Was going to post this in the Superstars thread but since it's an unpopular opinion, let's put it here: CD has generally good bosses, as does at least half of Superstars, and the only reason people hate them is because they actually require engagement from the player instead of just abusing invincibility frames to skip them. The more the general playerbase has to interact with a boss, the less the playerbase likes the boss. As such, bosses should just be removed entirely, as that represents the minimal possible interaction with a boss and therefore the most popular.
That's a mischaracterization of the players' priorities. The problem with the bosses is that they're not very fun to fight, and usually don't function as a logical progression of the stages that precede them. Because making that kind of boss fight has never been the series' strength, it only makes sense that the bosses would function based on brevity. It's the same rhetoric that says fast players hate the games because they're ending them quicker. But it's not! It's a question of pacing. If you gave them more health and the player could hit them multiple times without i-frames, you could get away with a lot of similar-length bosses without it feeling like a bored-ass waiting game.
What a blatantly and intentionally provocative thing to say. I'm not going to rise to your attempts to wind people by correcting you; as soon as you tried to say why people dislike the bosses in certain games, it stopped being an "unpopular opinion" and just became bogus. Try harder. Either be more subtle in your attempts to mischaracterise everyone or (preferably) have a real conversation by explaining why you hold an unpopular opinion and then we can all enjoy the discussion that follows.
The unpopular opinions I have to raise the stakes on top of this one is that a) people hating a boss is more reason for it to be there, not less. Though, for different reasons. I love Sonic CD's bosses, and I think the problem with the bosses in Superstars isn't so much how they difficult or drawn out they're perceived to be: it's just how incredibly dull it is to get better at them. Barely beating them and being a master at them doesn't feel much different. You're always more or less as close to die to an instakill move as before, will take more or less as long as before, and everything you did on the stage will make as much difference (none) in your chances. So b) exploiting invincibilty frames in older Sonic games is a perfectly valid thing to do and a huge part of the fun in classic Sonic bosses, especially when it leads to you learning how to move faster and ultimately not even needing them. @Laura has always had a lot to say about this.
Yeah but for the most part I love CD's and hate Superstars', so there's a difference in the execution of this engagement requirement that you're not accounting for here.
I think its less that and more the fact that the bosses go on for longer than the stages themselves sometimes, which isnt a good thing given bosses are the last thing people buy a 2D Sonic game for
On that note, another unpopular opinion: if it weren't for the bosses having invincibility frames and only letting you hit them once at a time, at least some bosses in Superstars would be amazing. The Pinball Carnival ones and the Cyber Station boss, for example. Some others are irredeemable, though, like Sand Sanctuary's boss.
I don't think I'm mischaracterising, and I don't think it's bogus; furthermore I explained why I held the opinion in the post. Yes, it was stated provocatively and I'm being a little hyperbolic, but otherwise plenty of other people have managed to have a real conversation. With a couple of notable exceptions, the bosses don't go on for longer than the stages themselves. Most of the bosses can be beaten in under a minute, whereas very few of the stages can be beaten that quickly. CD's bosses are generally much shorter than Superstars' so the length part still holds, but yes, there's definitely a difference in the execution. I think a lot of it is that it can be difficult to tell when you can hit the boss in Superstars, which was one of my main complaints about Mania's bosses as well, and a lot of the frustration and perceived length comes from damage opportunities being poorly conveyed. This is a great point (although I don't really agree with the instakill part, outside of those bosses). Barely beating them and being a master at them doesn't feel much different, because mastering the boss is required to beat it, instead of just damage boosting through it. And most people find mastering bosses dull. How many experienced players of S3K, and beat Mushroom Hill's miniboss by waiting for it to come lower and timing their jumps in between the log attacks? And how many just grab a fire shield and spam jump from underneath? How many actually dodge the mini eggs in Metropolis' boss and time their hits on the boss? And how many just jump into them and take the damage to get a few free hits in? The issue is that it doesn't lead to you learning how not to damage boost. It only teaches you how to damage boost more effectively next time. But this is exactly my point - the "fun" of classic Sonic bosses is in not playing them, but moving onto the next level as quickly as possible. Why not cut out the middle (Egg)man and skip the boss entirely?
