Today's Boss Fight is near and dear to my heart, being one of those games in my formative years that turned me from an Easy Moding Nancy Boy to a Challenge Moding Psychotic. I speak of perhaps the most ridiculously cruel game to ever grace the Dreamcast, MDK2. The premise of MDK2 picks right up from the original MDK's simple "Aliens are invading, defeat them." The Aliens are back! Defeat them for good!
MDK2 was a love letter to nerds. Considered absolutely gorgeous for it's time, MDK2 makes amazing use of the Dreamcast's graphics to provide fluid visuals that actually feel pretty alien and bizarre. Each level loads with a unique parody comic-book cover showcasing the level or boss itself, done in the old 40s-60s style of sensationalism. The writing and humor fit right in with the sort of fellow who'd go on to watch Futurama religiously someday. The gameplay was a refreshing mix of Action with Stealth/Sniping, More Intense Action and Puzzle-Solving in an atmosphere that recalls Adventure games, each segment unique to Kurt, Max and the good Doctor respectively. The game was split between these three, a mild-mannered janitor in a super suit, a robotic six-legged dog who could fire four guns simultaneously, and a mad scientist with a penchant for nuclear pastries.
Foremost was MDK2's difficulty. This game was hard. You may wonder how intentional this was on the Third Level, the first level wherein you take control of Dr Fluke Hawkins. The poor Doctor has but a fraction of standard health and can't fight without the aid of an atomic-powered toaster. What makes the level so damn hard is coping with his horrible jumping skills. It's hilarious the first few times when he misses a jump and grabs the ledge, then tires out and lets go.. but things can get pretty annoying when so many of the difficult jumps are this clutch.
Things gets worse and the difficulty curve is quite intentional. The later levels of MDK2 are absolutely villainous in their treatment of the player, demanding perfection from Max's jet-packing skills or precise sniping from Kurt under cruel circumstances. It was with great pride that after a few years I eventually beat MDK2, hacking my way through entirely on my own grit and moxie. As brutal as the game becomes, I'd still heartily recommend it to anyone with a fondness for action games and a zest for the unique. You can most definitely grab the Playstation 2 port for $10 or less, and I hear that offers adjustable difficulty or some such pish-posh.
If you havn't played MDK2 yet, I can understand. Some games are simply so ridiculously hard that they're guaranteed to annihilate 50% of potential fans from the start. Add in an aura of weirdness and you've got a cult classic on your hands. So today I expound on the virtues of one Shwang Shwing, Commander of the Stream Rider Armada.
Shwang Shwing is cool. He's a 300-foot tall alien wearing shades. His dialogue is composed of suave hipster lingo. He outwits the heroic trio initially, imprisoning Kurt and kidnapping Max and is ballsy enough to fight you three god damn times.
In Boss Foightin', there are few things as insanely good as a recurring boss who is also a great boss. This one boss effectively becomes a huge percentage of the game content and builds up a sense of rivalry in the player. This rivalry will burn hard and pure by the end of Stage Four, in which you get to face Shwang Shwing for the first time!
A wide open chamber with numerous power-ups, a circles within circles design, and an ominous domed room. It's huge and you want those power-ups, so your sense of dread is allowed to blossom fully in the 30 seconds it takes you to claim them before heading into the chamber.
well hello
This fight seems simple when you've already done it, and it is, yet it's merits are numerous. You fight ol' SS in a closed room and he'll attempt to flatten you while smashing the floor. Pop him in the shades three times(mind the energy bursts) and the next phase begins with the walls bursting and revealing that you're on a central island, the ground around it has vanished as well and Shwang's got you quite out-maneuvered on the outer ring of the stage. The rest of the fight calls for sniping as Shwang routinely launches beams of light from his shades, flicks exploding, suicidal fleas at you, and occasionally leaps straight at you to try and crush your entire little fighting area, taking a shortcut to the other side of his pathing.
One of the best things here is that whenever Shwang attacks with his leap, you can pause the game.. or just watch him come and go.. and realize that he's beautifully put to full scale. Much like Bagan, it's made apparent to the player that he is fucking with none other than the Mr Big of the enemy forces, both literally and figuratively. It's a little detail that I love every time I feel like repeating the fight. I dunno about the Playstation 2 version, but the Dreamcast VMU saves your progress and allows reloading from ANY checkpoint in every level, which is pretty handy for a guy like me who'll actually make duplicate saves in a game just to repeat a boss fight at a later date.
