Should bosses be their own levels?

[Luna]

Do you personally prefer standalone boss levels or do you prefer the bosses being at the end of other levels?

[0lhi]

Definitely should be their own levels, at least on 1.3 that only has one checkpoint per level.

Still one of my favorite aspects of Luigi's Fight for the Mushroom Kingdom!

[TheNightingale]

For big custom boss battles it's for sure better to have them in separate levels

[Cloud Devil]

For vanilla bosses (e. g. Boom Boom, Koopalings, SMB1/SMB3 Bowser) with few custom graphics, they can be just at the end of the level.

[wyldstrykr]

i did vote for the end of the level. but you could argue that depending on the boss, it can be on the start or something in the middle or in multiple parts.
the bosses on its a seperate level is viable if the files/scripts on both level and boss are very big and the theme are different.
4 centavos

[Emral]

definitely case-by-case

[cato]

Case-by-base.

If it is like a vanilla, simple boss like a Birdo, Boom Boom etc, then it can be at the end of the level. It is simple that you can just switch to a vanilla music with screen-scrolling, and make them pop a vanilla exit (Orb, exit orb).

Though there are a lot of good levels that use the bosses as a standard enemy, such as using Birdo as platforms in a top MAGLX level, Fryguy, Mouser and Boom Booms used in Subzero Heroes levels (Pepper Falls, EZ Train and Subzero Heroes).

If it has a couple of phrases, event and you need a boss arena, you better put a checkpoint before the boss. Tower, castle and airship levels love that as a separate section from the level. It is a standard way of making levels that have bosses rather than making boss levels.

If is has a lot of custom assets, phrases, scripts etc, you may as well make a separate level. It is a boss level. Subzero Heroes has an excellent example for putting bosses as a separate level. You can tell because they are very complicated to pull off. Even the final bosses have multiple phrases and you need a checkpoint between them.

[Emral]

The decision in Subzero Heroes was moreso down to making collaboration easier. You'll notice that the three bosses in the secret levels are in the levels rather than in different level files because I made those levels in 2 days each by myself.
I would've totally put a Boom Boom into his own boss level in that game if I had thought of it earlier, because that sounds funny.
I don't apply a method to it like cato suggests in the previous post, I just mostly go by gut feeling.

[LumSht]

I think shorter levels with a boss at the end are good, just like in SML2!

[Soup Mario]

In SMBX/SMB3 and other 2D Mario games, this is not accurate. But as the ratings, it is based on it.