First off, this isn’t a zero-Damage guide. It could probably be used to work out a strategy for beating bosses without taking damage, but I played through Morbid: The Seven Acolytes as a reviewer aiming for the most “default” experience possible, which means figuring out how to beat bosses quickly and (relatively) safely. Sometimes, the fastest and lowest-risk strategy is to stand your ground against a giant boar in return for large openings where you can punch it in the face. Another disclaimer: I’ll be using the correct boss names in the headers above videos, but I’ll then be corrupting their names to undermine their macabreness because that’s the only way that sitting down to write something like this is any fun for me.

Real name: Boatswain Borga

What I’ll be calling him instead: Boatsick Bourgeois

Boatsick Bourgeois is one of four optional sidequest fights, but many players are destined to face him as their first real boss encounter. Since this is an early Fight, the strategy for beating him is dead-simple: run or dodge to put some distance between the two of you, then start a heavy attack so that it lands when he’s in range. After that, immediately dodge twice (especially if you dodge past him). That “dodge twice” bit is important because Boatsick Bourgeois has a knack for attacking twice, and that second attack has a strange habit of hitting you from the opposite side if you don’t dodge once more to make more space.

Real name: Lorn the Blind, the Lord of Loneliness

What I’ll be calling him instead: Lord Friendo, Party Animal

Lord Friendo, Party Animal is one of the hardest boss fights in Morbid: The Seven Acolytes because you have to beat him without any upgrades. It doesn’t matter if you’ve leveled up a ton of times and have tons of skill points to upgrade your equippable blessings with, because your first blessing is only obtained after beating him, and he’s tanky because he’s a bonafide Acolyte. Lord Friendo also has a super annoying habit of lunging at you if you don’t remain close to him, and his sword slashes are wide enough to hit you from pretty much any position. The best strategy I found was to play it super safe, stay below him to his left to lure out a left-front slash, then dodge behind him and launch a quick attack before walking back into position. That was with a slow morning star equipped, though. A faster weapon might let you get two hits in before you have to scurry back in front of him. Also, be sure to dodge through the open space to his left, not his body. It’s easy to get stuck on him and eat unnecessary damage if you aim your dodge poorly.

Lord Friendo also has a strong attack that does tons of damage, but this strategy minimizes the number of these that he tries, and it has a long enough windup that it should be fairly easy to avoid. I opted to use these attacks as an opportunity for a heavy attack, but the timing required to do this and avoid damage is a little too tight with the morning star. I also wouldn’t recommend using the gun too much in this fight because the distance you’re bound to put between you first will cause him to lunge, but once you’ve taken Lord Friendo’s health down a bit, finishing him off by unloading all of your ammo into him is a good idea.

Real name: Yaga Moer

What I’ll be calling her instead: Yogurt Mover

Yogurt Mover is the second optional boss fight you’re bound to come across, and it’s not likely that you’ll manage to avoid her since she’s sitting in the middle of a forest maze that it’s easy to get lost in. First things first—the video above starts from the nearby save point because I managed to miss it my first time through, forcing me to run through a significant portion of the maze all over again after dying to her on my first attempt. Don’t make that same mistake. Yogurt Mover is a glass cannon who can deal out a crazy amount of damage if you let her. Before even fighting her, you should take the time to clear out the nearby enemies to reduce the number of things that can damage you during the fight. Keep your distance.

She’ll summon a bunch of blood babies (or something) to follow behind her, but it’s best to ignore those. In fact, this fight is ideally approached in the exact same way as Boatsick Bourgeois: establish distance, then wind up a strong attack so that it lands when she gets close. Dodge and repeat. That way, her followers always lag behind and never reach you. Obviously, Yogurt Mover does significantly more damage than Boatsick Bourgeois, and she also creates boiling pools of blood that deal damage to you (and interrupt your attack) if you touch them, but luring her to you should avoid that problem for the most part. The only attack she has that I don’t really have a solution to is the homing spike attack. I was able to finish her off long before those became a real threat, though. The Sane’s Bane sword that can be found in the forest is recommended for this fight and several more after it because of its high damage and speed.

Real name: King Cornelius, the Heir of Regret

What I’ll be calling him instead: King Corny of the Bad Hair

This video starts at the beginning of the area, not even from a save point, because the temptation to run into the boss arena right away instead of detouring to the save point hidden at the right is real. Don’t do it. King Corny of the Bad Hair isn’t the hardest boss in the game, but he’s no pushover, either, and you don’t want to risk being sent back to an even earlier save point. Always explore narrow detours before rushing into open areas that look like they could be used as a boss arena. Always. No exceptions.

