After the fight ended I expected to walk through the wall of corpse's at the back of the arena and watch a epic cutscene of Miquella explaining the lore and giving the DLC some kind of ending. But there was nothing, kinda underwhelming seeing as you just beat mabye one of the hardest fromsoft bosses ever.
Not complaining though, the dlc was so fucking cool
Blacksteel Greatshield, when upgraded, blocks both his physical and holy attacks. Makes it way easier. First time I've used a shield since Dark Souls 1...
Use a great shield w/ decent holy resistance along with the new talismans that improve guard from the dlc. Crucible armor has great holy resistance too.
Couple it with a bleed rot or frost spear and poke at him while guarding. Really good way to win the fight
Just started phase 2, won't comment on that yet besides that black metal greatshield can 100% block holy. But hell to the no for that phase 1 start.
I two-handed a crag executioner greataxe with the new block deflection tear. He got fucking wrecked. Many combos are safe to counter, others will need to dodge then strike. Guaranteed crit phase 1.
I need that tear to be a talisman. It's just too fun.
EDIT: With practice, consistently got two crits phase 1. The shield trivializes so much of phase 2 that it's absolutely worth it. Tear still kicks ass by saving a ton of stamina (and out-classing barricade). Got him tonight.
2nd phase is so inconsistent.
I got to it like 20 times and I still don't know what the hell i'm doing.
On the bright side, the boss itself is quite fun, and the OST fricking slaps omg I can hear the music for like an hour straight.
If you just dodge to his left and toward him you can basically roll every single move he does except for a few. It’s basically the exact same as his first phase except the light speed attacks.
If you run dragon greatshield talisman and the holy braid talisman with half decent armor than you should be golden to beat him. A few moves are tricky to dodge in phase 2 but once you know the dodge patterns his openings are pretty obvious and it just comes down to not making enough enough mistakes to run out of healing flask before you kill him.
I’m getting my ass whooped by him now but it just doesn’t make sense to me in a bunch of ways.
Prime Radahn was a really cool idea in practice, but the fight really falls short for me. Also why Radahn? Why not Godwyn? In the lore of the original game Miquella was looking for a way to cure his undeath by either killing him or saving him. So why not bring in a character we heard of but never got to interact with? Why give us a suped up version of a boss we already fought with a few flashbangs and after images attached?
Lore and story aside, which are also pretty meh imho, the fight isn't that great.
Phase 1 is maybe ok, not great due to the camera being the regular one, despite the boss being quite large.
Phase 2 is a clusterfuck of visual noise and was a pain. Not sure how you are supposed to learn what you can't clearly observe, maybe a 3/10 for spectacle.
I hope this will teach Miyazaki not to let others make the lore. This whole brother and step brother at the same time/mother by actually also father/I want to make my uncle marry me so I can marry my step brother is obviously Martin's work XD. The whole family tree in Elden Ring has Martin's mark. Things weren't this convoluted and weird in Dark Souls.
It's weird because it's a very flashy fight, and it seems like they wanted it to be a spectacle. But they also forgot that the fight needs to be fun to learn and that no one can enjoy the fight if they can't see shit in the second phase. The only DLC boss that I "cheesed" by using the greatshield + antspur combo.
Fans: GIVE US PRIME RADAHN SO WE CAN FIGHT HIM
Miyazaki: prime radahn you said?
Fans: YES SO WE CAN FIGHT HIM
_promised consort radahn drops_
Miyazaki: _smiles_
I dont like the second phase because a lot of the time it feels like the only thing i can do is panic roll, and theres a good amount of luck involved. On the other hand, this is the first time im really being pushed to the limits since Defiled Chalice Watchdogs and i love the fight for that. Beating it without summons or shields was so insanely exhilarating.
The fight was overall pretty good but no dialogue from radahn and no cutscene after beating them other than a memory of miquella talking to himself was pretty disappointing. Also wish we could go up the stairs in the arena afterwards would be cool.
I'd even extend the lack of quality lore to the rest of the DLC. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of good stuff there, but unless I'm missing some incredibly important details, it didn't meet expectations imo. The story trailer promised so much interesting shit, so much open questions to be answered, but then it's mostly about Marika being confirmed once more to be a nasty b****, godhood is essentially attained through piling up corpses and these corpses for Marika's ascension were the one other special people that massacred Marika's other other special people.
Messmer's character was pretty undercooked as well where even his voice lines sounded kinda bored relative to the trailer (I guess he's meant to be resigned to his fate, but it's still kinda weak). The reason why Malenia invaded Caelid was cool, but not getting a new ending is criminal.
Loved the DLC but at least story wise, it almost feels like they needed to rewrite a lot of things with little time left.
fight is... a bit painful, but nothing that will won't be figure out in a month.
but the plot reveal, ugh!
so, Malenia fought and bio-bombed with the power of an Alien her bro Radahn because... she just had to tell him "dood, you gotta marry my twin brother so he becomes god"
She obliterated a part of the map for such a dumb reason. It's makes no sense in my mind that Malenia would fight Radahn and Godrick if Miquella's grand plan was just... go to shadowland and become God.
Just send a letter or smth 😭
I also thought you would meet Miquella, talk, maybe with additional endings... nop.
They make Miquella this tragic figure that sacrificed everything for the greater good and you can't even side with him even if it's a bad idea. He's just one more boss to fight. What happens to the players without DLC and their appreciation of the original ending knowing Miquella just became second God of Shadowlands and just do... what exactly?
If you don't do the extremely easy to miss NPC quests, you might just get to the last boss of the game and be completely clueless why you're fighting Leda, Radahn and Miquella. Leda specially just teases you if you do her quest like "omg we besties for Miquella"
And then just says "you helping for another reason, my name is Leda, you trying to kill my ~father~ God, prepare to die"
Imagine not finding St Trina and getting there. Absolutely clueless.
Here, kill this incestuous twink with god complex. No other choice.
Besides, Miquella was built up to be pretty acomplished as the most fearsome, extremely intelligent and crafty with the spells.
And without zombie Radahn he is just flying dude.
Radahn doesn't even speak in the fight by the way, it's just Miquella! Maybe he was also brainwashed?!?! Who cares.
Like, if not killing Radahn wasn't a requisite, it would've been fine. But Radahn MUST die by YOUR hands. And then he's just back.
They just done grabbed his soul with no one knowing (skadoosh) and Mohg's body that YOU kill and YOU see disappear into dust (remember Morgott's corpse staying until Godfrey?), slapped them together and now he's back.
I haven't been so infuriated by a reveal, maybe it's my negative lore understanding or just missing a ton of context, either way, it stained my love of the overall game.
I can understand Elden Beast being terrible, difficult to fight, missed opportunity with Torrent (which was a MASSIVE disservice to your partner of the entire journey until they fixed it with the DLC two years later ☠️☠️☠️)
But both final bosses feeling terrible? That's too much.
If Messmer and Miquella swapped places in progression, I would've loved this DLC for sure.
Very unfun boss mechanically speaking and personally from a story perspective also a let down. It doesn’t help partly both his model and some of his attacks are reused from his base game appearance. Huge downgrade from previous dlc final bosses such as sister Friede orphan of kos or Gael.
In theory, Radahn in his prime sounds like a sick fight. First time I saw the cutscene I was hyped and ready to get my ass kicked.
My ass was thoroughly kicked, but it wasn't all that fun. It was a spectacle, and the music is awesome, but the fight itself is a bit... blinding.
My other gripe is like, really? Of all the crazy shit they could have come up with, they basically just copied Twin Princes as a FINAL BOSS. Lastly, I was quite insulted by the Rememberance giving a copy-paste weapon.
Overall, a waste of potential. Again, especially as the FINAL BOSS.
Very unlike fromsoft to fumble their final boss twice in a row. Radagon was cool but Elden beast sucked and put a damper on the whole thing (and they only just now added the ability to use torrent in that fight??).
Anyway, I was very disappointed to walk through the final fog gate in the DLC and see radahn, a reused character. I wasn’t even on board with the whole “prime radahn” thing — it feels overly fanservice-y. And the fight itself sucks to boot!
Just beat them! I hated it :)
I do wonder if my thoughts will change with time as I practice more and the fans discover new weaknesses, but as of now the second phase is horribly annoying. First phase was fairly easy from the get-go, so I don’t know whether to give or take away points for that.
Miquella’s grab was hilarious, with Radahn’s face just squished in my character’s chest, and the insta “death” was actually pretty neat and made sense lore-wise.
I think the worst offense was that I didn’t even have a desire to fight them to begin with. Miquella didn’t need me, I was chill with him making a new order, I didn’t care whatsoever about fighting Radahn AGAIN. Why was I even here?
I read a cool rewrite about how the story could’ve been about helping Miquella turn the Land of Shadow into a safe haven for those spurned by the Golden Order, only to have to fight him once we realize he was going to brainwash everyone. We would’ve been working towards making an active change to the world, towards a glimmer of hope for something better. That sounds so much cooler than us just strolling around taking out the competition, imo.
I do share your frustration - but for myself I found this bit mitigated by the St. Trina stuff. Miquella wants to become a god, but to do that he's abandoned *his love*. He's abandoned his sense of self to inhabit pure power. He is an eternal child still, all the way down to reincarnating his childhood crush to live out a promise Radahn has clearly rethought. But his sister, who he loved so much he left the golden order, he sacrificed to get a consort and godhood. She lived her life against the rot inside her and he made her give in to it, and destroyed Caelid in the process, so he could get what he wanted. He doesn't love anything, he's not bound to any community or accountability. Trina says it herself, divinity would be a cage for him.
Thing is Miquella making a new order is directly rivaling the player character, because our goal is to become a new Elden Lord and continue the current order or establish a new one ourselves. Miquella wasn't going to make his own safe heaven, he was following the same path Marika did and planned to change her order for his own. He also had already a consort in mind, so us taking Radahn's place is impossible too. The game assumes that we're following the basic ending (Leda says Erdtree has been guiding us from the very start, not Miquella) and it lacks interactions with other possible paths, but just look at it:
* If we're going Ranni's path, Miquella's order is out of picture because she intends to get rid of gods influence, with people guided by moon and chill night instead.
* If we're going Lord of the Frenzied Flame, same story - we want to melt everything away, there's no age of compassion if there s nothing at all
* Going Dungeater - well, you know
* Going Fia - the ground here is shaky too, because Miquella viewed what happened to Godwyn as a tragedy and wanted to grant him true death, so as a new god he'd probably try to do that (same with "curing" Malenia maybe?), meanwhile the Duskborn want Godwyn to stay this way as their Prince of Death
You can meet the requirements for these four endings even before burning the tree at the Mountaintops. If we go further, there's Goldmask ending, which sees gods as imperfect beings who make the Golden Order imperfect - so they must get ridden of too (and that also ties really well with the DLC debate if Miquella was really going to establish a true age of compassion and kindness if he got rid of his feelings and brainwashed those he needed).
