THE UNBEATABLE BATTLE.

I like "unbeatable" battles where the boss is actually beatable and you get a reward and at least a small change in the following scenes. If the the scenes after are pretty much the same, it doesn't really feel like it matters much anyway. That reward would still be sweet though.

But the Beatrix battles in FFIX are just annoying. She just blasts you down to 1HP. C'mon, I can still recover and kick ass. but it just ends the battle.

Ar tonelico II's unbeatable takes a punch of a super weapon before getting serious, then you get one-shot. That is if you absolutely won't block the attack(which strikes in a flash). I have survived once, but I figured the whole thing was scripted and the boss didn't even have a life-bar, so it wasn't much of a chance to begin with.

Exit Fate does this with a horrifying plot twist. One of the sets of recurring villains becomes unbeatable! It's fairly obvious, though, since they're, well, <plot twist>.

You wind up chasing them into a war battle - your entire army against the villains. They have two units. They can attack almost anywhere on the map. You have to actually beat them this time.

Shit.



I'm not a huge fan of the unwinnable battle unless it's very obvious. I oftentimes think that the bad ending of V&V should have been the good ending, however, but with an unwinnable (or even moreso than the "good" version) battle. Protip: use the book.

I haven't done so yet in video games, as I haven't made a complete game yet, but I have done something similar to this in D&D. A few times actually. I do agree that making an unbeatable boss is extremely cheap from the players perspective, but is good for advancing the plot in some cases. I've tended to favor in these situations, the 'Almost' Unbeatable boss. Nine times out of ten, this boss will maim the party horribly. Nine times out ten out of the remain, the party will have fought nobly and gotten close to besting said boss. In that one tenth of one tenth, we have yet another one tenth where the party is successful in beating the boss, just barely, and after an excruciating battle that they later learn is not done yet(but they have since leveled and built up their abilities and such by the time this battle resumes(but so has the boss)).

Should they likely perish, you move on as normal. If they are those lucky few who win in the end against those odds, you reward them very generously with ample amounts of XP, maybe some gear, and a good pat on the head before moving on in a slightly altered version of the normal path/method. This leads to an even more punishing fight later on, but its worth it.

The unwinnable battle is shown in Nostalgia in that the boss (some red-haired guy in purple armor) uses a skill (Prominence) after being weakened enough and instantly ends the battle. To be honest, he's just cheesing himself out as Eddie's (the main character) Combo Attack can down other bosses in one hit (technically three hits).

There's an interesting twist to the unbeatable bosses where you do have to beat the invincible bosses... by not fighting them.

if I fight a battle I'll lose in a game I wouldn't even care, because I do not expect to win every battle in a game. So yes, I think it is interesting to once in a while lose a battle if only to develop the story.

My favourite variation of it is that these bosses can be beaten, but there is nothing bad about losing those battles either (Such as Leon in Kingdom Hearts).

But really, the only thing where this is done badly is when you win and are still put in a loss situation even though you could literally fight on forever/beat them down in a few seconds (Fable 1 is probably the worst offender as you can punch everyone without requiring any skill)

author=geodude
the solution is to reprogram the simulation to make the battle winnable

or fire on the kobayashi maru

*fist bump*

the very first boss battle in my game is like this

i think people are right when they say the key to making these encounters not piss the player off is to make it obvious that the fight was supposed to be unwinnable, in my example the boss has spells that are capable of wiping out nearly all of the party's HP (this is guaranteed because my game does not have random encounters and fights against monsters can not be repeated and KO'd party members still get the exp so the game will know exactly what level you are at if you fought everyone.) the battle is over in 5 or 6 turns at the very most and it is fairly obvious that you were supposed to lose at least I think so. Also try to have only 1 of these fights in the game so your player isn't left guessing which fights the game requires him to win and which ones the game won't let him win

epic battles that take a ton of turns should be reserved only for the fights the player needs to win, you don't want the player to feel that your unbeatable boss was a humongous waste of time

I think Unbeatable battles should be like so, you lose the battle because the monster or enemy is too strong. Then a random guy.friend. ally.ex-enemy comes and give you some powers/weapon/magic and now you are able to defeat the monster easily. It makes the plot interesting.