Why do people hate the dragon bosses so much?

[Emperor Hardin]

12 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I see, thank you! I haven't played Shadow Dragon often or intensively enough to know this. I attacked him with a combo of Tiki and Marth, whom I assumed were the only ones really able to damage him.

Same here. He is imposing, has a great motive for standing against you (THIS is what the Camus archetype should be) and has one of the most beautiful battle themes in the franchise.

Marth /W Falchion and Tiki/Nagi are able to damage him more then other units. Others units either get their damage halved(SNES version) or have to go through his incredible defense. Chances are you'll finish Medeus with Gradivus or Mercurius, combined with some uses of the Earthsphere to weaken him.

12 hours ago, Mad-manakete said:

It's alright. I wouldn't have known either if it weren't for a video where I saw Frey one round the guy. That said, I'm not 100% sure, but I think Medeus may require Falchion to land the final blow in New Mystery. Not sure. I know anyone can wear him down though, so I could be wrong. Seeing as I'm playing through the game now, I'll have to check.

Shadow Dragon Medeus is the same. 

You either deal with halved damage without the Falchion on SNES.

or

Having to go through his incredible  stats on the DS Version.

You'll need luck to beat Lunatic Medeus without Falchion as he is already one of the series hardest final bosses.

The only boss I know to be completely impervious to attacks but the main character is Ashnard, who only can receive damage from Ragnell or the Laguz Kings. Not even the other S-Rank weapons can scratch Ashnard.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Emperor Hardin

[rudolf2139]

 

On 2/20/2018 at 10:18 AM, Mad-manakete said:

Honestly though, I did love the Duma battle. Both in the original Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia. The special animation to end the fight. The fact it had to be Alm to kill him (albeit they let Amiibo characters do the job in SOV). The fact you couldn't just warp Alm in and cheese the battle by one rounding the boss like FE1 and it's remake. Also, the music in SOV's version was great. Still not sure about making Duma a dragon though. Second best final chapter after Path of Radiance in my opinion. But yeah, I think perhaps part of the reason they do make final bosses not require the lord most of the time is in case they get rng screwed and have insufficient stats. Imagine how pissed you'd be if you worked through the game and the only character who could beat the final boss got screwed in stats so bad that he/she couldn't win.

You Can one round Duma but you need at least two units. I would suggest someone (if you are lucky enough) Astra and astral blade learnt and Alm

[Icelerate]

If a game has a compelling human villain, a final dragon boss doesn't detract from it when it comes to writing. From a game play perspective fighting a super natural being is much harder than just an ordinary human villain. So I'm fine with final dragon bosses. 

[Etrurian emperor]

I think part of the reason stems from most of the dragon villains not being very compelling. 

Their most reason track record isn't very good. Anankos suffers from being a Fates villain and thus being awful, In Awakening Grima was criticized as just being generic evil dragon and in the DS games Medeus failed to make an impression.

But the dragons weren't any better in the old days. Idun was far to busy being enigmatic to be interesting, the Fire Dragon doesn't even count and Fortemiss may not be a dragon but he fulfilled the sole role and was just as dull. Only Julius really came off particularly well and that's because he was more boy than dragon.

Part of this is inherent to their role. The dragons never get their chance design because their very nature requires them to either work behind the scenes or waiting the entire game to be resurrected. 

[Corrobin]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think part of the reason stems from most of the dragon villains not being very compelling. 

Their most reason track record isn't very good. Anankos suffers from being a Fates villain and thus being awful, In Awakening Grima was criticized as just being generic evil dragon and in the DS games Medeus failed to make an impression.

But the dragons weren't any better in the old days. Idun was far to busy being enigmatic to be interesting, the Fire Dragon doesn't even count and Fortemiss may not be a dragon but he fulfilled the sole role and was just as dull. Only Julius really came off particularly well and that's because he was more boy than dragon.

Part of this is inherent to their role. The dragons never get their chance design because their very nature requires them to either work behind the scenes or waiting the entire game to be resurrected. 

Hence, my brilliant master plan for the hack I'm never going to make a plot: Draconic humanoids.

See my profile picture? This is what either my Gharnef or my Hardin will look like under their hood/helmet. The heroes think that the cult/empire is going to try and resurrect the evil dragon, but it turns out that he is alive, and he's just working on unlocking his true, large, draconic form, and that he's using a humanoid dragon shape as a temporary form.

Allows for the villain to be up in the hero's face AND makes for an epic final showdown! 

[Icelerate]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think part of the reason stems from most of the dragon villains not being very compelling. 

