What Makes A Great Double Boss Fight?
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
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If one thing good, then two thing... more good. Right?
Yeah, kinda. Double bosses are a unique fight form factor that can make for memorable encounters, but there are unique pitfalls to avoid that can depend on what type of double boss you're trying to make. Let's go over some!
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Oh YES Please do Triple/Group Bosses I would Love your take on Bosses where a group of enemies work together, either sharing HP, action economy, parts of a build, or working like a pole position game like Darkest Dungeon where the boss might have multiple targeted parts that are basically their own boss.
I refuse.
In the triple bosses you should go over the servants. Eutrepe, kleio and calliope. From the lighthouse in deadcells.
@@dragondracoon7975 yes that fight is SO good! but I kinda feel like they didn't have synergy, it feels like I'm just fighting the 3 with them having no connection among themselves. but still really good
literally touhou 16 stage 4 has you fight midbosses solo before the stage 4 boss. then they appear in stage 5 as a double boss. they were easy enough to fight solo, but when you fight them as a duo, their swirl and zigzag patterns overlap and really throw you off. I personally tear hair our when i see them appear and say... please say i have enough bombs for the entire fight
One cool thing about double bosses is when they do combination attacks that utilize their unique attributes. Master Hand and Crazy Hand are a good example with many of their attacks making use of the fact that they're just hands: they rub against each other to create static electricity and form a dog-shaped shadow puppet among other things.
Also their personality shines through their animations and attacks
In MHW, Lunastra and Teostra's bond attack was a surprise for me when I first encountered it. It was astonishing, and then my face melted off.
I believe Kirby had an boss fight wiht king deedeee and mega knight I saw a comic dub about it. The move mentioned in that comic was where meta knight clones him selves and the king suck him up and then spit them right back at ya!(anime reference)
@@BlobFishSucksAtThings That was in Kirby Fighter’s 2’s story mode where Kirby and a friend have a 2 v 2 match against Dedede and MetaKnight who are now best friends
@@itsturniptime3699 Thank you for informing me about that
One of the bosses getting mad or sad when you beat the other one and then becoming stronger than the two combined is one of my favorite types of these fights.
Oblobbles
@@adriankapeel140 screw oblobbles
Smougg and oristein are like that.
Except the smough part
Like Shades and Smiley from Enter The Gungeon!
I like the sorta reverse of where the duo you fight are mocking/throwing jabs at each other. Lol
The Mantis Lords will forever remain my favorite HK boss. The way they fight in tandem is so satisfying
im late but especially sisters of battle it's pretty mesmerizing
Yeah im sad the fight isnt more challenging though
@@ruff1ei mean there is ascended and radiant version
And dont forget sisters of battle
@@ihavenoidea1304 no hitting the basic mantis lords easy, ive done it no charms or upgrades of any kind many times, sisters of battle also pretty easy
@@ruff1e i mean it is early boss, so its understandable, GOD i wish there was abbility to make bosses harder (outside of challenges)
The Twins in Terraria is an interesting double boss where not only are they both modified versions of a previous boss, but they fill different roles and it punishes you for not focusing down one of them by making them both really difficult if they are both on phase 2 at the same time. Sort of like the reverse of the DMC boss fight in the video.
Plus they combo really well, Spaz harnesses the power of the corruption and spews Cursed flames at close range and eventually becomes a flamethrower while he charges at you aggressively, while Retinazer is a Ranged Threat who plays more aggressive early on but as the fight progresses becomes a Ranged Threat shooting people down with its laser barrages
The thing about Terraria is that a lot of the weapons are AoE, too, so if you're not landing your shots on the twin you want to take down, you're going to have to deal with both of their powered-up versions or dedicate your attacks to the other target so you don't have double-trouble.
i love that boss best robot boss
Calamity wants you to fight them while 2nd Stage
@@derspinner6832 oh man Calamity…… the twins are actually a bit of a threat since the twins have to be fought in phase 2 most of the time and have a third deadlier phase later on…. And don’t get me started on Infernum (May their future projects be successful)
The final encounter with Galeem and Dharkon in Smash Ultimate is a really unique take on this concept. Little surprise from the series that's been perfecting the mechanics of a double boss fight since Melee, thanks to the Hands.
The two kaiju-sized bosses aren't really fighting you at all - they're mortal enemies fighting EACH OTHER, with the Smash fighters in the way as collateral damage. Any time you put one in a vulnerable state, you need to punish quickly and then back off, as the other one will be pushing for a devastating follow-up as well. And their attacks have been carefully designed, thanks to the sheer size difference, to be tough but fair; any possible combination is avoidable with the correct screen placement and dodge timing.
Accordingly with the lore, focusing on defeating one first will make the battle much harder, as the remaining one no longer has the distraction of its foe and can focus all its most devastating attacks on you. The entire fight thus becomes about carefully managing both of their health bars, so you can defeat both Light and Dark in as quick succession as possible and restore balance.
funny how people praise this fight yet despise absolute radiance, which is designed in a similar vein yet people complain it is bs and rng
What's cool about that fight is that not only do they attack each other when they are vulnerable, but all their attacks hurt each other. So you can get one to target you and get that attack to hurt the other boss for more damage. It gives the fight a risk/reward situation where you risk getting hit with the reward being a lot more damage to the boss than you could do.
@@Xeamless probably because ones more lenient then the other, I mean smash has a bunch of characters you could be and a TON of spirit combos, so it has to account for a ton of variables
@@Xeamless do you mean the HK boss? Because I don’t ever see that absrad targeting anyone but the knight
@@thanoid2373 Something being hard does not equal bad
I think Dark Souls 3's double bosses deserve some attention in a follow-up. Lorian and Lothric, Sister Friede and Father Ariandel, and the Demon Prince are some of the most well-designed I've experienced and definitely the gold standard for double boss fights in the series.
Demon Prince is not talked about enough, and I have no idea why. Everything about that fight is perfection. The setting, the music, the scale, the boss design, both versions of the fight when one gets powered up is incredible. I think it just gets overshadowed by Midir and Gael but that just goes to show how amazing the Ringed City bosses were. Demon Prince has to be the best duo boss in the series, at least imo.
Agreed. Those are some of the best fights in the game, for sure!
honestly some of the most fun ive had in souls games, made me fall in love with them even more
And on the flip side, the Foreskin Duo in Elden Ring is fucking garbage
Ornstein and smough are significantly better than lorian & lothric and Freide & Father Ariandel, Lorian and Lothric is literally just the first phase but now it has a projectile, shit boss, and Freide and ariandel is literally just first phase freide except she barely gets close and just shoots really easy to dodge ice and Ariandel just smashes down big pot which is also really easy to dodge
Demon Princes are the only competition for Ornstein and Smough, they're a really tough boss and killing one makes the other stronger, but then killing that one makes it even stronger, really underrated boss
I like it when the two bosses interact with each other, maybe they start playing ping pong with a projectile, maybe one grabs you so the other can aim at you, maybe one pulls the other towards you, or one puts a temporary shield on the other. Is really neat.
Does that include the Komodo brothers in the Crash Bandicoot games?
@@jedediahfuller1940 yes, one making the other into a weapon and then attacking him with his brother is kind of that interaction I like.
Theseus and Asterius from Hades and Oro and Mato from Hollow Knight are examples of this. When I fight them and they do a combo, I dont even get mad. It's fun looking at combo attacks
Argoyle and uguyle do exactly this, one of my favourite interactions of doble bosses has to be kaguya and mokou from mystical chain, its not a double boss against you is just that you got in the middle of them while they are fighting each other and when you knock one of them down the other laughs
this reminds me of the frog bosses in cuphead
I quite enjoyed fighting Lancer and Susie in Deltarune chapter 1, the fact that they covered for each others "weaknesses" when it came to sparing made it an interesting challenge.
