Why Sekiro's Boss Design Works Where Elden Rings' Doesn't 

Before they added the boss rematch feature, I literally played through this game to ng+7 to exclusively to refight owl, demon of hatred, and Isshin because those fights were so fun

The reason why i vastly prefer the combat in Sekiro and Bloodborne over other fromsoft games is that the enemies are completely built around the players movements and abilities, the speed is perfectly adjusted to the players speed making the combat feel more like a dance, where as elden ring the enemies are WAY faster but the players speed is kept almost exactly the same as it was in dark souls 3. I also thought that the spirit summons was a smart idea in order to bring in more players without using the difficulty but it turned out it was an excuse for poor balancing and bad boss design.

Thank you for understanding Sekiro's devs designed nearly every enemy with just Wolf's inherent abilities in mind. All you need is skill but you can also figure out the prosthetics and combat arts to make the game easier and make you feel clever and stylish at the same time. It was bloody brilliant

I think Malenia was originally meant to be a Sekiro boss. Mabye Lady Tomoe for a planned DLC which would explain waterfowl dance which could be parried like Isshin's one mind or her thrust attacks that cover a load of distance which you could Mikiri Counter like those of Owl (Father). Also back to speaking of waterfowl dance, when you speak to Isshin and he talks about Tomoe he says she fought like she was dancing which alludes to waterfowl dance being in her moveset.

The best thing about Sekiro is that the "危" red Kanji tells you the enemy is using perilous attack and you need to watch his animation in order to perform the correct counter. There is only few attacks that is not counter-able and require player to get out of the attack area. but some attacks have a grappling follow up to let player get back right into the fight immediately. In Elden Ring so many non "dodge roll-able" attacks that look really "dodge roll-able" , Some bosses even have crazy non "dodge roll-able" combo that require player to run away for 5 seconds and kind of destroy the flow of the combat dance. Also jump counter is very tight and somewhat unsatisfying to do due to no impact effect. I love both games but Elden Ring's combat system is a deterioration.

Here's my personal take: Dark Souls 3: 50% was about building your character, acquiring weapons and stuff and upgrading them to deal more damage or becoming more resilient by leveling your defensive stats or wearing better armor, the rest 50% was becoming skilled at the game as in knowing how to dodge properly, or attack safely during specific windows, parrying, positioning yourself in the boss arena so, if you managed to properly build your character and had some skills you were good to go. Now Sekiro: it's a 20-80 split. 20% is about levelling your vitality and unlocking shinobi tools and combat arts. But the rest 80% is all about skill, it was impossible to overpower a boss, if you lacked the basic skills of deflecting, jump countering, mikiri counter, lightning deflection, etc as a player you couldn't make any progress. the prosthetic tools only gave you a slightly better edge in combat and weren't that powerful in isolation Elden Ring is like a 80-20 split, where 80% is building your character and 20% skill you can trivialize ANY boss in the game by levelling up your character, and using all possible tools that were provided to you. And oh boy, Elden Ring provides you with lot of tools and accessibility, in the form of spirit ashes, ashes of war, talismans, weapon and self buffs, etc. Weapon arts/skills are more powerful and viable than DS3 counterparts so it actually feels more fun to use them, the way you can stack damage by using different consumables, talismans and armor is also interesting. It is the most RPG of all the souls games but if you wanted a more satisfying combat then DS3 or Sekiro are better

I've been saying again and again that Malenia feels like a Sekiro boss that was dropped into a Dark Souls combat oriented game just because Miyazaki felt like it. The late game bosses in Elden Ring go from "Learn the bosses style and moveset" to "Tank a bunch of damage and hope you live to counter attack" it sucks because overall I like Elden Ring but Fromsoft made late game hard for the sake of being hard, not hard for the sake of the challenge.

I had come to this conclusion myself replaying Sekiro. It's just a better game. More disciplined, satisfying experience. When I win in Sekiro it's because I learned a fight and the timings. When I won in Elden Ring, I cheated harder than the boss cheated. Winning doesn't feel good. Go back FROM, you had it right before.

Sekiro feels really rewarding to beat bosses but i love the variety elden ring brings to the combat.

There’s a lot of truth to this. Sekiro imo has an argument for the best combat of any game period, but that comes at the cost of dark souls’ rpg aspect and vice versa. great video!!

I couldn't agree more. Sekiro has a beautiful, finely honed combat system; there's a fantastic learning curve where you go from feeling this is almost impossible to that point where it clicks and you start to almost instinctively pick the rhythm of the dance-like fights, while it still provides a fulfilling challenge. In Elden Ring for me most of the bosses felt like a grind where you have to painstakingly analyse the specific timings of each boss to learn dodge windows, many of which just felt really unintuitive. It broke that feeling of progression and becoming more and more of a badass. Many Elden Ring bosses are just demented, springing round like jumping jacks so that even a well timed roll often leaves you hitting thin air and they tend to spam attacks with no adequate tool like Sekiro's parry to counter that, and as a result you often have to spend ages just running and rolling around or waiting for openings. As a result I found a lot of Elden Ring's bosses just irritating. Fromsoft are very good at conditioning players through cues in their games, but here I feel that their design too often just provides an incentive to take the option of using a summon, which is also a not very fulfilling solution.