King Corny of the Bad Hair is another fight where Sane’s Bane is a handy sword to have. Its large slashing area means that you can strike from quite some distance above and below him, and since he creates hazardous boiling pools of blood, you aren’t going to want to stand close to him at all times. In addition to an easily-dodged melee attack, he has two tricks: throwing his weapons (which can create even more boiling blood to avoid) and summoning enemies to blow up next to you when he’s nearing death. The thrown weapons don’t do enough damage to bother avoiding, and the summoned enemies die to a single heavy attack by Sane’s Bane. Don’t waste your stamina taking enemies out individually—stick close to King Corny and use strong attacks (if possible) to damage him and defeat his summons. Nice and easy.

Real name: Undead Mammoth Beast

What I’ll be calling it instead: Doug

Doug is the third optional boss fight and is likely one of the hardest to beat without taking damage (so I wouldn’t even bother trying). He charges you constantly and spawns tons of enemy helpers who likewise charge you. Oh, and he creates puddles of boiling blood, as most bosses around this point in the game do. With the Sane’s Bane, I mostly tried to stick close to the center of its sprite and out-damage it while ignoring the summoned enemies. The large sword slashes can finish them off in a single hit anyway. I also dodged when Doug attacked to be on the safe side, but I don’t think it makes much of a difference. At this point in the game, I was using an item that set my sanity to zero while increasing my damage output, but I eventually realized that it wasn’t having enough of an effect to justify the sanity cost. It would have been smarter to use healing items and ammo-refilling items. In fact, the best strategy might be to use up all of your accumulated ammo-refilling items and beat it solely with your gun. Still, I beat Doug on my first try.

Real name: Lady Tristana, Mother Grief

What I’ll be calling her instead: Lady Triscuit Mischief

Footage of the Lady Triscuit Mischief fight is what first attracted me to Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, so she’ll always have a delicious, salty place in my heart. This fetus-swinging cracker noble has a couple of different methods of swinging her weapon at you, but the only one that you definitely want to plan around is the faraway attack because it’s the one that’ll catch you by surprise. Lady Triscuit Mischief also summons red spikes, but these can be removed with your weapon, and I stunned her at one point when I slashed her during one of these summons. There’s probably a no-damage strategy hidden somewhere in there.

This is another fight that I beat on my first try, so mistakes were made. The basic strategy was to dodge her normal swinging attack and then counterattack, then creating distance whenever I needed to regenerate stamina. However, the preceding area is filled with enemies who drop Genetically Modified Broccoli, and this is an item that temporarily gives you unlimited stamina. Combining a fast weapon (ideally one with lots of runes stacked onto it for extra damage) with Genetically Modified Broccoli and that stun could be truly beautiful. Without it, though, the basic strategy is to avoid getting greedy. If you attack too much and exhaust your stamina, she’s going to take advantage of your inability to dodge away. I would know. I tried to finish the fight too quickly and took 4 hits, which was nearly a fatal mistake. Fortunately, your Stone of Dibron should have enough charges by this point to overcome such missteps.

Real name: Fat Conrad

What I’ll be calling him instead: Fatcon Rad

Fatcon Rad is a rad dude who lives in a swamp, and he’s the fourth and final optional boss of Morbid: The Seven Acolytes (unless I missed something, which I don’t think I did—my lore entries don’t have any gaps that I noticed). This fight is much like the Boatsick Bourgeois fight, with the main difference being that he swings his weapon forward and back and sometimes hits it into the ground to create a poison wave. There’s also an enemy at the top-left of the screen who can create new enemies to pester you, but I recommend ignoring them during the fight. Instead, just whack him with heavy attacks from safely above and below him (since his blows don’t reach that far). You should have enough Stone of Dibron charges to power your way through this fight regardless of which weapon you’re using, but a long reach helps.

