After having just completed
Batman: Arkham Asylum, I don't think I can agree with this more.
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***After the excruciatingly difficult task of defeating the Titan plant monster, Poison Ivy, you emerge from the Botanical Gardens to any array of fireworks. The Joker informs you that, after such a long night, the party is finally about to start! As you make your way in, you find the Joker sitting calmly atop his throne.
After a brief altercation, the Joker sends some croneys and two of his Titan Henchmen to deal with you. Nothing you haven't had to fight before, yet, somewhat like the Joker to let you "have your fun." Congratulating you on your victory, the Joker personally comes down to award you (what an honor)! After another brief chat, the Batman now finds himself in the hands of a Titan Joker on the roof of the Arkham Penitentiary.
Throwing you down onto a lower part of the building, the Joker finally decides to fight you! A few easily avoided swings later, he grows tired of his fight and retreats back to the safety of the high-ground, sending more of his guys you have to fight down in doing so. Showing off his power, the Joker turns his back to the Batman to flaunt for the news helicopter. All the henchmen defeated, the Batman uses this opportunity to pull the Joker down and land a few good blows. The Joker rises from the ground to take more swings at you, beginning the second of the three times you repeat this process (the difference being that the number and difficulty of the henchmen you fight each time are raised).
Tl;dr: You basically fight three waves of standard enemies to defeat the boss.
As a boss fight it's average, but extremely disappointing for it being the final boss--especially considering the boss before it was more difficult, and it used the same lame tactic used in every boss fight up to that point! I'll give credit where credit is due though: the cutscenes were interesting, but they shouldn't be better than the fight!
Let's look at a game with many boss fights though:
Dark Souls.
First of all, I absolutely love Dark Souls. Just thinking about it almost makes me wish I had a Playstation, just to pick up the slack of
Dark Souls II with
Bloodborne. Anyway though, maybe it's because Dark Souls is a different kind of game, one where death truly matters, is what makes the boss fights so good. There were times when my heart was
racing as I fought bosses because of the fear of death the game instilled into me.
It wasn't just that though, it was also the fear of not knowing how to approach certain bosses because they were all new and different. Alas though, keeping the reoccurring theme alive and well, the final boss was quite the let down. All your struggles and hardships led you to fight what I would barely consider a boss, but rather a mini-boss.
So instead of asking why are final bosses so lame, why don't we ask what exactly a good boss fight is?
To me, a good boss fight is one that challenges you to more than just mashing buttons, but to actually think about your actions--something the
Legend of Zelda series does very well.
By this logic though, shouldn't everything in Dark Souls be a good boss fight? Well, yes and no.
For most enemies in Dark Souls, you can't just press buttons willy-nilly and hope to defeat them. Timing and precision is
required to win, which is why it's fun at first. Seeing as how enemies respawn every time you die, and how you die a lot, you are essentially forced to memorize everything from enemy spawn locations to their fighting patterns. Once you get a bead on an area, it's really just a matter of endurance rather than wit.
Basically a lot of areas are fun at first, put aside the aggravation of death of course. Once you learn everything that there is about one though, which you almost have to do to survive, it starts to feel like just mashing buttons due to how familiar everything has become.
For this reason, the final boss isn't really all that exciting. He's difficult, yes, but so are standard enemies in Dark Souls. He uses about the same moves that you've already learned to counter, but in overwhelming proportions. As the
final boss of the game, he's almost a joke. At the same time though, for a game like Dark Souls, it's somewhat pleasing to have the final boss be so simple.
You will bow down and profess your love to me, your Lord, or I shall destroy you.