Great game, terrible bosses. Discuss your feelings (RANTING[SPOILERS])

[SOLOMON]

I've played DS1, 2, BB and now 3, with an accumulated time of probably around 1000 hours across Steam, PS4 and 360. My internet's not too great so PVP kinda sucks for me, thus the vast majority of my time spent has been just playing through the games.

Having fought every boss in DS3 now (currently on last boss, attempted him once, died and now going back and trying to find items I missed, etc, so I'll not be including him) I feel I can say with confidence that I think DS3's bosses are its weakest point.


Let me get the good ones out of the way; bosses that are straight up tests of skill, with interesting attacks and no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t attached- generally fair fights. None of the bosses in each category are listed in any order, just as whichever I felt like talking about first.


While not really a test of skill, Iudex Gundyr was really solid for a first boss. I think Father Gascoigne is the only other first boss that's better than him. (Yes I know Gascoigne can be either first or second, but if he CAN be first, he has to be considered as such)

Abyss Watchers was good- I got irritated at first because of the additional spawn but when a 3rd spawned in and started fighting the other two I immediately forgave it and thought it was pretty cool to have a Legion "buddy" 1v1-ing the boss while I took on the other. Phase two went back to being a 1v1 and turned into Maria from Bloodborne 2.0, which isn't a bad thing. Fun fight, fast and decently challenging.

Dancer of the Borreal Valley is a good fight. Interesting animation that's kind of hard to read and cool combos. Wasn't particularly challenging but the timings can be a problem if you're not observant.

The Nameless King is a fantastic fight. Phase 1 is whatever- thematically awesome but trivially easy. Phase 2 however is exactly what I was hoping for from the rest of the bosses. Good speed, interesting uses of staggered timings to catch you roll spamming, extreme long and close range attacks- just great stuff. The fight is basically if you took Ornstein and took the time to make him into a legit 1v1 boss. Has similar moves but more of them, combos and some neat lightning stuff. Best fight in the game, in my opinion. Took me a while but I enjoyed every attempt.


There's a few "okay" bosses that are fine for the most part but have a few little or one major flaw that detracts from the experience.


Vordt for the second was fine but not really praiseworthy. Buttcake-easy and nothing really going on otherwise. Incredibly "average."

Champion Gundyr is Iudex Gundyr sans phase 2 and it's basically the same excact fight as phase 1 Iudex Gundyr but with a couple different strings, an AOE stomp and a pretty sweet back-kick. Very disappointing that it's just a repeat boss, but I suppose appropriate for the area as well as just being a solid fight.

Dragonslayer Armor is again another average fight. He's not particularly fast, strong, or interesting. From what I saw he didn't have a whole lot of attacks to work with so he was very easy to read. The stage is the coolest part about this fight.

The Consumed King is pretty boring and slow for the first half but the second half kicks it up and you end up getting Ludwig the Accursed LITE. However while initially seeming difficult, as soon as you figure out hugging his back leg with your shield up is the way to go, he becomes trivially easy. With enough stamina and a high enough stability shield nothing he does at that point is a threat and the worst that can happen is you can be out of stamina and will have to wait to attack again. I feel like fighting him mid-range purposefully would probably enhance the fight and make it seem more fun but when I killed him on the same attempt I tried the above strategy and he didn't break through my guard, not once, and ended up killing him.


Now here comes the bad bosses.. Not fun, irritating (not based on difficulty) and/or boring fits here.


I might have a higher opinion of The Old Demon King if I didn't fight him earlier in the game in mini-boss form. He's basically Demon Fire Sage but much more magic spammy. As soon as you get anywhere near him he does one of like 4 different AOEs which makes it very much a "wait your turn" boss. Not hard. Not fun. And fought basically the same dude as a mini boss earlier.

Speaking of "wait your turn" bosses, Aldrich is the epitome of this. He doesn't have many moves but the one he likes to do a lot more than I'd like him to is the arrow rain. Not a problem in phase 1 but phase 2 they last for so long and chase you all the way around the damn room. You can't really do anything other than run away at this point and he had a habit of doing this attack one after the other when I fought him a few times. Very annoying. Test of your patience and ability to stay awake while you wait to go in.

The Lothric Princes fight is pretty lame. The only semblence of difficulty you get is in phase 2 when the magic arrows get summoned and if you're in a bad spot under them or he teleports behind you it can end up stunlocking and killing you. Otherwise it's not hard at all and his attacks are all super telegraphed. I died a few times to the teleport slash confusing me with the lock-on swinging the camera around really fast but as it is, it's just a 1-trick pony with the magic spam into teleport mixup.


The home stretch now- terrible bosses. Mostly because of my hatred of add-fights due to the crazy RNG element that can just end up screwing you completely. Yes, these are extremely biased. These are bosses I feel are lazy and often unfair due to their mechanics or additional enemies in the arena.

