Ranking of Souls Bosses Edition One: Top 5 and Bottom 5

From my blog:

This idea nestled in my head about 40 minutes ago and I haven’t been able to fall asleep yet; figure I might as well knock some of this out tonight. I will be including every Souls/Soulslike to date before I’m unable to keep up with the deluge of Soulslikes in the future. Apologies to Salt and Sanctuary but I’ll just be figuring in the bosses that I remember, which isn’t very many. For now lets do the top 5 and bottom 5.

Top 5

Maria of the Astral Clocktower

It should be noted I come at the Bloodborne DLC from the perspective of only having played it on NG+7, this led to great misery in some cases and eternal joy and wonderment in the case of Maria (who otherwise has too low health). Every time I clear the game now I make sure to fight her twice, if I win on the first try I die on purpose just to have that ridiculous amount of fun twice a run.

Darklurker

The epitome of cool, probably objectively the best boss in the series and just an utterly incredible fight when fought with a melee character (i.e. the vanilla state of the game); I do have Scholar on PS4 but don’t think I’ve fought Darklurker yet there, hence the lack of a video (though there will continue to be none for Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls)

Vicar Amelia

By far the best “large” boss in the series, Amelia’s vast array of attacks and sheer speed always make for a harrowing experience; without having anything too cheap or overpowered in her arsenal to make this feel unfair. Also has some of the best music.

Gwyn, Lord of Cinder

Gwyn of course comes with the caveat that about 70-80% of the playerbase looked up how to fight him instead of actually fighting him and the cheesy parry method won the day; but in the absence of that an incredibly intense, awesome fight with the best music and atmosphere in the series. Darklurker can be cheesed as well but most people at least get rocked a few times before they realize that, in the case of Gwyn it feels like people just pulled out google immediately and refused even to try. This is simply the curse of Souls and information proliferation on the internet, it will be a very common theme moving forward.

Tachibana Muneshige

It’s interesting that a boss in both the beta and Last Chance Trial turns out to be the best overall in the game, his AI does eventually get matched in Level 270 NG+ dojo missions so fret not if you’re still hunting for a similar challenge. Again avoiding cheesy parrying/Guardian Spirit/Sloth/spear loop/etc usage is required to get the most out of this boss but in a general spacing/stamina management war perhaps the foremost out of any souls fight. Early on he tends to have enough gusto to hold his own and not be totally demolished in a huge momentum swing; but obviously when your gear gets better that’ll happen.

Honorable Mentions: Ornstein and Smough, Gehrmann, Gascoigne, Artorias, Mirror Knight, Orphan of Kos, Kalameet, Fume Knight, Alonne, Manus, Sinh, The Nameless God (Salt and Sanctuary), Nameless King, Sister Friede, Flamelurker, Tower Knight, Storm King (Demon’s Souls), Shima Sakon, Okatsu (230 NG+ Dojo Mission version), False King, Executioner’s Chariot, Smelter, Ivory King, Worshiper (Lords of the Fallen) 5 or 6 more Nioh bosses (debating over which)

Bottom 5

Maneater

Probably the worst part of Demon’s Souls, the fight itself is okay if boring/generic; but fighting him on the narrowest boss platform in the series is straight up bad design. An awful, tedious fight that everyone just hyper modes now.

Ludwig

The second phase of this fight is alright, too bad the first phase is awful (numerous unpunishable high damage attacks, two one shot moves that have unpredictable hitboxes) and he also has 40-45k life on NG+; one of the only fights in the series where an NPC is always going to be more efficient than simply playing well simply for the AI manipulation; not having to deal with first phase bullshit while you steamroll him with one of a handful of high DPS weapons is the way to go for NG+7 and beyond. Of course if you don’t have that high DPS you’ll be slogging here for a while.

Ancient Dragon

Dark Souls II manages to avoid misery for the most part but there’s no better way to describe this monstrosity, I guess they eventually tuned him to be okay but one of the few fights that was almost completely impossible in co-op and basically only possible via forced AI repetition/OP shit in single player. I appreciate a big fuck off dragon that always one shots you but you can definitely do it better than this.

