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CarChris: It may sound somewhat weird, but I was long pondering about this and I would like to ask you, based on your gaming experience:
Have you ever seen the end boss, in any game of any genre, who will NOT fight the player's hero?
Because:
the boss has grown afraid of the hero (because he couldn't help but notice the hero's massive "kill quota" up to this point)?
Nope.
But gosh - I wish, that was (more often) a thing.
And not just end bosses...all the normal enemies, too.

You'd think, at some point your "killer reputation" precedes you and weaker opponents would rather evade you/flee from you, than actively seeking a battle, of which they must know, it will lead to their demise.

But no: even when you, as the player, are in your high XXs levels, every "level 1" bandit will still attack you, as if you were still wet behind the ears and all these shiny weapons and that massive armour on you would be invisible to them.

Though to be fair: if my memory serves me right, in "Two Worlds" comes a point, when (at least?) the wolf packs and low-level bandits will rather flee than fight.
Post edited January 06, 2025 by BreOl72
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BreOl72: You'd think, at some point your "killer reputation" precedes you and weaker opponents would rather evade you/flee from you, than actively seeking a battle, of which they must know, it will lead to their demise.

But no: even when you, as the player, are in your high XXs levels, every "level 1" bandit will still attack you, as if you were still wet behind the ears and all these shiny weapons and that massive armour on you would be invisible to them.

Though to be fair: if my memory serves me right, in "Two Worlds" comes a point, when (at least?) the wolf packs and low-level bandits will rather flee than fight.
Hahaha, amazing!! :D Even Geralt wonders about that in W3!

I would like to correct you, though, about Two Worlds, as I finished it very recently (and I'm currently in 2). What you describe doesn't happen in it, but in Sacred.
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BreOl72: And not just end bosses...all the normal enemies, too.

You'd think, at some point your "killer reputation" precedes you and weaker opponents would rather evade you/flee from you, than actively seeking a battle, of which they must know, it will lead to their demise.

But no: even when you, as the player, are in your high XXs levels, every "level 1" bandit will still attack you, as if you were still wet behind the ears and all these shiny weapons and that massive armour on you would be invisible to them.

Though to be fair: if my memory serves me right, in "Two Worlds" comes a point, when (at least?) the wolf packs and low-level bandits will rather flee than fight.
Many JRPGs have low level enemies flee from you.
* The Dragon Quest series does that, though in the original game this is determined by enemy strength rather than level. Originallly, in fact, the only reason metal slimes would run away is because they have rather low strength for where they appear; if you somehow get there at a very low level (likely via RNG manipulation), they won't run away. DQ9, where enemies are visible in the overworld map (and move in real-time), will have low-level enemies that see you run away.
* Final Fantasy 1, 2, and original 3 also do that (though I don't know what metric FF2 uses). There's even a spell (in FF1/FF2) and an abilitiy (FF3) that makes enemies more likely to run away. (Famously, there's a TAS of FF1 where the final boss is made to flee with that spell.) FF3, rather unusually, makes it so that an enemy's attempt to flee isn't guaranteed to succeed. FF4 removed the mechanic, but the ability that's supposed to make it more likely still exists, for some reason.
* Earthbound did something rather famous. There's visible enemies that move in real-time, but low-level enemies will flee when they see you. If you pursue such an enemy and manage to get combat to start, and the enemies don't ambush the party, then the game just skips the battle and gives you an automatic win, complete with XP.

Another interesting example that's rather obscure:
* In SaGa 1 (also known as Final Fantasy Legend 1), if an enemy runs out of uses for all its attacks, it will run away. If it is not possible for the player to run away (for example, if it's a boss fight or other fixed battle), the enemy will just die. Note that an enemy that runs away does its death animation; this means that the one boss you can run from will do that death animation if you run it out of attacks and it flees. (SaGa 2 doesn't do this; in fact, enemies never run out of attacks in SaGa 2.)
- Arcanum: have forgotten the details, but you can talk the villain out of going through with his scheme.
- Fallout: You can point out to the villain that his plot is fatally flawed and not going to work, which skips the final combat.
- Age of decadence: This is a bit different, the "final villain" isn't really driving the game's events, but rather a being it's totally optional to interact with. You can choose to simply walk away without ever talking to him, leaving it as someone else's problem.
Post edited January 07, 2025 by morolf
Some games about choices:
Alpha Protocol.
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.
Dishonored 1.
Dishonored 2.

