Dark Souls excels as a game in many areas, but most will agree that the game is at its best during the boss fights. There’s nothing else quite like a Dark Souls boss. They’re intimidating, challenging, and usually well designed. Usually. FromSoft has an eye for talent and consistently produce high-quality games, but Dark Souls isn’t exempt from a bad boss or five.

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While Dark Souls is a fairly solid experience from start to finish, it does dip noticeably in quality after players defeat Ornstein & Smough and acquire the Lord Vessel. Even before then, though, not all the bosses feel worth the effort of getting to and defeating. Some are boring, others poorly designed, and the worst are just outright dumb.

10 BEST: Crossbreed Priscilla

Dark Souls Crossbreed Priscilla

Although an easy fight, the battle against Crossbreed Priscilla is one of the most memorable in the franchise, if only because it gives players some rare agency within a boss fight. Priscilla doesn’t need to be killed. In fact, there aren’t any real benefits to doing so. But Dark Souls is a game and Priscilla is a boss, so what’s a player to do?

Those that choose to fight Priscilla will be treated to a great boss fight. She starts out completely invisible, and the only way to hit her is to either swing blindly or monitor her footprints whenever she steps on snow. It makes for some solid tension. 

9 WORST: Moonlight Butterfly

For magic and long-ranged characters, the Moonlight Butterfly is a walk in the park. Heck, just summoning Witch Beatrice is enough to make the Moonlight Butterfly a cakewalk, but that doesn’t make it a good boss. Far from it. The Moonlight Butterfly randomly roams around the stage, moving at its own, sluggish pace. 

RNG is not inherently a bad thing, but this isn’t the good kind of RNG. It just potentially keeps players waiting to attack. Which is a shame since the Moonlight Butterfly could actually be a fun fight if the boss had anything resembling a sensible attack pattern. 

8 BEST: Manus, Father Of The Abyss

Manus, Father of the Abyss

The final fight of the DLC, Artorias of the Abyss, Manus makes for an excellent note to end the DLC on. He’s frantic, frightening, and the path to him is oozing with an ominous atmosphere. Should players choose to save them, Sif can even be recruited for the battle. Should players fight with Sif before fighting Sif, they’ll even get an alternate cutscene before said boss fight. 

Manus is excellent, though, and makes for a nice, alternate final boss for any Chosen Undead who found Gwyn a bit too easy for their tastes. In many respects, Manus feels like a proto-Bloodborne boss. 

7 WORST: Demon Firesage

The Demon Firesage likely only exists because FromSoft was pressed for time and felt like they needed bosses on the trek to the Bed of Chaos. It makes sense, the Bed of Chaos is something of an arc villain, connected to multiple bosses the player fights over the course of the game. But the Demon Firesage is just a retread of the first fight. 

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Not just that, another retread of this fight already exists and it’s much better if only because it uses a tighter arena and has a memorable trigger. The Demon Firesage is just a slog of a fight with fire thrown into the mix. It’s thankfully possible to skip the fight outright. 

6 BEST: Ornstein And Smough

Ornstein & Smough

Ornstein & Smough make up the hardest fight in the base game, but they’re an incredibly fun battle. The first half of the battle sees players fighting both at once. The key is to focus on one exclusively, as defeating one triggers the other to enter a super mode. From there, the fight changes. 

Killing Ornstein first leads to the more manageable Super Smough fight, but killing Smough leads to the chaotic but blood-pumping duel against Super Ornstein. Either way, it’s an excellent boss fight that tests players of their skills before they head into the last act and go after the Lord Souls. 

5 WORST: Four Kings

Four Kings

Speaking of Lord Souls, the Four Kings are many a player’s least favorite boss fight. With Kings appearing on a timer, players need to take out each of the Kings as fast as possible lest they get taken out. It’s a nice idea in theory, and the Abyss is an amazing setting for a boss fight, but it’s an overwhelming boss for all the wrong reasons. 

Worse yet, it’s incredibly easy to cheese. Just slap on some full Havel and mash away. It’s a foolproof way of defeating the Four Kings, but when the easiest and most enjoyable way to beat a boss is to basically cheat the system, that’s probably a sign that something's not right. 

4 BEST: Gwyn, Lord Of Cinder

Gwyn, Lord of Cinder

Dark Souls’ final boss, Gwyn is going to be easy for anyone who’s taken the time to learn how to parry, but that doesn’t make him a bad fight by any means. Gwyn is aggressive, a worthy challenge, and an incredibly poignant note to end the game on. As his theme kicks in, Dark Souls starts inching towards a moody end. 

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Gwyn’s also just a great boss fight for any type of bill. Again, those who can parry well will have the easiest time, but even diligently fighting Gwyn with a bow is not only possible but actually quite fun. Of Dark Souls’ final boss fights, Gwyn is by far the best of the lot. 

3 WORST: Capra Demon

Capra Demon

This is just not a good fight, there’s no real way around it. Stuffed into a tight room with two infernal dogs, the Capra Demon is more annoying than it is challenging. Players basically have a split second to react if they don’t know that the dogs will be coming at them in a moment. The safest way to fight the Capra Demon is to just run up the staircase behind it and pick away at the dogs. 

From there, it’s just a boring fight. The Capra Demon hits hard, but he’s slow, easy to manipulate, and mechanically quite dull. He doesn’t do all that much, but that’s likely because he’s stuffed into such a tiny room. 

2 BEST: Artorias The Abysswalker 

Artorias of the Abyss

The penultimate DLC boss fight, Artorias is hands down the best fight in the game, if not across the whole Dark Souls trilogy. He’s fast, goes through multiple phases, and offers a fantastic challenge before the DLC descends into madness. Narratively, it’s also just a sad boss. After hearing so much about Artorias, one can’t help but feel for the corrupted soul. 

Artorias is the kind of boss fight that makes someone just drop their summon sign and wait. Fighting him once just isn’t enough, and he’s exemplary of why Dark Souls needs some sort of a boss rush– some means to allow players to fight bosses whenever. They’re far and away the best parts of the game. 

1 WORST: Bed Of Chaos

Bed of Chaos

In some cases, though, they’re also the worst. Dark Souls doesn’t get any worse than the Bed of Chaos. Not just as a game, but as a franchise. This is FromSoft’s biggest misstep with the series, a complete disaster that sours an already mediocre last act for the original Dark Souls. What’s worse is how much build up the Bed of Chaos has.

It takes so long to get to her and it’s not even a real fight. Players have to run across her arena while she swings randomly and creates bottomless pits. It’s an incredibly frustrating fight and the worst boss in the entire franchise, from Demon’s Souls all the way to Bloodborne. It doesn’t get less fun than this.

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