The worst final stages in otherwise good games? (spoilers)

So, which games that, while good, had the worst final levels?

For me, it's the Star Forge in KOTOR I. Oh boy, the more I go through this stage in my replays on this, the more I realize why I play KOTOR II more, despite liking the first one a little more.

WARNING: References a-plenty...

So, I'm FemRevan on the light side and we go in and on my path to finish it off with Malak and (Darth?) Bastila and I swear you could replace Sith soldiers and apprentices with the Zerg from Starcraft because endless supplies of them just rush you like mad and quickly killing you.

On any luck you survive, you get to Bastila and her lightsaber duel feels less like an epic duel of force and lightsabers, but more like the ladder fight from Police Story 4/Jackie Chan's First Strike, from the numerous failures (save one if you're skilled enough, not counting the romance if you're male Revan) at convincing her, to the continual fighting and the best way I got out of that was, not by using the force (save for healing and maybe a couple attacks) or saber swings, but by blowing her the hell up with MINES.

Then, not counting the continual spawns of droids (as that can be avoided easily, which I learned on my second playthrough), we get to Malak and... for a menacing Sith Lord, he's a moron for revealing his weakness with his own words. So with that, I destroy his power sources with Destroy Droid, run from him and SPAM throw lightsaber like it's Hadouken and BAM, he's not the hard boss he's cracked up to be.

Despite the rushed ending and being a weaker game, KOTOR II had a better final stage and fighting Kreia/Treya felt like an actual challenge.

Ugh... enough with all that, what's your choice?

Half-life: Zen.

Final Boss of Batman Arkham Asylum

Cortana-Halo 3.

Other than that level that is one of the best fps campaigns ever.

KZ2 final boss

God of War 3 - psychological bullshit at the end + plus the labrynth was pretty lame too.

Having to re fight all the bosses in DMC3 and 4 is super annoying as well

Feel like I'm forgetting alot but that's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Lol, yeah that level was a pain in the arse! But still a brilliant game.

Also, more recently, Quantum Break's last level/boss fight was pretty average.

Mafia.

the 'final boss' is a normal dude who is just magically able to soak up like 500 thompson bullets

I think Uncharted 4 final boss fight is very out of place. The scenario is fine, but using get gud mechanics completely outside of the genre was admittedly frustration inducing.

If I didn't truly desire to complete the game and was invested in the characters and the story, I could have accepted walking away with an incomplete.

God of War 3 was complete crap, threw in a bunch of cheap kills and call it a final boss.

Uncharted 4 final boss was complete crap, almost The Order 1886 like

Library in Halo CE.

Cortana in Halo 3.

Earth in Darksiders II.

Killzone 2's final battle came to mind. Kind of ruined what was otherwise a game I found myself wanting to like most the time with occasional bits of doubt.

Resident Evil 6, specifically I didn't like how some of the campaigns went into very redundant territory especially toward the end of their individual campaigns. I actually liked most the game and I didn't mind its action focus, just didn't like those redundant sections.

Also, like the last half of Bravely Default, it's basically going over the same area again and again and again, totally ruined what was set to be an otherwise exceptional game.

Uncharted 4's last boss was stupid, but nothing tops the fucking Island in Resident Evil 4. Way to completely run out of ideas Mikami.

For the village, the game rarely stumbles. I would argue maybe only once or twice did a moment stick out as not entirely well done, like random introduction of dogs, then them not showing up again forever, or bosses that weren't anywhere near bad, just feeling a little ill conceived in their execution. But otherwise, the village is near perfection. I love so much of it, and it was tense.

Then the castle. Pacing is the main word for Resident Evil 4, and I focused on it a lot this game. The castle is where it starts to slip up. The moment the castle started, I was wondering what that empty feeling was. I didn't not like the castle at that point - it was similarly tense to the village, let you use more weapons, and trusted the player even more with figuring out things - but I think it was that I never really felt we got a proper conclusion to the village. It was a draw bridge closing on one of the best chapters in a video game ever, and then just moving on. Nothing bombastic or climactic. If it had ended with that one boss fight ("the eye" to avoid spoilers) and then just moved on, that would have been better. But at least we got the castle. The beginning of the castle is great. You got to shoulder the load for two people in many many combat scenarios. It starts this wonderful transition from tense to intense (a term I've heard about Mikami's Dino Crisis ) and was very memorable.

But Ashley getting kidnapped a second time felt a lot like filler. The castle started to drag on and on, and then the bad Salazar boss happened. I was all for Leon being grounded while aiming and shooting, but using one stick while trying to hit a small weak point on top of the random QTEs was annoying. QTEs in the game were generally well done because Leon was badass in most of them. Dude loses his motherfucking coat way too early.

