@pikmonwolf Hades isn’t a rougelike it’s a rougelite the difference is no matter how many runs in rougelikes you will start runs the same way *cough* Eden from biding of Isaac *cough but rougelites are each failed runs you can upgrade yourself for the next and all future runs
Such great and funny character development, in such an unexpected place. I guess this really highlights how Hades is first and foremost an incredible story game, and only so happens to also be a pretty wonderful rogelike
One thing that's seriously great about the hades fight is the way that his abilities mirror your own- He also dashes to get around, he has the same stab and spin attacks as the spear does, and those skulls he fires out are literally bloodstones! It says in the codex entry that hades taught zagreus how to use them, and the effect it applies when you're hit by one- boiling blood- is the same name as the mirror upgrade zag uses to deal extra damage to those hit by his own bloodstones. Even if the summoning is a bit of a thematic mismatch, the rest of it is absolutely perfect in my eyes.
Oh that's so cool! I never caught that those skulls were bloodstones. Makes sense, after all they stay lodged in your for a bit before popping back out.
I don't even think there's a thematic mismatch, because everything he does matches perfectly with who he is. He might've once been a young upstart like Zag, but now he's in charge of *all* the souls of the damned. He's a king. It makes perfect sense to the theme of the game for him to summon minions to do his bidding. It's what he's been doing the entire game, after all.
@@BlacksteelForge Not to mention that Zagreus eventually DOES unlock the ability to summon. It's fairly restrictive, but you can summon some of your closest friends to aid you at key moments if you help them out enough. And then Extreme Measures 4 comes around and HE DOES IT TOO.
@@misirtere9836 and his trinket gives you his aid whitch turns you invisible too, so you do have all of the same abilities and it makes sense that hades can just use his own greater call powers and summons whenever he wants
One thing I like about Hades’s minions is that it makes certain boons useful even in the boss fight. Some abilities are great against groups of enemies rather than single targets.
@@pikmonwolf that’s fair enough. I suppose I never thought too hard about him being able to bring shades up there. I guess I figured that if anyone has the authority to do that, even briefly, it would *have* to be Hades himself.
@@enlongjones2394 I'm sure he has the authority, it just feels so out of character. The whole game he insists nobody can leave the underworld and will not accept help in dealing with... certain things. But in the bossfight he suddenly gets help by bringing wretches out of the underworld.
I think the entrance to the underworld, while technically on the surface, is still part of Hades' underworld/kingdom and so he's able to summon wretches to help- one of his prebossfight dialogues on the surface say "The heavens and the seas belong to my brothers; but know that you are still in my domain." I think it's kinda like the River of Styx situation in the epilogue in which Charon can still ferry souls (and Zagreus without dying) on it, being an intersection between the living and the dead. Also since Zagreus carries different boons and weapons every fight, it is my headcanon that the mooks are summoned and Hades goes invisible to scout out what Zag is using at the beginning of the fight without getting hit in the process, hence why he doesn't summon in the second (except EM4) and third phases as he's already got an idea of what to expect. Also what are peoples' opinions on the optional Charon fight? I kinda like it, although it pretty much gets cheesed by the shield because his attacks are mostly easy to block. Wish it showed up more frequently, though.
Both Cannonbalrog and High Priest are limited to a maximum of two disappears per fight. This change was implemented in a patch like two years ago. Thank god for that, too! But yeah, Enter the Gungeon is just so, so good.
The thing is, throwing minions at you is very out of character. He is fine delegating but hates asking for help. Calling backup to the surface feels very out of character.
@@pikmonwolfhe doesn’t “ask” for help, he forces it upon these souls, and about him bringing them to the surface, he, a along with the other gods, tend to be hypocritical in mythology
@@pikmonwolf"hates asking for help" where did you get this??? I'm seriously so confused by this whole thing. 😅 He commands all the underworlds wretches to keep you out the whole game, this is no different. Him summoning wretches to help fight makes perfect sense, both from a gameplay and story perspective. Bizarre.
Fun fact: in risk of rain 2 if you stay in a shade grandparent’s nova (the here comes the sun attack I like to call it) wont even tickle you because it is a practical sun. And i dont mean behind cover I do mean a shade. So your character can be in line of site for the attack but because you are in somewhere darker you wont get damaged.
here comes the blazing, amazing miracle sun and it's blazing on, and so we blaze along, on until the day is done. (my friends prefer to call it "praising the sun" but I'm with you on this one)
I mean that is still cover from the attack, you're getting something between you and the source of the attack. It's a super cool way to do it though, looks great visually.
Yeah but it gets REALLY annoying when there's 2 or more spawning cuz they end up just spamming the shi out of that move and ur just stuck in place only to get one shot by a contraption 😢
Not technically true, she appears after you first reach the surface and fight hades, you don’t have to beat him (at least I didn’t) for her to appear. I also found Aphrodite to be harder idk why though lol.
Couple things for Hades 1. It feels like you expect every boss to have lush dialogue options amongst the already vast amount of dialogue and I don’t think it’s a big knock for a couple bosses not to have that. 2. Never felt the need to lock in Demeter, yes her phase for Theseus is difficult but not impossible. Aphrodite is notably difficult as well. 3. There is Charon as a boss fight but it’s a secret so you got the excuse not to mention him. 4. Hades is literally a god of the dead, him RAISING the dead mid fight still fits thematically as much as mithrixs architect role. Would agree with gungeons placement but yeah I think your hades evaluation could be fixed up a bit
His point wasn't whether or not he's able to bring the dead to the surface, but whether it fits his character and motivations. Hades doesn't want ANYONE making it to the surface, he's not just stopping Zagreus, so while he COULD bring the dead to the surface, it doesn't fit his main motivation to keep everyone in the underworld.
@@screamingcactus1753They're just minions fighting for him, it's not as if they're actually free and can leave😅 he says that this is still his domain until you leave that door. Him summoning enemies to fight you makes perfect sense both from a gameplay and story perspective.
Great to see Mithrix on the list. Con lentitud poderosa is already a great theme to end your run (And pretty emotional on the lore side of things), but to have a boss come out of nowhere and just tell you "Beg." really makes him a love to hate character for me.
I also love how unique mechanically he is, all the other bosses (even Voidling), are basically just big slow dps checks that look unique but are very simple to fight. Meanwhile Mithrix first spawns and stands up slow, but the moment the cutscene ends he just charges at you and it's instantly adrenaline pumping. He's so much more fast and aggressive than the rest of the game, and it really feels like that "dark link effect", where the enemy you're fighting is powerful in the same ways you are. I also just like how damaging he is and the fact that he doesn't summon any minions beyond a single pause phase, it's again something that no other boss in the game really does and it's such a good challenge to end a run on.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but if you read the lore and played the first game, you’d very much understand why we have to go there and fight him
mithrix' fight gets even more fun on eclipsw 8, he's faster and has half reduced cooldowns so you really need to know how to avoid him or ways to trivialise the fight (tentabauble) and every hit permanently decreases your max hp and it's just so fun
@@zewps9502 last time I tried umbral mithrix it just through a bunch of stuff at you and was just a move speed check. I remember artifact of the king being quite fun though
@@EggZu_ he definitely can feel like that (especially cause RoR2 characters all have their own movement abilities), but I feel like generally he's a boss who goes back and forth between an angrier Mithrix that requires good timing with movement abilities (dark souls joke here), and a bullet hell boss that's all about keeping calm and being able to read the arena. He unfortunately can be a bit much for characters like Cap who don't have a dash or slide or anything like that, but if you have like wax quail I feel that it can partially make up for it.
Idk I think Hades disappearing and summoning minions to fight you is symbolism for how even when it’s “personal” between you two, he really doesn’t care that much about Zagreus. It does kinda reflect on the fact that he is basically an absent father who shows up every once in a while to bully his son
Additionally, the fact that he only actually starts taking you personally and fighting you one on one for real after you manage to kill him shows this pretty well too, he only ever takes Zagreus seriously when Zagreus could actually be a threat
@@abat5549 I’m not saying he doesn’t care, he just gets too wrapped up in his work to really be there for his son. He’s always working throughout the whole game (except during fights). He won’t as much as look up from his papers until Zagreus reaches the surface.
an important thing to note about Ror2 bosses is that appart from mithrix, they are not only build as uniques bosses, but as really powerfull mobs, because with the loop system that allow you to keep a run for a long time, you'll start to have thoses bosses spawn as mobs, thus why they patern are kinda "simple" with only 2-3 moves
Hey thanks! And yeah the Master Round system is really brilliant, and EtG is the only game in the list where perfecting bosses is more fun than fruatrating.
I like the Solus Control Unit because you can physically stand on it. I like it when games allow you to physically interact with enemies like that without damage having to be involved. Heck, it even doubles as a viable strategy too. The plasma bolts he shoots cause explosions on the ground. So by standing on him, he shoots them upwards, making them easier to avoid.
Bad part is when you fail the skill check and he actually lands them all while you are on top. Happened once to me as a loader in late game, he died but managed to get 1/4 of my hp so fair trade
I don't know how much you've run into Tisiphone but she is maybe the MOST charming to me because: Eventually she is tasked with fighting Zagreus so much and he's so stubborn in trying to get her to speak on something else that she learns how to say "Zagreus" making it the only other word she knows besides "Murder" and "Murderer." It's genuinely the best part of any of the furies for me.
I get deadcell if you ignore the Queen ending, but I thought that was DLC and would be included in this list. I think the Servent’s fight is one of my favorites in all of gaming. The slow build-up to fighting all 3 at once as you scramble to scale the tower is fun. The Queen was less memorable to me, but I still think her move set was grand enough to fit a final boss and not be bullshit.
the servants is honestly unbelievably good boss design, it never feels too overwhelming when all 3 are on screen because they never just go all out at the same time, and their attacks are all well telegraphed to the player so they’re easy to learn. although the queen is a bit too easy i think because if you can beat the servants then she wont be a problem
@@burgervendor8616 yeah i think if she knocks u off the side of the arena she considers that cheap and revives you, it’s a strange mechanic and she’s an easy boss but her moveset is pretty fun to play around and it’s a cool arena
You're right about Hades. While it's my favourite Roguelike, their bosses are very much friendly to Roguelike beginner. Something I can't definitely say about most of Gungeon. (And while I'd like to git gud, I've always found it difficult despite practice.)
The bosses in Enter the Gungeon are definitely difficult, the trick is to master the floor so you go in with enough HP to tank a bunch of hits. That's the best way to learn the bosses.
@@RushWheeler Not to say that brute forcing is not an option, but I'm really not sure why the boss fights gave you such an impression specifically. Most bosses hit really hard and tanking only really works if you're going for a rather specific build focused exactly on that. Dodging attack patterns and weaving hits in most certainly seems like a much more sensible way of approaching them.
@@great_hedgehog8199 in my experience, playing defensively with Hades' boss fights and attacking only when they're open in a sort of dance-like fight gets you almost nowhere when fighting them. It's better to just continuously attack them and abuse the I-frames given to you by dashing, and then the fight just becomes a breeze. That's why weapons like the shield, fists and spear are preferred in higher heat runs most of the time, since using a weapon like the bow that leaves you open and does slow damage, or the Guan Yu spear which has ridiculously slow attacks with little reward or range aren't very helpful in the long run.
man hand of the king really made me sad. he is genuinely the most fun boss ive ever fought in a rogue like. he's actually extremely well designed, just hard. I love how you have to watch what he does so you can prepare for each hit, timing a parry perfectly, or using the platforms to weave through at the perfect time. every time i die to him, i actually DON'T get frustrated, because of how much un i have fighting him. I also think his voice is badass.
I get why people disagree, I was definitrly harsh on it. I haf actually gone in with the intent to be much kinder. But as I really dug into every boss to analyze them more thouroughly I concluded that even bosses I originally thought were pretty solid were actually very flawed.
@@pikmonwolf you litterally admitted that you used your flawed principles to try to drive your point home even though, as you said, they seemed good at first.
