An Over-Analysis of FROM Software Boss Design: Sekiro - Shadows Die Twice

After experiencing three very dark souls and one journey into the eldrich we've finally reached my personal favorite game in from software's catalog searo Shadows die twice despite having the least build Variety in the series I've played searo more than any other game on this list by a pretty significant margin I've done speedruns clocking usually just under two hours I'm not that good at the game I've done challenge runs and I will almost certainly Play It Again plenty of times unlike the rest of the series more open worlds seo's levels are far more linear and the game places more emphasis on its boss encounters as choke points in the levels the levels build to this constant stream of bosses and mini bosses to the point where it isn't really possible to go to a new area without running into another one luckily for searo I'm of the opinion that even with the mini bosses it keeps a pretty tight quality curve so without further Ado let's dive into analyzing the design and success of the boss Encounters in searo Shadows die twice but before I do I'd like to offer a apology to how aggressively wrong some of these names are probably going to be pronounced I've looked up some pronunciation guides so I'm going to try but I wanted to put that Universal apology out there I wasn't sure if leader Shori Yamauchi should even count as a boss but I think he's got enough going on that he does deserve discussion you counter yamu II for the first time while stealthing towards Kuro before getting your sword and then have the choice to cross Blaze with him as you move back through the camp in terms of design he's just a beefed up basic enemy with two health bars and a bit more damage nothing more than that his vitality and posture are comparatively low to other bosses and he has no perilous attacks he doesn't have any non-rhythmic combos on top of that there isn't even a reward for fighting him he might as well just be another enemy who happens to have two health bars on the first place through however yamu Uchi does serve as the game's tutorial boss in a way he introduces double death blows to the player while putting you against a foe that requires you to engage with the deflecting system every other enemy in this area dies in Two attacks or has their posture broken by a single deflection Yami takes long breaks between his attacks particularly compared with later mini bosses which means he will struggle to overwhelm a new player in a single combo it's a great way to get a firsttime player into the game while giving them just a little taste of what searo will later have to offer because of that I do give him a c grade he can't get higher because he is violently simplistic but serving at the end of a tutorial of a game so complicated and being so accessible means that he does his job with Grace as the first general you encounter namori karada walks another difficult line of Design After Gano showed you firsthand how to man in this game plans to eventually become in the tutorial encounter Colorada has the role of introducing the core gameplay Loop building new levels of complexity while being far more accessible than the rush that gicho provided though it's a strange line to walk I think karata does a solid job his move set isn't too complicated but he has more options than any other enemy up to this point save that aformentioned tutorial fight with gito he boasts the game's first perilous attacks and a posture regenerating move that will extend the fight if you fail to keep pressure on his standard attacks aren't abnormal and most of his attacks keep the standard deflection rhythm with only one gourd use at this point however the margin for air in this fight is unusually thin for an early game encounter but his Arena does a great job providing unique paths to stealth around and death blow off one of his health bars though you could technically do the same thing to Yami in the tutorial the risk of having to fight a more difficult boss twice in a row with so few resources is a very potent way to to force players to start to engage with the stealth mechanics in regards to taking away a health bar of a mini boss the best designed move in his Arsenal however is easily his posture regenerating move in order to avoid losing progression in the boss fight since posture is usually how you'll kill this guy the player either needs to stay in melee to keep attacking or make use of the new shuriken tool this immediately demonstrates the purpose for the prosthetic tool you just found this fight both encourages stealth prior to mini boss fights and aggression within Danger ous encounters both skills that are required to succeed in searo it is a solid piece of design that is simple enough to be understood by a new player making them feel a little bit better after the Butcher House that was ganito while still having enough depth to pose a real threat I'd give General karada a b-grade overall though simple compared to later battles he poses a challenge for new players and an important enough reward in the gourd seed to be a satisfying first real encounter for a new player and a worthwhile Endeavor on later runs in Dark Souls it was the Bell Gargoyles in bloodborne it was father gascoin and in searo the first real brick wall is the chained ogre the player learns about his weakness to fire through an easy defined EES drop hint and then proceeds to watch the ogre break out grab them and likely fling them immediately off a cliff well doing 90% of their health in a single blow despite not being in the core boss roster I think the chain ogre is in intention for being the hardest fight in the entire game particularly on a first playthrough even though other late game fights obviously Eclipse it in terms of Demands of the players the fact that the chained ogre appears so early and with so few other options to do prior to facing him means that he is still in solid contention for that title the only way to get a stealth death blowoff is to either run away and wait for him to forget about you for a moment or use a sugar to stealth up a strategy new players often won't want to try since consumables are not notoriously intimidating on a first playthrough the end result of this is that a majority of players will end up fighting the chain ogre straight out two health bars no tricks no skips his posture bar is absolutely massive and deflecting his melee attacks is frankly terrifying meaning new players will focus on evasion taking the boss down by emptying its Continental health bar instead of dealing posture damage this is one of the only bosses in the game that this happens by the way he will make no attack to block anything you do which means that it's easy to tell when you can hit him however his grab attackes have huge occasionally shitty hit boxes and deal just short of your full health bar worth of damage he leaps towards you snaps down charges all of these will kill you if your health is not maxed out with only two healing items at the absolute most and the difficulty that comes with taking a health bar while you're in stealth that means this fight will allow two mistakes one that you heal from one you bring yourself back from the dead with and that's of course assuming he doesn't immediately throw you to your death the big lesson being taught here in my opinion is prosthetic tools the chained ogre wants you to head into the harata estate and find the flame barel it makes this fight significantly easier he is staggered out of almost every single move in his Arsenal by the flame barrel and his stagger gives you enough time to land a few hits on top of that he gets burned in only two hits taking additional posture damage and recovering slower if you use the barrel well you can pretty easily take out one of the ogre's health bars with almost no push back it puts a heavy emphasis on evees dropping in the future and shows how much the right tool can give you a critical advantage in this game though it's a divisive fight I do personally adore the design of the chain ogre and think he is an easy a grade boss he is intimidating encourages unique mobility and more than anything else he is one of the most satisfying bosses to master in the game and as your reward for taking down the chain ogre you are immediately dropped into another boss fight with a completely opposing concept whereas the chain ogre was a single Unstoppable foe Al be with a couple mobs in the area nearby you are now facing General tenzen yuchi that's right it's already time for the second General mini boss but this time he has a horde of allies and if you don't guess the right direction to stealth immediately the bell ringer will set off the alarm and the entire Courtyard will begin Chasing After You tensen Yamauchi is infinitely more straightforward than the chained over the most dangerous enemies the general included move pretty slowly so running around and picking them off even with the alarm raised isn't ever overwhelming the area leans in the player's favor on top of that with a single jump and wall bounce you can climb this wall and force the general to walk all the way around to reach you again letting you fight off a lot of his simpler mobs alone he feels almost randomly dropped into this Arena particularly considering how silly it is to watch him slowly walk around the wall while you kill his men the tension you expect from searo fights isn't here as much as it is in the best mini bosses I think he earns a high C grade with a better buildup he might score better but his decent move set and interesting Arena do keep the fight from ever becoming too dull after this collection of very solid mini bosses at the start of the game the first main boss in the game introduces himself as significantly more important in a very memorable manner my name is gyobu masataka oniwa gyobu masataka oniwa or gyobu the demon as he's called by his minions has a astonishing introduction and it's not just because it's funny it's just really good you leap down to the gate of ashina Castle and it opens up to allow this horse riding Spearman to challenge you among burning piles of corpses of every single person who tried before you his cape is still drenched in Blood and he rides around the arena far faster than you can move or anything else you've seen in the game prior before the battle even begins it is clear that this is the greatest foe you faced up to this point even if the ogre May technically hit harder than guobo does and after nailing the atmosphere guobo also does a solid job in terms of his raw mechanics his introduction serves not only as a fun character beat but also as a choice for the player do you prepare yourself or do you interrupt and start to deal Vitality damage his attacks can almost all be deflected and the camera does a decent job trying to keep him on screen at all times there are definitely some problem points but it never gets to the point where it's unplayable the sound design team also deserves a massive nod here you can hear his Spears start to swing before it is about to connect and when you combine that with the camera accommodations it's somehow always clear what's happening despite the fact that this man is one horse higher than you kobu has two modes charging around where he's either spinning his spear or charging directly at you or he's smashing around him with jumps and slams encouraging deflections to deal some posture damage the second mode may be far more dangerous but it's the one you want as it's what you'll need in order to raise his posture to end the fight faster he also has an EES dropped weakness in firecrackers but unlike the ogre where the fire was a shortcut there's a lot more Happening Here If you use firecrackers too many times gyobu will start to use a Counterattack after he's staggered that comes out ridiculously fast if you figure out the timing of this Counterattack you end up being able to force him into an another deflection which makes the firecrackers have a higher skill ceiling but be even more rewarding I really love this kind of design it keeps the use of the tools from becoming spammy while still rewarding players for using them wisely finally yobu has some great story design in terms of the overall game he's the first boss and he's not really one of the most important characters in the lore but the spear he wields was given to him by isasha and it's the same spear that was used in the introductory cutscene I love the small details like this in SEO because they go such a long way to detailing out the world to making even this sliver we see seem real and full considering the importance that the game Story begins to put on the history of the weapons that you wield it ends up being a topical way to provide a lore importance for a boss that doesn't have nearly as much as some of the more personal fights when this all comes together guobo serves as an incredible introduction to the major memory boss fights that is boss fights that provide a memory which is what I'm classifying as full bosses now with that said there are a couple of issues namely that his AI can occasionally just give up he'll charge away from you and then he'll just keep charging away from you and charging away from you and charging and charging and charging straight into the wall and he will hit you if you try to interrupt him it's also possible you can get a fight where he keeps leaving melee combat quickly which can lead to the encounter getting dragged out to getting close to the point of TDM but that's pretty rare despite that however I really enjoy this fight gyobu masataka oniwa earns an a grade though one of the simpler memory bosses guobo has so much going on that he stays in the player's head long after he's been taken down off his high [Music] horse after you've traveled back in time to the harata estate a sentence that will seem outright bizar to anyone who has not played this game before we find one of the few unique mini bosses in the game the Shinobi Hunter enin of Misan this is one of a very small selection of mini bosses that only appear in a single boss encounter with the Shinobi Hunter becoming an elite rare mob after the battle and may I just say good [ __ ] riddance from a design standpoint the Shinobi Hunter is a mcki counter test most of his moves are thrusts and using the mkiri counter absolutely shatters