So this has sparked something that could be interesting… I’m gonna add my list of Souls-like bosses that I found the most difficult. Hopefully it’ll show how diverse individual players experiences are… ie people will see that I had a horrendous time with Demons’s Souls Dragon God 😉 and call out my hopeless gaming skills, while I wiped the floor with someone else’s arch-nemesis.
I found that my main struggles came from the various From Soft games, the Nioh games, a few of the bosses from Remnant from the Ashes and then the odd one here and there from other souls-likes that I’ve played, so I’ll put out my top 3 most difficult bosses from each game and the a top 10 listing from all the games mentioned (but feel free to add bosses that you found difficult from other souls-likes… like Lies of P etc. I just haven’t played that yet):
Demon’s Souls
1. Flamelurker
2. Old Ling Allant
3. The Maneaters
Dark Souls
1. Black Dragon Kalameet
2. Demon Firesage
3. Four Kings
Dark Souls 2
1. Lud & Zallen
2. Darklurker
3. Blue Smelter Demon
Dark Souls 3
1. Darkeater Midir
2. Demon In Pain And Demon From Below
3. Slave Knight Gael
Blood borne
1. Ludwig the Accursed
2. Amygdala (Defiled Chalice Dungeon)
3. The Orphan of Kos
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
1. Owl Father
2. Genichiro Ashina
3. Demon of Hatred
Elden Ring
1. Malenia
2. Dragonlord Placidusax
3. Radagon of the Golden Order/Elden Beast
Nioh
1. Yuki Onna
2. Hino Enma
3. White Tiger
Nioh 2 (still have a few bosses that I’m yet to face)
1. Shibata Katsuie
2. Kamaitachi
3. Enenra
Remnant from the Ashes
1. The Dreamer
2. Ixillis
3. Scourge
Bosses from other Souls-likes that were troublesome
1. Sissna - Ashen
2. The Virgin Born - Code Vein
3. The Keeper - Lords of the Fallen 2014
My Top 10 Hardest Souls-like Bosses
1. Owl Father - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
2. Malenia - Elden Ring
3. Lud & Zallen - Dark Souls 2
4. Darkeater Midir - Dark Souls 3
5. Black Dragon Kalameet - Dark Souls
6. Shibata Katsuie - Nioh 2
7. Genichiro Ashina - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
8. Ludwig the Accursed - Bloodborne
9. Amygdala (Defiled Chalice Dungeon) - Bloodborne
10. Darklurker - Dark Souls 2
@JohnnyShoulder Truly brilliant boss fight! And yes, Sekiro in general was a real skill builder, though I do feel it has some of the funnest boss fights in the entire FS catalogue.
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
@Jimmer-jammer It does feel like a badge of honour having completed the game, and a test of pure skill seeing as you can't summon or grind. I've never really been a fan of the latter, as I've never found it that enjoyable. But can totally understand why people do it.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
I recently had a nightmare time not with a boss per se, but the run back to the armoured shield brute mini boss on the cathedral stage in "Lies of P". Spending a good 5 minutes negotiating the narrow beam walkways and acid throwing mooks to get back to the boss arena was a real chore, especially after losing the fight three or four times on the spin.
@Jimmer-jammer@colonelkilgore Some great lists there. I’ve only played 3 of the FromSoft games and none of the non-Froms listed but of those I have played I can agree on the toughness of the bosses listed. I would say that for me, the toughest tend to be the bosses at the beginning of the game, when you’re still getting your feet wet and building your character. So for me I still look back at Father Gascoigne as the most difficult Souls boss in my memory. But I realize part of that is my noob status at the time. But those tombstones getting in the way of the dodges and just the general layout of the arena made me so frustrated with his aggressiveness. That’s also why one of the hardest in Dark Souls for me was actually the measly Capra Demon. Thankfully the march back to him wasn’t so bad but I died so many times quickly within the first 30 seconds of crossing the fog gate because he and his dogs just ambush you before you can even dodge or block. I think I finally beat him just on pure luck.
As for non-From, my experience is limited to the Star Wars Jedi series and I must say I found Malicos to be really difficult (on normal difficulty) in Fallen Order. As for Survivor, I probably struggled the most with Spawn of Oggdo, of all things. 😅 He had ridiculous reach and, as above, the arena was relatively small so as to get any distance was difficult.
I think I’ve discovered I’m a dodger, rather than a blocker. So I struggle mostly when the layout is restricted.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution a fellow dodger, as well as a fellow DLC-abolitionist… you’re some guy you 😍
🤣 Also, I have heard about the Spawn of Oggdo from Survivor blocking some plats (though I’m yet to play it), so I don’t think you’re on your own with that one.