Whilst I agree about the comments of Dead Cells bosses being mostly just a pain, I do quite enjoy the fact that as long as you're careful and have really learned the bosses, it is possible (though not easy to achieve) to flawless them every single time... Well, maybe apart from some of the DLC bosses, but still, there's a really tough progression curve on learning how to fight them. Though with builds you're uncomfortable with it ALWAYS feels impossible to clear them
I feel like Hades and EtG bosses are better to flawless. Most bosses in Dead Cells feel pretty bad to try and do hitless. For example Conjuctivius is super easy, and I pretty much always do their 'main body' sections flawlessly. But then you have the tentacles which are super janky. I feel like basically every boss has something like that, where it feels janky and tedious to do without taking damage.
@@pikmonwolfHonestly Conjuncti is one of my least favourites because of the tentacles haha. However I think comparing EtG to these other three is kind of unfair because of the true nature of bullet hells and dodging, just because they are (supposed to be) designed precisely for that
@@pikmonwolfThe tentacles can be easily doged through or mainpulate. The ones that swing will do it once every time you kill one. Or place a turret or use any skill to stop or kill them. On 5bc bosses on early game on most builds should not take too long.
@@pikmonwolfhow to avoid testicles 101 just go to one of the side of the arena dodge the moving one wait for the ! and dodge or parry and beat the life out of that one repeat until all of them dies. I played the game too much that I get bored rather than frustrated the dlc bosses are the only one with variety because spoiler goes down too fast for most builds when you get a buch of extra stuff in the spoiler biome
While I do agree with a bunch of your criticisms of Hades' boss fights, I don't really understand how giving dialogue to the Hydra would improve things. I mean... it's a hydra, at worst you'd get a Tisiphone kind of deal where the snakes just hiss and at best you'd just get a bunch of snake puns, not to mention there would be the issue of coming up with a different personality for each head that can take the main place in the fight, when the only thing that's really different between them is some attacks and a detail on the head.
My complaint wasn't that the hydra lacked a personality, it was that they went with a boss decision that lead to them giving the 2nd world boss no personality. I think fighting something else that can talk would've been better.
Its rather interesting to hear the take on the dead cell bosses. Specifically the hand of the king. Where you see a boss that is unreadable, too big to maneuver in a cramp arena, with slow attacks that you cover half the said arena, I see a perfect challenge in which any build can work against him. Want to just run up and slash away at him? Most brutailty weapons will work just fine. Want to use shields? shields work great. Want to use slow weapons? He's just slow enough that you can weave some strong hits in between his attacks. Projectiles kinda get hampered and deterred in that fight thanks to that shield but you can make them work. The small arena and his attacks covering a good majority of it is certainly rough but I think it highlights the fact that this isn't a boss where you can just run away. You have to interact with the hand in some way and learn his attacks. Im not too sure about the rolling part of your argument as for one, he pushes himself forward when attacking making his big frame not too much of an issue to roll through and two, he often hits behind him with most of his attacks anyways making so that you have to be precise with your rolls through him. The only attack I think is actual bullshit is the slam part of his 2 hit combo because I swear I at the apex of my double jump and that shit still hits me. I often have to resort to the platforms on the side to dodge it. I really enjoyed this video. Bossfights in rougelikes have got to be some of the hardest bosses to make. You gotta make a boss that's challenging, feel fair, replayable, and you usually got to make a ton of them in order for players to not get bored over the same boss alongside all the other stuff like good visuals, sound design, and all that fun stuff. Very few rougelikes get away with a linear boss line up. Hades and Skul are some of the very few I can think of.
@@pikmonwolfif you pay close atention on hand of the king you can actually see if he is gonna use the 3 hits or 1 hit+slam, the wind of of the first atack is VERY different
I mean part of the reason that I didn't want to cover them is to avoid spoiling them, since some are cool surprises. Would kinda defeat that point if I listed them :P
In Hades, Tisiphone does develop more dialogue / attempt to communicate with Zagreus the more times you encounter her. I cant remember what it was about but Zag tries to make her say a different word and I think she manages to after a while.
I'd say that's definitely the case with the fury sisters and Lenrne, but much less so the case with Theseus and Hades, since it takes a long while to get to Heat 6+ unless you're hard focusing one weapon. And sadly, that means you're seeing more of the lamer extreme measure variants while the good ones take awhile to get to.
@@pikmonwolf Also extreme measures is not the only way to boost heat, so if you're focusing on other modifiers you may never see the special variants. I know I've only fought the boosted Furies.
Isn't concierge the easiest dead cells boss? Everyone i saw killed it on the first try, including me. And it's the first boss that i killed without taking damage. Funny that you said the exact solution "don't be creative". Just hit-evade. I guess that would be the reason why this boss is bad, but definitely not a reason to prefer evading invisible tentacles from the ground to this. And it doesn't matter where does Hand of King faces. He'll hit in your direction anyways. That's the exact mistake that i made - take into account which way he's facing rolling behind his back to evade his hits. It won't help. He'll just turn to you in the moment when he makes a hit, it's not like "you can't tell which way he's facing", he just changes the way. So i guess this whole review is just a matter of skill issue/attention issue.
The concierge is easier on the lower difficulties but on the higher ones Conjuctivius is easier to shred and deals less damage. And the Hand of the King turning on a dime to track you is also annoying. It adds to what I said early on where dodging is tedious so you need to parry everything.
For the risk of rain quip about boss fights and cover, that’s why there are always little details in levels like trees, monoliths, statues, and literally any part of the environment that isn’t an enemy can serve as cover, so long as the boss is on the other side. Even in the clip as artificer shown, there are three-ish places to hide
i guess you counted the Lich as a secret boss, but imo it's the FINEST of the Gungeon with the highly challenging but fair patterns, viability of many strategies and a masterpiece of a final phase
@@pikmonwolf honestly to me he just seems like the true final boss bc ya dont have to do anything complicated to unlock bullet hell but i can see where ur coming from
@@pikmonwolf i wouldnt say the complication is within killing the pasts, itd be crafting the bullet itself that could kind of make it considered to be a secret, but even then it feels more like natural progression where the more you play etg, the more stuff you unlock. in that sense i dont think the lich is a secret boss
risk of rain 2 I 100% agree with, most bosses are built to take advantage of the horde of enemies. Mythrix stealing your items is actually the best boss design I've seen in a long time, just simply as he says, "false strength" it forces you to remember what your build's triggers are and to avoid them
I know it's not one of the ones you mentioned in this video but the final boss of Slay the Spire and the miniboss leading up to it are really well designed. It's able to counter cheese strategies and infinite turns, but it still doesn't hard-counter most builds too bad, and the beating of the heart along with the screen shake being in time with the music is really cool.
I can't help but feel like you skipped over a huge, but subtle, part of what makes the Hades bosses so fun: the game secretly teaches you the fight before you even set foot in the arena. Meg (and to a somewhat lesser extent her sisters) use variations of the attacks that you see in Tartarus. The lunge, the projectiles, the circular AOEs, and the whip attack all come from enemies you see from the beginning. This applies to the shockwaves, homing spikes, lava splashes, and crescent projectiles of Lernie. And Thesus is a combination of the Greatshield and Greatbow while Asterius is a combination of the Nemean Chariot and Greatsword. And of course, the best is that Hades himself has moves like Zagreus. His spear swipes and throws are the same style as Zagreus, and even has his own bloodstones. He has Zagreus' death defiance and his own summon to break the rules the way Zag does. Yeah, the writing isn't perfect, but I feel like you hardly covered the clever mechanics of these bosses at all.
Hate to break this to you, but "take your boss attacks and distribute them to minions to teach the player" is literally game design 101, not a clever mechanic. Admittedly, RoR2 is the only one I know on this list, but you could say the same thing about Mithrix. Big f*** off hammer with falloff for range? You've been dealing with Beetle Guards, who do that with their front paws instead of a hammer, not to mention Lemurians, Imps, and Parents with two sets of claws and fists respectively. Homing attacks? We have those on the planet, they're called Bison, Jellyfish and Stone Golems. A horizontal hammer swing? Did you mean the Elder Lemurian's firebreath or SCU being a palpable menace? A dash: practically the entire cast has a dash if it's a player character, and Bisons and Imps are good prep for getting out of the way. Shockwave? Well, that's probably the only one that doesn't have representation, but it's fairly obvious to blind read if you're watching Mithrix and see him jump. Especially since the game has been teaching you that the only good circle in the game for you is the teleporter circle. And that's without getting into teleporter bosses or the first DLC's enemies (barring SCU), AND only for the first phase. Even if we expand to outside the Rogueli(t/k)e genre, that's almost a formality in game development. It's more amazing to NOT have that than to have it... though, admittedly, that's not the type of amazement you want from players.
I don't really agree personally. I find that a run where I play okay with OP items will always go better than playing perfect with crappy items. Scroll count, reforge luck, legendary spawns, etc...
@@pikmonwolf The thing about game balance in Dead Cells is that everything (aside from a few outliers like ice armor and owl) is uniquely good, so I would have to push back and say that a lot of what is good or bad for people is just playstyle. I'm not a fan of oven axe, but I know people who are insane with it. I also love sewing scissors even though lots of people would prefer not to use them. I also disagree about your complaint of too much going on or having to know movesets for bosses. The whole game is about skill, timing, and awareness, and boss fights where you have a lot going on (like Hand of the King throwing bombs then attacking) help to test the player like no other sections of the game. Plus the attack indicator, while sometimes a bit short I feel for some enemies, is very manageable on bosses. As a side note because a lot of this sounds accusatory and negative, I really don't like Hand of the King's hitboxes sometimes either.
@@osteohiveporosis6882 The boss fights where the attacks are complicated and don't overlap (like Dracula) do a MUCH better job at testing the player than the ones that do a bunch of simple overlapping attacks. The simple overlapping attacks are a mess of screen clutter and RNG, the single dangerous attacks are a matter of precision and skill. But most bosses use the worse method.
I am unsure if you count pasts as secret bosses, but I must say that pasts lead to some of the most fun experiences in the game, for me. Hands down, my favorites have to be the Bullet and the Pilot. They're two of the hardest, but they're so damn fun to figure out and master, because they are both highly reminiscent of the characters core designs, and also extremely creative & challenging.
If this was a top 5 list I would’ve loved to see slay the spire in here, I know it wouldn’t be as action packed as the other games but each 10 bosses having its own strategy and gimmicks that you spend each act building up with your decisions, for is fun and makes each run very unique.
@@pikmonwolf oh that’s extremely unfortunate I’m sorry, if you ever find a way to recover it or play through the game again to that point then would love to see a video on it if possible
From an outsider's perspective (I've only played RoR2) I've read a bunch of people's comments saying he just has a skill issue and that if he were better then the bosses wouldn't be so bad (which is obvious) but I feel the "skill" people are talking about in regards to DC isn't being able to time things right as much as it is just making an OP build. Of course making a build for specific bosses is a part of learning the game and getting more skilled, however it seems to, in majority, just be that where a new player can search a guide on how to make a build for a specific path and if they have any past experience with video games then the dodging/parrying wouldn't be an issue. The skill issue people are talking about is him not using what the game has presented him with because at that point it just becomes too easy (Ive seen many people say how easy the game is). Additionally, I've seen people say that even on the hardest difficulty all you need is to know how the builds in the game work, which I assume shouldn't be a problem as you've already reached that point in the game, and therefore make those boss fights easy as-well. Lastly, looking at some of the points he made about the boss fights, him stating Concierge is repetitive and tanky I understand that the tankiness could be drastically reduced if he used another build, and I see people saying it makes sense for him to be boring as a boss because he is one of the first the player encounters acting as an introduction, which is quite stupid as a boss doesn't need to be boring nor repetitive simply because someone is new the game, assuming they don't know how to shred the boss meaning the fight lasts longer. As for HotK, the arena size relative to the boss is a fair argument, however the attacks he says are indistinguishable is definitely overkill. I haven't played DC, I hope to be able to in the future, but this is what I understood from the comments and definitely puts me off the game because why would I play a game that seems to be easy to beat with a simple understanding of the build system, WASD, dodging/parrying and the jump button. It just doesn't seem like that would be fun due to the fact that I have to base my build entirely around what I need to face for it to not be tedious. Unlike RoR2 where I need to understand an individual classes skills and abilities combined with my skill and the items you pick up in a run (E8) comes second. Cheers for reading if you did, probably wasted less time than me writing this (unless you're illiterate)
fun fact: the teleporter prongs function as cover from every boss attack if you angle it right, more forgiving than they looks, ESPECIALLY the primordial one
I love how concise this video is! eventhough I'm really bad at roguelikes myself, you're deconstruction of the games really made it easy to understand you're personal boss placements. 9/10 from me.
