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THAT FINAL STRETCH
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Puddor
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CloseHopefully all of us it will come sometime. The final dungeon, your games last gasp of breath before it lets go and blows you straight into the final battle and the prestigious ending sequence that we all crave to someday event/draw/animate/write about.
So, what do you want to give your players as they exit? A struggle? An interesting and diverse final area that will leave them with great memories? Or do you not have a lead up at all?
My final level is the Shinra/Omniax Building. You have to scale it, ala FF7, but I plan on really making the floors tough, but really interesting. I want to captivate the player, and leave them with fond memories as the credits roll. It's one of the reasons that only the final bosses are fully animated, aside from your party.
I also want to give them lots to do just in case they're like me, aka reluctant to finish games if they're good. (I hope my game is good :c). So I want to include a couple of final bosses, puzzles, etc.
I'm also including the function at the final savepoint to return to your airship and from that point forward immediately go to that savepoint. I was considering making a side-quest only accessible if you reached the final savepoint, but I'm still mulling it over.
Your thoughts on the final area/s of your game!
So, what do you want to give your players as they exit? A struggle? An interesting and diverse final area that will leave them with great memories? Or do you not have a lead up at all?
My final level is the Shinra/Omniax Building. You have to scale it, ala FF7, but I plan on really making the floors tough, but really interesting. I want to captivate the player, and leave them with fond memories as the credits roll. It's one of the reasons that only the final bosses are fully animated, aside from your party.
I also want to give them lots to do just in case they're like me, aka reluctant to finish games if they're good. (I hope my game is good :c). So I want to include a couple of final bosses, puzzles, etc.
I'm also including the function at the final savepoint to return to your airship and from that point forward immediately go to that savepoint. I was considering making a side-quest only accessible if you reached the final savepoint, but I'm still mulling it over.
Your thoughts on the final area/s of your game!
I think my favorite final dungeon ever is from Final Fantasy 6. It featured multiple bosses, you used every character in the game, fought a multi-phased final boss, and it finished with a sweet medley of all the character themes.
Xearoth93z
451
The final area in my game is going to be a long, confusing, puzzle ridden dungeon that ends with a portal taking you into an empty area (like in space) and some story will roll out before the final battles.
....now that i think about it, its kinda basic.
....now that i think about it, its kinda basic.
I always fail at these. The last stretch is something that really pushes me to finish, no matter how many problems it has in the end. It's something I need to work on in the future, trying not to get too ahead of myself. If you're making an epic adventure, the last battle needs to be the biggest, hardest, and hopefully most memorable part of the game.
post=214346I loved this so much that I made an entire game based on that concept.
I think my favorite final dungeon ever is from Final Fantasy 6. It featured multiple bosses, you used every character in the game, fought a multi-phased final boss, and it finished with a sweet medley of all the character themes.
WolfCoder
3554
While the beginning of my game is going to be easy and allow the player to learn how to play, with an increasing difficulty throughout the game, the final section will be as hard as I can make it with the only constraint being that I myself can beat it. I want them to relive (fondly or otherwise) the days when you couldn't just sit down and beat games, it took you try after try to beat them.
The final battle of course will be ridiculous. One thing I've always disliked about other Action RPGs is that the fights degenerate into you mashing buttons until you win and then repeat until you're high enough level.
The final battle of course will be ridiculous. One thing I've always disliked about other Action RPGs is that the fights degenerate into you mashing buttons until you win and then repeat until you're high enough level.
WolfCoder
3554
Not sure what (3D?) ARPGs you play, but I haven't encountered that yet.
All of them since the Tales of Fantasia for the SNES.
Pasty
908
the final battle in my game is going to be two guys against a massive moving cliff.
it's gonna be awesome.
as far as other games, i really liked lufia II's endgame. lufia has a really cliche and simple plot but the way the music and the events come together at the end really did it for me.
it's gonna be awesome.
as far as other games, i really liked lufia II's endgame. lufia has a really cliche and simple plot but the way the music and the events come together at the end really did it for me.
post=214422I was considering making a side-quest only accessible if you reached the final savepoint, but I'm still mulling it over.If you intend your final dungeon to build-up towards your final boss then I would heavily advise against this kind of side quest. Any tension built up over the course of the final dungeon will be lost when the player leaves the dungeon to spend time on a side quest, the result being that the final battle will lose some of its... epicness?
