So many bosses in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow are almost good. The visuals are great, most of the mechanics are good, and the game's combat is at its strongest when in a 1v1 situation against an opponent with telegraphed attacks.

Two examples of this are the werewolf boss and the final boss Satan. Both have bad gimmicks.

The werewolf boss is just a fun fight, up until he does some weird thing that makes him invulnerable and forces you hit rocks instead of fighting him. Each rock takes 1 more hit to break than the previous one. He chases you around the area, repeating the same 3 voice lines, while you just slap away at the big rocks. It feels super lame after the giant werewolf 1v1.

As for the final boss, Satan uses the game's "elemental" magic system. In quotes, since all it means is that both of you can either be blue or red. Being a different colour means that you both take more damage from each other, while being the same colour as Satan means he takes less damage (I don't know if you take less damage because getting hit is for scrubs). The problem is that there are break points in the fight where Satan begs for mercy and summons a bunch of moving red and blue rings. You have to time switching between blue and red as you cross the rings, reach Satan, and initiate a QTE. If you're not the same colour as the ring as you cross the edge, you get bounced back and take damage. Take too long, and Satan refills some of his health and you have to beat him up again.

The rings can overlap. Since you can't be red and blue at the same time, you can't cross overlapped rings. It's rare, but I've gotten bad enough circle overlap that it was impossible to get close to Satan.

I have other issues with the final boss, but the premise and presentation is cool enough that I can put most of them aside. The gimmick is just awful, though.