I always wonder if The Bed Of Chaos is on the receiving end of some unfair criticism whenever its mechanics are discussed. If the severely mutated Witch Of Izalith had appeared in any other third-person action role-playing title as a boss, it probably wouldn't have received anywhere near the amount of bad rep that it does. But then, such is the quality of Miyazaki's masterpiece, that everything contained within it is held to astronomically high standards. Because of that, Bed Of Chaos sticks out like a very, very, sore thumb. Why it's unfair: Because it goes directly against everything that the game has taught you up to that point. Fairness is a fundamental law of Dark Souls, and it's one that almost every aspect of its world abides by. You're taught to learn from every single death you rack up in Lordran, and soon come to accept that you only have yourself to blame for succumbing to its difficulty rather than being duped by an unfair system. The Bed Of Chaos throws all of that out of the window. Every challenge in Dark Souls is surmountable on the first try if you give it enough consideration, but not this one. Each time you destroy one of the two anchors placed on either side of the boss, the floor will crumble away with zero indication as to where or when that will happen. Destroying both makes the path inside accessible, but that too crumbles way, revealing an extremely deep pit that has to be traversed with a precise jump. There's no way to account for it and to make matters worse, you can be swept off the edge of the arena at any time by the boss' spindly branch-like limbs. What bosses do you count as generally designed to beat you no matter what? Let us know in the comments!
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
