Are many bosses in Demon's Souls kind of bad?

[Lumination]

If I had to choose between a Souls game full of gimmick bosses vs one full of Artoriases, I would pick the former. Gimmick isn't a bad thing, especially when you're new to the series. It can offer a bit of a breather and scratch a different part of the brain for a bit.

 

[Tyrant Rave]

I didn't play remake but I like the bosses in it a lot more than Dark Souls 1 (didn't play/don't care about the rest). They're all pretty memorable and creative in my opinion. I think the only one that stands out as being underwhelming is Dragon God, which yeah, kinda sucks. But the rest make for a really cool experience and they fit really well with the atmosphere. Something like Maiden Astraea stands out as being a really special experience thanks to the dialogue and setting, or the power fantasy Storm King provides. Those stand out and feel really special to me.

I found the ones in Dark Souls to be kind of boring. The duel fights tend to break with circle strafing (outside of Ornstein and Smough), and I think the puzzle/gimmick fights are all kind of eh otherwise. Like the butterfly or Bed of Chaos. There are some good bosses but I think they're mostly kind of disappointing. idk

 

[matrix-cat]

I felt that the bosses suffer from really basic movesets if you have experience with any other From game. I heard all the hubbub about the Flamelurker, but compared to later Souls bosses that all have three phases and a dozen different six-hit combos you have to learn to recognize and deal with, Flamelurker ain't shit. Just a bit fiery scrub hopping around throwing these lumbering haymakers you can easily dodge and punish.

I did like the variety of bosses in Demon's Souls, though. Some of them are anticlimactically easy, some are just kind of bad and frustrating (Dragon God on NG+ where every attack one-shots you is awful), but I definitely prefer a varied lineup over a whole game of stand-and-deliver swordfights.

 

[Kewlmyc]

Demon's Souls bosses are more puzzles than actual bosses. It's something I appreciate, but definitely think From improved on as they made more games.

 

[Jeremy]

I'm replaying PS5 Dark Souls 3 after running though the Demons remake, and the overall level of quality in the stage and boss design (as well as the overall implementation of the various gameplay systems) is substantially better. With the 60fps on PS5 it's not even that much worse looking.

I get that people have a soft spot for Demons, and it holds up in its remake form better than most games of its vintage would, but it definitely shows that it's the first try at the formula (this is sort of why the various GOTY mentions for this game sort of baffled me).

I wouldn't say that the bosses are bad by the standards of most games, though.... just not as good as the later game.

 

[ThisThingIsUseful]

The Storm King's entrance was clever -- showing you what appears to be a souped up enemy, and then you see those enemies are just a fraction of the size of him.

Here's the thing: only through this thread did I realize you're supposed to get the sword first. Since his attacks seemed to find me no matter how I dodged, I went to the building on the right and just sat there and used soul ray on him. He couldn't hit me in there.

I didn't even know you could get to that sword without dying lol.

 

[Ramirez]

Only one I didn't like was the Man Eaters, two bosses on that small of a play field is just bullshit. Finally ended up circling around the flame which felt lame.

I liked how some bosses could be killed in different ways. I used a bow on Storm King, found the sword after and thought it was my prize for winning, lol. I also used the bow on Adjuticator bird and never went into the pit.

 

[Richietto]

I love Demon's Souls but the 4 pillars of what make me love Souls games so much are build variety, level design, lore, and boss encounters and Demon's Souls really lacks in boss encounters. The good ones are few and far between and even those are incredibly basic. Flame Lurker and Allant are enjoyable but ultimately chumps. I think the biggest issue isn't even that many bosses are gimmick fights. Its that none of the bosses have more than like 4 or 5 moves, and the gimmick bosses are on the low side of that number. Dodging 1 of 2 moves isn't fun. Adjuticator used 1 move the first time I fought him, just 1. His gimmick is neat but the actual fight is boring once you figure out what to do. There was no skill involved. It was a braindead boss, and many are just like him. Storm King is a hype boss but once you figure out what to do, its a simple, braindead boss. Its not something I look forward to on subsequent playthrough. Just so many bosses I don't really want to fight again after experiencing them for the first time. Demon's Souls has a strong first impression with its levels and bosses and Ill never forget it but unlike other Souls games replaying is faaaaar less fun because of the boss encounters being what they are.

