^ and for that reason I feel they should always be necessary. The first entry had Warmech, the second had many optional bosses in the final dungeon, V had omega and shinryuu, it's a tradition.

One of the main concerns I had for XII after playing the demo was that they weren't going to be able to make the boss battles as cinematic or intense as the last few games... While Vayne is almost pathetically easy compared to much of the latter hunts, I was more disappointed with it just being a few boring battles interrupted by a few interesting cut scenes. It was kinda cool how they had him change at the end though...

B = V!!!