Yeah, with Spawn of Oggdo I resorted to YouTube boss walkthroughs (which honestly I’ve done many times with difficult bosses) to try to get through it. There’s a timing and button sequence that you have to really nail to get him which involves jumping at the right angle and mid-air dodging. And like most tough bosses, if you don’t hit is just right you can receive massive damage, and it you do hit it right you might get in one small hit to take a sliver of its health. 😂
Thinking of other tough bosses, they aren’t Souls games but I’d rank Returnal’s Phrike (again, mostly because it’s the first and you’re so new to the game it feels impossible) and Nemesis (mostly because of the long difficult march to get back there after it kills you) and Control’s Tommasi and Salvador. They’ve patched Returnal to be easier than it was at launch and so I feel like the Returnal bosses aren’t nearly as tough as they were. But even though the game isn’t a Souls-like by the definition we’ve established, it has the one element of tough bosses with a difficult journey to get back to them if you die - in spades.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution we don’t need to be that strict tbh… I think we can definitely discuss other bosses we’ve found tricky, even if they were from a different genre. The Final Fantasy VII Remake boss rush mode on the Hard difficulty for the Pride & Joy trophy… and some of the Kena: Bridge of Spirits bosses spring to mind.
Sword Saint Isshin (Sekiro) will forever remain the worst boss of all time for me... had to resort to an awful run-poke-run-poke-run-poke method to beat him. Not even sure you could call it "cheese" by virtue of this method nearly taking me half an hour to complete!
More recently though - Eviterno from Blasphemous 2 (the penultimate boss). Ridiculously easy Phase 1, followed by a biblically difficult phase 2... worst and most surprising difficulty spike I've ever incurred. I was getting rinsed only seconds into phase 2, and it took me 20+ attempted just to witness his entire moveset, let alone learn the patterns
@JohnnyShoulder I do try not to summon. Even if I do as a last resort, I’ll have spent the time to learn the ins and outs of the fight so as to at least give the helper the respect of actually helping and not just doing it for me.
@Gremio108 What can I say, the colonel’s a genius 😄
@colonelkilgore Wow, you really can find anything on the internet these days! Totally worth watching, thanks!
@Th3solution yeah, Capra demon is one of those bosses whose entire difficulty comes from the (completely comedic if it wasn’t such a piss off) arena you have to fight in. I’d like to be a fly on the wall for some of the design discussion these folks have.
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
@Jimmer-jammer So, I’ve been fairly shameless in my admission of cheesing many a FromSoft boss. I’ve spammed poison and magic, used aggro trigger points to safely attack from a distance, and taken advantage of quirky hit-box bugs so I could attack and hit through walls. I won’t say I’m proud of it. But I also find a certain dopamine rush from fooling the game like that, like discovering a secret solution to a puzzle.
…And so I actually considered doing a cheese on Capra Demon whereby you can stand in a certain exact spot outside the fog gate and shoot fire arrows over the wall and onto Capra Demon and supposedly kill him before you even enter the fog gate.
In the end, I decided that was a bridge too far, and so I was able to beat it finally by sheer trial and error. I tried so many times to make it up the stairs where supposedly you can have an advantage and he can’t reach you but it never worked for me. In the end I think I lucked out with him getting stuck somewhere else in the scenery and that gave me valuable seconds to move away and hit him from an advantage point.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution yeah I think a lot of people (myself included) struggled with the Capra Demon our first playthrough. As you alluded to, the small arena and those damn dogs just mean there’s no breathing space or safe area. Eventually you find that if you can get in to the space quickly and beat Cap to the stairs, then you can start picking off the dogs, drop down from the mezzanine as Cap is going up, kill a few more dogs and then scale the stairs again as Cap drops down… rinse and repeat. Took a while to work that out though.
@colonelkilgore@Jimmer-jammer I found the majority of bosses in Sekiro hard as nails tbf. The secret Owl fight, the Demon of Hatred and the final boss all took me many, many attempts. I really enjoyed the Demon of Hatred fight though, it felt almost zen like when you get into the flow of it. And that first Guardian Ape fight is a pure chef's kiss moment, and one of my favourite in gaming. 👨🍳
I still haven't beaten the final boss in Sekiro. I started playing another game, planning on going back to it, and that was a few games ago now...
@woollypump it is a tough one to go back to tbh… as you need to sharpen your skills again. I went back last year to finish off the platinum and I was surprised at how quickly it all came back to me.
@colonelkilgore yeah, I had a few goes over xmas. I did manage to get him to the spear phase a few times. I would like to finish it sometime, but then again the FS games normally end with an obtuse 5 second cutscene anyway so perhaps I shouldn't flagelate myself too much
@woollypump A break can be a good idea, as that would sometimes work for me in the past. I would be wary of leaving it too long though, as I know some people can struggle. I personally find most of the time I can pick up games quite quickly after a long period away from it.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Just rage quit "Lies of P" at the penultimate (?) boss, The Door Guardian. Not only is the run back total bullsh*t (the artillery bombardment) but the monster's delayed attacks with insta-shock effect (preventing stamina recovery) are a complete pain. No thanks - time for a break.
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