Elden Ring boss : long combo string Me : finally it stopped Boss : No bitch, AoE!

Sekiro was an out of the world experience for me. First you. hate it cause you suck but as you start getting good it feels like you've actually learned something the swords clashing and the satisfaction of those perfect parries is just offff

I started with sekiro with elden ring being my first "souls" game. I beat both games 4 times and your video is very spot on. Sekiro forced me to understand the bosses patterns and forced you to play aggro with the boss. Owl father always recovers posture unless you deliberately chase after him and stay in his face. Elden ring, while I did have fun with and still do, operates off of using OP tools such as broken weapon arts or summons that can solo the boss themselves. And while neither game is perfect, I vastly prefer sekiro for as that game forced you to actually fight the boss and insisted upon you mastering deflect. I played every build in elden ring and whole I enjoyed str+faith the most, nothing compared to straight up invalidating bosses like sword saint and owl father. That's the one thing elden ring lacks and honestly disappoints me in.

I enjoyed Elden Ring a lot, but I think it might be better if Fromsoft puts the Dark Souls/Elden Ring style to rest. Would probably be more interested in seeing them make more tight/focused games that change up the souls formula, like they did with bloodborne and Sekiro.

Watching somebody fight Melania can get very boring over time. Watching somebody fight owl or giant munky will never be boring for me

Honestly, I completely agree. After finishing my second Elden Ring playthrough I'm now going through Sekiro again and in doing so has reminded me why this is better than the Souls games. Sure I can't make my character or fashion Souls, but the combat is far and away more fair. If I died in Elden Ring I'd sometimes question if it was my fault or the game being unbalanced. Every death in Sekiro feels like it's *my* fault and I'm more than happy to take each L.

the final point that shows how better are the bosses of sekiro is by looking a guy who mastered the game defeat the bosses without making a single mistake, the bosses still perform an awesome combat that flows so smooth like a dance. Meanwhile if you look at no hit elden ring bosses you only see how pathetic they are not being able to fight back and turning into lame punching bags, a good boss has to perform a good challenge and fun fight even when you already know exactly how to beat it

I was really hesitant to get into Elden Ring after Sekiro when I heard it used Dark Souls combat. After finishing Elden Ring, I did find it underwhelming and less of a skill check and less fun. To beat ER the best way is to get overpowered. In sekiro it is possible to finish the game with no upgrades except perhaps mikiri and pure skill.

I hopped on Sekiro randomly the other day after two long all remembrances runs of Elden Ring with sub-optimal builds. I needed a break from the slog that elden ring can feel like when you aren't playing an extremely strong build. I had gotten the platinum trophy in Sekiro a little over a year ago and thought I was satisfied... But jesus, I did not expect to so quickly feel enamoured with the combat in Sekiro again. There's nothing like it, there's no combat experience in a game that compares. It paints Elden Ring's combat in such a poor light considering it's the same developers, however there is so much outside of combat in Elden Ring that make it fantastic as well. But Sekiro remains a drastically superior combat experience, just amazing work from fromsoft. I'll always be grateful for their work on that masterpiece.

Before playing Elden Ring I was like "Ha! I've completed DS, BB, DS3 and Sekiro, I won't be using none of that summoning crap". Then I realized bosses have the HP of Midir and the aggresion level of the bastard child of Pontiff Sulivhan and one Blood Starved beast.

FromSoft games have gotten progressively faster over time and they make the player faster as well to match it, Elden Ring just feels like they forgot to make the player faster too so you’re playing DS3 while the bosses are playing Sekiro which clashes in a very unappealing way

My first playthrough I did a faith build. I used the Halo Scythe and had a bunch of incantations that basically did no damage. I actually had a lot of fun, not realizing that 90% of the bosses had an absurdly high faith resist stat. I probably had to fight each boss like 30 times just because I just did no damage, but I loved the challenge and each boss felt fair enough that I didn't get that upset. Then I got to Melania, died to waterfowl dance like 10 times and respecced to use Rivers of Blood. I still really like the spectacle but jesus I wish they just made a Sekiro 2.

100% agree, you said everything I felt. Elden Ring goes downhill so fast after about the halfway point, everything stops being fun or even pretending it's skill based. It's just RNG hoping the boss doesn't break the game rules and hit you with something you literally have nothing to defend against, hoping you picked a build that isn't inherently hard countered by some B.S. boss design or your choice of grind to overlevel or cheese to win while having no fun at all.

I 100% agree. I was disappointed that they didn't go a unique route like Sekiro and just made Dark Souls 4. I think if this is your first Souls game, then it's great, but for the vets, I am also tired of the formula. Sekiro was amazing due to the need for skill and precision. Elden ring was more of puzzle you had to figure out.

