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Ranking the Soulsborne Bosses: No. 100-91

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Hello, and welcome to the next installment of my rankings list of the Soulsborne bosses! Previously I have gone over what I believe to have be the thirty worst bosses in the entire series, but now we have made it to the top one hundred! After a lengthy break, let's jump right in, starting with...

100) Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin (DS2)

When Dark Souls 2 first came out, players were greeted with Nashandra as a very disappointing final boss when they reached the end of the game. Fortunately(?), the base game got an update along with the release of the DLCs that introduces Aldia, an entity that jumpscares the player throughout the game and forces exposition and lore down their throats. The most noteable thing about Aldia though, is that under certain conditions, he becomes the new final boss of Dark Souls 2.

The battle with Aldia isn't all that incredible, but it is a much better final boss than Nashandra proved to be. What this battle does better is that it has a stronger buildup leading up to it, Aldia's design is much more impressionable, and his moveset during the actual fight stands out more than Nashandra's basic scythe swings and dark magic projectiles were. With that said, the nature of this fight can prove to be tedious for melee based characters. Aldia attacks mostly with projectiles, be it fire balls or odd tree limbs, and when you get up close to him, he'll cast fire around himself to force you to step back. He'll also teleport around and cause explosions around the area that he appears in. These aspects can just cause the fight to drag out, and on top of this a lot of his attacks can be easy to avoid, as Aldia isn't very aggressive. Unfortunately, Aldia still does not reach the expectations that a final boss should reach within a Souls game because of its repetitiveness and easy difficulty, but he still manages to outdo the previous final boss of Dark Souls 2 by a long shot.

 

99) Armor Spider (DeS)

If I were ever to be asked what one of the most annoying experiences I've ever had in Demon's Souls was, my mind would flash to the Armor Spider boss fight. As you're exploring the area known as Stonefang Tunnel, you'll encounter this giant arachnid in a somewhat cramped corridor that is covered in webs. The challenge is to make it all the way across the corridor to reach the stationary boss, but this can be easier said than done.

This spider will continuously spit fire balls at the player, which that by itself isn't bad. The thing is, the boss will also spew webs out at the player as well, and if you get hit, your movement is incredibly hindered for a few seconds, and you will most certainly get pelted with fire balls afterward. It's not that I find this aspect of the fight unfair or too hard, its just that I find it incredibly obnoxious whenever it occurs. When you do reach the boss, it will try to slice you with its razor sharp fangs over and over as you hit it in the face. Eventually the boss will charge up a large explosion, and so in order to avoid it, the player needs to run far away back to the other side of the corridor, only to inevitably redo the trek back to the spider while avoiding all the projectiles once more. It's not a very complex fight, but its not really a terrible one either. It just can get on my nerves from time to time, and it can easily feel tedious in nature, which is why the Armored Spider is ranked where its at on this list.

 

98) Ceaseless Discharge (DS1)

The Ceaseless Discharge is the introductory boss to the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith areas of Dark Souls, and if you have been keeping up with the previous parts of this list, you'll know that I do not hold the bosses located here in very high regard. The same can be said for the Ceaseless Discharge, but it is easily the best fight out of the bunch. I don't think the fight is all that great for gameplay reasons, but I can at the very least respect it for its design if nothing else. What you see in the picture above is only just the Ceaseless Discharge's shoulder and head, as this thing is absolutely massive! When you enter the boss arena (which is very large as well), you'll be walking along the edge of this cliff with not too much really going on. When you turn the corner and reach the other side of the cliff, you'll notice the Ceaseless Discharge standing there, only the upper half of its body peering over the cliff side. The creature will not move or even attack you, that is until you find some loot that is an armor set of an Izalith Witch. Once you pick up the set, the demon will become aggressive and the boss battle will begin.

The fight feels fairly clunky. First of all, every one of its attacks will hit incredibly hard and take out the majority of your HP just by the swing of one of its arms! Its attacks can be really hard to fully see at times, and the hitboxes are larger than they look, which can lead to many unfair feeling deaths. There is a pathway that you can take that has a bunch of cover on both sides, but this path only serves to lull the player into a false sense of security, as one of the Ceaseless Discharge's attacks can just straight up go through walls. This battle can feel really aggravating, but there is one thing I absolutely love about it. If, as soon as you grab the armor set and trigger the boss fight, you begin sprinting all the way back to the fog wall, the boss will chase you. The demon walks along a lava covered ground far below the cliff side that you are standing on, but near the entrance of the fight is a fall that goes a lot further down. In a last ditch effort to reach you, the boss will jump forward and try to slam onto you, and it will then hang onto the ledge for dear life, as there is no longer any solid ground underneath it. Once you hit its arms a few times, the demon will let go and fall to its death, instantly ending the boss fight. This method of the fight is admittedly a cop out, and it doesn't necessarily make it a good battle just because of this. But I love that it exists so much, that I couldn't help but rank the boss a bit higher than I originally would have without this exploit.

 

97) Velstadt, The Royal Aegis (DS2)

Down in the Undead Crypt of Dark Souls 2, Velstadt, the Royal Aegis guards the entrance to the room that King Vendrick resides in. Wielding a massive hammer for a weapon, he proves to be a formidable foe that hits hard. Not only does he come at the player with swift physical attacks, but his hammer also acts as a catalyst for shooting dark magic as well. Ranging from a sweet design to a nice and varied moveset, this boss would be really good under normal circumstances. Sadly, the boss is hindered quite badly by a very poor run up to it. Velstadt is a challenging boss on his own and will likely kill whoever opposes it a few times, especially on a first playthrough. This means that you'll be running though a very large corridor completely filled with enemies that are guarding the fog gate, and it is almost impossible to get past them all without fighting them. There are just so many enemies, that taking your time to fight them all will take a good few minutes as well, and can easily test your patience. Unfortunately, this run up to the fight is just so aggravating for me, and I can't help but associate the boss battle with this irritating experience.


96) Old Iron King (DS2)

During the first half of Dark Souls 2, the player is tasked with tracking down and defeating four powerful foes that possess ancient souls, souls that are required to enter Drangleic Castle and to progress with the second half of the game. One of these ancient beings is the Old Iron King, a very fearsome and intimidating looking demon. When you enter the boss fight, the demon will emerge from a lake of lava in a cutscene and the battle will begin. The Old Iron King likes to punch at the player and breathe fire down across the platform, and it will use its fists often because whenever it does, its arm will lay exposed for a bit on the ground afterward, and this is one of the main ways melee characters can actually hurt the boss. Occasionally the boss will sink into the lava and will emerge in another area to attack from different angles. This battle would have been pretty good, except for one thing...And I know this phrase has been said plenty of times already throughout this list, but its often unfortunately the case as to why some of these bosses are ranked as low as they are. The problem I have with this fight can be seen in the picture below.

The highlighted hole in the arena in that picture is the source of many, many rage inducing deaths. The platform you have to stand on during the entirety of this boss is really small and cramped, and it is so easy to roll backwards into this pit of lava and instantly die. I'm all for having situations where you need to be aware of your surroundings in boss fights, and I think such difficulty can be implemented along with a boss very well. But here, having an instant kill pit right behind you at all times, one that is often out of the sight of the camera since you'll be facing the boss, is just frustrating. It also feels terrible to have the boss land a blow on you and make your character stumble back into this hole. Very rarely does such a small portion of the arena design effect my enjoyment of a boss battle to such a degree that it does here, but its why I do not look back at this battle too fondly, despite everything else about the fight being pretty good. 

 


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