The island, honestly, mostly blew. It was long, it was dragged out, it had slow bosses that ate a shit ton of Snickers and had huge health bars, and was just Shooty McGrenadefest for most of the time. The tension had gone, the level design was sinking, the pacing was lost, and the game went from this wonderful classic to one of the better TPS games of the last decade. The island did have its moments, but nothing about it was memorable aside from maybe "it." I could have done without most of it, one boss fight (them biceps man) aside, since he was pretty cool.

I liked Resident Evil 4 a lot. At one point it was shaping up to be a 10/10, then a 9/10 but a top ten of all time, but I very much dislike that last section on the island overall. Its pacing was sublime, then let down by what felt like an overzealous crew that wanted all their ideas out there. I still highly recommend it overall though.

Final Fantasy IX (Final boss sucked)

RE4 (I loved the castle and island but the final boss was a letdown in comparison to the other bosses)

UC2

UC4 (I would argue that all the UC games have lame final bosses)

Batman Arkham Asylum

Halo CE (minus the final escape scene)

And probably the worst: Metroid Prime 3 for the Pirate Homeworld and the crappy final boss

The final boss in Uncharted 2 - especially in Crushing.

Uncharted 2 is amazing in my eyes, an all time great. It tells an epic and bombastic tale with great characters, plot, pacing and gameplay throughout. It then decides to throw a bullet sponge boss curveball in at the end.

Can't remember his name but suddenly you're facing a guy who cannot be killed conventionally, can throw 5 grenades at a time, and can one hit you (on crushing) with his shotgun from nearly any range, all whilst you're locked into a small arena filled with platforming and pits to avoid.

You have to try and explode the resin as he runs past in order to damage him properly, which again is quite difficult on crushing due to his speed and being able to keep up with you. This has to be done a tiring number of times to beat the boss, and is made ever more infuriating by the fact that if you get hit once by his shotgun then you have to start the whole sequence over as there are no checkpoints during the fight.

Humph.

Easily the most overrated mission of all time, The Suicide Mission in Mass effect 2 with a final boss so bad that the sequel didn't use one.

use the TSLRM for KOTOR 2....its a better game than the first.

Lazarevic.

I didn't hate him, he's certainly better than the trash we got in 3 and Golden Abyss, and better than both 4 and 1 as well, though obviously no high standards there. But I like him because the dude's clearly powerful and stronger than you, and by all means you should be in a submissive position. The other options that I can think of conveying a quite is some overly contextual crap like we got in 1, QTE nonsense like GA, 3, and 4, or a regular dude who ate more Snickers and thus has a higher health bar.

I don't think he's perfect, but I think it's a good boss fight, even if it can be annoying on Crushing.

Mass Effect 3: The Earth mission combined with the ending made for one of the most disappointing experiences of all time. It stops the franchise from becoming one of the greats. And no, the extended cut didn't help. It was rushed, didn't make sense, and none of your choices mattered.

Bioware and Casey are done.

Everything from the Alien Spaceship to the fighting the mother ship thing on that boat in Crysis 1. Dope game, fantastic systems at work, but what a shit barrel finish. Crytek's 2nd enemy nonsense ruined Far Cry, and it damn near ruins Crysis for me.

Last one i played must be Halo5, great game but the ending was meh

ME3. Earth mission should have been an amazing and climactic battle to touch off the space opera. Instead it feels too dark, clunky, and a lot of really bad enemy encounters that just take too long at a point where you're really wanting to see how it all ends (even though we all know now how that turned out.)

Bioshock. The last 3rd really lost me and the final boss especially felt way too over the top for the design of the game.

DA inquisition. DA Inquisition's pretty good overall but the ending comes up very abruptly and before you know it you're up against the final boss and he's lame and it's done.

Guild Wars 2. For all the hate it gets on this forum I fucking loved this game for a long while. But the final dungeon and the fight vs zhaitan in the vanilla game were just awful.

Half-life 2. Shitty cliffhanger ending after a really lame boss fight that's after a really lame platforming section.

Witcher 2, at least the launch version. The last act feels really really short, the last boss is an info dump snoozefest before being a fairly typical encounter.

I found the big bosses in the Crysis games to be lame. I actually liked best the final boss(es) in Crysis 2.

I found the final levels in the UC and KZ2/KZ3 games to be generally okay.

@Blabadon: that's the guy!

Still though, whilst i cannot remember who the boss in GA was, I would happily take Uncharted 1 or 3 final boss over the boss in 2 when playing on crushing though - they are at least quite forgiving.

- Necron was an incredibly lame way to end FFIX.

