Bloodborne is a game from FromSoftware and is basically a spin off of their Dark Souls series. But where Dark Soul is set in medieval times with gameplay about patience and strategy, Bloodborne is set in Lovecraftian London and is about reflexes and twitch decision making. So needless to say, I love it a lot more than the main souls series.
I love Bloodborn to bits. From its geography, to its encounter design, to it deep, mysterious lore, it's a fantastic game. But one of the best parts of the game are the bosses. Huge, menacing and fantastically designed to exploit the player's weaknesses, they are the highlight of the game and taking one down makes the player feel like they personally improved and gives you that feeling of "I did it!"
Of course, some bosses do that better than others. So we're going to talk about some of the better bosses Bloodborne have to offer, some of the mediocre ones, and ones that really should have been left on the cutting room floor because they're flipping awful! :)
Now since we'll be talking about bosses in a game about secrets, this here is your spoiler warning. If you haven't played the game, you may not want to read further. Also do remember that these are my own personal choices. So even if I hate a boss you love, that's perfectly fine. It's just as an aspiring designer, I have a problem with someone of the less good fights. Such as...
#5 WORST: The Cleric Beast
This boss fight is technically optional, but most players are probably going to find it before the first official boss, and as any good first boss fight does it does get you aquiented with many of the little details you'll need to know when playing bloodborne; how to predict attacks, how parrying won't always work, how busted the lock-on system is, how often the camera gets stuck in the walls and other crap, how often you'll be dodging into scenery because you couldn't see the landscape and oops you're dead now because of it!
When fighting bosses in Bloodborne there are 2 things you need to remember; knowing the environment is just as important as knowing the boss's attack patterns, and the bigger the boss, the more likely it's gonna suck. You fight the Cleric Beast on a bridge, so that already makes the path you're fighting it on narrow as heck. But add in the fact that there's clutter all over the bridge to get stuck on as well as targeting Cleric Beast has you looking up awkwardly because it's so big, it makes the whole fight feel disconnected because you never have a clear sense of where you are unless you have a brain that's really good at head-mapping
Also, the bloody thing jumps, which removes your lock-on, disorienting you more before it lands on you for a ton of damage. Honestly, I don't think it's a very good first boss. But hey, you know who is?
#5 BEST: Father Gascoigne
So first off because Gascoigne is only taller than the player and not a huge monster, the targeting system works much more favorably. You aren't looking at him from an awkward angle and you can see a lot more of the surrounding area, so it's more on you than the game when you dodge into a deadend.
Additionally because he's a hunter, he fights with a gun, so this is when you have to get used to that. But also he fights with a trick weapon, which aside from it being a good tutorial for how hunters/invaders will be fighting, it also gives certain plays a secret advantage; namely the axe players. Because if you chose the axe as your starting weapon, you've been fighting with it for quite a while now, so you have some idea about what it can do. Thus, you have some natural insight into how Gascoigne is going to attack you. This works for all hunters in the game, too, so it's a nice introduction to fighting enemies with trick weapons.
Additionally, if you still feel like Gascoigne is too hard a fight, you can find a music box in the first area of the game that lets you temporarily stun him, which is a pretty neat. Also, unlike every other hunter in the game, Gascoigne actually becomes a werewolf in the fight! Why didn't this happen with anyone else?! I wanted to see more transformations like this, dang it!
#4 WORST: Martyr Logarius
No, I'm not kidding, Logarius is one of the best bosses here. First off, he has the coolest design in the entire game; he's an ice lich that feels like he could be in Game of Thrones, on top of a long forgotten castle covered in snow, and you fight him on the roof in a blizzard! Heck, even his intro is the coolest scene in the game! And I mean cool in a non-punny way, but it's that way too! Go watch it right now! It's awesome!
But okay, I know what you're thinking; if he's so cool and epic and what not, why is he on the worst list? Well, sometimes it's a single misstep can ruin an entire encounter, and Logarius has one. See, when you do enough damage to remove a third of his health he goes into phase 2, just like most of the bosses in Bloodborne. However, he starts it out by buffing himself, and if he gets that buff to work then you might as well let him kill you because unless you're super high leveled it's game over at that point.
Oh, and to make matters worse, if you do lose to him he has literally the worst backtracking root of the game, having you go up an elevator, past a room of screaming ghosts with daggers, up a ladder where you're constantly being shot at, over a rooftop, dropping onto a tower and from the tower onto a bridge where you take unavoidable falling damage. So, that's also a big hit against this guy.
The rest of the fight is great, but if you don't know that you need to shut down his technique by backstabbing him with a charged attack, then it feels like you were just cheated out of one of the best fights in the game. And I get it. I'm sure some people love a super hard, unfair boss, especially in the SoulsBorne community. But my thing is you don't have to be a super hard boss to be good. For example...
#4 BEST: The Witch of Hemwhick
Fight off you gotta talk about her setting. HOLY CRAP Hemwhich Charnel Lane is just an amazing area! It's like if the Hills Have Eyes in a lovecraftian universe! It's so serial to go from towns beset by a plague trasforming its citizens into all manner of bests to go to the outskirts of a graveyard in the valley populated by a bunch of witches kidnapping people for who know what. It's creepy and disgusting in all the right ways.
