(SPOILER) A totally legitimate, 100% objective Boss Ranking!

[Seisachtheia]

(sarcasm, in case you can't tell!)

I figured I'd do a boss ranking based on difficulty after getting to the final boss. Firstly let me commend Red Candle on this game, I love it. Secondly let me say that I have not beaten the final boss, in fact, I can't be the final boss, she's too difficult! However I have seen all of her phases enough times to include her in the ranking. I love parry mechanics but am also very bad at these kinds of games, so I think my rankings will be quite different from most other peoples.

Remember, these are ranked in order of difficulty for me at the time I fought them, not "actual" difficulty if I were to face them in an end-game boss rush with all the extra practice and skills unlocked. Obviously, these are just my own experiences so from most to least difficult we have:

1. Eigong - Pretty obvious choice for top spot. Like I said above I cannot beat her, and after 2 or so hours I have to take a break and then come back but unlike other bosses her patterns and parry timings are so unique I have to start all over again, I don't retain any skill between runs...so after 2 hours I have to take another break after only having just gotten back to 3rd phase! Love the parrying in this fight though, I think it's my favourite of any boss in this game.

2. Fxi/Nuwa - The hardest part of this fight for me was the first phase. In 4.5 hours of trying I only ever made it to the second phase a dozen or so times, and 3 of those were in my last 5 runs before I beat the boss! Fxi was so difficult because the hitboxes aren't what you expect, you have to pay attention to spacing because sometimes you'll think you're parrying but the attack is actually hitting behind you. I thought this was just a feature of his large design but then I got to Eigong and realized the same thing happens there, it's just a lot more subtle and difficult. I love the evolution of being aware of spacing between Fxi and the Eigong boss fights. Also, I grooved hard to this boss music.

3. Goumang - Wait, what? Guomang?!? Yep. Guomang was easily one of the hardest bosses for me in this run because you don't have access yet to all your tools (critically, air dash). She's also the only "true" dual boss fight among the Sols (Nuwa is more of just stage hazards). Guomang is all about being aware of enemy positioning and taking advantage of limited openings to attack a boss that is immune most of the fight. Really great design for this point of the game that forces you to look at the arena, not your character, in boss fights.

4. General Yingzhao - The run killer himself! I'm sure this is where a lot of players will put down the game for good. Yingzhao is a straight skill check on parry, tai-chi kicks, and dodging. He's simple and straightforward but punishing as you are learning the mechanics. Nothing special about this boss, just the ultimate "welcome to the game now scrub" love letter from the developers.

5. Lady Ethereal - This was just such a chill feeling fight, the escalation from an almost trivial first phase to a hyper chaotic third was well done, and you could feel yourself becoming more and more in tune with your character and acting by reflex as the fight went on. I never had a bad run with Lady Ethereal even when I got thoroughly owned. Tough, and you need to pay attention because if you aren't thinking about how to attack her you can get real stumped by those clones or her hanging in the air a lot during third phase. Until I figured out I could hit her on the way down in third phase I was stumped!

6. Ji - Ji has the best narrative fight in the game where the boss battle tells a story. He believes so fully in his ability to predict the future that he drops little fealth/azure sand refills for you during the fight. A potential commentary on self-fulfilling prophecy where because he believes he will lose, he makes it so? I like to think that's how this fight was designed! I love parrying as a mechanic and keeping an eye out for all those knives as they zip around the screen was a lot of fun. Not the hardest boss though, it's really just all about parrying the knives and dodging the ring attacks.

7. Jiequan - I think Jiequan was built up too much in my mind. You get the unbounded counter mechanic in his area and I did not enjoy this mechanic and have not used it much in game. I thought Jiequan's boss fight would force you to do it to win...imagine my surprise and joy when I realized that wasn't the case. Because I had been dreading the difficulty of this boss so much when it turned out he was simpler than expected he became one of the easiest ones in the game.

8. Yanlao - To nobody's surprise and probably universal agreement, Yanlao is last. There's really nothing to say about this fight. It's not particularly difficult and its biggest standout feature seems to be how much health that claw has...it felt like it was a surprising amount given how often I was smacking it.

And there we go, those are the Sols of Nine Sols, ranked in order of my personal experience of difficulty! Did any of these surprise you? Agree with me on any?