Four Kings

The original shit fight, it should be mentioned I one shot this boss the first time I played the game; but that just is the boss; your build wins or it doesn’t: the end. Straight garbage.

Laurence the First Vicar

This boss is pretty poor on NG, but on NG+7 it’s just utter shit; terrible attack patterns; comical amount of health (near 50,000), asinine last phase. The Bloodborne DLC overall makes it worse aside from weapon variety and Laurence, along with Ludwig, is the biggest reason why. The worst.

Dishonorable Mentions: Pinwheel, Prowling Magus, Curse Rotted Greatwood, Twin Princes, Yhorm the Giant, King Allant, Leech Monger, Dirty Colossus, Old Monk (offline), Priscilla, Giant Lord, others

I like Bed of Chaos, a puzzle boss that retains its challenge after the first go around is a definite plus in my book. Every other puzzle boss is trivial after the first time so only something with extreme novelty can be good. Dragonrider is the easiest boss but the speedrun method is just so fucking fun to do every time.

I'm not sure you can call the Bed of Chaos a puzzle boss. It's pretty obvious how you have to beat it, you just have to put up with it swiping you into a pit a hundred times until you luck out. Not a challenge, just tedium, especially how long and trivial the path back to it every time is.

IMO, obviously.

Ancient dragon, ancient dragon... *looks up ancient dragon on Google*

Oh! That guy. He wasn't so bad. I managed to get him down after a few tries near release. He was optional, too.

Oddly enough, I don't think I ever parried Gwyn. That was a good fight.

Bed of Chaos is awful. Not because it is hard, but because it is frustrating. It feels like a platformer boss.

That charriot in DS2 also pissed me off, but that was on NG+2. Ugh.

Ornstein and Smough are still no.1 in my book. That fight made you feel like an action hero badass when you finally got the hang of it.

My answers are purely based on character design/personality/vibe.

Top 5.

• Sif. He's a giant wolf, loyally wielding the blade of his fallen master. That is dope.
• Nito. He's death, made up of death, bringing only death, in a game about death. He is dope.
• Aldrich. A beautiful, writhing amalgam of dark souls. He's like a twisted version of you; a leech, bloated with power from souls.
• Priscilla. A fair half-dragon, and perhaps the only genuinely pure soul in the first game. Was going to be a companion originally. The only reason to kill her is because you want to. YOU ARE THE DARK SOUL.
• Maiden Astraea. This is the boss of the whole series, for me. She is the embodiment of the 'grey area'. You kill her because she's in the way. She dies because of you, any way. That's it. The music is also amazing.

Bottom 5.

• Covetous Demon. I think he is the most boring boss of all the souls game. Easy, ugly, and almost pointless.
• Mytha (Medusa lady, DS II). Just doesn't fit with the design ethic of the series in my opinion. Too derivative.
• Old Monk. I get it, it's a clever idea, but it's pretty lame to actually fight, and I never look forward to it. After the hell of trudging through this dark, amazing prison realm, it's a let-down.
• King Allant(at the end). Again, I get it, but that moment you kill it is so anticlimactic after what you've endured up to that point.
• Dragon God. It's a puzzle boss; neither its presence nor its appearance match its divine name. No fun at all. Yawn.

I don't have time to consider a top 5, but here's my bottom 5:

• Bed Of Chaos
• The second time you fight Bed of Chaos after a cheap death
• The third time you fight Bed of Chaos after a cheap death
• The seventh time you fight Bed of Chaos after a cheap death
• The eighteenth time you fight Bed of Chaos after a cheap death

I am not good at choosing favorites, so this more just off the top of my head than a set in stone selection:

Top 5

Orphan of Kos: While I also like Maria a lot the real standout of the Bloodborne DLC for me was the Orphan of Kos. It was just an incredibly fun and tense fight that was just hard enough without feeling unfair or frustrating. The design of both the Orphan himself and the arena was also wonderful. A great end to my time with my favorite Souls game.

Rom the Vacuous spider: A big reason I love Rom is that it`s a different kind of challenge than most Souls bosses and it really worked for me. Running into range for her close range magic and then running away to dodge it while fighting all the small spiders was just really fun.

