One thing I love about Nameless' fight is when before he takes his dragon's soul you can see his weapon trembling like he really doesn' want to kill his draconic friend
Can someone explain to me why that’s considered one of the most difficult boss fights in the souls series? I have significantly more trouble with Seath, Centipede demon, the bell gargoyles, bed of chaos, firesage demon, and Capra demon than with Ornstein and smough. I’ve never died to them, but I’ve died to all others listed a ton
Gael leads you through your journey till this point. He is searching for the Dark Soul so the painting can be done. When he finds the pigmy kings he realizes that their blood is basically gone by that point. So he does the only thing he could think of - eats them to absorb the Dark Soul into his own body so his blood can be used to paint the world. He knew he would go mad and it would consume him - hence why he guided you here, to kill him and take his blood to the painter..... Gael character is tragic - he is a Slave Knight, these guys were used as cannon fodder by the Gods as they are Undead. So in fact he is the LONGEST surviving being in this world. Where so many went insane he persisted with unbreakable will and pushed forward - in order to create a new world free from the machinations of Gods and the curse..... Gael represents the will of humanity and ability to self-sacrifice..... That's what makes this fight so beautiful....
Exquisitely descried , such is the beauty and tragedy of dark souls, marvelous character development on par with many fantasy epics of this and ages past . Simply spectacular if I do say so
Gael makes me cry. The weight of that sadness, the journey ranging ALL of history from the end of the Age of Ancients to the dawn of the much delayed Age of Dark. Never going Hollow all that time, fighting hopelessness until the very end when he sees us, and his shattered mind barely registers who we are. He is within a goal over ten thousand years in the making. He knows he can't possibly succeed, he's too far gone. So he gives it all up. If you kill him, She can paint a world. It doesn't matter if you can't, he knows you're Undead. You'll keep coming back until you take the Dark Soul from him and his quest will be complete. An immovable object facing an Unkindled unstoppable force. No matter what happens, he knows She will get her pigment, and finally there will come to be a cold, dark, and very gentle place.
The attack where Gael leaps into the air, fires off a cross bow volley, and then slams into the ground is one of the God damned coolest things I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t even made when I died to it, I just thought “holy shit that was awesome”
I always loved how the final battle in the souls series is two nobody's fighting in a city made from the ruins of past kingdoms idk I feel it just fits the dark souls theme
I didn't rate the ringed city. The lore and visuals are great and the bosses are top notch. But the area is a pain in the ass and not much fun, it's nowhere close go the old hunters for me
sam cole Ringed city has 2 of the best bosses in the series,offers weapons on the level of trick weapons from bloodborne and the main city is beautiful but it’s pretty underwhelming other than that.
@@SunSeeker-iy6zl I feel like everyone sleeps on the first ash covered part of the dlc, then its demons flying you to the ringed city is in my opinion better than the anor londo one, and the demon princes are hella fun to fight against with gael and patches/lapp
momo penguins The main problem with Dark Souls 3 is that even though it has(in my opinion)the best bosses in the series,most of its areas feel like chores and its bad bosses are REALLY bad.The 2nd DLC kinda fixed this,but some of the areas still feel uninspired and boring.
Gael the Slave Knight Phase one: a beast who tries to kill you. His movesets and aggressive approaches rival artorias and Orphan of Kos Phase two: Guts
It's such a badass fight, phase 3's music is the best in the series, the lightning, the screams and the landscape are perfect. he deserves the title of last dark souls boss.
I trained in the way of the bonk, I have mastered striking the monster just right in the head to knock on its side, and then I can move in to remove one of its limbs, roast it, and then make it into my new hammer. (At least in World. I am utter shit with Hammer in Rise and the older games. Great Sword gels better with me in the older games and I’m not sure with Rise.)
I think Gael has been the only fight in ds3 where I never got frustrated when I died. There were too many times where I was like holy shit, that’s so cool. It’s such an amazing boss fight that I cannot help but become in awe of the fight. Not to mention the lore is so wonderful and tragic. All of this couples together to create the best boss in the entire game.
@@f-14enthusiast63of course you could always bring out the busted Blasphemous Blade on her. She’s hard, but her cheesability is what keeps her from being my hardest FromSoft boss. That honor goes to Nameless King
I'm stuck on him rn, as amazing as the fight is loghtning screwed me over like 5 times now where im rolling for my life from gael and it kills me, really tilted me hard
@@amiri7437 There's just a poetic grimness to splattering blood over a field of pure, white flowers. It's not really important for the mechanics of the fight, but is something that helps its presentation a lot and that boss fight is very heavy on its presentation.
Gael is a masterpiece of gameplay and lore while also representing the overarching themes of the world to perfection. You could write a damn novel about this character.
@@malikzeshan1958 i feel like every boss is easy mode when you get used to them, it's all about first impressions and to me gael's first impression was very very hard, from halflight to gael it made a really big difference to me at least
Well, yeah. Considering the shit that happened to this world... Yeah... I guess theh are basically fighting over nothing. Cuz the Beautiful and Wonderful world of Dark Souls was basically raped and destroyed. Why do i have a feeling that the Story of Dark Souls was somewhat inspired by Evangelion?