This hits the nail on the head. Sekiro gives you tools to navigate combat. Elden ring's base tools are virtually useless and anyone who has played this for long enough figures out that spamming magic, ash summons, and bleed sees you laughing all the way to game completion. You dont have to get better. Only your character does.

The major difference between sekiro and elden ring, is in sekiro actually takes skill, in ER its never you and the boss its either a powerful weapon or spell or spirit ashes. And thats why sekiro will always be better then elden ring.

Agreed, sekrio is just better overall imo, and feels way more enoyable

Surprised bleed wasn't mentioned. It's basically warrior easy mode, it isn't balanced at all. Getting a bleed off chunks like a 3rd of all bosses health on proc.

what about a hub area tier list? Sekiro is probably my favorite FS game too, but the hub was sort of annoying to use with having to go through 3 loading screens at certain points (1 to go to the temple, 1 to go to Emma when she is at ashina castle, and then 1 to go back to the area you were initially at)

I was really hoping Elden ring’s combat would be closer to Sekiro, however unrealistic that may have been, but sadly it was just dark souls combat with guard counters.

I agree but I didn’t find this a surprise, I expected a drop in boss designs’ quality considering there is 150-200 of them

I love Sekiros gameplay. As you said, its a rythm game. Rythm games feel *good*. My perfect input gets rewarded. And each Boss has its unique rythm, which helps making them stand out not just audiovisually, but also haptically. I still remembered my inputs for Sekiro Bosses like Owl when i was picking up the game today a year after i last fought them. I also love Dark Souls and liked Elden Ring, and i see ER as a nice evolution from DS3 combat, and its amazing what weapons exist in that game, and how they each are presented if given proper animations. One of the reasons Katanas are so popular is because their moveset animations are grounded in how katanas would be actually used vs uninspired wild swinging, am i right, straight swords?) And considering that ER and Sekiro run on similar source code, or at least seem to be, and that theyve been done by the same devs with similar systems; imagine a game by them where both combat systems were an option a player could switch between at will, or, depending on how design is executed, at each bonfire etc if you so will. Ive had that thought for a while now, and i know its not as easy as it may sound, as it would require alot more dev attention at enemy design, but still, i like the idea. ps, the Sekiro comparison to Malenia i always draw is phase 1 of Inner Genichiro, not the Centipides, due to the humanoid opponent, ai and special move similarities. But its a good point.

I started a New play through of Elden Ring after messing around for a week with random shit. I did a pure strength Claymore build with Lion's Claw And it was so much fun as every boss was enjoyable with the versatile Claymore moveset. Claymore is Baemore 💗

I completely agree They created these absolutely awesome, but totally busted bosses in elden ring, with hardly anyway to respond to their insane attacks. Very discouraging

For me Elden Ring is Dark Souls 2 the sequel. Tries to experiment and be new but fall short either because of bad execution or because they couldn't commit and instead became lackluster

Cant beat Sekiro. Elden Ring still has hope in its expansions, but Sekiro is pretty close to perfect. Not only that, but the story is much more engrossing, whereas ER there is a huge sprawl of characters which are difficult to care much about. Sekiro had everything. From should just abandon the ties to Dark Souls combat, only retain the gear/spells/weapons. Having Mikiri counters and parry as a guard tool/posture break is much more dynamic and rewarding in every way.

100% agree with you, I didnt get very far in Elden Ring as I quickly realized it was just a dodge and roll simulator compared to Sekiro. Also watching you spam parry even when out of combat with the centipede was hilarious. Its truly terrifying being locked in that small room with that thing, that is until you get the parry down when you proceed to shit on the boss repeatedly, wherein lies the beauty of Sekiro.

Elden Ring has a parry system and it’s trash, cause you’re not parrying the weapon you have to parry the enemies hand which means you have to be up close and personal, why in the hell would they make a simple mechanics so hard, oh yea so they can appease their “git gud” fans, As much as I love Elden Ring at some point I had to admit a lot of the mechanics in the game is just stupid and pointless and are done just to create some artificial difficulty.

Just had this experience with maliketh today where he input reads any new spell I used and used the spinning getsuga tenshou attack. I had to resort to just using my DMGS cause any spell like adulas moonblade just got me input read, and so did any flasks. Eventually I got him but I used the same attack 8 times

Can't agree more. When I finished Sekiro first time I couldn't wait to begin a new journey and fight those amazing bosses again ... unlike Elden Ring's bosses. There's almost not a single moment in a Sekiro boss fight that you are wasting away by idly waiting for the boss to wait for your move! You are always "engaged." In Elden Ring's bosses however you wait quite a lot either by running away so the bosses may choose to finish their combos or by baiting that one attack that has a semi-guaranteed opening ... And that's just sad. If you choose not to, you are basically forced into limited options which could be incompatible with your build. And yes, the Spirit Ash system, as much a cool concept as it is, is fundamentally flawed. Soulsborne games have always been designed for 1v1 fights; or at least the available tools are only pointing to that direction. The same thing is true for enemies/bosses as well. Summoning a Spirit Ash is to answer the question: "Would like to face the boss's ass for a minute or two?" or if you stay back while the summon fights: "Would you like to fight the boss with 70% of its health?" I honestly think it's insulting 😀 or at least a deeply flawed design. So yeah, Sekiro was something else.