Real name: Bile Toad Putrus, the Spawn of Disgust

What I’ll be calling him instead: Bill & Ted Parade

Party on, dudes, with this giant toad boss. Except don’t, because he was a giant thorn in my side. If you’re looking for strategies, you won’t find any that worked well here. I had more trouble with Bill & Ted Parade than any other boss in this game. I just couldn’t time my dodges well enough. On the other hand, a large part of the problem was that I kept running out of stamina after dodging its constant tongue attacks, so the Genetically Modified Broccoli would have come in handy. I was hoarding it unnecessarily, and it really would have helped by allowing me to dodge and attack freely, dealing large amounts of damage instead of sitting around and waiting for my stamina to regenerate. Definitely try that. My strategy in the above video is basically to slug it to death right before it slugs me to death, and that’s a road lined with failures.

Real name: Vulgus Calia, the Mass of Terror

What I’ll be calling it instead: Vulgar Calico, the Mastiff-Terrier

The road leading to adorable puppy dog Vulgar Calico, the Mastiff-Terrier has findable Mecha-Gloves that attack quickly and can deal huge amounts of damage when lots of runes are stacked onto them, but they chew through your stamina at an unreasonable pace. This is where I decided to start digging into my Genetically Modified Broccoli reserves. Vulgar Calico, the Mastiff-Terrier isn’t the ideal fight for this setup: this puppy, while adorable, is only vulnerable for short periods after you defeat all of the annoying enemies it summons, and these annoying enemies have an annoying habit of getting stuck on the annoying environment while your Genetically Modified Broccoli timer runs out. Annoying. This fight is pretty easy, though; Vulgar Calico has a sanity-draining attack, but that’s basically nothing. I just punched its summoned enemies to death, then punched it around a little until it summoned more. Nice and simple.

Real name: Maestro Bibé, the Anxious Prodigy

What I’ll be calling him instead: Mister Imbibe, the Nervous Drinker

Mister Imbibe, the Nervous Drinker is a pretty great fight. Not only are you going up against two bosses at once and the environmental hazards caused by Mister Imbibe’s piano-playing, but the background music is this great baroque string-and-harpsichord number that’s simply fantastic. So good. The basic strategy here is to beat up the guy with the club first since he follows you around, launching a strong attack that he walks into and then rolling away. The trick is that you have to try to launch your attack from between the four holes that shoot fireballs, and that’s not always possible because you’re dodging a pursuing guy with a club (which does insane damage if it manages to hit you) and the hazardous stuff his partner throws in your general direction while wandering around the ring. The guy with the club is priority number one.

Ideally, you would attack both bosses at the same time to reduce the number of hits you need to land to finish the fight once the club guy is dead, but that’s not always possible due to the wandering guy’s wandering. Also, the boss health bar jumped up a bit when the club guy died on me, so it’s possible that you always start this one-on-one fight with the health bar at the same point. Either way, the fireballs go crazy once the club guy finally falls. The trick, as per usual, is to avoid getting greedy as I did. A hit-and-run approach works best, and the wandering guy can be dangerous if you run out of stamina next to him.

Real name: Inquisitor Odius, the Scholar of Hate

What I’ll be calling him instead: Inquisitive Opium with the Sleepy Hat

Inquisitive Opium with the Sleepy Hat is Morbid: The Seven Acolytes‘ final boss, and he’s a doozy; not only does he have powerful sword slashes with huge hurtboxes, but he can also summon pools of boiling blood, enemy helpers, and giant rows of crystals that don’t appear to be breakable (and are only barely dodgeable). Also, he can heal himself in the middle of the fight, and he has a second phase that likewise gives him a full health bar. Basically, you have to beat him two and a half times in a row.

His default attack is an axe down-slash followed by him pulling it back up (which is even easier to get hit by, somehow), and this is the best time to attack him from behind during his first phase. Basically, keep up the pressure and use everything at your disposal to deal as much damage as quickly as possible. I didn’t expect him to fake me out between phases, but if I had known that the fight wasn’t over, I would have used my healing-over-time consumables to heal myself to full before punching him again to continue.

The second phase sees Inquisitive Opium with the Sleepy Hat go totally crazy and speed up. He’s still vulnerable when doing his down-and-then-up-slash, though, so take advantage of that. He’s also vulnerable when summoning crystals and enemies, and at one point, he summoned some white cloud-looking things and was vulnerable for so long that I managed to use a Genetically Modified Broccoli and wipe out half of his health bar. Avoid his jumping slashes, but don’t question it if he’s sitting around doing nothing—get behind him and attack for dear life. This is the last fight, so use every advantage you have. Just don’t get distracted trying to beat up his summoned enemies. They’re not the final boss. He is.

How I beat Morbid: The Seven Acolytes‘ bosses first appeared on Killa Penguin