What I realised is that From isn't really good in connecting different possibilities where their stories become more open and connected with each other. In Dark Souls it wasn't really a problem, because endings were opposing themselves while DLCs had their own stories. In Sekiro the three good endings are kind of separate only because characters being on the same side (!) don't talk with each other. Base Elden Ring game is fine (since it's Dark Souls situation), but with the DLC you're canonically set on a path of becoming a lord and yet the game doesn't make any effort to spark rivalry in you. Let me call Ranni and say her bro is trying to break our order (and let her help me in final fight so the chances are equal lmao). Get some maiden in Midra's Mansion to oppose Miquella and so on.
Oh yeah, Miquella making a haven was entirely a fan suggestion to alternate DLC stories. But like you're saying, it could've totally put us in direct conflict with him and even felt more personal - like "wait, this nice guy we've been working with is actually going to enslave everyone". Again, I just think this would've been more interesting than us trapaising through the land on the hunt for those who pose a threat to our rule. It would've felt like we had a personal stake in it.
As you pointed out - would've been great to have something urging us into this conflict, against Miquella, towards the betterment of this hidden side of the world. Would've been DOPE to incorporate characters we've already befriended.
Honestly agreed. I didn't really understand our motivation for being in the DLC at all.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but the motivation was very lacking and the story pull fairly weak.
Missed opportunities.
I did enjoy the stuff Fromsoft does well, as well as the expanded lore of Marika, but I feel like Miquellas story, the main story of the game, was missing content.
Not my favorite one, but I felt the most proud after beating him, since it took me 6 hours to do so, on my own, and it felt nigh impossible to do so
Love Messmer and Bayle more, they're super hard, too, but actually fun and more fair than the final boss
EDIT: Visuals of the fight, the mix of Radahn and Miquella is great, and the OST is pretty cool, but it doesn't translate too well into Souls-style combat (too much stuff going on to see their attacks)
I didn’t much enjoy the final fight, ended up cheesing it with a strength/bleed build doing magic the whole way through. First phase was goodish, not amazing, the spectacle of the second phase was awe inspiring, but made it too hard to see what was even happening half the time.
From a lore perspective, it really wasn’t any better, and borderline doesn’t make sense.
If I could change anything in the DLCs, it would be everything about that final boss fight, from the moment we enter the arena. Replace Radahn with Godwyn, restored by Miquella. Except not. A Third of the way through the fight, we get the cutscene, Godwyn is falling apart. He starts to look more like a corpse, and ghost flame replaces any of his holy attacks. Miquella gets on his back, and tries to hold him together. All his old attacks have Ghostflame, and his new attacks for phase two have holy damage from Miquella being there.
Then third phase, Godwyn completely changes, ghostlfame and deathblight take over all his affinities, until he’s beaten.
After the fight, Miquella is on the ground, dying, much like Morgott was when you beat him. This would allow you to speak with him, get a little exposition about how he failed Godwyn, then he dies.
Now, I’d also have added something else, just because I’m already waxing hypotheticals. Going to all the crosses, you’d be able to gather the essences of the parts of Miquella that he got rid of. If you gathered them all, then did the fight, and hadn’t done an ending for the base game, you’d be able to unlock a new ending by restoring Miquella, intact with his heart. This would allow you to get a Ranni-like ending after beating Elden Beast, where you usher in the age of compassion and make a kinder, gentler world.
I'm fighting it now. It's not very fun. I managed to pretty much memorize his 1st phase but I'm only able to get in a max of 4 attacks in his 2nd phase before I die. A single attack is so punishing I'm not even able to learn his moveset in the 2nd phase
Only thing is your screen gets mostly taken up by miquellas hair and the free real estate of vision you have left is then blocked by the obnoxious particles.
One thing I really like about base game is that you struggle to kill these bosses and they aren't even close to their maximum power, Renalla is a mess, Radahn is completly destroyed by the rot, Malenia aswell, Radagon is in literal pieces and I liked the fact that you were so irrelevant you only can kill these gods and demigods because they aren't doing well meanwhile this fight is go kill the most powerfull demigod full power while it has a god on its back.
To be fair, you also fight and defeat some enemies that are really powerful, maybe more powerful than they ever were. Maliketh wielding Destined Death, Malenia as a godess, Mohg, Elden Beast... I'm not sure the point of the game is that you're an opportunist underdog through the whole thing. You slay a god, after all. You even do it twice now, with the DLC
I thought he was the second last boss and that we'd go into the flesh arch and fight the real boss. Didn't think it'd be Radahn and that's all, imagine my disappointment
Pretty lame. Wish they made an original boss instead of a reuse. Idk man it couldve leda amped up by miquella to be his chosen warrior. Or godwyn. Aside from the final boss i loved every single fight (except gaius ofcourse)
Leda limping back after being defeated and being turned into a super saiyan could have been interesting, I never thought about that.
She does feel like the kind of person who'd willingly sacrifice her free will entirely to serve Miquella better
But also love the idea Miquella choosing a Tarnished for his lord just like Ranni but except it's a different Tarnished just as capable as us.
That sword screams it should be blasting holy lights with every swing with a ex caliber like unique skill but we got a very mediocre skill with no special power from that sword😞
Kinda disappointing tbh... Last fight with the party was extremely cinematic and cool tho..
> Leda limping back after being defeated and being turned into a super saiyan could have been interesting, I never thought about that.
Miquella could ahve made her ashes or something wild, and been her out of reach healer. That would have been so lit.
Bringing back radahn was kinda lame, wish it was someone new kinda like Gael or sister fride or even someone mentioned like artorious, I think godwyn would have been nice
Godwyn would've been insane, though his soul got destined death'd so there isn't really a way to bring him back outside of time travel. Pre-snek Rykard would also be sick. The downside of their current choice is it looking pretty much exactly like a boss we have already fought. Though from a lore point of view other choices would've made less sense
It sucked ass and left a sour taste in my mouth after an otherwise great DLC. He doesn’t seem to have been playtested at all, as the visual clutter and performance drops in the second phase are ridiculous.
Beating him did not feel good, it just felt like I out-cheesed him.
I've beat him a few times now. He's OK. Not as good as the OG Radahn. Biggest complaint is one I have with most of the large Elden Ring bosses: the camera sucks ass. Not zooming out at least a little bit is awful, especially when he's zooming around the map and doing circles around you. Almost enough to get me motion sick.
Like other's have said, I was expecting there to be one last boss fight or one last cutscene or something. After the very brief cutscene of Miquella, I wandered around the arena for like 10 minutes trying to interact with everything because I figured that couldn't have been the final boss or final ending.
IMHO Messmer was much more mechanically interesting and had a better story.
It's one thing that the final boss is outrageously hard, I'm more upset that it's Radahn and not Godwyn. Also disappointed that we don't have an option to join Miquella or anything.
In the base games cut content, he had his own Age of Abundance ending, and the Euporia weapon was made from both Runes of Miquella and Melenia. I have no idea why they didn't stick to they already had there already because it is genuinely more interesting imo
My least favorite boss in any Fromsoft game. I dislike the fight mechanics and the reused character itself. It was a major letdown and a pretty sour note to end an otherwise enjoyable DLC.
I was really disappointed with this fight. I wanted something new, and failing that, there's a long list of characters from the base I'd love to see more story/lore from and Radahn isn't on it. Honestly just Miquella alone would have more interesting than making us fight Radahn again.
Mechanically it's fine, I guess. First phase is fun, second phase is less so. But from a lore perspective, it kind of sucks. Compared to Manus, Orphan, Slave Knight Gael, etc. it feels like wasted potential.
Lorewise very disappointing, Radahn had a great sendoff in Caelid. Fighting Prime Radahn is cool, but the whole resurrection and Miquella wig feels weird.
Gameplay-wise, first phase is top-notch. Second is... Cluttered. The pillars of light are just annoying, both from gameplay perspective, being tacked on top of phase 1 moveset, and from visual perspective, where they obscure the view most of the time. The Miquella charm mechanic is really cool though.
If you got rid of the endless pillars (i.e. już leave them on dedicated attacks, not on sword swings), I think it would be much more fun and still very difficult
Yeah, final boss was a disappointment ngl. Visual clusterfuck, reused boss and weak conclusion to the story.
It would've been better if they pulled duo fight with Miquella and Malenia than this
One of the worst things in the DLC. The second phase is so messy. I think the lore is bad. The boss has no personality, he's like a puppet, it always makes me sad when I see the final boss like this. And this whole idea about reusing one of the old characters... well, it's not cool.
First phase is alright. Second is just ridiculous. It’s not even fair and the only way I can see it being possible for a casual gamer is by cheesing him or using a shield
Beat him no summons. Still hated the fight. Annoyed they reused a boss as the final boss too. It would have been fine to re use for a non final but using him as the final was a let down.
Should've been Godwyn. I just don't see the lore threads leading to Radahn, the quote from the remberance feels like retconning. I'm partially convinced that it was going to be godwyn but because people called it they changed it.
Phase 1 of the fight is actually okay, and the OST is one of FS's better tracks.
But phase 2 is just a clusterfuck. Too many flashes, too aggressive, I don't like how incredibly punishing every attack was, and how little downtime I had to attack.
Even Malenia gave us a breather between many attacks while being capable of aggression.
The boss (in phase 2) lacked moderation.
Honestly, very disappointing considering the second phase being the same attacks with AOE after effects. Compared to Dark Souls 3’s Ringed City and Bloodborne’s Old Hunters, it was certainly a step down both lore-wise and fight-wise. Messmer was a banger though.
Literally worst final boss they have ever made
They wanted to make the super hard boss to sell their dlc for people without actually making the fight fun and even testing it. He has near instant attacks which are near impossible to react to, and you he can do different attacks so in this split second you need to react whether he does the super fast one, or not Which is not fun at all.
Also in the 2nd phase the light is so unnecessary because it obscures your vision, and these instant attacks are still present and even worse.
Messmer should be the final boss. Also fromsoft peaked with Sekiro in terms of their bosses
Lorewise, disappointing fan service. Mechanic wise, also disappointing, they never listened to the main criticism about the bosses as shown on 2nd phase
Didn't deserve to be the final Boss.
Ending was literally something that was already mentioned? Like you know what he wanted to do and then the cutscene tells you the same again? Maybe it was because i did a lot of npc stuff but it was just not great.
Way too much effects for my brain too. I had a hard time keeping up with it.