False King Allant: Demon`s Souls has a lot of weird and gimmicky bosses and that`s something I really like about that game, but Allant was just a really good, challenging, straight up fight to finish out my first Souls game.

Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen: Similar to Darklurker (which for the record I never fought) you have to go through a lot of bullshit to get to Yharnam. In the end though I was glad I trudged through the chalice dungeons because they end on a real high note. Yharnam is a visuallyreally striking boss and is really fun to fight against. I think she was a worthy end to my playtrough of the Bloodborne basegame.

The Nameless King: Similar to Orpan of Kos this fight has a perfect difficulty and a great design.

Bottom 5:

King Vendrick: Even with the Giant`s Souls this was just a really tedious and boring fight.

Bed of chaos: The only challenge in the fight comes from making a tricky jump with shitty platforming controls.

Smelter Demon: The constant AOE damage around him just felt cheap.

Old Iron King: Every single of my deaths in this fight came from falling into lava. Just not fun.

Rotten Greatwood: There was no challenge to it and it just felt kinda pointless.

Honorable mentions:

I like all the archdemons (and the very last boss) in Demon`s Souls (Old monk, Astrea etc.) just because of how different and weird they are. They aren`t always great encounters (looking at you Dragon God), but they were always interesting. Astrea is definitely my favorite the bunch.

I didn't enjoy Tachnibana as a boss, pretty much for the exact reason you listed. 'Without cheesing' means you have to eventually put a 'etc.' at the end of your sentence because there are so many ways to easily kill him. In fact, I haven't found of a way to not easily kill him. 'Square, square, square' probably, but that's about it. He is indeed a pain in the asshole if you try to gimp yourself by not using 'X', but I really don't like that type of play to be forced on me for a boss to be good.

Off the top of my head, I'd say something like this:

Top 510 12

12. Ishida Mitsunari (Nioh)
11. Yuki-Onna (Nioh)
10. Sif, The Grey Greatwolf (Dark Souls)
9. Manus, Father of the Abyss (Dark Souls)
8. Knight Artorias (Dark Souls)
7. Smelter Demon (Blue) (Dark Souls II)
6. Burnt Ivory King (Dark Souls II)
5.Throne Watcher & Defender (Dark Souls II)
4. Guardian Dragon (Dark Souls II)
3. Velstadt, The Royal Aegis (Dark Souls II)
2. Darklurker (Dark Souls II)
1. Fume Knight (Dark Souls II)

Honorable mention: Gehrman, the First Hunter (Bloodborne). Mostly because I'm not convinced it's actually a good boss, but it was the final boss in Bloodborne and the first one I thought that wasn't a pushover and wasn't bad.

Thinking about this for 5 minutes makes me realize I do think Dark Souls II is the best Souls game ever made so far. I was trying to decide between that and Dark Souls III, but you can take a look at my boss list above. I can't even remember a boss from Dark Souls III. I'm also now realizing how many fantastic bosses are in DSII with all its DLC.

EDIT: Also, Souls games are among my favorite genre of games now. This thread has made me realize several things, another one of which is that I remember the epic bossfights in them. I can't name any other games that do that besides my favorite genre of adventure fighting games (that's what I'm calling character action games, not just because that name is dumb, it also doesn't represent the genre because it is about the adventure from A to B. It's also not action, it's fighting. If you replaced it with shooting, it would still be action).

from demon souls and souls 1/2/3 my picks are ''drumroll''

Top 5:

Smelter demon:Only boss i remember having a hard time in dark souls 2, besides the dlc.

Burnt Ivory King:I can only describe this fight as hard and tedious.

Manus, Father of the Abyss:Hard and memorable boss fight.

The Nameless King:Nice and hard, i especially enjoy the two different phases in the fight.

Knight Artorias:I enjoy the moveset of the boss and the design.

I tend to enjoy the ''harder boss fights'' in soul games, because they stick with you since you face them many times and you know all their movesets by the end. When comparing to a lord of cinder boss fight, cool desing and all that, but i remember beating him without much of an effort with riposte only facing him once or twice per playthrough. Unlike harder fights you might need to try to do them ten or more times before you actually manage to beat them.