 

[Tuck]

I'm replaying PS5 Dark Souls 3 after running though the Demons remake, and the overall level of quality in the stage and boss design (as well as the overall implementation of the various gameplay systems) is substantially better. With the 60fps on PS5 it's not even that much worse looking.

I get that people have a soft spot for Demons, and it holds up in its remake form better than most games of its vintage would, but it definitely shows that it's the first try at the formula (this is sort of why the various GOTY mentions for this game sort of baffled me).

I wouldn't say that the bosses are bad by the standards of most games, though.... just not as good as the later game.

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Can't say I agree with that. Latria and Boletaria shit on most of Dark Souls from orbit (and that's not even a knock on dark souls!).

Dark souls has a more interconnected world and much better bosses, but some of the level design in demons is still unmatched to this day.

 

[henhowc]

The game is from two generations ago so it's actually surprising to me that the game mostly holds up well. Despite there being like 5 games since

 

[Laziness]

Personally I've greatly enjoyed pretty much all of Demon's Souls bosses. I liked the mix between your classic FS bosses like Flamelurker, Maneaters, etc, and puzzle-gimmicky one's. If you're playing for the first time and trying to find those solutions by yourself, it's a joy.

I guess I would be in minority, but I think that overall FS has stepped down in terms of boss designs since Demon's Souls. Their art designs became better, sure, but the gameplay is a rough copy-pasta now. Look, Bloodborne is one of my favorite videogames of all time, I've finished it literally 10 times already, but every single boss is fucking same in terms of gameplay design and thus your strategy is the same. It's just some thing that hits fast and hard, their appearance is different, yes, but your strategy is always the same – physical practice. Learn their patterns and try to be good at dodge timings. Dodge, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, etc.

I would actually prefer BB or DS3 to have more of those Demon's gimmick bosses. In terms of gameplay, finding how to beat Fools' Idol, Dragon God, Storm King, Tower Knight was way more fun and interesting than fighting Amelia, Amygdala, Gehrman, Lotric, Sister Friede, etc, because the formers felt unique and I had to actually think about how to beat them, the latters (although being crazy visually-wise) demand 0 thinking from me, only to master my muscle memory. And to me it's a step down for sure. Yep, I won't forget how BB's bosses looked or how tough they were, but other than "I've spend 3 hours trying to kill it" there's nothing to remember in terms of gameplay for me.

And again, I don't need all of the bosses to be puzzles, but they're kind of needed just to fresh up overall experience. I honestly think that we don't need all of 20-30 bossfights in the game to be different only in terms of visuals. But yet again, I'm not playing FS games for the challenge amd hardcore, I play them mostly for their lore and environment story-telling methods, so I guess it's a "me-problem" kind of thing.

 

[IIFloodyII]

I've been replaying From's games (DS1, DS2 and BB + watched lots of DeS) and Bloodborne is the first I'd consider to have mostly good bosses overall, DeS, DS1 and DS2 have some fantastic bosses of course, but I found most okay at best and the further away I get from playing the good is all I remember. Hell even Bloodborne has this problem (especially if you factor in the Chalices), but it with Old Hunters and the actual Hunters has more on the good than meh.

 

[Elandyll]

I enjoyed how wildly different the bosses in DeS were, even if most were "gimmicky".
I don't even think it's bad design at all, for bosses like Dragon God Emperor. It's just more of an environmental puzzle of sorts than an actual fight.
I like those more in the end than bosses who just have a million hit points to whittle down, with the very real possibility of wiping after more than 20 minutes of what amounts more to work than anything (e.g Midir in DS 3).
The only boss that left me sort of scratching my head has been the Old Hero.
It was really neither much of a puzzle or a boss fight... It was just ok (at least it was short).