Another really important angle on the Ornstein & Smough fight is the implications it has for the rest of your run. You'll only have access to the weapon and armor set of the one you killed last, and each has its own uses depending on your character build. Choosing one permanently locks the other, so the choice isn't just about how you want the fight to go, but potentially your entire playthrough.
I can confirm. I really wanted Ornstein's armor cause I think it looks cool, but his 2nd phase is really difficult. I ended up leaving Smough last cause his 2nd phase I found more mangaeble. My reward? An armor set I found kinda goofy to wear (looks cool on Smough, not on me. I wore the gauntlents though) and a hammer with redicillous Strength requirements that my character couldn't use.
@@leithaziz2716 I spent ages learning that fight purely so I could get Ornstein's armour and it felt so good when I finally beat him.
and unfortunately there is no way to know that without the wiki
@@WhalesLoveSmash There's a way: Play the game differently next time.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 Not everyione not everyone will be able to do that though, but ithink it’s fine either way so long as the armor sets arent the best choices and you arent gonna not have any better options later. I do think some late game way to get the other at some point may be good but it does remove the novelty.
When typing this every single letter appears over the space of one word so not only can i not see what im typing but i cant edit it easily. It does look really cool though.
If we're talking Triple Bosses, the Elite Trio from Mario and Luigi: Dream Team is a great example. They each have their own function in the fight (healing each other, calling in hoards of smaller enemies, mixing up other attacks, ect), as well as teaming up together in interesting ways. It creates a really interesting dynamic where you can't focus down one, and have to account for each member in your strategy. It's also one of the most difficult fights in the whole series, especially because, in order to win, you have to take out all 3 of them at the same time. The only example I can think of for a triple boss, and an insanely clever use of the concept
I mean sisters of battle were something too
It’s been so long since I’ve played dream team, I completely forgot about this boss. I also vaguely remember there being a fight in this game where kamel duplicated himself into 4, though given how vague the memory is, it must not have been that memorable of a fight.
@@voltron77 Yes. Those bosses were really fun.
The worst of those is those three idiots in God of War Ragnarok. So annoying.
@@ianjohnson218 This one isn't that much interesting tho, since it's just four kameks with different abilities and not real combination or consequences of beating one before another
I still think one of the coolest themes for a double boss is the Mario and Luigi memory boss fight in Bowser's Inside Story, where you have to fight Bowser's memory of the brothers AS Mario and Luigi, where the memories exhibit basic traits of a player character, like sometimes fucking up action commands or reviving the other brother if they go down. Plus, there's some cute characterization through things like the Luigi memory being able to run away temporarily or how they'll use power-ups as attacks that you need to dodge or block.
I love how they handle boss fights in general in that game. while not technically double boss fights, there are plenty of times where bowser's fighting the big boss in the overworld, then he inhales a part of the boss, for mario and luigi to do some damage and progress the fight further
@@MaweoGames arguably, they are functionally double bosses, as they have completely different mechanics when fighting inside bowser versus as bowser
I also love how mem-Luigi will run away from danger until his bro is knocked out at which he’ll refuse to abandon his brother no matter what you do to him.
It’s cute but that fight is soooo annoying
@@WyGuy2087 and it sucks if you forget to save beforehand, since it takes places right after an even more annoying boss
Ko-Shi and Ro-Shi is one of my absolute favorite bosses in Nier Automata
They could've easily just made a slow climb up the tower, with a few enemies and items every now and then, but they gave us a great boss fight with story significance and makes the climb WAY more interesting
Yoko Taro rarely disappoints
I've only just now noticed that, together, their name would be Ko-Ro-Shi, which means kill(?) in Japanese
yeah, that seemed like a VERY cool idea and fight
@@drowned2204 definitely
Especially with the game switching between A2 and 9S
Allows you to go through both of their stories and see how they end up together at the top of the tower, for the final battle, along with their two different play styles
My favorite thing about the Mantis Lords in Hollow Knight is how beautiful the battle is, one time I was playing in a friends house, it was me playing, and three friends that didn't knew the game, they weren't paying attention, and all four of us were chatting, and I entered the battle with the Mantis Lords, halfway through, when you face two sisters at once, silence, the three of them were dead silent, watching me battle( at this point I ha already finished the game and the pantheon of hollownest, so that battle was easy for me), I finished without taking damage, and they looked at me and said how incredible that fight was, it was like a dance, a proud moment for my gamer self.
i know right! i love the fight so much, absolutely a dance
Finally mastering the rhythm for the Mantis Lords fight was so, so satisfying.
@@RadicalKingJames I think this is what makes this boss so memorable. The fun of much bosses resides in mastering them so they are not challenges anymore and then you can just move on whereas the Mantis Lord are still a pleasure to fight because it is once you learned their fight perfectly that you can freely appreciate it.
The reward isn't only the satisfaction of beating the challenge but also to feel your improvement and have fun with it.
I love that boss, it was a masterpiece. Winning it wasn't an attrition fight like how some were for me. After I learnt their kit, I felt like one of the mantis lords, being able to dance around to the rhythm.
Triple boss fight incoming
Yeah, The Twins from Terraria should definitely not go unnoticed. These two play around really well with the attacks that each of them have, utilize each other's advantages and try to protect each other from their disadvantages. Retinazer prefers to stay far away and blast you with its laser whilst Spazmatism forces you to constantly stay on your toes and never slow down. Plus the fact that each of them have two phases really make them stick out even further than they already do. Honestly, the Don't Starve Together remake ''The Twins of Terror'' really doesn't do them much justice. Their mere existence is enough of a godsend already, but the boss(es) had an insane amount of potential and I'm sad that the developers didn't play that much around with the source material they had. If they did, they would make me love this already one of my favorite bosses of Terraria, _even more_ so than I already did.
good call!
i think the twins from terraria are very simple but very effective, you fought the eye of Cthulhu before, so you know that when they get to half HP the fight changes, so you don't want both of them to reach half HP together and want to finish one off completely, thing is, is very hard to not damage one of them, so it become a battle of not only choosing your target, but also avoiding hurting the other one as much as possible
Yeah, I was hoping for those to make an appearance in the video.
I have scrolled so far to find another Terraria fan... Now, my take as a Calamity player: The Leviathan and Anahita.
its pretty easy to just focus on spazmatism (the harder twin) while retinazer remains helpless
which is where modded difficulties come in (eternity, rev/death, infernum)
the twins are such an amazing bossfight that no one really talks about. their attacks are very simple yet they compliment each other so well, they use so little projectiles yet give you so little space to move around. terraria being such a sandbox-y game makes it kind of hard to make a boss feel super satisfying to pull off since they usually can't balance it around a certain moveset but the twins just manage it anyway
@@a-listgamer7873 Jesus bro can u go 5 minutes without sucking off calamity for once. Leviathan and anahita are like 2 𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕪 bosses that u fight together for no reason and their attacks don't work with each other at all . Plus the mod is dead anyway all the good devs (especially iban) left n they added a bunch of furry mfs and Crabbar for some reason?? To the dev team even tho they're not qualified in the slightest
Thank you for mentioning Bug Fables, I think the game deserves much more recognition than it gets. Also on the topic of multi-bosses, you could've also mentioned the sparring match against team Maki (even though that's a triple-bossfight), they have each a designated role, they combo their attacks together, support/buff eachother and they have tons of interactions between eachother depending on which one of them you target. It's easily one of the most interesting bossfights the game has to offer.
One double boss fight I don't think many would think of is Galeen and Dharkon in Smash Ultimate.
