Twilight Princess without Gravity pt01

Tell me… Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls?

When you review a piece of art, what is the purpose of doing so? It seems like these days a lot of people try to "win" against it, picking apart plot holes or things that don't make sense, to come out as superior, either to the art in question or to others who didn't pick up on what they did.

But how does that serve the art? How does that serve other people? I don't think it does, and that's what I want to do.

In this series as I talk about different games, I don't want to focus on plot holes or inaccuracies for the sake of yucks or to appear smarter than I am. I want to ask two questions; what is this game trying to do, and how well does it do it?

I hope you join me in my studies of games, where I'll talk a lot about games, a little about life, and all of it with a passion to elevate the medium so that nothing can hold it back, not even gravity.

The Zelda series has produced some amazing games, such as what many consider the best game ever made, Ocarina of Time. But when the GameCube came out, while many people were hoping for a mature, adult and R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C! Zelda game, fans got Wind Waker, which was cartoony. And hey, I love Wind Waker, it's my favorite, but I can see why some folx were disappointed.

Well, the good news was the next Zelda game, Twilight Princess, was that R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C! Zelda game folx were asking for. Although, it was released right in the middle of the 2000's, when everything had to be dark and edgy!

And while Twilight Princess does come across that way, it still does it in a very Zelda/Nintendo style, making it still feel unique and Zeldaesque, creating one of the more memorable and epic Zelda games. This doesn't mean it doesn't have some major problems, but I'll get into those as I go along.

And lastly before we start I'm playing the original GameCube version. I've heard that some of the problems I'll mention have been corrected in later releases, such as the HD version, but I'm not going to know every fix since I haven't played it. I'll not what I can where I can, but if I miss something, feel free to point it out. Let's start talking about the game!

The opening is just superb, probably one of the best in gaming. It takes place at dusk with Link and Rusl, whose like Link's mentor/father figure. He talks about the sadness of dusk and brings up a legend about people in another world. Then he switches gears, mentioning a task the mayor wants him to do the day after tomorrow, but would like Link to do it instead, as they've never been to Hyrule

I love the way the dialogue is paced in this game. Here some words take longer to appear in a text box, but later we'll see words appearing smaller than others. It gives a great sense of how people are talking despite not having voice actors. Speaking of nothing being said, as the two of them walk back we can see them chatting along the way. That, along with the music that's playing here (Opening), we really get a feel for their relationship despite nothing being said.

Coming home to Link's house is nice too, as we see Father Figure say goodbye to Link and come home to his family and we're introduced to Link's... Uh, love interest, I guess? And Link's friend who owns goats but isn't any good with them.

After that awesome introduction we get to walk around a bit as Link to find their horse, Epona. And I gotta say, I've always loved the way the 3D Zelda games have controlled. It's easy to take for granted now, but Link is always so satisfying to control. They can move in any direction, roll around, back flip and side step, continuous rolling to make you feel like your going faster! It's just a ton of fun from such a little thing

Shout out to Wind Waker, for being the Link who's most fun to control and has one of the best cameras in gaming history

Plus it's great to see Link's movement interacting with the world, like rolling into a tree to knock rupees out of it. And look! I got a blue rupee, which is worth 5 rupees! I'm so glad the game told me that! 😆

When Link gets Epona from their... Love Interest? Whatever, her name's Ilia. Now Link rides through town and to the goat farm. It's cool cause it's a straight path through the center of town, so you get a feel for the village without being in it too long. It's some smart map design.

At the goat farm Link rounds up 10 goats, and then his friend Fado sets up some fences to jump over with Epona. He says you can jump over them for as long as you like, but you only have to jump over the one that is the exit to the area. The whole thing is a mini-tutorial for how to ride Epona, but it never expressly says so, conveying everything the player needs to know through the mechanics and making the player intuitively take action, rather than giving you a bunch of "DO THIS" infoboxes. The whole thing is rather nice, and it doesn't ware-out its welcome.

At this point the first day ends, so I think it's a good time to take a small break and discuss the aesthetics of Twilight Princess. First of all, the obvious. This game is going for an "epic" look, and we all know what that means! R~E~A~L~I~S~M!! Because of that, Twilight Princess hasn't aged as gracefully as, say, Metroid Prime or Super Mario Sunshine. But still, it does feel like a Zelda game and does have a look all its own in that lineup

But speaking of that look, I hope you're a fan of the color orange, because depending on your answer, I either have good news or bad news for you!

