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My two cents on Marie, the final boss.

Bloodroke

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Ms. Fortune Valentine
I am unsure of whether or not this post belongs in this section, but hopefully it will not result in a ban.

I am still relatively new to this game, having played it at least once a day since the recent free weekend, so please correct me if anything I write in this post is in-accurate. I want to improve my ability to review things, so please, correct me anywhere I am wrong, and please give me feedback on things you feel are false.

Please keep in mind, I am relatively bad when it comes to fighting games. However, please don't automatically assume my opinion is crap because of this factor.

There I was, my first day. I didn't expect to be decent at the game; nobody is when they first get into a new game. I played on easy mode, and I was having a good time fighting the never-blocking CPU opponents, getting "my toe in the water" for the game. Then, the moment came. The fear flowed through me as I read Marie's speech bubbles; I knew it was time for the grand-daddy (not literally) of the game.

Having recently come from Street Fighter Alpha 3, I expected the boss to be similar in style to M. Bison; a normal character with advanced A.I., having an overpowered super move to watch out for. I was looking forward to fighting her; after all, M. Bison was hard, but he was pretty fun to fight. After the first few seconds, I was disappointed. Marie was nothing more than a projectile spamming entity that took hardly any knockback damage, and was "hard to hit" in her aerial forms. However, I did well against her only because of the difficulty I had chosen prior.

Subsequent playthroughs on higher difficulties made me realize that Marie isn't worth the effort; I now just quit the game if I reach her on any difficulty higher than Hard. Several steam friends who own the game have told me they do the same thing when they reach Marie.

To be honest, Marie feels as though she belongs in a side scrolling shooter game, like Metal Slug or Contra. There, this type of boss actually works well. In a fighting game, the result tends to be that most players frantically attack using one button that works for them, try to get to her while taking damage, and block to the best of their ability, while still taking heavy damage from the seemingly random, powerful projectiles. Marie reminds me of the Sol De Rokker boss from Metal Slug 3, now that I think about how they both move and attack.

To some, Marie might be a cakewalk. To the majority, she is a pain. Sure, she's hard, but where is the fun in fighting her? Yes, you can block her projectiles, but you still take a significant amount of damage as you're pushed backwards by all of the oncoming projectiles. Yes, I can beat Marie, even on Nightmare mode; it takes me many tries, but I eventually do it, but again, there's no fun in fighting her. It seems more like trying to eat the powder left over in a box of Lucky Charms at the bottom of the bag; you don't have to do it, and it isn't all that appetizing, but if you want to eat "the whole bag", you have to eat it. (Probably not a good comparison; I am not good at making them.)

I've been noticing this "no-knockback, overpowered god" trend in more recent fighters; Galactus in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 comes to mind. Who honestly thinks bosses like this in a fighting game are a good idea?

I created a question in my head the other day regarding fighting game bosses. Should players be able to play as this character in its current state? If yes, the character is most likely going to be a fun opponent. If not, the character is probably going to cause everyone a headache, and more than likely suck the fun out of the game.

My only suggestion in regards to Marie, although it will probably sound stupid and may have been suggested before, would be to give players two options when starting story mode; Marie or Shin (True) Marie. Shin Marie would be the Marie we fight now, only listed as the harder option of the two. Regular Marie would be the equivalent of a normal fighter with slightly overpowered moves, although she would fall prey to knockback and combos like every other fighter in the game. With a "regular Marie" option, I would probably finish arcade mode more often.

Again, my opinion to a majority of people might sound absolutely retarded, but I think it would be a good idea. Yet again, I understand Lab Zero has manpower and economic issues, and the company has more important things to focus on, but I still think some sort of option like this should be added to the game eventually. A regular version of Marie does not exist yet, and I understand it takes a lot of money and effort to add her in. However, I'd imagine that a lot of new players have been turned off from the game when they reached Marie. In her current state, she's simply to obnoxious to fight; she is no fun to fight, and just isn't worth the effort.

Edit, 7:26 EST, 11/26/2013

I guess my experience has to do with what games I come from.

I come from older fighting games like Fatal Fury 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3. In those games, the final boss is just a "regular" character that acts like all the others, but has slightly advanced A.I. and has certain overpowered moves.

