User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Ukanlos (4th Gen)/@comment-3298463-20160306020411

This thing has one of my favorite designs, but I feel like the fight is still too similar to Akantor. Also it burrows way too much, which drags the battle on and on and on. Its roar is great. I believe its head might be based off a Dunkleosteus or some other prehistoric fish.

In fact, I think all parts of Ukanlos design work so well together that the monster comes off as being kind of monothematic. Akantor has a more "generic" design with lots of unrelated parts (back spikes, tusks, clawed tail) and doesn't seem as specialized as Uka, whose whole motif seems to be "thing that digs through ice". I believe Akantor works better as a final boss because it has a wider variety of elements, so it feels more like a "supreme" wyvern rather than just "lava monster". It's the same principle that makes Fatalis and Alatreon work, imo: they're both fairly generic designs (and I don't mean it in a bad way), but since they don't seem to be specialized in anything in particular, you buy that they have managed to prevail through sheer power instead of any special adaptations to their environment.

(I still prefer Ukanlos though)