The color orange is used a lot in this game. It is thematic and all, being a color associated with twilight and sunsets, so it evokes the feeling of dusk rather well. But on the other hand WOW there is a lot of orange in this game!

You start the game off, and it's orange because it's sunset. You go to the twilight realm, it's orange! You go into a canyon and it's orange! Fire temple, orange! Then you go to ORANGE! Then you go to ORANGE! Then Orange Orange Orange Orange ORANGE!

It's a lot. I wish the game had paced itself out with the orange, because honestly there are a lot of places the orange really does work. They should have made it a bit more like, say, Final Fantasy X, where water was used in special moments of the plot

If they had used it sparingly, it would have been great. As it is? ORANGE!

Link's villager clothes are nice, too. They're detailed enough that you know it's Link, but they still feel very common, so you won't miss them when they go away later. I do wish you had an option to get them again, though, but it's not that big of a deal

The last thing to mention right now is that this intro is really slow, which I honestly love. It reminds me of Fellowship of the Ring, which also had a slow intro. And... That's all the justification I need; it reminds me of Lord of the Rings in a good way.

It's the next morning, and we meet Talo, Malo and Beth. And... Uh, well I appreciate what the game's trying to do. It's setting up what Link's day to day is like and how he's a friend to all the children in the village. It's a classic trope, and it should be effective in setting up the emotional stakes that will appear not that much later in the game. But the problem is these three characters are... well... SNORE!!!

They're not interesting! There's literally nothing unique about these charters that makes me want to care about them (except for Malo but... Oh, god.)  We'll get into that later).

Honestly the worst offender of this is Colin, Rusl's kid who we haven't properly met yet because he's supposed to have an arc but doesn't really so it ends up being... well... SNORE!!!

I appreciate what the game's trying to do more then what it actually does, which spoiler alert, is going to be a running theme throughout the game 😒

So there's a rather nice conversation with this guy named Jaggle. He yells to you about how you can Z-target with L (I still call it Z Targeting, idgaf) to talk with people from afar, that the shop keeper's cat is by the lake looking for fish, tells you about a helpful plant that can call hawks (which you need to use to get past this part in the game) and how to jump over ledges. The whole thing is a quick conversation that feels like you're talking to a normal human being, and tells you everything you needa know to get past this next part of the game in a way that's simple to understand

Ok, remember how I said the slow start here was a good thing? Well, I still stand by that, but there are two things that actually do ruin the mood. The first is you need to get a slingshot from the shopkeep, but she's sad because her cat's gone. But hang on there, slick! Didn't Jaggle just tell us the cat is by the river looking at fish? Why, yes he did! And when we give the expecting mother her cradle back, she gives us the fishing rod! So this should be simple, right? What's the problem?

The game is stupid, that's what!!

So as you might have guessed you have to go over and fish near the cat to get him back to the shop. But catching a fish actually doesn't do anything! I mean, sure, the cat walks near to you now, but you can't pick him up; he just runs away. And I can't select the fish I just caught from my inventory at all, nor can I lead him back to the house because he goes back to the pond if I get to far away! So what am I doing wrong?

Well, the answer is, catch a second fish.

Credit where credit is due, it's not that difficult to figure out, but it ain't intuitive at all, if that weren't made obvious by the fact I came up with 3 or 4 different plans before I thought to catch a second fish, which he just yanks and runs back home with.

The next problem with this game is you have to buy the slingshot, which is 30 rupees, and that can kill the pacing here. Now I know what you're thinking, gubert "in Ocarina of Time you had to get a shield that was worth 40 Rupees, so why does that make a big deal here?" Well the difference is that in Ocarina it was meant as a way to get you to explore the area

Kokiri Forest was a pretty big place, and in it you could find grass and rocks with rupees under them, there were hidden rupees behind houses or in tall grass, there were even invisible rupees scattered you could find by experimenting and jumping off of and through stuff. And that's to say nothing of the Lost Woods, which is another compete area that you could explore and get lost in!

But Ordon is relatively small, or at least it feels smaller because there isn't as much to find and there's not a second area to explore like in Kokiri Forest. Plus there are basically no cashes of 5 rupees to find, so you're stuck just getting a bunch of green rups until you hit 30. This is one of those things where if feels like Ocarina, but it doesn't have the proper execution to be it.

