1. Grab trophy and hold down attack button while panthers walk into your flurry of attacks.

2. Distance yourself from ninja and THROW the trophy at her, knocking her to the ground and finish her off.

3. Grab a knife and sprint behind one of the statues or fountains or whatever they are and wait for the guy to empty his clip and reload. Lock on to him and throw the knife on your way behind the other piece of cover. Now just wait for another reload to grab another knife and do the same thing again.

Hopefully this saves someone some time and frustration trying to work out the strategy.

I enjoyed the boss battles. So I ran into two of them, the fat guy sitting next to the girl and the motorcycle helmet man. I found it exciting and I was happy when I found the winning tactics on my own, which is likely the point in these battles. I think that a bit of a challenge does not hurt a game, unless it is so frustrating that you need days to finally beat it. But 20 Minutes, c'mon.
I have not completed the game yet, though, so I might come back bitching about the final boss, too. Hopefully not.

Just beat the game. Took me about a week, only had short amounts of time to play. I thought this game was amazing. Loved the story/dialogue, gameplay, everything. Bosses were not that hard, you just need to learn their patterns and learn from mistakes. The last boss wasn't that bad, beat him after dying maybe, eh, 10 times. I didn't get frustrated, though which is great. If you think this game is just a mashup of crazy combat and fantic violence, you are right, but I think the story was very important, and the bosses were fine, and a welcome edition.

Now, I would like to see Hotline Miami's 2 bosses.

It wasn't that it was a difficulty spike, it was that they were somewhat in opposition to the rest of the game's design. From flexible, emergent chaotic solutions to much more fixed, pattern-based gameplay was very jarring. But I love this game so much, I eventually got to a point where my reflexes just started responding.

I do maintain they're poorly designed, however in comparison to the rest of the game.

Maybe it's just that you expected the game to be consistent where bosses are almost always the exception to how standard enemies work.

This is largely down to intent and execution. The boss battles are less interesting to me because they are so linear in tactics that I can either nail them in ten seconds, the same way every time, or they turn into a grind because the timing wasn't quite there. It goes from a game of marvellous chaos to one of rigid trial-by-error until you have the pattern.

It may be that the designers wanted that contrast, but in my opinion. they don't work as well as the other parts of the game.

But then I think boss battles are archaic and should be eradicated, because the world is not full of boss characters. So it's a matter of what I like, I guess!

Organizations don't have more capable people with more experience at the helm? That's... Interesting, but inaccurate.

The way I see it is the entire game is one of trial and error. So, if the bosses follow the same model, then the game is consistent. But, you've already made it clear you don't like the idea of a prolonged encounter. I would just find games with that modus operandi boring. So, yeah. It may not be the game at all being bad, just it not meeting with your preferences in that region. That's what I originally suspected. I don't see any problem with that. Anyways...

I think what most people get annoyed with in a lot of boss battles (Hotline Miami being no exception) is working out what you're supposed to do. In HLM I finished off the biker fairly quickly but the final boss had me frustrated as hell after multiple deaths. Once I'd figured out what to do, it was just a case of finger twitching to get it right. On my second playthrough of HLM it only took 2 or 3 attempts to defeat the final boss.

Some games do bosses very well... or at least have the right idea. Batman Arkham Origins uses boss battles as a test of a particular skill that you have been using up until that point. Each boss requires you to have mastered that skill. While it's not the best Batman game, at least it understands the idea behind bosses.

Figuring out what I need to do is the fun part for me. As long as the game's not opaque or random about it, then it's a part I always enjoy. Games like "Shadow of the Colossus" thrust this idea front and center. There's always games that have just plainly bad design or balance decisions. I was attempting to ascertain whether the OP had a preference that the game didn't meet or if it was actually poorly implemented.

I don't think HM is bad at all - it's one of my favourite games ever. Quite a lot of people commented on the boss battles at release and after. They represent a spike in the game structure, not so much for difficulty, but for changing the tempo of the game and forcing a specific solution.

In fact, that issue is part of the problem with HM2. There aren't bosses per se, but there is an increased focus on learning patterns, or picking out where people are through trial and error. In some ways it makes it more superficially challenging, but the joy of HM for me was the self-expression in playing it. Most of that has gone, replaced by hiding around corners.

i digress. I maintain the bosses are badly designed for a couple of reasons. They have fail states that reduce the opportunity for finding an unexpected solution: there's only one solution. And once you figure it out, it becomes a matter of timing rather than challenge, and they're over in about 60 seconds usually.

I'll come back to my first paragraph: the boss battles put a lot of people I know off the game. They loved it until that point, but found the boss battle in Deadline was just irritating. Because even having the pattern down 100% I find it irritating.

Obviously it's a matter of preference if you like it, but I don't think liking it means it's well designed. I like several films that aren't well made, but I still enjoy them.

Sure, but you understand the reverse is also true.

Honestly I think you're just being obtuse for the sake of it and I'm done debating the point with you.