Great video. People were so obsessed how this game is not like an Ubisoft game that they completely ignore and give a pass to it's many flaws. Elden Ring unfortunately is among my least favorite FS game.

Someone needs to put Malenia in Sekiro. That would be a boss just as fun as Isshin

I agree with mostly everything I think Sekiro is the best from software game and though I love it I can't ignore some flaws when I replay the game. The fact that remnant menu is a button instead of being in the pause menu drives me crazy if it was in the menu it could of freed up a button on controller to allow a switch combat arts button by pressing down on the dpad and move earsdrop/touch remnant to left pause button. And only 3 prosthetic tool slots instead of 8 slots with a weapon wheel, Sekiro would be so much better if you could have 8 combat arts and prosthetic tools equiped at the same time.

What's the outro music?

I heard somewhere that the long arm Giraffe is an adaptation of a basic Kendo exercise. If that's true then it's pretty cool to see how they apply certain real life ideas to the game

I came back to reply ds3 this week for the first time in months and I can easily say that it has the most fun fair and unique boss fights I,ve ever encountered, and while I think sekiro,s and elden ring,s main bosses are great and fromsoft really went all out in thier design ds3 still a special gem and it deserves more love, sister friede midir and especially gael are still the most fun and memorable fights in the series for me

its weird that elden ring doesnt have the sekiro parry mechanic since it has a posture mechanic (bosses getting staggered)

elden ring biggest failure is the open world. you will ALWAYS be either overlevelled or underlevelled for bosses. If you head straight to margit, you'll be underlevelled, if you explore limgrave somewhat fully, you'll be overlevelled. The world design imo didn't lend itself to an organic progression where you're at a decent level at the time of encountering a boss. The only real solution is to consciously make sure that you re-visit the boss every 5 levels to make sure you don't overlevel. The bosses are way too aggressive which is bad when your only option is to keep rolling which become very boring when you have to roll for 10 sec > get 2 hits > roll for 10 sec again. previous souls games had smaller combos which made it feel even. Finally, summons are literally a joke, some of them are so dumb that they can SOLO BOSSES. having access to a tool that literally solos bosses is just bad design no two ways about it. unless this is fromsoft's way of sneaking in an easy mode without angering the fanbase

Sekiro is hard while being FAIR. Elden Ring’s whole difficulty is that is UNFAIR.

Great video, I agree with you 100%. Btw the owl ost you used gave me goosebumps, it's sooo good

The skill check for me was Genishiro..and man..it is a fun fight once you get it right...

In Elden Ring you have more freedom of builds, but this leads to an unfun combat system. I think if the deflect system was in Elden Ring will change drastically the experience in every combat. Just making an ash of war or something like that. We have tools like Sekiro (mist raven) but the other only way to evade is rolling (again xD) The counterguard is an ok tool, but combined with deflect will be an amazing experience. In ER, most bosses recieve 3-4 hits and they feel nothing, and in Sekiro almost every attack you do, they react at it and they even parry you. The combat feels more alive and the bosses more intelligent. Elden Ring is an amazing game and has some of the most amazing bosses (Margit, Maliketh, Radahn...), but the way you can battle them is not that fun. It feels outdated.

So much truth in here. I am doing my first play through in Sekiro after spending way too many hours in elden ring looking things up to finally beat it. Even when I look some things up for bosses in sekiro, I still have to get better in order to utilize the way to beat the boss. The cheesy mechanics still take timing skill as well.

The whole game feels like it was built around spirit ashes, huge mobs of enemies that do way more damage than basic mobs should scattered everywhere, hyper aggressive bosses that do a 10 hit anime combo and them immediately just cancel out into another move and have about twice as much health as any comparable boss in previous games for no real reason. It really feels like going into any fight without using spirit ashes is just intentionally gimping yourself when spirit ashes should feel like a helping hand for less experienced players.

Elden ring is my first Souls game and I love it but I'm on ng+6 and have done everything now waiting for dlc. Is this game worth getting 3 years later for someone new to the Souls games.

