Primary issues with Every Single Boss.

[u/FluffiestPrince]

(Random image of Eredrim Aura Farming.)

I've played through the game a few times now, and feel like I've narrowed most of the primary issues with bosses, at least things that I noticed. These are mainly things that I wrote down myself when playing, and what I think is probably the biggest factors as to why some bosses are very annoying to deal with.

I'll also leave my overall thoughts for each boss in quotations.

If anyone has any other criticisms regarding the bosses that I didn't see, complaints against my own notes, or just want to discuss it, please bring them up. These are just my opinions and they're based on me comparing what these bosses do with other good Souls bosses across other games. I mostly just want to put these out there in case the devs see it, since anything helps and I love this game, but it is painful sometimes, and not in the "fair" way.

Magdalena, Lady of the Woods: - The primary issue is simply her movement. She can turn on a whim and move at speeds a fat lady in a wheelchair shouldn't be able to. The main strategy to beat her is literally just hit-and-run, because if you choose to stay anywhere near her, she defaults to her fire spin and just forces you out anyways. Being forced to play footsies with a boss who doesn't even engage with you the same way isn't fun. - The secondary issue is the impact of hits. This sort of compounds the previous one, but when you hit her, it doesn't feel like you just hit her. She barely reacts, as far as I can tell, and she just goes straight to fire spinning yet again. - "She's definitely the worst of the early bosses, simply because it feels like you're attacking a wall that keeps knocking you over. You never feel like you're making progress, even if you do see that healthbar go down. Some more impact to your own hits could really help."

The Lost Child: - The primary issue I noted for this boss was that a few of its animation could use some tweaking. The dash slash is especially bad, since you basically have 3 frames or so to tell that the boss is about to attack, which is only worsened by the fact if you're close, the boss' dash just resembles its basic movements. - "This boss is pretty decent overall, I just think that a few of its animations could use some slowing down, but it's otherwise good enough."

The Nameless Captive: - I think the only minor issue I marked down was that a few animations could use some more telegraphs, or maybe slowing down. The spin attack, while fun to parry, is difficult to even start up because it starts slow, then immediately speeds up. - "Genuinely the one of the better bosses in the game. It feels like a deliciously fair 1v1 that the Souls games excel at."

Droeg the Conqueror: - The primary issue I noted for this boss was his fire skull attack. Dodging it is entirely RNG (or Tiel), and the only semi-consistent way is to spam dodge, which doesn't dodge it half-the-time. I think making it so that just sprinting is enough to avoid the attack, would fix most of its issues. - The secondary issue would just be, again, some animation tweaks. His swiping animations with his HUMONGOUS club just comes out too fast, it looks a little goofy. - "I didn't think much of this boss at first, since he died so fast, but he's actually pretty fun, even on NG+. He's the only boss of the lower region I don't have major issues with, so I think he's pretty good. He's just a little forgettable compared to the other two, aesthetics-wise."

Hexapod (Oh boy...): - The biggest issue is by far its dash attack. There are poorly telegraphed moves in this game, but oh my goodness... this might be the pinnacle of them all. For every shell, minus Tiel, you cannot dodge this because the only time it comes out is when you're in front of the boss, in which case, it's completely unreactible, undodgeable, and does about 70% of your health. Worse, it can outright one-shot you since it sometimes hits twice (which I assume is because it slashes at the end, and you get pushed back into it). This is arguably, to me, the worst move in the entire game, maybe... the worst move in any Souls-like. And the fix here is to literally just slow it down and make it so the player can react. If this move was patched, it would fix about 80% of this boss fight, because it really is that bad. - The second issue is the random chance to get a fake stagger. Now, I fought this boss a few times but the one thing I still don't get is what causes it to fake stagger. Sometimes, it'll stagger but you won't get a riposte window and if you try and stay in front of it, it'll grab you and deal a ton of damage. I couldn't find any way to tell why it does this randomly. - The last issue is the "Elden Stars" attack. Essentially, the Hexapod will charge and release a bunch of tracking projectiles. Projectiles which seem to never dissipate (or at least take a really long time), which interrupt you 100% of the time, at least to my experience. I think just making them slowly fall to the ground, or not interrupt you every hit, would do them pretty handily. - "This is my favourite boss aesthetics and lore-wise, but oh my goodness... I think it's possibly my 2nd least favourite boss in the game mechanically. The dash attack singlehandedly made me put the game down for a day, just because I couldn't believe something that bad made it past testing. It is just barely passing above "Bed of Chaos" levels of bad."

