Majestic Twelve - Boss Battles of Dark Souls 2

Earlier this week, we put up our review for Dark Souls 2, which you can find right HERE. Assuming you've already read the review or played the game, the following shouldn't be a surprise. Here are the top twelve bosses we had fun fighting in Dark Souls 2. If they didn't make the cut, I either managed to skip them somehow or they're in the DLC and I haven't gotten to DLC (at the time of writing). Let’s get started! 

#12 – Pursuer Knight – Keeping things simple and elegant, the first of a few knights to make this list will be the Pursuer Knight. In the game, you can actually encounter him and fight him before the actual boss battle. Though if you are unprepared for it, you will likely be destroyed with ease as he is fast, powerful, and can even throw out a ranged attack if you think you’ve outsmarted him by keeping away. He’s an early boss in the game, so why put him on the list? I must have lost maybe a dozen times to this asshole. I’m willing to respect a guy who is capable of killing me that much. It’s because of this fight I learned proper dodging mechanics and how to be patient for openings to either strike or heal up. Pursuer Knight… you taught me a lot. Now please kindly go to Hell.

#11 – Last Giant – This fight was relatively easy. In the game, he’s typically one of the first (if not THE FIRST) boss you fight in the game. However I choose to go to Heide’s Tower of Flame before going into the Ruins of the Last Giant. There I fought harder enemies, leveled up higher than I needed to on accident. And then when I fought the Last Giant, it was kind of a cake walk. That and most YouTube videos I’ve seen that do a “First Look” at Dark Souls 2 typically show this fight, and I kind of just picked up their tricks on how to win. But if he’s so easy, why be on the list? I really like the concept of the dying race of giants and how you are the one who eliminates the last one in the world. And you later find out what happened to the giants, making this first boss fight have more weight in the lore than one would expect.

#10 – Looking Glass Knight – The concept behind LG-Knight is really cool. He’s a statue-like enemy with a giant, invincible mirror for a shield. According to friends (and YouTube), this is a boss fight in which other players can invade your game. That makes this fight all the harder. No one invaded my fight, thankfully. In fact, this fight was easier for me than I had previously expected. On route to this fight, I laid out summon spells and joined in other players’ games to practice fighting him before taking him on in my own game. This, in turn, gave me more souls to level up with and restored my humanity. When I went to fight him, I summoned another player to return the favor and it was this fight that taught me a valuable lesson. Don’t be afraid to summon other players and help out other players as much as possible because the rewards are worth it.

#09 – Flexile Sentry – Yeah… Not really sure what this was supposed to be. It’s a Siamese-Twin monster. One half attacks with swords and the other attacks with spiked clubs. When you think you can hit it because it’s vulnerable, the other side may be ready to strike. While the creature itself is bizarre and appears in a weird spot, (two, actually) the Flexile Sentry was just an interesting boss to fight. Again, I really enjoy the concept of a two-sided monster that can attack from two different sides. And while I know the Duke’s Dear Freja can do the very same, I had to bump it off the list for having spider-flunkies in the fight as well as a nonsensical Spider-Laser. What the fuck even is that? Back to Flexile, my only complaint is this boss reappears in the game (to a degree) as a regular enemy in the Shaded Woods. But why it’s there and what it means never really made sense to me.

#08 – Vendrick – King Vendrick, now just a zombie dragging his blade around in the Crypt of the Undead, is probably one of the coolest and saddest concepts aside from the Last Giant in this game. Leaving his insane wife, Aldia, and the cursed world behind, Vendrick sealed himself within a tomb to forever wander aimlessly in the darkness. His spirit is tied to Giant Souls which you need to collect to properly damage him if you choose to fight him. That’s right, he’s entirely optional. But if you fight him, look out. This guy packs a mean punch that can one-hit-kill in most cases (or bring you down to just a sliver of health). Have not actually fought him, but the concept behind the character is pretty intriguing given the bulk of the game’s lore I’ve read up on.

#07 – Scorpionness Najka – Reminiscent of the Spider Queen from Gauntlet Dark Legacy, this Scorpion Queen (no relation to the Rock’s Scorpion King) is not all that difficult a fight to deal with. It took me a couple of attempts and I was more or less good to go. Getting to this fight was kind of a pain at first, but I worked it out eventually. Najka is interesting because she has a combination of magic, tunneling attacks, and normal tail-smash attacks. Of the bosses on the list, I actually feel like she may have the most varied list of attacks to deal with, which is kind of cool. The backstory involving another Scorpion monster (one you can befriend and summon) is fairly interesting as well. All-in-all, scorpions are cool. Spiders can fuck off.

