This ranking list is based off the Dark Souls Remastered version for PS4 and will go through the 10 worst bosses of the game in my opinion. Let's start off with the bottom of the pile.
#26 - Bed of Chaos
| Difficulty | 2 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 1 / 10 | |
| Design | 1 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 1 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 5 / 60 |
There's no getting away from it, the Bed of Chaos is a woeful excuse of a boss. This scenario will always guarantee to finish with 3 attacks. No jokes it will always be 3.
The reason for this is that the boss is effectively designed as a platforming puzzle. In a game where the controls are a little bit shonky, platforming should be the last thing on a players mind.
The player needs to destroy 2 trees either side of the boss arena, all the while avoiding the long sweeping attacks that try to knock the player into pits. When both trees have their 1hp removed it's time to face the main boss, in the centre of the arena, along a main branch, and take off it's 1hp.
Awful design, awful mechanics and altogether an awful boss.
#25 - Ceaseless Discharge
| Difficulty | 3 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 1 / 10 | |
| Design | 1 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 1 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 6 / 60 |
Another boss where the difficulty is based on annoyance rather than the boss itself. I will start off by saying the design of this boss is awful. I get it giant demon but the name? Really!?
The difficulty of this fight is mainly based around the boss dealing catastrophic amounts of damage that can only really be avoided by forward planning. You are not fighting the boss 1 on 1, just waiting for it to use a certain attack so you can wail on it's arm. In many ways this is similar to another boss fight mechanic, only far more frustrating.
In fact this boss can be entirely nullified by exploiting a mechanic that makes the boss hang over a large precipice. This scripted event is deliberately put in by the developers, maybe they wanted to skip it while playtesting!
#24 - Pinwheel
| Difficulty | 1 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 1 / 10 | |
| Design | 3 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 1 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 6 / 60 |
Pinwheel just takes this spot from Ceaseless Discharge because, behind it all, there is the idea of a decent bossfight. This guy should really be faced early on in the game, and if he is he can be a decent fight.
The problem is that the area this fight is found should only be attempted so far into the game that the boss itself becomes a joke. There is a huge imbalance in boss difficulty and area difficulty.
The redeeming factor of this fight is that if it does last more than 3 seconds, Pinwheel will teleport away and make clones of itself, which is a good idea most players will never have to deal with.
#23 - Moonlight Butterfly
| Difficulty | 1 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 1 / 10 | |
| Design | 4 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 1 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 7 / 60 |
The best way to describe this fight is "boring". You're gonna want high DPS just to avoid this fight taking longer than 2 minutes.
The entire fight is a waiting game, as the butterfly floats just out of reach for melee attackers, and fires lazy bolts for a minute or so. These bolts are easy to dodge, and only a few deal any serious damage. Eventually the boss will settle on the ledge, allowing the player to get 5 or 6 hits in, before it floats off again, rinse and repeat.
Ranged attackers will find this fight less tedious but there is no getting away from what is a poor boss fight design. At least it has an impressive model.
#22 - Taurus Demon
| Difficulty | 2 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 1 / 10 | |
| Design | 2 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 3 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 8 / 60 |
The second boss most players are likely to face in the game and trust me when I say one of the easiest bosses in the whole game. Whether you fancy facing it head on, plunging it from the tower, or getting it to fall off the bridge, there won't be much resistance here.
The biggest dissappointment with this boss is that it succumbs to recycling. The entrance on the bridge is excellent and it certainly looks imposing, but the marvel quickly fades away and eventually this "boss" becomes your basic enemy.
All in all it is a very forgettable boss in this series.
#21 - Capra Demon
| Difficulty | 5 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 3 / 10 | |
| Design | 4 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 1 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 13 / 60 |
This is probably one of my most debatable inclusions in the list as I had to think about when I first played the game all those years ago.
I actually think I could have put the Capra Demon much higher on my list if it wasn't for two ridiculous design choices that bring it down.