his posture in just a couple of uses this mechanical test however is one of the only ones in the early game that I believe searo fails to execute the run back first of all is one of the longest in the game there are archers Shield Warriors and a massive group of bandits in his arena with one archer in particular being incredibly tough to sneak up on without using a consumable item which again firsttime players will probably not use trying to get past a single Archer makiri counters are much more difficult to land with multiple enemies since you can be hit out of the Dodge that initiates the mury so this swarm of enemies ends up confusing the fights in tent worse than that though is that the Shinobi Hunter is frankly a really bad teacher for how the makiri counter works the Shinobi Hunter has a combination of thrusts and sweeps and they aren't easy to tell apart his standard attacks all come out really fast and the timing on pairing spear attacks are naturally more difficult than sword strikes due to the delay an even bigger issue is that his thrusts are somehow the least satisfying thrusts to mkiri counter in the entire game namely because his charges seem to have two phases the attack he does a charge which ends with the thrust you can deflect the charge but then you get hit by the thrust but if you mcir too early you get double hit you get hit by the charge as you dodge into it and then you get hit by the thrust afterwards because you were no longer mcir countering even after playing this game dozens of times I will still take damage on what felt like a correct mcui it doesn't sell you on the importance of this absolutely critical move so the horde of makes it difficult to learn how to execute the maneuver the run back means players will avoid risks within the fight itself and he fails to even properly teach his mechanic as an independently Le he'd only be given a low DeGray because he does technically function but as a boss as a mechanical Endeavor the Shinobi Hunter earns an f grade being both a required battle to get through harata estate and a failed tutorial means that he fails to serve any role to any level of player juo the drunkard is a difficult boss to analyze in terms of move set the drunker boasts one of my favorites in the game their sword strikes are intimidating and heavy and their raw size makes them feel more significant than many bosses like the generals or Shinobi Hunter the poison breath is punishing yes but it also rewards aggressive play if you can manage to get behind him and Whittle down that massive health bar when you combine that with the aesthetic of the burning harata estate in the background as this monster of a bandit rushes towards you you end up with a far above average boss fight that would be if there weren't so many mobs in this freaking arena there is an NPC here to help but if he dies at all in any attempt which he most certainly will I promise you that then he is gone for good there are shield Bandits to block your attacks axe Bandits with hyper armor Bandits with fire arrows that will inflict burning and then you suddenly have your posture broken and you don't know why because you have no idea what this condition's doing yet all while you're fighting a mini boss whose aggression is second only to the chain ogre at this point in the game taking the mobs out isn't even a real option as juo is positioned in such a way that there aren't many enemies you can take out without using the consumable items and every time you fight you have to do all of it again if there were less mobs or if they were more carefully placed around the arena to allow for stealth takedowns I'd score juo higher but a b-grade is all I can give him and almost all of that is coming from his individual design as a single enemy when you look back over the game after you've beaten everything lady butterfly is one of the easiest bosses in the game but despite that in my first playthrough there was no boss who killed me as many times as this kunai wielding Bingo playing illusion summoning old lady the first thing this fight does well is the atmosphere guobo had a great presence yes but lady butterfly is the first fight in searo that has the wow factor the burning basement with the Golden Buddha statue the music it all comes together so beautifully in no short part due to the beautiful buildup to her encounter the introduction cut scene does a great job implying the connection with wolf and that low shot of the two facing off against each other as the room Burns is just perfect her design is unique and her actor Nails this taunting voice that Echoes throughout the entire encounter in terms of mechanics she is probably the most defensive boss in this game she will switch to deflecting almost instantly meaning dealing Vitality damage is incredibly difficult thankfully she also has a really bad posture recovery so deflections and keeping engaged are the best way to keep her down this works well to keep you in melee the rhythm of deflecting and attacking her is just so satisfying to learn she stays right in your face and there are these fun gaps in her attacking as she spins for a kick adding an unique Rhythm to the sword fight she stays right in in your face and there are these fun gaps in the rhythm of the fight as she does these spins for a kick it adds in some confusions to the expected rhythm of Sword fights within the game which is what the best bosses in this game do her prosthetic weakness is also one of my favorites I mentioned the back and forth that kobo's firecracker weakness had and lady butterflies works pretty similarly well whenever she leaps into the air if you hit a shuriken before she lands she falls to the ground allowing you to get some actual Vitality damage out if she's made it up on the wires however she'll deflect the shuriken and stay up for longer recovering more posture again it increases the skill of using Tools in combat rather than just pressing a win button it also serves to reward players who are trying to stay in close combat all the time however despite having all this going in her Corner lady butterfly is also a deeply flawed boss her second phase is a fun fake out yes with her seemingly only having one health bar but returning for a second bar anyway but the general flow of the boss fight is broken by most of her new moves she can summon these butterflies that do damage through deflections forcing you to either eat damage or step away to disengage for a moment which breaks the flow of her so well choreographed dance that made her so satisfying to face the main problem however is her summoning she will summon 15 to 20 mobs that after a short time turn into projectiles that home in on you now you can fight the mobs for Spirit emblems but there's no reason to risk it when you could instead run in a big circle whatever you do here she'll spend most of the attack Out Of Reach just regenerating her posture it's not difficult to dodge the mobs but it stops the pace of the fight in its tracks completely the game suggests that the solution is snap seeds but not only does that only remove Illusions in a very small area around yourself but snap seeds are incredibly rare consumables this entire attack feels like a neat idea that doesn't hit the mark in terms of its implementation as it stops you from engaging with all of the things that made the first phase so good and and unfortunately the problems still don't end there lady butterfly for the most part has a pretty solid AI unless you step count her because if you do that she has no idea how to handle your attacks you can get her in a theoretically infinite damage Loop absolutely slaughtering her Vitality which is completely against what the boss fight is otherwise trying to encourage the fight does end on a strong final note however after you take her down wolf is ambushed from behind and you witness C blessed with immortality it serves as a great character beat and putting it behind lady butterfly makes it incredibly satisfying to find despite being so early in the game she feels like you just took down someone weighty on top of that considering that the player is already about to reach Lord Kuro in the real world it's a great placement for this moment overall I'd say she earns a bgrade though the high parts of her fight would be deserving of an a the bad parts of her fight would barely earn a degrade so in above average nod seems like the fairest place to put her and now we travel from a boss that I had mixed feelings on to a boss that I loathe the Blazing bull this is one of the only bosses on this list with a single health bar but it still feels like one of the most drawn out fights despite that you wander into an arena and the bull is released from its cage usually trampling over the other enemies that said it's always possible those enemies will survive in which case you need to run around for a while to get the boss alone again the bull is always doing one of two things flailing wildly or charging around the arena while Tokyo drifting as he prepares to charge the other direction it has a ton of Health even if you have both available memories at this point and deflecting his attacks builds up the burn status which dissuades you from hitting his weaker face more than anything else the bull is simultaneously exceptionally boring and exceptionally irritating it does a ton of damage which means you have to always be on guard and hitting it involves running in a big circle around it and getting a single hit off while it's Tokyo drifting it is weak to firecrackers but it has such a massive health bar that even a few seconds of attacking without thinking barely makes a dead on top of that the bull is the only fight I believe the camera in searo regularly fails the camera for the most part is pretty successful in this game it dynamically moves along with the bosses trying to keep them and their attacks on screen to react though this often makes being in a corner difficult as the camera will continuously try to push back into the wall it does better than the other games in the series at universally keeping most enemies visible the lock on for the bull however is just behind its head which is the worst place it could possibly be this placement however makes it feel like you're fighting to point the wolf in the correct direction for the entire fight you can't lock onto the head making staggers less reliable and you can't lock on while behind it unsurprisingly for most people who have played Saro the Blazing bull earns an f grade it's not fun to fight and it's made even more frustrating by being a required fight placed almost directly after such an incredible introduction to the castle proper as the last of the general encounters kuros Matsumoto somehow manages to be the most mediocre of the bunch he has a troop of ranged enemies around him and his AI doesn't notice when they die which means he can just use shuriken from the bottom of the staircase and turn him into a one-on-one pretty easily this is particularly funny if you do it while he's monologuing about the importance of teamwork his move set is a bit more complicated than his fellow generals as he uses both grab and sweep attacks and he boasts the most overall damage he's clearly meant to serve as a final test of this introductory mini boss before they return as enemies in the latter half of the game he also has the best introduction of the three generals the first two were kind of just vibing in their Arena before you ran up with Yami St standing behind the ogre for some reason but Matsumoto was in the middle of a speech preparing the troops for the incoming attacks judging by how this attacks ended up going he obviously did a bad job here but interrupting the speech of this General makes for a fun setting for the mini boss fight there's not much else to say about a third General fight but he still earns a solid C grade though not incredible the enemy template is solid enough that it still has an outstay its welcome as a mini boss for me I don't think there's another boss on this list as capable of killing you as quickly as the asna elite and I absolutely adore that you wander into his room there is no way to stealth off a health bar here there is nowhere to back off to there is no room to heal or breathe he is a one-trick pony and he's going to do this he's going to sheath his sword he's going to do the Ashen across and it's going to damage you through block at a blinding speed the catch is if you deflect his attack twice then you finished one of the phases he is a deflection test not a blocking test test a deflection test if you deflect perfectly you win if you don't you die they put a checkpoint literally feet before the boss fight knowing it might take players a few attempts to really internalize the timing here though jinuk is simplistic he does a great job testing your deflection skills especially considering what the game is about to throw at you once you get through this fight he has a solid test that makes you feel incredible Once you pull off a kill he earns a b-grade now if he was more complicated he'd potentially be lower with how unbalanced the damage is but a deflection test fits really naturally at this point in the game and executing this fight well is just so satisfying and when you finally reach the top of the castle you are put face to face with the man who took your arm at the end of the tutorial from a story perspective this fight happens shockingly early on in the game but the stakes in the story help this fight hit really hard ginro despite rarely being on screen has a great presence in SEO and really sell spells his role as the villain here and it's rare that a game has you face the main villain before diving into the mid game compared to what comes before Gano is an overwhelming challenge he doesn't have the same weaknesses bosses prior had and he uses his bow to punish passivity his sword dance attack is a brutal Onslaught and by far the most brutal one this early in the game and he's the first enemy to boast three health bars with the third deeply changing his move set and introducing a new mechanic despite the challenge or perhaps because of it I adore gicho so much he mainly uses thrusts and sweeps though he does occasionally pull out a grab one of the best parts of his move set is this jumping attack in the first phase he always follows up with a Thrust in the