- Bayonetta 2's final chapters (the ones after going to hell) were incredibly weak and disappointing TBH. The one mech chapter we got was very underwhelming, and the final boss was even more disappointing considering this was the same company behind Jubileus from the first Bayo game and W101's last boss.

-The final giant Luigi battle in M&L: Dream Team was absolutely ruined due to gyro controls.

-I just beat Chrono Cross for the first time tonight and the way you had to finish the final boss to get the good ending was pretty stupid. The lack of any music during the fight certainly didn't help.

-The second phase of Super Mario Galaxy 2's final bowser fight was one of the most quick and pointless battles ever.

World of Warcraft: WotLK and Cataclysm

Ulduar was one of the best dungeons in mmorpg history. But getting followed up by an arena and a rather uninspired dungeon dealing with an unsatisfactory end to Arthas, sucked. Cataclysm started great, but was watered down quite heavily and Dragon Soul... well the less said the better.

Most SRPGs.

Bullet sponge bosses doesnt work well with SRPGs, never has.

Uncharted 3- I can barely call it a final showdown.

I dont even remember the ending lol, i guess it was that bad!

Mass Effect 3

Halo 4

Halo Reach

Fable 2

Gears of War 1

Uncharted 1

Last of Us

Half Life 1

Rise of the Tomb Raider

From recent games: Doom. The boss fights in later levels are quite bad and the final level has couple fights that are a bit too long and too easy for my taste. They should've made more enemies come at the same time and fewer waves. Instead big arenas at the end feel empty with few demons and little boring. There is enough room to fight dozen demons or so.

From older games: Ninja Gaiden Black. In the end you've to face several bosses in a row without save points. I usually just killed couple of them and then ran back to the city hub to save and then got back. Wasted like 15 mins in that.

Rise of the Tomb Raider.

The last two battles were really unoriginal AND dull. It's like they didn't care about it..."let's just finish making this damn game already".

Let be honest. Most games have sh*t endings.

Dante's inferno. The last third were basically challenge rooms

ME3 deffinetely

Uncharted 2 for sure,that shit was terrible. Otherwise I´d say the original Half Life,fantastic game with incredible... well,everything and then you get to the final level,Xen.

The first Borderlands takes the cake.

Strange, I thought the battle with Deathwing was very satisfying, but totally agree with you about WotLK.

I scrolled down waiting for someone to mention the Library in Halo. Christ...that level.

I'll add "The Challenge" in the Witness. Seriously...that thing can go straight to hell.

For me? Final boss of Demon's Souls. Just felt cashed in.

Fable 2s final sequence made me feel like I was cheated out of a real end game.

Also, every UBIsoft game I've ever played has had a passive almost indifferent approach to the end of their games... Almost like they're afraid to take a chance at something interesting.

Alan Wake

Quantum Break

those are 2 that come to my mind.

I agree here.

The first time I beat U2 on crushing was...frustrating. I eventually figured out a pattern to beating him but man...that was frustrating. I can still remember exactly what he says after each shot from the resin...that's how many times I died.

• KOTOR 2 (Rushed)
• Mass Effect 3 (You know why)
• Half Life (Run of the mill 90s platforming)
• Thief: The Dark Project (It's not bad,,, just too easy)
• Uncharted 3 (Lazy and forgettable)

Mafia 1 has one of the best ending level in game i have ever seen. it was so epic and climatic in every way.

OT: Deus Ex Human revolution. Excellent game while final level was bad left 4 dead.

the ending was great, but the boss fight against whats his name was ridiculous

Shadow of Mordor came to mind.

It was sam. and I was so blown away by that firefight between sam and tommy.

Kinda sad no mafia game come close to masterpiece mafia 1 was. and mafia 3 looks so terrible.

Mass Effect. All 3.

Wrong. The extended cut made a lot of sense, your choices did matter (like whether you send Jack's students to the front line or in support roles), and the most rushed aspect is gone.

Casey Hudson is no longer with Bioware, for your information.

• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - Dark Samus and whatever that final boss thing was. Maximum disappointment despite an amazing lead-up.
• BioShock - Worst final boss ever. Period. End of discussion.
• Mass Effect 3 - I so badly wanted the Indoctrination Theory to be true. So badly.
• Gears of War 2 - "Press X to win"
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords - Despite the time constraints, Obsidian pulled a miracle out of their asses with this, but it still failed on so many levels.
• Far Cry 3 - Despite the build up of the "you've become the monster" theme, they still give you a "save the day" option and don't just force the "bad" ending on you (which personally, I think would have been a poignant ending to what they built there).

Among others...

The extended cut closed the door on possibly the most amazing twist in the history of gaming. Sorry, but you are wrong.

Yeah, Bioshock's final stage was bad. Totally forgettable.