Hey thanks! I always want my videos to still be enjoyable for people who aren't super familiar with the subject, so I'm glad you liked it! And I feel like the Hades section could've been cut down a bit, but that would've delayed things further. "If I had more time I'd write a shorter letter" and all that.
Great video, loved how well you explained everything, very fair ranking of Risk of Rain 2 even though I had hoped it was number 1. Thanks for making me wanna play all the games on this list.
Your comments on Enter The Gungeon were incredibly well thought-out and done, the boss fights in enter the gungeon are so gooooooooooood!!!!!!!! working on finishing the pilot's past still, I've unlocked the bullet and killed his past and I've unlocked paradox, but I still haven't unlocked gunslinger or cultist :( nor made it to bullet hell. EtG is soooooo goooood
Yeah the pilot's past is brutal. I don't really like when bosses change up the gameplay to that degree. And the cultist isn't an actual character you unlock, they're player 2 when you do local co-op.
the gunslinger is a fun character, and i do apologize if im wrong here since i did this Years ago, but I'm pretty sure you need to get to bullet hell to get gunslinger since those two have a shared history. the gunslingers past is the bullet hell fight after all. and don't worry about the final boss taking A LOT of tries to learn. i have 200+ hours in gungeon still struggle to perfect that boss unless i have like 30 blanks. keep going just enjoy going through the gungeon and having a laugh at your favorite refences, maybe go take down a metal gear, I always love that fight. keep trying and eventually you will just enter that zen state and know how to dodge perfectly without being able to explain how you did it. you just gotta keep entering the gungeon.
@@pikmonwolfThe very first time I did Pilot’s past I struggled with it, however by the third encounter i was able to flawless it. (If I remember correctly the missles you have as an item do a shit ton of damage) I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m bragging. I really love how it’s a closer to a traditional shmup boss.
Gungeon is super fun, I love it sm! If you still need to unlock gunslinger, the way you do it is by beating the lich as the paradox, and then when you spawn in as the gunslinger you’ll have to kill the past with the bullet to be able to unlock gunslinger permanently
If you wanna see more of this, make sure to give it a like, comment, all that good stuff. Originally I was going to include Slay the Spire, but then it bugged out and wiped all of my data... twice. I then considered Inscription as a replacement, but that's best played blind and I didn't want to spoil it. In the end, I think looking at 4 instead of 5 games works just as well.
You think you could make another one of these videos but with different rouges? You know, slap the spire, the binding of eye sack, atomicrops (if I’m not the only supporter of that game now), Risk of rain 1 (If Risk of rain returns comes out than do that instead of you feel like it) Exit the gungeon, Skul: the hero slayer, I could go on because I fucking love rouges
If you were to make another list with different titles would you consider Curse of the Dead Gods? It a lesser known roguelike but I think it's a pretty well made one!
Deadcells in last I get but for all of the wrong reasons.. Watching your gameplay of it was painful Putting hades this low is wild, of course the game is going to be hard on max punishment. No shit ROR's main quirk about dying is that its usually the players fault. Player stayed too long, player didn't kill enough enemies before hand, player didn't prepare or got aggressive. - So far we have 3 skill issues.... So what comes in at first? ETG? and I quote. "Because the bullets are slow and they have patterns" Don't get me wrong, I love these games as much as the last.. But we have basically made a 25 minute video showing off and describing how the easiest game on this list has the best boss fights "because they are easy"????? ya cant make this up man
Something I think is really cool about Hades' final boss is that his moveset mirrors zagreus' moveset. Pretty much everything he does is a stronger version of something zagreus can do with his spear (the urns and the minion summons are an exception for instance, but they make sense in his role as lord of the underworld) it also implies that he is so strong Zag can only beat him with the help of the olympians... there is even dialogue if you manage to beat him without that help.
@@pikmonwolf dunno, I'm only at 4 cells now, maybe it's much harder on 5, but honestly because of those fucking tentacles conjunctivirus is harder for me, maybe we just have different skill issues
@@kolyashinkarev7366 those tentacles should be illegal, I can't see their location underground very well so they normally hit me a lot, and you have to kill so much of them for the battle to be actually fun
lol i came back to this video to watch you play it again. you do NOT have a foundation in this argument. Your gameplay is awful to watch. Having issues with concierge and HOTK, 2 of the easiest bosses, still having issues is so funny. And your other fights have such stupid arguments.@@pikmonwolf
a common strategy against theseus is to kill Asterius first, then focus on Theseus himself, and saving your call and summon for that phase, he's also the only reason i like running with Extreme measures always on 3 ticks, so that i don't have to deal with his shield in his first phase. this also prevents you from locking in Demeter. if i can get a call, i'll always take either Athena, Aphrodite or Artemis. the former 2's call paired with your summon is usually enough to skip his second phase all together.
@@pikmonwolfI've never even considered trying to get Demeter so Thesius doesn't have it. I've gotten to 10 heat never even thinking about that. I'm not sure I understand what the issue is. Are you actually saying his Demeter call is 4x harder than the others? 😂 idk man I find that hard to believe
im sorry i liked the video but the dead cells one is lowkey a skill issue - learning the overlapping attacks is just part of the challenge of the game. None I would consider downright unfair (coming from someone who has just finished cursed sword 5bc run after 50+ attempts)
The thing is, you can pretty easily deal with the overlapping attacks by parrying. The issue is that attempting to avoid it by dodging is just... annoying.
Gungeon actually has a DPS limiter on all boss health bars making it so you can’t become TOO powerful and shred through their health bar - even if the math would make sense for that to happen.
Something to note about all the etg bosses is there's a damage cap if you do too much in one hit, BUT some weapons like the makeshift cannon override that damage cap so there's a real chance of just obliterating the boss as soon as the fight starts.
Providence knew that his brother, Mithrix, had superb boss potential and banished him to the moon out of a mix of fear and spite, however he turned out to be the far superior boss as said brother is a push over with only aggressive scaling being his saving grace and even then it mostly just makes his fight a snooze because of how tedious it tends to be, the alternate final boss shares the same boss design as every other boss you've encountered prior(the big ones at least) by just being a really big bullet sponge that likes to demand your attention but can ultimately be cheesed to the nth degree and back again, fun though.
@@christhopervargas2275 Assuming you're right then it is a feature that both brothers share which is a shame, being able to bypass such systems in Binding of Isaac is fantastic.
@@vulpinitemplar5036sadly i cant prove it since it was when i have pirated the game on my old pc, it took me a while but i farmed over a 1000 crowbars with sniper and 100% crit, one shot and it stopped the damage to enter into the invencibility mode with the shield sign over his head (now i went to th wiki to check, yep you can only deal a 33% of his life as a single attack but more as multidamage) aand you cant do extreme damage to the worms or the last fase since theyre the same healthbar
@@ShroomBois_Inc Same things apply even with the gimmicks of Eclipse but it does add some extra frantic spice for those looking for that specifically which is nice. Edit: at least personally, I'm sure there are people that find max Eclipse exactly what they're after just like those who use the higher difficulty mods and such so I'm glad that they can :)
Coolest paet about mithrix is that he fights like the player does! He has 4 attacks with cooldowns that he cycles! Hes designed to fight exactly like the average player will
I mean I think you had the wrong build for concierge, I don’t remember what I had. But I quite literally melted his health, that fight took like a 3 minutes for me, it took like 2 tries but once I got the build, he was cooked
For Risk of Rain I personally think both Clay Dunestrider and Xi Construct are super unfair. Clay Dunestrider’s attacks do so much damage (which would be alright, but they are one of the more common bosses in the game for some reason) and their heal ability gets completely broken if there are multiple fighting you at once, because they will both just heal off each other. I find Xi Construct unfair for a different reason. Their shield is annoying sure, but they are constantly flying and really fast. This is a problem because if you are playing a character like Acrid or Commando who are bad at fighting ranged, then it’s just you trying to get up to the boss, while they get farther and farther from you and spam you with their laser. Everything else I feel is accurate, but I feel like the moon’s enemies do too much damage. (Aside from Mythrix)
One thing Im 100% agree on is that DC's bosses are literally garbage when compared to other's in the list. And the thing is I dont see any good boss in DC. Some of those are bad and the rest are just worse.
I would mention The Binding of Issac but ya Delirium is enough to make it not worth of a list like this I will say I think bosses like Hush, Mega Satin, Dogma, and all of The Beast fights are great big bosses and there are a lot of floor fights that are great to. Deals having a chance of appearing after a boss fight is also really fun and a way to get good by not getting hit (or finding soul hearts whatever works)
This video is good besides dead cells. It’s literally just a skill issue. If you don’t know the patterns that’s a you problem. The whole point of deadcells is that you should have your weapons and items synergized to maximize your damage output, as well as debuffs. You don’t go into a dead cells bossfight with random weapons and a dash shield.
@@pikmonwolfnnonono. You have to use the weapons given to you and use your given abilities to make use of them. Some weapons are better than others yes, but that’s why the shop exists. Don’t have coins? Kill more enemies. Go to the bank. Cant get the weapon you like? Visit the optional stages like the prison or fight the mini bosses like medusa or the fracture warden. The game is built to accommodate for the randomness of loot, but you have to be good. So if the player can’t have a stacks build by the end of their run, that’s their fault.
@@greencheese The game really isn't built to accommodate the randomness of loot. For shop inventories not to be half worthless because of scroll colors you need a blueprint that you get by finding a hidden key somewhere in the graveyard when it should be a base mechanic.
You know whats funny i play Deadcells on my phone and its so easy to cheese the bosses just bring turrets or pets and a shield and bulid the dps and spam parry
Not gonna hate since you were captain and can’t really escape that, but the wandering vagrant’s genesis nova can be easily avoided by taking cover behind something, it’s not meant to be escaped as the attack covers like half the map, but it’s also not expressed well in the game until you play for a while or get a tip from someone, so the attack itself isn’t very hard, as you literally just have to play near cover, but it is very confusing and difficult for new players to fight Dam I spoke too soon, just saw the part where you said they incentivized the bosses making you play around cover
Damn, half the comments on Dead Cells just day ‘Get Gud’. I thought the community would be a little less rude, I thought he had a couple fair points on the bosses. I also havent mastered hitless 5BC difficulty so I can agree on some boss designs just being tedious repetition, like Concierge’s forced shield and aura to extend the fight. In fact Conj. and HotK have invincibility phases to prevent insta nuking and slow the pace down. Huh.
Yeah I think it's pretty silly to call it a skill issue. Especially since I specifically said that the harder alternatives to the Hand of the King are also better designed lol.
@@pikmonwolfit comes off as "skill issue" because some of the issues you mentioned can be circumvented by slight gameplay tweaks. I consistently no hit bosses in 5bc regardless of my build, shield or not. Also I still don't get why you need to know which way Hotk is facing, he always hits your direction
Most of the community is pretty chill. The game is designed to be unforgiving. Complaining about the *very first boss* being easy while not using his crit condition and complaining about high health and damage on the highest difficulty in the game doesn’t make much sense.
