Having finally bothered to set aside some time to play through Batman: Arkham City, I have to say it’s a fantastic game whose story (Or rather the last fifth of the story) is a little bit of a letdown, but that doesn’t bother me because holy. Christ. This game has one of the best boss fights I can ever remember enjoying.
The fight with Mister Freeze is superb. It is brilliant. It is genius. I’m almost tempted to leave it there because saying almost anything could begin to spoil things, but that would make for a rather short blog post so I’ll take that risk. The core of the fight is that Freeze’s suit is a giant-ass super-awesome thing that even Batman can’t damage directly, because if he tries Freeze will just shoot him with his ice gun or something. (I want an ice gun.)
So you need to figure out how to attack him. Only here’s the thing; everything you do he will adapt to. You cannot use a single tactic more than once, because he will sabotage anything you could use to repeat it. This is not a gimmick or anything, it is brilliantly executed and it genuinely felt like I was in a battle of wits to try and figure out new tactics to try against him, whilst he was hunting me down and I was trying to avoid him. It took me several goes to win the fight, and I did not mind one bit. In fact I loved every second of it. It is, for my money, a quintessential example of how to stage a boss fight. He is entirely unique in the game, requires a wide array of Batman’s abilities, and engages the player completely. Every other developer should take notes on how this whole thing is conceived and formulated.
So I’d like to throw the question out there to y’all about this topic. What are some bosses you’ve found particularly enjoyable and engaging in your gaming?
Four words: Universe-Difficulty Unlimited Indalecio.
If PS1 controllers could be snapped in half…
That guy’s bad enough on Earth difficulty!
The final final boss fight in MGS4 is one of the most memorable and enjoyable boss fights I ever did.
Yogg Saron.
25man.
Hard Mode with 1 watcher down.
Me as 1 of 2 Tanks.
Epic.
Either that or Prince in Kara :)