Are Wario Land 4's bosses about wasting as much time as possible?

[CM30]

Because when I look at them, I realise that most of them don't seem to be trying to kill Wario as much as slow him down. Okay, Cractus is certainly trying to physically hurt him, but he still likes using the drool attack to turn him into a slow zombie for tons of wasted time.

Aerodent pretty much doesn't physically attack at all. It's almost entirely about wasting the player's time.

Catbat only attacks for damage once it's lost about three quarters of its health bar. Until then, it's more about simply pushing the player away and trying to make them waste time in Puffy Wario form...

Cuckoo Condor is probably the most aggressive boss in the game (weirdly enough), but even then... it's got a lot of attacks and a whole second phase which is designed to waste as much time as possible.

And the Golden Diva... well, her first attack is all about time wasting (with the various flying masks). It's only in her penultimate phase in which she physically tries to kill Wario herself by smashing the floor to pieces.

So yeah, seems like the bosses here are closer to those in 2 and 3 than you once think, with their goal being more to run out of the timer than to empty Wario's health bar. Anyone else think this?

 

[Rei]

The Spoiled Rotten also only inderictly attacks you too. I mean it has sharp teeth and your getting hurt by that because it's throwing a temper tantrum. And it's bodyguards are there to protect it. So it's just a waste of time as well.

 

[CM30]

Good point, didn't remember that.

 

[Metal]

Since with Wario games it's mostly about grabbing as much treasure as possible with the main goal being collecting each and every treasure. Even though WL4 brings back Wario to his roots with him being able to die again it's still mostly about collecting every treasure, which is why we have the shop to deplete a lot of the boss' health before the match. It also explains why in each difficulty setting the timer's are shorter and shorter so it does feel as though you're up to try and grab each treasure than surviving much like the previous two Wario games.

 

[JS Shantae]

Because when I look at them, I realise that most of them don't seem to be trying to kill Wario as much as slow him down. Okay, Cractus is certainly trying to physically hurt him, but he still likes using the drool attack to turn him into a slow zombie for tons of wasted time.

Aerodent pretty much doesn't physically attack at all. It's almost entirely about wasting the player's time.

Catbat only attacks for damage once it's lost about three quarters of its health bar. Until then, it's more about simply pushing the player away and trying to make them waste time in Puffy Wario form...

Cuckoo Condor is probably the most aggressive boss in the game (weirdly enough), but even then... it's got a lot of attacks and a whole second phase which is designed to waste as much time as possible.

And the Golden Diva... well, her first attack is all about time wasting (with the various flying masks). It's only in her penultimate phase in which she physically tries to kill Wario herself by smashing the floor to pieces.

So yeah, seems like the bosses here are closer to those in 2 and 3 than you once think, with their goal being more to run out of the timer than to empty Wario's health bar. Anyone else think this?

Good observation. I would have to agree with you, seeing it laid out like this makes me believe it is intentional.

 

[Magma]

It is a bit weird since you do have health but since you can just retry it would make sense to try to slow you down rather than stop you outright in order to prevent you from getting all the chests.

 

[ShyGuyXXL]

Yeah, it's a balance of 2 fail states. One is losing all health and one is losing all time.
Wouldn't make sense to have both if the game punished you by only taking away time or health.

 

[Ninja_Cat]

That might actually explain why the only difference in difficulty with bosses is the timer.