second phase there's a split chance to do a Thrust or a sweep in the third phase he can thrust sweep or do a modified sweep that will need to be deflected instead of jumped there's a lot of fun details like this that keep the battle from feeling predictable as you engage and leads to a feeling of progression throughout the fight the arena is pretty small here with no cover and Gino's bow there never anywhere to hide from the onslaught of attacks this isn't a fight you can back out of you have to show that you are ready to deflect Counterattack and take every window you can get to get out on top every tool the game has taught you from the generals to the ogre to lady butterfly all come to a head here in this first real test of Mastery of mechanics as I mentioned the fight introduces new mechanics on top of that being the the first fight to feature lightning deflection in the third phase it allows you to either step through and punish or take the risky reflection for massive vitality and posture damage I mentioned the fight is incredibly brutal and it feels right to be so difficult when you're facing the main villain this early despite having only encountered at most two other memory bosses this game has already taught you well enough that what was designed to be a near unbeatable fight in the tutorial now feels not only doable but very possible the combat system is on Full display here and the player feels their progression not mechanically but as a player this fight felt almost impossible at the start of the game and now you're here and you're barely into the real heart the real meat of what searo has to offer it makes the encounter so satisfying and giniro is an easy Sr boss it's also worth noting that Gino has an inner version within the reflection of strength mode and it is an incredible Redux they basically just redo the base chassis of the fight improve it a little bit add in a couple more moves to spice things up keep things a little more difficult than scale everything for post game and it just works really well to have these couple fights that stick out they don't really feel like new bosses even if they may have a couple new moves they feel like rematches like New Game Plus [Music] variations throughout from soft's catalog only one thing has been a universal rule there is no greater force than gravity and in a strange twist you finally wield the power of gravity in the battle with the armored Warrior the armored Warrior doesn't have much in the way of buildup he strolls up on the tight Bridge he looks like Dark Souls at home and yells something about his son before he starts swinging his great sword he seems to have plenty of openings but the first time you hit him reveals that plot twist this is a gimmick fight the armored Warrior is immune to death damage you cannot hurt him even if you fill up his posture bar he won't die you'll just push him forward a little bit in order to beat him you have to break his posture and then execute a death blow that will push him off the bridge and his death below I really do love the concept for this fight armored Warrior attacks feel incredibly distinct from everything else in the game the timing the way his arcs swing everything makes him feel out of the ordinary which is great the unique way of beating him is a fun change of pace too and he's definitely the best boss built around having a single health bar often time gimmick fights are defined by rejecting the core gameplay Loop yorm forces you to use a different weapon the BET of chaos is the BET of chaos Etc the armored Warrior succeeds as a gimmick Boss by varying the primary gameplay Loop removing a key tool of damage and replacing it with positioning all the mechanics are still present you just have this one unique shift while maintaining everything else it's a much more clever use of a gimmick my praise for him however ends there his moves can be deflected but missing a deflection is often so punishing that I find myself standing out of the way of his larger attacks and combos then coming in at the end to land one final deflection and hit him a couple of times on top of that there are a number of weird hit boxes with falling off of the bridge and he struggles to register as falling if you push him diagonally now that's not too big of an issue but it is frustrating whenever it happens especially when you're going in blind and trying to figure out how to kill him for the first time finally and most frustratingly I believe the game massively leads you astray with a very messily placed Eaves drop hint just before you get the spear there is a pair of guards that talks about getting the big guy into armor and how swords won't break through it but a spear could easily tear through it now they were talking about a completely random mob there are big hammer guys wearing armor they have more Health unless you use the spear to take it off I was convinced that the spear had to be connected to the armored Warrior after all the eaves drop hint described a big guy who' been forced into a suit of armor and now you could tear it off it was earlier in the path towards this Warrior and the guy who gave you the key to the spear described the Invincible big guy I'm not sure if I'm alone in this experience and I've just now announced how dumb I am to all of YouTube or if I'm just disappointed that the game made me super excited for this fight and it was just pushing someone one again the fight's decent but I always found it disappointing this may be completely personal but it hurts the fight as an encounter to the point where I think he only earns a SE grade falling short of the above average call outs with that said he screams with he dies and it is the best voice acting in the game that is es great voice acting and that man deserves a raise you hear about the disgusting experiments of senu Temple all throughout the world of searo but most of what you see when you arrive are just monks and crickets it's not until you stumble upon long arm centipede sen likely your first long arm centipede that you realize how horrifying this Temple is the dark environment being lit by the fire of his minions is a lovely touch and the rafters above him having a fight creates this fun source of tension where falling means facing the boss at full strength and at a disadvantage however though this beautiful boy may be listed as the boss that is a godamn lie these little things the boss here their burn attacks stack on top of each other stagger you out of blocks and deflex require complete repositioning a p burn quickly and they are really evasive some of the most evasive in the game plus the fact that they can deflect makes shurik can less helpful than usual for taking out small ranged enemies in terms of the boss fight itself the longarm centipedes Are okay they really only have two moves a storm of swings that do very little posture damage encouraging you to deflect their posture upwards and an easy to punish sweep one nice thing is that their sweep is probably the easiest in the game to learn how to perform a stomp counter on so I appreciated that attack a lot though the arena does create a fun source of tension the irritation caused by the mobs that inhabit it make this fight one I wish I could avoid overall I think longarm centipede sen un earns a to degrade though the arena does create a fun source of tension the irritation caused by the mobs that inhabit it make this fight one I wish I could avoid I have mixed feelings about the folding screen monkeys this is a puzzle boss you have to find and kill four monkeys each with a unique trait one has amazing eyesight so it needs to be ambushed from behind quickly and quietly one has amazing hearing but horrible eyesight which means over overwhelm its sense of hearing and you'll win the day but you can't sneak up on it normally the screaming monkey doesn't have any special abilities but it screams loudly if it sees you alerts everything around it and is also the worst monkey and I hate him the invisible monkey meanwhile is invisible and somehow the least obnoxious one to win you need to kill all four before the terror inflicting monkeys in the arena kill you which is effectively a non-threat terror is an instant kill but the monkeys don't have much offense that they can dish out on on your first playthrough the fight is decently fun it's exciting to find the unique ways in the arena to trick the monkeys and earn a killing blow and the game does a lot to keep it from getting obnoxious you can always reset the room back to its basic state and there's an NPC giving hints though the terror monkeys attack you while talking to him which feels like a bit of an oversight the introduction also does a good job showing you what the monkey gimmicks are and there's more than one way to take down each of the monkeys after that first playthrough like so many G bosses the battle loses a lot of its shine trying to pin down the monkeys becomes a tedious experience I want to speed through it to get the memory and move on to the rest of the much better bosses in the lake game but with that said there is a really fun speedrun strategy that makes the fight ridiculously satisfying to pull off pop a sugar at the start before entering the arena kill the invisible monkey run up and stealth the screaming monkey if you can successfully stealth the screaming monkey hop to the center and you use a firecrackers which will let you kill the hearing monkey then climb up and follow the seeing monkey jump down the pit turn around and firecracker and just like that the fight is over in less than a minute and I did that really really sloppily it is a very satisfying strategy to master because of the frustration that not knowing the route can lead to however I can't give the monkeys a good grade but allowance is made for the new players and the ability to dominate the fight if you know what you're doing means that it does still earn a degrade except for the screaming monkey I would like that thing to die please thank you Upon returning to the reservoir that you began the game in you'll be able to notice a general with a spear investigating where you found Kuro at the very beginning of the game work your way back through the opening area and you'll find yourself face to face with and hold on to your seats for this one everybody the seven ashaa Spears shikibu toshikatsu Yami this boss's name is matched only by the length of his spear a weapon made even even more terrifying by his damage output he also has the first matching name within the game sharing the family name with General Yami and I definitely did not just notice that for the first time when creating this list of bosses the seven ashena Spears enemies are to put it simply one of the most detailed mini boss enemies in not only allive Seco but potentially from software in general these spear wielders have move sets with more detail and fake outs than some full boss fights in this series on a first playthrough there aren't many enemies nearly as terrifying the damage is massive they're hard to escape they're aggressive and almost every attack is perilous or hard to deflect because the unique Rhythm of the spear but more than any other boss in the game something just clicks with these enemies this move set is the perfect iteration of the fundamentals of searo the way you deflect in the mikiri counters have to deal slight damage to maintain posture the seven ashaa Spears specifically this one because we will get to oniwa later feels like the mini boss that embodies searo combat more than anything else fighting this boss in the same place you began the game feels so fitting because he represents to me everything that makes the bosses and mini bosses so compelling he earns an a grade and considering he is a Spearman with no Cuts scene no story and no W factor that is very high praise the first of the seven Spears was fought where you found Kuro and the first lone Shadow is fought in the well you were dropped into and spawned in for the first time you booted up the game he serves as a required mini boss to reach your second ingredient for the aroma you can land a diving attack onto him for a shorter fight or run up for a more painful one there are a lot of Lone shadows in this game and the long swordsman suffers from being the introduction to the enemy as a boss and having no real unique twist though the lone Shadows do serve as fun enemies to fight with their High mobility and long combos that Glide across the ground the the long swordsman doesn't do anything to change how the player feels about that I mean at this point you've already run into a load and Shadow in the harata estate who serves as a much more terrifying introduction to the enemy than a mini boss which feels a little backwards in addition to not really doing anything to feel exceptional the well here does not feel well made for combat the fog Gates around the Arenas are common but they feels strange when the area is so small it feels like an artificially placed wall that you're designed to fight against this is also a particularly tight space to fight a lone shadow in as a sweep attack flies across more than this entire Arena the keeping pressure on a player isn't a bad thing it's a strange place to fight an enemy whose Mobility is so crucial to its design combine that with the fact that the camera which is usually pretty good is horrendous here the lone Shadow almost instantly will kick you against a wall and the camera will completely lose it because of this the first lone Shadow earns a deg grade his move set keeps him above an f grade but his uninspired Arena and atmosphere keep him from any kind of real success once you take the leap down the bottomless pit the wolf finds himself at the base of the map in a poison swamp God damn it Miyazaki as you start to explore the area you start to get sniped by Snake Eyes Shira Fuji as you go to Shir Fuji you start being sniped by these other enemies that were hiding just around the room with sights on their boss there are two totems in this room each providing different places to approach this battle from and they're both obnoxious runs there are so many enemies in so many different places that trying to stealth your way around is so much easier said than done on top of that Snake Eyes is personally one of the hardest mini bosses in the game she does a ton of damage the fact that she's