My past experiences must be ruining my current experience with games like Skullgirls that have "different" final bosses. Bosses like Marie are completely different than what I am used to. I guess it just feels strange to me to not fight something like what I was used to fighting all those years ago in games I used to play.

In regards to the "online players will wreck me worse" thing, I know exactly "what I'll be missing out on" online. That is the very reason I stay far away from it. Yes, I have the potential to get better over time playing it, but I simply don't want to; local matches against close friends and single player are more than enough for me, and I am very content with fighting bots on Nightmare difficulty.
 
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You can stun Marie you know. But I can agree she's annoying but I don't play story/arcade mode. Point is she is not a god boss you just aren't stunning her.
 
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1. Super powered bosses is not a new trend in fighting games. Its been around for a very long time. Its there to make the final battle feel epic, give a sense of accomplishment.

2. Its a multiplayer game before anything else, so you shouldn't let the single player portion make you too mad. There's plenty of players out there that can piss you off even more than Marie.
 
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I guess my experience has to do with what games I come from.

I come from older fighting games like Fatal Fury 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3. In those games, the final boss is just a "regular" character that acts like all the others, but has slightly advanced A.I. and has certain overpowered moves.

My past experiences must be ruining my current experience with games like Skullgirls that have "different" final bosses. Bosses like Marie are completely different than what I am used to. I guess it just feels strange to me to not fight something like what I was used to fighting all those years ago in games I used to play.

In regards to the "online players will wreck me worse" thing, I know exactly "what I'll be missing out on" online. That is the very reason I stay far away from it. Yes, I have the potential to get better over time playing it, but I simply don't want to; local matches against close friends and single player are more than enough for me, and I am very content with fighting bots on Nightmare difficulty.

I will update the main post with this information.
 
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she used to be worse
her skulls were almost invisible in the vanilla version, she is much easier than she used to be
also She was designed to be like one of those annoying MvC bosses so hence why she isnt a seperate playable character yet
 
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Bloody Marie boss fight is inspired from the old fighting game boss characters, specifically from the SNK area.

She is supposed to be an entity that will make you rage because how legitimately cheap she seems to be. Having three different forms doing different things, No practical hit-stun, and zoning you all day with magical skeletons is her game. Believe it or not, but this current Marie your fighting is actually the watered down one. She didn't have a stunned state before and her skulls were 10X more annoying back in the vanilla build. Not gonna even begin on Marie 300% mode in the extra menu which is a completely different beast all together for the brave or the foolish.

The point is that boss fight isn't supposed to be anything like fighting regular cpu/human opponents. Its supposed to give the player a different experience all together suddenly seeing this mammoth of a hurdle to get a across. Whether or not its a positive or negative one will vary for each player depending on their viewpoints. Skipping the boss fight in arcade mode is understandable though if all you just want to do is fight regular CPU opponents. Especially when there is currently no mode to fight CPU opponents without eventually running into the boss character (although PC build recently expanded the # of fights in arcade mode before you face Marie) that will force you to fight differently.
 
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There's a single player mode?
Apparently so if the majority of the Skullgirl players are primarily playing single player based off that IGG poll awhile back lol.
Single Player : 41.5%
Local Multiplayer :32.0%
Online Multiplayer : 26.5%
 
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Hey, I never voted in that poll, but the story mode for this game is awesome, it was actually the most important thing to me in the kickstarter and it was so good I'd honestly be willing to pay for more story mode for the existing characters before adding anymore characters despite the small roster. Fighting games story modes are usually either like 2 lines of dialogue at the beginning and end of each fight (some times even the entire mode "story") or so obnoxiously confusing and obtuse you need to take classes on understanding the game lore to even begin to wrap your head around what they might be trying to convey. It was so nice to not only have a story that was easy to follow, but filled with lots of character and charm, and just generally solid writing. I'm still hopeful we'll get to see the true ending some day alluded to after the ending credits.

Back on topic, I'd say something like 75% of the fighting games out there have cheat mode bosses, especially any from SNK, so Marie did not surprise me and if anything I felt like she was infinitely more fair then some of the other nightmare fuel fighting game bosses out there. I also liked that she had 3 forms with moves and vulnerabilities. Will she go down as one of my all time favorite bosses? Not likely. But as far as fighting game bosses go I think she turned out better then most, and feels like a genuine boss instead of just another character with their AI set to the highest setting.
 
