Ahh, the boss fight is indeed a thing of beauty. Battles with the likes of Bowser, Ganondorf, massive zombies, giant cyborgs, and even Satan himself, all are remembered fondly by the gamer in all of us. It’s no surprise, either, since most games spend all of their story mode building up to an epic conclusion where you pound the boss’s head in with some epic weapon (a magical sword, a chainsaw-machine gun, plumber’s shoes, etc). And when he/she/it has been defeated, you proudly stand over your fallen foe in victory, and an adrenaline surge courses through your veins, knowing that you alone are the hero of whatever world the game has placed you in.
Endless Boss Fight is not like those traditional games.
“’Here we go!’ (Again and again and again)”
Endless Boss Fight takes the age-old standard adventure game mechanics and removes quests, side characters, and even a basic story, leaving the game as an endless war between your nameless robot-with-boxing-gloves protagonist, and a giant machine with lots of weapons as your foe. There’s no time for anything else, here; in fact, from the time you first boot up the game, you’ll be starting the eternal battle between the metal warriors without a few moments to catch a breath.
With such a simple premise, there’s really not much to cover in regards to gameplay mechanics. The game is 2.5D, meaning you’ll be moving up and down, in addition to sidescroller horizontal movement, in order to dodge the mecha-boss’s attacks; and swoop in for a flurry of your own punches. Typical of every endless game, you just rinse and repeat the core gameplay.
I’ll get this out of the way first: Endless Boss Fight is not a bad game. All the typical boss-fight standards are present; the boss gets harder gradually, your attacks become less effective, etc. And there’s even a cool little addition: “Create-A-Boss” mode, which lets you give the boss custom attacks and stats; then send him to fight other players online. Vice versa, you can fight other players’ bosses online, which offers a different pace from the endless sparring in the Single player mode. All in all, there’s a definite fun challenge present, and rounds are frantic and addicting. If you’re a huge fan of endless games, you can stop reading this review and go download EBF in confidence.
….Still here? I’ll move on to the problems, then.
Perhaps the most blatant issue with EBF is the inclusion of IAPs. An upgrade system for both the player and the boss uses coins as the in-game currency. The game is free, so it should come as no surprise that you can buy coins with real money for faster upgrades, but the fact that you can also use coins to buy lives and power-ups is the worst facet of the micro-transactions for me. Skipping some grinding for quick pay-upgrades; that’s fine with me, but being able to buy such core elements of the game could be unbalancing, because part of the challenge of endless runners is just that: challenge. Not “pay to improve”.
Aside from that complaint, I also want to draw attention to the control scheme. The controls are finicky at times, and the 2.5D perspective sometimes led to me colliding with projectiles because I had trouble figuring out how “far away” in the battlefield. This is yet another one of those action games that would benefit from a physical controller, but that’s not a flaw exclusive to this game.
In Conclusion
It’s IAP riddled, slightly unpolished, and nothing really revolutionary. But it is still fun, and those who love endless runners pretty much are required to pick it up. Endless Boss Fight will entertain; just don’t expect anything major out of it.