Bottom 5:

Taurus Demon: i remember fighting him twice and both times he walked of the cliff killing himself. I even tried to avoid that happening >.<.

Dragonrider:Boring design and easy, atleast second time you face him there is two of them to add some meaning.

Dark Sun Gwyndolin:Just so boring of a fight. The story and athmosphere was atleast allright.

Dirty Colossus and Leechmonger: Both weak to fire, both die fast. Two similar fights in a row same world just not memorable.

@tgjessie said:

Ehhhh... The first two bits maybe, but that intentional fall into the pit onto the small walkway is not. I never used a guide and I was stuck on that shit for hours. Drove me insane. I shit you not. Writing this from a padded cell.

I don't replay them a million times like a lot of people do, so I'm hardly an expert, but..

My favorite Souls boss will always be Ornstein and Smough. My first fight with them, they completely destroyed me. Stunlocked in a corner in a matter of seconds. My second time, I dumped the armor and shield, two handed my rapier and danced them to death. Unparalleled gaming bliss.

My least favorite Souls boss is probably Blue Smelter because he's a boring re-skin with slightly changed, unpredictable timings that can 1-2 shot even fairly high vigor builds, and he's at the end of one of the worst slogs of a level in any Souls game. I'm pretty sure I've died to him more than any other boss in any game ever. I'd certainly de-spawned most of the enemies in the stupid caves leading up to him.

I feel like the Gaping Dragon from DS1 deserves more credit than people give it.

Also, "very good name" points go to Ceaseless Discharge.

@bbalpert said:

Very cool looking boss, but the fight itself is pretty lame.

@dudeglove: Flamelurker is in the honorable mentions. To be clear when Flamelurker came out it was the best Action RPG boss of all time; but it is the basis for almost every good fight aside from Amelia/Kalameet and so on. Has not aged well much as I have fond memories.

Forgot to include a DS3 video, I don't dislike DS3 though I don't have much drive to play it either (6 player FFA pvp will be fun in the next DLC I'm sure):

@fredchuckdave: I think Amelia is actually a terrible boss that acts more as a level-check for the player than anything else. If you are under a certain threshold that boss fight will be incredibly unfair and difficult for the player, much more so than if you're in the proper "bracket" so to speak. Also any boss, in any game that uses healing is automatically pegged about a hundred spots lower - that is an incredibly annoying thing that developers should absolutely never put in their games. Multiple lifebars? Sure. Two on one situations? Shitty but if your engine is built for it (and the Souls engine sure as hell isn't) then fine whatever. But healing bosses, especially ones like Amelia that can't simply be knocked out of the animation with just any hit, now that is a cardinal sin for any game developer.

@humanity: I agree in the case of Twin Princes where the healing is more or less unavoidable without very high Dips. In Amelia's case as long as you stay in melee range she won't heal about 95% of the time; you also don't have to fight her for quite a while if you're having trouble on a gear basis. I'm positive the fight is doable on SL 1 with relative ease.

@brunothethird: I think the appeal of having a bigass dragon that only wants to punch you is quite high, though the fight itself sucks since it's a Demon's Souls puzzle boss that isn't Storm King. I long for a big dragon punchout style of fight where the camera turns you into little mac.

@zevvion While the format is good for bosses I think the vast majority of Character Action game bosses are underwhelming/forgettable; though you have the obvious exceptions of Vergil 3, Credo, Zeus, Senator (i.e. the president of the united states), and almost every Bayonetta boss.

I can't wait to beat Fume Knight at some point in my life.

@fredchuckdave: I very much doubt that it would be a cakewalk on SL1 because at s Ch a level you literally would be incapable of knocking her out of healing and a single swing would either kill you or nearly kill you. It would be a very long winded battle of attrition and Amelia will step back and heal even when engaged in close combat.

I'm of course talking about a typical player here and not one of those savants that do no death SL1 runs with just fists.

I dislike Nioh's skeleton boss.