I think it's interesting how you fight them both and they attack each other too. Bosses that damage each other is pretty different.
definitely agree, and I think there is some good decision making in that you can prioritize whichever one you find harder to deal with (galeem for me) but they still each have a fair share of difficult attacks.
I totally forgot that you fought both at the same time due to how long WoL is. Such a bummer they never implemented a proper boss rush mode cause that ending sequence was pretty great.
@@DesignDoc You'll need to buy Sephiroth for an easily accessible Boss Rush :(
@@Sebby_Nineteen Sephiroth's boss rush isn't even what I'm looking for. Aside from being locked to playing Sephiroth, the bosses are significantly easier and you don't even fight all of them.
@@DesignDoc Yes, agreed. Not a good enough substitute.
Meta Knight with Dedede
Such a Great Double Boss where two movesets are mixed together so well that it creates a fight that is completely separate from the originals. They mix attacks and use separat attacks that both of them are good at. It’s just so perfect in my eyes. There are more double battles in Kirby fighters 2 but this one in my eyes gets the crown
and you HAVE to talk about the three mage sisters in the triple boss section. They are amazing
Another way double bosses can work in a game is for the fight to revolve around their relationship with each other. In UNDERTALE you come across two guards in Hotland, and if you want to complete the battle in a Pacifist run you need to convince the first guard to confess their true feelings to the second guard.
And if you kill them, you get a different result depending on which one you killed first. The remaining one either flies into a rage & becomes far more dangerous or becomes so depressed it's barely a fight anymore.
Yes. Perfection. Undertale is good.
@@D_YellowMadness that’s actually the fight against dogamy and dogaressa
@@chrisgarrett6305 They both play out the same way bc same personality type/trope for double bosses. Either gets harder or gets easier to guilt trip you
Dogamy and Dogaressa are actually still fairly different to the Guards, since Dogamy stops attacking entirely and Guard 01's attacks get shaky and become harder to dodge (Dogaressa and 02 both speed up so they have no major difference if you taje that route)
one that I think deserves a spot on this list is "Killing Two Birds" from A Hat in Time's death wish mode. It combines the conductor and DJ groves into one fight, and since they are pretty much the same boss mechanically, their attacks overlap really well together. This makes for a hard, but not aggravating, challenge. also, having the two rivals fight you in unison is so freaking cool.
A fun double boss that really exploits its theme into the design would be the secret boss from the Cuphead DLC.
The one you're facing is the only one that can hurt you, but they'll both be attacking, so you have to play a careful dance to avoid facing one at the wrong time.
That sounds like the elite in act 4 of slay the spire, sword and shield. The one you aren’t facing doubles 1.5x damage, while they both cycle through moves to do huge damage, buff each other, and de-buff you. Who you are facing is determined by the last one you target so you have to balance defensive play (which is dependent on your offensives moves) and prioritizing one to burst it down as fast as possible before your de-buffs and their buffs get out of hand.
In Deep Rock Galactic, the Dreadnought Arbalast and Larcerator twin boss fight is pretty cool. Not only do both have different attacks and fighting styles, but if you damage one more than the other, then they'll enter an invulnerable state where the healthier twin sacrifices a bit of health to regen the other. They also periodically burrow underground so that you can't target them. This makes for an interesting fight that requires good coordination with your fellow dwarves in order to make sure you don't activate their heal, which can waste time and ammo.
Agreed.
ROCK AND STONE BROTHER I AGREE
Another thing to bear in mind with the health sharing is that while they are equalizing health, the one being healed gains more health than its sibling loses. So not only is time and ammo being wasted by the invulnerable state, you now also have a bit more total health to work through.
I'm so glad you mentioned the Nier Automata fight. That switching back and forth between characters made it stand out as one of the most memorable boss fights ever.
My very first JRPG and goddamn was it a hell of a good time in that fight. And not only was that fight so good, but the switching between characters and fights changing to still swapping but now fighting together made the true final boss that much more emotional. Worked out perfectly.
ya, it cool & remind me o final in ben10 game: malware, his op fucher self, & both @ once! ...But in last, beat 1->hit ither 2 retry fin blow seaqince
Popple's boss fights where he has an ally are interesting if you defeat him first his ally gets buff but if you defeat his ally first he just fleas from the fight.
The triple mantis lords fight, wehre they all attack at once, is my favourite fight ever made in any videogame ever.
There is a frenetic rhythm to that fight that is just really cool; it almost feels like a dance. Haven't touched Hollow Knight in a few years now and I can still visualize that fight in my head.
The mantis lords singlehandedly caused my HK burnout back in 2021. I could’ve tried to get to Deepnest another way but I liked the idea of earning the mantises’ respect.
@@samboi123 have you tried Elden Ring then 🌚 master burnout there
@@DerpiestK9 I know better than to try, HK was hard enough for me lmao
I like the rhino & scorpion double boss more than the Electro & Vulture one in Insomniac's Spider-Man.
I think it comes from its greater interactivity. With Electro & Vulture; they're both just attacking you in the sky, but you're just fighting two bosses.
Meanwhile, with Rhino & Scorpion, not only is there 3-way banter, but they're as much a threat to each other as they are you - which makes the fight feel more fun & dynamic
I like double bosses that force you to rethink your approach if you had already fought the individuals prior. Though rewarding you if you exploit their new weaknesses. Like deflecting an attack into their partner.
The twins in terraria are like this if you consider the Eye of Cthulhu to be fighting the individuals prior.
The first half of the twins fight uses the same basic charge attack as the eye but faster, and 1 eye stays directly over you and the other stays on your y level. The original eye has a second phase at half health where it summons minions (and in expert modes gains a jump scare dash attack), but the twins have a different set of second halves. The eye that is above you gains a laser minigun and starts raining laser bullets on you. The eye that matches your height gains a flamethrower that inflicts a more powerful fire debuff and basically never turns off, it is not recommended to split damage on your first attempt to kill them with a character because the second phases deal way more damage and are constantly pinser attacking you with ranged damage.
Admittedly basically every terraria boss is delt with by evading its attacks because tanking the damage is unrealistic.
Small correction on that last bit - you *do* want to damage both twins at once, if possible, up to a point.
Most attacks have AoE, so it's a good idea wear both down to the 60-70% range, then finish off spazmatism (as it's pretty much universally agreed to be the more threatening of the two, even with spazmatism in phase 1 and retinazer in phase 2) without putting retinazer into its second phase. Doing it like that saves time as AoE attacks don't generally lose damage if you hit multiple things with it at once, which makes the fight easier (as they get less attacks off due to dying faster) and can even be crucial to killing them in time (as they flee at sunrise).
Of course, that's assuming you *can* do that. In either Expert mode or with the Calamity mod (I forget which, sorry), you *can't* kill either until both are in phase 2. You'll still want to get spasmatism as low as possible before switching to retinazer, though.
It's a very good example of the fight being more of a breeze after one part goes down. Retinazer can still kill you, so you can't let your guard down, but the fight becomes substantially easier.
Galeem + Dharkon as mentioned elsewhere in this comments section come to mind
I like how Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story handled the unique double boss that is Dark Bowser and Dark Fawful at the end. The switching between Bowser fighting Dark Bowser, and the internal fight with the Mario Bros and Dark Fawful, with the internal fight influencing the outer one, provided a fun and challenging balance I really enjoy replaying. One of my saves in that game is set right before that fight because it's just so much fun to do. There are some similar fights earlier in the game, but that final boss confrontation is just so epic and well done that I find myself going back to it frequently
I think Sisters of Battle is one of the best bossfights in any game I've ever played. It's not too difficult to the point where you don't feel like trying it again, but it's hard enough to the point where you feel good beating it. Not to mention the fast paced combat in this bossfight makes you feel like a god. Couple that with the sound track and it's easily one of the best bossfights ever.