Hey, everybody! It's the TWILIGHT PRINCESS DRINKING GAME!! Every time this game has a great idea but then executes it poorly, take a shot!If that terribly executed idea is also an homage to Ocarina of Time, take 2 shots! This aught'ta be fun

So with slingshot in hand I go back to my house to show to the kids. As I return Rusl meets me and says he left something in my house, and as I go to get it we learn why you need to get the slingshot; there's a walltula on the ladder to my house!

I mean, really? This is Nintendo's way to strong-arm me into getting a slingshot? A bug's in my way? I mean, now I got a ton of questions about this! Like, has this happened before? What did Link do then? Did they just wait for it to move? How long does it usually take? Have they ever had to sleep outside because the spider just wouldn't move for hours? Rusl was just in my house, though, so how'd he get past it? Did the spider just decide to take up residency the second Rusl left? Why is this in the game and why am I still questioning it?! Moving on!

You can talk to the kids and show them your slingshot for a tutorial on how to use it. It's optional, but I did it anyway because I love the range weapons in Zelda, so I did it for a bit of fun. And it is sorta cute when all the kids who are trying to be better than each other all drop their facades when you do something cool, which is cute. But it turns out that slingshots come with manuals in this world? What? I just went on a lengthy spider rant, so I'll just let this one go.

Turns out the thing Rusl left us in our house was a wooden sword. And he left it in this big, ornate chest when he could have just put it on a shelf... NO! FOCUS! Ugh. Anyway, we have to talk to the kids again to do a not-optional tutorial on how the sword works. There are a whole bunch of moves, as usual, but unlike Wind Waker there's nothing added to the set... Well, yet, anyway.

However, while the game doesn't tell you this, I've been studying the 3D Zelda mechanics for years, and there is a new feature; when your sword lands its final hit, it'll do double damage, just like a jump attack!

So the wooden sword does half of what our first real sword will do, so three hits in a row will inflict 1.5 damage, but chain all of them together and it will do 2.5 damage! Woot! And same goes for when we get our first real sword; three hits equals 3 damage, but the final 4th hit makes combo attacks worth 5 damage! That's cool! But it's also difficult to really pin down how much health enemies actually have, which I'll get into as we fight more and more bosses

Also while watching my sibling play, she apparently had a lot more trouble getting the quick spin to work than she does in Ocarina of Time. I don't know how relevant that is, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

As soon as you finish up the tutorial, one of the kids, Talo, notices a monkey! They've apparently been causing the town problems, and he immediately runs after it! And, mate, can he book it! Even on horseback I can't keep up with the little fool! It's almost as if he just teleported to a plot-convenient spot! Weird...

On our way we meet a friendly lantern seller who gives us one for free. How nice of him! Also, I really do love the lantern in this game. It shows you how much oil you got right under your hearts, and Link can put it on their belt so they can use other items while keeping the lights on, as well as puts it next to chests when they open one. But the main reason I love it is because I love the dark caves you have to use it in. You go through a small one here when rescuing Talo, but there are quite a few of them in the game and they're super cool to go through. I'll talk about them in more detail when I actually find them.

But do you know what else is good? The creature design! Yeah, as much as I'll harp on the R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C! designs here on out, every single enemy in this game has a top notch design. For now, I'm just going to give major credit to the Deku Babas, because the design is much closer to the original art work from Ocarina, and it makes these weak enemies look fearsome.

You keep running into the woods, running across a cool shop with a bird where you get to chose what you pay for his wares, which is a neat concept I wish more games would uses. If you overpay he compliments you, or he'll call you a cheapsake if you underpay. OR he'll try to peck your eyes out if you don't pay him at all! He'll also attack you if you try to enter his shop before killing the bokoblin nearby, thinking you're a bad guy, too. Something I learn on this playthrough!

Anyway, you find Talo who both he and the monkey were taken prisoner by the wild Bokoblins from the forest. Turns out the monkey ain't so bad, after all. Talo asks you not to tell his dad, but oops! Rustle arrives right after and said his kid, Colin, had told the adults right after we all ran off. Rustle thanks Link for saving Talo, but I don't think that kid is going to have an allowance for the next month.

