A random article about boss music I like from video game bosses I hate.
Head banging, hair pulling... mostly (?)
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING: FIRE EMBLEM THREE HOUSES - SILVER SNOW ROUTE, XENOSAGA III, METAL GEAR RISING REVENGANCE, SMT V, AND POKEMON SCARLET & VOILET. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Well, it’s been a while. Progress on the Saga retrospective is coming along… slowly but surely (currently 143 pages into the script, with no sign of stopping anytime soon), and as a side dish (as a means of dusting this account off), I found myself thinking about poorly made or otherwise annoying/frustrating bosses, specifically with exclusive music that they don’t deserve. I don’t have some heaped 2-paragraph thesis prepared on what bad bosses are and are not (you’ve all seen the accolades of the late Chaos Theatre, have you not? I shouldn’t need to explain this to you.). Instead, let me do some housekeeping (as you and I usually do).
Firstly, this is not going to be any kind of ordered list of ‘worst to best’ (even if I have done some napkin planning on what order I plan to write these bosses in for the sake of this here article). This is just a small handful of fights that make me look back on their OSTs and think ‘man… I’d love this music so much more if I didn’t associate it with a point in the game that I despise with a passion’. Trust me, there’s more than a few of them.
Secondly, I’m looking for OSTs that exclusively play in fights that I actively dislike, or mostly have a tune all to themselves, so examples like Malos/Akhos from XC2 taking up one of the half a dozen times ‘Incoming!’ plays won’t be on here, as I don’t associate that theme with the one fight in the game I take issue with over the fights like the two Morag fights in the base game, or Addam and Mythra from TTGC. We’re looking to mix it up around here!
Finally, this is not exclusively going to be from games I dislike, for as much as the easiest pickings come from lower down the tree. There was no restriction on games that I rate with a 3/5 or higher on Backloggd (list as of the time of this writing found here).
Anyways, let’s get cracking!
Excerpt A) Rhea, the Immaculate One (FE3H: Silver Snow)
Okay, confession time… this article was supposed to be about my recent Three Hopes playthrough (in the same vain as how my thoughts on SMT V and Future Redeemed were fresh in memory), but looking back on the footage I do have, I realized I’d have FAR too much to say about these games for just one article (and that’s even assuming I can collect my thoughts properly). I’ve been on a bit of a Fodlan binge recently, if you couldn’t tell.
So, what’s the deal with the (ex) Archbishop of the Church of Seiros this time? Is this the trope of our religious institutions being evil? Well, no, even when omitting the fact that Three Houses writing philosophy basically boils down to ‘no true scotsman: the video game’ (which is actually better than it sounds). It’s actually how much of an RNG check this fight is.
For those not in the know (or who just need a rundown), the premise of this fight starts out with Rhea explaining how Byleth came to be, and how Sothis’s soul was inserted into him (I played male Byleth, before you ask, so a lads honorifics it is!). Part way through that speech, however, Rhea goes berserk, as do several church soldiers that took up some Nabatean blood pact with Rhea in order to work for the church of Seiros, and so it’s your job to put her down.
As for the fight itself, well… did you want your Fire Emblem map to force you to play the FitnessGram Pacer test, complete with a dozen white dragons with two or more health bars and Miracle, a skill that effectively gives her reinforcements de-facto Focus Bands, assigned to each individual health bar? Alongside several golems and other ads? No? Too bad! And if you thought that Rhea would play by the same rules as you, you would be absolutely incorrect, my friend! She also has Vantage and Miracle! Please keep in mind, Rhea herself has FOUR health bars, and around 300+ HP (on Normal difficulty, might I add, God bless your soul if you’re a Hard or Maddening mode player), and will be constantly topped up by some random mage on a tile in the back should you even breathe on her funny. Hope you like the scenic route around your hellscape!
Oh, and good luck even trying to break that beast armour on Rhea in the first place should your Battalions decide to leg it from all the random skirmishes around the map! Because when you let her have turns, every time she decides to Horafrost (which does a lot of damage in spite of it’s admittedly shaky hit rate), that armour restores itself! No crits for you, heretic!
Couple this with the rug-pull that was Silver Snow in general (the option to side with Edelgard, the reason you picked the Black Eagles in the first place, is available on the month before you take on Seiros’s tomb, but it’s hidden in plain sight because at this point, you’re not talking to every NPC around the Monastery), and you can imagine how beside myself I felt when all was said and done. I did immediately go back and do a Crimson Flower playthrough (which despite being a Blue Lions compatriot, I found surprisingly good despite it’s short length), and I didn’t find Rhea in that route NEARLY as bad, so I don't know what her deal was here?!