Edit: Same thing with Theseus and Asterius, good sound track + fast paced combat makes for a high adrenaline bossfight. During runs I try and center my builds around that bossfight. I find it even harder than the Hades bossfight. There's just barely any breathing room.
Wait what is sisters of battle? Is it when you fight the furies all together?
@@ThePaulineu Yes.
@@ThePaulineu 4:38 these are the sisters of battle
@@ThePaulineu no sisters of battle is in Hollow Knight.
I remember when I first defeated the Mantis Lords (in the base game of Hollow Knight), I felt both relieved and a teensy bit disappointed though that it didn't end up being a 3v1 battle.
What a pleasant surprise to meet the Sisters of Battle then in the Pantheons! Especially because they were introduced with the same title card of "Mantis Lords." When the first mantis stood back up from the throne, I was so hyped!
God, Hollow Knight is so flipping jam-packed with amazing bosses.
i’m surprised you didn’t mention how terribly the godskin duo is handled in elden ring, or the twin gargoyles in that game. the souls series is very interesting to look at for duo boss fights. there’s amazing bosses like ornate and smough, and even simple bosses that work well like the dragon rider duo in ds2, and even sister friede and father ariandel. it’s very interesting to see how it’s been handled throughout the course of the games
both fights are balanced its not that hard
@@Xyearo Seeing as the best Strat to beating them is a bug I wouldn't say that. More importantly they didn't say they're hard, they said they're badly handled.
Yeah, considering how amazing Demon Princes and Friede+Father was, it was incredibly disappointing seeing those two fights. They don’t work together at all. You can tell Duo was rushed in development because one of the “fixes” they applied after release was just making one more passive while the other was attacking lol. They didn’t really bother to make them coordinate with each other and it really shows. Twin gargoyles I never really had trouble with, it was just really boring and had nothing interesting or memorable. The only bad design choice was the poison, but it’s not much of an issue.
I found god’s skin duo to be incredibly easy… but those gargoyles in DS2 are cock and ball torture.
the trouble wih Elden Ring in general is that a large number of bosses are then relegated to regular enemies and ALL of the multi bosses are simply previous bosses put together
Godskin Duo gets the most attention mainly because it's actually mandatory (even though strangely, none of the other Godskin fights are)
Kotake and Koume from Zelda is what I'd rather say is a normal boss fight with two bodies, but presented as a double boss fight. It never feels as if you're fighting two bosses, but a single one with a disjointed hitbox.
I'd say the same thing about Ribby and Croaks from Cuphead, and they were briefly onscreen in the video. Sure, there are two of them, but they share a single health bar (not that you can see it without modding the game). They effectively are one boss with a disjointed hitbox. In the first phase, they're standing right next to each other and effectively have a single large hitbox anyway. In the final phase, they literally combine into one boss. The fact that they share health alone would be enough to make it feel less like a double boss fight, and in two of the three phases, the don't even have disjointed hitboxes.
3:33 their upgraded version is one of my favorite bosses from Hollow Knight. It makes that fight feel like a dance because it is so fluent.
My favorite double boss is the final fight in Castlevania PoR. Fighting Death and Dracula at the same time blew my mind back in the day.
This is also my pick.
Definitely. Best Dracula fight in the series imho.
Same here. I was surprised it didn't make an appearance in this video. Dracula soul-stealing Death was a really nice touch.
A double that is also the final boss, and a twist on the mechanic you've been using the whole time- it is indeed a fine example of a boss, even if Dracula's characterization is quite thin here compared to games like Symphony.
Kirby Fighters 2 is a great example of this concept, Meta Knight and King Dedede use multiple combo moves
I think it's a shame that Kirby footage was used multiple times as examples of lazy double bosses (especially considering those were all midbosses), so I'd like to bring up an excellent Kirby double boss: Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright, who appear in both Kirby's Adventure (and its remake) and Kirby's Dream Land 2.
Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright take the form of a miniature moon and sun respectively, and their battle consists of the two swapping roles repeatedly-at any given time one of the two is on the ground jumping around and rolling into Kirby, while the other makes ranged attacks from above while invulnerable. Since they alternate invulnerability like this, the player can't focus on one of them at a time.
While Mr. Shine is in the sky, he moves from left to right while periodically shooting beams straight down, forcing Kirby to keep moving. While Mr. Bright is in the sky, star projectiles rain down at random angles, forcing Kirby to watch the top of the screen so he can dodge in time.
This means that the player has to simultaneously avoid the melee attacks of the grounded boss while trying to damage it, and while also avoiding projectiles from above. Then the bosses switch places and you do the same thing with a different attack pattern. This is especially fun if you do it without a copy ability, as you'll need to inhale the flying boss' projectiles to spit at the grounded boss.
Even when one of the two is defeated, the battle doesn't get easier; it just stays in the surviving boss' phase for the rest of the fight, the defeated boss continuing to do its projectile attacks.
Oh, and in the Dream Land 2 version, there's another attack-the two move next to each other, and Mr. Shine performs a screen nuke attack. The player needs to move so that Mr. Bright is between Kirby and Mr. Shine, as Mr. Bright creates a solar eclipse that stops the damage wave in that direction.
If you haven't checked it out yet, I'd recommend Dedede and Meta Knight's fight in Fighters 2. They have perfect synergy between each other, especially in contrast to the previous fake clone fights with them earlier.
I love feeling that alternating rhythm, it feels like the enemies are fighting as one rather than two individual presence
Demon Prince(s) from DS3 is a perfect example of a fair and balanced double boss fight and you get a 1v1 at the end.
Came to the comments to mention this fight. O&S gets all the attention (and deserves most of it), but I think the Demon Princes are the best duo fight From has ever done
I do think Ornstein and Smough edges out better in mixing presentation, music and mechanics for an overall more impactfull experience, especially as it caps off the 1st half of the game. Mechanically, yes, Demon Prince is the best duo fight so far. Which makes it confusing how Fromsoft forgot what they learned when they made the godskin and gargoyle duo in ER.
That boss is so great, for me the greatest duo boss in the series
still wonder what went wrong with the terrible design choices of elden ring. they made such top tier fights and then they dropped the ball like it was nothing
Probably the most underrated Dark Souls boss fight
The Twins in Terraria is a really well made fight imo, the unique synergy and second phases of each make it a very interesting boss... or 2 I suppose.
I remember when everyone lost their minds over fighting the three Parallel Mage Sisters all at once in Kirby Star Allies’ final update. They tag team so you only fight two at a time outside of their signature moves combined, but they posed an insane challenge. Even still, they used the attacks from their original Parallel fights, they just attacked less frequently. Their attacks synergized well with each other, as the way you had to move to avoid their attacks was changed in new and interesting ways. It’s also extra funny considering how broken have three helpers was throughout the game, and so the player was basically given a taste of their own medicine.
And everyone remembers the first time they saw their triple attack…
The best part is that you get to play as them and they are just as chaotic as in the boss fight
Ping Pong
That trio attack was so powerful it killed the frame rate
Too bad the arena’s visual effects hurt to look at and made fighting them that much harder.
To this day I haven’t even touched the final True Arena added with the DLC because I like seeing with my eyes, thank you very much.
One of the best case studies for excellent double boss fights imo is Theseus and Asterius in Hades. Their characters play into how well they fight together and as their bind grows stronger, they gain new moves. It's amazing
It's rare to come across, but one of my favorite double boss concepts is in a co-op setting where you and your partner are fighting another duo with the same "rules" you have, or even breaking said rules. Best example I can think of is Meta Knight and Dedede in Kirby Fighters 2.