Because damage boosting against the bosses is a feature, not a bug. Doing so isn't "not playing them", it's playing them as they were intended to be played. It's fun to beat something to a pulp as quickly and crudely as possible - see also the bonus stage in Street Fighter where you beat up a car. "What's the point of fighting the car if you can just button mash through it? Better just remove it from the game. Or maybe it should force you to learn combos - not the ones you use in the regular game, but special ones that are only effective against this specific car!" It's a minigame. It shouldn't be complicated to beat.
I actually agree with DD here. A boss having temporary invulnerability isn't necessarily a bad thing and in fact prevents a lot of the cheese strategies that make them a complete nonissue once you know how the mechanics of a Sonic game work.
I don't know how many people do what, but I do know these examples are exactly the kind of thing having to master a boss jut to beat it prevents: these cheese strategies aren't free. They depend on choosing and holding onto a fire shield, which counts as mastering, pretty much. It's the fastest way, exploiting a weakness yu otherwise wouldn't. It's adjusting how you go through the entirety of the stage to beat the boss faster. Mastery doesn't need to be purely mechanical. Figuring these things out is fun too. Also if you can hold enough rings through METROPOLIS ZONE to be able to cheese the boss, you pretty much deserve it. Because I'll never stop defending you can't actually cheese all bosses by jumping at them mindlessly and recovering the rings. Much less the ones later in the games. You need to have a certain amount of rings for it to have a chance to work, an when it doesn't-- you're fucked, because you'll have access to far less rings as you respawn. There is a built-in process to filter people who only beat bosses by rushing. We can do it because we've played these games inside and out, but when it didn't work we did have to build up the skill to actually get good at the challenges. I don't really believe that, as I said above, and in any case boss encounters would have a reason to exist even if they were all just hitting Eggman once button. You must be reminded of why you're playing through all these stages in the first place. A sense of purpose is a narrative net gain all the way.
My thoughts about the Superstars bosses are a little weird. I kind of enjoyed all of them to various degrees the first time except the dragon due to the random elements/angle transitions removing rings I was about to collect. The elation and sense of achievement I got when I finally defeated Trip's final boss was unreal. It was similar to why I love the Dark Souls games so much; bashing my head against a brick wall until the wall finally breaks. I had a similar feeling to the end of the regular story's final boss as well. But the fact is that I basically never want to fight them again, at least for a long time. They're totally at odds with the replayability of Sonic games, and the longer challenging bosses for sure make me not want to replay the levels they're tied to, because they are tiring! So at the very least, these bosses shouldn't be tied into the acts themselves. There should be an option at the end of an act to skip the boss if it's your 2nd time playing, maybe by holding down the Y button or something. I'd personally enjoy these games letting you make a "playlist" of acts to go through in a row.
It's not a minigame, it's literally the climax of the act/zone. It should be the hardest part to beat. But this is exactly my point - you see it as a minigame at the end of the level, instead of its finale. No wonder you want to skip it. I think we should streamline the experience and cut out minigames. One. You only need one ring to cheese the boss. You only need one ring to cheese most bosses. And even if you got as far as Metropolis without understanding that and need a couple more, there's six right before the boss. I've watched enough people play through the classic games (on YouTube, Twitch, etc.) to know how they're commonly played. I've seen someone tackle Marble Garden Act 2, put all their effort into avoiding every single badnik like their life depended on it so they could get their ring total as high as possible, really make the most out of the level. And then when they get to the boss they instantly and deliberately jump into the drill and lose all their rings just so they can hit the boss seven times before he pulls the ground away and then deliver that last hit on him before he completes a single attack. You don't even need to damage boost to do this, but that's just what this player has learned in their playthroughs of the game. And that's not out of the ordinary. And I'm not even counting myself as separate from this - it's been a long time since I've seen a full cycle from any boss in GHZ, Marble, SYZ, EHZ, CPZ, HTZ, MCZ, Metropolis, AIZ1, AIZ2, HCZ2, MGZ1, MGZ2, MHZ1, MHZ2, SZ2, and S3K DEZ1. And almost everyone I see play, when they get to these bosses, completely ignore the attack patterns and just jump into the boss. Oh, you took damage? Just jump into him again, you won't take damage this time, you'll get three hits in and you'll probably pick up a couple of rings as you do it so you can take damage again and repeat it. There are a good number of bosses that players complain about, and you won't find them on that list, because they're ones that make you actually play them. And yes, lots of them do suck. I think Sonic 1 8-bit and Sonic CD did it best, and it's actually the model that 3D Sonic games follow. Bosses are their own act (with no rings in Sonic 1 8-bit's case) that you play after two normal acts. Then add the playlist feature (again, add it to 3D Sonic games too, hi Colours) and there you go.