The first of these is the same reason as Taurus, eventually this boss just becomes a normal enemy. While this doesn't necessarily detract from that initial encounter it does kind of take away the wow factor of this boss.
Secondly, dogs...
Those goddamn dogs! I have a great dislike of boss fights that rely more on overwhelming the player with adds, than focusing on the boss itself. Couple this with the tiny boss arena and it makes for an infuriating sequence of rushing from the fog gate to the corner of the balcony just to funnel the dogs away 1 at a time.
Without the dogs this fight will be far more enjoyable, albeit a little easier. But the boss is challenging enough for newer players considering where in the game it is fought.
#20 - Demon Firesage
| Difficulty | 5 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 4 / 10 | |
| Design | 2 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 2 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 13 / 60 |
This list is about to start looking very familiar very soon. The last of the stray demon bosses is probably the worst iteration of them.
Sure it's the most challenging but there is no difference in Moveset or Tactics from the Stray Demon, the only difference being the arena having more potential areas for the player to get stuck in. That's not good boss design! (See BoC).
It is rather poor that From Software decided to palette swap their tutorial boss, not once, but twice for two other bosses in the game, if anything it's worse than a boss becoming a normal enemy!
#19 - Stray Demon
| Difficulty | 4 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 3 / 10 | |
| Design | 4 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 4 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 15 / 60 |
Stray Demon number two is almost identical to the Demon Firesage, except he's less red, has less health, deals less damage and you will almost certainly fight him much earlier in the game. This means he still is fairly difficult for a reasonable level character. His arena is a lot more forgiving however, and there are easy ways to manipulate this fight to give easy opening for attacks.
Found directly under the Asylum Demon fight on the return to the Undead Asglum, the transition to this boss fight is sure to have caught many an unsuspecting player out, so too would the change in attacks and AOE finishing moves.
Sadly that's really where the changes end, and the Stray Demon is just another Asylum Demon at the end of the day.
#18 - Asylum Demon
| Difficulty | 2 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 2 / 10 | |
| Design | 6 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 5 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 15 / 60 |
OG is King right?
The first boss all players new to the Dark Souls experience will have witnessed is the best of the Stray Demon trio. It is also the easiest, but that hasn't stopped it from crushing the hopes and dreams of filthy casuals giving a half hearted go of it.
The Asylum Demon is first encountered when the player is unarmed, and while most hard-core, might attempt to fist it to death, it's best to equip up and take it on in round two.
This boss is a great starting point for this game, being ruthless enough to be a challenge at the start, while also being a cakewalk for anyone who knows how to deal with it.
Sadly it is still the tutorial boss, and compared with certain others on the list, just isn't that memorable a fight. In later playthroughs it is just a mildly annoying obstacle in an attempt to get to the bulk of the game.
#17 - Centipede Demon
| Difficulty | 5 / 10 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Intensity | 2 / 10 | |
| Design | 5 / 20 | |
| Enjoyment | 4 / 20 | |
| Total Score | 16 / 60 |
And to round off our list of worst bosses in Dark Souls Remastered we have the best boss in the Demon Ruins / Lost Izalith section of the game. This fight is basically a Battle against the camera itself as you try to focus on the boss launching itself all over the arena, while also trying to avoid running into the pools of lava that spell an imminent swim in fiery death.
The Centipede Demon is a strange mess of bugs and body parts that make up a strangely interesting boss design. But it is horribly marred by just being too big for a fight like this. Most of the time you will end up staring at the belly of the beast as it squishes you into a wall.
This strangely brings me to a glitch where you can defeat this boss using its own attack against it. If the boss grabs you while in a certain position near the wall it will clip through following its animation. And eventually die somewhere in the void.
This gimmick is nowhere near enough however to bring this demon close to the top of our list. At least in remastered your eyes won't be melted by the luminous lava.
Which brings us to an end to part 1. The next part will take us through the mediocrity and mundane of the middle of the list bosses before part 3 has the big guns fighting it out to be named best boss of Dark Souls Remastered.
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