@@user-pr8pw5qk9t Think the exact opposite of how you play Bloodbourne. Lots of heavy armour, probably slow, maybe a shield, and a f*ck off greatsword or something like that. Your primary stats are Vitality, Strength, and Endurance. Maybe Faith so you can heal yourself with using precious Estus Flask. You basically take the hits that speedy Dex builds can't, due to your high Poise stat and being overall harder to knock down or be staggered. The flip side is that you're slower and your stamina regenerates a little slower. But you take less damage. It's personally my favourite build in the Souls series, which is why Bloodbourne kicks my ass.
It took me 47 tries to beat Artorias. I had to learn every single one of his attacks and learn how to roll against it and after a week of screaming and frustration, I finally took him down after a sludge attack. One of the best feelings in a souls game I’ve ever had
I remember how i first entered this DLC and was going through the forest to find a bonfire, i had just 3 estus flasks, half health, and when i saw a giant build, i thought that it was a safezone with bonfire, i came in and... holy crap i was scared af to see Artorias coming to the centre of arena. 3 estus flasks, half health and fear to die. I killed him 1 attempt and that had given me a huge doze of serotonin, so Artorias of The Abyss is my favourite boss of Souls series now :D
@@SimplCup mine is a tie... Its between Ornstein and smough... And manus... Artorias I won and was avle to beat... I could not with manus...but he is a boss that made me think
I've beat him in my second try guess im a pro? Or maybe i just defeated ornstein&smough for like a thousand times and its my first time fighting artorias and i liked the fight even though i killed him with a dragontooth+5
The Abyss Watchers was definitely my favorite at least in Dark Souls 3. I loved the intro and the story behind why they are fighting, and also how they continue to fight each other during the boss fight
@Chephren Parker I mean, Gael is literally the most powerful being any dark souls protagonist has ever faced in any of the games. maybe not seconds but i'm not sure guts would last more than 5 minutes
@Chephren Parker Ashen One is the strongest DS protagonist and the only one who's actually fought Gael so I'll be referring to him. The difference between the two is that Ashen One both survived to the end of time (literally, the only things left alive at the Gael boss fight is AO, Gael and some random ringed knight) so that alone should say how powerful he is. Second, DS3's main final boss, Soul of Cinder, is literally the amalgamation of every Lord, including Gwyn, and also Chosen Undead himself. So you're essentially getting gang banged by DS1's protagonist as well as every major boss in the entire series at once and still come out on top. And yeah, he has insane luck, but is that really a valid feat? Could Nathan Drake kill Spiderman just because of insane luck? I don't think so. Lastly, Guts' Beserker Armor is pretty much plot armor. He would have easily died by Grunheld when he turned into a dragon if Guts wasn't wearing it. A dragon. Something that each DS protagonist has killed at least twice. Not to mention, Ashen One killed Midir, which was pretty much the most powerful dragon in all of DS lore.
@@CHICKENNUGGETSKOON Nah gael is quick, but guts is faster. I've seen guts take down guys much more powerful than gael. I mean, he took down Mozgus who was said to have impenetrable armor, could literally fly and breath fire like a dragon. His wings crushed his enemies, and his feathers become fists, which can pulverize his enemies many times over. Yet guts endured multiple of his attacks, and eventually killed him. Meanwhile, in this game, you can kill gael with a dagger if you're good enough, whereas guts is wielding a gigantic sword, automatic crossbow, cannon arm, throwing knives and bombs. Plus guts has the berserker armor, which increases your strength and speed to unimaginable levels. It also makes him ignore pain completely, amplifies negative emotions which makes you fight harder, and it can temporarily repair debilitating wounds like broken bones by injecting thin spines from itself, into the broken bones and set them back in their proper places to restore the limb's functionality. Not to mention the armor can repair itself. He could literally just outmanoeuvre gael, and cut him in half with his sword. If gael tried it, his sword would be stopped by the berserker armor, and guts would probably just cut gael's arm off. Also guts was able to fend off zodd (an actual god of war), even when he wasn't in his prime. If you've seen any guts anime, you can easily tell he moves much faster than you (the unkindled), and has much more strength. When using an ultra greatsword, your character swings it at a barely reasonable speed in combat, whereas guts would be swinging it around as if it weighed as much as a regular shortsword. Even without the armor, guts is very tenacious, not making any stupid decisions in combat and keeping his cool.
@@0816M3RC I think it had a few good bosses besides those 2 and it was the first soulsborne game I played and it is still a great game just the worst of the souls games I played
and while Gascoigne isn't really the tutorial boss of BB (Cleric Beast would be), is the first mandatory boss and, among all the first mandatory bosses in the franchise, he's the only one i still kinda struggle against... Even if there are harder bosses in BB, the music and the lore makes him one of my favorite in the whole franchise
Kinda gutted that the Soul Of Cinder wasn't here, sure he's not as hard as say the Nameless King but narratively and the music always gives me the feels. The Final Defender of the First Flame and the remnants of Gwynn.
