The $30 million toe in the water

Soulslike games are known for their challenging boss fights, but some games take it too far, making the experience frustrating rather than rewarding. The Soulslike genre is known for its challenging boss fights, but some games take it too far, making the experience frustrating rather than rewarding.

In the case of a particular Soulslike game, the boss fight against Commander Honglan is a prime example of this issue. She is incredibly aggressive and offers players an insultingly small window to counterattack, leading to an overly defenive fight that moves away from what the game does well.

Her relentless speed can hit players even if they dodged the first part of her barrage, making it difficult to hit her with certain weapon classes. This has led to many players needing to respec just to have a chance.

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While there are a handful of tough fights in the game, Honglan sticks out for how sharply it makes the difficulty curve rise, taking what could be a decent battle and overtuning it to the point where it's a slog. Post-launch updates that have sped up the healing and getup animations have helped, but they haven't addressed every issue with this boss.

On the other hand, some Soulslike expansions hide the toughest fights that are truly for the sickos who have stuck around. the 'Everlasting Duty' sub-mission puts two bosses in one room, Toyotomi Ilideyori and Nine-Tailed Fox, which makes for one hell of a tough battle.

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Both are baddies pulled from other stages, and while hard, neither are egregious challenges on their own.. But that completely changes when they are paired up. Nine-Tailed Fox's physical size as well as the size of its attacks can take up a decent portion of the screen, leaving little room to dodge or even see Toyotomi's strikes.

Focusing on one can open players up to the other, and this makes an obscenely tough dance that's almost impossible to overcome without looking up cheesy methods.

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The high level of this side quest only makes this battle even tougher, as grinding in later stages to gain an advantage isn't as much of an option. Many methods online have players stretching the mechanics to their limits by respeccing in hyper-specific ways to use specific abilities to gain the upper hand.

Going at this with just a sword and a dream is not feasible for most people.

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The first two Nioh games are incredibly challenging, so it is telling that this is probably the hardest fight in the whole series. Another example of a tough fight is Laxasia the Complete, which is an extremely arduous battle right near the end of the game.

Laxasia bends the rules a little in the beginning by having a big shield on her back, nullifying much the damage players can do to her while counterattacking.

She also can punish overly confident players, as her repeated underhand swipes can make quick work on those with poor parry timing.

The same applies to her overhead slams and heavily delayed ground swipe. When combiend with the electrical shocks that can follow a big slash, it can be hard to juggle all of these variables and time each parry needed for survival.

This first section is a challenge but is a breeze compared to the second phase .

The lightning strikes she summons and tosses at the player from a distance must be perfectly parried or dodged in order to counter her blazing fast dive , which can be tricky to do if the player also has to fight the camera.

A wide variety of more standard swipes and slashes make her hard to predict, meaning players always have to react quickly.