Let’s face it, Halo has an abysmal track record with bosses. In levels, most boss or miniboss encounters are just higher-ranked Elites or Brutes than usual, or a vehicle, or a Hunter pair. It barely even feels like a boss, just a hard encounter.
The Didact’s QTE was minorly disappointing for me, but I understand why it was done. The guy controlled the very ship you were on with his mind, so an environmental battle was out of the question, that Combat Skin wasn’t going to take any damage from anything that MC was carrying, and I didn’t care initially because it had be gripped so hard when I first played it.
(We know he’s back now though, and MC has that accelerated-evolution pixie dust on his side now, so we can hope for a much better one in Halo 5/6.)
The only real bosses we’ve had (I don’t count Guilty Spark because that was painfully linear. I would have preferred a QTE to that, honestly.) are Tartarus, Sesa Refumee and the Field Marshall. The first was a tank, the second was just a few jetpack Elites with a bit of added whimsy, and the third just another Elite Zealot. Not great.
I think the best demonstration of what would really liven Halo’s levels up is demonstrated by the cut Flood Juggernaut. If you’ve never heard of it, here’s the link:
You see what I mean? It’s -Yoinking!- awesome. Imagine in Halo 5, you enter a big chamber, and a cutscene begins to play. MC walks a few steps. A clanging noise is heard, and he snaps to attention. It comes again. We look to the opposite door. The noise comes again, louder, and the door partially buckles. There is a pause, and the Juggernaut bursts through, roaring and swinging its tentacles about. The camera cuts back to John, who says something awesome, or nothing at all in an awesome way, and the fight begins. It slashes at you, knocking you about like a rag doll. You blow its limbs off with a hastily-scavenged Launcher, but it just eats a few dead combat forms, regenerating them.
Come on, admit it, you want to play this.
Now, if we get that longer campaign this time around, which it probably will be given it’s got a lot to explain, we could see this kind of boss battle every few levels, with a different theme every time. For one it could be the Juggernaut, for the other, a Covenant bioweapon such as Pluton from Halo Legends (Pluton isn’t canon, but it’s just an example) and the next a WAR SPHYNX.
Would you like to see more bosses? Or do you prefer to just gun down more and more small enemies? Feel free to give out you own boss ideas!