using bullets half the time means that perfect deflections won't increase her posture Bar for a lot of moves and for a slier she poses a frankly ludicrous threat within Close Quarters I think the move set does leave a lot to be desired as well her grab attack can be parried which is a cool interaction that raises the skill ceiling a little higher but the rest of the move set lacks a lot of diversity especially with how tanky she is she grabs and shoots or swings and shoots that's it combine that with a restricted space that suffers the same fog wall problem as the long swordsman and Shir Fuji is just not a fun fight I feel like this fight wants to be a stealth challenge move around the arena and take out the snipers leaving Snake Eyes vulnerable Snake Eyes however is just too powerful of an enemy to ever be described as vulnerable but going straight for her unless you know some incredibly specific rooting ends up with a very frustrating fight you're either backed into a corner hoping for her to stop shooting at you and come down so you can fight her with a bad camera or you're in a poison swamp and you're being sniped at from random enemies that said unlike the Shinobi Hunter there's enough interesting happening with their move set that I don't believe that that is a complete failure overall I think it earns a degrade the design of a gun used as a club is also a really fun idea and the poison swamp as much as I hate to say it does have a great atmosphere juuo the drunkard struggled to introduce the mini boss template in its first battle but tokujiro the Glutton does a significantly better job introducing the mini boss like juuo tokujiro is surrounded by mobs unlike juuo tokujiro is surrounded by three monkeys wielding swords and a monkey with a gun Which is far less of a force to overcome than juo's Army of Bandits even a couple shuriken can turn the fight into a much more satisfying one-on-one however where tokujiro struggles compared to juuo is the atmosphere of the fight you run into tokujiro while traversing the fog of the M Noble which we'll get to you in a second where you're fighting off speed spirits and ghosts in this strange fog and then as you climb your way through the forest up towards Miss Noble you come through to a clearing where there is a really big drunk guy and his monkey friends which frankly comes out of absolutely nowhere once the Miss Noble is dead tokujiro fits the area much better he's a Hermit drunker living with monkeys in the ruins of a once great City it makes a lot of sense especially compared to a Hermit drunkard living with monkeys in the ruins of a once great city where the dead are now Rising his wrathful spirits due to an immortal being playing the flute to fill the area with an unnatural choking Mist I feel like the atmosphere isues hurt tokujiro in the same way the mobs hurt juuo it may not hurt him as much but I still think tokujiro doesn't go above a b-grade in terms of the encounter I wish we had a solid fight against a drunkard earlier in the game but the game just isn't putting them in the best environments to show off how fun this enemy is in terms of atmosphere the Mist Noble is is one of the better mini bosses kind of the entire level is covered with Spirits brought forth by its music and your entire effort in the area is all to get into this pagota that the noble sits within as you approach you hear its music it's alone calm and strange you climb through a hole in the wall and looking through the rafters see this disgusting abnormal thing playing the flute you leap down and get your sneak attack and then you swing a couple of times and he's dead that's it that's the whole fight honestly there's barely even a mini boss here the mob version of Miss Nobles later in the game put up more than a fight than the actual boss did why does this enemy have two health bars why is this the culmination of the area it ends up just feeling silly now granted the Miss Noble is hilarious and has been meaned to Oblivion in back because people just don't realize the Miss Noble is holding back and could kill you in one hit instantly without you even being in the arena if he really wanted to he just doesn't want people do speeduns seeing how fast they can die to this guy That's how little he can do do I love Miss Noble yes is he an f- grade boss fight with a great buildup also yes following directly after one of the most bizarre and underwhelming boss fights were're met with one of the most unique and challenging bosses in the game since you've left Asha Castle you've met a man searching for a song he feels is calling to him once you kill the M Noble and reach meibo Village the man finds the person playing the song and she kills him Orin of the water stands in the village and plays her instrument crying asking any passer by if they know where Lord sakuza is if they lie and say they know where he is if they deny her or they try to run past she gets violent fast the actor playing Orin absolutely Nails the performance here within just two lines she feels like a dangerous unhinged Spirit there are a few vocal performances in this game that do a similar thing thing but oin is a random person in the Overworld and that vocal performance alone carries more weight than some intro cutscenes in terms of combat mechanic oin also stands from the crowd of mini bosses she can become incorporeal allowing your attacks to pass through her combined with brutally fast attacks a massive collection of sweeps and the fact there's no way to stealth off one of her first health bar oin is also one of the more demanding mini bosses and is all the better for it meibo Village has a great atmosphere but doesn't really do much with it until you run into Orin who makes full use of The Village's uncomfortable environment my one wish for Orin is that I wish she was a fully designed boss encounter she has the story in atmosphere of a full encounter but her move set though not fully limited doesn't feel as expansive as the bosses often do a run of the water still earns an a grade after all wanting more of a fight is never a bad sign of its quality finally after diving down through the deepest depths of Asha you find the corrupted monk a spectral figure who is really upsetting you for some reason another of the rare one health bar opponents the corrupted monk is a taale of two bosses if the player spams firecrackers snap seeds and fist BS of Ash at it it is almost comically easy to stun lock I can't personally execute the trick but there's even a way to land a stealth death blow on the monk killing it instantly and skipping the fight on the other hand if you don't cheese her she's one of the most intense fights for this point of the mid game spins lunges ridiculous Posta recovery delayed swings due to a massive side difference and the long swing of the glaive there is a lot going on in this one enemy when you combine those strange attack delays with the level of damage you can output this is a really demanding midgame fight which I feel like I'm saying for all the SEO bosses but it's a pretty demanding game overall so it's kind of a universal but looking at the fight holistically corrupted monk suffers from a strange syndrome despite the threat that it poses and the massive increase in size from any boss up to this point the corrupted monk doesn't escalate throughout its phase and doesn't have a big finish it feels like it's missing its second half namely because it is this is the first phase of a later game boss fight missing the second and third health bars the corrupted monk is here to introduce the tempo and threat of seo's endgame to the player in a simpler fight but considering how easy it is to cheese it often ends up feeling more underwhelming it means that you throw things at it nothing really changes it doesn't do anything and then you stab it and it's dead overall I think the corrupted monks Spirit form earns a b-grade the move set is solid really fun stuff going on here but it's too open to cheesing especially since you only need to rush down a single health bar and an intentionally incomplete design lacks a lot of the story impact other full encounters pack whenever I replay searo the corrupted monk serves as a speed bump on the way to the bosses I'd rather be fighting it's not bad it's fun to fight but it just doesn't work as well as you'd expect a moov set like this to work heading into the Sunken Valley we're going to get a couple of Boss rematches the first of which is snake eyes shiraki like the first Snake Eyes I'm not much more of a fan of this one than I was the one before with that said I think that this version snake guys does achieve its purpose in the game much better than the first does namely because of the unique level design that the enemy sits within in every other Souls game hell in action games in general mobs are obstacles you overcome in order to battle the primary opponent Shira hogi is exactly the opposite she's the first enemy after the totem at the gun Fort and in order to head deeper within she's what you have to face with a later mobs shooting at you from further within the area though the sniping mobs are certainly still frustrating it's done with significantly more intent the battle is set at the base of a statue that gives natural cover without breaking the camera in the same way that the hallway of the first Snake Eyes did with the battle happening at the base of a statue it provides natural cover that feels more satisfying than fighting the first Snake Eyes in the restrictive hallway I still think the move set isn't particularly strong and her damage is overtuned but shirahagi feels like she earns her place among the boss roster with a high d-grade with her interesting map placement carrying a weaker Mini template similar to sen in the senu temple the long arm stiped giraffe is a simple foe he swings wildly or he sweeps his claws across the floor the difference is that sen un is in a wide atmospheric space with Mobs and vertical layers and giraffe is in a broom closet with a fog gate blocking half of the room off for some reason I already mentioned I don't particularly like it when the fog gates are in the middle of a room but this one is particularly bad baffling there is literally a door 5 ft past the fog just put the fog wall over the door I don't understand why there is a giant fog wall in my camera's face here like in all tight spaces the camera begins to struggle a lot here there's not much space so your back is against a wall which is where SEO begins to struggle often times that struggling rewards you with a strange and not particularly Pleasant angle of giraffe's face that only a mother could love but with those complaints said I actually really enjoy long arm centipede giraffe the move set is a lot more entertaining in a really small space and the absurdity of the enemy ends up being more on display here than the creepiness of it combine that with no mobs and you start to enjoy the feeling of deflecting this insane flurry of attacks something not many other enemies can provide I've heard other people call giraffe a joke boss and though I don't think that's true there's definitely something entertaining about being trapped in a broom closet with what feels like a rabid Wolverine personally I think giraffe sits in a b-grade form me despite any flaws the design has he's just fun to fight also I love the fact that his name is giraffe I hope you're ready for the hot take of the video because here it comes the guardian ape is one of if not the best designed large monsters in the from software catalog with the only other boss even getting close being ludvig's first phase now before even touching on the guardian Apes move set I need to mention the camera we've just seen a couple of fights where the camera has not worked particularly great the guardian ape is the exact opposite it works insanely well here it's constantly backing out far enough that you can always see the ape but not far enough out to be disorienting the ape's AI hates being against walls meaning you often don't end up pinned at awkward angles which is particularly crucial for how important spacing is in the fight the next thing to mention though is the Apes animations it is uncanny how detailed this enemy is every thrash every run every attack flows into each other the ape never stops moving and it feels so natural though hard to read at first the animations are clear and distinct placing water on the ground created the sense of weight to every attack as the entire pool splashes and ripples as the ape slams and leaps the dead trees that serve as grapple points are destroyed over the course of the battle which is a great touch they initially provide an Escape Route allowing you to escape the apee intense situations that you weren't quite ready for but they slowly become more and more scarce over time as eventually there is nowhere that you can escape this beast but finally moving to the mechanics the guardian ape is an incredible battle anything that isn't a grab attack can be deflected and like most beasts it's weak to firecrackers unlike things like the corrupted monk the guardian ape cannot be as easily staggered and cheesed it at least not without serious planning there is a speedrun strat but it's not something that you'd see realistically done but the most impressive part of each of the Apes attacks is that they all have unique variations based on how it landed in the last attack if it ever stands up it's always standing as part of the movement into the next attack if it lands on the ground it's Landing to start thrashing around or to crawl away there are almost no moments where the fight returns to a neutral stance the ape is always is aggressive if you attack from behind it'll do a poison fart and I can't believe I'm saying this before it runs away and throws a ball of its toxic [ __ ] at you the size of its own body if you hit its head for enough damage it staggers and if you keep hitting it it falls back and scrambles away terrified of you it's easy to feel like you're overpowering a boss with attacks but I've never felt like I legitimately scared the boss before this animation is so smooth and so gorgeous it makes the the fight feel so real and helps him avoid getting cheesed now the one issue that I do see occasionally pop up is those aformentioned grab attacks which do require some often unnatural dodging to