@shindig: I like that boss/level a lot personally; visually dumb looking but works surprisingly well; though knowing the mechanic of the pools regenerating your musou is handy (didn't realize until halfway through the fight); it's like an NGS2 big boss except it doesn't suck like all of them did. You can also just pop musou, sit in a pool, and unload on his face with cannon/musket etc., he pretty much can't do anything to you while you do that.

Of course it would only be 40th-50th range on the list.

I've only played the main games of DkS 1, 2 and 3 once each, so I'm probably a casual.

Favourite:

1. Abyss Watchers.
2. Pontiff Sulyvahn
3. Dancer of the Boreal Valley
4. Twin Princes
5. Ruin Sentinels.

I get that this list is almost entirely DKs III but I just found these bosses to be far more enjoyable. They're also all humanoid too. I really struggled to think of anything in DkS 1 that I was really fond of. Lots of cool characters but I just didn't dig the fights. Seath for example is great but his fight for me was just sticking to his foot and spamming attacks.

For my top 3, I found those fights in DkS III all had really graceful movements and really great music. I also played through the whole of III without a shield so had to dodge a lot and this combined with their movements felt like I was doing a real dance of death with them.

For Twin Princes and Ruin Sentinels, I struggled a lot with the fights. Maybe because of the camera. But I ended up really liking them because of how aware you need to be of where the boss is.

Least Favourite:

1. Skeleton Lords
2. Giant Lord
3. Bed of Chaos
4. Yhorm the Giant
5. Prowling Magus & Congregation

Not much to say about these guys. The time limit on the Giant Lord sucked. Skeleton Lords were a laughable fight of being chased around the outside of a cave by a hoard of skeletons. Yhrom was a cool arena but it was wasted by the special weapon gimick.

I'm not going to number them because that's a bit too hard for me.

Top 5:

• Iudex Gundyr - I love his first version the most because it was such an awesome first boss for Dark Souls 3. I wager he's one of the hardest first bosses in the Souls games and his deformed second state sets the tone for what to expect from the rest of the game.
• Knight Artorias - Great moveset, great lore, great design, great fight. It sticks in my mind because it was the first boss in Dark Souls that I was able to beat on the first try despite what I had heard from everybody about his difficulty. The fight felt like a ballet act between the two of us, with him spinning, flipping, dashing to attack and me rolling, slashing, and retreating away. It was one of my favorite moments in the entire series. The Abyss Watchers gets an honorable mention here because their fight so clearly takes inspiration from Artorias..
• Iron Golem - There are so many things going on with this fight that I can't help but be fond of him. He's one of the only bosses that seems to be as limited as the player in his small arena. There are few things as satisfying as struggling your way through the deathtraps of Sen's Fortress to just push the boss over the edge of the tiny platform and beat him that way. It can be super difficult if you don't take out the bomb-throwing giant, so that's another layer. You don't even have to fight the boss since the NPC you can summon for help, the amazing Black Iron Tarkus, can just destroy the Iron Golem without breaking a sweat. There's a lot going on with this fight, and the rewarding vista of Anor Londo afterwards just makes it shine.
• Maiden Astraea and Garl Vinland - A weird fight and something I was totally not expecting to come at the end of one of the most horrible areas in the entire series. I love the haunting music, the dialogue suggesting that your player character knew them, and just everything about the arena and how you can take care of them. Not a terribly hard fight, beyond Garl hitting like a tank, but it was fun and a nice change from the ghastly horrors you had to fight up to that point.
• Dancer of the Boreal Valley - Love, love, love her. Her lanky design is so cool and stands as a nice contrast from Vordt. Her speed and slow pacing threw me off so much the first time I fought her. I couldn't get her timing down because it felt like she takes forever to wind up her attacks and I'd get caught out of position. Once I figured out her patterns she turned into a fun fight. The arena burning up in response to her attacks was a nice touch.