#06 – Velstadt, The Royal Aegis – Before you can first encounter Vendrick, you must face off against his royal guardian that followed him into the crypt out of loyalty for his one and true king, Velstadt. There’s not a lot of variety to Velstadt’s attacks and he isn’t too difficult in terms of predictability. But he hits like a truck and, if you’re cornered, you will have a hard time getting away from his massive hammer. That being said, he’s a cool looking knight with a big “fuck you” hammer that he swings around with the reckless abandon that puts King Dedede to shame. And while I hated how many times I had to waste dying just to get to this fight, I earned many souls thanks to joining other games and got to see one of the cooler looking boss intros in the game yet. Kudos. Also, this is your first dark soul you acquire in the game. Worth noting.

#05 – Old Iron King – One of the few demons to make the list. Thus far in the game, the demons all felt rather lackluster to me or just a little too bizarre for me to want to put on the list. But the Old Iron King looks like a fairly standard demon in a fairly standard setting and he’s a rather engaging boss fight. Braving the Iron Keep to reach him can be a task, but it’s a good fight to get through. My only annoyance was that when I fought this monster, my first attempt was amazing, but I messed up near the end of the fight and lost. Then it took several subsequent attempts of horrible failures before I could finally beat him. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

#04 – Lost Sinner – The design for this character reminds me a bit of Hannibal Lecter or any other deranged mad man. Just give him a big sword to slash things in two and you’ve basically got the Lost Sinner. He makes the list for just his design alone. But on top of that, he’s the first Great Soul you can actually encounter, inching you closer towards the end of the game. There are apparently options to make this fight easier such as lighting up the room, but I opted to not do that mostly because I never figured out how and didn’t want to waste time on that. Again, the only big issue here was just getting to this boss fight. You have to travel from a bonfire near enemies, passed several more cross-bow wielding knights, some abominations in the water, and exploding zombies. It’s a bit of a hike and if you aren’t ready for it, prepare to die.

#03 – Guardian Dragon – The boss of Aldia and the first dragon you encounter in the game (that’s still alive). And while I know you fight more guardian dragons in the game as they appear in the Dragon Aerie, sorry. It’s a dragon. It’s not THE dragon (which you fight more later). But it’s the first dragon and the fight, while actually incredibly easy, is still visually impressive. It is also the fight that’s between the dark ruin-like area of Aldia’s Keep and the beautiful Dragon Aerie. There’s a lot of visual awesomeness happening here that I just can’t deny. Shame that this isn’t a real dragon (damn you Aldia) and shame that the fight wasn’t more intense.

#02 – The Rotten – Of all the fights, this was probably the most pain in the ass to just get to. The route is very short, but you have to fight several poison-dart statues or risk getting poisoned and dying over and over again. It took me being summoned into another game to know there was a bonfire closer to the boss-gate to make this process a lot easier. Additionally, being in another player’s boss fight against The Rotten gave me ideas for tactics that made later attempts at this fight myself go so much better. And on a visual note, the Rotten is just a giant monster made of corpses that rules “The Gutter” with an iron fist. Conceptually, that’s pretty metal. There are even additional ways to fight the Rotten if you have the right weapon. As the Greatsword can be used to cut off its arms. Creepy and gross, this is one of the better fights in the games.

#01 – Smelter Demon – Smelter Demon looks more like a knight… but it’s a demon alright, bottled up in a suit of armor and ready to strike. At first, the fight seems easy. It’s just a knight and it’s not too terribly fast. But after a bit of damage, it stops and generates a flaming aura around itself. Now when you’re close, it’ll burn and his attack patterns begin to change. Fair enough. Deal a bit more damage and see things are tricky, but the right gear makes this doable. However another stop in the fight and the Smelter Demon lights his blade afire, dealing more damage, becoming a bit faster, and his area-of-effect attack has a much wider range. This fight is tough and took me a while to beat it. It’s totally optional, but a boss that looks this cool and presents this big a challenge (while still fair) is one you really shouldn’t skip if you don’t have to. He’s actually more difficult than the Old Iron King, who shares the same area and is supposedly the bigger boss fight. You also get to re-battle the Smelter Demon in one of the DLC campaigns (joy). What’s more interesting is that, unlike Velstadt, Smelter Demon doesn’t take much damage during his pause to enchant his weapon, making the fight even tougher to that degree. This bastard is still a lot of fun to finally take down.

Those are my top twelve boss fights from Dark Souls 2 (non-DLC). If you have some bosses you feel like we missed or perhaps we left off details worth nothing, please be sure to leave a comment below. As always, if you enjoyed the content, be sure to like, share, comment, and subscribe. We’ll be back soon with more reviews, top twelves, and commentaries for you to enjoy! See ya next time!