How hard are Elden Ring bosses compared to Dark Souls bosses?

Their are multiple answers to this question because it comes down to how you approach the bosses. However, if you compare every boss in Dark Souls to every boss in Elden Ring, then Elden Ring’s bosses are way harder.
There is a simple reason for this. Ever since the release of Demon’s Souls boss design has been about figuring out how to antagonize the player. Early Souls games have some long wind up animations for huge heavy attacks, but there was always a kind of logic to them. The trend of delayed attacks starts roughly in Dark Souls 2, with bosses like Smelter Demon and of course get’s pretty wild by the time Sekiro comes out. Nameless King is a great example of delayed attacks. His rhythm is so off-putting because by the time you have come to him, whether this is your first Souls game or you’ve played them all, you’re likely to have trouble adjusting at first.
Another type of antagonistic attack is the roll catch. Roll catches were primarily a pvp thing at first but you can tell they started to incorporate these into Bloodborne and Dark Souls III. The roll catch is to prevent roll spamming. During combos you can often just keep rolling and wind up avoiding damage. This doesn’t work in DS2 or DS because of limited stamina. It doesn’t work in Sekiro because of limited iframes. Both Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring have way more stamina so panic rolling is viable. Until you get to a boss that has a roll catch. Sister Friede is a great example of this. She often combos and the last attack will have some slight delays because the rest of the combo can easily be dodged. The delay is noticeable and you can learn the timing, but it will catch you off guard. Why this is sperate from a normal delays attack is the wind up would actually be the previous hits in the combo instead of a long animation that leaves the enemy open begging for you to take the bait.
The souls games primarily function on an animation based combat system. Both you and your enemy commit to long animations when you do anything. Even sprinting has a start up animation and trying to turn on a dime locks you into a “hockey stop” animation. This has a very evening out affect and creates a nice flow to combat. It also informs you how to play with a weapon you want to use. Sure that great big sword looks awesome, but that animation is slow and you are going to get hit unless you work out exactly when to use it. However, if you stick with it you start to learn how to swing it only when the time is right or you think the trade is worth it. Thing is, sometimes, enemies can animation cancel. This is still fairly rare, but has been around since at least Manus. Players outside of Sekiro cannot (that I am aware of, outside of glitches, estus cancelling is one of these). Now, it’s not always intentional. Ornstein is particularly finicky when he charges you from across the room. I guess since it’s supposed to be a straight line, the pillars can really mess with his pathing. The worst I have seen is him literally zigzag across the arena with two whole animation cancels.
Input reads are another kind of antagonistic boss design. Now, enemy npcs have been doing this for a long time. It makes a kind of sense. If you were trying to create the facsimile of being invaded by another player, that player would not just tank your hits. So it’s fairly obvious that an NPC would roll away after being caught in the first two hits of a true combo but not the third hit that is not a part of the true combo. Also they would roll when you cast magic at them. Granted this is hilarious to watch when they are either too far away or the spell is slow moving and catches them because the roll is tied to the cast animation not the spell hitbox. Thing is at least since Dark Souls III bosses have started to do this too. Try throwing a knife at Watchers of the Abyss or Sister Friede. It makes them aggressive and they close the distance ASAP. It’s actually reliable for when those bosses just frogwalk and idle.
So what then? Elden Ring takes all these design elements and hands them to pretty much all bosses. Radagon of the Golden Order might be the worst offender of these, but we can allow that because he’s got a cool OST and also is a god. Godskin Apostle’s might be the worst offender in the input read catagory, they will blast in the fast with a black fire ball if you try to heal. Morgott, the Fell Omen sometimes can literally just keep comboing as though he has infinite stamina. Just about every boss has delayed attacks and roll catches and to me just takes the wind out of the fight. Some fights I look forward to, but many I do not.
I also think in this discussion we will have to talk about how I think much of the game was designed around specticle instead of fluid combat. Which makes a kind of sense, it’s not a fighting game, it’s an action rpg. But still I always felt, that outside of certain bosses, the combat felt like it came first and the spectacle later. Take Sword Saint Isshin for example. That fight is a spectacle! Four phases, lightning everywhere, a second mortal blade, a revived badass hero. It feels like a goddamn dance deflecting, striking, and even catching and reflecting lightning. Even the gun that catches you off-guard feels so natural when you’ve gotten the fight down. Maybe it’s unfair, but let’s compare Fire Giant. This is another fight that is definitely supposed to be a set piece. But half the time you can see what’s going on and the other half of the time he’s rolling away to the other side of the map. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the questionable hitboxes, but I think that is more of a product of how big he is. I wanted to like that fight so much. It has a solidly cool intro, but it’s execution is so poor. It makes him one of the worst bosses in the game. Now, I know this is about difficulty not just an excuse for me to complain about things I don’t like, but bosses designed around spectacle instead of gameplay create a false sense of difficulty in my estimation.
So here’s where things get tricky. If you simply compare bosses I don’t think you can reasonable consider Dark Souls bosses harder then Elden Rings. However, Elden Ring has ways of making things way easier in the long run. Not easy, well some can get pretty easy, but easier.
If it was your first time playing Elden Ring (souls vet or not) and you decided to follow the golden trails from the site of grace, you would be taken pretty quickly to Margit, the Fell Omen. He’s a tough boss. Especially if you haven’t leveled too much or upgraded your stuff. Now you could power through it, after all he isn’t THAT tough. But then again, maybe you could think to yourself, “You know, I skipped right passed that Tree Sentinal guy, maybe I should go else where.” You go on your adventure and level up and find upgrade materials. Then you go back and beat the snot out of Margit. You will have also likely picked up a few techniques and experiences to make the fight easier. One of the wild things is how much of the map is explorable from the get go. You can easily make it to Mt. Gelmir without fighting a single boss.
Another thing to consider is Ashes of War. Some of these Ashes are straight up over powered. Even after nerf some they are still amazing. Sword of Night and Flame was so strong it was a meta for challenge runs until the nerf. It’s still very powerful though. Rivers if Blood, while a later game weapon, is still really strong. Not only are the Ashes really strong but all Auxiliary damage is very powerful. Bleed/Frost/Rot are arguably over powered. But even poison is pretty strong. Sleep has it’s niche, but fantastic uses too. Spells are hit and miss in all honesty, but the strong ones are absurdly strong. It’s honestly not very balanced, it often works in your favor.
Finally, Ash Summons. Ash Summons are the easy mode for the game. I am not saying this to belittle anyone’s triumph in beating the game, but certain summons will make most bosses very easy. Now, just like all FromSoftware games, the boss AI can get a bit janky. If Radagon knocks down a summon in the middle of a combo he will zoom, in the weirdest animation you might have seen, and put his hammer in your face. But having a summon can distract a boss long enough to snag a heal or pull out that big Ash of War to deal some solid damage. Using Black Knife Tiche on Malenia was a godsend. She absolutely bullied Malenia during most of phase one. Mimic Tear is still a very powerful summon despite several nerfs and if you use something like Rivers of Blood, you will absolutely bully many bosses who can bleed.
The bosses in Elden Ring are some of the hardest bosses FromSoftware have ever made. However, there are so many ways to negate this difficulty that I would say over all, the game winds up being one the easiest they have ever made.
How you chose to play it is your decision.

Authentic XYJ Since 1986,Outstanding Ancient Forging,6.7 Inch Full Tang