[Scorpix]

For me the ranking looks like this:

1. Eigong - Ultimate Challenge
2. Feng Twins - Test of keeping eye on eviroment
3. Lady Ethereal - Test of what you learnt so far
4. Jiequan - Test of parry and reaction
5. Ji - Test of air parry
6. Goumang - Test of crowd control
7. Yanlao - Test of platforming
8. General Yingzhao - Test of basics

BTW: You can gain access to air dash before Goumang

[SoreyKhun]

honestly, that's a genuine fair top (although i'd personally rank ethereal higher), kinda feel bad for yanlao tho, he was easier than the guards in empyrean disctrict (the ones you trigger by stepping on grass)

[Seisachtheia]

Origineel geplaatst door Scorpix:

For me the ranking looks like this:

1. Eigong - Ultimate Challenge
2. Feng Twins - Test of keeping eye on eviroment
3. Lady Ethereal - Test of what you learnt so far
4. Jiequan - Test of parry and reaction
5. Ji - Test of air parry
6. Goumang - Test of crowd control
7. Yanlao - Test of platforming
8. General Yingzhao - Test of basics

BTW: You can gain access to air dash before Goumang

This is a pretty fair ranking that I think would mimic my own if I was ranking based on what it'd be like to fight them all now. And yep, you can get the air dash before Guomang but I didn't.

[Goldy]

I didn't find the twin that hard personally. Tho i admit that i spend 99% of the game doing aerial paries since they don't care of where the attack came from lol. So it was fairly easy to deal with the big guy in phase 1. And Phase 2 needed just to learn how her sister would interfere.

Difficulty wise: I think only Eigong was the real block i had in the game. All other were overcome'd in a dozen tries average. Yingzhao was a mess but i also didn't understood the game back then lol.

Favorite wise tho: Lady Ethereal, she felt the best in difficulty scaling. Phase 1 was easy and there to show you what she could do. Phase 2 was harder but not impossible with patience. Phase 3 was when patience wouldn't cut it anymore, you needed to be a bit proactive and once i figured how to dodge the big attack, it was smooth sailing. Added to it awesome aestetics and soundtrack 11/10 would have trauma again

[JadenFlan]

Origineel geplaatst door Scorpix:

For me the ranking looks like this:

1. Eigong - Ultimate Challenge
2. Feng Twins - Test of keeping eye on evironment
3. Lady Ethereal - Test of what you learnt so far
4. Jiequan - Test of parry and reaction
5. Ji - Test of air parry
6. Goumang - Test of crowd control
7. Yanlao - Test of platforming
8. General Yingzhao - Test of basics

BTW: You can gain access to air dash before Goumang

Pretty fair ranking.
On a side note, I would say some mini bosses in this game are much more annoying than main bosses. I mean of course main bosses are tougher, but the mini bosses usually comes with other enemies, ♥♥♥♥♥ platforming or pikes/ drops, which makes it extremely annoying and frustrating

[stevo]

Goumang was barely much harder than Yanlao imo. And there's no way anything else is harder than Lady Ethereal besides your top 2 lol

[Seisachtheia]

Origineel geplaatst door stevo:

Goumang was barely much harder than Yanlao imo. And there's no way anything else is harder than Lady Ethereal besides your top 2 lol

My ranking on my second playthrough is very different, this one was just about what it was like the first time through.

Personally, I never found Lady Ethereal that difficult though.

[Ventus]

1. Eigong
2. Feng Twins
3. Lady Ethereal
4. Jiequan
5. Ji
6. Yanlao
7. General Yingzhao
8. Goumang

Eigong was the most fun followed by Lady Ethereal
The Sol boss I had the least fun with was the Feng Twins, though the absolute worst boss in the game is the mini-boss at the end of the dungeon.

[JackKaif]

10. Xingtian. One of the most awkward boss fights. It's all about tight arena and some AoE attacks. He managed to kill me only once because of surprise effect. Wasn't hard neither interesting.
9. Kanghui. Peculiar fight, thanks to undying enemy. Nothing more.
8. Yingzhao. The most boring boss fight. He absolutely loves his charge attack which is easy to parry. Actually any attack is. Boss-metronome.
7. Yanlao is Yingzhao 2.0 with some parkour elements. That's why he's a little higher.
6. Jiequan. First quite interesting boss. Has some preparation mechanic you can use (if you want). His boss fight highly rewards your skills using all of your parry options.
5. Goumang. A little bit harder than Jiequan. You should control both her pawns therefore you have to think over every your move.
4. F uxi/Nuwa. Not too hard boss fight, but second phase is slightly tough. Demands to analyze surroundings. Develops strabismus. If only F uxi had more attacks, this fight would be one of the greatest.
3. Ji. Casino boss fight. Just kidding. Need to remember her moveset depending on the selected tokens. Very fun obviously.
2. Lady Etherial. Everyone has the boss in souls-likes he stucks on. This one is mine. Even so she's my favourite because of pacing, various moveset, disctractions, etc. Feels like Mantis Lords but much more interesting i believe.
1. Eigong. Your final skill test. Fast. Tight. A small room for error. Some jades and talismans make this battle easier but it's still hard enough. All of this is plot-based btw.