As for the fight itself, she's invisible throughout the whole thing. She tries to keep away from you, and instead just summons entities known as Mad Ones throughout the fight to kill you. This, again, adds to the mystery of Hemwhick. Throughout the games you've been fighting werewolves and blood-crazed villagers. But then you stumble into Hemwhich and see these weird shadow creatures crawling out of the ground! It's amazingly creepy, like a well told campfire ghost story.
And that's when it's revealed that there are TWO witches.
And more over they're like the Stalfos in Ocarina of Time, so if you don't put the other one down quickly, she'll revive her fallen team mate. With much less health, fortunately, but it can still get annoying.
The Witch of Hemwhick may not be the most difficult boss, but she's creative, her location and lore are amazing, and she's even got an exploit if you don't want to deal with the Mad Ones. They can only be seen by the player if you got Insight, so if you leave as soon as you enter her boss room, then comeback with 0 insight, the Mad Ones won't spawn and you're free to kill the witches without a fuss. It's pretty funny, honestly. UNLIKE THE NEXT BOSS.
#3 WORST: Blood-starved Beast
The Blood-straved beast, again, has a really cool design, what with it's torn off bloody back acting like a cloak, the same as the smaller female patient beasts you've been fighting to get to her. Plus, her wild, frenzied attacks really do make her out to be quite blood-straved. And she does have a pretty easy exploit, honestly.
Thing about dodging in this game is if you're not used to it, you'll always feel like you don't have enough dodging room. The thing is it's not about how much to dodge, but WHERE to dodge to. In the case of the Blood-starved Beast, dodging to your left when she swipes at you can keep you pretty dang safe, especially if you use the whip cane. And she can be pretty reliably parried, so she not that tough, right?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO. SHE IS WITHOUT MERCY. Thing is she's really freaking fast and powerful, and the more health she loses, the more POISON she releases! After losing 1/3rd health her attacks become poisonous, and at 2/3rds she just radiates the stuff, which leads to everybody's favorite thing; ONE-HIT-KO'S! Woot! So awesome!
And because it's so early in the game, if you use your fire paper or pungent cocktail on her, you can potentially run out, making you feel the you've effectively wasted all your good resources fighting her to no avail. Not that you can even restock after losing to a boss because you lost all your money, but that's another rant for another day.
If Blood-starved wasn't the literal third boss in the game and didn't have a one-hit kill (which is also a grab attack so you just gotta watch yourself die slowly) I probably wouldn't have put her on this list. But she is, so she's here. What could have been a great fight later in the game is just a early game headache. The cathedral of the good chalice is a cool location, though.
#3 BEST: The Shadows of Yharnam
The fight itself is against three ring wraiths, which is cool enough, but each one with a slightly different ability set; one has a sword and just swings at you, and other has a sword but also breathes fires on you, while the last one hangs in the back while casting fire ball spells at you. It's pretty daughting, since it's a three-on-one match (though if you're a member of The League you can even the odds with two companions, so that's pretty funny).
And like other bosses, as the fight drags on they become more powerful. If you take one out or collectively damage them enough, they'll move onto stage two, where they get more abilities and have fluffing SNAKES coming out of their faces! That is SUPER CREEPY AND I LOVE IT! And then in phase three the last one standing will summon a giant snake out of the ground to try and eat you, which is also pretty horrifying.
#2 WORST: Amygdala
The only real way to hit her is to get up right to her legs and start swinging, but that's a problem because you have to get through 10 arms and her friendship laser in order to even get that close! But when you get up to her legs you can start swinging and, wait, why is this doing so little damage? Oh, right. Her legs are heavily armored. It's her arm and head that aren't, and, of course, they're out of reach and the targeting system isn't going to help you look in the way you want it too.
The best way I found to beat her is to just find a weapon with an overhead swing and hope you hit her arms, because most weapons aren't going to have the reach you need to hit her. Also, there's her acid attack. It's not horrible, but it's a potential OHK, so I'm mentioning it, at least. Oh, and then there's the second optional fight with her in the chalice dungeon where you have to fight her with half your health. OH. JjJjJjOoOoOoOoYyYyYyYyEeeeeeeeeee...
And finally, and I hate to bring this up, but the game pronounces her name wrong. It's pronounce Ah-Myg-Da-La. I know this because she's named after a real part in your brain, two on each side, which is the part of your brain responsible for things like emotion, survival instincts and memory. I know the voice actor for Patches probably didn't know that and was never told, but I just had to bring it up. All in all, I feel like the Amygdala fight is just a living failure.
#2 BEST: The Living Failures
Now don't get me wrong, when you first meet Ludwig it's pretty cool and the halfway point of the fight is really epic, but the problem is mechanically he's a super fast enemy with a wide attack range who does crazy high damage. Later you fight Maria, and while she's cool at first she eventually becomes a super fast enemy with a wide attack range who does crazy high damage. Then there's the Orphan of Kos who is, you guessed it; a super fast enemy with a wide attack range who does crazy high damage! Well, at least we have Laurence here to mix it up by being fast instead of super fast. Thank god!
