How hard is the final boss?

[Just Simple]

I never played this game before but I heard it's hard
and my older brother beaten the game before, and the game seems fun to play
But, when I watched a video of the final boss fight, It looked easy, like seriously,
can someone tell me if the final boss is actual very hard or not, It did not look hard to me :/

[MBK]

By the time you reach the final boss, it should be pretty easy

[Titanium]

The final boss is easier than some of the other bosses, but can still be challenging. It’s worth saying that any video of dark souls will likely make it look easier than it is

[Playstation 1 enjoyer]

Sorta depends on what you find easy in this game, though I will admit that, like 傭兵BK said, I don't think you'd find it that difficult by that point in the game.

Gwyn is aggressive, has some mad gap closures, and his flame sword does damage to you even if you have a shield held up (I will admit, fire resistant armor and shields might prove me wrong on that. But I think for most people that play the game that will be their experience.

Why Gwyn is an easy boss for many to fight is because he's so easy to parry. His moves are pretty easy to calculate the speed of, he has some very obvious multihit combos that mean even if you flub parrying his first move, you can usually prepare to parry his second one pretty easily. While he's getting up from being riposted, you also have an easy opening to drink and estus flask, so overall getting damage and healing damage away in this fight is really easy, as long as you take the parry method.

If I don't focus on parrying, I find him to be pretty difficult, but some decent dodging and patience still keeps him from being absurdly hard.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Depends on your strategy. There's A LOT of equipment in this game, and depending on what you are using, you will have a different experience. There is some equipment that makes the game easy to cheese. There is some equipment that I would rate the "normal" experience. There is stuff that will make your life harder in some cases.

I also can't state for certain how you personally will respond to the game. Some people think this game is a breeze. My first playthrough took me 90 hours, and that was learning bosses, not even trying to get achievements. I've heard others just whiz through the game in 15-20 hours. Depends on how well you play other games, I suppose!

Problem with Gwyn (last boss) is that he happens to be easy to cheese. You can stack Havel's Armor and tank all his hits. You can parry him and defeat him in a few shots. He's weak to fire, so you can defeat him in just a few hits with pyromancy. He doesn't have much poise, so you can stunlock him to a certain degree.

I don't know how old you are, so this may be wasted on you, but THEMATICALLY, he is supposed to be pretty weak. He's an old, dying god. It wouldn't make sense for him to be insanely powerful. You see hints of his power, but he really is dying, and I think they did a great job of portraying that.

[sekai]

The last boss poses no challenge if you parry him, which is also the only boss you can parry. It's sort of tied to story as why that is the case.

Parry is an advanced player action since it's not always easy to pull off due to the need to internalise and condition the timing required to pull it off correctly. But once you get a hang of it, it's a powerful move, even if it's not always useable since not all enemy types can be parried.

Without parrying, the last bosses still poses some challenge due to his relentless attacks and flailing but shouldn't make players sweat after all the other challenges before them; if anything, the biggest challenge of the fight is probably to do with with the relative small size of the arena. He's comparatively low to medium in difficult and extremely easy if you are good with parry.

He's also deliberately designed to be relatively easy as far as being the last boss of the game is concerned, for a specific lore and thematic purpose.

[Crystal_Pistol]

You can parry him (easy, if you parry well), or the standard fight (hard). I've never seen anyone beat him outright. He stays on you like a cheap suit, has serious range, and doesn't let you drink your estus (it actually triggers him to rush you). The only time you can drink estus is when he tries to grab you and misses. Then there's a window to drink. Your armor is worthless so be ready to roll and evade.

[Mr. Oibyr]

1 Dark Bead up close will stagger him, it has 6 uses...

...with enough spell power he can be stun-locked to death in 2 or 3

[dcy665]

Originally posted by Ricardo_Pyro:

You can parry him (easy, if you parry well), or the standard fight (hard). I've never seen anyone beat him outright. He stays on you like a cheap suit, has serious range, and doesn't let you drink your estus (it actually triggers him to rush you). The only time you can drink estus is when he tries to grab you and misses. Then there's a window to drink. Your armor is worthless so be ready to roll and evade.

What do you mean? I am terrible at parry yet I've killed him a dozen times. Probably more counting the PS3 version.

By your definition (I believe) I've only beaten him in a straight up fight.
I've beat him with magic, with pyro, dex and fast rolls, str and not quite fat rolls.
I've have no plan to take him on naked, unless I magically get better at parrying, of course.