Honestly, as controversial as it might be to say this, but my favorite boss comes from Dark Souls 2. The Burnt Ivory King From his graceful fighting style, and epic arena, with a unique mechanic that really makes you feel like the area you have been fighting through has lead up to this point, to the lore implications of the Chaos being the Bed of Chaos, left untended, to the character himself being a true, selfless hero, loyal to his country and people, perhaps being one of the few true good people in Soulsborne, He just is my favorite. I think my favorite part about him, is the lore behind him though, often forgotten. Him, a fabled warrior from a far-off land, traveling to a land he has no duty to, simply because he heard someone was needed, beating back the chaos personally, choosing to build his throne right above the chaos he swore to guard, making him the first line of defense for his people. On top of that, he managed to do what no one else could, and fundamentally changed a child of dark, which could have ruined him like they did so many others. Loving her as his queen to the very end, even if it meant his ruin, making a being of pure fear gain the confidence to be a self-less warden herself. And finally, dying a hero's death. I have nothing but respect for the Ivory King as a character. Does not help that his transposed weapon is one of my favorites to use as well.
I'm glad you noted the lore implications of Alsanna taking the Ivory King's place guarding over the Old Chaos after his "death". Unlike the other three shards of Manus' soul, she was rehabilitated by her environment and managed to find comfort through love and courage rather than through deceit and power. It speaks to how strong the Ivory King was as a leader, and it forces us to question if our Bearer of the Curse has what it takes to be a true monarch if a man like the Ivory King failed to do it. I'm spit on how much I like his actual boss fight, but there's no doubt in my mind that he's one of the most interesting characters in the series as a whole.
Idontcare news It's the cold hard truth that most people consider DS2 a failure. Personally it's my favorite outta the three because I adore the lore and some of the bosses like Fume Knight, Sir Aloone, Sihn, Ivory King Pursuer, Dark Lurker, and even the Smelter Demon (Don't judge me).
I remember I woke up real early one morning and decided to fight Midir. It took me 5 gruesome hours to finally get his moveset down and after I beat him I was so happy. I immediately went to fight Gael, thinking he would be much harder and was surprised to see it took me half the time it did to beat Midir. Both were great fights though and left me with a feeling of accomplishment that I've never felt in a souls game before.
I think the four kings might be my favorite just based on how terrifying the setting is. You fall down a hole only to find yourself in the absolutely pitch black darkness of the abyss with the only physical things you can see being the four eldritch horrors trying to murder you. What makes it even more terrifying is when you didn't even know about the abyss beforehand
@@MouseR985 They're not really though, since you still have to deal with the obnoxious DPS check. One king is fun (limited moveset though), but the fun suddenly drops massively once you have to deal with several at once.
If you liked rolling around and two handing weapons and believe the only use for a shield is the pareezzz than play bloodborne as soon as you are done with sekiro.
Artorias feels overrated for me. He's kinda outdated in term of difficulty and moveset variety. His OST is mediocre to me. He's still in my Top 4 DS1 bosses, but I strongly disagree with #3 of the ENTIRE FRANCHISE.
He's quite agile for his appearance as a hulking husk of a great knight, with his somersaults and such. Even his corruption comes in to have a swing at you. DS bosses never really progressed in difficulty; they just are different with their mechanics. Artorias is an iconic boss with an interesting story behind him. Well deserved top 5
Gael is such a good fight. You're at the end of the world, fighting a disgraced Knight. He's consumed half of the world at this point, bearing the most Dark of anything. In Phase 2 he somersaults, summons lightning, has a repeating crossbow and, most dangerous of all, can teleport. He is undoubtedly the most badass boss in the whole series. No.1 on my list.
10. Orphan 9. Artorious 8. Nameless 7. Ornstein and Smough 6. Maria 5. Gehrman 4. Friede 3. Kalameet 2. Ludwig 1. Gael I like that we agree with the top 2. I love Ludwig, but Gael was just too nice of a fight to not be #1.
Dude, welcome back, from the bottom of my heart. I was so worried you were done with RU-vid. Will there be a place for us casual RU-vid folk to view playthroughs? I really wanted to see the rest of Spider-Man and I REALLY wanted to see the Kingdom Hearts games
I’m happy he’s finally putting all his time Into RU-vid I always felt like if he would have just stayed consistent and uploaded about 3 quality videos a week his channel would’ve easily had 500,000 plus subscribers by now but he instead took a break but now he’s back so he can do it !!!
Yeah, he isn’t uploading playthroughs to RU-vid anymore. But you can always watch them on Twitch. I think the VODs last 100 days or something like that, so if there is something you want to watch that he’s played recently, you have plenty of time.
Gael's first phase is him where he believes his journey is still not yet complete or even failed despite all it took to get here only to have what he needed dried up, he's lashing out, tossing you around, and throwing himself with reckless abandon at you as he doesn't care, the Dark Soul is all that matters and composure when you have nothing left to lose is meaningless. When he realises the Dark Soul may now be inside him, he picks himself up and chooses to give you a proper fight as to die a warrior and be killed properly and not like a dogged fool, using all kinds of miracles, damaged equipment, the powers of his magic scarf cape thing, even using his damaged executioner sword correctly now to make you fight like hell. My respect to him.