Rustle reminds you that tomorrow you leave for Hyrule, to which we immediately cut to the next day. Before we leave, we needa do more goat herding, but two things are different this time; first the number of goats have doubled to 20, and now there's a timer. The timer doesn't really mean anything right now, it's just so when you finish Fado can say "that was X faster than usual!", where X is set against 3 minutes (this time I did it in 1:13, so he said it was 1:47 faster than usual.) This is a hint for later in the game, so you know what time you gotta beat to get a heart piece from him. That's some rather nice hinting right there

Why do I get the feeling that if I don't deliever this thing properly,
the mayor's going to get my knees acquainted with a crowbar?

So finally the day is here! The mayor gives us a "pep talk" and sends us on our way, but uh oh! Ilia notices Epona's hurt! So she scolds Link and takes Epona to the healing spring to heal her. What?! We needa go to Hyrule ASAP and she took our horse from us because she thinks we mishandled her and wants to make sure she's in proper condition for the trip?! How dare she! This is unacceptable behaviour to scald me on my possible bad behaviour! Who does she think she is? A character with agency? HA! (this has all been a joke at the expense of dullards who actually dislike Ilia for this scene).

After Ilia pimps off with your horse, you can talk to the godmayor, and each time will trigger a scene with a goat escaping from the barn. You do a quick mini-game which either the goat will escape or Link knocks it out and it solemnly walks back into the barn

It doesn't matter how many goats escape or how many you wrangle back. Heck, you don't even have to try once. It's pretty much superfluous to the entire narrative. So, why is it here? Because it's secretly teaching you how to defeat the final boss!

When I first realized this my mind practically exploded. I love this idea. Can you imagine if vacuuming your room and doing the dishes was all secretly a tutorial on how to end capitalism forever? That's be nuts, and fun, and funny!

As you leave the village you run into Colin again who wants to talk to Ilia, but Talo won't let Colin pass because he had the nerve to tell the grownups he was in danger, and he won't let you pass either until you give him your sword. Uh, are you serious kid?

Hey, remember how I said a lot of people hate Ilia for no reason. Yeah, screw that. You know what character deserves some hate? Talo. I mean, really; he's obnoxious, bullies Colin constantly, forces you into tutorials, runs into the woods he's been told by his parents not to run into, forces you to rescue him, and now he won't let you pass to get your horse so you can get on your important job for the Ordon Mafia, unless you give him your sword, effectively unarming you. Yeah, sure kid. Whatever. I sure hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the butt in less than 5 minutes.

Colin has a nice moment here, too, saying he wants to be like Link. But not in the fighty way, but more in the taking care of animals way, which I think is really sweet.

Finally, you talk to Ilia. Colin has been speaking to her and she admits she didn't know about Talo's escapade into the woods. She apologies (she didn't really have to) and asks you to promise her one thing; don't do anything reckless. She doesn't want anything bad to happen, so she asks you to please come home safe.

... And then like a freaking train derailing, something bad immediately happens.

Suddenly a group of bulblin bandit break in riding warthogs! They shoot Ilia in the back and knock Link out before kidnapping Ilia, Colin and the rest of the children! With Link unconscious, their leader walks in and blows a horn which causes a portal to open up in the sky. This causes the leader to break out an evil smile, then the bandits ride off, leaving Link behind and the kids their prisoners!

WOAH

Here's the thing about the Zelda series that frustrates me, and a lot of others; it doesn't really like breaking from formula. It likes to stay in its neat little packaging, and it does so in this game in a lot of places, too. But what makes it so frustrating is that it doesn't even need to change that much to breath new life into the series and make each game unique

Here's a great example; What really happened here? The destroyed home town trope, basically, but the town isn't really destroyed, so that shouldn't mean much. Heck, we've seen a child that Link deeply cares about get kidnapped before in Wind Waker, so the kidnapping thing isn't new? So why does it work here?

Three words; setting, pacing and tone. So far it's just been a peaceful village and Link's "destiny" is to delivery some mail to Hyrule. But what happens in this scene?

1. Peaceful moment, then suddenly villains show up
2. They knock out Link, preventing them from doing anything
3. They open a portal in the sky, creating intrigue
4. Ride of with the kids in tow, who we've establish Link cares deeply for

This scene is so great, and it sets up what Link's motivation for questing is so well that I don't even care about some of the plot points later. Like, why did they kidnap the kids? We never find out and I don't care, cause that scene was SO AWESOME!

