How Many Boss Battles is too Many

[SinSilver]

I was designing my game with shounen anime in mind and wanted to feature dungeons that would sometimes have two or three boss battles each. I remember games like The Legend of Zelda featuring 2 bosses per dungeon and Final Fantasy 12 also featured a minor boss battle before the major boss battle but I plan to take it to an even larger level.

I didn't think it'll be a major issue because I personally like boss battles but wanted to get some feedback from the community.

 

[Diretooth]

A miniboss and regular boss is pretty standard. The miniboss can be a way to teach your players how to use a new skill they got, or how to defeat the main dungeon boss. An extra one wouldn't be bad, if it's there as a bonus boss for later on in the game.

 

[bgillisp]

Depends on the game. I only have boss battles when the game calls for them, and ended up with an average of 3 - 4 per Chapter (which translates into about one per dungeon, as many Chapters in my game are also 3 - 4 dungeons or outside areas). However, I also have a Chapter that only has one, and the final Chapter has many, as that is when the optional bosses unlock.

 

[Wavelength]

The answer depends heavily on a lot of different things about your game - how long the dungeons are, how many battles you want the player to fight in a dungeon on average, how long (and fast/slow) your battles are, and how focused your game is on battles vs. other gameplay vs. narrative. For a very average JRPG two boss battles per dungeon (usually a "miniboss" in the middle and a "boss" at the end) is fine - especially if you are using good game design techniques like using the miniboss as a mastery test for new mechanics that the player learned in this dungeon and putting a twist on it at the end with the boss. But if your game is less focused on battles in general, or you have reason to suspect your players won't appreciate being treated to more battle time, err on the side of fewer bosses (zero to one per dungeon/explorable area).

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

I would say that the question is not how many bosses we think are too few or to many, but rather what is the, for lack of a better word, "flavor" of your game going to be. Both in the sense of story & in game play.

Are you wanting bosses to be largely undefined uber variants of normal monsters, or intelligent antagonists whose motives & goals are well defined?

Are you wanting to have "secret bosses" &/or "optional bosses", or are you only wanting bosses to be found along the main storyline?

Are you wanting your bosses to be what you find at the top of the proverbial mountain, that you are knowingly marching towards; or will they be challenges potentially lurking around every corner?

Most of these kinds of questions really don't have "right" or "wrong" answers, because what best serves your purposes will vary dramatically based on the kind of game you are trying to make.

For example, my current project is a sandbox game, where the player builds their team according to their own specs, with multiple endings based on player choice. Player freedom is very much a central goal of the gameplay, & player choice is a central story theme.

As a result, some bosses are conditional based upon allegiances chosen by the player, some bosses are necessary to complete the main story regardless of allegiances, some bosses are hidden because interaction with them isn't required by the player but can be hunted down if the player explores enough, & some bosses are subquest goals that are just uber variants of normal monsters.

So an uber monster hunt dungeon only has one boss, because the goal is to go into that dungeon & take out the uber variant of that monster & collect the loot. It's a diversion for the player & a reward for their exploring off the main path, so I keep it simple.

A central boss dungeon would likely have multiple bosses, because those dungeons are story focused. With the player confronting the central boss at the end, along with a conditional faction 1/2 boss, because the player sided with faction 2/1, somewhere in the middle.

As a rule the better question to ask when it comes to topics like these isn't "Which is better?", but rather "What did you do & why?". Because seeing what people were trying to accomplish, & how they go about it can be very enlightening.

 

[Snajed]

I would say a ratio of 1 boss/mini boss every two hours is good, but that's just my opinion

 

[kirbwarrior]

Some games have gotten away with "all" encounters are bosses. This is appropriate when every battle is scripted into the story (no little encounters whatsoever). Or, in a famous game for the PS2, the only beings you ever run into.

Also, do you heal after every battle? FFTA2 you'll be running into boss battles far more often than random encounters due to how the game is structured (missions). You fully heal after each battle so you can fight boss after boss no problem.

I really think it matters what your game is trying to do also. Random encounters are individually not likely to kill you, but rather a representation of the dangers of a dungeon, and the dungeon as a whole is wearing down your party and is the danger. With more bosses, you will either wear down those resources faster, or do something like FF6 with save points and tents before bosses (good example of tons of bosses).

Also, remember that bosses exist for a reason, even if small. There are many bosses in Star Ocean 3 that seem to exist just because they want there to be a big bad at the end of each dungeon, even if they are completely out of place (the "Wind God Difficulty Spike" comes to mind).