I'd disagree with a few takes on Risk of Rain. The beatle queen is by far the strongest boss in stage 1 unless you've got AoE. Stone titan is a joke on most characters, especially if you have one or two mobility items or a decent mobility still, and Vagrant is a nice middle ground. I agree dunestriders are a pain in the arse, but XI constructs are by far the worst boss in the game - for how difficult it is, the reward is the worst boss item in the game (even the bloody planula is at least good for pillars on stage 6), XI is often stuck in invincibility stage and I've had so many runs where XI is in the open, but shielded, and as soon as the shield drops it moves to cover and you can't get to it without getting blasted so you have to dodge. By the time you managed to dodge the shield is back up. Honestly so annoying. Grandparents can be a DPS check, but they are pretty easy to deal with when in cover, and most of the time if I don't have the DPS to kill the grandparent before the "praise the sun" attack, I don't have the DPS to deal with the other mobs, so the sun attack really helps that way. Also a note on Hades - you are given an incentive to go to higher heats - the skelly statues for beating 8, 16 and 32 heat respectively. Granted it's a very tiny incentive, but it's there nonetheless.
The problem is that you won't get Skelly statues if you just jump straight to the heat required. You need to get there one run at a time. I know because I jumped to 10 heat after beating 6 because I wanted to beat Extreme Hades. And after I did, I didn't get the Heat 8 skelly statue.
And I've personally never found Xi hard, just a bit annoying at times. In my experience their laser, which is their main attack, does VERY little damage.
@@pikmonwolf I'm not sure about the Skelly statues, as I got the heat 32 on the next successful run after heat 16 (that god for the aspect of Zeus, and even then it was bloody tough going from 16 straight to 32), but I guess you need to beat the game at the exact heat level to get the statues so your point about heat 8 is valid.
The risk of rain 2 fights always felt like a clusterfuck to me where the best strategy is to just kite 1 billion similar boring attacks until youve clicked the boss enough. Mithrax is the only exception but to me his smallish patterns of attack with little to no visual indicator left me kinda meh.
I realized this as soon as he said the concierge was a bad boss because it's tedious. You can stun lock him out of using his invincibility shield and can kill him pretty quickly if you pick up an item that gives you an easy crit criteria 😭
(havent played gungeon) i love challenges, hades probably got the least punishing bosses since if you make a mistake you got many ways to save the fight, in dead cells a simple mistake can get you to low health and in ror2, the smallest mistake pretty much means death but i still find dead cells harder than the other 2 games and thats the reason i love it the most
18:45 ...Meanwhile, Mythrix was the main reason I quit Risk of Rain 2. I cannot stress enough how much I hated Phase 4, how much I feel like it undercuts the essential balance of the game, and how infuriating it is to build in an effort to try to *deal damage quickly enough to not get overwhelmed by time-based difficulty scaling* only for some fucker to pull the Uno Reverse card at the last second and kill you before you even know what happened. I know he got toned down, but I don't know by how much - by the time the devs realized that the boss they'd designed fundamentally didn't work with the power progression they'd designed I'd become pretty thoroughly disillusioned with the game as a whole. You're also selling the lead-up to Hades short. It's not just the grungy temple - it's the entire game. Like you said - you take one look at the guy behind the desk and you know he's the final boss. It's _his_ underworld, and sooner or later if you want to leave you know you're going to have to beat him to do it. Mythrix's arena is cool and all, but he also comes right the fuck out of nowhere if you aren't up on the lore - TBH he might be right the fuck out of nowhere even _with_ the lore, I only got far enough into it to know that he was Providence's brother.
the queen and her servants are not secret bosses they are dlc bosses also the dead cells bosses arent that bad the timekeeper is good if you enjoy parrying projectiles, conjuctivius is a fun bullet hell with enemy fights in between phases (wich helps trigger enemy death abilities) the gardener is my favourite boss with how you can bounce on the shrooms to dodge its attacks hand of the king feels like a good final challenge that punishes every build equally mama tick makes sure you know when to roll and concierge is pretty basic but hes the first you’ll fight most likely
As I said, if there was any uncertainty I would consider a boss secret. So I ruled the Queen and Servants as such. As for the rest, I can see why you enjoy the bosses and what you like about them, but I wouldn't say I agree overall. The Scarecrow is too much a build check, the Hand of the King is just tedious, etc... But that's of course my opinion. Good write up.
All roguelike bosses pale in comparison to the Heart of the Spire in Slay the Spire. No other boss can derail an otherwise busted run as easily as the Heart can.
Dracula is definitely not secret, the DLC keeps shouting go fight Dracula go fight Dracula! And it's a Castlevania DLC if it ended any other way it'd be sacrilege. The Queen meanwhile is definitely treated much more secret even if she is advertised on the DLC page and stuff. In game she is treated as a secret boss. And I think that puts her in kind of a gray area and like I say at the start any bosses where I'm not sure get counted as secret. I also had a bit I wanted to say about her and didn't want to make the video any longer.
@@pikmonwolf Good to know I guess. I don't have the Castlevania DLC yet but I just assumed that Dracula and Queen would've been lumped in the same category cause they're both DLC, alternative ending bosses. Ain't nothing secret about fighting the Queen in a DLC called The Queen and the Sea, but her door is right next to spoiler boss' so it makes some sense. Thanks for responding, and good video even though I personally disagree at some points.
@@sitrex8459 The way I look at it is if the DLC was base game, the queen would definitely be secret, the only reason she isn't is because if you're selling DLC with a cool boss, you're gonna advertise that boss. But in the Castelvania DLC was base game, Dracula would not be secret. And I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Obviously no opinion will be universal
You massacred my boy dead cells 😢 The bosses can all be flawless pretty easily with enough practice. HOTK is actually quite easy when you know how to read him
I don't agree with your points on concierge. He isn't tanky at all even if you have balanced blade for example. And he should be simple and have small amount of attacks for newbies to easily kill him
I agree with HOTK because F him but yeah concierge is a push over. I wouldn't say it's a good boss but I think it's pretty easy. I never die fighting him.
I’m confused as to why you didn’t include the alternate boss fight for ror2 it’s not really a secret boss as a portal to it will show up as you play. It’s a very well designed fight that while not difficult gives an amazing sense of scale and terror. Also it seems like a lot of these rankings come from not knowing the bosses well enough and only taking things at face value.
Before I watch the video, there better be a mention of the absolute visual spectacle that is Ashura from Outer world warriors The bosses of that game are pretty fair for the most part and quite varied
This got randomly recommended to me and holy crap I could not disagree with this list more lol. Putting RoR2 bosses anywhere in the same realm as Hades is a joke
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on Mithrix, he attacks way too fast and can easily 1-2 shot you, so it feels very luck based. If he happens to decide to telefrag you or you get unlucky with the spinning spoke attack, it's over. I liked Providence from ror1 way more. Music is incredible though.
The follow up video on secret bosses is out now! ua-cam.com/video/LMarfCqIvfg/v-deo.html
@pikmonwolf Hades isn’t a rougelike it’s a rougelite the difference is no matter how many runs in rougelikes you will start runs the same way *cough* Eden from biding of Isaac *cough but rougelites are each failed runs you can upgrade yourself for the next and all future runs
OK but in Tisiphone’s defence, if you fight her enough times she will eventually and I do mean EVENTUALLY call Zag by his name.
I know, I was getting that as I recorded her footage and I didn't want to show and spoil it, so it was in the way lmao
Z- ZAGREUS!
"That's it Tis!"
"MURDERER!"
"Yknow, you got my name right, we'll work on more words later"
Such great and funny character development, in such an unexpected place. I guess this really highlights how Hades is first and foremost an incredible story game, and only so happens to also be a pretty wonderful rogelike
One thing that's seriously great about the hades fight is the way that his abilities mirror your own- He also dashes to get around, he has the same stab and spin attacks as the spear does, and those skulls he fires out are literally bloodstones! It says in the codex entry that hades taught zagreus how to use them, and the effect it applies when you're hit by one- boiling blood- is the same name as the mirror upgrade zag uses to deal extra damage to those hit by his own bloodstones. Even if the summoning is a bit of a thematic mismatch, the rest of it is absolutely perfect in my eyes.
Oh that's so cool! I never caught that those skulls were bloodstones. Makes sense, after all they stay lodged in your for a bit before popping back out.
I don't even think there's a thematic mismatch, because everything he does matches perfectly with who he is. He might've once been a young upstart like Zag, but now he's in charge of *all* the souls of the damned. He's a king. It makes perfect sense to the theme of the game for him to summon minions to do his bidding. It's what he's been doing the entire game, after all.
@@BlacksteelForge Not to mention that Zagreus eventually DOES unlock the ability to summon. It's fairly restrictive, but you can summon some of your closest friends to aid you at key moments if you help them out enough.
And then Extreme Measures 4 comes around and HE DOES IT TOO.
It's not a thematic mismatch at all though.
@@misirtere9836 and his trinket gives you his aid whitch turns you invisible too, so you do have all of the same abilities and it makes sense that hades can just use his own greater call powers and summons whenever he wants
One thing I like about Hades’s minions is that it makes certain boons useful even in the boss fight. Some abilities are great against groups of enemies rather than single targets.
I do like that in theory, but I don't think it's worth how it ruins the flavor of the fight.
@@pikmonwolf that’s fair enough. I suppose I never thought too hard about him being able to bring shades up there. I guess I figured that if anyone has the authority to do that, even briefly, it would *have* to be Hades himself.
@@pikmonwolf What about Extreme Measures version of the bosses ? Or does that fit into secret bosses instead ?
edit: i didn't realized you mentions it
@@enlongjones2394 I'm sure he has the authority, it just feels so out of character. The whole game he insists nobody can leave the underworld and will not accept help in dealing with... certain things. But in the bossfight he suddenly gets help by bringing wretches out of the underworld.
I think the entrance to the underworld, while technically on the surface, is still part of Hades' underworld/kingdom and so he's able to summon wretches to help- one of his prebossfight dialogues on the surface say "The heavens and the seas belong to my brothers; but know that you are still in my domain." I think it's kinda like the River of Styx situation in the epilogue in which Charon can still ferry souls (and Zagreus without dying) on it, being an intersection between the living and the dead. Also since Zagreus carries different boons and weapons every fight, it is my headcanon that the mooks are summoned and Hades goes invisible to scout out what Zag is using at the beginning of the fight without getting hit in the process, hence why he doesn't summon in the second (except EM4) and third phases as he's already got an idea of what to expect.
Also what are peoples' opinions on the optional Charon fight? I kinda like it, although it pretty much gets cheesed by the shield because his attacks are mostly easy to block. Wish it showed up more frequently, though.
Both Cannonbalrog and High Priest are limited to a maximum of two disappears per fight. This change was implemented in a patch like two years ago. Thank god for that, too!
But yeah, Enter the Gungeon is just so, so good.
Honestly, I think it should be locked to a single vanish per fight. It is good they changed it from infinite amounts though lol.
Nah, it's crap
skill issue lol@@somebodyforever8742
@@somebodyforever8742 the contrarian
@@prettyradhandle by sure😎(🤓)
I'm pretty sure Hades going invisible and throwing minions at you in the final bossfight is supposed to be a commentary on his in-game personality
The thing is, throwing minions at you is very out of character. He is fine delegating but hates asking for help. Calling backup to the surface feels very out of character.
@@pikmonwolfhe doesn’t “ask” for help, he forces it upon these souls, and about him bringing them to the surface, he, a along with the other gods, tend to be hypocritical in mythology
@@pikmonwolf he does what he wants🤷🏽♂️
@@pikmonwolf"hates asking for help" where did you get this??? I'm seriously so confused by this whole thing. 😅 He commands all the underworlds wretches to keep you out the whole game, this is no different. Him summoning wretches to help fight makes perfect sense, both from a gameplay and story perspective. Bizarre.
@@oh.sorry.dont.mind.meeeeePretty sure he scolds the wretches for failing every time he summons them to defend his loot too 💀
The dead cells ones is legit just a skill issue lol
I said that one of my favorite bosses was Dracula, whose the hardest overall for sure.
Nah, I play dead cells a lot on 5BC and still I take no more than one hit (if any) in a boss fight. As already said, skill issue
True
Fr
Dead Cells has a skill issue in general, what's your point?
Fun fact: in risk of rain 2 if you stay in a shade grandparent’s nova (the here comes the sun attack I like to call it) wont even tickle you because it is a practical sun. And i dont mean behind cover I do mean a shade. So your character can be in line of site for the attack but because you are in somewhere darker you wont get damaged.
here comes the blazing, amazing miracle sun
and it's blazing on, and so we blaze along, on until the day is done.
