@Th3solution yeah I’d agree that finishing off the Souls series first at least before moving onto non-from souls-likes would be the best option. I’d definitely consider leaving Sekiro & Elden Ring on the back burner after Dark Souls 3 though… as it could be nice to come back to experience some From after you played some of the games inspired by them.
@Jimmer-jammer ah cheers dude, appreciate the offer 👊. So I think I’m about halfway through(-ish) at the mo… beat that one-armed frozen sumo-samurai (twice, once in the main mission and in a side-mish straight after) this morning and then did a few side missions. Was half-way through the last main-mission of Shadow before I logged off to play some CoD co-op (a sentence I never thought I’d say 😅)
I’ll deffo keep your offer in mind in case I hit a road-block 👍
@Jimmer-jammer sounds ominous 😬… well I’ll deffo be going for the plat, so if you do fancy dipping back in maybe we can help each other through that end-game ridiculousness?
@PixelDragon I’m still to try a 2D souls like… although I do have a few in the backlog ready to go.
I normally try to play two souls-likes per year (with this years being Nioh 2 and Lords of the Fallen (2023)) but I might start adding a 2D souls-like in as well if I can. It’s about time I finally got around to Salt & Sanctuary, so will hopefully be able to squeeze that on somewhere.
@PixelDragon Most of the 2D ones are I've played are more like Metroidvanias, with combat similar to the Souls games. Salt & Sanctuary is probably my favourite, as it has a full on rpg system. Blasphemous and Hollow Knight are also really good, but I never completed the latter. The game did not want to end lol.
@Jimmer-jammer well I’ve just spent god knows how many hours getting whupped by that boss that is like a huge boar-samurai. I eventually beat him in the end but that was insane!
@Jimmer-jammer good to know and cheers bud… I’d have to put him up there with Owl-Father from Sekiro as the two bosses who required the most amount of attempts. 😅
@Jimmer-jammer so there are two Owl fights tbh… Great Shinobi Owl and Owl Father. It’s possible youre thinking about the former as he is a fight you have to have, while the later is a secret boss (and much much more difficult).
edit. Nope just checked and you deffo beat pops (kudos 🫡)
But you are right though, one of the aspects of souls-likes that I find most intriguing is how one person’s wall can be the next persons door-mat (& vice-versa), it’s pretty fascinating and plays into each players build and mindset (and more I’d imagine).
@Jimmer-jammer one of the interesting little things that royally ****ed me up during my battles with el tusk today… was that prior to going in, I’d attuned a new yokai soul. The thing was, the new soul had a passive which activated my yokai shift when critical (little to my knowledge 🤬). So what transpired for the first eleventy-first or so attempts, was that my yokai shift would get automatically activated (and therefore wasted) during a terrible run… and then when I’d have a half-decent effort, my yokai would still be in cool-down. Once I worked out what the hell was going on with that, I started to get somewhere (thank god!).
@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. 👨🍳
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.
@JohnnyShoulder yeah I struggled with quite a few Sekiro bosses too… but for some reason got through Sword Saint (who many people struggle with) in about 3 or 4 tries.
Although the Nioh 2 gameplay is far more Souls than Sekiro (albeit considerably sped up) I have found similarities in the boss fights between those of Nioh 2 and Sekiro. Although the specific mechanics are quite different… the feeling of identifying a plan of action and then having to attempt it again and again until you’re able to implement it perfectly seems very similar to me.
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
@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.
@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
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