Where Did the Bad Guys Go?

I was playing sonic two, one of my favourite mega drive games. When a thought occurred to me. Where have the bosses gone? Some contemporary games have them, but they are usually a series of quick time events (ie. Resident evil 4), horrible wave boss battles (ie, gears of war 3 and batman arkam asylum) or a quick one shot battle (ie, fable two). Where have the proper boss fights gone? The ones where you are one on one, a clash of two titans, the final fight?

I think the major and biggest issue is franchising. If you kill your nemesis in the first game, developers are hard pushed to think of new one should they be able to make a sequel. Yet some like bioware who made the big bad in mass effect Saren nothing but a pawn to sovereign, who then in turn was part of even bigger adversary with the Reapers. Bioware would have had to conceptualize a whole trilogy, then make sure the first sold well enough to make sure the rest is financially accounted for.

Back to Sonic two and the old school platforming games in general. Your nemesis be it Bowser or Robotnik (later renamed Dr Eggman here in the UK) always found away to escape. Thus giving the developer an excuse to bring them back even if it meant the sequels were keeping the same plot as before. Rescue princess or collect chaos emeralds. It might be indicative of the time that people want new and more interesting stories that feature their favourite characters. Such as Master Chief now facing the fore runners in Halo four and a new spartan in Halo five rather than the covenant. Expanding the lore further. master Chief being a soldier would mean he wold always be fighting and could always obtain a new foe. But his final bosses aren't that difficult and feel weak. In comparison to some of the NPC's that you fight through out the series.

Another issue is many modern games are a lot easier than retrogames where bosses are more prevalent. Bosses are a major difficulty spike in games and for good reason. They are there to test what you have learned while playing the previous level. Modern games seem to do this less even most games maintain the same level of difficulty through out. Making the finale seem no harder than the start. I honestly feel bosses are being phased out because of financial reasons. The finality of a final boss fight is hard to do a sequel with out retreading old ground. Not to say it cannot be done. What are your thoughts?

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