 

[Van Bur3n]

I wish From would return to the idea of employing level design in boss encounters, it really made the bosses in Demon's shine -- most have a completely unique and complicated arena that changes how the fight must proceed. You still see some of this in Dark Souls (Taurus Demon, Capra Demon, Moonlight Butterfly, Gwyndolin, Iron Golem) and then it's gone and we mostly just get flat, empty arenas now. Now don't get me wrong, I like a lot of later From bosses, but I do wish we still saw more of this experimentation still. The fact that almost every Demon's boss tries something different should be applauded.

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I wish this as well, but one of the main complaints with FromSoftware games has always been how they make you fight enemies in the most terribly confined spaces that make the camera a nightmare. These sort of fights are still a thing in their games today, you need only look at some of the mini-boss encounters in Sekiro. But yeah, they've dwindled a lot in regards to the boss fights.

 

[Astral]

I think they're all pretty solid except for all of world 4's bosses, and Dragon God. The rest are all pretty easy, but they're also enjoyable.

 

[RedSwirl]

It's a matter of preference.

From's whole philosophy to bosses seems to have changed between Demon's Souls and all the games after it. Most of the bosses in Demon's are puzzles and gimmicks (especially the end boss of each world) while a few are battles of attrition where you just juke and strike a dude for a few minutes. Starting with Dark Souls 1 they tilted towards being almost all attrition-oriented.

 

[Deleted member 59126]

Well, I'm speaking less so to quality, but more to more to variety. Granted, I haven't played Sekiro, but either way, I'm not saying the game with the *best* bosses of the group.

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Sekiro wins in boss variety as well.

 

[Bebpo]

Absolutely.

souls games are great, but there are a lot of terrible bosses in Souls. Either terrible because too hard from camera or bs stuff or more often too easy and simple like they didn't even try.

In Demon's they tend to make it where if a level is real hard to get to the boss, then the boss just stands there and lets you kill them as a freebie to get your checkpoint. Whereas if the level is easy and has good shortcuts the boss is tough. It makes sense but it also makes a lot of the fights really weak.

Demon's Souls is a souls game for amazing level design, not boss design. There's only 2 challenging bosses in the entire game with Allant & Flamelurker.

 

[Tbm24]

I think Boss enjoyment is very dependent in how you played the game. Case in point, FlameLurker gave me the most trouble until I played around a pillar and chipped away little by little with a +4 long sword.

By the time I got to Penetrator and Maneater, I had a +5 Crushing Knight sword with a high str build and genuinely went to town on them. They were some of the easier bosses I've faced thus far.

I'll say this much, between Bloodborne and Demons Souls, I've enjoyed getting to and beating the bosses of DS over BB. I have a few left to go as I've been juggling games and chipping away at DS every so often. So overall that may change, but I think I enjoy the DS setting enough that it does a lot of heavy lifting for my enjoyment compared to BB.

 

[SunBroDave]

Yep. Weakest bosses in the series probably. One of the reasons that Demon's Souls is the weakest game in the series

 

[Lionheart]

Love the fact that each one is unique and not just stamina mashing. Demons stands apart from the rest, i actually came away thinking it's the best game in the series. Wish other souls games had more unique bosses

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

Remake was my first time and yeah how few and how simple some were threw me off.
Still loved the game tho.

 

[Strings]

I wish From would return to the idea of employing level design in boss encounters, it really made the bosses in Demon's shine -- most have a completely unique and complicated arena that changes how the fight must proceed. You still see some of this in Dark Souls (Taurus Demon, Capra Demon, Moonlight Butterfly, Gwyndolin, Iron Golem) and then it's gone and we mostly just get flat, empty arenas now. Now don't get me wrong, I like a lot of later From bosses, but I do wish we still saw more of this experimentation still. The fact that almost every Demon's boss tries something different should be applauded.

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I'm not really sure how much further they can take it than the Ancient Wyvern in Dark Souls 3, where the boss is an entire level you run through to one-shot it with a plunging attack (which I didn't find out until a replay, since I just straight up fought it).