avoid once you do figure it out though you'll be able to slowly take down the ape's health eventually getting this amazing final blow where you tear off its head with a sword embedded in it what an incredible fight but this is SEO you die twice bosses die twice monkeys die twice now he is a monkey and that aforementioned sword is in one hand with his head in the other and the whole fight Works differently now he inflicts Terror and there's a centipede in his body you can rip out with the spear he gets this wild combo that the camera zooms out for and when you deflect the last strike he collapses onto the ground and it is oh so satisfying to land every single move is changed the guardian ape is two polar opposite bosses back to back each with different challenges and it is terrifying more than anything the boss just feels alive through both phases and ridiculously consistent the first phase moves so naturally that it feels like they did motion capture on an angry gorilla and the second phase is so beautifully uncanny and contrast and so unnatural with each jittering movement that it sells the horror of The Immortal Curse so well I cannot overstate how good this fight looks and feels this ape is a masterclass in animation in a series that boasts some of the best in the business yes it has a few less than Stellar attacks the grabs in the first phase and the scream in the second are a little obnoxious but I cannot criticize this fight for long it terrifies me in the absolute best way and deserves every Accolade that it could possibly receive Guardian ape is the second fight I'm putting in the es grade and probably wins my personal award for the best individual animations of any boss in this series I love it so much and as we return to Asha castle for the end game we rematch our good old friend the chained ogre scaled for the start of the late game now this chained ogre changes the formula by being in a tighter room forcing precise play without much additional space to maneuver it's a fun Twist on the encounter for most of it but I also think it misses a bit of the fun every Throne now just puts wolf against a wall where he just stops moving and then start starts to fall what once had some charm and could potentially lead to funny deaths now starts to look rough around the edges now I'm not sure how that would be fixed but an enemy who throws you around the room not having space to throw you around the room struggles with its identity on top of that this chain ogre feels a bit like filler it's not in your way like the first chain ogre this time you have to hunt this one down to face it and get your prayer bead though I think hidden mini bosses are good and I think repeat mini bosses can be used well this chained ogre ends up feeling more like a prayer be dispensary than a meaningful obstacle or an interesting challenge to seek out a reuse of an enemy just because the enemy was present rather than a reuse with intent it still earns a b-grade though not nearly as memorable the fun design of the boss itself still earns it a solid nod on my first playthrough when I first encountered the lone Shadow vile hand his encounter IR iritated me to no end I loathed this fight two lone shadows in a tight space is a ridiculous ask considering how difficult they are to land Vitality damage on and how quickly they close the distance in a game not designed to fight more than one enemy at a time but once I stepped back and remembered that I had Ninjutsu vile hand became one of the most unique fights in the game using a small room that worked for the Ashna Elite damage test alongside the unique move set of the lone shadow when you activate the Puppeteer ninjitsu on the ma alone shadow in the room which you can reliably sneak attack he'll start to attack the boss however Friendly Fire is still active against targets of ninjutsu and those fast movements and sweeping motions mean that knowing when to attack the boss and when to get out of the way becomes an interesting choice when combined with the fact that vile hand gains additional poison attacks that leave him uniquely vulnerable this becomes a variation of a common Mini boss that has a really specific identity on top of that vian's world placement makes him a fascinating optional boss you don't need to beat him to reach the bosses at the top of the tower but beating him not only makes the run to the bosses easier but provides more potential Health it takes advantage of the level design abilities the player has unlocked and provides enough variation within the core move set to be a satisfying optional battle the lone Shadow vile hand earns a b-grade and personally is my favorite of the many varieties of Lone Shadow fights having an individual identity even as a repeated mini boss is absolutely critical and with that said I really hope that lone Shadow masanaga the spear Bearer didn't hear the last comment because he's got two entries coming up on this list that both linger behind vile hand the first encounter against him on the castle outskirts is the first one we're talking about and it's got a couple interesting things going for it first the dense brush that was once used to hide monkeys ends up now serving as a tool masanaga uses to hide making it harder to see what he's doing next in a more intentional way than the first lone Shadow by the time you've reached masanaga you probably know lone Shadows like the back of your hand so making it harder to tell exactly what he's doing but still enough that you can see the general Vibe serves as a good test of the creature itself second masanaga seems to know who you are calling you out directly as he attacks with a move set placed in a wide open space it gives it time to actually shine un like the long swordsman with the foliage adding enough of a hazard to add flare without frustration the one issue is that there isn't any reason to be here there's no change in the area past masanaga he is standing on the edge of everything changed in Asha because that's where he stands kind of like the chained ogre there's no change in Asha Castle past masanaga he is on the outskirts of it all standing here just because that's where he was put kind of like the second chain ogre he feels irrelevant to the level design proper he's looking over the corpses of some murdered friends but that doesn't make him feel any less out of the way overall one of seo's biggest mistakes with mini bosses on the return trips is some bizarre placement personally I prefer when they have an interesting interaction with their level reusing rooms in creative ways to create this unique sense of progression as you re-explore the area but even with that criticism masanaga is still an all right fight he earns AC grade the lone Shadows are still decent enemies and masaga doesn't have anything detracting him from that like the long swordsman did for the battle on the tower we'll start with the shura ending which means Beginning by killing the Healer who supported you throughout this entire game Emma the gentle blade first the atmosphere within both the cutscenes building up to the fights in this ending are really fun Emma looks incredible and this slow sword draw is is ridiculously slick with that said this brings us to a bit of a strange question every time you fight the final boss of this ending you have to fight Emma does that mean Emma is the first phase of the final boss of the shur route or does she stand on her own feet as an encounter how distinct do the boss phases need to be in order to be counted as different bosses what makes Emma different from the king of the storms and is it unfair to the battle with Isen that follows after to separate Emma or was it it unfair to the nameless King not to separate the king of the storms I think for the most part these unique first phase bosses should often be bundled together the king of the storms is a part of the nameless King encounter giniro is a part of ishin ashida but sometimes a boss is so distinct and the tone varies so wildly that it just feels unfair not to discuss them separately Emma and Isen are wildly different bosses and later in the series ragon and the Elden Beast will be similarly different and deserve different spots it's worth talking about how they relate yes but reducing Emma to a first phase for a wholly different boss minimizes her accomplishments within design Emma makes use of a wide array of combat arts and grabs all of which deal significant damage with unusual timings gentle blade definitely fits her as a title as each of the attacks have an almost relaxed Rhythm to them unlike her walk animation where it looks like she's coming to R about your [ __ ] spot she's great at deflecting attacks like most endgame bosses but she lacks a lot of Vitality and poster recovery what Emma's move set does beautifully that I believe makes her earn her own individual spot on a list of bosses is a synchronization of gameplay and story if you play defensively against Emma she'll chase you down with grabs and combat Arts that excel at breaking through your defenses while giving her time to reduce her posture damage to succeed against Emma without utilizing resources something highly encouraged by being linked to that later battle you have to be the constant aggressor her combat Arts are best dodged by staggering her out of them so to best beat Emma you have to embrace shur in terms of playstyle rather than simply just within the story every time you Retreat and reposition Emma regains the upper hand she wants to be in neutral you have to rush her down to keep on that pressure in until you get that amazing final blow that I still consider the most brutal yet beautiful death in the game even with only that single health bar bar the atmosphere gameplay and story here coales almost perfectly she earns a high a grade verging heavily towards s the only reason she's robbed of that s grade is that she isn't a full boss she is a single moment distilled down to build up towards an encounter and I never want to fight her again because killing her always makes me feel so insanely guilty like holy [Music] [ __ ] meanwhile I have a lot less love for the shura variant of ishasha he's not bad don't get me wrong far from it but I don't think he holds a candle to the true final boss fight or even to the battle that precedes him his first phase is similar to his alternate form but with a couple changes my personal favorite is that if you and here you're both in a neutral position instead of deflecting your attack he'll Dodge around the attack and Counterattack now you can still keep a pressure against that but it means you have to watch for more than just being deflected he also uses a number of combat Arts that aren't too tough to dodge around and there's a great Rhythm to the fight ishan's second phase however is where the fight starts to lose me visually it looks great the arena lights on fire as Hein starts to add after effects to each of his combat Arts the ichimi with fire is n bad but I don't like any of the other Arts here the first is him tearing up the ground with a tracking burst of flame which hits you in the air and tracks incredibly well if jumping dodged the attack that could add a fun spin but it doesn't which makes it more frustrating than anything the worst is his Firestorm slash attack the fire bursts are hard to look around and mess with the camera and the oncoming attack has too many attacks that happen too fast also hitting through block like a lot of combat Arts unlike Asha across this is almost impossible to fully deflect especially since it's not really easy to get to a point where you can practice and learn against this move but the biggest issue I have with the shur version of isin is also the biggest benefit that Emma had the best way to engage with Isen is not to engage interrupt The Firestorm with firecrackers Dodge behind his fire attacks this becomes a fight of avoidance rather than confronting it does the opposite thing Emma does encouraging passivity over aggression and unlike lightning there is no high-risk counter option to the most devastating attacks I think the final boss of the Sha ending just manages a be raade though the game still makes you feel like a monster Emma and the cut scene that follows isin asha's death do more to push towards that than this fight does and there's only so far that the admittedly tight design of isin asna as a sword fighter can go throughout the story story of searo gicho is almost certainly the main villainous Force but in terms of the strongest Contender for the title of pure villain the great Shinobi owl is a hard Contender he raised you as his lap dog betrayed Lord Kuro to attain immortality and now leads the ministry into Ashna for his own means he is both evil and your dad which everyone knows means he is a top tier villain and that's just Anime science his fight is also beautifully written Miyazaki has mentioned the fights against Great Shinobi owl are among his favorite boss fights he's ever made and I can see where that's coming from it is an incredible duel significantly larger than most other Swordsmen his posture regenerates about as fast as you'd expect which draws the fight out as you slowly wear down this Beast of a man combine that with the arena that feels half decided as it did when you fought gonitro namely to ow now being twice your size and you have yourself an incredible battle in terms of moves set Al mirrors the Wolf's combat style despite his increased size he uses tools you have access to Via your prosthetic arm he has anti-healing orbs he'll drop he can throw shuriken and then use an accessible combat art that darts forward after you parry them away he uses spin attacks he spams firecrackers just like any good searo player and even makiri counters you if you try to use a Thrust attack on him and that's only in the first phase moving around him and finding the few weaknesses in his defenses is ridiculously satisf fing the long sword is also used to great effect here giving the attacks a unique pacing as he spins and whips his blade around the arena his animations rely a lot on preparing an attack and then bursting from that prepared animation to the conclusion of the strike ridiculously quickly when you combine that with throwing in a few larger blows that really sell the power of the sword it makes owl feel ridiculously and almost inhumanly strong with the speed