Liang Qiwei, director of Phantom Blade Zero, introduced the boss design for the Hellwalker difficulty: bosses will observe and respond to player actions, attempting to bait players into making mistakes. The team hopes that when players engage with bosses, they feel an experience similar to fighting another player.
According to him, bosses on this difficulty do not always follow a fixed combo sequence; their behavior changes based on the battle situation. Compared to simply increasing boss health and damage, this design aims to present new challenges to players familiar with traditional move patterns.
Liang Qiwei also stated that some boss abilities only appear at higher difficulties. Therefore, differences between difficulties may involve move sets, not just numerical adjustments.
These statements address the design for Hellwalker and higher difficulties, and should not be generalized to describe every boss's performance across all difficulties. What has been revealed so far is the director's explanation of design intent; the actual presentation in combat should be judged by the game content itself.