"I remember playing it over and over again": Four developers choose their favorite final bosses

Who else who less, all video game players have come across a final boss that has marked us especially, either because he demanded the maximum from us or because some of his attributes seemed surprising to us.

These characters, guardians of the end of a video game or of an area of ​​it, test the player's ability to handle the tools and mechanics of each game, such as making combinations of buttons to exert a powerful attack or dodge at the precise moment.

From

we have asked four national video game developers to tell us about their favorite final bosses, those who, like all good antagonists, aroused a kind of love-hate that enriched their experiences as players.

Although, as we will see, some of them also question the very concept of "final bosses".

David Ferriz, co-founder,

The Alicante company DevilishGames - Spherical Pixel, which has been working for more than two decades and accumulates more than 150 games developed, both educational and independent, no longer uses final bosses in its titles.

"One of the things I hate the most as a player and also as a developer are the final bosses," David Ferriz confesses to

.

According to David, the generalization in the patterns that the final bosses follow has made some less stimulating: "It is very easy for them to fall into repetitive, tedious or even boring mechanics for the player," he says.

That is why in their next release, the

platforms

, they have not included any either.

Despite this, he concedes that final bosses are useful "to balance moments of tension and relaxation", and that they are a great opportunity for artistic profiles to show their potential on screen.

"If I have to choose a

that has marked me, without a doubt I will

choose

the giant Bowser from

from Super Nintendo," says Ferriz.

This antagonist is known to be the main enemy of the plumber Mario in Nintendo's Super Mario saga.

While Mario appears in the foreground uploaded to Yoshi on a dark stage, a giant Bowser emerges from the background, from where it attacks and little by little it is approaching the player.

That final appearance of the King of the Koopas on

has for the DevilishGames co-founder and designer "some simple but fun mechanics," while being a technical "delight" at the time.

"I remember being a kid and playing it over and over again just to see how it grew and grew as it got closer to my character," explains Ferriz.

Although the DevilishGames team no longer uses final bosses in their games, when they began creating

titles

in 1998 they used Bowser's inspiration at

for two MS-DOS games,

and

.

"If one day we use that resource again in the studio, we will almost certainly return to honor Bowser."

The Giant Bowser of Yoshi's Island

Andie Sacchi, freelance developer, artist and coordinator at the FemDevs association

Although it has always been easier for her to empathize with villains because, when they are well built, "they tend to be the product of a certain baggage that pushes them to act incorrectly," developer and artist Andie Sacchi does not have a favorite final boss. .

"The idea of ​​nemesis or enemies as a source of conflict in a story has always seemed simplistic to me," he assures, and admits that he prefers conflicts to dualities.

Of course, the also coordinator of the ethics department and the

or meetings of the FemDevs association, which promotes the interest, participation and presence of women in the development of videogames, values ​​that "over time the line has blurred between good's and bad's".

For that reason, Sacchi says

he loved

the approach to the independent video game

.

The title of Thatgamecompany proposes experiencing the journey of an enigmatic character from the desert to the luminous top of a mountain.

The developer and artist points out to

that in the title "the conflict itself is reaching a point with all the adversities that the environment already presents" instead of "throwing it into the bucket" of an opposite and evil being to advance the story .

"Become a

hole, get what

proposed, does not need obstacles", stresses Sacchi.

"If I had to give an example of a game in which I like its villains, I would say

."

In the title of the national study Chibig there are no enemies as such, but beings with different interests.

Thus, what antagonizes the inhabitants of Mara and the race of the Elit or the banker Edegan is something that seems quite close to Sacchi, because a parallel can be drawn "between the interests of the capitalists and the proletariat, two irreconcilable classes and tremendously complex ", explains the developer.

Edegan from Summer in Mara.

chibig.com

Javier Gutiérrez,

"If you develop an interesting

(characteristic), it has to have a real impact on the game and, in this way, it rewards the player", assured Javier Gutiérrez, current designer at

, the new title from the independent studio PlayStark, based in Barcelona.

Gutiérrez combines work in the development company with his work as a teacher at the UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia), in the Degree in Multimedia and in the Degree in Videogame Design and Development, and his collaboration in the veteran radio program Game Over.

When asked about his favorite final boss, the designer declares himself a "fan of narrative options in video games", which led him to be surprised by the confrontation against the Turian Saren Arterius in the end of

.

In the role-playing title of Electronic Arts we have the option of defeating the character Saren without having to fight, but only if we have enough charm or intimidation, two characteristics that we can increase with the experience we gain in the game.

Thus, for Gutiérrez, seeing that time and experience well invested in the game "ended up being able to convince Saren that he was a bad guy and should surrender, without hitting a single shot in the process, it was priceless."

Saren from Mass Effect

Rocío Tomé, video game programmer, graduated in psychology with a clinical specialty from the University of Granada and co-founder of FemDevs.

"

fascinated me from the first moment I played it and much of the fault lies with GLaDOS, its antagonist," explains Rocío Tomé, a video game programmer with extensive experience in the healthcare field.

He currently combines his work at SpotLab, a company for the development of tools for medical diagnosis linked to the Polytechnic University of Madrid, with the development of small video games such as

.

Despite having changed professional field shortly after graduating in psychology, Tomé says that due to his studies it seems impossible not to feel a fascination for the antagonist of the video game

.

When starting

, the player finds himself in a room in the Aperture Labs armed with a pistol capable of opening portals between spaces.

The objective is to escape the facilities by overcoming different puzzles while GLaDOS, the artificial intelligence of the place, watches over us.

The antagonist is for Rocío Tomé "the main reason to keep advancing and overcoming each puzzle in

", be it to earn a piece of cake or take revenge for her ruthless methods.

But the programmer points out that GLaDOS is not bad in itself, but an entity that wants to understand the human mind, but in "a dehumanized way."

In addition, Tomé insists that the game would not have the same weight as without it, since it would lack the differentiating element that makes the title stand out from other similar ones.

"He is by your side throughout the game in a totally asymmetrical relationship full of humor, cruelty and, above all, a lot of scientific eagerness," Tomé concluded.

Antagonists or not of a video game, bosses usually have their own characteristics.

Among them, a higher level and strength that makes them a challenge, a special presentation that changes the music and the scenario where they will fight, require a strategy based on their weaknesses and generate a valuable reward for defeating them, such as a special object or the end of the story.

Although there are different classifications based on their characteristics and the role they play in a title, these enemies are often the pinnacle of a video game experience as well.

It is for this reason that many of them have been etched in the collective memory of players and professionals in the field regardless of the years that have passed.

GLaDOS, from Portal

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