The thing about my game is that innumerable side-quests can only be undertaken once you've completed the main body of the game. I could make it that the final dungeon is for after doing side-quests, but I'm still going to put the teleport-to-Ragnarok function in. Just in case. I intend on making the final boss an absolute nightmare of a fight, so if they want to go back into the world and try and better their party I'll let them.
If I recall, the only side-quest that doesn't require you to complete the main body of the game is the secret character side-quest, which becomes unavailable before you reach the final dungeon.
Personally, I try to shy away from ultra-hellishly-hard areas, final dungeon or otherwise. In my experience, the player never thinks its as cool as I do. What I do like are last areas or bosses with some different kind of difficulty. Chrono Trigger had an awesome last dungeon (Black Omen) with four boss fights, each unique. I thought the last fight of FF9 was good too. That boss had a move that did random status ailments and another move that dropped a character to 1 Hp.
Something you need for last areas is the story build-up. Sephiroth wasn't that tough, but it really felt like the dungeon was finally the real thing before the last showdown. BoF2 did it well too. FF12 on the other hand really botched this.
In short, difficulty can be fun, but the odds shouldn't be stacked too far against the player. FF3's last boss and dungeon was HELL! (FF3 for NES, not FF6) It took like two hours and didn't have a save point and the final boss had an instant win condition (where it instantly won).
But I have also entertained ideas for super hard dungeons. If you do go this route, think about having lots of interesting mini-bosses instead of just super hard fights every ten steps. For example, in a game I made I let the player read about the bosses special moves before the fight, and then choose to seal one of their choice. The boss is still the hardest thing in the game, but the player has some influence over it and can choose to seal a different move next time if they die.
-CM
Something you need for last areas is the story build-up. Sephiroth wasn't that tough, but it really felt like the dungeon was finally the real thing before the last showdown. BoF2 did it well too. FF12 on the other hand really botched this.
In short, difficulty can be fun, but the odds shouldn't be stacked too far against the player. FF3's last boss and dungeon was HELL! (FF3 for NES, not FF6) It took like two hours and didn't have a save point and the final boss had an instant win condition (where it instantly won).
But I have also entertained ideas for super hard dungeons. If you do go this route, think about having lots of interesting mini-bosses instead of just super hard fights every ten steps. For example, in a game I made I let the player read about the bosses special moves before the fight, and then choose to seal one of their choice. The boss is still the hardest thing in the game, but the player has some influence over it and can choose to seal a different move next time if they die.
-CM
Radnen
1806
I'm going to give the player an ethical choice if whether or not to destroy all of life including yourself or save everybody because some very superior and intelligent entity who seeded all of the worlds asked you to. (He'll either destroy everybody and start from scratch or keep everything as is). As you play the game you see the shittiest shit mankind (or other kind) offers, yet also the joys and wonders. Then you as the player gets to balance this fact. You may question your own moral compass, because it ain't going to be easy. This in place of a (final) boss battle, but there may be a couple semi-bosses before this - a kind of "trial" the player goes through to be "awakened" by a "sea spirit". The setting is deep under the ocean of some planet, where tidal forces fuel the entities life (it has practically connected itself and rooted itself into the planet).
I always loved the idea of a pseudo ending, and a real ending.. my favorite instance of this was in Castlevania SOTN, with the upside-down castle.
I plan to incorporate the final dungeon, the Sphere, and then the real final dungeon, The Undersphere into my game, the latter being buried deep beneath the Spire, which is the dungeon the entire game takes place in.
I plan to incorporate the final dungeon, the Sphere, and then the real final dungeon, The Undersphere into my game, the latter being buried deep beneath the Spire, which is the dungeon the entire game takes place in.
Tina of the Stars is definitely going to have something like this, being that it's a level-based game that increases in difficulty as it goes on.
The second-to-last level, just before the boss fight, takes place in a broader space. Unlike earlier levels, the walls in this level are designed to be mostly straight, with little chances to move around freely like the early levels. Some of the stars that you need to get are also "guarded" by Wheelin (the pink wheel enemies with the disgruntled faces), and they are in the same place where Bonehead (the skulls with legs that follow you around) are present. These stars are also placed near tight corners within the boundaries of the of the level, so if you try to get to them too soon, you run the risk of getting trapped by the Bonehead enemies and you'd have to start the level all over again.
It's a level designed to test the player's skill, and once you figure it out, it's actually not that hard. I'm personally not fond of throwing in a super hard puzzled filled level before the final boss. I just want the area/level to be challenging enough to fit with the difficulty progression that the game already should have.
