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Post by Reno on Jan 17, 2007 13:21:38 GMT -5
What is with this really, especially in games like Final Fantasy ,Chono trigger/Cross, Metal gear, ect.ect. Why would you suddenly encounter a person, and call him a "Boss". Its stupid, it gets me everytime.
The term boss original was used in the NES mario game. You would do an area, and then at the end, fight the main man, or a boss.
For games like mario, yeah, go ahead and use Boss all you want, it fits. But for the more "realastic" games, why stick with Boss?
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Post by Raistlin Majere on Jan 17, 2007 13:39:08 GMT -5
It does get somewhat annoying. The trend of calling enemy leaders "bosses" started in some of the first video games ever made. Games like Mario were the most popular games of their time, and it may be that other game companies tried to imitate their success by taking some elements from Mario. From there, it has just become the standard name for enemy leaders. If you asked someone who works on games why they call their enemies "bosses", they probably either wouldn't have an answer, or just say that we want to keep it "classic"--another way of saying that they never gave it any thought, they just assumed that they would be called "bosses."
In more advanced and realistic games, the word "boss" hardly seems to fit the enemy. It sounds almost like the boss of some business company. It is particularily annoying in Metal Gear when your enemies are called "Bosses", since there is a very important character called Big Boss --which is a rank, not a name-- and having each and every important enemy called "Boss" doesn't work very well.
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Post by Reno on Jan 17, 2007 17:11:33 GMT -5
Yes, I remember that quite well.
I like to usually mentally refer to them as the Japanese do, Guardians. Since it works so much better than just boss. Everytime I hear it I think mario. Paper Mario really. It doesnt work for Metal Gear and other games like that. At least MGS doesnt call them bosses. Just by thier name. However Final Fantasy....sigh
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Post by The Rogue on Jan 17, 2007 21:07:02 GMT -5
The trend of calling enemy leaders "bosses" Well, they are the leaders of the enemy so therefore they ARE a boss of some sort. But I do agree that the term is absolutely stupid in modern-day games. |
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Post by Raistlin Majere on Jan 17, 2007 22:20:31 GMT -5
Personally, I would rather see the actual name of the character, rather than either "Boss" or "Guardian". "Boss"? Too blunt. "Guardian"? It always begs the question: Guardian of what? When they might not be guarding anything. The name of the character should be the name, and if the enemy is nameless, it should simply be something to the effect of "Unkown."
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Post by Reno on Jan 17, 2007 22:25:39 GMT -5
Or ??? will do just fine. The name works well, and Im glad Metal Gear did it.
edit: damn smiles
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Post by Raistlin Majere on Jan 17, 2007 22:35:27 GMT -5
Odd how Final Fantasy continues to do it. Some bad translation blip that they didn't feel like fixing, perhaps. But other Square Enix games list the name of the enemy just fine. Strange.
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Post by Reno on Jan 17, 2007 22:44:23 GMT -5
You can still see the enemy name, just ont on the top bar. Thats the only thing that bugs me.
At least most games dont use boss that often.
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Post by The Rogue on Jan 18, 2007 18:56:59 GMT -5
Knights of the Old Republic had the name of the character you were fighting. Although it was a boss fight. I think it worked rather well, and it fit better.
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Post by Raistlin Majere on Jan 19, 2007 22:41:25 GMT -5
The term "boss" has been used so much that everyone has simply gotten used to it, accepting it as an almost essential part of the game, and it is generally expected. As such, it is now difficult to think of another way to put it, what else do you call a "boss fight"?
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Post by Jarlaxle on Jan 25, 2007 22:51:17 GMT -5
Indeed, what else could you call it without having it sound obscure? For earlier games like Mario, the term is OK, but for more detailed games the term sounds out of place. It is so common now that we just call it a boss fight without a second thought. Since that system is so well rooted, it is hard to think of it as anything else even if it is called something different. If is at all possible, the term boss should be replaced with something more fitting to the game. I would still accept the term boss when speaking about games in general though.
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Post by The Rogue on Jan 26, 2007 23:40:35 GMT -5
I would agree with that statement about using the term for gaming in general. The fact that the term is still used in harder, newer games, is probably because the term is old and that everyone uses it for general gaming. It's extremely hard to think otherwise.
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