That's actually a good point with how co-op can affect a double boss. The Twins from Terraria are normally a very hectic boss in singleplayer, where both enemies are targeting the same player, presenting the choice of which you should kill first, since they have slightly different attacks which become even more different in their respective second phases. If you fight them in a multiplayer world, however, it becomes possible for them to aggro on two different players, which in turn makes it possible to lure them away from one another, separating them into two minibosses.
The bowser fights from the Mario and Luigi series also follow this concept. In each game, the bowser fight reflects that game’s main gimmick. For example: in super star saga, bowser teams up with a thief named Popple to mimic the bros two-man fighting system. They even have their own version of the bros attacks.
In partners in time, the main gimmick is Mario and Luigi teaming up with their baby selves, so naturally bowser does the same thing.
It’s one of my favorite parts of those games and it’s a shame we likely won’t be getting another one now that Alphadream shutdown
@@Creature_of_the_Land Or in BiS, when you have the main gimmick of fight outside and inside bowser, and DTB where Bowser uses the power of the dreamworld as he please in the same ways as dreamy luigi does for his attacks
The monster hunter games can also do this pretty well, with some monsters like Rathian and Rathalos rach being different takes on the same idea, fought slightly differently, and can fight at once for a unique experience. Then there are the more intense story double fights like Narwa and Ibushi, each one independently being a major story boss that forced you to adapt and learn their moves, and when together they each have unique moves where they will utilize their abilities in tandem for extra effects
The first superboss from Persona 5 is one of my favorite double bosses (minor spoilers below)
The battle mechanics of Persona 5 focus on your party working together. Hit an enemy's weakness and you get another turn, which you can baton pass to give that turn to an ally, powering them up. Knock down all enemies and the whole party teams up to do an all-out attack.
The fight with the twins flips that idea on its head by making you realize that your enemies can actually do this too. They will baton pass to eachother, and they can even do an all-out attack to instantly make your party lose if everyone is downed (which they will also do if you aren't dealing enough damage)
Yeah that was a super fun boss. It turns the mechanics you've been mastering for well over 100 hours against you *while* nerfing them for you because the twins don't have any weaknesses, so the only ways to down them are with crits or technical damage, and they resist the physical (and I think gun as well) skills that are most commonly used to do that. On top of that I also believe they have a hidden resistance to Almighty (the second super boss in the third semester does so they might have it as well) so you can't cheese them with Morning Star or Megidolaon so easily for a free win.
@@the_supern0va238 IZANAGI NO OKAMI PICARO, ALL WILL BE REVEALED
Are we talking Kamoshida or does he not count as a "super" boss?
@@Dipwad_Omega what? what does any of this have to do with kamoshida?
@@Dipwad_Omega No he does not. The super bosses are exclusive to New Game+
By far my favorite is Killing Two Birds from A Hat in Time, I love the way the attacks work when they're doubled up
An idea that I wish I saw more often in games is a double boss fight that is actually 2 "rival-like" characters fighting each other while the player just happens to be on the middle of the crossfire, so the bosses keep going back and forth between beating you up or each other up, and sometimes even doing accidental combined attacks.
I know I already saw this somewhere once and fell in love with it, but I legit don't recall where lol
super smash bros ultimate? the galeem vs. dharkon fight is like that(might've spelt it wrong)
Dark souls 3 has such a fight. I forgot what the boss was called, but it was a bunch of knights fighting each other and your just smack in the middle brawling with them.
@@aaron-ps7ht Farron, Abyss Watchers
@@poggestfrog Nope, you spelled it right.
Crash Bandicoot
one double boss I think it's worth mentioning is the twins from terraria, they act more like individual bosses that depend on one another, if one gets defeated the other one just continues on its usual pattern and you get basically no reason to focus on both of them at the same tame
This might explain why the fight against Rechiku and Nechiku in Ôkami is my favorite. It's the only time you're fighting two bosses at once... But you even partner up with another character who's essential in dealing massive damage to them. They're not my favorite boss in terms of story (Kyûbi remains my favorite for how vicious they were), but this one fight truly felt like something unique in the whole game (plus... you know... the feels leading up to this fight)
I'm very happy to see Agni and Rudra being mentioned. Those boys deserve more attention.
In-universe as well. They appear to be quite decent guys in spite of being demons.
Dante was so mean to make them shut up- I for one would have loved them adding color commentary to whatever fight's they were used in, could've been a fun way to give some of the demons lore if the brothers talked about Nevan or Beowulf or the time-horse etc etc. Maybe they'd be offended by Arkham "pretending he's a demon", or express bewilderment at Lady's weapons in a general "you hairless apes invented WHAT" kind of way. Alas...
@@goranisacson2502 I would've been interested in seeing Agni and Rudra speak more as well. I suppose at the time Dante got peeved by folks that talked more than him, and I once read that he basically sold them off-screen because they were still too chatty.
But they didn't ever seem that bad at all to me. More so slight goofballs that can get a bit distracted, but don't lose sight of neither their goals nor their standards and manners. And to my knowledge, they're generally considered to be amongst the best bosses in the series, to boot. So they can definitely throw their weight.
Oh, your idea of giving demon lore could have been interesting! They probably don't get out much considering they are tower guardians, but seeing them share what they know could've given some more nice characterization. Equally so to their reactions to what mankind has produced.
As long as it wouldn't be overdone or grating to have these talking weapons -like in the recent game High on Life- , and with the right writing, i think people would like them even more.
I've never actually played a DMC game and i don't know if there'll ever be a proper sixth entry. But if a new game in the same *universe* is to be made, I do so hope for A&O to make some kind of return.
Gotta be the best duo or even multi boss fight I’ve ever fought
@@jurtheorc8117 give them to a mute character
@@jurtheorc8117 Dante pawned all of his devil arms, save for few, to his old middleman and information broker before morrison, who was a antique seller. tho enzo never sold them if dante payed the interest on the devil arms
In Deep Rock Galactic, the Dreadnought Twins (named Arbalest and Lacerator) are a really good double fight. their movesets are different from each other, where Arbalest stays away and launches /or explosive projectiles at you, Lacerator gets close and either bites, breathes a stream of fire, or slams the ground, sending shockwaves of rock towards you. plus they will level their health sometimes if one gets a lot lower than the other, so usually they end up going down at around the same time. overall defnitely one of my favorite fights in any game.
another fun fight is The Twins from Terraria, both are a variation on the Eye of Cthulhu, which is a boss from earlier in the game.
My favorite double boss fight was from Castlevania Portrait of Ruins against Death and Dracula. Not only is it a really iconic due, it is also a final boss double. And it is 2v2, making it fit the theme of the game.
Teostra and Lunastra's first twin fight in Monster Hunter World is the series' first introduction to a real twin boss battle. Most times, fighting two monsters at once just means doing their own thing, but Teostra and Lunastra have their own unique way of activating a Supernova, and a THIRD unique way of activating it when together. It only changes the monster couple's finisher, but it really is a memorable one.
Dracula and Death are Castlevania's most famous bosses. Portrait of Ruin's gimmick is playing as two characters. The final boss is a 2v2 with you fighting Dracula and Death together. It's very hype. There's also another 2v2 boss.
Donu & Deca from Slay the Spire are a good turn-based example. They both spawn with 2 Artifact (provides immunity to 2 debuffs), and Donu will always start the fight by giving +3 attack to both of them.
Deca tries to block damage for both of them, and both enemies will alternate between their unique effect and attacking the player.
You have to balance between the two and kill one of them first based on your deck (and if you use Feed on Donu, you get a funny achievement).
It's a neat fight and I kinda like it.
