It doesn’t take an expert to state the point that Dark Souls has quickly become one of the most popular and legendary gaming franchises of all time, with this title single-handedly giving rise to the birth of what is essentially an entirely new sub-genre of games that try their hardest to emulate From Software’s masterpiece and try to discover just what made it so much special.
A big part of what made Dark Souls such an excellent experience was its vast swath of amazing bosses that really pushed the difficulty envelope without becoming too unfair in the process. However, while a majority of bosses in the series might pose quite a challenge indeed, there are some that are definitely all bark and no bite.
To add more weight to this statement, here are ten bosses from the Souls series that seemed extremely imposing… yet were anything but.
10 Gaping Dragon (Dark Souls)
The Gaping Dragon easily has one of the coolest — and grossest — boss designs in video gaming history… which is precisely what makes the boss battle against him such an underwhelming affair.
Apart from a stomping attack that can do quite a bit of damage, the Gaping Dragon has little to nothing else in his arsenal that can seriously challenge a player who is already easing into the game and mastering the system at the point when the boss is encountered.
All in all, the Gaping Dragon is a pretty underwhelming boss fight, which is quite a shame given its nightmarish design.
9 High Lord Wolnir (Dark Souls III)
The fact that Dark Souls III has some of the best bosses in the entire series by a country mile is precisely what makes High Lord Wolnir even more of a blemish on the game’s pristine record of consistently challenging the player at every step of the way.
Given some of the amazing bosses that the player has already had to face by the time they finally encounter High Lord Wolnir, the challenge in this encounter is ridiculously minuscule in comparison. Ultimately, this means that High Lord Wolnir just becomes another routine part of the game instead of the highlight that he ideally should’ve been.
8 Moonlight Butterfly (Dark Souls)
The Moonlight Butterfly is one of the most legendary enemies in Dark Souls, namely due to From Software’s history when it comes to the Moonlight Sword. So, it’s only a given that fans with prior knowledge of From Software games should’ve ideally expected a great fight in this encounter.
However, the Moonlight Butterfly ends up being more of a snoozefest who just feels extremely video-gamey in comparison to some of the other bosses in the series. There’s absolutely no reason why anyone should be even remotely threatened by a boss that only takes a few hits to be defeated, after all.
7 Burnt Ivory King (Dark Souls II)
Dark Souls II has a problem with designing most bosses, with the area preceding them proving to be way more challenging than the boss fight that lies at the very end itself. The Burnt Ivory King is a great example of this.
The gimmicks in this boss feel like they’re designed to frustrate the player as opposed to challenging them, which ultimately leads to a situation where a bunch of summons are just hacking away at the boss and making him pretty much a non-issue.
6 Ceaseless Discharge (Dark Souls)
For as daunting as Ceaseless Discharge might seem as a boss fight, it’s simply ridiculous how easy it is to actually defeat him.
All the player needs to do is trigger the boss fight and then run all the way back to the arena’s entry. Doing so will cause Ceaseless Discharge to jump towards the player, before falling short of the mark and hanging on with one arm. Slashing at this arm a few times is enough to send the boss down to his doom, and elicit absolutely no feelings of satisfaction at all from the player.
5 Four Kings (Dark Souls)
The Four Kings might be a boss that can troublesome players, but the fact of the matter is that the only thing needed to defeat this boss is high DPS.
This will allow the player to take care of a king before another spawns, and basically turn the entire fight into nothing more than an ugly slugfest without any interesting mechanics whatsoever.
4 Gravelord Nito (Dark Souls)
It should be clear at this point that the latter half of Dark Souls very much pales in comparison to the former, with bosses appearing more imposing than they actually are. Gravelord Nito is a great example of this.
One would expect a holder of the Lord Souls to have a ton of fighting power… but Gravelord Nito just ends up being fairly boring as a boss fight and doesn’t really pose any challenge to the player whatsoever.
3 Bed Of Chaos (Dark Souls)
The Bed of Chaos might’ve caused many players to die frequently, but that’s less to do with the boss’ attacks itself and more with the crumbling arena that the player has to navigate around with utmost precision.
Given the fact that Dark Souls isn’t exactly a platformer, it goes without saying that falling to one’s doom is pretty common in this incredibly frustrating boss fight that has absolutely no payoff whatsoever.
2 Dragon God (Demon’s Souls)
The Dragon God is a legendary figure that is paraded around in Demon’s Souls quite a bit, and one would’ve expected that a showdown against this beast would’ve been quite a spectacle indeed.
Instead, what ends up happening is that the Dragon God just ends up being a puzzle boss of sorts, with the challenge mainly being avoiding its damaging attacks by using cover. It’s hardly an entertaining way to fight a boss that had seemed so imposing up to that point.
1 Aldia, Scholar Of The First Sin (Dark Souls II)
While one could argue that the original Dark Souls had a pretty underwhelming final boss fight, people who decided to fight Gwyn fairly instead of parrying him still managed to squeeze some fun out of that… not to mention the fact that the boss music is truly legendary as well.
However, Dark Souls II fails in that department as well, with a final fight that feels completely lazy and absolutely phoned in, especially when compared to some of the better bosses in the series.
NEXT: Dark Souls VS Bloodborne: Which Game Is Better?
