000+ DLC songs.

 

* ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl]]'': With the exception of Flint's slightly diverse team the Elite Four are actually very predictable and easy to beat so long as [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] is taken into account, but the Champion the player faces after defeating them has a team of the strongest Pokemon in the region with diverse movesets, one of which is both so strong it is banned from competitive play and literally the strongest that a Pokemon of its species could possibly be.

* ''[[Xenogears]]'' gives up entirely on random encounters halfway through and only offers boss battles (although the overworld and previous areas are still accessible should you want to level up). This is due to budget cuts that left the game incomplete.

** Pretty well justified, though - Full Moon bosses usually have decently long cutscenes between the last save point and the actual battle, while Tartarus bosses don't.

* The hyped but forgettable XBOX 360 game ''Two Worlds'' featured this due to its item combining mechanic. Duplicate weapons could be squashed together into one weapon with better stats, so those mid-level swords you find dozens of are really all pieces of the [[Infinity+1 Sword]]. If you've done any side quests at all on your way to the boss (and it's pretty hard to avoid detouring through the gorgeous countryside), you'll probably kill the final boss in two hits. [[The Dragon]] right before the boss? Not so much.

[[Category:Boss Battle]]

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]