The transformation from normal-sized evil dude to gigantic evil dude takes place over a ten minute cut scene. First the ancient Byzantine runes are chanted over, emblazoned on the skin, with a few choice words about how “I am more powerful than you could ever imagine”. Soon, the burial chamber is too small to house the villain, crumbling to pieces around our hero as she clamors to find safety long enough to come up with a plan.

When the dust has settled, the end boss is the size of a skyscraper, with glowing orbs of every color circling around him. He is a naked, platinum God, draped in symbols with the faces of lions and snakes. Man, he’s big.

Our hero brushes the dust off her leather pants, tosses her hair to the side, and says something disparaging about her situation. How is she supposed to take down someone a thousand times her size?

One shoe at a time!

Before she can get her bearings, the end boss fires a laser blast from his mouth, destroying the facade of the 11th century castle that she just spent two hours traversing through. He says something like, “This feeling, it’s incredible!” and reveals his strangely colored and completely useless health bar.

She sprints towards her antagonist – a twisted mockery of the man who was once her best friend in the Order, before he betrayed her and destroyed her family in a fire – only becoming keenly aware of just how massive he is when she reaches his pinkie toe.

If only we could go back to a time when a boss’s incredible power was measured by the weapons he wielded or the magic that he used, instead of by how many screens it takes to see him in his entirety, she thinks as she slashes away at his foot.

“You think that’s going to hurt me?” the boss shouts. He spews forth a wave of tiny bat demons who hop around and become fodder to the sword.

It’s like these guys have to keep topping each other for who is the biggest, most grandiose bad guy of them all. At a certain point it gets a little ridiculous, she thinks. It’s not even impressive anymore. I’d kill for a tiny boss at this point.

“This world will meet its end at my hand and there’s nothing you can do about it,” the end boss bellows. A particularly painful stabbing in his toe knocks him to his knees. “Oh! How cute!”

Our hero slashes at his face, lighting it up like a Chinese lantern. Everyone turns into a demi-God these days. If you’re a big deal, you shouldn’t have to transform. Jaws didn’t become a tyrannosaurus rex, did he?

The end boss stands up tall. Pieces of his skin shimmer in the sunlight. “Now you’ve made me angry!” he shouts.  His face contorts into something unrecognizable and inhuman. He grows twice his size, until his foot fills up the entire screen. This will happen three more times before the fight is over and our hero has her revenge. Unfortunately, by then, she will have forgotten who it was she was fighting and why she was angry in the first place.

Credits roll.