10 Needlessly Hard Early Video Game Bosses
7. Zangetsu - Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night
As a spiritual successor to Castlevania, it’s no surprise that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is on the tough side of things. Whilst its first boss fight sets up what to expect from the difficulty of the title, it’s actually the next showdown that can really cause some stress.
Zangetsu is the first boss in the castle where the majority of the game takes place. Also, he represents a neat connection to the spin-off game Curse of the Moon where he was the main playable character.
Zangetsu’s output of damage isn’t necessarily the entire problem, it’s his speed that causes an issue.
With a selection of attacks that look pretty similar, he can be hard to read and dodge accordingly and can dish out the punishment if you can’t make enough space between you and his sword. Which, halfway through the fight, he sets ablaze and gains a tonne of extra range on. If at this point you didn’t know if Bloodstained was for you, this would be the moment of truth.
Thankfully, Ritual of the Night like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has RPG elements so you can power-level to increase your chances against Zangetsu.
That is, if you don’t mind going around and around in the same loop of rooms as the area of the castle you can explore that early into the game is rather small.