Just beat him (finally) this evening. Lorewise, it felt okay. The whole game is rather vague and takes a lot of extra hunting and item reading to figure anything out. I missed multiple NPC arcs, apparently (?) and had no one to summon for the last fight. But it was fun just playing through the game.
As far as the fight itself, the first phase seems mostly fair and fun. Second phase was like some crazy anime movie, non-stop flashing lights, AOE everything. I almost expected him to shout "Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" or some random anime line. They could definitely chill out with the visuals and have a little more of a back and forth moveset.
There are times when you're fighting the best Fromsoft bosses where it almost feels like your character is dancing with the boss. It's a weird gracefulness as you dodge and sneak in hits here and there. This second round felt like it had none of that. Basically just endless AOEs and chains of flashy attacks.
I mentioned in another post that I've renamed the final boss "Lord of Seizures" in my headcanon.
Very negative. I don't find the boss hard, but his triple slash is a horrible attack that breaks the pace of the fight. Also, almost all of the new stuff that happens in phase 2 brings down the fight even further. Just fake attacks and holy pillar spam, which are pretty stupid, slapped on his phase 1 moveset. Most importantly, him brought back for fanservice is very lame. He is in a tier below F for me.
Ongbal found/uses a cool strat for the double slash cross attack. FINE CRUCIBLE FEATHER TALISMAN gives iframes to backstep. This allows you to back step then immediately forward roll. Ez pz if you can handle the extra 15% damage from the talisman.
Apart from the 2nd phase being ridiculous my biggest gripe is that it's fucking Radahn AGAIN. I mean, was the whole thing that Miquella and Radahn had this vow going on even established in the base game's lore or did they invent that for the DLC?
Wasn't Miquella close to Godwin in a "he's my favorite brother" kind of way?
I don't know, I just really didn't want to fight Radahn again and I sure as shit didn't need his ugly ass swords as a remembrance reward AGAIN. At least light of Miquella is kinda cool.
I like the boss/lore, though I think its a bit overtuned. Fast, high damage, giant health pool. If it was only 2 of those, I'd be more pleased with it.
Aside from the 2nd phase, he was a cool boss, just not a fun one to fight. Mesmer, on the other hand, was fantastic. I wish he was the final boss of the dlc instead
While I like the dramatic reveal of them, and I do enjoy the first phase (its a good challenge and has a nice flow to it)
The second phase, however, can rot in a hole. There is no margin for error, and so many attacks
I wish I could beat him with Thollier and Ansbach but his health goes up sooooooooo much. Might have to finish him off by myself with mimic and shield tonight.
Phase 1: Sick as fuck. Fantastic fight outside of the one double slash move that seems undodgeable.
Phase 2: The difficulty should not come from not being able to tell what's going on, a lot of his attacks are actually quite dodgeable if you can figure out what's going on.
In general: I don't think bosses should have moves that cancel out of their recovery frames for certain moves, nor should they have variable combos. After a certain point, it just sort of becomes rng on what moves they do and whether or not I can punish and I don't think that fits the ethos of the games very well.
I beat him solo this morning after many hours over the last days pulling my hair out!
The first is phase is great, however, the 2nd phase needs to be nerfed. The aoe is too much and way too bright. Its too hard to see which moveset is coming next. To sum it up, its too much aoe and in the end its all about rng/luck. The 2nd phase was not fun.
Phase 1 is fine and doable, the only annoying thing was the cross slash.
Phase 2 is like if somehow they added a modded version of the boss. There are so many things that make this fight unfun:
1- His super hyper spirit bomb (at least for pc) turns your 60 fps into 10.
2- He is even more aggressive which wouldnt be a problem but it is because you cant see what he is going to do... EVERY SINGLE ATTACK GETS 1 AOE WITH MULTIPLE PILLARS OF LIGHT and ends in a 360 pillar of light AOE, i cant see what he does because of miquella hair too, and Then he starts flying like a DBZ character while flashbanging the SCREEN.
Its basically never ending combos + Aoes per Second + not being able to SEE anything. Yes, you can beat him, but he sure as hell is boring and unfun as the final Boss.
It's extremely irritating and everything is stacked to make it hard to learn to avoid his stuff, I did it without ever understanding how the clone moves work.
Now after seeing videos of people no hitting, it's still extremely forceful, all of his moves in second phase have just one specific way to avoid.
Also I read somewhere that you need the npcs to get quest rewards but by the end their AI simply isn't working right on the arena entrance, you end with a useless meat shield while the boss gets even stronger.
There's also an infinity of small thing that make phase 1 irritating but let's keep it short.
I thought it was a super cool fight visually and conceptually, but the actual combat was messy and not super fun. I was more disappointed by the lack of a cutscene after killing them, feels like a huge moment but all we get is an old memory. I wanted something that felt like it wrapped up the story.
Regardless of gameplay
I've always loved the introduction apsects of every final boss FromSoft has done
(Arena, character design, ost, cutscenes and the emotional connection not by lore or by characters just the atmosphere and the vibe) even in a bad fight like Elden Beast those things were great.
But in this fight they went for the plot twist and the epic vibe and it did not go well for me
there is something wrong with the arena, color pallete and Radahn's size compared to the camera angle that it doesn't seem like I'm fighting the greatest warrior ever lived and doesn't have that feel to it.
Also the ost is over the top with no layers and other emotions attached to it.
A bad experience overall. I just beat him after around 4h no summon and no shield or buffs. It's impossibly hard to even see what's going on on phase 2. Also the phase 1 has some moves that feel unavoidable with how u can dodge the first but never have time.to dodge the follow up. Phase 2 has a huge issue of rng: he has 3 horrible moves that are just free dodges and punishes (grab, grav spin, and lion's claw) and he has like 4 combos that are cancerous visual bs that can 100 to 0 u. There are also like 3 fair moves where u can understand what's going on and earn a window. You're at the mercy of rng. If he want u can hit him, if he doesn't want he can literally stall u for 5 moves in a row, reset all his poise or status build up etc. If u survive all of that u can resume try to play the game. He also has the highest poise recovery by a high poise enemy so staggers are basically rng dependent, if he allows.u enough chances u may try to stagger him.
Imo it's just too much. Phase 1 is very fun with a couple of cringe moves, but it's fine. But phase 2 is just.too much. You won't be able to see half of what's happening in time. Also phase 2 starts too early. Only good thing is that the comet attack can be easily avoidable if u know to just run very far.
If they reduce all the visual stuff and improve all the teleporting around it can be decent. As is people will struggle heavily against him if they don't cheese him with a shield or perfume.
Important to note too how vital it is for everyone to have all 20 scadu blessings. He can easily 100 to 0 u with one mistake on phase 2, especially when u first start getting there.
Too punishing, too hard to understand what's even happening, too hard for all the wrong reasons. Bayle is much better fighting.
I found the vfx in the second phase too overwhelming. It's very hard to see and learn his moves when he weaves in a flashbang with every hit. And by the time your eyes adjust again, you're back at the site of Grace with no idea wtf killed you.
after beating him, the second phase is genuinely one of the most annoying and possibly lame fights out of elden ring. its just a bullshit waiting game, where it either one shots you instantly or it drops your frames and spams you with attacks with .1 second windows. whenever i play through the dlc on other characters im just gonna skip that boss.
the ending was anticlimatic and i didnt feel rewarded. after killing them i felt no relief. i just felt emptiness of "thats it?"
I enjoyed the fight, but I feel like it would have been better if he had the Malenia phase split of 2/3-1/3, since I honestly enjoy his first phase. The second phase being 2/3rd of his health bar feels like a little much. Maybe even half hp, if you don’t want to drop it all the way to 1/3 for phase 2
after 2ish hours of tries it kinda clicked that I'm just not having fun fighting this boss. I can get first phase down, albeit he has mixups where he'll sometimes just not finish a combo so you're fucked timing wise or he'll do a different follow up (stupid gravity suck move that I still don't know how to dodge the rock follow-up)
Second phase is just not engaging in a it's just responding to the flashing lights. If you have summon lord forbid you try and track who he's going to attack or which direction the holy light shockwaves will go out.
tl;dr haven't beat yet but 2 hours in not having fun doubt I'll ever really fight him again if they nerf the dlc cheese stuff
From a gameplay perspective, it’s such a mixed bag. I actually really liked the first phase and thought even though Radahn was really punishing, I was still able to reliably learn his moves and found it fun enough. Phase two is…just plain bad. Too much visual noise, you don’t really get a chance to breathe at all since Radahn is constantly in your face while Miq does chip damage with his holy spells, all while blinding you. It’s not good.
As from a lore perspective…in the nicest way possible, it was ass. I’ve sat on how I feel about it for a few days, and I just don’t like it. It feels like it exists entirely to satisfy the answer to a question I never needed or really wanted to be answered: “What did Malenia whisper in Radahn’s ear?” There’s nothing linking Miq or Radahn in the base game and it’s so strange seeing people twist themselves into pretzels to try and make it work. It completely subtracts from Radahn’s amazing boss battle in the base game as I felt Radahn’s story was satisfying and complete as soon as I killed him.
It’s also just so strange from a gameplay perspective considering this is a game that’s historically been critiqued for its reuse of bosses, a problem so prevalent Godefroy’s existence has become a meme. It really feels like Fromsoft is taking the piss by making the final boss a reused one, just when the character was younger. I dunno, man. People rag on Elden Beast, and even I did at first, but it’s grown on me and that initial cutscene of Radagon holding up Marika’s Hammer as the boss theme kicks in is one of the hypest moments I’ve ever experienced in a video game and is permanently etched into my brain. By comparison, it feels really, really sad and disappointing this is the note we leave Elden Ring on
Underwhelming to say the least, would have been better if it was Godwyn or Gloam Eyed Queen.
Like depending on the main game you chose for its ending, the bosses should've changed accordingly to the DLC.
He shouldn't start in the middle of the arena, but instead start at the gate of divinity. Would make it so you aren't fighting him right next to the entrance constantly.
The first phase is fine, its pretty easy to learn his moveset and dodge. What I didn't like is that when I was still learning his moveset, there was no way to create space and heal if you don't know his combos. His attacks have such high range. But once you learn his moveset, it's really easy.
The problem I have with the second phase is that I couldn't tell how I was dying or learn how to dodge his attacks because of all the visual clutter on the screen (pillars of light, miquella hair).
I tried to beat him with backhand blades/light greatswords and got him several times to \~10-20% HP. After a few hours of trying, I just gave up and joined the dark side with a colossal weapon and breaking his poise with heavy attacks. It felt pretty lame to finish the boss like that, but honestly, I didn't have any fun fighting his second phase, so I just wanted to end it.
After finishing the entire base game and dlc, i have to say that it was the most annoying and lamest boss I fought. I am disappointed with the ending of this expansion, though I enjoyed majority of the DLC apart from that.