The sun and the moon from Kirby's Nightmare in DreamLand killed me many times because I couldn't keep up with their patterns even after I defeated one of them.
One of my favorite double bosses was actually from X challenge. It was against Double and Iris. What made it memorable to me was that it was the hardest challenge of all the other double boss fights, but it was actually possible to dodge all of their attacks despite all the chaos. It took a long time to figure out, but it was very rewarding to come up with a strategy that worked.
I think the "Faux Double Boss Fight" is at least worth a mention here. Essentially the tag-team element of the Nier example you gave can be applied to a boss fight but without the swift swaps. It's easy to see why; That shift in what mechanic you're dealing with means you need to change tactics to match, but you're still only fighting one boss at any time and the other is just a threat, not a real entity. Probably the best example I can think of off the top is the twin sharks in FFXIV, but I think a decent number of beat-em-ups did this here and there.
That's just boss phases, though, with a palette swap.
@@boobah5643 I agree! That's why I call it the "Faux Double." I think it's useful to catch out the situations where something skirts the edge of the definition, when you're defining something.
The sharks are actually a weird example because during each phase swap you are dealing very briefly with both of them at once. If you had a substantial amount of time where you could hit both with AOEs it might even tip over into real Double Boss territory.
XIV has a true double boss - the clone style - in the final boss(es) of Stone Vigil Hard, and better yet it demonstrates exactly what this video talks about. They designed it differently from all other boss fights, with no autoattacks and every attack from both dragons including huge tells - It's possibly the only fight in the whole game where you can take 0 damage from an enemy you can't kill in one hit. But because nobody's expecting that and due to the dragons' associated Totally Ignoring the Enmity Meter, it can be a chaotic mess.
While not a Double Boss or even a Faux Double, for some reason your initial description using the swaps and the mechanics change made me think of EvE from No Straight Roads. She treats the two characters you play as similarly but differently in the fight, attacking one with more aggression and trying to face the other more indirectly due to her feelings toward each of them and you have to keep both characters in mind throughout the fight.
FFXIV has done a few boss fights like that. Off the top of my head, I can think of Lahabrea and Igeyorhm's fight in the Aetherochemical Research Facility and the fight against Annia and Julia in Ghimlyt Dark. Both bosses have you fighting one of the pair up close while the other one fires out attacks from a safe distance, and they swap when the close-up boss gets low. The first part of the final fight against Omega might count as well, with the boss swapping between Omega-M and Omega-F forms before splitting into both at once to become a proper double boss fight.
@@SethalaTheGamer Lahabrea and Igeyorhm are actually both on-field since the most recent patch modifications to ARF, so it's now even more of a double-boss than before. The Ifrit/Garuda fight that shows up momentarily in this video is one that sticks out to me too, also the two Unknown bosses at the start of Anamnesis Anyder doing the classic 'spawn a second boss midway through' strategy like the Dark Souls Gargoyles.
Usually, I notice double battles are split I to "fat" and "skinny" representing brains and brawn, attack and defense, close range and long range, etc. Crazy that those two work so well for DBs
My fav double boss is in Touhou's 5 Yuki and Mai, one with an Ice and the other fire magic, in the first part both attack with patterns that work together, but after you take one down the other gets super strong with unique patterns and and completely different dialogue reactions to the defeat of the other, despite being very simple is really well done and memorable
I really like the Justice and Chariot shadows in Persona 3. They initially start off combined as a tank like enemy, but once you get their health down they separate into a sniper and a melee attacker. Naturally they have different stats and weaknesses. The real trick is that you have to kill them both in the same turn, or the one that died gets revived with full hp
The hand crafted ones are always a treat.
I find Elden Ring is a good example where sometimes it can just become noisy, but with Dark Souls 1 it felt very particular, the duo becomes really appreciated.
And DS3, the Twin Demons and Demon Prince are SO fucking good
Mantis lord & oko and mato are probably one of the best double bosses that the world ever saw...
I really liked how Doom '16 did it how it had you fight one guardian thing but it had a energy shield where you could only do damage immediately after attack so it forces you to learn it's patterns then puts you against two but neither has a shield so you can attack whenever but you have to be aware of what both are doing.
Yeah, I remember I struggled with the 1 guardian, when the game showed me 2 of them I was like "I'm gonna die 1000 times", but when I saw that they had no shields I was so relieved and I loved that fight.
Also Doom Eternal throws you that curveball and making a boss a regular enemy is an amazingly stressful but hype move.
@@linkw6645 I keep meaning to play eternal
@@joshwillcox7141 Yeah, I was trying to not spoil too much Eternal. Both amazingly great games, real fun times.
Something I found really neat was the Galeem and Dharkon fight in Smash Ultimate. Specifically, both bosses can friendly fire each other, so you can use one boss as a meatshield to block the others attacks.
Additionally, they really hate each other, so when one gets knocked down, the other starts to wind up for a massive damage potshot. This potshot has a big hitbox that can nail you too if you're too close, but you can get good value out of it if you pour as much damage into the downed boss as you can and back off just before the other one strikes.
Yeah, that's an interesting gimmick that wasn't really talked about, having a double boss battle, where the said bosses are fighting each other, and you're just in the way, trying to survive against their attacks, while Beating them, even though you're not the target
4:56 Nlg Best transition ever
in Octopath Traveler one of the prologue bosses is Mikk and Makk, a pair of pirates who are the bosses of Tressa's route. Their fight stood out to me as my staple double boss experience, as while they both had similar functions, they also toyed with Octopath's "Breaking" system. Sometimes one of them will guard the other, taking damage in their stead, so targeting the one they're guarding is impossible until the one who's guarding gets broken (if Mikk is guarding Makk, you can't target Makk until Mikk is broken, and vice versa). Since both of them have different weaknesses, you have to juggle your plans for how to break their guards, and plan ahead to see whether one gets broken before the other, and react accordingly.
One of my favorites is the Death and Dracula fight from CV Portrait of Ruin. They both have such long histories with the series, and fighting them at the same time was wild.
In rpg double boss fights adds more complexity because you are fighting with your team against a team of boss, that's a awesome concept
Yeah, it becomes a big difference. Because in RPGs usually your team is ganging up on one overpowered boss and while that's sort of needed for the mechanics and to make it tactical, bringing even one extra character in (that isn't just a minion enemy) makes it a lot more interesting.
@@dondashall even better when they have different weakness, or immunity so you have to change your strategy of just landing the most powerfull AOE attack
Octopath Traveler has a couple of good double bosses, like the Ophilia Chapter 3 bossfight; the two bosses have completely different vulnerabilities, and both of them gain more vulnerabilities when the other is defeated, which essentially forces the player to focus on one of them at a time. However, once one of them goes down, the other swaps out its moveset for a far stronger one, gains additional guard points, and gains additional actions per turn. Brutal.
An interesting double boss fight are the Glyphid Dreadnought Twins from Deep Rock Galactic. They both follow the classic duo for Ranged and Melee. But what's really cool is that when one of them loses too much health, then the other splits their health so that they are equal. This is both dangerous and beneficial for the dwarves as it gives them time to heal and reload as they bosses are healing as well.
Somehow, a lot of Duo fights in Elden Ring don't feel like they compliment eachother well and border on unfair a lot of time. This problem really rears its head with the gargoyle and godskin duo as fighting one is a challenge on its own, but then you get ganked on top of it. I'm not really sure why this is the case as Fromsoft has shown they can make excellent duo fights with the Bell Gargoyles, O&S and Demon Prince.
Yeah a lot of ER’s double bosses are just ‘old boss but with another old boss in addition’ and it doesn’t feel like those two bosses were supposed to be put together that way. It’s a shame cause most of the ER bosses are good for single encounters and provide an interesting challenge.
