Health Bars on Bosses, etc - good or bad?

[Terramax]

So, playing Rolling Gunner and I realised that I really wanted an energy bar for the bosses to help me decide when to use the bullet cancel ability (or whatever it is referred to as), and it got me thinking tht I much prefer knowing how long before a boss is about to die. I do understand that not have a bar, and not knowing, may add to the suspence for some, but this is still a person preference.
Do others here have a particular preference?

[Klatrymadon]

Rolling Gunner actually does have health bars for its bosses, but they're quite thin and on the right edge of the screen, so they could be missing if you have a bit of overscan.

Edit: you can see the bar going down here.

[M.Knight]

For me it depends on the game and the scoring mechanics that exist in regards with boss kill setups.

In something like Darius Gaiden for example, not knowing how much health the boss has works very well in the context of those fights against these massive robotic fish enemies. The battles against the last bosses (especially Great Thing) become a lot more climatic and tense to me since I have to stay on my guard at all times. The lack of lifebar makes the fight feel a bit longer in a good way thanks to the suspense you mentionned.

However, not showing you the boss health for any shmup that requires you to perform a specific action to kill the boss or boss phase for maximum score is a mind-bogglingly stupid oversight. If you have to use a special shot to kill the boss, or kill it the exact moment tons of bullets are on-screen, you want to be able to pinpoint how much health it has left instead of having to guess it or use a seventh shmup sense that you would have developped over dozens of hours of practice on that one boss.
Examples include Muchi Muchi Pork's Lard attack kill or DariusBurst's counter burst kill. Two great games despite this annoyance so it's not even as if only forgettable/obscure shmups are guilty of this.

On a side-note, boss timers can be pretty damn useful too.

[el_rika]

Health bars good.

[Jeneki]

Health bars are fine. If a boss is multiple parts I don't think everything needs a bar though.

Fights where you can tell how much is left by the amount of fire/smoke/etc is also acceptable. "Just a couple more shots" would work, if it weren't a lie. Really the only boss health indicator I don't like is seizure flashing.

[Sumez]

I'm sure there's a solution for everything, but I can't really think of any good reason to ever not have a health bar. Giving feedback to the player that they are actually making progression is one of the most important basics of good game design.

I mean there are situations where omitting it is fine, and it can be a better decision for either technical reasons or simply because there's no reason to give it priority. But I can't ever think of a straight up reason to decide not to have it. Maybe something like situations where you want to omit video game style interfaces for the sake of immersive world building (and yet even Shadow of the Colossus has a health bar!).
But in general I think the longer a boss fight is, the more relevant it would be to have one. And for shooters where timing your kill matters, not having it is just baffling. I can't think of any good reason Muchi Muchi Pork did it the way it did.

[jedinat]

TBH I don't like the different stages of health bars.... if you're going to have a health bar I'd rather there be one for the entire boss, add line separators if need be. I don't see the point of a health bar that resets over and over.

[40wattstudio]

I find health bars useful as long as they don't take up too much screen real estate.
Can anyone name some shmups where they don't have health bars but instead just show the enemy ships with variable amounts of damage/holes punched in them?

[Jeneki]

Can anyone name some shmups where they don't have health bars but instead just show the enemy ships with variable amounts of damage/holes punched in them?

Toaplan and Seibu really like starting things on fire. Most of the Raidens, Flying Shark, Kyukyoku Tiger, etc.

If you like bullet hole damage, see Sky Soldier. It's not a particularly notable game, but the one thing it does awesome is bosses that get really beat to hell (outside the first boss which doesn't seem to do this).

[40wattstudio]

Most of the Raidens, Flying Shark, Kyukyoku Tiger, etc.

I like how on Flying Shark even the regular enemies show damage. Definitely a cool way of doing things.

[MathU]

I find most health bars distracting and prefer when visible changes happen to enemies as their health falls. In scoring systems where it is important to time enemy destruction precisely, I like games like Hellsinker that defy convention by putting enemy health metrics directly over the enemy--as long as they're small! I actually think the little percentage numbers in Hellsinker work far better than a lengthy bar over enemies. It may not be very aesthetic, but it works. Developers ought to try out overlaying circular/polygonal graphs as an alternative to bars.

[Terramax]

@Klatrymadon Oh, wow! Didn`t even notice it, it`s so unobtrusive! Makes a big difference to fighting bosses on that game!

[Despatche]

Not a preference. Health bars are overwhelmingly informative to the point that every enemy that takes more than one hit should have them. Nothing less suffices. The only reason games don't have them is either because older devs simply didn't think of it, or because newer devs fetishize the fact that older games didn't really have them.