Pontiff Sulyvahn phase 1 is a good fight. Fast paced, with varied attack patterns and staggered timings on some moves. Pontiff Sulyvahn phase 2 is garbage. It's as if From said let's ruin a perfectly good boss fight by giving it a reverse Yun Genei Jin clone and forcing the fight to a crawl because of how unsafe it is to do ANYTHING with the boss doubling up its attacks in a staggered timing! So your options at that point end up being you either spend 10 minutes trying to pick your timings or you go in like a madman and kill the clone, making phase 2 not even a phase 2 anyway. I liked the fight when the clone wasn't out. The fact that they did that completely retroactively destroyed the fight as a whole for me.

Sage is just a magic spammer that's not hard at all on its own, but then suddenly it clones itself 5 times all at the same time. Despite it not being a huge problem (throwing knives work great for getting rid of clones if you dont immediately spot the real one), it's lazy and creates purely RNG scenarios, where you can dodge one attack and get hit by another of the 4 clones right as your i-frames end and it turns into a stunlock death. Not much strategy involved other than run in a direction and use pillars to hopefully avoid the attacks until you can figure out the real one. It's not fun, and the boss becomes a toned-down miniboss later.

Deacons of the Deep..... Regular enemies with dumbed down AI that respawn constantly until you kill enough that are possessed by the red glow. Fantastic. I only died once to the boss, and it was due to a magic attack that flew straight through the centerpiece of the room and hit me for more than half my health during the second phase of the fight before I really even knew what was going on. This fight is garbage.

Curse Rotted Greatwood- Phase 2 is fine if not boring and slow. Phase 1 is awful due to, you guessed it, additional enemies spawning in. You can push passed this phase pretty quickly but seriously, why all the adds, From? It's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ way of trying to cover up how boring the main boss is.

High Lord Wolnir is TRASH. Break his two left gauntlets almost immediately and then wait around dodging attacks until he does one specific one to hit his right bracer all the while likely being swarmed by adds and unless you run the risk of trying to attack the bracer while it's next to his death-fog-emitting body. God awful gimmick boss.

Ancient Wyvern- why? Why is this a boss fight? Why is this a thing at all? Who thought this would be fun? Or a good idea? I get that it's optional but why lock arguably the best boss in the game behind this piece of dog ♥♥♥♥? Run the gauntlet of enemies and climb up to land one plunging attack on its head to kill it. I just. I don't even know with this trash.

And last but not least.. Yhorm. Thank you, From, for making one of the main bosses of the game be a slow, lumbering giant with crazy damage resistance to everything but the weapon you laid down in the room with him which then only takes 4 hits to kill him with, turning the fight into literally being easier than fighting some of the common enemies of the game.



So there ya go. In my opinion- of the 18 bosses I commented about (leaving Soul of Cinder out until I have another proper fight with him), 4 of them are good, 4 are whatever, 3 are bad and 7 are awful trash.

Find your favorite bosses and tell me if you agree with me or not. What were your least favorite bosses? I'm bored and farming Darkwraiths for a new hat so give me stuff to read while I do so.

[Scy]

tl;dr but yea bosses in this game kinda suck

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by Scylla:

tl;dr but yea bosses in this game kinda suck

Very much tl, do not blame for dr

But still I'm bored and nobody I personally know likes Souls so I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at you people instead.

[karl-emil]

100% agree

[Dr Nighty]

you guys are babies, i'm sick and tired of reading big posts, of big babies that talk like developers, but can't even make a tetris game. stop the whining and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and enjoy the fact that fromsoft can produce more souls games for us.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by Nighty:

you guys are babies, i'm sick and tired of reading big posts, of big babies that talk like developers, but can't even make a tetris game. stop the whining and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and enjoy the fact that fromsoft can produce more souls games for us.

I paid my moneybucks for a product, thus I will ♥♥♥♥♥ about things I don't like about it.

Would you not ♥♥♥♥♥ about a burger you purchased that tastes like someone openly ♥♥♥♥ in your mouth? Have you no backbone?

Kindly take your sensitive tush and remove it from my presence, From-fondling fanboy.

[Cent]

first off, props for the giant post, but you have to understand:
making 19 good bosses that are all better is just not doable. some of the bosses arn't meant to be tests of skill - look at some of the areas you go through to get there. its more of just a fun little relief. i thought the wyvern figth was awesome, running past all the fire to jump a hundred feet down and impale him. yhorm was cheesy but still felt really cool. quit looking purely at difficulty. remember what you had to go through to get to yhorm? absolute hell. soul of cinder is a fun last boss until he starts magic spamming. rewards good movement and punishment. enjoy the game as a game and not a raw test of skill.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by bear:

first off, props for the giant post, but you have to understand:
making 19 good bosses that are all better is just not doable. some of the bosses arn't meant to be tests of skill - look at some of the areas you go through to get there. its more of just a fun little relief. i thought the wyvern figth was awesome, running past all the fire to jump a hundred feet down and impale him. yhorm was cheesy but still felt really cool. quit looking purely at difficulty. remember what you had to go through to get to yhorm? absolute hell. soul of cinder is a fun last boss until he starts magic spamming. rewards good movement and punishment. enjoy the game as a game and not a raw test of skill.

