The Second Mimic introduction highlights the moment of theft with the pause, enhancing that event and preparing the player for the fight to come. The first introduction is less powerful.

For the introduction image, a small innocent looking mimic belies the fact that it grows into a monster, which makes that realization more impactful for first time players. It also makes the theft seem playful rather than protective or ominous.

Pausing in the middle of a boss battle is always annoying -it disrupts your feeling of the “action”. Plus if you replay the fight multiple times it becomes frustrating. Instead you could show the larger portraits on screen without a pause, as long as they don’t cover too much of the screen (or last a long time).

Another thing to consider is that when you replay the fight, as in the boss battle hall, there could be a conglomerate portrait, showing all three sizes at the beginning, since the player will know that the mimic grows.

If you wanted to show a portrait for each form, one way to handle it would be to show the portrait during a growth animation. The player can reposition while watching the growth which keeps the action going while instilling a feeling of dread.

The multiple portrait idea is really fun but if it stops gameplay then it could be kind of an annoyance for those who play the game multiple times.

Having said that… fun, quirky things like this are what make games last through the years. Ninjarock’s idea is interesting. Having the animation play while still being able to move could work. Maybe… ;)

I agree with not having the action stop for the sake of the portraits. If the fight would not happen all at once, like, if we were to find the boss multiple times, now that would be perfect (like, you fight it once, it somehow escapes and consumes more treasures, making it bigger or it looks defeat and a normal sized chest but as we leave the room we get a scene where the chest hops away, out of the screen, only to be found elsewhere, bigger and meaner).
If it’s going to be a one-spot fight then maybe just use the smaller portrait but when the image is about to disappear it changes into the bigger one and peeps will think “What the heck??”. Think it’s a bug until the boss really grows into what we saw for only a brief moment :D

My vote for when to show the initial portrait is when the tongue is still out. For the second one, it just freezes when it looks like a chest. So I think having the tongue out when the portrait flies out gives a better sense that it’s a creature for that moment.

For the other portraits questions..no idea.. I’d just have to see it in action

I want three portraits. A 1-2 second pause between transitions isn’t going to be the end of the world. Players aren’t even going to notice it unless they die 50 times.

In which case maybe only show them once per session.

Seconding everything Ninjarock posted.
Pausing while the tongue is out gives you a moment to realize what’s going on, while the whole action looks a little too fast if you paused after it’s eaten the artifact.

I think showing a new portrait each stage might be fine the first time through a fight, but assuming people are going to fight it several times, which might take several attempts each fight, it’d become annoying over time – like a cutscene you can’t skip you’ve seen a thousand times over.

I think one portrait should be enough

I like the pause with the tongue out a lot, though i’m not able to adequately describe why.

as for the image thing, I like the idea of showing all three images, since i feel it can add more than it can take away. while some complain that it can interupt the flow of the game, i think it adds to the theme the game has going for it. Though I do feel that it could be interesting if the name plate changed for each new form (perhaps somethign like going from ancient mimic to true ancient mimic [unsure about second form, that one is just a random suggestion] and maybe finishing with the introduction of the third form being a more humorous title, such as “wait, what?” or “you done screwed up now”)