Not So Final Final Boss Fights (Inevitable Spoilers)

[gogglebob]

(Initial post is going to contain spoilers for Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, and extremely light spoilers for FF7 Remake)

I was having a discussion with a friend recently where we were debating the merits of fighting a final boss as only a final boss.

The impetus for this discussion was Final Fantasy 7 and its recent remakes. Basically, in Final Fantasy 7, you only fight Sephiroth as part of the absolute last boss sequence in the story, complete with "regular" Sephiroth being the absolute last opponent. In the recent Final Fantasy 7 Remake titles, we are still presumably following the same basic story as Final Fantasy 7, but Sephiroth has already been fought in multiple forms well before the finale. If we are assuming Sephiroth to be the finale of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Story (which is a fair assumption, one way or another), it will be a Sephiroth that you know you have defeated in combat before, even if he scurried off after those battles to fight again. But on the other hand, a potential Final Sephiroth could prove just how far you have come as a character/fighter with an even more scary/powerful form. Would a Sephiroth finale be a perfect measuring stick of how far you have come, or a simple bout against some dude you already know you can beat?

Compare this to Final Fantasy 6, where final boss Kefka is fought once in the battle system at maybe the 30% mark in the game, is fought "in cinema" at the 50% mark, and then encountered as the final-final boss at the end. Here, you see a clear throughline of Kefka going from "magic knight" to "god emperor", and even just getting to him at the end is a little more complicated than running into him on a snowfield. And I note the "cinema" battle where Celes stabs Kefka on the Floating Island, as that sets up the tragedy of if she had just killed "the man" there, she would would have saved the world from unspeakable suffering at the hands of "the god" later. But she (and, arguably, the player) couldn't pull it off, so Kefka became more than a little powerful. Your final boss just got an upgrade, and you will have to fight that.

So anywho, those are some examples, so here's the question:

Do you think final bosses should only be fought as a final threat, or should there be multiple battles with them throughout the game?

 

[Peklo]

As with most things, the decision should be made according to what best serves the character(s), narrative and game in question. You don't need or want to fight Barbarossa in Suikoden before the confrontation at his castle; his absence from the game's events and lack of screen presence feed into portraying his disillusioned remove from active rule and the festering corruption of the Scarlet Moon Empire that he represents in his negligence. You're dismantling the entrenched power structure that he's made no attempt to correct because all he cares about is the memory of his late wife and how it's mirrored in Windy. Facing him at the end isn't a bitter confrontation, but almost a favour to sweep the last vestiges of his rule away, and him only playing his part as an obstacle to see if who and what replaces him have the will to improve the state of the realm.

For an opposite example, you probably don't want a version of Devil May Cry 3 where Vergil is only fought at the end. That game is one of best-plotted action games of its type to this day because it's one of the few with a coherent and even resonant thematic throughline and narrative framing to pull off its ambitions. It possesses a basic and effective arc that's reinforced by the game's structure all the way through: Vergil is the tower to climb from the start, next to the literal tower the game takes place in, and that arc is clearly conveyed through the successive battles against him in as three-act format as it could possibly be. Dante fights and loses; Dante fights and reaches a draw; Dante fights and overcomes. You're thrilled to see Vergil in a recurring role because mechanically he's a distinct, capable adversary whose own parallel arc sees him evolve and shift his approach in response to what the player as Dante does; you're also interested to see him because the emotional context for those duels exists and they carry a different tenor depending on the stage of the game in question. Everything about the character works in context of the story he's in and it's the template that's fueled the rest of the series and larger genre since, whether chasing it or attempting to subvert it.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

As noted, depends on the game. The confrontation(s) with Sephiroth in particular are a process of peeling away layers of meatsuit puppet bodies and constructs to get to the real Sephiroth, who by that last point is just a spirit in the lifestream that Cloud finally annihilates (or so it seemed then). Kefka is a minor villain, the jokey weirdo guy, who by dint of his madness becomes the REAL villain; that loses a lot of impact without seeing his relatively humble beginnings as the recurring nuisance. Elden Ring has you facing several enemies multiple times, which is neat in itself, but the true last boss(es) might be something of a mystery unless you did certain investigations throughout. Recurring encounters with that endgame set wouldn't have made the finale resonate the way the above do, or the way something like Lavos did, where the final encounter is a culmination of earlier encounters. Hades's final fight works so well in part because by the time you actually face him you've interacted with Hades dozens of times.

But they don't have to be either/or; there's no one way to do it, and there are more than two. Some games would do better without a final boss at all (looking at Bioshock's fight with Fontaine here; Bioshock 2 experimented with having you simply fighting off a big wave of foes, which Mass Effect 3 also did, and was better for it).

 

[YangusKhan]

I'm gonna be annoying and call out Final Fantasy 14 as having excellent final boss fights for each expansion. I won't break down each expansion individually, but the writers do a lot of the same stuff that's already been discussed: antagonist characters are around for most/all of the time throughout the story, sometimes the hero personally encounters them in more highly scripted fights before the end comes, and all of them represent a grand culmination of the themes of the story and the devs aren't afraid of making them have "cinematic gameplay" despite being an MMO with a relatively rigid "battle system."

 

[Torzelbaum]

Do you think final bosses should only be fought as a final threat, or should there be multiple battles with them throughout the game?

That's a good question. You have provided some good examples which I can't refute but there is nothing in a game (or media in general) that can infuriate me more than a slippery villain. (Or at least ones that feels like they're too slippery.)

 

[Mogri]

Final Fantasy 15 did a great job with its villain, introducing him early and having him pop up routinely before outing him as a threat. By the time the lads are aware, it's too late, and his plan is well in motion.

The actual combat against him is more storytelling than challenge, which suits him; he was never meant to be the world's strongest anything, and you have enough challenge getting to him.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Oh yeah, I love that guy. Great villain. He's already won as the game starts, effectively. He toys with you; it's not clear he's the villain at all for some time. And when you finally face him he's already ruled the apocalyptic world for a decade. Lots of Kefka influence, if Kefka had a grudge and a long, long-simmering plan.

 

[gogglebob]

That Guy from Final Fantasy 15 was great, because it gradually became clear he was going to be the final boss, and then I had no idea what that fight was going to be like. Definitely a situation where I feel the impact of that battle would have been lessened if he was somehow an opponent earlier in the game.