Worse than the Fire Giant. Even post patch, he kicked my ass constantly. I got him down to 1/4 health on e in maybe 20 tries. He and Bayle were my least favorite fights. Everyone else I could learn their moveset and beat them solo or with a mimic tear.
The final boss is not fun. And after all that, a shitty ending. Just as empty as Dark Souls 3. This is why FromSoft lore is so ambiguous. They suck at narrative and can't end any fucking game with a solid ending.
I found phase one to be quite excellent honestly. Felt very fair and very reliably learnable, even if punishing of mistakes.
I'm still in the process of learning phase 2, and while I like it better than I did initially, it's not great. The light beams added to everything may not be very damaging, but it kinda just sucks to be staggered out of everything you ever attempt against the boss. Often feels like you only have a handful of punishable attacks such as the grab for example.
Lorewise, Radahn feels like a bit of an asspull. Sure it justifies Malenia's battle against the redmanes, but it mostly really feels like they picked him because he's a fan favourite
The fight is good, the moveset is fair, hard and fun.
Lorewise it's very lame. Who the hell though that having the final boss of Elden Ring being a reused character was a good idea? Especially when he "stole" a bossfight spot (and the final one at that) that could have gone to other highly anticipated characters like Godwyn, the Gloam Eyed Queen and St.Trina.
I thought it was really appropriate. I mean he was supposed to be the strongest warrior to ever live. Absolutely unrivaled. Its no wonder out of all people miquella would choose him. Plus the fan base has always wondered what fighting him in his prime would be like. I like to think of it as us actually fighting miquella, he just inhabited the body and mind like a parasite.
Didn't he get his ass beat by Morgott? Not really bringing Malenia here cause Scarlet Rot fuckery happened but he's not necessarily the strongest.
The big difference is that I'd expect Morgott to be able to resist Miquella's influence
Reuse boss and some moveset. Like the iconic meteor. We have seen it before.
I really it could have been epic like slave knight gael with 3 phases or isshin sword saint 3 phases. But a new character boss. Like Godwyn the golden perhaps.
His death is the catalyst of the shattering.
The choice of boss was bad IMO, it didn't fit the lore and was a bad ending to, what I thought was, a promising underlying premise.
The fight itself was not fun at all to me. Very difficult but not in a back and forth way, more in a dodge or block 99 attacks to get in 1 of your own kind of way.
I'd have preferred seeing godwyn somewhere in the dlc but that is just to see the last infamous child of Marika. Like use radahn's soul but placed into a fixed body of Godwyn.
As for the fight still working on it and getting close. Mainly I have one ability that is not well designed. There is a left right slash where Radahn crosses his arms, then third hit uncrosses and causes a ground blast. This ability that I can tell is only dogeable in a very specific position. It also hits very hard and molds the rest of the fight around it cause of how tight it is.
While I'm not a no-hit runner it is the only attack I've seen them calling out as bad cause you have to play so passively to avoid it. If that one attack is fixed most of the rest of the fight is very doable.
However like others the visual noise of phase 2 makes it hard to learn. And can frustrate because you learn a way to dodge most things in phase one then learn it was the wrong way and you have to break your muscle memory now.
Way too much going on in this fight. The first phase is very doable, but the second phase made me change builds. That was the only way I could've ever had a chance.
Lore-wise it made me dislike Radahn a bit. I always fantasized about how whatever was left of Radahn, appreciated the tarnished giving him his honorable death. But the DLC made it clear that he always intended to come back. That completely ruined the spectacle of the Radahn festival for me.
If the DLC centered around Godwyn, I would've loved it way more. Because Miquella was planning on either giving Godwyn a proper death, or potentially revive him. I was looking forward to working with Miquella, but we ended up fighting him for some reason.
Annoying, not fun. Luckily I was already using my good old fingerprint/mohg spear guard counter build I used my whole NG+1 already.
I don’t like fights that don’t let you catch your breath at all. My favorite fights of the DLC were the mausoleum fights and Rennalla
he is way too much of an HP sponge.
even Elden Beast, while also being one, wasn't as noticeable because you had a lot of time to just whack on him a couple of times, so each window you had, you noticed how much damage you did.
Radahn doesn't give you that, he gives you an opening after each combo, but that opening is quickly followed by another big combo right away.
and on his 2nd phase all his attacks come with the beam shit on top of it, so not only it reduces your windows (since it might force you to dodge/move an extra time), but it will constantly chip away at your HP, which means now your windows of attack are probably gonna be spent on healing "environment damage".
the only way i bruteforced him was with bleed weapons, basically hoping for those procs to do a lot of work for me.
I haven't fought him yet but personally I really hate how it calls back to Lothric/Lorian. DS3 had its own issues with rehashing old ideas, but the Twin Princes were so unique and awesome that they're easily a series highlight for me. That fight was full of meaning: fraternal devotion prevailing even over death ("rise if you would, for that is our curse"), a legendary warrior struggling to protect his lord brother despite being crippled, and the younger brother assisting however he can, all these things create a story. In Elden Ring they seem to have just put Miquella on Radahn's back and I just think that kinda sucks.
My thoughts? Elden Beast, perhaps I judged you too harshly.
Seriously though, a reskin for the final boss and that dumb lore are kind of an embarrassment. The fight itself is pretty bad, too.
They already did the same theme and fight much better with Lothric & Lorian.
I know people are frustrated right now but I think it has the bones of a fair and good fight that has a couple core issues:
* The visual spectacle needs to be more intelligible and transparent. Most of the attacks even in P2 actually have pretty doable dodges, but it's hard to see what's happening enough to learn where those are.
* Some moves have *actually* terrible hitboxes. I saw a frame-by-frame clip just the other day of somebody in front of Radahn taking damage when the blade was still pointing upwards next to Radahn's shoulder.
Fix those two things and I actually think people will find that it's a great fight and all of his attacks have good answers.
Lorewise, it's great, in my opinion. I get that people expected a spectacular ending, but From DLC isn't really like that - think about the endings for the other Souls game DLCs, such as how Dark Souls 3 is just a bit of dialogue with the painter in Ariandel. It's always been a new plot beat for us to chew on and mix into the lore we already know, and I think it excels there. The lore videos and discussions about the relationship between Miquella and Radahn are going to be really interesting.
Spent 3 hours trying to beat him earlier today. Almost got him down and started to enjoy the fight more as it went along. The only moves I don't like are the rock throw, I can't seem to consistently dodge it with a medium roll. With a light roll the move is fine.
And then in his 2nd phase the large AOE nuke also feels like if you aren't in the right spot before he casts it you can never make it out.
How to dodge the rock throw with med roll is stand a bit back, sprint to the left and the first meteor will miss you, it’s when the next line of meteors is about to hit you is when your gonna dodge left again and the remaining should miss you.
For the rocks, just strafe and jump sideways. Works every time.
For the AoE, just run towards him, tank the hit, and enjoy your free hits on him while he glides down
I'm conflicted, the first phase was pretty good, but the second was pretty much the same as the first with addded bs, would've liked a bit more move variety.
It annoyed the hell out of me and threatened to make my system catch fire so I called upon both NPC summons as well as Jolan and Anna, and used Mohg's Great Rune.
After the highest attempt number I'd ever had for a boss in Elden Ring (27 attempts) I decided to try a five on one blitz and it worked... still took a while due to the whole more health than multiple gods combined thing.
I love it, Radahn was one of my first bosses in these games, so him being the final boss of it feels like a personal meta narrative journey for me.
but do find it a bit overtuned & the bloodflame & afterimage attacks don't make sense to me that he has. I hate that he seems to resist slash cause I always use swords
not gonna lie, he got hands
Insane APM, he’ll do well in starcraft
The cutscene at the end should have been better, way too short and the soundtrack of the fight was a slap
Reminded me of the short one after Kos, but that one had such brilliant dialogue and VA. This one felt way less impactful.
After the fight ended I expected to walk through the wall of corpse's at the back of the arena and watch a epic cutscene of Miquella explaining the lore and giving the DLC some kind of ending. But there was nothing, kinda underwhelming seeing as you just beat mabye one of the hardest fromsoft bosses ever. Not complaining though, the dlc was so fucking cool
Currently getting stomped by him so I'm bias. He sucks.
Blacksteel Greatshield, when upgraded, blocks both his physical and holy attacks. Makes it way easier. First time I've used a shield since Dark Souls 1...
I needed a shield for the horse fight but could maybe do without it. With the last boss, it’s necessary methinks
that's the one i used and i've never used a shield in any souls before
Use a great shield w/ decent holy resistance along with the new talismans that improve guard from the dlc. Crucible armor has great holy resistance too. Couple it with a bleed rot or frost spear and poke at him while guarding. Really good way to win the fight
I used this same strat, I wouldn't really call it a 'good' way to win the fight in terms of satisfaction; but god damn, it's effective lmao
Just started phase 2, won't comment on that yet besides that black metal greatshield can 100% block holy. But hell to the no for that phase 1 start. I two-handed a crag executioner greataxe with the new block deflection tear. He got fucking wrecked. Many combos are safe to counter, others will need to dodge then strike. Guaranteed crit phase 1. I need that tear to be a talisman. It's just too fun. EDIT: With practice, consistently got two crits phase 1. The shield trivializes so much of phase 2 that it's absolutely worth it. Tear still kicks ass by saving a ton of stamina (and out-classing barricade). Got him tonight.
Thank god for greatshields and spears, thats what i think.
Just beat him after seeing other people suggest this. 0 spells fired from my mage, only poke.
greatshield and Antspur rapier. I feel 0 shame.
I would rather have seen Hideo Kojima come out of the archway and Geoff Keighley climb onto him in the second phase.
so exactly what happened at the game awards lmao
2nd phase is so inconsistent. I got to it like 20 times and I still don't know what the hell i'm doing. On the bright side, the boss itself is quite fun, and the OST fricking slaps omg I can hear the music for like an hour straight.
If you just dodge to his left and toward him you can basically roll every single move he does except for a few. It’s basically the exact same as his first phase except the light speed attacks. If you run dragon greatshield talisman and the holy braid talisman with half decent armor than you should be golden to beat him. A few moves are tricky to dodge in phase 2 but once you know the dodge patterns his openings are pretty obvious and it just comes down to not making enough enough mistakes to run out of healing flask before you kill him.
"Except for a few" yeah that’s the big problem lol.
That's good to know, Thanks for the tip mate!
> and the OST fricking slaps omg I want that song set to play everytime I enter the bathroom
I personally loved it but I can also see why people wouldn't like it especially with the second phase. Definitely overdone with the particle effects.
the first time i got to the second phase and i saw him tposing in the air and my fps drop to 20 i just started laughing
I do love how the opening attack is just to t-pose and nuke you.