I absolutely agree with Gael being the best, though I'd say the boss he reminds me of the most is actually Ludwig, with his first phase being barely more than a beast, galloping toward you on all fours, completely erratic and barely articulate, but once you hit the cutscene, he remembers what he is doing and reverts back to a more ordered assault where he stands on two legs and uses his sword and crossbow. I also think that the fight is purposely designed to keep players from getting frustrated. The first phase is, in my opinion, way harder than the rest since his attacks are very erratic as opposed to his second and third phase, which are way more spectacular but also a lot more telegraphed, so it's mainly about outlasting phase 1 with enough Estus to last you through the rest. And when you lose the endurance fight, you don't feel annoyed the way you do with, say, Orphan of Kos. Instead you feel motivated because "if I'd had just one more Estus I would have won this!" So you go back to phase one and try to keep that one more Estus. This pushes your frustration toward phase 1, not phase 2 or 3. Also, if you pay close attention, Gael can actually get hit by the lightning strikes and it does a whopping 1 damage to him. I find that hilarious whenever it happens.
I'd be lying if I said that I never CONTEMPLATED getting Gael to kill himself with his own lightning. Never did it, but the thought that it's possible amuses me. =)
My favourite boss is the abyss watchers from ds3, the closest boss I've ever had on my first playthrough, I won with 0 estus left and about 1/8 of my health I went for one last hit as they swung and we hit at almost the same time he died and I was left on none visable health, plus they look cool as hell and have a really elegant fighting style, favourite boss sound track is gwyn from ds1
Same for me! My favorite thing was the one abyss watcher doing the legion etiquette gesture as the intro cutscene. It looked so badass holding the greatsword and the dagger thing
It was one of the hardest boss fight for me. He is very fast, very aggressive and precise. And both phases were hard for me, when 3 of them spawned at once and all of them were coming for me... damn... and second phase was even harder
Man I cannot get the hype behind abyss watchers tbh, they’re the first great boss in ds3 but there are so many fights after just in the main game that outshine it in terms of atmosphere, intensity, move set, difficulty, and overall enjoyment. Only thing this boss excels at is its ost, which is top 5 boss osts in soulsborne but still, I find the boss itself to be good but not this Fromsoft magnum opus
@@sleddinggybe142 just a preference, they look amazing and make you feel like you’re fighting the devil himself… his move set is one of the best looking in all of dark souls since it’s so clean looking which really makes him nice to fight even when you’re getting beat up
@@squalinator I read a theory somewhere that smough wanted to give ornstein a more honorable death than being killed by an undead, but I don't know if there was any evidence
@@elliotglaser1718 Yeah maybe but if you look closely you'll see during the cutscene Ornstein is actually still alive, and if you listen closely you'll hear Smough's demonic laughter when he crushes Ornstein which kinda proves that that the Executioner has no pity for the Dragon Slayer. I'm not trying to be factual or deny what you said I'm just telling you what I think is true.
The boss area for Isshin is so beautiful and epic at the same time especially in the last phase with all the lightning. Also his entry is so fucked up and that final shot when you execute him has to be the best game endings Fromsoft has done. Sekiro is more cinematic than DS and BB because of the final execution blow you do after defeating the bosses.
A lot of people find DS3 to be much harder than the other games, namely people who started with it. It's really just a matter of which game you start with. Once you know how the series works it's a lot easier to get through.
Not really, I started with ds1 way back then, played every "soulsgame" and every dlc, and both DS3 and Bloodborne are in another level of dificulty, if you take into account every boss in the game, no boss is DS1 comes close to any boss in any of the dlcs of DS3(excluding wolf boy and oldmonk 2.0), or Bloosborn's Ludwig, Orphan, defiled dungeon watchdog, just to name a few. If you want to compare the base game, I'll say that DS3 is defenetly harder than DS1 boss-wise, some areas on DS1 might be harder if you are not familiar with them, as for Bloodborne VS DS1 basegame I think that's more debatable.
I played ds3 first it was a hard game yes..then played ds1 found that it is a balanced game in terms of difficulty. But when i played ds2 i found it very hard harder than ds3... take in mind that i never use (summons/parry's vs bosses/shields/summons) in all my playthroughs. Unlike ds3. Ds2 doesnt have harder bosses but harder enemy's harder invades/areas and harder mechanics such as (less s/ Harder stamina management/healing mechanics...)
Michael Mahoney I think some of the main factors of difficulty with DS1 is the clunkiness in the gameplay. It certainly isn’t buttery smooth to play like DS3 (not talking fps), but DS3 boss design is certainly harder and has multiphased fights. Which is designed in function with the faster gameplay. If you threw DS3 or BB bosses into DS1 oooh boy.
Well, maybe, but I started with Dark Souls 1 and got pretty good at it, but found that my preferred strategy, a slow but powerful weapon and a bigass shield, put me at a pretty significant disadvantage when I started DS3. Mind you, I never play any PvP in either game, but regardless, shields leave you much more vulnerable in DS3 to kicks and certain weapon arts, and that's discounting their much smaller hitboxes, so the entirely new playstyle I had to adapt to meant I found it very hard.
@@Kahez It mostly depends on your style of play. For me, so far all of the bosses in DS3 except Pontiff were easy kills (last one I beat was Dragonslayer Armour). I killed Dancer on my first try, Yhorm with the Stormruler is on the level of Pinwheel, Aldrich is a joke if you're using a buff. Manus is way harder to beat than half of the bosses in DS3.
