I never understood why some people call bosses like Friede "unfair". What's unfair about it?
Three phases where she comes back with full life meter is the same for me as the criticism you do to the game where the boss regenerates.
And about the "it's just a matter of memorizing all three phases", Dancer manages to be as complex or more than her in a single (or two? can't remember) phase without regenerating. Oh and without backup from old man with cauldron.
When the game reaches the point where bosses equal regenerating back again and again with different movesets and two-shots-kill moves, the series may as well die already.
I'll have to disagree here. For me Friede and the regenerating boss I mentioned are fundamentally different and here is why:
When fighting Friede you are always aware that you are making progress with the fight. Dark Souls, at the very least, is consistent in the fact that no matter which boss you fight, as long as you keep hitting it and its HP goes down, then you can be sure that you are on the right track (with the exception of Bed of Chaos, which you barely have to attack at all). Bosses that come back with new moves after you deplete their HP bar are nothing new and I didn't feel like I was cheated or anything when she came back for the 3rd time. Once you see the 3rd form, you pretty much know what to expect and all that remains is to practice and be patient and eventually you win.
However, the regenerating boss from Labyrinth of Touhou is unfair bullshit. Why? Because the game lies to you (or rather, withholds crucial information) about how the fight works. Once you enter the regeneration phase (yes that boss has phases too), you have no idea that it even happens. You just keep damaging the boss thinking that eventually you will kill it. After all, you can see that your abilities are doing damage. You spend 10 turns damaging it and think "well it probably has a lot of HP, I must be getting closer, right?". You spend 5 more turns but the result is the same. Eventually you die not knowing that you haven't even taken the boss's HP down since the phase started. The problem with that fight is that even if you completely remove the regeneration mechanic, it still is one of the hardest bosses I've ever seen in an RPG because of how much shit you have to deal with - constant party-wide nukes, instant death spells, annoying statuses, boss giving itself free turns and the fight essentially being on a timer. It's hard to survive, let alone figure out the secret behind its invincibility
that you don't even know exists. Worst part about it - the key to disabling its regeneration involves doing the opposite of what you've been doing in the previous phase. I admit, I googled that shit, because after fighting it for so long and being stuck on the same part without understanding what am I doing wrong I got frustrated. And that's the difference between a boss that's merely challenging and the boss that's unfair bullshit - I don't have to google how to beat the former.
For me to consider Friede "unfair" the game would need to do shit like, for example, forcing you to fight her with a shitty special weapon that's worse than what you have been using or making the boss's HP bar invisible and in the 2nd phase once you get their HP to 0, they starts regenerating quickly unless you make the cauldron guy splash lava on Friede 3 times or something stupid like that.
). they all feel like youtube clickbait videos "learn THIS ONE TRICK and you'll be rid of them FOREVER! BOSSES HATE HIM!!!", and none of them really take into account build variety so even playing with another character is exactly the same (the major flaw with From puzzle boss design, imo)