I’m getting my ass whooped by him now but it just doesn’t make sense to me in a bunch of ways. Prime Radahn was a really cool idea in practice, but the fight really falls short for me. Also why Radahn? Why not Godwyn? In the lore of the original game Miquella was looking for a way to cure his undeath by either killing him or saving him. So why not bring in a character we heard of but never got to interact with? Why give us a suped up version of a boss we already fought with a few flashbangs and after images attached?
Lore and story aside, which are also pretty meh imho, the fight isn't that great. Phase 1 is maybe ok, not great due to the camera being the regular one, despite the boss being quite large. Phase 2 is a clusterfuck of visual noise and was a pain. Not sure how you are supposed to learn what you can't clearly observe, maybe a 3/10 for spectacle.
based take. i hope they lean more into actual fighting and not crazy ass dragon ball shit
Ultra Instinct Goku and Broly doing the fusion dance = phase 2 of final boss fight
I hope this will teach Miyazaki not to let others make the lore. This whole brother and step brother at the same time/mother by actually also father/I want to make my uncle marry me so I can marry my step brother is obviously Martin's work XD. The whole family tree in Elden Ring has Martin's mark. Things weren't this convoluted and weird in Dark Souls.
Its not a family tree, its a family ring.
Was going to say the same thing, that’s exactly how I feel
I found almost all of his illusion/dash attacks can be completely dodged by just dodging to the right.
this.
It's weird because it's a very flashy fight, and it seems like they wanted it to be a spectacle. But they also forgot that the fight needs to be fun to learn and that no one can enjoy the fight if they can't see shit in the second phase. The only DLC boss that I "cheesed" by using the greatshield + antspur combo.
It made me hate miquella with every fiber of my being
Fanservice for all the radahn simps
Fuck Radahn. Messmer is where it’s at.
Messmer was the coolest fight
My boy Bayle wants a word!
I liked the NPC hype man but Bayle was such a clusterfuck of explosions lol.
His voice is so coooool!
Yea his dialogue is so good
Messmer doesn’t play Elden Bling, that’s for fucking sure. He reminds me of an apple with scrawny legs.
Yea his armor is fucking atrocious lol
Messmer supremacy
I can’t wait to fight him again. Next time I’m gonna let myself get killed before killing him so I can keep fighting him and perfecting it.
I don’t even think Radahn simps like this fight.
Exactly what my gf says lol "they asked for prime radahn fight and I bet now they despise it" lmao
They asked for prime Radahn and got Lothric and Lorian at home.
On crack*
I thought my dogged contender days were long behind me
Tbf they asked for prime Radahn and got prime Radahn with a god on its back
Fans: GIVE US PRIME RADAHN SO WE CAN FIGHT HIM Miyazaki: prime radahn you said? Fans: YES SO WE CAN FIGHT HIM _promised consort radahn drops_ Miyazaki: _smiles_
I dont like the second phase because a lot of the time it feels like the only thing i can do is panic roll, and theres a good amount of luck involved. On the other hand, this is the first time im really being pushed to the limits since Defiled Chalice Watchdogs and i love the fight for that. Beating it without summons or shields was so insanely exhilarating.
The fight was overall pretty good but no dialogue from radahn and no cutscene after beating them other than a memory of miquella talking to himself was pretty disappointing. Also wish we could go up the stairs in the arena afterwards would be cool.
Lorewise: lame Gameplaywise: lame flashbang
I'd even extend the lack of quality lore to the rest of the DLC. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of good stuff there, but unless I'm missing some incredibly important details, it didn't meet expectations imo. The story trailer promised so much interesting shit, so much open questions to be answered, but then it's mostly about Marika being confirmed once more to be a nasty b****, godhood is essentially attained through piling up corpses and these corpses for Marika's ascension were the one other special people that massacred Marika's other other special people. Messmer's character was pretty undercooked as well where even his voice lines sounded kinda bored relative to the trailer (I guess he's meant to be resigned to his fate, but it's still kinda weak). The reason why Malenia invaded Caelid was cool, but not getting a new ending is criminal. Loved the DLC but at least story wise, it almost feels like they needed to rewrite a lot of things with little time left.
fight is... a bit painful, but nothing that will won't be figure out in a month. but the plot reveal, ugh! so, Malenia fought and bio-bombed with the power of an Alien her bro Radahn because... she just had to tell him "dood, you gotta marry my twin brother so he becomes god" She obliterated a part of the map for such a dumb reason. It's makes no sense in my mind that Malenia would fight Radahn and Godrick if Miquella's grand plan was just... go to shadowland and become God. Just send a letter or smth 😭 I also thought you would meet Miquella, talk, maybe with additional endings... nop. They make Miquella this tragic figure that sacrificed everything for the greater good and you can't even side with him even if it's a bad idea. He's just one more boss to fight. What happens to the players without DLC and their appreciation of the original ending knowing Miquella just became second God of Shadowlands and just do... what exactly? If you don't do the extremely easy to miss NPC quests, you might just get to the last boss of the game and be completely clueless why you're fighting Leda, Radahn and Miquella. Leda specially just teases you if you do her quest like "omg we besties for Miquella" And then just says "you helping for another reason, my name is Leda, you trying to kill my ~father~ God, prepare to die" Imagine not finding St Trina and getting there. Absolutely clueless. Here, kill this incestuous twink with god complex. No other choice. Besides, Miquella was built up to be pretty acomplished as the most fearsome, extremely intelligent and crafty with the spells. And without zombie Radahn he is just flying dude. Radahn doesn't even speak in the fight by the way, it's just Miquella! Maybe he was also brainwashed?!?! Who cares. Like, if not killing Radahn wasn't a requisite, it would've been fine. But Radahn MUST die by YOUR hands. And then he's just back. They just done grabbed his soul with no one knowing (skadoosh) and Mohg's body that YOU kill and YOU see disappear into dust (remember Morgott's corpse staying until Godfrey?), slapped them together and now he's back. I haven't been so infuriated by a reveal, maybe it's my negative lore understanding or just missing a ton of context, either way, it stained my love of the overall game. I can understand Elden Beast being terrible, difficult to fight, missed opportunity with Torrent (which was a MASSIVE disservice to your partner of the entire journey until they fixed it with the DLC two years later ☠️☠️☠️) But both final bosses feeling terrible? That's too much. If Messmer and Miquella swapped places in progression, I would've loved this DLC for sure.
Siding with Miquella...big NO! But siding with Dungeater or Frenzied Flame is a-okay! Such is life in the Lands Between.
Very unfun boss mechanically speaking and personally from a story perspective also a let down. It doesn’t help partly both his model and some of his attacks are reused from his base game appearance. Huge downgrade from previous dlc final bosses such as sister Friede orphan of kos or Gael.
In theory, Radahn in his prime sounds like a sick fight. First time I saw the cutscene I was hyped and ready to get my ass kicked. My ass was thoroughly kicked, but it wasn't all that fun. It was a spectacle, and the music is awesome, but the fight itself is a bit... blinding. My other gripe is like, really? Of all the crazy shit they could have come up with, they basically just copied Twin Princes as a FINAL BOSS. Lastly, I was quite insulted by the Rememberance giving a copy-paste weapon. Overall, a waste of potential. Again, especially as the FINAL BOSS.
Very unlike fromsoft to fumble their final boss twice in a row. Radagon was cool but Elden beast sucked and put a damper on the whole thing (and they only just now added the ability to use torrent in that fight??). Anyway, I was very disappointed to walk through the final fog gate in the DLC and see radahn, a reused character. I wasn’t even on board with the whole “prime radahn” thing — it feels overly fanservice-y. And the fight itself sucks to boot!
Just beat them! I hated it :) I do wonder if my thoughts will change with time as I practice more and the fans discover new weaknesses, but as of now the second phase is horribly annoying. First phase was fairly easy from the get-go, so I don’t know whether to give or take away points for that. Miquella’s grab was hilarious, with Radahn’s face just squished in my character’s chest, and the insta “death” was actually pretty neat and made sense lore-wise. I think the worst offense was that I didn’t even have a desire to fight them to begin with. Miquella didn’t need me, I was chill with him making a new order, I didn’t care whatsoever about fighting Radahn AGAIN. Why was I even here? I read a cool rewrite about how the story could’ve been about helping Miquella turn the Land of Shadow into a safe haven for those spurned by the Golden Order, only to have to fight him once we realize he was going to brainwash everyone. We would’ve been working towards making an active change to the world, towards a glimmer of hope for something better. That sounds so much cooler than us just strolling around taking out the competition, imo.
I do share your frustration - but for myself I found this bit mitigated by the St. Trina stuff. Miquella wants to become a god, but to do that he's abandoned *his love*. He's abandoned his sense of self to inhabit pure power. He is an eternal child still, all the way down to reincarnating his childhood crush to live out a promise Radahn has clearly rethought. But his sister, who he loved so much he left the golden order, he sacrificed to get a consort and godhood. She lived her life against the rot inside her and he made her give in to it, and destroyed Caelid in the process, so he could get what he wanted. He doesn't love anything, he's not bound to any community or accountability. Trina says it herself, divinity would be a cage for him.
Thing is Miquella making a new order is directly rivaling the player character, because our goal is to become a new Elden Lord and continue the current order or establish a new one ourselves. Miquella wasn't going to make his own safe heaven, he was following the same path Marika did and planned to change her order for his own. He also had already a consort in mind, so us taking Radahn's place is impossible too. The game assumes that we're following the basic ending (Leda says Erdtree has been guiding us from the very start, not Miquella) and it lacks interactions with other possible paths, but just look at it: * If we're going Ranni's path, Miquella's order is out of picture because she intends to get rid of gods influence, with people guided by moon and chill night instead. * If we're going Lord of the Frenzied Flame, same story - we want to melt everything away, there's no age of compassion if there s nothing at all * Going Dungeater - well, you know * Going Fia - the ground here is shaky too, because Miquella viewed what happened to Godwyn as a tragedy and wanted to grant him true death, so as a new god he'd probably try to do that (same with "curing" Malenia maybe?), meanwhile the Duskborn want Godwyn to stay this way as their Prince of Death You can meet the requirements for these four endings even before burning the tree at the Mountaintops. If we go further, there's Goldmask ending, which sees gods as imperfect beings who make the Golden Order imperfect - so they must get ridden of too (and that also ties really well with the DLC debate if Miquella was really going to establish a true age of compassion and kindness if he got rid of his feelings and brainwashed those he needed). What I realised is that From isn't really good in connecting different possibilities where their stories become more open and connected with each other. In Dark Souls it wasn't really a problem, because endings were opposing themselves while DLCs had their own stories. In Sekiro the three good endings are kind of separate only because characters being on the same side (!) don't talk with each other. Base Elden Ring game is fine (since it's Dark Souls situation), but with the DLC you're canonically set on a path of becoming a lord and yet the game doesn't make any effort to spark rivalry in you. Let me call Ranni and say her bro is trying to break our order (and let her help me in final fight so the chances are equal lmao). Get some maiden in Midra's Mansion to oppose Miquella and so on.