I think my major gripes with Marie and other fighting game bosses of the same caliber is that they disregard the rules of the game they exist in for the sake of being 'epic'. Among the many things Marie can do to the player their are a number of mechanics that the player is now unable to perform including grabs which is something I find to be necessary when playing this game. In addition to that Marie is constantly floating for 2/3 of her battle and is immune to knockback from attacks so trying to sweep her or get her into a hitstun state is impossible. She may not be as terrible to fight as other FG bosses (Screw Yami), but I don't find that an acceptable excuse for ending an otherwise brief but enjoyable single player mode with that kind of boss.

When I played Squigly's storymode I found two changes to this situation that really excited me about the future of Skullgirls. The first was that it is the first campaign that allowed the player to use more than one character in a story mode fight. The second was ending the story mode with a fight with a character other than Marie.

The first change is something that I found really nice because it allows the player to start using more elements of the game by having a partner to fight with. However, with the current roster of characters it's not something that's really possible with the rest of the cast but I did like the possibilities this addition presented for certain characters though. I can imagine Parasoul's campaign playing out a lot differently if, when mobilizing at the beginning of the campaign, you could choose to add up to two of her subordinates to go with her and aid her throughout the campaign or have her go it alone if that's your preference. Maybe even reflecting these decisions in the actual story mode but that would mean creating more assets.

The second change was ending the story mode on a fight with Double instead of stopping at Marie. It was a better fight in my opinion even if I got luger + toon town swagwagon'd more times than I care to comment on. The reason the fight didn't feel bad or out of place was that it didn't sacrifice the gameplay for the story. Double may not be the most difficult boss character to fight but she was still a challenge and thematically her battle felt a lot more meaningful than fighting Marie, but that may just be because I was tired of fighting her by that point. Adding different end boses could be done for some of the other characters once the cast has been filled out a bit more in later installments of the game and I think the single player campaigns would benefit more from incorporating some of the things the Squigly campaign got right.
 
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Snip.

Thank you! Finally, someone shares my thoughts on Marie, although you worded it a lot better than I did. Would it be alright with you if I maybe used that first paragraph in my main post?

Yeah, when you get to her, you realize that you have to play the game completely differently than what you had been. You can't grab her, can't really stun her, and you can't really combo her or knock her back. It just doesn't feel right. I would rather have fought Double as a final boss than Marie.

In regard to Squigly's story mode, I noticed that instead of Marie, the true final boss is Double. I like that. Everyone else has Marie for a final boss, and to be honest, it just seems a little... Lazy to me.

In Street Fighter Alpha 3, the situation was the same. EVERY character has to fight M. Bison as a final boss. However, M. Bison was fun to fight, but that isn't the point. When you play Evil Ryu in that game, you get a breath of fresh air after beating Bison when you have to fight Shin Akuma as the true final boss. Why didn't the rest of the characters have their own "unique" final boss? The story mode wouldn't feel like a carbon copy for each character if there was a "unique" final boss for each character, like Evil Ryu.
 
It's not you. Marie is legitimately a chore to play against. Not really "challenging". Just "frustrating". There are several ways to easily win against her, but they are incredibly boring (protip: damage her without causing her to transform and then avoid skulls until time runs out). I can beat her on the highest difficulty but I don't bother because it is no fun at all, and I am a person who loves to fight against Omega Rugal in KoF.
 
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Marie can be hard to most players. I find it really annoying though when you get to her last form and she throws 50 million skulls in your face, which then results in you being pushed back and taking lots of damage. I think Gill in SF3 Third Strike is WAY worse though.
 
Got a few notices about this forgotten thread. Are we doing this again?
-------------------------------------------------
I think Gill in SF3 Third Strike is WAY worse though.

I see a lot of people echoing the sentiment that Marie may be bad, but in earlier builds she was worse or that X fighting game boss is worse I think comparing Marie to other bosses that are designed even worse than her defeats the purpose of pointing out the situation at hand. No matter how bad those other bosses were people recognize that they were cheap, or lazily made bosses that probably should have remained in the arcades where they could eat through your quarters.

