The Souls Series by FromSoftware is well known for its unforgettable bosses and battles. Ranging from Demon's Souls, released in 2009 and then remastered in 2020, to Elden Ring, which releases on February 25, all bosses seemingly offer a unique gaming experience for players.
Many gamers recall the captivating encounters with haunting and touching creatures of the FromSoftware games, alongside the challenges they offer. With Elden Ring, the Playstation Blog reached out to various Playstation developers to see which FromSoftware encounter was their favorite, following on the recent reveal of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s favorite FromSoftware boss fight.
Insomniac Games is well known for a number of big PlayStation franchises like Ratchet and Clank and the recent Spider-man games. Its Associate Community Manager, Thomas Hart, picked Demon’s Souls’ Old Monk as his favorite boss of the series. He enjoyed how different the Old Monk was compared to other difficult bosses of the FromSoftware games. At first, it seemed like the Old Monk was mimicking his movements, and then switched things up with unexpected mechanics, like casting magic. Only later he understood, that the Old Monk was not an AI, but a PVP boss, which was a shocking, yet an unforgettable revelation to him.
Santa Monica Studio is best known for the God of War series. Ivanna Liittschwager, an Environment Artist, revealed that her favorite boss within the franchise was Lady Maria from Bloodborne. Lady Maria is a boss, who players can mistake for a corpse, sitting on the throne of the Astral Clocktower. As the players approach her in a vast hall, sitting under the ghastly light and around the cathedral setting. According to Ivanna, this setup leads to one of the most difficult, yet beautiful battles of the series. Even with the most powerful weapons in Bloodborne, Lady Maria is a formidable foe.
Naughty Dog is famously known for the Last of Us and Uncharted series. Narrative Lead, Joe Pettinati, selected Guardian Ape from Sekiro as his favorite boss of FromSoftware. While he had difficulty choosing between this boss and The Bloodstarved Beast from Bloodborne, he opted out with the Guardian Ape due to how comical and horrific this boss is. Considering how essential parrying is in Sekiro, this boss, consisting of two stages, throws excrements at the players, which cannot be parried, before turning into a horrific, decapitated gorilla's body that dashes toward the player with a sword in his back.
Randall Lowe, producer at Bluepoint Games, who helped remake classic titles like Shadow of the Colossus, chose Dance of the Boreal Valley from Dark Souls 3. Lowe commented that, "The Dancer, dangling from the pooled darkness, dropping down and sinuously moving to stand before my character" was a delicate, yet frantic battle, which truly felt like a chilling dance to him. Even with the most powerful weapons in Dark Souls 3, The Dancer is known to writhe against player’s attacks and offer a daring duel in the chapel.
Source: PlayStation Blog