he's able to achieve and when you reach the second phase he just keeps dialing everything up he can create smoke clouds forcing you to block attacks without using the lock on he can throw down lingering poison to make the small Arena feel even smaller and he uses poster recovery moves after trying to trap you in place with said poison there is so much going on and the moves all interact in such a unique way that when it combines with the music it just becomes so much fun to fight but speaking of fun that brings me to the best part of this fight his dialogue owl is treating the entire fight as if it's a sparring match and it is brilliant he shouts the Shinobi code at you screaming it at your corpse after he knocks you down he does this fake out death as he enters into phase two either scolding you for falling for his trick or complimenting you for attacking him while he was down the entire encounter is this perfect dive into the late game when Miyazaki said that this is one of his favorite fights that he's designed he was absolutely right it is an easy s-grade boss even though I believe it is somehow eclipsed by other fights in this game I referenced a second fight against lone Shadow masanaga the spear Bearer in his first battle and this one definitely has more of a unique flavor than the first you face masanaga in a flaming building in your past because you time traveled again and he gains an attack that if he completes it will summon two dogs to fight alongside him these dogs can also stack which can make the fight get out of hand very quickly the name of the game here is testing if you're able to stay completely attached to masanaga he'll try to hop away of course being a lone Shadow but you have to keep the pressure on throughout this if you do he's just a standard lone shadow that doesn't pose much of a threat this deep into the game but as soon as the dogs come out though the fight gets 10 times harder this is a great concept for an endgame gank fight with the dogs with a punishment for failing to display Mastery of this common enemy taking this lone Shadow down without his dogs being summoned is one of my favorite things to do do that said I do think he has a little less going for him than vand due to the simpler move set he does however still earn a b-grade the second visit to the Hera estate has a rematch with not just a lone Shadow but also with juuo with more endgame abilities there are a lot more ways to approach this fight but the fight still struggles with the overload of mobs the atmosphere that held the first juuo up has worn its welcome by the time you reach him and a rematch with him doesn't carry any story weight learning that juuo was hired by the lone Shadows to attack the estate isn't enough to justify a rematch in the same Arena required to reach the boss here though masanaga reappearing in a new Arena was a fun shakeup to see the same boss with the same name reappear I struggled to get behind another harder fight against juuo especially since there's already a much better use of the drunker enemy with endgame stats in the third visit to Ashna Castle it ends up just making juuo feel unnecessary in bloating out this area further I think the Second Battle with juu of the drunker gets ao's C grade and is by far the weakest of the drunkards the only reason he still gets an average grade is because I just love the drunkard enemies so [Music] much but following a poor enemy reuse we get what is unquestionably the best rematch in the game owl father when you return to Lady butterflyes Arena you find the man who killed killed you in that original Fight 3 years ago your father ow you move up to him and the fight begins in the same Arena you died in but the tone has changed from great Shinobi owl the playful mockery is gone the father who is sparring with you is gone this is owl and he's here to win his tricks are gone there's no poison no healing debuffs they've been replaced with all out aggression he'll now use the Mist Raven to teleport around you for surprise attacks his combos last longer and hit harder and he has more varied timings particularly during his teleports the arena is larger but the owl remains amazing at closing the distance with these new Mobility options he'll often even take advantage of the distance taking a moment to recover his posture before he teleports right back to you the biggest change is in his second phase where he summons an owl that fights alongside him it flies around almost random until he suddenly grabs it from the air and throws it at a sweep attack that he always follows up on it is an incredible looking move and it serves as an amazing way to build tension and add even more variation to his timings to wrap it up killing him serves as this beautiful character moment as the owl has a chance to say his final words defeated by my own son really is not entirely unpleasant this fight is Saro distilled to its finest points the atmosphere combat and story coales into this dream duel it is very obviously an Sr fight and one of my favorite fights in the series and much like nro owl father even has an inner fight which just UPS the aggression even more instead of teleporting once into an attack this version of owl will sometimes teleport three or four times in a row attack after each it is an excellent heightening of an already great fight and honestly would also be an s-grade if I were ranking those but owl already has two s grades and I can't have the entire Sr of this series just be multiple variations of owl and immediately after we get another rematch far above the quality of the first this time with the true corrupted monk the corrupted monks move set finally comes into its own one of the best things about searo is how it does its boss rematches every instance of a recurring enemy often feels intentional adding a variation to justify its existence even though the unique boss count might be lower each fight often has individual value the entrance to Fountain Head Palace is astonishing sakaro is often criticized for many areas feeling too similar in terms of design but it makes the moment you arrive in the palace and witness the sheer burst of color astonishing you sit at your first Idol step onto a bridge and learn why that monk was upset before it's because you were too close to her magical cherry blossom bridge this time the corrupted monk boasts all three of its health bars though with endgame stats and resources it's much less terrifying than that makes her sound the first phase is almost identical to her Ashen ad depths variant but without the weakness to snap seeds anymore you can still use firecrackers and fistfuls of Ash to cheese through one of these phases but with three phases the weakness ends up being a lot less of a a problem for the fight as a whole the first phase also surpassed the first variant by interacting with the arena as she spins and slams snow and leaves will fly into the air the restrictive Bridge also works wonders not only forcing you to face the monks glaive head on but also for the sheer visual wonder the attacks cause the weight behind each blow is felt whether deflected or dodged the second phase is intimidating and frankly seems insane as it starts but is actually the easiest phase by a wide margin she enters a Praying stance in the center of the arena and clones of her begin to appear and attack from multiple directions to take her down you can grapple up to a branch and then do a jumping death blow it's honestly a bit underwhelming but it does serve as a neat puzzle that could be pretty scary in a first go around if there was less going on in the other two phases I'd give it a harder time but it practically means this boss has two phases and a more engaging transition between them than usual the third phase here is technically deadlier but I often find it easier to handle than the first the monk reveals its secret as a centipede bursts out of its neck her attacks become more frantic and animalistic with more of an emphasis on slams than the graceful spins the first phase was utilizing there's also a dangerous Terror spit attack that provides an opportunity for Vitality damage if you can manage to dodge around it altogether the true corrupted monk feels like a great start to one of the best arios in searo the difficulty increase is notable without ever being overwhelming and though the first encounter lacked its own impact it does empower this encounter by making what would otherwise be a random obstacle evolve into a minor antagonist I personally give the true corrupted monk an a grade I do wish the second phase was a little more involved but the gam play is solid enough that the first and second phases are able to hold their own whoever was sitting in from software offices and decided that they needed a second blazing bll need to stop and reassess Sakura the the Bull of the palace is a little bit better than the Blazing bull however for a couple of reasons first Sakura does not increase burn every time that they hit you meaning you can now actually deflect their attacks it's strange to see abilities removed from Bosses moving towards end game but it is a welcome change second your damage is much higher particularly if you've done the optional bosses up to this point the fight being shorter makes it a lot more bearable especially since fighting it as intended isn't actively discouraged by the game anymore finally you can also use firecrackers on the roof and startle it into its bucking attack right off the bat which means you don't have to fight it cuz it dies instantly and that is great welcome to the bottom of degrade Sakura Bull of the palace please leave the game on your way out but now it's time for Miss Noble 2 Electric Baloo I joke but Okami leader Shizu does put up more of a fight than Miss Noble did often managing to swing once while you run towards her before she collapses into the shreds of wet paper she's built from the strange Choice here is that there are a number of normal enemies in the area who use the same combat style but Shizu puts up less of a fight than they do on top of that she only has one health bar so she drops even faster than Miss Noble did I think Okami leader shisu is a less interesting environmental hazard than the Miss Noble 2 shisu is a damage wall that discourages players from traveling into the second half of the palace until they've looped around the surface area and taken her out the wall can be avoided with some careful dodging also known as knowing how to press Circle very fast but it's much less interesting than the Mist Vanishing from the forest with the Mist Noble you can tell when it's dead it feels like it affects the entire level whereas killing Shizu feels less significant why doesn't someone else just take her place like Miss Noble Okami leader Shizu is an f-g grade encounter and one of the few places that the palace's level design misses the Mark I also think it's a strange pattern that that both of these strange ineffective bosses are based off of enemies that pose more of a risk than they do and finally reaching the end of The Fountain Head Palace we reach the Divine Dragon who is more a spectacle than an actual boss and well it certainly looks spectacular there are however two phases and the first phase definitely lingers behind the second upon entering the arena there are these wooden dragon priests that begin to form they do take a surprising number of hits to take down but after they summon trees you can do these leaping death blows to take out a whole group at a time this phase is to put it mildly irritating it doesn't naturally build towards the main phase and the enemies feel bizarrely tanky though the death blow is satisfying to land the first couple of times it feels almost like a fix implemented after the fight was dragging too long if this phase were being scored in a vacuum it' probably get a degrade Maybe in f- grade depending on how it ended thankfully the Divine Dragon does eventually show its face and the first thing to mention is the dragon's impeccable design it is built into the ground itself is missing the same arm as you and meshes with the arena design absolutely perfectly designing the fight to keep you at a distance does a great job to make the camera stay calm and clear avoiding the pitfalls of similar cinematic bosses like yor the gameplay aspect of this cinematic fight is just all right the Divine Dragon will do a variety of air slashes or a huge sweep attack with his sword you block or you jump around needing to hop on these trees to grab a bolt of lightning and hit him now if you've done every fight before this it look like you're reducing his Vitality but it's actually his posture that fills perfectly which does a great job standardizing the fight regardless of your current attack power there are a couple of pretty sizable issues though when the fight works it works well but the dragon attacks faster than your grappling h hook moves there are often situations where you'll start a grapple and then he'll start an attack you'll grab the lightning get knocked out of the air and then take damage because you didn't throw the lightning all that will usually combine to kill you on top of that he often pushes you back almost randomly so you have to run towards him again which drags the fight out he doesn't do anything unique after pushing you back either he just continues to use the same attacks making this unavoidable reset a strange choice in terms of pacing the battle the ending of the fight however is absolutely stunning once you get him one hit away from Death he uses the only push back that feels necessary and begins a storm of attacks you can deflect the wind waves and jump the sweeps as you slowly press back forward the available trees are reduced and as you leap to grab the final lightning you get what I believe is the most cinematic moment in the entirety of searo the dragon's final desperate swings throw you further and further into the air until you come face to face with it as it tries to take a bite of you this slow motion frame is absolutely gorgeous and it ends the moment you press attack smashing the dragon to the ground now unable to defend itself the highs of this fight that ending the music the arena the design are some of seo's highest points but the fight is so strangely paced and has a wholly unnecessary first phase even with these very