A/N: Inspired to make another entry, I bring you a boss that I felt had everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING going for it, but fell on its face since Troll Soft made his fight disappointingly easy and boring. I am speaking, of course, about Gravelord Nito, who really deserves fight to complement his lore, aesthetic, and theme.

As you can see, I'm formatting this in the style of Souffle because it looks really gorgeous and helps a lot, and I may reformat Old Iron King as Well.


Where the Troll Soft dev team fucked up Gravelord Nito and how to fix it…


1). The Skeleton Buddies are tools

These guys were pretty goddamn disappointing in terms of adding to the difficulty. The only skeletons in the room that chase you down are three regular skeletons that go down in a couple of hits, whose only real outstanding quality is that they come back to life unless you use a divine weapon, which is pretty pathetic.

As for the "More dangerous skeletons", again they are the fairly weak giant skeletons, who go down when you or the boss uses a divine weapon easily. Worst of all, they aren't even summoned- they just stand around in the arena waiting for you to show up.

Solution: Instead of having the skeletons just standing around, have the gravelord actually summon them- the player getting to watch as their bones are dredged from the ground and assemble into monsters. Also, replace the piss easy baby skeletons with their meaner cousins: hellhounds and bonewheels.

Of course, the hellhounds would be way too deadly, so fix that by having their summoning be very slow and telegraphed, so the player has the chance to run in and interrupt the gravelord via stunlock


2) Nito's HP and defenses are too low

Nito's health is so fucking low it's ridiculous. He's the god of death and yet a puny steel greatsword can take huge chunks out of his lifebar?

Solution: Easy, set the health and defenses to accommodate for a very, very high level build rather than tooling him for a mid-level fighter.


3) The miasma of death isn't that deadly

Seriously From? Seriously? His greatest attack and signature move from the prologue is a slow, generic, heavily telegraphed charge attack that inflicts maybe a quarter of your health in damage at the worst? Worse still, it only really succeeds in sweeping his skeleton buddies aside- so his greatest attack paradoxically makes the fight easier

Solution: Bring back the death miasma from the prologue! Instead of the generic charge and burst, have the slow moan play out as he charges a little and raises his arms and gravelord sword- then have the miasma flow over the ground and swirl around him.

Rather than give it the same old scream from the death heads- instead give it a long, deep wail like a banshee with a really beastly sound of roaring wind. Then just have it expand from the gravelord and rapidly grow in intensity until a single touch will kill you instantly- you could even give it a special death animation where you rot into a corpse and fall in a pile of bones before your very eyes-

This adds a tactical element because it only hurts you- but the skeleton buddies are already dead and can run at you while you're retreating. If you let the hellhounds spawn, that could be a problem.


4) Nito fights like a grandpa

Yeah, he's made of bones but I can't for the life of me understand why Troll Soft gave Nito- one of the most powerful of the four lords- the slowest fucking attack speed and most ineffective moveset in the whole goddamn game.

He turns so slow he practically begs to be flanked, his attacks go right over your head pretty much every time he attacks you, and his one move that can hit you upfront and personal and is a considerable threat is the grab- which you have to bait for 20+ minutes just for the novelty of seeing it!

He's just so slow and clunky it makes fighting him with melee just pitiful, interrupted only by the miasma of "death" upon occasion.

Solution: Speed his attacks up greatly, so he actually swings with the speed of something like Velstadt or the Smelter demon, and drop the charge time for the gravelord sword plunge so that you get far less warning beyond the scream.

Imagine fighting him- then shrieking as he suddenly flips up on his hind legs and slams into the ground without warning, the scream sounding as the sword jumps up- all in under five seconds.

He also needs a major AI overhaul- make it so standing in front of him more than a few seconds after he swings his sword INSTANTLY triggers a grab at you- making it a move you constantly have to watch out for.

And if it's not a grab, you could give him the new and improved miasma of death or summoning, giving you no time to leisurely sit there and attack him from under his blade.

Give him a jumping move sends him far back away from you- followed by a charge of attacks. You would have to roll at him to stay in his blindspot each time he leaps back, and missing a roll would allow him to punish you with his new and improved melee capabilities.

Or just the opposite: let him launch a volley of Gravelord swords if you cheese him as a mage, then give him a great leap towards you when you get close enough.

He would leave far less openings to attack and it would be far harder to find a grace period to heal and fight with him, and since he's able to distance himself, he would be able to hit you with that great sword of his.


This is the Nito I envision fighting- imagine fighting a very powerful death god that's able to leap back and forth, towards and away from you to keep you vulnerable with his powerful melee moves.

You run under him to hit his belly- only to get crushed by his grab seconds later if you get too greedy with your hits. Standing close or at a range, you get mere seconds to react as he rears up and plunges his sword, the scream your sign to dodge as a sword flies out of the ground.

You get bogged down fighting him one on one- but if you get too distracted or run, he can summon the dead around him- putting hellhounds and bonewheels alongside him because you didn't run in and smash him as you would Artorias.

And just when it seems impossible as you fight the skeletons and Nito, the gravelord raises his arms and a sound like a wailing hurricane whips up, your character disintegrating before your eyes as you try to run while the bonewheels chase you down unphased.

Now that is the Nito we all wanted :3