When ranking boss fights, Miyazaki is “most proud” of the Old Monk from Demon’s Souls

destructoid.com:

Not every boss out of From Software is a winner, but the highlights are some of the best in the biz. The sense of dread, the adrenaline, the eventual payoff — ahh, it’s so good!

We’d heard before that From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki has a soft spot for the Old Monk — a fight that can flip the script with a bit of player-vs.-player madness in hilarious and frustratingly wonky but often tense ways — and he’s sticking with it.

In a PlayStation Blog article rounding up various game developers’ favorite bosses plucked from the FromSoft catalog, Miyazaki explained his love for the Old Monk.

“If we’re talking about a boss that I’m ‘most proud of‘ (to use those specific words), it would probably be the Old Monk from Demon’s Souls. The reason being is there was a lot of pushback against that design and what we were trying to do with it. But it was something I really, really wanted to do.

I wanted to get that boss concept into the game, both from a visual design perspective and gameplay perspective, including the multiplayer element. From both the implementation and fun factor, we got a lot of pushback, and no one believed in it at the time. But in the end, we came through, and I think it turned into an intriguing boss that the fans appreciated.

With Demon’s Souls, there were a lot of mechanics throughout the development that were difficult to design. For instance, the asynchronous online features were complicated, but I think the Old Monk encompasses those tribulations and how we pushed through and made something we were proud of.”

Here’s an example of a chaotic Old Monk bout working as intended:

And here’s, well, this. Players always find a way.

Parry & riposte through Old Monk fog gate! from demonssouls

Not to knock