massive faults the fight is still solidly in the b-grade for me I wish I had a little more time to reach that Pinnacle it feels like it's brushing against but it's honestly just not quite there so this next set of bosses before we reach the final stretch of the game is what I call the upsetting corner of bosses because all of them make me upset so let's start with one of the optional endgame memory fights the guardian ape is one of my favorite bosses of all all time so what do I think of the Headless ape well it's the worst memory boss in the game though I also struggled to count it as one and if there were a mod to remove it it would be gone in an instant let's start with the game play here the Headless ape's first phase is a repeat of the Guardian ape second phase but in a worse Arena the camera isn't bad here but it doesn't work as well as it did in the wide open space the second phase then adds in a weak Guardian ape who fights alongside the Headless ape making this the only Duo memory fight in the game unless you count the folding screen monkeys but I don't I've slightly alluded to this before but tearo is not designed for fighting multiple enemies at once and this proves that rule the best way to take them down is to spam firecrackers on the weaker ape or use the Mortal blade even then the guardian ape size make it so difficult to attack when not locked on and locking onto one eight makes it impossible to see the other due to the fact that the camera focuses so heavy on that AT AP with the speed each ape moves staying unlocked just isn't reasonable on its own from a meta perspective I also find this fight aggravating this fight rewards the player with a Ninjutsu two prayer beads and a memory there is no other boss in the game that holds that much loot usually a mini boss will have one prayer bead a memory boss will have one memory this has double what a mini boss does more than a boss does and a Ninja 2 on top of that I do do not know why the Headless ape has so much stuff locked behind it particularly since from a story standpoint the fight is aggravating this headless ape is the same one that you had just fought in the Sunken Valley you didn't sever its immortality with the Mortal blade so now it is back for Revenge which has a couple of problems of course yes you can kill the guardian ape before the folding screen monkeys meaning it is possible to not have the Mortal blade when you fight the guardian ape however considering Kuro since as to what area to search as well as the guardian ape's difficulty this is an incredibly likely scenario and reminder at the end of the Headless ape fight the ape turned to dust it didn't collapse waiting for immortality to be severed it apparently teleported away to just fight you another day this is an aggravating little story beat that frankly makes wolf seem like an absolute [ __ ] he knows what centipedes mean from the beginning he knows he has the anti- mortal sword and he knows the monkey didn't die when he killed it so why didn't he kill it the Headless ape gets in f grade but though he's the worst memory fight he's not the worst fight in the game we're about to get to all of that so these next two entries are cheating the format of the rest of this series a little bit because I didn't know when to talk about these fights uh there are five fights with the Headless in second making them the most common mini boss three are grounded versions and two are fought underwater and though they have a great atmosphere honestly one of the best atmospheres in the entire game none of them are good fights you cannot fight the Headless when you first find them which is why I didn't include them when they're encountered unless you use Divine confetti they are completely immune to damage and divine confetti is pretty rare until the late game since most of your y will be going towards gourd seeds and prosthetic devices even if you do activate confetti early in the game your damage is frankly pitiful meaning the Headless are definitely designed for you to come back to them somewhere after the halfway point of the game and on top of that every time you don't land a perfect deflect on a pretty weird to deflect creature it builds up Terror meaning you'll also want to have found the purple gour to reduce that because if that bar fills up you instantly die there is a little satisfaction to be gained from running around exploring the world and finding what you need to come back to what was previously unbeatable and taking it down on top of that the Headless are unlike anything else in the game learning to fight them feels like learning a whole new Rhythm and as I mentioned the groundless headless nail their atmosphere there are two in caves and one in that M Noble Forest that works both before and after the noble is killed their music is incredible and the animation team did another great job creating these horrifying Monsters the lumbering is uncanny and there's some really fun Japanese mythology being referenced in each of their moves particularly their grab however for an enemy that demands perfect deflections having some of the strangest delays in conjunction with a slowing aura that makes dodging difficult ends up being more frustrating than engaging the one attack that I really enjoy is the grab attack the Headless vanishes suddenly as you're attacking it and appears appears behind you and attacks if it grabs you it grabs you dealing a decent chunk of damage and building up more terror but if you turn around and look at it it will stop its attack nervous that you found it the thing that I think really takes away from the Headless is the fact that you need Divine confetti particularly for a boss that demands perfect play like they do unless you've waited until endgame to outlevel them demanding the use of a rare consumable is a frustrating twist demanding a consumable rarely serves as a detailed mechanic it often instead just discourages new players from attempting or experimenting against bosses though they may not have prayer beads they do have the reusable sugars which are pretty important items as you continue into later game Cycles I've never fought the Headless when the game seems to intend for you two I get as many memories as possible then backtrack and deal with them then every time I fight them when it is intended I end up needing to use too many resources for it to seem worthwhile in terms of the Arena the one nearby Mist Noble is definitely the best in the Mist it looks incredibly cool and even without it blends perfectly into the already un natural feeling Forest the cave ones are both fine but the caves don't add as much dripping atmosphere as the forest does the underwater headless are frankly even worse when it comes to gameplay though you don't have to use Divine confetti namely because you can't activate Divine confetti underwater you lose access to pacifying agents which are your best solution Against Terror on top of that underwater combat is to put it mildly not great these are the only underwater bosses in the game unless you count that stealth section against the carp which is kind of finicky on its own the only way to dodge is to swim in circles as they use homing and slashing attacks you'll hop in get a couple of hits and then dart back out the Fountain Head Palace variation is even more frustrating as he summons a clone to help attacking you from two directions and removing opportunities to dive in for damage all of the Headless earn F grades though there is some variation in severity the underwater version in the palace is the worst followed by the underwater one in Ashna castle if they didn't require Divine confetti the grounded ones would each land in degrade but as it stands the one in the gun Fort is third followed by the ashena outskirts battle and then the forest variation being my favorite I wish they only did Terror when they successfully hit rather than were just blocked or didn't require Divine confetti because the grounded ones suffer quite a bit from those two pieces of design the underwater ones However if those were removed from the game tonight I would be a happy man and never notice but the worst boss in searo is all three of the shishman Warriors firstly they all drop little of value so unlike the Headless they're not even worth fighting except for the last one but that one drops a Lapis lazoi and there are other ways to get that in your first two playthroughs so technically you could even skip that their atmosphere is nowhere near the Headless and their animations are far less impressive to me shishan Warriors will use ranged attacks and summons to inflict Terror with the goal of similarly instantly killing you rather than using damage unlike headless they each have two health bars they can teleport away from melee attacks and they have no designed openings namely because their summoned attack overlap with ranged attacks that did leave openings the best way to fight them I found is to get the Purple Lotus umbrella and walk slowly towards them until you can deal burst damage to kill them there is very little in searo as bizarrely designed as these Warriors their attacks aren't often deflectable and are wide enough that the step Dodge struggles to avoid them hit boxes are larger and less distinct than other AOE and the bright colors struggle to invoke the same atmosphere as headless there are three en counters with shishan Warriors and this time only one really provides any atmosphere the worst variation is in the Fountain Head Palace the purple attacks don't stick out against the brighter environment and the arena is too thin for this boss enemy often making his attacks obnoxious to dodge around as he teleports from one Edge to all the way down at the other one it's just way too big next is the one in the Ashen adepts who only summons After You Killed The Headless ape this room is congratul ations my least favorite room in the game by the way not only do both the bosses present there fail to engage the player in any meaningful way but there is no natural reason to return to the cave it is completely out on the edge of the map nothing nearby it has changed as the game has progressed there's just bosses in here that spawn at some point the best of the shishman Warriors is definitely the one by the dungeon the purple stands out really well against the brown walls here and the visual introduction of the enemy down in the pit below builds a great sense of dread that the fight does sadly fail to deliver on earning F grades across the board these guys are an easy choice of the worst bosses in searo with all three Landing under headless ape but now that we've cleared out that section of not so great bosses we are back to the normal searo fair in our final visit to Ash Castle the last area of the game searo is rarely a scary game but the Asha Elite ujinari muzo always jump scares me I honestly just forget that he's there and I run down the stairs from is's room to be instantly one tapped by an as cross ujinari is similar to jinuk but his damage and aggression are jacked up even higher in an even smaller room he's got a bit more posture but still sits as a deflection Do or Die test I have a lot less Goodwill for him than his earlier counterpart because his design doesn't feel like a boss that needed to be repeated if we needed a red-eyed version of an early game Boss maybe use a general or a seven as and of spear something with a more engaging move set rather than a pure mechanical test to reach this point you'll have beaten Gano Al the true corrupted monk you've proven you can deflect attacks he earns a high degrade though it's not insulting his design is too simple to earn its placement as one of the last five battles in the entire game but whereas one rematch fails another other succeeds it may have taken four attempts but we finally found it a balanced drunker fight shikaki of the Red Guard is a great skin for the drunker the poison breath being replaced by a flaming breath as he leads a horde of ministry fighters in the outskirts looks so insanely cool the changes to the model make him feel unique and the drunkard's move set remains complicated enough to serve as a suitable endgame challenge the thing that makes shikaki my favorite drunkard is that his arena is not only more designed for stealth with the enemies each being separated enough to take out with careful play but you have enough tools and sugars at this point that the tools to handle such a massive horde are present this time this is the same Arena we once fought General tens and yuchi in and where yuchi struggled to reach you shikaki moves fast enough that the same cheese strategies fail while the stealth focused multi-layered Arena design still shines unlike other drunker fights with weaker enemies I find myself less concerned about much harder foes which goes to show you about what enemy placement within a map can really do I wish we had more rematches like this that establish a standard for a boss and then twist that to tell a story the other drunkards were these wild untrained Warriors mercenaries that couldn't be trusted shikaki fights that same way but there is a focus he has the focus of the ministry without knowing anything else about this man there is a story being told just through the ReUse of this enemy which creates an incredible naturalistic sense of World building shigekichi earns that solid a grade that I have wanted to give the drunkards since the beginning of this video and when you combine his incredible design with the rest of the gauntlet that is the Ashna outskirts at this point in the game he also serves as the perfect appetizer for the boss that follows immediately after the first time I played searo the demon of hatred was among my least favorite bosses but as I fought him again and again run after run and finally learned how he works I've gained more respect for what this boss does for the game's lineup then I think I've gained respect for any other boss demon of hatred is unlike any other boss in the game even the guardian ape with his flailing arms and massive size still followed the game's basic rules of inflection demon of hatred feels like a boss from a different game with his few deflectable attacks all knocking you back and making it hard to ever respond you cannot deflect any of his slams or jumps forcing you to run around and grapple back in to punish and you'll