So you've made it to the final stage of the game. You have conquered every obstacle the game has thrown at you. Your reflexes are on point. You confront the final boss only for the game to throw the core gameplay out of the window and expect you to master all new mechanics for what is supposed the be the climactic and maybe most difficult challenge of the game.

Off the top of my head games that pull this switcheroo include Uncharted (all the games except 2), Metal Gear Solid 2 becomes a Hack N Slash, and the original God of War.

I am sure there are more examples but I can't think of them right now.

How do you feel about games that do this? Does it annoy you? Does it feel refreshing?

I don't usually like it when they do that.  That's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of boss battles in general.  

A good example is the first boss battle in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  I'm playing the game with my character centered around stealth, which appears to be a primary option.  Pretty much every situation, you can get through silently.  Then, boom, by the way, forget all that because you have to beat this boss character in a straight fire-fight.  Your character isn't built or equiped for that?  Too bad.  I was really, really pissed off about that.

On the other hand, you have Blood Dragon, which probably had the most beautiful and elegant ending for a video-game ever.

LA Noire: A game defined by its performance capture and interrogation process. Is the climax outsmarting and breaking down a master criminal to face justice or something? Fuck no, it's corridor shooting random mooks!

I'm fine with it, as long as the changes aren't too drastic.. nice to have a change with new ideas, but if you have to relearn all your skills just for one boss, then it does get annoying

Lost Planet.

In Breath of the Wild it's not only the boss battles that suddenly restrict your gameplay, the whole lost woods area goes completely against the freedom of exploration and experimentation that the game is based on. Suddenly there are invisible walls everywhere that reset you back to the start when you cross them.
Plus one place I had already found, but it didn't activate until failing first so the quest becomes available. The game just let me run around in circles at the target area until I gave up and walked into the mist. Then the quest wouldn't complete as I ran back to where it was instead of doing the most annoying type of quest that exists. After Ganon is defeated the rest of Link's life will be dedicated to burning that forest down.

hmm i mean technically its all stuff you can do in the game, maybe just not a core part of the game though

I wouldn't say BotW counts. As incredibly lame as the final boss is, there are no new mechanics that the player is required to learn.

O/T: Out of what's not been mentioned so far, Furi comes to mind. And, yeah, it's almost always really annoying.

Huh.. What?

There is nothing you can do during that last boss fight that you can't during regular battles.


@OP: Uncharted 4 is the first title that comes to mind.

Lol. Is that your first experience with the Lost Woods in any Zelda game?

That's not "completely different gameplay". Gameplay and control mechanics don't change at all.  You just need to know how to traverse the Lost Woods, hence the name of that place. xD