Arcade shmups and suicidal bosses

[ReyVGM]

What's the deal with Arcade shmups and suicidal bosses?

I've been playing a lot of Arcade shooters lately and I've noticed a trend most of them have... suicidal bosses and last bosses, what's up with that?

Psikyo and Gradius games are notable for doing that.
But I've seen other random shooters do the same thing, if you wait long enough in a boss battle they just tend to explode themselves and you move on to the next stage as if nothing happened.

Is there a logical reason why the developers do that?

[Protodude]

Um....I've never heard of this before, actually!

[zellsf]

It's more like a "haha no points 4 u" than a suicide. You're not supposed to play shmups that slowly, really.

[ReyVGM]

Playing slowly is not relevant, what's relevant is WHY do they destroy themselves.
Strikers 1945 bosses kill themselves in just like 40 seconds!
Gradius 3 last boss dies regardless if you shoot him or not.

And I've seen plenty of that stuff in a lot of other shooters too.

I discovered that by using invincibility cheats and falling asleep while playing the game. I thought that if I couldn't get killed and I fell asleep, I would just wake up at the boss and continue from there. WRONG, I woke up at the ending and I was like "what the hell? did I sleep-played (sleepwalk ) through the game?

[wil327]

A vast majority of the Arcade shmups I've played have a time limit on the boss battles. Once that limit is reached, the boss explodes/dies, and you automatically advance to the next level. You may not necessarily notice this straight away, but if you look closely you will see this timer ticking down.

[Discoalucard]

Zell's right on bosses in a lot of games like Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, it's just meant to be shameful that you couldn't destroy a boss fast enough. You're also denied the points.

As for Gradius - I read somewhere that it was supposed to be an allusion to War of the Worlds, where foreign bacteria introduced into the innards of the main bad guy just caused it to give up and die. Dunno if that's the official reason. I think the designers just wanted to do something different with the last "boss" in Gradius and it just became a tradition from there.

[ReyVGM]

Ah ok.... it seems to be a good reason, although a little unorthodox I guess.

[Malroth]

Hm. I always figured it was a failsafe to prevent players that had somehow discovered a way to "milk" bosses of points. For example, there's a boss in Soldier Blade that constantly shoots missles at you. There's a sweet spot where you can avoid all of its attacks by sitting in one spot, and then constantly destroy the missles for points.

I think one person actually taped down the fire button and left the game alone to rack up points that way.

[bioniccommando83]

Also I think with some bosses, traditionally at least, there'd be safe areas where you could retreat to between taking pot shots between fire patterns. This encourages a player to get into the mix of things if they want their craving for points and their pride satisfied.

[Deleted]

Whatever the explanation may be, I FUGGIN' HATE when that happens... unless they're supposed to do it. As it's been said, pretty much all final bosses of the Gradius series don't really put up a fight. They just talk jive and either await your asskicking or explode on their own volition. Extremely uneventful finales have been diagnosed to have GFB (Gradius Final Boss) Syndrome.

But when a boss CAN be destroyed, and you don't obliterate him in time and the bastard flees, I'm usually so disgusted that I start the game over thinking about how I'm going to totally murder the muffafluckah.

[ReyVGM]

hahaha