 

[labx]

I feel like demon's souls is all about mastering the stages. The bosses are more like dramatic events

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This is the correct answer. Levels in Demon's Souls are HARD. Once you master them, you unlock the shortcut directly to the boss. This is what I like of Demon's Souls: the game is about the atmosphere and levels not the bosses like other souls tittles. What you get from playing this game is like the 4 main bosses and the rest? Levels. Latria, The Valley, etc. I love this game so much. It's obtuse and difficult. If you are bad the game punish you. So this is the ultimate Git Gud game. I just went trough me second play trough and I conquer, CONQUER, the Valley of Defilement in pure dark tendency. Now that was a shore and a triumph at the same time. Fuck those black phantoms. Lord Isshin is a piece of cake compared to traversing the Swamp of Sorrow in pure black tendency and in soul form.

 

[Ferrs]

I feel like the uniqueness of Demon's bosses gets overblown, most of them are just standard bosses in standard arenas, just with like half the moveset of later game bosses. Like, the gimmick that they may have is so small anyways, like 5-1 and 5-2 that barely you can tell what it is. It also gets shared in some bosses like 1-2 and 5-1 being basically the same (which is hit spot to reveal weak spot, hardly a gimmick once you actually fight the thing), or 3-3 (if offline) and 5-3 being glorified NPC fights.

And when it goes full gimmick it makes the boss being terrible like 2-3. At the end, the best bosses of Demon's are again, the 0 gimmick ones.

 

[Richter1887]

Nope.

They are more interesting than the countless 1vs1s we usually get in the other games. The gimmicks make then more memorable and puzzle like.

 

[Deleted member 32822]

Storm King and Maneaters were the only ones that truly felt epic.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

There of a far more consistent quality than Dark Souls 1 (Base game at least, DLC is a whole different story) TBH, which has even fewer really notable and enjoyable fights IMO. And more specifically the fights are memorable and it feels less like the sweat fest that Dark Souls 3 devolves into where everything just is aggressive and out to murder you with tons of moves and/or mechanics. Like each encounter, even if ultimately on the easy side, is made to be a bit more unique of an experience with different little mechanics. I dunno, they just really stuck with me and I enjoy them quite a bit.

 

[Sapo84]

Bloodborne is one of my favorite videogames of all time, I've finished it literally 10 times already, but every single boss is fucking same in terms of gameplay design and thus your strategy is the same. It's just some thing that hits fast and hard, their appearance is different, yes, but your strategy is always the same – physical practice. Learn their patterns and try to be good at dodge timings. Dodge, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, etc.

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Did we play the same game? Most of the bosses in BB feels unique and have some interesting bits (I can probably agree that the Dark Souls series has a problem with samey gameplay though).
Father Gascoigne has the tiny music box.
Blood-starved you have to consider the poison and you can use the blood cocktails to make the fight easier
Vicar Amelia can heal, which can be countered in different ways (numbing mist, going all out with a serrated weapon)
Witch of Hemwick sucks but is pretty unique battle in term of gameplay
Shadow of Yharnam you really have to think about how to handle the 3 vs 1
Darkbeast Paarl can be stunned by breaking the legs
Micolash is.... let's say original
One Reborn has the casters
Mergo's Wet Nurse has the fog and the clone you need to be wary of
Rom is a pretty boring boss but the gameplay is unique (and kinda bad)

Even for the others I wouldn't say they have the same strategy, do you approach Amygdala the same way you approach the Cleric Beast, or Gehrman?
You can do it, but you're the one losing out if you don't actually use what the game has to offer, if you just dodge and hit you end up in a "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" situation.
You can parry, you can target weak points (you can use long reaching like 2H L2 of Ludwig Holy Blade to target Amygdala's head, or you can use hunter's tools to do the same, or a pistol, the cannon etc etc), use items, different weapons.
You can make most bosses extremely difficult or much easier depending on how you approach the fight, the only difference compared to DeS bosses is that in DeS if you know the gimmick you often autowin.
And I don't think that "not having to actually use the game mechanics to win" is a thing that should really be encouraged.

 

[halcali]

They're interesting, design-wise.
I think they're meant invoke 'awe' and 'horror'.

It succeeds, overall. Though... the challenge is missing.

