Dark Souls

[RacingeR]

Brume > Loyce > Shulva for me.

Loved all three of them, but Shulva was a pain in the ass to get through, and while I had no problems with Elana, and Sinh was awesome, the gank squad is for me the single worst boss in a Souls game by a landslide. Didn't bother to do it. Blue Smelter wasn't exactly thrilling, but I had no problem with that one by itself, it's just that the Iron Passage area is probably the single worst area in a Souls game, which is also why I never cleared him. And I was trying to figure out how to get to Ivory's coop boss, but ran out of patience and that's why I didn't ever see the boss...

Actually fuck the coop areas forever, those were a terrible idea and I hope they never return.

[Fafnir]

Can you really claim to judge a boss you never did?

I cleared the Ganksquad 10 or so times over various characters. It's seriously one of the most fun bosses since O&S, especially if you are solo (or low level and coordinating with a friend over chat).

[RacingeR]

I tried them about 15 times before I realized I was bored out of my mind and just quit it. And by that point I had already a decent idea of what the trick to do it offline was.

But really, that boss has absolutely nothing going for it. No lore whatsoever, no reason whatsoever to bother doing it, except the challenge which is, uhh... it basically consists of a pvp gank squad of the three most stupid hackers to have ever existed, and the only way to beat em is to either go online and summon players, or go solo and run through the whole arena in a loop like a pussy for about one hour until they finally drop dead. The latter method tends to be rather luck based as they will often end up synchronizing to rip you apart before you can do much of anything, and it becomes agonizingly painful to get hits in and to get anything done. And even when you finally kill the archer with a zillion HP, killing the other two becomes a toss-up, especially since each one of them will take an eternity and half to finally fucking die while you're running around. I mean, Soulsborne has had bad or boring bosses before, but they at least had the mercy of being short most of the time. These guys? nope, no such luck.

I mean, there are differing tastes, and I don't judge you for liking them, but for me they were the one boss that I just stopped trying to do because of how obnoxious and boring it was (and I guess trying to do Darklurker with a melee character).

[Fafnir]

Different tastes indeed. Seriously wish there were more multiple opponent bosses where you have to use the terrain to divide and conquer. I find it much more fun than the average big guy where you have to time the B button properly to dodgeroll through everything.

Also, it's not luck based at all. You can separate them and go 1v1 pretty easily, and the archer takes what, 4-5 hits to die?

[RacingeR]

Different tastes indeed. Seriously wish there were more multiple opponent bosses where you have to use the terrain to divide and conquer. I find it much more fun than the average big guy where you have to time the B button properly to dodgeroll through everything.

I find that the basic idea wasn't bad. It's just that the execution was awful, and the boss has no buildup nor any weight whatsoever to it. It's like everything O&S did good, Gank Squad did bad.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like that as long as it was better done.

[Fafnir]

I find that the basic idea wasn't bad. It's just that the execution was awful, and the boss has no buildup nor any weight whatsoever to it. It's like everything O&S did good, Gank Squad did bad.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like that as long as it was better done.

Perhaps next time I should do the Lothric Ganksquad without leaving the courtyard. It should be fun.
But yes that's pretty much it. O&S is my favorite DS1 boss because of the element of tactics it involves. In DS2, I enjoy the Ruin Sentinels, Elana and the Ganksquad. In DS3 only the Abysswatchers come close, but they are rather easy.

Honestly I don't think the execution for the trio was bad, but YMMV.

[ZidanReign]

S P O O K E D

[Spinach]

Gank of the Ganking Gank was fun. Best coop boss because of how unique it was. There's no other boss you fight like that, and they'll probably never make another like it either, because Miyazaki xd

[eddyak]

Raime and Sinh were definitely top of the league in terms of fun, though Sinh could be a gigantic pile of shit at times. He flies into the air, drops down, attacks, flies away again before you can hit him. And then repeats that a few times. As soon as you had Raime's AI down, he was cake. Delicious, chocolate with actual chocolate bits in side and chocolatey stuff on top with chocolates for decoration cake.

