Ask: Favorite Souls Bosses?
May 29th, 2024
Heya! Really enjoyed reading your critique of Dread even as someone who really liked the game! Youve written about souls stuff before but i saw the swipe you took at Gael and now it has me curious about your feelings on souls style boss design. Got any favs/least favs?
So for me a great Dark Souls boss needs to be something or someone interesting, something whose existence tells a story, and who is engaging and fun to fight. For me it's rarely the hardest bosses or the ones I struggled with the most, but my favorite Dark Souls boss is Ludwig.
I got to Ludwig seriously under leveled and half his attacks would one shot me. He'd miss me off I'd go somewhere else, get a little stronger, go bad, get mad at his seemingly random first phase like "this shit is unfair!!" but also gradually just got to KNOW him. There's just that sweet thing that happens when you get to a boss just a little to early and you gotta really KNOW them. Then you beat the motherfucker and you get that just... glorious cutscene of Ludwig grabbing on to his humanity for a moment, the transformation, the... horse neigh... oh god ANOTHER form??
And of course phase 2 isn't that hard but like that moment of awe and greed and like... the sad, but almost goofy moment of humanity like gosh. The neigh feels so important. That little bit of awkwardness. Stuff in Fromsoft games are rarely allowed to be Too Cool. Ludwig has descended to beasthood. There is a degree of dignity he can't regain... but that lack of dignity, as goofy as it is, makes him ACTING like Ludwig the holy blade more powerful. He's not "healed". He's a horrible mutant creature with a melted face and goofy horse noises. But he can, for a moment, despite all the weight of what has befallen him, show some of that old spark.
Beautiful. Favorite boss. Maria and Orphan also rule. That DLC has some killer bosses.
Just real quick to run through some stuff... Love Margit/Morgott. He's such a tragic character. He has the vision of what he thinks he should do. He thinks he's the only left who cares. He's cursed, marked and ugly, yet again, carries so much dignity despite this. I love how he's such a soft gate keeper for the early game of Elden Ring. You could get him early, but he's gonna beat your ass with a stick if you're not ready.
Hoarah Loux rules and is as "cool" as bosses are allowed to be for me. As indulgent as I'll let myself be. How he respects Morgott. How he talks with his really weird, kinda corny Conan accent. How his cool lion, not a weapon, but something that forces dignity upon him. We are civilized here. We wear clothes. We fight with weapons.
But then he kills Serosh, shreds his clothes, drops his weapons, sheds his dignity.
... but it's a false dignity. He returns to his true self, which has a dignity all it's own. Then he hits you with pro wrestling moves. What a fucking Real One.
From DS3, Lorian and Lothric stick in my head a lot because they just feel thematically neat? They have a cool gimmick? They look great, they have the whole 'powerful yet pitiful thing going'.
From DS3 I'm also a sucker for Wolnir even though he kinda sucks just what a great, shocking visual.
DS2 I have a love hate relationship with Smelter Demon. Kinda the same "Ah, my old foe" feeling I have with Ludwig but less cool. Haven't played the DLC. I didn't like DS2 too much at the time but I'll replay it at some point and re-evaluate things.
DS1... doesn't have great bosses? It's kinda a weird transition point from DeS. People will say Artorias but eh.... Gaping Dragon. Quelaag as a #2. Gaping dragon is just so shocking, so goofy, so thematically relevant and like.. a push over? But that's fine.
Demon's Souls? Tower Knight I feel like is the like paragon of that era of Boss. Visually shocking, gimmicky, and with a relevant arena. A moment more than a huge, challenging skill test. Love the bosses in this game in general though. Shout outs to Astraea though. The bossfight "sucks", but as a moment, visually, verbally, VIBES??? Fucking S Tier shit.
Do what you will. Take your precious demon soul
Okay so what DON'T I like?
Gael sucks. Like a weird scrawny side character turning out to be the most important dude in the lore feels corny, but IS the type of shit From can do and pull off. But he problem is he's cool. He looks like a corny ass "cool" MOBA character from like the early 2010s. He has the big swelling epic music!! Random lightning!!! Oh a repeating cross bow and magic rings and like.... Ultimately he's just another "circle to the left boss" that I almost oneshotted.
Gael sucks because he wants to be Epic and I have no time for that shit.
Also kinda hate Midir and Manus but mostly because they're HP sponges. But that's just a taste thing.
Controversial pick? I think Malenia sucks. I think she's SO COOL. I love her. But her boss fight tries so hard to be challenging but ends up just over centralizing Waterfowl Dance. Remove that one move, and now shes actually kinda an easy boss with a scary gimmick. At a certain point I was like...
I know how to fight the rest of her? So do I grind until I get lucky with Waterfowl Dances? Do I learn the real precise dodge for upclose Dance? Do I play super lame instead where I can keep distance and deal with the attack in a more consistent way?
... Or do i summon a mimic tear and stunlock her into oblivion?
I decided I had better things to do. To oblivion~ A great thing about Elden Ring is how it gives you a lot of ways to just go "nah, not feeling this one".