I’ve been watching people fighting
::spoilers for the whole game::
Malenia, Blade of Miquella, who later becomes Malenia, Goddess of Rot. She is well-known as the hardest boss of the game, if not the entire series. In fact, I would say the whole series. Well, I wouldn’t because she’s not in my top ten, but she is considered to be the toughest boss in all FromSoft games.
It’s one of my favorite things about the games–that different bosses are difficult for different people. Unless you are my young Canadian friend from the RKG Discord who doesn’t find any boss difficult. He had the most trouble with the Guardian Ape of Sekiro–taking 8 times to beat him.
8 times. That’s me not even warming up for that fight. I can’t tell you how many times I died to that boss. I honestly wonder what the Canadian guy gets out of the games when he cruises through them with such ease. When I was doing the plat in Bloodborne, he decided to go back and play the DLC again because he had lost to Ludwig when it first came out–and he was twelve. I championed using the Hunter Axe because that’s what I use. It’s a starting weapon, but it’s my favorite weapon of the game. He loved it and used it to beat Ludwig in one go, and the same for the rest of the bosses in the DLC in honor of my plat. And then to plat the game for himself using save-scumming. I was so damn proud of him, flattered, but also jealous. He was doing me better than I could do me!
He reminded me of a YouTuber whom I watched playing the DLC of Bloodborne. They were really good at the game and beat the bosses in one or two tries. When they took three on, I want to say Lady Maria, they apologized. I stopped watching because they were just too good.
I felt similarly watching my young Canadian friend fight the bosses in Bloodborne (he uploaded the clips). It was incredible, and there were many tense moments. They are a good watch. But, yeah, a tinge of jealousy for how fucking good he is.
I’m watching videos of people playing Malenia, and I can’t get enough. She was so notorious that everyone who runs into her knows who she is immediately. It’s hilarious to see people go from scared to angry to upset to tearful to joyous relief when (if) they finally beat her. She, more than anyone, is the boss who teaches you the stages of fighting a FromSoft boss.
First is trepidation. You approach the golden mist and your heart is filled with dread. It’s golden in this game, white in others. Then, you see her. Sitting there. A brass/gold prosthetic arm lying on the ground. You watch as she picks it up and monologues at you. Your heart starts to beat faster as you ready yourself.
If you’re me, you know you’re going to be there for hours. Maybe not on that one day, but over time. She attacks! You die! Oh, well. At least the Site of Grace isn’t very far away.
Here’s the thing with this boss. I did not go through the whole cycle except maybe in a compressed timeframe because I beat her fairly easily. It took me maybe a dozen tries to beat her, which is just warming up for me. Ornstein & Smough took me a hundred times or more probably. Nameless King…I don’t want to think about how many times it took me to kill him solo. My top ten hardest bosses in From games, just off the top of my dome, are Isshin the Sword Saint, Owl (Father), Demon of Hatred, Nameless King, Gael, Midir, O&S (for nostalgia), Sister Friede, Alonne/Fume Knight, Shadows of Yharnam.
Now. I have to note that I summoned for Ludwig, Laurence, and Orphan of Kos in the DLC of Bloodborne, so I don’t count them. Who else did I die to more times than I did to Malenia? So many bosses. Madame Butterfly was harder than she was. Genichiro took me longer as well. Guardian Ape, now that was a difficult fight.
Hell, I died more to Millicent’s sisters than I did to Malenia, and that’s just one leg of Millicent’s side quest. Granted, there were four of them, but still. They were not a boss. They weren’t even a mini-boss. No. They were just…four sisters. But you have to fight them in scarlet rot and not only do you have to not die, Millicent, of course, must remain alive as well. At this point, I had a very tiny Vigor bar. That meant I could be killed by one or two attacks.
I started looking up cheese because even if I managed to stave off one of the sisters, Millicent bit it. I could not do it, and–here’s the reason I had to do it. I wanted Miquella’s Needle which meant doing Millicent’s questline. I had to do it, but I felt very much away from it. I had no Vigor and no Endurance, which meant they could slice through me with no problem.
The big cheese suggestion was to jump to the island in the middle of the Scarlet Rot and get them from afar. NOPE. I could not reach it for love nor money; I bet it was a troll.
There was other cheese, and I decided to try one of them. One. Put on the talisman, Shabriri’s Woe. It draws enemy aggro, which is not something I normally like to do. But it’s necessary because otherwise, Millicent dies. As the sisters are running towards me, hit them with Hoarfrost Stomp (Ash of War) which staggers them, weakens them, and other things. Hit them once, and then run. Continue doing this. I ignored the pillar because I could never jump on it and just cleansed myself of the Scarlet Rot whenever I needed to. I was skeptical that this would work, but it did–and it wasn’t even close. I did it in one without breaking a sweet. I was so happy about it–giddy, even.
I have to say, there is a huge thing online about being careful not to kill Millicent after all this by stomping on her head. Luke from Outside Xtra mentioned that he had to use a save scum tactic to make sure he had a backup in case he stomped her head. I saw a video of it–the person walking down to where she was and leaping at the last second to avoid the Scarlet Rot.
But. Here’s the thing. You can circumvent this completely by going around, and it’s easy to see her from above. In addition, even if you kill her,, it shouldn’t matter because she dies, anyway. However, people have said they’ve accidentally stomped on her head and not gotten the needle. I laughed because I had no problem doing what I needed to do.
Back to Fighting Malenia. I want to fight her again because I didn’t really get to see what she had. My whole tactic was walk backwards and spam Swarm of Flies at her. I emphasized that walking backwards is a key aspect of my tactic. I also used Mimic Tear because I’m not that much of a masochist.
Some hardcore From fans are mad because the bosses are over-tuned for soloing now. I mean, I get it, but…here’s the thing. They made it really clear that spirit summons were going to be a major part of the game, which, therefore, means the bosses will be tuned to having the spirit summons in the fight. That’s how it goes. So the moaning and whining about the bosses being too hard without them is hot trash.
If you want to deliberately hobble yourself when you play the game (and there have always been people who want to do this), that’s on you, boo. The game is meant to be played WITH spirit summons. If you choose not to use them, that’s all. on. you.
There are plenty of things to criticize the game for, perhaps even the tuning of the bosses, but this is not one of them.