I hated Alonne, for multiple reasons (bugger off samurai twat the fuck you doing in my medieval fantasy teaching kings to make fucking scumurai but your sword is so much better than the other ridiculous katanas in the game at least). Ivory King was awesome in atmosphere, maybe a little less so in execution. I kept expecting him to have... something, alongside or instead of the typical sword attacks, but nope.

Gank squad were fun, but hilariously ineptly done. You could stagger Havelchump more easily than you could Alvamurai and Twat In Boots, their tracking was ridiculous (like everything's tracking in DS2 lol pivot like you're attached to a rotating base) and their scum tactics could be amazing. The best part was when you'd accidentally fall off the ledge, and Havelchump would just fucking jump his heavy ass off that ledge and oneshot you.

Elana was meh. Her with Velstadt clone was actually easier than her with skeletons. I know Velstadt off by heart, I don't even have to have him on the screen to know what he's doing. He needed more moves. Or to be a different person. Also, her on any NG but the normal one is intolerably slow and irritating. Freaking Lobos on his slow NG-NG+7 champions covenant run spent more hours on her alone than he has on completing most other games.

Who else...

The bullshit bosses? I didn't even bother with smelter 2.0 after that first time. See that, smelter? You don't even deserve a capitalisation. Lud and Zallen were garbage. They were everything bad about DS2 compressed into one package, they were artificial difficulty taken to its logical extreme. Two bosses on a system designed for one? Check. Both bosses can nearly oneshot you? Check. Recycled boss? Check. Boss with no real lore or any actual attempt to fit into the existing lore? Check. Boss regeneration? Check.Boss powerup? Check. Boss powers that make no sense considering what they are? Check. Boss that literally takes a quarter of an hour to get to your first time through if you're not using a guide, with monsters along the way that can come out of the mist, destroy your stamina bar if you're blocking, are almost impossible dodge on that first attack anyway, do damage through your shield anyway because who gives a fuck, do almost as much damage as the boss itself and continuously respawn an indefinite number of times? Check.

[2Bad]

Gank Squad would be annoying as a required boss but as a side thing can be fun

[eddyak]

Imagine: You, as a boss. Imagine being Raime. Imagine being freaking Sinh.

I'll admit, if that particular feature had actually made it into Bloodborne as they'd been inadvertently hinting it would, I would've bought a PS4 just for that game and finances be damned.

[Ratman]

That seems like a really easy thing to mod in, to the point it's surprising nobody had done it yet.

[eddyak]

There's been a DS1 thing where they've put bosses in the same arena and made them hostile toward each other (it should still be on youtube), but actual online play with you as a boss would need to be modded, and for From not to detect the mods, and for you to be able to connect to someone with it, et cetera.

[2Bad]

there are totally DS1 mods where you can play as artorias etc

[Heart of the Star]

Imagine: You, as a boss. Imagine being Raime. Imagine being freaking Sinh.

I'll admit, if that particular feature had actually made it into Bloodborne as they'd been inadvertently hinting it would, I would've bought a PS4 just for that game and finances be damned.

The real problem with it would be managing all the moves. Most Bosses have more than 4 moves so you would need to assign more and more buttons to it. I could see most attempts being kinda meh because of not being able to properly manage the flow of the battle like the AI can.

[eddyak]

Well, you wouldn't need the accept, dodge, use item or two-hand buttons, so there are your buttons doubled. Changing weapons wouldn't be a thing 90% of the time, and even then usually only happens once a guy goes into second phase. Changing spells, maybe, so keep up, and change item = nope, unless you're the kind of boss that estus scums.

Or have it so that holding down each trigger changes your moveset in a way. Right hand attacks, R2 + X O /\ [], left hand attacks vice versa, large two-handed moves or combos without the trigger holds.

[NihilVerum]

Kicking those rock lizard things on Archdragon Peak and seeing them roll of a cliff is incredibly satisfying.

[Fafnir]

If only I could reliably do a kick instead of R1... Forward+R commands have been my weakness since DS1.

[NihilVerum]

Just killed The Nameless King on SL 34 with Anri's sword +3 and It feels like the magic of this boss is over. I had more problems with the Dancer and The DS armor.

Also, Anri sword is good as fuck.

[eddyak]

Yeah, Nameless is really easy with a straight sword, while Dancer is easier with a massive weapon.