As part of this job, I play a lot of video games. Many of these games include boss fights. And I find a lot of these battles to be serviceable at best, just testing to make sure the player understands the game’s mechanics so far. Far too many of them end up being boring and forgettable. It’s enough to make me sometimes wonder if games even need boss fights. And then Control Resonant‘s battle against a dancing monster reminded me that, when done right, boss fights can be amazing experiences.

I’m slowly working my way through Remedy’s recently released open-world action game Control Resonant. And I’m enjoying it immensely. I loved the original Control, and more of that creepy, odd world always makes me happy.

But last night, I encountered one of Control Resonant‘s bosses, The Dancer. At first, I didn’t have a problem with this slender figure that hops and chassés around the arena. I quickly spammed a few attacks in the air over and over again and despite taking a few hits, I defeated The Dancer. “That was easy,” I thought to myself.

And then The Dancer revealed its second form, and the real boss fight began.

I was able to do a good chunk of damage to this new, faster, and more aggressive version of the boss, but I went down before I could kill it. So I re-entered the arena and hammered away at The Dancer again. And once more, I quickly got through the first phase, taking some hits in the process, and then faced its second phase.

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