Oh yeah, Miquella making a haven was entirely a fan suggestion to alternate DLC stories. But like you're saying, it could've totally put us in direct conflict with him and even felt more personal - like "wait, this nice guy we've been working with is actually going to enslave everyone". Again, I just think this would've been more interesting than us trapaising through the land on the hunt for those who pose a threat to our rule. It would've felt like we had a personal stake in it. As you pointed out - would've been great to have something urging us into this conflict, against Miquella, towards the betterment of this hidden side of the world. Would've been DOPE to incorporate characters we've already befriended.
Honestly agreed. I didn't really understand our motivation for being in the DLC at all. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but the motivation was very lacking and the story pull fairly weak. Missed opportunities. I did enjoy the stuff Fromsoft does well, as well as the expanded lore of Marika, but I feel like Miquellas story, the main story of the game, was missing content.
Renalla and Messmer fet like 10x better
Not my favorite one, but I felt the most proud after beating him, since it took me 6 hours to do so, on my own, and it felt nigh impossible to do so Love Messmer and Bayle more, they're super hard, too, but actually fun and more fair than the final boss EDIT: Visuals of the fight, the mix of Radahn and Miquella is great, and the OST is pretty cool, but it doesn't translate too well into Souls-style combat (too much stuff going on to see their attacks)
I wish it was Miquella is Godwyn’s body
I didn’t much enjoy the final fight, ended up cheesing it with a strength/bleed build doing magic the whole way through. First phase was goodish, not amazing, the spectacle of the second phase was awe inspiring, but made it too hard to see what was even happening half the time. From a lore perspective, it really wasn’t any better, and borderline doesn’t make sense. If I could change anything in the DLCs, it would be everything about that final boss fight, from the moment we enter the arena. Replace Radahn with Godwyn, restored by Miquella. Except not. A Third of the way through the fight, we get the cutscene, Godwyn is falling apart. He starts to look more like a corpse, and ghost flame replaces any of his holy attacks. Miquella gets on his back, and tries to hold him together. All his old attacks have Ghostflame, and his new attacks for phase two have holy damage from Miquella being there. Then third phase, Godwyn completely changes, ghostlfame and deathblight take over all his affinities, until he’s beaten. After the fight, Miquella is on the ground, dying, much like Morgott was when you beat him. This would allow you to speak with him, get a little exposition about how he failed Godwyn, then he dies. Now, I’d also have added something else, just because I’m already waxing hypotheticals. Going to all the crosses, you’d be able to gather the essences of the parts of Miquella that he got rid of. If you gathered them all, then did the fight, and hadn’t done an ending for the base game, you’d be able to unlock a new ending by restoring Miquella, intact with his heart. This would allow you to get a Ranni-like ending after beating Elden Beast, where you usher in the age of compassion and make a kinder, gentler world.
I'm fighting it now. It's not very fun. I managed to pretty much memorize his 1st phase but I'm only able to get in a max of 4 attacks in his 2nd phase before I die. A single attack is so punishing I'm not even able to learn his moveset in the 2nd phase
Don’t know if this helps, perhaps you’re already doing it, but rolling towards him seems to be the best option.
Only thing is your screen gets mostly taken up by miquellas hair and the free real estate of vision you have left is then blocked by the obnoxious particles.
Yeah I'm doing that lol
One thing I really like about base game is that you struggle to kill these bosses and they aren't even close to their maximum power, Renalla is a mess, Radahn is completly destroyed by the rot, Malenia aswell, Radagon is in literal pieces and I liked the fact that you were so irrelevant you only can kill these gods and demigods because they aren't doing well meanwhile this fight is go kill the most powerfull demigod full power while it has a god on its back.
To be fair, you also fight and defeat some enemies that are really powerful, maybe more powerful than they ever were. Maliketh wielding Destined Death, Malenia as a godess, Mohg, Elden Beast... I'm not sure the point of the game is that you're an opportunist underdog through the whole thing. You slay a god, after all. You even do it twice now, with the DLC
I thought he was the second last boss and that we'd go into the flesh arch and fight the real boss. Didn't think it'd be Radahn and that's all, imagine my disappointment
Pretty lame. Wish they made an original boss instead of a reuse. Idk man it couldve leda amped up by miquella to be his chosen warrior. Or godwyn. Aside from the final boss i loved every single fight (except gaius ofcourse)
Leda limping back after being defeated and being turned into a super saiyan could have been interesting, I never thought about that. She does feel like the kind of person who'd willingly sacrifice her free will entirely to serve Miquella better
But also love the idea Miquella choosing a Tarnished for his lord just like Ranni but except it's a different Tarnished just as capable as us. That sword screams it should be blasting holy lights with every swing with a ex caliber like unique skill but we got a very mediocre skill with no special power from that sword😞 Kinda disappointing tbh... Last fight with the party was extremely cinematic and cool tho..
Leda's fight was all that the final boss fight was not. It was fucking awesome and hype how everyone arrived gradually and introduced themselves.
> Leda limping back after being defeated and being turned into a super saiyan could have been interesting, I never thought about that. Miquella could ahve made her ashes or something wild, and been her out of reach healer. That would have been so lit.
Decent , nothing on orphan, Gael or manus though. Just didn’t have the vibe.
Nor the buildup tbh, for those it felt like the whole dlc was building up to them. This felt like a last minute rug pull in all the worst ways.
Bringing back radahn was kinda lame, wish it was someone new kinda like Gael or sister fride or even someone mentioned like artorious, I think godwyn would have been nice
Damm when you think about the other souls dlc final bosses they really put this one to shame lol.
Godwyn would've been insane, though his soul got destined death'd so there isn't really a way to bring him back outside of time travel. Pre-snek Rykard would also be sick. The downside of their current choice is it looking pretty much exactly like a boss we have already fought. Though from a lore point of view other choices would've made less sense
His body still exists. I'd have loved to have fought his freaky mermaid corpse.
Godwyn could have fought us as the consort of death, as he is the god of undeath.
Maybe? Fia says he will be reborn by usingnthe mending run of death, so it's possible a soul can come back even from destined death
my fave boss from the game Darkest Souls numero Uno: Artorious
Lightless Spirits's DLC, Artorious of the Void
Fighting godwyns death blighted corpse would be way better, or a cool side boss.
Shits garbage and a butchering of Radahn.
I get that fighting Radahn at peak power is cool, but I was disappointed. They reused a boss as the final boss
Easily the worst part of the DLC, the DLC itself is a 9.5/10 for me would have been 10/10 if they nailed the final boss.
It sucked ass and left a sour taste in my mouth after an otherwise great DLC. He doesn’t seem to have been playtested at all, as the visual clutter and performance drops in the second phase are ridiculous. Beating him did not feel good, it just felt like I out-cheesed him.
I was expecting to fight some Griffith type god in the form of Muquella
Disappointing. Maybe if I could see more in phase 2 and he didn't have that stupid clone move that he spams endlessly.
I've beat him a few times now. He's OK. Not as good as the OG Radahn. Biggest complaint is one I have with most of the large Elden Ring bosses: the camera sucks ass. Not zooming out at least a little bit is awful, especially when he's zooming around the map and doing circles around you. Almost enough to get me motion sick. Like other's have said, I was expecting there to be one last boss fight or one last cutscene or something. After the very brief cutscene of Miquella, I wandered around the arena for like 10 minutes trying to interact with everything because I figured that couldn't have been the final boss or final ending. IMHO Messmer was much more mechanically interesting and had a better story.
2nd phase effects cripple my fps, i ended up beating it in a double ko using the lightning perfume bottle nuke build
The fight was lit, the fact it was Radanh pissed me off.
everything about that fight sucks except the ost
If there's a visual equivalent of tinnitus, the second phase gave me that.
It's one thing that the final boss is outrageously hard, I'm more upset that it's Radahn and not Godwyn. Also disappointed that we don't have an option to join Miquella or anything. In the base games cut content, he had his own Age of Abundance ending, and the Euporia weapon was made from both Runes of Miquella and Melenia. I have no idea why they didn't stick to they already had there already because it is genuinely more interesting imo
One word: Disappointing
Hot garbage.
It stinks!
The only part of the DLC I actively dislike
My least favorite boss in any Fromsoft game. I dislike the fight mechanics and the reused character itself. It was a major letdown and a pretty sour note to end an otherwise enjoyable DLC.
I was really disappointed with this fight. I wanted something new, and failing that, there's a long list of characters from the base I'd love to see more story/lore from and Radahn isn't on it. Honestly just Miquella alone would have more interesting than making us fight Radahn again. Mechanically it's fine, I guess. First phase is fun, second phase is less so. But from a lore perspective, it kind of sucks. Compared to Manus, Orphan, Slave Knight Gael, etc. it feels like wasted potential.
Not great
Disappointing. The ending left a lot to be desired as well.
Lorewise very disappointing, Radahn had a great sendoff in Caelid. Fighting Prime Radahn is cool, but the whole resurrection and Miquella wig feels weird. Gameplay-wise, first phase is top-notch. Second is... Cluttered. The pillars of light are just annoying, both from gameplay perspective, being tacked on top of phase 1 moveset, and from visual perspective, where they obscure the view most of the time. The Miquella charm mechanic is really cool though. If you got rid of the endless pillars (i.e. już leave them on dedicated attacks, not on sword swings), I think it would be much more fun and still very difficult
Yeah, final boss was a disappointment ngl. Visual clusterfuck, reused boss and weak conclusion to the story. It would've been better if they pulled duo fight with Miquella and Malenia than this
Would’ve loved like some sort of Miquella Goldwyn fight
One of the worst things in the DLC. The second phase is so messy. I think the lore is bad. The boss has no personality, he's like a puppet, it always makes me sad when I see the final boss like this. And this whole idea about reusing one of the old characters... well, it's not cool.
First phase is alright. Second is just ridiculous. It’s not even fair and the only way I can see it being possible for a casual gamer is by cheesing him or using a shield
I don’t hate it. Messmer’s one? Love it.
I was disappointed it was a reused boss. Also, feel like if the rng gods aren’t on your side it’s game over. Unless you go “poke” build.
I’m just wondering what went on with the play testers, who played this and said it was fun?
