Royal Rat Authority

Ugh, THIS battle

    What a ROYAL RAT PAIN IN THE ASS this battle is. This battle is basically the anti-Smelter Demon. Sure, I died more on this battle compared to Smelter, but Smelter was fun. It was challenging (in a good way), and it made you feel accomplished when you finally killed him. In short, it didn't make you wanna pull your damn hair out. This battle, on the other hand, isn't fun. It's challenging (in the most annoying way possible), but you don't feel accomplished so much as annoyed you had to go through the aggravation. And I wanted to more than pull my hair out for this battle. THANKFULLY, just as with the Royal Rat Vanguard battle, there is a bonfire mere steps away. So even if you die five, ten, fifteen, TWENTY, times in a row, you're back in the battle seconds later.
     Once you enter the cave area where you fight the boss, no boss name appears. If you stand still and don't move forward, you'll see four of those glowing rat-dog things that you find throughout the level (the very interesting Doors of Pharros). This is where most (but not all) of the irritating aspects of this battle come from. These four bastards can, and will, inflict you with toxic, and YOU DON'T WANT THIS. It's similar to poison, but it is strengthened quite a bit. It eats away at your health in a matter of seconds. It's insanely dangerous. If you get toxic-ed, you might as well end the battle there. Unless you have poison moss, of course. I actually didn't have any, so I can't definitively say this cures the toxic, but I'm pretty sure it does. Well, the rat-dog things gang up on you as soon as you either attack one or get close enough, and they'll swarm. They can be killed in one hit, but if four are surrounding you, it's quite tough. Not to mention it does not take many hits at all for you to get the toxic. It's difficult to cleanly and quickly dispatch these guys. Now, it wouldn't be a huge problem if you could take your time, be patient, and fight them one-at-a-time. Hey, guess, what? You can't.
    And why can't you? Well, once you aggro the rat-dogs (I honestly don't know what to call these things. I'm pretty sure they are just smaller versions of the boss?), the big boss jumps down to join in on the fun. You CAN kill the four small enemies before the big boss gets involved, but you have to be really fast. The big boss here is a mix between a very mangy dog and a rat (mainly the tail, which is a rat's tail). He's also got a lolling tongue which almost gives him a funny, charming look. It gets less and less funny and charming the more he kills you, though.

See? Adorable!

    Okay, so say you've killed the four toxic rat-dogs, and now it's just you and that big ugly boss going toe-to-toe. First, I'd like to say, I'm confused a bit about the name. Is the big giant rat the "Authority" in the title? Or is the "Authority" EVERYTHING in this battle, including the rat-dogs? Same goes with the similarly named Royal Rat Vanguard. Is that main rat you fight the "Vanguard"? Or they ALL the "Vanguard"? It's probably the latter, but for the sake of being less confusing, I'm going to refer to the big boss you fight (pictured above) as Authority. He does own the health bar, after all. Killing the rat-dogs doesn't contribute to lowering the health bar. Boy, that was a long aside. Okay, so you've killed the four rat-dogs, and it's Mike Tyson Punch Out time with Authority.

This was right after he killed me. Not so adorable

    Authority has a similar design to Sif, and as such you can use a similar strategy, ala staying underneath him, attacking his back legs, from a relatively safe spot. I say relatively, because he has a few attacks that make staying underneath him tough. Firstly, he can swipe with his front paws, which don't touch you if you are underneath him. Secondly, and most annoyingly, he does this sideways jump. This can hit you if you're underneath him (I think he hits you with his head), and it hurts like hell. Even if you don't get hit by it, it can crazily swing the camera around, and you can lose him (seems impossible because he's huge, but it can happen). This is very frustrating, and a hugely annoying part of the battle. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's no fun. I could not figure out how to dodge this attack. I could block it with my shield, but I found that counter intuitive, because then I couldn't even attack because I had no stamina. I eventually found that if I just ran along the side of him, and always stuck to his left side, I could avoid his jump attack. After that, it's just a matter of getting into the right position and slamming his legs. They are skinny, and it can be tough to get them.
    Eventually you can take this bastard down. Let me slightly edit what I said in the first paragraph: it DOES feel good to kill him. Okay? Just not the Smelter Demon good, but a thank-god-I-don't-have-to-fight-that-asshole-again good. I love his boss design (I think this game knocks it out of the park with the designs. After the first few bland knights, they've been really cool). This is the most annoying, and, dare-I-say, unfair (eh, it's close) battle up to this point. If it wasn't for those toxic fools, and the crazy camera, this battle would be a lot better. All points for the rating are strictly in the boss design.

Times I died: 16
Difficulty: 8/10
Rating: 4/10

Next up, some chump-ass boss who likes to prowl.

Lllllllaaaaaa llllllllaaaaaaaa

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BOSS SOUL DESCRIPTION: "...of the underground realm; Those who choose to serve the Rat King must have the courage to face his challengers."