Sakurai Likens Boss Battles In Nintendo Games To Tutorials

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In his latest YouTube video, Masahiro Sakurai highlights boss battles in Nintendo games as being similar to tutorials, noting that he prefers games that offer up more strategic freedom.

Aptly titled Madatory Strategy and Strategic Balance, the video dives into the difference between boss fights that require a set strategy to overcome with those that allow the player to experiment with different weapons and tactics.

He mentions that Nintendo games specifically have a history of providing mandatory strategies for defeating boss battles and that while this is a perfectly valid way to provide an experience, he prefers games that allow for more freedom, mentioning Konami's Castlevania franchise as an example.

"In Nintendo titles especially, the strategy for beating bosses and the like tend to be very clearly defined. Something like striking a foe's eye at the right time, then slashing it with your sword while it's stunned. These are strategies that have been carefully crafted by the game's creators.
"But as a player myself, I think I'd prefer it if I had the freedom to choose how I fight. A strategy that feels mandatory is almost like a tutorial, in a sense. You can tell that someone put thought into the battle, and that's one of the reasons why these games are so popular, but personally speaking, I don't want games to tell me exactly how to play. Still, it's a valid way to make a game."

He ends the video by highlighting The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game that very much allows for player freedom over mandatory strategies. Sakurai says that this "might be a result of the developers rethinking the traditional Zelda conventions". Yeah, we'd agree with that.