Bosses

Well, "H" may not be terrifying, but it's a start.

I have come to see bosses as an integral part of most genres, especially in the arcade format. They act as an end-piece to a level or stage or world, and a final challenge before progressing. I think that some of the lack of bosses that we have seen so far is directly related to a concept of these games as games. What I mean is that something like Joust or Mario Bros. is designed to be a diversion, like solitaire. There are a set of rules that mandate an increasing difficulty level after every round. The goal of the game is to do well and polish your skills and occasionally benefit from lucky breaks when a game employs a RNG.

Because I grew up alongside the rise of the NES, I expect most games to have some kind of goal. I am used to bosses and endings of one kind or another, even if it is a "second quest" like in Zelda or replaying the game with harder enemies, like in Super Mario Bros.

We had especially come to expect this from arcade games, due to the quarter crunching nature of the games we grew up with. Beat 'em up and shoot 'em up games are often designed with nightmarish segments that are designed to kill all but the most experienced player, making it difficult, if not impossible, to reach the end of the game on a single credit. These often come in the form of bosses with deadly attacks, and the like. So far, the only bosses we have encountered were in Exed Exes, and these bosses felt more like prototypes than the screen filling death traps we will in encounter in later games.