The single player aspects of skullgirls (that aren't training mode) are solid enough experiences. Story mode has some obvious limitations given the size of the playable roster and how the plot is currently structured, but what is there is intersting enough for people to latch onto it and devote a lot of time piecing together and gravitate towards certain characters. Arcade mode offers you exactly what you'd expect, the opportunity to pit your team against a series of random encounters sans context culminating in a fight with the boss of the game.
What Marie does for both these modes is give the player an unsatisfying conclusion. It's not like the boss has to be programmed to react like a player, nor does she need to be given monstrous amounts of health or damage to make her feel epic. All she really needs to do to be a good boss for this type of game is be memorable and interesting to play against both in terms of mechanics and lore. Instead we get an "homage" to broken fighting game bosses.

The best example of a well designed fighting game boss from my experience is I-No from Guilty Gear Accent Core+
She's presented as a normal character with the addition of a unique projectile that can stop the momentum of the fight while you dodge to avoid it. That one additional pattern that can be hard for first time players but is easy to overcome on repeat performances (The variant at 0:42 is the only one that poses a real threat because the projectiles home in from behind if you block meaning that regular blocking will get you damaged/killed. And using faultless Defense will drain your meter.). She is still bound by the rules of the game and is subject to the conditions I've mentioned earlier in this thread so beating her comes down to patience, skill, and a strong grasp of your character. Marie does none of this and instead forces the player to find the cheapest route to beating her to the exclusion of what some characters are designed around.
 
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The reason for Marie being what Marie is.. is pretty simple:

1. They wanted the Skullgirls Storymode to feature fighting the current Skullgirl
2. They did not have the funds for a complete 9th character

So instead, they made 1/3rd a character - without hitstuns/blockstun animations, sans any normals, no walk/idle animation, tbc
But obviously you can't let a character like this fight normally, so they made her float and be stupid

And yeah she sucks, and yeah everybody who plays Arcade Mode is gonna quit when she pops up as he learns little to nothing about the game from playing her, etc
But understand that the choice wasn't between "Normal character Marie with slightly OP something" and "Busted shit stupid Marie", but between "No Marie" and "Busted shit stupid Marie" ; with them deciding that they prefer the latter.
 
And yeah she sucks, and yeah everybody who plays Arcade Mode is gonna quit when she pops up as he learns little to nothing about the game from playing her, etc
And then there is me, who keeps trying to perfect Nightmare Marie like a fool...
 
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The reason for Marie being what Marie is.. is pretty simple:

1. They wanted the Skullgirls Storymode to feature fighting the current Skullgirl
2. They did not have the funds for a complete 9th character

So instead, they made 1/3rd a character - without hitstuns/blockstun animations, sans any normals, no walk/idle animation, tbc
But obviously you can't let a character like this fight normally, so they made her float and be stupid

And yeah she sucks, and yeah everybody who plays Arcade Mode is gonna quit when she pops up as he learns little to nothing about the game from playing her, etc
But understand that the choice wasn't between "Normal character Marie with slightly OP something" and "Busted shit stupid Marie", but between "No Marie" and "Busted shit stupid Marie" ; with them deciding that they prefer the latter.

I understand that time and money have not been in Lab Zeros favor, and that for story mode they may wanted to have a climactic fight with the skullgirl. In my head, pointing out problems with Marie's design is similar to critiquing places like the Demon Ruins in Dark Souls. There is an obvious drop in quality in those sections when compared to the entire game but the reasons for that is because From needed to meet their deadline and sacrifices had to be made somewhere in order to put as much content into the game on a limited time frame and budget. But people still point out (and need to) that these sections do not feel consistent with the rest of the experience, and that the cut corners are obvious and in some ways intrusive.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic to Lab Zero, but regardless of the reasons; I don't think that creating a boss the way they did the game or provides the necessary sense of climax that the story needed.
But by that same merit I am not apart of their company or a factor in their vision for the game's future, I don't have any say in what goes on, and don't necessarily have any better suggestions or alternatives that aren't the result of hindsight bias. All I'm really doing is ranting about one small blemish on an already good game that is improving with each update.

I'm a huge fan of Guilty Gear and I remember playing the first one and thinking about how bad parts of it were. But Accent Core plus is literally my favorite fighting game right now and that's the result of years of changes. Maybe the future of Skullgirls will include an updated Marie boss fight that doesn't suck, all I can really do is stick around and find out and support the game the best I can.
 
So when's Marie?
 
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The best example of a well designed fighting game boss from my experience is I-No from Guilty Gear Accent Core+
I'll go back one game and suggest another boss.

