10 Worst Multi-Phase Video Game Boss Battles
2. Sister Friede - Dark Souls III
Though there are certainly many Dark Souls fans who will defend the Sister Friede fight to the ends of the Earth, it's a textbook example of a multi-phase boss battle that's sure to have players ready to hurl their controller out the nearest window.
Sister Friede appears in Dark Souls III's Ashes of Ariandel DLC and is generally accepted to be one of the series' more challenging bosses.
Yet this is less because the fight is meticulously engineered to push players to the brink, than that it forces them to endure through three punishing phases outta nowhere.
Players fight Friede alone in the first round before also taking on Father Ariandel in the second, such that by the time you reach the third phase against Friede solo again, you're unlikely to have much left in the tank.
Given Friede's intimidating speed and power, having to whittle three separate life bars down without any sort of checkpoint makes for a supremely stressful time, and not really in a good way.
It's less emblematic of FromSoftware's signature "tough but fair" design than the developers basically laughing at players. Two phases would've been tolerable, but three is a joke.