I played both games and got all the trophies in Sekiro, but I hate this idea of gatekeeping how the game should be played such as shaming players for using sprite ash, I mean if they are part of the game then may as well use them rather then leave them in the dark caz why else collect them? and collect the upgrades item for them

Sekiro is the peak of From games for me, and I have three bosses to prove it. Like you said, the long arm centipede as a parry skill-check, Genichiro as a general combat skill-check, and Corrupted Monk as the tempo/rhythm skill-check. Not to mention that in Sekiro, you SOLELY dictate the tempo of the fight, if you're aggressive, it's nonstop inputs, but if you're passive and... hesitant, then the fight will feel slow, clunky, and weird. ;;Had to edit my comment to bring up the fact that Sekiro's combat is so great that you could load it up at any time and whoop a boss you're confident with, because unlike Dark souls where its just timing the roll, you've learned every attack string, the timing for parries, what attacks will trigger a follow-up perilous, etc. Yesterday I beat inner father in 2 tries after a week of not playing and I shocked myself LMAO

I only use melee builds in souls anyway. Id take sekiros amazing combat system with expertly tuned balancing and expertly crafted tight level design over build variety any day.

I’m just gonna say that I think every single boss in Sekiro is better than eden rings bosses because elden ring crams so much bullshit into its bosses. I know Sekiro has some bullshit moments but the bosses can be really annoying, buts not bullshit hard, it’s good game design hard because you can actually read their movements and overcome those bosses.

Sekiro was my first Fromsoftware game, and my favourite. I just wish an average game cycle would be longer since you could play through sekiro in about 50 hours and have seen almost everything, in your first playthrough.

I love the flexibility of customization and experimentation in elden ring, you can be anything you want in term of your build, although I do agree the combat system can be better but with correct build you may not need to roll dodge every attack or you may have almost infinite stamina to be able to roll dodge every attack. And I love sekiro too, especially the combat system which is so satisfying and rewarding but it is less flexible in term of customization and experimentation of your character in which for me, it is a little bit of a turn off. TBF, I love both game and would definitely replay both sekiro and elden ring for long time. Honestly, they are different in various aspects where personal preferences play an important role in deciding which game is the best.

Sekiro: the devs want you to get good Elden Ring: the devs want you to explore to get cheese items/skills

The only builds i really like in elden ring are faith builds mainly using all the frenzy incantations and vykes spear aswell as also using the bolt of granssax and lightning incantations other then that i dont think theres much else thats interesting build wise

I 100% agree, Sekiro is a masterpiece and I adore it. Elden Ring was my first FS game, ive always wanted to play their games but never got around to it. I then played DS1 and 3 and then Sekiro and the latter has taken the cake by a convincing margin. Elden Ring is great for the exploration and novelty on the first experience, but I haven’t even finished a second play through. After playing Sekiro I don’t want to go back to souls like combat. It is just too damn satisfying getting perfect deflections, mikiri counters, and things like lightning reversals to absolutely destroy your opponent in flawless fashion. The sacrifice of build variety and rpg elements is absolutely made up for in how carefully balanced and focused the game is. They don’t just give you busted weapons, they teach you the skills you will have to learn and use to overcome the challenge, that is the peak of FS’s philosophy; you gain a sense of accomplishment and triumph. I played DS1 before this and that game was laughably easy until the very end in the DLC and even then doesn’t compare to the experience that Sekiro has given me.

Elden Ring is the first Soulsborne game I was actually able to progress in and it was thanks to the spirit ashes. Im not one of the people who is a Souls veteran so Elden Ring was one of the hardest games I've ever played. The way I see it, if something is in the game then I'm going to use it for its intended purpose. Spirit ashes are in the game to assist you so that's what I use them for. Player summons are for assists or duels, so that what I use them for. If you don't like using them because you like the challenge then that's perfectly fine. Im not one for doing things the hard way and I usually take the easy way out. I am aware that sounds stupid and confusing when Im playing a game like Elden Ring, and when I beat an insanely hard boss like the Fire Giant, Malekith, or the Godskin Duo, I don't feel satisfied because I know there's going to be something harder later on. You may think I'm crazy for playing Elden Ring with these things in mind and maybe I am, but the bottom line is that if something like player or NPC summons exist then I am going to exploit them.

Casuals eulogize Elden Ring open world because you don't have to "Bash your head against a boss until you do beat it." Elden Ring sucks because old guard is forsaken in favor of casual market. Shortcomings of game design are not artistic failures. We are sold out.

Margit really impressed me my first time playing the game and he still does. Him and his counterpart Morgot are examples of how Dark Souls style boss design should be. Combos that can flow between different moves with a good balance of quick attacks and long wound up heavies that mess with your timing and make you panic, allowing for players to get in good damage regardless of your weapon class and showcase both their reactions and knowledge, but punishing them for being greedy as opposed to just punishing them for daring to use a slow weapon. Godrick is a great boss well, and as much as people complain about them the Godskin bosses on their own also do this quite well.

7:50 The only way this reliably works is with a great spear or great thrusting-sword, otherwise you won't have the damage or the stagger to deal with her healing.