It's one and a ton of work. So much work it's a skill unto itself. Don't get me wrong, I know it can be done. I also have seen my fair share of Sonic gameplay by all kinds of players, and players who do that ultimately can no longer do it unless they get so good at quickly grabbing rings and turning to the boss again that they might as well just not do it. You know if you have like three rings or less, chances are they'll fly off the screen or somewhere you can't feasibly chase them in time before you get hit again. And then you're fucked. Incidentally, bosses with long wait times or stationary objects neutralize that problem because there are obvious ring chasing/boss hitting phases and patterns, so they're counter-productive. But bosses that maintain a high tension level all throughout, like in Mushroom Hill Act 2 (or really autoscrolling bosses in general), Wing Fortress or Death Egg Act 2, or bosses with tricky arenas, like Casino Night, Angel Island Act 2 or Lava Reef Act 2 (which, unpopular opinion, I do like), benefit immensely from the way bosses in Sonic work.
In the classic games, I completely disagree. Walk into a boss from the left with a single ring and both Sonic and the ring will be thrown to the left in such a way that the ring basically lands on top of Sonic as soon as it can be collected again; you don't even need to chase it. I agree that autoscrolling bosses do help mitigate that problem, as do bosses with more unusual arenas. There's also a third category - bosses that you can't directly damage yourself, like Carnival Night 1, FBZ1, SZ1, and LRZ2. But only about a third of the bosses in the first list that fit any of these three categories; Marble, SYZ, CPZ, HTZ, AIZ2 and MGZ2 have unusual arenas (in that they're not just flat ground), and MHZ2 is an autoscroller. The other two thirds don't require any skill at all to cheese. MGZ2 and MHZ2 both have an additional issue in that they let you deal all the damage before the boss even starts, in a completely trivial way, that makes the entire boss pointless. And while I'm not against having a phase 1 that makes the phase 2 shorter, they both have a practically stationary "phase 1" that doesn't require any challenge to hit at all, and allow you to drain the boss health all the way down to needing only one hit. Of all games, Sonic 4 actually had a good solution to the problem of the one ring = infinite health problem. When you lose a ring that you've already recollected, not only do you drop it in a random direction, but also at a higher velocity each time. Can we do that in classic Sonic games? you monster
I feel like if you're gonna let me easily sequence break the levels, I should be able to easily sequence break the bosses as well. It's just consistent. Carnival Night's miniboss isn't really any more challenging just cause I have to wait for the beyblade to damage it, it's just a matter of having to wait a little longer. Personally I'm in favor of Metal Sonic Hyperdrive's simple solution of just giving the boss double the health. Outright encourages you to wail on em and have fun but you can never just outright skip them.
Maybe this is beside the point, but most of Superstars' bosses are very much cheesable thanks to the Emerald Powers Avatar and Bullet specifically are ridiculously busted
I dunno. They make landing hits on the boss during periods of vulnerability more trivial, sure, but it's not as if landing the hit during the period of vulnerability is the big issue with the bosses. It's the waiting between periods of vulnerability. In my experience, Emerald Powers like Avatar and Bullet get you one hit, and then by the time the boss can be hit again the Emerald Power has worn off. If these could get around the waiting periods I'd gladly call them cheesy.
Honestly this never really comes close to actually feeling like cheesing them. Sure, I worded it that way to myself mentally while playing, but they're clearly meant to be used in that way in a lot of cases and serve as a reward for emerald hunting as you progress. I don't think it's really comparable to the 'one ring' strategy.
I feel like besides these cases (yeah, not being able to hit the boss directly helps too; also Labyrinth isn't an autoscroller but it behaves as if it was because you'll just die if you don't keep moving), there are bosses that put you in such a situation that you can't hit them multiple times because you were hit. Aquatic Ruin comes to mind here: The cheese strategy involves standing at the top of the pillar, but getting hit either prevents that or doesn't matter. All in all I do acknowledge you can do it, but I maintain there will be bosses that will filter those who only do it, or who can't stack up enough lives because you're playing sloppily. And I think it's worth it to have them in any case. But yeah lost rings should behave more erratically the more you lose them, maybe even as the game goes on generally speaking.