Bottom 5:

• Throne Watcher and Defender - Just a lame, lazy boss fight and a terrible buildup for the final boss. Dark Souls 2 gets shit for just having "oversized person in armor" cookie-cutter bosses and it really shows here. I'm not sure I can point out any differences in their movesets from normal humanoid enemies. It was a pretty disappointing fight and if you're like me who fought them before beating the Giant King you just get a disappointing "Well now what?" moment.
• Capra Demon - This fucker almost made me quit playing Dark Souls forever. The small arena, two dogs, and the zero time you get when you walk in through the fog-gate was just awful to experience. I still have trouble with him every time I play Dark Souls. It's a fight with the camera more than a fight with the boss. The fight is pretty much over in your favor once you manage to kill the doggos, but those guys are so horrible if they rush you and stunlock you right out of the fog gate. I would say this fight is designed more poorly than Bed of Chaos.
• Dragon Rider and Double Dragon Rider - What's better than one lame boss fight? Make you fight him again, but this time there's two of them! Oh wait, that's bad. It's another Dark Souls 2 boss fight made "difficult" because there's two of them when there actually is little to no difficulty because their movesets are nothing special. The second fight could have been awesome if they threw the Dragon Rider on an actual dragon or drake to ride and have a double boss fight that way (something Nameless King later did really well) but to just have two of the same guys, only this time one has a bow, is super disappointing, especially since the castle was such a cool area. It comes across as Dark Souls 2 trying to recreate the magic of Ornstein and Smough and not understanding what people loved of it.
• Champion's Gravetender - This fight was really disappointing and not what I was expecting from a DLC boss (which have previously been the cream of the crop). The weapon is cool, and the wolf was a fun addition, but I was just so disappointed that the guy had no unique armor or lore or anything. He felt like an NPC invader but with more health and if they were going to go that route, I would've rather Sir Vilhelm have that honor. Again I liked the wolf and thought that was fun to fight, but the Gravetender could've used just a bit more work.
• Four Kings - I just really dislike this fight. The endless black messes with my perspective and I'm never quite where I want to be in relation to the boss. The DPS rush is not fun, and losing a ring slot just to be able to beat a necessary boss isn't great. It's another badly designed boss fight since there can be Five Kings.

I really could put more Dark Souls 2 bosses on that list, but I wanted to be fair to the whole series.

Damn, now I'm getting all nostalgic for Souls.

@fredchuckdave: I dunno. I just figured wailing on his legs to bring his head into play was the thing to that fight. Maybe I missed your companions saying, "Yo, Fiddy! HIS ARMS BE ALL CRAZY!"

Time to land my respective fives:

Top Five

• Ornstein & Smough - Nostalgia plays a part but this feels like the peak of Dark Souls. There's a reason From keep trying to chase 2 v 1 fights and this is the best of them ... because I've only fought Darklurker once.
• Champion Gundyr - A nice throwback to the DS III opener with a much more aggressive, harder-hitting moveset. I lost hours to this guy and felt so relieved to beat him.
• Artorias - Arguably the first time I saw a genuinely aggressive Dark Souls encounter. He travels with such force that you can really feel it when he charges you. I'll actually throw in the Abyss Watchers here as well.
• Fume Knight - Again, I stress I've yet to beat him but his moveset keeps me guessing and it's definitely a fight that is determined to train you in dodging.
• Father Gascoigne - He felt like a huge gatekeeper on my first run. A fantastic introduction to the hunter fights which ultimately lead to Maria later on. I'd put Maria on this list but I beat her on my first and only try to date. Perhaps I was overpowered.

And already I'm not liking this list. I will need to sit down, play them again and science it out. Demon Soul's had a really interesting set of bosses but the challenge maybe wasn't there after playing three games before it. Nioh's too new to me to mull it over besides Hino-Emna. Salt & Sanctuary's bosses haven't got a response from me, unless you could the sheer rage at The Witch of the Lake. Same could be said for Lords of the Fallen's cast.

Top 5 based solely on gameplay (Nito, Sif, Moon Presence, Cleric Demon, Aldritch, would all be contenders otherwise):

1. Artorias
2. Orphan of Kos
3. Martyr Logarius
4. The Nameless King
5. Ludwig the Accursed

Worst Five:

1. Covetous Demon
2. Mytha
3. Either of the Dragonrider boss fights, they both suck.
4. Bed of Chaos
5. Lawrence

I didn't include Lords of the fallen because they were so boring I honestly don't remember any of them, and I haven't finished Nioh yet, but I'm rather unimpressed with the boss fights so far.