Lawrence gave me a lot of trouble :( in fact I would say that Lawrence was up there with abhorrent beast, which was my personal hardest fight. That fight doesnt feel fair at all lol.
RoachDogg Jr Frieda was really hard at that time because I wasn’t great at the souls games, I just bought ds3 again on ps4 (I was Xbox) to get my revenge on Friede, Gael and midair. Because I beat isshin with bell demon and no resurrection. I’m far greater at this moment. I’m just here redeem myself of dying 20+ times on each bosses.
My favorite boss so far is the abyss watchers. I havent known anything about the souls/borne series until about a month ago. I saw dark souls 3 at my local family dollar for 13 bucks, and thought, "well, my friends like the series, so i should give it a try". I went into dark souls 3 only knowing that it was considered the easiest. I didnt like the high stats and levels of the other classes, so for my first ever play through i chose deprived, and boy did i make a descision that i dont regret one bit. It starts off strong with a boss fight immediatly after the tutorial, and as a complete noob to darks souls' fuckery, this caught me more off guard than ive ever been. After 30 sweaty minutes i managed to beat ludex gundyr down with my club. After that, im completely hooked. I already have over 50 hours since i bought it a week ago, and i have to say its pretty much my life now. I have only just gotten to champion gundyr and it made me stop and take a minute to reflect on what had transpired in these last days. I realized i went from knowing barely the name of the game, to loving it with everything i have. Throughout my years, i never had any trouble with games, they always came naturally to me, until i got to dark souls 3. For the first time ever i had to think, strategize, and formulate new ways of thinking that i couldnt comprehend 2 weeks ago. For an inexperienced player to go into dark souls as a deprived, i found the game to be the most challenging one of my life. My friend told me that some people quit when they get to the abyss watchers, which only put more fuel on the flame. It took me 3 painstaking hours to defeat the abyss watchers, and when i did, it was the moment of reckoning. Dark souls 3 hit me. Hard. Upon completion of the first lord of cinder, thats when my real journey began. And to any new players to the series, dont give up, itll only get better.
Haha, maaan. Amazing story, it was almost the same for me. I choosed sorcerer and first half of the game cock suckage was hard, I summoned help to half of the fights but after Abyss watchers I bet all bosses myself except Aldrich and sister Friede +Ringed fights :) My magic longsword +10 and staff +10 with intelligence 50+ finally made me strong and I even started to PVP, lol :) Than I went into NG+ as cleric (thanks for respec) and made a new characted as knight... Finished game in 66 hours with dlcs first time, than 51 hours, than 40+ hours. Than finished BB, DS2 and DS1R. The last one still being the pain in the ass not because of bosses (mostly easy) but because of darkness, narrow passages and scarce bonfires. I realised why people love series, you really want to get better. First game where I seriously was learning to play, learning boss movement etc. etc. This game made quaranteen so much better and co19 doesnt exist because you are fighting Kos or 4 kings :D It is matter of time when I will buy PS5 for demon souls R and Elden Ring, haha. Amazing games. For new players - I'd say dont be shy to summon help your first walkthrough, you may have 2nd, 3rd or 4th one when you will be able to beat all bosses with no help :) Yes, I think as far as battles got DS3 is the best, atmosphere, lvl design, vibes etc. BB definately, so mad. BB DLC add new difficulty layer, I actually summoned help for all hardest boss fights but even than it was super challenging and exciting. DS2 a bit.... I dont know, completed just 1 time. As much as I hated some parts of DS1R I still beat it 3 times. Well, Blighttown, Fortress and Tomb are a pain. Tomb with all darkness feels like cheap design choice, guys didnt know how to make hard and exciting levels those years (hello DS3 and BB). Still the vibe of DS1R is strong... It has something what makes you want to return and try another class, haha. Games have faults of course, but they are sooo goood anyway... PVP could be better, balance not so good, servers are lagging, some OP builds exist... Dont care, I play this games for insane PVE and a bit of coop. Wish they made game DESIGNED for coop boss battles like Monster hunter but raising number of people to 6-10 players with buffs, classes, spells, paladins etc :)
@@kitkat-zr6lg 98% of that 70%'s content is trash. Also, not liking someone's content is entirely different from not liking someone as a person. I'm insulting their content, not them. Also, when 98% of 70% of content on this website is trash, that's pretty telling of where this site is going.
I always like to give Honorable mentions to the Ivory King fight in the Dark Souls 2 DLC as one of the most fun fights in the franchise. While base game was perhaps disappointing to a lot of people, the DLCs all being interconnected with incredible, changing architecture and the final boss being more of an all out epic High Fantasy battle at the heart of chaos with allies AND enemies. It really feels like a grand event and I adore it every single time.
I didn't play any of the DS2 DLC's because the base game was so bad, but I went and watched a video of the Ivory King fight after seeing your comment and I gotta say I don't understand the allure. Copy+Pasted allies vs Copy+Pasted enemies which then culminates in a boss who has a pretty narrow moveset that is largely defeated pretty easily and the same way as every other boss by that point in the series (Roll+2xR1). Not to be a downer I just don't see how he would even hit Honorable Mentions over almost any boss in either Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3.
