Welcome to Maki's Boss Battle Design Tutorial!     Intro: Boss Battles have been pretty much a staple in almost every RPG out there. What make Boss Battles (and Bosses themselves) stand out is that they're usually pretty different and unique in design and executions than the usual battles.   However, designing a nice Boss Battle is a challenge in and of itself. Yes, you can probably just take the graphic, make its stats triple than the party, make it immune to all status effects, insert it in its lonesome into a Troop, and call it a Boss... But doing so would make the battle bland and boring; and it also took away the fun in designing! Always remember that designing... is art!   Well, that's why I write this guide. I want to share some advice, ideas, guidelines, etc. in creating more interesting Bosses, especially to the newer users of RMVXA. I'm not saying that you cannot create generic, "plain" boss. It's just... Wouldn't it be fun to spice up your boss battles with unique seasonings?     Oh, and you can help to if you'd like! Just leave your feedback and, suggestions in the comments, or even additions you think would make the guide better! I'll see if that could be added later into the guide~   So without further adieu, let's begin!       Chapter 1: ~What is a Boss?~ "Salazar went Berserk!"   Yep, let's start and reflect from the very basic: What is a "Boss"? or What makes enemy a "Boss"? Answers may vary a lot, but I personally think that Bosses are special and usually stronger enemies that are there to either advance the plot or serve as "checkpoint" for the player in learning to play the game- It's not unusual to get a certain ability only to find it crucial in the next boss battle; the Zelda games are particularly fond of this.   Some are locked into thinking that Bosses needs to be bombastic, one-of-a-kind enemy with 4xxxxx HP, scary stats, specials attacks and hours to beat. But in actuality, you don't need to fill all those criteria to make good boss fights. Looking at the beginnings though, these "cliches" are actually justified; it's just that they're just so overused they became tedious and sometimes annoying to go through.   Boss Battles are usually set-up differently than usual enemy battles. There's a cutscene, the dialogue and stuff, and even a random winged lion in the forest usually have a short cutscene just about the monster appearing to the player. RMVXA itself has its own settings to determine if an enemy is a "Boss" by enabling the user to choose different collapse effect, SE, and the RTP is bundled with more than one "Battle Start" SE just in case the user wanted a different one to use in Boss Battles.       Chapter 2: ~Boss Types~   There are a lot of Boss Types, it'll be quite difficult to explain them all here. I'm just going to highlight some of the more simpler ones, and you can expand from there. Be creative!   "The Damage Sponge" As its name implies, the Damage Sponge can take a lot of punishment before going down. It also has a lot of stats, and usually the best strategy is just beating it to death with every offensive move you got. Sounds familiar? Well, it's the "basic" template for a Boss, and usually, when people think about Boss, they think about this type. Unless they play too many SMT games, probably. This boss type can be commonly found in older, retro games. The Final Fantasy series are also particularly fond of these. Example: Too many to count and give. Just grab your nearest RPG and play it, nine out of ten you'll encounter one.   "The Puzzle Battler" The polar opposite of the Damage Sponge, the Puzzle Battler requires certain strategy to be taken down. This usually involve out-of the box tactics, but once the player figures out the way, they're usually pretty easy to take down. More prominent in platformer or side-scroller, but can be found in RPGs too. Examples: Wallman from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. House of the Red Rose (Second Battle) from Yggdra Union. (Gotta love that game's difficulty...)   "The Elemental Changer" This Boss mess with Elemental RPS. They constantly change affinities, and can be pretty annoying in games that use the "Accumulate actions, then execute turn" mechanic as the player usually can't help but seeing their Whirlwind gets absorbed by the Boss' new WIND -150% affinity. They usually stand in the border between Damage Sponge and Puzzle Battler, depending on the Boss. Examples: A certain "Hipster Angel" from Persona 4. Seiryuu from Final Fantasy V.   "Undefeatable" Undefeatables are... Well... Undefeatable. You can't beat them because the plot said so. However, they're usually not Game Over-inducing, and some even give Game Overs if the player actually manages to beat them. Additionally, a Boss might be Undefeatable and/or certain point. The player could do something to make it defeatable. Examples: Beauty Queen Etna from Disgaea 2. The Black Knights from Final Fantasy II.   "Multi-Limbs Boss" One of the favorite classics, Multi-Limbs Bosses are those who needs to be taken bits by bits, until ultimately brought down. They may be a giant octopus, a multi-headed dragon, or even a mob of angry people! Usually, there's a "core" part that serves as the hub/main part of the boss. More often than not, destroying the "core" instantly wins the battle. May overlap with Multi-Stage Boss if the limb-tearing takes multiple stages. Examples: Polaris from Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2. Menace from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.   "Multi-Stage Boss: Another classic favorite, these are Bosses that transcend a stage to continue the fight. They usually do so by transforming into their "stronger" or "true" forms. Most of them takes really long time to beat, and they usually gets all their stats fresh like a jar o' skippy during the transition while your party have to cling on those Mega Potions or Greater Heals. May overlap with Multi-Limbs Boss if the battle involves battling various part of the boss. Examples: Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. Death from... Almost every Castlevania game he's in.     Chapter 3: ~Tips and Tricks!~   Here are some of my tips, tricks and ideas in designing Boss Battles. You don't need to take them fully, these are just suggestions and advices for you. I'll be happy if they could help you out~   1. Sense of Progress How convenient.   Make sure that the Boss Battle is meaningful to the player. Or at least, not just a button-mashing galore (Except if your game is a hack-and-slash, probably.). I don't mean you can't pop a Chimeric Steed out of the mountains. You can. What needs a meaning is not the Boss, it's the Battle. Unneeded Boss Battles can be a hassle to some players, so take account into that. Of course, you can just ignore this advice completely for Bonus Bosses or Secret Bosses, as they're purely optional. Just make sure that the players don't feel like they're just wasting their play time by fighting the boss.     2. No "Attack Spam", Please... Just sleep, just dream. It's only a battle...   One of the most glaring thing I saw when playing some RPGs is some of the Boss Battles consist of nothing but Attack-spamming. (Although it's inevitable if you chose 4 Warriors in Final Fantasy XD) The battle becomes pretty tedious by that, and the Boss Battle would just turn into a glorified random battle. Don't misunderstand- I'm not against it, everything can be cool if properly executed, it's just that I advise to be against Attack Spam design just for the sake of it.     3. Let's Party! (Author's note: It kinda looks like Oscar is dodging the rubbles ._.")   How about making the Boss do something to the Party? It doesn't have to be the Boss joining after battle like pictured. You can use other options such as:   a. The Boss being a bertraying party member all along! The reverse from the above situation happens, and the boss is removed from the party member.   a. The Boss is actually a nice guy, and one of your party member's a traitor. The Boss joins in the middle of the battle, and a new battle starts against the betraying party member. A mix of the example picture and example a.     4. Utilize Those Status Effects! Aah... Succubus! You make Enchanter-chan sad   Nine out of ten, you know that feeling.  When you play a game where there are like 15 "Ailment" States present... But none of them worked on the Bosses. What's the purpose, then? The Warrior and Mage can just slash and burn through the small fries, so it's usually moot to Ailment them. So how useful would the Enchanter be? So my next suggestion is, make States more meaningful to the mechanic. Although, you'll need to manage which are affected with what. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to make Firespirit affected by Burn or Toxic Wyrm affected by Poison. Although I also suggest that the "Death"/"Knockout" State should not be able to be used on Bosses, since it could break the game's challenge. Or alternatively, don't add insta-death Skills.     5. Make a Duel Boss! Natalie would actually look pretty sweet as a cheerleader...   Duel Boss is a kind of Boss where only a certain number of your Party may join the fight (Usually only one). You can specify whether only the Chosen Twins may fight the Twilight Ruler, or that only the Star Princess can soften the Solar Dragon's anger. Executed well, Duel Boss can make a Boss Battle challenging and/or fresh without looking too cheap.     