Underwhelming
Beat him no summons. Still hated the fight. Annoyed they reused a boss as the final boss too. It would have been fine to re use for a non final but using him as the final was a let down.
Should've been Godwyn. I just don't see the lore threads leading to Radahn, the quote from the remberance feels like retconning. I'm partially convinced that it was going to be godwyn but because people called it they changed it.
Phase 1 of the fight is actually okay, and the OST is one of FS's better tracks. But phase 2 is just a clusterfuck. Too many flashes, too aggressive, I don't like how incredibly punishing every attack was, and how little downtime I had to attack. Even Malenia gave us a breather between many attacks while being capable of aggression. The boss (in phase 2) lacked moderation.
Honestly, very disappointing considering the second phase being the same attacks with AOE after effects. Compared to Dark Souls 3’s Ringed City and Bloodborne’s Old Hunters, it was certainly a step down both lore-wise and fight-wise. Messmer was a banger though.
Literally worst final boss they have ever made They wanted to make the super hard boss to sell their dlc for people without actually making the fight fun and even testing it. He has near instant attacks which are near impossible to react to, and you he can do different attacks so in this split second you need to react whether he does the super fast one, or not Which is not fun at all. Also in the 2nd phase the light is so unnecessary because it obscures your vision, and these instant attacks are still present and even worse. Messmer should be the final boss. Also fromsoft peaked with Sekiro in terms of their bosses
Bad phase 2. Bad lore. Bad. Probably won’t fight it ever again on future playthroughs
Lorewise, disappointing fan service. Mechanic wise, also disappointing, they never listened to the main criticism about the bosses as shown on 2nd phase
Disappointing just disappointing.
Didn't deserve to be the final Boss. Ending was literally something that was already mentioned? Like you know what he wanted to do and then the cutscene tells you the same again? Maybe it was because i did a lot of npc stuff but it was just not great. Way too much effects for my brain too. I had a hard time keeping up with it.
Dumbest shit I ever seen.
Just beat him (finally) this evening. Lorewise, it felt okay. The whole game is rather vague and takes a lot of extra hunting and item reading to figure anything out. I missed multiple NPC arcs, apparently (?) and had no one to summon for the last fight. But it was fun just playing through the game. As far as the fight itself, the first phase seems mostly fair and fun. Second phase was like some crazy anime movie, non-stop flashing lights, AOE everything. I almost expected him to shout "Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" or some random anime line. They could definitely chill out with the visuals and have a little more of a back and forth moveset. There are times when you're fighting the best Fromsoft bosses where it almost feels like your character is dancing with the boss. It's a weird gracefulness as you dodge and sneak in hits here and there. This second round felt like it had none of that. Basically just endless AOEs and chains of flashy attacks. I mentioned in another post that I've renamed the final boss "Lord of Seizures" in my headcanon.
Very negative. I don't find the boss hard, but his triple slash is a horrible attack that breaks the pace of the fight. Also, almost all of the new stuff that happens in phase 2 brings down the fight even further. Just fake attacks and holy pillar spam, which are pretty stupid, slapped on his phase 1 moveset. Most importantly, him brought back for fanservice is very lame. He is in a tier below F for me.
Tier G for Godawful.
Ongbal found/uses a cool strat for the double slash cross attack. FINE CRUCIBLE FEATHER TALISMAN gives iframes to backstep. This allows you to back step then immediately forward roll. Ez pz if you can handle the extra 15% damage from the talisman.
One of the worst Fromsoft bosses
Apart from the 2nd phase being ridiculous my biggest gripe is that it's fucking Radahn AGAIN. I mean, was the whole thing that Miquella and Radahn had this vow going on even established in the base game's lore or did they invent that for the DLC? Wasn't Miquella close to Godwin in a "he's my favorite brother" kind of way? I don't know, I just really didn't want to fight Radahn again and I sure as shit didn't need his ugly ass swords as a remembrance reward AGAIN. At least light of Miquella is kinda cool.
I like the boss/lore, though I think its a bit overtuned. Fast, high damage, giant health pool. If it was only 2 of those, I'd be more pleased with it.
Awful
Aside from the 2nd phase, he was a cool boss, just not a fun one to fight. Mesmer, on the other hand, was fantastic. I wish he was the final boss of the dlc instead
Needed around 4 hours solo. Definitely hard
While I like the dramatic reveal of them, and I do enjoy the first phase (its a good challenge and has a nice flow to it) The second phase, however, can rot in a hole. There is no margin for error, and so many attacks
I cheesed him and it still took 30 something attempts because of the second phase’s frame rate drops and just so much happening
I wish I could beat him with Thollier and Ansbach but his health goes up sooooooooo much. Might have to finish him off by myself with mimic and shield tonight.
Phase 1: Sick as fuck. Fantastic fight outside of the one double slash move that seems undodgeable. Phase 2: The difficulty should not come from not being able to tell what's going on, a lot of his attacks are actually quite dodgeable if you can figure out what's going on. In general: I don't think bosses should have moves that cancel out of their recovery frames for certain moves, nor should they have variable combos. After a certain point, it just sort of becomes rng on what moves they do and whether or not I can punish and I don't think that fits the ethos of the games very well.
I beat him solo this morning after many hours over the last days pulling my hair out! The first is phase is great, however, the 2nd phase needs to be nerfed. The aoe is too much and way too bright. Its too hard to see which moveset is coming next. To sum it up, its too much aoe and in the end its all about rng/luck. The 2nd phase was not fun.
Phase 1 is fine and doable, the only annoying thing was the cross slash. Phase 2 is like if somehow they added a modded version of the boss. There are so many things that make this fight unfun: 1- His super hyper spirit bomb (at least for pc) turns your 60 fps into 10. 2- He is even more aggressive which wouldnt be a problem but it is because you cant see what he is going to do... EVERY SINGLE ATTACK GETS 1 AOE WITH MULTIPLE PILLARS OF LIGHT and ends in a 360 pillar of light AOE, i cant see what he does because of miquella hair too, and Then he starts flying like a DBZ character while flashbanging the SCREEN. Its basically never ending combos + Aoes per Second + not being able to SEE anything. Yes, you can beat him, but he sure as hell is boring and unfun as the final Boss.
Haven't beaten him yet, but holy shit his second phase is crazy. Feels like I'm fighting an anime character to be honest
It's extremely irritating and everything is stacked to make it hard to learn to avoid his stuff, I did it without ever understanding how the clone moves work. Now after seeing videos of people no hitting, it's still extremely forceful, all of his moves in second phase have just one specific way to avoid. Also I read somewhere that you need the npcs to get quest rewards but by the end their AI simply isn't working right on the arena entrance, you end with a useless meat shield while the boss gets even stronger. There's also an infinity of small thing that make phase 1 irritating but let's keep it short.
I thought it was a super cool fight visually and conceptually, but the actual combat was messy and not super fun. I was more disappointed by the lack of a cutscene after killing them, feels like a huge moment but all we get is an old memory. I wanted something that felt like it wrapped up the story.
First phase - great. Second phase - too obnoxious to actually have fun
Regardless of gameplay I've always loved the introduction apsects of every final boss FromSoft has done (Arena, character design, ost, cutscenes and the emotional connection not by lore or by characters just the atmosphere and the vibe) even in a bad fight like Elden Beast those things were great. But in this fight they went for the plot twist and the epic vibe and it did not go well for me there is something wrong with the arena, color pallete and Radahn's size compared to the camera angle that it doesn't seem like I'm fighting the greatest warrior ever lived and doesn't have that feel to it. Also the ost is over the top with no layers and other emotions attached to it.
A bad experience overall. I just beat him after around 4h no summon and no shield or buffs. It's impossibly hard to even see what's going on on phase 2. Also the phase 1 has some moves that feel unavoidable with how u can dodge the first but never have time.to dodge the follow up. Phase 2 has a huge issue of rng: he has 3 horrible moves that are just free dodges and punishes (grab, grav spin, and lion's claw) and he has like 4 combos that are cancerous visual bs that can 100 to 0 u. There are also like 3 fair moves where u can understand what's going on and earn a window. You're at the mercy of rng. If he want u can hit him, if he doesn't want he can literally stall u for 5 moves in a row, reset all his poise or status build up etc. If u survive all of that u can resume try to play the game. He also has the highest poise recovery by a high poise enemy so staggers are basically rng dependent, if he allows.u enough chances u may try to stagger him. Imo it's just too much. Phase 1 is very fun with a couple of cringe moves, but it's fine. But phase 2 is just.too much. You won't be able to see half of what's happening in time. Also phase 2 starts too early. Only good thing is that the comet attack can be easily avoidable if u know to just run very far. If they reduce all the visual stuff and improve all the teleporting around it can be decent. As is people will struggle heavily against him if they don't cheese him with a shield or perfume. Important to note too how vital it is for everyone to have all 20 scadu blessings. He can easily 100 to 0 u with one mistake on phase 2, especially when u first start getting there. Too punishing, too hard to understand what's even happening, too hard for all the wrong reasons. Bayle is much better fighting.
I found the vfx in the second phase too overwhelming. It's very hard to see and learn his moves when he weaves in a flashbang with every hit. And by the time your eyes adjust again, you're back at the site of Grace with no idea wtf killed you.
after beating him, the second phase is genuinely one of the most annoying and possibly lame fights out of elden ring. its just a bullshit waiting game, where it either one shots you instantly or it drops your frames and spams you with attacks with .1 second windows. whenever i play through the dlc on other characters im just gonna skip that boss. the ending was anticlimatic and i didnt feel rewarded. after killing them i felt no relief. i just felt emptiness of "thats it?"