In a couple of them, the final battle is not entirely avoided. However, using stealth, tricking your enemy, delegating the dirty work, or even allying with the enemy can save the bloodshed for another day.
You don't actually directly fight Dagoth Ur, I understand. Instead, you've gotta break his heart.
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zzqzzq_zzq: IIRC in Mass Effect 1, convincing S. that he'd been changed, and to shoot himself (instead of gunning it out) was an option... Never tried it tho.
Yup, you can. You say to him everything he did wrong and convince him that allying with them was a bad thing since the beginning. He is already dominated by them at this point and just shots himself in the head if I remember correctly.

Also:

Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen (Spoilers ahead, obviously...):

You have some options when fighting the "last boss", the Seneschal during its many phases:
(Not going through the previous endings, as there are others before those ending endings.)

- In the first phase you can actually lose and as a consequence you become the next Dragon, just as Grigori, whose you previously defeated... Falling down from Seneschal dimension, the player, now a Dragon, to the world again. Therefore, failing your destiny mission as an Arisen and thus restarting the Eternal Cycle. Obviously this is a game over ending which end up in a Retry screen;

- On the second phase he proposes that he could give you a comfortable life and a normal human death if you turn back and decide to not fight him. This is an illusion ending. Not because it doesn't happen in the lore, it actually could, but because this is a bad ending pact the player's Arisen sign with the last boss, the previous victorious Arisen (now the Seneschal that you fought against) - this is also a bad and false ending as you come back to a normal life as a normal human and live it comfortably, but never fulfil your previous destiny as Arisen, therefore, failing to stop the Eternal Cycle;

- On the third and last phase he admires you will for going through everything you went, even going through your loved ones in the illusion he creates when you decide to fight him instead of living a comfortable life. Then he lastly proposes a fair fight. You, the current Arisen and your Pawn against Him, the last Victorious Arisen, now the Seneschal, and His Pawn, a fight that will decide the fates of the Everfall and the Eternal Cycle itself.
Here you can also lose and this causes the ending to be the first I explained, with the player's Arisen becoming the next Dragon, or you can win.

When you win the fight and finally stabs him in his heart while your pawn grabs him, everything disappears and the Seneschal, the 'last boss', appears as if nothing happened again and explains to you that all of this was a just a test of Will and Resolve. By conquering every phase of the fight, the Arisen has proven himself worthy of becoming the Seneschal and managing the existence. Then he explains to you that his time is done and gives you the Godsbane, the only weapon able to kill the Seneschal, or, himself.

He then gives you time to ask him questions about who he is, or was, what he has done, and so on about the game's lore.
You then have the choice to wield the Godsbane and kill him, becoming the Seneschal yourself. He rests and the player becomes the Victorious Arisen, the next Seneschal and manager of the world with your Pawn. It finally ends without a credits screen as you can roam freely on 2 game maps, with the world now restored from the chaos that was before. Since now you're basically God you travel as an invisible entity with no effects on NPCs or objects just to see the world restored. A representation of your Arisen managing the world well I think.

...Though, this is also an illusion ending and not the true ending, as, by wielding the Godsbane as the Seneschal and killing yourself you finally end the Eternal Cycle and give your own Pawn, and possibly all the Everfall (Pawn's world [pun not intended]) and Pawns free will.

I like the details they put on the lore for the last fight.
Its really complex and interesting, though unfortunately rushed in execution in gameplay, for reasons the Dragons Dogma community is well aware of by now after all those years.

Still, really good story.

=====

By the way... why nobody talked about New Vegas last boss fight yet? How? Why? :P
Or I missed something?
Post edited January 07, 2025 by .Keys
The Gradius series loves having a completely defenseless giant brain that just sits there while you shoot it as the final boss.

In Yggdra Union, the final boss on the last stage won't fight you if you don't attack her first, and the canon ending is actually to leave and not fight her. If you're actually going for the Advent of Ragnarok ending, the final boss is extremely tedious and unfun to fight (though that actually kind of ties into the theme of the game's plot).
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mrcrispy83: The Gradius series loves having a completely defenseless giant brain that just sits there while you shoot it as the final boss.
Makes me think of Crystalis (NES), except there the final boss does try to attack. Thing is, if you stand in the right spot, it can't hit you, but you can still hit it.