[ozmin.h]

Are you saying, one boss took you more than 5 hours?? Only one fight ?? Wow. I’m really enjoying the game, I just beat 3rd boss. I don’t want to spend 5 hours in a single boss.

[leo_gear]

Origineel geplaatst door ozmin.h:

Are you saying, one boss took you more than 5 hours?? Only one fight ?? Wow. I’m really enjoying the game, I just beat 3rd boss. I don’t want to spend 5 hours in a single boss.

Your mileage will vary. Eigong was a long one for me to get past (probably around 5 hours total with breaks in between sessions). Most of the bosses arent that long to get the hang of, just the last one, and it's going to depend on your personal skill level.

As for my ranking, the bottom are pretty much all equal (Xingtian, Goumang and Ji). Middle is too (Yanlao, Jiequan). The top would consist of

1. Eigong - took me long enough to get used to her skills.

2. Fuxi/Nuwa - primarily due to the various sources of damage and how much damage they can stack up. A good run can turn sour quickly and there's no parrying those snakes if you get knocked into them.

3. Lady Ethereal - took me a while to figure out you're not meant to unbound counter the stage shattering attack. I learned a lot going through her phases, such as you can nullify attacks if you can attack the clones quickly, even after they launch the attack.

This is after going through the game 2 times, 1st with an "anything goes" build + water flow to make it easier, 2nd is a restricted charged attack only build (no arrows, no talismans). If it were my first run, I'd definitely put Jiequan and Ji higher.

[Octarine]

Is it only me who thinks Lady Ethereal was harder than Eigong?..

[Matthew Or]

I agree for all your analysis, but my personal list would be

1. Eigong (no explanation needed, right?)
2. Lady Ethereal (took me longest to beat second to Eigong)
3. FuXi + NuWa aka the Fengs (NuWa's attacks on second stage are so annoying)
4. Goumang (Same as you point, not much skills but need to deal with variety of combos)
5. Jiequan (He is quick but at least his skills can be easily understood)
6. Ji (HE is the best boss and so much fun to fight with HIM,)
(Yeah confirmed by Red Candle, Ji is male, His name is a famous anicent emperor family name)
7. General Yingzhao (Large range attack, but at least he has very few moves)
8. Yanlao (I mean... an old man, almost as slow as Biden)

[Anderson]

I can only rank these based on my first playthrough, so here we go. I will be skipping the big Dog and Chiyou's brother, since those felt more like minobosses.

8. Goumang - beat her on the second try. Not much trouble, since the two enemies are fairly simply. The Jade that lets you tag two enemies with your talisman is handy here.
7. Yanlao - Three tries, I think. His attacks aren't too fast, or aggresive. Just kept my cool and won. Probably easiest boss overall.
6. FFuxi + Nuwa - They died fast (less than 5 attempts). Since I did them after Ji, I was basically fully upgraded and more confident. Not too hard, only one attack from FFuxi (the backhand swipe) caught me a few times.
5. Jiequan - First real test, beside the General. 5+ attempts or so. His fast spear combos were the main issue to overcome. Definitely a good "so how are you handling this combat system test so far?" kind of boss.
4. The General - Although this was the first boss, and mechanically the simplest, he absolutely crushed me at least 5 times before I got a grip. I tried dodging, but it just wasn't working. Oddly, I beat his second phase the first time I reached it. Definitely a great boss for testing the player skill, like Genichiro from Sekiro. Even on my second playthough, he was only of only a few bosses to kill me even once.
3. Ji - Close to 10 tries. Really should have been less, but I kept messing up to his dagger combos. It weird because second run he died in basically 2 attempts (third one didn't count, because I used the jade that lets you get 2 Qi from a deflect, and found that it dealt massive internal damage to me).
2. Lady Ethereal - First boss that felt like a true challenge. Took over 10 attempts. Probably the best overall boss in terms of presentation and moveset. The three phases work wonderfully together.
1. Eigong - The hardest boss, by a massive margin. The 2-phase version took an hour to beat (I didn't do the true ending the first time). On the second run, I took out the 3-phase version in 4 tries, so total boss time would probably have been around 80-90 minutes, easily more than double of any other boss.

[nine_gamers]

im sorry, 4.5 hours on the incest siblings? i get that the hitboxes are jank and the animations are kinda choppy but fushi only has something like 4 attacks, yeah? not trying to be mean here and i do agree with the rest of the rankig, just curious in a way because i beat this boss on something like my 5th attempt. also, boss music for this one is indeed a bop