Portal: completed again, and the boss battle

I have now lost count of the number of times I’ve played through Portal. The last time I posted about it, back in 2010, I said I’d completed it on four platforms; by now I must have completed it multiple times on each of those, and additional platforms since. This latest completion is due to the Portal collection (both games) being cheap on Switch, and the desire to try playing through Portal 2 on a convenient platform. But I couldn’t let the first game just sit there.

I actually played through the game twice, the second time listening to the developer commentary – I meant to only do this for the first couple of levels, but each time a new level started I could see the speech bubbles hanging temptingly close. It is still magnificent, with its short length adding to its genius. But I’ve said all that before.

What I found interesting this time, following so close to my completion of Metroid Prime Remastered, and also various other games over the past couple of years, is how the boss battle in Portal was so clearly signposted. As you enter, one of GlaDOS’s orbs falls to the ground and before you are in any danger you have to incinerate it. Once that’s done, you know that you will have to do that again, and you can see where the orbs are, and it’s very soon after that you realise how to get them after some of GlaDOS’s commentary hints at the rockets. Even with the one-hit-kill nature of Portal’s gameplay, it’s easy to both understand what to do, and also to do it.

This is in contrast to some of the bosses in Metroid Prime, for example. The last boss, in particular, had no signposting on how to damage it, until I accidentally stood on some of the deposited goo and realised that the HUD now read “hypermode” (or similar). The Omega Pirate killed me many times until I realised that missiles dealt huge amounts of damage. Thinking back to Sonic on the Mega Drive, bosses often required a little trial and error before you worked out how to hit them consistently.

As I’ve grown older I think that the signposting is appreciated – but the challenge of Metroid Prime came as a welcome surprise, and the bosses in the Zelda games are an appropriate crescendo – plus the minor bosses across the worlds of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, optional as they are, are a great focal point for adventure.