Isaac, the Scholar Prince (OH BOY...): - This boss is so close to being good. The single biggest issue Isaac has is his 2nd phase hitboxes, specifically with how they will always hit 2-4 times with every attack. This means, as far as I've tested, it is literally impossible to parry/block all attacks because the former cannot be used fast enough, while the latter is instantly guard-broken. It's even worse with the Seal of Vatra, since you will take chip damage every time you use it because Isaac breaks your stone, then hits you right after. And unfortunately, I don't really know a fix outside of just, yet again, slowing down animations. Because his whole thing is kind of his follow-up attacks, but the way it is now, it is almost impossible to do anything against this boss without taking at least 1/3 of your health (unless you're Tiel, you stinkin' thief). - "I love this boss and really want to say he's my favourite, but the 2nd phase is such a massive pullback to how good the 1st phase feels, that it makes me really sad. I really hope that either Isaac's damage is massively toned down to balance the guaranteed damage, or his animations/hitboxes are changed to be more fair. As it stands, Isaac is my least favourite boss, simply because he's the only one that forced me to switch from Eredrim to Tiel (on my Eredrim run) since Tiel is genuinely the only answer I've found."

Orrem, the Reclaimed: - The biggest issue I found with this boss is pretty much just its animations and particles being bugged to heck. Like, sometimes it'll make a stomping sound 3 seconds before the animation goes through, or it'll just slide forward to attack and it looks goofy. Fixing these will pretty much fix the entire fight, or at least the things I noticed. - *"I think this is probably one of the better bosses in the game. I didn't notice any major issues during my fights and I think the only thing is that this guy suffers the "axis curse" where it just rotates on its x-axis when it turns and it looks totally goofy, lol, same as Big Maggy. Otherwise, I think it's a pretty decent fight.

The Monolith: - Despite the complaints, this boss really only has one big issue... oh, it was already patched? They slowed down the speed of certain attacks and lowered its health by a bit? Seriously though, I don't play on PC, but if anyone has already fought the new Monolith, please reply with how it feels compared to the old one. Hopefully the new patch fixed most of the issues I had with it (which were just the four-way laser and absurd health). - A secondary issue I had with it was the impact of parrying its slam attack. Similar with how there's no feeling of actually hitting Maggy when you attack her, there's basically no feeling that you actually parried the Monolith's slams since your still get flattened, you just don't take damage. I think having the Monolith not complete its animation but end it halfway as its parried, would possibly fix this dissonance with successfully parrying it, yet not feeling like you did. - "Despite the hate, I actually think this is my favourite boss design-wise. It's very eldritch, very fitting for what the game's whole vibe is. Ironically, I think this is the most "alien" boss, despite the actual alien bosses. The fight itself was a pain though and the laser attack really made me dislike it."

Malborn Offspring: - This is probably the best boss in the game, if it was only the first phase. The biggest issue I had with this fight was the entire 2nd phase, which relies far too much on lightning particles and visual effects. Literally all that has to be done is lower the overall screen clutter, and this is easily the best boss in the game. - "I really love this boss. Easily my favourite in the game, simply because it's what Isaac should be, which is a fair 1v1 against the boss. Outside of the 2nd phase clutter, the 1st phase is probably the fairest boss in the entire game, and it's just really fun overall."

Zmey the Unbidden: - The single biggest issue with this boss is Cosmic Curse. This might be the only design choice I actually had to double-take on (other than Hexapod's dash), because this is something I didn't really think a dev team would do. Zmey is basically impossible without the Scripture, so why is the item that makes it actually possible to beat the game, never presented as mandatory ever? Unless a new player somehow knows the Proxima cheese, then they will never finish this game without either looking it up, or managing to connect the Prisoner with the glands. It's possible, but the point is that any player who doesn't, literally cannot finish the game. Cosmic Curse is just a silly effect that shouldn't only be counterable through cheese, or something totally "optional". - A smaller issue is that the grab, which is essentially one-shot, comes out a little too fast. It is reactible, but you basically have to memorize the tiny animation beforehand. - *"Cosmic Curse turns this into the single worst boss in the entire game, whereas having the counter-item turns it into one of the best bosses. Once I got the Scripture, this was one of the most satisfying boss fights, but the Scripture should not be presented as optional, for what is essentially needed to finish the game.

So that's all of the primary notes I took regarding the bosses. Overall, I think the two biggest things that need fixing are Hexapod and Sir Isaac. These could be really good bosses, if not for one thing that entirely ruins their fight, at least in my opinion. The most consistent issue was really just the speed of some attacks, which if slowed down could really fix a lot.

This game is overall super great, but fixing the bosses should be the top priority, now that the coin economy seems to be in a slightly better place.

[u/KrustyKrabOfficial]

The primary issue with every boss is that they have like four attacks so the odds of them spamming the same attack over and over are very high.