I feel like the biggest issue for me in most from soft games is one/two shots from bosses even in sekiro with max health you can get hit more than twice without healing. Like I wanna do elden ring but getting one shot with a massive health bar fucking blows

Long Arm Centipede doesn't even need you to learn any timings. You just need to start mashing deflect the moment he attacks and a big chunk of his poster is just gone. Heck its even rewarding if you don't time stuff perfectly because of how he finishes his swipe combo with a delayed attack that's followed up with a perilous sweep if you parry it. But if you don't, you get to land a few hits, which by that point will instantly net you the deathblow. I'd say Genichiro would be the best skill check in Sekiro since he's the first test of whether or not you learned the game mechanics. They even put up that Ashina Cross spammer right before him to remind you that parrying is something you should be doing. This is where Malenia disappoints because it appears that her design has an identity crisis between classic slow and methodical Dark Souls gameplay or the aggressive style Elden Ring wants to encourage with status, Ashes of war, and other tools.

If malenia’s waterfowl dance was in sekiro, everyone would just throw something to knock her out of the air with the bonus damage for hitting an enemy off the ground with a ranged weapon

I think there are so misleading information in the video. While I agree that in general the boss designs are on the lesser side in Elden Ring, it is disingenuous to say that you "only have a dodge roll". The game also has a parry, block, invulnerable ashes of war and your jump has lower body invulnerability. Some moves are design so that the player can jump over them to land a jump-in counter-attack, some boss strings have long winded/delayed move in-between that are there as a parry opportunities. But yeah, Sekiro has a much more polished fighting system and bosses designs. But it only has ONE fighting system/mechanics to take into account.

I had ent have that feeling of satisfaction after beating a tough encounter like I did with sekiro. I remember the first time I fought lady butterfly it took me days to kill her, now I can beat her without breaking a sweat and it’s all because of my skill with the game improving.

so we can actually hope that if Devs want to improve they need to make an elden ring like game with sekiros mechanics and maybe add more weapons (not too much tho). what i mean is that a mix of elden ring and sekiro will be an improvement.

I’m not sure why half the fandom headcanons spirit summons as being an intentional decision by fromsoft to patch up the boss design just because they don’t like them. Has anyone considered it being their way of adding an easy mode to the game and making it more accessible to new players? There are select examples of poor boss design such as Malenia’s waterfowl (there’s still usable counters that let you avoid all damage such as ice pots that instantly proc and cancel her out of it, bloodhound step, safer play style, shields, etc but regardless not being able to roll out of it from certain distances is dumb), morgott feeling like he has too little openings (though I once thought the same of Maliketh until I used CE to study the fight and found plenty opportunites while he’s performing attacks), and a couple others. But on the whole every boss is extremely doable with a regular weapon and have plenty of openings. People create the narrative that bosses range from impossible/unfair -> very easy when in reality it’s just standard fromsoft difficulty -> very easy. The only difference from past games to Elden Ring is you’re able to make the game easier in many ways if you so choose, which I believe was an intentional decision by Miyazaki as he’s stated ER to likely be their easiest game due to the player’s freedom in build choice. I’ve never felt compelled to use broken or strong builds in Elden Ring or any other Fromsoft game, rather whichever build creates the most enjoyable experience. And since nearly every build works I don’t feel crunching on the op ones is my only option. Overall it seems more like a preference than a good vs bad. With Sekiro you’re stuck with just your katana and a few core mechanics such as mikiri, parrying, jumping, etc, making for a tighter combat experience. The appeal of souls game despite their simplistic nature is the variety of builds in which you can employ making every subsequent playthrough wholly unique while Sekiro’s is more repetitious (yes there’s combat arts and prosthetics but on the whole they’re underwhelming and you can get away with the core mechanics with little to no change in difficulty). I love both approaches equally, while I may not replay sekiro too often given it can feel stale after a bit, I constantly replay the inner bosses as they really are peak boss design. The sheer freedom in how you approach the game and what build you make has led to me beating Elden Ring 5 times already, though now I’ve been burnt out a bit from it for different issues I have with the game. I do think that the extent to which Elden Ring is unbalanced compared to past souls games is an issue. It’s sort of a diet version of easy mode, with how broken many builds are, much of the experience can be trivialized. Fromsoft have always stated the difficulty of their games comes from a desire to create a great sense of accomplishment within the player but giving so many busted options while amusing can destroy that experience. That’s not to say that feeling of accomplishment is the only thing you get out of souls games but you do lose out on a core part of it. Builds like comet azur that take out bosses in 10 seconds and other builds to a less extreme degree rob the player of engaging with the boss’s mechanics and any sense of triumph. It’s hilarious that people used to say that the sellsword twinblades trivialized DS3 when in Elden Ring it would just be a moderately strong weapon.

Remember that one red-eyed samurai sitting in the castle, the one who drew his sword INSANELY fast with a double slash? THAT was peak challenge in Sekiro, aside from Sword Saint Isshin maybe. Parrying that slash was incredibly hard, especially since he did it multiple times during the fight, but pulling it off was incredibly fun and rewarding.

Someone doesn’t know how to fight Elden ring bosses.. That said sekiro is the goat

and actually mikiri counter does happen at the press of a single button

I wonder if someone is planning on moding Sekiro combat in the game.