(my friends prefer to call it "praising the sun" but I'm with you on this one)
I mean that is still cover from the attack, you're getting something between you and the source of the attack. It's a super cool way to do it though, looks great visually.
BILL WURTZ MENTIONED RAAAAAAAAAGGGH
Yeah but it gets REALLY annoying when there's 2 or more spawning cuz they end up just spamming the shi out of that move and ur just stuck in place only to get one shot by a contraption 😢
@@the24throguecannon Likely jolly cooperation!
Demeter being more difficult with Theseus makes sense and is probably intended. She only appears at all after you've beaten the game once.
Not technically true, she appears after you first reach the surface and fight hades, you don’t have to beat him (at least I didn’t) for her to appear. I also found Aphrodite to be harder idk why though lol.
Couple things for Hades
1. It feels like you expect every boss to have lush dialogue options amongst the already vast amount of dialogue and I don’t think it’s a big knock for a couple bosses not to have that.
2. Never felt the need to lock in Demeter, yes her phase for Theseus is difficult but not impossible. Aphrodite is notably difficult as well.
3. There is Charon as a boss fight but it’s a secret so you got the excuse not to mention him.
4. Hades is literally a god of the dead, him RAISING the dead mid fight still fits thematically as much as mithrixs architect role.
Would agree with gungeons placement but yeah I think your hades evaluation could be fixed up a bit
Yeah I felt that the criticisms were very nit picky
His point wasn't whether or not he's able to bring the dead to the surface, but whether it fits his character and motivations. Hades doesn't want ANYONE making it to the surface, he's not just stopping Zagreus, so while he COULD bring the dead to the surface, it doesn't fit his main motivation to keep everyone in the underworld.
i also feel like not talking about the heat sysyem and em4 (making the fights much more difficult) was a little unfair to hades
@@screamingcactus1753if a minion kills Zagreus Hades can kill them and send them back to tartarus, asphodel or Elysium
@@screamingcactus1753They're just minions fighting for him, it's not as if they're actually free and can leave😅 he says that this is still his domain until you leave that door. Him summoning enemies to fight you makes perfect sense both from a gameplay and story perspective.
That hand of the king roast was personal
He poisoned my water supply, burned my crops, and delivered a plague onto my house
“I hate the way that you walk the way that you talk I hate the way that you dress”
Great to see Mithrix on the list. Con lentitud poderosa is already a great theme to end your run (And pretty emotional on the lore side of things), but to have a boss come out of nowhere and just tell you "Beg." really makes him a love to hate character for me.
Goofy take
His shit talk goes hard, and honestly makes perfect sense for the kind of being he is in lore.
I also love how unique mechanically he is, all the other bosses (even Voidling), are basically just big slow dps checks that look unique but are very simple to fight. Meanwhile Mithrix first spawns and stands up slow, but the moment the cutscene ends he just charges at you and it's instantly adrenaline pumping. He's so much more fast and aggressive than the rest of the game, and it really feels like that "dark link effect", where the enemy you're fighting is powerful in the same ways you are. I also just like how damaging he is and the fact that he doesn't summon any minions beyond a single pause phase, it's again something that no other boss in the game really does and it's such a good challenge to end a run on.
@@zewps9502 He continuously summons minions in his third phase, it's not just the second phase.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but if you read the lore and played the first game, you’d very much understand why we have to go there and fight him
mithrix' fight gets even more fun on eclipsw 8, he's faster and has half reduced cooldowns so you really need to know how to avoid him or ways to trivialise the fight (tentabauble) and every hit permanently decreases your max hp and it's just so fun
Also if you're into mods for games, the Umbral Mithrix mod is a crazy challenge and really fun
@@zewps9502 last time I tried umbral mithrix it just through a bunch of stuff at you and was just a move speed check. I remember artifact of the king being quite fun though
@@EggZu_ he definitely can feel like that (especially cause RoR2 characters all have their own movement abilities), but I feel like generally he's a boss who goes back and forth between an angrier Mithrix that requires good timing with movement abilities (dark souls joke here), and a bullet hell boss that's all about keeping calm and being able to read the arena.
He unfortunately can be a bit much for characters like Cap who don't have a dash or slide or anything like that, but if you have like wax quail I feel that it can partially make up for it.
Idk I think Hades disappearing and summoning minions to fight you is symbolism for how even when it’s “personal” between you two, he really doesn’t care that much about Zagreus. It does kinda reflect on the fact that he is basically an absent father who shows up every once in a while to bully his son
Additionally, the fact that he only actually starts taking you personally and fighting you one on one for real after you manage to kill him shows this pretty well too, he only ever takes Zagreus seriously when Zagreus could actually be a threat
@Wickket Have you beat the main story? He says that he cares about Zagreus many times in the story
@@abat5549 I’m not saying he doesn’t care, he just gets too wrapped up in his work to really be there for his son. He’s always working throughout the whole game (except during fights). He won’t as much as look up from his papers until Zagreus reaches the surface.
an important thing to note about Ror2 bosses is that appart from mithrix, they are not only build as uniques bosses, but as really powerfull mobs, because with the loop system that allow you to keep a run for a long time, you'll start to have thoses bosses spawn as mobs, thus why they patern are kinda "simple" with only 2-3 moves
Very good points about the health and master round systems in Enter the Gungeon! Loved the video
Hey thanks! And yeah the Master Round system is really brilliant, and EtG is the only game in the list where perfecting bosses is more fun than fruatrating.
Execpting Gatling Gull. He sucks ass no no hit on floor 1
I like the Solus Control Unit because you can physically stand on it. I like it when games allow you to physically interact with enemies like that without damage having to be involved.
Heck, it even doubles as a viable strategy too. The plasma bolts he shoots cause explosions on the ground. So by standing on him, he shoots them upwards, making them easier to avoid.
Bad part is when you fail the skill check and he actually lands them all while you are on top.
Happened once to me as a loader in late game, he died but managed to get 1/4 of my hp so fair trade
I don't know how much you've run into Tisiphone but she is maybe the MOST charming to me because:
Eventually she is tasked with fighting Zagreus so much and he's so stubborn in trying to get her to speak on something else that she learns how to say "Zagreus" making it the only other word she knows besides "Murder" and "Murderer." It's genuinely the best part of any of the furies for me.
I get deadcell if you ignore the Queen ending, but I thought that was DLC and would be included in this list. I think the Servent’s fight is one of my favorites in all of gaming. The slow build-up to fighting all 3 at once as you scramble to scale the tower is fun. The Queen was less memorable to me, but I still think her move set was grand enough to fit a final boss and not be bullshit.
the servants is honestly unbelievably good boss design, it never feels too overwhelming when all 3 are on screen because they never just go all out at the same time, and their attacks are all well telegraphed to the player so they’re easy to learn. although the queen is a bit too easy i think because if you can beat the servants then she wont be a problem
I really never got the queen fight, I beat it first try because she revived me. I was expecting a bigger challenge from it with the buildup they gave.
@@burgervendor8616 yeah i think if she knocks u off the side of the arena she considers that cheap and revives you, it’s a strange mechanic and she’s an easy boss but her moveset is pretty fun to play around and it’s a cool arena
Boy i remember when I first went to the queen and brought oven axe instead of symmetrical lance 😵💫
@@thefrostwizardgamer1555 bringing a slow and heavy build to the lighthouse is honestly one of the worst forms of torture out there in gaming
24:48
"oh, a dragon for the final boss ? not very original in my opin-"
*dragon pull out comically oversized glock*
One Step From Eden has really amazing, mostly fair bosses, and I think the best boss in that game is Violette omg she is such an amazing boss❤
I've not played it, actually I know basically nothing about it. So I'll have to take your word for it.
Violette's fight and her theme combined just blows every other boss in that game out of the water tbh
her attacks sync to the background music
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, currently making a video on the game and I adore her boss fight. I always save it last
@@meepoffaith6153 speaking of the background music, Neverending Song is an amazing track.
You're right about Hades. While it's my favourite Roguelike, their bosses are very much friendly to Roguelike beginner. Something I can't definitely say about most of Gungeon.
(And while I'd like to git gud, I've always found it difficult despite practice.)
The bosses in Enter the Gungeon are definitely difficult, the trick is to master the floor so you go in with enough HP to tank a bunch of hits. That's the best way to learn the bosses.
Almost every Hades boss aside from Charon is just "out-DPS the other guy" and it gets pretty repetitive after a while.
@@pikmonwolfyou just gotta be able to master round the first three bosses then you tank everything
@@RushWheeler Not to say that brute forcing is not an option, but I'm really not sure why the boss fights gave you such an impression specifically. Most bosses hit really hard and tanking only really works if you're going for a rather specific build focused exactly on that. Dodging attack patterns and weaving hits in most certainly seems like a much more sensible way of approaching them.
@@great_hedgehog8199 in my experience, playing defensively with Hades' boss fights and attacking only when they're open in a sort of dance-like fight gets you almost nowhere when fighting them. It's better to just continuously attack them and abuse the I-frames given to you by dashing, and then the fight just becomes a breeze. That's why weapons like the shield, fists and spear are preferred in higher heat runs most of the time, since using a weapon like the bow that leaves you open and does slow damage, or the Guan Yu spear which has ridiculously slow attacks with little reward or range aren't very helpful in the long run.
Never in my life have I heard anyone say Conjuctivius is easier than Concierge
Harder to flawless, but much easier to beat
@@pikmonwolf Oh... I do play cursed runs a little too often haha...
man hand of the king really made me sad. he is genuinely the most fun boss ive ever fought in a rogue like. he's actually extremely well designed, just hard. I love how you have to watch what he does so you can prepare for each hit, timing a parry perfectly, or using the platforms to weave through at the perfect time. every time i die to him, i actually DON'T get frustrated, because of how much un i have fighting him. I also think his voice is badass.
It really baffled me how someone could beat him on 5BC, multiple times, without ever picking up on any of this. :/
Oh I understand him perfectly fine. I beat him more often than not. He's just not fun.
@@pikmonwolf to each their own then. I love his fight.
@@pikmonwolfyes he is fun ur just complaining about a hard boss in hard game what do you expect
it's fine to have opinions, even if those opinions are absolute trash@@pikmonwolf
the dead cell’s reasoning was kind of meh but i can understand why you have these thoughts
I get why people disagree, I was definitrly harsh on it.
I haf actually gone in with the intent to be much kinder. But as I really dug into every boss to analyze them more thouroughly I concluded that even bosses I originally thought were pretty solid were actually very flawed.
@@pikmonwolf you litterally admitted that you used your flawed principles to try to drive your point home even though, as you said, they seemed good at first.
The extreme measures for the bone hydra he can move around when he usually stays in one spot for those who haven't played hades
True, but he has very little health at the point he starts moving around so it's rarely an actual factor.
Whilst I agree about the comments of Dead Cells bosses being mostly just a pain, I do quite enjoy the fact that as long as you're careful and have really learned the bosses, it is possible (though not easy to achieve) to flawless them every single time... Well, maybe apart from some of the DLC bosses, but still, there's a really tough progression curve on learning how to fight them. Though with builds you're uncomfortable with it ALWAYS feels impossible to clear them
I feel like Hades and EtG bosses are better to flawless. Most bosses in Dead Cells feel pretty bad to try and do hitless.
For example Conjuctivius is super easy, and I pretty much always do their 'main body' sections flawlessly. But then you have the tentacles which are super janky.
I feel like basically every boss has something like that, where it feels janky and tedious to do without taking damage.
@@pikmonwolfHonestly Conjuncti is one of my least favourites because of the tentacles haha. However I think comparing EtG to these other three is kind of unfair because of the true nature of bullet hells and dodging, just because they are (supposed to be) designed precisely for that
@@pikmonwolfThe tentacles can be easily doged through or mainpulate. The ones that swing will do it once every time you kill one. Or place a turret or use any skill to stop or kill them. On 5bc bosses on early game on most builds should not take too long.