@@jackwalker1405 I suppose its one of those things that had to be experienced in the moment. It's important to remember that at the time, this was all the souls we had. I would say that if we take I to account all the from soft games published up to today pretty much every fight in the first few souls games start to fall behind. Even Artorias, to me, doesn't compare to half the bosses in Elden Ring for spectacle and grandeur and fun. I would even go so far to say that the allure for me is much the same as the General Radahn fight, a massive arena full of a lot of characters all fighting in a much bigger battle than your usual 1v1 or 1v2 souls experience. You're totally entitled to your opinion, but for me it was the highlight boss fight of that game.
Ivory king is annoying sometimes because you have to go throught all the knights every time he kills you and the king himself, while much better than most ds2 bosses, is really not anything special when compared to some other bosses. Great lore tho. I would give a honorable mention to sir alonne
@@bigsmall2842 Artorias might not be as impressive today as he was when he came out, it's just a fact that bosses have gotten better with time, but there are 2 arguments I always use when advocating for him. The first and most obvious is that outside the fight itself, you're fighting Artorias and all the lore implications that come with it that you learned throughout the base game. When you see him, you know that you're up against a legend. You can't say that about something like Sullyvhan, yes he has lore behind him but before encountering him you basically know nothing about him and even after the fact you really have to dig to find out who he even is. And the second argument being... While Artorias has definitely aged, his fight is still impressive. That boss came out in 2011 yet he's mechanically more complex than literally every boss in DS2 DLC included barring maybe Fume Knight, and he even has speed and agressivity to boot. He was so ahead of his time that he honestly wouldn't be that out of place in DS3, it's incredible just how fleshed out he is for such an ancient boss.
Sir Alonne is an epic warrior but his black swipe attack that you can only dodge to one side (for no reason other than bad hitbox) and the super annoying path to the boss really degrade the experience.
Even though O&S was an absolute struggle for me to get through, I couldn’t help but appreciate the design of the fight and it was an insanely satisfying victory when I finally beat them. Even when I was still trying to figure it out, I could feel that it was very possible to win and I just needed to keep trying. A lot of times gang bosses feel almost impossible but O&S despite the difficulty is still accessible. It was definitely the first major wall for me but when I got past it I felt like I could take on anything, and just the experience of defeating ornstein and smough gave me a level of confidence that carried me through the rest of the game with little trouble. If you can beat O&S you can beat the game, and if you can beat dark souls you can beat any other game in the series
I relate to this comment so much. Just beat gael and soul of cinder today and I was thinking about how much confidence beating o&s for the first time gave me (I completed the Dark souls games in order)
Unorthodox opinion: The Demon Prince is a fully perfected form of the Ornstein and Smough duo battle and deserves a spot more than O&S. Hear me out on this. O&S is regarded as a "balanced" fight because Ornstein is quick, has lower defense and does less damage while Smough does more damage, but is tankier and slower. A lot of other shitty ganks in the series don't follow this, often by having both enemies be a combination of too fast, too aggressive, or just otherwise annoying. However, in practice, Smough still closes the gap annoyingly fast due to his charge attack, making it difficult to separate him from Ornstein if you have bad RNG. Ornstein's charge attack is also broken as fuck, we all know that. It's also literally wasted effort attacking both due to the Phase 2 trigger instantly healing the remaining one of the two to full health and negating anything you did to them. However, Ornstein and Smough ARE iconic as fuck in gaming at large and not just Dark Souls for being the quintessential "holy fuck this game is hard" boss everyone pointed to when Dark Souls first rocked the gaming world in 2011. That's something no other boss can top them with. Almost everyone that started with the original Dark Souls remembers well the horror stories people would tell of Ornstein and Smough beating them over 30 times before they finally succeeded with only 10 health left. (I beat them my first try) Now, compare them to the Demon Prince. Unlike Smough, who is SUPPOSED to be fat and slow but in reality charges at you like an angry freight train constantly, the Demons ARE the perfect combination of fast & quick vs slow & dangerous. When one of the two demons is on fire, they attack rapidly and charge after you but do less damage per attack and telegraph well. Comparatively, the extinguished demon slowly follows you, but uses dangerous toxic ranged attacks to ensure you still have to treat him as a threat. Easily dodged, but still incredibly lethal if you aren't paying attention. And unlike Ornstein and Smough, any damage you do to both demons matters. Once the first one is defeated, the second doesn't flip you the bird and heal to full, they keep the damage you did to them. During this whole process as well, they switch up their tactics to ensure that you can't just target one of the two specifically without facing potential consequences. Killing Ornstein is regarded as much easier as you can keep him baited outside of Smough's range to effectively remove Smough from the first part of the fight. And then, once you defeat BOTH the demons, not just one, the second phase ALSO changes depending on which demon you killed first. Just like Ornstein became huge and got a lightning buttslam and Smough gained lightning damage (and a lightning buttslam lol), the Demon Prince brings new, dangerous attacks to the table as a consequence of your Phase 1 fight. But unlike buttslams and basic lightning damage, this changes if the Prince fires gigantic mouth beams at you if you move too far away, or if they cast fireball pyromancies and tries to keep its distance from you. As DeMod said, Ornstein and Smough is supposed to be a "fatty and slim" but just ends up being a "wow Smough moves annoying fast" and having very little actual chances to attack one or the other. The "fatty and slim" becomes "fattyslim and slim". The Demon in Pain and the Demon from Below ARE slow and fast separately. The extinguished demon actively stays out of direct combat instead of chasing you down like Smough ISN'T supposed to, and the ignited one encourages you to attack him by chasing you down like Ornstein IS supposed to. You have a true "fatty and slim" instead of one on paper but not in execution. The Demon Prince takes everything about the Ornstein and Smough fight and enhances it to act better and more refined. Instead of Fromsoft trying and failing repeatedly to capture more lightning in a bottle, they looked at the old bottled lighting on their shelf labled O&S and thought "What if we just made our previous success better?"
