Boss Dissonance: Difference between revisions

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

Compare [[SNK Boss]], [[Boss Game]], [[Mooks but No Bosses]].

== [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] ==

** 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.

** The boss difficulty kicks in around the last few battles involving the boss and minibosses. They have the HP equivalent of over a dozen mooks, often cast spells that damage/debilitate all your mercenaries, and to top it off, have a wall of mooks in front of them and as support.

== [[Platform Game]] ==

* The ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' series varies widely:

** Those goddamn disappearing blocks...and [[Spikes of Doom]]...and [[Bullet Hell]]...

** Successfully maneuvering the stages in ''[[Mega Man X]] 6'' is a considerably more challenging task than winning the boss fights.

** ''X8'' is more or less boss-focused - every boss even gets to turn invincible at some point and fire a tricky [[Desperation Attack]]. On the other hand, it gave us not one but two Ride Chaser stages...

** ''[[Mega Man ZX]] Advent'' has the Floating Ruins which are relatively easy if you have Queenbee and Vulturon, but then you have to fight [[Blow You Away|Aeolus]] and his [[Shock and Awe|stupid lightning spinners]].

* ''[[Legend of Kay]]'' has boss battles that are a relief compared to the evil stage difficulty. You will often find yourself overrun with mooks, all with different weaknesses which makes the situation a clusterfuck. The exception is the second form of the final boss who is an example of unfair difficulty, as the only way to dodge his combo is to use the Breakable Jongs on the outside of the arena to keep away. Each jong can only be destroyed by one weapon type and the types aren't in a logical order E.G. Sword, Claws, Hammer. So you can't just press the cycle button once per jong; you often end up whacking futilely against one with the wrong weapon and falling into the lava.

== [[Turn-Based Strategy]] ==

* Almost any ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' level where the boss doesn't move. Most of the time, the boss is effectively a regular enemy at a high level with better weapons, and it's fairly easy to surround them and wear them down. It's even easier when they have no ranged attacks, allowing you to pick them off at no risk. On the other hand, the regular enemies in the game tend to be cannon fodder, while the boss is usually stronger than all the regular enemies in a level combined. Bosses that can actually move are extremely dangerous.

* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' does this with bosses sometimes. Tough bosses are not determined necessarily by their health or statistics, but whether or not they can hit back. This leads to some interesting instances, such as in Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden. The penultimate boss is harder, despite being weaker than the final boss simply because the final boss had very limited ammunition for his attacks.

** ''[[OG Gaiden]]'' also has this. You face off with the extremely hard Dark Brain, who has hundred thousands of HP, two forms, regenerate one-third of his HP each turn, can OHKO your character, is generally very hard. Then after that, you go on to fight the final boss... {{spoiler|Shu Shirakawa in Neo Granzon}}. However, {{spoiler|Shu}} has less HP than Dark Brain, less threatening attacks, less regeneration, and all in all, is even easier than Dark Brain.