Comparing an action adventure with 1 weapon and build with a massive open world rpg with huge variety of approaches. Apples and oranges.

Rather than just learning patterns, if the game was more dynamic in a way that made you read and react, it would be even better.

Who would win Wolf or Malenia? Curious as to everyone’s input

I think Sekiro is the tighter, better designed experience. But it's also a different experience. As Miyazaki himself said one os an action adventure and the other os a RPG Action game. Since Demons Souls the souls series has all been about build variety and freedom of choice. Each game has had OP mechanics and options to make games easier. Sure, it was less straightforward Summoning in the Dark Souls series, and (starting with Bloodborne) They made it easier. But the Summoning system was still there. And it did make all bosses much easier than without. Often allowing you to hold onto more resources for future Co-op sessions. I always feel like they've been more unwieldy and less refined but more of a "make your own fun" or "design your own prefered way to play" experiences. So Sekiro bosses are better on average because I prefer the restricted directed approach. But Elden Ring has great and memorable bosses within its own playground. As did games like Demons Souls before. And to be honest I had quite a bit of fun playing ER the "Sekiro" way as dodge rolls felt a bit like deflect timing. What I'm saying is I don't know how far you can take this argument. As plenty of people don't like Sekiro and it's restrictive playstyle. I think it says more about game design that speaks to you rather than which ones is an inherently better experience

Finally the voice of reason. Elden Ring's difficulty really is a joke in it of itself. The games only as hard as you make it. Which is why I prefer Sekiro because it doesn't compromise on the difficulty and the boss design in that game is nothing but perfect.

Genishiro in the tower is my favorite boss fight in all Souls games. Why? It teach you how to play the whole game, but is follow by the guardian ape who basically ask you to forgot all of that lol.

I wish there were way more humanoid bosses than beast type bosses and enemies. But absolutely agree Sekiro style combat > Elden Ring Combat

Dark Souls 3 ends the franchise with a glorious boss celebrating nearly ten years of genre defining game dssign. What do they have planned for Elden Ring? Dark Souls 4 but worse.

my number 1 without a doubt is sekiro this game Is all on you no help from summons just pure skill and u feel in control and it feels so damn satisfying because you yourself didn't rely on broken builds or summons just your raw reaction times and creativity with the weapon arts tools help you but not forced on you but they do help alot when used properly elden ring ...it's just frustration after frustration constantly feeling confused doing less damage to those god awful reused to fk gargoyles because if u have a bleed build u do lesser dmg and on the tougher ones it's just not fun when u do low dmg and they just take away 90% of your health ? that's one of many problems I can tell you. wow it sure is a skill issue when I beat captain Niall in less than 5 attempts a tough boss for alot of people but hey I'm garbage ..this isn't about skill it just gets frustrating fighting many reused enemies that just hit you so hard but u do crap dmg I was lvl 90-95 when I beat Niall the recommended lol was around my lvl but that was bs my strategy was to hit him once with a dodge attack when he did the lunge ice attack and repeat for a while because I was doing so little dmg this game punishes you for using the wrong builds on certain bosses the game is designed off of summons I hate summons I absolutely hate them because they are the reason the bosses were designed this way if the bosses weren't like this then I would be fine with them . it's just so bizarre how people give it a 10/10 it's a beautiful game will do more playthroughs but with raw dmg because you know why...but cmon they are tainting the greats like sekiro and bloodborne when they say this game is perfect. and that's another thing bloodborne has coop but even being able to summon they make it more than fair because u can easily die as a summon because u take alot of dmg from bosses the problem ds3 had with summons is that ds3 bosses with summons was a joke. never wanted to be frustrated with elden ring but man they failed this open world game bosses in questionable difficulty and reused..

Sekiro definetely deserve its sequel.

Elden Ring has big faults, but breathing up Sekiro's ass doesn't solve them. Instead of tens of hours of exploration in a breathtaking world where nearly every location is fking awesome, Sekiro has two remotely decent looking places, one being Bodhisattva Valley, and the other the start of Fountainhead Palace. Pretty much everywhere else looks subpar for a FromSoft game. The main character has an established past and personality, it's just that he'd be better off being another silent protagonist. Kuro is a bad annoyance at best, and Wolf does shit like ruining the feeling of finally overcoming Ashina Castle Owl for the first time with his dialogue. "Death of a shadow.. You thought me well", like wtf just shut up?? Stealth deathblows would be cool if you didn't have to use the terrible stealth system to get them. Rot shouldn't exist. They took away soul retrieval in favor of a terrible parkour system and flashed out rpg elements for a pointless revive system. They are just unfulfilling to use. Finally, here's a list of bosses with major flaws that don't teach you anything and you probably don't even remember the existence of (if you haven't done a replay in the last 6 months): -Chained Ogre -Chained Ogre 2 -Blazing Bull -Sakura Bull of the Palace -Lone Shadow Longswordsman -Lone Shadow Masanaga the Spear-Bearer -Lone Shadow Vilehand -Lone Shadow Masanaga the Spear-Bearer 2 -Seven Ashina Spears - Shikibu Toshikatsu Yamauchi -Seven Ashina Spears - Shume Masaji Oniwa -Juzou the Drunkard -Tokujiro the Glutton -Juzou the Drunkard 2 -Shigekichi of the Red Guard -Headless -Headless 2 -Headless (Underwater) -Headless 3 -Headless Duo (Underwater) -Shichimen Warrior -Shichimen Warrior 2 -Shichimen Warrior 3 -General Tenzen Yamauchi -Long-arm Centipede Sen'un (on here for reuse) -Snake Eyes Shirahagi (again, mainly reuse, but this one is leagues worse than Shirafuji) -Headless Ape (the duo one with the wife added) -Mist Noble -Owl (Father) (the Hirata Estate one) -Corrupted Monk (the real one) -Okami Leader Shizu -Old Dragons of the Tree (technically separate from the Divine Dragon) -Ashina Elite - Ujinari Mizuo And I was being very considerate here.