 

[Morrigan]

For the game that started it all, I think they hold up okay. You can see how Penetrator and the False King were the prototype of the "magic knight" type of humanoid boss that became more refined with Artorias, Sir Alonne, Lady Maria, etc., and how Flamelurker and Maneaters were the prototypes for the "giant prowling beast/monster" type of boss later refined with the Gargoyles, Manus, Aava, Cleric Beast, and so on. The Demon's Souls versions have far more limited movesets and fewer distinctive qualities compared to later iterations, but still have the same building blocks in terms of playstyle and are those who are still fun to fight again even on replays.

Whereas the "gimmick bosses" can be sometimes a bit tedious on replays, but are, at least, memorable. I agree that it was nice to see the variety of environments and I do wish we'd see more of that again instead of the generic "boss arena" (or at least better ones than Micolash's nightmare, lol... hate that thing, very tedious). Not that there's anything wrong with those, since, after all, the best bosses are in such rooms, but some variety is nice too.

Also the Old Monk is a great boss, fuck the haters. :D

The only bosses I'd really call bad/mediocre are Dragon God, Leechmonger (there's potential, the visual design is cool as is the idea of its regeneration, but it's just too primitive in its moveset, and the boss itself is way, way too easy), and Dirty Colossus (really forgettable and too similar to Leechmonger gameplay wise). Hell I even used to dislike the Storm King, but in the remake, I've enjoyed it a lot. The atmosphere and music is just insanely epic. Bluepoint really nailed that set piece.

 

[just_myles]

You are mostly correct OP. From has improved in this regard dramatically. Though, at the time for me they were difficult without having to consult the wiki.

 

[Richter1887]

This is it.

The stages are the "hard" part. The bosses aren't really meant to frustrate you with difficulty. All of them have some sort of trick you can learn to trivialize them.

Some are just more obvious than others.

Biorr will take out Penetrator pretty much by himself, provided you found him.

The maneaters just melt against fire. If you found Yuria and have firestorm you can one shot them. If not the lava bow makes very quick work of them.

Old Hero is blind, and the stage itself goads you to use the thiefs ring every chance it can as a huge hint.

Armor spider is laughably weak to magic, and his only real offensive attack is fire based. By the time you reach him there's at least one shield that blocks fire at 70% and one at 80% which trivializes the encounter.

Flameluker is the exact same situation as above, only the game gives you yet another shield that's 70% to fire in 2-2 to ensure you got the point.

Astrea and Garl arent the big threats as the boss of world 5, the plague swamp is. You can avoid the issue entirely by sniping Astrea safely out of the reach of the plague babies on the left or the right.

Fool's idol is meant to teach you to fully explore the stage, not just rush the boss. This happens earlier in the stage as well- you can try to rush the ballista and get to the end of the stage the hard way after a couple of deaths, or you can pick up the key, backtrack and walk around the ballista from the back. Amusingly the ballista is shaped exactly like fool's idol- it is a giant blinking neon sign to NOT rush this boss head on.

Similarly if you fully explore the stage, fool's idol's "gimmick" becomes obvious and you'll only have to fight her once. Her second trick (making copies) becomes easy to figure out- her worshippers will point you right to the real one.

Ajuducator can be shot at range from the
Upper level. There's even a trophy for it.

Old Monk is the only truly "random" boss, but the run to him is very easy if you remember the Graverobbers ring makes it very difficult for black phantoms to see you, and a decent bow will obliterate them while keeping you out of range of their attacks.

The stages themselves are meant to test you and grind you down. The bosses (outside of one or two) are puzzles to see how well you were paying attention during the stage. MANY stages have a theme, and the boss shares a weakness to what's in the stage prior.

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Very well said.

 

[MeepMerp]

Worst souls game by far in terms of boss design

 

[CenturionNami]

Yes, they are vastly inferior to the later entries into the Soul's series.

 

[RestEerie]

In the end there was this guy I lost against four times. I decided fuck it, put down the controller, wait for him to disconnect and try the NPC again. After ten minutes not disconnecting he sends me a friend request. I go into the boss room, and he shows me his back and lets me win. Sigh.

Click to shrink...