@@jazzmaster909 I do normally put it like that, but in this case the love for Ornstein and Smough is very much correlated to nostalgia. Demon's Souls was a thing but everyone really remembers Dark Souls 1 as the first Souls game, and Ornstein and Smough were a very prominent and key part of that game, so much so that EVERYONE always remembers them. How many people actually remember the Gaping Dragon or the Moonlight Butterfly off the top of their head when somebody mentions Dark Souls bosses? In contrast, the Demon Prince is quite literally the 4th-to-last Dark Souls boss EVER to be released. Even though I love them a lot, I still forget them often due to the fact that I rarely fight them, as they are completely end-game DLC and Dark Souls 3 is a VERY long game compared to the few hours it takes a seasoned player to get to Anor Londo and face Ornstein and Smough. Keep in mind that the Ringed City is actually the only DLC in the entire franchise that requires mandatory completion of the entire vanilla game before you can access it. Oolacile can be accessed directly after you kill Ornstein and Smough, the DS2 DLCs are scattered around the game in various stages through to mid-end game, and the Painted World of Ariandel is nearly at the start of Dark Souls 3. tldr: Compared to the dozens of times people have fought Ornstein and Smough in the average DS1 playthrough, paired with DS1 just being around longer, the Demon Prince is often forgotten for statistically being one of the least-fought bosses in the Souls franchise. In terms of mechanics, arguments can be made, but I will hold that the Demon in Pain and the Demon from Below are statistically provable mechanical upgrades from Ornstein and Smough. It's the same concept, the same arena filled with debris to block fireballs, and the same "quick and light damage + slow and heavy damage", just finally perfected.
Personally I found Ludwig's second phase pretty easy, especially in contrast to the brutal first phase. In my first playthrough I got thrashed by the Accursed over and over again, but it only took me getting to the Holy Blade twice for me to down him, which felt pretty anticlimactic. While that second phase is a glorious spectacle, that vast difference in difficulty keeps him from being one of my personal favorite fights.
The accursed phase is very easy, in my experience. Very readable and VERY punishable, and I got him to second phase almost every single time. HOLY BLADE PHASE on the other hand is the hardest boss fight in the game, 100x harder then beast form ludwig. I guess everybody differs.
Yeah same, I struggled with the unpredictable and warped form of many of the beast enemies in the game. Ludwig gave me more trouble than anyone aside from the Orphan, but when he hit phase 2 it was way easier. His attacks just feel far more logical and less varied, still a very cool fight though.
Entering the coliseum to fight Artorias will always be the most jaw dropping moment to me, absolutely love him and everything he represents as a character
My top 5: 1. Slave Knight Gael 2. Darkeater Midir 3. Twin Princes 4. Nameless King 5. Abyss Watchers I'm VERY happy you're back, by the way. I look forward to your top 10 from Sekiro, haha. I don't know why. I just really like your top-list videos.
My personal list (including Sekiro): 10- Manus, Father of the Abyss 09- Demon of Hatred 08- Lorian and Lothric, The Twin Princes 07- Champion Gundyr 06- Dragonslayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough 05- Darkeater Midir 04- Ludwig, the Accursed/Holy Blade 03- Isshin, the Sword Saint 02- Knight Artorias 01- Soul of Cinder Honorable mention: my boy sir alonne
Ranking just 10 of the best bossed must be so hard, every boss here is valid but I can't help but think "but what about sir allone, soul of cinder, abyss watchers, demon princes, gascoigne, orphan of kos?" Just so many amazing bosses in this series, I can't imagine having to pick just 10
One of my favourite bosses in the series is Twin Princes because ds3 was my first game in the series and the whole game is build around that boss fight. Everytime in firelink shrine you see the highest throne and from almost any area in the game you look at lothric castle which is named after the younger prince and finally are given the chance to face this guy after beating yhorm aldrich and abyss watchers and walking in the bridge of the castle just oww... it's pretty balanced and challenging but also one of the most creative boss designs and movesets overall. Wish you added him instead of Pontiff.
definitely deserves to be on the list instead of Pontiff. really cool how the big bro is crawling around on his knees most of the time and has little bro hanging on his back.
Naw, Pontiff also deserved his spot too. But I guess the real travesty here is that this list only has 10 spots, since DS3 has some very memorable bosses.