As for the OST itself, I do think the theme in question does encapsulate the desperate nature of the situation, whilst being sombre on the surface level that the route wanted to communicate (perhaps I’d respect this more in retrospect or due time were I to do another playthrough of the route?). I just wish I didn’t associate it with triggering Divine Pulse 10 times because the game evidently hates me.
What would put Silver Snow Immaculate One at the bottom of any proverbial list for me (despite saying I wouldn’t order these fights just yet) is that Three Hopes version of ‘A Funeral of Flowers’ heard on Scarlet Blaze is not only the melodic kick up the arse this track appreciates, but is tied to a Warriors version of the fight with the Immaculate One that doesn’t have me tearing my hair out for an hour and some change. So this fight no longer has the excuse of ‘well, I had that niche going for me.’
Excerpt B) The Testaments (Xenosaga Episode III)
Question: Do horses beat their meat? …I’m sorry, I wasn’t 100% sure how to ask that, and I’m not asking to start scandals over it.
But yeah, we’re back once again (only very briefly, however) to extrapolate on how Xenosaga III is the black sheep of Takahashi’s works, to the outright denial of the fans and Enelcordians that fancy this game and it’s writing some kind of sacred cow. It’s almost like the writers treated this game’s continuity with all the grace of butchered cattle or something! Aren’t my puns like livestock?
Bad farm animal analogies and ‘Dorte the Horny’ aside, I should probably address the inevitable question of ‘but wait, Joycap! Didn’t you say exclusive themes?’ that will be asked. And you are correct to answer that question, dear reader! Although one loophole (if you could call it that) is if the theme plays only in fights that I don’t like, then it counts for this article. And that’s exactly the case with Testaments Kevin, Virgil, and Erich (/Voyager, whatever you want to call him), where I take issue with every battle where this admittedly subdued theme plays (to no offense to Yuki Kajiura, she KNOWS what she’s doing with the OSTs for these games).
Virgil is the least offensive of the three, although for continuity and retcon reasons, that absolutely forlorn stare I gave him is the thing that will make me go ‘where the hell do you think you’re going? you’re not shuffling off this mortal coil without an answer to my question!’ (Reasons that I will address in the video or video(s) to come). Other than that, he’s mostly just a generic damage sponge with a fire weakness I didn’t know about when I was playing, because my equipment slots were going to better things and more general utility.
Voyager (or rather, E.S Dan) and Kevin Winnicott are fights that I’ve gone on record about before, so in order to keep this article as concise as I possibly can, I’ll direct you to those segments, as well as the detail I plan to go into in the project in development. Although for those that want the short version: E.S Dan forces builds on your mechs that are simultaneously overly specific and unfun to use should you wish to beat him in any kind of timely manner, and Kevin, well…
It’s worth noting that both phases of Yuriev ALMOST made it onto this list (going from his own theme to Godsibb, and from an annoying on-foot fight to a pathetically easy mech fight), but I’m not quite as offended by his slice of hell as I am the ubiquity of the Testaments. Final Alvis from Future Redeemed was also considered (for reasons mentioned in my Future Redeemed article), but that ire for its narrative ending is more dispassionate than anything else.
Excerpt C) Jetstream Sam (Metal Gear Rising: Revengance)
Now, I know what you’re about to ask: “isn’t the MGRR OST amazing? What is it doing here?” and yes, I agree with your plight, this OST and it’s brand of hard rock does slap harder than a former friends’ abusive (and hence arrested) dad in the streets of Bolton (I still have the receipts from that lying around on my hard drive, hysterically enough *wink*). But I single out Jetstream Sam specifically, because despite some excellent setup for the Mexican Standoff to come (as well as the performance of our favourite smug senor’ in question), the fight itself is somewhat of a microcosm of Kojima’s scattered and overall unusual approach to game design. His complete squirrel-brain can be fun when it comes to the camp atmosphere and loony set-pieces of Metal Gear’s world and characters, but if you’re, say, a member of the Razorforce, with a well-aged bone to pick with it’s lack of nuance, I can’t really disagree with you (I just don’t entirely agree, either).
As for the fight and the components that make it up, well… let’s just say that the game must have mistaken you for a platypus, because the parry window is kinda jiggered. This is ESPECIALLY pronounced in Sam’s fight, which has 3 distinct phases, one being that aforementioned Mexican standoff where despite any ‘patience’, you have to swing first else he do nothing, a second phase where he’s swordless, yet you’re expected to parry a… command grab? (Okay…?) And a third phase, which is more or less the first phase but more sporadic. All the while, you’re basically abusing sidestep slashes, and scrambling for health packs whilst hoping that you don’t get jumped on or command grabbed from the other side of the interstate for the mere sin of existing because your camera decided to play up (one thing about this game that I can admit has aged with all the grace of roadkill).