@@pikmonwolfhow to avoid testicles 101 just go to one of the side of the arena dodge the moving one wait for the ! and dodge or parry and beat the life out of that one repeat until all of them dies. I played the game too much that I get bored rather than frustrated the dlc bosses are the only one with variety because spoiler goes down too fast for most builds when you get a buch of extra stuff in the spoiler biome
While I do agree with a bunch of your criticisms of Hades' boss fights, I don't really understand how giving dialogue to the Hydra would improve things. I mean... it's a hydra, at worst you'd get a Tisiphone kind of deal where the snakes just hiss and at best you'd just get a bunch of snake puns, not to mention there would be the issue of coming up with a different personality for each head that can take the main place in the fight, when the only thing that's really different between them is some attacks and a detail on the head.
My complaint wasn't that the hydra lacked a personality, it was that they went with a boss decision that lead to them giving the 2nd world boss no personality. I think fighting something else that can talk would've been better.
Its rather interesting to hear the take on the dead cell bosses. Specifically the hand of the king. Where you see a boss that is unreadable, too big to maneuver in a cramp arena, with slow attacks that you cover half the said arena, I see a perfect challenge in which any build can work against him. Want to just run up and slash away at him? Most brutailty weapons will work just fine. Want to use shields? shields work great. Want to use slow weapons? He's just slow enough that you can weave some strong hits in between his attacks. Projectiles kinda get hampered and deterred in that fight thanks to that shield but you can make them work.
The small arena and his attacks covering a good majority of it is certainly rough but I think it highlights the fact that this isn't a boss where you can just run away. You have to interact with the hand in some way and learn his attacks.
Im not too sure about the rolling part of your argument as for one, he pushes himself forward when attacking making his big frame not too much of an issue to roll through and two, he often hits behind him with most of his attacks anyways making so that you have to be precise with your rolls through him.
The only attack I think is actual bullshit is the slam part of his 2 hit combo because I swear I at the apex of my double jump and that shit still hits me. I often have to resort to the platforms on the side to dodge it.
I really enjoyed this video. Bossfights in rougelikes have got to be some of the hardest bosses to make. You gotta make a boss that's challenging, feel fair, replayable, and you usually got to make a ton of them in order for players to not get bored over the same boss alongside all the other stuff like good visuals, sound design, and all that fun stuff. Very few rougelikes get away with a linear boss line up. Hades and Skul are some of the very few I can think of.
Interesting to hear your take on HoTK. I genuinely despise him. I have not once had fun fighting him.
@@pikmonwolfif you pay close atention on hand of the king you can actually see if he is gonna use the 3 hits or 1 hit+slam, the wind of of the first atack is VERY different
i never thought i'll find a video of someone saying that they've had more fun fighting conjunctivius than conierge.
Dont forget doorlord in gungeon. It also would have been neat to mention which bosses you were not going to talk about in each game.
I mean part of the reason that I didn't want to cover them is to avoid spoiling them, since some are cool surprises. Would kinda defeat that point if I listed them :P
Played the game for +50 hours and never encountered that boss
@@gollygosh He is in boss rush everytime, so if you want to fight him, go there
I need a follow up discussing all of the secret enter the Gungeon bosses, one of my favourite games of all time
@@gollygosh That's unfortunate! I got him a couple nights back.
In Hades, Tisiphone does develop more dialogue / attempt to communicate with Zagreus the more times you encounter her. I cant remember what it was about but Zag tries to make her say a different word and I think she manages to after a while.
Never seen someone be so upset about a skill issue for dead cells
I woud consider hades bosses "true forms" for the ranking because at the end you are gonna see them a lot more than thenormal ones
I'd say that's definitely the case with the fury sisters and Lenrne, but much less so the case with Theseus and Hades, since it takes a long while to get to Heat 6+ unless you're hard focusing one weapon.
And sadly, that means you're seeing more of the lamer extreme measure variants while the good ones take awhile to get to.
@@pikmonwolf Also extreme measures is not the only way to boost heat, so if you're focusing on other modifiers you may never see the special variants. I know I've only fought the boosted Furies.
Isn't concierge the easiest dead cells boss? Everyone i saw killed it on the first try, including me. And it's the first boss that i killed without taking damage. Funny that you said the exact solution "don't be creative". Just hit-evade. I guess that would be the reason why this boss is bad, but definitely not a reason to prefer evading invisible tentacles from the ground to this.
And it doesn't matter where does Hand of King faces. He'll hit in your direction anyways. That's the exact mistake that i made - take into account which way he's facing rolling behind his back to evade his hits. It won't help. He'll just turn to you in the moment when he makes a hit, it's not like "you can't tell which way he's facing", he just changes the way.
So i guess this whole review is just a matter of skill issue/attention issue.
The concierge is easier on the lower difficulties but on the higher ones Conjuctivius is easier to shred and deals less damage. And the Hand of the King turning on a dime to track you is also annoying. It adds to what I said early on where dodging is tedious so you need to parry everything.
@@pikmonwolf pretty easy to do hand of the king without parrying everything =D
@@pikmonwolf Your issue is relying on shields, then.
@@pikmonwolfsounds like a skill issue to me
@@sharkastic2633But dodging is less effective than parrying when you're good at the game, isn't it?
For the risk of rain quip about boss fights and cover, that’s why there are always little details in levels like trees, monoliths, statues, and literally any part of the environment that isn’t an enemy can serve as cover, so long as the boss is on the other side. Even in the clip as artificer shown, there are three-ish places to hide
i guess you counted the Lich as a secret boss, but imo it's the FINEST of the Gungeon with the highly challenging but fair patterns, viability of many strategies and a masterpiece of a final phase
100% agree
Oh yeah he's great but definitely a secret.
@@pikmonwolf honestly to me he just seems like the true final boss bc ya dont have to do anything complicated to unlock bullet hell but i can see where ur coming from
@@peavuh I mean, you have to kill the pasts of the 4 main characters. I'd call that complicated lol
@@pikmonwolf i wouldnt say the complication is within killing the pasts, itd be crafting the bullet itself that could kind of make it considered to be a secret, but even then it feels more like natural progression where the more you play etg, the more stuff you unlock. in that sense i dont think the lich is a secret boss
I've been playing the shit out of risk of rain 2 recently, but Gungeon has my heart. Perfect game, top 5 game of all time for me.
They're both such great games, hard to pick a favorite for me.
Etg is just a bullet hell, i didnt like it that much
risk of rain 2 I 100% agree with, most bosses are built to take advantage of the horde of enemies. Mythrix stealing your items is actually the best boss design I've seen in a long time, just simply as he says, "false strength" it forces you to remember what your build's triggers are and to avoid them
About the hades fight, I always saw the minions as a symbol your fighting the god of the dead which brings creatures from the underworld to fight you
I know it's not one of the ones you mentioned in this video but the final boss of Slay the Spire and the miniboss leading up to it are really well designed. It's able to counter cheese strategies and infinite turns, but it still doesn't hard-counter most builds too bad, and the beating of the heart along with the screen shake being in time with the music is really cool.
I can't help but feel like you skipped over a huge, but subtle, part of what makes the Hades bosses so fun: the game secretly teaches you the fight before you even set foot in the arena. Meg (and to a somewhat lesser extent her sisters) use variations of the attacks that you see in Tartarus. The lunge, the projectiles, the circular AOEs, and the whip attack all come from enemies you see from the beginning. This applies to the shockwaves, homing spikes, lava splashes, and crescent projectiles of Lernie. And Thesus is a combination of the Greatshield and Greatbow while Asterius is a combination of the Nemean Chariot and Greatsword. And of course, the best is that Hades himself has moves like Zagreus. His spear swipes and throws are the same style as Zagreus, and even has his own bloodstones. He has Zagreus' death defiance and his own summon to break the rules the way Zag does. Yeah, the writing isn't perfect, but I feel like you hardly covered the clever mechanics of these bosses at all.
Hate to break this to you, but "take your boss attacks and distribute them to minions to teach the player" is literally game design 101, not a clever mechanic.
Admittedly, RoR2 is the only one I know on this list, but you could say the same thing about Mithrix.
Big f*** off hammer with falloff for range? You've been dealing with Beetle Guards, who do that with their front paws instead of a hammer, not to mention Lemurians, Imps, and Parents with two sets of claws and fists respectively.
Homing attacks? We have those on the planet, they're called Bison, Jellyfish and Stone Golems.
A horizontal hammer swing? Did you mean the Elder Lemurian's firebreath or SCU being a palpable menace?
A dash: practically the entire cast has a dash if it's a player character, and Bisons and Imps are good prep for getting out of the way.
Shockwave? Well, that's probably the only one that doesn't have representation, but it's fairly obvious to blind read if you're watching Mithrix and see him jump. Especially since the game has been teaching you that the only good circle in the game for you is the teleporter circle.
And that's without getting into teleporter bosses or the first DLC's enemies (barring SCU), AND only for the first phase.
Even if we expand to outside the Rogueli(t/k)e genre, that's almost a formality in game development. It's more amazing to NOT have that than to have it... though, admittedly, that's not the type of amazement you want from players.
I always thought the side plot of teaching Tisiphone to talk was quite fun.
Dead Cells ftw. Fair but hard. They reward the pinnacle of skill
I don't really agree personally. I find that a run where I play okay with OP items will always go better than playing perfect with crappy items.
Scroll count, reforge luck, legendary spawns, etc...
@@pikmonwolf The thing about game balance in Dead Cells is that everything (aside from a few outliers like ice armor and owl) is uniquely good, so I would have to push back and say that a lot of what is good or bad for people is just playstyle. I'm not a fan of oven axe, but I know people who are insane with it. I also love sewing scissors even though lots of people would prefer not to use them.
I also disagree about your complaint of too much going on or having to know movesets for bosses. The whole game is about skill, timing, and awareness, and boss fights where you have a lot going on (like Hand of the King throwing bombs then attacking) help to test the player like no other sections of the game. Plus the attack indicator, while sometimes a bit short I feel for some enemies, is very manageable on bosses.
As a side note because a lot of this sounds accusatory and negative, I really don't like Hand of the King's hitboxes sometimes either.
@@osteohiveporosis6882 The boss fights where the attacks are complicated and don't overlap (like Dracula) do a MUCH better job at testing the player than the ones that do a bunch of simple overlapping attacks. The simple overlapping attacks are a mess of screen clutter and RNG, the single dangerous attacks are a matter of precision and skill. But most bosses use the worse method.
19:31 i like how you are saying his movement super fluid and you are showing this action mush.
Haha fair. Blame video compression
I am unsure if you count pasts as secret bosses, but I must say that pasts lead to some of the most fun experiences in the game, for me. Hands down, my favorites have to be the Bullet and the Pilot. They're two of the hardest, but they're so damn fun to figure out and master, because they are both highly reminiscent of the characters core designs, and also extremely creative & challenging.
There is one lore room in Dead Cells which solves all of your problems with game. In that room on the wall it says: GIT GUD.
And it’s a dark souls reference, hitting it home even harder
If this was a top 5 list I would’ve loved to see slay the spire in here, I know it wouldn’t be as action packed as the other games but each 10 bosses having its own strategy and gimmicks that you spend each act building up with your decisions, for is fun and makes each run very unique.
I mention in the pinned comment that that was my original plan, but it wiped my saves twice.
@@pikmonwolf oh that’s extremely unfortunate I’m sorry, if you ever find a way to recover it or play through the game again to that point then would love to see a video on it if possible
From an outsider's perspective (I've only played RoR2) I've read a bunch of people's comments saying he just has a skill issue and that if he were better then the bosses wouldn't be so bad (which is obvious) but I feel the "skill" people are talking about in regards to DC isn't being able to time things right as much as it is just making an OP build.
Of course making a build for specific bosses is a part of learning the game and getting more skilled, however it seems to, in majority, just be that where a new player can search a guide on how to make a build for a specific path and if they have any past experience with video games then the dodging/parrying wouldn't be an issue. The skill issue people are talking about is him not using what the game has presented him with because at that point it just becomes too easy (Ive seen many people say how easy the game is).