I have only played Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls 3, but my top 5 bosses out of those games (in my opinion and in no particular order) would be as follows: 1. Ornstein and Smough. One of the most challenging boss fights I've ever struggled through, an exhilarating level of difficulty that I've not seen a match for as of yet (this boss having taken the most amount of time to beat than any boss I've fought in the series). I did sometimes get a bit bored running around searching for openings but overall it was a highly rewarding challenge. 2. Ludwig the Accursed/Holy Blade. The atmosphere and music alone for this boss made me fall in love with it, but the challenging difficulty and fun mechanics along with that transition from a mindless beast to a towering warrior was just awe inspiring. 3. Darkeater Midir. I used to hate this boss with a passion. However, after I learnt that you're meant to stick by his head as opposed to just trying to get hits on any part of his body, the fight became infinitely more rewarding and his moveset extremely satisfying to overcome and memorise. Definitely my favorite dragon boss in the series (though the only real competition there would be Kalameet). 4. Slave Knight Gael. The absolute perfect final boss for the series. His moveset is fair and rewarding to dodge (but still very challenging), the music and atmosphere are perfect with callbacks to Artorias and Orphan of Kos, and the lore behind the fight is very interesting and poignant. 5. Orphan of Kos. The setting and arena are perfect. With the rotting ships in the background amid a silent ocean, beneath a grey sky and eerie sun, it's the perfect backdrop for a fight with the wizened child of the great one Kos (or some say Kosm...). Mechanically the fight is extremely challenging, demanding precise quicksteps and an even more precise parry window, with the difficulty increasing twofold by phase two. Overall, an exhilarating fight that perfectly encapsulates the sad, Lovecraftian tone of the rest of the game.
Gael is absolutely my favorite boss out of these, but I actually wish they made it so you would stagger him less often. That would make the fight perfect in my eyes
I feel like im late but please remember that Knight Artorias was without his greatshield and one of his arms was broken, add on that his faithful wolf companion wasnt there either. Hes a shell of his former self but that still. Picture a fight against this legendary warrior at the peak of his strength for the honor of challenging Quin.
What a great video to start your return to RU-vid with! I’m so glad you’re back, and I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us! Edit: Gael has always been my favorite boss in the series, and I am so glad you feel the same way!
Gael is definitely my favorite boss in Dark Souls 3, I was expecting our last fight in the series to be against Gwynevere in an effort to finish the last of Gwyns bloodline and possibly end the cycle of undead being used to continue the Age of Fire. Instead we delve deeper into Gwyns tyranny in his imprisonment of the Pygmys, eventual abyss corruption of Midir, and an abandoned child just waiting to wake up and finally see her father again, only for the shell to crack and show us the world as it really is in a desolate landscape of nothing but Ash, really showing the world has been burned so much to keep the Gods Age thriving that it only led to the destruction of everything, all to find our friend Gael, who showed us the way here, consuming all the Dark Souls and turning it into the blood that he knows you must draw from him, all this, for his lady's painting, and in the end, it is made more sad that the girl will never see Gael again, and Gael will never see the world she wanted to paint for him.
The good thing is, Gael lead you there to kill him so you can help in finishing his quest that started at the beginning of time and will end at the end of all
Gael as number 1? I think i just came! Honestly i shouldnt even try to put it into words whats awesome about this fight; music lore, the fight itself, everything was over the top awesome! I fought gael up until NG+7 and died probably more time than i would ever admit. However no matter how many times i fought him, sometimes it just gets to me and i get the sudden urge to fight him again, which says something on its own for i have rarely done multiple playthroughs in videogames as a whole. Also the second phase cutscene is in my opinion the most epic, badass, intimidating in the whole series! First phase you have bean beatin the shit out of this whithered old beardy dude, he finally gets to his knees, loses his mind completely, goes hollow stands up again, changes the weather, two-hands his swords, music changes-whoops i might have co me again! And i feel no shame about it at all! Edit; On top of that gael also functions as the final boss of such a great series i had so much fun to play, and due to the high difficulty its gonna take a good chunk of your time and patience before you can finally end your journey. The expectations of being the last boss of this series have been pretty high by default, cinder was cool and had fanservice, but the ultimate challenge kinda lacked, gael however far surpassed the already high expectations and in my opinion is more than worthy of being the final boss to this series!
Same with me although i have to say, that im not skillfull enough to take him down in ng+8. What damn its some of the finest work in all of video game history
Gael is the best bos in all of gaming in my opinion and he doesn't even sound like the best boss in ds3 since the abyss watcher r a fusion of artorias and maria also I hope sekiro can give us a boss even close to his level of amazing
Awesome to see how opinions have changed, really awesome video. My favourite boss in the series is Orphan of Kos, followed closely by Lorian and Lothric. Surprised to see neither made the cut for you, but I can hardly dispute any of these are worthy of the top spot.
I learned demon prince on my second attempt getting to that phase, both times I did it. So I’ve tried each one and didn’t find it very hard either time. And I generally find bosses much harder than I should. Like it took me 4-6 hours to beat nameless
I agree I hit the dlc with my op strength character, yet didn’t know you could Summon geal and it took me 20 tries to get to the 2nd phase and another 10 to beat that.
I do wish there were some kind of cutscene after Gael fight is over. I know that's not Dark Souls style but still. For it to be the last dlc and the end
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