Should you be able to kill the final boss in one hit?

[momogeek2141]

can't you get that guy to move if you put someone on the edge of his range?

No-the chest is literally in a chamber in open space, so the only way to get there is via warp staff, which you don't get in H3.

That said, it is very difficult to make an epic "finale" with purely one tough unit. In games like LoZ, it's more action based, and one tough unit needs strategy, whereas the game mechanics of fire emblem means that all you need for such bosses is brute strength. The best way to make an "epic" final boss is nigh impossible: the best you can do is improve the level in which the boss resides. Zephiel's level is a good example. Too bad Idoun's was a joke.

[General Horace]

I honestly really liked the buildup to fighting Jahn in FE6, even if he was kind of a joke because the divine weapons were insanely overpowered. Woulda been cooler if he was immune to them or something.

Regardless, how many bosses can you actually OHKO anywhere near reliably? Sure, it might be easy to ORKO Fortimiis if you have a Max strength Ross with a bunch of +crit supports (he can only actually OHKO on normal mode with maxed out attack supports) but if you're just playing at even a normal pace, Ross isn't even going to get close to doubling him in the first place.

I do agree with the people that are saying bosses like the Fire dragon are jokes for other reasons than just their stats, since they pose absolutely no threat unless its able to OHKO you or something. It's like OH SHIT WE NEED TO BEAT THIS DRAGON REALLY FAST BEFORE MORE COME OUT OF THE GATE BUT THEY ACTUALLY WON'T YOU CAN SIT HERE DOING 1 DAMAGE PER TURN FOR 120 TURNS AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN

Edited December 18, 2014 by General Horace

[Topaz Light]

I think that, like a few others have stated before me, the bottom line is that Fire Emblem's gameplay structure simply isn't very conducive to having long, epic battles against a single opponent. Most of the time in Fire Emblem games, how much time do you spend dealing with an individual enemy unit? I'm willing to go out on a limb here and guess that the answer is "not much". Even bosses generally don't take long to take down provided you're well-enough equipped to deal with strong units of their class.

By and large, most enemy units, boss or not, (and most player units for that matter) don't actually take all that many good hits to take down. While I do agree that the final boss should probably be the strongest single enemy unit in the game, I think that perhaps it would be more prudent to think of Fire Emblem finales in terms of the final battle rather than the final boss, because the Fire Emblem series is geared a lot more towards larger-scale battles, compared to most other RPGs that narrow the focus down to smaller-scale battles between small parties with, on average, 3~6 members per side. In those other RPGs, the gameplay is a lot more conducive to a fight with a single strong enemy providing a great challenge. In Fire Emblem, on the other hand, there's really only so much challenge you can expect just one unit to generate without the player's victory simply becoming dependent upon luck and/or the player's willingness to sacrifice units to defeat that enemy. It's just the way Fire Emblem's gameplay is. Of course, there are ways to set up a lengthy and difficult battle with a single opponent, but simply bolstering their raw stats is only effective to that end to a point. My suggestion would be to have a powerful final boss with good stats, but mostly a set of Skills and maybe a weapon that make them difficult to take down quickly/engage safely, and then put a bunch of other units on the map to complicate things without intending for any of them to be the main threat on their own.
Part of it also has to do with how turns work. Think about it: In most RPGs, you have 3~5 active party members, so assuming the designers didn't give the final boss multiple actions per round, that's 3~5 actions the player gets for every one action the enemy gets. Compare to Fire Emblem, where, with a single final boss, it's as many as 16 (or more) player actions per one enemy action. Giving the final boss AoE attacks and/or multiple actions per turn, as is often done in other RPGs, could serve to make them more of a threat, but ultimately making a single unit more powerful in a way that provides a fair challenge would be better done by applying special properties to that unit rather than simply inflating their stats as much as possible without making them literally mechanically unkillable. (Although again, the final boss should still have strong stats)

It's also true that presentation does play in role in what the player is likely to perceive as the final boss as opposed to what they'll perceive as buildup to the final boss. It gives a different impression to have separate entities that must be defeated before a final boss can be challenged than it does to have enemies that are considered parts of the same entity, even if technically-speaking there's not really a gameplay difference between the two.

[Sentacotus]

I was thinking what if they made final bosses more akin to something like Lavos in Chrono Trigger where they are multi-staged. Sure there is the multi-part finale in RD but just speaking for the boss itself something like an outer layer or something we come to be familiar with throughout the game only to find out that you have to beat the "real" final boss (ie a powered up version of some sort) with all the damage and stuff you incured before hand. This could be challenging especially on higher difficulty settings. But alas I'm going off on a tangent.

[Jotari]

The Final Boss could be a giant dragon (has Fire Emblem is fond of doing) but instead of just giving them a massive sprite like the GBA games, actually make the dragons size be a part of the battle. IE you have to take down its four legs before you can attack the head and win the battle. Attacking the tail would be optional but would remove another threat. Throw in some area of effect attacks like a stream of fire hitting all the units standing in a vertical line. Each body part of the dragon would mechanically function as a separate unit but it would feel a lot more like you're attacking the final boss than even FE10's finale.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Jotari

[momogeek2141]

The Final Boss could be a giant dragon (has Fire Emblem is fond of doing) but instead of just giving them a massive sprite like the GBA games, actually make the dragons size be a part of the battle. IE you have to take down its four legs before you can attack the head and win the battle. Attacking the tail would be optional but would remove another threat. Throw in some area of effect attacks like a stream of fire hitting all the units standing in a vertical line. Each body part of the dragon would mechanically function as a separate unit but it would feel a lot more like you're attacking the final boss than even FE10's finale.

That...actually sounds like a good idea. And each body part will regrow until it is destroyed completely. It is going to be really complicated to show on the map (i.e: how exactly does someone get to the head, sonic jump?") but if it can be done, it would be pretty good.

[Jotari]

That...actually sounds like a good idea. And each body part will regrow until it is destroyed completely. It is going to be really complicated to show on the map (i.e: how exactly does someone get to the head, sonic jump?") but if it can be done, it would be pretty good.

Well as I said, take down the four legs to get to the head. Disable it leaving the head vulnerable for a single turn before the limbs regenerate. Though maybe it would be cool if fliers or archers could always attack the head, then if you really want to you could build the perfect unit to defeat it in one turn if you get like four criticals with a brave sword.

[Kysafen]

You mean like Shining Force 1's final boss?