Additionally, I've seen people say that even on the hardest difficulty all you need is to know how the builds in the game work, which I assume shouldn't be a problem as you've already reached that point in the game, and therefore make those boss fights easy as-well.
Lastly, looking at some of the points he made about the boss fights, him stating Concierge is repetitive and tanky I understand that the tankiness could be drastically reduced if he used another build, and I see people saying it makes sense for him to be boring as a boss because he is one of the first the player encounters acting as an introduction, which is quite stupid as a boss doesn't need to be boring nor repetitive simply because someone is new the game, assuming they don't know how to shred the boss meaning the fight lasts longer. As for HotK, the arena size relative to the boss is a fair argument, however the attacks he says are indistinguishable is definitely overkill.
I haven't played DC, I hope to be able to in the future, but this is what I understood from the comments and definitely puts me off the game because why would I play a game that seems to be easy to beat with a simple understanding of the build system, WASD, dodging/parrying and the jump button. It just doesn't seem like that would be fun due to the fact that I have to base my build entirely around what I need to face for it to not be tedious. Unlike RoR2 where I need to understand an individual classes skills and abilities combined with my skill and the items you pick up in a run (E8) comes second.
Cheers for reading if you did, probably wasted less time than me writing this (unless you're illiterate)
I thought you gave some pretty fair points here.
I absolutely love the mithrix fight. One of my favorite parts of it is just how fast he is.
How's the quote go? War is speed?
fun fact: the teleporter prongs function as cover from every boss attack if you angle it right, more forgiving than they looks, ESPECIALLY the primordial one
I love how concise this video is! eventhough I'm really bad at roguelikes myself, you're deconstruction of the games really made it easy to understand you're personal boss placements. 9/10 from me.
Hey thanks! I always want my videos to still be enjoyable for people who aren't super familiar with the subject, so I'm glad you liked it!
And I feel like the Hades section could've been cut down a bit, but that would've delayed things further. "If I had more time I'd write a shorter letter" and all that.
your*
@@different_stuff "NoLife"
Great video, loved how well you explained everything, very fair ranking of Risk of Rain 2 even though I had hoped it was number 1. Thanks for making me wanna play all the games on this list.
Your comments on Enter The Gungeon were incredibly well thought-out and done, the boss fights in enter the gungeon are so gooooooooooood!!!!!!!! working on finishing the pilot's past still, I've unlocked the bullet and killed his past and I've unlocked paradox, but I still haven't unlocked gunslinger or cultist :( nor made it to bullet hell. EtG is soooooo goooood
Yeah the pilot's past is brutal. I don't really like when bosses change up the gameplay to that degree. And the cultist isn't an actual character you unlock, they're player 2 when you do local co-op.
the gunslinger is a fun character, and i do apologize if im wrong here since i did this Years ago, but I'm pretty sure you need to get to bullet hell to get gunslinger since those two have a shared history. the gunslingers past is the bullet hell fight after all.
and don't worry about the final boss taking A LOT of tries to learn. i have 200+ hours in gungeon still struggle to perfect that boss unless i have like 30 blanks. keep going
just enjoy going through the gungeon and having a laugh at your favorite refences, maybe go take down a metal gear, I always love that fight.
keep trying and eventually you will just enter that zen state and know how to dodge perfectly without being able to explain how you did it. you just gotta keep entering the gungeon.
@@pikmonwolfThe very first time I did Pilot’s past I struggled with it, however by the third encounter i was able to flawless it. (If I remember correctly the missles you have as an item do a shit ton of damage) I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m bragging.
I really love how it’s a closer to a traditional shmup boss.
Gungeon is super fun, I love it sm! If you still need to unlock gunslinger, the way you do it is by beating the lich as the paradox, and then when you spawn in as the gunslinger you’ll have to kill the past with the bullet to be able to unlock gunslinger permanently
If you wanna see more of this, make sure to give it a like, comment, all that good stuff.
Originally I was going to include Slay the Spire, but then it bugged out and wiped all of my data... twice.
I then considered Inscription as a replacement, but that's best played blind and I didn't want to spoil it.
In the end, I think looking at 4 instead of 5 games works just as well.
Could have done tboi
@innerophstudios4013 aye. The Binding Of Isaac has got some really good fights in my personal opinion.
You think you could make another one of these videos but with different rouges? You know, slap the spire, the binding of eye sack, atomicrops (if I’m not the only supporter of that game now), Risk of rain 1 (If Risk of rain returns comes out than do that instead of you feel like it) Exit the gungeon, Skul: the hero slayer, I could go on because I fucking love rouges
If you were to make another list with different titles would you consider Curse of the Dead Gods? It a lesser known roguelike but I think it's a pretty well made one!
Where is Bullets Per Minute??? The first boss experience there was soo fuckin satisfying
Deadcells in last I get but for all of the wrong reasons.. Watching your gameplay of it was painful
Putting hades this low is wild, of course the game is going to be hard on max punishment. No shit
ROR's main quirk about dying is that its usually the players fault. Player stayed too long, player didn't kill enough enemies before hand, player didn't prepare or got aggressive.
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So far we have 3 skill issues.... So what comes in at first?
ETG? and I quote. "Because the bullets are slow and they have patterns"
Don't get me wrong, I love these games as much as the last.. But we have basically made a 25 minute video showing off and describing how the easiest game on this list has the best boss fights "because they are easy"????? ya cant make this up man
Something I think is really cool about Hades' final boss is that his moveset mirrors zagreus' moveset. Pretty much everything he does is a stronger version of something zagreus can do with his spear (the urns and the minion summons are an exception for instance, but they make sense in his role as lord of the underworld) it also implies that he is so strong Zag can only beat him with the help of the olympians... there is even dialogue if you manage to beat him without that help.
Bro, i agree that dead cells bosses are unfair, but calling the concierge harder than conjuctivirus is just legit skill issue
I mean, if I think the tougher boss is easier doesn't that make me skilled :P
@@pikmonwolf dunno, I'm only at 4 cells now, maybe it's much harder on 5, but honestly because of those fucking tentacles conjunctivirus is harder for me, maybe we just have different skill issues
@@kolyashinkarev7366 those tentacles should be illegal, I can't see their location underground very well so they normally hit me a lot, and you have to kill so much of them for the battle to be actually fun
@@kolyashinkarev7366i don’t yet have one because Hand of the King is annoying af and is basically like a fat guy in the already too small elevator
@@handhelder823 that's the best hand of the king description I have ever seen 😂
"And even though I do have my complaints about some bosses *cue Ammoconda*"
dead cells complaints are skill issues at the highest degree
I literally say Dracula, the hardest bossfight in the game, is one of the better ones???
lol i came back to this video to watch you play it again. you do NOT have a foundation in this argument. Your gameplay is awful to watch. Having issues with concierge and HOTK, 2 of the easiest bosses, still having issues is so funny. And your other fights have such stupid arguments.@@pikmonwolf
"Attacks that overlap eachother are bad and get your cornered"
*Laughs in absolute radiance*
Overlapping attacks isn't inherently bad, a ton of great bosses use that type of design. The issue is that dead cells does it with little care
a common strategy against theseus is to kill Asterius first, then focus on Theseus himself, and saving your call and summon for that phase, he's also the only reason i like running with Extreme measures always on 3 ticks, so that i don't have to deal with his shield in his first phase.
this also prevents you from locking in Demeter. if i can get a call, i'll always take either Athena, Aphrodite or Artemis. the former 2's call paired with your summon is usually enough to skip his second phase all together.
That's a good point, but I feel like locking in the same calls to get around Demeter doesn't really fix the 'makes runs feel samey' problem it causes.
@@pikmonwolf oh i know. Any call works really. Those three are just my personal favorites because i like doing big damage.
@@theballoonfamily9539 That's fair. I'd still say overall it's a flaw with the design that there's a chance for it to be like 4x harder.
@@pikmonwolfI've never even considered trying to get Demeter so Thesius doesn't have it. I've gotten to 10 heat never even thinking about that. I'm not sure I understand what the issue is. Are you actually saying his Demeter call is 4x harder than the others? 😂 idk man I find that hard to believe
The vagrant’s attack is no big deal when you consider you can literally hide behind the teleporter spikes.
im sorry i liked the video but the dead cells one is lowkey a skill issue - learning the overlapping attacks is just part of the challenge of the game. None I would consider downright unfair (coming from someone who has just finished cursed sword 5bc run after 50+ attempts)
also on what planet is conjunctivitis easier than the walking punching bag concierge
The thing is, you can pretty easily deal with the overlapping attacks by parrying. The issue is that attempting to avoid it by dodging is just... annoying.
I have been doing legendary cursed sword attempts in dead cells and I honestly agree that it is skill issue
@@pikmonwolfwhat do you think of moddified dracula's first form?
You know, the one you can parry or dodge the fireballs...
thats what i got from it... honestly sounds like the complaints i had when id done my first run through lol
Also the sound design of Mithrix’s attack is amazing
Gungeon actually has a DPS limiter on all boss health bars making it so you can’t become TOO powerful and shred through their health bar - even if the math would make sense for that to happen.
In which case, things like spice or makeshift cannon come in VERY handy.
The cap has a limit though: if you deal over 1k damage in one bullet it completely bypasses the cap. This is why 360 yes scope works
Tip for Theseus, attack his back while close, wait for him to do the big swing, dash through it and repeat from step 1
Great video! As always I love your perspectives on games I haven’t played :) can’t wait to see what you make in the future
Thanks mate! Glad you enjoyed it
Something to note about all the etg bosses is there's a damage cap if you do too much in one hit, BUT some weapons like the makeshift cannon override that damage cap so there's a real chance of just obliterating the boss as soon as the fight starts.
Providence knew that his brother, Mithrix, had superb boss potential and banished him to the moon out of a mix of fear and spite, however he turned out to be the far superior boss as said brother is a push over with only aggressive scaling being his saving grace and even then it mostly just makes his fight a snooze because of how tedious it tends to be, the alternate final boss shares the same boss design as every other boss you've encountered prior(the big ones at least) by just being a really big bullet sponge that likes to demand your attention but can ultimately be cheesed to the nth degree and back again, fun though.
even th i have never played ror2 i must say, lets not forget providence have a damage cap wich can be annoying when youre trying to break the game
@@christhopervargas2275 Assuming you're right then it is a feature that both brothers share which is a shame, being able to bypass such systems in Binding of Isaac is fantastic.
@@vulpinitemplar5036sadly i cant prove it since it was when i have pirated the game on my old pc, it took me a while but i farmed over a 1000 crowbars with sniper and 100% crit, one shot and it stopped the damage to enter into the invencibility mode with the shield sign over his head
(now i went to th wiki to check, yep you can only deal a 33% of his life as a single attack but more as multidamage) aand you cant do extreme damage to the worms or the last fase since theyre the same healthbar
Play on eclipse
@@ShroomBois_Inc Same things apply even with the gimmicks of Eclipse but it does add some extra frantic spice for those looking for that specifically which is nice.
Edit: at least personally, I'm sure there are people that find max Eclipse exactly what they're after just like those who use the higher difficulty mods and such so I'm glad that they can :)
Coolest paet about mithrix is that he fights like the player does! He has 4 attacks with cooldowns that he cycles! Hes designed to fight exactly like the average player will
I mean I think you had the wrong build for concierge, I don’t remember what I had. But I quite literally melted his health, that fight took like a 3 minutes for me, it took like 2 tries but once I got the build, he was cooked
For Risk of Rain I personally think both Clay Dunestrider and Xi Construct are super unfair.
Clay Dunestrider’s attacks do so much damage (which would be alright, but they are one of the more common bosses in the game for some reason) and their heal ability gets completely broken if there are multiple fighting you at once, because they will both just heal off each other.
I find Xi Construct unfair for a different reason. Their shield is annoying sure, but they are constantly flying and really fast. This is a problem because if you are playing a character like Acrid or Commando who are bad at fighting ranged, then it’s just you trying to get up to the boss, while they get farther and farther from you and spam you with their laser.
