One thing I’ve been looking into is how boss fights precede. Lithodora has been designed to be much more active than any of the previous games so unique boss battles should click right into place. Before I go into what kinda fights I have in mind, I’d like to go over a little bit of history…
Samba of the Wolves is the first game I attempted to make boss battles unique. Blocking Ivy and throwing rocks at Violet was a nice try for a first time but it didn’t play out very well. There was also, Archie who was vulnerable to being hit in the back which also felt like a cheap gimmick.
Dream Master ditched the idea of unique bosses and really you were just left fighting harder versions of regular opponents. I think bosses were too hard actually about halfway through. The 3 colored Felix’s at the end is unique are someways but hitting the Felix that matches the light color is still pretty cheap.
Tandem Tales was pretty well done given the nature of the game. Trickster and his 3 colored bands was my first attempt at a boss fight that didn’t have any fighting. There are some things I could definitely have done to improve it and I could have made it more obvious that the bands will hurt you when fully lit but all that aside it works just as I wanted it to. Super Ego still wasn’t much different from the regular guys but aside from not giving enough clues on how to beat him, I think that fight was also well crafted. In truth however, his strategy would probably be more suitable for a special enemy in the game or mini-boss more so than a boss.
Tale of the Night only has one boss and because it’s the latest game I won’t get too into specifics but I think Haggard’s fight turned out very well. If the series was still as focused on fighting, I wouldn’t mind every boss fight being like this but with events and attacks being unique to each boss. What I did with haggard was FAR from the limit of the system. There’s a lot I stripped away from the fight because they required parts of the game engine that I hadn’t made yet. Those parts will resurface next game. In the original fight with Haggard there was much less hand to hand combat.
Lithodora of Despair will try and pick up where Tale of the Night left off in boss fights originally. Also, due to the adventurous aspect of the game, I’d like to try and reintroduce strategic elements for some boss fights. I don’t have much experience in boss fights so I won’t promise a spectacle but you’ll definitely see some more effort in the field. If the player doesn’t have an adrenaline rush during big bosses I haven’t done my job.