Boss! Review

Put the princess down and nobody gets hurt!

Sony’s mobile gaming platform has plenty of bells and whistles, like a rear touch-pad that many developers have failed to utilize or dual analog sticks that should provide a much firmer market for first-person shooters. PlayStation Vita remains one of my favorite gaming devices but software seems to hold the system itself back. Is it that there aren’t enough Vita owners or that developers can’t figure out how to squeeze an incredible title out of the hardware?

I’d like to think that PlayStation Vita development is only hindered by the fact that exclusive software doesn’t really exist on the platform outside of dedicated Sony portable titles. In fact, unlike Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita lacks a major name to push its hardware into consumer consciousness. Don’t look to this indie game for that. Boss! gives you the opportunity to create your own oversized boss capable of destroying a village or castle, though its gameplay proves shallow at best.

I started Boss! by making a large lizard boxer with a goofy face. Within the first two levels I had unlocked a stomp ability and a fire breath ability, but I also lost all sense of what is and is not entertaining. In fact, Boss! made me wonder exactly why anyone bothers to play mobile games in the first place as it doesn’t approach the quality I normally associate with PlayStation Vita anyway. For a handheld game, Boss! feels more akin to iPhone and Android games that it does one designed for a portable dedicated gaming device.

While you get to dress your monster up in a variety of different and silly outfits, more often than not you’ll simply button mash your way to victory with several different knights, mages, and even opposing bosses. I’d love to say that Boss! mixes things up in these end-of-stage showdowns, but in truth most players will find that nothing changes from level to level.

Still, I like the title’s graphical style enough to say that even the most bored PlayStation Vita may find something charming or innocent to what’ll prove to be more a debacle between your PSN wallet and your consciousness. I certainly couldn’t bother to say you should buy Boss!, but if you do you’ll probably find that it wasn’t worth it and I should have turned in my game critic license a while ago. Trying a few different hand-types doesn’t change gameplay whatsoever, for example.

Picking up Princess Peach lookalikes and chowing down for health, throwing barrels at enemies, and tallying up more death ultimately leads to the kind of game that probably shouldn’t have existed to begin with. Driving home this point should be easier, but there isn’t enough content to say whether or not Boss! should die in a fire, at least as we like to say around here. Falling Heroes, Run Hero Run, and the Arena will unlock as you play along but they won’t make you feel like $5.99 was well spent.

I wish I could feel like Boss! meant something other than a cheap throwaway downloadable, but sometimes video games we love become the story all on their own. I couldn’t find that in Boss! though you may have an excuse to download a handful of PSN games this holiday season. If this makes it into your shopping cart, ensure it does so without at least two or three guaranteed-to-be-great games so you can switch as needed. Boss! can wear a little thin.

Code provided by publisher. Exclusive to PlayStation Vita.