Their most reason track record isn't very good. Anankos suffers from being a Fates villain and thus being awful, In Awakening Grima was criticized as just being generic evil dragon and in the DS games Medeus failed to make an impression.

But the dragons weren't any better in the old days. Idun was far to busy being enigmatic to be interesting, the Fire Dragon doesn't even count and Fortemiss may not be a dragon but he fulfilled the sole role and was just as dull. Only Julius really came off particularly well and that's because he was more boy than dragon.

Part of this is inherent to their role. The dragons never get their chance design because their very nature requires them to either work behind the scenes or waiting the entire game to be resurrected. 

Idoun doesn't count because she's not a villain, more a dead zombie. Yahn is the dragon villain of that game and I thought he was pretty interesting but your point on being too enigmatic to be compelling for a lot of people can hold. 

I don't think Julius counts because he's not a dragon but possessed by a dragon much like Lyon. Though I'm not sure if Lopytr is a good villain, he sounds just like the other dragon villains but people seem to give the dragon villains a free pass from the older games but the newer dragon villains get more flack. Do you think it has to do with bias? 

Edited June 14, 2018 by Icelerate

[Jotari]

34 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Idoun doesn't count because she's not a villain, more a dead zombie. Yahn is the dragon villain of that game and I thought he was pretty interesting but your point on being too enigmatic to be compelling for a lot of people can hold. 

I don't think Julius counts because he's not a dragon but possessed by a dragon much like Lyon. Though I'm not sure if Lopytr is a good villain, he sounds just like the other dragon villains but people seem to give the dragon villains a free pass from the older games but the newer dragon villains get more flack. Do you think it has to do with bias? 

I like Yahn too, kind of wish he existed for more than one chapter though.

[Etrurian emperor]

17 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Idoun doesn't count because she's not a villain, more a dead zombie. Yahn is the dragon villain of that game and I thought he was pretty interesting but your point on being too enigmatic to be compelling for a lot of people can hold. 

I don't think Julius counts because he's not a dragon but possessed by a dragon much like Lyon. Though I'm not sure if Lopytr is a good villain, he sounds just like the other dragon villains but people seem to give the dragon villains a free pass from the older games but the newer dragon villains get more flack. Do you think it has to do with bias? 

I think it has partly to do with bias but I think there's also something else at play. The newer games as a whole have a pretty significant villain problem. If Grima fails to be compelling then the small army of minor villains fighting each other for screentime can't fill that void, Fates has it even worse because its villains are all complete losers which means nothing can make up for Anankos' poor showing. In Shadow Dragon no villain can fill the gap left by Medeus absence from the plot because no villain has significant screentime. 

With the older games its different. It was never about that Fire dragon in Blazing Sword because it was Nergal who was driving the plot, Idoun and Yahn's small amount of screentime was made up for by Narshen and to some degree Zephiel, and while Fortemis was lame everyone agrees Lyon and his generals were all really good. The older games could handle dragon villains that barely had any screentime because there were other villains to make up for that which the newer games don't have. 

[Icelerate]

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

I like Yahn too, kind of wish he existed for more than one chapter though.

True, his backstory and mysterious persona was interesting but it would be nice to see him be a more proactive villain. 

27 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think it has partly to do with bias but I think there's also something else at play. The newer games as a whole have a pretty significant villain problem. If Grima fails to be compelling then the small army of minor villains fighting each other for screentime can't fill that void, Fates has it even worse because its villains are all complete losers which means nothing can make up for Anankos' poor showing. In Shadow Dragon no villain can fill the gap left by Medeus absence from the plot because no villain has significant screentime. 

With the older games its different. It was never about that Fire dragon in Blazing Sword because it was Nergal who was driving the plot, Idoun and Yahn's small amount of screentime was made up for by Narshen and to some degree Zephiel, and while Fortemis was lame everyone agrees Lyon and his generals were all really good. The older games could handle dragon villains that barely had any screentime because there were other villains to make up for that which the newer games don't have. 

Agreed but for some reason Shadow Dragon is often praised for its story by some veterans. Considering how it came after Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, the lack of world building and characterization was a disappointment. 

I never got the criticisms of the fire dragon. He's not even a villain and was never meant to be. Just a final boss and to show how close Nergal came to victory. Just look at how most villains in Heroes are from games such as Blazing Blade or Jugral which goes to show that villains from these older titles are more compelling than the ones in the recent games. 

[Kubson]

The Dragon from FE7 was lame compared to Nergal, who really should have been the last boss, same goes for Zephiel and Idunn