@@Mordrevious I haven't gotten through all of ER yet, but from my own personal experience, I haven't enjoyed most boss fights at all. A lot of them end up obnoxious than fair and challenging. I did some research to make sure it wasn't just me and realised a lot of fights aren't well designed.
Margit, the 1st boss is a great example of this. How he based on RNG will follow up on his recovery with dagger slashes that can't be reacted to, or his 2 sword slash that ends with with a cane slam. If you dodge the sword slashes you WILL get hit by the cane. Your only strategy is to tank the first 2 hits and then dodge or turtle him from far away. I'm not really a fan of this and a lot of bosses have this pattern. Godrick and Radahn I've enjoyed the most, but it hasn't been positive otherwise in terms of boss design.
@@leithaziz2716 i still can't understand how they messed up so hard on boss design after the overall great quality of bosses in DS3
The shield brothers strike from destiny 1 was a really fun boss fight where you fight both individually, then together, and finally when one is defeated they take the weapon of the other brother.
One thing I think you should've mentioned is the different approach for share health and split health bosses
My idea of the concept is:
Share health bosses should
1-not have one of them way easier to hit than the other
2- consider if hitting them both would do double damage(considering their attacks and how much time are they next to each other)
And what separate health bosses should consider
1-are they going to have equal health (if not clones)
2-do I want the choice of Wich one to take out first to be effecting for the player(if yes do I want to make a pair of bosses with no clear answer or do I want him to take a specific one first or do I want to make him balance out the damage,why,and how)
Ooh, ooh, what about a double boss whose shared health bar is more than the health of both combined so if you kill both you just have to sit there waiting for one of them to respawn despite it being a non-optional boss in one of the most exquisitely polished games I've ever played? Just as a non-specific example.
@@discordlexia2429 I understand the idea but that's not how it works
A share health bar double boss means there is one health bar and both die when it depletes
@@discordlexia2429 funni godskin moment
it made me remember of yokay watch 2 where the sister can only be killed together, deafeting only one will leave the other to revive her sister so you have to time it just right to defeat them at the same time or the boss fight get longer and tougher as the item you have are not illimited and the sister does more damage than what you can heal
Before starting the video I was exactly thinking of Majima & Saejima and I was hoping they were going to be brought up, I'm so happy
In Destiny, specifically the rise of iron expansion, there's one boss that is a SIVA splicer priest, and the other is a giant ogre. The ogre is invincible and can one shot you, but is slow and being controlled by the priest. When you defeat the priest, who is otherwise mostly defenseless, the ogre dies as well.
The World Ends With You has one of the more interesting double bosses (especially on the DS where you have to control both characters at the same time with a shared health bar)
Uzuki and Karia's boss fight probably is a perfect encapsulation of the games themes of trusting your partner as the duo, while polar opposites trust and care for one another and are the only enemy who can use a fusion of their own.
Such a good game
It’s also worth mentioning that on the DS version, they actually use a sync attack in the same way the player does.
You should’ve mentioned the way the Sisters of Battle fight is a dance. I swear sometimes you get so in the zone with that fight, that you don’t touch the ground for a solid minute
Mantis Lords fight is a dance too
I'm playing through Hollow Knight at the moment right now, doing the boss gauntlets, and I'm almost positive HK has the best dual/multi bosses of any game I've played. Sisters of Battle gave me life.
I was scared that you wouldn't mention Ornstein and Smough at first. Let's just say I was relieved when you talked about them. They are like THE double boss.
easily the best type of duo boss
To the point that any other double boss gets compared to them in Soulslikes ie Code Vein's Cannoneer and Blade Bearer who are one of the tougher boss fights in the game got called by at least one reviewer "bargain basement Smough & Ornstein", which is a bit unfair they're not the most annoying boss fight in the game even that's held by the true ending boss especially if you accidentally got that path first up because it resists everything and the requirements for the one shot kill aren't unlocked because that only gets rewarded after the final cutscene of the run and without it that boss is really annoying to whittle to death (most of the bosses in the game aren't bad, that one though threw out good design for resistance to everything the average player had used over their journey).
From really does tend to do good boss design generally though some can feel unfair until you know their quirks well and it makes the imitators look incompetent when they flub it.
Really cool showing the FFX Magus sisters at the end. I’d love to see you talk about the FF14 version of them in Tower of Zot. You fight two of them individually as you make your way through the dungeon, and then those two sisters are joined by the third all at the same time for a crazy final fight with LOADS of mechanics to keep in mind.
The FF14 version (as someone who never played 10) was a blast and I wish I met them in 10 or (if I remember right) 6
first time i saw them use their attacks in the last boss fight i just went full Ralph Wiggum "im in danger" meme....
that was amazing but damn its scary to see it all at once!!
I've only fought them in 4. As a kid, I felt so smart when I used Dispel to remove the Reflect, turning their triad attack into a self-damaging maneuver
Panthera Cantus, from The World Ends With You, deserves a special mention for the way it interacts with the two screens of the Nintendo DS; the bottom screen has Neku fighting a harder version of Leo Cantus, while the top screen has your partner fighting a harder version of Tigris Cantus. All of the game's fights have you, the player, ping-ponging your attention back and forth between the two screens as your party fights the same set of enemies, but Panthera Cantus is the only time in the game where you fight two different sets (of one) simultaneously.
I remember when crazy hand showed up at the end of Melee. That was a fun surprise, and the way the two played with each other just got better as the series went on.
Code Vein's double boss fight is as great as it is frustrating since the bosses are literally built as opposites from each other. One is fat, tanky, has ranged attacks, and fire, while the other is thin, fast, has mostly short range attacks, and ice. It has been called the Ornstein and Smough fight for a good reason. They exist in both the main quest and a side dungeon. Only when you fight them in a side dungeon and defeat one, the other will gain the fire/ice power and moveset. Throughout the game, the game allows you to have an AI companion that respawns and heals you if you die. It just happens that a boss decided to bring their friend like the player nomally does.
Yeah I like Cannoneer and Blade Bearer far more than the Virgin Born, it's challenging and even a bit irritating at points but not brutally so (bleep Mido though 8x times my first playthrough), I accidentally did the true ending my first time through so no one shot halberd build for me.
Deep Rock Galactic has three variants of the Dreadnaught boss, with one being the Twins.
The Twins come in the form of the Glyphid Arbalest and the Glyphid Lacerator. The Arbalest keeps distance and lobs bombs and fireballs at you from distant walls and ceilings. The Lacerator will doggedly chase you down with strong melee attacks and short range moves such as flame breath and ground tremors. They will repeatedly burrow around to reposition within the cave.
The most challenging part of this boss is that if one twin gets significantly lower than the other, they will link up and one will sacrifice a small amount of HP to heal the other one by a much larger amount. This means that focusing one of them will increase their effective health pool drastically. So the strategy becomes to damage both evenly until you get an opportunity to burst one down to zero. Oh, and then the other one also gets enraged.
My favorite Double Boss would be Dedede and Meta Knight from Kirby Fighter 2. Two bosses that have been fought multiple times across the series, combining their most well known attacks to be stronger. Like meta knight summons a giant tornado, but this time dedede spins inside it with his hammer, allow them to control its movements. Or dedede tossing gordos, only for meta knight to be standing on the other side of the arena to swing them back at you.
The king's pets in the Frigid Outskirts of DS2 is probably the first one that comes to mind for a bad example, it's just Aavaa x2 with no consideration. Such a shame considering that Eleum Loyce had a great group fight in the Burnt Ivory King and his minions.