[Zaxx]

Originally posted by Just Simple:

I never played this game before but I heard it's hard

It's not hard, don't believe what the marketing and the game journalists are telling you. Honestly DS just has terrible marketing that I feel scares away a lot of people from playing, people who'd actually appreciate the old school game design that's going on here.

And "old school game design" is pretty much it: yep, you'll need a bit of patience while learning the mechanics because there is not much handholding going on but in general "knowledge" is what you need and not "mad gaming skillz". It's not Doom Eternal on nightmare where some people are just physically incapable of dealing with that level of difficulty because they lack the mechanical skill, in terms of core mechanics DS is actually fairly simple.

[Daea]

To add onto this, if you're using sorcery, it's REALLY easy. Casting any Soulmass-like spell, he'll dodge the "cast" (which just summons the orbs above you), and usually won't dodge the following "attack" where the soulmasses actually launch at him. Repeating this, he'll just keep dodging the wrong move and getting hit by all the soulmasses, dead and done in moments. XD

[sekai]

Originally posted by Zaxx:

Originally posted by Just Simple:

I never played this game before but I heard it's hard

It's not hard, don't believe what the marketing and the game journalists are telling you. Honestly DS just has terrible marketing that I feel scares away a lot of people from playing, people who'd actually appreciate the old school game design that's going on here.

And "old school game design" is pretty much it: yep, you'll need a bit of patience while learning the mechanics because there is not much handholding going on but in general "knowledge" is what you need and not "mad gaming skillz". It's not Doom Eternal on nightmare where some people are just physically incapable of dealing with that level of difficulty because they lack the mechanical skill, in terms of core mechanics DS is actually fairly simple.

It was marketed as hard mostly to do with the game's narrative themes, that of things like individuality, perseverance, transcendence, among others. For this reason, the slogan thus became "Fight. Struggle. Suffer. Endure. Live." that was the pillar of the game's marketing campaign and depicted the game in an unwelcoming manner similar to the hostility of Lordran as a whole.

That and, of course, the game was also actually hard back when you know, the game was actually released for, way back in 2011 which is almost a full decade ago and not now way after the whole retro-revival thing (we're about 6 months away from Dark Souls' 10 year anniversary)? Or rather, the game was certainly not the hardest of the bunch but certainly its difficulty was more distinct than its peers at the time for being presented in a more organic manner as opposed to the more artificial means via stat-sticks, mechanics/performance checks, and others that was common among especially RPG games around 2011, that earned its reputation.

This is also not counting the fact the game's overall design and control scheme was also pretty unique for its time and had a learning curve, adding onto its difficulty factor as well.

Also if the game's marketing campaign looked like it might scare people away from playing (and did for many. But then again, it also ended up drawing people in too, given depending on perspective, there can still be some mystifying lure in unwelcomeness), that's because the game was originally only meant to aim for moderate success as a niche title, specifically as a successor to an even earlier niche title by FromSoft, ie Demon Souls. It just happen to somewhat accidentally hit the jackpot and went mainstream. The game was made for a more focused appeal instead of the wide/public appeal and the marketing reflected as such; I'm glad it actually hit mainstream just being itself.

[Zaxx]

Originally posted by sekai:

The game was made for a more focused appeal instead of the wide/public appeal and the marketing reflected as such; I'm glad it actually hit mainstream just being itself.

I'd argue with this a bit but just a bit. I think that the PC port was already DS kind of not being itself with the whole "Prepare to Die Edition" subtitle that was just super unnecessary and focuses too much on the "camp factor" of dying over and over again. That clashes with the theme of the game which is you've pointed out too is this quit uplifting tale of failure leading to eventual success.

Then DS2 came and the "camp factor" got downright idiotic: in DS2 it's evident that killing the player in ways that's unavoidable on a first try was absolutely one of the design goals and you even get an achievement for dying for the first time titled "This is Dark Souls". With that game they really managed to jump the shark when it comes to overplaying the difficulty.

As for putting the game's difficulty in context I think you're right, it is true that DS1 came at a time when AAA publishers were really pushing the idea of trivializing gameplay complexity for mainstram appeal.

[Last Place]

Just press R2 2 seconds after you walk into the fog. Instant victory. He was made to be killed by anything and everyone.

[EDIT]
Don't fall for the marketing by the way. some of the JP PR team just saw westerners try and play it like DMC, button mashing and all. So they decided on the "omg so hard" marketing for the rest of the world.

[FoxHound]

Last boss is a pushover for lore reasons. Demon's Souls was the same.

It's the journey that matters.

Heavy armor + Great weapon is ezmode throughout the game anyway, so you might wanna avoid that if you want a challenge.