I still think that the thematic significance of this fight at least holds up, but man… for all the hype this game has gained as a part of the resurgence of memes, it could have been a lot more.
Excerpt D) The ‘Law Route’ Final Fights: Nuwa and Tsukuyomi (SMT V)
In what could be considered another case of ‘weird loopholes’ in the rules I have set for myself, the endings of SMT V (ones that I have talked about at moderate length in a prior article) take after multiple final bosses (plural) before ripping Lucifer off his throne (or, I suppose he never cared for it…? Whatever… anyway!). I call this segment the ‘Law route fights’, because the only theme I’m not super crazy about is Abdiel’s, and in the law route, you don’t have to fight her and Dazai. Other than that, everything else applies equally here as it does to the other routes (arguably the TNE having more of a stake in the matter because the full track of -eon- (Lucifer’s theme) is found there).
Compounding this is how easy these fights actually are if you planned to take every applicable ending all in one go (which meant killing Shiva, and his fight is actually really well designed and fun to play against minus Ananta spawns, screw that thing). Nuwa (the theme I’ve shown above), probably has the greatest disparity between auditory quality and interactive weight, as while I love the track on display, her AI is… rather stupid, if you’re equipped to deal with an electric spammer with Maragibarion of any description. Tsukuyomi at least has Yabusame Shot, clones and healing to speak of, so he’s more tedious than he is a clean sweep (although he’s not exactly bulky, either). Meanwhile, little old uncle Lucifer swings wildly between a one-round bodybag, and a 3-phase gimmick fight, for reasons explained in the article above.
Pair all of this with a narrative conceit that’s about as substantial as a chocolate teapot, and… well, I think you can see why I don’t like this game.
Excerpt E) AI Sada/Turo (Pokemon Scarlet & Violet)
For all the optimization points I could labour like an activist from 1973, my problems with SV are actually far more narrative than they’ve ever been for a Pokemon game, which is exceedingly disappointing, knowing that the series has given us such gems such as N, Zinnia, Mustard and Gladion. And as can be gleamed from my tone… brother, did they ever screw the proverbial Mabosstiff on this one. Although if we’re labouring positive points, I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that this OST absolutely runs the gamut, and it’s probably my favourite Soundtrack in the mainline Pokémon series alongside the Alola Duology.
Let’s start with that narrative conceit: You’re at the depths of Area Zero (an obvious love letter to NieR: Automata fans, judging by the tone), only to find that the professor you thought you knew was dead, and replaced with an AI clone of themselves (both have the same idea regardless of the version, be it Sada or Turo). You then find out that… the ID that controls the AI and the time machine that the professors want to use is related to the bike legendary that you’ve been driving around the region, and that the professors died by under-estimating the power of the legendary that is still linked with that ID or… some such Tauros s**t, I dunno… it’s contrived as hell, and I hate it. All it does is make the professors look like complete dullards for it.
Much like the above SMT V fights, the fight against the professors isn’t horrendously hard if you have a well balanced team (and you should, given the time you’ve had to prepare). Iron Vaillant and Roaring Moon with respective Booster Energies *sound* threatening, but they’re really not. Oh, and the Bike vs Bike fight is effectively scripted, so I don’t have to talk about that much.
And THEN, there’s the fact that Arven (the best character from the three routes in Paldea) is FAR too okay with the fact that what remain of his parents just sod off to a different timeline anyway? The thing you were trying to stop? Knowing my prior history with criticizing neglectful and abusive parents, I suppose there is a silver lining to Arven moving on with his life in spite of that, but I think I speak for the most of us when I say I would have preferred a ‘good riddance’ from him, and not a half-hearted ‘oh, so you’re leaving? Bye then, I guess…’. It doesn’t deprive our connoisseur of sandwiches of his agency too much, but it is an issue with I have with how this arc is handled. But to far too many people more than it should affect, none of that matters because Ed Sheeran exists. You were all supposed to escape the MSM, not join them!
Begrudgingly, that’s all I’ve got time for tonight (despite my wants to add one more, but it’s not all that different to what I already have), and I don’t really have some great conclusion or outro. I’ll (hopefully) see you all in the big boy.
This has been Joycap, and I think we’re done here. Ja ne.