Elden Ring's Bosses aren't Balanced; and that's okay.

So, I’ve seen this conversation being had online more and more now that Elden Ring has been out for some time. People have had their experiences with the world and its bosses more than once, myself included. What the general gist seems to be is that while the game is vast and allows for so much creativity in how you tackle the world around it, when you break down the bosses and their actual moment to moment quality, people have been saying that it’s taken a step back from previous bosses from older From Software games. Here’s the thing:

It was fairly obvious from the start.

Now, before you crucify me, allow me to explain what I mean by that heavy statement. Off the jump, I feel it’s important to remind everyone that there is no such thing as a perfect game. Elden Ring is phenomenal, and truly the contender for From Software’s magnum opus. However, because of the sheer scale they were going for with Elden Ring, there were some sacrifices that had to happen. And unfortunately, the bosses where on the chopping block. There are less than a dozen truly unique boss fights that are not repeated by any means. Now, while I personally don’t have an issue with them reusing bosses, there are some that get used arguably one too many times. Godskin bosses are a good example of this. They are each fought twice, plus their atrocious duo fight later on. Sadly, From has had somewhat of a history making fights more “difficult”, by adding more than one enemy to engage with. Combine that with them not having what you’d expect for weaknesses, such as one being faster and slower, or something of that ilk, and you have situations where the fights become more of a juggling act, taking the one opportunity you get to swing when they are far enough away from each other. But, sadly, adding more enemies to the pot wasn’t the only way they made fights harder. There are some attacks these enemies have that are just outright complete horseshit when you really break them down. And I won’t even use the obvious one, I’ll use Maliketh as an example. His first phase is tricky, because his speed is way more than what you’d expect out of him. And after his quick double slash attack, he follows up with a stab that is perfectly timed to hit anyone that panic rolls, guaranteeing a roll catch. His second phase is even more egregious, with any of his attacks landing causing health loss over time, and a lowering of your max hp. Get hit by enough attacks that land you on the ground, and you’re dead before you can even get up and put the flask to your lips. These kinds of attacks feel just over the line for what a normal person who is strictly going for a one versus one fight can handle.

And that was From Software’s Intention,

It feels like that was the goal; to push people to their absolute limits. Not only for a challenge, but so that players feel more enticed to try the summons, or use ashes of wars, or go for anything other than just sword and board. From wanted us to truly engage with this game and get creative. So, they sacrificed (whether intentionally or not we don’t know), the old fashioned one versus one integrity of most boss fights from previous games. And even to an extend the philosophies of multi-boss fights that they have learned over the years. They put those to the sides, in order to focus on the summons feature, and making the fights feel much more like a spectacle (at least the important ones). Rahdan is the best example of this. He’s not insanely hard, but can be certainly challenging. But that fight is the definition of spectacle; it’s hype as hell, and you get to summon a bunch of warriors because they all want a piece of the legend. And because he can get crazy with his combos and recovery on certain attacks, so more bodies being thrown at him can take the pressure of you for just a moment sometimes to breath. Meanwhile, there are a lot of dungeon bosses that feel just awful to fight sometimes. Almost as if they weren’t finished with the move set or balancing of the boss. The Rotting tree spirits are the best example of this: anytime you run into one of those, you just want the fight to be over. You don’t learn anything, there’s no mastery of its move set, all you do is try to stay close to it and hope to God its body doesn’t move in a certain direction and take half of your life away. It wriggles and writhes so quickly across the boss arena there’s no real strategy to it other than don’t die. When it’s done, you’re glad it’s over, you say fuck that boss and you move on. Unlike something like Rennala, where you can actually learn her moves and get better.

I get why people feel that this game now with perspective and experience, the bosses are somewhat disappointing for people. I get it, some of them really don’t hit the mark that they should've for a game this hype. But again, with the scale of the game comes sacrifice, sadly. This game is still a masterpiece, but there are holes, just like any other experience. So, I get people's feelings towards some of the aspects these games are truly heralded for. But they had a vision and they saw to it, so I can’t really blame them. Fingers crossed they don’t have the same mentality towards the DLC and make some truly cream of the crop tier bosses. I’m curious to hear others experiences and the bosses that frustrated them the most. Not even the ones you struggled on the most; the ones that you felt like were treading the line between fair and not.