6. Make "Irregular" Battle A Hero Arrives! (Spoiler: It's Noah)   Alternatively, you can make a Boss Battle that ended in an unusual fashion. Be it a mysterious hero rescuing your Party and defeating the Demon once its HP reaches 40% or below, a Greater Demon that kills the Lesser Demon and replaces it during battle... The plot potential is strong!     7. Alternate Win/Lose Condition! You take care too, Isabelle. We need your Spells but your MHP seems to be against that.   Usually, the main goal of a Boss Battle is to take down the Boss by making its HP reach 0. However, you don't have to always stick upon that. You can make alternate goals such as surviving for 30 Turns, protecting a friend who's channeling a Barrier, or walking the usual beat-to-death route, but with a mix such as making the Grave Squirmer only killable by casting Holy Spark!     8. Linked Enemies! SLASHTHEM   You can make Multi-Parted bosses too in RMVXA! There are scripts for that I'm sure, but you can also make simpler ones with eventing. Multi-Part Bosses are essentially multiple Enemies set up in the same Troop. Once the "Core" dies, an event triggers that places Death state into the others.     9. Reverse Multi-Limb! Of course, talking is easier than executing. ... ...That pun.   How about making a twist to the usual Multi-Limb fight, and make that you're easier/possible to win the less you bother with the "Core" enemy? If that sounds too easy, then remember that you could "Invoke" (Guess the hint?) the player to attack the forbidden. Be careful with balancing, though... There are many possibilities with this one: A Chaotic Spirit that is unaffected by all Magic but has Magic Seeker skill to turn all Elemental Magic toward him? Your hero's hostage girlfriend forced into an armor that redirects all Sword Skills toward her? Up to you!     10. Outside Battle Tweak (Suggested by AlliedG) MY EYES!!! (I luckily captured this state though SS )   Who says you cannot tweak the battle externally? You can apply circumstances that makes the a Boss Battle different depending on your doing outside it. You can make a Boss gets a weakness to Fire by completing a sidequest involving sabotaging the Boss' magical capability, or makes an NPC that will strengthen the Boss if you failed his request!     XX. Hair-Pulling Edition: Yuu Narukami Myriad Truth SWAG (Requested by Casta)   This basically emulates the final phase of the final boss fight in Persona 4, where you manually cast a certain skill on the boss in a scripted fight, which finally leads to winning. It's quite tricky (and long), and requires multiple Database setup, so please read and proceed very carefully.         12. The Persona Reaper Encounters! (Requested by Casta)   This one is more into map eventing than battle eventing, but still cool for me, nonetheless! The Reaper encounter style from the Persona series 3, 4 and 4 Golden. The Reaper itself is a really tough special enemy that appears in Persona 3 and 4/G that is well-known for its extreme difficulty and special encounter method. And now we're going to mimic those encounter systems! This request would be separated into 3 parts, divided by the game the Reaper appears in, because the encounter method is different in each game. This is another one that's a bit more into the intermediate-to-advanced skill level, so please read thoroughly. Especially the P3 one. I spent the whole night figuring that one out, while the others don't even take 10 minutes.   12. 1. The Reaper Encounter (Persona 3)       12.2. The Reaper Encounter (Persona 4)     12.3. The Reaper Encounter (Persona 4 Golden)   I hope you find these useful~     Useful Links: "Boss Battle" on TV Tropes. Basically a witty exposition about Bosses and Boss Battles, complete with a huge list in Tropenese. Are you One of Us, too? http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BossBattle   "Battle Systems 101: Creating Bosses" by Lowell Richards. A neat guide found in this very forum. Has a well-written pointers and insights, including some small details not found in here. Despite seeming a bit incomplete, it's definitely worth reading! http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/1098-battle-systems-101-creating-bosses/       Outro: Well, I think that's all for now! I'll update the guide once I got more, so stay tuned for that! Don't forget to give feedback and leave comments if you have any! I hope this guide would help you in designing cooler, more interesting Bosses and Boss Battles.           Happy designing!   -Maki