Your sniping focuses on Shwang Shwing's hand, in which he's holding your robo-canine companion, and after a few shots he'll simply toss Max your way and finally become vulnerable to counter-attack. Hurting Shwang Shwing at all involves timing your sniping to activate a giant laser so that it strikes Shwang just as he's approaching it. Simply triggering it whenever you can won't accomplish much. This first encounter ends as a Puzzle-Boss, albeit a pulse-pounding and really awesome one. Closer inspection of this fight reveals elements of any great encounter: an alarmingly powerful foe, really cool mechanics, a chaotic environment and pressure to perform. Shwang Shwing's Leaping is the most dangerous part of the encounter, as the only way to avoid it is to leap off your platform just before impact, hover briefly, and return before falling into the void of cold, uncaring space. The duos of exploding space fleas he tosses are pretty potent as well. The longer the fight goes, the more likely he is to hit you.
Shwang returns! Twice! It's not immediately obvious in Level 7, even as you fight him. Throughout the level, Kurt is stalked by an obnoxiously powerful, invincible ship, but I suppose that's what he gets for traveling to the alien home world. You get to dismantle it in another tense, exciting sniper fight and Shwang Shwing falls out of it, delightfully in full scale, damning you and experiencing some serious wounds. It's a bit of a minor pit stop on our way to his final encounter, but noteworthy for the continued sense of scale(the ship is essentially a one-man personal ride to our giant antagonist) and his presence. It also sets up nicely for his third and final appearance..
Shwang's final appearance is a bit subdued in comparison to the first, but still golden. And insanely hard. We get to face him as Max, who's focus is on ridiculously tricky jetpacking and over-the-top shooting action, so guess what this fight focuses on?
I love the detail in Shwang Shwing. I mean, they retain his awe-inspiring size throughout the entire game, like some entirely unrelated predecessor to Shadow of the Colossus, tasking you in each fight to find some way to even inflict damage to this gargantuan monster. In his final appearance, poor old Shwang is still recovering from his crash landing against Kurt in the second fight and takes you on in a floating wheelchair, complete with IV drip and two casts. Maybe the devs felt sorry for Shwang, so you're saddled with a three minute timer and a hell of a timing-puzzle fight. The video clip explains it pretty eloquently, so let me just comment that this fight is a hell of a lot crueler when you land in it fresh and have no idea how finnicky the timing on those trap buttons is, and with only three minutes to figure it out, god damn.
Over the course of three encounters and several cinematics, we come to see Shwang Shwing as one hell of a villain. He leads an invasion of Earth, captures two of the heroes and takes them on three individual times, all without becoming stale.
MDK2 only has ten levels, so a guy occupying 30% of the Boss Fights better pull his weight. Let's see how Shwang does it..
He's personable. Some of the other bosses include a Reactor Core, a guy who becomes a Mook in later levels, and a cheeky giant brain-type, but he still stands out in that class act sort of way. He's awe-inspiring. He's three hundred feet tall and practically invincible. He's fresh every time. The first fight is wholly unique, the second fight is a subtle tweak and the third fight is a hard one for entirely new reasons.
Fundamentals of good boss design are present. He puts pressure on you in every fight, you're generally subject to a lot of stuff to watch out for and he's a serious danger. I think his move set in general is a little sparse, particularly in the third battle, but there's even a logical basis for this so it's easy to forgive.
In fact, the pacing of the third encounter is part of the brilliant over-all game pacing, as by this time you're getting ready for the climax of the game. The final boss, Emperor Zizzy Balooba, is a hell of a guy in his own right, so it make sense for the last Shwang Shwing fight to not throw everything the devs have at you.
And it's still ridiculously tricky and hard! Good show, good show.
One final aspect of Shwang Shwing is worth commenting on, and that is the music. Most bosses in MDK2 use the same Boss Theme track and thankfully it's a pretty good one. It's got steady, dramatic rhythm, a comic-book sort of feel, a fine campiness that appeals to one's sense of grandeur in fighting a super villain because you're good and he's evil. Once again we hear the presence of horns and an overall rising dramatic tempo. The sparse bits of odd sounds to help with the game's overall alien feel is good too, but mostly you're thrust into the feel of a sci-fi comic and fighting a giant alien overlord and all that. As you can see, you're also fighting a great one.
Pump this music up and feel it pound through your sternum, the perfect accompaniment to your battles with a such an intimidating, tricky foe! Yeah, baby!