Oh, but the scene's not over yet! Link finally comes to and immediately rushes off after the kids. The sky changes orange (see what I mean about special moments and color?) They get to the woods again, but suddenly they're utterly shocked but what they see...

Where the Faron Woods once was, is now nothing but an eerie blackness outlined by an orange aura. What on earth is going on?

And then a hand comes through the darkness and grabs Link

And then, because they're exposed to the darkness like in Link to the Past, they transform into a being reflective of their heart. But this time instead of a cute wittwe bunny, Link becomes a wolf!

As cool as this is, I'd like to get off the ride now, please

Link passes out again, and the shadow being carries them off. But from a short distance away, we can see this whole scene has been watched by someone...

And now it gives you a chance to save, so I feel like this is a good place to end this first article off on. So what happened to the kids? What happened to the forest? Who is this person watching us? Hopefully we'll get answers next time!

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you'll stick with us to study more about Twilight Princess, as well as a few other games, including Bioshcok Infinite. Until then, take care 💜

Part 01 || Part 02 || Part 03

Top 5 Best and Worst Bloodborne Bosses

Oh, hey! It's Halloween! My favorite day of the year! Spooky stuff is so much fun, and seeing it everywhere really warms my ice cold heart. I wanna do something special for it, and I've been playing a lot of Bloodborne recently, so let's talk about that.

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

One thing I should make perfectly clear before I go on is that I don't have any of the designs of the bosses in Bloodborne. If anything, a mediocre fight more painful because it should be awesome. Case in point; the Cleric Beast. Glob, even that name is cool. And a big, furry werewolf with antler horns and a giant claw on its left side, it's so cool!

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

Throughout your journey in Bloodborne you'll meet several hunters, such as the one the player controls, only they've been fighting the lovecraftian werewolf disease so long that, for one reason or another, they've gone stark-raving mad. Most people agree that the hunter fights are some of the best battles in Bloodborne, and your first tussle with one against Father Gascoigne is no exception.

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

Now I'll be honest again in that I found it very difficult to make a top 5 worst bosses list. Like, top 5 best was no problem and I even had to cut a few awesome entries out. But 5 worst was a bit of a stretch. Oh, don't get me wrong; #3-1 are truly DREADFUL, but the Cleric Beast and Logarius are actually not that bad. Heck, with Logarius, I'd say he's almost one of the best fights in the game!

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!

And heck, the fight with him is honestly amazing! He's a spellsword, so he'll start the fight casting spells at you, but when you get him down to around half health he starts using his sword to strike you down. And the sword also causes a magical slash through the air! And he even has Gilgamesh's nobel phantasm from Fate where he causes a storm of blades to rain down on you! It's an epic fight, and one of the best in the game. And what's especially interesting is that even after the update that lets you summon NPC hunters, you can't summon any here. The fight against Logarius is a one on one afair, and it's freaking epic.

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

I bet some of you right now are going "What, really? The Witch of Hemwhick? C'mon! She was totally easy! Why is she here?!" And to that I just say, yeah, she was, and that's kinda my point. You see, The Witch of Hemwhick provides something that Bloodborne really could have used more of; breather bosses. You know, the bosses that are still bosses, they just aren't as hard every other boss. They give you somewhat of a break, but not so much so that your muscles start to atrophy. And the Witch of Hemwhick is a great example of such a fight.

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.

You need to track down the witch and kill her, but she's invisible and teleports when you find her so it can take some time. Fortunately the Mad Ones are a bit slow, so even when there's four of them stalking you, it's pretty simple to avoid them. Then eventually after a long game of hide-and-go-seek you finally put the witch down.

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

Ok, I get it. I know you souls community sadists love this thing. I know how much fun it is to watch new players fight it for the first time. I think it's pretty funny too, but... But... But she's the third boss in the game!! And yes, I know she's optional! That's the only reason she's not higher on the list!

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

Ok, kinda went all out with that last one there, so let's get back into positivity. In a game already chalkful of mysteries and secrets, the Shadows of Yharnam are still somehow the most mysterious things in this game. They just sort of appear every once in a while, and the first time as bosses. There is one explanation for why they show up, but I won't spoil that bit here.

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.

