Oh my god the bosses...

[Pantoni]

They're among the most annoying, boring and awful to fight that I've found in a while. Not because they're particularly difficult whatsoever, but because all the bs surrounding them.

Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong stretches of the fight just waiting for the boss to stop spamming cr*p all over the place so you can hit him a few times, without a life bar and barely any real sign of progress (I'm sorry, but becoming red is the worst choice, it's not a clear way).

If you hug Apino to recover light, sometimes that attack window finishes, and then, guess what... yes, yes. Another looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time without a chance to hit him.

Also, nice job with all the unskippable presentations. By the 3rd time you watch any boss introducing himself AGAIN with all the dialog, animations and whatnot, you're CRAVING for him to finish already.

And maybe it's just me, but I feel like many attacks are really poorly telegraphed.

Speaking of unskippable stuff... aaaaaaaaall the dialog, cutscenes, and specially the area transitions (those with the elevator)... really??? All that time wasted for absolutely NOTHING? I've probably have watched half an hour of them, long, with "dialog" (mostly "..." once you've read her first thoughts) that you have to press a button to skip. Whyyyyyyyyyyy?

And all of this is specially infuriating with the crashes (yes, they're still happening, but at a much much lower rate than before to be fair).

Don't get me wrong. The game looks amazing. Controls, characters (not enemies) design, music... even the story is much better than expected. But all the cr*p above makes it annoying to play quite often (boss fights for the vast majority of time).

Also... if I sound tilted... is because I was. What can I say... I am hotblooded.

Cheers!

[pec_taureau]

I love the boss fights :)

[Pantoni]

Glad that you're enjoying them. I'm at the final boss, and oh my freakin' God.

How many phases has this thing?
1 when he's teleporting from side to side.
2 when he sits in the middle.
3 when he's standing and floating around
4 when he's standing and floating around with a green background (it's a different phase, cause he screams in pain and there's a white flash on the screen).

And no matter what, he keeps spamming attacks over and over and over and over and over again. Sometimes, the "lightning cross" appears so close to you that you don't have space to avoid it, and if you try, you'll get hit by the next one (it spams 5 in a row), plus the 3 cristals, plus the circular "saws"... and no healing at all. Nothing. You can only lose life, cause the light regeneration (being passive or for attacking) is laughable.

Sometimes I take damage from nothing (could be contact damage, but then I would've died right at the begining of the fight, so go figure what it is). A bugged attack? I don't know. And the cherry on top... the game freezes while fighting. F*cking great.

It reminds me to Radiance in Hollow Knight. But Radiance was HARD and FUN to fight against. This piece of cr*p is boring and way too long.

Yeah... great stuff. Give me more unskippable sh*t, please.

[pec_taureau]

I agree with you, this last boss reminded me of Radiance, but in a little more nervous and muddled in the last phase.
But the advantage you have compared to Hollow Knight is the invulnerability frames after taking damage which I think are quite long, and also the fact that having even the slightest amount of armor bar refilled enables you to take another hit without losing life points.
In other word, if you don't take damage more often than about every 3 seconds after the invulnerability frames ended, you are invincible.
But I agree, it is very complicated to deal with the last phase, and from my experience, it was more like kill before being killed.

[Pantoni]

Well... the b*stard is dead. For good. Now the game is amazing again XD

Nah, the game is quite good, and I totally love the "Saint Seiya" aesthetic. It's like playing with Saori Kido.

It's been only the bosses and the unskippable cutscenes/elevators/etc what I didn't like about it. And the life/healing system, which for me, has been one of the worst that I've found in a game.

And you're right... the last phase is a kill before get killed (which is not very good imo). And I agree in the i-frames after being hit compared to HK. But HK has much faster and better mobility (by my books, at least) and allows you to heal (though it's hard in that fight).

I know I've sounded really negative, and that's because I was FUMING. Now everything is back to normal... and I can spend my 3 free days trying HunterX or Moonscars. I'm not sure yet.

Cheers!

[Bectrox]

Indeed, you have to keep evading as much as possible when the bar is down to be able to take another hit against the shield.
The last phase is crazy. W/o switching armor to destroy one of the crystals for the triangle beams, it seemed impossible. It took me some attempts to figure that out.
And there is the attack with three vertical light bars and the rotating blades that sink down on you. I have no idea how you are supposed to evade those.
(EDIT: Never mind the last one, I fought him again and this attack comes earlier. You have to use green armor and the pipe below to evade.)
But since this phase killed me several times or the game froze right before it, I became better at getting to the last phase with full health which helped in the final endurance race. :D

However, I still find this boss quite fitting to the game and its story. It could have been a disappointment when it was manageable on the first try (for common folks). Certainly was not. Additionally, since you began in the game w/o having a chance against it at all, you came a long way to be able to fight it now. Of course, this only counts if you care about immersion.
(...and I am saying that in retrospection, humhum...)

And yes, game crashes are certainly not cool and unskippable cutscenes are a crime against humanity. xD

[Funky Nomad]

I completely agree with you. I don't mind dying on boss', but I can't take sitting through the wait cut-scenes again. Makes this game frustrating when it could be awesome.

[NeoKurow]

I agree sadly the beautiful art and music is ruined by horrible boss fights that try too hard to be soul like frustrating and trolling fights. The regular enemies are too easy most of the time but the bosses are just bad designs. I have cleared 3 bosses and every single boss will kill you at least 5 times before you are able to win the fight in a decent form and after that you feel like you didn't even won... he killed you several times in less than 5 minutes and you won 1.

[pec_taureau]

There are save points not very far from every bosses and you are not penalised in any way by dying. But I admit that if you don't like boss fights in this game, it is likely to ruin your experience since they represent about half of the gameplay imo.

Maybe I don't play the same kind of game as you, but for me it is normal to usually not been able to defeat a boss the first time you meet him. Except for RPGs where you may be over powered if you do all the side quests and carry 99 healing potions with you.

[Zero]

I just finished the 2nd painting. I'm realizing that the bosses themselves are fine, the problem is the whole health-as-mana system. It's too easy to find yourself in a state where the boss is vulnerable, but you took so much chip damage that you can't destroy their crystal barrier. So you have to drain out your bar, then hug the bear, then go through the entire cycle again until you manage to do a no-hit run and attack. I think the first problem that should be solved is that you should be able to hug the bear even if your bar isn't empty, if I have 1% of my bar left why do I need to take the extra second to shoot and THEN restore it? Those precious moments when you are free to restore your light but CAN'T because it's not empty are so frustrating.

Honestly as much as I like the system in theory, it feels like something they just didn't fully think through or didn't test enough to make sure it was fair and not needlessly punishing. You basically have to master every boss, and for those of us who like to rely on a comfortable HP pool to make up for our sub-optimal reflexes, this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insufferable at times. I can do it, sure, but it doesn't feel good when I finally get through.

[pec_taureau]

I agree with you Zero, the management of this bar is key when fighting bosses, and may lead to easy wins if you succeed the "full refill minigame", or not being able to damage the boss and death if you didn't.