![]() ![]() There are a couple of Bowser fights before the game’s climax, but the third Bowser is the biggie. Super Mario 64 changed up the classic series formula by giving Mario a 3-D world for the first time ever, but despite the gameplay changes, one thing was the same: Bowser was a jerk. ![]() It’s a tale as old as time: plumber meets demonic turtle, demonic turtle kidnaps plumber’s girlfriend, plumber defeats demonic turtle. Super Mario 64 (1996, Nintendo 64/Wii/DS) It’s not something you easily forget.Įdited by: Mike Rougeau Essay by: Joshua Rivera List contributors: Brian Feldman, Stefanie Fogel, Phil Hornshaw, Sarah LeBouef, Julie Muncy, Max Read, Joshua Rivera, Jake Swearingen, Kaitlin Tremblay A good boss encounter elevates the game it’s in. Most important, however, was how vividly they lingered in our minds. Assembled by a committee of gaming journalists with various tastes, our rank factored in each enemy’s overall difficulty, the novelty of their fight mechanics, and their influence on subsequent games. That goes most for these 100 bosses, who have been providing gamers with shared war stories for more than 30 years. Bison or Psycho Mantis or Atheon, they’ve all served as finish lines, final examinations, and feats of collaboration. In a medium where individual experiences can now vary greatly - no two people play Minecraft the same way, nor do any two games of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds even remotely resemble one another - bosses remain a common experience, cultural touchstones for entire generations of games and the people who play them. What this big-bad revival reminds us is that we’re better off with bosses in our gaming lives. And there’s Destiny, a series that brought bosses back in a big way by borrowing ideas from massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, making them nigh-insurmountable challenges that required teamwork from a large group of players. Runaway sleeper hits like Shovel Knight and Hyper Light Drifter nakedly emulated and updated 8- and 16-bit sensibilities, where challenging levels were par for the course and boss fights took center stage. Souls and its sequels/spinoffs inspired countless imitators, like Lords of the Fallen and this year’s Nioh, to such an extent that ‘ Souls-like’ is now a genre descriptor. Demon’s Souls had already embraced the opaque design and challenges of classic games, adding names like Ornstein and Smough to the wince-inducing canon of legendary video-game big bads. Then a wave of nostalgia brought the boss back. Open-world and online games flourished, player choice became paramount, and boss fights in games that felt otherwise wide open - like the notoriously underwhelming boss confrontations in otherwise acclaimed games such as Bioshock or Deus Ex: Human Revolution - ended up feeling like dead weight. Bosses were effectively bottlenecks at a time where games were expanding. Until somewhat recently, it seemed as if the concept of the video-game boss was on its last legs. It’s both Destiny 2’s biggest challenge and mystery, and for the past week the game’s community of players has been racing to square off with Leviathan’s mysterious boss, six people at a time. That’s the name of the game’s marquee Raid, a massive, sprawling level that explains almost nothing about how to beat it, and requires teamwork among six players to solve its riddles and take down whatever boss lies at the end. I didn't think I was going to beat it, but the round that I did I found myself about to be stuck in a corner so I just hoped for the best and won.Last week, Destiny 2, a highly anticipated online shooter that’s best played with friends, raised the curtain on a mystery it had been teasing for weeks leading up to the game’s early September release: the Leviathan. At first, I wasn't making much progress against the boss. The first few times I used this, I was mostly surprised I got that far without any trouble. When the Ghostwave fires, the wave basically knocks out anything that would just barely sneak by the tail end of the Flamethrower.Īfter that, it's just a slowly uphill battle. Flamethrower basically is a shield in back while the turrets and missiles take out anything that the lasers didn't manage to destroy. Take a look for yourself, if you would like. Having Pod Laser right next to Laser basically gives you lasers that fire off and swing around together. Slot B: Ghostwave 21 (1470 atk - definitely nice to have fire off)Īt one point, I was using Freezer, but only until I saved up enough for Pod Laser. Slot A: Pod Laser 6 (455 atk, I believe - I have upgraded it 4 times in infinite so it's at 10 now but the jumps are 75 per level, I believe) In order of slots, clockwise from whatever starting point you choose: I finally managed to beat it, and here's my setup, which easily got me to the final boss.then it was just a matter of outlasting. ![]()
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