Joking aside, they all do have unique attack patterns that make them feel distinct enough, but when it comes down to that raw mechanical level, they don't have a lot to distinguish themselves from each other. The Living Failures are, if nothing else, more creative than any of the other Old Hunter bosses.
First off, it's a mob boss, so there's actually quite a few living failures. They share an HP bar, but you can kill off individuals to make the fight slightly easier on yourself for a time. The other thing is unlike the rest of the bosses, they're actually pretty slow, but they make up for that by not only being lumbering giants who pack a whallop if you get too close, but they're also all SPELLCASTERS! So not only do you need to juggle hitting the giant in front of you and not getting hit by it, you also have to watch out for its buddies casting Magic Missie at you!
It's a great fight because of all the things you have to juggle, both against you and in your favor. You really only want to be in melee range with one at a time, but what are you going to do if a second comes flying at you? And there's a spire of flowers in the middle of the room, so you can use that to defend yourself from the magic cast on you by the other failures.
Well, at least until their ultimate attack where they summon a meteor swarm to fall on you! I love this ultimate attack because not only is it cool as heck, but while it covers a large area, it isn't a wide range, like the sweeping sword of Ludwig or the weird boomerang umbilical cord thing the Orphan uses. It hits a wide range, but you have a good chance to dodge it, or be completely immune to it if you know a certain trick.
And now, some honorably mentions before we move on to the number ones;
HONORABLY MENTION, BEST: Watchdog of the Old Lords
HONORABLY MENTION, WORST: Darkbeast Paarl
HONORABLY MENTION, BEST: Gherman, the First Hunter
HONORABLY MENTION, WORST: Brainsucker
HONORABLY MENTION, BEST/WORST: Ebrites, Daughter of the Cosmos
And now, the number 1's...
#1 WORST: Rom, the Vacuous Spider
Rom's presence here just baffles me. Oh, sure, her place in the lore is pretty dang instresting, and I honestly do love spiders, she has a cool name and she's a cryomancer. You'd think we'd get along just fine. But remember at the top of this article when I said Bloodborne is a game about reflexes and twitch decision making? So with that in mind, tell me why in the name of all that is good that there is a boss this. Freaking. Slow. In. IT?????
And that's just in phase 1! In phase 2 and 3 she summons another batch of youngsters (fortunately it's only when she switches phases, so the spiders don't infinitely respanw) but she also starts casting magic at you! Ice comets and ice spikes and a wave of cold if you get too close! And unlike the Living Failures there's nothing to block her damage, so you just needa watch for it and dodge.
The worst part about it is not only is she a frustrating, tedious boss, but she's so slow and boring. Why put a boss this repetitive and slow in a game about being fast and reflexive? Every time I fight her I feel like I'm fighting a brick wall that I'm slowly chipping away at, except every once in a while rocks just fall on me and I have to start all over from scratch. She's annoying and boring and in my opinion, the worst boss Bloodborne has to offer.
Though, I admit, some of the fan stuff people have done of her makes me smile. So she's not all bad. (source at the bottom)
#1 BEST: Mergo's Wet Nurse
Mergo's Wet Nurse to me feels like the perfect boss, and one of the best penultimate/final boss in a game ever. And what's funny is that she doesn't really have much of a gimmick, and I think that's what makes her so great. She may be a giant monster of unfathomable power, but she's also incredible close to a fight with a hunter.
Where you fight her is great, too. Near the end of the game you're pulled into a place called the Nightmare of Mensis, a place which may or may not exist, honestly. In there you find and scale a giant castle, and at the very top of that castle is a giant, plain garden. Everything colored black like the night, except for the pale blue moon, way too close to for you to still be in your world. And in the center of that garden is a baby carriage. If you get too close, you'll notice several skeletons on the ground, and that's when the wet nurse attacks.
The fight itself, as I said, feels strikingly similar to a hunter fight. It's not super complex, but you need to be able to read her movements and get out of the way before she strikes you down with her massive blades. And because the arena is circular with nothing blocking you, you don't get killed because you back into another shrubbery. The only thing in her fight that is gimmicky is actually pretty cool and makes her feel unique. She can teleport sometimes, and she has a veil of darkness she can temporarily cloak the field in, and when the field is under that veil she can create a clone that will attack on her behalf. And a cool detail is when in the darkness, her swords glow purple even when she's far away from you
What I find really cool about the fight, though, is that you can fight her in multiple ways; in my NG+ file I just went head to head against her in a straight up brawl, but my first time playing I used the whip cane to inflict rapid poison on her. So the fight was me trying to keep my distance while still hitting her enough. I always love to see bosses that can be taken down in more than one way.
And finally there's her music, which is entirely played by a music box. It's a subtle, creepy way to make this boss feel even more unique. In a game full of great boss battles, she is by far the best and my pick for Bloodborne's greatest boss.
Thanks very much for reading, and I do hope you enjoyed uwu
Rom Plushie
https://www.deviantart.com/appledew/art/Rom-the-Vacuous-Spider-Plush-749581519