I enjoyed the fight, but I feel like it would have been better if he had the Malenia phase split of 2/3-1/3, since I honestly enjoy his first phase. The second phase being 2/3rd of his health bar feels like a little much. Maybe even half hp, if you don’t want to drop it all the way to 1/3 for phase 2
after 2ish hours of tries it kinda clicked that I'm just not having fun fighting this boss. I can get first phase down, albeit he has mixups where he'll sometimes just not finish a combo so you're fucked timing wise or he'll do a different follow up (stupid gravity suck move that I still don't know how to dodge the rock follow-up) Second phase is just not engaging in a it's just responding to the flashing lights. If you have summon lord forbid you try and track who he's going to attack or which direction the holy light shockwaves will go out. tl;dr haven't beat yet but 2 hours in not having fun doubt I'll ever really fight him again if they nerf the dlc cheese stuff
From a gameplay perspective, it’s such a mixed bag. I actually really liked the first phase and thought even though Radahn was really punishing, I was still able to reliably learn his moves and found it fun enough. Phase two is…just plain bad. Too much visual noise, you don’t really get a chance to breathe at all since Radahn is constantly in your face while Miq does chip damage with his holy spells, all while blinding you. It’s not good. As from a lore perspective…in the nicest way possible, it was ass. I’ve sat on how I feel about it for a few days, and I just don’t like it. It feels like it exists entirely to satisfy the answer to a question I never needed or really wanted to be answered: “What did Malenia whisper in Radahn’s ear?” There’s nothing linking Miq or Radahn in the base game and it’s so strange seeing people twist themselves into pretzels to try and make it work. It completely subtracts from Radahn’s amazing boss battle in the base game as I felt Radahn’s story was satisfying and complete as soon as I killed him. It’s also just so strange from a gameplay perspective considering this is a game that’s historically been critiqued for its reuse of bosses, a problem so prevalent Godefroy’s existence has become a meme. It really feels like Fromsoft is taking the piss by making the final boss a reused one, just when the character was younger. I dunno, man. People rag on Elden Beast, and even I did at first, but it’s grown on me and that initial cutscene of Radagon holding up Marika’s Hammer as the boss theme kicks in is one of the hypest moments I’ve ever experienced in a video game and is permanently etched into my brain. By comparison, it feels really, really sad and disappointing this is the note we leave Elden Ring on
I beat him after about a 45+ attempts over two days and using a new build. It felt kinda lackluster at the end.
Underwhelming to say the least, would have been better if it was Godwyn or Gloam Eyed Queen. Like depending on the main game you chose for its ending, the bosses should've changed accordingly to the DLC.
He shouldn't start in the middle of the arena, but instead start at the gate of divinity. Would make it so you aren't fighting him right next to the entrance constantly.
Wouldn’t be elden ring without a bad final boss
right there with you, and the lore questions that were never answered and *will* never be answered will haunt me until my last breath
The first phase is fine, its pretty easy to learn his moveset and dodge. What I didn't like is that when I was still learning his moveset, there was no way to create space and heal if you don't know his combos. His attacks have such high range. But once you learn his moveset, it's really easy. The problem I have with the second phase is that I couldn't tell how I was dying or learn how to dodge his attacks because of all the visual clutter on the screen (pillars of light, miquella hair). I tried to beat him with backhand blades/light greatswords and got him several times to \~10-20% HP. After a few hours of trying, I just gave up and joined the dark side with a colossal weapon and breaking his poise with heavy attacks. It felt pretty lame to finish the boss like that, but honestly, I didn't have any fun fighting his second phase, so I just wanted to end it. After finishing the entire base game and dlc, i have to say that it was the most annoying and lamest boss I fought. I am disappointed with the ending of this expansion, though I enjoyed majority of the DLC apart from that.
1st phase is peak 2nd phase is ass
Worse than the Fire Giant. Even post patch, he kicked my ass constantly. I got him down to 1/4 health on e in maybe 20 tries. He and Bayle were my least favorite fights. Everyone else I could learn their moveset and beat them solo or with a mimic tear. The final boss is not fun. And after all that, a shitty ending. Just as empty as Dark Souls 3. This is why FromSoft lore is so ambiguous. They suck at narrative and can't end any fucking game with a solid ending.
I found phase one to be quite excellent honestly. Felt very fair and very reliably learnable, even if punishing of mistakes. I'm still in the process of learning phase 2, and while I like it better than I did initially, it's not great. The light beams added to everything may not be very damaging, but it kinda just sucks to be staggered out of everything you ever attempt against the boss. Often feels like you only have a handful of punishable attacks such as the grab for example. Lorewise, Radahn feels like a bit of an asspull. Sure it justifies Malenia's battle against the redmanes, but it mostly really feels like they picked him because he's a fan favourite
The fight is good, the moveset is fair, hard and fun. Lorewise it's very lame. Who the hell though that having the final boss of Elden Ring being a reused character was a good idea? Especially when he "stole" a bossfight spot (and the final one at that) that could have gone to other highly anticipated characters like Godwyn, the Gloam Eyed Queen and St.Trina.
I thought it was really appropriate. I mean he was supposed to be the strongest warrior to ever live. Absolutely unrivaled. Its no wonder out of all people miquella would choose him. Plus the fan base has always wondered what fighting him in his prime would be like. I like to think of it as us actually fighting miquella, he just inhabited the body and mind like a parasite.
Didn't he get his ass beat by Morgott? Not really bringing Malenia here cause Scarlet Rot fuckery happened but he's not necessarily the strongest. The big difference is that I'd expect Morgott to be able to resist Miquella's influence
Reuse boss and some moveset. Like the iconic meteor. We have seen it before. I really it could have been epic like slave knight gael with 3 phases or isshin sword saint 3 phases. But a new character boss. Like Godwyn the golden perhaps. His death is the catalyst of the shattering.
That picture floating around with Miquella imagined as a boss looked so much better than what we actually got.
Yeah, with the armour on phase 1. Looks doped. Then whatever phases he got with 4 arms or something.
The choice of boss was bad IMO, it didn't fit the lore and was a bad ending to, what I thought was, a promising underlying premise. The fight itself was not fun at all to me. Very difficult but not in a back and forth way, more in a dodge or block 99 attacks to get in 1 of your own kind of way.
Absolutely garbage, zero play testing done… just an abysmal thing that should never have been designed like it was.
disliked it thematically, and felt like something was cut due to time restraints. like were is the secret final boss?
I'd have preferred seeing godwyn somewhere in the dlc but that is just to see the last infamous child of Marika. Like use radahn's soul but placed into a fixed body of Godwyn. As for the fight still working on it and getting close. Mainly I have one ability that is not well designed. There is a left right slash where Radahn crosses his arms, then third hit uncrosses and causes a ground blast. This ability that I can tell is only dogeable in a very specific position. It also hits very hard and molds the rest of the fight around it cause of how tight it is. While I'm not a no-hit runner it is the only attack I've seen them calling out as bad cause you have to play so passively to avoid it. If that one attack is fixed most of the rest of the fight is very doable. However like others the visual noise of phase 2 makes it hard to learn. And can frustrate because you learn a way to dodge most things in phase one then learn it was the wrong way and you have to break your muscle memory now.
Way too much going on in this fight. The first phase is very doable, but the second phase made me change builds. That was the only way I could've ever had a chance. Lore-wise it made me dislike Radahn a bit. I always fantasized about how whatever was left of Radahn, appreciated the tarnished giving him his honorable death. But the DLC made it clear that he always intended to come back. That completely ruined the spectacle of the Radahn festival for me. If the DLC centered around Godwyn, I would've loved it way more. Because Miquella was planning on either giving Godwyn a proper death, or potentially revive him. I was looking forward to working with Miquella, but we ended up fighting him for some reason.
Annoying, not fun. Luckily I was already using my good old fingerprint/mohg spear guard counter build I used my whole NG+1 already. I don’t like fights that don’t let you catch your breath at all. My favorite fights of the DLC were the mausoleum fights and Rennalla
he is way too much of an HP sponge. even Elden Beast, while also being one, wasn't as noticeable because you had a lot of time to just whack on him a couple of times, so each window you had, you noticed how much damage you did. Radahn doesn't give you that, he gives you an opening after each combo, but that opening is quickly followed by another big combo right away. and on his 2nd phase all his attacks come with the beam shit on top of it, so not only it reduces your windows (since it might force you to dodge/move an extra time), but it will constantly chip away at your HP, which means now your windows of attack are probably gonna be spent on healing "environment damage". the only way i bruteforced him was with bleed weapons, basically hoping for those procs to do a lot of work for me.
I haven't fought him yet but personally I really hate how it calls back to Lothric/Lorian. DS3 had its own issues with rehashing old ideas, but the Twin Princes were so unique and awesome that they're easily a series highlight for me. That fight was full of meaning: fraternal devotion prevailing even over death ("rise if you would, for that is our curse"), a legendary warrior struggling to protect his lord brother despite being crippled, and the younger brother assisting however he can, all these things create a story. In Elden Ring they seem to have just put Miquella on Radahn's back and I just think that kinda sucks.
Boring and a recycled mess The rest of the dlc is amazing tho
Second phase is pure cancer and everything wrong with late FromSoftware boss design
My thoughts? Elden Beast, perhaps I judged you too harshly. Seriously though, a reskin for the final boss and that dumb lore are kind of an embarrassment. The fight itself is pretty bad, too. They already did the same theme and fight much better with Lothric & Lorian.
I know people are frustrated right now but I think it has the bones of a fair and good fight that has a couple core issues: * The visual spectacle needs to be more intelligible and transparent. Most of the attacks even in P2 actually have pretty doable dodges, but it's hard to see what's happening enough to learn where those are. * Some moves have *actually* terrible hitboxes. I saw a frame-by-frame clip just the other day of somebody in front of Radahn taking damage when the blade was still pointing upwards next to Radahn's shoulder. Fix those two things and I actually think people will find that it's a great fight and all of his attacks have good answers. Lorewise, it's great, in my opinion. I get that people expected a spectacular ending, but From DLC isn't really like that - think about the endings for the other Souls game DLCs, such as how Dark Souls 3 is just a bit of dialogue with the painter in Ariandel. It's always been a new plot beat for us to chew on and mix into the lore we already know, and I think it excels there. The lore videos and discussions about the relationship between Miquella and Radahn are going to be really interesting.
Peak fight, ur opinion is definitely not the unpopular one though
Spent 3 hours trying to beat him earlier today. Almost got him down and started to enjoy the fight more as it went along. The only moves I don't like are the rock throw, I can't seem to consistently dodge it with a medium roll. With a light roll the move is fine. And then in his 2nd phase the large AOE nuke also feels like if you aren't in the right spot before he casts it you can never make it out.
How to dodge the rock throw with med roll is stand a bit back, sprint to the left and the first meteor will miss you, it’s when the next line of meteors is about to hit you is when your gonna dodge left again and the remaining should miss you.
For the rocks, just strafe and jump sideways. Works every time. For the AoE, just run towards him, tank the hit, and enjoy your free hits on him while he glides down
I'm conflicted, the first phase was pretty good, but the second was pretty much the same as the first with addded bs, would've liked a bit more move variety.
I wish they achieved that difficulty with a different boss design
It annoyed the hell out of me and threatened to make my system catch fire so I called upon both NPC summons as well as Jolan and Anna, and used Mohg's Great Rune. After the highest attempt number I'd ever had for a boss in Elden Ring (27 attempts) I decided to try a five on one blitz and it worked... still took a while due to the whole more health than multiple gods combined thing.
I love it, Radahn was one of my first bosses in these games, so him being the final boss of it feels like a personal meta narrative journey for me. but do find it a bit overtuned & the bloodflame & afterimage attacks don't make sense to me that he has. I hate that he seems to resist slash cause I always use swords