They're an excellent boss fight, and really the only things holding them back is that their competition is just a little bit better. Also, like with Logarius, they have an utterly tedious backtracking route that has you either going through an forest full of hyrdas or past two giant pigs that can easily OHK you. Well, at least everything else about them is great.

#2 WORST: Amygdala

Hey, remember when I said that the bigger the beast, the more obnoxious the fight is because of how the camera and lock-on work? Well, if it was a problem with the Cleric Beast, here they're outright working for Amygdala. The thing is you can only target one of her body parts at a time, but you have no way of controlling which body part you target next, so you just fumble through all of the things you hope is the part you want and wait, where did she go? Oh, she has a jump attack too, and she just landed on you and now you're dead. Take 2, I suppose.

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

Okay, yeah, that wasn't my best segway, but still. Anyway, we haven't talked about the Old Hunters DLC at all yet, have we? Honestly , I think it's a great expansion for the base game. New weapons and armor, new enemies to fight, a few new items and some cool new areas, including the Fishing Hamlet which I love because it feels like what would happen if Silent Hill met Innsmouth. Honestly, the DLC only has one glaring weak point, and as you might have guessed, it's the bosses.

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 lastly, the area they're fought in is just breath-takingly beautiful. It's a garden of sunglowers that has had all the color sucked out of it, making it feel hallow, lifeless and cold except for the few rays of sunshine that pervade the area. That, along with the sunflower pedals blowing in the breeze, makes me really wish I could have a gif of this as a wall paper.

And now, some honorably mentions before we move on to the number ones;

HONORABLY MENTION, BEST: Watchdog of the Old Lords

I had to put in some love to the Chalice Dungeons. While they aren't great, some of their bosses are still good. And what better example of that then a giant, fire breathing dog the spews lava and doesn't make you hate the camera?

HONORABLY MENTION, WORST: Darkbeast Paarl

This is perhaps the one boss I wanted to love most, but aside from the camera issues every time I fight it I'm either too weak and get floored, or I'm too strong and curb stomp the thing. I feel like those are more personal issues, thus his place as an honorable mention rather than a ranked one.

HONORABLY MENTION, BEST: Gherman, the First Hunter

One of the final bosses of the game and one a bunch of people really seem to like. Unfortunately, I barely remember the fight with him, so I can't put him here in good conscience. Sorry. If nothing else, he has my favorite weapon, though, tied with Simon's Bowblade

HONORABLY MENTION, WORST: Brainsucker

W-w-what?! This was a boss?! Why did they make this thing a boss? It's just a normal enemy that steals rare resources from you! I mean, it's in one of the chalice dungeons but still! Who's cruel idea was it to make this thing a boss?! WTF?! This has to be some sort of joke, right?! Right?

HONORABLY MENTION, BEST/WORST: Ebrites, Daughter of the Cosmos

A lot of people really hate her. My sibling loves her. So, take your pick

And now, the number 1's...

#1 WORST: Rom, the Vacuous Spider

Okay, at this point I'm will to admit I was wrong on the last four entries. Maybe you didn't think the camera issues on the Cleric Beast were that bad. Maybe you think Logarius's buff isn't so terrible to ruin the fight. Maybe you think the Blood-starved beast is a well place Wake-up Call boss. Maybe you think Amygdala has... Something redeemable about her. But nothing, but NOTHING is going to convince me that Rom isn't an insidious waste of the player's time.

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?????

Honestly Rom isn't the actual problem here. No, the problem is her babies, because spider bosses have always gotta have babies, don't they? Like with Amygdala's legs, those masks that Rom and the children are wearing ain't just for show. They significantly reduce the amount of damage you can deal on them. You have to hit them from the sides, but they're always moving to prevent you from attacking their sides and, oh yeah, you have to worry about the other fourteen baby spiders in your way!

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)

But hey, at least now I get to talk about my favorite boss, who is...

#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.

First off, I absolutely love her design. She looks almost like the Shadows of Yharnam, except bigger and instead of a hood cloaking her head, her head is the hood. Her skinny body and arms are covered in crows feathers and adorned in a black, tattered dress and jewelry. Armbands, rings, neckalces and beads clank together as she moves, and it gives off the impression that she is either incredibly wealth, or was well cared for by another. And finally she has two massive black feathered wings, and she has eight, long arms, six of which hold scimitars.

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