be draining all three of his health bars with most Prosthetics doing absolutely nothing the only one that does anything is the Mal content whistle which will give you a total of three stuns for the full fight yet despite all of this there is something so incredible about this fight and what it demands in terms of Mastery his move set is dynamic which at this point in searo isn't much of a surprise but it still works well to make the demon feel alive while you're close he'll do Stomps and a massive belly flop the belly flop may seem scary but it serves as one of the easiest opportunities to back off then grapple back into the explosion to keep the pressure on the demon is most threatening ironically when he's at a distance he has a charge sweep that jumping somehow avoids an absurd reach with his flaming arm creates rings of fire that he can pass through that trap you creates homing fireballs and he leaves lingering damage zones that reduce your Mobility against a boss that removes every method of Defense outside of that Mobility much like many of the other memory bosses on this list the atmosphere is nailed from the beginning of the game you'll hear about shura and the demons it creates here the sculptor talk about his past and his gratitude to ehen for stopping him from becoming a demon but then when the war finds him again reaches your home base the sculptor breaks and you find your savior here indiscriminately killing anything and everything in sight the final thank you at the end of the fight is such a beautiful touch that makes this side boss feel important while making it optional keeps the unique and often overwhelming design it has from feeling frustrating sakuro lacked much of the significant side content that from software games had started to become known for with owl father and everything perceiving it being required for certain endings defeating it provides you a memory yes but the demon of hatred is a personal demon to overcome for both wolf and the player and I still find myself after all this time still wanting to swing by to face the sculptor on my casual playthroughs because killing him is such an emotionally cathartic moment within the frame of this story the demon of hatred earns an a grade missing out on the S grade because well the core of the game is missing out of the fight that said I wouldn't have given him anything near as high on my first playthrough this is without a doubt the from software boss that has gred me more than any other encounter in the series but after raving about an absurdly difficult end game game fight it is time to complain about an absurdly difficult endgame fight the seven as of Spears was one of my favorite mini boss molds and the generals are fun enemies that I wish there were more evolved versions of so the battle against the seven ashaa Spear shume masagi oniwa and his General sounds great that's sarcasm it's not really great I mentioned the Headless ape is the only gank fight it's not entirely true because this exists and though it's not as bad it is still an aggravating fight the move sets still work right individually but there's two big issues first the seven Spears are not designed to be fought with anything nearby they throw out so many attacks with such a strange Rhythm that they require your entire Focus to engage with which again is a good thing they are immaculately designed mini bosses the generals are simpler yes but they attack frequently enough that even with basic mobs things can quickly become overwhelming on top of this the arena is not built for a Duo fight something something pillars in orangee and smell but the only way to avoid aggro in this arena is to stand on a branch and completely break their AI There is almost no space here at all this is probably one of the hardest Duos to separate in the entire series and to make things worse when the fight begins they are standing in the middle of an open space facing each other which means stealth even when using the stealth sugar is not much of an option you can hop around wildly and eventually try to get something in once they've forgotten about you and are moving back to their positions but that's easier said than done the fight feels like methods to overcome them haven't been planned which is a shame because I adore both of these enemies in the vacuum because of this the fight earns a degrade once the general is dead I love refighting an endgame seven Asen a Spears but it's just an unsatisfying encounter that ends up proving more frustrating than nostalgic but finally we come to the end my personal favorite boss in the entire catalog of from software games Isen the sword Saint figuring out where to start with this boss is tough because there is so much going on so you know what let's just get started to begin you return to the same field you lost your arm in at the beginning of the game I didn't go over it too much in ginro since you really just lose here but the arena is gorgeous the flowers go just high enough to be present without making it difficult to see which is a tough line to tread it's spacious and the Rocks amid the arena are just enough to be hazardous without being obnoxious you face genichiro again here in a one-phase battle and though it doesn't feel as individualistic of a boss as Emma did he builds the atmosphere just as well he starts in his glass Cannon phase but replaces his lightning with slow mortal blade strikes and facing the man who took your arm in the same arena with the table completely turned is ridiculously cinematic by the time you've claimed your final Victory against Isen this phase is a speed bump at best compared to your fights with owl or the monk gicho feels like he's moving in slow motion at this point in the game the dialogue is great for building tension and then he drops gicho flows so naturally into Isen and serves as more proof of your growth than a new unique foe Which F feels like an invitation into the absolutely brutal battle that is ehen I haven't been breaking down intro cut scenes in searo too much beyond the fact that they look really cool but everything Happening Here is perfect if you've watched any other searo video on YouTube they'll have told you about the fact that wolf goes from struggling to draw his sword at the start of the game to drawing it perfectly here and yes he does that that's visualized character growth in a from software game but my favorite thing here is is the absolute Insanity that is isin rising out of gano's corpse Isen is one of from software's better established characters within the game you have so many conversations with him throughout everything he's been talked about so much that you get a picture in your head of what this Legend must have been and Rising here taking his grandson's Last Wish a wish isin him has said he does not even believe in and refusing to let it die creat creates an incredible feeling there is a weight and significance in this battle I adore the sense of finality ehen has is unmatched in gaming there is no question this is your final challenge to overcome this is what it's built to in games as directional as from software games I think one thing I've neglected to mention up to this point is the weight Final Bosses in general often have true king elant Gwyn nandra the soul of Cinder ragon in the Elden Beast you can say what you will about the games about the bosses themselves but the fact that you can feel that you are at the final boss is amazing and when you combine that talent that ability from software has with the story weight searo provides Isen carries The Best of Both Worlds imbuing a clear final boss from a story standpoint and then adding that X Factor that from software brings to their World building and storytelling is boasts three phases and all of them are almost completely mechanically unique getting through the fight means beating ginro and all three phases in one shot which makes this the only fight that requires four health bars to be reduced with no break it is easily the hardest fight in the game My First playthrough I sprinted around and took pot shots out of fear but learning and engaging with his move set is so ridiculously fun and the one no hit battle battle I ever got while practicing for my speedrun is possibly my greatest accomplishment in any game ever Phase One features Isen wielding the Mortal blade however being Isen he refuses to use the Mortal blad's power because he's just that [ __ ] cool he uses versions of the Asha art so powerful they cause a storm to start building because of course he can do that why couldn't he do that his attacks are all fast and brutal but aggression pays off in a huge way here if you keep in his face you can build his posture if you make one slip up though he will tear your health bar apart in seconds and he's defensive enough that damaging him is easier said than done leading to a rapid posture recovery but even with that aggression and defense this phase serves as just a warm-up practicing the fundamentals of searo via positioning deflecting mury counters and stomping sweeps then the second phase starts in my personal experience this phase is the single hardest phase of any boss in searo he draws the spear that he once gave yobu and starts to do wield a spear and a sword and his attack strings are ridiculous like pontiff they'll go on for seven to eight hits at a time with strange delays but unlike pontiff you can't just run away you have to learn and master it the range on his spear is massive and the Ashna Arts become less punishable and he gets his most famous attack whipping out a Gun and shooting it at you rapid to fire this man has come back from the dead burst out of his adopted heir's neck and is wielding a Legendary Blade without using its powers because he thinks they're lame he's holding the Spear of the man he killed to form his nation and a [ __ ] automatic that you can Parry he's hard to approach he does a ton of damage his posture recovers at an insane rate keeping the pressure on here is harder than ever because he has so many moves with hyper armor that will make him impossible the challenge he will only stagger at very specific moments here if there is a phase that wants you to know that you are outclassed it is this and during this entire time the weather is continuing to get worse and worse as it turns into a full storm one of my personal favorite attacks that I have to shout out is this long lunging thrust and it is the most satisfying makiri counter in the game I will literally never get tired of Landing it the Final Phase maintains the move set of the second but is thankfully far easier due to the one major change he adds in lightning as the storm reaches its peak the timing here is far more natural than gicho which is great for how demanding the rest of the moves that remains even if you don't contest the lightning being able to Dart behind him for free Vitality damage is huge for getting the edge in this fight the lighting escalation feels incredible with the building storm throughout the battle and manages to make a repeated phase somehow more tense while also easier to get through there are always exceptions but once people make it past the second of the phases they'll be able to get past the third pretty quickly after my first ever experience with the game I was stonewalled on the second phase I could not get past it attempt after attempt after attempt the first time I beat that second phase I beat the third phase right afterwards because it trains you so well and builds to that climax so well it is simultaneously challenging and cinematic once he finally loses that last health bar he surrenders and gets a noble execution I think it's important to note here isin is one of the only bosses who doesn't try to get a final hit before they go down genichiro lunges forward Al tries to push himself up Isen here just drops to his knees and accepts his second death which brings me to my next Point his character hesitation is defeat might be one of my favorite lines in the game and him giving you the name name searo earlier and now calling you solely by that name as he's seen you broken from the thumb of Father owl he is so well characterized that it gives the fight such an incredible sense of Life on top of this mechanical Perfection every attack has a unique Rhythm and the skill challenge is Skyhigh while still never feeling unfair unattainable for the first couple attempts maybe but never unfair there are few moments as satisfying in any game as taking Isen down particularly on challenge runs you'd think trying to fight him with two Health upgrades and low resources in a speedrun would be frustrating but it is one of my favorite parts of the run I watch this fight and see exactly how much I've grown from running away from his combos to now tearing them apart with the flexion strings ising the sword Saint is an easy Sr boss and my favorite boss in this entire series on a bit of an underwhelming note to end on inner ehen is probably the only inner boss that disappointed me he doesn't feel particularly difficult if you've beaten ehen you can beat inner ehen he just does mortal blade attacks now so if you know how to deal with those you're good to go he's still an esgr yes but it just Wows me a little less than the other inner bosses and with that that is SEO Shadows die twice now the f grade obviously seems a little inflated but you have to remember eight of those are either shishan Warriors or headless enemies and without the mini bosses including this roster of bosses cleans up even better than bloodborne with only two major missteps throughout the game and the worst of those battles is skippable but with the wolf's foes analyzed that brings us at long last to Elden ring or it would be if I hadn't played Demon Souls at this point so there's going to be one more video to come before we get to the Golden Goose of the from software Library so I will see you next time for what's probably going to be the shortest video in the series as we travel back in time to the birth of the Soul's series but also forward because I play the PS5 version so you know I'm still kind of doing release order here either way I'll see you next [Music] time

Channel: Akasharose

Views: 54,323

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Id: xgQuNV99P_A

Length: 115min 17sec (6917 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2024