I just saw this game for the first like a month ago. After i finish Elden ring I’m definitely getting it..

Haven't played Sekiro yet but what I can say for Elden Ring is that the design is just different. ER is a game where time spent playing the game rewards you the most, not getting better when needed. Of course spending time does make you better, but in ER the more you explore and find the stronger you get and the easier everything becomes. It's definitely not a bad idea and A LOT of people like it this way, the sales numbers speak for themselves, I can't imagine how horrible it is to boot into Sekiro to want to play a bit and just get shit on and not be able to do much else. ER is a lot better in that regard. Gonna give Sekiro a shot but honestly ER being my first souls game and it being so open world is really gonna make me miss it.

Why would you stand there when Melanie is about to do her water fowl! Get underneath her for the love of god! Then dodge backwards!

I agree with you, though I think Elden Ring vs DS3 would probably be a better comparison since Sekiro is so mechanically different in the first place

Malenia's waterfowl dance can be rolled. Besides that, you have tons of tools besides spirit ashes and damage spells. Parrying, vow of the indomitable, raptor of the mists, bloodhound's step. You need to look for the tools, instead of just mastering the tools handed to you. I played the whole game with one of the most dogwater builds in the game for lategame, fth/arcane. Most lategame bosses are immune to at least a few of your powerful status effects, not a single melee weapon scales off both of your highest stats, and all your powerful incantations are immensely slow and lacking in range compared to sorcery. I could have beat malenia by mastering vow of the indomitable or bloodhound's step, and probably a number of other ways, but what I ended up doing was going to the light weight category to juice up my rolls and using rivers of blood's range to offset the worse punish windows. Or I could have made like Let me solo her and gotten good.

Elden ring bosses are the definition of "quantity over quality"

7:54 omg !!!!! Fingerprint shield is so funny. Her cuts aren't taking your life, but she's healing anyway? hahahahahha. GOOD DESIGN

Even tho I love Elden Ring & I’ve put in hundreds of hours into it, IMHO it doesn’t come close to the level of brilliance & Perfection as something like Sekiro, Which is crazy to think about considering Sekiro was meant more as a experimental side project to Fromsoft while they were in the process developing Elden Ring as their main focus. But man Sekiro IMO had the better enemies, Better level design, Better traversal, Better combat & Just felt so much more unique. Elden Ring is still great and has plenty of epic moments, But other than some of the main bosses it just doesn’t seem like they put in the same amount of time and care to fine tune it’s bosses to perfection in regards to the games combat. One thing I’ve always said about Malenia: I think she’s a FANTASTIC boss, Her movements are so fluid and graceful, It’s like this brutal, Beautiful dance where one mistake can cut you down, So it really does require perfection, But because of Elden Rings typical souls like combat it just seems like she’s tuned for a different game. So when you attempt to engage in this seemingly beautiful duel, You just can’t rival her tempo, And more often than not if you can’t master dodging waterfowl you end up having to totally re-spec your character to some of the same broken builds that many are using already. Like if you could fight her with Sekiro combat, She’d honestly be one of my favorite bosses of all time, I always wondered why the parrying element from Sekiro wasn’t included in ER, Considering it’s supposed to be the culmination of all their games into one. Like imagine being able to stand toe to toe with its epic foes with the deflect mechanic, Having the option to dodge roll, Use spells along with all the typical Souls levels of customization, That truly would have been astounding & Given it the greatest combat in a video game. Sometimes I at least wish they could have placed some sort of special sword somewhere in her legacy dungeon room specifically for her fight, One that would give the power to deflect her quick attacks, And make for a truly epic sword fight against the undefeated swordswoman, Seriously Idc how gimmicky it sounds, I think it would have easily turned her fight into the most legendary, Memorable moment of the game, Even tho for me personally she’s still the most epic boss in the game, Even in her current state.

Watched this while killing guardian ape in a gauntlet ,I knew I wasn't crazy,sekiro is much better then ER