I don't have any problems with the game outside of those bosses I shat on. I very much enjoyed the atmosphere, the fights with common enemies, the odd puzzle here and there and a little platforming for goodies- that's all fantastic and is what I expect of a good Souls game. It was delivered beautifully.

The bosses however did not. I'm aware it's not easy to do, or really feasible of a fan to expect 19 wonderfully creative and challenging boss fights but the reason my expectations are so high is because of what I've received in the past. There's surely been duds- Bed of Chaos, Celestial Emissary, a large portion of base game DS2 bosses.. But the majority of DS1 and Bloodborne's bosses were great. 5 good bosses out of 19 total is not a good ratio for me and it bums me the ♥♥♥♥ out, man. Like I said in the title- it's a great game, but the majority of bosses are ass in my opinion.

[Nelyeth]

I don't know if it's because I've just finished Dark Souls 2 three times in a row, but I quite like the bosses so far. Feels good to finally think a little after a whole game with uncharismatic and terrible bosses. Except for the DLCs, I think the best bossfight of Dark Souls 2 was the Darklurker. And it was completely optional and, to be honest, not that good.

Yeah, Dark Souls 3's bosses are cheesy one-trick ponies most of the time, but at least there are some good surprises, and I like having to figure out how to kill them.

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by Nelyeth:

I don't know if it's because I've just finished Dark Souls 2 three times in a row, but I quite like the bosses so far. Feels good to finally think a little after a whole game with uncharismatic and terrible bosses. Except for the DLCs, I think the best bossfight of Dark Souls 2 was the Darklurker. And it was completely optional and, to be honest, not that good.

Yeah, Dark Souls 3's bosses are cheesy one-trick ponies most of the time, but at least there are some good surprises, and I like having to figure out how to kill them.

Dark Lurker was good but I liked Fume Knight because he was so slow that it actually threw me off and got me killed dozens of times and made me slow my roll (literally). I will say the last boss of DS3 is a contender for best last boss easily. Gherman did hold it for me (technically being last boss if you dont do the cords for Moon Presence) but now I'm not so sure. Cinder's pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool.

[淵 Oriko Fujido]

Still beats Smelter Demon

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by 鵺 Rias:

Still beats Smelter Demon

TBH I liked Smelter Demon....

[Nichtswisser]

I don't think the bosses in this game are bad. Dark Souls 2 (base game not DLC) had many bosses that would have been rather lame even as just mini bosses. Dragonrider? Jabba the hut?

And let's be real here. Even the less well designed Dark Souls bosses are usually still a lot better than what most other games manage in terms of boss design. And bosses like The Nameless King are simply miles ahead of what most games can manage.

Hell, many developers seem to think that quick time events count as boss battles^^

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by Nichtswisser:

I don't think the bosses in this game are bad. Dark Souls 2 (base game not DLC) had many bosses that would have been rather lame even as just mini bosses. Dragonrider? Jabba the hut?

And let's be real here. Even the less well designed Dark Souls bosses are usually still a lot better than what most other games manage in terms of boss design. And bosses like The Nameless King are simply miles ahead of what most games can manage.

Hell, many developers seem to think that quick time events count as boss battles^^

Oh don't get me wrong- I'm aware DS2's bosses are steaming heaps of ♥♥♥♥. I have no love for that game outside of the stellar DLC's, build flexibility and the sleek UI.

Like I said somewhere above, I'm aware my standards are high but they're high because I've seen what the team is capable of. Artorias? Sir Alonne? Ludwig? Manus? Gascoigne? These people give us amazing fights like these and then puke up Deacons of the Deep and Ancient Wyvern. It blows my mind.

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Sev:

Originally posted by 鵺 Rias:

Still beats Smelter Demon

TBH I liked Smelter Demon....

You liked one of the easiest and mindless boss in the soul serie yet complain about harder bosses ? What is wrong with you...

[SOLOMON]

Originally posted by iLuvCheat:

Originally posted by Sev:

TBH I liked Smelter Demon....

You liked one of the easiest and mindless boss in the soul serie yet complain about harder bosses ? What is wrong with you...

I wouldn't say he was one of the easiest bosses. I played a lot of co-op farming him for Souls because so many people were stuck on him. Would get summoned in less than 10 seconds dropping my sign and even in co-op he was wrecking people constantly. He was the first boss that killed me in my playthrough and I appreciated that.

Again, I said I liked Iudex Gundyr too despite him getting only an Estus Flask out of me. There's more to a boss fight than just if it's easy or hard but that's a little more difficult to explain when ranting about 19 individual bosses.