:what:
I quite like G.O.A.T’s idea.
You are all missing the point.
The end boss is MEANT to be easy. It’s like with any Gradius game. If you’ve managed to get past every single god-damn thing thrown at you and break every defense, and still manage to reach the end boss in one piece, it turns out he needed all that protection because he’s WEAK.
Wow, Prisoner416, That’s some good thinking actually! Or maybe he’s scared of you, because he knows if you could beat all of those obstacles, you can kick his ass like nothing. Ether way, it still needs some intense music during the fight, like the Jungle Drums ( that’s the song’s name ) that played during the Gonarch’s fight.
Nilly can have a re-textured mortar beam attack. Y’know, like the Overwatch railgun? IT SHALL RAIN DOWN UP YOU! And scoot you away from cover since it’s aerial.
I hated that song, so annoying during the gonarch battle
Too bad we can’t actually use any Gradius boss music…
Well the creators did say they aren’t going to change enemies with different attacks
i never understood why the final boss was a giant hovering infant.
It was on the front page in the top five or six recent topics. It’s not obvious on first glance that it is an old topic.
Because it is paradoxical. Everyone is expecting some horrid thing to be there. Well what’s more horrid than a giant mutilated baby-thing? It’s psychologically interesting, and disturbing.
Wow, this thread actually has potential. While nothing is likely to be incorporated at this point, it at least is something that hasn’t been discussed to death, and also hasn’t been confirmed one way or the other (since we know nothing of Xen)
Actually, an idea I just had was that when you crack open Nihilanth’s head, he has an area effect that takes all your weapons and has them explode away from you to far corners of the map. (the crowbar will always go straight up and not far, so that simply standing still will let you catch it again) In order to get your big guns to finish him off, you’ll have to fight through the hordes on the ground while hunting them down.
In addition to this, another modification that could be made would be adding a mazelike path along the floor that would provide more cover to avoid getting shot while on the ground, but also make it harder to get to the jump pads.
Another thing I’d personally like to see is have outcroppings of rock that make the crystals breakable only from certain angles, so that you can’t destroy every single one within the first 5 seconds of seeing the nihilanth. It could even be set up so the jump pads are required to get to a vertical maze path that leads up the side wall to the each individual crystal.
It would also be nice to allow the nihilanth to destroy certain outcropping rocky outcroppings if you’re spending too much time hiding behind them so that you’re forced to keep moving.
Most of these are just based on interfering with my tactics for this portion of the game, which consisted of 1) destroy every crystal with Gluon Gun or Tau Cannon before moving 2) Run for the jump pad that takes me to the outcropping with the healing pool on it 3) Keep jutting rocks on outcropping between me and Nihilanth 4) whittle nihilanth down with Hornet Gun 5) Profit
Some of these tactics could even be set so that they’re only implemented at different difficulties, like the Assassin’s cloaking device.
The Nihilanth battle sucked in every way that it could possibly suck. The only way to make it good would be to rethink the entire thing from scratch.
What I have always said was this: Half-Life is not just an action game but also a puzzle game, it requires you to use your brain and not just your aiming skills. The Nihilanth battle is too simple compared to how complex the rest of the game is.
One way the problem could be solved, without changing the script around too much would be like this:
He would teleport you to various locations where you would actually have to solve a puzzle of some sort, not just reach the teleport orb at the top. You would actually have to go to those locations and do whatever you have to do there in order to kill the boss. It would not require using your weapons too much, it would be more of a logical thinking challenge, that would put ALL the skills you learned during the game to the test.
Think of the Portal boss fight: It was fun, but required using skills that you’ve learned throughout the game, and not just “shoot as much as you can to kill the boss”.
Isn’t that the primary skill you learned in HL1?
There should boulders laying around in the chamber idling and Nilly could use a physprop explosion to push them around if you got to close to them for cover. This would make it challenge for you to spot stable bits of rock for cover and to ensure the evil baby can’t roll you into your grave.
It would also be interesting if Nilly could physgrab the boulders and toss them at you (similar to Dog in HL2), but not before raising the rock as a shield from your bullets.
cool.
So if main problem is that everyone stands behind those giant pillars. Why not give nihilanth a attack that makes 3 red orbs to circle around the room. That should flush out player.
I’d rather have the final battle with a Garg and only a crowbar…
Imagine the hit points involved…
I personally don’t think it should be too hard. The key is to make it challenging enough so you feel like you accomplished something big but also to make the fight more involved and fun and not so irritating. I love a challenge but I’ve never really been a fan of making a game so challenging that you become irritable and freak over every time you get hit. Again, not saying hard is bad but there’s a huge difference between fun and rewarding hard, and just plain irritating hard.
You know, the Nihilianth does need some touching up. The problem is in what direction?
On one hand you can make it more powerful.
On the other you can emphasize that it’s weak.
Just imagine, you’ve destroyed the crystals and have already damaged it once. You hide behind a pillar.
THEN BOOM![/SIZE]
The Nihilianth psychicly picks up a pillar, rotates the spiked end directly at you, and launches it![/SIZE]
Or, of course, you could make it weaker as the player damages it more. The player keeps hitting it and the Nihilianth shudders in pain, then charges up three teleportation orbs. One goes for you while the others flank you. As soon as they’re launched the Nihilianth lowers its head and appears exhausted and hurt. If the player gets teleported when they get back the Nihilianth will raise its head quickly and move into its regular routine quickly as if expecting the player to come back.