The Comeback of the Pokemon Elite Four! The Elite Four League in Pokémon have seen better and worse days - until Generation VII brought new life to the Pokemon League. With the new features of the Elite Four and Champions of Pokemon Sun and Moo

Smash Ultimate Makes Bowser a Better Boss

Feb 13th, 2019 6m 36s

Smash Ultimate Makes Bowser a Better Boss! When Super Smash Bros. adapted Bowser for a boss fight, it had to keep his famous battle progression from the Super Mario series while also changing the format from a platformer to a fighting game. To

Smash Ultimate Makes Kirby's Marx Even Better

Feb 6th, 2019 7m 31s

Smash Ultimate Makes Kirby’s Marx Even Better! Marx is one of Kirby’s most famous bosses, so when HAL Laboratory adapted him as a boss in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, they had big shoes to fill. Luckily, this Smash boss fight in the World of Lig

Kirby Star Allies Saved Meta Knight

Jan 30th, 2019 8m 48s

Kirby Star Allies Saved Meta Knight! Meta Knight was always the antihero of the Kirby series - but in recent games, HAL Laboratory drifted away from using him in that way. That was until the 2018 release of Kirby Star Allies on the Nintendo Swi

King Dedede Keeps Getting Better

Jan 23rd, 2019 6m 34s

King Dedede Keeps Getting Better! King Dedede has been a staple boss in Kirby ever since appearing as the final boss in Dreamland - but how does HAL Laboratory keep him so interesting and memorable? Let’s look at how his story inclusions across

Bosses That Keep You Coming Back Post-Game

Jan 16th, 2019 5m 39s

Bosses that keep you coming back post-game! Designing a post-game is tough to do for an RPG - so here are three different approaches to making great bosses after the story mode. Grinding gets boring, so here are bosses to fill your time after t

Masahiro Sakurai's Bizarre Approach to Final Bosses

Jan 9th, 2019 7m 31s

Masahiro Sakurai's Bizarre Approach to Final Bosses in World of Light! Ever since Super Smash Bros Brawl's Subspace Emissary, these adventure mode final bosses have been a great part of the SSB series. Now, in World of Light mode, the new final

What Makes a Good Smash Bros Boss?

Jan 2nd, 2019 7m 20s

What Makes a Good Super Smash Bros Boss? There've been plenty of Smash Bros bosses over its history, but what makes one of these boss fights great? To answer this, let's looks at the evolution of Super Smash Bros bosses and see what worked, and

Did Color Splash's Bosses Have to Be Bad?

Dec 26th, 2018 7m 55s

The bosses in Paper Mario Color Splash are a problem, but how could we fix it? It’s easy to talk about why boss battles with the Koopalings here are bad, but let’s also see where these fights could have been better within the story and gameplay

Toby Fox's Genius Approach to Final Bosses

Dec 19th, 2018 6m 32s

Toby Fox has made fantastic final boss fights in Undertale and Deltarune [or Undertale 2]. How does he design a final boss battle? By concluding themes, the Chaos King and Sans fights become the best battles in both games and serve as perfect c

Why We Need to Hate Our Pokémon Rivals

Dec 12th, 2018 6m 44s

We need to hate our Pokémon rivals! Blue and Silver are perfect examples of this done well, but the recent trailers for Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee show that GameFreak is abandoning this concept for... Trace. Here's why we should dislike our riv

What Makes a Great Pokémon Gym Leader?

Dec 5th, 2018 8m 45s

Pokémon gyms are an iconic staple of the series - but what makes for the best gym leaders? We’re studying every region from a main series Pokémon game and learning how it’s own merits and/or pitfalls teach us how to make a great gym battle. Fro

Building On Inspiration: Fan Game Bosses

Nov 28th, 2018 11m 37s

Nintendo has some of the most influential games on the market, so it's no surprise that they also have their fair share of fan games. From Pokémon Uranium to AM2R, we're taking a look at how these bosses use their inspiration, and how we should

Repurposing a Boss the Right Way

Nov 7th, 2018 5m 29s

Players look down on reusing boss battles, but there are proper ways to implement these fights while still keeping some level of original context. Today, we're looking at the Donkey Kong series and how it tackles recontextualizing v. reusing a

Should Minecraft Have Bosses?

Oct 31st, 2018 7m 42s

Minecraft has been a juggernaut since 2011, but does that transfer over to boss battles? Today we are looking at the Ender Dragon and the Wither fights to see how these boss fights compare to the rest of the gameplay. Hello everyone, I'm Skip t

Are Mario Party Bosses Worth It?

Oct 24th, 2018 6m 21s

Mario Party 10 made some weird game decisions, and its boss fights definitely fell that way. Following after the Mario Party 9, this Wii U game looked into boss battle minigames - which mean some weird game design blends. So let's look into thi

Accounting for the Random in Roguelikes

Oct 17th, 2018 6m 54s

Roguelikes are all over the place, to say the least. From gems like Enter the Gungeon, to Dead Cells, and especially Edmund McMillen's Binding of Isaac, there's been so many great indie developed roguelikes (or roguelites, depending on who you

Boss Rushes and Why We Need Power Trips

Oct 10th, 2018 7m 45s

Boss rushes offer some of the greatest final experiences in gaming, so we're talking about Mega Man 2 and Shovel Knight's examples in this one! Are power trips worthwhile in gaming? Let's assess that today in this action platformer themed episo

Designing a Mario Kart Boss - 7 Tips

Oct 3rd, 2018 7m 32s

Remember when Mario Kart had bosses? Today we take a look at that part of the Mario Kart series history and looks at the 7 DS bosses to see what we can learn about boss design - especially for racing games. Pick up your steering wheel and let's

What Makes a Good Platformer Boss?

Sep 26th, 2018 7m 51s

Designing a platformer boss is tough, so today we’re looking at how to design a good platforming boss based off three bowser Boss battles from New Super Mario Bros Wii, Super Mario 3D Land, and Super Mario 3D World. These boss fights teach a lo

Monster Hunter PERFECTS Repetition

Sep 19th, 2018 5m 26s

With the recent release of Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate finally on the Nintendo Switch, I just had to talk about the boss design in one of my favorite video game series. From the bombastic set pieces of the big budget Monster Hunter Worl

Ditching the Zelda Boss Formula in Breath of the Wild

Sep 12th, 2018 4m 8s

Breath of the Wild didn't just earn all of its Game of the Year awards for no reason. By switching the series from a linear and straightforward progression to an open world playstyle, the bosses were forced to change in tandem. For better or fo

How King K Rool Surprises with the Mundane

Sep 5th, 2018 3m 44s

King K Rool stands as one of the most iconic video game villains of all time, especially for Nintendo baddies. Because of this, I just had to analyze my favorite fight of the big croc's in anticipation for the new smash bros! Here is my breakdo

Tinker Knight and PREPARING for MISDIRECTION

Aug 29th, 2018 4m 24s

If I had to pick just one thing that stuck out me the most from Shovel Knight, it would have to be the game's brilliant boss design, and out of the Order of No Quarter, my favorite fight falls to Tinker Knight. The main reason for this definite

Bowser Should NOT Be the Final Boss in Super Mario Odyssey

Aug 22nd, 2018 6m 23s

Super Mario Odyssey left a big impact when it released in 2017; however, when this epic journey concluded, the final fight felt underwhelming, to say the least. Because of this, I firmly believe that its better suited to call the game's final l