Everything else I feel is accurate, but I feel like the moon’s enemies do too much damage. (Aside from Mythrix)
One thing Im 100% agree on is that DC's bosses are literally garbage when compared to other's in the list. And the thing is I dont see any good boss in DC. Some of those are bad and the rest are just worse.
I think Giant is genuinely great, but overall I think the game just isn't built for bossfights.
Woah, didnt expect this video to be opened up with Into the Breach. That gave me some kind of whiplash
I would mention The Binding of Issac but ya Delirium is enough to make it not worth of a list like this
I will say I think bosses like Hush, Mega Satin, Dogma, and all of The Beast fights are great big bosses and there are a lot of floor fights that are great to. Deals having a chance of appearing after a boss fight is also really fun and a way to get good by not getting hit (or finding soul hearts whatever works)
Yeah the main reason I didn't include it was really that I just never got into it. It didn't grab me.
@@pikmonwolf that's unfortunate man, it's the best one too
@@pikmonwolfSame. I played through Gungeon and Skul and loved them both, but Isaac just didn’t get me… I don’t know why.
@@pikmonwolfthat's fair, it didn't grab me either. (I definitely don't have 1000+ hours in it or anything)
This video is good besides dead cells. It’s literally just a skill issue. If you don’t know the patterns that’s a you problem. The whole point of deadcells is that you should have your weapons and items synergized to maximize your damage output, as well as debuffs. You don’t go into a dead cells bossfight with random weapons and a dash shield.
So you're saying there's a lot of RNG to it. If you don't get good weapons, you're just fucked.
@@pikmonwolfnnonono. You have to use the weapons given to you and use your given abilities to make use of them. Some weapons are better than others yes, but that’s why the shop exists. Don’t have coins? Kill more enemies. Go to the bank. Cant get the weapon you like? Visit the optional stages like the prison or fight the mini bosses like medusa or the fracture warden. The game is built to accommodate for the randomness of loot, but you have to be good. So if the player can’t have a stacks build by the end of their run, that’s their fault.
@@greencheese The game really isn't built to accommodate the randomness of loot. For shop inventories not to be half worthless because of scroll colors you need a blueprint that you get by finding a hidden key somewhere in the graveyard when it should be a base mechanic.
You know whats funny i play Deadcells on my phone and its so easy to cheese the bosses just bring turrets or pets and a shield and bulid the dps and spam parry
I agree, but the fact that the most dependable go to method for bosses is 'cheese them with DPS' and not 'learn their patterns' is the issue.
Not gonna hate since you were captain and can’t really escape that, but the wandering vagrant’s genesis nova can be easily avoided by taking cover behind something, it’s not meant to be escaped as the attack covers like half the map, but it’s also not expressed well in the game until you play for a while or get a tip from someone, so the attack itself isn’t very hard, as you literally just have to play near cover, but it is very confusing and difficult for new players to fight
Dam I spoke too soon, just saw the part where you said they incentivized the bosses making you play around cover
Lol, I respect that you still committed to the comment.
Damn, half the comments on Dead Cells just day ‘Get Gud’. I thought the community would be a little less rude, I thought he had a couple fair points on the bosses. I also havent mastered hitless 5BC difficulty so I can agree on some boss designs just being tedious repetition, like Concierge’s forced shield and aura to extend the fight. In fact Conj. and HotK have invincibility phases to prevent insta nuking and slow the pace down. Huh.
Yeah I think it's pretty silly to call it a skill issue. Especially since I specifically said that the harder alternatives to the Hand of the King are also better designed lol.
@@pikmonwolfit comes off as "skill issue" because some of the issues you mentioned can be circumvented by slight gameplay tweaks. I consistently no hit bosses in 5bc regardless of my build, shield or not. Also I still don't get why you need to know which way Hotk is facing, he always hits your direction
Most of the community is pretty chill. The game is designed to be unforgiving. Complaining about the *very first boss* being easy while not using his crit condition and complaining about high health and damage on the highest difficulty in the game doesn’t make much sense.
"...And even though I have some complaints about some bosses"
Ammoconda footage checks out
I'd disagree with a few takes on Risk of Rain. The beatle queen is by far the strongest boss in stage 1 unless you've got AoE. Stone titan is a joke on most characters, especially if you have one or two mobility items or a decent mobility still, and Vagrant is a nice middle ground. I agree dunestriders are a pain in the arse, but XI constructs are by far the worst boss in the game - for how difficult it is, the reward is the worst boss item in the game (even the bloody planula is at least good for pillars on stage 6), XI is often stuck in invincibility stage and I've had so many runs where XI is in the open, but shielded, and as soon as the shield drops it moves to cover and you can't get to it without getting blasted so you have to dodge. By the time you managed to dodge the shield is back up. Honestly so annoying. Grandparents can be a DPS check, but they are pretty easy to deal with when in cover, and most of the time if I don't have the DPS to kill the grandparent before the "praise the sun" attack, I don't have the DPS to deal with the other mobs, so the sun attack really helps that way.
Also a note on Hades - you are given an incentive to go to higher heats - the skelly statues for beating 8, 16 and 32 heat respectively. Granted it's a very tiny incentive, but it's there nonetheless.
The problem is that you won't get Skelly statues if you just jump straight to the heat required. You need to get there one run at a time. I know because I jumped to 10 heat after beating 6 because I wanted to beat Extreme Hades. And after I did, I didn't get the Heat 8 skelly statue.
And I've personally never found Xi hard, just a bit annoying at times. In my experience their laser, which is their main attack, does VERY little damage.
@@pikmonwolf I'm not sure about the Skelly statues, as I got the heat 32 on the next successful run after heat 16 (that god for the aspect of Zeus, and even then it was bloody tough going from 16 straight to 32), but I guess you need to beat the game at the exact heat level to get the statues so your point about heat 8 is valid.
The risk of rain 2 fights always felt like a clusterfuck to me where the best strategy is to just kite 1 billion similar boring attacks until youve clicked the boss enough. Mithrax is the only exception but to me his smallish patterns of attack with little to no visual indicator left me kinda meh.
2/3 of the video is skill issue
I realized this as soon as he said the concierge was a bad boss because it's tedious. You can stun lock him out of using his invincibility shield and can kill him pretty quickly if you pick up an item that gives you an easy crit criteria 😭
"The bosses in Enter the Gungeon aren't obnoxiously tanky."
*laughs in Old King*
(havent played gungeon)
i love challenges, hades probably got the least punishing bosses since if you make a mistake you got many ways to save the fight, in dead cells a simple mistake can get you to low health and in ror2, the smallest mistake pretty much means death
but i still find dead cells harder than the other 2 games and thats the reason i love it the most
Dead cells is definitely the most challenging, unless you start looking at super high heat Hades
"You cannot out DPS them"
Gunbow + Shot Across the Bow synergy: Allow us to introduce ourselves
Dead cells is supposed to be hard, that's the point . Get gud
Actually he is right in some way Dracula and Servants boss fights are better than Hotk
18:45
...Meanwhile, Mythrix was the main reason I quit Risk of Rain 2.
I cannot stress enough how much I hated Phase 4, how much I feel like it undercuts the essential balance of the game, and how infuriating it is to build in an effort to try to *deal damage quickly enough to not get overwhelmed by time-based difficulty scaling* only for some fucker to pull the Uno Reverse card at the last second and kill you before you even know what happened.
I know he got toned down, but I don't know by how much - by the time the devs realized that the boss they'd designed fundamentally didn't work with the power progression they'd designed I'd become pretty thoroughly disillusioned with the game as a whole.
You're also selling the lead-up to Hades short. It's not just the grungy temple - it's the entire game. Like you said - you take one look at the guy behind the desk and you know he's the final boss. It's _his_ underworld, and sooner or later if you want to leave you know you're going to have to beat him to do it.
Mythrix's arena is cool and all, but he also comes right the fuck out of nowhere if you aren't up on the lore - TBH he might be right the fuck out of nowhere even _with_ the lore, I only got far enough into it to know that he was Providence's brother.
the queen and her servants are not secret bosses they are dlc bosses
also the dead cells bosses arent that bad the timekeeper is good if you enjoy parrying projectiles,
conjuctivius is a fun bullet hell with enemy fights in between phases (wich helps trigger enemy death abilities)
the gardener is my favourite boss with how you can bounce on the shrooms to dodge its attacks
hand of the king feels like a good final challenge that punishes every build equally
mama tick makes sure you know when to roll
and concierge is pretty basic but hes the first you’ll fight most likely
As I said, if there was any uncertainty I would consider a boss secret. So I ruled the Queen and Servants as such.
As for the rest, I can see why you enjoy the bosses and what you like about them, but I wouldn't say I agree overall. The Scarecrow is too much a build check, the Hand of the King is just tedious, etc...
But that's of course my opinion. Good write up.
@@pikmonwolf yeah maybe the scarecrow is a build check but you can easily not go to the scarecrow if you dont want to fight him
All roguelike bosses pale in comparison to the Heart of the Spire in Slay the Spire.
No other boss can derail an otherwise busted run as easily as the Heart can.
Why did you count the Servants and the Queen as secret bosses but not Dracula?
Dracula is definitely not secret, the DLC keeps shouting go fight Dracula go fight Dracula! And it's a Castlevania DLC if it ended any other way it'd be sacrilege.
The Queen meanwhile is definitely treated much more secret even if she is advertised on the DLC page and stuff. In game she is treated as a secret boss.
And I think that puts her in kind of a gray area and like I say at the start any bosses where I'm not sure get counted as secret. I also had a bit I wanted to say about her and didn't want to make the video any longer.
@@pikmonwolf Good to know I guess. I don't have the Castlevania DLC yet but I just assumed that Dracula and Queen would've been lumped in the same category cause they're both DLC, alternative ending bosses. Ain't nothing secret about fighting the Queen in a DLC called The Queen and the Sea, but her door is right next to spoiler boss' so it makes some sense. Thanks for responding, and good video even though I personally disagree at some points.
@@sitrex8459 The way I look at it is if the DLC was base game, the queen would definitely be secret, the only reason she isn't is because if you're selling DLC with a cool boss, you're gonna advertise that boss. But in the Castelvania DLC was base game, Dracula would not be secret.
And I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Obviously no opinion will be universal
You massacred my boy dead cells 😢
The bosses can all be flawless pretty easily with enough practice. HOTK is actually quite easy when you know how to read him
I don't agree with your points on concierge. He isn't tanky at all even if you have balanced blade for example. And he should be simple and have small amount of attacks for newbies to easily kill him
i beat him on my first run ever. hes incredibly easy.
I agree with HOTK because F him but yeah concierge is a push over. I wouldn't say it's a good boss but I think it's pretty easy. I never die fighting him.
I’m confused as to why you didn’t include the alternate boss fight for ror2 it’s not really a secret boss as a portal to it will show up as you play. It’s a very well designed fight that while not difficult gives an amazing sense of scale and terror. Also it seems like a lot of these rankings come from not knowing the bosses well enough and only taking things at face value.
This video made recognize little intricacies in EtG that I never noticed before
Like damn, imagine if you couldn’t move when petrified
Right? That would a terrible thing to put in a bullet hell *cough cough* Cuphead *cough*
I also love how you can look away to avoid petrification
Also in dead cells bosses' animations may break via slow, freeze or stun. Sometimes animation of bosses are just messy.
Oh yeah, I've had that screw me over before
Before I watch the video, there better be a mention of the absolute visual spectacle that is Ashura from Outer world warriors
The bosses of that game are pretty fair for the most part and quite varied
This got randomly recommended to me and holy crap I could not disagree with this list more lol.
Putting RoR2 bosses anywhere in the same realm as Hades is a joke
Hey you're fully welcome to your own opinion. I feel like I made my case decently, why do you disagree?
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on Mithrix, he attacks way too fast and can easily 1-2 shot you, so it feels very luck based. If he happens to decide to telefrag you or you get unlucky with the spinning spoke attack, it's over. I liked Providence from ror1 way more.
Music is incredible though.