 

[Basileus]

Just going on thematics, I can recommend 3 different approaches to this:

Boss and Mini-Boss: Pretty classic formula. The Boss is the main event and the player is usually given a reason to go fight them. The Mini-Boss is often a flunky of the Boss or just another strong fighter that the player encounters along the way. Generally, the Mini-Boss serves as a warm-up for the Boss and can either train the player in a new tool/technique they acquired or introduce a mechanic that the player will later use to fight the Boss. Or they could just be unrelated and exist as a mid-chapter break to spice things up.

• Examples: The Legend of Zelda, Touhou. Zelda is well-known for this. Touhou has stages where each section of the game has a Mini-Boss and a Boss; in early chapters the Mini-Bosses are usually unrelated bystanders that get caught up in things but in later stages the Mini-Boss can be a minion of the stage's boss. In Touhou: Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil the infamous stage 5 boss is Sakuya who is a servant of the (final) stage 6 boss and hounds the player to serve as the stage 6 Mini-Boss despite her previous defeat.

Final Boss, Mid-Boss, Mini-Boss: Seems to be a Japanese thing since it tends to turn up a lot in JRPGs and manga. If there is a Demon King involved, you can bet they'll be using this variant at least in the final dungeon. The Mini-Boss is often a servant and may even be comic relief depending on the seriousness of the game. The Mid-Boss is the Demon King's right hand man/lady and is generally the most powerful minion they have. The Final Boss is the Demon King him/herself and is the most powerful opponent the player fights. Generally used more for final dungeons, but you can easily adapt the formula if you want.

• Examples: Disgaea to an extent, with Laharl as the Final Boss (being the new Demon King), Etna as the Mid-Boss (being the lieutenant/advisor that is a lot stronger than she appears), and Flonne as the Mini-Boss (being stronger than the Prinnies and being much more important and better developed than Laharl's various other minions). A manga example is Mahou Sensei Negima where crazy powerful vampire Evangeline explicitly wants to make the title character into her Mid-Boss (she is a huge fan of old school JRPGs) with her trusted and heavily-armed robot servant as her Mini-Boss.

Lord and ****ennou: It was a practice in feudal Japan for a feudal lord to have four powerful retainers that served as his most powerful and skilled swordsmen and/or advisers to delegate to. The term "****ennou" means roughly "Four Heavenly Kings" and refers to Asian mythology. In Japanese, the word "Shi" for "Four" is also a homonym for "Death", so Japanese media absolutely loves to use this for antagonists. In general, the lord is usually the final boss or at least a major story boss. Each of the ****ennou is usually the boss of their own dungeon or else turn up at different points in the story after the member ranked below them has failed. The final member of the ****ennou is invariably the strongest and usually the lord's most trusted right hand thus making them leader of the ****ennou. You can still apply this within each dungeon if you want to provide a steady stream of challenging opponents, and you can even layer it with the final boss' ****ennou each having their own lesser ****ennou minions. Even the layered version turns up in anime regularly so go nuts if you want.

• Examples: Final Fantasy IV, Pokemon. In Final Fantasy IV the main antagonist is initially set up to be Golbez with the Four Elemental Fiends serving as his ****ennou, each turning up one at a time throughout the story to carry out Golbez's orders or stop the player from interfering with him. In Pokemon the Elite Four serve as the ****ennou to the current Champion (and I believe are even called "****ennou" in the Japanese version), so the end of the game always consists of the player fighting through four consecutively stronger trainers to earn the right to challenge the current Champion for their title.

 

[ShinGamix]

Honestly there is no such thing as too many. I have always played games and always wanted more boss/epic battles. I have found a vast majority of them needing more to make the game fulfilling.

 

[Lonewulf123]

Like people have said above, you can do anything you want in this regard as long as the game design is good and supports this.

Some games there are no normal encounters. Every fight is a boss fight. As long as it's balanced then you can do want you want.

 

[bgillisp]

Another factor to keep in mind is how long are the boss battles in your game? If you have them set up so that they can still be beaten in 2 - 5 minutes (a common approach in the old Gold Box Boss battles), then quite a few of them can work. But if it takes as long to beat your boss as it takes to watch the entire movie Titanic (*cough* Persona 3 *cough*) then maybe you should have very few boss battles then.

 

[kirbwarrior]

But if it takes as long to beat your boss as it takes to watch the entire movie Titanic

I've played two games with 1+ hour long boss fights done jrpg style. I liked them, but even the slightest changes would have made them boring. Namely, in FFX-2, there's a optional boss late in the game that's not actually hard but just has so much HP and resources that it's a long haul. If I were to play again, I'd find a way to beat it faster. If the total length of all bosses in the game is a few hours, that's about right regardless of the total number.