The Giant Space Flea From Nowhere
Anyone who has played a video game quickly pictured one of these bosses the moment they read the title of the blog post. The Giant Space Flea from no where is normally a sign of poor game design where the creators knew they needed a boss fight as is normal in video games as you approach the end of a level or an objective, but rather than have a story based battle, one of these happens instead.
Its a pet peeve of mine. As a writer, I take great pride in characters I create, both heroes and villains (and those above such simple systems) When a fight against a random monster with no relevance to the plot appears, it makes me upset. I understand that a couple of these are needed otherwise there will be either too many characters that end up as bosses, or the player will end up fighting the same characters over and over again. (Tales of the Abyss I’m looking at you)
Some games do a great job of making the mix between the two types of bosses (Random and story based) Notable examples include Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, and Tales of Symphonia. A more recent newcomer that did a fantastic job of averting this problem is Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, which is quite an accomplishment when you remember that Zelda is filled with Giant Space Flea From Nowhere for much of the early games.
Still maybe I’m just being too nitpicky. After all, I focus on the story aspect of Video Games. Perhaps I should focus more on a battle from a good game play perspective. After all, there are plenty of random bosses that present good challenges, and many story based fights that are nothing more than giant disappointments.