Higgs Boss Fight is tedious and worst part of an imperfect game

[Blitzhund]

I enjoyed the rest of the death stranding. Even the clunky delivery interface was mostly ok (exception: delivering/entrusting lost cargo).

But, the boss fight with Higgs is boring in the actual sense of the word. The whole throwing discarded cargo to distract, then trying to sneak up (which almost always fails), hog-tie him and kick him (because apparently he's immune to getting the sh$t punched out of him OVER AND OVER again until...he stops shooting you and decides on a even more lethal knife attack. I've not even made it to the punch up in the tar waves.

So poorly thought out and took an open world game and made it some sort of arcade fight.

I don't think I'll complete this one. I can't be bothered. What a shame.

[Devorlast]

Originally posted by cruste:

just wait for the double credits torture ...

Totally agree. You think Higgs is tedious, I went to get a drink half way through sitting on the beach and listening to Amelie sporadically show up as the credits roll on here and there. Than to top it off there is more credits later on, or should I say its the same credits just displayed twice. Kojima must really like his name cause the game definitely wont let you forget that he is its director...
Anyway, fight is easy, just tedious and boring.

[AI Sin || SinNoAria]

Originally posted by cruste:

just wait for the double credits torture ...

At least with that one, I can just have it running in the background while I watch a movie.

[~KeNnEtH~]

What I did for the fight:

1st phase
1. Equip the strand.
2. Charge up to him while running to the right which dodges the bullets until he reloads.
3. Punch him 3 times.
4. If he stagger, prep the strand and go behind him.
5. Tie him up.
6. Kick him when he is down.

2nd phase
1. Equip the strand.
2. Wait for him to attack me.
3. Prep the strand asap and parry.
4. Tie him up.
5. Kick him when he is down.

It could work for you too.

[BraveDude8]

Higgs is a dumb boss fight and it's the only time I died going through on Very Hard, but even then I shouldn't have died to it and I cleared it fine on the second try. It's weird, and very different to anything else in the game, but it's fine.

Cliff's third fight is horrifying and I gave up and turned the difficulty down out of sheer boredom, because you have to choke him out TWENTY FOUR TIMES.

[TommyEV]

Originally posted by BraveDude8:

Higgs is a dumb boss fight and it's the only time I died going through on Very Hard, but even then I shouldn't have died to it and I cleared it fine on the second try. It's weird, and very different to anything else in the game, but it's fine.

Cliff's third fight is horrifying and I gave up and turned the difficulty down out of sheer boredom, because you have to choke him out TWENTY FOUR TIMES.

"Why is this game so hard on very hard????????"

[MurderMoose]

I'm pretty sure you can just shoot Cliff, all three times

[Nope]

Originally posted by BraveDude8:

Cliff's third fight is horrifying and I gave up and turned the difficulty down out of sheer boredom, because you have to choke him out TWENTY FOUR TIMES.

It's easy as hell to stealth kill him, like really once you found a spot where the patrolling BT cannot spot you and Cliff is in front of Sam while you're hiding in bush, it's turn into a comical cartoon act of restrain-kick-hide-move behind back-repeat, repeating for all 4 location
It's just a matter of the direction where you need to approach him

Otherwise, just shoot his ass like the other two fight

[Ragna]

All the boss fights ( not clifford´s ) are total garbage .
The 4 higgs battles are trash
the flying whale too.

Game is still very good
Clifford´s battles were nice and tense

[Ragna]

I did not even know you could defeat cliff with the strand .
I just went guns blazzing every time .

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Ragna:

All the boss fights ( not clifford´s ) are total garbage .
The 4 higgs battles are trash
the flying whale too.

Game is still very good
Clifford´s battles were nice and tense

While I liked the concept of the flying whale boss, replays at least have helped me get rid of any lying to myself about it not being a slog.

My last playthrough I pre-built two hover carriers and my back worth of the optional unlock blood multi missile launchers and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of blood, because I knew the whale was coming and the whole spoiler prank coming as well.

Left a truck with the cryptobiotes parked a ways away and walked in with enough firepower to kill an army of lion BTs.

It was not enough firepower to kill the whale boss. and I still needed more firepower and spare blood from the friendly ghosts tossing me stuff. wowie zowie that is a lot of enemy health.

Other non higgs boss fights (including the whale) I think would have been easier for many if the game tried to highlight the fact your tiny blood squirt gun is a heavy hitting mega railgun when charged up vs BTs and Cliff. (Meanwhile the shotguns were always super disappointing to me even if I unloaded them only point blank)

[cyäegha]

at least on very hard, higgs' boss fight is the least tedious fight given how many different ways you have to beat him down with little in the way of return fire, and proportionately he has considerably less health than all of the BT and cliff fights
yeah, you don't have any guns at your disposal, but otherwise higgs is actually a quick one-and-done so long as you're aggressive

on lower difficulties i can see why you'd say that though

[MurderMoose]

That whale is literally the only thing I'd turn the difficulty down for. Damage sponges just aren't fun.

[Nope]

Originally posted by MurderMoose:

That whale is literally the only thing I'd turn the difficulty down for. Damage sponges just aren't fun.

Bring the Cluster launcher, fill it up to Sam and the 2 floater, and it die pretty fast even in very hard

[AI Sin || SinNoAria]

Yeah, not a huge fan of the damage sponges. I feel like "some" (read as most) boss enemies really could have used an HP nerf on Very Hard because the fights are just slogs. I wouldn't call them hard, just tedious. Really, nothing in the game is 'hard', it is just a matter of how tedious things are.

Roads, for example, are tedious if nobody else is working on them. Rarely happens outside of not being connected to the network, but it does happen sometimes.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Nope:

Originally posted by MurderMoose:

That whale is literally the only thing I'd turn the difficulty down for. Damage sponges just aren't fun.

Bring the Cluster launcher, fill it up to Sam and the 2 floater, and it die pretty fast even in very hard

Must have missed the memo about "Using foreknowledge on a replay, literally brought two hover carriers and a backpack full of multi missile launchers and wasn't nearly enough to finish the job" that I crafted before the final act of the game.

Whale boy is beefy. Thank the friendly ghosts throwing you more weapons and blood juice boxes, everyone.

Not that hard though! Just looooooong. Which is why I stashed the cargo in a truck a mile away from the fight zone so I'd still get that sweet sweet good delivery boy cred. (sometimes it stays in the truck, other times it respawns outside the truck I guess because of memory issues with the giant whale fight).

At this point I am curious if a bunch of dumbfire rockets would be more economical than the multi missiles, because it isn't exactly playing "Move the weak point" like the prior boss fight.