Dizzy in GGX is the best and most fair boss ever.

She's a totally normal character with some increased stats (just her defense/attack/meter gain are increased?) and that's it. All her "Cheap Boss Moves" (Coffin & Gamma Ray) are accessible to any player using her.

And now she's Ky's wife.
 
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I'll go back one game and suggest another boss.

Dizzy in GGX is the best and most fair boss ever.

She's a totally normal character with some increased stats (just her defense/attack/meter gain are increased?) and that's it. All her "Cheap Boss Moves" (Coffin & Gamma Ray) are accessible to any player using her.

And now she's Ky's wife.
Unfortunately I never got to play GGX's story mode. But watching some videos and it's basically another versus match which is what I was looking for.
 
Have any of you guys played against Omega Rugal, Goenitz, Igniz, Young Geese, Gill, Amakusa and things like that?

No?

Well... go on then...

*leaves thread*
 
*comes back to thread, oh it's Isa*

It makes you ignore this shit and git gud!

*leaves again*
 
A: Hahahahahah B you have cancer and are gonna die in 2 weeks, fucking hilarious!
B: *sobs*
C: Wow A this kinda wasn't nice you know?
A: Well have you heard of what Hitler did?? Yes?? Well then shut up and learn how to deal with it!
 
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So when's Marie?
Someday my friend....someday.
 
*comes back to thread, oh it's Isa*

It makes you ignore this shit and git gud!

*leaves again*
You don't really git gud fighting a bad boss. And Isa's not alone in stating that comparing worse bosses to Marie is counterproductive. I literally said the same thing a couple posts above him.

So when's Marie?
Before Annie but after the release of Half Life 2 episode 3.
 
When's Hitler.
 
Before Annie but after the release of Half Life 2 episode 3.
I'll be waiting.....
funny-skeleton-waiting-in-garden.jpg
When's Hitler.
hitler90.jpg
 
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When's Hitler.

I could recommend you a really good RPG for that kind of twist but it would ruin the surprise.
 
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Real talk, these character concepts and the IGG stub attached make me regret that Marie didn't get voted in. But on the other hand, even if she did doesn't mean that the decision would be made to replace the current Marie boss battles with the new character.

Can you imagine a Marie 300% vs Marie battle? So many skulls.
 

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Despite how tough Marie can be, its still possible to beat on the hardest of difficulties. Although in some cases you may find you have to use a few cheap moves as well repeatedly (especially with Peacock). However, its incredibly satisfying to beat her considering how difficult she can be.

If you want a challenge, other than Squiggly's Marie 300%, try beating Marie on Nightmare difficulty solo with Valentine.
 
It's not really about Marie being hard, it's about Marie being boring. (A real challenge in Arcade is Big Band in Hard mode, his combos are marvelous)
Her design is kinda cute and the stage is cool, but that's it. Her current boss mode made her an incredibly boring and unappeling character in my eyes, and if she has to be a playable character, let her be the last one of the current known possible DLCs. I even find Feng or Minette more interesting

Also I really hope for Venus and Aeon to replace Marie as the final bosses in future story modes, and God please let them be enjoyable bosses.
 
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It's not really about Marie being hard, it's about Marie being boring. (A real challenge in Arcade is Big Band in Hard mode, his combos are marvelous)
Her design is kinda cute and the stage is cool, but that's it. Her current boss mode made her an incredibly boring and unappeling character in my eyes, and if she has to be a playable character, let her be the last one of the current known possible DLCs. I even find Feng or Minette more interesting

Also I really hope for Venus and Aeon to replace Marie as the final bosses in future story modes, and God please let them be enjoyable bosses.
To be fair, concept art shows PLAYABLE Marie wouldn't be anything like Boss Marie.
 
In my headcanon later iteration of story mode will feature more team oriented combat, so some of the ideas pitched for playable Marie (namely vacuuming up fallen comrades to gain power) would make her a better fit for the game system. She can keep multiple health stages, shadow figure, and skeletal minion for all I care; but the tohou projectile spam needs to be toned down a bit or better managed.
 
To be fair, concept art shows PLAYABLE Marie wouldn't be anything like Boss Marie.
I know and I saw it, it's cute but I don't like it as much as the other characters.
I just find it uninteresting just like playable Samson or clones.
 
But Annie's the best, right?