The second-to-last level, just before the boss fight, takes place in a broader space. Unlike earlier levels, the walls in this level are designed to be mostly straight, with little chances to move around freely like the early levels. Some of the stars that you need to get are also "guarded" by Wheelin (the pink wheel enemies with the disgruntled faces), and they are in the same place where Bonehead (the skulls with legs that follow you around) are present. These stars are also placed near tight corners within the boundaries of the of the level, so if you try to get to them too soon, you run the risk of getting trapped by the Bonehead enemies and you'd have to start the level all over again.
It's a level designed to test the player's skill, and once you figure it out, it's actually not that hard. I'm personally not fond of throwing in a super hard puzzled filled level before the final boss. I just want the area/level to be challenging enough to fit with the difficulty progression that the game already should have.
Nice topic! I really haven't put much thought on this since I've never been even close to make an entire game, but I've always fancied the multi-party system from ff6 so I wanna do that, except that maybe less convoluted, because as much as I remember it being fun an challenging at times, I also remember it being tedious and boring if you were either underleveled or overleveled…
Something else I want to do is kill all my characters in the final dungeon... and then have them reborn as gods! with wings, and eyes, and crosses everywhere, in order to defeat Necron! ...it's gonna be awesome!
Something else I want to do is kill all my characters in the final dungeon... and then have them reborn as gods! with wings, and eyes, and crosses everywhere, in order to defeat Necron! ...it's gonna be awesome!
Dark Gaia
3474
My philosophy for a final dungeon is that it should somehow stir up the player's emotions and make them feel as if they're about to be launched into a battle to save the world. They need to know what's at stake, and what it means if they fail. Carefully selected music tracks and some inspiring dialogue can do this. One game that really had this effect on me was Terranigma on the SNES and to a lesser extent its prequel Illusion of Gaia.
Too bad I don't think I managed to do this with Legionwood.
Too bad I don't think I managed to do this with Legionwood.
Nightblade
2723
post=Dark Gaia
My philosophy for a final dungeon is that it should somehow stir up the player's emotions and make them feel as if they're about to be launched into a battle to save the world. They need to know what's at stake, and what it means if they fail. Carefully selected music tracks and some inspiring dialogue can do this. One game that really had this effect on me was Terranigma on the SNES and to a lesser extent its prequel Illusion of Gaia.
Not every game has the resolution of "saving the world!". Even for those that do have that end, you don't want something so shallow. More than anything to convey a feeling of... Well, I'm not sure how to put it. I can't say tension because not all games end in such a way but... closure, resolution? I don't know, closure makes it sound akin to "water is wet!"; but I guess it's true enough. I like how Alter Aila pulled this off with Avalon; neatly wrapping up a lot of questions whilst giving further insight into your characters and how they've grown... ... ...
Then the Even Star dungeon takes a rainbow colored techno shit on everything; but it wasn't enough to completely ruin the climax.
Dark Gaia
3474
Well, maybe not "saving the world" per say, but I think that the final area of the game should be a place where the player experiences the full gamut of emotions, from sadness to anxiety to anticipation. When I've finished the game and I find myself reflecting upon the final hour, I know it's done well.
Actually, how you expressed it, Nightblade, is more akin to what I like in a final area. There's some sort of feeling there... I just can't put it into words. I basically like to feel that all my efforts in the game so far are paying off and that I've worked towards an ending that resolves everything I've done so far. Call me cliched, but I love happy endings (probably because they're so uncommon in reality)
Then again, I hardly ever have time to play games through to completion nowadays anyway. Last game I finished was Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark and there wasn't much payoff in the ending. I didn't feel that it resolved anything. I mean, for hours leading up to the final battle there was a really good buildup to what promised to be an epic battle, then afterwards for my work I got a sixty second FMV to the effect of "well done, you are now a legendary hero"
Actually, how you expressed it, Nightblade, is more akin to what I like in a final area. There's some sort of feeling there... I just can't put it into words. I basically like to feel that all my efforts in the game so far are paying off and that I've worked towards an ending that resolves everything I've done so far. Call me cliched, but I love happy endings (probably because they're so uncommon in reality)
Then again, I hardly ever have time to play games through to completion nowadays anyway. Last game I finished was Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark and there wasn't much payoff in the ending. I didn't feel that it resolved anything. I mean, for hours leading up to the final battle there was a really good buildup to what promised to be an epic battle, then afterwards for my work I got a sixty second FMV to the effect of "well done, you are now a legendary hero"