I'm confused how Frigid Outskirts and everything regarding Burnt Ivory King exist in the same DLC. We go from one of the worst areas in games period to one of the hypest Souls boss encounters. Even his lore is cool.
I've been saying this since Elden Ring dropped. Ornstein and Smough is a fantastic example of the gank fight handeled well.
One's fast, has ranged attacks, but he doesn't deal a lot of damage (Ornstein will still f you up don't get me wrong, but he doesn't have a big one-shot hit other than his grab.) and he's relatively squishy.
Smough is slow, has no ranged attacks, but he hits like a truck and has more health, so you're encouraged to fight Ornstein.
You're also rewarded for focusing one over the other, because this ends the gank. Their movesets are unique, and compliment each other, but they also have individual weaknesses the player can exploit. The arena is large enough that you can split them up, and use the pillars to kite them.
Now compare this to Godskin duo. Noble and Apostle both have incredibly quick attacks that deal a lot of damage, cover a ton of distance, both have the same ranged attack, both have an individual second phase, have a linked health bar and constantly respawn so you're not rewarded for focusing one whatsoever, and while the pillars are still a thing, the arena isn't really big enough, and when the pillars are destroyed a lot of attacks will sail right over them.
Instead of a fun fight against strong enemies that compliment each other but have weaknesses, you're stuck in a room with two enemies that essentially have no weaknesses other than sleep.
Another factor to mention, if you're struggling with O and S you can summon Solaire. He's tanky, does great damage, has ranged attacks of his own, and gives you a ton of breathing room.
Duo gives you Bernal. He's a really tanky motherfucker, but that doesn't matter when the duo spam attacks that do % damage based on max health, he does almost no damage at all, and summoning him makes the duo even tankier.
Twinrova phase 1 in ocarina of time is another classic. Having to use ones attack against the other. Which means managing both their positions so you can properly reflect attacks between the 2 a big part of the fight.
What I find about the Watcher Knights interesting is that although they're fairly easy on their own, the combination of two of them is absolute chaos, and results in one of the toughest fights in the game. It's a marathon in a way, feeling like you're fighting an army that just keeps rising. It's simple, but works I think.
As a completely random and interesting example, Heartstone (yes, an online tcg) did this once a few years ago.
There's a mode called Tavern Brawl, which contains different and chaotic rules every week. One of those was a singleplayer fight against Firelord Ragnaros, which, after losing part of it's max health, is replaced by Frostlord Ahune.
This goes on a few times, as they both have 60 HP and switch every 20 HP lost. Interestingly, both of them have a different unique Hero Power which also progresses as the game goes on, and their own deck, with Ragnaros being themed around fire and damaging minions and Ahune having a lot of freezing effects, due to that, there's still strategy in the sense of getting rid of one of them faster than the other if it's too tough to handle with the deck you're using.
The fight itself is unplayable currently since the Brawl rotated, but there's videos up. Its name is "A Brawl of Fire and Ice."
3:37 man mantis lords is my favorite boss fight, I fucking love the true boss where you have to fight all three. The music, the agility and the lore. You don’t kill them, but they accept you as one of their own warriors. Gucking love hollow knight
well on the topic of triple bosses, i think the best one ive encountered is the lighthouse servants from dead cells. the chase sequences gives you a decent idea of how each servant works on their own as well as gives opportunities to hit them to make later fights easier, but the final part is hectic in a good fun way imo
i still have yet to no hit them tho lmao
That fight is hard as heck, but a lot of fun!
Also the music is amazing
A decent Triple Boss a remember is the Elite Trio in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. As the name suggests, there are 3 different enemies to take down but as you're focusing on one and they go down, one of the other 2 revive them while leaving the one that didn't revive them to still be able to attack. The enemy then says too much, basically telling you that the only way to defeat them is to KO them all simultaneously. This is a bit difficult because there are no health bars to track your progress so you don't know who to switch between damaging and when. What's even better about this fight is that they're supposed to be goofy comic-relief characters, so you wouldn't expect them to be so smart and coordinated.
Would Monster Hunter's Seltas and Seltas Queen count? I mean, the first is basically a general mook at the point when the queen is found and mainly gets in the way, but with the queen in play, she releases pheromones to attract the male into a drone-like state to come to her. Then, after pinching him with her claws, gives it a bit of a neuro juice as she sets him up on his back before the two fight as one: The queen being the tank treds and the servant the cannon. When working as one, how you handle it becomes a different threat and MUCH more dangerous, such as the Seltas using its wings to pull the queen out of Pitfall Traps or giving cover fire from afar as the queen relies on melee. Sure, you can break up the mount and even kill the Seltas, leaving the queen to be alone, but its only a window before a new Seltas comes in to take the old one's place, placing the queen as the main priority to finishing the hunt.
Dang that's a good one, forgot about that fight and how fun it is
I was going to mention this after seeing some people point out rathian and rathalos. I also like that one possible strategy for dealing with them is using exhaust on the queen so that she’ll kill and eat the seltas.
@@iambecomegameend2972 I personally would not have counted the rath pair because they don't actually work TOGETHER, just two big threats at once. Didn't think about the exhaust bit, though.
Terraria's fight against The Twins. Spazmatism likes to get up close and personal, rushing you and spitting out cursed fireballs, fulfilling the "brawler" type. The "sniper" twin, Retinazer, likes to stay above your character and fire deadly lasers with... decent accuracy. They each have their own health bar, and when you get one low enough, it turns into it's second phase. In Spaz's second phase, it gains a powerful flamethrower-type attack, and his charges are more like the Eye of Cthulhu's in Expert mode. For Retinazer, its lasers get faster, and it fires in bursts more often. When they both reach their second phase, it becomes a brutal bullet hell where you have to dodge bouncing fireballs, a beam of flame, rapid-fire lasers, and a charging Spazmatism. In my opinion, they are probably the hardest of the three mechanical bosses you have to defeat in order to progress, as they gave me the most trouble on my first playthrough. 🔫👀🔥
Wow I'm impressed you made it this far
i think an interesting idea with double bosses is not only combination attacks but also using one bosses attack against the other, like with Twinrova where you have to hit the sister with the other sisters attack!
One idea I had for a boss fight was the "first" boss having their encounter earlier on in the area/zone, before they give up eventually letting you get to the second boss. When you're about to beat the second boss, the first boss comes back in and you have to survive a onslaught of both attack patterns from both fights combined in a timed second phase.
The idea is that the first boss is a loyal friend/underling who doesn't fully support the plans of the second boss, but doesn't want to leave them alone, so they come back to assist.
One rare type of double boss i love is when the two bosses are fighting each other and you're just in the middle of it lol
The deep rock galactic twins fight is in my opinion also a great double boss fight. If one of the two dreadnoughts gets damaged to much, they will share the remaining health between the two and gain extra moves.
Another source of interesting double & triple battles is the Bravely Default series. In the first game, some story-related shenanigans lead you to rematches with previous bosses. In these rematches, they are paired up with other previous bosses that bring in a good bit of challenge. Even farther in the game, they start becoming triple battles.
In Bravely Default 2, these rematches are optional. Which is good, because they are also very difficult.
I was also thinking of these fights! By the end of the first game each rematch is a carefully crafted battle with a different strategy to face and overcome (That damn fire-weakness based one was rough).
The second has them all part of the main story if I remember correctly? In the second half, not as difficult as the first gets, but still a step up.
Then in Default 2, as you said, were very tough, shoutuouts to the one with the white mage who can just outright revive the others with full hp, so you have to kill that boss AGAIN.
@@Frogman111100 Yes, some of the optional ones in Bravely Default 2 were insane! That white mage one was definitely memorable. It was one of the fights that made me decide that 100% wasn't worth it.