 

[Demon-69]

Dragon God is a bit sad because he is my favorite design and he deserves a better fight.

 

[Fonst]

You say the bosses are bad because they are gimmicky and easy or they bested you. Seems sort of biased?

The bosses aren't Bloodborne hard but they are unique and fit.

I wish From would return to the idea of employing level design in boss encounters, it really made the bosses in Demon's shine -- most have a completely unique and complicated arena that changes how the fight must proceed. You still see some of this in Dark Souls (Taurus Demon, Capra Demon, Moonlight Butterfly, Gwyndolin, Iron Golem) and then it's gone and we mostly just get flat, empty arenas now. Now don't get me wrong, I like a lot of later From bosses, but I do wish we still saw more of this experimentation still. The fact that almost every Demon's boss tries something different should be applauded.

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Ewww on the Capra Demon. That boss fight makes me want to break the cartridge/disc and never come back. Bad level design to make a boss seem hard. Demon's is much better than that.

 

[abady-25]

because when they create demons souls they didn't have the idea to make bosses have phases changing their fight style when their health become low
like other games
FROM improve a lot after demons souls
connection world , bosses fight ... etc
and this game remake without make any changing on bosses fight

 

[Stillmatic]

I think a few of them are quite memorable, although they're all pretty easy to beat. Probably the easiest of all Souls games. But as some have already mentioned, the stages leading up to the bosses are where the difficulty lies.

I'd say DS2 bosses are the worst though, both easy and not very memorable.

 

[City 17]

Yup, this is known.

Though TBF it was their first go at it, and they did fine, considering the circumstances.

 

[Scruffy8642]

Yeah felt enemy design was pretty weak in DeS. Big contributor to why I had the least fun with it out of From games.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

The bosses in Demon's Souls are more concerned with being memorable experiences than being challenging tests of your rolling skills. I think Maiden Astraea is one of the best boss encounters in the entire series.

 

[Deleted member 10612]

Would love a DeSo game from FROM where every boss is a gimmick fight. Would much rather have them be kind of a puzzle, then what we got thus far. It fits the gameplay and sagas of old where heroes had to use their wit to drop giant enemies instead of fighting them.

 

[TransEuropaExpress]

I thought they were fresh as fuck when it came out. From has beaten their own formulas to death by now with DS3's bosses sometimes nearing self-parody levels in my opinion, so it's probably difficult to still find DeS 'prototypes' exciting after potentially having played several later iterations.

I actually really appreciate how relatively simple they are and punctuate the levels instead of how much it devolved into pure 'fastest, hardest, most aggressive almost every time' by the time we hit DS3.

 

[Richter1887]

Ewww on the Capra Demon. That boss fight makes me want to break the cartridge/disc and never come back. Bad level design to make a boss seem hard. Demon's is much better than that.

Click to shrink...

 

[Deleted member 64002]

Not bad per say just old and janky. This was the proto souls game and fromsoft didn't really have a proper game plan going in. Many of the fights in demon souls have a unique gimmick(tho if I'm being honest I wish they experimented more with that idea)like old hero being blind or dragon god being a stealth section(tho it wasn't really a boss fight more cinematic) or heck the way you could beat tower knight or ajunticator by interacting with their weak points. And many bosses got reused for future games. Such as the maneaters becoming the definitive gargoyle fight Or phalanx in the painted world as direct examples. So yeah some of them are bad and some of them are really cool like old monk or storm king(which got reused in a later souls game).

 

[Soma]

Yeah they definitely feel like precursors to what From would eventually shape into actually challenging bossfights. They are sure as shit memorable though. I remember being blown away by the concept of Old Monk back in the day, Storm King might not have been challenging but the spectacle is something to behold and the fact that False King has an ability that can de-level you is something I actually kinda wish future Souls games did more.

 

[DealWithIt]

I think the bosses were epic encounters that encapsulated one or two elements of the game one at a time. Players have grown exponentially more sophisticated so the bosses come across differently than they once did.

 

[random88]

While they are not as challenging as in later games, I'd say most of them are very memorable. IMO, the only bad fight is Dragon God. And Leechmonger is annoying.